July 3, 2002
Coming Home To God's Love
By Woodrow Kroll
Part 6 - God Saves His People
Now, when a nation sins against God, God responds to that nation. But what if a nation repents of her sin? The next step in our study of the Book of Hosea is to see that God not only brings judgment, but if a nation turns its back on its sin, God resolves the situation by saving His people.
So, lets go back to the first couple of chapters of the Book of Hosea. Because, as I said, the story of Hosea is found in the first three chapters. Once you get beyond chapter 3, what you're finding are examples of what he's teaching in the first three chapters. Go back with me to Hosea, chapter 2 in verse 14. "Therefore, I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her. Therefore, I will give her back her vineyards and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will sing, as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt. 'In that day' declares the Lord, 'you will call Me "my husband"; you will no longer call Me "my master."(NIV)
Now, friends, that's good news! He says in that day, when I restore Israel, when Israel comes to her senses, when Israel finally realizes what a fool she has been, when she realizes that all that God has given her did not come because she was clever or because she got into e-commerce early. Everything that she has comes from the hand of God's blessing. When she recognizes that, God says, "The day will come when my blessing will flow back to her. She will no longer call Me my master, she will call Me my husband!" She will come home to the love of God. Coming back to God's love. That day will come, says God.
See, that's the underlying theme of this story of Hosea. It's the love of God that won't let Israel go. It's the love of God that has to bring judgment to Israel, but will call Israel back to Himself. So, that when Israel repents of her sin, there's God's love, there's His arms, stretched out wide to welcome her back.
You know, what God did for Israel, He'll do for you. There is no sin so deep, no sin so grave, no sin so heinous, no sin so awful that if you repent of that sin, God will not be waiting there with open arms. Oh, love that will not let me go.
Now, I want us to think today about God's resolution of the problem of Israel's sin. Israel sinned, God responded in judgment on the nation Israel, and now He brings the nation back to Himself.
Notice, first of all here in verse 16 of chapter 2. It tells us that God will not withhold His love forever. Remember, I said God would withhold His love temporarily in order to bring Israel to her senses and come back to Him. But the Bible clearly teaches, God will not withhold His love forever.
I want you to look with me in contrast, verse 6 of chapter 2 and verse 16 of chapter 2. Verse 6 is early in the story, when Israel is sinning against God. Or in the case of this story, Gomer is sinning against Hosea. Verse 6 says, "Therefore I will block her path with thorn bushes; I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way." That's God's judgment.
Now, look at verse 16. "'In that day', declares the Lord, 'you will call Me "my husband"; you will no longer call Me "my master."'" That's God's love. And the contrast is striking. See, the Lord's judgment of His people would bring them to a relationship that would complete itself in the end, in which they came back to God and they received His love again.
Like Gomer, as a last resort, Israel would resolve to return to her husband. And when she came back to her husband it was the responsibility of Hosea, the wounded husband, to welcome her back with open arms and love her. And that is not easy. Not when your love has been spurned. Not when your wife has become unfaithful to you. That is not easy. And it wasn't easy for God either. But, God is teaching us through the story of Hosea and Gomer that His love is always open to us. That when we come back to Him, He welcomes us and He blesses us again.
Verse 16 indicates that Israel will be restored to the land. Israel is going to call Him, "my husband", not "my master." Now, the word for husband here, the word for man in Hebrew is the word, 'ish'. If you want to say MY husband, putting the personal pronoun on the end, you add a letter. And do you remember from the other day what the letter is? It's the letter I. So ishi, with the I on the end becomes my. Like Rabbi is my teacher. So, when He says, you will call me "my husband", you will call me Ishi.
What He also says is you will not call me Bali, my master, my lord. The relationship, whenever a wife comes back to her husband is different from the relationship a wife has when she's estranged from her husband. And the relationship my friends, when you repent of sin and come back to God, it's different from the relationship you have with God while you're living in sin. While you're living in sin, He's a hard taskmaster. He's bringing judgment on you. But, when you come back to Him, He's no longer your judge, He's your husband.
Remember that tender verse in John 15:15? Jesus said to His disciples, "I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you My friends, for everything that I learned from My Father, I have made known to you." See, the relationship changes when your master is also your husband. It's a love relationship, not a duty relationship.
What He says to these Israelites is, "I'm going to bring you back. I will betroth you to myself." Verse 19...He's very specific here. "I will betroth you to Me forever. I will betroth you in righteousness and in justice and in love and in compassion." And notice the dowry that He provides here. He says, "I will betroth you the Lord's price paid for Israel." His righteousness, notice in verse 19, that's maintaining a just cause.
Secondly, it's justice that's vindicating Israel through deliverance. Thirdly, it's love that's His unswerving devotion to her even though she has not been very devoted to Him. And fourthly, it's compassion. It's that tender feeling motivated by eternal love. God says, "This is the price I paid to welcome you back in my arms of love." And you know what? God is extremely happy to pay that price.
All of these things represent the character of God, don't they? This is what God is like. He is justice, He is righteousness, He is love, He is compassion. All of that is true of God. And the price that He pays is the price that is not unreasonable for God to pay. So, first of all in giving a resolution to the problem, God says, "I will not withhold my love for my people forever." Secondly, notice in chapter 3. God will ransom His people from their sin. The Lord said to me, "Go, show your love to your wife again. Though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turned to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes."
Now, this is a pretty amazing passage. We could spend an hour on chapter 3. In verse 2 of chapter 3, he says, "I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and about a homer and lethek of barley. Then I told her, 'You are to live with me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will live with you.'"
Do you see the price he paid here? He paid 15 shekels of silver. He also paid a homer of barley, a homer and a half actually of barley, because an lethek is a half an homer. An homer was the largest dry measurement that they had in Israel. It was equivalent to the normal load that a donkey could carry in one sitting. So, if you had an homer of wheat, or an homer of barley, it would be what a donkey could carry. And you would say to yourself, "I don't have a donkey, how much can a donkey carry?" Let's get it down in terms that you and I understand.
Take a two liter bottle of Pepsi. If you take 110 two liter bottles of Pepsi, you have the equivalent of one homer, what one donkey can carry. That's what we're talking about. An homer is a little more than six bushels. That's something we can identify with. Ten ephahs and one lethek, one lethek is half an homer. Put those two things together, you have 15 homers. Ten and a half of the ten is 15. So, basically what you have at the bottom line is you have 15 shekels of silver and you have 15 homers of barley. Total, 15 and 15...30. You paid the equivalent of 30 pieces of silver to buy your wife back from her sin. Interesting, isn't it?
And the Old Testament Book of Exodus, chapter 21, the price of a slave was 30 pieces of silver. In Matthew, chapter 26, verse 15, Judas was paid 30 pieces of silver when he betrayed our master. He was given that amount. Now, what does that teach us? I think that it teaches us that when God had Hosea purchase his wife back, it was a wonderful picture of Jesus purchasing us. But look, here's a man who paid silver and barley.
Think of the price Jesus paid to purchase you. Just think of the wonderful verses. For example, 1Timothy, chapter 2, verse 6, "Jesus gave Himself a ransom for many. His purchase price was Himself." It tells us in Romans, chapter 5, verse 9 that we've been justified by His blood, His blood. And cautioned in chapter 1, verse 20 that Jesus made peace through His blood shed on the cross. In Ephesians, chapter 1, verse 7, we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. In Revelation, chapter 1, verse 5, Jesus has freed us from the sins of ourselves by His blood.
And the great verse, 1 Peter, chapter 1, verses 18 and 19, "For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect." See, when Jesus purchased my redemption, He was even greater than redemption that Hosea purchased when he bought back his wife from the market place of sin.
