Opening Prayer
Psalm 131
A song of ascents. Of David.
1 Lord, my heart is not proud;
my eyes are not haughty.
I do not get involved with things
too great or too wondrous for me.
2 Instead, I have calmed and quieted my soul
like a weaned child with its mother;
my soul is like a weaned child.
3 Israel, put your hope in the Lord,
both now and forever.
Getting Started
What is one insight/word of comfort/challenging idea that
you held onto from last week?
Did any lesson from last week’s session impact your life?
9:25-26
25 As it also says in Hosea,
I will call Not My People, My People,
and she who is Unloved, Beloved.
26 And it will be in the place where they were told,
you are not my people,
there they will be called sons of the living God.
The prophet – Hosea
- C 740-715 BC – Similar timeframe as Isaiah
- Gomer
- Jezreel
- Lo-ruhamah
- Lo-ammi
Hosea
1 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 of Jeroboam son of Jehoash, king of
Israel.
Hosea’s Marriage and Children
2 When the Lord first spoke to Hosea, he said
this to him:
Go and marry a woman of promiscuity,[1]
and have children of promiscuity,
for the land is committing blatant acts of promiscuity
by abandoning the Lord.
3 So he went and married
Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son. 4 Then
the Lord said to him:
Name him Jezreel[2], for
in a little while
I will bring the bloodshed of Jezreel
on the house of Jehu
and put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel.
5 On that day I will break the bow of Israel
in Jezreel Valley.
6 She conceived again and
gave birth to a daughter, and the Lord said
to him:
Name her Lo-ruhamah, [3]
for I will no longer have compassion
on the house of Israel.
I will certainly take them away.
7 But I will have compassion on the house of Judah,
and I will deliver them by the Lord their
God.
I will not deliver them by bow, sword, or war,
or by horses and cavalry.
8 After Gomer had weaned
Lo-ruhamah, she conceived and gave birth to a son. 9 Then
the Lord said:
Name him Lo-ammi, [4]
for you are not my people,
and I will not be your God.
10 Yet the number of the Israelites
will be like the sand of the sea,
which cannot be measured or counted.
And in the place where they were told:
You are not my people,
they will be called: Sons of the living God.
11 And the Judeans and the Israelites
will be gathered together.
They will appoint for themselves a single ruler
and go up from the land.
For the day of Jezreel will be great.
2 Call your brothers: My People
and your sisters: Compassion.
Israel’s Adultery Rebuked
2 Rebuke your mother; rebuke her.
For she is not my wife and I am not her husband.
Let her remove the promiscuous look from her face
and her adultery from between her breasts.
3 Otherwise, I will strip her naked
and expose her as she was on the day of her birth.
I will make her like a desert
and like a parched land,
and I will let her die of thirst.
4 I will have no compassion on her children
because they are the children of promiscuity.
5 Yes, their mother is promiscuous;
she conceived them and acted shamefully.
For she thought, “I will follow my lovers,
the men who give me my food and water,
my wool and flax, my oil and drink.”
6 Therefore, this is what I will do:
I will block her way with thorns;
I will enclose her with a wall,
so that she cannot find her paths.
7 She will pursue her lovers but not catch them;
she will look for them but not find them.
Then she will think,
“I will go back to my former husband,
for then it was better for me than now.”
8 She does not recognize
that it is I who gave her the grain,
the new wine, and the fresh oil.
I lavished silver and gold on her,
which they used for Baal.
9 Therefore, I will take back my grain in its time
and my new wine in its season;
I will take away my wool and linen,
which were to cover her nakedness.
10 Now I will expose her shame
in the sight of her lovers,
and no one will rescue her from my power.
11 I will put an end to all her celebrations:
her feasts, New Moons, and Sabbaths—
all her festivals.
12 I will devastate her vines and fig trees.
She thinks that these are her wages
that her lovers have given her.
I will turn them into a thicket,
and the wild animals will eat them.
13 And I will punish her for the days of the Baals,
to which she burned incense.
She put on her rings and her jewelry
and followed her lovers,
but she forgot me.
This is the Lord’s declaration.
