In today's podcast, we're diving into the powerful message of Hosea, where we see how God uses our lives as lessons of love and redemption. Hosea's story illustrates God's profound love for His people, even amidst their unfaithfulness. Through the lens of Hosea's marriage to Gomer, we explore themes of betrayal, compassion, and the promise of restoration. We'll unpack how God’s heart breaks over our sins and how He continually reaches out to us, no matter how far we stray. Join me as we reflect on the depth of God’s love and how it can transform our understanding of our own struggles and relationships.

Takeaways:

• The book of Hosea illustrates God's incredible love and patience towards a wayward Israel, emphasizing that even in sin, His desire is for restoration and forgiveness.
• Hosea's life serves as a profound lesson on how individuals can embody God's messages of love, faithfulness, and the importance of teaching others about Him.
• The names given to Hosea's children symbolize God's judgment yet also point towards His hope and restoration for His people, showcasing the dual nature of divine communication.
• God's call to love and justice remains relevant today, reminding us that our actions towards others reflect our understanding of God's character and expectations.
• Hosea's marriage to Gomer highlights the depth of God’s love for His people, demonstrating that divine love can transcend betrayal and unfaithfulness.
• In times of suffering, it's crucial to remember that our trials can serve a greater purpose, shaping us into instruments of God's grace for others.

Links referenced in this episode:

• www.bible805.com

The transcript for this podcast is A.I. generated and though it has all the content, sometimes has odd breaks, spelling, and spacing.

For an almost exact copy of the text, go to the www.Bible805.com site for downloadable NOTES or to the www.Bible805Academy.com for downloadable and editable Notes, Discussion Guide, Audio and Video files, plus the original PowerPoints—for your personal study or all you need to teach the lesson.

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Hi, I'm Yvon Prehn from Bible 805 and I truly believe the Bible has everything you need to find meaning and purpose, love and peace in this life, and it is a source for forgiveness of sins and eternal salvation.

I want to tell you about it by making sometimes complex bio Bible topics understandable. So let's do that today with our podcast topic, which is from our series Ancient Prophets, Modern Messages.

Our lesson today is on Hosea the When God uses your life as a lesson.

Here's where we are in the prophecies to Israel, just before Hosea appears, God sent the prophet Amos to condemn the sins of Israel.

He preached forceful, harsh messages for about three years in and they were ignored.

God then sends Hosea and gives his people a similar challenge, but in a very different way, where his overall message is one of God's incredible love to his people, no matter how badly they treated him. The book is an excellent rebuttal to those who say that the Old Testament God is one of vengeance and hurtful actions.

We see the emotions of our God very deeply in this book, and I really pray that all of you will let that sink in your heart. What that means God feels our sin and betrayal deeply. He's not unmoved by our wandering. Now the story begins.

Hosea's background's unknown, possibly he was a priest, though God told him what to do and what would happen in the first chapter. Now this is a little harsh if you're not familiar with the book, so prepare yourself.

When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, God, marry a promiscuous woman and have children with her. For like an adulterous wife, this land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the Lord.

So he married Gomer, daughter of Dibliam, and she conceived and bore him a son.

Then the Lord said to Hosea, call him Jezreel, because I will soon punish the house of Yahu for the massacre at Jezreel and I will put an end to the kingdom of Israel in that day. I will break Israel's bow in the valley of Jezreel. Now the children's names are used as a picture of judgment.

We're going to go on with some more, but yet keep in mind they were never kicked out of the family for their horrible names. They were always part of the family.

Now an overview of the book continues in an overview of what's going to happen to Hosea, where it goes on to say, Gomer conceived again and gave birth to a daughter. Then the Lord said to Hosea, call her Larumaha, which means not loved. For I will no longer show love to Israel, that I should at all forgive them.

Yet I will show love to Judah, and I will save them. Not by bow, sword or battle, or by horses and horsemen, but I, the Lord their God, will save them. After she'd weaned Lorumaha, Gomer had another son.

