Hosea 1 & 2
Hosea 1& 2
Hosea 1&2
Our subject for today is found in Hosea,
chapters one and two. The first and most important thing to ascertain about
these chapters is the time in which their prophetic import unfolds. To find
this out, we shall read:
Hos. 2:18 -- "And in that day will I
make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field and with the fowls of
heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground: and I will break the bow
and the sword and the battle out of the earth, and will make them to lie down
safely."
Up to this very day God's people have never
as yet experienced such a complete and absolute security and freedom as set
forth in this verse of Scripture. It is, therefore, quickly seen that the
subject of the chapter reaches even beyond our time. As we study the chapters
verse by verse, the time element will appear still brighter and brighter.
Hos. 1:1,2 -- "The Word of the Lord that
came unto Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and
Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jereboam the son of Joash, king of
Israel. 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."
The prophet Hosea was commanded to take a
wife of whoredoms for no other reason than to portray the sad and abominable
condition which then obtained in Israel.
This marriage is, of course, only visionary
just as is the prophet Ezekiel's lying 40 days on one side, and 390 days on the
other side (Ezek. 4:4-6).
We immediately see that this wife and these
children symbolize God's people departing from Him, and that such a wicked act,
He calls whoredom.
Hos. 1:3-5 -- "So he went and took Gomer
the daughter of Diblaim; which conceived, and bare him a son. And the Lord said
unto him, Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will avenge the
blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and will cause to cease the kingdom of
the house of Israel. And it shall come to pass at that day, that I will break
the bow of Israel, in the valley of Jezreel."
The first-born son of the prophet's visionary
marriage, you see, was named Jezreel in order to foreshadow that which was to
befall the nation -- predicting not only the termination of the kingdom, but
also the very place in which its army was to be defeated -- in the valley of
Jezreel. And this destructive evil was to have come upon them for shedding the
blood of Jezreel, but obviously not the Jezreel that had just been born and
named. Who the slain Jezreel is, we shall see later in the study.
Hos. 1:6, 7 -- "And she conceived again,
and bare a daughter. And God said unto him, Call her name Lo-ruhamah: for I
will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel; but I will utterly take them
away. But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by the
Lord their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by
horses, nor by horsemen."
The ten-tribe kingdom, Israel, was spared
until the birth of Lo-ruhamah, but the name of this second child certified that
God was to have no more mercy upon the house of Israel, that its end had
already come. However, He was to have mercy upon the house of Judah, the
two-tribe kingdom, and was to deliver it by a miracle. And that is what
happened: an angel slew 185,000 of the assyrian army, and thus God spared the
house of Judah (2 Kings 19:35).
Hos. 1:8, 9 -- "Now when she had weaned
Lo-ruhamah, she conceived, and bare a son. Then said God, Call his name
Lo-ammi: for ye are not My people, and I will not be your God."
The third child was named Lo-ammi to show
that God's mercies were to depart even from the house of Judah. But rather than
to let them be subjugated as His people, He first rejected them, whereupon they
were no longer His people. The Apostle Peter cites this verse of Scripture as
referring to the unbelieving Jews; as a nation they were rejected after the
crucifixion of Christ, and were thus no longer His people (1 Peter 2:9, 10).
The individuals, though, who did believe in the Lord were reaccepted, and they
became "the children of the Living God." (See Rom. 9:26.)
Now note that this symbolism has thus far
taken us prophetically and historically from the days of the house of Israel to
the Christian era.
Hos. 1:10 -- "Yet the number of the
children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured
nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said
unto them, Ye are not My people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the
sons of the living God."
"Yet," that is, in spite of the
fact that the children of Israel were to be scattered throughout the nations,
and rejected, be no longer God's people, yet in spite of all these, both the
descendants of the house of Israel and of the house of Judah (all the children
of Jacob) were to be multiplied as the sand of the sea by the time they are
reaccepted and thus become the sons of the living God through the Saviour,
Jesus Christ.
