This episode not only takes you through the historical context of Hosea but also intertwines listener reflections and testimonies about spreading God’s Word. Through personal letters and heartfelt stories, witness how core values become real experiences of faith and compassion shared globally. Engage with the encouraging and powerful moments that reveal God’s timeless mercy and love for all His children.
The foundation, ye saints of the Lord, is laid for your faithful.
SPEAKER 02 :
Have you ever wondered if we can out-sin God? Or to put it another way, can we ever sink so low and sin so much that God’s grace can’t reach us? Well, welcome to Through the Bible. I’m so glad that you’re here as Dr. J. Vernon McGee answers these important questions and so many more as we dive into Hosea 1. Known as one of the minor prophets, and you’ll hear Dr. McGee take exception to that description, minor, Hosea is really a fascinating book. It begins with a big scandal, one that could show up on any made-for-TV movie. You know, but ultimately, when we get to the end of this book, I think what you’ll remember most is the amazing depth of God’s love for every one of us. I’m Steve Schwetz, and before we get started, Greg and I have got some listener stories that we want to share with you.
SPEAKER 03 :
And today, Steve, we want to do something that we do from time to time, which is reflect on our core values and how they are very real. They’re not just sort of statements that you put on a poster on a wall. And one of our core values that we have been taught by Dr. McGee, and he was taught by Jesus, so that’s a pretty good chain of reference. Yeah. is that we are simply called to fling the seed of the Word of God. And we have just heard so many stories here in North America and around the world of we fling the seed, others pick it up, and then they fling it some more.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, absolutely. I think of the illustration of the seed that we’re flinging. The Lord keeps putting more seed in this bucket, and we keep throwing it out, and we’re not piling seed on seed. There’s new opportunities that the Lord is bringing to us that we’ve talked about this before. Neither one of us is smart enough to know what we’re going to go to. Now, we’re good stewards, and we plan to an extent, but so much of the growth of this ministry into different aspects of it has not come from Yeah, I know.
SPEAKER 03 :
We haven’t sat in a conference room and planned out the future.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, I think about using that Bible bus pass. I mean, I’ve used it myself. I’m on an international flight into, I think I was going to Dubai, and I start chatting with one of the stewards. And the person says, hey, I used to listen on KFAX out of San Francisco. And it’s like, oh, well, you can’t listen to it anymore because your flight schedule. Well, here’s the Through the Bible app with the QR code on it. And now she’s listening again to the program. Yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
And we’ve heard over the years some pretty cool stories about truck drivers who give out Bible passes at truck stops. We’ve heard about people even paying to put up billboards, make bumper stickers, license plate frames, all kinds. We’ve heard about families who use the World Prayer Team for their homeschool kids.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah. Another way that people are starting to use the resources of Through the Bible is the Bible Companions. Oh, yes. Which I love. I’m looking at one. one of them i mean one of that the bible is a person that’s using them yes we have yeah that’s me we have uh the entire new testament done and they are an outstanding free by the way yes resource that you can use electronically for your own home bible study and if you do want the printed copy we can get those to you i believe we’re bundling them in 10 packs we’re trying to get the price down as low as we can remember digital is free for us because it’s almost nothing to distribute it Paper costs money. Shipping costs money. So we cover our costs there. But it’s a great way to introduce and fling the seed through the Bible by getting your friends and family interested in studying God’s word introduced to Dr. McGee through these Bible companions.
SPEAKER 03 :
I love it. And so we also have some fresh stories of listeners. You want to read this one from Krista in England?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes, it says, please send me a pack of the Bible bus passes so that I can pass them on and encourage people in my community. I have been on the Bible bus now for a while and I’m still going strong. It’s become a regular part of my day, a snack-sized portion of the Bible that I can now not do without. I regularly listen to the daily message two to three times just to make sure I haven’t missed something. If we are driving in the car, my two little ones also listen with me And they now know the theme song by heart. It’s interesting. I’ve heard that before with kids that don’t understand, but they know the theme song. I am so enthused by Dr. McGee and his direct and unwavering truth when unpacking the whole Bible. I am learning so much and have spoken to a few people about him and the amazing message and truthful saving grace the Lord Jesus Christ longs for us to experience. I look forward to being able to hand out some of the Bible bus passes to sow the seed further. Now, I just want to point out, remember, this person was from England, Yorkshire, England to be specific, not exactly the Bible Belt of Europe.
