There are some strange stories in the Bible.  I think Hosea is rather strange.  Hosea is a prophet, and sometimes prophets in the Bible can be sort of strange.

          Last Sunday, I talked about Isaiah, the prophet, and how he tells the people that God is not pleased with them, and exactly why.  But Isaiah also paints a picture of hope, if only the people will listen to God and change their ways.  The hope is real, because God is always waiting with open arms to welcome the one who repents.

          Hosea may be strange, but he has an incredibly good understanding of God’s love and of God’s holiness.  But like a good prophet, he also understands that God is displeased with the way his people are living. 

          The book of Hosea opens with Hosea’s weird story about his own family life.  Hosea tells us that God told him to marry an adulterous woman.  So he marries Gomer, a woman with, to say the least, a very bad reputation.  Apparently Hosea did not have any premarital counseling.

          They have a child, and they name him Jezreel, after the massacre at Jezreel.  It would be sort of like naming your child Baghdad or Darfur.  This kid would not likely have an easy time on the school playground.

          As if that was not strange enough, they had a daughter.  Guess what they named their baby girl?  LoRuhama.  That means, “not loved.”  Can you even imagine what people thought about that?  Who has a baby girl and names her “not loved?”

          Then, they had a third child—another boy.  Hosea named him LoAmmi, which means “not my people.”  I guess Hosea also missed the Child Psychology class.

          Well, as anyone could have predicted, Gomer left Hosea.  Apparently, being tied down with a husband and three kids was not her cup of tea. 

          But Hosea went after her and brought her home, paying her bills to get her out of debt.  Then, he began to change the lives of his children as well.  He said, “I will show my love to the one I called ‘Not my loved one’ and ‘Not my people’ will be called ‘You are my people.’”

          Whether Hosea actually did all these things or this was simply a story he told to illustrate his point, no one really knows for sure.  What we do know is that Hosea is painting a picture of God’s undying love for his people.

          Our passage this morning is chapter eleven of Hosea.  If Hosea lived today and he mentioned the Mariners, all of you would know what he was talking about.  But Hosea, of course, wrote a long time ago in a different culture.  So some of the words he uses don’t have the significance for us that they had for his original audience.  So some explanations will help us understand Hosea’s meaning.

          Hosea was a prophet to the nation of Israel.  The Israelites were the people who God had called to be his own.  When the Israelites were in Egypt, they became slaves, and God sent Moses to free them from the Egyptians.  Moses taught the people to worship and obey God alone, and to turn their backs on the idolatry of the pagan cultures that surrounded them.  But unfortunately, the lure of idolatry continued to plague them, which is what Hosea is talking about when he says they “sacrificed to the Baals.”

          Hosea is not only a prophet, but a poet.  Listen to the graceful way he expresses this relationship between God and his people.  As you listen, keep in mind Hosea’s personal experience trying to be a faithful husband of an unfaithful wife.

 ¹ "When Israel was a child, I loved him,
       and out of Egypt I called my son.

 ² But the more I called Israel,
       the further they went from me. 
       They sacrificed to the Baals
       and they burned incense to images.

          You can see that God is disappointed with the way his people continue to stray from him.  In the next section, Hosea paints a beautiful picture of a God who is so like a loving parent—a parent who would do anything for his children.  Ephraim was one of Joseph’s sons, and here it refers to the Northern Kingdom of Israel.

          When I read this next verse, I imagine a parent tirelessly helping a little toddler learn to walk, giving the little one just enough support so the child can learn how to walk.

 ³ It was I who taught Ephraim to walk,
       taking them by the arms;
       but they did not realize
       it was I who healed them.

 ⁴ I led them with cords of human kindness,
       with ties of love;
       I lifted the yoke from their neck
       and bent down to feed them.

          Can you see the gentleness of this parenting style that God demonstrates?  God does not whip his children into shape—instead, he leads them with cords of human kindness; with ties of love.  What a beautiful image this is of God’s love towards his people.

          Still, the children are willfully rebellious, and God the parent mourns over his children.  He sees them running away from him, going exactly the wrong way.  He despairs as he sees them going back to the yoke of slavery that Egypt represents.  He sees them allowing Assyria to rule over them and treat them with contempt, all because they will not follow in God’s ways.

          Most likely you know parents—perhaps you have experienced it yourself—who watch helplessly as their children seem to want to destroy themselves with the lifestyles they choose.  Hosea provided a home and cared for his wife, Gomer.  Yet she was compelled to return to selling herself cheaply to lovers who would eventually destroy her.

          Here, Hosea expresses God’s anguish over his peoples’ apparent need to sell themselves cheaply and destroy themselves.

 ⁵ "Will they not return to Egypt
       and will not Assyria rule over them
       because they refuse to repent?

