Bible Covenants Part 8 – Lawson and Aaron Perdue

Praise the Lord, friends. I’m so glad that you’re connected with us today. We’re gonna be sharing from the book of Hosea. It is really a picture of the amazing Grace of God. God’s grace is amazing. And so you don’t wanna miss this. Open your heart, receive the Word of God. Tell your friends about the broadcast. Tell your friends about all the resources that we have available, and stay tuned, we’ve got good news today. Blessings. Friend, it’s so good to have you with us today. And we’re glad to be teaching the Word of God. We’ve been sharing on Bible covenants, and this week we’ve been talking about some different pictures of the covenant. We talked about Ruth, we talked about Abraham. And today we’re gonna talk about Hosea. And Hosea is really an amazing story of God’s love for us. And it really shows us that the covenant is established by God’s eternal love for us.

And a lot of the, you know, prophecies, a lot of the prophets, you know, at the end of the Old Testament, you know, just talk about how people have failed on their end of the covenant, but ultimately they point to, well, God is the one that’s gonna have to make it happen, because there’s no way people can make it happen. It’s only gonna be by God’s mercy. And it all points to Jesus, who’s that fulfillment of God’s mercy.

You know, the Bible actually says, the prophets in 1 Peter 1, prophesied of the grace that’s to come to us in Jesus. And Galatians says that the law was our school master to bring us into Christ. So that’s what the ultimate focus of the law and the prophets are. And when you look at Jesus, when, you know, he’s with Peter, James, and John in the Transfiguration in Matthew 17, Moses appears with him, right, speaking, Elijah appears with him speaking, and Peter’s like, “Let’s build three tabernacles, one for the law, one for the prophets, one for Jesus.” And God speaks and says, “No, no, that’s not what I want. This is my beloved son, hear you him.” You know, it’s about Jesus. The law was pointing to Jesus. Moses was pointing to Jesus. The prophets were pointing to Jesus, right? Elijah was pointing to Jesus. So keep your eyes on Jesus. So Hosea is this amazing story, really unique story.

Well, a lot of the prophets, when God would speak to them, God would show them what to do as a prophetic act. You know, even, you know, God actually spoke to Isaiah to just strip down naked for a few years, ’cause this is an act, this is how destitute Israel is. And, so Hosea, you know, God tells him to actually go and marry a prostitute as a prophetic act, a prophetic picture of what Israel has become. Israel has become just completely hopeless. And the only way they’re gonna have hope is by

The Grace of God.

Is by by grace. So Hosea is to represent prophetically God to Israel. And he marries a prostitute named Gomer, who is a picture of Israel.

