The Prophet Hosea and Jesus Christ as the Word & Israel's Husband

I do have an important message today, and these things maybe I cover them once in a lifetime, being here. So I thought I would just go ahead and skip the congregational hymn and go right into the topic because again, it's one of those that you don't listen very often, this topic, and yet it does have to do with prophecy and doctrine. You know, there are three main areas about preaching in our church, which is doctrine, prophecy, and Christian living. And so it's always good to have a mix, not just have Christian living topics, which of course are enjoyable, but we also need doctrine and prophecy because the Bible, one-third, basically, or close to one-third, is about prophecy. And we also have doctrine, God's laws. You're going to be priests and kings one day, and so you need to know God's laws because you're going to help put them into practice when Christ comes back, as well as putting it into practice now. So Peter warns us not to take for granted what we know because we can forget it. Let's go to 2 Peter chapter 1. Starting verse 12, Peter's very close to death at this time, being persecuted. Eventually he'll be captured, and he died, martyred. And so he's giving his last epistle here. He knows his time of death is coming up quick. So he says in 2 Peter chapter 1, verse 12, he says, For this reason I will not be negligent to remind you always of these things, the teachings in the Bible, though you know and are established in the present truth. You know these truths, but yes, I think it is right as long as I am in this tent, talking about the physical body, to stir you up by reminding you, knowing that shortly I must put off my tent. He would soon die, martyred, just as our Lord Jesus Christ showed me he would. So Peter knew from that time when Christ was resurrected there in Galilee, and he was able to talk with him and talked about what kind of death he would have. And so that was in the back of Peter's mind. And this time was coming upon him quickly. So I want to share with you an incredible and vital biblical story that we should not forget. And when we finish with this particular person and book, you will see it had to do primarily with the pre-existent Christ's pain of divorce, and yet also his great love and the restoring of Israel.

Although Jesus never married physically, in the Old Testament, he had been spiritually married to Israel as a husband, God and Israel. They made a covenant. It was sort of a marriage covenant. They would accept him as a husband, and Israel would become a bride and a wife. As spiritual Israel today, it's so important to appreciate God, the Father's, and Jesus Christ's love for all of us. So this topic, like I said, involves both prophecy and doctrine. And we're going to talk about the book of Hosea and of the prophet Hosea. And it's going to take two parts because it's so extensive, but plan to talk about his example, his sacrifice, his message, which God inspired, and how it applies to all of us as well.

As I mentioned, Hosea pictures the pain of what the pre-incarnate Christ, pre-incarnate means before he became flesh and came down here on earth. He had to go through because of Israel's unfaithfulness and how he would restore her to lasting faithfulness. Hosea became a living example and an actor in this drama of Christ as the Word, as he felt while carrying out God's plan of salvation at that time. Later, he would eventually pay with his life, in other words, more pain to save spiritual Israel, to save his bride. So God has suffered more than any of us will ever do in this life. This book covers the historical period of Hosea's life, but it also covers the future fate of Israel, its expulsion from the land, the house of Israel, its wanderings, its losing its identity, but, more importantly, not its lineage. So it would lose its identity as ancient house of Israel, but the lineage, which means the descendants of Abraham, of these 10 tribes, God would eventually sift them through the nations and take them to where they would be during the end times and the blessings that they would receive because of Abraham's faithfulness. And so Christ would lead them to a new country and pour out enormous blessings that it would enjoy until its time of punishment, which is still in the future. This will bring about repentance and restoration when her husband Christ returns to the earth, and Israel joins its sister Judah in becoming truly a converted nation during the time of the millennium. By the way, this is a lot of material, so I did make some copies of what is the kind of my notes on this topic because just too much information, and I can always send it by email also because this is only part one. We've got a second part to finish this book of Hosea and learn more about this incredible prophet. Yes, he has six copies if anybody they can need one. I think my wife, Cottie, give her one. She's always asking me for copies of my sermon later. You didn't give any that had page two missing, right? Okay, all right. Pardon? Okay.

So this section of scripture with a book of Hosea is a love story that goes really through the entire Bible. This is just one section of that love story between God and his people and began in Genesis and end in Revelation 22.

It starts with, again, I have to use the word pre-incarnate or pre-existing just to make sure it's who became Jesus Christ, the Word. He's the one that's interacting with Israel all the time. So it starts with pre-incarnate Christ's covenants dealing with first Adam and Eve. It's Christ that was there and made a covenant with Adam and Eve about obedience or disobedience.

