Hosea: What Happened?

Preacher: Thobezweni Sithole

Scripture: Hosea 6:8-7:7

Transcript

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But like Adam, they transgressed the covenant. There they dealt faithlessly with me. Gilead is a city of evildoers tracked with blood. As robbers lie in wait for a man, so the priests band together. They murder on the way to Shechem. They commit villainy in the house of Israel. In the house of Israel, I've seen a horrible thing. Ephraim's hortim is there. Israel is defiled. For you also, O Judah, a harvest is appointed. When I restore the fortunes of my people, when I would heal Israel, the iniquity of Ephraim is revealed, and the evil deeds of Samaria, for they deal falsely. The thief breaks in, and the bandits raid outside. But they do not consider that I remember all their evil. Now their deeds surround them, they are before my face. By their evil, they make the king glad, and the princes by their treachery. They are all adulterers. They are like a heated oven whose baker ceases to stir the fire from the kneading of the dough until it is leavened. On the day of our king, the princes became sick with the heat of wine. He stretched out his hand with markers, for with hearts like an oven, they approach their intrigue. All night their anger smolders. In the morning it blazes like a flaming fire. All of them are hot as an oven, and they devour their rulers. All their kings have fallen, and none of them calls upon me. This is the word of God.

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Today's question is this what happened to us from verse 7 of chapter 6 to verse 7, verse 7? And we'll circle back to chapter 6, verse 6. What happened to us? And I want to premise this with this point, friends, that there is a particular kind of grief that only comes from watching something good go wrong. There's actually something of a sense that something that was broken was not always broken. And that's a cosmic conclusion, friends. That as you as you live your life, and you are living in the shadow of unmet potential. It's far too common, friends, where you hear about a brilliant soccer player, Ekar, or a brilliant artist, a brilliant musician, someone who was destined for greatness. And then people ask the question, what happened? Sometimes that question, friends, arrives in the middle of breaking news. I mean, this week, in fact, yesterday, uh, we lost a young talented 25-year-old, Jaden Adams. And everyone was asking the question, what happened? Friends, the question even goes deeper when we talk about relationships, a marriage that began in delight, a friendship that once told each other everything. A person you loved who used to love with you daily and doesn't anymore. Something in us refuses to accept the decline as something normal. We actually ask the question, what happened to us? Friends, the instinct to ask that question is actually older than all of us. And at and at the bottom of that question, friends, is that innate creation instinct. I I made that up, by the way. That innate creation instinct, the idea that man, we we we would not grieve decay if we were only meant for decay. We would not grieve as we drive past an accident and be like, oh my goodness, what happened? If that was the norm of life. It's an indicator that you were made for something more. Dare I say, friends, I'm gonna repeat this, I know it's in my notes. Dare I say that you see people standing in a uh a courtroom, four executives who are meant to uh take care of a municipality, four important roles and figures in society who are meant to take care of society. And I asked myself that question again this week, friends. What happened? What what what went wrong there? Let's look at chapter 6, verse 7 quickly. And the prophet will give us an answer to that question. We will find he will always, friends, um, uh basically move us back to that question of what happened, and and and he will then answer that question. And that that answer to that question is not in relation to Israel alone. It's it's a question that we'll we'll we'll be asking about Adam and we'll be asking about you. I have four points today, friends, and the title is What Happened to Us? Number one, we left God. Number two, we lost ourselves. Number three, we could not save ourselves. And lastly, friends, then we will hear the call. Who will answer the question of what happened to us in a uh a manner of the verse that is in uh verse number seven of chapter seven, where it says, Who will call upon me? Who who will be worthy to call upon the Lord if if we have left God, if we have lost ourselves, if if we cannot save ourselves, who is worthy of calling on God to remedy the situation? Check with me then from the first point in verse 7, where we say we left God. What happened to us? Number one, we left God. That's the answer. If you're not down points, that's