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Good morning. So one question before we really officially begin.

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Is anyone willing and brave enough to admit that you thought you were at the 9-15 service?

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A couple? Oh, wow. All right. Well, welcome to the 11 o'clock service.

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You missed some time. Now the official start. Well, has the book of Hosea caught

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your attention or does God's prophet marrying a prostitute not not cause you to raise an eyebrow.

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Because here's the thing, not only did the prophet of God marry the prostitute, God told him to do it.

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Like maybe you've heard the saying, the phrase, God's ways are not our ways.

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This seems to fit right here. And maybe there was a conversation between Hosea

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and God, like Hosea is saying, wait, God, did I hear you right?

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You want me to do what? what? Maybe there was a little resistance, a little kickback, like, I don't know.

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It doesn't say. All we are told at the beginning of Hosea, verse two specifically,

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that the first time God spoke through Hosea, the first time,

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not the second time, not the 100th time,

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but the first time he spoke to Hosea, he said this, go take for yourself a wife

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of whoredom and have children of.

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Now that's the ESV translation. It's a little more R-rated than some of the other translations.

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What a doozy. Like that's a whopper of a first word from the Lord.

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You thought you might get a little warm up. He didn't.

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And the next time you think that the Lord is asking you to do something hard,

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like, oh, I don't know, Lord, I can't do that. I'm not sure about that. that you just need to remember your brother Hosea.

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Needless to say that if you have missed the last several weeks,

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boy, oh boy, you have missed a lot. I would encourage you to go to the Sermon Archive at the church website and get all caught up.

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You need to know that Hosea is one of the more graphic books of the Bible that

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God uses to illustrate his faithful love to his unfaithful.

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The book of Hosea really needs to catch our attention.

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And today, it intends to catch our attention regarding spiritual leaders.

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In part five of this Wayward series, spiritual leadership is one of the highlighted

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points of emphasis throughout the book of Hosea.

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And today, that is going to be our focus, Hosea Wayward series,

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part five, leaders of God's people.

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So here we go. One of the ways I think it is good to start is by asking a question,

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and actually I'm going to ask a combo question, and here's the question.

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Who are the spiritual leaders identified in the book of Hosea,

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and what roles or duties are they to fulfill?

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Well, I've done a little bit of work for you. If you check, though,

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throughout the 14 chapters of Hosea, there are two groups of spiritual leaders

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that are mentioned. the priests and the prophets.

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As a matter of fact, these are the same spiritual leaders found throughout the entire Old Testament.

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Sometimes the name of the priest or the prophet is identified,

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but compared to all the number of prophets and priests that are found throughout

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all of the Old Testament, only a small number of them are ever known by name.

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Hosea is one of them, Hosea the prophet.

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So that's the answer to the first question. Who are the spiritual leaders in

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Hosea? prophets and priests, priests and prophets.

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And the second part of the question, what are their roles? What are their duties?

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What job description do we have for a prophet and a priest?

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If you were a part of Good News and attending here during December when we were

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going through a Christmas series, the series there was the titles of Christ,

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two of those sermons were dedicated to talking all about the duties of prophets and priests.

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And one of the big takeaway, the takeaway from those sermons would be this,

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that Jesus, that Christ, he is the prophet of all prophets, and Jesus is the priest of all priests.

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Now prophets and priests, they

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complement one another, but they do have different roles from one another.

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Priests were the people's representatives to go before God. God.

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Priests went to God on behalf of the people.

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Prophets, they were representatives. They were God's representatives to the

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people. See the difference there? So priests went up to God and told them this, talked to this, and did this.

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Prophets, they heard from God, and then they came to the people.

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Priests would take the sacrifices from people and present them to God.

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Prophets would take divine messages, visions, dreams from God,

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and then they would deliver them to the the people. Often we see the prophets talking and starting their speeches and their comments

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like this, the Lord says, or if you grew up in the King James Version,

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thus saith the Lord, and then they deliver the message.

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Both prophet and priests were expected to honor God by living a righteous life.

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Both were expected to be godly examples in their communities.

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Both of them were to teach people about God and his word. Both were to tell

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people about the importance of worshiping God.

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Both were to tell people of the blessings that come with being obedient to God.

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And both were to tell the people about the judgments and consequences for disobeying God.

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Kind of sounds like a modern day, what kind of group of people?

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What kind of people do you think does that today? It's not a hard question.

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I didn't think, first service got this right away. Christians.

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The church, pastors, elders, leaders, the church, Christians. That's the job.

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And they have specific titles of priests and prophets that were doing this.

