Immanuel Sermon Audio
Hosea (28:66)
of understand anything the reality of our sinful condition apart from God's grace. Which is why we read the story out of the book that I started off with, the book Killjoys, and we read this story of adultery, which is really not made up by the author, but just lifted right out of the book of Hosea pretty much. And we read that to get a sense of our own sinfulness in who we are before God. And at the end of that story, there's the little unflattering line where he says we're Hannah in that story. Or if you're looking at the book of Hosea, you will end up saying we're Gomer. We're the ones who have rebelled against God and betrayed Him. And if you don't understand that, and if you don't get that, and you don't feel the weight of that, then grace is really not all that amazing at all. Grace becomes just sort of what God owes all people for some strange reason. And the reason people take grace lightly is that they don't have an understanding of sin. And so I think the book of Hosea is helpful in helping us plan our feet on both of those things, firmly understanding what our sin looks like before God and how God feels about our sin and what God thinks about our sin, and then also understanding is grace. So in the book of Hosea, we're starting a new section of books in our study here in the Old Testament, and it's the minor prophets. And there's 12 of them, and there they are. And we're looking tonight at Hosea, the first one, and one of the longer ones, the only minor prophet that is sort of equal length as Hosea is Zephaniah or Zechariah. I think Zechariah has 14 chapters. Let's just look that up real quick. Most of these guys are shorter. Zephaniah is shorter. Zechariah has 14 chapters. So those two are a little bit lengthy. The rest of these guys are pretty short. And when you think about the minor prophets, okay, as books, these guys have two strikes against them. Strike one, you're in the Old Testament. So a lot of us think Old Testament and not so much for us anymore. Strike two is in your name, you're called minor, not the best name to call these sections of books, because that has a negative connotation to us. This is like me calling you up on the phone and saying, "Hey, you wanna go see the Texas Rangers play?" You say, "Hey, I'd love to go see the Texas Rangers play." They're not very good this year, but major league team. That's exciting. Or what if I say, "Hey, why don't you come over "and there's a minor league baseball game on TV?" Let's watch it, minor league. I don't think I wanna watch the minor leagues. That's not as important, it's minor. And when we hear minor prophets, the temptation for us is to think, "Yeah, these are like the guys that aren't as important "as everybody else." These books are really important. And the neat thing about these books is, these guys, Jose, Joel, Amos Obadiah, Jonah, Mike, Anaima, Habakkak, Zephaniah, Hagia, Zechariah, Malachi, these guys were preachers. And so when you read the book, they have some really great things to say and some things that hit you between the eyes and some things that are very encouraging and uplifting. So these books are important. We're just gonna talk about this tonight since we're just starting this section. I color coded them here for you. If you want to group these guys together in which minor prophets go together, you could do it like this. And you could say, Jose and Amos and Jonah and Micah are the minor prophets that preached and their ministries took place before the Northern Kingdom of Israel went into exile in about 722. So these guys come first, okay? Jose, Amos, Jonah, and Micah. And then come Joel and Obadiah. And these guys, excuse me, next comes Nahum. See, I get confused. Nahum, Habakkak, Zephaniah are next. Nahum, Habakkak, Zephaniah. These guys come after the Northern Kingdom goes into exile and before Jerusalem gets sent into exile. And so when you look at Nahum, Habakkak, and Zephaniah, you can put out in parentheses out beside those guys, Jeremiah. They were kind of around the same time Jeremiah was. They're kind of around Jerusalem. Babylon's getting ready to come and haul Judah, the Southern Kingdom into exile. So all those guys are together. Then comes Joel and Obadiah. And these guys were preachers or prophets right after the Southern Kingdom of Judah gets sent into exile. And then the last three guys are called post-exilic prophets, Hagai, Zechariah, Malachi. These are the guys who were prophets. After everyone had gone into exile and they're getting ready to come back. So if you're confused by that and bored by that, that's fine, but there's a little history on how you break these guys down. I think I have a map just to make this clear. If you're not familiar with this, you've never seen something like this. That is Israel. And when they split the kingdom in half, that's sort of what the two kingdoms look like. Israel in the North and Judah in the South. And Jerusalem was the capital of Judah. And you can see Samaria right there above Jerusalem. Samaria was the capital city of the Northern Kingdom. And when they split, the biggest tribe up in the North was Ephraim. They had the biggest territory. And so sometimes when you're