the answer. We what? We left God. Look at it quickly. Hosea says in verse 7 of chapter 6, but like Adam, they transgressed the covenant. There they dealt faithlessly with me. Notice what Hosea does not say, friends. He does not say Israel broke a rule, he does not say Israel made a mistake, he does not say Israel fell short of an ideal or a system or Israel had a moral lapse. He reaches to the oldest person, in other words, if there was case law, he reaches to the original source. The deepest word available to him, friends, he he he ties it to the original source. He says, Who? Adam. Like who? Adam. Like the first man. They transgress, friends, that word, the covenant. He's not talking about rules, he's talking about relationship. Like who, friends? Like Adam. He he reaches to the deepest name available to him, friends, which is Adam. Like I said, friends. I Adam transgressed, Adam um transgressed the covenant. And we need to slow down here, friends, and really unpack this point here. That um what makes us common here in this room is that grandfather, that great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather Adam. In fact, friends, we go back to uh Genesis 2 or uh and and we see the second chapter of the first book of the Bible, there we see God making a covenant with who? With Adam. He did not leave Adam to guess at at what the terms of the relationship are. He spoke, you sh may surely eat of every tree of the garden that I've given you, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat. For in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. Genesis 2, verse 16 to 17. Friends, in other words, God entered a covenant relationship with Adam, a relationship of promise and responsibility. Life through obedience, and then if if there's uh rebellion, if the is fumelano is broken, if the agreement is broken, there's what, friends, there is a consequence of what? Of death. Friends, that's what theologians call, if you are a geek of uh theology, uh the the covenant of works. Adam did not stand there merely as one man among many, free to fail without consequence to anyone else. Friends, whether you like the idea or not, here's the point here. Every one of us knows life works this way. A president declares a war, and an entire nation bears the consequences. One parent's decisions shape generations. Representation, friends, is woven in life. And here we have Adam who represents all of humanity. Paul will later call this out plainly, friends, in Romans 5, verse 12. That sin came into the world through one man and death through sin. And so death spread to all men because all sinned. Again, if you need a category for that, we talk about the idea of original sin. In other words, friends, our sins, our sins are like symptoms. Uh I didn't ask my wife about this, but I was like, man, the pathos, the pathology of sin goes back to Adam. Like the the origins. If you're gonna study the disease, you have to go back to Adam. That every action that is contrary to God's will is as a reality of what, friends, of the fact that we are infested. We have this virus that needs a remedy, that needs a vaccine. We all have this virus, friends. You you you don't teach a child to lie, you don't teach a child to steal sugar. So funny, friends, we have to teach children a lot of things, but we don't teach them to be mischievous and devious. It's like it just comes out of them. You don't teach a child to be selfish. I've made that example. Look at me, I'm the center of your existence. You wanna pay attention to me? I'm gonna cry till my face turns red because everything in life revolves around me. You don't teach a child to be self-centered, it's that disease, friends. Paul calls it clearly sin came into the world through one man and death through sin. And that man, friends, is who? Adam. When Adam fell, friends, he did not fall alone, he fell with us. What happened to us? What is wrong with me? You are Adam. This is why Hosea can look at Israel 800 years and uh uh a thousand kilometers removed from the Garden of Eden, as it were, and say, like Adam, Israel had her own garden. A land flowing with milk and honey, planted there by God's own hand, bound to him at Sinai by oath. That basically is the book of Exodus. For those of you who may be checking with me, Israel did exactly what Adam did. Not not somewhat similar, exactly the same thing. She took the gifts God had given him or given her as Israel and quietly deposed the giver. Like, I'm gonna dictate how my life is. I'm gonna be the master of my own destiny, I'm gonna curate my life according to how I see fit without the creator. Don't miss what God is showing us here, friends. Sin is not first of all rule breaking. Sin is covenant treason. There's a world of difference there, friends, between the two. That rule breaking is like, man, you you're speeding and uh you get a