(Audio version; Music--"You Loved Me Anyway" by: Sidewalk Prophets and "Rescue" by: Desperation Band)
Introduction
We all have
people in our lives that you could describe as unlovable. Whether it’s a
neighbor, a co-worker, a boss, a teacher, a brother, a sister, an in-law, a
spouse, or a child, we all know what it’s like to be in relationship (if you
can even call it that) with someone who rubs us the wrong way. I’m not talking
about an adversary or an enemy of some kind but someone you must, in one way or
another, be in relationship with. You know that boss who is demeaning but you
need the job so you just take it. Or the teacher who hates her job and takes it
out on you but you need the class to graduate so you just take it. Or the child
who is dishonoring, disrespectful, and rude to you but they will always be your
child so you just take it. Or the spouse who treats you like a mistake they
wish they hadn’t made but the words “till death do you part” still mean
something to you so you just take it. When I mentioned this type of
relationship, I’ll bet you immediately pictured that person or those people in
your mind because they were or perhaps still are the relationships that manage
to suck the life out of you. Relationships are hard and can be terribly
inconvenient. Nevertheless, we were made to be in relationship with one
another. When we refuse to be in relationship with others or refuse to allow
them to be in relationship with us, life is really not worth living. I want to
share a story with you to illustrate my point.
Robert (not
his real name) was a marine coming home from the war after his final tour of
duty. The week before he boarded the plane for home, he called his parents to
let them know he was coming home to stay. Robert said he couldn’t wait to get
home but he wanted his parents to know something else. “Mom,” Robert began, “I
have a friend I’m bringing home with me.” “Oh that’s wonderful Robert. Does
your friend live around here as well?” Asked Robert’s mother. “No mom. I’m
bringing him home to live with us.” Said Robert. Robert’s mother was confused
when she said, “I don’t understand Robert.” Robert explained, “My friend has
nowhere else to go and he was hurt pretty badly here when he stepped on a
landmine. He lost an arm and a leg and can’t take care of himself so I’m going
to bring him home to live with us.” There was a long silence until Robert
asked, “Mom, are you still there?” Robert’s mother then said, “Robert, you’re
asking too much of us. It sounds like your friend needs special care and lots
of attention. That sounds like lots of work for us and we have our own lives
you know. We’re not really prepared to take on someone who is so broken and
needs so much help. We’re looking forward to seeing you but I just don’t think
we can take your friend in. I’m sorry son.” Robert said, “It’s ok Mom. I
understand.” Robert hung up the phone but he never went home. Instead, about a
month later, Robert’s mother received a call from the police that they had
found a young man who had discharge papers in his possession that identified
him as her son. He appeared to have fallen from a building but they weren’t
ruling out that he committed suicide. They asked if she could come down to the
morgue to see if it was her son. When Robert’s mother arrived, a police officer
led her into a room where a body was draped in a white sheet. When the
pathologist ask if she was ready, he pulled down the sheet to reveal the young
man beneath. Trembling and visibly shaken, Robert’s mother just stood and
stared. Yes it was her son but what she didn’t expect to see was that her son
was missing an arm and a leg—signs of the brutalities of war he left a world
away.
Frankly,
some people, for any number of reasons, are really hard to like let alone love.
Sometimes it seems easier to love people we know hate us. I can’t explain it
but so often it is the people who should be the easiest to love that are the
most unlovable. This is where it get’s really hard to call yourself a faithful
follower of Christ. Because this is exactly what we are called to do—love the
unlovable because that’s what Jesus did and what God has always demonstrated.
Unfortunately, we’ve managed to make a mess out of the Biblical concept of
love, especially here in the west. I’m not sure where we went wrong but maybe
it’s because we have just one word for love—“love.” In the Greek language of
the New Testament and the culture of that time, love was expressed with four
different words depending on the context. Eros
expressed romantic or erotic love. Phileo
expressed the love of a close friend. That’s why the city of Philadelphia is
known as the city of brotherly love. Storge
expressed familial love as in the love of a parent toward a child. And finally
there is Agape love which is
expressed in a person’s unconditional commitment to other people. It means
acting selflessly and without ulterior motive toward someone else. It means
loving a person sacrificially. It is a love that derives from the character of
the person giving it without regard to whether or not the person receiving it
deserves that love. The perfect illustration of Agape love is Jesus’ death on the cross for humanity. The Hebrew of
the Old Testament also has different words the express the various dimensions
of love. However, the one I want to focus on is the Hebrew word Hesed. Literally, Hesed means “loving-kindness” and is expressed in God’s covenant
relationship with Israel. More widely it means, persistent and unconditional
tenderness, compassion, mercy, and in some cases the idea of grace. It
represents God’s active pursuit to be in relationship with humanity. Hesed is something God extended to
Israel because of His covenant promise to Israel. God pursues relationship with
His people not because of who they are but because of who He is. God’s love
toward humanity isn’t because of humanity’s enduring faithfulness but because
of God’s Unfailing Love.
