Well please keep a copy of God’s Word in your hand and turn with me to the Old Testament prophet, the minor prophet, Hosea. We are going to be reading together from chapter 11 and reading the first eleven verses as part of the text that we are going to focus on this morning.
As you’re turning there, let me share an incident that happened in our family last year. It was last April, where we found and we promptly adopted a little fur ball, a little kitten, and we named him Blackjack. And Blackjack is a loveable terror. That’s the only way to describe him! He will come to you and he will snuggle and he will get all his cuddles and loves and a split second later he will tear into your flesh! And I have scars to prove it! He has made our house his home and he has really taken up a special place in each of our hearts in our family, which is why his disappearance in December was rather tough, where he disappeared during that rather cold spell that we had. One day he came through, gave us his morning snuggles, walked out the door to play with his community friends, and he just never returned that evening. And we asked neighbors, obviously, to be on the lookout. We posted it on the Nextdoor app, I think it is. The kids were out scouring the streets, calling him and whistling, hoping he would hear. I was out in the car, windows down, looking like a complete idiot, shouting out the window driving around the streets of Belhaven, just with the hope that he would recognize the voice or the whistle and that would prompt him to return home. Well by the third evening, I remember looking out the back, softly saying to myself, “Blackjack, just come home. This is the place where you are warm and you are fed and you are safe and you are loved. Just come home.”
Now that story dovetails quite nicely with regards to an article I read this past week. “Most people deep down know that there is no place like home. Unfortunately, the allure of this world creates an illusion of greener pastures or greater experiences elsewhere, which dims the attraction of home. Often it takes the hard lessons of the road and distant places to stir up fond memories of home and better times. The grass is not always greener. The problem is, sometimes our wanderings lead us so far astray that returning is nigh impossible.” And as Christians, we have to add something to the end of that. Don’t we? We need to say, “But for the grace of God.” And so let’s give our attention to the reading of God’s Word. My wife reminded me that I need to give you the end of the story – Blackjack did come home on day 4, so he’s home and he’s safe, and now let’s read God’s Word.
Before we do that let’s pray, shall we? Let’s pray.
Our Father in heaven, we give You thanks and praise for gathering us together as Your people. We thank and praise You for giving us Your Word, a revelation of Yourself and Your purpose and Your plan. Father, would You please, by Your Spirit, prepare our hearts and minds. Open up the Word to us we pray, and use it to draw us ever closer to Yourself that the praise and the honor and the glory may be Yours and Yours alone. We ask this in Jesus’ name, amen.
Hosea chapter 11, reading from verse 1. This is the Word of God:
“When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. The more they were called, the more they went away; they kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning offerings to idols.
Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk; I took them up by their arms, but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of kindness, with the bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them.
They shall not return to the land of Egypt, but Assyria shall be their king, because they have refused to return to me. The sword shall rage against their cities, consume the bars of their gates, and devour them because of their own counsels. My people are bent on turning away from me, and though they call out to the Most High, he shall not raise them up at all.
How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my burning anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and not a man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath.
They shall go after the Lord; he will roar like a lion; when he roars, his children shall come trembling from the west; they shall come trembling like birds from Egypt, and like doves from the land of Assyria, and I will return them to their homes, declares the Lord.”
The grass withers, the flowers fade, the Word of our God stands forever. Amen.
Briefly I think that before we get into our passage this morning, I think we need to be reminded of the context in which the prophet Hosea is prophesying. At this point in world history, the northern kingdom of Israel is under the rule and the reign of Jeroboam II. Scripture tells us that he was an evil king in the sight of the Lord. In other words, he did not rule as a righteous king. And yet it was under the rule and the reign of Jeroboam II, this evil king, that in actual fact, Israel experienced a period of military peace and great prosperity. God’s grace is on display even in that. The unfortunate thing is that the consequences of this military peace and the growing prosperity, the economic prosperity, was the people’s pursuit of ease and comfort. They had taken their eyes off the Lord who actually gave them this peace and who gave them this ease and they put it onto the things of the world that they were now able to accumulate and enjoy. They became increasingly complacent, we are told in Scripture, both spiritually and ethically.
