Key Thought: Hosea reveals more of God’s love in the challenge of justice and judgment.

[Teaching Plan for Love and Judgment: God’s Dilemma April 8, 2013]

1. Have a volunteer read Hosea 10:12,13.

A. Ask class members to share a short thought on what the main idea of this text is.
B. How do we sow righteousness? Is this a call for kindness and social justice, or a call to spend more time in our relationship with God?
C. Personal Application: What “securities” of the world do we take for granted and trust on in our daily lives? Share.
D. Case Study: One of your relatives states, “What does breaking up the fallow ground represent for God’s people? How can revival and reformation be brought about in our church today seeing that everybody seems to be comfortably settled in their pews?” How would you respond to your relative?

2. Have a volunteer read Hosea 11:1-4.

A. Ask class members to share a short thought on what the main idea of this text is.
B. Why does God refer to His people as little children who don’t know how to walk, and don’t know that He was the One who healed them and fed them?
C. Personal Application: How do we know if what we are going through is God’s teaching or discipline, or something else? Share your thoughts.
D. Case Study: One of your friends states, “God didn’t give me anything. I had to go to school, study, work hard and save so I could get the things I have. My job, my house, my family, my possessions – I worked hard to get these things and I don’t see God in any of it.” How would you respond to your friend?

3. Have a volunteer read Hosea 11:8,9.

A. Ask class members to share a short thought on what the main idea of this text is.
B. What reality does God show about mankind by contrasting His mercy in being God and not man? Why do Christians tend to try and put corrupted human emotions on God like other religions do?
C. Personal Application: How can we stay true to God’s laws and principles in an ever changing world where political correctness and the concept of morality is constantly being reevaluated and changed? Share.
D. Case Study: One of your neighbors states, “Since Israel’s apostasy was a gradual process, does that mean that the individual person’s restoration would have to be a gradual process as well – like the restoration of truth through the period of the seven churches of Revelation?” How would you respond to your neighbor?

4. Have a volunteer read Hosea 14:1-4.

A. Ask class members to share a short thought on what the main idea of this text is.
B. Why does God put conditions on His promises? What conditions are required for all God’s promises to be fulfilled?
C. Personal Application: How does this reference to Israel compare to I John 1:9? What does it mean by “confess” in this conditional promise? Share your thoughts.
D. Case Study: Think of one person who needs to hear a message from this week’s lesson. Tell the class what you plan to do this week to share with them.

(Note: “Truth that is not lived, that is not imparted, loses its life-giving power, its healing virtue. Its blessings can be retained only as it is shared.” MH p. 149)

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