Hosea: Mercy in the Wilderness

Preacher: Thobi Sithole

Scripture: Hosea 2:2-23

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Now let's read quickly God's word in uh Hosea chapter 2 verses 2 to 23. Hear the reading of God's word. Plead with your mother, plead, for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband. That she put away her whoring from her face and her adultery from between her breasts, lest I strip her naked and make her as in the day she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and make her like a parched land, and kill her with thirst. Upon the children also I will have no mercy, because they are children of Hordom, for their mother has played the whole. She who conceived them has acted shamefully. For she said, I will go after my lovers who give me my bread and my water and my wool and my flax, my oil, and my drink. Therefore I will hedge up her way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her, so that she cannot find her parts. She shall pursue her lovers but not overtake them, and she shall seek them but shall not find them. Then she shall say, I will go and return to my first husband, for it was better for me then than now. And she did not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the wine, and the oil, and who lavished on her silver and gold, which they used for Baal. Therefore I will take back my grain in its time and my wine in its season, and I will take away my wool and my flax, which were to cover her nakedness. Now I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and no one shall rescue her out of my hand. And I will put on and I will put an end to all her mirth, her feasts, her new moons, her sabbath, and all her appointed feasts. And I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees, of which she said, These are my wages which my lovers have given me. I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall devour them. And I will punish her for the feast days of the bals when she burned offerings to them and adorned herself with her ring and jewelry, and went after her lovers and forgot me, declares the Lord. Therefore, behold, I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her. And there I will give her her vine vineyards and make the valley of Echo a door of hope. And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt. And in that day, declares the Lord, you will call me my husband, and no longer will you call me my ball, for I will remove the names of the balls from your mouth, and they shall be remembered by name no more. Now make for them a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the creeping things of the ground, and I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land. I will make you lie down in safety. I will betrothe you to me forever. I will betrothe you to me in righteousness, in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy. I will betrothe you to me in faithfulness, and you shall know the Lord. And in that day I will answer, declares the Lord. I will answer the heavens, and they shall answer the earth. The earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil, and they shall answer Jezreel, and I will sow her for myself in the land, and I will have mercy on no mercy, and I will say to not my people, you are my people. And he shall say, You are my God. This is God's word. It is not the shame of obvious sin. Uh not not the the shame that would would necessarily be known about by people. It's actually quite shame. It lives in the in the gap between who you appear to be and who you actually are. It looks like you being successful in every visible measure, or at least performing success very well, very convincingly. In other words, you you have this idea of saying, Man, I have a job, or I'm building towards a job. Uh, I have that uh right or beautiful apartment I'm looking for or to, or I am living in, or at least I'm working towards it. I have the promotion, or at least I'm working towards it. In other words, you you you kind of like portray this picture of living this this this north north side of Jobic life, rightly so, or at least pretending to do that. You you know the right people, you you post the right things, you you even come to church. And underneath all of that, there's this this silent whisper of emptiness. This this silent whisper of emptiness, this this quiet shame of men, fear of failure, as it were. So you cover it up, you you work harder, you you buy more things, you you scroll more, you swipe left or right, I don't know. You chase the next relationship, the next promotion, the next version of yourself that will finally feel like enough. And for a season, maybe just a long enough season, it kind of almost works. Almost, but not quite. You still cover your shame, the fear of being found out. Perhaps I am a fraud. Perhaps I am that person that no one would look at if the true me showed up. Friends, Joburg, as I said in the status, kind of gives this impression that it has no room for losers, it makes no room for people who are not achieving. And we have taken that culture into the church and put unnecessary pressure on each other. And so we pretend our way into being great at everything, including great at doing church. But friends, again, if you look at the book of Hosea, you'll understand that Hosea understands that culture. The the prophet in Israel was was was to be a husband, yes, um, who is called into a culture to embody a kind of like a role of being a husband to a whore, to tell a story or to be a mirror to that society that that is enthused by the high life, the comfort, the pretense. God told him to do something that defied every instinct of dignity and self-preservation, to marry a woman who would be unfaithful to him. Not might, who would be unfaithful to him. God knew it before the wedding day that this woman would be unfaithful to him and this marriage would be a failure. He'd be a loser, as the language goes. Ah, thinking. Why would you let