Hosea 11:1-11, What Kind of Relationship Do You Have With God?

Hosea chapter 11 hear the word of the Lord When Israel was a child

I loved him and out of Egypt I called my son The more they were called the more they went away.

They kept sacrificing to the bales and burning offerings to idols Yet it was

I who taught Ephraim to walk. I took them up by their arms But they did not know that I healed them

I led them with cords of kindness With the bands of love and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws

And I bent down to them and fed them They shall not return to the land of Egypt But Assyria shall be their king because they have refused to return to me

The sword shall rage against their cities can consume the bars of their gates and devour them because of their own

Councils my people are bent on turning away from me and though they call out to the

Most High He shall not raise them up at all How can I give you up away from how can

I hand you over? Oh Israel? How can I make you like Adma? How can I treat you like Zeboem?

My heart recoils within me. My compassion grows warm and tender I will not execute my burning anger.

I will not again destroy Ephraim For I am God and not a man the

Holy One in your midst and I will not come in wrath They shall go after the

Lord He will roar like a lion when he roars his children shall come trembling from the

West They shall come trembling like birds from the Egypt and like doves from the land of Assyria And I will return them to their homes declares the

Lord May the Lord had his blessings his reading of his Holy Word. Oh, do you react differently to different people?

Maybe two people will do the exact same thing, but you react differently to them

Depending on who they are Sometimes we're much more direct with family wife or husband then we would be with people outside the family

You know the spouse asks do you want to go to McDonald's for lunch? Oh I never want to go to McDonald's.

Don't you know that by now? Someone else asked that You know, wherever you want to go is fine

One person might say well, that's a nice outfit on you and you just respond with thank you

And another might say the same and we ask do you think it makes me look fat? Or maybe if your relationship's a little bad, you maybe wonder so you're saying my other outfits aren't any good

Is that what you're implying? You probably won't ask someone you barely know, you know, whether you look fat in that we

We can often be more blunt with family Hopefully not cruel or insulting because we know that the the bonds of the relationship can withstand

The tension I know for me I'd respond much differently to how a child acted depending on whether the child was my child or not once Mary was tutoring a child in our home and the kid decided to throw a fit dropping to the floor and and then slithering like a snake

And I thought to myself and they were standing looking this kid slithering on the floor I thought if you were my son,

I'd pick you up by the scruff of your neck or maybe by your ankles Spank you in midair with along with some very high volume pointed words of criticism

Instead since he wasn't my son. I Just walked off The way we react to other to each other often depends on the relationship

We have to each other some people here will give Mary a free or discounted meal Won't name any names if you're at your

Chinese restaurant But you won't do that for just anyone who walks through the door if you did you'd soon be bankrupt last week

Mary and I went to Coco knee and I got a bottle of water from the man there and the owner and he Told me just take it for free

Take it, you know Don't have to pay and I thought well I should put two dollars in their tip jar for that And Mary said don't do that because he's trying to maintain the relationship

Mary has done favors for them and he wants to return the favors to her to us people you have a relationship with you give and Take favors and by refusing to take a favor.

It can be seen as Refusing the relationship like you just want to be how cold and impersonal

Other people though, of course the man at Coco knee would expect for them to pay for their bottle of water He's not giving them out to everybody that comes through the door how we respond to each other is affected by our relationship

With each other that's unlike a machine a vending machine never develops relationships with customers

Now you can buy a coke from the same machine every day of your life and it will never say, you know

This one's on me. You know, it's your birthday. It's not gonna say. Oh, it's your birthday. Let me give you a free drink No, it just never will you can fix the machine.

You can save it from the scrapheap and It still won't do you the favor of giving you a free drink

It treats everyone with perfect fairness it never discriminates never shows favoritism

It deals with all people equally Now the question is

God like us Or maybe really the truth is war like God, but it's gone like us and he deals with people differently depending on his relationship with them or Is he a blessing and judging?

Machine or his responses always Equal and fair like the way a vending machine reacts to the coins put in it.

