"Return to the Lord"

If theres 1 question I would like us to ask ourselves after we leave todays sermon it is How well do you KNOW your God? Its a question I want to ask as the intro to this sermon because last week as Carlito took us through the judgement God was going to bring on Israel the last verse he left off with was vs 13 which says …and went after her lovers and forgot me. declares the Lord… If we skip down a few verses we will find in vs 20 it says… and you shall know the Lord… we saw the judgments the Lord was going to bring on the northern kingdom and these judgments finish with forgot the Lord… So what happens in these verses that changes the course of Israels thinking that cause His people to KNOW Him…First I would like to explain a little bit about the word know before we continue. Because the meaning itself is found throughout Hosea.. Hosea says my people perish for lack of knowledge… Know is the root word of Knowledge… the word know in the hebrew is yada and it means to notice, hear of, learn, reveal, realize, be or become known…in order to know something it takes requires time in order to know it… If you want a degree in biology, or science you will go to school for four years and spend time learning about the subject you want your degree in…and then the school hands you a piece of paper that says you have obtained the knowledge on whatever field you chose…so time is a part of knowing something....many people i know can ramble sports statistics on Lebron, Jordan and kobe… stats that only could be known if you spend time watching sports....but in the hebrew the word know can also mean intimacy… like the intimacy between a husband and wife… adam knew his wife eve and bore a son cain… its no coincidence this word has such a more intimate meaning because we learned in the previous preachings by javi that the Lord has accused Israel of spiritual adultery by fornicating with other gods… When I was researching these verses I spent hours, reading, cross referencing comparing listening to sermons and trying to understand the deepness of the words from this chapter… As I was in my living room I was into the verses and there was a word I couldnt understand why it was there… I kept reading and reading and reading and all of a sudden all alone in my house with no music or distractions just me and the word it hits me… its as if the Lord had whispered the sweetest message in my ears to the sense and meaning of the verse i was reading and the tears start filling my eyes… it was the most beautiful moment I had with his scriptures because I could see Jesus all through the text… and once i saw it i couldnt stop seeing it… All the time in the past I had spent learning about christ in other parts of scripture had built my knowledge and understanding to the point that God finally revealed himself to me in these beautiful passages… Its the sweetest word full of mercy and Grace.... and I realize that when israel comes to know the Lord in vs 20 the Lord uses his word to bring Israel to the full and true knowledge of Himself through Christ… The title of this series is Return to the Lord… And today the message the Lord is going to call us to KNOW HIM through HIS WORD…Anything you spend time with can become an idol… We can know all the latest celebrity rumors and viral videos on social media because we spend time on it… we can know the latest netflix series by binge watching a whole 8 hours on one show… We can know just about anything we want if we spend enough time with it… But ask yourselves How well do I know his word? as we will see Israel forgot… and God is going to remind them… the Lord is going to remind us of the price that was paid by the blood of His Son… And Israel is going to know who and how their redemption comes to them…

open in Prayer...