this woman do that to you? His name's wife, his wife's name is what? And now we see the wife has left. The wife has left. She she went after other men, men who who believed, who shim believed that would give her what her husband couldn't. Comfort. The love that refuses to let go. Hosea, that is my posture towards my people. I won't let go. I refuse to let go. I have every reason to uh throw a charge at these people and like let them go, divorce them, but I I won't. The grief that Jose is going through, the bewilderment that is there. It's it's it's it's it's it's it's an honest picture that we cannot dismiss. Yes, there is hurt, yet there is difficulty, yet, yes, there is failure, yet there is justified reasons to not pursue uh coma. But he won't let go. Friends, that's the very posture God has towards his people. That uh Israel looks like a a whore or is is playing the whore, as you're gonna see now. Every time my people chase their idols, every time they take what I have given them and spend it on something that is not me, it is Goma walking out the door over and over again. And Hosea, friends, chapter two is written in that context, a context of a broken marriage by a God who knows what it feels like to be left. And if you let me give you a sense of diagnosis of where we're going this morning, is that we're gonna kind of diagnose the idea of our own wandering, our own wanderings, as it were. The wanderings that that are gonna introduce us to then a God who refuses to let us go, a a God who is, as it were, stubborn. The stubbornness of God's loyalty to refuse to let you go will will will kind of like should give you a sense of a wow. Really? Even so, I've even though I've done one, two, three, God, you're refusing to let me go. We're gonna reveal and expose our walking out the door over and over, and God's response to that. And friends, as I said, we are in scene one, the bride who forgot her husband. And now, friends, what is happening now is that there's a transition in the text where it kind of like gives a picture of God now speaking as the husband. It's a picture of now God kind of giving a picture of the status quo of the nation, of Samaria, of Israel, as it were. And it's a picture as well where now what God is gonna do is gonna um kind of plead with the remnants in verse 2. The the children of God who have been faithful in a context of unfaithfulness. And he's gonna say, Man, here's my case against my wife. It's like we're going into a family courtroom. I don't know, is that what it's called? Family court, divorce court, and and God is gonna lay it on us, lay the charge on us. And here's what the charge is. Here's here are the reasons, here are the irreconcilable differences that justify divorce. Yeah, it's yeah. Let's look at it. The bride who forgot her husband. Verse 2 to 13. Look at verse 2 with me quickly. It says, Plead with your mother. It's like God is like, hey, is it's a picture of a husband speaking through the kids. Hey, tell your mother who I'm going to the shops. Because they're not on speaking terms. So God is pleading, he says, plead to your mother, oh, oh, remnants of Israel, all the faithful ones, plead with your mother, plead, for she is not my wife. Plead with your mother, for she is not my wife. I am not her husband. In the ancient world, friends, when her husband sought to dissolve a marriage on grounds of adultery, he made a formal public declaration. The marriage covenant had been broken. He was invoking his legal right to what? To end it. Oh, this sorry guys. He was invoking his legal right to what, friends? To end it. So what God is doing in verse 2, he's standing before the courtroom of Israel's history and filing a case. Plead with my plead with your mother. Plead for she is not my wife, and I'm not what? Her husband. This is a picture of a wronged husband. Israel is the unfaithful wife. The grounds are spiritual, as it were, spiritual adultery. And every Israelite hearing this would um kind of know that these grounds are justified under the covenant, under the Isvumeluanu, that this ends this marriage. The adultery ends what? The marriage. Under the law, this ends, friends, in death. If you read Levitical law, if you read Exodus, this marriage ends in what? Goma's death. Friends, the point in verse 2 is that Israel deserves to be what? Dismissed. That she listen to this. That she put away her whoring from her face and her adultery from between her breasts. It's like she's she's seductress. She's she's seducing other gods. And before God reads the charges, notice he calls a plea. Plead with her. He calls the faithful remnant within Israel to call their mother back. Even in the language of accusation, there's a uh a bit of a uh a fragment or fragmentations of of grace or of pursuit. Plead with your mother. The lawsuit is real, the the grounds are legitimate, the motivation behind it is still love. Plead with your mother. Now look at verse 5 quickly. What Israel has been doing. Let's keep our Bibles there. We're gonna be navigating quickly there. For their mother has played the what? You don't have to, you're allowed to say it today. For their mother has played the what? The whore. She who conceived them has acted shamefully. For she said, I will go after my lovers who who who gave me my bread, my water, my wool, my flax, my oil, my drink. These lovers are the Baals, the fertility gods of Canaan to whom Israel had been bringing her worship in exchange for agricultural abundance. Rain, harvest, livestock. Uh they was securing the bag. The bag justifies the whodom. They said, Man, Baal did that. I am flourishing because of this Baal. She looked at the the wine in the press and said, Baal gave me that wine. She she took the blessings of God and credited them to the competition. Look at verse 8. The theological sense of the accusation, and she did not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the wine, the oil, who lavished on her silver and gold, which they used for Baal.

