You guys can turn back in your
Bibles to the book of Hosea. Hosea chapter 2. Again, I want
to welcome you into the year 2013 with all of its unknown
challenges that will befall us. I would encourage you to make
the Lord Jesus Christ your anchor and your hope and your strong
tower and your hiding place and your shelter from the storm your
foundation, your covering, your food and your drink, your clothing.
I would encourage you to make him your all in all this year
because we don't know what's going to happen. But I tell you
what, God's in control. Do you believe that? God runs
this universe and he knows the end from the beginning. The Bible
tells us known unto God are all his works from the foundation
of the world. So if I know that God knows,
I don't have to know. All I have to know is that my
God knows. And it's all right for me to
deposit into his safekeeping, omniscience. The fact that he
knows everything and I am asking him to deposit into my heart
faith to trust him with whatever comes to pass. Now we are in
a series that may last all year, I don't know. We're calling it
choice gleanings. And what I'm doing is picking
passages out of the Old and the New Testament. It may appear
random to you, but somewhere in the equation there's some
intelligence behind it. But I feel compelled to just
deal with certain Themes and certain texts out of both the
old and the new so we won't be going through a book as it were
our series through The Old Testament here and there will be all over
the maybe next week. We'll be in the book of Revelation
It will be called choice gleanings for the next six months to the
year but what I want you to do with every one of these messages
that you may be giving grace to attend a is to take each message
and filter it through the theme that we have been given this
year, and that is, in everything, give thanks for this is the will
of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. That's your filter by which
you will be able to hear God's voice through the preaching to
you. And your response is, Lord, give
me the ability to be thankful for a message that is crafted
today for my soul. Today we are dealing with one
of the so-called minor prophets. No prophet in the scripture really
is a minor prophet. All of God's prophets are major
prophets. We ain't never had but a few
faithful prophets in the world. And I guess in that sense, they
are in the minority, but every prophet of God, every faithful
prophet of God is a major person in the scheme of God's purpose.
Hosea is one of them. The book of Hosea is a profoundly,
profoundly antagonistic and at the same time alluring book because
what Hosea deals with, this unique prophet of the 8th century BC,
is the behavior and conduct of the people of God in relationship
to their Savior, Jehovah, under the rubric, the rubric or the
metaphor of marriage. of marriage. Hosea is one of
those Old Testament prophets that was given assignments that
you and I wouldn't want to take on. Like in the days of Ezekiel,
do you know that brother had to lay on his side for 40 days
at one time and 107 days at another time and he had to bake food
with animal dung and God had originally said take human dung
and use it in Ezekiel. He said, now Lord, now that's
too much. And Isaiah had to walk around with his butt out for
several days. See, God has spoken sundry times
in past ways through the prophets, through multitudes and similitudes
and analogies and enigmas and symbols in order to depict his
relationship with his people Israel. So the prophets had to
sometimes take on very embarrassing mediatorial roles. They stood
between God and the people. to help the people understand
where God was in relationship to them and where they were in
relationship to God. That's what it means to be a
prophet. A prophet is a person who stands between God and the
people and faithfully depict to the people the predisposition
of God towards their ways or towards their thinking. He speaks
for God. On this occasion, God told this
brother, to go marry a harlot. Here he is a faithful servant
of God and he's being told to go marry a whore and then have
children by her because I want to teach my children, my people
Israel, how far they have gone away from me. Now, as we work
through this, I want us to be able to derive from the text
the essential lessons critical to our understanding of the character
and nature of God. Last week, I told you that when
we think about Thanksgiving in a real, real biblical sense,
we are not simply talking about, as it were, excogitating the
phrase, thank you, Lord. That's all right for you to be
able to quickly say, Lord, I thank you. But it must come from a
heart that is studied, that has meditated upon and has highly
regarded the God who causes you to say, Lord, I thank you. It
has to come from a heart that has really meditated upon and
taken into serious and deep and profound consideration the God
who has done everything for you, who is going to do what he has
said he will do and will fulfill his promises in your life. The
man or the woman that is operating out of that kind of thankfulness
is going to be able to deal with every problem that comes into
their life. When you are saying, Lord, I
thank you because this I know no matter what's going down.
You will never leave me nor forsake me. No, no, never alone. What a God. But I want you to
think about this, the metaphor and the rubric that's in the
book of Hosea. And it's many. There are many occasions in the
scripture where God uses this metaphor or this analogy, if
you will, of marriage, of marriage. He says to Hosea, marry a woman
who was a harlot. Sounds absolutely abhorrent to
us, but the reality is, is God is getting across to you and
I his intentions for his own relationship with his people. Will you think about it with
me for a moment? I'm talking about the God of the universe.
I'm talking about this impeccable being who is spotless and glorious
and righteous and holy and infinitely perfect in all his ways, intending
to have a relationship with men and women like you and I in the
bounds of holy matrimony so that we as the Christian church tell
the world marriage is of God. He ordained it, He prescribed
it, He proscribed it, and it's designed to teach us how intense
the relationship that God intends to have with His people. When
you think about marriage, you are thinking about covenant.
You are thinking about responsibility. You are thinking about commitment.
You are thinking about sacrifice. You are thinking about exclusivity.
You're thinking about a God who has sold himself out on the bottom
line to have a relationship with you and I that basically brings
us into union with himself in such a way that we are one with
him. It's a profound concept. No other
God in the universe talks like this. And so your Bible from
Genesis to Revelation, as it were, affirms this one grand
covenant design of marriage. He started with Adam and Eve.
his first two image bearers of this glorious being called God.
And he set them up in a context called marriage. The twain became
one flesh, did they not? And God told them that you are
to be my image bearers, you are to bear fruit, you are to multiply,
you are to subdue this world, have dominion over it, manifest
my glory in the context of union. The Bible in Genesis starts with
a marriage, Adam and Eve. And the Bible in the book of
Revelation closes with a marriage. Christ and the church. When you think about marriage,
you must therefore think about God and his redeeming purposes
in Christ to have a people for himself for all eternity. As you think about it, think
about this. God chose to marry a whore. Well, pastor, I didn't think
about it like that. Well, you need to think about it like that.