fine, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You you may be speeding, you may be uh annoyingly forgetful of like, okay, here the speed limit is 80, 80 kilometers per hour, and you you get a fine. I mean, someone I overheard this morning was lamenting the fact that she has a lot of tickets, but you pay those tickets and you move on with life. But treason, friends, the charge of treason is what? In this case, it's capital punishment, it's death. It's not a technical infringement that you can go negotiate at the court. It is breaking, friends, a heart. And when Hosea says Israel dealt faithlessly with me, he is not using courtroom language, he is using marriage language. Do you see it, friends, in verse 7? There they dealt faithlessly with me. And friends, God is not a magistrate keeping a ledger of infractions or the speed fines, as it were. He's a husband who has just discovered the betrayal. That's a world of a difference. And friends, the the text won't let us keep this at arm's length as ancient history. Every one of us in this room was born already facing the wrong direction. We are not neutral, friends. We are not neutral spectators, we are not blank, but but we are we have a band. That's why I use the child illustration. We have a band, but by virtue of our inheritance, friends. As I see my little one walk in the room, I know she has a a band to exactly what Adam did. I will decide for myself what is good and what is evil. I do not need to be told, especially when we grow older. You can't tell me how to live my life, you can't tell me what to do. I paid my school fees, I paid my jewels. I work for my money. We have a bent not to live under authority. And now, and friends, uh, maybe you are here and you're not a Christian, or perhaps you are like, hey, I'm in church. I'm not calling you to live under my authority. I may be preaching here, but I'm preaching God's word. I'm saying, man, we have a bent to live outside of God's authoritative word that dictates all matters of life and godliness, all matters relating to us, relating to Him. We have a bent away from that. And friends, that bent does not talk about breaking of commands. Before we even break a single command, we have already broken the relationship. The commands were meant to protect. That is not Israel's biography, friends. That is ours. Sin is a covenant treason before it is rule breaking. And friends, you need to remember that because as you go through the sermon and uh before the sermon is over, we're gonna come back to that question of realizing that oh man, I am broken. Not because I broke rules. You could be the very the most religious and respectful man in the room. I pay my taxes, I pay my fines, I took my I take my child children to school. I'm not like those other people. Friends, it's not about that. We have an innate band to not live under God's rule. Point number two, friends, besides us leaving God, we have lost ourselves. That's the consequence, then, of this moving away from God, this moving away as in uh our original sin to live under our own authority, outside of God's rule and authority and reign. In other words, outside of his lordship, we move away from that. But in moving away from that, the consequence is that we lose ourselves. Are you saying my relationship with God has something to do with who I am as a human being? Well, we'll see that now from verse 8 to chapter 7, verse 2. Uh, a theologian, I'd say a philosopher actually, Elvin Platinger made this point. He wants to describe sin uh in a different way. Thank you so much. He he wants to describe sin in a different way. Um, he he starts not with kind of like saying, Man, uh it's a rule book of breaking rules. He he paints a picture of of shalom. In other words, shalom here is not necessarily a word that speaks about peace, but that speaks about things as they were meant to be. Do you get it, friends? So shalom is not necessarily the absence of war, but it's things as they were meant to what? To be. In other words, friends, the harmony of how God meant things to be. In other words, when he created all things, he called them what? Good. The telos of life. In other words, the how you were made and designed and how you were meant to function and be. That's like a sense of man, shalom. Can I go deeper here? Hey, deeper, Papa. No, I'm not gonna say that. Sin, he writes, Petiger writes this sin is whatever wrecks shalom. The idea here, friends, that sin is a moral vandalism of God's world. Think about your house. Think about someone spray painting that beautiful wall. Think about your desk and someone coming and just messing up the order of things. I know some type A people are like, I need my things in this order. I left my keys here, I want to find them here. But if someone comes and takes your keys and places, whatever, and just what is what are they doing? They're destroying your shalom. The the then then the