My Pulpit Message Notes: UNFAITHFULNESS TO GRACE

UNFAITHFULNESS TO GRACE

My Pulpit Message Notes are transcribed from the sermon preached at the Nairobi Baptist Church (NBC) Ngong Road on Sunday 12th February, 2023. Preacher - Reverend Majid Ochieng’ Deputy Senior Pastor NBC. Scripture: Hosea 4-8. Topic: Unfaithfulness to Grace

Sadly the society we live in today, people do as they please, regardless of where they are, and of course not having any perspective whatsoever of integrity. That could be your classical definition of unfaithfulness.

The book of Hosea puts the children of Israel on one side where they are unfaithful to God and on the other side, a God who is so faithful. God is so faithful in pursuing us to the extent the Bible says even when we are still faithless, God still remains faithful.

The book of Hosea and the study of this book is relevant even to us today. The condition in our society is similar to that of Israel in the middle of the eighth century BC. Israel had conformed to her cultural environment and after that, they had adulterated their worship of God. They adulterated the worship of God with the worship practices of the religion of the Canaanites hoping to secure a blessing of fertility and sometimes even productivity.

The details may be different from our current context, but the reality of what had taken place in our society today and sadly to say even sometimes in the church is similar. The Church of God globally, today, you find that the centre is shifting, so sometimes you find there is a lot of materialism, name it and call it, or name it and have it.

The book of Hosea has two unequal sections; one is chapter one to three, which uses an analogy of unfaithful wife and God tells Hosea to go and marry Gomer. This analogy is symbolism of where the children of God\Israel were in terms of their relationship with God.

The tragedy which Hosea experienced in his own marriage becomes a paradigm of the national experience of Israel and as a paradigm it must not be allowed to overshadow deeper tragedy of the faithless people forsaking a loving God.

I pray that as we look at today’s message God will cause us to look at ourselves to do an introspection which needs to be something we do consistently so that by the grace of God, every single day we try to be in the place that is pleasing to God.

Hosea, son of Beeri prophesied approximately in the middle of the 8th Century BC and his ministry beginning shortly after that of Amos.

- Amos talked of the judgement of Israel at the hands of an unnamed enemy. Hosea 7:11, 8:9, 10:6, 11:11, names that enemy as Assyria. That comes as a punishment / consequence of what the children of Israel had done with regards to their worship of God. Unfaithfulness.

- Judging from the kings mentioned in Hosea 1:1 Hosea must have prophesied for at least 38 years even though most of his life is not known, but the message is so profound and that message is very much relevant to us today.

1. Position of Israel - Hosea 4:1; 6:3

2. Punishment for Israel - Hosea 6:4- 7:16

3. Pronounced judgement for Israel - Hosea 8

Position of Israel - Hosea 4:1; 6:

- This is a position of unfaithfulness.

Hosea 4:1 “Hear the word of the Lord, you Israelites, because the Lord has a charge (accusation) to bring against you who live in the land: “There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgment of God in the land.” -

That is the position that you find against the children of Israel. Remember these are a people that had seen God, rescued by God several times, called the children of God and what a contraction to find this reference to the same people.

- There is that accusation that the people of God are not faithful to God. Those that were called by God, that had seen miracles done by God, somehow they ran away from the things God.

- Hosea 4:19

“But let no one bring a charge, let no one accuse another, for your people are like those who bring charges against a priest. 5 You stumble day and night, and the prophets stumble with you. So I will destroy your mother—6 my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.”

- This lack of knowledge is a knowledge of God that goes into our hearts and the hearts of the people of God and therefore is expected to cause a change/ transformation in the people of God.

- In the absence of that, the description and accusation is, yes they will be destroyed/perish.

- In Hosea 5 there is a special message for the people, the leaders. Even the leaders were not spared. Hosea 5:1-3

“Hear this, you priests! Pay attention, you Israelites! Listen, royal house! This judgment is against you: You have been a snare at Mizpah, a net spread out on Tabor. 2 The rebels are knee-deep in slaughter. I will discipline all of them. 3 I know all about Ephraim;”

- (Ephraim here was the largest tribe and was generally referred to as the northern kingdom, and was known for the idol worship of the golden calf they had made.) So you can see that their position was that of worshipping idols.

