Desperate Times… | Sunday, May 26, 2024

The word of the Lord that came to Hosea the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel... When the Lord began to speak by Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea: "Go, take yourself a wife of harlotry and children of harlotry, for the land has committed great harlotry by departing from the Lord." (Hosea 1:1-2)

When a nation barrels toward the cliff, God sends a prophet—and sometimes a shocking sign—to call His people back.

Watching a Nation Disintegrate

We are starting a new book this morning. For the last several years we've paused our yearly study—right now we're in Judges—to go through a different book for the summer. Last year it was Daniel, the last of the major prophets. This year it's Hosea, the first of the minor prophets. Don't let "major" and "minor" mislead you. Daniel wasn't walking around with a name tag saying "major prophet." The terms have nothing to do with the weightiness of their words—only with the fact that the minor prophets generally left us smaller writings. These titles were given much later.

As I read through Hosea and the history surrounding it this week, I found myself thinking: what would it be like to watch your nation disintegrate and effectively destroy itself, going off a cliff? You may feel you are living in such a time. There are days when I look at our culture and it feels like we're barreling toward a cliff, and I almost want to grab people by the shoulders and shake them: wake up.

If you can relate to that, then you are feeling what many of the Old Testament prophets felt. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Obadiah, Habakkuk, Micah—these were often deeply nationalistic, patriotic people, and they were brokenhearted by what they saw in their own nation. It was from that brokenhearted state that they were stirred to write and speak.

The Reluctant Prophet

Yet the prophets were often fearful, hesitant, reluctant to share what they were stirred to say. We see this most clearly with Jeremiah. He was called to bring a message of repentance—the typical prophetic message, calling people to turn from the path they were on. The people would not listen, which is also the typical response. Jeremiah was so burdened by this heavy message and their hardened hearts that he finally said, "I just can't do it anymore." But the word became a fire in him that he could not contain. He wrote:

God's word was in my heart like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I was weary of holding it back, and I could not. (Jeremiah 20:9)

You don't have to be an amazing prophet with visions and dreams to identify with this. Maybe you have a friend, coworker, or family member whose life is heading in a direction you can clearly see. But there's a reluctance to speak, because if you say something it might hurt the friendship. That same reluctance marked the prophets.

What did Elijah, Elisha, Jeremiah, Micah, and Hosea see that stirred them and made them unable to hold back? They saw the very things that God, through Moses, warned would bring devastation, destruction, and eventually exile. That word exile is key—it means God would expel them from the land He had promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the land He brought them into out of Egypt.

Two Keys to the Prophets

When I mention Isaiah, Jeremiah, or Ezekiel, many people get excited thinking about apocalyptic, end-times material. There are times we find eschatological things in the prophets that point to the future, and those are good. But that's not the primary reason these men were stirred to write, and it shouldn't be the primary reason we come to the text.

I've wanted to teach through the prophetic passages for a long time—I taught them at the Bible college for nearly twenty years. But I held back for an important reason. There are two keys that unlock these books. The first is what I call the Deuteronomy key, which is why we went through Deuteronomy back in 2020. The prophets were doctors of Deuteronomy. They knew Moses' words, and Deuteronomy became the lens through which they viewed their nation. The "if this, then that" nature of the deuteronomic principle is applied throughout the prophets.

The second key is the history of the times. The prophets were compelled to speak by what they saw in their own culture, so you need to be acquainted with Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles. Each of these men lived during the times those books describe. Many of us start reading through the Bible in January, steam through Genesis and Exodus, hit Leviticus, and then get lost in Kings and Chronicles among all the "so-and-so begat so-and-so." But those books unlock our understanding—they give the historical context, while Deuteronomy gives the theological context.

A Message for Them—and a Principle for Us

When you grasp both keys, you begin to see that the primary message is not for you and me in the 21st century. It was a message to their people at their time. It is still valuable for us, because the God who worked in Hosea's day is the same yesterday, today, and forever; He has not changed in the way He works.

The prophets knew and believed passages like Deuteronomy 7:

When the Lord your God brings you into the land which you go to possess... you shall conquer them and utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them nor show mercy to them. Nor shall you make marriages with them... for they will turn your sons away from following Me, to serve other gods; so the anger of the Lord will be aroused against you and destroy you suddenly.

