THE LORD’S CONTROVERSY
#287 THE LORD’S CONTROVERSY
Scripture Micah 6:1-8, NIV
Orig. 9/3/1964
Passage: Listen to what the Lord says:
“Stand up, plead my case before the mountains;
let the hills hear what you have to say.
2 “Hear, you mountains, the Lord’s accusation;
listen, you everlasting foundations of the earth.
For the Lord has a case against his people;
he is lodging a charge against Israel.
3 “My people, what have I done to you?
How have I burdened you? Answer me.
4 I brought you up out of Egypt
and redeemed you from the land of slavery.
I sent Moses to lead you,
also Aaron and Miriam.
5 My people, remember
what Balak king of Moab plotted
and what Balaam son of Beor answered.
Remember your journey from Shittim to Gilgal,
that you may know the righteous acts of the Lord.”
6 “With what shall I come before the Lord
and bow down before the exalted God?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousand rivers of olive oil?
Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
8 He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly[a] with your God.”
Purpose: Continuing a series from the prophets, here addressing the message of Micah.
Keywords: Bible Study God, Controversy
Timeline: Sequential
Series: Micah
Introduction
Micah was contemporary with Hosea and Isaiah. Little is known about him that he, himself, does not tell us. There is a brief confirmation in the prophecy of Jeremiah of this time and circumstance.
Jeremiah 26:18, “Micah the Moreshite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah, and spake to all the people of Judah, saying, ‘Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Zion shall be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest.’”
Micah has considerately supplied answers to many of our questions. The opening verse runs the gamut of prophetic i.d. He gives us his authority, “The word of the Lord.” He tells us who he is, “Micah the Moresheth.” We know who his contemporaries were, “Jothan, Ahaz, Hezekiah, kings of Judah.” He names the people who are his audience, “concerning Samaria and Jerusalem.” He makes it plain from this opening verse that his message is one of judgment.
I. The Controversy Stated. “Let the Lord be witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple.”
The central focus of the problem is in the religious chapters. V5, “Is it not Samaria? . . . Are they not Jerusalem?”
Three sins are noted in these opening chapters: Idolatry—1:7, graven images, idols; social injustice—2:3, devise iniquity in the night, covet field, take by violence, oppress weaker men; hypocrisy—3:11, judges, priests, prophets do what they do for what is in their own best interests.
That, for which there is no deliverance for Samaria, marches toward Jerusalem. V12, “Evil came down from the Lord to the gate of Jerusalem.” The Assyrians were then in power. The captivity of Israel was near at hand. Israel/Syria lay siege before Jerusalem, II Kings 16:5 (Ahaz). Ahaz sends for Assyria (Tiglath-Pileser) but it was a sell-out. Five years after Ahaz dies, Samaria falls (II Kings 17:6).
A day of contrasts:
· There is abject selfishness: (See Micah 2:1-3.) Compare Isaiah 5:8, “Woe to them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place.” Some of this very thing is happening is Palestine. Arabs are working at menial jobs providing services in Jewish towns not available in their own towns.
· There is injustice: False prophets. Micah 2:7, “O thou that art name the house of Jacob, is the Spirit of the Lord straitened? Are these His doings? Do not my words do good to Him that walketh uprightly?”
· God has already planned the restoration. Micah 2:12, “I will surely assemble O Jacob, all of thee; I will surely gather the remnant of Israel.”
II. The Controversy Must Next Be Substantiated. 3:1, “Hear, I pray you O head of Jacob, and ye princes of the house of Israel.”
Micah has nothing to protect. No sin will go unexposed. The princes are charged with violence and oppression, 3:1f. The prophets are accused, 3:5f.
The message of truth is the message empowered by the Holy Spirit. Compare 2:7, “Is the Spirit straitened?” 3:8, “I am full of power by the Spirit of the Lord.” To what degree do we heed the Holy Spirit? Restrict his influence?
III. The Controversy Must Be Secured.
Chapter four is the great “kingdom” chapter.
· 4:1 The future kingdom supreme
· v2 The future kingdom universal
· v3 The future kingdom peaceful
· vs 4-5 The future kingdom prosperous
· vs 6-8 Reigned over by Christ
· vs 9-13 Jewish and Gentile
The coming kingdom: Combined size of Judea/Israel no larger than Louisiana. Compare with Isaiah: Micah 4:1-3 with Isaiah 2:2-4. V9 questions, “Is there no king?” Isaiah 9:6, “Unto us a child is born.” V10 forecasts Babylon. (They are a full hundred years from ascendancy.)
What is a kingdom unless there is a king? Micah 5:2, Bethlehem—birthplace of the coming Messiah. Genesis 49:10, “The scepter shall not depart from Judah till Shiloh come, and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.” Shiloh/tranquil. Shalom/peace.
Micah shows us the kind of man he was. Back to the Bible (3:8), “to declare unto Jacob his transgression.” Back to Messianic hope (4:1-3), “in the last days.” Back to Bethlehem (5:2), “But thou, Bethlehem Ephratha”; the messianic hope takes on personality. Back to ethical righteousness (6:8), “He hath shown thee, O man. . . .”
IV. A Concluding Review.
The book is divided in the following way.
· Judgment 1-3
· Salvation 6-7
The book contains a deeply spiritual, and at the same time simple, message. It is of sin and corruption. It bleeds with the sighing and agony of people caught in the net of misrule of men in authority, 6:1. It insists upon return to God, 1:2, 3:1.
The final two chapters implore the divine character. The mountains (1,2) are called to be witness of the confrontation. God pleads (3-5) for remembrance. Micah 5:4 attests the redemption of the Lord; 5:5 declares the righteousness of the Lord.
The climactic Old Testament spiritual concept, 6:8. Some interpreters see v8 as the mountains (v1,2) answering in witness.
The final chapter concludes:
· Lament, vv1-6
· Intercession, vv7-10
· Promise, vv11-20
One final word on [Micah 6]: V4, Redemption; v5, righteousness; v8, revelation (“He hath shown thee”) and requirement (“What hath the Lord required of thee?”)
A PROPHET RE-SIGNS
#415 A PROPHET RE-SIGNS
Scripture Jonah 3:1-4:11, NIV
Orig. 9/16/1962
Rewr. 9/1977, 5/23/1989
Passage: Jonah Goes to Nineveh 3 Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: 2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.” 3 Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city; it took three days to go through it. 4 Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” 5 The Ninevites believed God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.
6 When Jonah’s warning reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. 7 This is the proclamation he issued in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let people or animals, herds or flocks, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. 8 But let people and animals be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. 9 Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.” 10 When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.
Jonah’s Anger at the Lord’s Compassion
4 But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. 2 He prayed to the Lord, “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. 3 Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.” 4 But the Lord replied, “Is it right for you to be angry?”
5 Jonah had gone out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city. 6 Then the Lord God provided a leafy plant[a] and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the plant. 7 But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the plant so that it withered. 8 When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, “It would be better for me to die than to live.”
9 But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?” “It is,” he said. “And I’m so angry I wish I were dead.” 10 But the Lord said, “You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. 11 And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?”
Purpose: A follow-up message dealing with the miraculous revival in Nineveh and the following days for Jonah.
Keywords: Bible Study Missions Self-Will
Timeline: Biographical
Series: Minor Prophets
Introduction
Chronologically, Jonah is the second of the minor prophets. He was of the northern kingdom, Israel; and had come on the scene shortly after Elisha, and just before Isaiah. There was no contemporary in Judah. The people of the southern kingdom were holding firmly to their faith while Amaziah and Uzziah were on the throne.
But in Jonah’s own northern kingdom, things were not going well. Materially, politically, they were surviving. Jeroboam II had come to the throne in Samaria. Israel was proud and vain and money-mad, and perceived of themselves as the apple-of-God’s-eye. The king was the worst of the lot.
Jonah is identified as the son of Amattai, the prophet, of Gath-Hepher (II Kings 14:25). Jonah’s name means “dove.” His father’s, “my truth.” Dr. Matthew Henry suggest that God’s prophets should be “sons of truth” and “harmless as doves.”
His is a prophecy of extremes. There are only forty-eight verses. It is a simply-written testimonial of Jonah’s “great refusal.” There is also found the story of a “great fish,” “a great city” (Nineveh), a “great message” (that God forgives sin), a “great jealousy” (he was jealous for the gourd, envious of Nineveh), and, finally, of the “great God” (who prepares a fish to deliver Jonah from rebellion, and a worm to deliver him from pride).
The lesson last week opened under the title, “A Prophet Resigns.” We may consider the lesson this evening as “A Prophet Re-Signs.” Although there is still an attitude problem, the needs of Nineveh outweigh Jonah’s disdain for these people.
I. Delivered from Rebelliousness. 3:1, “And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time saying, Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach.”
We acknowledge a God-called man: Called to preach; called to preach to Nineveh; called to preach the word; called to preach without equivocation—not opposed to being God’s prophet, not opposed to be a foreign missionary, did not cotton to offering these Ninevites a second chance.
We acknowledge a man in the throes of God’s leading. Running from Nineveh leads to Joppa where a ship is waiting. The whale takes him to a seacoast where Nineveh is waiting. Nineveh surrenders him to the wilderness where God’s truth is waiting.
We acknowledge a God-taught man. The message of God’s bidding, 3:2. It must still be so for us all. I Corinthians 15:3f, “For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scripture.”
