Author: missionspaul

Hosea wanted Gomer home and God wanted Israel home too, back in relationship with Him. She/they had taken Hosea’s/God’s blessings and used them for herself/and for Baal worship.

God gives blessings and He can take them away also. In His desire for our closeness He will allow the full impact of sin, which is shame, to come upon us. It is the oldest story. Adam hid from God because of shame and it led him to be afraid of God’s presence which led him to try and take control by blaming Eve. What Adam needed was a Saviour.

Hosea decides he is not going to provide/bless Gomer any longer. God in His desire for His people decides that to continue to bless them so that they abuse the blessing is not working. So He decides to withdraw.

“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 naked body. So now I will expose her lewdness before the eyes of her lovers; no one will take her out of my hands. I will stop all her celebrations: her yearly festivals, her New Moons, her Sabbath days—all her appointed festivals.” (Hosea 2 v 9-11)

There is nothing more shameful than a spouse having been found out and exposed for their sin. Well, there is actually.

The shame of a follower of God who once had intimacy with Him but because of sin loses everything. I know so many. But even then they do not turn back to their Saviour.

God stopped all their joyous celebrations which turned out being worship to Baal. He would destroy the harvests of Israel so that they had nothing to celebrate with.

God gives and He can take away and He is God.

Hosea was no push-over and neither is God. God will not be mocked.

He gives and He takes away and all along He does this because of His love for us.

Yesterday I went for a walk along a lovely path and noticed a path to the side which was overgrown with nettles. The only way through that path was to get stung. I didn’t try it.

It reminded me of the grace from God. There are paths that in His wisdom He does not want us to go down so He blocks those paths even though we may be tempted to go down them. If you are feeling contained or trapped today it may well be the grace of God preventing you from walking away from His presence. Then today I read these verses:

“Therefore I will block her path with thornbushes; I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way. 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.’ 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.” (Hosea 2 v 6-8)

Hosea was gracious in that knowing the waywardness of Gomer he made sure that it would be difficult for her to go again. Hosea traced her paths and studied the way she took. What kind of husband does this? It is the one who longs for his wife to come back home.

But there was a previous grace. Another hidden grace. Gomer didn’t know of this grace when she was in the house of one of her lovers that Hosea had been to. Can you imagine Hosea getting to the house and leaving at the door the grain, the new wine and the oil, even the silver and the gold? This is outlandish grace. Some would say foolish grace. Unacknowledged grace!

Those who say this is not grace have not understood that this is what God has given to them as he did the people of Israel. He continued to bless them even though they turned His back on them and this prophecy is a final warning to them.

Even in our imperfection and our sinfulness, in our waywardness, God has always been there for us. When we were at our worst He chased us and provided for us. We took what He gave us for example, our wisdom and ability to create and innovate and we have used it against Him and for more sinful ways. Yet He has pursued us and has contained us. It is Grace upon Grace. Why?

He wants us home.

His Grace will do it.

Sadly there are many stories on social media of fathers who discover that their children are not theirs. Even after many years they find out by chance that their DNA does not match. Is there anything more devastating? 

Look at these verses.

“I will not show my love to her children, because they are the children of adultery. 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 olive oil and my drink.” Hosea 2:4-5 

We don’t know whether Hosea knew all the time (though the prophecy starts with the assumption that these are his children) but certainly now after many years, the children are grown, he knows. Gomer has gone again. She has been unfaithful to their marriage vows. She has returned to prostitution and somehow Hosea has found out that the children he thought were his were a direct result of those early years of infidelity. “… they are the children of adultery”

Why does Hosea earlier plead with the children to stop their mother but then here (perhaps some time later) he condemns them?

Do you know those situations where the children side with the spouse who caused the trauma in the family and not the innocent spouse? Maybe his children were deceived and manipulated.

We can feel Hosea’s pain. Can we feel God’s?

God has watched His people claim to belong to Him and yet follow the gods of Baal and Asherah. This was blatant syncretism. They taught their children their ways. 

What was happening is still taking place and even more so in 2023. So we see ‘Christian Church-goers’ holding the Bible in one hand with its orthodox beliefs and practices and in another hand they hold the gospel of the world which says God is love so do what you want. Is that what we teach our children now? Do they become part of our adulteress ways before God?

