Transcript

Well, grab your Bibles and let’s go to the old part of the book, the book of Hosea, one of the minor prophets. I preached through Hosea many, many years ago. And as I was thinking about texts that I would like to look at again, texts that speak gloriously of the saving work of our God. This just jumped out at my heart and mind. I rewrote some things and develop some things and want to preach it to you afresh. Hosea 2:1-14. We’ll camp on verse 14. Hosea 2:1-14.

Now, just right quick, before I start reading, Hosea is an interesting book as God instructs Hosea to take a filthy, vile, adulterer, a harlot, for his wife. Because Hosea’s marriage to this filthy, vile, harlot, adulterer, is a metaphor, a picture of God’s relationship to his bride, Israel, because she was a filthy. vile, spiritual adulterer. Israel had turned to other gods instead of being faithful to the one true God. She chased this idolatry and that idolatry and involved herself in corrupt spiritual and actually physical immoralities. And so as you read the text, it kind of flows back and forth between the metaphor of a marriage, a man, faithful man married to an unfaithful woman and God, the faithful God being married, if you will, to an unfaithful nation, an unfaithful people, Israel.

So we begin in verse 1 and the Bible says, “say to your brothers, am I, and to your sisters Ruhamah, contend with your mother, contend, for she’s not my wife, and I’m not her husband. Let her put away her harlotry from her face and her adultery from between her breasts.” Again, a metaphor of Hosea’s actual marriage, I should say, is a metaphor for God’s relation now to Israel. Verse 3, “I will strip her naked and expose her as on the day when she was born. I will also make her like a wilderness, make her like a desert land and slay her with thirst. Also, I will have no compassion on her children, because they are children of harlotry. For the mother has played the harlot. She who conceived them has acted shamefully, for she said, I will go after my lovers who give me my bread and my water and my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.”

Now that was a particularly heinous statement that the nation of Israel was saying, oh, worshiping Baal and the other false gods has blessed us. Not Yahweh, the God of Israel. That’s a terribly blasphemous and ungrateful thing to say.

Verse six, “therefore, behold, I will hedge up her way with thorns and I will build a wall against her so that she cannot find her paths. She will pursue her lovers, but she will not overtake them. And she will seek them, but will not find them. Then she will say, I’ll go back to my first husband where it was better for me then than now.” God says, I’m going to do things so that Israel finally realizes chasing after idols and false gods is not the answer. She needs to come back to me. The God who started her, created her, sustained her, kept her, gave her the promised land, et cetera. Verse eight. “For she does not know that it is I who gave her the grain, the new wine, and the oil, and lavished on her silver and gold, which she’s used for Baal. Therefore, I will take back my grain at the harvest time and my new wine in its season. I will also take away my wool and my flax, give them to cover her nakedness. And then while I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and no one will rescue her out of my hand. I will also put an end to all her gaiety, her feasts, her new moons, her sadness, and all her festivals and assemblies.”

Now, the point is, as always, and as in our day, Israel hung on to a lot of the outward ceremonies of Orthodox religion, but in her heart she was worshiping Baal and the false gods. Verse 12, “I will destroy her vines and fig trees of which she said, these are my wages, which my lovers have given me, and I will make them a forest, and the beast of the field will devour them. I will punish her for the days of the Baals, when she used to offer sacrifices to them and adorn herself with earrings and jewelry and follow her lovers so that she forgot me,” declares the Lord. Such a calloused disregard for the God who made her and created her and has saved her all these years. What’s God gonna do? “Therefore, based on everything you’ve heard, therefore, behold, I will allure her. bring her into the wilderness and speak kindly to her.”

Wow. In India, there’s a wedding tradition, actually a lot of countries around the world, where usually you’re betrothed, sometimes even before you’re born, to whoever’s going to be your marriage partner for the rest of your life. You don’t have a vote in it. Mom and dad decided, arranged marriages. And the tradition in this one village was that you never saw the face of your bride until the wedding day after the vows were taken. It is too late. Then you could lift the veil and see what she looked like. This one Indian young man was getting married and the woman he was betrothed to, they wore veils in the community, he’d never seen her face. But the word on the street was she was terribly unattractive. Just ugly. It was the day of the wedding ceremony. The vows were taken. He lifts up the veil. He was shocked. Gloriously shocked because she was beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.

