Today we start a new sermon series called, “Who Are These
Guys?” We’re going to take a look at
what are called the Minor Prophets.
There are twelve of them, each with one book in the Bible. We’re going to look at who they were, what
their message was, and what they have to say to us today.
The Minor
Prophets are Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk,
Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.
Most likely you’ve heard of at least some of them. But we don’t read them very often. In fact, unless you’re one of the people
who’s read through the entire Bible, the chances are that you’ve never read
their books.
That’s too
bad, because they do have something to say to us. They are not called Minor Prophets because
their books are unimportant. It’s not
like these are the bush league prophets, the prophets who couldn’t make the
majors and got stuck in Triple-A. The Major
Prophets, Isaiah and Jeremiah and the rest, are not sitting in heaven making
fun of the Minor Prophets. The only
reason they’re called Minor Prophets is that their books are shorter. But their books are just as important and
just as much a part of the Bible as any other books. We’re going to look at them in order,
starting with Hosea.
Hosea
lived, as far as we can tell, in the eighth century B. C. As you may know, the Jewish nation was
divided into two parts at this time.
There was the Northern Kingdom, which we call Israel, and there was the
Southern Kingdom, which we call Judah.
This was the period of Israel’s decline and fall. The kings and the priests had led the people
away from the worship of God. Instead,
they were worshiping other gods, especially the Canaanite god Baal.
Because of
that, the people of Israel are compared to a person who has been unfaithful in
their marriage. And to illustrate that,
God uses Hosea’s life as an example. God
tells Hosea, “Go, marry a promiscuous woman and have children with her, for
like an adulterous wife this land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the
Lord”. And Hosea does. He marries a woman named Gomer, and they have
children.
Maybe it
seems like God is being a little tough on Hosea, using his life as an object
lesson for the nation of Israel. It kind
of seems that way to me, too. But, you
know, being a prophet of the Lord is not an easy thing. It never has been. As we’ve talked before, following God and
obeying God does not guarantee an easy, stress-free life. Lots of prophets suffered terribly in their
lives.
Even the
names of Hosea and Gomer’s children have messages in them. God says the first son is to be named Jezreel
because that is where Israel’s kingdom will be ended. The first daughter is to be named
“Lo-Ruhamah”, meaning “not loved”, because God is no longer going to show love
to Israel because of Israel’s unfaithfulness.
The second son is to be named “Lo-Ammi”, meaning “not my people”,
because God is no longer going to consider the people of Israel to be God’s
people.
Most of the rest of the book goes into detail
about that, explaining all the charges against Israel, all the ways in which
Israel has been unfaithful to God, and how Israel is going to suffer the
consequences of its actions. But then,
in the last chapter, Israel is given hope.
We’re told that if Israel will only turn back to God and ask for
forgiveness, God will once again love Israel and give it God’s blessings.
And God
once again uses Hosea’s life to illustrate this. God tells Hosea, as we read, to go and take
Gomer back as his wife, even though she has been unfaithful to him. Hosea is to forgive Gomer and lover her
again, just as God will, eventually, forgive Israel and show love to Israel
again.
So, what
does the book of Hosea have to say to you and me? How can we apply what it says to our lives?
Well, I
think it says a few things. One of the
things it says is that actions have consequences. When we ignore God, when we turn our backs on
God, when we put other things ahead of God, there are things that happen as a
result of that. We like to say “God is
love”, and that’s true, but it’s also true God is not a fool. God may love us no matter what, but that does
not mean we can use God or take advantage of God. God is love, but God is not obligated to love
us. If we think we can do anything we
please and nothing bad will happen to us because, after all, God loves us,
we’re probably going to be in for a rude awakening at some point. When we turn our backs on God, when we put
other things ahead of God, there are going to be consequences we have to deal
with.
And most of
us have times when we do. We may not be
terrible, evil people, but how many of us can say that we give one hundred
percent of our lives to God? Probably
not very many. I cannot say it, at least
not honestly. And if we’re not giving
one hundred percent of our lives to God, what does that say? It says that we’re giving a certain
percentage of our lives to other things.
There are times, at least, when we’re putting other things ahead of God. And there are consequences for that.
Now, don’t
get me wrong. When I talk about giving
one hundred percent of our lives to God, I’m not saying we all need to spend
all of our time praying and reading the Bible and doing other specifically
“churchy” activities. There’s nothing
wrong with that, but we can do other things and still be giving one hundred
percent of our lives to God. But if
we’re doing things just for ourselves, if we’re doing things with no thought of
God, then we’re putting those things ahead of God. And while our salvation is based on our faith
and not our works, the things we do should reveal our faith, or our lack of
it. And if they show our lack of faith,
again, there are consequences for that.
But while
there are consequences, there is also forgiveness. The book of Hosea also teaches us about
forgiveness in two ways. We need to
receive forgiveness. And we need to give
it.
In the last
chapter, Hosea tells the people of Israel “Return, Israel, to the Lord your
God…Take words with you and return to the Lord.
Say to him: ‘Forgive our sins and
receive us graciously, that we may offer the fruit of our lips.” And if they do that, God says, “I will heal
their waywardness and love them freely for my anger will turn away from them.”
As badly as
Israel treated God, all Israel needed to do was turn back to God and ask for
forgiveness. If they would do that, God
would forgive them and heal them and love them and bless them.
That’s true
for you and me, too. Most of us have
times when we treat God badly. Maybe we
don’t intend to, maybe we don’t even think about the fact that we’re doing it,
but we do. I know I do. But when we do, all we need to do is turn
back to God. When we do, God forgives us
and heals us and loves us and blesses us.
But there’s
one other thing. God told Hosea to take
Gomer back and forgive her and love her.
But notice a couple of things about that. For one, we’re not told that Gomer asked for
forgiveness. We’re not even told that
she was sorry for what she’d done. But
Hosea was to take her back and forgive her and love her anyway.
Jesus said
many times that the way we forgive others determines the way God will forgive
us. Even in the Lord’s Prayer, we say,
“forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us”. We talked a few weeks ago about how we need
to forgive people even if they don’t feel they’ve done anything to be forgiven
for, not for their sake so much as for ours.
That’s what Hosea did. That’s
what we need to do.
But notice
something else, too. Hosea said to
Gomer, “You are to live with me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be
intimate with any man, and I will behave the same way toward you.” That says a couple of things to us.
First, it
says that forgiving someone does not require us to be played for fools. Hosea would forgive Gomer, but Gomer needed
to change. She could not expect Hosea to
take her back if she continued to hurt him and take advantage of him. In the same way, when we forgive someone, we
don’t need to let them continue to hurt us or take advantage of us.
But it also
says that, when we ask God for forgiveness, we need to change our
behavior. Again, God is not a fool. We cannot expect God to forgive us and take
us back if we continue to ignore God or take advantage of God. God loves us, but God does not allow us to
take advantage of God.
Hosea may
be a minor prophet, but he has a major message for us. We need to give God one hundred percent of
our lives. When we don’t, we need to ask
God for forgiveness. But we can’t take
advantage of God—we need to change our behavior. And we need to forgive others, but we can’t
let them take advantage of us—they need to change their behavior, too.
It’s not
easy. It was not easy for Hosea. It’s not easy for us. But if we do it, we will be a lot closer to
truly being the people of God.
No comments:
Post a Comment