Sermon: Justice, Mercy, and Hope

Well, turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Hosea, chapter 14. That's found on page 759 of your few Bibles, if you would like to turn there. We close our series on Hosea tonight, and we are going to hear these last words of God through Hosea to the people of this northern kingdom of Israel. Let's read it together, Hosea chapter 14.

"Return, O 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. Accept what is good, and we will pay with bulls the vows of our lips. Assyria shall not save us. We will not ride on horses, and we will say no more, "Our god," to the works 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. And 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. O Ephraim, what have I to do with idols?

It is I who answer and look after you. I am like an evergreen cypress. From me comes your fruit. Whoever is wise, let him understand these things, and whoever is discerning, let him know them. For the ways of the Lord are right, and the upright walk in them, but the transgressors stumble in them." Amen. Well,

when I was in college, I wrote a paper in an ethics class on Plato's dialogue to Euthyphro, in which I tried to defend the notion that God has the right to command what he wills, and it is rational for Christians to draw our ethics from God's commands. In this dialogue, Socrates argues with Euthyphro, who is persecuting his own father for the death of a hired laborer. Socrates' point in this dialogue is that on the one hand,

Euthyphro seems to be pursuing justice against his father because what happened to the servant was wrong. But on the other hand, filing charges against one's father also seems morally problematic. So Socrates asks, what is the right thing to do, and how do we know what is the right thing to do? Euthyphro says that the right path is to follow the commands of the gods. And Socrates rightly points out that these commands often seem to

contradict. His final and seemingly fatal question for Euthyphro is this: Is the right thing the right thing because the gods love it, or do they love it because it is right? On the one hand, if all that something needs to be right is whether or not a god ordered it, then there's really no objectivity, because these Greek gods all disagree so much. Right and wrong on that basis is purely arbitrary and just the whim of the

divine on a given day. On the other hand, if the gods themselves look to a higher standard, then why are we bothering with talking about the gods and their opinions on such matters? Some modern moral philosophers appeal to Plato here in order to claim that it is incoherent to say that something is right or wrong because of biblical teaching. Now, the problem with these claims, which I hope that you can already see, is that

God is not a man, that He himself should lie or be inconsistent with Himself or be grumpy one day and nice the next, or on and on, et cetera. This objection is only made by those who do not know our God. It is natural, if you are far from God, to distrust Him and want to discredit His commands. God's commands are not arbitrary because they come out of who He eternally and unchangeably is. Justice and love find their meaning, not just in what

He says, but in who He is and what He has done. And any sense in mankind throughout history that justice should be objective and that mercy should be given are simply shadows of His perfect character in the minds and hearts of men. Now, I say all this as an introduction because at the end of this series, and recalling all that has come before, what I want us to do tonight with our text is ask the question that these atheist moral philosophers have not

asked or did not want to ask. I want us to simply ask of our text, who is this God? What is He like? How does He view mankind's rebellion against Him? And what does it mean for us to be in relationship with a God like this? And what I see in this text in answer to those questions are very simple. I have three simple points. One, ours is a God of perfect justice. Two, ours is a God of incalculable mercy. And third, flowing from the first two,

the hope of mankind, full stop, is that both of those previous points are true. So first, ours is a God of perfect justice. Here I want us to especially consider verse eight and really the entirety of the book up until this point, the book of Hosea.

Even we could consider the entire history of Israel up until this point. This is the God who heard the groaning of His people in Egypt and miraculously delivered them and sovereignly exercised judgment upon the gods of the nations. This is the God who led them, led His people compassionately out of Egypt and made a covenant with them. We tend to read about God's anger in the Bible, particularly in the prophets, perhaps, and we then pass judgment

upon it. We think God shouldn't be so angry with these people, and exercise such severe judgment upon them. Recall that day when Moses is up on the mountain, learning from God the commandments and the gracious covenant that He is making with His people, who He just redeemed out of slavery. While Moses is up on the mountain, the people demand that Aaron make an idol for them to worship. The God who is the only right object of worship is literally in the middle of

telling Moses how He is to be worshiped, what is actually right and wrong in the Ten Commandments, and the people to whom He has shown unbelievable mercy are down at the foot of the mountain trying to assert their own sovereignty over all of these things. But in perhaps a crowning insult, the call to worship the golden calf that had been created by Aaron, the call that begins their wickedness was this in Exodus 34, verse 4, "Behold, your gods, O Israel,

