Fall Preaching Series on THE MINOR PROPHETS

God's Mechanic: HOSEA

September 29 Sermon Bones (just the skeleton of the message)

·         Scriptures: Hosea 1:1-11, Hosea 11:1-11

·         Message/Theme: God's Relentless Love

Recap: Last week, Amos preached to the same audience (Northern Kingdom), same time period in history, and in talking about their high calling as God's Children we used a theological term: election. The elect are those who will be saved (God's children), in other terms the elect are those going to heaven.  It's a good term.  It says something important.  The people of God are called the ELECT, not:

·         "The Qualified" (we're not)

·         "The Most Popular," or the "Most Likely to Succeed"

·         Not "The Lawyered Up" as if we have made our case

·         Those going to heaven may or may not be the Richest / Poorest

·         To be the Elect - someone besides you had a hand in the decision process - you don't just elect yourself.  The Old Testament doesn't use the word "elect" though the doctrine starts there.  They simply say "the chosen".  God chooses you. God sELECTs you.

·         Israel was chosen among all the nations to be God's people.  In Deuteronomy Moses says they are not qualified, not most populated, not perfect, it's not their resume.  It is God's unmerited selection.

Choosing can take a lot of different forms -- such as choosing your marriage partner.  In Hosea, marriage is the image used to talk about God's relationship with Israel. 

1) Hosea's Marriage

·         God has a clear message to send through Hosea and asks him to live that message.

·         "Hosea, go take for yourself an adulterous wife."  Gomer is promiscuous, or a prostitute... unfaithful for sure.

·         They have three children (only the first might be his)

·         "Jezreel" (a location that conjures up a strong image just like the Alamo for example) - it is a reminder that God has not forgotten the great sin/massacre that took place at Jezreel in Israel's history

·         Lo-Ruhammah means 'no pity' - for it was you who left Go

·         Lo-Ammi means 'not my people' - the opposite effect of being in Covenant

·         These three children send a clear message that they broke the Covenant with God. As a result, in 721 the Assyrians will conquer Samaria.  Israel will look to Egypt in a last ditch effort  for military help, and not to God.

·         Israel is to be understood in the same manner as Gomer: a harlot, seeking other lovers, she has a spirit of prostitution (Hosea 5:4).  Not a mistake, or one time thing - this is her nature:

Hosea 6:4 "Your love is like the morning mist"

Hosea 4:8 "The more the priests increased, the more they sinned against me; they exchanged their glorious God for something disgraceful."

Hosea Chapter 2: She goes after lovers who give her water/food, wool, linen, oil, drink.  "She has not acknowledged that I was the one who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil, who lavished on her the silver and gold – which they used for Baal."

Hosea 4:1 "There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgement of God in the land."

Hosea 6:5 "Therefore I cut you to pieces with my prophets."

Hosea 6:6 "For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgement of God rather than burnt offerings."

Hosea 9:7 "The days of punishment are coming, the days of recompense are at hand.  Let Israel know this.  Because your sins are so many and your hostility so great, the prophet is considered a fool, the inspired man a maniac."

Hosea 5:14 God is the "Lion of Judah" who will tear them to pieces

Israel's adultery results in judgment

Israel's illicit lover is the Canaanite god Baal

·         Fertility god who was thought to bring rain (inseminating the earth for crops to grow), male/female shrine prostitutes to reenact the insemination, Gomer may or may not have this in her background

·         Baals verses Elijah in I Kings 18

New word to learn : syncretism (spiritual amalgamation): adding all the religions together, adding Baal worship to Judaism.  So offensive to God.

Whereas Amos' catch words were 'justice/righteousness' -- Hosea's word is "return."  Makes sense if you have a wayward spouse. 

I want to clearly give you two "take-away" points (what I want you to take away from today)

II) First: Embody God's Message and Love in Your Life

·         We can be instructed by the prophets to not just deliver God's message with words, but with our life and behavior. Hosea is not just to speak God's word, but also to live it (when God says to marry a prostitute, Hosea does so, embodying the message about what Israel's relationship to God is like)

We must embody God's truth as well

Example - Matthew 6:5-15 ...."Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors"..."For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive men their sins, your father will not forgive your sins."

Can you think of others?  This is your homework.

·         Be holy as your Heavenly Father is holy... set your life apart from the world

·         Love your enemies... go do it

III) Second Take-Away: God's Relentless Love

·         God exposes Gomer/Israel s waywardness, but in the end does not give up on her.  In fact he goes after her. 

·         Hosea 3:1-3

The Lord said to me, “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.”

So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and about a homer and a lethek of barley. Then I 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.”

·         Gomer had gone so far that Hosea has to actually buy her back (she belongs to someone else).  He is to redeem her, despite her obvious infidelity.

Conclusion:

Love isn't always logical.  Some things are loved because they are valuable.  Some things are valuable because they are loved.

Illustrating the point: Ian Watt-Pittman (pastor)

Rosemarie is my youngest child, she was just three at this time. We had just traveled from Britain to Australia as a family. When we reached Melbourne Airport, there was a group of people who had come to greet us. Among them was a lady who very sweetly had realized there was going to be a little girl arriving on a plane, jet-lag silly, and who had brought for her a gift—a little rag doll that she had made specially for the occasion.

When we got to Melbourne Airport, sure enough, Rosemarie was just quietly crying, not out loud, just the tears of exhaustion streaming down her face. The kind lady gave her the rag doll. Rosemarie was too tired even to say thank you, but immediately the rag doll went to her face to hide the tears. That night she went to bed still quietly crying, still hugging the rag doll to her face. The next night the tears were gone, but not the rag doll. Nor the next night, nor the next week, nor the next month, nor the next year.

Everyone knows about the rag doll. As the years went by, the rag doll became the most precious thing that child possessed. She had other toys that were of course extrinsically far more valuable than the rag doll, but none that she loved like she loved the rag doll.

As the years went by, the rag doll began to create certain problems. It became more and more rag and less and less doll. It also became more and more dirty. If you tried to clean up the rag doll, it became more ragged still. And if you didn't try to clean up the rag doll, it became dirtier still. The sensible thing to do, the logical thing to do, was to face facts: the rag doll had in fact never been worth much, had never been more than a bundle of rags. And now it had become a bundle of dirty rags. The sensible thing to do, the logical thing to do, with a bundle of dirty rags is to trash the rags. But that was unthinkable.

Hosea 11:1 "When Israel was a child, I loved him and out of Egypt I called my son."

Hosea 11:4 "I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love: I lifted the yoke from their neck and bent down to feed them..."

Hosea 12:6 "But you must return to your God; maintain love and justice, and wait for your God always."

·         Jesus has redeemed us - like God through Hosea buying back his wife Gomer/Israel... we are cherished, redeemed.

            If that's you: I can't explain it.  Love isn't logical (just like election isn't merited - but God has sELECTed you.)  Some things are loved because they are valuable. That is the way of this world. And some things (us) are valuable because they are loved (by God). God loves you.