Through the Bible - Hosea

The word of the LORD that came unto Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah... And the LORD said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms: for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the LORD. (Hosea 1:1–2)

God commanded a prophet to marry an unfaithful wife—and in that broken marriage we see the heart of a faithful God for an adulterous people.

Entering the Minor Prophets

The book of Hosea was written by the prophet Hosea, and with it we enter a section of the Bible called the minor prophets. When we hear that title, we often think these men are lesser than the major prophets—as if Ezekiel, Daniel, and Isaiah were the pros, and Hosea and Joel were triple-A ball. But that's not the case at all. They are called minor only because they wrote less than the major prophets. They are still greatly powerful, as we'll see tonight.

Hosea is just fourteen chapters. As we go through these books a week at a time, I encourage you to read the whole book that week. We've already gone through Genesis through Daniel, and you can find all of those at lineuponline.com. Now that we're in the minor prophets, it's a little easier than reading 66 chapters of Isaiah in a week. Next week we'll be in Joel—just three chapters, no problem. Someday you're going to meet Joel in heaven, and he's going to ask, "Did you read my book?"

A Contemporary of Isaiah

Read Hosea 1:1 alongside Isaiah 1:1, and you'll find both name the same kings—Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. Right off the bat we discover that Hosea was a contemporary of Isaiah. They prophesied at the same time, and many of their messages are similar—except Hosea wrote to the northern ten tribes while Isaiah wrote to the southern tribes of Judah and Benjamin. The location is different, but God's word is the same.

That's important to consider. God sometimes changes our location, but the message always stays the same. I was thinking about this as the leadership here has been praying about transitions in the church. The Lord is changing the location for Pastor Pat's ministry, but the ministry won't change—he'll continue preaching the word and raising disciples. It's the same for each of us. Sometimes the location changes, but the message doesn't.

The northern ten tribes are often called by one of their key tribes, Ephraim, or by their capital city, Samaria. As we saw going through Kings and Chronicles, this group never had a single godly king. Every one of them did evil in the sight of God. Yet in the midst of that, God was still calling His people to return, to put away their idols and their wickedness, and to look to Him again. God is always faithful, even though His people are faithless, because He cannot deny Himself.

A Prophet's Life as a Message

When Hosea began his ministry, he appears to have been a young man, yet he lived and prophesied for a long period. Like all the prophets, he ministered not only with his words but with his life. We saw the same with Ezekiel, who lay on his left side 390 days and on his right side 40 days, and who packed up his belongings and camped in the wilderness so the people would watch. Through these signs, God spoke.

God did the same with Jeremiah. In Jeremiah 16:2, God told him, "You shall not take a wife, neither shall you have sons or daughters." That command was itself a sign to the people. But now in Hosea 1:2 we read the opposite:

The LORD said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms: for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the LORD.

If someone came to me tomorrow claiming the Lord told them to do this, I'd probably say, "I don't think the Lord spoke that to you." Yet here God commands Hosea to do exactly that, for a very specific purpose: the land had committed great whoredom in departing from the Lord. The northern ten tribes had committed spiritual adultery. God was their husband and maker, and He had called them to be His covenant people.

A Covenant Broken

We see this back in Exodus 19, when God called the children of Israel out of Egypt to Mount Sinai. There a covenant was established, sealed with the sprinkling of blood, with all heaven and earth as witnesses. Just as a man and woman make vows before witnesses in marriage, Israel made vows before witnesses there. Were they faithful? No—just forty days later they declared their unfaithfulness by making and worshiping a golden calf.

Years later, when they entered the promised land, they survived for a time without a king. Then they demanded one. God gave them Saul; they wanted no more king until He gave them David, a man after His own heart. Yet even David was just a man, with failures laid out plainly in 2 Samuel. After David came Solomon, the wisest man of his time, used to establish and exalt the nation. But immediately after Solomon's death, under his son Rehoboam, the nation split. In the north, the first king built golden calves once again—in the city of Dan and beyond—and the people committed spiritual adultery. It was to people in that adulterous state that God would now speak through Hosea.

