Sermon: Mighty God, Faithless Bride

Good evening. Tonight we will continue our evening sermon series in the Book of Hosea. So if you could turn to Hosea chapter two in your pew Bibles, that would be on page 751. Hosea chapter two.

Let us go to the Lord before we dive into his word.

Lord, your word says that none is righteous. No, not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God. Yet Lord, how is it that we have the words of eternal life in our hands and in our laps? Oh God, you are a gracious God. You have pursued us by your love. Please let us not forsake these next few moments as we hear from your Spirit through your word. Would you give us insight? Would you help us to see your Son, Jesus Christ?

We pray in his name, amen.

Hosea chapter two. This is the reading of God's word. "Say to your brothers, 'You are my people,' and to your sisters, 'You have received mercy.' Plead with your mother, plead, for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband; that she put away her w*****g from her face, and her adultery from between her breasts; lest I strip her naked, and make her as in the day she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and make her like a parched land, and kill her with

thirst. Upon her children also I will have no mercy, because they are children of whoredom. For their mother has played the w***e; she who conceived them has acted shamefully. For she said, 'I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.' Therefore I will hedge up her way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her, so that she cannot find her paths. She shall pursue her lovers but not overtake them, and she shall

seek them but shall not find them. Then she shall say, 'I will go and return to my first husband, for it was better for me then than now.' And she did not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the wine, and the oil, and who lavished on her silver and gold, which they used for Baal. Therefore I will take back my grain in its time, and my wine in its season, and I will take away my wool and my flax, which were to cover her nakedness.

Now I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and no one shall rescue her out of my hand. And I will put an end to all her mirth, her feasts, her new moons, her Sabbaths, and all her appointed feasts. And I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees, of which she said, 'These are my wages, which my lovers have given me.' I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall devour them. And I will punish her for the feast days of the Baals, when she burned

offerings to them, and adorned herself with her ring and jewelry, and went after her lovers and forgot me,' declares the Lord. "Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her. And there I will give her her vineyards, and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.

And in that day,' declares the Lord, 'you will call me "My Husband," and no longer will you call me "My Baal." For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be remembered by name no more. And I will make for them a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the creeping things of the ground. And I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land, and I will make you lie down in safety.

And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness, and you shall know the Lord. And in that day I will answer,' declares the Lord, 'I will answer the heavens, and they shall answer the earth, and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil, and they shall answer Jezreel. And I will sow her for

myself in the land, and I will have mercy on No Mercy. And I will say to Not My People, "You are my people." And he shall say, "You are my God."'"

Well, at some point, most of you, likely in history class, have learned a pithy rhyme which goes something like this. Divorced, beheaded, died. Divorced, beheaded, survived. Many of you know what I am talking about. Such was the notorious fate of the six wives of Henry VIII, King of England in the 16th century Seeking a male heir to the throne, Henry would have nothing to do with a wife who could not meet that desire.

Though this example is particularly memorable, Henry is not all that unique among great and powerful kings. Seldom do we find an epitaph written that says, "A mighty ruler and a faithful husband." How then might we expect a mighty God to treat a people who is not only disappointing, but also adulterous and faithless? Shall I remind us that God has no equal in all the earth. He is the God that spoke creation out of nothing by the word of his mouth.

He is the God who embarrassed the pantheon of Egyptian deities in delivering his people out of slavery in Egypt. He is the God who answered his servant, Elijah, on Mount Carmel and poured forth fire from heaven. And do you know what it was said of his rival, Baal? It was said, "No one answered. No one paid attention." He is the God who says in Isaiah 45, "There is no God besides me. A righteous God and a savior, there is none besides me."

And he is the God of whom the prophet Micah says, "Who is a God like you?" So how might we expect this God to treat his faithless bride? Does he not have every right to divorce or even behead his people? He could send them away and leave them to their own fate, or he could just wipe them out and leave no trace. Maybe some of you tonight come to this service wondering if God is like this. Maybe you feel manipulated or abused by this God,

or feel like he's left you hung out to dry. Some of you want to feel that this God is near, and yet it just seems like he's far away, like maybe he's forgotten. And others of you have felt like you've gone just one step too far, or many steps too far beyond his love, and he's never coming after you again.

Tonight, Hosea 2 gives an answer to this question: how does a mighty God deal with his faithless people? Last week in chapter 1, we saw Hosea illustrate God's relationship with his faithless people by taking a wife of whoredom, Gomer. They bore a child together, Jezreel, and then the text implies that Gomer went on to bear two illegitimate children, No Mercy and Not My People. Now, I think it almost goes without saying that

this action is unique to Hosea's prophetic calling. These actions are not prescriptive for the Christian life. We should not be seeking to imitate Hosea necessarily or borrow from his baby names.

