Sermon on Hosea 13 and 14 delivered on 15 March, 2026.
After 40 years wandering in the wilderness, Israel was once again at the river Jordan, preparing to cross over into the Promised Land. Moses used the occasion to remind the Israelites about God and his relationship with them. God was going to make a covenant with them, one we call the Mosaic Covenant. In Deuteronomy chapter 28 Moses told them:
“The Lord will establish you as his holy people, as he promised you on oath, if you keep the commands of the Lord your God and walk in obedience to him.” (Deuteronomy 28:9)
But before that, Moses had a warning for them:
“Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, … then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.” (Deuteronomy 8:12-14)
Fast forward to Hosea 13, centuries later, we read:
“But I have been the Lord your God ever since you came out of Egypt. You shall acknowledge no God but me, no Savior except me. I cared for you in the wilderness, in the land of burning heat. When I fed them, they were satisfied; when they were satisfied, they became proud; then they forgot me. (Hosea 13:4-6)
God covenanted with Israel to be their God even though he was aware of Israel’s nature to stray. When God told Hosea to:
“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)
He was essentially telling him to do likewise: commit to someone whom he was aware of their nature to stray.
With no further information, we can be excused for imagining Hosea going to a brothel and selecting a candidate for marriage. However, that would be a sham marriage and would imply that God was using Hosea’s life as a live action powerpoint to illustrate his message.
In chapter 3, after the marriage broke down, God told Hosea:
“Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another man and is an adulteress.” (Hosea 3:1)
“Go, show your love to your wife again” revealing to us that Hosea had loved Gomer and the marriage was not a sham but actually a marriage of love.
So Hosea was in love with Gomer but Gomer had a promiscuous character, like Israel and Jacob, whom Pastor Ching Li took time to help us understand last week: ambitious, willing to compromise and not averse to bending her morals to get what she wants.
The question is: How could God ask Hosea to marry Gomer, given her promiscuous nature? The only clue we have is that this was what God himself did with Israel.
God called Hosea to commit to his love for Gomer the way he committed to Israel and covenanted with her, well-knowing that a lot of pain and hurt awaits him.
As I thought about this, the Auca Indians, and Jim Elliot who decided to live with them as a missionary, came to mind. Committing himself to the Auca Indians was not a good choice for him; he was a graduate with a bright future before him. Yet God sent him and he died at their hands.
I thought about Hudson Taylor leaving for China before he finished his medical degree. He should have at least finished his degree before deciding what he would do with his life.
These necessarily have to be deliberate choices because they promise suffering rather than comfort. Yet the church celebrates these two choices for they brought the Gospel to Ecuador and to China.
Seen in this larger context I realised that the kind of love that God calls us to is not the emotional feel good love. It is not “I love you because you make me feel good. You are such a wonderful person, you so deserve my love” but rather “I love you because I want to be your good” —love as a choice.
Jesus in Matthew 5 puts it very clearly:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. … If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:43-48)
Let me move on.
Just as Israel time and again turned away from God, Hosea’s marriage went from bad to worse and by the time the third child was born Hosea knew he was not his and soon after, Gomer left him. Her friends and lovers soon abandoned her because without Hosea she had nothing and ultimately she was forced to be a prostitute to pay her debts. The promiscuous woman became the prostitute.
Yet after all that he had gone through, God told Hosea:
“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)
“Go, show your love to your wife.” Note the emphasis on “wife”. Gomer was Hosea’s wife. There was a covenantal relationship involved. All the anger, pain and sorrow aside, God told Hosea to stand by his vows and his love.
In Chapter 13 God continues to express his indictment against Israel and his judgement. But further down we are surprised by a sudden change of tone and then he goes back to judgement. Let me read it to you:
“The guilt of Ephraim is stored up, his sins are kept on record. Pains as of a woman in childbirth come to him, but he is a child without wisdom; when the time arrives, he doesn’t have the sense to come out of the womb. “I will deliver this people from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death. Where, O death, are your plagues? Where, O grave, is your destruction? “I will have no compassion, even though he thrives among his brothers. An east wind from the Lord will come, blowing in from the desert; his spring will fail and his well dry up. His storehouse will be plundered of all its treasures.” (Hosea 13:12-15)
In the midst of accusations, judgement and anger God decides to deliver, to redeem, to rescue. Come Easter we would likely be hearing Paul, writing to the Corinthians and quoting this passage, “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”
When you read Hosea 13, you will realise that while God loved Israel, he did not minimise or overlook the sin of Israel. He did not delude himself and pretended that everything was OK. And he did not condone the sin and adultery of Israel. Yet his desire for the good of Israel was not overcome. The wrath of God is a given; it is a reality that we must not trivialise. But God remains committed to his love and promises.
