May 13, 2013 Tragic Task

Read Hosea 1-2 Tragic Task Hosea 1:1-3 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, take to yourself an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness, because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing from the Lord.” WE have just spent a week looking at a loving, committed relationship between a man and a woman in Song of Solomon. Now we come to Hosea, a story of a man whose marriage was one of deep unfaithfulness by Gomer, the woman he marries. Imagine this. God calls you to be a prophet among his people who are in deep sin against God. The work is difficult. Prophet work is always difficult. Sinners hate hearing the truth. But then God tells his prophet Hosea, “Go, take to yourself an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness, because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing from the Lord.” “Yes, Hosea, go marry a prostitute. You’ll have children with her, but she will be unfaithful to you.” Why such a difficult, even tragic task for Hosea? God is about to show to Israel and Judah – the countries where his people live – that they have prostituted his grace. They have taken his commands, his love and his mercy and, in effect, they have sold them off to their own pleasures. They are selling their souls for the sake of extreme immoral acts and self-pleasure. God’s people are smitten with evil, and God’s purpose is to dramatically through Hosea to say, “Faithfully come home to me, the One who loves you.” It’s True! God dramatically acts to save you—check out the cross.