Hosea Part One
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Intro:
The books of Isaiah, Jeremiah Ezekiel and Daniel constitute a section of the OT commonly known as the Major Prophets.
As we move into Hosea, we begin the final section of the OT which is called the Minor Prophets..
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12 books beginning with Hosea - Ending with Malachi
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Major = length of book / Minor = books are shorter
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The book of Hosea has a theme. He is prophesying to the northern Kingdom of Israel.
-Their king, Jeroboam the second, was a good leader. He led the northern Kingdom of Israel into a place of military success and financial prosperity.
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Things were good. Business was booming. Poverty was at a minimum..
++ And yet, things weren’t really that good.
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THESE WERE A PEOPLE WHO, EVEN THOUGH THINGS WERE GOOD ON A SOCIAL LEVEL…things were really bad on a spiritual level.
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In the entire history of the northern 10 tribes of Isreal… after the split from Judah and Benjamin… there were no ‘good kings’.
-Every on of them, did evil in the sight of the Lord.
-And yes, Jeroboam was a good King… but he did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord.
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Hosea’s message, was to a prosperous people, imploring them to come back to the Lord… for if they didn’t… they would be conquered by the Assyrians and hauled off into captivity.
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The people of Israel were lost in their sin… and this book gives us a portrait of what that sin looks like and feels like to God. - But not only that, this book also shows us the depth of God’s love and His willingness to forgive and restore.
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Hosea was a reminder… that God was their strength… even as they believed that their economy was their strength… and their military might was their strength..
+He let them know, that their strength would fail them.. and God was going to bring them to their knees.
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Hosea was a plea, from God to His children, pleading with them to walk away from their sin, and come back to Him.
When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.”
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.
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The name Hosea means, ‘Salvation’… in the Hebrew, it is closely related to the name Joshua, which is pronounced Yeshua, which of course, in the Greek, is the name Jesus.
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The period of his prophetic ministry spanned about 70 years… A part of his ministry took place during the reign of the kings listed here..
He lists the kings of the southern kingdom who reigned in the south during his reign..
And then.. The one king in the north: Jeroboam the second… who was actually Hosea’s king, since he was part of the Northern Kingdom.. and his message was mostly to the people of the N. Kingdom
The time period of the Kings listed 753 BC - 722BC (the fall of the Northern Kingdom). The southern Kingdom stayed intact for another 150 years or so before they were taken into captivity by the Babylonians.
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NOW, YOU MIGHT BE WONDERING WHY ISRAEL IS BROKEN INTO TWO DIFFERENT NATIONS…
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When Solomon finished his reign, his son Rehoboam became the king… and the people were upset about the taxes that Solomon had established.
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In and 2 Chron 10, Rehoboam went to the older advisers and asked what he should do about the people… and they told him to give a soft answer. If he is gentle with them, they will be inclined to follow him and do what he declares..
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Then, when he went to the younger guys they gave the opposite answer. If Rehoboam wanted the respect of the people, he should respond by instilling fear in those who would dare complain.
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Rehoboam took the wrong advice.
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As a result, the 10 Northern tribes broke off leaving the tribes of Judah and Benjamin in the south carrying on the lineage of David.
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Jeroboam… the King of the Northern Kingdom immediately had a religious problem. He had a new nation of Jewish people, but he didn’t have Jerusalem.
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So… he decided to give his people a new religion… - In Bethel and in Dan he set up temples where they worshipped idols instead of worshipping Yahweh. - He established cow-idols, and told the people that these are the gods that delivered them from Egypt.
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This Northern Kingdom was very successful… but they were also in great rebellion against God.
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Now, you might be wondering… what is the appeal of worshipping idols?
Why were they tempted by it so much?
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Well… if a god was given the responsibility of being in control of the weather, and you were a farmer who was completely dependent upon the weather for your financial success… -You might be compelled to give the offerings that such a god would require.
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So, for the sake of financial success, you’d go to the temple and offer it up. -Most of these people weren’t worshipping that idol… they were worshipping their business. They were worshipping the profits. They were worshipping their money.
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Other gods… like Ashteroth, were responsible for fertility… so if you went to that temple, you paid your “offering” and in exchange, they would then have sex with one of the temple prostitutes. They weren’t worshipping Ashteroth… they were worshipping their own lust… they were worshipping sex.. and desire.
