I ask you to turn with me to, once again, to the prophecy of Hosea, following Daniel. We'll read together this morning Hosea chapter 2, beginning at verse 2 through the end of the chapter. The first three chapters of this prophecy are a little bit different than the remaining chapters in some respects. As it was said to me, chapters 1 and 3, in a sense, are the human representation of the word of the Lord and, of course, the relationship between God and Israel. A human representation through Hosea and Gomer in chapter 2 is what we might call the divine interpretation of that. So in a sense, the Lord is now speaking to His people, applying chapters 1 and 3. We're going to consider chapter 2 this morning. Beginning at verse 2 as we hear now the word of the Lord. Rebuke your mother. Rebuke her, for she is not my wife and I am not her husband. Let her remove the adulterous look from her face and the unfaithfulness from between her breasts. Otherwise, I will strip her naked and make her as bare as on the day she was born. I will make her like a desert, turn her into a parched land, and slay her with thirst. I will not show my love to her children because they are the children of adultery. Their mother has been unfaithful and has conceived them in disgrace. She said, I will go after my lovers who give me my food and my water, my wool and my linen, my oil and my drink. Therefore I will block her path with thorn bushes. I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way. She will chase after her lovers but not catch them. She will look for them but not find them. Then she will say, I will go back to my husband as at first, for then I was better off than now. She has not acknowledged that I was the one who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil, who lavished on her the silver and gold which they used for bail. Therefore I will take away my grain when it ripens and my new wine when it is ready. I will take back my wool and my linen intended to cover her nakedness. So now I will expose her lewdness before the eyes of her lovers. No one will take her out of my hands. I will stop all her celebrations, her yearly festivals, her new moons, her Sabbath days, all her appointed feasts. I will ruin her vines and her fig trees which she said were her pay from her lovers. I will make them a thicket, and wild animals will devour them. I will punish her for the days she burned incense to the bales. She decked herself with rings and jewelry and went after her lovers, but me she forgot, declares the Lord. Therefore I am now going to allure her. I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her. There I will give her back her vineyards and will make the valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will sing as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt. In that day, declares the Lord, you will call me my husband. You will no longer call me my master. I will remove the names of the bales from her lips. No longer will their names be invoked. In that day I will make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field and the birds of the air and the creatures that move along the ground. Bow and sword and battle I will abolish from the land so that all may lie down in safety. I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. I will betroth you in faithfulness and you will acknowledge the Lord. In that day I will respond, declares the Lord. I will respond to the skies and they will respond to the earth and the earth will respond to the grain, the new wine and oil and they will respond to Jezreel. I will plant her for myself in the land. I will show my love to the one I called not my loved one. I will say to those called not my people, you are my people. And they will say, you are my God. Well, beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, it really happened. Gomer stepped out on Hosea. Marriage did not make an honest woman out of her. Marriage did not keep her from giving herself to other lovers, many other lovers. And we know that because chapter 3 begins in verse 1, The Lord said to me, Go show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. And since Gomer is a picture of Israel, based on what we just read in chapter 2, that heavenly interpretation, since Gomer is a picture of Israel based on what we read there, we know that she unashamedly, without shame, she engaged in marriage covenant-breaking activities. She dressed and decorated herself not with the modesty and the honor and the esteem of a married woman, but she dressed and decorated herself in a trashy way. In a way that speaks loudly, I'm available. I'm for sale. I'm here for the using. Take me. And this includes gaudy makeup and eye-catching jewelry. It includes revealing clothing. Verse 2 says, Let her remove the adulterous look from her face and the unfaithfulness from between her breasts. Verse 13, She decked herself with rings and jewelry and went after her lovers. You see, Gomer did not fall into temptation, But Gomer was the tempter. And Israel was to see her. Israel was to get a good look at her. And then Israel ought to be, and in fact would be appalled at Gomer. They'd say, oh, that's terrible. Simply terrible. But there was something else they were supposed to see then. They were supposed to see themselves, herself in Gomer. And Israel knew what the punishment was for adultery. Israel knew that it was burning or stoning all the way to death. The punishment was death. But amazingly, in this chapter, for all the harsh language we read about in the first half of this chapter, amazingly, we see here that the Lord pursues His