We must also acknowledge that he was a self-willed man. Nineveh was not a candidate for repentance. Nineveh deserved judgment. The miracle here is not whale, or worm, but man detached from the will of God. The miracle is God’s will to redeem.
II. Delivered from National Self-Interest. V4, And Jonah . . . cried, and said, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.”
He has come to the great city, sixty miles in circumference; walls 100 feet high, chariots could roll three abreast; 1500 towers as much as 200’ high; 350 square miles, almost the size of Lincoln Parish.
Jonah is showing some of the marks of his upbringing. He had to preach. He did not have to hope for deliverance—Imagine a doctor performing the necessary and radical surgery and then hoping that the patient will die.
Let us be reminded that God is on the side of right, whoever is graced by it. First, the Ninevites needed reviving. Second, the people of the northern kingdom had much to gain from their revival.
Could it be that the person who could make the greatest difference for God in Bernice over the next twenty years is outside the fold? Are you willing to be the one to lead him, her to the Lord? What if it is someone we find distasteful? Could it be someone who let you down years ago? To what degree do you even pray for the ones who are lost around us?
III. Delivered to a Life of Understanding. 4:11, “Should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand?”
Understand that God is more concerned with repentance than with judgment. Jeremiah 18:8, “If that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them.” Ezekiel 18:23, “ Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign Lord. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?” Repent—nacham—change of heart/shuv is normal word expressing man’s repentance.
[Understand] that God can and does use extreme measures in accomplishing His will. The rabbis taught that the Ninevites heard of Jonah’s fish story, thus they believed.
[Understand] that the Lord is God of all nations. Romans 2:28,29. V29, “He is a Jew which is one inwardly, . . . circumcision is that of the heart.”
[Understand] that God is concerned with the welfare of all mankind. Jonah is in reality a book of missionary enterprise. God’s will is for the lost to be saved.
Conclusion
George Adam Smith, “The truth which we find in the Book of Jonah is as full a revelation of God’s will as prophecy anywhere achieves. That God has granted to the Gentiles also, repentance unto life, is nowhere else in the Old Testament so vividly illustrated. This lifts the teaching of the book to equal rank with the second part of Isaiah, and the nearest of our twelve to the New Testament.”
A MISSIONARY IN HIDING
#512 A MISSIONARY IN HIDING
Scripture Jonah 1:1-3; 3:1-3, NIV
Orig. 8/11/1968
Rewr. 12/7/1990
Passage: 1:1The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: 2"Go to the great city of Nineveh and
preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me." 3But Jonah ran away from the Lord and
headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord.
3:1Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: 2"Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you." 3Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very important city—a visit required three days.
Purpose: To share a message with my people during a major mission emphasis of our perceived concern for our mission responsibility.
Keywords: Commitment Missions Revelation Disobedience
Timeline/Series: Mission Promotion
Introduction Pro 2-90p23
On May 20, 1987, a strange item was read in our newspapers. A West German youth had leased an American-built Cessna airplane and started the first leg of an unbelievable journey. Extra gas tanks were placed in the rear, and he flew first to Helsinki where he filed a final and fictitious flight plan. He wasn’t going where he said he was going.
In fact, he wound up a few hours later looking literally down the barrels of the armor of Soviet warplanes. With fool-hardy abandon, he flew his little craft toward the most heavily guarded city in the world.
He flew on to the city of Moscow with a bevy of these Russian fighters following his every move. He located Red Square, and literally flew around the Kremlin, the seat of government. Unbelievably, he then landed the Cessna on the cobblestone pavement of Red Square.
Surprisingly, he was not fired upon. He left the airplane, waved to the surprised crowd, and as he was arrested and taken away, he explained that he just wanted to talk to the Soviet people. I am not sure what he wanted to say. Perhaps just “Hello! How are you?”
Jonah had something he didn’t want to say. It was a message of great importance, urgency even, but he thought better of it. Instead of dangerously running into the face of the enemy, he just as dangerously went the other way. God called him to a task, and his inclination was to get by, callously hiding his missionary credentials.
I. First, There is a Clear Mandate from God. V5, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.”
A mandate to a chosen messenger. God effects a sovereign choice. Jonah can be easily perceived as a mistake, a malcontent, a rebel. But then, others whom God has chosen were not that different. Moses: reared in luxury, accepted responsibility, ran from it, married a Gentile, made all those excuses. David: of huge ego, proud, became immoral, enamored of himself. Simon: bold, brazen, little patience, no culture.
He is still choosing His messengers. Either, He has saved you or in the attempt you spurned it. We’re still enamored of ourselves. We use the same stale excuses.
Not only was the messenger chosen, the message was made clear. The West German youth just wanted to be chummy, to say, “Hallo!” Jonah was to tell Nineveh that their sins stank, but, more importantly, that God loved them and wanted to forgive them.
People get caught up in the whale. Did he/didn’t he? Could he/couldn’t he? When we make our peace with God, and His love, such things as whales are neither intellectual nor emotional ___. You see, for the believer, the whale becomes an instrument for deliverance.
But if this exacting message was to get through, a committed messenger would be required. Somewhat more is required than belief. Jonah clearly believed. He believed so strongly that God would forgive that he went elsewhere. He presumed wrongly that he could keep it from happening.
With belief is the need for conciliation. God’s judgments are just. The best investment that I can make in my life is to yield to His will.
II. Next, Is a Missionary in Hiding. V3, “But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.”
At the outset, it is simply a refusal to comply with this mandate to serve. Jonah was the sovereign choice of God for the redemption of Nineveh. The Hebrew people lost sight of the intermediary posture of being “chosen.” Through them God had chosen the way that He would affect world-wide reconciliation.
Many are yet like Isaac, taken as he was with Abraham to Mt. Moriah: Helping to prepare the altar, he asked, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Most of us are no more willing than Isaac “to be offered up.”
Missionaries tell of methodology of the church in India. The convert being baptized is required to place his own hands on his head saying, “Woe unto me if I preach not the gospel,” I Corinthians 9:16.
There are various ways that we accommodate such seclusion in our lives:
· Refusal to give up hidden sins of the flesh—Not something that we struggle with without effect; a recognized indiscretion that we refuse to part with.
· One of the works of the Holy Spirit is to convict of sin—To deny Him right of reproof is to willfully exclude God.
· To refuse opportunities for growth as Christians is to hide our witness—List the avenues in your life that are directly related to your faith; list the things that go on in your church of which you have no part. Do you want your community to perceive of you as Christian? Other?
The most obvious now is to deny stewardship opportunity. Is regular financial support an integral part of my faith? Am I doing what I can? Should?
How seriously do I take the idea of participation in Jesus’ birthday? Lottie Moon goal is $86 million. Participation at 20-25%. What could we do if our best? Do you remember who Lottie Moon was? After 40 years, perceived her Chinese friends starving, began to go without food until [she] fell seriously ill, put on a boat to USA. Died at sea.
III. The Final Note Is One of Ministry. 3:3, “So Jonah arose and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord.”
There are social responsibilities that are not to be denied. We are to feed and clothe the destitute. We are to protest injustice. We are to champion unpopular but righteous causes.
The responsibility to share the gospel creatively is just as demanding. Jesus championed social causes. He died for the sin of men and women,
Jesus left a message through John that we deliberately downplay. Religious leaders reacted negatively to His claim to be “the living bread.” Those who “ate His flesh and drank His blood” had eternal life. John 6:66, “From that time many of His disciples went back and walked no more with Him.”
He, of course, did not literally mean to cannibalize Him, but to be at one with Him in life and death.
Are you “at one” today with Jesus? Or, are you a believer taking the easy road to faith?
You believe the gospel, but you don’t want it to cost you anything? You didn’t place your hands on your head and say “Woe unto me if. . .”?
It’s easier being “a missionary in hiding,” or is it?
Conclusion
During WW2, workmen were building a cathedral in a city on the coast of England. The city was bombed again and again. “Why do you continue to build when the next bomb may destroy all?”
“Everytime those bombers come this way, we want them to see the spires of this cathedral, and to know that we still have faith in eternal things.”
Give us, O God, the strength to build
that city that hath stood
Too long a dream, whose laws are love,
Whose crown is servanthood.
Already in the mind of God
That city riseth fair
Yea, bids us seize the whole of life
And build that city there.1
1 https://hymnary.org/hymn/EH1982/583
1 Public domain: Bowie, WR. O Holy City, Seen of John. (1910). In HYMNS OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE, Harper & Row.
A PROPHET RESIGNS
#101 A PROPHET RESIGNS
Scripture Jonah 1:1-2:10, NIV
Orig. 7/1/1964
Rewr. 5/17/1989
Passage: 1 The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: 2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”
3 But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord.
4 Then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. 5 All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship. But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep.
6 The captain went to him and said, “How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us so that we will not perish.” 7 Then the sailors said to each other, “Come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity.” They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. 8 So they asked him, “Tell us, who is responsible for making all this trouble for us? What kind of work do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?”
9 He answered, “I am a Hebrew and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.”
10 This terrified them and they asked, “What have you done?” (They knew he was running away from the Lord, because he had already told them so.)
Purpose: Beginning a two-part series on Jonah, here telling the story of a prophet who resigns his commission.
