Hosea 09: The Prophets Be Crazy

Have you ever witnessed someone air their spouse's dirty laundry in public, leaving everyone squirming in discomfort? That's precisely the energy of Hosea 9, where God—portrayed as the faithful but heartbroken husband—finally reaches His breaking point with unfaithful Israel.

Pastor Brandon unpacks this dramatic chapter titled "The Prophets Be Crazy," drawing a compelling parallel to those awkward prayer request moments in Southern churches where personal grievances suddenly become public knowledge. With characteristic authenticity and humor, he reveals how God calls out specific behaviors and recalls the beautiful beginnings of His relationship with Israel: "When I first found you, it was like finding fresh grapes in the desert." This poignant metaphor captures something unexpected, refreshing, and life-giving—the sweetness of first devotion now replaced by spiritual adultery.

The heart of this episode challenges us to examine what might have slowly displaced God from the center of our lives. Has Sunday baseball become your new worship service? Has keeping peace with an unbelieving spouse trumped your spiritual growth? Are you chasing material possessions at the expense of your relationship with God? These subtle shifts don't happen overnight but through a series of small compromises that eventually leave us viewing dedicated believers as "fanatics" or "inspired fools." The good news? God's reckless love never stops pursuing us, and the path back begins with one honest step in His direction. Subscribe to Bible Breakdown for more insights that transform ancient scripture into relevant, life-changing wisdom for today's challenges.

Ask a Question
Send Encouragement

|||| Take a Next Step ||||
SOAP Bible Study Method.
Bible Reading Plan.
Free Weekly Newsletter.

|||| Social ||||
Facebook.
Instagram.
X.
YouTube.

The More We Dig. The More We Find.

Chapters

• 0:48 The Prophets Be Crazy Introduction
• 2:04 Prayer Request Time Gone Wrong
• 4:51 God's Intense Rebuke of Israel
• 8:19 Like Finding Fresh Grapes
• 9:13 Have We Made Idols?
• 12:48 Taking Steps Back to God

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:24

Well, hello everybody. Welcome back to the Bible Breakdown Podcast with your host, pastor Brandon, today, hosea, chapter 9, and today's title is the Prophets Be Crazy. The Prophets Be Crazy. As I was telling you guys, this is the soap opera of the Old Testament, and God is positioning himself as this broken-hearted, faithful husband, and he's had enough, and so he's going to call out some names and it's going to get awkward up in here, but it gets better after it gets worse, and so we're going to get all that in just a moment. But if you like what we're doing here, as you are opening your Bible to Hosea, chapter 9, make sure you like, share and subscribe to the YouTube channel and the podcast. Make sure you leave us a five-star review on the podcast it really does help us to get the word out about everything that we are doing and make sure you're going to the Bible Breakdown Discussion on Facebook. It's an amazing group of people doing a wonderful job and, as always, the more we dig, the more we find. Well, if you remember what we have been kind of walking through over the past several days, hosea is all about God's reckless love and it is one of those soap operas where it's like you could call it General Hospital, as the World Turns, whatever you want to do, but it's real. I mean, this actually happened, and what today's chapter reminds me of is something that is like.

Speaker 1: 1:45

So here, let me tell you a quick segue about me. That is, I grew up in in church. I grew up in the Southeast United States. I grew up in Southern rural country churches, you know, and just where people just born, lived and died going to that same church. They just loved each other, they knew each other and that was a double-edged sword, right, and there would be all these different things that we would do that I am so glad that my kids don't get to experience, but at the same time, I'm kind of sad they don't get to experience it, because one of those things is we used to have this thing called prayer request time and what would happen is somebody would get up in front of the congregation and say does anyone have a prayer request? Now I can't think of the light for the life of me why we would do this, because can I tell you, not one single time when someone would give out a prayer request did I ever hear that guy on stage mention it when he would pray. He would just say, lord, over all these requests we ask you to, you know all that. So it really became a time to just kind of let everybody know what was going on in your life, and sometimes that was for better, sometimes that was for better, sometimes that was for worse. And listen, I can't tell you how many times, and I'd love to know down in the comments below if you've ever been a part of one of these.

