Hosea lived in the 8th century BC in the northern kingdom of Israel. It was a wicked society that had turned their back on God. In this opening chapter we see Hosea receiving his call to prophecy into this nation. His calling involves a marriage to Gomer who had been a prostitute. That marriage showed the beautiful heart of God to save people. Soon they had their first child together.
“So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son. 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. In that day I will break Israel’s bow in the Valley of Jezreel.” (Hosea 1 v 3-5)
There is joy as they celebrate their first child and Hosea receives this message from God to call his son Jezreel. Living out the prophetic message applies to the naming of his son. Hosea is beginning to surround himself with the burden of the prophetic. But it raises some questions and leads us to an important lesson.
Why punish the house of Jehu when he only did what God called him to do in wiping out wicked Ahab and his family? (2 Kings 9:7-8)
Something happened at Jezreel which Hosea believed God was upset about. What was it?
“So Jehu killed everyone in Jezreel who remained of the house of Ahab, as well as all his chief men, his close friends and his priests, leaving him no survivor.” (2 Kings 10:11) God never told him to do that. This was excessive.
His ego led him to exceed his mandate.
There are many who have done great things for God. There is no doubting it. The books written by them and others on what they have done are valuable for us. However at the same some of these people who did great things also exceeded what the Great God told them to do. They think they are being obedient to God because it flows from the pathway of obedience. However pathways of obedience can lead into fields of mud and there are many today who have lost what they had and there is little power nor purity left in their life.
As the name Jezreel means God will ‘scatter’ because Jehu who went off script then appointed Jeroboam II and before Hosea’s prophetic ministry ended this nation had been taken and finished by the Assyrians (2 Kings 17)
Missions Paul 