I believe God's given me a message
for you. I'm standing here to preach to you one more time this
year. And when I stand here to preach
to you one more time this year, as at all other times, I am consciously
aware I may be standing here to preach to you one more time,
period. God may fix it so this is the
last sermon you ever hear. He may fix it so this is the
last denial of preach. So I want to make one more appeal
to your souls. The Lord God says to his prophet,
say to them, say to them, tell the people, tell them all, tell
them all, as I live, What a wonder! God speaks to
sinners who deserve he'd never speak to them. God calls to men and women
who deserve that he'd do nothing but turn his back and put on
the black cape of judgment and wed his sword and slay us all
forever. And God lifts his hand as it
were before men and swears by his own life sweared by the very
life of God as I live, saith the Lord. I have no pleasure
in the death of the wicked. I won't get anything by destroying
you. I won't profit myself at all
by your everlasting damnation. But I do have pleasure in this,
that the wicked turn from his way, turn from your way to Christ
who is the way, and live. Turn ye. Turn ye from your evil
ways. And he's not just talking about
drunkenness and fornication and adultery and all that evil. Surely that, yes, but that's
not all. Turn from your quorums of religion. Turn from your other gods. Turn to me. For why will you die? God reasons like this. Why will
you die when there's life, right fellows? Why will you die when there's
life? for a look at the Savior. Why will you die when God is
ready, willing, gracious? Almighty God is ever gracious
and merciful. Now if you'll turn with me to
Hosea chapter 14. I just told you Bible's open there. You'll
find my message in these nine verses. This prophecy of Hosea is a marvelous,
marvelous picture of grace. It begins with the great, great
love story. Greatest love story you'll ever
read concerning a man and a woman. Hosea, God's prophet, went down to the red light district
and got him a wife, because God told him that's where he ought
to go get one. And he lavished his love on her. He was good to her. He was good
to her. But it never got her heart. And after they had three children,
she went back down to the red light district because that's
where her heart was. And the Lord God said, Hosea,
now Your love for Gomer is going to be a picture of my love for
my people. And Jose wouldn't let her go. He said, you're mine. And I'm going to get your heart. And he did. He bought her. He loved her. He redeemed her. And he got her heart. And Homer,
oh, how that old gal must have loved Hosea. How good he'd been,
how gracious he'd been. The first three chapters of the
book tell us that story. And then in chapters four through
13, the Lord keeps telling us two
other things. He tells us that we fully deserve his wrath. We
fully deserve, you and me, fully deserve His everlasting wrath. We fully deserve that God Almighty
cast us into hell. Horrid, horrid, horrid, horrid
eternity hell is. And it's exactly what we deserve.
Whatever you imagine it to be, you can't imagine it to be. As
horrid as it is, it's what we deserve. What we deserve. We are children of wrath by nature
who treasure up wrath against the day of wrath. We drink iniquity
like water. That's our ways. But it tells us something else
in those chapters. Lord God says, I will be gracious. I will be
gracious. I will be gracious. I will be
gracious. I will be gracious. You see,
God Almighty is He who delights in mercy. God Almighty is the
God of all grace. God Almighty will save, He will
forgive, He will save His people from their sins. There are some
people in this world, there are some people sitting in this room, There's one standing right in
front of you who fully deserve God's wrath and shall be saved by God's grace. He says, I will be gracious.
What a word. I will be gracious. I will be gracious. And then
after describing how fully we deserve his wrath, after showing how that we have
by our countless iniquities earned the terror of his justice, the
Lord God speaks in great mercy. Let me show you a couple of things
in chapter 13 before we get to our text. Look at verse 4. Look at verse 4. I wish I could write it in bold
capital letters. So just jump out when you turn
there. Yet. Yet. Yet. In spite of everything you've
been. In spite of everything you've done. In spite of everything
you are. In spite of all your iniquity.