reading through Hosea, Hosea's job was to preach up in the North. Sometimes he talks about Israel. Sometimes he talks about Samaria. And sometimes he talks about Ephraim. And you can get kind of confused thinking, who are you talking to? He's talking to the exact same group of people through the whole book. Those are all ways of talking about the Northern Kingdom of Israel. So it'd be like somebody preaching, the United States needs to change this. Or Washington DC needs to change this. When somebody talks about Washington, they're not usually just talking about the District of Columbia. They're talking about Washington representing the rest of the country. And so that's what Hosea is talking about. He's a prophet, a preacher in the Northern Kingdom of Israel before Assyria comes and conquers them. And they're getting ready to go into exile, but that's not happened yet. He's in the Northern Kingdom and he's preaching to the people who live there in Israel. So sometimes he calls it Samaria. Sometimes he calls it Ephraim. Here's where it falls in the history of the nation. Conquest under Joshua, period of the judges, monarchy under Saul, Solomon, then David, then Rayabom and Jerabom split the kingdom. And then there's rebellion. And then they come back after the exile. There's a return. And so Hosea falls during this period of rebellion. Hold your spot in Hosea. And I want you to go back and look at 2 Kings 14. You kind of need to know how things were going when Hosea was around. When Hosea was a prophet, the king of Israel was Jerabom the second. Not the first Jerabom who split Israel in half, but a later guy named after him. Jerabom the second. So look at 2 Kings 14 beginning in verse 23. In the 15th year of Amaziah, the son of Joash king of Judah. Jerabom the son of Joash king of Israel began to reign in Samaria. That's the capital city. And he reigned 41 years. So that's important, okay? The king of Israel when Hosea is preaching in Israel was king for 41 years. That's a long time to be king. Some of these guys made it months. Some of these guys made it just a handful of years. Jerabom the second lasted four decades. That's a long, long time. So he's king for 41 years. And this is important. He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. He did not depart from all the sins of Jerabom, the son of Nabat. That's the first Jerabom in which he made Israel to sin. Now, verse 25 is kind of funny. Look at this. He restored the border of Israel from Lebo Hamath as far as the sea of Arabah. According to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, which he spoke by his servant Jonah, you ever heard of him? This is your guy right here. We'll get to Jonah. God spoke this word by Jonah, his servant, the son of Amatai, the prophet who was from Gath Heffer. For the Lord saw that the affliction of Israel was very bitter, for there was none left, bond or free, and there was none to help Israel. But the Lord had not said that he would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven. So he saved him by the hand of Jerabom, the son of Joash. That's interesting, because it says, Jerabom was a jerk. He did not love God. But God looked down on the people of Israel and he saw that they were suffering. And so in spite of Jerabom being wicked, God sent Jonah, and this fits in with the Book of Jonah. You've got to know this to understand Jonah. When we get there, we'll come back to this. God sent Jonah, the prophet, to the wicked king. And Jonah told him, hey, you need to go out and fight and take this land back that used to be ours. God's going to help you do it. Even though you're wicked, God's going to use you to restore this border. And he went out and he did it. And when you read about Jerabom, not only was this sort of a military advance and a political advance, but it was an economic boom in Israel. Everything was going good during the reign of Jerabom. Other than the fact that nobody loved God, everything was going pretty good. They're getting their old land back. The economy is good. Everybody feels good about themselves, including Jonah, who says, yeah, you're wicked, but God's using you and I love Israel and I want to see Israel prosper. And so all of these things are going on. And here comes Hosea into the midst of that. And when you understand how good everything was going in Israel under Jerabom, Hosea's message, you understand, did not sit well with people. So here's the outline of the book. Chapter one, two, and three, all about Hosea's personal story. And we're going to talk about that. First three chapters are about Hosea, the man, and his wife and his family. Chapter four to 14 are warnings of judgment and then promises of hope. And he kind of goes back and forth. Warning about judgment, but also promising hope. So you understand when Hosea goes around Israel and he's talking to the people and he's talking to Jerabom and everything's going great in the country. They're not serving the Lord, but economically, they're doing well militarily, they're doing well. Politically, they're doing well, they're growing the kingdom, they're restoring boundaries, all these things. And then Hosea shows up, he's kind of like the Debbie Downer in the