Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Evening Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/ev/ev20071028.htm

THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION
Hosea: God's BALANCE Of Judging And Blessing His Sinful People
Part I: Balancing God's Temporal Judgments With His Long-Term Blessings For His Sinful People
(Hosea 1:1-2)
  1. Introduction
    1. When a Christian sins, we are tempted to react in one errantly extreme way or another: if we have been the party who was wronged in the sinful act, we are easily tempted to hope for God's discipline on the sinner; however, if we have not been thus affected, we tend to hope for God's leniency on the fellow brother!
    2. Yet, unlike us, God views the sinner in perfect BALANCE as Hosea 1:1-2 graphically illustrates:
  2. Balancing God's Temporal Judgments With His Long-Term Blessings For His Sinful People.
    1. Hosea prophesied in the era of Judah's kings Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, and in the reign of Israel's king Jeroboam II (Hosea 1:1), and their reigns saw a mixture of God's blessing with His judgment:
      1. Judah's king Uzziah was initially greatly blessed of God with the economic and military expansion of Judah (2 Chron. 26:3-15). However, he then usurped the role of the priests in trying to offer incense on the altar of incense in violation of the Law (2 Chron. 26:16 with Ex. 30:7-9; Lev. 10:1-2), so God immediately struck him with leprosy, and he lived the rest of his days as an outcast, 2 Chron. 26:17-23.
      2. Uzziah's son, Jotham heeded God as his father had initially done, but apparently out of negative feelings against God's judgment on his father, Uzziah, he did not attend the temple services, leading to a decline in the nation's morals by way of this poor example, 2 Chron. 27:1-2. However, for his general effort to heed the Lord, God blessed his efforts to make Judah militarily strong, 2 Chron. 27:6.
      3. Jotham's son, Ahaz turned to idolatry (2 Chron. 28:1-4), so God initially judged him with captivity at the hand of the united forces of the Northern Kingdom of Israel and Syria, 2 Chron. 28:5-8. Yet, in mercy, God warned Israel to release their brethren of Judah from captivity (2 Chron. 28:9-11), so they did, 2 Chron. 28:12-15. However, Ahaz still turned from God to trust in Assyria for help (2 Chron. 28:16 with Deut. 17:16), so God judged Judah to face other Gentile invaders, 2 Chronicles 28:17-27.
      4. Ahaz's son, Hezekiah was a good king, so God blessed Judah in his days, and saved Judah from an Assyrian invasion force, and supernaturally destroyed it outside Jerusalem, 2 Chronicles 29:1-31:21; 32:1-23. God even lengthened Hezekiah's life for his devotion to Him, 2 Chron. 32:24-33. However, Hezekiah then proudly showed Babylonian ambassadors his riches as though he had earned them all by himself, so God predicted Babylon would invade and destroy Judah and her riches, 2 Kings 20:12-21.
      5. At this time, in the Northern Kingdom of Israel, Jeroboam II, a descendant of Jehu, reigned in sin, but God graciously gave Israel material blessings and territorial expansion to offset the distress the people had known due to a lack of a godly man to guide them to righteousness and blessing, 2 Kings 14:25-27.
    2. Thus, in the era of these kings when God called Hosea to the prophetic ministry, He had him graphically illustrate in his difficult marriage God's view on His relationship to His wayward people, Hosea 1:2:
      1. God told Hosea to wed a maid who would become immoral, Hos. 1:2; Bib. Kno. Com., O. T., p. 1379.
      2. Some scholars wonder how God could tell Hosea to wed a harlot, but the Hebrew word describing her is zenunim, "adulterous", so the text should read: "Go, take to yourself a wife who will prove to be unfaithful." (Ibid.) She was a virgin when she wed Hosea, but afterward she committed adultery.
      3. So, just as Hosea both loved his new bride and would be very hurt and angry when she proved to be unfaithful to him, God similarly felt hurt and angry at His peoples' unfaithfulness to Him; He would thus both judge them in the short-term while still viewing His people as His precious covenant people for whom He planned through the Abrahamic Covenant a rich blessing long-term in their Messianic Kingdom, cf. Hosea 1:10 with Genesis 22:15-18 and Hosea 2:18-23!
Lesson: God has a wonderfully BALANCED view of a believer who sins: He is hurt and angry at his sin, and must discipline the unrepentant believer, BUT He ALSO anticipates that believer's eventual ultimate sanctification and the BLESSINGS He will eventually pour out on him when he is perfected!

Application: May we view sin in the believer's life with BALANCE: we must not tolerate the SIN, but OPTIMISTICALLY anticipate the sinner's ultimate sanctification, and so temper our tendency to be too lenient or censorious of him as we are INTOLERANT of the SIN while LOVING the SINNER!