They understood the conditional nature of the old covenant—the conditions of blessing and the conditions of cursing—and applied them to their day. Their predictions were largely conditional: through the lens of Deuteronomy they could say, "You are doing X, Y, and Z, and this is what will follow—but if you repent, you will receive God's blessing."

Many commentators argue these books had only limited application to the people who first heard them, and therefore little value for us. I want to challenge that. While Hosea had a limited primary application to Israel 2,800 years ago, there remains a general application that is true for us, even though we are not Israel. Proverbs 14 says, "Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people." We are not the covenanted people under the deuteronomic covenant, but we still live in a nation, and sin—the breaking of God's commands and statutes—will bring reproach and condemnation to any people.

The Weight of the Covenant

Deuteronomy 28 spells out the stakes:

But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God... that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you: Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the country... The Lord will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke in all that you set your hand to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, because of the wickedness of your doings in which you have forsaken Me.

These are heavy, harsh words. If you came this morning for a light, encouraging message, I'm sorry to say these are heavy. But the stipulations of God's covenant with Israel were utterly clear. And Israel entered into that covenant willingly, without coercion. After God explained the terms, they said, in effect, "I do" (Exodus 24).

Many of you said "I do" to your spouse, standing before a pastor who gave you the stipulations. The only legal requirement for me as I lead a wedding in California is that both individuals, without coercion, say "I do." As long as you agree to the covenant before witnesses, you have entered into it. Israel did exactly that—they professed their devotion to the Lord at Mount Sinai.

The Sad, Sorry Story of Israel

How did it work out? For the first half of this year we've been studying Judges. Israel said, "All that the Lord has said we will do," came into the promised land, and as soon as Joshua died, "there arose another generation... who did not know the Lord nor the work which He had done for Israel" (Judges 2:10). They did evil in the sight of the Lord and committed spiritual whoredom, prostituting themselves to Baal, Asherah, and Molech. "And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord" becomes the recurring theme for centuries.

Some five to seven hundred years later, God said through Jeremiah:

I commanded them, saying, "Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be My people"... Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but followed the counsels and the dictates of their evil hearts, and went backward and not forward... yet they did not obey Me or incline their ear, but stiffened their neck. They did worse than their fathers. (Jeremiah 7:23-26)

This is the sorry situation into which Hosea was born some 2,800 years ago.

Who Was Hosea?

We know very little about Hosea. His name means salvation—the same name as Hoshea, the family name of the great Joshua who brought Israel into the land. It's very possible Hosea was of that household. He was probably of the tribe of Ephraim, the largest tribe, in the northern part of the nation. We know his father's name was Beeri, and little more.

The opening verse tells us when he lived: "in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam... king of Israel." This points us to the divided kingdom. After the judges, Israel demanded a king. God gave them Saul—an epic fail. Then He raised up David, a man after His own heart, who despite his many problems led well. David's son Solomon was one of the wisest men who ever lived—read a Proverb a day and you'll grow in wisdom, I guarantee it. But Solomon had a foolish son, Rehoboam, who rejected the counsel of his father's wise advisors. As a result, the nation split through civil war into the northern kingdom (Israel, or Ephraim) and the southern kingdom (Judah, which held Jerusalem and the temple).

So Hosea ministered to the northern kingdom of Ephraim in the 8th century BC—the 700s. You can read this history in 2 Kings 15–21 and 2 Chronicles 26–33. He was a contemporary of Amos, Isaiah, and Micah, ministering roughly from 760 to 710 BC.

The Lost Tribes and a Hard Assignment

Why do these dates matter? Because it was in the 8th century that the "lost tribes of Israel" became lost. While Hosea was calling the ten northern tribes to repent, God effectively said, "I'm done. My mercy is over. You are no longer My people. I'm casting you out."

Hosea was given a very hard job—his message was, "God is done with you. It's over." Can you understand why he might have been hesitant? Point one: God calls His prophets to call His people to account. And there's a problem—generally speaking, people do not respond well to being called out. You're probably all perfectly fine when your spouse says, "I want to challenge you about something you said the other day," right? Because we are sometimes hard-hearted, stiff-necked, and stubborn, God calls His people to account in very shocking ways.

