Pastor Nate continues our study through the Bible in the book of Hosea.
[00:00:00] You are listening to the Through The Bible Studio series with Pastor Nate Holdridge. Join us as we continue our study through the Old Testament book of Hosea. Here's Nate. Now, even in the midst of all of this rebellion against the Lord, that is being pictured
[00:00:27] here in Hosea's relationship with Gomer, the adultery that she gave herself to the prostitution that she gave herself to, even though all of that unfaithfulness from Israel is pictured there. God still, even though he has words of judgment and discipline that are coming for the people
[00:00:50] of Israel, he also has words of great hope. He says verse 14, therefore, behold, I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her. And there I will give her her vineyards and make the valley of A. Core a door of hope, and
[00:01:12] there she shall answer as in the days of her youth as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt. God has these beautiful promises here. In verse 14 and 15 that he begins to make about the people of Israel concerning their future before the Lord.
[00:01:31] He says, I will allure of Egypt. God has these beautiful promises here in verse 14 and 15 that he begins to make about the people of Israel concerning their future before the Lord. He says, I will allure her or literally I will speak tenderly to her.
[00:01:54] This is passionate, beautiful, husband-like language from a man to his bride. And this is God speaking to his bride, his church. This is him saying, I am going to bring them back. I love them. I care for them. I'm not done with them. I have not replaced them.
[00:02:16] I'm not finished with them. I made a covenant with them. And I am going to figure out a way to allure them back. This was the time of discipline for the people of Israel. And he disciplines the one that he loves and chastises every son whom he receives.
[00:02:36] But the Lord sets aside the father-child imagery for a moment and picks up the husband-wife imagery and says, the way I'm going to get her back is through a tender, romantic, grace-filled restoration process.
[00:02:55] And I think that this serves as a beautiful template for restoration inside of a conflicted marriage or perhaps in any conflicted relationship, but especially within a covenantal marriage. Because you see here the initiation, not by the party who had offended.
[00:03:20] Not by the sinful party, but by the innocent party. And of course everyone in an earthly marriage is sinful and has likely contributed something to the demise of a broken marriage. But here in this marriage, God is perfect. God is without sin, without blemish, without mistake, without error.
[00:03:47] And yet he and all of his purity pursues his bride. I will speak tenderly, I will allure her. Now he speaks these words of hope and that he says that the valley of A. Core will become a door of hope.
[00:04:06] And the valley of A. Core literally means the valley of trouble. This was originally back in Joshua chapter 7, the site of A.C.N.S. sin. This was the place where after the people of Israel had defeated the people there in Jericho.
[00:04:23] And then went out into battle presumptuously against the people of A.I. They lost that victory or lost that battle in A.I. and many men died. And the reason that they lost was because there was sin in the camp that was undel width.
[00:04:43] And the sin that was undel width was that after defeating Jericho, a man named A.C.N. disobeyed the Lord by taking to himself a wedge of Babylonian gold and a Babylonian garment to himself.
[00:04:59] That sin had to be dealt with, A.C.N. was killed along with his family as a judgment and also in one sense as an example for the era and age to come.
[00:05:11] Not everyone who committed a sin like that was judged in that severe kind of way but it was sort of one of those cases or one of those first instances that needed to be dealt
[00:05:21] with, the set the tone for the future of God's people there in the land of Israel. And this ugly place, historically, God says it's going to become a beautiful place, a door of hope.
[00:05:36] This same valley in Isaiah 65 verse 10 says that it will become a place for herds to lie down for my people who have sought me. And so God is describing a fresh, newlywed kind of experience with the people of Israel.
[00:05:54] He says she will answer in the days of her youth as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt and so God is reminiscing. And remember those times, the beauty, the strong love that was going back and forth between
[00:06:10] me and my people and that kind of passion God says is going to return. Now in that day, declares the Lord verse 16, you will call me my husband and no longer will you call me my bail.
