God is Gracious
God is Gracious
Hosea 5:15-6:2
March 14, 1999
Goal: That the hearer, becoming acutely attuned to the destructive force of violating God’s Law, will turn to Christ and joyfully embrace his restoring grace.
Hosea is a fascinating study in God’s dealing with his people, especially when they become entwined with the immoral systems of their surrounding society. When he began his work, Israel arrogantly ran a mighty military machine. But, at the same time, there was a fatal moral decline in the land! (Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?) God describes them through the prophetic word this way, “My people are determined to turn from me.” So bad is the situation that the Lord issues these frightening words of warning to all who would not follow him: “Even if they call to the Most High, he will be no means exalt them.”
Why? Is he not the God of love and grace? Of course He is! But that is not how the people treat his love, or, perceive the words of the prophet. They were a backsliding (11:7), immoral, idolatrous nation (4:1-2) of whom God says: “There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgement of God in the land.” After all God had done in love for them., (13:4), they lacked knowledge and love of him (Hosea 4).
To God, his people had become an adulterous spouse. He uses Hosea’s struggles with his unfaithful wife, Gomer (chaps 1-3), to reveal this to his people. Hosea’s patient, persistent love for Gomer pictures God’s tough, persistent love for his people. But they did not respond in repentance to God’s love and grace.
1. God Prepares Us For Grace. Important things need great preparation. Getting an education, choosing a spouse, having an on-going loving relationship with God all take preparation.
Likewise God prepares us for grace. He doesn’t “force-feed” grace to anyone; there must be a spiritual hunger; a hungering and thirsting after righteousness, as Jesus says. We all know how it works. You don’t usually have to give a second invitation to the man who wants to eat but hasn’t for three days! Sometimes people go on hunger strikes and refuse food. Life slowly slips away from them.
God allowed Israel to sink into the slime of its own sin as they refused the spiritual food he provided. Because of their hardened hearts, he withdrew from them (5:15) for awhile. Only when they experience the emptiness of their resources and the enslavement by their enemies would they really be ready to cry out for God’s help.
Martin Luther once remarked, “The error of neither knowing nor understanding what sin is usually brings with it another error, that of neither knowing nor understanding what grace is”
Are we listening? Are we paying any attention to what God says to us? Or, have our hearts become stubbornly attached to error and hardened against his word of truth? Is it possible that when we at times complain about God not helping us and solving our problems, he might be trying to get our attention, to humble us, to lead us to sincere repentance? Yes! Indeed! God does want our attention. He desires that all come to a knowledge of the truth and be saved.
2. God Heals Us With His Grace. He wants us restored to wholeness and health; he wants our spiritual healing. This is also evident in the Word of truth. In the last verse of our text is a promise. “After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence.” In other words, His discipline lasts but for a short time The prophet Ezekiel, speaking as the mouth of the Lord says, “As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, O house of Israel?” Consider the Savior’s dealings with Peter from the Friday of his betrayal until following Easter. No wonder the restored apostle could write, “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”
God is especially good at healing and restoring. That is Hosea’s message to the people. “You have fallen apart, but God will put you together again.” Are you someone who is falling apart as God sees you? Do you want God to put you back together again? Do you want to grow in your knowledge and understanding of God? Do you want the shame and guilt of sin to be removed from you. If so, let these words of the Lord as spoken through Hosea touch your heart; “I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.” In other words, God is ready to mercy you and to acknowledge you. That he sent his One-and-Only Son into the world is God’s testament of truth in this matter.
Christ is our Healer! He was born to heal us. He faced the darkest night of despair and judgment under God’s wrath. When on the cross his own Father abandoned him for the moment. He endured the hell we deserve. He paid the price of our rebellion and sin.
He made the difference. By his gracious sacrifice he turns even the vilest life into a new life. Paul explains why this is, “because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.” Yes, the Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. But, God has given us “Riches At Christ’s Expense.” That is grace, (G-R-A-C-E), “God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense.” Forgiven, by grace in Christ “there is now no condemnation” says the apostle in our epistle reading. Let me explain what I mean by way of an national example.
In February 1998, Karla Faye Tucker became the first woman executed in Texas since the Civil War. She was sentenced to die for the 1983 murders of a Houston couple, whom she beat to death in their bed with a pickax and hammer. She even bragged about it afterward.
But the Karla Faye Tucker executed on that February day was a transformed person, by all accounts. A former prostitute and drug dealer, she claimed to be a “born-again” Christian who had repented of her crimes and received God’s forgiveness. From everything I saw of her and heard her say, I believe it.
That is God’s grace at work. It turns the heart, transforms the soul, and frees to live a new life in Christ. That grace works the same for sinners like you and me, too! God Is Gracious! Amen.