MPC 9th December 2007.December 9 - Hosea - "Hosea"
Derek Hanna MPC 9th December 2007.
With some things that happen there is just no way to recover your dignity.
When I was at high school I was a typical teenage boy and my main aim above all else was to impress the girls.
One time when there was a fire drill at school, and we were sitting on the grassy hill behind the school waiting to go back in, my friend and I came up with what seemed like at the time a great idea to get some attention, if not sympathy from the girls.
It was a very hot day, and our plan was to walk in front of where the girls were sitting on the hill, which happened to be in front of where most of the girls were sitting, and as we reached a point just in front of them, I would collapse and my friend would begin to fan me with his blazer and call for help from the girls.
Now hindsight is 20-20, and so looking back now I can see it was a stupid plan, but at the time to my teenage mind it seemed like a good idea.
So anyway, we set across the bottom of the hill and came to the appointed place, me walking just in front of my friend. And as planned, I collapsed in an Emmy winning performance... but then there was silence. I waited for my friend to begin with his part of the performance, but it never came. I peeked out from under my arm to see him sitting back where we came from with my friends laughing heartily.
Now for all intents and purposes, it seemed to everyone looking on that I had just dramatically collapsed on a flat piece of ground for no reason.
I tell you, it's hard to recover with dignity from such a plan gone wrong.
And I think when you look at Israel back in around the 8th century BC when Hosea wrote, and you'd look and say that it was an experiment by God gone wrong.
Instead of a people devoted to God, they were a divided people devoted to any god but Yahweh.
An experiment by God gone wrong. Perhaps you might think that about the Church these days? What good can come out of what you see around you?
As we look at Hosea today we're going to see God's pain at Israel's behaviour... but we're also going to see that something very very good is going to come of a bad situation.
Let's look at Hosea's marriage to Gomer in Chapter 1.
One of the very first things we learn from Hosea is that God is in pain... and Israel are the reason.
So hear that right - God's creation is, in this instance, the source of God's pain.
He is not distant and remote as some would have you believe. He is not aloof from the care and concerns of his creation.
He is intimately involved with His people. So much so, that the way Israel treat him feels like the betrayal of adultery.
And so Israel can see, God will ask Hosea to put himself through what God is feeling.
Have a look at 1:1-8.
Hosea enters into what should be the greatest adventure of his life, marriage, with what we could only guess is trepidation. He enters into a relationship where he knows he will love and that love won't be returned.
Hosea is going to sow faithfulness, and reap betrayal.
You can imagine his wedding speech. "I remember looking across the crowded market place at dusk, meeting Gomer's eyes, and knowing that she was the adulteress for me."
Romantic isn't it? Not the way I bet you pictured your wedding!
God's prophet, God to the people, enters into a relationship that will show people how Israel have treated the God who brought them out of slavery.
But an adulterous marriage isn't enough. For in an adulterous marriage, it's not only the commitment that's in question... it's also the offspring.
The first is Jezreel, which means God sows (v.4-5). But the reminder and warning of what God sows here is anything but comforting... because what he sows is judgement. So everytime Hosea looked at his beautiful new born son's face, he would be reminded of the judgement visited upon King Ahab and his wife Jezebel who the dogs ate in 2 Kings 9. Just what you want to see when you look at his chubby face.
But Gomer has another child... whether Hosea is the father we don't know... and Hosea probably didn't know either. But this daughter is given the name Lo-Ruhamah, which means not loved... because God was turning his face away from his people.
And finally Gomer's third born, a Son called Lo-Ammi, meaning "Not my people", for God could no longer stand to be the God of a people so corrupt.
So what a happy family reunion it must have been every time Gomer returned from one of her lovers.
Gomer his adulterous wife could prepare the meal.
Jezreel who reminded him of the destruction that was coming upon Israel would set the table. When Lo-Ruhamah passed the peas, he'd be reminded that God was turning his face from Israel, and as Lo-Ammi poured the goats' milk, that Israel were fast on their way to becoming the former people of God.
What a painful family reunion. What a ridiculous mockery of what marriage and family are supposed to be.
Instead of love, faithfulness and enjoyment of each other, there is betrayal and mistrust.
Hosea, the prophet of God, would have been the laughing stock of Israel, both publicly and privately.
This was Hosea's marriage and situation. And it was a reflection of God's relationship with Israel.
Have a look at Chapter 2:2-8.
While God has drawn Israel into a covenant relationship, they have abandoned Him for the desires of their heart.