people. And notice, beloved, the Lord pursues His people, first of all, by exposing Israel's hypocrisy. And he pursues his people in the second place by promising Israel's punishment. And in the third place, by revealing Israel's restoration. Again, that may be hard to gather. The first two points that I mentioned might be hard as we hear that language of the first half of the chapter and we hear the language of the first two points and then to hear the language of the third point and think it just doesn't make sense. But you see, from the very beginning, we see that God's pursuit of His people was for a particular purpose and that purpose was correction. That purpose was restoration. Even in the seemingly harsh words of verse 2, Rebuke your mother, rebuke her, for she is not my wife and I am not her husband. Let her remove the adulterous look from her face and the unfaithfulness from between her breasts. Now, we need to understand here that really what's going on here is a court case. It's a legal accusation of unfaithfulness in the marriage relationship. It is not a statement of divorce. It's not a statement of divorce. Even though we read, for she is not my wife and I am not her husband, that points to the fact that Gomer had violated the marriage relationship that was to be an intimate relationship between one man and one woman. And in that way, she had violated that marriage relationship. She had introduced a third party. But it's not a statement of divorce. It's an accusation of adultery. And this accusation calls for the testimony of the children who themselves were guilty. Now, we need to understand that corporate Israel, Israel as a whole with her leadership, is the wife. And the individual Israelites that make up that nation, they are the children. And the children, it clearly says, were born of the mother's promiscuous activity. They grew up only knowing her way of life. They knew no other way of life, and therefore they were guilty themselves. As verse 4 says, I will not show my love to her children, because they are the children of adultery. But yet these children are called to testify against their mother. Why? For the purpose of restoration. To call her to respond. To call her to turn from her evil ways. But notice here too, for us today, beloved, there's a responsibility of the believers, of us as individual believers. As we sometimes see the church going in the wrong direction, there is a responsibility for believers to hold the visible church accountable. To speak up. To call the church. To pursue the truth. But these children here are an example of Israel's hypocrisy. A clear example. And an example that the Lord pursues His people by exposing that hypocrisy. The children are a part of the evidence that was against the wife. Against Israel. That evidence was abundant. We see that here. That evidence is indisputable. and that evidence is intermixed throughout the verses of the first half of the chapter. Along with verses 2 and 4, notice verse 5. Their mother has been unfaithful and has conceived them in disgrace. She said, I will go after my lovers who give me my food and my water, my wool and my linen and my oil and my drink. Verse 8, she has not acknowledged that I was the one who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil, who lavished on her the silver and gold, which they used for bail. Verse 13 again, I will punish her for the days she burned incense to the bales. She decked herself with rings and jewelry and went after her lovers. But me, she, forgot, declares the Lord. The evidence is indisputable. And Israel's hypocrisy is evidenced, we might say, by her own appearance. Just like Gomer's appearance. Israel dressed the part by her actions she looked like she was available like she was for sale or she claimed the Lord as her own she claimed that she was the Lord's after all history proved it look at our history the Lord loves us can't you see? the Lord loves us so much but she didn't look like the Lord's she didn't look like the Lord's because of her disobedience to the law of God because of her immorality because of her oppression against the poor and the weak she made it look like she was not in a committed relationship with anyone she made it look as if she was unattached and unaccountable her hypocrisy is evidenced by her own appearance but also by her own words verse 5 again that phrase there is telling she said I will go after my lovers who give me my food and my water my wool and my linen my oil and my drink I will go after them that's what I want you see and therefore I'm going to go get what I want and by her own words she demonstrates forgetfulness to put it mildly she turned her back on that history that very same history that she would say proved oh God loves me she turned her back on that history her deliverance from Egypt the provisions of manna and quail and water and protection in the wilderness not to mention the conquest of the land and being given the land flowing with milk and honey and all the blessings that came along with that and we might wonder what did the nations think her enemies we think particularly of Canaan the land of Canaan of course and Rahab more particularly in Jericho because we know that when the spies went to Jericho and they stayed by Rahab she said we've heard we've heard all that the Lord your God has done for you how he parted the waters how he wiped out those powerful kings of the Amorites we just sang about that the Lord and greatly blessing us before the world his power displays yeah great things God has done for us they witnessed that and who knows they might