WWUTT 2234 I Desire Mercy and Not Sacrifice (Hosea 6:1-11)

Israel had this attitude that they could keep on sinning as long as they keep on repenting, but that's not genuine repentance.

We might have that attitude about our sin as well, but we need to understand what real repentance is when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand the Text, a daily Bible commentary to help encourage your time in the

Word. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we feature New Testament Study, an Old Testament book on Thursday, and our

Q &A on Friday. Now here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky, and greetings all.

As we come back to our study in the book of Hosea, we are in Chapter 6 today. Just a quick recap, remember that God told a prophet named

Hosea to take a wife of Harlotree, and so he married a woman named Gomer. She gave him a son, but then she jumped into the beds of other men and had children with them.

Hosea has threatened to cut her off, but he instead takes her back. This is supposed to represent how

Israel had been unfaithful to God. Gomer represents Israel. God is going to cut

Israel off, but he will remain true to his promises by fulfilling his word through Judah.

We read most of that narrative in the first three chapters regarding Hosea and Gomer, and now the rest of this, from Chapters 4 to the end, is all prophetic.

What we're going to see here today is how Israel thinks that they can come back to God and repent, but they have this fleeting attitude of repentance.

They may say it. There may be a moment where they feel genuine conviction and think they can come back to the

Lord and repent, but then that attitude of repentance does not remain. It's just a moment, but it's not genuine.

God is going to be justified then in the judgment that he's going to pour out on Israel because they've never truly been repentant.

That's what this chapter is going to reflect. Let's read all of it. It's actually one of the shorter chapters here.

We have verses 1 through 11, which I'm reading from the Legacy Standard Bible. Hear the word of the

Lord. What shall

I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? For your lovingkindness is like a morning cloud, and the dew which goes away early.

Therefore I have hewn them in pieces by the prophets, I have killed them by the words of my mouth, and the judgments on you are like the light that goes forth.

For I delight in lovingkindness rather than sacrifice, and in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

But like Adam they have trespassed against the covenant, there they have dealt treacherously against me.

Gilead is a city of workers of iniquity, with a track of blood. And as raiders wait for a man, so a band of priests murder on the way to Shechem, surely they have committed lewdness.

In the house of Israel I have seen an appalling thing, Ephraim's harlotry is there,

Israel has defiled itself. Also, O Judah, there is a harvest set for you, when

I restore the fortunes of my people. Now this chapter is divided into two parts, you'll notice that there was a certain voice that was expressed in verses 1 -3, and then it's the voice of Yahweh in verses 4 -11.

The questionable part, or I guess the mystery you might say, is who is speaking in verses 1 -3?

I read from one commentary that said that this might be Hosea that is speaking, and then

God responds in verses 4 -11. So in verses 1 -3 it says though Hosea is appealing to Israel, and saying let's go, let us return to Yahweh, he will heal us and he will bandage us.

And then God responds in verses 4 -11 to say, see Israel's not going to do it. You can call them to do it, but they won't, and here's why my judgment poured out on them is just.

I don't really think that's the explanation though. I think what we have in verses 1 -3 is the voice of Israel.

I think you have Israel saying, let's return to Yahweh and he will heal us. But their repentance is not genuine.

It's their voice, but their expression of returning to the Lord they never actually follow through on, or they do it for a

Sabbath or for a festival or something like that, but it doesn't reflect a continuous attitude or pattern in their heart.

Hence why the Lord says then in Hosea 6 -4, your loving kindness is like a morning cloud and like the dew which goes away early.

So you have expressed a lovingness toward God, but it just, it floats away like a cloud or it's like the dew that appears in the morning when it's good for the dew to appear.

But then as the day goes on, it's gone. So God expresses that about Israel's disingenuous repentance.

And so that's what we have there in that first voice in verses 1 -3. It is Israel expressing, let's return to the

Lord. And this is kind of like in Numbers chapter 14, after the people had grumbled against God, if you'll remember in Numbers 13, there were spies that were sent into the land of Canaan to spy out the land and come back with a report.

This was before God was sending them into the promised land to take it. This is before he had even cursed them to wander in the wilderness for 40 years.

This is what led to that. So Joshua and Caleb were among them. There were 10 other spies.

They went into the land of Canaan. When they came back, 10 of those spies said, we're like grasshoppers to them.