This is an eighth century story; a tragedy that ends well. It's also a first century story, about a crucifixion tragedy that ends well. It's also about a twenty-first century story about the tragedy of nations gone wrong. It can end well, because the underlying theme of the Book of Hosea is simple: Sin always brings judgment. Repentance always brings salvation. And underneath it all there is always the love of God calling you home to Himself. And waiting with open arms for you to receive His grace and His love. And that's true on a national level and it's true on a personal level. It's as true for you as an individual as it was for Israel; that God is awaiting you and me to come to our senses, be convicted of our sin, to repent, genuinely repent of our sin and come back to Him. And when we do, we have this promise; His arms are open, His love is strong, and He'll welcome us back.
Next week - Part 7: Sin Permeates the Human Experience
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Copyright �1996-2002 The Good News Broadcasting Association, Inc.
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July 10, 2002
Coming Home To God's Love
By Woodrow Kroll
Part 7 - Sin Permeates The Human Experience
We have been studying Hosea for some time now. And today I want us to give a kind of case study of the human condition. Let us use Hosea and Gomer and their lives together again, starting here in the first three chapters because, as you know, the whole of the story is encompassed in the first three chapters. The rest is a commentary on it, to give us clear examples of how God loves His people.
I want us to think today about having a case study in the human condition looking at the life of Hosea and Gomer.
By the way, do you remember Abbie Hoffman? That is a name probably familiar to you. I haven't seen Abbie in a long time. In fact he is not alive anymore. But that may be why you haven't seen him. Abby Hoffman was arrested 53 times, during the sixties. He lived in the Underground for six years, on the run from the police. He is a man who never ran out of causes, and he was always in there in the thick of things for one cause or another. Well, in one unpublished interview, speaking about his youngest son, whom he named America, Hoffman said that his son had been kicked out of class seven times that year all ready. Then he said this: "I am so proud of him."
Now you see, I think that is some kind of microcosm of the world at large. The more we can do to upset God's plans in our lives, to upset the normal flow of things in our lives, sometimes the happier we are. And Israel was like that.
I mean these are the chosen people of God. These people had significant benefits because they were God's people. And yet time after time after time, they slapped God in the face. They forgot God. They did not want to recognize God in their lives.
The end result of that was that they sinned against God. They went after the other gods of this world. We are going to see something about that today in our study. And in going after the other gods of the world, time after time after time, God stretched out His hand and brought them back to Himself because the love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell.
This whole Book of Hosea, remarkable book, is a book about man's rebellion, God's response to man's rebellion and God's resolution to bring man back to Himself. Now here we are in chapter two of Hosea. I want to begin at verse 8, chapter 2 verse 8. Now listen to this: "She has not acknowledged that I was the one who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil, who lavished on her the silver and gold--which they used for Baal."
Now Baal here, literary it is pronounced B-all, we pronounce it Baal. But it probably shouldn't be pronounced that way. B-all was the god of the god of both the Canaanites and the Phoenicians. It was the god of grain. This was the god of fertility, the god of sexuality. This was the god of nature. And you encounter Baal frequently in the Bible, don't you? Baal was the chief male deity of the Canaanites and the Phoenicians. When it is used in the plurals, the Baals for example, and often we encounter that as well, this is a series of fertility and nature gods that were worshipped by the pagan nations around Israel. Now think about that.
The Baals in the Bible, the B-alls in the Bible were a series of nature and sexual gods, fertility gods, worshipped by pagan people. Interesting isn't it that the gods of choice of the last number of years of the twentieth century are exactly the same gods--nature and sexuality.
The story of Hosea is up-to-date, friends, as if it came out of USA Today. Now here He says, "You have not paid any attention to the fact that I am the One who has blessed you, and you have gone after the Baals." Does any of this sound familiar? It sounds just like what happens in our world today. Look down at verse 13.
"I will punish her for the days she burned incense to the Baals (these pagan gods); she decked herself with rings and jewelry, and went after her lovers, but Me she forgot, declares the Lord."
Now what we are seeing here in chapter two of the Book of Hosea is bad attitudes, bad attitudes on the part of God's people, Israel. Bad attitudes start with a failure to recognize the presence of God in our lives. We want to run our own life. We want to do our own thing. We don't care what God says. We don't care what His Word says. In fact we don't know what His Word says because we have never read it. So we just follow life the best we can, and we have bad attitudes.
And here in verse 13 He talks about three specific bad attitudes, three bad attitudes of the people of the people of Israel.
Notice, first of all, there is the attitude of false worship. She burned incense to Baals--false worship, went after other gods, claimed other gods were her god, that other gods gave her all the benefits she had. God revealed Himself to them, and they chose to seek other gods, rather than to know the one true God.
Secondly, notice there is the attitude of seduction of evil. It talks about going after lovers. Same thing is true back there in verse 5, of chapter two. She went after other lovers. Basically, this simply means that Israel seductively chased the other gods of the pagans around them. It wasn't that she was trapped. It wasn't that these gods led her astray. She went out after them. She coveted them. She seductively went after the pagan gods of nature and of sexuality, much like we have done in the twentieth century and now on to the twenty-first.
And thirdly notice here it says, "But you forgot Me declares the Lord." See, she had the attitude of false worship. Then she had the attitude of seducing evil, going out and looking for evil. And then thirdly, and probably worst, she forgot God. This whole concept, friends, about forgetting God was something that was true again and again and again in the life of Israel. You remember in the song of Moses, after Moses and the Children of Israel crossed the Red Sea; they sang a great song of praise to the Lord God of Israel. But in the song of Moses, Deuteronomy chapter 32 verse 18, the song of Moses it says, "You deserted the rock who fathered you; you forgot the God who gave you birth."
Now one of the great sins that Israel has again and again and again been guilty of is the sin of forgetting God. It doesn't seem possible that one could forget God, does it? That one could receive a blessing at the hand of God and not recognize that it came from God's hand? Does it seem possible that a nation or an individual or a group of people could get so much from God and thank Him so little? It hardly seems likely does it, unless of course you are living and breathing because it happens all the time today? It happens in the church today. God has blessed us so significantly, especially in the Western World. And yet forgetting about God, going after these other deities, it's a very common thing in the world today.
Well, let's go to the commentary on this. Skip ahead to chapter 7 of Hosea, verse 10. Let's look at some more bad attitudes of these people. Hosea chapter 7 and verse 10 talks about "Israel's arrogance testifies against him, but despite all this he does not return to the Lord his God or search for Him." Notice again, what is there. It is the attitude of arrogance. See, the deeper Israel would slide into sin, the more arrogant they would become. That's true today, isn't it? The deeper people slide into sin, the less apt they are to say to God, "I was wrong," and the more apt they are to cover their tracks. The deeper we fall into sin, the more arrogant we become about our sin. That happened to Israel, and that's a bad attitude.
And then notice "does not return to the Lord." No repentance here. Remember the three themes. Sin brings judgment. Repentance brings salvation. But there can be no salvation without repentance. So here is Israel slipping down into arrogance because their sin is deepening, there is no repentance and thirdly in this verse it says, "They do not search for God." There is no need for God in their lives. They are getting in deeper. They are slipping off the edge of the slippery slope. And they don't even recognize it. And still they don't see their need for God. "God says when I fed them they were satisfied, when they were satisfied they became proud, and then they forgot Me."
Interesting isn't it, folks, how often, when we are in the faith awhile, and we are prospering economically, prospering socially, isn't it interesting how easy it is for us to forget time with God. We get so busy with business, we get so busy with family, we get so busy with enjoying life, we forget about God. And the same kind of thing that happened to Israel happens daily in the church. And we just look at Israel and say, "That can't happen to us." And it already has. Bad attitudes.
Now the problem is, rarely do bad attitudes exist by themselves. Bad attitudes usually lead to bad behavior. And it did for Israel. I want you to notice with me some of the bad behaviors of Israel. Go back to chapter 4 beginning with verse 2.