In Hosea chapter 2 verses 1 through 13, as we’ve read, God’s holy justice has taken center stage and his performance is both awe-inspiring and terrifying. Israel’s sin is so black and is so dark. And in these first 13 verses, those dark black sins have been laid obvious before the white holiness of God. In light manner, you and I are sinners. We are guilty. You and I are born and live, bowed before the thundering justice of a holy God. And then God unveils his shockingly glorious grace. It’s not what we would have expected. It’s radically opposite of what we would expect. It’s shocking to go from the depths of our uncleanness and defilement and guilt and immediately be ushered into the forgiving grace of God. It’s shocking. It’s gloriously shocking. So I’ve entitled the unpacking of this The gloriously shocking unveiling of grace.

You say, well, it didn’t shock me. That’s because you’re ignorant. It’s because you don’t understand how you naturally stand before this holy God. Gloriously shocking. unveiling of grace.

Roman number one, notice, first of all, he is the God who woos the most unworthy. The Bible says in verse 14 of our text, Hosea 2:14, I should say, “behold, I will allure her.” What a word. Allure means I’m going to persuade her with sweet words. What a picture. Instantly, the spirit and the tone has changed from verses 1 through 13 to verse 14. The dark clouds of threatening and judgment is now replaced with the light of sweet grace and mercy. Allure, the sweetest and most caring gesture that God could have given to her because she at this point has not changed. She’s not repented. She’s not done anything different. She is wholy from the heart, evil and unfaithful to her God, yet God says, here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to allure her. I’m going to woo her to me.

This is grace. Grace is when God does a positive, glorious, favorable thing toward you that you in no way have earned or could deserve. That’s grace. Well, we call it Amazing grace.

Now, the key here, don’t miss this, is that man is so evil that threatening judgment can never reach him or change him. It’s not that judgment is not righteous and right for him. It’s not that judgment is not proper. It’s that God knows he’s so far corrupted. He’s so thoroughly depraved. He’s so vastly separated from me. Threatening judgment will never reach him. Like the Bible says in Genesis 8:21, “the Lord smelled the soothing aroma and the Lord said to himself, I will never again curse the ground on account of man. For the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth, and I will never again destroy every living thing as I have done.” It’s as if God is saying, if I keep doing what is justly called for against the sinfulness of mankind, there’ll be no end to it. There’s no hope that he’ll ever turn. Judgment is not going to get him to turn to me.

So in the face of this hardness, this hardness of heart and this evil of men’s heart, God said, I’ll tell you what, I’m gonna reach man by another means. I’m gonna do the very opposite of what they deserve. I’m going to do the very opposite of what they would expect. I’m going to extend grace. You see, grace is exactly the opposite of what you expect. Grace is against logic and reason. We live in a world where you do this, you have these consequences. At least we used to live in a world like that, like we don’t hold anybody accountable for anything anymore. But you know what I mean. Generally, it’s understood from the heart and reason of man that decisions and behaviors have consequences. And here God brings a consequence radically opposite of what anybody would have thought.

Now, let me build on that briefly. Let me build on that thought. Psalm 25:11, the psalmist says, “For your name’s sake, O Lord, pardon my iniquity, for it is great.” Now, that’s kind of interesting. I have great iniquity, so therefore, you need to pardon it. That doesn’t sound logical. You have wronged me so deeply, so often, so thoroughly, so therefore, why don’t you pardon me? Kind of what that’s saying, but get the whole verse. for your namesake. God, says you have chosen to have a covenant people and elect people who are yours, For all eternity and for all of time, we find ourselves as your covenant elect people, as sinful as everyone else. So for your namesake, since you chose us to be yours, would you please pardon your iniquity, not first and foremost for me, but for your own sake and your own glory and your own fame in the land.” I mean, God can’t have a bunch of children running around looking like and acting like heathens and being under judgment. That would, in a sense, do damage to his own reputation.

