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The Bible Breakdown
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The Bible Breakdown
Hosea 1: God's Reckless Love
What happens when God asks a prophet to marry a prostitute? Hosea chapter 1 introduces us to one of Scripture's most shocking love stories – not as a fictional parable, but as a living illustration of divine love that refuses to quit.
The northern kingdom of Israel was spiraling into spiritual darkness around 755-715 BC. While the southern kingdom occasionally had good leadership, the northern tribes consistently rejected God despite His persistent warnings. Enter Hosea, a prophet commissioned with perhaps the most difficult personal assignment in biblical history: marry a prostitute named Gomer and have children with her as a living metaphor for God's relationship with unfaithful Israel.
Through this heartbreaking family drama, we witness the painful reality of betrayal alongside the stubborn persistence of divine love. The children's names – Jezreel ("God scatters"), Lo-Ruhamah ("not loved"), and Lo-Ammi ("not my people") – reflect God's judgment on Israel's unfaithfulness. Yet even amid these harsh pronouncements, God offers glimpses of astounding hope: "At the place where they were told 'you are not my people,' it will be said 'you are children of the living God.'"
This divine soap opera reveals profound truths about our own relationship with God. Like ancient Israel, we often stray from the One who loves us most. But the message of Hosea assures us that God's love isn't contingent on our performance. He pursues us relentlessly, not because we deserve it, but because it's who He is. As Jesus himself quoted from Hosea, "I want you to show love, not offer sacrifices. I want you to know me more than I want burnt offerings." God desires relationship over religion – a timeless truth that still speaks powerfully today.
Join us as we continue exploring this remarkable prophetic book that reveals the scandalous, relentless, reckless love of God. Subscribe now to experience the Bible one chapter at a time and discover how these ancient words still speak to our wandering hearts today.
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The More We Dig. The More We Find.
Well, hello everyone and welcome to the Bible Breakdown Podcast with your host, pastor Brandon, where it is our goal to experience the Bible one chapter at a time, and today is Hosea, chapter 1. Hosea, chapter 1. And if I was to give this one a title and the overall book of Hosea a title, I would call it God's Reckless Love, because it is amazing to see what God's Word is going to teach us about the character of God and the overall, just the way God loves us and the way God has just really put it on the line because of how he cares for us. It's a wonderful book of the Bible to really see the heart of God and just His reckless love. We're going to get all that in just a moment. So if you have your Bibles and want to find it, open up with me to Hosea, chapter one. While you're doing that, as always, of course, if you take just a moment to like, share and subscribe to the podcast, it would really help us to get the word out there. We are trying to create a community of people where we can just go through God's Word one chapter at a time and just continue to grow as we see God's love through God's Word. You can also go to the Bible Breakdown Discussion on Facebook. There's an amazing team of people who are doing devotions there every single day and, as always, the more we dig the more we find. So, once again, if you have your Bibles, want to open up with me to Hosea, chapter 1.
Speaker 0:I want to give us a little bit of an overview beforehand on what Hosea is really all about, because if we're not careful, we will not really notice just how beautiful this book is and how it really kind of goes along with a lot of what goes on in our world today. And that is because you could call Hosea the soap opera of the Old Testament, and what I mean by that is there's going to be a lot of back and forth and a lot of almost scandalous kind of stuff that happens, and it's going to be a situation where God is going to use the real-life example of what Hosea goes through to kind of show us a metaphor of what it looks like between his relationship and the relationship of Israel. So let me give you some background information and then we're going to dive into chapter one. So, first of all, who wrote the book of Hosea? Well, a guy named Hosea did, and he was a prophet during the time of the Old Testament, during the time of the kingdoms, and we'll get into that in just a moment. What we know about Hosea is his dad's name was Beery and he most likely was from maybe the prophet class of people who did the prophesying school of the prophets and that sort of thing.
Speaker 0:Ware is also very interesting, and that is, he was around during a time of just spiritual darkness for the northern kingdom of Israel. And so if you've ever read Samuel Kings Chronicles, that time frame, you had a time when you had David, who is the king, then you had Solomon, who is known as one of the wisest men to ever live. But then, after Solomon, he had a son named Rehoboam, and Rehoboam was not his father, he was not a good king and because of his bad leadership, the nation of Israel split into a northern kingdom and a southern kingdom. The northern kingdom, they were just called Israel, and the southern kingdom was called Judah, and the northern kingdom had ten tribes and the southern kingdom just had Judah and one other tribe with them. And the southern kingdom, they had some good kings and some bad kings, but the northern kingdom, the one where Hosea lived, they were pretty much all bad all the time. There were very few bright spots in the northern kingdom and really the beginning of Hosea's ministry was under a guy named Jeroboam, and he was a really bad one.
