Faithful God (Part Four): A Passionate Plea

Transcript

JROT 4
10/16/2022
Faithful God (Part Four): A Passionate Plea
Hosea 2:2-13
Jesse Randolph

Mark Twain’s book “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” is the fictional account of Hank Morgan a Connecticut factory worker who, after being hit in the head with a crowbar wakes up several centuries earlier in the court of King Arthur. Though this book is not as famous as some of Twain’s other works like “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” or “Huckleberry Finn” it has its own share of memorable scenes. One of those scenes that stands out is one in which Hank the Connecticut Yankee is traveling the countryside with King Arthur. At one point when King Arthur uses a derisive term to address one of the common folks in his kingdom Hank scolds him, essentially saying to the King, and I’m paraphrasing here, “You can’t talk to him that way.” “You are his brother.” Miffed at such a thought the king shoots back to the Connecticut Yankee “To dirt like that?” “To dirt like that?”

That’s the human heart on display, is it not? “Associate myself with someone who is so beneath me? So under me? So unworthy of my attention, and love, and affection?” To “dirt like that”? that might be our heart. That might be the natural human tendency. That’s not the heart of God. To Hosea, His prophet, God tells him to go love a prostitute. “Dirt like that,” if there ever was such a thing. To marry her. To set his love upon her. To stick with her even if she refuses to clean herself up. Even if she refuses to stop rolling around in the muck and the mire of the world. Even though she insists on pursuing her many lovers rather than remaining faithful and committed to the one she has been joined to in marriage. As we’ve seen the way in which Hosea was to interact with his prostitute wife ultimately was a picture of God’s faithful and covenant-keeping love toward Israel. Though God had set His love upon this small and otherwise unspectacular and otherwise unworthy nation. Though He had clearly laid out His standards for her to live by. Though He had been more than patient with her. Though He had warned her repeatedly. Though He had every right to wholly forsake her and abandon her forever based on her conduct, He didn’t. Instead, because of His commitment and His promises to Israel going all the back to Abraham. He would never leave her or forsake her not because of her and who she was. After all, she was “dirt like that,” but instead of who He is. A faithful and covenant-keeping God.

Now, to remind you of where we are in our study of the book of Hosea. Tonight, we’ll find ourselves in the first half of Hosea 2. Lord willing, we’ll get all the way from verse 2 through verse 13. We will see how that goes. Knowing that we’re in Hosea 2 though what we know is that we are in the first major section of this book. You’ll recall that, as I’ve mentioned before that this book is broken up into two major sections. The first major section, chapters 1-3 we see God’s dealings with Israel being typified or illustrated in this real earthly marriage relationship between God’s prophet, Hosea and his prostitute wife, Gomer. In the second half of the book, chapters 4-14 which we may get to by 2027 or somewhere around there, we’re going to see this back and forth between God and Israel over Israel’s apostasy and her spiritual whoredom and God’s dealings with this spiritually wayward people.

Tonight though, we’re still in that first half of the book. We’re very much still in that first half of the book which is very much still that “familial” setting and we’re going to get a glimpse tonight into Hosea’s household. We’re going to get a glimpse into the sounds of Hosea’s household. The arguments that would have been happening in his household. The infighting and all the rest of what would have been happening within his home. Now as we’ve already seen, back to Hosea 1, we saw in Hosea 1 how his household was formed. We saw that “the word of the LORD” came to Hosea in verse 1 of chapter 1 and in giving Hosea that “word,” we saw that God commanded Hosea, verse 2 to “Go, take to yourself a wife of harlotry, and have children of harlotry.” And God ordered Hosea to do so, to take this harlot, to take this prostitute to be his wife so that He could teach a lesson to Israel about her own spiritual whoredom and idolatry. In fact, that’s exactly what we see in verse 2 of chapter 1. He says go take yourself this wife “for the land commits flagrant harlotry, forsaking the LORD.”

We saw that Hosea immediately obeyed God’s command. There was no foot dragging with Hosea. Hosea wasn’t like Jonah running off to Tarshish when he should have gone to Nineveh. Rather, we see in Hosea 1:3 that he immediately followed the Lord’s command, “So he went,” it says in verse 3, “and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim and she conceived and bore him a son.” We saw, in Hosea 1:3-9, we saw that Gomer, Hosea’s wife the prostitute then gave birth to three children. Only one of whom was Hosea’s. The other two of which came from her other lovers. God directed Hosea to give these children specific names, but He didn’t tell Hosea to name them Tom, Jane, and Harry or even Joshua, Hannah, and Isaiah. No, the names that Hosea was to give these children were more ominous and bleaker. He ordered, God did, ordered Hosea to name these children Jezreel meaning either “bloodshed,” or “scattered.” Lo-Ruhamah meaning, “no mercy” and Lo-Ammi meaning, “not my people.”

