Hosea Introduction - Sermon (8-18-13)

The prophets were spokesmen for God. They were used by God to communicate a message to His people. There were three primary was that they did this.

First, the prophets spoke a message from God - "'Come let us reason together' says the Lord, 'though your sins are as scarlet I will make them white as snow.'" - "Thus says the Lord of Hosts, 'Consider your ways!'" Sometimes God would come to the prophets and tell them to give a certain message to the people.

Second, they predicted coming events, both near at hand and far in the future. God would use the prophets to make known a coming event. - "The Lord Himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and give birth to a Son and she will call His name Immanuel." And there are numerous other events, both local and immediate, and also prophecies that are yet to be fulfilled, that the Lord spoke through His servants the prophets.

A third way that the Lord would bring a message through the prophets was by way of illustration. Isaiah gives us an example of this in Isaiah chapter 20. Ezekiel is also an example of this in Ezekiel chapter 12 where he is told to bear a burden before the children of Israel and do several things "In their sight" as a testimony against them. However, there is probably no clearer example of this than the life of Hosea.

Hosea actually communicates the Lords message in all three of these ways. He speaks Gods message to the people, he prophesies of coming events, and his life is an illustration of the condition of Israel in their relationship with God.

The story of Hosea is one of the better known of the minor prophets. I would say that, except for Jonah, Hosea is the most well known book among the twelve books known as the minor prophets. I suppose that the reason for his popularity is because of the strange thing that the Lord called him to do.

Hosea 1:2 - "When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of harlotry and children of harlotry; for the land commits flagrant harlotry, forsaking the Lord.”"

This was an illustration of how God was loving an unfaithful people, and in spite of their unfaithfulness He would remain faithful. As I go through this book, 2 Timothy  2:13 keeps coming to mind - "If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself." The Lord commanded Hosea to marry a harlot, to bring her into his house and love her even though she would be unfaithful and play the harlot. This is a powerful illustration of Israel and her husband the Lord. Israel had a terrible tendency to play the harlot by following after other gods. Israel is referred to in several places in the Old Testament as the wife of Jehovah. The church on the other hand is the bride of Christ, there's a difference and yet a love linkage. That marriage relationship is used to describe both the relationship between Israel and Jehovah, and the relationship between Christ and the church. Hosea shows in a very powerful way the heart of God, a heart of love for His people.

I just want to begin by going back in the Bible all the way to the beginning and trace the line from creation through to the time that this prophecy was written, not just to get the historical context of the book, but primarily to get a glimpse of Gods love relationship with Israel.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. In the early chapters of Genesis we have a historical account of the creation of the world in six, literal, 24 hour days. In 6 days the Lord created the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them. And among the things that the Lord created was man. The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breathe of life, and man became a living soul. We're told in the book of Colossians, concerning the Lord Jesus, that all things were created through Him and for Him. This includes man. We have been made in the image of God. And unique among the creations of God, we have been created for a special, intimate relationship with God. 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 describes us as a "spirit, soul and body." Animals have both a body and a soul, but man alone out of all the creatures that God has made has a spirit, and it's through that spirit that we can enter into this relationship with Him. God created man to have intimate fellowship with Him, and the Lord had this fellowship with Adam in the garden, but love always demands a choice. God did not create a race of robots without the ability to choose, He created man with the ability to choose to obey or disobey. And He put a tree in the midst of the garden and told the man, "From any tree in the garden you may freely eat, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you will surely die." The Lord gave Adam a choice and Adam disobeyed God. He ate of the fruit of the tree, and it was by the one mans disobedience that sin entered the world and death through sin. And so death spread to all men because all sinned. God is completely holy, and though He loves mankind and desires a relationship with us, He cannot overlook sin. It has to be dealt with. God is of too pure eyes than to behold sin, and so our sins have separated us from our God. Man, who was created for a relationship with God, chose rather to go his own way. But the Lord still loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses and sins.
Well, by time we come to Genesis chapter 6 we read that the wickedness of men was very great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. God said "I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the earth." But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. The Lord told Noah to build an ark for the saving of his household, as well as for two of each kind of animal. In 2 Peter 2 Noah is called a preacher of righteousness. The entire time he was building that ark the Lord was giving men the opportunity to repent, but at last when the flood waters came upon the whole earth only eight people were saved, Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives. After they got off the ark man began to multiply once again on the face of the earth. The Lord told the people to spread out, but they decided they would stick together. They said "Let's build a tower to heaven lest we be spread out upon the face of the whole earth." So the Lord came down and confused their languages, and they began to spread out, and so the name of that place was called Babel.

