Slide 1
A lie we hear: The God of the Old Testament isn’t loving

Slide 2
Context of Hosea:
– Roughly 760-720 BC (over 2,700 years ago)
– During Jeroboam II’s reign
– Outwardly, Israel is prosperous
– Spiritually, they are bankrupt

Slide 3
Hosea 1:2 
“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.’”

Slide 4
God is saying “You (Hosea) and I will both give our hearts to people who will completely and utterly reject us.”

Slide 5
Hosea 1:3-9
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 no more have 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.”

Slide 6
The Children’s Names
– Jezreel: “God will scatter”
– Lo-Ruhamah: “No Mercy”
– Lo-Ammi: “Not My People”

Slide 7
Hosea 1:10 
“Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea…
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.’”

Slide 8
Even when we give up on God, He doesn’t give up on us.

Slide 9
Hosea 2:6–7 (ESV)
“Therefore I will hedge up her way with thorns,
and I will build a wall against her,
so that she cannot find her paths.
She shall pursue her lovers but not overtake them;
she shall seek them but shall not find them.
Then she shall say, ‘I will go and return to my first husband.’”

Slide 10
God is saying He loves His people enough to allow their world to fall apart if that’s what it takes to get their heart back.

Slide 11
Hosea 2:14 
“Therefore, behold, I will allure her,
and bring her into the wilderness,
and speak tenderly to her.”

Slide 12
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 (ḥesed) and in mercy.
I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness.
And you shall know the LORD.”

Slide 13
Hebrew: ḥesed 
 – Loyal love
– Covenant love.
 – Faithful love that acts, even when it’s not returned.

Slide 14
Here’s what covenant love means: Our relationship with God doesn’t rest on our faithfulness: it rests on His.

Slide 15
Hosea 3:1–3
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. And I said to her, “You must dwell as mine for many days. You shall not play the whore, or belong to another man; so will I also be to you.”

Slide 16
Hosea takes her back, not as a slave, but as a WIFE.
And then asks that they be exclusive and faithful.
And then… we don’t ever hear anything else about the story.

Slide 17
Romans 9:25–26 
“Those who were not My people I will call ‘My people,’
and her who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved.’
And in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not My people,’
there they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’”

Slide 18
– Hosea didn’t just forgive her, he went and bought her back.
 – Jesus didn’t just forgive you, He went and bought you back.

In our culture, when we think of the word love, love gets thrown around all over the place. But love typically is conditional. That, that we, when we love something, we love it with expectations that we place on that person or that thing because of our love. Great example of this is our sports teams. There are a lot more fans of a professional sports team that is doing well than there are fans of a professional sports team that is not doing well. When, when a team is really competitive or in the playoffs, those ticket prices go up and a whole lot more fans show up. When the team is not doing well, those ticket prices go down and all of a sudden, less and less fans show up. Why be because our love is conditional. Hey, I love you as long as you’re, you’re doing a good job and as long as you’re doing a good job, then my love is there for you.

But now, if, if you start to struggle, maybe my love is not quite as easy to express, and that’s true in so many of our relationships. What we’re gonna look at today is a story in scripture where it demonstrates how God’s love for us, even though it has been betrayed, even though the covenant has been broken, not on God’s side, but but on his people’s side, and that God does the unthinkable that he keeps showing up. Hey, here’s a lie that we often hear that the God of the Old Testament isn’t loving. We say, well, Jesus is loving. Jesus talks about love, but the God of the Old Testament, he’s a God of wrath and justice and vengeance. And we do have a just God that is part of the character of the nature of God, which is a wonderful thing. But the God of the Old Testament is also a loving God that the same God who sends Jesus to die on the cross for our sins, that steps down outta heaven in human flesh to take our punishment.

That same God is evident in the Old Testament. If you’ve got a Bible, turn with me to the Book of Hosea. Well, one of the things that we do as a church is we try and go back and forth between topically preaching. So we’ll take a topic like a messy relationship. Now even when we do topical, we, we tend to preach exegetical, meaning we’re taking God’s word and unpacking what it has to say. But then sometimes we’ll just take a book and we’ll walk through a book. So we’re kicking off the book of Hosea. Why that book? Well, partly because probably none of you in the room would say my favorite book if I had to pick one, is the Book of Hosea. It’s a book that, that a lot of people have, have spent very little time in. As a matter of fact, if you’re turning there, you’re probably like, where on earth is this thing?