What would be the consequences? And many other people in the Old Testament, such as Noah, made a covenant with him. Abraham also, Isaac and Jacob. The tribes of Israel, Moses, David, the prophets such as Hosea. And then Israel and Judah's divorce and exile. And then Judah's return eventually to be brought back and be part of the church. Let's look at Jeremiah chapter 3, where the pre-existing Christ has to give Israel a certificate of divorce.

Notice in Jeremiah chapter 3, it says in verse 1, they say, if a man divorces his wife and she goes from him and becomes another man's, may he return to her again? Would not that land be greatly polluted? But you have played the harlot with many lovers, yet return to me, says the Lord.

And then it goes on to say in verse 8, Then I saw that for all the causes for which backsliding Israel had committed adultery, talking about spiritual adultery with all the false gods and idolatry, he says, I have put her away and given her a certificate of divorce.

Yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but went and played the harlot too. And so both were divorced by Jesus Christ. So here Jesus Christ knew what it was to have an experience of kind of a marriage and go through this suffering and pain of divorce. And this story continues in the New Testament with the bride of Christ, consisting of the Old Testament past saints and the New Testament church until Christ's return.

And after Christ returns in the millennium, there is the joining of these physical descendants of Israel and Judah in the millennium. Notice in Ezekiel 37, so some people say, no, these tribes have been lost forever. But notice, Christ is able to gather them. All of these descendants, notice in Ezekiel 37 verse 15. Again, the word of the Lord came to me saying, as for you, Son of Man, take a stick for yourself and write on it for Judah and for the children of Israel, his companions. Then take another stick and write on it for Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel, his companions.

So here you have the two different groups. The house of Israel comprised of 10 tribes, and then the tribe of Judah, along with Benjamin. Then join them to another, into one stick, and there will become one in your hand. So in the future, God is going to unite these divided houses of Israel and Judah. He says, and when the children of your people speak to you, saying, will you not show us what you mean by these?

Say to them, thus says the Lord, surely I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim. He was the leading tribe of the 10 tribes and the tribes of Israel, his companions. Those are the rest of the tribes. There are the 10 tribes, and I will join them with it, with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they will be one in my hand. And the sticks on which you write will be in your hand before their eyes. Then say to them, thus says the Lord, surely I will take from the children of Israel, from among the nations, wherever they have gone, and will gather them from every side, and bring them into their own land, and I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel, and one king shall be king over them.

They shall no longer be two nations, nor shall they ever be divided into two nations again. And then it says verse 24, David, my servant, shall be king over them, showing that this is not talking about this period of time of man's history. This is going to the millennium, to the thousand-year period of Christ's reign.

And they shall all have one shepherd, they shall also walk in my judgments, and observe my statutes, and do them. And they shall dwell in the land that I have given to Jacob, my servant, where your fathers dwell, and they shall dwell their children and their children's children forever, and my servant David shall be prince, their prince forever. Moreover, I will make a covenant of peace with them, and it shall be an everlasting covenant with them. We'll establish them and multiply them, and I will set my sanctuary in the midst of them forevermore. So here it talks about how there's this separation, this type of divorce, which is still going on even today, but how God is going to bring back and heal that breach between the house of Israel and Judah. And Hosea has a lot to say about this. So I want to bring it back now with a good background that we have had, because this is during the millennium when these physical peoples are well are resurrected or no these these are physical people brought from all the nations so that they can become converted during the millennium. Later they will be resurrected, but at this time they will follow God with Christ guiding them. And then, after the thousand years, will come the second and third resurrections, covering the judgment of all peoples that have ever lived. Then God the Father comes down with the new Jerusalem and joins Christ and his bride, where we now see the spiritual tribes of Israel. In other words, the saints, which have such prominence at that time. Revelation chapter 21. Revelation 21. When God the Father brings in new Jerusalem, one of the symbols that he brings to that new Jerusalem, it says in verse 12, it says, and also talking about the new Jerusalem, she had a great and high wall with 12 gates and 12 angels at the gates and names written on them, which are the names of the 12 tribes of the children of Israel. Now these already are resurrected beings, but eventually we will all be part of that group. The resurrected saints, no matter what nationality you are. So it's very important here to always remember what it tells us in Galatians chapter 3. Galatians chapter 3.

Let's go there. Starting in verse 26, it says, For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ had put on Christ, there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. So yes, we are spiritually incorporated into spiritual Israel.

