Be God's Family
S3 E33. Hosea – Dysfunction in God’s Family
This is the Be God's Light Podcast with Ben Greenbaum and Mark Elsasser, and we are continuing our walk through the Old Testament here in 2024. We started off within the beginning, the book of Genesis, and here we are now in August, and we're taking a look at the different kings and prophets of the divided kingdom. Last week we looked at Isaiah, which was a prophet to the southern kingdom of Judah, and this week it's Hosea in the northern kingdom of Israel, a contemporary of Isaiah. I don't know if they knew each other, you know, or would hang out, or if they had, like we have pastor meetings, you know, statewide pastor meetings, or if they had, you know, like nationwide prophet meetings between north and south, I mean, they had school of prophet. I don't know if they knew each other. Do you have any knowledge on whether the prophets from the north and the prophets from the south hung? Beats me. I mean, I know some prophets all hung out together because you see different prophets hiding other prophets, and Jeremiah, you know, he had intimate knowledge of one of the prophets that think Ahab or somebody killed, and so we do, we do see a little bit of prophet knowledge of one another. Yeah, so maybe they knew what was going on to a degree, that the passage opens up. I mean, it's an interesting time, the setting, and Hosea 1 verse 1, he says, "The word of the Lord came to Hosea, son of Biri, during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahab, Hezekiah, we just talked about them with Isaiah, they were the kings in Judah, and during the reign of Jeroboam, king of Israel." Jeroboam is Jeroboam the second, and many, many, many years earlier, Jeroboam the first was a rotten guy, he was very evil, and everything was sort of based upon his low bar that he set for the nation of Israel, and Jeroboam the second, named after him, is also extremely evil. Now, Jeroboam's, I think it's kind of interesting, his reign ends in 753 BC, Jonah the prophet, his life ended around 753 BC, and Hosea began his ministry around 753 BC, so there's a lot of things that are kind of coming together there, you get this terrible king, you've got Jonah who tries to run away, and then becomes a reluctant prophet, and goes to Assyria, and they repent, and Hosea begins his ministry at the end of Jonah's life, but 31 years later, Assyria would come and wipe Israel off the map, so Hosea is in the middle of that with all the kings during his time, and followed all of them were very evil, they were trying to just survive, but it didn't work, because they had made their partnership with idolatry, they had abandoned God, and chosen idols instead, statues, and all kinds of falseness was chosen, so God calls Hosea not just to demonstrate things, not just to speak words, but to live a life which would be symbolic of how God feels about his people. This goes beyond like sermon illustration, or goes beyond children's sermon when we bring in props for kids, I mean this guy is called to live out the dysfunction God feels toward his people. Dude, you've been called to something this drastic and severe in your life? No, no I haven't, this is, I mean it's just... It's over the top, right? It's crazy. Yeah, it's weird. Yeah, and I know your wife and I know my wife and we struck gold, I mean, I don't know about you, but I married up so far, took a stepladder, you know, so I mean, this is the opposite, right? Yup. Yeah, yeah, there's a reason why there's not too many kids named Gomer. Well, there may be more than one reason. Yeah, that's perfect. Yeah, maybe more than one reason. And I don't think it's Gomer pile, though I did love that show as a kid by the way. Oh yeah? Oh man, I watched, I watched all the Gomer piles, they were great. It's probably before your time, so that's like in vast rerun, it was rerun world for me, but when you only had three channels, you watched what was on. Yeah, but I chose Gomer over days of our lives or whatever else it might have been on. Crazy story, there was a lady that my brother and I during the summer, we would go and stay with when my parents were at work when I was a little kid and I kid you not. This was our daily TV viewing, Miss Madeline, that was her name, and Miss Madeline's house, we would watch the prices right and then from 10 to 11, and then we would, we would watch the young and the restless in days of our lives. Yeah. It's like six and seven year olds. Yeah, I still have like, you should have snuck up there and flipped it over to Gomer pile. Apparently that that would have been better for us, for sure, you know, and there were some great characters in it. Again, Sergeant Carter. I'll tell you your work. Oh, yeah. It was, it was a good. So this is a different Gomer and it's in Hosea chapter one verse two, when the Lord began to speak through Hosea, I remember he's speaking at this time with Jeroboam had been horrible and Assyria was threatening. So the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, go marry a promiscuous woman. Now, let's just stop there for a minute. You know, I know there's like dating sites and stuff that are out there these days. I don't know. People say looking for a promiscuous. Well, I guess there are some of those sites where you're pretty much looking for someone like that. But this one is like, don't just go out for the night with her, but marry her. That's, I don't, do you think he put posters up or man, I don't