It’s after the book of Daniel. So start in the middle, go towards the right, it’s right past the book of Daniel just before the book of Joel and my Bible. It’s page 979. Probably doesn’t help you at all, but that’s where it is in my Bible. Now, I wanna give this, this slight warning as you’re turning there there’s nothing about the, the, the contents of the sermon itself that is graphic. But some of the terms that is used in the book of Hosea are a little bit graphic. And so if you wanna know what I’m talking about, if you go to Hosea chapter one, verse two, that’s where we’re gonna start. So you can go ahead and peek ahead, read that verse, and you can decide if you got kids in the room if you’re okay with having a conversation about that word on the car ride home or not.

Now let me give you some context first about the nation of Israel. So the nation of Israel, you have King David. He does amazing things for the nation of Israel. Then his son Solomon, is a wise king. He writes a lot of the wisdom literature that we have in the Old Testament. So Solomon becomes this amazing wise king. He brings and ushers in this season of peace and prosperity and everything is great. He builds the temple, everything is wonderful. But towards the end of his life, he marries a whole bunch of wives from other nations. They bring into his heart and in the nation’s heart, a bunch of other religions in his heart, as our hearts are prone to do, starts to wonder towards the end of his life. And one of the things he was not very wise in was succession planning.

And so in around the year 900, you have this division 900 bc you have this division that happens between the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom. So Israel’s all of one nation, and now it gets divided into two different nations. So the the northern kingdom gets called Israel, the southern kingdom gets called Judah. That that’s gonna matter here in a moment. Now, the northern kingdom is who Hosea is writing to. He’s a prophet to the northern kingdom. And something that’s interesting that happens with the northern kingdom is it’s only there for about 200 years. And the year 7 22 BC a Syria comes in and wipes out the northern kingdom. The book of Hosea is written to us roughly somewhere between 10 and 40 years before that happens. And you’ll see he’s predicting that exactly that is going to happen. So now here’s some context specifically about this book.

So it’s written somewhere between seven 60 and seven 20 BC That’s over 2,700 years ago from right now. It was written during Jbo in the Second’s Reign. Outwardly, at this moment in history, everything looks great. Israel is externally prosperous, but internally and spiritually they are bankrupt. So Hosea starting in chapter one, starting in verse two. Here’s what it says. When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, go take to yourself a wife of ham and have children of ham for the land commits great ham by forsaking the Lord. Now pause for a second. ’cause You’re like, if you’re just flipping through the Bible for the first time, that’s one of those passages that woo man comes at you hot. And that’s intentional. So in Hebrew that word that gets translated is incredibly graphic. It’s not very easy to translate into English, which is why if you’ve got different translations of the Bible, probably it uses a different word.

So different translations might use the word prostitute or harlett or promiscuous. But the point in the second verse of the book is to grab your attention in a staggering way. And now, now pause for a moment and imagine that you are Hosea. Hosea is called to be a prophet of God. When we tend to think of a prophet, we tend to think of someone that fore tells the future. And prophets can do that, and they do that a little bit. But that’s not the primary function of a prophet in the Bible. The primary function of a prophet is to speak on behalf of God and to help demonstrate to the people of God the character and the nature of who God is. So Jose gets called by God to be a prophet, to speak on his behalf to his people. But then he gets this very odd, weird, crazy job assignment.

And that is that God tells him, I want you to go and marry a prostitute. And the reason is because in doing so, your light, and this, this really did happen. Hosea was a real person. He really did marry a prostitute. But the purpose behind it is a sermon illustration that God is giving to us and to his people for our relationship with God. Now, here’s what God is saying to Hosea. He says, you Hosea and I will both give our hearts to people who will completely and utterly reject us. Pick it up in verse three. So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Dayum, 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’ll put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel.

Now pause for a second, because what I was just talking about moments earlier, that’s why it matters here when it talks about end of the nation of Israel, it’s talking about the northern kingdom. And we know that in 7 22 this does happen. So this is a few decades before this. And God is saying through his prophet Hosea, I am going to end that nation, the northern kingdom. Then verse five, he says, and on that day, I will break the bow of Israel like a bow and arrow in the valley of Jezreel. And that’s exactly what happens. That break the bow is this figure of speech in Hebrew that means for a war or for an army to lose. And so God is saying that your army will lose and the valley of Jezreel and history tells us that is what happens. Then verse six, she conceived again and bore a daughter.

And the Lord said to him, call her name no mercy for I will no more have mercy on the house of Israel to forgive them at all, but I will have mercy on the house of Judah. That’s the southern kingdom. So God is telling the northern kingdom, Israel, that you are gonna be wiped out, but the southern kingdom of Israel called Judah that he will have mercy on them. He says, I will not save them by bo or by sword or by war, or by horses or by horsemen saying that Judah is not gonna save themself because they have the better army. Judah is gonna be saved because God chooses to have mercy on Judah than verse eight when she had weaned no mercy, she conceived in Boris son. And the Lord said, call his name not my people, for you are not my people and I am not your God.

