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The story:
Hosea 1:1 The word of the LORD that came to Hosea son of Beeri during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and during the reign of Jeroboam son of Jehoash king of Israel:
Set the historical setting:
Ok, we just ran past a bunch of names, and some of you are like Uzzah-who?
Let me give you the run-up to this moment.
Abraham
Egypt
Canaan
Judges
Kings
Saul, David, Solomon
Jereboam – and the king thing goes south really fast.
Kings turn toward idols, and the people follow
The kings of Israel had led the people to be ____unfaithful____ to the Lord and worship idols.
2 When the LORD began to speak through Hosea, the LORD said to him, "Go, take to yourself an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness, because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing from the LORD."
What would you do if you knew that God had asked you to marry a person, and they turned out to not be faithful?
Most Bible scholars agree that this is Hosea writing later, and explaining in retrospect what happened. God told him to marry Gomer, not when she WAS a prostitute, but knowing that she WOULD prostitute herself…
What we don’t know is: Did he _________________ Hosea?
3 So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim…
The excitement of a wedding day… waiting for a wife that he knew the Lord had asked him to marry.
She was beautiful. She was young and maybe a bit immature, but surely it would be alright – after all, she was the one God had pointed out to him, and asked him to marry.
They would be married, and she would settle down, and they would be so happy together.
There would be children, and a home. He would work hard, he would build a house… they would sit on the porch and watch sunsets and talk about the future and the dreams that they had.
The bride prepared, the family gathered, the music played, her beautiful hand grabbed his strong arm… he was supremely happy. She was radiant, beautiful, full of joy.
The ladies commented, the men smiled – she was so beautiful, he was so lucky. She was chased by any number of men. But now she was his, forever, for only, for always.
Good days… good days were ahead.
5 …and she conceived and bore him a son.
4 Then the LORD said to Hosea, "Call him Jezreel, because I will soon punish the house of Jehu for the massacre at Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of Israel.
God is speaking through the names he gives to Hosea’s children. Jezreel means “scattered by the Lord.”
God had prophesied this same thing in many places:
Zechariah 10:9 Though I scatter them among the peoples, yet in distant lands they will remember me…
Deuteronomy 30:1 When all these blessings and curses I have set before you come upon you and you take them to heart wherever the LORD your God disperses you among the nations…
God prophesied that if his people would remain faithful, he would bless them and reward them 1,000 times over. But they did not.
So he said, I’m taking this kingdom of people, and I’m going to break it into a million pieces and scatter it all across the world. I’m going to send these people into captivity.
Over time, Hosea starts to notice some things in Gomer’s attitude toward him… is it a coolness? A distance? “Perhaps it’s just my imagination…”
But over the weeks, as they struggle to raise the little boy on his salary… she is more distant. She doesn’t want to speak of the future, of distant dreams, and hopes and goals. She seems taken up with other things, with other relationships…
He works harder, and tries to stay close. At times, he thinks they are moving closer together, but it seems like each time, she pulls away. She moves further away from him.
She finds excuses to be gone. It’s normally legitimate… at least at first. She has family that has needs. She has a trip she always wanted to take. There’s an opportunity she wants to take advantage of…
Then it’s more obvious… she just needs a break. She can’t take the stress of the kids and the house. She just needs some space.
Often, though they share a bed, she will face the wall, refuse his advances, and fall asleep, leaving him to stare at the ceiling and wonder what is wrong.
He’s almost surprised when she comes and tells him she’s pregnant. He smiles… but Surprise and a bit of dread and doubt fill his heart…
“When will it be coming?”
It’s possible, but the timeline doesn’t seem to add up.
Hosea sits late and alone by the fire that night, staring into it, hoping against all hope that he is wrong.
“What has happened? I have been faithful to her. I have watched over her. I have protected her
6 Gomer conceived again and gave birth to a daughter. Then the LORD said to Hosea, "Call her Lo-Ruhamah, for I will no longer show love to the house of Israel, that I should at all forgive them…”
The pregnancy was hard. Gomer seemed to be further out of his reach than ever. She was often sullen and critical.
She only seemed happy when she had a chance to get away and visit family, or go to the marketplace. Hosea would take Jezreel to work… once he happened upon her in the marketplace, coming out of a man’s shop. She was smiling and giggling like her old self… until she saw him.
Hosea began to hear rumors.
He saw her eyes roam, and move to others. He watched her slipping through his fingers.
8 After she had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, Gomer had another son.
9 Then the LORD said, "Call him Lo-Ammi, for you are not my people, and I am not your God.
This time, there was no doubt. There was no way.
There was only a horrible certainty. And it was doubly confirmed by the name that God gave Hosea to put upon the little boy.
“Lo-Ammi” – not my people.
God’s people were cared for by him. He gave them the law, parted the Red Sea, did miracles for them, provided them food. He watched over their lives, protected them from sickness and destruction, fought their battles, and blessed them financially.
But God had a front row seat in watching their faithfulness and love dissolve into ungratefulness, disinterest, and eventually, unfaithfulness.
