Text: Hosea
Date: June 2, 2024

Introduction

Opening Statements: Today, we begin our new summer sermon series tracing through the most unread books in the Bible, the Minor Prophets. Our Bible has four major prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. And it has 12 Minor Prophets. They are minor, not because they’re less important or because they have less to teach us. But they are called the Minor Prophets because they are shorter books. The prophets spoke the Words of God to Israel between 400 and 700 years before Christ. They spoke about things like justice, God’s omnipotence, God’s mercy, God’s covenant keeping, God’s heart for the nations, God’s wrath, and so much more. And always, they were pointing forward to Christ, and what Christ would accomplish when he arrived.

Hosea Personal: There is one word that is overwhelmingly the centerpiece of Hosea, it is the word “adultery.” God’s people, the nation of Israel had committed adultery against God. He was to be their husband, and they were to be his bride, but in the words of Hosea, they had whored themselves out to other gods. Before you say, “How could they do such a thing,” let us turn the tables on us. Have you ever doubted God’s faithfulness? Have the real world situations you find yourself in ever caused you to take your eyes off God. Have you ever chosen sin, when you knew what God desired you to do? So the question Hosea will answer is this. When we find ourselves unfaithful to God, when we discover spiritual adultery in our soul, where do we turn? What are we to do?

Hosea Context: Hosea preached to Israel, in the North. The context is that Israel had been under a series of very wicked kings who had led the nation into all kinds of ungodly behavior. As a result, God was going to discipline Israel by letting foreign nations destroy them in wars. And so Hosea was sent to Israel, before that happened, to preach to them about what was about to happen in their nation if they kept on this path. The problem was that Hosea preached to Israel at a time when they were at the height of their material prosperity. And so very few listened to him.

Main Idea: The main idea of Hosea is this: Our covenant keeping God is faithful to His people even when we are unfaithful. I have titled this sermon ‘A Divine Betrothal.’ And the main text where we will ultimately land is in chapter 2.

Hosea 2:19–20 “And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the Lord.”

In order for us to understand the weight and the meaning of that verse, we have to take a tour of Hosea together.

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Meaning & Application

I HOSEA’S MARRIAGE TO GOMER AS A SIGN OF GOD’S LOVE FOR US

Hosea & Gomer Setup: In the opening verses of the prophet Hosea, the prophet is instructed by God to complete what is called a “Prophetic Sign-Act.” This is where a prophet does something physically in order to communicate a deeper spiritual truth. Hosea’s “sign-act” is, in my opinion the most profound and stunning sign-act in all of Scripture. We read in the opening verse,

Hosea 1:2–3 “When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.” So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.”

This godly man, this holy man, is commanded to marry a prostitute, a woman who has been with many sexual partners, a woman who did not even consider that faithfulness to a single partner would be something she would aspire to. A woman who he knows going into the relationship will be unfaithful to him. In order to understand Hosea’s message, we have to trace how this marriage between Hosea and Gomer develops over the first three chapters.

Three Children: In chapter one, Hosea and Gomer give birth to three children, and God instructs unique names be to given to all three of them. The first child is named Jezreel, after a city in Israel titled Jezreel where much violence had taken place. This child becomes a symbol for Israel of their bloodguilt. The second child, a daughter, is named ‘No Mercy.’ This child becomes a symbol for Israel that because of their unfaithfulness he will have “no mercy” in his judgment of them. Finally, a third child is born, a son. His name is ‘Not My People.’ This child will serve as a sign to Israel that because of their unfaithfulness God is separating himself from them.

What is the Purpose: Why is Hosea commanded to marry a prostitute and name his children these horrific names. He is playing out in a physical way what is taking place spiritually. His marriage to a prostitute is a picture of God’s marriage to unfaithful Israel. They’ve cheated on him. And so we read in the next chapter,

Hosea 2:2–5 ““Plead with your mother, plead— for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband— that she put away her whoring from her face, and her adultery from between her breasts; lest I strip her naked and make her as in the day she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and make her like a parched land, and kill her with thirst. Upon her children also I will have no mercy, because they are children of whoredom. For their mother has played the whore; she who conceived them has acted shamefully. For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’”

How Had They Whored: This image of the Lord “stripping her naked” is symbolic language of being removed from the land. He will literally strip them away from the land that flows with milk and honey. For generations! Why? The imagery is clear. Israel had become guilty of whoring after other gods, after other nations. God had promised to be a faithful husband to them, a faithful God, a covenant keeping God. But rather than keep their heart solely fixed on God, solely trusting in God, they pursed other gods, they made alliances with other nations. And so God determines to punish his unfaithful bride.