Because that's what he married when he married me. And that's
what he married when he married you. He married a whore! Well, I'm not a whore. Yes, you
are. And the text is going to teach us how it is a glorious
God could still be committed to unfaithful sinners like you
and me. The reason why Hosea did it was
because he loved God. And he knew God was up to something
that was larger than Hosea. Hosea knew that the shame and
ignominy and embarrassment that he would endure for marrying
a whore and having children would be outweighed by the glory of
God in his redeeming purpose to bring to bear on the conscience
of a people who said, I do. to God several hundred years
earlier and now has demonstrated herself as unfaithful to God. And God is getting ready to show
us how he remains faithful to himself when you and I mess it
up. That's the context. Can we get
started? Point number one in your outline
then. One of many marriage models in the scripture It's certain
that when we think about God in his relationship with his
people from the beginning of time to the end of time, we are
to think about the God of the Bible in terms of covenant. Would
you hear me? God is a covenant God. Now we
have no explicit language in the scriptures by which God entered
into an actual covenant with Adam. I actually do not believe
that God made a covenant with Adam. I believe that he made
a covenant in Adam. And I believe that he made a
covenant through Adam by which Adam would be the typical picture
of God's covenant with all of his people to be brought to reality
and fulfillment in Jesus Christ. And so when God deals with Adam
and when he deals with the human race and when he deals with you
and I who are called by his name, he's dealing with us on covenant
terms. We are the covenant people of
God and we are, as it were, Mary to God when you say I believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ you are saying I do to God. Do you
hear me? When Jesus Christ died on Calvary Street, he said to
the father, I do to that guilty, undeserving, hell bound sinner.
And he brought us into natural oneness with Jesus Christ by
himself at Calvary Street. What a wonderful concept. And
with that comes the responsibility that falls out to both a husband
and a wife. Stay with me then, because that's
what's getting ready to unpack here. Certainly we can say and
we can demonstrate in the scriptures that God married national Israel
That is our context, isn't it true? If you don't know this
read it for yourself in the book of Jeremiah chapter 3 verses
1 through 29 God says to Israel you backsliding heifer. I'm married
to you. I'm Married that's bad language
It's so I got mad, isn't he? But he's talking to his wife
and listen to the present tense. I am married to you and Now watch
this. But there came a time when God
had to let her go. In Isaiah chapter 50, one of
our other prophets who was speaking a hundred years after Hosea is
saying to Israel, Israel, Israel, where is the bill of divorcement
that I gave to your mother? I didn't give her a bill of divorcement. She forced that upon herself
because she left me. I didn't leave her. She left
me. and I had no other choice. You
see, because it's written in Deuteronomy chapter 24, if a
man takes a wife unto himself, verses one through four, and
betroths her to herself and thus brings her into his house, I'm
getting ready to explain that for those of you who haven't
been under our gospel for 10 years. Once he brings the woman into
his house, she officially now becomes part of his household. And he finds some uncleanness
in her. Uncleanness he may it doesn't
say have to doesn't say should he may put her away Give her
a bill of divorcement and send her out of his house as Deuteronomy
24 verses 1 through 4 now the children of Israel messed that
up particularly in the days of Jesus But God gave that stipulation
to Moses Not merely for the children of Israel's sake but because
God in his own inscrutable purposes knew that the covenant that he
had made with national Israel would be broken over and over
and over again by the people so that he had to make a stipulation
in the law by which he divorced her if in fact he was going to
have any of her children forever. Divorce was a clause necessary
for God not to kill her. Remember what the Ten Commandments
says? Adultery merited death. Divorce at least allowed that
silly woman or that rebellious man to go away, to go away. And in our context, we are 800
years before the Lord Jesus Christ. Hosea is ministering to what
we call the ten northern tribes of Israel. The two southern tribes
of Judah and Benjamin, they're way down in San Diego and L.A.,
okay? That's the two southern tribes.
We are part of the ten northern tribes. going all the way up
to the extremities of Northern California. We are part of that
group that we were the beginnings of the rebellion against God.
We are the ones who said, I do. But once we enter into our husband's
house, we began to commit all kinds of idolatry against him.
Now he told us, now when you enter into my house, historically
that was the land of Palestine, it was Canaan, are you with me?
When you enter into my house, I'm getting ready to explain
that, I want you to understand there are a number of obstacles
that have to be removed. And I don't want you entertaining
any kind of covenant relationship with them. When you come into
my house, you don't get to serve this God, that God, or the other
God. All these pagan gods, all these pagan idols, do not serve
them. I am your husband alone. That's how God was talking to
Israel. Nevertheless, you know the account.
They began soon as they got into the land of Canaan to depart
from the living God, serve other gods. And this is the context,
the context in which Hosea is now being called upon in his
assignment to speak to the children of Israel and let them know,
let them know that they are in a bad way with God. Chapter 2
verses 1 through 4, mark this, listen to how the prophet puts
it. Say unto your brethren, This
is Hosea standing between God and his own people. Send to your
brother an army and to your sister Ra-Ruhamah. Do you see those
two terms? Now, Hosea knows exactly what
God is saying. God is saying, say to your brothers
and sisters who are the seed, the proliferation, the national
outgrowth, of the nation of Israel after now some 700 years. Israel went into Palestine or
the land of Canaan 1500 years before Christ. By the time we
get to 900 years before Christ, that's almost 700 years, 600
years, right? They have produced all kinds
of children whose names are according to our text. Listen to what it
says. Say unto your brother in army
and to your sister, Ruhamah. Now their names mean something
because what God did was tell Hosea to marry a harlot and have
children. Here's the name of the first one. Rahama can be
found in chapter one, very clearly in chapter one, verse six. Look
at chapter one, verse six. And she conceived, yeah, here
it is, verse six, I'm sorry, verse two. The beginning of the
words of the Lord by Hosea. And the Lord said to Hosea, go
take unto thee a wife of whoredom and children of whoredom, for
the land has committed great whoredom departing from the Lord. So he went and took Gomer the
daughter of Diblia and conceived and bear a son then again over
in verse 5 and it shall come to pass verse 6 rather and she
conceived again and bear a daughter and God said unto him call her
name Loru Hama for I will no more have mercy on her but I
will utterly take her away. Do you see that? So the first
child is called Ami. This first child is called Ami.
