Turn this thing on. Hosea chapter
2. We just read verse 14, which
would be our text. But he says, Therefore, so we
need to look before that, behold, I will lure her. What's he talking?
Who's he talking to? Well, to her, in verse 1, behold,
say unto your brethren and to your sisters, he says, verse
2, plead with your mother. Plead, for she is not my wife,
neither am I her husband, lest her therefore put away her whoredoms
out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts." He's
speaking about Gomer is what a lot of the writers say. He's
speaking to the bride, to her. He's speaking to the church. He's speaking to us. His shameful people. Look at
verse 5. For their mother hath played
the harlot, she hath conceived them that had done shamefully. For she said, I will go after
my lovers, I will give me my bread, and my water, and my wool,
and my flax, and my oil, and my drink. Look at verse 10. And now will I discover, says
God, her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and none shall
deliver her out of my hand." Verse 12, I will destroy her
vines and her fig trees, whereof she has said, these are my rewards
that my lovers have given me, and I will make them a forest,
and the beasts of the field shall eat them. So he's speaking to
his shameful people, believe it or not, And we're just like
everyone else. We're sinful from the text, the
context, lustful, lewd, idolaters, and so on and so forth. That's
who He's speaking to. He's speaking to us. In verse 14, He says, John Trapp
said, This is a strange, and I got
to looking at it, and it is a strange therefore. It's a strange therefore. Her, the bride, the church, can
never be converted by herself, yet I, God, will draw her unto
myself in comfort. Therefore, the first thing. Therefore, it doesn't fit really
into context. It's describing, it's almost
as though, if we could say, if we keep this in passage context,
it's almost as though it says, God saying, you are a tyrant
against Me, and My grace, you're vile and contemptible, as though, you remember another
passage, Isaiah 1, though your sins be as scarlet, I'll make
them as white as snow. It's what we almost were speaking
about as similar in Bible class. Where sin abounded, grace did
much more abound, and that's what's going on here. If we look
within, there's nothing but confusion of faces, and this lewdness,
and this idolatry, and all these different things. But look at
the first thing he says, therefore behold I. This is the great I
Am that Moses saw. This is who's speaking. I. This is what I will do. This is what the great I Am is
about to do. This is the sovereign I Am, the
righteous I Am. This is what I'm going to do
to and for sinners. Contrary to nature, it's strange.
Therefore, it's like because you sinned, I'm going to show
mercy on you. This strangeness of this therefore,
it's a contrasting word. And we know in Romans, he saves
us contrary to nature, is what he says. Remember where he's
talking about grafting in the vine and the branches? We'll
take that, which is contrary to nature. Therefore, it doesn't
make any sense. It doesn't make any sense. These
people whom he's going to allure and speak comfortably in the
wilderness, But it's here, it's in the Bible. You have to deal
with this. So the first point of the verse,
therefore, I, not me plus you, not me if you cooperate with
me, not me if you walk an aisle, not me if you sign a decision
card, as important as baptism is, not me plus your baptism. It's all me. It's all God's grace. Because God and God alone is
sovereign. But look at what else he says. I will allure. That word is entice. Now, if we've ever been in love,
been married, this is what we do for one another. We entice.
We allure. We allure her. Oh, bless our
God and Savior for divine, omnipotent sovereignty. In Psalms 110 verse
3, He makes His people willing in the day of His power. And I was talking to Bruce months
and months ago, and I've always used that verse as drawing. But
I got to thinking, that verse is universally applied to every
believer. He makes you willing to attend
church. He makes you willing to give
the support of missions, support the work, to pay the bills. He
makes you willing to go to work. He makes you willing to speak
of His gospel of God's sovereign grace, the only gospel. He makes
us willing in a day of His power. And as we saw those two on the
road to Emmaus, they were believers, but they had their eyes... He
hadn't revealed Himself and Christ is speaking and walking with
them and talking with them. They didn't know who He was.
Then He reveals Himself. That is how... lewd we are. That's how full of idolatry,
that's how full of self we are. Even after we have come to know
Him, after He has brought us to a saving knowledge of Christ,
we have to continually have our eyes open. Peter says, unto whom
coming? We just keep coming. I will allure
her. He draws, He leads, He gives
repentance and faith and belief of the truth. This, my friends,
I will allure her, this is irresistible grace. And again, notice, he
initiates, he conquers the wayward sinner, he and he alone, without
assistance from us. Because as I told somebody who
was arguing with me, I said, tell me this, what can, you know,
oh, I know that passage, Ephesians, yeah, dead trespasses and sins.
