Last Thursday was a beautiful spring day, so my wife and I decided to knock on some doors on Pine Street, meeting new people and getting reacquainted with people we had met before.
At the last house, an apartment, we could see a man through the open door sucking the last drops of liquor out of a big glass bottle. I walked up and he said, “I’m not talking to nobody.” I told him, “You just did,” but he didn’t respond.
But a barefoot woman was standing outside the apartment who followed us as we left. She apologized for his rudeness. “I used to live in this place, but I had to get away from people like him.” We stood and talked and she told us her story.
She said she grew up in an alcoholic home where she experienced violence and abuse. Sometimes when their drunk dad entered the house at the end of the day, her sister would throw her into a closet for a couple of hours until he sobered up. She said she has been through everything: abuse, alcohol, drugs, prostitution. One day, several years ago, a pastor came by with his car and told her to get in, “Bring your paraphernalia. We’re going somewhere,” he said.
“Whoopee,” she thought. “A party.”
She asked where they were going and he said, “You’ll see.” Eventually, they pulled up in front of a church and she said, “Huh uh. No way.”
“Come on in,” he said.
She went along in, but when she entered, she sat down and said, “I ain’t doing anything.”
He said, “The Lord told me to find you and now you are here, Donna.” She looked around to see if anyone else by that name was there, because she hadn’t told him her name. She just sat there, kind of stunned and puzzled. He said, “That’s o.k. We have time.”
I don’t know what else the pastor said, but she told us that as she sat there her chest got heavier and heavier, and soon she started sobbing and she put her drugs and paraphernalia on the altar and left it there. Since then she hasn’t touched any of that stuff. “I didn’t know Jesus could do that,” she said. “I honestly didn’t.” And there on the street, we prayed for her before we parted.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who don’t know what Jesus can do and not all of them are out on the street. Many of them are in our churches.
According to a survey by researcher George Barna, Bible knowledge among church-going Christians is at an all-time low. (Special Report by Michael J. Vlach,
Crisis in America’s Churches: Bible Knowledge at All-Time Low http://www.theologicalstudies.citymax.com/page/page/1573625.htm)
He found, for example,
• The most widely known Bible verse among adult and teenage believers is “God helps those who help themselves”—which is not in the Bible and actually conflicts with the basic message of Scripture.
And at Wheaton College, where they monitor the biblical literacy of incoming freshmen, they have found that:
• One-third could not identify Matthew as an apostle from a list of N.T. names.
• Half did not know that the Christmas story was in Matthew and half did not know that the Passover story was in Exodus.
So, if people don’t know basic facts about the Bible, what do you suppose they believe about Jesus? Barna found, among other things, that only 35% of mainline Protestant church members believe Christ was sinless. Barna says, “Millions of Americans who declare themselves to be Christians contend that Jesus was just like the rest of us —fallen, guilty, impure, and Himself in need of a savior.” It can no longer be assumed that the people in the pews know even the basics.
Why has that happened? These writers say that many Christian churches have abandoned serious Bible exposition and theological teaching. “Rather than explaining the historical setting of a passage, texts become springboards for devotional reflection,” they say. “Biblical passages are taken out of context as the preacher searches for stories that evoke the responses or attitudes desired.” As a result, people hear less and less about the Bible.
They suggest that more pastors should emulate the Swiss Reformer Ulrich Zwingli who forsook the common preaching methods of his day to systematically teach the Bible verse-by-verse, chapter-by-chapter, and book-by-book, paying attention to the historical and grammatical contexts of the passages he was expounding. We need a systematic approach to biblical truth, they say.
Barna says that turning things around will take “a massive, concerted long-term effort.” But we must try. “We must pray for God’s guidance and power to bring about the reformation that He undoubtedly desires for America.”
I want to say two things before I continue on. For the past six years, Sue and I have been preaching through the Bible. It is our attempt to battle the problem of biblical illiteracy. But it is not enough. Even if you heard every one of our sermons and you remembered everything you heard, it is not enough. Just as one hour of sunshine per week is not enough to grow a garden, one hour of Sunday worship is not sufficient to grow a Christian. That is why we provide Sunday school classes, Bible studies, and other opportunities for spiritual nurture.
In the early 1900s, intelligence testing resulted in what we now refer to as the IQ scale. Some of you have probably worried about how high or low your IQ really is, but more important than your IQ is whether or not you are using the gray matter you have. I’m not aware of any good way to measure people’s understanding of God. If we did, we might call it the God Quotient. Where do you think you rank on the scale? Barna and other researchers would say that too many people are on the lower end of the scale.
It is not a new problem. Already back in 750 B.C, when the Old Testament prophet Hosea was preaching, he had some hard words for his listeners in Hosea 4. In fact, using courtroom language, he said that God was bringing an indictment against them. He said “There is no knowledge of God in the land.” He said that because these people had rejected knowledge, He was going to reject them. “They do not know the Lord,” he said.
To make the point clear, God asked Hosea to name his third child Lo-Ammi, which means “not my people” because they no longer knew who God was. And, of course, the people said it wasn’t their fault because their priests hadn’t told them about God. The other problem was that what little they knew, they had forgotten. (4:6)
Now just in case you were not here on Mother’s Day when we began our study of Hosea, let me just summarize by saying that Hosea was a prophet of God who experienced a rocky marriage. Well, actually, it was more than rocky. His wife became a prostitute and he divorced her. But later, he had a chance to buy her back and he did because of his love for her. And that story in the first three chapters became a parable of God’s relationship with his people. They had flirted with other gods, breaking their covenant vows. But God still loved them and wanted to redeem them. And God loves you, too, and he wants you to know who He is. Here are three things about knowing God.