The second child is called Rahuma. Rah-ru-ama, rather. And they
depict Israel bringing forth children under idolatrous teaching
and false teaching. In other words, the nation is
not producing men and women who believe in Jehovah God, but men
and women who believe in the secular, pagan, indigenous gods
of the land. They are children that are not
the product of biblical truth. They are a nation now who believe
in humanism, who believe in paganism, who believe in rationalism and
secularism, who believe in pluralism, who believe in relativism, who
buy into a lot of the common day notions that they think work
in this society, but who do not believe in biblical truth, who
do not submit themselves to absolute truth, who do not yield themselves
to the truth of scripture. Now they go to church and outwardly
they are called by God's name. but they are the product of an
idolatrous syncretism in the culture so that they really think
the world's thoughts after them. Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? This is why God said you say unto your brethren by
their name these things. Now watch what verse 2 says in
chapter 2. Plead with your mother. Do you see it? Plead with her.
The word plead there means to contend. It means to debate.
It means to argue. It means to persuade. It means
to urge. It means to exhort. It means
to rebuke. And often that's what the prophet
did. And the word pleading has as a connotation patience. Like a court case where two people
go to court and one person is really seeking to get the other
person to understand their crime or their guilt. So you patiently
lay out your argument. You patiently demonstrate the
fault. You patiently prove your indictment
against the person. This is what God means when he
says to his prophet, plead with them. It's not to simply land
blast them with indictments. It's to plead with them and show
them the error of their ways. Now under this statement, plead,
I want you to mark the word patience. When God says plead with them,
what he's saying is patiently tell them where they are going
wrong. Let them know that they are in
trouble with me. Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? So the idea of pleading is being patient. You know, God
is patient with us. Is he not? When you have been
brought into a land that you didn't provide for yourself,
when you have been brought to a place that God has provided
for you, when you have been given vineyards and olive gardens and
vine trees and a land of milk and honey with all sorts of provision
that you didn't provide for yourself, God's been good to you. And all
he has told you to do is be obedient to him and put him first and
let him have authority in your life and you can eat of the good
of the land all the days of your life. You, your children, and
your children after you unto the third and fourth generation
and into the thousand generations that obey me. God's been good.
And when God please with you for 700 years before he acts,
God's been patient. Don't ever blame God with being
abrupt or hasty or acting in sort of an intemperate way. God's always patient with us. So when he tells his servant
Hosea, warn them, warn them, warn them. Hosea is warning Israel
for 40 years. That's a long time to have a
brother preaching to you, right? We ain't been doing it but 16
years. And I know some of you already tired of me. Just imagine
if my tenure still goes another 24 years. You know what happens
for a soul when they've been under the word of God for 40
years? Either they are brought closer
to God and sealed and secured in their walk with God, or their
hearts are so hardened that there is no remedy. Let me share something
with you in the year 2013. There is no middle ground. There
is no sort of passive or vacuum dimension between you and God.
You aren't at a stalemate. You aren't stalled. You aren't
kind of like stuck in one place. It's no such thing with God.
Either you are drawing nigh to God or you are slowly, incrementally
departing from God every day. This is absolutely true. The
God of glory who witnesses to us all every day is either by
his grace drawing us closer to him or in the obstinacy of our
rebellion, we are gradually finding ways to get away from God. He's pleading, he's pleading.
And listen to what God says in his plea. Plead with your mother.
Now watch this, for she is not my wife. You know what God is
saying? He's saying she's not behaving
like my wife. She's not acting like my wife. She's not conducting herself
in covenant commitment as my wife. See, God has not as yet,
follow me now, sent her out of the house. He has not as yet
signed the divorce papers. Why? Because what he's doing
is helping her to understand that he has every reason to do
so, but he doesn't want to. All the fruit is in, all the
evidence is in. She is burying children that
does not love God. She's burying children that are
arrogantly, arrogantly coming home with what you and I would
know are unbiblical ideas and unbiblical notions and unbiblical
practices. And she's accepting it. Her own
children are an indictment against her because under the rubric
of marriage, husbands and wives are to raise their children in
the fear and the nurture of the Lord. Husbands and wives are
to teach their children the gospel. Husbands and wives are to demonstrate
fidelity to the true and the living God and pass that fidelity
on down to their children. Now their children may grow up
and act an abject fool all they want to, but watch this now,
not in my house. Not in my house. And that should
be a unified front on the part of mom and dad. Mom and dad are
to let the children know, if you wanna act like you don't
have our DNA in you, and that you haven't been taught the truth,
you can act like that all you want to, but it's gonna be outside
of my house. So the mother in this context,
by virtue of the behavior of the children, are demonstrating
that she was in rebellion against her husband. It would be tantamount
to her saying I do to her husband, but leaving the house at night
and going sleeping with another man and then having children
and her husband look at the children and go, wait a minute. These children don't look nothing
like me. That's what's going on here.