This brings us to Genesis chapter 12. And in Genesis 12 the Lord calls a man by the name of Abram. This is key, from this point on Gods dealings with this man and his descendants are the primary focus of the Old Testament. When the Lord called Abram He made him some promises. He said "Go forth to a land that I will show you, and I will make of you a great nation. I will bless those who bless you and the one who curses you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed." He also said to Him "All the land which you see I will give it to you and to your descendants forever. And I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth; so that if anyone can number the dust of the earth, then your descendants can be numbered." And the Lord changed his name from Abram to Abraham. Now, Abraham and His wife Sarah had a son by the name of Isaac, and Isaac had a son by the name of Jacob. The Lord changed Jacobs name to Israel, and Israel had twelve sons who would later become the heads of the twelve tribes of Israel. Jacobs ten oldest sons sold their brother Joseph into slavery and he was taken down to the land of Egypt. In Egypt he went from being a slave to being a trusted servant of Potiphar. Then he was unjustly accused and put into prison. He was taken from prison and made the most powerful man in all of Egypt next to Pharaoh. The Lord gave him great wisdom and insight, and it was through his guidance that the people of the land were sustained through seven years of terrible famine. The famine that came upon the land was so great that Jacob sent his sons down to Egypt in order to buy food. In Egypt Joseph revealed himself to his brothers and they were reunited and Joseph had his father and their whole family come down to live in Egypt. When Israel first came to Egypt they were seventy persons in all.
As time went on Israel continued to live in Egypt according to the word which the Lord had spoken to Abraham, and Israel began to multiply greatly. So greatly, that the Egyptians began to feel threatened by them and pressed them into hard service. But the more they afflicted them the more they multiplied. Under all their afflictions the people cried out to God and He heard them and raised up a deliverer for them, a man by the name of Moses, who lead the people out of Egypt through the Red Sea into the wilderness where they wandered for forty years.
This nation didn't have a great beginning. There was nothing fantastic about a bunch of slaves coming out of slavery, nothing attractive in themselves, but these were the Lords chosen people. It was to Abraham and his descendants that the Lord made those great promises and these were His own special people.

A couple of the prophets refer back to this beginning as the marriage ceremony between God and Israel. Jeremiah chapter 2 and Hosea chapter 2, as well as Ezekiel chapter 16, all talk about the Exodus as the beginnings of this marriage relationship. And Isaiah calls Israel the wife of Jehovah in Isaiah 54:5 - "For your husband is your Maker, Whose name is the Lord of hosts; And your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel, Who is called the God of all the earth."

Israel is the wife of Jehovah. The book of Deuteronomy is laid out in the format of an ancient treaty as well as an ancient marriage contract. In Deuteronomy Moses takes the various facets of the earlier three books and presents them in the form of an ancient marriage contract. In this book we find the contract signed between Israel and God whereby Israel becomes the wife of Jehovah. In chapter 5 God begins to lay out the terms of the contract beginning with the commandment that they must have no one but Him.

I just want to scan through the book of Deuteronomy just to get an idea of what this marriage contract looks like.

Deuteronomy 5:1-2 - "Then Moses summoned all Israel and said to them: “Hear, O Israel, the statutes and the ordinances which I am speaking today in your hearing, that you may learn them and observe them carefully. The Lord our God made a covenant with us at Horeb."

Deuteronomy 5:6-10 - "I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. ‘You shall have no other gods before Me. ‘You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, and on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments."

This is the beginning of His marriage covenant with Israel. The Lord wants their complete devotion. He reveals that He is a jealous God. God is Jealous for the love and devotion of His people, as a good husband would be jealous for his wife.

When we come to chapter 6 God gives them the commandment which is referred to in the New Testament as "The first and the greatest commandment of all.
Deuteronomy 6:4-5 - "Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might." A commandment to love God. We read in other portions that love is the fulfillment of the Law. Gods covenant with His people was not just about keeping a list of rules, it was about relationship. And so He demands their love.

