Our Return to God

America has only one option. Revival or ruin.

JASON WHITLOCK

They used the rigged system to empower

useful idiots (aka influencers), undermine

resistance, and seize power. Part of me sees

the Twitter Files as more confession than

revelation. No different from Times

Magazine story about "fortifying" the

election. The deed is done.

They're counting on the American people

giving up. Resistance is futile. If you protest,

they'll use operatives to paint your

movement as racist or violent. The

calculated and strategic emasculation and

secularization of the black man destroyed

America's moral compass.

The rigged system replaced Richard Allen/

Frederick Douglass/Booker T/MLK/Malcolm

X with Jay Z/LeBron/Snoop/Ibram X

Kendi……Religious leaders as influencers to

drug dealers/pimps/jocks/opportunists. A

return to God is America's only chance at

salvation. That's my Ted Talk.

Think about the opportunities the Lord has given our country to return to Him.

9/11

wars

political upheaval

Coronavirus

natural disasters- Ian

in what way for God to have to touch us to get our attention?

Hosea- 16x- return/returned

The Hebrew word is shoob and means “ to return; to make a linear motion back to a point previously departed.” The opposite is “to be apostate; to turn away.”

Our Rebellion

We run away, thinking that we can find in another what we can only find in God.

2:5

2:8

Our Redeemer & His Redemption

Is 44...

Our Return to God

The marriage figure is used here.

The Hebrew word for "husband" is ish and the word for "master" is ba'al. Both words were used in reference to husbands but with very different connotations. While the word ba' al connotes control and domination the word 'ish connotes partnership and completion. Corresponding to the word 'ish, the Hebrew word for "woman" is 'ishshah. The language itself illustrates the word's emphasis - the husband as counterpart to his wife, the man as completion of the woman.

These are the same words that are used in the Genesis 2 account of the creation of man and woman. Genesis 2:23 shows their relationship.

This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman ['ishshah], for out of Man ['ish] this one was taken. (NRSV)

Hosea's decision is clear. Instead of approaching his wife from a standpoint of power, attempting to coerce her into faithfulness, he will approach her in humility and enduring love, with hope for sincere reconciliation.

I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. I will betroth you in faithfulness, and you will acknowledge the LORD(.Hos 2:19-20)

WHY DOES THE LANGUAGE OF MARRIAGE PERMEATE THIS STORY ABOUT REDEMPTION?

JEHOVAH seeks intimacy with His wife- 2:20

ILL. the word has come to be only understood as a physical act

Jehovah desires to come to “shared experience” with the bride.

TO KNOW AND BE FULLY KNOWN

Piper: If you have succeeded, as I have, in not telling everybody or anybody about everything, you haven’t succeeded with Jesus. He knows absolutely everything about you. There are no secrets. You are totally, completely known by Jesus. That’s amazing. The person who matters most, knows most. The person whose judgment is all-important, knows all. Let that sink in. You are totally known — totally. You’ve never had a feeling, you’ve never had a thought, you’ve never done a deed, there’s not been a twitch in your brain or in your heart or in your body, that he hasn’t known fully and completely — vastly more fully than you know.

you are TOTALLY KNOWN…and INCREDIBLY LOVED!

Jehovah seeks exclusivity from his wife- 3:3

ILL. Kinseyism

I’m reading from a report entitled, Kinsey's Secret: The Phony Science of the Sexual Revolution

In a 1951 Journal of Social Psychology study, psychology students at the University of California, Los Angeles, were divided into three groups: Some students took an intensive nine-week course on Kinsey's findings, while the other two groups received no formal Kinsey instruction. Afterward, the students took a quiz testing their attitudes about sex. Compared with those who received no Kinsey training, those steeped in Kinseyism were seven times as likely to view premarital sex more favorably than they did before and twice as likely to look more favorably on adultery. After Kinsey, the percentage of students open to a homosexual experience soared from 0 to 15 percent. Students taught Kinseyism were also less likely to let religion influence their sexual behavior and less apt to follow sexual rules taught by their parents.

And the lie is that one may be unfaithful without pain or consequence— but that’s the point of Hosea. You can’t run amok without causing harm to yourself or your spouse.

Solomon says, And I find more bitter than death the woman, whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands as bands: whoso pleaseth God shall escape from her; but the sinner shall be taken by her. (Ecc 7:26)

Deuteronomy 5:7-9: “Thou shalt have none other gods before me. Thou shalt not make thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters beneath the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me,”

3. Jehovah seeks to portray His love to the world through this covenant-relationship

One of the most gospel-centric things you can do is to strengthen your marriage! By way of evangelism, one of the greatest things we can do to exemplify the power of the gospel is to build strong marriages. CHRIST AND THE CHURCH IS THE MODEL--- AND WE, AT TIMES, ARE VERY POOR ILLUSTRATIONS OF THAT MODEL. But we seek to be better!

We go back to the garden and see a lonely man. God doesn’t say, “You need something, boy…I think I’ll make a softball team for you…I’ll create a club for you…