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You might ask… where is the idolatry today in America? Well, we don’t have a lot of graven images to bow down to… but people are still worshipping sex and money… and that is the very same kind of idolatry that Israel was falling to.
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Hosea was a contemporary to Amos who was also prophesying in the N. Kingdom. In the S. Kingdom, Micah and Isaiah were prophesying in the southern Kingdom… and Jeremiah would follow about a hundred years later.
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When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.”
What God is doing with Hosea is very similar to what he had Ezekiel do…
Ezekeil was told to lie on one side of his body for a long time… then the other…and at another time he was told to dig his way out of his house… and when he dug his way out, he was to run across a field..
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And the people looked on and thought that this man was crazy… and maybe he was..
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But Ezekiel was acting out… living out… a representation of events that would take place in the future.
-One day the siege of the Babylonians would be so great that they would have to dig their way out from under their foundations and run for their lives.
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God often had his prophets live out their sermons in a very personal way.
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And Hosea was going to be an extreme example of this. He was going to live out this sermon through is wife and through his children.
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Hosea was told to marry a prostitute.. not only that… he was told to have children that would be born to Hosea… but they would be children of other men.
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Obviously… this marriage was a representation of God’s relationship with Israel.
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In fact… The institution of marriage is intended to be, for the Christian, a picture of Christ’s relationship with the church.
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I was thinking about this concept the other other day… and it caused me to think more deeply about the origins, Biblically of the marriage institution.
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MARRIAGE ISN’T SIMPLY AN ILLUSTRATION THAT GOD USES so that we can better understand something about Him. It’s not an allegory and it’s not analogy.
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It is, in fact… an extension of something that God is.
God didn’t say, “OH YEA, MARRIAGE… THERE’S A GOOD THING THAT I CAN USE TO EXPLAIN MY LOVE FOR ISREAEL.” OR “OH YEA, MARRIAGE… THERE’S A THING I CAN USE TO EXPLAIN THE LOVE THAT JESUS HAS FOR THE CHURCH.”
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God simply had this love and this commitment to these people… and that love relationship is at the core of what our marriage relationship is supposed to be.
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Think about his for a moment… we humans are created in God’s image.. Adam and Eve got the pure stuff… we have all inherited the broken down, corrupted version… BUT ALL THE SAME… IT’S STILL THERE..
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We humans… from the beginning of time, have been getting married… Different cultures and different religions do it differently… but the groups that don’t marry are rare comparatively.
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Our compulsion to seek out an exclusive love relationship with the opposite sex, and commit to it for life… is part of God’s image being worked out in us.
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-Of course… as we all know… God’s image in humanity is broken because of sin.
-Therefore… this intention of God in us… doesn’t always translate over the way it is intended…
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But all the same - The Marriage Relationship: IS A GOD THING. Before it ever became a ‘human thing’… it was a part of who and what God is.
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THEREFORE… when God tells Hosea to marry a prostitute… He’s literally showing this prophet, what His relationship with Israel is like.
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Hosea is to marry a woman who is unfaithful… she is adulterous… AND THESE ARE TERMS THAT GOD USES TO DESCRIBE HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH ISRAEL TIME AND TIME AGAIN.
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The people of Israel are repeatedly accused of spiritual harlotry.
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Now, a harlot, in the most basic terms… is a person who can be bought. They have a price, and for that price, they will give themselves over to another person.
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FOR ISRAEL… THEY WERE GIVING THEMSELVES OVER TO IDOLATRY… AT THE EXPENSE OF REJECTING GOD.
++They were willing to forsake what was true… for the right price..
-SO BASICALLY… a harlot is someone who has a price.
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Spiritual harlotry, is when we have a price… and such a thing is completely inappropriate for the Christian. As a Christian, we have made all that is ours, Christ’s. We are no longer our own. We don’t possess anything that we can give away at a price… and if we have a price… THEN WE DON’T TRULY UNDERSTAND WHO JESUS IS… WHAT HE HAS DONE… AND WHAT OUR LIVES MEAN AS REDEEMED BELIEVERS…
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SPIRITUAL HARLOTRY… is when I, as a Christian, have a price… that is, if there was something that someone could offer me… something so great and wonderful… that I would be willing to walk away from my faith, to get this thing which is being offered..
