May the Lord be pleased to bless
us together this evening as we consider his word. Let us turn
to the prophecy of Hosea, chapter 14, and reading verses four,
five, six, and seven. Prophecy of Hosea, chapter 14,
and reading verses four to seven. I will heal their backsliding. I will love them freely. For
mine anger is turned away from him. I will be as the dew unto
Israel. He shall grow as a lily and cast
forth his roots as Lebanon. His branches shall spread and
his beauty shall be as the olive tree and his smell as Lebanon. They that dwell under his shadow
shall return. They shall revive as the corn
grow as the vine, the scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon. The Word of God is very clear
and very powerful. It doesn't leave really any room
for maneuver or movement. And the words that we read together
this evening The commencement of this 14th chapter tells us,
O Israel, return unto the Lord thy God, and the reason for thou'st
fallen by thine iniquity. Now that refers to all of us. And we've all come into that
situation. We've all fallen by our iniquity. and we cannot blame anyone else. We realise that we have sinned,
that we have come short, that we are guilty and therefore naturally
left to ourselves there is no hope. We are lost and we are
ruined and that eternally. And that's why the Word tells
us, O Israel, the Word of the Lord, return unto the Lord thy
God. It would seem very clear here
that the Word of God is speaking to the Church of God and to those
times when they've perhaps fallen away. They won't fall away totally. They may have been absorbed by
the things of this world the temporal things which do not
profit have no real spiritual good and therefore have fallen
through that and they find themselves now in a barren state, in a hard
place and perhaps in that condition of famine and the hearing of
the word they don't seem to be liable in the things of God and
they seem to be besieged by the evil one. The devil seems to
have perhaps got them on the run and is pursuing them with
much energy so that they might fall at last. Well, blessed be
God, we believe in the perseverance of the saints, the preservation
of the saints, and we're thankful for his great and glorious word. And so we read this evening,
take with you words and turn to the Lord and say, take away
all iniquity and receive us graciously, so will we render the calves
of our lips. Here was a very real cry, a very
real prayer. And it wasn't, he was referring
just to something which was superficial, is take away all iniquity. take away every bit, because
if we're left with any iniquity, if we have any part that is not
washed and not taken away, we shall not be received into glory. And so here is the Word of God,
the commendation of God and the prayer that we need to be able
to come before God with. I don't believe such a word as
this is isolated to a few people. I believe the true Church of
God understand the temptations of the evil one, and therefore
to pray like this, take away all iniquity and receive us graciously. We don't deserve to be received,
do we? Here is this word, receive us
graciously. That's without any merit ourselves,
but it's all the free merit of Almighty God. To receive us graciously,
so will we render the cards of our lips and it's important to
notice that because we see then the acknowledging of God's goodness
and of God's mercy and in God's favor there is a rendering to
our God that which is due there is a speaking of what he's done
of his mercy in looking upon us and being gracious to us and
forgiving us of all our iniquities and so here we have these encouraging
words, so will we render the calves of our lips. And we should
not think that these words are separated. We should recognize
them as continuous really, the prayer and then the result and
the effect of that prayer, when that prayer indeed is answered
graciously by our God. And so the The prophet then tells
us, Asher, shall not save us? We will not ride upon horses,
neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, ye
are our gods, for in thee the fatherless findeth mercy. It really sums it up like this.
No hope in self I find, yet oft have sought it well. There's
no good in our flesh. and how perhaps we sometimes
sought to improve our situation, to turn over a new leaf, to determine
to seek unto our God and find that we fail. Because we need
the sovereign grace of God to be able to come and confess as
the prophet did, for in thee the fatherless findeth mercy.
It's in our God. that we find mercy. There's no
mercy anywhere else. Man is not merciful really. The
devil is totally unmerciful. But our God is full of mercy,
full of compassion. He remembers that we are dust. He looks upon us in our lost
condition and his compassion is great. And so we're able to
come down to these verses this evening. the promise of God, the word of God, and how strengthening
such words are, such words should be. It's not as though he just
says, well, if you behave yourself now, I'll deal with you graciously.
