Intro to The Book of Hosea

Hosea comes after a time of great prosperity and peace. But this peace and prosperity has now given way to moral decay, idolatry, ritualistic perversion, deception, violence, and even anarchy. This leads to forgetting God, a faux repentance based on a loss of comfort, a demon possessed culture, and a priesthood who turns a blind eye to this reality.Can a culture be possessed? Yes, it can, according to Matthew 12. When the grace of God is not humbly received but is pridefully expected, people decay quickly. The warning is that judgment is on the way and sober thinking is required. Yet Ephraim's unfaithfulness and recalcitrance are not enough to exhaust God's redeeming love.Hosea creates a covenant with Gomer and then breaks her covenant with Hosea by becoming a prostitute. God tells Hosea to not only return to Gomer, but to pay off her lovers, and bring her back into their home in an act of radical, unreciprocated love, and forgiveness.We are Gomer. We have strayed. And God’s forgiveness and mercy are extended to us, both collectively, and individually.