Hosea 2:1-2

Josea chapter 2, looking at the first two verses of this chapter. Say ye unto your brethren, Ami, and to your sisters, Ruhama, plead with your mother, plead. For she is not my wife, neither am I her husband. Let her therefore put away. her hoardings out of her sight and her adulteries from between her breasts. God blessed to us is sacred and holy word this evening. When Lena came to counseling, she proceeded to describe a life of immorality, deception, and failure. When she was 14, see and some of her friends, thought it would be fun to seduce a married man and made a pact to do so. Each came, was to come back and report. Lena dressed up and sneaked out to a bar, and she was successful. To her amazement, the man gave her money. When she reported back to her friends, she found out the whole thing was a hoax. and discovering what she had done, they quickly dropped her as a friend, and she ended up being a prostitute. The Bible doesn’t tell us how Gomer got involved in prostitution or hoard them. Perhaps she started young, but whatever the case, her exploits became well known, and prostitution. became a way of life for her. And then Josea the prophet comes along. He has been commanded by God to marry a wife of Hortems. So she takes Gomer for his wife, and perhaps for a time her life settled down. And yet she soon reverted to her old ways. She had two ill. legitimate children, low Rouhamma, no mercy, and lo army, not my people. And poor Josea had to put up with a lot of indiscretion and shameful activity on her part. This passage that we have before us tonight can be interpreted on two different levels. On the initial level, it has to do with Jose and his family. But this is merely a foundation for the second level, which is an account of God’s relationship with Israel, his wife. Josea’s children are urged here to plead with their mother about her sin. The word plead here can be understood as contend. denounce, judge, rebuke. Since his own cries of protest have fallen on deaf years, he tells his children here to plead with their mother about her sins. In fact, Joseus has denounce your mother. He asked his children not to keep silent about what their mother is doing, not to resign themselves to it. They must not shrink back from criticizing their mother. They must come right out and rebuke her in no uncertain terms. But there is that second level to all of this. God, of course, is speaking with regard to his unfaithful wife, Israel, the Northern Kingdom in particular. perhaps we should understand the children here and notice he calls them Ami, my people, and Ruhama, having mercy. I suggest that this represents the godly remnant among the Israelites, thus your brethren. The family we’re dealing here with is the visible church of the Olderlites, Testament. And for the most part, she has been an adulterous wife, just like Gomer. But here God seems to be calling upon the faithful few among the apostate Israel to witness against the sins of the nation, to boldly condemn the idol worship and gross perversions that have prevailed among the Israelites. let those who have not bowed the knee to bail reason the case with those who were guilty of such idolatry. They needed to endeavor to convince the wicked of their evil ways. They must rebuke the sins of their society, even though they are a remnant, either though they are a small minority. We would like the church. to be a peaceful and pleasant place of rest and blessing, a stronghold for the faithful. But when the rest is a false rest, when the peace is abused in all sorts of ways, then the godly among the children of God, must denounce it. In such a situation, silence is dangers. So you must dare to raise your voice in protest to what you see is going on. That and nothing less, I think, is what Josea means as he seeks to create a spirit of resistance here. When he says, denounce your mother. So Jose is chases. children are urged to plead with their mother about her sin. Now we have Josea’s divorce here of Gomer. She is not my wife. Neither am I her husband. On the first level, he must envision Josea and his children in the court. Their words are addressed to the judge. and they are spoken in the presence of Gomer. Josea’s purpose in the lawsuit evidently is to obtain a divorce from his wife. Indeed, his speech begins with the former proclamation of divorce here in verse 2. The reasons for bringing the lawsuit are found in the actions of Gomer. She had been perceived. consistently unfaithful, committing adultery with other men. And the entire scene is a tragic one. A deserted husband and three children are compelled by the actions of their wife and mother and by the requirements of the Hebrew law to take the case to court. As we shall see later, there are three special. specific charges which Josea brings, Gomer’s intention to continue to pursue her lovers, verse 5. Gomer did not acknowledge her husband’s provisions, verse 8, and Gomer forgot her covenant relationship with Josea, verse 13. But interwoven in this account, is the Lord’s divorce of Israel. In the divorce court, Israel is arraigned. God says you’re not my wife, and I will not be your husband. The penalty in this case would be