3/28 Senior & Junior High Sunday School "Hosea"

Senior High-Steve Briggs, Junior High-John Baker

Introduction

Have the students get in two groups. They each will have one White-Out bottle and will be asked to go through an article laced with typographical errors. They are to change/erase anything that is wrong. At the end of the time, come together and see who caught the most errors.

Today, we are finishing our series on Hosea. We’ve covered a lot of material the last three weeks. We started out in Hosea 1, which showed us God telling Hosea to take for himself an adulterous wife. We find that the wife, Gomer, continued to cheat on him and we only know that Hosea is the father to one of the children that Gomer has. The next week we looked at Hosea 2—3, where God shows Hosea that the Israelites were quite like Gomer. They were supposed to be in a covenant relationship with God, but they had decided to suit their own interests and likings. At the end of the lesson, we see God instructing Hosea to go to Gomer, and to stick with her, telling her to turn from her ways. Last week was a little gloomy. We went through God’s speech to the Israelites, telling them about all the wrong that they had done to Him. We find that there are many parallels between the Israelites of that time, and the Church today.

Today, we are going to look at the final restoration that God has for the Israelites. See, God invented White-Out. He has, even with a huge list of transgressions, forgiving His people when they saw the error in their ways and repented. He sent His Son to die on the cross so that we can be forgiven, and that we can be made white as snow.

Lesson

Have the students get out their Bibles and turn to Hosea 11

Read Hosea 11:1-11

Take a look at verse nine. God knows His creation all too well. He knows that their first instinct when someone wrongs them is to go in anger towards the one who wronged them. God says, I’m not like you. I am holy. With this verse in mind, how do you view statements made by Christian conservatives who say that Hurricane Katrina and the Haitian earthquake were results of God’s wrath against people for not following Him?

Another lesson that we can take out of this verse is the fact that many people mold God into thinking exactly like they do. They want God to react in the same manner. God does not conform to our image of Him. He is holy and is not bound by human emotion or theories.

God, for the next two chapters resorts to calling out the Israelites for their wickedness and adultery against Him. However, these are a little different, because they are prefaced by the love of God. He wants to reiterate the fact that He always loved the Israelites. ALWAYS. He goes back to what they have done. Kind of a “I love you, and I want you to know that, but look what you have done to me”

Read Hosea 14:1-3

Hosea makes a plea to the Israelites. He tells them to ask God to forgive them, but also turns from their ways. Repentance is kind of a Christian-ese word. It’s something that we have said so many times but we rarely live it out. How many times do you ask for forgiveness but not do anything about it?

Read Hosea 14:4-8

Let’s go through and show the symbols that God uses there and say what they mean: Dew=Representation of a new day, Water to a dry heart. Green Pine Tree= Everlasting God

Read Hosea 14:9

This sounds a little like a proverb. Who are the people who are stumbling in the ways of the Lord? Allow them to answer, but point out that nowhere in this book did God talk to anyone who was not already a believer. God is talking about believers who are stumbling around because they continue to do what they want instead of what God wants.

Another question we could ask is this, can we tell people who are not living right without seeing their actions?

Application

What is the evangelistic message that was given to the world through Hosea? (That no matter what you have done and how long you have been running, God is still there waiting to use White Out).

3/14 Senior & Junior High BFC "Hosea 2 & 3"

Senior High-Jared Graves, Junior High- Sandra Baker

Introduction

Let’s review last week. The main guy in the story is? (Hosea) And God tells him to do what? (marry an adulterous woman, Gomer) What theme is brought up by God towards the end of the chapter? (You are so far away from being the person that I created you to be I don’t even know you. One day, I will. I’m going to make sure of it).

God is going on a soap box rant here for a little while. We know that it is God speaking, yet let’s try to read it in two different perspectives. Let’s read it as God’s words to Israel, but also as God speaking to Hosea and saying everything that he is feeling.

Lesson

Have everyone open up to Hosea 2:2.

Hosea 2:2-8 (Israel’s Sin)

God looks at the people that He created, He delivered, and that He loves and sees what they are doing to Him. We talked about adultery from a human perspective last week. How would it feel if our wife/husband cheated on us. But let’s see exactly what God is going through. God created every fiber of these people’s being. He created them with love and care. He made it possible for them to be born, he delivered their ancestors, He has done everything possible for them, yet they turn from Him.

Hosea 2:9-13 (Israel’s Sin)

God is going to get revenge for everything that the Israelites have done to Him. Does that sound like your God?

If we look at this carelessly, we would see God as a very vengeful God, but see what is happening here. God is saying all these things that you have perverted and turned into something for other Gods will be turned back to me. God is basically saying before you come home, I have to get everything else. Remember the commandment “No other gods before me”?

Hosea 2:14-23 (God moving to redeem)

Look at what God is going to do. 1) He is going to take Israel away to the desert. He is going to seclude her and take her away from all distractions. 2) When all distractions are taken away God is going to give back all the things He took, except now they are holy. 3) God will bring peace. With no competing gods, there is no need for battle.

Heaven is going to be awesome. This is what it is going to look like. This is God’s ideal existence; one with His creation.

Read Hosea 3 (Hosea application to God’s story)

It’s almost like God says, “If I can do this, Hosea, you can too.” Hosea learns that God knows what it feels like to be cheated on.

Basically now, you have Hosea marrying Gomer, paying a slave's ransom for her, and then saying let's do this relationship the right way. Does that sound familiar? God made us, married us in the old covenant, then as we sinned and went away from Him, He paid a price, His Son for us. Then, when we come back, we are told this is a new way of  life, and this is what the relationship is supposed to look like. God shows that He loves us so much that He is going to make the first move. This was John 3:16 hundreds of years before John 3:16 was written.

Application

If there is infidelity in a relationship the blame is usually on the unfaithful spouse. However, is the other spouse at fault if they do not try to reconcile differences?

There is an entire world out there that does not realize that God has made the first step in reconciling them and restoring a perfect relationship. That is where we come in.

8/30 Ignite- Good Hygiene: Getting Cleaned Up

For Ignite, we had a rocking worship service and heard a message on the history of man's relationship with God. We noted that once sin entered the world we were Messy. However, God acted upon this, He desired a relationship with His creation, and sent His own, spotless Son, to take on all the mess that we were covered in. The only way for this to happen, however, is through accepting Christ as a personal Savior and Son of God, and being obedient in baptism, the cleansing of our sins.