Let's turn now in our Bibles to Psalm
86 for our scripture reading today.
Psalm 86, I'll read the first, the unnumbered
verses.
Pastor Brian will lead the congregation in the
reading of the even numbered verses as we
stand to read the Word of God.
This is a prayer of David, bow down
thine ear, O Lord, hear me, for I
am poor and needy.
Preserve my soul, for I am holy.
O thou my God, save thy servant that
trusteth in thee.
Be merciful unto me, O Lord, for I
cry unto thee daily.
Rejoice the soul of thy servant, for unto
thee, O Lord, do I lift up my
soul.
For thou, Lord, art good and ready to
forgive, and plenteous in mercy unto all of
them that call upon thee.
Give ear, O Lord, unto my prayer, and
attend to the voice of my supplications.
In the day of my trouble I will
call upon thee, for thou wilt answer me.
Among the gods there is none like unto
thee, O Lord, neither are there any works
like unto thy works.
All nations whom thou hast made shall come
and worship before thee, O Lord, and shall
glorify thy name.
For thou art great and doest wondrous things,
thou art God alone.
Teach me thy way, O Lord, I will
walk in thy truth.
Unite my heart to fear thy name.
I will praise thee, O Lord my God,
with all my heart, and I will glorify
thy name forevermore.
For great is thy mercy toward me, and
thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest
hell.
O God, the proud are risen against me,
and the assemblies of violent men have sought
after my soul, and have not set thee
before them.
But thou, O Lord, art a God full
of compassion, gracious, long-suffering, and plenteous in
mercy and truth.
O turn unto me, and have mercy upon
me.
Give thy strength unto thy servant, and save
the son of thy handmaid.
Show me a token for good, that they
which hate me may see it, and be
ashamed, because thou, Lord, hast helped me and
comforted me."
Let's pray.
Our Father, how grateful we are that we
have been called to be your children, and
to know that you are a compassionate, merciful,
gracious, loving Father, so patient in training us
in your ways, drawing us unto yourself, revealing,
Lord, to us your purpose, your plan for
our lives.
Thank you, Lord, for this day in which
we can gather, and to worship you, Lord,
and to again learn more about your unfailing
love for us.
Bless this study now.
Open our hearts to receive your truth.
In Jesus' name, amen.
You may be seated.
Well, we start the book of Hosea this
week, as we continue our journey through the
Bible.
Tonight, Pastor Skip will lead us through the
study of Hosea chapters one through four.
They are short little chapters, and so you'll
have plenty of opportunity to read and study
them over this afternoon, and join with us
this evening, seven o'clock, as Pastor Skip
takes us through from Genesis to Revelation.
This morning, we'd like to draw your attention
to Hosea chapter three, verse one, where Hosea
declares, Then said the Lord unto me, Go
yet and love a woman who is 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 flagons of wine.
In the twelfth chapter of Hosea, God said,
I have also spoken by the prophets, and
have multiplied visions and used similitudes.
Now, a similitude is a likeness, a resemblance,
a representation.
The root word is similar, and of course,
we have the word similarity, and that comes
close to similitude.
It is something that is like, very similar
to, and is used to illustrate the truth.
And so here we have the similitude of
uh, the Lord's dealing with the nation of
Israel, as we see Hosea and his dealing
with his wife, his marriage, his children.
It becomes a similitude, a likeness of how
God is working with the nation of Israel.
God commanded Hosea in chapter one to take
a wife who was a prostitute.
She, in her prostitution, was likened unto the
nation of Israel, who had served other gods,
which in the eyes of God is spiritual
idolatry.
God saw himself as married unto Israel, that
intimate relationship of husband and wife.
So for Israel to be attracted to and
to love other gods, and to serve other
gods, was in the eyes of God, spiritual
adultery.
They were to be married unto God, and
yet they had a love for idols and
for other gods.
And so Hosea took a bride who was
a prostitute.
Evidently very beautiful, and he did indeed love
her.
She bore a son to him.
He called the name of the son Jezreel.
The word Jezreel in Hebrew means scattered.
And God was declaring that he was going
to scatter the nation of Israel because of
their turning their backs on him.
So that everywhere little Jezreel went, as people
would call him, it would be a reminder
of the warning of God that they were
going to be scattered throughout the world because
of their turning their backs upon God.
His wife then bore a daughter to him.
He called her name Loruhamah.
