Someone said that the story of Hosea is a "love story that went wrong". When that happens there’s suffering. Hosea’s prophecy is a cry from the heart of God, "What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes early away" (6:4). "Your love is like a morning cloud.” A morning cloud on the horizon to Hosea was a reminder of the flimsy love that Israel had for her God - just like a passing cloud.
The prophets of Israel were the means through whom God could communicate his deep feelings. Through the word of the Lord that came to Hosea, this man with a message, a clearer insight was given into God’s relationship with man - that of love. Hosea’s prophecy is a parable, acted out in real life, of God’s painful love-relationship to mankind. It’s helpful to see it here in terms of - love revealed, love rebuffed and love restored. First of all, then:
LOVE REVEALED
God, in his wisdom, far too deep to be fathomed, chose to reveal himself to mankind by entering into a covenant relationship, first with individuals - Adam, then Noah, followed by Abraham. The covenant was renewed with Abraham’s family and as time went on, into the small nation into which it developed. God expressed it to Abraham in great simplicity, "I will be your God" (Gen 17
:7). It wasn’t that his chosen people had much love for him. The covenant love was all on God’s side. A covenant is a bargain between two persons or parties - both are expected to perform what has been agreed. Time after time, the people of Israel were the recipients of God’s unmerited favour but signally failed to live up to the expectation of loyalty and behaviour as their side of the covenant bargain.
The people of Israel eventually arrived in the Promised Land, hardly willingly, and after much tempting of Providence. They were so uninterested that more than once they tried to overthrow their leadership, give up the whole venture, and return to Egypt. They couldn’t lift their sights above the more immediate luxuries of their land of enslavement. But God, with more love and longsuffering than is found in man, did take them in - it wasn’t because of, but inspite of themselves. He made them a people, a nation. God gave them a law far in advance of the surrounding peoples and sowed in them the seed that they were to be a nation for the benefit of the whole earth. They became established as a settled people
- ten of the tribes in the north and two in the south.
An outside observer would have expected that such gracious dealing by God would have been returned with love and gratitude. But no, the depravity of man raised its ugly head, and Israel refused to follow God’s way. The people rebelled against God and didn’t keep his laws. By the time of Hosea in the second half of the 8th century before Christ, it was quite evident that God’s relationship with Israel had passed beyond the stage of love revealed, it was clearly that of:
LOVE REBUFFED
Well over a century earlier the tribal groupings of Israel had divided into two kingdoms. In the north was the breakaway, based on Samaria, which Hosea called Ephraim; and in the south, based on Jerusalem, was Judah.
Both kingdoms still claimed to be God’s people, but there was a great gulf between what the covenant required and what was being practised. The theme the prophet returns to again and again is God’s complaint that his people do not want him any more. Yes, they still performed some rituals but they were merely a charade. This was the reason for the desperate cry, "What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes early away."
The people’s hearts were so hardened to their sinful ways that it was going to require more than a good sermon from a prophet to bring the message home. The message had to be acted out before them to penetrate their feeble spiritual understanding, to be perceived by their dim eyesight, as to their relationship with God. Hosea has been called "the prophet of the sorrowful heart" - it’s easy to see why. He was no academic prophet - he’d been through the school of life before he began his prophetic ministry.
There’s a story told of a husband and wife both of who were doctors - one a doctor of theology and the other a doctor of medicine. When their doorbell was rung and the maid answered, the inquirer would often ask for "the doctor". The maid’s interesting reply was: "Do you want the one who preaches or the one who practices?" Well, Hosea did both. He was a "practising preacher". He’d been through a painful experience.
Hosea recounts a vivid, if very sad, story of the tragedy of his family life. He’d married a girl called Gomer who’d proved an unfaithful wife. Even some of the children she bore didn’t belong to him. This would have been painful enough, but Hosea reveals that in fact his marriage was at God’s express command! He’d taken her to be his wife and now this had happened - he felt exposed to shame. Yet this sad state of affairs was but a mirror image of the relationship between Israel and her God. The prophet was being taught the greater story of the sorrow of God over the waywardness of the nation that had enjoyed such great favour.
Israel had forgotten her God. She’d brought illegitimate offspring into being in the form of idolatrous practices and worship, and had been spiritually unfaithful to God. Israel had known the gracious provision of God in the 40 years in the wilderness. It seems amazing that a people who’d experienced so much of God’s deliverance and protection and constant provision could have strayed from the truth in such a way. But we too have to beware of complacency. It is still the same God who provides for us, but do we take their blessings for granted? Do we put our confidence in things rather than God?
The prosperity of the nation had now disappeared. In the prophet’s words, "They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind" (8:7). The land was no longer fruitful and this made the people seek more desperately after Baal, the god of their Canaanite neighbours. But Baal gave no answer to their petitions - how could he when he was merely a stone idol? In desperation the nation declared that she would return to her first husband, meaning Jehovah, for she was better off then. But there was no penitence or regret. She thought of the benefits once enjoyed and decided that, if these could be renewed by a return to Jehovah, it was the only sensible course to take.
They were like the so-called "Rice Christians" - Chinese converts to Christianity who remained faithful only so long as the missionaries supplied them with free rice! No wonder that God complained against Ephraim and Judah, "Your love is like a morning cloud." Their love had no substance. Hosea likened it to the fleecy clouds that blew over the Mediterranean overnight but which vanished with the heat of the morning sun. Their devotion to God was as short-lived as the early morning dew that evaporated even more rapidly than the mist.