The Children with the Terrible Names

So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim; which conceived, and bare him a son. And the LORD said unto him, Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel. (Hosea 1:3–4)

The name Jezreel means "God shows" or "God reveals." Through this first son, God revealed the wickedness of the northern tribes and announced that He would cause the kingdom of Israel to cease.

Then Gomer bore a daughter, and God said, "Call her name Lo-Ruhamah," which means "no mercy." How would you like that name? God declared, "I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel... but I will have mercy upon the house of Judah." Remember the history: the northern tribes were destroyed by the armies of Assyria under three different kings, who also pressed down into Judah and Jerusalem. But God defended Jerusalem—in one night, in Isaiah 36–37, He struck 185,000 of the Assyrian army. So God had mercy on Judah but no mercy on Samaria, because of their wickedness.

Then came a third child:

Then said God, Call his name Lo-ammi: for ye are not my people, and I will not be your God. (Hosea 1:9)

Lo-Ammi means "not my people." God says, "You have removed yourselves from Me, and so I will not be your God." Yet God desired to be their God. That was the whole reason He brought them out of Egypt and into a land flowing with milk and honey—cities they didn't build, orchards they didn't plant. All He desired was that they would be His people and shine His grace, mercy, and love to the world. Instead they bowed down to every god they could find—broken wells that could hold no water, as God said in Jeremiah—to their own hurt. They were not God's people, not because He didn't want them, but because they did not want Him.

Judgment That Restores

Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea... and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God. (Hosea 1:10)

Notice what God says here. He will judge them and remove them from the land—yet in the very place where He said, "You are not My people," it will once again be said, "You are the sons of the living God." Judah and Israel will be gathered together under one head, "for great shall be the day of Jezreel."

God's judgment is always for purification. He uses chastisement and discipline to perfect His people. This is not merely an Old Testament idea; we see it in Hebrews 12:6: "Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth." The author asks, "What son is he whom the father chasteneth not?" If you are without discipline, you are illegitimate and not sons. No one enjoys discipline at the time—remember being disciplined as a child? Nobody raises a hand for that. Yet to those exercised by it, the chastening of the Lord yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness.

Here was a wicked people who had departed from the Lord, and God says, "I am going to purge out the dross." But He also gives a promise: He will restore a remnant. We always see this with God—in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, Hosea. When God judges His people, He clears away the chaff and brings forth the wheat.

The Refiner's Fire

We too are being sanctified by the washing of the water of the word, and let's be honest—sanctification doesn't always feel good. Often God uses fiery trials. When He won you and me to Himself, it was as if He pulled a great piece of gold out of the ground, filled with impurities and dirt. The only way to refine us is to put us through the fire, where the impurities rise to the surface so He can remove them. God desires to purify every one of us, sometimes through hot, fiery trials and the kind of chastening the northern ten tribes went through.

But always, with God's judgment, comes the promise: "I will restore a remnant." This was a primary message of Isaiah too. His firstborn son was named Shear-Jashub, "a remnant shall return." So Hosea chapter 1 gives us the outline of the entire book and of all that came upon the northern tribes in Hosea's day.

The Redemption of Gomer

Through the life of Hosea, God's love is mirrored beautifully—especially in chapter 3, a very short chapter that reveals something powerful. Why did God tell Hosea to take a wife of the prostitutes? Because through this whole situation God would reveal how powerful His love is, even in the midst of judgment.

Hosea took Gomer, and she bore three children with him. But she departed, going back to her whoredoms, leaving her loving husband. He kept calling her back, wooing her home. She'd return for a while, then run off again—all the way down to slavery. Her master used her, abused her, and then decided she was worthless, just as the world always does. So she was put up on the slave block again.

Then God spoke to Hosea, and in chapter 3 we see this beautiful passage where he goes down and buys her back for fifteen pieces of silver and a homer and a half of barley. The wife who departed and went after everything this world could offer is purchased out of slavery by the love of her husband. Do you see the connection to our Lord Jesus Christ? Most of us here are Gentiles—yet how thankful we are that our God reached out to redeem us from slavery. He desires to set us free, and if Christ makes you free, you are free indeed.