And so we find this in Hosea 1:2, “The beginning of the word of the Lord by Hosea. The Lord said to Hosea, ‘Go take a wife of the whoredoms and children of whoredoms to land is depart, committed a great whoredom departing from the Lord.'” He said, “Israel has departed from God.” “And so he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim which conceived and bear him a son.” Now she has three children, right? She has two sons and a daughter. And these children, you know, she gives them names. And these names really represent what Israel deserves. The first one, she has a son, and she calls his name Jezreel, which mean judgment. So God says, “Listen, this is what Israel deserves. She deserves judgment.” And then they go on in verse six. “And she conceived again and bear a daughter. And God said, ‘Call her name Loruhamah, and I’m not gonna have mercy.'” So God said, “Listen, you don’t deserve mercy. You deserve judgment.” But he goes on after this child is born. But says, “I will have mercy,” in verse seven, “on the house of Judah, and save them by the Lord their God.” It’s not about our performance, it’s not about our goodness. The covenant is about the mercy and the Grace of God. The love of God. And then when she had weaned this child, you know what, she decided that she didn’t like the life of a prophet. She didn’t like you know, being the preacher’s wife. She decided she wants to go back, right, and live the old life. So she goes and has a relationship with someone else, you know, outside. “And God says, ‘Name him Loammi, for you’re not my people, and I’ll not be your God.'” And then, even after she has these three children, which represent what Israel deserves, I’m so glad today that we’re not receiving what we deserve. If we got what we deserve, we’d split hell wide open, right? But we’re not getting what we deserve. We’re getting grace, we’re getting mercy. So she has Jezreel, Israel deserved judgment, she, she has Loruhamah, which means I’m not gonna have mercy. And then she has Loammi, which means you’re not my people. And after all this is done, God gives his covenant, God gives his word, and says, “Yet the number of the children of Israel,” in Hosea 1:10, “will be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. And it will come to pass that where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ it will be said to them, ‘You are the sons of the living God.'” This is actually quoted in Romans 11, when he is talking about God’s plan of righteousness for Jews and Gentiles, which is faith in Jesus. “Then shall the children of Israel be gathered together, appoint themselves one head, and they’ll come up out of the land, for great will be the day of Jezreel, or the day of judgment. Then he says this in chapter 2:1, “Say unto your brethren, Ammi, you are my people, and your sister Ruhamah, I will have mercy. Plead with your mother for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband. Let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight and her adulteries between her breasts, lest I strip her naked, and set her in the day that she was born, and make her a wilderness, set her like a dry land and slay her with thirst. I will not have mercy on her children, for they are the children of whoredoms. For their mother has played the harlot, she has conceived them as done shamefully, for she said, ‘I will go after my other lovers.'” This is what, you know, Gomer actually did. She decided she didn’t like being the prophet’s wife. She didn’t like being the preacher’s wife. “And decided, ‘I’m gonna go after them, for they have given me my bread, my water, my wool, my flax, my oil, my drink.'” Now if you’ve received anything good in your life, it didn’t come from the world, it came from God, because God is good to all his tender mercies are over all of his works. But this is how she felt. Your feelings cannot, you know, you can’t be led by your feelings. You gotta be led by the spirit, led by faith in God. And so God then begins to speak into this situation. And he, go ahead, Aaron.

Well, this just shows, you know, again, it’s a picture of what Israel, Israel’s relationship with God. You know, God had delivered Israel. God brought Israel to the promised land, yet Israel was worshiping false gods, particularly Baal. And you know, they weren’t serving God, they weren’t following, you know, his commandments. They weren’t following after him. They decided to worship Baal, because they just wanted to be like everyone else. Everyone else around them were worshiping Baal. You know, they could have altars of Baal, you know, in their own backyard. They could, you know, it was a very convenient thing to just worship Baal. But this was just quickly leaning down the wrong path. You know, we aren’t called to be like everyone else. You know, there should be a strong difference between believers, between Christians, between people who are serving God and the rest of the world. Just because it’s okay in the world does not mean it’s okay in the church. And this is a picture of what it looks like when you’re trying to just be like the world, and trying to just be like everyone else. And it’s, you know, in the King James it says it’s whoredom. So, you know, and too many people who were strong believers in too many churches, and like they’ve gone after the world, and it’s not a good thing, it’s not a pretty picture. You know, and my wife and I, about a year ago went on a trip to Iceland. And got to learn about some of the history of Iceland, and really neat place. It was actually, it was actually founded by a Viking who had converted to Christianity. And he went to go try to tell other, you know, Viking establishments about Jesus. And that’s how Iceland was founded. It was actually founded, you know, about 1,000 years ago by a Viking who wanted to spread the gospel. And you know, this country has existed for like 1,000 years. Actually Iceland, it’s a volcanic island, you know, in the middle of the North Atlantic. And it’s right on this fissure between two tectonic plates. And they had parliament there for like 900 years. All the different, you know, leaders across Iceland would come together, like right where those two tectonic plates meet. It’s like a big crack right down the middle of the country. But for 900 years, that’s where they had parliament. And, you know, and as Iceland grew, Christianity grew. And if you drive around Iceland, there’s just little Lutheran churches all over. But most of those churches are now vacant, because the Icelandic church has gone completely worldly. Like we went to the main cathedral in the capitol in Reykjavik, and we were gonna ride the elevator to the top of it. It’s at the top of the capitol, the top of this hill. And we were gonna ride the elevator to the top, but while we were waiting to ride the elevator and to pay the fee to ride up this thing, I was looking at some of the brochures that the church had, and one brochure, it had rainbow flags all over it, and it had a prayer to the queer God. And it was just disgusting. It was complete harlotry of Christianity. And we got out. I didn’t want to give them a single dollar. I don’t wanna ride this thing. I just, I wanted to get outta it.

