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Hosea 14 The End of a Love Story
Hosea chapter 14 starting in verse 1. Hear the word of the Lord. Return Oh Israel to the Lord your God. For you have stumbled because of your iniquity. Take with you words and return to the Lord. Say to him.
Take away all iniquity except what is good. And we will pay with bulls the vows of our lips a Syria shall not save us. We will not ride on horses and we will say no more our God to the work of our hands.
In you the orphan finds mercy. I Will heal their apostasy. I will love them freely for my anger has turned from them. I will be like the dew to Israel. He shall blossom like the lily. He shall take root like the trees of Lebanon.
His shoots shall spread out. His beauty shall be like the olive and his fragrance like Lebanon. They shall return and dwell beneath my shadow. They shall flourish like the grain. They shall blossom like the vine.
Their fame shall be like the wine of Lebanon. Are we from? What am I to do with idols? It is I who answer and look after you. I am like a evergreen cypress. From me comes your fruit. Whoever is wise let him understand these things.
Whoever is discerning let him know them. For the ways of the Lord are right and the upright walk in them, but transgressors stumble in them. May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his Holy Word.
And we began looking at Hosea eight weeks ago, and now we're to the end and we wonder first. How do you end a? Love story remember that's how Hosea began. It's a love story. How do you end a love story like that depends?
I guess on what love is along the way. We've seen different kinds of love. Remember CS Lewis's the four loves we talked about once. Lewis described four kinds of love beginning with affection. It was he said the love of quote private things soft slippers old clothes old jokes.
The thump of a sleepy dog's tail on the kitchen floor the sound of a sewing machine. It's the love we have maybe for a pet or a favorite song might hear it come on the radio. I'll turn it up I love that song or the familiar people that we've grown accustomed to.
There is also of course. Taking it taking his out of order now. Romantic love eros what many people in our culture now mean when they say love it is interesting I think that in contrast to our culture today.
Which says basically the eros is everything that it's the meaning of life that it is the necessary ingredient for happiness. That other than the relatively short song of Solomon. It's not dwelt on much if at all in scripture.
I Think one of the reasons we've made so much of eros in this culture so much put so much weight on it Is because we have so little of the other kinds of love especially friendship. Then of course, there's a gap a the unconditional love the father gives to us through the son the love shown to us at the cross.
It is the buying a great cost to oneself. What is no longer valuable what has been devalued cheapened emptied. Prostituted it's the love that makes the loved one valuable again. It's the love God calls Hosea here to have for his wife Gomer in order to show us the love God has for us his people.
Then there's friendship filia. Lewis said that ancient people thought that that filia was the greatest of loves the commitment to some Real friends not the fake Facebook kind. It's a tie that binds. Lewis said that it was the love that was closest to heaven.
But that modern people at least in the West have lost it. We have almost no no concept of it in our culture today. Partly because it's not always so thrilling like eros and it goes much further. Than the sentimentality of mere affection will ever take you it Knits you to people who may not be doing anything practical for you right now.
They might even cost you something to love them. I think it's a kind of love that many people around us Don't even really know exist. Because they've never seen it. I have. If you talk to Mary much, you'll probably hear her soon talk about her friends and you might think well everybody has friends.
Well, no, not like this. When we were in Ethiopia and Mary had a miscarriage these these friends paid for us to fly back to Singapore. Flights out of Africa are very expensive. They hosted us and had to get together practically awake of sorts with no corpse present.
They brought their traditional Chinese Elixirs ginseng whatever. Which I'm not even sure they really believe work but that's that's really not the point. The point is that that was something that they could do and They wanted to do something for their friend.
This is the kind of love that we here call members to have for each other when we ask you to commit to walk together in Christian love. It's the kind of love that is supposed to be the foundation of a church that the tie that binds and is for that reason I believe one of the hindrances we've encountered to growing the church because it's so unknown.
It's it's so Scary to some people so perceived to be restrictive. It binds After all. So people who don't want to be bound people who just want to be catered to are repelled by the idea. Oh, they might like at first the idea that other people are bound to them.
We'll go on walks with them. We'll visit them. We'll give them gifts. Well, then we'll lend them money so they can get their dream. But when it starts when it starts to bind them. Then they then they begin to think it's kind of scary.