He says, the psalmist says, we have great iniquity. The word iniquity there is the idea of a perverse twistedness. God, we’re so twisted and perverse in our very inner being. If we’re going to be your children, you’re going to have to take the initiative and pardon us. We’re pretty much bankrupt in this thing. Pardon means to take away all just condemnation and punishment. And if you’ll do this Lord, the phrase for your namesake in Psalm 25:11, then God that will show that you have a magnanimous heart, a magnanimous spirit to maintain your justice yet keep all of us people who deserve justice in a right standing with you. You know, your sins, my sins are so great. If we think of them before a holy God, you might look good compared to your neighbor, maybe compared to your spouse. I don’t know. But before God, your sins are so deep and black and horrible. You should be the object of wrath. But in the wonders of the covenant of grace, he renders you the object of compassion. It’s shocking. Wonderously shocking.

Grace renders you the object of God’s mercy, the object of God’s confession. That’s what he’s doing as he’s alluring you. You know, let me pull over to those who’ve been believers for a while for this point of application. You know, for true believers in our striving of sanctification and in our striving to serve God more faithfully, sometimes I feel I have as blind of a heart as the wicked have, the unbelievers have. Sometimes I feel like I have a stubborn and rebellious heart, like the most violent believer may have. I sometimes feel like I have a hardened heart, like the most grievous sinner. Does this mean that I am not God’s, that he’s not my father? No. No, I choose not to reason that way. I choose to reason contrary to the logical notions. I do believe, you see, that He is my Father. I do believe that He has covered me in His grace, and so I will try to run to Him and trust Him to open these blind eyes, to soften this hard heart, and to sanctify this unclean spirit. Child of God, when you have failed, when you are cold, you do not run from Him, you run to Him. That’s grace. That’s grace.

Now, this is a continual cycle, if you will, in the lives of a maturing believer. If this is not a continual condition, that God covers us in grace, he keeps us in grace, and even in our coldest, most sinful moment, we can still run to him and reunite in fellowship, confessing our sin, of course. If that’s not the pattern of God, then we are all sunk.

God says, oh, I gotta say this, key insight. The scriptures does tell us that where sin abound, grace does that more abound. No matter your sin, no matter the height, the depth, the length, the ugliness, the violence of your sin, God’s grace, God’s ability to show you favor is bigger than all your sin. But listen to me. But as a child of God, where grace abound, sin does not that much more abound. Are you getting this? Where sin abounds, grace does that much more abound, but it is not true. Where your sin keeps abounding, or where grace nevertheless keeps abounding, you justify more and more sin. That’s turning the grace of God into lasciviousness, and the child of God doesn’t do that. Here’s the point, as you treasure, grasp, and glory in the wondrous forgiveness of God in grace, you want to serve him better. You want to obey him more. Not out of some harsh, ancient view of a crushing God of only wrath, but because he is a God of such grace. who allures you to faithfulness, who allures you to obedience, to grace. What a gift.

What a gift. The word allure could be translated rather entice. Usually, we think of alluring somebody or enticing somebody in a negative or bad connotation, but that’s tragic. This good word, allure, should not be owned by people of impure motives and wicked sedulteresses who want to draw you into some kind of evil. Here, God is using allure to draw you into good. I will allure them. So here it pictures the sweet and gracious way God deals with his elect children.

Now three thoughts on the word allure. I think it means God saying I will gradually unfold before them the beauties and the excellencies of my grace. They’re in sin. She’s a harlot. She’s an adulteress. She’s vile. She’s filthy and I will increasingly unfold before her the beauties and the excellencies of my grace, my favor that she doesn’t deserve. Secondly, I will out love all of her other lovers. That’s what God is saying. I will out love all of her other, let me say something, shout out to God. Who in this world has loved you more than Jesus? I’ll be more alluring than all the rest of them, God says. When I open her eyes, when he opens your eyes, he opens my eyes to begin to see the wonder and the excellencies and the glory and the beauty of his love and mercy and grace toward us. Draws us in. It allures us to him. I’ll out love all of their other lovers. I’ll unfold the glories and the wonders and the excellencies of my grace. They will suddenly and increasingly realize that there’s more enjoyments and advantages in me than in all the other sins and things they’re chasing. Did their foreign lovers give them comfort? God says, I’ll give them more comfort. Did their foreign, false, pagan lovers, idols they worship give them gain? I’ll give them more gain. Did their foreign idols and lovers give them more comfort or pleasure rather? I’ll give them more pleasure. Did their foreign lovers give them more honor and respect? I’ll give them even more honor and respect. I’m going to out love all the others they look to. That’s what God says.

