Nothing minor about their message.
They're called minor prophets because they're small in size.
Some of them just have three chapters, some of them have four,
some of them have two. Hosea in particular has fourteen,
I believe. But they're small books, and
that's what they mean by calling them minor prophets. And you
see that Hosea was a prophet in the days of a lot of kings.
Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, Jeroboam. And he was a contemporary
to Isaiah, prophesied at the same time Isaiah did. But he
was a prophet to Israel, the northern kingdom. And when the
kingdom split, God kept His hand on Judah, and Israel went into
gross, gross idolatry. And though when we get through
this book of Hosea, we'll see that it's a wonderful, blessed
picture of salvation by the sovereign mercy and grace of God in Christ,
that it's also a judgment of God upon Israel for their spiritual
adultery. Ain't that what he says there?
He says, in verse 2, he says, "...the beginning of the word
of the Lord by Hosea. And the Lord God said to Hosea,
Go take unto thee a wife of Horeb, And the children of Hortums,
for the land hath committed a great Hortum, departing from thee."
They were committing spiritual adultery. They were playing the
harlot to God Himself. And that's why God said to Hosea,
go take your wife. He went to a place where she
was already a prostitute and said, you take her. He said,
and I want you to know that the reason I'm doing this is that
I want you to have produced children of this So this is what Israel
is doing to me. They've departed from me, claimed
the harlot, and I want them to understand this. And so that's
what it's about. And in all these prophets, there's
three things, three basic attributes that every one of the minor prophets
dealt with. And all three things that they
preach constantly and continually, and in fact, it breathed in these
books. First of all, God's sovereignty. When you go through these minor
prophets, well, the whole Bible, but here in these minor prophets,
they deal with God's absolute sovereignty. And you know, the
thing is, if judgment failed, they said God did it. If plagues
came and devoured all their food, they said God did it. When Babylon
came and took them captive, they said God did it. You see, God
is the God of history. And they kept telling him that
this is what thus says the Lord and this is what God is going
to do. And God is not a man that he should lie or that he should
repent. And the second thing that they dealt with continually
was God's holiness. God's holiness. They came and
they denounced sin. They charged Israel, they charged
Jews, they charged the people of God, no matter where they
were, whether they were in Edom, whether they were in Assyria,
whether they were in Obed-Edom, wherever they were at, whether
they were in Babylon or Nineveh. It was sin as an offense to God,
and they pronounced all the time, called it sin. They said God's
judgment is going to come down upon sin. And God hasn't changed
His view of sin, and sin is still offensive to Him, and judgment
is still falling on men and women for the sins that they commit.
And sin is falling on our nation because of the sin of this nation.
Sin is going to be punished. It's going to be punished on
individuals. It's going to be punished on princes. The more
responsibility you have, the greater the judgment. And it'll
be visited upon whole nations. That's what God, He called all
the nation of Israel. And He said, My judgment, I'm
going to take you away from, I'm going to take you away from
being a nation. You'll cease to be a nation. And God's holiness has never
and will never wink at sin. We may do it, but God doesn't. And then another thing they dealt
with. And Hosea really brings this out here. The third thing
that they dealt with was God's blessed love. You say, well,
how can God's judgment and holiness and justice, love and justice,
be compatible? Well, it was because of God's
love that He raised up prophets like Hosea and Joel and Isaiah
and sent our Lord Jesus Christ into a world that was so dark
He said the light came into the world, and men loved darkness
rather than light. He said he came as the light
shined into a dark place, and this world was dark. He who made
the world is in the world, and the world didn't even know him.
But yet God in His love satisfied His own justice, and it was because
of God's great love that He sends prophets. That He calls men and
women to repentance. That He convicts them and convinces
them of their sin. And then calls them by His grace
and sends the gospel to them. Oh, how gracious and loving God
is. Now, Hosea was a prophet. Same time Isaiah, Amos, and Micah
was. He was a prophet and he preached
for 65 to 70 years. He lived a long time. And he
dealt with the northern kingdom, dealt with Israel. And the northern
kingdom, when Israel and them split in 1 Kings 12, and Israel
went this way, they didn't want to be under David's rule anymore,
and so they went their way, and they immediately went into gross
idolatry. Yet, beloved, though this is
a message of judgment and idolatry, it leads into utter, utter immorality. Isaiah comes along and he also
brings us a message of God's grace, His mercy, and His indestructible
love. Look over in chapter 14 and verse
4, just to give you an idea of what I'm talking about here. I preached a message from this
years and years and years and years and years ago. Hosea 14.4. Talking about love. God's unfailing
mercy, indestructible love. He said, I will, here a little
backsliding, and listen to this, I will love them freely. What do you reckon He means,
I'll love them freely? That means He's going to not look for any
cause in you to love Him. I love you because I love you.