Keywords: Bible Study Disobedience
Series: Old Testament Prophets
Introduction
The story contained here is relatively simple. God calls a man by the name of Jonah to go to a place called Nineveh to denounce her wickedness. Nineveh was a real place, Jonah was a real prophet. But instead of occupying himself with what God has called him to do, Jonah, for reasons of his own, chooses to disobey. In fact, he acts upon the call by going in the opposite direction.
His reasoning does not reflect deep spiritual insight, but it certainly does reflect the posture of man who believed in God’s power to redeem. It was potential to success that drove him to other considerations.
On board that ship, they encounter a storm. Jonah is thrown overboard as a compensation to Jehovah, and is at once swallowed by a “great fish.” Three days later he was disgorged back near where he boarded the ship. The three days had given him time to re-think his position, and when the call came to him again to go to Nineveh, he concurred. True to God’s original expectation, when Jonah preached, the Ninevites repented.
Jonah left Nineveh in a huff, found a place to observe what would happen, and angrily waited. He wanted God to give them what they deserved. A small plant grew up and shaded the prophet. Then the plant died, and Jonah again became angry. He then had to face up to the principle teaching of the book that God, unlike Jonah, was more interested in the needs of the people, than he was for the tenure of a worthless plant.
I. There are Background Questions to Consider. V1, “Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying. . . .”
We need to authenticate Jonah. II Kings 14:25, “According to the word of the Lord God of Israel, which he spoke by the hand of his servant Jonah, the son of Amittai, the prophet, which was of Gath-hepher.”
Amaziah is dead, Uzziah comes to the throne. Jeroboam II in the northern kingdom. Thus, we learn he is a real person, that his home was in Galilee, and that he lived about 800 B.C. He comes from a devoted family. Jeroboam’s reign was one of material success. In fact, it seems to have been Jeroboam II who kept Assyria at bay.
We do not need to prove that Jonah wrote the book. It doesn’t contain oracles or visions. It contains life episodes told in the third person. Could have been written immediately after Jonah’s time, or 200 or more years later.
The book has a strong historical following: The book of Tobit (14th Century, BC); Josephus; Philo (1st Century Jewish philosopher). The early church accepted it. Christ quoted it (Matthew 12:38f—“no sign except”).
It is important to deal with the book as a possible allegory. Those who say it is spurious, a fake, we will ignore. There is spiritual truth given on occasion through allegory. There is no other Biblical event where a historical figure was used in allegory, telling a story figuratively or symbolically. Jonah stands for Israel/Has been commissioned to make Yahweh known to Gentiles/Refuses/Is swallowed up in exile/Repents/Given a 2nd chance.
Where the grumps have a problem, of course, is with the fish. Most refer to it as a “whale” though the text indicates “great fish” (special). Baxter calls it a “prepared” fish. Greek of Jesus refers to sea-monster which indicates Jesus’ belief. There are stories of whales taken in which were human remains. One seaman, James Bartley, disgorged stated he could have lived to starve.
We need to think through his possible reasons for refusal to go to Nineveh.
· A natural fear of another culture. Their inhumanity was well-attested.
· People, then and now, have a deep protestation against other religions.
· The prophet wanted to be among the known of Israel, not wasted in Assyria.
· Believing God to be a redeeming God, he would not be the instrument of delivery.
· To escape God, “flee from the presence of the Lord,” v3. Psalm 139:8, “If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there; if I make my bed in sheol, behold, thou art there.” At home, reminders are everywhere. At Tarshish (?)
· Simply, he did not want Nineveh spared. 4:2, “I fled . . . for I knew that thou art a gracious God.”
We can piece together what Jonah’s rationale must have been.
· Prophesied during Jeroboam’s reign.
· Jeroboam II’s son Zechariah reigned six months.
· Assassinated by Shallum (1 month).
· Assassinated by Menahem (10 years).
· But early on, Assyria is mentioned.
· Later prophets will point to struggles with Assyria.
· There is an earlier struggle with Syria. See II Kings 13:5f. See Bib. Illus. Sp83p82.
· Apparently, Jonah reacted against what would be a nation of power.
HOSEA—PROPHET OF GRAPHIC INTROSPECTION
#682 HOSEA—PROPHET OF GRAPHIC INTROSPECTION
Scripture Hosea 2:1-23, NIV
Orig. 10/26/1977
Passage: [a]“Say of your brothers, ‘My people,’ and of your sisters, ‘My loved one.’
Israel Punished and Restored
2 “Rebuke your mother, rebuke her,
for she is not my wife,
and I am not her husband.
Let her remove the adulterous look from her face
and the unfaithfulness from between her breasts.
3 Otherwise I will strip her naked
and make her as bare as on the day she was born;
I will make her like a desert,
turn her into a parched land,
and slay her with thirst.
4 I will not show my love to her children,
because they are the children of adultery.
5 Their mother has been unfaithful
and has conceived them in disgrace.
She said, ‘I will go after my lovers,
who give me my food and my water,
my wool and my linen, my olive oil and my drink.’
6 Therefore I will block her path with thornbushes;
I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way.
7 She will chase after her lovers but not catch them;
she will look for them but not find them.
Then she will say,
‘I will go back to my husband as at first,
for then I was better off than now.’
8 She has not acknowledged that I was the one
who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil,
who lavished on her the silver and gold—
which they used for Baal.
9 “Therefore I will take away my grain when it ripens,
and my new wine when it is ready.
I will take back my wool and my linen,
intended to cover her naked body.
10 So now I will expose her lewdness
before the eyes of her lovers;
no one will take her out of my hands.
11 I will stop all her celebrations:
her yearly festivals, her New Moons,
her Sabbath days—all her appointed festivals.
12 I will ruin her vines and her fig trees,
which she said were her pay from her lovers;
I will make them a thicket,
and wild animals will devour them.
13 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.
14 “Therefore I am now going to allure her;
I will lead her into the wilderness
and speak tenderly to her.
15 There I will give her back her vineyards,
and will make the Valley of Achor[b] a door of hope.
There she will respond[c] as in the days of her youth,
as in the day she came up out of Egypt.
16 “In that day,” declares the Lord,
“you will call me ‘my husband’;
you will no longer call me ‘my master.[d]’
17 I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips;
no longer will their names be invoked.
18 In that day I will make a covenant for them
with the beasts of the field, the birds in the sky
and the creatures that move along the ground.
Bow and sword and battle
I will abolish from the land,
so that all may lie down in safety.
19 I will betroth you to me forever;
I will betroth you in[e] righteousness and justice,
in[f] love and compassion.
20 I will betroth you in[g] faithfulness,
and you will acknowledge the Lord.
21 “In that day I will respond,”
declares the Lord—
“I will respond to the skies,
and they will respond to the earth;
22 and the earth will respond to the grain,
the new wine and the olive oil,
and they will respond to Jezreel.[h]
23 I will plant her for myself in the land;
I will show my love to the one I called ‘Not my loved one.[i]’
I will say to those called ‘Not my people,[j]’ ‘You are my people’;
and they will say, ‘You are my God.’”
Introduction
Approximately half a life-time would pass between the death of Jeroboam II and the Assyrian invasion that would spell the end of the northern kingdom. Hosea, then, probably reached adulthood soon before the death of that king. He was sensitive enough to know what was going on among the people. Little could he imagine, however, that he would be called upon to be the prophet of graphic introspection. Hosea would be called upon to do things for the purpose of spiritual introspection for the nation.
Because they [would be] unfaithful brides, Hosea would be called upon to wed a woman of harlotry. Because God’s spiritual children were being directed to the gods of the nations, the prophet’s children, at least the children of the prophet’s wife, would be given names by which Hosea would call them, that proved that they were not his children. Because the nation had chased off after other lovers, Hosea would stand by helplessly as his wife left him to return to his lovers of the past. It would be commonly accepted knowledge the wife of the prophet was unfaithful to him and publicly flaunted it.
Finally, because God was in the business of bringing His people to repentance, and because He would willingly receive them back to Himself again, the prophet would willingly open his life again to this woman without virtue who comes back to him only when she has nowhere else to go. And Hosea would do it all gladly, so that the people would understand the love of God.
I. Hosea’s Marriage: The Symbol of Crisis, Chapters 1-3.
Hosea’s character is questioned. Gomer was his chosen bride. Her harlotry could have preceded. It could have followed her marriage.
The children of the union [were] Jezreel (“God shall sow”), Lo-ruhamah (“not loved” [or] “no mercy”), and Loammi (“not my people”).
The names of the two children are called back to our attention in chapter 2. “Say to your brothers, ‘My people’; to your sisters, ‘Objects of my mercy.’” 2:22f, “The fruit of the earth shall answer for Jezreel. Israel shall be my new sowing in the land, and I will show love to Lo-ruhamah, and say to Loammi, ‘You are my people,’ and he will say, ‘Thou art my God’” (NEB). And in 14:3, “Neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, ‘Ye are our gods’; for in Thee the fatherless find mercy.”
No way this could be an allegory. Certainly much can be made of the symbolic names. No symbolism in using "Gomer.” A prophet was chosen in whose life and experience the sin of the nation could be revealed.
Dealing with sin realistically: Gomer has sinned and she must pay. The nation likewise. Only after proper restitution is paid will restoration be made. The offended party goes in search of the offending one. Love finds a way.
Jeremiah 3 has an interesting parallel.