You See if you think a church is again kind of like a restaurant, you know, you might like your favorite restaurant. You like the food you like the owners. You? Understand that you have to pay your bill in order to keep it open so you don't get offended when they ask you to pay.
But you would think something is wrong. If you missed a couple of weeks at your favorite restaurant, you came back and they they scolded you you missed your restaurant. What are you talking about? You might begin to feel restricted.
Bound if they gave you the feeling that that they thought now you were obligated to them. That you had a commitment to them that you were supposed to love them. You weren't just supposed to pay. You're supposed to maybe mop the floor occasionally or take some orders.
Do something you're part of the family here. You might be put off by that. You might be repelled by the sense of being obliged. You might be so repelled That you might go to another restaurant. Maybe you don't like it as well.
But you go there simply to get away from the burden from the tie that binds you want to get away from. The love in the church business. And for some it is a business. Some will tell you for that reason because some find Delia love actually so off-putting.
They don't expect it. You don't want to put them off. By loving them don't even try to have it. Don't appeal to people to be to be loyal to keep their covenant to be faithful to be obliged. Instead appeal to what you can do for them.
Don't ask to turn John F. Kennedy upside down. What you can do for your church. Ask what your church is doing for you. So instead of expecting Philia love expecting people to have Hesed steadfast love instead.
Be like a restaurant. You know. Continue to sell yourself to your customers a new special every week a discount coupons a card. You can stamp come to nine services. You get the tent for free if you're Mexican.
Maybe a mariachi band if you're a church. New songs videos guest preachers got to come next week. This guy might be really good always trying to sell yourself in order to keep the people coming. You're selling yourself because.
There's no Philia. There's no there's no tie that binds. There's no Hesed. There's no covenant. There's There's no love. There's just customers. Looking for the best food at the cheapest price. With a physical or spiritual.
I don't actually think there are kinds of love. I think there's just love and I learned enough Greek to learn that C .S. Lewis's words were basically Different words for the same thing. They're synonyms.
There's not really different kinds of love as interesting. It is to talk about different expressions of love. There's different kinds of relationships and different ways that love shows and those different relationships.
We began Hosea eight weeks ago, and we've seen from beginning to end what it means to love and Now we come to the end of Hosea and so to the end of a love story. How do you end a love story? We see that in three parts first the invitation.
Second the restoration and finally the conclusion first. There's the invitation in verse 1 return or Repent, it's the same word in Hebrew return repent. Oh Israel to the Lord your God. Now the appeal must have been like Hosea's appeal to his wife.
Gomer remember to return turn. Gomer come home. Turn to me. Turn away from your immorality now for a long time. She did not heed that appeal that invitation. She kept going after other lovers until one thing led to another and she wound up a prostitute on sale on the auctioneers block.
Imagine her there. The next item for sale. Stripped for the men to bid on her. Her head is bowed in shame. She's staring at the ground as as the crowd of customers gawk Hosea enters. The bidding starts at five shekels.
Hosea raises his hand. Somebody else bid six. Hosea counters with seven. Someone else raises it to eight. Hosea takes it to nine. Another customer bids ten. Do I hear eleven? Do I hear eleven? There's a hand.
Hosea counters with 12. Is there a 13? Another customer Goes for 13. Hosea hikes it to 14. Most now are priced out of the bidding but one last man bids 15 and Hosea says I'll see that 15 and add a Homer and a lethwich of barley worth about another 15 shekels.
So he's doubled the price and the auctioneer goes sold. Gomer's taken off the stand her head still bowed handed to her new owner and looks up and sees. He's Hosea her husband from whom she had rejected appeal after appeal for so long to return to come home.
He paid for what he should never have had to pay for. He paid for her to return to be able to repent. That's philia agape. Hesed whatever you want to call it. It's the new chapter of a love story. All the story is it.
Tell us how Gomer repented. She must have repented. The story focuses only on on. On Gomer's invitation over her his buying her back, but think about it. She didn't repent. Before she was shown love. She didn't return right?
She didn't turn away from her immorality and then was loved as. Though her her coming back. Is what produced her restoration. She was loved. By being bought she was loved and then Repented she accepted the invitation as a response to love.
