Everyone, welcome to the Cultivate podcast with the Grove church. Thank
you so much for joining us. I'm Charlie Lofton, the lead pastor
there, and we have Mark Freeman here with us. What's up, dude? It's
good. You prepared to continue to be our Old Testament minor
prophet expert? I have grown in knowledge since our last
podcast. Really? Oh, yes. That's impressive.
Your head seems marginally larger. It's like, it's just your brain is
getting bigger. Hey. Yeah, so Mark and I
are on staff together at the Grove church. And again, thank you so much for
joining us, especially if you are new. Really glad that you have found
us. And we are starting today a series
where we're just kind of working our way through the minor profits.
And last week we kind of intro the idea just to kind of make sure
we all understood what we meant when we said that we were going through the
minor profits. We talked about what makes a prophet, a minor prophet versus
a major one, which is at its core length of the book,
not quality of prophet, and that a prophet is someone who God gives
a message to, to deliver to a certain group of people. And then
we also talked a little bit about the history of Israel and the splitting of
the kingdoms and those sorts of things to kind of help us put each one
of these in a historical context.
And so we're just going to take these in order.
And so today we are starting with the prophet Hosea.
Hosea. And this is actually, to me, here's the thing. It was
like 14 chapters.
Yeah. I feel like Hosea, man, he's on the
fence. That seems long enough
to be a major prophet. Oh, yeah. Book of Daniel is not much longer
than that. Right. It's kind of a decent book, even like some of these other
ones. You can tell definitely. That's why he splits the difference. He's right there in
the middle. It's a little bit like maybe you get to decide for
yourself. Yeah, it surprised me going back to it,
because there's this big picture thing that he's saying
and illustration that he's giving us. And
you don't think about it being 14 chapters? No, it is. Yeah, it
is. All right, so historically, we got this
prophet, Hosea, and he's, again, like you said, he's got a pretty
significant message and a wild way that
God is having him illustrate this deal. But let's
set it in its historical context. Where are we in the history
of the jewish people at the time that Hosea is making these
prophecies? Okay, so if I'm right. It's
during one of the reign, the reign of one of the worst kings that they
had. Jeroboam II. Yes. Kind of
focused on the northern kingdom. Right.
200 years after this is after the split. Right. So we had three
kings that were under a united monarchy, and then they split into two.
The northern kingdom being Israel, the southern kingdom being Judah.
Okay, so side question. Side question. So you got these
two kingdoms, and normally when we talk, we just
know we're talking about Israel and we know Judah's
in there somewhere. How does that work into these?
Are most of the prophets talking to one or the other,
or is it to both? How should we
view that? Well, I mean, there's a sense in
mean, the fact that they're recorded in the Bible means that big picture that God
wanted to have, wanted to have the broadest of audiences. He wants
us to still be reading it and learning something from it. And so in the
broadest sense, the answer is it's for everybody.
And I think there are some that I think that we're going to see that
are very, very targeted. The story of Jonah, for
instance, is about a very specific message through a
group of people that aren't even Israelites. This was something that, a message
that God had given to Jonah, to the Ninevites, which is this gentile
group of people. And I think that we'll see some things like that where
this is a very targeted message to a very
specific group of people. And I think there are going to be some that
are kind of addressing everybody all at once,
but from time to time, he'll call one particular
group out. That's the thing I feel like I noticed in Hosea, there's
like, he seems to be, I was going to say a lot of
bullets in his gun, but this is way older than that. He's got a lot
of arrows in his quiver, and he seems to be shooting
most of those arrows at the northern kingdom.
But he does mention Judah from time to time as
well. Is that your impression? And I think there's also this
sense, too. So it's a little bit like, if you say, hey,
guys, what you mean by that is kind of different on the context.
If it's a mixed group, you may be talking to everybody,
or if it's a group of guys over here and a group of women
over here, and you say guys, and context
kind of tells you whether or not you're talking to just the guys or you're
using it as an overarching term. I know not all women love the
fact that you may say guys and refer to everybody, I'm just using that as
an example, but it's the same kind of deal with Israel. There's some instances in
which Israel may mean everybody who is
of jewish descent, or he may be
specifically referring to the northern kingdom of
Israel. And I found in Hosea he also used
the word ephraim. Did you notice that? Right.