And so God raises up a number of prophets, men who will prophesy the Word of God to the people of God in order to get them to the point, calling them to repent and to once again return and to believe and to worship and to obey Yahweh, their Lord. Hosea is one of these men. In fact, Hosea is the last in a long line of prophets that God raises up in order to call them to repentance before judgment is enacted. You need to hear this. He prophesied for over 50 years. Consistent message, prophesied to the people of Israel – repent and return. Hosea’s voice would be silenced in 725 BC as he breathed his last and Israel would be carried off into exile in 722, 721 BC. They did not heed the warning, and as a result, God raised up the Assyrians to take them off into exile to deal with His people to discipline them for their rebellion.
And it’s in the midst of this historical setting that our passage actually comes alive; it’s illuminated. Now I would encourage you to go and read the entire book of Hosea. It will take you a good 30 minutes or so this afternoon, but as you read the book of Hosea, the opening 3 chapters detail the real life marriage that takes place between the prophet Hosea and his unfaithful wife, Gomer. This is not another story that is not to be believed as if it didn’t take place as some commentators would have us believe. This was a real life marriage that took place between Hosea and Gomer. And of course it was meant to be symbolic. It’s meant to cause the people of Israel to realize that what God is speaking about here is actually the relationship, the covenant relationship that exists between God and His people that extends from centuries before. It’s as if God, in this last ditch effort before judgment must fall, He’s using another one of the senses to appeal to His people. They’ve heard it, they’ve heard it, they’ve heard it, they continue to hear it, but now they also visually see it. And it’s almost as if He is trying to appeal to them, “Please, I don’t want to discipline you. Come back. Return to Me.”
I want you to see the grace and the patience and the long suffering of God. Don’t miss that in the way that He is dealing with His people. By the time we get to chapter 4 through 10 of the book of Hosea, we have a cycle of short oracles that are pronounced. The theme of those oracles is the covenant that’s established. It’s the idolatry of the people of God. In other words, their unfaithfulness. And then it’s judgment. And the judgment comes because of the idolatry that God must now carry out; the covenant curses that were established in the covenant that was spoken of back in the book of Deuteronomy.
And so by the time we come to chapter 11, God gives us a second image of what He is like. Not only is God like a faithful husband, but He is also a good Father to us. In this one chapter, we are reminded of and we are confronted by God’s sovereign, His tender, His pursuing, disciplining, and of course gracious love. It’s a love that is unlike anything that we as human beings can begin to fully comprehend. There’s a children’s song that says the love of God is so high, it’s so wide, it’s so deep. Many of you will probably know it. And that’s part of the picture that is on display in chapter 11 here. And so from the text this morning, I want us to notice three things. I want us to notice how Hosea speaks of God’s tender, covenant love. And then he speaks of God’s chastising love. And then he speaks of God’s merciful love. And that’s the outline that we are going to follow as we work through these verses together. God’s tender, covenant love, God’s chastising love, and God’s merciful love.
God’s Tender Covenant Love
Firstly, we encounter in verses 1 through 4, God’s tender, covenant love. Let me read verses 1 and 3 again. ““When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.” Verse 3, “Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk; I took them up by their arms, but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of kindness, with the bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them.” If nothing else, when you hear those words being read, I hope that you hear the tenderness in the language of the Father as He is expressing Himself to His son, Israel. Isn’t it interesting that He encapsulates their bond from its very inception. He goes back to when He was the one who came down and called them to be His own. There’s affection and there’s care. There is a commitment from God’s side and there is a concern from God with regards to, “Why are you responding the way you are responding?” It’s a deep and abiding love that is being expressed and it’s expressed so beautifully if you take time to really listen to the words there.
Now there is something in our 21st century, or being this side of the cross, that we as Christians might not pick up on. These words in verses 1 through 4 particularly as designed to catch the hearer in Hosea’s day by surprise. Why do I say that? He compares Himself, God compares Himself, to a Father. Now to us as Christians this side of the cross, there is nothing controversial about that at all. In fact, it’s the language of family, is it not? And at the same time, isn’t it Jesus that actually taught us that when you pray, pray like this – “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name” – just as we prayed a few short moments ago. But to the people in the Old Testament, the idea of God as Father was completely foreign and it was unheard of. This was something that was very hard for them to accept. No Jewish person dared to speak of God as their Father in case they collapsed the distinction between Creator and creation. There was a reverence that they had implanted in their mind.