Before I get there, let me tell you about a person I encountered when I was writing a book recently. Her name is Dr. Gertrude Himmelfarb. I quote Dr. Gertrude Himmelfarb just to get her name out. But she is the Professor of History at the University of City College in New York City. Gertrude Himmelfarb has written a book entitled 'The Demoralization of Society, Taking Morals out of Society'. Listen to what she says: "As long as morality was couched in the language of virtue, it had a firm, resolute character. Values do not have to be virtues. They can be beliefs or opinions, feelings, preferences, even idiosyncrasies, whatever an individual group or society happens to value at any time for any reason. One cannot say that virtues, that anyone's virtues are as good as anyone else's, or that everyone has a right to his own virtues."
Now I think that is very insightful. You see, because what we are dealing with today, friends, we don't know anything about virtue because virtue is always linked to something concrete.
In the Old Testament virtue was linked to the Ten Commandments. God said, "These are the things that are right and wrong." And that is where virtue came for the Old Testament Israel. In the Greek society virtue was linked to the teachings of Socrates and Plato.
Virtues were honesty, and justice and fair play. And in the New Testament, virtue was linked to the teachings of Jesus. It came right out of the words of Jesus. That's where we get the virtue of love, and hope and faith. Virtue is tied to something. Value is not. So in a world that doesn't know anything about virtue, all we are left with is value. So what do the presidential candidates talk about? Values. The White House talks about family values. It can't define family or values. And why? Because we don't know anything about virtue.
Now see, Israel had lost contact with God's virtue and all Israel had left was what they valued. I think America has done the same thing. Canada has done the same thing. The Western European nations have done the same thing. Good behavior is rooted in virtue not in value because what you value you will do. And if it's valuable to you, it is okay for you to do it. That's why one guy can act one way and another guy can act another way and it is okay for both of them. But look at this. Chapter 4 verse 2 says: "There is only cursing, lying and murder, stealing and adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed." See, those are a virtue that has gone bad. Now look at Chapter 4 verse 17. "Ephriam (that's a word for Israel) is joined to idols; leave him alone! Even when their drinks are gone, they continue their prostitution; their rulers dearly love shameful ways."
I wish I could spend the next hour on this verse because there are three things here. Number one, notice that they joined to idols. That's breaking commandments one and two of God's Law of the Ten Commandments. Then it talks about their carousing. "Their drinks are gone," not that their drinks have become sour. It's that they have finished drinking; they are carousing. And number three; it says they continue their prostitution, their immorality. You see bad attitudes concerning God constantly lead to bad behavior concerning God. And Israel, who had bad attitudes about God, is now expressing bad behavior.
And I want to tell you something else. I learned this right from the Book of Hosea. Bad attitudes lead to bad behavior. Bad behavior leads to bad leadership. Somebody has said and I think they are right, "You get the kind of leadership you want because, especially in a democracy, if you don't get that kind of leadership, if enough society doesn't want that kind of leadership, they can get rid of that leadership." So if leadership is bad leadership, we don't blame the leadership, we blame the society because the society has now given into values as opposed to virtues because they have bad attitudes about God. And that's exactly what happened here in Israel.
Now there was no Papa Doc here in Israel. You remember Papa Doc. He was the man who had a private army. His Tontons Macoutes massacred people. They burned babies in their cribs. They carried off their parents to torture and mutilation. Perhaps 40,000 people died during Papa Doc's reign. And a million or more may have fled Haiti during that time. We're not talking about Papa Doc here in Hosea.
We're not talking about Idi Amin. You remember him. He's that tyrant from Uganda. He seized power in a bloody coup in January 1971. His eight-year reign of terror in that African nation put him in the same category as Adolf Hitler. He killed an estimated 300,000 people of his own people during his reign. We're not talking about Idi Amin.
We're not taking about Pol Pot. Pol Pot was the fugitive leader of Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. He's blamed for the slaughter of about 2 million Cambodians.
What we are talking about here are leaders who reflect the society that they lead. Now look with me at verse 18 of chapter 4: "Even when their drinks are gone, they continue their prostitution; their rulers dearly love shameful ways."
Now I want to dissect that verse. "Their rulers," the word that is used here in Hebrew for rulers is the word magen. Now I think that is important because the word magen is the word not for someone who gets up and stands up in front of people. The word magen is the Hebrew word for shield, for buckler, it is a word for a defense system. In Genesis chapter 15, in verse 1, God said to Abraham do not be afraid, I am your shield, and your very great award. That is the word magen.
Now I think the fact that Hosea chose that word for rulers here means that he saw leaders as ones who were to defend the people from all the things that were outside the nation of Israel. This was God's chosen people. The leadership of Israel was designed by God to keep out pagan idols, to keep out pagan practices, in fact, to keep out pagan people. They were a shield, but they didn't become a shield because it says in this verse that the rulers dearly loved shameful ways.
Now Paul had the same thing in mind, I'm sure, in Romans chapter 13 because in Romans 13, especially the first three verses, it talks about the authorities that exist have been established by God. "Rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do evil." See, those that are elected are supposed to be for our good, not for our evil. That's their job.
But when you have leaders who indulge in shameful ways, that's the second part of this verse. The word shameful ways here means dishonor or disgrace. Leaders brought disgrace to the people because not only did they indulge in shameful ways, but they dearly loved shameful ways.
Now you got to put these three things together. Here are leaders who are supposed to be a shield for God, against all the outside influences for God's people. Instead of being a shield they dearly loved the shameful ways of the people about them. You put these together, and those who were supposed to be a shield, to shield Israel from the consequences of sin, actually helped Israel engage in that sin. Now, what is the end result of that, friends? Well, the end result of that is a leadership that has failed God and failed God miserably.
You know, the leadership that fails God is not always civil. It is not always elected officials. Sometimes the leadership that fails God is religious as well. The leadership that fails God can be, as we see in chapter 5 verse 1: "Hear this, you priests! Pay attention, you Israelites! Listen, O royal house! This judgment is against you."
You see, sometimes those who fail God are those who have bad attitudes and from that bad behavior and from that bad leadership, those that engage in bad leadership sometimes are in the church, not in the legislature.
And Hosea is telling us that there are more than ample references in the Bible to those shepherds who would lead God's people astray. Hosea is a wonderful prophet because in the midst of this love story, in the midst of a story of a love that will not let me go, Hosea gives us this warning about how it is, in humanity. That humanity is constantly digressing, is constantly falling away from God, and in the process of doing that, the bad attitudes that people have lead to bad behavior. And the bad behavior leads to bad leadership. And that leads to God's judgment.
But listen, don't forget the three themes of the book. Sin leads to judgment, repentance leads to salvation. And underneath it all is the love of God. God even loves these people in the Jesus seminar. I don't think He loves what they are doing, but He loves them. And they have the opportunity to come home to God's love, just like the rest of us do.
Just like Gomer did in the story of Hosea, just like Israel did in the story of the Old Testament. God's love is always there for us, even when we have bad attitudes, even when we have bad actions and even when we have bad leadership. All we have to do, friends, is get Back to the Bible and find out what a relationship with a God who loves us is all about. And when we learn of that relationship, we know that God will resolve our differences with His love because He has already sent His Son to die for us.
Next week - Part 8: The Disappointment of Sin Is Its Own Punishment
www.backtothebible.org
Copyright �1996-2002 The Good News Broadcasting Association, Inc.
All rights reserved.
July 17, 2002
Coming Home To God's Love
By Woodrow Kroll
Part 8 - The Disappointment Of Sin Is Its Own Punishment
Hosea chapter 4. I want to begin at verse 8. Hosea chapter 4 verse 8 talks about the insatiable appetites that come to people who are given to sin. Hosea chapter 4 verses 8-12, "They feed on the sins of My people and relish their wickedness. And it will be: Like people, like priests. I will punish both of them for their ways and repay them for their deeds. They will eat but not have enough; they will engage in prostitution but not increase, because they have deserted the Lord, to give themselves to prostitution, to old wine and new, which take away the understanding of my people."
That's a pretty insightful passage.
