Hosea 1 A Prophetic Call

As many of you know, the world cup soccer tournament was held over the last month in Germany. And, as some of you know it ended in the final match a nothing to nothing tie and the game had to be settled on penalty shots with Italy defeating France. It seems that I remember another World cup that had to be settled that way.
But, think about it. What if the game had ended in an 8-7 victory for the United States? What if 10 million Americans poured out into the streets to celebrate a soccer game like they did in Italy?
You think, Ahhhh, it would never happen.
When Hosea began his ministry in perhaps the 780’s BC, The Kingdom was already divided between Judah and Israel. Hosea was preaching to Israel and what we are seeing here is the beginning of a 50 year prophetic ministry.
The Assyrians were hardly a blip on anyone’s radar.
They were those people out there.
But, by the end of Hosea’s ministry, and the time these words were recorded Israel no longer existed as a nation.
They had fallen to the Assyrians never to be brought back again.
Things can happen so very fast and unexpectedly.
Who would have thought that a group of amateur hockey players could have skated to Olympic gold against the Professional Russian in 1980?
We call that a miracle on ice because it was so very unexpected.

Here we see a prophet of God who is receiving some very unusual instructions.
He is being told to marry a harlot.
What is all the more strange is that Hosea’s “wife” never gave up her night job for her husband.
As we look at this chapter, we see that she bore three children to Hosea and each child was named with a message in mind for the people of Israel.
Narrate the Contextual application
Israel had turned her back on God.
She was playing the spiritual harlot and God was using the prophet’s life to illustrate it.
Could you imagine that calling?
Speak to the people of God by marrying a prostitute.
You have got to admit that it would make a very poignant point though.
God was calling Israel an adulteress.
He was calling them a harlot.

It was tragic for God had chosen these people as His own.
He had delivered them from Egypt and given them the great blessings of a promised land.
Now they are harloting themselves to false God’s.
God is taking drastic measures.
He is about to send them into captivity and they are so blinded by their sin that they cannot see it coming.

God says that you are a prostitute to me so we should get one very important message from this text.
It is tragic when God turns his back on His people.

What would lead to that?
Why would God ever turn his back on His people?
It was not until they basically said they wanted no more to do with Him.
Let’s look at a couple of conditions this morning that might influence our own thinking in terms of what we are doing for the Lord.
These conditions are conditions that were clearly met in Israel’s case.
The first is this.
We would completely forsake the Lord’s teaching.
On the New England coast, there was a rescue station for boats that would get in trouble in the surf off the coast. When a boat would get into trouble, a siren would sound from the lighthouse and rescuers would immediately spring into a Boston whaler and row their boat to the boat in trouble. The rescue station became particularly well known and many people started donating to them. Then they decided to renovate their building. Then, they decided to limit their membership to those who could afford to pay the assessments for the renovations. Then they put in a clubhouse, a bar and a restaurant. One day some of the members were standing on the pier sipping their cocktails and watching the surf and they saw a boat getting into trouble. They heard the siren and looked to the north and saw a small Boston whaler rowing out to the troubled vessel. This boat had come from a new rescue station because the old station had ceased to be what it started out to be.

This is what had happened to Israel.
As a matter of fact, it has happened to countless churches as well.
The mentality that we are rescue station has been lost to the fact that we are a gathering place for the saints.
The fact that Israel was a place for the people of God had gotten lost in their leadership’s greed.
That was a problem in Israel from her very beginning.
When the kingdom split, it divided into two parts Judah and Israel.
Solomon’s son Rehoboam had become the king of Judah but he angered the people from the North and they split from Judah as the kingdom of Israel and appointed a Man named Jeroboam to be their king.
Jeroboam was a bit insecure about maintain control and felt that if the people were to travel to Jerusalem to sacrifice, they would turn back to Rehoboam and Israel would again become part of Judah.
So, Jeroboam did the unthinkable.
He built golden calves in the cities of Dan and Bethel so that the people would not return to Judah to sacrifice.
This was a great sin and there never was a king on Israel’s throne after that who did good in the sight of the Lord.
So Israel started off with corrupt leadership seeking to lead them astray.

Now, Hosea’s first son was to be named Jezreel because of a complicated yet important set of historical circumstances.
Jezebel was Ahab’s wife and she procured by murder the vineyard of one Naboth of Jezreel for her husband. The prophet Elijah prophesied that Jezebel’s blood would be licked up by the dogs for her evil.
As it turned out, one of Ahab’s sons Joram, had become king, and while in battle was wounded and was recuperating in Jezreel, He was assassinated there by Jehu, the king to be. His mother Jezebel was also killed and before she could be buried, the dogs had eaten her body.
All of this bloodshed by the kings in Jezreel was reason enough to send judgment on the house of Israel.

Israel did not care about being God’s people.
The Lord’s teaching had been completely forsaken for the sake of the throne and the accoutrements of the king.
I want us to consider this morning if we are seeking after things that take our eyes off of the promises of God?
I want us to consider if we are seeking God and not caring if we have stuff, not caring what we look like, not caring how we or how others are dressed, not caring what time our services are, not caring what the order of worship is, not caring which building we are in.
We are to be seekers of God no matter what.
Jesus said to seek God’s kingdom fist and just let the other stuff come to us.
All too often, we are seeing the other stuff and somehow hoping that God will come to us.
It just does not work that way.

Israel’s leaders were corrupt and the corruption trickled down as people engaged in the practice of worshiping baals.
They had completely forsaken the Lord’s teaching and I pray that we have not.

The second condition that we see in this passage is that we would not be able to recognize God’s work through regular channels.
The kings of Israel had forsaken the words of the prophets.
They did not want God to speak that they might have to listen so God worked in a mysterious way.
I think it’s funny when people say that but we usually push God into the mysterious when we do not listen to the practical.
God made it plain through Elijah and Elisha that there was huge sin in the land but Israel did not listen.
Finally God had to have his prophet marry a harlot and name his children so that they could see that God had lifted his compassion from them and then rejected them as His people.

God may be speaking to us in unconventional ways this morning.
If that is the case, He wants your attention badly.
Do not ignore Him today.
Israel ignored God until it was too late.
We cannot afford to do that for if we do, we will simply be a piece of real estate in another 10 years.