And that's open to all nations with repentance and faith in Christ and baptized, as it says here, into the faith. It says, And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed or descendants, and heirs according to the promise. So this is part of that story, that love story. God is bringing spiritual Israel into his fold. So after this long background, I want to cover the book itself, so you'll be familiarized with it. The book of Hosea is in the section of the Bible known as the minor prophets. These are 12 books of the prophets who wrote shorter books. In contrast to the more extensive works, which are called the major prophets, they're all equally important. They're all inspired by God, but these are 12 shorter books. And you can fit all of those into one scroll. So in the Old Testament times, when you had the different scrolls, one of them was called Shnamezar, which means the 12th. This is the scroll of the 12 prophets. These 12 prophets are included when God says in Jeremiah 7, 25, and 26, about all the prophets that he sent to Israel to try to wake them up, to bring them to repentance before it would be too late, and punishment would be dished out. In Jeremiah 7, verse 25, it says, Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day This is when they left probably around the year 1400 BC. Until this day, this was probably sometime around the mid-700s BC, he says, I have even sent to you all my servants, the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them. Yet they did not obey me or incline their ear, but stiffen their neck. They did worse than their fathers. Therefore you shall speak all these words to them, but they will not obey you. You shall also call to them that they will not answer you. So we know very few conversions are taking place, but we still have to call out. We still have to get the message out. In this world, which has been hardened, it has been hardened by sin, by technology, distractions, by worldliness, how things are spreading. And we're going to mention this in a minute, a little more deeper. So God entrusted all of these prophets with the mission of delivering his message to the two nations of Israel, the ten tribes in the north and the two southern tribes, Judah and Benjamin. So they might receive forgiveness upon repentance or face severe and remedial punishment should they persist in their sins. Remedial means discipline as an educational method to get the learning done. Remedial is you have to somehow deal with discipline or some way to get people's attention. But it's not in a cruel way. It's not in a vain or useless way. No, it's remedial. It means it has a purpose to get them going in the right direction because they're not listening to the words. So now there has to be discipline administered.

Hosea was one of the first prophets sent to the ten northern tribes. His name, Hosea, is a variant of the name Joshua. The same word, but it's just a little different pronunciation. For instance, Numbers 13.8 says about from the tribe of Ephraim, talking about Joshua, it says Hosea, the son of Nun, referring to Joshua. So you can see how Hosea is equivalent term, and it means salvation. He had a long ministry spanning approximately 60 years from about 700 B.C. to 720 B.C. He was in the northern part of Israel. He preached primarily to Ephraim, the leading tribe of the ten northern tribes, whose capital was located in Samaria. That's where Ephraim was. That's where the kingship was as well. Now, the message of these twelve prophets share the same focus as those of the major prophets, such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. But they typically center on one central theme. Since the prophecies of Hosea deal primarily with Ephraim, the tribe, this study will examine the historical evidence regarding the migration of Ephraim through the northwestern area to England.

Even though there's so much migration into England, the latest statistics still say that the white British population is still about 80 percent. Muslims are about 6 percent, and then all kinds of different. But you still have the descendants of Ephraim living in that area. As our booklet, U.S. and Britain and Bible Prophecy, this is the one we have. Sometimes we'll have it out here. I didn't see it this time, but this goes into the topic that I'm dealing with more in depth. It says, the words of the prophet Hosea are a chilling, accurate description of the United States and Britain. And then it quotes Hosea 4, 1 through 3, and 6 through 9. Just as God punished ancient Israel for its sins, he plans to punish its modern descendants for their persistent disobedience.

We also have this topic about the United States and Great Britain and Prophecy in our fundamental beliefs. It's fundamental belief number 15.

It's called the blessings of Abraham.

So, God, in this case, the pre-existing Christ, uses the life of Hosea as a symbol and a personification of the relationship between Israel and himself. The word Christ portrays himself as a faithful and loving husband who has upheld his part of the marital covenant while Israel has acted as an unfaithful wife. That is why he tells Hosea to marry a prostitute who is a woman who earns her living by selling her body to any man willing to pay for its use. So, let's go to Hosea chapter 1. Hosea chapter 1, starting in verse 1.