Subject Text
Hosea 11:1-11
1“When
Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. 2But
the more I called Israel, the further they went from me. They sacrificed to the
Baals and they burned incense to images. 3It was I who taught
Ephraim to walk, taking them by the arms; but they did not realize it was I who
healed them. 4I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of
love; I lifted the yoke from their neck and bent down to feed them. 5Will
they not return to Egypt and will not Assyria rule over them because they
refuse to repent? 6Swords will flash in their cities, will destroy
the bars of their gates and put an end to their plans. 7My people
are determined to turn from me. Even if they call to the Most High, he will by
no means exalt them. 8How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand
you over, Israel? How can I treat you like Admah? How can I make you like
Zeboiim? My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused. 9I
will not carry out my fierce anger, nor will I turn and devastate Ephraim. For
I am God, and not man—the Holy One among you. I will not come in wrath. 10They
will follow the LORD; he will roar like a lion. When he roars, his children will
come trembling from the west. 11They will come trembling like birds
from Egypt, like doves from Assyria. I will settle them in their homes,” declares
the LORD.
Context
Hosea
prophesied to the northern kingdom of Israel amidst the fall of Samaria in 722
BC. Hosea’s ministry began during a period of Israel’s history when the rich
grew always richer by climbing on the backs of the poor. The Book of Hosea is a
love story—a love story between God and his people. God uses Hosea and his
marriage relationship as a real life illustration of God’s relationship with
His chosen people. The Book of Hosea depicts God’s instruction for Hosea to
marry a woman by the name of Gomer. Not terribly unusual until we realize that
God warns Hosea in advance that Gomer would be repeatedly unfaithful to Hosea.
Gomer would have many children and some would be fathered by men other than
Hosea. Nevertheless, God instructed Hosea to take Gomer back every time not
because she deserved it but to demonstrate his faithfulness to the marriage
covenant. Hosea gave himself faithfully to Gomer but Gomer spurned her husband
and instead pursued her lust for other men and the treasures and gifts she
received from other men. The children Gomer bore to other men grew up to be
unfaithful and disobedient. Hosea, even while he was no doubt angry and hurt,
repeatedly forgave Gomer and took her back, not because she deserved it but
because of his commitment to the covenant promise he made in marriage. The Book
of Hosea is a real-life illustration of the covenant promise God made to Israel
and Israel’s repeated unfaithfulness as they pursued their own lusts with other
nations even going so far as to worship the foreign gods of those nations. God,
even while He was no doubt angry and hurt, repeatedly forgave Israel and
protected her even while He exacted judgment and punishment on her for her
repeated unfaithfulness and disobedience. God’s Hesed toward Israel didn’t mean that there wouldn’t be consequences
for her unfaithfulness. God’s Hesed
means He would remain faithful to His covenant promise to always be Israel’s
God and to always love her.
Text Analysis
1“When Israel was a child, I
loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.
The
metaphors get mixed in v. 1. To this
point the prevailing metaphor has been one of marriage represented in the
marriage between Hosea and Gomer. Now God refers to Israel as a child—a son
called out of Egypt and adopted as His son. The reference to being called out
of Egypt is a direct reference to Israel’s exodus from slavery in Egypt. What
do you notice from the very start? God says that He loved Israel while he was
just a child. This tells us something very important about God—a perspective on
time. Israel was a slave in Egypt for 400 years! Yet God says He loved him
while he was yet a child. We assume that because God doesn’t adhere to our time
frame that must mean He can’t do anything or won’t do anything. However, there
is always a purpose behind God’s timing even if we don’t understand what it is.
Nevertheless, the language of v. 1 is specifically intended to be understood in
terms of relationship. “Hosea and Exodus both link the adoption of Israel to
sonship with the liberation from Egypt, the emphasis being placed on the very
first encounter of Yahweh with his infant nation. Other references to early
Israel from the surrounding context presupposed this earliest encounter but did
not mention it directly. The distant past functions now again as a point of
comparison with the present and even the future. Israel is called a [child]
whom Yahweh ‘loved.’ The use of [love] is closely connected with covenantal
fidelity in Deuteronomy, and is virtually a double-entendre in its employment
here. It means to have deep affection for, but also to be ‘loyal to.’”[1]
2But the more I called Israel,
the further they went from me. They sacrificed to the Baals and they burned
incense to images.
