Prayer Meeting 21/3/2023

The Compassionate Heart Of Hosea – Part 2

Hosea 2:15-17

Well this will indeed be our final part of our wonderfully fruitful time in Hosea, drawing from

much of the Jeremiah Burroughs (born 1599, died 1649) ground breaking commentary. We have but literally scraped the surface of it.

Let me start by reading our puritan prayer from the book ‘Into His Presence’, page 71, entitled ‘Holy Fire’. This prayer is by Thomas Watson:

Loving Lord, may our obedience be free and cheerful. Though we serve with weakness may we be willing. May our cheerfulness show the love in our duty. May our obedience be devout and fervent, our hearts boiling over with hot affections in your service. May our fervency be the fire to our sacrifice. May our obedience be extensive, reaching all your commands, running through our duties like blood through our veins. May our obedience be sincere, not merely to silence conscience or gain applause, but to grow more like you, and bring you glory. May our obedience be constant, continuing when we meet affliction, like the fire on the altar which was always kept alight. May our obedience be in and through Christ in every part of worship. May we present Christ back to you in the arms of our faith. May we love you with a holy love, a holy fire kindled in the affections, carrying us out strongly after you as our supreme good. May your Spirit shine upon our understanding, revealing the beauty of your wisdom, holiness and mercy that these may be the magnet drawing out our love for you. In our love for you may we desire communion with you; may we hate the sin that separates us from you; may we grieve those things which grieve you; may we labour to render you lovely to others; may we be willing to do and suffer for you: subscribing to your commands and submitting to your will. You do not need our love, and yet you seek it in love. Lord, give me a heart to love you, for it is my grief that I do not love you more.

- Thomas Watson

We started with sharing about ‘The Courageous Heart Of Hosea’, and then last time shared the first of two parts on ‘The Compassionate Heart Of Hosea’. Hosea is known as the St John of minor the prophets, due to the compassion God shows to His people through Hosea. Hosea served the Lord during the Israelite’s rebellious ways under king Jeroboam for around eighty years. It truly was not an easy call.

At first he calls them out for their wickedness; their total distain of God and His laws, while they go after their idols. This story is told through the marriage of Hosea with a prostitute called Gomer. As I’ve said, some say its but a dream others think it to be factual. Either way it affects the narrative not. Although it being real and not a dream, makes it somewhat for me even more astounding.

Burroughs writes:

The people of Israel were now near destruction, and were daughters of sensual delights. It is the usual way with those idolators, who forsake the true worship of God to give themselves up to the pleasures of the flesh.

He then metaphorically adds this, as if God was speaking:

“How am I slighted by my people, the idols can be followed, they can be remembered, but I am neglected, I am forgotten, they have activity for their idols, but none for me; memory for them but none for me!”

Oh how much is God neglected when we go after our idols? No time to pray or study, but time to pursue our carnal desires. Such distain many have of God’s Word, when they are being satisfied worldly things.

From chapter two, verse 14 onwards, God changes from rebuking and warning, to showing His grace and mercy, and His heart to draw His people back to Himself in spite of their rebellious, sinful, prideful ways. Of course, we didn’t get far into verse 14 of chapter two, as I was struggling to get beyond the first two words. Can you remember them?

Therefore— behold.

Hosea 2:14

¹⁴“Therefore, behold, I will allure her, will bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfort to her.”

‘Therefore, behold’, carries so much more weight when we read verse 13:

Hosea 2:13

¹³“I will punish her for the days of the Baals to which she burned incense. She decked herself with her earrings and jewellery, and went after her lovers; but me she forgot,” says the Lord.

Therefore, behold. Such is the heart of God for His chosen people. Therefore, behold. I asked the question last time: what is our ‘therefore, behold’, when we are rejected, pushed aside, ignored? Do we turn to love, do we continue to care, do we feel their pain? Or is it: therefore, behold, I will take revenge, I will continue to show my pain to them, I won’t get over it?

Yet we see God, through Hosea, whose wife has totally rejected him, showing such love and compassion. Therefore, behold, I will allure them, I will draw them back unto me. I said last time that:

God doesn’t stop preferring you when you prefer anything but Him.

What God is doing here, is that He is about to move so powerfully and beautifully into the heart of His people, that He is going to draw them away from their lovers, back to Himself. Burroughs wonderfully puts it this way, which you heard last time:

If God come and outbid all, the bargain is made up, and God carries away the heart.

God will outbid all our idols and all our fleshy pursuits and sin’s offerings. Behold, He will brothers and sisters. What a word. God will outbid all our sins and idols.