I said, so what can a dead man do? Nothing. Nothing. Dead spiritually. We can't do a thing. So He, I
will allure her. This her, this one who is described
throughout the first couple of chapters, this vagabond, this
is what we are. It's as if God exclaimed, These
poor vagabonds will never come to Me that they may have life,
so I will bring them unto Myself." Look at what he says in verse
19, "'I will betroth thee,' says God, "'unto Me forever. Yea,
I will betroth thee unto Me in righteousness.'" We spoke a lot
about righteousness in Bible class. The only person who's
got righteousness that matters is God in Christ. We don't have
any. Scripture says our righteousnesses
are as filthy rags. And in the Hebrew, that's pretty
nasty stuff. I, and in judgment, in loving
kindness, and in mercies, I will even betroth thee, verse 20,
unto Me in faithfulness, and thou shalt know the Lord. Thou
shalt know the Lord. What an amazing, amazing Savior
we have. He says in the Song of Solomon,
I will bring them into My garden. and love them freely. And I say
this most places I go or every opportunity, don't just look,
just read through songs of Solomon without any commentary. And if
you're not bawling like a little baby for the love between those
two, between Christ and His church, this is what He's talking about.
I will allure her. I will lure her. Thirdly, he
says, I'm going to lure her, but I'm going to bring her into
the wilderness. I'm going to bring her, and the
word is carry her, which is just like that lamb, remember that
sheep? The shepherd went after the 99?
That's what he does. That's how bad we are. We need
to be carried by the Lord Himself. I will lure her and bring her
into the wilderness. Oh, dear sinner, it is in the
wilderness This is where He brings us. And this is not a fun place. We have none to help. And if
you look in the context in the later part of this chapter, it's
Egypt. When the Lord brought them out,
which is a good picture of salvation, and brought them through the
wilderness, they had to have honey, they had to have water
out of the rock, and they had to have the quail, manna and
the quail. They had to be sustained. This is what He's talking about.
This wilderness in Saul, In reality, we have no help. There's no help.
We're quite alone. There's no creature help, no
worldly comfort, no friend. All these have abandoned us by
His choosing. But this is good. For if we had
help, we would seek such to assist us in salvation, but God will
have no rival No cooperation in this thing of salvation. He
does not share his glory with another is what he says. So when
we have no other refuge, no other hope, no other earthly ties in
the wilderness, we're separated from the world, then he speaks
peace and comfort to our souls. I will allure her and bring her
into the wilderness. You see how the order is here?
I will allure her. He makes us willing, brings us
into wilderness, and then He speaks. As it says
by so many writers, He must empty us before He'll fill us. He must
subtract before He adds. He must humble before He raises
up. J.C. Philpott said it may be painful.
Yes, painful, but it is profitable. We don't want to see You know,
our children go through things, or our spouse go through things,
but if we really understood that everything is working together
for good, we would back off and say, which we have to say, I
will be done. As tough as it is, losing a job,
anything negative, and I strongly recommend Thomas Boston's got
a little book about like that, it's called The Crook and the
Lot. Everything, we go out here, we stub our toe, or nearly get
electrocuted, or the pictures don't turn out, the photography
pictures don't turn out right, or these small things, or maybe
more spiritual things. We're struggling hard with sin.
These he calls the crook in the lot. And every day we have a
crook in our lot. And the thing is, is how will
we handle it? And he draws scriptures after
scriptures after scriptures. Thy will be done. Thy will be
done. We talked about this, Bruce and
I have talked about this so many times. 30 something years ago,
we would not want to go through what we went through. We would
not want to go through. But he said, and I agree, it
was the best year we ever had. What? That makes no sense. Yes it does. Because it weaned
us off of what we needed to be weaned off. And here we are 30
something years later. Is everything really working
out for good? It's our crook in the lot. How
do we deal with this? Do we deal with it like Eli killed
his kids? The Lord said, let's let the
Lord do what seems right. And I know it's tough. Especially
our children. As he says in Psalms, My times,
your times, are in His hands. There isn't a single thing that
we go through that is not in His hands. And we may not understand
it, but ours is to submit to one who loves us too much to
do wrong. And He's too wise to err. So look only and always
to our Redeemer. This is wonderful. This is appropriate. And this is salvation. Look unto
Me and live. And this we will do from now
on. We won't ever stop looking to
our beloved elder brother. Why? Because he's not finished
with this. He says, I'm going to allure
you, the harlot, the vagabond, the worm, worm of the dust, that
can do no good, I'm going to lure you and I'm going to bring
you into the wilderness and speak comfortably unto you. How does
he do that? By the gospel. By his word. That's how he does
it. And look at the margin, I think.
