Pastor Ross introduces the Book of Hosea by preaching on Hosea 1:1-2.
Hosea: Yahweh, the faithful husband
Hosea 1:1-2
Exegetical Main Point: Yahweh, the faithful husband to a faithless people, will punish and then restore his bride (Whole book)
Sermon Sticky Point: God is our faithful husband to whom we must be faithful.
Me: Build Personal Connection
I have been a Christian for over a decade now. I’ve seen my life change in many ways and I’ve learned a lot about God and the Bible. I’ve tasted deep joys in moments with God and sorrow in times of sin and rebellion. I have experienced enough to know that there’s no good reason to disobey God.
And yet, somehow, I keep doing it. I have my stumbles and my seasons of sin. It really stinks.
Our Tension: Uncover or Create the Tension as a group
I bet you can relate with me. On one hand, you really love God and even promise to obey him, but on the other you find yourself (like me) in sin again and again.
One question I have is how does God feel about our unfaithfulness? How big of a deal is it to him and how does he respond to it?
The book of Hosea helps to address this question of how God feels about his people when they disobey him (we will also explain to anyone here who is a sceptic how this may be important to you). We are going to spend the next couple of months in this book, so I want to give us a little introduction to it and also to teach on the sin of idolatry (which is the sin that is in the backdrop when the book begins).
Text: What does God Say?
The Story of God’s Marriage to His People
1:1 The word of the Lord that came to Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel.
Okay, those names may seem a little unfamiliar to a lot of us—that’s alright. I’m going to share a little bit of the backstory of this book (and that should clear some stuff up). And understanding the backstory of the book will be important because it will help us understand the message of the book, which is what we really want to know because the message of the book is what God wants to communicate to us.
Going back, after Adam and Eve fell and brought sin and death into the world, God was at work. He chose a man named Abraham and, in several generations, turned that family into a whole nation. And God loved this nation like no other: he even rescued them from slavery and gave them their own homeland where they could know and love him. This nation existed to show the rest of the world what God was like in how they loved and served one another.
At this point, God began to speak about his people in a way no other so-called “god” spoke about his people. In the book of Exodus, the same book that tells the story of God freeing his people from Egypt, he says to his people,
13 You shall tear down their altars and break their pillars and cut down their Asherim 14 (for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God), 15 lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and when they whore after their gods and sacrifice to their gods and you are invited, you eat of his sacrifice, 16 and you take of their daughters for your sons, and their daughters whore after their gods and make your sons whore after their gods[1].I borrowed heavily in this section (and in my sermon) from Ray Ortlund Jr, God’s Unfaithful Wife, (InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove, IL), 1996.
Now, there is something that especially sticks out to me in this verse:
God says he is a jealous God. Except he just doesn’t say that—he even says his name is Jealous, which is probably the strongest way he could say, “this is an emotion I feel.”
Now, we should ask, in what type of relationship is there jealousy? Not usually in bosses and their employees or friendships, but in romantic relationships (in marriages), a husband is jealous for the romantic affections of his wife (and he is right to be!). I think we are seeing an indication that when God entered into a covenant with his people after he rescued them from slavery, the relationship was a marriage between God and his people. What else in this verse indicates this is the case? Going after the gods of the other people instead of the true God would be “whoring.”
Pause for a moment. Can you believe that? Are you aware that God wants to relate with us (because we are his people now) like we are his spouse? The God who is infinitely beyond us in power and glory wants to be intimate. You might say, “yeah I know that Ross,” but do you? Does your relationship with God often consist of trying to avoid making him mad and yet you are not as focused on just being with him? I am concerned that when many of us think of God we think of boss, or manager, or supervisor, and not husband. And while we might use intimate about God, we still treat our relationship like a performance review instead of going deeper and deeper in knowing him. (And just to address the guys really quick, it’s probably a little weird to think of God as your husband. But it’s alright because it is not referring to anything physical but instead a spiritual intimacy that is so close that a husband and wife is actually the best picture of it).
You would think, would you not, that Israel, having this special relationship with God, would be careful to be faithful to him and love him, would you not? Yet, sadly, as the generations progressed, Israel entered into the unfaithfulness that God had warned her against. Judges 2:16–17 says,
16 Then the Lord raised up judges, who saved them out of the hand of those who plundered them. 17 Yet they did not listen to their judges, for they whored after other gods and bowed down to them. They soon turned aside from the way in which their fathers had walked, who had obeyed the commandments of the Lord, and they did not do so.
Here we have a faithful God, and we have faithless people who cheat on him again and again. Do you know who they remind me of? Well, actually me, and probably you also.
Yet, God continued to love his people generation after generation. They got the land God had promised them and God gave then a king named David who was Israel’s greatest king. Things never looked so hopeful that this marriage would work out between God and his people.
