HoHum:
There was a little boy who had a new winter coat. He and his dad were walking in town up and down ice covered streets. The boy didn’t have gloves so he kept his hands deep in the pockets of his new coat. At the beginning, the father said, “Give me your hand.” The boy refused. After a while the boy fell down. The father said, “Give me your hand.” The boy said, “No, daddy, I’ll be alright.” After a while the boy fell again and hurt his knee. The father said, “Son, please give me your hand.” This time the boy was more than happy to take his father’s hand.
WBTU:
The major events of the OT is the exodus and Sinai.
The exodus is where God “saw” the affliction of his people in Egypt, he “heard” their cry of distress in slavery- and he decided to involve himself in their predicament. He brought them out of Egypt with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. Two of the most important being the Passover and the parting of the Red Sea.
At Sinai God gave them the law and the conditions of the covenant.
Beyond exodus and Sinai, OT prophets foretell of a day when the Israelites will be taken into exile because they broke the covenant and sinned. We see God getting involved in their lives again by bringing them back from captivity and resettling them in the Promised Land. The exodus and the return to Promised Land after captivity (new Exodus) are talked about here.
We see that God gets involved with His people. Throughout the OT we see that God gets involved in various ways. He could supply His people’s needs; He could inflict punishment upon them as is talked about in Hosea and Amos.
The point is that God cares- whether He is for or against His people. God cares enough to get involved in the human story. Amos 3:2: You only have I chosen of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your sins. We see here that God is not indifferent to Israel’s way of life, but He takes His people seriously. God decided to be present with, and go with, Israel so that His people might be a model to the world of what it means to be “known” or “cared for” by God.
There are times in OT prophets where we find that God is a God of strong emotions and feelings. We find themes of God’s wrath but also God’s compassion. We find that God is not a God who is aloof from His people.
We get from the Gentiles the idea that God is apathetic toward mankind. The idea that God is untouched by concern or care, unaffected by the things of earth. Many have the idea that God is “up there” or “out there” but not “with us”.
The living God is not apathetic, but passionately concerned, not aloof but personally and intimately concerned about the world. Does Jesus care when my heart is pained Too deeply for mirth and song; As the burdens press and the cares distress, And the way grows weary and long? O yes, He cares; I know He cares, His heart is touched with my grief; When the days are weary, the long nights dreary, I know my Savior cares.
How do we know? Well, we see glimpses of this in Hosea 11. Here God’s involvement with, and commitment to, his people is portrayed in human terms (Father in relation to his son), and in terms of anguish that are expressed with human emotion.
The poem here deals with the problem of a rebellious son. Deuteronomy 21:18-21: If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. They shall say to the elders, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard.” Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.
Tonight we are not going to discuss our feelings about these verses in Deuteronomy, but how does this law apply to Hosea 11:1-11 in dealing with God’s son, Israel, who has proven to be consistently stubborn in his evil and sinful ways
Thesis: These verses fall into two parts, each of which deals with a dimension of God’s emotions
For instances:
The Emotion of Anger (Vs. 1-7)
In these verses God speaks in the first person (I), but Israel is spoken about in the third person (my son, they, them, their, my people). It is as if the parents of a profligate son are laying out their case before the elders at the gate of the town.
God testifies that he loved his son from infancy, that he called him out of Egypt and formed him as a people, that he taught him how to walk and lifted him in his arms, that he led him (them) “with cords of human kindness, with ties of love”, “I taught Ephraim to walk”, and “bent down to feed him (them).”
The history of God’s dealings with his people are a history of His care. But in spite of these caring actions, they (Israel) became more distant and defiant to God, their Father. They did not realize that God bound them to himself in love, they were bent on rebellion.
Can’t we almost envision a father who is both angry and sad for the plight of his rebellious son? The legal way to handle such a son was the penalty of death. Therefore, Israel shall go back to Egypt (mean returning once again to slavery), this time under the Assyrians (vs. 5-6).
The Emotion of Compassion (Vs. 8-11)
In these verses God continues to speak in the first person (I, my), but the “son” is addressed directly (you). The exception to this is vs. 10 where God is referred to in the third person.
In these verses we leave the situation of legalities at the city gate, and we see that the parents (in this case God the Father) are personally speaking with their son.
God begins with a passionate outcry from his “heart (vs. 8)”, the depths of his being, where he proclaims his affections for his people. Because of this it prevents him from destroying them completely, as Admah and Zeboiim were destroyed in the burning waste of salt and sulfur that also struck Sodom and Gomorrah (Deuteronomy 29:23).
Despite their stubborn unfaithfulness, God will not let them go; he will not destroy them. Key phrase is vs. 9 “I am God and not man- the Holy One among you.” But how can God do this? He must be just and follow through.
Romans 3:21-26: But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.
1. God, though yearning for His lost child, is just and must deal justly. Thomas Jefferson said, “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.”
How much more, now, if we were wise and honest, should we tremble for our country, this same country of which Jefferson spoke when it was so young and so relatively innocent?
Our country that has gone from literally fighting for the freedom to worship God, to being embarrassed to mention Him in public forum because we don’t want to invoke the mockery of those who have decided that He doesn’t exist, or that if He does He is insignificant?
Our country that has traded God, family, community and brotherly love for hedonism, greed, self-centeredness, hatred and striving after the almighty dollar.
Our country that now defends and even approves in its citizens the very sin for which God wiped Sodom and Gomorrah completely and literally off the face of the planet.
If Jefferson trembled then, how much more now should we? There is, however, one thing that has not changed and will not change. That thing that Jefferson reflected on; that he considered; that he pondered, and so must we. God…is…just. Why should we tremble at that? Because He does not change and He must be true to Himself.
2. But in Hosea 11:8-9 it sounds like God is not going to do anything because of His emotions.
But God did do something. God did not leave sin unpunished. God cares about us and he got involved. I am reminded that there is therefore no penalty for me, no condemnation for me, because God judged my sin in the flesh of His only Son on Calvary’s cross and that reminds me that He is both just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus!
Now God is not going to leave us undisciplined. Hebrews 12:5-6: My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.”
We see in vs. 10-11 that God did discipline them. This is talking about the new exodus. One day God is going to deliver us from our bondage as well. Romans 8:21: the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. Like God called Israel and Jesus out of Egypt (this old world of bondage), one day He will call us.
Without Jesus Christ, God will come in wrath. Hebrews 10:29, 31: How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
