Hosea, Part VIII

The Divine Prosecutor is not giving any quarter to those who lead the people. God is furious at how His priests--people who are called to serve Him and teach the people--are actually deleterious to His kingdom.  He lays the blame squarely on the shoulders of those who know better, but do not do better.

This is rather startling, but how often do religious leaders benefit from the very people they purport to serve?  Religion puts a respectable patina over carnal motivations.  The leaders can justify what they do because the people love them: 

I just love when my people look up to me, and you know what, why not? I heard the call from the Lord and I am doing His will. He has blessed me and I am indispensable in the lives of my people. They look to me to teach them about God, and that's what I do.

The money I receive is compensation for all my hard work. Why shouldn't I use that money to buy a jet, a big house, a fine wardrobe or those things that show that my followers love me and how God is blessing me? I am showing them how much I love them by letting them see how much I enjoy what they give me! It's a win-win for everyone.

What do the followers say?

Oh, I just love it when my teacher opens up her Bible and teaches me.  I actually understand it.  How could she be so wonderful if God wasn't working in her?  She has so many people come to hear her.  Yes, I know.  Sometimes her words are more, well, her words, rather than God's holy word, but she seems to know what she is doing.  I trust her.  I should open my Bible and pray for His wisdom, but I trust she is getting it from God and so I get it from her.  

So, the followers trust the teachers to explain the Word and they do not study it themselves. The leaders exploit the trust of their followers to meet their material needs at the expense of God's truth. 

Has anything really changed? 

What does the Divine Prosecutor say? 

“When the people bring their sin offerings, the priests get fed. So the priests are glad when the people sin!" (4:8)

Wow. The priests have clearly created an environment where they do not excoriate sin by emphasizing  how contrary it is to Yahweh, but then act all indignant when the people sin, demanding that they bring sin offerings! It's a twisted win-win. 

It's as if the priests are spiritual loan sharks:

Hey, go visit those temples!  It's not that big of a sin!  Yes, you've heard Yahweh doesn't like when you sin, but I am His priest and I say what you are doing in those temples with those prostitutes and all the offerings you are making is really not that offensive to Yahweh.  Don't listen to those old priests--they are so out of touch with what Yahweh is revealing to us today.  

Sometime later that day...

You did what?  You stepped over the line with that! I said going to the temple wasn't all that wrong, but you went multiple times last week?  You're kidding, right?  No? OK, this calls for some serious offerings to offset your lack of judgment. Hand it over.  No, I mean more.  This is going to take more.  Much more. 

So the ugliness continues. The priests are capricious in their teaching as to what Yahweh demands of His chosen, and the people are are confused as to which way is up. 

Jesus had no tolerance for the spiritual loan sharks of His day. In Matthew 23, He is uncompromising when He expounds the seven woes of the Pharisees and how they have used their authority to destroy His Father's place in the lives of His people.  This particular woe captures what the priests of Hosea's day were doing:

“But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves." (Matt. 23:13-15) 

In other words, out of the evil hearts of the Pharisees came evil teachings, making the Jewish people of Jesus' day confused at best.  But at worse, the people emulated the behavior of the Pharisees and committed evil themselves.  The nation of Israel was then a terrible witness to the Gentiles around them.

Back to Hosea's day: How can the priests of Yahweh minister to the Canaanites when their teachings are really no different from the priests of Baal?  How can the Israelites be a blessing to all nations when they are no different from all nations?  

But the Divine Prosecutor is not going to let the people off the hook.  They have the Torah.  They have the history of God's mighty deliverance from the slavery of Egypt, His provision in the desert and the founding fathers of the faith: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  

The people know. Thus, they should be pushing back on the priests, by telling them that what they are doing is contrary to Yahweh. 

9 "'And what the priests do, the people also do.'

So now I will punish both priests and people
for their wicked deeds.
They will eat and still be hungry.
They will play the prostitute and gain nothing from it,
for they have deserted the Lord
to worship other gods." (9-10)

It takes two to sin, and in this case, priest and pupil are culpable. 

Does this message about leaders and followers ring true today?  Yes.  How much teaching is being done in the name of Christ, and is contrary to the Word of God outright?  Or, how much teaching has been based on a few proof-texts, twisted to construct a whole new theology? The leaders then benefit, because many people flock to hear and follow them, making the leaders celebrities.   

Why?  Because we would rather have someone tell us what the Word says, rather than partner with the Holy Spirit and allow Him to teach us.  He will not teach a verse here and there, but He will show us the full counsel of God. 

But we must humble ourselves.  The people of Hosea's day lost humility as they arrogantly sought a "better" way than the Torah.  As a result, their behavior degraded and mocked the values of Yahweh. 

We are no different, and God's warnings are as relevant today as they were then.   

Hosea, Part VII

Wow.  We left our last look into Hosea with the verse from chapter 4: "Don't point your finger at someone else and try to pass the blame!" (verse 4).

We have a universal and rather nasty habit of saying that our woe is caused by someone or something "out there"--it has nothing to do with whatever actions or decisions we have made. 

No way.

This goes back to our very beginning.  Remember when God confronts Adam and Eve with their transgression?  What is Adam's response?

The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” (Gen. 3:12)

Look at what Adam does. He blames God outright (with no reverence or respect here) for placing her with him in the first place.  He dehumanizes Eve by calling her "the woman." She has lost her name, her identity, her oneness with him--she is now "the other." He blames her for being in his space--he implies that he would have never sinned if Eve weren't in the Garden with him. Oh, and don't forget:  She gave him the fruit and he (helplessly? without any choice? ignorantly?) ate it.  

Classic. (a) It's God's fault I am where I am. (b) It's that person/group who has caused me such woe.  They don't deserve respect.  The other is not like me. (c) Can we just remove that person/group from my/our space?  Life would be so much easier. (d) Choice?  What choice?  Why are you blaming me? I am the victim here.

Now, a quick moment with Eve: 

"Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate” (verse 13).  

God asks her what she did, not who is involved.  God wants her to dissect her action--seeing if she understands why it is wrong and if so, why. Regardless of the serpent's involvement, she did not follow God's instructions to not eat the fruit.  Period. She passes the blame to the serpent.  

She had no choice?  She didn't fully understand? She thought that somehow the serpent's words were more important than God's?  Who provided everything around her with its beauty and bounty? Who gave her Adam? Who walked in the Garden with her, enjoying her company and vice versa? 

Classic. (a) I was deceived--I didn't know what I was doing. I blew it because that ______ was more important than following God and His ways. I knew better, but that temptation drew me in and I couldn't help myself. (b) I know what I needed to do, but those people around me confused me, and I wanted their approval. They were so persuasive--you can't blame me. (c) Yes, I know.  God loves me, but if He does, why did He make a world that is so contrary to who He is?  Is He just trying to make it hard on us humans? 

So, blame is nothing new. God thwarts the blame game. God will not brook the "logic" of His people who are justifying what is going on.  How do I know this?  If the people had come up to Hosea and said, "We know.  We truly have fallen short of the glory of God.  Please ask God to forgive us," that would indicate they were willing to take responsibility for their actions and the consequences thereof. 

Didn't happen. 

God shoots straight at the target: the priests.  Jesus will take the religious leaders of His day to task as well.  Why?  The leaders know better.  They have the Law. 

If they haven't gone deep into the ways of God, that's on them.  If they have gone deep into the ways of God, and have not followed what they've learned, that's on them.  If they don't really know or understand the ways of God, but haven't rectified their ignorance with study, that's on them.  

The priests, by the virtue of their office, have a moral responsibility to teach the people--not what they think is best, but what God says.  In order to teach the ways of God, you must be cultivating an ever deepening relationship with God.  You can't teach Him if you don't know Him, or you know Him only superficially.