This sermon is going to broken into 5 parts

Israel forgets

Israel remembers

Israel restored

Israel blessed

Hosea goes after gomer as God goes after Israel

First lets pickup where we left off last week in verse 13… and forgot me declares the Lord… God is going to judge israel because of its idolatry… the thing that puzzled me about this chapter is how God brings a severe and harsh punishment to Israel and immediately changes His tone in verse 14 and begins to show Israel mercy… its almost like a light switch… he goes from starting chapter 2 saying she is not my wife and i am not her husband.. he divorces her… then in 14 he says therefore… the thing about our God we see here is his judgements are great but his mercy is greater… because therefore means instead of destroying Israel for breaking our covenant Im going to do something… vs 14 and 15 are the sweetest verses he could Israel to bring her to repentance… Hes going to remind her of how he saved her… she has forgotten who is the one that rescued her from egypt and hes giving her hope… these verses are the most important part of this message because its all about christ… when you look at these verses on the surface your probably saying where do you see Jesus buddy? what does a vineyards a valley and egypt have to do with christ… and this is the part where knowing God brings the intimacy between Him and Israel to its climax… because israel is going to see how their history is all about their messiah jesus…and this belongs to us also church… as we are the bride of christ we also know thru his word that we are also the children of abraham through faith…in 14 when God says he will allure her and bring her to the wilderness and speak tenderly to her get the imagery in your head of God the husband enticing his wife Israel with soft pleasant calm trusting words… In order to get Israels attention He needs to get her away from all distractions… God needs to remove Israel from everything that is related to baal and take her to the desert where all her focus and attention can be on Gods word… Some of us today are needing to be removed from our distractions and taken into the wilderness so we can hear Gods sweet voice again like when we had our first love and remembered how God could save a wretch like me moment when we first heard the gospel… I remember when I realized Christ took my place on the cross and i thought well thats not really fair… why does He get punished because of me?im the one that deserves to get punsiched... remember that moment ? remember when you first met him and you realized you were the thief on the cross next to him? it wasnt fair what happened to him, it was called grace… God is reminding us of the cross this morning… the place where you were set free… the place you made peace with him… be reminded of that this morning church…we can get so distracted with Life and forget the sweetest moment we ever had when we came to know we were sinners made right because of christ… the image get here is of remembrance… God takes Israel back to 2 important events in their history… the first event is the valley of achor… this story we find in joshua when God told them to go and take the city of Ai… when they tried to take the city from the ammorites they ended up losing the battle.. and joshua couldnt understand why and hes talking with God asking why did you bring us over the Jordan river to lose when you told us you would be with us… Then the Lord told him theres sin in the camp… I know theres a war going on but theres sin…that happens to us right? we get carried away with the busyness of life and dont even realize we got sin in our camp.. we gotta deal with that…we gotta cut it off asap…and we see Gods anger was towards all of israel because achan decided to take some items God told them not to take and achan couldnt resist his tempatation and brings sin into the camp and buries the items under his tent… Joshua finds out confronts achan and says tell the truth and dont lie… acahan confesses… tells the truth…the guy feels bad about what he did…of thats good enough… situation resolved get it out of the camp repent and move on… wrong!!! somebody has to pay…somebodies gonna take the wrap for this sin and its gonna cost a life… immediately achan and his family are taken to the valley of achor and all of israel stone him and his family to death… God will not compromise his holiness of his peoples holiness… it must be met with perfect standards no sin at all… so you may ask well what does achan and christ have in common… it says after achan was stoned the Lords anger was removed from israel… you see achn was a sinner he deserved his punishment for violating Gods command but christ was innocent… In galatians we are told christ becomes a curse for us… in other words the reason Israel was going to find hope in the valley of achor was because christ was going to become sin for us and die the same way achan did in order to remove Gods wrath from Israel… the same way when God people were bitten by the snakes in the desert and were dying… God tells moses make a bronze serpent and put it on a pole and anyone bitten by the snakes will live if they look at the bronze serpent on the pole… serpents represent sin right? evil right? Christ becomes sin for us so that anyone who looks to the cross and trusts in the finished work on the cross will be saved… And you want to know why achan is important in this story of hope for israel? Achan is from the tribe of Judah… the same tribe that the savior is going to come from… Christ is all over verses 14 and 15 and Christ is the reason God is going to be merciful to his bride Israel…and she is going to respond as in the days of her youth when she came out of egypt in vs 15… now why is egypt important here? When pharoah finally let israel go after God unleashed the plagues on egypt? After the final and 10th plague… when the first born of egypt died…Egypt represents slavery.. the bondage israel was under for 400 years… Christ is the one who dies to free Israel from its bondage to all sin and all idolatry… Do you see what God is doing in vs 14 and 15… hes using his Word to remind Israel so they can know Him intimately as a bride… the one that gave them the Land they inhabited, the food , and rain , and security from outside countries that wanted invade them, but instead they made alliances with other countries and thats when they forgot God…theres one more thing about this passage that I mentioned that made me have a moment with God when i was preparing it… what do vineyards and a door of hope have to do with any of this? these verses in 14 and 15 are not literal… he gives israel the literal wine in vs 22… so vs 14 and 15 are metaphors to teach israel to Know God…so whats the relation? vineyards/wine in the bible are used to represent blood…See when we read exodus when moses was before pharoah he told pharoah let my people go so we can go and have a feast in the desert to our God… that feast was a sacrifice…hebrews 9:22 without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness… God is going to show Israel the blood that bought their freedom came from christ… and the blood put on the door during the passover has now become the door of hope.... luke 22...This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. Israel is going to celebrate passover with the passover lamb himself…and will let Israel feast with Christ himself who is the Embodiment of God himself and all His wisdom and knowledge...amen

