Flight HOS01 - Part B

You have to know certain basic truths so that your love can find full vent and full fruition. You and I need to be instructed in the things of God. Jesus said, learn of me. Peter said, grow in the grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

This is Connect with Skip Heiting, and today Pastor Skip continues his message from the book of Hosea and examines the special relationship we have with our Savior Jesus. But first we want to tell you about a resource that's designed to help you see the vital role fathers are made to play in a family. America is reaping the whirlwind of bad fruit from a generation of young men who lack the influence of a father. We desperately need to educate men of all ages and stages of life to begin to turn this destructive social trend.

Listen to Skip Heitzig. Where's dad? That's a crucial question in our world today. When fathers abandon their children, a series of dominoes begin to fall with devastating results. We see young men rampaging through streets destroyed by drugs, then continuing the vicious cycle by creating fatherless homes. We need to educate boys and men of all ages about how dads make a difference. And that's the theme of our current resource package that includes my full hour video documentary called Where's Dad? plus seven of my most important messages to men. I hope you'll order your copy now. Dads Make a Difference.

That's the title of a critical issues package you can order now. The Dads Make a Difference package includes seven of Skip's most important messages to men and the full hour video documentary Where's Dad? hosted by Skip. I think it's pretty easy to see from just a reading through of scripture that it is dad's responsibility to set the moral, spiritual tone in the home.

Remember it was Joshua who said, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Get this package in either digital download or CD and DVD when you support Connect with Skip with your gift of $50 or more. You'll be joining us as we take Skip's Bible teachings into more major cities.

Request the Dads Make a Difference package online at connectwithskip.com or by calling 1-800-922-1888. And we're excited to give you more content from Pastor Skip and this ministry right to your mobile device. Be on the lookout for our first text message welcoming you to the group that's coming your way. If we've connected with you through prayer or monthly resource and in the weeks ahead, we'll let all our listeners know how to join in.

Now as we join Pastor Skip for today's message. Let's turn again to Hosea verse eight. Now, when she had weaned Lo Ruhamah about two or three years after their birth, they were completely weaned in that culture in that day.

She conceived and bore a son. Then God said, call his name Lo Ami, which means not mine or not my people. For you are not my people and I will not be your God. Now you notice something before the words of these names. Lo dash Ruhamah. Lo dash Ami.

You read that? It's because the word Lo means no in Hebrew. If you go to Israel today.

Somebody will say Ken. That means yes. If somebody says Lo, that doesn't mean get down. It means no. So Lo means no in Hebrew. It's also a negative prefix.

So when you have that word before a word, it negates it. So mercy is Ruhamah or Ruhamah. And when you want to say no mercy, Lo Ruhamah. If you want to say mine, Ami. If you want to say not mine, Lo Ami.

It's not mine. So it's the negative prefix that turns the word around. Yet, verse 10, yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them, You are not my people. There it shall be said to them, You are sons of the living God. Now there's another yet.

You read in verse 10 like the one in verse 7. Another glimmer of hope. Another ray of mercy. Just when we think there's no hope, you know, before the commercial break, it turns. The story shifts.

Yet the number of the children of Israel will be as the sand on the sea. There are two words in the Bible that do this frequently. Hear the word yet, but the words I'm thinking are, we did a whole series on this, but God. Just when things get really bad, but God. Just when you thought there was no hope, but God. When that spouse was unfaithful, but God. When your finances were dragging you down, but God. You were going one direction, but God did this.

How many times have you seen that? It's one of the great transitions in Ephesians chapter 2 where Paul says, You were dead in trespasses and sins in which you walked according to the course of this world. You were children of disobedience, but God in His great mercy and love were with you, loved us, and everything changed after that. That's your testimony.

You were who you were, but God, and you could fill in the blank and give the testimony. Chapter 2 verse 1. Say to your brethren, Ami, my people, and to your sisters, Ruhamah, mercy is shown. Now again, you see how that negative prefix is dropped? They take the low off and it changes the whole meaning. God is saying, I am going to change your status.

I'm going to take the negative prefix off your condition and make it positive. Now the reason I'm dwelling on this is because too often God is accused of taking your fun away. Oh, he's so negative.

Who would want to follow Jesus Christ, man? There's no fun in that. He takes all the fun out of life.

No, you got it wrong. Sin gives you the negative consequences. Jesus comes and deals with those things and adds life, adds positivity.

So I like to say medical research, medical science can add years to your life, but only Jesus can add life to your years. He takes the low away, the no away, and says you are my people. You are sons of the living God. Now, through chapter 2, and we're just going to skim this, we get woven in these predictions from abandonment, God abandoning his people in the short term, to God restoring his people in the long run, eventually. So verse 13, I will punish her. Look at verse 14, I will allure her. Go down to verse 19, I will betrothed you to me forever.

See, there's that weaving together of I'm going to punish you, but I'm going to bring you back. Again, verse 19 and 20, I will betrothed you to me forever. Yes, I will betrothed you to me in righteousness and justice, in loving kindness and mercy.