Like I said, I don't plan to cover this book again, so this is the one shot we have to cover it thoroughly. Hosea chapter 1, in verse 1, it says, The word of the Lord that came to Hosea, the son of Barry, in the days, and here are all the different kings. It's about 70, oh no, 60 years worth of different kings. Hosea, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel. He had a very long reign. When the Lord began to speak by Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, Go, take yourself a wife of harlotry and children of harlotry, for the land has committed great harlotry by departing from the Lord. So he went and took Gomor, the daughter of Dibla'im, and she conceived and bore him a son. Here's a man. Apparently he was single and a man of God. And God says, I need to really scandalize, I need to wake this country up. And so this is what I'm asking you to do. Take a woman from one of these prostitute areas, marry her, and then have a son. Verse 4, Then the Lord said to him, Call his name Jezreel, for in a little while I will avenge the bloodshed of Jezreel on the house of Jehu, which was one of the kings of Israel, and bring an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. So there's a moment when there's not going to be any more the kingdom of the house of Israel. Shall come to pass in that day that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel. And this took place some years later.

This takes place when the Syrians came and they had three different invasions. The first one, they just came and said, Well, we're not going to destroy you, but you have to pay tribute. You have to pay taxes to us every year. Well, Israel rebelled. They came back and they said, Now, we're not going to destroy you yet, but now you have to pay even more taxes to us. And then the third one was when the Syrians came and destroyed Israel and uprooted and took the remnants of those people over to Iran, the area that today is called Iran and Iraq, where they became exiles. So this is the reason, because of this spiritual fornication, their insistence on worshiping idols of false gods, having false religions, rather than the true God, you would cast them out of the land of Israel. And for a considerable amount of time, they would no longer be His people. And just like people, sometimes they leave the faith. They are not His people anymore. They're out there in the world. This is what was happening to Israel. And the eternal would no longer be their God. So they thought God was always going to be with me. Well, He said, no, there's a time when you're just doing so many wrong things that I'm going to separate myself from you. This means that in exile, they would lose their identity. They would no longer remember that they were God's people. They would cease to speak Hebrew and would no longer have the Levitical priesthood to guide them in keeping the laws of God. Just like now, you can leave. And who's going to teach you God's laws if you leave the church?

Although they would maintain their tribal unity among the nations, that's something that God would work out. They kept all of these groups, the different clans and tribes, because they were all taken together. But they still were an entity. They still had a certain amount of the lineage.

They would adopt many pagan customs. But as we will see, they would still remain under God's watchful and benevolent gaze. Notice what it says in Hosea 1 verse 10. Even though He's going to punish them, and they're going to be led into captivity, verse 10, yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them, you are not, my people. There it shall be said to them, you are sons of the living God. So there would be a time when they would come back. Right now, we're in this period of history when this house of Israel has multiplied. It has become one of the greatest blessed people on earth. I'll go into some statistics, but it's about 540 million people from those 10 tribes. Of the house of Israel nowadays. And they have multiplied. If you've ever been to the beach, we were in the beach there, Panama City Beach, and look at all of that sand. How can you count those tiny grains? And God's saying, if you put all the multitude of people, it would be like a beach of how many millions and millions of people? Well, God has been faithful. And then in the book of Amos, which is a contemporary of Hosea, Amos in chapter 9, verse 9, he says, For surely I will command and will sift the house of Israel among all nations, as grain is sifted and aseaved, yet not the smallest grain shall fall to the ground. He says, I'm going to keep intact the lineage of these people.

God has many ways of bringing people where He wanted them to be. So let's continue in Hosea 1.6. So here's Gomer, and she conceived again and bore a daughter. Then God said to her, Call her name, Lo Ruama, for I will no longer have mercy on the house of Israel. Lo Ruama means no mercy, but I will utterly take them away. When they cry out, it's going to be too late. He says, Yet I will have mercy on the house of Judah, and will save them by the Lord their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword or battle, nor by horses or horsemen. And so we see here that He tells Hosea to give his children prophetic names. However, He would not do the same for the house of Judah, because Judah kept the Sabbath, the sign of identity of God's people, as well as the Holy Days and other laws, biblical laws. They kept the food laws, as well. God continued to be the God of Judah. They retained their identity, and He remained so to this day. You know who the Jewish people are? Basically, there's about six million in the country of Israel, and about six million, the great majority, live in New York City, in the U.S. It's almost half and half.

God intervened to save Judah without the use of bow, sword, or battle. At the time that the Assyrians conquered the northern kingdom of Israel and carried its people into exile, 721 B.C., they attempted to do the same to Judah. Remember Kings and Akkirib was able to take forty-eight, or forty-seven or forty-eight, cities of Judah, and then came to Jerusalem, laid a siege on them. But God struck down 185,000 soldiers in a single night, 2 Kings 19.35. The Assyrians were forced to return to their own land, and Judah was spared for more than a century, until it finally also fell and led to captivity.

