Dear Christian friends:

Every vehicle that we use has several forward speeds and at least one speed in reverse. We would really be stuck and at a loss if we did not have a reverse in our automobile transmissions.

We would be in a much more terrible situation if God did not have a reverse in Himself. Frequently the Bible tells of God reversing Himself and not bringing upon the people the destruction He had planned and threatened to bring.

Our text, which is the Old Testament Lesson for this Sunday, tells of one of those times when God reversed Himself and did not do what He threatened to do and what the people by their sin really deserved. It tells of:


Before we can appreciate God's reversal we need to consider: The direction God was headed before He reversed Himself. God threatened judgment against Israel because of her spiritual adultery.

The whole book of the prophet, Hosea, tells of Israel's unfaithfulness to God and about the judgments and chastisements that He leveled against them. At the very beginning God orders Hosea to marry an adulterous woman and to have children by her. He said to the prophet, "Go, marry a promiscuous woman and have children with her, for like an adulterous wife this land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the Lord." (Hosea 1:2) The metaphor is that God was like a husband to His wife, Israel.

In telling Hosea to marry an adulterous woman God was attempting to shock the people regarding the severity of their whoring after other gods, the gods of the Caananite pagans who had inhabited the land before Israel defeated them and took control. Israel forsook her true Husband, Yahweh, for other husbands, chiefly Baal.

Baalism seemed to provide so much more for the national security and general welfare of the people than Yahwism. Baal was not only the god of the Caananites, but also the god of the surrounding gentile nations, albeit with various names. The pagans believed that Baal gave fertility to the womb and life-giving rain to the soil; he is pictured as standing on a bull, a popular symbol of fertility and strength.

The storm cloud was his chariot, thunder his voice and lighting his spear and arrows. The worship of Baal involved sacred prostitution and sometimes even child sacrifice. Baalism offered a way for someone to overcome chaos and get control over disorder. Be nice to mother nature, and mother nature will smile on you, so Israel thought. The Israelites knew what they wanted, grain, wine, oil; and this is what Baalism offered. These were the everyday needs, the bare necessities of life.

So God, Yahweh, addressed Israel with shocking language the idolatrous Israelites could understand: Israel was a whore, and Hosea must marry a prostitute. Hosea must suffer the pain of a broken marriage as God had with Israel. They had committed adultery to procure from Baal the things they needed for life. But those were, in fact, gifts from God, not harlot's wages (Hosea 2:13); therefore God took away the grain, the wine and the oil in judgment, in order that she should acknowledge that He had given them to her, not Baal.

Should God threaten similar judgements against His people today? Sex, politics, economy and materialism make lethal bedfellows today in the United States of America! When the necessities of life are considered to have any other source than God, that is the idolatry of Adam and Eve, and so with many people today. Both husband and wife must work to supply the necessities, while the children are neglected and not properly taught and supervised in the home. Where is the trust that God will provide?

God becomes useless and unessential to the real issues of life. Baalism, and its contemporary counterparts, destroys the family, destroys morality, and worst destroys faith in God, Yahweh. With so much exposure to widespread immorality via movies, videos, television and the internet, consciences are dulled and moral standards are lost! This is the sad state of the U.S.A. today and of many in our churches.

Should God threaten judgement against His idolatrous, adulterous, people today? You tell me! I don't see how He can delay it much longer.

Still God yearns to have His people back. He will restore through His self-denying love and amazing grace. He reverses Himself. He goes in the opposite direction! Instead of wrath and damnation He offers grace and salvation to the guilty and condemned! He did that to Israel in the days of Hosea, as well as to the Israelites of the New Testament era.

Yahweh yearned to have Israel back. He had loved her before and He would love her again. Hosea must find his adulterous wife, pay for her and love her again. He says, "Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another man and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes." (Hosea 3:1)

Israel will be restored through the self-denying love and grace of God. God would restore her in the land and restore the grain, the wine and the oil. (Hosea 2:21-22) But most of all He would fully restore Israel as His bride. Yahweh says to Israel, "I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. I will betroth you in faithfulness, and you will acknowledge the Lord." (Hosea 2:19-20)

In the future, in the New Testament age, Israel, the church of the New Testament, would again affectionately refer to Yahweh as her "husband" rather than her "baal", master. (Hosea 2:16-18) God would also take away the names of the baals and remove all memory of false gods. Israel's restoration is the core part of a comprehensive and universal reversal of fortune. This New Testament involves the restoration of nature, a re-creation. The things of nature are not simply natural cycles but are subject to God's will and purpose.

Israel's God is not part of the "system" of the natural order; but nature is totally under His control. Similarly, God controls the fate of nations. Israel's future is a time of peace and security. (Hose 2:18, 21-23) All nature is under Yahweh's control, totally responsive to His directions without threat of chaos or chance.

God's people (Israel of old and the church today) contribute nothing to her restoration as Yahweh's bride. They have nothing but sin and rebellion. God supplies as the dowry what the people lack: righteousness, faithfulness, truthfulness, loving kindness, and mercy. (Hosea 2:19-20) These are not natural traits of people but are brought to the relationship solely by God. The New Testament focuses these thoughts on Christ as the bridegroom in the deepest personal relationship with the church as the bride for whom He died. (Today's Gospel Lesson, Matthew 6:24-34)

Jesus supplies His church His righteousness in exchange for her sin and guilt. Jesus has promised His bride (the church) His unswerving and everlasting love. St. Peter applies the fulfillment of this prophecy to the Gentiles of the New Testament era! He writes, "But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy." (1 Peter 2:9-10)

The climax of each metaphor here in our text is that Yahweh is God, not Baal. Hosea 3:5 describes this in clear messianic and end-times terms: "Afterward the Israelites will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the Lord and to his blessings in the last days." This total reversal will happen when "David", Jesus Christ the Son of David, will lead His people "in the last days." Those days are here now, and Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, the bridegroom who has pledged His intense love for the church in a union that cannot be separated, even by death.

In fact, Jesus' death is the greatest expression of passionate love for those like us who are only passionate about perversity, promiscuity and infidelity. The church awaits His return when He will fulfill His promise to bring His bride home to live with Him forever in heaven's glory.

What an amazing reversal on the part of our gracious God! We who by nature are sinful, adulterous and idolatrous people, who deserve to be divorced and banished forever are forgiven and declared to be the faithful, righteous, loving bride of Christ, who gave Himself for us "to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. (Ephesians 5:26-27)

"To God be the glory, great things He hath done,
So loved He the world that He gave us His Son,
Who yielded His life an atonement for sin,
And opened the life gate that all may go in."
(Hymn, To God Be the Glory)

Amen.