A Faithful Husband, Hosea 1:2-11
Introduction
The book of Hosea is the first of those books of the Old Testament known as the writings of the Minor Prophets. They are often referred to by an Aramaic term “Trei Asar,” which means the twelve. They are called as such (Minor Prophets) not because their messages are unimportant but largely because they are smaller books and perhaps because their messages are specific to a time and place, the way God works with man, or to a rather specific future prophecy.
Specifically in the case of the book of prophet Hosea, no other prophet gives us a more intimate and detailed look at the way in which God deals with His people. The truths of today’s text apply historically and in the future with regard to how God deals and will deal with national Israel and they also apply to the Church.
Our Heavenly Father, the husband of the Church, is faithful even when are not.
I am reminded of the story of the “Two brothers who had terrorized a small town for decades. They were unfaithful to their wives, abusive to their children, and dishonest in business. The younger brother died unexpectedly. The surviving brother went to the pastor of the local church. “I’d like you to conduct my brother’s funeral,” he said, “but it’s important to me that during the service, you tell everyone my brother was a saint.”
“But he was far from that,” the minister countered. The wealthy brother pulled out his checkbook. “Reverend, I’m prepared to give $100,000 to your church. All I’m asking is that you publicly state that my brother was a saint.” On the day of the funeral, the pastor began his eulogy this way. “Everyone here knows that the deceased was a wicked man, a womanizer, and a drunk. He terrorized his employees and cheated on his taxes.” Then he paused. “But as evil and sinful as this man was, compared to his older brother, he was a saint!” (Greg Asimakoupoulos Naperville, Illinois. Leadership, Vol. 16, no. 4)
While this story perhaps highlights the extremities of human behavior in these two brothers, if we are honest with ourselves we will have to admit that not only human nature in the broadest context but our inner, personal nature is heavily bent toward unfaithfulness.
We are often unfaithful in our commitments to others and we routinely fail even in our commitment to our own highest ideals. So unfaithful in the human heart that it is often even unfaithful to itself! In Jeremiah 17:9 the Bible says that “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? (NIV)
Transition
Today, as we simply walk through the verses of this text, we will let the text speak for itself as we see illustrated in the life of Hosea and his wife Gomer the way that God is faithful to us in spite of our all too common unfaithfulness.
The central theme of this message is simple: God in His sovereign grace love us faithfully, not because of our deeds but in spite of them. He is faithful even when we are not.
Exposition
(v.1-2) As in the life of the prophet Isaiah, God instructs us through the prophet Hosea through the imagery of His command to the prophet to marry an unfaithful or adulteress woman. Some have interpreted this passage to say that Hosea married a woman who was already a prostitute. Others have contended that the verb structure in the Hebrew language suggests that she may have been pure but later committed adultery.
Whatever the case may be, this text is clear that she was unfaithful in marriage, just as so often God’s covenant people, His Church, are spiritually unfaithful; turning to the worship of cultural, material, or selfish idols, rather than the pure worship of God; who is the lover of our souls.
In Psalms 106, speaking of God’s covenant people Israel, the psalmist writes, “Remember me, O LORD, when you show favor to your people, come to my aid when you save them, that I may enjoy the prosperity of your chosen ones, that I may share in the joy of your nation and join your inheritance in giving praise. We have sinned, even as our fathers did; we have done wrong and acted wickedly. (Psalms 106:4-6 NIV) After describing at length the manner of their wicked action, he goes on to write “They defiled themselves by what they did; by their deeds they prostituted themselves.” (Psalms 106:39 NIV)
God’s passion for His glory is the root, foundation, the core of His love for us.
God’s desire for us is to find our ultimate satisfaction in His goodness so that through and in us His glory might be put on display. His highest pleasure is expressed in putting His glory on display in His love for us, His love for others through us, and the beauty of our total abandonment to His grace, His love, and His glory.
In Isaiah 43:6-7 the Lord declares, “I will say to the north, 'Give them up!' and to the south, 'Do not hold them back.' Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth – everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.” (NIV)
Our highest calling is to participate in a cycle of receiving God’s grace and expressing God’s glory. In verse 25 of the same chapter the word of the Lord says "I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.” (NIV)
God has redeemed us in order to display His grace, His glory. Our redemption is rooted in His faithfulness. Our faithfulness is the right and growing response to His grace. In other words, we ought to people of growing faithfulness to God as He has commanded us through His word in response to His immense love for us, which comes only through His love for us.
We didn’t earn it. We can’t earn. We can’t lose it once we have received it. We are eternally secure in the one who loves us as a means of expressing His glory.
(v.3-5) Hosea’s first child with Gomer, the ever unfaithful and adulteress wife as we see more of in the following chapters of the book is a son who the Lord commands him to name Jezreel.
The Lord uses the name of the daughter as a living illustration, the child of unfaithfulness, to describe the unfaithfulness of God’s people. Israel has been crushed many times in the valley of Jezreel, even as the Bible foretells a great battle that will take place their just prior to the return of Christ and the consummation of this age.
(v.6) In verse 6 a great and difficult doctrine of the Bible is alluded to. That is, the doctrine of reprobation. This is the doctrine that God justly forsakes those who, being lost in their sins, hardened of heart, unwilling, in some sense unable, to respond to His free offer of salvation in Christ; passes them over, allowing them to continue upon the same path of destruction that they are on.