in spite of all your whoredoms, in spite of all your filth, in
spite of all your degradation, in spite of everything, yet I
am the Lord your God. I bought you. I redeemed you. I'm the one that brought you
out of Egypt. And I redeemed you so that you shall know no God but me. That's my purpose. For there
is no Savior beside me. Oh, you think there is, but I'm
going to show you. You imagine there is, but I'm
going to fix it. Verse four, or verse nine, rather. Oh, Israel. chosen sons of Jacob, thou hast destroyed thyself." No truer words, Lindsay, were
ever written of any man than those are of me. Not my mother, not my daddy,
not my raising or lack of it. Not because I was raised on the
south side of Winston, jerked up by the hair of the head on
the streets. No, no, no, no, no. I destroyed myself. But in me is thine help. That's God's word to his people
in covenant grace. before the world began, before
they ever have any idea who he is. In me is your help. Verse 14. Now this is what I'm
going to do for you. This is what I'm going to do
for you. For everyone whose name is Israel, for everyone who's
chosen of God, for every sinner in this world who has destroyed
himself and made to acknowledge it. I will ransom them from the
grave. From the power of the grave,
I will redeem them from death. Oh, death. I was dead in trespasses and
in sins. Oh death, I will be thy plague. Oh grave, I will be thy destruction. Now
look at this next line. Repentance shall be hid from
thine eyes. Now Merle, this is the reason
we didn't die and go to hell. while we lived our fist in God's
face. Because God said, I don't know how to repent. The gifts and callings of God
are without repentance. I said, you're mine. I said,
you're mine. I said, you're mine. And hell
ain't going to have you. I said, you're mine. I'm going
to hedge up your ways and you're not going to find them. I said,
you're mine. And if I strip you naked, I will. If I take away your joy, and
I will, and I take away your pleasure, and I will, I'll also
take away your death, because you're mine, and I won't repent. I won't repent. All right now,
look at chapter 14. Here's a call to repentance.
Hard to tell whether the one talking here is God or his prophet,
but that doesn't matter, because if God speaks by his prophet,
it's all the same as if God's speaking. Hosea writes the word
that God speaks to his people. A preacher, who's he talking
to? Sinners or saints? Yes. Sinners saved or sinners
lost? Yes. That's who he's talking
to. He's talking to every one of
us. The Lord God speaks here in mercy
and in grace, and he calls sinners and says, fallen, rebelling, idolatrous,
covetous, greedy, self-serving Israel. Return unto the Lord, look at
this now, thy God. Now you listen to me. Though you have sinned and revolted
against him, though you have said all your life, no God, no
God will not bow to him, though you've lived all the days of
your life serving the lust of your flesh, though you've revolted
against him and revolted against his dominion, though your heart
is enmity against him, like it or no, he's still your God. He owns you. You're His property. And God never gives up His property
rights. Nobody will ever force Him to.
Somebody preaches all the time, say, you're going to a devil's
hell. No, you're going to God's hell. That's where God puts His
rebels. You're still His. You're still
His. He made you. He's your creator. He's your benefactor. He's your
preserver. He's the one who feeds you. He's
the one who clothes you. He's the one who preserves you
in life. He's the one who brought you here this day to hear his
word. He's your God. And my brother, my sister, heirs
with me of the grace of God. He's your God. Distinctly your God. personally
your God, because He's made Himself your God in covenant love. He's your God because He bought
you with His blood. He's your God because He called
you by His grace. He's your God because He's given
you faith in Him. He's your God because He's united
you to Himself. We've sinned against Him. We
do constantly. We fall, O God, how we fall, fallen by our iniquities, and
yet He is our God. It is so unhuman. This is so unlike me. And so unlike you, it's just almost impossible for
us to believe, I mean really believe. Bobby Estes, he is God always
ready to forgive. How slow we are to believe he's
God. How slow we are to believe he
is who and what he says he is, because it's so unlike us. God always merciful, always gracious. Somebody reads this, I read several
comments in this regard. Folks ask, well, is this a command
or an invitation? I'm so sick of folks trifling
with God Almighty, trying to make God fit in their little
box. I despise listening to some free
will worshipper or some Arminian preacher as though somehow God
doesn't have any power, doesn't have any ability, doesn't have
any purpose, can't do anything unless you pretty please let
Him. And I'm just as tired of hearing preachers who claim to
believe God's free grace Preaching as if they're scared to death,
somebody who's not chosen of God might get into heaven anyhow.