From
virtually the moment Israel left Egypt, they began to worship god’s they
fashioned with their own hands. Remember that while Moses was on Mt. Sinai
receiving God’s commandments for Israel’s holy living in relation to God,
Israel busied themselves constructing the image of a golden calf that they
worship and sacrificed to. They were hardly out of sigh of the gates of Egypt
when their unfaithfulness began. Even in the face of God’s many miracles to
liberate and sustain Israel, Israel would proved to be unfaithful time and
again. According to v. 2 the more
God loved them and cared for them, the more unfaithful Israel seemed to become.
“Baals” refers generally to a variety of local fertility and nature gods
worshipped by the nations surrounding Israel. Instead of remaining faithful to
the one true God who liberated them from centuries of the cruel bondage of
Egypt, Israel easily turned their attention to the false gods of other nations.
The more God chased after Israel, the faster Israel ran away from God. “The
people as a whole are characterized as tending repeatedly to apostasy,
expressed as a turning away from Yahweh, a failure to turn back to him and seek
him, a turning instead to another source. This ‘turning’ is a key term in the
portrayal of Israel’s moral character, expressing a dynamic that drives them
away from Yahweh as well as the moral force required for an effective return to
him.”[2]
3It was I who taught Ephraim to
walk, taking them by the arms; but they did not realize it was I who healed
them. 4I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love; I
lifted the yoke from their neck and bent down to feed them.
Israel is
referred to as Ephraim in vv. 3-4
and elsewhere in the Old Testament. It seems a little strange at first but it
is part of Israel’s heritage beginning in Genesis. Ephraim was one of the
twelve tribes of Israel and the largest tribe of the Northern Kingdom. The king
that reigned during the time of Hosea was King Jeroboam II who happened to be
from the tribe of Ephraim. The Northern Kingdom of Israel was often referred to
by the Old Testament prophets as a whole as Ephraim. The picture of God in
these verses is the picture of a parent guiding His child in its first steps;
teaching him how to walk and binding his injuries along life’s path. God’s
treatment of Israel has always been rooted in His kindness and His endless
capacity to love. These verses are again a reference to Israel’s exodus from
Egypt and how God’s provision for them during their years of wandering in the
desert before, during, and after their continued disobedience. Vv. 3-4 “refer
to the liberation of bondage…and the provision for a relationship with
Yahweh…[and] Israel’s misunderstanding of these actions…Since lifting the yoke
is a beneficial act, similar to healing, this must describe the removal of the
yoke of oppression, an act of Yahweh not acknowledged by Israel. The theme of
vv. 1-4 is contrasted between Yahweh’s generosity and Israel’s ingratitude.”[3]
5Will they not return to Egypt
and will not Assyria rule over them because they refuse to repent? 6Swords
will flash in their cities, will destroy the bars of their gates and put an end
to their plans. 7My people are determined to turn from me. Even if
they call to the Most High, he will by no means exalt them.
Vv. 5-7 can be really difficult verses
to understand because God was previously making reference to Israel’s
liberation from Egypt. So is God still referring to Egypt during the time of
the exodus? Remember that Israel often wanted to return to Egypt when the road
to the Promised Land got too hard. The reference to being ruled by Assyria
gives us a clue to the period in question. The NIV translates v. 5 as a
rhetorical question but that’s probably not the best translation. Instead, it’s
probably better to translate it as, “He shall not return to the land of Egypt,
but Assyria shall be his king, for they did not return (to me).” The Northern
Kingdom of Israel lasted only 200 years once the kingdom was divided between
Israel in the North and Judah in the South. Israel’s leaders failed to teach
the people God’s commandments to live faithfully and obediently as God’s chosen
people. Instead, they pursued their own interests and satisfied their own
desires. Even though God sent his prophets to warn them of the consequences of
their unfaithfulness, the refused to repent; refused to turn away from their
unfaithful and disobedient lives. The reference to flashing swords in their
cities is a warning of the coming Assyrian onslaught that would break through
their fortified city gates and walls and put an end to Israel’s disobedience
and unfaithfulness and instead turn them into captives. And even though God’s
people would call out to Him to save them, God wouldn’t listen. You see,
sometimes love calls for discipline and the time had come for Israel to be
disciplined so they could become the people God expected; the people God called
them to be. “The meaning is that the exodus will be undone and Israel will
return to its former condition of slavery but that this time the captivity will
not be in Egypt but in Assyria…Although some Israelites did flee to Egypt, and
God would call them back from there, the large majority were taken by the
Assyrians…The king of Assyria here supplants the pharaoh of the exodus as the
new lord of Israel. The text introduces a wordplay at the end using the verb šûb [Heb. ‘return’]: Israel would not return to Egypt but instead would go to
Assyria because they refused to return
to Yahweh (i.e. repent).”[4]
8How can I give you up, Ephraim?
