Prophet Hosea: The Living Prophet

This week we consider another Prophet frequently overlooked from the Old Testament—Hosea. Admittedly, Hosea seems to be a book of Judgment that we frequently like to ignore in the midst of world of “peace” and so it might seem to have less of an appeal to us today than it had to those to whom Hosea preached. However, I think this is deeply mistaken especially when one considers the context in which Hosea lived and preached. He lived and preached during the times just before the destruction of Israel in the 8th century B.C when Israel had forgotten God. Can we, as a nation, as a Church, and as individuals relate to that today? Absolutely! Fortunately, Hosea has three things we do well to consider!

The Book of Hosea may be divided into three parts: Chapters 1-3 where Hosea is commanded by God to marry a prostitute; Chapters 4-13 where there is a repeated message of the cycle of sin, discipline and restoration and Chapter 14 that summarizes and emphasizes that last point—restoration. I consider these three features in that order and reproduce why I think Hosea may rightly be called the Living Prophet for he lived out his message.

Feature #1: Living the Message
The opening verses of this Book are almost repugnant as God commands Hosea to take a harlot for a wife. Scholars debate as to whether Hosea writes in retrospect i.e. God told him to marry Gomer and then she turned out to be a harlot or in prospect i.e. God told him to marry the local prostitute. I am not going to enter that debate but I sense that the latter is true for it was important for Hosea to be in tune entirely to the message he was going to bring to Israel. You see, Israel had deserted the God who delivered them—the God whom they covenant with as a wife to her husband—and were now playing the harlot by worshipping other “so called” gods and trampling on the commandments of God.

Someone has rightly said “you will never lighten any burden, unless you feel the burden in your own soul”. Think about those words for a moment! It was important for Hosea to feel the message he was going to bring forth to the people of God—that a Holy and Faithful God has been the recipient of the effects of harlotry of a faithless people. Have you been mistreated by someone you love? Please permit my candor: I was almost utterly broken when my girlfriend told me that no one has yelled at her the way I did once when I was very upset. Yet, if I was that broken, how broken do you think she was at the time? And what’s more? I can’t take back that act. And what the God of the Universe communicates to His messenger is “I, a Holy and Sovereign God, need you to feel a little bit of the burden of Israel’s apostasy”.

But let me bring it home lest we live in the illusion of the distance geographically and historically between us and Hosea. Hosea wrote and preached, not to an unbelieving people but to a believing people, a chosen people, a covenanted people. You and me have covenanted with the Holy God and do we think that He is not utterly distraught by our unfaithfulness to Him either when we sin ignoring His covenant or else when we replace Him as sovereign in our lives? You know what Hosea realized? He realized that as we depart from God whether as a nation, or as a Church or as individuals, we can only feel the heart of God in the names of the children of Hosea—“Jezreel” meaning “punishment”; “Lo-ruhamah” meaning “no more love” and “Lo-Ammi” meaning “not my people”? It was important that the message of unfaithfulness to God be passed through Hosea to Israel by Hosea living out the Message. Have you been burdened by the message of unfaithfulness?

Feature #2: Living in Repentance
Yet, the message of Hosea and the message from God is not merely one of judgment is it? Because in the end Hosea takes back his wife of harlotry as God commanded “Go again, love a woman who is loved by her husband, yet an adulteress, even as the LORD loves the sons of Israel”—Hosea 3: 1. Isn’t that the magnificence of God’s message? It isn’t about *our* faithfulness but about His love. Hosea had to buy back his wife. What a tremendous illustration of the Cross of Jesus!!! Jesus buys us back in His blood to dwell with Him but there is a requirement, namely “You shall stay with me for many days. You shall not play the harlot, nor shall you have a man; so I will also be toward you”—Hosea 3: 3. We must live in constant repentance from our sin. I do not speak about the repentance that we express upon conversion but the repentance we need to express subsequent to it. We don’t become immune from sin upon conversely and need to, like the Apostle John indicates “confess our sins” to Him. Do you live in repentance? I know I struggle with it but such is inevitable when abiding with a Holy and Faithful God. Gomer had to live in repentance

Feature #3: Living in Hope of the Promise
We are not left without hope, though. Hosea’s message to Israel had a recurring theme of unfaithfulness, repentance and restoration. I find this to be true in my walk [and I suspect in yours too]. But the message is not only about now. It also includes the future hope of the resurrection when “we shall see him as He is for we will be like Him”—1 John 3: 2. If that thought doesn’t encourage you through the harlotry we constantly fall into, I do not know what will but I sure hope it does. Hosea in Chapter 14 speaks of the ultimate restoration of Israel—a blessed hope in my walk of the ultimate restoration of this corrupt frame when, as Paul says, we shall be raised incorruptible.

Hosea is a living prophet that speaks to us today in living truly the message of grace, living in repentance and living in the hope of the promised restoration. Be blessed as you do so!