Sermon Transcript April 2, 2017

Sermon Transcript April 2, 2017 Hosea: God s Persistent Love God Have Mercy Hosea 9:10-10:15 This message from the Bible was addressed originally to the people of Wethersfield Evangelical Free Church on April 2, 2017 at 511 Maple Street, Wethersfield, CT, 06109 by Dr. Scott W. Solberg. This is a transcription that bears the strength and weaknesses of oral delivery. It is not meant to be a polished essay. An audio copy of the sermon on CD is available by request at (860) 563-8286. An audio version of this sermon may also be found on the church website at www.wethefc.com. 1

Sermon Text Hosea 9:10-10:15 Hosea 9:10 Like grapes in the wilderness, I found Israel. Like the first fruit on the fig tree in its first season, I saw your fathers. But they came to Baal-peor and consecrated themselves to the thing of shame, and became detestable like the thing they loved. 11 Ephraim's glory shall fly away like a bird no birth, no pregnancy, no conception! 12 Even if they bring up children, I will bereave them till none is left. Woe to them when I depart from them! 13 Ephraim, as I have seen, was like a young palm planted in a meadow; but Ephraim must lead his children out to slaughter, 14 Give them, O Lord what will you give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts. 15 Every evil of theirs is in Gilgal; there I began to hate them. Because of the wickedness of their deeds I will drive them out of my house. I will love them no more; all their princes are rebels. 16 Ephraim is stricken; their root is dried up; they shall bear no fruit. Even though they give birth, I will put their beloved children to death. 17 My God will reject them because they have not listened to him; they shall be wanderers among the nations. Hosea 10:1 Israel is a luxuriant vine that yields its fruit. The more his fruit increased, the more altars he built; as his country improved, he improved his pillars. 2 Their heart is false; now they must bear their guilt. The Lord will break down their altars and destroy their pillars. 3 For now they will say: We have no king, for we do not fear the Lord; and a king what could he do for us? 4 They utter mere words; with empty oaths they make covenants; so judgment springs up like poisonous weeds in the furrows of the field. 5 The inhabitants of Samaria tremble for the calf of Beth-aven. Its people mourn for it, and so do its idolatrous priests those who rejoiced over it and over its glory for it has departed from them. 6 The thing itself shall be carried to Assyria as tribute to the great king. Ephraim shall be put to shame, and Israel shall be ashamed of his idol. 7 Samaria's king shall perish like a twig on the face of the waters. 8 The high places of Aven, the sin of Israel, shall be destroyed. Thorn and thistle shall grow up on their altars, and they shall say to the mountains, Cover us, and to the hills, Fall on us. 9 From the days of Gibeah, you have sinned, O Israel; there they have continued. Shall not the war against the unjust overtake them in Gibeah? 10 When I please, I will discipline them, and nations shall be gathered against them when they are bound up for their double iniquity. 2

11 Ephraim was a trained calf that loved to thresh, and I spared her fair neck; but I will put Ephraim to the yoke; Judah must plow; Jacob must harrow for himself. 12 Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the Lord, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you. 13 You have plowed iniquity; you have reaped injustice; you have eaten the fruit of lies. Because you have trusted in your own way and in the multitude of your warriors, 14 therefore the tumult of war shall arise among your people, and all your fortresses shall be destroyed, as Shalman destroyed Beth-arbel on the day of battle; mothers were dashed in pieces with their children. 15 Thus it shall be done to you, O Bethel, because of your great evil. At dawn the king of Israel shall be utterly cut off. Introduction God have mercy. I can t think of any more fitting response to our passage this morning than this common cry of the sinner. God have mercy. I am talking to us this morning. Here we are in 2017 looking at this very ancient passage and right before our eyes we are reading a sobering account of God s judgment being poured out on his own people, the people of Israel. This is going to be another hard passage to look at, especially as we sit in a culture that has little room for a holy God who will as we will soon confess come to judge the quick and the dead. And yet, as we rehearse the sins of Israel this morning, we are only left to conclude that if God doesn t have mercy upon us, who here among us can possibly stand? At the same time, as we continue making our way through this Old Testament book, Hosea, we are not surprised by what we find this morning in Hosea 9-10. It has been our common discovery the last several weeks that this book is filled with hard things to hear. When we heard God say in Hosea 1 to the people of Israel, you are not my people, and I am not your God it seemed to me as if there was a collective audible gasp of disbelief from the congregation when you heard God say that to the people of Israel. It is as if you were saying, Can God really say that? When Dave was here and took us through Hosea 4-5, he said at the very outset that there is very little hope offered in this passage, though he found a sliver of hope for us to hold onto at the end of Hosea 5. This week, when Pastor Mike read through the passage we are looking at this morning, he turned to me and said, this is dismal. So here we are. Now before we look at this passage this morning, I want to let you know that we turn a 3

