Getting Our Attention: Hosea 1:1-2:1

Please turn in your Bibles this morning to the book of Hosea in the Old Testament.

You'll find the sermon text print in the bulletin as well.

We're starting a new sermon series today on this Old Testament book, Prophet.

It's a series that the Lord has given us to preach at this particular time and look forward to how God is going to teach us and grow us through this message from Hosea.

Hear the word of God.

The word of the Lord that came to Hosea, the son of Barry, in the days of Isaiah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel.

When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, Go, take to yourself a wife of Hordom, and have children of Horom, 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.

And the Lord said to him, Call his name Jezreel, for in just a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel, and on that day I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.

She conceived again and bore a daughter.

And the Lord said to him, Call her name no mercy, for I will have no mercy on the house of Israel, to forgive them at all.

But I will have mercy on the house of Judah, and I will save them by the Lord their God.

I will not save them by bow or by sword or by war or by horses or by horsemen.

When she had weaned no mercy, she conceived and bore a son, and the Lord said, Call his name not my people, for you are not my people, and I am not your God.

Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered.

And in the place where it was said to them, You are not my people, it shall be said to them, Children of the living God.

And the children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together, and they shall appoint for themselves one head, and they shall go up from the land, for great shall be the day of Jezreel.

Say to your brothers, You are my people, and to your sisters, you have received mercy.

This is the reading of God's powerful, beautiful, precious word.

Let's ask the Spirit's work in our hearts this morning.

Father, we thank you for messages, even like this, that are hard to hear sometimes.

Lord, sometimes it's really hard to see what's actually going on in the deeper recesses of our hearts.

But that's why we ask your spirit to search us this morning.

Show us what's going on the inside.

Sometimes it bubbles to the outside, and sometimes we're aware, and sometimes we're not.

Would you give us a hunger for your truth this morning?

Would you give us a desire to take in your truth?

Would you open our eyes?

Holy Spirit, we ask.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

The book of Hosea, the prophet Hosea.

The name means salvation.

This was in a time, the 8th century BC.

Hosea is prophesying to the northern tribes of Israel.

And it's an interesting time because it had been a time of great prosperity under King Jeroboam II, and yet he is now witnessing the decline.

Things are going south in a hurry.

Although outwardly the people of Israel were still doing the right things in some respect.

They were observing the religious rituals.

They were going through the formalities of their religion.

Their hearts were far from God.

And God says, enough.

I'm calling you to judgment.

And it's a message of judgment, but in the Bible, a message of judgment is followed by a message of hope.

But God has to get our attention.

He has to get our attention before we can respond as we ought.

Following the time of prosperity under Jeroboam II's reign, followed by six kings, coup after coup.

King rise up, murdered, assassinated.

It was just falling apart.

In this period of time, God is dealing with Israel as we see in this book.

Are you ready for this?

As his wife.

This book is about a marriage.

Literally and symbolically found in the covenant of grace.

God is dealing with what it knows, what he knows to be like in a marriage.

Indeed, God knows what it's like to be in a marriage, in a marriage that's far from perfect, like ours.

One Old Testament scholar put it like this: if the people you love can hurt you the most, one can almost trace the degree of potential pain along a scale.

From the rebuff that you hardly notice from a stranger, maybe in the supermarket, to the upsetting clash you may have with a friend, right on to a singing heart, the heartache of a parent-child estrangement, or the most wounding of all, the betrayal of a marriage.

Jim Boyce, a longtime pastor of 10th Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, called this the second greatest story in the Bible, next to what we know to be the greatest story at Calvary.

That's quite a statement to make in a book that deals with so much hard things.

Why would he say that?

The second greatest story in the Bible, there's five different cycles of judgment here.

And then salvation.

It's unsurpassed drama in the Old Testament.

You know 70% of the Bible is written in narrative.

It's a story.

Why?

Because we all have stories.

God has a story.

And how his story intersects with our story is really important to pay attention to.

There's issues.

If you want to find a book of the Bible where scholars debate and disagree, this is your book.

