When God Commanded Family Drama

Exodus chapter 34 and we’ll read verses 1 through 17. Exodus 34, 1 through 17. Now the Lord said to Moses, cut out for yourself two stone tablets, like the former ones, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the former tablets, which you shattered.

So be ready by morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and present yourself there to me on top of the mountain. No man is to come up with you, nor let any man be seen anywhere on the mountain. Even the flocks and the herds may not graze in front of that mountain. So he cut out two stone tablets like the former ones. And Moses rose up early in the morning and went up to Mount Sinai as the Lord had commanded him. And he took two stone tablets in his hand.

The Lord descended in the cloud and stood there with him as he called upon the name of the Lord. Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness and truth. who keeps loving kindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin. Yet, he will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations. Moses made haste to bow low toward the earth and worship. He said, If now I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, I pray, let the Lord go along in our midst, even though the people are so obstinate, and pardon our iniquity and our sin and take us as your own possession.

Then God said, Behold, I am going to make a covenant. Before all your people I will perform miracles which have not been produced in all the earth nor among any of the nations. And all the people among you whom you live will see the working of the Lord, for it is a fearful thing that I am going to perform with you. Be sure to observe what I am commanding you this day. Behold, I am going to drive out the Amorite before you, and the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite.

Watch yourself that you make no covenant with the inhabitants of the land into which you are going, or it will become a snare in your midst. But rather, you are to tear down their altars, and smash their sacred pillars, and cut down their ashram. For you shall not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous god. Otherwise, you might make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they would play the harlot with their gods, and sacrifice to their gods. And someone might invite you to eat of his sacrifice. and you might take some of his daughters for your sons, and his daughters might play the harlot with their gods, and cause your sons also to play the harlot with their gods. You shall make for yourself no molten gods.”

Let’s pray. Lord, right now we come to you asking for your help with this text. Unless you come and illumine our minds, show us the truth, of who you are, of the book of Hosea, and the intended meaning, Lord, it will fall on deaf ears. So, Lord, we ask that you would come in our midst, open our eyes, that we might behold wonderful things from your word. And it’s in your name we pray these things. Amen. I chose this passage because it’s so relevant to the text that we’re in Hosea today. Historically, this is after the golden calf incident.

Moses is on Mount Sinai talking to God, and God reveals himself to Moses, not only visually by manifesting his presence. Remember, God is spirit, and so God was showing himself in a unique way. but also showing who he was and declaring it who he was.

We saw that he said that he is the Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness and truth, who keeps loving kindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin. He’s a compassionate God. He forgives sin. But since he is a just God, he also, the text says, will not leave the guilty unpunished. visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.

Now keep this in mind, this is Israel that he’s talking about, that God is talking about. Not a specific sin, not our individual sins, not like your sins somehow are going to affect your children and their children and their grandchildren. But in the context of the nation of Israel, If the nation of Israel as a whole were to pursue idolatry, spiritual harlotry, as is illustrated in the book of Hosea and elsewhere in the Old Testament, then the third and fourth generations would be impacted. they would be impacted by those sins, by the sin of idolatry specifically. We have to remember the history of the nation of Israel.

I won’t go as in-depth as we did last time we were going through Hosea 1.1, but if you look at the Bible and you were to start at the very beginning, Genesis 1.1 is that famous verse.

And what happens in Genesis 1.1? In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Good job. See, we know that one, right? And you go through Genesis 1 through 11, chapters 1 through 11, and it’s the foundations for everything that we know. You know, where did we, where’s purpose in life? How did we get here?

And it shows we have a creator, that we have been created in God’s image. but that we have sinned, and that because of our sin, the earth has been plunged into pain and difficulties, and difficulties in labor and sin, but that God promised that one would come to crush the head of the serpent, right? That one, the seed of the woman would come, even in the midst of the curse that came with the fall. One would come to reverse the curse. And then we see things such as the flood, we see the Tower of Babel, and then we get to Genesis chapter 12. And God calls a man by the name of Abram and promises him that he will make a great nation out of him. that from Abram will come an amazing nation, and he gives three components of this blessing and promise to him.

