Sermon Notes, June 19, 2016 PM
Minor
Prophets with a Major Message – Hosea
Steve W. Reeves
INTRODUCTION:
A. One
of the greatest questions we face is, “What is God like?”
1. Most of us in such an assembly as this
believe God exists.
2. We believe He created the heavens and
earth. We believe, as Paul said to the
Athenians in Acts 17:25, He “gives to
all people life and breath and all things.”
3. We spend our lifetime trying to grasp
what God is like. I can remember sitting at
the desk in my bedroom when I was a
teenager writing a sermon on what God is
like.
4. What do you think God is like?
a. Is God a mean old man in the sky waiting
to zap you when you do something
wrong? For many people religion is
an exercise of “gotcha” with a long list of do’s
and don’ts. I suspect all of us have
witnessed this.
b. Is God a heavenly scorekeeper keeping
tabs on you and checking off a list of
things you had better get right? Do
we appease God’s wrath by our
performance?
c. Is God, “the man upstairs” who you
turn to when you need something?
d. Should we be afraid of Him? Should we
treat Him casually?
B. How
can we as limited, finite, temporal beings possibly understand a God who is
unlimited, infinite and eternal? Can we
ever wrap our minds around God? Can an ant
comprehend an elephant?
1. God has never wanted people to guess. He
has revealed His power and His
attributes through the things He created
(Romans 1:20).
2. Hebrews 1:1-2 says that in times past He
spoke through the fathers and the
prophets and in these last days has
spoken to us through His Son.
C. In
one of the greatest prophetic messages in the Old Testament God gives us an
unmistakable illustrations of His steadfast
love, covenant loyalty, relentless pursuit
and unwavering desire to have a
relationship with us. Let’s consider another minor
prophet who had a major message – Hosea.
I. BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT
A. The prophets of the 8th
century B.C. are more relevant for 21st century America
than any others.
1. Jonah, Amos and Hosea prophesied in
the northern kingdom of Israel.
2. Isaiah and Micah prophesied in the
southern kingdom of Judah.
B. This was a time of peace and prosperity.
The young men were not having to go off
and fight wars. People enjoyed a
standard of living that was greater than they had
ever known. There were a lot of people
who gave the appearance of being
religious.
1. Aside from those initial appearances
there was a lot of corruption.
2. It was a time of broken promises.
There was political chaos, bloodshed and
hatred among the people.
3. Kyle Yates in Preaching Through
the Prophets, comments, “Foolish and Godless
rulers sought to further their own
selfish schemes while the nations suffered and
crumbled.”
4. Political leaders set poor examples. Religion
was immoral and corrupt.
5. Family life was in shambles. Marriage
was not honored. Commitments were not
kept.
6. Living in wealth and luxury they were
unable to see beyond the
satisfaction of their lusts to the
larger purposes of God. The stern warnings of the
prophet Amos fell of deaf ears.
C. Following the death of Jeroboam II
political unrest swept over the country. In 745
B.C. Tiglath-Pileser rose to power as king
of Assyia. To defend themselves against
the mounting threat the new king of
Israel, Pekah made an alliance with Resin, the
king of Damascus. They were no match,
however, for the fierce Assyrians who
destroyed Damascus and then seized
control of Israel.
D. How did all of this chaos occur in
Israel? Hosea lists seven steps in their
downward spiral.
1. Lack of knowledge – 4:6 – “My people
are destroyed for lack of knowledge.
Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being My
Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being My
priest. Since you have forgotten the
law of your God, I also will forget your
children.”
2. Pride – 5:5 – “Moreover, the pride of
Israel testifies against him, And Israel and
Ephraim stumble in their iniquity; Judah
also has stumbled with them.”
3. Instability – 6:4 – “What shall I do
with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you,
O Judah? For your loyalty is like a
morning cloud And like the dew which goes
away early.”
4. Worldliness 7:8 – “Ephraim mixes
himself with the nations; Ephraim has become
a cake not turned.”
5. Corruption 9:9 – “They have gone deep
in depravity As in the days of Gibeah;
He will remember their iniquity, He
will punish their sins.”
6. Backsliding – 11:7 – “So My people
are bent on turning from Me. Though they
call them to the One on high, None
at all exalts Him.”
7. Idolatry – 13:2 – “And now they sin
more and more, And make for themselves
molten images, Idols skillfully made
from their silver, All of them the work of
craftsmen. They say of them, “Let
the men who sacrifice kiss the calves!”
II. THE PROPHET HOSEA
A. Hosea means, “salvation” or
“deliverance.” (The English equivalent
of Hosea is
“Joseph.” When the Hebrews added the
name of God YAHWEH to this word it
became “Jeshua” or “Joshua).
1. We don’t know much about Hosea’s
background.
2. Outside of the book of Hosea he is
mentioned only one other time in the Bible in
Romans 9:25, “As He says also in
Hosea, “I will call those who were not My
people, ‘My people,’ And her who was
not beloved, ‘beloved.’”
3. God does something through Hosea to a
greater extent than any other prophet.
He uses the experience of Hosea’s
life and emotions to communicate how He
feels about His people.
