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In previous weeks we have seen that in the Book of the prophet Hosea the LORD God is happy to compare Himself to the husband of an unfaithful wife. As such He is not however ready to just walk away from what would then have become a failed relationship, instead He works hard to see the relationship between Himself and His people fully restored.

We have seen how He launched, through the prophet Hosea, an impassioned plea to His people to mend their ways and to return to Him. We saw how it was His own faithful character that provided a solid basis and incentive for such a return.

But now we must come to consider just how His people responded to His overtures of love and to His repeated invitations. It is time too for us to consider what kind of response the LORD is actually looking for.

Three questions will guide us in our studies this morning:

What does the LORD God want to see?

What does He in fact find?

What does He do about it?

The opening words of v.4 make it clear to us that whatever response the Lord was hoping to see in His people that response was not forthcoming and so He cries out:

"What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah?"

This cry expresses something of the pain in the heart of God as His people stubbornly continue to reject Him. If we weren't speaking of God we would be tempted to say it was a cry of exasperation – everything had been done right up till now to bring about the sought-for-change but it had not proved successful. What else can I do?

Now we are not to imagine that the LORD is at a loss to know what to do next – after all He knows the end from the beginning – and in fact He declares what He will do next in the verses that follow. The language used is designed to make us realise that no fault can be laid against the LORD. He has done everything that could be expected but the right reaction has not been forthcoming from His people. There is fault but that fault lies entirely with His wayward people.

Before we look to see how the people did respond to the LORD's appeals we should first understand what type of response He does actually look for. You see there are many ways we can respond to what God says to us but we are not to imagine that any old response is acceptable to Him. He tells us clearly and simply in v.6 what He does look for:

"For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings."

In short the LORD looks for covenant behaviour from His covenant people and that behaviour is a reflection of His own: steadfast love. Such love will properly flow out of a true knowledge of  God and can never be replaced by a mere reliance upon a few religious practices such as sacrifices and burnt offerings.

Now when the LORD says He desires steadfast love and not sacrifice He is not saying that sacrifices and burnt offerings are totally useless – how could He as it was He who had instituted them for His people? – but they are useless if they come to be treated as an end in themselves. Sacrifices etc. were originally designed to restore sinners to a right relationship with God, that right relationship is the thing – a right knowledge of Him and a right practice, steadfast love.

The human heart finds it very easy to pervert good things using them in the wrong way to attain the wrong end.  The people of Hosea's day were adept at focusing upon the externals of religion as though the mere outward observance of religious practice was of value to God regardless of whether their heart was in it or not.

And it wasn't a problem that was limited to Hosea's day. Jesus quoted this verse on at least two separate occasions in His ministry. It remains a problem in our own day when we slip into imagining that we can appease God by a few outward rituals, by adding a touch of religion to our lives. Of course we can understand why – it is so much easier to "do a little religion" than it is to pursue the higher calling of intimate fellowship with the Living God and of being transformed by the renewing of our minds into His image.

The steadfast love that God looks for  is no arbitrary requirement on God's part – it is something that characterises Himself and He wants to see this reflected in those who are created in His image:

Ex.34:5-7 "The LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands,"

Deut.7:9 "Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations,"

Of course the NT builds upon this truth by telling us that God is love.

Everywhere in Scripture the type of response that is appropriate to such a God is the response of wholeheartedness:

Deut.6:5 "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might."

Deut.10:12-13 "And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the LORD, which I am commanding you today for your good?"

Deut.11:1 "You shall therefore love the LORD your God and keep his charge, his statutes, his rules, and his commandments always."

Jos.22:5 "Only be very careful to observe the commandment and the law that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded you, to love the LORD your God, and to walk in all his ways and to keep his commandments and to cling to him and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul."

Jos.23:11 "Be very careful, therefore, to love the LORD your God."

This love that is required towards God is not so much a sentimental or emotion response but the response of loyalty and obedience. To love the LORD is to show oneself to be resolutely loyal to Him while obeying His commands, as Jesus was to say:

Jn.14:15 "If you love me, you will keep my commandments."

Now this is the response that the LORD wants to see, a wholehearted response that will inevitably bear fruit.

Now fruit that flows out of a true return to the LORD must not be treated as though it were a precondition of that return. The LORD is not telling His people that they must first put everything right before they can return but in returning they must not expect to go on living as before – fruit must be there!

Lk.13:6-9 "And Jesus told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. And he said to the vinedresser, ‘Look, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground?’ And he answered him, ‘Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure. Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.”’"