There are some things that we don't know for sure, but I think we know enough, at least I believe, to have some confidence to say.

One of those questions, is the marriage of Hosea and Gomer literal or is it a parable?

I think it was literal.

I think this was something that God actually called Hosea to do.

There's no indication from the text that it's not historical.

Another question, is Hosea to marry a known adulteress or someone who would later become an adulteress?

Was she an adulteress at the time or later?

Again, we don't know with 100% certainty, but I can believe that she was already known from the text what it says.

This sermon is entitled Getting Our Attention.

Oh, how God has many different ways to get our attention, we're going to see in this series.

What Hosea had to do was in miniature, you could say, what God has done in giving his love to a partner with a history.

How God knows what it's like to give his love to a wife with a roving eye.

And you know who that is.

That's you.

That's me.

We're all guilty of walking away from the lover of our soul.

That's why this book is so important that we understand.

We're going to look at love offered, love spurned, and love reconciled.

The essence of sin is in fact spiritual adultery.

That's the first point.

Verse 2.

Because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery.

And at the time that Hosea wrote this, a lot of people would not have really believed that.

It looked like things were going well.

Bills were being paid.

Civilization was going forward.

Economics were pretty good at this time.

They were covering their lives.

They were wallpapering over what was going on in their hearts with the things that they could see, that they could touch.

They were looking around and they're saying, well, no, things are pretty good.

Right, God?

And he's saying, no, no, they're not that good.

God's covenant is compared to marriage.

You know, there are many word pictures in the Bible for God's relationship with his people, we know.

We know that God is a shepherd to his sheep, right?

We know that.

We know that God is a king to his subjects.

We know that.

We even know that God is a parent to a child.

We know that.

Yet none of these descriptions match the level of intimacy between a husband and a wife, do they?

Nothing approximates that.

God is not content with a formal business relationship with his people.

God's not okay that it's impersonal.

Let me give you an illustration.

The IRS.

Sorry I have to mention that.

It's time for you to pay your bill.

The IRS doesn't care what your attitude is.

They don't care if you curse at that bill that you owe.

They don't care if you crumple it up and just stretch it back out.

They don't care if you stomp on it.

They don't care.

The only thing they care about is you pay what you owe.

That's not God.

That's not God.

He cares very much about our attitude toward him, what we think about him.

The Bible says, love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, all your mind.

That's what God cares about.

That's what he wants from us.

Why would he care so much about us?

Because he married us.

We're going to be thinking through that in the next few months as we see it in this book.

Why would he care?

The essence of sin is breaking relationship.

The essence of sin is breaking the heart of God, not just the rules.

All right?

Us Washingtonians, rule keepers, people that like to check all the boxes off, like to think that we've done what we need, what's required, and gone above.

He says, this is not about checking the boxes.

This is a heart-to-heart conversation.

This is a heart-to-heart relationship between God and you.

God and me.

Sin is the response of the heart that says, God, I guess you're not enough.

You can't satisfy me.

I think I need to go looking somewhere else to find the thing that will really satisfy my heart, if I'm honest.

God knows what it's like to have his heart broken.

And that's why God said to Hosea, I want you to go marry Gomer.

You know, there's a lot of hard callings throughout the Bible.

We see in the Old Testament.

Abraham had a hard calling, didn't he?

Leave your country and travel a great distance, not knowing where you're going.

Leave your family behind, your ancestors.

That was a hard calling.

Moses had a hard calling, didn't he?

I want you to go lead that multitude of people, that nation.

I want you to lead them through a desert 40 years and endure all their grumbling, all their complaining.

They're going to come after you.

Moses had a hard calling.

There were a lot of hard callings in the scripture.

But think about this one.

You're a prophet.

You speak for God.

You're faithful to God.

And God says, I want you to go marry that adulterous woman.

Wow.

Oh, God understands.

God understands.

But secondly, the judgment of sin.

Look at the judgment on their sin that resulted in separation.

God delivered his judgment on Israel in a very provocative way through the three children that would be born to Gomer.

Did you catch the names of these children?