Ruhamah is the Hebrew word for mercy.
Lo is the Hebrew word for no.
It's a negative prefix.
So Loruhamah would be no mercy.
God is declaring now that he was not
going to show mercy upon Israel any longer.
He had been very merciful.
He had called to them.
He had sent his prophets.
He had used similitudes, but it was over.
He was no longer going to be merciful
to their turning their backs on him.
They would be conquered and they would be
scattered throughout the world.
His wife bore another child.
He called his name Lo-Amy.
Lo-Amy is a word that means my
people.
Put the Lo in front of it and
you have not my people.
Hosea is saying this is not my son.
His wife has committed adultery.
The son has been born, but Hosea says
it's not my son.
The similitude God is saying to the nation
of Israel, you are no longer my people.
I'm not going to have mercy on you
anymore.
I'm going to scatter you because you are
not my people.
It is interesting when the Lord talks about
the scattering of Israel.
He declares that Judah, that is the Southern
tribe, would not be scattered at this time.
That would come later.
God promised that he would have mercy upon
Judah.
No more mercy for Samaria, the kingdom of
Israel, but he would still show mercy upon
Judah, would save them.
But not by bow or sword or battle
or horses or horsemen, but by the hand
of the Lord.
It is interesting.
This is a prophecy concerning Judah.
And when the Assyrians came to Israel, the
Northern kingdom, conquered it and took them as
captives and spread them throughout the world, they
came down to Jerusalem.
The Assyrians set siege against Jerusalem.
It was during the reign of Hezekiah.
Isaiah was the prophet to Judah at that
time.
Isaiah had said to Hezekiah, God will deliver
you from the Assyrians.
You don't need to worry.
And so one night we read that an
angel of the Lord passed through the camp
of the Assyrians and killed 185,000 of
the Assyrian troops.
Those that were left alive fled back to
Assyria, and thus God fulfilled the promise.
He would show mercy unto Judah.
He would deliver them, but not with the
sword and not with horses or horsemen, not
with the bow, but with the hand of
the Lord.
And that prophecy was fulfilled.
Not my people.
You know, it is always a tragic day
when in the life of an individual or
in the life of a nation, God declares,
they're no longer my people.
You're no longer my child.
And God disowns them as a nation.
And I wonder about our nation.
Just how close are we to God declaring
of America, Lo, Amy, not my people any
longer.
In Romans chapter one, Paul tells us that
because when they knew God, they did not
glorify him as God and neither were they
thankful, but they became vain in their imaginations
and their foolish hearts were darkened and professing
themselves to be wise.
They actually became fools because they changed the
glory of an incorruptible God.
And they made it like unto corruptible things,
birds, beast, creeping things.
And therefore God also gave them over to
their uncleanness through the lust of their own
hearts to dishonor their own bodies between themselves.
And they changed the truth of God into
a lie.
They worshiped and served the creature more than
the creator who is blessed forevermore.
And God declares, Lo, Amy, you're not my
people.
You're not doing my will.
So as Hosea's three children were growing up
in the community, their lives were a message
to the nation of Israel.
You're going to be scattered.
God's not going to show mercy any longer
because you are not God's people.
It would seem that at this point, Hosea's
wife left him and she went back to
her old practices as a prostitute.
She must have been a very beautiful woman,
truly loved by Hosea.
But she left him that she might live
the sensuous life of luxury by being a
prostitute.
Hosea pleaded with her to return, but she
refused and he was brokenhearted.
He watched her as her life began to
be wasted as the result of the lifestyle
that she had chosen.
For she was engaging in one adulterous affair
after another and sin began to take its
toll upon her life.
And she aged very rapidly.
Her beauty was fading.
And with that, her desirability until her life
was soon a wreck.
The nation of Israel.
In the beginning, they had come out of
Egypt and they had been worshipping the gods
of Egypt.
They had been more or less prostituting themselves
with the foreign gods.
But when God called them, he called them
unto himself the first commandment, thou shalt have
no other God before me.
And he was to be their God.
You're not to bow down to any image,
to any idol, to worship it.
And they accepted this covenant with God.
And they declared that he was their God
and God blessed them.
And as long as they sought the Lord,
God prospered them.
But when the kingdom was divided between the
north and the south, the northern kingdom of
Israel, the southern kingdom of Judah, the northern
kingdom turned immediately away from God.
