SPEAKER_00: Blow the horns in Kebeah, the trumpets in Ramah.
SPEAKER_00: Sound the alarms at Bethaven.
SPEAKER_00: We follow you, O Benjamin.
SPEAKER_00: Ibrah shall become a desolation in the day of punishment among the tribes of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: I make known what is sure.
SPEAKER_00: The princess of Judah have become like those who move the landmark.
SPEAKER_00: Upon them I will pour out my wrath like water.
SPEAKER_00: But I am like a moth to Ephraim, and like dry rot to the house of Judea.
SPEAKER_00: When Ephraim saw his sickness and Judea his wound, then Ebrahim went to Israel and sent to the great king.
SPEAKER_00: But he is not able to cure you or heal your wood.
SPEAKER_00: For I will be like a lion to Ephraim and like a young lion to the house of Judea.
SPEAKER_00: I, even I, will tear and go away.
SPEAKER_00: I will carry off, and no one shall rescue.
SPEAKER_00: I will return again to my place until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face, and in their distress earnestly seek me.
SPEAKER_00: Israel and Judea are unrepentant.
SPEAKER_00: Come, let us return to the Lord, for he has torn us, that he may heal us.
SPEAKER_00: He has struck us down, and he will bind us up.
SPEAKER_00: After two days he will revive us.
SPEAKER_00: On the third day he will rise us up, that we may live before him.
SPEAKER_00: Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: He is going, he's going out as sure as the dawn.
SPEAKER_00: He will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.
SPEAKER_00: What shall I do with you, O Abraham?
SPEAKER_00: What shall I do with you, O Judea?
SPEAKER_00: Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes early away.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets, I have slain them by the words of my mouth, and my judgment goes forth as the light.
SPEAKER_00: For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
SPEAKER_00: This is the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: So let me pray for us as we dive into Hosea.
SPEAKER_01: And today's message is mainly to give a sense of like uh this big idea that God's people often seek relief from uh the consequences of sin rather than reconciliation with God.
SPEAKER_01: And that's that's gonna be just the heart of the underlying questions that we go through in the text.
SPEAKER_01: That people struggle with the idea of God and and um but at the same time uh question God's work and hand in their lives when things aren't going well, and and there's a sense in which people want God's gifts more than God Himself.
SPEAKER_01: And there's a sense in which we're gonna see God, the Savior, giving himself.
SPEAKER_01: And the question will be mainly, is God enough?
SPEAKER_01: Is that alone enough for you?
SPEAKER_01: As you as you look at your life, as you um interrogate, perhaps you're not a Christian here this morning and with us, we're glad you are here, and you're asking those questions.
SPEAKER_01: Um, have you asked yourself, is is God enough?
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna keep honing in that question uh for the next 45 minutes or so.
SPEAKER_01: Let me pray for us.
SPEAKER_01: Dear Lord, we thank you for your kindness, thank you for your grace, thank you for um just who you are, Lord, your holy God, a faithful God, uh Lord whose love is steadfast.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, as we look into your word this morning, become as thirsty people seeking to be quenched, Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Not by anything else, not by gimmicks, not by anything else, but by you.
SPEAKER_01: For Lord, your word is life, your word is nourishment to our souls.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we do pray for those who may not know you this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Pray that, Lord, through your word, that we come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And Baba, those who may be discouraged, I pray that they may find courage in you.
SPEAKER_01: Pray that you may awaken us, Lord, awaken our affections.
SPEAKER_01: Would you by your spirit help us, Lord, kill the desires of our flesh that are against your will, Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Through these means of just preaching your word faithfully.
SPEAKER_01: And Baba, I pray that Jesus Christ may be exalted all the more, even this morning.
SPEAKER_01: In your son's name I pray.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: There's a question that I've been thinking through, like, in terms of like the there are questions that we can ask that can easily uh fill rooms, uh, you know, like crowd-pulling questions.
SPEAKER_01: And and it's not the question is God enough?
SPEAKER_01: It's do you want God to fix your life?
SPEAKER_01: That that sounds like a compelling question that people could easily uh warm up to, especially in times of crisis.
SPEAKER_01: That man, do you want God to fix your life?
SPEAKER_01: Do you want God to fix perhaps you're going through toil, through financial strain?
SPEAKER_01: And and it's questions that people would often run to and to get answers.
SPEAKER_01: Of course, man, I want God to fix my life.
SPEAKER_01: But under the and underneath these 20 verses that we're gonna be journeying through, the main question here is would God alone be enough for you?
SPEAKER_01: Would God alone be enough for you?
SPEAKER_01: And friends, as I've said, these past three weeks we've been just journeying through Hosea slowly.