Can I help you? That's what's going on here. And he's pleading
with her because she is being unfaithful to him. She's not
obeying the gospel. So you understand this is what's
so serious about our culture and the deconstruction of our
culture and how our culture is fiercely attacking marriage today. It understands subconsciously,
and the devil knows theologically, if we can destroy the biblical
model of marriage, then we can destroy the glory of God, and
the nature of God, and the character of God, if we can destroy biblical
marriage. Are you hearing me? And so when
you're reading your Bibles, and today even in the church, we
are mocking it all over the place. Watch this. Wives, submit yourselves
unto your own husbands as unto the Lord. you get that verse,
as it were, minimized and tore up and deconstructed to amount
to, don't pay him no attention. Now, I don't know how you can
get, don't pay him no attention out of Ephesians 5.22. And then in Ephesians 5, 23,
it says, husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the
church and gave himself for her. Watch this, that he might wash
her with the washing of the water by the word, because as Christ
is the head of the church, so the husband is the head of his
wife. And as Christ is the savior of
the church, the husband is the savior of the body. Now I want
you to mark this now under that paradigm of heterosexual marriage. What God says is the role of
a husband is to ultimately produce the salvation of his wife. Now
in the context in which you and I are working through scripture,
As God works with national Israel, his objective was to save her.
His goal was to bring her out of Egyptian bondage into his
own house called the land of Palestine, where she would be
the head and the rest of the world would be the tail, where
she would be the wife of Jehovah, the true and the living God,
the one true God, and have dominion over the rest of the world, where
God would save her out of Egyptian bondage. And so Hosea, his name
actually means God is Savior. Stay with me then. The whole
objective and energy and effort of the ministry of the gospel
is to save us. The whole objective and ministry
of the gospel is to save us. But the process is like this.
A man seeking a wife, bringing her unto himself, and the twain
becoming one flesh, living in their own house, producing children
unto the glory of God, staying faithful to the biblical covenant.
The covenant then represents the gospel. Are you guys hearing
me? It represents the gospel. This brings great relevance and
intensity to both the office of the husband and the wife.
You will learn more about this in biblical theology because
in biblical theology you are going to see imminently how important
this one analogy that runs through all of scripture is in the mind
of God. The tabernacle of God is with
men. and he will dwell with them and
he will be their God and they shall be his people. And I saw
the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God as a bride
adorned for her bridegroom, having the glory of God about her. That is the last image in the
Bible depicting the triumph of God and the salvation of his
people. What picture is he depicting?
The picture of a bride who is prepared for a wedding with a
glorious savior who has successfully delivered her out of this dark,
dark, dark, dark pagan world, having washed her in the water
by the word of God so that she might be without spot and without
blemish or any such thing. That's what all this labor is
about. And the husbands, are to see
to it that their families are guided into biblical truth so
that at last, after all of the struggles that we go through,
our wives and our children might know the true and the living
God. But we got to deal with the work, so let's move on. We
got to deal with the work. Point number two in our outline,
a sad commentary on the spiritual state of Israel. Do you guys
see that? sad commentary on the spiritual
state of Israel verse 2 says she's not my wife and neither
am I her what I'm not her husband watch this and therefore watch
this let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight
and her adulteries from between her breast lest I strip her naked
and set her as in the day that she was born and make her as
the wilderness and set her like a dry land and slay her with
thirst. I will not have mercy upon her
children. Why? For they'd be the children of
what? Got it? See, and here's the thing that
you and I have to grapple with. God means business with his covenant. Just as a husband must mean business
when he says, I do. And the wife must mean business
when she says, I do. And the children are going to
be the fruit thereof. Now in the Middle East, they
play this all the way out to the nth degree. When children
rise up and abandon the God of that culture, they send you away
and forget you like as if you never existed. Are you hearing
me? Because rebellion against God
is tantamount to going to hell. It's tantamount to going to hell. You are already sticking your
fist in God's face and saying, I don't believe you. And now
the parents are obligated to demonstrate to the children who
walk in rebellion against them, that God in their household is
far greater than their love for their children. See, I love you,
but I don't wanna love you enough for me to abandon God and end
up going to hell for you. I don't even have that right.
I don't have that authority. If I would do that, I would be
taking the place of Jesus Christ and I would be denying the sacrifice,
I'm gonna get to that in a minute, of Christ to deal with a dilemma
that's too big for us. So my job is to simply tell my
children, tell my wife, we are to obey the true and the living
God or suffer the consequences thereof. And God's dealing with
the nation of Israel. Here's what he did. He said to
her, I cannot, I will not, Will not bless her children. This
is the book that you have where in chapter 4 verse 6 It says
this my people perish for lack of what that's right. Therefore
because they have rejected me I will reject them and I will
reject their children. That's the state of our nation
right now Our nation is under the judgment of God right now
because we have rejected God We have rejected the knowledge
of God and God has left us to our own ways. Am I telling the
truth? I That's where we are right now. And people are surprised
at the reverses that are going on economically, surprised at
the reverses that are going on socially, surprised at the escalation
of evil and crime and murder everywhere. Why are you surprised
at all of this evil when God says the wages of sin is what?
You shouldn't be surprised. We're reaping what we sow. We're
reaping what we sow. Now, the job of the people of
God in the midst of this culture is to cut the lights on and let
everybody know this is the problem. But before we turn the light
on the people out there, we got to turn the light on ourselves.
And this is why you must remain under faithful Bible preaching,
because you need the light to shine on your own heart. Otherwise,
we simply play the hypocrite and we have absolutely no influence
on our culture. God was long patient with them.