"They will eat," verse 10 says, "but not have enough." One of the things that sin does is it creates the desire for more sin. Have you noticed that? Well sure you have, you're a sinner. I mean we all know that to be a part of our lives. When you engage in a certain kind of sin it kind of hooks you and it brings you in! People who start out just innocently going through some pornographic sites on the Internet get hooked into that and they spend hours in front of the screen, looking at things that are destroying their minds. Sin has an insatiable appetite.
Now, we've been enjoying some pretty good food here at the Cove haven't we? Tonight at the dinner table Linda came to me and she said you have two choices for dessert. You can have fruit or you can have red velvet cake. I said to myself, "now let me see, fruit, red velvet cake, fruit, red velvet cake." There wasn't any choice friends. I mean it just kind of hooks you; it brings you in, right? It's that same insatiable appetite.
There was a guy in Grinnell, Iowa; his name was Denny McNurland. Denny McNurland tried to eat a 205-ounce steak. I've got to think about this. This is half the cow. He tried to eat a 205-ounce steak. This is a 4-inch thick steak, a sirloin that weighted 13 pounds. It was the size of a small dog. Bad analogy there I know, but it was the size of a small dog. Well, I'm here to tell you, this fellow Denny McNurland failed. He was not able to eat this 205-ounce steak. He did eat 150 ounces of it, before he keeled over--more than 9 pounds of meat. You talk about an insatiable appetite!
The appetite we are talking about here though, is the appetite for sin. One of the things that we learn about this insatiable appetite is that in their greed these priests began to feed on the sins of their people. Notice what it says there in verse 9, "Like people, like priests." See, the priest learned that if the people went out and sinned and they had to bring a certain trespass offering to the priests, and the priests got a portion of that trespass offering. It wasn't too long until these priests realized that the more the people sinned, the more they got! There are some traditions, friends, where you sin, you confess, you can go back and sin again, and that's good for sitting priests. That's exactly what's happening here. The priests of Israel were not telling people they should not sin, they were not encouraging, they were doing nothing. They were feeding off the people!
Jeremiah chapter 5 talks about this. Let me just read a portion to you. "Go up and down the streets of Jerusalem... if you can find but one person who deals honestly and seeks the truth, I will forgive this city," says the Lord God, "I will go to the leaders and speak to them, surely they know of the way of the Lord, the requirements of their God...But with one accord they too had broken off the yoke...The prophets are but wind and the word is not in them...these people have stubborn and rebellious hearts, they have turned aside...The prophets prophesy lies, the priests rule by their own authority, and My people love it this way." That's Jeremiah chapter 5.
What Hosea, and Jeremiah, and Amos and these other prophets of the same time period are saying is that they were having an economic boom! Things were going very well in Israel and Judah at this time. Times were good; food on the table, shekels in the pocket. Things were going very well for these people, and while things were going economically very well, they were getting farther and farther from God on a daily basis and sin was drawing them in so they had insatiable appetites. The more they eat, they will eat and they will not have enough.
Micah had something to say about that. Micah chapter 6 and verse 14 "You will eat and not be satisfied," the prophet Micah says. "Your stomach will still be empty, you will store up but save nothing because what you save I will give to the sword."
Haggai has something to say about this. All these prophets are in the same period of time. Haggai chapter 1 verse 6, "You have planted much but harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill." Listen to this, "You earn wages only to put them in a purse with holes in it." If that is not a description of 21st century society I don't know what is. Working more, working harder, working overtime, saving up, eating more, gorging ourselves, saving money to put it in a purse that has holes in it and losing all this at the same time. One of the judgments that God can bring upon people like this is to simply to allow them to have insatiable appetites. They just can never get enough!
When Israel sinned, God didn't have to destroy Israel! All God had to do was let Israel have what Israel wanted and that was punishment enough. Because sin always leads us away from God, sin always leads us to an appetite for more sin and you can never be satisfied! I've often wondered, watching television over the last 20 years how television has gotten worse and worse and worse. And how those who wear clothes on television have worn less and less and less. There comes a point, friends, when there is nothing left, right? What do you do then? There is a point at which you can't go any lower, what do you do then? You can't take off anymore, what do you do then?
Sin has this insatiable appetite and God says "all right Israel you forget Me; you forget that I have blessed you. You will be like Gomer, you'll go away from the love of your husband, you'll become a prostitute, you'll live with prostitutes. You'll enjoy life but you will never get enough of it. One day you will realize one of the punishments of sin is the fact that you can't get enough sin! It'll trouble you because you'll want more and can't handle more." That's one response that God gives in bringing judgment.
Look at chapter 8 of Hosea. Let's see a second response. Not only is there this problem of an insatiable appetite, but notice in chapter 8. The 14 verses of this chapter talk about broken relationships. We're not going to read the whole chapter. Let me just point out what these broken relationships are. You look at the verses; I'll tell you in summary what's in those verses.
Verses 1 to 3 of chapter 8 talks about a broken relationship with God's covenant. These are the covenant people of God but their sin has gotten in the way of God performing all that He promised in their covenant. In verse 4 notice that it's a broken relationship with God's government. God wants to rule them and be good and kind to them but they've severed their relationship with His government. At the end of verse 4 and all of verse 5 it talks about a broken relationship with God's purity. They've lost the purity of being a separate people unto God!
Then in verses 6 through 9 it talks about a broken relationship with God's Promised Land. God had promised them, these people of God, this nation and they've broken that covenant with God.
In chapter 8 verses 10, 11, and 12 there's a broken relationship with God's blessing. God wanted to bless the people, but their insatiable appetite for sin was filling up so that they could not hold the blessing of God. Then verse 13 and 14, the end of the chapter, there's a broken relationship with God's pleasure. It says in verse 13 "the offer of sacrifice is given to Me and they eat the meat, but the Lord is not pleased with them." Damaging words, the Lord is not pleased with them. For the Lord not to be pleased with His people, what does that mean for the people of God?
The story here, the story line is of a husband and a wife who is unfaithful and yet in the unfaithfulness of this wife Gomer, this man Hosea continues to love her! Continues to be faithful to her! Continues to be chaste for her! Even though she is not for him and one day he brings her back into his arms, and brings her back into his life and he loves her the whole time and he forgives her of her sin, and this is a microcosm picture of the big picture of God and His love for Israel. God and His love for His people.
Sometimes, when God's people have wandered away from God, the bad attitudes of bad actions have led to bad leaders. They wandered away from God and God has to judge sin, and one of the judgments He gives sin is to simply allow sin to take its natural course, to let these insatiable appetites to want more and not be able to have more.
Another way He deals with sin is simply to cut and sever relationships. Listen, what makes hell "hell," is the absence of God there. It's that severed relationship, the possibility gone forever of having a relationship with a loving God. See, if Hosea had cut Gomer off, if Hosea had sent her way, her life would be over, her hope would be over, everything would be over; but it was that attachment to her that Hosea continued to love her and she knew he loved her.
For Israel it was that attachment to God, that God continued to love Israel. Even though they had broken their relationships with God, God would resolve the situation by bringing His people back to Him. That's the greatest love story of all time, friends. Not that we love God, but that He loved us! The amazing thing to me is not that I love God. I mean, what's there not to love about God? He's altogether lovely. What amazes me is that He loves me! I'm the one who strayed from Him. I'm the one who is engaged in spiritual adultery. I'm the one who has given myself to sin and so have we all. Yet, like Gomer, you and me, God, like Hosea, continues to love us and hold out His arms to us to welcome us back.
Well, I said that the insatiable appetite is one way God allows sin to take its natural course. Breaking off a relationship, that's the second one. Let me suggest to you a third way in chapter 10. In chapter 10 of Hosea beginning at verse 7 God allows judgment to come to us by simply hiding the end result from us. Sometimes He just lets us believe there is no relief in sight. You know, you've felt like this, haven't you at times. It's that one thing happens after another; it's like walking through a field of rakes. You step on the teeth of a rake and every time you take a step the handle comes up and hits you right in the face. It just seems to be piling on, doesn't it, one thing after another! I think we've all felt like that.
