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39. Hosea 3: “The Unthinkable”
Golden
Nursing Center in Mannington, NJ –Evening Service on 1/16/2014
(edited
May 2020)
Hosea was a full-fledged Old Covenant Prophet
and a contemporary of the Prophet Isaiah. Today, we classify Hosea as a Minor
Prophet and Isaiah, for example, as a Major Prophet. This has
nothing to due to with their spiritual significance, however, but simply refers
to the length of their written accounts in the Bible. The Book of Isaiah has 66
chapters, while Hosea has only 14.
Hosea prophesied in the north to the kingdom
which was then called Israel. He warned his people of the judgement of God
against them and their vulnerability, because of that judgement, to invading forces
from Assyria. By contrast, Isaiah ministered in the southern kingdom which bore
the name of Judah. He warned the people there of the coming invasion by
Babylon. Eventually both of their prophesies were fulfilled and, in the northern
and the southern kingdoms, God’s People were defeated and largely expelled from
the Promised Land.
Like another Old Covenant prophet named
Jeremiah, Hosea was called upon not just to preach his message verbally but
also to act it out at times. Years after Hosea’s ministry, Jeremiah was told by
the Lord to smash pottery and, another time, to wear dirty clothes before the
people to emphasize a point God was trying to make about their situation. But
nothing can match what Hosea was being commanded to do here. He had to not just
speak about, but in a very real way, he had to live out what the Lord wanted to
teach the His People about infidelity:
Verse 1: “Then said the Lord unto me, Go yet, love a woman beloved of
her friend, yet an adulteress, according to the love of the Lord toward the children of Israel, who look
to other gods, and love flagons of wine.”
Back in chapter 1 of the Book of Hosea you can
read where the Lord had called this man to propose marriage to a woman named
Gomer even though she was known at that time to be a prostitute. They wed and started
a family. But indications are given that the lineage of at least some of their
children fell under suspicion. That’s right. And Hosea endured all this to
emphasize to Israel, in a way any adult could understand, that they had put God
in a similar position to the one Hosea was in. After being specifically
selected and betrothed to the Lord their God, they had continued to prostituted
themselves as a nation to the gods of Egypt and Canaan. They also had defiled
their spiritual lineage. And even with Hosea’s graphic illustrations playing
out before them, they failed to take the message to heart!
As this third chapter of the Book of Hosea opens,
Hosea is being instructed by the Lord to pursue his wife, Gomer, who has left
home and moved in with another man. The pain, and the lessons of this family, are
not over yet.
Verse 2: “So I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and for
an homer of barley, and an half homer of barley:”
Are you getting this, beloved? This REALLY is
unthinkable. When Hosea goes to fetch his wife, he is not being led by God to
woo her back. Nor, and probably wisely, does he attempt to intimidate her or to
try to force her to come home. No, she is a prostitute and her attentions are
for sale, so Hosea reaches in his pocket and simply pays the going rate to buy
her back to him. Now look at the next verse:
Verse 3: “ And I said unto
her, Thou shalt abide for me many days; thou shalt not play the harlot, and
thou shalt not be for another man: so will I also be for thee.”
What a sham of a marriage this all has become.
And, unfortunately for Hosea and his family, it was all intentional on God’s
part. It was a desperate attempt to show Ancient Israel, before it was too late,
that their worship, their religion, had become a sham, also.
How does that happen? What did their empty,
unfaithful worship look like? Later in his prophesy, Hosea will go on to spell
it out clearly. Let’s look at a sample of that from Hosea chapter 4. This is
exactly how they had rejected God’s Love:
Hosea 4: 1-6
“Hear the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel: for the Lord hath a controversy with the
inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of
God in the land. By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and
committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood. Therefore shall
the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth therein shall languish, with the
beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven; yea, the fishes of the sea
also shall be taken away. Yet let no man strive, nor reprove another: for thy
people are as they that strive with the priest. Therefore shalt thou fall in
the day, and the prophet also shall fall with thee in the night, and I will
destroy thy mother. My people are destroyed for lack of
knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that
thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I
will also forget thy children.”
O, they still tried to be religious. But in a
detached way. And the elephant in the room (their unacknowledged sins), just
kept growing. Finally, in desperation, the Lord had raised up Hosea and sent
them a gossipy news item about adultery to get their attention. But even then,
they didn’t get the real point, or didn’t want to get it. They would not
repent. And their Nation, and their Covenant with God, fell.
Verse 4: “ For the children
of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and
without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without
teraphim:”
In a short time, the Assyrian Army came in and
devastated the Northern Kingdom of Israel, just as Hosea had said they would. And
at a later time, the Babylonians did the same in the Southern Kingdom of Judah.
The treasures, the leaders, the culture of Ancient Israel, all were removed
from the land that God had promised to Abraham and miraculously provided for them
to possess.
So, what might all this mean for us today? We
are, if you trust in Christ, part of His Church and partakers of the NEW Covenant.
I think that Hosea, in the final verse of this little chapter, actually refers
to us, those of us who worship the Lord in these “latter” days. Also, remember
as you hear this that Our King Jesus is a Son of King David. Here’s what Hosea
says:
Verse 5: “ Afterward shall
the children of Israel return, and seek the Lord their God, and David their king; and shall fear
the Lord and his goodness in the latter days.”
So, what kind of “Bride,” or People, does the
Lord have today? Can we measure how are we doing at that? How am I doing? As we
close tonight, let’s emphasize that the point of our lesson was not to demean any
of these folks we’ve been talking about. It is sad what happened in Ancient
Israel. It is tragic. And Hosea’s personal life, well, it is just about
unthinkable. And, yes, Gomer was lacking some things as a wife. But if we could
just take one more brief look at her and then, very carefully, a look in the
mirror. What I mean is this: Do you ever ask God to “buy” back your affection?
I have. Don’t we all do this? When our prayers degenerate into demands. Don’t
we say to Him at times: “OK, You give me what I want, then I’ll worship You as
I should, then I’ll love You again as I should.” Isn’t that offering Jesus only
what Gomer offered Hosea? Let’s pray.
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