06-20-21 “What is the best thing a Father can do for his children?”

 Scripture   Hosea 1-2
          What is the single best thing a Father can do for his children? Here is a top 10 list:
10 Teach them to love this life (& teach them to love the church [teach means by example])
  9 Teach them to take responsibility.
  8 Raise them to leave
  7 Value education
  6 Discipline
  5 Provide
  4 Be there
  3 Grow up
  2 Love them unconditionally
  1 Love their mother (even if divorced) (even if their mother is not very loveable)

The way I would have listed the single best thing you can do for your children is to marry well.
I hit the jackpot with that one. (describe why)
Many women will marry outside their faith thinking they can influence their husbands into the kingdom. More often than not, they will not be successful. Not many men do that. Rarely do we find a man in church and his wife does not join him.
 
God said the best thing we can do for him (if we are married) is to show what His love looks like. Ephesians 5:25-33  Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husband’s ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body. "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh."  This is a profound mystery — but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
          That kind of marriage shows the children (the world) what God’s love looks like.
 
          There is one Man in scripture who did not marry well. That was reflected in his children. In fact he did the opposite – he married pretty much the worst person he could have married. Oddly enough though, God used that marriage to show what God’s love looks like in a very profound way. Could God ever be so direct as to tell someone who they should marry? God told me I was going to marry Kim Gamble. I recognize that does not happen for most of us. We were not even on each other’s radar and as plain as I am standing before right now, God told me to marry Kim – it just took her a while longer to believe that was truly a message from God. This man in scripture who did not marry well was told by God who he should marry.
 
Hosea 1
The word of the Lord that came to Hosea son of Beeri during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and during the reign of Jeroboam son of Jehoash king of Israel: (750 years before Jesus – the only prophet in Israel during the divided kingdom and it was at the very end of Israel’s existence as a nation – Judah was in the South and lasted a while longer)
2 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." So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.
4 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. In that day I will break Israel's bow in the Valley of Jezreel."
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. Yet I will show love to the house of Judah; and I will save them — not by bow, sword or battle, or by horses and horsemen, but by the Lord their God."
8 After she had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, Gomer had another son. Then the Lord said, "Call him Lo-Ammi, for you are not my people, and I am not your God.”
          Notice a missing pronoun at the birth of the second two children. First Gomer bore HIM a son. The next two it simply says Gomer conceived and gave birth to a daughter and Gomer had another son. There is no HIM (Hosea) mentioned. That may be an oversite, or it may be that these were children of her prostitution.
          In either case, the children in his house are “Jezreel” = “He scatters”, Lo-Ruhamah = “Not loved” & “Lo-Ammi” = “Not my people” So far, Hosea doesn’t appear like he is going to get the ‘Father of the Year’ award.
10 "Yet the Israelites will be like the sand on the seashore, which cannot be measured or counted. In the place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people,' they will be called 'sons of the living God.' The people of Judah and the people of Israel will be reunited, and they will appoint one leader (Jesus) and will come up out of the land, for great will be the day of Jezreel.”
 
CHAPTER 2
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.'”
 
Hosea 2:13
“I will punish her for the days she burned incense to the Baals; she decked herself with rings and jewelry, and went after her lovers, but me she forgot," declares the Lord.
Hosea 2:14-17
"Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her. There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will sing as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt. "In that day," declares the Lord, "you will call me 'my husband'; you will no longer call me 'my master.' I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips; no longer will their names be invoked.
Revelation 2:4-6  Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.
 
Hosea 2:23
“I will plant her for myself in the land; I will show my love to the one I called 'Not my loved one.' I will say to those called 'Not my people,' 'You are my people'; and they will say, 'You are my God.'"
 
 
Hosea 11:1-7
"When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. 2 But the more I called Israel, the further they went from me. They sacrificed to the Baals and they burned incense to images. 3 It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by the arms; but they did not realize it was I who healed them. 4 I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love; I lifted the yoke from their neck and bent down to feed them.
          5 "Will they not return to Egypt and will not Assyria rule over them because they refuse to repent? 6 Swords will flash in their cities, will destroy the bars of their gates and put an end to their plans. 7 My people are determined to turn from me. Even if they call to the Most High, he will by no means exalt them.”
          They are without God – they are without their heavenly FATHER.
 
Hosea 14:1-3
“Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God. Your sins have been your downfall! 2 Take words with you and return to the Lord. Say to him: "Forgive all our sins and receive us graciously, that we may offer the fruit of our lips. 3 Assyria cannot save us; we will not mount war-horses. We will never again say 'Our gods' to what our own hands have made, for in you the fatherless find compassion.”
 
God will restore them, but not this generation. They will go into exile. God will restore them only through the son that makes God a Father – only through Jesus Christ, who, as a loving son, will take the punishment for all God’s other children.
 
What does this window of scripture show us about God and the mirror of scripture show us about ourselves?
WINDOW
PROSTITUTE: Not just the meaning of a woman who sells her body to others - Webster 1828
“To give up to any vile or infamous purpose; to devote to anything base; to sell to wickedness; as, to prostitute talents to the propagation of infidel principles, to prostitute the press to the publication of blasphemy.” To give ourselves willingly to sin.
 
God loves us, even though we have sinned. Even though we sometimes do right, we more often than not do what is wrong – we prostitute our selves to the world – and he loves us so much that he wants the single most intimate relationship possible – like that of a marriage – a covenant relationship. He is at work right now to bring us back to himself. John 3:16
 
VIDEO: A FATHER’S LOVE 

MIRROR
STORY: RETREAT WITH WORLD-WIDE IMPACT
In the book Second Calling, Dale Bourke writes that years ago, she attended a conference. When it was over, her friend Bruce offered her a ride to the airport. As they were about to leave, another man asked if he could join them. As they drove away from the hotel, she and Bruce asked the man where he worked, and he mentioned a Christian organization. Bruce said, “I have fond memories of that group, because I attended a retreat of theirs one time, and that’s where I became a Christian. It was in 1972 in New Hampshire.” Bruce went on to explain that eventually his whole family became Christians and went into Christian work. His sister was a Wycliffe missionary and Bruce himself became publisher of a major Christian publishing house, which brought many significant Christian books to the public. Bruce finished the story with a flourish saying that “when you think about it, that retreat had worldwide impact.” The man was silent. Dale and Bruce thought that maybe they were boring him. Then the stranger quietly said, “I led that retreat. It was my first time as a conference leader, and I felt like a total failure. Until this moment, I have always believed it was one of the biggest failures of my life.” Dale Bourke wrote, “What had seemed like the simple act of offering a ride to a stranger had turned into a powerful reminder that God uses our efforts whether we realize it or not. I may spend the rest of my life doing things that don’t seem at all successful. Yet only God knows the purpose. I am called simply to be faithful.”
 
          Just like Hoesa, no matter what the world has to offer, unlike Israel, we are to remain FAITHFUL to God!