group, right? Everybody just kind of wants to say, "Hey man, just be quiet." Everything's going good, relax, you're so uptight. God seems to be blessing the country. It can't be that bad, can it? Everything seems to just sort of be on the uptick and Hosea comes and he warns the people and he tells them things are not good at all. But he also does give him hope, and so we're going to talk about that. Who was Hosea? Few things you need to know about Hosea. His name means the Lord saves. And if that's not on your outline, I don't think, but if you write it down, that's capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D, the Lord, Yahweh saves. So this is kind of like a variation of the name Joshua, or a variation of the name Jesus. All sort of have the same word parts in there and it means the Lord saves. He was a prophet, this is just straight out of chapter one verse one, during Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah in Judah, and then during Jeroboam the second in Israel. Uzziah and Hezekiah were good kings, the other two guys were not so good kings, and then you know Jeroboam, we just read, did what was evil on the side of the Lord. Personally, he married Gomer, God told him to do this. He married a woman named Gomer, who was a prostitute, who then later cheated on him and abandoned him. And you can read that in Hosea one verse one to nine. Some people, I was studying up this week. Some people look at the book of Hosea and they look at this first chapter where it sounds like God says to the prophet, "Go marry a prostitute." And some people read that and say, "I don't think God would tell somebody to do that." That doesn't seem like something that God would want one of his prophets to do. And so some people would disagree with that second bullet point, and some people say, "You know what? "He just married a woman who did not have "the highest integrity, and after they were married "for a while, she sort of left him "and did some crazy things." And they try to kind of play games with the first couple chapters, but you can read it for yourself, chapter one, two, and three. It just sounds like God says to him, "Go marry a woman who's immoral, a prostitute, "and have kids with her." That's what it sounds like, if you just take it at face value. Here's what you need to understand in these first three chapters, okay? Hosea one, two, and three, not long chapters. God is giving the people a visual, a picture of what their relationship with him is supposed to be, and then what they have made it to be, okay? He's giving them in the life of Hosea, and poor Hosea, he just kind of gets wrapped up in this. You know, he didn't ask for this, volunteer for this necessarily, God just said, here's what you're gonna do. But he's saying, you and me, we're supposed to be like husband and wife, me and you, God and Israel, we're supposed to be married. And what you have turned this into is just blatant, ugly adultery. This is what it was supposed to be, and this is what you've turned it into, okay? Here's something really important when you think about this. Do not have in your mind, do not have in your mind that God looks down on Israel and he sees how wicked they are, and he says, hmm, how could I get the point across to them about how mad I am? What could I compare this to? And he's sort of scratching his head, and he says, I guess marriage could kind of explain to them how bad this situation is. That's not what happened. Here's what happened when you read Old Testament, New Testament, and you put all of this together in what the Bible teaches about marriage. In the very beginning, this is straight out of what Paul says about marriage and the church and Jesus, okay? In the very beginning, God says, before he does anything, okay, before Genesis 1-1, he says, someday these people that I'm gonna make are gonna turn away from me. He knows that from the beginning. There's no question in his mind. And he says from the beginning, I'm going to build something into their existence that then gives them a picture of how wicked that is. And he makes marriage, Paul talks about this in the New Testament, so that when we turn against him, there's something that he can then say, this is what you've done. So it's not like he gets caught off guard and then he's sort of scratching his head and he's saying, oh, I don't know. I guess I could compare it to this. From the beginning, he's saying, I'm putting this together, right? Husband and wife, marriage, all of this. And Paul says, this refers to Christ and the church, and there's this picture there, and it's true here as well. And so what God is saying is, your turning away from me is like a wicked woman brought into a marriage relationship with a faithful husband who then abandons all of that and her family, and it's ugly. It's painful, it's hurtful. You can jot down a couple of scriptures if you want to. You can jot down Jeremiah three, six to 10, and you can jot down Ezekiel 16, one to 43. Okay, these are major prophet guys, and these guys describe the adultery of the people. Yeah, I'll give them to you again, Jeremiah three, six to 10, Jeremiah three, six to 10, and then Ezekiel 16, one to 43, pretty much the whole chapter of Ezekiel 