Mercy Poured out

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Transcript:

Turn with me, if you would, to Hosea chapter 5. Hosea chapter 5. Most of what we’re going to look at today is going to be in Hosea chapter 6, but we’re going to pick up the end of chapter 5 because when they wrote it, I didn’t realize this until a few years ago.

Some of y’all may have known this for years, but when they first wrote these things down in the Bible, whether they were the Old Testament books of prophecy, whether they were Paul’s letters, they didn’t write in chapters and verses. The chapters didn’t come into play until sometime after the year 1000 A. D.

from what I understand, and then it wasn’t until the Geneva Bible and the 1500s that they divided them into verses. So at times they just went with, well, I think this guy ended his thought here, and they put a new chapter. Well, the thought goes before the end of the chapter this time, so we’re going to pick up in chapter 5.

Chapter 5, verse 15 says, I will go and return to my place until they acknowledge their offense and seek my face. In their affliction, they will seek me early. And what he’s talking about here, if you can remember way, way back to two weeks ago, I talked about judgment being poured out on Israel and on Judah as well for their sins.

And God talked about the different aspects of his punishment, or better said, the different things that his judgment is like. And he talked about the lion. He talked about coming on them as a lion, something that would be, you know, you could not get away from.

He talked about coming as a moth, something that would just bring their utter ruin. He talked about a, what was the word he used, a rottenness or a sickness in their bones, something that would destroy life from the inside out. And we got this rather grim picture of the judgment of God over their sins being terrible, being complete, being utterly devastating.

And it leads us to the realization that God takes sin very, very seriously. But tonight, and he said that he hid his face from them, that when they went after him, they wouldn’t find him. Well, it’s not that God is playing hide and seek from people who seek them.

The problem was that in Hosea’s day, until their sin had been dealt with, until they had come to the realization that we really have sinned against God and it’s serious business, until they came to a point of repentance, Israel and to a lesser extent Judah were just kind of flirting with God, flirting in their worship with God. Yes, they would worship the one true God, but they would worship him among others. And with God it is and always has been, you worship me and me alone and me completely or not at all.

And they were playing at their worship, and so God said, when they come to look for me, I won’t be found. Well, they weren’t coming in the right spirit to look for him. They were coming to worship him as one of many.

And God said, under those circumstances, they’re not going to find me when they come looking. Well, we skip ahead here to verse 15, and he says, I will go and return to my place until they acknowledge their offense. He’s talked about going back and retreating from the people of Israel.

It doesn’t mean he was no longer omnipresent, that he’s everywhere in the universe except Israel. But it means as far as their perception, as far as their knowledge of him, as far as any kind of contact with him, he was gone from them until such time as they acknowledge their offense and seek his face. They’re not just seeking to come and worship him as one of many, but they recognized that they’d sinned against a holy God, they recognized their offense, and then they came to seek his face.

It’s a different kind of approach toward God. It’s an attitude of repentance, rather than just taking God as someone we can take or leave. In their affliction, they will seek me early.

There was some self-interest in this. We tend to think that, ideally, people should come to God out of conviction. People should come to God for this reason or that reason.

That if you’re running to God just because everything’s wrong and you’ve got problems, well, folks, we don’t want that to be the only reason we come to God. Because a lot of people turn to God when they have affliction. A lot of people turn to God when they have problems, and then when everything’s good again, they go back to doing the same old thing.

But we’d be lying if we said there wasn’t a little bit of affliction sometimes in our reasons for seeking God. Sometimes God uses those afflictions to get our attention and bring us back to Him. That was the express purpose of the captivity that he was about to put the nation of Israel and the nation of Judah through.

It wasn’t just punishment for the sake of punishment. It was a time of, in the case of Judah, it was a time of 70 years in captivity to the Babylonians and then to the Persians, through which he would get their attention where they would cry out to him again. And so God’s ideal for us is not that we just run to him as a band-aid when we have a problem, But sometimes God does use afflictions and problems and suffering to get our attention to bring us back to Him.

And that’s what He’s talking in the future tense about what is going to happen with Israel. He says, at that point, they will seek me early. In chapter 6, verse 1 says, come and let us return unto the Lord.

He’s quoting here the people of Israel and Judah. When they got into their affliction, when they got into their captivity, they would realize their offense, they’d seek God, and they would together say, we need to go back and seek the Lord. Come let us return to the Lord.

If you’ve been here on Wednesday nights over the last several months, we’ve been studying through the book of Nehemiah. It feels like we’re never going to get finished with that. If you feel that way, it’s all right.

I feel that way too. But we will finish it and we’ll learn from it while we’re in it. And Lord willing, he’ll show us things that we can use as we serve him.