So to further illustrate this idea of God telling the nation of Israel that you are not my people, you have Hosea who is married a prostitute and and the text tells us that all three of the children are not his children. They’re biologically somebody else’s children. And to capitalize that to everybody around him, his last son is named not my child, that like, just, just to make it real apparent and clear when he’s in public with people like, Hey, these are my kids and this, his name is not mine. He’s not my kid. Like that is what God is trying to do. So, so unpack this, the, the names of the kids, because they, they matter. So the first name Jezreel, it literally means that God will scatter this picture of God sowing seeds. So it’s this picture that the nation, the northern kingdom would be scattered.

And historically that is exactly what happens. Then there’s lo rua, which means no mercy. Then instead of saving them from the Assyrians, he’s saying they’re not, I’m not going to have mercy and then lo me, not my people. Now here’s what’s interesting about those true names. When you look at the foreshadowing it does with a New Testament that if you put them in reverse, it’s this picture of what the gospel does that lo me, not my people, that the gospel brings us in and says, Hey, you are my people. You are my children lo ramah and no mercy, no. Instead that, that God will show mercy. And instead of being scattered, just real God will gather us back together. And then look in verse 10, skip down to verse 10. You see that God is already having a plan in the future, he says, yet.

So after this whole text about the unfaithfulness of Israel the betrayal of Israel, the adultery of Israel, he says, yet the number of the children of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea. And then the place where it is said to them, you are not my people, it shall be said to them, children of the living God. Here’s the, the picture that’s trying to paint for us, that even when we give up on God, he does not give up on us. Even when we are are at a place where we say, okay, I’m, I’m turning my back, I’m walking away from it that God never gives up on us. And God, even in the midst of our portrayal, is looking ahead with a future and a plan and a promise working ahead to redeem what is broken. Now, if you’re a parent, you know that sometimes we have to be looking ahead for our kids and we know the issue that they’re going to face.

They just don’t realize it yet. And it’s different with how we treat that when they’re young than it is when we treat that when they’re old. So if you’ve got a, a young kid, you’ve got a 5-year-old, 6-year-old, 7-year-old, and it’s cold outside and they come downstairs, they got shorts and a t-shirt and you say, Hey, it’s cold outside, I think you’re gonna be cold wearing that. Why don’t you grab yourself a jacket or a sweatshirt? And if you’ve got kids like my kids, they say, I don’t wanna, and you try and rationalize with them, Hey, do you understand that it’s it’s snowing outside right now and what you have on is going to be painfully cold. And they say, no, I don’t care. And so what do you do as a parent? You, you say, I know what’s gonna happen and so I’m gonna take a jacket and I’m gonna set it aside so that an hour later when your, your child is like this and freezing cold, you say, man, aren’t you wishing that you brought a jacket?

Now, good news, you don’t say I told you so, but that’s what the jacket represents in that moment. This is the jacket of I told you. So now when you have a teenager, you treat the teenager differently because they come downstairs, it’s snowing outside, they got a shorts and a t-shirt. You’re like, Hey, I think you might be a little cold. And they’re like, I, I don’t need anything. I’m fine. And so three hours later they’re freezing cold and they’re looking at you and you’re looking at them and you’re like, bet you wish you had a jacket. <Laugh>.

Well lucky for you. No, I didn’t bring you a jacket because you’re a teenager. And so now you’re just gonna have to suck it up. And maybe next time you’ll take my advice. Like there, there’s a part of being a parent that you’re always looking ahead and you are seeing the issue and the problem that is going to happen. And, and sometimes you’re trying to fix that problem ahead of times, but other times you’re saying, Hey, I’m just gonna let you suffer a little bit in order that you might understand that, that I really knew what I was talking about. And that’s what scripture is saying that God does with us. Look, in chapter two going down to verse six, Jose chapter two, verse six, this is therefore I will hedge up her way with thorns and I will build a wall against her so that she cannot find her paths. She shall pursue her lovers but not overtake them. She shall seek them, but she shall not find them. Then she shall say, I will go and return to my first husband. God’s saying is, Hey, I’m going to

Allow you to

Be unhappy. I’m gonna allow you to

Pursue all

These things and be unfulfilled in order

That

It might cause you to come

Back towards

Me.

