THE SHOCKING LOVE OF GOD (FROM THE BOOK OF HOSEA)

SHOCKING LOVE OF GOD (HOSEA 1-3)

In response to gross unfaithfulness, the LORD remains a faithful husband to his people (even through judgement/discipline).

Our God is too small: When I was a young Christian, fairly new to the faith, someone lent me a book to read. The title of the book was "Your God is too small". To be honest I can't remember anything about the book! I can't remember if it was good or terrible! I was so new to Christianity that I wouldn't have been able to tell the difference I'm pretty sure. But I remember the title because it's such a great title! I suspect that when it comes to the true and living God of the Bible, No matter how clearly we understand him, No matter how firmly we believe in him I suspect that it's always true that what we know of God and believe about God is always too small..3

And I say that simply because the true and living God of the Bible is so magnificent, So holy, So completely other than us, So powerful, So full of love. That it's impossible for us to grasp him completely. That's not to say that we can't know him truly, because we can. The wonder of the Bible is that God reveals himself to us so that even with the smallest grasp of biblical truth it is possible for a person to know God truly, but because we are creatures we can never know God fully. Our God is always too small compared to the glorious reality in our understanding. That's part of what is so exciting about reading and teaching the Bible. Because we are constantly having our whole view of God expanded. That is certainly the case for me when it comes to the book of Hosea.

Hosea is a truly remarkable book of the Bible. And I want to share with you the first three chapters of this remarkable book. And my prayer and hope is that in spending time in this part of God's word, Our picture of God, Our understanding of God, Our appreciation of God might be expanded and deepened and even challenged. Because, I believe that such a challenge will be exciting and wonderful. So let's begin.

1. SHOCKING MARRIAGE (1.1-9)

Hosea: The first thing that we need to do of course is to orient ourselves as to where Hosea fits into the Bible timeline. The Bible is a continuous unified story of God graciously redeeming a rebellious world. But where does Hosea fit into the timeline? The very first verse helps us with that.

1:1 The word of the LORD that came to Hosea son of Beeri during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and during the reign of Jeroboam son of Jehoash king of Israel:

Without getting too bogged down in the names of those kings, all of that detail puts Hosea after the kingdom was divided as the north and the south. So after Saul, David & Solomon and after the kingdom divides into Israel in the north & Judah in the south. Long after that division in fact Hosea is ministering in the Northern kingdom of Israel. His ministry lasted some 35 years and although it began in a time of peace and prosperity for Israel it ended on the eve of the invasion by Assyria and Israel's complete desolation. We quickly discover the reason for that desolation as we keep reading.

Hosea's marriage

1:2 When the LORD began to speak through Hosea, the LORD said to him, “Go, marry a promiscuous woman and have children with her”

That is a startling and shocking sentence the first time you read it I think. In fact, I'm not sure it loses much of its shock no matter how many times that you read it. Hosea, in serving the Lord, is commanded by the Lord to marry a promiscuous (adulterous) woman, a prostitute and have children with her. Think twice friends, before putting up your hand to be a prophet of the Lord.

It's not an easy task. Now can I quickly point out that Hosea 1.2 is not offering general marriage counselling! This is one of those important moments in the Bible reading & Bible interpretation where context really matters! This is a specific command from the Lord specifically to Hosea with a specific reason. And that reason is revealed in the second half of v2. "... For like an adulterous wife this land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the LORD."

Here's the thing to grasp, which is really important because if we don't grasp this, these chapters won't make any sense. The Lord God is the husband of his people and his people are his bride. That's a really incredible idea. It’s a challenging idea to how we understand the character of the Lord God and how we understand his relationship with his people. And we'll see this truth portrayed in lots of different ways throughout this book but right from the very beginning its set up for us in Hosea being called to marry an unfaithful woman.

Hosea's marriage is like a living illustration of the marriage between the Lord God and the Israelites. The prophets of God often called to demonstrate what God wants to speak to the people through their lifestyle, in Hosea’s case it is difficult to think in Indian context. Hosea as the groom represents the Lord God, Gomer represents Israel. And Gomer's infidelity, Gomer's promiscuity represents Israel's unfaithfulness. For as the Lord Himself says in v2 "... for like an adulterous wife this land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the Lord." Now I'm assuming that Hosea's marriage, that Hosea's choice of a bride was so shocking that it must've caused everyone to comment and question and shake their heads as follows …

·         "What a fool you are Hosea!"

·         "Does he have any idea of who he is committing himself to?!"

·         "Hosea has made himself a laughing stock marrying that whore!"