But in the book of Nehemiah, we’re on the opposite end of this captivity. They’re coming back. And if you recall the last two or three weeks, they were so torn up over their sins.

They were so distraught over the recognition that they had sinned in these grievous ways against a holy God through their idolatry and everything else that comes out of the idolatry that even the priests, even the religious leaders had to tell them, you need to, you’ve sorrowed enough, basically is what they told them. We’ve got other things to do. And they were sent to do the feasts and the festivals that God had told them to do.

And then when that was over, they didn’t just treat God as something they could brush aside. After the mourning was over and after the feasting was over, they all got together as a nation, what we’re talking about now, and they started making a list of all the things that God had done for them and that they had to be thankful for and to praise God for. And in that list, they recognized that God had blessed them in all these incredible ways in spite of the way that they’d acted.

And this is prophesying what’s going to happen in the future when they all, as a nation, said, Come, let us return to the Lord. It says, For he hath torn, and he will heal us. He hath smitten, and he will bind us up.

See, God had punished Judah and Israel, and only God could restore them. We talked two weeks ago about the judgments that they went through, and I mentioned them again. He talks about the moth.

He talks about the sickness and the bones. He talks about the lion. Folks, there’s not one of those that I want to deal with.

The moth seems the least scary of the three. unless you’re a garment, which is what he’s talking about. In that case, a moth is very bad news for you.

Folks, there’s not one of those three things that I would want to deal with. Those don’t even begin to capture. Those don’t even begin to capture what God’s judgment is over sin.

And yet these people have come to say, as we see many times throughout the Old Testament, even if God doesn’t forgive us, we have sinned against him, and we need to confess this, and we need to seek him. We need to seek him. And we’re back tonight on the subject of mercy.

and I feel like and I’ve said before that I feel like as we study the book of Hosea we’re on this roller coaster ride a little bit I know at times some of the details and talking to you about well this is the place where this happened and that’s why they’re saying this and some of those details may for some of you be a little bit dry but overall I feel like we’re on a roller coaster ride where we’ll talk about judgment for a week or maybe two weeks and then we’ll go to mercy and then back to judgment, and then back to mercy, and back to judgment, and we just keep repeating this cycle, and we can feel like, oh my goodness, we’re just talking, we’re just going in circles here. Well, how do you think God felt in all of this?

Because not only was this cycle repeating itself over and over in the day of the minor prophets like Hosea, but all throughout Israelite history, since the very beginning, they’d been going through this cycle. They’d walk with God for a little bit, Then they’d decide they knew better, and they’d go off into sin and idolatry, and God would send somebody else to take them into captivity or to oppress them, use some kind of suffering to get their attention. After a while, the people would realize their sin.

They’d cry out to God. He’d send somebody to liberate them, and then they’d walk with him for a little while, and then they’d fall right back into sin and idolatry. And the cycle had gone on over and over and over.

Reading through the book of Judges, if not for the fact that we’re the same way, reading through the book of Judges, by the end I’m saying, God, why don’t you just kill them? Until I realize we’re the same way. And I thank him once again for his mercy, which is what he highlights in this passage tonight.

The people realize that if there’s to be forgiveness, if there’s to be restoration, it can only come through God’s mercy. And so in the last passage two weeks ago, as we talked about judgment poured out, Today we talk about mercy being poured out because he uses this idea of rain and dew and water in various forms. And the people say in their recognition that if there’s to be forgiveness and reconciliation and restoration and healing and all these things, it’s to come only through the mercy of God. And they say, come let us return unto the Lord.

For he hath torn, and that word means just what it sounds like it means. He hath torn and he will heal us. What God tore up, what God shredded, what God destroyed, he can put back together.

What he’s smitten, it’s a good old-fashioned word that we don’t use a whole lot anymore. It means to strike somebody. What he’s smitten, he will bind up.

It says in verse 2, after two days, he will revive us. In the third day, he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight. Now, when I saw this, I thought, I wonder if that’s a reference to the resurrection.

Well, apparently I’m not the only one who thought that, because when I went to look and see what other people have said about it, a lot of other people think it’s probably a reference to the resurrection too. And whether or not it is a direct reference to the resurrection, it holds true. That what God smote, God raised up again in three days.

What God destroyed, God revived. And folks, there on the cross, there on the cross some six, seven hundred years after this happened, on the cross, God’s wrath, God’s judgment on sin was shown in the person of Jesus Christ. Because the Bible says that he who had no sin, he who had no sin of his own, and I’m paraphrasing just a little bit, but he who had no sin of his own was made to become sin for us. And he was punished there for our sins.

