Learning Our Lessons
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Text: Hosea 11:12-13:6
Children’s Bible Page: 966
Introduction: Joe and Drama (Never Learning Your Lessons)
I had this friend in High School whose name was Joe.
And Joe had to be the most frustrating friend that I ever had.
And the reason why Joe was the most frustrating friend that I ever had was Joe lived in a really big nice house on a golf course.
And Joe was a really good golfer.
And Joe was a good looking guy.
And the most beautiful girl at school liked Joe.
And Joe planned to go to a really prestigious university to play golf.
Yet, while it seemed like Joe had everything going for him,
Joe was not the sharpest tool in the shed, you know what I mean?
Joe was not the brightest marker in the Crayola box.
The light’s on but no ones home.
A few screws short of a hardware store.
A few cards short of a deck.
A few fries short of a Happy Meal.
The elevator doesn’t go all the way to the top floor.
You get what I’m saying.
My senior year, Joe and I were in drama class together, and for the Spring play, the drama teacher wisely gave Joe the part with the least lines.
Two lines, all Joe had the whole play was two lines, one sentence each, and he never one time got them right, even during the live shows.
We worked with Joe day after day, and he could never learn those lines.
I tell you about Joe because it hit me this week that we have now had eleven sermons on the book of Hosea.
Today is the twelfth sermon, and the final one for the book is next week.
So, if you have been here every time or listened online to keep up, you will have had thirteen sermons on the book of Hosea,
But have you learned the lessons presented in the book?
In seminary, our professors always tried to humble us “would-be” preachers by telling us that out of all the hours and hours of sermon preparation and delivery, the people who listen to us will probably remember and retain less than 1% of it.
In light of that dim reality, the book of Hosea does something really nice for us preachers and you listeners.
Here, at the end of the book, it gives us a summary of the key lessons that we should have learned throughout the book as well as character illustrations to go along with each lesson.
Remember, we have seen for many weeks that God has been presenting His case against His rebellious people, and last week in chapter 11, God is finally ready for the sentencing phase of the trial, and God in stunning love, mercy, and grace alleviates their sentence and promises future hope for the people.
It kind of feels like the book could have wrapped up right there, but instead, God through Hosea is so focused on us learning our lessons, that he summarizes them and adds character illustrations.
Hosea 11:12–13:16 (ESV)
12 Ephraim has surrounded me with lies,
and the house of Israel with deceit,
but Judah still walks with God
and is faithful to the Holy One.
1 Ephraim feeds on the wind
and pursues the east wind all day long;
they multiply falsehood and violence;
they make a covenant with Assyria,
and oil is carried to Egypt.
2 The Lord has an indictment against Judah
and will punish Jacob according to his ways;
he will repay him according to his deeds.
3 In the womb he took his brother by the heel,
and in his manhood he strove with God.
4 He strove with the angel and prevailed;
he wept and sought his favor.
He met God at Bethel,
and there God spoke with us—
5 the Lord, the God of hosts,
the Lord is his memorial name:
6 “So you, by the help of your God, return,
hold fast to love and justice,
and wait continually for your God.”
7 A merchant, in whose hands are false balances,
he loves to oppress.
8 Ephraim has said, “Ah, but I am rich;
I have found wealth for myself;
in all my labors they cannot find in me iniquity or sin.”
9 I am the Lord your God
from the land of Egypt;
I will again make you dwell in tents,
as in the days of the appointed feast.
10 I spoke to the prophets;
it was I who multiplied visions,
and through the prophets gave parables.
11 If there is iniquity in Gilead,
they shall surely come to nothing:
in Gilgal they sacrifice bulls;
their altars also are like stone heaps
on the furrows of the field.
12 Jacob fled to the land of Aram;
there Israel served for a wife,
and for a wife he guarded sheep.
13 By a prophet the Lord brought Israel up from Egypt,
and by a prophet he was guarded.
14 Ephraim has given bitter provocation;
so his Lord will leave his bloodguilt on him
and will repay him for his disgraceful deeds.
1 When Ephraim spoke, there was trembling;
he was exalted in Israel,
but he incurred guilt through Baal and died.
2 And now they sin more and more,
and make for themselves metal images,
idols skillfully made of their silver,
all of them the work of craftsmen.
It is said of them,
“Those who offer human sacrifice kiss calves!”
3 Therefore they shall be like the morning mist
or like the dew that goes early away,
like the chaff that swirls from the threshing floor
or like smoke from a window.
4 But I am the Lord your God
from the land of Egypt;
you know no God but me,
and besides me there is no savior.
5 It was I who knew you in the wilderness,
in the land of drought;
6 but when they had grazed, they became full,
they were filled, and their heart was lifted up;
therefore they forgot me.
7 So I am to them like a lion;
like a leopard I will lurk beside the way.