[00:06:28] For I will remove the names of the bales from her mouth and they shall be remembered by my name. No more. No longer are you going to open your mouth and cry out to bail but you're going to cry out to the one true God.
[00:06:43] And the intimacy God says will be so close. You will call me my husband. And of course this gives us a refreshing reminder of the deep love of God for his people. It says an Ephesians 5 verse 25 that husbands are to love their wives as Christ love
[00:07:05] the church and gave himself up for her that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word. And so in the same way here that in the Old Testament we see God speaking of the people
[00:07:21] as his bride, here we see in the New Testament Ephesians 5 that Christ loved the church like a husband loves his bride, the church being the bride of Christ. And again to have the marital faithfulness before the Lord that a wife should have before
[00:07:42] her husband have the devoted love for the Lord, a passion for the Lord, a growing in our relationship with the Lord. And I think it's easy for us to understand whether we're married or unmarried that marriages will always trend in one direction or the other.
[00:08:04] And so the question I think that we would ask is where is our marriage to the Lord trending? Are we getting closer to the Lord? Are we growing in love with the Lord?
[00:08:14] Are we learning more about the Lord and his nature and who he is as we study him in his word? Or are we growing more distant from the Lord? Are we doing things that we know that the Lord disapproves of, that he would ask us and
[00:08:28] tell us not to do? Are we willing to break his heart so to speak? I think so often we think of sin as disobedience to God or disobedience to a father. But perhaps we need to think of it as the breaking of the heart of a spouse.
[00:08:46] And so he says, the day will come. This is a day of hope where you will call me my husband and I will make for them verse 18, a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens and
[00:08:59] the creeping things of the ground. And I will abolish the bow, the sword and war from the land. And I will make you lie down in safety. Now, I believe that this is speaking of the kingdom age.
[00:09:14] I think that these prophecies have yet to be fulfilled by the Lord. That the day is coming when there will even be peace with the beasts and the birds and the creeping things. There will be no bow, no sword. No war, no need for weapons even.
[00:09:32] And there will be, there will be lying down in safety. In our modern era Israel is hardly in safety. And I believe that the day is coming in the kingdom age. When as Isaiah said in Isaiah 11 verse 6, the wolf will lie down with or dwell with the lamb.
[00:09:49] And the shepherd will lie down with the young, leopard will lie down with the young goat and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together and a little child will lead them. And on and on.
[00:10:00] And I believe that these things will be fulfilled in the kingdom age after the second coming of Christ when he reigns on earth, Revelation 20 for a period of 1,000 years and fulfills these promises that were made to the nation of Israel so long ago.
[00:10:19] He says in verse 19, and I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness and you shall know the Lord.
[00:10:42] And so here God uses really the language, not a vee patching up of a relationship, not a vee restored marriage, but of a fresh love doesn't he? Betrothal, I'll betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and justice.
[00:11:02] I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. He says three times. This speaks of a fresh love that I believe will be a perpetually fresh love deepening over the years, but perpetually in a state of newness and freshness before the Lord.
[00:11:19] How wonderful when God fulfills this promise with His people. And in that day verse 21, I will answer to Clare's The Lord. I will answer the heavens and they shall answer the earth and the earth shall answer
[00:11:33] the grain, the wine and the oil and they shall answer, Jez Riel and I will sow her for myself in the land and I will have mercy on no mercy.
[00:11:43] And I will say to not my people, you are my people and he shall say you are my God. And so this speaks of number one agricultural success in the kingdom age, but full restoration as well. Notice that all three of the names of Hosea's children are mentioned.
[00:12:02] Jez Riel, no mercy and not my people are all mentioned. It's as if God is saying, I've answered the blood shed there in Jez Riel by the house of Jehu and I'm healed the land.
[00:12:18] I'll answer the heavens and the earth and the state of no mercy, I will have mercy and the state of not my people, they will become my people and he will say you are my
[00:12:34] God and so the great promise of God for the future, the great promise of restoration. And I think it's good for us to set our minds upon the grace of Christ and the potential restoration that is ours in him.