Is God relational or mechanical We see exactly how relational

God is here in Hosea chapter 11 in three parts First is rearing of his children then his rage at not his people and finally his roar

First is rearing that is his rearing of particular people Here is specifically

Israel verse 1 begins when Israel was a child. I loved him He brought the nation out of Egypt called them to live his way to be a holy nation

Called them to worship him and him alone. He pictures that rearing in verse 3

So it said it's like a parent teaching a toddler to walk holding his holding him by his hands

So he doesn't fall just gently leading him. You don't drag the kid along just very gently at his pace

Holding his hands one step at a time the parent like God Takes care of the child if he or she gets sick

He heals the child takes care of it So he gets well and the child takes that for granted is just part of the relationship with the parent here in the first three verses he was a beautiful picture of a parent rearing

A child the Lord here is saying that he reared Israel like that Or in verse 4 to switch to an analogy with an animal

Israel was treated like a pet Not like a farm animal, you know, you have a pet like a dog or a cat

Probably not to do work, but to have a relationship with it Not like a donkey or an ox that you you have to do work here

He says in verse 4 the Lord has eased their yoke of of Israel. Otherwise, he treated them like a pet he bit down He fed them

Come to me. He says all you who are weary and heavy laden Burdened down and I will give you rest for my yoke is easy and my burden is light

That that tender that rearing that the gentle Invitations should have created in Israel a yearning for a

Relationship with the Lord so that they loved him and they returned to him Like he's their father

They shouldn't be tempted to sacrifice to bail because they should love the Lord with all their heart

There are their mind their soul because he reared them. He brought them out of slavery He nurtured them from the very beginning.

He healed them when they needed it. He raised them up As I've said before Generosity is

God's way of creating community a Relationship here the relationship God wanted to create with generosity to them

Was a relationship with him first of all that they would love him in return and from their hearts cry out

Abba father That when he called them then they would come running to him in response

But instead the opposite happened in verse 2 the more they were called The more they went away

The law that God used to to call them instead of Instead of inviting them drawing them into the

Lord the law provoked in them Rebellion, they reacted against the

Lord like the way some rebellious children speak up You know more rudely more angrily and defiantly

Back to their parents than they would to anyone else They never think to talk to a teacher or a coach like sometimes they talk to their parents here.

Israel was like that They are they have been reared by the Lord and instead of that rearing creating in them gratitude and worship

Instead they offered sacrifices to the bales and other images sometimes images of the Lord like a

Bethel But the Lord said don't use images in my worship again It's it's not as though they forgot to worship the

Lord But it was that they forgot about the relationship they thought that the

Lord was Mechanical that if you offer him the sacrifices he wants that he'll return back to you the blessings

You want like today something, you know, if they give the right tithe they go to church they go through the motions

They say they believe the right things then God will return to me like the blessing machine

They think that he is What I want for salvation many think if I say the right prayer if I get baptized if I say

I Believe the right doctrine God then mechanically gives me salvation.

It's not a relationship It's just a cold impersonal business exchange

It's mechanical Because they thought God was mechanical They were grateful to him notice in verse 3 they did not know or realize the

Lord says that I healed them No was the Lord healed them and they should have been grateful for that They should have returned worship to the

Lord for that, but they just took it for granted. Maybe they thought nature will take the course Okay, we we got better.

We got grew up. We got stronger. It's just it's just nature It's the way things are you're not grateful to the vending machine for giving you the coke if you put in the right coins

You feel no sense of a relationship. No, no attachment No amazement at the grace that the coke machine has given you or the machine like cashier

He or she gives you something when you pay for it. This is why worship You know real worship

From your heart that is sincere This is why it's important that we give thanks that we be

Amazed at what God has done for us and we not just think well Come on we gave him what was required and we push the right buttons and so we should get what we want

Generosity to each other. It's God's way of creating community and our awareness of his generosity to us

That he's healed us that is by Jesus's stripes that we are healed our awareness of the incredible Generosity of the gospel that he who was rich became poor for our sake so that we could become rich our awareness of that Is God's way of making us?

worshipers Does God treat different people differently Is he in a relationship with some that is different than others?

Well, this passage has already answered that there's one particular people that he loved and reared from the beginning

They are his people out of Egypt. I Called my son. I love them.

I called them. They're my son Israel is God's son now our instinct today in it in a in an era of science when words are all taken literally and Have only one meaning is to take the word

Israel to refer literally and only to the nation Israel What's more there's a major theological system today that tells people to always interpret the

Bible what they call Literally and that sounds very reasonable Sounds what like it let's take it literally means take it what it for what it should say that sounds proper

But the problem is that is not how the New Testament teaches us how to interpret the Old Testament Indeed Matthew chapter 2 verse 15 quotes the phrase here from verse 1 out of Egypt.

