Title: GOD’S CHISEL AT WORK

Focus: The Word of God proclaimed is God’s chisel shaping us into the persons God wants us to be and become.

Function: To move the people to renew their commitment to solid preaching of God’s Word by insisting that pastors study and handle God’s Word faithfully, and by the congregation committing themselves to attending, hearing, responding and acting upon God’s Word.

Text: Hosea 6:1-11

Mount Rushmore National Memorial is a monumental granite sculpture. Using dynamite and other tools, Gutzon Borglum and others have carved a presidential memorial that represents the first 150 years of the history of the U.S. You’ll see four 60-foot sculptures of the heads of former U.S. presidents: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln.

They say that it is an impressive sight.

I admire the ability of sculptors who see things in a rock that I don’t see. I’m sure that imagination has a lot to do with such “seeing,” but no doubt more is involved: talent and creativity, for example, and the right kinds of chisels or tools are needed to bring form and shape to granite and rocks.

The same is true, I suppose, for the diamond on your ring finger. Once upon a time, that diamond was a “diamond in the rough”—a piece of rock or some kind of crystal. Using intricate tools, a diamond cutter, however, chiseled away at the rock, and voila, the end result was your engagement or wedding ring.

God is like a sculptor. Looking at his people as “diamonds in the rough,” God chisels away at us, shaping us into persons he wants us to be, more and more conforming to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. God chisel is his inspired, dynamic Word proclaimed by prophets throughout the centuries.

Hosea’s prophecy in chapter 6 provides us with an opportunity to reflect upon God’s chisel—his Word. I pray that our reflections upon that Word in Hosea 6 will lead to you and me renewing our commitment to solid preaching and to attentive hearing of God’s Word. I pray that pastors may study and handle God’s Word faithfully, and that God’s people may be committed to hearing and responding and acting upon God’s Word. For we cannot do without God’s chisel at work in our lives.

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Chisels are cutting tools. The Israelites discovered that truth in the days of Hosea. As Hosea proclaimed God’s Word to the Israelites in the midst of their idolatry and corrupt worship practices, Hosea called a spade a spade. He did not beat around the bush.

Hosea prophesied God’s Word with pictures and with an onslaught of complaints, indictments and judgments. For example, God made his Word visible by commanding Hosea to marry a wayward woman. Hosea’s troubled and contorted marriage with Gomer was a “sermon” signaling to the Israelites their unfaithfulness toward the Lord their God. That visual sermon of Hosea’s relationship with Gomer was a chisel that carved into the social and religious consciousness of God’s people.

But so are the words that Hosea spoke to the Israelites. In the context of chapter 6, for example, Hosea has announced words of judgment. Listen, for example, to these words: (5:9) “Ephraim will be laid waste on the day of reckoning. Among the tribes of Israel I proclaim what is certain…I will pour out my wrath on them like a flood of water.”

Mixed with these words of judgment, Hosea also echoed forth God’s pleadings with his people. God’s Word is not all about judgment; there’s also a beckoning or pleading mixed with glimmers of hope. Listen, for example, to these words: (5:11) “Ephraim is oppressed, trampled in judgment, intent on pursuing idols.” (couched in these words we sense some dismay, laced in divine love perhaps). Listen again: (5:15) “Then I will go back to my place until they admit their guilt. And they will seek my face; in their misery they will earnestly seek me.” Although Israel has spurned God’s love time and time again, the Lord does not give up on his people. Cutting, indeed, are God’s Word in the context of Hosea, chapter 6.

Now take note of chapter 6. The prophet begins by holding before us a limp resolve spoken by the Israelites in response to God’s chiseling words: “Come, let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he injured us but he will bind up our wounds. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence…As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth.” These words sound genuine coming from the lips of the Israelites, but they are not walking their talk. They are not taking God seriously.

And thus the Lord chisels away at his people saying, “What can I do with you, Ephraim? What can I do with you, Judah? Your love is like morning mist, like the early dew that disappears.” (In other words, you show love and devotion to me for a moment, but then, like mist in the morning, your love melts or disappears. Your love is fickle. You do not walk your talk).

At that point, God draws our attention to his chisel. He says (vs.5) “Therefore I cut you in pieces with my prophets. I killed you with the words of my mouth; my judgments flashed like lightning upon you.” The rest of the chapter is a short review of Israel’s evil ways in the land. In these few words of the text, we learn that God’s Word comes through his prophets; that God’s Word cuts and wounds, yes even “kills” his people; that it is not just the prophets speaking, but God through his prophets.