The salvation that the LORD brings is a salvation that involves a new birth, a new life, a new heart, and new loyalties. It is a salvation FROM sin and not a salvation that grants some kind of indemnity that allows us to go on living in sin.

We are not to minimise or trivialise sin as though it were a cream bun "naughty but nice". Living in the covenant we are to be marked by covenant behaviour not that of those outside the covenant! If we do otherwise then we are similar to those sadly described by Isaiah in 29:13:

"this people draw near with their mouth and honour me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men,"

Now having seen what it was that the LORD desired to see we can perhaps better understand that frustration, that disappointment expressed in v.4. Whatever it is that He has done has failed to produce the genuine return of His people to Himself.

But if the LORD didn't find what He wanted what did He find?

You see it wasn't that the people didn't hear the pleas, it wasn't that they made no response whatsoever, it was that their reaction was woefully inadequate.

Now we must learn from this:

1.       No reaction to God's pleas is wrong – that is easy and clear to understand I think.

2.       Not all reactions will please God.

This is more subtle and we may get caught out here if we're not careful. As fallen human beings we like to imagine that God will be pleased with whatever we decide to do, as though He is somehow indebted to us and must reward us for anything we might choose to do. These verses in Hosea warn us that that simply is not the case.

The people did respond to the pleas of Hosea and those of others before him and their response was actually the response of love – but still it did not satisfy. Now why is that?

Look at the second half of v.4:

"Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes early away."

The problem was that their response was only of a temporary nature there was nothing durable or lasting about it. It was more the love of some emotional, knee-jerk reaction to the crisis of the moment, it was a love that was only skin-deep.

We are warned here of a purely human enthusiasm that flares brightly one moment to pass away the next. It is perhaps possible to maintain such human enthusiasm for a time but gradually it cools and dissipates as the morning cloud or as the dew on the grass. It is not long before the person who has shown this kind of response slips back into old habits and old ways.

Prov.26:11 "Like a dog that returns to his vomit is a fool who repeats his folly."

Do you realise that it is this superficiality that causes the LORD His difficulties in v.4 and not horrible, outrageous sins. Shallowness and superficiality sadly characterise much of the professing church in the West today – let us take care that our reactions and responses to the LORD be not like that!

But how? Where does such superficiality come from and why can religious commitment be so ephemeral?

Well we all naturally like to imagine that being reconciled to God is an easy thing, something that lies easily within our grasp. And with such a bias already in us we will rely too readily upon what we can do rather than crying out in desperation to God for His intervention in our lives. A superficial grasp of the truth may promote some warm religious feelings for a time but if these are not consolidated by appropriate action they will soon disappear. You know the saying perhaps "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

Isn't this the message of the story told by Jesus in Mt.12:43-46?

“When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none. Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So also will it be with this evil generation.”

We get so easily distracted by other things and we have mixed motives at the best of times – how we need to cry out to God in the words of the Psalmist:

Ps 86:11 "Teach me your way, O LORD, that I may walk in your truth; unite my heart to fear your name."

Although the LORD has cried out with His repeated questions "What shall I do with you?" He knows what He will do.

The chief means He will use is His Word – yes, judgments may well fall too but they will not come out of the blue as it were, unannounced or unexplained. But the Word may well come is strong violent ways which prove anything but comforting as it reveals God to the creature and sin to the sinner.

Do you see how that Word comes in v.5?

"Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of my mouth, and my judgment goes forth as the light."

God in love wields His Word like this. Just look back to the v.1 of this chapter:

"for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up."

He works for the purposes of restoration but He will strike and wound if need be.

The Bible speaks of the Word of God in a variety of ways which all emphasise this aspect of the Word of God:

Jeremiah referred to the Word of God as a fire and a hammer (Jer.23:29; 20:9). The writer to the Hebrews (Heb.4:12) calls the Word of God a sword that penetrates deeply into the very depths of a man's being. Paul declares that one of its functions is that of correction (2Tim.3:16).

What love of God is displayed here – a pathetically shallow people who respond with only a temporary faith are not thrown over, discarded and forgotten!

And what love God shows to you as He continues to set forth His Son as the One who can save you from your sin! God will not forget or ignore your sin and it will continue to cut you off from Him until you repent and cry out to Him for mercy and salvation.

Oh may the response of us all be genuine and wholehearted. May it be a lasting, persevering response as we trust in Jesus and live new lives in Him. And may those new lives be fruitful bearing the kind of fruit that pleases and honours our great God.

To Him be the praise and the glory. Amen.