“Scandalous Love” // The Book They were written after Israel had turned its back on God, and were in the process of being exiled. They call Israel back to God, and lay out God’s plan of restoration, pointing to a coming Messiah who would of heal and redeem what sin had destroyed.

Announcement That means if you want to know how to put back together a life after Veronica and I have four kids, and every single one of them has your sin has messed it up, or how to pursue healing in relationships been blessed by our family ministries team. This is probably the that you have broken, these books are for you. single greatest value-add resource here at the Summit. You (Plus, like I’ve told you, if you’re a Christian one day in heaven you’re need the right community and partners to raise your kids well. sure to run into Nahum and Habakkuk and they are going to say, ‘How’d you like my book?’ and if you’ve never even read it, it’s going If you aren’t already, get your kids and family plugged in here, to be embarrassing and awkward. So, I’m trying to save you from and summer is a great time to do that. that.)

Hosea is the first of the 12 because he sets the stage for all that is to Overview of Series come after him.

• In his book, he gives us one of the most bizarre, yet riveting, For the next few weeks we’re going to dive into a collection of books illustration, of what God’s love for his people is actually like. you’ve probably skipped right over in your Bible reading… They contain difficult names like “Habakkuk” and “Haggai” and “Malachi,” But let me get into it through a story of my own. that great Italian prophet.

In the Hebrew Bible, the 12 minor prophets constitute ONE book, Introduction often referred to simply as “the 12.” I had to go to a meeting in Florida this week, and on my flight there I Most people skip over them, because first, they are called “minor,” got bumped up to first class. When I walked up to my seat, this guy so you think, “Well, how important can they be?” And second, they was in the seat next to me: PIC of me and MH FROM PLANE tend to sound really “gloomy and doomy” and sometimes can be sort of hard to understand. How many read Hosea in preparation? For those of you listening in on podcast, that is Mike Huckabee, former Gov of Arkansas, 2x presidential candidate, talk show host… Well, these 12 books are not called “minor” because they are and I know who he is. I watch every presidential debate. But I didn’t unimportant, or because the authors were under 18 and couldn’t buy have my filter on for Mike H sitting next to me on a plane. A guy tobacco, but because they are short. (Books like Isaiah and Jeremiah sitting in an untucked shirt slouching next to me. So, I thought, I were like the most well-known books of the time; think of the Minor recognize that guy… and I thought, “I think it might be one of my Prophets as the most-read blog posts in ancient Israel.) former seminary professors, or maybe one of our church members at a campus I haven’t seen in a while.” And the worst thing to do in that Donnie that said, ‘You got the right stuff, baby, you’re the reason why situation is act like you don’t know the person, so I said, “Hey man! I sing this song.’ And then you were going to get married live in Good to see you! How’s it going?” He looked at me, confused, and Malibu. said, “Hi there?” As soon as the words came out of his mouth, I knew, • But unless your name is Kim Fey or Jenny McCarthy, that never “You idiot. That’s Mike Huckabee.” happened. • Instead, you married Phil from accounting, a responsible man Then I thought, I hate when somebody finds out I’m a pastor on a who is slightly overweight, balding, drives a mini-van and wears plane and they ask me like a bazillion questions and won’t let me read penny loafers. or rest, but now I get to be that guy with him. It’s someone else’s turn to be annoyed. “So, talk to me about HC. And what’s going on with And now you probably look at middle school girls dreaming the DT?” Turns out he was super gracious. same thing about Justin Bieber or Hunter Hayes and you think, Sorry, • I found out every Sunday morning he drives the golf cart at his sweetheart, it ain’t goin’ to happen. church ferrying people from the parking to the church. He’s like • And maybe you say that with a hint of bitterness, but that’s ok, their Chuck Reed! Oh yeah, you are too important to volunteer. because part of discipling the next generation is teaching them to Mike H is on the parking team. “You look like Mike H.” Yes, live on planet earth. Your duty is, as Donnie would say, to “shake ma’am, I’ve heard that. “You sound like Mike H.” “Are you Mike them to wake them from this bad dream.” H?” Well, yes. “No, you’re not.” A groupie expresses inordinate amounts of love toward someone Anyway, we had a great conversation—it really made my day. Of who shows no interest in them, and you know that life is too short to course, I’m not trying to publicly endorse the politics of Mike be a groupie. Huckabee, just to say that when it comes to politicians and public figures, a lot of people are groupies—which means we care a lot One of the most mind-blowing things in Scripture is that we see God about and pay a lot of attention to people who don’t really know or taking this posture with the sinful human race. God is, of course, not pay attention to us at all. enamored with our greatness like we are with celebrities.

