This episode ventures into the challenging truths within the minor prophet Hosea and the gravity of maintaining the sanctity of marriage as portrayed in the Bible. Listen to heartfelt testimonials from listeners who experienced marital restoration through divine intervention, woven with Dr. McGee’s insights on the social impact of a steadfast home.
The foundation, ye saints of the Lord, is laid for your faithful.
SPEAKER 01 :
Welcome to Through the Bible. I’m excited to get started as Dr. J. Verna McGee introduces us to the fascinating Old Testament book of Hosea. It’s primarily about a broken home. Hosea’s tragic story is a model of God’s broken heart for the nation of Israel. Hosea speaks to Israel from firsthand experience to warn them that they are breaking God’s heart, just as surely as his own family circumstances have broken his own. I’m Steve Schwetz, and I’m glad that you’re here as Dr. McGee deals with this uncomfortable subject passionately and compassionately. So while you find your seat and get comfortable, I want to read a couple letters that we’ve received from fellow Bible bus passengers who have written to share their family circumstances with us. Elise from India writes this. My husband has been addicted to alcohol and he has gotten into trouble many times in the past years. He slept on roads and found himself in pathetic situations repeatedly. I thought of leaving him, but I couldn’t. Despite his drinking, I continued to help and serve him, trying to guide him toward a better life. One day, while I was feeling depressed and flipping through TV channels, I came across your program. Watching it brought peace to my heart. The words spoken on the show enlightened me and offered me much needed comfort. I decided to call the prayer number provided during the program and shared everything about my life with the staff who answered and prayed with me. I’ve been praying for my husband for a year and a half and slowly God has started to help my family. Now my husband joins me every day when I watch the program. While doing so, he began to change. Gradually, he stopped drinking and made a complete turn in his life. He is now clean and comes to church with me every Sunday. This program not only changed my life, but also my husband’s. Please continue to pray for us. Wow, isn’t God good? Also in India is Padma who shared this. My husband and I separated due to family issues, and during this difficult time, I heard a message that said God listens to our prayers and helps us. Well, these words encouraged me deeply. I wanted to pray but didn’t know how, so I called the number on the TV screen. I shared my family problems with the person on the other end and asked for prayer. She prayed for me and my health. After the prayer, I began to feel better. Eventually, my husband came back and we were reunited. All this happened because of God’s grace. Now, my husband also listens to the messages with interest due to God’s work in our lives. Please pray for us to grow stronger in our faith and for my husband so that he will come to know and understand who God is.” Well, let’s thank the Lord. Heavenly Father, we pray that many marriages in India and around the world will be restored as we listen to your word and learn from it. We ask for your blessing and pray that our hearts and ears would be open to receive what you have for us in your word. In Jesus’ name, amen. Turn to Hosea 1 as we go through the Bible with Dr. J. Vernon McGee.
SPEAKER 02 :
I would like very much to give an introduction to Hosea. Hosea is the beginning of 12 books that are called the minor prophets. And the other prophets are called the major prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, and Daniel. Now, the reason given for calling these minor prophets is that they are brief books. And for the most part, they are. But actually, Hosea is longer than the book of Daniel, has more chapters in it than the book of Daniel. So that’s not a good, valid distinction. And I would like to say right here and now that the minor prophets, so-called, they are not minor at all. Each one of them batted in the major league, and each one of them batted 300 times. Each one of them was a star himself in the message that he brought. And actually, some of the minor prophets are so-called minor prophets are quoted by the so-called major prophets. You will find, for instance, in Jeremiah 26, 18, there is such a quotation. Now, these men in the minor prophets, the promoters of the social gospel have used them a great deal because of the fact that they were extremely nationalistic. And they dealt with the fact that God’s people had broken the law of God, the Ten Commandments. And therefore, it altogether has to do with the works of good works. And for that reason, liberalism has majored in these and as a result has actually missed the main message. We’re going to find that when we get into the prophecy of Hosea. Now you will find when you open to this prophet, you will find that he was a prophet to what is called the northern kingdom, that is, the kingdom of Israel, as distinguished from Judah at the division of the two. The first verse reads like this. The word of the Lord that came unto Hosea, the son of Beri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel. Now, he mentions the kings in the north and the south, and he mentions more in the southern kingdom of Judah, but that doesn’t make any difference. They’re just contemporary with Jeroboam in the north and contemporary with Hosea, and he emphasizes that. That is the time now that he wrote. He is the prophet that compares to Jeremiah in the southern kingdom. Jeremiah is the prophet of the southern kingdom that warned his people they were going into captivity and he lived to see it. Hosea warned the northern kingdom they were going into captivity to Assyria and he lived to see it. And Jeremiah and Hosea have a great many things in common. But I want you to hear this message that we brought on Hosea because it actually is a proper introduction to this book. And so we’re going to begin that right now, and then we will conclude it next time. The greatest sin in all the world. The accusation is sometimes made that the present-day pulpit is weak and uncertain. Likewise, it’s charged that instead of being a voice in the wilderness today, the modern pulpit has settled down comfortably to become just a sounding board for