Now, I’ve always thought that the Puritans of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries really took the cake when it comes to sort of “out there” for their children. You guys know what I’m talking about? You ever done a web search on puritanical names? I’ve got a few for you. Here are a few actual Puritan names from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Praise-God. These are all first names. Fear-God. Fight-The-Good-Fight-Of-Faith. Job-Raked-Out-Of-The-Ashes. That’s a first name. All a bunch of dashes in between. Kill-Sin, Dust, Fly-fornication, Abstinence, What-God-Will. And here’s one. I’ve got to take a breath before I say it. If-Christ-Had-Not-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned who by the way, no joke, went by “Nicholas.” So those were actual puritanical names from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries but note at least most of those names had hope attached to them! Hope anchored in what Jesus Christ had accomplished on the parents’ behalf. The names given by Hosea now, getting back to our context, these children’s names were completely devoid of hope. “Bloodshed,” “No Mercy,” “Not My People,”

Last week, things cheered up a bit because we encountered a bit of a hopeful interlude in this otherwise dark account. Starting with the first word of verse 10 of chapter 1 “Yet.” Then over the course of those three verses, Hosea 1:10, Hosea 1:11, Hosea 2:1 we saw the tone change of this prophecy. We saw the mood shift to this hopeful future day for Israel. In fact, let’s read that passage to get our bearings of where we have been. Hosea 1:10 “Yet the number of the sons of Israel will be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered; and in the place where it 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 appoint for themselves one leader, and they will go up from the land, for great will be the day of Jezreel. Say to your brothers, ‘Ammi,’ and to your sisters, ‘Ruhamah’.”

As we worked our way through that text last week, we saw that though there was familial strife in Hosea’s household which was representative of the tension and strife that existed between God and His people, Israel. God hadn’t given them up. God hadn’t given up on Israel. God hasn’t given up on Israel. God has a plan for Israel. We saw from those verses last week God was promising a future restoration of His people. God was promising or providing a renewal of His promises. He was predicting a reconciliation of the divisions that then existed between Israel and Judah. He was promising the reinstatement of a king who we saw was the Messiah of Israel, the Lord Jesus Christ. Last we saw that He was promising a return to the land. As we saw last week, these are future-oriented prophecies in that passage from last time which will one day come to fruition in the future Millennial Kingdom of the Messiah of Israel, the Savior of the World, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now with that, we’ve worked our way up to the front door of tonight’s text. We’re not only are we at the front door of tonight’s text. We’re actually walking into the front door of Hosea’s house. Last week we were looking ahead to the future of Israel. Tonight’s text we’re going back to the 8th century B.C. Picture it with me. We’re walking on some dusty side trail in Samaria up to the front of Hosea’s house, this prophet of Israel. His house with his prostitute wife and the three kids. We are going to see much will be said here about Israel and her unfaithfulness to God, but it all starts in Hosea’s fractured and chaotic home.

Now, I’m prefacing my prefaces here. As we get ready to jump into this text, we need to remember that we are working through this that we are continually going to be straddling these two worlds and straddling two realities in this text and in future texts in the book of Hosea. On the one hand, we have a real marriage between two humans. A real husband and a real wife, Hosea and Gomer. That real marriage is now really “on the rocks” because of Gomer’s infidelity. On the other hand, what we have is this ultimate marriage that’s being typified here. Namely, the marriage between God and His people, Israel which was entered into on the peninsula at Sinai many hundreds of years before. Just as Hosea was affected by his wife Gomer’s adultery God was affected by His people, Israel’s adultery. By that, I don’t mean that God was off somewhere in the corner of His room crying into His pillow. What I do mean is what Scripture teaches which is that God, on the one hand, is loving and patient and merciful and shows those to His creation. On the other hand, He is a God who is holy and jealous and wrathful, and He can be provoked to act in response to the sin and disobedience of His people which is what we see here in Hosea. So, as best we can, I’m asking you here tonight and in future lessons, we need to hold on to these two strands of the story. The story of Hosea and Gomer and the story of God and Israel as the text takes us on this journey where we’re toggling back and forth between those two realities.

