Through the Bible - Hosea

We have had a wonderful time of worship, Lord. It is a time to come before You and praise Your name, bringing adoration to You. We ask now that You would speak to us through Your Word as we continue our study, line upon line, book by book. Lord, would You give us insight into the way that You work, the way that You love Your people, and the way that You desire for us to walk with You as we go through this book tonight? Speak to us, Lord, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen.

The book of Hosea was written by the prophet Hosea. If you have done any sort of study of the different sections of the Bible, you will know that we are now entering a section called the Minor Prophets. A lot of times, when we hear that title, we think that these prophets are lesser than the Major Prophets. It feels like this is the minor leagues of prophets, while the Major Prophets, like Ezekiel, Daniel, and Isaiah, are the pros. However, that is not the case at all. When we talk about the Minor Prophets, we are really only referring to the fact that they have written less than the Major Prophets. They are still greatly powerful, as we will see as we go through this tonight.

This book has just 14 chapters. How many of you took the time this week to read through Hosea? Just a few of you. I encourage you, as we go through these books of the Bible, to take one book a week. We have already gone through Genesis to the book of Daniel. You can find those studies on lineuponline.com if you want to listen to them. If you haven't gone through them with us on every Saturday night, you can check them out and listen to each of the studies. We are taking one book per week, so I challenge you to read through the entire book that week. Now that we are in the Minor Prophets, it is a little bit easier than when we were doing Isaiah, which required more reading.

There are 66 chapters in a week, or in Ezekiel, you're in the 50s. Next week, we're going to be in the book of Joel. You'll be able to get through it pretty quickly; there are just a few chapters—three chapters, no problem. So I challenge you, by next week, when I ask, "Who read through the book of Joel?" everybody should raise their hands. Someday, you're going to meet Joel in heaven, and he's going to ask, "Did you read my book?"

Now, Hosea starts with chapter 1, verse 1. I want to read this to you: "The word of the Lord that came unto Hosea, the son of Beri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, the kings of Judah." Remember that, because I want to read to you from Isaiah chapter 1. It says there, "The vision of Isaiah, the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah."

Right off the bat, when we read Hosea chapter 1, verse 1, we find that this man, Hosea, who wrote this book, was a contemporary of Isaiah. He lived at the same time that the prophet Isaiah did and prophesied at the same time as well. Many of their messages are similar, except that Hosea wrote to the northern ten tribes, while Isaiah wrote to the southern tribes of Judah and Benjamin. The location is a little different, but God's word is the same.

I think it's important to consider and understand that God sometimes changes our location, but the message always stays the same. He might change the surroundings, but the message continues to be the same call. I was thinking about that over the last few weeks as the leadership here at the church has been talking and praying about the transitions taking place. The Lord is changing the location for Pastor Pat's ministry, but the ministry is not going to change. He will continue to preach the word and raise disciples just as he always has.

It's the same for each of us in our lives; sometimes the location changes, but the message doesn't. Isaiah was a man called by God, and he spoke to the tribes of Judah and Benjamin in the southern part of the nation. His message was a call to repentance for the people. Hosea also had a call of repentance for the northern ten tribes. In Scripture, the northern ten tribes are often referred to by one of the key tribes, Ephraim. Sometimes they are even called by the capital city of Ephraim, which was Samaria. So when you're reading through the Old Testament, you might come across references to Ephraim, Samaria, or the northern ten tribes; it's all the same group.

The northern ten tribes, as we have seen while going through 1 and 2 Kings and 1 and 2 Chronicles, never had a godly king. Not one of the kings that ruled over them served and followed the Lord. In fact, they all did evil in the sight of God. Yet, in the midst of that, God was still calling His people to return and to follow after Him. He urged them to put away their idols and their wickedness, and to once again look to the Lord. God is always faithful, even though His people are faithless. He remains faithful still because He cannot deny Himself. Amen? God is faithful.

Here we see the faithfulness of God in sending the prophet Hosea to these people. When he began his ministry, it would appear that he was just a young man, yet he lived for a fairly long period of time and brought this message of repentance to the northern ten tribes. Although we only have 14 chapters written in the book of Hosea, it represents a long period during which he prophesied and ministered. He did so in a very interesting way, as did all the prophets. It was not just the words that these men spoke; their lives were also used as a ministry and a message to the people.

