Hosea 14 'How to repent'

Do you feel far away from God?  Maybe you feel dry in your faith.  Does God seem impersonal to you?  Do you sometimes wonder whether you actually are a Christian or not?  Does the idea of God being your father seem too good to be true?  Do you doubt whether he has actually forgiven your sins?  Do you fear that you have sinned too seriously for him to forgive you?  Do you fear that you have strayed too far from him to accept you home again?  This morning’s reading is for you!

In fact, this morning’s reading is for all of us.  For we all let God down every day.  Every day we need to come home and receive his forgiveness.  Repentance is not simply something you do as you become a Christian; repentance is a lifestyle.  As people who love God, we are painfully aware that we fall and fail every day.  We hate ourselves for it, but we let God down all the time.  But he does not give up on us.  He does not stop loving us.  He is always ready to embrace us (and we all could do with a little more embracing at this time of social distancing).

This morning’s reading teaches us how to come home to God.  It is a call to repentance.  ‘Return, O Israel, to the LORD God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity’ (1).  But how do we return?  ‘Take words with you words and return to the LORD’ (2a).  Speak to God.  There are three things to say.

1.     Say, ‘I’m sorry’

‘Say to him: Forgive all our sins and receive us graciously, that we may offer the fruit of our lips.’ 

God is not looking for our sacrifices but our hearts.  In this book, God has already said, ‘For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings’ (6:6).  As King David adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband he said, ‘The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit’ (Psalm 51:17a).

In other words, God does not want you to be religious.  He does not want you to sort your life out before you turn to him.  He does not want you to try and prove that you are worthy of his love—none of us are.  He does not want you to try to justify what you did—excuses are the enemy of true repentance.  He wants us to hold up our hands and say, ‘guilty as charged’.  Confession is not telling God what he does not know but agreeing with God that what we have done is awful. 

The truth is that we are more wicked than we realise.  Our sin is more terrible than we think.  We have forgotten most of the evil we have done, and sin is not just what we have done, it lies in the attitudes of our hearts.  All our sin is ultimately an affront to a perfectly holy and pure God.  But no matter how great our sin, God’s grace is greater.  ‘A broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise’ (Psalm 51:17b).  That is a promise!  There is a godly sorrow that leads to repentance and leaves no room for regret (2 Corinthians 7:10).  Repentance is ultimately a gift from God, and he will never reject it.

Say something.  Say you are sorry.

2.    Say, ‘I will trust in you alone.’

‘Assyria shall not save us; we will not ride on horses; and we will say no more, “Our God”, to the work of our hands …’ (3a-b).

Assyria was the superpower of the day.  So, Israel was tempted to make alliances with them in order to have security.  They looked to the Assyrians to save them.  In doing this they were refusing to depend on God to save them.  Ironically, it was the Assyrians that would soon destroy them.

Horses were a symbol of military power.  The were like apache helicopters or a nuclear deterrent.  But no army can save us when it is God who is against us.  We all face a day of judgement.  On that day, Jesus will be the judge who dispenses perfect justice.  If we have not turned to him as the only one who can deal with our guilty, our guilt will lead to eternal condemnation.  We either have Jesus take our sins on the cross or we will die eternally.

Where do you look to for security?  How would you finish the sentence, ‘my life would be happy if …’?  The single person might say, ‘my life would be happy if I met someone to marry.’  The married person might say, ‘my life would be happy if there was no conflict in my marriage.’  The sick person might say, ‘my life would be happy if I had health.’  The poor person might say, ‘my life would be happy if I had wealth.’  The rich person might say, ‘my life would be happy if I had more.’  Be careful, good things become false gods when they are the centre of our security and hope.

Genuine repentance admits that, ‘my life can’t be full unless I have God.’  Genuine repentance realises that if God is all you have then you have all you need.  Pray that God would make us satisfied in him. 

3.     Say, ‘I will call you father.’

‘… in you the orphan finds mercy’ (3c).

In this book of the Bible, Hosea shows love to a faithless wife.  He is told to marry Gomer, who will cheat on him, and to keep on loving her.  He is even to buy her back when she is sold into slavery.  It is a picture of God’s pursuing love for his people. 

This book is also about how Hosea shows love to fatherless children.  His wife Gomer conceives children in her adultery.  Hosea second and third child do not belong to him.  But he accepts them as his own.  We were born to be God’s children.  But we have turned from his love and become spiritual orphans.  Left to ourselves we are children without a heavenly Father.  ‘But in you God the orphan finds mercy’.

Becoming a Christian is more than simply being forgiven.  Becoming a Christian is more than going to heaven rather than hell when you die.  Becoming a Christian is about being embraced by the most loving of all fathers.  In the book of Galatians, the apostle Paul writes, ‘God sent his Son … so that we might receive adoption as sons.’  The Father sent his Son to a cross for our guilt, so that he could love us with the same love that he loves Jesus  Those who have turned to God in repentance can declare, ‘Jesus gladly loved me, and gave himself for me’ (Galatians 2:20).

So, we come to God and say, ‘In you the fatherless find compassion, I am sorry that I have sinned so grievously against you, I have no other hope but you.’

And what does God say to us in response?

He responds in song and sings: ‘I will heal their waywardness and love them freely, for my anger has turned away from them’ (4).  He turned his anger away from us, and onto Jesus upon the cross.  His holy anger has been satisfied and we need fear it no more.  He heals our waywardness as his love begins to change us.  The progress may seem slow, but he is doing a good work in our lives.