So Ephraim is just one of the tribes,
and it's an unusual thing. And so did
you look it up? Because I looked it up. I didn't. I looked it up
because I was like, why Israel and Judah? I understand that.
Then who's Ephraim? Right. I knew that
that particular tribe was one of the eleven tribes
that was in the northern kingdom. And I think
the impression that I got, if we're going to keep using my guys,
if guys is everybody and women is women, and
so then guys is Israel and Judah and women is Judah. That
Ephraim is kind of shorthand for very specifically
making sure he is talking about the northern kingdom, that
since Israel can have a broader
context, he is making it very clear when he says Ephraim
that he's referring very specifically to the northern
kingdom of Israel. Was there anything specific about them in
their level of disobedience?
Is there anything that would make him call them out in particular? I'm not aware
of such a thing.
Interesting. All right, so we're
in the late, I
guess early eigth century BC,
targeting primarily the northern kingdom, but a little bit. Enough
arrows for everybody. Primarily during the reign
of Jeroboam II. And also
at the same time, seemed like there were a lot of different. Like
Judah was experiencing a lot more turnover in kings, some
good, some bad. But Jeroboam II
was considered. He was one of the worst.
So Hosea's got a whole lot of things to say.
And so I guess before we get to the content of what he said,
we have to start with. Before we get to the content of what he say.
The book starts with an interaction
between God and Hosea, where God asks Hosea to do something
and then it plays out. You want to give us kind of
the highlights of that. What was going on in those first couple
chapters? Yeah, I mean, asking him to marry a
prostitute and to have children with her
and then specifically names the children
some really difficult names that you
wouldn't. Right. I don't think we would choose to name our
kids. It just calls Hosea to do a
really difficult thing, to make an illustration
that's man it's really powerful and
it. Seems like they're married
and that some bad things happen and she leaves
him and he has to go and get her back.
So he marries someone that at a
minimum, there is some debate about whether or not she was
most definitely a prostitute. If it
was God predicting that she was going to be an
unfaithful wife, if she was just someone
who
know, already known to be someone who was
having sex outside of marriage. But
regardless, God was putting Hosea into a
situation to marry someone
that God knew was not going to be faithful to Hosea and probably
already had some sort of inclination that she
was already currently not being faithful. And
then they get married and
she is unfaithful and now she's living with some other dude, it looks
like, and God says, and go and bring her back.
So I don't know if you've got a great answer to this question. I don't
think I've got a great answer to this question. So maybe we can just banter
about either, both of our insufficient answers to this
question. Why would God do
this?
Yeah, I mean, putting myself in Hosea's shoes, I've always felt
like, my goodness, man, and a lot of these prophets, I mean, the things that
they were called to do were
just hard, difficult things for God
to get his message across to Israel. Right. But I don't
know that there's one that to me is more difficult than
this man
to love, to trust, and to
have trust broken and then to forgive
and he even has to pay
to get her back. Right. And the
forgiveness, all of the commitment, it's
just. Yeah. Why would God do.
He wants to make his point. His point is very important. He's definitely making
a point, is a point that I feel like that could be told as well
with a parable. You know what I mean? Let
me tell you a story about a guy who took on a wife
knowing that she was going to be unfaithful to
him and he loved her and then she was
unfaithful to him and then he went because he
loved her so much and paid a price to get her
back even though she was unfaithful to him. And then he were
to say, and that is how God is with you. He has taken on
you and he loves you, knowing that you're going to be unfaithful.
And when you are unfaithful, he will go to where you
are and pay a price for you to bring you
back. The very powerful statement. Very
powerful statement for them in that time
has an overwhelming amount of foreshadowing
or dare I say
prophecy about the coming of Jesus.
Right. So the message is very clear. It's powerful.
I think most of us without a whole lot of Bible study
help can get that
big picture message. There's something about it, man,
that he asked Hosea to do it, to live
it mean
that is driving the point home. Well, in
Hosea's personal, the depths
of understanding that he would have
on the other side of,
I think there is something about the messenger
understanding it at those depths. It's not just a story. I
experienced this, but in order for. It to be, and this is kind
of where I don't know if I'm letting God off the hook or I'm just
trying to make the story more palatable to me. But
in order for Hosea to
really understand the message he would have needed
to have loved her, it
wouldn't be like, hey, go take this woman you don't even know, don't even care
about, don't even worry and bring into your house, make
her a wife or one of your wives or whatever because
I'm going to play this out so people can see it and be
like, whatever, I guess. But
again, what you're saying for this to really have driven
home in the heart of Hosea, I think this
is something that was lived out and almost
for me. And again, I am
clearly putting an asterisk next to this.