How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I treat you like Admah? How can I make
you like Zeboiim? My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused. 9I
will not carry out my fierce anger, nor will I turn and devastate Ephraim. For
I am God, and not man—the Holy One among you. I will not come in wrath.
Do you want
to know something that is more painful to a parent than disobedient children?
Having to discipline those children for their disobedience. No parent enjoys
disciplining their child (well at least no good parent). However, no good
parent neglects to discipline their child. There is always a tension in being a
good parent between allowing a child the freedom to be a child and guiding that
child toward being a productive member of society and a faithful and obedient
follower of Christ. A good parent anguishes over both because a good parent
never gives up on their child. We see God’s Hesed
on full display in vv. 8-9. God
finds no joy in disciplining Israel. In fact, His Hesed keeps His actions in check and prevents Him from completely
destroying Israel. Admah and Zeboiim were cities in the region that were
completely destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrah. When I was much younger, my first
reaction to being hurt was to search and destroy. I still fall into this trap
sometimes even though it is less often. It is part of humanity’s fallen nature
to lash out in response to being hurt. Not so much to discipline and correct
wrong and destructive behavior but to avenge our hurt. I’m thankful God’s not
like that. In fact, we should all be thankful God’s not like that or else we
would all no longer exist because of how much our sins have hurt God. Instead,
God says, “‘I am God and no mortal’—this the secret of divine righteousness and
love, God does not stoop to the level of human sin and corruption and so is not
fickle or inconstant. God’s love abides despite rebellion and hostility. Of all
the prophets, Hosea knew what it was to love, be sinned against, and go on
loving; he was the best equipped to proclaim ‘the quite irrational power to
love as the ultimate basis of the covenant relationship.’…For Hosea the
covenant religion can never be reduced to purely legal terms but involves a
personal fellowship, a family tie, between God and Israel…He shows that behind
and beneath the law lies love. Israel’s response to God can never be merely
formal obedience because God’s overture came first not by law but by love…This
love, in Hosea, is never reduced to mere sentiment. His view of the holiness of
God guards against this. Wrath and love, or ‘the wrath of love,’ are expressed
clearly in God’s willingness to woo his wicked wife Israel and yet punish the
nation’s wickedness. He loves and judges them simultaneously.”[5]
10They will follow the LORD; he
will roar like a lion. When he roars, his children will come trembling from the
west. 11They will come trembling like birds from Egypt, like doves
from Assyria. I will settle them in their homes,” declares the LORD.
If you’re
like me, you’ve been trying to picture God to this point. Me, I’ve pictured God
as exasperated by Israel’s continued disobedience with His hands on His hips
just shaking His head. I’ve pictured God angrily pounding His fist on the table
saying, “That’s it! I’ve had enough!” I’ve pictured God standing at the side of
the road with tears streaming down His face as His beloved people are lead off
to captivity. But here, in vv. 10-11,
here is a very different picture of God. This is a picture of the Hero that
comes to the rescue; the Warrior that confronts and defeats every opponent; the
Lion of Judah whose roar clears the path for His people to come from far-off
lands and return home. “Hosea never says that the nation will not be punished
and exiled for its sins. He does not tell his audience that they will not be
held accountable for their sins. Their sacrificing to Baal and other gods is a
serious breaking of a committed covenant relationship with God. They will
return to Egypt and Assyria because they refused to repent. Their cities will
experience the terrors of war. But the core perspective of this chapter is that
God has loved and will love sinful people. Being sinful and unworthy of his
blessings does not automatically condemned you or me to a tomorrow without God.