 ⁶ Swords will flash in their cities,
       will destroy the bars of their gates
       and put an end to their plans.

 ⁷ My people are determined to turn from me.
       Even if they call to the Most High,
       he will by no means exalt them.

          God, in this passage, is torn between his great love for Israel and the reality that he should just give them up to be destroyed.  In the next verse, he mentions two towns, Admah and Zeboiim.  Although they are virtually unknown today, Hosea’s audience knew that these were towns that were destroyed along with Sodom and Gommorah, because of their evil ways.  So what Hosea is saying on God’s behalf here is that Israel deserves to be destroyed, just as Sodom and Gommorah and Admah and Zeboiim were.

 ⁸ "How can I give you up, Ephraim?
       How can I hand you over, Israel?
       How can I treat you like Admah?
       How can I make you like Zeboiim?

          God expresses his anger with Israel, this stubborn child of his, but then, as he thinks about it, he changes.  Imagine that!  God changes his mind?  Can God really change his mind?

          Here, it appears that God can indeed change his mind.  Here’s what God says:

       My heart is changed within me;
       all my compassion is aroused.

 ⁹ I will not carry out my fierce anger,
       nor will I turn and devastate Ephraim.

          Then, God tells us why he has changed his mind.

       For I am God, and not man—
       the Holy One among you.
       I will not come in wrath.

          God, the holy judge, has every right to destroy his people, just as Hosea, the righteous husband has every right to divorce Gomer and let her destroy herself.

          But God is not man—he is God.  He is the Holy One.  God’s holiness is something we can’t fully comprehend.  Even though God in his holiness totally understands how unfaithful his people have been, he cannot bring himself to destroy them.

          Like Hosea, he wants to go after them and find them; to rescue them and woo them back into a relationship based on love.

          Human holiness always moves towards self-righteousness.  I can’t even drive to work most of the time without dealing with my own self-righteousness.  When someone cuts in front of me, especially without using a turn signal, it just makes me angry.  Who do they think they are, anyway?

          God’s love, however, is a holy love.  God’s holy love is beyond the comprehension of human minds, and it is especially beyond the comprehension of human hearts.

          God has fully examined the guilt of his beloved child.  He remembers tenderly how he tried to nurture her as a child.  But she is like Gomer, the wanton woman who is taken as a wife, but insists on returning to her promiscuous ways.

          God is not soft on sin.  Make no mistake:  God is very angry with the behavior of his beloved people.   But because God’s very nature is holiness, his compassion overrules his judgment.  The very nature of God’s holiness is compassion.  God is not soft on sin, but he is soft on sinners.

          No matter how far we wander from God, God yearns to welcome us back.  This great, awesome, holy God yearns for each of us to turn our hearts back to him.

          Listen to God’s dream of reconciliation, as Hosea pictures it.

 ¹⁰ They will follow the LORD;
       he will roar like a lion.
       When he roars,
       his children will come trembling from the west.

 ¹¹ They will come trembling
       like birds from Egypt,
       like doves from Assyria.
       I will settle them in their homes,"
       declares the LORD.

          God is not a wimp.  It’s not that God doesn’t love his children with tough love.  And there will come a time, for each of us, when our chances to make a change in our lives are over.

          There is a Sodom and Gommorah ending—the day of judgment we all will face at the end of our lives.  We know we have been saved by God’s grace and that God offers us forgiveness.  But I think we also need to understand that God does have expectations for us.

          We repent of our sins and we are forgiven and saved by God’s grace, but that is not the end of the story.  We are, each of us, like Gomer, the wanton woman.  God is like Hosea.  He takes us from our sinful life and offers us a new life.  Even when we, like Gomer, stray away from God, God, like Hosea, comes looking for us.  But when he finds us and restores us to himself, he calls us to live a new life. 

          We who have been restored to our God have a calling to live in a relationship with God.  God calls us to become a people after God’s own heart; a people who are filled with the compassion of God.

          Like Gomer, we always have the choice of going back—of turning our backs on God and doing exactly as we please, rather than following God’s ways.  But God always yearns to draw us back to himself and to restore a right relationship with us.  God is always there, drawing us with cords of human kindness and roaring like a lion.  He longs to call us his people, and for us to call him our God.

Prayer:

God, we confess that, like the Israelites, we are too often distracted and lured into worshiping idols rather than worshiping you alone.  How you long to draw us back into relationship with you, drawing us with cords of human kindness and with ties of love. 

Impress upon our hearts today the immensity of your love for us.  Forgive us for our wandering hearts that forget so easily your great love for us.  Remind us that you are the one who is truly good and worthy of our worship.

Lord, we know that your forgiveness is always there for us, and we thank you for Jesus’ death on the cross, given for us.  Help us, as we think on that great sacrifice, to respond to you with love and faithfulness.

Amen