Now, is Chris Carr here? No, he’s not. Oh, I was going to ask him. He’s been on it. We’ve been learning in our Sunday school class about the Abrahamic covenant and the three blessings that accompany that. Does anyone remember the blessing? Land, seed, and blessing. Yes, yes. Land, seed, and blessing. I know Pastor Rob doesn’t normally do this, so don’t tell him I’m strutting across the room. Whatever. At least I don’t have Jordans or skinny jeans, kind of, you know. Right, land, seed, and blessing.

So Abram’s, or then Abraham’s, descendants then would be blessed with land, with descendants, many descendants, and blessing, right? God promises your descendants will be like the stars of the sky and the grains of sand on the shore. Those promises are then given again to Isaac and then to Jacob after Isaac, Isaac’s son. And then you have Jacob’s descendants in Egypt, and that’s where the book of Exodus begins. And everything is all sunshine and rainbows in Exodus, right?

No, no. They’re put under heavy slavery. The population is growing in a supernatural way. And Pharaoh thinks that they pose a threat to the Egyptian nation. And so he decides to inflict them with slavery. And then God raises up this deliverer by the name of Moses, right? To come and to tell Pharaoh to let the people go. God brings plagues. And through all of those things, God ends up delivering these descendants of Abraham. the nation of Israel, the Hebrews, from under the Egyptian slavery. He brings them to Sinai and he tells them in Exodus 19 that he has drawn them to himself to be a people for himself, that they would be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

In other words, as they would obey and seek to follow God as a nation, they would operate in such a way that the other nations would see the way the Lord has worked in them, would see the blessings they have, would see the amazing things that God has done, that they live wholly, that they’re different, and that they would want to be like them and know their God. And as you all know, not to be sarcastic again, but they did a great job of that, right? No, just right after that, in Exodus 32, we have the golden calf incident, right?

Moses is up in Mount Sinai for 40 days and 40 nights, and Israel already starts questioning if they’re really following the right guy. God exercises his judgment on them for that, but Moses intercedes, pleads on their behalf, and then God reveals himself to Moses in this specific passage we read from Exodus 34, that he is a compassionate God and he forgives sin, and yet he won’t leave sin unpunished. He won’t leave sin unpunished because he’s a just God. And so then from there, you have Joshua who takes over for Moses after Moses dies.

And they’re called to then take hold of the land that God had promised to Abraham, right? Remember, land, descendants, and blessing. And they go in and they’re commanded to wipe out all of the peoples in the land of Canaan as an act of judgment on them for their idolatry and sin against God. And also so that the people of Israel wouldn’t be corrupted by their false worship, by their idolatry. And the book of Joshua shows that they weren’t successful. They weren’t fully obedient and making sure the land was cleared. Which then sets up for the book of Judges where things are crazy. It’s the Wild West of the Old Testament.

There was no king in Israel at that time and everyone did what was right in their own eyes. that they would continually be put under judgment by a specific nation and then the people would cry out to God and God would raise up someone who would deliver the Israelites from their oppression and then they would go in these cycles before they had a king. And then eventually the people of Israel told God, we don’t want you as our king. We want a king to be like the rest of the nations. We don’t want to be a holy nation. We don’t want to be other and different. We want to be like the rest. We want to be like, sit at the cool kids tables of nations, right?

And so God gives him Saul, and Saul himself is a sinner, a fallible, a king. And then after that, God raises up David, does amazing things through him, and gives him the Davidic covenant, or a blessing, a promise in 2 Samuel chapter 7. that there would be a descendant that would come from David whose reign would know no end. And then after that David’s son Solomon succeeds him and Solomon’s immorality then leads the nation into idolatry. All of his wives pursued other gods and then idolatry came into Israel. which then led to his successor splitting the kingdoms, God providentially doing that through his successor, so that then you had the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah.

And where we are at in the book of Hosea is Hosea is coming from that northern kingdom of Israel. The difference in the text, whenever you hear Ephraim, that’s the largest tribe in the northern kingdom of Israel. So when God says Ephraim, he means Israel and Hosea. When God says Samaria, that was the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel.