unknown 17:55

She did not know.

SPEAKER_00 17:58

Those four words carry more grief, friends, than almost anything else in this chapter. She did not know. This is not mere ingratitude, friends. This is not simply taking God for granted. This is a catastrophic theological conundrum, friends. It's misidentifying the giver. In other words, friends, this is you taking the things that um God has given you and saying, No, my success did it. You don't know how much I worked to be at this point in my life. I did it. You see, friends, the greatest idol you need to deal with is you. The idol of self. In other words, friends, every idol begins not with a violent rejection of God, but with a quiet failure to trace the gift back to the giver. Look at it again, verse 8. And she did not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the wine, the oil, and who lavished her with silver and gold, which she used for bail. Friends, there are gifts that God has given us, all of us in this room. Some are intelligent people here. Beautiful minds. You are working 70 hour weeks because the work makes you feel significant. God gave you that beautiful mind, that drive, that capacity, but somewhere the gift became the God. And now you cannot stop. Not because you are building something for his glory. No, no, no. But because, friends, without that achievement, you do not know who you are. You have forgotten who gave you the gift, who gives you the identity. That's what verse 8 is telling us, friends. Some of us are gifted, yes, with relational capacity. We are single and mingling. You are meeting different people across the city on different dating pools because you want partnership, a real desire, a God-given one for that matter. But underneath that, swiping left or right is a terror. If if you're alone much longer, it means something is is is amiss with you. Maybe I'm not worth choosing. I need to meet that one, and maybe then I'll be okay. You've forgotten who gave you the capacity for love in the first place. That's verse 8, friends. Some of us are petrol heads and lifestyle people. Beautiful Instagram pages. We love we love that. Nothing wrong with that. But friends, when you are chasing the lifestyle, the car, the address, the table at the right restaurant, because in this city these things are a visible language of I have arrived. God gave you the capacity to earn, to make a living, to to build, to create wealth, but the gift has become the shrine. You spend what he gave you on the altar of your status. You have to keep dressing that bale, dressing him with that wine, that I mean that the silver that the gold that is referred to here in verse 8. The silver, the gold which is referred to, you you you keep dressing that pal. Because you think that's where I'm seeing, that's who I am. You're making or you're being a self-made person. You have displaced the gift for the giver. Friends, I want to say this with all sincerity. Every idol begins the same way, with a legitimate hunger. A God-given desire for relationship. And then it becomes a terrible substitute. You have made gods out of little things that cannot fill that gaping hole in your heart. In fact, friends, we we we do we we we have a language for the displacement. Ah, we say consciously or not that this will make me feel enough. If only I get that, then I will live for God. If only I do that, then I'll have time for God. But God just give me like six months. Give me some time. Give me room. I'm setting you set boundaries for God. Goodness, what are we doing, friends? But look where Israel ends up. Look at verse 9 to 13. Therefore, I will take back my grain in its time and my wine in its season, and I will take away my wool and my flax, which were to cover her nakedness. Now I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and no one shall rescue her out of my hand. And I'll put her and I'll put an end to all her mirth, her fees. We'll get there. But the point here, friends, is that God says He will take back the grain, the wine, the wool, the flax, the very things Israel credited to Baal, God will take them back. He will strip away the feasts, the celebrations, the comfort, the soft life that you have manufactured for your joy. He will take it away. He will lay waste to everything she built her identity on. And in verse 13, friends, here's the terrible summary that we see it. Look at it quickly. And I will punish her for the feast days of the bowels when she burnt offerings to them and adorned herself with her ring and jewelry and went after her lovers and forgot me, declares the Lord. Some of us navigate life with a posture that has forgotten God. She forgot me. That's the verdict. My wife has forgotten me. Friends, we do that ourselves. We sacrifice, we forget God and we rely on our intelligence. We forget God and rely on the opportunities in the city. We forget God and rely on the relationship. Oh, you're breaking up with me. What am I gonna do? You're the sense of my existence. What do you mean you're breaking up with me? You've forgotten who God is. Because, friends, idols do not simply fail to satisfy. Because idols, friends, are actually