A Shocking Sign

Look at how stunning God's command is:

When the Lord began to speak by Hosea... the Lord said to Hosea: "Go, take yourself a wife of harlotry and children of harlotry." (Hosea 1:2)

Hosea was unmarried, which suggests he was young. Today people marry in their late twenties; in 8th-century Israel a man married in his mid-teens. A Jewish boy became a man—a son of the law, bar mitzvah—around twelve, then began building onto his father's house and took a wife around fifteen. So Hosea was very possibly a fifteen-year-old man with visions of a beautiful Jewish wife. Then God woke him one night: "Hosea, take a wife." "Yes, Lord." "Take a wife who is a harlot." "No, Lord, not so." But that's what God said.

Point two: God sometimes calls His prophets to do shocking things to shock His people, because sometimes only the shocking thing disrupts the stubborn heart. Isaiah, ministering in the south around the same time, was called to walk naked for three years as a sign. Two hundred years later, Ezekiel was told to bake bread using human excrement for fuel—he protested, and God permitted cow dung instead. Ezekiel was also told to lie on his side for a year before the people. To Jeremiah, God said, "Do not take a wife," as a sign. To Hosea, "Take a wife—one who will be unfaithful to you."

Desperate Times, Desperate Measures

How could God do this? I don't always have the best answer, but I will say: sometimes desperate times call for desperate measures, and this was a desperate time. I don't always understand why God works as He does—His ways are far above mine (Isaiah 55)—but He always has a reason.

Go, take yourself a wife of harlotry and children of harlotry, for the land has committed great harlotry by departing from the Lord. (Hosea 1:2)

Circle that word for. Hosea, this is a sign to the people who entered a covenant with God and said "I do," then for centuries went out on Him, committing spiritual adultery with Baal, Asherah, Molech, and the gods of the Canaanites.

Point three: God sometimes works in shocking ways to shake us up and get our attention. That's what He did through Habakkuk:

Look among the nations and watch—be utterly astounded! For I will work a work in your days which you would not believe, though it were told you. (Habakkuk 1:5)

Knowing this, I wonder what shocking thing God might be doing now to shake us up. Maybe He would let us have foolish, dumb leaders who lead us toward bondage and destruction. "God would never do that"—but He did it in the past. Maybe He would allow a more unrighteous nation to rise up and overtake us—He did so in Habakkuk's day. Maybe He would let our economy tank until we become the laughingstock of our enemies. Is the God of the Old Testament different from the God of the New? You say, "Yes, but this was a word to Israel." Yes—but it has general application, because righteousness exalts a nation and sin brings condemnation to any people.

I look at things going on in our country and sometimes think, "Why are they doing this? It seems like everything you'd do if you wanted to bring destruction." Whether on the right or the left, it's a head-scratcher. Maybe God has allowed us foolish leaders that lead us toward destruction as judgment. It happened in Isaiah's day, Hosea's day, the days of Habakkuk, Obadiah, Zephaniah, and Zechariah—because sometimes there's no other way to get our attention.

Three Children, Three Names

So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son. Then the Lord said to him: "Call his name Jezreel, for in a little while I will avenge the bloodshed of Jezreel on the house of Jehu, and bring an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel... I will break the bow of Israel in the Valley of Jezreel." (Hosea 1:3-5)

Jezreel is the large, fertile valley in the northern kingdom—you can still visit it today in the region of Galilee. This rich land made the nation wealthy. God says, "Name your son after the valley, because I'm about to destroy the northern ten tribes in that very valley." Hosea, his wife, and his son become a sign of coming judgment.

Point four: eventually God's grace and mercy will give way to His justice. This is the heavy side of God's nature, the part we often don't like to consider. We love that the Scriptures teach God is good, loving, merciful, and gracious—and I am grateful for that. But the Scriptures also teach that God is holy and just. In one of the most quoted passages of the Bible, God introduces His name to Moses:

The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin... (Exodus 34:6-7)

I love that side of God. But the very next thing He says is, "by no means clearing the guilty"—a biblical way of saying, "I will judge sin." God forgives, yet He will judge, because "the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness." It would be irresponsible to neglect the truth of God's wrath.

