Hosea chapter 1. We're going to read just a couple
of verses and talk about what's going on in this chapter and
a little bit what goes on in the next. I wasn't aware of this when I
started studying, but the book of Hosea actually spans quite
a few years. And this doesn't happen all at
once, so kind of keep that in mind. But I've titled this message,
You Are My People. That's words spoken by God, not
by somebody else. And if you'll see here in chapter
1, verse 6, it says, And she conceived again, that is Hosea's
wife, Gomer. It says, she conceived again
and bore a daughter. Then God said to him, Hosea,
call her name Lo-Ruhamah, for I will no longer have mercy on
the house of Israel, but I will utterly take them away. And then jump ahead to verse
8 and 9. It says, now when she had weaned
Lo-Ruhamah, she conceived and bore a son. And then God said,
call his name Lo-Ami, for you are not my people, and I will
not be your God. Now there's a classification
problem going on in the world in that nearly everyone, especially
the religious, they claim that they are God's people. And they
will tell you that they are Christians, or born again, or evangelicals,
or what have you. But what they mean is that God
loves them, number one, and that they are a part of God's special
group, number two. Now membership into this group
is relatively easy. You just join a church, you perform
the ceremonies that they say, and you will become a part of
God's people, or one of God's people. And from their point
of view, being one of God's people It brings a lot of benefits,
because it's kind of like joining a club. For one, God will give
you riches, if you're good. And he will heal your illnesses,
if you pray enough. And he will help you into heaven,
if you obey the church. And when you do get to heaven,
and by golly, there's no doubt that you will. You will get there.
You'll get to be with everyone who you liked on earth. Even
your faithful old dog, he'll be there just waiting for you.
But while those are all very appealing benefits, there's actually
a lot more while you're here on earth too. Some churches,
they also have very lively bands. They'll get up here and they'll
rock your socks off. They got coffee shops right out
there, right outside the Sanctuary, I suppose. They got very relaxed
rules regarding worship. You just come as you are, you
know. And they got sermons with presentations that are just so
slick, you don't even need to think about your sin. They'll
have you thinking about much more exciting things than your
own sin. So as the natural man and woman
sees it, to be named one of God's people, is to be part of something
that is the farthest from serious or sober. They don't want to be called
sinner or depraved and they especially don't want someone telling them
that they were born evil and that God hates evil and he will
punish evil and that they are therefore enemies of God, ones
who will be punished. And no one likes being told that
they're bad. And this is true all the way from the youngest
little child to the oldest adult. No one likes to be told that.
But bad's a little bit too vague for our purposes right now. That's like saying that some
things living in the forest are animals. It's correct, but not
what we're getting at. The more specific and better
term is unworthy. unworthy or fool. We've been
called fools by God. Adulterers, we've been called
that. And the most condemning is not
loved. Not loved. Call someone one of
those, you'll get a reaction. Tell someone that's what God
thinks of every man or woman ever born, you might have yourself
a fight. Yet it's true. God has said all of these things
about mankind because all people are born into iniquity, so says
Psalms 51 verse 5 and Isaiah 59 verse 4. The ones who are
in false religion or man-made religion, however you want to
phrase it, those who claim that they believe in God and they
love Him and they worship Him, they play the harlot. They play
the harlot. They do not worship the God of
the Bible. They worship an idol of their own making, and their
God is not sovereign, and He cannot save an unwilling sinner. He's weak. He can't do what He
says He's going to do. And those who are in false religion
and follow a false God do not know who God truly is and they
do not know who they truly are. They call themselves born-again
Christians and they call themselves evangelicals because they like
to get the word out. Yet they'll not call themselves
what every repentant heart has acknowledged to God with tears. They will not call themselves
sinners or unworthy. They won't. They won't do like the tax collector
in Luke 18 did, who cried out with his face in the dust, said,
God, be merciful to me, a sinner. They won't do that. That tax
collector knew his name, though. It was sinner. It was unloved. It was unwanted. And throughout the Old Testament,
there's a constant back and forth between God telling the Israelites
who and what they are, followed by a repentance for some time,
then over time, they don't accept that name he called them anymore. And they say instead that Abraham
is our father, and because of that, we're accepted by God.
So it just goes back and forth, back and forth, God always reminding
them. And we can find one such event
in the book of Hosea. It's what we're reading about.
God sends a message to Hosea during the reign of Kings Uzziah,
his son, Jotham. They both did what was right
in the eyes of the Lord. Then Jotham's son, Ahaz, who
did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord, and Hezekiah,
the son of Ahaz, who did do what was right in the eyes of the
Lord. So there are three kings that pretty much did what was
right and one that didn't. What was interesting is that Uzziah,
he reigned for 52 years, and then his son reigned for 16,
and his son after that for another 16, and then Hezekiah for 29.