If Hosea 1 is like a sermon illustration, then Hosea 2 is the sermon. Notice how in verse one Hosea turns to the people of God. He turns to his brothers and sisters of Israel, and he addresses this question: how does God deal with those he loves, especially when they have gone astray? Tonight, this text answers that question in three ways. First, in verses one through nine, the Lord gives and he takes away. Second, the Lord deals justly with their sin in

verses 10 to 13. And finally, the Lord renews his covenant in verses 14 to 23. So first, verses one through nine, the Lord gives and takes away. Consider this contrast immediately presented to us in the first two verses. He says, "Say to your brothers, 'You are my people,' and to your sisters, 'You have received mercy.'" We have an immediate declaration of mercy followed by an accusation of marital infidelity. The Lord begins by declaring his favor for his

people. This whole prophecy is couched in these terms, that the Lord is a merciful God. And yet in this moment, he withholds his smiling providence to expose their violation of his love.

At times, God leads his people through the bountiful provision of green pastures, and yet he is no less God when he leads them through the rocky wilderness And so it is appropriate that God's people seriously reckon with their spiritual condition. Which god do you really serve? Who is really your first love? It is in this context that Hosea pleads with them to remember and return to their beloved husband and God. Now, since

its birth, the people of Israel in the wilderness have been prone to wander after other lovers. In Joshua 24:15, Joshua gives this famous charge as the people of Israel begin to conquer the promised land. And he says, "And if it is evil in your sight to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve. Whether the gods your fathers served, in the region beyond the river, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell.

But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." Well, I think we all know that time and time again, the Israelites chose the gods of the people in whose land they dwelt. None of the northern kings walked with the Lord their God. Instead, like Ahab, they made Baal worship the state religion. So what made God's people so inclined to serve lesser gods? What would make them turn from the God who brought them out of Egypt to

these other gods? Well, in order to answer this question, we must understand the physical and spiritual nature of the land of Israel.

Sometimes I like to consider myself a world traveler. I like to explore different regions of the world, almost never taking a plane, certainly never taking a boat. It's usually on Google Maps. Some of us have an insatiable curiosity to explore geography by means of satellite imagery. And if you were to look at the land of Israel on a map, you would actually find that the geography has significance for the spiritual worship of the land.

You would find a place like the Valley of Jezreel in the northern kingdom, a lush agricultural farmland. And yet you would not find many bodies of fresh water, which would supply the water to sustain these lands. So the question arises, well, where does the land of Israel get its sustenance from? One Jewish scholar says this, "The land of Israel stands in greater need of rain than other lands, being mountainous in contrast to the great river valleys of

Mesopotamia and Egypt. Hence, famine is more common in it than elsewhere." The land of Israel was a land flowing with milk and honey, and yet it was also a daily reminder that provisions come from the unseen hand of God as he pours forth his blessings through the rain. It was a call to daily dependence on the giver of all good things. This also meant that the Canaanites dwelling in the land depended on their gods for the rains.

Thus enters into the picture Baal, the storm god, the rider of the clouds, who supposedly brought agricultural rains to his worshipers. That explains the agricultural language we see used by Hosea in this passage. Consider verse five, when it says, "I will go after my lovers who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink." And the Lord says in verse eight, "And she did not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the wine, and

the oil, and who lavished on her silver and gold, which they used for Baal." Now, we might still ask, well, what fool would make a choice like that, would choose

Baal over Yahweh, the great covenant-keeping God? But are we not all fools? Do we not all choose the fleeting pleasures of sin which promise us everything if only we indulge in them? Do not our hearts tell us that God is withholding something from us that would truly satisfy, so let's give somebody else a shot. Don't we want a God who will delight our passions, if even just for a moment?

One scholar makes this distinction between Yahweh and Baal. He says Yahweh reveals his nature as a God whose sovereign activity of salvation and election in Israel is readily discernible and ever present, while the character of Baal's appearance is a seasonal and rather impersonal precipitation of moisture. Which do you desire more? The one who gives all good things or merely the experience of those good things? Your answer determines which God you serve.

The truth is that our God has greater interests than your material provision. He desires you, a relationship, your heart, your love. And when material goods become obstacles and objects of stumbling, He is also a God who takes them away. Consider the language God uses here of removal. He says in verse three, "Lest I strip her naked." In verse six, He says, "I will hedge up her way with thorns. I will build a wall against her."

In verse nine, "Therefore, I will take back my grain. I will take away my wool and my flax." Is God a cruel God for removing His gifts? Is He cruel for allowing His people to suffer?