empty. He does not merely take them away, he exposes what they are doing or what they've been doing all along. They are multiplying the shame. They promise to cure. That leave us empty. The career that was supposed to prove your worth leaves you emptier than the higher you climb, actually. Because, friends, the bar keeps moving and you you keep discovering that the city's approval is not the same as knowing you matter. The relationship that was supposed to make you feel chosen ends. Oh, it doesn't end, it just hollows out. Is this it, God? And the shame of that is worse than the loneliness it was supposed to cure. The money that you accumulate, the anxiety accumulates with it. More money, more problems. More money, more problems. Every idol, friends, promises to cover your shame. Every idol ends up deepening it. And God exposes these false loves not to humiliate but to heal us. He he strips the covering, not to leave us naked and abandoned, but because he has something better to put on us. And the first step toward this is the exposure, friends. The exposure of what we have been trusting in instead of him. That's that's verse 13, friends. It leaves us exposed, it leaves us with a sense of exhaustion and shame. Having spent everything on loves that could not love us back. And God is saying that about himself. But you are exposed, you are exhausted. Baal is not who he presented himself to be. Let's look at it. Scene 2, the husband who blocks a path. Friends, Sabu was here like 10 minutes ago. I'm not looking at the time, I'm sorry. Right? You're gonna forgive me. Uh let's look at it quickly. Hosea 2, verse 6 to 15. There's a sense in which in before we we even jump into verse 14, we need to kind of go back and see uh what God has already uh been doing in verse 6 and 7. Because, friends, there's the there's a couple of words there, the the therefores. Look at verse 6. Therefore, I will hedge up her way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her so that she cannot find her paths. Look at it again. Um the idea here, she she shall she shall pursue her lovers but not overtake them, and she shall seek them but shall not find them. Then she shall say, I will go and return to my first husband, for it was far better for me than now. We we need to understand, friends, that the the husband does block her path. That's the beauty of the first, therefore, it it's it's kind of saying, Man, God will block your path. When we read about God blocking Israel's path and hedging her in thorns, every instinct tells us this is punishment. What do you mean, God, you are blocking my paths? I've been praying and fasting for this ritualistically. I've been praying and and and doing all ritualistically because I want to find me in that promotion. What do you mean, you're blocking my path? Friends, God's grace is expressed in divine restraint. The wronged husband is locking the door. She shall pursue her lovers but not overtake them, and she shall seek them, but she shall not find them. Do you see it, friends? The thorns are not punitive, they're restorative. It's like it's like disciplining your child, stopping them from putting and sticking their hand in the fire. God is not hedging Israel to hurt her, he's hedging her in to to slow her down long enough for a single thought to form. I will return to my husband. The obstruction is mercy. The wall uh that that is described in verse 7 is as it were in verse 6. Sorry, it is God's mercy to slow you down. God is actively frustrating Israel's pursuit of idols because he loves her too much to let the idols have her. It looks and sounds like remorse. Do you see it? I I will go to return to my my first husband. In other words, she Israel has stopped running. She can't run for that matter. She's thinking about home. It is better for me to be with my husband. There's a sense of nostalgic repentance or godliness there. And friends, the hedge of thorns works like this. The closed door you cannot explain, the career that will not move despite every effort, the relationship that keeps ending before it properly begins, the prayer that keeps going unanswered in the direction you want. These are not always signs of God's absence. There may be signs of his presence, his hand in the road stopping you from reaching what was taking his place. Not to crush you, but to redirect you. I will return to my first husband. Friends, God actively frustrates our pursuits of idols because he loves us too much to let the idols have us. Now let's keep our eyes open again. By verse 13, friends, we see the indictment is complete, as I as we've mentioned. God has catalogued the the case. That the bales, the silver, the gold spent on idols, the feasts that don't, the going after lovers, the forgetting. You have been reading toward a sentence. And friends, the case is right here. That if if I were in the court, I call it a hammer, but but lawyers call it a gavel. It would be hit. Boom, boom, boom, guilty. In light of all of what we've read, it would be said, you are guilty. You stand silent before the prosecutor because you know you've done it. All that is mentioned, you've you've sought out for comfort