The pleasures of God are so much greater than the pleasures of sin. That’s what happens when you get saved. Let me say this very frankly. When you get saved, you didn’t quit loving sin. You just started loving Jesus more than you love sin. Don’t look at me spiritual. That’s just the truth. You’re like Paul in Romans 7, that the old man in me still sins, but I hate it. The old Puritan said, the sin which my flesh loves, I now hate. You prize it less dearly. And we’re all together, arm in arm, locked together with a formal committed membership in a local church, which is essential in Christendom, so that we might keep helping each other to love him more than we love our sin. Because you sit in here on this Sunday morning, many of you steeped in the sin and indulgences of the flesh all this week, and there’s a small, steady voice inside of you that says, help me preacher, love him more than I love these sins. You see, that seed is the seed of regeneration, the seed of the new birth, the seed of the spirit, because you’re his. He slowly allures us to see that he’s better than serving sin.

So he says, I’ll slowly unfold my beauty and excellencies of my grace. I will out love all of their other lovers. And I’m going to come in surprisingly. I’m going to do this at ways and at times they would have never figured. God’s grace out of nowhere comes in and steals our hearts away. I hope, I hope you’ve been in a worship service and while the pastor was preaching the word, if not in your literal eye, in the eye of your heart, a tear starts falling and you think, oh, how I love Jesus. That’s how much he loves me and I’m so undeserving. God said, that’s the kind of thinking I want to bring to them, and that will allure them back to me, because threatenings and judgment will not save anybody. Dr. Seale, that don’t mean we don’t preach those. They have their place, but that’s not the final element. Because by the way, every man that goes to hell will be under threatenings and judgment, but they won’t be saved.

Number two, he brings them to see their need. He brings them to see their need. In verse 14, in the next phrase, he said, “I will bring her into the wilderness.” Some debate among Bible interpreters of what this means, but most are aware I am, and that is, this wilderness is that God, in the process of bringing him to himself, brings us into a wilderness. Now, wilderness in this day, in this context, meant barrenness. Wilderness meant nothing, a hopelessness, i.e., a lostness. God needs us to see our barrenness. God needs us to see our hopelessness. God needs us to see our lostness. And in love, he brings us to see that. He takes us to the wilderness. It’s a wilderness spirit. It’s a wilderness sense of what I am, of seeing the bitter fruit of leading a godless and sinful life. Just a wilderness.

But what he’s doing is he’s bringing you into the wilderness that you might grasp, but it might be somewhat vivid and penetrating in your soul that I am lost. I’m lost and I’m hopeless. There’s a barrenness to my soul. He brings you into it. And listen, he brings you into that. But all the while, he stands right beside you so that you’ll see, but I’m here to help. He brings her into the wilderness so that she might say, you have nothing out there, but here I am.

On the land that I hunt deer hunting, there’s an area we call the sanctuary. And over there, it’s just a grown-up thicket and bramble. I mean, vines and briar bushes and bramble, and you literally can’t walk through much of it. And I have gone through it before to discover where the property line is, but I literally had to crawl, and sometimes on my belly. And I remember it so well because while crawling on my belly, I lost my phone. But when you get in the middle of that sanctuary, we call it that because that’s where the deer love to hide because nobody can get in there. It’s disconcerting in there. You get in there, and it’s like, I don’t know where north, south, east, or west is. I don’t know anything about where anything is. But you know what the reality is? On one side, there’s a pipeline, a gas pipeline. If you just keep walking that way, you’ll get the pipeline. You can get right out. On the other side, there’s an old logging road. And if you just walk that way, you may not know you’re going that way. But if you hit that logging road, you’ll know where you are. You can get right out. And on the third side, that doesn’t make four sides, but kind of a triangle here. On the other side is a gas pipeline, or rather a cabin and a pond. And you’ll know, hey, I’ve made it out. So wherever you are, no matter how disconcerting you are in the middle of that wilderness, there’s help nearby. Just right close by. There’s a rescue and a way out.