He discovered their uncleanness. He gave her a bill of divorcement
and ultimately God sent her away. You don't have to go to it, but
in Jeremiah chapter three, verses one through eight, God made it
very plain that he had divorced her and then he pleaded with
her. If you come back, I will receive you. That was God's attitude
towards his wife. See, if a man or a woman in their
rebellion against God finds themselves in adverse relationship to God,
here's what God will still say to you and me, return. I'll receive
you return and I'll receive you return and I'll receive you even
though the law said once a man found uncleanness in his wife
when he sends her away he could never have her again see but
God's law is superseded by his mercy this is what we love about
God he's a God of mercy he's a God of mercy and he says to
sinners return only problem is this is how depraved you and
I are you ready we won't we won't point number three in your outline
watch it the depravity and delusion of the elect before conversion
and some temporary lapses afterwards i had to put it that way i just
didn't want to make that point real long but i want to explain
to you what's going on when you read your bible and you see these
very extreme Tensions between God and his people in the Old
Testament and you see Israel acting the way Israel acts and
you see the extensive rebellion and just open-handed high-handed
obstinacy of Israel against God there are two things that you
can conclude One is this they're just church folk that are not
born again That's true You got plenty of church folk that are
not born again, and therefore, they will play the hypocrite.
They'll call on his name, but in fact, they are basically idolaters. Are you hearing me? And therefore,
we know that their problem is that they've not been born again.
They've not been regenerated. They've not been quickened by
God's spirit. They've not really been united to Christ by faith
through the work of regeneration. They're still lost. They're just
as lost as the person on the outside of the church, only they
have religious jargon and they go through the externalities
of church. Does that follow ladies and gentlemen?
So it was with Israel. Many of the children of Israel
never have faith. The word faith is used for its
first time in the book of Deuteronomy chapter 32 where God says these
are people in whom there is no faith. What that means is without
faith, it's impossible to please God. And faith always works by
what? Love. God has a plan, love and
faith in your heart for you to trust Christ. Otherwise you're
just doing church. So when you read your Bible and
you see these wholesale horrific departures on the part of Israel
from God, understand primarily it's because they're not born
again. They were never one of God's elect. But from time to
time, you see even some of God's elect acting just like the pagan. Are you hearing me? We cannot
deny that. Now, it's not in preponderance. It's not a major theme in the
life of a true believer. Please understand this. A true
born-again believer does not look like nor act like in the
tenor of their lives a person that's unconverted. A true, genuinely
born-again man or woman does not live the lifestyle the unbeliever
lives. They don't think the way unbelievers
think. They don't have the same passions
as unbelievers. They don't have the same hopes,
the same objectives, the same goals, the same desires, the
same longings as the unbeliever. When you and I are born again,
we have received the incorruptible seed of Christ. He's planted
in our heart and he gives us new affections and new desires
and new passions and glorious hopes and glorious aspirations
and a longing to obey God. Am I telling the truth? That's
the primary objective and primary labor of the soul of the man
that's born of God. We love to think God's thoughts
after him. We desire to do God's will. We long to be obedient
to Christ. Am I telling the truth? But we
do have our times, don't we? And then on occasion, you will
see even in the scripture where a believer will act as if he
never heard God's voice ever in his life. And that puts us
all in a quandary because we know that's a horrible, horrible
indictment against God. But we must allow it to work
itself out. What God told us in the Gospel
of Matthew, chapter 13, was this. Do not separate the wheat from
the tares now. Let them both grow together until
the end of time, until the harvest. God will separate the two. but
you and I can discern the difference. Separating the two and discerning
the difference is two different things. See, we don't have to
pretend that we are not concerned that an individual is not born
again. We don't have to pretend that
we're not concerned that whole churches and whole denominations
based upon their their agendas based upon their teachings based
upon Their whole mo are do not know god and do not understand
the gospel of his glory. We can be seriously Concerned
about whether men and women are truly born again But we can't
separate the wheat from the tares gotta let them grow together
and thus we do in this context God is dealing with what he knows
are primarily a large group of people who don't know god But
there's always a contingency and you know what he calls them
a remnant a remnant except the Lord had saved a remnant. We'd all be like Sodom and like
unto Gomorrah. And so that's our context wherein
God is being patient in order for us to see our depravity. Look at verse five with me. Notice
what it says. Here is the description for us in verse five of the depravity
and delusion of the elect before conversion and some temporary
lapses afterwards. Verse five, for their mother
played the harlot She conceived them she that conceived them
had done shamefully now watch this for she said I will go after
my lovers That gave me my bread and my water my wool and my flats
my oil and my drink. Do you see that? Is it Israel
delusional? Now I want you to stay with me
now. We got to learn some lessons. Remember the underlying theme
is thankfulness and And I told you last week that when we are
unthankful, it's because we are not recognizing God as first
cause. When you are unthankful, you have fallen prey to believe
that your blessings come from second causes, and instrumental
means, and your boss, or your human wisdom, or your methods,
or your techniques, or your talents, or your gifts, or some human
instrumentality by which you have now prospered. When you
are unthankful, you fail to give the true and the living God glory
as the cause of the blessing. This is why we always sing as
we close, praise God from whom all blessing flow. For of him
and through him and to him are all things. We acknowledge first
causes. Now when you are not thankful,
you fall prey not only to not acknowledging God as first cause,
but you start to worship the very means by which you are blessed.
I will go after my lovers. You know what that means? Her
heart left Jehovah and went after those carnal, secular things
that gave her pleasure. We talked about that last week
in the realm of psychology. We are running from pain and
we are seeking pleasure. And if our mind is not renewed
to think God's thoughts after him, we will not seek the pleasure
that comes from God. We will seek the pleasure that
comes from this world. And guess what we'll do? We will
really call it God. Please hear me now as I close
out on this point. You may not with your lips say
it's God, but by your conduct, you are proving that the thing
you are pursuing, running after, chasing, giving yourself over
to, spending all your energy on, is God. Am I making some
sense? Is God. That's what she did. Her husband sat there, watched
her, Jehovah, watched her leave every day and go after the Assyrians. and the Egyptians and all the
other nations which gave her her clothing, gave her her wine,
gave her her flats, gave her her material goods. And she entered
into relationships with them so that she was far more gratified
by her horizontal relationship with these nations that have
provided her material things rather than the God who made
all the nations in the world. and the God who dictates the
hearts of the rulers of the nation, and the God who says to the nation,
bless my people with this resource that way. She did not know that
it was God who had given her all these things. Are you guys
hearing what I'm saying? I will chase after my lovers. You're delusional. You're delusional. Now watch how God works. You
got to follow this now. You got to watch how God works.
