The Prophet is Mad

Hos 9:7 The days of visitation are come, the days of recompence are come; Israel shall know it: the prophet is a fool, the spiritual man is mad, for the multitude of thine iniquity, and the great hatred.

Acts 26:22-26 Having therefore obtained help of God, I continue unto this day, witnessing both to small and great, saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come: 23 That Christ should suffer, and that he should be the first that should rise from the dead, and should shew light unto the people, and to the Gentiles. 24 And as he thus spake for himself, Festus said with a loud voice, Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad. 25 But he said, I am not mad, most noble Festus; but speak forth the words of truth and soberness. 26 For the king knoweth of these things, before whom also I speak freely: for I am persuaded that none of these things are hidden from him; for this thing was not done in a corner.

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Hosea chapter 9 is another sermon of doom and gloom and is yet another lesson of what happens when people cease to obey the Word of God. This is the eighth lesson in this series on the book of Hosea and the next to last to deal with such judgment themes. As we will see, the last four chapters of this book speak of the good characteristics of God and change in scope and focus. In this lesson, we want to deviate from the pattern that we have established in our study and go quite a different direction. Let's take a quick overview of the entire chapter, summarize it, and then move on to focus on the one verse of our text.

In the last lesson we discussed how that Israel had "mislaid God" or failed to put Him in the proper place in their lives. In this chapter, Hosea gives five things that are happening in Israel as a result of "God mislaid." In the first verse of the chapter, we find a death of joy as a result of their sin. The people had ceased to live truly happy and contented. In verse 6 we find that a result of their sin is that they will be exiled from their actual land of promise and will be carried away into captivity. This symbolizes the removal of the extravagant promises of God in their lives. In the seventh verse, we find a type of distorted spiritual vision that had arisen, and to this we will come back in a moment. Beginning in verse 11 and continuing to verse 14 we find that the fourth result of their sin was a falling birth rate. The final result of mislaying God is found in the final verse of the chapter and is the casting out and rejecting by God of His people. These five elements could all be a sermon in themselves and are still the result of putting God in any other place rather than first in our lives today!

In this sermon, let's focus in on element number three, found in our text in the seventh verse. It is perhaps the most remarkable of the five and warrants careful attention. The second half of the scripture reads thus:

Hos 9:7b the prophet is a fool, the spiritual man is mad, for the multitude of thine iniquity, and the great hatred.

We must first begin our study by asking "who is speaking" and "whom are they speaking of?" "The prophet is a fool, the spiritual man is mad..." There are two possibilities, first, that Hosea is speaking about false prophets, or the other, that Hosea is recording what the people were saying about him, the true prophet of the Lord. The answer is fairly straight forward to me. The term used for "prophet" here can mean either a true or false man of God, but the term "spiritual man" or literally "man of the spirit" is never used in scripture for false prophets. So in this verse we have recorded what this people who have mislaid God and turned from serving him, are saying about the true prophet and preacher of the Lord, the prophet Hosea. What are they saying? They are saying "the prophet is a fool, the man of the spirit is mad." And then immediately after the saying, we find the reason for their opinion: "for the multitude of thine iniquity, and the great hatred." The reason that they feel this way is because of the abundance of their sins and the greatness of their hatred. So we have what the people are saying and God's response to it in one portion of a verse. The Contemporary English Version renders the second half of the verse as this:

Hos 9:7b "Prophets are fools," you say. "And God's messengers are crazy." Your terrible guilt has filled you with hatred. CEV

This understanding of this verse, which matches our own, follows the opinions and scholarship of the most esteemed Old Testament theologians. "Hosea is a fool," is the common response of the day to his preaching, and "surely he is crazy and insane." Within these verse we find some tremendous truths, and let's consider them as they apply to all eras, including the modern day.