And God brings you to feel the weight of the wilderness of your soul, but the whole time he’s standing right by saying, but I’m right here. Now, when we talk about the three points of this sermon, we’re on point number two. We talked about his alluring us, and we’re talking about the wilderness. In a very real sense, these are intertwined. We preachers like to preach things in some kind of logical flow, but often the truth of Scripture doesn’t flow logically. It’s all one big glorious tapestry. Interwoven thoughts and bringing you into the wilderness is a part of alluring you to himself.

One quick application for those who’ve been Christians a while, if you’re a believer, you do understand that God does leave some of the reality of your wilderness with you the rest of this human life. Because you recognizing the barrenness of your soul by yourself, you recognizing the lostness and hopelessness of your natural heart and soul, Even though Jesus has now saved you, but you carrying that with you is like the ballast in the ship that keeps it upright. That helps to keep you upright in your spiritual journey so that you walk with what we call a gospel humility, knowing that there’s nothing in you that’s good. It’s only Jesus. And if I can go in my small group and serve those brothers and sisters and get nothing in return, that’s okay. I don’t deserve anything anyway. Amen. I pastored this church when it was not fun. Ruthless, scandalous, wicked persecutions against us. And this rang in my soul over and over. Jesus is worth it. Jesus is worth it. And plus, We grow a lot ourselves in those seasons, do we not? We might not be the quote primary guilty one, but God still works on us things we need to repent of, things we need to grow. So God leaves some of the wilderness sensation with you like a ballast in the ship to keep you steady in your service to Christ.

III. can be seen as a chronological order, but more than likely more part of this beautiful tapestry of grace, he simply convinces us of his grace. In other words, it’s not enough just knowing about God’s grace. There’s a season of time when God intervenes and causes you to see the light, grasp the reality. that it’s personally for you. Last phrase of verse 14, “and to speak kindly to her.” Speak kindly to her, literally to speak upon her heart. God says, I’m going to have the sweetest, most gentle, most precious wooing of her. I’m going to reach her, figuratively speaking, the lost persons, I’m going to reach their heart. I’m gonna get to their heart.

You know, the night that I was saved, driving through Columbia, Tennessee, driving back to Middle Tennessee State University as a college freshman, that night when I was converted in my car, I had no idea what the doctrine of justification by faith meant. I didn’t know anything about doctrine, but he convinced my heart he loved me and he would take me. That’s what God’s saying here. I’m gonna convince the heart that I’m here, I’m gracious for you, and I love you. He convinces us. You see, the lost sinner, typified by Israel in this context, is so deep in sin, depravity, hopelessness, that only kind words will bring her to the release of her sin-ridden, guilt-ridden soul. Only kind words.

That night in my car, driving in my 72 Cutlass Oldsmobile through Columbia, Tennessee, listening to a Presbyterian minister on the radio. And as the minister got to that part where Jesus said he had forgiven this particular man in the story, It was as if there was a beam of light that came out of heaven and went right through the top of that 72 Cutlass Oldsmobile and liquid waves of divine love poured into that card into my heart. He convinced me. He convinced my heart. My grace is for you. My love is for you. He spoke kindly to reach my heart. And he does all those that are his.

Now listen, key thought here. We are not released from the weight of guilt and sin because we changed. Let me say that again. We are not released from the weight of guilt and sin because we are changed, but because he convinced us in our hearts of the power of grace. He found us where we were and convinces us, convinced us. My grace is for you.