Speaker 1: 2:54

I can't tell you how many times that the prayer request time would be one of my favorite times of the service, because people would get, um, get really animated by what they were talking about. And there would be times when there would be these, these folks, and most of the times it was a, it was an upset wife, but sometimes it'd be an upset husband and they would say now, listen, church, I need y'all to pray for my spouse because and then they would say all manner of things they didn't need to say out loud, such as you need to pray for my husband because he's been looking at some stuff he don't need to be looking at on the internet. Oh Lord, all of a sudden we done got real up in the church house. Or you need to pray for my wife, because I see her and she's flirting with a bunch of men and none of them is me. I mean, just awkward city immediately is what would happen, and we would just very, very quietly, just well, lord, we just pray for everybody, including all of us who had to hear that just now. We just keep going. And that is what today's chapter reminds me about a little bit, because what God is doing is he is talking about all these different people and all these different things that's going wrong in the nation of Israel. People and all these different things that's going wrong in the nation of Israel, and instead of just you know, saying you know, there's some things we need to fix, he's naming names and he's saying all you fools need to stop it, and so we're gonna learn and see what that is, and then we get through with this. We're gonna maybe ask some serious questions for ourselves and see if God will help us take a step closer to him today.

Speaker 1: 4:27

So if you no grapes for making new wine, you may no longer stay here in the Lord's land. Instead, you will return to Egypt and in Assyria you will eat food that is ceremonially unclean. There you will make no offerings of wine to the Lord. None of your sacrifices there will please Him. They will be unclean, like food touched by a person in mourning. All who present such sacrifices will be defiled. They may eat this food themselves, but they may not offer it to the Lord. What, then, will you do on the festival days? How will you observe the Lord's festivals, even if you escape destruction from Assyria? Egypt will conquer you and Memphis will bury you? Nettles will take over your treasures of silver, thistles will invade your ruined homes.

Speaker 1: 5:39

The time of Israel's punishment has come. The day of payment has come is here Soon. Israel will know this all too well Because of your great sin and hostility. You say the prophets are crazy and they've inspired men. The inspired men are fools. The prophet is a watchman over Israel for my God, yet traps are laid for him. Wherever he goes, he faces hostility, even in the house of God. These things my people do are as depraved as what they did in Gebeah long ago. God will not forget. He will surely punish them for their sins.

Speaker 1: 6:17

The Lord says O Israel, when I first found you, it was like finding fresh grapes in the desert. When I saw your ancestors, it was like seeing the first ripe figs of the season. But then they deserted me in Baal Peor, giving themselves to that shameful idol. Soon they became vile, as vile as the God they worshipped. The glory of Israel will fly away like a bird and your children will not be born or grow in the womb, or even be conceived. Even if you do have children who grow up, I will take them from you. It will be a terrible day when I turn away and leave you alone. I have watched Israel become as beautiful as Tyre, but now Israel will bring out her children for slaughter. Oh Lord, what should I request for your people? I will ask for wombs that don't give birth and breasts that give no milk, the lord says.

Speaker 1: 7:14

All their wickedness began at gilgal. There, I began to hate them. I will drive them from my land because of their evil actions. I will love them no more because all their leaders are rebels. The people of israel are struck down.

Speaker 1: 7:28

Wow, god has had enough. And he is pointing fingers and he is saying this is where you went wrong, this is what happened. And then it just kept going. And then, when there were people like these priests, you called them crazy and instead of letting them help you. It kept getting worse and worse and worse. So God's just calling them out and he's just saying what's going on. But I love at the same time when he said but I remember when we first found each other Now, of course, this is God saying it for their benefit. God existed before time and he knew exactly what was going on. But he's framing it in the metaphor of this relationship of a wayward wife and a faithful husband. And he said I remember we first saw each other. It was like grapes in the desert, in other words, it was just refreshing and it was beautiful and it was new and it was exciting.