SPEAKER_01: It's a bit hard.
SPEAKER_01: Can we help us with the echo on there?
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure people uh can feel the heat.
SPEAKER_01: I don't want people falling asleep here.
SPEAKER_01: But anyway, so these past three weeks we've been journeying through Hosea.
SPEAKER_01: And and the first thing we we kind of looked at is like uh if I were to write a script, if I were a theater production writer, you can't make this stuff up.
SPEAKER_01: Actually, so many stories are familiar.
SPEAKER_01: This the story of Hosea as we've uh journeyed through it sounds a bit familiar.
SPEAKER_01: It sounds like a story you'd hear from a colleague at work.
SPEAKER_01: Uh a man is is is is married to someone who is unfaithful.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and then there's a sense of like the man is not sure that the are these kids mine or not, you know.
SPEAKER_01: Um and and and now there's a court case.
SPEAKER_01: There's a court case, it's perhaps a divorce case.
SPEAKER_01: But but but but today we're gonna see something of uh a picture that moves from the scene of the the the wedding bed to, as it were, a world war.
SPEAKER_01: Literally that.
SPEAKER_01: From the wedding bed, from the courtroom to a a crisis moment, a a world war.
SPEAKER_01: Like we're gonna hear so much noise.
SPEAKER_01: And and perhaps for those who have who have not been with us these couple of weeks, um I just want to quickly outline where we've been.
SPEAKER_01: Number one, Hosea knowingly, in obedience to God, was instructed to marry a woman who would break his heart.
SPEAKER_01: And and all of that was to basically give a picture or give Hosea the understanding of God's covenant relationship with his covenant people Israel.
SPEAKER_01: That they have broken his heart.
SPEAKER_01: Number two, we then see a bleak picture, as it were, of this city of Samaria where where people are living in in opulence and and and devoting themselves to uh we called it, we called it woolly's dessert, cakes of raisins.
SPEAKER_01: They're devoting themselves to the opulence and the fertility gods and giving themselves to other idols uh for significance and meaning and for comfort.
SPEAKER_01: And and and in that context, then truth disappears.
SPEAKER_01: And last week, friends, we saw that the charge was laid on the priests, that they had forgotten the law of God.
SPEAKER_01: Um, where the bride had run after other gods, the priests were encouraging that, as it were.
SPEAKER_01: They were encouraging it because there was a sense of like a transactional relationship.
SPEAKER_01: The more they feel guilty about their sin, is the more they're gonna make sacrifice, and it's the more we're gonna have something to eat, as it were.
SPEAKER_01: Because the sacrificial system, there was a portion in the lamb that was kind of sacrifice that was given to the priests.
SPEAKER_01: So it was like a good trade-off.
SPEAKER_01: Continue in your idolatry, and you'll make sacrifices when you feel guilty about your sin, and you're gonna get some food.
SPEAKER_01: That's what that was the charge, and the charge was not only led only to the priests, it was laid to the prophets' friends.
SPEAKER_01: And in verse 6 of chapter 5, then we see God's judgment.
SPEAKER_01: Look at it quickly.
SPEAKER_01: It says, With the flocks and herds, they shall go to seek the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: That's the sacrifices, right?
SPEAKER_01: But they will not find him, he has withdrawn from them.
SPEAKER_01: That's the judgment God has withdrawn.
SPEAKER_01: And yes, friends, God has withdrawn in a covenantal way, in a covenantal judgment.
SPEAKER_01: He he, in fact, in chapter 5, verse 15, it speaks about the fact that in his withdrawing, he is waiting.
SPEAKER_01: Look at it quickly.
SPEAKER_01: I will return again to my place until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face.
SPEAKER_01: In their distress, earnestly seek me.
SPEAKER_01: So God is like, I'm gonna withdraw and wait.
SPEAKER_01: So, friends, Hosea shows us exactly what happens next.
SPEAKER_01: That's where we are in the text this morning.
SPEAKER_01: That um I'm gonna highlight it with three points.
SPEAKER_01: Number one, we're gonna see God exposes our false trusts.
SPEAKER_01: Number two, we're gonna see from verse uh one to three of chapter six that God exposes our false repentance.
SPEAKER_01: And lastly, friends, we're gonna see God exposing our false religions in verses four to six.
SPEAKER_01: Let's quickly jump into it.
SPEAKER_01: God exposes our false trusts.
SPEAKER_01: And and the question around that assumes this: where do you run to when you are in crisis?
SPEAKER_01: Where do you run to when you are in crisis?
SPEAKER_01: Friends, as we see in the text, uh, we're gonna see them running somewhere else.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, but but stay with me for a moment.