Well, it’s it’s a tragedy.

But you see how quickly, you know, that entire country was a strong Christian nation. You know, even in the flag, there’s a cross in the flag. And a lot of these Nordic countries actually, they have crosses in their flags, because they were Christian nations. But just like within the past few decades, in such a short time, things can just descend so rapidly.

You know, this reminds me of something that I remember Dr. Lester Sumrall talked about. He talked about how God doesn’t have any grandchildren. You know, you have to have a personal relationship with God. And it’s not about religion. And if you don’t have a personal relationship with God, you need to have a personal relationship with God. And you know, there’s a couple ways that you can do that. Number one, you must believe on Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. But number two, you need to be filled with the Holy Spirit, because when you get filled with the Holy Spirit, that’ll actually equip you and help you, and help you get great revelation so you can live in these last days. And the Bible actually talks about apostasy in the last day. So we’re gonna come back, we’re gonna share more on Hosea, and the covenant established by God’s eternal love for us. But if you need prayer today to receive Jesus, or to receive the Holy Spirit, I wanna invite you to call in at any time. Thanks so much. We’ll be right back. Friends, we’ve been teaching Bible covenants from my syllabus, that I’ve been teaching at Bible school that I developed over 20 years ago. I’ve been teaching it for over 20 years in Bible school. We actually have that syllabus free of charge on our website, plus “Hebrews: the Better Covenant” in book form, in audio, and video downloadable form. Check our website out. The Bible tells us in the book of James 1, that if we lack wisdom, we should go to God and we should ask him. And he said, we should ask him in faith with nothing wavering. When you pray in faith, there is a knowing about your prayer. What thing soever you desire, when you pray, believe that you receive them and you shall have them. Friends, I’m so glad that you stayed with us, and we’re continuing talking from Hosea about how the covenant is established through God’s eternal love for us. So God had spoken to Hosea, told him to go marry a prostitute, which he did. They had three children. Those children’s names mean what Israel deserved, number one, judgment, number two, you don’t receive deserve mercy, and number three, you’re not my children. But yet God said, “Even though that’s happened, I’m gonna call you my people at who have received mercy, so that you’re not getting what you deserve.” Praise God we don’t get what we deserve. Now, after Hosea married this prophet, she ran off, you know, as a prostitute. And she said, “Listen, I’m gonna go after my other lovers,” this is in verse five of chapter two, “that give me my bread and my water, my wool, and my flax, my oil, and my drinks.” So her thinking is messed up. When you go after the world like that, your thinking is messed up, right? And it’s because she’s thinking that these people did. And God said, “No, it wasn’t these people that did this for you. It’s me that did this for you.” You know, if you’ve received anything good, all good comes from God. You know, I have this neighbor that I witnessed to for 13 years, and this neighbor recently received Jesus. He’s been here to church, and he has places in Phoenix and stuff, and he’s down there, you know, in the winter, and then up here in the summer. But he’s received Jesus and it’s a miracle. But when I first met him, he told the men that moved me into our house from our men’s fellowship, he said, you know, “What’s happening?” And they said, “We’re moving in our pastor.” He said, “I hate church, I hate pastors.” You know, but he’s, and he had had a failed marriage, and he was very bitter. And he was living with his girlfriend. He said, “Girlfriend, not wife.” And by the grace of God, that girlfriend left him. And then he got connected with another girlfriend, and she’s a backslidden Baptist girl. And she committed her life to Christ. And then he’s come back to Christ. But I remember witnessing to him before any of this transpired. And, you know, we were kind to him, we reached out to him, got his mail in the winter, did different things for him. But I was telling him about this story of Hosea, you know, a prophet married a prostitute. And he said, “I bet he had fun.” And then I began to tell him about how this prostitute went back out after her other lovers. He had some of this mess happen in his own life. But I began to tell him about how she said, “I’m gonna go after these other lovers, because they gave me my corn, my oil, my flax, my wool, so they gave me these good things.” And I told him, I said, “I want you to know, Billy, if you’ve received anything good, this came from God.” Because anything that we receive that’s good ultimately came from God. And so it kind of, after I told him that, he kind of, you know, was shaken a little bit, and kind of shut the conversation.

