Esteban Bustos

So we're going to go to Hosea chapter 1 and we're going to read verses 1 through 11. Hosea chapter 1 verses 1 through 11. Let me know when you have it.

Yeah, perfect. The word of Yahweh which came to Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Hoash, king of Israel. When Yahweh first spoke through Hosea, Yahweh said to Hosea, Go, take yourself a wife of hermitry and have children of hermitry, for the land commits flagrant hermitry forsaking Yahweh.

So he went and took Gomer and the daughter, the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and gave birth to a son for him. And Yahweh said to him, Name him Jezreel, for yet a little while, and I will visit the bloodshed of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and I will cause the kingdom of the house of Israel to cease. And it will be in that day that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel. Then she conceived again and gave birth to a daughter. And Yahweh said to him, Name her Lo, Ruhamah, for I will no longer have compassion on the house of Israel that I will ever forgive them, but I will have compassion on the house of Judah and save them by Yahweh their God, and I will not save them by bow, sword, battle, horses, or horsemen.

Then she weaned Lo, Ruhamah, and she conceived and gave birth to a son. And Yahweh said, Name him Lo, Ami, for you are not my people, and I am not your God. Yet the number of the sons of Israel will be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured in number, and it will be that in that place. What is said to them, you are not my people, it will be said to them, you are the sons of the living God. And the sons of Judah and the sons of Israel will be gathered together, and they will set from themselves one head, and they will go up from the land, for great will be the day of Jezreel.

So we're going to be looking at God's relationship with his people. God's relationship with his people. And we're going to use the metaphor of marriage because that's what Hosea is using right here. God is telling Hosea to go marry the prostitute. So we're going to use the metaphor of marriage to understand two things, okay? To understand two things. The seriousness of sin and the overwhelming grace of God. Two things, okay? Not too complicated. The seriousness of sin and the overwhelming grace of God.

First, I want to start setting the historical stage for Israel's spiritual condition. Okay? The historical stage for Israel's spiritual condition. Somebody said that the Old Testament books cannot be read isolated from the historical context. That's why Hosea chapter 1, verse 1, it says, The word of God, or the word of the Lord, which came to Hosea, the son of Beri, during the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and during the days of Jeroboam, the son of Hoash, king of Israel.

To give us an idea of the year on which Hosea prophesied in the Old Testament, it is approximately 216 years after King David died. 216 years after King David died. It is the year of 755 BC. 755 BC. And it's the year towards the end of the life of Jeroboam, who died in 753 BC. These details are important. I know it sounds boring, but it's going to be very important to understand Israel's spiritual condition. So Hosea preached from the year 753 BC to about the year 725 BC. From 753 to 725 BC, and this is three years prior to the ten tribes of the north being taken captive by Assyria.

So they are going to go captive. They are going to go to bondage due to their sin. But it's important that Hosea is this prophet who is going to come to announce the seriousness of sin and make them understand the overwhelming grace of God. So the text doesn't tell us a lot about Hosea other than he is God's prophet. That's what it says in verse one. That the word of Yahweh came to Hosea. It tells us that he's the son of Biri. And something that we know as well is that the name Hosea, the name Hosea is built from the word group in the Old Testament for save, savior, or salvation.

It's the root. The root which name comes from it means save, savior, or salvation. It's like Joshua. Similar to the name Joshua. Or similar to the name we all know, Jesus. The savior. So by the name of the book we understand something. Okay, by the name of the book and the name of the prophet, we should understand that Hosea is a book full of grace. And this is very interesting because when you read Hosea, it's going to be very hard to find grace in the midst of all the sin that is happening in Israel.

But we got to understand that by the beginning of the book, naming God and naming the prophet who is going to give this message to the people or who is going to act this message to the people. We say that Hosea is a book full of grace. And we're going to see that there is a desire from God to save his people. We're going to see that there is a desire from God to save his people. We know as well that Hosea was born in the north of Israel and preached his message to the ten tribes on the north of Israel.

If you remember well, and I hope you remember, I hope this is biblical history, okay? During first Kings chapter 11 and chapter 12, during that time Solomon dies, okay?

