Episode Transcript
WEBVTT
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This is the word of God.
Has AIAH, Chapter One, I'll read
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for us, versus one through eleven, the word of the Lord that came
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to Josiah, the son of Beery, in the days of Uzaiah, Jotham
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a has and Hezekiah, kings of
Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam,
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the son of Joash, King of
Israel, when the Lord first spoke
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through Josiah, the Lord said to
Josiah, go take to yourself a wife
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of hoardom and have children of hordom, for the land commits great hordem by
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forsaking the Lord. So he went
and took Gomer, the daughter of Debliahm,
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and she conceived and bore him a
son, and the Lord said to
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him call his name Jezreel, for
in just a little while I will punish
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the house of Jaho for the blood
of Jezreel and I will put an end
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to the Kingdom of the House of
Israel, and on that day I will
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break the bow of Israel in the
Valley of Jezreel. She conceived again and
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bore a daughter, and the Lord
said to him call her name no mercy,
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for I will no more have mercy
on the House of Israel, to
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forgive them at all, but I
will have mercy on the House of Judah
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and I will save them by the
Lord, their God. I will not
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save them by Bou or by sword, or by war, or by horses
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or by horsemen. When she had
weaned no mercy, she conceived and bore
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a son, and the Lord said, call his name, not my people,
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for you are not my people and
I am not your God. Yet
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the number of the children of Israel
shall be like the sand of the sea,
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which cannot be measured or numbered.
And in the place where it was
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said to them, you are not
my people, it shall be said to
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them, children of the Living God
and the children of Judah and the children
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of Israel shall be gathered together and
they shall appoint for themselves one head,
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and they shall go up from the
land, for great shall be the day
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of Jezreel. The grass withers,
the flowers fade, but the word of
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our God stands forever. You may
be seated. Every one of us is
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part of a family. Every one
of us has a father or a mother.
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Some of you are living at home. Your part of that family who
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live under a particular roof, you
share meals together, your father and mother
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provide for you. Some of you
have been adopted into a family, and
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yet you're still a part of a
family. And we know from the scriptures
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that God very often deals with families. The family is in important to God.
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And as we think about the Bible
more broadly, not just in the
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Old Testament, where we are today, in the book of Joseah, but
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the Bible more broadly, it's a
story of families. It's a story of
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the family of God, but it's
a story of more than that. It's
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a story of a nation. To
isn't a story of groups of families that
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God has brought together to make into
a nation, the nation of Israel?
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And as that Old Testament people of
Israel lived in the presence of God,
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they pointed to another family. They
pointed to the Church of Jesus Christ,
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because the Church of Jesus Christ,
as it's described for us in the New
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Testament, is to be a family
as well. Father's and mother's children,
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young men young women in the faith
were a family that God has brought together.
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And so this morning, as we
come to Joseiah, we have fundamentally
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a story of a family. There's
a father, there's a mother, there's
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children, both boys and girls,
that are described here for us, but
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it's God presents to us this morning
this family. He wants to teach US
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lessons. And I think one of
the things that should strike us as we
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hear about this family, about the
growth of the family, the marriage that
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brings the man and the woman together, the children, that God blesses them,
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that it's a story about wrath and
about mercy and that God is always
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moving from wrath to mercy for his
people. He's moving from wrath to mercy
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for his people in Jesus Christ,
and so that's what I want you to
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see this morning. As we look
at these people, as we look at
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Hoseiah, the Prophet of God,
as we look at his wife, Gomer,
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who is not a faithful wife,
but rather an unfaithful wife, and
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as we consider these children, who
have very unique names, we see,
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on the one hand, the wrath
and the anger of God on Sin,
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but we see also how he displays
his mercy to his people. And so
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let's look first at the first two
verses and we see here a particular contrast.
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In verse one, you have all
kinds of names don't you? You
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have the name of the Prophet Hoseah, but it talks about the days in
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which he lived. We live in
the days of Obama, of trump,
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of other world leaders that we might
consider, but for the people of Israel
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and for Josea, he lived in
the days of these kings, and they're
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named here Huzaiah, Jotham, may
has has a Kia. They were the
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kings and the southern Kingdom of Judah, and where Joseiah was ministering, Jereboam,
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the son of Joe Ash, was
king, and it's a reminder to
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us that these were not all faithful
kings, many of them, in fact,
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we're very wicked kings. Has a
Kaia, yes, he turned to
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the Lord, but think about Hez
a Kiah and his son, who would
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come after him, Manassa, maybe
one of the most wicked kings in all
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of the history of Israel. He
filled the streets of Jerusalem with innocent blood.
