"What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith" (Rom. 9:30).

Jesus said, “Every plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up.” Then, if any one is to be in the kingdom of God, God Himself must “plant” him in His kingdom. Isaiah was moved by the Spirit to prophesy of the Messiah's work among men, concluding by saying that the saints would “be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord” (Isa. 61:3). God has a Seed, which He sows in the hearts of men. Jesus called it, “the word of God" (Luk. 8:11).

The word Jezreel means, “the Lord will sow”. The play on words is obvious in the above scripture from Hosea, where the Lord, after mentioning Jezreel, says, “I will sow her unto me in the earth.” This is a prophecy of what happened in Acts 2:4, “And they were all filled with the holy Ghost, and began to speak in tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.” This is the day God sowed His seed in the earth, and when God sowed His seed, the prophecy was fulfilled that “they shall hear Jezreel”, “because that every man heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, ‘Behold, are not all these which speak Galileans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?’” (Acts 2:6-8). The holy Ghost is the seed of the kingdom of God. This is why Paul taught that, “if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his” (Rom. 8:9).

You will remember the immortal words of Jesus, “Ye must be born again.” We are born into the family of God when the seed of God, the holy Spirit, enters into our hearts. When Hosea spoke of “Jezreel” (“God will sow”), he was speaking, centuries before the time, of those “who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (Jn. 1:13).

The remarkable element of Hosea's prophecy is its consonance with Jesus’ description of the new birth, in John 3:8. According to Jesus, the one consistent feature involved in every new birth is the “sound” of it. He said, “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof . . . so is every one that is born of the Spirit.” This is exactly what the disciples experienced at Pentecost. And this is what Hosea foretold when he said “they shall hear Jezreel.” One would think that Jezreel, being a biblical city, the prophecy would be, “they shall see Jezreel.” But the Lord was using “Jezreel” not as the name of the city but as it actually means, “the Lord will sow.” Therefore, “Jezreel” in this prophecy is something one hears because when God sows the holy Ghost into one's heart, that regenerated person begins to speak in tongues. That is the “sound” of the wind to which Jesus referred. It is the “stammering lips” of Isaiah twenty-eight. It is the “pure language” of Zephaniah 3:9. It is Paul's birth cry, “Abba Father”, and the “groanings” that man himself cannot utter, of Romans eight. It is Peter's “answer of a clear conscience”. It is David's “joyful sound” that blessed people recognize. It is John's “confession that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh”. It is the “voice from the temple” of the Lord, the “voice of the Lord that rendereth recompense to his enemies”. It is the “deep” that “calls unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts”. It is the “river of living water, springing up into everlasting life”. It is the speaking that comes because of believing, foretold in Ps.116:10. It is the voice of the Son, declaring the name of the Father “in the midst of the congregation” (Ps. 22:22). It is the voice of the Spirit, “making intercession for the saints according to the will of God”. It is the Father Himself, “knowing them that are His” and setting them apart from all other people. This is Jezreel, the sowing of the Lord. Praise God in the highest! Praise His holy name!

One of the many prophetic Psalms from ancient Israel is Psalm twenty-two. This is the crucifixion Psalm, in which are given to us some details of the last moments of Jesus’ life on earth that are not revealed in the gospels. Among these details is the fact that, at the time of his death, Jesus had the appearance of a stick-man. One could count his bones. Other details which the holy Ghost gave to us in this 3,000 year-old Psalm are that his bones were all pulled out of their sockets by the terrible strain of the cross upon his weakened body and that he was so dehydrated that his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. But this Psalm, as compelling as it is because of its gruesome detail of the crucifixion of our Lord, also attracts us because of its prophecy concerning the glorious results of Jesus’ suffering. But before we read that part of Psalm twenty-two, let us prepare ourselves to understand it by reading from the prophet Isaiah.

In the Spirit, Isaiah lamented that “he was cut off from the land of the living”, and asked, “who shall declare his generation?” In other words, the Messiah would die, and that he would die without fathering any children [his “generation”]. But Psalm twenty-two, written almost 500 years before Isaiah, answered the question which Isaiah later asked. In the last two verses, David prophesied, “A seed shall serve him; it shall be counted to the Lord for a generation. They shall come, and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done this.” Praise God! Here we are, just as David predicted we would be! Jesus never married in the flesh, but he has a bride! He never produced any offspring in the flesh, but by the power of the holy Ghost, he has fulfilled the prophecy of having a generation, or offspring. In another place, Christ through Isaiah rejoiced, "Behold I and the children which God hath given me!” By the power of God, Jesus has attained to the title, “everlasting father”.