Gomer’s Unfaithfulness: In chapter 3, this marriage between Hosea and Gomer develops even further.

Hosea 3:1–2 “And the Lord said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.” So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley.”

Who is this new woman that Hosea is now marrying? The majority of Hebrew scholars agree, that this is not a second wife, this is Gomer from chapter one. True to her nature, she played the whore. Even after this godly man married her, and took care of her, she left him. She moved in with another man, abandoning her children. This woman is worthy of divorce. She has broken her covenant. She is guilty, caught in the act in the other man’s home. Yet, Hosea finds her. He pays fifteens shekels of silver to this man. Why he had to pay fifteen shekels is unknown. But whetever situation she had herself in, Hosea had to buy her way out. By the way, fifteen shekels is not much money. Whoever owned her, didn’t think she was of much value. And he takes her back home where he loves her again. She chated on him. She was unfaithful to him. But he pursued nonetheless. He found her in her waywardness. He brought her home. He loved her. Can you imagine what she felt, when that man took her home? Can you imagine this feeling of unworthiness, of uncleanness, being met by steadfast love of Hosea. I imagine her weeping, saying “What kind of love is this?

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II EXAMINING ISRAEL’S AND OUR SPIRITUAL ADULTERY

The question I want to answer today is, When we find ourselves unfaithful to God, when we discover spiritual adultery in our soul, where do we turn? What are we to do? That is ultimately the question that Hosea is answering for us. But to do that we need to push this idea of spiritual adultery further into our hearts. In other words, we need to experientially understand that we have been spiritual adulterers like Israel, before we can truly understand how marvelous it is to be pursued by God. And, let’s examine the ways that Hosea states that Israel had been unfaithful to God.

#1 They Rejected True Knowledge From God: First, they rejected true knowledge from God and settled for living according to worldly knowledge.

Hosea 4:6 “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.”

What this means is that the people of God were called to be a unique people, a people who lived according to the truth that had been given to him through the Scriptures. The Bible is our core source of knowledge. Everything is to be shaped by these very words: How we live, how we manage our money, how we think about our politics, how we raise our children, how we love our spouses, how we manage careers, how we worship God. But they whored after other knowledge. Other popular teachers came by offering other ways of thinking about the world, and other ways of organizing our lives, and they followed them instead, thinking maybe it will go better if we do it their way.

We are Guilty: O Church, this is as common today among evangelicals as any other sin. We claim as Christians that the Bible is sufficient, that we truly need no other work to know all we need for life and godliness. And yet along comes Karl Marx with an atheistic vision for economic redistribution, or the Frankfurt School with an atheistic vision for justice, or Sigmund Freud with an atheistic vision of psychology, or Alfred Kinsey with an atheistic vision of gender and sexuality. And suddenly all the popular talking points of society seep into our everyday language. As if it is not spiritual adultery to borrow ideas from these men.

#2 They Have Sacrificed to False Gods: Second, they sacrificed to false gods.

Hosea 4:12–13 “My people inquire of a piece of wood, and their walking staff gives them oracles. For a spirit of whoredom has led them astray, and they have left their God to play the whore. They sacrifice on the tops of the mountains and burn offerings on the hills, under oak, poplar, and terebinth, because their shade is good. Therefore your daughters play the whore, and your brides commit adultery.”

Can you just imagine the lunacy of this. There is Israel, a people who were delivered out of slavery in Egypt by a series of miracles, established in the land of Israel, bowing down and worshiping statues made of wood and gold as if they were Buddhists or Hindus. I find that little phrase at the start of verse 13 chilling, “… because their shade is good.” These spiritual adulterers told themselves, “It can’t be that bad make sacrifices on this hill, because the shade is nice up here. O how we find ways to justify our idolatry.

We are Guilty Physically: Church, we are guilty of this in two ways. Some have actually mixed faith in Christ with pagan idolatry. I’ll give you two ways we have done this. I have written on both of these extensively. First, yoga. Yoga is a form of Hinduism designed from the ground up to worship false gods. It cannot be separated from its idolatrous roots. It is not just another workout. But it is most often justified because people say, “It can’t be that bad, it’s a good stretch… the shade is nice.” Second, the Enneagram. This is a very popular personality profile test that was unapologetically designed by men who were deeply engaged in the occult. But many Christians justify using the Enneagram because we say “It can’t be that bad, it’s a personality profile… the shade is nice.”

We Are Guilty Spiritually: Other times we are guilty of this one in more subtle ways. Ray Ortland has a wonderful commentary on this theme in Hosea and he describes their idolatry this way.