And every time the Israelites condemned Gomer they condemned themselves. And every time they questioned Hosea's wisdom, they were inviting destruction upon themselves. Because as shocking as Hosea's marriage to Gomer was what is infinitely more shocking is that the Holy, Sovereign, Majestic Lord God should commit himself in love to a faithless adulterous people like Israel? The other thing of course that is incredible in these verses is the humble obedience of Hosea. Who knows what must have been going through his mind as he heard the Lord's command to him? Although I think we can make some pretty accurate guesses can't we? I'm sure it was something like, "Are you serious Lord?" But whatever were his initial reactions and responses ‘he was obedient’.

1:3 So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.

And just when you thought it couldn't get more shocking, We turn to Hosea's family and in particular the names of the children.

Hosea's 'family': His firstborn was a son

1:4 Then the LORD said to Hosea, “Call him Jezreel, because I will soon punish the house of Jehu for the massacre at Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of Israel. 5 In that day I will break Israel’s bow in the Valley of Jezreel.”

Names can be important can't they? People in the state of Kerala keep fancy names like Jijo, Bijo, Jajo... etc which have no meanings whatsoever. But in other cultures names play a major role, especially in Israelite cultures, I'm sure you've heard me say it before my name is Paul, and Paul means small & insignificant! That is why I'm glad that names don't carry too much weight in our (Australian) culture. But names are really significant in the Bible. And the names of the 3 children mentioned here are really significant. Hosea's firstborn son is named Jezreel; Jezreel was the name of a town in Israel which is the scene of a lot of bloodshed & sin in Israel's history. The sin & the bloodshed is also bound up a fair bit with the worship of the false god Baal which we see was a big problem in Hosea's day. But the word Jezreel can mean either God scatters Or God sows. It has a negative meaning or a positive meaning depending on the context (Just like the word Kal – in Hindi refers both yesterday and tomorrow based on the context). But we can see in v4 that for Hosea's son it was definitely weighted towards "God scatters" or "God punishes" and so Jezreel was a like a walking symbol that God, the cheated-on husband had had enough with the people.

But the names get even stronger with the next 2 children. 1:6 Gomer conceived again and gave birth to a daughter. Now, notice that in v3 we're specifically told that Gomer bore Hosea a son. But here in v6 there's no mention of Hosea. No mention of Hosea either with the 3rd child in v8. And its possible probable that we can guess Hosea is not the father, that Gomer has continued to be unfaithful and that she's bearing children into Hosea's household that aren't his. That's certainly how it was with Israel & the Lord God and it seems that's how it was with Gomer & Hosea. And so the daughter in v6 is named "not loved" or a better translation, ‘no mercy or no pity’.

1:6 “... for I will no more have mercy on the house of Israel, to forgive them at all." (ESV) What a shocking name! But it’s perhaps even worse in v9 where the son is named "not my people" v.9 “... for you are not my people, and I am not your God.”

Margie & I have a grandson named Tobias. Tobias means God is good! Our prayer is that as he grows up, his name will remind him that no matter what happens in his life God is good & can be trusted.

But Israel as a nation was not honouring God. Although the Lord had showed them mercy, brought them to himself as his bride, Israel was like an adulterous wife & the children of Israel were the children of unfaithfulness and so “not loved and not my people” says the Lord God. These were utterly shocking names.

And friends I want to say that if those names don't shock you, if they don't alarm you, if they don't cause you to shudder then you haven't appreciated them to their full extent. I think the normal response to hearing those names is to ask something like "How could God do it?" "How could God be so harsh?" "How could God be so strict? so black & white? so angry?" And if they're the sort of questions you are asking, I want to say well done! So long as you are asking them in humility, to learn and not to accuse. Because we need to be drawn into a deeper clearer understanding of the character of God If we have a problem with God, then it’s always us who have the problem and not God. If we cannot understand why God would choose such names, then we do not properly understand the true & living God. That's where Chapter 2 is so helpful (Don't panic! We'll come back to the end of Chapter 1 at the end!)

2. SHOCKING UNFAITHFULNESS (2.2-13)

What we discover in Ch 2 is the LORD God speaking personally, about his bride Israel. We'll return to the story of Hosea & Gomer in Ch 3. But their marriage is the back drop for the relationship between the LORD God & his chosen people. And what we discover in Ch 2 is the shocking unfaithfulness of Israel. In Ch 2 we are hearing the words of a loving husband describing the unfettered, ongoing, adultery even prostitution of his wife. And his heart is exposed, raw, betrayed and in righteous anger. Hear the words of the true & living God....

Hos. 2:2-5 “Rebuke your mother, rebuke her, for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband. Let her remove the adulterous look from her face and the unfaithfulness from between her breasts ⁴ I will not show my love to her children, because they are the children of adultery. ⁵ Their mother has been unfaithful and has conceived them in disgrace...”

These words are so challenging to us. They challenge our understanding of the character of the LORD God and they challenge our understanding of how he relates to his people. The true and living God of the Bible is not removed, He is not unmoved, He is not distant and cold - Not at all. The Lord God is like a husband who makes a commitment to his bride, A commitment to love her and to be faithful to her and to care for her. When his people give their love & loyalty to anything other than him its spiritual adultery.

