Hosea 1, How Do We Get in God’s Family?

Hosea chapter 1 be reading the entire chapter here the word of the Lord the word of the

Lord that came to Hosea the son of Barry 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 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 So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Dibliam 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 by horses or by horsemen

When she had we 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 Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea

Which cannot be measured or numbered 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 and the children of Judah and the children of Israel Shall be gathered together and they shall appoint for themselves one head and they shall go up from the land

For great shall be the day of Jezreel May the

Lord add his blessings to the reading of his Holy Word Well, who's your family

Not a not a great mysterious question. Is it most of us probably know exactly who makes up our family There's usually no ambiguity about it.

It's black and white. Some people are family and some others aren't simple Maybe maybe when you get into extended

Extended family, you know like in second cousins cousins -in -law You're not quite so sure whether you feel like their family.

Maybe there's some gray areas there But for the most part we know exactly who makes up our family.

It's blood after all parents brothers sisters children But there is course one relationship that's not blood

But it is family indeed It makes the family possible the the marital relationship what we used to call the old -fashioned term

Wedlock what Adam explained when he first saw his wife that this is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh

She she should be called woman like blood. The bond is just as strong Just no literal blood

You know family what makes for that relationship is love

I Wonder though, is that the only relationship in which love? Can make someone part of a family is the marital relationship the the only one where love becomes as strong as blood

Some people think so and then for those people who they feel connected to Revolves around blood

Except for maybe that one relationship Oh They may feel some connection to to others outside of the immediate family kind of going out in concentric circles

From their family to two larger and larger groups extended family, maybe clans, maybe distant cousins or tribes

Or even races at some point some people out there though Feel that they're no longer connected

To those there's a boundary that is crossed However far it may be for different people

Maybe just simply outside the family or maybe outside the extended family or the clan of the tribe of the race at some point the connection becomes so thin that it breaks off entirely and so we have

Not my people the other the foreigner the stranger

How do you become one of God's family one of his people Now today a lot of people probably most people actually, you know in this culture.

I think that's not even a question You know, what are you talking about? How do you become part of God's family? But we're all part of God's family.

We think it's just popular today to say we're all God's children And so in their minds what

I just described as the point at which we might say Those are not my people

They would think well that doesn't apply to God That he sees all people as his people.

That's just the common assumption in our culture today the problem with that The biblically it's just not true

It's not the teaching of the Bible God does does not accept everyone is his children The Lord Jesus told some people some religious people in his day that they were children not of God But of Satan the

Apostle Paul told the philosophers of Athens that they are that sure we're all God's offspring use that term got offspring that is we're all his creation that all races and Ethnicities and nations are equally derived from God, but nowhere does the

Bible teach that we're all God's children That's simply not a biblical idea It doesn't simply does not teach that every person is one of part of God's families a person that he has

Covenanted to indeed we see right here in this passage in Hosea chapter 1 that there are some people to which

God says You're not my people the question that is and then that becomes just comes one of them the the biggest questions in all of life is then how

Do we become one of God's people? How do we join his family? Is it is it like most of our family?

Is it blood? We're just we're born into it as God has a preferred

Family an ethnic group a special nation Maybe that he's chosen and if we're in that group, we're born in the right family.

We're safe. We're in Is it blood? Or is it? something else

Maybe many think It's up to us now And we can what we do

Can get us in or out of his family to be one of his people are not his people

We have to do the right thing We have to have the right religion and do the right rituals and get baptized and say the right prayers and it's in the right

Church give the right amount of money Is that what it takes? I?

mean if it's not by blood is it by blood or Is God basically a cosmic?

Racist who just likes one ethnic group more than another and if you happen to be in that ethnic group Well, you're you're well off.

But if you're not there's not much you can do about it Or is there a way to opt in by performance?

You work hard enough. You you can get in. We're sort of like being a Navy SEAL You can aspire to that if you you work hard enough at it

I mean if we're not all in by default what separates you From those other people who don't make it to being part of God's family

Is it blood you're born into it? Is it religion or morality are the standards high?

