Sermon: The Purpose of Divine Discipline

Let me lead us in prayer.

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this beautiful evening. We thank you, Lord, that you have enabled us to come back under this roof to hear from your word. And we pray, Lord, that may you speak to us, and may you anoint me with thy Holy Spirit to preach your word to your people. And may this word land on fertile hearts, hearts that will produce fruits to the glory of your name. In Christ Jesus, we have prayed. Amen.

This evening, the Lord is going to speak to us from the book of Hosea. Here at URC, during the evening service, we have been going through a series from the book of Hosea. And today, we are going to go through Hosea chapter 5. So if you are able, turn with me to Hosea chapter 5, and I commence the reading of God's word. "Hear this, O priests. Pay attention, O house of Israel. Give ear, O house of the king, for the judgment is for you.

For you have been a snare at Mizpah, and a net spread upon Tabor; and the revolters have gone deep into slaughter. But I'll discipline all of them. I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hidden from me, for now, O Ephraim, you have played the w***e. Israel is defiled. Their deeds do not permit them to return to their God, for the spirit of whoredom is within them, and they know not the Lord. The pride of Israel testifies to his face;

Israel and Ephraim shall stumble in his guilt. Judah also shall stumble with them. With their flocks and herds they shall go to seek the Lord, but they will not find him. He has withdrawn from them. They have dealt faithlessly with the Lord, for they have borne alien children. Now the new moon shall devour them with their fields. Blow the horn in Gibeah, the trumpet in Ramah. Sound the alarm at Beth Aven. We follow you,

O Benjamin. Ephraim shall become a desolation in the day of punishment. Among the tribes of Israel I make known what is sure. The princes of Judah have become like those who move the landmark. Upon them I'll pour out my wrath like water. Ephraim is oppressed, crushed in judgment, because he was determined to go after filth. But I am like a moth to Ephraim, and like dry rot to the house of Judah. When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his wound, then Ephraim went to

Assyria and sent to the great king. But he is not able to cure you or heal your wound. For I will be like a lion to Ephraim and like a young lion to the house of Judah. I, even I, will tear and go away. I will carry off, and no one shall rescue. I will return again to my place until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face, and in their distress earnestly seek me." Amen.

Back home in Malawi, when parents want to warn their children of the discipline they will receive if they continue messing up or if they continue doing what they are not supposed to do, the parent can call the child three times. And I remember growing up, there were times my mom would call me, "Boston, Boston, Boston, how many times have I called you?" And once you are called three times, you know that what is coming is something that I have to pay attention.

And if I'm doing anything, I have to stop, or else I'll get spanked. And here we find a passage where the opening of it, the Lord is addressing Israel and Judah and calling for the attention of Israel and Judah using several words, but trying to mean the same thing. As we read in the first verses, God says, "Hear this, O priest. Pay attention, O house of Israel. Give ear, O house of the king." Pay attention. What I'm going to say, it's something you have to

listen carefully. Why? For the judgment is for you. And in Hebrew literature, repetition means the same way as our parents or my mom would repeat the same word, that this is serious. I'm putting an emphasis on this so that you can stop whatever you are doing and pay attention. So as the Lord calls Israel and Judah using these different sentences but meaning the same thing, what he's saying is that this is a serious warning

and you have to pay attention. And just to give a context of where we are coming from, from chapters one to four, as we have covered before, so Hosea is a prophet whom the Lord told or commissioned to marry or pursue unfaithful woman. As a picture of the Lord who is faithful, the Lord who is loving, and who pursues unfaithful Israel.

So the faithful God is pursuing unfaithful Israel. And Hosea is a living picture of this truth about our loving God and this truth about our faithful God. And in Hosea chapter five here, we see that this loving Father,

who is God, as a loving Father, he disciplines those whom he loves. And this warning of judgment, this passage, falls under that. God is a loving Father who disciplines those he loves. And the purpose of God's discipline is to help us seek the Lord earnestly. Because the discipline of the Lord creates a heart in us that will hunger for the Lord, a heart in us that will earnestly seek after the Lord.