B. Hosea’s story from chapters 1-3.
1. Chapter 1:1 says the word of the Lord
came to Hosea. We mentioned in our
study of Jonah how the word of the
Lord came to various individuals in the Bible
including Abraham,, Moses, Samuel,
Jonah and others. Here it came to Hosea.
2. In verse 2 Hosea was instructed to
take a wife. “When the Lord first spoke
through Hosea, the Lord said to
Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of harlotry
and have children of harlotry; for
the land commits flagrant harlotry, forsaking the
Lord.”
a. Was
God really commanding Hosea to marry a prostitute? Some people say,
“no” because of the command in
Deuteronomy. Some say this is just allegory,
others say that she wasn’t a
prostitute when he married her but became one
later.
b. I believe the text is forthright.
She was a prostitute. This was not an unusual
thing due to the prevalence of
cultic prostitution in Israel at this time. Jeremiah
2:20, 3:6 – “She (Israel) went up on every high hill
and under every green
tree, and she was a harlot
there.”
c. Through Hosea’s marriage to this
woman of harlotry God was saying, “My
wife, Israel, is prostituting
herself with other gods.”
d. Throughout the Bible in both Old and
New Testaments we find the metaphor
of God being “married” to His
people. The Jewish Rabbis referred to the
wilderness wandering as their
“honeymoon” with God who had taken Israel as
his bride back in Egypt and
carried them across the threshold of the Red Sea.
In Ephesians 5 the Holy Spirit
used intimacy of the husband wife relationship
to describe the relationship
between Christ and the church.
3.
This woman’s name is “Gomer.” Her name means fullness or completeness. Her
name represented the extent to which
idolatry had permeated the land. Her
father’s name, Diblaim was
associated with raisin cakes which were used as
sacrifices to idolatrous gods.
4. Gomer gave birth to three children.
a. A son, a daughter and another
son.
b. Each of them is given a name that
has to do with judgment. Jezreel, Lo-
ruhamah and Lo-ammi. This is
indicative of the judgment to come to Israel.
5. You would think Gomer would have been
content. She had a good husband and
three children. Chapter 2 is a
divorce decree that reveals the extent of her and of
Israel’s unfaithfulness. In verse 5,
“For their mother has played the harlot;
She who conceived them has acted
shamefully. For she said, ‘I will go after my
lovers, Who give me my bread and my
water, My wool and my flax, my oil and
my drink.’
III. THE MESSAGE OF GOD
A. Here is why I think Hosea’s message is
so relevant for us.
1. The Devil does everything he can to
keep us away from God.
2. One of his greatest tools is
convincing us that we are not good enough for God to
love us and save us.
a. He wants us to believe we are too
sinful.
b. He wants us to doubt our
significance. He tries to make us feel insignificant,
unimportant and unloved.
3. The message of Hosea’s experience in
chapters 1-3 is that God’s care and love
is not based upon our performance or
even our righteousness.
B. As the drama of Hosea’s marriage unfolds
there are two important truths to
recognize.
1. The first of these is the heartache
caused by sin.
a. Though Gomer had become Hosea’s
wife she continued to pursue immoral
relationships.
b. Though Israel had been redeemed
by God they continued to pursue
relationships with other gods.
Remember the words of Hosea 2:5, “I will go
after my lovers, who give me my
bread and my water, my wool and my flax,
my oil and my drink.”
c. Can you imagine how Hosea felt?
The hurt and pain of betrayal cannot be
described nor comprehended by
those who have not experienced it. Because
of Gomer’s immoral conduct Hosea
realized how God felt as Israel prostituted
itself with idolatry and
immorality.
d. Whenever we sin we break the
heart of God.
2. The other important truth is that of
God’s faithfulness.
a. He never stops pursuing us with
relentless, unchanging love.
b. Though Gomer’s sin was great God
commanded Hosea, “Go again, love a
woman who is loved by her
husband, yet an adulteress, even as the Lord
loves the sons of Israel” (Hosea
3:1).
c. Why did God want Hosea to pursue
and reclaim his adulterous wife? He
wanted to demonstrate how He
loves His people.
d. According to Hosea 3:2 the
prophet paid a price that consisted of currency
(fifteen shekels of silver) and
commodities (one and a half homers of barley).
The sum of these items reflects
the sacrifice Hosea was willing to make to
reclaim his sinful wife.
e. In the book, He Loves Forever,
by Tom Olbricht , the author explains the
covenant loyalty and
faithfulness of God. God’s grace is a result of His
faithfulness. I am thankful that
He is faithful even when I am not.
f. Gomer, like us, was an unworthy
recipient of grace.
CONCLUSION:
A. I
hope our look at Hosea has helped you to see how much God loves you.
B. In
consideration of His love for us how much do we love Him?
1. Are we willing to submit to His will for
our lives?
2. Are we willing to put our faith in
Christ and follow Him? Are there things in our lives
we need to change?
3. If you are not a Christian I urge you to
accept God’s love, repent of your sins and
be
baptized for the forgiveness of sins. May we assist you?