And I think that that helps us also to understand why the religious leader, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, why they responded to Jesus with such vehemence when He spoke about that He is talking to His Father or when He was telling His disciples that He is to pray to His Father. It was complete irreverence for them, if not blasphemous, even demonic. And hence, they needed to deal with Jesus; they must get Him out of the way. And so the plan of God was beginning to unfold and be put into action.
And as we come back to our text, notice how God uses this imagery of a Father to rekindle their sense of belonging, to reach into their heart and to rekindle their affections. He’s after their heart, after all. He wants them to return, to come back. And so He reminds Israel that He loved them and He called them and it’s from their childhood. Now that language that is used there, that imagery of “loved” and “called,” is meant to remind us – not just the Jewish person, not just the people of Israel – but it’s meant to remind us that it is God who chose us; it is God who chose us. He loved them. He called them. He named Israel, Israel. He adopted them.
Why did He do that? Now when Hosea is telling this or preaching this Word, the prophecy, in the mind of the Jew who was listening, Deuteronomy 7 would have been ringing out. Here’s what Deuteronomy 7 says. “It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set His love on you and chose you. For you were the fewest of all the people. But it is because the Lord loves you.” And then He says this – “and is keeping the oath that He swore to your fathers that the Lord redeemed you from slavery.” There was absolutely nothing in Israel that was appealing to God at all. The only reason that God adopted and brought them out of slavery out of Egypt is because of His covenant that had been established with their forefathers. And that covenant was grounded in the electing love of God from before the foundation of the world. God cannot renege on what He has sworn. He must remain faithful to what He has said in His Word, even if Israel is unfaithful.
And unfaithful they were. You look at the text in verse 2. The more God called out to them, to His people, with His Word, guess what? The more they went away. They kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning offerings to idols. It’s just like the prodigal son, isn’t it? The prodigal son who goes off to a far country to worship the idols and to pursue the ways of the world, thinking that’s going to bring joy and happiness and peace and comfort. Well here you have Israel who think that it is best to sacrifice to the pagan idols of the surrounding nations. It’s almost as if they have listened to God and they are trying to adapt God’s Word to pick up so that there is a little bit of this and a little bit of that. “We bring it together so we make it how we want to worship God.”
Friends, despite their rebellion, despite their unfaithfulness, despite this spiritual adultery, God acted with love and tenderness towards Ephraim. Look at verses 3 and 4 again please. Having adopted them, He speaks and He says He cared for them when they were spiritual infants. Do you hear the tenderness there? When they could do nothing, He was the one who took care of them. He taught them to walk. It’s the imagery of a father putting his hands under the armpits of his son or daughter, stabilizing, so that as they take their next step they feel as if they’re supported; there’s balance until they are able to walk by themselves. It’s He who carried them and shielded them when there was harm. He is the one that healed them when they were sick, even when they were oblivious to it. Commentators tell us that that is meant to be an imagery of what happened in the wilderness with the snakes when they were bitten, and as long as they looked up at the bronze serpent they would be healed. And of course the bronze serpent on the stick was meant to be a type of Christ, pointing them to that which would come later on. In addition to healing them, He is also the one who condescended to feed them when they could not feed themselves. Again, it’s about the manna and the quail that David has been speaking of just last week in the worship service – that God provided that for them daily. You see, without the Lord, Israel would have died. Every event, every detail, everything – it stems from the Father’s tender, covenant love towards His own.
Now at this point, you need to realize that this is not just Israel’s story, is it? This is actually our story. As you’re sitting here in worship this morning, where are you with the Lord? What’s going on in the inner recesses of your heart? Are you wandering away, thinking that maybe there is a better option where you can have greater peace and joy and happiness and comfort? Have you forgotten that it is God who rescues you from slavery? He brought you out of bondage. He took away and wiped the slate clean with regards to your sin. That He chose and called you. That He is the one who gave you faith so that you may repent and believe as you first did. And He is the one that continues to carry and to heal and to sustain you. He’s a Father with tender love towards His own because of the work of Jesus Christ.