So here it what Hosea says:

My complaint, you priests,
is with you.
So you will stumble in broad daylight,
and your false prophets will fall with you in the night.
And I will destroy Israel, your mother.
My people are being destroyed
because they don’t know me.
Since you priests refuse to know me,
I refuse to recognize you as my priests.
Since you have forgotten the laws of your God,
I will forget to bless your children.
The more priests there are,
the more they sin against me.
They have exchanged the glory of God
for the shame of idols. (4:4-11) 

I think of Jesus' words against the Pharisees: "Leave them; they are blind guides. If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.” (Matt. 15:13) 

Blindness: The deliberate ignoring of the Law means that when the priests step forward to teach the people, their blindness leads them to teach all sorts of things--whatever passing fancy they have that day--and the people perish for a lack of true vision. James made it clear that teachers bear a greater responsibility because their knowledge becomes the people's. If it is wrong, the people will stumble and fall: "Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly." (3:1) 

The priests "refuse to know Me."  This is not ignorance.  This is defiance. 

Why do the priests defy the Lord?  Because the world has taken over.  In this case, it's the alluring world of pagan practices and an arrogant sense that because we do what the gods tell us to do, the gods are obligated to do as we tell them to do.

Shocking?  Yes.  Welcome to the world of pagan thinking.  The gods make all sorts of demands. The people do them. Consequently, the gods must act.  

Let me give you an example.  The sexual act between a temple prostitute and an adherent is a signal to the gods to give a reproductive bounty.  The man's semen is analogous to rain, the woman's womb is the earth and thus the act is a demonstration of what the gods should be doing: Bringing forth rain to make the earth productive.  This is called sympathetic magic, whereby what you do is a reminder of what the supernatural beings should be doing. 

Thus, after the sexual act is complete, having fulfilled what the gods demanded, they must act.

If you engaging in temple prostitution, the gods will not act.  Or, if the rains do not come, you did it wrong. Or not enough. You seek to control the gods with your actions, but in the end, the gods are capricious and unpredictable, so you, a mere human, can never be entirely sure of the gods acting in your favor. But most of the time you succeed. 

Do you see how contrary this is to Yahweh?  

We don't control Him by what we say and do.  He acts out of His love.  He acts out of His covenant with us ("covenant" comes from the Hebrew word meaning, "lovingkindness"--hesed). His covenant still stands with us and even when we are disobedient, the rains fall, the plants flourish and the animals frolic with their babies. Yes, sometimes God will use a drought or a famine to remind the people that He alone is in control and desires their obedience.  He does this not out of anger but out of love, for He knows what is best for us and is trying to ger our attention.  

Why did the priests of Yahweh exchanged "the glory of God" for idols?  They wanted to be in control.  They wanted to control the spiritual narrative by dictating to the people what they must do to appease the gods. It wasn't hard to persuade the people, for everything about paganism speaks to the flesh, and humans love that, especially if you put a religious patina over it:  Hey!  We're engaging in human sacrifice and ritual sex to get the gods to do what they said they would do!  And they do!  Look at this land, filled with milk and honey.  And you know why?  Because of us!

So, let's summarize the charges so far that Yahweh is bringing against His children in this Divine Court:

1. The people are not faithful, kind and don't seek God to understand Him.
2. They break vows.
3. Murder, theft and adultery are rampant.
4. Violence is everywhere.
5. The priests are tantamount to false prophets: they do not speak the truth and choose to not know God or they allow false prophets a place from which to spew their sinful words.
6. The people are ignorant because of the moral failure of their priests.
7. There is an ever-increasing number of priests spreading their sinful knowledge to the people and acting in ways that are contrary to Yahweh.
8. These priests are pagans in Levites' clothing--wolves among the sheep.


The Divine Prosecutor is just getting started.

Hosea, Part VI

Chapter 4 has a different kind of feel to it.  We have moved from a domestic setting--with children running about, tears of a pleading husband, the shameful grimace of a broken wife--to a courtroom. It's as if God has moved His message to a more public arena, broadening the venue as to drive the point more fully home.

Did people discount Hosea's message, dismissing it as the ramblings of a distraught husband? 

Of course Hosea is ranting and raving at us. What kind of man names his children those ridiculous names?  His wife's a whore--no wonder he's burdened with sorrow and grief.  He then has the unmitigated gall to turn his anger on us!  Making us out as some kind of whore towards God!  What? Yeah, maybe we do engage a little too much with those pagans, but it's hard to deny their success!  The god Baal does an awful lot to provide for them.  Every season, the fields are full of grain.  The rains come and the streams overflow.  The animals have lots of babies and so do the people. Yes, sacrificing a child is hard to take, but hey, if that means a bounty for the rest of the family, so be it!  And to everyone else!  Yeah, that sexual stuff is strange, but hey, if the god requires it and we benefit from it, why not?  Hosea is miserable with his own weird family-- that is his problem.  We have been able to balance Yahweh with Baal, and we get results!  All Hosea gets is unhappy children and a wife who sleeps around.  He's made his problem our problem, and we don't buy it. 

God is now acting as a Dvine Prosecutor, speaking through Hosea, and no longer having him demonstrate the unfaithfulness of Israel in his personal life. 

God will take on any role He can to get our attention, even the role of Son. Here we go!

In 4:1-3, we hear:

Hear the word of the Lord, O people of Israel!
The Lord has brought charges against you, saying:
“There is no faithfulness, no kindness,
no knowledge of God in your land.
You make vows and break them;
you kill and steal and commit adultery.
There is violence everywhere—
one murder after another.
That is why your land is in mourning,
and everyone is wasting away.
Even the wild animals, the birds of the sky,
and the fish of the sea are disappearing.

God does not mince words as to cause and effect.  If you turn away from the value system of Yahweh--where life is sacred, the Law is essential and others are family--then what do you get? Remember how your founding mother and father didn't want God's knowledge but took a bite from a tree of good knowledge (what you determine it to be) and bad knowledge (what you don't see until you are drowning in its evil depths).   

Here's the bitter fruit of your own knowledge: 

Violence. 

 

Adultery. 

Murder. 

False testimony. 

No love for God.  

No love for others. 

No loving your neighbor as yourself. 

No seeking after the ways of God.

(Just a thought here--did your pursuit of sexual perversion and watching babies burn to death harden your hearts?  Are your souls seared by sin?  Are you now utterly deaf to your conscience?  That is the greatest "gift" of Baal:  The Prince of Darkness, using this false god as a mouthpiece, now whispers to your heart and you follow his lead.  Your society, as a result, is being degraded by sin's tyranny.)

(Oh, yeah. One more thought.  Slavery is never advertised as slavery, but as freedom...  

Freedom from such antiquated thinking such as the Law of Moses.  

Freedom from anything that restricts you.  

Freedom to be non-judgmental towards others, and to embrace the good they have to offer.  

Freedom to pick and choose your own morality because this isn't the desert anymore--this is the land of milk and honey and it's hard to ignore all of its god-given bounty. 

But, Israel, did you hear the metal sound that the shackles made as they slammed tight around your wrists and ankles? Oh wait!  That's what God is trying to do through Hosea: He wants you to see just how enslaved you are!)

God is also using nature to drive home His point. Remember how He judged every god of Egypt, by overcoming their supposed rule over the earth?  The god of light couldn't prevent the utter darkness that descended over the land; the god of the Nile couldn't stop the waters from changing into blood and Pharaoh, claiming to be a god himself, couldn't save his own son. 

No difference here: the gods of Canaan can't stop the fish, the birds and the wild animals from disappearing.  People are starving.  Where's your god Baal now?   Where's his provision?  Didn't all that sex done before the gods and all those screaming babies make any difference?  

Then, God doesn't give the children of Israel a chance to start the blame game: “Don’t point your finger at someone else and and try to pass the blame!" (4:4)

God will then launch into holding the leadership--the priests--for having aided, abetted and benefitted from the sin of the people. 

Stay tuned.  These are powerful (and deeply convicting) words from the Lord.

