Idolatry, Old Testament, Sunday School

An Overview of Hosea ~ Sunday School Lesson ~ 7-27-14

Michelle Lesley

Overview of Hosea

 

These are my notes from my ladies’ Sunday School class this morning. I’ll be posting the notes from my class here each week. Click here for last week’s lesson.

Through the Bible in 2014 ~ Week 30 ~ July 20-26
Hosea, Isaiah 28-43, Psalm 76
An Overview of Hosea

Hosea 1
Hosea was a prophet to the northern kingdom of Israel. God used his family life as a picture of what he was prophesying. Hosea married a woman, Gomer, who would later prove unfaithful to him. God also had Hosea give his children names that reflected God’s message to Israel: Jezreel, No Mercy, and Not My People. But the real story of the book of Hosea is not Hosea or his family, but the love, reluctant wrath, and forgiveness of God towards His unfaithful people.

2:8
Everything Israel gave away -as sacrifices to idols, as tribute to foreign potentates, as bribes for foreign armies to come to her aid- everything had been given to her by God.

4:17
When sinners persist in their sin long enough, God finally gives them over to what they want. (Rom. 1:18ff). Often sinners think the harshest thing God could do would be to try to stop them from participating in the sin that they love, but His wrath is most poured out when He gives them exactly what they want.

5:6, 15; 7:13-14
Seek the Lord while He may be found (Isaiah 55:6). God was calling Israel to seek Him before He gave them over to a hard heart and a reprobate mind. The Lord is always found by those with a soft heart whose desire is to repent and love Him, but He turns a deaf ear to those who continue in rebellion until it starts raining, only to beat on the door of the ark because they don’t want to die in the flood.

God is not interested in the worldly sorrow that is only grieved over the consequences of sin. That soul still has its eyes firmly fixed on self and how self is affected. The truly repentant heart has her eyes fixed on God and how her sin affects Him.

6:4,6
God doesn’t desire empty rituals, lip service, or going through the motions. He wants worship from the heart.

8:2, 5-6
God will not allow syncretism (the melding of unbiblical worship with biblical worship). He requires, not that He be first in our affections, but that He be ONLY in our affections.
It did no good for Israel to claim that she knew the Lord (2) because she was a) worshiping other gods besides the Lord, b) calling an idol (the golden calves) “God,” and c) not worshiping God in the way He had commanded. None of these were acceptable in God’s sight then, and because He is the same “yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8), it is still not acceptable to Him today.

That’s why false teachers are so dangerous. People like Joyce Meyer, Joel Osteen, and TD Jakes may not be fashioning golden calves and calling them “Jesus,” but they are fashioning false gods with unbiblical words and ideas and calling them “Jesus.” This is what Matthew 7:21-23 is talking about when it says:

Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

9:1
Just as Gomer has betrayed and forsaken Hosea, Israel has betrayed the Lord. She has loved adultery and the fleeting pleasures (Hebrews 11:25) that go with it instead of the true and lasting treasure that comes from loyalty to the Lord (Revelation 11:18).

10:5-6
The golden calf Israel worshiped would be used to pay off Assyria in tribute. God is sovereign. He will ultimately destroy everything that is raised up against Him. Idols, ideas, individuals.

11:1-4
God is not a cruel taskmaster. He led and cared for Israel with “cords of kindness” and “bands of love” as a parent leads a toddler. They didn’t have to live in fear of Him if they were walking with Him. Not so with other gods. With other gods, they could never be certain where they stood. Had they offered enough? Pleased it enough? Would it bless them with fertility or rain for their crops?

With God, on the other hand, His love for Israel came first. It wasn’t a reaction to whether or not their actions pleased Him. His love for them was there even before they knew Him (1 John 4:15-19). It was because He loved them that He lovingly spelled out everything He wanted Israel to do in worship, in daily life, and in their hearts. He also went into great detail about the things they could expect from Him, and He kept His promises time and again. They didn’t have to wonder how He felt towards them or what He required of them or whether He would come through for them. They could know.

11:8-9
It grieved God to destroy Israel as he had destroyed Admah and Zeboiim with Sodom and Gomorrah. God is not a God who delights in executing His wrath, but, rather, does so with a broken heart and only as a last resort.

“Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord God, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?” Ezekiel 18:23

“The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” 2 Peter 3:9

13:4-6
When Israel was in Egypt and in the wilderness where she had nothing to depend on but God, she was loyal to Him, but once prosperity came, she left Him, just as Gomer left Hosea for something she thought was better.

It is often only when people have no other choice but to turn to Christ that they do so, but when they don’t “need” anything, they turn away from Him. This is why Jesus said “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” (Matthew 19:24).

By stripping away everything Israel had and sending her into exile, God was bringing Israel full circle to the neediness she had started out with in Egypt in order to bring her back to Himself.

14:1-9
God’s desire is, and always has been, for His people to repent and be reconciled to Him, and enjoy a loving, father-child relationship with Him. We see this in His post-Eden relationship with Adam and Eve, in His blessing of the earth after the Flood, in His bringing Israel out of Egypt, in bringing Israel out of exile, and in the most important way of all, in saving us out of our sin that we might be permanently reconciled to Him through the precious blood of Christ, to love Him and serve Him forever.

