Hosea's healing prescription

Hosea preached over a long period of time. “He wasn’t just there as a flash in the pan,” says Jordan. “You see Obadiah in one shot, but Hosea ministered a long time.

“Amos 1:1 says, ‘The words of Amos, who was among the herdman of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash king of Israel, two years before the earthquake.’

“So Amos is going to be a contemporary at some point with Hosea, and it helps you to kind of grasp the doctrine; the focus of what these Minor Prophets are going to pick up on.

“I’ve tried to say to you that the Major Prophets; they kind of lay the whole scope of the land. Then the Minor Prophets come back and hook onto certain specific issues and amplify those specific issues.

“You notice that with Israel is Jonah, Amos and Hosea. For Judah, you’ve got Obadiah and Joel together, Micah and Isaiah together, Nahum, Zephaniah, Habakkuk and Jeremiah kind of work in the same time groupings. It’s sort of the chronology of their ministry. Now they’re not that way in the Scripture. The reason for that is the doctrine that’s being developed.

“It’s fascinating that you see Isaiah and Micah together. There are whole sections of Micah which are almost, verbally, exactly the same as in Isaiah. You take Micah 4 and Isaiah 2 and there are whole sections of them that are the same, where obviously they knew each other and their ministering things . . .  they say those things and draw different things out of them, but it’s obvious that they knew one another and worked together, that kind of thing.

“By the way, then you notice the post-exilic prophets—Zechariah, Haggai and Malachi. They’re all put together in this doctrinal design. The first nine, the pre-exile prophets, lead to an issue that they conclude with that they’re focusing on and the post-exile prophets are designed to do one very specific thing for Israel.

“It’s important to notice these writing prophets are all in that fourth course and the early part of that fifth course. And he’s identifying where they are in that. Now it’s important to see that because then you see the captivity these guys are going into and, by the way, Hosea is in Judah writing mainly about the northern kingdom. The northern kingdom goes into captivity before the southern kingdom. Jeremiah’s told them about that.

“When Judah goes into captivity, Jeremiah says, ‘Don’t you see what God did with your rebellious sister up north? He carried them away.’ The Assyrians took them away. The fifth course of judgment on the northern kingdom literally began while the fourth course was still going on in the southern kingdom. Jeremiah uses the term ‘adulterous wife’ for the northern kingdom.

“So when you come to Hosea, what does God tell him to do? Verse 2 says, ‘The beginning of the word of the LORD by Hosea. And the LORD said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms: for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the LORD.’

“Literally the Lord tells Hosea, ‘Come here, I got a job for you. I want you to go marry a gal but the gal I want you to marry is going to be a prostitute. She’s not going to be faithful to you. She’s going to have children by you and by others. And I want you to love her and be faithful to her even though she’s not going to be faithful to you.’

“Hosea’s a picture of Jehovah and Gomer (Hosea’s wife) . . . you know names in the Bible have meanings. Years ago, I heard a preacher say Gomer meant ‘fruitcake.’ I’ve never been able to validate that.

“When I tell you Hosea means ‘Jehovah God is salvation,’ I get that out of the Jewish Encyclopedia. But every time I hear Gomer I think ‘fruitcake’ because that’s just what she was whether her name really meant that or not.

“Gomer represented Israel in that apostate, treacherous, rebellious condition and that’s why when they have the children he names the kids . . . You see he names one of them Lo-ruhamah (meaning ‘I’ll have no mercy’). Then he names one Lo-ammi (meaning ‘not my people’) and he had another one Ru-hamah (meaning, ‘you’re going to be my people again.’)

“God’s going to send judgment, no mercy. He’s going to cut Israel off, put them in captivity, but then He’s going to bring them back. And Hosea’s going to be a living demonstration of that to the nation.

“Now when you understand that, and you’re to understand where they are, what He’s doing in Hosea and what He’ll do in these first minor prophets is point out to Israel, ‘Here’s why the judgment’s coming and it’s not too late for you turn around and not get it.’

“At the end of the Book of Hosea, after he gives all these details about why and what’s going on and so forth and what the problem is, when you come to the end of the book, he carries you to the end of the captivity. I emphasize that because the beginning and the end connect together.

“In Hosea, when he moves you through the captivity, he moves from the beginning to the end. All the stuff in between it’s just sort of like its looped back around to the beginning again. And that’s why when you find the first phase of the captivity, often it will be replayed in the final stage; that is the Antichrist and the 70^th week of Daniel.

In Hosea 14, you see he’s calling them to repent—turn back to God. The chapter starts, ‘O Israel, return unto the LORD thy God; for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity.
[2] Take with you words, and turn to the LORD: say unto him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously: so will we render the calves of our lips.’

In Hebrews 13, he talks about giving the offering of their lips. The whole point was that Israel still had the opportunity for repentance. Verse 4 says, ‘Yet I am the LORD thy God from the land of Egypt, and thou shalt know no god but me: for there is no saviour beside me.’

“From there on down to the end of the chapter, he’s describing the kingdom. He looks forward to the day when the Lord comes back and regathers Israel out of the captivity.

“In Hosea 5 is one of these passages that’s just sort of the frosting on the cupcake. Hosea 5:15 says, ‘I will go and return to my place, till they acknowledge their offence, and seek my face: in their affliction they will seek me early.’

“He’s saying, ‘I’m going to leave.’ He was the Lord God of all the earth; now he’s going to leave Israel and go back and become the Lord God of heaven.

“At the end of II Chronicles 36, when you read about the captivity, that’s what He’s described as: the Lord God of heaven. In Joshua 3, when He took them into their land, He was the Lord God of all the earth leading Israel into the land to reclaim the earth. They fail; He goes away.

“He says, ‘I will go and return to my place till they acknowledge their offense.’ The captivity’s not going to go on forever. Here’s what they say, chapter 6, ‘Come, and let us return unto the LORD: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up.
[2] After two days will he revive us: in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight.

“That passage is literally talking about the Second Advent of Christ.

"Then down to verse 11: ‘Also, O Judah, he hath set an harvest for thee, when I returned the captivity of my people.’

"So even though He starts out with the captivity--the fourth course is here, the fifth’s coming and captivity’s going to happen if you don’t get right--He tells them the captivity won’t last forever. There’s hope and there’s a prescription for Israel to be cleansed and taken into their kingdom.”