death, death by captivity, never to return. And the principle is this. There may be a point where a church becomes so apostate that God rejects it as one of his own. A time when God viewing all the unfaithfulness and spiritual deadness spuse it out of his mouth in disgust, as Revelation 316 suggests. A time when God removes the candlestick, Revelation 2.5, of light, testimony, and the darkness of death envelops it. No consideration can be more powerful to awaken a church to repentance than this announcement by God to disown it if there is no change, if there is no repentance. So we see Josea’s divorce of Gomer. Thirdly, Josea demands reformation, if there’s going to be a new change. If there’s going to be a repentance. So we see Osaya’s divorce of Gomer. be any hope of restoration. Gomer must change. The complaints about the mother and the accusations which the children make are suppos to bring about an affected change in Gomer so that she will listen. She’s urged to mend her ways. The goal is to bring about repentance and conversion. Now the Bible speaks about those who have eyes full of adultery. So Josea says here, put hoardums out of your sight. Let them be an abomination in your eyes. Detest these things in which you are now finding delight. And we find here he tells them to put these things away from between her. breast. Her lovers sometimes would lay their head upon her naked breast at night. And so he’s saying put all this away. But his point is that Gomer must repudiate this type of living and give it up. Reform her ways. On a secondary level, God is telling Israel she has to put away her false gods by which she had been acting unfaithful to Jehovah. And because Israel did not put her hortem out of her sight, God will eventually put Israel out of his sight. Send her off into captivity. In 2nd Kings chapter 17, we read that children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did, they departed not from them. Promises could not draw them back to God. Threats could not deter them until as the scripture says, the Lord removed Israel out of his sight. If Israel continues to expose herself and find secret to light in pursuing other gods, then we find that Jehovah says, I will divorce you. If a church desires to maintain fellowship and communion with God, her unfaithfulness must come to an end. There must be repentance. God’s going to not tolerate anything less than a devotedness to keeping the marriage covenant with him. We read in Revelation 2.5, remember from whence thou art fallen and repent, he says to the church at Ephesus. and Revelation 3.3, remember therefore, how thou hast received and heard and hold fast and repent, he says to the church at Sardis. So, Josea demands Reformation if there’s going to be any hope of restoration here. So this is what the first two verses lay out before us, and we’ll get some more detail as we look further in this chapter. But let me draw a few practical thoughts out and then we’ll close. The first thing is this. We can see here that it’s lawful for children to plead with their parents. Though it is true this passage, James, it’s something higher than just the natural relationship between children and parents. Yet the principle still holds true. It is lawful for your children to plead with you, if necessary, to rebuke you as a parent, for sin in violation of God’s law. If your children see you doing something sinful. They should plead with you as a parent, and you’re bound to listen to God’s cause in this. Children certainly ought to give due respect to their parents, yet they must also prefer the Lord in his ways above their parents. They must not love their parents more than Christ. You remember that Jonathan, pleaded with his father King Saul with regard to David. We read in 1 Samuel 19 that King Saul was very jealous of David’s popularity among the people and spoke to all to his servants about killing David. When Jonathan saw that King Saul was in such an angry mood against David, he said, let not the king Saul send against David. He said, let not the king sent against his servant against David. And then he told him, My father, why, you know he’s done you much good. He took his life in his hands and went out and fought the Philistine giant Goliath and spared Israel. Let not the king, Jonathan gives his father respect as king and father. He honors his position. Yet he goes on to reason with Saul about the good service David has done and that David should not be treated like this in such a shameful manner. When as a child you plead with your parents, you ought to do so with respect and humility. Parents are to be honored. Remember how Ham was cursed for discovering his father’s wickedness or nakedness, though Noah was drunk and he did not show proper respect to him. So his son, actually, Canaan, was the one who was cursed. Certainly if he would have sought to cover his father’s nakedness and afterwards had come and pleaded with his father, he would not have been cursed but blessed. If your children do plead with you, you should give them the opportunity to lay out their case. Because as you know, children may suffer for the sins of their parents. It’s not as if they have no involvement in this matter at all. For the scripture tells us that God visits, the sins of the parents upon the children under the third and fourth generation in Exodus 25. 