8 How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I surrender you, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart is turned over within Me, all My compassions are kindled. 9 I will not execute My fierce anger; I will not destroy Ephraim again. For I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath.”
A characteristic of the prophecy of Hosea is that it can be taken as having three primary sections. I have not made reference to this before now because it is not a fact that necessarily offers a great deal of help in knowing.
I mention it here, because you may wonder why my last sermon was on chapter 8 and this one has jumped all the way to chapter 11.
Well, the sections I’ve referred to would break down like this; chapters 1-4, 5-10 and 11-14. The first four chapters focus on the marriage relationship of Hosea and Gomer and the representation of God’s relationship to His people in that troubled marriage. The next 6 deal primarily with rebellion and judgment and punishment. The last 4, from 11-14 continue to deal with judgment, but expand to demonstrate God’s love and His redemptive work.
So in the last four sermons in this series we have been in that middle section and I do not want to belabor the points we’ve made to your distraction.
A couple of years ago we went through Ephesians virtually verse by verse.
I am afraid that if I attempted to approach this book with that much detail I would soon be preaching only to my wife and daughter, and they would soon be finding excuses each Sunday morning to walk to Sonic for a strawberry limeade.
Now I am not implying here that there is nothing to preach from these chapters or that they are not important. It is my firm conviction, not that the scriptures need my defense but I give it anyway, that every paragraph, every phrase, every word of the Bible is God-breathed and profitable to the degree of indispensable for the believer’s heart and life.
In fact, I would encourage you to take the time to carefully read through chapters 9 and 10 later for your own benefit. But I want to move more generally through Hosea, gleaning food for the soul as we go, and not slow down to the point of making you feel as though we’re dragging our heels.
So let’s take a look now at the chapter of our text today and see what is revealed to us there about the great love and goodness and grace of our God, who is both just and the one who justifies.
LOVING FATHER
In verse 1 of this chapter speaking through the prophet God likens Himself to a loving parent. It is a theme that is built upon over the next 4 verses with phrases like ‘…it is I who taught Ephraim to walk’, and ‘I took him in My arms’ and ‘…I bent down and fed them’.
At this point I have to back up for a moment into chapter ten, because what God says in verse 1 of chapter 11 is so much more striking in contrast.
Hear verses 14-15 of chapter 10
14 Therefore a tumult will arise among your people, and all your fortresses will be destroyed, as Shalman destroyed Beth-arbel on the day of battle, when mothers were dashed in pieces with their children. 15 Thus it will be done to you at Bethel because of your great wickedness. At dawn the king of Israel will be completely cut off.
Because of their unabated wickedness God has announced the horror that is to come. He makes reference to a slaughter that must have been recent enough to them so they remembered the carnage and the reports of cruelty, and He says this is what is coming upon them for their continued sin.
And can’t you almost envision a father who is both angry and sad for the plight of his rebellious son? Declaring to him the consequences that he will surely have to suffer for his foolish actions and his unwillingness to listen to wise counsel; then sitting down with a sigh, head in hands, leaning over a table top or resting his elbows on his knees and saying more to himself than anyone, all these things that are in verses 1-4. “When my son was a youth I loved him. I brought him forth, I held his hand while he learned to walk, when he lifted his arms I picked him up, when he was hurt I bound his wounds, when he was hungry I provided his food. And now he has come to this.
So it seems to be here with God as He laments the judgment He must bring on Israel. See verse 5?
”They will not return to the land of Egypt; But Assyria—he will be their king because they refused to return to Me.”
Even though they knew God had delivered their ancestors from slavery to Egypt and brought them out, yet they were going to flee to Egypt and put their trust there instead of turning back to God and trusting Him.
You can read about the fulfillment of His declaration that Assyria will be their king, in 2 Kings 17:4-6
Incidentally, you may remember the words of verse 1 of our text used in another place. While here in the immediate context of the prophecy the hearers of that day would have been thinking of the deliverance of the Children of Israel out of Egypt by God’s mighty hand and under the leadership of Moses, by the Holy Spirit’s inspiration Matthew, over 800 years later, understood it to be a messianic reference to the Child of Bethlehem who would go down with his parents into Egypt to await the death of Herod.
13 …behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up! Take the Child and His mother and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is going to search for the Child to destroy Him.” 14 So Joseph got up and took the Child and His mother while it was still night, and left for Egypt. 15 He remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: “OUT OF EGYPT I CALLED MY SON.” Matthew 2:14-15
JUST GOD
So we have this striking contrast; God declaring through the prophet the horror that is to sweep over the land and sweep them all away, and then like a Father whose heart is tender even toward His wayward child He reflects on better times when Israel was young and He raised him up.
But God, though yearning for His lost child, is just and must deal justly.
