(Hosea) the Prophet and the Prostitute — David Guzik

Have to say that is tonight. We begin this study in the book of Hosea. I feel like I have a new favorite book of the Bible how Marvelous this prophet is and we'll get into it here as we begin. And we'll just jump in Hosea chapter 1 verse 1 the word of the Lord that came to Hosea the son of Biri in the days of Uzziah Jotham Ahaz and Hezekiah kings of Judah and Then the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash king of Israel.

Hosea as God’s Prophet of Salvation

Mainly saying Hosea was a prophet. We read right there in verse 1 that the word of the Lord came to Hosea. And he spoke forth the word and he applied that word to his life as we're going to see this evening.

He applied it to the people under the circumstances around him. Hosea was just a man, but he was a man that God used to speak his word through. Now his father was a man named Barry, we don't know anything about this man Barry.

We do know that he named his son Hosea. The name Hosea means salvation. It comes from the same Hebrew root word as Joshua or Jesus. Throughout the book Hosea will show us that salvation is found in turning to the Lord and away from our sin.

Look at the times Hosea lived in we're told this in verse 1 that he lived in the days of Uzziah Jotham Ahaz and Hezekiah kings of Judah and In the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash king of Israel. Today's ministry spanned somewhere around the years 760 to 720 BC he had some 40 years of prophetic ministry.

He ministered during the days of what we call the divided monarchy. You see there was after the days of King David and King Solomon. When the people of God divided in a civil war and they created two nations.

From the people of God the northern nation kept the name Israel and its capital was a city known as Samaria. The southern nation was known as Judah and its capital was the city of Jerusalem. To give you sort of a time marker in your mind the time of Hosea is some 250 years.

After the days of King David. Now think about it. If right now we were in the days of Hosea King David would have been about the time of the Revolutionary War. That's a long time before. It's some 650 years after Israel came into the promised land.

In other words if you were to relate it back to our own chronology It would have been before Columbus came to America that Israel came into the promised land relating it to our own chronology here in the United States.

Now the marking points of his ministry are given these Kings that the names of these kings of Judah. What's interesting about this is you would think that the way he lists it in verse 1 that Hosea's ministry Was to the southern nation of Judah and to the Kings.

No Hosea's ministry was to the northern kingdom of Israel. We're gonna find this out as we make our way through the book most notably in Hosea 7 5 he calls the king of Israel our king. He was the subject of the king of Israel not the king of Judah.

And his ministry is focused towards the northern kingdom of Israel and its capital city of Samaria. But for the benefit of his readers who are in the southern kingdom of Judah Hosea gives them a reference point for his ministry according to the kings of Judah.

But then he goes on and he lists the person who was king when he started his prophetic ministry a man named Jeroboam the son of Joash Jeroboam or more properly Jeroboam the second because he was the second king named Jeroboam in the history of Israel a very interesting character.

Check it out this man Jeroboam the second from a political and an economic standpoint. He was a successful and good king. He expanded the borders of Israel in a military sense. He brought political power and prestige and Economic prosperity to the land.

It was high times the stock market was going great. People were making money that there was growth in the gross national product every year inflation was down. It was politically secure at Jeroboam. The second was a wise good leader in every way except spiritually and morally.

It was a time of political success and security economic success and security military success and security. But it was a time of significant spiritual and moral decay and friends the bills Spiritually and Morally that were run up in the days of Jeroboam the second would not come due until generations after.

Oh. But they came due and the ministry of Hosea tells us about it. You see the terrible result of the decay wouldn't become evident until the days of Jeroboam the second were finished. But they were dramatically fulfilled.

The six kings that followed Jeroboam the second. All during the days of Hosea's ministry of the six kings that followed King Jeroboam the second of Israel. Four of them were violently overthrown one of them only ruled for one month.

Four of them were violently overthrown and one of them Died an exile in Assyria. The friends think about it related to our own times. Hosea began his ministry at a time when things were so successful and so Economically prosperous that people just didn't look to the Lord the way that they should the seeds of Idolatry and spiritual failure and moral corruption.

Sown in the days of Jeroboam the second produced a tragic harvest in the following years. Now Jeroboam Is going to hear this from the Prophet Hosea and Hosea is going to illustrate it with his own life.

Hosea’s Marriage as a Living Message

Look at it here in verse 2. When the Lord began to speak by Hosea the Lord said to Hosea Go take as yourself a wife of harlotry and children of harlotry for the land has committed great harlotry by departing from the Lord.

