Lost Books of the Bible: Hosea
This is week two in our series on the
lost books of the Bible. For those of you who weren’t here last week, or just
weren’t paying attention, the lost books of the Bible aren’t really lost, they
are just the books of the Bible that no one ever reads. But II Timothy 3:16
tells us that all scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching,
rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness. So, if that is true, and I
believe that it is, and I hope that you believe that it is, then there is no
part of scripture that we can afford to overlook, there is no part of scripture
that we are allowed to skip or ignore. It is all useful, it is all valuable, it
is all the word of the God who created us.
Last week we talked about Philemon, a
25-verse-long book in between Titus and Hebrews. It’s a letter from Paul
talking about a slave, Onesimus, who had to go back to his master, Philemon.
And both were going to have to make some hard, uncomfortable decisions about
how they were going to act towards one another. Were they going to take the
easy way out, or were they going to respond in Christian love. Someone asked at
the end of the service, “Well, what’s the end of the story? Did they respond in
Christian love? Did Onesimus really go back, and did Philemon really forgive
him?” We don’t know the end of the story. We can only hope and assume that they
made the right choices.
Today we’re going to go way back in
time to the first of the twelve books that we call the minor prophets, the book
of Hosea. Hosea comes right after Daniel and right before Joel. Now I want to
warn you before we begin and we look at this scripture, that it gets a little
bit PG-13. But folks, its in the Bible, and if it’s in the Bible, then it’s the
word of God, and if it’s the word of God, then it is important to us to read
and to understand what is being said. And if nothing else, it’s very
entertaining!
Now before we read this scripture, let
me tell you a little bit about Hosea and prophets in general. Hosea was a
prophet, and when you hear the word prophet, I don’t mean like an “apocalypse”
kind of prophet. He’s not and most prophets weren’t talking about end times or
anything like that. Prophets were used by God to highlight a particular sin or
problem in a particular time and place. In other words, what they said had
meaning for the here and now. They weren’t just predicting the future. Instead,
prophets, including Hosea, were used by God to say, “Look, this is where you
are messing up, and if things don’t change, these bad things are going to happen
to you.” Most of the time, if a prophet had to come and talk to you, it wasn’t
because you were being super good. It was because you had messed up, and their
job was to tell you that God wants you to change, or else there will be
consequences. And that’s the kind of story we have here in Hosea.
There had been a split between the 12
tribes of
Jerry will have the words on the
screen for us, but you might want to get your Bible out and follow along. We’re
going to read Hosea 1:1-11. Try to look past the weird names and understand
what is happening here. This is Hosea 1:1-11.
The word of the Lord that came to
Hosea son of Beeri, in the days of Kings Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah of
Judah, and in the days of King Jeroboam son of Joash of Israel.
When the Lord
first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take for
yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits
great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.” So he went and took Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived
and bore him a son. And the Lord said to him, “Name him Jezreel;
for in a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel,
and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of
When she had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she
conceived and bore a son. Then the Lord said, “Name him Lo-ammi, for you
are not my people and I am not your God.” Yet the number of the people of Israel
shall be like the sand of the sea, which can be neither measured nor numbered;
and in the place where it was said to them, “You are not my people,” it shall
be said to them, “Children of the living God.” The people of
Ok, so that was a lot and that was
pretty weird, so let’s break it down a little bit. What is happening here? God
tells Hosea to take a wife of whoredom, meaning an unfaithful wife. And have
children with her. This is an odd request from God. But there’s a purpose
behind it. He says, “For the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the
Lord.” In other words,
Now if you don’t understand the
context of the whole Old Testament, then this might not make much sense. So let
me paint you a little picture. In our Sunday School class right now we’re going
through Genesis and we’re talking about how God promised the
Long story short, the people of
The Israelites saw these people, and they’d talk to
them. They’d say, “Hey, why do you have so many gods?” And the reply would be,
“Why do you have only ONE god? You’re the only group of people I’ve ever heard
of who only have one god. You’re a little weird. You’re the one who’s
different. You don’t fit in.” And the Israelite would say, “Well, I’ve got to
go sacrifice a bull now for my sin offering.” And the pagan would say, “You
have a good time with that. I’m going to go appease my gods by sleeping with
the temple prostitute.”
Can you guess what started to happen? Sure you can. The
Israelites began to give in. They began to start worshipping these pagan gods
and taking part in these pagan practices. And they began to forget about God.
They were in their promised land. They were a political powerhouse in the
region. What did they need God for? They wanted to fit in. They wanted to be
accepted by those who lived in the region.
And all the while, God is saying, “Look how far I have
brought you. And this is how you repay me? By being unfaithful to me? By
forgetting me?” And he tells Hosea, “Go, take an unfaithful wife, because
that’s what my relationship with
God had loved
Hosea was written for the people of Israel thousands of
years ago, but in many ways, it may as well have been written for us today.
Look how far God has brought us. Look how richly God has blessed us. And yet
how often are we unfaithful to him for the sake of popularity? For the sake of
fitting in? How often to we ignore the God who has blessed us out of concern
for our social status?