over uh uh obedience to the Lord. You have you have um um given your life to materialism and all of that, all of that. The the the case is closed, it's shut, you've been playing the whole guilty. But look at verse 14 14. Look at verse 14. Therefore, behold, I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness and speak to her tenderly. Where we we would naturally say it's over, God says therefore. Where we would naturally say, yeah, this this marriage is over. God says, therefore. We need to stop there. The the logical consequence or the logical sequence in the text has always been therefore, and then there's a sense of a judgment or a picture of punishment. But here there's a therefore and a tender word. God has every right to end this. The law is on his side. It is just for God to end this covenant. But he says, I will lower you, I'll I'll I'll I'll I'll draw you in. I'll draw you into the wilderness. A wilderness not of desolation or punishment, but a wilderness where God will speak. It's as I just picture a scene where you're just in a noisy city. And God destroys everything around you to have a moment with you. That that feels painful, I'll explain now. But but as a Hosea writes, think about it. He he sat in the ruins of his marriage, he he knows what it feels like to be left by the person who vowed to stay, and and God says to him, This is my response. I am going after her into the wilderness to speak tenderly. Oh man. That's grace, friends. The the wilderness in the biblical language or biblical kind of framework is the wilderness is a place where all the noise stops. The markets, no shrines, no career letters, no carefully constructed images on Instagram and TikTok. The noise stops. In the wilderness, there is only God. Because everything else has finally gone quiet. The wilderness, friends, is not a new place. The wilderness is where Israel first met God. If you read on in the text, it kind of gives us a framework, a picture of Sinai. The wilderness is not a new place, friends, it's it's where they first met God coming out of Egypt, crossing the Sinai desert, standing at the foot of the mountain that was Israel's honeymoon with God. The wilderness was the place where it first began. There's a beautiful song by PJ Morton. When it first began. Let it be that way where it was when it first began. It's as if God is like, man, I'm gonna draw you into a wilderness to propose. I had every right to say this marriage is over, but I'm gonna draw you into the wilderness where it first began to propose to you. I know guys plan proposals and some have helicopters and and uh all these things and flowers and shiny stuff and whatever. God just takes, removes everything. Says, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna propose to you. Look at verse 15. And there I will give her her vineyards, make the value of anchor a door of hope. It's not a punishment, it's a it's a second proposal. The idea of the wilderness, friends, here is just to say, man, sometimes God will remove the very things you think sustain you. He'll remove everything you think holds you up. To say, I'm I'm I'm the only one who gives you significance. Sometimes the wilderness looks like losing a job. The valley of Anchor, look at verse 15. And there I will give her venues and make the value of Anchor a door of hope. And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt. The value of you know I'm Zulu. I read Acha, but it's actually Acho or Anko. Echo. Yeah, we we pronounce, but but the point here that word means trouble. The valley of trouble. In the early days of Israel's conquest of Canaan and Jericho, as it were, there was a name, there's a man named Achan. Um in Joshua 7, verse 1 to 26, you'll see that Achan did something deplorable. He he stole a treasure, and it was found in his tent. A treasure that God had forbidden uh for him to for them to take. He he takes it. And and there, friends, his his sin was exposed. His nakedness was uncovered, he was brought to to the valley and judged there. The valley of Akha or Acha was the place of exposure, of hidden sin dragged into public view, of shame and death. It was by name and by memory, as it were, the valley of trouble. And God says, I will make that valley a door of hope. Not a different valley, not a better geographical space, but a troublesome place where you will pass through it. The valley of trouble, the place of exposure, the season that has stripped everything away and left you with that shame, nothing behind to hide behind. There, I will give you a door of hope. Some of you are in that value right now. The career that has stalled after years of effort, the business that has not broken through, the relationship that ended when you were certain it was he was the one, she was the one, the prayer you have been praying for three years or more without an answer. You you you you cannot recognize the answer. But friends, the burnout that arrived without warning and will not lift, the loneliness, the injury, the the the the feeling like uh Lord, how do I continue? In in in Joe Burg where I'm expected to be a winner, how do I continue if I feel defeated? At that