So, we start with this opening scene, in verse 2 of Hosea 2. Here’s our first new material for the night. It says, “Contend with your mother, contend, for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband.” Now in the immediate context here, what is happening is that Hosea this forlorn and heartbroken husband. His wife, Gomer, has been unfaithful to him. She bore him Jezreel. She bore him at least that son but then she went out and slept with other men. She had been unfaithful. Meaning, she was not only a prostitute, but she was also an adulteress. Now, we don’t know all the details of how many lovers there were or how Gomer was found out or how long these adulterous relationships went on. All we know is what we see from this text, that Hosea is portrayed as this forsaken and jilted husband whose marriage covenant with Gomer had been violated. Undoubtedly, he was angry, and sad, and heartbroken. The situation was so bad between this husband and this wife, the relationship was so broken down, it so deteriorated that the parties are no longer communicating with each other. Instead, are actually sending messages to each other through the children. That’s what we have here. Hosea and Gomer are no longer on talking terms, so Hosea specifically is using the children to pass along this important message to their mom. The message is this. “Contend,” which he emphasizes a few words later, by saying it again “contend.” They don’t have underlining. They don’t have yellow highlights in Hebrews but the way they do emphasize what is being said is by repeating the word. “Contend,” “contend.”

So, the future family reunion that we saw in the verses we looked at last week, that hopeful family reunion is now put on the shelf. It is put off to the side. Because here in verse 2, we’re immediately thrown into the middle of a family quarrel with the children quarreling on the husband’s behalf as they address the wife. With the children now serving as witnesses against their own mother. With the children now being asked to serve as a mouthpiece for the father’s frustration with their mother. All of which culminates with this statement. “For she is not my wife, and I am not her husband.”

Now ultimately what is happening here in this family strife, what’s being pictured here in this family strife between Hosea and Gomer is also God stating His case against Israel. This is a “riv.” “Riv” is how you would spell that, which is the Hebrew term for a public accusation. A remonstrance. You could even call it “a lawsuit.” In fact, flip with me if you would back to Isaiah 3. There are a couple other notable examples of these “riv’s,” these public accusations that we see in other contexts. Look at Isaiah 3 with me for a similar example of what we have in Hosea 2. Isaiah 3:13. “The LORD arises to contend,” there it is, “and stands to judge the people. The Lord enters into judgment with the elders and princes of His people, ‘It is you who have devoured the vineyard; the plunder of the poor is in your houses. ‘What do you mean by crushing My people and grinding the face of the poor?’ declares the Lord GOD of hosts.” That’s an example of one of these public accusations, a riv, a lawsuit that’s being declared here in the context of Isaiah. Go with me now to Jeremiah 2. We’re going to see another one of these just to show you what Hosea is doing here is not unique to Hosea. We see it elsewhere, this form of address elsewhere in the Old Testament. Look at Jeremiah. Jeremiah 2 starting at verse 4. Jeremiah 2:4 “Hear the word of the LORD, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel. Thus says the LORD, ‘What injustice did your fathers find in Me, that they went far from Me and walked after emptiness and became empty? They did not say, “where is the LORD who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, who led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and of pits, through a land of drought and of deep darkness, through a land that no one crossed and where no man dwelt?’ I brought you into a fruitful land to eat its fruit and its good things. But you came and defiled My land, and My inheritance you made an abomination. The priests did not say, ‘Where is the LORD?’ And those who handle the law did not know Me; the rulers also transgressed against Me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal and walked after things that did not profit.” Now look at verse 9. “Therefore, I will contend with you, declares the LORD, and with your sons’ sons I will contend.”

That’s what’s happening here in Hosea 2:2. Through the setting of Hosea’s marriage to adulterous Gomer, God is pleading His case against Israel. But at the same time as He is doing so, there is this subtle ring of hope. Because as God is pleading with Israel in the second half of verse 2 we’re going to see that as He’s pleading against Israel He’s actually pleading for her to repent of her adulterous and sinful ways. Look at the second part of the verse: after he says she’s not my wife and I’m not her husband he says, “And let her put away her harlotry from her face and her adultery from between her breasts.” So here, the husband, Hosea still appears intent on pursuing reconciliation which portrays the depths of God’s love for Israel. Just as Hosea had grounds to divorce his unfaithful wife under the law of that day God had grounds to finally and forever “divorce” Israel. To be done with her. To wash His hands of her. But that’s not what we see here. Rather, we see the heartbreak and the exasperation building to the place where he’s inviting his adulterous bride to repent.

“Put away your harlotries from your face.” “Put away your adulteries away from between your breasts.” See the face and the breasts were part of the female body in the seductive women of those times and we can just say it, frankly, of our times that people would draw attention to by dressing themselves up and adorning themselves in these areas of the female body. Jeremiah 4:30 says, “And you, O desolate one, what will you do? Although you dress in scarlet, although you decorate yourself with ornaments of gold, although you enlarge your eyes with paint, in vain you make yourself beautiful.” Ezekiel 23:40 describes a similar scene of spiritual adultery and refers to women who “painted their eyes and decorated [themselves] with ornaments.” Proverbs 6:25 referring to the adulterous, seductress says “do not let her capture you with her eyelids.” So here, the husband’s desire, in Hosea 2 is that she remove these objects related to her adultery and harlotry from her. That which she needed to remove from her face and from between her breasts signified that what she needed a change of heart. Meaning, what we have here is this gracious yet pained attempt to avoid a permanent separation. It’s a gracious yet pained attempt as a last-ditch effort to avoid a divorce. But then the tone turns again, and we see that Hosea’s patience toward Gomer and by extension God’s patience toward Israel will eventually wear thin. Will eventually run out if the bride does not repent.