Somewhere I read Thomas Jefferson quoted as saying, “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just”.
How much more, now, if we were wise and honest, should we tremble for our country, this same country of which Jefferson spoke when it was so young and so relatively innocent?
Our country that has gone from literally fighting for the freedom to worship God, to being embarrassed to mention Him in public forum because we don’t want to invoke the mockery of those who have decided in their infinite folly that He doesn’t exist, or that if He does He is an insignificance?
Our country that has gone from cherishing its children, protecting them, raising them in the respect and admonition of the Lord, to murdering them part way out of the womb because they are an inconvenience, and if they are allowed to live, filling their young and impressionable minds with such garbage that they, in their private reflections, wonder what the point is in living at all, since they can’t see a usefulness present in their lives and have no hope for a future existence beyond this one.
Our country that has traded God, family, community and brotherly love for hedonism, greed, self-centeredness, hatred for the sake of hating and just plain silly, thoughtless wandering through the days and striving after the almighty dollar.
Our country that now defends and even approves in its citizens the very sin for which God wiped Sodom and Gomorrah completely and literally off the face of the planet.
If Jefferson trembled then, how much more now should we? There is, however, one thing that has not changed and will not change. That thing that Jefferson reflected on; that he considered; that he pondered, and so must we.
God…is…just.
Why should we tremble at that? Because He does not change and He must be true to Himself.
Imagine if you will, these words being directed at the United States of America, and please do not deceive yourself that it could not ever come to this here.
“And the sword will whirl against their cities, and will demolish their gate bars, and consume them because of their counsels. So My people are bent on turning from Me, though the preachers call them to the One on high, none at all exalts Him”
What an indictment, against a nation that has seen His miracles, has been protected and raised up by His hand alone, has benefited from His provision over and over again, has been blessed to have His heralds clearly proclaiming His love and His patience and His desire for their fellowship as well as His warnings, yet they continue to turn from Him, continue in blatant sin, continue to worship other gods of their own making, blaspheming, mocking His name, doing everything in their power to blot His name out of public speech and out of the common home.
Am I talking now about ancient Israel? Or America?
That God is a just God is a truth men do not want to face. They’d like to forget it. They try to forget it. When they attempt to put forth an image of God as a moral invertebrate who would never bring calamity, who would never assign anyone to an eternal Hell, who exists to bless but never to punish, they deny His justice.
If you have a god who is not just, then you have a god who is not dependable. And a god who is not dependable cannot be called kind or loving. A god who is neither kind nor loving nor dependable nor just would by nature be an arbitrary, self-serving, unavailable and untrustworthy god.
Therefore in trying to do away with the idea of God being just in terms of dealing with disobedience, they have made him no more than the mythical gods of the ancient Greeks, who themselves are self-centered brats with the emotional stability of a teeny-bopper.
If you don’t know what I mean, take the time to read some of the stories and see how the so-called gods deal with men and with one another. They’re a pathetic bunch at best.
William G.T. Shedd, in his Dogmatic Theology wrote: “God cannot lay down a law, affix a penalty, and threaten infliction, and proceed no further, in case of disobedience. The divine veracity forbids this.” New York, Chas. Scribner’s Sons, 1889
Now when we read the text verses that I led with we might be inclined to think that God is not just, that is, that His justice is not dependable, since it appears He is relenting and deciding that what He has declared will not come upon Israel at all. Let’s see them again:
8 How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I surrender you, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart is turned over within Me, all My compassions are kindled. 9 I will not execute My fierce anger; I will not destroy Ephraim again. For I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath.”
Well obviously this cannot mean that He will not carry through with what He has decreed, because we know that those things did come upon them, and they were carried away to Assyria, and all those things did happen.
We get our clue to what He is talking about in His reference to Admah and Zeboiim. These were cities in the plain near Sodom and Gomorrah that were utterly destroyed with those cities.
We read about that in Deuteronomy 29:23, which describes the total waste of the land and the permanence of the desolation that came to that place as an example. I say ‘example’, because Jude says ‘example’.
7 just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.”
God, His great compassion being aroused by the trouble about to descend on His people, declares that He can never utterly desolate Israel as He did to those cities. He is not relenting here. He is not proposing to hold back justice. He is making a promise for their encouragement and ours.
This harks back to Exodus 33:19, when God passed before Moses and declared Himself to him.
19 And He said, “I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the LORD before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion.”
There He was asserting His sovereignty in dealing with His creatures. He might have worded it “My grace and my compassion are Mine to bestow on whomever I please; whether men think they are deserving or not will not color my decision or hold Me back from being gracious and compassionate.”
And I thought of that verse when I read, “For I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath”.