The fruit they've produced is not the product of being faithful to God... but of sleeping around with the gods and desires of other nations.
So this is what God says to Israel.
You were married to me... but you have prostituted yourself to other nations. I brought you into the land you have... but with your lips you claim that the good things you have come from other gods. In fact, the rain that I send, and the crops that I grow... you take them from my holy land and you give them to the Gods of other nations. My love, my goodness and my faithfulness to you Israel has been met by betrayal and adultery.
And at the heart of the problem with Israel was that they'd forgotten the covenant. They'd forgotten their marriage vows.
Now I suspect that most of you who are married didn't make wedding vows that attached life or death consequences to obedience (and that's probably a good thing)...
But the covenant that God made with Israel did. It was made at Sinai after they came out of Egypt, just as they were about to enter the land God had promised, and it went like this (Deut 30:15-18):
See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other Gods and worship them, I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.
They enjoy the land, but they forget who put them there, and the conditions of being in the land. Covenant faithfulness.
Hosea points this out in 8:1.
And in 4:1-3, it's clear that the character of God himself as seen in his law is absent from His people. They lack faithfulness, the lack love, they lack knowledge of their God.
Instead of reflecting the character of their God as enshrined in the 10 commandments, they're characterised by cursing, lying, murder, stealing and adultery.
And to pour salt on the wound, instead of worshipping and serving the Lord their God... they now consult twigs they pick up from the ground. (4:10)
Israel has become a harlot. She has committed Spiritual adultery.
And the God who has loved them so much, who has committed himself to them, is feeling the pain and betrayed of an unloved spouse. A marriage partner who has given his partner everything... is repayed with a slap in the face.
Such tenderness by God... such arrogance and betrayal Israel.
So if you're not getting the picture that God is hurting from Israel's betrayal, just hear the other picture painted in Hosea 11 (v.1-4; 8-11).
See how tenderly God describes their Exodus from Egypt. Like a loving father with his son.
And yet when they came to the land, the more lovingly he called them to obedience... the more they retreated from Him.
The more He wooed them with His goodness... the more entrenched they became in their evil.
Now how much does that sound like the world today?
No matter how much he stretches out his hands... mankind would prefer to nail them to a cross rather than accepting their embrace.
But God will not give up.
He loves his people Israel. They are like his bride. They are like his Son.
A few years ago one of my friends who's a therapist was working on a four year old, who had his mother present to assist. Now the two weapons in this mother's armoury were encouragement and threat. So the encouragement to behave was offers of chocolate, fizzy drink, the Wiggles... but it was clear that this day these weren't going to work.
So this particular day, after the behaviour escalating to throwing a sharp wooden object at my friend, the mother moved from encouragement to threat. The chocolate went away, the fizzy drink offer was taken off the table, the Wiggles were back on the shelf... and the threat emerged... and these words were uttered.
"What's that I hear? Uh Oh. I think I can hear a monster coming down the hall. Quick, you better behave, or the monster's going to hear you and come in!"
Now I'm no expert at parenting, but I'd like to suggest that's not the way to go.
But it highlights the dilemma that God faced.
When do negotiations and calls to return to Him end... and when does punishment begin?
Well, God has a plan. He's not going to give up on them, but neither is he going to ignore their sin.
They will be his bride once again, and they will be his loving Son once more.
Look at Hosea 2:9-13.
What Israel has will be taken from them.
The blessings of the covenant will be taken away. They will no longer enjoy the food and wine the land produces.
The land they were given by God will be taken away by Him.
And why? V.13. Because of what Hosea calls in the rest of the book their spiritual adultery.
Because they worshipped Baal who gave them nothing instead of the Lord who gave them everything.
Because Israel made herself beautiful to the nations around her... instead of to her God.
And their punishment was exile from the land. So in 722 BC, the Assyrians finally wiped out the nation of Israel, leaving only the southern tribes of Judah and Benjamin.
And eventually, they too felt the force of God's anger when the Babylonians swept across in 586 BC and removed them from the land.
But the difference between God and man is that God can and will do what he sets out to do. God will make an honest bride of His people... even if it kills Him.
And so we return to Hosea, who must have thought that the failed experiment of his marriage was over... the last thing I'm sure he wanted to hear was God's words in Chapter 3.
Go and get your wife again... even though you and I both know what she's been up to. And when you get her back, love her as I have loved Israel, even if she continues to behave in that way.