As we looked at the book of Hosea a couple of weeks ago, we remembered that God used Hosea's life as a message to the people. There was a period when he lay on his left side for 390 days, and then on his right side for 40 days. All these signs were meant for the people. At one point, God told him to pack up all his belongings, leave the city, and camp out in the wilderness so that the people would see him doing this. Through these actions, God spoke. The same was true for the prophet Isaiah and several other prophets we will see.

In the book of Jeremiah, chapter 16, we saw this several weeks ago in verse 2. God told the prophet Jeremiah, "You shall not take a wife unto yourself, neither shall you have daughters or sons." In his day, when he was living in the final days of the southern kingdom of Israel and Judah, God instructed him not to take a wife. This was used as a sign to Jeremiah and to the people.

Now, as we come to Hosea, chapter 1, verse 2, we read, "The beginning of the word of the Lord by Hosea." The Lord said to Hosea, "Go and take unto you a wife of the prostitutes and children of the prostitutes, for the land has committed great whoredom, departing..."

From the Lord, God spoke to Jeremiah and said, "You're not to take a wife," and this was going to be a sign to the people. Yet, He spoke to Hosea and said, "You are to take a wife, but you're to take a wife of those that are prostitutes." If someone came to me tomorrow and said, "The Lord has spoken to me, and this is what He said," I would probably respond, "I don't think the Lord spoke that to you." However, here God comes to this man and says, "This is what I want you to do." It was for a very specific purpose, which we see at the end of verse 2.

Why did God tell Hosea to do this? Because the land had committed great whoredom in departing from the Lord. The northern ten tribes of Israel had committed spiritual adultery. God was their husband; their husband was their Maker, and He had called them to be His covenanted people. We see this all the way back in the book of Exodus when God first called the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt. He brought them to Mount Sinai, where they entered into a covenant with God in Exodus chapter 19. A covenant was established, there was the sprinkling of blood upon the covenant, and there were witnesses to this covenant. Those people were now bound to God. They were to be committed to God only, and they made promises with their vows that day.

Just as when a man and a woman enter into the marriage relationship, they make vows before witnesses, the children of Israel made vows before witnesses at Mount Sinai. All heaven and earth witnessed this event in Exodus chapter 19.

Now, were the children of Israel faithful to God? No. In fact, just 40 days later, they declared their unfaithfulness to God by establishing a golden calf and began to bow down to it and worship it. When the children of Israel finally came into the promised land, some 38 years later after that point in Exodus chapter 20, the nation survived fairly well for a time without a king. However, there came a time when they said, "We want a king."

So, God gave them a king, and the first one was King Saul. They thought they wanted a king until they got King Saul, and then they decided they didn't want a king anymore. Until God brought a good king, King David, a man after His own heart. But even this good king, David, was still just a man. He was imperfect, and we see his failures very clearly in the book of 2 Samuel. It's evident for anyone to see that he was just a man, just like any other.

After King David came his son, King Solomon, the wisest man that ever lived at that time. God used him in a powerful way to establish the nation of Israel and to raise up that nation.

Immediately after Solomon's death, when his son Rehoboam took over, the nation split. The southern tribe of Judah and Benjamin formed one group, while the northern ten tribes became another. Right after the nation split, they built golden calves once again to worship in the northern tribes. In the northernmost city of the nation of Israel, in the city of Dan, the first king of the northern ten tribes built a golden calf, just like they had at Mount Sinai. They began to worship it and committed spiritual adultery.

God was going to speak to these people, who were in the midst of that adulterous state, through the prophet Hosea. He did this by taking Hosea's life as a message to the people. God instructed Hosea to marry a woman who was a prostitute. He took this woman to himself, and she bore children for him, as we see in the first chapter. In Hosea chapter 1, verse 3, it states that he went and took Gomer. When he took this wife to himself, she conceived and bore a son.

The Lord spoke to Hosea and said, "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." God instructed Hosea to name this child Jezreel because the child's name and life were to be a message to the people. The name Jezreel means "God shows" or "God reveals." Here, God reveals the wickedness of the people in the northern ten tribes and declares that He will cause the kingdom of Israel in the north to cease. He will completely destroy them. This was the message of Hosea through the first son he had with the woman who was a prostitute.

As we continue in verse 5, it states, "And it shall come to pass at that day that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel." She conceived again and bore a daughter, and God said to him, "Call her name Lo-Ruhamah. For I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel, but I will utterly take them away."