Janet Yancey is the wife of Philip who confessed to an 8-year long adultery. Let me read to you what she wrote:
“I, Janet Yancey, am speaking from a place of trauma and devastation that only people who have lived through betrayal can understand. Yet I made a sacred and binding marriage vow 55½ years ago, and I will not break that promise. I accept and understand that God through Jesus has paid for and forgiven the sins of the world, including Philip’s. God grant me the grace to forgive also, despite my unfathomable trauma. Please pray for us.”
Janet says, this is not about Philip and what he has done. This is about who I am, what God has done and what I now choose to stand for. If the first calling of Hosea was to choose love over self-interest, this second calling is a doubling down on love and commitment. This is about who you are and what you stand for.
And so God’s call to Hosea to show his love to his wife again even though she is an adulteress.
The love that God calls us to is not cheap and fair-weather. It is not about our gain, our wellbeing, our interests, how we feel. It remains true, solid and dependable even when we are angry, hurt and deeply traumatised and we want to strike back—yet we choose to love as we saw God choosing to love when we read chapter 13.
When you read chapter 14 you will feel like the clouds have parted and the sun begins to shine. However, this is not the happy ending you expect.
God calls Israel to return:
Return, Israel, to the Lord your God. Your sins have been your downfall! Take words with you and return to the Lord. Say to him: “Forgive all our sins and receive us graciously, that we may offer the fruit of our lips. Assyria cannot save us; we will not mount warhorses. We will never again say ‘Our gods’ to what our own hands have made, for in you the fatherless find compassion.” (Hosea 14:1-3)
The return of Israel is to be on the basis that they renounce their alliance with pagan nations and pagan gods. It is a return on the basis that they recognise their sin, and they recognise their position before God.
Chapter 13 reveals to us that God’s love is unconditional—he resolved to save while in the midst of his wrathful rant. God loves because God is love. Chapter 14 underlines the fact that our return to fellowship with him must necessarily be conditional and here Hosea’s relationship with Gomer helps us to understand this truth clearly.
When Hosea redeemed his wife, he told her: “You are to live with me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will behave the same way toward you.” (Hosea 3:3)
Hosea did not tell Gomer: “Please come home. I can’t live without you. If you have to have your many partners I will live with it; just make sure that you return home. I love you.” That would be ridiculous. This, however, depends on Gomer. Hosea can only hope for a good outcome.
We are never told what happened to Hosea’s marriage in the end but he chose to hope. Janet Yancey chose to hope when at the end of her message she chose to write: “Please pray for us.” instead of “Please pray for me”. We know in fact that Jim Elliot was murdered by some of the Auca Indians he sought to bring the Gospel to but they did embrace the Gospel in the end because his wife took up the torch.
We know that at the end of the day Israel the nation was destroyed and her people carried into exile. Chapter 14 never happened. However, Paul’s letter to the Romans reveals that ultimately Israel will share the same salvation that all of us as Christians have in Christ. By the grace of God and his sovereign power, chapter 14 will come true.
Christians are called to hope, even in a world of hopelessness, because we believe that God is with us. You cannot believe in God and not live in hope. Our hope is God and not the outcome of our choices. Only he can transform hopelessness into hope. We may not have the outcome we expect but God will work his will through our obedience.
In chapter 14, God says:
“I will heal their waywardness and love them freely, for my anger has turned away from them. I will be like the dew to Israel; he will blossom like a lily.” (Hosea 14:4-5)
Perhaps this is a hint of God’s grace in healing Gomer’s waywardness. I hope so.
Even though Lazarus was already dead, Jesus told Martha,
“I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26)
Hosea ends his book with a question and his own answer.
“Who is wise? Let them realize these things. Who is discerning? Let them understand. The ways of the Lord are right; the righteous walk in them, but the rebellious stumble in them.” (Hosea 14:9)
Hosea’s conclusion is simple and clear: It is foolish to live and make choices while ignoring the reality of God. For us Christians, it is silly to make choices without taking into account the truth that God is with us and for us. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
Jesus taught us about wisdom in the parable of the wise and foolish builder:
“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” (Matthew 7:24-27)
Let us pray.