A lot of people are like that with singers. Some of you ladies were On the contrary. We are insignificant sinners from whom he could probably like that with Donnie, for example, from NKOTB. When you walk away at any moment and be no less the richer. We’re just a were a teenager, you were convinced if he could just get around you speck of dust on a speck of dust in an insignificant corner of the he’d see you were a perfect pair and you’d get married. So when they universe. came in concert to your town you’d put on your best tube top and pair of parachute pants and try to get to the front row at the concert Yet, from the first pages of Genesis to the last chapters of so you could scream ‘I love you, Donnie!’ with all the other girls, but Revelation, we see God reaching out incessantly to a group of people you were convinced that your scream was going to be just a little bit who pay him no attention. louder than everyone else’s and Donnie was going to look over at you… and you’d have a split-second moment of enchantment, and Which brings us to the . later a bouncer would find you and hand you a personal note from (Hosea: Loving the Unlovable) Hosea pleads with her to come back, but, insanely, she won’t. He even gives the man she is living with money to take care of her! (2:8) Hosea has to go down in history as the man who received the worst ministry assignment ever: Eventually, her new lover gets so tired of her that he tries to sell her back into the sex-slave trade. Go and marry a prostitute, and have children with her. (:2) And then God appears to Hosea with a second assignment: “Go This will illustrate how Israel has acted like a prostitute by turning again, love this woman who is… an adulteress, even as the LORD loves against the Lord and worshiping other gods. (Hosea 1:2) the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods.” (:1)