SPEAKER_01: We need to be honest, friends, about this question about where do we run to when we're in crisis?
SPEAKER_01: When our lives start to come apart, when our lives start to disintegrate, when your marriage is cracking, when a job is threatened, maybe you are threatened with retrenchment, when your body is failing, when a name, uh your name is being quietly ruined through gossip.
SPEAKER_01: Where do where do you run to first?
SPEAKER_01: I'd be the first to admit that most of us don't run to God.
SPEAKER_01: We we run to whatever we think can fix the problem the fastest.
SPEAKER_01: We call the lawyer, we we we call the ex, we we call the private banker, the the bottle of the strong stuff, the therapist, the next business deal, the the spreadsheet.
SPEAKER_01: We we kind of try to figure out a calculation to say, man, how do I devise a model to fix this problem?
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever noticed, friends, how quickly crisis reveals what we really trust?
SPEAKER_01: I'll make a case with Molefe.
SPEAKER_01: Picture a boy called Molefe.
SPEAKER_01: Mulefe walking home when suddenly a dog breaks through a gate and starts chasing him.
SPEAKER_01: His aunt is shouting at Molefe, Molefe, don't run, don't run, Moulife.
SPEAKER_01: But Molefe isn't thinking about a strategy, he isn't weighing his options, he isn't processing the instruction, he is screaming, Mama yo.
SPEAKER_01: If you've grown up in the township, you'd understand that phraseology of Mama Yo, you're collaring out, you're calling out to your mother to save you, to rescue you.
SPEAKER_01: And why?
SPEAKER_01: Because, friends, crisis is a way of exposing where we instinctively believe safety is found.
SPEAKER_01: Panic often reveals what we believed was actually carrying us all along.
SPEAKER_01: Whether the crisis, friends, is acute and a diagnosis, a retrenchment, a phone call in the middle of the night, or it's chronic, a failing marriage, a financial pressure, an anxiety that has been bubbling under for a long time, a prolonged suffering.
SPEAKER_01: Our first instinct often, friends, reveals what we believe was carrying us all along.
SPEAKER_01: And that's where exactly wants us to, what Hosea wants us to see, friends.
SPEAKER_01: He wants us to see where we instinctively run to when we are in times of crisis.
SPEAKER_01: Look at it quickly, verse 8 of chapter 5.
SPEAKER_01: It starts with noise.
SPEAKER_01: Blow the horn in Kabir, the trumpet in Ramah, sound the alarm at Beth Aven.
SPEAKER_01: We follow you, oh Benjamin.
SPEAKER_01: Look at it, friends.
SPEAKER_01: The horn in Kibir, the trumpet in Ramah.
SPEAKER_01: Notice Hosea, friends, doesn't open with an explanation, he opens with a sound.
SPEAKER_01: God has withdrawn, and now the alarm bells are ringing.
SPEAKER_01: The alarm bells are ringing, the city is under siege.
SPEAKER_01: The ancient equivalent of um kind of like a raid.
SPEAKER_01: Everyone is panicking, there's a crisis because the the the war is in the door.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, the enemy has already infiltrated, friends.
SPEAKER_01: The the enemy has crossed the borders of the northern kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: Where will they run?
SPEAKER_01: Remember, God has withdrawn.
SPEAKER_01: Who will they run to?
SPEAKER_01: And friends, Hosea gives us a devastating answer quickly in verse 13.
SPEAKER_01: Look at it.
SPEAKER_01: Do you see it, friends?
SPEAKER_01: When Ephraim saw his sickness and Judah his wound, then Ephraim went to Assyria and sent to the great king.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pause there for a moment.
SPEAKER_01: That's the answer, friends, in verse 13.
SPEAKER_01: Ephraim, meaning Israel.
SPEAKER_01: The south was named Judah.
SPEAKER_01: Ephraim is running to who?
SPEAKER_01: Assyria.
SPEAKER_01: The very king who's threatening war.
SPEAKER_01: The very king who's who's who's bringing the siege.
SPEAKER_01: And and look at it quickly.
SPEAKER_01: It says, but he is not able to cure you or heal your wound.
SPEAKER_01: Stay with that image for a second, friends.
SPEAKER_01: Israel is sick.
SPEAKER_01: Israel is is dying.
SPEAKER_01: It's a metaphor.
SPEAKER_01: Instead of turning to the physician, she sends a diplomatic team to the very empire that is killing her.
SPEAKER_01: She tries to negotiate with the disease.
SPEAKER_01: And notice, friends, how how God answers a people like that in verse 12.
SPEAKER_01: But I am like a moth to Ephraim and like dry rod to the house of Judah.