Then the Lord said, call him Loami, which means not my people, for you are not my people and I am not your God. A note about the children's names. Now, it does seem kind of mean to give the children such awful names. And I really had a problem with that.

But I got to thinking about it and I did a whole lot of research on it and asked, you know, all kinds of commentaries and stuff like that. I typed in, why did God give the children of Hosea such horrible names?

And every single one of the commentaries had something like, God gives names for reasons. And this is to illustrate what would happen in Israel. Well, okay, that's fine. We know that different things happen.

For one thing, I can't imagine the family sort of calling them those sorts of things. This might be, this is your given name that God said to whatever, but day to day, I doubt if they were called that. But now here's what's important.

This is not specifically addressed and we don't know what happened to them later. But I think it's valid to look at how God worked in other events in the Bible in similar situations.

And what I want to look at specifically here, and there are just a few examples of it that I'm going to give you, but there are many more. We see that one's name or description early on does not become your personal destiny.

You may have been given that name for a reason, to show something, to illustrate something, but. But that's not necessarily you for the rest of your life.

For example, Sarai in the Old Testament, a number of commentators say that her name originally meant contentious. Well, later on she becomes Sarah, and that means princess, Rahab the prostitute. A number of commentators said too.

It's kind of interesting how in the Old Testament, she's constantly referred to as Rahab the prostitute. Rahab the prostitute. But then in the New Testament, she becomes simply Rahab, the ancestor of Jesus. The old was gone.

This is who she is to be remembered as. And then of course, Simon becomes Peter the rock. The story goes on, though, with Gomer.

And regardless of the names of her children or whatever was happening with them. She leaves, and it doesn't go well for her.

But Hosea's love is extended even to the point of buying his wife out of slavery when her lovers discarded her.

In chapter three, it says, go, the Lord said to me, speaking to Hosea, go and love your wife again, even though she commits adultery with another lover. This will illustrate that the Lord still loves Israel, even though the people have turned to other gods and love to worship them.

So I bought her back for 15 pieces of silver and five bushels of barley and a measure of wine. Then I said to her, you must live in my house for many days and stop your prostitution.

During this time, you will not have sexual relations with anyone, not even with me.

This shows, and this is the Bible going on, that Israel will go a long time without king or prince and without sacrifices, sacred pillars, priests, or even idols. But afterward, the Lord, the people, will return and devote themselves to the Lord, their God, and to David's descendant, their king.

In the last days, they will tremble in awe of the Lord and his goodness. Notice that this time of separation is limited. God's story always ends with restoration.

Now, a little bit of commentary on this early overview of the book, and then some of the coming events. This first part of the book, of course, emphasizes the depths of God's love and how far he goes to rescue his people.

At the same time, it shows that they would suffer and there needed to be a time when they could not worship and enjoy his love as they had. But again, God never totally walks away or leaves Israel to die alone in her sins, and neither did Hosea. Separation can mean time for restoration.

But before that restoration, the book goes on to list the reasons for God's judgments in the first place. And a lot of these are going to sound very familiar because they're the same ones that other prophets prophesied against.

In chapter two, it says, but now bring charges against Israel, your mother, for she is no longer my wife and I am no longer her husband. And then Hosea goes on to list some of the sins that brought this about.

I will punish her for all those times when she burned incense to her images of baal, when she put on her earrings and jewels and went out to look for her lovers, but forgot all about me, says the Lord.

And then God says, after naming her sins, from the start of the judgment, the broken, loving heart is revealed, because here's what he goes on to say, but I'll win her back once again. I'll lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her.

There I will return her vineyards to her and transform the Valley of Trouble into a gateway of hope. Now this Valley of Trouble, little historical note. Kind of interesting.

This was actually and in some translations it listed it was a Valley of Achor where Achan sinned and was punished because he stole the items from Jericho that he wasn't supposed to. God ended up destroying him and his whole family after many Israelites died because of his sin.

