Love Endures: Requiring Correction

Hosea 8:1 CSB

Put the ram’s horn to your mouth! One like an eagle comes against the house of the Lord, because they transgress my covenant and rebel against my law.

INTRO—

I imagine that God’s people in Hosea’s day (Israel, primarily Northern Kingdom, but also Judah) could’ve asked themselves the same question JD Greear asked the gathered messengers in Nashville this past week:

“Who are we..., Southern/Great Commission Baptists?”

GOD’S LOVE ENDURES…DESPITE DISOBEDIENCE, and...

…REQUIRING CORRECTION (Demanding Discipline).

SOOO, what in Israel’s life—in our lives—DEMANDS DISCIPLINE from our Lord?

[Hosea 8.1-7] We are Natural Wanderers

Transgress…rebel…rejected…without my (God’s) approval…incapable of innocence…sow the wind.

“Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love.”

God sets out road blocks…and road blockers…to correct our course!

Like an eagle come against the house of the Lord…an enemy will purse…reap the whirlwind…foreigners would swallow it up.

This is too often who we are…and NOT who we need to be!

SBC…GCBC!

CBC!

You…& Me.

[Hosea 9.1-7, 17] We are Headstrong Homeless

Leaving your God…will not stay in the land of the Lord…will not enter the house of the Lord…Egypt will gather them…Memphis will bury them.

God leaves his people to become destitute in their wantonness.

Food like the bread of mourners…thistles will take possession of their precious silver; thorns invade their tents…says of retribution have come…the prophet is a fool.

Both his pursuit of us amid our wandering and his exiling of us…serve to draw us away from sin and to Him. [even in the last days]

Luke 21.20-24, esp v. 22

Luke 21:22 CSB

because these are days of vengeance to fulfill all the things that are written.

[Wrap this section with Hosea 9.17]

[Hosea 10.2-4] We are Heartless Worshipers

Hearts are devious…we do not fear the Lord...they speak mere words…taking false oaths while making covenants.

They must bear their guilt…the Lord will break down their altars…demolish their sacred pillars.

Matthew 23:23–24 CSB

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You pay a tenth of mint, dill, and cumin, and yet you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy, and faithfulness. These things should have been done without neglecting the others. Blind guides! You strain out a gnat, but gulp down a camel!

James 1:27 CSB

Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

[Hosea 10.8-15] We are Self-ish Trusters

You have sinned…they have taken their stand there…the unjust…double iniquity…plowed wickedness and reaped injustice…you have trusted in your own way…in your large number of soldiers…your extreme evil.

…instead, Hosea 10.12…

Hosea 10:12 CSB

Sow righteousness for yourselves and reap faithful love; break up your unplowed ground. It is time to seek the Lord until he comes and sends righteousness on you like the rain.

Luke 23.26-31; v. 30 [the ultimate consequence of self-ish trusters]

Luke 23:30 CSB

Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us!’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us!’

…& Revelation 6.12-17; v. 16 [The Sixth Seal]

Revelation 6:16 CSB

And they said to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of the one seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb,

CONCL—

Let me go back to that wonderful song and the fulness of the verse from which I pulled the small section I quoted. The entire verse goes...

Oh, to grace how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be! Let thy goodness, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to thee: prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love; here's my heart, O take and seal it; seal it for thy courts above.

Grace. Grace is what we need

…to be saved from the eternal consequences of our sin

…to be renewed when we, like Israel, stray back into those sinful propensities.

Hosea 10:15 CSB

So it will be done to you, Bethel, because of your extreme evil. At dawn the king of Israel will be totally destroyed.