“Go take for yourself a wife of harlotry and have children of harlotry’ for the land commits flagrant harlotry forsaking the Lord.” Hosea 1:2b
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The word of the Lord which came to Hosea the son of Beeri during the days of…” Hosea 1:1
The formula “the word of the Lord” is of paramount importance to who we are as the people of God. Without this formula Christianity simply becomes a collection of well thought out doctrines without divine power. It appears Eleven times in Acts, Seventeen times in the New Testament, only once of which is a direct quote from the Hebrew Scriptures ( 1 Peter 1:25 ).
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It appears Thirty two times in the Minor Prophets and constitutes the very base of their message and core of the authority by which they spoke. Unfortunately it is very clear that this formula was also utilized by those who spoke falsely, for personal gain or from fertile imagination, often without immediate repercussions.
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This formula is used Nine times in the Pentateuch. Twice it refers to a personal message from God to Abraham. Twice it refers to those who feared or respected God through his messenger Moses. Three times it refers to the specific will of God concerning a situation and then twice it is used to denote the general commands of God. In all cases it is something that should be greatly respected, immediately and continuously obeyed and contains the combination of promise and consequences involved in obedience or disobedience.
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“The word of the Lord” appears Seventy Five times in the Historical Books of the Old Testament,(See your Bible for references) defining a theme of the redemptive history of the Bible. Add to it the Four appearances in Psalms and the One Hundred and Twenty appearances in the Major Prophets (See your Bible for references) and we have a biblical formula that must not be ignored. (This gives a grand total of 267 in the NAS) Yet it is one that I am afraid is down-played in our modern times. In fact I would even go as far as to say it is largely ridiculed, relegated to examples of crazy ranting, embarrassing exclamations or simply inappropriate use. However the message of the Bible is clear. The Word of the Lord is IMPORTANT. It contains promise, command and consequence. It brings real love, real judgment and real salvation to a humanity that fell in the garden, abandoned God in the Flood, rejected God at Babel and throughout the redemptive record has struggled with the concept of “The Word of the Lord.”
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling.” Matthew 23:37
Those who have carried this Word have been dismissed, ignored and persecuted throughout history. So rarely have they been embraced as to almost make it suspect when the general public (even of the People of God) embrace their words. Today the lack of respect continues even within the church in a land where we have more Bibles per capita than perhaps ever in the history of the world. We quibble about translations. We reject inspiration. We modify to fit our experience and common choices. Can the end be any different from those who throughout time have rejected the very authority of the Word of the Lord?
“The importance in this modern world of the declaration “The Bible is the Word of God” is primary. It is the watershed of modern theological controversy. On the right of this mountain peak are all those who believe that the Bible is the revelation of God and is infallibly inspired. They may differ on many details of interpretation of that revelation, but they agree as to its authority. On the left of this peak are all those who reject the Bible as the primary authority in faith and life, substituting for it any one of several forms of authority ranging from the human mind to the common experience and agreement of the church. Some of these on the left may hold with us as to the truth of every primary doctrine of Scripture, but they themselves do not belong to us because they accept those doctrines on a ground which is insufficient, and if the pressure of the battle becomes too great, they will relinquish those doctrines such as the virgin birth, the unique deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, the bodily resurrection, the second coming, etc. Therefore, though we may differ in many details with those who are on the right of this watershed, we belong together and must recognize this modern division in the theological world. Only on the basis of the Bible as the Word of the Lord can we ever have agreement on Christ, on the way of salvation, and on ecclesiastical matters. When we reject the Bible as this authority, it results in the “don’t care for doctrine” attitude of the liberal.” Dr. Harold John Ockenga (http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/article_word_ockenga.html , 10-6-2012)
For Hosea the entry of the Word of the Lord to his world was a life changing proposition. This was true through out the Bible and continues to be true today. If one were to research each of the biblical references for this formula I am guessing that one would find someone whose life was changed. This would indeed be the case for our protagonist Hosea. He was about to embark on a life journey which would express the heart of God and the depth of His plan for the salvation of a lost world. It would be an embarrassing and difficult journey. Disrespect for the Word of the Lord is nothing new. False prophets, crazy prophets and mistaken prophets clouded the vision of God’s people then even as they do now. Skeptics doubted and the intellectual explained away the impact of God on Israel, relying instead on the might of nations, the power of wealth and the scheming of men to preserve the nation. Hosea had a Word of the Lord for them.
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