8 I will fall upon them like a bear robbed of her cubs;
I will tear open their breast,
and there I will devour them like a lion,
as a wild beast would rip them open.
9 He destroys you, O Israel,
for you are against me, against your helper.
10 Where now is your king, to save you in all your cities?
Where are all your rulers—
those of whom you said,
“Give me a king and princes”?
11 I gave you a king in my anger,
and I took him away in my wrath.
12 The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up;
his sin is kept in store.
13 The pangs of childbirth come for him,
but he is an unwise son,
for at the right time he does not present himself
at the opening of the womb.
14 I shall ransom them from the power of Sheol;
I shall redeem them from Death.
O Death, where are your plagues?
O Sheol, where is your sting?
Compassion is hidden from my eyes.
15 Though he may flourish among his brothers,
the east wind, the wind of the Lord, shall come,
rising from the wilderness,
and his fountain shall dry up;
his spring shall be parched;
it shall strip his treasury
of every precious thing.
16 Samaria shall bear her guilt,
because she has rebelled against her God;
they shall fall by the sword;
their little ones shall be dashed in pieces,
and their pregnant women ripped open.
So, in our passage today, we are going to be reminded of three great lessons from the prophecy of Hosea as we explore three character illustrations.
As Paul was writing about the events of the Old Testament, he wrote this in
6 Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did.
So while it is an ancient text, it is living and active for you today, so I invite you to search your heart as we walk through these and let them be examples to you.
1. The Lesson Of Jacob: Pursue God In All Situations
1. The Lesson Of Jacob: Pursue God In All Situations
In chapter 11:12 through 12:6, Hosea uses Jacob as a character illustration to one of the main lessons we should learn from the book of Hosea: We must pursue God in all situations.
You see, Hosea points us back to Jacob’s story from the book of Genesis and reminds us that Jacob was born a twin, and in the womb, verse 3 of our passage says, he took His brother by the heel, and in his manhood he strove with God.
The fact that Jacob was grasping onto His twin brother’s heel at their birth was a signal of the kind of personality Jacob was going to have.
Jacob was a grasper. A pursuer. Throughout Jacob’s life, he knew what He wanted and He was willing to go after whatever it is he wanted.
And when Jacob was young, he was willing to use whatever dishonest and underhanded means necessary to get what He wanted.
He tricked His brother into giving him his birthright by withholding food from his brother Esau until Esau agreed and gave it up.
Jacob also tricked his old blind father into giving him the blessing His older brother Esau deserved.
God’s people during Hosea’s day were a lot like Jacob back in his day.
They were graspers.
They pursued wealth, security, politics, and blessings, and they were willing to use any kind of underhanded lying and violence in order to get it.
Look back to 11:12 - Ephraim has surrounded me with lies, and the house of Israel with deceit.
Verse 1 - They feed on the wind and pursue the east wind, they multiply falsehood and violence; they make a covenant with Assyria, and oil is carried to Egypt.
They lied and they were violent and they created their own political schemes with Assyria and Egypt in order to pursue continued peace and blessings.
When all the while, they forgot that it was God who gave them their wealth, security, and blessings!
And we live in a day that is a lot like Hosea’s day.
We are bombarded with more opportunities for pursuits than any other generation before us.
Want to pursue wealth, education, sports, luxuries, entertainments, blessings, securities, recognitions, fame, power, politics?
The world is your oyster!
Yet, in the endless possibilities of pursuits, we must be warned that any pursuit that is not centered on God’s glory, pursued with God’s wisdom, and submitted to God’s lordship is like a chasing after the wind.
It will end up not only meaningless and unsatisfying, but the very thing you wanted so badly will end up being something you hate and regret.
Jacob’s deceptive grasping led to nothing but hurt and hardship in his life.
It will be the same for you and I with any pursuits that are not submitted to God’s lordship and pursued by His wisdom.
And if you want to know if a pursuit is submitted to God’s lordship and God’s wisdom, just ask yourself:
Would I be willing to give this up and walk away from it if God asked me to?
Am I willing to lie, deceive, be manipulative, or even violent toward others in order to get what it is I am grasping for?
Is what you are pursuing for yourself or for your kids leading you to compromise your convictions like being faithful to God’s church and faithful to your family?
Jacob’s younger years were spent grasping for things he wants by His own deceptive methods.
But, he grew to understand that it was God who blessed Him with all that He needed, and it was God who is the only one worth pursuing.
Verse 4 says Jacob strove with an angel and prevailed; he wept and sought his favor.
He met God at Bethel, and there God spoke with us, the Lord, the God of hosts, the Lord of his memorial name.
You see, as Jacob got older, He learned that the most important pursuit is His own pursuit of God.
He learned that any lasting blessing and delight was going to come from God as He pursued Him.
