Bloor Lansdowne Christian Fellowship – BLCF Church Message for Sunday:
‘Steadfast in Love and Sanctified in Times of Distress’
© August 25, 2013, by Steve Mickelson
Let us pray…
Last Sunday, we examined how Job and other believers trusted God and kept their faith even when tested by Satan. As a result of trust, faith acted as a living testimony to God, more than just words alone could convey.
Today’s lesson we will Hosea’s expression of faith and love for God, while testing. Unlike Job, whom God allowed to suffer and to be tested by Satan, Hosea was instructed by God to knowing to undertake actions that would likely bring a degree of suffering, pain and test his faith.
Let us review the Wiki bits synopsis of Hosea:
Brief Summary: The Book of Hosea can be divided into two parts: (1) Hosea 1:1-3:5 is a description of an adulterous wife and a faithful husband, symbolic of the unfaithfulness of Israel to God through idolatry, and (2) Hosea 4:1-14:9 contains the condemnation of Israel, especially Samaria, for the worship of idols and her eventual restoration.
The first section of the book contains three distinctive poems illustrating how God’s children returned time after time to idolatry. God commands Hosea to marry Gomer, but after bearing him three children, she walks away from Hosea to her lovers. The symbolic emphasis can be seen clearly in the first chapter as Hosea compares Israel’s actions to turning from a marriage to life as a prostitute. The second section contains Hosea’s denunciation of the Israelites but followed by the promises and the mercies of God.
Chapter two describes a divorce. This divorce seems to be the end of the covenant between God and the Northern Kingdom. However, it is probable that this was again a symbolic act, in which Hosea divorced Gomer for infidelity, and used the occasion to preach the message of God’s rejection of the Northern Kingdom. He ends this prophecy with the declaration that God will one day renew the covenant, and will take Israel back in love.
In Chapter three, at God’s command, Hosea seeks out Gomer once more. Either she has sold herself into slavery for debt, or she is with a lover who demands money in order to give her up because Hosea has to buy her back. He takes her home, but refrains from sexual intimacy with her for many days, to symbolize the fact that Israel will be without a king for many years, but that God will take Israel back, even at a cost to Himself.
Chapters 4-14 spell out the allegory at length. Chapters 1-3 speak of Hosea’s family and the issues with Gomer. Chapters 4-10 contain a series of oracles or prophetic sermons, showing exactly why God is rejecting the Northern Kingdom (what the grounds are for the divorce). Chapter 11 is God’s lament over the necessity of giving up the Northern Kingdom, which is a large part of the people of Israel, whom God loves. God promises not to give them up entirely. Then, in Chapter 12, the prophet pleads for Israel’s repentance. Chapter 13 foretells the destruction of the kingdom at the hands of Assyria because there has been no repentance. In Chapter 14, the prophet urges Israel to seek forgiveness and promises its restoration, while urging the utmost fidelity to God.
Matthew 2:13 cites Hosea’s prophecy in Hosea 11:1 that God would call His Son out of Egypt as foretelling the flight into Egypt and return to Israel of Joseph, Mary, and the infant Jesus Christ.
The capital of the Northern Kingdom fell in 722 BC. All the members of the upper classes and many of the ordinary people were taken captive and carried off to live as prisoners of war.
The Book of Hosea is a prophetic accounting of God’s relentless love for His children. Since the beginning of time, God’s ungrateful and undeserving creation has been accepting God’s love, grace, and mercy while still unable to refrain from its wickedness.
The last part of Hosea shows how God’s love once again restores His children as He forgets their misdeeds when they turn back to Him with a repentant heart. The prophetic message of Hosea foretells the coming of Israel’s Messiah 700 years in the future. Hosea is quoted often in the New Testament.
Hosea (הושֵעַ) prophesied during a dark and melancholic era of Israel‘s history, the period of the Northern Kingdom’s decline and fall in the 8th century BC. The apostasy of the people was rampant, having turned away from God in order to serve the calves of Jeroboam[1] and Baal, a Canaanite god.[2]
During Hosea’s lifetime, the kings of the Northern Kingdom, their aristocratic supporters, and the priests had led the people away from the Law of God, as given in the Pentateuch. Forsaking the worship of God, they worshiped other gods, especially Baal, the Canaanite fertility god. Other sins followed, including homicide, perjury, theft, and sexual sin.[3] Hosea declares that unless they repent of these sins, God will allow their nation to be destroyed, and the people will be taken into captivity by Assyria,[4] the greatest nation of the time.
The prophecy of Hosea centers on God’s unending love towards a sinful Israel. In this text, God’s agony is expressed over the betrayal of Israel.[5][6][7] Stephen Cook asserts that the prophetic efforts of this book can be summed up in this passage “I have been the Lord your God ever since the land of Egypt; you know no God but me, and beside me there is no savior” (Hosea 13:4) Hosea’s job was to speak these words during a time when that had been essentially forgotten.[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Hosea
It is interesting, that an account of a nation’s decline and its falling from God’s grace some 700 years could easily describe the world in Noah’s time prior to the flood, or Sodom and Gomorrah prior to their destruction, the Roman Empire prior to its decline and fall, and even to the moral decline of nations today.
