Hosea Chapter 2 Verses 1 – 3

 The tone of these verses is a plea, not an accusation. Revelation 12:10

says, “I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, “Now salvation, and

strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have

come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our

God, day and night, has been cast down.””

 God has no desire nor need to accuse anyone of anything… All that He

speaks is objective truth. To call things exactly as they are even if I

can’t see it, understand or agree with it! The word in the Hebrew that is

translated, “Bring charges,” is a single word that is also translated,

“Plead.” This is a pleading with the people of God with the warning of

what is ahead…

 On a divine level, God would have us to walk with Him and in His ways

such that all things would be well with our soul. That we would have all

things that pertain to life and godliness. All that we could ever want or

need to satisfy our hearts and fill our days with joy and gladness. Even

in the times of sorrow or sobriety in our circumstances, God knows the

heart of the human will be sustained in close fellowship with Him.

 On a human relational level, when we serve those that God has given to

us, we clothe ourselves. I know that might sound weird, but contrasted

with nakedness, there is covering, protection, preservation, honor, even

fashion! Things flourish. They are well kept, not like the wilderness.

There is a sense of direction and purpose, and the sensation of

wandering and wondering subside. All of this is a decision…

 Dry land receives what it needs to bring fruit. Love, joy, goodness,

kindness, faithfulness, on and on… Thirst is satisfied… And, what’s

also available to us is to take them for granted (live unintentionally), and

in so doing, lose the appreciation and respect and affinity we have for

that person in our life. Then, slowly, like the erosion of land under

flowing water, the relationship erodes… Until one day it ends up being

all of these things…

 According to the scripture, on the authority of the Creator and designer

of the human mind, I need to say something that is hard to receive. If

you’ve fallen out of love with your spouse, if you’ve lost your heart for

your friend, if you’ve found yourself in a place despising those you

work for or with, most of the time it’s not due to anyone else being less

lovable than before… It’s due to you not being faithful to what God has

brought into your life and the wilderness you’re experiencing is your

own doing.

 Almost all of human suffering is due to a condition of narcissism. A

concentration and focus on self. (I told you this was harsh) But if you

can break out of the mentality that everyone has been sent to serve you

and enter into the reality that you have been sent to serve everyone, in

fact, that is your RIGHTFUL place, things will change in an instant.

And what we read in verse 3, you won’t experience…

Hosea Chapter 2 Verses 4 – 5

 You’ve gotta be careful with this stuff! The fleshly desires of the human

heart! They are there to lead you to God, to lead you to what is good, but

in this fallen experience, they can so easily do the exact opposite!

 God had love for His people. He gave them bread! Bread from heaven if

you recall when they were in the wilderness. He gave them water! Water

from the rock while they wandered! He provided all of these things for

them but the people would not love Him for it… Instead, they desired

other things…

 Here’s the thing though, the other things WERE THE SAME THINGS!

Bread, water, wool, linen, oil, drink…, they go somewhere else, serve

some other god, what would they go to get? What they already had…

So, what’s the problem? Not what’s been provided…

 Their problem is faithfulness! Their decision! Let me show you how

this is our human nature. So simple. Just look at marketing. Apple has

done very little but change the color of their phone and tell the world it’s

new and they are the #4 company of the Fortune 500 list! I have a

beautiful brand-new black truck, and then after having it for a few

months, I wrapped it white. So awesome! And then, the other day I

looked at it and thought, wouldn’t that be great if it was black!? HA!

 We are so wired to seek and to pursue and to take hold… We are

actually wired to live intentionally and for faithfulness! And all of that

was in the original original reserved for God and for our spouse. Adam

in the garden, man… But sin entered. And now that ferocious pursuit of

want has moved to the things of serving self. To our complete

degradation!

 What do you need that you do not already have in the Lord? Honest

question. What do you need that you did not have the day you said, “I

do?” (May not have it any longer, we’ll talk about that a bit later in the

study, but you don’t have it any longer because you both or one of you

stopped pursuing each other and redirected pursuit to self…)

 The point is what we need we have and we think we need a different

color. So, we spend money and get the different color just to find

ourselves right back in the same disastrous dissatisfaction in no time.

Don’t worry it gets worse….