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And they were to work together to bring the most good to the people and the most glory to God.

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And now that leads to the next question. That's who does it,

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prophets and priests, right? These were their descriptions. How are they doing?

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How are the priests and the prophets doing at fulfilling their duties and caring

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for God's people? Is there a way here in Hosea that we can evaluate their work performance?

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Like most jobs that people hold come with a performance evaluation attached

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to it, right? Does yours? A lot of them do, right? If you're in sales, they're going to evaluate you.

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School teachers, factory warehouse workers, semi-truck drivers,

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contractors, publics, people, nearly every person who's working usually holds

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some kind of evaluation of how they perform.

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And leaders are no exception, especially spiritual leaders.

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It seems like a good time to say that here at Good News, every staff member

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goes through an evaluation process.

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Accountability is a good thing, and it needs to be a high priority in our lives.

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So what is the performance performance evaluation of the priest and the prophets

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mentioned in the book of Hosea. And I think.

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The best way to answer this is outside of Hosea, like outside of Hosea the prophet,

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all the other priests and prophets, the answer seems to be.

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Like, say that after me. If you ever wanted to do that in church, now's the time to do it.

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It's horrible. I'm giving you the heads up. It's horrible. I want to show it

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to you. First, look at Hosea chapter 6.

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In Hosea 6, the chapter begins with Hosea calling for the people,

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including the priests and the prophets, to repent of wrongdoings.

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Well, what kind of wrongdoings? Well, look at Hosea 6 verse 9.

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It's a real mind-blowing situation, in my opinion.

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It says this, Like raiders who wait in ambush for someone, a band of who? Priests.

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Murders on the road of Shechem. They commit atrocities.

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Is this literally happening? Metaphorically happening? I don't know.

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But any way you slice it, this has got to be a negative mark on anyone's evaluation form.

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Especially priests. priests. If ever there's an immediate termination,

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fired moment for unemployment, this is it.

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Throughout the week, I'm scratching my head saying, how does a group of priests,

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verse nine says a band of priests, how do they get to the point of living like this? Yes.

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How do priests and raiders, not the NFL football team in Las Vegas,

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raiders like robbers, thieves, and murderers, how do they get lumped into the same category?

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Well, I think it happens the way it still happens today. I mean, I get it.

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I think it's possible that you can be all in for God on one day and the next

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day be hiding in the bushes waiting to to murder someone.

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I suppose that's possible, but it seems more realistic that it's a gradual process.

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It's just a little sin at a time, a little sin, then another little sin,

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another little sin, then a little sneaky thing here, and a little sneaky thing here.

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All meanwhile, keeping your outward image, really righteous,

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godly person, all going on, and then the bigger sins start coming,

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and then the bigger sins, until finally it reaches that proverbial snowball snowball effect.

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And the priest is living a life committing one big atrocity after another.

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And somehow here in Hosea, it is not just one prophet priest doing this.

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It is a gang, literally, of them.

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Now Shechem is a real place. It's a famous old city.

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Best I can tell, it was the first capital of the northern kingdom under King

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Jeroboam, which makes me think, like, is this literal or physical or literal

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or metaphorical? I think it's kind of literal.

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Like, things are happening.

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The city of Shechem was known as a refuge city. It was one of six cities.

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So a refuge city was a place that was established by God's law and then allowed

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a person who accidentally killed someone to go live in that city.

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Now, if you murdered them, that's not accidental. If you murdered them, they put you to death.

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But here, if you accidentally killed someone, you could go and find refuge in

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one of these cities, usually from a family member who might be out to get you

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because you killed one of their loved ones. So that city exists.

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And the thinking seems to be that having a high level of priest presence living

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in these cities would be a good thing and not a bad thing.

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That having their presence and their counsel and their leadership and their

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authority would allow cooler heads to prevail in these kinds of cities.

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But that's not what's happening at all. Instead of the priests being the godly examples that they were expected to be,

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instead they are committing all kinds of atrocities.

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The definition of atrocity it's an

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extremely wicked or cruel act typically involving physical violence or injury

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other bible translations use the word lewdness lewdness it's not a word we use every day,

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to be lewd means to be intentionally wicked,

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especially in sexual behavior,

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including incest, cult, prostitution, rape, and adultery.

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So here's job performance number one. Like raiders, like robbers, like thieves,

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like all the bad guys we see in the movies ready to to pounce on people,

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the spiritual leaders are killing people and doing all kinds of heinous and

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horrendous acts to people while on the highway to Shechem.