Hosea, Part V

I love how the previous passage ends in chapter 2:

I will plant her for myself in the land;
I will show my love to the one I called ‘Not my loved one.’
I will say to those called ‘Not my people,' ‘You are my people’;
and they will say, ‘You are my God.’” (v. 23)

God is all about restoration. He is the father in the parable of the prodigal son: He is always waiting for His children to come home. 

But God doesn't ignore the sin that led His children to wander in the first place. The father says his prodigal son was "lost" but now is "found."

Lost.  Estranged. Wounded. Alienated. Alone.

That is the fruit of sin. To put it another way: Sin never advertises itself as slavery.  It brands itself as freedom and it's not until we hear the shackles' sickening metallic sound as they clamp around our legs and feet that we realize just how devastating sin really is.

He admonishes Israel for their spiritual adultery. They have shackled themselves to gods who are not real; engaged in child sacrifice and sexual immorality; taken on a value system antithetical to Yahweh's and walked away from their beautiful covenantal relationship that is their inheritance.

God made it clear from the moment that Moses descended the mountain with the Ten Commandments, which are the heart and soul of how the children of Israel were to conduct themselves with God and with each other, that: 

You must worship no other gods, for the Lord, whose very name is Jealous, is a God who is jealous about his relationship with you. (Ex. 34:14)

Strong's Concordance says that the word is Hebrew for "jealous" is qanna and means that God will have no rival, and will destroy those who depart from Him. 

Before you assume God is being rather petulant and unforgiving, realize you are seeing Him through a fallen lens. 

Think of God in the Trinity, where He has an unbroken fellowship of adoration with His Son and with the Spirit. 

When God created Adam and Eve, He made a kind of replica of the Trinity: He had an unbroken fellowship of adoration with His children. His children gazed lovingly into His eyes, with no other desire than to walk with Him and hear His voice, marveling in His creation and in each other. 

Sin changed all of that.

Now, because of how sin has stained our love and fellowship with God and with one another, we see God's adamancy as too harsh and rather scary.  

God desires us.  When we even consider a rival to the Lover of our souls, we are allowing sin to dictate the terms of our engagement with God.  Rivals cause us to lose our first Love. Why wouldn't God be  angry and anguished? 

How do we respond when we find out that the one we love is being unfaithful? We are angry, hurt, stunned and feel utterly betrayed. Betrayal is a kind of repudiation:  I no longer care about you.  I have given myself to a rival.  What we had, who you are, where we were going and what we shared no longer matters. 

If we grieve over someone we love being unfaithful, why do we expect God to pat us on the head? God uses the metaphor of being Israel's husband for a reason.  

God's love is not harsh or scary.  It is devoted. Uncompromised. Deep. All-encompassing. 

God speaks through Hosea not only to bring Israel back but to celebrate the coming restoration. He says:

The Lord said to me, “Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another man and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.”

So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and about a homer and a lethek of barley. Then I told her, “You are to live with me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will behave the same way toward you.” 

For the Israelites will live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred stones, without ephod or household gods. Afterward the Israelites will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the Lord and to his blessings in the last days. (3:1-5)

Gomer is now probably in debt. Hosea must now redeem her.  So her sin has lead her into an ever deeper literal bondage.  

So has Israel.  They love the gods and the raisin cakes:  They are now indebted, if you will, to follow the rituals that the gods of the Canaanites demand: child sacrifice and temple prostitution. They are in bondage to a set of values that the society demands they enact. Yes, they may do it willingly, but what if they have qualms the day they are to show up with their child who is to be put into the arms of a fiery bronze god?  When they hear their wee one scream has its tiny body touches down on the scalding hot metal? 

The pain.  The guilt.  The questioning.  Having to smile and say, "Praise Molech." Walking home with empty arms and retuning to the house where the little baby bed is now empty.  If that is not bondage, I don't know what is.

But God is faithful. God promises a king who will defeat His enemies and bring Israel back to a place of worship, faithfulness and adoration. 

David will be a representative of the One to come.  Let's travel to the day of when Jesus confronts the woman caught in adultery.  She is brought before Him.  She is in bondage to sin:  She is paid by men for sex and in her degraded state, is dragged before Jesus by her gleeful detractors (are any of them customers who are trying to hide their sin by acting righteous, until the next time they come a-calling?) 

Jesus confronts sin on all of its ugly levels. First, her detractors:

They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” (John 8:6-8) 

The religious leaders and the crowds drop their stones.  They know, deep in their hearts, they are not perfect.  But do they realize just how enslaved they are? Judgement, anger, self-righteous, and wanting to trap Jesus as opposed to learning from Him has enslaved their hearts and minds.  They use this poor woman to discredit Him.  All done, I might add, in the name of serving their version of God. 

Next, Jesus confronts the bondage that the woman is in:  

Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”

“No, Lord,” she said.

And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.” (8:10-11) 

Wait a minute!  She calls Him, "Lord."  Not Rabbi.  Not Jesus. But Lord.  She has repented right then and there:  She is facing the true Lover of her soul, and she senses His disappointment in her sin, but also she feels His redemptive call in His voice. 

That what God in Hosea was trying to do and what Jesus was trying to do: Acknowledge your wandering but focus on returning.

Paul puts it another way:

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. (1 Cor. 13: 6-7)

God is love. So let's capture this idea even more deeply: God does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. He always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Amen.

 

Hosea, Part IV

Throughout these verses, you hear God expressing Himself with highly charged words.  You can interpret the words one of two ways: (1) He is vengeful and punishing towards Israel, (2) He is angry and spiteful, giving it as good as He gets, (3) He is broken-hearted and anguished, speaking with words that are at one moment just, and another moment, merciful.

Which number you pick depends on how you see God. 

With #1, you could say, Why wouldn't He be angry at Israel?  Look at how they have betrayed Him, worshipping other gods and ascribing His goodness to them!  I'd punish them too!  I'd allowed the Assyrians to march in, and as they did, I would cheer them on.

So, for you, God is an agent of wrath, just waiting for the right moment to strike, because, after all, we deserve it. 

With #2, you could say, Of course, God holds grudges.  He not only sees our sin, but harps on our failings and shortcomings, because we never seem to get it right in His eyes.  There's no pleasing Him.  No wonder He's always upset about something. He needs to give us a break.

So, for you, God is never pleased with anything you do, for His standards are too high.  He focuses only on the negative and is quick to condemn you. 

With #3, you could say, He's my Father and if I am sinning, I am throwing darkness towards His light, disobedience against His love and accusation against His kindness.  I focus on myself and fail to see His hurt as that wall of sin grows taller and taller and shuts Him out.  He loves me with a fierce love and will do anything to win me back.  If that includes suffering, He will allow it.  He will watch me with grief but chastens me so I may see the error of my ways. He is just but His mercy is new every morning, whether I deserve it or not.  His love is not based on my how much or how little I deserve it; it's based on me simply being His child.

So, as we read Hosea, you can interpret God in many ways as He speaks to and through Hosea. Perhaps Hosea's greatest gift to us is presenting a God who cares.  If He was truly vengeful, He would have give His people no warning (they deserve what's coming to them anyway, right?) and when the Assyrians showed up, they would have been shocked.

God's love cannot help but point to Israel's sinful behavior and He will do anything to convince Israel to turn from her pursuit of spiritual adultery.  

(Jesus dying on a cross comes to mind here.)

If we think God is not willing to give His people a break, it's good to know that Hosea prophesied for over 25 years [1] before God allowed the Assyrians to invade Israel.

25 years of warning, pleading, showing, cajoling...God is patient.  He seeks the restoration not and  the destruction of His people. This shows His patience, mercy and love. 

In verses 2:9-12, God removes His material blessings from Israel.  He bestowed them out of love for His people, honoring His covenant to be their God, and now He removes those blessings. Why?  

We use the word, "enablement" today.  Think of it this way:  If God continues to provide to His people, ignoring their sinful ways, what will induce them to change?  Their behavior, whether good or bad, yields the same result: blessings. Why then be good?  Sin is lot more fun.  Chasing after temple prostitutes.  Doing whatever you want to the poor, the needy, and the widow.  Laughing with your neighbors over how great Baal's provision is!  You see it everywhere!