I called my son and uses it not literally For the infant

Jesus being returned to Israel from Egypt after they had fled Herod understand the child

Jesus has returned from Egypt where his parents had fled to protect him from from Herod and Matthew quotes this phrase from from Hosea chapter 11 verse 1 out of Egypt.

I called my son and writes that now With Jesus returning with Jesus that that prophecy is

Matthew says fulfilled fulfilled means that Referring to Jesus was the ultimate purpose of that prophecy of Matthew.

Excuse me of Hosea chapter 11 verse 1 This is what it was ultimately going to be about.

It's about Jesus now Realize that if if not for Matthew Himself, you know being inspired and infallible

Writing Scripture if anyone other than a Holy Spirit inspired Bible author

Had said that the ultimate purpose of the prophecy here Was Jesus was to refer to Jesus when everything literally looks like it refers to literal

Israel Literally coming out of Egypt to the Exodus if anyone other than an inspired author of the

Bible Had written that we'd say We'd say well, huh, you're wrong

You're allegorizing or spiritual Isaac or whatever term that we make up to insist that come on Some people to say today

Israel means Israel and that's all that it means That's what we would do wouldn't we if it wasn't

Matthew saying that Hosea chapter 11 verse 1 refers to Jesus and We'd be wrong, wouldn't we?

Matthew says that Shura first refers to how the literal nation of Israel was brought of Egypt But the ultimate purpose of that phrase out of Israel I called my son is to point to Jesus now that then brings us back to our question

Does God treat different people differently? Is he a is he in a relationship with some that he is not with others?

Yes, he has a son that he loved and brought out of Egypt Israel so Is he a?

Is he a cosmic racist that he just likes one particular ethnic group? What kind of people the

Israelites and he discriminates against all the others, you know, do we Caucasians and blacks and Chinese?

Do we have no chance? Because he only loves that ethnic group No But the literalist should say

Well, you just said he loves Israel that Israel is his son that he brought out of Egypt. Yes, and Matthew tells us that but by quoting this phrase from Hosea chapter 11 verse 1 that Jesus is the true

Israel when Israel was a child I Loved him and out of Egypt.

I called my son Matthew tells us that's fulfilled by Jesus because Jesus is

Israel Then the nation of Israel that the people who are as many as the stars of the sky

Promised to Abraham and God made a covenant with him that nation that body of people are the people whom

God sees in Jesus in Christ believers in Jesus are the the ultimate

Israel the Israel that the Lord loves and he calls out of the world like Egypt and Gives each of them his

Holy Spirit. So they call back to him Abba father, so when they hear his voice my sheep hear my voice

Jesus says they come instead of rebelling and going the other way He has sons and daughters whom he is rearing and he is calling from all nations

You can call it the church. You can call it Israel. That's his people Well, that's the rearing the father is rearing children through Christ who will not

Be the kind that the more he calls them the more they go away Who will not serve other gods like mammon or ego or like just chasing the next thrill?

But who will be sons and daughters of God tied to him he says with cords of kindness with bands of love

Next is the Lord's rage does God treat different people differently? Yes some he rears

Some he rages at In verses 5 to 7 we see his rage how he deals with those who are not his people remember from chapter 1

There is an Israel that is not his people there in chapter 1. He's thinking

Israel. You are not my people both the Apostles Paul and Peter took that prophecy from chapter 1 and said that much of the the literal nation of Israel the ethnic group like like really much of of every unbelieving nation and Was not his people and what?

while the restored Israel It would be gathered from from all nations all ethnic groups that it would be declared that Those people from all nations would be declared my people that they are

Peter and Paul say they are the church here in verses 5 to 7. He turns to the others to the not my people and He pronounces his rage against them

They are not the son that he's called out of Egypt a Syria will rule over them Not God's anointed King the

Christ and this will happen in verse 5 because they have he says they have refused

To return to me. He's called them and instead of returning to the

Lord responding to his call they go the other way They would not repent and worship and love him alone

It's not as though they they they wanted to return to the Lord and the Lord wouldn't have them

They did not want a relationship with the Lord so in verse 6 the sword shall rage against their cities

Of course swords don't wield themselves. Do they? You know someone has to to swing them

Here it will be the Assyrians But they don't wield themselves either

The Lord wields the the empires and the armies that loose the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword

The rage of the sword he wields he says will destroy their fortifications

It will devour them. It will slaughter them because they trusted in their own advice

They trusted in what seemed right to them rather than following God's Word these people who are supposed to be

God's people Called to be his people, but they rebelled they follow their own counsel.