God commands you to repent. Oh, but listen to me. Listen
to me. God Almighty stoops to plead with you to repent. If a king, a sovereign king,
has it in his right to call one before him and take any woman
in the land and say, you will be my bride, I'll kill you. He might get her, but he'd never
get her. She's right. She's his property. He's the
sovereign king. Law says he can do what he wants
to. But if he wants her, he'll court
her and woo her and show her grace and kindness. And he'll
speak to her heart and he'll get her. Listen to me. You'll either bow to this king
or you'll go to him. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. But here's
this infinite God who owned you. He made you. Whose goodness you've despised
all your life. And he stoops to plead with you. Come to Him. Rita, for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity. Oh, how we've fallen. How we've fallen. I recall, oh my, it's been a
long time ago, 1969. I heard Brother Mahan preaching
in Western Salem. And it told a story about a man
who had managed to survive the Great Depression with a measure
of his wealth still intact. He was a very gracious man. And
so he served the soup kitchens in Chicago. And there was a line
of folks coming through there, just rags, poor, dirty. And he's standing there dipping
soup. Back in the line, he He caught the eye of another man. And he looked at him and thought,
I wonder who he was before all this. Wonder what he was. Because the man had on what was
obviously a tailor-made suit. It was old. It was worn. It was dirty. But it was obviously
a well-made, tailor-made suit. And he got up to him and he started
He just kind of paused and looked at him. And the fellow must have read
his mind. He looked up at him and he said, I've seen better
days. Oh, listen to me. We've seen
better days. God made us in his image. God
put us in the garden. God walked with us. And we failed. And now man who was made in the
image of God more resembles a beast than a man, more resembles a devil than an
angel. Man made in the image of God lives as a groveling worm
in the earth. Man made for the glory of God
lives to please himself in the lust of his flesh. Man made for
God lives for God. Oh, have we fallen. Take with you, verse two, words and turn to the Lord. He doesn't say take with you
resolutions. He doesn't say take with you
silver and gold. He doesn't say take with you
great sacrifices. He says, take with you words,
not merely words. Just reciting a liturgy or repeating
a prayer some man's written out or reciting a creed and acknowledging
things mentally, that's nothing, that's nothing. And yet, as a
man thinks in his heart, the scripture says, so is he. And
it also says, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. And so the Lord bids us come
to him with words. Not literally speaking, though
that's all right. That's all right. Sometimes when
I pray, my lips don't move. Sometimes when I pray, they do.
I was sitting at the table the other day, and the grace came
in, and I was reading, I didn't hear her come. Hard not to hear
her come, but I didn't hear her come. And I prayed it, but my
lips weren't moving. She said, Papi, what you doing?
And I said, that's what I'm praying. She said, I couldn't hear you. That's not important. That's
not important. But take with you words. Words. And confess your sin. If we confess
our sin, He's faithful and just to forgive us. Confess your sin. Quit trying to play games with
God. Quit trying to hide behind some big leap you've made up.
Quit trying to pretend what you know in your soul you're not
and never can be. You're nothing but sin. Nothing
but sin. There's not one spark of goodness,
decency, or uprightness in you. Everything that men look at and
say, now there's a spark of goodness, there's a decency, there's a
brightness. It's all outside. That's all
what you put on. That's just like getting up on
Sunday morning and get kind of rushed and don't have time to
take a bath, so you just slosh on a little stuff that makes
you smell good and put some clothes on and you're still dirty inside. We spend our whole life trying
to make ourselves look good to us, to each other, and to God,
knowing full well they're not any good to us. Confess your
sin and confess Christ. With the
heart, man believes unto righteousness. With confession, with the mouth,
confession is made to salvation. Confess it! Confess it as your
Lord. Confess Him as your Master! Confess
Him as your Sovereign! Confess your faith in Him, and
salvation is yours. In this next line, say to Him, Take away all iniquity. God, take away this heavy load
of guilt I have in my soul. Take away this horrid, horrid,
horrid corruption that's in me. Take away all iniquity. Say,
but preacher, you know that we're not going to be completely free
from sin in this world. I know it. That doesn't mean
I don't want to be. We're not going to be completely
free from the very being of sin while we live in this world.