16. These are the chapters, if you were here a couple of weeks ago, where Jeremiah and Ezekiel are very graphic about the adultery of God's people. So graphic that we didn't even read all of it, because it just will make you blush. And they do that intentionally, sort of the shock value of how ugly adultery is and the horror of it, and you can go back and read them, and they're just graphic, and you read that and you say, oh my goodness, that's what idolatry, that's what turning away from the Lord, that's how he feels about it, how a husband would feel if his wife did that or a wife would feel if her husband did that. So they give you sort of the shock value. And then you turn to Hosea, and Hosea doesn't emphasize so much the shock value, he emphasizes the personal relationship that's been broken. Jeremiah and Ezekiel, they're graphic, and you don't want to read them with your five-year-old for evening devotion. But then you come to Hosea and you read it, and it's not so much just shockingly graphic, as it's just heartbreaking to read it. And you read this story about Hosea and Gomer, and you just say, oh man, how painful would that be? How hurtful would that be? It'd be like the story that we read earlier out of the book, right? You read that and your heart just breaks for that situation. And that's what you get in the book of Hosea, a picture of our rebellion against God. Not so much the shocking nature of it, Jeremiah and Ezekiel give us, but the personal relational aspect of it that Hosea brings out. So this is not complicated. What is the message of Hosea? He talks about Israel's sin, and then he talks about Israel's hope. So I'm just gonna give you these on Israel's sin, and have your Bible handy, 'cause we're just gonna go through and read some of them. So first of all, in describing Israel's sin, surprise, surprise, he says Israel has committed adultery. Israel has committed adultery. Look at Hosea 4, beginning in verse 12. And you're gonna read the first three chapters. We've talked about Hosea's story. He marries this woman, they have children. She has a shady past, then she abandons him and goes back to her shady past, and he continues to love her and hold out hope for her. Look at Hosea 4, beginning in verse 12. "As my people inquire of a piece of wood, "and their walking staff gives them oracles, "for a spirit of hoardom has led them astray, "and they have left their God to play the whore. "They sacrifice on the tops of the mountains "and burn offerings on the hills "under oak, poplar, and terribent, "because their shade is good. "Therefore, your daughters play the whore, "and your brides commit adultery. "I will not punish your daughters "when they play the whore, "nor your brides when they commit adultery, "for the men themselves go aside "with prostitutes and sacrifice with cult prostitutes, "and a people without understanding "shall come to ruin. "Though you play the whore, O Israel, "let not Judah become guilty, "and are not into Gilgal, nor go up to Beth Avon, "and swear not as the Lord lives. "Like a stubborn heifer, Israel is stubborn. "Can the Lord now feed them like a lamb and broad pasture?" A frame, remember, that's the biggest tribe up in the Northern Kingdom, so he's talking to the same people. A frame is joined to idols, leave them alone. When their drink is gone, they give themselves to whoring, and their rulers dearly love shame. A wind has wrapped them in its wings, and they shall be ashamed because of their sacrifices. 'Kay, there's some stuff in there that's sort of hard to wrap your mind around and figure out exactly what Jose is talking about, but the main point is pretty clear. He's talking about his people, and he says they've just committed adultery against me. Not only have they committed adultery against me, but they have gone back and they have acted like, to use his word, they've acted like a whore. So that's the first thing you need to know about Israel's sin. Here's the second thing. Israel has wicked leaders, wicked leaders. We just read, Hosea 4.18 says that their rulers dearly love shame, and then look at Hosea chapter nine, verse 15. Down at the end of that verse, the very last phrase in that verse says, "All their princes are rebels." Says their evil, that God has hatred toward them because of their sin, their deeds are wicked, he will drive them out of his house, he will love them no more, all of their princes are rebels, so they have wicked leaders, and that's filtered down to the people. Number three, they have forgotten the Lord. They've forgotten him. [ Pause ] Hosea 4.1, here the word of the Lord, O children of Israel, the Lord has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land. There is no faithfulness or steadfast love in no knowledge of God in the land. Nobody knows him. Look at chapter eight, verse 14. Says Israel has forgotten his maker and built palaces, and Judah has multiplied fortified cities, so I'll send a fire upon the cities and it shall devour strongholds. Israel has forgotten his maker, so they've forgotten God. Number four, they've embraced idolatry, okay? Just describing the sin that God has frustrated with here. He compares it to adultery, they have wicked leaders, they've