We know enabling the drug addict, the alcoholic, the abuser, the manipulator, the whiner, the "victim" (you name it) does not bring about the change the person truly needs. We talk about "rock bottom."  When you are flat on your back, that's when you look up.  

If we don't do this, knowing how counter-productive it is, why do we expect God to enable our sin and then accuse Him of being unkind when He won't? 

God is clear as to His next step: 

"I will punish her for the days
she burned incense to the Baals;
she decked herself with rings and jewelry,
and went after her lovers,
but me she forgot,”
declares the Lord. (2:16-17) 

But God is not abusive, punishing more than He needs to.  The punishment fits the crime.  But in the rest of the verses, (way longer than the verses outlining the punishment) He wants to restore Israel and lavish on her His love and bounty: 

“Therefore I am now going to allure her;
I will lead her into the wilderness
and speak tenderly to her.
There I will give her back her vineyards,
and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
There she will respond as in the days of her youth,
as in the day she came up out of Egypt." (2:14-15) 

"Achor" means "trouble." God is putting an expiration date on the punishment, but His love is everlasting. 

"In that day,” declares the Lord,
“you will call me ‘my husband’;
you will no longer call me ‘my master.’
I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips;
no longer will their names be invoked..." (2:16-17) 

Restoration.  A marriage that is whole, faithful, loving.  Not at all the kind of marriage Hosea has and one that Israel is now demonstrating.  Where's the revenge?  Where's the "you get what you deserve" attitude?  God is the opposite of that.  He brings peace and safety to a people who now obey Him and have felt His chastisement for just the right amount of time. God's goal is always repentance, not rejection.   

"Bow and sword and battle
I will abolish from the land,
so that all may lie down in safety.
I will betroth you to me forever;
I will betroth you in righteousness and justice,
in love and compassion.
I will betroth you in faithfulness,
and you will acknowledge the Lord..." (2:18-20) 

Remember Hosea's children? All along God wanted these names to be what He called His children. 

"I will show my love to the one I called ‘Not my loved one.’
I will say to those called ‘Not my people,' ‘You are my people’;
and they will say, ‘You are my God.’” (2:23) 

After this utterance, did Hosea go home and embrace his children, celebrating how their names, just like Israel's, were going to change? 


[1] Steven Hovater, "Historical Background of Hosea—Assyria," https://stevenhovater.com/2011/05/30/historical-background-of-hosea-assyria

Hosea, Part III

Picture Hosea, standing and watching his children play. They laugh and kick up the dust as they run and shout at each other. They haven't a care in the world.

Then Hosea looks at them, and in a voice ladened with sadness, says,

God Scatters! Not Loved! Not My People! It's dinner time!

They stop their laughter. They stand still and lower their heads. When Hosea turns and walks back into the house, one of them says,

Why does Abba call us that? He gathers us together and hugs us. He loves us. We are his. We are nobody else's. But everytime he calls us, he puts his face in his hands, and cries. Every time. He wipes his eyes and then gives us a hug. He goes on walks. By himself. Ema is here sometimes, but more often she is away. So, we only have Abba. He seems distant. But we know he loves us, because he'll kiss us goodnight. We wish he'd change our names. They don't match his love for us.

Hosea, like many of God's prophets, not just speaks the word of the Lord, but he demonstrates it. He is an actor in a play called, "God's Call to His Errant People."  Hosea will play the part of God.  Hosea cries when he calls his children's names.

God cries when He calls Israel's name.

Hosea calls his children by names he didn't want to give them--who would want to bestow such names on their loved ones?

But names describe character.

The names Hosea calls out describe the results of Israel's sin: they will be scattered after their enemies descend on them.  They are not loved, not because of who they are but because of what they are doing. They are not acting like His chosen people, but are behaving like pagans. 

But Hosea still loves his children. Deeply.

So does God. Deeply. 

When God calls His children through Hosea, He is shattered by what is to befall them, but He is also angry that they have commited spiritual adultery and have chosen to walk away. They decided, for themselves, what is right. They are devouring the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil--they decide what is good and pursue what is evil.

God did not want to bestow such names on His people--but He must. His children have new names because they pursue a new way of living. 

Perhaps, in a way, they have named themselves.

They are pursuing a pagan way of life--thus, when the true pagans show up, they will be scattered away from God and will dwell among the gods they so lust after.

They are not loved--the gods they are so enamored of do not love them, and care not a wit for their welfare. The people are worshipping figments of a perverted imagination.

They are not God's people--they would rather align themselves with darkness than pursue the light of His love and truth.

God speaks through Hosea a deeper and even more painful message.  But first, He says: 

In that day you will call your brothers Ammi—‘My people.’ And you will call your sisters Ruhamah—‘The ones I love.’

God, before He denounces Israel, reminds his people that He is willing to accept them back when they repent. He will rename them, for despite His denunciation, He still loves them. But with God's mercy, comes His justice. And it rolls down like a mighty stream:

But now bring charges against Israel—your mother—
for she is no longer my wife,
and I am no longer her husband.
Tell her to remove the prostitute’s makeup from her face
and the clothing that exposes her breasts.
Otherwise, I will strip her as naked
as she was on the day she was born.
I will leave her to die of thirst,
as in a dry and barren wilderness.

Israel has clothed herself in garments made of sin.  God wants her to discard such filthy garments, or He will. Once she is stranded in the desert, will she see the sinfulness of her ways? Will her thirst and hunger make her long for the provision and security only Yahweh can provide? Will she seek Him with a repentant heart? 

And I will not love her children,

for they were conceived in prostitution.
Their mother is a shameless prostitute
and became pregnant in a shameful way.
She said, ‘I’ll run after other lovers
and sell myself to them for food and water,
for clothing of wool and linen,
and for olive oil and drinks.’

God is accusing Israel of loving other gods who bless her with the finer things of life.  But Israel, while she may have gained the whole world (in her eyes), she is losing the Lover her soul. But Yahweh will not abandoned her.  He has covenanted Himself to her, as a husband to a bride. He may, for a time, forsake her, but He will never leave her.  

God, although His judgement will fall one day, will protect Israel from herself: 

For this reason I will fence her in with thornbushes.
I will block her path with a wall
to make her lose her way.
When she runs after her lovers,
she won’t be able to catch them.
She will search for them
but not find them.
Then she will think,
‘I might as well return to my husband,
for I was better off with him than I am now.’
She doesn’t realize it was I who gave her everything she has—
the grain, the new wine, the olive oil;
I even gave her silver and gold.
But she gave all my gifts to Baal. (2:1-8) 

The last line is terribly painful:  Israel is so steeped in her spiritual adultery that she ascribes her wealth and abundance to a god that doesn't even exist. She takes the gifts from Yahweh and hands them over to a fake, a deceiver, a demon. 

She walked away from love and light into sin and darkness.   

But still, even still, He watches over her and wants her back.

How can we say we've gone beyond God's reach when we sin? How can we listen to such a lie? How can we think that of other people and their sin? 

Isaiah reminds us: "Listen! The LORD’s arm is not too weak to save you, nor is his ear too deaf to hear you call." (59:1)

Amen.   

Hosea, Part II

We are looking at the start of Hosea's prophetic career.  God's call is never easy.  God is more concerned about the message than the messenger.  That is not a cruel statement: By the time God has called His prophets, time is of the essence.  The event foretold may not come quickly, but it will come suddenly.  His people need to know enough in advance to repent, so that the event does not come upon them without warning.

We humans tend to wait until things are unavoidable and have descended into catastrophe before we act.  By then, the unfolding event has a power and life of its own, and cannot be stopped easily.  God loves Hosea, but He also wants His children to know that their status of being His chosen carries with it grave responsibilities and a call to holiness, both of which they are egregiously failing to do. 

