“God’s Unfaithful Bride”: The Message of Hosea - Cameron Jungles- 5-5-2013

“God’s Unfaithful Bride”: The Message of Hosea

(Eastside Baptist/June 5, 2013 Wed PM)

The Message of Hosea

Ø Setting and Context

Ø Structure

Ø Message

Ø “Jesus Lens” and New Testament Application

Setting and Context

Ø Divided Kingdom

Ø Ministry to Israel (Ephraim)

Ø 760 to 722 B.C.

Ø Reign of Jeroboam II

Ø Social and Religious Context

Ø Geopolitical Context

Structure

Ø Superscription (1:1)

Ø Hosea’s Unfaithful Wife (1:2-3:5)

Ø Hosea’s Messages of Warning (4:1-14:9)

Message of Hosea

Ø Hosea’s marriage is a picture of God’s relationship to Israel.

Ø The book is an exploration of the tension between God’s love for his covenant people and the need to punish their covenantal unfaithfulness.

Message of Hosea

Ø Repeated Cycle:

o Describing rebellion

ü Alliances, injustice, idolatry, failure of religious ritual

o Announcing judgment

ü Destruction by Assyrians

o Promising restoration

ü Reunification, Messiah

Hosea 11:12

Ephraim has surrounded me with lies, Israel with deceit. And Judah is unruly against God, even against the faithful Holy One.

Hosea 12:1

Ephraim feeds on the wind; he pursues the east wind all day and multiplies lies and violence. He makes a treaty with Assyria and sends olive oil to Egypt.

Hosea 12:7-8

The merchant uses dishonest scales and loves to defraud. Ephraim boasts, "I am very rich; I have become wealthy. With all my wealth they will not find in me any iniquity or sin."

Hosea 12:7-8

The merchant uses dishonest scales and loves to defraud. Ephraim boasts, "I am very rich; I have become wealthy. With all my wealth they will not find in me any iniquity or sin."

Hosea 6:6

For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.

Hosea 13:2

Now they sin more and more; they make idols for themselves from their silver, cleverly fashioned images, all of them the work of craftsmen. It is said of these people, "They offer human sacrifices! They kiss calf-idols!"

Hosea 13:4

"But I have been the LORD your God ever since you came out of Egypt. You shall acknowledge no God but me, no Savior except me.

Hosea 13:5

I cared for you in the wilderness, in the land of burning heat.

Hosea 13:6

When I fed them, they were satisfied; when they were satisfied, they became proud; then they forgot me.

Hosea 13:7

So I will be like a lion to them, like a leopard I will lurk by the path.

Hosea 13:9

"You are destroyed, Israel, because you are against me, against your helper.

Hosea 13:16

The people of Samaria must bear their guilt, because they have rebelled against their God. They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to the ground, their pregnant women ripped open."

Hosea 14:1

Return, Israel, to the LORD your God. Your sins have been your downfall!

Hosea 14:2

Take words with you and return to the LORD. Say to him: "Forgive all our sins and receive us graciously, that we may offer the fruit of our lips.

Hosea 14:3

Assyria cannot save us; we will not mount warhorses. We will never again say 'Our gods' to what our own hands have made, for in you the fatherless find compassion."

Hosea 14:4

"I will heal their waywardness and love them freely, for my anger has turned away from them.

Hosea 1:10

"Yet the Israelites will be like the sand on the seashore, which cannot be measured or counted. In the place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people,' they will be called 'children of the living God.'

Hosea 1:11

The people of Judah and the people of Israel will come together; they will appoint one leader and will come up out of the land, for great will be the day of Jezreel.

Hosea 3:5

Afterward the Israelites will return and seek the LORD their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the LORD and to his blessings in the last days.

“Jesus Lens”

Ø Jesus is the Husband of his church that he redeemed.

Ø Jesus is faithful, when we are not.

Ø Under Jesus, a restoration people is being gathered from every tribe (Israel, Judah, and Gentiles).

1 Peter 2:9

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

1 Peter 2:10

Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Ø From Hosea 1:6, 9; 2:23

Romans 9:23

What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory--

Romans 9:24

even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?

Romans 9:25

As he says in Hosea: "I will call them 'my people' who are not my people; and I will call her 'my loved one' who is not my loved one,"

Romans 9:26

and, "In the very place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people,' there they will be called 'children of the living God.'"

“Jesus Lens”

Ø Under the New Covenant, God’s grants what we need to be made right with him (Jesus).

Ø Under the New Covenant, God also grants the indwelling Spirit so we can live for him in faithful obedience.

Application

Ø We should be compelled to love our God who loved us first with an everlasting love.

Ø We will not be satisfied with religious rituals.

Ø Our love for God will move us to true worship and obedience.