Hosea 1:1-3

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Hosea chapter 1: 1-3

1 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 Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel. 2 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. 3 So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim; which conceived, and bare him a son.

If this story happened in today’s modern church, it would be the most scandalous scandal ever heard of.

It would be the front page of every major newspaper in America

The headlines would read “Local Preacher Seen With Prostitute.”

It would be the lead story of the ten-o’clock news for certain

It would probably even make the major talk shows

It’s outrageous, to say the least.

But the scripture for today is the story of a prophet/preacher named Hosea who was married to a prostitute woman named Gomer.

Hosea was the first of the "minor" prophets.

His name, translated in English, means “Joe,”

which adds even more insult to injury in these modern times for the headline would read “A Prostitute and Her Joe.”

But if you research the name Hosea, you will also discover that Hosea’s name is also related to the name Joshua, which means “salvation.”

Hosea was a young preacher in the nation of Israel,

the northern kingdom

He lived, as we are told in the first verse, during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah (kings of Judah, the Southern Kingdom),

and during the reign of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, the king of Israel.

Jeroboam was one of the wicked kings of Israel and the nation was going through a difficult time when Hosea was preaching.

People were "living it up," as we might say,

and they didn’t have much time for God.

They wouldn’t have said that, of course, because nobody ever says that

Instead they may have said something like we do: that it was just a case of not having quite enough time to meet the demands that God made upon them!

They were so busy with so many other important things.

The spirit was willing but the flesh was ready for the weekend so to speak

So just like many people today

the people back then just didn’t pay much attention to Hosea.

He spoke of judgment and of chastisement.

He said that God was going to raise up the Assyrian nation to punish the people

and that a fierce and ruthless army would sweep across the land like a scourge.

But the people paid no attention to him,

and they said that Hosea’s God must be a pretty vengeful God to talk like that.

Hosea tried to tell them that wasn’t so.

He said that God was a God of love and that that was the reason he was doing this

He told them that God wanted them to see what they was doing to themselves

and that the only way he could get them to listen was to make things rough for them.

God sometimes works like that.

Sometimes God will make things rough for us just to get our attention!

Like the old saying says sometimes he puts us on the flat of our backs to cause us to look up to where he is

But the people back then they didn’t pay any more attention than people do today about things like that.

Instead, they blamed God and said,

"If God is really a God of love, then why does he let things get in such a mess?

How could a God of love send a ruthless people like the Assyrians down upon our land?"

And so young Hosea found that his audience was diminishing.

Now the People was probably somewhat polite to his face,

but they sneered behind his back.