Not a way to get it. Love came first then repentance. Repent turn Israel like Gomer and verse 1 because you have stumbled because of your iniquity. If you stumble the descent you must repent now. Some could have take what some could take what I just said that you are loved first and then repent.
That repentance comes from being loved not the other way around and think well then. The repentance part that's optional. Right. I'm gonna get loved. So, okay after I've been loved maybe I don't have to repent that they're gonna get loved whether or not they repent.
No. You won't if you don't repent. That's a sign that you haven't been loved here. Repent turn turn back to the Lord your God. Because you have sinned if you don't repent that means that the Lord is not your God.
Second says take words when you repent say To him in verse 2 when you come back to the Lord. Come with the right words say the right thing and here he gives us the words that we are to take to the Lord first.
Come with stuttering words of confession of sin. Take away all iniquity. Like the contrite man in the temple the publican in Jesus's parable saying God be merciful to me a sinner then. Accept what is good?
Now if you think That's about you. I was accept The good things about me that you have good that the Lord should accept. You probably need to go back to step one. And learn from the publican you need God to accept what is good for you and that is the perfect life of Christ.
Third again in Hosea Hesed even though the word Hesed is not used here as someone said this chapter is said teeming with Hesed. Be fateful in the second half of verse to show Steadfast love keep your commitments like Hosea was faithful to his commitment to Gomer even when she wasn't.
Here they made vows and so they are to keep them. If you gave your word to sacrifice a bull do it. Even if it's costly keep your word even to your hurt be faithful. There's no love without faithfulness.
Say take these words to the Lord deny that there is any other any other help then from the Lord. Say confess in verse 3 a Syria shall not save us. That's what they needed to say. Then maybe today you need to say something else.
You're hoping to save you a relationship your money your business the government modern science. That will save us. No, you need to say that's not our Savior. Well, they thought they could depend on a Syria as an ally.
But a Syria eventually ended up destroying them because they were unfaithful. They tried to go back and forth with Egypt and from Egypt. They thought they could would get war horses. That's what it says here ride on war horses.
That was the that was the best equipment the newest technology for self-defense in their day. That's high-tech. The war horses deny your reliance on them. Deny that your hope is in a vaccine to save you from the coronavirus or in the government to save you from poverty and crime.
You you don't have to deny That the Lord can use those things that he may work through those things that he can protect you from a disease with a vaccine. Or from criminals with the police. You don't have to deny that fact, but you do have to deny that your hope your your faith is in those things.
That's why we don't turn our services here into political rallies. Even though we may feel strongly about who should win elections. We don't use the church for that because we're about the ultimate Source of our hope not the particular instruments.
He may use at certain times and we will deny that that candidate or that party or that money that policy that Science that relationship will save us no more say that something you've made a career a business a house a Family is.
Your God don't say that anymore. We will no more say Hosea says in verse 3 our God to the works of our hands because at the end of that verse in you the Lord in The Lord the orphan that is the helpless person the powerless person the defenseless the prey for any predator Victimizer abuser who comes along in you Lord such people as the prey the victim the abused in the Lord they find Mercy love filia.
Agape has said whatever you want to call it they might not find it anywhere else in a world devoid of love using people for whatever they can get out of them and Here's someone they see some helpless person some orphan with nothing to offer only a hungry stomach.
And so the loveless the one for whom every relationship is in exchange. And there's nothing the person has to give them in exchange. So he gives him no mercy that person. But nothing to offer discovers mercy with God.
Thus begins the love story. That's the invitation come back turn back to the Lord confess your sin. Deny trust in any other Savior because you helpless people. It's you. You're the orphan you helpless people can find mercy love.
Agape has said filia, whatever you call it. You can find it with the Lord. Then comes the restoration. That's the story of Hosea and Gomer. We expect to hear and we kind of just expect maybe that we're kind of reading that into this here.
How the loved one like Gomer heard the invitation? Right. She heard the call to return was stirred in the heart was drawn with what Hosea earlier calls in his book the cords of kindness and. But and because of that is restored by responding to the invitation to return.