Are they low? Or is there something else? Well, we see here in Hosea 1 the answer to that in four parts first the the word second the wife

Third the children and finally the call The word comes to Hosea the word comes in a particular context a historical real -life

Situation and he sets it for us in the days He says 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 Now you don't have to have a degree in ancient

Near Eastern History to know the situation the Bible itself contains what we need to know about these

Kings particularly in the Books of first and second Kings the first King Uzziah that might ring a bell

From Isaiah who dates his own call as in the year King Uzziah died I saw the

Lord high and lifted up and so Hosea lived at the same time as Isaiah And so the situation that the things that were going on in Israel In Hosea's time were the same as that Isaiah prophesied about Isaiah said in chapter 1 seek justice correct oppression

But Hosea is in the northern kingdom of Israel He's the only prophet from the northern kingdom of Israel who prophesied to the northern kingdom of Israel So he lived under Jeroboam the son of Joash whom historians usually called

Jeroboam the second his reign Jeroboam the second's reign was a gilded age a time of apparent peace and prosperity but it was all a thin veil over corruption and greed and self -indulgence and Injustice he ruled for 40 years so a whole generation grew up under him a generation of stability and superficial peace

It looked like they were blessed and protected in his 40 years the the borders of Israel were expanded

They were not being threatened by outside forces by other empires. The rich were getting richer and the poor

Well, who cares about them 40 years of peace and prosperity only only a couple of prophets coming to bother them like Amos Coming up from Judah to Bethel, which is where their shrine was telling them that judgment is coming

But they could tell him to leave he's from Judah and then there was Hosea Well, they couldn't tell him to leave because he's from the northern kingdom of Israel But it's easy to ignore prophets and warnings of judgment when the money is rolling in You know when you live in a big comfortable house with lots of luxuries, there's no threats.

You're in good health The future looks bright You can always drown out the cause for repentance with the music of your musicians or maybe when you're today with your

Bose headphones Forty years they got away with robbing the poor by bribing judges exploiting the poor with might makes right but then

From the end of Jeroboam the second reign in the year 753 BC in just 32 years

Israel went through six Kings one assassinated after another turmoil revolutions purges murders

Invasions by foreign empires and then in 721 BC just 32 years after Jeroboam the second less than a generation the northern kingdom of Israel was completely destroyed by the

Assyrian Empire the people of Israel who weren't killed by the Assyrians were taken away and scattered around the region and replaced with foreign people

That's the context of Hosea Well, the word came to Hosea not only to be said

But to be to be done Hosea's life, especially his marriage becomes a parable of the

Lord and his people the word wasn't just about Proclaiming about saying about teaching for Hosea was also about doing his life

Was the Word of God? Now I've seen some Reformed people who seem to think that we're all about all about believing and teaching a word that is

Disembodied that's just elaborate doctrine that we come to here and Then apparently we leave with educated minds

But with unchanged lives just spending and living and valuing just like everyone else around us

Well here Hosea's life is is part of the word The word comes to him to show people about God's love how to become one of God's people

And he shows that by how he lives in his marriage. The word makes the same demands on us that we show

About God's love about who who is part of God's and our family by how we live

God's Word is not like in Greek philosophy Sort of abstract is detached from this world

Like, you know love it's just a feeling or just like a concept that just makes no change in your life

You can debate it. You can talk about it dialogue about it But it doesn't translate into anything that you actually have to do like be loyal the word becomes flesh here and dwells among us

Well second is the wife when the word first comes to him This is the first thing that God Tells him to do that.

This is how his career as a prophet begins He is told to take to yourself a wife of Whoredom and that word whoredom not a word you commonly use in this culture and the

ESV It translates a Hebrew word, but simply means fornication or immorality. In other words take an immoral wife

It doesn't imply necessarily that she's a prostitute, but only that She is or will be

Immoral and it's not really clear whether she's already openly immoral. She's kind of had a reputation for that already but even before they're already married or That Hosea is told to take a wife

Who he is now told will eventually become Immoral.

Well either way Hosea is told beforehand that his future wife will be Unfaithful now who who in the world will marry someone who they know beforehand prior to the wedding

Will be unfaithful Who does that? Adultery after all is grounds for divorce even in the teachings of Jesus.

So who marries someone who they know? beforehand Will be adulterous

God does Well God attaches himself to two people he covenants there's that crucial word again covenants commits himself

He covenants to a bride whom he knows before the covenant

Will be unfaithful How do you become one of God's people One of the people that he clings to in love his bride one of the people he makes a covenant with How do you but how do you become one of those people is it by your religion really the right rituals by your morality

Even though we've just seen here that God will commit to a bride

That he can see will be adulterous so How dependent do you think the

Lord is on? our performance Well, the

Lord first speaks to Hosea to take to yourself a wife of whoredom immorality an unfaithful wife and have children not only the wife of Immorality, but have children of whoredom of immorality.