So that’s referring to Israel as well, as well as Israel itself. And Judah then speaks of that lower southern nation. So if you’ll turn with me in your Bibles to Hosea, once again, not to make this joke again, probably the cleanest part of your Bibles, Hosea 1, 2 through 9, we’ll look into this text.

We learned last time in Hosea 1.1 that God’s love is offensive because his word is authoritative, because salvation is exclusive, there is salvation in no one else, not even our own good works. We also learned that God’s love is offensive because his judgment is sure. But now we come and we learn two different things about the nation of Israel. Hosea is a prophet sent by God to speak to Israel before the Assyrian invasion.

And he is to tell them two different things. The first thing is that Israel was to be rejected because of their spiritual harlotry. Israel was to be rejected because of their spiritual harlotry, verses two through nine. And by the way, Hosea is right before Joel and comes right after Daniel. Verse 2 we read, Imagine being a prophet of God, not having any calling yet, not hearing anything about what you were supposed to do, and this is the first thing you hear from God.

No courtship, no consideration of his feelings. No gomer, his wife of harlotry, giving him the signals and the signs, those cute things that then Hosea might go to her and ask for her phone number, because they definitely had those things back then, right? No sweet romance, anything like that. No swiping right or no profitsonly.com, right? I mean, right here, it’s just, he commands him, go take for yourself a wife of harlotry. We have to ask, what does this mean?

It’s perhaps the most controversial part of this text. In fact, if you were to buy commentaries on this book of Hosea, the commentators so often, as my friend Jeremy Sanders says, they really miss the forest for the trees. They get so stuck on these little issues that really don’t have much to do with our Christian walk, but are divisive and controversial.

This is controversial because God explicitly commanded priests to not take wives of harlotry in Leviticus 21, and the reasoning is that many would think that God would require the same thing of prophets. He doesn’t, but some people find that offensive.

Some have dismissed it because if Hosea was God’s prophet, how would he have any credibility if he were to take a wife that was not above reproach? The question of this controversy boils down to was she a wife of harlotry before he married her? Or is this God telling him to take a wife that would be unfaithful to him in the future? Some people present it as present harlotry, that his wife would be part of this Baal worship, nasty stuff, either as a prostitute or victim, but that makes Gomer’s unfaithfulness expected. And if her unfaithfulness is already there, it’s hard to see how her future unfaithfulness would be controversial, and that’s part of the thrust of Hosea, the passage.

So it doesn’t seem that that would be the case. Some then interpret this to be future unfaithfulness, citing that a specific word for that Baal worship and Baal worshipers in that context, it wasn’t used. But that’s not the point of this text. That’s not important. The portion of this text that we need to focus on is Israel, not the specifics of Gomer. The word for harlotry used here can be used in a variety of contexts, but it’s in the plural. It should be translated harlotries. In other words, take someone who has a reputation for this. Take someone who has the reputation for this.

But why? Why include this? Why do those details not matter? We see in the text, verse 2, he says, why? For the land commits flagrant harlotry, forsaking the Lord. You see, this word for connects with not only Hosea’s future wife that will be unfaithful, but also with their future children as well. That the meanings of these names all apply to the nation of Israel. It shows unfaithful Israel. Israel commits flagrant harlotry, probably literally as well, but in a spiritual sense, as they forsake the Lord. In fact, this is a common designation throughout the whole Old Testament, that idolatry is spiritual harlotry. It was described at the very beginning of the first time it was in Exodus 34, where we read that earlier.

Sacrificing to goat demons of the nations was called harlotry, Leviticus 17. Sacrificing to Molech and consulting mediums was called harlotry, Leviticus 20. Israel was called to have tassels on their garments to remember God’s commands so they wouldn’t follow their own hearts and forsake the Lord, which was called playing the harlot. God tells Moses right before Moses’ death that the Israelites would arise and play the harlot with the foreign gods of the land.