Maybe you’ve been there.
In fact, I know you’ve been there.
This may feel a bit shocking, but the point of this book is to shock us with this message:
You and I are Gomer. God is the husband, we are the unfaithful ones.
1. You and I are Gomer.
5 Their mother has been unfaithful and has conceived them in disgrace. She said, 'I will go after my lovers, who give me my food and my water, my wool and my linen, my oil and my drink.'
2. God’s love is tough.
6 Therefore I will block her path with thornbushes; I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way.
7 She will chase after her lovers but not catch them; she will look for them but not find them. Then she will say, 'I will go back to my husband as at first, for then I was better off than now.'
8 She has not acknowledged that I was the one who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil, who lavished on her the silver and gold-- which they used for Baal.
9 "Therefore I will take away my grain when it ripens, and my new wine when it is ready. I will take back my wool and my linen, intended to cover her nakedness.
10 So now I will expose her lewdness before the eyes of her lovers; no one will take her out of my hands.
11 I will stop all her celebrations: her yearly festivals, her New Moons, her Sabbath days-- all her appointed feasts.
12 I will ruin her vines and her fig trees, which she said were her pay from her lovers; I will make them a thicket, and wild animals will devour them.
13 I will punish her for the days she burned incense to the Baals; she decked herself with rings and jewelry, and went after her lovers, but me she forgot," declares the LORD.
Some of you, God has taken thing after thing from you… in his faithfulness, he has prevented you from having an easy life.
The Bible says, Proverbs 13:15 “…the way of the unfaithful is hard.”
In his faithfulness, God is taking from you.
… I warned him he would get in trouble.
… I went to his first court date. I warned him I’d visit him in juvenile.
… I sat across the table from him and warned him that I’d visit him in county.
… I sat across the glass from him at county. I warned him, someday I’ll visit him in prison.
… while he was awaiting the court date that would send him to prison, I warned him that I would visit him in the hospital or the morgue.
… I will never forget getting the call that he’d been shot and gripping his hand in SW Medical Center. I will never forget the blood on the sheets, him gasping oxygen and through the pain saying, “you told me this would happen”. (he is paralyzed from the waist down.)
… I visited him in prison a few weeks ago. Here’s what he said:
“If I wasn’t in this place, I’d probably be still out doing the same things.”
There’s a guy that understands that in his faithfulness, God takes.
Some of you, God has taken health.
Some of you, money.
Some of you, joy.
Some of you, relationships.
Some of you have lost sons and daughters to sin.
The predictable results of sin. It takes, it steals, it kills, it destroys.
Sometimes, God has to destroy the lovers that you thought you needed.
You have to see that as a severe mercy, and understand that God desires that you would be faithful to him, and he will not share you with another.
3. God’s love doesn’t give up easily.
If you can see Hosea sitting beside the fire in the middle of the night, with little Lo-Ammi, having fallen asleep on his lap. Gomer has not come home this night.
He finally gives in to the reality – she’s not coming home. He’s left with children that are not his… she’s gone.
But if you listen carefully, if you tune in to the story behind this story, you’ll hear a deeper cry.
I think these verses are the cry, the sob of a brokenhearted God…
Hosea 11:1 "When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.
2 But the more I called Israel, the further they went from me. They sacrificed to the Baals and they burned incense to images.
3 It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by the arms; but they did not realize it was I who healed them.
4 I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love; I lifted the yoke from their neck and bent down to feed them…
7 My people are determined to turn from me. Even if they call to the Most High, he will by no means exalt them.
8 "How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel?
Can you hear the cry of a God who has done everything that he could?
You would be excused in thinking that God is going to now come down in judgment, and anger. He’s going to say “Forget that, there are other fish in the sea.”
But this isn’t simply some country song where God is giving up on his people, and going to some bar and drink himself into feeling better.
You see, God’s love isn’t simply a love of a forsaken husband… it’s a redeeming love. It’s a love that pursues.
He knows the path that his people are on. He knows that it leads into slavery and brokenness. He’s forseen it, and he’s predicted.
4. God’s love forsees a day of redemption.
10 "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.'
11 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.
Is it possible that all these pieces could be put back together? Can anyone pick up the pieces of brokenness and see something beautiful made out of it?
“Great will be the day of Jezreel…”
I told you at the beginning, the word “Jezreel” means “God scatters” but it can also mean one other thing…
It can mean “God sows” – scattered like seed.
See, the pieces that are broken in your life can be just broken pieces like so much shattered glass never to be gathered… and those who persist in running from the Lord find that’s exactly what happens. The pieces never do come back together.
There are some that harden their hearts, and refuse to hear his voice, that refuse to come back to their faithful God. There are some who want to persist in sin, and don’t want to return.
Even when God chases them to the slave market, they refuse to be bought. They still run, wide-eyed thinking that God is chasing after them to keep them in bondage, not seeing the shackles already on their hands!
God is a pursuing God, he’s one who is not content to leave you wandering out there blindly, walking the streets looking for a new lover who you think will love you and satisfy your broken hurts.
Jesus has pursued you right to this moment.
And for those who allow God to call them back, they find that the pieces are not broken and irreparable, they are pieces that God has scattered as seeds… and he is able to bring back a great harvest from the pieces of a broken life.
But there are some
Perlman was scheduled to play a difficult, challenging violin concerto. In the middle of the performance one of the strings on his violin snapped with a rifle-like popping noise that filled the entire auditorium. The orchestra immediately stopped playing and the audience held its collective breath. The assumption was he would have to put on his braces, pick up his crutches, and leave the stage. Either that or someone would have to come out with another string or replace the violin. After a brief pause, Perlman set his violin under his chin and signaled to the conductor to begin.
One person in the audience reported what happened: "I know it is impossible to play a violin concerto with only three strings. I know that and so do you, but that night, Isaac Perlman refused to know it. You could see him modulating, changing, and recomposing in his head. At one point it sounded as if he were re-tuning the strings to get a new sound that had never been heard before. When he finished, there was an awesome silence that filled the room. Then people rose and cheered. Perlman smiled, wiped his brow, and raised the bow of his violin to quiet them. He spoke, not boastfully, but quietly in a pensive tone, 'You know, sometimes it is the artist’s task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left.'" (Source: When Life Hurts: A Personal Journey from Adversity to Renewal, by Rabbi Wayne Dosick, 1999)
(NOTE: Snopes discounts this, noting that there seem to be no other reviews or accounts of the night in media.)
SERMON #2
14 "Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her.
15 There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will sing as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt.
16 "In that day," declares the LORD, "you will call me 'my husband'; you will no longer call me 'my master. '
17 I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips; no longer will their names be invoked…
19 I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion.
20 I will betroth you in faithfulness, and you will acknowledge the LORD…
23 I will plant her for myself in the land; I will show my love to the one I called 'Not my loved one. 'I will say to those called 'Not my people, ''You are my people'; and they will say, 'You are my God.'"
Hosea 6:1 "Come, let us return to the LORD. He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds.
2 After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence.
3 Let us acknowledge the LORD; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth."
Hosea 3:1 The LORD said to me, "Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the LORD loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes."
2 So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and about a homer and a lethek of barley.
3 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 live with you."
4 For the Israelites will live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred stones, without ephod or idol.
5 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 1:1 The word of the LORD that came to Hosea son of Beeri during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and during the reign of Jeroboam son of Jehoash king of Israel:
2 When the LORD began to speak through Hosea, the LORD said to him, "Go, take to yourself an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness, because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing from the LORD."
3 So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim…
5 …and she conceived and bore him a son.
4 Then the LORD said to Hosea, "Call him Jezreel, because I will soon punish the house of Jehu for the massacre at Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of Israel.
God is speaking through the names he gives to Hosea’s children. Jezreel means “____________________________ by the Lord.”
6 Gomer conceived again and gave birth to a daughter. Then the LORD said to Hosea, "Call her Lo-Ruhamah, for I will no longer show love to the house of Israel, that I should at all forgive them…”
8 After she had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, Gomer had another son.
9 Then the LORD said, "Call him Lo-Ammi, for you are not my people, and I am not your God.
“Lo-Ammi” means “__________________________________.”
Here are four things you need to know about this story:
1. ____________________________ are Gomer.
5 Their mother has been unfaithful and has conceived them in disgrace. She said, 'I will go after my lovers, who give me my food and my water, my wool and my linen, my oil and my drink.'
2. God’s love is _____________________.
6 Therefore I will block her path with thornbushes; I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way.
7 She will chase after her lovers but not catch them; she will look for them but not find them. Then she will say, 'I will go back to my husband as at first, for then I was better off than now.'
8 She has not acknowledged that I was the one who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil, who lavished on her the silver and gold-- which they used for Baal.
9 "Therefore I will take away my grain when it ripens, and my new wine when it is ready. I will take back my wool and my linen, intended to cover her nakedness.
10 So now I will expose her lewdness before the eyes of her lovers; no one will take her out of my hands.
11 I will stop all her celebrations: her yearly festivals, her New Moons, her Sabbath days-- all her appointed feasts.
12 I will ruin her vines and her fig trees, which she said were her pay from her lovers; I will make them a thicket, and wild animals will devour them.
13 I will punish her for the days she burned incense to the Baals; she decked herself with rings and jewelry, and went after her lovers, but me she forgot," declares the LORD.
Proverbs 13:15 “…the way of the unfaithful is hard.”
3. God’s love doesn’t _____________________ easily.
Hosea 11:1 "When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.
2 But the more I called Israel, the further they went from me. They sacrificed to the Baals and they burned incense to images.
3 It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by the arms; but they did not realize it was I who healed them.
4 I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love; I lifted the yoke from their neck and bent down to feed them…
7 My people are determined to turn from me. Even if they call to the Most High, he will by no means exalt them.
8 "How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel?
4. God’s love forsees a day of ___________________.
10 "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.'
11 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.
Jezreel can mean “God ___________________” – scattered like __________.