Well here in chapter 10 verse 7 He speaks about no relief being in sight. "Samaria and its king will float away." I mean here they are floating down the river, down the stream; they're going to be carried into captivity. Samaria, the capital of Israel, and its king will be carried away by the Assyrians. Then He says in verse 8 "the sights of idolatrous worship will be destroyed." Again in verse 8 He talks about these thorns and these thistles covering what at one time prospered. I mean these people sunk a lot of money into their sin and God says, "Look, I'm going to make it so that you don't see any relief in sight. You will have to come back to Me."
Numbers chapter 33 and verse 52 says, "drive out all the inhabitants of the land before you. Destroy all their carved images and their cast idols, and demolish all their high places." That was God's command to the people. You know what happened? Instead of driving out all the pagan practices, driving out all these foreign and pagan places, they imbibed them all and God turned right around and used these foreign and pagan armies to drive them out of the land.
God not only has a sense of humor, He has an incredible sense of irony. The very thing that they were to get rid of, so that God could bless them, God used because they would not get rid of them. See what He is doing here? He's allowing sin to come to its natural consequences. God doesn't have to do anything to punish us for sin. He just has to allow us to sin. Sin itself is punishment enough. We're just too dumb to know that. Israel is learning it by a hard lesson.
Notice in verse 8, Israel will beg for relief from God's wrath. It says in verse 8, "Then they will say to the mountains, 'Cover us!' and to the hills, 'Fall on us!'" Does that sound familiar to you? If it does it is because you've been reading in Revelation chapter 6 about the opening of the sixth seal. When all the kings and the mighty men go to the rocks in the mountains and they say to the rocks and mountains, "Fall on us and hide us from the wrath of Him who sets upon the throne." Israel will beg for relief from God's wrath and she won't get it. God is going to make them believe that there is absolutely no end in sight because they haven't come to the natural consequence of their sin yet.
Then look at verse 9. God will remind Israel of the depth of her sin. "Since the days of Gibeah, you have sinned." Now this is not the first time we've encountered this in our study of Hosea. Back here in chapter 1 verse 4, He made this almost tangential reference to Jehu. But there was a reason for that, and the reason was that Jehu had over reacted when God told Him to punish the house of Ahab. Now He makes an almost tangential reference here to the evildoers of Gibeah and you say to yourself, "Gibeah? What does this have to do with anything?" The Israelites would know Gibeah very well.
You may remember the story in Judges 19. It's not the kind of story I like to read often. It's the story of a Levite who has gone from Bethlehem to his home in Ephraim and he got as far as the city of Gibeah, and there he spent the night with his concubine. The men of Gibeah pounded on the door because they wanted to have a homosexual relationship with that man. The men of Gibeah pandered after this stranger, and this stranger sent his concubine out instead. These bisexual Gibeonites raped this woman repeatedly all night long and left her dead on the doorstep the next morning. This man was so outraged he wanted to outrage the rest of Israel and he cut the body of this concubine in 12 parts and sent a part to every corner of the nation of Israel and Judah.
Now I want to tell you friends, that's not a story you often want to repeat, but it is not a story Israel could ever forget. So in Hosea here, hundreds of years later, it says that, "Did not war overtake the evildoers in Gibeah?" He makes reference to the fact that since the days of Gibeah you have sinned. These people knew exactly what he was talking about. The natural consequence of sin is punishment enough for sin! God does not have to do much more other than allow us to sin, and bear the consequences of that sin.
Then finally in verse 10, "When I please, I will punish them; nations will be gathered against them to put them in bonds for their double sin." See, God will punish Israel in His own time, in His own way, but for now just being separate from them, just not blessing them, just withdrawing His love from them for a short season, is more punishment than Israel can bear.
I'm going to tell you, friends, once you get a good taste of God's love, once you've tasted to see that the Lord is gracious, and you missed tasting Him the next day. You missed that! After a couple of days you can get away from that and after a couple of years you don't miss it anymore and that is judgment enough! Just what you're missing from not having a relationship with God. The Israelites have decided to go after other gods and so they don't have a relationship with the one true God who can satisfy.
Remember the cycle here. Israel sins, God responds to that sin with judgment. The great thing about the third part of the cycle is that God resolves the judgment by saving His people and calling His people back because His love is ever open to those people, just like it is open to you and me. God is incredibly patient with those who sin. He says, "In my own time, as I please, I will punish them, but for now, I'm not going to actively punish them. I'm simply going to allow them to have the fruit of their own sin."
I want to tell you, if you've been in a situation in life where sin has been devastating to you, you know that God doesn't have to punish you. Sin itself is punishment enough.
Next week - Part 9: The Side of God So Many Never See
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Copyright �1996-2002 The Good News Broadcasting Association, Inc.
All rights reserved.
July 24, 2002
Coming Home To God's Love
By Woodrow Kroll
Part 9 - The Side of God So Many Never See
Sears Roebuck and Company began an ad campaign with the slogan, "Come see the many sides of Sears." And I have to tell you I went a couple of years before I figured what that ad was about. Ads are so clever today, you just don't know what they're advertising, you know? You remember the ad, you just don't remember why you remember it. Well, "Come see the many sides of Sears." Basically, what Sears wanted to tell us was "we don't carry our own line of product anymore, we carry other lines as well". Come, see the many sides of Sears.
Well, I want to invite you today to come see the many sides of God. See, we get the wrong picture of God if all we see is God judging sin. We get the wrong picture of God if all we see is allowing sin to take its natural consequence. Now, God will do that. We've already learned that. But one thing we must see is God saving His people as well, because this is a loving God as well as a just God.
Look with me at the book of Hosea. We're going to begin with the first chapter. Again, every time we look at the book of Hosea, we start at the beginning. And that's not because I don't know where else to start, it's because that's where the story is. This is a love story. A man, Hosea, is told to take a wife, Gomer, knowing full well that Gomer is going to become unfaithful to him. But Gomer's relationship to Hosea is to depict God's relationship to Israel, more appropriately, Israel's relationship to God. There will be a good relationship in the beginning, and then Israel will wander away from God and lust after other gods. She will bear the consequences of her own sin and then God will come along and save her and buy her back out of the marketplace of sin, and in His love, draw her back to Himself. Now that's exactly the story of Hosea and Gomer in Hosea chapter one, chapter two and chapter three.
Now we get to the part of the story where God is saving His people. He's already responded to their sin in judgment and now He's saving. Look at Hosea chapter one, verse 10, "Yet the Israelites will be like the sand on the seashore which cannot be measured or counted in the place where it was said to them, 'You are not My people', they will be called sons of the living God." Hey, that's good news. See, there will come a time in the life of Israel, says God, when they will be called, "Not my people." In fact, that's what the son's name, the third child of Hosea, is named: "Not my people."
But here's the good news, "While you will wander away from God, Israel, and while you will bear the punishment of your own sin, Israel, there will come a day when I will bring you back to Myself and those who have been called 'Not my people' will again be called 'the sons of the living God.'" That's God's salvation! And if you go to the end of the book, if you go to the end of the chapter, if you go to the end of the story, you find out that God's love is always there at the end. You can't get away from the love of God. His salvation is there for us. God will keep His promises to Israel. That's what verse 10 of chapter one is all about. And despite the fact there will be the demise of the northern kingdom, you see that in verses four and five in this passage, despite that fact, God will still keep His covenant promise to Abraham.
In Genesis 22:17, He said, "I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars of the sky and as the sand of the seashore." God's going to keep that promise. Now that's not a promise made to me. It's not a promise made to the church. It's not a promise made to America. That's a promise made to God's people, Israel. And God will keep that promise because, well, just because that's the kind of God He is! But what kind of a God would He be if you couldn't believe His promises?