God's first word to Hosea was something for his own life. This is almost always how God works. Now Hosea would have much preferred it if God would have just told him something to deliver to the nations.

Hosea, you know just be my messenger boy. You you deliver this message to the Kings to the nations, but no no God wasn't having any of that. God's word to Hosea was yes, you're going to be my messenger, but I'm going to work this lesson into your life first.

Then you're going to deliver it to the nation. The Prophet can sort of hate that. Because it's a difficult thing to have the Word of God work in your life. But before the Prophet can speak to the nation he has to hear from God first for himself.

And so what's the word of the Lord to Hosea. Look at it here in verse 2. Go take yourself a wife of harlotry. The word God had for Hosea wasn't easy friends. Let's make it clear you could title this chapter this section of the book of Hosea that the Prophet and the prostitute God tells this Prophet go take yourself a wife and go find her among the prostitutes.

Why look at it there in verse 2 for the land has committed great harlotry by departing from the Lord. You see through his command to Hosea God brings to life a consistent picture used throughout the Old Testament.

In this picture the Lord stands in the figure of being the husband of Israel and Israel in their passionate chronic attraction for idols. Well, it was like the lust of an adulterer and His people were as unfaithful as a prostitute was.

Now in this vivid picture we see how our idolatry in our rejection of the Lord how it feels to God when we forsake the Lord and start worshiping success and start worshiping our own popularity and start worshiping Ourselves or another person or any number of things when we commit idolatry by giving our lives to anything other than the Lord.

Look how it feels to God. He feels Like a spouse feels when they're cheated on. It hurts him when we put anything in front of the Lord it hurts him like Unfaithfulness hurts the victim of an adulterous marriage and by commanding Hosea to take a wife of harlotry God is going to put Hosea in a place where he feels what God feels and It's not going to feel good.

Now friends, please I want you to understand that we can't say that God grieves and feels exactly like we do. He controls all things. God works out all things according to his own good pleasure and as far as the heavens are from the earth.

So are his thoughts higher than our thoughts and his ways higher than our ways. But the best that God can approximate it to man is to say when you focus on something else when you commit Idolatry I feel Like a spouse that's being cheated on.

I should tell you that many commentators want to press the idea that the wife of Hosea was not a prostitute when Hosea first met her and married her. She only became a prostitute later. They say well listen good.

God would never ask her to go take a wife from among prostitutes. Why would I can't take it any else but the plain reading of the text. Look at it there in verse 2. Go take yourself a Wife of harlotry and children of harlotry for the land has committed great harlotry by departing from the Lord.

Look at the marriage here in verse 3. So he went and took Gomer the son of Dibliam and she conceived and bore him a son. Then the Lord said to him call his name Jezreel. In a little while I will avenge the blood of Jezreel on the house of Jehu and bring to an end the kingdom of the House of Israel.

It shall come to pass in that day that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel. Well, so Hosea went out and did it. He found himself a woman a prostitute named Gomer and he married her.

We could assume that Hosea would have never done this except by the commandment of the Lord. You know, it took a lot of obedience for him to actually carry out this difficult command. Think about that single people you're seeking God, you know, who do you want me to marry?

Who do you want me? How would you feel God said this to you? Well, here's the one I want you to marry go marry this prostitute. Lord who else do you want me to marry? Who else do you want me to marry?

Well, of course we would say this is a incredibly unique situation. If anybody would have come into my office and say pastor I need to pray with you, but God's told me to marry this prostitute and then I'd say well brother, you know.

Let's take a look at the scriptures here. But you get the idea that this is a very difficult thing that God was asking Hosea to do. And as it'll be made clear when Hosea married Gomer, she did not give up her career as a prostitute.

It wasn't as if Hosea found a fallen woman and through love and kindness. He restored her to virtue. It wasn't like that at all. He found a prostitute he married a prostitute and no doubt He hoped all along that she would give up her sin and be devoted only to him, but she stayed a prostitute.

Her friends no doubt this happened after the pattern of human nature. Don't think that it happened in the most exaggerated sense you could think of. They got married and the next day She's walking the streets again.

No, no, that's not how it works in the pattern of human nature. When Hosea and Gomer first married she probably showed every sign of being committed to Hosea. That's how it always works at first. Friends after a while and perhaps even in Difficult or or circumstances that might seem to justify it.