I ain't going to find no cause in you. And all the reasons said,
I'll find it in my genocide. And he said, and my anger is
turned away from him. And so God gives us this glorious
picture of his unchangeable love to sinners. And all we see here,
a glorious picture of the grace of God, when we've already, we've
understood it, we've preached it, you've heard it many times,
but the story of Hosea and Gomer. Hosea loves Gomer. And although
she's unfaithful, She despised Hosea's love, despised Hosea's
goodness toward her. But you know what Hosea did?
He loved her in spite of herself, and loved her in spite of her
unfaithfulness, in spite of the fact that she took other lovers.
And in spite of all that, he still loved her. And that's the
way our Lord Jesus Christ is. In spite of all that we are,
all that we've done, and all that we'll do, He will not change
his love or purpose of grace towards us. Huh? And oh, what a blessed picture
of God's free and sovereign grace in Christ. Hosea's very name
means Savior. His very name means Savior. Our
Lord told him. He didn't ask him to do it. He
told him to do it. He commanded him to go take a wife from among
the harlots. Go out there among the harlots
and get you a wife. Well, he went out there and he
chose Gomer. So don't. And that's the way God elects
people by nature. He goes out and everybody in
this world, everybody in this world is in sin and degradation
and darkness and dead and dry and without hope, consumed by
sin and sin consumed by it. And our beloved and our Lord
Jesus Christ, He still comes and He chooses among all this
world, He says, this is the one that I want right here. It's
the one I want. And that's the way I'm going
to take it. So the Lord gave Hosea and Gomer three children.
Jezreel. You know what happened in Jezreel?
Over in 1 Kings chapter 10, I believe it is, or chapter 11, 1, it says
there, you know that Jehu, killed all Ahab and all of his family
and all of his priests. And Ahab was a wicked, wicked,
wicked king. And he did that at Jezreel. And
that's where Jezebel was slain. And there it says that they should
not also meet to be scattered. Well, God says, you know, He
says, call him Jezreel. Because as Ahab was destroyed
by Jehu, I'm going to destroy Israel. As they have, and all
the priests was destroyed by Jehu. I'm going to destroy Israel.
I'm going to scatter them. And then he had a daughter named
her Elohu Rabbah. That means no mercy. I'm not
even going to show mercy to them. I'm not even going to show mercy
to them. And then he had a son, Elohemi. It means not mine, not my people. They're scattered. They don't have no mercy. And
they're not mine. They're not my people. And ain't
that what it seems in Ephesians 2? They who were strangers from
the covenants of Israel, without God, without hope, and without
Christ, aliens, but now in Christ Jesus we're
made not. And that's exactly what Paul
says in Romans 9, verse 25. As he says also in Hosea. And
you know Hosea, of the minor prophets, is quoted more times
in the New Testament than all the rest of them, 30-something
times. As he also said to Nosi, I will call them my people which
were not my people. That's what he goes on down to
say here. He says the Israel that he destroys is the natural
Israel, but the Israel that he calls that will be as the sand
of the sea, he says that's going to be spiritual Israel. He said
them that are not my people will be my people, and her beloved
which was not beloved. And it shall come to pass that
in the place it was said unto them, you are not my people,
They shall be called the children of the living God. We weren't called the people
of God. Israel was always called the people of God. Now, we're
called the people of God. And one day, here comes Homer
Hosea home, and Homer was gone. She went back to her letters. She went back to her letters.
And chapter 2 tells us how Gomer's great thought and how Hosea came
and got her in his love and in his grace and purpose and brought
her back. And chapter 3 tells us how Hosea's
love and grace towards Gomer prevailed and he brought Homer
home again. But look what it says here in
verse 2. It talks about your brother and
sister Ammi and Ruema. Plead with your mother. Plead.