[00:12:49] The Lord can go back to our personal Jez Riel's, our personal points of violence and brokenness and pain historically and he can touch them and heal them. He can go back to the place where he had to discipline us and begin to give mercy once
[00:13:06] again and he can go back to those activities that caused us to act not like his people and make us his people once again and produce a thing within us where we would say you God or my God.
[00:13:21] Now in chapter three, it's very interesting because the Lord again in a very fresh way turns his attention literally to Jose. And the Lord said to me, go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an
[00:13:39] adulterous even as the Lord loves the children of Israel though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins and so God tells Jose. He says, hey, go find your wife who has given herself to adultery and prostitution and love her again.
[00:14:03] Love her even though she is giving her love away in other places even as I am loving the children of Israel even though they're turning to other gods and loving the cakes of raisins and other words he's saying they're loving that which is worthless but I am
[00:14:20] still loving them. So Jose, averse to said I bought her for 15 sheckles of silver and a Homer and a lefic of barley. And I said to her, you must dwell as mine for many days.
[00:14:37] You shall not play the horror belong to another man so I will also be to you. For the children of Israel shall dwell many days without King or Prince without sacrifice or pillar without ephod or household goods.
[00:14:52] In other words, there will be a long stretch where the people of Israel do not have a king sitting on the throne of David though go many days without having the sacrificial system. They'll go many days without the external forms of religiosity and worship that have been
[00:15:09] prescribed in the Old Testament. And afterward, verse 5, the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God and David their king and they shall come in fear to the Lord and to His goodness in the latter days.
[00:15:27] And I believe that those latter days are yet future to us that we are living in the gap that Jose describes in verse 4, that the children of Israel shall dwell many days without a king or sacrifice or ephod that they'll live for many days without these elements of
[00:15:48] external worship of the Lord and that someday yet future in the millennial reign of Christ. We will see the days once again where they do have a king sitting on the throne. Jesus Christ, the righteous and they will be able to fulfill the commands of the Old Testament
[00:16:04] and worship the Lord and spirit and in truth. But how powerful here that Jose goes out and purchases his wife out of prostitution for himself. And again, I think it speaks to us of our desire and our need to be completely devoted to the Lord.
[00:16:29] Now in chapter 4 we move into the next section of the book of Jose where God is now going to address the people of Israel. He's already used Jose as an example, an example of God's experience and having an
[00:16:47] unfaithful bribe that he then goes out and brings back into the fold in much the same way that God is now promising. You're going to depart from me, it will appear that we are done but I will purchase you back for myself.
[00:17:05] So in verse 1 he says, here the word of the Lord, O children of Israel, for the Lord has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land. There is no faithfulness or steadfast love and no knowledge of God in the land.
[00:17:20] There is swearing, lying, murder, stealing and committing adultery. They break all bounds and bloodshed follows bloodshed. Therefore the land mourns and all who dwell in it languish and also the beasts of the field
[00:17:36] and the birds of the heavens and even the fish of the sea are taken away. Now in Jose II we actually saw the Lord within upward progression. He says, I'll say to the people, I'll deal with Jesriel then I will have mercy on no
[00:17:56] mercy and then I will have the people who are not my people become my people and ultimately finally they will say, you are my God. Now here we see a downward progression. In verse 1 they don't say to God, you are my God.
[00:18:14] Instead he says there is no faithfulness or steadfast love and no knowledge of God in the land. That's sort of the root problem. The root problem is a lack of love for God and a lack of knowledge of God amongst the people at this time.
[00:18:32] Of course ask Jesus the question, what is the greatest commandment? He quoted from Deuteronomy 6 verse 5 when he said, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the root problem in the nation of Israel.
[00:18:53] Yes they weren't keeping the ten commandments but all of that disobedience was flowing from a lack of love for the Lord, a lack of devotion on to the Lord. So that was the root of the problem. Now the fruit is then manifested in verse 2.