They made worship centers in Bethel and in
Dan and they put up an image of
a golden calf and they worshipped the golden
calf, which they had worshipped in Egypt.
And they declared, this is the God that
delivered you out of your bondage in Egypt,
no longer God's people.
Like the wife of Hosea returning back to
the prostitution, turning away from God, turning away
from the love of God and doing their
own thing and living for their own pleasure.
It would appear that Gomer, the wife of
Hosea, because of the life that she had
chosen was ultimately reduced to slavery.
She became a slave and surely that is
the consequence of sin.
It brings you into bondage.
It starts out maybe as a lark, a
dare, a curiosity, a fling, but it gets
a hold upon your life and brings you
into real bondage.
One day in my office, I observed there
in the windowsill a fly that was caught
in a spider web.
And I watched with interest as this fly
was trying to extricate itself from the spider
web.
But I watched as the spider came out
and pounced upon the fly and began to
bite the fly with its poisonous venom.
I saw the spider with its six legs
held the fly and then with its back
two legs began to spin a web around
the fly.
And at the beginning, the fly was really
trying to get free, working so hard to
get free, but gradually as the spider was
spinning this web, it was entwining this fly
in the web until finally there was no
strength left in the fly.
It was completely bound in that web.
And I thought of how like sin, in
the beginning there is that struggle against it.
There's that fight against it, but gradually as
it gets its hold upon your life, you
come under the power of and in the
bondage to sin until there's no fight left
and you are destroyed by sin.
That's the similitude.
If you want to know what similitudes are
about.
So the story of the unfaithful wife of
Hosea and her going out and living again
the life of a prostitute was the similitude
of the nation of Israel who had turned
against God's love and had begun to worship
other gods.
But here in chapter three, we have a
very interesting commandment of God.
He commands Hosea to go and love a
woman who was your beloved friend, though an
adulterous, love her according to the love that
the Lord has for the children of Israel
who look to other gods and love the
flagons of wine.
So Hosea declared, I bought her for 15
pieces of silver and 12 bushels of barley.
She was no longer the beautiful young girl
that he once married in the beginning.
Her life is now pretty well marred and
ruined by sin.
She's now being sold on the slave market.
Yet Hosea is commanded by the Lord to
go and to love her and to redeem
her.
And so Hosea paid the price for her
redemption.
In this similitude, we see the unfailing love
of God for his people, for the nation
of Israel, though they had deserted God and
they were worshiping other gods and were thus
guilty of spiritual adultery.
Still, God's love for them was unfailing.
His undying love.
God promised that they would be many days
without a king.
They would then afterwards seek the Lord and
David, their king, and they would worship the
Lord for his goodness.
And just as God prophesied here, the nation
of Israel was many days without a king,
without a prince, without sacrifices, without the ephod,
the priestly ministry.
Yet, the Lord said in the last days,
they would return to the land and they
would seek the Lord God and David, their
king.
Now, the first part of this prophecy has
been fulfilled.
They have returned to the land.
The second part is not yet fulfilled.
They haven't yet turned to God.
Israel is still a very secular state.
The people who are truly religious comprise a
very small minority.
But the day will come when their eyes
will be opened to the presence and the
power of God upon their land and upon
their nation, and they will turn to God
and they will seek the coming of the
Messiah.
That day will come when God destroys that
group of Muslim nations who, with the support
of Russia, will seek to destroy the nation
of Israel, and God will intervene with divine
intervention.
Ezekiel tells us about it in chapters 38
and 39.
Chapter 38, 18, it will come to pass
at the time when Gog, who is the
leader of Russia, will come against the land
of Israel, saith the Lord God, my fury
will come in my face, for I, in
my jealousy and in the fire of my
wrath, have I spoken.
Surely in that day there shall be a
great shaking in the land of Israel, and
all of the men that are upon the
face of the earth shall shake at my
presence, and the mountains will be thrown down.
The steep places shall fall.
Every wall will fall to the ground, and
I will call for a sword against him
throughout all of my mountains, saith the Lord
God.
Every man's sword will be against his brother,
and I will plead against him with pestilence,
with blood, and I will rain upon him
and upon his bands, and upon the many
people that are with him an overflowing rain,
great hailstones, fire, brimstone, and thus will I
magnify myself and sanctify myself, and I will
be known in the eyes of many nations,
and they shall know that I am Jehovah.