It’s the metaphor of God’s Word to the Israelites as a chisel cutting away and “killing” that I now wish to ponder and consider with you in greater depth. For the Word or chisel of God shapes us into the persons God wants us to be and become.

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From the text (vs. 5) we learn (1) that it is the Word of God that must be proclaimed. Listen again: “…I cut you in pieces with my prophets, I killed you with the words of my mouth.” The “I” in the text is God himself. The reference to “the words of my mouth,” points to God himself speaking to his people. The reference to “my prophets” points to the vehicle by whom God declares his Word.

Thus the words spoken by prophets or (in our case today) by pastors cannot be their words, but the words that have their origin with God himself. The writer of Hebrews, therefore, could open his letter to Hebrew Christians saying, “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways….” In other words, prophets and preachers are conduits, vessels, or vehicles through whom God delivers his Word.

Why is this point so important? Because God’s Word is authoritative, inspired; the Spirit of God pulsates in and through the Word of God and brings life to all who hear and respond to it in faith and obedience. Human words may inspire, but in the end they fall flat and forgotten. But God’s Word has a “life of its own.” Its source is divine.

I think it’s crucial that Christians in the pews and ministers in the pulpit have a clear understanding of their role and function as they insist on hearing and preaching the Word of God. Thus, unlike we see on T.V, ministers are NOT therapists. Therapeutic sermons filled with 5 steps to achieve marital happiness do not qualify as God’s Word; neither do sermons that promote self-esteem and living a happy life as defined by the culture around us. Ministers are NOT cheerleaders or cooks who give out recipes for material or worldly success. Ministers are NOT puppets who do and say and flatter whatever some influential people in the congregation wants them to say

To be sure, ministers must proclaim good news, but always in its context of the entire Word of God. Having a clear understanding of the nature and role of a preacher is crucial in the proclamation of God’s Word. That understanding must be clear to pastors and parishioners alike. So let me say it again: it is the Word of God that must be proclaimed—Nothing else!

From the text in Hosea 6 and beyond we also learn (2) that God’s Word must be proclaimed in its totality. Sermons should never be delivered in a boring style or lecture format. Sermons should pulsate grace and judgment, comfort and lament, assurance and warnings.

To be sure, sermons should always drive us away from ourselves, into the arms of the Lord Jesus. After all, our help and our hope is in the Son of God, rather than in ourselves. But when sermons do not go beyond the speeches of the local optimist club, or beyond the social spiels of ideologues or philosophers of any kind, we are in trouble. The Word of God conveys the entire specter or scope of good news and bad news, of joy and despair, of encouragement and pleas for repentance and obedience by us.

Sometimes, God’s Word soothes and comforts; other times, it cuts to the core of our being; it pricks and jars and jibes us and moves us to action. Sometimes, God’s Word hits us over the head. But always God holds before us the way of life, the way of forgiveness and joy. In that way, God carves us more and more into the renewal of his image—the image of his Son, the Lord Christ. God’s Word, then, must be proclaimed in its totality.

We also learn from Hosea (3) that God’s Word proclaimed by the prophets or pastors today must lead to the increase of knowledge. Time and time again, for example, God laments that his people do not acknowledge him; they have such a poor understanding of God’s holy character. They know a lot about God, but they do not know him in a covenantal, relational fashion, as a husband and wife know each other within the boundaries of faithfulness and committed love to each other. Listen to him: (vs. 6) “For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.” And elsewhere (4:1,2) God says: “There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgment of God in the land. There is only cursing, lying and murder, stealing and adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed.”

Hosea and Gomer formed a picture of God’s relationship with his people. His people demonstrated unfaithfulness by failing to walk their talk of faith, by following the Baals in their neighborhoods, by doing their own things and keeping God out of their lives.

God reveals himself in his Word; knowledge of God, then, comes as the preacher holds the mirror of God’s self-revelation before the congregation. To do so, however, calls for careful study, prayerful listening, and artful articulation. That takes time, and hard work, and faithfulness on the part of preachers. You, the congregation, must see to it and insist that pastors do that hard work. Don’t let your pastors get off that hook of study and preparation. And hold them accountable for walking their talk. For it is central to the task of preachers to teach and model knowledge of the Lord.

But you, too--members of the church--have a responsibility. You, like all pastors, must also hear, and discern God’s Word; you must take it to heart, and you must ruminate or chew on God’s Word, and ponder it in your heart, soul, and mind. And then you and I must act upon that Word.

For the Word of God proclaimed is God’s chisel shaping us into the persons God wants us to be and become.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.