(I want to listen to this sermon)

We sometimes project a dvd in the schoolroom out back. As you know, that room has windows down both sides and is full of light. If we just projected the dvd onto the screen without doing anything else in the room then the colours on the screen would if visible at all appear pale and faded. It wouldn't matter what the subject matter of the dvd was nothing would stand out very clearly. So what do we do? We pull the curtains and turn off the lights endeavouring to make the room as dark as possible. The darker the room the brighter and more clearly do the images on the screen stand out!

It is somewhat similar if you want to gaze at the stars and appreciate their beauty. You don't look up into the sky at 12 noon if you want to admire them. No, you'll look up at the night sky if you want to see the stars – the darker the night the better it is!

The Book of Hosea functions in like manner in the Bible. There are twin themes that are intertwined throughout the book with an emphasis first on one theme then on the other but both are always there. What are these themes? Well the first and most important theme is the amazing love of God and the other is the amazing sinfulness of mankind.

If we don't have an awareness of just how unworthy men and women actually are before God then we will only ever have pale faded views of what the love of God is really like. When we grasp just a little of the awful blackness man's rebellion against God then we begin to appreciate just how wonderful His love actually is. The more we understand the more we see God's love in "glorious technicolor".

In the last few chapters we've been looking at while God's love has not been absent it has not been to the fore as the Lord through Hosea has highlighted His people's sinfulness. Now here in chapter 11 this great love becomes the major theme. Let us look together at what the chapter has to teach us.

The people of Israel have not changed as we enter chapter 11. They have sadly not returned to the LORD, and their sin provides the backdrop for what is now to be more fully revealed – the love of God.

God is centre stage in this chapter as any careful reading would make abundantly plain. Again and again the LORD speaks and talks about Himself. "I… I… I… " dominates the chapter which reaches it high point in vv.8-9. Indeed a strong case could be made for seeing these verses as marking the high point of the entire OT!

The pattern of the chapter is like this:

1.       The LORD makes a series of affirmations concerning His past dealings with the people of Israel

2.       The people's reaction to His love is more briefly described

3.       The LORD asks (Himself) a series of highly impassioned questions – how wrong it is to imagine God the LORD as some remote cold deity!

4.       The LORD answers His own questions with a number of astonishing declarations

The chapter opens with the LORD reminding the people of Israel just what He has done for them in the past. In doing so He employs a variety of images in order to try to make them (and us) understand.

The opening verse sets the tone for what is to follow:

v.1 "When Israel was a child, I loved him"

It was not that Israel was loveable but it was that the LORD chose to love them and chose them to enter into a special relationship with Him. Being loved so freely and so generously was a wonderful privilege and one which should have evoked thankfulness on their part. It was not that they had loved God but they He had loved them that was at the origin of their relationship! It is no different for us!

In western culture we've grown used to hearing that God loves us. The trouble is we've misunderstood and misinterpreted it all. We've come to think that it is normal for God to love us and we imagine that His love means allowing us to promote our own selfish interests intervening only to pick up the pieces when things go wrong. But we must never allow such a sugar-coated view of the love of God obscure the fact that He does love us and that with a strong love!

As the LORD comes to reason once more with His people this is uppermost on His mind: my love for you is strong and true and that is how our relationship began!

As He continues the LORD portrays Himself as a Father, as a mother/nurse, as a husband and as a herdsman. We must go on to see what He says:

v.1 "and out of Egypt I called my son."

It is the voice of the Father that speaks here. It is the voice of the Father who liberates His son from a tremendous mess and from a disastrous situation. Israel was not on holiday in Egypt – it was not as though the LORD acted to interfere and to spoil the pleasures of His son. How many people think that God calls people only because He wants somehow to spoil their fun and not allow them to do what they want to do – they are ignorantly unaware that they too are in "Egypt" in bondage and anything but free to lead good, wholesome and fulfilling lives?

The LORD came and as an expression of His love called His son out of Egypt – the journey to the Promised Land had begun. The NT takes up the imagery and describes our life on earth as a pilgrimage – we're only passing through on the way to the Promised Land, heaven. On you on that pilgrimage yet?

The images blur in v.3 – is the Father still in view or has the mother image taken over, or that of the nurse?

v.3 "it was I who taught Ephraim to walk; I took them up by their arms, but they did not "know that I healed them."

Isn't the picture now a lovely one? Do you remember stooping down, keeling on the floor perhaps as your little loved one tried to take his/her first steps? You didn't keep your distance barking orders mocking at failure – no, you didn't think it humiliating to get down on your knees to help did you? And when there was a painful fall you were happy to sweep that little one into your arms for a while to comfort and encourage before letting him/her have another go. You didn't moan that it was wasted time did you? You didn't complain that you'd told the child once and that should be enough but on you went. How ready you were to rub the spot to make it better!

And the LORD God, the creator of Heaven and earth, the LORD of Hosts loved His people like that!

In v.4 the image changes again and it is more the image of the husband that is brought before us once again.

v.4 "I led them with cords of kindness, with the bands of love,"

Hosea was already well aware of the painfulness of being a husband who loved a difficult, unworthy woman. And now the LORD states that He had led His people with kindness, with humaneness. He hadn't been harsh and cruel – sadly too many men can be like that dominating their wives as tyrants but that was not the LORD's way. Yes, His  drawing of them had been strong but it that was because His love was so strong that one commentator suggests that we could, instead of saying He drew them with bands of love, say that He drew His people with cart-ropes of love!

The final picture that the LORD uses to speak to the people of His tender loving care for them is that of a herdsman:

v.4 "I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them.