We don’t mind being Christians while we’re here. While
we’re at church. And we’re happy to thank God for what he has done for us,
while we’re here. But once we leave this place, it’s like a whole new ballgame.
I know this seems like a sermon you would preach at
teenagers, right? “You don’t need sex, drugs, and alcohol to fit in” and all
that stuff that we preach at them. But we as adults are just as guilty as any
teenagers when it comes to putting God on the back burner so that we can fit
in. The big difference for adults is that it isn’t that we “do” stuff to fit
in. It’s the stuff we DON’T do in order to fit in.
Let me give you an example. Do you pray before you eat?
Most of you probably do. Do you pray before you eat, when company comes over?
Or when you’re out to eat at a restaurant? Or in the break room at work? No?
Why not?
When someone here is hurting, what do you say? “I’ll
pray for you.” When someone is hurting at work, what do you say? “I’m thinking
about you.” Little things, big meaning.
Why are we ashamed? Can I admit to you, that I have a
hard a time with this as anyone? Just because I’m a pastor doesn’t mean I don’t
want to fit in. I still want to be accepted. I want to be liked. I want to be
approachable. Sometimes I like going places where no one knows my occupation,
just so people don’t feel like they have to be so guarded around me. I don’t
know why people act that way around me. It’s not like I have a secret telephone
in my office where at the end of the day I go tell God all the bad stuff I’ve
seen people do that day.
But I like to fit in. I like to be just one of the
guys. But when the moment comes where you have to make a choice between doing
what’s socially acceptable, and doing what you know is right, which way do you
go?
I’ve probably told this story before, but when I was in
high school, and I played football, I always missed a week of practice in the
summer for a mission trip, and I always missed the last hour of practice on
Wednesday night because that’s when I had youth group. The coaches thought I
was weird. My teammates thought I wasn’t dedicated. But my priorities were just
different. And it wasn’t just that my priority was God over football, it also
had to be God over fitting in. Because no one else missed football for God
stuff. It made me stand out. It made me weird.
That’s a great example of how I did things right. I
wish I had more of those. Because I can think of way more examples of how I did
things wrong. I worked at a factory full of rough around the edges guys for
three summers. Never once did I pray over my lunch in the break room. I do that
everywhere else I go, but I knew it would make me stand out there, and I didn’t
want that. I wanted to fit in. Now, I’m pretty ashamed of myself. I’ve got way
more examples that are like that then ones where I unashamedly did what was
right for God.
We’re living in a culture right now where it is
becoming less and less acceptable to be public with your faith or to let your
faith influence your daily lives. People want others to keep their faith to
themselves. If you want to believe in God, fine, but I don’t want to hear about
it!
Well, I’m sorry, but Christianity doesn’t work that
way, and if we take a good, long, look at Hosea, we recognize that there are
consequences to being unfaithful to the God who has been faithful to us. If we
ignore him, we cannot expect his blessings to continue. He is ashamed of us
when we are ashamed of him.
God is not supposed to be a secret part of our lives.
God is not supposed to be the thing we do on Sunday morning and then ignore for
the rest of the week. I don’t know about you, but God has done some awesome
things in my life, and I am learning every day that His is the acceptance I
should be seeking, not society’s. I don’t care how old you are, popularity
isn’t just something teens seek after. We all want to fit in, we all want to be
accepted. It is hard to come to that point where we say, “You know what, I’m
not cool, and that’s ok.” It is hard to come to the point where your biggest
concern isn’t, “What will they think?,” but “What will God think?”
And folks, it’s not bad to want to be accepted or fit
in. That’s natural. The problem arises when fitting in means leaving God
behind. Look, God can’t be the center of your life if you totally leave him
behind in your social life. What would your life look like if you let God be
the center of all of it? Every aspect? What would your life look like if you
were no longer ashamed in public to let others know that you are a Christian?
You know, we like to say that God is number 1 in our
lives, but do we act like it? I want to give you a challenge today. The next
time you meet someone for the first time, or the next time someone says, “Tell
me a little bit about yourself,” think about who you really are and what’s
really important in your life. And tell them, the truth, not just what’s
socially acceptable to say, but the truth. Maybe you say something like this,
“Hi, my name’s Dan Metzger, and I’m a Christian. I go to Van Buren United
Methodist church…” and then give all the info about your family and your job,
you know, the stuff that people normally say. If God is really important to
you, then don’t be ashamed of him! You’ll get some great reactions, I guarantee
it. “Hi, my name is…use your own name, not mine…and I’m a Christian.”
You’re probably thinking, “I’m not going to say
that…that’s weird!” Let me ask you this: what’s really weird? Telling others
that you are a Christian, that Christ is the most important thing in your life?
Is that weird? Or is it even more weird to pretend like he’s not? To pretend
that the one who created you and saved you and has blessed and sustained you
isn’t the most important aspect of your life? To me, that’s weird. More than
weird, it’s wrong.
Let me give you the end of the story, since I didn’t
last week.
Pastor
Dan Metzger
Van
Buren United