Plead with her. with her. And it goes down on
there and says, you know, in verse 5, For their mother hath
played the harlot. She that conceived him hath done
shame, shamelessly. She said, I'll go again after
my lovers that gave me my bread, my water, my wool, my flax, my
morn, my old. Oh, my. But oh my, Lois Glomer
had proved herself unfaithful and abandoned her husband, going
after lovers. She proved herself to be a wife
of whoredom. Hosea didn't cease to love her. Instead, he started
looking for her. And when he got there, where
did he find her? In the arms of another lover's. What did
he do? He didn't have her stoned to
death. He didn't execute the judgment of just law. He didn't
force her to return to him, though he might have done that. But
he didn't leave her there. What did he do? He loved her.
And chapter 2 describes her horrible sin and Hosea's incomparable
indestructible love for her. And he says, look what she said
in verse 7. She shall follow after her lovers. Verse 7, chapter
2. But she shall not overtake them, she shall seek them, but
she shall not find them. She won't find him. She said,
she's going to him. Your mother sprayed the heart with him. And oh my, she went down there
and described what a horrible sin, but there's so much story.
More to this than that. That's the way our Lord Jesus
Christ is by her. And oh, beloved, Hosea took Gomer
for his wife. And listen, just a few things
about this. And married a woman so far beneath
him, unworthy of him. He's a prophet. And this woman
didn't love him. So the Lord our Jesus Christ
our Savior married his elect and chose us in himself before
the world ever began, knowing exactly what he was getting.
We were so far beneath him. And as Gomer pursued her loving
husband, went after her lover, so you and I went astray from
our God just as soon as we were born. Went astray speaking lies. And as Gomer went after her lovers
and brought her into bondage, brought her into slavery and
to utter ruin, we have ruined ourselves. That's what people
do not understand. Men, they ruin themselves. Nobody makes anybody do what
they don't want to do. People do what they want to do
because they are what they are. Why does a dog bark? Because
he's a dog. You ever hear a dog go meow?
You know it's not a dog. Barking don't make it a dog.
It barks because it is a dog. And that's the way human beings
are. We are sinners by nature. And we come forth from our mother's
womb speaking lies. We go estranged from God from
the very womb. And yet God in His sovereign
mercy Loved us with an everlasting love before the world ever began
and chose us in Christ. And look what Hosea did and what
God did to Gomorrah as Hosea hedged up her way with thorns
to force her into His arms again. That's the way God does us. Look
here in verse 6 of chapter 2. This is the way God does us. Therefore, behold, I will hedge
up thy way with thorns, and I'll make a wall that she shall not
find her path. Man, you get caught up in a bunch
of thorns, and you say, I'll go that way, but boy, I can't
get that way. That's too many thorns. Go that way, too many
thorns. And I've got them hemmed up. If I go this way or that
way, I'm going to get scratched to all the pieces and bleed.
And she shall follow after her lovers, but she won't overtake
them. She shall seek them, but shall not find them. Then shall
she say, I'll go and return to my first husband. For then it
was better for me than it was now. Isn't that the way our Lord does
us? He hymns our way up. Hymns our way up. And we'll say,
I'll go unto the Lord. I'll go to God. Going back, I'll
go to Him. Because it's better than any
life I've ever had. Better than, got to be better
than what this is. And He kept us from going as
far as we'd go. And He hymned up our path. And
she couldn't overtake Him. So since she couldn't get to
Him, she said, I'll go to Him. But go to Him, and that's why,
beloved, He forces our hearts to return to Him. And I'll tell
you this about a believer. I'll tell you this. I know this
as well as I know my own name. I may not know it one of these
days, but I know it right now. I'll tell you this. A believer
wants and knows that if God does not force them, cause them, keep
moving towards them, there's no telling how far away they
would get. God, take my heart and do with
it what you will. Don't let me... If you knew how unspiritual, how cold, how indifferent,
no spiritual desire, no spiritual life, no spiritual prayer, no
spiritual desire, no spiritual inclinations that you have, that
I had just this morning. And I have to sit there and say,
oh God, how can the world, can a man get in this condition? So God, He takes your heart.