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Be it a relationship… be it for financial gain… be it for fame… -If it is something I choose over my relationship with Jesus… then it’s determined… THAT I HAVE A PRICE… and that thing… is spiritual harlotry.
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If you’re married… imagine how you would feel… if your spouse continually and casually broke that vow.... -As you do that… you will sympathize with the Lord’s heart for Isreal.
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Let’s move on.... Notice what Hosea does in verse 2…
So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.
Hosea obeyed… he married her..
And the Lord said to him, “Call his name Jezreel, for in just a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. And on that day I will break the bow of Israel in the Valley of Jezreel.”
Hosea 1:4
God gives the name of the name of the first boy who was born:
JEZREEL = GOD WILL SCATTER.
God was going to scatter Israel. - These passages give us a few details… about Jehu who was sent to punish the house of Ahab in a place called Jezreel, but did so with much cruelty… -And God did not forget this cruelty
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Therefore, this child was named Jezreel… as a prophetic message… that Israel would be broken and defeated in the Valley of Jezreel by the Asyrians… and that is what happened.
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And then…
Hosea 1:6-
She conceived again and bore a daughter. And the Lord said to him, “Call her name No Mercy, for I will no more have mercy on the house of Israel, to forgive them at all. But I will have mercy on the house of Judah, and I will save them by the Lord their God. I will not save them by bow or by sword or by war or by horses or by horsemen.”
So the Lord says: First Child: God will Scatter / Second Child: No Mercy...
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He is not going to have mercy on the house of Israel… but the prophecy takes a moment to specify something about the house of Judah..
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They are not part of this… God would save them… but not by bow or sword or war…
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INTERESTINGLY… The Assyrians did come up against Judah during the reign of Hezekiah.. Sennacherib, the king of Assyria surrounded Jerusalem… and they were delivered… just as this prophecy explains...
2 Kings 19:32-
“Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria: He shall not come into this city or shoot an arrow there, or come before it with a shield or cast up a siege mound against it. By the way that he came, by the same he shall return, and he shall not come into this city, declares the Lord. For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.”
And that night the angel of the Lord went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. And when people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies. Then Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went home and lived at Nineveh.
So, God did just as He said..
Hosea
When she had weaned No Mercy, she conceived and bore a son. And the Lord said, “Call his name Not My People, for you are not my people, and I am not your God.”
So… every time Hosea calls his kids in for dinner… he is preaching to the people of Israel… every time he walks about in the city, and they see him with his prostitute wife… he is declaring a message to the people around him..
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His life became a prophetic message. His role as a father was prophetic message. His role as a husband was a prophetic message.
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IT WAS UNFORTUNATE FOR THIS MAN… that he had to endure such heartache to represent the heartache of God…
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but again… I’m reminded that we have a privilege and an opportunity with our relationships… as spouses.. as children.. as parents… to carry out our roles in these relationships… IN SUCH A WAY.. that the image, the message, and the heart of God is on display within them.
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HOSEA’S LAST CHILD: Not My People… was most likely a child fathered by another man. We see as the book progresses… that Gomer doesn’t turn from her adulterous ways once she marries a prophet.
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She continues to be unfaithful… and it’s fairly certain… that when Hosea calls this child, “Not my people”… he could also say… “Not my son”.
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MOVING ON, INTO VERSE TEN… THERE IS A LIGHT OF HOPE…
Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. And in the place where it was said to them, “You are not my people,” it shall be said to them, “Children of the living God.”
I love that this verse begins with the word ‘Yet’. God is not silent about the mercy that is to come. He speaks of the hope… the future… of that which is yet to come..
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THINGS ARE BAD NOW… but all is not lost.
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And the children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together, and they shall appoint for themselves one head. And they shall go up from the land, for great shall be the day of Jezreel.
Say to your brothers, “You are my people,” and to your sisters, “You have received mercy.”
All the names of Hosea’s children will be reversed..
All the names of Hosea’s children will be reversed..
-The scattered will be gathered...
-Mercy will be given to them..
-And they will be restored again, and called His people.
