How many of you here this morning have ever had a speeding ticket? How many of you had to go to court for that ticket? Well, I certainly remember my one and only ticket. I was 17 years old and a senior in high school. I was taking a college class at Old Dominican each morning and so every day that fall I drove down Sunbury Road. The more I drove the road, the more comfortable I got. It was nice and wide, four lanes, smooth pavement. The road was just begging me to drive a little faster each day. And so I started playing a little game. Each day I would time myself to see how long it would take me to either get to school, or get back home. And that specific day I was on my way home and was making excellent time. Or at least I was until I got to Hoover Reservoir. As I came up a little rise, there he was, sitting in a gravel parking lot on the right hand side of the road. I saw him, and he saw me. I hit the brakes and he clocked me. My heart rate instantly doubled as I closed the gap between the two of us. I passed the driveway and he pulled out quickly, but with no lights on. I instantly thought of a rumor all high school boys have heard which said, if I can make three turns, then he can’t pull me over because to follow me for that long is harassment. So I immediately pulled into the left turn lane where Walnut intersects Sunbury. He of course followed me, but without any lights or sirens. At this point I decided I would act as normal as possible and that morning I had noticed the price of gas was pretty good at the station on that corner. So after making a left onto walnut, I made a right into the gas station. So did he, and of course it wasn’t until I was pulled into the pump that he turned on his flashers. Now it is bad enough to get pulled over on the side of the road, let alone to have it done while you sit in the middle of 6 or 8 gas pumps for the whole world to see.
Anyway, he ticketed me for going 56 in a 45 mph zone. As a minor I was required to go to court. There was no option to send in a check for the fine. Not only did I have to go to court, but I had to go to court in the county in which I resided. That might not seem like a big deal, but I was ticketed in Franklin County, which doesn’t do anything other than fine a minor for their first offense. In Delaware County, where I lived, they automatically suspended your license on a minor’s first traffic violation. No if’s, and’s or buts about it. So, as my father accompanied me to court that morning, I had to present myself before the judge with several other minors and face the consequences. When it was my turn, the charge was read, which was simply that I was speeding, going 56 in a 45 zone. And it was my opportunity then to dispute that claim, or to accept what was coming to me. After accepting the charge, I needed to choose my punishment, a 4 week suspension with no privileges, or 6 weeks with privileges. I needed privileges to get to school, work, and church. So I had to plead my case as to why I needed each of those specific privileges.
A courtroom is a very intimidating place to be, especially when you know that you are guilty of the charge. The passage that we are going to look at today comes from the book of Hosea, which is a book of prophecy. Prophecy can be broken down into several categories or genres. That just means that we look at the style of the text and put it into a category to help us better understand it. The passage that we are going to look at today is classified as a legal dispute. The imagery is that of a court room where God is both judge and prosecutor. In the passage he lays out the argument and basis for his judgment.
Turn with me please to the book of Hosea. We are going to work from the 4th chapter today, reading verses 1-13. Ezequiel and I will both be reading from the New International Version. (Repeat Citation and Read passage aloud). Don’t close your bible because we will be referring back to it frequently.
My appreciation for the prophetic books in the bible has increased greatly in recent years because I have learned a great deal about them. At first glance, most passages are rather confusing. But if we spend some time digging, they have a lot to offer us, and that is what I want to do today.
Verses 1-2 announce that Israel is breaking the covenant with God and with others. Read those verses again with me. This is Gods opening statement, his opening argument. The agreement was that the Lord would be their God and Israel would be his people. In order for that to happen, they were to love the Lord their God with all their heart, soul and strength. Most of us are familiar with that statement, but for a long time I thought that Jesus was the one who introduced that idea of loving God as the number 1 priority. In all actuality, Jesus was simply repeating instruction that the Lord gave through Moses to the people. Deuteronomy 6:5 says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” So Jesus was simply reinforcing an idea that had existed from the time of Moses.
But Gods argument is more extensive than just the people’s relationship to Him. He states that the people have not only violated their covenant with Him, but they have also failed to fulfill their covenantal obligations to humankind. Verse 2 describes what the people were doing to one another that broke the covenant. They were cursing, lying, murdering, stealing, and committing adultery. I find it interesting that in Jesus’ response when questioned about the most important commandment; he combined two separate passages to answer the question. The first section, to love the Lord with all your heart, soul, and strength comes from Deuteronomy as we have already noted. But Deuteronomy doesn’t include what Jesus brings to us as the second most important command, which is to love our neighbor as our self. That is actually a quote from the very popular book of Leviticus. But the heart of what Jesus was doing in answering that question was to summarize the Ten Commandments.