You hear what you're saying? Lord, give my heart and force
it. Put it in. Put the love of God
in it. Put fire in it. Put life in it. Put spark in it. Put desire in
it. Put hope in it. Oh God, put the
Spirit of God in it so I can feel Christ and have a spiritual
thought. And that's why He says you've
got to do it to us. And that's why He says, blessed
is the man whom thou choosest and calls us to approach unto
thee. And you know when we're willing?
In the day of His blessed power. That's when we're willing. And
I tell you what, that's not just the day that He made us willing
to come to Him, but that's day after day after day. In all beloved,
and Hosea secretly provided for and took care of Gomer, though
she ran after her lovers. Look what he says there in verse
8 of chapter 2. For she did not know that I gave
her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and
her gold. And they was preparing it for
Baal, but I was giving it to her. I was providing it for her. And ain't that the way God takes
care of us and provided for us in all the days of our rebellion? And as Hosea came to where Gomer
was to save her, so the Son of God And His wondrous, wondrous
condescending grace came down into this world, into this land
of darkness, and took upon Himself the likeness of sinful flesh
to save us, to save us out of this wicked, wicked world in
our wicked, wicked hearts. And look what happened over here
in chapter 3. And as Hodea redeemed Homer with
the legal ransom price, Our Lord Jesus ransomed us with His blood. Then said the Lord unto me, Go
yet, love a woman, beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress,
according to the love of the Lord toward the children of Israel,
who look to other gods and love faggots of wine. So I bought
her to me," he said he paid the price for it, the full ransom
price. So I bought her to me for fifteen
pieces of silver, a homer of barley, and a half-oamer of barley. And she was redeemed with a legal
price. Our Lord Jesus Christ redeemed
us with His own precious blood. And as Hosea made Gomer his faithful
wife and was faithful to her, so the Lord Jesus, so faithful
to her. Look what He said in verse 3.
And I said unto her, Thou shalt abide for me many days, that
thou shalt not play the harlot, and thou shalt not be for another
man, so will I also be for thee." Our Lord Jesus Christ said, You're
going to be mine. You're not going to ever be for
nobody else. And I'm going to be for you. Oh, that's why Isaiah, Jeremiah
said, They shall be my people, and I'll be their God. Oh, when
Potter paid for us, I said, you're going to be faithful to me from
now on. I know what you was. You're going to be faithful to
me and nobody else. And you know what? I'm going
to be faithful to you. I'm going to love you. And old
Sam did all that he did for Gomer just in obedience to God and
the will of God and because of covenant love. And our Lord Jesus
Christ, in covenant love for us, came here and obeyed the
will of God for us. Look what he said here in chapter
2, in verse 18. And in that day will I make a
covenant for them with the beasts of the field, with the fowls
of heaven, with the creeping things of the ground. And I will
break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth and
will make them to lie down safely, everything that could hurt We'll
stop it. "...and I will betroth thee unto
Me forever. Yea, I will betroth thee unto
Me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in
mercies. I will even betroth thee unto
Me in faithfulness, and thou shalt know the Lord." I said,
that's what I'm going to do. You're going to know the Lord.
Oh my! And as Hosea conquered Gomer's
whorish heart, by His love for us, so our Lord Jesus Christ
conquers ours by His great love for us. Great love for us. And so, you know, here we have
Hosea. He describes the sin and sinfulness
of God's people Israel. The awful sin and horrible evilness
and rebellion that it brought upon them. But it also shows
us God's determinate counsel that He is determined to save
His elect people. And I tell you what, beloved,
God calls them His people. Look over here in chapter 8 and
verse 10, look what He says about them. He's going to claim them. The
warden would not give up, He wouldn't give up His own. He
says here in verse 10, Yea, though they have hired among
the nations, now will I gather them. I'll gather them. And they
shall sorrow little for the burden of the king of the princes."
So I'm not going to give them up. And if I want to give them
up, look over in chapter 11, in verse 8 and 9. Let's see this.
If I want to give them up, how shall I give thee up, Ephraim?
How shall I deliver thee? How shall I make thee as Adonai?
How shall I set thee as Zerubbabel? My heart is turned within me.
My repentings are kindled together. I will not execute the fierceness
of mine anger. I will not return to destroy
it, for I am God and not man, the Holy One in the midst of
thee. I will not enter into the city." And, oh, beloved, that's what
he says here. God said, He said, I'm not like man. I'm going to
spare you. I'm going to spare you. And you
know why? Because of His love for His elect. Again, in chapter 14 and verse
4, what He says, He said, I'm going to heal their backsliding. I'm going to love them freely.