Deuteronomy 31. And once again, this is a figurative harlotry. This is unfaithfulness to God. Israel is portrayed in like a relationship sense. And as mentioned last time, this idolatry wasn’t so much a logical appeal. It wasn’t that Baal was the best argument out there, he made the most sense. It was the sinful component and the sinful bent that led Israel in that direction.

Judges 2 talks the same thing. It talks about Israel playing the harlot after other gods. Judges 8 talks about pursuing Baal worship as harlotry. And there are many examples, but the point is that Israel at this point has become just like Gomer and is unfaithful. That’s the point of this text. They’re characterized by this unfaithfulness. So we’ll continue reading.

Verse three, it says, so he, and remember that’s Hosea, went and took Gomer, the daughter of Deblaine, and she conceived and bore him a son. 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. These names are important because they all have meanings, right? Just some random examples.

The name Ronald means ruler’s counselor, or great ruler. Barbara comes from barbaros, random names, meaning foreign or strange. Don’t worry, we don’t think you’re strange. I promise. It actually came from barbaros, the Greek word where they would say the foreign people sounded like they were talking, like bar, bar, bar, bar, which is kind of interesting. Taylor means one who works on clothes, just speaking of hypotheticals. And Emily means industrious.

Jezreel, though, is an important name and has an important meaning, but it’s not just for its meaning. It’s for two reasons. First of all, we see there’s some historical context here. We see that there’s this bloodshed of Jezreel. There’s something going on here, and it speaks of a historical account of this king named Ahab and another king named Jehu. Now, I don’t know what you remember of Ahab if you go back to the Sunday school lessons of Ahab and his wonderful wife Jezebel, right? He was an enemy of Elijah, the true prophet of God, a wicked king in Israel. And in 2 Kings chapter 21, an event is recorded where Ahab covets a vineyard of this man named Naboth.

He wants to have his vineyard. He’s like, hey, I want to grow veggies. I don’t know if it was 400 cucumbers. But hey, I want to have this as my garden. I’ll give you whatever land. And Naboth doesn’t want to give it over because it’s his family inheritance, right? his family inheritance. And so Ahab comes back to his castle or wherever he’s at and starts pouting like a toddler. He doesn’t eat. He just lays on his bed all the time and Jezebel comes in and asks him, well, what’s the matter? And he tells her, well, I can’t have Naboth’s vineyard. And then Jezebel devised a scheme where Naboth would be falsely accused of treason.

That they would put him in this event, and some people would accuse him of cursing God and the king, and they put him to death. After all this happened, Ahab, without any shame, at least not within the text, took the vineyard as his own, and Elijah, God’s prophet, confronted him. In this prophecy specifically, God promised that in the same place where Naboth’s blood was spilled in this valley of Jezreel, which is where Naboth’s vineyard was in, so too would dogs lick up Ahab’s blood and that God would destroy every male descendant of Ahab, destroying his household. Now after this, Ahab humbled himself and God said that this punishment would then go on his future generations, not on Ahab himself. And Ahab eventually went out to battle and disguised himself as a common soldier, and the text says it just so happened that one of the arrows happened to pierce his armor and kill him, even though they were looking in the wrong place for the king, and Ahab died. Then Ahab was succeeded by his son Azahiah, and he died just after reigning for two years. Another son of Ahab, Jehoram, or also known as Joram, took Ahaziah’s place after his death and reigned 12 years before he was assassinated by Jehu, this is the other name that’s important, with his body thrown in Naboth’s vineyard.

Jehu went to assassinate Ahaziah of Judah, a grandson of Ahab, along with having Ahab’s other 70 sons killed, all those who remained fulfilling God’s promise. that all of Ahab’s descendants would end. Jehu killed all the prophets, priests, and slaves of Baal, yet he was also described as not departing from the many sins of Jeroboam, another king, including a different form of idolatry that wasn’t Baal worship, but he didn’t get rid of the two golden calves that were placed in Israel by this guy named Jeroboam. This highlights very likely that Jehu’s being punished, not necessarily for wiping out all of Ahab’s descendants as God was using him as his instrument, but for his motives, for his selfish motives, because he still was involved in idolatry and it was likely that he did that as a power grab rather than obedience to God.

