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Gracious Invitations

Well this morning we come to the final chapter in the prophet Hosea. This is the fifteenth time that on a Sunday morning we have turned our thoughts to this OT book that was written during turbulent times in the Middle East some 2700 years ago.

As we have looked together at this Book we have been struck by the amazing patience of God as He continues to reach out in love to a people that repeatedly and stubbornly rejected His overtures of love.

The LORD had yoked Himself to Israel and simply refused to give up on her even in the face of rampant unfaithfulness of her part. The LORD's commitment to Israel is the commitment of a love which is holy, robust and strong. Consequently Israel must be purged and purified of her unfaithfulness if the return of a remnant is to be secured. In the event such a return would only take place at the time of the Messiah. The way of this return would pass through the discipline of terrible judgments.

In chs.1-3 Hosea's own marriage was used as a parable for the relationship between God and Israel. The dominant image in those chapters was that of Israel as an unfaithful wife. The ensuing chapters (4-14) spelled out the details of that parable with series of accusations, warnings, appeals and inducements to Israel to return to their God.

Chapter 14 contains the final closing appeals associated with wonderful promises and assurances of good things to come. The final verse of the entire Book broadens and generalizes the teaching of the whole. Here we are brought to realize that the truth of this book is not confined to the distant past and the history of a people from long ago but is for all who have ears to hear!

Hosea once more addresses the people as the mouthpiece of the LORD God.

The amazing thing is that despite all the unfaithfulness of the past God still longs for the return of the people.

"Return" cries Hosea "Come back"!

Now a return is only called for and necessary when a wrong direction has been taken and a wrong path followed.

The call to return is a call to repentance. Hosea is not at all saying that sin doesn't matter – it does matter and that is why a return is so necessary.

Indeed as he clearly declares:

v.1 "you have stumbled because of your iniquity"

To be made right again with God the whole matter of wrong-doing and sin must be faced. Would the people listen this time? Would they take seriously Hosea's appeals to return?

If we would be made right with God we too must give up the pretence that everything is fine and face up to the reality of our own sin. We too need to heed the appeal to return repentingly to God. Will we do so?

Hosea wants to help the people as much as he possibly can and he is not content simply to appeal and exhort in general terms but he goes on to spell out just how they should return. He tells them just what it is that will be involved in such a return.

They are to act thoughtfully, they are to act in repentance and they are to act with commitment.

Let's look at each in turn:

1.       Thoughtfully – they are to take words with them v.2. They are not to go any old how to God but they must go to speak to Him.

They are not to go with good works, they are not to go with warm feelings, they are not to go with religious practices but they are to go to God with words. Any not with any kind of words either Hosea continues to detail just the kind of thing they must say.

Now it is not the mere repetition of some religious formula that Hosea is urging upon the people. The words he wants them to speak in the presence of the LORD must be words that find an echo in their heart and correspond to what they really do think. There are no magic formulas in the Christian faith that work regardless of what is going on in our heart (the real me).

Each of us if we are to be real Christians must at some time in our life go to God with words of our own too. It is the one who calls on the name of the Lord who shall be saved – have I thoughtfully gone to God with words? Have you? It's easy for some folk in the midst of a crisis to cry out to God under the stress of the moment sometimes making all kinds of promises that are swiftly forgotten once the crisis is over – but that is not the type of crying out to God that Hosea is calling for. That kind is not thoughtful or considered – I'm not saying that sometimes the LORD in His grace doesn't hear and respond to such a cry – what I am saying is that that is not what is called for here.

2.       The type of words that they are to take with them to God are to be honest words that recognize that there is a problem that only He can deal with.

There must be a recognition of what has gone wrong in the past in their lives – no excuses, no special pleading, no setting themselves out as victims - and Hosea is not happy that the confession be a general one but indicates the confession to God of specific sins of which the people were guilty.

They must own up to the fact that in the past they had put their trust elsewhere than in God – they had turned one moment to Assyria and the next to Egypt (where the horses came from). They had worshipped false gods by fabricating their idols.

Why is this important? Well it is fairly easy to admit in general terms that we're not perfect (though some baulk even at this!) ie. that we're sinners but it is another matter altogether to own up before God to specific sins as well – we have a real tendency to want to justify ourselves and our behaviour – we know only too well how to plead mitigating circumstances when we're the culprit!

But if we are to return to God then we must not put on a mask and merely play a role we must deal seriously and thoughtfully with Him about the things in our lives which are an affront to Him.

3.       And not only are the words taken to God to be words that show repentance – a sorrow for past sin and failure but the words must also reflect a true heart desire to be changed. The salvation of the Bible is a salvation from the guilty, penalty, power and pollution of sin it is never designed to be a salvation that delivers us merely from the unfortunate consequences of sin allowing us all the while to remain essentially unchanged!

So the words we are to take with us must be expressive of a new commitment to do things God's way and to respond in ways which are appropriate. (vv.2+3 we will & we will not.) The sacrifices that are mentioned are not meritorious works that buy God's favour but the sacrifices of thanksgiving that follow restoration!

This is the return that Hosea urges upon his hearers. It is a call to do things properly and as a result of clear thinking. Jesus similarly urges men and women boys and girls to think seriously before they engage in the life of discipleship, being a disciple He said was serious business and not to be entered upon lightly:

Lk.14:27 "Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple."

He said we are to count the cost before going on to declare that:

Lk.14:33 "any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple."

Well the appeal has been launched and help given as to how to proceed but that is not the end of the matter. The LORD breaks in again and adds His own words supplying yet more incentives to this people to return to Him.

Why does He do this?

Well, several reasons might be suggested I suppose.

Perhaps some of the people were wondering whether such a return was really possible for them. After all they had messed up for so long hadn't the time of their opportunity come to an end?