And there are also serious warnings in this passage for those who do not repent and turn to God.

So the warning from the Lord and the punishment of the Lord, they are all intended to create a heart that will be satisfied in God and nothing else. And that's why I've titled my message today as "The Purpose of Divine Discipline." The Purpose of Divine Discipline. And this divine discipline only applies as discipline to those who are in Christ, to those who belong to God. Because for those who are not in Christ and for those who are not God's children, this is

judgment. While for those who are in Christ and for those who are God's children, this is discipline that is purposeful or intended to create a heart that will seek after the Lord.

So as we go through this passage, we'll go through it under three points, and the first point is the sin of Israel, and the second point is the discipline from God, and the last point is the goal of discipline. And as we have seen in the early verses, the Lord has called Israel and Judah to pay attention because there's judgment on them. And the question is, why is the Lord

telling Israel and Judah that there's judgment on them? And the Lord gives us the reason why Judah and Israel, they are guilty of sin, and there's judgment for them. As the Bible says, "The spiritual leaders of Israel have been a snare at Mizpah and a net spread upon Terah." So Israel has sinned and Judah has sinned. But what does this mean as we read? That the leaders have been a snare and a net spread upon Terah. A snare is a trap

for birds or animals that fly. And it does the same thing as the net does, which is to trap animals. And Terah was a famous mountainside, and this place, along with other places, they were used as high places for idol worship. They were used to worship pagan gods. So the leaders of the house of Israel have been leading people to worship other gods. They have been trapping people to worship other gods, and that's why there's

judgment on them. And verse two mentions that the revoters have gone deep into slaughter, but the Lord will discipline them all. And the revoters are those who swerve from doing what is right. You know what is good, but you swerved from doing what is good to do what is wrong. And they are sinning against the Lord. But the Lord says he will discipline all of them.

And he continues to say he will discipline all of them because he knows each of them, as we read in verses three. "I know Ephraim." Ephraim and Israel from the Bible, these can be used interchangeably So as the Lord says, "For I know Ephraim," and then we read Israel. Ephraim can be used interchangeably with Israel because Ephraim was the largest tribe among the 10 tribes of Israel. "So I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hidden from me.

For now, Ephraim, you have played the w***e, and Israel is defiled." In other words, "You have committed spiritual adultery. You have been unfaithful to me. You have broken the terms of the covenant that I have between you and me. You have gone after other gods, and your sins are not hidden from me. I know all of them. They are not hidden from me."

And this same God who is telling Ephraim, who is telling Israel that, "Your sins are not hidden from me," is the same God we worship today. So this applies to us today as well, that all our sins are not hidden before the Lord. He knows every sin we have committed, including even those that we have forgotten. The Lord knows all our sins. And this should be a warning and a reminder to all of us that we cannot hide from the Lord.

He knows everything about us. Wherever we are, whether we are in our room, whether we are alone in the fields, the Lord knows and sees everything. So we have to live knowing that we are always in the presence of the Lord. We cannot hide from the Lord.

Israel sinned against the Lord by playing a w***e, by being unfaithful to God. They committed spiritual adultery. And because of that, verse four tells us that the deeds of Israel do not permit Israel to return to God because the spirit of unfaithfulness and idolatry is within them, and they do not know the Lord. So Israel has sinned against God. They have committed spiritual adultery against the Lord, and they cannot even turn

to the Lord because of the spirit of unfaithfulness, the spirit of idolatry, the spirit of whoredom.

And today, when we hear about Israel and these descriptions of Israel's sin as the spirit of unfaithfulness, the spirit of whoredom, we can think that was only unique for Israel. But I think we can understand this in our day, even as original sin, as something that all of us share with Israel. All of us who are here, we share something in common, that we were born and conceived in sin, and that our hearts, they are prone to go after other

idols. And we are not better off than Israel. We are not immune to this. Our hearts are often tempted to leave God and go after other idols. As we sing in this famous line of this hymn, "Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love."