know. You don't think he had an app? He did not have an app. I can tell you that. So he found himself a promiscuous woman and God said, and have children with her. And the reason is given in the back half of this verse for like an adulterous wife, this land, the promised land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the Lord. So in this Old Testament study, Ben, we've gone all the way back when God said, I'm going to lead you out of Egypt, I'm going to take you to a land flowing with milk and honey. We got to the time of Joshua when they entered the promised land and Joshua said, as for me and my house, they said us too, we will serve the Lord. We got to the time of judges when the people were walking away from God and following idolatry and God kept bringing them back and bringing them back and restoring them and they would fall away again. And then we've gotten to the time of the kings and now the prophets when the people continually say, we don't really need that God. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of the promise, the God of the covenant, we want to do life our own way. And so God says, I want them to finally understand what it feels like to be God, to be me. The unfaithfulness of you people chasing after other gods feels like I'm married to you and you're committing adultery. You can really see the heart of God in this. Yes. Yeah. I mean, you can experience in some ways through Hosea, the grief that God Himself feels in response to His people's unfaithfulness. And I think a grief from the standpoint of, you know, even when you look at our love and our care for our children. You know, I mean, obviously for our spouse, but for our children and when your kids make decisions that are not for their good or for the good of anybody, you know, you grieve those decisions because you know it's not leading to wholeness in their lives. But the experience of God who has been, again, persistently faithful, persistently good toward His people, wanting what is best for them, loving them perfectly. And yet His people reveal themselves to be this unfaithful spouse. It, it's just really shows. I mean, God's not aloof and staying back. He really wants His people to honor Him and to be faithful in how we live our lives. And it was true then. It's true. It's true now. So he tells Hosea, go, go marry a promiscuous, adulterous woman and he has to gotten on the old love boat because he did. He married Gomer and maybe, maybe she had to be that way because nobody wanted to marry a Gomer. I don't know. He married Gomer and this verse three, she conceived and bore him a son, then the Lord said to Hosea, call him Jezreel. Okay. Sounds like a Jewish name, but it gives the reason. Here's why you're going to name your boy that because I will soon punish the house of Jehu for the massacre at Jezreel. Now, Jehu had massacred all of Ahab's family at Jezreel, I mean, all of them may have gone overboard and see his house was going to be punished. And then God adds that and I will put an end to the kingdom of Israel. The northern kingdom is going to go away and we know that in three decades it does. In that day, I will break Israel's bow in the valley of Jezreel. So I'm thinking about this, like you're growing up, you're the oldest son and you should be named Hosea Jr. But your name is Jezreel when people say, why'd your dad name me that because of this horrible partner history and my name represents the end of our nation. I don't know if he got like kicked off the soccer team at that point, but it's like it's got to be a tough name. Not as tough as his younger bros that we're going to see, but it's got to be a tough name, right? Yeah, that your name basically is serving as a persistent reminder of what is coming for the nation. And I think that's one of the things in this too, just as a reminder, like God has been so utterly patient with the northern kingdom through persistent kings who had done evil in the Lord's sight, with a nation that had constantly done evil in the Lord's sight. And yet we've seen God's patient call to them throughout time to repent, to return to him. And God's mercy that he has shown throughout time to the northern kingdom as well. And yet, you know, now the time for judgment has ultimately come. And so, yeah, the names that Hosea is compelled by God to give his children as an object lesson to the nation itself, but to, yeah, walk around and be like, hey, yeah, oh, what's your name mean? And everybody knows exactly what his name means, you know, that's wild. Yeah. If it wasn't bad enough, then verse six, Gomer conceived again and gave birth to a daughter, and the Lord said to Hosea, call her "lo ruhama." And the prefix "lo" in Hebrew is "no" and "not," and so her name means "not loved." And for a daughter, and your name is, my dad named me "not loved," that's a rough name. So, her name's "not loved." It's symbolic again because God goes on in this to say, "For I will no longer show love to Israel that I should at all forgive them, but I will show love to Judah in the south, and I will save them." Now, by both sword or battle, or by horses or horsemen, but I, the Lord, their God will save them. So, it's this statement, like Israel, you're going to be wiped out. Judah is going to be preserved. We know that many years later, it goes away too, but it's going to be preserved, but Israel is done. And it's this symbolic name that God's going to withhold love. I will no longer show love to Israel. It's