The author of Ecclesiastes says that we are created with

Eternity in our heart. A a way of understanding that is that there

Is this God-sized

Hole in our

Soul that we

Try and fill with all kinds of different things in this world.

The scripture

Tells us that none of those things will ever

Fulfill that whole.

Only

God

Can do that,

But God allows us to pursue

Other things so

That

The unfulfilling nature of those things might push

Us back towards

God. Another way of saying it

Is this, that God

Is saying he loves

His

People enough to

Allow their world to fall apart

If that’s

What it will take to get their heart back.

Keep going. Down in verse 14,

It says, therefore, behold, I will allure her

And bring her into the wilderness and speak

Tenderly to her. So, so

Understand from the perspective

Of Hosea that that his wife

Is continually unfaithful, continually unfaithful,

That every logical part of that betrayal would say,

Hey, you need to turn and walk away abandon the unfaithfulness

Of this

Person. But what God is saying is, Hosea, that’s not who I am. And that’s not who

You

Are. Instead, I want you to

Relentlessly pursue her

And woo her and love her and draw

Her

Back to you. Then look what it says down in verse 19, and I will

Betroth you

To me forever and I’ll betroth you to me in righteousness and injustice in

Steadfast love. The Hebrew word has said,

And in mercy,

I’ll betroth

You to me in faithfulness and you shall know

The Lord.

That Hebrew

Word has said,

It tends to get translated as

Steadfast love.

Sometimes it gets translated as mercy, but, but it’s this complex word that could mean love. But in addition to love, loyalty and mercy and faithfulness, it’s enduring love.

It’s a loyal love. It’s a

Covenant love

To

Best understand it

Is. It’s a faithful love that acts

Even when that love is not

Returned

245 times in the Old

Testament. What we see, this idea of the covenant love has said love that God has for his people

And his people are betraying him and ignoring him and turning their back on him. And God is saying, despite those things, I

Still love you

And I have covenant love, loyal love, enduring love, love that that has action to it. Even if that love is not reciprocated, probably the the most tangible way I’ve experienced that type of love is witnessing it demonstrated by a mentor of mine. I I had the privilege of being mentored by a guy named Dr. Jim DeLoach. Jim DeLoach. I met him when I was in my mid to late twenties, and he was in his early nineties. And by the time that I had met him for the last 15 years, his wife Delores had had dementia. She got her when she was roughly around 75, and she had a very, very fast onset of dementia. Got to a point very quickly in, in a few short span of months where she did not know her, hu her husband’s name. So Dr. Loach would walk into the room and she, she didn’t know who he was.

And so she was in a healthcare facility and he would every day go visit his wife every single day without fail, we go visit someone who did not know who he was, who did not recognize him, and would not have known whether he visited or not visited Dr. Delos children who were adult children over the course of that 15 years that they would say, dad, why don’t you come with us on a trip? But Dr. Loach wouldn’t go. He said, oh no, I, I can’t do that. He’d say, I have to go visit my Dolores. And it was interesting when I would go sit with him at his house and he would constantly turn the conversation where he would talk about his wife Dolores. He always talked to bur about her as my Dolores. And he would have this sparkle in his eye, and you would say the best part of his day was going to visit his wife, who did not know his name every single day.

I, I witnessed that. I watched that. And to me, the best way I I could unpack his said in an earthly context is that love demonstrated action. That that not going on vacation, not going anywhere because he loved his wife so much, even though that love could not be reciprocated, even though there was nothing his wife could do to demonstrate love back, he just, with his sparkle in his eyes, he said, my love is not conditional. He demonstrated unconditional love because of the covenant vow that he had made towards his wife. That’s the kind of love that should challenge us as husbands or his wifes to say that that’s the kinda love that God is talking about when he talks about covenant love as parents. When we talk about unconditional has said love, love that that shows action and not expecting anything in return. Here’s what covenant love means, that our relationship with God doesn’t rest on our faithfulness.

It rests on his let’s, let’s keep going. Turn to page to chapter three, Hosea chapter three. We’re gonna look at three verses and then unpack the picture of what it’s trying to paint. It says in the Lord said to me, go again. Love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulterous. 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 15 shekels of silver and a homer and a letic of barley. And I said to her, you must dwell as mine for many days. You shall not play the who or belong to another man. So will I also be to you. And so let’s unpack what’s happening. So the the first couple chapters he, here’s this picture of Hosea and his wife Gomer, that that he goes and he takes Gomer, who is a prostitute to be his wife.