This pictures what God intended for Israel. He allowed them to depart, to rebel, to taste all the wickedness of this world so they would see it does not satisfy. Ultimately they went into Assyrian captivity—but there is coming a day, as we'll see in Zechariah, when these people will look upon Him whom they pierced and recognize Jesus as Messiah.

The Valley of Jezreel and the Day to Come

These last verses of Hosea 1 reveal that coming day, when Judah, Benjamin, and the northern ten tribes come together at the Valley of Jezreel. That great valley in northern Israel has profound prophetic significance, for at its head stands a city called Megiddo—Armageddon. There is coming a day, at the second coming of Christ, when a great battle will take place there, and God will receive His bride—the purified remnant, the good wheat that remains after the chaff is blown away.

Hosea divides into two sections. Chapters 1–3 deal with Hosea's personal life and tell God's story through it. Chapters 4–14 apply that story nationally to Israel.

And it shall be at that day, saith the LORD, that thou shalt call me Ishi; and shalt call me no more Baali. (Hosea 2:16)

Ishi means "my husband"; Baali means "my Lord." God tells His people there is coming a day when they will no longer merely call Him Lord and master, but Husband once again. He will take away the names of the Baalim—the false gods—out of her mouth. In that day He will make a covenant, break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth, and make them lie down safely. This points to the removal of war after the last great battle at Megiddo.

And I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies. I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness: and thou shalt know the LORD. (Hosea 2:19–20)

At the time Hosea spoke these things, the people had completely rejected God, as their idolatry revealed. Yet God promises restoration: "You shall be My people, and I shall be your God."

God's Controversy with the Land

Hear the word of the LORD, ye children of Israel: for the LORD hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood. (Hosea 4:1–2)

Just as Isaiah said in the south, "Come, let us reason together," God says here, "I have a controversy—a court date—with you." Their hearts were revealed by their actions. So God says He will utterly destroy them—not because He is an angry God who enjoys watching people suffer. Some people imagine the God of the Old Testament was going through His junior-high years, flying off the handle and beating people up. That's not who He is. Throughout the Old Testament we see Him reaching out, saying "Come to Me," while His people turn their backs. The judgment comes as the result of their own works.

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee... seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children. (Hosea 4:6)

This was a people God had glorified, lavishing His grace upon them—and so He says their glory will be turned to shame. And it happened exactly as Hosea said, a short time before Assyria came and consumed the northern ten tribes.

God Wounds and Heals

Come, and let us return unto the LORD: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up. (Hosea 6:1)

This is an awesome truth about our God. Yes, He chastens every child He receives, but His discipline is not meant to drive us away—it's meant to bring us back. When we turn to Him, He heals us, even after He has smitten. Those of you who are parents understand this. You don't discipline your child and then say, "Go away, I want nothing to do with you." You discipline, and when they turn to you, you receive them to comfort them. That's how God is. He disciplines so that we would return and the relationship be restored.

God told the south through Isaiah, "My ear is not closed that I cannot hear, my arm is not short that I cannot reach—but your sin has separated you from Me." When we sin, we are separated from God. He allows difficulties and hot trials as discipline so we would return. The relationship is not broken because God says "Get out"; it's broken because of our own sin. That's exactly what happened in Hosea's day. And Hosea watched it unfold in his nation—while also seeing God's heart through his own family, a microscopic version of Israel, in a wife who continually departed from him. It's a powerful and sad story, but, like all these stories, it carries great prophetic hope, because God uses discipline to bring out a remnant and restore.

A Word for Our Own Nation

As I read through Hosea and the other prophets, I can't help but see the application for our own nation. People often speak of America as a nation founded on the Bible, and there's a strong case for the role of Christianity at its founding. But here we are, a relatively young nation, and look how far we've departed and turned our backs on the Lord. He has allowed great trial and tribulation for the purpose of bringing us back to Him.