idea of us then as people living in God's world and in in line with his order, we are wrecking, we are, as it were, friends. We we we we we are vandalizing his world. Cosmic vandalism by not living in line with how things were meant to be. God hates that. I know we we don't like when things are messed up in our lives, when people come and destroy the order of our lives. We don't we don't like it. God hates the fact that we are vandalizing his world. And and and Kettinger makes this point, friends, it's not merely because it breaks the law, but because it breaks the peace, it breaks his order, it interferes with the way things were supposed to be. And friends, Hosea here will not let us look away from what that vandalism actually looks like. Leaving God is never a private transaction, as it were. Look again, verse 8. Look at it quickly. Look at the vandalism. Gilead is a city of evildoers tracked with blood. Yo, the blood here is vandalism. Have you ever thought of that? That the the the blood has never meant to be spilled. In the original order of things. It's like, it's like it's like this is it, friends. As as robbers lie in wait for a man, so the priests band together, they murder on the way to Sechem, they commit villainy. Band of robbers tracked with blood, villainy, and and he says priests. Priests are banding together as gangs, and they are villains. Maybe to bring it on, Marudifundi are villains. They are banding together to murder, to be robbers. And friends, Gilead was kind of like a sanctified memory of Joe Jacob, as it were. It's now stained, it's a crime scene. In 2 Kings 15, it tells us of kings being assassinated in in collaboration with the men of Gilead. Sethem friends was meant to be a city of refuge. People were meant to be running to the priests for security. Now they are running away from the priest because the priests are what? Are robbers. A macola, a place meant for shelter. For the innocent, now is an ambush site, and the ambushers are priests. Do you get the picture that is being painted here? Things are not uh working as they were meant to be. A priest must be praying and making sacrifices on my behalf. A priest is now tolering me, robbing me. And the very men ordained to God's life are behaving as robbers, and they are taking life, they are exploiting the vulnerable. And notice the progression, friends, in verse 8 and 9, as it were. It's kind of giving us a picture here that worship is the first place of corruption. Israel had already replaced the living God with golden calves of Dan and Bethel. Then leadership is the second base of corruption. Now, priests, the leaders are now predators. Then, friends, as we move on in chapter 7, verse 1, uh it says, When I uh when I would heal Israel, the iniquity of Ephraim is revealed, and the evil deeds of Samaria, for they deal falsely, the thief breaks in, and the bandits read the bandits raid outside. In other words, friends, um, the first thing that falls is worship. Then the second thing is what is is is is is leadership being replaced, and now there's a sense of justice is being corrupted. The thief breaks in, the bandits read outside. Then, lastly, friends, in verse 10, Ephraim's whoredom is there. Look at it. In the house of Israel, I have seen a horrible thing. Ephraim's whoredom is there, Israel is defiled. Relationships are corrupted. Friends, by the end, God says all only this. In the house of Israel, I have seen a horrible thing. One departure, and the whole society is unraveling. The whole society is unraveling behind that one departure. Departing from worshiping God. Picture downtown Josie for a second. I I hate this illustration. I was like, but it's the only one that makes sense. You know, when when people uh romanticize Jobak in the good old days, uh, I I want you to think about it quickly. Downtown Jobek, the the city of gold, the the CBD, as it were, a place people stream toward for from every direction of uh the continent. Uh even Oskito would would would sing quite a songs about uh you know uh but but the point here friends is that there was a time where people believed that going to Joburg, there's refuge there. There's there's there's there's there's prosperity there. People were driving through through through through Joburg to to find, as it were, gold. Now, what do you see, friends? Mine dumps. They're on the horizons when you go to the south, you see mine dumps, when you go to the east and you see mine dumps, and you hear stories of illegal miners. What what what what else do you see in Joburg now? You see potholes. That's why I don't like this because someone is making a whole uh political campaign around potholes. She wants Job, and she's exposing Joberg. That Jobag is now in ruins. What do you see in Job? You see potholes, you see cable stolen, you see um uh cable stolen and dark suburbs, you see load shedding, you see uh people without