They he says they are they're bent on Turning away from the Lord. That is that they're like a car with it with a bit frame the wheels out of line

You know bent on veering off course If you drive it perhaps on the highway, you could perhaps keep it on the road with enough force

But if you just let go for a second leave it to itself it turns away crashes into the ditch

That's what these Not my people Israelites and that's really what all people without God's grace are like they're bent

Since they're not really his people but are by nature Bent to turn away from the Lord that even if they he says even if they should call out to the

Lord They they pray to him. They plead for mercy They're looking upwards he says they're looking for looking to the

Most High in verse 7 the Lord would still Not raise them up.

He's not gonna listen to them. He's not gonna answer them That is because of his relationship are really lack of one with these

Not my people Even if they even if they cry out to the Lord It would be like to you.

It'd be like some strange kid coming up to you asking you to To take care of his feeding all the time to give him to house him

Put him through college Buy her a car You know for your kid you might do that.

You'll work and serve and sacrifice to give him or her what's needed That's because of your relationship with them, but some someone else's kid

Probably not you think you know, I don't have that kind of relationship with you So here

God says to these people I Don't have that kind of relationship with you with these people. They're not my people

So I'm not gonna I'm not gonna heed it heed you when you cry out some disaster comes on you

There's a Syrian armies come besieging and destroying and killing and they decided to plead to the

Lord I'm not gonna listen God says because we don't have that kind of relationship So we won't raise them up.

He won't save them. He will instead he says rage against them

Now we might think well, that's not fair But what would we think of some strange kid, you know demanding that that we feed him or house him or pay his way through College buy her a car.

What would we think? Okay, maybe you plead to us. Well, I heard what you did for that other kid

You you fed him you housed him you gave him a car. Yeah. Yeah, but that was my kid That was my son and he might say back.

Well, it's not fair Because you paid for him your own son and we might say back something like What's fairness have to do with it?

You know, I I fed and housed my kid because he or she was my kid I don't have to put any kid to college, but I put mine because of our relationship.

It's not fairness It's a relationship Why does the Lord here?

Return some people back to himself But call them and they respond give them gifts of repentance and faith call them out of the world

Love them give them grace to respond to his call So that not left to themselves, so they're not bent or they react against them.

Why does he change the heart of? Some people so that they're not bent against him

But now that they have new hearts with a covenant written on them and with the

Holy Spirit inside them So that when these people God's people when they call out to the

Lord he saves them Why does he respond differently?

to different people He's not a salvation machine is he

Because of his relationship with them So first there's the rearing of his children

Then there's the rage at not his people and finally from verse 8 on there is the roar his call

Even if a still small voice his call is a roar Notice here again like in chapter 1 where the

Lord goes from saying that these people and Israel are not my people to saying that and Israel is his people

Is the unloved Israel and there's the loved one? The the same thing is going on here in chapter 11 in verses 5 to 7 the the sword

Wielded by the Lord. He says will rage the people will be devoured

They're they're bent on turning away from him. He won't raise them up. Even if they do cry out to him then in verses 8 and 9 to in Israel suddenly

He's changed. The whole tone has changed. Everything is changed. He says

How can I give you up? He says he can't hand them over to destruction.

He can't treat them He says like Adma and Zeboam which were two Suburbs of Sodom and Gomorrah there are towns around Sodom and Gomorrah that were destroyed along with them

The Lord says he can't do that to an Israel He says my heart recoils within me from wielding that raging sword against these people

No, it God says I can't do it to you. He says my compassion grows warm and tender for these people

I will not execute my Burning anger. He won't wield his raging sword against him.

He says I Will not destroy them then in verse 9 Says for because this is why he won't destroy them.

This is the reason he's not destroying these people I am God and not a man the

Holy One in your midst and I will not Come in wrath

People like like us if we treated If we treated someone like God here has been treated by these people

We would be we were being raged by them But the relationship we would say the relationship it's over But because he's not like us his grace is amazing.

He will have a redeeming love for these people steadfast love chesed and so He will not rage at them

But what's happening here? You know, he's just gone from expressing rage at Israel to resolving just in a couple verses to resolving

Never to pour out his wrath at Israel Is he vacillating?