To me, when the story is written
is probably after it has already happened. And
part of me, the way that it feels like it reads is
mean. This is who's Hosea married?
And I think God knew she was going to be unfaithful.
And maybe at that moment, Jose maybe didn't,
then she was unfaithful. And then the big
thing that God called him to do was
to go and get her back. But upon
reflection, Hosea realizes, hey, God
wanted me to marry her. I loved her and he called me to
marry her. But he knew then maybe something
that Hosea didn't know then. God knew from the beginning
she was going to be unfaithful. But even still, at a minimum,
Hosea knew that she had already been unfaithful to him
when he went to go pay to bring her back.
Now I've got a question too, and maybe I'm just going to say this question.
You're going to give me eyebrows and you're going to put it back to me
because again, I don't know that I've got a great answer to this. Either
he says, call and have a son and name your
son this and name your daughter this, and one of them is
named not loved. Right? The daughter,
right? Yeah. There's a daughter name. Yeah. Not
loved. Do we think that's metaphorical?
And it's just like, hey, think about
her. Like, just in my
brain, it's like, hosea's got a daughter, and he's just like, hey,
not loved. Come here.
What?
It was more a symbolic, but, like, her name was
Jennifer, but just, like,
symbolically, for the purposes
of this book that we're writing, this prophecy that we're
putting together, I want you to think
of these children that you have in these stages that I'm
taking Israel through. But as
a dad of three daughters, in my heart, I just cannot really imagine that Hosea
had, I'm sorry, dad. Why do you call me not loved? God
told me. I don't know. You had any response
to that or you just kind of like, because the story is
wild. The story is wild. And then it always
makes us uncomfortable. And so,
like you said a minute ago, we start wanting to give God
an out, but it makes it really difficult to pick which parts of
this we think were real and which ones.
It feels like this is the story,
right? If we're all in, we're all in.
This is happening. It is certainly shocking enough to
make us slow down and really think about what's going on.
Mean, we could have just started with the prophecies
and all the harsh things that God is telling
Hosea to say to the people, and it would have had some
impact. But those first couple chapters,
man, they make you stop and really think
about what God's relationship was like with them.
Which kind of leads us to the question, maybe we're already sort of answering it.
What's the big idea here? What is the purpose of this
book? What is God at his core? What is he trying to get
across. To his, you know,
just like Hosea has this marriage relationship with
Gomer, there is this covenant relationship
between God and his people, and he loves them
deeply, and he expects that return of
love and allegiance and
obedience, and they've
gone and given his love to
another, to idols, to other deities.
The covenant relationship is broken. And we get to see,
this is how God responds to that.
This is how this loving God works.
Yes. So
the foreign God that seems to have creeped in is
called Baal, right? And
Baal, apparently, literally translated, means
master.
And there's an interesting point in there in
Hosea where basically what God says is
you're no longer going to call me master,
but we will have
this love relationship again,
which ends up being a play on words. Yeah, I saw that, but I didn't
realize that background. So it's a play on words on it. It's
like you are confusing me for this foreign God, which I
am not. And you're worshipping this foreign God, and this foreign God is
named master, but you're not going to call me master
anymore. You're going to call me beloved. Right.
And so he's literally talking about the name Baal
that they're calling him, but also really kind of a, he's really
asking them to rethink and reimagine
what their relationship with him is like. And
in a series that we did in January
at the Grove, we're talking about all these different ways that we could love God.
And then the one Sunday that you did, you talked about kind
of heart relationship
to me. That was kind of a big draw there of just kind of like,
you view this as a master relationship. And
it's not that there aren't elements of that,
but I don't want you to think of it as turn yourself as, like,
a rebellious servant. I want you to think
of yourself as an adulterous spouse, which
has a level of harshness to it, but it also has a
level of heart in it
where God's like, you're not just not
doing what I'm saying. You have broken
my heart the way my man Hosea's heart has been
broken. And so as harsh as the book is, actually,
it's also really rather tender. What do you think? Yeah, I agree. And I was
just going to throw out one of my kind of a bow on that thought.