The implication is that some of the children aren't even going to be your own Hosea Hosea Go raise children

That your wife conceives through her adultery Go Hosea be betrayed and then you take responsibility for the product of the betrayal do this the

Lord says in verse 2 For or because here's the reason that Hosea is told to live out his word this word

Do it because the land that's the the nation the people of Israel who were supposed to be covenanted to the

Lord these people the Lord's people Commits it says there verse 2 commits.

It's an active present tense verb The people are right now in that very act of committing whoredom immorality

Spiritual adultery the Lord tells Hosea to do what he did to commit to someone whom he knows will betray him

You commit spiritual adultery by first supposedly being one of the

Lord's people God's people and then someone or something else Catches your eye.

Oh You said sure that you were gonna live for the Lord to be a believer in Jesus a disciple a

Christian but then Mammon walks by man, and It looks pretty good

Living for living for money looks awfully attractive Money after all unlike the

Lord will always do your bidding Or Lisa says it will if you have enough of it

It says you can you can get anyone to do anything The Lord is not the

Lord's not so accommodating is it? So some even will tell you that you could have the

Lord and that mammon and chase the dollars that you could serve the

Lord and Mammon just like adultery is the illusion that you could have the affair and the marriage at the same time

You can get away with it the temptation whispers in your ear That's what the the bail worshipers in Israel at this time thought because most of them are we worship bail and the

Lord And maybe other gods thrown in they were thinking we could have we can have bail what he offers and we could have the

Lord for what he offers today The prompt the promises the temptation you can live for wealth and things and gadgets and reputation

When you know, whatever pleasure immorality and the Lord as long as you know, as long as he's your number one

God He doesn't mind if you he doesn't mind if you play with a few others Men ask your wives if she minds you think she mind if you chase a few other girls as long as she

She remains your number one wife You can take a few others Ask her that see how she likes it

The Lord reacts in a similar way the same way he's a Jealous God he says it is at at the end of verse 2 what they are doing the spiritual adultery this playing with other gods while still saying they believe in the

Lord it is Forsaking the Lord. Oh They still had shrines to the

Lord. They still talked about him. They still claim to believe in him But by trying to mix in a little bale worship

Like a little mammon serving or a little ego centeredness They committed spiritual adultery spiritual adultery begins by being attracted to what another

Offers being unsatisfied with the Lord. Sure. The Lord offers forgiveness and love and life and eternity, but you know money offers

I phones and gadgets and lots of trips to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse and Rolls -Royce and lots of beach vacations

Maybe a yacht Whatever you can imagine Mmm, you think?

Maybe I can maybe I can have the Lord and Mammon, I can have both

No that's spiritual adultery So Hosea is going to portray

What God's people have done to him? He went in verse 3 and married Gomer and she bears she bears him three children

How do you become one of God's children? Is it by blood? Just because you're born into the right family or right ethnic group the right nation when we say it like that The answer seems pretty obvious, isn't it?

We say it quite so bluntly out in the open But that is still even though the answer really should be obvious that is still even according to many

Christians how they think you become God's people you're just born into it You're born into Christian parents born in the right ethnic group.

Whatever a lot like Hosea's children here or born into his family He has three children and the

Lord tells him to name the children Symbolically to portray what God calls his people by how

Hosea will call his children first Gomer bears To him

Notice that at the end of verse three She bears to him a son. So the boy was

Hosea's son and the Lord said says to the to name the boy Jezreel now

Jezreel literally means the word literally means God sows or scatters Like in their day a farmer would kind of go out and scatter the seed in the field and the name and it was also

Jezreel was also the name of a prominent valley and City in Israel where a couple of major events happened in the history of Israel first a prior

King Ahab Wanted a vineyard in Jezreel It belonged to a man named

Naboth, but Naboth didn't want to sell it to the king It was that it was the family's vineyard and he wanted to keep it for his people for his family

Now in most other nations around the world That would be unheard of if a king wanted something

He got it No one ever said no to a king Right.

The the king is law. His word is law No, we couldn't hold him to account. But this was

Israel and in Israel Kings were supposed to be under God's law Like anyone else they were supposed to be the administrators of the the implementers of God's law

Like a president is an administrator of our laws. He's supposed to be accountable to the law So even the king could not steal he was bound by the commandment.

