Hosea

God works in mysteries ways. We know this and accept this, however every once in a while God comes to us and asks us to do something that we don’t understand because it is so strange that it defies any logic we have. God warns us about this when he tells us that “His thoughts are higher than our thoughts and his ways are higher than our ways.” So God comes to us and asks us to do something that is very strange to us. He might come to someone and asks them to build a large boat in the middle of a field to protect people and animals from rain (which you don’t know what that is). He might come to someone ask them to walk around naked and barefoot for three years. He might asks you to be tied up with rope and lie on your side for 430 days. By the way I didn’t make those up they are actually in the Bible. However, one of the strangest ones is found in the book of Hosea so grab your Bible’s and lets turn there and see just what God is up to here.

As we are turning there I will go ahead and give you some background information on the book of Hosea because that is where we are going to be spending our time today. Sometime around 930 B.C. the kingdom of Israel splits into two countries after the death of Solomon. The Northern Kingdom is ruled by a man named Jeroboam. Now Jeroboam believes that he has a problem. Notice I didn’t that he actually had a problem just that he believed he did. The supposed problem is that in order to follow God in the way he described both him and his people would have to travel to Jerusalem several times a year to worship God. Jerusalem was in the Southern Country of Judah still ruled by the House of David. Jeroboam believed that if the people kept going to Judah they would eventually want to be ruled over the by the house of David. So his solution to this problem was to create two idols and put them in the cities of Bethel, and Dan so that his people wouldn’t have to leave Israel. The result of this was that you had a group of people who claimed to worship God, but their actions were of those who didn’t. Fast forward about two hundred years and now we get to Hosea. Now we believe that Hosea was a prophet from 760 - 725 B.C. roughly, which falls between 2 Kings 14-20, and God hasn’t given up on his people and he is trying to reach them even though they have spent the last two hundred years either not worshiping him at all or claiming to worship him, but doing so in a way that is wrong and is so making the problem worse.

So in chapter 1 God gives Hosea a task that is going to help in his goal of reaching the children of Israel. Let’s read it in it’s entirety: 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.” 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. It shall come to pass in that day That I will break the bow of Israel in the Valley of Jezreel.” And 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, But I will utterly take them away. Yet I will have mercy on the house of Judah, Will save them by the Lord their God, And will not save them by bow, Nor by sword or battle, By horses or horsemen.” 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. “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!

In both the old and new testament the covenant relationship of marriage is often used a symbol of the relationship that God wants to have with us. There are many verses that speak in this manner. I will just give you a few quickly: Isaiah 54:5 For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is His name, Jeremiah 3:14 “Return, O backsliding children,” says the Lord; “for I am married to you. And in the New Testament Ephesians 5:31, 32 “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.” And of course Revelation 19:7 which says “Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready.”