Yet, by the time David’s grandson was becoming king, things had already fallen apart. Pride and folly poisoned the people’s love for one another, and the unthinkable happened. The nation that was meant to show God’s love to the world by their love for one another, split apart into two different kingdoms. Not only was there trouble with the people’s relationship with God, their idolatrous hearts caused a rupture between them.
Let me quickly break down a few things that could be confusing: “Israel” was originally the name of the whole kingdom, but now describes the Northern Kingdom. Also, so does the name “Ephraim” (because Ephraim is the largest tribe in the Northern kingdom). “Judah” is the name of the southern kingdom because that’s the largest tribe in the southern kingdom. So, Hosea calls the Northern kingdom “Israel” and “Ephraim” and the southern kingdom “Judah.” This is why verse one lists some kings from Judah and one king from Israel.
Okay, let’s fast-forward to the the time Hosea was written. Israel had a lot of peace and prosperity. If you were them, you might have thought things between you and God were pretty good (because we tend to assume that if circumstances in our lives are good, God must like us). However, beneath the surface, they were indulging in sin and idolatry. They were even worshipping the false God Baal—the storm God (whom they believed helped their crops flourish). Things had gotten worse than ever. This is why God sent Hosea to Israel—to call them back to obedience and to warn them of the danger they are in because of sin.
I wonder, in light of these circumstances, how did God see the state of his marriage with his people? Let’s take a look at verse 2,
2 When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.”
God tells Hosea to take a wife who will be unfaithful to him as a picture of what Israel is doing to God. Just answer this question in your head, but have you ever been cheated on or seen the painful consequences of unfaithfulness? That’s how good feels when his people go after other Gods beside him. And as a good judge and king, he has to the wicked deeds his people are committing.
Hosea came to bring a twofold message. First, the people’s rebellion against God was so perverse and severe that God could not continue to show mercy: he would divorce her and hand her over to her enemies. And they did not listen: in a short time after Hosea’s ministry, the nation of Assyria invades and overthrows the northern kingdom of Israel.
Second, throughout Hosea, God still burns with love for his people. As he is pronouncing judgment on them, sometimes it’s like he can’t even bear it and breaks out in sweet promises of how, one day, he will restore his people and forgive them and make things right. Yes, Hosea deals with the severity of sin, but his point is that God’s grace is even deeper still and one day (actually our day through Jesus) they won’t just be side-by-side realities, but grace will overcome and overtake our sin and rebellion against God and heal it.
The Severity of the Sin of Idolatry
In Israel
“That’s an interesting story” you might say, “but what does it have to do with me?” It’s an important story because it draws attention to how severe idolatry was for Israel and is for us today.
Idolatry is, at its core, the rejection of God and the replacing of him with another. And that is so wrong because God is so worthy, and to exchange him for something infinitely less worthy is demeaning and insulting towards him: he deserves our worship.
Listen to Hosea 2:13,
And I will punish her for the feast days of the Baals
when she burned offerings to them
and adorned herself with her ring and jewelry,
and went after her lovers
and forgot me, declares the Lord.
Going after other loves is the “forgetting” of the Lord. God’s people forgot the Lord because they pridefully thought that they didn’t need him and that they could come up with their own way of taking care of themselves apart from God’s help. It’s a way of cutting God out of the equation who would otherwise have complete rights and authority over you, you pretend is not there and take control for yourself (which is something we do all the time, right?).
The Israelites were an agricultural society. A big part of their survival came down to if there was enough rain to water their crops. They could trust God, who has promised to provide for them, or they could turn to Baal who was supposedly the storm God who controlled the rain. They believed that sacrifices and worship for Baal obligated him to send them rain—it was like an exchange. I’ll give you this, and you will give me that.
Listen to Hosea 2:12,
And I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees,
of which she said,
‘These are my wages,
which my lovers have given me.’
There’s this sense of entitlement and exchange. There is no—"I need you to live,” but a sense of, I made a good deal that provided for me (rather than God). And friends that’s one reason idolatry is so appealing, because the idols we put in the place of God, we control them.[2] I found this point in Dr. Jason DeRouchie’s class notes on the book of Judges. He shared these notes with our class.
Today
Now, let’s talk about how this is relevant to us today. I don’t suspect that anyone here has felt temptation to worship the storm God Baal. So, Christians, are we off the hook? I don’t think so.
Just because idolatry is generally more subtle today, does not mean it is not just as real or that our old natures are not just as susceptible to it. Anything can become an idol when it is where we look for provision (physical or emotional) apart from God. And most often when we commit idolatry, we take a good gift that would be fine for us to otherwise enjoy, and we make it ultimate instead of God. And when we do this, it always leads to destructive effects.
I had an uncle named Bruce. He grew up in St. Paul in the 60’s and worked for the city as an adult. In his line of work, he hurt his back several times. Eventually, he suffered from chronic pain. Sadly, he took a good gift of God—alcohol—and began to use it excessively to ease his pain. Then, he developed an emotional dependency on it and had to drink to be in a happy mood. He took matters into his own hands, without God, to address his own pain and unhappiness. By the time I was a teenager, my uncle was an alcoholic and by the time I was an adult, he had died from liver failure.