We are prone to go after other idols. But this God who pursued Israel, this faithful God who loved Israel and who was warning Israel in this passage, is the same God we have today and is the same God who pursues us today. He is holy, He is faithful, He is loving, and that's why He pursues us, and that's why He warns us, and that's why He displeases us because of His love and faithfulness.

So verse five, when we read, it says that Israel is guilty and his pride testifies against him. So in this lawsuit that the Lord has brought against Israel, he's guilty of all these sins, and his pride is the testimony, is the evidence of his guilt. And Judah is not innocent in this, as we read in verse five, "But be, for he will also be guilty of this sin as Israel is." And that's why the judgment is coming for both Israel and Judah.

And when we read in verse six, we find out that actually, Israel tried to correct this. They tried to come to God. But to correct their sin, what did they do? They took matters into their own hands by offering animals as sacrifices to the Lord and yet they did not find the Lord because He had withdrawn from them. And why? Why didn't they find the Lord? And yet they went with sacrifices. They went to give sacrifices to the Lord to

please the Lord. As we read in Psalm 51:16-17, the psalmist gives us a clue of what this means, of why they did not find the Lord. As the psalmist says, "For you do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it. You take no pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." So God would not receive their sacrifices because their hearts were far from Him.

They were unfaithful to the Lord. Their hearts were far from Him. They were still living in their sin. They were not seeking the Lord earnestly with all their heart, soul, and mind. And that brings us to our second point, which is the discipline from God, and we find that from verses 7 to 14. So Israel has sinned against God, and now God warns Israel of the coming punishment, that God is going to discipline Israel and Judah.

And first of all, because of Israel's unfaithfulness as part of the discipline and the punishment from the Lord, the children that Israel gave birth to, as we are told in this passage, were religiously illegitimate children, just like the children born to an unfaithful woman. And we see this in the previous chapter that we saw last week. We find a similar verse as God says in Hosea 4:6, "And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will

forget your children."

So as part of punishment and discipline, since you have forgotten the law of God, you have been unfaithful to your God, your children will be illegitimate. I will forget your children. And verse 7, part b says, "Now the new moon shall devour them with their fields."

What is the Lord talking about here? The new moon shall devour them with their fields. And this new moon, when we come to understand it, it was a festive time where the people of Israel would offer sacrifices and gifts to the Lord. And as they offer these sacrifices and gifts to the Lord, they were expecting blessings on their crops and their wombs. So this was a blessing time, a time of expecting blessings.

And yet the Lord is saying, "The new moon shall devour them." Because of the sin of Israel, the new moon, instead of bringing blessings, will bring judgment.

And why is that? Why is it that the time the Israels and Judah will bring sacrifices to the Lord, instead of getting blessings, they'll get judgment? The reason is because God is not pleased with our religious acts

while our hearts are far from Him. And we also see this in Isaiah 1:13-14, where God tells His people, "Bring no more vain offerings. Incense is an abomination to me. New moon and new Sabbath and the calling convocations I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates. They have become a burden to me. I am weary of bearing them." And yet all of these that have been listed, they are the things

that God told them to do. But now He's telling them, "Stop. Don't bring them anymore. Don't do it." Why? As we have been seeing again and again that the Lord is after our hearts.

And Jesus Christ also helps us to understand this as He was quoting Isaiah 29:8 when He rebuked the Pharisees. Jesus said, "You hypocrites, rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you. 'This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far away from me. But in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.'"

So brothers and sisters, the Lord is more interested in the posture of your heart than in your religious acts. Is your heart right with God? Are you in Christ? Have you truly embraced Christ by faith? For without faith it is impossible to please God, as we read in Hebrews 11 verse 6.

Are you walking with Christ?