But we also need to consider not only the history, but the meaning of this name, Jezreel. Jezreel literally means the Lord scatters. The Lord scatters. Jezreel. And it means that God would scatter Israel in their exile as Assyria would overthrow Israel, the text says, in a little while.

Remember, during Hosea’s ministry, there was this crazy political turmoil. Six kings in 30 years, many assassinations. Six kings in 30 years. I mean a number that though is bad. I guess it’s not as bad as the Denver Broncos coaching The last 30 years nine coaches in 30 years, but who’s counting right?

God’s promised to break the bow here He says not only is he going to scatter them, they’re going to name him Jezreel for a little while. I will punish the house of Jehu, put an end of the kingdom of the house of Israel. But he says on that day I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel. This term, breaking the bow, was a common euphemism for complete and total military defeat. Many of you probably know Psalm 46, right? God breaks the bow, he bends the spear and burns the chariots with fire.

It speaks of an ancient context when, rather than being efficient as victors in battle, kings wanted to rub the salt in the wound. They wanted to rub it in the face of their enemy, and after their enemy would lose, they would get the enemy king or military leader, and the king would put his foot on the neck or the head of the military leader to completely insult the other leader. And they would take all the bows, all the spears, all the chariots, put them in a big pile, and then set them ablaze, just to kind of rub it in.

And that’s what it says that God will do, only this isn’t to his enemies. This is to Israel. Israel themselves had trusted in their own strength and their own bows and alliances of other nations instead of depending upon God for their protection. And God was gonna pull the rug out from under them, destroying the futile object of their trust. And just as God, Israel was to be God’s instrument to bring judgment on the nations that had pursued idolatry, so too would Israel as a nation that had pursued idolatry be punished. As God said, he would not leave the guilty unpunished. So the first child was named Jezreel because God was going to scatter Israel in the Assyrian invasion out of the land.

Then you get to verse 6 and it’s the second child. It says, then she, Gomer, 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. Notice there’s a difference in language here in verse 6. If you were to compare it with verse 3, verse 3 it says, Here it doesn’t say that. It says, This is not here likely denoting that the child is not Hosea’s, that she has been unfaithful.

God was compassionate even though the people had been unfaithful to him. He had not led them to captivity yet. It wasn’t that the moment they committed idolatry, God scattered them. God had been patient and compassionate, delivering his word to them again and again through his prophets, and they had rejected him. And so, at this point, God announced that judgment was coming. Just as the name Lo-Ruhamah meant no compassion, so did God decide to remove his compassion in a specific way to Israel in the midst of their idolatry.

Verse 7 is interesting. because there’s a contrast. So there’s no compassion, I will no longer have compassion on Israel, but he says, but I will have compassion, verse seven, 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. Some interpret this to a future judgment of Judah as well. What you can do is in verse seven, you see they will not deliver them by bow, and you can translate that technically from bow, so it’s not delivering them from the bow that will come, but it doesn’t seem to jibe well with the verse.

I think the best interpretation of this is that at least for the present moment, Judah, remember southern nation, would not experience the same judgment as Israel, the northern nation. They wouldn’t, and that God would deliver them from the Assyrians, the very ones that would conquer the northern kingdom. And it wouldn’t be by their own strength, but by God’s power that they would be delivered. And this was fulfilled in history. Sennacherib, you might remember this account, king of Assyria, came and sought to set siege on the fortified cities of Judah, the southern kingdom.

Rabshakeh, sort of a spokesperson for him, came and sought to discourage Hezekiah, the king of Judah, as well as the people, by telling them that they would be defeated, that they had defeated all the other nations and their lowercase g gods. Who is this Lord that you serve? He can’t protect you. Hezekiah then prayed to the Lord, and what happened next? Sennacherib or Rabshak or whoever was in charge woke up the next morning to the lovely stench of 185,000 choice soldiers dead by the angel of the Lord in the night.

It’s interesting, in 1830, there was an archeological artifact discovered in Iraq, in 1830. I think it was biblical Jericho. They’ve called it the Taylor Prism or the Sennacherib Prism. And it gives the account of Sennacherib’s various military campaigns.

