February 3, 2019 Sermon

Hosea & Gomer: Love Holds You So You Can Hold On

 

Hosea 1:2-3 English Standard Version (ESV)

Hosea's Wife and Children

² When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.” ³ So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.

 

Hosea 2:1 English Standard Version (ESV)

Israel's Unfaithfulness Punished

2 ^[a] Say to your brothers, “You are my people,”^[b] and to your sisters, “You have received mercy.”

 

Hosea 2:18-20 English Standard Version (ESV)

¹⁸ And I will make for them a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the creeping things of the ground. And I will abolish^[a] the bow, the sword, and war from the land, and I will make you lie down in safety.¹⁹ And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. ²⁰ I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the Lord.

 

Hosea 2:23 English Standard Version (ESV)

²³     and I will sow her for myself in the land.
And I will have mercy on No Mercy,^[a]
    and I will say to Not My People,^[b] ‘You are my people’;
    and he shall say, ‘You are my God.’”

 

Hosea 3:3-5 English Standard Version (ESV)

³ And I said to her, “You must dwell as mine for many days. You shall not play the whore, or belong to another man; so will I also be to you.” ⁴ For the children of Israel shall dwell many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or household gods. ⁵ Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God, and David their king, and they shall come in fear to the Lord and to his goodness in the latter days.

 

Hosea 6:6 English Standard Version (ESV)

⁶ For I desire steadfast love^[a] and not sacrifice,
    the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.