water. Job this week, the taps were closed. The reserve bank said we are closing these taps. Joberg municipalities. Friends, something happened in the inside long before it exposed itself with the potholes. That is not a story, friends, of municipal failure, as it were. That is Josea's sermon. It's a society that does not collapse from the outside in, it's it's collapse from the inside out. And the outside is always the last to know. Ask that question again when you watch senior officials stand in a dock answering uh questions at Palm Ridge Commercial Court, charged with plundering the very resources meant to serve the poor. It becomes hard to not hear an echo of what uh one theologian Augustine said, friends, about the deceptiveness of seeking or flourishing anywhere else but God. And there's a quote there. Man has undoubtedly the will to be happy. Sifunuk by happy, we sing a piano songs of that. We wanna be what? Happy. And Augustine wrote, even when he pursues happiness by living in a way which makes it impossible of attainment, we commit sin to promote our welfare and it results instead in our misfortune. The corrupt official wanted to be what, friends? Happy. But that very pursuit of happiness outside of God resulted in a misfortune. The SIU. Friends, we are not so different. We are simply building our golden calves out of a quieter material. And the question I asked you is why does success never satisfy? Why does getting what we prayed for often become the beginning of a new restlessness? Praying for a promotion and you get it, and now you are restless again. The promotion that has come through at almost any cost has now resulted in us not resting. The phone that buzzes with the stranger's approval, and our whole mood rises or falls with that. In fact, friends, why does one hard word from a boss outweigh a hundred quiet compliments from people who genuinely love us? We can obsess over one person's remark, over a thousand good remarks on you. Friends, the point here is that the relationship offered without covenant, because covenant asks for more than we are willing to give. Even religion, friends, kept kept not because we love God, but because it makes us feel respectable. All these things are idols, friends. They announce themselves as that. That's what makes idols so dangerous. They almost always begin as good things that quietly become ultimate things. Tim Keller. They come dressed as ambition, as self-care, as just being who I am. I'm chasing my goals. I'm doing me. But but friends, the test of time will always expose that. And that's what Hosea is showing Israel as well. That that that that that that very thing, when you finally get it, it it doesn't keep its promises. It actually leaves you needing more. And then what happens? You leave God, and as you leave God, gradually, that does not feel like loss, but feels like freedom. Until one day you wake up and realize that the very thing that promised to give you yourself has quietly taken you away. Augustina again says, friends, as we pursue sin, we become less. Far less than what we might have been. We become less than ourselves. And then people will ask about you, what happened? Point number three, friends, we could not save ourselves. So as you look at the text from chapter 7, verse 3 to 7, we we we have moved in other words, friends, from understanding that we left God, we lost ourselves, and now we realize that we are helpless, we could not save our are you still following? Yes, cool. We could not save ourselves. Uh look at verse 3 quickly of chapter 7. By their evil deed, or by their evil, they make the king glad, and the princes by their treachery. They are all adulterers, they are like a heated oven, whose baker ceases to stir the fire from the kneading of the door until it is lived. In other words, friends, even from verse 8, you're gonna see these uh pictures that are ugly, that are exposing us, but we're gonna just look at one as we close today. And and here's the point, friends. Here's Israel, and and and and priests have turned killers, kings have turned into what? Puppets. State capture. And the whole nation is on fire. Surely, friends, we think this um uh city has hit rock bottom. The only thing they can do now is turn back to who? To God. Look again at verse 4 of chapter 7. They are all what adulterers. They are like a heated oven whose baker ceases to stir the fire from the kneading of the door until it is leavened. They are like a heated oven. That's the picture. But picture this, friends, an oven left to burn all night. What would you expect in the morning? If it uses coal, it would be out, right? It would have been extinguished, as it were. Left unattended, needing no one to feed it, growing hotter simply because that is the fire is left by itself. That's the picture that Josea is painting here. That friends, this oven does not need to be fanned