Weekly Sermons

Hate evil, love good; maintain justice in the courts.  Perhaps the Lord God Almighty will have mercy on the remnant of Joseph.       Amos 5:15

 

Return, Israel, to the LORD your God.  Your sins have been your downfall!  Take words [of sincere repentance] with you and return to the LORD.  Say to him:  “Forgive all our sins and receive us graciously, that we may offer the [sacrifice of thanks that is on] our lips” ….I will heal their waywardness and love them freely…. Who is wise? Let them realize these things.  Who is discerning? Let them understand.  The ways of the LORD are right; the righteous walk in them, but the rebellious stumble in them.     Hosea 14:1,2,9

 

For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.  God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.  There is no judgment against anyone who believes in him. But anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God’s one and only Son.      John 3:16-18 (New Living Translation)

 

If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.    Jesus, Luke 9:23

 

 

Many years ago, some friends told Pam and me about family members of theirs who had a toddler in their home who loved to explore — and who didn’t always obey the parents’ instructions.  Their house had an open carpeted stairway in the corner of the kitchen that led to the basement.  The two parents had very different ideas (and a bit of conflict) about how to protect the toddler from injury on that stairway.  The mother wanted to use a commercial baby gate to completely close off the stairway.  The father thought it better to expose the child to potential injury as a way of teaching the importance of heeding the parents’ warnings not to play on the stairs.  It was too long ago for me to remember the details now, but I think we probably were hearing about it because the kid had taken a tumble and gotten hurt.  It was clear that both parents loved the child.  The mother’s overwhelming concern was that by being a toddler and doing what curious toddlers do, her child was vulnerable to serious harm and should be prevented from accessing the stairway.  The father felt they were dealing with “developmental defiance” and self-will which needed to be addressed sooner rather than later to prevent worse trouble in the future.  I think people often put God in a similar quandary nowadays.

 

I was reminded of that situation as I read the past week’s Through the Bible chapters describing the work of the prophets Amos and Hosea in the northern kingdom of Israel.  They prophesied there from 760 BC until the army of Assyria crushed Israel in 722 BC and forced most of its people into exile and servitude.  Scholars note a subtle but clear difference in their prophetic actions and writings, and they attribute that to the prophets’ places of origin.  Amos was a shepherd and farmer from a small village near Bethlehem in Judea.  God called him to prophesy against the idolatry and blatant unrighteousness which was so prevalent in the northern kingdom, and to warn them of impending disaster.  When speaking and writing about the sinfulness of Israel, Amos proclaimed God’s displeasure with Judah’s enemy who had divided the Hebrew nation and people 200 years before and often was at war with Judah.  As a faithful prophet, Amos identified Israel’s sins, warned of their consequences, and pleaded with the leaders and people to repent and return their devotion to a loving, forgiving Yahweh.  Bible scholars point out that Amos focuses mostly on the sins and consequences with a matter-of-fact tone, rather like the father of the toddler mentioned above.

 

Hosea, on the other hand, was the only prophet born and raised in the northern kingdom of Israel whose writings are included in our Bible.  He is considered the final prophet in Israel before its fall.  Little is known about Hosea except what is given in his brief book of prophecies.  It is believed that he spent much of his time at Bethel, the religious center for Israel.  When God called him to prophesy against Israel’s sinfulness, it was a charge to speak against his own nation, leaders, and neighbors.  Historians believe that Hosea’s 35 years of ministry (750-715 BC) overlapped briefly with Amos’ prophetic work in the north and for a longer portion of Isaiah’s ministry in Judah.  Analysts refer to Hosea as “the loving prophet” because he wrote and spoke to his own people to assure them of God’s continuing love while also imploring them to repent and return to faithful, unadulterated worship and service to Yahweh.  Without downplaying the consequences of their sin, Hosea intersperses his appeal for their positive response to God’s love throughout his writing.  It was the focus of his efforts, much like the mother of the toddler mentioned above.

 

Draw Me a Picture     Because the northern Israelites had consistently rejected the message of Elijah, Elisha, Joel, and Amos, the Lord led Hosea to try a new technique.  It’s likely that only those who have experienced the wrenching pain of marital betrayal and unfaithfulness can fully appreciate the sacrifice needed for Hosea’s obedience to God’s instructions.  He was told to marry a woman named Gomer who was known to be a promiscuous adulteress in her prior relationships with men.  That marriage alone likely would have compromised Hosea’s reputation as a spokesman for the Lord, but God wanted to use it to illustrate his redeeming love for unfaithful Israel.   
             Hosea 1 records that Gomer soon bore Hosea a son who was named Jezreel (meaning “God scatters”) as a warning to Israel of the consequence of its unfaithfulness to God.  In the next years, Gomer gave birth to a daughter who was named Lo-Ruhamah (“not loved”), then to a son given the name Lo-Ammi (“not my people”).  Scholars cannot be certain whether Hosea was the father of the last two children, but they too became part of Hosea’s message of God’s love.  When the prophet wrote about them in Hosea 2:1, he removed the “Lo” prefix from their names, calling the daughter “loved” and the son “my people” – again expressing the reconciling, transforming love God wanted to show to Israel.
             Gomer apparently left Hosea at some point in their saga and returned to committing adultery with another or other men.  It is likely she had turned to prostitution, because when God instructed Hosea (3:1-3) to go and bring her back home, Hosea had to pay both money and grain to redeem her from her master.  This too foreshadowed the costly, loving sacrifice Jesus would make at Calvary to free Israel – and us – from sin’s penalty and restore us to friendship with God.
             The remainder of Hosea’s Book is composed of poetic descriptions of Israel’s waywardness, of Hosea’s spiritual vision of the price Israel would pay if they refused to repent, of the prophet’s hope they would come to their senses, and his promise of God’s constant love and renewed blessing if they did so.  Over his 30+ years as a prophet in Israel, he witnessed the reigns of seven unrighteous kings, most of them assassinated by their successor.  He closed his Book with this profound appeal:  Who is wise? Let them realize these things.  Who is discerning? Let them understand.  The ways of the LORD are right; the righteous walk in them, but the rebellious stumble in them.  (Hosea 14:9)