From this scripture you note that this
multitude of sons of Jacob are not the identified Jews of today, but rather the
lost descendants of Judah and Israel, of those who were assimilated by the
Gentile nations and by the early Christian church by taking upon themselves the
title "Christians," of those who thus lost their racial and national
identity. From all these, after having been scattered throughout the Gentile
nations, and after having lost their identity, are to come the sons of God that
are projected in this allegorical prophecy. Thus many of us who suppose to be
of the Gentile nations may at long last discover that we are of the lost tribes
of Judah and Israel, and of the apostolic Christian Jews. Though none of us
really know our genealogy very far back, yet God Who knows even the number of
hairs on one's head has kept an accurate genealogical record of each of us. So
He says: "I will make mention of Rahab and Babylon to them that know Me:
behold Philistia, and Tyre, with Ethiopia; this man was orn there. And of Zion
it shall be said, This and that man was born in her: and the highest Himself
shall establish her. The Lord shall count, when He writeth up the people, that
this man was born there. Selah." Psa. 87:4-6.
Hos. 1:11 -- "Then shall the children of
Judah and the children of Israel be gathered together, and appoint themselves
one head, and they shall come up out of the land: for great shall be the day of
Jezreel."
The Word of God, therefore, definitely
declares that the subjects of the torn-down kingdoms -- Judah and Israel -- as
Christians, along with the Gentiles that have joined them, will gather together
and appoint themselves a king.
In a similar symbolism, the prophet was told
that after many days of obscurity and wandering, "shall the children of
Israel return, and seek the Lord their God, and David their king [evidently
David is the "one head" whom they appoint], and shall fear the Lord
and His goodness in the latter days." Hos. 3:5.
Continuing with the same family illustration,
and pointing to the Christian era, the Lord commands:
Hos. 2:1-3 -- "Say ye unto your
brethren, Ammi; and to your sisters, Ruhamah. Plead with your mother, plead:
for she is not My wife, neither am I her husband: let her therefore put away
her whoredoms out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts;
lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born, and make
her as a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and slay her with
thirst."
Let us remember that the first chapter
brought us down through the stream of time, down to the Christian era. Now, in
chapter two our attention is again directed to Hosea's visionary children, but
the prefix "Lo" has been omitted from the names Loruhamah and Loammi
so as to change the meaning from no mercy, and not My people, to
"mercy," and "My people."
Timely Greetings, Vol. 2, No. 21 8
Here in this unique symbolism, fashioned
years before the Christian dispensation, Inspiration foreshadowed the grace
that was to be given to the people in the Christian era, and that rather than
continue to be called Jews, they were to be called by another title --
Christians: Mercy, and My people.
The command, "Say ye unto your brethren,
Ammi; and to your sisters, Ruhamah," in itself explains that God is
speaking to Jezreel, (Ammi's and Ruhamah's brother), and that Jezreel in turn
is to speak to Ammi and to Ruhamah. And the fact that God calls Hosea's
visionary wife His Own wife, the subject becomes still clearer: Hosea, you see,
represents God, and Hosea's wife represents God's church; Jezreel, the one God
speaks to, represents His mouth piece, a prophet, and Jezreel's brethren, Ammi
and Ruhamah, represent the members of the church, both male and female. Now, as
Ammi and Ruhamah represent the laity, it is obvious that the mother represents
the ministry, those who bring forth converts into the church. Here we have a
complete representation of the household of God.
The fact that Jezreel is to urge his
brethren, the laity, to plead with the mother (with the ministry, to those who
bring forth converts), that she put away her whoredom, the truth clearly stands
out that this revival and reformation does not come to the laity through the
ministry, but to the ministry through the laity.
The laity is to explain that if the ministers
fail to reform, God is to strip them naked -- as naked as in the day they were
born.
Hos. 2:4, 5 -- "And I will not have
mercy upon her children; for they be the children of whoredoms. For their
mother hath played the harlot: she that conceived them hath done shamefully:
for she said, I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my
wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink."