There was a time when such trials—earthquakes, fires, floods, hurricanes, even civil war—were seen as a national call to repentance. But one sign that a nation has departed far from God is that it no longer recognizes His hand in those things. In Hosea's day, when calamity came, instead of recognizing God's call, the people said, "Our cities have been broken down—we'll build them bigger and stronger than ever." I remember less than two weeks after 9/11, the message everywhere was: the towers fell, but we'll build them bigger and stronger than ever. After Hurricane Katrina, the same: we will build bigger and stronger than ever. That's the sign of a nation that has departed from the Lord—and it's exactly the world Hosea lived in.

But for us who are God's people, we should recognize His hand in these events. I believe they're going to grow stronger and more intense, with shorter time between them, and we're headed toward more difficulty as a nation. May we hear what God is saying, for He is calling out to His church and to the remnant to turn to Him. As we saw in 1 Chronicles, when a people turn to God in repentance and call out to Him in prayer, He will hear from heaven and heal their land.

How Big Is Our God?

Sometimes we look at our nation and think it's beyond fixing. But how big is our God? Is He able? He is able. Consider Nineveh, the capital of Assyria—the most wicked city in all the world at that time. God sent Jonah to declare its destruction, and Jonah didn't want to go, because he feared they would repent and receive God's grace. He was right: they repented, and God gave them grace. (It was only 150 years later, when they departed again, that they were destroyed.) If the most wicked city on earth could repent and receive grace, God can still heal our nation today.

This week we observe the National Day of Prayer—the first Thursday in May—and we'll gather here Thursday night and at the Fountain at City Hall Thursday afternoon to pray for our nation. God can move. The politicians won't fix it—I don't care who you vote for—they cannot bring the righteousness and grace they talk about. Only God can. Yet we also know this nation will answer for its atrocities; there will be a judgment. And we know the promise that through judgment a remnant will come forth.

We aren't looking for a city here on earth. As Hebrews 11 says of Abraham and Sarah, they looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. There is coming a day when that city will come. That's why Christ taught us to pray, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." God would not have instructed us to pray that prayer if He weren't going to fulfill it. He will accomplish what He set out to do. His purposes always come to pass—the process sometimes takes longer than we'd like, but the purpose always comes.

The Lost Tribes and the Coming Day

The story of Hosea is tragic, because the people of his day in the northern ten tribes did not listen to him at all, and they were destroyed. King Sargon and King Sennacherib of Assyria came through and annihilated them—to the point where today we call them the lost tribes of Israel. Some ask, how could God ever bring back the northern tribes? They're lost; we don't know who they are. Listen—God knows. And there is coming a day, as we saw at the end of Hosea 1, when He will gather Judah and the northern tribes together once again in the Valley of Jezreel and bring His bride to Himself. Though she'll be beaten and battered, though she has to be purchased out of slavery, God will accomplish His work. That's what we see in this great book.

Closing Prayer

God, I ask that You would help us hide this truth in our hearts, and that You would give us opportunity to share Your word and truth with those who don't know You—those in our nation who think they might know You, but whose lives evidence they don't. We know our nation has drifted far from what it was established under, far from Your word and Your truth. But we also know Your word: if Your people who are called by Your name will humble themselves and pray, and return to You and repent, You will hear from heaven and heal our land. So tonight, even though we are a small group, we call out to You, and ask that You would work a work in our days that we would not believe though it were told to us—a work that blows our minds.

You promised, as we'll see in Joel next week, that in the last days You'd pour out Your Spirit upon all flesh. Pour out Your Spirit, Lord, and let us see a great move and revival once again—not only in America, but in Africa, China, Europe, all throughout the world. May it first start in each of our own hearts, as we saw last week in Daniel, who took the sin of his people and said, "Lord, it's my sin as well." As we look at our nation given to all kinds of wickedness—where we rename what You call adultery and call it an affair, what You call murder and call it a procedure—we bring these things to You and confess that it is sin. Move in a miraculous way. Use us to be a light in this dark world. For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.