who brought you up out of the land of Egypt." Consider next the beginning of the northern kingdom of Israel itself, the kingdom to which Hosea is prophesying. When the kingdom divides after Solomon's death, Jeroboam becomes the king of these northern tribes, and the problem for Jeroboam is that the center of worship of God, the true worship, was in Jerusalem, in Judea, not in his territory. And Jeroboam knew that his authority would not be certain if his people, his

subjects, had to travel to this other kingdom to worship where the temple was. So, faithless and wicked political genius that Jeroboam was, he makes two golden calves, and he sets one in Bethel and one in Dan, and guess what he says? "Behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt." Because worship to Jeroboam, like those freed slaves that we just saw before him in Exodus, was not something that was owed to a perfect, holy, and sovereign God who has

been supremely gracious. It was, in fact, a means to his own sovereignty. And unlike the southern kingdom, David's line in Judah, there was never a king in Israel who did not follow Jeroboam into blasphemy and idol worship. Consider the despairing words of Elijah in 1 Kings 19, that to himself he says to God, "I seem like I'm the only one in the kingdom who worships rightly and rejects idolatry." God, in verse eight of tonight's passage, appeals to Israel,

calling them by the name of Jeroboam's tribe, "O Ephraim, what have I to do with idols? It is I who answer and look after you. I am like an evergreen cypress. From me comes your fruit." We've seen all through this book that this nation has looked everywhere for salvation except to the God who can save them. They know all the stories. They know the history. They know the covenant. And rather than turn to the one to whom they owe their existence, they'd rather

seek help from an evil and brutal nation that is currently plotting against them. They would rather seek help from the gods that they have created with their hands and seek comfort in the worship that they themselves have designed to suit their own lusts. Now, I don't know about you, but I know that story. This story lives in my own heart and in my own history. This is a story that defines the human condition. The human says, "My lusts will comfort me when I am weak.

Worldly influence will protect me when I am vulnerable. And God, I want you at an arm's length because I don't want to give up control." And God says here, "O Dave, what have I to do with idols? It is I who answer and look after you. I am the evergreen cypress. From me will come your fruit." Second, ours is a God of incalculable mercy. One thing that our text makes very clear to us is a truism that you should remember

when reading the judgment portions of the prophets. There's been a lot of promise of wrath in Hosea, and while it can be hard to hear, we shouldn't forget the lesson that Jonah knew so clearly. Jonah, you'll recall, he didn't want to go to Nineveh because he knew that our God is a gracious God, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. Jonah didn't want Nineveh to be shown mercy, so he refused to go and proclaim the

message of the coming wrath. What Jonah knew, and what we sometimes forget when we read the prophets, is that the prophetic threat of wrath ordinarily, almost every time, carries with it an implicit promise. "An unrepentant people," God says, "I will destroy, and the punishment will suit the crimes. The destruction will be in proportion to the rejection of the sweet providence and grace that has been shown. But," God says here in Hosea 14, explicitly in Jeremiah

18, and implicitly throughout all the prophets, "if this people turn, I will have mercy." Sinner, you here in this room are hearing the sound of my voice. Above all other things, you should fear the wrath that your sin deserves. But you should also know that just as sure as the wrath will come upon all evil, mercy will be given to any who turn to the Lord and ask for it. Not any who have lived all the ways that they should have lived, not those who are

without sin. Our Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and anyone who turns to him in faith, asking for redemption through the blood of Christ, will receive mercy. Consider that this long book, 14 chapters now, was written to a people who had so thoroughly rejected God that they were about to receive the wrath that had been promised. This is a generation before the end of this nation. Hosea's ministry is just before that destruction.

Do you see? Up until the end, God is sending someone to them to say, "Please, please, turn back to me." God is sending a prophet to knock on the door and say, "Turn and I will help. Come to me and I will deliver. It is not too late to be spared the wrath to come." Consider that God could have, when Jeroboam set up those two golden calves, sent immediate destruction. There's no obligation on his part to show mercy to those who have rejected his providence and grace.

There's certainly no obligation on his part to continue to graciously send messengers of warning and hope decade after decade, century after century. We have three prophetic books that record God's gracious call specifically to this nation of Israel, Hosea, Amos, and Jonah. And in the books of 1 and 2 Kings, we are told of at least eight more prophets throughout its history, sent by God specifically to call this nation back to

himself, including Elijah and Elisha. We read the prophets and their words, and we can feel the weight of them and even recoil at what is said, but we forget that they represent decades, centuries of God graciously pleading with his covenant people just to turn to him and receive mercy and help. Israel in Hosea's time stood on the brink of their destruction, a destruction that they were well and thoroughly warned about.