God instructed Hosea to name his second child, a daughter, No-Mercy. How would you like to have that name? God reveals No-Mercy. Here, God is going to judge His people, the northern ten tribes, because of their spiritual adultery. He says, "I will have no mercy, no pity upon you when I come." There will be no mercy upon the house of Israel, but He will have mercy upon the house of Judah and will save them.

Now, at this point, some of you remember the history of the northern ten tribes. They were ultimately destroyed by the armies of Assyria under three different kings who came against the northern tribes. These kings brought their armies down into the southern tribes, into Judah and Jerusalem as well. However, God defended His city there in Jerusalem. You remember in one night, in Isaiah chapters 36 and 37, God struck 185,000 of the Assyrian army.

God said He would have mercy on Judah in the city of Jerusalem, but He would have no mercy on the northern ten tribes in their capital city, Samaria. Why? Because of their wickedness; they had departed from the Lord. The first child that Hosea had was named Jezreel, which signified that God was going to reveal His anger and wrath upon His people. He was going to avenge Himself upon them. The second child of Hosea was named Lo-Ruhamah, which means "no mercy." God was going to reveal no mercy upon His people.

As we move on here, in verse 8, we see the phrase, "You are not my people, and I will not be your God." The name Lo-Ami means "not my people." God, speaking through His prophet, declared that even though His people were faithless and had departed from Him, He would say, "You are not my people any longer. You have removed yourselves from me, and so I will not be your God."

Now, God desired to be their God, and He wanted them to be His people. That was the whole reason He brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of captivity, and out of bondage. He brought them into a beautiful land, a perfect promised land. He gave them a land that they didn't work for, cities that they didn't build, and orchards that they didn't plant. It was a land flowing with milk and honey, and all God desired was that His people would be His people and shine His grace, mercy, and love to all the other peoples of the world, serving as a witness to the world.

But they didn't do that. They departed from the Lord and went after all kinds of other false gods. They bowed down to every god they could find, to the point where we saw in the book of Jeremiah that even the southern tribes of Judah and Benjamin were told, "For as many as your cities, O Jerusalem, are your gods." On every street corner, they had another false god that they were bowing down to—gods that could do nothing. They were wells, broken wells, that could hold no water, as God would say. They would in no way help them, and yet the people would still bow down to these idols.

Things ultimately lead to their own hurt. God speaks to His people who had departed from Him, saying, "I'm going to reveal My judgment upon you because you've departed from Me. I'm not going to show any mercy to you any longer because you are not My people." This is not because He doesn't want them to be His people, but because they do not want to be His people. They have not chosen to have Him as their God.

In verse 10, we read, "Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered. And it shall come to pass that in the place where it was said unto them, 'You are not My people,' there it shall be said unto them, 'You are the sons of the living God.'" Notice what God says here at the end of this passage in chapter 1 of Hosea. It's powerful. God states, "I am going to judge you because you've departed from Me. I'm going to utterly destroy this land and remove you from the land. But in the very place that I said, 'You are not My people,' in the very land that I said, 'I'm not going to show any mercy upon you,' it will once again be said that you are the sons of the living God."

Then, the children of Judah and the children of Israel will be gathered together and appoint themselves one head. They shall come up out of the land, for great shall be the day of Jezreel. As we've discussed many times before, God's judgment is always for purification. God uses His chastisement, discipline, and judgment upon His people to perfect them. We even see this in the New Testament; it's not just an Old Testament doctrine or idea.

In the book of Hebrews, if you turn over to chapter 12, we read in verse 6, "For whom the Lord loves, He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives." The author of the book of Hebrews continues, "If you endure chastening, God deals with you as sons. For what son is he whom the father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all are partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons." Furthermore, notice what the writer says here in verse 9, and then here in verse 11.

I want you to take just a moment and remember back to when you were kids and you were disciplined by your parents, if you were disciplined by your parents. How many of you enjoyed that? I don't see any hands. Nobody enjoys the discipline, the chastening that comes. He says, "Unto them that are exercised by this discipline, the chastening of the Lord, it ultimately shows forth good fruit." It produces good fruit. It yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness.