I will heal their apostasy;
I will love them freely, for my anger has turned from them.

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Jonah- Lesson 4: The Road to Joppa

Michelle Lesley

Lesson 4 in our rerun of the Jonah Bible study.

Michelle Lesley's avatarMichelle Lesley

Jonah 1:3

 

Ever wonder why God didn’t stop Jonah before he ever even got to Joppa?  He could have, you know.  But instead, He allowed Jonah to make the 60-or-so mile trip from Gath-hepher to Joppa, allowed Jonah to find a ship that was willing to take him, and allowed Jonah to have the money to pay his fare.  Know why?  Because God was being merciful to Jonah.

Merciful?  Doesn’t it sound instead like God was providing Jonah more than ample rope to hang himself?  Uh uh.  From the moment Jonah got up and pointed himself at Joppa, the Holy Spirit was prodding Jonah’s conscience:

“This is wrong.”

“Don’t do this.”

 “Turn back.”

 …giving him chance after chance to turn from his sin and back to God.  Jonah must have heard God mercifully pleading with him with every step he took from front porch to gangplank, yet he hardened his…

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Abortion, Forgiveness, Relationships

Aborting People

Michelle Lesley

Cut the negative people out of your life.

Don’t lift a finger for people who won’t lift a finger for you.

Don’t allow people in your life who don’t deserve to be there.

Hardly a day goes by that I don’t see something like this on Facebook. Clearly, there are people who are violent that we need to stay away from for our own physical safety, and marital problems absolutely must be resolved, but those aren’t what this line of thinking seems to be addressing. It’s talking about the difficult people. We all have them in our lives. You’re probably thinking of some right now.

The constant complainer.

The drama queen.

The narcissist.

The annoyance.

The just plain unlovely.

Maybe it’s a family member, a neighbor, or a co-worker. Somebody who’s in your life for some reason, only you wish she weren’t.

The world’s advice: abort people. If they’re negative, if they don’t further your success, if they drain you, if they’re somehow undeserving of your time and attention. Just cut them out of your life. Abort them.

The world’s advice: abort people. If they’re negative, if they don’t further your success, if they drain you, if they’re somehow undeserving of your time and attention. Just cut them out of your life. Abort them.

Christians are on the front lines of the battle against literal abortion. “Every life is precious,” we say, and that’s as it should be. But somehow, the world’s abortive mentality has crept into our thinking when it comes to the relationships we have with others. Babies are being killed because they’re inconvenient, they’ll hinder someone’s pursuit of success, or they have a disability, and we’re – rightly – grieved and outraged, but do we have any pangs of conscience when it comes to throwing away that inconvenient friend or that personality-handicapped family member? Is every life really precious?

Do we have any pangs of conscience when it comes to throwing away that inconvenient friend or that personality-handicapped family member? Is every life really precious?

We serve a Savior who loved the unlovely. Took time for the inconvenient. Invested in the drains. He felt their loneliness and rejection and knew the pain of being scorned.

Because He was one of them.

he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
and no beauty that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by men;
a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Isaiah 53:2b-3

Jesus stopped along the roadside, not for those who would further His success, but for those who were needy. He called the awkward and personality impaired “brother.” He called a betrayer, “friend.” Even those who wielded the whip, embedded the thorns, and drove the nails didn’t hear, “Go to hell,” but, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Yes, there are people who are so difficult that we may have to love them from afar, taking time between each encounter with them to pray, recover, and forgive.

But we must remember who we were called to be.

I love, not because people deserve it, but because He first loved me.

I am forgiving because I have been forgiven much.

I am kind because God has been so kind to me.

I lay down my life for messy people because Christ laid down His life for the biggest mess of all- me. 

Extend grace. Because in God’s eyes, every life is precious. Even yours.

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Jonah- Lesson 3: The Fugitive

Michelle Lesley

Today we continue with our rerun of the Jonah Bible study…

Michelle Lesley's avatarMichelle Lesley

Jonah 1:2-3 

Well, Jonah, “got up” alright, but not to do what God told him to do.  He made up his mind he was going to Tarshish.  Now, don’t confuse “Tarshish” with “Tarsus”—that’s where Saul (Paul) was from. Tarsus is inAsia Minor, at the northeast corner of theMediterranean Sea.  Tarshish, on the other hand, is 2,000 miles away from our hero’s hometown, on the southern coast of Spain.  You have to go all the way across the Mediterranean Sea and through the Strait of Gibraltar to get to it.

In the ancient world, it was pretty much as far west as you could go before you fell off the edge of the earth.  Jonah didn’t just hop a bus for the next town, he was getting as far away from Nineveh as he possibly could.

Tarshish was a bustling seaport, a hub for exports to Israel and other points east. …

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Idolatry, Old Testament, Sunday School, Worship

Israel Is Exiled ~ Sunday School Lesson ~ 7-20-14

Michelle Lesley

PicsArt_1405907394797

These are my notes from my ladies’ Sunday School class this morning. I’ll be posting the notes from my class here each week. Click here for last week’s lesson.