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It has been thousands of years since the time of Hosea, and our society has certainly changed Where Hosea had to walk or perhaps ride a donkey, we now have jet planes and submarines. The spiritual climate has changed too, because the magnificent work of Calvary has taken place and we are living full of the Holy Ghost and with a better understanding of the work and plan of the Grace of God. But despite all that has changed, human nature has not changed all that much. Solomon said that "there is nothing new under the sun" and in the area of spiritual endeavors and human nature, that is certainly true.

People are still sinning, and there are still those who insist on learning the hard way. There are still those who would rather make their money lazily and dishonestly than through an honest day's work. There are still scam artists trying to rip people off, just now the robbers call you on the phone instead of lying in wait on the road to Jericho! Mothers still worry. Fathers still work too much. Young people still hit perfection at about the age of 16 and then become dumber and dumber from that point on. Children still have to be trained. People still make poor choices and abandon their families which should mean the most for trivial pursuits. Let me say that I do not think that the youth of today are any more rebellious than the youth of my day or the generation previous. Maybe because of the degeneration of the world, they can easily take their rebellion to greater heights and damage, but the spirit is the same as it has always been throughout all of time. Human nature doesn't change that much which is why we can see in the words of Hosea, lessons that are still repeating themselves today.

And so in all of this, throughout all of time and even today, there is a reoccurrence of this spirit found in Hosea 9:7. There has always been and always will be this attitude that arises: "the prophet is a fool, and the man of the spirit is mad." To identify it, let's look closer at what they were saying. The Hebrew word for "fool" here is a somewhat rare one in the Old Testament. There is another more common word translated fool that is used in such verses as "the fool hath said in his heart there is no God" (Psalms 14:1; 53:1). The word for fool there is not the same as the one used in Hosea and the meaning is different. The more common "fool" implies a lack of morality and faith. That is not the meaning of the word in Hosea. The word rendered "fool" in our text means in the Hebrew "silly" or "crazy" and implies "not worthy of attention" or "someone to be dismissed and not listened to." And then it continues with "the man of the spirit" -- which is the literal reading in the Hebrew -- is "mad." And the word simply means "to rave and rant as an insane person" or "to act and speak as if you are out of your mind."

And so this is the feelings that the backslidden people of Israel had of the prophet Hosea and the other prophets as well. When the message of the Lord would come upon them and with a great fire burning in their soul they would begin to preach the Word of God to the people with a passion that got beyond normal conventional means and masks and that penetrated deep into the hearts of the listeners, the people's response to such was "they're crazy and insane." "They are ranting and raving as though they are mad and out of their mind." "They are a little overboard and a little too stringent and a little too extreme for our tastes." They misunderstood the men of God who really had something to say to them and would rather listen to men who were great and eloquent speakers who spoke with a calm and soothing tone and always said whatever they wanted to hear. But for a preacher to preach directly to them and expose what they needed to change and to give such a delivery so that the message poured from his very soul, was to turn them off and disregard him as "silly and just a little too overboard." "The prophet is a fool and the man of the spirit is mad," they said.

It is interesting to note that this view point and attitude toward the anointed man of God has always come out in response to true men of God with a message for the people. At the same time as Hosea was preaching in the north, the prophet Isaiah was thundering the message of God in the south. In Isaiah chapter 28 we find the prophet giving the unpopular message that they did not need to make alliances with the evil nation of Egypt and trust in them for help, but rather God. And the backslidden attitude of the people is that they laughed at him. They mocked him. Verse 9 of that chapter is the answer and taunting of the politicians that didn't need God. They are laughing at Isaiah for being a little "old fashioned" and "a little too straight laced" and depending too much and trusting too much upon the "line upon line" and principles of the Word of God. And so they make fun of him. They called him crazy and an old fool. "Isaiah," went the prevailing thought of his day, "must be mad and insane to believe all of those crazy prophecies and lean upon God so heavily rather than common sense and political progress." They said, "the prophet must be mad."