She fell back into prostitution. Perhaps it was out of boredom. Perhaps it was out of a feeling of neglect. Perhaps it was out of a sense of need. Perhaps she thought well, you know, Hosea is not providing for the family.

I have to do something. I'm compelled to do this. I Want you to understand that we share many of the same in Excusable reasons for I are for our idolatry when we prefer another God to the Lord God. We want to find a way to excuse it a way to justify it, but there is no justification.

Go on and you take a look at this. They they had a child didn't they you see it in verse 4. Then the Lord said to him call his name Jezreel. Now the name Jezreel is significant on two fronts. First of all, it means Scattered that's what the name means and it was a prophecy because that's what was going to happen to the nation of Israel before the prophetic career of Hosea was finished.

Israel would be Scattered taken into exile and dispersed by the Assyrians. But there's also another meaning to it and it's brought out here in verses 4 and 5. Call his name Jezreel for in a little while I will avenge the bloodshed of Jezreel on the house of Jehu now the present king of Israel Jeroboam the second was of the dynasty of the house of Jehu that was the name of the man who established the the dynasty that that that Jeroboam the second belonged to and Jehu came to power in a bloody massacre in the valley of Jezreel.

Where he destroyed not only King Ahab But all of his descendants and God by telling Hosea to name his some Jezreel. He confirms his promise to avenge the bloodshed of Jezreel by judging the house of Jehu.

Now this was not good news to King Jeroboam the second your kingly line is going to be judged. It said that his dynasty the dynasty of Jehu was coming to an end as a matter of fact barely a few years after the death of Jeroboam the second in 752 BC his son Zechariah only reigned about six months before being assassinated.

You find that in 2nd Kings 15 and that was the end of the house of Jehu. This prophecy of the son named Jezreel Was going to turn out to be exactly true matter of fact eventually in its fullest fulfillment.

Verse 5. It would come that it would bring an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. And I will come to pass in that day that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel. Their power would be broken their their weapon and that day soldiers mainly fought with bows.

And he said I'm going to break the guns so to speak of Israel. That was the first son and not a very good name, right? Scattered come here. Scattered that was his name. But not only speaking of scattered, but also speaking of judgment.

Coming upon the present king of Israel. Well, maybe the second child would have a better name. No look at verse 6. And she conceived again and bore a daughter. Then God said to him call her name Lo Ruhama.

For I will no longer have mercy on the house of Israel, but I will utterly take them away. Yet I will yet I will have mercy on the house of Judah will save them by the Lord their God and will not save them by bow nor by Sword or battle or horses or horsemen?

The name Lo Ruhama means No mercy. Every call to this child with this unfortunate name would remind Hosea and everybody else of the coming judgment. No, no mercy. Come in and play now come in now. It's time to come to dinner.

No mercy. You see because every day that that name was said. It showed that God was not going to have mercy on the house of Israel, but judgment was coming. Now what's fascinating about this is look at what it says in verse 7.

Yet I will have mercy on the house of Judah. Isn't that interesting. The northern kingdom of Israel no mercy for them. They were far too depraved. They were far too steeped in their sin. You know when you take a look at the political history of the southern kingdom of Judah and the political history of the northern kingdom Israel in the southern kingdom of Judah.

You'd have a good king a good king and then a bad king and then a good king and then maybe a couple bad kings. You know it was a mixed bunch in the northern kingdom of Israel. You know how many good kings you had.

None. Zero not a single one. Not a single godly king in the entire history of Hundreds of years of monarchy in the northern kingdom of Israel so God says I'm judging them mercy for Judah. No mercy for Israel.

It's interesting that the army of Assyria that brought this judgment against Israel it also attacked Judah. But they didn't conquer them. Instead God miraculously fought on behalf of Judah against Assyria when the angel the Lord killed 185 ,000 soldiers in the camp of the Assyrians in one night and Like it says there in verse 7 it was not done by bow nor sword nor battle by horses or horsemen.

It was done by the angel of the Lord in the middle of the night. I Want you to see something here. The fact that God had no mercy to Israel and had mercy towards Judah shows us two things. First of all it's true that Judah and her kings were more faithful unto the Lord during these years.

A good example was king Hezekiah who was a godly man and a good king and so you can say well There's a good reason why God showed more mercy to Judah. Let me say something else. It does not really matter if Judah was more worthy of mercy.

