Covenant, Not Convenience

Week 2: Hosea- Minor Prophets Series

Hey, if you got your Bibles, go ahead and make your way to Hosea Chapter 2- we are in our second week of walking through the minor prophets and we started with Hosea.

I don’t know if y’all know this about me, but I love Johnny Cash’s music. There’s just something raw and real about it. He didn’t try to polish everything up and pretend life was easy—he sang about the struggle, about sin, about pain, about running and falling flat on your face. But right alongside all that, he sang about grace, redemption, and the hope that God can pull beauty out of the mess.

I also love that movie about his Walk the Line- the only thing that could have made it better was if Tom Cruise was in it.

It shows how Johnny Cash falls hard for June Carter. But it’s not a clean, easy love. Johnny battles addiction, self-destruction, and unfaithfulness. June sees the worst in him—his failures, his wandering heart. She could’ve walked away for good, and sometimes she tried. But Johnny never stopped needing her, and she never stopped being the one he came back to. Their story is messy, but it shows how real love can endure betrayal, pain, and failure.

That’s what Hosea’s story is like. Hosea loved a woman who was unfaithful, who sold herself out again and again. Like Johnny, Gomer was missing something deep inside—she couldn’t recognize covenant love or remain faithful to it.

But Hosea’s love for Gomer wasn’t just about their marriage—it was a living parable. Gomer was Israel. She chased other gods. She broke her covenant. And Hosea’s stubborn, pursuing love mirrored God’s love for His people. A love that doesn’t quit. A love that goes after the runaway. A love that looks broken on the surface, but underneath is unshakable.

Hosea 2:2-23

“Plead with your mother, plead— for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband— that she put away her whoring from her face, and her adultery from between her breasts; 3 lest I strip her naked and make her as in the day she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and make her like a parched land,and kill her with thirst. 4 Upon her children also I will have no mercy, because they are children of whoredom. 5 For their mother has played the whore; she who conceived them has acted shamefully.For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’ 6 Therefore I will hedge up her way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her, so that she cannot find her paths. 7 She shall pursue her lovers but not overtake them, and she shall seek them but shall not find them. Then she shall say, ‘I will go and return to my first husband, for it was better for me then than now.’ 8 And she did not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the wine, and the oil, and who lavished on her silver and gold, which they used for Baal. 9 Therefore I will take back my grain in its time, and my wine in its season, and I will take away my wool and my flax, which were to cover her nakedness. 10 Now I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and no one shall rescue her out of my hand. 11 And I will put an end to all her mirth, her feasts, her new moons, her Sabbaths, and all her appointed feasts. 12 And I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees, of which she said, ‘These are my wages, which my lovers have given me.’ I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall devour them. 13 And I will punish her for the feast days of the Baals when she burned offerings to them and adorned herself with her ring and jewelry, and went after her lovers and forgot me, declares the Lord. 14 “Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her. 15 And there I will give her her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor[e] a door of hope. And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt. 16 “And in that day, declares the Lord, you will call me ‘My Husband,’ and no longer will you call me ‘My Baal.’  17 For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be remembered by name no more.  18 And I will make for them a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the creeping things of the ground. And I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land, and I will make you lie down in safety.  19 And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy.  20 I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the Lord. 21 “And in that day I will answer, declares the Lord, I will answer the heavens, and they shall answer the earth, 22 and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil, and they shall answer Jezreel, 23 and I will sow her for myself in the land. And I will have mercy on No Mercy, and I will say to Not My People, ‘You are my people’; and he shall say, ‘You are my God.’”

Pray

God Pursues Sinful People Hosea 2:2

The story of Israel’s covenant with God begins with this staggering truth: God pursues sinful people. That’s who He is. That’s what He does. From the very beginning—back in Genesis—when Adam and Eve fell in the garden, they didn’t go chasing after God. They hid. But God came looking for them. He pronounced judgment, yes—but He also clothed them, cared for them, and kept pursuing them.

And that’s the story of humanity ever since. We all live “east of Eden”—outside of paradise, in a broken world marked by sin, shame, and separation. But here’s the good news: God hasn’t changed. He’s still the God who seeks. He’s still the God who pursues.

That’s what we see in Hosea. God tells Hosea’s children in verse 2, “Plead with your mother, plead— for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband— that she put away her whoring from her face, and her adultery from between her breasts;

When you read through Hosea 2, there are moments where it’s tough to tell—are these words about Hosea’s wife, or are they about Israel? The truth is, it’s both. Verse 2 is one of those places. Hosea’s wife wasn’t living like a wife, and Israel wasn’t living like they were in covenant with God. Yet God’s heart wasn’t to cast them off forever—it was reconciliation. That’s why He says, “Rebuke your mother; rebuke her.”