No, he doesn't say that. He says, I will heal their backsliding. I will love them freely, for
my anger is turned away from him." Now, no one, I believe,
can state that there's never been any backsliding in their
life, because I believe the Lord allows us sometimes two backslides
to convince us of our weakness and to show us no strength in
self I find there's no strength in ourselves and to bring us
to realise that we cannot halt ourselves and we cannot bring
ourselves back. It's too steep an incline. We've
slid them back, maybe in a small way, maybe in a great way. Nonetheless, my friends, to go
backwards is not a good thing and sometimes we go backwards
because we are ensnared by the temptations of Satan. Now Satan
knows very well what are your weak points. He knows what will
entice you onto his land if possible. He knows what to set before your
eyes. He knows what to bring into your
mind. He knows exactly what he needs to do to bring
you into this condition. how often we can be caught off
our guard. We can be caught off our guard
and the effect is we find ourselves in a backsliding state, not necessarily
in an outward way, but sometimes in an inward way. You see the
work of the Spirit deals with the heart and that is between
your soul and my soul and God. And it's the blessed work of
the Spirit to reveal to us the gracious strength of our God
and the overcoming through our God. We can't overcome ourselves. We can't heal ourselves. I will
heal their backslidings. We may, as it were, have open
wounds. You remember that beautiful parable
of a man who went down from Jerusalem and fell among thieves. Yes,
and they stripped him and left him half dead. Well, that's sometimes
what the devil does. And you see, we can perhaps think
that he wasn't going into Jerusalem is going away from Jerusalem.
And that's exactly the situation when you and I wander away from
God to some worldly situation. It's then that you see the devil
grabs hold of us and robs us. Robs us of those things which
perhaps the Lord has given to us. And we seem to lose sight
of them. They disappear from our eyes.
disappeared from our mind. We don't seem to be able to bring
them back. They don't seem to have any comfort to us. Because we've gone away from
God. Well, the Lord says, I will heal
their backslidings. And of course, in that account
of the parable, who was it came along? The least expected person,
a Samaritan. The people that you would expect
to have helped, they passed by on the other side. They couldn't
be bothered. They didn't want to get involved. But the Samaritan,
the one we would least expect, he came where that poor man was
and he bound up his wounds pouring in oil and wine and set him on
his own beast and took him to the inn. and made sure he was
comfortable and paid the price and told the innkeeper that anything
owing when he came again he would pay for it. What a wonderful
example we have there and what a picture we have which sets
before us in some small way the great and glory of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now, we read here, how will these
backslidings be healed? Well, in that case, it was pouring
in oil and wine. What is it in our spiritual sense?
It's pouring in the grace of the gospel. It's to view what
the Lord Jesus Christ has done. that our eyes may be directed
to Him. There's no doubt that that man's
eyes were directed to that man, my friends, if our eyes are then
directed to the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, there's power in the blood,
you know. It's healing virtue is tremendous,
it's great. It's better than anything else. Therefore, if we felt ourselves
to be backsliding or to have backslidden, to have some realisation
of the healing virtue of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember, the blood of Jesus
Christ taking away all sin, all sin, all iniquity, all sin, What
a healing that will be. What a recovery that will be.
Yes, we'll be raised up again. As it were, we'll be set on our
feet and we'll have praise in our heart to our God for that
healing which he's done for us. And we shall praise him and we
shall render unto him the cast of our lips because he's done
that for us which we could not do for ourselves. He's led us
into all truth as it is in Jesus. I will heal their backsliding. It's a great mercy, isn't it,
to think we have a God who doesn't deal with us as our sins deserve. If he did, we would never have
any backslidings healed. We'd just backslide farther and
farther until we fell into the pit. My friends, our God is gracious. He's merciful. It's wonderful,
isn't it, to think of his compassion to unworthy sinners. I will heal
their backsliding. And then he says, I will love
them freely. What love it is to receive the
love from God as he looks upon us, we who have turned our back
upon God because of our thoughts Because of our words, perhaps
because of our actions, we turn our back upon Almighty God. And then to think that we have
such a statement as, I will love them freely. That means there's
no price to pay. We're bankrupt anyway. We haven't
got any revenue to pay for this healing. We haven't got any revenue
to pay for this love. The Lord says, I will love them
freely. Free. The gospel is free. My friends, God's love is free. Isn't it? Surely the words of
Isaiah that he speaks in that 55th chapter, and how wonderful,
ho, everyone that thirsteth. Come ye to the waters, and he
that hath no money, Come ye buy and eat, come buy wine and milk
without money and without price. Wherefore do you spend money
for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which
satisfies not? Hearken diligently unto me."
It's a good word that, isn't it? To hearken diligently to
the word of God, to the words that God speaks. The devil doesn't
want you to listen diligently. Well, here we have these encouraging
words. Yes, hearken diligently unto me, and eat that which is
good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. Incline your
ear, and come unto me, hear, and your soul shall live, and
I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies
of David." The Word of God is gloriously positive, isn't it?