corner this week in Hosea. And it is just in the nick of time as we come to Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday. Next week we will be in Hosea 11 and we will hear of God s compassion for his people. In fact, the very first verse of Hosea 11 is quoted in Matthew 2 and it is applied to Jesus. Here Hosea says, When Israel was a child I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. And if nothing else, we will discover that what the nation of Israel could not do to bring God s blessing to this world, Jesus could do. Then on Easter Sunday we will be in Hosea 13-14 and this prophetic book ends with a great picture of God s persistent love. Again we find a verse in Hosea 13 that is quoted in the New Testament. Does this verse sound familiar to you? O Death, where are your plagues? O Sheol, where is your sting? This is the verse Paul quotes in the famous resurrection chapter, 1 Corinthians 15. After quoting this verse from Hosea 13:14, we hear Paul say with great triumph and hope in the resurrection of Jesus, But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. So hang in there with me this morning as we take one more difficult look at the sin of Israel and the judgment of God. I don t say that to suggest that it is not good for us to look at such things this morning. You can t know the hope God offers us in Jesus if you don t first know your absolute need for Jesus. You can t offer the cry, God have mercy if you are not first brought to the point where you know that if God doesn t have mercy on your soul, there is no hope. So it is good for us to look at these hard things this morning. In fact it is these things that will lead us right to the communion table this morning where we will find Jesus standing there ready to meet us with mercy and grace. Our text this morning starts in Hosea 9:10 and it goes through to the end of Hosea 10. This passage is divided into three sections. In each section, Hosea presents a word picture to describe the descent or the decline in Israel s relationship with God. There is a famous leadership book titled Good to Great. Well, Israel s title is the opposite. Good to Bad. There is a television show called Breaking Bad. That is Israel s story in these three word pictures. They went from being fruit found in the middle of the wilderness to no fruit at all. They went from being a luxuriant vine that yields its fruit to being overgrown with thorns and thistles. They went from being a trained calf or heifer to plowing iniquity. With each picture, we learn something about the sin that resided in the heart of Israel and how God responds with judgment. As we get ready to look at these three pictures into Israel s heart, lets not just stand on the outside of this text and point a finger of condemnation at ancient Israel. Rather, lets use these three pictures as a means of looking at our own hearts so that we can turn to Jesus this morning with the humble cry, God have mercy. 4

A Lack of Love for God Each of the three pictures presented to us in our passage this morning begins by looking back at the beginning of God s relationship with the people of Israel. It started out good. In this first picture, Hosea says in Hosea 9:10, Like grapes in the wilderness, I found Israel. Like the first fruit on the fig tree in its first season, I saw your fathers. This is a picture that conveys God s delight in forming Israel as his people. It is a delightful surprise to be out in the wilderness and discover fruit growing where you least expect it. When we first started taking summer vacations in Maine or Vermont, we discovered much to our delight and our surprise wild blueberries. Our son, Sam, took special delight in these blueberries and every morning he would get up and pick blueberries and then Bonnie would make blueberry pancakes for him. We were back in Maine this past summer, and this childhood delight was something he was looking forward to reliving, and once again each morning he was out there picking these wild blueberries. And so with this image of grapes in the wilderness or the delight that comes in picking the first fig from a fig tree, God describes how he felt about Israel as he called them to be his people. He took great delight in them. But then the tone of verse 10 seems to unexpectedly turn on a dime. After describing the initial delight God took in his people, the prophet reminds them of what happened at a place called Baal-peor. This is an incident that took place while Israel was still in the wilderness and we learn about it in Numbers 25. Here the men of Israel find themselves entangled with the women of Moab and it is a combination of idolatry and sexual immorality. Hosea says of them in Hosea 9:10 that they consecrated themselves to the thing of shame and became detestable like the thing they loved. That is a fascinating statement. It is this statement that provides the first picture we have into Israel s sinful heart that led to their demise. Hosea says of Israel that they became detestable like the thing they loved. In other words, they became like the thing they loved. In Numbers 25:3 it is described this way. Here it says that they were yoked to the god they served. Like two animals that are yoked together to perform a task, Israel was yoked to the god Baal and so they became like the god they loved and worshiped. Baal was known as the fertility god. This was the god the ancients turned to for fertility and for rain, hoping to prosper in the land. Consequently, at many of the shrines where Baal was worshiped, temple prostitutes were available to the worshiper, hoping that through their intimate acts they could coerce the gods to prosper them. This activity is alluded to in Hosea 4:14 where is says of the men that they go aside with prostitutes and 5