A little bit later, we find another prophet on the scene, this time the prophet Jeremiah. Because of the peer pressure of his day, Jeremiah tried to hold in his message. Listen to what he said happened during his day:

Jer 20:7-9 O LORD, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived: thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed: I am in derision daily, every one mocketh me. 8 For since I spake, I cried out, I cried violence and spoil; because the word of the LORD was made a reproach unto me, and a derision, daily. 9 Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones , and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.

They mocked him. They made fun of the man of God. They thought of him as too radical and too crazy and someone that was better disregarded. And their pressure was so great that Jeremiah tried to stop preaching and tried to withhold the message that God had given him, but it became "as a burning fire shut up in my bones" and something that could not be held back and so when the message would come, Jeremiah would preach with boldness and power and fervency as if there was a passion and a fire burning deep within his being. It wasn't popular but it was God within a man using him to speak to a generation. Later on when the false prophet Shemaiah is trying to denounce Jeremiah, he used the same term to describe the man of the spirit: "Jeremiah is mad" Shemaiah announced to anyone that would listen. He is insane and you shouldn't listen to him.

If we leave the Old Testament and move into the New Testament, you don't have to go very far to find the same attitude even hundreds of years later. It's in John chapter 10 that we find what the enemies said about Jesus Christ:

John 10:19-20 There was a division therefore again among the Jews for these sayings. 20 And many of them said, He hath a devil, and is mad; why hear ye him?

Listening to the teaching of Jesus, His enemies raved: "He has a devil, or He's insane, don't listen to Him! Disregard this crazed lunatic!" I submit to you that Jesus spoke with a fire burning within His soul. I submit to you that Jesus Christ spoke more like Hosea than not like him. I submit to you that the same feelings and passion of Jeremiah also came out when Jesus spoke, because He spoke with such feeling and conviction that the response was the same: "surely He is mad, as a raving lunatic." It was the response of human nature and it had not changed from the time of Hosea.

But move on a little further in scripture and you come to our text about the Apostle Paul speaking before King Agrippa and the idolater Festus. You find the same passion of message of Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Jesus within the Apostle Paul. Paul has been arrested for preaching about Jesus and when called into trial, is not bitter at the bonds and prison but is thrilled to be able to testify and preach to the kings about Jesus! He knows that Agrippa believes in the Old Testament scripture and prophecies and so he begins to preach with fervor and anointing how that Jesus was the Christ, the Jehovah God of the Old Testament come in flesh to save His people. As he preaches, the effect on the scriptures believing Agrippa is mighty. He begins to shake with conviction as the Holy Ghost woos and tugs at his heart. This is the story that will end with him saying "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian, Paul."

But what I want you to notice is the attitude expressed by the heathen Festus. The scripture says that during the middle of this sermon, Festus interrupts with a loud voice, as to be heard above the impassioned cry of Paul's voice: "Paul you are mad, much learning hath made thee mad!" In other words, "Paul you are insane and speak as a fool." "You are a little too extreme and a little too overboard on this relgious thing. You are a little too radical. You need to settle down and become more conventional. You might offend someone raving as you are an insane person." In another word, he said "the prophet is a fool and the man of the spirit is mad." Same attitude and spirit, different time period. Same human nature.

And so the attitude exists beyond the time of the scriptures. Any time someone got a revelation and message of truth from God, they were labeled as mad and crazy. The pope labeled Martin Luther a heretic and "as a mad man" because he suggested that the Catholic churches' teaching that you could earn your way into heaven despite your sin with good works was false. In 1735 when two preachers who were brothers, John and Charles Wesley traveled to America from England and came across the relgious group called the "Moravians," they realized that they had an experience with God that they lacked from their reformed theology in England. When the Wesley brothers received this experience of outward worship and the infilling of the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in other tongues and went back to their dead "Church of England" and tried to spark a revival, they were excommunicated and branded as "crazy and as insane." When the Church of England didn't respond, they split off and formed the beginnings of the Methodist movement. John Wesley began to preach a doctrine of repentance and victory over sin through teaching and application of the scriptures and self-examination. Their worship services began to use spirited singing and even outward manifestations of praise such as crying out, jumping, running, dancing, and praying out loud. Many people began to receive the Holy Ghost as recorded in Acts chapter 2. Wesley was quoted as saying, "even though we haven't seen it yet, a fully restored Apostolic church will see the gifts of the Spirit in operation again." The "religious" people of his day thought he was fanatical and too extreme and charged them with "madness." The Wesley's response was to God, and I quote: "Fools and madmen let us be, Yet is our sure trust in Thee!" That was their response to the attitude of "the prophet is a fool, the man of the spirit is mad."