SPEAKER 03 :
No, not at all. And I felt the same way. I was like, Yes, this is great. Someone in England is passionate about the word of God. Now, I think we have time enough to hear from Joyce from the USA who says, hi there. Well, Joyce, hi. Greg and Steve say hi. She says, I’m writing to request the Bible bus passes to share with people. I still send Christmas cards and thought it might be nice to add one in our card this year. Good idea, Joyce. I really appreciate Through the Bible and the letters you read at the beginning and the projects you share are so encouraging. I know the people doing the translating and recording in other languages are facing obstacles and resistance to getting the programs ready, and I appreciate their faithful perseverance. I record Bible verse songs and get them up on YouTube to help kids memorize the verses. Every day I face some sort of issue that tries to discourage me from persevering. So thinking of those folks doing these programs in other languages, it’s obvious to me that they have lots of resistance from our enemy. May God richly bless you and them for hanging in there no matter what.
SPEAKER 02 :
So encouraging. Thank you for that, Joyce. Let me pray for us as we begin. Heavenly Father, we’re so thankful for the wonderful opportunity you give us to fling the seed, the good news of Jesus Christ. I pray that you continue to bless the ministry through the Bible as it goes around the world, and bless us now as we seek to understand your word better. In Jesus’ name, amen. Open your Bible to Hosea 1, and let’s get started going through the Bible with Dr. J. Vernon McGee.
SPEAKER 04 :
Now, I return today to the prophecy of Hosea. For the past two times, you’ve listened to a message that we gave some time ago as a sermon, but we felt it furnished a proper introduction to Hosea. This man is a remarkable prophet, and I personally do not like the classification of major and minor prophets. Actually, that was put in by the church, I suppose, about the third century. It was not that way in the Hebrew Bible. And Hosea was just put with the other prophets and was not put last in the Old Testament. If they had waited until I got here to make an arrangement of the books of the Bible, I would have made the arrangement of putting the prophetic books with the historical books, the ones they belong with. And if you noted that practically all of the writing prophets Their message belongs to the divided kingdom. When the kings failed, God raised up prophets to speak to the nation. And these men, every one of them are outstanding. And just because some of them didn’t write long prophecies, after all, you wouldn’t want to call Elijah a minor prophet, would you? He’d be a mini-minor because he never wrote any prophecies. If Elijah might be classified the first, John the Baptist, the last of the prophets, never wrote anything, and yet he was a prophet of God and announced the coming of the Savior. So that when we come here to the prophecy of Hosea, we’re coming to one of the great books of the Bible. It actually belongs before Jeremiah. Hosea was contemporary with Isaiah and Micah. and also his compatriot in the northern kingdom, Joel. Hosea and Joel in the north, Isaiah and Micah in the southern kingdom. And this man Hosea would compare to Jeremiah. Jeremiah is the last prophet before the southern kingdom went into captivity. But over a hundred years before that, Hosea had been the prophet in the northern kingdom, and he occupied the same position of warning the nation, and he did it with a broken heart. But his broken heart comes from an experience that he’s had, and that’s what we’ve been dealing with. You see, Jeremiah, his was personal, but nevertheless, it was more public. He loved his nation. And he was a tenderhearted man that broke his heart to have to give them a harsh message. But that’s the kind of a man God chose. Now, I don’t consider Hosea a tenderhearted man like Jeremiah. But this man had an experience. And as we’ve seen the past two days, he comes out of a broken home with a broken heart. And we’re going into detail now into the text. And from that broken home and that broken heart where a wife had been unfaithful to him and had become a harlot, he even loved her so much, he went back and took her again and she played the harlot again. This man with hot tears rushing down his cheeks, walks out before the nation, and he says, I want to tell you how God feels about you because I feel the same way. I’ve had a personal experience in my own home, and this man with a broken heart could speak to his nation, you see. Now, with that in mind, let’s look here for just a few moments at the outline that we’ve made of this book. Very simple outline. Actually, in just two major divisions, we have 14 chapters here. Actually, more than you have in the book of Daniel, yet we call this a minor prophet. And we have in the first three chapters that which is personal. And that’s the prophet and his faithless wife, Gomer. It’s the scandal of his home and the gossip of the town that we get in the first three chapters. Then we have the prophetic. It’s the Lord and the faithless nation, Israel, from chapter 4 through 14. So now we come in chapter 1 to the marriage of Hosea and Gomer, the harlot. Let’s read this as we move along. Verse 1 again, the word of the Lord that came unto Hosea, the son of Bere, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. Now, these were the kings in the south at this particular time. And in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel, he in the north. Now, you can’t have them any worse than what we got here in the way of kings in the northern kingdom. Now, we have the