Deuteronomy 6:10-15 - "Then it shall come about when the Lord your God brings you into the land which He swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you, great and splendid cities which you did not build, and houses full of all good things which you did not fill, and hewn cisterns which you did not dig, vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant, and you eat and are satisfied, then watch yourself, that you do not forget the Lord who brought you from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall fear only the Lord your God; and you shall worship Him and swear by His name. You shall not follow other gods, any of the gods of the peoples who surround you, for the Lord your God in the midst of you is a jealous God; otherwise the anger of the Lord your God will be kindled against you, and He will wipe you off the face of the earth." Once again the Lord tells His people that He is jealous for them, and He gives them a warning. He is about to bring them into the land that He promised to Abraham, and they are going to live in cities and houses that they did not build, and own possessions that they did not work for, and the Lord warns them not to forget Him in their prosperity and not to turn to the Gods of the nations. When we're not completely dependent on God for everything we tend to forget Him, and so He warns the people not to forget Him. 

Deuteronomy 7:6-9 - "For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. “The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but because the Lord loved you and kept the oath which He swore to your forefathers, the Lord brought you out by a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God, who keeps His covenant and His lovingkindness to a thousandth generation with those who love Him and keep His commandments."

Deuteronomy 10:12-15 - "Now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require from you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and love Him, and to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the Lord’s commandments and His statutes which I am commanding you today for your good? Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the highest heavens, the earth and all that is in it. Yet on your fathers did the Lord set His affection to love them, and He chose their descendants after them, even you above all peoples, as it is this day."

Deuteronomy 11:1 - "You shall therefore love the Lord your God, and always keep His charge, His statutes, His ordinances, and His commandments."

Deuteronomy 30:15-20 - "See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, and death and adversity; in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His judgments, that you may live and multiply, and that the Lord your God may bless you in the land where you are entering to possess it. But if your heart turns away and you will not obey, but are drawn away and worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall surely perish. You will not prolong your days in the land where you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess it. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants, by loving the Lord your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him; for this is your life and the length of your days, that you may live in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them."

All throughout this book the Lord is emphasizing to Israel that they must love Him and Him alone. He emphasizes the importance of their fidelity to Him in the midst of the land that He is about to give them, a land that is full of false gods.

But then He says something shocking at near the end of the book. Up to this point the Lord has been speaking to the congregation of Israel through Moses, but now He turns and speaks, not through Moses but to him.

Deuteronomy 31:15-16 - "The Lord appeared in the tent in a pillar of cloud, and the pillar of cloud stood at the doorway of the tent. The Lord said to Moses, “Behold, you are about to lie down with your fathers; and this people will arise and play the harlot with the strange gods of the land, into the midst of which they are going, and will forsake Me and break My covenant which I have made with them.”" The Lord emphasized again and again the importance of their love for Him just as He loved them, their fidelity to Him, and yet He says to Moses, "This people will arise and play the harlot with the strange gods of the land." He knew that Israel was going to be unfaithful to her marriage vows, and yet He made this marriage covenant with her anyway. And this is what is pictured in the life of Hosea. The Lord commands Hosea to go and take a wife of harlotry, a wife who would be unfaithful to her marriage vows, to illustrate the unfaithfulness of Israel toward her God.

Well, true to the word of the Lord, when Israel entered the land and began to take possession of it, they began to intermarry with the foreign people and worship their foreign gods. Time and again the Lord gave His people over to their unfaithfulness and they had to reap the consequences of their infidelity. They would be brought under judgment and they would turn again and seek the Lord who was faithful in spite of their unfaithfulness. The history books of Judges through 2 Chronicles are full of this pattern of the people playing the harlot with other gods and then returning to the Lord.

Fast forward in time to 2 Kings chapters 15-20 and 2 Chronicles 26-32. These chapters detail the time in which Hosea lived and prophesied. The book of Hosea is dated by the chronology of two kingdoms, the kingdom of Judah and the kingdom of Israel. That is, the southern two tribes and the northern ten tribes which were split right after the reign of Solomon.

Hosea 1:1 - "The word of the Lord which came to Hosea the son of Beeri, during the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and during the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel."

Hosea began to prophesy during a time of political peace and material prosperity in Israel. It was in this time of peace and prosperity that the people of Israel once again forgot the Lord and turned to other Gods. It was a time of moral corruption and spiritual bankruptcy. Because of this, before the end of Hosea's ministry, Israel would be conquered by the Assyrians. Hosea focuses on Israels corruption and harlotry, and the breach of the covenantal relationship with the Lord, announcing that judgment was imminent.