That word “rebuke” carries the sense of bringing a case against someone—contending with them, exposing the truth, showing them the seriousness of their sin. God is saying, “Show Israel where she’s gone wrong. Hold up the mirror. Call her back.” And when He says, “she is not my wife and I am not her husband,” He’s not announcing an eternal divorce. He’s describing the reality of what sin had done to the relationship, while still holding out the invitation to return.

And here’s what blows me away: the One speaking here is the holy, sovereign God of the universe. He is perfectly pure—He does not know sin. Sin is an assault against His law, His love, His very character. He has every right to judge it with wrath. And yet, He still pursues sinners.

Let that sink in—nothing in us makes Him come after us. We don’t earn it, we don’t deserve it, and honestly, the only thing we’ve ever done perfectly is sin. But out of sheer grace, by His own will, God chooses to pursue us. That’s not just love—that’s infinite, divine love. A holy God chasing down unholy people.

The God we see in Hosea—the God who pursues sinful people—is the same God we meet in the New Testament. Jesus, who is God in the flesh, said it plainly: “I came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10). Think about that—He left the glories of heaven, humbled Himself, took on flesh, lived as a servant, and then laid down His life in the most agonizing way possible—dying on the cross for our sins. Why? To reconcile us back to God (Philippians 2:6–8).

Paul says it like this in Ephesians 2: “You were dead in your trespasses and sins … but God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love for us, made us alive with Christ. You are saved by grace!” (vv. 1–5).

That’s the heart of it. God pursues sinful people. He pursued Adam and Eve in the garden. He pursued Israel through Hosea. And He pursues us today through Jesus Christ. That’s grace—scandalous, undeserved, unstoppable grace.

God Promises Punishment for Unrepentant Sin Hosea 2:3–13

In Hosea 2, God lays it out plain—Israel’s sin is exposed, and His judgment is announced. And notice how He does it. He alternates back and forth: sin, then consequence. If His people would repent, He stood ready to forgive and restore. But as long as they stayed hard-hearted and unrepentant, His judgment was certain.

God doesn’t just say it—He paints it in vivid pictures. He says He’ll strip Israel bare, leave her like a wilderness (v. 3), block her path with a hedge of thorns so she can’t keep running after her lovers (v. 6), and take back the blessings they thought they earned—grain, wine, wool, flax (v. 9). He says the vines and fig trees, symbols of prosperity, will be abandoned until they turn into a wild forest (v. 12). It’s a sobering warning: if you will not repent, judgment will come.

And that’s not just Israel’s story—that’s God’s character. God is holy, and He hates sin. His judgment stretches from Genesis to Revelation. It began in the garden when Adam and Eve were cast out of Eden, and it will end in the book of Revelation with the godless being cast into the lake of fire.

Let’s be real—preaching about judgment isn’t popular today. People don’t want to hear it. But judgment is written all over the Bible. And here’s the thing: unless we grasp the depth of our sin and the weight of God’s holiness, we’ll never understand the height of His love displayed on the cross. You can’t appreciate grace until you’ve first reckoned with judgment.

Charles Spurrgeon once said “If you want to know what God thinks of sin, go and look at the bleeding Savior, dying on the cross. If you want to know how He regards sin, look where He gives His Son to die that the sinner might live. Never has God been so fully seen as in the Person of His Son, hanging there on the accursed tree.” —Charles Spurgeon, The Death of Christ

God has judged sin, and He will judge sin. But here’s the good news—the judgment we deserved was poured out on Jesus at the cross. He became our great and final sacrifice. He took the penalty we earned and placed it on Himself. That’s how God shows His love. At infinite cost to Himself, He bore our punishment so that His holiness would stand, and at the same time He could hold out salvation to broken, unworthy sinners who put their faith in Christ. That’s grace. That’s the gospel. Praise His name!

God Provides Reasons for His Punishment Hosea 2:5–17

When Hosea stood up to preach, Israel wasn’t interested in repentance. Their hearts were hard, and because of that, God’s judgment was on the way. But notice—God didn’t leave them in the dark about why judgment was coming. He spelled it out. He listed their sins. He gave them the reasons His wrath was about to fall.

That’s something you see all through Hosea, and really, all through the prophets. God never punishes blindly. He makes His charges clear. He says, “Here’s what you’ve done, here’s where you’ve turned away, here’s why judgment is coming.”