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It gets worse. Can it? It does. Job performance evaluation number two comes

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from Hosea chapter four. Now Hosea chapter four, it's written in a way that presents Israel and its spiritual leaders on trial.

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Do you remember this from last week? Mario introduced these verses to us last

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week, the idea that God has this lawsuit against the people.

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Yahweh, the supreme title of God, God is the plaintiff, and Israel and its leaders, the defendants.

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So I want us to go through Hosea chapter 4, starting in verse 1, going through verse 7.

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Here it says this. Hear the word of the Lord, people of Israel,

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for the Lord has a case, has a lawsuit against the inhabitants of the land.

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And then hopefully this sounds familiar from last week. There is no truth,

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no faithful love, no knowledge of God in the land. Cursing, lying,

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murder, stealing, and idolatry are rampant.

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One act of bloodshed follows another. You remember all this from last week?

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In verse 2 alone, commands 3, 9, 6, 8, and 7, in that order of the Ten Commandments, are broken.

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It is God's evidence against the people. That's five out of the Ten Commandments.

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Now go down to verse 4 through 7, because here the case is going to shift a

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little bit. It directly shifts to the spiritual leaders.

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Verse 4, but let no one dispute, let no one argue, for my case is against you, priest.

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You stumble by day. The prophet will also stumble with you by night,

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and I will destroy your mother.

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My people are destroyed for the lack of knowledge because you have rejected knowledge.

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Now there are a few tricky points in trying to understand some of these verses and what they mean.

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For example, two of them for you. In the first half of verse 5, You will stumble by day.

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The prophet will also stumble with you by night.

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Is this the prophet Hosea that's going to stumble in the night?

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If you ask me for my opinion, I'll say, I'm not sure, but I don't think so.

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I don't lean that way because Hosea, he is the one prophet found throughout

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this book who's trying to shed spiritual light on the people.

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So I don't think that's what it means. I think the term prophet here is used

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better to describe the The prophets

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who prophesied falsely and they were leading people astray from God.

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And then in the very next phrase in verse five, I will destroy your mother.

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I think that's a reference to God saying, I'm going to destroy the nation of Israel.

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Like maybe it's literally the priest's mom, but I don't think so. So those are there.

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However, it seems to me that the primary point of these verses is to show how

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corrupt and sinful these spiritual leaders are.

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And God is saying to them, don't you dare point your finger at someone else.

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Don't you dare try to blame others for what you have done. My problem is with you, priests.

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And here's the problem. Verse six clearly states it.

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My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge.

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Teaching was a primary and important duty of a priest.

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If he neglects to teach the word, then he can't properly lead people into true knowledge of God.

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And that will result in destruction.

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And notice the people lacked knowledge.

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I'm pointing out that lacking knowledge and having no knowledge are two completely different things.

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They had some knowledge, and they needed more knowledge.

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And it was the job of the priest to make sure that they added more knowledge

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to what they already knew. In other words, the people of Hosea's day needed the same thing that we need

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today, the full knowledge of God. and the priests weren't giving it.

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In verse seven, the more they multiplied, the more they sinned against me.

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What should have been an increase in righteousness and a spiritual high in the

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land, having more and more priests, didn't happen. The exact opposite happened.

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Like this is bad math. Mario gave us good math in the introduction,

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50 chairs, 50 chairs, 100. This is bad math.

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If you multiply priest, the product, the answer to that should be an increase

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in righteousness, not more sinfulness.

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It wasn't happening. For the sake of making a point,

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let me go back again quickly to Hosea 6 verse 9 and just say,

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if that was literal, and I think there's a case that could be made that it was

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literally that they were hiding in bushes and hurting and killing people.

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But for right now, just pretend with me that it's literal, okay?

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Do you know what is worse than the physical murdering in Hosea 6?

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The spiritual murdering in Hosea 4.

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For a spiritual leader to not teach the knowledge of God and to not teach the

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word of God is spiritual homicide.

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And that's what happens when spiritual leaders reject teaching the knowledge

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of God and reject their duty.

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Again, this week I'm just asking, how does this happen?

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And I think it's subtle. But whenever a spiritual leader, spiritual leaders

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have these prolonged times in their life and not having a high reference for God,

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not having a high reference and respect for God's word, leaders are going to stray from that.

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They're going to stray from the main thing and other things are going to become the main thing.

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Like I'm thinking here in Hosea the priests were

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still preaching and teaching they just weren't

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preaching the word of God like they

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were preaching the worship of Baal they're preaching

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let's have these gods give us fertility let's do everything the way God's word

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says differently wrong that's what they're preaching it's important for us to

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know that anytime the word of God stops being being preached, something else,

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something less is going to replace it.