Every time we see the judgment of God in the New Testament and the Old Testament, we see that ultimately from the judgment of God comes purification. Here was a wicked people who had departed from the Lord; they are the northern ten tribes of Israel. God says, "I am going to purge out the dross. I am going to judge you because of your wickedness." But ultimately, He also gives a promise. The last couple of verses of Hosea chapter 1 declare that God will restore. He will bring back a remnant.

We always see that with God, whether it's in the book of Isaiah, the book of Jeremiah, the book of Daniel, Ezekiel, or Hosea. We will continue to see it through all the prophetic works that when God judges His people, He always clears away the chaff and brings forth the wheat. It's God's purpose and plan to purify.

We, too, today, in the body of Christ, are being sanctified by the washing of the water of the Word. Let's be honest: that sanctification does not always feel good. It doesn't. Sometimes it's difficult, those things that we go through, to clean us, to transform us. Oftentimes, God uses fiery trials.

When He won you and I to Himself, it's as if He pulled a great piece of gold out of the ground. It is filled with impurities and dirt. The only way for God to refine and purify us is to put us through the fire. It is there in the fire that the impurities come to the surface, and God can remove them. God desires to purify every single one of us, but it sometimes involves hot, fiery trials. It sometimes involves this kind of chastening of the Lord that the northern ten tribes went through at this point in time. But always with God's judgment comes this promise that...

I will restore a remnant. This was one of the primary messages of Isaiah the prophet, who was a contemporary of Hosea. God spoke through the names of Isaiah's children as well. The very first child that Isaiah had was a son named Sher-Jashub, which meant "a remnant shall return." God said, "I am going to judge my people, but through it, a remnant is going to come."

In chapter 1 of Hosea, we have the outline of the entire book. This chapter provides an overview of what was taking place among the Northern Ten Tribes during the time of Hosea. God tells Hosea, "I want you to go and take a wife of the prostitutes." This situation mirrors our Father God taking a wife from the children of Israel. Yet, they departed from God, turned towards wickedness, and committed adultery against the Lord. So much so that the Lord ultimately would turn them over to judgment.

Through the life of Hosea, we see God's love mirrored in a beautiful way. As you read through Hosea chapters 1, 2, and 3—specifically chapter 3, which is a very small verse—you see something powerful that reveals God's love. Why did God tell Hosea to take a wife of the prostitutes? Because through this whole situation, God was going to reveal how powerful His love was, even in the midst of judgment.

Hosea took this wife, Gomer, and she had three children with him. However, immediately after that, she left. She departed and returned to her prostitution, abandoning her loving husband. Yet, in the midst of that, her husband constantly called her back and sought to woo her back to himself. Each time she came home, she would stay for a little while before departing again to her whoredoms.

Eventually, this wife of Hosea became a slave. In her slavery, her master no longer wanted her. Whoever had purchased her decided she was no longer useful, which is often the case in the world: use you, abuse you, and then kick you out. She was used, abused, and deemed worthless by her master. He decided to put her up on the slave trade block once again.

God spoke to Hosea, and in a beautiful passage in Hosea chapter 3, he went down to buy her back for fifteen pieces of silver and a homer and a half of barley. Here was this woman who had been his wife, yet she had departed.

She went back to Hortum and committed adultery, pursuing all the things she could find in this world, completely departing from her husband. Yet, at the end of it, we see the love of Hosea as he goes and purchases her back out of slavery. I hope you see the connection to our Lord Jesus Christ. Not just the children of Israel, but we, for the most part, are all Gentiles. How thankful are we that our God has reached out to redeem us from the slavery we were in? He desires to set us free. If Christ makes you free, you are free indeed.

Ultimately, Hosea won his wife back to himself as he purchased her out of the slavery she was in. Herein, we see the picture of what God intended to do with His people, the children of Israel. He allowed them to depart, to rebel, and to pursue all the wickedness of this world, ultimately so that they would see it does not satisfy and does not satiate the desire of the flesh. They would go into captivity under the Assyrians until the day comes, as the Scripture declares, when they will look upon Him whom they have pierced. They will recognize Jesus as the Messiah.

The last few verses of Hosea chapter 1 reveal that coming day. They reveal the day when the tribes of Judah and Benjamin and the northern ten tribes will come together once again to the Valley of Jezreel. The Valley of Jezreel is a significant area in the northern portion of the nation of Israel. At the head of the Valley of Jezreel is a city called Megiddo, which you may have heard of in relation to Armageddon. We believe that there is coming a day, at the time of Christ's second coming, when there will be a great battle in the Valley of Megiddo or the Valley of Jezreel.