forgotten the Lord, and they've embraced idolatry. Hosea 2, verse 17, says I will remove the names of the bales from her mouth, and they shall be remembered by name no more. So God is saying that they are committed to Baal, worshiping Baal. Chapter eight, verse four, they made kings, but not through me, they set up princes, but I knew it not, with their silver and gold, they made idols for their own destruction. I've spurned your calf, O Samaria, my anger burns against them. How long will they be incapable of innocence? For it is from Israel, a craftsman made it. It is not God. The calf of Samaria shall be broken into pieces. If you go back and you look at when Solomon died and Rehoboam and Jeroboam split the kingdom, the bad part about it for the northern kingdom is that the temple was in Jerusalem, so they didn't have a temple in their kingdom, and so they make Samaria the capital, and one of the things that they do right off the bat is they make their own gods, and they make these calf idols, and God says you've done that, you built it, you made it from your hands, and you worship it. It's not God, but that's what you're worshiping, that's what you're following after. Chapter 10, verse five, the inhabitants of Samaria tremble for the calf, referring to the same thing, the calf of Beth Avon. It's people mourn for it, and so do its idolatrous priests, those who rejoiced over it and over its glory for it has departed from them. The thing itself shall be carried to Assyria as tribute to the great king. A frame shall be put to shame, and Israel shall be ashamed of his idol. Again, you understand, this message did not make Hosea very popular. In the heyday of Israel, when this king is doing great things and expanding the kingdom, and everyone's making money, and everyone's prospering, he comes and he says, look, the Assyrians are gonna come, and they're gonna haul your God out, and you're gonna mourn for it. You're gonna be sad, you're gonna be so upset, because they're just gonna haul it off. Not gonna be able to save you, it's just gonna be taken off to Assyria as tribute to the great king. Look at chapter 13, and there's a lot of verses we're skipping over, you realize that, but Hosea 13, verse one and two. When a frame spoke, there was trembling, he was exalted in Israel, but he incurred guilt through bail, and he died, and now they sin more and more, and they make for themselves, metal images, idols, skillfully made of silver, all of them the work of craftsmen. It is said of them, those who offer human, sacrifice, kiss, kiss, calves. Say, what does that mean? Those who offer human, sacrifice, kiss, calves. Some sort of liturgical, sort of worshipful phrase that they use in offering human sacrifice to their calf idols. He's saying, this is what you've sunk to, your idolaters, you make these gods out of metal and you worship them. Next, here's one of our seven deadly sins that shows up, Israel has become proud, and several times God points this out. To the people that he's angry with their pride. Hosea 5.5 says, the pride of Israel testifies to his face. Israel in a frame shall stumble in his guilt. Look at chapter seven, verse 10. The pride of Israel testifies to his face, yet they don't return to the Lord their God, nor seek him for all of this. They're too proud. Look at chapter 10, verse 13. You have plowed iniquity, you have reaped in justice, you have eaten the fruit of lies. Why? Because you've trusted in your own way, and you trusted in the multitude of your warriors, right? Booker Proverbs says, there's a way that seems right to a man, but it leads to death. And he's saying, look, you trusted in yourself. You trusted in your army and all of that has led to your destruction, your proud. Chapter 13, verse six. Look at, go back up to verse four, start in verse four. I am the Lord your God from the land of Egypt. You know no God but me, and beside me there is no savior. It was I who knew you in the wilderness, in the land of drought. But when they had grazed, they became full, they were filled, and their heart was lifted up, and they forgot me. I'm the one that brought you out of Egypt. I'm the one that provided for you in the wilderness, and then I'm the one that brought you into the land, and you got into the land, and you ate, and you drank, and you were full, and then you sat back, and you thought, we don't need him anymore. We can take care of ourselves now. You forgot me. There's a great prayer in the book of Proverbs towards the end of the book, prayed by a man named Ager, and Ager prays, give me what is needful for me. Don't make me rich, and don't make me poor, because if I'm poor, I might steal, and that would not honor you. But if I'm rich, I might have too much, and I might say to myself, who is God? I have everything I need. And he says, that's what happened to you. I blessed you, and then you turned around, and took pride in what I gave to you. So Israel is proud. Lastly, Israel has sinned in abundance. This is just my catch-all. They've sinned in abundance. Chapter four, verse two. Swearing, lying, murder, stealing, adultery, breaking bounds in bloodshed, following bloodshed. That's a pretty good list. Chapter six, verse eight. Says, Gilead is