Notice in verse 9 of Hosea 1, then God said, Call his name Loami, for you are not my people. Because it says, now when she had weaned, which usually is about two or three years, Rama means no mercy, she conceived and bore a son. Then he said, Call his name Loami, for you are not my people, and I will not be your God. So again, prophetically talking about them losing their identity. God would not deal with them like he would deal with the Jews that retained the Sabbath and all of these basic laws.

And even if they're not his people, verse 10, as we read, yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. That's the promise that was given to Abraham about the physical blessings of his people. And remember Joseph, he was the one that would receive the blessings of God and his two sons would receive the birthright promises.

It says in verse 11, then the children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together and appoint for themselves one head, and they shall come up out of the land, for great will be the day of Jezreel. So this is talking about the time when Christ returns.

So in this multitude of the house, it's not talking about the house of Judah, but the house of Israel. Like I said, the Jews now are about 60 million, but those of the house of Israel are about 640 million. So even though they would be taken into captivity, the house of Israel would grow into an immense multitude. God never said they would disappear, but that they would multiply greatly. They would not lose their lineage, even though they considered themselves lo ami. That is not my people. Talk to anybody in all these Protestant churches, and you say, well, do you can do I identify with tribes of Israel and all of this blessings that we receive in this country? They say, oh no, we all earned that ourselves. All of these things from the founding of the country, 250 years, all the blessings, and they say, oh, we don't believe that God is blessing this country through the blessings of Abraham. It is prophesied that these modern-day peoples of Israel would experience what can be called a collective amnesia and deny their true identity. For how long? God answers that this will take place during the millennium. I just read it here in Hosea 1 verse 11. As the Bible knowledge commentary states, the greatness of this last end-time prophecy, the day of Jezreel, will reverse the shame and defeat which Israel experienced there in Jezreel, the Valley of Jezreel, at the hands of the Assyrians. So there's a time when they will be restored back. And guess who will be appointed as their head? Notice Hosea chapter 3 verse 5. It says, afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days. So in the millennium that will be brought back, David will be placed spiritually as a being now over the 12 tribes of Israel. So you see this book of Hosea goes from the time of Hosea, the time of captivity and punishment, the wanderings, but then eventually to restoration and conversion. So there's great hope that is given here.

Oh boy, I think I stapled the wrong one here.

Let me have one. If I can have one of the notes, Carmen. So you can see I've been working very hard, so I had to staple this all very quickly because we got to get here to prepare the coffee social as well. Well, I don't know what happened. I think I photocopied the wrong one. Okay, so we'll then just finish this part of Hosea because I wanted to just cover this first paragraph. But in this book that is called The Tribes by Jair Davidi, who was a Jewish researcher who went to Israel and he was a student and worked there at Hebrew University. And he studied this subject and he studied about the identity of these 12 tribes of Israel to show that it was not true. And yet, here in page 175, he came to the conclusion that what Mr. Armstrong had come as the conclusion of Mr. Armstrong, it was the same one. They independently arrived at the same information. It says, the important point is that the Israelites were exiled, firstly to northern Mesopotamia and Iran Hara area. And from there, they moved mainly into Scythia, whence they eventually continued their movement until reaching northwest Europe. In their places of exile, individual tribes are seen to have been often scattered in several groups which were to converge in northwest Europe. So as they moved, wasn't they all just solidly, sometimes scattered? But some, notice he says, they were to converge in northwest Europe on the same regions as if guided by an unseen hand. Capitalized U and H. Also in their place of exile, the identified tribes were usually in alliance with to other groups of Israelite descent who are identifiable as the same bodies with whom they had been similarly associated in the land of Israel before their exile. This aspect of the subject is a proof in its own right and shows that the methods employed herein to prove and affirm Israelite identity are valid. And so, and Davidia is quoted here in our booklet on United States and Britain in Bible prophecy. So to conclude, we see how, first of all, what Christ, even in his pre-existent state, when he was with God the Father, when he was dealing with Israel, the love, the sacrifice, and then the ungratefulness, the unfaithfulness, and God never gives up. He continues. He's got a plan that he's going to carry out as he's doing with all of us. And there will be a time when these people will be resurrected from these tribes. And they thought things had perished. There was no hope. And yet God has a plan for them and for all the survivors of that great tribulation period. And he's going to bring them to Israel, because he made a covenant with Abraham, and he's going to fulfill it. With this, then, we have the first part of this incredible prophet named Hosea.