And whenever his army conquered a land, it was a propaganda piece. They would just tell lots about it. Oh, we took these people captive, and we mocked this king, and we did all of this. But when it comes to his siege of Jerusalem, on this artifact, you can find it in the British Museum, there was nothing of the siege of Jerusalem, only monetary tribute, and nothing of a conquering of Judah listed, even on the propaganda piece itself, quickly shifting to other campaigns. And so I don’t know about you, but if I was a king and wanted to keep my reputation, I wouldn’t want to include for future generations to read about how I lost 185,000 of my soldiers in one night, in the propaganda at least. And so it’s just interesting to see that, but that was when God delivered Judah. It wasn’t because Judah had a better army. It wasn’t by their own strength, but it was by God in his grace and mercy.

But then we get to the next child of Hosea. When she, that is Gomer, had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, verse eight, she conceived and gave birth to a son. And the Lord said, name him Lo-Ami, for you are not my people, and I am not your God. Now I find, once again, there’s a difference here. It said that she had weaned Lo Ruhama.

And I think what this is showing is this is a long period of time. We’re talking about years with all of these children. Back then, weaning was between two and three years old. And so it had been years that Gomer had been unfaithful to Hosea, and he was still commanded to be her husband.

Once again, here it says gave birth, it doesn’t say bore to Hosea. And the name specifically here for this child is Lo-Ami, meaning not my people. Kind of a simple way to remember the Hebrew on these names is lo means no, right? Lo-Ami, not my people.

It’s a stark contrast from God’s plan in the very beginning. In fact, when God tells Moses of his plans to deliver Israel, the Hebrews, from Egyptian slavery in Exodus chapter 6, he tells them that he would take them out, delivering them with his great power, and would take them for his people, and that he would be their God. Exodus 6, 6-7.

God promised Israel insofar as they were obedient to him as a nation, not turning to idolatry, that he would bless them, right? In Leviticus 26, he ends up saying there will be blessings for obedience as a nation if you do not pursue idolatry, being a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, and there will be curses for disobedience. Moses reaffirms this in Deuteronomy 28, when he’s giving his final address and sermon to the nation of Israel, recounting their history. He tells them, again, there’s going to be blessings for obedience in worshiping the true God, and there’s going to be curses for disobedience on our nation. And for those of you who might remember from our Sunday school, which section was longer, blessing for obedience or curses for disobedience? Curses, right? Curses. Yes. Yes. I see you. I see you. I see you. Yes.

What does that mean? What is significant about that? What’s the implication of what will happen in the future? Curses, right? The curses section is longer. The implication is that they would be unfaithful. Before Moses gave the warning again of blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience in Deuteronomy 28, he said specifically that on that day they had become a people for the Lord, Deuteronomy 27.9. This is totally different than what Israel had experienced in the past because they had forsaken God and pursued idolatry. They had pursued idolatry, forsaking the Lord, the text says. So the first thing that Hosea announced in this first, or at least through the history was announced through his children, was that Israel was rejected because of their spiritual harlotry.

But there also was good news. There also was good news. He also showed through his prophecy that Israel would be restored in spite of their spiritual harlotry. That they would be restored in spite of their spiritual harlotry, and that’s found in verses 10 through 11. We read in verse 10, yet the number of the sons of Israel will be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered.

Where has that wordage been used before? Genesis, where specifically? The Abrahamic Covenant, right? When God promises to Abraham, he’s like, look at the stars, can you count them? That’s what your descendants are going to be like. Or like the grain of sand on the seashore. And that’s specifically what the original audience would have had in mind. God is still faithful to that promise that he made to Abraham. That’s found in Genesis 32. And what are those three things again that that promise involved? Land, seed, blessing, right? God was faithful to all three. This was to be an everlasting covenant, he said in Genesis 17. And the reason why it was everlasting was because it didn’t ultimately depend upon the people. It depended on the very character of God. And since God never changes, since he’s all-powerful, knowing everything, and he’s good, and he’s faithful, that promise would still remain intact even though Israel would be rejected for a time.