We should not dwell on the negative aspects of Hosea’s testimony, instead, we must keep our focus on the positive testimony of his response to God’s directions. Hosea was not instructed to just minister to the Gomer, a harlot, but to marry the prostitute. And through the covenant of marriage, Hosea would give her his good name as his wife and remove the stigma associated with being a harlot. Sound familiar? You may recall in admonition found in Ephesians 5:25-27 (ESV):
25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.[a]
Footnotes: a. Ephesians 5:27 Or holy and blameless
We see the story of Hosea teaches, by analogy, God’s covenant of love for not only the people of Israel but for all people humanity, in spite of a sinful nature. For Jesus brings the covenant of Salvation not only to the people of Israel but to all people. His gift of salvation is offered to all, Romans 1:16-17 (ESV):
The Righteous Shall Live by Faith
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith,[a] as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”[b]
Footnotes: a. Romans 1:17 Or beginning and ending in faith b. Romans 1:17 Or The one who by faith is righteous shall live
Is the lesson from Hosea, just a lesson of God’s love for his chosen people? I believe that God expects us to demonstrate to others, to those whom we would normally despise, the same unconditional love that Hosea showed to his wife. A recent example of such unconditional love may be found in the recent actions of Antoinette Tuff towards Michael Brandon Hill, who admitted to have a mental disorder and to be off his medications.
In his depressed state, Hill had stolen an AK-47 rifle, 500 rounds of ammunition, and entered a school to fight with police and end his life which he found no longer worth living. All that stood between Hill and his suicidal objective, was a woman of faith who had recently contemplated her own suicide having suffered through a recent divorce and being left alone to raise a child with multiple disabilities.
But God had a plan to use Antoinette’s faith and suffering as testimony to His compassion and love at a time of great testing. Here is an excerpt by Reverend Susan Brooks Thistlewaite’s observations of the power of the Holy Spirit, from the August 20, 2013 edition of the Washington Post:
Antoinette Tuff’s weapon of the spirit: How compassion stopped a gunman
By Reverend Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, Ph.D. Theology
‘Our weapons are not carnal, they are spiritual.’ This biblical lesson is found in 2 Corinthians. This week, it can also be learned at Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy, an elementary school outside of Atlanta.
Antoinette Tuff, the school clerk at McNair, is being credited with averting another horrific school shooting. Tuff met the gunman as he entered the school building, and listened to him say “he didn’t have any reason to live, and he knew he was going to die today.” She chose not to meet violence with violence, but spoke compassionately to the gunman, identifying with his pain and loneliness, a feeling she shared that she had as well after she separated from her husband of 33 years. She encouraged the gunman not to give in to despair.
Tuff used the “weapons of the spirit,” not a gun to stop the gunman. “I give it all to God. I’m not the hero. I was terrified,” she said.
Spiritual strength and compassion were the weapons used here, not a physical gun.
Weapons of the Spirit, not “carnal,” that is, physical weapons are what we need in life, according to the Bible.
Weapons of the Spirit can transform hate into compassion, and violence into peace.
Hosea was instructed by God to give unconditional love to Gomer a sinner, just as God gave us the same agape or unconditional love to His people. And even though we strayed from God, becoming like an unfaithful wife, like Gomer, God did not sever his covenant, 2 Corinthians 11:2 (ESV):
2 For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.
And in a similar manner to His instructions to Hosea to take back his wife, God has provided us with the means to return to His good grace through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Redeemer, the groom to his bride, the church of believers, Ephesians 5:24-27(ESV):
24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.[a]
Footnotes: a. Ephesians 5:27 Or holy and blameless
We, the church, the body of believers must turn to Christ and keep our vow of faith and trust, until the day that Jesus returns, Revelation 19:7-9 (ESV):
7 Let us rejoice and exult
and give him the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
and his Bride has made herself ready;
8 it was granted her to clothe herself
with fine linen, bright and pure”— 9 for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.
And the angel said[a] to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.”
Footnotes: a. Revelation 19:9 Greek he said
For it is faith that Job kept throughout his testing and adversity. And it was faith that allowed Hosea to love and forgive his wife, Gomer and trust God’s plan. And faith that permitted Antoinette Tuff to set aside her own personal troubles in order to show Christ-like compassion and love to an angry troubled stranger, and save that stranger and many innocents from danger and destruction, Revelation 21:1-2 (ESV):
The New Heaven and the New Earth
21 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
Let us pray…
Hymn #37: Great Is Thy Faithfulness
Benediction (2 Corinthians 1:3-4): Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
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