This was an easy picture to understand for those in an agricultural setting. At the end of a long day ploughing in the fields the farmer brings his oxen back to their stalls. All day they've been yoked together in order to pull the plough. And what does this kind herdsman do? He doesn't ignore the needs and the well-being of his animals. He doesn't forget to ease their load: off come the yoke, it would be so much more difficult for the oxen to eat with that still on. And instead of disappearing at once to look to his own interests this good herdsman bends down to provide them with food to eat.

Thus the LORD describes the careful, thoughtful and tender ways in which He has dealt with His people.

How had the people of Israel responded to this rich, strong and tender love of the LORD? Well for a few minutes the second theme of Hosea's little book takes over once more – sin.

God's love is not blind! He knows how He has loved His people and He knows that they have not responded as He wished nor as they ought to have done. Just four things now are highlighted but these four things do demonstrate the pitiful failure of the people:

a)      They went from me v.2

b)     They didn't know He had healed them v.3

c)      They refused to return to Him v.5

d)     They were bent on turning from Him v.7

The more the LORD did for them the worse they became as their stubborn resistance to His overtures of love hardened into a determined refusal to acknowledge Him in their lives.

They had been the recipients of wonderful mercy and kindness and they devalued it, spurned it, denied all knowledge of it and set their hearts on completely abandoning it.

Matthew Poole wrote:

"After such unparalleled abuse of infinite mercy and patience, what could be expected, but unrelenting wrath and fiercest indignation?"

All men and women retain a certain sense of what is right and what is wrong, of justice. Matthew Poole's words written in the 17^th century do not sound unreasonable to our ears, indeed did not sound unreasonable in God's ears, but the full story is not yet told…

v.8 "How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender."

What an amazing picture we find in this verse! The LORD portrays Himself as being in absolute turmoil – we are a million miles away from a cold impassive unengaged deity – how difficult it is for us with our small minds to grasp it all but this is how the LORD chooses to reveal Himself to His people!

We are on holy ground but we must try to examine this: What is His problem?

The LORD is fully aware of the claims and requirements of justice! He knows that the behaviour of Israel actually does call for them to be treated in just the same way as the two town mentioned in the text were treated.

Admah and Zeboiim were destroyed at the same time as fire and brimstone fell on Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen.19; Deut:29:23) as God overthrew them in His anger and wrath.

Justice calls for similar judgment and rightly so – there is no hint here that Israel is undeserving of such treatment and yet and yet…

Justice is not the sum total of God's attributes – mercy, love and compassion are His too and they appear to be pitted against the claims of justice.

His people are guilty and yet the LORD longs with a strong love to spare them. Don't you hear that in His repeated calling out?

                How can I give you up?

                                Shall I hand you over?

                How can I make you like Admah?

                                Shall I treat you like Zeboiim?

We sense the struggle, the emotion, I can't do it, I won't do it are the answers to the questions but why? Because the LORD's own heart recoils from inflicting upon Israel what Israel so roundly deserves. His heart is full of a warm and tender compassion and yet He does not pretend that Israel is guiltless – He knows they have provoked His burning anger!

Don't ever think sin is a light, insignificant matter – see what turmoil it produced in the heart of God as He sought to resolve it!

The amazing outcome is that mercy and compassion triumph over justice as the Lord makes an astounding declaration:

v.9 "I will not execute my burning anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and not a man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath."

Three times the LORD declares what He will not do! He will not destroy this wicked people!

But how can this be? How can the LORD put justice to one side and act in a way that leaves sin unpunished, that leaves His threats of judgment unfulfilled and which then leave Him open to accusations of the worst kind?

It is wonderful not to be exposed any longer to judgment but is it really that good a thing if God be no longer holy, and righteous and dependable? If He can threaten judgment one minute but act differently the next where does that leave any of us? A fickle God would be an awful God indeed!

But no we must read carefully what the Lord does say.

He declares He will not judge precisely because He is God and He defines Himself most precisely as the Holy One in the midst.

He is God and not man and as such He acts.

Somehow He declares to His OT people that He can not destroy them with the just and righteous judgment that they deserve without in any way compromising His holiness and His character.

If a man were to try to do this and not to inflict just judgment it would mean in some way pretending that sin didn't exist or that it really didn't matter that much – and none of us like the idea of corrupt unjust judges. But says the LORD I am not a man – I am God, the Holy One – and I will not come in wrath.

There is hope for the people without a full explanation of how it may indeed be so. (Indeed the OT does not contain an answer – the explanation is found only in the NT).

There is hope for you today of your sin being justly forgiven and in a way that does not in any way compromise the wonderful holy character of God.

That way does not lead us to try to minimise the gravity of our sin or to try to convince ourselves that God winks at it. It involves fully facing up to the fact that our sin does call forth anger from a Holy God. He has found a way of dealing with our sin that neither destroys us nor destroys His own justness.

Let us hear in closing how He does this. The words come from Paul's letter to the church in Rome:

Rom.3:21-26"But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it - the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,  whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus."

There is one reason that allows the LORD to pardon sinners and not execute His just condemnation against us and here it is. It is not that He tries to forget or overlook sin that would be an unacceptable affront to the honour and glory of His name. The sole reason is that He has set Jesus Christ forth as the propitiation for our sins! As Jesus willingly stood in the sinner's place He bore in Himself the penalty and judgment due our sin – His blood shed renders the Father propitious towards us, and so the Father can look favourably on us for His justice not been side-stepped but fully satisfied.

This gospel was declared in Hosea's day here in Hosea ch.11 though its detail was not understood then but had to await the revelation of Jesus Christ in the NT. It was a gospel of good news then it is good news now and with the wonderful clarity of it all in the NT we will be without excuse if we do not receive it by faith.

May God grant us all the faith we need to receive the redemption that is in Jesus Christ our Lord!

Amen.