They're going to destroy us. There's no way that we can take this land. God has brought us out of Egypt to kill us here in the land of Canaan.

And Caleb and Joshua tried to appeal to the crowd and said, no, God has said he's going to give this people into our hands.

Don't doubt the Lord. You see how fruitful the land is. You see how abundant it is.

Let's go and take what God has rightfully promised us. But the people believed in the 10 spies who had the negative report, and they grumbled against God and against Moses.

And so the response then was to curse them to wander in the wilderness for 40 years.

That's what led to the 40 year wandering. After that 40 years was over, when that generation had died out, it was their children that would be sent in to receive the promised land.

But right after God had cursed them to wander in the desert for 40 years, the people lamented.

They realized, oh, yet we were foolish. And now here's what we get. Now we have to sit in the wilderness for 40 years.

So why don't we get up and go do what God told us to do? Let's do it.

Okay, we've changed our minds. Now we know we can win. Let's go. And this is at the end of Numbers 14.

They decide a band of them is going to go into the promised land and go against the Amalekites and the

Canaanites, and they're going to take them. And Moses says to them, why are you disobeying

God again? This won't succeed. Don't go up because the

Lord is not among you. You're going to be struck down if you try to do this. You had your chance, and now

God is not with you in this. This is the curse that has been given. You're going to wander for 40 years. But they went up anyway.

And what happened? The band of them that went up against the Amalekites and the Canaanites were destroyed.

And so this is the same kind of a thing here in Hosea 6, where the people get this attitude of, hey, let's come back to the

Lord. Let's do it. Let's repent and come back to God. He will raise us up as he did before.

But in this case, it's not that God had cursed them, and now they're transgressing. In this particular case, it's that they are transgressing and that their hearts are not genuine.

So they might have an attitude or they might have some sort of external appearance of being repentant, of wanting to come back to the

Lord, but it isn't real. And so again, in verses 1 through 3, come, let us return to Yahweh, for he has torn us, but he will heal us.

He has struck us, but he will bandage us. Remember what we've read previously in Hosea.

God's promised to judge Israel because they've whored themselves out with all of these pagan nations, all these pagan gods.

They have played the harlot with them instead of being faithful to the Lord. And so God is giving them a certificate of divorce and he is going to cut them off.

So he's dealt harshly with us, but he will bandage us.

Did he not say that his loving kindness endures forever? So let us come back to God.

He will give us forgiveness. He will make us alive after two days. He will raise us up on the third day.

Yeah, there is something prophetic in that about how God is going to raise Christ after three days.

He would be crucified and in his crucifixion becoming the atoning sacrifice for us, our sins would be imputed to him and God would crush him there on the cross.

But then those who believe in Jesus, his righteousness will be imputed to us. So as Jesus will be made a sacrifice for us, he will be buried, but God will raise him up again on the third day that we may live before him.

The people say he will raise us up again, that we may live before him. That is certainly what God does for us who put our faith in Christ, but when we genuinely believe in Christ.

So then verse three, let us know, let us pursue to know Yahweh, his going forth is established as the dawn and he will come to us like the rain, like the late rain watering the earth.

He will refresh us. He will cause a new thing to grow in us.

In fact, God is going to do that. So after they say that here, he'll come to us like the rain that waters the earth.

At the end, the Lord says, oh Judah, there is a harvest set for you when

I restore the fortunes of my people. So God will fulfill that, but it won't be for Israel.

It'll be for Judah. The 10 tribes will receive what God has promised they will receive in judgment.

Judah will be delivered and it is from them that the Messiah will come. This is the great harvest.

So in this way, God will preserve his people and he will preserve it and will fulfill his promises through Judah.

So this is the word of the people here in verses one through three, an expression of repentance that isn't genuine repentance.

And my friends, we have to be wary of that in ourselves. I think that when we sin, there can be like this initial disgust over our sin.

We hate our sin. I can't believe I did that. Have you ever had that feeling about whenever you have sinned, you're looking at what you just did and you're like, that was all, why did

I do that? I know better than that. And I did it anyway. I knew when I was doing it, it was wrong.

And I still persisted with the wrong. And maybe you have that conflict of conscience going on in yourself, like what

Paul expresses in Romans seven, the thing I hate to do, that's the thing that I end up doing. So we can certainly feel that way about our sin.

