Sunday, July 1, 2018

Get the Picture


 Hosea 1:1-3 The word of the Lord that came to Hosea the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel. When the Lord began to speak by Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea: “Go, take yourself a wife of harlotry and children of harlotry, for the land has committed great harlotry by departing from the Lord.”

Last Sunday, Pastor Kyle started a new sermon series in the book of Hosea. He states the old adage, “A picture is worth a thousand words”. And added that one picture can unpack a lot more than that. Reading about something or hearing a lecture on some subject is one thing, but it is an entirely different thing to see it for yourself. Picture freeze a moment in time for our examination. The Holy Bible uses imagery throughout in order to give us a picture that we can grasp, of who God is and we can interact with Him as our heavenly Father. Imagine the image of the word picture of the Good Shepherd for example. 

Our emotional experience with God is just as important as our intellectual experience with Him because they both work together to get the picture. Doctrine and boundaries are given by God to us in His Holy Scripture. The sacred teachings of doctrine makes sure that our mental imagery is consistent with the picture that God paints of who He is in His Holy Word; not just the mental fascinations of our mind to make us feel better. 

One fact that we must never lose sight of is that, even when we are at our worst, God’s love for us never wavers. The book of Hosea is one of the most powerful of God’s love for humanity. Marriage should never be taken lightly. Today’s existential secular society makes “falling in love” as its highest value. But, “falling in love” is not the hard part of the relationship. It’s the “staying in love” part that takes hard work with an ongoing commitment and willingness to compromise and forgiveness.

Matthew 19:4-6 And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let not man separate.”

Marriage is the strongest bond in any civilization; a covenant with God between a man and a woman, where they could know and love each other in the most intimate way possible. Hosea, the prophet of God, called to be God’s minister preaching in the Synagogues and author of Holy Scripture, had serious issues in his life that would be a distraction to his ministry. God asked him to marry a prostitute. Why? Because it personally connected him to Israel’s current desires and problems as an unfaithful nation. 

The point of the book of Hosea is to put ourselves in the shoes of Hosea (a picture of God) and imagine his anguish and pain of his unfaithful spouse (a picture of Israel then and the world today). This symbolic situation is recorded to picture and put ourselves in God’s position, to experience what the Lord our Maker feels when we turn away and pursue other lovers (other gods) in our life; to identify with God’s broken heart. And in doing so, may it strengthen our faith and love of God and add “fuel to the fire” in our ministry to a lost and dying world. Get the picture?

Blessings in Christ, Brian

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