Missions Paul

It doesn’t matter who you have become or what you have done. You can even be the famous prostitute of the Old Testament. You can start all over. This is the gospel. This is the good message heard 7 centuries before Jesus Christ came to fulfil the prophecy.

“In that day,” declares the Lord, “you will call me ‘my husband’; you will no longer call me ‘my master. I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips; no longer will their names be invoked. In that day I will make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, the birds in the sky and the creatures that move along the ground. Bow and sword and battle I will abolish from the land, so that all may lie down in safety.  I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. I will betroth you in faithfulness, and you will acknowledge the Lord.” (Hosea 2 v 16-20)

• I will betroth you … I will betroth you … I will betroth you. Three times.

Hosea says to Gomer and the Lord says to His people and the Spirit speaks to us today:

I will bring you back to the beginning again! I will take us back to the place of our engagement. My righteousness will fill the betrothal and I will have dealt with the justice of your waywardness. Our betrothal will be full of love and compassion for one another.

The Spirit is still doing this today. This is the word for today. Everyone can begin again.

• I will remove the idolatry from your life.

Though it did not happen during this time of the Minor Prophets such as Hosea it did through the work of Jesus Christ. And it does today. In Christ our lives can be completely changed. Total transformation from how we have lived because everyone can begin again.

• I will make a covenant.

He will bring us to the place of laying down in safety. Whether from the beasts or the sword He will remove the threat to our peace. So no matter what happens around us within us is perfect peace and assurance that He is with us. We no longer have to fight our corner. Everything changes because of His covenant because everyone can begin again.

• I will remove the fear and create the relationship.

What does Hosea want from Gomer? What does the Lord want from Israel? What is the Spirit saying to us today? The formalities are gone. This is not religion but relationship. This is not business proposal this is intimacy. From this moment you don’t come back home and fearfully serve me as a slave. The Prodigal story tells us the Father wants more than that. He restores to a place of deep love. Why? Because everyone can begin again!

Hosea surely is now going to divorce Gomer? It seems not! Even though he has forgotten him:-

“Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her. There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achora door of hope. There she will respondas in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt”. (Hosea 2 v 14-15)

His response is he is going to allure her. This is a powerful response to his wife who had been allured by sin. Hosea is moving in purity towards his wife. Her Saviour (the meaning of Hosea) will attract her to himself. She will want his saving work before he is finished. She will no longer forget him.

• Are we still allured by Jesus? Do we still long for Him?

He will lead her into the wilderness. Not necessarily literally but into a solitary place just for the two of them. Alone. Away from the other men.

• Do you feel the call to come away with Jesus and to be still, on retreat with Him?

He will speak tenderly to her. Literally this means ‘to speak to her heart’. She needs to hear His words directly to the core of her being to soften it, to comfort it and to change it.

• What are you hearing from the Lord? What is He saying to you?

He will give back what has been taken. He had caused the ruining of her vineyards but now He will restore them. He will give back. He will make her prosper again.

• What has been stolen from you?

He will fill her with hope. The Valley of Achor was the last place to become a door of hope. It was a place of failure as the whole of Israel knew. The place where Achan and his family were judged and killed as punishment for trying to deceive everyone by keeping the spoils of war leading to Joshua’s army experiencing an embarrassing failure for God took His hand off them. In the place of no hope He gives hope.

• Where is your valley of Achor? See the door of hope.

He expects her to respond as in the early days. Her response to sin will be nothing compared to her response to Him. He will restore the passing years. She will respond like she used to. Her first love will be restored, where she first met Him and loved Him. Some translations say she will respond by singing.

• Are praises flowing from you today?

He is wooing you. He will win you back wherever you are.

Hosea wants her home. Even when she wanders away everything she gets comes from her husband even though she doesn’t see it. What will it take to bring her home?

God wants to be the husband to His people but they have turned their backs on Him and abused His blessings. They are hypocritical because they have continued on the one hand with their festivals and celebrations to Him and yet at the same time worshipping Baal. So what will God do? He will move towards them in power!

“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. I will punish her for the days she burned incense to the Baals; she decked herself with rings and jewellery, and went after her lovers, but me she forgot,” declares the Lord.” (Hosea 2 v 12-13)

There we have it. The painful reality. “… but me she forgot.” Hosea was really feeling this message personally and it cut deep into his heart. Gomer had forgotten him. Have you ever felt forgotten? How do you explain such a feeling? It is death inside. It is over. She is not returning. Does she think of the good times that you once had? Or are they forgotten too? Has she deleted every photo from her phone? Are you not anywhere in her mind or sight? To be forgotten means someone or thing has replaced you. But to be forgotten also means your friends will want you to forget her.

That is something Hosea will not do.

This is something God has not done over you and me either. Though we have forgotten Him by many distraction of life He remains focused in His love for us. We have lost our first love for Jesus and it shows in many ways but He is steadfast in His love for us.

Thank you Jesus, our perfect Hosea/Saviour!

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.