And that might not be you. But perhaps we can look at what we are truly passionate about? Is it Jesus? Or is it the things that surround Jesus? Our buildings and programmes, our numbers and finance and our popularity? Individually where do you put your total trust? In God alone? Or do you feel you need to fight for your rights? 

Why did Gomer go after her lovers? It wasn’t for sex. It was for food, water, wool, linen, olive oil and drink. For sustenance, for clothing, for skin-care and for alcohol. Didn’t Hosea give her those things?

Why do we look to other provisions than continue to trust God for them? Are we really unlike Gomer?

That was one of my favourite choruses sang in church as a child. I must have sung it a million times! Living it has been the challenge. To turn from this world and keep my eyes on another world and importantly on Jesus is the call to us all.

Gomer had this same problem.

“Rebuke your mother, rebuke her, for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband. Let her remove the adulterous look from her face and the unfaithfulness from between her breasts.
Otherwise I will strip her naked and make her as bare as on the day she was born; I will make her like a desert, turn her into a parched land, and slay her with thirst.” (Hosea 2 v 2-3)

Hosea calls on the children (who are now adults probably) to help him with Gomer. She has gone again or it could be possible she never stopped committing adultery. “Go find you mother and do what you can to turn her around” is basically the message. What kind of man is this Hosea? Would not any other man just simply reject her completely after even one prostitution? But Hosea is not any other man. His name means Salvation. He is the prophet carrying a message told to get himself into this predicament so that He could proclaim God’s message to Israel from it.

The relationship has gone: she is not my wife and I am not her husband. We have nothing.

The provision was still there even though the relationship was gone. Gomer had a home, husband and family and even though she had so many blessings to change she kept drifting back to her old ways. Here comes the warning to the children that if Gomer didn’t stop it she would lose Hosea’s provision; she would not be clothed, she would have nothing left and she would be in a worst place than when he found her.

And like Gomer … Israel with their longing for other gods like Baal and Asherah are wandering away from God.

And like Israel … we with our ego’s and our eyes filled with ambition, desiring more and working hard to be noticed, being enticed with fame and fortune, reach out for the poisonous fruit to become someone. All the time we think we still have our relationship with God. But it is broken. It is distant now. And soon if we don’t stop it, we too will be broken.

Hosea named his children in a way to support his prophecy. God was coming in judgment. It was a terrible picture. However, in His mercy and because of it then this season would not last forever. He was coming with restoration.

“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 ‘children of the living God.’ ¹¹ The people of Judah and the people of Israel will come together; they will appoint one leader and will come up out of the land, for great will be the day of Jezreel. Say of your brothers, ‘My people,’ and of your sisters, ‘My loved one” (Hosea 1 v 10-2:1)

Do you feel condemned? (Jezreel) Then the promise is that you will come up out of the land. The promise of resurrection. He will raise you up again.

Do you feel unloved? (Lo-Ruhamah) Then the promise is that of love.

Do you feel distant from God? (Lo-Ammi) Then the promise is of knowing you are called a child of God and that you belong to Him.

These names and actions are not the last word. Yes judgment came but God also came again. He restored them and brought them back.

After the exile of Babylon under the leadership of Zerubbabel and also Hosea could have been referring to Ezra and Nehemiah, Judah and Israel were no longer separated, they became one people group. Ultimately the prophecy can refer to the gathering together of Jew and Gentile under Jesus Christ.

Whatever is declared over you will not have the final say over your life. You may be sitting in ashes today and everything has collapsed around you and you feel all 3 names of Hosea’s children. Here is a promise to hold on to.

The northern kingdom (ten tribes) were known as Israel and the southern as Judah (basically two tribes, Judah and Benjamin). They were both exiled by other nations, Assyria and Babylon respectively. There is recorded a beautiful restoration after 70 years for Judah (2 Chronicles 36 and Ezra 1) but there are no records of Israel’s restoration either biblically or historically. They seem to be simply lost.

Why? It was their unfaithfulness to their God.

How? It ended with the King of Assyria in approx. 720 BC taking them into exile. But it started with Hosea. If only they had listened!