They acted as though faith in Yahweh alone were an impracticable policy for life. As a result, they dishonoured him even as they thought they continued to honour him. [Faith in Yhwh] was being redefined with fewer sharp edges and more open doors as a broadly inclusive religion, increasingly tolerant of elements of paganism. What one observes in Hosea’s historical situation is the admixture of contrary theologies made congenial not by logic or principle but by fashion and feeling.

O church, do we not at times play the prositute redefining what we perceive God’s “rough edges” to me more congenial to modern sensibilities. Modern evangelicals often cringe at conversations on God’s wrath, at God’s vision of justice, at God’s sovereignty. We demand that God be redefined in order to give man the central place in his story. We assign to man a libertarian free will as if man is able to override God’s decree, thus making man stronger than God. Our thoughts of God idolatrous because we refuse to be shaped by the hard lines of Scripture. It is bending to the cultural pressures of where and how to worship.

#3 They Prioritized Physical Desires Over Spiritual Intimacy with God. Third, they prioritized physical desires over spiritual intimacy with God.

Hosea 7:14 “They do not cry to me from the heart, but they wail upon their beds; for grain and wine they gash themselves; they rebel against me.”

God says that their hearts are not truly coming to me. They are not authentically worshiping me from their heart. When they come to me passionately, it is for “Grain and wine.” All they really want is what I can give them, they don’t desire me, the source of all goodness. They don’t truly desire relationship, they desire the physical blessings.

We are Guilty: O Church, at the center of the Christian faith is a relationship of the heart with God. Sometimes we are so guilty of forsaking that relationship, and turning our faith into a checklist of do’s and don’ts, that a relationship with God is the last thing on our mind, and just being a good Christian is all we have time for. We forsake “crying to god from our heart.” This is idolatry.

Where Do We Turn: Church, I am doing all I can to apply the words of Hosea into our modern ears and modern context in order to help you see, that though the cultural artifacts have changed significantly since the days of Hosea, the conditions of the heart are quite similar. And as a result, the words of condemnation given by the prophet to Israel are words that can speak to us as well. Adulterers. Gomers. What right do spiritual adulterers like us have to Christ? And so the question remains, When we find ourselves unfaithful to God, when we discover spiritual adultery in our soul, where do we turn? What are we to do?

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III GOD’S SUPERNATURAL REDEMPTION OF SPIRITUAL ADULTERERS

If we go back to the story of Hosea and Gomer, this faithful husband loving a wayward wife. I shared with you that in chapter 3, Hosea pursued Gomer and loved her once again, he took her as his wife again. But just prior to that scene at the start of Hosea 3, stands language of how God will pursue his wayward people.

The Vally of Achor: Beginning in verse 14

Hosea 2:14–15 ““Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her. And there I will give her her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.”

The Valley of Achor was a place of great rebellion in the Old Testament. And God says to wayward Israel, in that very place that was once a place of sin, a place of forgetting God, rebelling against God, I will make a door of hope. And when I do that, she will come to me with a pure heart.

I Will Betroth You to Me Forever: And then, in verse 19 we read what is a hidden gem of a verse in all of Scripture.

Hosea 2:19–20 “And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the Lord.”

The language here is stunning. God will take this adulterous, sexually deviant, bride, and he will marry her as if she were a pure virgin bride. This was Israel hope. Their hope was that, though there were immediate consequences for their sin, God would not only not forget his covenant with them, but he would so cleanse them of their sin, that it would be as if they were virgins once again. And that new marriage would be forever. And it would be inviolable. Despite her sin, and waywardness, God would grant her a new nature. His faithfulness to his covenant would overrule and override her unfaithfulness.

This is What Christ Has Done: This passage, written by Hosea over 700 years prior to the birth of Christ, was looking forward to Jesus, and is ultimately fulfilled only by Jesus Christ.

Finds Us at Another’s House: When Christ gets a hold of a person, he finds them at another man’s house. They are guilty. They are covenant breakers. And they have absolutely no justification for receiving love from God. But God, as Hosea did for Gomer, pursues us.

Pays the Price: He pays the price for our freedom. The price for Gomer was fifteen shekels. The price for you was the death of his Son, Jesus Christ. O Christian, God loves your soul so much, that even when you were a rebel to him, he would gladly pay the cost of the death of Christ to ransom you. Hosea preached to a generation that would shed their blood when the Assyrian’s attacked them. That blood would be on their own hands. They were guilty. But God looked forward to a time when he would not make us shed our own blood for our sin. But rather Christ would shed his blood in our place.