So Hosea goes and buys her back, and sets it before her. V.3
Come and live with me again. Come and let me provide for you, and care for you, and give you what you desire. Yet when you do, you live with me and no other, for I have redeemed you. Give up your adultery, give up your prostitution, live with me as a wife should live with her husband, and I will live with you as a husband should live with his wife.
Now whether Gomer goes any better the second time around, we never really find out.
But the question needs to be asked of Israel, when they go into exile (as God alludes to in v.4), will they fare any better on their return?
What gives God the confidence that we see in v.5?
Once a sinner always a sinner? Is that true?
Not according to Hosea.
For some reason that is never explained in the book of Hosea, he's confident that God will one day have a people who don't embarrass Him with their spiritual adultery.
A people not continually turning away from God. People who desire to know God, who desire to be His people in Spirit and in Truth.
The hints are scattered throughout Hosea.
1:10-11. There will be a reversal of the fruit that Israel will produce, and their relationship with God.
2:14-23. A day is coming says the Lord ("In that day") where God will speak tenderly and give the land back to Israel, where they will exhibit righeousness, justice, love, compassion, faithfulness and knowledge of the Lord (all the things they were previously missing)... and they will be His people and He will be their God... and it will last forever.
6:1-3. A time is coming when Israel will want to return to the Lord, be healed and live in his presence.
14:1-9. A great hope that the things that have kept them from covenant faithfulness, that have invoked God's wrath, that have drawn them into spiritual adultery, will be dealt with by God, creating a bride worthy of her husband.
Hosea is not a book about judgement - although a Holy God cannot abide sin.
Hosea is a book about God's steadfast love and commitment to making a holy people out of an unholy one.
Turning an adulterous nation into a faithful people.
Now, having heard this story, whose shoes do you put yourself in?
Most of us I suspect aren't going to throw our hat in the ring with Gomer the adulteress. Who wants to be called a spiritual prostitute?
I'd suspect the tendency is for Christians to be surreptitiously looking around for anyone they think might not be a Christian, to see if they've caught on that I'm speaking about them.
And those who aren't Christians that are here are trying to hide in their seats because they came here because they were asked to by someone else and because there's nice coffee afterwards, and now they're being called a spiritual prostitute.
Well let me say, if you're a Christian, then stop looking around, because Hosea is speaking to you!
We are the ones who are the people of God, but too often instead of being in the world but not of the world, we are in the world and look exactly the same as the world!
Yet this despite the fact that we know so much more than Israel did, and have been gifted so much more than Israel ever was, and have such a clearer understanding of God's word in the world than Israel ever had.
For we know that being a part of God's people is not based on being born an Israelite, but by being born again with God's Spirit.
And we know that God has dealt with the rebellious heart that plagued Israel by giving us a new heart and a new Spirit.
And we know that punishment and exile are things of the past for us because we have been bought with the precious blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Yet while our punishment has been paid by Christ on the cross, we need to be careful of flirting with the world.
Being self-righteous and condemning of those who are not God's people is an issue of pride and has no place in the life of God's people. We are to be characterised by faithfulness, love, kindness.
We give without expectation. We serve without pride. We love because we have been loved.
We do these things because, as Revelation 21 describes us, we are the bride of God. We are the adulterers who God has washed clean through the blood of Christ.
So if you aren't a Christian and you're here today, then we're glad you're here.
And if you saw someone peeking at you from the corner of their eye, and you felt like they were judging you... then feel free to gently remind them later that they are what they are because of Christ.
But let me extend the invitation to you. It is an invitation to be one of God's people. To know the true and living God through his Son Jesus Christ. To worship the creator instead of the created things. To experience the work of his Spirit in your life, and the joy of knowing and being known by Him.
I had the privilege of travelling a number of years ago, and one of the places I went was Barcelona, Spain.
And one of the highlights of Barcelona is the architecture and creations of Antoni Gaudi. Cathedrals, Buildings, Grottos and Parks.
And one of the aspects of Gaudi that amazed me was a technique he used where he would take broken pieces of different colour pottery and meld them together into something beautiful.
By themselves, they looked ordinary and plain. But when arranged as Gaudi wanted them, they were beautiful and striking.
To look around God's people now, it doesn't seem like much... just as it didn't seem like much to the nations surrounding the Israelites all those years ago.
But know this for sure. God is building something beautiful out of the pieces that you see around you, and he is doing it through the death and resurrection of Christ.
His church, no longer an adulterer, but the perfect bride, waiting for the return of her God.