The first child, Jezreel, which means in the Hebrew, God scatters.

That's not a good vibe.

What we like is God gathers.

What we like is God welcomes, God receives.

But for God to scatter and say, no, away.

He's talking about the house of Jehu, a man of blood and violence in the Old Testament.

God had called Jehu to serve his purpose, to execute the servants of Baal, the God, at God's command.

He did the work, he took on the assignment that God gave him to destroy the family of Ahab and Jezebel.

Yet he went too far because his own thirst for power and control and violence got the better of him.

He went beyond that.

He slaughtered the family of Ahaziah.

The name Jezreel, the plain, became a symbol in the Old Testament of national disgrace.

Where once it was the site of victory for Gideon, it became over the years a place of disgrace.

Jezreel, the plain, once the site of Gideon's victory, once covered with glory, now massacres, violence, and blood.

It would be just a few short years before the Assyrian army would come out of the north and go trample on that very ground, the plain of Jezreel, and conquer the northern tribes.

They would take the tribes in the north and do awful things to them and with them.

I want you to name your first child, Jezreel.

God scatters.

The second child.

I want you to name that second child, not pitied, not loved.

Lo Ami.

Lo in the Hebrew, no, not.

Lo Ruhama.

What a thought.

What a name.

This is how seriously God took his relationship with his people.

It's in Isaiah.

Many of us are familiar with these words, Isaiah chapter 49, verse 15.

Isaiah 49:15

Can a mother forget her nursing child and have no compassion on the son of her womb?

Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.

That's what God said about his people.

What's going on here?

Well, first of all, let me just say, because it's going to come up again in the series.

God doesn't love all of the people of Israel.

Some of the people, many of the people of Israel, are not in heaven today.

You need to know that.

This is not some blanket promise that God says, oh, you're all my people.

It doesn't work that way.

The grace of God is particular.

The grace of God is effectual.

To those he calls, he redeems.

He supplies the righteousness and the grace that's necessary.

But no people ought to presume on his mercy.

That's exactly what Israel was doing.

He says, the second child shall be called, not pitied, not loved.

While it is a shattering thought enough to lose a war or a kingdom, how much more shattering is it to lose God's compassion?

And you might be thinking today, well, that doesn't even make sense.

I didn't know that was in the Bible.

What do you mean somebody loses God's compassion?

It happens.

God extends his mercy, and yet sometimes God hardens, well, he responds to the hardening of our hearts.

You know, to harden your heart against God is a dangerous thing to do.

All God has to do is take his hand off of you and let you go your way.

That's a terrible, terrible thing to experience.

And yet what we're going to see in the series on Hosea is many of these com uh many of these words have to be read as warnings, not judgments.

God warns his people to get right with him.

God knows who his people are.

We don't.

Okay?

This is important to see these as warnings.

God alone will make the final judgment.

But don't spurn his calls, his enticements.

Don't take lightly when God calls you.

As for Judah, the sisters, the cousins of the South, at this time they're going to be spared.

God says, I'm not going to bring this judgment from Assyria on you, Judah.

And that's the reference in the language.

I'm going to spare you.

I'm not going to scatter you, not now.

I'm going to take care of you because there was more faithfulness in the south at this time than there was in the north.

In fact, just probably a few years after this, Assyria would come down and try to take out Judah like they did Israel to the north.

And some of you remember that Bible story in the Old Testament.

On one night, God supernaturally killed 185,000 Assyrians.

Think about that.

Think about that number.

Think about when we hear the casualties from the war in Ukraine, which are horrible, or Israel, which are horrible, but by comparison?

One night.

185,000 Assyrians.

God takes out.

Because he had mercy on his people.

Because he was protecting his people.

And then there was a third child.

Lo a me.

Not my people.

Literally, this is what it says in Hebrew.

I am not a comma.

I am to you.

What is that?

Where do you think he might be taking us back?

Exodus chapter three, where God appears to Moses.

Moses.

And Moses said, Who shall I tell?

Sent me?

I am.

I am who I am sent you.

Yahweh.

But here he's saying, I am not the I am to you.

