“Not my people"

 Hosea 1:8-11

 As one who follows Christ and has put all hope on the finished work of the Cross, on the blood that was shed by Christ to cover death and sin, and not on my performance or being a member of any church or group, it’s clear that devotion can still be manipulated by my desires and emotions. 

Hosea’s wife, Gomer the one God calls a wife of whoredom has her third child it is a male, and what does God tell Hosea to name the child, “Not my people.”   To whom is this name referring to the nation of Israel or the North Kingdom?  The people of Israel were much like you and me, and the culture they lived in was similar to ours, it was a place of affluence and the people had an appetite for power and material things, with little concern for the ways of God. 

But each person wanted the blessing of God; they saw themselves as superior to the Gentile in that they were the chosen ones of God.  And it looks as if God has had a gut full of them and is issuing a divorce degree through the third child of Hosea, by calling him by “Not my people.”  Each of us should want the answer too; is Israel no longer in God’s plan, was the divorce final or only for that generation? 

It requires us to look at the prophet Ezekiel who was God’s spokesman in 593-571 BC.  And now turn to Ezekiel 37:18-24, “And when your people say to you, ‘Will you not tell us what you mean by these?’ say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am about to take the stick of Joseph (that is in the hand of Ephraim) and the tribes of Israel associated with him. And I will join with it the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, that they may be one in my hand. When the sticks on which you write are in your hand before their eyes, then say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will take the people of Israel from the nations among which they have gone, and will gather them from all around, and bring them to their own land. And I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel. And one king shall be king over them all, and they shall be no longer two nations, and no longer divided into two kingdoms. They shall not defile themselves anymore with their idols and their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions. But I will save them from all the backslidings in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.”

Yes, it was a generational act by God and yet the eternal promises were always in play, going back to Hosea 1:10-11, “Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. And in the place where it was said to them, “You are not my people,” it shall be said to them, “Children of the living God.” And the children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together, and they shall appoint for themselves one head. And they shall go up from the land, for great shall be the day of Jezreel.”

Now look at the eternal promise made to Abraham after he was obedient to offer Isaac as a burnt offering, and God was pleased with Abraham and provided a ram in Isaac’s place.  And this was the eternal promise found in Genesis 22:17, “I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies.”

From The Back Porch,

Bob Rice