Now that God has reminded Israel after they forgot Him…God is going to restore Israel....He says in that day you will call me my husband and no longer call me my my baal… see after God uses His word to teach Israel the true knowledge of himself in christ Israel responds with You are my husband… this is the restoration of Israel as his wife … His mercy has caused Israel to return to the Lord… why does Hosea say you will no longer call me baal? Baal means master… see God has corrected the view of israel… from master to husband… israel was so deep in their idolatry the started confusing who was God and who was baal and reffering to their God as baal… you would think how does this happen? people do this today… there are christians who lack knowledge and believe zodiac signs identify the type of person you are… they’ll say things like its scorpio season… or I could tell your a virgo by the way you act? have you heard this? you'll see it on facebook when its their birthday yet claim to be a believer in Christ… church zodiac signs originated from babylonian astrology… pagans that worshipped the stars to find their identity… our identity is found in christ and him alone… lets not even talk about karma … people believe karma happens when you do wrong to others somehow wrong will be done to you in the future and they call it karma… these are hindu beliefs… how can we believe that when our bible says affliction is for our sanctification??? see whether or not we know it there are still Baal ideas around today that we associate with the God of the bible and our God is not going to tolerate it… He will not share His glory with another God for He is a jealous God as it says in His word… See how knowledge and knowing Him will keep you from sin and will remove the names of Baals from your mouth as it says in vs 17… the new covenant will be made when Israel comes back to God and recognizes Him as their husband… in other words you are still my wife the one I love but this time our vows or covenant is going to be different… its not going to be based on conditional circumstances like the ones in the past this time Im keeping you in me forever…This covenant is millenial covenant … New jerusalem… pre fall .... garden of eden when man had dominion over the animals on the earth God has restored everything through Christ… this new covenant with israel is the fullfilment all the other covenants were pointing to…no more war… this can only happen in the new jerusalem…the next verses are beautiful… as you can see God Son and Spirit working to keep Israel in this new covenant.... God says he will betroth you to me forever… the word betroth means I paid the price for you… in other words God is saying I will pay the price for you to me forever and im going to do it through my son…this covenants forever eternal no need for anymore covenants… I will betroth you to me in righteousness and justice, in steadfast love which means loyal love, from this point forward Israel is going to love God with loyalty no more Baals there removed from her lips…and mercy… in our new testament theology who do we find our righteousness in? Christ… who are we justified by? christ… who is it that caused us to love God for the right purposes? not for blessings but to be made righteous before God… christ.... and in Christ is where we fond our mercy because we know He paid the price we could not … so we are betrothed in Christ and so will Israel be…and finally he says i will betroth you to me in faithfulness… what is one of the fruits of the Spirit? Faith love peace patience kindness.... the faithfulness of Israel will be forever because the Holy Spirit will himself ensure Israel puts their faith in Him alone… and now we see Israel will know the Lord intimately.

In that day Israel will receive the blessing on the Land… the Lord will bring the people of the northern kingdom back to him and he will bless the land… he will provide the rains for their grains and wine and oils and remember it was God who provided us with everything we needed… God remains faithful to his word in chapter 1 there is no more northern kingdom but look it says about Jezreel the first son… i will sow her for myself in the land… Gods going to bring those from that kingdom that were dispersed by the Assyrians but it is God who sowed them back in their land… This is why Christ made a specific stop with the Samaritan woman and the whole town listened to her testimony and believed… God hadnt forgotten his people he sowed back in the land… they recieved the gospel… the good news that brought mercy to no mercy and became the people of God who were once called not my people… they now will be able to say you are my God...

chapter 3 reflects God going after his people by telling hosea to go love a woman who is loved by another man…see in chapter 1 when God sent hosea to marry gomer the word love was not in the chapter… we now see hosea is to love gomer… gomer had nothing to do with hosea loving her… she did everything wrong… it was God who loved is while we were still his enemies… israels salvation from start to finish was all based on the way God loved them… not on what israel has done…He tells gomer thats it… enough whoring around… I bought you for fifteen shekels of silver a homer and a lethech of barley....see the image here is that the fifteen shekels of silver was short… the price to pay was 30… it was too high… he was short so hosea goes and gets everything he owns in order to pay the price for his wife… the same way God pays the highest price for Israel with the life of His own Son…it says israels not going to have a prince or king, sacrifice or pillar without ephod (priestly garment so no priest) or household gods, think of this like small idols like a charm one puts around their neck for protection…but it says they will return and seek the Lord their God and david their king and they shall come in fear to the Lord and to his goodness in the latter days… meaning they will realize the judgement God placed on them and walk in fear knowing it was God who did this to us but his goodness has saved us...

Church Christ is the full knowledge and wisdom of God as it says in 1 corinthians… the way he preserved judah so that the northern kindom can be brought back to him requires the ability only God can provide to affect time, circumstances and history in order to show us why its important to know Him… Israel is the wife of God and he desires Israel to be intimate with Him through knowledge… remember in the garden of eden when God said to the serpent that the seed of the woman was going to crush his head…Christ is the seed that He sows into Israel(as a husband does with his wife) through the miraculous birth of Mary and now Christ embodies the full knowledge of God in the flesh and saves his bride which is us church… we as gentiles have been grafted into this faith… now with this knowledge ask yourself after learning all this about Christ… what is it that I am going to spend my time knowing? My God be merciful to us and bring us to the knowledge of HIM thru HIS word...