20, verse 5. Parents, consider what your children say with respect to sin. God may just be using them to do you good. So it’s lawful for children to plead with their parents. Notice also here. And a second case. As a private member, you may have to plead with your church. The Bible speaks of spiritual Jerusalem referring to the true church as the mother of us all in Galatians 426. Now the members of the visible church are called their children. It’s children. You really remember the passage that Russell read in 2 John, where the lady there, I believe, is the church, and the children are members of the church who John saw walking in good order. And those children who are faithful the Lord may have to denounce the church’s sinful ways. You might have to register a protest against the sinful direction which the church is moving in. There is such a thing as a mass mindset, even in a church. If the wrong spirit begins to dominate, sometimes it will virtually bring everybody to succumb to it. It may be a spirit of self-sufficiency as the case of Laodicea. It may be a case of worldliness as the case of Corinth. Or of dead ritualism. as the case of Sardis. It could be anything. But the danger is great that such a spirit would dominate a church and bring about its apostasy. Often people will accommodate themselves to it. Or just give up fighting against it. Just go with the flow, so to speak. This is not what God would have us to do. But if we do this, then the protest. test and the criticism comes to an end. So with an eye to this danger, the prophet Josea tells us here, plead with your mother, plead. And the point is this. We should wake out of our slumber and do not stop admonishing your church. I suggest several things about dealing with the church. One is this. We shouldn’t plead. with her about every little thing. Sometimes people complain about very trivial matters and they make mountains on a molehills. Love coverth a multitude of sin. Osea calls us here to rebuke because of the magnitude of the sin involved. It was notorious. It was sinful. It was something to do directly with the covenant relationship we have with the Lord God. Secondly, it must be done in an orderly fashion. You just don’t start tearing the church apart with criticism. If possible, first go to the elders or the leaders of the church and appeal to them to evoke change. Thirdly, it has to be done in a manner which shows the utmost respect for the church and its leaders. And lastly, it should be done in a peaceable manner with the desire to avoid disturbing the peace of the church. But what should we plead about in particular? The accusation you are asked to make concerns the marriage blonde being broken. Apostasy setting in. The complaint should be that although felt with God has not completely disappeared. It’s waning, and there’s all too little of it. The problem is that the worm is long away at the roots of the relationship. The church life. Its communion with Jesus Christ has been damaged that what the church is doing shows great unfaithfulness to the Lord. The church is, children are to tell the church that she must return to her intimate relationship with Christ as the head and savior of the church. Here we can see where the question might be have you lost your first love? Have they turned away from loving Christ as they ought to? That’s an important matter. And on that point we must be willing to admonish and reprimand one another in a friendly and godly fashion, watching out for one another’s souls. Josea’s message then is relevant. It’s relevant to us today. The vital issue involved is the marriage covenant with Christ and his church. So don’t abuse your privilege of pleading. We don’t do it with the spirit of pride. and arrogance and take the light in it. We don’t revel in it. It’s a sad thing. We have to do this. The Bible also wants against us bringing an accusation without two or three witnesses against an elder. But God says he hates those also that so discord among the brethren. And so we want to be careful about this. But as members of the church and a desire, we have a desire to be faithful to Christ and we see the church falling away. It’s our duty to try to pull it back, to plead with it that it would change its ways. There’s a difficult thing to speak to the church sometimes, especially if you’re one of the few that does so. Because then you get ostracized you’re just causing trouble and this and that and the other. And then we’ll listen to you. Our duty is to be faithful to Christ. Speak up. Say what we need to say. And if that means eventually leaving the church, then you leave the church. But first, we point out the things that we find to be wrong and necessary to be corrected. And hopefully, Hopefully, after much prayer and are speaking up about the matter, the Lord will change the direction of the church. But if not, then, of course, we might have to walk away and say, this is not really a church that’s following Jesus Christ, as it ought. Well, let us close with a word of prayer tonight.