Israel’s Adultery Forgiven
14 Therefore, I am going to persuade her,
lead her to the wilderness,
and speak tenderly to her.
15 There I will give her vineyards back to her
and make the Valley of Achor
into a gateway of hope.
There she will respond as she did
in the days of her youth,
as in the day she came out of the land of Egypt.
16 In that day—
this is the Lord’s
declaration—
you will call me “my husband”
and no longer call me “my Baal.”
17 For I will remove the names of the Baals
from her mouth;
they will no longer be remembered by their names.
18 On that day I will make a covenant for them
with the wild animals, the birds of the sky,
and the creatures that crawl on the ground.
I will shatter bow, sword,
and weapons of war in the land
and will enable the people to rest securely.
19 I will take you to be my wife forever.
I will take you to be my wife in righteousness,
justice, love, and compassion.
20 I will take you to be my wife in faithfulness,
and you will know the Lord.
21 On that day I will respond—
this is the Lord’s declaration.
I will respond to the sky,
and it will respond to the earth.
22 The earth will respond to the grain,
the new wine, and the fresh oil,
and they will respond to Jezreel.
23 I will sow her in the land for myself,
and I will have compassion
on Lo-ruhamah;
I will say to Lo-ammi:
You are my people,
and he will say, “You are my God.”
Notice
Paul applies these passages to the Gentiles.
- There is a sense of awe and amazement in this chapter.
- Whether we speak of Jews or Gentiles salvation is by grace through faith.
Paul reverses the order and adapts the text
- First – Not my people
- Then – Not, “No Mercy,” but “Not loved.”
o
The word mercy in Hosea is RaChaM – meaning to
have compassion, to love, to take pity
o The word for love in Romans is agape – which is a the root of God’s attitude of grace and mercy.
The overall sense of this section is to leave us thunderstruck
that we are saved, leading to awe, gratitude, love, mercy, and more.
- It is as if he is saying, “You think it is bad or unfair that the Gentiles are saved? It’s worse than you thought! It’s an absolute miracle of mercy that anyone is saved, because no one deserves to be.”
Romans 9:27-29
27 But Isaiah cries out
concerning Israel,
Though the number of Israelites
is like the sand of the sea,
only the remnant will be saved;
28 since the Lord will execute his sentence
completely and decisively on the earth.
29 And just as Isaiah
predicted:
If the Lord of Armies[5]
had not left us offspring,
we would have become like Sodom,
and we would have been made like Gomorrah.
A translation concern – v. 27 (and in Isaiah 10:22) – “only the remnant will be
saved”
- There is no only in the text.
- The remnant will be saved
- Even if the number of Israelites who fell under judgement are like the sand of the sea and it looks like all is lost because of the destructing decreed and the justice meted out, a remnant will be saved!
Isaiah 10:20-23
20 On that
day the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no
longer depend on the one who struck them, but they will faithfully depend on
the Lord, the
Holy One of Israel.
21 The remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob,
to the Mighty God.
22 Israel,
even if your people were as numerous
as the sand of the sea,
only a remnant of them will return.
Destruction has been decreed;
justice overflows.
23 For
throughout the land
the Lord God of Armies
is carrying out a destruction that was decreed.
Isaiah 1:9
If the Lord of Armies
had not left us a few survivors,
we would be like Sodom,
we would resemble Gomorrah.
Sodom and Gomorrah
These cities serve as examples of:
-
Complete depravity
-
Violence against other people
-
Oppression of the vulnerable
Paul – following God’s Word in Isaiah – uses them to
describe Israel
-
Why? Because Israel’s salvation is just as much
a miracle as the Gentiles.
Wrapping Up
What is one insight/word of comfort/challenging idea that
you hope to hold onto from these verse?
[1]
Z’nonim – plural – fornications, whoredom, prostitution.
[2]
This town was in Israel (the Northern Kingdom) and was a place where much blood
was shed.
[3]
Lo-ruhama – No Mercy
[4]
Lo-ammi – Not My People
[5]
Sabaoth – Often translated “The Lord of Hosts” the sense is more like – the Lord
of All the Armies of Heaven.
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