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In a small way, a part of this has taken place… as one nation, they have returned to the land… but they haven’t returned to the Lord… - We still look forward to the completion of this prophecy.
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Hosea 2.1
Say to your brothers, “You are my people,” and to your sisters, “You have received mercy.”
NOW…
In the first chapter… you get a picture of the sin of the harlotry of Gomer..
In chapter two… you get a picture of the life that her sin led her into. A person doesn’t simply rebel and then level out… -No, sin generally multiplies and compounds upon itself…
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The toll that sin takes upon the human life is great… -The consequences are great… and God is going to show Isreal these things concerning their nation.
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Hosea 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;
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.
God warns Israel concerning her harlotry… and then, in verse two… shows Israel what the consequences of those warned actions will be.
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Sin does not satisfy… It promises comfort and fulfilment… but the real outcome… is nakedness… weakness… helplessness… untamed violence… and dryness…
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Hosea 2:4-
Upon her children also I will have no mercy,
because they are children of whoredom.
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.’
The Lord speaks to Isreal… speaking to the affect that harlotry will have upon their children…
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THEY NEEDED TO KNOW… THAT OTHERS WILL SUFFER BECAUSE OF THEIR SIN. It’s a sad thing to see the sins of parents played out with disregard to how it will affect their children. - But in today’s world… such is common.
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The deception of sin… is that it thinks it can only get what it wants and needs outside of God’s will. - Look at vs. 5… I will go after my lovers… who give me my bread and my water… my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.
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I can’t give up the things I have out here in the world by giving my life to Jesus. - This is the lie that people tell themselves.
Hosea 2:6-
Therefore I will hedge up her way with thorns,
and I will build a wall against her,
so that she cannot find her paths.
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.’
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.
The Lord is saying that He is going to make her unsuccessful in her chasing after sin…
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This is the graciousness of God. -We might turn away from Him now and then… and because He loves us… because of His grace… He leads us into failure concerning our sinful pursuits.
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WHEN OUR SIN FAILS US… That is our opportunity to recognize God’s love and grace in our life. He wants us to know how poor of an imitation this world is compared to the grace and love that we experienced in Him.
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If the path before us is hedged in by thorns… it is the Lord being gracious… For if we feel compelled to turn to the left or the right… IT’S GOING TO HURT.
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Hosea 2:8
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.
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.
Now I will uncover her lewdness
in the sight of her lovers,
and no one shall rescue her out of my hand.
And I will put an end to all her mirth,
her feasts, her new moons, her Sabbaths,
and all her appointed feasts.
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.
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.
God says, “I gave them all this stuff… and they gave it to their idols.” They didn’t recognize me as their provider… they didn’t recognize me as creator… and they took the stuff that I made and gave… and they gave it to the idols.
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THE PEOPLE OF N. ISRAEL WERE FULLY ENGAGED IN IDOLATRY.... And God made it clear… that He was going to bring an end to them. - They were going to see that these idols are not providing anything… - They will see, that it was God who was their provider.
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Vs. 13 shows us the purpose of all this judgement… they had forgotten the Lord… and He wanted them to come to the place where they would remember Him.
Hosea 2:14-
“Therefore, behold, I will allure her,
and bring her into the wilderness,
and speak tenderly to her.
And there I will give her her vineyards
and make the Valley of Achor 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.
“And in that day, declares the Lord, you will call me ‘My Husband,’ and no longer will you call me ‘My Baal.’ For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be remembered by name no more. 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. 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. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the Lord.
“And in that day I will answer, declares the Lord,
I will answer the heavens,
and they shall answer the earth,
and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil,
and they shall answer Jezreel,
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.’ ”
There’s a day coming in the future… when there will be a return of hope and joy…
There’s a day coming… when God won’t be called their master, in the way that the idols were their master.. or the name of their false gods… but they will experience the Husband relationship again.
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All is not lost… and we are still waiting with Israel for this upcoming thousand year reign of Jesus… which is what much of this speaks of .
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BASICALLY… THE DAY IS COMING… WHEN THE CHARACTERISTICS OF GOD WILL BE VALUED… and no one will be lured away from the character of God.
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I love vs. 23…
I will have mercy on No Mercy
I will say to Not My People.. You are my people
and he shall say, “You are my God.”
++God restores all their names.
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