And gloriously encouraging. to unworthy bankrupt sinners
who have nothing to pay. Here we have this great saying,
I will love them freely. And that love was so great, so
free, that it brought the Lord of life and glory into this sinful
world. It made him willing to suffer
and to bleed and to die that you and I might be delivered
from all our sins and freely forgiven. Yes, freely forgiven. What a wonderful thing it is
to realize that this great and glorious Saviour came here for
love, love to our souls. Amazing love, wasn't it? Amazing
to think. And sometimes we need to, just
as it were, draw aside sit down and meditate. It's good, you
know, to meditate in this Russian tower world in which we live.
It's good sometimes to come aside and to meditate upon the goodness
of the Lord and to meditate upon his great love, amazing love,
that it should have come It should have reached us, reached you
and reached me. And as we sit and meditate and
consider our condition, consider our true state before a holy
God, and what do we see? We see no hope. We see failure. We see sinfulness. We see vileness. We see evil. Why ever should
Almighty God, and remember that, Almighty God, the ruler of the
universe, in eternity past, sent his love upon us and loved us
with everlasting love and with loving kindness has drawn us. You sit down, you meditate before
God, examine your heart, examine your spiritual life to see whether
you're able to discern this wonderful truth and to be able to recognize
that you've proved the goodness of God. I will love them freely. Freely. Well, it's a good job
it is free, isn't it? Because we could never pay anything,
could we? All we can bring is sin. And as the apostle says,
sin is mixed with all we do. And therefore we can't bring
anything that is worthy of any acceptance. It's all marred by
sin. So the prophet says, for mine
anger is turned away from me. The anger of almighty God is
turned away as he sees the merits of his son, the Lord Jesus Christ,
bearing the punishment that was due to you and me, he bore the
punishment instead. He took our place, that place
of condemnation, he took our place. And therefore the word
is true, there is therefore now no condemnation to them who are
in Christ Jesus, once in Him, in Him forever. That's the great
glory of the truth of God's Word, safety in Christ, eternal safety. And because of Christ, you see,
because of His finished work, the anger of God is turned away
from us. I wonder sometimes if you've
had a little, a little realisation of God's anger towards you. Just a little taste of the anger
of God, to tremble before it, and made you cry out guilty and
helpless and plead for mercy, because we know that God is a
consuming fire, and God cannot look upon sin. And therefore,
if we have some right view of the holiness of Almighty God,
to realize what a great and glorious Savior we have, I will love them
freely, for when anger is turned away from him. And then we see
the prophet goes on to describe really a living child of God
and the blessedness of that life which is ordained by God and
the encouragement that it receives and the favor. And so he says,
I will. The previous verse began with
didn't it, I will. have mercy and I will love them
freely. And now I will. This is God's
word. And we can realize that here
we are. Those who have fallen by their iniquity and have yet
to come and taken words and pray to God earnestly. What does he
say? I will be as the dew unto Israel. Now dew is very precious in a
dry climate. It's very necessary and it has
a good effect, a gracious effect. It revives, dew revives a plant,
the parched ground, the parched grass perhaps. The dew comes
and it's reviving as a springing up. And so here we read these
words, I will be as the dew unto Israel. Well perhaps we may have
felt parched and hardened with no life hardly at all and no
evidence of any real life in our soul and yet to receive a
word like this that God says, I will be as a dew unto Israel. He comes down upon us and refreshes
our soul. Dew is so refreshing isn't it?
You get up in the morning, you see the dew upon the ground,
which could have been very hot and hard the previous day. There's
the dew. What a good effect it has. And
so it does, my friends, when the Spirit of God comes into
our hearts as the dew and revives us and encourages us, perhaps,
it is to be led to the Word of God. to be directed perhaps to
a promise of God and to be revived in our soul. Perhaps something
which we'd forgotten may have been an experience we'd enjoyed
some time ago and it appeared to be dried up and parched and
now the Lord comes and by His Spirit that is revived. And we remember, we remember
the day of prosperity. We remember a time of blessing. We remember the time when we
joyfully sang the praises of our God. Yes, the due has come
and granted us some revival. What is it? The blessed work
of the Holy Spirit. And again, you see, the due is
God's sovereign gift. There isn't always a due. Sometimes
there's no due. And so we're dependent. naturally
upon God's gift. And so we are spiritually. We
are dependent upon God's Holy Spirit to come upon us, remember
as the dew. The Word of God does give us
some very beautiful illustrations that we may be able to remember.