My anger is turned away from Him. Down in verse 7, they that
dwell under His shadow shall return. They shall revive as
the corn, and grow up as the vine, and the scent thereof shall
be as the wine of Lebanon. Ephraim shall say, What have
I to do any more with idols? What have I to do any more with
idols? I don't want nothing else to do with idols. I have heard
him, and I have observed him. I am like a green fir tree. He
says, My fruit comes from God, who is wise, and who shall understand
these things, who is proven, and shall know them. For the
ways of the Lord are right, and the just shall walk in them,
though the transgressors shall fall therein. And I'll tell you
so much about our Lord Jesus Christ in this book, too. I speak
so much about Christ, you know, and He's talked about there over
in chapter 1 where it says, you know, they were not in time which
were not my people, now be my people. That's what Peter said,
which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God,
talking about Christ, which had not obtained mercy, but now they're
going to obtain mercy. And he's not talking about Abraham's
seed, he's talking about spiritual Israel, the seed of Abraham. And then, beloved, he speaks
of the resurrection of Christ. Look here in chapter six. Let's
look at this. He talked about God's love and grace towards
Abraham's spiritual seed, Israel. Then he talks about the resurrection
of Christ in chapter 6. After two days, will he revive
us? Hosea chapter 6 and verse 2.
Come, let's return unto the Lord, for he'll come and heal us. He
has smitten and he'll bind us up. Where did he smite us at?
He smote us in Christ. Where does he bind us up at?
In Christ. After two days, will he revive us? And the third day He will raise
Him up. And we shall live in His sight.
Why? Because Christ raised Him from
the dead. And we live in the sight of God through our Lord
Jesus Christ. And then look what it says there.
Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord, His going
forth is prepared as the morning. And listen, He shall come unto
us as the rain. Oh, He'll come down as the showers
of blessings. You'll come down as showers of
blessing. And then in chapter 13, I want
you to see this, and I want to take just another minute or two.
But God declares Himself as the only God, one God. And He says here in verse 4,
Yet I am the Lord thy God from the land of Egypt, and thou shalt
know no god but me, for is there no Saviour beside me? No Saviour beside me, none whatsoever. And then here's a picture of
our Lord Jesus Christ back over in chapter 11, a prophecy concerning
our Lord Jesus Christ. And you find this fulfillment
in Matthew chapter 1, chapter 2, excuse me. When Israel was
a child, then I loved him, and called my son up out of Egypt."
Do you remember when they told him to go down into Egypt because
Herod just sought the child's life? And then it said in Matthew
chapter 2, as it is written in Hosea, they called my son up
out of Egypt. Christ came up out of Egypt.
And then lastly, look at the resurrection. Again, Hebrews,
Hosea chapter 13, verse 14. And then I'm done. Oh my. Just scratching the surface. I will ransom them from the power
of the grave. I will redeem them from death,
death of sin, death of Adam, and the second death, which is
eternal death. I will redeem them from death.
O death, I will be thy plagues. Everybody says plague isn't death,
it's a plague. God said I'm going to be the
plague of death. Death, I'm going to destroy death. Oh, grave, I'm going to be your
destruction. God said, grave, I will destroy
you. Death, I'm going to be the plague. I'm going to do away with you.
And oh, beloved, and that's why we sing. He said, He'll redeem
us, ransom them from the power of the grave. He'll rescue us
by the payment of a price. And our Lord Jesus is our Redeemer.
No wonder. No wonder we sang and we loved
those verses of Scripture. O death, I'll be your plagues.
O grave, I'll be your destruction. The dead will be raised incorruptible
and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put
on incorruption. This mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall
I put on incorruption? And this mortal shall I put on
immortality, then shall be brought to pass the same that is written. Death is swallowed up in victory.
O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory?
The sting of death is sin. God said, I ransomed you from
that. And the strength of sin is law. He fulfilled that. But
thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord
Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren,
be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the
Lord. For as much as you know that your labor is not in vain."
Huh? Salvation's of the Lord. And
if Gomer could marry a harp, just imagine what the Lord could
do. Amen.