a city of evildoers, tracked with blood. Chapter seven, verse one. When I would heal Israel, the iniquity of a frame is revealed in the evil deeds of Samaria, for they deal falsely. The thief breaks in, and the bandits raid outside, but they do not consider that I remember all of their evil. They sinned in abundance. Chapter 12, verse one. The frame feeds on the wind and pursues the east wind all day long. They multiply falsehood and violence. They make a covenant with Assyria, and oil is carried to Egypt. So Israel has sinned in abundance. You go through that list, and I read all of those verses with you, and you listen to that, okay? And then you go back and you remember the story of Jose and his wife, Gomer, and you think about what Gomer's done. And you gotta understand, before you go on to anything else, that's Israel, that's their sin, and you gotta understand, that's us. That's how God views our sin. That's how he feels about it. And you can look at that list, and you can say, oh, you know, the bloodshed thing, I don't know that I've ever been guilty of that, and this one that, I don't know. That's how God feels about our sin. It's described in very personal terms with the story of Jose and Gomer, and then it's spelled out in detail throughout the rest of the book. So, Jose, his message, first of all, he's confronting Israel in their sin, and then he's giving them hope. So look at the hope, okay? First thing that gives Israel hope is that they need to repent. Israel must repent. And we'll look at these verses. Jose is six, one to three. These verses give you different pictures of what it would look like for Israel to repent. Come, let us return to the Lord for he has torn us that he may heal us. He has struck us down, and he will bind us up. After two days, he'll revive us. On the third day, he'll raise us up that we may live before him. Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord. He's going out as sure as the dawn. He will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth. In other words, this picture of repentance says we need to return to the Lord. Return to the Lord. Let us press on to know him. And there's hope in this passage. If we do that, he'll welcome us back. His blessing will rest on us again. We need to repent, we need to return. Chapter 10, verse 12. So for yourselves, righteousness, reap steadfast love, break up your fallow ground for it is time to seek the Lord that he may come and reign righteousness upon you. So we just listed all these sins they've committed. And he's saying, let's think about righteousness and love, seek the Lord. And again, there's hope that righteousness from God that reign will fall down upon you. Look at chapter 12, verse six. This is a great picture of repentance. So you, by the help of your God, return, hold fast to love and justice and wait continually for your God. That's a good reminder to say, by the way, you can't do this on your own. You can only repent with God's help. If he doesn't help you to do it, it's never gonna happen. So you do this with God's help. Chapter 14, into the book. Here's this word again, return. Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity. Take with you words and return to the Lord, say to him, take away all iniquity except what is good and we will pay with bulls the vow of our lips. Assyria will not save us. We will not ride on horses and we will say no more our God to the work of our hands in you, the orphan finds mercy. Lots of great thoughts about repentance there, returning to God, confessing your sin in verse one, stumbling in iniquity, returning to the Lord, verse two, verse two, asking God to take away our iniquity, asking God to accept our worship, the bulls and the vows, saying to God that Assyria, these other people we've trusted in, they can't save us admitting that, and saying to God, we're not gonna take credit for what you've done and say that it was the work of our hands. We're gonna stop doing that. We're gonna acknowledge you as God and acknowledge that our blessings come from you. And so there's a picture here again of repentance. Very last verse, whoever is wise, let him understand these things, whoever is discerning, let him know them, the ways of the Lord are right and the upright walk in them, transgressors stumble in them, okay? Picture again of repentance, walking in the ways of the Lord. So Jose is telling them all through the book, repent, turn, return, go back, trust in the Lord, confess your sins, this is what you need to do. Bad news for Josea, nobody really listened. They didn't do it, okay? Leads to the second thing that Josea preached that Israel would be destroyed. And you may look at that and you may say, Israel's hope that Israel will be destroyed. How does that fit into the idea of hope? This fits into the idea of hope when you think about what the book of Hebrew says about God's discipline and what does Hebrew say about God's discipline? God disciplines his children because he loves them. He doesn't just let them walk in sin forever. Eventually he gets their attention and he does it because he loves them. If you're a parent, I'm gonna say if you're a good parent, a decent parent, you know this. You say, I don't discipline