He knows that when you and I depart from focusing on God and start
to clamor after the things that make us feel good, we are entering
into a realm of idolatry. We are committing spiritual fornication. We're going to be addicted to
that thing too. It's just the nature of the beast. Either you
are addicted to God, or you are addicted to the world. You are
addicted to Christ and the gospel, or you are addicted to secular
carnal things. Am I making some sense? There
is no middle ground. You are either addicted to truth,
or you are addicted to lies. This is why the mind has to be
renewed. You and I will not pursue God
until he changes our mind and changes our heart and changes
our affections. But it takes the grace of God
to be able to say no to those pleasure principles that make
you feel good. But you see, he had to clear
up her mind. Now, here's what God did. Watch what God says.
I'm over in verse six. She says she's gonna seek after
her lovers that give her her bread her water her wool her
flax her wine her oil her drink therefore Behold, I will hedge
up her way. Do you see that? With what? See our elder prayed. I don't
know if you heard him. He's the Lord heads our children
up Heads our children up, but here's what he said with mercy
See see when you go down a course If God doesn't hedge you in,
you can end up anywhere. A course without boundaries,
a course without structure, a course without parameters will lead
certainly to hell. That's the broad road that leads
to destruction. Are you hearing me? Now watch
what God does. He says she's going after her
lover and I'm going to hedge her in with what? Thorns! Are you ready? All whom the Lord
loves, he chases. Now watch how this works. I want
you to get this now. Don't be bored with me. I want
you to get this. When God cares about his people, he will warn
them by his word first. When they neglect to hear the
word of God from their heart, he will deal with them by backing
up and allowing them to do what they want. Only he will make
it painful for them. Here's the metaphor. For you
to go down a course that's filled with thorns is painful. Do you hear that? For you to
have to make your way through thorn bushes to get to your lover,
you got to really sacrifice. I want you to hear the analogy.
God, before he sends her out of the house, is going to make
it so hard for her to enjoy her lover. She's going to be all
scratched up, all sore. She's going to have poison ivy
and everything else. By the time she gets to him,
he's going to go, whoa. I'm going to hedge her up with thorns. Now watch this. And I'm going
to make a wall. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Do you see our God? I'm going
to put a wall up so that as she sees her lover 100 yards away
and she makes a beeline for him, a wall's going to come up. Boom!
She's going to run smack dab into that wall. You know what
I'm talking about. You know those obstacles that
God puts in your way when you have a plan and a scheme and
agenda, a device that you're going to work against God and
around God as if you can outsmart God? There's no knowledge, no
wisdom, no understanding against the Lord. My man, a man might
prepare his heart, but God directs his steps. And if God loves you,
he'll put a wall up. He'll let you run into that wall.
He'll let you run into that wall. And you'll still be delusional
enough to try to call it the devil. That devil. Call it the
devil. And you praying and praying and
praying, and that wall's still up. That's God's mercy. Is it mercy to show you the depravity
of your heart, your abject rebellion against God's covenant call to
your life, to be obedient to him? Am I making some sense?
Turn with me in your Bible to Jeremiah chapter 44. I want to
show you how delusional the children of Israel were when Jeremiah,
who was a contemporary with Hosea, was speaking to Judah and Jerusalem
about the same issues. Cause remember we up here in
Northern California with the 10 tribes and down there in Southern
Cal are the two Northern tribes are two, uh, yeah, two Southern
tribes. And they're going through the same hell. We are Jeremiah's
down there. Hosea's up here. Are you hearing
me? Jeremiah's down there. Hosea's up here. And I want you
to hear this language. This is Jeremiah chapter 44.
I'm going to reverse 15 through 18 and watch ladies and gentlemen,
the obstinacy. a deluded heart when God gives
you over to what you want Jeremiah chapter 44 verse 15 let me start
back at verse 13 for I will punish them that dwell in the land of
Egypt that's Israel as I have punished Jerusalem by the sword,
by the famine, by the pestilence, so that none of them, none of
the remnant of Judah which are going into the land of Egypt
to sojourn there shall escape or remain that should return
into the land of Judah to which they have a desire to return
to dwell there. For none shall return but such
as shall escape. Verse 15. This is God speaking
through Jeremiah to Judah and Jerusalem. I want you to hear
this now before God's judgment falls on them. This is what you
learned years ago when we went through Jeremiah. God warns you
before the judgment comes and he tells you when the judgment
comes this is how it's going to fall out. Now here's what
God is warning Judah and Jerusalem I'm going to send you into captivity
and when you get there You're gonna try to escape because it's
my chastisement against you But you're not gonna make it back
because you see when the Lord begins to chasing you You're
not coming out of that chastening until God determines and deems
the time to bring you out It's funny because you will pursue
your hell-bound agenda with everything in you and You will deny God's
providence and blessing in your life And then when you get in
trouble over there where you went, you're gonna try to get
out on your own, too rather than submit to the reality that in
God's chastening purposes, he allowed you to get into that
trap. And you and I are never getting out of any traps until
we fall on our face and first acknowledge that we have rebelled
against God. You're not coming out of the
trap. But I want you to watch what these people say to Jeremiah. Look at verse 15. Then all the
men which knew that their wives had burned incense unto other
gods. See, these are the weak men that bought into the egalitarian
system, scared to tell their wives, put that fire out. Now
watch it now. Then all the men which knew that
their wives had burned incense unto other gods, and all the
women that stood by, a great multitude, Even all the people
that dwelt in the land of egypt in pathos answered jeremiah see
jeremiah's talking to the whole group They answered jeremiah
saying as for the word that you have spoken unto us in the name
of jehovah We will not hearken unto you Do you see that They
plainly said we know you spoke from god But we're not listening
Our hearts are so hardened in our own agenda, we are not paying
you any attention. See, that's when God begins to
let you experience the depravity of your own soul. You are in
bad shape when you are in the midst of your iniquity and the
truth is told you. You see, remember, I've told
you before, God, he cares for you when he warns you. You are
in trouble when you no longer hear the voice of God. Listen,
we're not paying you no attention. Now I want you to see what their
delusion was. Watch it. Look at what it says. Verse 17. But we will certainly do whatsoever
thing goeth forth out of our own mouth. Ooh, we could work
with that, couldn't we? To burn incense, not unto the
God of heaven, but the queen of heaven. This is your feminism
that we've been talking about for years. And to pour out drink
offerings unto her. Watch this, as we have done,
we and our fathers, our kings and our princes in the cities
of Judah, in the streets of Jerusalem, for then, now here it is, for
then we had plenty of victuals and were well and we saw no evil. This here is the delusion of
false doctrine and false teaching and false churches that are able
to provide for you temporary prosperity. It's at the cost of your soul.