This king dies and there is a division. Israel is divided in two, in two parts. The south, with Judah and Benjamin, they go with Solomon's son. You remember his name? Rehoboam. And then the ten tribes from the north, they go with Jeroboam. So in the north, we have a new king. He's not from Solomon's. He's not the heritage from David. It's Jeroboam. And he's in the north. And then we got to ask ourselves, what was the spiritual state of Israel and Judah during the time of Hosea? What was the spiritual state of Judah and Israel during the time of Hosea?

We got to understand this. It wasn't long before the division of Israel when the north, the ten tribes on the north, began drifting away from the Lord. And it was in part, the majority of the blame came to the king, Jeroboam. And Jeroboam introduced to Israel false worship of golden calves, and he was building high places in the north to worship Baal. And we can see this, if you go with me to first Kings chapter 12, first Kings chapter 12, you're going to see Jeroboam the first.

This is not a Jeroboam who is in Hosea's time. This is the first Jeroboam who took the ten tribes to the north when they separated from Rehoboam, Solomon's son.

First Kings chapter 12, you have it. Look at verse 25. First Kings chapter 12, verse 25. Then Jeroboam built Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim and lived there. And he went out from there and built Penu, and Jeroboam said in his heart, okay, listen to this. This is very interesting because this goes to the problem, to the heart of the problem. It says, now the kingdom will return to the house of David. So he's scared that the ten tribes on the north are going to come back to Jerusalem. So he says, I need to do something about it.

I need to put something so the people are not going to come back to Jerusalem. So it says in verse 27, if these people go up to offer sacrifices in the house of Yahweh at Jerusalem, then the heart of these people will return to their Lord, even to Rehoboam, king of Judah. And they will kill me and return to Rehoboam, king of Judah. So the king took something. He took counsel, bad counsel, and made two golden calves. And he said to them, listen to how he does it. It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem.

Behold your gods, idolatry. He's not saying this is different than Yahweh. What he's saying is that this is the representation of Yahweh. This is the representation of the Lord. So because it's too far Jerusalem from where you are, I'm going to make it easy for you. I'm going to build this and you're going to worship this. And what it says, Rehoboam says this, Behold your gods, O Israel, that brought you up from the land of Egypt. That's how it began. Okay, that's how it began. With a king whose heart was evil and wanted to let the people do evil things against the Lord.

It starts in the heart. You see, the spiritual condition of Israel, the 10 tribes on the north, from the beginning they were being led to idolatry. So now if you go to 2 Kings, okay, just go one more page. 2 Kings, one more book over. You're going to go to chapter 14. And then we're going to get to the time where Hosea starts his ministry. 2 Kings chapter 14. Look at verse 23.

I feel like we're doing Old Testament survey. In the 15th year, Amaziah, the son of Josh, king of Judah, Jeroboam, the son of Josh, king of Israel, became king in Samaria. And reigned 41 years. That's a long time. Now listen what he did, okay? He did what was evil in the sight of Yahweh. He did not depart from all the sins of who? Jeroboam, the one that we just read about. So you have this guy who started everything in 1 Kings chapter 12. And then all these years go by and you have other guy by the same name doing the same things that his father did.

And it says over here that he did what was evil in the sight of Yahweh. He did not depart from all the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, which he made Israel sin. Now go with me to 2 Kings chapter 15. Because we have another king. Maybe things are going to be better, right? Listen to what it says in chapter 15, verse 9. You got it. This right here is Zechariah. He's not a prophet. He's a king, Zechariah. He says that he reigned for six months and look read to verse 9. Chapter 15, verse 9. And he did what was evil in the sight of Yahweh as his father had done.

The same thing. He didn't change a thing. And it says over here he did not depart. This is this repeats the same thing that repeated with remember Jeroboam. And it says that he did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, which he made Israel sin. And then if you go to chapter 15, verse 14, you're going to find Shalom who was killed. And then you're going to go to chapter 15, verse 18. And you're going to read the same thing. And he did evil in the sight of the Lord. Chapter 15, verse 24.

Listen, listen to what it says. And he did what was evil in the sight of Yahweh. He did not depart from the sins of who? Jeroboam. Everything comes back to this guy named Jeroboam. He's the one who started everything. The spiritual bankruptcy for Israel. And then if you go to chapter 17, verse 2. This is Ahaz, the king of Judah. And Hosea. This is not Hosea the prophet. This is Hosea the king. Okay, don't don't confuse them each other. It says Hosea, the son of Elah, became king over Israel in Samaria and reigned for nine years.