He paid the penalty for our sins. And there are all these theories. I hear about preachers all the time, and I’ll say they don’t believe in the penal substitutionary theory of the atonement, and that’s just fancy talk for the idea that Christ paid, literally paid the penalty, paid the debt for yours and my sin.

Now, somebody help me if I’m ignorant, but if somebody doesn’t believe that, what are they doing preaching? What do they think he did on the cross? What was the purpose of it?

There are all these other theories that he was showing God’s, that it was just him showing God’s view towards sin, and I believe that was part of it. I believe the cross very readily illustrates how seriously God takes sin, that he would send his own son. But folks, God wasn’t just proving a point at the cross.

That really was the punishment for our sins. As Isaiah says, he was, excuse me, I believe it was Isaiah, says he was bruised for our transgressions. What did you say?

Isaiah 53. I’m having trouble remembering the exact wording of it. It’s been a long day.

That’s right. and by his stripes we are healed. Folks, on the cross, God’s wrath was poured out on sin.

It was punished in the person of Jesus Christ. He who had no sin of his own was made to become sin for us and to take our punishment so that we could be forgiven. And folks, his physical body was destroyed there on that cross. And on the third day, it was his literal physical body that was raised again from the tomb.

I was asked at my ordination, did I believe in the swoon theory? If you don’t know what the swoon theory is, it’s the idea that Jesus Christ didn’t really die on the cross. He just passed out or appeared to die and revived in the tomb.

Revived may not be the right word. He got better. I think that’s just about the dumbest theory I’ve ever heard.

The idea that somebody could have their heart pierced through with a spear. The idea that somebody could be beaten that badly, could lose that much blood. and medical experts have looked at the story of the crucifixion and said, yes, this man was in, this is an accurate description of hypovolemic shock, somebody who’s in shock from loss of blood.

To lose that much blood, to be beaten beyond recognition, to have his heart pierced, and to be laid in a dark, probably damp tomb for three days, and to be strong enough to roll the stone away, I don’t have enough faith to believe that. I have enough faith, though, to believe that God raised his physical body and that it really was him who came out of the grave on the third day. And folks, whether this is talking about Christ or not in Hosea, I believe it’s an allusion with an A, not an I.

Illusion with an I means something fake. Allusion with an A means it refers to. Whether he’s directly talking about and prophesying Christ, I don’t know, but I believe it’s an allusion to Christ. I believe it’s one of the markers in the Old Testament story pointing to what was going to happen.

That what God destroyed in judgment, being Christ in his physical body, being destroyed for our sins, that he was able to raise up again in three days. He says, and we shall live in his sight. That though they were destroyed by God as a nation, though they were crushed, they would live again in his sight.

He says, then shall we know if we follow on to know the Lord. His going forth is prepared as the morning, and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former reign unto the earth. And God at that point says, O Ephraim, and remember that’s a reference to the northern kingdom, the nation of Israel as a whole, what shall I do unto thee?

O Judah, what shall I do unto thee? For your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away. And we can pick up there next week, no, not next week, but the week after.

We have praise night for Easter next week. We’ll pick up there in two weeks and talk about that again, but what he’s talking about here tonight, What Hosea is recording here is what was going to be said about God’s mercy when the people finally got it. And it’d be very easy if we only read the judgment passages in the book of Hosea to get the idea that God was just finished with Israel.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned this up to this point, but my title for this whole series on Hosea has been Our God Was Still There. Because even through everything that had happened, even through all the times that Israel had disobeyed God, even through all the times that Israel had made a mockery of God and his laws, God had not turned his back on them, and he was still there waiting with mercy when they finally understood the gravity of their sins and turned in repentance. And folks, I am so thankful that today we still serve a God.

We still serve the same God who was faithful in the Old Testament and who, even though the human race has had 2,000 more years to disobey him, He still stands ready to forgive when we recognize the gravity of our sins and turn in repentance. Folks, in all of this, they were recognizing that God’s mercy can restore what sin has destroyed. God’s mercy can restore what sin has destroyed.

Yes, God brought punishment and God tore them and God smote them and all of these things that they describe. He was the lion and the moth and the sickness and the bones and God was all these things in judgment to them. But folks, it was a direct result of their sin.

It was a direct result of their sin. God does not crush us under his heel just for his own amusement. When we are chastised, when we are punished, it’s because of sin.

And no, I’m not telling you that every problem and every affliction in your life is the result of some sin that you’ve committed. See, I also understand we live in a fallen sinful world, and nobody’s sinful actions occur in a vacuum. And sometimes, just as a consequence of living in a fallen sinful world, bad things happen even to good people.

And when I say good, I mean in human terms. But when we are punished, when anybody is judged for sin, it is because of sin. When the world stands before God in judgment at the end of the end, it’ll be because of sin. And God won’t condemn anybody just for the fun of it.