Please understand this we're talking about mercy and By its very definition No one deserves mercy. If you deserve leniency then leniency is a matter of Justice not mercy. If you deserve it, then it's not mercy.

It's justice. Mercy is only shown to the guilty. And therefore it's within the wise and loving heart of God to show mercy to whom he will show mercy. Let me point this out. No one is ever Unfair for not showing mercy.

The criminal comes before the judge. And the criminals guilty. Guilty absolutely guilty. There's no doubt about it. That criminal is utterly guilty that the judge brings down the gavel guilty and the prisoner asks for mercy.

Well friends, you're not saying that the judge is unfair if he denies mercy to the prisoner. He's guilty. To be completely fair is to give him the full sentence that the law demands. Now if he shows mercy he can show mercy, but that prisoner does not deserve it.

No, no one is ever unfair for not showing mercy. And take a look at verse 8 the third son, we've got a bad track record so far scattered. No mercy. Well, how about the third child verse 8? Now when she had weaned low Ruhamah, she conceived and bore a son then God said call his name low Ami.

For you are not my people and I will not be your God. And You get the picture there. The name low Ami means not my people. Every call to this unfortunately named child reminded Hosea and Everybody else that the people of Israel had pushed away the Lord their God and should no longer be considered his people.

Not my people not my people. Go clean up your room. Go fetch some water. It's a difficult name to give to a young man. By the way, I think there may be a cruel irony in this name. Since Gomer did not give up her prostitution.

There may have been just that sense of irony in the name low Ami. Perhaps this son was really not the son of Hosea but of another man and perhaps the appearance of the child made it evident. The message God had to deliver to Israel through Hosea was hard enough.

But God made Hosea live it. Not my people. My friends I want you to see where it says in verse 9. For you are not my people and I will not be your God. This is not so much of a sentence or a penalty from God as it is a simple stating a fact.

It isn't if the people we're saying Oh Lord, we really want to be your people. We really want to love you. We really want to serve you just let us be your people and God says no you were bad in the past.

You can't be my people. That's not that at all. It's a simply a stating a fact. The people of Israel rejected God and the Lord is simply recognizing it. He's not gonna play. Let's pretend. You pretend to be my people and I'll pretend to be your God.

No, the time for those games is over. That says you're not my people. You don't want to be my people. My will not be your God. There is a promise of restoration. Look at it here in verse 10. Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea which cannot be measured or numbered and it shall Come to pass in the place where it was said to them.

You are not my people there. It shall be said to them. You are the sons of the Living God. Then the children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together and appoint for themselves one head and they shall come up out Of the land for great will be the day of Jezreel.

For it say to your brethren my people and to your sisters mercy is shown. See friends, even though God has promised judgment the days of judgment will last forever after the judgment. There's going to come a day of prosperity and increase and blessing.

You said you you called not my people but it shall be said to them you're sons of the Living God. Isn't it beautiful? God will fulfill the promise of low army. But the judgment wouldn't last forever. One day Israel would return to God and they would be called sons of the Living God.

And when the restoration comes when it happens It's going to be so complete look at it there in verse 11 the children of Judah and the children of Israel be gathered together. The Civil War back in the days of Rehoboam and Jeroboam the first that division that stood for a hundred and seventy years.

One day it's going to be erased and Judah and Israel back together in one land and Jezreel will great will be the day of Jezreel. It's not going to be a name of shame or or or of aching pain or being scattered anymore.

No, God's going to restore them. And so look at it there in chapter 2 verse 1 so say to your brethren my people it's not. It's not low army anymore. It's your my people and look at it again. It's a say to your sisters mercy is shown.

It's not low Ruhamah anymore. No mercy. It's mercy is shown. What a sign of? Redemption here because what was a sign of judgment is now evidence of redemption. I'm going on now into chapter 2 verse 2.

Bring charges against your mother. Bring charges. She is not my wife nor am I her husband. Let her put away her harlot trees from her sight and her adulteries from between her breasts. Let's I strip her naked and expose her as in the day She was born and make her like a wilderness and set her like a dry land and slay her with thirst.

Here God's painting Israel as an adulterous wife. Who's no longer be worthy to be compared or considered as a wife. It shows that Relationship is broken. And God says listen, if you don't put away your harlot like ways, you're going to be judged.

I'm covering for you now. Now. I'm still clothing you. I'm still blessing you, but I'm gonna take it away. Relationship is broken. Blessing continues, but if you continue in broken relationship, we're going to take away the blessing and Then you'll see the pain that the difficulty of it.