God is the original and the ultimate promise keeper. In fact, God was in the promise keeping business before anybody ever heard of Promise Keepers. God has always kept His promise. Just think of some of the promises of God. "For the Lord God is a sun and shield. The Lord bestows favor and honor, no good thing will He withhold from those who walk blamelessly," Psalm 84:11. God will keep that promise. No good thing will He withhold from you who walk uprightly before the Lord. That's God's promise.
"Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace who's mind is staid on Thee," Isaiah 26:3. That's a promise of God to you. God will keep His promises. That's one way that we know that God will save His people because He promised He would. See, their identity is going to be renewed, God is going to keep His promises to them. And then notice secondly, not only is their identity going to be renewed, but their wounds are going to be healed. Look at Hosea 6:1, "Come, let us return to the Lord." There's a mouthful right there, isn't there? See, the pleading of God to His people is "Come back to Me. Come back to the blessing. Come back to the honor. Come back to the protection of God. Come back to the promises of God. You're living out there following false gods. You're getting wealthy in this world and you're losing eternity. Come back. Let us return to the Lord. Come home to God's love."
That's what God is saying. He has torn us to pieces, but He will heal us. Now think about this: He's torn us to pieces. By the way, back in chapter five at verse 14, He says, "I will be like a lion to Ephraim, like a great lion to Judah, I will tear them to pieces and go away, I will carry them off with no one to rescue them." That's God's judgment. But after God's judgment comes God's salvation. God will tear them to pieces, but then He'll heal them. He'll make them not only as good as new, but He'll make them better than new. That's the promise of God, too, that when God judges us, He heals us as a result of that.
Jeremiah chapter 3:22, "Return faithless people and I will cure your backsliding." The promise of God is that when we sin, sin always leads to judgment. When we sin, if we repent, repentance always leads to salvation. God will save us in His love. He will heal us, He will cure us of our backsliding. It's possible for you, my friend, regardless of what you have done, to enjoy the love of God today. All you have to do is repent of sin. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That's a promise of God, too. He's going to heal our wounds. It talks in verse one about He's injured us, that's the judgment of sin, but He's going to bind up our wounds. The same God who inflicts judgment on us is going to heal the wounds that come from that judgment.
Deuteronomy chapter 32:39, "See now," says God, "that I myself am He. There is no God besides Me. I put to death and I bring to life. I have wounded and I will heal. And no one can deliver out of My hand." Now I want to tell you, you're like David. If you have a choice between judgment, always take the judgment of God. Always fall into the hand of God. Because that hand that brings judgment is also the hand that heals the judgment that is brought. And what we're learning from the book of Hosea is that when his wife wandered away from him, she was in the judgment of God, but God healed that relationship. He brought forgiveness from Hosea to Gomer. He restored a relationship. This woman had sinned against her husband. But her husband loved her, he wouldn't let her go. He took her back. That's what chapter three is all about.
And that's what God does with us. Not only do we have our identity restored to us, see, our identity was lost the day we sinned in the Garden of Eden. God created us with identity. Our identity was sealed to Him. He gave us identity. We were the crown of God's creation. Never forget this: You were not created like the rest of the animals. You're not just the best of all the animals, friend, you aren't even like an animal. I mean the dogs have more likeness to fish than they do to you because God created fish and He created the animals and then He came to you and He breathed into you the breath of life. He didn't do that to any other creature. You are the last of God's creation, the crown of His creation, the zenith of His creation. You are created in the image of God. Cats and dogs and fish and giraffes, they aren't created in the image of God. God made you very special. Each time it says, after its kind, after it's kind, after its kind. When God came to creating man and woman, He created man and woman after His kind.
You and I are more like God than we're like our pets. I'm not just the brainiest of the animals in my household. That may not even be true sometimes. My dog doesn't think it's true. The cat certainly doesn't think it's true. I'm not just the brainiest of the animals in my household; I'm unlike those animals. I am more of kin to God than I am the animals. But you see when I sinned, when Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden, even when you and I sin, we said, "I don't want God. I don't want that relationship. I'll do my own thing." We cut our relationship with God and when we cut our relationship with God we severed our identity. We lost our identity. And we've been trying as a group of people ever since the Garden of Eden to distinguish ourselves and regain our lost identity.
So, you know how we do it? Some people do it through their abilities. You know, if you can just get into the Guinness Book of Records, you'll be somebody. Some people do it through their athletic abilities. They have the great ability to take a round ball and drop it through a round hoop. Now think about that. Your ability is to put a round ball through a round hoop. How many lives does that change? How many people get paid millions of dollars to drop a round ball through a round hoop? You know what happens? One day comes and they get a little arthritis, a little rheumatoid business over here. They can't jump as high and they can't get up there and can't dunk the ball anymore, and you know what happens? They lose their identity. Because their identity was tied up with what they could do for a short period of time.
Other people's identity is tied up in who they are. You know, isn't it interesting the second question we ask people is, "What do you do for a living?" First question, "What's your name? Oh, what do you do for a living? Oh! Vice President of the bank. Whew! Brain surgeon. Plumber!" Hey, when the pipes are leaking, you don't want a brain surgeon. Somehow, our identity is tied up in what we do. But friends, the Bible teaches us that when we are wounded, the same God who wounds us returns our identity to us because He loves us. Our identity is tied up in Him.
Then I can't help but notice this in chapter eleven. Look at this. Look at the tenderness of God in saving us, how He brings us back to Himself, how tender He is. Chapter 11 of Hosea, the first verse: "When Israel was a child I loved him." God told Moses to say to Pharaoh, "This is what the Lord says, 'Israel is My first born son and I told you let My son go so that he may worship Me, but you refused to let My son go,' Exodus chapter four. Look how tender God talks about us being His child. He loved us when we were just His children. Verse two: "The more I called the further they went." The more God loved us, the less we loved Him. Some of you have experienced that in your own family. I think one of the hardest lessons I have ever had to teach young men who are entering the ministry is the lesson that Paul makes reference to in second Corinthians, chapter 12, verse 15. Where he says, "The more I loved you, (Corinthians), the less I was loved by you."
There's just something about sinful humanity that the more we love people the less we are loved by them. And that's what he says here. Elizabeth Barrett, when she married Robert Browning, her family was not in favor of the marriage. And so every day Elizabeth Barrett would write a letter to her parents, tell her parents that she loved them, tell her parents every day that she was hoping the day would come when there would be reconciliation. And the parents never wrote back. Never wrote back. And finally, after a period of 10 years she got a huge package in the mail. And there were all the letters she had written for 10 years. All of them unopened. The more I love you, the less I am loved by you.
God shows significant tenderness to us. I mean, He loves us like a little child. He says, "When Israel was a child I loved him. The more I loved you, the more I came to you, the further you went from Me." Look at verse three, He says, "It was I who taught Ephraim to walk." Remember the days when your children took their first steps? This is a very tender God. "I led them with cords of human kindness." Verse four, "I bent down to feed them."
You know what the newest malady in the United States is? It's something called compassion fatigue. We're getting fatigued at all the compassion people expect us to share. The more causes that come our way, the more people who appeal for our funds, the more uncompassionate we become. And see, God will allow judgment for sin. He must be holy and He is holy and He must judge sin because He is holy. But He will temper His judgment with the grace of His restoration. And in the midst of God's judgment of His people, Israel, there is this tender and compassionate God who is drawing them with the cords of human kindness, who is bending over to teach them how to walk, who is bending down to feed them. This is a picture of a loving Father. It's a picture of our God. It's a picture of God who brings hope when there is no hope. It's a picture of God who, while He withholds His love for a short time to bring Israel to her senses, while Hosea is to withhold his love from Gomer for a short time to bring Gomer to her senses. The whole point of this is so that the day may come when he can lavish his love on her again. The whole point is so the day may come when God can lavish His love on Israel again. And the whole point of judging you in your sin is not because God is a meanie. The whole point of judging you in your sin is so that He can again lavish you with His love as He did when He taught you how to walk, as He did when He bent over out of Heaven to feed you. God is anxiously awaiting the day when His sinning people come back to Him so He can show them how much He loves them.