God will condemn because the sin was not dealt with. But when we run to God’s mercy, God’s mercy can restore even what sin has destroyed. and we know the destructive power of sin.

I ask you this all the times, but how many lives have you seen torn apart by sin? How many families have you seen torn apart because people enjoyed the bottle just a little too much? How many lives have you seen torn apart?

How many families have you seen torn apart by things like pornography or adultery? How many people have been hurt by somebody being murdered? A family member that suddenly is not there anymore because somebody was callous enough to take that person’s life.

Folks, we’ve all seen the devastating effects of sin. We know all too well also the devastating spiritual effects of sin. And we know that it creates a gulf between us and God.

A gulf, by the way, that we’re not big enough or strong enough to bridge. And folks, it’s only the mercy of God that can restore what sin is destroying. The perfect relationship between man and God that existed in the Garden of Eden is not something we could restore.

Perfect fellowship with God is not something we can restore. By God’s mercy, we can again have a relationship with God. And they talk here about all these things.

God has torn and he will heal us and he has smitten and he will bind us up. Folks, God’s mercy. I want to tell you tonight that God’s mercy can restore what sin has destroyed.

Somebody in here tonight, you may not be a believer, may never have trusted Christ. You may wonder why at times God feels far away. Why you don’t have the same kind of relationship with God that everybody else around you seems to have. You may wonder why you feel this longing that can’t seem to be satisfied with earthly things.

Folks, that’s as a result of sin, that separation we have from God, that loneliness we have when it comes to spiritual things. And God can restore what sin has destroyed in His mercy. God’s mercy also refreshes His people.

It says here that his mercy, or it talks about God coming as the rain. It’s the latter and former rain unto the earth. Now, there have been people who’ve talked about this latter rain revival outpouring, this charismatic thing that completely takes this passage out of context.

It’s talking about the people of Israel receiving God’s mercy. And folks, God’s mercy is to his people like rain in a dry desert place. You remember back to last summer when it was so very dry here, maybe even winter up until the last few weeks.

So dry here, everything was dying, and we’d go months without rain, and we’d pray that God would send some rain just to bring a little green back, and we’d go without it. And I know there have been times even drier than that. Some of my ancestors lived through the dust bowl.

Think of the joy when there’s rain in a dry place. Folks, God’s mercy is like abundant rain in a dry place. And folks, God’s mercy is abundant for his people.

And we may think sometimes that when we trust Christ, when we get saved, that’s the end of, that’s as far as it goes with us needing mercy or God’s mercy or any thought or concept of it. Folks, it’s God’s mercy that upholds us every day. It’s God’s mercy that upholds us every day.

As I’ve told you before, as I say regularly, I don’t deserve the breath that God gives me in the morning. I don’t deserve anything good that God’s ever blessed me with, And quite honestly, neither do you, because we’ve all sinned against him. And yet, in spiritual things as well as in what we would call practical things, it’s God’s mercy that upholds us.

And God’s mercy is abundant if we just recognize it where it is. God doesn’t give us just enough mercy to skate into heaven, slide into heaven like home plate with the smell of smoke from hellfire on our clothes. Folks, his mercy is abundant toward his people.

It’s like this rain that he talks about. And as a believer, God has enough mercy for you. As a non-believer, if you’ve never trusted Christ, God has enough mercy to forgive your sin.

No matter what you’ve done or no matter what you think you’ve done, if you’re willing to recognize the seriousness of your offense toward God and ask forgiveness and throw yourself on his mercy, folks, he has more than enough. And God’s mercy remains after man’s goodness is gone. He talks here about the goodness of Judah and Ephraim.

In contrast to his mercy and his coming being like the rains, he says their goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away. And you know on those really hot days when there’s dew on the grass in the morning, it doesn’t take very long for it to burn off. And folks, our goodness is like that.

The good efforts we make for God, the goodness that we have, it’s like that. It’s like that morning dew and that morning cloud. And we can think, here I am, I’m a good person, I do good things for God, but folks in contrast to God’s mercy our goodness is like that dew that just burns away and it’s gone our goodness doesn’t last that long I know I sin a lot more than I want to and I’m sure most of you would say the same thing folks we’re all sinners I hate that don’t you ever just hate that now I’m not standing here telling you I’m perfect I recognize I’m a sinner and I hate that I want to be good for God but any goodness any righteousness of our own that we can muster, if there’s any of it, is gone.

Because ultimately we fall back into that old sin nature. But folks, our God has mercy that’s there far beyond the expiration date on our goodness. And when Judah and Ephraim and their goodness, Judah and Israel and their goodness were burned up like the morning dew, the morning cloud, God and his mercy were there like rain in a dry land.