II. Israel’s Sin—The Indictment of Evidence, Chapters 4-7.
Hosea 4:1, The Lord has a controversy with the people of the land because there is no truth, mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. Religious leaders—“Like people, like priest” (4:9). Princes—“Give ear, O house of the king” (5:1). People—“They sacrifice on the top of the mountains, and make offerings upon the hills, under oak, poplar, and terebinth because their shade is good” (4:13). Their foreign policy—“Ephraim is like a silly dove. . . . They call to Egypt, they go to Assyria” (7:11).
II Kings 15:19, Menahem; 17:1, Hoshea; 18:13-15, kings of Judah (Hezekiah).
III. Israel’s Punishment—The Judgment of Compromise, Chapters 8-10.
The judgment upon Samaria’s false religion, Hosea 8:6. The calf of Samaria shall be broken in pieces. Jeroboam I had arranged to keep them away from the temple.
Judgment upon their lifestyle, Hosea 9:6. Nettles shall possess their precious things of silver; thorns shall be in their tents. Hosea 10:1, Israel is a luxuriant (empty) vine that yields its fruit. The more his fruit increased, the more altars he built.
IV. Israel’s Restoration—The Yearning of Covenant Love, Chapters 11-14.
The love of the father for his child. Hosea 11:1, When Israel was a child, I loved him.
Love of the husband for his wife. Hosea 11:4, How shall I give thee up?
Love of the parent in the regret of necessary punishment. Hosea 12:9, I that am the Lord thy God from the Land of Egypt will yet make thee to dwell in tabernacles.
It is the Love of One who has chanced all on the outcome of love and has won. Hosea 14:8, Ephraim shall say, what have I to do any more with idols? I have heard him and observed him: I am like a green fir tree, from me is thy fruit found.
AS THE HEBREW WORLD TURNED
#681 AS THE HEBREW WORLD TURNED
Scripture Hosea
Recapitulation, 10/19/1977
Introduction
With the coming of Hosea upon the scene, we approach the end of an era. It was pointed out last week that Hosea would be the last prophet to the people of the Northern Kingdom, called Israel or Samaria (the capital). Before we conclude the history of the prophets as related to the ten northern tribes, an overview of the contemporary scene is in order. We need to understand, before Israel is phased out, what was happening in the world of the Hebrew complex.
Our study will move into a neutral gear at this point: The contemporary Hebrew complex tonight; the prophet Hosea next Wednesday, the Lord willing; and a review of the structure as related to the prophets the week after that. We may well be taking a break at that point. Wednesday nights during November and December have a preliminary priority. There will be an extra business night, a mission emphasis, Thanksgiving, some Christmas music, etc. We will probably continue after the first of the year, and Isaiah will be our first subject. I will be happy to have the extra time to capsulize such a prophet as he.
Let me encourage you to read ahead. Hosea for next Wednesday. (Pass out outlines.) Start Isaiah for completion in December. If the interest is sustained, we will continue with the other eleven prophets.
I. The Political Scene: From Stability to Chaos.
Following the great years of the united kingdoms under David and Solomon, came division, 922BC. Next, a century and a half of deterioration. In 786BC, Jeroboam II became Israel’s king. 783BC, Uzziah became Judah’s king. These two men would reverse the trend.
It was a time of peace and prosperity. No foreign nation strong enough. The only warfare of the period was Israel and Judah in expansion rumblings. Prosperous trade agreements. Forward reaching agricultural progress. 2 Chronicles 26:10 Uzziah—towers, wells. Amos “winter and summer house.” External peace and prosperity overshadowed internal spiritual sickness.
It would do the Western nations much good to consider their own plight. Amos: For 3 transgressions and for 4. Amos 3:2, You only have I known, therefore I will punish you.
Hosea 4-7, Israel’s sin. 4:1, Hear the Word of the Lord ye children of Israel: for the Lord hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land.
II. A Pinpoint of Political Upheaval.
You can mark down the year, 746BC. As long as even the corrupt Jeroboam lived, there was stability. In twenty-six years—six kings total, unrelated—most assassinated. Each with his own foreign policy (Hosea 5:13 / 7:11 / 12:1). Religious inequities undermined (Hosea 4 / 8:13 / 13:1-3).
But don’t overlook what happened outside. 745BC Tiglath-Pileser III (Pul) seized the Assyrian throne. Within two years he was secure and ready to conquer the world. Pact between Syria-Rezin and Israel-Pekah (2 Kings 15:29-16:10 / 2 Chronicles 28 / Isaiah 7). Ahaz-Judah appeals to Tiglath-Pileser. Assyrian record indicates Hoshea who was assassin.
Pekah was in fact appointed by Tiglath-Pileser. He was a proper vassal king until Tiglath-Pileser’s death. He tried to pull away (II Kings 17:1f).
Shalmaneser summoned and imprisoned Hoshea and marched on Samaria [in] 724BC. Late in 722BC, Samaria fell. Records indicate 27,290 leaders [were] deported. Captives from Babylon, Hamath came in. Hosea 5:7 [shows] dealt treacherously.
Conclusion
The circumstances of these years caused the prophets to wear heavily the judgment of God. Moral corruption, social injustice, religious ritualism demand the prophetic message. Israel’s sin is intolerable—God is Holy. Israel’s sin shall be punished—God is just. Israel shall be restored—God is Love.
The ten tribes will be definitive no more. The Northern Kingdom will cease. The remnant will survive.
· Amos 3:12, “As a shepherd rescues from the lion’s [mouth only two leg bones or a piece of an ear, so will the Israelites living in Samaria be rescued].”
· Hosea 13:8, “Devour like a lion.”
· Hosea 14:4, “I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely: for mine anger is turned away from him.”
· Hosea 14:7, “They that dwell under his shadow shall return.”—God, Messiah, but probably is a reference to the kingdom promise of covenant. The repentant of any age and clime and circumstance can believe that God will restore the penitent.
THE PROPHECY OF HOSEA
#572 THE PROPHECY OF HOSEA
Scripture Hosea 1:2-5, NIV
Orig. 8/22/1971; Rewr. 6/21/1989
Passage: 2 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.” 3 So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.
4 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. 5 In that day I will break Israel’s bow in the Valley of Jezreel.”
Purpose: Continuing a Prayer Meeting study in the Old Testament prophets, here examining background material as it relates to a prophet and his call.
Keywords: Bible Study Love of God Judgment Unfaithfulness Restoration
Timeline/Series: Sequential
Introduction
Though Hosea appears first among the minor prophets, called the “twelve,” chronologically, he does not appear until after Joel, Jonah, and Amos have already appeared. They were more or less contemporary, called the “Eighth Century prophets.”
Joel prophesied to the people of the Southern Kingdom. Jonah was sent from the Southern Kingdom to address the sins of an up-and-coming power that would confront the Northern Kingdom. Amos went up from the Southern Kingdom to proclaim God’s word to the people in Samaria.
Hosea only of the prophets was native to the Northern Kingdom. He joins Amos as the only other who would prophesy to the people of the Northern Kingdom—Israel or Samaria.
You, perhaps, are aware that his name means “Yahweh delivers,” and as such is identical with the name “Joshua.”
What is unique about Hosea is not so much his message as his method. He was chosen, out of a context of marital infidelity, to be an example to the people of their unfaithfulness to God. When he lived is no problem. He, himself, describes the time (V1). He is mentioned only here. His father is mentioned nowhere else. Some describe him to be the fruit of some other prophet’s imagination. He is merely an allegory put to use to make a point. Not so! It is the story of compromised love under the stress of the times.
We have described previously the time of Joel and Jonah and Amos. It was a time of material imbalance. The rich grew richer. The poor, poorer. God’s word must touch the lives of all of them.
I. Examining the Prophecy in Profile. V1, “The word of the Lord that came unto Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam, son of Joash.”
There were no more than fifty years between the death of Jeroboam and the Assyrian invasion. Hezekiah was on the throne in Judah. A kind of renewal was taking place. But in the north, debauchery was everywhere.
George Adam Smith, “It is not only as in Amos, the sins of the luxurious, of them that are at ease in Zion, which are exposed; but literal bloodshed, highway robbery/murder, abetted by the priests . . . . Israel’s self-reliance is gone. She is as fluttered as a startled bird; ‘They call to Egypt, they go to Assyria,’ (Hosea 7:11). But everything is hopeless. Kings cannot save. For Ephraim is seized in the pangs of a fatal crisis.”
One named Jehu had been the instrument of judgment upon the earlier sins of Israel. Jehu’s sons to the fourth generation were to come to the throne. II Kings 10:30; II Kings 15:12: “And so it came to pass.” Jehoahaz (17), Jehoash (16), Jeroboam II (4), and Zechariah (6 mo.) From the time of Jeroboam II, a grim picture comes into view. Of Jehu and his descendants evil “departed not from the sins of Jeroboam.” II Kings 10:31, 13:2, 13:11, 14:24, 15:9 (6 mo.) The rest of the story is one of assassination. Zechariah (6mo), Shallum (1mo), Manahem (10 y died), Pekahiah (2y), Pekah (20y), Hoshea (9y captivity).
“Things were even worse morally and spiritually than they were politically. Ever since the days of the first Jeroboam, when the ten tribes had disrupted from the house of David to form a separate kingdom, the worship of the golden calf at Bethel had been a snare to Israel. Although the Bethel calf was supposed at first to represent Jehovah, yet more and more the idol itself became the object of worship. . . . Thus the way was paved for the coarse, cruel nature-worship associated with the names of Baal and Ashteroth, with all the attendant abominations of child sacrifice and revolting licentiousness.”
