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Song: The Love Of God
Scripture: Hosea 3:1-4:6
“The Lord has a case against the inhabitants of the land.” Has a Perry Mason ring to it, doesn’t it? The prophets were in a sense lawyers of God’s covenant. They prosecuted God’s case against His people, and charged them with their breach of His covenant revealed through Moses. “Swearing, deception, murder, stealing, adultery…” were all sins condemned by Moses, but loved by Israel.
Some of God’s lawyer-prophets were sent to Judah, some to Israel, some to both. Hosea was sent by God to the northern kingdom of Israel. He began preaching in the 750’s BC in the reign of Jeroboam II. He continued prophesying for the last 30 years of the northern kingdom, until it fell to the Assyrians in 722 BC, just as Hosea had warned.
Hosea’s call was unique. God asked Hosea to marry a prostitute, and to raise up children by her. It may even by that Hosea raised up children that Gomer, his adulterous wife, conceived by other men (1:2, 9). She left Hosea and returned to her harlotry. In today’s reading, God told Hosea to redeem her from the prostitution in which she apparently worked as a slave or as a member of a pagan cult.
Hosea’s family portrait is the likeness of God and His people, Israel. Israel is unfaithful, worldly, adulterous. Though God could put her away, He will instead redeem her from her harlotry by putting her in captivity. God’s love for man is endless, and His discipline is but an expression of His endless love. That’s one of the great messages of Hosea.
Jason Moore