have thought now as they see Israel they see her going off to follow others. They might wonder, how foolish. Why would you give that up? Not that they wanted that, but you had it. Why would you give that up? The nations worked hard to appease, to please their gods, to earn their favor, and to keep their gods from pouring out their wrath upon them. But Israel, it wasn't that way with Jehovah. He had redeemed them by His grace out of Egypt and He had given them again and again so graciously, but over and over they provoked Yahweh. The more He gave, the more they rebelled, the more they took Him and His precious gifts for granted. And not only did she demonstrate forgetfulness by her own words, but she demonstrated foolishness. She said, I will go after my lovers who gave me all these good things. And then verse 8 says, She has not acknowledged that I was the one who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil, who lavished on her the silver and gold, which they use for Baal. See, Baal was considered to be the god of fertility. And to Baal, they gave credit for providing for their daily needs and for providing for their general commercial prosperity, the silver and the gold. Baal, they said, is the one who gave fertilization and rain and sun and growth to the crops. Baal is the one who provided for us all these things. He's done that for us in response to our worship of Him. We've earned it, you see. The Bible says that she did not acknowledge that I was the one who gave, the Lord says. And the word for acknowledge there, the word for knowledge, has the idea of intimacy, loyalty, and obedience. Someone has said that Israel violated the three-fold cord of the covenant, that intimacy, loyalty, and obedience. That's what God wants. That's what Israel lacked. And therefore, Israel thoughtlessly gave evidence of hypocrisy as well by her own worship, not only by her own appearance and by her own words, but also by her own worship. As verse 8 said, she used all these things, these blessings that God had given to her, she had used them for Baal. And verse 13 says, she burned incense to Baal. She violated the first commandment. All the commandments we know, of course. But especially that first commandment. Because the first fruits were to go to the Lord in recognition of and praising Him for His gift. His gift of the harvest. But they denied this. They said that it came from Baal. And to deny this, to deny God as the provider, is to deny, it was to deny that Yahweh was still Israel's God. It was to reject His Lordship. And the result is, the Lord says, but me, they forgot, she forgot. Now those are devastating words. But me, she, forgot. And those should have been devastating words to the Israelites. Those words should have made her think back all the way to what we find recorded in Deuteronomy 8, even before they entered the land. All these things that Moses told them and warned them about as the mouthpiece for God. In Deuteronomy 8, verses 10-18, he is telling them to summarize. He says, when you've entered the land, when you eat, and of all the good things in your stomachs are filled, and you enjoy houses and prosperity, You know, all these things come to you. Don't forget the Lord. Don't forget the Lord. And then he gave them this warning. When they said, sure, we won't forget. Not a chance, not in your life. But yet he gave them this warning, if you ever forget the Lord your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed. Like the nations the Lord destroyed before you, so you will be destroyed for not obeying the Lord your God. And now here come those devastating words, but me, she, forgot. And that could only mean one thing, beloved, and that is destruction. You see, the evidence against Israel was crystal clear, indisputable. They couldn't argue about it. But on this particular morning, for you and me, now what about us? It's a good morning to consider this because we've been called to self-examination, an examination that we know we are to engage in every day of our lives, to be sure. But we have been called to examine ourselves in preparation, the Lord willing, to coming to the Lord's table next week. And we should ask ourselves as well, do our words and our appearance match? we confess the Almighty Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We confess that He is our God, that we believe in Him. We confess that He is the giver of every good and perfect gift, especially the precious gift of salvation. That is our testimony, and we stand on it, don't we? At least while we're in here. It's easy, isn't it? But the question we might ask ourselves is, Does the evidence of life, of my life, of your life, does it support that? Or do the words of Jesus apply to you and me, or to some of us, words that He spoke in Matthew 15, quoting from Isaiah, He says, these people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Beloved, what does the inventory of our lives reveal about us? Does it reveal that we look like we belong to the Lord? That when others, whether we know them or not, when they see us, that they can see without a doubt that we are in a committed relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ? Or, and I hope it's not the case, do others, whether we know them or not, do they assume that we will engage in worldly activities? Or do they see you fit in comfortably with the world because there is no evidence whatsoever of any sort of connection with Jesus Christ by faith. Are you spiritually, physically, mentally, emotionally dressed as a Christian? Is your speech seasoned with grace? Are your actions adorned with