Hosea: An Unfaithful People Receive Love

The main concern of Hosea is not God’s love toward an unfaithful people. The main concern of Hosea is idolatry and God’s hatred for this wicked practice.

Easton’s Bible Dictionary Hosea, Prophecies Of

“Their homicides and fornication, their perjury and theft, their idolatry and impiety, are censured and satirized with a faithful severity.”

Introduction

The book of Hosea is part of the Jewish book known as the 12.

The Jewish canon: The Torah, The Nevi’im, The Ketuvim (what we call the historical books are categorized under the prophets.

Counted as one: Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, and Ezra-Nehemiah, and the minor prophets.

For those who read the lesson, I want to offer a different perspective:

The gospel of Christ and the redemption of God’s elect is nothing whatsoever like a princess fairy-tale. Unregenerate sinners are not like a princess who needs rescuing. We are more like a married woman turned prostitute on crack, meth, and heroin who loves both her sexual deviance and her chemically produced altered states.

Hosea lived in the eighth century.

According to Jewish tradition he was the first of the Jewish prophets: “The Lord Spoke First through Hosea.” (Babylonian Talmud: tractate Baba Barthra 14b, 15b)

The book of Hosea is regarded as one of the most difficult in all the OT because of its dialectical idiosyncrasies. Hosea was from Northern Israel.

Hosea’s ministry took place during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah and Jeroboam II, King of Israel.

Hosea was a contemporary or at the very least live in close proximity to the time of Amos and Isaiah.

Remember that Jeroboam I had started what is known as the golden calf cult. He was afraid that if Israel went down to Jerusalem to sacrifice to the Lord, the kingdom would be reunited. He sat up two golden calfs, one in Bethel and one in Dan.

Jeroboam II was the son of Jehoash who had done evil in the sight of the Lord. He continued, as did the kings before him to promote idolatry in Israel.

Uzziah, Jotham, and Hezekiah did right but Ahaz did evil in the sight of the Lord.

So the ministry of Hosea spans .

This all took place up to the time the Northern Kingdom would be taken into captivity by the Assyrians (722). Judah would be taken by the Babylonians finally in 586.

Of the 43 kings between Israel and Judah, only 7 did what was right in the sight of God throughout their entire reign.

An Unfaithful People Receive Love

Hosea 1:4–10 NASB95

And the Lord said to him, “Name him Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will punish the house of Jehu for the bloodshed of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. “On that day I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.” Then she conceived again and gave birth to a daughter. And the Lord said to him, “Name her Lo-ruhamah, for I will no longer have compassion on the house of Israel, that I would ever forgive them. “But I will have compassion on the house of Judah and deliver them by the Lord their God, and will not deliver them by bow, sword, battle, horses or horsemen.” When she had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she conceived and gave birth to a son. And the Lord said, “Name him Lo-ammi, for you are not My people and I am not your God.” Yet the number of the sons of Israel Will be like the sand of the sea, Which cannot be measured or numbered; And in the place Where it is said to them, “You are not My people,” It will be said to them, “You are the sons of the living God.”

4-10

Jezreel sounds phonetically just like Israel in Hebrew. Judgement is coming.

Lo-ruhamah: No Mercy

Lo-ammi: Not my people

Lo = no/not

Ruhamah is the feminine for the Hebrew word REHAM, or mercy.

Ammi is the Hebrew word AM, or people, with the suffix “mi” attached= my people.

Hosea 2:16–23 NASB95

“It will come about in that day,” declares the Lord, “That you will call Me Ishi And will no longer call Me Baali. “For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, So that they will be mentioned by their names no more. “In that day I will also make a covenant for them With the beasts of the field, The birds of the sky And the creeping things of the ground. And I will abolish the bow, the sword and war from the land, And will make them lie down in safety. “I will betroth you to Me forever; Yes, I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and in justice, In lovingkindness and in compassion, And I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness. Then you will know the Lord. “It will come about in that day that I will respond,” declares the Lord. “I will respond to the heavens, and they will respond to the earth, And the earth will respond to the grain, to the new wine and to the oil, And they will respond to Jezreel. “I will sow her for Myself in the land. I will also have compassion on her who had not obtained compassion, And I will say to those who were not My people, ‘You are My people!’ And they will say, ‘You are my God!’ ”

My husband: Ishi

My husband, master, owner: Baali. The word is related to the word Baal, to own, describes the act of getting married or the state of being married. This is part of the difficulty in interpreting Hosea. The word was used at times, at least until Hosea’s time, as a title for Yahweh.