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He sacrificed his children, burned them
in the fire, thinking that these
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idols, these gods, would do
for him what he wanted. Sin And
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certainly we can see why God's wrath
was beginning to be poured out on this
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people the northern kingdom. JEROBOAM,
the son of Joe Ash, is King
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and this is Jereboam, the second
and he's named after Jeroboam the first,
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of course, who was the very
first king of the northern tribes. You
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remember, in the time of David, and then his son Solomon, finally
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in the time of sons Solomon Son
ray of Balm, the kingdom is divided
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and God gave that kingdom to Jereboam. He had those ten northern tribes.
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He gathers them to himself and one
of the first things that he does as
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king, instead of leading them on
the Right Path in worship and faithfulness to
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God, he sets up those golden
calves in dance so that people wouldn't be
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tempted to go to the temple in
Jerusalem, but rather would bow themselves prostrate
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themselves before these idols. And we
see that again and again. Unfaithful Kings,
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idolatrous kings, and certainly God is
angry. God His wrathful towards those
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kings because they have not led his
people back to him in faithful as they
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have not shepherded his people the wrath
of God. And yet even here in
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verse one we see God's mercy because
we read that the Lord, or the
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word of the Lord, came to
Joseah, the son of beery, in
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those days. Even though the Kingdom
of Israel is on its dawn, own
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words spiral into sin that's going to
lead to its complete destruction, it's complete
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scattering, God is revealing his word
through his prophets. He is merciful to
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his people and telling them, reminding
them again and again. Yes, if
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you sin, you will be destroyed. But I am a God who shows
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grace and mercy to his people who
confess their sins, who repent of their
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sins, and I'm going to remind
you of that through the prophets that I
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send, the prophets that I send
like Joseah, so already wrath, but
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mercy. And so the word of
God comes to this Prophet, Joseah,
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living at a very challenging time and
the history of Israel, where the people
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don't want to serve God, where
their kings are drawing them away, and
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yet God speaks to Jose and the
Lord says to Jose go and take to
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yourself a wife of hoardom and have
children of hoaredom. He's saying go and
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take a wife and even as you
go to take her to yourself, as
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you bring her into your house,
as you make covenant vows with her,
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you know, you know that she
is going to be unfaithful, that she
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is going to give herself to other
men, as the text disc bribes it
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to us, using that word three
times, she is going to be a
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wife of whoredom. It's a terrible
thing, it's a horrible word. Someone
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who would sell themselves to another person, not for their pleasure, but for
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that other person's pleasure, being unfaithful
to all the vows that they have made.
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That's how she's described. She is
a wife of Hoardem. They're going
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to have children of HORDEM, like
mother, like daughter, like father like
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son, leading into those same kinds
of sin. And yet it's more than
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about just this woman and her family. It's about more than just this relationship
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and the unfaithfulness that we find there, because God writes to us and reminds
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us here that the land commits great
hordem by forsaking the Lord. It's a
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picture God is painting, a very
stark picture for the people of Israel of
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their own sin. It's easy to
point fingers at other people and to say,
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look at that marriage relationship, look
at how she has been unfaithful to
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him, look at how they're destroying
each other and their family. But God
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is saying, no, it's not
just about Gomer and Josiah, this is
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about you, the people of Israel. The land commits great hordem by forsaking
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the Lord. And we know from
much of the rest of Josiah that one
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of Israel's primary sins was the sin
of idolatry. We read later on in
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Chapter Four, verse twelve. My
people, God says, inquire of a
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piece of wood, and they're walking. Staff gives them oracles, for a
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spirit of hordem has led them astray
and they have left their God to play
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the whore. Instead of being faithful
to their God, they have played the
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whore and gone after all the other
gods of the nation's, every other God
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you can think of, except the
one true and living God. And so
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God is full of anger against them. And so we might wonder than who
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is this true bride? It doesn't
seem to be Gomer and as we think
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of that picture being of Israel as
a whole, are they the faithful bride
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no, they're not. In Haiti, people love weddings and as you go
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to a wedding, it's always a
big production. Everybody gets dressed up and
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many of the things would be familiar
to you. It often takes place in
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a church and here in the Front
would be the groom and his attendance,
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the pastor at the front, and
as the service begins, you look towards
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the back and they are standing,
all the ladies, including the bride.
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But all of those ladies, the
bride and her bridesmaids, what would strike
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you is that they're all dressed in
wedding dresses. They're all in white wedding
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dresses, maybe a little bit different
from each other, but you might say
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to yourself which one is the bride? which is the woman that's going to
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be married to this man standing up
front? Who is the true bride?