In verse 3, we see that if this harlot, this adulteress refuses to repent and refuses to return to her husband several consequences will result. Look at verse 3. He says, “Or I will strip her naked and expose her as on the day when she was born. I will also make her like a wilderness, make her like desert land, and slay her with thirst.” Applied to Hosea and Gomer, this is a threat of publicly shaming his adulterous wife. “Strip[ping] her naked and expos[ing] her as on the day when she was born.” And abandoning her as he no longer provides for her leaving her to waste away “like a desert land,” and “with thirst.” Harsh? Yes. A chauvinistic display of rage or violence? No. In fact, everything that is described here would have been in keeping with a husband’s rights under the Mosaic Law when his wife committed adultery. Everything that is described here, again, is not confined only to the relationship with Hosea and Gomer. Again, it’s this picture of God stating to Israel that if she refused to repent of her wicked and idolatrous ways, if she refused to return to Him, He had no choice but to mete out His divine justice. To strip her, to expose her, to make her “like the wilderness” and “like desert land.” Why? So that she would ultimately be reminded that it is He, God, not the pagan “gods” she was bowing down to who controlled the fertility of their land. That the land that she, Israel was living in was His. He sent the rain. He caused the soil to be fertile. He was the sole provider of everything.
She was merely a tenant. And she, Israel, needed to be reminded of this by being brought low and stripped down and disgraced.

Now, we’re going to discuss him by name in just a few more verses, but it’s worth spending some time here addressing Baal. Baal you could say, if I want to say the syllable. Baal was the God of the Canaanites. The original inhabitants of the land whom Israel should have driven out from the Promised Land but many of whom remained. At the heart of the Baal pantheon was this so called god named Hadad, who was god of the rain and of the storms. He was manifested through local or these smaller local “Baals” in shrines and high places. According to Canaanite tradition these little gods would “impregnate” the land. The mother goddess would make the land fertile. Baal worship included shrine prostitution where worshippers believed that they were showcasing the marriage of Baal with the earth. Baal was seen as the source of all fertility and worshiping that god would ensure the good harvests and prosperity in this very agrarian economy. Of course, worship of Baal as we see throughout the Old Testament was this perennial pull away from true worship for Israel. What would happen was in each cycle of the agricultural year that would present a brand-new temptation for the Israelites to look to Baal for provision rather than to Yahweh. Each year we see it tragically laid out in the Old Testament. Their logic was the same. Something like this. Baal is the fertility god. We need fertility for the land. We need Baal. We are going to worship Baal. Well, quite apart from the corrosive infidelity that was at the heart that type of worship, the premise of this logic in that worship was fundamentally flawed. Because it wasn’t Baal who was providing for Israel it was God. It was Yahweh. It was the Lord. The Lord alone who provided for His people. Not only had He provided for His people, but He had also lavished immense blessings on His people. But as we’re going to see a bit later, they had totally forgotten that.

Back to our text as we continue on into verse 4 we see another threat being made against the wife if she refuses to repent. It says “Also, I will have no compassion on her children, because they are the children of harlotry.” Now, applied to Hosea, there’s an important thing to note here. Note that he calls the children “her children,” not “my children.” This is further evidence of what we confirmed couple of weeks ago when I pointed out that Lo-Ruhamah and Lo-Ammi, the two later children were not Hosea’s children by blood but instead, were the product of Gomer’s adultery. Now as children of a harlot, Gomer’s children would in this culture, in this time naturally suffer shame, and ostracism, and embarrassment to go along with the poverty and the disease that surely were a part of it as well. Now they are also being told by Hosea that if there is no repentance they will no longer experience “compassion” it says, from the head of their household, Hosea. Meaning he’s going to disown them and so would it be for Israel. The spiritual harlotry of earlier generations of Israelites had been passed down to more recent generations of Israelites and now all the children of Israel up to the point of Hosea’s day were going to pay the penalty for their forefathers’ and their foremothers’ spiritual fornication. The children, in other words, were now included in the indictment against the mother. They started, verse 2, by contending against their mother. But now we see that they actually have no more testimony to give. They are not only “children of harlotry” by descent or by blood but as the generations carried on, and we see this if we do any fair reading of the Old Testament; but with each successive generation of Israelites these “children” themselves got wrapped up with these sinful syncretistic practices where they claimed to be worshiping Yahweh, but they were “shacking up” with lesser “gods.” The entire household of Israel has been tainted with spiritual adultery. Not just the mother but also the children. That’s why we see what we see here in verse 4 where God is saying, through Hosea, “I will have no compassion on her children, because they are children of harlotry.”