sacrifice with cult prostitutes, and a people without understanding shall come to ruin. In other words the people of Israel became like the god they loved. And here they are now, many generations removed from that incident at Baal-peor, but Baal has now become the god of choice and the reason they do not reflect the character of God is because they do not love the God who delighted in them. They now love another god. Ironically, Baal could not deliver what they were looking for and so in Hosea 9:11-12 we hear God say, Ephraim s glory shall fly away like a bird no birth, no pregnancy, no conception! Even if they bring up children, I will bereave them until none is left. Woe to them when I depart from them! In other words, this fertility they sought in worshiping Baal, this prosperous life they were looking for over here will ultimately allude them. In fact, God was the one who promised to prosper them. But now he speaks in sober terms where they will experience the opposite of fertility. In verse 16 he says, Ephraim is stricken; their root is dried up; they shall bear no fruit. Even though they give birth, I will put their beloved children to death. My God will reject them because they have not listened to him; they shall be wanderers among the nations. We don t live in a culture where people are bowing down to altars of Baal. But we do live in a culture that says sex is everything. In our culture, sex is where people find their identity, their fulfillment and their life. Trevin Wax says to this, Sex is less serious than you think. You are pinning too many hopes on sex. Many people today believe that the purpose of human life and the measure of human flourishing is in the freedom to express oneself, to deliver one s unique inner essence to the world by being true to yourself. 1 And like Israel, we become what we love and it leads to our destruction. It destroys individuals. It destroys marriages. It destroys generations. It destroys a culture. It can t deliver what we want it to deliver. Trevin Wax concludes, To pin your hopes on sex is too low of a goal for a human being made in God s image. 2 So if we become what we love, there is no greater thing you can do in life than to love God with all of your heart and soul and mind. Paul prays in Philippians 1:9-11 that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight. In other words, love comes first. It is our love for God that makes us want to know God. James Smith says that I love in order to know. 3 And Paul says that this love for God is what enables us to discern what is best what is excellent, what really matters, what is of ultimate purpose. And so, the first place to start in discipleship is to tend to your love for God. Paul says at the end of 2 Corinthians 3 that when we behold him, we are being transformed into the same image, from one degree of glory to another. You are what you love. So we confess this morning the things we love in the place of God. 6

A Lack of Worship of God Our second word picture is found in Hosea 10:1-10. Once again, Hosea begins by looking back to the beginning of God s relationship with Israel. He says in verse 1, Israel is a luxuriant vine that yields its fruit. The image of a grapevine was a common image to describe Israel. It was a picture of the careful attention God gave to the establishment of Israel. If you ever go to a good vineyard, the signs of meticulous care are a wonder to behold. The prophet Isaiah describes God s tender care for Israel this way in Isaiah 5:1-2, Let me sing for my beloved my love song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a fertile hill. He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; and he looked for it to yield grapes. In other words, he expected it to bear good fruit. Instead, he said of Israel, it yielded wild grapes. Why? What you discover in Hosea 10:1 is that it all had to do with worship. The more Israel prospered, the less they worshiped God. In Hosea 10:1, again the tone changes on a dime, and we read, The more his fruit increased, the more altars he built, as his country improved, he improved his pillars. Moses warned them of this in Deuteronomy 8:11-14. Hear he said, 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, and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart will be lifted up and you forget the LORD your God, who brought you out o f the land of Egypt. In order to understand how Israel got to this point, it is helpful to go back to the point in time when the kingdom of Israel split between north and south. Remember, Hosea is writing to the northern kingdom of the ten tribes of Israel. Through this split with the two tribes to the south, the northern kingdom was separated from Jerusalem and the temple, their place of worship. So their first king, Jeroboam I, established two places for the worship of God in the northern kingdom. He built an altar to the north in Dan and to the south in Bethel. Now he did this for political reasons. He feared that if the people from the north went to Jerusalem to worship, they would return to the king of Judah. But not only did he establish two other places to worship, but like their fathers did at Mount Sinai when Moses was up on the mountain, he erected in each place of worship a golden calf to represent the God of Israel. He changed how they worship God. The king said to the people in 1 Kings 12:28, Behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. We know from Exodus 32 that a golden calf was not an acceptable representation of God for the people of Israel. But by worshiping the God of Israel through the likeness of a calf, it lead to the worship of Baal. 7