Yes, it grieves God to place such a burden on Hosea, but what is going to befall the people in the northern kingdom of Israel is even more serious.  

Let us review God's call: 

When the Lord first began speaking to Israel through Hosea, he said to him, “Go and marry a prostitute, so that some of her children will be conceived in prostitution. This will illustrate how Israel has acted like a prostitute by turning against the Lord and worshiping other gods.” (1:2)

Hosea is demonstrating the message. Everywhere he speaks, his message will be reinforced by his own family--a family that is broken, chaotic and a violation of God's design.

Children are a sacred gift.  Marriage is a sacred gift.  Our relationship to God is a sacred gift. 

Hosea's family shows how prostitution and its violation of the marriage covenant results in children who don't know who their father is and thus, they live a life without roots and stability.  How will these children see God as their father when they don't even know their own?  They feel abandoned by whoever he is,  and they take that image and superimpose it over God's face.  

He becomes the father who doesn't honor the family. His abandons His children. 

God is the absolute opposite of this.  He is faithful to His people--He never violates His covenant with them.  He calls His people, "children," and makes Himself known to them through mighty acts, His Word and His presence.  He gives them roots.  Stability. Safety. His love for them never fails. He will never abandon them--even if everything around them says otherwise. 

God's love is fierce enough to step in and protect His people from the errors of their ways.  He does it by having prophets speak in His name: to guide, chastise and call them back. 

So, Hosea's message is not just about the people's apostasy; it is about God's character, and how utterly contrary it is to Hosea's family.  It is also contrary to the gods the people are serving.  These gods, with their demands and illusions of power, will abandon God's children in their time of need.

This will be sadly evident when the Assyrians march in. Where will all those gods be then?  Yes, you guessed it:  They will have abandoned their worshippers.

When we deceive ourselves, we always end up abandoned and alone. 

Enter the next part of the message: 

So Hosea married Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she became pregnant and gave Hosea a son.  And the Lord said, “Name the child Jezreel, for I am about to punish King Jehu’s dynasty to avenge the murders he committed at Jezreel. In fact, I will bring an end to Israel’s independence. I will break its military power in the Jezreel Valley.” (1:3-5)

As we noted in the last blog, everytime Hosea calls his son's name, he will be reminded of what is to come: the utter destruction of Israel's military capability and the scattering of His people. Everytime the people hear Hosea call his son's name, or see them both walking in the market square, they will be reminded of what is to come.  They think that their chosen people status and their military is protecting them from enemies. Wrong. God honors the covenant He made with His people, and it is Him alone who protects Israel. Not the army.  Not the so-called gods.  

Jezreel's name is a reminder that God wants His people to repent before the scattering begins.  

Next: 

Soon Gomer became pregnant again and gave birth to a daughter. And the Lord said to Hosea, “Name your daughter Lo-ruhamah—‘Not loved’—for I will no longer show love to the people of Israel or forgive them. But I will show love to the people of Judah. I will free them from their enemies—not with weapons and armies or horses and charioteers, but by my power as the Lord their God.” (1:6-7)

Hosea is not identified as the father. Gomer, despite the opportunity to be a wife, secure in her husband's love and concern for her welfare, again seeks the arms of another man. Why? She has Hosea now. Why is she out sleeping with other men?  

God is asking the same question.  Why, if you know that your army and gods aren't going to protect you, why are you, people of Israel, still sleeping around with those gods and your illusions of grandeur? 

Then the girl child receives the sad name of "Not Loved."  Has God really withdrawn His love for His people?  To show His people He is not walking away altogether, He declares His love and protection for Judah, the kingdom in the south. 

Is God trying to make Israel jealous?  

Why not?  God will woo, chastise, warn or do whatever it takes to secure Israel's repentance, because He is the Father of His people.  

But there more to come.

After Gomer had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she again became pregnant and gave birth to a second son. And the Lord said, “Name him Lo-ammi—‘Not my people’—for Israel is not my people, and I am not their God." (1:8-9)

God is pulling out all the stops.  These children, conceived out the marriage covenant, reveal the future:  God will step away from His people, for they keep sleeping around, bearing the children of sin, arrogance, unbelief and disdain for His holiness and their calling to be a kingdom of priests. 

They choose to be spiritual prostitutes. 

They are also choosing their future and the catastrophe that come. This is not just about being spiritually unfaithful, thought that is huge.  It's about being so narcissistic that you don't; notice or even care about the world outside your door.  All of Hosea's children are reminders that the world out there is important. One day, His people will find out that because they preferred sin over serving God, their world exploded.  

But God, whose heart is breaking, lovingly sends this coda to Hosea's message of God's anger: 

Yet the time will come when Israel’s people will be like the sands of the seashore—too many to count! Then, at the place where they were told, ‘You are not my people,’ it will be said, ‘You are children of the living God.’ Then the people of Judah and Israel will unite together. They will choose one leader for themselves, and they will return from exile together. What a day that will be—the day of Jezreel—when God will again plant his people in his land. (1:10-11)

Wow!  Even with those children walking around--"God Scatters," "Not Loved," and "Not My People,"  God takes that firstborn son and recrafts the root of his name to "God Plants."

Boom. The future has hope within it, despite what is to come.

No, the children of the northern kingdom of Israel will not repent.

No, they will not remain in the land but be scattered to the far winds. 

But yes!  They will be His people once again, too numerous to count.

But yes!  They will once more be a united kingdom, serving Him as His priests.  

But yes!  They will have a godly leader (instead of their current crop of evil kings).

But yes!  They will not only return to the land but will be established in it.  

New. 

Redeemed.  

Planted. 

Loved. 

Our God is always about the yes.

Even when we are not. 

Majoring in the Minors: Hosea (Part I)

We are going to start a new series, called "Majoring in the Minors"--the minor prophets, that is.  I am going to begin with Hosea, for he is called to live out the message, not merely proclaim it.  His message of God's persistent calling back of His wayward children is one that we need to hear. God is still in the business of reuniting with us, no matter where we've been or what we've done. 

Sometimes we tell our testimony; other times, we are the testimony.  Hosea is going to live out for all to see what God's love truly means, and he suffers right along with God.  He is not just a prophet--he is a  wounded husband and grieving father.

Like Yahweh. 

Does Hosea choose to live in such a heart-wrenching scenario?  Who would marry, in their right mind, a prostitute? But he chooses to obey God's ways.  God's ways are never easy, because in His pursuit of a fallen race, He must make two things very clear:  (1) We are fallen and we must accept the truth of our sin and break away from the self-delusion of our goodness (2) God loves us and will use whatever means at His disposal to call us back to Him. 

God was so persistent in His love for us that He sent His only Son to die for us, when we we still sinners and utterly alienated from Him. 

Let us see how God loves us so much that when we stray, He calls us back.  By any means necessary. 

Enter Hosea, telling the northern kingdom of Israel that Assyria is coming to bring God's judgment upon them.  The message could end right there:  God could say, "Because I despise how you are behaving, I divorce you.  Dusted and done."

But that's not calling the people to repentance--that's just an angry response to their behavior.  God is always about repentance, reconciliation and restoration.  Yes, He is angry at sin, but He never just leaves it there.  He calls out, warning the people that His judgement is coming if they do not repent.  But He equally calls out that His mercy is coming if they do.

Here we go.

When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, "Go, marry a promiscuous woman and have children with her, for like an adulterous wife this land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the Lord." So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son. (1:1-3) 

I am sure Hosea's eyes grew wide at God's calling.  Let's consider Hosea's thoughts:

God, did I hear You correctly?  I have always wanted a wife, children and a life around the hearth.  But You are asking me to find a promiscuous women (Israel is not short of those these days) on purpose!  I must find one who sleeps around, and has no regard for the sanctity of marriage!  Then I must have  children with her?  Please, wait a minute, God.  I am willing to do as you say, for I know You have a divine purpose. But how will I know those children are even mine?  When I  marry her, that's not going to suddenly stop her from sleeping around.  Over time, other men's children will show up. These predacious men get off scot-free and I am burdened with the responsibility of providing and raising their children. Then, may I say with all due respect to You, what kind of mother is she going to be?  When her children are crying for food, wanting to be tucked in bed for the night, or wanting her comfort, will she be gone, having run off  to seek another man's arms?  I can do this, but my union with this kind of woman will punish a generation yet to be born.  Please, God..." 