[00:19:14] He says there is instead swearing lying murder, stealing and committing adultery they break all bounds and bloodshed follows bloodshed. In other words half of the ten commandments are broken there in verse 2. The cursing brought down in God's name lying murder, stealing and adultery the third
[00:19:38] ninth, sixth, eighth and seventh commandment all broken here in verse 2. So the root of the problem, I'm a lack of love for God and knowledge of God but the fruit of that root then is all of this ugly disobedience that is coming out in their lives.
[00:20:00] The Bible teaches that we are to keep our hearts with all vigilance for from it flow the springs of life. When there's no fear of God, no love of God, we can expect that the fruit that will come
[00:20:15] out of that root is a lot of disobedience and ugliness and catastrophe and that's what we're seeing here in verse 2. Now ultimately the final result of that fruit in their lives is he says verse 3, therefore
[00:20:33] the land mourns and all who dwell in it languish and the beasts of the field and the birds of the heavens and even the fish of the sea are taken away. In other words this is a great description of drought physically in the nation of Israel.
[00:20:50] God had said in Deuteronomy 28 verse 23 and 24 that this brand of disobedience would lead to the heavens over your head turning to bronze and the earth under you becoming iron, the Lord will make the reign of your land powder from heaven, dust shall come down on
[00:21:07] you until you are destroyed. And so they were experiencing the full desolation or would experience it as a result of their disobedience and would we not say that disobedience to the Lord leads to great dryness within.
[00:21:25] Now in verse 4, God announces in particular that he has an issue with the spiritual leadership there in Israel. He says, yet let no one contend. In other words let no one argue. No one can argue with me at this time.
[00:21:43] No one can pick a fight with me about what I'm doing to the people of Israel. He says, let none accuse for with you is my contention. Oh, priest. And so here we see the Lord focusing on the priest and as we'll see in a moment the prophet
[00:22:00] there in Israel. Now there in Israel this is of course referencing not the entire 12 tribes nation of Israel but the 10 Northern tribes. And they had a false priesthood. We learned in 1 Kings 12 and 1 Kings 13 that Jeroboam the original king in Northern Israel
[00:22:21] made priests from all sorts of people and they had various false prophets who would prophesy whatever the popular opinion of the day was. And so he says, I have a problem with you, priest. Verse 5, you shall stumble by day.
[00:22:39] The prophet also shall stumble with you in the night and I will destroy your mother. And so God is saying here, you priest and prophet who are so loyal to your human king rather than having God as your king, you are going to experience judgment.
[00:22:58] I'm going to cut off the supply of life. You won't have future lines of prophets and priests therein the north. I'm going to cut off this perverse creation of man. My people he says verse 6 are destroyed for lack of knowledge because you have rejected knowledge.
[00:23:21] I reject you from being a priest for me and since you have forgotten the law of your God, I will also forget your children. So again, God saying this perverse priesthood that's been created and this perverse
[00:23:36] prophetic role that's been created by the will of man rather than the will of God, a day is coming that I am going to destroy them and I'll forget your children and they
[00:23:46] will not have a future prophetic or pre-slee role at least not in the way that they had created. But notice how God held these leaders responsible for the lack of knowledge amongst God's people. He says, my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.
[00:24:04] The Bible teaches that in the last days men will keep up for themselves teachers who will tickle their ears. The truth is that there is a need for men and women who will open up their mouths and proclaim with simplicity yet with boldness, the truth of God's word.
[00:24:29] All of God's word is profitable that we might be equipped for every good word. We need the word of God. We need the truth of God's word to be unleashed, Paul prayed or asked for prayer often
[00:24:45] that a door would be given to him for the word of God that it would be unchained, that he would speak it boldly. He told Timothy to give himself to devote himself to throw himself into.