SPEAKER_01: And we'll see a picture.
SPEAKER_01: He's not a lion here.
SPEAKER_01: It's got God gives us a picture of a moth.
SPEAKER_01: A moth is is you know moths, guys.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you've seen moths.
SPEAKER_01: I I hate moths, but anyway, uh, that's that's besides the point.
SPEAKER_01: Small moths, friends, uh slowly chew away stuff.
SPEAKER_01: You you slowly your carpet has holes.
SPEAKER_01: Slowly chews away the paper, your books.
SPEAKER_01: My books have been uh victims of moths.
SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry, love, I mentioned that, but uh they've been victims of moths, and quietly eating away the fabric of life until one day it's it's it all falls apart.
SPEAKER_01: That's what the moth does, friends.
SPEAKER_01: And God says, I'm I'm a moth here.
SPEAKER_01: The moth becomes then in verse 14 a lion.
SPEAKER_01: Look at it.
SPEAKER_01: For I will be like a lion to Ephraim and like a young lion to the house of Judah.
SPEAKER_01: I, even I, will tear and go away.
SPEAKER_01: I will carry off, and no one shall rescue.
SPEAKER_01: And these are one of the prominent points where Hosea actually prophesies to even Judah.
SPEAKER_01: Judah assumed they were safe.
SPEAKER_01: Because I mean, Assyria is coming down and they they they're there all the way in the north.
SPEAKER_01: We we are fine.
SPEAKER_01: But it's like he's tearing down, he's he's coming all the way down, and and God wants to make sure that they understand that it is God who's doing this.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe using Assyria, but it is God who is doing that.
SPEAKER_01: I'll be like a lion, Ephraim.
SPEAKER_01: I even I will tear and go away, I will carry off, and no one shall rescue you.
SPEAKER_01: Do you see, friends, the second half of that sentence?
SPEAKER_01: It's it's it's it's not they will, I will do it, I will tear and I will go away.
SPEAKER_01: The judgment Hosea has been building toward the whole time is not really friends' chaos, it's God's absence.
SPEAKER_01: But at the same time, God simply withdraws and lets a people have exactly what they wanted all along, but God will punish them.
SPEAKER_01: That's what life without God looks like, that's what hell looks like.
SPEAKER_01: It's it's it's God's um intentional wrath felt in his absence.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you get that.
SPEAKER_01: My God, my God, on the cross, why have you forsaken me?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus felt the the full wrath of his father on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: And the greatest explanation of the cursed man on the cross is a a man far from God.
SPEAKER_01: Old Testament theology kind of gives us a framework to say the nearer God is, the the blessing, the ironic blessing, the nearness of God is is is equivalent to his bless blessing.
SPEAKER_01: Is God enough, friends?
SPEAKER_01: The nearness of God is equivalent to his blessing, his nearness, not nearness to things, nearness to God.
SPEAKER_01: And notice why he withdraws, friends, in verse 15 again, until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face.
SPEAKER_01: Friends, God's absence in this text is not abandonment, it's an invitation.
SPEAKER_01: Invitation wearing the mask of judgment.
SPEAKER_01: He steps back so that the ache of his absence will do what his blessing could not drive us to seek his face, not merely his hand.
SPEAKER_01: Now here's the question again, friends.
SPEAKER_01: Why couldn't Israel just turn back?
SPEAKER_01: Why, why, why go to Assyria instead of God?
SPEAKER_01: And and friends, if we are all being honest here, uh it's not that Israel lacked information.
SPEAKER_01: She had the prophets, she had the law, she knew exactly where healing was to be found.
SPEAKER_01: She simply did not want God as much as she wanted relief.
SPEAKER_01: Neither, friends, do we.
SPEAKER_01: Some of us friends, we are not we are not as disciplined, we are not more disciplined than Israel.
SPEAKER_01: We can't stick our noses down at Israel and say, man, um, in fact, just go into crisis.
SPEAKER_01: And watch how quickly you turn to other things.
SPEAKER_01: Watch how you quickly reach for an area.
SPEAKER_01: So, friends, this is not a failure of willpower that we can train away.
SPEAKER_01: It's actually, friends, a framework of a disordered love.
SPEAKER_01: At the root of it all, friends, it's a disordered love.
SPEAKER_01: No amount of trying harder rearranges what we actually want.
SPEAKER_01: Which is exactly why, friends, we all need the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: It's the gospel does not say try harder to run to God next time.
SPEAKER_01: The gospel doesn't say that, but friends, I would I will answer that question later.
SPEAKER_01: But but the question now is would God alone be enough?
SPEAKER_01: Remember, I said I'll keep repeating that question until you turn blue in the face.