Now we turn to verse 5, and here we see the ultimate expression of the blinding effects of sin both for Gomer and for Israel. Look at what it says in verse 5. “For their mother has played the harlot; she who conceived them has acted shamefully. For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.” Talk about a twisting of the knife! For Hosea and for Gomer what is being revealed here is that not only is she an adulteress she’s a serial adulteress. She has gone after, the word is plural here, “lovers.” Not a lover but lovers. This was no one-night stand. This was a pattern of promiscuity that’s being revealed here. This was her way of life. She’s not only a harlot she’s committed to her harlotry! And not only that as if all of that was not hard enough for this husband to hear. She’s saying “All of those things that I have, the bread that keeps my stomach from growling, the water that keeps my thirst quenched, the wool that keeps me warm in the winter, the flax which produces linen garments that keeps me cool in the summer, the oil that keeps my lamp lit, the drink, the wine that helps with my sour stomach, or helps me sleep at night, that didn’t come from you, Hosea. That came from other lovers. Not only my other lovers, but they’re also my providers. Not you, Hubby. Can you imagine the size of the lump that must have been forming in Hosea’s throat at this point? His wife is not only cheating on him she’s using his credit card to fund the whole thing and she won’t even give her husband credit for that!

Let’s carry it over to the relationship between God and Israel because the same thing is being called out here. Israel is going after many false gods in the region, “my lovers.” Not only that, but Israel is also crediting those false gods as being its benefactors. Stubbornly and blasphemously declaring that what it had, what they had as a nation came from the false deities of that region which is shameful! The Lord had not yet spoken His final word. He would not let Israel prevail in her attempts not only to bite the hand that fed her but to ignore the fact that the hand that fed her was not that of her lovers but rather was Yahweh’s! God would not let this way of thinking to run rampant. Israel’s blasphemous and adulterous ways would ultimately be put to a stop which we see described in verses 6 and 7.

Look at 6, “Therefore, behold, I will hedge up her way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her so that she cannot find her paths. She will pursue her lovers, but she will not overtake them; and she will seek them but will not find them. Then she will say, “I will go back to my first husband, for it was better for me then than now!” A few things are being described in these two verses. First, whether it is Hosea or God, in this setting you can apply it to both, it is showing his determination to block his bride’s unrestrained lusts. That is what’s meant in verse 6. “Therefore behold, I will hedge up her way with thorns, and will build a wall against her so that she cannot find her paths.” Her lustful thoughts and intentions are so out of control that her husband literally must wall her in shutting up his whoring wife in their home so that she will no longer be able to ply the trade on the street. This is a graphic, admittedly graphic, revealing, and sad scene. Second observation about this passage is that the husband whether we are talking about Hosea or God is he is going to cause his bride’s lovers to disappear. That’s verse 7. “She will pursue other lovers, but she will not overtake them; and she will seek them but will not find them.” Now no more is said here about how the husband is going to make this happen. There’s no sense from the language here about any sort of undertones of foul play that are going to happen here. The major point is that his wife is so insistent on seeking out other lovers that he has to go to the extreme not only to wall her in but to make sure she doesn’t find them. This leads to the third aspect of what’s being described here; the harlot eventually getting frustrated and turning back to her husband.

Look at the end of verse 7. It says, “Then she will say, “I will go back to my first husband, for it was better for me then than now!” She’s been walled in, her lovers have been hidden from her; she has nowhere to turn. Then, and only then, does she go back to her husband. Of course, this is not the genuine repentance that Hosea is pursuing, that God is pursuing earlier in this passage. For this harlot to say, “Fine, I’ll go back to my husband, because it was better for me then than now,” is just another way of saying “I’m not remorseful at all. It just turns out that those greener pastures that I thought were greener, they aren’t greener. They started to wilt. So now I’m back. Feed me and clothe me and take care of me until I get a better offer from somewhere else down the road.” Her attitude and her motivation are rooted in pure pragmatism. Not repentance. Not remorse. The scene is similar to what Jeremiah was speaking into with Judah back in Jeremiah 2.