The answer to Hosea's fearful questions is that he must be obedient to God's call.  

Hosea is going to live out, in his domestic microcosm, the utter chaos of the Jewish people in this time in their history.  Hosea realizes that the nature of sin is ugly:  It punishes us.  It punishes others.  It ultimately destroys what is good in our lives and leaves us empty, sorrowful and unable to right the wrongs ourselves.  Hosea is going to step into the macrocosm of Israel's violated spiritual home.  He will walk from one destroyed house, his nation's, into another...his own home.

It didn't take long for Hosea to find her.  Did she look at him and think,

Oh, here comes another rube. "Oh, I want to marry you!" Yeah. Right.  That's what they all say.  All they want is a roll in the hay and off they go.  Back to their wives.  Back to their homes. I sit here with next to nothing and they get to strut about in the marketplace, all respectable-like. Well, I know better.  At least, I make no pretenses that I am good. I know I am not. But there's one sin I am not guilty of: self-deception.   What you see is what you get, baby.

Hmmm.  Which one are we?  The narrative highlights three actors in their prophetic play:  Hosea, a man of God with moral scruples, who is appalled by the sin around him; Gomer, the woman who has no illusions of her goodness and her customers, the ones who act respectable but are filled with deceit, evil and godlessness.

God is watching all three, for they truly represent His people: 

• Those who love Him, yet feel rather helpless amidst all of this sin
• Those who are drowning in it, and feel there 's no way out
• Those who think no one has figured out their hypocrisy, for they are smarter than everyone else, and pride themselves on being the masters of the bamboozle 

God is extending His mercy to all three. 

OK, Hosea finds Gomer who is Diblaim's daughter.  Who is Diblaim?  We don't know, but she is someone's daughter.  Family member.  Real person.  She's has a context but one that has been destroyed. She is reduced to marrying a man she doesn't love (abuse will blunt that emotion in anyone) and soon, she's going to give birth. It's just another day in Gomer's life.

Then the Lord said to Hosea, “Call him Jezreel, because I will soon punish the house of Jehu for the massacre at Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of Israel. In that day I will break Israel’s bow in the Valley of Jezreel.” (1:4-5) 

In this culture, the birth of a first born son is cause for celebration.  But God doesn't want this to lessen the potency of His message, so God tells Hosea what to name the son: "Jezreel."  The name means "God scatters" and this child's name foretells what is going to happen when the Assyrians invade Israel.  

Every day Hosea will be reminded of God's impending judgment when he calls his son.  When he tucks his son into bed.  When he stands at the doorway, and watching him play.  

Whenever I call you, small boy, your name cries out to me that God will scatter His people due to their unwillingness to repent. Your name reminds me to pray every single day.  Every time I say your name, God is reminding me to pray.  He doesn't want me, His prophet, to go one day without praying about His sinful nation.  Forgive me, Lord God, for distancing myself from your people.  Their behavior disgusts me and I want nothing to do with them.  Yet, my little boy reminds me of their humanity, their kinship and how we must pray for each other, asking You for mercy.  For all of us. 

You are teaching me to love the unlovable.

To forgive the unforgivable.

And to never forget to ask You to save those around me...

Gomer.  

Jezreel.  

Her customers. 

My fellow Jews.

My nation of Your chosen people. 

Oh, God, how we all so need You.    

  

Full Circle, Part II

Each of the scriptures Jesus quoted (we read them in Part I) were part of a larger context of the Covenant that God revealed to Moses. The Covenant said that God would protect and direct His children with a fierce love; their part would be to obey His commandments. Jesus would fulfill the salvation plan of God by inaugurating the New Covenant, which meant His utter obedience to God in everything He said and did:

• Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed. (John 5:19-20 NIV)
• For I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken. (John 12:49 NIV)

He would then hand over His life and die on a cross.  The New Covenant meant His blood must be shed to satisfy God’s requirement for cancelling sin.  Philippians 2:5-8 puts it so well:

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God
something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross! (NIV)

Wow. We stand in the New Covenant of His love. He dwells in us and we dwell in Him.

That is how Jesus lived and how we are to live. The desert will always be there, as long as we walk on this planet. Satan will try to convince us that the desert will never end; that we will wander there forever. Wrong. Even the children of Israel had an expiration date on their wandering. Jesus left the desert after a certain period as well. We will leave it at some point as well.

God is not trying to punish us; He is disciplining us with His love. Why? He greatly desires for us to be His disciples. In fact, “discipline” and “disciple” both have the same root. (Merriam-Webster)

God’s love for us is fierce. If that seems odd to put “fierce” and “love” together, watch a mama bear with her cubs. You get the idea. He loves us so much He sent His Son to die for us. That’s fierce love. His love for us has no bounds and He will do whatever He can to draw us to Him.

So, spiritual warfare comes down to perspective. If we trust that we are fiercely loved by God, Satan will test/tempt us to believe any thing but that:

• Satan wants us to lose faith in God’s love and see our desert as punishment.
• Satan wants us to see a lack of bread as abandonment.
• Satan wants us to see devotion to God as one-sided and useless.
• Satan wants us to see the desert as the only home we deserve and we will not be able to leave.
• Satan wants us to work without God, thinking that He is too slow, too uncaring, too busy, too self-absorbed to be concerned about every aspect of our lives.
• Satan wants us to be afraid of what God requires, insinuating that we will have to bear the burden of obedience on our own power and strength.
• Satan wants us to question His Word, for how can a Book written thousands of years ago be sufficient for the challenges we face today?
• Satan wants us to focus on him and his power, forgetting that he is a dog on God’s leash and someday he will be judged and cast away forever.
• Satan wants us to think the desert is all there is; those still waters and green pastures are just illusions and that God delights in the sufferings of humanity.
• Satan wants us buried in doing good works, being so busy for God that we don’t have time with God. Satan uses guilt to motivate us. We do, do, do and then end up resenting God. That’s what Satan wants. He wants us to forget that we should only do what God orders, just like Jesus did when He was here on earth. Works without God’s power and direction are empty. Soon, so are we.
• Finally, Satan wants us to think God is non-existent; He has left the universe; He’s AWOL; He’s powerless and out of touch. Satan wants us to resign ourselves to his ugliness and our defeat as the only reality.

The only answer to all these lies? JESUS.
The only power we need to overcome? JESUS.
The only perspective we need in the desert? JESUS.
The only power we should draw on? JESUS.
The only love that endures and empowers? JESUS.
The only answer to life? JESUS.
The only answer to death? JESUS.
The only way to axe fear, doubt, pride, sin, anger and hurt? JESUS.
The only truth? JESUS.

The spiritual battle is not fought with what you know, but with WHO YOU KNOW.

Amen!

Full Circle, Part I

The temptation of Christ took place in a wilderness, a desert. In facing down the devil, Jesus quoted from Deuteronomy. Why?  