We can divide those commandments into two sections, vertical commandments and horizontal commandments. Vertical commandments are those that deal with our relationship to God. Horizontal commandments are those that deal with our relationship to others. If we love the Lord with our heart, soul, and strength, then we are keeping the vertical commandments. And if we love our neighbor as our self, then we are keeping the horizontal commandments. But, the list that Hosea provides here in verse 2 shows that the people were breaking just about every command God gave them in regards to how they should treat other people.
As a result of that, God is bringing a charge against his people. He is laying out his argument and showing that the judgment he is bringing upon them is fair. And the fact that they haven’t held up their end of the covenant is the first reason we see in this section for Gods action. The first thing I hope you will take away from this passage today is that Hosea gives us an example which shows that we as followers of God do indeed have a responsibility to obey the commands of the Lord if we want to be in a right relation to him. Despite what many people say, our everyday life, Monday through Saturday as well as Sunday must be impacted and changed by God, otherwise we are not in a right relationship with him.
As we continue on in this passage we can see what might be the source of the problem that the people are experiencing. Verse 6 is an indication of what has been happening or rather not happening. (Read v. 6) We should take note of the fact that God is speaking to the priests and he says that the people are destroyed by a lack of knowledge. The word here in Hebrew for knowledge is Torah, which literally means instruction, or the law of God, but verse 6 says that they have ignored the law of God.
The priests were not being faithful to what their job description was. They were not teaching the people the law that God had given them. If we continue on to verse 8, the situation gets even worse. Read verse 8 with me. At first glance this may be confusing. Let me translate for you what my Spanish version says: “The sin of my people is their food.” Now that gets us a little closer I think, but not all the way there. If we think about the role the priests had at that time we might remember that they didn’t own anything. Additionally, when people came to sacrifice something to God, a portion of that animal or grain was set aside so that the priests had food to eat. So literally the more the people sinned, the more they sacrificed. The priests benefited from the sin of the people because they had lots of food to eat.
So why does all the blame fall on to the priests? Verse 6 says my people are destroyed from a lack of knowledge, not just my priests are destroyed. At that time that the priests were the ones who had the scrolls, they had the writings. The people didn’t have a copy of the Torah at home or one their palm pilot. The people were dependant upon the faithful teaching of the priests. But today we have access to the scriptures. I don’t mean to embarrass anyone today, but does anyone here not have a bible at home? If you don’t I will get you one personally. Is there anyone here that doesn’t have a copy of the scriptures available to them to read? Perhaps then if this message was delivered to us today it might say that we reject knowledge by not making time to read and study Gods word.
The verses that follow, specifically 10-13 tell us about the people’s involvement in idolatry. Read verse 13a with me. Each of the things described in that verse are things that people did in worship of Baal. But the last two lines are the most important. (Read 13b) Therefore, as a result of your actions, this will happen. Parents because you did these things, this is the road that your children will follow. I want to contrast that to the book of Deuteronomy which we have already glanced at. Chapter 6:5-9 says…
Israel was not even close to what God had asked them to do. They were supposed to be teaching their children all day about the Lord. No matter what activity or chore they had to do, if a father and son were working together, the father was supposed to take that opportunity to teach his son about the Lord and his ways. But instead the people were showing their children how to worship idols and how to break the covenant with God instead of fulfill it.
I see each of the three themes in Hosea as interconnected. First, Hosea has shown us that yes we do have a responsibility to do something if we desire to be in a correct relation with God. These actions are a response to what God has already done for us. Jesus said if you love me, obey my commands. God cannot simply be a Sunday topic; he must be our focus each day. Secondly we cannot reject the knowledge that God has made available to us in his Word. I want to encourage each of us to make it a priority of our day to read the word. In addition to that, get involved in a bible study, come to Sunday school, and be faithful in your Sunday morning attendance. Each of those areas is an opportunity we have to learn from others who have more wisdom than we do. Lastly, that knowledge is important if we are going to be able to set a good example for those around us about God. We cannot help those around us stay on the path if we ourselves don’t know where the path is.