the whims and wishes of a comfortable and indifferent people who have itching ears. If the charge is true, and it’s likely that it is, then it’s because the pulpit is reluctant to grapple with the great issues of life. This hesitancy, I think, is born of a desire to escape criticism. It’s a dread of becoming offensive to the finer sensibilities. More often, I think it’s a cowardly fear of facing the raw realities of life and wrestle with this Leviathan of living issues today. The pulpit today quotes poetry and sprinkles rose water. It lives in a land of make-believe instead of saying to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved. The theater today, the movie, and all other agencies of communication, they deal with life stripped of all of its niceties. These instruments for reaching and teaching the masses take the gloves off, and they wade into the problems that we face daily. But not so the pulpit. The pulpit has avoided these issues. As we come this morning to the prophecy of Hosea, we cannot avoid dealing with the problems and issues of life. For there is a story that’s back of the headlines in the prophecy of Hosea. It’s not a pretty story. But we must understand it if we’re to understand the message of Hosea. And that story which is back of the prophecy of Hosea is the tragedy of a broken home. You have in this book the personal experience of Hosea And that is the background of his message. He walks out of a broken home to speak to the nation from a heart that is breaking. He knew exactly how God felt because he felt the same way. Now, the home is the rock foundation of society and always has been of any people. God has given it to mankind regardless of who they are and where they are. He gave it at the very beginning. It’s the most important unit in the social structure. It is to society what the atom is to this universe. We are told today that the little lowly atom is the building block of the universe. Well, the home today is the building block of society. And a building is known by the bricks that go in it. The color of the building is determined by the individual bricks. The character of the building is determined by the character of the bricks that go into it. And no nation is any stronger today than the homes that make it up. For the home determines the color and complexion of society. It’s the home today that reveals the strength of any nation or any people. The home is the chain of a nation that holds it together. And up and down this land of ours, down the streets and the boulevards, there are the links in this chain. And the chain runs on out into the highways and byways of life. And no chain is any stronger than the links that make it up. Those individual links are important. And so, my beloved, the home is the place that’s the very bedrock foundation of any society. And it’s the foundation, if you please, of the church. The home is where we live and move and have our being. It’s in the home where we are ourselves. Oh, we dress up physically and psychologically when we go out. We put up quite a front sometimes when we go through our front door and move out upon the street. But it’s within the walls of the home that we take off our masks and we are really ourselves. Because of the strategic position of the home, God has thrown about it certain safeguards to protect it. God has put around the home certain marks, certain tremendous safeguards, certain protection, certain bulwarks in order that he might protect that which is so important. Well, back of the home, God has moved and had a great deal to say about that which is the bulwark of the home. Marriage. God has given more attention to the institution of marriage than he has to any other institution that’s in this world. Society never made marriage. Society found marriage. God made marriage. He gave it to mankind. And marriage rests upon his direct word. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. God performed the first marriage ceremony. He gave the first bride away. He blessed the first couple. Marriage is more than just a legal contract. It’s more than an economic arrangement. It’s more than a union of just those with mutual love. It’s an act of God, if you please. It rests upon his fiat command. There are many young people today that think all that you need to get married is to get a license and a preacher, and then you’ve got it made. My beloved, if you’re going to have a successful marriage, you have to have God. And God will have to make it. Otherwise, that marriage must go on the rocks. God has given a drive to the race to reproduce in the framework of marriage. And that’s what makes the home. He said, “…the twain shall be one flesh, and before man walked out of the garden of Eden.” God gave him this institution, and besides the skins that Adam and Eve had on, the only thing they had was a marriage certificate from God. That’s all. That’s the only institution that came out of the garden of Eden. Marriage is a sacred relationship. It’s a holy union. Remember, Paul said, he sinneth not, let them marry. The New Testament, I think, sums up the mind of God when it says, marriage is honorable in all. Therefore, my beloved, marriage cannot be broken by just some little legal act. It can’t be broken by fit of temper. It can’t be broken by self-will. I personally believe there are only two acts which break marriage. I mean real marriage now. The first act is death, of course. That automatically severs the relationship. The second is unfaithfulness. And that’s unfaithfulness on the part either of the man or the woman. That rips the relationship in two. And the one that’s guilty of adultery was in the Old Testament to be dealt with in one of the harshest manners that’s imaginable. I wonder if you’ve ever noticed that. I want you to notice first Leviticus, the 20th chapter, the 10th verse, and the importance that God placed upon it. And the man that committeth adultery with another man’s wife Even he that committeth adultery with his neighbor’s wife, the adulterer, and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. And then in Deuteronomy, the 22nd chapter, the 20th and 21st verses, Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die, because she hath wrought folly in Israel to play the whore in her father’s house. So shalt thou put evil away from among you. Now, there are two words I think that we should say here by way