Tomorrow has been designed by God, and God can mysteriously choose to love any
undeserving person or nation…God chose to love certain people and called them
to be members of his covenant family. He expressed his love by inviting them to
become his children. This election was according to God’s chosen plan to love
people and was not due to any human worth or value. God’s love is beyond human
understanding, although part of his plan is to bring glory to his name. All
people can do is receive God’s love and respond in praise and commitment to
him.”[6]
Application
When my girls were little, one of
our favorite movies to watch together was the animated Disney story of Beauty
and the Beast. The story is about a French prince who was cursed to take the
form of a hideous Beast by an enchantress who saw no love for others in his arrogant
heart. The only way the Beast could break the spell was to learn to love
another and earn her love in return before the last petal fell from an
enchanted rose that would only bloom until his twenty-first birthday. The Beast
locked himself away in his castle losing hope, as the years passed, that he
would ever find anyone who could love a hideous Beast. However, ten years
later, Maurice, a kooky inventor from a nearby village, gets lost in the woods
and stumbles upon the Beast’s dark castle where he seeks shelter from winter
snow and the wolves who were always at his heels. Instead of befriending the
old man, the Beast imprisons him for trespassing. When Maurice’s horse returns
to the village without his rider, Maurice’s daughter Belle, a bookworm who
dreams of life outside her provincial village, sets out to find her father. Eventually,
Belle finds him trapped in the castle and confronts the Beast to plead for her
father’s release. When the Beast refuses, Belle offers to take her father’s place.
The Beast accepts Belle’s offer with a promise that she’ll remain in the castle
forever. At first, Belle views him as nothing more than a monster, and he views
her as difficult and stubborn. Nevertheless a bond begins to form between the
two. Meanwhile back at the village, Maurice enlists the aid of a professional
hunter by the name of Gaston to hunt down the Beast and bring Belle home. While
the hunting party makes its way to the castle, the relationship between Belle
and the Beast continues to flourish. Eventually, even knowing that Belle is his
last best hope to break the spell he is under, out of love the Beast releases
her from her promise to remain in the castle forever. However, quickly
approaching the castle was Gaston and he wasn’t just interested in freeing
Belle, he wanted the trophy of killing the Beast as well. In an epic battle between
the Beast and Gaston, the Beast is mortally wounded. Wounded and near death,
Belle races to the Beast’s side and confesses her love for him just as he dies
and just as the last petal fell from the Beast’s enchanted rose. Miraculously,
the spell was broken and the Beast was saved and transformed back to a prince
all by the power of love.
I’ll
confess that I will never get sick of that story. I don’t think there is
anything more amazing than the transformational power of love—especially love
that isn’t deserved. That is the love Jesus demonstrated when He died for us.
However, Jesus didn’t die for us because we deserved it. In fact, Paul says
that Jesus died for us “while we were yet sinners” (Rom 5:8). We are like the Beast
transformed from our twisted and hideous form as sinners to saints washed clean
by the blood of Jesus. In a world that is constantly changing with people who
are unpredictable and very often unlovable, God is a constant. God’s compassion
is constant. God’s kindness is constant. God’s mercy is constant. God’s grace
is constant. Most importantly, God’s love is constant. Theologically, we are
saved because of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. But experientially, and by that
I mean practically, why do you suppose He did that? Why did Jesus need to die
on the cross? Theologically, it was because someone needed to pay the price for
humanity’s sins and Jesus was the perfect sacrifice. But experientially, why
bother? If you’ve been reading my lessons for a while then you know that I
teach that God’s number one priority with respect to us is to be in
relationship with us. Relationship is the answer to both of the questions I
just asked. Why save us and why pay the price for our sins? Because without
doing so we wouldn’t be able to be in relationship with God. Therefore God
takes the initiative for us to be in relationship with Him by removing the
obstacle of our sin with the cross. The cross, more than anything else is a
sign—a sign that calls all people to witness God’s Unfailing Love.
***SCHEDULING NOTE: NEXT LESSON WILL BE POSTED ON WEDNESDAY, 5/13.***
[1] Douglas
Stuart, Hosea-Jonah—Word Biblical
Commentary, (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1987), pp. 177-178.
[2] Mark J.
Boda and J. Gordon McConville, Dictionary
of the Old Testament Prophets, (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2012), p.
346.
[3] Francis
I. Andersen and David Noel Freedman, Hosea—The
Anchor Yale Bible, (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1980), p. 583.
[4] Duane A.
Garrett, Hosea and Joel—The New
American Commentary, (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 1997), pp.
225-226.
[5] William
Sanford LaSor, David Allan Hubbard, and Frederic William Bush, Old Testament Survey: The Message, Form, and
Background of the Old Testament, (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans
Publishing Co., 1996), pp. 268-269.
[6] Gary V.
Smith, Hosea, Amos, and Micah—The NIV
Application Commentary, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2001), p. 164.