I’m very aware that there may be someone here who is here this morning who has never received and rested upon Jesus Christ. And my question simply to you, in light of how God the Father expresses Himself towards His image bearers, “Why have you not received and rested upon Jesus Christ? Why do you continue to dwell in your sin and live in it?” We know the verse from the great hymn, “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love.” You see, it’s the horror of our sin that scorns His love towards us.
God’s Chastising Love
And that really brings us to where we are confronted in verses 5 through 7 of God’s chastising love. We are confronted by God’s chastising love. In fact, this is the major, overarching theme of the entirety of the message of the prophet Hosea. It’s that God is disciplining His people to bring them back. And so despite God raising up a number of prophets over the years, Hosea being the culmination of those prophets, Israel continued in active rebellion against God. They had turned from their Father. They turned away, and now they face God’s dreaded judgment. And so God tells them that He is raising up the Assyrians. They will not go back to Egypt where they will have cucumbers in slavery, but He is raising up the Assyrians, this brutal world empire, to bring about His judgment and to discipline them.
Now one thing I need to mention at this point is, please remember that the problem is not simply Israel’s sin. The problem is not Israel’s sin. God knows our frame. We sang that just in one of the hymns this morning. God knows our frame. He knows that we are weak and we are frail. We are prone to fall into temptation and to sin. He knows that of us. But if you look at verse 5, the problem that God has is that they will not repent. They will not repent. “They shall not return to the land of Egypt, but Assyria shall be their king, because they have refused to return to me.” That’s interesting, because if you look down to verse 12 of chapter 11, and chapter 12 verse 1, two verses we never read, but if you look down to those, they seem to indicate that God’s people are actually overwhelmed by guilt because of their lies and the deception and the deceitfulness of their ways. And yet, rather than repent, they actually reach out to make a new covenant with the Assyrians in order to lessen the blow. They are reaching out to the very people that God is raising up to bring disciplinary action. And here they are, they are reaching out to make a new covenant rather than just simply ratify and actually live with the covenant that’s already in place with God whom they know. Some others also hedge their bets by actually reaching out to Egypt. You know my question is, “How far gone must your conscience be to think that alliances with the world and with the world’s leaders and the world’s system is better than the yoke that God simply lifts from our jaw and from our neck? How far gone must our consciences be?”
Well God’s Word is firm, is it not? Judgment will come in the form of a destructive invasion. We see it in verse 6. “The sword shall rage,” we are told. In other words, many lives will be lost. “Consume the bars of their gates” is indicative of the fact that the cities will be leveled. And “devour them because of their own counsels” – in other words, it’s your own counsel, your own foolishness that has actually brought this upon yourself. Many will be carried off to Assyria, some will flee to Egypt, but God will deal with His people.
And it would seem at this point that Israel has come full circle, that this is the end. But of course living this side of the story of Scripture, we know that it’s not complete. But let me just pause there for a minute. Friends, God is patient with us as His image bearers. There’s no doubt. He is patient with you; He is patient with me. But God is also holy and He is infinitely just and perfectly just. Wiley spoke a little bit about this in the evening service just last week as well. His holiness demands that justice be meted out against sin. It cannot simply be overlooked or downplayed or swept under the carpet. It must be punished, and we are guilty, as sinners we are guilty and we are justly deserving His wrath.
God’s Merciful Love
And again, we need to come back to that phrase – “but for the grace of God.” And that really brings us face to face in verses 8 through 11 with God’s merciful love. God’s merciful love. Because even in wrath, even in wrath, God extends tender mercy. We cannot miss that. The only reason that rebellious image bearers aren’t consumed by His holy wrath is because His love constrains His power to bring about His justice. His love constrains His power to bring about justice so that we are the recipients of mercy. Let me read verses 8 and 9. “How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my burning anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and not a man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath.” Do you hear the inner turmoil? Now in the perfect mind of God and in His perfect world, there is no real turmoil. But what God is doing here is He is condescending with human language so that human beings, both Israel and us, will comprehend the sinfulness of sin and how absolutely serious it is in the face of a holy God. And at the same time, He needs us to understand the miracle of divine mercy that’s being extended. And it’s a mystery, isn’t it? We deserve one thing, and yet we receive another, all because of God’s sovereign love.