He says, ‘I will be like the dew to Israel …’ (5a).  We don’t lack rain in this country (although the weather has been spectacular ever since we have been put in lockdown).  But imagine leaving in the ancient near east where it might have gone months without rain.  Then the promise of dew has real meaning.  You may feel spiritually dry, but God wants to refresh your soul.  He wants us to know his presence.  He wants us to feel his love.  There can be all sorts of reasons why we find it hard to feel God’s love, but don’t give up seeking to pursue intimacy with him.

‘People will dwell again in his shade, they will flourish like the grain, they will blossom like the vine—Israel’s fame will be like the wine of Lebanon’ (7).  Not only are those who live a lifestyle of repentance blessed, they are a blessing to others.  It is as if people will think about them and remember the taste of the gorgeous Lebanese wine.  Our church community of repenting people can be an inspiration to those around us.  Repenting people know that they have nothing to be proud of and so they are humble.  Repenting people delight in God’s love, and that love flows from them to those around them.  Repenting people know that God does not treat us as our sins deserve but according to his loving-kindness, and so they are kind and gracious.  Repenting people hear God call to be kind and so they are gentle.  Repenting people know that the world does not revolve around them and so they don’t have to get their way.

I have been reading a wonderful book called ‘Captive in Iran.’  It is about two women that were held in the Evin Prison in Tehran.  Their trust in God and love for their fellow prisoners made them a blessing to their fellow inmates.  Some may simply hate us for our faith, but may they never hate us because we are difficult.  May our desire to be like Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit, cause many to remember us fondly.

  

Conclusion

So, how are you going to respond to the message of Hosea?

‘Who is wise?  Let them realise these things.  Who is discerning?  Let them understand.  The ways of the LORD are right; the righteous walk in them, but the rebellious stumble in them’ (9).

Remember that repentance is a gift.  If you have a desire to know God, then that is evidence of the Holy Spirit working within you.  Do not resist the drawings of the Spirit.  You might tell me that your love for God is weak but desiring to love God is a form of love for God.  You might have learned the hard way that life without Jesus does not work.

Maybe your faith feels dry.  That maybe because we easily forget to marvel at the fact, we are simply wicked people who have been cleansed, loved and adored by the Holy God of the universe.  Don’t lose the wonder.  There may be innocent reasons why you find it hard to feel loved by God, don’t stop pursuing intimacy with him.

You may have stumbled.  Don’t worry it is not too late.  Return to the Lord.  Take words with you.  He will never despise a humble and contrite heart.  That is a promise!  

Hosea 11:12-12:6 'Grasping or wrestling'

Hosea 11:12-12:6 – Are you grasping or are you wrestling?

I wonder how things are going for you.  The truth is that although we are all going through the same event, lockdown, our experiences of this event radically differ.  For some this is a period of quality time with your family, for others you feel isolated and alone.  Some of you are frontline workers who are daily exposed to risk, for others the virus is something we only encounter when we watch the news.  Some are busy with work, and others have extra time on their hands. 

Whatever your lockdown experience, this is a time when you can grow.  I mentioned last week that God does not willingly bring affliction on people (Lamentation 3:33).  He has gracious purposes for this moment.  He may be calling you to cast your anxieties on him and realise that he cares for you.  He may have changed your routine and calls you to make a greater priority of prayer.  He wants to bless us, whatever our lockdown experience, but we will not be blessed if we simply sit back and are passive.

In chapters 11-13 of Hosea, God gives Israel some lessons from the lives of three of their forefathers—Jacob, Moses and Solomon.  We are going to look at the lessons from drawn from Jacob.

1.      Jacob is a great example of grace.

The name Jacob means ‘he grasps.’  He grasped right from his birth.  Jacob was a twin.  But as they were being born, Jacob was grasping at the heal of his brother, Esau.    

Jacob was a deceiver.  When their father, Isaac, was an old man, and had gone blind, Jacob pretended to be Esau in order to grasp the blessing that their father wanted to give to Esau, as the elder of the twins.  Obviously, Esau was furious, and Jacob had to go on the run.

One night, while he was on the run from Esau, Jacob begged God for help.  God graciously listened to him and spoke to him in a dream.  God showed him a ladder going up to heaven.  In John’s gospel Jesus picks up on this picture and teaches that he is the ladder to heaven.

Jacob called the place where he had that dream Bethel, meaning ‘house of God’.  There God reaffirmed promises that he had given to Jacob’s grandfather, Abraham.  The line of blessing that would ultimately lead to Jesus would flow through Jacob.  God graciously tells Jacob, ‘I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go …’ (Genesis 28:15).

Are you finding lockdown hard?  Never forget that Jesus is with you.  He promised the disciples that he would be with us to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20).  You may be lonely, but you are never alone.  You may be worried, but you are invited to cast your anxieties on the one who cares for you.

Why would God show such kindness to a grasping deceiver like Jacob?  Surely, he knows that Jacob is only turning to him because he is desperate.  It is called grace.  God does not treat us as our sins deserve but according to his unfailing kindness (Psalm 103:10).  It may have taken a lockdown to remind you of your need for God, but Jesus never turns away anyone who comes to him (John 6:37).

2.    Jacob is an example of the power to change

Jacob would be later named Israel.  Through the prophet Hosea, God is addressing Jacob’s descendants that are called by that name.  He calls Israel to change.  They have been like the grasping deceiver Jacob.  ‘Ephraim [another name for Israel] has surrounded me with lies, Israel with deceit … He makes a treaty with Assyria and sends olive oil to Egypt’ (11:12-12:1).