This really ought to get our attention.

Why would God do this?

Is he just mean spirited?

Is he vindictive?

A vengeful, cranky deity that just can't be pleased?

We know that's not true.

The pages of Scripture are filled.

That he is a God of compassion.

His mercies are new every day.

You know what this tells me?

This tells me that if I was to really press against him that long, that hard, why would I expect him to show me mercy?

Why would I expect him to show me grace?

If I'm hardening my heart toward him, even when I'm religious.

Literally, it says, You are not my people, and I am not yours.

Those are terrifying words.

You don't ever want to hear those words.

Trust me.

Takes my mind to the New Testament.

Remember when the Sermon on the Mount when Jesus said, there will become a day for many people, many religious people.

I mean, no doubt, many Presbyterians.

There will come a day on the day of judgment when Jesus will look at those people and say, Depart from me.

I don't know who you are.

And he's not saying, I don't know your name.

He's not saying I don't know your whole story.

I don't know you.

I don't have a loving relationship with you.

You never bowed your heart to me.

You never gave me your heart.

It was, but and these people say, well, wait a minute.

Didn't we do prophecy?

Didn't we teach?

Didn't we serve in your name?

What do you mean we don't know each other?

He says, I never got your heart.

I never had your heart.

You were too busy going after other lovers.

We're going to see this in the series.

You were too busy, preoccupied, building your career, building your family, building your reputation.

It was really about you.

It was really about you.

Let's be honest, it was about you.

You don't want to be that person on the day of judgment.

You don't want to be that person that Jesus says, get out of here, depart.

I never knew you.

These are warnings, brothers and sisters.

These are warnings that we don't trifle with our sin.

These are warnings that we don't presume on God's grace.

These are warnings that we don't think everything's okay, because outwardly it seems like everything's okay.

Why?

The true God is not for sharing.

He is a jealous God.

If your partner, if your partner has a roving eye, if your partner is being drawn into an illicit relationship with somebody else, you ought to get jealous.

You ought to be jealous.

Jealousy is a good thing.

And it is with God.

How many times does he say, I am a jealous God?

I want you.

And I don't want to share you.

Which brings us to the third point.

Anyone need some good news at this point?

Yeah.

And this is amazing in this book.

These five different cycles: judgment and then salvation.

You know what he's doing?

He's always coming back and preaching the gospel.

And that's what I need.

That's exactly what I need.

Oh, verse 10.

I mean, this is shocking.

As we're really paying attention to what's going on and what's being said, this is shocking.

Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered.

And in the place where it was said to them, You are not my people, it shall be said to them, children of the living God, and the children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together, and they shall appoint for themselves one head, and they shall go up from the land, for great shall be the day.

Great shall be the day of Jezreel?

This is a complete turnabout.

Say to your brothers, you are my people.

To your sisters, you have received mercy.

Man, I'm glad.

I'm glad he gives us the gospel here.

Otherwise, I might be hopeless.

Otherwise, I might draw the conclusion that I've blown it completely.

I'm past the point of return.

Have you ever thought that?

Have you ever wondered if you were past the point of return where you could come back?

You know what God's saying right now through his word and the Holy Spirit.

Wherever you are, come back.

Come back, God says.

I know what you've been looking to to satisfy you.

Put it down, walk away, and come home.

Come back.

My arms are opened.

My heart is welcoming you.

This is the gospel.

Martin Luther said, When you preach the gospel, don't preach a fictitious gospel.

And don't bring a fictitious sin.

You know what that he's getting at there.

Don't bring a fictitious sin to God.

Don't bring a misdemeanor.

Don't bring something that really isn't getting to the heart of the matter.

Don't bring, oh God, I should be more faithful.

Don't bring, oh God, I probably wasted my day today.

Forgive me.

Come on.

God says, come on.

Let's deal with the real stuff.

Love reconciled.

Out of nowhere in this story, all of a sudden, grace appears.

A remarkable shift occurs.

And I was thinking about this grace that appears at this point in the text, and my heart was just drawn, my mind was drawn to so many places, so many places in the Old and New Testament.