God is just. God must be true to Himself and justice must be served. But that does not mean He has to deal it out in wrath that will destroy forever. He will deal justly with His people. But He will deal justly in love and compassion because He is God, not man, and His love is demonstrated in His willingness and His desire to dwell among them.
JUSTIFIER GOD
That brings me to talk about the God who is not only just, but who justifies.
First I want to be certain that we are all on the same page, so to speak, when we use the word ‘justified’ or any form of it as concerns Bible doctrine.
You who have been with me locally have heard these things before but don’t close your ears or go to sleep or go out for a walk, because this is something that ought to be meditated on often.
The first thing we’ll do is throw out the shallow and incomplete definition so often dribbled out in church, that ‘justified’ means ‘it’s just as if I never sinned’.
It most certainly is NOT just as if you and I never sinned, Christian, please be very clear on that point.
I know the teachers who use that crutch are trying to make the point that when God declares you justified He sees you as one who has never sinned, meaning all your sin is put away forever and you are declared clean by Him.
That’s not good enough. Here I say it again. The doctrine of justification is defined as having been declared right with God, by God, through faith in the shed blood and resurrection of Christ alone.
That means that when the Holy Spirit has granted a person repentance and by faith that person has, in obedience to the Spirit’s leading believed in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for the purging of his sin and the granting of life from above, by God’s grace alone that person is justified. He or she is once and forever declared right with God and is, from that moment and for eternity, perfectly acceptable to God through the righteousness of His Son and not for any merit of their own.
Brothers and sisters, I do not want to adopt an attitude that being justified means it is just as if I never sinned. I am well aware of my sin, both past and present. Past because of my human memory and present by the gracious convicting power of the Holy Spirit.
But when I am aware of my sin I am reminded that Jesus paid it all. I am reminded that there is therefore no penalty for me, no condemnation for me, because God judged my sin in the flesh of His only Son on Calvary’s cross on a hill so far away and so long ago and that reminds me that He is both just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus, and that’s me! Rom 3:26
I tremble for my sin, when I reflect that God is just. But the ceasing of my trembling is all the more sweet when I reflect that my King died in my place, then rose bodily as He promised in victory over death and the grave, and introduced me by faith into this grace in which I stand, purified and complete and welcome at the Throne of the Father who justifies.
Through the prophet who was probably amazed and confused even as he wrote the words given within him, God declared three ‘I will not’s.
I will not execute My fierce anger. I will not destroy Ephraim again. I will not come in wrath.
On what basis did He cry out these assurances?
On the basis that He is God, the Holy One, who dwells in the midst of His people.
Remember back in chapter 5 when He vowed to rend Ephraim like a young lion and then withdraw Himself from them until they repented?
But now His great heart constrains Him to let them know that He will once again dwell among them because His great compassion is kindled and He cannot give them up forever.
And this forespeaks of another day when His compassion for sinners would bring Him down to become flesh and tabernacle among us so that He might bring us back out of the exile of sin and establish us finally in a place that He Himself would prepare; a city not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
10 They will walk after the LORD, He will roar like a lion; Indeed He will roar and His sons will come trembling from the west. 11 They will come trembling like birds from Egypt and like doves from the land of Assyria; and I will settle them in their houses, declares the LORD. Hosea 11:10-11
TREMBLE
One final point and I’ll end. I’ll frame it as a question. Should we tremble before God? Do you ever find yourself trembling; maybe not literally and physically but deep inside somewhere sort of afraid of God?
And here you might ask, ‘Afraid of God? Clark after all the things you’ve been saying about His grace and what He has done you aren’t afraid of Him, are you?”
And I answer, “Right down to my socks, Brother!”
In my weaker moments when I doubt, not the scriptures, not the doctrine I teach, not the information, but my self. What if I’ve deceived myself? What if the things I tell you are not a reality in me and I one day stand before Him and hear ‘Depart from Me, I never knew you’?
And I think about my sin and I think about that nature that is all too often successful in rising up within me and revealing itself in my members.
The generation of God’s people that He brought back from Egypt and exile came a-trembling, as they remembered the stories their parents and grand parents told them about the wickedness that a just God had to deal with and the devastation that had come upon them.
They trembled because what called them back was not the gentle, pleading call of a lover as Gomer may have heard so often from Hosea, but the roar of a lion and they knew that their deliverer, who now poured out His grace and His compassion to make them His once more, remained a God of justice still.
So yes, sometimes I tremble. And so should you, believer.
But with the trembling should come the recollection that 5 He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. Titus 3:5-7
And let the trembling cease, not because we are smugly presuming upon His promises as though He owes us something for our piety, but because in humility and contrition and gratitude for His marvelous grace, we have reflected that God is the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
And because of that and that alone, He will not come to us in wrath.