Speaker 0:And so it's during this dark time where Hosea comes on the scene and he is trying to show an example, through his life, what this was like for God Now, to whom and when. Once again, it was the northern kingdom of Israel, and it was somewhere between 755 and 715 BC, so it's about 700 years before Jesus. And what is going on here is this is, as Israel is getting further and further into sin, God is continually trying to call them back and call them back and through people like Hosea, and he's telling them if you don't come back to me, you're going to fall, because I'm the only one who can save you. And as the nation of Assyria is rising to power, god's trying to warn them, but it doesn't work, and so they eventually fall in 722 BC. And, as another kind of aside, hosea is the first of what's called the minor prophets, and the reason why they're called the minor prophets is not because they were less important than the major prophets, it's just they didn't have as much writing 're called the minor prophets is not because they were less important than the major prophets. It's just they didn't have as much writing. So, like the major prophets are the one you think about of Isaiah, jeremiah, ezekiel and Daniel most likely is most people's list is included there as well. So Hosea begins this list of lesser known prophets, and it's only because of the amount of writing they did that they're called minor. And speaking of the major prophets, the prophet Isaiah would have been alive at the same time as Hosea, but Isaiah was in the southern kingdom, and so you kind of look at what's going on, you can see that a lot of this stuff is happening about the same time. Now the overall big idea of Hosea is this book makes people mad, and it's supposed to, because the overall idea is God's people are spiritually adulterous, but he remains faithful. Now I'm going to go ahead and tell you this because if you've never read Hosea, it's going to be so frustrating. Hosea is told by God to marry this prostitute named Gomer and it doesn't go well and it just is just heartbreaking to see what he is constantly having to do over and over again. And that's where you see that it is exactly what God is doing, because how many of you have ever read the book of Judges and just said, man, why can't these people get it together? They keep falling over and over again. Well, imagine from God's point of view. His people are falling over and over again, and that is what we're going to see in this kind of living parable. A couple of interesting things about Hosea is it offers this raw look at God's heart, but it also highlights God's covenant faithfulness, even when we fall, and so it really shows just how much God loves us, that even when we fall, he comes back over and over again. Now let me give you a context of what's going on in the rest of the world, and then we'll dive in. About this time, the Assyrian Empire is rising to prominence and they're eventually going to conquer the Northern Empire. Now what's going to happen is Assyria is going to come to power and then they're going to kind of be in charge for a while. But Babylon is going to be rising to power as well, and they're going to eventually take over. Now the rest of the story is then the Persians take over Babylon, the Greeks take over Persia, and then you have the Romans, and so that's kind of how history is working in that situation. A couple more interesting facts about Hosea is scholars believe that this was actually a literal event, that it wasn't just a big parable, that Hosea really did marry a prostitute named Gomer. The word return is one of the most repeated words in the entire book and Jesus quoted from Hosea when he quoted Hosea 6-6 twice in the book of Matthew, showing its relevance in the New Testament. And I love the idea that, despite this very just, so popper-esque kind of environment that's going on, and you're going to hear this in the way that God is talking to the nation of Israel over and over again, you're going to see how it ends not with doom and gloom, but with the promise of healing and renewal. And so, if you're ready, we're going to jump into Hosea, chapter one, we're going to read this and we'll stop along the way as necessary and just kind of give some context. And this is going to be the beginning where you're going to hear this, and then it's going to go from there. So, if you're ready, you have your Bibles. Hosea, chapter 1, verse 1, says this the Lord gave this message to Hosea, son of Beeri, during the years, when Uzziah Jotham Ahaz Now pause, now, first of all, remember every time you see capital L-O-R-D. It's a respectful way for saying Yahweh, and so it's saying Yahweh, the king of kings, lord of lords, gave this message to Hosea, and then what he does is he is showing people the parallel of what's going on in the Northern Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom. So that's why there's all those kings names is Uzziah, jotham Ahaz and Hezekiah. They were in the Southern Kingdom and then Jeroboam was in the Northern Kingdom, all right. Verse two when the Lord remember, yahweh first began speaking to Israel through Hosea. He said to him go and marry a. Now pause, can you imagine you're praying one day minding your own business? The Lord is good. His love endures