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Hopefully the groom knows, but you
might question and say, is she the
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one who's going to be faithful to
him? Who is the true bride?
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But God says taker as your wife. So he went and took a Gomer,
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the daughter of Debliam, as his
wife. Hooseiah is faithful, not
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Gomer, not the bride, but
it's the bridegroom. That's faithfulness should remind
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us of God's faithfulness to us.
Because as we think about that image in
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the scriptures, that image of a
marriage of a bride and a bridegroom and
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carries, doesn't it all the way
into the New Testament and there who is
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described for us as the bridegroom?
It's Jesus. It's Jesus the bride.
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That's us, the church, and
sometimes, I think as we read the
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scriptures, we sometimes kind of put
ourselves in the story and we think about
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our own lives and very often we
might think, well, yeah, I'm
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I'm kind of like Josea. I've
been relatively faithful to God. Maybe you've
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said that to yourself before. But
what God wants you to see is that
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know your Hoseah, you're the one
who has not been faithful to God,
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the one who needs rescuing by the
bridegroom, who is fundamentally, ultimately Jesus
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Christ himself. He's the one,
he's the only one who can speak to
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US words of truth, who can
rescue us from our idolatry and bring us
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into the kingdom and show US mercy. We a people who by birth are
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under the wrath of God. But
we go on, because then we see,
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secondly, not just the contrast here
between Hosea and Gomer, but we
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see the result of that marriage,
don't we, in these three children that
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are described before us? Now you
know from the rest of the scriptures that
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children are a blessing to the Lord, and God was in that way bless
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this union of this man and this
woman. In giving them children, God
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is blessing them. But the irony
here in the text is that even though
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these children come into the world as
a blessing from God, their very names
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are a reminder of God's wrath and
anger towards sin. Look at verse four,
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the first son whom God gives to
Josiah and Gomer. Call his name
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Jesreel. He says, for in
just a little while I will punish the
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house of Jay who for the blood
of Jezreel, and I will put an
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end to the Kingdom of the House
of Israel. Jezreel means to scatter,
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and that's exactly what God is predicting
he's going to do, and that's what
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he does. In seven hundred and
twenty two BC, the Assyrians come from
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the north, they defeat the army
of Israel and those ten northern tribes are
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scattered to the four winds, never
to come back together. They are scattered
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no more to be a nation.
And so that's what God is saying to
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them. This son, his very
name, is to remind them of the
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wrath of God, specifically the sin
of Jaho for the blood of Jezreel.
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Jay who was a king, a
general and Ahab's army who was used by
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God to destroy the House of Ahab, to kill the wicked Queen Jezebel,
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to remove their idolatry from the people
of Israel, from those northern tribes.
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and to some extent he's faithful.
He carries out the vengeance of God on
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that unfaithful King and his family,
wiping them out. And yet he doesn't
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remove all of the high places,
he doesn't do everything that God wanted and
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desired for him to do. And
so God is punishing Jay who, but
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not just Jay who, all the
people of Israel. And you see,
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Jezreel. That place in some sense
should have been a reminder to Israel of
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some of their great victories. They're
in the Valley of Jezreel was where Gideon
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had defeated the armies of Midian,
three hundred men God used to defeat an
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enemy that it was said. They
were like the sand on the seashore,
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like aunt's coming out of that aunt
pile. But God defeated them. There
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were great victories there, and yet
there were some defeats as well. Israel's
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first king, King Saul, is
killed there on the slopes of Mount Gilboa,
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in the Valley of Jezreel. But
God's wrath, it's a reminder of
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their sin every time they see this
boy, every time they speak his name.
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And so God says, on that
day I will break the bow of
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Israel in the Valley of Jezreel.
You will cannot, you will not be
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able to lean on your army,
on what you have. But he goes
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on, and in one sense it
gets worse, doesn't it? She conceived
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again and bore a daughter, and
the Lord said to him call her name.
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No mercy, low Ruhama, for
I will no more have mercy on
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the House of Israel to forgive them
at all. And here we see the
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how the names of the children are
connected with the parents, aren't they?
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One of the things that striking in
Haiti with the names of children is that
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often there are kind of combination of
the father and mother's names. When we
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go and do vacation Bible school there's
lots of kids and it's fun to get
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to know them. A kind of
lean down and ask them their name and
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I usually have to ask them to
repeat it a couple times. But very
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often there's a young boy. His
father's name is Peter and his name is
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Peterson or one of the interpreters we
use. His name is meek and son
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as father, is Meekin we have
neighbors across the street from us where we
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live in Haiti and the father's name
is we'd me and the mother's name is
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eveleen and all of their children have
different combinations of those names. One is
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Joe We'd me, very similar to
his father. One of their little daughters
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is we'd me Veleen. They've blended
those names together. And isn't it true
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often that our children do as we
do? They represent us in many ways,
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both in the good ways and,
sadly, in our sins as well.