I concluded with comparing the unfathomable comfort that comes from the Lord, compared to the fleeting relief we get from man, or carnal things. God’s love for His people and God’s love for Gomer, is such that He yearns for her, and draws her away from her lovers, her sin, because He knows how futile it is.

I think there are few things sadder than seeing a believer pursuing man, and sin, and flesh, when its clear they will never ever find true soul peace even when they get it. They are so superficially satisfied, that they really are but a broken vessel, trying to hold onto the contents, which they never can. Yet God’s love leads that rebellious nature, that dissatisfied soul into the wilderness.

Isn’t true comfort,, not the comfort we get from sin, or from man- that’s such a cheap comfort, because it a comfort that only lasts moments. Mostly it is not comfort at all but fleshy relief. The flesh is relieved of its intense pursuit for but a moment. It’s as C.S. Lewis puts it: ‘we are easy pleased’. And by that, we mean that which does not go deep to the soul, i.e. that which only God can give us.

Not fleeting comfort, that is here today and gone tomorrow. How dissatisfying, is pride, or lies, or blame, or sin, or man pleasing, or worry? It’s so hopelessly inadequate for a fulfilled life. Gomer had all the riches in God, but went after cheap pleasure from man, approval from man, satisfaction from man and worldly riches. Yet due to God’s great love, even in that delusion, He draws His people to a greater treasure.

Do you know, sometimes I hear people so distracted by carnality, even after the Word, that I’m like, oh my, you received that so, so lightly due to being full of self, and flesh, and man satisfaction, or man dissatisfaction - that truly you really are missing out. It’s like they were talking about a pavlova.

Let’s read the final part, or let me read through verse 13-14 first

Hosea 2:13-14

¹³“I will punish her for the days of the Baals to which she burned incense. She decked herself with her earrings and jewellery, and went after her lovers; but me she forgot,” says the Lord. ¹⁴“Therefore, behold, I will allure her, will bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfort to her.

Hosea 2:15a

¹⁵I will give her her vineyards from there, and the valley of Achor as a door of hope;

Verse 14 tells us God will first speak comfort to her. Then in verse 15 He will give her, her vineyards. God speaks to her in verse 14 i.e. gives her bread, His words are the bread of life. He speaks comfort to her heart, then in verse 15 He strengthens her heart .

Calvin puts it like this:

Bread strengthens, supports and gladdens man’s heart, the vine gives bountiful supply.

So it’s not just that God loves His people even when they rebel, He draws them to Himself, and not only shares His comforting words, but supplies us with all we need to sustain that great joy and comfort.

Too often I see people only stay in that wilderness and be comforted for a little while, then when they feel good enough, head back out to pursue rotten fruit. It’s like they only ever spend time with God when they are barren, then when they feel better they run back, and forget that the God who comforts them, also can sustain that comfort forever.

Yet God has an abundance of comfort and goodness awaiting us, there is no need to leave that place. Yet many just come for relief, when man failed them, when pleasure failed them, when they stopped getting their desires met. And as the pain subsides, the lure of the flesh takes them back out of the bountiful life they have in God.

Brothers and sisters, there is an abundance of riches, beyond the comfort you need, beyond the pain you are being comforted from. The love of God goes way beyond relief, and way beyond the pain you feel. So many only remain long enough to feel better, why? They are not willing to swap their idol for God.

Burroughs says:

Many, when they lie upon their sick-beds will promise what they will do for God, if he restore them; but they cannot resolve on immediate surrender of themselves to his service, and so opportunity passes away unproved.

Burroughs calls the vineyards God promises, and delivers, as ‘the fruit of reconciliation’. Many of us will remember in those moments of salvation, or in the times when God’s mercy was so great, it’s like He gives us so, so much, that its overwhelming at times to us. We are just so overwhelmed with the comfort, that it never even enters our mind that we could be deserving of anything more. Yet we get so much love and grace poured into us – ‘My sins they are many His mercy is more’.

Hosea 2:15a

¹⁵I will give her her vineyards from there, and the valley of Achor as a door of hope;

The word ‘Achor’ does indeed mean trouble. In the valley of trouble. But I think what Calvin alludes to is a great help. Achor the place where the Israelites went when they came out of the wilderness. They then entered the plain of Achor. Yes, Achor means trouble, i.e. the valley of trouble. But it’s not a barren place. Its where Achan was judged for taking the spoils himself.

So when it says the valley of Achor is a door of hope. It’s not to punish the Israelites, God’s rebellious people, but to share in all his fruitful goodness. The valley is indeed trouble for those who don’t want to bask in God’s provision but use it for themselves. But it’s to show the people that God provides abundantly for us.