II. Hosea’s Marriage Became the Symbol of the Crisis. V2, “Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms.”
Thus is established the insensibility of sin. Hosea is pictured as from a faithful remnant of spiritual people. He chooses a woman named Gomer as wife. He is directed to take a prostitute for a wife.
Zanah—fornicate, apostatize; or, he is told to take a woman out of such a culture.
Eretz—land (with its inhabitants).
He chooses one with a propensity to moral failure. Some thus call it an allegory. The marriage produces three children: Jezreel—“God sows”; Lo-ruhamah—“not loved” (uncertain); Loammi—“not my people” (no doubt).
God will assess their sin and punish it: They will respond as a people not loved (Proverbs 13:24); separated from God they become foreigners. But the heart of God is revealed here and the intent of the book. V6, “I will have mercy, . . . I will take them away.” V10, “In the place where it was said unto them, ye are not my people. . . .”
The guilt of sin at every age is going to be measured and manifested. Gomer was guilty as charged. She pays. Her sin is like the sin of the nation. They, too, must pay for their sin. Once restitution has been made, restoration is in order. Hosea 2:23, “And I will say to them which were not my people, ‘Thou art my people’; and they shall say, ‘Thou art my God.’”
The supreme criterion of relationship is love. Gomer accepts Hosea’s proposal. For a time the marriage is wholesome, v3. In boredom she seeks other pursuits, 2:5. Hosea seeks her out and redeems her from so-called friends who enslaved her. He seeks to do, not as the law allows, but as love demands. Jeremiah 3:1, “. . . ‘Thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to me,’ saith the Lord.”
III. Israel’s Sin: The Indictment of Circumstance. Hosea 4:1, “Hear the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel: for the Lord hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land.”
It is with the nation. Four of last five commandments (4:2). The land will be affected by this human distraction (4:3).
It is with the religious leaders: striving between people/priest (4:4); priests have forgotten the law; prophets “fall” used both figuratively and in relation to their roles; people/priests (4:9) instead of strengthening are enticing to ruin. Hosea 5:1, “. . . and my people love to have it so.”
There is a mediating word to Judah (Hosea 4;15). Be different in worship (v15). Be different in obedience (v16).
Stopped at Animal Land near Dallas. Children’s zoo revealed a pesky goat trying to feed anywhere, whatever. A lamb nearby waiting docilely to be fed.
The next chapter reveals that Judah will not heed this warning (Hosea 5:5).
They have therefore sinned and are marked for judgment. God waits for sincere repentance (Hosea 5:15). He is not moved by their insincerity. Hosea 6:4, “goodness as a morning cloud”; 6:6, “I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.” Three things in Israel that God hates: Compromise (7:7,8a), limited development (7:8b), unconscious decay (7:9).
IV. Israel’s Punishment: The Judgment of Compromise. Hosea 8:4-10, “They have set up kings,, but not by me. They have made princes, and I knew it not: . . . they have made them idols. . . . Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast thee off. . . .”
There is judgment on compromise in political life. Hosea 8:4, “They have set up kings, but not by me; they have made princes, and I knew it not. We will do well to remember that we do not surprise God. The sense of “knew it not” is that God had not been sought for direction.
There was judgment on compromise in religious life. 8:5, “Thy calf, O Samaria.” 8:11, “Ephraim hath made many altars to sin.” 8:12, “I have written to him the great things of my law, but they were counted as a strange thing.”
There was judgment on compromise in economic betterment. 8:14, “Judah hath multiplied fenced cities: but I shall send a fire . . . and it shall devour the palaces thereof.” 9:2, “The floor and the winepress shall not feed them, and the new wine shall fail in her.”
There was judgment on compromise in family life. 9:12, “Though they bring up their children yet I will bereave them.” 9:16, “Though they bring forth, yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of their womb.”
V. Israel’s Restoration: The Yearning of Covenant Love.
It is the passionate love of a true father for the child. Hosea 11:1, “When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt.” Same word “love” used by God of Abraham for Isaac (Genesis 22:2). The weight of spiritual/moral things should be pressed upon parents. Getting them involved in drug alert.
More, it is the burning love of a husband for his wife. See 11:7-12 picture of betrayal and rebellion. 11:8, “How shall I give up, Ephraim?” Isaiah 62:4,5, portrays this idea. The pastor is allowed to look in on great love affairs.
It is the love of a parent in the deep regret of some necessary punishment. This is going to hurt me more than you. Tough love. Hosea 12:9, “And I that am the Lord thy God from the land of Egypt will yet make thee to dwell in tabernacles.”
It is the love of one who has chanced all on the outcome of love. 14:8, “Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols? I have heard him, and observed him: I am like a green fir tree: from me is thy fruit found.”
Isaiah 58:11, “And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden.”
Links and References
Smith https://www.britannica.com/biography/George-Adam-Smith
#572 THE PROPHECY OF ISAIAH
Scripture Hosea 1:2-5, NIV
Orig. 8/22/1971; Rewr. 6/21/1989
Passage: 2 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.” 3 So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.
4 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. 5 In that day I will break Israel’s bow in the Valley of Jezreel.”
Purpose: Continuing a Prayer Meeting study in the Old Testament prophets, here examining background material as it relates to a prophet and his call.
Keywords: Bible Study Love of God Judgment Unfaithfulness Restoration
Timeline/Series: Sequential
Introduction
Though Hosea appears first among the minor prophets, called the “twelve,” chronologically, he does not appear until after Joel, Jonah, and Amos have already appeared. They were more or less contemporary, called the “Eighth Century prophets.”
Joel prophesied to the people of the Southern Kingdom. Jonah was sent from the Southern Kingdom to address the sins of an up-and-coming power that would confront the Northern Kingdom. Amos went up from the Southern Kingdom to proclaim God’s word to the people in Samaria.
Hosea only of the prophets was native to the Northern Kingdom. He joins Amos as the only other who would prophesy to the people of the Northern Kingdom—Israel or Samaria.
You, perhaps, are aware that his name means “Yahweh delivers,” and as such is identical with the name “Joshua.”
What is unique about Hosea is not so much his message as his method. He was chosen, out of a context of marital infidelity, to be an example to the people of their unfaithfulness to God. When he lived is no problem. He, himself, describes the time (V1). He is mentioned only here. His father is mentioned nowhere else. Some describe him to be the fruit of some other prophet’s imagination. He is merely an allegory put to use to make a point. Not so! It is the story of compromised love under the stress of the times.
We have described previously the time of Joel and Jonah and Amos. It was a time of material imbalance. The rich grew richer. The poor, poorer. God’s word must touch the lives of all of them.
I. Examining the Prophecy in Profile. V1, “The word of the Lord that came unto Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam, son of Joash.”
There were no more than fifty years between the death of Jeroboam and the Assyrian invasion. Hezekiah was on the throne in Judah. A kind of renewal was taking place. But in the north, debauchery was everywhere.
George Adam Smith, “It is not only as in Amos, the sins of the luxurious, of them that are at ease in Zion, which are exposed; but literal bloodshed, highway robbery/murder, abetted by the priests . . . . Israel’s self-reliance is gone. She is as fluttered as a startled bird; ‘They call to Egypt, they go to Assyria,’ (Hosea 7:11). But everything is hopeless. Kings cannot save. For Ephraim is seized in the pangs of a fatal crisis.”
One named Jehu had been the instrument of judgment upon the earlier sins of Israel. Jehu’s sons to the fourth generation were to come to the throne. II Kings 10:30; II Kings 15:12: “And so it came to pass.” Jehoahaz (17), Jehoash (16), Jeroboam II (4), and Zechariah (6 mo.) From the time of Jeroboam II, a grim picture comes into view. Of Jehu and his descendants evil “departed not from the sins of Jeroboam.” II Kings 10:31, 13:2, 13:11, 14:24, 15:9 (6 mo.) The rest of the story is one of assassination. Zechariah (6mo), Shallum (1mo), Manahem (10 y died), Pekahiah (2y), Pekah (20y), Hoshea (9y captivity).
“Things were even worse morally and spiritually than they were politically. Ever since the days of the first Jeroboam, when the ten tribes had disrupted from the house of David to form a separate kingdom, the worship of the golden calf at Bethel had been a snare to Israel. Although the Bethel calf was supposed at first to represent Jehovah, yet more and more the idol itself became the object of worship. . . . Thus the way was paved for the coarse, cruel nature-worship associated with the names of Baal and Ashteroth, with all the attendant abominations of child sacrifice and revolting licentiousness.”
II. Hosea’s Marriage Became the Symbol of the Crisis. V2, “Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms.”
Thus is established the insensibility of sin. Hosea is pictured as from a faithful remnant of spiritual people. He chooses a woman named Gomer as wife. He is directed to take a prostitute for a wife.
Zanah—fornicate, apostatize; or, he is told to take a woman out of such a culture.
Eretz—land (with its inhabitants).
He chooses one with a propensity to moral failure. Some thus call it an allegory. The marriage produces three children: Jezreel—“God sows”; Lo-ruhamah—“not loved” (uncertain); Loammi—“not my people” (no doubt).
