When All These Things Come Upon You: Exposition of Hosea

Over ten Sundays, we study the first of the "Minor Prophets," the book of Hosea. Hosea is concerned mainly with the northern kingdom of Israel, in the final decades leading up to its final destruction and dissolution in the 700s BC. But Hosea isn't just prophesying "bad things" that will happen, he is constantly pointing out the ways their spiritual prostitution is bringing upon the people the curses of the Covenant, promised for disobedience in Deuteronomy 28 (and elsewhere). But there is a glorious hope dancing at the edges of his prophecy! Deuteronomy 30:1ff promises that "When all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curses, which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among the nations where the Lord your God has driven you, and return to the Lord your God, you and your children, and obey his voice in all that I command you today, with all your heart and with all your soul, then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have mercy on you, and he will gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you." On the far side of the Covenant Curses is a restoration greater than they could imagine, in Jesus Christ, the author of a New Covenant.