There are those who will say that God passes them over because they choose of their own accord not to accept His grace. There are others who say that He passes them over of His own sovereign decree, having foreknown their reprobate (lost) state from before the foundations of the earth.
These truths are not mutually exclusive. Both are true. We in our wickedness, our unfaithfulness, would never respond rightly to the love of God. We only respond in faith when God gives us the gift of faith, according to His sovereign desire to express His glory in us.
Our salvation in Christ has nothing to do with us and everything to do with Christ. God’s mercy cannot be bought through good deeds when they are done out of the motive of the wicked human heart which, apart from the indwelling spirit of God’s love, desires salvation, not God’s love.
“It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.” (Romans 9:16-18 NIV)
He saves us according to His mysterious wonderful grace alone. Why? It is precisely so that He gets the glory; all of it! We have nothing to contribute even to our own salvation. He allows us the pure joy of participating in the riches of His love and glory by the sovereign redeeming hand with which He saves!
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Ephesians 2:8-10 NIV)
“May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is a new creation.” (Galatians 6:14-15 NIV) Grace saves us and grace fuels us. We are unfaithful. He is faithful.
(v.7) Our salvation is secured in Christ. “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.” (Psalms 20:7 NIV)
(v.8-9) In verses 8 and 9 we see that after Gomer had weaned Hosea’s second child, a daughter named Lo-Ruhama, which means not loved, she gives birth to his third child who the Lord commands him to name Lo-Ammi, which means not my people. “Then the LORD said, "Call him Lo-Ammi, for you are not my people, and I am not your God.” (Hosea 1:9 NIV)
Note: All through this text God puts on display in an illustrative fashion, the unfaithfulness of Israel through the life and family of the prophet Hosea.
There is a glaringly obvious metaphorical truth leaping from this text: All of our actions and the realities of life put on display the depth to which our lives are illustrations of God’s glory, or a lack of God’s presence in our life.
We are all “walking billboards” of some sort of advertisement. What we do and even more so, who we are, tells the world of what we love and what loves us.
What does our life’s message reflect? To whom does our life’s message point? Is it to Christ? Is it to God’s glory? Is it to self and the vile things of this life?
Conclusion
Dear Saints, God is faithful, even when we are not. His faithfulness is not presupposed upon our goodness, our faithfulness to Him, or any other action on our part. Faithful is an expression of who He is.
The man of God of the last century, A.W. Tozer, said it this way, “If God is self-existent, he must be also self-sufficient; and if he has power, he, being infinite, must have all power. If he possesses knowledge, his infinitude assures us that he possesses all knowledge.
Similarly, his immutability presupposes his faithfulness. If he is unchanging, it follows that he could not be unfaithful, since that would require him to change. Any failure within the divine character would argue imperfection and, since God is perfect, it could not occur. Thus the attributes explain each other and prove that they are but glimpses the mind enjoys of the absolutely perfect Godhead.”
God is faithful, dear Christian, and there are no excuses to our lack of obedience because His love is not contingent upon our ability to earn it. There are no excuses for our lack of trust because He meets us where we are in our capacity of faith, filling the voice with His peace. There is no excuse for our lack of grace toward one another because in Christ we have received a great bounty of grace.
In fact, what I propose is that we make next Sunday “no excuse Sunday.” In fact I wrote down what I envision. “To encourage both the faithful and unfaithful to attend church this year, every Sunday will be a “No Excuse Sunday” and the following will be provided: Cots will be placed in the narthex for those who say, “Sunday is my only day to sleep.” Smelling salt will be available for those with tired eyes—from watching TV too late on Saturday night.
There will be steel helmets for those who say, “The roof would cave in if I ever came to church.” Blankets will be furnished for those who think the church is too cold, and fans for those who say it is too hot.
We will have hearing aids for those who say, “The minister speaks too softly” and cotton for those who say, “The preacher’s too loud.” Score cards will be available for those who wish to list the hypocrites present.
Some relatives will be in attendance for those who like to go visiting on Sundays.
There will be TV dinners for those who can’t go to church and cook dinner also. One section of the church will be devoted to trees and grass for those who like to seek God in nature. Finally, the church will be decorated with both Christmas poinsettias and Easter lilies for those who have never seen it without them.” (Illustrations unlimited, accessed QuickVerse Platinum 2010)
Brethren, let us embrace the one who has embraced us! Our faith is the very gift of His faithfulness!
Our joy is the result not of our ability to please Him perfectly but the result of our willingness to receive the free love which He offers to us completely! He is faithful when we are not. His love compels us toward deeper depths of trust and greater heights of assurance.
When the night is dark, He is light. When the road is difficult He is our guide. When we fail, He does not stand to judge us according to our failure, rather, He offers Christ to come near to us so that we may be drawn near to Him.
(v. 10-11) The final verses of this passage tell us that in spite of Israel’s unfaithfulness He will remain faithful. “Yet the Israelites will be like the sand on the seashore, which cannot be measured or counted. In the place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people,' they will be called 'sons of the living God.' The people of Judah and the people of Israel will be reunited, and they will appoint one leader and will come up out of the land, for great will be the day of Jezreel.” (Hosea 1:10-11 NIV)
O, He is faithful! Amen.