And this is one that we surely can remember. You see, this is
God's mercy. This is God coming and visiting
his people, his flock, His inheritance, not leaving them, not forsaking
them, remembering them for good, coming to them where they are
and reviving them. I will be as the dew unto Israel. What a wonderful thing, isn't
it, if the Spirit of God has revived us. And we know, you
know when that occurs. Because there's a change in your
attitude. There's a change in your prayer
life. There's a change in your desire
towards God. That which perhaps became cold
and faint, now there's a revival. Yes, there's a life, the evidence
of life. There was life before, but it
appeared to be dead almost. But now the Spirit of God has
brought this reviving, just like this Jew. I will be. as the dew
unto Israel. Now then, it doesn't stop there.
See, God's work doesn't stop. God's work goes on. And here
we see God's work going on. He says, he shall grow as the
lily and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. Well, lilies grow
reasonably fast. They're not slow growing. They
grow up quickly. And you see, when the Lord blesses,
there's often a growth, a spiritual growth. And there's the evidence
of that life within the lily. In the Song of Solomon, we read
of the Lord Jesus Christ as the lily of the valley and the bright
and morning star. Well, what does this mean? This
means that there'll be a spiritual growth. A spiritual growth in
Christ. A spiritual growth to be like
Christ. And the evidence, therefore,
of the work of the Spirit in our life, producing a Christ-like
attitude. We should grow as the lily. There's not a stagnation. There's
not a dormant situation. There's a spiritual growth in
Christ. My friends, that's the only way
to grow spiritually, in Christ. To be privileged, to have a greater
insight into the glory of Christ's life and death and resurrection
and intercession. Oh, it's a wonderful theme, my
friends. Never tire of it. Always desire. to be found walking
in the light of the countenance of Almighty God. In this way,
then, to grow as the lily. And of course, we know that the
lily has a wonderful smell. Well, you know, my friends, Christ,
His death was a sweet savour to His Father. Oh, my friends,
what a glorious savour it was. And so here we have this statement,
I will grow as the lily. And not only that, but also to
cast forth his roots as Lebanon. The Lebanon tree, of course,
is a very strong tree, a very powerful tree, a very broad tree. And that tree has strong roots.
And it needs strong roots because of its greatness and its broadness.
When the storms come and the winds blow, it needs to have
firm and strong roots. And that really is the same in
spiritual life. You see, when the Lord blesses
us with his Spirit, so that we walk before him in the light
of his countenance, and we're favoured to enjoy spiritual blessings,
perhaps nearness to Christ, perhaps revelations of Christ, and perhaps
dealings with Christ, then we shall be strong and flourishing. But you see, be sure in that
situation, you and I will face the storms of life. What do we
need then? Strong roots. We need strong
roots that go deep down We don't see the roots, do we, above the
ground? We know the roots go down. And
the roots of a seed of Lebanon, actually, they spread and they
go down. They're firm roots, and they
keep that tree in a firm position when the storms come. And I believe
that's so with the Church of God. That means this, if our
roots are in Christ. and not something that we produced
ourselves. Our root is in Christ. And if our root is in Christ,
it will be like this. We will know ourselves as a helpless
and undone sinner. And we will realise that we have
no strength in ourselves, but all our strength is in God. And
we are dependent upon Him to support us in times of trial,
times of temptation, times of opposition come upon us, as they
will, and you see the devil, the more you and I are blessed,
the more the devil tries to overthrow us, the more he tries to turn
us out of the way, the more he tries to uproot us, if possible,
and therefore he brings into our lives those storms, those
trials, which sometimes are very great, sometimes they almost
appear to envelop us so that we seem to have no time hardly
for the things of God well bless God then here he tells us then
that and casts forth his roots as Lebanon yes they are in Christ
as again Paul says I can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth
me. And the Apostle Paul lived a
very difficult life with many things to uproot him, but he
knew where his strength was. And how many times we read his
epistles of the accounts and also the Acts of the Apostles
when he explains the situation which came upon him and how God
delivered him and how God supported him and how God strengthened
him. And that's why he was able to
come and declare, I can do all things through Christ that strengthens
me. And that's true, my friends,
for us today, to realize that that word applies to us in our
little lives also. And cast forth his roots as Lebanon. His branches shall spread, and
his beauty shall be as the olive tree, and his smell as Lebanon. Well, there's something to be
observed, isn't there, in a lively, healthy, spiritual soul. The Word of God tells us that
they might take knowledge of us, that we have been with Jesus
and have learned of him. We should desire to show forth
his praise. We should desire to set before
people the greatness of our God and to stand firm upon himself
as our rock. So there might be this evidence
that our branches spread and the beauty shall be as the olive
tree, and its smell as leaven. The olive tree is a very beautiful
tree, and especially in Israel, where there are very many of
them to look at. And one, of course, of the great
blessings of the olive tree is it's a very fruitful tree, mostly.