 

Israel Didn’t Listen      II Kings 17 tells the sad story of the capture of Israel’s capital Samaria after a three-year siege by the Assyrian army, followed by the forced exile of the Hebrew people to Assyria.  Hosea had seen the disaster coming, writing in Hosea 6 that in the crisis the Israelites would make many burnt offerings and say they repented, but their words would be like dew that quickly evaporates in the hot sun.  He told them “God desires mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God, not burnt offerings” (6:6).  The Assyrian king imported people from other places he had conquered to repopulate Samaria.  They brought their own gods and idols and installed them in Israel’s places of worship.  When lions began attacking the settlers, they brought in an exiled Israelite priest to teach them what God wanted so the lions would leave.  From that time onward, they went through the motions of worshiping God while continuing to worship their idols, but it was futile superstition and a violation of the Law’s first commandment to “have no other gods before me.”  The writer of this history attributed the collapse of Israel to three main things (17:15) – the Israelites’ rejected their covenantal relationship with Yahweh and disobeyed his guidance; they “followed worthless idols and themselves became worthless;” and they constantly sought to imitate the nations around them, even though the Lord had explicitly forbidden that.  Sadly, Israel was no more. 

 

Judah Listened, Sort Of       While all that was happening in the northern kingdom, three godly kings (Uzziah, or Azariah; his son Jotham; and Hezekiah) in Jerusalem were doing their best to honor God’s wishes.  The writer of II Kings records, however, that like a number of Judean kings before them, two of them “failed to remove the high places” from Judah, the places where pagan gods were worshiped.  When Jotham’s son Ahaz succeeded him on Judah’s throne around 735 BC, for twenty years he encouraged and participated in worshiping false gods at the high places.  His recklessness exposed Judah to attack by hostile neighbors.  Ahaz used the treasures of the temple to hire other nations’ armies to come to Judah’s rescue, and he had altars and other structures (like he’d seen in other nations’ shrines to false gods) constructed in Judah.  His reign and disobedience of God in the manner of Israel’s kings led Judeans astray and harmed spiritual life in Judah.  Fortunately, Ahaz’s son Hezekiah who succeeded him as king saw the damage his father had done and worked diligently to turn Judah back to the Lord.  II Kings 18 says he finally removed the high places, destroyed idols, and even broke apart the bronze snake Moses had lifted up in the wilderness to save Israelites because the people had begun worshiping it.  Hezekiah consistently obeyed God’s decrees and wishes, and he sought the prophet Isaiah’s counsel and advice when confronted with serious challenges and dilemmas.  His removal of the high places and other obedient choices were a big factor in Judah’s survival for 136 years longer before its exile to Babylon. Because Hezekiah’s heart was devoted to God, the Lord (like the mother of the toddler) intervened to protect him and keep him working for divine purposes for several extra years. 

 

Tough Sledding      These Old Testament chapters are quite difficult to follow.  For one thing, the writer of II Kings chose to bounce back and forth between Judah’s history and Israel’s, and that gets confusing.  For another, many of the characters in the stories have very similar but different names, making it hard to keep track of them.  Despite that, it is still essential that we ask, “What does it teach?” beyond what it says.  I learn from Hosea the importance of reminding people of God’s loving grace when speaking truthfully to them about sin and its consequences – it all matters.  I learn also that the Lord may need me to speak to family and friends, not just to strangers, about spiritual Truth, sometimes at great emotional cost.  I learn from Israel’s demise the horrible cost of trying to serve two masters, of pretended worship, and of trying to be like everyone else.  And I learn from Hezekiah the eternal value of total devotion to the Lord.  Let’s all learn.

 

—Ron Ferguson,  6 July 2025

 

 Queries for Worship-Sharing and Reflection

 

1)  Which prophet, Amos from Judah or Hosea from Israel, had the harder assignment?  Why do you think that?

2)  Why did God forbid Israel from imitating the world around them?  What similar risks do Christians face today?

3)  What do you think caused Ahaz to choose evil when he came from multiple generations of godly people and leaders?

4)  What does Christ teach you about your life today from these long ago godly and ungodly kings of Judah and Israel?