But is it, is it a real disgust at our sin? Does it lead you to a conviction that leads you to repentance and a genuine repentance where you are sorrowful?

You come to God, you say, forgive me, Lord. And then really you, you do what you need to do to get away from that sin and never repeat it.

It doesn't become habitual for you. You don't continue in it over and over again. You put it to death that you may be made alive in Christ.

Is that the way you respond when you feel disgusted over your sin like that? Or is it kind of a fleeting response?

So you have, you do have that initial disgust and you have that disgust because you know the word of God, because God has shown to you what sin is, what lawlessness is, even to the degree that it might, it might appall you.

But when you feel that, eventually the feeling kind of goes away. Time heals all wounds as it might go for you.

And you're just going to come back to doing the same sin again. Once the guilt is over, you'll do the same sin again.

You'll feel guilty again, but you'll wait until it passes. You'll do it again. And you continue to do that.

And then you're caught in this cycle where you just become numb to it. Now it's just, it's nature to you.

And eventually that guilt feels less and less and less until you don't feel it at all.

And God just gives you over to your passions. That's a very scary moment if that should happen.

So be wary that when you feel this disgust over your sin and you desire to repent of that sin, that it's real.

Real repentance is going to be turning from that and hating it and not wanting to go back to it.

Being in the righteousness of Christ and pursuing that, your orientations have changed. You're not going in the direction of your sin anymore.

You're going in the direction of the righteousness of Christ. That is a genuine repentance. What is not a genuine repentance is to express that remorse, but you go back to it again and again and again.

And you might repent again and then go back to it again. And you repent again, you go back to it again. And as you're caught in that cycle and you keep doing it, then it isn't genuine.

And you're taking God's grace for granted. You are taking God for granted, thinking he'll just forgive me for this.

And it's kind of this antinomian thing, this anti -law thing where I'm not under the law.

The law is not going to be used against me. I'm under the grace of God. But if you are continuing in this sin, you demonstrate that you really don't have the grace of God.

You're not filled with his grace, you're filled with lawlessness. And you want to continue to go after the lawlessness.

This was the attitude of Israel. They'll hit these moments where they will express some sort of conviction.

Let's turn from our false gods, let's go back to the true God. He did all those great things for us.

These false gods haven't done anything. But then once they feel those passions of their flesh again, because idol worship is always connected with passions of the flesh.

It's never just worshiping an idol for the sake of worshiping the idol. It's because that idol lets me fulfill my passions.

So once those passions of the flesh arise again, then the people just turn from Yahweh again and go back to the idols.

And so the Lord says in Hosea 6 .4, what shall I do with you,

O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? Now, Ephraim, again, synonymous with Israel.

So representing the northern 10 tribes. If Ephraim was like right in the heart, it was right in the center. So you refer to Ephraim, you refer to all of Israel.

For your loving kindness is like a morning cloud and like the dew which goes away early.

And I've already explained that, it's fleeting. You have this attitude of repentance for a moment, but it's not real repentance.

It's like Paul, when he said to the Corinthians, there is a godly grief that leads to repentance, true repentance.

And there's a worldly grief that leads to death. And what Israel was expressing was a worldly grief.

Verse 5, therefore I have hewn them in pieces by the prophets. It's the word of God that has come to them and cut them to show them their guilt and that they may realize the punishment that is about to come upon them.

That would wound them too. I have killed them by the words of my mouth,

God says, and the judgments on you are like the light that goes forth.

It is exposing their darkness. Remember what is said in John 3, 19.

This is the judgment, the light has come into the world and the people love the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.

For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light lest his work should be exposed.

But whoever does what is true comes to the light so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.

And so in verse 6, for I delight in loving kindness rather than sacrifice and in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

And Jesus had said this in Matthew 9 and in Matthew 12, two places in Matthew.

He had made this reference to this passage exactly, Hosea 6, 6. Go and learn what this means,

Jesus said, I desire mercy and not sacrifice for I came not to call the righteous but sinners.

So what does this mean here when we read in Hosea 6, 6, Jesus says, go and learn what this means. So what does it mean?

I delight in loving kindness rather than sacrifice. Well, another word for loving kindness is mercy.

I desire mercy and not sacrifice. And to say mercy is to say holiness.

I desire holiness of which mercy and charity are extensions of that holiness.