In that verse from Psalm twenty-two concerning the children, or the generation, of Jesus, you'll notice that the Spirit said, “a seed shall serve him”. This could not possibly refer to the seed of a human male, for Jesus never fathered any children. It does, however, point to those who receive the seed of God, the holy Ghost. “God is a Spirit,” said Jesus, “And they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” The only people who could possibly fit the description of “the seed who shall serve the Lord” are those who have received the seed of God [the holy Ghost] and thus are able to serve God in the manner which Jesus just described. The seed with which God sowed another Israel to Himself is the holy Ghost. These are “the children of the promise”, whom Paul said “are counted for the seed.” This is “the Israel of God,” the Zion “called by a new name.” This is Jezreel, the sowing of the Lord. God's people are His “pleasant plants”, and every time another one is planted in the vineyard, “the Spirit bears witness.” Yes, “they shall hear Jezreel.” The sound of Jezreel is the voice of the Spirit.

In order to prophesy of a new way to become a child of God, centuries before the baptism of the holy Ghost came, Hosea must have been one of those “holy men of God” who "spoke as they were moved by the holy Ghost.” In the Old Covenant, one was an Israelite because his mother was an Israelite. In this New Covenant, one becomes a member of “the Israel of God” by being born of the Spirit (the seed of God). Peter described this new Israel as “being born again, not of corruptible [human] seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God which liveth and abideth forever” (1Pet. 1:23). Hosea foretold of this new Israel in 1:8-10:

“. . . she conceived and bore a son. Then said God, ‘Call his name Lo-ammi’ [this Hebrew word means, “not my people”], for ye are not my people, and I will not be your God. Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. And it shall come to pass that in the place where it was said unto them, ‘Ye are not my people’, there it shall be said unto them, ‘Ye are the sons of the living God.’”

To the Gentiles, under the Old Covenant it was said, “ye are not my people.” But now by the Spirit it may be said to Gentiles, “ye are the sons of the living God.” God continues in Hosea to say that His new Israel will be a large nation, and warns the old Israel, “ye are not my people, and I will not be your God” (Hos. 1:9). By the baptism of the holy Spirit, God has more children under this New Covenant than He had under the Old. So, even though Israel was rejected by God, He still has His Israel-the Israel of the holy Ghost. Under the Old Testament, the Gentiles were desolate of the grace and knowledge of God, while the Jews were like an unfaithful wife who had a good husband. But the Spirit moved upon Isaiah to prophesy to the Gentiles this exciting message (Isa. 54:1):

“Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear. Break forth into singing and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child, for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the Lord."

Oh, Jezreel, Jezreel, the beautiful day of the Lord, when in His mercy He planted the seed of His life in the bosom of my soul! When I became a citizen of the heavenly kingdom, and the fears of a lifetime of sin rolled away! Oh, Jezreel, the sowing of God! The translation "out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of God's dear Son.” Jezreel, the field of God's planting, the vineyard of God, where men become more than men, where hope springs to life, and peace is the laid to the roots of the trees! The rain of God falls upon Jezreel, the flowers of His mercies line the paths to her gates. Oh, Jezreel, the hope of the earth, the gift of the Master, the fountain of joy! May God ever increase your inhabitants, and may your watchmen ever mind their posts without fear. Let the gates of Jezreel be kept secure! Let her young virgins dance, and her young men sing for joy! Let the voice of Jezreel be heard in the valleys, and let the enemies of the Lord be stricken by the sound! Let every heart trust in God, and every hand be raised! For God has done according to His word. He has rescued the isles from the seas. He has picked us up and given us a place in His kingdom, even the city of Jezreel, where God walks in His garden in the cool of the day.

What a glorious heritage is ours in Christ! How blessed are we, that God has chosen us. It is only to His glory that He has done that which He purposed to do upon those who knew nothing about and cared nothing for His purpose. “We love him”, John wrote, “because he first loved us.” From the lofty heights of man’s pride, we who follow after the Spirit may seem very small, yet the Lord is our refuge and hope. It is He who “turns the world upside down”, who abases the proud and exalts the humble. The wicked may mock our gates and our praise, but our hearts are encouraged by the love of God in Christ. Some may ridicule the hungry hearts who are seeking the holy Ghost, but every soul who knows God agrees with Him and says with God, every time another repentant soul is sown by the holy Ghost baptism into the kingdom of God, “great is the day of Jezreel!”