Israel had made promises to God, but they broke those promises.  They constantly disobeyed God in their worship of idols and their dishonesty in business dealings.  Then when God put them under pressure, so that they would come back to him, they turned instead to the superpowers of their day, the Assyrians and Egyptians. 

We are so foolish.  God lovingly calls us to himself, but we are slow to come.  We feel empty, so we fill our lives with noise rather than prayer.  We feel guilty, but we don’t trust his sure promises of forgiveness.  We are under pressure, but we refuse to cast all our anxieties.  We feel defeated by sin, but we don’t lean on him for the power to change.

God calls Israel to change.  ‘But you must return to your God; maintain love and justice and wait for your God always’ (6).  But I am slow to change.  It feels like we give in to the same temptations again and again.  Our temper, our lusts, our lack of self-control, our people-pleasing, our greed and our self-obsession seem so slow to change.  Take heart.  Progress may be slow, but God is faithful.  Verse six more literally reads, ‘so you, by the help of your God, return’ (ESV).  In the face of temptation and sin don’t proudly depend on your own strength saying, ‘I am better than this’, for we are helpless on our own.  Lean heavily on the God who gives us the power to change.

Jacob was changes from a grasping deceiver to a man who wrestled blessing from God.

3.    Jacob wrestled blessing from God

Hosea points to another incident from years later in the life of Jacob.  The night before he was due to meet his brother Esau, he struggled with the angel and overcame him, he wept and begged for his favour’ (4).  God came to him in the form of an angel.  They wrestle all night until, just as dawning is breaking, Jacob overcomes God and wrestles a blessing from God.  This is the moment that God gives Jacob the name ‘Israel’, which means ‘fights with God’.

This is such a strange story.  How could a man overcome God?  How could the creator be overcome by a creature?  Only when God deliberately makes himself weak!  God let himself be defeated.  That is the story of the cross.  Jesus allows us to crucify him, in order to rescue us from our guilt.  God let’s himself be defeated so that he can bless us.

The fact that God is the one who enables us to change does not mean that we become passive.  The picture of wrestling for blessing captures the idea of urgency and passion. 

When feelings of guilt overcome us, we shouldn’t simply wallow in self-pity, we wrestle to accept the promises of God.  We actively preach the gospel of grace to ourselves until we begin to rejoice in God’s acceptance and forgiveness.

When anxiety overcomes us, we don’t simply give in to fear, we wrestle to daily cast our anxieties upon God until we begin to feel the assurance that God is with us and watches over us.

When our love for God is fading, we don’t simply live with coldness of heart, we turn to his Word and remember his blessings. 

We may feel lonely, but we wrestle to keep remembering that we are never alone.

We fall into temptation, but we don’t resign ourselves to defeat.  We plead with God to give us the desire and strength to be different.

We wrestle with God because God has promised to bless us.  This is a wrestling match that he wants us to win.

Conclusion:  Are you grasping or are you wrestling?

‘In the womb he grasped his brother’s heal, as a man he struggled with God’ (3).

Jacob sought his own way and grasped, but when he sought God’s blessing he wrestled.

Maybe you have no intention of growing in your relationship with God at this time, all you want is for things to go back to normal.  Your grasping for things to be the way you want them to be.  If that is you then you are missing out on God’s blessing.

But maybe you are wrestling with God at this time.  You feel trapped in the house with too many people, and that you need to grow in the fruit of patience and self-control.  You feel lonely, but you are reminding yourself that you are never alone.  You are casting your anxieties on the one who cares for you.  You are trusting the one who will never leave you.  You will only grow in intimacy with God if you are willing to spend time with him—so whether you have had to slow down or you are rushed off your feet, make prayer your priority.

God is gracious—he does not bless us because we deserve it, but because of his unfailing kindness.  God is gracious—he gives us the power to change.  God is gracious—he wants to bless us as we wrestle with him.  Let your lockdown experience be a time of growth!

Hosea 10 'How will you cope when we go back to normal?'

In some ways this morning’s reading might feel a little bit irrelevant to our current situation.  At the moment our economy is collapsing.  Some of you have lost your jobs.  Many of you will have taken a drop in income.  And now I am about to warn you of the dangers of prosperity.

But globally we are prosperous.  We see that every time we turn on our news and see pictures from the two-thirds world.  Also, at a time when of recession and growing unemployment we can pin all our hopes on economic recovery.  As we have seen in recent decades, the economic prosperity of a nation can easily result in spiritual decline.

In the Old Testament God had a special relationship with the nation of Israel.  He promised to give them the land of Canaan.  He rescued then from slavery in Egypt, and just before they entered that place, he warned them of the dangers of prosperity:

‘So you shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him.  For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land … you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the LORD your God for the good land he has given you … take care lest you forget the LORD your God … lest when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them … that your heart be lifted up and you forget the LORD your God, who brought you up out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery’ (Deut. 8:6-14).

I don’t know how long lockdown will last.  I don’t know how life will be forever changed.  But I do believe that God is doing something at this time.  People are realising that life is short and that we will all die one day.  As our routines are changed some are getting more time to think about and invest in their faith.  But will these things last when we return to prosperity?  Will we forget the lessons we have learned when the pandemic has passed?  There is a danger that when we return to prosperity, we might forget what God has done.

I have three questions that I hope help us when life returns to its prosperous normal:

Who will you thank when the pandemic is over?  Will you let this pandemic point you to God?  Will you change in a way that can survive prosperity? 

Who will you thank when the pandemic is over?