God will assess their sin and punish it: They will respond as a people not loved (Proverbs 13:24); separated from God they become foreigners. But the heart of God is revealed here and the intent of the book. V6, “I will have mercy, . . . I will take them away.” V10, “In the place where it was said unto them, ye are not my people. . . .”
The guilt of sin at every age is going to be measured and manifested. Gomer was guilty as charged. She pays. Her sin is like the sin of the nation. They, too, must pay for their sin. Once restitution has been made, restoration is in order. Hosea 2:23, “And I will say to them which were not my people, ‘Thou art my people’; and they shall say, ‘Thou art my God.’”
The supreme criterion of relationship is love. Gomer accepts Hosea’s proposal. For a time the marriage is wholesome, v3. In boredom she seeks other pursuits, 2:5. Hosea seeks her out and redeems her from so-called friends who enslaved her. He seeks to do, not as the law allows, but as love demands. Jeremiah 3:1, “. . . ‘Thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to me,’ saith the Lord.”
III. Israel’s Sin: The Indictment of Circumstance. Hosea 4:1, “Hear the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel: for the Lord hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land.”
It is with the nation. Four of last five commandments (4:2). The land will be affected by this human distraction (4:3).
It is with the religious leaders: striving between people/priest (4:4); priests have forgotten the law; prophets “fall” used both figuratively and in relation to their roles; people/priests (4:9) instead of strengthening are enticing to ruin. Hosea 5:1, “. . . and my people love to have it so.”
There is a mediating word to Judah (Hosea 4;15). Be different in worship (v15). Be different in obedience (v16).
Stopped at Animal Land near Dallas. Children’s zoo revealed a pesky goat trying to feed anywhere, whatever. A lamb nearby waiting docilely to be fed.
The next chapter reveals that Judah will not heed this warning (Hosea 5:5).
They have therefore sinned and are marked for judgment. God waits for sincere repentance (Hosea 5:15). He is not moved by their insincerity. Hosea 6:4, “goodness as a morning cloud”; 6:6, “I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.” Three things in Israel that God hates: Compromise (7:7,8a), limited development (7:8b), unconscious decay (7:9).
IV. Israel’s Punishment: The Judgment of Compromise. Hosea 8:4-10, “They have set up kings,, but not by me. They have made princes, and I knew it not: . . . they have made them idols. . . . Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast thee off. . . .”
There is judgment on compromise in political life. Hosea 8:4, “They have set up kings, but not by me; they have made princes, and I knew it not. We will do well to remember that we do not surprise God. The sense of “knew it not” is that God had not been sought for direction.
There was judgment on compromise in religious life. 8:5, “Thy calf, O Samaria.” 8:11, “Ephraim hath made many altars to sin.” 8:12, “I have written to him the great things of my law, but they were counted as a strange thing.”
There was judgment on compromise in economic betterment. 8:14, “Judah hath multiplied fenced cities: but I shall send a fire . . . and it shall devour the palaces thereof.” 9:2, “The floor and the winepress shall not feed them, and the new wine shall fail in her.”
There was judgment on compromise in family life. 9:12, “Though they bring up their children yet I will bereave them.” 9:16, “Though they bring forth, yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of their womb.”
V. Israel’s Restoration: The Yearning of Covenant Love.
It is the passionate love of a true father for the child. Hosea 11:1, “When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt.” Same word “love” used by God of Abraham for Isaac (Genesis 22:2). The weight of spiritual/moral things should be pressed upon parents. Getting them involved in drug alert.
More, it is the burning love of a husband for his wife. See 11:7-12 picture of betrayal and rebellion. 11:8, “How shall I give up, Ephraim?” Isaiah 62:4,5, portrays this idea. The pastor is allowed to look in on great love affairs.
It is the love of a parent in the deep regret of some necessary punishment. This is going to hurt me more than you. Tough love. Hosea 12:9, “And I that am the Lord thy God from the land of Egypt will yet make thee to dwell in tabernacles.”
It is the love of one who has chanced all on the outcome of love. 14:8, “Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols? I have heard him, and observed him: I am like a green fir tree: from me is thy fruit found.”
Isaiah 58:11, “And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden.”
Links and References
Smith https://www.britannica.com/biography/George-Adam-Smith
DISCOVERING GLADNESS
#329 DISCOVERING GLADNESS
Scripture Acts 16:14-15 Orig. 11/13/1966
Rewr. 10/1975, 3/22/1990
Passage: 14 One of those listening was a woman from the city of Thyatira named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth. She was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message. 15 When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home. “If you consider me a believer in the Lord,” she said, “come and stay at my house.” And she persuaded us.
Purpose: To share a biographical message of a woman’s search for gladness, and finding it in Christ.
Keywords: Biography, Lydia Joy Salvation Conversion
Revival
Introduction
Discoveries are not left to men and women of science and adventure. Everyone of us has had experiences with such sudden exposure in our lives. Some of our discoveries have left us with joy, others with apprehension.
I remember, as a child, awaking to discover that I had the measles. As a young soldier, in a military hospital, I went to bed thinking I would be released the next day. Awaking that morning, I discovered that I could not get my boots on. During the night a penicillin reaction had surfaced that left me as sick as I have ever been in my life.
My dad told of the discovery that as a twelve year old lad, his dad deserted him and my grandmother. As a seminary student, working in the aircraft industry, I went to work one Friday to discover that a pink slip awaited me. My job had been phased out. How many people have returned from some ordinary visit to their doctor with the discovery of some grievous malady such as cancer, or diabetes?
But all of the discoveries are not sad ones. Many in fact are glad ones. An acquaintance of many years becomes a trusted friend, and it’s a joyous discovery. The doctor tells us of some serious malady, but, he says, there is a cure. Gladness abounds. A letter or phone call gives the news that we are soon to be grandparents. Happiness unequivocal. Lydia tells us of her discovery, as it is told by another in song.
Mankind is searching ev'ry day In quest of something new,
But I have found the living way, The path of pleasures true.
I've found the pearl of greatest price, Eternal life so fair.
'Twas thro' the Saviour's sacrifice I found this jewel rare.
Chorus
I've discovered the way of gladness, I've discovered the way of joy.
I've discovered relief from sadness, 'Tis a happiness without alloy.
I've discovered the fount of blessing, I've discovered the living Word.
'Twas the greatest of all discoveries When I found Jesus my Lord.
I. Lydia Testifies to Us that She Was a Seeker for Gladness. V14, And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple of the city of Thyatira, which worshipped God, heard us. NEB Lydia—who was a worshipper of God, was listening, and the Lord opened her heart. The state of her mind and heart was in quest for truth. It is obvious that she already had wealth. She was unusual for that day, unusual in the sense that most women would never have the opportunity for assertiveness.
She was not seeking success. Some insist that she represented a firm in Thyatira, a city known for its purple dyes.
She was not seeking religion as such. Often she’d been at pagan altars. In cities such as Philippi with a Jewish element, she would join them. All the more remarkable in light of her business. Her relationship with these Jews was made the more profound by the fact that as a Gentile, she was not accepted as an equal. [The Jews] would tolerate her presence only. To the Greeks she was a silly woman who closed her profitable business to go to church. To Paul and other local Christians she was on object of God’s love and concern.
There are still people around who merely tolerate other people without concern for them as persons. There are still others with us, who, like these Greeks, put their merchandising ahead of everything else. They are creatures of materialistic habits, and not even religion, no, not even truth is to impede their habits.
There are some characteristics that mark her seeking with success:
· By recognizing that material goods don’t guarantee happiness (Terry Meeuwsen—former Miss America—gave her testimony at 1974 LBC; the perspective of her goal was clearly [stated], “As Miss Wisconsin, I was first runner-up to a roller skater”);
· By opening her mind and heart to the search for truth;
· By examining the options;
· By starting where she was—not left hopeless by the past, not overburdened by fear of the future. Someone has share a viable truth. “A religion that does nothing, that gives nothing, that costs nothing, that suffers nothing, is worth nothing.”
II. Lydia Found in Christ the Gladness for Which She Had Been Seeking. V14, Whose heart the Lord opened that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul. What she heard of Paul should be evident to us.
· That she was a sinner. The only preaching worth anything is that directed to human need. Romans 3:23, All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
· That sin separates from God. That people are created equal is just not true, that death is the only equalizer. Romans 6:23, The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
· That God loved her. Romans 5:8, But God commendeth His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
· That Jesus is the means through which all people may be saved. By the time Acts rolls around, the Christians were already being jailed for their faith. God uses the occasion of the jailing for proclamation. Acts 4:12, For there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby you must be saved. They took note of that these men had been with Jesus.
· That faith in Jesus is essential. Ephesians 2:8,9, By grace are ye saved through faith and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast.
· Finally, that we must openly confess Him as Lord. Romans 10:9-10, If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
Lydia did the only thing that a human being can do that will bring him into the arena of God’s saving grace. She threw off the oppressive burden of false truth, and half-truth. She voided the meaningless burden of human religious system. At the urging of the Holy Spirit, she opened her heart to the gospel.
III. What Lydia Found Would Affect the Whole Course of Her Life. V15, And when she was baptized and her household, she besought us saying, If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and abide there. And she constrained us.
· She accepted the challenge of the gospel: Belief in its truth, hope in its calling and anticipation.
· Her life was influenced by the things which she discovered: Being faithful as she understood faithfulness; being helpful as she interpreted need; being persuasive when she knew that her helpfulness to others was faithfulness to her Lord.