a tough name for a child to have, but it's got to be a tougher pill to swallow for the people. I mean, I don't know if Jose and his family got invited over for Labor Day parties, you know, whatever they would have had back in their day, but the names of his children are deeply symbolic. He goes on. There's one more. Verse 8, "After she had weaned low, ruhama, God, Gomer had another son, then the Lord said, 'Call him low, Ami,' and his name means 'not my people.' God says, 'For you are not my people, and I am not your God.' I'm apparently not your God because you have all these other false gods running around. So, you got all this family going on, all this, all this thing happening, and it's a, it's a statement, right, that's being made to the nation and, and warning them. Why do you think God did this at Hosea, do it, and, and why did the people not pay attention? Yeah, I think God had Isaiah, or Isaiah, Hosea, my brain is mush. I think earlier, I was talking about the prophet, Uriah, who was killed in the book of Jeremiah. I think I said that Ahab killed him, but Ahab was long dead prior to that. I think it was Joel Haight, Joel Haight killed him. You are more than forgiven for getting all these Hebrew names. The name's wrong. Yeah. I've intermingled all the kingdoms now, it's all become one. I should tell you that recently I was with all of our daughters, and I just scrambled their names, you know, like, we have two daughters in Florida and two in Indiana, we were all together, and whatever name rolled out is how I expected them to answer. I've got two daughters, and I get their names, like, all mixed up sometimes, depending on what they're doing. But, yeah, I think one, obviously, the names are a reminder to the nation itself of what is coming. The other part of it is that the people, their hearts have come so hardened toward the things of God that they are numb to the Word of God. I mean, it's not even registering anymore in the minds and the hearts of the people of Israel, because on the whole, they are so far afield from anything that has to do with the one true God, because of the syncretism, obviously, that they have been, that they've been just engulfed in for, you know, now a couple hundred years, they are, I mean, it's heartbreaking, but for a people who probably still in their own minds thought that in some way, shape or form, they were walking faithfully with God, they are, yeah, I mean, they are ultimately foreigners to the things of God at this point. Yet, Hosea has this family, and they have strange names and strange relationships, but they're still a family, and I think that's what God gets to at the end of chapter 1, beginning in verse 10, and I'm going to bleed into chapter 2 just a little bit, yet the Israelites will be like the sand on the seashore, which cannot be measured or counted. He had just said they're going to be wiped out. In the place where it was said to them, you are not my people, they will be called children of the living God. The people of Judah in the south and the people of Israel in the north will come together, they will appoint one leader and will come up out of the land, for great will be the day of Jezriel, say to your brothers, my people and of your sisters, my loved one. So Jezriel was this negative thing, not my people, not my loved one, it's going to be great day of Jezriel, not my people become my people, not my loved one becomes my loved one. God says, look at this family, this family who is here that's been formed out of this strange relationship, and I want you to know that's not their permanent name, that's not their who they are forever, and it's symbolic that that's not like you will be disciplined. Israel, you're going to be wiped out, Judah, you're going to be wiped out much later, then you're going to come back together because I'm not going to let go. I'm not going to give up on you. I will not turn my back on you. This seems to be God's strong message that he's giving through this strange dysfunctional family that it's symbolic of how God doesn't give up. Is that how you read this part of the passage? Yeah, I mean, that God again is constantly pursuing his people, whether they even recognize him as their God at this point. But there is a sense there, I think, when he talks about the reunion of Judah and Israel, they're going to find some reconciliation with one another, both in exile. So it's not necessarily what, well, I do think that this is also a reference to a future promise that will occur upon the second advent of Jesus Christ. I do think that there is a sense of the family coming back together, not as a nation-state, as much as a people themselves, because as Judah and Israel both will be exiled from their given lands. If Hosea's life was rough enough, it got worse because his wife and the mother of his children wandered away. And in Hosea chapter 3, we get the story of that wayward wife and the reconciliation. Hosea 3.1, "The Lord said to me, 'Go show your love to your wife again,' though she is loved by another man and is an adulterous." Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites. I mean, Israel had continually walked away. God pursued them as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes. That's an interesting thing to be tossed in there. Or not, raisin cakes do not sound like a good option, but they were part of this pagan, ritual pagan worship. And so they love these false gods. So he was told, "Your wife, the mother of your children, has left. She's committing adulterate. She's with another guy. Go get her." So he not only goes to the man, but he buys her from the guy. Verse 2. He bought her for 15 shekels, it's about six ounces of silver, and about a homer and a luffick of barley. It turns out that's about, I guess, about 430 pounds. So he bought Gomer for a homer. That's how I look at that one. I don't even know what all that means. But he's like going to get his wife, and he has to spend money and give food in order to get her back. And this is God. Isn't it? I mean, what God does with us that he comes and he pursues us, and he purchases us. We are the ones who have walked away. We are the ones who have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and he comes and he pays ultimately with his life on the cross for us. I told her, this is what Hosea says to his wife, once he's bought her back, "You are to live with me many days. You must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will behave the same toward you." It's symbolic, of course, of course. Well, God is saying to us, like, "I'm bringing you back. Now don't go off the deep end again, and bringing you back live this way." What's God speaking to us in this passage? Yeah. I think throughout the whole of Hosea, there is this aspect, or we tend to focus a lot of time, like obviously on Gomer, as she represents the unfaithful nation, and represents their infidelity, but also looking at Hosea, who represents the heart of God for his people. As Hosea goes and pursues his unfaithful wife, who shacked up with another guy, purchases her redemption, and brings her back to be his bride. And so again, seeing God's persistent pursuit of his people, Hosea being a reflection of God's redemptive love toward his people, and a reminder to us what Christ has done for us in 1 Corinthians 6, where Paul says, "We are not our own, but we have been bought with a price. By the blood of Christ, we have been rescued, in essence, off the auction block and brought into this relationship with God where we experience his embrace, where he doesn't count our sin against us, but we experience the embrace, the fullness of his love." And that's what he wants. He wants us to experience it, and I believe he wants us to be faithful in the midst of it, which we've seen in this passage. This short chapter ends up with a couple verses, "For the Israelites will live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred stones, without effid or household gods. You're going to be removed from the temple, but you're also going to be separated from your idolatry. You're going to be exiled. And you thought you had to have these things, you're going to have none of them. But verse 5 ends on an upbeat note, "Afterward the Israelites will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the Lord and his blessings in the last days." So it kind of ends with this buoyant hope and saying that God's pursuit is, God's love is for us, and at some point in time, he wants us to pursue God again, fully with our lives, with our hearts, with our goodness. Wrap up your thoughts on Hosea, and just what we've studied here so far. Yeah. I mean, and that's really the message of the prophets themselves, is there is this calling of repentance to the people and calling them back, the people, again, ultimately suffering the discipline of exile, both in the northern kingdom and in later in the southern kingdom. And there's also this constant promise of future redemption, that even as the people are taking off, God has promised and guaranteed to bring them back, to redeem them, to bring them back into relationship with himself. And so, you know, again, when I look at the theme of the Old Testament, a lot of times people look at the Old Testament and they think, "Man, God is really mad." And that is so far filled from the actual message of the Old Testament, because what we see is we see God's persistent mercy and grace toward a people who are constantly hardening their hearts toward the things of God, even adopting false gods, and yet God refuses to give up on his people. Amen to that. I'm so grateful for it, that is good, good, good news. Well, unfortunately, these folks didn't listen, and about three decades later, they were wiped out. Israel was wiped out by Assyria. So next podcast, we'll take a look at the southern kingdom of Judah, which was continuing on, and their king was Hezekiah at that point, and he makes this last-ditch effort to sort of reform Judah. I mean, Judah persists a little while longer, but he really says, "We've got to learn, I think, from what's happening to our cousins to the north and get ourselves in shape." So we'll take a look at that passage out of 2 Chronicles and 2 Kings when we resume next time. If you want to jump in deeper, go to our church's website, FishersUMC.org, or find the church app and then click on the Be God's Light link. That will take you to more elements in this year-long study of the Old Testament, and that includes daily Bible readings and devotions and poems. That's five days a week, and then every week, sermons or other episodes is podcast. And if you want to stay up to date with the Be God's Light podcast, we encourage you to follow and then rate wherever you get your podcasts. Until next time, God bless. (gentle music)
Mark Ellcessor and Ben Greenbaum discuss the prophet Hosea, a man whose dysfunctional family was symbolic of Israel’s unfaithfulness to God.