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That's what's happening here. No mercy. I will no more have mercy
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on the House of Israel to forgive
them at all. What a horrible position
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to be in. God Says No
mercy. And yet there is a note
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of hope here, isn't there?
There? In verse seven, as he
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speaks his judgment and wrath against Israel, he says, I will have mercy
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on the House of Judah and I
will save them by the Lord, their
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God, the House of Judah.
All the way back in the time of
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Jacob, God had prophesied through him
that the scepter will not depart from the
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House of Judah, that a ruler
will come out of him. And again
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a reminder of the salvation that is
there for people if they will believe by
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faith, pointing us to Jesus,
ultimately, who comes as the lion of
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the tribe of Judah, the only
one who can defeat their enemies, because
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God says your bow, your sword, your horses, your horsemen will not
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be able to save you, but
your king, who comes from Judah,
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he will save you. He is
the one who can show you mercy.
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And then Verse Eight, the Third
Child, the second daughter, when she
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had ween no mercy, she conceived
and bore a son and the Lord said
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call his name, not my people
for you are not my people and I
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am not your God. Think of
the number of times in a day that
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you use the names of your children, especially if they're still living at home
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with you. Think of my own
son, Ethan. Ethan, it's time
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to get up, Ethan, come
to the table for breakfast, Ethan.
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It's time to start school, Ethan. What do you want to do this
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afternoon? Ethan? I love you, Ethan. It's time for bed.
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Again and again we use those names, and that's what God is doing for
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Israel here, not just for Josea
and Gomer, but any that they come
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in contact with. They would hear
these names again and again. You are
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not my people. Got US saying
it's time for a divorce. Do you
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remember, all the way back in
the book of Exodus, where God had
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come and was speaking to Moses about
the deliverance that he was bringing for his
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people, and he says they're in
exodus, chapter six, six and seven.
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Say, therefore, to the people
of Israel, I am the Lord
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and I will bring you out from
under the burdens of the Egyptians and I
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will deliver you from slavery to them
and I will redeem you with an outstretched
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arm and with great acts of judgment, I will take you to be my
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people and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am
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the Lord, your God, who
has brought you out from under the burdens
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of the Egyptians. God brought them
into his family. He said you're my
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people. But now in Joseah there's
a great reversal, isn't there? It's
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a reversal of those great promises of
exodus, of hope. Now God's wrath.
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He's saying, I'm giving you a
certificate of divorce, sending you away
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away from me. You are not
my people. They are children of Wrath,
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aren't they? Maybe those words are
familiar to you of Paul and the
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New Testament and Ephesians chapter two,
where he says that we are by nature
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children of Wrath, like Jesun,
like no mercy, like not my people.
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And so we need a save of
year, we need a savior,
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the Lord Jesus Christ, and that's
where even Josiah is pointing, because we
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need to be brought back into God's
family, we need to be married to
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him again, and that comes only
through Jesus. And so we come then,
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in verse ten, to the Great
Notes of hope in this chapter.
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You see, there's lots of Wrath, lots of sin, God's judgment on
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sin and it's very clear. But
God is always ready to show mercy to
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those who would repent. And so
he says in verse ten. Yet the
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number of the children of Israel shall
be like the sand of the sea,
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which cannot be measured or numbered.