I know I made you turn in Jeremiah 2 earlier. I should have told you to keep your finger there. Turn with me back to Jeremiah 2 which has a similar marriage picture, marriage scene in view. Jeremiah 2:2. In the heading in my bible here, it’s not inspired but it’s telling, it says “Judah’s apostasy.” We have something similar going on in the southern kingdom as we do in the north with Hosea. Look at Jeremiah 2:1, it sets the marital illustration that’s being given here. “Now the word of the Lord came to me saying go and proclaim in the ears of Jerusalem saying, thus says the Lord, “I remember concerning you the devotion of your youth, the love of your betrothals,” now we’re in the marriage context, “you’re following after Me in the wilderness through a land not sown.” He’s kind of throwing it back to the honeymoon phase between God and Judah. Now fast forward up to Jeremiah 2:26-28. Here what we see is Judah as a nation crawling back to God. They are on the verge of deportation to Babylon and look what it says. “As the thief is shamed when he is discovered, so the house of Israel is shamed; they, their kings, their princes, their priests and their prophets, who say to a tree, ‘You are my father,’ and to a stone, ‘You gave me birth.’ For they have turned their back to Me, and not their face but in the time of their trouble they will say, ‘arise and save us.’ Where are your gods which you made for yourself? Let them arise, if they can save you in the time of your trouble; for according to the number of your cities are your gods, O Judah.”

Note this and the parallels to Hosea 2:7, in the time of their trouble they will say, ‘arise and save us.’ Where are your gods which you made for yourself? Doesn’t that sound a lot like Hosea 2:7? Both in the north and the south what you are seeing are both apostate nations reaching the end of their rope. Seeing the futility in pursuing other gods. The southern tribes of Judah come crawling back to God in the book of Jeremiah just as Gomer is crawling back to Hosea here in Hosea 2 and just as Israel is crawling back to God in Hosea 2:7. As she comes crawling back God, through Hosea, notes something else about His bride pictured here. She’s not only adulterous. She’s not only wayward. She’s not only immoral. She’s forgetful.

Look at verse 8. “For she does not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the new wine and the oil, and lavished on her silver and gold, which they used for Baal.” Everything she had been given, had been given by her husband. In Gomer’s case, this meant Hosea. In Israel’s case, this meant God. But somehow, she had forgotten this. Remember, these are in verse 8 here, staple crops. Basic items of provision which show how preposterous this wife’s error was in not acknowledging who had actually given her these things. I’ve heard there’s a preacher that used to stand behind this pulpit who was fond of making the statement that “sin makes you stupid.” A couple of times I think that was mentioned by Pastor Gil. No kidding! That’s what’s happening here. The sin of her harlotry has made this adulterous wife stupid. She’s not thinking right. At some level she thinks it’s her lovers who are providing her with bread and water and wool and flax and oil and drink when, in reality, it’s the One who truly loves her, her husband who has given her these things. Of course, we see this even today as not only unbelievers in the world refuse to recognize the goodness of the Lord in watering the earth and filling our bellies giving us sleep. But even as believers, today, as Christians we can get to this place of forgetfulness, too. Which is more reason in our age and in our day in the church age to be studying God’s Word. To be around a community of people who can point you to God’s Word. To make it a regular part of your daily routine to prayer prayers of thanks to this God.

Back to Hosea. Another important thing to note about this verse, verse 8 when it says, “for she does not know” the Hebrew verb there is “yada.” In its context that verb means that she has willfully forgotten her husband. She has intentionally put him and his provision and his love for her out of her mind. Applied to Hosea and Gomer that’s simply adding insult to injury. That’s adding layers and layers of sin and wickedness to what’s already exposed there. Applied to God and to Israel, the same could be said but with the additional layer being that Israel’s so-called “forgetfulness” about Yahweh’s provision is not only disingenuous. It calls to mind the warnings Moses gave to the Israelites many centuries prior before they entered the Promised Land. Deuteronomy 8, I don’t think we have time to turn there but I’ll just read. Deuteronomy 8 as Moses gives this warning to the Israelites before they go to the Promised Land. He says “Beware that you do not forget the LORD your God by not keeping His commandments and His ordinances and His statutes which I am commanding you today; otherwise, when you have eaten and are satisfied, and have built good houses and lived in them, and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and gold multiply, and all that you have multiplies, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” The people of Israel were not to be so preoccupied with their wealth that they forgot God or claimed credit for what God had given them. Which is why Moses would give further words of warning in Deuteronomy 28:47-48 which says “Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joy and a glad heart, for the abundance of all things; therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the LORD will send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in the lack of all things; and He will put an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you.” Everything the wife pictured in Hosea 2:8 that she had been given: grain, new wine, oil, silver and gold had been given to her not by her lovers but by her husband, and ultimately, God, and she’d forgotten it. Not only that, but she’d also intentionally forgotten it.
In the case of Israel even more salt is rubbed into the wound when it says that the “silver and gold” that God had lavished upon them they used for Baal. Meaning, they used the very precious elements that God had put in the earth for them to extract to form molten images, graven images to worship a false god. They constructed false images to worship a false god which was spiritual adultery in peak form.