That's a lot of years for Hosea to be alive. I calculated it out, it's about
113 years, or down to about 62 with the way that the Hebrews
counted the reigns of their kings. So whatever it was, God spoke
to Israel for a very long time through Hosea. And for a long time, he told
them who they were by what he told Hosea to do. In verse 2 of Hosea 1, God tells
Hosea what to do. He says, get a wife of harlotry
and children of harlotry. And that is to become yoked to
a woman who cheats and will cheat and to have children from that
infidelity that she commits. Now when I was much younger there
was nothing that made me angrier or more disheartened, I guess
for humanity in general, than adultery and infidelity. And
there were actors and there were actresses that were on movies
that I really liked. But as soon as I saw them play
a character that did that, I had stopped watching them. It just
inflamed me so much. But how much more than me should
God be angry when the people He saved play the harlot with
Him? This is just me, how angry I
was. I know that. I probably can't
explain it very well to you. But there are things that just
tick you off. This is something that makes
God very angry. And my anger can't compare with
his righteous anger. It's just something I don't like. So how much more angry should
he be than me? Should he, after the Israelites
have done this, just cut them off? Just cut them completely
off, he would go somewhere else. Or should he stone them to death
like the law said? That was his law. He would be
right. But no, he doesn't do that. Instead,
he says to Hosea, get for yourself a wife that you know will be
unfaithful, who does not love you, who will bear children that
are not yours. And this pictures us in our fallen
natures, because we fell in Adam, and we've been unfaithful to
God ever since. And when we bear children, they're
also unfaithful. It's not a cycle we can break
by ourselves. So Hosea in verse 3, he makes a woman named Gomer
his wife, and she bears three children. And that's what we're
going to look at, the three children. So let's see what these children
are named and how those names represent fallen man. So first,
since we know these are representative, What does God call man, fallen
man? The first one we get, the name
he gives us is in verse six, Lo-Ruhamah. That means they are
those who have not obtained mercy. Lo means not, and Ruhamah, it
can mean several things. It's mercy, it can mean not obtained
compassion, not obtained pity. If God says that is who they
are, it begs the question, why do they need mercy in the first
place? What does a free and lawful person need mercy
for? What if he's not guilty? What
would he need mercy for? If you're not guilty, you won't
be punished. There's no need for mercy. But you and I are as guilty as
the Israelites are in this book. God said that the land has committed
great harlotry by departing from the Lord. God had given His people
freedom from their captors and safety from their enemies, and good land to live on. And
he provided all of that, even the food along the way, the victories,
but they cheated on him with other gods and idols. That's
what they did. They stopped worshiping God.
So he said, no more compassion, no more pity. That's it, done. So this brings us to our second
question. What is their relationship to
God now that he has No compassion. He has no pity, no mercy. Well,
they're no longer his people. They are lo-ami, as it says in
verse 8. That's not mine. They are not
mine. Not my people. But if you look back in verse
3, it says, So he went, and that
is Hosea, and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim, and she
conceived and bore him a son. In this verse, it says that his
wife conceived and bore him, Hosea, a son. Yet these are not
the same words used to describe the second two children. Not
to describe their conceptions anyway, the lo Ruhamah, the not
mine, and the not loved. The next two children that were
born to this woman were not Hosea's children. And so it is fitting that they
were named no mercy and not mine. This picture is everyone in Adam's
lineage, everyone. For we're born out of a harlotry. We're not children of God, the
father, but children of our father, Adam. And Hosea in this scene
pictures God's sovereignty for why should he God be responsible
for children that aren't his? Or why should Hosea be responsible
for children that aren't his? He is right to call them not
mine and no mercy. Now imagine for a moment if you
had those names, if those were your names. I know this is in
English, so bear with me. But what if every time someone
called your name, you're just reminded you're unloved, you're
unwanted. I guess it's like calling someone
stupid all the time or something like that. But you could hear,
unloved, your family has filed a restraining order against you.