I was encouraged.

I was encouraged because so many times my heart has wandered.

And it seems that wherever my heart wanders, there's a promise in the Word of God.

There's a call to come back.

One of the places my mind went this week was the book of Epistle of 1 Corinthians, chapter 6.

1 Corinthians 6 · chapter mention

He has a lot to say, the Apostle Paul there, talking about the people of God.

Verse 9, do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?

Do not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, not swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.

But wait for it.

Wait for it.

And such were some of you.

But you were washed.

You were sanctified.

You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Oh, what precious words.

Once you were, but by the grace of God, now you're not.

Such were some of you.

He doesn't give all the sins, he doesn't give the whole catalog of sins.

There were many more.

We know that the word of the flesh in the Greek has two faces.

There's the immortal side, and that's the list that these Paul just happened to choose right there.

But what's the other face of the flesh?

Our morality.

Our pride.

Our love of reputation.

Our love and need for approval.

Our unbelief.

The deeper sins we would say, perhaps.

And such were some of you.

But Jesus pursued you.

And God called you back.

And God gave you the means.

God put you in a certain place where you heard the word of God.

God brought you back.

God put you in a place where the Holy Spirit put your heart, the eyes of your heart, on the truth and on the grace of God.

God's grace is true.

God's truth is gracious and his grace is true.

And it's for you.

And it's for me.

This is the gospel.

Richard Baxter, the Puritan, said about this text.

So then let the words deserved be written on the door of hell, but on the door of heaven, let the words the free gift be written.

What we all deserve is death.

What we all deserve is judgment.

But the free gift of the gospel.

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

This is the gift that the Father offers you.

Oh friends, the last word has not been heard.

It's never too late to come back.

It's never too late to repent when your heart is strayed, when your life has fallen apart.

They had a tough assignment too, those kids.

Walking pulpits when people would meet them.

What's your name?

What's your name?

Huh.

But God used them for his purpose.

God gave them what they needed.

And God will give us what we need.

What are we saying as we close?

God says, you can't marry me and date others.

That's what he says.

You can't marry me and go around dating others.

And the others could be at all kinds of things.

You can't marry me and date your career.

You can't marry me and date your ministry, preacher.

You can't marry me and live for your children.

That's a harder one, isn't it?

You can't live for your children and make them your idol.

Can't do it.

God says, I want all of your heart, I want all of your love.

I've given you all my heart, I've given you all my love, and through the finished work of Jesus Christ, I will not require what I cannot give you.

You must receive it.

Take it in.

Thy mercy, my God, as we were singing earlier this morning.

Oh, those words, conquer every rebel power, Lord, in me.

Let no vice or sin remain that resists your holy war.

You have loved and purchased me.

Make me yours forevermore.

Isn't that what you want?

Isn't that what you need?

I did not, there was a time in my life I did not know your love within.

I had no taste for heaven's joys.

Then your spirit gave me life and opened up your word to me.

Thy mercy, my God, is the theme of my song, the joy of my heart, and the boast of my tongue.

Friends, God has called his family back for another family gathering this morning.

God has called his kids back.

He says, I want you to hear my heart.

I want you to know my heart.

I want you to give me your heart.

Because I so love this world that I gave my only son, that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have everlasting life.

Embrace.

Receive the love he's offering you today.

Please pray with me.

Father, we we do come.

Lord, we've heard.

Hear.

Holy Spirit, let us hear exactly what we need to hear today.

Conquer every evil power.

Conquer every evil thought.

Conquer every temptation that would draw us away from you.

Oh God, by the work of your spirit this morning, as we look to the finished work of Jesus who loved us and gave himself for us.

For his sake, by the Holy Spirit's power, we're going to stop dating others.

Thank you for marrying us, Father.

Thank you for bringing us into your family.

Thank you for one day sitting us around your banquet table in heaven.

And we'll never stop praising you.

We'll never stop boasting of the grace of God that saved us.

Father, be honored, be glorified.

Through what you do in our hearts this morning.

We pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.