love? Does your face reflect the joy of the Lord? is your worship pure and true to the one only God who lives and reigns forever? What does the evidence say? Also, when it comes to all the good gifts that God has poured out upon us, and we must confess that we have been blessed, each and every one of us, whether we have little or we have much, we have been blessed. God has poured out His riches upon us. How do we use God's resources? we might ask ourselves what kind of idols can be found in our homes? What kind of evidence is there that points to what is most important to you and me? What does the show on the TV or the movie on the DVD player or the song on your iPod say about who it is that you truly worship? What might the foreign gods, we might call them hobbies and habits, Of our lives. What might they be that we feed with the riches of God? What might they be? Or are you humbled before God from whom all blessings flow? And do you thank God for your daily bread and offer the excess to Him and His kingdom? And do you strive by the grace of God in all that you do to glorify Him, to do it all to His glory? The bottom line is, does the evidence testify that you are or are not of God's people? Does it testify that you can rightfully claim Jesus Christ as yours? Does it testify that you remember and that you rejoice in all that God has done for you? That's part of our examination, isn't it? Those are some of the things that we ought to consider. For Israel, every evidence is that she forgot God. And all the evidence looking at Gomer was not enough to convince her otherwise. And therefore, the Lord would get her attention in the second place by promising Israel's punishment. It's more than a threat, you see, because a threat may or may not be carried out. It's a promise. It is a guarantee. And once again, this punishment, these words of judgment are intermixed with the evidence. Verse 3 says, Otherwise I will strip her naked and make her as bare as on the day she was born. I will make her like a desert, turn her into a parched land, and slay her with thirst. Verses 6 and 7, Therefore I will block her path with thorn bushes. I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way. She will chase after her lovers but not catch them. She will look for them but not find them. Then she will say, I will go back to my husband as at first, for then I was better off than now. And again, beginning at verse 9, Therefore I will take away my grain when it ripens, and my new wine when it is ready. I will take back my wool and my linen, intended to cover her nakedness. So now I will expose her lewdness before the eyes of her lovers. No one will take her out of my hands. I will stop all her celebrations, her yearly festivals, her new moons, her Sabbath days, all her appointed feasts. I will ruin her vines and her fig trees, which she said were her pay from her lovers. I will make them a thicket and wild animals will devour them. I will punish her for the day she burned incense to the bales. That's a mouthful. What a punishment. But again, sadly, beloved, this was not new news to them. This is what they had been warned about so long before in Leviticus 26. I will lay waste the lands that your enemies who live there will be appalled. I will scatter you among the nations. And I believe we can summarize all these words of judgment and punishment by saying that the Lord is going to remove basically three things. First of all, He's going to remove their worldly goods, their grain, their wine, their oil, their silver, their gold, their clothing, all that they enjoyed as a part of their affluence under Jeroboam II in their glory days. He would remove those things, those goods that they had attributed, credited to Baal. God would take them away as if to say, let him provide. You said it's from him, let him provide. These things which she claimed as payment from her lovers. In other words, payment for her prostitution. We have worshipped Baal, we have given him ourselves, and so he has paid us back with all these good things. But that payment for her prostitution would be enjoyed not by God's people, but it would be the wild animals who would benefit from the Lord's provision. And the second thing that would be removed is he would remove her worship. Her worship that had been given to Baal. He would block her way with thorn bushes. The idea is to restrain her, to hem her in. That was fulfilled, we know, by captivity. She would chase after her lovers but not find them. And then he says he will stop the festivals, he will stop the feasts. That which was a part of Israel's redemptive history. That which was to be a source of rejoicing for them and worship. That which pointed to her covenantal identity had become nothing more than gathering out of custom or superstition. It had been used to engage in the festivities for Baal worship. And now Yahweh would destroy that covenant calendar that had been given to Israel to distinguish her from the nations who were not the Lord's. But He would destroy that covenantal calendar because they were no longer His people. Again, something that should not have been new news to them. They were warned of this in Leviticus 26. I will turn your cities into ruins and lay waste your sanctuaries. I will take no delight in the pleasing aroma of your offerings. Israel would not worship the Lord. So now they could not worship the Lord because He would not be found. And that's because not only would He remove their worldly goods and their worship, but He would also remove Israel herself to the wilderness. Verse 14 says, Therefore I am now going to