time given to us. Verse 2, the beginning of the word of the Lord by Hosea. This is the way that God approached the prophet, and it’s a rather startling thing. And the Lord said to Hosea, go, take unto thee a wife of harlotry. and children of harlotry, for the land hath committed great harlotry, departing from the Lord. Now, I highly recommend the Scofield Reference Bible. If you don’t have one, you ought to get one. I still use the old one a great deal, but right now I have before me the new Scofield Reference, and I recommend it. Some people get the idea that those of us who use and recommend the Schofield Bible, that we feel like the notes are inspired. Now, just to show you that I don’t believe they’re inspired, I want to say I totally disagree with the first statement that you have here in the way of notes for this verse. And I’m reading the note. God did not command Hosea to take an immoral wife, but permitted him to carry out his desire to marry Gomer, warning him that she would be unfaithful and using the prophet’s sad experience as a basis for the presentation of lessons about God’s relation to Israel. Now, I consider this a very nice way to get God off of the hook. But you don’t have to get him off the hook. He takes full responsibility for this. And the way I understand this is that the Lord said to Hosea, go. And my parents said that to me as a boy, go someplace, go to the store or go to school. I always interpreted that as a command. And I’m of the opinion that this is not just a permission, it’s a command. Because this man, Hosea, as we’ve said in the message that we’ve given, a young man there in the northern kingdom, probably in the Ephraim country, this beautiful girl that he met, he fell madly in love with her. And then she played the harlot. And naturally, he wanted to put her aside. He wanted to marry her, but he wouldn’t dare do it in the little town. And the Mosaic law said, stone her. What’s he going to do? God says, go and marry her. And God’s actually asking him to break the Mosaic law. Somebody says, well, that’s terrible. Not when God says you to do it, friends. God said to him, Hosea, you were in love with her. Now you want to put her aside. I don’t want you to put her aside. I want you to marry her. And he said that she’s a wife of harlotry. She’s played the harlot and children of harlotry. Apparently, there was a record in the family of that. Then he’s going to make it clear to him at the beginning how he’s going to use this in this prophet’s life. He says, for the land, that is now the northern kingdom, hath committed great harlotry, departing from the Lord. Now he’s comparing that which is physical harlotry or physical adultery to that which is spiritual adultery or spiritual harlotry. And that, you’ll find, is applicable to the believer today. You can play fast and loose with God, and you’re nothing in the world but a harlot, a spiritual harlot in his sight. That’s exactly the language that he uses, and God uses pretty plain language. And I could wish today the pulpit was a little stronger than it is. We are trying to be very nice today, all of us are. And as a result, we’re not really sometimes as strong as the Word of God. Now, will you notice, we move on. Verse 3 now of chapter 1 of Hosea. So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblayan. who conceived and bore him a son. And the Lord said unto him, Call his name Jezreel, for yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and I will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel. Now we can see readily not only the marriage, but the children are going to present here a real spiritual lesson for the nation Israel. Jezreel is the name of the sons. And it means God will scatter and God will avenge the blood of Jezreel. Now, Jezreel is the name of a city. I’ve been through the ruins of it. And it’s the name of a famous plain. I’ve been through that. I’m sure that many of you have. We call it Armageddon, actually. Esdraelon, the Valley of Esdraelon. And it has a long, bloody history in the past. and still has and will have in the future. Now this is a son. God is going to scatter the northern kingdom. And you remember Isaiah’s children had a spiritual message for the nation. Now I read verse 6. And she conceived again and bore a daughter. And God said unto him, Call her name Lo-ruhamah. Now, what does Lo-Ruhamah mean? And by the way, you have a whole lot of daughters in your family and you’ve run out of names. I’ve got several suggestions to make to you. And here’s one of them, Lo-Ruhamah. I don’t know whether you’d want to use it or not because it means unpity. And this has a tremendous message. Listen to it. Call her name Lo-Ruhamah, for I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel, but I will utterly take them away. There’s always been the question of whether it’s possible for a person to step over a line and the grace of God not be able to reach them. And there are those that believe that you could never step over that line. Then there are those that believe that you can step over the line. Well, may I give you my viewpoint of it, and you can take my judgment for what it’s worth, but I think the meaning is actually somewhere between. And this is what I mean, and I’m not trying to run with the hare and with the hounds, both in this, but I do not believe you can ever get to a place where the grace of God couldn’t reach down and touch you. They just don’t get that low that the grace of God can’t go down and get you. But wait just a minute. You can keep on sinning in the face of the grace and mercy of God and keep turning it down and keep turning away from God as these people were doing. And there comes