my kids to just crush them. I don't discipline my kids to be mean to them. I discipline them because I care about them. And I don't wanna see them just walk down this path of sin and transgression. So I discipline them to try to bring an end to that. And so that gives Israel hope that God does love his people. And eventually he says, I'm not gonna let you just follow in the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nabat forever. I love you too much as a people to let you just walk stubbornly after these gods of metal. And so he says that they're gonna be destroyed. They're gonna go into exile. So look at chapter nine, verse three. We'll read these quickly. They will not remain in the land of the Lord. A frame shall return to Egypt and they shall eat unclean food in Assyria. Again, here's Hosea talking to people in the heyday of the nation. And he says, you're gone. You're not staying here. You will not stay in God's land. He's gonna kick you out. Some of you are gonna go back to Egypt with your tail between your legs, back where you came from. Some of you are gonna get taken into exile in Assyria. You're gonna eat unclean food there. God's gonna discipline you. Look at chapter 10, verse six. The thing itself, talking about the calf idols we read will be carried to Assyria. We read that verse just a minute ago. Chapter 11, verse five. Says they will not return to the land of Egypt, but to, but Assyria shall be their king because they have refused to listen to me. Again, he's saying, you're going into exile. The nation will be destroyed. And I'm doing this to give you hope. I'm trying to get your attention, trying to put an end to your stubbornness. And then lastly, here's the real hope. Israel will be restored. Throughout all of this, there's promise and there's hope that Israel will be restored. Okay, we're gonna skip the reference in chapter one. Go to chapter two, verse 14. "Therefore behold, I will allure her "and bring her back "into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her. "I will give her vineyards and make the valley of Acre "or the valley of trouble, a door of hope. "And there she will answer as in the days of her youth "as at the time when she came out of Egypt." In other words, God's saying, I'm gonna bring them back. Just like I brought them out of Egypt, I'm gonna bring them back. And do the same thing again. He keeps talking about that. In that day, you will call me my husband. You won't call me my bail. I'll remove the names of bales from her mouth and they'll be remembered by name no more. I'll make for them a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, the creeping things. I'll abolish the bow of the sword, war from the land, and I will make you lie down in safety. I'll betrothed you to me forever. Here's the verses that came at the end of the story I read you. I'll betrothed you to me forever. I'll betrothed you to me in righteousness and justice and steadfast love and mercy. I'll betrothed you to me in faithfulness and you shall know the Lord. Who's the one doing all of these things? God is. He's not saying one of these days, the light bulb's gonna come on and you're gonna come back and just love me more than you've ever loved me. He's saying, here's what I'm gonna do. One of these days, I'm going to bring you back and I'm gonna make a covenant with you. And I'm gonna take the names of the bales off. I'm gonna cleanse you. I'm gonna do all of this for you. So he's talking about restoration. Chapter three, verse five. Children of Israel will return and they will seek the Lord their God, David their king. They will come in fear to the Lord and to His goodness in the later days. Then look at the very end of the book. Chapter 14. Verse four, God says, "I will heal their apostasy. "I will love them freely for my anger has turned from them. "We'll be like the due to Israel. "He shall blossom like the lily. "He will take root like the trees of Lebanon. "His shoots shall spread out. "His beauty shall be like the olive. "His fragrance like Lebanon. "They shall return and dwell beneath my shadow. "They will flourish like the grain. "Blossom like the vine. "Their fame will be like the wine of Lebanon. "Oh, a frame, what have I to do with idols? "It's I who answer and look after you." I'm like an evergreen cypress from me comes your fruit. And then we read the last verse already. God's saying, all of these things I'm gonna do, I'm gonna restore my people. Now, last verse, we'll end with this. Hosea one. Hosea one. Says, "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. "And the children of Judah and the children of Israel "shall be gathered together, "and they shall appoint for themselves one head, "one ruler, one king, "and they'll go up from the land for great "shall be the day of Jezreel." Any of you guys ever had a Mormon come knock on your door? This is one of the verses that Mormon people pray on those who don't know the Bible, and they ask you to open your Bible to Hosea one, 11, and you're already intimidated 'cause you don't know anything about Hosea. And they get you into this book you don't know, and they talk about this one head, and the two groups coming together, and they appoint one head, and