allure her. I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her. I will lead her into the desert. Very simply, she would be deprived of everything. As verse 3 says again, Otherwise I will strip her naked and make her as bare as on the day she was born. I will make her like a desert, turn her into a parched land, and slay her with thirst. She would be deprived of everything she had enjoyed, including her freedom, her shame would be exposed, which indeed was shameful for an adulteress or a prostitute. But her shame would be exposed and she would be clearly identified by all who could see her as an adulteress for the filthy one that she was. And the saddest thing of all is there would be no help. Verse 10, So now I will expose her lewdness before the eyes of her lovers, as if the idea all they can do is gawk at her. No one will take her out of my hands. There would be no hell for her. Deuteronomy 32 says, See now that I myself am He. There is no God besides me. I put to death and I bring to life. I have wounded and I will heal. And no one can deliver out of my hand. Israel was going to be reminded of this truth the hard way. She would be sent to exile. She would be reduced to nothing, with no one to help her, no one on this earth to whom she could turn. And beloved, this is an example of the emptiness that can come upon anyone who rejects the Lord Jesus Christ and devotes their life to meaningless pleasures and neglects the God before whom all will stand. And for them, this is a picture of the destruction, the desolation of hell from which no one can rescue them. No one can deliver them from the wrath of God. Yet for God's people, there is a surprising twist, you see. The adultery, we know, deserved death, and that seems to be what Israel was going to get as we read of all this punishment. But the desert, notice, is not a place of destruction, but of construction. Not a place of annihilation, but a place of restoration. Not pointing to the ultimate curse, but pointing to the ultimate blessing. I will speak tenderly to her. God would make her lose everything so that she might gain him and therefore gain everything. Gain everything he is. As the Lord pursues his people in the third place by revealing Israel's restoration. Now, we don't have time for this this morning. And so we're going to stop here. But that's the surprising twist. And Lord willing, we're going to consider this next week in connection with the Lord's Supper. But how fitting for you and me this morning. And that surprising twist that whets our appetite, I will speak tenderly to her. And again, on this day of self-examination, this week of self-examination, how fitting to be reminded that even one sin, beloved, is sufficient evidence against you and me of our hypocrisy against God. Even one sin is sufficient evidence that we deserve to be forever banished from God. But in His pursuing love, He lifts our eyes to Jesus Christ against whom God has poured out His wrath for our sins, as the form says, with the bitter and shameful death of the cross. And beloved, there is no greater love which is given for those who were loveless in return. But for those who truly believe that, as the form says, for the sake of the passion and death of Christ, all His sins are now forgiven Him. Even the sins that we continue to commit, even those sins that cling to us against our renewed will, even the sins that we commit when we turn away from Him for a time and look to others and engage in that idolatry that we might find around our homes. Even then, He is faithful to pursue His people. He is faithful to restore His people because He says, You are Mine. you belong to me and I love you and I will not let you drift away. For those who truly believe that for the sake of the passion and death of Christ, all his sins are now forgiven him and he is clothed with the perfect righteousness of the Son of God, beloved theirs is the blessing of life and communion with him both now and forever for all, only those, but all those who repent of their sins. and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Boys and girls and young people, what a promise. And God doesn't say it tongue-in-cheek. That's His promise to you. That's His promise to me. That if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ with all your heart, you will be saved. And beloved, may we respond to His pursuing love to us With more love to Thee, O Christ. More love to Thee. Amen. Let's pray together. Father, in so many ways, these words recorded, Your Word recorded, seem so very harsh. And difficult to read and comprehend and even to digest. Yet you make it clear through and through of the things that you have said. That your punishment of your people is for the sake of their restoration. We praise your name that Jesus Christ has taken that all upon Himself. That we might be saved from the wrath of God to come. And may we rejoice in that. Oh Lord, we know that we fall short each and every day. But again, we pray for Your sanctifying grace. Not only to build us up more and more day by day in that most holy faith, but that we might be those who give evidence of that. That it might be simply a part of our makeup, something that we do without thinking. It's just there that we live as Christians that you have called us to be and have made us to be in Christ Jesus. Oh, Father, we thank you and praise you for your pursuing love. For it's not us that chose you, oh Lord, for that could not be. Our hearts would still refuse you if you had not chosen us. We praise you for your gift of love in Christ Jesus. In his name we pray, amen. Thank you.