And right off the bat that she is unfaithful, that they have three kids together. None of those three kids are hosea’s biological children. They’re another man’s children and she’s constantly betraying him, constantly committing adultery, but, but he’s constantly pursuing her, constantly trying to woo her. Then we end up in chapter three, and we don’t know the context of exactly what’s happened, but if we read between the lines, here’s what we know, the situation she ended up in, that she was in some type of relationship with a guy that somehow went wrong and she ended up in debt. And as a result of that debt, she gets put in the slave market on the blocks to be sold. Now, I want you to pause for a moment and try and get your mind into the mindset of what Gomer had to have been feeling in that moment that she’s up on the block and she’s about to be sold off.

The auctioneer is just gonna say, who, who wants to buy this woman? So you can imagine the shame, the guilt, just the brokenness that she had to have been feeling that anyone, anyone in the public square could just have enough money and they would take her home to do whatever they told her she had to do. And then somewhere in the midst of that public setting, someone steps forward saying, I will purchase her. And that unlikely someone is her husband, that the only person there that, that shouldn’t have to pay anything. It’s, we are in a covenant relationship. We are one together, but he is willing to step forward and say, no, I will pay the price of her freedom. And now you, you can just imagine what Hosea’s friends had to have been thinking like, Hey, Hosea, this, this has gone on long enough, like you’re crazy.

You need to walk away. She’s betrayed you over and over and over again. Or you could imagine what most people do in that situation. Say, okay, hey, now that I’ve purchased you and bought you back, hey, things are gonna be different. Now let me tell you my list of expectations. Lemme tell you all the things I’m gonna expect of you that you’re gonna have to do different, but that’s not what it says that Hosea does. The Hosea purchases his bride back, and then he says, I’m gonna ask you to be faithful to me just as I will be faithful to you. It’s a profound picture that happens because Hosea takes her back not as a slave to do his bidding. Instead, he takes her back as a wife. And, and then he asks that they, he included himself in the conversation, be exclusive and faithful.

He, he didn’t have an asterisk for his behavior. And then after that, we don’t know what happens. We don’t ever hear anything else about the story. And for some of you, it’s gonna drive you Craz like, what, what happens next? Like, like he, he buys her back and then do they live happily ever after? Is she unfaithful again? Like, like what happens? We’re only in Hosea chapter three. There’s lots more chapters. Surely one of these says exactly what happens. But, but the author intentionally doesn’t tell us the rest of the story. And I believe that’s intentional. And the reason is because we are Gomer then when you look at the story. But we’re not Hosea that, that sometimes we, we try and make ourself the good guy of the story, but, but know what we’re actually Gomer the prostitute. The picture of our relationship with God is that he has, has said covenant love for us, and we betray it over and over and over again with our unfaithfulness that our hearts are prone to wonder.

But, but Jesus pays the price. He purchases us back. And the question with Jose and Gomer is what happens next? Well, it’s intentionally vague because we are Gomer and at this moment right now in life, we are Gomer, we’ve been purchased back. And the question is, what will happen next in your relationship with God and my relationship with God? Where do we go from here? The rest of the story is unwritten. There’s this beautiful thing that happens in the book of Romans where Paul points back to the book of Hosea, Romans chapter nine verse 25. It says, those who were not my people, I will call my people and her who was not beloved, I will call Beloved. And in the very place where it was said to them, you are not my people. They’re, they will be called Sons of the Living God. There’s this picture with Hosea that points ahead to Jesus, that Hosea didn’t just forgive Gomer, he went and bought her back.

And Jesus doesn’t just forgive us of our sin. No, he went and he bought us back that the story of has said God’s covenant love, love in action, that love that that doesn’t matter what you’ve done or how far you’ve run, love that continually relentlessly pursues you and pursues me. That that love is the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament, the God that is alive today and right now who is calling and beckoning each and every one of us come home. Let’s pray. Heavenly Father God is startling as this picture in Hosea is God. I pray that it would jumpstart in our mind and our heart, who you are, how much you love us God, for that person in the room that feels like they’ve run too far, that they failed over and over and over again. God, I pray that the message of Hosea would ring clear that they can’t outrun your love.

Now for the person in the room that is just complacent in their relationship with you, that on the outside everything looks good, but inside spiritually they’re bankrupt. God, I pray that that the message today, the words of Hosea, which stir something inside of them to get right with you. God, I pray for anyone in this room that does not know you God, that you are a God that allows us to be unfulfilled with all the things of this world in order to woo us back to you. So I pray for an in this room that does not know you, that is struggling with just that feeling of being unfulfilled, Lord, that, that they would know that that only comes through Jesus. It only comes through the price that he paid for us on the cross. It only comes in a relationship with you. We pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.