Many olives appear on that tree. much fruit. You see, as the Lord
blesses us with spiritual life, fruitfulness in our life, and
that means to be like the Lord Jesus Christ, that means to be
fruitful as we mentioned last Lord's Day, and You know, the
evidence of that fruitfulness in our lives, love, joy, peace,
long-suffering, etc. These are all the things that
show forth God's praise, and what they do, they evidence this,
like this, branches spread forth, and there's a beauty in it, isn't
there? There's a beauty in a true follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's a humble walker. He's not
a proud person. He goes about meekly. He's following
his master. He's doing his master's will.
And Christ is seen in his life, in his words, and of course in
their thoughts. So here we have this evidence
of these branches spread, and his beauty shall be as the olive
tree, and his smell as Lebanon. Well, the Lebanon, the cedars,
they smell beautiful, don't they? When they're sawn and cut, it's
a very lovely smell. So the Church of God, the people
of God should bring forth the savour of Christ. There should
be a sweet smell. And here is the promise, you
see. And let's go back. Remember,
these blessings emanated from the confession of sin. and the cry to be taken away,
take away all iniquity and receive us graciously. The confession
and the desire to really be walking in this way, to have this iniquity
taken away and then to realise the blessings which follow. They
that dwell under his shadow shall return. They shall revive as
the corn and grow up as the vine. The scent thereof shall be as
the wine of Lebanon. It's really a little summary,
a little conclusion, if you like, of those workings of the Holy
Spirit in the life of the living child of God, to explain that
there will be this dwelling under his shadow. Well, again, we remember
those words in the Song of Solomon, that he was under his shadow
with great delight, the shadow of the Saviour, the shadow of
Almighty God. We bless God, don't we, sometimes
when the sun is very strong and very powerful for a shadow, and
we read, the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. Well, you and I may be weary
sometimes with the oppression of Satan, And realise then is
that the shelter under the rock, the Lord Jesus Christ, and so
we have here, they that dwell under his shadow shall return,
to be found therefore dwelling under the shadow of the Almighty. Now if you and I are doing that,
one thing is clear, we are walking close to the Lord Jesus Christ. We're not a long way off, because
if you're a long way off, a shadow wouldn't do any good. You need
to be close to the object to benefit from the shadow. Especially
in Eastern times when the sun is closely overhead, the shadow
is quite small. It's quite dense, but it's quite
small. And it's necessary to be very close, therefore, to
the object to receive any benefit. And really that's the truth,
is it not? If we're far off, there's no benefit. if we're
close to the Lord Jesus Christ as a shelter. Yes, as a shelter. We're near him. We hear his voice. We rejoice to hear his voice
as he speaks to us, as he draws near to us and describes something
of his glory to our hearts. They that dwell under his shadow
shall return. They shall revive as the corn
and grow up as the vine You see, there's a revival, there's a
returning. As we commence, O Israel, return
unto the Lord. How needful that is. If we are
wandered away and backstood to return unto the Lord, O Israel,
return unto the Lord and hear His gracious word. They that
dwell under His shadow shall return, will be coming back,
will be rejoicing. will be a renewal of that spiritual
life and that blessing of bringing us close once again to the Saviour. As the corn and grow as the vine,
fruitfulness, the corn shows forth fruitfulness, doesn't it?
And the Church of God, blessed by the Spirit of God, are fruitful,
a bare fruit, fruit which brings honour and glory to Almighty
God. They're not dead, they're not
lifeless, they're lively and they're fruitful. They that dwell
under his shadow shall return. They shall revive. The positiveness
of the word of God is very beautiful, isn't it? They shall revive. We confess our sins. We pour
out our heart before God. The promise is there will be
a reviving. And how needful it is in this
day and age in which we live. They shall revive as the corn. Fruitfulness and grow as a vine. Grapes come forth. Fruitfulness
again. A picture there, is there not?
and the scent thereof shall be as a wine of Lebanon. Everything really points to Christ. Everything really points to his
love, points to his mercy, points to his favour. Realising that
we have a prayer hearing and a prayer answering God, one who
does not deal with us as our sins deserve, but one who is
full of compassion and full of mercy. Well, tonight, may we
rejoice in the goodness of God, and in some way understand the
great blessing of this truth, I will heal their backsliding,
I will love them freely, for mine anger is turned away from
him. Amen.