Are you obeying the commandments of God out of love, as Jesus Christ said in John 14:15, "If you love me, you will obey my commandments."

Do you regularly come to church? Do you tithe? Do you help the poor? Do you serve in various ministries of our church? That's good. But if your heart is far from Christ, if your heart is far from God, it's all in vain. It's all vanity. And the Lord is not pleased with that. He's saying, "Stop, don't do it," because He's more interested of your heart than what you can do for Him.

And we read in verse 8, the Bible says, "The horn will be blown in Gibeah, and the trumpet will be sounded in Ramah, and the alarm will sound at Beth Aven." All these, as we have seen from the beginning, they are a repetition of an emphasis of that which is going to happen. And all these sounds are a warning of the judgment that is coming. And the Bible says, "Ephraim, Israel shall become a desolation in this day of punishment."

And it is not Israel alone. Even the priests of Judah from the southern kingdom, who have also sinned against the Lord, God is going to pour out His wrath on them. He will pour out His wrath like water, as we read in verse 9. So think of a bucket full of water and someone pouring that bucket on top of your head, and that's the picture the Lord is painting, that He's going to pour out His wrath on Judah.

And you and I

deserve this wrath from God because we have also sinned against God. We are not perfect. We have fallen short of the glory of God, as Paul says in Romans 3 verse 23. And the only reason why God does not pour this wrath on us, it's because of Jesus Christ. It's because of His Son, Jesus Christ.

As He was sent to come to live a perfect life of obedience to His Father, because you and I have failed to live perfectly, and He was taken on the cross and God poured His wrath on Christ so that you and I can be spared today from His wrath.

On the cross, Jesus drank the cup of God's wrath so that we could be spared today.

And the Bible says this wrath was on the head of Ephraim because Ephraim went after filth, as we read in verse 11. And in verse 12, God says that He will "be like a moth to Ephraim and like dry rot to the house of Judah." What does this mean? What is the Lord saying here, that He'll be like a moth and a dry rot? These are images of destruction. Like a moth possibly means that God will be like an infection to Israel, and dry rot means that God will bring

rottenness or decay on the house of Judah. And when this punishment happened, what did Israel and Judah do to respond to this punishment?

The Bible tells us in verse 13 that instead of going to the Lord, they went to Assyria to seek for help.

The Lord has disciplined them because they have worshiped other idols. They have went after other gods. But instead of going back to God, what did they do? They went to Assyria.

And brothers and sisters, as we have seen, as we have heard, we are not better off than Israel, than Judah. Many are times when we read these stories, we go like, "Oh, foolish Israel. Oh, foolish Judah. Why couldn't you go back to God? He is a loving father who is disciplining you."

And yet we also do things like that. When we go through different struggles of life, instead of running to God, we run to seek help from other things.

And one of the things that breaks my heart, especially even back home and in my own family as well, the family I grew up and other relatives, is to see how they respond to issues like these. These are people who profess to be Christians, but you see some going to witch doctors, some going to the false prophets and apostles, seeking for help instead of running to God for help. And here in the US, we can think of even things that will be

applicable to our situation.

Even if it means looking to our own influence, looking to our own worth, looking to our own friends whom we think they are able to rescue us from the things that we have to run to God for instead.

And even in the context of discipline as we are talking about here, when the Lord displeases us, there are times instead of embracing that discipline, we try to avoid it, or we try to go to other people who can help us in that situation instead of going back to the Lord. So the right response to God's discipline and the consequences even of our own sin, it's not running to someone else for help, but it's running back to God.

Because the Lord displeases us, He enables us to go through those experiences, although they are hard and painful, but the purpose is to create a heart in us that will seek after the Lord, that will pursue the Lord and go back to the Lord.

So do not run from the Lord,

but run to God. And it's interesting that the Bible in the passage we have read even tells us,

as it did to Ephraim and Judah, that no one can run from the Lord.

Even if you run from God, no one can rescue you

apart from God Himself.