God’s goodness, God’s forgiveness, God’s mercy, Gods’ kindness, is that door of hope for rebellious people. They enter into God’s land and they know they have rebelled, they know they used God for self. They know they decked themselves out with fine garments and jewellery, and forgot Him. Yet God does not lead them to nothingness, to dryness, to a place of no hope. But leads them to a place of plenty, of goodness, of provision.

It’s like the son in the parable of the prodigal son. He lived in the pen, he fell on hard times. He makes his way back, he expects, at best, to be a slave, yet as he arrives in the field, his father puts a fine robe on him and prepares a banquet, where they dance and sing, due to his return. He expects trouble, he expects very little, even a hope of being a hired hand. Yet that plenty gave him all the hope he could ever desire. To give love and mercy, and kindness to those that expect and deserve nothing , is the heart of God for His chosen people. As Burroughs says: ‘it’s beyond all expectation’.

Yet we know the Israelites still complained, they were given much, but it didn’t suit some of their tastebuds. How many of you turn your mouths away from God’s provision, because it’s not the diet that feeds your flesh? What should be a valley of plenty, for some is a valley of trouble, where they turn away.

‘The valley of Achor as a door of hope’. Burroughs asks the question: ‘why is it called a door of hope?’ Among many reasons Burroughs mentions, which we can’t go into all, is

when Burroughs talks of how they turned their trouble into fearing the Lord. In this we mean a holy reverence, where God shows such mercy, and provides such possessions for them, that their hearts are so softened, and yet full of awe. For such a holy God to provide such grace and mercy. As Burroughs says, they then truly see:

A holy God, and know he would have them a holy people.

When God’s people, when these Israelites, when Gomer (the more you talk, the less it’s likely that Gomer was a real person) - When they arrive in this place, what do you think they are expecting? Certainly not what God stored up for them.

As Burroughs says:

All those glorious things I have stored up for you.

All these things are presented to us as ours, from Him. It’s like: why oh why would you want jewellery? Why oh why would you want to use them to worship man and idols? Why use all that you have to gain from man? And while you have been doing that, I have been storing this up for you. I have kept this perfect for you.

It’s a valley of trouble alright, because it ought to truly trouble our hearts that we would take anything that God has for us, and return back to the world with it for our pleasure. This valley ought to break our hearts. The cross ought to break our hearts. The pain Christ inflicted so we could share His riches, ought to break our hearts. And in that final brokenness, it becomes all our hope.

Burroughs writes beautifully:

Although God has been humbling men’s hearts with long and slow afflictions, yet, just before he bestows great mercies, he afflicts again, to humble and break their hearts some more.

I don’t even have time to share the second part of verse 15, I will simply read it and say a few words.

Hosea 2:15b

^15bShe shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, as in the day when she came up from the land of Egypt.

That door of hope becomes a place of total freedom, all the things done are forgotten, and all that is remembered is God’s wonderful guiding hand, leading us to that freedom, destroying all our enemies, and those that would keep us captive. They see all that God has for them is way, way greater than anything they could ever acquire by themselves.

This singing is not one of restrain, or one of holding back, or one where they care about man’s opinion, or man’s favour, or sin’s trappings, but only God’s wonderful mercy, and grace, and His riches that He shares with us.

I love what Burroughs says:

A reconciled condition is a singing condition.

Brothers and sisters, to mourn your flesh, to have no joy due to the world and all in it, and due to people, is like to not have ever tasted the mercy and goodness of God. Oh how poor in spirit are we when we can’t worship in a place of God plentifulness. What does it matter what man is or man does, or what life flings at us, or rejection? We are the accepted of God, we are His chosen people, we are those He has poured such great love on.

And I just love how God, through His Spirit, has tied this in perfectly to first Corinthians 3. As it says in 1 Corinthians 3 and a perfect way to end:

1 Corinthians 3:21-23

²¹Therefore let no one boast in men. For all things are yours: ²²whether Paul or apollos or Cephas, or the world or life or death, or things present or things to come—all are yours. ²³And you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.

You may ask: will I ever change, will I ever get over myself, will I ever learn? Will I ever stop messing up? Will I ever stop desiring acceptance, will I ever get over worry Will I ever stop worshipping idols

Well, I will but read Verse 16-17

Hosea 2:16-17

¹⁶“And it shall be, in that day,” says the Lord, “that you will call me ‘my husband,’ and no longer call me ‘my master,’ ¹⁷for I will take from her mouth the names of the Baals, and they shall be remembered by their name no more.”

Yes you will.

Amen.