And do you remember Genesis 15, when God cuts the covenant, makes the treaty with Abraham, and they cut open those animals and lay them on the sides, and Abraham and God are supposed to go through that, indicating in that ancient context, if either of us breaks this promise or treaty, let us be like these animals. We’re going to end up like this or worse. And the text says that specifically Abraham was discouraged and he didn’t end up walking through it and he has a vision and he sees the Lord passing through as a flaming torch and smoking oven. God alone went through those pieces because it showed that it was ultimately dependent upon God. Because Abraham was a human, post-fall, he was a sinner saved by grace, and that if it was ultimately dependent upon him rather than the character of God, then it would be to no avail.

We continue reading in verse 10, it says, So notice the difference here, Lo-Ami, not my people, these people aren’t my people, but one day will be said, you are the sons of the living God. Perhaps this is even better than my people, right? If they lost the my people part, sons of the living God is an amazing thing to be known as. The word living God or that title is specifically used to contrast with the idols of the nations. They cannot see, they cannot hear. Think of the prophet Elijah mocking the prophets of Baal, right? Your God, maybe he’s just asleep, right? Maybe he’s relieving himself. He can’t do anything. He’s not a real God.

And so what this is saying is that this God is the faithful God, the one that actually can and will be faithful to his promises. In fact, in the New Testament, when the gospel had reached the Thessalonians, God drew them to himself in such a manner that the Apostle Paul said that they had turned from idols to serve the living and true God.

It’s the same thing here. And then we get to verse 11. It promises, Remember again, Judah, southern kingdom, Israel, northern kingdom. What he’s promising is that one day there won’t be a northern kingdom and a southern kingdom. They will go up together. There will be unity. This is better than the status quo because at this moment, Israel and Judah were separate. There was much hostility.

They will appoint for themselves one leader, the text says, and later in chapter 3, verse 5, Hosea reveals that this leader would be a descendant of David, fulfilling God’s promise in 2 Samuel 7. God’s promise that one of David’s offspring would reign forever.

Numbers 24.17 and the prophecy of Balaam links both the promises of Genesis 3.15 that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent with Jacob’s prophecy to Judah in Genesis 49.10 that the scepter would not depart from Judah. That the same one who would crush the head of the serpent would not have the scepter depart. It’s to be found in the same person. In other words, one of David’s descendants would come, destroy sin and death, is crushing the head of the serpent, and reign forever as the rightful king of Israel and Judah.

And we know that is who? Jesus Christ, right? He came. As it was later revealed in Isaiah 9-7, there will be no end to the increase of his government or peace or the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore.

The phrase here, too, in Hosea, it says they will go up from the land has caused many biblical scholars to be confused. What does this mean? It’s a bit confusing. And there’s four different interpretations you could take. First of all, that they go up from the land of Assyria, which is unlikely because this term, the land, normally denotes the promised land. Some say, secondly, that it’s a military idiom based on a weird translation in Exodus 1, which is quite a stretch.

Thirdly, some say that it’s coming up from the land of the dead, which is just as irrelevant of an interpretation as Assyria, because once again, the land speaks of the promised land, which leads us to the fourth interpretation, and most likely, that this refers to a growth of crops. They go up from the land, growing like crops. This seems to follow the context of this as a positive future event, carrying along the same meaning as verse 7, speaking of God’s faithfulness to this promise he made to Abraham, the Abrahamic covenant. And then it says at the very end, strangely, for great will be the day of Jezreel. If you remember, we’ve just seen this name, right? Jezreel, which means what?

The Lord scatters, right? What’s interesting here is it’s almost like a double entendre. It like has another meaning, and in this sense, in this part of the passage, it likely carries the other meaning, which means the Lord sows. So, you know, sowing, like planting, you scatter the seed. That’s essentially what it’s saying about God, that yes, you will be scattered in the nations, but one day that won’t just be scattering for scattering, that’ll be scattering for growth, growth from the land.