Through the Bible in 2014 ~ Week 29 ~ July 13-19
2 Chronicles 27-31, Isaiah 9-27, Micah, 2 Kings 16-18:8, Psalm 48
Israel is Exiled

2 Kings 17:1-20
Second Kings 17 is sort of the “Cliff Notes” version of Israel’s era of the kings. We have read about each king of Israel, all of whom “did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.” Second Kings 17 sums up the effect these evil kings had on Israel’s relationship with God and the consequences for their idolatry.

Israel’s Sin
The sin that brought God’s judgment upon Israel was idolatry. Israel participated in idolatry in two different ways, usually at the same time:

They worshiped false gods instead of the true God. (12,16-17)
As Israel got to know her pagan neighbors, she began to worship some of their false gods such as Ashera, Baal, Molech, and the stars and planets. This was expressly forbidden by God in the 10 Commandments and throughout the Old Testament. While other nations often worshiped many gods, Israel was to be holy and set apart to the one true God and serve only Him.

They worshiped the true God in false ways. (16, 1 Corinthians 14:40, 2 Corinthians 9:7, 1 Corinthians 5, 1 Timothy 2:12-14, 1 Timothy 3, Titus 1, 1 Corinthians 11:17-33)
You will recall the two golden calves Jeroboam had set up in the north and south for the people to worship. He wanted to keep the Israelites from traveling out of Israel into Judah to worship at the temple because he did not want the people to turn their loyalty back to the throne of David. So he took the worship and festivals God had set up for Himself and transferred them to these two calves. The calves were basically a stand in for God.

God was very specific about how, when, and where He was to be worshiped. When we studied Exodus and Leviticus, we saw hundreds of instructions about God’s house, the utensils, the men who served as priests and Levites, the offerings and sacrifices, cleansing rituals, and on and on. God requires that He be worshiped in certain ways. His ways. He did not leave it up to His people to worship Him freestyle.

Even today, God has given us specific instructions about worship that we are to obey. For example, He tells us that, in the church, all things are to be done decently and in order (1 Cor. 14), that we are to give our offerings cheerfully and not reluctantly or under compulsion (2 Cor. 9), that we are to discipline, not tolerate, unrepentant sin in the church (1 Cor. 5), that women are not to instruct or hold authority over men in the church (1 Tim. 2), the qualifications for pastors and elders (1 Tim. 3, Tit. 1), instructions about the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor. 11), and so many more things. Although God has given us freedom in some areas of worship, as long as they do not violate any specific instructions He has given us (music style, order of service, what we wear to church, etc.), He has not turned us loose to worship Him in any way we please. We must be careful not to do this as the Israelites did.

God’s Patience (1 Peter 3:20, 2 Timothy 4:1, 2 Peter 3:9, Romans 2:4, 2 Corinthians 6:2)
After Solomon died, Israel and Judah split into two separate kingdoms. In the 209 years between Solomon and the exile (931-722 B.C.), Israel had twenty kings, all of whom participated in and promoted idol worship among the people of Israel. During that time period, God sent at least seven prophets (Ahijah, Jehu, Elijah, Micaiah, Elisha, Amos, and Hosea) to warn Israel to turn back from her idolatry and the consequences if she would not. Two hundred and nine years. That’s a lot of chances God gave His people to repent and turn back to Him.

God has a track record of patience. First Peter 3:20 tells us “God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared.” God stayed His hand of judgment for 120 years while Noah was building the ark, preaching repentance with every swing of the hammer. In His mercy, God was giving the people of Noah’s day a chance to repent and turn to Him before the flood, but none did, except Noah’s family.

In the same way, God has been patient with mankind for the last 2000+ years since He provided the way of salvation for us through Jesus.

Second Timothy 4:1 tells us that Christ will return to judge the living and the dead, but what’s taking Him so long?

Second Peter 3:9 says: “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”

He wants everyone to turn to Him in repentance, but we are not to take advantage of His patience and continue in sin. Romans 2:4 says, “Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?”

“For he says, ‘In a favorable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you.’ Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” (2 Corinthians 6:2). In the same way that Israel should have repented immediately because they didn’t know how long God’s patience with them would last, we must turn to Him now instead of later because we do not know when He is coming back. And once He does, it will be too late for those who have not put their trust in Christ.

God’s Judgment (18-20)
God’s time of patience with the ungodly always comes to an end. It happened with Noah, and here we see it happening with Israel. God’s judgment fell upon Israel. He allowed them to be torn apart by enemy nations, and, finally, exiled from the Promised Land to Assyria. Judah held out for a while with a few good kings, but eventually, she followed in Israel’s footsteps and was exiled to Babylon in 605 B.C.

But even in exile, there were those few faithful Israelites and Judahites whom God saved: Daniel, Nehemiah, Esther, Ezra, and many others whose names we don’t know. Today, despite persecution and rampant sin in the visible church, God is still preserving a remnant of Christians who are faithful, whom He will preserve when He brings the final judgment upon the earth. Until that time, the words of Jesus are just as relevant today as when He said them 2000 years ago:

“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” Mark 1:15