In the southern kingdom of Judah circumstances were not much better. King Uzziah was struck with leprosy for trying to do the work of a priest in offering a sacrifice to the Lord which was unlawful for him to do. Jotham encouraged idolatrous practices, paving the way for Ahaz, his successor, to encourage Baal worship. Hezekiahs revival served to slow her corruption, but only for a while. Eventually the southern kingdom would come under the same fate as that of her northern sister. Weak kings in both kingdoms repeatedly sought alliances with pagan kings rather than seeking the Lords help.
 

It was at this time that the Lord raised up Hosea. Hosea would have been a contemporary with Isaiah, Micah and Amos. The name Hosea means "salvation." His fathers name, Beeri, is said to mean "The well of Jehovah." The two names together remind us of the Lords words to the woman of Samaria in John 4. He offered her living water from the well of Jehovah which would result in her salvation.

Hosea 1:2 - "When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of harlotry and have children of harlotry; for the land commits flagrant harlotry, forsaking the Lord.”"

Put yourself in Hosea's shoes. The Lord was going to use his life as an example of Israels unfaithfulness to Him. Hosea's relationship with his wife was going to depict Gods relationship with Israel. Hosea was going to play the part of God, he was going to feel what God felt, he was going to love like God loved. Talk about a difficult ministry. Can you image the word of the Lord coming to you and commanding you to marry a harlot, a woman who is without question going to be unfaithful and break her marriage vows? Hosea was a real person, who thinks and feels just like you and I. Just because his story is in the Bible and he spoke for God doesn't mean that he was any less human than you or I. This word from the Lord must have severely tested the heart of the prophet. The idea of marrying a person who will without question be unfaithful and play the harlot is repulsive and goes against the sound reasoning of any thinking person, but this is what the Lord commanded Hosea to do, because this is what the Lord Himself did. Israel was faithful to the Lord at first but later on she turned away from Him and served other gods. So it would seem to best complete the picture that Hosea would marry a wife who would be faithful to him at first, but he knew from the beginning that she would break her marriage vows and be unfaithful to him and play the harlot. He is told to unite himself in marriage with a woman devoid of character, a harlot, and thus illustrate the condition of wretched Israel, who remained the object of Gods love in spite of her sin and filthiness. What a rich picture. What better picture could we have of Gods grace? Grace is infinitely more than unmerited favor. It's Gods abounding favor toward those who have merited the opposite.

Such is the marvelous loving-kindness of our God that He finds the objects of His love, not among the righteous and holy, but among sinners lost and ruined, deserving naught but judgment, stained with guilt and polluted by sin, having all gone out of the way and become unprofitable; nevertheless He sets His love upon wretches so vile and unworthy, and redeems them to Himself. Jehovah's dealings with Israel of old picture His ways of grace with believers now. "Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come." (1 Corinthians 10:11)

Through his obedience Hosea was going to enter into what Paul talks about in Philippians chapter 3. He was going to experience what God experienced, he was going to feel what God felt. In Philippians 3:10 the apostle Paul says - "that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death." Identifying with the Lord in His sufferings. You remember back in the book of Genesis when the Lord told Abraham to take his son, his only son whom he loved, and offer him up as a sacrifice on mount Moriah. Part of knowing God in a deep intimate way is entering in to the fellowship of His sufferings. Abraham, Gods friend, got to feel what God felt, for on that same mountain, thousands of years later, God was going to offer up His only begotten Son as a sacrifice for the sins of the world.

In Hebrews chapter 11 we have another example of the fellowship of His sufferings when we're told that "By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to endure ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he was looking to the reward." Moses lived and died thousands of years before Christ was even born into this world, and yet this verse clearly teaches that Moses knew something of and entered into the reproach of Christ. This is the same thing. He considered the fellowship of Christs sufferings as greater riches than the treasures of Egypt.

And now Hosea is in a similar situation. He is called by God to enter into the fellowship of His sufferings by joining himself to a harlot. And in unquestioning obedience to the command of God, Hosea does just that.

Vs.3 - "So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son."

In obedience to the voice of the Lord, Hosea went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim as his wife. We've talked about Hosea entering into the "fellowship of His sufferings" and this is certainly the case. Hosea had to bear the shame of having married a wife of such a wretched character, but he didn't have to die for her. It was far otherwise in the case of our Lord Jesus. He not only came where we were in our sin and shame, but on that horrible cross He who knew no sin was made sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. There He purchased us with His own blood that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself a peculiar people, zealous for good works. The kindness of Hosea for Gomer is faint in comparison to Gods love for His people Israel, as well as for us. And we can say with the apostle in 1 John chapter 4 - "We love Him because He first loved us."