SPEAKER_01: Would God alone be enough?
SPEAKER_01: Point number two, hang that thought with me.
SPEAKER_01: Would God alone be enough?
SPEAKER_01: God exposes then our false repentance.
SPEAKER_01: God has exposed our false trust, our Assyria.
SPEAKER_01: Now God exposes our false repentance.
SPEAKER_01: Look at it quickly in verse 1 to 3.
SPEAKER_01: Come, let us return to the Lord, for he has torn us, that he may heal us.
SPEAKER_01: He has struck us down and he will bind us up.
SPEAKER_01: After two days, he will revive us.
SPEAKER_01: On the third day, he will raise us up that we may live before him.
SPEAKER_01: Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: He's going out as short as the dawn, he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.
SPEAKER_01: Beautiful poetry.
SPEAKER_01: Why do we return to God when we are hurting?
SPEAKER_01: That's the assumption here of this portion that God.
SPEAKER_01: Exposes our false repentance.
SPEAKER_01: Why would you say that?
SPEAKER_01: Here's what makes this uh scene very uncomfortable, friends, of verse 1 to 3.
SPEAKER_01: It's this it sounds right.
SPEAKER_01: If you were to read this over and it sounds about right.
SPEAKER_01: Come, let us return to the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: That sounds right, right?
SPEAKER_01: For he has torn us that he may heal us, okay.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, he has struck us down and he will bind us up.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, we we need to return to the source.
SPEAKER_01: We need to return to it.
SPEAKER_01: Sounds very right.
SPEAKER_01: Then he says, after two days he will revive us.
SPEAKER_01: On the dead day, he will raise us up.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yes, of course.
SPEAKER_01: That we may live before him, okay.
SPEAKER_01: Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: He's going out to show us the dawn.
SPEAKER_01: He will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.
SPEAKER_01: What am I insinuating here, friends?
SPEAKER_01: It does sound right if we read these words, friends, with no context.
SPEAKER_01: If if you just stop there, we can clap hands and say they've repented.
SPEAKER_01: But look at verse 4.
SPEAKER_01: What shall I do with you, O Ephraim?
SPEAKER_01: What shall I do with you, O Judah?
SPEAKER_01: Your love is like a morning cloud, like the jewel that goes early away.
SPEAKER_01: I'll explain that just now.
SPEAKER_01: You you would think you're listening to genuine repentance if you read those verses.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe even want to applaud it, as I said.
SPEAKER_01: But friends, that's exactly what the danger is here.
SPEAKER_01: Some of the most religious-sounding words we ever say are not repentance at all.
SPEAKER_01: They are a seeking after relief, dressed up in worship language.
SPEAKER_01: And we do that all the time.
SPEAKER_01: We do that all the time.
SPEAKER_01: We say the right things to God when we are desperate.
SPEAKER_01: Without ever actually turning our hearts toward Him.
SPEAKER_01: It even echoes forward, torn and healed, struck down and raised on the third day toward a grave that would one day actually open.
SPEAKER_01: And we'll come back to that.
SPEAKER_01: But but but what I'm what I want us to stay here in the text and notice is that, friends, what Israel is saying here, you have to be careful and notice that Israel never says, God, I want you.
SPEAKER_01: She talks about being torn, struck, needing healing, needing reviving.
SPEAKER_01: She does not say, We have betrayed you, Lord.
SPEAKER_01: We broke your heart, we are sorry.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 3.
SPEAKER_01: Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: He's going out as short as the dawn.
SPEAKER_01: He will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains.
SPEAKER_01: That that is farming language.
SPEAKER_01: He will make us double, double low again.
SPEAKER_01: For those who understand what I mean by that.
SPEAKER_01: It's a language of return of resources, of comfort.
SPEAKER_01: He'll make us comfortable again.
SPEAKER_01: This language, friends, is a language of relief.
SPEAKER_01: It's not repentance, it's it's seeking relief with the clause of repentance.
SPEAKER_01: Do they want God Himself or only what God can give?
SPEAKER_01: Now, people are lost.
SPEAKER_01: I want to give you an illustration.
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever apologized?
SPEAKER_01: My wife is gonna again, sorry, babe.
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever apologized because you wanted peace rather than reconciliation?
SPEAKER_01: Okay, I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_01: You want relief from the conflict.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, I'm sorry, I'm I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_01: You're not really genuinely sorry.
SPEAKER_01: You just want to hush the noise.
SPEAKER_01: Friends, the emotions are real, yes, but if we're honest, what we wanted was not the person, we just wanted a sense of peace of mind at that moment.
SPEAKER_01: And Hosea asked this question, friends, whether we can do the same thing with God.