These verses set forth God's meaning of
grace: that if the "mother" fails to reform, fails to cease from her
whoredoms with the world and its practices, then not only the mother but also
her sympathizing children will forever fall from grace. The mother, here we are told, imagines that
her unlawful lovers are the ones who supply her with the temporal things of
life, and it is her excuse for having anything to do with them.
Moreover, we are again told that while she is
thus playing the harlot, she is bringing forth illegitimate children, untrue
converts. Here is a warning which in no uncertain terms demands a reformation
or else the whole church family, except for those who reform, will be destroyed
as completely as ancient Jerusalem was destroyed some years after the
crucifixion of Christ.
Hos. 2:6-13 -- "Therefore, behold, I
will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her
paths. And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them;
and she shall seek them, but shall not find them: then shall she say, I will go
and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now. For
she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her
silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal. Therefore will I return, and
take away My corn in the time thereof, and My wine in the season thereof, and
will recover My wool and My flax given to cover her nakedness. And now will I
discover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and none shall deliver her
out of Mine hand. I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her
new moons, and her sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts. And I will destroy her
vines and her fig trees, whereof she hath said, These are my rewards that my
lovers have given me: and I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the
field shall eat them. And I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, wherein she
burned incense to them, and she decked herself with her earrings and her
jewels, and she went after her lovers, and forgat Me, saith the Lord."
These verses explain God's way and power to
save: Before He calls for reformation He prepares the way: He brings His church
to trying and perplexing circumstances from which she can not easily disengage
herself. He brings her to a situation similar to which He brought the prodigal.
He does this in order that she might be brought to realize where her support in
reality comes from, to know for certain that it does not come from her lovers.
Then, and then only, may she do the very thing the prodigal did when he came to
himself.
In fulfillment of the prophecy contained in
verse eleven, God permitted the little horn of Daniel seven to change times and
laws, and permitted the saints of the Most High to be in his hand until "a
time and times and the dividing of time." Dan. 7:25.
Hos. 2:14, 15 -- "Therefore, behold, I
will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto
her. And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for
a door of hope: and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as
in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt."
Having brought her into as strait and
embarrassing circumstances as one can be in, God promises to allure her, and to
bring her into the wilderness, there to speak comfortably to her. Specifically
speaking, having emerged from the "great tribulation, such as was not
since the beginning of the world" (Matt. 24:21), God brings her, not into
her vineyard, not in the Promised Land, but into the "wilderness"
(into the lands of the Gentiles), there to speak comfortably to her, and to
help her reform. After this comforting meeting takes place she is to have her
vineyards from thence, and the Valley of Achor for a door of hope; there she is
to sing and rejoice as in the days of her youth, and as in the day she came out
of Egypt.
The Valley of Achor, you note, is her door of
hope -- it is the only way out of her predicament. The valley has but one
significance: it stands for a thorough purging, for destroying the sinners that
are in her midst before possessing the land -- her only hope of becoming a
decent, respectable wife of God.
It was in the Valley of Achor that Joshua
stoned the last of the sinners in Israel -- Achan and his household. Then it
was that the Israelite nation was permitted to take the promised land, the
vineyard. Just such a purging as this is the church's only "door of
hope," says Inspiration, her only escape from her present plight. Then she
is to return to her former position and grace. Then she is to receive the
promised blessing as verily as ancient Israel received hers. That remarkable
incident in the Valley of Achor is now seen to typify the purging for the
repossession of the promised land -- typifying the Judgment for the Living,
the gathering of the saints, and the
destruction of the sinners -- the separation of the wheat from the tares, the
goats from the sheep, the good fish from the bad fish. The "barn"
(Matt. 13:30), connotes the Kingdom here projected as does the Lord's right,
and as do the vessels.
Hos. 2:16 -- "And it shall be at that
day, saith the Lord, that thou shalt call Me Ishi; and shalt call Me no more
Baali."