forever. Hey, hosea, yes, lord, I need you to do me a favor. Can you repeat that? Jesus? Of course he would repeat that Yahweh, and he asks him to go marry a prostitute. But notice that that's kind of the thesis of the whole book, because he says this is going to be an illustration of how Israel has acted like a prostitute. So here we go, verse 3. So Hosea did it. Hosea married Gomer, the daughter of Dablim, and she became pregnant and gave Hosea a son. And then the Lord said Name the child Jezreel, for I am about to punish King Jehu's dynasty to avenge the murders he committed at Jezreel. In fact, I will bring an end to Israel's independence. I will break its military powers in the Jezreel Valley. Soon, gomer will become pregnant again and gave birth to a daughter. And the Lord said to Hosea Name your daughter Lo-Ruhamah. Not loved, for I will no longer show love to the people of Israel or forgive them, but I will show love to the people of Judah. I will free them from their enemies, not with the weapons of armies or horses and charioteers, but with my power as the Lord, their God. After Gomer weaned Lo-Haramah, she became pregnant and gave birth to a second son. The Lord said Name him Lo-Ami, not my people, for Israel is not my people and I am not their God. Yet the time will come when Israel's people will be like the sands of the seashore, too many to count. Then, at the place where they were told you are not my people, it will be said you are children of the living God. Then the people of Judah and Israel will unite together and they will choose a leader for themselves and they will return from exile together. What a day. That will be the day of Jezreel, when God will again plant his people in his land, and in that day you will call your brothers Ami, my people, and you will call your sister Rahama the ones I love. Wow, what a beginning, right? And so, to kind of sum up what just happened, god told Hosea listen, I need you to do me a favor, I need you to go marry a prostitute and then you're going to have children with this prostitute and unfortunately, you're going to have children with this prostitute and unfortunately, you're going to name them the different bad things that's going on in the nation at the time, because Israel has turned away from me. And he said I'm going to bless Judah Remember, that's the southern kingdom because they're doing the right thing, but Israel is not and it's going to be bad. But before it's over with, he says I'm going to turn it all around and those who don't have a people are going to have a people, those who don't have a land are going to have a land. And so that is the beginning of what is going to be a very interesting book, because as they kind of grapple back and forth Hosea and Gomer with their relationship. God is going to say this is exactly what it looks like with me. But here's the thing I want us to catch as we continually go through. This is I want us to remember this that even though God is telling them you're acting like a prostitute, at the same time he's constantly calling them back to him. He's constantly saying I'm not giving up on you, I have a plan for your life. That's why we're calling the overall idea of Hosea God's reckless love. And here's the big idea of today, here's the application point. That's the same thing that God has for us. No matter what we do, no matter where we go, he's always drawing us back to himself. He's never going to give up on us. He's never going to let go of us himself. He's never going to give up on us. He's never going to let go of us. He's always going to draw us back to himself. And even when we go through difficult seasons, god walks through those with us. And so I want to encourage you as we get ready to go through the book of Hosea. It's going to be fun because we're going to be like, okay, I don't know what in the world is going to happen next. It's going to be devastating because Gomer I'm just going to go ahead and spoiler alert she's going to have a hard time staying committed and faithful and we're going to see a little bit of how we act sometimes when we read through this and we're going to get to see just the broken heart of God as he is prophesying through Hosea. But, once again, the overall wonderful thing is is no matter what happens and what goes on, in the end of it all, god never gives up and he shows an amazing, reckless love for all of us. Let's pray together right now, god, thank you so much for the book of Hosea. Thank you, god, that even though there's gonna be rough moments and rough things, we know that in the end it's all, because you're always drawing us back to yourself and, lord, you love us enough to be honest with us and tell us Sometimes we stray away from you, but at the same time, you never stop chasing after us. Thank you, god, for loving us the way you do. In Jesus' name, we pray Amen, amen. Well, god's word says in Hosea 6, verse 6,. He says I want you to show love, not offer sacrifices. I want you to know me more than I want burnt offerings. These are the words of Jesus in the book of Matthew, where he's saying I want a relationship with you and my hope is, as we finish the book of Hosea, by the time we get to the end, you will realize God wants a relationship with you. I love you. I'll see you tomorrow for Hosea, chapter two.
