Intersections

Two men made their way to the city’s edge one day. One was quite young, only 20 years old, but with an awesome responsibility on his shoulders. The other was more mature. He’d been around for a while and seen a few things. As they walked, he tried to encourage the young man. He had advised for a long time that Judah should stay out of entangling alliances, promising that God would intervene, God would protect the descendants of David, and that God was their hope. The year was 735 BC. The older man was the prophet Isaiah. The younger was Ahaz, King of Judah. When he came to power, the Assyrian Empire was asserting itself far to the north. Nearer at hand, the kingdoms of Syria and Northern Israel, from whom Judah had split a generation before, were feeling threatened by Assyria and forming an alliance to protect each other. These small kingdoms wanted Judah to join them. King Ahaz, like his father and grandfather, realized that any such alliance might threaten Egypt to the south and caus...

 This passage from the Bible doesn’t seem like it belongs there. It feels like we’re reading from a different book, and you might be feeling confused. This and next week may a the only times you ever hear a sermon preached on Hosea and Gomer, so hopefully it’ll make an impact. And if not, well - I’m pretty sure it’s a lot cooler in here than it is outside, so why don’t ya’ll stay for a bit?  Let’s take a wider view of this book before we jump into the scripture today. Hosea is one of the twelve minor Old Testament prophets we’ve been talking about for the last few weeks, and he’ll be the last one in the series. He lived in the northern kingdom of Israel, and he lived about the same time as Amos from last week, just a little bit after him 753 to 715BC, so about seven centuries before Christ. Israel would be captured by Assyria in about 722 BC, so this is the beginning of the end, and based on what Amos heard from God, that seems accurate.  Hosea is preaching to Israel, and...