Knowing God is possible. So how do you improve your GQ--God quotient? How can we know God? Here are several ways:
1. Through creation. Ps. 100 says, “Know that the Lord is God. It is he that made us, and we are his. We are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.” Scientists are coming to recognize that the earth we live on was designed for one purpose – to sustain human life, and that is quite different from the other planets. If we ponder the way our world is made, we simply cannot conclude that it just the result of random developments. We can begin to know God through creation.
2. Through history. The Bible makes clear that history is not just one long list of meaningless events. OT people knew from their history that God was working in their world. Read Ex. 6:6-8. History is not just anybody’s story; it is His story.
3. Through instruction. The 10 Commandments given through Moses are God’s words of instruction so people have principles to live by. Those are not the only instructions God has given. Look at Deut 24:19-22. And when God sent Jesus, he brought instruction that superseded some of the Old Testament laws. For example, Mt. 5:43,44.
4. Through experience. Knowing God is more than just having information about him. It is also experiencing him. The word “know” in the Bible often speaks of husband and wife knowing each other through intimacy. We come to know God better through our commitment of love for Him. Remember the story of the young boy Samuel when the Lord called him? The Bible says that Samuel did not yet know the Lord. That is why Samuel didn’t recognize him. He had not yet experienced God.
How have you come to know God? Do you know Him through his creation? Through history? Through instruction? Through experience? If you don’t know him at all, I invite you to begin the journey.
Knowing God is about living. It is not just about facts and information. According to Hosea, even the priests, who were supposed to be teaching the people about God, were perverting what they knew to their own purposes. The details of the text are not easy to decipher but God’s people evidently were using their knowledge and experience of God for personal gain and personal pleasure. If I understand v. 12, they were perverting their understanding of God by putting objects of worship made of wood in His place. They had adopted a whole world view that contradicted the character of God.
It is like saying that “Yes, God made the earth. We are his stewards and we need to take care of it,” but then turning around and wasting its resources and living as though it doesn’t matter if we pollute the air, the soil, and the streams. Hosea 4:3 says that even nature suffers because of our sin.
Or it is like saying after we have been deathly sick, “I believe God has given me another chance,” and then going right back to the life style that led to the illness in the first place. Sometimes I wonder what it takes for people to make changes in their lives when God has spoken to them so clearly.
God must hold his head in his hands and weep. In 4:16 he says, “Like a stubborn heifer, Israel is stubborn.” It’s a wonderful illustration. I don’t know how many of you have tried to make a stubborn farm animal do what it didn’t want to do. I remember, growing up on the farm, the many times my dad tried to persuade a heifer to enter a barn door or leave a corn field. He’d chase it around the barnyard, almost to the gate and then it would turn around and run off with its tail in the air. It sounds funny, but it is the most frustrating thing that can happen. And sometimes, he had to just let it go and, eventually, when it got hungry, it came home.
And that is the way it is sometimes with God’s people. That is why he says in 5:4, they do not know the Lord. They can be stubborn, too, unwilling to listen to God’s instructions and, in v.15, God lets them go off on their own. Does that sound like you? Is God still waiting for you to come back? If so, what is keeping you from returning and then pressing on to know the Lord?
Knowing God brings hope.
Just as the farm animal eventually realizes that when it comes home, its owner can provide for its well-being, so eventually do God’s people. Read 6:1-3. They are now ready to return, ready to repent, ready to be restored.
Note how they have experienced God. Calamity has come upon them, tearing them apart, striking them down. They understand that their sins have made God turn away from them.
But they also know that their hope for recovery rests in the Lord. God will respond to their heartfelt sorrow over sin. They recognize that God is the only Deliverer. Notice the reference to the spring rains. Every rainbow signaled the promise that God had covenanted with his people never to destroy them again.
These verses burst forth with confidence like spring bursts forth after a hard winter. New life is again possible. When people renew their covenant with God, it is like being resurrected to new life. Everything becomes new. Great things are possible. Hope becomes a reality.
Can you smell the spring rains? Have you experienced God’s healing touch? Are you living with hope because you know the Lord?
On Friday, a young man came to our place to tell us that he wanted to confess his sins before God and give his life to God. He was like the blind man in Mark 8 who came to ask Jesus to touch him so he could have sight. It wasn’t that he was doing anything so terrible; it was just that God was speaking to him. He realized that life is uncertain. He knew that no one has a guarantee of another day and he wanted to get things right with God before it was too late. So, the three of us crossed the street to this place. I read some of Hosea’s words in Chapter 6, “Come, let us return to the Lord…. He will come to us like the showers, like the spring rains that water the earth.” And together we knelt on these steps and this young man prayed to God to change his life. He confessed his desire to do things God’s way.
Before he left, I asked him what he had just done. He said he had just confessed his sin and given himself to God. Then I told him, “When you leave, tell the first two people you meet what you did here.”
(Resource: Allen R. Guenther. Hosea/Amos. Believers Church Bible Commentary. 1998)