God rightfully, says what He says in verses 9 and 10 in response to all of that. He says “Therefore, I will take back My grain at harvest time and My new wine in its season. I will also take away My wool and My flax given to cover her nakedness. And then I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and no one will rescue her out of My hand.” In verse 9, God is saying He is taking back all these basic items of provision that He had provided. The wool will be gone now exposing her to the cold. The flax will be gone now exposing her to the heat. The grain will be gone now exposing her to the hunger. The new wine will be gone now exposing her to thirst and remedies for certain ailments. Perhaps the Lord was going to take these away by allowing crops to fail. Perhaps the Lord was going to take these away by allowing invading armies items to ravage. The text doesn’t tell us. But the main point here is that God was taking back these provisions. Taking them back forcefully because of the refusal of Israel to acknowledge where those things had come from. The bride had previously considered these items to be “hers,” verse 5. She thought they came from her “lovers.” But God is taking them back and as He does so He points out, no they came from Me.

In fact, if you look at verse 5 really quickly, the second half says, and look at all these lower case “my” statements. “I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.” Then you go over to verse 9 and now look at all the “My’s” are capitalized. My new wine, My grain says God, My wool, My flax. You thought it was yours. It’s actually Mine. The result of taking all this provision back as we see in verse 9 is that these items had been given to cover her nakedness. They will no longer do so. She’ll be left naked and exposed. Now in our modern, hyper-eroticized culture we might see nakedness and we think sensuality or sexuality. That’s not anything of what’s happening here. This is referring to shame. Public displays of nudity in these days were always shameful and the judgment that God was about to bring upon Israel was going to put them to shame, publicly for all the surrounding peoples and lands to see.

Building on that in verse 10 He says, “then I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers.” And no none will rescue her out of My hand. What’s being portrayed here is this scene of this ashamed and embarrassed husband dragging his adulterous wife into the town square. Parading his adulterous wife before them, exposing her lewdness to them, publicly testifying to her crimes of infidelity, putting her to shame. For Israel, they were about to go through such a season of national shaming. They were about to become an object lesson or as earlier Old Testament prophecies state, a proverb. They were going to become a byword to all the watching nations. They were going to be like that disobedient child whose ears burn with embarrassment as he’s led out of the grocery store with kids about the same age to go be disciplined out in the car. Israel would be hauled off into this foreign land, the land of the Assyrians for all to see. Just as Gomer was exposed by Hosea, Israel was exposed by Yahweh and now faced His judgment with her lovers; meaning all the surrounding pagan cultures now standing on the roadside gawking at her as she was led away. It gets even worse though because as those other nations watch Israel being led into captivity, here in verse 10, what God says at the end here is startling. “And no one will rescue her out of My hand.” No one else can stop this from happening. Her fate is sealed. Her plight is hopeless. This cannot be undone.

This list of bleak realities keeps piling up. We see in verse 11, He says “I will also put an end to all her gaiety, her feasts, her new moons, her sabbaths, and all her festal assemblies.” Now, we know that earlier in Israel’s history God had laid out in some detail the feasts and festivities that His people were to participate in as celebrations. Acts of thanksgiving for God’s provision to celebrate His mighty acts and works of redemption. Deuteronomy 16:16 we see the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Booths laid out. In various places in the Old Testament, we see “New moons” being mentioned. Not in a negative way but in a positive way. “Sabbaths,” we know were simply those weekly days of rest prescribed in the Old Testament law codes like in Exodus 20:10 and Exodus 23:12. Now each of those practices, feasts like we see here in verse 11; Festal assemblies, New moons, Sabbaths, they were initially God-given occasions to worship, to celebrate. Tragically they had been co-opted by Israel for her pagan purposes as she attempted to blend in with the surrounding culture. By blending in with the surrounding culture’s worship practices and that never works. It never works to blend pure forms of worship with the pagan forms of worship that are out there in the world. It didn’t work in the Israel of Hosea’s day, and it doesn’t work in the church age today. What fellowship does light have with darkness? The answer of course is none. God here is saying effectively “I’m over it, putting an end to it.”