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Now I want you to think of the men of whom I have spoken and of their messages and of their heart. Let time reveal to us the truth. What became of Hosea's words? They said that he was crazy and that he was insane, but what became of his prophecies of captivity and of the Assyrians? It happened just as the message of God had said it would. The Assyrians came and so thoroughly disseminated the top ten tribes of Israel that we can't even be sure of being able to identifing anyone from those tribes today. They said that he was crazy and too extreme, but it turned out that the message burning within his soul was right!

What of Jeremiah's prophecies? They laughed when he said that the precious city of Jerusalem would be destroyed unless they repented, but despite the mockery and the taunting, he lived to watch it's destruction and weep over the city as the false prophets were killed by the invading armies. When you read the book of Lamentations, you are reading the poem lamenting the destruction of the city written by Jeremiah as he watched. It turned out that he was passionate because he truly cared and he had truly heard from God.

What of the prophet Isaiah's prophecies. They really mocked and charged madness when he began to prophesy about a coming virgin birth that would change the world. They laughed when he foretold that a son to be born would be the "everlasting Father." They laughed then, but now nobody's laughing. Because everything that he said came true!

Think about it reverently. They said that Jesus was mad and to be disregarded. But what of His teachings? And this Paul, whom Festus labeled as a mad man with too much learning and a little too extreme, he wrote two-thirds of our New Testament and evangelized his known world in just a few decades. And what do we think now about Luther's suggestion that perhaps salvation didn't come by paying off a priest and trusting in a pope? And what about the spirited worship and singing and dancing and the infilling of the Holy Ghost that the Wesley brothers were so degraded and taunted about!?

And so we have reached modern times. And the attitude of Hosea's time is still with us. This world will trust in riches that will burn up and in political alliances with other nations for security. They'll turn to witchcraft and immorality and promiscuous behavior to try to find fulfillment. They will smoke dope and do irreparable damage to their bodies and hurl those bodies against each other in darkness in clubs and call it fun when all they have done is reduced themselves to the morality of animals. They'll elevate crime and murder and hatred and gossip and variance and confusion and homosexuality and adultery so much that they will pipe it into their homes and continually fill their mind by watching such acts continually performed by actors on a screen. They'll rail and scream about animal abuse and yet vote "pro-abortion." They'll reelect politicians that have committed adultery and sexual immorality as long as the economy and thus their own personal comfort is okay. They'll elevate nudity to the point that it is everywhere and where it is completely normal for people to parade around each other dressed in nothing greater than their underwear and they'll consume so much strong drink that they will make alcoholism the number 1 disease besides heart disease in this country. That's the wisdom of this world and not a whole lot has changed since Hosea's time, because they will do all of this, and yet if a man receives a message from God and is so convinced of it and is so consumed by it and moved by it that it becomes as a fire burning in his soul and is something unable to be delivered with normal tones and conventional means and if his voice raises in unction and if the Holy Ghost grips his heart and if he becomes as Hosea, or Isaiah, or Jeremiah, or (dare I say it?), Jesus Christ in his delivery and manages to shake his listeners with the power and anointing of God that causes them to either change or leave and causes them to temporarily become uncomfortable because of the truth that is being spoken, then such a generation immediately cries "the prophet is a fool and silly. The man of the spirit is a raving lunatic." That is the cry that is still found today when a man preaches against sin and becomes consumed by a message from God. "The prophet is mad."

