Hosea

1. Hosea The scandal of love’s obsession

2. The Obsession of Love • Hosea 1:2-4 • When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, "Go, take to yourself an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness, because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing from the Lord." [3] So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son. 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.

3. Hosea 1:6 • Gomer conceived again and gave birth to a daughter. Then the Lord said to Hosea, "Call her Lo-Ruhamah, for I will no longer show love to the house of Israel, that I should at all forgive them. • Hosea 1:9 • Then the Lord said, "Call him Lo-Ammi, for you are not my people, and I am not your God.

4. Hosea 2:5 • 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 oil and my drink.' • Hosea 2:7 • 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.'

5. The Seriousness Of Our Sin • Sin = law breaking • 1 John 3:4 Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. • James 4:17 Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins. • Matthew 5:48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. • 1 John 1:8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. • Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death… • Hebrews 12:14 … without holiness no one will see the Lord.

6. Rev. 20:12-15 • And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. [13] The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done. [14] Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. [15] If anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

7. The Scandal Of God’s Love • Jesus scandalizes the crowds when He touched the untouchables-the lepers: Matthew 8:3 Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" Immediately he was cured of his leprosy. • Jesus scandalizes the religious leaders when He shares a meal with sinners and tax collectors: Mark 2:15, 16 While Jesus was having dinner at Levi's house, many tax collectors and "sinners" were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the "sinners" and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: "Why does he eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?"

8. Jesus scandalizes Simon the pharisee in his home:Luke 7:36-39 Now one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, so he went to the Pharisee's house and reclined at the table. [37] When a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee's house, she brought an alabaster jar of perfume, [38] and as she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them. [39] When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, "If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is--that she is a sinner."

9. Jesus scandalizes his disciples with His love by the well outside Samaria: • John 4:7, 9 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?" The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) • John 4:10 Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."

10. The Steadfastness Of God’s Love • Hosea 3:1, 2 • The Lord said to me, "Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes." So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and about a homer and a lethek of barley.

11. Hosea 2:19 • I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. • 1 Peter 3:18 For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit,

12. Ephes. 2:1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, • Ephes. 2:4, 5 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved. • Ephes. 2:8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--

13. 1 John 4:9, 10 • This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

14. How We Can Receive His Love • Mark 16:16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. • John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. • Romans 10:9-10 That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. [10] For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.

15. Youare God’s Magnificent Obsession !