Israel made a profession of repentance that on the surface seemed a model of contrition and return to the Lord on the part of backsliders. They said, "Come and let us return to the Lord; for he had torn and he will heal us; he has smitten, and he will bind us up" (6:1,2). These words seem to have a ring of true repentance, but God could see that their motive was not a real desire to return to him, but was one of self-preservation. The words came easily from their lips, but did not come from the heart. They had at least realised that God was the only physician, to whom they could return, but regrettably they wanted no more than a physical remedy; the people had no desire for a restoration of their spiritual relationship. There was no pledge of a change of life or conduct, no intention that, in future, they would serve God and him alone. There was no rejection of the pagan religion or regret for the immoral practices of the past. There was no sorrow of heart. Their words were but empty phrases.
Is this a word for the Christian? It’s so easy to express regret and ask for forgiveness and cleansing from sin, but remember that fellowship can only be restored when sin has been put away. It is possible to presume on the mercy of God. God will pardon - it’s true. God does come to the aid of the repentant. But if Israel thought it would be forgiven without complying with God’s conditions, it was very much mistaken.
God was looking for real repentance, "I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice; the knowledge of God, rather than burnt offerings" (6:6). Religious duties can be performed by anybody at very little cost: a few pounds in the offertory box, an hour or two of our time. But that isn’t sacrifice and in any case it’s not what God wants. His demand is a steadfast love that extends over the whole of life. On God’s side it cost him the sacrifice of the Cross to achieve reconciliation; on man’s side it may be free, but it is never cheap.
The story of Hosea and Gomer at a personal level, and of Jehovah and his people Israel on the national scale is a sad story as we see it in terms of love revealed and love rebuffed. It continues into a third stage:
LOVE RESTORED
The prophet cried, "What shall I do with you, O Ephraim?
What shall I do with you, O Judah?" It was a heartfelt cry. Perhaps there is no verse in the Old Testament so revealing of God’s emotions. Here we see mingled the wounded love and disappointed hopes of God. He was longing to find a sign of honest repentance on the part of Israel so that he could restore to them the covenant blessing. The words immediately call to mind the words of the Lord Jesus as he looked down on the city of Jerusalem before he entered it for the last time: "O Jerusalem, O Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those who sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing" (Matt 23:27).
Hosea had the same heart of love for his unfaithful wife. He tells us in his book, "the Lord said to me, Go, show your love to your wife again ... Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites" (3:1). Hosea went into the "red light" area of the city and there he learned the awful truth: she was a slave, owned and hired out for money. A price had to be paid but he paid it willingly to redeem her from her life of slavery and corruption.
Hosea was unconsciously acting out a foreshadowing, an anticipation, of an infinitely greater redemption, in fact the redemption of mankind by the Lord Jesus Christ. The human race had fallen short of God’s standard and the inevitable sin has separated us from God so that in effect we were dead in trespasses and sins. A person can be an unbeliever and yet very much alive - perhaps with a vigorous body, a lively mind or a bright personality. But in the sphere that really matters and continues on into the life beyond the grave, without the life of God within, there is no life. This is no secret or mystery. You can tell if the life of God indwells you - you know something of the glory of Jesus Christ, you are aware of the voice of the Holy Spirit, you have a longing for fellowship with him and his people. But without the life of Christ within we have no relationship with God.
Man’s condition appears desperate. Like Gomer, mankind by its own action has become a slave to sin, unable to reverse its condition. But the wonder of the Gospel is that God didn’t leave us in that state. In the same way that he provided for Gomer in telling Hosea to search her out and restore her to his home, cost what it may, so God in an infinitely greater way has taken the initiative to restore man to fellowship with himself, to repair the broken covenant relationship. St. Paul summarised the message in writing to the church at Ephesus, “But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ - by grace you have been saved" (2:4,5). The salvation provided by God is more than mere forgiveness; it’s deliverance from the state of spiritual death. And how do we receive it? It is through the grace of God - his free and undeserved mercy towards us. It’s not something we can achieve by ourselves and it’s not the reward for following a religion or doing good. It’s the gift of God received by faith, as someone put it in spelling the word F A I T H, “Forsaking All I Take Him”.
The message of the Bible is clear and simple - it is that God is love. It is of God’s love to the loveless. Someone wrote that the book of Hosea is a "love story that went wrong". It’s a story of love revealed, of love rebuffed and finally, love restored. How did it end for Gomer? She had touched bottom but had been bought back from slavery. Did she remain faithful? She passes from the story too quickly for us to know, but her husband’s experience in such a painful situation left him with hope for his nation if only it returned to God.
Sadly, at that time, God’s cry was not heeded and he allowed heathen nations to act as instruments of punishment and eventually both kingdoms were overrun and the people taken into exile. But the story of Israel is not over and who can foresee the results of the blessing that might yet come on the descendants of Hosea’s people? But what about ourselves? Is there still a question mark over our relationship with God? The record of the Bible proves that God has acted in history to declare his message of love revealed. We know from our experience of life that our condition was one of love rebuffed, but only our personal response to Christ can show whether love restored can be seen as a certainty or is still unresolved. It is a choice we have to make.