So, in the same way, verse 6 tells us to by the help of your God, return, hold fast to love and justice, and wait continually for God.
Pursue God, seek favor and blessing from Him, do things the right way with love and justice while trusting God.
It is as Jesus said:
33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
Remember:
5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding.
6 In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths.
Maybe you think you have to cut corners in your job to stay ahead, so you lie and manipulate.
Or maybe you are tempted to think your kid needs to be involved in everything so that they don’t miss out, but you are willing for them to be distant from God’s church.
Or maybe you have prioritized too highly a hobby, sport, or some other non essential to the point of not pursuing loving God, making disciples, and being a part of God’s church.
Maybe you are tempted to put too much hope in the political process in an election season believing people should do whatever they have to in order to gain political power.
When all the while, we’ve seen God’s people stumble and compromise in their pursuits when they are not submitted to God’s lordship and pursued with God’s wisdom.
Are your pursuits submitted to His lordship and wisdom?
Are your pursuits worldly or godly?
2. The Lesson Of Moses: Pursue Gratefulness To God
2. The Lesson Of Moses: Pursue Gratefulness To God
It’s interesting, today’s passage never mentions Moses by name, but it is obvious that it is referring to the timeframe of Moses related to the history of God’s people.
Verses 7 and 8 show us what we have seen many times through Hosea about God’s people.
They are unjust, use false scales, they oppress others.
They boast of their riches as if they gained it all themselves.
The term merchant in verse 7 could also be translated Canaanite.
Think about it: the Canaanites were one of the pagan peoples God drove out of the land in order to give His people the land.
The idea was that His people would show the other nations what God is like, but instead, they are acting just like the pagan nations.
So, God seeks to remind them in verse 9: I am the Lord your God from the land of Egypt; I will again make you dwell in tents.
You think you have gotten where you are on your own?
You boast of your land and your wealth?
I will take it all away just like I gave it to you, because you have not been grateful to God.
In verse 12 we see: just like Jacob guarded sheep for a wife, God guarded His people by giving them the prophet Moses, and redeeming them out of slavery by His mighty hand, and providing for them every step of the way.
Yet, instead of being grateful to God, they provoked His anger by sacrificing to idols and doing disgraceful deeds.
13:1 shows how God had set His people up to be a spokesman to other nations, but instead, they let other nations influence them.
You see, as God’s people, we show gratefulness to God for the salvation He has given us by living as a distinct people.
We reject the ideas and philosophies of the world and hold fast to the truth all while sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with the world around us.
Instead of letting the world influence us, we should be influencing the world with the message of Jesus.
But, if we are not profoundly grateful to God from saving us out of the world and into the kingdom of His beloved Son, we will too easily come to let the world influence us more than we influence the world.
Verse 4 chapter 13: But I am the Lord your God from the land of Egypt; you know no God but me, and besides me there is no savior.
When did the people forget this?
When did they forget to be grateful to God and live distinct from the world?
Verse 5: when they were full, and their hearts were lifted up.
It’s tempting when you have a lot and when you are comfortable to believe you have gotten you where you are.
And then once you believe that you are the one who has gotten you where you are, you believe you are the one who has to maintain it and keep it going at all costs.
This can be true in ministry in the church.
If the church is doing well and comfortable, we can begin to believe that we have done something.
And if something comes up where we have to be convictional and stand up for what is right, it seems too costly because we have to maintain what we have built,
Instead of having the posture of gratefulness to God.
God you’ve done this.
You have made us what we are by your grace.
We are going to be grateful to you, worship you, and stand with you no matter what.
Every good thing you have is a gift of God.
And if you want to argue and say you earned it,
just ask yourself who gave you the ability you used to earn in the first place?
And when you begin to see every aspect of your life as something to be grateful to God for, then you are free to say: God, you are my God, you have given me this life and all I have to steward for your glory.
How do you want to use me and all you’ve given me today?
God, Christ Covenant Church is your church, created by you, purchased by your blood, we are your people, these are your resources, we are grateful, what would you have us do for your glory with your church?
Pursue gratefulness to God in all things.
3. The Lesson Of King Saul: Pursue The Salvation Only God Can Give 13:9
3. The Lesson Of King Saul: Pursue The Salvation Only God Can Give 13:9
Verse 9 of chapter 13 is clear that God is against his people.
And God asks in verse 10: Where now is your king, to save you in all your cities?
Where are all your rulers - those of whom you said, “Give me a king and princes”?
When God’s people came into the land, they demanded to have a king like the other nations had.
You see, God’s people did not want to feel any longer like children faithfully trusting in their father.
They wanted a political society of power like all the other nations.
They thought their problems were political, and they thought salvation would come through political means.
So, they appointed their first King, Saul.
But since that time, Israel has suffered at the hands of countless evil kings.
Verse 12 reminds us that Israel’s great problem was not political but spiritual.