It’s amazing, this wordplay. And even Jezreel sounds a lot like Israel in the original language. Now, Yisrael, Yisrael, to sort of resonate with the original audience. This is all possible because he’s speaking of one day that God would raise the valley of dry bones of a remnant of Israel, the spiritual life, that he would take out of them hearts of stone and give them hearts of flesh.

And like one from whom men hid their face, he would be despised, and that they would say, we did not esteem him. Surely our griefs he himself bore and our sorrows he carried, yet we ourselves esteemed him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. But he was pierced through our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities. The chastening for our well-being fell upon him, and by his scourging we are healed. They would look to the one whom they had pierced and mourn over him, as Zacharias said. This future nation of Israel, when they saw the truth that Jesus is the rightful king of Israel. So as we conclude, we have to ask, how do we apply this text to our lives? What are the implications? And I think a good question all of us should ask is who do you worship? Who do you worship?

Just because our culture isn’t focused on worshiping the Baals or the Asherim or whatever, necessarily, doesn’t mean that this problem of idolatry has gone away. If we do not keep a close watch on our own hearts, we may begin to love other things more than we love God. We become like what we worship. It’s a common phrase that I didn’t invent or come up with, but it’s true. We become like what we worship. The Israelites became a stiff-necked people because they worshipped the golden calf. They became like the calf they worshipped. And it’s the same with us.

The culture of Hosea’s time was flooded with immorality that reflected the character of the false pagan gods that they worshipped, Baal and Molech and others. In contrast to the worship of these gods, Israel was called to worship the living God, who was holy, and were to be holy because He is holy, and as a result, live out their role of being a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Since they pursued idolatry, the very people that God delivered from the land of Egypt and used to conquer the peoples of Canaan became a byword to the peoples in their exile, not fulfilling their role to point other nations to God.

And in a similar way, if we as believers are not diligent to ground our lives with the understanding that everything should be done as an act of worship to God, We too as Christians may begin to start looking more like the things that we are focusing on rather instead what we worship. Though we are still believers, if you have trusted in Jesus Christ for your salvation, we may begin to lose our salt or our light and we might grow dim, prompting God in his grace to discipline us for our idolatries. When the worldviews or the lifestyles of the culture want to begin to intermingle too much with that which God calls us to, we sin against Him, in our idolatry against Him. But praise Him that His grace is greater than all of our sin, that His power, knowing no bounds, overshadows our weakness. that his knowledge, unlike ours, knows no end, and that every intention of his is good, whereas some of ours, most of ours, so often is mixed. And so the question we need to ask ourselves is, are you swayed by the world? Are you confused about the truth? Are you tempted by the allures of worldly immorality? Are you struggling to make it through today or worried and anxious about tomorrow? And what this text shows us is that we are to look to the faithful God who never changes. And because he never changes, his promises never change. And because his promises never change, we surely can trust in them.

Let’s pray. Lord, we come to you so grateful for your promises, that Lord, just as you were faithful to your promises to your people Israel, so you are too faithful to us. Lord, we know that your promises, such as ones that have been preached on in the last few weeks, that you work all things together for the good of those who love you, our ultimate good, that promises like those we can take to heart. And in the midst of the most difficult times, when it seems like the trials are so deep and that we’re drowning, that our brains can’t even function properly, that there’s like a cinder block on our chest, and that everywhere we move it just gets in deeper and deeper, That in those moments, Lord, when we come to the end of ourselves, Lord, we are reminded that you are faithful. That, Lord, that none can snatch us out of your hand, and none can snatch us out of the Father’s hand. And that, Lord, that you’re good, and that even in the midst of the evil we see in the world, we know you’re a good God, and that you’re faithful.

Lord, help us this week. Help us to remember this. to remember this in the difficulty, that we wouldn’t just go through the motions, that we wouldn’t hear that alarm go off tomorrow morning at 5 a.m. and just live a whole different week and not think about these things. Lord, please give us a mindset that sees you in everything, that recognizes that we live all of life before you. And we pray, Lord, that you would make us more faithful in this, but praise you even in our weakness. that we have the Lord Jesus Christ pleading on our behalf and your grace through our salvation, not of our works. We love you and praise you. And it’s in your name we pray these things. Amen.