I will betrothed you to me in faithfulness, and you shall know the Lord. The two verses that I just read to you are the two verses that every Orthodox Jewish male recites when he wraps around his hand the phylacteries, that little box with the scriptures in it. When he does that, he recites these two verses.

He has them memorized, and he recites this. I will betrothed you, I will betrothed you, I will betrothed you. The reason I love this verse, these verses, is because they are relational.

They are not religious. The term betrothal, man, that's intimate, right? I'm going to engage you to myself. And I believe this represents the heart of God through His prophet. The relationship God wants with you is one of intimacy. He doesn't want it far off, doesn't want a religious, I go to church, I say my prayers. He wants it real, man. He wants it relational. Like young lovers engaged, they can't wait to be with each other.

I'll betrothed you, engage you. My wife, Laniya, has a great story when she was in Youth with a Mission, where one night she decided to spend the night, the evening, to spend dinner with Jesus. She told me this story when I first started.

I thought, really, how do you do that exactly? I was interested, that got my attention. She said, so I cooked dinner, I lit candles, I sat in a chair, the other chair was empty, and as I ate dinner, I did it as unto the Lord, and I just poured out my heart to the Lord, like we were having an intimate meal. And I thought, what a beautiful gesture. She captured the idea of relationship. And it's interesting, a few months after that, when she moved from Hawaii back to the mainland, I took her out, picked her up at the airport, and a couple, maybe it was that night, a couple nights later, I was at her house, and I said to her these words, I was getting all romantic, and I said, Laniya, I love you. And she looked at me and she goes, thank you. Not the response I was hoping for.

I mean, usually the protocol is I love you too, but she didn't say that, she just said, and she did it very deliberately, she goes, thank you. And so I went away home going, oh, man, that just did not go well at all. What, I bombed tonight. The next day, I'm at work at Westminster Community Hospital in the radiology department.

They page me, they say there's a call from somebody named Laniya. I picked up the phone and she said, I love you too. Now, the reason I didn't tell you last night is because I needed to ask Jesus if it was okay if I said I love you too, because he is my first love, and I wanted to make sure I don't commit my love to you unless he said it was okay, and he did. So I love you too. And I thought, again, that's the idea of relationship. I have a relationship of love with Jesus. We are betrothed, we are engaged.

I don't want to have anything step in the way of that. Well, chapter three, one commentator called the greatest chapter in the Bible because it portrays the greatest story in the Bible. It's the story of redemption.

It's a prediction of restoration. But I love the word redemption. The word we use Sunday in the book of Romans, redemption, and I said it's a term from the slave market, always has been, Old and New Testament, has its roots in slavery. So redemption, in the Greek language, redemption is ex agorazo. Ex means out of, and agorazo refers to the marketplace. And agora in ancient Greece was a market. So you go to the agora. You go to the market to buy your vegetables. You go to the agora to conduct business.

So ex agorazo means out of the marketplace. So redemption has its roots in an ancient slave market, and the idea is you're shackled by sin, and Jesus pays the price and buys you out of that. So, so far, in Hosea's marriage to Gomer, Gomer the go-go girl, there has been betrothal, marriage, adultery, estrangement, and now restoration.

Chapter 3, verse 1, Then the Lord said to me, Go again, go again, and love a woman who is loved by a lover and is committing adultery, just like the love of the Lord for the children of Israel who go to other gods and love the raisin cakes of the pagans, part of their ritual. So I bought her. That's redemption.

I ex agorazo. I bought her out of the marketplace. I bought her for myself for 15 shekels of silver and one and a half homers of barley.

Do not think of the Simpsons here when you read homers. It is a measurement of weight and substance in antiquity. 15 shekels, or 15 pieces of silver, was the going rate for a female slave. By the way, if you remember back in Leviticus, 30 pieces of silver, not 15, was the rate for a slave who was gored by an ox. That's what you had to pay.

And I bring that up because Jesus was betrayed for 30 pieces of silver. And I said to her, verse 3, You shall stay with me many days, but you shall not play the harlot, nor shall you have a man. So too I will be toward you. In other words, sweetie, I'm committed to you. I want you to be as committed to me as I am to you. I'm buying you back. I'm redeeming you and rescuing you out of the street.

So I'm loving you. I want you to show that same love and respect. For the children of Israel shall abide many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred pillar, without ephod, that is the attire of the high priest by which he would discern the will of God, or teraphim, now teraphim were little gods that in their idolatry they brought into their homes. So the point of this verse is, for a long time you're not going to have any access to any answers at all that you're seeking. Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days. Now this happens to be, in my opinion, one of the great prophetic pronouncements in scripture. Notice the phrase many days. Verse four, Israel will abide many days without king, prince, without sacrifice, et cetera.

Many days is unusual. Why do I say that? Because typically God is very precise.

Let me give you an example. Three times in the Bible God told Israel they would be out of the land. And the first two times he was extremely exact. So God told Abraham that his descendants are going to be taken away into a land for 430 years. Which they were. They were in Egypt as slaves for that long. God told Jeremiah the prophet that the people would go into captivity in Babylon for 70 years. Very exact.