God Himself is the one who can rescue you and me. And this is demonstrated in the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. For we were enemies of God. We were waging war with God, and no one could rescue us apart from God Himself. As God sent His own Son, who is God, the Son, to die for us, to save us from the wrath of God.

So for those who think they can run away from God and seek help from earthly powers, in verse 12, God says He will be like a strong and powerful lion, and you will be like helpless prey, as He told Ephraim and Judah. And at the end it says, "No one will be able to rescue you." It's because only God Himself can rescue you. No one can rescue you. There's a story from Ethiopia of a child, a young girl who was kidnapped by seven

men, and she was taken into a forest. The police and the community started looking for her, but they could not find her. And these seven men wanted to force her into marriage. But then three lions came and chased these men and surrounded this young girl. This story was covered with The Guardian, CBC, and other media outlets. You can find it. It happened in 2005. And these lions surrounded this young girl. And when the villagers and the police approached,

as they saw the young child with these lions, the lions retreated, and no one could understand what happened. Of course, as Christians, we know and understand that this was God's providence as this girl was saved. Others tried to explain, those who study animals, that as the girl was crying for help, these lions, a mother instinct kicked. They thought she was a cub, and that's why they protected her. She was safe. She was taken back to the village.

But the point of why I'm sharing this story is that the only reason why this young girl survived is because the lions were for her, not against her If they were against her, she could have been devoured. She could have been killed.

But they were for her. They were there to protect her. And the same way, God is for you. And when He is for you, nothing can harm you. As Christ said in John, "No one can even snatch you from His hands." You are safe and secure. But if you are not for God, if you are not in Christ, then the wrath of God is still on your head and there's nowhere you can run away from that.

The Lord will be like a powerful lion.

But there's safety in Christ. There's salvation in Christ. There's security in Christ

because He died for you. And when you believe in Him, you are safe and secure.

And for those who are His, He disciplines them. And that's the last point, which is the goal of discipline. The goal of discipline. And from verse 15, we read, "I will return again to my place until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face and in their distress earnestly seek me."

So as the Lord disciplines Israel and Judah, the goal is that they should realize their guilt, and that as they realize their guilt, they should diligently seek after the Lord.

And that's the same with us today. The goal of discipline for us is to acknowledge our guilt, to acknowledge our sin, that we have fallen short of the glory of God. We are sinners who deserve His wrath, who are guilty of His condemnation, and we should now seek the Lord. We should now seek His face. And when we earnestly seek Him, the Lord assures us that He will be found.

And the reason why this punishment aims to help us to acknowledge our guilt, it's because unless you understand the weight of sin, you cannot appreciate Christ Jesus and the salvation He provides to us. The same way, unless you understand the bad news, you cannot take the gospel as the good news. Because for there to be good news, there has to be bad news, and the bad news is that we have sinned against a holy God, and we have to be punished. We have to receive His

wrath, not just for one day, not just for two days, not just for three days, not just for 200 years, but for eternity. That's the bad news. And there comes the good news that Christ Jesus died for you, took this wrath of God upon Himself, and there's nothing else you have to do to save yourself but to trust in Him, to rest in Him. You do not have to go after other idols. You do not have to bring sacrifices to God. Only go and run to Christ and rest

in Him.

So brothers and sisters, when we fall into sin, may we embrace the discipline of the Lord. May we not run away from it, because the purpose of divine discipline is to create a heart in us that will seek after the Lord, a heart in us that will cry to God, "Lord, only Christ or nothing else."

May the Lord help us to seek Him earnestly. May the Lord help us to have hope as we do this because of Christ Jesus and what He has done for us, knowing that we are no longer condemned because He was condemned on our behalf. And may the Lord help us to accept and embrace His discipline and to not run away from it. Let us pray.

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for your message, Lord, and we pray that may you help us as we depart from this place to continue meditating upon this word, and that may this word bear fruits to the glory of your name. In Christ Jesus we have prayed. Amen.