up, does not need to be maintained. I like putting on fires, friends, and I'm I suck at it, but I'm working on it, like getting the fire going. Uh uh, you have to keep feeding it with wood to keep it going. As you leave it on an unattended one minute, two minutes, I think that's why I think I suck at it. It just dies out. But here's an oven of maintained by fire that does not die out, even though it's unattended. What is happening here, friends? In in verse 6, as it were, friends, it it speaks about um look at it, for with hearts like an oven they approach their intrigued. All night their anger smuggles, in the morning, it blazes like a flaming fire. In other words, friends, um, the the verses here will give us a picture of this this oven being flamed up by flattery, by wine. It it all it burns all the more hotter. Flattery uh warms it up, um, wine fans it up, ambition and rage glow through the dark hours until the morning, it's still blazing hot. Uh, that the very leaders that are described in verse 7 are devouring each other because they have this, they're like an oven that is hot. And the question I ask friends, why do we keep repeating the very same patterns that hurt us most? No matter how many times we promise ourselves that man, this is the last time, I'm not gonna do it again. We are like that burning fire that never ceases to die. Josea calls that our hearts. Our hearts are like an inextinguishable burning oven. Hold that thought for a second. Assassinations in the text, anarchy, a government eating itself alive. Any one of these these things would normally be enough to drive a nation to its knees. But here, friends, there's nothing, no one is calling on God. Look at it in verse 7. All of them are hot as an oven. By a she devour their rulers, all their kings have fallen, and none of them calls upon me. Friends, there's a problem here, and the problem is not policy failure. If you look at our nation as well, it's it's it's it's not even a leadership gap, they are leaders. It's not like that they need better training, friends. No, one has to re-realize that, friends, that the the the oven is does not need to be lit up every morning. Even when left to itself, it keeps burning. Hosea is saying that, friends, that's the condition of the human heart. And left to itself, friends, it doesn't drift towards God, it manufactures fresh reasons to rebel against him. And this is exactly, friends, why there's a problem with us reaching for the wrong medicine. Oh Lord, I'm not gonna do it again. And you keep doing it again. You're reaching for the wrong medicine. This is why, friends, even religion fails to change us. Hey, hang on, I'm at church. Why are you saying religion fails to change us? Religion fails to what, friends? Change us. Israel kept bringing sacrifices right to the end, and God had already said in verse 6, I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice. Because, friends, ritual offered by an unrepented heart is just a longer, more respectable way of avoiding God. Morality could not fix it, politics cannot fix it, friends. A new king that that has been assassinated and replaced does not fix it. It's the same oven. Self-improvement does not fix it. All these remedies that manage the symptoms while the disease goes untouched, they polish the outside while the fire keeps burning within. Friends, you do not need a better oven. We need a new heart altogether. And no oven, however well managed, can uh give itself a new heart. So, who will then, friends, call on the Lord? Who will rescue us? You know, I speak about ovens, and people are like, what the hell is he talking about? Friends, the point I'm talking about is the idea of um our broken hearts, our the language that is used theologically is our total depravity, our our need for a new heart that will have affections for God until God gives you a new heart, you cannot change. You will keep doing it again. Even if you manage the externalities, you will keep going back to that living of God. You need God to give you a heart for Him. Dare I say, you need the last Adam, you you need a new Adam altogether. In Adam all die, but in the last Adam in Jesus Christ, all have life. This is where the whole storyline of the Bible, friends, um, basically climaxes. Let me let me quickly give you a rundown. If you've never been uh to a sermon and understanding the gospel message of how does this whole story fit into Hoseam? Who will call on the Lord? Let me give you that quickly as I as I land the plane in the five minutes we have, friends, that the Bible is telling us this simple reality that since Genesis 2, friends came to bear um uh in chapter 3, there was darkness. The the passage was was kind of like uh leading us to say, Man, we have fallen. Yes, all things were created good. God said, You you are my image bearers. There's nothing wrong with you depending on me. Hallelujah! You