- Hosea 6:1-3 here we see a sorrowful plea.

“Come, let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds. 2 After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence. 3 Let us acknowledge the Lord; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth.”

- This please is taking into consideration of where they are and telling them to please come out from that position. I wonder how that applies to me/us today.

- Today may be in a place where we do not have a symbol of worship as it were, but could it be that we have something in your/our lives that has taken the place of God so that when we want to make full commitment to God we are not able to? If that be the case then Hosea is talking to us as individuals and as a church.

The warning that Hosea wants to give us is to watch out the spirit of unfaithfulness. Look at your position. We look at our position, where we are. Unfaithfulness on one side as man and the other side God who is so faithful.

- But even when we wander away from Him, He does not give up on us / you. What is your position today? Could God be calling us/ you to make amends in one way or another in our lives and even the life of the church of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ?

Punishment of Israel - Hosea 6:4 - 7:16

- Punishment is an infliction, or imposition of a penalty as a retribution i.e. a cause and effect. Somethings that we go through because of where we have been and what we have done.

- Hosea 6:4

“What can I do with you, Ephraim? What can I do with you, Judah? Your love is like the morning mist, like the early dew that disappears. Therefore I cut you in pieces with my prophets, I killed you with the words of my mouth— then my judgments go forth like the sun. 6 For I desire mercy, not sacrifice…”

- It is not what we bring or the faces that we make, it is not looking good, but it is in the heart so that it is a sacrifice that is made also consistent with the state of the heart. In the absence of that, Hosea writes to the children of Israel, there will definitely be a punishment. The repentance like he says is like a morning cloud that passes away and in verse 5 there is a consequence.

- Israel cannot meet God’s demands. V6

“For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.”

Because of them being in that state, there will definitely be a consequence.

- The spirit of unfaithfulness controls Israel’s conduct and so we see there were a lot of murders, prostitution on the land. There will be the depravity of the children of Israel. Restoration was prevented because of the position where there were in. The larger consequence is the moral depravity in their context.

- That moral depravity we see it today, so that the things that were unheard of are becoming more normal and we can now entertain even listening to them. Those come as a consequence and punishment because of the deliberate choice that the children of God had made.

- The great old evangelist, D. L Moody was at one time in the southern city in the US preaching about the value of God in a person’s life. And as he was preaching, suddenly he was interrupted by the loud voice of a man in the audience saying, “Mr. Moody, I do not believe a single word in that collection of old tales your call your Bible.” “My dear man, Mr. Moody replied. “There is one verse in this Bible that you are forced to believe, and that verse says, “Whatsoever a man south, that shall he also reap. If man sows wheat, he does not reap potatoes, or peanuts. Take the owner of a bar for example, he sows drunkards and he will reap drunkards.” At that particular point the crowd burst into loud laughter, and of course Mr. Moody did not know the man. That man happened to be a bar owner, and all his children both sons and daughters were serious alcoholics and drunkards.

- There are certain things that happen to us just because of what we have done. Sad to say there some things that we experience in our nation, of course we appreciate that there is famine in the land, for example, but imagine that with our good policies, if we implemented those policies well, if we took matters of integrity and implemented those policies, yes drought will come, but there will be sufficient food to feed the land.

- There are things that happen to us because of what we have done and if that be the case, it does not matter how much we pray unless those prayers are of repentance so that we come back to the place that God wants us to be.

- A judgement is largely a fair statement of what is to be done to someone looking at all the things that have happened and in this particular case, what is to be done to Israel, because of their unfaithfulness to God. What really they deserve and we find that largely in Hosea 8.

- Hosea 8:1-4

“Put the trumpet to your lips! An eagle is over the house of the Lord because the people have broken my covenant and rebelled against my law. 2 Israel cries out to me, ‘Our God, we acknowledge you!’ 3 But Israel has rejected what is good; an enemy will pursue him. 4 They set up kings without my consent; they choose princes without my approval. With their silver and gold they make idols for themselves to their own destruction.”

- There will be a judgement. While still on earth, they will be pursued by the enemy and for Hosea and that enemy was Assyria and the benefit of hindsight we know that they were taken over into captivity.