Hosea Chapter 2 Verses 6 – 8

 The pursued became the pursuer. The loved became the unloved. The

loved became the one desperate for the lover! The one in total control

and ease became the one with no control or peace. It’s interesting how

we can find ourselves totally unlike ourselves when we are in a state of

want…

 A way hedged with thorns and walled in… That is such a good

description of where the flesh leads us. A way hedged with thorns is like

everything is hard, and no matter what you do, things for some reason

are just difficult, or don’t get better. And walled in… Like you’re

stuck… Stuck in such a way as to not know how to get out… Can’t find

the path…

 So, we chase. That which promised love. That which promised what we

already had just didn’t appreciate until we come to the moment where

hopefully we come to our senses and just come home… In her distress

she says, “I will go back to my first husband because at least he was

better than this…” But here’s the thing, God says, you still don’t

know…

 I don’t have the satisfaction of the flesh. Never did. And, you never

needed it… What you need is satisfaction of heart which is entirely,

totally, completely a decision and not a result! Baal is another word for

husband… All that could be, we reserve for another and in that, (that’s

the decision), we miss out on satisfaction of the heart… And, don’t miss

this…, satisfaction of the heart IS the decision that results in

satisfaction of the flesh…

 Satisfaction of the flesh is not a decision… That one is a result. And the

flesh is crazy dark… It will never be fulfilled. However, to the one

whose heart is in the right place and fully committed, it can be

satisfied/quieted. I almost used the word quenched… It’s a difficult

thing to describe… But even the desires of the flesh will find

gratification when your heart is fully committed. For your earthly

treasure, (flesh in some ways), and your heart somehow ride together.

 Psalm 107:9, “For He satisfies the longing soul, and fills the hungry

soul with goodness.” John 6:35, “And Jesus said to them, “I am the

bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who

believes in Me shall never thirst.” Matthew 5:6, “Blessed are those who

hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled!” One more,

Psalm 16:11, “You will show me the path of life; In your presence is

fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

Hosea Chapter 2 Verses 9 – 13

 This is the pattern of the people of God throughout the Old Testament.

This cycle of being blessed by God, forgetting God, hitting hard times as

a result, and then God being merciful to a nation crying out to Him.

Rinse and repeat. I know that in the life of His people, God will never

tire of that cycle, but I also know that He hopes we will… There’s a

better way…

 Specifically, in the time of Hosea, the Northern Kingdom, Israel, was in

a time of exceeding prosperity… the problem was they didn’t honor God

with their abundance… God says here that they forgot Him, even took

the credit for their success from Him…

 Listen, the best thing for the child of God is not to be successful or to

have abundance or prosperity. The best thing for the child of God is to

walk with God. Money and abundance can do a lot of things, but alone it

leaves us wanting. God alone satisfies the soul. So, if God has blessed

me a ton, which He has, and I don’t honor Him with, in, through and

for it all, then the best thing for me is for me to begin to erode until I

turn back to the Lord… It’s just that simple, and in the lives of any of

the children of God, this is exactly how it will be…

Hosea Chapter 2 Verses 14 – 15

 God will call out to us when we are eroding and I love this… allure

us… The word in the Hebrew means that God will persuade us, He will

be open and simple with us, without complexity or hardship of untying

all knots of the flesh we have tied, He will simply call us to Himself and

welcome us to come to Him and in so doing, RESTORE us…

 Restoring often times has the blessing of remembering. Remembering

the goodness of God and all that He has done in your life. How He has

shown His goodness. How He built you up in the first place… It’s not

wasted, not forgotten and not lost… And there is a peace here because in

all honesty we don’t need God to do a new thing for us to be turned onto

the right path, all that is needed is for me to remember and appreciate

again with intention what He has already done!

Hosea Chapter 2 Verses 16 – 18

 This promise, which is a want, a desire of God, speaks of a newness of

relationship. That there has been great harm and hurt, God has been

forgotten, Israel has been unfaithful, but yet the relationship will not

only be restored but it will be made new. This speaks of the New

Covenant…

 God is no longer Master in the way that obedience is commanded but

rather the relationship will pivot to love where God is considered a

husband. Marriage-like covenant… Not just from God to man but man

to God… this is what Jesus secured in my place on the cross!

 The covenant God made with man, through Jesus, man has responded

with covenant. This is the New Covenant. Where separation can no

longer even be possible because all sin is forgiven! Sin is taken out of

the way…

 The marriage picture of Hosea is that the harm has been done, the

betrayal has been revealed, and yet God has loved them, and we will see

Hosea has loved her… So, what could separate them now? Now that

Gomer, oh and we are getting ahead of ourselves, but now that Gomer

sees what real love is…, that’s it, she’ll remain… Enter the New

Covenant… Where God so loved the world that He made us clean, in

such a way that we can never be made unclean… Why? Because Jesus

made covenant in the place of man with God the Father! Now we rest

(He is our Sabbath) in safety!

Hosea Chapter 2 Verses 19 – 23

 This is a promise for Isreal, a literal promise, that God has betrothed

them to Him forever. An everlasting betrothal. You have to torture the

scripture to conclude that God is done with Israel.

 AND, this is a sure picture and pointer to the New Covenant. That

through the goodness of God, blessing will be poured out on the whole

earth. For those that step forward to know the Lord, He will answer…

and the earth will answer, and we will answer, and our past will answer,

and all that we need or want will be answered…

 All these answers will come because this alone IS the answer to us being

made right with our Creator! And ultimately, having it the entire time as

we chase the different color…, this is the absolute and only key to

satisfaction of the human heart!