SPEAKER_01: That the pain is felt, and we just want it to go away.
SPEAKER_01: And so we we don't repent, we don't, we don't seek the Lord's face, we don't seek the Lord, we we just seek a sense of relief.
SPEAKER_01: And friends, the there's a sense of ambiguity here that that that is intentional in the text, and and it shouldn't and that ambiguity should unsettle us.
SPEAKER_01: Friends, here here's here's here's why we we can't simply resolve this problem.
SPEAKER_01: Because, friends, we need to pray and mean it.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you get it.
SPEAKER_01: We need to pray and and next and mean what we say.
SPEAKER_01: The problem isn't a sense of a sincere tone, it's actually the heart is not there.
SPEAKER_01: Israel may very well felt every word of verse 1 to 3 in that moment.
SPEAKER_01: But the problem, friends, is that our hearts are able to produce religious sounding devotion, aka Christian knees.
SPEAKER_01: That is entirely aimed at relief and not aimed at reconciliation.
SPEAKER_01: And we usually cannot tell the difference from the inside.
SPEAKER_01: And friends, if Israel couldn't discern her own heart in the moment of her most eloquent prayer, what makes us think we can't discern our own hearts?
SPEAKER_01: So the the effort won't fix the problem.
SPEAKER_01: Friends, what is happening here is the problem only God exposes is a problem that only God can fix.
SPEAKER_01: Only God's grace can answer the question of fixing the problem.
SPEAKER_01: The people cry, but they do not cry for the Lord, as Jonathan Edwards would say.
SPEAKER_01: They cry because they lost their possessions.
SPEAKER_01: The people cry about what they have lost, they do not cry about losing God.
SPEAKER_01: So if you are here and you are desperate, would you cry for God?
SPEAKER_01: Would you would you would you long for God?
SPEAKER_01: Would you have a sense of having God uh draw you to himself?
SPEAKER_01: As C.S.
SPEAKER_01: Lewis would say, friends, um uh God shouts, is the megaphone to rouse a deaf world to himself.
SPEAKER_01: I'm paraphrasing that phrase, friends.
SPEAKER_01: Pain rouses the deaf world to to a to a to a world that is deaf to God.
SPEAKER_01: God uses struggle, God uses such moments to turn our attention to him.
SPEAKER_01: There's hope, friends, when we become more troubled by our sin than by the suffering our sin has caused us.
SPEAKER_01: There's hope there.
SPEAKER_01: As John Calvin would say, these words, that the beginning of true repentance is believing that God is merciful enough to receive us when we return.
SPEAKER_01: So why do we pretend our way?
SPEAKER_01: Would God alone be enough?
SPEAKER_01: Last point, friends, God exposes our false religion.
SPEAKER_01: Look at it in verse 4 to 6.
SPEAKER_01: How we can show up without loving God.
SPEAKER_01: Look at it.
SPEAKER_01: What shall I do with you, O Ephraim?
SPEAKER_01: What shall I do with you, O Judah?
SPEAKER_01: Your love is like a morning cloud, like the jewel that goes early away.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, I have hewn them by the prophets, I have slain them by the words of my mouth, and my judgment goes forth as the light.
SPEAKER_01: For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: The knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
SPEAKER_01: Friends, it is possible as we apply this text to our lives, it is possible to serve, sin, give sacrificially to the church and even lead faithfully and still not want God Himself.
SPEAKER_01: It's possible.
SPEAKER_01: Israel's whole history says yes.
SPEAKER_01: If we were not careful, friends, it could be our story.
SPEAKER_01: Longing for the things of God more than God Himself.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, even in the Sermon on the Mount, the next series, uh, these these these demon slayers, these men of God, did we not prophesy in your name?
SPEAKER_01: Did we not cast out demons in your name?
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus says, get away from me, you workers of iniquity, for I never knew you.
SPEAKER_01: He describes their situation in verse 4.
SPEAKER_01: What shall I do with you, O Ephraim?
SPEAKER_01: What shall I do with you, O Judah?
SPEAKER_01: Your love is like a morning cloud.
SPEAKER_01: If you understand that imagery there, friends, jewel forms overnight.
SPEAKER_01: It sits sparkling on the on the grass, as it were.
SPEAKER_01: At first night, but as soon as the sun hits that, it evaporates.
SPEAKER_01: It never stays, friends.
SPEAKER_01: It never survives the contact of the sun.
SPEAKER_01: Notice what God is saying here.
SPEAKER_01: He's not condemning sacrifice, the altars were busy, Israel was showing up.
SPEAKER_01: That was never the problem, friends.