Then in chapter 39, the house of Israel
shall know from that day onward that I
am Jehovah their God, and the heathens shall
know that the house of Israel went into
captivity because of their iniquity and because they
trespassed against me.
I hid my face from them.
I placed them into the hand of their
enemies where they fell by the sword, and
because of their uncleanness and because of their
transgressions, I did this to them.
I hid my face from them, and therefore
thus saith the Lord God, I will now
bring them back from their captivity and have
mercy upon the whole house of Israel, and
I will be jealous for my holy name.
So after they have borne their shame and
all of their trespasses whereby they've trespassed against
me when they dwelt safely in the land,
none made them afraid.
When I have brought them again from the
people, gathered them out of their enemies' lands
and am sanctified in them and in the
sight of many nations, then shall they know
that I am Jehovah their God, which caused
them to be led into captivity among the
heathen.
But I have gathered them unto their own
land and have left none of them there
anymore, and neither will I hide my face
from them anymore, for I have poured out
my spirit upon the house of Israel, saith
the Lord God."
So as with Hosea's wife, she left him.
She became a prostitute again.
The children were a testimony to the nation.
You're no longer God's people.
God is no longer going to be merciful
to you.
You're going to be scattered.
So the nation of Israel was scattered and
has been scattered throughout the world.
But the Lord promised in the last days
he would bring them back into the land.
He would again claim them as his people,
as they claim God as their God.
He will bring them back from having been
scattered, show mercy, and again claim them as
his people.
We see the beginning of that.
They are gathered and are gathering into the
land.
Before long, the Muslims are going to try
once more to destroy the land of Israel,
and God will defend them in such a
way as they will recognize the God of
Israel, that he is the true Lord.
And Israel will then be received by God,
and again experience God's undying, unfailing love for
them, even though they were unfaithful to him.
Unfailing love flows from his heart and heals
my soul.
In spite of who I am, he loves
and makes me whole.
I almost can't believe it's true.
Unfailing love, and yet I know he gave
his life to give to me unfailing love.
God's unfailing love for you today.
Maybe you, like Israel, have turned away from
God.
There have been other gods that have commanded
your love, and you found that, like as
Jesus said to the church of Ephesus, you
have left your first love.
And maybe that's a message that Jesus, if
he would have a personal talk with you
today, would be saying to you, you've left
your first love.
That fervency, that devotion that you once had
for me and for the things of the
Spirit, and other things have come in, and
you've been caught up with other interests.
And he's calling you, as he did the
church of Ephesus, to repent and to return
back to that first love.
And maybe the Lord is speaking to your
heart today, because he loves you.
He is merciful to you.
He's called you his people, because you acknowledged
him.
But it is possible, like with Israel, to
turn your back upon God, to go other
ways, serve other gods, where God will say,
you're not my people.
I won't have mercy any longer.
You'll go into captivity.
I pray not.
But I pray that you would respond to
the voice of God's Spirit as he would
speak to your heart today, and you'd come
back to that first love.
That he might gather you unto himself again
and declare, my people.
Father, we thank you for your unfailing love
for us.
Though we, Lord, like Gomer, have turned our
interest to other things, there have been other
lovers that have come into our life.
The love for pleasure, the love for the
things of the world.
They've crowded out that place that you once
had in our hearts.
And the love has grown cold.
We pray, Father, that today, there might be
a powerful work of your Spirit in each
of our hearts, drawing us back unto that
first love, unto that relationship that we once
had with you, where you were the most
important thing in our lives, and nothing else
really mattered except our walk with you.
Let that again, Lord, be the paramount issue
of our lives.
We pray, Father, in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Shall we stand?
The pastors are down here at the front
to minister to you today.
If you find this similitude sort of fits
your case, that you, like Gomer, have sort
of gone back to some of the old
practices from which the Lord once delivered you,
sought to find pleasure in the things of
the world once again rather than your full
devotion towards Him, I would encourage you when
we're dismissed, come on down, make a recommitment
of yourself to the Lord, renew your vows
with Him.
He's waiting.
He's paid the price to redeem you from
the bondage of sin, and He will set
you free today.
He will deliver you, and I would encourage
you to just come and make that renewal
of your commitment to Him as He draws
you by His love back into fellowship in
Jesus' name.
The Lord bless thee, and keep thee.
The Lord make His face to shine upon
thee, and be gracious unto thee, and be
gracious unto thee.
The Lord lift up His countenance upon thee,
and give thee peace.