Hosea’s Family
Hosea 1
There are 14 chapters. There is a natural division between chapter three and the rest of the book.
If you take this book and its message only to mean that God is speaking to a nation and fail to apply this message to the individual, then you missed God’s great message He has for us.
God’s people are now in a Divided Kingdom
The northern Kingdom is soon to go into captivity by the Assyrians
It is this messenger Hosea who God used to tell Israel it is a land of no truth
Immediately God introduces us to Hosea and his family.
Hosea
The word of the Lord came to Hosea, and we will find this man is obedient
This is a true story. It is the story of God’s redeeming love.
Three times in one verse God uses the word whoredoms. 14 times in this book is the word used. It deals with sexual sins
God tells this man to go take a wife who will prove to be unfaithful
God revealed to Hosea this is what his wife would become
Hosea is a picture of our God, whose redeeming love seeks after sinners
The only hope we have is for someone to love us and seek after us.
Hosea means “Salvation”
Gomer
“Completeness” She is anything but that
She forsakes her husband and forsakes her children to go after other men, yet her husband loves her
Jeremiah 31:3 God loved us with an everlasting love. This means His love was never initiated, He loved us since the beginning. There is nothing we can do to make God stop loving us and there was nothing we did to make God start loving us
John 13:1
There was every reason to tell him to leave her, but that is not his love or the behaviour of the love of God
If you had visited Hosea’s house and found what kind of woman she was, we wouldn’t want to be with her or be friends
Hosea shows how God’s heart hurts because of our sin
Romans 3:9-19
When we see Gomer and her sin, we see ourselves, in Hosea we see our God
Jezreel
Hebrew names are very important
“Scattered” God will scatter and judge his people
Now God is judging Jehu’s family for his disobedience
They will be defeated in Jezreel, which is also a location
They could have been obedient to God and had his blessing, but not now
When we go our own way, we are not blessed and used, but scattered and defeated
Lo-ruhamah
God will no longer have pity or mercy
God will no longer be blessing and caring for her, He will not be near us
Sin prohibits God from having that kind of relationship and fellowship with His people
There is no real intimacy with God
Lo-ammi
This is not Hosea’s son
God’s desire is for them to be His people, but because of sin they are not his people
The Jewish people do not know God as their Father, and the way He wants them to know them
There are many people who name the name of Jesus who bears no resemblance as a Christian
It is a serious matter to say you are a Christian and not live like a Christian
“Yet” God does keep His promises
God once again will deal with His people in the very place there were chased from
I Peter 2:9-10