In John 16:8, Jesus said that he came to, or the spirit will come to convict the world of sin and righteousness and judgment. You can preach several sermons out of that, but let’s talk about righteousness. He comes to convince you of righteousness. Lot in that package, but let me see if I can get it down into a swallowable, is that a word? Digestible small form. Only Jesus is righteous. No, you didn’t hear that. Only Jesus is righteous. And he came to convince you that only he is righteous. And if you’re going to have a right standing with the Holy God, if you’re going to make it to heaven, you must be righteous, but only Jesus is righteous. What the Spirit of God does, he says, in grace, I need to convince you that you now have the righteousness of Christ. It’s yours, because that’s the only righteousness that goes to heaven. That’s the only righteousness that’s acceptable to the God in heaven. And when you receive Christ, when you see your wilderness, when you put all your hope in Christ, imputed to you is the righteousness of Jesus Christ, not based on your performance, based on grace, a favor you don’t deserve, a favor you couldn’t earn.

In her corrupt, vile, adulterous, filthy condition, God says, I’m going to allure her in love. I’m going to take her into wilderness and help her see how much she needs me back. And I’m going to speak to her heart with love she can’t fathom. And I’ll win her back to me. Oh, the pursuing love of God. How faithful he is. How good he is to us. Christ’s righteousness being imputed to our account. He convinces us that’s real for you. This is what the Spirit communicates to our hearts. And listen, knowing, listen, I know that we’ve reformed guys talk about justification by faith a lot. I get that. I agree with that. But we ought to talk a little bit more about imputed righteousness. Because when we grasp and we’re convinced in our hearts that Jesus’ righteousness is now my righteousness and that cannot be changed. Listen, that is the sweetest message. Text word here, the kindest message, the most enticing, alluring message you will ever, ever hear. I stand in the righteousness of Jesus Christ, though in my heart and behavior I’m a filthy, vile, serial harlot.

You can’t hear these words and have the Spirit of God in you and not leave saying, I want to serve Jesus better. Can’t do it. I’ve had people ask me, how do you get so many people to serve the Lord and be as faithful and active as they are at Grace, Life Church? Well, it’s not with threatenings of judgments. It’s with glorying and grace. By the way, if you do what you do because you’re threatening God might somehow throw you away or we might throw you out of the church, then go somewhere else. But if you’re here because, no, I’ve been apprehended. I’ve been convinced in my heart that Jesus has imputed his righteousness to me, and I don’t deserve that. And that’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever imagined in my whole life. I got to do that for a sinner like me, and I just want to serve him. Sign me up somewhere. What can I do to serve him? and that I’ll center in a local church, center in a local church. You do other things for God, of course you do, but it should be centered in the family of God, the local church. And when you get to heaven and you say, Lord, I faithfully served you under my elders and the direction of our senior pastor, didn’t try to do what they told us to do, to serve you biblically and righteously. And if God says, well, that’s not right, I’ll stand up and say, give me the blow, I’m responsible. I told them to serve you that way, but I’m telling you, I have a solid rock here I’m standing on. You take the entirety of the New Testament, pass the Gospels, and all you have is preaching the word, planting churches, and revitalizing churches, and then planting more churches, and preaching the word, and revitalizing more churches. It’s all about local churches. That’s all we’re about. I’m getting off track.

The kindness and love of God is beyond our comprehension. Corrie Ten Boom was a Dutch lady. Corrie Ten Boom and her sister Betsy were incarcerated in the Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany. And there they were persecuted and suffered terribly. During that suffering and persecution at the Nazi concentration camp, Betsy, Corrie Ten Boom’s sister, passed away. Some years later, Corrie Ten Boom, gloriously faithful Christian woman, godly woman, she was speaking on forgiveness in a church. And after the service, a man came up to her and he said, I come from the Ravensbrück concentration camp. That’s where I was a guard. He very sheepishly put his head down, he couldn’t hardly look at Corrie ten Boom, but he put his hand out and she took his hand and he said, ma’am, can you forgive me?

And Corrie ten Boom writes later that episode, she said, everything in me froze. And then she said, in trembling, I looked at that man and said, I forgive you completely, my brother. She can only do that because she knew what forgiveness she had received. And when God comes to you and shows you these things, it’s a gloriously shocking unveiling of grace.

You know what you need to do for the first time? Maybe for the thousandth time, say from your heart this morning, Oh, Jesus, save me. Jesus, take me. I need your love. I need your unconditional forgiveness. I need your unearned favor. Jesus, save me.