So we read in Hosea 10:5, The inhabitants of Samaria tremble. Samaria is the capital of the northern kingdom. And then it says, for the calf of Beth-aven. This is a pejorative term for Bethel where the first of two altars were built. The term Bethel means, house of God. But the term Beth-aven means house of evil. By worshiping God through the image of a calf, they turned a house of God into a house of evil. And so the people of the northern kingdom are now mourning because the gods that they worshiped proved to be no gods at all. The king of Assyria has come and actually stripped their god of its gold and its glory is no more. In verses 5-6 we read, Its people mourn for it, and so do its idolatrous priests those who rejoiced over it and over its glory for it has departed from them. The thing itself shall be carried to Assyria as tribute to the great king. Not only does Israel s king fall, but in verse 8 those altars are now covered with thorns and thistles as the people of Israel are dispersed among the nations. The descent from good to bad in the land of Israel can be tied directly to their failure to worship God the way God has prescribed for them. The heart of their problem is captured in verse 3 where they can be heard saying, for we do not fear the LORD. That really is the essence of worship. To fear God is to reverence God as God. The worship of God is what sets the tone for our lives. Proverbs tells us that the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom. The old-english form of the word worship is worth-ship. What we are saying is that God is worthy of our worship and our praise. When we are given a glimpse into the heavenly scene found in Revelation 4 we see all of heaven bowed before the God of the universe and in unison they sing, Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things and by your will they existed and were created. This same song of worship is expressed in the next chapter for Jesus, Worthy are you... For you were slain and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. We come to worship the Triune God this morning, through the person of Jesus Christ because God is worthy. Paul says in Philippians 3 that everything else is considered rubbish compared to the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. That is the essence of worship. Perhaps, we need to come this morning and confess what we have made of worship. We come this morning to proclaim that God is of absolute worth and that there is nothing we want more than to know God. We are far too casual about God. We tend to squeeze God into our schedules when he fits. We try to make him a part of our lives, when he doesn t want to be a part of our lives. Rather, He wants to be our life. In our prosperity, we too lose sight of the absolute worth of God. Jesus says, I am the true vine. It is the branch that abides in Jesus that bears fruit. God have mercy on us. Forgive us for making so little of you and so much of us. 8