You seminary students, how would you like to get that assignment Now, keep in mind, will you, that Hosea is a real person, just like you upon graduation? All your friends are getting assigned to ministry or me. This is not some fairy tale or parable. positions and you are told to go and marry a prostitute? Or some guy • This is a real guy with real emotions, and he’d be feeling the same in your small group raises his hand says, “My ONE this year is a thing you’d be feeling in that situation: “Buy her back? But she prostitute God told me to marry.” humiliated me. After giving her everything, she scorned me and embarrassed me. Why would I go after her again?” [3] So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son. But Hosea does it. He goes to the auction, and stands there with a bunch of men bidding on prostitutes. To make matters worse, the girl’s name “Gomer.” If you are looking • Scholars say Gomer would have been stripped naked so that for biblical girl names for your daughter, I would not suggest potential buyers could see what they were bidding on. “Gomer.” (I only know of one other Gomer, and he was a dude—the • And there Hosea stands, among the crowd of men interested only goofy Marine in one of my favorite childhood shows, Gomer Pyle. in buying her to hire her out for sex, ready to redeem her and Don’t name your daughter GOMER—if so, she’s going to the prom by bring her home. herself—just sayin’.) • What Hosea was doing, by the way, was not ever required by Hebrew law—in Leviticus 20, God had said that a man in that Even so, Hosea obeys God. And he doesn’t just go through the situation could divorce his wife, even have her stoned for her formalities, either. He genuinely tries to love her. End of chapter 1, unfaithfulness! It was a divinely appointed loophole. they start a family. • Furthermore, we can see in this text that purchasing Gomer this second time evidently broke Hosea financially. But, chapter 2, Gomer returns to her old ways (2:4–5). She cheats on • See vs. 2? So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer him, and eventually leaves him for some man who pays her for sex. and a lethech of barley. (3:2) o Scholars say 30 shekels was the going price of a slave in those To make matters worth, this new lover mistreats and abuses her. days. The fact that Hosea could only come up with 15 and had to pay the rest in kind indicates he didn’t have the rest. o This broke him financially. wants, doing things his way, or do you take things into your Why does God have Hosea do this? Why make him endure this own hands, doing them your way? humiliation? Because there are certain dimensions of the love of God o We have people who come to our church every week that can only be experienced in relationships, not explained who are living with someone they are not married to propositionally. because they are not content to do things God’s way, so • Those of you who have been cheated on, betrayed, rejected, they’ve taken matters into their own hands. scorned, or mistreated by someone you love have been given a o The primary immortality here is not the premarital sex, it taste of what God experienced with you, with us. is your refusal to trust God with your future. o Or, if you are having problems in your marriage, do you pray Spiritual adultery might be the best biblical illustration of sin. to God about your spouse, then commit him or her to God and Adultery is heartbreaking. It is first and foremost giving a betrayal of trust him with them, responding with grace to them—or do love. You find in someone else what you should find in your spouse.1 try to fix your spouse through angry outbursts? o The immorality is not the anger, it’s your lack of trust in If you read Hosea, you’ll see that the primary sin that God identifies God. in Israel is that she looks to other nations for help instead of coming o Where do you turn when you’re stressed? Alcohol? to God (5:15–6:3).2 Shopping? • When Israel felt afraid, or faced financial worries—they ran down o The primary sin is not in the drunkenness or excess to Egypt and said, “You’ve got to help us,” rather than turning to spending, but in the fact that turn to something else for God. comfort beside the promises of God. • That may not sound that immoral, but what they had done was o Or, one more: take your finances—What do you most look to replaced God in their hearts with other sources of help. for financial security? o There’s an easy test for this one: whether you tithe your Maybe write this down: Replacing God is the ultimate immorality. firstfruits back to God. o Scripture clearly say that we are to give our firstfruits So, ask YOURSELF: Where do you first turn when you are worried? back to God (which the Bible typically starts with the first • When things aren’t going your way, do you patiently turn to God 10%). and trust him, trying to do things his way, or do you worry o We are to do that not because God needs the money but obsessively and run around frantically trying to fix the situation? because it is a way of declaring to him that we trust him o For example, say you are single and you really want to be with our future. with someone, do you patiently look to God to see what he o We don’t do this because we have excess money sitting around. We do it as a way of