2024 Wk 35
Return to Me Series • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
0 ratings
· 2 viewsNotes
Transcript
Intro
Intro
In H.G. Wells’ 1897 “The War of the Worlds,” humankind battles an alien force bent on destroying all human life.
Humans fight back, but even their mightiest weapons prove useless.
Wells is noted for his uncanny predictions about the future: Lasers, genetic engineering, and space travel.
Could this nightmarish vision of the future also come true?
Some might say it already has.
What killed the aliens who attacked the humans in War of the Worlds?
The Martians succumb to a terrestrial bacteria.
The bacteria wasn’t visible, but it did the damage.
There is a Bacteria that we struggle against too!
Sin along with the unseen forces Principalities and Powers of Darkness:
We cannot see, but they definitely leave a powerful impact on us.
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.
12 For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.
SORROW IS NOT ALL BAD
when we miss the mark
when we disobey or take the easy way out
10 For the kind of sorrow God wants us to experience leads us away from sin and results in salvation. There’s no regret for that kind of sorrow. But worldly sorrow, which lacks repentance, results in spiritual death.
THE PURPOSE OF SORROW is to bring us back to God’s Way. God’s Will.
Hear this verse from the Passion Translation:
10 God designed us to feel remorse over sin in order to produce repentance that leads to victory. This leaves us with no regrets. But the sorrow of the world works death.
GODLY SORROW IS DESIGNED to bring about repentance, this leads to Victory.
We often feel the sorrow and have a pity party
God opens up his arms and says, “Come Back Home and receive my forgiveness, acceptance, love, and Life.”
Hear this verse one more time from the Message:
10 Distress that drives us to God does that. It turns us around. It gets us back in the way of salvation. We never regret that kind of pain. But those who let distress drive them away from God are full of regrets, end up on a deathbed of regrets.
When we process life only through our own eyes and not through God’s Way we always look right — however Death is right around the corner.
12 There is a path before each person that seems right,
but it ends in death.
We need a Savior— everyday!!
we sometimes are too smart for ourselves
we are filled with pride and arrogance
we don’t make room for God to move, to make a way where there is no way
as we are pushing through trying to make it happen to fulfill what we know is the American Dream
we may be American Christians, however we must lay our knowledge down and ask for the Holy Spirit to bring to us His Wisdom and Power… We still need a Savior!!
----
Hosea memory verses
Oh, that we might know the Lord!
Let us press on to know him.
He will respond to us as surely as the arrival of dawn
or the coming of rains in early spring.”
Hosea 4.6
My people are being destroyed
because they don’t know me.
Since you priests refuse to know me,
I refuse to recognize you as my priests.
Since you have forgotten the laws of your God,
I will forget to bless your children.
The essence of Hosea is not hidden
2 When the Lord first began speaking to Israel through Hosea, he said to him, “Go and marry a prostitute, so that some of her children will be conceived in prostitution. This will illustrate how Israel has acted like a prostitute by turning against the Lord and worshiping other gods.”
Being a prophet and a God fearing man Hosea most likely had read from Solomon’s wisdom about immoral women...
3 For the lips of an immoral woman are as sweet as honey,
and her mouth is smoother than oil.
4 But in the end she is as bitter as poison,
as dangerous as a double-edged sword.
5 Her feet go down to death;
her steps lead straight to the grave.
6 For she cares nothing about the path to life.
She staggers down a crooked trail and doesn’t realize it.
7 So now, my sons, listen to me.
Never stray from what I am about to say:
8 Stay away from her!
Don’t go near the door of her house!
Chapter 7 continues with greater detail revealing the dangers entertaining her for her bedroom leads to death.
25 Don’t let your hearts stray away toward her.
Don’t wander down her wayward path.
26 For she has been the ruin of many;
many men have been her victims.
27 Her house is the road to the grave.
Her bedroom is the den of death.
1. The Book of Hosea begins with God asking the prophet Hosea to do a very difficult thing: he was to marry a woman that he knew would be unfaithful.
It is hard to imagine Hosea’s thoughts and feelings when given such a command, but he was obedient to the Lord and married Gomer (Hosea 1:3).
What are some ways people respond when God requires them to do something difficult or very painful in order to benefit others?
*
2. Gomer bore three children, and, under God’s direction, Hosea named these children Jezreel, Lo-ruhamah, and Lo-ammi (Hosea 1:4-9).
What was the significance of these prophetic names?
*
verse 4, Jezreel
for God was about punishment
Payback for the lives taken in the Jezreel Valley by King Jehu who cleaned up the worship of Baal, but continued to worship other God’s after being appointed King over Israel for 28 years.
verse 6, Lo-ruhamah “Not Loved”
verse 9, Lo-ammi “Not my people”
verse 11, A new day when God will plant his people in Jezreel and bring restoration saying “you are loved” and “you are my people”
3. In Hosea 2:5-8
5 Their mother is a shameless prostitute
and became pregnant in a shameful way.
She said, ‘I’ll run after other lovers
and sell myself to them for food and water,
for clothing of wool and linen,
and for olive oil and drinks.’
6 “For this reason I will fence her in with thornbushes.
I will block her path with a wall
to make her lose her way.
7 When she runs after her lovers,
she won’t be able to catch them.
She will search for them
but not find them.
Then she will think,
‘I might as well return to my husband,
for I was better off with him than I am now.’
8 She doesn’t realize it was I who gave her everything she has—
the grain, the new wine, the olive oil;
I even gave her silver and gold.
But she gave all my gifts to Baal.
God indicated that the nation of Israel had mistakenly thought that their material blessings (food, shelter, clothing) came from false gods (specifically Baal, the god of nature). They were ignorant of the fact that the God of Heaven was the true Author of these gifts.
People are no different today. To whom or what do people give credit today for their prosperity?
*
family
education
job
talent
4. God is a God of both judgment and mercy. Chapters 1 and 2 of Hosea begin with pronouncements of God’s judgment upon Israel, but both end with a promise of restoration and God’s mercy (Hosea 1:10-11; 2:14-23).
Does God bring judgment today? If so,
What judgment will come upon people today who do not heed God’s instructions?
*
12 So I let them follow their own stubborn desires,
living according to their own ideas.
This brings us back to the “wages of sin”
Give an example of how God’s mercy is demonstrated in our time.
*
5. God commanded Hosea to do something extraordinary — instead of divorcing Gomer, he was to buy back his unrepentant, adulterous wife and bring her home.
God’s love was illustrated in Hosea’s troubled marriage.
What great lengths has God gone to in order to show us His amazing love?
*
forgiveness
favor
family