She then gets restored. Is that the story really. No the biblical way is the other way around first you're restored and then you return. You've returned. You respond to the invitation to repent you are drawn by the cords of kindness precisely because God has first restored you you love.
Because God loved you first. Notice verses four to seven. First it says I will. God says I will heal their Apostasy their waywardness their whoredom to use the word used of Gomer earlier. How does God know that he will do that that he will heal their waywardness?
Now sure you could say well God knows everything he knows the future. But I think this is more than a prediction where he says he will do it. Not just looking in the future seeing how they're gonna react and then how he's gonna respond to it.
No, this is a resolution. This is what he has resolved. Determined to do the invitation. He's just given in the start of the chapter. That's not a Precondition. That's not something here is wrong. You have to do this and if you do I will then respond with love and he's looking in the future and he sees that.
They do repent and so he says well, I'm gonna heal them. No, the the invitation is a means through which God will do what here he resolves. That he will do he will there's no doubt about it. Heal their waywardness.
He doesn't say I might heal your your waywardness if you do such-and-such. No, he says I will heal your Apostasy. Your proneness to wonder. Proneness to leave the God. That you are supposed to love now, how can he guarantee that he will heal them if their healing Depends on their first Choosing to return it doesn't depend on their choosing to return.
Their returning Depends on God healing them. God will heal them for the same reason that Hosea bought Gomer out of prostitution because in verse 4 I Will love them Freely. There's God's Resolution his agape love which makes the loved one valuable again.
He will love them freely. Free of what? Well free of limits. Free of any end. As though He would love them only, you know only so much up to some point only if you don't bow the knee to To idols as though he will only love them, you know up to a limit.
Even the best that we can do, you know. The wedding is to pledge to love till till death do us part. So even the best of our love is not free of limits, but here God says that there is no limit. There's no death parting us from him.
No unless you know, I'll love you unless you come in adultery. No, except for. No till. Up to some point if you go past that I won't love you anymore. No, he says neither height nor depth nor anything in all creation.
Not even a virus will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus because he has resolved to love us freely. He's going to love us freely because at the end of verse 4 my anger has turned Notices past tense it's done my anger my wrath that cup of foaming wrath We've got about in Psalm 75.
It's it's gone. No more wrath for you. That rage that he spoke about earlier in Hosea. I remember that the rage with which he said he will loose the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword. That has turned away from his people on whom he has mercy.
The anger has turned away Because he poured it out on the Sun who stood in our place. So because that's the relationship that he's resolved to have With us to love us freely. He's committed to be our friends to have philia agape Hesed whatever you call it.
So we will have we will have Restoration and in verse 5 he begins to describe it. He will be to us. He says like like do refreshing in an arid world. So because of his do we will Blossom blossom like the lily and will grow roots downward.
So we're stable our shoots will spread out in verse 6. We will flourish your beauty. God speaking to us be like the olive he means the olive tree green lush full large. Fruitful with a fragrance instead of a Lebanon.
I think you're like a forest like a garden if you want a flourishing life. Bring if you want to be everything God planted you to be return. Respond to that invitation. Come back to him then in verse 7 they that's that's the my people Israel from chapter 1 remember the true Israel the church they will return.
That was the invitation in verse 1 Where we are told to return to repent here. God says that that invitation Will result in the invited returning. How can he know that again. It's not simply a prediction because he can see the future not simply that he forced can foresee it but that for his people the invitation draws the invited the call Produces the draw.
The Lord Jesus said my sheep Hear my voice when he calls them. They perk up they respond they come. The goats don't come. The wolves are frightened away, but for his people the invitation Produces the restoration.
They come and flourish here in verse 7 like plump. Grain, very fruitful very a lot of nourishment and a lot of life. They're blossoming like flowers on a vine. The Lord restores his people. He creates in them a clean heart.
He puts a new spirit within them. He writes a covenant of their heart. So they aren't just using him like he's a blessing machine. They're in a relationship with him. They love him and they have his laws written on their hearts.
So they want to obey him and so they turn away from their sin and they flourish like a green olive tree. They will return because first God restored them they will live under his shadow not depending on it on their alliances or the newest military technology out of Egypt or their business or their 401k or the government or the family but on the Lord and so.
Flourishing they become he says renowned. They have a fame. They're famous for the richness of their life the peacefulness of their family. Self-discipline of their kids the general fruitfulness of their life.
That's the restoration God's people enjoy. Finally there's the conclusion in those last two verses. You know if that's the that's the flourishing that's the life that you can have when God restores you.
Why would you go after an idol? In verse 8 OE from he's the northern kingdom home to the idol to the Lord at Bethel and many other idols to bail. What do I have to do with idols? The Lord speaking. What do I have to do with idols?
Since you're gonna flourish if you return. Why would you live any other way that for the Lord? You're not gonna get to me through idle. So why are you playing with these things? Doesn't make any sense.
You aren't going to get a better life than what the Lord will give you. You will not flourish anymore. Any other way than with the Lord? So why are you going other ways with idols? Of course, you don't mean to insult the Lord.
You just believe like many. That well this this idol can help me out for a while. So you go after we serve mammon go after dollars as the thing to live for but why? Of course, you don't mean to insult the Lord.
You just believe deep down that you need right now to seek first a Successful business or more savings or more income or that relationship or whatever you can serve the Lord. You can serve the Lord later.
Maybe when you get rich and get married when you have kids whatever. But God says, why do you serve money? You're not going to flourish that way. Even if you are successful as Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos if you've inherited the world.
You'll lose your soul if you want to flourish. If you want to blossom. Return to the Lord. What is God in the flourishing life? He gives have to do with idols. You want to be famous for whatever well-known respected by your by your friends at your little circle of being.
For being woke or being creative or being athletic or being smart or being successful? You don't want to be known for being one of those backward bigot Christians like everyone knows that they are so you chase some you chase some idol.
Why? Don't you know that you're not going to flourish. Any other way in verse 8 know that it is the Lord who will answer you when you confess. Be merciful to me. Oh God a sinner. He will look after you.
He'll look after you when all the fake friends that you thought you could impress. With your your trendiness your enlightenment your social awareness. Your money when they've all abandoned you. Because they were never really your friends in the first place there was no philia there was no friendship.
There was no Chesed no tie that binds but the Lord here promises. I will Look after you you will Flourish with me. He says at the end of verse 8 that he is a constancy. He has the constancy that the faithfulness of an evergreen tree and the richness of a fruit tree from me.
The Lord says for me not from any of the of your idols not from your money. Not from your fake friends not from your glorious causes. No from me God says comes your fruit comes that delicious refreshing food.
That restores you. How do you end a love story? Well verse 9 ends Hosea. And it's in it. It's an invitation. To consider this book the whole book look back on it this love story that is now ending whoever is wise.
Understand these things. If you're discerning know. What kind of love is this? Learn from what we've seen in this love story. Know that the ways of the Lord are right. They are the ways for you to flourish.
The upright that is those who are in a right relationship with the Lord who love the Lord they walk in them. They just do. Not to get upright. They are already upright. They walk or they live in his ways because that's what upright people do.
Transgressors though the not my people the not pitied. They stumble. Well, they might try to walk God's way for a while. They might even be reputable church people who've been to Sunday school and they've learned about not serving them and they've heard the lessons.
About covetousness being idolatry about sex being for marriage about being fateful, but because deep down they are transgressors. They eventually stumble over something over the lure of getting a few more dollars.
The urge to surrender to hormones or drives or the insistence of an eager boy or girlfriend. Or they stumble over the demand that they be among the enlightened so-called woke the tolerant. They stumble and so they in the end don't flourish for them the love story comes to a crashing tragic in.
How do you end a love story? Well here the Lord loves the people. He says he loves them freely. Once they were not a people they were not loved. They were scattered. They were not just one race or nation.
They're Jesus's sheep and he knows who they are. He calls them return and They hear his voice and they return. He pays for them. Not just 30 shekels of silver but his own life. And he does that not because not because they're a good investment.
They're just worth so much intrinsically. It just makes good business sense to buy them back. No, he buys a great cost to himself what he shouldn't have had to buy what is no longer valuable. What has been devalued?
Cheapened emptied. Prostituted. He loves freely and so he makes the loved one valuable again. How do you end that love story? The truth, of course. Is that it never ends?