Lack of Faithfulness to God The final word picture to describe the spiritual decline in Israel is found in Hosea 10:11-15. Again, this picture begins with a positive picture of the beginning of God s relationship with Israel. Here Israel is described as a trained calf that loved to thresh, and I spared her fair neck. It is a picture of a heifer that was trained to be harnessed to the plow. When he says, I spared her fair neck he was saying that she was compliant and didn t needed goaded or poked to pull the plow. In fact, there was a time when Israel was yoked to Judah and they did what they were called to do as God s people. In other words, they lived in covenant with God and therefore reflected the character of God. Remember, you are what you love. The commentators see verse 12 going with verse 11. Here we read, Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the Lord, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you. When Israel is yoked to God then those virtues of righteousness and steadfast love shine through them. In other words, they are able to perform their function in representing God to this world. His character was to shine through them as he sought to bring his blessing to a broken world. Instead, the opposite happened. Because Israel was not faithful to the covenant between them and God, we read in verse 13 that they plowed iniquity... reaped injustice... eaten the fruit of lies. The next phrase says it all. Because you have trusted in your own way and in the multitude of your warriors. On Israel s part, there was a lack of faithfulness. Consequently, there was no righteousness in the land and the love of God was not evident through them. And so God gives them over to their enemies and this chapter closes with the sobering words, Thus it shall be done to you, O Bethel, because of your great evil. At dawn the king of Israel shall be utterly cut off. In Galatians 5, the same expectation is held out for us. Through the new covenant in Jesus we are called to put aside the acts of the flesh. The desires of the flesh have not changed after all these years. Here Paul lists sexual immorality at the top of the list, along with idolatry. But then he adds to this list of the desires of the flesh, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions and envy. But when we are hooked to the plow with Jesus, the fruit of the Spirit shines through us. That is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. When these virtues shine through us, we are doing the thing we were redeemed to do. We are showing the world what God is like. God have mercy on us. Forgive us for not being faithful and for allowing our flesh to keep his love from shining through us. 9

Conclusion God have mercy. That is how we began this message and that is how we end it. In our passage this morning there are two things for us to see. First of all, we can see the fate that would await us if God was not a God of mercy. He would be just and right to bring the full weight of his judgment upon us. That is your fate without Jesus in your life. I came across a great statement in my study for this week. When God says of Israel in Hosea 9:16 that their root is dried up and that they will not bear fruit that this theme of a root is picked up again at the end of the book in Hosea 14:5-7. Here you find a tree firmly established and in verse 5 it says of Israel that she will take root like the trees of Lebanon. Reflecting on that in our passage this morning, Dearman says in his commentary, Fortunately, this devastating announcement of disaster is not the last word in Hosea about the root of the people of God. We know from Isaiah 11 about the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. That is a reference to Jesus, the Son of Davie, and a reminder that God has given us his mercy through Jesus. And then finally, as we recount the sins of Israel, we can see ourselves in them. We do not love God the way we ought and therefore, we take on the character of the things we love. We do not worship God the way we should and so we often find other things we consider of greater value than God in our lives. We are not faithful in representing the character of God to this world as we often are found giving into our flesh and our desires. So hopefully as you look into the mirror of your heart this morning, you have something to confess as you come to this table this morning. Cry out this morning, God have mercy on me a sinner! Jesus stands here ready to remind you that everything we are not he is! Everything we could not do he did! Everything that belongs to him he shares with us! And so we run to this table, without any fear of rejection. Rather, it is the kindness of God that leads us to repentance. Hallelujah for the wonderful mercy of God! 1 Trevin Wax Sex is More and Less Important Than You Think August 11, 2015 www.thegospelcoalition.org 2 Ibid 3 James K. A. Smith You Are What You Love (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2016) 6 4 J Andrew Dearman The Book of Hosea (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010) 257 10

by Dr. Scott Solberg - All rights reserved 11

Sermon Title: God Have Mercy Sermon Text: Hosea 9:10-10:15 Sermon Date: April 2, 2017 Getting To Know Me Questions 1. What are the smells of spring you recall from your childhood? Talk about how the season of Spring is such a fitting season in which to celebrate Easter. 2. Share with the group one challenge you anticipate facing in the coming week. How would you like the group to pray for you as you anticipate this challenge? 3. What is one thought from the sermon that stands out to you? Diving Into The Word 4. Read Hosea 9:10-17. What stands out to you in this passage? At the end of verse 10 it says that Israel became like the thing they loved. How do you see this principle play out in life: You are what you love? How should this encourage us to love God with all of our heart? 5. Read Hosea 10:1-10. What stands out to you in this passage? What do you learn from this passage about Israel s worship of God? Why is the worship of God so important to our lives? 6. Read Hosea 10:11-15. What stands out to you in this passage? According to verse 12, what are the qualities that God wants to shine through our lives? How are these qualities developed in us? (See Galatians 5:22-24) 7. Read Ephesians 2:4-10. Contemplate and discuss what it means for God to be rich in mercy. How does this thought strengthen your love for God, your worship of God and your faithfulness to God? Taking It Home 8. What is one thing from your discussion that resonates with you? 9. What would you like to do to keep Jesus as the focus of the week? 12