Israel’s sin brought her to the brink of destruction. We are told in the text that God ought to give them up. He ought to hand them over. In fact, He would be perfectly just to swiftly annihilate them, just like He did with Admah and Zeboiim, the two cities that were destroyed along with Sodom and Gomorrah back in Genesis 14 and 19. But God relents. He says, “How can I do it? I love you. I have made a covenant with you that I would never destroy you as my people again.” Now one of the questions that I had was, “Did Hosea understand how this conundrum, this difficulty sticks together?” Do you think that for a moment Hosea could comprehend how God was going to bring justice and mercy together? There’s no way that he had full understanding of that. And yet, he knew and understood enough to know that God’s standard could not be lowered. And he also knew that for every man, woman, boy and girl to be the recipient of forgiveness, there needed to be repentance. And per the Levitical code, there needed to be a sacrifice. It is through the shedding of blood that there is the forgiveness of sins. God’s mercy requires a substitute for sin in order that His justice is quelled.
It was the Puritan, Thomas Brooks, who said that, “At Calvary, as you look at the cross, justice and mercy kiss.” I think it’s a beautiful and apt description of what is actually going on here in the prophecy of God with Hosea. It is God’s covenant, chastising, merciful love that is experientially made known to us in Jesus Christ. After all, He is the Son that was called out of Egypt that was spoken about in Hosea 11 verse 1. Matthew actually quotes that exact verse in relation to Jesus Christ. You remember when Joseph, Mary and Jesus had to flee to Egypt because of the terror that Herod was bringing upon the nation? Well at an appointed in time, He also instructed them to come back to Israel. “Out of Egypt, this is My Son.” It is Jesus’ perfect life that recapitulates unfaithful Israel, and it is in Jesus that He accomplished what they could never do, what we could never do. He lived the perfect life and He died the perfect death. And so for us to grasp the conundrum of God’s wrath and His mercy and His justice, we must look to God’s patience and His long suffering with us in order to bring about the fulfillment in the covenant of redemption in Jesus Christ at the cross of Calvary. That’s why He’s patient and He’s long suffering. It’s His love that ultimately will be on full display in what Christ does and lays down His life.
And I think that’s why verses 10 and 11 are also very important in our text. Hosea here prophesies a word of hope. A word of hope. There will be a regathering. Yes, He will deal with His wayward people but it will not be their end. And so when the lion roars, there will be a homecoming. Some of you have been to Africa and some of you have probably been on a bit of a safari. In Africa, if you’re on a safari and you hear a lion roar, it’s enough to strike fear into every single creature, except the cubs that belong to that lion. It’s a roar of comfort and it’s an indication and a call to come home for the regathering. Only when the exiles have returned home, when Israel has returned home, that they become the incubator for the coming of the Messiah as part of the fulfillment of God’s redemption plan.
Let me end with this. Friends, at the cross, where justice and mercy kiss, the glorious Gospel of the love of God is what shines forth. We’re reminded that God’s love to spare us and to offer forgiveness and mercy and redemption, it comes at a cost. And it’s the cost of His own Son. It’s upon Him that justice was meted out so that we would be the recipients of mercy. And it’s because of the enormity of that sacrifice and it’s because of the greatness of the gift of mercy that is on offer, that God doesn’t ask us to repent; He commands us to repent. He commands us to receive and to rest upon the Lord Jesus Christ and then He commands us to know and to rejoice in the Father’s love and His kindness to us. As each of you are seated here this morning, I don’t know the details of what’s going on in your hearts. Only God does. But I do wonder if some of you are wandering, or maybe there has been a dulling with regards to the beauty and the majesty and the glory and the spectacular nature of who this God is that loves us to this extent. And this morning God is calling you, “Come back. Come back and rest in Me. Be strengthened by Me. And let Me show you more of Myself so that your heart and your affections belong to Me, not just partially but in their entirety.”
Let’s go to the Lord in prayer. Let’s pray.
Father, we do thank You and we do praise You for a text such as this one that speaks so clearly about the tender love that You have towards us as image bearers. Father, search our hearts, we pray. We pray that there may not be a wicked way in us. Father, may we not try and duck and dive, but as we stand completely bare before You, Lord let us come. Draw us to Yourself that we may know You all the more clearly and love the Lord Jesus Christ with heart, soul, mind and strength. Continue to do a work of grace, we pray. Amen.