You know what they just said? The reason we are worshiping
these pagan gods is because they do something for us. This is
called pragmatism. This is making God a bellhop.
There are plenty of people in the church like that. They will
not serve God unless God blesses them some kind of way. Failing
to realize that God himself is a blessing. You got God, you
got everything. But now they don't want God,
they just want what God can do for them. Are you hearing what
I'm saying? And when God doesn't come through or at your time
and in your way, now they are ready to go to any God that will
bless them with what they need. This is called being a whore
spiritually. You got it? This is what Israel is doing,
committing the harlot. And we're in Egypt and we're
serving the gods of Egypt because they caused us to prosper. Watch it. But since we left off
to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink
offerings unto her we have wanted all things and we have been consumed
by the sword and by the famine and when we burned incense to
the queen of heaven and poured out drink offerings to her did
we make her takes to worship her and to pour drink offerings
unto her with our men then jeremiah said unto all the people to the
men and to the women and to the people which had given him the
answer saying the incense that you burned in the cities of Judah
in the streets of Jerusalem your fathers your kings your princes
and The land did not the Lord remember them and did this not
come into his mind Two things I want you to go back to our
text so we can wrap it up God sees when we rebel against him
and You can be sure the nature of our human depravity is that
from the king on down to the common people They all rebelled
against God. Do you see that? Our kings, our
princes, our men, our women, our children, our family. This
was a national departure from the true and the living God based
upon whether or not God would meet their needs. Now, I want
you to hear this now as we go back. If you and I enter into
reverses, into troubles, into difficulties, where God appears,
not actually so, but appears to be taking things away from
us. Are you hearing me? I've talked
to us about this before. It's called the takeaway period
versus the period of addition, where God is giving us things.
These are two dimensions that we are either operating in. That
half more shall be given but to him that hath not even that
which he has shall be taken away I told you that the one to whom
much is given much is required You and I are obligated when
God blesses us with good health when he blesses us with a sound
mind when he blesses us with a roof over our head when he
blesses us with a legacy of biblical truth when he blesses us with
a mind that wants to pursue God when he blesses us with a knowledge
of the true and the living God when he blesses us we are obligated
for those blessings And when we begin to neglect those blessings,
they will gradually start to dissipate. What you don't treasure,
you lose. And if you don't think this through,
even in the context of thanksgiving, you know what, Lord, I thank
you that you are starting to take some things away from me.
Because as you are starting to take some things away from me,
it is causing me to reflect upon my covenant responsibility to
you. And I realized that I have not committed myself to you as
I ought. I thank you, Lord, that you are starting to diminish
some of my resources because it's causing me to think. I have
not really put you first in the last 10 years of my life. I thank
you, Lord, that you are putting me in these reverses because
it's causing me to realize that I can't presume upon my God.
I can't take you for granted. I can't just expect you to deliver
me from all my troubles when I'm not calling upon you. the
time of blessing. See what I'm getting at? See
what I'm getting at? And that's what's going on here.
That's what's going on here. Point number six. Point number
four rather. Repentance only through what? Yeah. You know, God knows you
and me. He said he's gonna put a hedge
up and he did. Notice what he says over in verse
uh eight. Verse eight. Watch this. For
she did not know that I gave her corn. and wine and oil and
multiplied her silver and gold would stay prepared for who?
Do you see that? Here's what God says. Israel
did not know that I was the one that gave it to her. Remember,
they forgot the first calls. But the word also means Israel
did not acknowledge that I gave it to her. See, you can actually
know that God is the one who provides everything. But if you
don't acknowledge it, you are still in God's glory. If in your
heart you don't say, I thank God for the resources that I
have and I'm willing to let everybody in the world know I live and
move and have my being in God. He is the one that upholds me
by the word of his power. I am able to prosper only by
the blessing of the true and the living God. And Jesus Christ
is my sovereign Lord and savior. I'm gonna tell the world this.
Christ upholds all things by the word of his power. All things
were made by him, for him, and through him, and by him all things
consist. I don't have one blessing that
did not come from this one true and the living God, and I'm ready
to let the world know it. See, now that's the goal of the
people of God when they understand that they are in covenant with
God to tell the world. But once you start saying, well,
you know, yeah, I really did work hard to get this degree,
you're in trouble. I really worked hard to get these
skill sets. You're in trouble. Well, you
know, man, I worked it, man. I mean, you know, I got to hook
up and I start talking with these fellas and I've got this plan,
you know, follow me. I'll show you how to, if you
work this plan, you'll be blessed. That's idolatry. It's all idolatry. If you want this, you want that.
And then you start telling people about secondary and tertiary
means remote methods. It means without giving God the
glory, you're committing idolatry. You are now starting to exalt
another gospel. That's what goes on and what
God says is she did not know she did watch this now here.