There, once again, God will receive His bride, but it will be the remnant—the remnant that is purified as the chaff is blown away, leaving only the good wheat or barley that remains. Throughout history, we see this plan and purpose of God.

Hosea divides really well into two different sections. The first section deals with Hosea's personal life, covering Hosea chapters 1 through 3. It reveals the story of God through the life of Hosea. The second section, chapters 4 through 14, shows us the application for the nation of Israel. It illustrates how the life of Hosea had national implications and provides application for the people there. God was seeking to bring His people to Himself as His bride once again, even though they had departed from Him.

Notice what we read in Hosea chapter 2, verse 16: "And it shall be at that day, this yet future time that we look forward to, it shall be that at that day, saith the Lord, that you shall call me Ishai, and shall call me no more Baalai." Ishai means "my husband," and Baalai means "my Lord." God tells His people, the children of Israel, that there is coming a day when they will no longer simply call Him their Lord, even though He is their Lord and master, but they will call Him their husband once again. This prophecy looks forward to a yet future time.

In verse 17 of Hosea chapter 2, God says, "For I will take away the names of Balaam." Balaam was one of the false gods; in fact, Balaam is the plural form of all these false gods that they bowed down to. God declares, "I will take away the names of Balaam out of her mouth, and they shall no more be remembered by their name." In that day, this yet future time that we look forward to, God says, "Will I make a covenant with them, and with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground. I will break the bow, and the sword, and the battle out of the earth, and will make them to lie down safely."

God speaks of a removal of war and a removal of battle because there at Megiddo, in the Valley of Jezreel, is the great battle of Armageddon, the last great war. God says there is coming this day when He will remove these things. Notice verse 19: "And I will betroth thee unto me forever. I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness and in judgment, and in loving kindness and in mercies. I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness, and you shall know the Lord."

At this point, when Hosea was speaking these things, historically, these people had completely rejected God.

They had completely abandoned Him and wanted nothing to do with Him. Their hearts were revealed by their idolatry and by their actions. But God says there is coming a day of restoration. There is coming a day when once again you will return to Me. You shall be My people, and I shall be your God. It shall come to pass, as stated in verse 21 of chapter 2, that I will hear, saith the Lord. I will hear.

God says there is coming this time, even though the people had departed from the Lord. In chapter 4, we read, "Hear the word of the Lord," verse 1, "you children of Israel. For the Lord has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land." God says, "I have something to talk with you about." This is very much the same as what Isaiah said to the children of Israel in the south. He says, "Come, let us reason together." God calls heaven and earth as witnesses against you. He has a controversy; He has a court date with you, basically.

God says He has a controversy with the land. Why? Because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. This means there is no truth among you. You no longer follow Me; you have no knowledge. Their hearts were revealed by their actions. Look at verse 2: "By swearing and lying and killing and stealing and committing adultery, they break out, and blood touches blood." Therefore, because of this, the land shall mourn, and everyone that dwells there shall languish with the beasts of the field and with the fowls of heaven. Yes, the fish of the sea shall also be taken away.

So God says, "I am going to utterly destroy you." Not because I am an angry God, nor just because I enjoy watching people scream and die. That is not who God is, even though some people think that the God of the Old Testament is like that. There are people who think that the God of the Old Testament was kind of like His junior high years, that He would just fly off the handle from time to time and beat people up. That is not the way that God is.

We see the love of God constantly in the Old Testament. He is reaching out to His people and saying, "Come to Me." Yet, they would always turn their backs towards the Lord and turn towards all these other false gods around them. They began to be filled with the works of the flesh, which are evident. Here is a list of them in verse 2 of chapter 4.

As a result of your own works, as a result of all the things that you have done, that is why I am going to judge you. Look at verse 6: "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge." What an important verse! "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because thou hast rejected knowledge..."

I also will reject thee. Thou shalt be no more priest to me, seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, and I will also forget thy children. As they were increased, so they sinned against me. Therefore, will I change their glory into shame. This was a people that God had glorified. He had shed His grace upon them in such a powerful way and given them so much, and yet they departed from Him. So God says their glory is going to be turned to shame. We see that this exactly happened, just as Hosea would say. Hosea prophesied a very short period of time before the Assyrian army would come and completely consume and destroy the northern ten tribes.

God desires, as we've seen so many times, that His people would hear His word, heed His word, and return to Him. We see in Hosea 6, verse 1, "Come, let us return to the Lord, for the Lord has torn, and He will heal us. He has smitten, and He will bind us up." This is an awesome truth about God. Something that always stands out to me when I read through the Old Testament Scriptures is how loving and gracious our God is. Yes, He does chasten His children, just like we saw in Hebrews chapter 12. He does discipline every child that He receives. His discipline, His chastening, is for the purpose not that we would run away from Him, not that we would turn away from Him and try to get away, but that we would return to Him.

When we turn to Him, look what the Lord does. He heals us, even though He has smitten. Now, I'm not a father—well, I guess technically you could say I'm a father, but I haven't had a chance to father my child yet. Those of you that have had children probably understand exactly what's going on here. As you discipline your children, it's not your desire to discipline them and then want to see them go away. You don't want anything to do with them. You discipline them, and when they turn to you, you receive them to comfort them as well. That's how God is. He disciplines us so that we would return to Him, so that there could be a restoration of relationship.

God would tell His people in the South, through Isaiah, that His ear is not closed that He cannot hear, His arm is not short that He cannot reach, but your sin has removed you; your sin has separated you from Me. When we sin, when we depart from the Lord, we are separated from God. God allows us to go through difficulties, trials, and tribulations—hot trials during those times—as His discipline so that we would return to Him.

And that there would be a restoration of relationship. However, the relationship is not broken because God says, "Get out of here, I don't want anything to do with you." The relationship is broken and separated because of our own sin. This is exactly what happened during the time of Hosea. He watched as these things came to pass in his nation. Not only did he observe this in his nation, but he also got to see the heart of God through his very own life. God had given him a kind of microscopic version of the nation of Israel through his own family and his marriage to a wife who continually departed from him. It's a powerful and sad story, really, when you go through the book of Hosea.

As with all these stories, they carry a great prophetic hope because God is using this discipline to ultimately bring out a remnant and to restore. As I read through Hosea and as we've been reading through various prophetic works over the last several weeks and months, I can't help but see the application for our own nation. I'm sure you see these things as well as you go through them. Many times, you hear people talk about our nation being founded upon the Bible and that it was started with God. That may be true, and if you look back in history books, I think you can make a strong case for the fact that there was a lot to do with Christianity and the Bible when the nation was first established.

However, here we are, really a relatively young nation when you consider everything, and look how far we've departed from the Lord. We have run the other way and turned our backs toward Him. The Lord has allowed this nation to go through great trials and tribulations for the purpose of ultimately bringing us back to Him, that we would call out to Him. There was a time, as we've discussed before, when such trials would come upon our nation—whether it was a great earthquake, devastating fires, huge floods, hurricanes, or even civil war. All these different events throughout our history would be seen as a national call to repentance: "Let's turn back to the Lord."

One of the signs that a nation has truly departed from God is that they no longer recognize His hand in these events. In fact, during the time of Isaiah and the very same time of Hosea, one of the things that happened in the northern ten tribes, the place where Hosea was speaking, was that when God would bring these trials...

These calamities upon the nation, instead of prompting recognition that God was calling His people back to themselves, led many to say, "Our cities have been broken down; we are going to build them bigger and stronger than ever." I remember just two weeks after 9/11, the news channels reported, "The towers are falling, but we're going to build them bigger and stronger than ever." After Hurricane Katrina went through Louisiana, what did everyone say right afterward? "We will build bigger and stronger than ever." This attitude reflects a nation that has departed from the Lord.

Hosea was in the midst of such a situation during the time he wrote these things. For we who are God's people, those who know God and follow Him, having received Christ Jesus as Lord and become the children of God, we should recognize the hand of God in these events. I believe they are going to become stronger and more intense, with shorter intervals between each one. We are headed toward more difficulty as a nation.

May we recognize what God is saying to us in the midst of it, for He is calling out to us, His church. He is calling out to the remnant that we would turn to Him. As we have seen in the book of 1 Chronicles, when a people turn to God in repentance and call out to Him through prayer, He will hear from heaven and heal their land.

Sometimes, as Christians, we look at our nation and think it is beyond fixing, that there is no way it can be restored. But how big is our God? Is He able? He is able. I am often reminded of the story of Nineveh, which we will be looking at very soon. When you think of the story of Jonah, I don't want to go into it too much tonight because we will study it in just a few weeks.