Idolatry always promises happiness and pays out misury.
I spend some time pondering what are some idols I struggle with. Since we have the same natures as one another, I expect others here to share some of my idols.
Entertainment—Books, Video Games, Movies, and even social media are good gifts from God. Yet often they can become an idol for me. What do I mean? Many days before bed, I have a sense of discontentment in my heart. I try to fill my heart with different forms of entertainment rather than just enjoying some time with Jesus and going to bed (that would be turning to God to sooth my soul). The fact that some nights I stay up late instead of getting some rest shows that my heart is out of balance. Entertainment with thankfulness to God wouldn’t expand and consume parts of my life. And a question for us to ask is, “what things in your life are out of balance and consuming your time or are you running to for emotional refuge?”
My Own Righteousness— This idol is especially dangerous because it looks like I am living pleasingly to God but I am not. I can take the ways I obey God, and make them my hope instead of God. I can think, “because I’m so good you must love and accept me God” when really the order should be “because you have loved and accepted me I want to obey you.” Friend, if like me, you find yourself comparing yourself to others (in that you are more righteous than they), it is likely that this has become an idol for you.
Christians, although our idolatry can be subtle, it is ugly and it hurts God just like adultery hurts people. It grieves and wounds his heart when his people turn away from him. Friends, let us repent of our idols—let us turn away from the things that are replacing God in our hearts. Let’s allow nothing to interfere with our relationship with him.
The main point I want you to remember today is, “God is our faithful husband to whom we must be faithful.”
Ground: How do we have power to believe and live this
I bet at this point you could feel discouraged. You could hear about how jealous of a husband God is or how the people of Israel failed to respond and they received judgment and think, “what am I going to do?”
It is such good news to know that we are in the new covenant and not in the old (in the old covenant before Jesus came, God’s people had access to his help, but not like we do today). When Jesus came and died in our place, he died like he had been unfaithful when he had not. Thus, we have forgiveness when we turn to him, but that’s not all we have. Listen to 1 Thessalonians 5:23–24,
23 Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.
Did you hear verse 24? It says he is “faithful.” What does his faithfulness mean in this verse? It’s his commitment to make us like Jesus; to gradually turn us away from idolatry and to him until we meet him face to face. We will never be entirely faithful in this life (and we will even take steps back sometimes!), but God will, over time, make us ever more faithful.
That’s why we can say, “God is our faithful husband to whom we must be faithful” without dread at that statement. Jesus will not only forgive us but will also faithfully change our hearts. This makes the call to faithfulness not burdensome but hopeful.
You: What should you believe and do in light of this?
Now you may be wondering, “how do I fight against an idol in my life?”
First, pray that God would forgive you (which he will do!) and then ask that he will help you to put that idol to death. Like I just said, God is a faithful husband and part of his faithfulness is helping us to be obedient to him when we ask him. Even though our offense is against him, he is still eager to help us—that’s what kind of husband he is.
Second, ask your DNA for prayer, accountability, and advice. Holiness is always a group project, and the reason you have brothers and sisters so that you never have to fight alone. I’m just going to venture a guess here, if you are struggling and not finding much victory over a particular idol, I’m guessing that it’s one you are fighting mostly by yourself rather than with the prayer, accountability, and encouragement of our brothers and sisters. Please, invite your DNA group into your struggle. If we were a community where our DNA’s helped us fight, no one would feel like he or she was fighting against any sin on their own. What if we had a community where no one felt like they were alone against their most severe idol?
Gospel Invitation
I want to close by addressing any sceptics who may be with us today. You may be thinking, “I’m not married to God, what are you talking about?” And actually, you are right, you are not yet, but you could be. You might object, but God being a jealous husband sounds pretty serious, I’m not sure I want that. However, in a human marriage, doesn’t real, deep love entail that that the person we are with wants you to be exclusively theirs and you want them to be exclusively yours? That’s actually a good thing and it is what all of our souls are thirsting for.
Jesus, the son of God, died on the cross to bring all people who trust in him into a relationship with his father in which they are safe from sin and the judgment of God and get to become more and more like Jesus. Friend, we want that for you. Please talk to any of our members to find out more.
Jesus Conclusion: Glory in Christ as the Conclusion
Although this may have felt like a heavy word, I think we can leave with hope. Our ability to be faithful does not ultimately come down to if we are good enough, but to Jesus faithfully keeping his promises to help us be faithful. And for all of the times in our lives we are faithful to God, we have no one to thank and praise but faithful Jesus.
[1] I borrowed heavily in this section (and in my sermon) from Ray Ortlund Jr, God’s Unfaithful Wife, (InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove, IL), 1996.
[2] I found this point in Dr. Jason DeRouchie’s class notes on the book of Judges. He shared these notes with our class.