No, but I want to be. Bless God, soon I shall be. Take
away all iniquity and receive us. Look at this.
Look at this. Receive us. Us iniquities. Us sin. Receive us. Receive us who are nothing but
iniquity, transgression, and sin. We who have fallen by our
own iniquities. We who have turned from you all
the days of our lives. Receive us! Not because we deserve
it. Not because we decided that we'd
let you receive us. Not because we've done something
good. Receive us graciously. Oh God. Receive me. because you will,
because of the righteousness and blood and grace that's in
your Son, receive us graciously. Now look at this. So, O Lord, if you will so receive
me, we will render the calves of
our receive us and we'll worship
you and praise you and honor you for your grace forever. Now this turning to God is not
something you do one time and forget about it. It's something you do and you
do and you do and you do. It's a way of life. So, Judy sang before I preached,
how true. My brothers, my sisters, we love him, yes,
at all. How bitter my love to him is
because it's no love at all. Believe it, yes. But oh, my faith must be robed
in his righteousness, washed in his blood. Serve him. Yeah. But oh God, I repent of my service. You see, true repentance involves a continual coming completely
to God, a continual giving up of all other trust, a continual
turning from all our idols, not just religious idols, all our
idols, a continual turning. Look at verse 3. Asure shall not save us, We've seen the hand of God in
judgment on our nation. He's given us a good president.
President wisely turns to the nations, but we're not looking
to the nations for anything. We will not ride upon horses. Well, why don't us? That's got
to do with us. Well, we better not saddle up any horses and
go horseback riding. No, don't be so sick. religious fools interpret scripture
like that, and they really do. You see such nonsense as that.
What's he saying? He's saying we won't trust anything. We won't trust anyone. We won't trust any carnal strength. We will not look anywhere, including
the most deadly of all idols, the work of our hands. Every man worships his own work.
Every man does. This whole religious world built
on that. Doesn't matter whether you're talking about Southern
Baptist, Independent, or otherwise. Doesn't matter whether you're
talking about Pathists, Protestants, or who. Doesn't matter whether
you're talking about Buddhists, or Islam, Jews, or anybody. The
whole religious world worships the work of their hands. Look
what I've done. Now God will accept. If you ever meet up with God,
you'll plead with God Almighty to wash the filth of your good
works forever in the blood of His darling Son. What did you ever do? Come on. What did you ever do that you
really think is worthy of God's acceptance. Who do you think you're fooling?
Nobody but yourself and a few others who, like you, worship
their hands. But pastor, will the Lord save
me? Will God be gracious to me? Will
God forgive my sin? Well, let me tell you something,
you'll never know till you turn to Him. But here's the promise He makes
to every sinner who does. I will heal their backsliding. That word, backsliding, is a
much stronger word than we commonly imagine. The Lord refers to Israel
as a backsliding heifer, and we always have the picture, or
at least I have, Heifer climbing up a hill, muddy, rainy, snake. She just slides backwards and
can't get up the hill. That's not the word that's used
here. The word refers to apostasy, deliberate choice, rebellion,
saying no to God. That's your problem. Your problem
not that you've made a few mistakes. Your problem is you hate God.