If you have a marginal reading, look at what he says. I'm going
to speak comfortably to her. It's to her heart. It just makes
so much sense in context. He does as the Holy Spirit takes
the spoken Word of His preached Gospel and reveals Christ to
us. And He does this just reading
the Word. And it's private worship. And private worship is very important.
But there's something glorious about public worship. You gather
together under one roof, family, sharing burdens, sharing of the
Lord. And maybe that's why we always have the... If I miss
the mark, we're going to have the word read. So the pure Word
of God is read, and whether I hit it or not, this is going to comfort
His people. Such words from this Book to
our souls is indeed cheering, it's pleasant, it's comforting.
There's none like it, for it comes from heaven and fills our
thoughts and soul without measure and without equal. I was listening
to a message by Henry years ago, and Melinda and I, and he says,
people don't regard the Book Everybody's got one in this country
at home. It's collecting dust. But oh, as I've said before here
and other places, just quoted from Spurgeon, before we meet
with the face of man, we ought to meet with the face of God.
So before work, just one verse. Just a part of it. Just open
the book. We ought to spend time with God
before we go out. And a lot of times, It's going
to help. I know it will. I know this from
experience. What a wonderful Savior we adore
and we worship. We finally understand the mystery
of the ages. God manifests in the flesh, sent
down to this world to save His people from their sins. He speaks
comfortably. He speaks to the heart. He, by
the sacrifice of Himself, purged our sins and has forgiven us
all our iniquities. He, by His stripes, we're forever
healed. The pleasure of the Lord shall
prosper in His hand." And he says on the cross, it is finished.
To the believer, how comforting is that? Yes, he's hanging on
the cross in extreme pain and duress, but he says it's finished. the work of my salvation that
I could not procure for myself. Though I tried. I was like that
woman with the issue of blood. I spent money, spent money, spent
money. I had spent everything I had
to try to make my conscience clean. Couldn't do it. And then,
he said, it's finished. I, by myself, have completed
everything. for you on Calvary Street. It is finished, it is ended,
or it's concluded, or it's accomplished. What is that? God is finally
honored and glorified, His law satisfied, and sinners are and
will be redeemed. We have to sing this in a while,
but we sing this song occasionally. Wonderful grace of Jesus, reaching
to all the lost, by it I have been pardoned, saved to the uttermost. Chains have been torn asunder,
giving me liberty, for the wonderful grace of Jesus reaches me. Wonderful grace of Jesus, reaching
the most defiled, by its transforming power, making Him God's dear
child, purchasing peace and heaven for all eternity. And the wonderful
grace of Jesus reaches even me. It is wonderful. But look at verse 15 to the end
of the chapter. What benefits do we receive from
Him speaking comfortably to us? I will give her the same one
who could care less about my grace, but now I have her attention,
now I've smitten her, Now the fountain's been opened, as he
says in Zechariah, I will give her vineyards from thence, a
door of hope. She shall sing there as in the
days of her youth, as in the day when she came up out of the
land of Egypt. I will, verse 17, take away the
names of Balaam out of her mouth, and they shall no more be remembered
by their name. Verse 21, And it shall come to
pass, and that day I will hear, saith the Lord, I will hear the
heavens, and they shall hear the earth, and the earth shall
hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil, and they shall hear
Jezreel. And I will sow her unto Me in
the earth, and I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained
mercy. And I will say to them which
were not My people, Thou art My people. And they shall say,
Thou art My God. Thou art my God." The sovereign
who spoke and the worlds were my God, your God. I close. Let's look at verse
2. Plead with your mother. Plead. There are some maybe who have
been here for a long time and have heard these words over and
over again. And still don't believe. Still
don't believe. Still are lost in trespasses
and sins. Plead. I plead with you. This is not an Armenian call.
You know me better than that. This is out of scripture. We
are ambassadors for Christ. As though God did beseech you
by us. Be ye reconciled to God. There is none like Him. He is
the all-glorious, holy and righteous One. Behold, I will allure her
and bring her into the wilderness and speak comfortably, speak
to her heart as only He can." Because out of the issues of
the heart, out of the heart are the issues of life. He'll have
the heart. He won't have a rival. He must
have the preeminence. And we're so thankful it is.
As we were talking here tonight, if we had to control this world,
it'd be a whole lot worse shape. It'd be a whole lot worse shape. Bless God for His Savior. Bless God for His righteousness.
Bless God for that full and free, sovereign grace of God in Christ
Jesus. Brian, would you close this?