But God says this terribly sad place is now going to be a place for hope, for God's glory, and once again see in all this the loving heart of God and how it pains him when we sin. Remember, the New Testament also talks about how our sins can grieve the Holy Spirit. Our sins make God sad.

Let that sink in next time you're tempted to do something wrong. A key reason for their failures was a lack of teaching failure of priests and prophets.

In Hosea 4, 6, 7 it says my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge because you've rejected knowledge. I also reject you as my priests. The more priests there were, the more they sinned against me.

They exchanged their glorious God for something disgraceful. They feed on the sins of my people. Here's the application to all teachers of Bible classes.

Whether you're teaching in your family in many settings, our responsibility is immense, not only to study, but to share well, even when it isn't easy. Our lack of total dedication to teaching, preparation and sharing can have a huge effect on others.

God has given this work to teachers and we must do it diligently.

And if you are a teacher, I have many, many resources on www.bible805.com that also has links to the Bible 805 Academy where there are many things that you can use totally for free to teach. But don't let it be said of the people that you are responsible for that your people are destroyed from a lack of knowledge. You must teach them.

Moving along. Hosea taught them though. And again, similar to previous messages where he says you must return to your God, maintain love and justice.

Love and justice, of course, is a reflection of God's character and the book emphasizes it. Remember the same message in Amos that justice is an all expansive term for how we're to live, how we're to treat the less fortunate.

And I want to review again the quote from World Vision that describes it in this way where it says the Bible makes social justice a mandate of faith and a fundamental expression of Christian discipleship.

Social justice has its biblical roots in A triune God who time and time again shows his love and compassion for the weak, the vulnerable, the marginalized, the disenfranchised, the disinherited. Along with denying justice, people often fall prey to the deceit of wealth. In Hosea 13:6 it says God speaking, when I fed them, they were satisfied.

When they were satisfied, they became proud. And then they forgot me. Be careful. When you have a lot, that's when it's easy to forget God.

People usually turn to God when they're in trouble, but when they have a lot, taking what was meant for a gift and using them for themselves only, which we're all prone to do. When they did that, though, he goes on to say, that's when your sins have been your downfall.

Money, possessions, prosperity are never to be the source of security or satisfaction as they promise to be. And they're never given for us alone. We're given so we can give. Now here are some ideas on how to protect yourself from really the lies of wealth.

And first of all, we must acknowledge that here in America we are all wealthy beyond the imagination of the rest of the world. So how should we respond? First of all, spend a little time thinking through what is your reference for wealth for the good life?

What sets the standard for you for what you think you deserve? Of course we want to think it's the Bible and it should be. But is it? Most often it's our referent others, personally and nationally.

Who are your referent others? Your referent others are the ones that you measure yourself against. You think, well, they have this, so I should have that.

It's so important that you determine that. What do the people that you associate with consider important and significant? Do you follow along? Do you challenge or do you even discuss with them?

What should we keep? What should we give as disciples of Jesus?

There can definitely be a connection with lack of justice and an inordinate view of what makes the good life. How to know? Evaluate. What should we keep? What should we give? These are hard questions and you must solve them with God.

But here is a great bit of advice. I have personally found this extremely helpful and it's CS Lewis where he says, I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give.

I'm afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. In other words, if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusements, etc.

Is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we're probably giving away too little. If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say. They are too small.

There ought to be things we would like to do and cannot do because our charitable expenditure excludes them. Just take some time to really think about, consider and pray about the challenge of that quote.

But of course, we all make mistakes in this in many parts of our lives. And because of that, Hosea, as all the prophets do, looks beyond judgment to restoration.

And he says in that day, declares the Lord, you will call me again, husband. You will no longer call me master. I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips. No longer will their names be invoked.

I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. I will betroth you in faithfulness, and you will acknowledge the Lord.

I will show love to the one I called not my loved one. I will say to those called not my people, you are my people. And they will say, you are my God.