The NIV Study Bible sets the scene:

"Deuteronomy locates Moses and the Israelites in the territory of Moab in the area where the Jordan flows into the Dead Sea (1:5). As his final act at this important time of transferring leadership to Joshua, Moses delivers his farewell addresses to prepare the people for their entrance into Canaan. These addresses were actually a covenant renewal…In them, Moses emphasized the laws that were especially needed at such a time, and he presented them in a way appropriate to the situation. In contrast to the matter-of-fact narratives of Leviticus and Numbers, the book of Deuteronomy comes to us from Moses’ heart in a warm, personal, sermonic form of expression…

"The love relationship of the Lord to his people and that of the people to the Lord as their sovereign God pervade the whole book. Deuteronomy’s spiritual emphasis and its call to total commitment to the Lord in worship and obedience inspired references to its message throughout the rest of Scripture."(243)

The Israelites were facing a transition from Moses’ leadership to that of Joshua’s. They would be moving from wanderers to warriors.  The Jews of Jesus’ day were facing a transition from the law of Moses to the revelation of Jesus Christ:

For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known. (John 1:17-18 NIV)

Deuteronomy emphasizes the covenant the Lord made with His people. The Jews of Jesus’ day were seeing a New Covenant, not written on stone tablets, but written with the blood of the Son of God. Covenant, God’s sovereignty, His love for His people, and His call for total commitment to Him are the book’s major themes (NIV Study Bible 243). It is no surprise that Jesus, Who was inaugurating a new era in God’s salvation plan, would use this book to rebuke the devil and emphasize those same themes by His own life and ministry.

Jesus Himself entered into the narrative of the Forty Years in the Desert by adding His own chapter as He faced Forty Days in the Desert. Let’s see Jesus’ responses and the larger context from which they are drawn.

To the first temptation, Jesus says, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’” (Luke 4:4 NIV) He is quoting Deuteronomy 8:3. I have included the surrounding verses to show the larger context:

Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years. Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you. (Deut. 8:2-5 NIV)

God led His Son to a place where He would have to keep His Father’s commands, depend on Him only, and only do His will. Jesus says later in His ministry:

Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed...By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me. (John 5:19-20 & 30 NIV)

Jesus responds to the second temptation with, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’” (Luke 4:8 NIV) He is quoting Deuteronomy 6:13. Here are the surrounding verses:

Fear the Lord your God, serve him only and take your oaths in his name. Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you; for the Lord your God, who is among you, is a jealous God and his anger will burn against you, and he will destroy you from the face of the land. Do not put the Lord your God to the test as you did at Massah. Be sure to keep the commands of the Lord your God and the stipulations and decrees he has given you. Do what is right and good in the Lord’s sight, so that it may go well with you and you may go in and take over the good land the Lord promised on oath to your ancestors, thrusting out all your enemies before you, as the Lord said. (Deut. 6:13-19 NIV)

Jesus will not even consider serving anyone else other than His Father. In fact, in Deuteronomy 6:4 is the beginning of the Shema, the prayer that is the essence of Judaism: "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength." (NIV)

Jesus is reasserting the oneness and the holiness of God. No other gods shall receive any honor other than the one true God—Jesus’ Father. The absolute unity of God, His glorious oneness is preserved by Jesus, for He applies this verse to Himself. The mystery of one God in three Persons is never up for debate by Jesus. He asserts it as truth, for He is Truth.

Thus, Jesus will serve only God as He walks on this planet. That alone is the reason why He came. Jesus loves His Father with every fiber of His being. He will walk in obedience for He loves the Father with an all-consuming love.

Jesus responds to the third temptation with, “It is said: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” (Luke 4:12 NIV) He is quoting Deuteronomy 6:16. Here are the surrounding verses:

Do not put the Lord your God to the test as you did at Massah. Be sure to keep the commands of the Lord your God and the stipulations and decrees he has given you. Do what is right and good in the Lord’s sight, so that it may go well with you and you may go in and take over the good land the Lord promised on oath to your ancestors, thrusting out all your enemies before you, as the Lord said. In the future, when your son asks you, “What is the meaning of the stipulations, decrees and laws the Lord our God has commanded you?” tell him: “We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. Before our eyes the Lord sent signs and wonders—great and terrible—on Egypt and Pharaoh and his whole household. But he brought us out from there to bring us in and give us the land he promised on oath to our ancestors. The Lord commanded us to obey all these decrees and to fear the Lord our God, so that we might always prosper and be kept alive, as is the case today. And if we are careful to obey all this law before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us that will be our righteousness. (Deut. 6:16-25 NIV)

Jesus is the new Moses, about to deliver His people from the greatest enslavement of all: to sin and death. We are to be the new house wherein the God of the Universe personally dwells. That will only be possible, however, with the death and resurrection of Jesus:

He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God’s house. Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself. For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything. “Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house,” bearing witness to what would be spoken by God in the future. But Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house. And we are his house, if indeed we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we glory. (Heb. 3:2-6 NIV)

I see many things emerging out of Jesus’ encounter with Satan that are very applicable to us. God’s Word alone is our strength and shield. Jesus stood on it no matter who He was talking to and what He was doing. The Word alone was His foundation for how He saw His Father and for His ministry. He knew the Word well enough to wield it powerfully at His supporters, His detractors and Satan.

But most of all, it was His comfort. He knew the promises were absolute, not subject to change or whim. Those promises were woven into every part of Him. We, in following our Lord, should do no less.

It is in the desert where we are tested THE MOST. If you look at the desert in Israel, it is rocky, desolate and hot. The landscape has a certain ominous aspect to it that says: If you are not careful, you will perish here.

We are tested every day, but a desert period in our lives can reach into our very soul causing us to ask: Does God care? Will He continue to care? Why should He even care?

Jesus went into a desert to show us how we should cope with ours. He doesn’t ask us to do anything that He Himself has not done. He truly knows what we are going through: "For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." (Heb. 4:15)

He knows and hears the depths of our cries. Out in that silent and desolate desert, His Father heard the cries of His Son’s heart.

What did Jesus learn in that desert to overcome the satanic lies against God? What can we learn from Him when we are in our own desert? In Greek, the word for “tempted” may also be translated “tested.” (Luke 4, Bible Gateway)

Think of it this way: When we are tempted, our character is being tested. Will we stand on what we know of His grace and power, or will we succumb to our flesh and Satan’s lies, believing that God does not care and has abandoned us?

Just before the desert experience, Jesus had received His Father’s love and approval for His life and ministry: "And a voice from heaven said, 'This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.'" (Matt. 3:17 NIV)

Satan was in the desert, just waiting to totally undermine what the Father had said to Jesus. Each temptation was a satanic rebuke of the truth Jesus heard at His baptism. We will see the same thing happen in our lives. After receiving a call to the work for the Kingdom, after an especially lovely time in His presence, after a loss, after a challenge, Satan will chirp in our ear and try to rebuke what we stand on in God.

Solution? Rebuke him back with the Word.

Next Week:  Full Circle, Part II

Facing a Jericho Stronghold With Jesus

I was inspired by an Internet website to see Joshua 6 as an excellent roadmap for how we are to take down spiritual strongholds. When I read the passage, I saw a good battle plan!

1 Now the gates of Jericho were tightly shut because the people were afraid of the Israelites. No one was allowed to go out or in.

2 But the Lord said to Joshua, “I have given you Jericho, its king, and all its strong warriors.

3 You and your fighting men should march around the town once a day for six days.

4 Seven priests will walk ahead of the Ark, each carrying a ram’s horn. On the seventh day you are to march around the town seven times, with the priests blowing the horns.

5 When you hear the priests give one long blast on the rams’ horns, have all the people shout as loud as they can. Then the walls of the town will collapse, and the people can charge straight into the town...”

20 When the people heard the sound of the rams’ horns, they shouted as loud as they could. Suddenly, the walls of Jericho collapsed, and the Israelites charged straight into the town and captured it.

21 They completely destroyed everything in it with their swords—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep, goats, and donkeys. (Josh. 6:1-5 & 20-21 NLT)

The word “stronghold” in Greek means “a castle” (Strong’s). When we read about Joshua conquering the first stronghold or fortified city in the Promised Land, we find a powerful analogy here.

Joshua’s name in Hebrew means “the LORD is salvation” (Strong’s). Jesus’ name in Hebrew means the same thing—the same as Joshua’s name. So, making this comparison has merit.

Now the gates of Jericho were tightly shut because the people were afraid of the Israelites. No one was allowed to go out or in.