The Hosea 66 is one of my favorite
verses from the book that speaks to that, where he
says, I desire steadfast love, not
sacrifice the knowledge of God, rather than burnt
offerings. This picture of, I mean, that's
what I want from you. You've missed what I want from you. This is who
I am. I want you. I want your heart.
And yes, that plays out in obedience and these other things, but it's not.
The burnt offerings minus the heart are pointless.
Yeah. So the Baal, the false God, the
master, you sacrifice to him, too.
And so in some ways, you think, man, I'm making sacrifices. We'll call you by
a different name. What difference does it make? You
said, you're missing the point. There's something different that
I want from you. I had that verse down, too, as a key verse I
wanted to talk about, and you go up just a few verses before it. I
had this one, too. In verse three says, let us acknowledge the
Lord. Let us press on to acknowledge him. As
surely as the sun rises, he will appear, he will come to us
like the water rains, like the spring rains that water
the earth. Again,
that's not the way that a master talks to a
servant. It's not the way a king talks to a subject. And it's not a
way a God talks to his followers.
None of them would describe themselves as the
spring rains that water the earth.
Like an embracing of God. It's going to be full of
refreshment and life and
connection. And so, like I said, even
in the strong words
that God is telling Hosea to say, we see
so much of this tenderness that God is wanting to
have. And so I think you found it. I think verse, chapter
six, those are the verses.
If people read Hosea, people who really like this book, those
are a couple of the verses that they really connect with. Did you have any
others that really jump out at you? I might
say this for the end. I mean, the very last verse, I think, speaks to
that this is still powerful for us today, that this
is evergreen and it's
power, it is to a specific people at a specific time,
but it's not just stuck there. Right
on that thought. I feel like
when we talk about these prophets,
there's a lot of hard words,
a lot of promise of
God's judgment and accusation
of you've sinned against him, you've messed
up in this way or that way. And so a lot of the attention goes
there. But man, on the backside of each one of these,
and Hosea is a great example, man. There's this huge
message of hope and this tender heart of
God and the reality that it always feels like
this tension between his holiness and
what that means to be in covenant with a holy God. Right? And
then also his. But then a lot of times it's easy to focus
so much on that, that you miss that his love is huge,
right. And in the midst of his judgment, there's also this
grace and mercy. But it gets missed so much.
Yeah. I think one of the challenges, one of the struggles that we have
with books like this that have such a strong,
for lack of a better phrase, such a strong judgment
message to them, when we imagine, not
imagine, we understand that God is a very merciful God and the
sacrifice of Jesus. And we think about God
very often in terms of just being full of
mercy, full of grace. And then we read books like
this and they sometimes can feel off
putting or harsh. But really
the cycle is the same
because who Hosea is talking to here is a group of
people who are currently in active rebellion against
God. And there's two things that he is
desperately trying to communicate to a group of people who
are in active rebellion against him.
Don't I love you?
And sometimes when we're on the other end of that, having
experienced that grace and mercy
from God, and we're kind of on the other end of that, having already
understood, I know, don't I
know I'm not supposed to? And I know that God loves
me. And then I read this book and it feels like that from
where I currently am reconciled to God,
that God is giving me this message
when you're not in the active rebellion
stage anymore. And so I think for a lot of us,
books like this should be
a refreshing reminder
of where I used to be. And
I think recognizing the context,
if you are a devoted follower of Jesus Christ, you are not
where the northern kingdom was in the early 8th century
BC, active idol worship, active
rebellion, active sin in every possible way. Complete ignoring
of God and anything that he wants. If you are
in that season, I'm glad you're reading
Hosea because stop and know
that God loves you. There's another verse
because I want to get to the part where kind of talk about the big
picture, but before we get to that, there's skip up a little
bit. I like this,
chapter four, verse six. And
God says, my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.
Because you have rejected knowledge. I have rejected you as my
priests. Again,
referencing a series that we did in January about
all the different ways that God wants to connect with us. There's so much heart
in here. There's a lot of description of active
disobedience. But then there's also this description
of, you know, how you got here
because you didn't
know. You were just wrong about who
I am. You have wrongly described me.