Ultimately, by the end of the book, we see how God uses pain, patience, and redeeming love to demonstrate his love to Israel. So how does this apply to us? Challenge us and teach us.

Our modern message to us is that Hosea's love and mercy to Gomer is used as a picture of God's love for Israel and for us. Obvious Lessons but there's more to Seems like the more I study the Bible that God has some basic messages that he keeps repeating in various ways.

It'll go into detail on this. But God used the life of Job as a demonstration to Satan and the hosts of heaven that God could be trusted in the most difficult of circumstances.

The children of Israel were also a witness to God's power to their world, as God brought them out of Egypt way back then. The pagan inhabitants of the land knew throughout their history that it was God who gave Israel their victories, as Rahab told them they were.

The people in the land were afraid for 40 years while Israel was wandering around in circles in the desert going, oh, they're giants. Oh they're giants. We're so scared, we can't go in there. And all the while those very giants were trembling in fear.

By the God that had conquered Egypt, and he may use you in similar ways.

It's fair to assume that though your life may not have the influence of the characters of the Bible, at the same time you have an audience watching, evaluating how you trust God, especially how you will believe him when things become difficult. And most likely the audience is both human and angelic. How and why we don't know, but it seems important when the hard times come.

Remember, you don't know the whole story of why this particular thing is happening, but you can know some foundational truths. An eternal perspective is essential no matter what you're going through, because this life is not all there is.

Your best life, your greatest joys, your most complete love and fulfillment are all coming, and all that happens to you here is preparation, refining for it. You may not see it in this life, you may see it in this life. We don't know. Things may happen for a reason known only to God, but important to Him.

I cannot imagine the agony of Hosea's life because one thing I didn't emphasize this earlier, I probably should have. He wasn't called to go to another place to preach for a short period of time. He was told to stay where he was.

The city that he lived in, where he married Gomer, where they had their kids, all of these things where he had to buy her back. He lived through all of that before his audience and the time span of the Book and his preaching, and all he went through was 25 years.

Not just as a witness to individuals. We never know the extent of our possible witness.

Paul the Apostle Paul uses Hosea, who I'm sure had no idea that his life would be used in this way to show God's ultimate love and mercy to the Gentiles when he says, what if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath prepared for destruction?

What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy whom he prepared in advance for glory, even us, whom he also called not only from the Jews, but also from the Gentiles, as he says in Hosea, I will call them my people who are not my people. I will call her my beloved who is not my loved one.

And in the very place where it was said to them, you are not my people, there they will be called children of the living God.

Paul continues the idea of using our lives to teach others on a more personal level when he talks about this in 1st Corinthians, where in 1st or, excuse me, in 2nd Corinthians, where he says, praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.

If we're distressed, it's for your comfort and salvation. If we are comforted, it's for your comfort which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer.

As difficult as it is for the person who is the living lesson, people who have suffered have far more credibility than those who haven't, sharing how God helps them. You all know that when people have gone through stuff, we just we and we.

Chances are we know, or even if we don't know the specifics, we sense a depth and a level in them that somebody who hasn't I know someone who, who I know was headed super, super easy life. They, they sometimes are the ones that verses just sort of roll off their tongue way too easily.

And you kind of want to say, what do you know about that? But those who have suffered, they have the credibility. Now, it's good to notice that we suffer in many ways.

And God may use you in difficult ways primarily to benefit you.

In 1st Peter 4:12, it says, Beloved, think it not strange when you're tried by fire, which is done to prove you as though some strange thing happened to you. Now, that's what the NIV says. Now in another translation, I think it makes a point. Much better.

This is in the message where it says, friends, when life gets really difficult, don't jump to the conclusion that God isn't on the job. Instead, be glad that you're in the very thick of what Christ experienced. This is a spiritual refining process.

With glory just around the corner, life will often be unjustly hard.

This talks about trials being a way for God to refine us, as James 1 also talks about when it says, dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow.