[00:24:59] God bodily exercise but to throw himself into the public reading of Scripture, the excitation from Scripture, the teaching of that Scripture for the edification of the body of Christ. So here God has a problem with the religious or spiritual leadership there in the North
[00:25:23] because they would not give people the knowledge of God's word because they, verse 6, had rejected God's word itself. In our modern era it's not easy to find. Pastors, religious leaders who name the name of Christ in name only but who actually
[00:25:45] reject the very things that Christ did and reject the word of Christ calling the Bible in our cake outdated, outmoded book but we are to be a people who cling to the word of God.
[00:25:59] God says of these spiritual leaders in verse 7, He says the more they increased, the more they sinned against me. You would think that the more that priests and prophets arose, the more there would be righteousness but that was not the case at this time in Israel.
[00:26:18] He says I will change their glory into shame. They feed on the sin of my people for they are greedy for their iniquity. In other words, he says there in verse 8, these priests and prophets, they want the people
[00:26:35] to continue in this sacrificial system that is sinful and full of iniquity because they're being fed from it. They're being provided for by the tides and the offerings of the people in this wicked system that they have created.
[00:26:53] In other words, they have a financial motive to draw the people into this pagan and perverse worship system that they had created. And it shall be verse 9, like people, like priest. I will punish them for their ways and repay them for their deeds.
[00:27:13] They shall eat but not be satisfied. They shall play the horror but not multiply because they have forsaken the Lord to cherish hoard them, wine and new wine which take away the understanding.
[00:27:29] So God announces that He'll judge the priests and the prophets who were part of that false system there in the north. Now God in verse 12 turns his attention to the people. My people inquire, He says, of a piece of wood and their walking staff give them oracles
[00:27:49] for a spirit of hoard them, has led them astray and they have left their God to play the horse. So this is how far they had gone. They were giving themselves to these ancient divination practices using wood to try to figure
[00:28:03] out the future and what God had for them and acquiring of them. He says they sacrifice on the tops of the mountains and burn offerings on the hills under oak, poplar and terribons because their shade is good.
[00:28:17] Therefore your daughters play the horror and your bride's commit adultery so they were giving themselves to these sexual rights with male cult prostitutes up there on the mountain tops. He says though in verse 14, I will not punish your daughters when they play the horror
[00:28:33] or your bride's when they commit adultery for them men themselves go aside with prostitutes and sacrifice with cult prostitutes and a people without understanding shall come to ruin. He says, listen, I can't sing aloud the women only because the men are guilty as well of these crimes.
[00:28:52] Though you play the horror, oh Israel, let not Judah become guilty. He says don't go up there to the north. Don't enter into guilt. Don't go up to Beth Avan, which used to be Bethful, the house of God but now is referred to as the house of wickedness.
[00:29:22] By God, he says don't go up there. Don't associate the enter not. Nor go up to swear not God says and don't go up there with them and say as the Lord lives.
[00:29:35] They still had the spiritual speech of the Old Testament but none of the life of consecration to the Lord. He says like a stubborn heifer Israel is stubborn. Can the Lord now feed them like a lamb in a broad pasture?
[00:29:51] They just had this rebellious attitude before the Lord. Ephraim, verse 17 and this is a the most prominent tribe in the northern kingdom and will be mentioned 36 times in the book of Hosea.
[00:30:06] They will come to stand for the nation of Israel as a whole and he says so of them, Ephraim is joined to idols. Leave him alone. When their drink is gone they give themselves to horing. Their rulers dearly love shame.
[00:30:23] A wind has wrapped them in its wings and they shall be ashamed because of their sacrifices. In other words it seems that God is prophetically saying they're about to be carried away.
[00:30:36] Like the wind carries away a wind has wrapped them in its wings and they will be ashamed because of their sacrifices. In other words God is saying where this is leading you is not to a good place. You are pursuing shame.
[00:30:49] You are making a mockery of your own lives and that is indeed what sin does to our lives what rebellion does to our lives and hear the people of Israel are going to experience the judgment of the Lord.
[00:31:06] Let us be a people who are devoted to the Lord, giving ourselves completely to God bless you. Thank you for listening. For additional resources and teachings or contact us, please visit us at NaeHolbridge.com