saying, “God, I trust you with my future finances, not me, and I’m going to declare that 1 A. W. Pink: “All religion is in effect love. Faith is thankful acceptance, and thankfulness is an by giving you at least the first 10% of everything you give expression of love. Repentance is love mourning. Yearning for holiness is love seeking. to me.” Obedience is love pleasing. Self-denial is the mortification of self-love. … The affections of man cannot be idle; if they do not go out to God, they leak out to worldly things. When our love for God decreases, the love of the world grows in our soul.” 2 John Sailhamer, NIV Bible Study Commentary, Loc. 4921. o But there are some of you who can’t do that—because your advice: “Hey, I’m having an affair, and I’m leaving my you say, “I can’t give that away, that’s all I have to depend loving husband and my kids for this guy who pays me $50 a on for the future.” night for sex. And sometimes he beats me up.” You’d tell her, o And when you say that, you reveal your real immorality— “Stop it, don’t be a fool.” But eventually she leaves her the real immorality is not in withholding the 10%; the real husband, and the guy she leaves him for starts making her immorality is that the trust you should be putting into God sleep with other guys for sex. Yet night after night she comes you have put into money. over and seeks your counsel. And every night you give her the o Your failure to give simply reveals that. And that breaks same advice but she won’t listen. Eventually, you’d say, God’s heart. “Listen, if you’re not going to listen, I’m not going to be your friend.” And you’d walk away. Are you following this? In all these situations, you and I are Gomer. o But what if Gomer was your daughter? You couldn’t do that as easily. Your heart would be so bound to hers that you couldn’t. God chose us so that he could be our joy, our delight, our confidence, Her pain is your pain. and our trust! But like Gomer we have sought those things in o (Never be happy again?) something or someone else. • This is how God feels about us. He’s bound his happiness • And our betrayal of God broke his heart. to yours. • Theologian J.I. Packer: “By his own free voluntary choice, God will Then God laments to Hosea, in what might be the most remarkable not know perfect and unmixed happiness again till he has brought verse in the entire Old Testament: “Oh, how can I give you up, Israel? every one of his children to heaven.”3 How can I let you go? My heart is torn within me! (:8)” • In one sense, my friend was right: God didn’t need us. God was happy before he made us; we would have been justified had he I love that verse, because it shows us something absolutely destroyed us after he sinned; but God so wrapped up his staggering about the love of God. emotions up in our pain so that he could not be happy until we • God had so united his heart with us that he couldn’t let us go! were happy. o I recently talked with a theologically minded guy who didn’t o It’s like adoption. When a family adopts, it’s not that they like the phrase we sing in that song, “What a Beautiful Name It were unhappy before they adopted the child, but from that Is,” “you didn’t want heaven without us.” He said it made God point forward, they bind their happiness to the happiness of sound needy, like God needed us to be happy. that child. o And I understand the concern there—but look at this verse! o That is what God did with us. How can I give you up? How can I let you go? o This is the God for whom the planets are but a speck of dust, • According to this verse, God has bound up his happiness in ours. but God has made it so that the brokenness of one tiny little He can’t just walk away from us, no matter how deeply our sin creature on this speck of dust pierces his heart like a dagger. wounded him! o Imagine if Gomer had been a classmate or co-worker of yours, and in the midst of this process, you became friends. She comes over each night to tell you what she’s doing and wants 3 J.I. Packer, Knowing God, 125. Gomer’s name may not sound pleasant to our ears, but it means “completion” in Hebrew. Her name declares to us that God’s 2. God’s love eviscerated him happiness cannot be complete again until he saves us. • The exorbitant price that Hosea paid—which went far beyond • Her name may not sound beautiful, but her story conveys a what the law required, and which bankrupted Hosea, points to beautiful truth. what God would pay to redeem us. • Hosea may have felt like he was being financially eviscerated to Let me give you a few reflections on the love of God redeem Gomer; Jesus was literally eviscerated. we learn from Hosea: • You ever love someone so much that their pain—even pain caused by their own sinful choices—literally tears your heart out? 1. God’s love scandalizes us o One of our campus pastors said that he was born to a single mom who was a drug addict. My grandmother pled with my • Sometimes we wonder how God could have the audacity to judge mom to stop because she was destroying not only her life but us. But any time we are put into a position anywhere resembling mine also. Eventually it became clear that my mom was not what he put him in, we rage with righteous anger. going to change her ways. o If you rescued someone out of sexual slavery and they