That's just terrible. Or no mercy, you're being evicted
from your house. Not only is there some type of
action that's just terrible, but they call you by your real
name. Or, no mercy, the king has taken
everything you own and has given it to someone else and you've
got nothing left. There's no mercy for you. Or your parents
despise you and they've cut you out of their will and loved. Now like these Israelites, these
names should shake us. They should. The third question is, and this
is why it should shake us, Who declares this to be so? Who declares
this to be our name? It says in verse 6 and 8 that
it's God. It's Jehovah. The same One who
says that He would no longer show mercy toward Israel is the
same One who also declares that He will not be their God. It's
the same Person. So I ask, do you want God to
be your God and to show you mercy? Well, whether or not people like
it, God is the God of everyone, whether or not you want him to
be. He's the God of everyone. The only difference is that he
becomes a God of mercy to some while still remaining a God of
wrath to others. Now this chafes the flesh, especially
religious flesh. Nobody likes that someone can
be made, you know, put into a relationship, given power over someone else
without them saying yay or nay. There's no vote. Many believe that they meet or
exceed God's qualifications, for salvation that is, you know,
with just a little bit of help from Jesus, or a lot of it, but
not all. They believe that something they have done or said is merited
His favor, but they do not believe that they require grace or unmerited
favor. Or they don't require mercy.
But this is true. Before you will come to God in
repentance, He will make you know that you
and your natural self are His enemy and have not obtained mercy.
He will make you know that. So then, our fourth question
must be, what will become of these people who are called no
mercy and not mine? Are they just doomed? Well, some
are, which again, people don't like, even if they hear it, even
if it's in the Bible. But because of God's grace in
Jesus Christ, some will acquire a change in name, some. They will go from not mine to
mine. They will go from harlot to wife. They will go from no mercy to
obtained mercy. Go over to chapter two, verse
23. Chapter two, verse 23 of Hosea.
Let's see what it says here about these changes of name. This is
God speaking. He says, then I will sow her
for myself in the earth. And I will have mercy on her
who had not obtained mercy. And then I will say to those
who were not my people, you are my people. And they shall say,
this is another miracle, you are my God. These children of a vile heritage. These children called Lo-Ami
and Lo-Ruhamah have been adopted into God's family to be heirs
according to the promise. Those unwanted, unlawful, hateful,
spiteful, backbiting, adulterers have been saved by grace. Now this thought always brings
to mind a question I've asked myself just over and over. Why did God choose me? And the spoiler is no one's ever
going to know. And you're not going to find out. Maybe in the
end you will. But right now there's nothing in this Bible to say
this is why. Because I always come up with
just two answers. And one is, I just told you,
I don't know. And the other answer is, for His glory. Because that's
really all you can say. And I'm not the only one who's
actually had this question on his mind. One of my favorite
hymns goes, O Savior, as my eyes behold the wonders of thy might
untold, the heavens in glorious light arrayed, the vast creation
thou hast made. Basically, as I look at everything
you've made. And yet to think thou lovest me. I mean, we're
on a planet that's so big we're not going to be able to live
to see it all. All the way down to the bottom
of the ocean, up in the sky, the space, and that's just one
planet in this big old universe. And yet to think, thou lovest
me. My heart cries out, how can it be? I assume that's what all believers
ask at some point after being saved. But just why me? My heart's
way too wicked. I know now. I didn't know it
then, but I know now. And God could never love me because
I've sinned against Him over and over and over. A thousand
times yesterday, I'm going to sin a thousand times tomorrow.
And it's against Him. It's not just breaking man's
law. It's against Him. But that's not the question we
should be asking. This question that we should be asking, this
fifth question, is who has changed our names? Who's changed our
names? Well, it's not the one named
Harlot, and it's not the one named Not Mine, and it's not
the one named No Mercy. They didn't change their own
names. God does it. You won't find any evidence of
the Israelites making any changes in the book of Hosea. Go back to Hosea 1 verse 3. This is something I had not seen
before. I read this earlier. It says, so he went and took
Gomer the daughter of Debalaim, and she conceived and bore him
a son. And then the Lord says in verse
4, call his name Jezreel. For in a little while, I will
avenge the bloodshed of Jezreel on the house of Jehu and bring
an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. The important
part of that verse is Jezreel. And notice too, the name or how
it says she conceived. It says she conceived and bore
him a son. This was Hosea's son. Now his name is Jezreel, which
means God will sow. God will sow. And what is spoken in this verse
is just a prophecy by God that's repeated about his people and
it's promised again in Hosea 2.23, what I just read. I will
sow. I will sow. And this is Hosea's
son. So this means that God will do
it and nothing God does can be undone. And notice too that this child,
this Jezreel, he comes before the other two. He came first. He came before the ones who are
called, no mercy and not mine. It's as if God had prepared for
his people's salvation before they were even born. Isn't it? And God in Christ Jesus sowed
the seeds of our salvation before the words, let there be light,
were spoken in the darkness. That's our picture. We are just
a bunch of low Amis and low Ruhamahs. Yet Jezreel came first. Jezreel
came first. And he was God's son. And that's
God's love, pure and all the way through. And that's God's
grace to His people, to call the sinner to repentance and
make him or her as He is. And that's all I have today. Matt, would you close us please?