they have a nice little speech about how this is talking about Joseph Smith, and that how he takes the people from the New Testament church Christians, and then he takes the people from the New World Christians, they think Jesus came over here in the United States, and he brought all these people together, and he brings them all in. I'll just tell you, if they try to pull that on you, you just kick 'em right out the door, okay? Say, "I know better." That's not what Hosea is about. What does the New Testament say about us becoming children of the living God? Paul says to the Galatians that that happens through who? Jesus, right? You are called sons of God when you have faith in Jesus Christ. You're united to Jesus, and you become God's children. You're not, but you get brought into the family. And there's other passages in the Old Testament that talk about Judah and Israel coming together and having one leader. I just got news for you. Every week I give you the history of Israel. That doesn't happen anywhere in what I put up on the screen. Israel gets sent into exile and they're gone. And then a few years later, Judah gets sent into exile and they're gone. And then I mean a ragtag bunch of nobody, insignificant, weak, powerless, pathetic looking remnant comes staggering back in about 70 years later. And all that Hosea is talking about here, being coming children of God and having this one head that leads the people. All of this is pointing you straight to Jesus Christ. And Hosea talks in here about God saying in the later times that he will call Israel out. Let's see if I can find that verse. I didn't even write it down. It's not gonna be an Amos is it? He says, I will call Israel out. Look at Hosea 11, this is a great verse. Hosea 11 verse one. When Israel was a child, I loved him. Out of Egypt, I called my son. Out of Egypt, I called my son. He's saying, they were slaves and I loved them. And I came to them and said to them, not because of who they were or anything they'd done. I said, you're my people, I'm your father, you're my son, I'm your God, we're together. And I called them out. And then you get to this weird verse in the gospel of Matthew. You remember the story where Jesus almost gets killed in Bethlehem? Remember that, Herod's trying to kill Jesus and he kills all the babies there and what do they do? They escape because God warns them in the dream and where do they go? Egypt and we don't really know anything about what happened there other than that they lived there for some time. And then Matthew tells us, you just jot this down, look in Matthew two. Matthew says, when they come back, Matthew says, Jesus coming from Egypt back to Israel is fulfillment of Hosea. Out of Egypt, I've called my son. And you can go back in Hosea and you're like, no, I don't really think that's what it's talking about. That's exactly what it's talking about because Matthew was saying, Jesus is the true Israel. He's the one who does all of these things and gives us access to all of these things that Hosea is promising. Just like God brought Israel out, God brought Jesus out and through Jesus we become children of God. And we see that Jesus is this one ruler, this one head that God has raised up to unite his people. So in the end, this book gives us hope and it gives us hope. Listen, not because we can be good enough to earn some sort of relationship with God or we can say, God, I'm sorry for the adultery. I'm sorry for the adultery. I'm sorry for all of these things. But because God says chapter one, look, one of these days I'm gonna do something. I'm gonna make a covenant with you, a new covenant with you. And I'm gonna raise up a head for you. Out of Egypt, I'm gonna call my son. In his name's Jesus of Nazareth. And if you put your faith in him and follow him, this head that I've raised up, you can become children of God. You can be brought back into my family. So there you go, that's the book of Hosea. And it does give us hope and it does point us to Jesus. So I'll pray and then we will share a few prayer requests. Lord, we love you. We're grateful for your word. We believe that it's true. And there's some things in the Old Testament books that are difficult for us to understand and wrap our mind around. But we're thankful for this book that is honest about who we are in our sin. Help us to see that clearly, not to make excuses or try to explain it away. We're grateful for this book that gives us hope that you discipline your children, that you call us to repentance, and that ultimately you have raised up Jesus of Nazareth to be our head, to be our leader, and that we can become children of God when we put our faith in him. Father, we understand that as we come to you as the church, the Bible says that we are your bride, and that a day is coming when there will be a great wedding celebration and where you will cleanse us and wash us, and you will take the names of the bales off of our tongue, and you will perfect us and glorify us, and we'll be presented before you perfect and spotless. And Father, it is not because of any good thing in us, but it is only because of Jesus who died for us and lived for us. And so we thank you for Jesus tonight. We pray in his name, amen.