Strongholds are where people hide. But we are called to be different in Christ. 1 Peter 2:9 declares: 

"But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light." (NIV)

That is who we are. We don’t hide and we are not afraid. We have the King of kings and Lord of lords on our side. The Promised Land is ours because we have salvation in Jesus and He is always with us.

Sadly, the world is full of those who do not know Jesus and do not care. The world is equally full of those who know Jesus but are living behind a wall, filled with fear and condemnation. They don’t want to go out and they certainly don’t want anyone coming in.

So, we have to show both groups that we are victorious in Christ. We walk in His freedom and shout the praises of God. That kind of faith brings results.

But the Lord said to Joshua, “I have given you Jericho, its king, and all its strong warriors."

The Lord had already given Joshua the city. Even though it stood there, looking invincible, God had other plans.

Addiction, fear, condemnation, doubt, deep hurt, unforgiveness, and unrepentance: they all look invincible, whether we see them in ourselves or in others. But the battle is won in Christ. We need to take this promise and boldly walk up to the city walls.

"You and your fighting men should march around the town once a day for six days."

Marching showed the people’s faith in God. But it also showed obedience to a God-ordained process. Whatever process for recovery and growth God shows you—a counselor, a mentor, a doctor, therapy, medication, fellowship with believers or all of the above—do it. Joshua did not question the process of conquering Jericho.

Once God reveals His plan, we step out in faith, knowing it is for our best.

Yes, God could have caused the walls to immediately tumble down, but He was out to build the character of His people. A character centered on faith in God will be able to move mountains. Why? A mature character knows of God’s goodness in the past, how God doesn’t change and how He will come through in the future:

• Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Rom. 5:3-5 NIV)
• Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. (James 1:2-4 NIV)

Faith is a walk. Joshua and his men boldly walked out and around the walls, focused only on the mightiness of God and His love. Compared to that, the walls seemed rather puny!

"Seven priests will walk ahead of the Ark, each carrying a ram’s horn. On the seventh day you are to march around the town seven times, with the priests blowing the horns."

We serve and follow the High Priest, Jesus. The Ark contained the covenant was made between Moses and God. Jesus is our Covenant with God. He died for us and we die to self. He lives in us and we live in Him. We are His own. As we walk behind Him each day, we are reminded how much He loves us, even if our walls haven’t fallen. 

YET.

"When you hear the priests give one long blast on the rams’ horns, have all the people shout as loud as they can. Then the walls of the town will collapse, and the people can charge straight into the town...”

The process that Joshua and his men engaged in will take days. Our process of building and acting on faith takes time as well. We are walking, focused on our High Priest and His love covenant for us. Then, just as God had the people walk around seven times on the seventh day, our day of freedom dawns.

The stronghold begins to weaken, for our heart is growing stronger in Him. The walls lose their power to instill fear and a sense of never-ending slavery.

The priests blow the horns one last time and the people shout. We work together with our High Priest; we follow His lead and we shout for joy in His presence. The trumpet of His love drowns out the whispers of Satan that sin is who we are, we can never recover, hope is for other people, and condemnation is all we deserve.

The trumpet blast of His declaration of “It is finished” from the cross drowns out all of the lies of Satan. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead is ours:

And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you. (Rom. 8:11 NIV)

When the people heard the sound of the rams’ horns, they shouted as loud as they could. Suddenly, the walls of Jericho collapsed, and the Israelites charged straight into the town and captured it.

The Holy Spirit rushes into our city as the walls collapse to give us hope that the city will not rise up again. Now, the Lord is occupying our city in His power:

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Gal. 2:20 NIV)

They completely destroyed everything in it with their swords—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep, goats, and donkeys.

It may sound harsh to our modern ears, but what is sinful must be removed completely. If we have an addiction, we may have to walk away from friends, family, and certain environments to keep the city from rising again.

We may need to bag the computer, or put it out in the living room, facing where everyone can see it.

Whatever needs to be removed for your recovery and to remain free in Him, do it! Do Jesus’ words sound any less harsh than what was said to Joshua?

If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell. (Matt. 5:29-30 NIV)

God does not compromise with our sin in any way. Why? When we compromise with sin, Satan gets actively involved. When we surrender an area of our lives to God, Satan now has one less area to operate on in our lives.

It’s a process, but God is faithful! The walls of Jericho fell down after the warriors followed and were obedient to the leader and the priests. We (the warriors) must follow our Leader and High Priest (Jesus) to bring the city (whatever strongholds we face) down.

He is faithful.

The battle is won.

He fought and died for us.

We need to be faithful by remaining obedient.

We wield the Sword of the Spirit in one hand.

What do you think we do with the other hand?

We keep it firmly in His nail-scarred hand.

Jesus' Enemy Contact in the Gospel of John

We will now explore with Jesus how Satan colludes with religious people. One expects the world to be influenced by Satan; but to hear Satan through the mouth of religious leaders, who should on the lookout for such intrusions, is mind-boggling. Some of our deepest hurt can come from those who should know better.

Jesus experienced this first hand:

“Abraham is our father,” they answered.

“If you were Abraham’s children,” said Jesus, “then you would do what Abraham did. As it is, you are looking for a way to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things. You are doing the works of your own father.”

“We are not illegitimate children,” they protested. “The only Father we have is God himself.”

Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I have come here from God. I have not come on my own; God sent me. Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! (John 8:39-45)

The leaders, because of their anger and jealousy at Jesus, have given Satan a stronghold. Their emotional reaction has now transformed into murderous intent.

This is why anger is so dangerous, for it can lead to murder. Why? Once you have given Satan an open door with your anger, he will come in and start building a case against the person you are angry at; soon, with your anger growing, ideas about what you should do to that person also grows. It may even grow into ending that person’s life.

This is why lust is so dangerous, for it can lead to adultery or any kind of sexual sin. Lust opens the door to Satan, allowing him to influence your thinking. Such thinking grows into more and more of a focus which transforms into potent desire. Before long, you are making plans, with Satan providing the itinerary.

Satan is the “father of lies.” A stronghold—anger, lust, jealousy, fear, doubt—will allow him in to start weaving the lies into a greater and greater web. Our emotions and our heart will blind us to who Jesus really is; Satan works with that blindness and the lies will become stronger and stronger, bringing us deeper and deeper into Satan’s way of thinking. Soon, we have united our wills to his agenda and the results will be devastating.

These religious leaders, so angry with Jesus, are going to soon unite with the Romans (whom they despise) to kill Him. Sin makes strange bedfellows, does it not?

Think of the kid, growing up in an alcoholic home and despising his father, will, because of anger and unforgiveness, someday turn into his father and head down that same road of destruction.

Think of the kid, growing up in a violent home and despising her father for beating her mother, will, because of hurt and a desperate need for love, choose a man who will turn out to be like her father.

The list goes on and on, because of Satan’s lies to our heart.

We have the right to be angry, jealous, hurt, bitter, disappointed, and broken because of what has happened to us in our lives. God doesn’t want us to live in such bondage. Jesus came to heal and restore us. But instead of seeking Him, we listen to the lie of You Deserve to Feel This Way!

Then a long list (signed by Satan) of how to live with the pain comes rolling in: drugs, alcohol, abuse, fear, sinful indulgence, alternative lifestyles, unbelief... The list is endless because Satan tells us the pain will be as well.

But if we bring our anger, jealousy, hurt, bitterness, disappointment, and brokenness to Jesus, He will heal, restore and give us a new heart, one sensitive to His love and forgiveness. The choice is ours, despite what Satan and the world says. Stand on what the Word says:

What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom. 8:31-39)

In summary, Jesus encountered evil and spoke the truth and the Word to drive it away. Despite Satan’s best efforts to appear invincible, he’s not. The Word of God is the best at rebuking Satan; this sharp Sword reminds the enemy that you are ready and willing to use it for yourself and for others.

Whatever we do for His Kingdom must be done in the name of Jesus:

The name of the Lord is a fortified tower;
     the righteous run to it and are safe. (Prov. 18:10)

Amen.