Speaker 1: 8:36

But all these other things happen, and and I think that the obvious question that we must ask ourselves today, with this application question for today, is have have we gotten to that place? Have we gotten to that place where, instead of celebrating our relationship with God, instead of being excited about our relationship with Him, we have started chasing after everything else? That doesn't satisfy? Let me ask this question, and that is this is there anything more important than God in your life? Do you place anything higher than him? If so, it's an idol. It's an idol in our life, and here's the thing for most of us is, for most of us, this doesn't happen overnight. It happens very slowly, very subtly, to the point that we didn't even realize when our kids became more important than God. How do I know? Because it's been weeks since we've been to church, because we have to take them to the other worship place called the ball field. I know I just lost a couple listeners. I'm not saying baseball is wrong. I am saying it becomes wrong when it becomes our idol.

Speaker 1: 9:39

What about our spouse? Our spouse doesn't want to go to church. They want to go elsewhere, they want to do whatever, and in order to keep the peace, we put their needs ahead of our desire to worship God. To worship God. And now we only go to church every three or four weeks and on the other time we sit at home because we've made their needs more important. What about the idea of you know we love God, but we don't go to church on Sunday, because Sunday is an opportunity for us to get some extra hours, because we really want that new boat or we want this, we want that? Have we got to the place where we've put something else as more important than God in our life.

Speaker 1: 10:13

Now, once again, god does not mind us having things. God does not mind with you giving your children an opportunity to do sports. Of course not. Of course not. There's nothing wrong with that. The problem becomes is when it takes the precedence of God in your life.

Speaker 1: 10:28

Now, is Christianity going to church? No, not by itself, but it is important. It is a time when God's people do need to come together to worship the Lord, and it needs to be a central focus of our life, not just so we can come to church, but so we can come and be part of the church and serve one another. So there's nothing wrong with having things. The problem is when things have us and it gets to be more important than God in our life, and so the question today is is there anything in our life that's become more important than God, to the point now that, when we look at people who are serving God, we think they're crazy, we think that they've gone too far, just like it was saying that these prophets have gone crazy and they were calling them inspired fools because they were speaking for God.

Speaker 1: 11:14

Do you see people who are going all in for God? Do you see them as crazy? Do you see them as fanatics and inspired fools. Well, I'm going to ask you this question Do you remember the time when you first got saved and you were an inspired, crazy fool? What happened? What happened? Why did you take one step away? That turned into two, that turned into ten, and until now, you don't even know how you feel about God. But let me tell you something God's reckless love will not give up on you and, just like you may have taken some steps away from him, he has been following you, he has been chasing you, he's been calling back to you and he'll never give up on you. It's amazing, grace of God.

Speaker 1: 11:55

And so what do you do today? You take a step back toward him and get really honest and say God, you are not number one in my life right now, but I want you to be. I repent of my sin. I turn to you and help me walk back to you. God has no intention of you making that walk by yourself. That's not a walk of shame, it's a walk of freedom. When you say, you know what, I am going to start course correcting until I make God number one in my life, and, as you do, every step you take is a step of freedom for you and everybody else around you. Let's pray together right now, god.

Speaker 1: 12:26

Thank you so much for today. Thank you, god, that it is for freedom that you have set us free. Thank you, god, that your word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. It shows us times when we need course correction. We need to move here or there, and you do it because you love us and you want us to walk in freedom every day. Help us to do that today. In Jesus' name, we pray Amen. Amen. What God's word says in Hosea 6, verse 6, I want to show love, not offer sacrifices. I want you to do that. I want you to know me more than I want burnt offerings. More than your hands. God wants your heart, and if you serve him with your heart, then it will change what you do with your hands. I love you. I'll see you tomorrow for Hosea, chapter 10.