The prophet Hosea spoke at a period of expansion and prosperity.  But instead of thanking God for their prosperity, the people used their wealth to build alters to other gods.  God says of them, ‘The more his fruit increased, the more alters he built’ (1a).  The gods that they worshipped were fertility gods.  They credited these false gods with their prosperity.  Who will we thank for bringing us out of this pandemic and returning us to prosperity?

Will we praise the frontline workers, the good management of the government and the scientists who come up with a vaccine?  These have all done a good job and we should be grateful.  But don’t forget to praise the God who directs the hearts of leaders, who gives strength and compassion to frontline workers and who gives the scientists their abilities and who chooses not to frustrate their efforts.  Ultimately it will be God who will bring us through this pandemic and deliver us out the other side.  He is the one that we should be leaning on during the crisis and the first one that we thank when the crisis is over.

Will you let this pandemic point you to God?

In the book of Lamentations, Jeremiah declares that God ‘does not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men’ (Lamentations 3:33).  He has a gracious purpose for this pandemic.  What is it?  He is waking people up to their mortality.  At times like these we are being made aware that this life is passing and one day we will face our maker.  The danger is that when the pandemic is over people will forget him again.

Two centuries before Hosea, the nation of Israel had been divided in two.  There was now a northern and a southern kingdom.  They were bitter rivals.  The northern kingdom was called Israel (whose capital was Samaria) and the southern kingdom was called Judah (whose capital was Jerusalem).  The temple was in Jerusalem in Judah, but Israel’s king did not want his people making pilgrimages to the capital of the rival southern kingdom and run the risk of being influenced by them, so he set up two golden calves—one in Dan and the other in Bethel.  While Bethel means ‘house of God’, Hosea calls it ‘Beth-aven’, which means house of wickedness.  Because of their wickedness, judgement was coming.  Hosea warns of a time when the Assyrians will come and take their golden calf away (6).  

Hosea describes that day saying, ‘they shall say to the mountains, “cover us,” and to the hills “fall on us”’ (8).  Jesus quotes these words, in Luke’s gospel, when he anticipates how the Romans would destroy Jerusalem in A.D. 67.  Similarly, in the book of Revelation, we have another echo of these words as John is pointed to the final judgement. 

These crises pointed ahead to the day when we will all have to stand before God.  Similarly, this pandemic reminds people that we are mortal, and that we should be prepared to meet our God (Amos 4:12).  Jesus commented on two crises in his day and said, ‘unless you repent, you will all likewise perish’ (Luke 13:3).  He warned a man that he healed, saying, ‘repent or something worse will happen to you’ (John 5:14).  There is something worse than dying in a pandemic, and that is dying without Jesus! 

The danger of prosperity is that as things return to normal, people will forget God again.  They might be like the seed that falls on the shallow soil that lasts only for a while.  So, we should be hard at prayer, asking God that he would do a real work in people’s hearts so that when this is all over, they would still be loving God. 

3.  Will you see now as the time to change?

It is not just those who do not yet know Jesus that are been awoken in the pandemic, Christians are drawing closer to Jesus at this time.  Maybe having to slow down and change your routine has caused you spend more time with God.  Maybe the anxiety that this creates is causing to cast your anxieties on him.  The danger of returning to prosperity is that you may get caught up in the business of life again.

There is hard work to be done at this time.  It will take hard work if it is to bring lasting change.  ‘Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up the fallow ground, for it is time to seek the LORD, that he may come and rain righteousness on you’ (12).

Many of us have spent more time in the garden with this good weather.  We have taken up a hedge by our driveway.  It is hard work breaking up the soil and getting the roots out.  But imagine how hard the soil was in the near east.  Imagine trying to plant anything on a hard path that is dry and constantly being walked over.  Israel was being called to break up the hard and fallow ground.  They are being called to break their hard hearts and seek the mercy of God.

Have we been putting off dealing with a habitual sin?  Are we holding a grudge against someone?  Are we resisting doing something that God is challenging us to do?  Are we becoming harsh and critical as we deal with the frustrations of this time?  Fleeing from sin is not easy.  Cultivating holy habits is hard work.  Do we realise that today is the day to act?  Stop putting it off!  It can feel like death to say ‘no’ to temptation.

But look at the reward.  God will rain righteousness on you.  We know that we are simply sinful people, who can do nothing of ourselves to please a holy God, whose very efforts at righteousness are stained with pride and self-congratulation.  But in Christ we are cleansed, and he gives us the power to change.  He works within us to will and act according to his good pleasure as we work out our salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12-13).  As we strive to be holy, he can change us, and, as we see him changing us, we grow in the glad realisation that we belong to him.

Chrishantha was a young drug addict and dealer who became a Christian in Sri Lanka.  Changes to his rough character can slowly.  He got involved in helping at a rehab centre, but then some young people in the village severely assaulted him.  When his mentor rang to see how he was he said, ‘Now, I know I am a Christian.’  He explained that after he was assaulted, several of the students at the centre wanted to hit back, and that they could have gained the upper hand.  But Chrishantha stopped them.  Then as he walked back to the centre, he suddenly felt immense joy.  He realised that his not wanting to hit back was completely uncharacteristic of his old self.  He realised that he no longer had the desire to take revenge.  God was changing him.

Conclusion

An article in last week’s Sunday Times said that during this pandemic there has been an increase in the sale of Bibles.  People are thinking about their mortality.  But will they forget him when prosperity returns? 

We will forget what we have learned when prosperity returns?  Will we simply go back to our old ways of busyness or will we have cultivated our faith in a way that can survive prosperity?  So that when all this is over, we will thank God, not just that he has brought us through this crisis, but that he has used it for good!