So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing application. It's always good when tough stuff happens to pause and ask, lord, what do you want to teach me in this?

Now consider how he may be using it as a challenge to refine you, grow you. All those things. But.

But we also have to look at the reality that all this might be good advice and looking for how God can refine us and discipline us and all that kind of stuff. But sometimes you're doing really well. You're honestly as refined as you need to be. You're not sinning.

And then, bam, tragedy strikes, large or small, quickly over or long lasting.

And yes, we want to examine our hearts, but at the same time, there's often, no matter what the reason, whatever, a temptation to blame ourselves, to think, oh, I deserve this. Whatever, I deserve this. I'm just horrible. I deserve this. That's why it's happening to me. But that may not be true.

Job did not deserve a single thing that he went through. Now I have. I want you to really think about this. It was tremendously encouraging to me.

Here's a comforting thought from Ray Godwin from the book Grace Outpouring. And he has Jesus speaking here and has him saying, you didn't deserve the wounds you have in your heart.

And I didn't deserve the wounds that I carried in my body, but I volunteered to have them so that your pain could be dealt with.

In my pain, of course we aren't Jesus, but it's a great encouragement to me and I think it can be to others from knowing that much pain that we go through is not deserved. You didn't do anything to cause it. You aren't this horrible person. Well, you are. But Jesus forgave all of your sins.

If you're a believer, remember Romans 8:1. There is now no condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus. You are not condemned anymore. You don't deserve bad things.

You don't have to live out some sort of penance. That is not where you're at, not why God does things. He does your suffering, your trials for a greater purpose.

And deserving or not, Jesus reminds us that in this world we will have tribulations. Hosea reminds us that they may not be a result of sin on your part. You may not have deserved them at all. Quite the contrary.

God may be using you as a lesson of trusting him to those around you and to the hosts of heaven, as he did with Job. It may not get better in this life, but someday it will.

And all the troubles here will seem like, as one person said, I just love this little statement. All the troubles here will seem like one night spent in a bad hotel, not knowing why. Remember, people are watching.

And this little poem is a good reminder where it says you're writing a gospel, a chapter each day by the things that you do and the words that you say. People read what you write distorted or true. What is the gospel according to you?

Now, we often use this little ditty as this little poem as something to invite people to salvation. And you know, they can see Jesus in your life and want to be saved and all that, which I don't know if that happens a whole lot.

But anyway, I don't know if people observing your life are going to come to you with questions about how can I have eternal salvation. I just don't see that happening a whole lot. But they do look at you as a Christian.

If you talk about being a Christian, how do you get through hard times? How are you dealing with them?

When you complain and camp out in a hard time, when you make that your identity and focus, you're telling the world that your God is not enough.

Instead of doing that, instead of camping out in the hard or difficult time, you want to, as the old song says, turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face when you do that, when you reflect his love, when you can trust him, no matter how difficult life may be, that's when people will want to know who is the God you serve. Final Applications when we're called to be Hosea as 1st Peter 2:11 says, Dear friends, I urge you.

It's commendable if someone bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because they're conscious of God. Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his steps. Just like that earlier quote.

He didn't deserve all the trouble and the pain and all that was put on him, and you may not deserve it either. But pray that regardless, that you might be commendable to God, whether you suffer during a time of refining or even more when you don't deserve it.

A great example of this and a challenge for all of us was in the final prayers and witness of the early Christians dying in the arena. We have copies of their prayers that they wrote in the catacombs. And here was one of them. Lord Jesus Christ, let me not cause you shame.

They prayed that before going up to be eaten alive by wild animals.

And though our circumstances are not probably not anywhere near as challenging as that, that same prayer, Lord Jesus Christ, let me not cause you shame, is a wonderful prayer to pray. And because of how they died in the early church, many people became Christians.

This was a time when the faith could not be openly preached, but people saw how they died in the original. And one example, just one, is Justin Martyr he became a famous apologist and writer for the Christian faith.