He married Gomer the prostitute. He named his children with names to support his prophetic declaration to Israel. Jezreel, Lo-Ruhamah and now …

“After she had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, Gomer had another son. Then the Lord said, “Call him Lo-Ammi (which means “not my people”), for you are not my people, and I am not your God.” (Hosea 1 v 8-9)

The third child of Hosea and Gomer is named ‘not my people’. This was the killer blow for the people of God. Not only would God sow punishment to them and not show them love, He is now saying He would not be their God. This was such a damning prospect. To be a nation that would lose their identity.

If they were not the people of God and if God were no longer their God, then who were they?

If ‘ammi’ (God’s people) become Lo-ammi (not God’s people) then what becomes of them? It is judgment. For these northern tribes of Israel they would be taken by Assyria.

Of course we who were ‘Lo-ammi’ have now become ‘ammi’ through the precious blood of Jesus Christ. But the warning is for if we turn our back on the mercy and grace of our Saviour. The warning is for if we reject His love and walk our own path. How many do we know who have done this? The warning is His mercy and protection can be lifted from us.

These northern tribes are now known as the ‘Lost tribes of Israel’ and all around the world in places like India and Africa, tribal groups declare their ancestry belongs to one of these lost tribes.

But lost is their condition. Mission agencies reach out trying to find them and lead them to Jesus Christ for regardless of their ancestry He is their only future. Nothing of their past guarantees them anything but the mercy of Jesus does and will.

Do you know anyone who is ‘lost’ today? The gospel calls you to find them.

Then there was 4! A daughter was born to Gomer and Hosea. He had named their son Jezreel because it would point to the fact that God was going to punish the northern Kingdom of Israel. The name means God would ‘sow’ punishment.

^“Gomer conceived again and gave birth to a daughter. Then the Lord said to Hosea, “Call her Lo-Ruhamah (which means “not loved”), for I will no longer show love to Israel, that I should at all forgive them. ⁷ Yet I will show love to Judah; and I will save them—not by bow, sword or battle, or by horses and horsemen, but I, the Lord their God, will save them.” (Hosea 1 v 6-7)

Can you imagine what the neighbours thought?!

Every time they called their daughter they would say ‘not loved’! If that wasn’t bad enough. this girl would be known with this name for at least 30 years until the nation fell under the power of the Assyrians (2 Kings 19).

However her name spoke more than the demise of the northern kingdom. The purpose of God for your life exceeds what you might understand of your life. What you see now and what you have experienced isn’t everything. There is another perspective and there are things still to happen. God has not finished.

Her name also declared the love of God on the south, Judah, probably because their kings were not as evil as the north’s. As she grew, Lo-Ruhamah became more aware that her name was not only speaking judgment but it was speaking hope and that God would be fighting for Judah through supernatural means not conventional ones.

This woman came to understand that her name was not her identity but the prophetic declaration of her God. The purpose of God was far bigger than her name and the misunderstanding from people regarding that name. It is one of the biggest lessons of life: knowing and trusting God’s purpose is greater than our earthly understanding of our life.

Hosea lived in the 8^th 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)

Why did God allow that pain to take place? Why did He lead you into that valley of suffering? Why did He direct you to do something that on the surface looked unwise at the least and so traumatic at its worst? Do you think similar questions?

“When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, “Go, marry a promiscuous woman and have children with her, for like an adulterous wife this land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the Lord.” So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.” (Hosea 1 v 2-3)

Hosea experienced promiscuity against him before he began to speak about the promiscuity against God.

The context was simply this: the northern kingdom rebelled against God led by King Jeroboam who set up 2 golden calves and the people of God stopped worshipping Him and started worshipping Baal and Asherah. God had a message for them and He chose Hosea to deliver that message but first this prophet had to go on a journey to truly understand and feel this message.

So Hosea marries a prostitute. How does he explain this? Why does he have to do this? Why couldn’t he just speak the message from God? Will we ever know? But pause for a moment.

No doubt she promised him her undivided affection when they married. She was going to stop being a prostitute and she made a commitment to Hosea that he would be her man. And why wouldn’t she? For she probably had never had such an unbelievable offer.