SPEAKER_01: The problem was that they were showing up, and and their showing up had become a substitute for belonging to God.
SPEAKER_01: God is saying, I desire a relationship.
SPEAKER_01: I desire you.
SPEAKER_01: Forget about your lambs and your sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: I desire you.
SPEAKER_01: I desire steadfast love.
SPEAKER_01: I desire my wife.
SPEAKER_01: Friends, God is here saying, look, this should not be a transactional relationship, as it were.
SPEAKER_01: And we are all too familiar with that in Rose Bank and Greater Job.
SPEAKER_01: Transactional relationships.
SPEAKER_01: Kind of approaching God as a genie.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you watched Aladdin.
SPEAKER_01: You rub that thing and then three wishes.
SPEAKER_01: Let's go.
SPEAKER_01: Or maybe it's more familiar, Esangoma.
SPEAKER_01: Throw the bones, throw the money, and I'll give you whatever you want.
SPEAKER_01: Not necessarily I'll give you whatever.
SPEAKER_01: I'll yeah, I'll I'll hoodwink you.
SPEAKER_01: But but the point here, friends, God is saying, don't don't treat me like the idols you worship.
SPEAKER_01: Don't treat me like dead things.
SPEAKER_01: The people we know this, friends, being valued for what we can provide until we can't.
SPEAKER_01: The deep pain of realizing that you were never loved at first.
SPEAKER_01: You were just being useful.
SPEAKER_01: Jose is asking whether we can do the same thing to God.
SPEAKER_01: Like a sense of being pragmatic about God.
SPEAKER_01: And friends, again, we can't fix this by these false religions.
SPEAKER_01: Increased religious activity was never the prescription.
SPEAKER_01: It's actually the disease.
SPEAKER_01: You cannot out-sacrifice a heart that doesn't love God.
SPEAKER_01: You can only get better at disguising it even from yourself.
SPEAKER_01: Friends, Israel in the text didn't need to try harder at the altar.
SPEAKER_01: She needed a heart that hadn't evaporated.
SPEAKER_01: And we need that heart, friends.
SPEAKER_01: Every one of us in this room.
SPEAKER_01: We need a heart for God.
SPEAKER_01: We need a heart that is set on this covenant love that God has given us the privilege to be in that relationship that He has initiated by His grace.
SPEAKER_01: And friends, this is where the gospel refuses to let us manage ourselves into godliness.
SPEAKER_01: Because, friends, 13 centuries later, Hosea preached the sermon.
SPEAKER_01: After Hosea preached the sermon, I beg your pardon, a young rabbi from Galilee sat down to eat with tax collectors and sinners.
SPEAKER_01: And when the religious leaders had objected with that, his very answer was this exact verse.
SPEAKER_01: Go and learn what this means.
SPEAKER_01: I desire mercy and not sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: For I came not to call the righteous but sinners.
SPEAKER_01: Where we are Jew, gone by noon, his covenant loyalty was made flesh.
SPEAKER_01: Where our sacrifices could not or never generate the love they were meant to express, his one sacrifice was itself the perfect expression of that love.
SPEAKER_01: Steadfast love and atoning sacrifice fused together, finally in a single act of the cross.
SPEAKER_01: The self-righteous churchgoer sitting in this room, friends, needs to understand that.
SPEAKER_01: You need to understand that you need to ask yourself that honest question.
SPEAKER_01: That friends, your your sacrifice doesn't not matter if your heart is far removed from this God.
SPEAKER_01: Is God driving you to Himself through the cross?
SPEAKER_01: Is the cross forming your life?
SPEAKER_01: And maybe you are here and you oh say I've never read that in my Bible.
SPEAKER_01: I need to go and check this out and Google it.
SPEAKER_01: But like what's happening here?
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you are a wondering believer drifting from church.
SPEAKER_01: Your problem was never mainly attendance.
SPEAKER_01: Coming back won't fix your record.
SPEAKER_01: Because Jesus never stopped wanting you.
SPEAKER_01: God always is intentional about this covenant relationship.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you are a skeptic here and and you just want to check this out.
SPEAKER_01: What is happening here?
SPEAKER_01: This whole passage is asking you this one question.
SPEAKER_01: Not whether you keep religious rules, but whether you want the God, those rules were always pointing to.
SPEAKER_01: Is God enough?
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you are here carrying shame so heavy you can barely lift your head to sing this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Your love is unsteady.
SPEAKER_01: Uh as we use in our colloquial language, it's tekatekari.
SPEAKER_01: It's neither here nor there.
SPEAKER_01: It easily evaporates, and you keep returning and falling back, returning and falling back.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's time to say, Man, would I rely on the steadfastness of God's love to form me?