He went to the arena just, you know, for amusement one afternoon to see, you know, all this terrible stuff. And he said later, when he observed how the Christians died, that's what made him real, realize that their God was real.

Back to the story of Hosea and Gomer. And I know you're probably wondering what happened to them. What happened to them? Well, I did all sorts of research, research on that.

The overwhelming historical consensus is that their relationship was restored and continued, or the book would make no sense. St. Augustine interprets it in this way.

Hosea's buying back Gomer was an image of God redeeming his people from sin, the restoration of their marriage, God restoring the covenant, the humiliation of the prophet. And he was humiliated for those 25 years. Christ humbling himself to save the Church.

For Augustine, the entire point of the narrative is God's willingness to restore the unfaithful.

And ultimately a picture of God's forgiveness, a foreshadowing of Christ's redemption of the Church, and a demonstration that divine love overcomes human betrayal, restoration and peace. This is so like our God, a clear pattern of his dealings with people. Though we sin, his love is always there.

Healing and restoration takes place in many ways, now and forever. Some examples in the Book of Judges, people would sin greatly, but then he'd send him a judge to bail him out.

And I did some calculating one time, and almost always the times of peace were double, the times of judgment. They'd sin, and he wouldn't say, oh, I'm just done with you. No, he'd send them a judge, they'd sin again. And he did that again and again and again.

David. This is one story that you may not have heard, but it's so important. Yes, David sinned greatly with Bathsheba.

Adultery with her, murdered her husband. I mean, it was really bad.

But what people don't realize, because they don't read the Bible in proper chronological order, and there's a whole lot that can be said about that.

But if you read and you map it out, and particularly you look in the Book of Chronicles, David's sin with Bathsheba took place when he was about 40 years old. And he lived another probably 20 years or so after that.

And his later years were the times of great productivity and ministry because he prepared for the Temple, he assembled all the materials for Solomon to use, he drew up the plans for everything. And one thing that's incredibly important, he finalized and he, you might say, scored all the Psalms for worship.

You know how in your Bible there's those little funny little notes to the chief choir director, sung to the tune of Lilies of the Valley, or, you know, different things like that. Those little notes were not some addition later or whatever.

Those are actually David's notes, where he obviously got his psalms from early on in his life, redid them, probably edited them, cleaned them up, whatever, and made them ready for public worship again. One last one. After Peter's betrayal, Jesus goes to find him. And such a familiar thing. He'd gone after him the first time when he was fishing.

And Peter, even though he'd seen the resurrected Lord and all this, he didn't know what to do. He didn't know what to do with his life. So what's he do? He goes fishing again, and Jesus tracks him down. And there he is on the beach.

And in a situation very familiar, he said, try your net on the other side. Because they hadn't caught anything all night and they knew it was Jesus.

And then there's Jesus, not only calling him, but he makes him breakfast on the beach and he commissions him before the rest of the disciples. So again, restoration, peace. That is the pattern of our Lord's dealings with his people. One last thing about Hosea, names are important.

And Hosea, the meaning of his name, is salvation. And from that same root word comes the name Joshua. And also one other name you're very familiar with, Yeshua. Jesus.

Jesus is our Savior, the true lover of our souls, our God, who loves us more than we can imagine, who hurts more intensely than we can imagine when we stray, and who will one day welcome us home with a deep love we struggle to comprehend now, but where our hearts can never wander again and where we will truly live happily ever after. That's all for now. Please check out the show notes, a complete downloadable transcript, graph expansion and related materials at www.bible805.com.

Until next time, I'm Yvonne Prynn, your fellow pilgrim, writer and teacher for Jesus, and I'd like to close with this benediction.

May you know the invitation of God to move from confusion to clarity, from wandering to rest, from loneliness to knowing you are loved, from turmoil to peace, from wherever you are in your spiritual journey to a growing knowledge of God's word and in your personal relationship with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.