We don’t know why she had become a prostitute. We don’t know the pain behind her life but there probably was. Men had come to her for one thing and it wasn’t to set up a home for her. She was living in the worst scenario, a world that pretended to give her love but just took from her. She was a sinner but she was also sinned against. She was abused and had little dignity left. Then one day ‘Salvation/Hosea’ came along and promised her a new life!

That day a saviour came to her to rescue her from the place and pain of unfaithfulness. What a day of rejoicing that was as it was for us!

The story will continue and soon Hosea will see the full extent and power of salvation and what is the heart of God for all people who rebel and turn from Him.

But for today we pause and we are thankful for the salvation that He continues to pour out on this world. The Great Rescuer continues to save men and women from places of despair. He did it for Gomer and for us and He still does it for others! Let us rejoice!

I begin delving into the Minor Prophets this morning. Minor only because they are smaller than the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel and Daniel who are seen as Major Prophets because they have larger texts. I am looking forward to the journey as we walk slowly through each of the 12:  Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.

So we open Hosea. And for the last couple of hours I have been simply overwhelmed with this opening verse. I hope it blesses you as much as it does me. Stay with me because after wading through some important detail you realise the importance of this verse.

“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” (Hosea 1 v 1)

Breaking this verse down and understanding the importance of the names, what do we learn about God? Pay particular attention to the emboldened names and words.

Hosea = Prophet in the northern kingdom of Israel (c.750 BC) witnessed the decline and ending of that kingdom under Jereboam. Calls people back to God using his marriage as an illustration. His name means ‘Yahweh has saved’. The name Joshua and then Jesus arises from Hosea. ‘Salvation’ (another form of Hosea) was the only prophet from the Northern Kingdom in the Old Testament. He was born during the wicked leadership of Jeroboam. And though the economy had grown and the nation was initially prosperous, God’s people walked away and worshipped BAAL and ASHERAH. Hosea calls them back but experiences the decline and ending of that nation he was born into. He was still prophesying when Hezekiah became King in the south.

Beeri = The gentile name for BEER meaning ‘well, cistern’ a refreshing place.

Kings of Judah (southern kingdom)

Uzziah = His name means ‘Yahweh is my strength’ and for the large part of his life that was the case. “He sought God during the days of Zechariah, who instructed him in the fear of God. As long as he sought the Lord, God gave him success.” (2 Chronicles 26:5) Sadly the latter part of his life was filled with pride.

Jotham = His name means ‘Yahweh is perfect’ and after succeeding his father Uzziah was influenced by Isaiah. God gave him victory over the Ammonites (2 Chronicles 27:5). A good king.

Ahaz = His name means ‘Yahweh has taken hold of to protect’. However He didn’t mirror his name for he let go of Yahweh and did not walk by faith. A bad king. “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14) said after Ahaz would not step into faith and trust God. A Messianic promise of salvation.

Hezekiah = His name means ‘Yahweh has strengthened me’. A good king (he reopened the Temple) but in later life rebelled and paid the price. God stepped in and saved the city of Jerusalem (2 Kings 19:35)

Kings of Israel (northern kingdom)

Jeroboam = A bad king on the whole and his name means ‘The people are great’! But an interesting detail is that Hosea, Jonah and Amos prophesied during his reign and Jeroboam does appear to listen to the prophecy from Jonah (2 Kings 14:25) and he re-established Israel’s borders by being obedient to the word from God.

Jehoash = His name means ‘Yahweh has granted’ and though he was a bad King, God enabled him to defeat King Benhadad and recover cities that had been taken (2 Kings 13)

Perhaps someone needs to hear this simply message today! Maybe you need to hear a prophet declare truth to you. Mediate on what you will read based on this simple yet powerful verse!

Out of the well (Beer) salvation (Hosea) came and out of the well of your heart God’s presence will flow and He will save you.

Even in the context of challenging circumstances:

He will give you success;

He will give you victory;

He will give you the promise of Him coming to you;

He will step in and save you;

He will re-establish whatever has been broken down;

He will recover for you what has been taken or lost;

How?

He is your strength;

He is perfect;

He has taken hold of you to protect you;

He is your strength;

He alone is great;

He is your giver.

Amen!

What beautiful powerful promises and truth! Walk in them today!