He Betrothes to Him Forever: He then betrothes you to him forever. Not based on anything you have ever done, or anything you will ever do. But simply because he chose you and loves you. He treats you as if you are a virgin marrying him for the very first time. Your former sins are not counted against you. He truly delights in you as His bride. Just as the groom in Song of Solomon cries out

Song of Solomon 1:15 “Behold, you are beautiful, my love; behold, you are beautiful; your eyes are doves.”

So does Christ truly see you as beautiful. No matter what your past sins. No matter how vast or how wicked they were. Christ betrothes you to himself as if you were a virgin.

He Gives You a New Nature: And he gives you a new nature. Just as God promised he would betroth you in righteousness and justice. When Christ betrothes you to him, he changes your nature from the inside. He altars your desires. He gives you a new moral character that truly longs for God’s Word and God’s ways. And so again, just as the bride in Song of Solomon can look to her husband and say,

Song of Solomon 2:8 “The voice of my beloved! Behold, he comes, leaping over the mountains, bounding over the hills.”

So does a new creation in Christ, eagerly love their Savior.

But Another: And so, let me return to the question I posed at the start of this sermon. On What Grounds Can We Approach God When We Have Been Unfaithful? The answer: On the grounds of the finished work of Christ on the cross and nothing else.

“Oh” you say. “But I was one who slandered Christ while he was upon the cross. I was one who stuck my nose up at him and ridiculed him in his misery. What can Christ do for me?” If you repent, he will wash white as snow, he will forgive your iniquities, he will betrothe himself to you as if you had never sinned.

“But no,” another cries. “I was one who pierced his hands and his feet. I am guilty of crucifying this good man.” Though your hands be stained red with his blood, he will cleanse you. He will redeem your story. Only repent of your sin and follow him.

“How!” another cries. “I loved him when I was young. I used to have sweet dialogue with him. But I have walked away since. I have forgotten his graces. I have pursued worldly pleasures, and filled my mind and heart with carnal thoughts. May I come as well.” Yes, you may come as well. Come to the fountain that never runs dry. Though you have backslidden, his promise to you never fails. Though you have played the harlot, he has played the faithful husband. And his power is great to redeem.

“Oh” cries another. “But my suffering is too great. I am tired and weary from this world, and I am growing callous to God. I have grown numb and my endurance grows weak. I fear my faith will fail me.” Christ will not permit one of his beloved children’s faith to fail them, for he is their sustenance. Your faith does not depend on your own strength, but on Christ himself. The grace and the power that saved you is the grace and the power that will sustain you to the end.

“But no” cries another. “I am so weak. I cannot love him as I ought. I am full of sin continually. Though he loves me, and though I desire to love him so. I find in myself such weakness that I continually fall to sin. I do that which I do not want to do. And every time I fear that his love will run short.” Oh tender soul. Do you not now see, that your very grieving over sin, is great evidence that indeed you have this new nature promised by Christ. And though your deeds reveal the weakness of the flesh, in Christ you are loved as a beloved child of God, forgive in full.

Those whom Christ redeems He will sustain. Because our salvation is not based on our own strength, on our own works. As Hosea redeemed Gomer, so God redeems us.

Closing

Permit me to provide us with three very practical steps.

Stand in Wonder, Like Gomer: Learn to take refuge in Christ. Many of have a Christian faith devoid of intimacy and transparency with God. We assume we are far stronger and more faithful than our actual actions and heart reveal. In Christ, you may have a confidence to approach the most holy place of intimacy with God. Bring your weakness to him in prayer. He is not ashamed to call you a son or daughter, if you are in Christ.

Push Into Your New Nature: The second application I would like to draw is that we must learn to overcome weakness and sin in the Christian by putting off the things of the flesh (our old life), and putting on the things of the Spirit (our new nature). This is the hard work of sanctification, growing into maturity. It begins with understanding that you have a new nature in Christ. Whatever you were before Christ got a hold of you, is not who you truly are now. No Christian man can say, “Well I just have an angry disposition.” No you’re new in Christ. That angry disposition is the flesh of your old. No Christian woman say, “Well I just fall prey to fear and worry.” No, you’re new in Christ. That fearful disposition is of the flesh. You must learn to apply the gospel.

Trust in Christ: Finally, to those who are outside of Christ, but in the room today. I invite you to behold Christ in all of his glory and beauty. There is no love like this to be found anywhere else. Every other love you will ever experience is fleeting, is passing, is shallow. Christ’s love alone will stand the test of time. Believe in him today, and he will wash you white as snow!