- Hosea 8:10

“Although they have sold themselves among the nations, I will now gather them together. They will begin to waste away under the oppression of the mighty king.”

- The judgement that was to be felt now as you see He will remember their wickedness.

Hosea 8:13

“Though they offer sacrifices as gifts to me, and though they eat the meat, the Lord is not pleased with them. Now he will remember their wickedness and punish their sins: They will return to Egypt. 14 Israel has forgotten their Maker and built palaces; Judah has fortified many towns, But I will send fire on their cities that will consume their fortresses.”

And we know that that is what happened.

- That is the judgement while we are here on earth, but there is an ultimate judgement where if we are so persistent and consistent in our unfaithfulness, basically means that we will not have the beauty of being in the presence of God. God by His grace makes that possible by sending His Son so that we can identify with Him and when we do so, then there is hope for each one of us so that we escape that ultimate judgement.

Pronounced judgement for Israel - Hosea 8

The picture that comes so mind is that of a pendulum. It swings from one side to the other. And if one side is unfaithfulness, the other is faithfulness. Take note that the one that holds it together is God. And God is a gracious God that we need to identify with. God who holds it together does not want us to waste away and that is why He is still holding, perhaps as Peter says, that He is giving us time.

- My prayer sometimes is that time will not run out. Sometimes time runs out. Why? because I/we do not know what tomorrow holds. I know that what I have today are the decision that I can make today, whether I make it tomorrow I do not know. If I don’t make it tomorrow time runs out.

- Imagine if I was enjoying and still I am in my unfaithfulness, not knowing that I will be there tomorrow and tomorrow comes and I am no more. May the LORD help us to always be found to be faithful to Him.

- Senator Mark Hatfield at some point visited Calcutta with Mother Teresa and visited this famous house that was called the House of the Dying where sick children were cared for in the last days and there was a dispensary there where the door line there were so many people to receive many medical attention. Watching Mother Teresa attending to these people, feeding and nursing those left by others to die, Hatfield was so overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of those suffering that was being seen and what Mother Teresa was going through. So he asked, “How can you bear the load without being crashed?” Mother Teresa’s answer was classical. She said, “I am not looking for success, but I am looking for faithfulness.”

- Where God is, He is looking for faithfulness. For one thing that I know is that faithfulness begets success. Success as defined by man today does not necessarily come out of faithfulness, but if you have success that is based on faithfulness, then that leads you to a place that you are at peace with God and with everyone, so that you don’t have to be hiding, but you can walk freely without the fear of being chased or that someone is watching and is after you.

- Jesus talks of the parable of the field manager and the summary of that parable is that he who is faithful in little will also be faithful in much. Where you / I are, God wants you to be faithful to Him.

- Paul writing to the Colossians says, “Everything that you do, work at it with all your heart as though working for God and not for man”, because our God who is heaven sees and He will reward you.

- When Joshua was taking the leadership of the children of Israel (Joshua 1), for some reason God had to remind him that Moses My servant is dead, and he was a little bit timid / afraid. And God told him several times, “be courageous, have I not told you to be courageous.” Then he was told, “Do not let this book of the law depart from you, meditate on it, observe everything that is written in it. Never move either to the left or the right. It is only then that you will be prosperous. Faithfulness.

- This year NBC is talking about strong. And I have a confession that there is no strength in me If I am not faithful to my Maker, and there will be no strength in you, or us as a church if we are not faithful to God.

Application

- If we are children of God, this faithfulness that God is looking for is not just some big, far removed ideology that we do in church, but our faithfulness to God means that we are totally committed to God, we are transformed by God, and every single thing that we do comes out of our relationship and commitment to that God, so that if I am a husband to my dear wife, I am a husband, but first I am a child of God. And, if I am faithful to God, then my being a good husband will toe the line follow. If you are a wife, if you are faithful to God and committed to the principles of God, your being a wife / mother will just follow the line. If you are a businessman your faithfulness and commitment to God then your business principles and every single thing that you do will be guided by the fact that you are a child of God. He who is faithful in little will also be faithful in much.

- May the LORD help us as we go strong in this year 2023 and may we do that which we are able to do so that after all is said and done, we will say, yes we are strong and our strength comes from the fact we are faithful to the LORD Who is our Maker in the name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Amen.