You constantly rebel against him. You say, no, I'll have my
own way. I will not submit. He has no
right to be God. God doesn't have a right to do
that. God doesn't have a right to do this. God doesn't have
a right. That's your problem. You hate God. But I'll tell you
something else. This is my problem. Oh, my God. How I turn away from you. Do I speak the truth concerning
you? So we can't help it. I know it
and don't want to. I know there's a man in us that
does, but Lindsay, our flesh is ever wandering and prone to
wander. And there's a warfare going on
so that we constantly turn from Him. Turn from Him. Sitting right here. Where have
you been this morning? Read this book, and my mind will
interact with anything else. A light-hearted comedy, I can
read it and think about it the whole time I'm reading it. Newspaper,
I can read it and think about it all the time I'm reading it. I can pick up fact sheets and
read them and think about it all the time I'm reading them.
I'm talking about just nothing, just facts. Pick up this book
and read what God says. And my mind and my heart will
run in a thousand directions in a half a second. But this is God's promise. I
will heal their backsliding. Be sure to tell Peter if things
are alright. I won't just bind it up, I'll heal the fester.
One of these days. I wonder no more. I love them freely. Oh, thank
God for free love. Freely. That means I will love them with no calls
in themselves, no matter what. Oh, buddy, I wish I could love
you like that. Wish you could love me like that. And here's the reason for the
promise and the assurance of it. Now listen to me. This is what
God says to every sinner who turns to him and says, take away
all my iniquity. For mine anger is turned away
from him. My anger is turned away from
you because my anger is turned away from him. The Lord Jesus
Christ was made to be sin for us when God Almighty raised his
glittering sword and smote his son in his holy anger. His justice
was satisfied and now God's anger is no more with him. See, Andre
sits on the right hand of the Father. And because his anger
is turned away from him, Rex, his anger is turned away from
us forever. Thou hast forgiven the iniquity
of thy people. Thou hast covered all their sin. Thou hast taken away all thy
wrath. Thou hast turned thyself from
the fierceness of thine anger. And then the Lord says, I will
be as due to Israel. Oh, God, fall on this parched
ground. Grant some refreshing and revive
him to our dead souls. And he shall grow. I won't spend
much time with this. I gave a brief exposition of
it last week. He'll grow like the lily. The lily grows unobserved. Nobody watches it. Nobody notices
it. Until it blossoms out in full bloom. Then you say, oh! Matter of fact, there's nothing
pretty about it until you see it in full bloom. And so God causes his people
to grow. And they never see it, can't
know it, until they blossom in his glory. He'll cast forth his
roots. It'll be like a tree planted
by the rivers of living water, strong. His branches shall spread. Lord, David said, forgive my
sin. Restore to me the joy of your
salvation, and I'll teach sinners your ways. I'll show sinners
the ways of your salvation. I'll teach sinners to walk before
you with faith. You see, when God saves a sinner, when God
turns us to himself, he causes our branches to reach out, just
influencing folks everywhere. They don't even know it. This
influences others. His beauty shall be as the olive. The olive tree has no beauty
at all, except in its fragrance. And our only beauty is Christ.
But there's something more here. In these ancient times, olive
oil was a precious commodity. The fellow who had olive oil
in abundance was like the fellow today who's got the cold in him.
He's well healed. He's worth something. He's worth
something. And we were worthless. We made ourselves Worthless. You heard me right. You heard me right. You're worthless.
Worthless to God. Oh, I would to God he'd make
you see how worthless you are. You'll find out how worthless
you are. Nobody has to plead with you to get you to come to
Christ. Worthless. Have you made yourself worthless?
I mean worthless. Worthless to God, worthless to
society, worthless to family, worthless to anybody, worthless
to yourself. God says, come on, I'll make you worth something. I'll give you the worth of my
own son. Call grace, pure, free grace. Come to Christ. Oh, God help
you, come to Christ. And he will receive you graciously.
Come to Christ. And he has taken away all your
sin. Come to Christ. Come to Christ and washed in his blood, robed
in his righteousness. He will make you to possess his
own worth and beauty. Can I come? He said, come. He said, come. I reckon it'd
be all right for you to come. I reckon it'd be all right for
me to come. Oh, I reckon it'd be all right
for me to come. And he says, him that cometh
to me, I will in no wise cast out. people.