I’m putting an end to the festivals and the gaiety which is kind of a blanket term for all that’s happening here. Putting an end to the festivals and the Sabbaths and the New moon but now in verse 12 I’m actually going to put an end to the bounty, the food that’s needed to make those feasts and festivals happen. Look at verse 12. He says, “I will destroy her vines and fig trees, of which she said, ‘These are my wages which my lovers have given me.’ And I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field will devour them.” What this is saying is that Israel’s prized vineyards and fig trees would eventually go to seed turning into briar patches, weed gardens which would eventually be devoured by the “beasts of the field.” Those grapes and figs, those were essential staple items as they were harvested in the late summer to fuel things like the Feast of Tabernacles, but no more. Without grapes and without figs these festivals, including specifically the Feast of Tabernacles were going to grind to a halt. Israel knew this was going to happen. This should not have been any surprise to them because earlier back in the Pentateuch we see these agricultural curses that are predicted and prophesied if Israel goes wayward. You can just jot down Leviticus 26:20 and Deuteronomy 28:39-40. Those are curses that God pronounces if Israel goes wayward. A sad outcome that was predicted long ago during the days of Moses had now come to fruition in the days of Hosea.

Now last, we get to verse 13. It says, “‘I will punish her for the days of the Baals when she used to offer sacrifices to them and adorn herself with her earrings and jewelry, and follow her lovers, so that she forgot Me,’ declares the LORD.” Now the first part of this verse is really a summary of all that we’ve already been covering, not only this evening, but in this series, “Faithful God – Hosea,” up to this point. Israel was about to be punished by being taken into captivity by the Assyrians and this punishment would stem from their worship of “the Baals.” That is, Israel’s unapologetic and unreserved worship of false Canaanite deities which they did by offering sacrifices to them it says and adorning themselves with earrings and jewelry as they followed their lovers.

What I’d like to emphasize, though, as we close are those last words. “So that she forgot about Me.” What God is saying here is “they forgot Me.” “My own people forgot Me.” Now, surely, the people of Israel hadn’t intellectually forgotten about God. Certainly, they could still recite the old stories about Abraham, Moses, and David the way that we, and our children, over there, can recite stories about Jesus and the apostles. These Israelites, what is really being articulated here is they were forgetting about God in day-to-day life. They were suffering from practical amnesia.
Which today goes by such terms as practical atheism or the religion of the day, moral therapeutic deism. In the end, what this showcase is, is that Israel as a nation and as people didn’t want God. They wanted His blessings. They wanted His stuff. They were like the woman who marries the man for His wealth. They were a spiritual gold digger but then when another man came along promising them more wealth, or another god came along promising them more blessing, agricultural blessing, they’d go to him. When none of those ploys to gain more wealth or to gain more success or more acclaim with those other gods didn’t work out, she’d crawl back to her husband. The reality is she never loved God, her Husband. She never even loved her lovers. Rather she only ever loved herself. That’s Israel. Our takeaway point for tonight, though is this. That if we’re not careful, that may not only be Israel, but that might be us. Don’t be like Israel. Blanket, no duh, statement of the night. Don’t be like Israel. Don’t let the grimy paws of a half-in, half-out religiosity grab hold of you. Don’t view or approach God opportunistically as merely a source of blessing. Rather, view Him as He is as the source of your life. The very source of your life. Cast away all the idols that still take up residence in your heart. Whether those idols be anchored in lust, or greed, or alcohol, or laziness, or pride, or gluttony, or workaholism, or self-image, or materialism. On and on it goes. Instead, commit to living a life of pure and undistracted focus on and zeal for God. Don’t ever put yourself in a situation or a position like the Israelites had here where God might say of you as He said of the Israelites in Hosea’s day “But she forgot Me.” Or “he forgot Me.” Rather, remember, to borrow a phrase from later in Hosea, Hosea 2:20 remember that you “know the LORD.”

If you have put your faith in Jesus Christ here this evening, you know the LORD. You know the same LORD that’s mentioned here in the book of Hosea. So, commit. Commit to living for Him. Commit to loving Him. Commit to serving Him faithfully in each and every area of your life and each and every day of your life. That’s our racehorse tour through Hosea 2:2-13 this evening. Why don’t we go to the Lord in prayer.

God, we thank you for this privilege that we’ve had today to unpack Your word. To sit under Your word, to learn from Your word and I pray that we would grow from Your word. God, we know that the book of Hosea has a specific setting and context and it’s addressed to a certain people in a certain continent during a certain century. We also know that there are eternal truths in Your word that we can glean from, learn from, and grow from in our day. We know that You put the book of Hosea in the canon of Scripture for a reason. We know that all scripture is profitable and useful for the servant of God. I ask today that You would help us to take what we’ve learned today, to understand what it means to have an uncompromised loyalty to You. A zeal for living for You and for Your purposes. Not be those people like the Israelites of Hosea’s day who You would say they have forgotten about Me. Rather those people You would look to and say, “well done, good and faithful servants.” God help us to be those faithful servants this week. To serve the Lord Jesus Christ faithfully and with zeal in all that we do, and may You be greatly glorified. In Jesus name. Amen.