Remember the story of the prodigal son. The father anxiously awaited the day when the young boy would come home so he could lavish his son with his love. God is waiting on that today, too. God wants you to come home. He wants you to come home to His love. And these 14 chapters in Hosea repeat the theme again and again and again. Sin always brings judgment. But repentance always brings salvation. And tying all of that together constantly, whether we see it or not, always is the love of God in our behalf that gives hope to us every day of our lives.
Have you experienced that love? Are you still out wandering in the judgment of your own sin? Still distant from God who loves you, who bent over to feed you, who taught you how to walk? Or have you come home to God's love? Coming home to God's love means coming back to God's salvation. And there is no more tender, more gentle place to be than in the arms of a loving God.
Next week - Part 10: Life Lessons About Sin Learned From Hosea - Number 1 of 3
www.backtothebible.org
Copyright �1996-2002 The Good News Broadcasting Association, Inc.
All rights reserved.
July 31, 2002
Coming Home To God's Love
By Woodrow Kroll
Part 10: Life Lessons About Sin Learned From Hosea - Number 1 of 3
You know, life presents some interesting challenges and some wonderful lessons. Today I would like us to think about some of the lessons that you and I could learn from the Book of Hosea.
This is a wonderful book. It is a love story. It's the story of God's love for His people, Israel--even though Israel had forsaken the love of God. And it is seen in the story of a man, Hosea, and his wife, Gomer, who was unfaithful to him. And yet he loved her the whole time. His love would not let her go--like the love of God will not let us go.
And there was a time in Hosea 3 when God told Hosea, "Go get your wife. Even though she has been an adulterous, go get her. Buy her back from the marketplace, love her and prove to her that your love is unending to her.
When I think of a story like this, there just have to be incredible things for us to learn about life and some incredible things for us to learn about God and some incredible things for us to learn about sin.
That is where I would like to start. Let's think about lessons that you and I could learn from the Book of Hosea about sin. And I want to begin today in the last chapter, Hosea 14:1: "Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God. Your sins have been your downfall."
Now you and I live in a society that is looking for excuses and outlets all the time. We do not want to admit that we are the problem. We want to believe that we are somehow the solution to the problem. And some people say, "Well, sin is a hereditary problem."
And indeed it is. The Bible says in Psalm 51:5. "Surely I was sinful at my birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me." Now the Bible also says in Job 14:1,4, Job asks a very important question. "Man born of woman is of a few days and full of trouble. Who can bring what is pure from the impure?" So he is right, sin is a hereditary problem.
I inherited sin from my parents because both of my parents were sinful people and their parents before them. And it goes all the way back to our common parents, Adam and Eve. When Adam and Eve sinned, they had absolutely no possibility to bring anyone into this world who was not a sinner. And it is true for every one of us.
But sin is not just a hereditary problem; sin is also a problem of the environment. That is why Job makes this pledge to himself when he is an old man. He says, "I pledge to myself that my eyes will not look upon a young maid lustfully," because sin is a problem of the environment.
The other day we read from Proverbs 7:6. "At the window of my house...I noticed among the young men, a youth that lacked judgment....Then out came a woman to meet him, dressed like a prostitute....She took hold of him...and with a brazen face she said: 'Come, let's drink deep of love till morning; Let's enjoy ourselves with love! My husband is not at home.'"
See, sin not only comes from our hereditary problem, it also comes from our environmental problem. Sin is a clear problem for every individual. But you know what we try to do? We are really good at this, in fact. I have noticed this in my own family, I've noticed this in my parents, I've noticed this in my siblings and they, ironically, think they have noticed it in me--that what we try to do is divert the attention from our own sin to someone else.
We try to claim that we are sinners because of the influence of someone else and that we would not do the things we do if it were not for this other person doing what they are doing to us. And Hosea 14:1 comes down to, I think, a very vital lesson for every person to learn and it is this: "Your sins have been your downfall."
It is the problem of sin in life that causes the difficulties we have in life. I bring on myself most of the damage that is done in my life because of my own sin. And I have to own up to that, I have to recognize that it is my fault. It is my problem. Sin is not failing to live up to my potential, friends. Sin is an active part of my life in which I rebel against God.
Isaiah 59:1,2: "Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor His ear too dull to hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden His face from you." Do you ever wonder why God doesn't answer our prayers sometimes? One of the reasons why God does not answer our prayers is because our sin separates between us and God.
"If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me." Psalm 66:18. I have heard people say forever, ever since I was knee-high to a hiccup, I've been listening to people tell me that God always hears and always answers prayer. Sometimes He says, "Yes"; sometimes He says, "No"; sometimes He says, "Maybe." And I believed that until I started to read my Bible.
And I found out that there are three places in the Book of Jeremiah where God says to Jeremiah, "Don't even bother praying for My people, Israel. I am not going to listen. There sin has separated between Me and them."
"If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me." So one of the major lessons I learned from this chapter is that the problem of sin in the life of Gomer was not something that Hosea brought on her. It is not something that these three children brought on her. When she decided to become an adulterous wife, it was her choice to become an adulterous wife.
The problem in Israel was not something that God brought to Israel. Gomer represents Israel in this passage. Israel's choice to go after the Baals and the other gods of the earth, that was a personal choice on the part of Israel.
And your sin and my sin is not simply failure to live up to our potential. Sin is an active choosing to rebel against God. My sins have been my downfall and I can't blame anybody else. And if there is a great lesson to learn from this passage, it is that you must take ownership for your own sins.
But you know what? The great news is that when I take ownership of my own sins, I already find God's love and His arms outstretched to pull me back and to say, "That is all I was waiting for--for you to confess your sins because when you confess your sins, I will be faithful and I will be righteous enough to forgive you of your sins and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness." It is really a pretty simple process. But it can never happen until you and I take ownership for our own sins.
So Lesson Number 1 that I learned about sin from this passage is that my sin is my responsibility and it's my fault.
Go back to Hosea 7:2: "But they do not realize that I remember all their evil deeds. Their sins engulf them; they are always before Me." Now I link this lesson to the first one we learned. And that is, not only is sin my own responsibility, but I learned from Hosea 7:2 that it is absolutely impossible to hide sin from God.
Now when I was a young boy, I developed a great facility to hide sin from my parents. And I developed a pretty good facility to hide sin from my teachers. And if God hadn't been around, I would have gotten away with a lot more. But the problem is you cannot hide sin from God.
I wish we learn this in government. I wish we would learn this in some of the societies of the world that are oppressive to their own people. You cannot hide sin from God. Proverbs 5:21, "For a man's ways are in full view of the Lord, and He examines all his paths." That is God's Word, friends.
Proverbs 15:3, "The eyes of the Lord are everywhere, keeping watch on the wicked and the good." Now you just think with me about the people who tried to hide their own sin in the Bible. The list is longer than your arm and we won't think of all of them. But let's start with our own parents, Adam and Eve.
Adam and Eve sinned against the Lord God and what was the first thing that they did? Genesis 3:8,9 says that they hid themselves in the garden. And God comes along and He says, "Adam where are you?" (like He doesn't know, you know). The God who knows everything, knows where Adam is.What He wants Adam to do is to own up to his own sin.
Adam is trying to hide his sin. They make these cute little garments that they are going to wear. It doesn't do them a bit of good because God knows exactly where they are. They tried to hide their sin and failed. Our first parents would not own up to their own sin.
What about that fellow Achan. Do you remember the promise of God? God said, "Look, you are going to be very successful, Joshua and the armies of Israel. You are going to be successful in taking the City of Jericho. But I don't want you to take any of the spoils of war because, if you do, you will bear your own sin.