Based on the answer He gives, He would say absolutely not. In verse seven, He tells us why. "Then she shall say, 'I will go and return to my first husband, for it was better for me then than now.'" The discipline of God, though it is painful, is designed to draw us back into a place where there are far greater joys. Isaiah says this so beautifully in chapter 30, verses 20 and 21. He says, "And though the Lord give you the bread of

adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide Himself anymore. But your eyes shall see your Teacher, and your ears shall hear a voice behind you saying, 'This is the way, walk in it,' when you turn to the right and when you turn to the left. Then you will defile your carved idols overlaid with silver and your gold-plated metal images. You will scatter them as unclean things. You will say to them, 'Be gone!'"

The Lord desires you, your worship, your love, and this often requires that He strips you of all good things, that you might find all good things in Him. John Newton paraphrases the Lord's words in a famous hymn. He says, "These inward trials I employ, From self and pride to set thee free, And break thy schemes of earthly joy, That thou mayst find thy all in Me." The Lord may temporarily remove good things, but He will eternally and permanently

destroy all evil. So next, we turn to verses 10 to 13. The Lord deals justly with sin. Our God is not like a father who turns his face away when his child is breaking one of his direct commands. He is not like a bitter spouse who sweeps things under the rug when conflict arises. No, God is a faithful and a holy God. To overlook the sin of His people would be to leave them to a cruel fate. So these four verses show us four ways that God

deals with sin. And this is not just for the people of Israel. He deals with sin in this way for you. First, God exposes hidden sin. Verse 10 tells us, "Now I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers." The Lord labels sin for what it is. The inward act of idolatry is really adultery. Do not be deceived by sin. We tend to justify our sinful actions by calling them a different name or by saying, "Well, no one around me sees what's going on. This is just an internal thing.

It only affects me, doesn't hurt anybody else."

That is quite the pretense. In 1 John 1:5-7, John says that, "God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with Him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sins." So let your sin be brought into the light. Make it a regular habit of confessing sin

by name. Take joy when sin is uncovered. And brothers and sisters, know that there is no reproach, there is no shame for the one whose sin is paid for by the blood of Jesus Christ.

Second, the Lord puts an end to evil pleasure. In verse 11, He says, "I will put an end to all her mirth." He lists a number of religious ceremonies. Now, let us be clear that Christian joy is not the same as frivolous levity and meaningless celebrations Just because life is going well does not mean that God is pleased with you. He often brings people to a place of deep darkness in order to lift up their soul. And speaking of repentance, James says in James chapter four,

"Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourself before the Lord and he will exalt you." The people of God must find joy in what truly matters. A sober-minded joy is one that is fully aware of the cost of sin, and yet also fully confident in just who paid that sin. Third, the Lord eliminates sources of temptation. In verse 12 says, "I will lay waste those things of which she said, 'These are my

wages, which my lovers have given me.'" The world offers many things which would keep us momentarily content. Charles Spurgeon says that the world's goods, its substance, its riches, its pleasures, its pomp, its fame, what are these without Christ? They're like a mirage in the desert that deceives a traveler but offers not a single drop of joy. So hold your goods loosely, lest they keep you from Christ. Cut off those things which would be sources of temptation, which would

cause you to stumble.

Fourth and finally, in verse 13, the Lord exacts punishment on false worship. He says, "I will punish her for the feast days of the Baals, when she burned offerings to them." Ironically, the burnt offerings were designed as a sacrifice, as an atonement for sin, to propitiate the wrath of God. And yet in something that symbolized atonement, the people were only incurring greater guilt and more wrath on themselves. Religious worship means nothing if it is not directed

at the proper object of worship. So brothers and sisters, let us not take the punishment for sin lightly. Israel did. And 30 years later, Assyria came down, destroyed their cities, took them away, and they never returned back to their land as a nation. The Lord deals justly with all sin. All sin is punished. For many, it is punished on their shoulders. For the rebellious and faithful, they will endure the punishment for sin for all of eternity.

And this is what happened to the nation of Israel. And yet, it was in the same place, a town called Nazareth, a northern city that overlooks the valley of Jezreel, where a man named Jesus would come to save his people from their sin. So if you are in Christ, then the Lord does punish your sin, but it is on his shoulders and not your own. So I ask you to consider tonight, has the Lord dealt with your sin? Has it been exposed, confessed, and

forgiven? Or will it remain hidden until you give an account before God on the final day? Have you experienced grief and misery over your sin, and yet the joy and freedom that Christ brings? Or do you live in an ignorant bliss? Do you hate those things which would cause you to stumble, and do you strive to put them away and have nothing to do with them? Or are you content with letting them lie in your life? Do you have faith

that Jesus took God's wrath on your behalf? Or do you dread the punishment that awaits you? What a magnificent God we serve, that for those who are in Christ, he does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our transgressions. And we might say how deep the Father's love for us. How vast, beyond all measure, that he should give his only Son to make a wretch his treasure. And for those that he does deal with sin in this way,

he also makes a new and a lasting covenant with them. So finally, we turn to verses 14 to 23, that the Lord renews his covenant.