Closing
The daily newspaper told the story. It was datelined Ontario, Canada. A woman named Rose Crawford had been blind for fifty years. After delicate surgery and several days of impatient recovery the doctors removed the bandages. Those who were there tell the story. She wept for joy when for the first time in her life she could do what most of us take for granted. She could see. Her first words were “I can’t believe it.” Even in the sterile white of her hospital room she saw a dazzling world of form and beauty.
The profundity of her story, however, is that for the last twenty years of her blindness, it had all been unnecessary. The surgical technique had been used and her vision could have been restored at age thirty. She just assumed that there was nothing that could be done about her condition. How much of her life would otherwise have been different.
MISSIONS—ENTERTAINMENT OR ENLISTMENT
#441 MISSIONS—ENTERTAINMENT OR ENLISTMENT
Scripture Acts 13:1-13 Orig. 2/2/1964
Rewr. 11/1969, 12/3/1976
Passage: 1 Now in the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul. 2 While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” 3 So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.
On Cyprus
4 The two of them, sent on their way by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia and sailed from there to Cyprus. 5 When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the Jewish synagogues. John was with them as their helper. 6 They traveled through the whole island until they came to Paphos. There they met a Jewish sorcerer and false prophet named Bar-Jesus, 7 who was an attendant of the proconsul, Sergius Paulus. The proconsul, an intelligent man, sent for Barnabas and Saul because he wanted to hear the word of God. 8 But Elymas the sorcerer (for that is what his name means) opposed them and tried to turn the proconsul from the faith. 9 Then Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked straight at Elymas and said, 10 “You are a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right! You are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery. Will you never stop perverting the right ways of the Lord? 11 Now the hand of the Lord is against you. You are going to be blind for a time, not even able to see the light of the sun.” Immediately mist and darkness came over him, and he groped about, seeking someone to lead him by the hand. 12 When the proconsul saw what had happened, he believed, for he was amazed at the teaching about the Lord.
In Pisidian Antioch
13 From Paphos, Paul and his companions sailed to Perga in Pamphylia, where John left them to return to Jerusalem.
Keywords: Biography Missions
Introduction
Every person who ever spent any time at all around Hattiesburg, Mississippi, is familiar with the name, William Carey1. You know that there is a Baptist College there, which bears that name. Do you know who William Carey was? He was not a Mississippi Baptist leader and patron of education. In fact, if memory serves me well, he was never even a visitor to the state.
William Carey was an Englishman who carries the distinction of being the man whom God used to give a resurgence to the mission movement. The diary of an English Baptist pastor contains this entry dated October 5, 1783. “This day baptized a poor journeyman shoemaker.” The poor cobbler who was baptized by John Ryland that day was William Carey.
Four years later, this poor shoemaker was called, without the benefit of any formal education, to pastor a church in the same association with Dr. Ryland. By keeping a book at his cobbler’s bench, in seven years, he taught himself to read in five languages. Through his own untiring efforts, he qualified himself to teach.
William Carey began to identify with some of these people whose languages he had learned to speak. He began to realize that the Christian community had a responsibility to share the message of God’s love with people who had never heard. He saw how favored the English people had been, and that that privilege demanded responsibility. He was convicted of the English zeal for foreign trade-goods. If Englishmen would make such sacrifice as to travel half way around the world for economic reasons, he must likewise be willing to go for spiritual reasons.
It was a new concept, and Baptists never have been too quick with new ideas, Biblical or otherwise. Carey was invited to preach to the gathered association in Nottingham. When he declared what was most on his heart, it was this same Dr. John Ryland who spoke out abruptly to him. “Sit down, young man. When the Lord gets ready to convert the heathen, he will do it without your help or mine.”
For John Ryland, missions was entertainment for the mind. For William Carey, it was enlistment of one’s life.
I. The Separation of Missions Demands Enlistment. V2, Separate me Barnabas and Paul for the work whereunto I have called them. The history of God’s work in the lives of His people has been the history of separation. The Greek word found here is the word from which our “horizon” comes. There are boundaries in which the believer will find God’s promises operable. We are no less His children outside of the limits of His will. It just stands to reason that His resources are dedicated to His will. If we are not within the “limits” of God’s will, then His resource may be working against us.
There is ample Biblical evidence of God’s meaning for a separated people. In references to the Hebrew people through Moses in Exodus 19:5,6, If you obey me . . . you will be a kingdom of priests to God, a holy nation. When the times came that the nation would not listen to this prerequisite for fellowship, He singled out men, and on occasion, women. Isaiah 6, “The call came to Isaiah, ‘Whom can I send, and who will go for me?’” Back came Isaiah’s ready response, “Here am I, send me!” But this response of faith came after God’s fire had touched man’s sin, and he was pronounced “Not guilty!” v7.
The all-encompassing characteristic in God’s separated people was a willingness for separation. Phillip (Acts 8) was a New Testament example of this separation. Go over to the road that runs through the Gaza desert. So he did. Go over to the chariot. And he did. . . .
There is a mentality for separation to consider. Abram was called from Ur to Palestine. He was no longer Chaldean, but Palestinian. Israel was called out of Egypt into promised land. He was no longer slave but free. Jesus was chosen to give up his glory above to take up bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. The same capitulation to the will of God is our need today. The church staff member is separated from the place where he was to the place where he is. So the individual Christian, when his eyes open on a place even so strange as New Orleans, he is separated in the will of God to that place, so long as he remains there.
II. The Sending Forth of Missions Demands Enlistment. This sending forth is the natural succession to separation. What God separates, it becomes His purpose to use, whether for little or much. At Nottingham in 1792, a resolution was passed at William Carey’s insistence, and with Andrew Fuller’s influence, that led to an establishment of a missionary society. Their first offering amounted to 13 pounds, two shillings, six pence. About $40. But within a year, Carey and a Baptist surgeon were on their way to India. And what God uses, will bless other people and single them out for the work of separation. Within 20 years, the ladies would organize into the Female Mite Society formed “for the purpose of combining feeble efforts and humble prayers for the spread of the gospel.”
What we see of the work of God today is no different. When the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering was instituted, it was to direct meager portions of butter and egg money to the cause of Christ in China. This year the goal of our WMU is: SBC, $29,000,000; LBC, $1,000,000; Riverside, $2,000.
The sending forth is enlistment in mission for support groups also. At the forefront of all this is the promised support of the Holy Spirit. It is noteworthy that missions was born in Antioch, and not in Jerusalem as the church had been. In Antioch where they were called Christians. In Antioch where they fasted and prayed. In Antioch where there were willing spirits under the control of Holy Spirit. The church in Jerusalem during this period was trying to survive. There was also the support of believers in prayer/if you have $5 to send or 5 minutes to pray, pray! There remains the need to support financially.
A pastor sent a tongue-in-cheek letter to his flock a few weeks ago. Offerings had tapered off dangerously. It had become apparent, he wrote, that their church would not benefit after all from the Howard Hughes will. They had looked high and low, and no copy had turned up in their files or anywhere on church property. He ended the letter: “I guess it’s back to the old plan of tithes and offerings for the support of God’s work. . . . Just remember, brethren, our giving is to be weekly, not weakly.”
III. The Service of Missions Demands Enlistment. V7, . . . The deputy of the country, Sergius Paulus, a prudent man, who called for Barnabas and Saul, and desired to hear the Word of God. It was the word that brought peace with God to Sergius. It is this message that God has Himself given to His church in these latter days. Matthew 22:9, Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as ye find, bid to the marriage. Romans 9:24-26, As he saith also in Hosea, I will call them my people which were not my people; and my beloved, which was not beloved. There shall they be called the children of God.
It is a message of which we are constantly reminded there is a terminal point. Matthew 24:14, And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all of the world; and then shall the end come: Terminated at the end of the age; terminated at the death of the unbeliever; terminated at severance of the Holy Spirit’s [involvement]; terminated at the cessation of Christian witness.
It was, however, the same word that brought the judgement of despair to Elymas, the sorcerer. It was a temporal judgement as viewed here. We preclude a larger, more engulfing judgement. Jesus reminds us, Matthew 24:5, For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. People will be deluded by false claims of salvation. V8, Elymas . . . withstood them, seeking to turn away the deputy from faith. While we are eager to see our church reach and surpass a coveted and worthwhile goal, there is the greater goal this Christmas season of a people enlisted in the cause of Christ for the accomplishment of missions.
Links/References
Carey: https://www.bu.edu/missiology/missionary-biography/c-d/carey-william-1761-1834/
1Smith, G. (2009). Life of William Carey, Public Domain Books
STUDIES IN ACTS
#789 STUDIES IN ACTS
Scripture Acts 13 Orig. 3/31/1982
Passage: 1 Now in the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul. 2 While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” 3 So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.
On Cyprus
4 The two of them, sent on their way by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia and sailed from there to Cyprus. 5 When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the Jewish synagogues. John was with them as their helper. 6 They traveled through the whole island until they came to Paphos. There they met a Jewish sorcerer and false prophet named Bar-Jesus, 7 who was an attendant of the proconsul, Sergius Paulus. The proconsul, an intelligent man, sent for Barnabas and Saul because he wanted to hear the word of God. 8 But Elymas the sorcerer (for that is what his name means) opposed them and tried to turn the proconsul from the faith. 9 Then Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked straight at Elymas and said, 10 “You are a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right! You are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery. Will you never stop perverting the right ways of the Lord? 11 Now the hand of the Lord is against you. You are going to be blind for a time, not even able to see the light of the sun.” Immediately mist and darkness came over him, and he groped about, seeking someone to lead him by the hand. 12 When the proconsul saw what had happened, he believed, for he was amazed at the teaching about the Lord.