So that's why it will come out translated either mercy or loving kindness. I desire,

I delight in loving kindness rather than sacrifice because you've been obedient to my word and you are holy in your practice.

Then you demonstrate mercy and charity as the fruit that comes from that holiness that you have from God.

That's what God delights in, that you would be holy. And then that second line, and in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings, in the knowledge of God, in other words, that it's not just mental assent.

You don't just have the knowledge of it. But knowledge of God means that you know his word and you value to do it because that's what

God puts behind his word. He doesn't he doesn't just speak words for the sake of you gaining knowledge, but that you would know

God in a fellowship kind of knowing God. You are in communion with him that you hear his word and you do it.

This is not some sort of pragmatism that you're following along with. It's not merely theoretical, but it is.

It's practical. You really do it. You hear God's word and you do what he says.

That's what the Lord means by that you would have the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

I'm going to sacrifice because I'm covering up my sin. No, God would rather you just not sin.

I delight in loving kindness rather than sacrifice and in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

If you were obedient to the Lord in the first place, then you wouldn't have to be sacrificing to cover the sin that you had been doing so ignorantly.

That's what the Lord desires. And that's what flows from a genuine heart that loves God, not the one that continues to sin.

And if I just keep sending, well, I can just keep sacrificing. That is not the one who loves

God or knows God. And so going on in verse seven, but like Adam, they have trespassed against the covenant.

There, they have dealt treacherously against me. The whole debate over whether or not God had made a covenant with Adam is silly.

I've never understood that. I pushed back against it at one point, but it was when somebody showed me

Hosea 6, 7 and I was like, okay, and then Adam was in covenant with God. There's no way to argue that because it says

Adam trespassed the covenant. And so did Israel. They trespassed the covenant.

God had made a covenant with Adam. Genesis 2, 16, you may surely eat of every tree in the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat.

For in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die. You do these things, you will receive blessings.

You disobey these things, you will receive curses. That's a covenant. God made this covenant with Adam.

Adam transgressed the covenant and all of mankind has fallen into the curse ever since.

And Israel has done the same thing as Adam has done. We kind of talked about this a little bit when we had started

Matthew, because I had said that Israel disobeyed God at every point. Jesus obeyed

God. It was in submission to the father at every point. And so Jesus becomes true

Israel and where Adam failed Christ, who is the last Adam succeeded.

Paul makes that point in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. So here Israel is behaving as Adam rather than as God, as they should.

But like Adam, they have trespassed against the covenant. There they have dealt treacherously against me as if doing violently against the word and the law of God.

Verse 8, Gilead is a city of workers of iniquity with a track of blood.

So instead of the fruit of their belief being loving kindness and knowledge, instead it's the fruit of their lawlessness that becomes blood injustice.

Verse 9, And as raiders wait for a man, so a band of priests murder on the way to Shechem.

Surely they have committed lewdness. It probably was that they really committed murder on the way to Shechem.

Just as the next line, they have committed lewdness. We know that they did that. There was sexual abominations that they did in the worship to these false gods.

So likewise, there was probably human sacrifice as well. We know that that infants were sacrificed to these false gods.

Could have been that they were also slaughtering each other because this was the rotten fruit that was that was coming out of this kind of worship to these pagan deities.

And so the Lord responds to them in the house of Israel. Israel I have seen an appalling thing,

Ephraim's harlotry is there. Israel has defiled itself. And so God's judgment upon them is going to be just because of how wickedly they have dealt with each other and with God.

But then there's this promise that is teased out here in verse 11. Also, O Judah, there is a harvest set for you when

I restore the fortunes of my people. And those fortunes we receive through Jesus Christ.

We have been made fellow heirs of the kingdom of God for those who believe in Jesus. Turn from your sin to the

Lord Jesus Christ and you will live. And brethren, I pray for you that that turning, that repentance will be genuine.

Don't be as the dog that returns to its vomit or the pig that goes back to wallowing in the mire.

Turn to the Lord Jesus Christ and live. Heavenly Father, we thank you for what we've read here.

I pray that it is convicting to us. It's a conviction that leads to a godly grief that leads to a repentance so that we may do the righteous thing before God.

No longer running back to the passions of our flesh, but doing what delights the Lord.

Lead us in that truth today. In Jesus name we pray, amen. This has been

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