of explanation and amplification. The first is that there are a lot of zealous Christians today that go over to Romans 7, 2. And they take that entirely out of context. Let me read it to you. For the woman which hath a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he liveth. But if the husband be dead, she’s loosed from the law of her husband. And they come up and say, well, you see, as long as the husband lives, then there’s never grounds for remarriage. You must put yourself back under law. And you must remember that under law, the unfaithful member of a marriage wasn’t alive. He was out somewhere pushing up daisies through some rocks in a rock pile. You see, if that was enforced in Southern California today, we couldn’t have freeways because there wouldn’t be room for them. You couldn’t get around the rock piles. In Southern California. You see, the guilty party in the Old Testament was stoned to death. So there was no living one left. But today we don’t do that. And so there’s a different arrangement today. I’m not sure about what Paul, under unfaithfulness in 1 Corinthians 7, between a believer and unbeliever, makes unfaithfulness one that walks out upon the believer. Then will you notice that there’s something else that needs a little amplification here? We judge from the passage I read in Deuteronomy. It says, if the damsel is guilty, and she, and so on, and someone says, why in the world is the woman picked on? Isn’t the man guilty? Yes, my beloved, but there are two things that you need to bear in mind. One is… that the word use is always the generic term. It’s anthropos in the Greek, which means man is mankind, and it does not have respect to sex, but means either man or woman. We have that same thing in legal terminology today. I’ve noticed some contracts where it says if the party of the first part, if he does something, if he promises, if he agrees, well, sometimes he is she, but before the law, she is he. And that’s the way the law looks at it. So that’s the way the term is used here. It means either one. And then you must remember that these are pictures in the Old Testament of Christ and the church, and he’s never guilty, but the church is. And so when you carry that figure over, I think that you can understand and see that. Well, may I say to you, that does not mean… that there isn’t a difference. I do not think that Scripture teaches a double standard, but I do think it teaches a different standard. And if you don’t believe that today we have that, you go to the department store. You can’t buy men’s clothes in the women’s department. They make a distinction. Anywhere you turn today in life, there’s that distinction made. And the Scripture makes that distinction. I personally think a woman is finer than a man. I think God made her finer than a man. I take my watch to one repairman. I take my car to another because they’re different. A woman’s different than a man. She’s made finer than a man. I’ve seen children, and you have, overcome the handicap of a near-do-well father. But I’ve never yet seen children overcome the handicap of a bad mother. Mother’s the center of the home. I heard some time ago of a woman who was asked to take an office in a church. She refused to do it, and she gave us her reason. She says, I’m a missionary to the nursery, and there are three pairs of eyes. that are watching me, and I want to direct them to God. May I say to you that God’s put woman in the home, made her all important in that place. I think that I can make this clear by quoting to you the definition of what is a girl by Alan Beck. I think this is one of the loveliest things that’s ever been composed. Will you listen to this? Little girls are the nicest things that happen to people. They are born with a little bit of angel shine about them, and though it wears thin sometimes, there’s always enough left to lasso your heart, even when they’re sitting in the mud or crying temperamental tears or prating up the street in mother’s best clothes. A little girl can be sweeter and badder oftener than anyone else in the world. She can jitter around and stomp and make funny noises and frazzle your nerves. Yet just when you open your mouth, she stands there demure with that special look in her eyes. A girl is innocence playing in the mud, beauty standing on its head, and motherhood dragging a doll by the foot. God borrows from many creatures to make a little girl. He uses the song of a bird, the squeal of a pig, the stubbornness of a mule, the antics of a monkey, the spryness of a grasshopper, the curiosity of a cat, the slyness of a fox, the softness of a kitten. And to top it off, he adds the mysterious mind of a woman. A little girl likes new shoes, party dresses, small animals, dolls, make-believe, ice cream, makeup, going visiting, tea parties, and one boy. She doesn’t care so much for visitors, boys in general, large dogs, hand-me-downs, straight chairs, vegetables, snowsuits, or staying in a front yard. She’s loudest when you’re thinking, prettiest when she’s provoked you, busiest at bedtime, quietest when you want to show her off, and most flirtatious when she absolutely must not get the best of you again. She can muss up your home, your hair, your dignity, spend your money, your time, and your temper. Then just when your patience is ready to crack, her sunshine peeks through and you’re lost again. Yes, she’s a nerve-wracking nuisance, just a noisy bundle of mischief. But when your dreams tumble down and the world is a mess, when it seems you’re pretty much of a fool after all, she can make you a king when she climbs on your knee and whispers, I love you best of all. My beloved, the prophecy of Hosea is the story of a broken home. It’s a story… of that which must be contrasted with God’s ideal of marriage and of womanhood. That’s its message. May I say to you that this is the way God tells his story. Now we’re prepared to look at the story that’s here in Hosea.
SPEAKER 01 :
I’m Steve Schwetz, and I’ll meet you back here as the Bible bus continues to roll along.
SPEAKER 03 :
All to him I owe. Sin had left the prince unsaved. He washed it white as snow.
SPEAKER 01 :
Our story on the Bible Bus today is just one step in a five-year journey through the entire Word of God. Come along for the ride, and you’ll study both the Old Testament and New Testament, discovering God’s great redemption story. Is this your story too?
