THE HEART OF GOD

Hosea 11:1-12

INTRODUCTION:

In Hosea, we have seen the judgement of God on the sin of the people. Sin must be dealt with and will be dealt with. If sin is left unconfessed and continued in, God will deal with it.

We also see in Hosea a picture of God in love doing what is necessary to bring the people back to Him.

In chapter 11, we see the compassion of God exhibited toward His people. The story of Hosea and Gomer is a picture of the love and compassion God has for His people in seeking to bring them back into relationship with HIm.

In Chapter 11, God compares Himself to one who has called, cared for, and trained a child. Yet the child is unresponsive and ungrateful.

In the Old Testament the concept of God as a personal Father was not common nor was it a belief that the Jews held.

Before Christ came, no Jew would have referenced God as a personal father. God in the Old Testament was referred to Father to the nation as a whole but not a personal father to individuals.

Jesus began teaching about a personal relationshp with God like a father to a child.

John 20:17 “Jesus said unto her: do not cling to Me for i have not ascended to My Father; but go to My brethren and say to them: I am ascending to My Father and your Father and My God and your God.”

Matthew 6:9 “After this manner therefore pray: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.”

Let’s unpack this passage and see what we can learn about God as our loving Father.

NOTICE THE LOVE OF GOD (11:1-2)

God references the rescue of Israel from Egypt in verse 1. And He refers to loving Israel as a child.

When God says He loved them like a son, the word love is the Hebrew word “ahav” meaning “to love, to breathe after, to delight”. It is an intense feeling of deep affection.

It is a love that called the nation out of Egypt. It is a love that calls. We might call it an electing love.

Why did God, having heard their cry, call them out of Egypt?

Deuteronomy 7:7-8 “The LORD did not set His love upon you, nor choose you, because you were more in number than any people; for you were the fewest of all people. But because the LORD love you and because He would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you out of the house of bondment, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.”

God called them out because He loved them. And He didn’t love them because they deserved it or had earned it but He loved them because He loved them.

Don’t you realize that it was not us that we seeking God but God seeking us? Do you know why God saved you? He loved you. Do you know why He loved you? Because He loved you.

Romans 3:10-11 “As it is written There is none righteous no not one. There is none that understands and none that seeks after God.”

Romans 5:6-8 “For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commended (demostrated0 His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

Ephesians 1:4-5 “According as he hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before Him, in love having predestined us to the adoption of sons by Jesus Christ to Himself according to the good pleasure of His will”

God loves you because He loves you. You may say “well I am not worthy of His love.” None of us are but He does not love us becuase we are worthy, He loves us because He loves us.

NOTICE THE LABOR OF GOD (11:3-4)

God not only calls His people but He cares for His people.

To get a child in this world there is labor required. Once you get them here, raising them requires labor. As they get to middle school, labor is still required.

Notice what God did for them.

He taught them to walk. When the only thing that child can do is crawl, there comes a day when you teach them how to walk.

He is the one who heals them. This is a reference back to Exodus 15: 22-26, the story of the bitter water at Marah. And as long as they were faithful, God would be their healer.

God drew them or led them with gentle cords. “Gentle” translates in Hebrew “Humankind”. God led them with cords of human kindness.”

God lifted the yoke from their neck. The language here suggests, not that God is removing the yoke, but is lifting the yoke enough to help lighten the load.

When we realize that days we walk away from God, that were it not for Him we would not even be here.

NOTICE THE LONGING OF GOD (11:5-9)

Have you noticed there is a time in the life of child as they leave infancy and begin to exert their independance. They say things like “NO”.

Regardless of how great Israel’s infant years were, they are now in the harsh reality of God’s judgement on sin.

Israel has a sin problem, and despite all God has done to draw them to Him, they will not return. If fact, that is what God said “they will not return.”

Like a parent to a child, sin will break that fellowship between parent and child but if that child refuses to return, it breaks the heart of the parent.

We see, vv 8-9 , that God is showing the emotion that an earthly father would show. God is agonizing over their sin and the coming judgement.

God says “how can I give up on them?” Then God says “I will not execute fierceness of my anger.”

Does God judge sin? YES. Israel’s sin had brought her to the brink of destruction.

God uses language like “give up” (8) and “hand over” (9). These are phrases of total destruction.

How can God judge sin and at the same time not execute judgement against the accused?

“For I am God, and not man.” (9) It would do us well to remember that. First He is God therefore He can whatever He chooses to do.

And God decided that if the Trinity ever acted in creation there would come a day they would have to act in redemption. So God devised a plan whereby justice could be satisfied and sinful man could be set free.

And He did from before the foundation of the world.

God is a God of love and a God of wrath. If you see God only as a God of love or only as a God of wrath then your view of God is inaccurate.

At the cost of the blood of His own Son, God’s holy justice was met and man can go free.

Romans 3:24-26 “Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus; Whom God has set forth to be the propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God. To declare, I say, at this time his righteousnes; that he might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. “

God’s holy standard is met. His justice is satisfied. The price for sin is paid. And sinful man can be set free.

G. CAMPBELL MORGAN “When God, in spite of sin, says How can I give you up? My heart is stirred. My compassions are stirred but I am holy; how can I give you up? And yet says I will not give you up, I will not; We are in the presence of a posibility wholly of God. it must have been a great word for trembling and troubled hearts even then…through Christ he has made the way by which sinning souls can be conformed to His image, His likeness, His wil. The gospel is gleaming in Hosea. It is shining in full radiacne in Christ.”