In Pisidian Antioch
13 From Paphos, Paul and his companions sailed to Perga in Pamphylia, where John left them to return to Jerusalem. 14 From Perga they went on to Pisidian Antioch. On the Sabbath they entered the synagogue and sat down. 15 After the reading from the Law and the Prophets, the leaders of the synagogue sent word to them, saying, “Brothers, if you have a word of exhortation for the people, please speak.” 16 Standing up, Paul motioned with his hand and said: “Fellow Israelites and you Gentiles who worship God, listen to me! 17 The God of the people of Israel chose our ancestors; he made the people prosper during their stay in Egypt; with mighty power he led them out of that country; 18 for about forty years he endured their conduct[a] in the wilderness; 19 and he overthrew seven nations in Canaan, giving their land to his people as their inheritance. 20 All this took about 450 years.
“After this, God gave them judges until the time of Samuel the prophet. 21 Then the people asked for a king, and he gave them Saul son of Kish, of the tribe of Benjamin, who ruled forty years. 22 After removing Saul, he made David their king. God testified concerning him: ‘I have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.’
23 “From this man’s descendants God has brought to Israel the Savior Jesus, as he promised. 24 Before the coming of Jesus, John preached repentance and baptism to all the people of Israel. 25 As John was completing his work, he said: ‘Who do you suppose I am? I am not the one you are looking for. But there is one coming after me whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.’
26 “Fellow children of Abraham and you God-fearing Gentiles, it is to us that this message of salvation has been sent. 27 The people of Jerusalem and their rulers did not recognize Jesus, yet in condemning him they fulfilled the words of the prophets that are read every Sabbath. 28 Though they found no proper ground for a death sentence, they asked Pilate to have him executed. 29 When they had carried out all that was written about him, they took him down from the cross and laid him in a tomb. 30 But God raised him from the dead, 31 and for many days he was seen by those who had traveled with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. They are now his witnesses to our people.
32 “We tell you the good news: What God promised our ancestors 33 he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus. As it is written in the second Psalm:
“‘You are my son;
today I have become your father.’[b]
34 God raised him from the dead so that he will never be subject to decay. As God has said,
“‘I will give you the holy and sure blessings promised to David.’[c]
35 So it is also stated elsewhere:
“‘You will not let your holy one see decay.’[d]
36 “Now when David had served God’s purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep; he was buried with his ancestors and his body decayed. 37 But the one whom God raised from the dead did not see decay.
38 “Therefore, my friends, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. 39 Through him everyone who believes is set free from every sin, a justification you were not able to obtain under the law of Moses. 40 Take care that what the prophets have said does not happen to you:
41 “‘Look, you scoffers,
wonder and perish,
for I am going to do something in your days
that you would never believe,
even if someone told you.’[e]”
42 As Paul and Barnabas were leaving the synagogue, the people invited them to speak further about these things on the next Sabbath. 43 When the congregation was dismissed, many of the Jews and devout converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas, who talked with them and urged them to continue in the grace of God.
44 On the next Sabbath almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord. 45 When the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy. They began to contradict what Paul was saying and heaped abuse on him.
46 Then Paul and Barnabas answered them boldly: “We had to speak the word of God to you first. Since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles. 47 For this is what the Lord has commanded us:
“‘I have made you[f] a light for the Gentiles,
that you[g] may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’[h]”
48 When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and honored the word of the Lord; and all who were appointed for eternal life believed.
49 The word of the Lord spread through the whole region. 50 But the Jewish leaders incited the God-fearing women of high standing and the leading men of the city. They stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them from their region. 51 So they shook the dust off their feet as a warning to them and went to Iconium. 52 And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.
Acts 11:19, Scattered . . . went preaching . . . as far as Antioch . . . to Jews only.
Acts 11:20, . . . Some . . . come to Antioch, spake unto Grecians
(1) Pioneered breaking down barriers of Jews and Greeks
11:27f, determined to send relief to brethren in Judea
(2) Pioneered relief to other believers
13:1, . . . In the church . . . at Antioch (leaders) . . . when they had fasted and prayed, . . . sent them away
(3) Pioneered the organized display of the Gospel to people who had never heard
Antioch—15 miles east of Mediterranean on frontier. Military outpost. Seat of Roman justice.
The leaders v1—Barnabas, a Jew from Cyprus; Simeon Niger (an African name) (Simon of Cyrene); Lucius from Cyrene (N. Africa), but a Greek name; Manaen, a foster brother of Herod ([killed] John the Baptist); note two reared together could follow such diverse paths in their lives; Saul, a Jewish rabbi.
Officers
Prophets: foretellers and forthtellers
Teachers: people gifted in instruction
Appointed officers have been the rule
Acts 1:15-26, “the twelve”
Acts 6:1-6, “the seven” (Nicholas of Antioch)
Acts 11:30, “elders”
God works through His church
They ministered: an act of service
They fasted: an act of devotion
In their unit of spirit God spoke through a growing awareness
(1) The call was for specific people (the ministering and fasting were not).
(2) The call was to a certain “work”—any enterprise.
(3) Then their fasting and praying becomes directly related to the task at hand.
A world providentially prepared
Travel was easier
A measure of safety
By water or by land
The first missionary journey (at least for Saul and Barnabas)
V4, Seleucia—point of departure (Antioch port); Cyprus—Barnabas’ home
V5, Salamis (Cyrus) went first to the synagogues; 9:20, And straightaway he preached Christ in synagogues.
They had John Mark to help with the work.
V6, Paphos (Cyprus)—capital city—a sensuous ad superstitious city/Bar-Jesus false prophet. Sergius Paulus—proconsul—heard of these Christian spokesmen and requested an audience. Bar-Jesus was Satan’s tool of confusion.
V9, Saul is given a Roman name—calls upon the power of God to blind him temporarily as a sign
V12, Sergius Paulus believes ???????????
V13, Perga in Pamphylia—John Mark leaves (Why?); Paul and his company (compare 13:2,7)
V14, Entered province of Galatia (see 4:13); Jewish service: 1-Law, 2-prophet, 3-Midrash (notable person)
V13, John Mark leaves—(?) 15:38, Paul thought it not good to take . . . went not with them. II Timothy 4:11, Take Mark . . . he is profitable.
V14-16, Invited to preach in synagogue in Antioch in Pisidia/Jews and God-fearers
V17-23, The coming of Jesus is the consummation of history; v17 God chose the Hebrews, v20 Judges, v21 Saul, v22 David, v23 all of this for one reason—Jesus
V24-29, Contemporary man is no better than historical man; v24 John—baptism of repentance, v26 Jews and God-fearers, v27 ignored the evidence/read every Sabbath, v28 without sin/they demanded he be slain, v29 buried
V30-31, The loving and redemptive purpose of God could not be changed by man’s inconstancies; v30 resurrection the work of God, v31 witnesses (Romans 1:16)
V32-29, The good news is that grace that keeps man has replaced a law that man could not keep; v32 glad tidings, v39 Paul a Pharisee intent on keeping law
V40-41, That which is a gift of love to those who claim it, is condemnation to those who refuse
V42-45, Various responses: (1) were invited to return; (2) the whole city turned out; (3) the Jews decided to stop the show
V46, An unexpected decision: (1) no mention of the Holy Spirit; (2) a recollection from the word—Isaiah 49:6, I will give thee for a light to the Gentiles, v47; (3) it is not within the purpose of the church to plan success, it is within our purpose to be faithful—(a) don’t fret over success, (b) don’t apologize for failure, (c) in what measure we give, we shall get; (4) the Jews saw the heathen as chaff to be burned—Jesus saw them as a harvest to be reaped.
V52, The convert and the Holy Spirit: they are filled immediately and fully with the Holy Spirit, and the joy is the resultant of what he is willing for the Holy Spirit to do in his life.
Conclusion (adapted from The Wind of the Spirit, source unknown)
“Don’t try to tame that intractable wind. No act of Convocation or Assembly can circumscribe it, no arrogant political dictator curb it, no personal prejudice patronize it. It is master of the world.
“And—don’t you see?—this is the essential optimism of Christianity. Here in the Spirit of Christ is a force capable of bursting into the hardest paganism, discomfiting the most rigid dogmatism, electrifying the most suffocating ecclesiasticism.
“This is the sovereign freedom of the Holy Spirit. There is no citadel of self and sin that is safe from Him, no unbelieving cynic secure beyond His reach. There is no ironclad bastion of theological self-confidence that is immune, no impregnable agnosticism He cannot disturb into faith, no ancient ecclesiastical animosities He cannot reconcile. And blessed be His name, there is no winter death of the soul that He cannot vitalise into a marching army. This is the glory of Pentecost. ‘The wind bloweth where it listeth.’ Come, Holy Spirit, come!”
Please remember! When the winds of the Spirit begin to blow, they may blow up some trash. But be reminded that the trash is not the wind, and the wind is not the trash.