Well one person did. He took a Babylonian garment, he took some silver and he took some gold. And it says in Joshua 7:21 that he hid them in the tent, underneath his tent, in the middle of his tent. He thought he got away with it. But as you remember, he didn't get away with it because the very next time they had a battle, it was just the little city of Ai, it's nowhereville! There is no way that Ai can beat the great army of Israel. Ai is just a little town a few miles south of Resume Speed! I mean, who is going to be problem in Ai?
But as you remember, the Bible says that the army of Ai defeated the army of Israel because of one man's sin, and his trying to hide that sin. And the list goes on and on. David tried to hide his sin with Bathsheba. And he could not do it. Job 34:21,22 says, "His eyes are on the ways of men; He sees their every step. There is no dark place, no deep shadow, where evildoers can hide."
God has a unique way of discovering our sin. And you may be here today and you may be hiding some things from your spouse. You may be hiding some things from your children, hiding things from your neighbor, hiding things from your pastor. You have been pretty successful. In fact, you may be successful for many years. But it is my responsibility, friends, just to remind you that you cannot hide sin from God.
God sees everything we do and everything the world does. And that is why it is important for us to come clean with God. One of the great lessons from the Book of Hosea that I learned is that Hosea was being watched by God, everything he did. And so was Gomer, everything this wife did that was adulterous in nature was known by God. Now God still loved her. And Hosea still loved her, but she didn't get away with anything in her sin. You cannot hide sin from God.
I read a story one time about a drug smuggler who was attempting to get away from the Coast Guard. And he had some drugs hidden in bales of cotton. He decided that he would throw the bales overboard because he was in a boat and the Coast Guard was chasing him. He thought, "If I get rid of the bales of cotton, I'll get rid of the drugs." What happened was the cotton didn't sink. He left a trail of bales of cotton right to his boat.
It is kind of like that when people try to hide their sins from God. We leave a trail right to our doorstep. If there is a lesson about sin that I learned from the Book of Hosea, it's that I must take responsibility for my own sin. And that it is impossible for me to hide sin from God.
Go with me to chapter 12. Let's learn another lesson about Hosea and sin. Hosea 12:8. Listen to this: "Ephraim boasts, 'I am very rich; I have become wealthy. With all my wealth they will not find in me any iniquity or sin.'" Translation: Ephraim is just a word for Israel. Israel thought that because she was wealthy she could simply buy off her wickedness. She thought that if she had enough money, that nobody would point out her sin.
Proverbs 18:11, "The wealth of the rich is their fortified city; they imagine it an unscalable wall." Now God may have blessed you in financial ways. And I am glad for that. All of us would love to be blessed with more in financial ways, but we can never understand that what God has blessed us with is some way to mask our sin. We can't buy our way out of sin.
Proverbs 11:4 warns us: "Wealth is worthless in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death." That is why the Bible is so keen on helping us to understand that it is important for us to confess our sins and for God to forgive us our sins. And it doesn't matter if you have a lot or a little. What you have is not the key to coming clean with God.
Now I am going to assume that Hosea did not have a lot. It doesn't tell us that he was a wealthy person. But I am also going to understand that he has to address this issue because Israel did have a lot. Remember these are strong economic times for Israel. Sometimes nations believe that because they have been blessed financially by God that they can get away with their sin, that God is somehow pleased with them.
Listen, God's blessing is by His grace. And when God sheds His grace on us that doesn't give us license to sin more because we've been blessed more. We cannot hide sin and get away from God. God keeps wonderful records. A day of reckoning is always coming. That's why I think that it is important for Christians, people like you and me, to keep short accounts with God.
I don't want to get a lot of surprises when I stand at the judgment seat of Christ. I want to deal with my sin on a daily basis. That is why it is important to keep short accounts. If you are here today and you have not dealt with your sin, if you are allowing it to build up hoping that somehow it will go away or you can buy your way out of it, I have bad news for you and I have good news for you.
The bad news is it doesn't matter how wealthy you are, you can't buy your way out of sin. The good news is the price has already been paid. And all you have to do is accept the price of the blood of Jesus Christ. We are not purchased with corruptible things like our money, but with the precious blood of Jesus Christ.
We've thought about three lessons already that we know about sin from this book. And this lesson is that we cannot buy our way out of sin. Let me suggest to you a fourth lesson. I find this in chapter 10 at verse 12. This is one of those verses that just jumps out at me. In fact, I have it underlined in my Bible; double underlined so I can find it in a hurry.
"Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to seek the Lord." You know, when it comes to sin, there is no bad time to seek the Lord, isn't that true? You don't have to wait until Sunday to seek the Lord, you don't have to wait until all your debts are paid in order to seek the Lord. You don't have to wait until the children are grown and out of the house. That is not what he is talking about here.
He is using an agricultural imagery here. Hosea is urging Israel to seek the Lord now. Now Moses had already told Israel, "If...you seek the Lord your God, you will find Him if you look for Him with all your heart and with all your soul." That is Deuteronomy chapter 4:29, by the way.
There is already a precedent. Moses, the great leader of Israel, has told the people of Israel, "If you seek the Lord now and you seek Him with all your heart and all your soul, you will find Him." Why? Because sin always brings judgment. Repentance always brings salvation. And underneath it all are always the arms of God's love drawing you in to Himself.
There is never a bad time to seek the Lord. Moses told us that. King David told us that. David told the leaders of Israel, "Now devote your heart and soul to seeking the Lord your God." That is 1 Chronicles 22:19. The king knew that, the great leader of the people of Israel knew that, the prophet Amos knew that. Amos counseled the people, "Seek the Lord and live" in Amos 5:6.
The list just gets longer and longer. Hosea the prophet said, "Afterward the Israelites will return and seek the Lord their God" (Hosea 3:5). Now you see, every time you encounter this problem of seeking the Lord your God, you get the twofold edge of this sword. Some of the time, the Bible says, "There is none that seeketh after God, no not one." And then you have the Bible telling us, "Seek the Lord."
Now how do you put these two things together? Sounds like an oxymoron. But the fact of the matter is that nobody wants God to deal with their sin. But when you come to repentance, that is when you realize that you can't do anything about your sin by yourself. You have to seek the Lord's forgiveness when you repent of your sin.
And the first step is recognizing that God will judge sin. And the second step is coming to your senses with regard to the fact that God is always going to judge sin. And the third step is knowing that God is there with His arms outstretched. All you need to know is where to find Him. And you know where to find Him? You find him right in your seat, you find Him right in your car, you find Him right around the kitchen table, you find Him wherever you are.
A little girl got a new storybook and it was a Christian storybook. She was only 7 years of age, but she had learned how to use a pencil. And she could read a little bit. And in that storybook, she was going through and writing in her storybook. Her mother found her writing in the storybook; and she said, "What are you doing, Karen?"
Karen said, "I am circling the name God everywhere I find it."
The mother beat back the first urge to reprimand her for writing in this brand-new book. And she said, "Why are you circling the name God?"
And Karen said, "Because when I need Him, I want to know where to find Him."
That's not a bad idea is it, friends? When you need Him, you want to know where to find Him. You know where you find Him? You find Him at the end of your rope. You find Him when all the money is gone. You find Him when life falls apart. You find Him when the children have turned their backs on the Lord. You find Him when your spouse has been unfaithful to you. You find Him when you need Him most because sin always needs repentance.
But when true repentance is made, you always find God there. And my counsel to you today is to follow the pattern of the Book of Hosea when it comes to sin. Hosea understood clearly that sin brings judgment, repentance leads to salvation and underneath it all is the arm of God who loves us and draws us to Himself so that when we come to grips with our own sin, when we own up to our own sin, we recognize that God is there to love us and God is there to forgive us and God is there to welcome us back home again.
You know, I don't know of any better words than the words, "Welcome Home, come on back home to God's love." Sin must be dealt with. But when it is dealt with in a biblical way, it helps you to come home to God's love. And there is no better place to be than in the arms of God.
Next week - Part 11: Life Lessons About Sin Learned From Hosea - Number 2 of 3
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