I will admit that my preaching style has changed in the last few years. I've never been subtle, but I have become more passionate in my preaching. Call it growth, call it a new anointing, call it insanity, for whatever the reason, I have experienced this year a deeper yearning and passion in the messages that God has given me for this church. I am bothered by my messages. I've preached some messages here in the past few months that I did not want to preach. I've preached some messages that ended up hitting harder than I intended in my flesh. I've preached more directly this year than I ever have. And there are some who don't like it. I've have people in the past and even this year come and tell me "preacher, I don't care for that style of preaching." "There's no need for all of that stuff." "Just say what you want to say." "Just speak normally preacher and preach to us about the love of God." What they mean is "you are a little too overboard." "You're just a little too extreme." They don't really want to hear about the love of God, because the genuine love of God demands that our imperfetness change. What they mean is "preach something that allows me to be comfortable in my sin." What they are saying in no uncertain terms is "you are a raving fool."

I've heard the critics even though very few of them will face me and say it. He's too hard. He's a little too radical. He's a little overboard on separation from this world. He's a little too crazy about living according to the Bible. I have friends that have told me: "you are too busy." "You teach too many Bible Studies." "It's not healthy to spend the time that you do in the Word of God." But they don't understand. They don't grasp the significant point. Hosea did not preach as he did because of choice, but because the power and Spirit of God moved him to do so. I have felt like my namesake in the scripture before: Lord, I'll try to reign in my emotions and preach a pretty sermon and have a little more conventional church, but then it becomes as a fire burning within me. If I don't preach to you the whole council of God and with passion the message that He has given me, then it will burn me up throughout the next week. Don't misunderstand me, it's not anger or an attitude that makes me preach this way, but a fire from God that grips me with a message!

Paul wrote to his critics:

1 Cor 1:19-21 For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. 20 Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? 21 For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.

Call this preaching foolishness if you want to, but never forget that God has chosen the method of taking men who will be consumed by His Word and a message and deliver with passion and fervency and even urgency as His chosen agency to reveal His will to this world! And what God has ordained, we cannot change, even if we wanted to. If I am silent, God will send another to this town whose words will thunder and who will speak as a mad man for Christ!

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"The prophet is a fool, the man of the spirit is mad." The reason that they felt this way is in the remaining part of the verse:

Hos 9:7b the prophet is a fool, the spiritual man is mad, for the multitude of thine iniquity, and the great hatred.

"For the great number of their iniquities or sins and because of their great hatred." That is the reason for that attitude. That which makes people look upon the man of God as a fool, and treat the man of the spirit as mad, is sin. And it results in a hatred. A hatred for the message of God and a hatred for the man delivering it. And since they are hating truth, they are really hating God.

We find this example in our last story of the lesson. It is found in 1 Kings chapter 22. In the story we find the king of Israel in the north, King Ahab, is trying to form an alliance with the king of the south, King Jehoshaphat, to protect themselves from enemies. King Ahab is an idolatrous and extremely evil man. Jehoshaphat is a goodly sort but without a backbone. As they meet together to sign this pact, the Godliness in Jehoshaphat makes him desire to know if it is the will of God before he signs it. Ahab calls for some of the "prophets" that are some of his friends and they all prophesy with soothing words that it is the will of God. One, Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah, puts on an impressive speech even donning horns of iron at one point in his message to show how that God will give them the victories in the battles that come soon after this alliance.

In the story, Jehoshaphat is not convinced by these false prophets and he wants a little more confirmation than supposed men of God on the payroll of the king. He asks "is there not here a prophet of Jehovah besides?" There was one who was not controlled by the king and who was a true prophet of God, named Micaiah. Now hear what the evil King Ahab said about him:

1 Kings 22:8 And the king of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat, There is yet one man, Micaiah the son of Imlah, by whom we may inquire of the LORD: but I hate him; for he doth not prophesy good concerning me, but evil. And Jehoshaphat said, Let not the king say so.