It’s the same as the wife of a committed loving faithful husband, having sex with multiple partners for money & possessions. That should jar us, utterly jar us. Because we are so complacent about sin, We prefer to think of sin in sort of abstract ways, sin is going your own way, sin is heading down the wrong track or we think of sin in purely cold & legal terms ‘its breaking a law, its breaking the rules’ and there's truth in all of that but ultimately sin is personal, its relational, it’s against the LORD God & he takes it personally because it is personal.

And it will be impossible for us to understand the strength of the LORD's feelings & language about the disobedience of Israel unless we can grasp this. This explains the strength of those names given to the children. The LORD God long ago had promised Abraham that he would bless his descendants & give them land and care for them. And he had! He had rescued them from slavery in Egypt and brought them to himself. He had entered into a covenant with them just like a marriage at Mt Sinai that should have meant blessing to them. All that was required was faithfulness, loyalty, trust and obedience. Instead, the history of Israel was a history of spiritual adultery. In particular they had given their hearts to the false god Baal. Baal was the most important of the Canaanite gods. It’s significant that the name Baal means ‘master or even husband’. (I told you names were significant!) And so straight away we can see that there's competition for the hearts for the loyalty of the Israelites living in Canaan.

But rather than remaining faithful to the LORD God who had brought them to himself & blessed them, They gave themselves to another husband, another Master named Baal. Because Baal was thought to be the god of fertility, rain and so it was very tempting to the Israelites, as a farming nation to worship him and the other false gods hoping for better crops. That's why in v5 the LORD describes Israel as going after her lovers...

2:5 “... who give me my food and my water, my wool and my linen, my olive oil and my drink.’

But of course Baal never gave them crops, never gave them food, never gave them water, Baal never gave them anything of worth but in their arrogant ignorance the Israelites offered all that the LORD gave them to Baal in religious sacrifices! See v8, “She has not acknowledged that I was the one who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil, who lavished on her the silver and gold which they used for Baal.”

It’s all so senseless, stupid & despicable. And so, as we saw in the naming of the children the LORD promises judgement. For he is not some weak, moaning, pathetic jilted husband he is the LORD God, the maker of heaven & earth!

2:9-13: 9 “Therefore I will take away my grain when it ripens, and my new wine when it is ready. I will take back my wool and my linen, intended to cover her naked body. ... 12 I will ruin her vines and her fig trees, which she said were her pay from her lovers; I will make them a thicket, and wild animals will devour them. 13 I will punish her for the days she burned incense to the Baals;

The LORD promises judgement on his unfaithful bride. The judgement is strong all that the Israelites pursued from Baal, the LORD would take it away no grain, no crops, no wool, no vines but only devastation. Remember the names of the children “... no mercy... not my people”. We'll read more of this judgement throughout the book. But what I want to focus on here is that what is driving this judgement this anger is the shocking unfaithfulness of Israel which is captured so powerfully in the second half of v.13, “she decked herself with rings and jewellery, and went after her lovers, but me she forgot,” declares the LORD.

Those final four words are so stark don't you think? But me she forgot It's a husband sitting at the dining table with the meal carefully prepared for his wife, The best cutlery, The best China, Candles, Beautiful food and as he sits waiting for his wife to join him, She is out with Makeup, Jewellery, Perfume, Expensive clothes at a seedy club trying to attract other men to have sex with her. I realise that's provocative and troubling and shocking. But that's exactly the point. That's exactly the picture “That's Israel...” The Lord God says... "But me she forgot."

It's a shocking marriage. It is shocking unfaithfulness. But here is what is most shocking. Here is what of everything else in these chapters that should make us jolt, and that is that the Lord remains faithful to his promises. And to make sure we grasp how shocking that is, See what the Lord asks Hosea (his representative) to do next...

3. SHOCKING LOVE (3.1-5, 1.10-2.1, 2.14-23)

3:1 The LORD said to me, “Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another man and is an adulteress.”

As jarring as it was back in 1.2 to hear the Lord commanded Hosea to marry a promiscuous woman, it’s even more jarring here Don't you think? To hear the Lord command Hosea to take his unfaithful prostitute wife back, But even more than taking her back “To love her.”  It's an incredible command to do something which according to the world's standards sounds utterly ridiculous. If Hosea's friends mocked him back in chapter 1? (And how they had been proven to be right), How much more would they have mocked him and talked about him behind his back when he took Gomer back in to his house with love! But again Hosea's actions were to demonstrate the character of the LORD and his shocking love for the unfaithful Israel.

3:1 “.... Love her as the LORD loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.”

