The Anger and the Love of God
 by Robert B. Chisholm Jr.

 The Minor Prophets are 12 relatively short, often neglected books at the end of the Old
 Testament in the English Bible. These books span 300 years, from the eighth century
 B.C. to the fifth century B.C. In these books God warns sinners of impending judgment,
 but He also provides a vision of a glorious era that follows the dark days of divine
 discipline.

 Hosea and his eighth-century contemporaries, Amos and Micah, warned Israel and Judah
 of invasion and exile but also foresaw a messianic kingdom where God's ideal for His
 people would be realized.(1)

 The seventh-century B.C. Prophet Habakkuk faced the coming invasion of Judah with
 faith and courage, confident that God's loyal followers would be sustained by their
 faithfulness.(2) His contemporary Zephaniah also anticipated the dawning of a new era
 beyond the smoke of judgment.

 The Minor Prophets remind us that God is the King of the entire world, not of just His
 own people. In Jonah's mission to Nineveh in the eighth century, we see God's mercy
 toward the evil Assyrians.

 But in the seventh century Nahum announced the fall of the Assyrian empire, which had
 returned to its old ways with unprecedented cruelty. In the aftermath of Judah's exile
 Obadiah anticipated God's vengeance on the hostile Edomites, who had hit God's people
 when they were down.

 After the return from exile, in the sixth and fifth centuries, the prophets Joel, Haggai,
 Zechariah and Malachi challenged the people to recommit their lives to God and
 promised that God would fulfill His ancient promises because of His commitment to them.

 Some Christians tend to bypass or ignore the Books of the Minor Prophets. In doing so,
 they miss a vital portion of God's Holy Word. The Minor Prophets are extraordinarily
 relevant to us today: 

 • To a wicked, fallen world the prophets proclaim God's passion for righteousness and
 justice. 

 • To religious people--evangelicals included--who emphasize outward expressions of
 piety, the prophets remind us that God wants devoted hearts, not merely pious actions.

 • To people groaning under the consequences of sin, the prophets bring promises of
 comfort and hope for all who will turn from their sin and follow God. 

 Hosea

 I remember vividly the last time I got a spanking. I was 12 years old. My father and I
 had just returned home from a Little League game in which I had played poorly and had
 blown up at everyone around me. My father confronted me about my bad attitude, and
 I talked back to him with all the disrespect I could muster. My father was enraged.
 Suddenly I was over his knee, getting what I deserved. 

 I also remember vividly the last time my father told me that he loved me. I was 45 years
 old. My father was dying of cancer. He put his hands on my face, looked deep into my
 eyes and said tenderly, "I'm so glad you're here. I love you."

 Two different, conflicting images of my father. In fact, if you were to isolate them and
 evaluate my father's character on the basis of just these two scenes, you might
 conclude he was emotionally unsettled and unpredictable. Yet that assessment would
 be wrong. Though the images of rage and tenderness collide on the surface, both
 expressed my father's love for his son. Love is often tender, but sometimes it must also
 be tough. 

 In the book of Hosea we see conflicting images of God. On the one hand, He is a raging
 lion ripping its prey.(3) He sends fire on Israel's cities and robs mothers of their
 babies.(4) On the other hand, He is a tender lover trying to win back a wayward
 bride.(5) He urges Israel to repent and promises, "I will heal their waywardness and love
 them freely, for my anger has turned away from them."(6) God's intense anger appears
 to collide with His passionate love, but both express His unfailing commitment to His
 people.

 Nowhere is God's commitment to His people so vivid as in Hosea. In the time of Moses,
 God made a binding agreement with Israel. The people agreed to worship and obey God,
 while He promised in return to protect them and make them a model nation that would
 attract others to the one, true God. Hosea compares this covenant to marriage and
 depicts Israel as God's wife.

Unfortunately Israel violated God's Law and worshiped other gods.
                Hosea compares this to adultery. One god in particular, the
 Canaanite fertility deity Baal, held a special attraction for Israel.(7)
 Why? Because Baal worship promised what most Israelites wanted--a
 big family and good crops. The Lord God offered these things to
 Israel as well, but He demanded obedience to His Law as a
 prerequisite.(8) Baalism set no such moral standards. It appealed to
 the baser side of sinful human nature. 
 All one had to do to make Baal happy was to engage in sexual 
 rituals at religious shrines.(9)

 The Lord God was not about to tolerate any rivals. He judged Israel harshly, but
 appropriately. God had blessed His people with crops and children, but they thought
 that Baal had provided these gifts.(10) So the Lord God took away the produce from
 their fields and made it difficult for the women to have children.(11) The babies who
 were born died at the hands of enemies.(12) The punishment fit the crime. Attributing
 God's blessings to some false source brought the loss of those same blessings.

 God punished Israel, but He stopped short of wiping them out. The sight of their misery
 stirred up His compassion. God is not like human beings. Sinful men and women often
 allow rage to dominate every other emotion as they seek to destroy the object of their
 anger. That does not happen with God. He holds His anger and compassion in perfect
 balance.(13) His disciplinary judgment is meant to bring His people to their senses, not
 annihilate them.(14)

 To illustrate His great devotion to His people, the Lord God asked Hosea to live out an
 object lesson that proved to be gut-wrenching. He told the prophet to marry a woman
 who would be unfaithful and leave him. Before abandoning Hosea, she bore three
 children, all of whom received names foreshadowing God's judgment. 

 The first, Jezreel, was a warning that a bloody incident from the
 past,(15) which had occurred at the city of Jezreel, would be
 repeated in Israel's experience. The second, Lo-Ruhamah, meaning
 "not pitied," symbolized the withdrawal of God's compassion. The
 third, Lo-Ammi, meaning "not my people," signaled that God would
 sever His relationship with Israel.(16)

 But this divorce would not be final. God's discipline would bring His
 people to their senses and He would restore them to His favor. He would show them pity
 and reclaim them as His people.(17) He would bring them back from exile and plant them
 in the Promised Land.(18) (The name Jezreel means "God plants.") As an illustration of
 this, the Lord God told Hosea to reclaim his wayward wife, who by now was the
 property of another. Hosea paid the price to redeem her.(19)

 Yes, Hosea describes an offended, angry God who severely disciplines His people. But
 that discipline is the expression of eternal divine love that could never abandon God's
 children. Perhaps Hosea's most important contribution is not a lesson, but a picture--a
 picture of a God who agonizes over His wayward children and a God who works to draw
 them back to Himself. 

 



 Robert B. Chisholm Jr., Th.D., is professor of Old Testament studies at Dallas Theological Seminary, in
  Dallas, Texas. He and his wife, Debra, are parents of two children and live in Mesquite, where they
  attend Lake Ridge Bible Church (nondenominational). ©2001 Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.



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 ©2002 Billy Graham Evangelistic Association