Dwell in the Word: Hosea 3:1-5

Contemplate these questions as you dwell in Hosea 3:1-5:

1. Hosea's act of redeeming Gomer mirrors God's redemptive love for Israel, despite their unfaithfulness. How does this narrative symbolize God's enduring commitment to His people, transcending human shortcomings? In what ways does this demonstrate the depth of God's grace and mercy?

2. The prophecy in Hosea refers to a time when Israel will seek the Lord and David their king. Despite David's historical presence being long gone, it's symbolic of the anticipation of the Messiah. How does this prophecy resonate with the anticipation and fulfillment of the Messiah's coming in the New Testament, especially through Jesus?

3. The act of Hosea buying back Gomer serves as a vivid illustration of redemption and love. How does this narrative echo the broader concept of redemption in Christianity, emphasizing God's willingness to redeem and restore people despite their failings? How does Jesus' redemptive work parallel Hosea's actions, highlighting God's profound love for humanity?

Transcript:

  And so, we see here the life of Hosea, once again, reflecting what God is doing with Israel. And so, it's interesting, God tells Hosea to go and buy back, to redeem Gomer. He buys her back, even though she is unfaithful. Even though the average person would say, I'm done. I am not returning to this. I'm not going to put myself through this.

Hosea goes and he still buys back Gomer with 15 shekels of silver and a home and a lethech of barley. He pays the price that is necessary to buy his wife back. And he tells her that she has to dwell with him for many days. The idea here is that he is hoping that she will remain faithful.

Now, look at verse 4. The children of Israel shall dwell many days without king or prince. Now, this is a prophetic word, that there is going to be a time coming, that they will not have a king, they will not have a prince. But still, the idea is that God is faithful anyway. They won't have any sacrifices.

They won't have a pillar. Are any of these things but instead they will be trusting and hoping and waiting on God. That's the idea here as we get to verse 5. Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the lord their god. In other words, there will come a time when they are once again seeking out God now, there's an interesting phrase in here that we need to see immediately after what I just read seek the lord their God.

What does it say and David? David their king. Now, Hosea was written long after David was king. David was becoming dust. Okay, David was done, but Hosea is saying, still, they're going to seek the Lord their God and David their king. What is going on? Now, ultimately, what they were to hope for, what they were looking for was the Messiah.

Remember how we've tracked the promise of the Messiah. It starts in Genesis 3 15. It continues through the promise to all of the patriarchs, you know, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It gets narrowed down to the family of Judah. It continues through Boaz. And now to David, we have this promise that David will be the one through whom the promise Messiah comes.

And so yeah, the idea here is that they are hoping that they're waiting on the Lord to bring their Messiah. And then what happens? They shall come in fear to the Lord and to his goodness in the latter days. Now, what are the latter days? Well, the latter days is any time between the first coming of Christ and the second coming of Christ.

And so, we see that this prophetic word did happen. Look at all the Hebrew people, the Jewish people who came to faith at Pentecost, who came to faith throughout the book of Acts. While the book of Acts is focusing on Paul taking the gospel to the Gentiles for the majority of the book, remember how many Jewish people came to faith.

They sought out God, they trusted in David, their king, or Jesus, their Messiah, right? And so, this prophetic word happened. Why? Well, because of the picture of what Hosea does here. He bought back, he redeemed his wife.  And so, for us, we look to the future from Hosea, but to the past for us. To what god did to redeem a people for himself.

He bought us back from sin He brought us back from unbelief and so we are Beneficiaries of this grace of God, even though we are not the Hebrew people That were looking for the Messiah in the Old Testament. We are now the covenant people of God in the New Covenant by God's grace through the Lord Jesus Christ and his redeeming a people for himself. His buying us back from sin Has been effective for us because of the work of the Word and the Holy Spirit in us, and so we celebrate this truth, this picture that we see, this amazing love that Hosea does at the command of God in buying his wife back.

We know that same love in an even greater way through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ for us.