valley of trouble, God gives a door of hope. The shame of not winning in a culture built around performance and success can can can actually feel suffocating. But therein God says, I there's a door of hope. You don't need to cower in fear, you you you don't need to live in that shame, embrace the weakness. For therein my power is made perfect. The wilderness, friends. What if the wilderness is actually God's mercy? What if the failure, the closed door, the unanswered prayer? What if it is not God abandoning you, but God removing the things that were taking his place in your life? What if he is using your value of trouble the way you he always has, not as the place where the story ends, but the place where he speaks? What if the silence is not punishment but preparation? What if he has removed the competitors so he can restore the intimacy? What if he has taken you into the wilderness because the wilderness is where he proposed the first time and he's proposing again? What if the wilderness is God's mercy? Yes, friends, I empathize. The grief is real. Yes, it can be hard to be in the wilderness. The exhaustion is real, the valley of Echo is not a comfortable place. But Hosea 2 will not allow us to read our seasons of stripping as the absence of God. The thorns that blocked Israel's path to her idols, and the voice that spoke tenderly in the wilderness came. From the same hand, God's hand. Friends, God will expose our false loves to humiliate, not to humiliate us, but to heal us. Not to leave us naked and ashamed, but to dress us in something that will actually hold. C.S. Lewis gives that framework in his book. He says, God whispers in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world. And he speaks, friends, tenderly, these renewal vows. Almost there, friends. Last scene, the husband who renews his vows. Verse 16 to 23. Look at verse 16. He says, And in that day declares the Lord, you will call me my husband. And no longer will you call me my Baal. Rightly read, Baal. Friends, the reason for the lawsuit, the reason for the thorns, the reason for the wilderness, everything was moving towards this. My husband. To understand what God is saying here, you need to know what the Baal carries, kind of like the picture of the word Baal, what it carries. I've explained the first part that it was a name of a Canaanite fertility God, right? That Israel was worshipping. But number two, Baal can also be an ordinary word to name a husband. But it loses its relational significance. The formal term a wife in that culture would use would say, Man, Baal. Israel was relating to God as Baal. And God says, You wanna call me my husband? You're not gonna manage this relationship from a distance. God is saying, No, you're not gonna do that. You you have to relate to me, not as a not as a subject to a master. Who keeps religious obligations, who takes all the right boxes, who fulfills all the duties, who kind of like is calculating in a cold way in this marriage. No, God says you cannot manage this like a contract. You cannot fulfill the its expectations and terms like a like an ordinary contract. You called me Pa'al for long enough. You've called me Lord Master for long enough, but I want you to say, come closer. Come a little bit closer. Come closer. Ah, you wanna call me my husband? That's a word of intimacy, of closeness, of nearness, of a relationship where the distance has been closed and the arms are open. God wants you to relate to Him like a husband and not a dead idol. That's the goal of everything that comes from this text. The lawsuit was not to condemn but to expose. The thorns were not to punish but to redirect. The wilderness was not uh to exile but to woo. It was to have a bride stop calling God Baal out of duty, but start calling God my husband out of delight. Friends, this story sounds all too familiar. It sounds all too familiar in the ancient world, friends. Then there was a picture, the last point I want to make of betrothal. Betrothal was not a casual engagement. You you couldn't just merely call it off. I mean, think of Jesus' story where um Joseph had determined to divorce Mary in secret, whom uh he was betrothed to, right? So it's it's it's it's it's it's kind of like a lobola, it's it's irrevocable, it's covenantal, it's a binding marriage in and of itself that needs then to be consummated. God is speaking these words to an adulterous, idol-chasing, shame-covered bride who has given him every reason to walk away. I'm pledging myself to you forever. I'm I'm pledging myself to you forever. Look what he brings to the marriage. He brings righteousness, justice, steadfast love. That that word chassid again, the covenant loyalty that is the very heart of the series that we're going through. He he's bringing that, he's bringing faithfulness, he's he's bringing uh not just a mere list of theological terms, he's bringing himself, he's saying, into the context of betrayal. That's the lobola God is giving. His righteousness, his justice, his steadfast love. This is what the husband offers in exchange for a bride who has nothing. Nothing to give but her sin. Nothing to give but her whoredom. God l'obolas the bride who was unworthy. He brings righteousness and steadfast love. She she she spent herself to these idols, and he spends himself on her. Look at verse 20. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness, and you shall know the Lord. You you shall know me intimately so. You you shall have an intimate relationship with I'll be intimate with you. I'm not gonna be icky with you, I'm gonna draw you close again as my bride. He he knows you all too well. Nothing is hidden before him, nothing is nothing is God is saying, You've been a wandering bride, but I'm I'm I'm gonna give you my righteousness. Who who lobola is the person of order? Who who does that? Usually, guys who are looking uh start going to church around the time they are planning to get married because they think they're gonna find someone who's like okay. But the point is, we are all comers in this situation, and God says, I'm gonna lowbola you with my righteousness, I'm gonna uh uncover your nakedness, I'm gonna remove all these things you are seeking significance in, and I'm gonna clothe you with my perfection. I'm gonna call you my bride, and you're gonna know me intimately so. Friends, that's the gospel. That that's that's the gospel that is being declared to covenant breakers like you and me. That's that's the mercy in the wilderness. That's that's that's God giving us new names. You are mine, you are my bride, you are my people, and you're gonna answer in the very same way and say, My husband, you're gonna call me my God, friends. How does that happen? How does an adulterous bride come um home to a holy God without the covenant being violated? How how does this happen? Where does the this righteousness come from that God pleasures as a bride price when the bride herself has nothing to offer? That's Christianity, friends. We have nothing to offer. Simply to the cross, I I cling, nothing in my hands. I I bring, I've got nothing to offer. I can't even offer my CV, it's it's but filthy rags. I can't even offer my good works. Uh, maybe going to orphanages and all of it. I can't offer nothing in light of his perfections. I've been playing the whole, I've got nothing to offer, and yet he delights in me. And yet he clothes me with the righteousness of his son Jesus Christ. Seven centuries later, a better than Hosea comes, friends. Jesus, the faithful bridegroom who came for an adulterous bride. He's the better Hosea, he knew exactly who he was marrying. Oh my goodness. God knows your sins, God knows your heart, God knows your brokenness, God knows that you don't qualify. You know, we have red flags, we have all the red flags that don't qualify us to be in a marriage relationship with the Son of the living God, Jesus Christ. For us to be called the pride of Christ, we are unworthy, friends. All the red flags are on us. One look at us, he should be looking away, but no, Jesus is drawing all the more closer. Come here. I will present you one day as a fusion say, blameless before the living God. I'm working on you, Goma. I have saved you. You are mine. You're gonna know me, you're gonna be in relationship with me, and you're gonna call me my God. Friends, Jesus knew it before the foundation of the world, and he came anyway. He did not wait for the bride to become faithful before he committed to her. You know, we want people to tick boxes, Jesus doesn't do that, he's ticked all the boxes that qualify us to be called his bride. He came for her while she was still wandering. He entered the wilderness himself. In Matthew 4, friends, the spirit drives the Son of God into the desert, and there in the that geography of the wilderness, Jesus kind of fulfills all the law. He he resisted temptation, he he resisted the temptation of comfort, the the craving for security, the lust for significance. He he said no to that. The desire for a shortcut around suffering, he said no to that. I'm going to the cross, oh Satan. I'm gonna fulfill all righteousness and live a perfect life that this bride cannot live, and I'm gonna die the death that this bride deserves to die. And I'm gonna call her mine. Would you trust in that Jesus? He bore the covenant curse that belongs to the unfaithful bride, the divorce decree that Israel deserved, the judgment that Hosea 2-2 says, friends, he he bore it fell on Jesus Christ. He he absorbed it, he exhausted it, he died under it so that she would not have to. So that friends, at the valley of trouble, at the cross, there would be a door of hope in the resurrection. You see, friends, when you talk about the cross and the resurrection, we talk about the fact that there is trouble there, all sin fell on Jesus, and the wrath of the Father was on him. The judgment that was deserved by us was on Jesus. That's the that's the cross, the the beauty of paying the penalty for the sins we deserve. But the resurrection, the door of hope, vindicates all these claims, all that he is, and all the work that he's done for us to walk confidently and say, Jesus is my husband. Babu inwale, we pray, pray, thanking you, Lord, for your kindness. Lord, indeed, as your servant Richard says, There's more mercy in Christ than sin in us.