Intro to Hosea
April 26, 2015
This
is the beginning of a sermon series on the 12 Minor Prophets. My plan was to do
them in 12 sermons but I am going to take 13. This sermon is on Hosea but
before we tackle Hosea, I want to do a little spadework on some theological
terms as we return to the Old Testament and to the Minor Prophets.
These sermons are from the Old
Testament. We all understand the difference between the Old Testament and the
New Testament. The old being the time before Christ and the new being the time
since Jesus was born.
But we do get confused when we talk about the
various covenants that God has made with man. And the confusion is
understandable because there are two covenants but they do not correspond to
the Old Testament and the New Testament.
The two covenants are the Covenant of Life and
the Covenant of Grace. The Covenant of Life, sometimes called the Covenant of Works or the Covenant of Creation, was made with Adam and Eve and ended
when they sinned. The Covenant of Grace began in Genesis 3:15 with the promise
that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent. That seed, of
course, is Christ.
The reason this is significant is because of our
common misunderstanding of the Old Testament or the administration of the
Covenant of Grace before Christ. Before Christ, the Old Testament saints were
in a Covenant of Grace with God. They existed and were received solely upon
God’s grace to them. Like Abraham, God reckoned their faith as righteousness.
They were required to have faith in God and were saved based upon God’s grace
extended to them.
The extension of that grace looked different
than it does after the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus. In the Old
Testament administration, grace was extended to them in types and shadows
pointing forward to Jesus Christ. We know these types and shadows as part of
the sacrificial system and the holiness code.
These revealed to the Jews that they had no
righteousness of their own apart from God and in order for them to draw near to
God, they needed to do so based upon God’s kindness to them in washing away
their sins and receiving them into His presence.
However, they constantly misunderstood His grace
to them. They either understood it in a merit based fashion, we have earned the
right to enter God’s presence. Or, which we see more often throughout the Old
Testament, they simply didn’t do what God prescribed and turned to worship
false gods. This turning to false gods also smacks at the heart of the system
that the true God presented to them. The false gods were harsh task maskers.
Yahweh, on the other hand, had simple
requirements. The Jews were to simply believe in His grace, worship Him only,
and were to receive manifold blessings. We sometimes think that the Old Testament administration was really complicated. In reality, it was fairly simple and God was at work through it to get to the hearts of His people.
They failed to be faithful to Him on numerous
occasions and God brought judgment upon them. This judgment was never rash. God
was very patient with them and we see the nature of His patience displayed in
the book of Hosea. God provides a process of discipline so that there is room
for repentance. But when there is no repentance, God will act in judgment.
These Minor Prophets consist of 9 pre-exilic prophets and 3
post-exilic prophets.
We should do a little history refresher
as we begin our sermon series. These twelve books cover about a 400 year time period
from around 840 BC to around 430 BC. Some of these dates are in question.
To put that timeframe in perspective, consider
that David ruled as king until about 970 BC and then Solomon ruled until about
940. Hosea lived about 200 years after David’s rule.
We tend to look back at those times and shrink
all the time together. It was all back then. But if you think about the time
from David to Hosea in modern terms, that span covers the same amount of time in
America dating back to 1815, which is nearly our entire history as a sovereign
nation. Thomas Jefferson had just finished his presidency and James Madison was
president. It was nearly fifty years before the War Between the States. When we
look at history this way, we understand that a 200 year stretch in Israel from
970 to 770 BC could contain a huge number of changes. And the nation states
were much less stable then than they are now, as we will see in the history of
Israel.
By Hosea’s time, the monarchy had been split and
there was a northern and a southern kingdom.
I want to remind you of those terms as we move
into our study of the Minor Prophets. The monarchy refers to the rule of Israel
by kings. Saul was the first King to rule. David ruled after Saul and
solidified the monarchy as he defeated many foes. Solomon inherited that
rule and for about 40 years ruled in relative peace and security nearly all of
the land promised to Abraham a 1000 years earlier. That peace in the land
dramatically shifted under Solomon’s son, Rehoboam. His foolishness in ruling
caused a rebellion and the ten Northern Tribes split so that we had a northern
and a southern kingdom.
The Northern Kingdom had its capital city in
Samaria. The northern kingdom is usually referred to as Israel. The Southern
Kingdom is referred to as Judah with its capital city in Jerusalem.