a day. When you’ve stepped over a boundary, and it doesn’t mean the grace of God can’t reach you, but it does mean that there’ll be nothing in you that the grace of God can lay hold of. I think I’ve used this illustration recently about when I first came to Pasadena as pastor in a church here. That’s been many years ago, back in about 1940. And shortly after I came here, a wife, wanted me to go see her sick husband. He was at home and dying there. I went to see him, and I presented the gospel to him. She wanted me to, and he was a very polite man. He listened to me. He said, Dr. McGee, you know, I would say yes, I will accept Christ as my Savior. In fact, I’m going to do it. But he said, I want to tell you this. I have played and trifled with God all my life. I have been down to an altar 25 times. I have promised him. And then I’ve turned from him. And I’ve never been sincere. And I’ll be honest with you. I can’t tell you right now when I tell you I’ll accept Christ whether I’m sincere or not. And all I could do at the funeral, when I looked down at him, could say under my breath, oh, God, I hope he was sincere. I hope he really meant it. I hope the grace of God reached down and touched him. But you can trifle with God. This nation did. And the day came, God says, I’ll no longer have mercy on you. And that day came. It was a tremendous day, by the way. Now he says, verse 7, but I will have mercy upon the house of Judah. Now, God said, I’m not ready yet to judge the house of Judah. Why? Well, for the sake of David, God said for the sake of David, he wouldn’t divide the kingdom under Solomon. He said for the sake of David again and again that he would save the southern kingdom. Well, may I say to you that somebody may want to criticize this and say that’s not fair. Well, I don’t know whether it’s fair or not, but I thank God, friends, that God showed mercy to me. And that he was patient and continued to show mercy. And he continues today to show mercy. He says, I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and I’ll save them by the Lord their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen. Now, he says, I’m not going to save them by the fact that they’ve got phantom jets and atom bombs. I’m not going to save them by the means of arms. And if you want to read that story, it’s a tremendous story of how God delivered these people. You’d have to go back into 1 Kings. No, you’d have to go to 2 Kings, the 19th chapter, and to Isaiah 37. You’ll read how God miraculously delivered these people, the southern kingdom at this time. But he didn’t deliver the northern kingdom. Now, will you notice verse 8? Now, when she had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, takes about a couple of years over in that country to wean a child, sometimes three years. She conceived and bore a son. Now, here’s another son. Then said God, call his name Lo-Ami, for ye are not my people and I will not be your God. Now, if that was the only verse in the Bible, I would agree with the amillennialists today that God is through with the nation Israel. And I wish devoutly that even many of our premillennial brethren would quit reaching in and pulling a verse out here and a verse out there. and saying this is being fulfilled. I challenge anybody to read the prophecy of Hosea and come up with an intelligent answer that says God is through with the nation Israel. Now just read the next verse and we’ll be clear on this. Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered. And that’s a marvelous thing. They have been decimated again and again by persecution. Think what Hitler did. And here’s a marvelous prophecy that he’s going to increase their number. And he says, and it shall come to pass that in the place where it was said unto them, you’re not my people, there it shall be said unto them, you’re the sons of the living God. God is not through with them. You just have to keep reading the Bible, friend, and don’t pull one verse out. Now will you notice verse 11? Then shall the children of Judah and the children of Israel be gathered together. The nation will come together. There’s no ten lost tribes, by the way. And appoint themselves one head. They don’t have that, and they’re not all in agreement, even over in Israel today, I can assure you. And they shall come up out of the land, for great shall be the day of Jezreel. My, what a wonderful prophecy this is here. Verse 1 of chapter 2. Say ye unto your brethren, Ami, and to your sisters, Ruhamah. That is, you are pitted now, and you are my people. God is not through with the nation Israel. Now, I’m going to develop that farther when we get to the third chapter. But there are too many people today that are saying that the present return of the nation Israel to that land is a fulfillment of prophecy in the Old Testament. I totally disagree with that viewpoint. That’s not a fulfillment of the prophecy of the Old Testament. And I’m going to talk on that. I think I’ll get that far next time. If I don’t, it’s coming up in the near future. So until next time, may God richly bless you, my beloved.
SPEAKER 02 :
We’ve got a lot ahead of us in Hosea. I’m Steve Schwartz and I’ll meet you back here next time. Until then, to be in touch, call 1-800-65-BIBLE or visit ttb.org. Or better yet, download our app and take through the Bible with you wherever you go.
SPEAKER 01 :
All to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow.
SPEAKER 02 :
Our story on the Bible Bus today is just one step in a five-year journey through the entire Word of God. Come along for the ride, and you’ll study both the Old Testament and New Testament, discovering God’s great redemption story. Is this your story too?