Hosea 9: Homeward bound

Hosea 9: Homeward bound

What is your ideal home like?  I am not talking of the building but the atmosphere.  A place where you feel secure.  A place where you know that you are loved.   Many homes are ruined by conflict, but not your ideal home.  Your ideal home place where you can rest your head at peace.  It is a place of safety.

In the beginning God gave humankind the most amazing home, Eden.  Adam and Eve were at peace with God and each other.  But they fell for the devil’s lie and thought that they would be freer without God.  That is a lie we believe every time we sin.  Yet this supposed freedom simply leads to pain, conflict and regret.

Adam and Eve were exiled from the garden of Eden and humanity has never been the same since.  When Cain murdered his brother Abel, God says ‘you will be a restless wanderer on earth’ (Genesis 4:12).  Isn’t that how we feel at times?  We lack the sense of security that can only be found in the best of homes.

Yet God was so kind.  He made a promise to Abram, whose people were idol worshippers.  He shows Abraham Canaan and says, ‘to your offspring I will give this land’ (Genesis 12;7).  He is going to rescue a people and give them a new home.  They will inhabit a land flowing with milk and honey.

This journey to the promised land is a long one.  First, Abraham’s people end up in slavery in Egypt.  There they cry out to God, who remembers his promise.  In the Exodus, God leads them out of slavery and Egypt.  God brings them to Mount Sinai where they become a nation.  A generation later, Joshua leads them into Canaan—God fights for the people and they drive out most of its inhabitants.

However, just before they had entered the promised land, God had spoken to the people through Moses.  His words are recorded in the book of Deuteronomy.  Deuteronomy promised blessings if they obeyed and curses if they disobeyed.  If they rebelled against him, he would reverse the Exodus and send them into exile.  At the end of chapter eight Hosea warns, ‘now he will remember their iniquity and punish their sins; they shall return to Egypt’ (8:13).   

God warns us because he loves us (9:1-5)

It is harvest time.  It’s been a good harvest.  The people are rejoicing.  But Hosea comes along and tries to spoil the party.  Do not rejoice, Israel, do not be jubilant like the other nations.  For you have been unfaithful [literally ‘you have played the whore’] to you own God; you love the wages of a prostitute at every threshing floor (9:1). 

Israel had cheated on God as they went off and worshipped the Canaanite fertility god called Baal.  Baal was a god of sex and stuff.  In Baalism, you slept with temple prostitutes to encourage him to make the land fertile.  Baalism is alive and well today, as we forget God and simply lust and shop.

Hosea warns the people that their future harvests are going to look very different from this one.  Threshing floors and winepresses will not feed the people; the new wine will fail them.  They will not remain in the LORD’s land; Ephraim [another name for Israel], will return to Egypt, and eat unclean food in Assyria (2-3).

The curse of Deuteronomy is about to be enacted.  The Exodus is about to be reversed.  The Assyrians are going to conquer them, and it will be as if they are going to back to Egypt and into slavery.  Their harvest festivals will them seem like funerals.

Who wants to hear from a prophet of doom like Hosea in the middle of their harvest celebrations?  When life is good, people do not want to be told that they are eternally lost without Jesus.  When life is full, people do not want to hear that our existence is meaningless without Jesus.  When life is fun, people do not want to be told that there is a terrible day of judgement to be faced in the future. 

No one loved people more than Jesus did.  Yet Jesus spoke about the reality of hell more than we do.  The reason he did so was because he did not want people to go there.  ‘He knows that if we reject God throughout our lives then ultimately God will be right to reject us.  He knows that our sin, if left undealt with, will take us to a place of unimaginable and unending suffering.  He warns us, because he loves us’ (Rico Tice).  Somehow, we have to find the opportunity to warn our friends and family of the danger they are in.  It may not be a welcome message!

God warns us so that we can repent (7-9)

The prophet is a fool; the man of the spirit is mad (7b).  It is not entirely clear whether these are the people’s words about Hosea, are these are Hosea’s words about the false prophets that Israel listen to.  Either way one thing is clear: they pay no attention to what Hosea is saying.

Tragically the people are in great danger.  A watchman was meant to keep a lookout for invading forces, but they will not listen to those who warn them of judgement.  The enemy that is coming is God himself.  It is God who will punish their sins (9b).  But what a strange enemy he is!  He refuses to maunch a surprise attack.  He continually warns of his coming, because he wants us to turn to him, repent and find mercy.

We pray that God would bring people to their senses (10-17)

These people had once been God’s delight.  Like grapes in the wilderness, I found Israel (10a).  But soon everything had gone wrong.  At Baal Peor (10b, see Numbers 25) the king of Moab had sent Moabite women to seduce the men of Israel and involve them in the worship of Baal.  The men were only too glad to oblige, and the resulting judgement left twenty-four thousand Israelites dead.  What is going to happen now that Israel is again worshipping Baal?  Had they not realised that God takes our sin seriously?

Hosea tells them that there is going to be a dreadful judgement.  The glory of Ephraim [another word for Israel] is its children.  The shame of Israel is their worship of Baal.  Now there will be no more glory.  There will be no more birth, pregnancy or conception (11).  Those who are born will be slaughtered (12-13).  Even if they bear children, I will slay their offspring (16).  This is not the kind of God that people feel comfortable with today.  Our God is love is also a God of judgement. 

