God’s Unfailing Covenant Love – Hosea

I'd like for you this morning to survey the book of Hosea. So it'd probably be good for us to turn to that book. It's the first of the minor prophets. It's not too difficult to find in the Old Testament. After the Psalms, you have the four after the poetic books, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, you have the four major prophets. And after the book of Daniel, which is the fourth of the major prophets, you have the first of the minor prophets, which is the book of Hosea. We're going to hopefully, the goal this morning is to take a good look at this book to get an understanding of the outline of these 13 chapters and to make application to our hearts through the message that God has to the people of Israel through Hosea and through them to us.Let me pray for us before I read anything. And then we're going to read a few select verses from this book. Let's pray.Father, we thank you for sending the prophet Hosea. And we thank you for his wonderful and extraordinary message. And we just ask, Father, that you bless his message to our hearts today. That we would gain insight into you. That as a result of the truth that we learn today, that we would know you better as a result. That you would speak to our hearts. And Father, that you would bring us to the place of repentance for those things we need to turn to you from. And we just pray, Father, that you would show great mercy to us and helping us to see the abundant measures of grace that you've poured out for us. Teach us through these truths, we pray in Christ's name. Amen.I think I'm going to begin, we're going to be looking at, you can turn to chapter one if you want to. We're going to begin really there. But I'm going to begin reading by reading a verse that you heard recently. Jared quoted this verse about two weeks ago. And it's in chapter six and verse six. I think that's right. Well, no, it isn't. But the verse I'm going to quote, I'm just going to quote it.I desire mercy and not sacrifice and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.For I delight in loyalty. I'm going to read a different translation.For I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice and then the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.So this is the heart of the covenant. It has to do with the authentic love and mercy of God. And it is 6:6. I just happened to turn to the wrong spot in my Bible there. So it is 6:6. Delight in loyalty or mercy rather than sacrifice. And then the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. And that's the place I think I have to begin with dealing with this book. Because in a great sense, that's the heart of the message of the book of Hosea, that God delights in our wholehearted devotion to him.The Meaning of God's Covenant Love (Chesed)And for us to understand it, I want us to go back and repeat some of the things that I'm pretty sure that Jared shared with you. And it has to do with the meaning of this verse. He read the verse from Hosea. He turned to Matthew's gospel and he quoted the two times that Jesus quoted this verse. Jesus quoted this verse to the Pharisees twice. And he says, learn what this means.That I desire mercy and not sacrifice.Learn what this means. And what is he talking about? The first thing I wanted you to notice about this verse is that it's translated in different ways. It's very interesting because with the verse, you have I quoted two translations. The first one that I read from was the American Standard 1901. And the second one that I read was from the New American Standard 1995.The first one says, for I desire mercy and not sacrifice.The second one says, for I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice.You could throw in, if you look at different translations, you might find different words there. You're going to find words like you could find the word loving kindness there. You could find certainly mercy is a common translation there. You find u…