Sometimes as we read the prophets, we might be dizzied by the rapid fluctuation between judgment and mercy. We might say, "Well, which is it, Lord? Are you going to destroy the people? Are you going to renew them?" It's back and forth, back and forth Well, we know that God does not make contradictory statements. He is not an internally conflicted God wrestling with, "Well, should I show mercy? Should I destroy them?" But notice the pattern here.

The pattern is because sin is dealt with, because of sin's just penalty. Verse 14, "Therefore, I will allure her." This is not in spite of, or begrudgingly, or because I have to. No, the Lord's justice paves the way for his tender mercies, and in both, he acts willingly and decisively. Just look with me with these last 10 verses at how many times the Lord says, "I will." It's 13 times. Verse 14, "I will allure her. I will give

her, her vineyards. I will remove the names of the Baals. I will make for them a covenant. I will abolish the bow. I will betroth. I will betroth. I will betroth. I will answer. I will sow. I will have mercy, and I will say, 'You are my people.'" Notice that one word is very conspicuously absent here, and that's the word because.

It is not because you turned back, because you got yourself right with me. It is simply I will. It is simply because he is God, because his ways are higher than our ways, because his love is so incomprehensible, beyond any human love. It is the love that sent his Son to die while we were yet sinners. And the most we can do, the role we have to play, is to simply receive his benefits by faith and trust him as a loving God.

So he makes a new covenant with his people. If you notice that Hosea is relying on previous covenantal language. Verse 14 and 15 remind us of the covenant God made with his people in the wilderness. Verse 18 is almost word for word the Noahic Covenant when Noah came off the ark and the Lord restored his creation. But these covenants were shadows. They were like installments of the greater covenant to come, the new covenant in Christ's blood.

One that cannot be undone by unfaithfulness, and in which every obligation is satisfied by Christ's righteousness and not our own. This is a covenant not merely for Hosea's audience. In fact, most of them never experience this covenant. This is a covenant for the nations of the world. Paul quotes Hosea in Romans 9:25 and 26, referring to the ingrafting of Gentiles. He says, "Those who are not my people, I will call my

people. And he who is not my beloved, I will call beloved. And in the very place that it was said to them, 'You are not my people,' there they will be called sons of the living God." This is a covenant with the whole world. And yet this covenant is specifically for you. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people.

Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Let me tell you, Baal is not making that offer to you. Can you imagine sitting at home, you hear a knock on the door. You open the door, and someone's holding a little gold shrine. And they say, "Excuse me, sir, can I take a moment to tell you about the mighty storm god, Baal?" You would laugh in their face. That is ridiculous. Baal is done and gone. But our God is an enduring God.

He is a faithful God. He extends his love to the ends of the earth, to people who have nothing to do with the land of Israel.

Baal and the gods of this world offer pitifully little compared to our God. The Lord says in verses 19 and 20, "I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness, and you shall know the Lord." No longer will you set your love on whatever will give you the most gratification. You will be perfectly satisfied in the

enjoyment of God himself As I thought about this, what does it mean to know God and not simply love Him for the benefits that He gives us? Well, I was reminded as a child, and probably many children here do the same thing, that throughout the day, I used to go to the window and just watch who might come by. And in the morning, the garbage men would come by with their big truck. And that was pretty sweet. That was fascinating, and I would watch them

take our garbage away. Around noon, the mailman would come, and I might even rush to the door or out to the mailbox if he brought cool mail or a package. That was also exciting. But in the evening, there's only one man that I would fling the door open for and run into his arms, and even when I was really little, be swept up into his arms. And it's not because he brought home a paycheck. It's not because he had any goodies for me.

It's because he was Dad.

And I hope you know the Lord in this way. He is far more than a great king and a generous provider. He is your faithful husband. And we have the hope one day of heaven, if you are in Christ, that you will see God as He is. Revelation tells us, "Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb." My friends, will you be there, cleansed by the blood of Jesus? Or will you decline your invitation, choosing instead the fleeting pleasures of this life

and the gods that can never satisfy? Put your trust in this God. And if you already have, may He renew your love for Him this day. Let's pray.

Our God, we are indeed prone to wander, prone to leave the God who has showed His love in the death of His Son on the cross. Oh, Lord, we thank You for pursuing us. We thank You for cleansing us and washing us, and presenting us pure and blameless in Your sight. I do ask that You would, by Your Holy Spirit, purify us, that You would make us blameless on that last day, and that we would feast at the marriage supper of the Lamb

and enjoy You forevermore. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.