The evil and sinning king Ahab said "I hate him." Why? Because Micaiah did not justify his sinful lifestyle nor take his bribes or just preach to appease him. Because Ahab would not repent and continued to live in willful sin, then Micaiah kept reminding him that only bad things would come as a result of his evil lifestyle. Because of this, Ahab said "I hate him." It is a sign of a true prophet of the Lord that he will make no terms with sin. And so the principle is thus: those who hate the anointed and fervent message of God really do so because they hate truth. It comes from their unrepented sin and the things that they have refused to change. And so their sin leads to hatred of the message of the man of God, eventually derision of the man of God, and eventually a hatred of truth of any type.

"Paul, thou are mad." "No, Festus, I'm not mad, but I am speaking to you of things that are truth." The book of Proverbs says using the same word for fool as Hosea:

Prov 14:9a Fools make a mock at sin:

True fools are those who laugh at sin and don't think that it's a "big deal." And so the delusion is revealed! "Preacher, you're crazy and mad and a fool for preaching against such things with such passion." "No, you're the fool for making light of sin which has such devastating affects." The attitude of "the prophet is a fool and the man of the spirit is mad" comes from willful, unrepented, and unsubmissive sinners.

But let me submit to you that the words of Jesus are still true:

John 8:31-32 Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; 32 And ye shall know the truth , and the truth shall make you free.

It is the truth that holds the power to set you free! It is the truth that has the power to bring about a change! It is only through seeing yourself in the perfect light of God's Word that you can walk as a new creature and overcome the generational curses that bind you up. Therefore, you'd better remember that the man of God is not mad! He's just burning with this fire of the Holy Ghost that is the consuming fire! He's not overboard. He's not too extreme, but he's actually heard from God!

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Let me close this message with this. If hearing from God and being on fire for God and consumed with His power and holiness is madness, then we need madness! But in this world there are many who claim to be Christian but there is very little madness. I have always wanted to have a church that Jesus, Peter, John, Paul, Hosea, Isaiah, etc.. would have been comfortable preaching in, but I'm afraid that in many churches today, Jesus' sermons on hell would not be well received. And Peter's message of repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ and of receiving the Holy Ghost would contradict their tradition. And James' message on gossip and prejudice would cause some to be offended because of exposing the truth of who they were and what they needed to change. If Paul would have preached on holiness and separation from the world and from idolaters and not having pleasure from watching other people sin, in many of today's churches, he would have been thrown out. I'm afraid that there is too little madness among us even in the modern day Apostolics.

Think of the early Apostolic church, the original church of Jesus Christ and the model church. They were aflame with Holy Ghost fire. In just the second chapter of Acts they are called "drunkards" because of the influence of the Holy Ghost. Has anyone ever called you drunk because of your Christianity? I'm not preaching a need for painted flames and simulated fire and emotion, but we cannot lose the real fire of the Holy Ghost burning within our souls that causes us to be different and look different and act differently from this world. We need such a fire in our bones that cannot be held within, and I submit to you that if we have the real fire from heaven, if we truly have the Holy Ghost, then we will have that fire. We cannot compromise with sin, because that is exactly what makes us just like the rest of the world who are in it. But it is the fire of holiness and the fire of the Word of God and the passion of His Spirit and worship that makes us different. If we lose that difference, then we have lost truth, and if we have lost truth, we have just become another generation that has mislaid God.

"The prophet is a fool and the man of the spirit is mad." If that means that we have heard from God and have acted upon it and are on fire for God and live differently from the sinful world, then let it be so! If being a fool is being submissive to Him, then I'll be a fool for Jesus! If being mad is being passionate about truth, then call me what you want, this prophet will choose to be mad! In the words of the Wesley brothers I respond:

God, "Fools and madmen let us be, Yet is our sure trust in Thee!"

The next time it is said "the prophet is mad," then thank God for it!