I'm assuming the raisin cakes some part of some religious ceremony. But the Israelites had turned away from the Lord God and given themselves to false gods for raisin cakes? Give them up Lord! They are not worth it to the Lord! But the Lord still loves them, because they are his bride. Shocking love! It's emphasised by the fact that 4 times in this one verse we read of love! And so Hosea seeks out Gomer living with some other man in adultery he has to pay a price (v2) to gain her back.

3:3 Then I told her, “You are to live with me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will behave the same way toward you.”

Hosea brings his wife back, but it's not a simple 'all is forgotten'. 'Let's pretend nothing has happened'. Love is not stupid. Love is not blind to consequences. And so there will be a period of time without intimacy and there is an insistence on loyalty and faithfulness. But Hosea will love Gomer and his love will reflects the even greater love & faithfulness of the Lord for the Israelites.

3:4 For the Israelites will live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred stones, without ephod or household gods. ⁵ Afterward the Israelites will return and seek the LORD their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the LORD and to his blessings in the last days.

It’s a beautiful picture of repentance, of return. The major theme of the book is return. The Lord sends Hosea to his people as his prophet to call them to return. And here is the thing to understand, even the Lord's anger, even the Lord's judgement that we've seen in these chapters even they are driven by his love and are designed by him so that his people might return to him. That's why back in chapter 1, after the terrible naming of the children, 'No mercy' 'You are not my people, and I'm not your God', but then in 1.10 there is this incredible 3 letter word "Yet". See it in 1:10 “Yet the Israelites will be like the sand on the seashore, which cannot be measured or counted. In the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they will be called ‘children of the living God.’

It's a beautiful picture of return, A return to the Lord and to his blessings. Or again at the end of chapter 2 After describing her gross unfaithfulness and his own righteous anger and judgement in verses 2 – 13 suddenly without seeming to even pause for breath; In v.14 we read 2:14 “Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her.”

It's remarkable throughout the message of Hosea there is this tension within God's love for his people. He will not, He cannot overlook their offences and their blatant unfaithfulness [2.14] they will be led into the wilderness, but at the same time He will not let them go [2.14] he speaks tenderly to them. In 2.17 he promises to remove even the name Baal from their lips; In 2.19 he promises to betroth them to himself in faithfulness. It’s like a recommitment ceremony for (if you remember the double meaning of the word Jezreel). The God who scatters in judgement will be the same God who sows! And so look at how chapter 2 ends in v. 23 I will plant her for myself in the land; And I will have mercy on No Mercy, I will say to those called ‘Not my people, ’ ‘You are my people’; and they will say, ‘You are my God.’ ”

It’s the most remarkable portrait of the true & living God of the Bible don't you think? It’s like that story "Your God is too small" I began with? These chapters so radically challenge our view of the Lord God I think they have to change it, deepen it, and expand it. For me it’s captured by the picture I have in my mind of Hosea going & knocking on the door of that other man whom Gomer was with prostituting herself. Hosea is pleading for Gomer to return and Hosea is purchasing her back for himself in love, commitment & faithfulness to his promises. That's the love, commitment and faithfulness of the Lord God.

And friends we're going to keep on having our understanding of the Lord challenged & changed as we see continue working our way through the book. In many ways, the rest of the book explains how the results of these opening chapters will be achieved. But for now let’s just pause and reflect on the truth that this shocking love of God is not just something to learn about and marvel at from afar! This shocking love is to be experienced up close; it’s to be enjoyed by even us! It’s for us to know. If it’s incredible that the Lord God might love adulterous Israel, How much more incredible is it that he might love an adulterous world? For God didn't just love adulterous Israel, God so loved the whole spiritually adulterous world, loved us so much that he gave his one and only Son Jesus that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life!

In fact Jesus was the embodiment of this shocking, beautiful love, enduring rejection, betrayal, hatred and ultimately in love even laying down his life to save his enemies. He purchased unfaithful people back to himself through his own blood. To save even us! Incredible love, Amazing love! And so listen to how Apostle Peter takes the lessons of our chapters in Hosea & applies them to anyone who has thrown their lot in with Jesus. 1 Pet. 2:10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Friends, as stunning and as shocking as it is that Hosea might take back Gomer in love, As stunning & as shocking as it is that Lord might take back Israel in love. Who could have imagined that the Lord's love would reach outside of the physical family tree of Abraham or of Israel and reach even to us? For unlike Israel we were never his people but now in Jesus those of us who have faith in his saving death are the people of God luxuriating in his mercy, grace & love. Because of Jesus this God that we meet in Hosea is our God and we are his people, his beloved bride.

Is that not the most shockingly wonderful life changing truth? It'd be unthinkable to be unfaithful to such love as that don't you think? It'd be unthinkable for the Lord to say of us "But me they forgot"

May God Bless you all!

Credit: The Devotion was delivered by Rev. Paul Sheely @ PTC Trainers’ Training in Carmel Conference Centre, Salem on June 20, 2019.