And many times we need to be reminded of that as well.
Our greatest needs both personally and a society are not first political, but spiritual.
No doubt, we should desire to have good leaders and be good leaders and desire good politics to be a blessing to others, but our greatest need is spiritual.
No society is going to “get things right” on this side of eternity.
The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up; his sin is kept in store.
The pangs of childbirth in verse 13 paint the picture of Israel being in a crisis they were not ready for.
When a mother is about to give birth, it is a serious problem if the baby is not presented in the right position.
And especially in the ancient world, many mothers and babies died from this.
What God is saying is His people thought their problem was political and they needed a king, but when their real problems were exposed, the kings could not save them.
There true crisis was death.
Because no matter how much you grasp and pursue in this life,
No matter how much money, fame, power, comfort, or luxury you obtain in this life,
The fact is: you will die.
And at the moment of your death, nothing that you pursued on your own is going to matter.
No matter what happens in this political season over the next five months, the kingdoms of this world will not last, they are not eternal, they will all come to an end.
At the end of the day, our greatest enemy is death, and our greatest need is salvation when at the end of our life, we stand before the judgment.
No other leader will stand with us then.
But, the people had trusted in worldly kings over and above God,
So, just like God in great compassion and mercy asked questions of his people back in chapter 11 like how can I give you up?, He asks questions again here as he considers their greatest problem which is death:
Shall I ransom them from the power of Sheol?
Shall I redeem them from Death?
O Death, where are your plagues?
O Sheol, where is your sting?
The reality for the people of Israel in the book of Hosea was that most of them were going to be overcome by the power of death very soon,
And most of them were not redeemed from death.
The plagues and sting of death came at the hands of Assyria as the brutal Assyrians rode in and decimated the people and their land.
We read it in the rest of the passage, God says in the last line of verse 14: compassion is hidden from my eyes.
There was no salvation coming for the people of Israel against Assyria.
Verse 15 pictures the land decimated and Israel’s treasures captured by their enemies.
Verse 16 says they will fall by the sword, their little ones shall be dashed to pieces, and their pregnant women ripped open.
We don’t read that as if God through Hosea takes pleasure in this kind of wrath and torment coming against Israel.
Instead, he is simply telling them the truth about what evil nations do to conquered peoples.
This wrath is coming clearly because verse 16 says: Samaria shall bear their guilt, for they have rebelled against her God.
For the nation of Israel as a whole, salvation did not come. They were not ransomed from the power of Sheol or redeemed from death, for they had rejected God, their only means of salvation.
It is a warning to all in our day, for we too have all rebelled against God and are guilty in relation to God.
The wages of our sin is death, and we all deserve the eternal torments of being separated from God in hell.
The book of Revelation tells us about the end of this age:
12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done.
And while we deserve death and punishment separated from God, while we deserve death and hell.
God, in great compassion and mercy, sent His son Jesus to take the full weight of our punishment, death, and hell onto himself at the cross so that we could be forgiven, freed, and given eternal life as a free gift of God’s grace.
We can do nothing to earn this salvation.
Jesus did everything through His cross and resurrection.
All we must do is believe it and receive it as a free gift of God for salvation.
After Jesus died, rose, and went back to Heaven, the apostle Paul was writing about the resurrection of Jesus, and he was writing that because Jesus rose from the dead, all who believe in Him and receive His salvation will rise from the dead as well.
And Paul explains this by using the words of wrath and judgment in Hosea, which because of the cross of Jesus, have now been transformed into hope giving, life giving words.
50 I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. 53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. 54 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:
“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
55 “O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”
56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
There is salvation and victory in no other name, than in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Have you been saved by Jesus?
If not, I want you to know that you don’t have to have any qualifications to be saved by Him in this moment.
Actually, believing that you have to be qualified in some way in order to be saved is the very thing that will keep you from being saved, because the only prerequisite to being saved is agreeing with God that you are a rebellious sinner who cannot save yourself.
Would you cry out to God from your heart and believe He rose Jesus Christ from the dead for you and you will be saved?
For all the followers of Jesus in the room, let’s not be like my high school friend Joe.
Instead, let’s learn the lessons of the book of Hosea.
Pursue God in all situations for His glory by His wisdom not grasping for the things of the world.
Pursue grateful hearts toward God never forgetting that everything is His and we are His and for His glory.
And may we pursue the salvation only God can give and share of this great salvation with everyone in our lives, for we are all in such desperate need of it.
Maybe you have been pursuing something apart from God’s glory and God’s wisdom. Would you confess that to God today and submit it to Him?
Maybe you have forgotten that this whole life of yours is a gift to be stewarded, not something for you to own or control.
Whatever God is showing you from His word and through His Spirit today, I urge you to listen and respond.
Elder at the couches.
Let’s pray.