Yeah, this is a great picture too. I was just thinking about the three names of these children in Hosea that Gomer had. You know, that which mean judgment, no mercy, not my people. You know, God was trying to show Israel like their true state of just destitution. A lot of people don’t come to Christ, because they don’t really understand their true state. Without him, they don’t want a savior, because they don’t think they need saved. But without Jesus, you’re in a place of judgment, you’re in a place of not having mercy, ’cause you don’t have Jesus. And also, you aren’t a child of God. He wants you to be a child, but you’re not. And sometimes people have to come to that place where they realize that they are a sinner in need of a savior. When I went to Rice University in Houston, I got my doctorate there, and there’s a very well-known Christian professor there, James Tour, and he’s a very outspoken believer, very, very on fire for God. But he told his story about how he came to Christ, and, you know, he was going to college and like this Jesus hippie person came up and witnessed to him and said, “You know, you’re a sinner, and you need a savior.” And he said, “I was really offended. I’m not a sinner. Why would you call me a sinner?” And later that evening, he was in his dorm room, and just, he felt God’s presence, and he realized that he was a sinner. He said, “I was addicted to porn, I had, you know, and I didn’t think much of it,” but he just felt the weight of that sin. And he felt God’s presence. And he just said, you know, “Jesus, if you’re real, I need to know.” And he said he felt Jesus walk into his room. Then he gave his life to Jesus. But he had to realize that, you know what, that guy’s right, I’m a sinner. And I need a savior.

Yeah, and that’s what the Bible said.

And I, you know, we like to quote John 3:16, that, you know, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes on him will not parish, but have everlasting life.” It part in context, Jesus is saying, you know, I didn’t come into the world to condemn the world, because the world’s already condemned, because they haven’t believed.

Yeah, when you read on it talks about how-

You need to read on. It’s talking about if you don’t have Jesus, you are in a state of condemnation. That’s why Jesus didn’t come to condemn, because people were already condemned. People were already in a state of not having salvation.

Man, that’s great. Yeah, and so, you know, she starts saying, “I’m gonna go after these other lovers.” Now get this, look at the Grace of God in this. Sometimes people are trying to go a direction, and God, by his Grace, puts a hedge and stops them. And she says, “Therefore, behold, I’ll hedge up your way with thorns and make a wall that she will not find her path.” She was trying to go backwards, and yet God was protecting her from herself. And you know, I’ve had God do that in my life years ago where I really wanted something. I didn’t realize how bad it was, and God just put a stop to it, and by his grace protected me. And says this, “She will follow after her lovers, but she will not overtake them. And she will seek them, but not find them. And she will say, ‘I will go and return to my first husband. For then it was better with me than now.’ For she did not know that I gave her corn, wine, oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal.” So she didn’t realize, you know, what she had really been given. Therefore, he says, “I’ll return and take my corn in the time thereof, my wine in the season thereof, and recover my wool, my flax given to cover her nakedness.” And so, you know, God says, you know, “Ultimately I am the one that provided for you and took care of you, and gave you good things even when you were in sin.” And at this point, he’s protecting her from herself. But we go on in this story, he talk about God’s love revealed through Hosea, Hosea’s like this love-sick child, this, like, I mean, he’s crazy in love with her, even though she’s rejected him and been terrible. And so he’s talking about it and says this in verse 14, “Therefore, behold, I’m gonna allure her. I’m gonna bring her into the wilderness. I’m gonna speak comfortably to her.” She’s left him for other lovers, going after them. She hasn’t found them, because God is protecting her. And yet he says, “I will give her vineyards from there in the valley of Achor for a door of hope. She will sing there.” He’s, like, man, like, he’s the only person on the planet with her. “And they’re gonna sing love songs to one another, as in the days of her youth, as in the days when she came out of the land of Egypt. And it will be in that day that she’s gonna, that says the Lord, ‘She will call me Ishi, and no longer Baal.'” “She’s gonna call me husband, right, and not master, lover, and not lord.” Talking about a lover. See, sometimes people have the wrong picture of God, and because they have the wrong picture of God, it’s caused the wrong response. But yet Hosea is just showing this amazing, this is amazing love. This is amazing grace for her. And you know, God’s love is literally amazing. We’ve had situations in our family where people have lived in an adulterous relationship for years. And yet, after a while that ends up very, very negative. You know, even though people try to love. And this is just not reality, but that, I mean, God’s love is unreal for us. But then in chapter three, you know, after she goes out and she goes into a real mess, but before that, he says this in verse 19, speaking of God’s love, “I’m gonna betroth her unto me in faithfulness. And you are gonna know the Lord.” Man, you know what? When we’re faithless, God remains faithful. He will not deny himself. That’s what Timothy says. “And I’ll even betroth you now in faithfulness, and you will know the Lord again,” he says in verse 20. So she actually sells herself out. She goes, and she is undesirable. She comes to a place of nothing, and Hosea goes and basically spends everything that he has to buy her back to himself. And that’s what we read here in chapter three. Aaron, if you wanna go and read chapter three really quickly.

