Sermon Central
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It Is Time
Contributed by Jerry Flury on Jan 5, 2010 (message contributor)
Summary: Hosea tells Israel it is time for them to seek Jehovah that He might hear their prayer and see the evidence of their sincerity and rain His righteous blessing upon them rather than judgment. Like Israel I believe God is telling us today that “It is Time.”
It is Time
“Sow for yourselves righteousness; Reap in mercy; Break up your fallow ground,
For it is time to seek the Lord, Till He comes and rains righteousness on you.”
After the death of Solomon, In 922 BCE, the Kingdom of Israel was divided. The northern Israelite tribes led by Jeroboam revolted against the Davidic monarchy and established the Kingdom of Israel Judah, the southern Kingdom, had Jerusalem as its capital and was led by Rehoboam. Jeroboam realized that it was necessary for them to do something about the religious situation of the northern Kingdom, because there was only one place in which it was right to worship God, and that was in Jerusalem, everyone had to go to Jerusalem. Today there is only one way of salvation, through the Lord Jesus Christ, everyone must come through Him. To avoid a loss of allegiance to his kingdom Jeroboam set up two places of worship constructing golden calves as objects of worship, one of them in Bethel which is Hebrew for “House of God” . As a result Hosea tells us in the opening verses of chapter 10 that Israel’s heart was divided, faithless and deceitful. Hosea warns of the impending judgment and displeasure of God. In verse twelve Hosea tells Israel it is time for them to seek Jehovah that He might hear their prayer and see the evidence of their sincerity and rain His righteous blessing upon them rather than judgment. Like Israel I believe God is telling us today that “It is Time.” It’s time to…
I. Seek the Lord
A. Isaiah 55:6 “Seek the Lord while He may be found, Call upon Him while He is near.”
B. Psalm 34:10 “The young lions lack and suffer hunger; but those who seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing.”
C. Seeking the Lord is to set God as the Supreme Authority of everything in your life and the object of your every desire.
D. Deuteronomy 4:29 “seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul.”
E. I believe that if we are to seek the Lord the way God’s Word tells us it is not a matter of priorities – putting Christ first. I believe it is to become totally absorbed with Christ through a conscious yielding of all to the Holy Spirit. Anything less than a conscious commitment to Jesus Christ is an unconscious commitment to the things of this world.
F. Psalm 27:4 “One thing I have desired of the Lord, that will I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord All the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple.”
G. Philippians 3:13-14 “Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
H. What are the signs of a divided heart?
1 Formality – We go to church but as far as our hearts are concerned, not really interested in growing. Not really interested in putting aside some of our interests for the things of the Lord. Not really interested in sacrificing any of our personal interests; we just want to add to it the worship of God and come on Sunday.
2 Inconsistency – On Sunday, we’re vital and vigorous, but on Monday, you’d never know we were Christians if someone didn’t say, “Are you a Christian?”
3 Fruitlessness – We have no evidence of the fruit of the Spirit in our lives or little if any spiritual offspring that we have brought to the Lord.
I. We sometimes like to say that a person who has one aim in life, one goal, one motivating thing in his life is a fanatic. In one sense, that’s probably true. And if our goal is, as we have just mentioned, good health, happiness, success, proper self-esteem, one would be a fanatic if that’s all that he has as his goal in life. As believers the world may call us fanatics if we become through and through Christians whose lives are fully consecrated to Christ, but the tags do not matter. - copied
J. Paul summed it up in Philippians 1:21 “For to me, to live is Christ...”
K. How would you feel...?
1 ...If God gave you the same amount of time and attention that we devote to Him?
2 ...If God put as many things ahead of us as we put ahead of Him?
3 ...If God offered as many excuses as we do, and if the excuses were no more justifiable than ours?