You shall not steal but King Ahab's wife Jezebel Was a foreigner.

She was a pagan. She was a Baal worshiper beyond that She was actually a missionary for Baal trying to grow the worship of Baal in Israel And she didn't understand at all that she too was under God's law that she was accountable to it

So she set up Naboth to be accused falsely of slandering the king and they had him stoned to death

So they murdered Naboth and they stole his vineyard There in that vineyard the

Prophet Elijah shows up and says that God will judge you Ahab for breaking his law

He's going to destroy your dynasty Wipe out your family and the place here in Jezreel where they spilled the blood of Naboth Will be where Jezebel's blood is licked up by the dogs

That's what Elijah's that's Elijah's news for Ahab the moral of the story authorities cannot do

Whatever they want to do. They too are Accountable they are under the law

They cannot put their knee on the back of a head cuff Man's neck and suffocate him to death and get away with it

The judgment on Ahab and his family came in the form of a man named Jehu Who after Ahab had just after Ahab had been killed in battle a battle that that God deceived him to go into So that he would be killed

Jehu a general in Israel's army who was encouraged and anointed by Elisha Elijah's disciple

Jehu goes to Jezreel Where Ahab's family lived in that vineyard that they stole from from Naboth who they killed

Jehu goes there to the Ahab's family shoots Ahab's son Joram in the back with an arrow killing him and orders his body be to be dumped in Naboth's vineyard

Then he finds Jezebel all made up well, you know cosmetics with lots of eye shade and orders her to be thrown out of a window and High up and the house she was in and then he tramples her to death with the horses of his chariot that so far was justice

But Jehu didn't stop there. He went on a even a rampage He murdered Judah's King who just happened to be visiting

Israel and he murdered him He had all of Ahab's sons killed 70 of them and he piled up their heads and two heaps on either side of the gate to the city

So that everyone going into the city would see all the people he killed He killed everyone close to Ahab all of Ahab's friends and assistants and priests.

It was a it was a bloodbath That was Jezreel Hosea's first son was to be named

Jezreel because in verse 4 the Lord says in just a little while I Will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel That the house of the the dynasty of Jehu is where Jeroboam the second comes from He was the great -grandson of Jehu.

So the Lord is here in verse 4 Pronouncing his judgment on the dynasty that was now in power

Soon, he says he will punish them for all the blood they spilled To get into power for all the injustice in the valley of Jezreel God does not let injustice

Go unpunished Three years ago we got to visit Gettysburg Famous battle happened just south of the town there in Pennsylvania.

There's there's hills Around it was perfect for for cannons to fire down into this wide open field below Just a cornfield then the

Confederates were fighting for slavery by their own confession at the time Tried to take the hills especially a little round top

So they could have those hills for their own attack the US commander there Colonel Chamberlain Ordered his men who had run out of ammunition to fix bayonets and charge desperate to keep the high ground

So they could have it for their cannons and they did Barely but the forces

Fighting for slavery by their own confession. We're so full of confidence because of the many battles that they had won before this battle just so Confident in there and then there's in themselves and there are generals thought well the next day even though they don't still don't have the high ground the next day they could still make a mile -long march out of the woods cross an open field for about a full mile and Take the

US forces dug in on a ridge across that field. It was a slaughter the

Confederacy lost about 6 ,500 men killed wounded or taken prisoner

God does not let injustice go unpunished Imagine a prophet to the south in the 19th century naming his son

Gettysburg Well here he's just real and the Lord says that he will put an end to the to the kingdom.

That is the political power the the independence the nationhood of the house of Israel and now

He's gone beyond just the house of Jehu now. It's It's the power of of the nation the whole nation of Israel in verse 5

I will break the bow that is the military power of Israel in the Valley of Jezreel remember

Jezreel means God sows God scatters like scattering seed God is going to scatter

Israel and He did Well, there's a second child

Notice verse 6 she Gomer Conceived again and bore a daughter Notice that this time it doesn't say who the father is, you know, this is a bore to him this time

Well, the Lord said to Hosea call her name No mercy How do you become part of God's family?

It's not by blood. Is it? Is it by love? Or we're told now they know in our culture now

They will God loves everyone and apparently loves everyone in the same way But here in verse 6 the Lord says I will no more have mercy or love on the house of Israel to forgive them at all

Some today who say that God loves an ethnic group say that Israel is that ethnic group that he particularly loves

But here God says that he won't have mercy or love on them, but he will have mercy on Judah in verse 7

That's the southern kingdom Judah is saved here He says from the same destruction that came on Israel in 721

BC And that's what happened actually in if you know the history from first and second Kings They were saved with the same armies that obliterated

Israel Soon there at about 20 years later besieged Jerusalem and taunted

Hezekiah Saying well the Lord sent us to destroy Jerusalem to kill

Hezekiah and in the end then they said well The Lord really isn't any different than all the other little gods of all the other little kingdoms

We've conquered their gods couldn't save them. The Lord isn't going to be able to save you But the Lord did save them says by sending an angel

Probably armed with biological weapons to destroy that army not with a bow or sword or horses.

They weren't protected by Victory and combat but protected by the

Lord and so Judah remained a people So that Jesus could be born from Judah Now when no mercy was weaned

She became old enough Gomer gave birth to another son this time named not my people Not my people to tell

Israel that even though they have the blood They're not God's people. The Lord says in verse 8.

I am NOT your God You know, here's the heart of the issue

How do you become one of God's people? Because it's not by blood is it

Israel has the blood But Hosea's third child tells them that you are not my people there are people

Who are not God's people Now to be clear, there are no people who are not made in the image of God who are not

God's creation Who don't deserve justice? But not all are in his family

Well, then how how are you in his family, how do you become part of that family if it's not by blood

It must be by love he calls those whom he loves

You others spiritual adulterers unfaithful unjust are not

God's people yet in verse 10 This other words despite that despite the fact you're not my people

Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea

Which cannot be measured or numbered Here, he's restating this word sound familiar because they come from Genesis He's restating the

Covenant with Abraham. God told Abraham. Well, that's how many your children will be They'll be like the grains at the grains of sand at the beach

God will keep his covenant To Abraham it will be fulfilled even if the literal physical descendants of Abraham are spiritual adulterers still

God will keep his covenant But keep it with whom Keep it with the literal ethnic

Israelites. Well, some would say yes That's what he says the children of Israel in verse 10

But he just said in the previous verse that they are not his people that he will not have mercy on them

So is he vacillating here? Just kind of contradicting himself. Is he is he like an angry betrayed lover rashly shouting, you know, it's over storming out

Only to calm down later and come back reconcile. Is that what's going on here? Is that why we're going from no mercy and not my people to now in verse 10

You will be children of the living God Instead of being scattered literal meaning of Jezreel.

You'll be you'll be harvested and gathered He contradicted himself Is he going back on his threat?

No The Israel that doesn't receive mercy is different than the

Israel that gets mercy the Israel that is not his people is Different than the

Israel that is called children of the living God the literal ethnic

Israel that is scattered is different than the than the believing

Israel that is harvested that it is gathered together from all over the the world

Translated there at verse 11 the end of the end of verse 11 translated as land in the ESV But the word the word could be easily translated from Hebrew as earth.

They shall come up these children of Israel they shall come up from the

Earth from all over the world the many sheep who are

Who belong in Jesus's sheepfold and other sheepfolds that he is gathering together. He's gathering on under one head

One new king the king from the house of Judah That's why he has mercy on them

These last three verses are quoted last two verses of Hosea 1 are quoted twice in the

New Testament by Paul and Peter Paul says that there are people

Who are vessels and that's like containers maybe glasses cups whatever bowls vessels of mercy

That is people that God has poured his mercy into they contain his mercy

God has called them beforehand to have mercy on them

To be faithful. He will be faithful to them even if for a time They're unfaithful to him

He has prepared these vessels of mercy and called them He says

Paul says not only from the Jews Some for the Jews, but it's not all from the

Jews because it's not by blood But also he says also from the Gentiles in Romans chapter 9 verse 24 and these people called

From ethnic Israel and from all kinds of nations and races These people they'd come together fulfill

Paul says what God said to Hosea those who were not my people

Europeans Africans Chinese Indonesians Those people

I will Call he calls them from all over the earth and he calls them my people

Peter says in first Peter chapter 2 verse 10 Speaking to the church to the

Church of believers from all nations says you are a holy nation You holy nation you Gentiles you

Americans you Chinese wherever you come from if you're believers in the Lord once You were not a people

It was a time when you were not a people you were not God's people. So how did you become God's people now?

now You are God's people how? once you

You the church had not received mercy Peter says but now you

You who he has called from all nations now you have received mercy

How do you get in God's family mercy