Listen to what it says over here. And he did what was evil in the sight of Yahweh, only not as the king of Israel who were before him. He wasn't too bad. But still it was bad. It doesn't make it better. He's still doing doing the evil before the Lord. But what's interesting is look, look what it says on chapter 17, verse 6. You have it? In the ninth year of Hosea, the last king of the north. In the ninth year of Hosea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and took Israel away into exile to Assyria.

All those kings kept doing the same thing, doing the evil in the sight of the Lord. That was their heritage. That's what they did. Nobody dared to change a thing. Some of them just were not as evil as they could be, but still they were evil. And we need to understand that because to understand God's grace, you need to understand the seriousness of sin. You need to understand that we are evil. You need to understand that we are not as bad as we could be because of the Lord. But people are evil and you can see in Israel how they were so evil.

And politically, that's interesting because politically during Jeroboam's time, Jeroboam the second, they were prosperous.

Okay, during Jeroboam the second Israel restored the borders and it almost matched the borders of the glory days of David and Solomon.

So Jeroboam the second fostered economical prosperity. But it led to a materialism and spiritual brokenness. That was the result. That was the result. So they were good in their pockets. They had money. They had good relationships with the nations around them. According to them, they had a good king because he was keeping them prosperous. But their spiritual condition was broken. Prosperity brought carnal security and self-confidence. They trusted in themselves a lot. Sin was grabbing them so, so hard that they were trusting in themselves, themselves knowing God.

Matthew Bearer, the commentator, said this. When good times arrive or when good times are, you know, within the people, for a prophet to announce God's displeasure and to threaten impending judgment and doom seemed to be far from reality because things are going okay. Things are doing good. I have a job. The government is helping me. I have good things. I have a car. I have a family. Everything is doing okay. And that was the people's thoughts. That was the thing that was justifying their sin against the Lord.

And he says this, very interesting. Convincing a sinner of his sin is always a prerequisite to pointing him to the gospel solution to his sin. And there was sin all over the place in Israel. Every king made things worse or just didn't do anything to stop false worship in Israel. So Hosea, the prophet, establishes an important reality to understand God's grace. We need to understand that people love their sin and hate God because of their sinful heart. That's a reality. We need to understand that.

Israel needed to process this. Israel needed to process the reality that they cannot be God's people without repenting from their sins. And to repent from their sins, they needed to really understand God's grace. That's amazing. Because the Lord is merciful. The Lord is merciful. And with Israel, you could read the whole Old Testament. First Kings, Second Kings.

And you can see the spiritual brokenness in Israel. They thought that they were God's people. They thought that they were chosen by God. But they were living as people of the world. They were enjoying the things of the world more than God himself. They forgot about their God. And that's why in this context, in this context of abundance of sin, God is going to speak to Israel's heart. Okay? God is going to speak to Israel's heart through his prophet. And using the metaphor of marriage, God reminds Israel of his sovereign election.

This is amazing. God reminds Israel of his sovereign election. If you go to verse 2, this part is the one that is troubling. Look at verse 2, Hosea chapter 1 verse 2.

Go back to Hosea. Hosea chapter 1 verse 2. Because God needs to remind Israel of his sovereign election. Look to Hosea chapter 1 verse 2. It says that when Yahweh first spoke through Hosea, now Hosea is going to tell us what he told him.

And Yahweh said to Hosea, and this is a very harsh picture to see or to read. It says, when the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, Go, and I'm going to read from the NASB, okay?

Because I think the NASB translation captures the sense of what he's trying to say. He says, Go, take yourself, okay? He's telling Hosea to go take a wife. A wife that is characterized by infidelity. Some translation talks about a prostitute. It says over here, go take yourself a wife inclined to infidelity, and children of infidelity, for the land commits flagrant infidelity, abandoning the Lord. And he creates a lot of problems, this verse, because a lot of theologians have been talking about this verse, because there is authority behind the mandate.

There is God's authority right here. It's not like Hosea is choosing to do this. If you see in verse 2, it says that when Yahweh first spoke through Hosea, Yahweh said to Hosea.