Look at it here verse 4. There's going to be a justification of the idolatry. It says here verse 4 I will not have mercy on her children for they are the children of harlotry. For their mother has played the harlot she who conceived them has done shamefully.

For she said I will go after my lovers who give me my bread and my water my wool and my linen my oil and my drink. You see if Israel as a whole is Represented as an unfaithful wife then the children represent the individual people of Israel.

And if they do not turn back to the Lord, they're going to personally experience his judgment. But look at how Israel justifies it here in verse 5. I'll go after my lovers. Why. Well because they give me bread and my water my wool and my linen.

Israel justified her harlotry because she received things from her lovers her false gods and let's recognize this. So often when we think of idolatry in the Old Testament, we have such a bizarre view of it.

We think What's so hot about bowing down before a statue? Whoop-dee-doo, you know you make a little statue you make a little idol and bow down. Boy that's not gonna excite me, you know, what good is that?

No friends. You don't understand. You know what? One of the hooks was for example in worshiping Baal Bale was thought to be the weather God and In an agrarian society where you were farmers and you didn't have drip irrigation systems.

You had to depend on the weather for your financial success. If the rains didn't come you starved and you were financially ruined. And so the temptation to say if I want my crops to be good, I'd better perform a sacrifice to the weather God.

Let's not risk making Bale angry. You weren't really worshiping Bale. You were worshiping financial security and success. That was your motive for doing business with Bale or the goddess Asteret. What's the point of bowing down before a little clay figure of a goddess?

No, that's not it because when you went down to worship Asteret you went down to Asteret temple and there would be a whole staff of temple prostitutes and you'd pay your Donation at the door and then you'd go have illicit relations with one of the temple prostitutes and what you wanted was the illicit sex.

It wasn't the statue. It wasn't the goddess. It was the sexual immorality that you loved. You see people still worship Bale today, they still worship Asteret today. They put a little finer gloss on it.

They put in a little prettier way, but it's the same idolatry and People say well, I like what I get from this sexual immorality. I like what I get. I like the perks of my pursuit of success and and financial security and all of that.

You see the way Israel thought in the way Hosea's wife thought. She looked at all that she got from her sin and it seemed like a pretty good deal. You know, I'm reminded of the passage in Hebrews 11 25 That speaks of the passing pleasures of sin.

I Love that phrase. Because it's very honest first of all the pleasures of sin. Friends, you know Satan's not stupid. He's not enticing a lot of people with the sin of beating their head against the wall.

You know, it doesn't feel very good. There's not much happiness or pleasure in that. But know what he does is he entices people into sin where there is a pleasure to be found in it. There is some kind of satisfaction that there is something that at least seems to be gained.

But what he withholds that it's a passing pleasure of sin. It's like when the fish bites on the bait hook and oh it tastes pretty good in the mouth right when they bite. When the hook begins to draw them then they found out that they did something bad.

God’s Discipline and the Hedge of Thorns

So look at how God will deal with his people here in verse 6. Therefore behold I will hedge up your way with thorns and wall her in so that she cannot find her paths. She will chase her lovers, but not overtake them.

Yes. She will seek them but not find them. Then she will say I will go and return to my first husband for it was better for me then now. For she did not know that I gave her grain new wine and oil and multiplied her silver and gold.

Which they prepared for Baal. Understand this friends first. God says okay Israel to bring you to repentance. I'm gonna put you on a path and I'm gonna set a hedge of thorns on one side and a set of Hedge of thorns on the other side and you know why you're gonna keep on the right path.

Because it's gonna hurt you so bad every time you try to get off. And we call out to God God. Why are these thorns here? I hate these thorns. He says I'm keeping you on the right path. Aren't I? You don't want to get stuck with the thorns and stay on the path.

When God hedges our way with thorns, we usually don't like it. Sometimes we think God is against us when the thorns hurt and we can't find the wrong path. Look at it there. Did you see it in verse 6? Therefore behold, I will hedge up your way with thorns and wall her in so that she cannot find her paths.

Oh, well, there's a sinful path. I wanted to go off to on the right. I can't find it. God obscured it from me God. You don't love me. You won't let me go on this path. God says, you know, I love you. It's one of the Swedish expressions of God's love to hedge your way with thorns and to wall us in.