Look at Hosea’s prayer in verse fourteen: Give them, Lord—what you will give them?  Hosea is asking God to send them adversity.  Why would he do that?  He asks for adversity to come upon them because this might cause them to repent.  When our loved ones don’t know God, we pray for them.  We want life to go well with them, but more importantly we want them to know Him.  We pray, ‘Lord, do whatever it takes to bring them to their senses, even if that means that they have to end up in the pigsty.’  It would be better for them to suffer for a while now if it turns them to God, than suffer for an eternity later!

Because of their wickedness in Gilgal, I hated them there … (15).  This idea of hate must be seen in light of God’s unrelenting love displayed in this book.  It is a Hebrew way of saying that he was rejecting them in order that they might seek him.  Gilgal was where the people had made Saul their king.  Their motivation for wanting such a king was to be like the other nations.  They were rejecting God as their king (1 Samuel 8:7).

Gilgal reminds us of the human story.  People simply refuse to live under God’s loving rule.  Ever since Adam and Eve we have sought our freedom elsewhere.  The consequence is that we live restless and unfulfilled lives in the present and then we spend an eternity exiled from his heaven.

God had found Israel in the wilderness.  There he had loved them, prospered them and given them the land.  But they had not loved Him.  Their lack of love was shown in their repeated disobedience.  Now, they are going to back into the wilderness.  My God will reject them because they have not obeyed him; they will be wanderers among the nations (17).

Conclusion—this is not the end of the story!

Gosh!  This is not an easy chapter of the Bible.  Perhaps you think that you would have been better off staying in bed this morning.  But don’t despair.  The good news is that this chapter does not mark the end of the story.  Jesus promises us a better future.

Jesus was the one person who worshipped God as he should.  Jesus is the one person who was faithful.  Jesus is the one person who deserves the blessings promised in Deuteronomy.  But instead he took upon himself its curses.  The apostle Paul explains, ‘Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written cursed is anyone who is hanged on a tree’ (Galatians 3:13).  The curses of Deuteronomy had warned of exile, and Christ was exiled from the love of the Father on that cross where he cried out, ‘my God, my God why have you forsaken me?’ (Mark 15:24).  The dreadful judgements that we read of in this chapter actually find their fulfilment in the punishment of Jesus on the cross.  As he takes our sin and gives us his goodness, we become worthy to live in the promised land.

So, gather up your best thoughts of home.  This is the future that awaits you if you are in Christ.  You may suffer in this life, but you are homeward bound.  The apostle Peter writes, ‘In keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness’ (2 Peter 3:1).  One day our sense of displacement will be over.  Even now, Jesus offers us rest for our weary souls.   

One final thought, if we are heading to a better home, is it not foolish to spend all our dreams on this brief life?  Go to your city dump and you will see the remains of people’s dreams.  All those products that people looked to for fulfilment that are now considered rubbish.  Today’s purchases will soon end up in tomorrow’s bins.  So why do we think that they can satisfy?  Today’s successes will soon be forgotten.  Death will separate us from every satisfaction, other than those that we have found in Christ.  He will be the greatest joy of our eternal home!

Hosea 8: How do you know you love God?

He called himself ‘my own kind of Christian’.  John loved to go to church.  He really enjoyed the music.  His best friends were Christians.  He took great comfort from praying.  He even had amazing encounters with God where he felt that God had given him words to share with other people. 

But there was another side to John’s life.  He did things that he wouldn’t have wanted his pastor to know about.  In fact, if you saw the way he behaved at the weekend you would never have known that he loved Jesus.  One thing he hated was when anyone would challenge his behaviour.  ‘Mind your own business’.  ‘It’s my life to live my way’.  ‘Don’t judge me’.

Then he died.  And Jesus judged him.  He said to Jesus, ‘Lord, Lord.’  Jesus said to him, ‘I never knew you.  Away from me you evildoer’.  He hadn’t taken seriously the warning of Jesus that ‘not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven”’ (Matthew 7:21).

At the core of Christianity is love for God

What is wrong with the people that people that Hosea is addressing?  Their fundamental problem is that they don’t love God!

‘Put the trumpet to your lips …’ (8:1a).  God tells Hosea to sound the trumpet to warn the people of Israel that judgement is coming.  An eagle is hanging over them waiting to swoop on its prey.  In their case this eagle is the Assyrian army which God is going to let invade their nation and carry people into exile.  They have sown to the wind and they are about to reap the whirlwind (13).  They gave their hearts to the Baals, a fertility cult that promised a good harvest, but they are about to reap a harvest of judgment.  The truth was that they did not love God (4:1b). 

These people may have been surprised that God was not pleased with them.  They think that they know God.  ‘Israel cries out to me, “Our God, we acknowledge you …”’ (2a).  ‘They offer sacrifices as gifts to me’ but ‘the LORD is not pleased with them’ (13).  They think that they are in relationship with God, but they aren’t. 

They would have enjoyed gathering for praise services, as long as they didn’t think about what they are singing.  They are not being transformed by God.

 If you love God, you will listen to his word

Because they don’t love God they don’t listen to his word.  ‘I wrote to them many things of my law, but they regarded them as something foreign’ (12).  God has spoken to us, he has shown us how to live, he has diagnosed our problem and he has pointed us to the solution, but people don’t listen.  They think it is something foreign—something not for them.