So there is authority behind this commission. This is the introduction to the prophet, where the prophet is not acting on his own. He's doing something that the Lord is telling him to act. And the command comes this way. It says, go take yourself a wife inclined to infidelity. How do we understand this command? What is God asking Hosea? Could it be that this story is not true? Could it be that this is Hosea just make it up to have like an emotional impact in the people so they can come to God? Could it be that God is asking Hosea to marry a real woman in here?

Is she real? Is she real? Like is she a woman who is inclined to infidelity? Well, the first option that we have is to say that this story is not true.

Okay. It's just a symbolism, an allegory. But let me tell you it's not possible. Why? Because there are details in the story that are part of a historical narrative. Such is the name of who? Such is the name of Gomer's, Gomer's fathers, the kings that were reigning during this time of the prophecy and the name of every child of Hosea. So we see that everything turns out to be a true story. Every detail tells us that this is true. God is telling him to be to go find a real woman and marry her. The second option, and some commentators say that God is telling Hosea to marry something who is already, to marry someone, sorry, who is already a prostitute.

Okay, a lot of commentators say that Gomer, when she married Hosea, she was already a prostitute. What is the argument? The argument is that the book's content includes veil worship and a culture of depraved sexuality including fertility cults and prostitutions of both men and women. But what are the problems with this interpretation? That she was already a prostitute. The problem is that the Lord will command Hosea to marry a woman who is insane. That's the first problem.

So the comparison will be ineffective between God and his people and Hosea and Gomer because the point of Hosea is to demonstrate that Israel had a good beginning coming out of Egypt with God as a faithful husband and then Israel prostituting themselves. So I believe that the NASB is the best translation for this because it says go marry a woman who is inclined to infidelity. He's not a prostitute yet. He hasn't cheated on Hosea yet, but she will be. And I think that's the best picture of the relationship that God has with us because he chose us not for something that we could have done, something that we did or something that we will do.

It's just grace and God knew that his people will betray him. God knew that his people will cheat on him with other guts but he still chose them. He still chose them. That's why Israel needed to understand God's sovereign election. And it's interesting to see here that you know Hosea married Gomer, an Israelite, and the difficulty for Hosea was that he knew that she will be unfaithful. The same way God knew that Israel would fail him. He married an Israelite woman who was not a prostitute but then she became a prostitute and she bore children of prostitution.

Why do I say that? Because the context of the command must be consistent with the scripture. So as I told you, NASB captures the idea of the Hebrew better than the King James Version. It says, go take yourself a wife inclined to infidelity. We know that the Bible condemns idolatry and prostitution but we know too that forgiveness extends to the sin of prostitution. So this is a story of forgiveness. This is a story of somebody that was chosen by God. Not for something that she could give to God. Because she was going to fail.

But Hosea, Hosea is interesting. He has to choose to love a woman who is going to love other men. And he has to marry her. And he has to be with her. And he has to love her unconditionally. Isn't that what God's love is? He chose us. No, for our works. Not because we were the best. Not because we could give God something. Because we have nothing to give to God. It's just his sovereign election. His love. He chose to love a people who will be unfaithful to him. That's a hard pillow to swallow. Because we love based on conditions.

If you do this for me, I'll love you. If you don't do this for me, I don't love you. Get away from me. But we see God's love in this place. God's mercy written in the pages of scripture. Knowing that forgiveness extends to every sin. And the interpretation to see Gomer as a woman who potentially will be a prostitute represents the hope that exists in verse 3 that we're going to see in two weeks. When Hosea has to go back to rescue her from sexual slavery. You're going to see that. And the picture is amazing of God's grace.

So it represents the hope of Hosea going to rescue Gomer from the sexual slavery and it magnifies God's love for his own. It magnifies God's love for his own. If you go to Romans with me to Romans chapter 5. Romans chapter 5. Listen to what it says there. But God demonstrates his own love towards us in that while we were yet what? Sinners. It's not like we were just and then God chose to love us. It's not like that. We did good works and then God chose to love us. It's not like I was the best of everybody else.