continued to spurn your life time and time again, eventually So, she said, “Your kids are going to stay with me until you can you’d throw up your hands and say, “I’m out!” get clean. And I’m going to do everything I can to help you, o And yet God kept coming for us. too. I’m not cutting you off, but I won’t let you put these kids • The love of God is the most mind-blowing reality in the universe. through this.” Romans 5 says that God came after us while we were enemies…

When we flouted his authority, even murdered his son. My grandmother prayed for my mom for years. It got worse o His choice to save us was not like me forgiving one of my before it got better. And I could tell, my poor grandmother, in kids, but forgiving and bringing into my family a kidnapper her 60s, was having her heart torn in two every day, trying to who murdered my son. love us, but also keeping the door open to her daughter … • Charles Spurgeon: If there is one subject that makes me back from who kept choosing her own sin over her family.” this platform utterly ashamed of my poor feeble words, it is this

subject. This love of Christ is the most amazing thing under Eventually, love won out (and her daughter came to her right heaven, if not in heaven itself.4 mind) but what it took was a grandmother who for years was • When you really grasp the love of God displayed for you in willing to bear the pain of sin’s consequences to hold the door Christ, you can only have one of 2 reactions: of reconciliation open. o You’ll shake your head and refuse to believe it. • This is what Jesus endured on the cross. He took the o Or, you’ll fall down in abject surrender and worship. consequences of our sin into his body, holding the gates of o The one thing reaction you can’t have is boredom. heaven open for us, if we would just receive it, because he didn’t • If you are bored with Jesus, neither hot nor cold, it just shows want heaven without us. you’ve never really grasped the gospel.

4 Source • All the pain he endured on the cross—the cat of 9 tails; the nails, • And when you fall, I’ll come again. When you forget me, I’ll the crown of thorns—were a physical picture of the pain our come again. betrayal put into his soul that he went through gladly to save us. • When you are a Christian who has put yourself back into bondage because of your sin—even after I delivered you the first time, I’ll Again, the only way to respond to such a God is total and open and come again. unconditional. • When you are feeling the pain and heartache that comes from stupid, sinful choices you have made, I’ll come again. I come Reject him as a phony and fraud and walk away, or fall down on your again and again and again and again. knees in adoration and surrender. • The Father sees your messed-up life, your foolish choice, and says to his Son, Go again. Go again. Go again! But please, please don’t patronize God with half-hearted commitment or lethargic worship. He’s worthy of more than that. Now maybe you ask, “What if you keep rejecting him?” • Yes, he won’t force himself on you. Scripture says we can harden 3. God’s love persists until the end our heart to him and reject him. • Throughout this book, God says to Hosea: Go again. And again. • But friend, the last voice you’ll hear as you step off into the abyss is And again. God saying, “You don’t have to do that, just turn back to me.” • Don’t give up on her, because I’m not going to give up on you. • All you have to do is look up and he stands ready to receive • Throughout the book, Hosea points to two events—one you. Even right now! in the past and one in the future, as examples of God’s salvation. • LIsten—your sin, your bad habits, your struggles, your past— o The one in the past is the Exodus: where God redeemed none of these things send you to hell; only your unwillingness to Israel out of slavery to foreign gods from Egypt. look up and receive grace does. o That, Hosea says, serves as the pattern for how he will deliver • The grace is there, just look upwards in faith! his people in the future. o Again, he says, “out of Egypt I called my son.” Hos 11:1, cited 4. God’s love is received, not earned in Matt 2:15 • Don’t miss that Hosea’s love was offered to this woman o Matthew cites this prophecy as being fulfilled when Joseph and while she was a prostitute, and again when she was an adulterer. Mary and Jesus had to escape to Egypt shortly after Jesus was • She didn’t have to free herself from prostitution and clean born because Herod was trying to kill all the little boys under 2 herself up first in order to merit his love. He offered it to her years old. Several months (maybe years) later God brought unconditionally. Jesus back up out of Egypt. • This shows us how we can escape the bondage of sin. Most It’s an amazing prophecy. But the takeaway for you is this. God • people think they have to clean themselves up and make a says, “I’ll never give up on you, either.” I came for you the first bunch of changes and then God will receive them. time in the Exodus. But you gave up on me. But I didn’t give up on • In Christianity, however, acceptance and forgiveness you. So, I’m coming back to the slave auction to buy you back. But and unconditional love come first—and then change follows. this time I’ll purchase you with my own blood.” • One of the most riveting examples of this is Jesus’ own o The gospel of God’s grace, he said, did in my heart encounter with the woman caught in the act of adultery in John 8. what no law could ever do. It changed my heart. Jesus encountered his own Gomer. John 8:11. o The only ones who get better in the Christian life, he said, o He knew she’d never have the power to break the are those who know their acceptance does not depend on them addiction to the attention of guys until…. getting better. • God’s love is the power that liberates us from captivity, not the reward for having liberated ourselves. 5. God’s love turns “Gomers” into “Hoseas” You see, you sin because you feel like you are missing • • God not only wanted Hosea to learn about his love for his something. And you are—the eternal love of God for which you people, he wanted him to become a giver of that kind of love. were created. Your heart is like a bucket which only eternity can • So, he says to Hosea, “Go again, go again, go again, Hosea… fill! because that’s what I do with you every time.” o All the water a family of 4 uses in a day would fill the • He wants us, who have experienced his outstretched arms, to back of a pickup truck. Imagine a bucket so big that all the become the outstretched arms of Hosea… So water in all the oceans… o To the parent who has been forsaken by their child… o That bucket is your heart. You crave that love. And when o To the husband who feels neglected… you don’t find it in God, you look for it other things. o To the minority who has been sidelined, • The gospel is that in Christ, God offers you… o the boss who feels misunderstood… o Complete forgiveness—Jesus took the penalty for it all; o To the friend who has been forsaken… o His righteousness—he not only takes away your sin, he gives o The wife who has been taken for granted… you his position of righteousness. Illus. You handed in his o Go again, go again, go again, Hosea… answers to the test. • I’m not saying your outstretched arms will always change the • This is all a gift—it’s what we call “gift” righteousness. Gomers in your life. It will give you the power to change. o Sometimes Gomers (like the one in this story, go back to the o Luther: talked about how much he hated the phrase pigsty of sin) “the righteousness of God.” Because he thought it was the • But I can guarantee it will change YOU. It’ll make you more like standard God used to judge him. Jesus. And that’s been God’s objective for you from the beginning o “But at last, by the mercy of God… I began to understand that o For whom he foreknew, he predestined to be conformed to the the righteousness of God is righteousness with which the image of his son… All things now work together that good, to merciful God justifies us by faith. Here I felt that I was them who are called according to his purpose (Rom 8:29, 28). altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through 5 • (Can I tell you, this change is what you’ve desired in yourself for open gates.” your whole life.) o That freedom, Luther said, replaced hatred for God in his It will make you into the kind of person you always wanted to heart with love for God, and snapped his attraction to idols. o be—a Jesus-like person, full of stunning generosity and staggering forgiveness. 5 That gift turns haters of God into lovers of God. Luther: I hated that word ‘righteousness of God,’ which I had been taught to understand is the righteousness with which God punishes the unrighteous sinner… (hated God, too). Luther, Preface to the Latin Writings, 1545.

MUSIC

Donald Grey Barnhouse: The pursuing love of God is the greatest wonder in the spiritual universe. When we see this love at work through the heart of Hosea we may wonder if God is really like that. But he is.

Think about it: Many years later he would give man the ability to form the iron in the ground he had given him into nails, and to fashion the trees in the field he had created into a cross… Then he stretched out his hands upon that tree and allowed us to nail him there, and in so doing he took our sins upon himself. This is our God, and there is no one else like him.6

Amen? And when you see that, you’ll start to become like him. You’ll become a Hosea to the Gomers in your life.

Maybe the hymn writers say it best:

I stand amazed in the presence of Jesus the Nazarene, and wonder how he could love me, a sinner condemned unclean? He took my sins and my sorrow, and he made them his very own; he bore my burden to Calvary, and suffered and died alone! How marvelous, how wonderful, and my song will ever be, how marvelous how wonderful, is my Savior’s love for me!

Let me invite you to stand, and release yourself to this love, in total abandonment

6 Donald Grey Barnhouse, “Epistle to the Romans,” Part 37 (Philadelphia: The Bible Study Hour, 1952), 1841.