Some folk struggle today after having rejected God for much of their life, they wonder whether they've not left it just too late and convince themselves that there is no hope for them. Others may have walked with Jesus earlier in their lives but had since turned away from Him and ignored Him – how can they ever return and be accepted by God?

Such thinking is far from uncommon but it is wrong thinking. The call to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ continues today because it is still the day of salvation, the last trumpet has not yet sounded it is still a day of grace and what grace God's grace is!

So the LORD speaks elsewhere of how generously He will respond to the genuinely contrite in heart, to those who respond to Him in true repentance:

Is.57:15 "For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite."

Is.66:2 "But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word."

Here in Hosea the LORD recognizes the reality and the destructiveness of sin in the lives of those He calls to Himself but He recognizes it in order to deal with it. Just look at how He commits Himself to act towards those who will return to Him:

ü  He will heal their apostasy – sin is here spoken of as a sickness that weakens the whole and which must be treated – He promises to deal with the problem that had bedevilled them for years.

ü  He will love them freely and they will no longer be exposed to judgment because God has found a way for His anger to be turned away from them. The exact way in which God was able to do this would not become fully clear until the coming of Jesus Christ and in particular to His laying down of His life in sacrifice.

However the OT did contain legislation regulating the offering of bloody sacrifices as it was well-recognised in OT times that sin broke man's peace with God. Sin causes the reaction of wrath in a holy God and that wrath must somehow be appeased. God must somehow be rendered propitious or well-disposed towards us and the only way it could be re-established was by the death of a substitutionary sacrifice. In the NT Jesus' sacrifice is portrayed as a propitiation ie. His sacrifice quenched God's wrath enabling God to relate to us in love!

The LORD is urging Israel to return to Him because He Himself will solve the problem of sin – His love is un-merited and free, it is was the NT calls grace.

ü  And yet God promises and commits Himself to do yet more in His love for those who will return! Not only does He promise to wipe out to mistakes of the past and abandon His anger that those sins had provoked but He promises to be both refreshing and life-giving to them. Do you see how He declares this in vv.5-7?

"I will be like the dew to Israel; he shall blossom like the lily; he shall take root like the trees of Lebanon; his shoots shall spread out; his beauty shall be like the olive, and his fragrance like Lebanon. They shall return and dwell beneath my shadow; they shall flourish like the grain; they shall blossom like the vine; their fame shall be like the wine of Lebanon."

The whole picture here is of fruitfulness, of beauty, majesty and strength. This is what God promises to those who will return. Old lives will be turned around and totally transformed the NT speaks of such transformation as "new creation"!

At this point our translations offer somewhat differing interpretations.

It all concerns who is the main speaker v.8. Is the LORD describing what Ephraim shall say in that great day when they are transformed by the working of God generous and free grace? Or is the LORD making a declaration about Himself?

In the first instance Ephraim would be making a declaration that due to God's renewing grace they had finished for all time with the idols that had so corrupted and polluted their lives hitherto. Indeed after the later experiences in exile idolatry would be definitively eradicated from national life. Now walking again with the LORD the people would see themselves as full of life and fruitful with a fruit they recognise as coming from Him.

If on the other hand the LORD is speaking about Himself He is reaffirming how totally other than idols He really is! Having nothing whatsoever to do with idols does by no means however impair His ability to hear their prayers and to care for them! If God is speaking about Himself then we have yet one more unusual picture of God presented to us – but as the Book of Hosea contains several other unusual pictures of God perhaps this one more should come as no surprise either.

God compares Himself to a tree, an evergreen tree – the only time such a picture is used in the Bible. And what is the characteristic of an evergreen? It is always alive, always fresh and vital. God thus promises to be the living life giving source which His people need. He ii is who will work to produce the desired fruit in the life of His own.

And so we reach the end of the Book of the prophet  Hosea. All the accusations, threatenings and warnings are over and Hosea draws his book to a close with one more empassioned plea and appeal.

Will the people pay any attention to it? The ball is firmly in their court now – the arguments have been exhausted and the invitation is genuine – but what will they do with it? Will they respond or will they go on turning their backs upon it all?

I guess many of us prefer to have happy endings than sad endings – we like the way those stories we heard in our childhood days would end with "and they all lived happily ever after". As we grow older we grow more cynical and are thus suspicious of "happy endings" as belonging to the world of make believe not the real world. And if truth be told it seems as though few amongst Ephraim would ever respond to the wonderful offers and entreaties of grace that fell from Hosea's lips as God's representative.

But Hosea doesn't end his book with a note of final closure but rather he deliberately addresses his hearers and his readers down through the ensuing centuries. This story was real for Ephraim but that by no means indicates that it is only of passing interest for us who read. No, says Hosea, you too are concerned by what I've written. As God had dealings with Ephraim in my day so He will have dealings with you in yours. Will you be any different to Ephraim? Will you be any better than Ephraim in the responses that you make to the similar calls to repentance that you hear?

You see this portion of the Word of God is not some story to entertain us for a while and then be forgotten. It is a story with a meaning to be understood and a story that God wants us to understand!

God was fully justified in dealing with the Ephraim of Hosea's day as He did. Everything He did was right and He called upon Ephraim to walk in righteous paths.

Everything that God does today is equally right and He is fully justified in treating you as He will and yet He calls you too to repent and to walk in His righteous paths.

As Jesus would repeat on several occasions: He that has ears to hear let him hear!

Will you be righteous and walk in His ways – returning to Him with the thoughtful, wholehearted and genuine repentance He requires of you and will you enjoy all the blessings He has promised to shower upon those who so come – or will you go on stumbling as Ephraim did in continuing to live as transgressors?

May the God of all grace have mercy upon us all.

Amen