SPEAKER_01: Would God alone be enough?
SPEAKER_01: And that's the question, friends.
SPEAKER_01: And how does the gospel answer that question?
SPEAKER_01: Friends, there's there's a strange truth underlying all these questions, all these 20 verses that we've we've been uh quickly, swiftly moving through.
SPEAKER_01: That that the God who wounds is the God who can heal.
SPEAKER_01: The text, friends, is God has said, I'm wounding you through the Assyrians.
SPEAKER_01: But no one else can heal that wound.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, in 6.1 it says, He has torn us that he may heal us, he has struck us down and he will bind us up.
SPEAKER_01: That's good theology, friends.
SPEAKER_01: But what that means is that when God wounds you, no one else can heal us, no one else can heal you.
SPEAKER_01: Israel ran to Assyria, but but but when they ran to Assyria, Assyria was like, I I can't I can't do anything about this.
SPEAKER_01: I can't, I can't heal you.
SPEAKER_01: I have no capacity to your wound is infinite.
SPEAKER_01: An infinite wound requires an infinite healer.
SPEAKER_01: And this is the glory of the gospel, friends, that the God who wounds his people in discipline heals his people through his own wounds in his son Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: At the cross, God tore apart the one who stood in our place.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus Christ was struck down so that we could be bound up.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus was forsaken so that we could be received.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus was wounded so that we could be healed.
SPEAKER_01: In 1 Peter 2, verse 24, it says, He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: By his wounds you have been healed.
SPEAKER_01: And it simply means that, friends, the question to your the answer to your question, can God be enough?
SPEAKER_01: The simply answer, the simple answer is this, friends, that in Jesus Christ, God has given us Himself.
SPEAKER_01: And when God gives you Himself, you have everything you need.
SPEAKER_01: You have everything you need.
SPEAKER_01: And Christ, God alone is exactly what you get.
SPEAKER_01: And perhaps you are here this morning thinking, man, I I've tried religion, I've tried so many things.
SPEAKER_01: I I can feel the weight of my displacement from God.
SPEAKER_01: I can feel the weight of being separated from God.
SPEAKER_01: I've been running to other things, but as I run to those things, those very things I run to are enslaving me, are warring against me.
SPEAKER_01: And God says, Man, your wound is not these things.
SPEAKER_01: I am inflicting it.
SPEAKER_01: I want to rouse your deafness to hear my voice and turn to me in repentance.
SPEAKER_01: And turn to me in repentance, not for the ease of life that you are missing out on.
SPEAKER_01: But repent and turn to me for me.
SPEAKER_01: May the wounds of Christ heal those infinite wounds.
SPEAKER_01: Heal that emptiness that you feel, the weightiness of feeling displaced from God, feeling withdrawn from God because God is waiting.
SPEAKER_01: Would you place your trust in Jesus Christ, who came and lived a sinless life?
SPEAKER_01: In fact, um one author by the name of um uh Tim Chester pictures it like this it says, Um, Jesus was the faithful Israel, Jesus was the faithful people of God in this text.
SPEAKER_01: Where they had failed, Jesus completely, the one faithful man in history was the one who endured separation from God on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: The one faithful man in history was the one who endured the wrath of his father on the cross, the punishment that the father had promised, the one faithful man did that so that me and you could never be cursed, so that me and you could be drawn to Christ, to be drawn to the Father by faith in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Let me pray for us, Father.
SPEAKER_01: We thank you for your gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Lord, for your faithfulness.
SPEAKER_01: Your faithfulness is great, Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Your mercies, Lord, are great, Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And Lord, as we know in your word, we we stand judged, we stand accursed, Lord.
SPEAKER_01: We are guilty.
SPEAKER_01: No one is righteous, no not one.
SPEAKER_01: Everyone has sinned and fallen short of the glory of Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: But Lord, in your Son, in your Son, Lord, you made a propitiation.
SPEAKER_01: Your your your your your justice was was satisfied, your your your your wrath was was satisfied on that all rugged cross.
SPEAKER_01: That Lord, whoever believes in your son, whoever the son has, as it were, Lord, intentionally hung on that cross for Lord, when they place their trust in you, their lives are hidden in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And that is enough.
SPEAKER_01: Would you help us, Lord, live with the contentment of the enoughness of the gospel, the enoughness of Jesus Christ, may Christ satisfy us, Lord, and may Lord by your grace, may you kill the things in our hearts that we easily cling to for for refuge, for safety, for healing with the wounds of your son, Lord, be what we see as enough to make us whole again, to make us people who are just in your son and not in our works, and not in our righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Jesus, for your word in the name of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.