To see the hope, first you have
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to go back. You have to
go way back in history to Abraham,
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and you remember the covenant that God
made with Abraham. He says, I
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will bless you and make you a
blessing, I will make you into a
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great nation. And that time when
God took Abraham out of his tent at
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night and Sayd Abraham, look at
the night sky, and as many as
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the stars in the sky, so
shall your offspring be as many as the
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sand, the grains of sand on
the seashore. Those are the descendants I'm
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going to give you. And how
is God going to do that? Well,
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the other thinging that Genesis reminds us
of is that Abraham believed God and
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it was credited to him as righteousness. It was by faith, because Abraham
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didn't even have a son. He
was a hundred years old, almost his
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wife old as well, beyond child
bearing years. There was no hope for
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them. And yet by faith,
Abraham believed. And so it was for
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the people of Israel in the time
of Josiah. By faith they had to
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believe that God was going to send
the child of the promise who would deliver
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them, even when it seemed like
there was no hope. And it's the
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same hope for you and I in
Jesus Christ. It's through faith in Christ
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that we believe and are shown that
mercy. Yet the number of the children
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of Israel will be like the sand
of the sea, which cannot be measured
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or numbered. They were going to
be destroyed and scattered. Even Judah is
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going to be taken away and only
a small remnant would eventually return after the
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exile. And so they still looked. They had to keep on looking for
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the promise. But God describes the
greatness of His mercy by showing it to
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them again and again here in these
verses. Not just that they would increase
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and be a great people, but
he says, in the place where it
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was said to them, you are
not my people, it shall be said
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to them children of the Living God. He was going to bring them back,
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just as we are adopted by faith
into the family of God, justified
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and adopted. So he says,
I'm going to bring you back. You
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can be called now the children of
the Living God. We see that promise
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as Paul describes it in Romans Chapter
Nine, and he uses these very words
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of Hoseiah to describe both the vessels
of wrath but also the vessels of mercy.
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He says in Romans Chapter Nine,
beginning in verse twenty two. What
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if God, desiring to show his
wrath and to make known as power,
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has endured with much patience, vessels
of wrath prepared for destruction, in order
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to make known the riches of his
glory, for vessels of mercy which he
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has prepared beforehand, for glory even
us, whom he is called, not
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from the Jews only, but also
from the gentiles, as indeed he says
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in Josiah, those who were not
my people, I will call my people,
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and her who is not beloved,
I will call beloved, and in
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the very place where it was said
to them, you are not my people,
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there they will be called sons of
the Living God. And you see
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it is by faith in Christ that
God brings us into his kingdom's vessels of
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mercy, the mercy of God,
shown his great mercy, and so he
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says, I'll take you back.
The children of Judah and the children of
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Israel shall be gathered together and they
shall appoint for themselves one head, one
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head. It's a image again of
that marriage of the husband as the head
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of the wife, and that should
remind us once again that even here in
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the Old Testament, Hooseiah, we
see Jesus Right, the one head,
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not just the king, not just
David, the descendant of David, the
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Lord, Jesus Christ, but as
Paul speaks in Ephesians chapter five. He
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speaks there about marriage, the marriage
of a husband and a wife, and
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he says in Verse Twenty Three,
for the husband is the head of the
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wife, even as Christ, as
the head of the church, his body
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and is himself it's savior. You
see that marriage of Josiah and Gomer,
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your marriage as husbands and wives.
Yes, there is a sense of authority
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and submissiveness there, but it points
to something even greater and more wonderful,
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that it is Jesus Christ who is
the head of the church. WHO SAVES
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HIS CHURCH? How does he do
it? He does it by dying,
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he does it by giving himself,
by sacrificing himself. And so Jesus is
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the head of the Church and he
says the people of God will give themselves
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to that one head, the Lord
Jesus Christ. Yes, there's wrath,
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the anger of God at Sin,
justly so, against Gomer, against the
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people of Israel, against you and
I as sinners. But His mercy,
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his mercies are new every morning.
That's what the hymn says. And then
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Joseah finishes with this statement. For
they shall go up from the land,
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for great shall be the day of
Jezreel. One of the great things about
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that name, Jezreel, is that
it kind of points both directions. Yes,
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it can mean scatter in terms of
destroying, like dust scattered on the
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winds, but it can also mean
scatter in terms of sewing. Haiti is
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a land of rocks and one of
the things you see in the springtime is
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that the men go out into the
fields and you'll see groups of men working
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together with their hose and they're howing
the fields, are getting the rocks out
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because, as you look at a
piece of soil, you'll see more rocks
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than soil. They go and they'll
make the pile of rocks, but there's
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still lots of rocks there. And
then they go and they scatter that see,
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they put it in place, hoping
that there's going to be a harvest,
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hoping that those plants will come up
even in the midst of those rocks.
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And isn't that what God does?
Jesus reminds us in the New Testament
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that, whatever it might look to
us out there in terms of people being
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receptive to the Gospel but being willing
to believe that, he says the fields
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are white for harvest, he has
scattered his seeds. He's also prepared the
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soil that even if the soil looks
rocky and rough to us, God can
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bring good out of that. They
shall go up from the land, for
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great shall be the day of Jezreel. And so we go. We go
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as missionaries to a place like Haiti, but you go out every day to
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your school and workplace and neighborhood.
You bring people here to church with you
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that they might hear these words that, yes, God pours out his wrath
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on sinners and eternal punishment, but
he calls us, in mercy, to
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believe in Jesus, and that's the
God that we serve. Let's pray