There is a danger for all of us that we begin to forget God and ignore his word.   How do you respond to the commands of Scripture?  Jesus says, ‘be merciful’ (Luke 6:36), are you?  Is your home a fortress to keep people away, or do you show hospitality to one another without grumbling (1 Peter 4:9)?  Do you know that God told Israel to love immigrants (Deuteronomy 10:19), or are you borderline racist?  Are you seeking to love your enemies (Matthew 5:44)?  Are you making efforts to flee sexual immorality (1 Corinthians 6:18)?  Do you contribute to the needs of God’s people (Romans 12:13)?  Do you ask God to help you forgive as you have been forgiven?  Are you pursuing righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfast and gentleness (1 Timothy 6:11)?

If you take God’s word seriously you will see that we are not as we ought to be.  Indeed, the apostle John tells us that if we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us (1 John 1:8).  But those who have been born again grieve when they do evil and make it their ambition to grow more like Jesus.  The Christian is someone who is afraid to sin because he does not want to break the heart of his heavenly Father.  The Christian is someone who longs to be holy because he loves to bring the Father pleasure.  Is that you?  What measures are you taking to be holy?

Their refusal to love God and listen to his word is shown that they sought leaders that God had not given them (4).  At this stage in their history there was a serios of bloody coups.  They didn’t want God to be their king.  That’s why they ignored his word.

Those who love God seek to put him above all else.

The person who loves God listens to his word and they also seek to put God before everything else.  With their silver and gold, they made idols for their own destruction (4).  An idol is anything that is more important to you than God.  An idol is anything you serve before you serve God.  Finish this sentence,   We might not be tempted to worship before a golden calf, but we may worship, money, popularity or success.  Notice that these idols bring about destruction.  Put other things, even good things, before God and it will hurt you.  Put your family before God, and you will demand of them what they can’t deliver.  You will resent you children when they can’t perform.  Put love before God, and you will hurt the one you love, you demand that they make you feel whole, and you will drive them away.

However, God is not like an idol.  Putting him first will bless and enrich your life.  If you want to love people better, love him more than them.  His love will make you more loving.  If you want your spouse to love you more, tell them to love God more than you.

Conclusion

So, you come to me and tell me that you are own type of Christian.  You do things your way.  You make up your own rules.  You live life as you please.  You might claim that I am being judgemental, but I have to warn you.  If you refuse to listen to God’s word, don’t want to change and make Jesus in your own image then it may mean that you don’t know God.

But if you come to me and tell me that you are frustrated that you are not what you want to be, I may be encouraged.  The Christian struggles with sin, but they want to become more like Jesus.  The Christian knows the pull of idols, but they want to put Jesus first.  The Christian knows that their love for Jesus is weak, and they want to love Jesus more.

So, if the refusal to listen to God’s word and serve Christ as our king is a love problem, then how do we grow in love for God?  Look to the cross.  This is how we know what love is: Christ died for us (1 John 3:16).  Pray that the Holy Spirit would magnify this love (Ephesians 3:16-21).  They we will find that we want to obey God’s commands and obey the one who loves us without measure.     

Relationship not religion (Hosea 4-7)

There is a sense in which Christianity is not about religion but relationship.  God isn’t interested in you simply doing a load of rituals to please him.  He loves you and wants a heart relationship with you.  The fact that you have fallen in love with him will show itself in your attitude towards other people.  It will also show itself in you attitude towards what is really important in life.

In these chapters (Hosea 4-7), we are going to see God calling the people of Israel to come back to him and they are going to show us how not to return to God.

God wants to change our relationships with people (4).

So far in the book of Hosea we have had a scene from the maternity room (as Gomer gives birth to her children) and the marketplace (as Hosea buys back Gomer from slavery).  Now it feels like we are in a courtroom.  God is laying out charges against the people of Israel. 

While these charges are against Israel, they are relevant to each of you.  ‘As at Adam [like human beings], they have broken my covenant, they were unfaithful to me there’ (6:7).  Their unfaithfulness reflects the unfaithfulness of the human heart.  Their sins are our sins!  These charges speak to our guilt!

The primary problem is that they are not faithful to God, they do not love him, and they will not acknowledge him (4:1).  This broken relationship with God affects their relationship with each other.  They go from bloodshed to bloodshed (4:2).  Remember what happened after Adam and Eve rebelled against God, the next chapter shows Cain murdering his brother Abel.

How are things in your family?  When there is conflict, it is because at least one person is not acting the way that God calls them to act.  God calls us to forgive as we have been forgiven, but we huff with each other.  God calls us to consider each other as more important than ourselves, but we insist of getting our way.  If we are leaning on the Holy Spirit, we will produce his fruit of gentleness and self-control, but we shout at each other.  At the root of so much of our conflict is a simple unwillingness to follow the example of Jesus.  In as much as it depends on you live at peace with each other.  Daily repentance changes our relationship with people.

Our conflicts also reveal our idols.  The people of Israel were idolaters.  ‘They ask a piece of wood for advice.  They think that their walking stick can tell them the future’ (4:12).  Surly we won’t be so stupid.  But the world is an idol factory.  As idol is anything that we put before obedience to God.  We may not build idols of pieces of wood, but we serve our ambitions.  We sacrifice for people’s approval.  We will try to move heaven and earth for a peaceful life.  How would you finish this sentence, ‘my life would be perfect if …?’  If the answer doesn’t focus on God then you are in danger of living for an idol, and you will rage when people get in the way of fulfilling that dream.  We are simply not content with God.  If your idol is to look like the perfect parent, you will rage when your children misbehave or underperform.  If your idol is a peaceful night in, you will resent you children when they need to disturb you.  If your idol is to believe that you are better than others, then you will always defend yourself against criticism. 