Hosea prophesied from around 760 down
to just a few years before the fall of the Northern Kingdom in the destruction
of Samaria in 722 BC.
At this point, we should also think
about the term exile. I mentioned that there are 9 pre-exilic minor prophets
and 3 post-exilic prophets. What exile am I talking about? I am talking about
the exile after Jerusalem is destroyed in 586 BC.
This also can get confusing because many were
carried into exile when Samaria was destroyed in 722 BC by the Assyrian Empire.
When the Assyrians conquered the Northern Tribes
in 722 BC, they carted many of them off to Assyrian cities, especially the
leading citizens. Furthermore, they brought in Assyrians to populate the
depopulated areas. This is why the remaining Jews in the Southern Kingdom
looked so arrogantly upon those in the north that they began to call Samaritans.
Samaratins were mixed peoples. They were not pure Jews. Because the tribes were
dispersed never to return, these are called the ten lost tribes of Israel.
But the Biblical exile and return from
exile refers to the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC and exiles being taking
to Babylon under Nebuchadnezzer.
The order of the twelve is not
chronological. However, it seems that the Twelve are meant to be taken together
as one book. With this in mind, it is wise to seek to discover a
contextual theme of the The Twelve Books.
In
attempt to find a lucid theme, Pastor Duane Garner suggests a theme of ending points
of one book and the starting of the next. These themes continue to degenerate
to decreation language until the promises of recreation are reaffirmed in the
latter three post-exilic prophets.
Pastor
Garner says,
"Hosea ends with promises of
lengthened roots and spread branches, the beauty of the olive tree, and the
growth of vines. (Hosea 14:4ff) Joel opens with all of the vegetation laid to
waste, and the vines stripped bare, and then we find out why. (Joel 1:4-5,9,11)
Joel ends with the promise that
Yahweh will roar from Zion. (Joel 3:16) Amos opens with Yahweh roaring
from Zion. (Amos 1:2)
Amos closes with talk of Edom.
(Amos 9:12) Obadiah is all about Edom and then Obadiah ends with "the
day of Yahweh upon all nations is near" (Obadiah 15) Jonah then is sent to
carry the day of Yahweh to "the nations.""
I think we
have a lot more work to do on finding a clear theme that runs through all
twelve books or to link them together in a clear story. However, Pastor Garner
view is very consistent with the overarching them of the entire Old Testament and provides a good starting point in understanding the continuity of these books.
In the stories from Judges and down
through the Kings, we see this same process repeat. The people make a Covenant
with YHWH. They serve Him, faithfully, for a time under the leader of the
renewal. In Judges, these leaders were saviors that God raised up. In the
Kings, it was various Kings who were faithful that sparked a revival. However,
upon the Judges death, or often under the subsequent King, the people would
waver in unbelief, return to idols and fall into various levels of sin. The
Lord would send prophets to rebuke and warn them, judgment would fall and then
God would raise up another savior.
Of course, the saviors always died and
the people always turned away from God. Only with an everliving Savior can the
people be permanently saved and given the ability to serve Him faithfully.
When I speak of pre or post-exilic
prophets, I am referring to the exile after the destruction of the Temple by
the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezer in 586 BC. The return after the exile
begins around 516 BC. Malachi was the last writing prophet around 430 BC. So, 9
of the Minor Prophets wrote before 516 BC and 3 wrote after. Those three are
Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi.
These 12 prophets speak both of the
coming doom of Samaria as well as Jerusalem, the restoration after the return
from exile and a much larger restoration at some point in the future. That
larger restoration is the fulfillment of all the law and prophets in the
kingdom of the Messiah.
As we look at Hosea, we get a similar
theme as the one suggested by Pastor Garner. The Lord speaks to Hosea to take a
wife of harlotry. She then bears him three children. Each successive child
represents further distance from the Lord.
The marriage union, creation, begins to
fall apart into chaos, decreation. The blessing of children turns out to be
curses pronounced on the family and on Israel.
As the situation spirals out of
control, there are greater and greater consequences of disobedience until the
people of God are cast away by God for their disobedience.
But while man is unfaithful, God
remains ever faithful. God was certainly just to write Israel a certificate of
divorcement, just as Hosea would have been just to write a certificate of
divorcement to Gomer. Instead, however, God keeps pursuing the beloved until He
eventually makes a way for her to put away her whoredoms by forgiveness of
sin through a Savior and empowerment by His Holy Spirit.