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And when it happens, it's the destruction of people that's the result.

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Did I mention the book of Hosea needs to have our attention?

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It certainly seems Hosea's day and our day have some uncanny similarities.

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So, so far, we have the spiritual leaders of Hosea physically and spiritually

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hurting people, destroying people.

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And why is it that way? Why are they leading this way? I think verse 8 gives

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some of the insight, where it says, they feed on the sin of my people.

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They have an appetite for their transgressions. Why do they lead this way?

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Because they profit from it. Because they are greedy for the things of this

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world and not for the things above. They would rather serve themselves than serve God.

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See, in Hosea's day, the people would bring what is called a sin offering to the priest.

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That's how they would be reconciled for their sins. This is the way God set it up.

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But he didn't set it up to be abused. The sin offering was a meal. And who do you think ate the meal? The priest.

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And they would take bribes and they would get wealthy from this.

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Do you see where this is leading? Instead of encouraging the people to sin less, the priests were actually encouraging

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people to sin more, because that would mean more food, more bribes, more wealth.

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Write this down. Find a greedy spiritual leader, and you will have found a bad spiritual leader.

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So what do we do with all this stuff? Like, this is icky leadership 101. 101.

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It certainly hasn't been a happy-go-lucky sermon from that part.

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If anything, it's a heavy sermon. The temptation is, well, let's quickly move on from this and go to something

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else. It's easier, funnier, lighter, better. And that would be a mistake, I think.

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Because God wants us to learn from this book of Hosea. He wants us to apply

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some things that we learn. So I have three applications for us, and I hope they are helpful to you.

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First one, based on all that we have seen and learned from the spiritual leaders

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from Hosea, I think the most profound application for us is this.

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Don't be that kind of spiritual leader and don't allow those kinds of spiritual

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leaders to lead us. That seems like super obvious application.

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Spiritual leaders who do not take their own sins seriously will be accountable for those sins.

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The spiritual leaders in Hosea's day, they did not seemingly take their sins

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seriously. They're living ungodly lives.

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And what a tragic testimony and a poor reputation it is when spiritual leaders

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openly, defiantly sin and don't care.

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Failures in spiritual leadership have been around for a long,

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long time. You ever heard of any? I bet you have.

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Most of us can probably attest. We've heard ministry failures.

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We've seen the headlines in the news from pastors having scandalous affairs,

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committing adultery and fornication, wrecking their families' lives,

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wrecking the ministries, to the priest praying on innocent children with child molestation,

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to elders embezzling fraud.

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Oh, it sounds a whole lot like Hosea's day, if you ask me.

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But for the spiritual leader, there is a greater accountability, and no spiritual leader should take this lightly.

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And I assure you standing here is one who identifies as one of these leaders it has my full attention.

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A spiritual leader's life is

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like a spiritual amplifier, and every part of their life will be louder,

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both good, oh, and especially the bad.

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Spiritual leaders who do not teach people the knowledge of God will be accountable

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for that kind of teaching. And again, the spiritual leaders in Hosea today, they were destroying people

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physically and spiritually. And sadly, it's still happening today.

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How many spiritual leaders are teaching false teachings?

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How many spiritual leaders today are teaching, be religious without having a

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relationship with Jesus and calling it okay?

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And how many spiritual leaders are out there teaching that the prosperity gospel is the gospel.

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And how many lives are being destroyed because of it?

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Don't be that kind of spiritual leader and don't sit under that kind of teaching from a leader.

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Two, I think God would have us learn from Hosea that it doesn't have to be like this.

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There are so many places in the Bible that speak wonderful things about spiritual

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leaders leading wonderfully well,

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like resulting in tons of joy and blessings, not just to the spiritual leader,

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but to the people who are connected with that kind of leadership.

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Quickly, I just made a chart for us. I want you to see some of these things

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and kind of take this whole negative sermon and go, oh, here's a little cheerfulness.

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There are some good spiritual leading things going on, like in Hebrews 13, 17.

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Good spiritual leaders keep watch over the souls of people they lead,

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and it's joyful for them.

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Find spiritual leaders who are mostly concerned for your soul.

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Like find spiritual leaders who are concerned that you are holy even above being happy,

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i i do think holiness and happiness go together right you agree thank you they

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do but there's this mindset of like holiness is one thing and happy is just

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all my physical temporal life, They keep watch over the souls. Staying in Hebrews 13, verse 7.