It was Jezebel who started co-mingling Baal worship with the worship of Yahweh.

How do we potentially contaminate the worship of with our own cultural idiosyncrasies?

What are some ways God’s people today demonstrate unfaithfulness to God?

REPLACE THIS QUESTION

Unfaithfulness is not the best descriptor here. It implies that born again people are capable of fixing their hearts on idols and engaging in all sorts of immorality.

Hosea is being used to show Israel that in God’s eyes, they are like a whore who is married to a holy prophet. It is scandalous and outrageous that a whore would become the wife of a holy prophet. God is saying to Israel, you are the whore.

What are some ways today that humanity demonstrates unfaithfulness to God?

What about the churches in modern American culture? How do they often demonstrate an outright betrayal of and departure from the sacred covenant?

We do so when we tolerate sin, false doctrines, and our worship becomes a show designed to entertain us and evoke emotions for the sake of emotions rather than truly create a sense of thankfulness to our Lord for his great faithfulness, love, and mercy that he shows toward us. Finally, a lot of the preaching we see in modern American churches is little more than be happy feel good lectures.

Romans 16:17 NASB95

Now I urge you, brethren, keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and hindrances contrary to the teaching which you learned, and turn away from them.

1 Corinthians 5:11 NASB95

But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler—not even to eat with such a one.

God’s Love Pursues His Unfaithful People and Purchases Them Out of Slavery

Hosea 3:1–5 NASB95

Then the Lord said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by her husband, yet an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the sons of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love raisin cakes.” So I bought her for myself for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a half of barley. Then I said to her, “You shall stay with me for many days. You shall not play the harlot, nor shall you have a man; so I will also be toward you.” For the sons of Israel will remain for many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred pillar and without ephod or household idols. Afterward the sons of Israel will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king; and they will come trembling to the Lord and to His goodness in the last days.

God is Love: The imperfect love that human beings share between one another is a dim reflection, a sign that points to the perfect love that resides within God. The greatest act of love by God toward humans isn’t the giving of earthly goods but the giving of himself in Christ so that we might become reconciled to him.

What does the purchased price of Christ that God paid to redeem sinners reveal about His love for humanity?

John 3:16–17 NASB95

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.

John 3:16–17 NASB95

What else does the cross demonstrate about God’s character?

Romans 3:25–26 NASB95

whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Romans 3:25 NASB95

whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed;

God’s Love Invites His Unfaithful People to Repent

Hosea 14:1–4 NASB95

Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God, For you have stumbled because of your iniquity. Take words with you and return to the Lord. Say to Him, “Take away all iniquity And receive us graciously, That we may present the fruit of our lips. “Assyria will not save us, We will not ride on horses; Nor will we say again, ‘Our god,’ To the work of our hands; For in You the orphan finds mercy.” I will heal their apostasy, I will love them freely, For My anger has turned away from them.

Invite is hardly the right choice of verbs here. Return in the Hebrew is an imperative. God demands that all men everywhere repent.

Acts 17:30–31 NASB95

“Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.”

What characteristics mark true repentance of sin?

1 John 3:9 NASB95

No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.

John 15:5 NASB95

“I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.

1 John 2:6 NASB95

the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.

1 John 2:4 NASB95

The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him;

How does God’s work in salvation attack our pride?

Romans 5:6 NASB95

For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

1 Corinthians 2:14 NASB95

But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.

Romans 8:6–8 NASB95

For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

John 6:44 NASB95

“No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.

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