So typically God is very exact when he talks about these kinds of judgments. Here it just says many days. Many days without a king. Now today Israel is back in their land. But they have not had a king since Zedekiah.

2500 years. It has been many days without king, without prince. You say, well, what about Jesus? Sure, he came into his own, but his own received him not. They rejected him, they crucified him. They did not receive him as their king even though Pilate correctly announced on the cross this is the king of the Jews. Jesus has never occupied that position.

He will when he comes back the second time. It has been many days, 2500 years or thereabouts that Israel has dealt without king, without prince. They haven't had a sacrifice on that altar since 70 AD fulfilling this scripture. But do you know that though in Jerusalem there is a kingless throne, do you know that in heaven tonight there is a throne-less king named Jesus? And one day the throne-less king and the king-less throne will be brought together. And when that happens, glory will fill the earth. It is the prediction made by Isaiah the prophet.

It's familiar to you because we put it in our Christmas cards. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. The government will be on his shoulder. His name will be called Wonderful, Counsel or Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end upon the throne of David and over his kingdom to order it and establish it with judgment and justice. From that time forth, even forever, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. That time when those two factors come together, throne-less king, king-less throne, glory will cover the earth. Now, Hosea chapter 4 is a brand new section.

The first three were personal, the last 11 are public. This brings us to the third swath of the book of Hosea and that is the nation of Israel, the fickleness of that northern kingdom. Isaiah brings charges against Israel. Think of Hosea as God's lawyer, God's prosecutor. He marches into the courtroom like this last weekend we saw Paul the Apostle doing in Romans chapter 3.

Here Hosea marches into the courtroom and lists the charges and the charges are as follows. Number one, apathy. Number two, uncertainty. And number three, idolatry.

I want you to notice them all. When I say apathy, I mean they stop growing spiritually because they stop loving to learn the things of God. Chapter 4 verse 1, Hear the word of the Lord, you children of Israel, for the Lord brings a charge against the inhabitants of the land. There is no truth or mercy or knowledge of God in the land. Verse 6, My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge because you have rejected knowledge.

Three times that word is mentioned. I will also reject you from being priest for me because you have forgotten the law of your God. I will also forget your children. God tells them they have rejected knowledge. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.

Be careful. Be careful as Christians of what I can only describe as an anti-learning sentiment, an anti-intellectual sentiment. It seems to be very popular among Christians these days. Well, we don't care so much about what we know in terms of doctrine. We care about how we feel, and we care about how we love the Lord. It's not about what you know.

Okay, I understand that. But you have to know certain basic truths so that your love can find full vent and full fruition. You and I need to be instructed in the things of God. Jesus said, learn of me. Peter said, grow in the grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. So the key is to give yourself to Bible study, but then convert your knowledge about God that you learn into knowledge of God on a personal basis so that you go from learning to take those principles of learning into your relationship, betrothal.

Learn, and then with that learning, grow. So there's a great book out called Knowing God. It was out, I think, in 1972 or something like that. It was put out.

I bought it in 73 or 4, maybe 76. I get my dates messed up. J.I.

Packer. And he said in his book this. I wanted to share this with you. Whenever we embark on any line of study in God's holy book, we need to ask ourselves, what is my ultimate aim and object in occupying my mind with these things? What do I intend to do with my knowledge about God once I have gotten it? For if we pursue theological knowledge for its own sake, it's bound to go bad on us. It will make us proud and conceited.

The very greatness of the subject matter will intoxicate us. But then he goes on to say, but if you pursue knowledge and then you convert your knowledge about God into knowledge of God on a personal level, you'll grow. The thing about Israel, hence this indictment, they didn't care. They didn't want to learn. They didn't want to learn because they didn't want to grow spiritually.

They had lost their spiritual appetite. That wraps up today's message from Skip Heitzig's series, The Bible from 30,000 Feet. Find the full message as well as books, booklets, and full teaching series at connectwithskip.com.

Now, here's Skip to tell you about a special resource we have for you this month. Here's an important question for our country today. Where's dad? Where are the fathers when their sons are rampaging through stores? Where is the man of the household when their boys are making life decisions about their morals, world views, and how they treat women? Why are legions of energetic teens channeling their time and energy towards self-destructive and socially destructive behavior? Where's dad to guide them, correct them, and have a relationship with them? We realize that the issue of single-parent families is not exclusively a male issue, but the evidence is clear. Fathers are not taking responsibility for their children, and it's a critical problem.

We look at it as the first domino that sets off a cascade of dramatic problems. My Where's Dad video documentary is part of this month's resource package, which also includes 7 of my most important messages to men. I hope you'll order your copy of Dad's Make a Difference package today. Visit connectwithskip.com slash donate to give a gift. That's connectwithskip.com slash donate. Or call 800-922-1888.

800-922-1888. Thank you for your generosity. Be here again tomorrow for the conclusion of Pastor Skip's message on the book of Hosea, and hear a valuable lesson on the spiritual law of planting and harvesting. Make a connection Make a connection at the foot Of the cross and Cast all burdens on His word Make a connection Connection Connect with Skip Hyton is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth over changing times.