And here’s why that matters for us: the same sins that plagued Israel are alive and well today. The same temptations that drew their hearts away from God are the ones pulling on ours right now. If we’re going to understand Hosea—and more importantly, if we’re going to walk faithfully with God—we’ve got to pay attention to His indictments. Because His Word doesn’t just expose Israel’s sin back then—it exposes ours today.

If you boil down the sins God calls out in these verses, you can sum them up with just a few words. The first one is materialism. Look at verse 5: “Their mother is promiscuous; she conceived them and acted shamefully.” How so? The verse continues: “For she thought, ‘I will follow my lovers, the men who give me my food and water, my wool and flax, my oil and drink.’”

Why did she leave her husband? Not just lust, not just boredom—she left chasing after money, comfort, and stuff. She traded in covenant love for a bigger paycheck. Her bread, her water, her wool and flax—that became more valuable to her than faithfulness to her husband.

So God says in verses 6–7 that He’s going to discipline her. He’ll block her path with thorns, shut her in with a wall, cut off the prosperity she thought she could find on her own. And eventually, she says in verse 7: “I will go back to my former husband, for then it was better for me than now.”

But notice—she still doesn’t get it. She’s not going back because she suddenly loves her husband again or remembers her covenant vows. She’s going back because the deal didn’t work out. She basically says, “Well, I thought I’d profit more on my own, but honestly, I did better when I was with Hosea. Might as well go back.” She still thinks it’s about prosperity.

But here’s the point: prosperity isn’t the point. Faithfulness is. Covenant love is. That’s what God values. That’s what He expects from His people. Not chasing the next dollar, not running after the next quick fix—but steady, faithful, covenant love.

This is really the heart of Hosea. What Gomer was doing in her marriage is exactly what Israel was doing in their covenant with God. Gomer was unfaithful to Hosea, and Israel was unfaithful to Yahweh.

And why? For the same reason. Gomer chased her lovers because they promised her wool, flax, oil, and drink. And Israel chased after Baal for the same reason—because they thought Baal could give them prosperity. Baal was the so-called god of fertility. The Canaanites had convinced Israel that Yahweh was fine for the wilderness, fine for rescue stories and Red Sea moments—but when it came to harvest and crops and money in the bank, Yahweh was out of His depth. “If you really want prosperity, if you want security, you’ve got to go to Baal.”

And here’s where it stings—we do the same thing today. We may not bow down to a statue of Baal, but we bow to the gods of money, comfort, and security. We treat Jesus as if He’s good enough for salvation, good enough to forgive our sins, good enough for Sunday morning—but when it comes to paying the bills, getting the promotion, chasing the dream, we put our trust somewhere else. We chase after “lovers” like career, image, success, and financial stability, thinking those things will provide what only God can give. Just like Israel, we’re tempted to believe unfaithfulness pays better.

Israel bought the lie. They wanted prosperity more than faithfulness. They wanted blessing without obedience.

And God called them what they really were: they were whore.

Idolatry isn’t just bowing to a false god—it’s selling yourself out because you think unfaithfulness pays better. That’s what Israel had become—spiritual adulterers, chasing gain instead of staying true to the God who loved them.

The idolatry Israel was guilty of is still alive and well today. A lot of people serve God, not because they love Him, but because they love what they think He’ll give them. It’s not about worship—it’s about wages. That kind of thinking shrinks God down until He’s nothing more than a vending machine in the sky. Put in some prayer, push the right button, and out comes health, wealth, or whatever blessing you’ve been hoping for.

That’s not Christianity—that’s paganism. It’s the fundamental lie of the prosperity gospel. Faith and prayer aren’t tools to get us more stuff—they’re the means by which we get more of God. And yet, let’s be honest—some folks sitting in church every Sunday are living with that same vending machine mindset. “If I serve, if I give, if I attend—what’s God going to do for me?”

But here’s the truth: we don’t come to God for His gifts—we come to God because He is the gift. He is the treasure. The gospel is not that we get health or wealth—the gospel is that we get Him. A love relationship with the living God of the universe, the One who meets needs we don’t even have words for—that’s the prize. And to want something more than Him, or something in addition to Him, is the very essence of idolatry.

The second word that sums up Israel’s sin is idolatry. In Hosea 2, God mentions the worship of Baal four different times (vv. 8, 13, 16, 17). That’s not just a passing detail—it’s a flashing warning light. Idolatry is worshiping anything or anyone other than the one true God.

Verse 13 shows us what it looked like: Israel was setting aside feast days for Baal, burning incense, putting on special jewelry for pagan rituals. Verse 8 shows us why it cut so deep—because it was personal to God. He says: “It is I who gave her the grain, the new wine, and the fresh oil. I lavished silver and gold on her, which they used for Baal.” Do you hear the heartbreak? God blessed His people, and instead of thanking Him, they took His gifts and used them to worship another god.