So God chose to love me. It says right here that while we were yet sinners, being sinners, having abundant sin in our hearts, Christ died for us. Christ died for us. It's not for something that we did a will do. It's his sovereign election. It's just because he chose to love us. And it's the same thing over here with Hosea. God tells him, hey, come marry. And it's a command. It's like the same command that he told Jonah when he told Jonah to go to Nineveh. He's like, hey, get up and go to Nineveh.

Right here. He tells him, hey, Hosea, go get up and choose a woman who will be your wife and she will be unfaithful to you. She will cheat on you. But you gotta go love her. You gotta marry her. You gotta do the whole ceremony. Everybody's gonna know in the town. Everybody's gonna attend your wedding. The prophet Hosea is getting married. Invite your whole family. Invite everybody. We're gonna have a whole week of celebration. But in Hosea's heart, it was the reality that she's gonna be unfaithful to him.

That's, it's amazing to understand God's grace. In this picture. So we understand that this marriage is a symbolic act. Hosea's marriage with Gomer is a symbolic act that has the purpose of illustrating God's relationship with his people. God is going to tell them that they have committed adultery against him. And the prophet is going to act out the sin of their adultery. So God chose Hosea to be an example of the message he was to preach. It would have been easier for Hosea to say, hey, you guys are being unfaithful to God.

Repent and believe. Come back to him. But God tells him you gotta act it out. You're gonna feel what I feel. You're gonna know what I know. You're gonna be in the same position that I am every day when I see these unfaithful people not coming to me in repentance. And you can feel Hosea's heart just obeying the Lord. Just saying I'm a God's prophet. I'm gonna obey. But Hosea is going to understand firsthand what it means to marry someone that's unfaithful to you. So God chose Hosea to be an example.

To be an example of God's mercy. Hosea had to model the relationship between God and his people. Gomer will be representing Israel worshiping idols. The children will represent God's dealing with his people because the name of the children will tell the judgment that is coming upon them. Each name of the children will represent the judgment that is coming upon them. The marriage is going to be like a metaphor of the husband choosing the wife, but the wife being a worshiper, a worshiper of Baal. And it's just going to show us that the whole land is committing fornication against the Lord.

This is a picture of sin. You know when I was preparing for Hosea we don't see sin this way. It's adultery. You know, and for me I was thinking, you know, what if somebody comes to me or somebody goes to Michelle and says, Hey, Stephen cheated on you. And she's gonna be like, that's okay. That's okay. He's a man. Did you see the harsh reality that when we treat sin like something lightly? It's serious before God because we're offending an eternal God. And we need to see sin in this reality of adultery.

Like if you are married, you understand this with all your heart. It's like seeing your wife with somebody else or your husband with somebody else and thinking that he's okay. He's gonna be okay. There's no problem. We cannot think that way. We need to take sin seriously because God takes sin seriously. So through Hosea we're gonna understand this, okay? Looking at marriage biblically, you know, that is the union of a man and a woman which is the expression of love and intimacy. Marriage being the one thing that for us that we're married would be, it should be one of the happiest day of our lives, right?

Or not. It should be. The day of your marriage, it should be one of the happiest day of your life. But for Israel, the marriage with their God that was made in Exodus chapter 19 became a marriage that went bad quickly. It had problems right away. Not because of the husband. Not because of God. But because the people started forgetting their God. So God himself chose to marry a nation that was sinful. But he chose to marry a nation that was sinful with the purpose of redeeming her. There cannot be a marriage without God reaching to Israel first.

And this is showing the picture of Hosea going to choose Gomer and marrying him, marrying her. So during this first part I want us to understand that, you know, what is our spiritual condition right now before the Lord?

And if there is an abundance of sin right now in your heart, you need to repent and come to the Lord who has overwhelming grace to forgive you. We cannot be like Israel, you know. Just thinking that we are God's people storing sin in our heart for years and years and years doing the same thing that my father did and then my kids doing the same thing that I did, like Israel's kings, and thinking that everything is okay. That God is going to be okay with it. Hosea is going to show us the not. God is not okay with it.

And that's why he provides grace. He wants to redeem us. And that's what we're going to understand through the book of Hosea. We're going to pray. Father in heaven, thank you for this wonderful morning. We pray, Father, that what we heard today, Father, will be convicted to our hearts. We pray, Father, that you give us wisdom to apply these truths to our hearts. In Jesus' name, Amen.