Yes, rather than be her lord, God is indeed
to be her husband, for one can have lords many, but only one husband.
Hos. 2:17 -- "For I will take away the
names of Baalim out of her mouth, and they shall no more be remembered by their
name."
The names of Baalim are significant of
persons possessing selfish characters such as Balaam's -- teachers of religion,
prophets who would rather curse Israel than lose the opportunity of monetary
gain, or of some other foolish, selfish promotion that exalts and flatters.
Such shall then no longer be known by their lordly, high and exalted titles.
When the Church is thus purged of all her
idols, then will she find eternal peace.
Hos. 2:18-22 -- "And in that day will I make
a covenant for them with the beasts of the field and with the fowls of heaven,
and with the creeping things of the ground: and I will break the bow and the
sword and the battle out of the earth, and will make them to lie down safely.
And I will betroth thee unto Me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto Me in
righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies. I will
even betroth thee unto Me in faithfullness:
and thou shalt know the Lord. And it shall come to pass in that day, I will
hear, saith the Lord, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth;
and the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and they shall
hear Jezreel."
These verses plainly show that God's presence
will in that day be in His church, that even the heavens will be listening to
God's voice while He speaks to His people here on earth. The earth shall also
hear the "corn, and the wine, and the oil"; that is, the earth shall
hear the Truth -- Truth that satisfies the soul as does wholesome, and
nourishing food. Moreover, not only the corn, the wine, and the oil -- the
whole Truth -- but Jezreel, too, shall the earth hear. Plainly, all these
promises are to be fulfilled during probationary time, for they cannot do the
earth any good after probationary time is exhausted.
The Jezreel of whose blood ancient Israel was
charged guilty, you see, was figurative of the prophets whom Israel rejected
and killed. Thus it is that the prophet-hating house of Israel met defeat in
the Valley of Jezreel, which by interpretation is the valley of the slain
prophets.
Hos. 2:23 -- "And I will sow her unto Me
in the earth; and I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy; and I
will say to them which were not My people, Thou art My people; and they shall
say, Thou art My God."
To "sow her unto Me in the earth,"
means to multiply her children in God's order after she receives all these
promised blessings. Then she will truly have God's mercy, such great mercy as
she has never before obtained. So to those to whom it was said, "Ye are
not My people," it shall then, in grand reality, be said, "Ye are the
sons of the living God."
Now that the whole truth of these chapters is
disclosed for the first time since the prophet wrote them, and since no prophecy
of the Scriptures is of any private interpretation, not by the will of man, but
by the will of the Spirit (2 Pet. 1:20, 21), the fact is that God had us in
mind (us to whom these chapters are unfolded) when he caused these things to be
written. Moreover, since the first verses of the second chapter bring us down
to the time of a revival and reformation taking place in our own time,
sponsored by God Himself and brought to light through Jezreel, then carried to
the church by the laity, is a work that fulfills itself only in this layman's
movement that is now sweeping throughout the Seventh-day Adventist world. This
Truth, therefore, stands as high as a mountain that God is now at work, that
things are to move according to His Divine purpose. So it is that "they
shall hear Jezreel," and that God Himself shall say to them, "Thou
art My people," and they, too, shall say, "Thou art our God."
Inspiration thus shows that our efforts with
this message are absolutely certain to effect the greatest reformation of all
time; that the children's rebuke to the mother is surely to bring peace and
happiness to the household of God. We, therefore, have every reason to be as
positive of winning and as anxious to work, as was ancient David when he faced
the giant Goliath. Clear it is that children (laity) born to a lewd woman
(church) bring peace and happiness in the family of God. You must, therefore,
not fail to whole-heartedly and actually join this mighty layman's movement for
revival and reformation throughout Laodicea and to finish the gospel work with
a church, "'...Fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army
with banners.' she is to go forth into all the world, conquering and to
conquer." -- "Prophets and Kings," p. 725. You cannot afford to
lose out