God wants us to seek intimacy with him (5)

Having brought his charge against the people, in chapter four, God now issues his verdict in chapter five.  God is going to withdraw his presence from them.  This is an act of discipline (5:2).  It is important that we realise that this is discipline for God disciplines those he loves (Proverbs 3:11-12, Hebrews 12:6).  He is withdrawing from them in order that they will seek him.

Some of you find it hard to feel God’s presence.  It could simply be your temperament or personal history.  You find it hard to believe that anyone loves you.  It could also be that you are weary and emotionally numb.  God calls you to rest.  But some of you feel emotionally distance from God because you are not walking a life of daily repentance.  It is not surprising that you don’t feel close to him when you don’t take time to be alone with him.  You don’t feel close to him because you are not living in obedience to him.  He is calling you home.  He wants to be intimate with you.

Sadly, when Israel turns back to God, they show us how not to repent.  They come with ‘their flocks and herds, they shall go seek the Lord, but they will not find him; he has withdrawn from them’ (5:6).  Why is God not embracing them as they come back to him?  God does not embrace them because they are not actually coming home to him.  They are offering sacrifices, but their hearts are not in it.  They are going through the motions of religion, but they are not falling in love with the God who loves them.  We do this when we look at our sin and simply resolve to do better.  ‘I am better than this,’ we say in our pride, ‘I will prove myself to you.  I will show you that I am a good person.’  That is not humbly depending on God!  Repentance says, ‘have mercy of me the sinner.  Create in me a clean heart, O Lord.’  Repentance desires intimacy with God.

On Tuesday we had Amin for tea, as well as our friend Dave.  Dave was fascinated how Amin had changed from being a Muslim to being Christian.  He asked Amin, ‘what is the difference between what you used to believe and what you now believe?’  The answer is that in Islam, like every other religion, you simply try to make your self right with God through your various good works and sacrifices.  That is not much of a relationship.  In Christianity God accepts you because Jesus has taken your guilt on the cross and you respond to his love by letting that love transform you.  Repentance is not earning anything from God, it is simply a love response to his love.

God changes us through resurrection power (6-7)

There is a little bit of debate about who is speaking at the beginning of chapter six.  It may be that Hosea is interrupting the court proceedings.  He urges Israel: ‘Come, let us return to the LORD, for he has torn us; that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up’ (6:1).  God disciplined them so that they would return to him.  It may be that he is doing that to you.  He may be showing you how fickle this world is, as people let you down.  He may be reminding you how brief this life is, as you travel through a time of sickness.  He works through our trials to get our attention.  He seeks to lessen our attachment to the things of this world, in order that we might depend on him.

What do you make of the words ‘after two days he will revive us, on the third day he will raise us up that we may be before him’ (6:2)?  Many Christians have seen this as a prophecy of the death and resurrection of Christ here.  I think that is reasonable.  Christ is pictured as in the New Testament as being the true Israel.  He is the representative of God’s people.  He was struck down for our sin and guilt.  He was raised to life on the third day.  The very power that raised Jesus from the dead can raise us in spiritual life.  The very power that raised Jesus from the dead is the power that can transform our lives.

How should we respond to this call to repentance?  ‘Let us press on to know the LORD’ (6:3).  ‘Do not wait for God to zap you … Pursue God.  Put yourself in a place where you are exposed to His Word.  Meet with His people.  Read the Bible.  Plead with Him.  Acknowledge Him as Lord.  Submit your life to Him.  Put your faith in Him.  And with Hosea, I promise you: He will come to you – as sure as the dawn.  And when He comes, you will burst into life’ (Ash).

Sadly, again Israel shows us how not to repent.  They come back, but their love is like the morning mist (6:4).  They are like the seed that was sown on the shallow soil, that lasts for a while but has no roots.  You resolve to start coming to church regularly on Sunday mornings, but your heart really isn’t in having a life transforming relationship with God.  You haven’t really fallen in love with Jesus.  Start meditating on the cross, and let his love transform you!  Israel’s return is only skin deep, it doesn’t affect how they view people.  When Jesus was criticised by the self-righteous of his day, he quoted Hosea, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice’ (6:6).  If your religion is not making you less judgemental, more merciful and kinder to others then you are not really connecting with the God of love!  ‘Ephraim [the largest tribe in Israel, and another name for Israel] is like a dove, easily deceived and senseless, now calling to Egypt, now turning to Assyria’ (7:11).  Like a silly dove flitting about never settling never committing to God.  When the pressure was on, they turned to their enemies for help.  They turned to Assyria, the very nation who would shortly wipe them off the map.  They turned to Egypt, the very nation who had enslaved them.  How stupid to look to the wrong places to find peace!  Yet we too look for peace in things that will enslave us.  We crave intimacy, but rather than turn to God, we open the computer and drool over a naked woman.  We seek satisfaction, but we do so through our latest purchase.  We feel empty, so we numb that pain with a few glasses of wine before bed.  All the time God has been calling us to himself!

Conclusion

Do you want to change?  I want to change.  I would suggest that if you are happy with yourself the way you are then you may not have understood what the Christian gospel offers you.  On one hand we rest content in the love of God, on the other hand we restlessly pursue holiness.  The beauty of the Christian message is in the fact that God gives you the power to change.  You can’t change your heart, but he enables true repentance.  His Holy Spirit can melt our temper, make us kinder, increase our gentleness, give us courage, purify our heart and give us peace.  He offers to make us more like the beautiful person of Jesus.  He shows us his love in order that we might love him and each other.  He makes us peacemakers that we might be called sons and daughters of God.  May God produce in us fruit in keeping with repentance!