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Good spiritual leaders, they live out of faith in a way that can be seen by others and copied.

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Now listen, I get it. This won't always be perfect.

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Hang around any spiritual leader long enough, that's not right.

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That's going to happen. I get that. But there is an attitude that prevails from a righteous spiritual leader of

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loving God in a way that can be seen, learned, and copied.

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And that's good leadership. 1 Timothy 5.17. Good spiritual leaders, they work hard to produce good preaching,

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good teaching, and good vision. They don't just wing it.

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Now, whether you think this sermon stinks or it's helpful, I don't know.

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But I can tell you, as God is my witness, that it's like 16-ish hours of praying,

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studying, organizing, and writing to fit this into 40 minutes.

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And I don't say that as a pat on the back. That's not my intention.

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I'm just telling you it is hard work.

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And good spiritual leaders put in the work. work.

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Matthew 20, 25 through 26, good spiritual leaders serve.

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They understand that God has given them a privilege to lead others in the acts

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of service, and they lead the way in serving.

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Ephesians 4, 11 through 13, good spiritual leaders equip others for the work of the ministry.

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History, I'm certain, I speak for all spiritual leaders when I say there is

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this overwhelming joy that comes from spiritual leaders when they are putting in this time,

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putting in this effort, and someone comes to have a relationship with Jesus Christ.

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There is a happy dance going on.

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Or they get baptized. Or they get an email going, I'm reading my Bible every day now.

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Or hey I'm finding it easier and better and more important to share the gospel at my lunch break.

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Or how can I help in that kid's zone area what's that all about or I've been

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thinking God's really growing me what's it look like to lead a community group

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around here man that is fantastic like spiritual rejoicings push-ups inside.

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These are the priorities at Good News for us with spiritual leaders.

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This is what we're aiming for. This is what we're praying for.

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This is what we're holding one another accounting for.

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And by God's grace, by God's grace, it will happen.

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Because after all, it is God who does this kind of work in spiritual leaders.

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It is God who deserves all the credit of a spiritual leader being a good leader.

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It's impossible to be a good spiritual leader apart from God.

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And third and lastly, I realize someone might be thinking, what does this really have to do with me?

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Like, I'm not the official spiritual leader.

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You might be more of a spiritual leader than you realize. Though you might not

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have an official title in front of your name, pastor, elder. elder.

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But if someone calls you mom or dad or grandma or grandpa, there's a level of

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spiritual leadership that comes with that. And if you are one of those people who are intentionally like letting your light

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shine the way the gospel of Matthew talks about,

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like you live that way at school or you live that way at work,

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oh, you're a spiritual leader. At least to some degree, you are.

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And even if you think, nope, nope, none of those things work for me,

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none of these check the boxes of spiritual leadership for me,

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I'm still going to say that everything from this morning is still for you if you are a Christian.

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Because whether you are a Christian with more spiritual leadership responsibilities

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or you are a Christian with little spiritual leadership responsibilities,

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all Christians beat to the same drum when it comes to obeying God and following his standards.

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Be the Christian God has called you to be. Now let's pray.

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Father, I thank you for our book of Hosea.

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It seems that we can learn from both good and bad examples.

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And I would ask that you would give us this sermon to do that.

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Now, Father, I think Mario, he prayed it so well early this morning that it

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is so easy to look back of those Old Testament priests and prophets and they

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go, yep, yep, they're doing that all wrong. Yep, yep, oh man, that's terrible. And it is.

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But we do it in a way that makes us look better.

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And there's concern in that.

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That's almost exactly what you said to the priest. at least stop trying to blame

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someone else and point the finger elsewhere.

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So the heart of the matter is for us to take this,

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and with your grace, like evaluate. Evaluate.

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Where is our spiritual leadership in ways

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that are pleasing and honoring to you and that are teaching the knowledge of

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God and his word and what parts of our spiritual leadership are idols and wrong

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and we've let not like the main thing has been changed with something less than.

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It's a sort of difficult thing to preach. But with humility,

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with your spirits leading, Lord, there is a way that spiritual leaders can lead and it be glorifying to

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you and it can be good for the people that they lead. and I ask that that is

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what happens here at Good News and across the globe.

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Smash out false teaching, Lord, and lift up the true word of God and let people have ears and eyes,

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guys, see it and hear it in a way that causes them to worship you.

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In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

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Good words from Ephesians chapter 4. And he gave the apostles,

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the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and the teachers to equip the

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saints for the work of the ministry, building up the body of Christ. That's good news.

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Thank you.