We are she didn't know but God knew Do you know God is good
when he doesn't let us go? Go with me in your Bible to Hosea
chapter 6. I want to just show you how God deals with this.
This is over in Hosea chapter 6 where God establishes this
This is Hosea chapter five, I'm sorry. Hosea chapter five, verse
15. Here's how God works. Now watch
this. He's dealing with his bride. Remember, this is still his bride.
You guys follow me? Still his bride, but he's gotta
deal with her firmly because she's neglecting her role as
his wife. Verse 15. I will go and return to my place
until they acknowledge their offense. Do you see that? And
seek my face. Here it is, in their affliction,
they will do what? You see where God is in the stage
of his relationship with them now? He says, oh, I have given
them reverses, I've put hedges in their way, I've put up walls,
and they're still trying to work around me. All right, I'll just
back up and I'll let them go. And that's what God does. This
is when his voice starts to become silent in your heart. He says,
I will let them go. And when they are afflicted to
such an extent that they ultimately cry out to me, they will seek
my face. Now, let me say this one thing
before I close with my final point. Child of God, understand,
you cannot handle God's chastisement. You cannot. You cannot stop right
now. You cannot handle it. God will tear you up. He will make it so painful for
you that you will have no way to reason through it. He's wiser
than you. He's more knowledgeable than
you. He's greater than you. He sees the end from the beginning.
And should you just persist in your obstinacy to say, I can
endure this because I'm enjoying my pleasures. He can make it
such that the pain of your rebellion not only affects you, but affects
everybody around you. And you'll look up one day and
go, this was way more painful than I ever imagined it could
be. And you will be so thankful that
even in the midst of that extreme chastisement, he allowed your
heart to break so that you cried out in sincerity, Lord, have
mercy on me. I quit. I quit. I give up. It doesn't matter
now. I'm not worried about reputation.
I'm not worried about image. I'm not worried about what people
think about me. All I'm concerned about is being
right with you. See, God will bring you there.
He'll bring you there. He will bring you there. He tore up the whole nation of
Israel. The nations put their hands on their mouth. when they
saw what God did to Israel. Read it for yourself, Jeremiah
chapter three, Lamentations chapter three. Jeremiah is lamenting
the judgment of God upon Israel because he could not believe
the horrific destruction that was coming on the land. He says,
this is way more than I can handle. And then he said in chapter three,
verses 19 through 25, and then I remembered the Lord. And then
I remembered the Lord and then I remembered that the Lord is
still merciful Great is thy faithfulness New mercies I find see he's brought
to this place where he realized that even in the midst of this
massive Calamity watch this now. Are you ready? He finds himself
thinking about God in the right way So here's what God does in
conclusion I'm not going to expand this. I'm just going to state
it. Here's what God does in chapter two of Hosea, starting at verse 14. Here it is. I'm going
to read verse 14 through verse 17. Therefore, behold, I will
allure her. Do you see it? And I will bring
her into the wilderness, and I will what? Speak comfortably
to her. When will he do that? After he
has allowed all of her resources, all of her blessings. Verse 9
through 13 described the complete annihilation of the land, the
complete stripping of Israel, the departure and deportment
of the whole nation into Assyrian captivity, and 70 years of Babylonian
bondage. God says, in that bondage, they'll
cry out to me, and watch this, right where they are, I will
start calling them to myself. Now mark this now, I will allure
her, allure her. Here's how this goes, ladies
and gentlemen. When God breaks you, he will then start speaking
to you and persuading you that he's a faithful God, that God
never means anything but your salvation. That he doesn't mean
anything but your spiritual welfare. He will allure you with overtures
of redemption and mercy He will tell you watch this now. I will
never leave you nor forsake you, but I will be with you in the
fire He will tell you I will keep you in all your ways, but
I will chastise you if you disobey me He will tell you now remember
now Christ died for your sins Remember now, he actually put
away your sins by the sacrifice of himself on Calvary Street.
Oh, do you understand how good the gospel sounds when a sinner
is in the midst of the wilderness and there's no one around? And
they're just stripped. And God says, remember the cross. Remember the death of Christ.
Remember the atoning work of Jesus Christ. Remember the one
that was high and lifted up, strapped between heaven and earth
for you as your substitute. Remember the wrath of God poured
upon the Son of God to put away your sins. He's alluring her
by reminding her how he delivered her out of Egyptian bondage and
brought her into the wilderness. Watch this now, so it could be
just her and God. See, sometimes God has to strip
you of everything so it can be just you and God. You and God. You and God watch this now as
it was when he came to you the first time See, we're still we're
still talking about husbands and wives. I'm done right here
see in the beginning when God made Adam and Eve There was nobody
else it was just Adam and it was Jesse and the two had no
one else to talk to, walk with, fellowship, serve, labor, but
each other. Are y'all hearing me? God made
it where she couldn't run off with other lovers. Made it where
he couldn't run off with other lovers. It was just those two. And in the matter of redemption
and the saving of our souls, when God comes to you in the
power of the gospel and he draws you by his grace, it's not you,
God, and someone else, it's you and God. It's you and Christ. It's you and the Lord Jesus Christ. It's you by the work of the Holy
Ghost drawing you to Christ alone. And you find in that moment Christ
is all you need. Now watch it now. And all you
want. When you're in a wilderness where
there's no help, Christ becomes altogether lovely to you. He
becomes wonderful to you. When He comes walking in the
midst of the wilderness to deliver you as your Savior and as your
husband, and to pick you up, and to carry you out of that
dry place, and to give you water, and to give you bread, and to
clothe your nakedness, and to put jewels around your neck,
and to say to you in that hour, you are mine all over again,
Christ becomes glorious. He becomes absolutely glorious
to you all over again. All over again. And that's why we are now about
to partake of the table, because he's been good to us. I'm so
thankful, aren't you? Thankful of a God, a God like
Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen.