Hosea 1
Your Personal Life Matters!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Monday, August 12.
Hosea’s personal life took on prophetic meaning during the dark days of Isaiah the prophet and the Assyrian Empire’s destruction of the northern ten tribes of Israel. In the Bible, idolatry is compared to adultery, so Hosea’s entire life became the message of God’s faithfulness to His unfaithful bride, Israel. God commanded His prophet in Hosea 1:2-3, “When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, ‘Go, take to yourself a wife of harlotry and have children of harlotry; for the land commits flagrant harlotry, forsaking the Lord.’ So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.”
Expanding the prophetic imagery, their three children took on symbolic names, capturing the message of God’s judgment against Israel’s flagrant harlotry:
- Jezreel means “God sows” or “God scatters,” and it refers to the valley where Jehu overthrew Israel’s wicked king Ahab (2 Kings 9-10), which allowed Jeroboam II to be in power at the time of Hosea (Hosea 1:4-5).
- Lo-ruhamah literally translates to “she has not obtained compassion,” and it means “not pitied” or “not loved” (Hosea 1:6-7). This name describes the emotion of a father denying or rejecting his child.
- Lo-ammi means “not my people,” which was a direct refutation of the covenant formula (Hosea 1:8-9).
While God was naming the children of Hosea to forecast His judgment of Israel, He was simultaneously prophesying the coming of Immanuel in Isaiah 8-9. God would bring His salvation to all humanity through the Messiah of Israel, Jesus Christ. This was the historical context to the prophets Isaiah, Hosea, Micah, and Amos, and it’s the historical backdrop of the naming of Jesus as the Immanuel, “God with us.”
Seize the moment and proclaim the faithfulness of God in your personal life. Even when current events are dark, your life is intended to shine the coming of Immanuel (Matthew 5:14-16).
God bless you!
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YOUTUBE:
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