you don't need to be a self-existent, independent individual. I created you for me to worship me, to find your delight in me. That that as you do that, you find fullness and joy and pleasure in me. That's how things were meant to be. But in chapter 3, we fail. Me and you are Adam, friends. And and and and and dare say, friends, God made humanity for exactly that kind of covenant, nearness Adam threw away. And you and me threw it out, threw it away. God was walking with Adam, reflecting his glory, alive, because he was near to God. Adam broke that, you and me broke that. Israel, given a second Eden in the promised land, broke it again. Note for note. And this morning, friends, I want to be honest with you. We are covenant breakers. And into that ruin, then, friends, we asked that question who will call on the Lord? And Paul gives him a name. He says his name is the last Adam in 1 Corinthians 15, verse 45. His name is the what? The last Adam. Where the first Adam was tested in the garden of plenty and failed, Jesus Christ, the last Adam, was tested in the wilderness of nothing and held it together. Where Israel broke covenant within weeks of swearing it in Sinai, Jesus kept his father's covenant without a single faithless step for 33 years. Not as a private achievement, but as your obedience credited to your account. By faith. Friends, what am I saying? Jesus obeyed where Adam failed. And friends, that means this, friends. That means the record of God is keeping, um, that the record of God God is keeping on you, if you are in Christ is not your record. The record of of God that God keeps on you, if you are in Christ is not what? Your record. It's the it's the finished and complete, perfect record of Jesus Christ, accredited to you. We call that friends in the language of theology, taking notes and kicking off and want to Google active obedience. The active obedience of Christ is the obedience you need to stand before a God whom you left in and of yourself. You you need to say, God, I cannot point to my works. I can only point to the finished work of Jesus Christ, his active obedience. Where me as Adam I failed, Christ has victored. You you need that, you need to believe Jesus for the perfect life he lived. But not only that, friends, what does Jesus do? He pays the price that me and you deserve. He went through that fire. On that cross, friends, we call it the passive obedience. He went through the fire. He hung on that rugged cross. He bore in on himself, friends, what we deserve. The punishment that God had to pour upon covenant breakers was poured upon Jesus Christ. He was treated as a covenant lawbreaker. So that you would never have to be. On our behalf, bearing on himself the covenant curse, so that covenant breakers like Gilead's murderers, like Ephraim's idolaters, like you and me, could receive instead the covenant of grace. That friends, Jesus went into our place. Friends, God is not punishing an innocent bystander on the cross, He's punishing the covenant head who is absorbing his wrath on our behalf. He's punishing someone who is absorbing what we had broken. And Jesus did not stay dead. That's the good news, friends. He rose, vindicated as the faithful son, proof that the curse had been paid in full, death itself broken from the inside. And here's what it means for you practically. If you belong to Jesus by faith, you are no longer counted in Adam. Oh man, you are counted in Jesus Christ. You are united to Jesus Christ so completely that his obedience is yours, and your treason was his to bear. And friends, he does not leave you where he found you. He gives you what Israel never had and could never manufacture. A new heart. I spoke about that oven. You you get a new art, you get you get a smack, you get a new heart by his own spirit, so that as his people, friends, we can cry to him now. The question was who can cry, friends, to the Lord? It's Jesus. He cried to the Lord, He He cried in a perfect, sinless life. He cried to the Lord as as as my father, your will be done. If this cup would pass for me, so be it. But if it's not, friends, Father, your will be done. On the cross, he he cried as a covenant breaker. My father, my father, why have you forsaken me? Jesus cried where we could never cry in our place, and now, friends, he enables us to cry because he's given us a new heart by his spirit for him, and that's the gospel, friends. That's the gospel, friends. We are a people who have been found, who have been uh rescued, who have been given new hearts. And the question to you is this Is there any hope for someone like you? Someone who has left, who has lost themselves, who could not fix what they broke? And the answer is yes. Yes, not because you finally become someone else, but because the last Adam, Jesus Christ, became everything Adam failed to be. Father, we thank you for your kindness, we thank you for your grace.