You have wrongly understood me because you have wrongly
understood me. You have broken my heart and are
in disobedience. And just kind of the interweaving
connectedness of those three things,
of a heart, love for God, an
active obedience, and a genuine thirst
and desire for knowledge about who he is. I
think you get a weaving of all three of those things.
We see it as like God doesn't like it when you sin.
That is true. God does not like it when you sin. But
what Hosea is saying here, what God is relaying to this people through
Hosea is so much deeper and more
complicated than that. All right,
so we've already shot ourselves in the foot a little bit by saying it's 14
chapters, so this is a longer one. And so for a lot of people,
this would not be a one sitting read. It might be a two or
three sitting read. So you would read this over a couple
of days. So we've given some people some historical context,
talked about the big idea. We've got
this story about Hosea and Gohmer. Hey, by the way, I'll tell you
this. When we were in the process
of naming kids, people would ask if we're going to give our
kids biblical names. It's like, yeah, we got a great name for a girl and
was Dorcas Gomer. Dorcas is a girl's name
in the New Testament. Dorcas Gomer. And our boy's name was
Rufus Puddins. Also two great names from the.
Anyways, big picture,
why should somebody want to read and study,
reflect on this particular book?
Oh,
man. Being completely honest.
Want to is a hard word. I think for me, my study of
this is heart wrenching.
And so one of the questions I like to ask in Bible study is,
what do you not like? Because I think, what do you not like kind
of reveals sometimes even deeper things
than what you do. You like. And what I don't like
is I don't like that God asked Hosea to
do a. It's a hard
story that
it's difficult for me to take in that break of
trust and at the same time very
effective in that I see that, man, I don't know that
I have that in me. And this
God, that's the truth about my story
and this truth about Israel and that God would be that kind
of God that would love at that level.
But it's not an easy one. It's like that movie you watch that I've heard
you say this sometimes about movies. It's like I'll say, is that one you should
go watch? And you're like, well,
it depends on what you're trying to get. If you're going to have a good
time and laugh, it's not the book to read. Right. But,
man, if the point is
made and it's one that will make you
cry. Yeah, I think it's one of those ones that
if I were going to motivate somebody to read it, it is going to stretch.
It is going to stretch your idea about who God is
and the way he looks at us and he does it in a way that
makes you so uncomfortable. You can
only choose to do it. It can't be
ignored. If you're really going to read it, you can't just read through
it. There's so many points along the way that you're
like, I'm sorry, what? And
your brain is going to have to process that. What did
I just read? And what does this say
about my God? And it
is either going to have to be completely ignored or it can
only expand your view and understanding about who God is and the
way he views us.
In that sense, I recommend it. But if you were saying it's not a
Monday afternoon feel good movie, right? It's not that.
If that's what you're looking for, if you're looking for a pick me up in
the morning before you head off to work, I wouldn't choose it. Also,
that verse I was talking about earlier in chapter 14, the very last verse
of the book, whoever is wise,
let him understand these things. Whoever is
discerning, let him know them. For the ways
of the Lord are right and the upright walk in
them. Let transgressors stumble in them.
And to me, that's the statement that just feels like that is
not just for one audience. This is
whoever is wise, let him understand these things.
It's like a call to hey, yeah, this book has power for us,
so you should probably spend some time in it.
I got no better way to end the episode than that, man. That's an awesome
word. Thanks for ending us with that. And
thank you guys for joining us. And I do hope that you'll spend some time
studying and reading Hosea this week. Honestly, if I were going to be
listening to this podcast, I think I would choose to
maybe try to read it beforehand and
then listen to this podcast and then read it after. Or at a minimum,
certainly spend some time over the next week reading and reflecting on
this prophetic book yourself. And
then next week we'll be in Joel. And so again, thank you so much for
joining us. Mark, as always, thank you for being here on the podcast
and hope that if you're not connected at the Grove church,
that you would take that step whether you're in town or out of town
and you can join us in person or you want to join us online. Either
way, we'd love to get to know you and connect with you and you can
find us@thegrovechurch.org slash Connect. Again, thanks for
joining us here on the Cultivate podcast at the Grove church.