He like an angry betrayed lover, you know Like Jose has displayed the Lord's relationship with his people in the first three chapters

Is he is he like sometimes what happens in relationships like that that the Lord first rashly is shouting, you know, it's over It's storming out

Only later to simmer down and come back. Is that what's going on here? Is he going from rage in verses 5 to 7 to now in verses 8 to 10 saying basically

I can't give you up Like someone it's like someone's saying, you know, I can't live without you. So I'm coming back

Is that what the Lord is expressing here? I will not come in wrath.

Is he contradicting himself? Going is he going back from his threat of wielding a raging sword?

No, it's like in chapter 1 the Israel that he rages against is Different than the

Israel that he won't give up that his heart recoils from destroying the

Israel that he won't raise up even if they even if they pray to him is Different than the

Israel that he resolves never to execute his burning anger against the

Israel that he says that he won't save is The literal one like all people left in their sins who are bent against the

Lord the Israel that he that he won't give up That he that he won't have eternal wrath against is well first he is the

Israel that he called out of Egypt his son the Israel in the one person of Jesus and then

The holy nation that the father sees in Christ the Israel of God the church again this isn't just my theologizing about it both

Paul and Peter say the church is the my people

Israel that deserves that that the Lord resolves Not to be angry at Now some people say about this.

How can you interpret the Bible like that? You know how you're taking the same word and saying at one point it refers to one thing and went to another as Israel is

Literal wouldn't live some didn't then it's a picture of the church Yeah, how do you know then which is the literal

Israel and which is the true one? Actually, it's easy the Israel that he wages against and calls not my people is

The natural Israel natural people left in their sins the Israel that he promises never to forsake not to destroy

To keep them until the end is The true one the church the Apostle Paul wrote in first Thessalonians chapter 5 verse 9 that we the church are not appointed for wrath so you look back here

Hosea chapter 11 and you see here and Israel that he says he won't have wrath on and you know

That's the church not appointed for wrath The natural unregenerate that's left in their natural condition

Israel like all natural people goes away from the Lord The more they are called the supernatural

Israel. He says shall go after the Lord in verse 10 they will respond differently to the

Lord than the natural Israel does because they Have a relationship with him

Those with no real relationship with the Lord respond like in verse 2 by going away from him when he calls

But his children scattered here and there among all kinds of nations when they hear his voice They come

They might be a still small voice Outwardly might be a shepherd's voice that the sheep hear and it moves their response

But to their ears It's a roar in verse 10. The Lord will roar like a lion

To his people his sheep his voice has the thunder that breaks through Whatever other noise is trying to fill our ears and when he roars

His children he says in verse 10 notice verse 10 when he roars his children hear that roar

The others can't hear it or maybe they maybe they just hear it as just another piece of noise in a very noisy world

His children though hear the roar and that roar produces in them the draw to come

They don't go further away Like they're not my people They come And they come trembling

He says in reverence and all Knowing that they are Sinners that nothing good dwells in me.

They think and they think rightly and so They ask themselves who will deliver me from this body of death and the roar

Tells them the son whom the father loved and called out of Egypt So they come and they come from far away and exile in the

West They come trembling like birds coming out of refuge in Egypt or in captivity in Assyria They come to him

When they hear the roar Is God treat different people differently

Yes, he has children scattered around the world and he recoils at the idea of Condemning them

Jesus said I've not come into the world to condemn it. He's come to save his people

He has compassion for them. It's warm and tender They're not appointed for wrath and so he resolves that he will not have wrath on them

But he roars for them a call of irresistible grace and he promises that when they come

When they hear that roaring call, then they are justified. They will finally be all of them

Glorified he promises at the end of verse 11 that for every one of these children of his

Whom he is whom he's roaring for He says I will return them to their homes

Every one of them no more wrath no more discipline no more exile

So yes, the Lord treats different people differently like us he's in a relationship with some Some he's not

Some he'll even ignore their pleas some are his children Some are not he doesn't respond to us

Mechanically as though we can get what we want out of him If only we put in the right coins and push the right buttons He has an only begotten son a one -of -a -kind son whom he loved from eternity past whom he called it

Called out of Egypt to to live the perfect life We didn't and to take the wrath that we couldn't if we're in him in Christ We are also

His children and he recoils From pouring out his wrath on us

He's not appointed us to get eternal punishment from him But to have our home with him forever

He will return us to our homes to live in relationship with him If you believe in him in Jesus, you really believe that he is

Lord He is your shepherd. He's he's called you and you've come then you are the father's child

He will roar for you and you will hear and tremble and return home to be with him forever the question then for you is