Here was this man, Jonah, who hated the Assyrians, and Nineveh was the capital of Assyria. God commanded him to go tell them that He was going to judge that city and totally destroy it. Jonah didn't want to do it. Why? Because he feared that they would repent and God would give them grace. He did not want them to receive God's grace; he wanted God to judge them. So, God forced him to go and speak to those in Nineveh.

And you know what? He was right. They repented, and God did give them grace. At that time, Nineveh was the most wicked city in all the earth, known for its great evil.

Throughout all the world, Nineveh is often seen as a wicked, horrible, wretched city. Yet, when God's word came to them, they repented and received God's grace. However, only 150 years later, they were destroyed because they departed from the Lord. Even in our nation today, God can still heal our nation.

This week, we are having the National Day of Prayer on Thursday. The first Thursday in May every year is a call to prayer for the nation. We will have a service here on Thursday night and also a service on Thursday afternoon at the Fountain at City Hall to pray for our nation. God can move, and He is powerful enough to bring about national healing. The politicians won't do it. I don't care who you vote for; they are not going to fix the nation. They will not be able to bring the righteousness and the great grace that they talk about. Only God can do that.

We see this through all the prophetic books of the Old Testament. However, we also know that this nation will answer for the atrocities and the various things we have done as a nation. There will be a judgment. Yet, we also know the promise of God that through the judgment, a remnant will come forth. We have a future hope, as we are not looking for a city here on earth, just as we read in Hebrews chapter 11 about Abraham and Sarah. They were not looking for a city here on earth; they looked for a city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.

There is coming a day when that city will arrive. That is why we were told by Christ, when His disciples asked Him to teach them to pray, that part of that prayer includes, "Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." We still pray that to this day: "God, your kingdom come. May you establish your kingdom here on earth as it already is established in heaven."

God would not have instructed us to pray that prayer if one day He was not going to fulfill it. He will fulfill it. He will accomplish what He set out to do. God's purposes will always be accomplished. Now, the process sometimes takes a little longer than we would like, doesn't it? But His purpose will always come to pass.

The story of Hosea is a tragic and sad one because the people of Hosea's day in the northern ten tribes did not listen to him at all, and they were destroyed by King Sargon.

King Sennacherib and the kings of Assyria came through and completely devastated and annihilated the northern ten tribes to the point where today we call them the lost tribes of Israel. Some people ask, how can God possibly bring back the northern ten tribes of Israel? They are lost, and we don't know who they are. Listen, God knows.

There is coming a day, as we saw at the end of Hosea chapter 1, when He will gather the tribes of Judah and the tribes of the north together once again in the valley of Israel. God will bring His bride to Himself once more. Although she will be beaten and battered, and although she will have to be purchased out of slavery, God will accomplish His work, and that is what we see in this great book.

Let's stand and pray together. Amen. God, I ask that You would help us to hide this truth in our hearts. Lord, give us the opportunity to share Your word and Your truth with those who don't know You—those in our nation who think they might know You, but whose lives evidence that they don't.

We know that our nation has drifted far from what it was established under. It has drifted far from Your word and Your truth. But we also know what Your word says: if Your people who are called by Your name will humble themselves and pray, and will 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, God, and ask that You would work a work in our days that we would not believe even if it were told to us. We ask that You would do a work that blows our minds, Lord. You promised, as we will see in the book of Joel next week, that in the last days You would pour out Your Spirit upon all flesh. We ask that You would pour out Your Spirit in these last days and that we would see a great move and revival once again—not only here in America but in Africa, China, Europe, and all throughout the world.

We know that You are moving, and we ask that You would allow us to see Your power and might move in that way. But Lord, may it first start in each of our own hearts. As we saw last week in the book of Daniel, when Daniel cried out to You, he didn't cry out just on behalf of the sin of his people; he took their sin and said, "Lord, it's my sin as well."

As we look at our nation, which is given to all sorts of wickedness, we see that we change the names of these things. What You call adultery, we call an affair.

Lord, you call it murder, and we say it's a procedure; it's an abortion. But, Lord, we bring these things to you. We confess that it's sin. We ask that you would move in a miraculous way.

Lord, use us, use us in such a way to be a light in the dark world. For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you.