That’s like a husband giving his wife a diamond ring, only for her to pawn it and use the money to go visit her lover. That’s betrayal. That’s what idolatry is to God.

And here’s the application: every single thing we have comes from Him. James 1:17 says, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.” Every material possession, every opportunity, every skill, every relationship, every breath—it’s all from Him. That’s why we pause to pray before a meal. It’s not empty ritual. It’s us training our hearts to recognize, “This came from God.”

Because if we don’t thank Him as the Giver, we’ll start to believe the lie that we earned it, that it came from luck, or that it came from someone else. And when we do that, we’re already on the road to idolatry.

God Has a Plan for Complete Restoration Hosea 2:14–23

The first part of Hosea 2 reads like a courtroom drama. God lays out Israel’s sins one after another. Verse 6 begins with “therefore,” and judgment is pronounced. Verse 7 and 8 repeat Israel’s guilt. Verse 9 begins with another “therefore,” and more punishment is announced. Verses 12 and 13 pile on even more sin. So when we reach verse 14 and see a third “therefore,” we know what’s coming—at least, we think we do. We’re braced for the hammer to fall. We’re ready for the verdict to be read: “Guilty. Final judgment. No more chances.”

But that’s not what happens. Instead, God shocks us. He says: “Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her.” (v. 14).

What? Just when the people deserve judgment most, God gives them grace. Just when we’re ready for the gavel to drop, God says, “Let’s start over. I love you.” He leads them back to the wilderness—the place where it all began, where Israel first learned to trust Him—and He says He will speak to her heart.

That’s the amazing heart of God. He doesn’t just expose our sin; He offers restoration. He doesn’t just prove we’re guilty; He promises a new beginning. He woos His people back, not with wrath, but with love.

In this future day of renewal, God says, “You will call me ‘my husband’ and no longer call me ‘my Baal’” (v. 16). Israel had so confused the truth that they were actually calling the living God by the name of a false god. They treated Yahweh like Baal—distant, transactional, a vending machine for blessings. But God says the day is coming when His people will know Him rightly—not as some false deity, but as a faithful husband in covenant love.

That renewal also means idolatry gets thrown out. In verse 17, God says, “I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth; they will no longer be remembered by their names.” In the Old Testament, to “remember” isn’t just to recall—it’s to call on, to invoke in worship. God is saying, “When I restore you, you won’t even have the language of idols anymore. Your lips will only belong to Me.”

And then God paints this breathtaking picture in verses 18–23. He extends His covenant beyond Israel to the entire created order. He promises peace instead of war. The land is healed, creation flourishes, and His people walk with Him in righteousness, justice, steadfast love, and mercy. It’s not just restoration for Israel—it’s the beginning of the restoration of all things.

And here’s where it points us forward: this promise in Hosea finds its ultimate fulfillment in Revelation 21–22. John says he saw “a new heaven and a new earth … and the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (Rev. 21:1–2). And then comes that voice from the throne: “Look, God’s dwelling is with humanity, and He will live with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God” (v. 3). No more tears, no more pain, no more curse. Just covenant love fully realized forever.

So when God says in Hosea, “I will persuade her, I will speak tenderly to her heart, I will restore her,” He’s pointing us to the great day when Jesus makes all things new. The day when we, the bride of Christ, will live in the eternal joy of a perfect covenant with our Bridegroom.

Hosea 2 doesn’t end with wrath—it ends with wedding vows. It ends with God saying, “I will allure her, I will speak tenderly to her, I will betroth her to Me forever in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and mercy.”

And that’s not just Israel’s story—that’s our story. Because through Jesus Christ, the Bridegroom has come for His bride, the church. On the cross, He paid the price to buy us back from our unfaithfulness. In His resurrection, He guaranteed that restoration is not just possible—it’s certain. And one day soon, the book of Revelation says the trumpet will sound, and the wedding supper of the Lamb will begin.

Imagine that day. No more idols pulling at our hearts. No more tears. No more brokenness. Just the Bride and the Bridegroom, together forever.

We will see His face. We will hear His voice. And we will know Him fully as we have been fully known.

So the question for us today is this: Will you keep running after your lovers, chasing things that can never fully and completely satisfy? Or will you come home to the One who speaks tenderly to your heart and says, “I love you. I will restore you. I will be your Husband forever”?

That’s the invitation. That’s the gospel. God’s covenant love for unfaithful people, sealed at the cross, and guaranteed in glory. Praise His name!