Yeah, it says here, “Then the Lord said to me, ‘Go again, love a woman who is loved by a lover, and is committing adultery, just like the love of the Lord for the children of Israel who looked to other gods and love the raisin cakes of the pagans.’ So I bought her for myself for 15 shekels of silver, and one half homers of barley. And I said to her, ‘You shall stay with me many days. You shall not play the harlot, nor shall you have a man. So too will I be toward you. For the children of Israel shall abide many days without king or prince without sacrifice or sacred pillar, without ephod or teraphim. Afterward, the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days.'” So when he’s talking about in verse four about the children of Israel, abiding without a king, without a prince, without sacrifice, without ephod, he’s talking about there’s going to be this place of destitution. He’s talking about the captivity, right? Where Israel is ransacked, taking captive, and they’re stripped, of you know, all their, the temple and everything, all the sacrifices and sacred pillars. And the ephod that represents God’s presence. So you’ll be stripped away from that. He’s basically saying, “You’re gonna see what it’s really like.”

Yeah, and that’s what happens here. But then Hosea comes and basically spends everything he had. You know, God bankrupt heaven to buy us back to himself and sent Jesus. And salvation is not about our performance or our goodness. Salvation is really about, you know, God doing the impossible, you know, in sending Jesus for us, and us believing in Jesus. Salvation is about a radical intervention in an impossible situation. And this is just one more example of salvation by grace. But you know what? If you’re gonna receive salvation, if you’re gonna receive the Holy Spirit, if you’re gonna receive the good things of God, you gotta please the gospel.

And this is a powerful verse in Hosea in the next chapter, Hosea 4:6. It says, “My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge.” You know, and you really have to know that God loves you. You have to know the truth, and that’s really what sets people free, what sets, you know. And a lot of people try to push away truth. They try to push away that knowledge, because they think, you know, ignorance is bliss, but it’s not.

It isn’t. You know, there’s another scripture in Isaiah 5:13, and it says, “My people are kept in bondage because they have no knowledge.” So ignorance is not blessed, but you can be blessed when you know Jesus, and you can come to know the Lord. And really you can get to know the Lord through the Word of God. And we’ve got many tools for this on our website. They’re free of charge, downloadable audio, downloadable video, amazing teachings, a free children’s curriculum. And we’re teaching people all over the world, people are responding to us all over the world about these good things. Also have some great books and you can check those things out. But if you need prayer today to receive Jesus, or to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit, that will help you navigate a crazy world, just give us a call. We’re waiting to receive your call.

Narrator Hebrews 8:6 says that we have a better covenant based on better promises. In “Hebrews: the Better Covenant,” you’ll learn how though new covenant is better than the old, simply because of Jesus. We’d like to bless you with a digital copy of “Hebrews: the Better Covenant,” a $35 value free of charge. Don’t miss this opportunity to know what Jesus accomplished in establishing this better covenant. Visit CharisChristianCenter.com today to download your copy.

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