She conceived again and bore a daughter. Then God said to him: "Call her name Lo-Ruhamah, for I will no longer have mercy on the house of Israel... Yet I will have mercy on the house of Judah, will save them by the Lord their God..." (Hosea 1:6-7)

Lo-Ruhamah means no mercy. The God who introduced Himself as merciful now says to a people who had prostituted themselves for centuries, "I will no longer have mercy on you. In the Valley of Jezreel you will soon be destroyed."

Now when she had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, she conceived and bore a son. Then God said: "Call his name Lo-Ammi, for you are not My people, and I will not be your God." (Hosea 1:8-9)

Lo-Ammi means not my people. To this same people God had said in Exodus 6, "I will take you as My people, and I will be your God." Now He says, "You are no longer My people."

The Sobering Side of God

This is the sobering side of God's nature. If we only ever think of Him as gracious, good, merciful, and loving, and never consider this other side, we do not get the full picture of who God is. He will by no means clear the guilty, and He will by no means overlook the sin of the United States of America. Billy and Ruth Graham used to say that if God does not judge America, He will have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.

You say, "But aren't we the people of God? A Christian nation?" In so many ways we've turned from Him. Israel offered their children to Molech; from 1973 to 2023 we killed 63 million babies in abortion. Doing research recently, I found this striking: if you take those 63 million, calculate their potential economic output and the taxation on it, the figure comes to about $30 trillion—roughly our national debt. We sacrificed them for our economic future, believing it would be better for us. I don't say these things to hurt anyone affected by this reality, but it affects us more than we realize. Righteousness exalts a nation, and sin brings shame to any people—yet we have not been ashamed of how we live.

God is holy and just, and He will judge sin. It is important to regard the heavy side of His holiness, because "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." Only when we weigh the heaviness of His holiness do we fully comprehend the beauty of His grace.

A Glimmer of Hope

This has been heavy. So how could it be relieved? Look at how chapter one ends:

Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them, "You are not My people," there it shall be said to them, "You are sons of the living God." Then the children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together, and appoint for themselves one head; and they shall come up out of the land, for great will be the day of Jezreel! (Hosea 1:10-11)

This is a future prophetic promise to the very people God judged. In Jezreel—the region of Galilee—where He said, "No mercy, you are not My people," He promises one will come who will call them back, gather them as one, and they will appoint Him as their head. Who do you think will come out of Galilee? It is Jesus. Through Him they will become the sons and daughters of God, given the right to be called His children, overflowing with abundance once again.

Point five: the glory of God's grace is all the more glorious against the backdrop of His justice. This is one of the patterns to watch for in the prophets—a stark picture of judgment upon sin, out of which God brings a remnant by His grace. Isaiah had a son named Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz, meaning "God will judge swiftly," and another named Shear-Jashub, meaning "a remnant shall return." God's judgment, like a winnowing fan, blows away the chaff so the remnant of grain may be brought forth. His punishment is for the purpose of purification.

That encourages me as I look at our nation and wonder whether we are experiencing the judgment of God. From the Scriptures it sure seems we might be. But God's punishment purifies, and through it He brings forth a remnant. May we recognize that even in a dark time, God still has a work of redeeming grace He wants to do. We'll certainly see that in Hosea—a stark story, but one I'm honestly looking forward to walking through.

Closing Prayer

Father God, I thank You for Your Word. I thank You that You do not hold back Your truth—You are very clear with us. You want us to know who You are and how You work, Your nature and Your will, and so You make it very clear. I pray that we would take note of Your Word and learn from You, and that You would shine Your light upon and through our lives to those in this world who walk in darkness and desperately need Your grace.

The message You gave through the prophets was a call to repentance—the same message John the Baptist preached, the same message Jesus preached, the same You commissioned Your disciples to preach, the message Peter preached at Pentecost and Paul preached through the book of Acts. It's the message You've called us to continue to preach to this day: repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

God, help us to have boldness even when we're hesitant and reluctant—boldness by Your grace and Your Spirit—to share those important words calling people back to You. Do a work of calling people to repentance through Your church in our day and in our nation. We ask this today in Jesus' name, and all those who agreed said amen.