Messages from God

Hosea 3:1–5 NIV

The Lord said to me, “Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another man and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.” So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and about a homer and a lethek of barley. Then I told her, “You are to live with me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will behave the same way toward you.” For the Israelites will live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred stones, without ephod or household gods. Afterward the Israelites will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the Lord and to his blessings in the last days.

Hosea 3:1–5 NIV

The Lord said to me, “Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another man and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.” So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and about a homer and a lethek of barley. Then I told her, “You are to live with me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will behave the same way toward you.” For the Israelites will live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred stones, without ephod or household gods. Afterward the Israelites will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the Lord and to his blessings in the last days.

Introduction: Definition on Google...a prediction. "a bleak prophecy of war and ruin"synonyms:prediction, forecast, prognostication, prognosis, divination, augury; rareprognostic "her prophecy is coming true"

the faculty, function, or practice of prophesying. "the gift of prophecy"synonyms:foretelling the future, forecasting the future, fortune telling, crystal-gazing, prediction, second sight, clairvoyance, prognostication, divination, soothsaying;

We can often think of the O.T. Prophets this way.

12-Who Are The Prophets?

Telling Forth, with a little foretelling.

It should be pointed out that less than 2% of Old Testament prophecy is messianic. Less than 5% specifically concerns the New Covenant age. And less than 1% concern events still future to us. The prophets did indeed announce the future. But it was usually the immediate future of Israel, Judah, and the surrounding nations they announced – not our future. One of the keys to understanding the Prophets, therefore, is to recognize that for us to see their prophecies fulfilled, we must often look back on times that were still future to them, but for us are past. - Jim Ellis, Bible.org

To see the prophets as primarily predictors of future events is to miss their primary function, which was, in fact, to speak for God to their contemporaries.

-13- Bible Project Video - The Prophets

14-Prophets were Covenant Enforcement Mediators - We usually see them functioning in Ancient Israel as people called by God to speak to the Kings on behalf of God in order to make the Kings and the people accountable to God’s Covenant.

Their Relationship with Deuteronomistic History

Jewish Bible - Torah, Prophets, and Writings. The Biblical History books are included in the section called the Prophets.

They give us a peak of God’s messages of warning, and hope that he was trying to relay to the Nation of Israel as they are spiraling away from him.

Timeline of the Prophetic Books.

15-Literary Forms

Oracles - Most of the prophetic books are a collection of Oracles, often not arranged in a discernable order…

Lawsuit Oracle - An Oracle depicting Israel (or sometimes another nation) is on trial for covenant unfaithfulness (or simply injustice in the case of other nations).

Woe Oracle - Woe oracles contain, either explicitly or implicitly, three elements that uniquely characterize this form: an announcement of distress (the word “Woe,” for example), the reason for the distress, and a prediction of doom.

Promise or salvation Oracle - You will recognize this form whenever you see these elements: reference to the future, mention of radical change, and mention of blessing. , a typical promise oracle, contains these elements. The future is mentioned as “In that day” (verse 11). The radical change is described as the restoration and repair of “David's fallen tent” (verse 11), the exaltation of Israel over Edom (verse 12), and the return from the exile (verses 14, 15).

Poetry

Imagry - The language of poetry is imagery. It is designed to stir the emotions and create vivid mental pictures, not feed the intellect. Consequently, poetry uses devices such as simile, metaphor, personification, and hyperbole to create images that evoke a sensory experience in our imagination.

Parallelism - Almost all Hebrew Poetry uses Parallelism - When we speak of parallelism, we are referring to the Hebrew technique of presenting a thought using parallel literary members. It is the phenomenon whereby two or more successive poetic lines strengthen, reinforce, and develop each other’s thought. The most common types of parallelism are Synonymous, Antithetical, and Synthetic

Sign Acts - Jeremiah cutting a hole in his house and moving all of the contents out to show how people will be escaping their homes when Babylon takes them over. Or laying on his side and fasting for so many days to show that the siege of Jerusalem will starve the people. Or as here, God asks Hosea to re-marry his adulterous wife to relay the message that Israel has been like God’s adulterous wife in the covenant, but in his grace he is taking her back.

Application: We read the Prophets 1st to understand what they were trying to say to their original audience, not to find predictions for our future.

Application: We read the Prophets 1st to understand what they were trying to say to their original audience, not to find predictions for our future.

Let’s See how this all works out in our passage today.

16-The Prophets bring messages of accountability.

The Context of Hosea - Hosea wrote not too long before the fall of Israel to Assyria.

17-Chart of Deuteronomistic History

18-The Story of Hosea

The Sign Act.

The Adultery of Hosea’s Wife = the Idolatry of the Northern Nation of Israel.

The names of the kids = Equal God’s response to Israel

Jezreel - Violence by way of King Jehu - God will bring an end to Israel.

Lo-ruhamah - God will not pity Israel, but will pity Judah.

Lo-Ammi - Not God’s people.

Asking these Children to plead to Gomer that she return to Hosea - A Plea to Isreal to turn back to God. = The call to repentence (It is never too late.)

Gomer - Israel runs away and becomes indebted.

Ask if the congregation remembers the project from grade school that required carrying around an egg for a week. The egg represented a baby, and your job was to keep it from cracking (maybe bring one on stage to toss around). This egg was a symbol used to explain just how hard it is to care for a “real” baby; thus, after the project was over, you were to give a special thanks to your parents for all they’d done in your life. Use this illustration to explain the point of symbolism used in Hosea’s story. In the same manner, he had to marry a promiscuous adulteress, in order to see just how bad the relationship between Israel and the Lord was.

Application: God’s Accountability and hard truth is not to bang us over the head, but a pleading for us to repent before our own way of life leads to distruction.

But this could be an never-ending cycle with God and his people so...

19-The Prophets bring messages of hope.

In this passage Hosea is asked to go find his wife who left him, found all of her adulterers left her in debt, and take her back as his wife.

This symbolizes the history of the people of God - They will fall away completely into exile, but there is hope on the other side. There is resurrection, There is Grace, There is Hope.

God is Faithful and restores the relationship, and will take Israel Back.

So, again, what God asks Hosea is not universal, it is unique, both marriages. We are not to take the story of Israel as a perscription for marriage, or for marriage advice.

We are to read Hosea’s story to see How God has dealt, first with Hosea, and How he deals with us in Redemptive History.

The other thing to notice is we do not have a detailed, “Here is how it is going down.” but rather a generic non-specific hope for the future based on the Character of God. God will prevail in bringing Israel back to him under a Davidic King.

So the early Church and us look at Jesus, and look back to this Hope that the prophets were giving to Israel, and we see Jesus as the fulfillment of that Hope.

The Prophets message of Hope was more often than not pointing to Jesus, and that is the same for us. When the world looks bleak, our Hope is Jesus now, but also when he comes again to restore all things.

Application: No matter how bleak the world gets, God’s Redemption will prevail.

Conclusion:

Reference the Reformed Confessions: The Reformed Confessions are statements of faith written to clarify the Gospel at times when the Church was in crisis. Heidelberg Chatechism: Q&A 19 Belgic Confession: Articles 3-4