The intention is to create this feeling in your heart. That's at the end of verse 7 where it says I will go and return to my first husband when God allows the passing pleasures of sin to pass. Then we often see how good it was to follow the Lord.

You've been there haven't you? Oh Yes, you went off after the passing pleasures of sin in one way or another and then you became very disillusioned. You saw the emptiness in it and then you thought you know, it was better back with the Lord.

Even with the best best Relationship with the Lord sometimes you can think well. You know the grass is greener over on the other side you go over in the other grass and you find out that it's not so green.

The Lord exposes our idols and makes them seem not so attractive anymore. Then we're ready to return to the Lord again. And if you notice here look at verse 8. But she did not know that I gave her grain New wine and oil and multiplied her silver and gold.

Even when Israel went after other gods the Lord still provided for it showed His great unselfish love to Israel even though Israel took what God provided and look what they did with it at the end of verse 8 they prepared it for bail.

They took God's provision gave it to idols. And God still loved him. God still loved him. Wouldn't that about top it for you. They put it the whole situation as if it were Hosea and his unfaithful wife Gomer.

You see when Hosea provided for Gomer she spent it on her adulterous lovers. It's as if Hosea went to the house of Gomer's lover and he and there she is. She's living apart from her husband apart from her children in adultery and there she is.

And he knew that the Scoundrel of a man who was with Gomer, you know that he couldn't provide her. She's destitute. She's poor. She's in rags. So Hosea comes and he knocks on the door a man with a gruff voice he opens up who is it?

He says I'm Hosea. Are you the man living with Gomer? Yes, I am but what business of it is yours he says well, I'm Hosea. I'm the husband of Gomer. And I brought these groceries and I brought this money so that she can be provided for.

Man's astonished. Maybe Gomer comes to the door and takes it. If she was she she's with the scoundrel. She's she's living with an adulterous husband in here her real husband providing for her. He walks away.

You can just imagine Gomer and her adulterous lover having a good laugh about it. What a fool Hosea is. Oh Good heavens what a great dinner they had together with the food Hosea bought. And this is how the Lord loves us.

Lavishing blessing on us even when we're worshiping idols providing us with blessings that we waste on other gods. Look at it there at the end of verse 8. Multiplied silver and gold which they prepared for Baal this shows how offensive Idolatry really is to God whatever we give to an idol.

We first received it from the Lord. Think of it this way friends. God Gives to man the trees of the forest and the iron in the ground. Did man make those trees. Did man make that iron in the ground? No and Then he gives man that the brains to mine the iron and to to make an axe and nails from the iron.

And the man goes and he cuts down a tree. And then he gives man the skill and the wisdom to fashion the wood into beams and he gives the man the cleverness. Well, it comes from God. It doesn't come from man.

He gives man the cleverness to to take the wood from the tree and to make a handle and to take the iron and to Make a hammer and then the man takes the beams from the wood and he takes the nails from the iron and the hammer that He's made.

He makes a cross and he stretches God out on it and he nails him to the cross. Where God willingly stretches out his arms and dies on the cross to take the guilt and the penalty that man's sin Deserves and to make a new restored relationship between God and man possible.

He he thinks it's crazy. Why would God love and provide? For people who turn for him like that. Because that's the love of God, but there will be discipline for that. Look at it here in verse 9. Therefore I will return and take away my grain in its time and my new wine in its season.

And I will take back my wool and my linen. Given to cover her nakedness I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers and no one shall deliver her from my hand. I will also cause all her mirth to cease her feast days her new moons her Sabbath and all her appointed feast.

And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees of which she said well. These are my wages that my lovers have given me. So I will make them a forest and the beasts of the field shall eat them and I will punish her for her days of The bales to which she burned incense.

She decked herself with earrings and jewelry and went after her lovers. But me she forgot says the Lord. God gave to Israel what she gave he provided and sacrificed to bail and so God will will take away this provision.

And as Israel feels her need and deprivation then perhaps she'll turn back to the Lord. You see he they forgot her. Met a terrible last phrase in verse 13, but me she forgot. You see during the days of Jeroboam the second Israel enjoyed great prosperity of the stock markets up.

Well, you know all these startup companies. They're doing great fortunes are being made. Everybody is successful and happy, but she used for prosperity for idolatry and the pursuit of ungodly pleasures.

So what does God say say I'm gonna take away the prosperity? Doesn't that make you afraid for our country. We are so prosperous right now so prosperous. And then you think what have we used our prosperity for.