Weekly Meditations: Hosea 1:1-3

Over the course of my final weeks in Japan, I want to try and dissect the book of Hosea.  Tonight (or possibly today for you), I simply want to introduce this book and explain why I think it is important.  Hosea is prophetic book that mixes prophecy with a small amount of narrative.  It is close to my heart  because it literally is overflowing with the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Its themes of judgement and redemption, among other themes, are a great way to explain what the gospel of Jesus Christ is.  My goal over the next few weeks is to do just that.

Tonight lets begin with the first part of Hosea which focuses on the narrative story of Hosea's life.

1 The word of the Lord that came to Hosea son of Beeri during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and during the reign of Jeroboam son of Jehoash king of Israel: ² When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, “Go, marry a promiscuous woman and have children with her, for like an adulterous wife this land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the Lord.”³ So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.

God watched as his nation Israel fell deeper away from him and deeper into sin.  God loved Israel like a husband loved a wife, but yet Israel went to other false Gods rather than the true God, Jehovah.  The false Gods didn't love the Israelites, and really, the Israelites didn't love the idols.  To show a picture of this, God commanded Hosea to marry a prostitute.  Its the perfect picture of Israel and us.  Hosea married a prostitute who wouldn't stay faithful to him just as we don't stay faithful to God.  We proclaim our love for him and then at the drop of a hat, we sin, throwing our love onto something else.  We are the Gomers, the prostitutes in this story.  

The good news however, is that God will never stop loving us, God made a way for us to be with him, he made a way to redeem us!  Over the next several weeks we will look at just that.  The saving gospel of Jesus Christ, that redeems sinners and frees us from sin's power.