And God, in his mercy, yet again, right at the final hour, has sent to them a message of grace. "Turn to me and I will deliver you. Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God. Take with you words." That is, confess with your mouth your need and your sin and ask for forgiveness. It says, "We will pay with the bulls of our lips." That is, our sacrifice to you shall be the sincere confession of our trust and our dependence. "Assyria shall not save us, and we shall no

longer say 'Our God' to the work of our hands." That is, we will not look to the world or to our idols that we have set up for comfort and help. We will seek after you alone. And then here in our passage, in a seeming reference to Psalm 10: "In you, the orphan finds mercy." That is, if Israel

would repent and abandon the things that are giving them false hope and false comfort, even as they find themselves then helpless and commit themselves to him, if they would do so, God would have mercy because God is the helper of the helpless, the father of the fatherless. Those who call upon God's name in their weakness can have, will have, actual true and living hope, because that is who he is. Third, the hope of mankind is that both of these previous

points are true. As I introduced this sermon tonight, I noted that those who are far from God may fear the commands of God because they do not know him as you and I know him. I hope that I've illustrated that as we, like Israel, seek comfort and peace from worldly pleasures and from the fulfillment of our lusts, we invite degradation and despair. We invite the troubling of our souls. We invite hopelessness. Ultimately, we invite destruction upon ourselves.

Those of us who know Christ know this to be true. It's a good reminder to us as we fight day by day with our sin, that sin itself is about worship. It's a failure to realize that Assyria is not going to help us, and neither will the idol that we have crafted in our minds. Now, Christians are no longer fundamentally idol worshippers, we are Christ worshippers, but those idols still call our names, and we still get tricked into

thinking that they will satisfy. But nothing, brothers and sisters, nothing but Jesus can truly satisfy. This world and its pleasures and its securities will pass away. God's love for you, his word, his promises will never pass away. Listen to the promises of God to Israel in Hosea. These promises to Israel are pictures of the abundant restoration that is given to those who are in Christ. Let these images here in Hosea

comfort your souls. "If you turn to him for help and for deliverance," God says, "I will heal your apostasy. I will love you freely, for my anger has turned away from you. I will be to you like the dew; you shall blossom like the lily, you shall take root like the trees in Lebanon. Your shoots shall spread out; your beauty shall be like the olive tree, and your fragrance like Lebanon. You shall return and dwell beneath my shadow, and you shall flourish like the

grain, blossom like the vine, and your fame shall be like the wine of Lebanon." I hope you see these are evocative words of abundance and blessing. In the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we not only receive pardon, but rich, lavish, beautiful, delightful blessing. Ours is a God whose delight, write down Psalm 147, ours is a God whose delight is in the fear that is the reverent dependence of his people. Brothers and sisters, would you like to bring joy to God?

Would you like to bless him? Would you like him to be delighted? The Bible tells us clearly that how to do that is to call upon him in your weakness. You see that the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been the Gospel from the beginning of all time. The Gospel is preached through Hosea, just as it was preached to Abraham, Moses, and David. When Jesus spoke to those disciples on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24, he showed himself to them in all the scriptures, beginning with Moses and the prophets.

Surely what Jesus said to them about the end of Hosea is that the way to salvation, the way to the redemption of your souls, the way to grow in godliness as you await that final day, is to call upon Jesus' name and be saved. Depend upon this God and be delivered. If you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, you will be saved. If you turn to this God for redemption and for mercy, just as

Hosea said to Israel, you will find mercy and abundant blessing. In fact, your only hope in this life or in your death is to turn to this God for redemption and for mercy, to turn away from sin and the idols, and to trust wholly in Jesus Christ. But we see here in Hosea, turning to him is not merely the narrow escape from hell. It is a life of rich blessing and comfort. It is not merely survival. It is the thing that will actually fulfill your deep

desires, the deepest desires of your heart for security, for love, for beauty, for abundance, for satisfaction.

Unbeliever, this is the God that you do not know, but in whom we believe and in whom we trust and in whom we rest. This is the God whose commands we not only know to be right and true, but whose law is our delight. His perfect justice, his perfect love are eternal and unchanging parts of his character, his nature. And because of this, he is above all beings to be trusted. Call upon him for your deliverance. He will never let you down.

Let's pray together. Father, whom have we but you?

Praise be to your holy name. Who do we need but you? The inheritance of your people is peace and joy, eternal peace and eternal joy that begins here on earth. Help us, we pray, to delight you by calling upon your name and to rest, knowing that you can help and that you will never let down those who trust in you. Thank you that perfect justice and perfect mercy met at the cross, and the wrath that has been poured out already for those who belong to

Christ. It's in his name that we pray. Amen.