Unfaithfulness: Condemnation
Hosea 1:1-2:1; 2 Kings 17:6-23
Last week we looked at the first illegitimate child born to Hosea’s unfaithful wife, Gomer. We noted that the child, whom the Lord instructed Hosea to name Jezreel, represented the first product of unfaithfulness, which is impotence, or the loss of strength. This week, as we continue to consider the consequences for "steppin’ out on God," we will look at the second product of our unfaithfulness.
Gomer conceived again and gave birth to a daughter. The the Lord said to Hosea, "Call her Lo-Ruhamah, for I will no longer show love to the house of Israel, that I should at all forgive them. – Hosea 1:6
To figure out what this means, it is helpful to look at the meaning of Lo-Ruhamah. While the footnotes in your Bible tells you it means "not loved," it is more accurate to say "not pitied." This is an important distinction, because when we think of not being loved, we think of not being made to feel special.
For example, when I am having a pity party and feeling sorry for myself, I might tell my wife, "you don’t show me love." What does that mean? Quite frankly, it means she’s not doing special things for me, like rubbing my back or telling me how handsome I am! In reality, though, she shows me she loves me every day by simpling sticking around after nearly 15 years of my nonsense. On top of that, she cooks for me, washes my clothes, takes care of my kids…and she gives me a bath every three or four days!
So if we were to look at the second product of unfaithfulness as not being loved, we would associate it with how we feel. Some of these feelings, such as loneliness or unworthiness, which many of us feel, are the result of "steppin’ out on God," but that is not what God was getting at with Israel through Hosea.
The KJV seems to give us a better feel for the second product of unfaithfulness. It says, "I will no longer have mercy on the house of Israel." A video clip from the movie "Dead Man Walking" might give us a better understanding of what Hosea was to warn Israel they were going to miss.
In the video, Sister Helen Prejean sits with convicted killer Matthew Poncelet in his cell. When he confesses that he has indeed killed a man, Sister Prejean teaches him that he can become a child of God by asking for forgiveness of his sins and owning up to his responsibility—which he does, realizing that confession doesn’t negate what he’s done. The best he can do is wish the families peace. Poncelet is grateful for Sister Prejean’s compassion and love.* The video concludes with Poncelet telling Sister Prejean, "Thank you for loving me." (* Excerpted from Videos That Teach, by Doug Fields and Eddie James)
The second product of unfaithfulness is not the absence of what we think of as love but the absence of mercy. We call it condemnation. Those who are under condemnation are prone to wondering, "Where’s the love?"
This aspect of the Lord’s message for Israel came true after Israel lost its strength in its battle against Assyria. After Israel fell, the king of Assyria settled them in camps. 2 Kings 17:7-9 explains,
All this took place because the Israelites had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up out of Egypt from under the power of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. They had worshipped other gods and followed the practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before them, as well as the practices that the kings of Israel had introduced. The Israelites secretly did things against the Lord their God that were not right.
After detailing how the Israelites had been unfaithful to the Lord, v. 18 asserts,
So the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them from his presence.
Today, unfaithfulness in the church has given birth to a monster called condemnation that is tormenting people in the church and out. Roy Baumeister, a psychologist at Case Western University, found that the average person spends two hours every day feeling guilty and for 39 minutes of that time, people feel moderate to severe guilt that may greatly limit their abilities.
People everywhere manifest behaviors that are motivated by guilt – everything from shutting themselves in their homes to trying to justify themselves through radical activism. In some cases, guilt can lead to a series of other problems. Christian psychologist Gary Collins says, "talk with people who are depressed, lonely, struggling with marriage problems, homosexual, alcoholic, grieving, dealing with middle age, or facing almost any other problem, and you will find people who experience guilt as part of their difficulties. One writer has even suggested that guilt in some way is involved in all psychological problems."
As Gertrude, Queen of Denmark, notes in Shakespeare’s classic, Hamlet, "So full of artless jealousy is guilt, it spills itself in fearing to be spilt."
Condemnation has an incredible effect on the soul of man. Most likely you’ve known it. Guilt is the response of the conscience to our thoughts and actions, which we know are not always pure. Yet if we allow it to remain, it eats at us to the point it becomes the driving factor in our beliefs and our behavior. "Guilt upon the conscience, like rust upon iron, both defiles it and consumes it, gnawing and creeping into it, as that does which at last eats out the very heart and substance of the metal." – South
So what do we do with condemnation? We might like to condemn it, but we can’t, because to condemn condemnation would embrace condemnation. Are you following me? It’s like those who preach tolerance becoming intolerant of those they say are intolerant! Since true guilt is the artwork of God woven into our consciences, we cannot call it evil as though it were the root of our problems. Condemnation is the cause of many of our woes, but it is truly more of an effect—the effect of our unfaithfulness. So what do we do with it?
1. Always make a fair assessment of your condemnation. If Israel had evaluated the condemnation that was brought against them by Hosea, they might have turned from their idolatrous ways and avoided the exile.
Guilty feelings are not always the work of truth. Some people feel guilty unnecessarily, like the person who misses the flight that crashes and kills everyone on board feeling as though they should have died with them. In some cases, a little bit of guilt goes a long way. When a woman in our church had a car accident that resulted in the death of a 26-year-old single mom, her feelings of guilt far surpassed whatever fault she had in the accident. Instead of learning from her mistakes, which a healthy assessment of the guilt would have allowed, the enemy of her soul convicted her of sins she never committed, condemning her for everything from murder to being a bad mother. It’s important to truthfully evaluate the reason for our guilt.
2. There is a place for condemnation in the Good News. Psalm 5:5 says,
The arrogant cannot stand in your presence; you hate all who do wrong.
Of course, understanding hate in this verse is as critical as understanding love as used in Hosea. We tend to think of hatred as spite. Yet the meaning here has more to do with the withdrawal of God’s mercy. Those who do wrong are left in turmoil through the absence of God’s mercy. It is not God spiting the evildoer, but the absence of his love when, because he is holy, he can’t even look upon our sin.
This is the bad news of the good news. All false guilt aside, real guilt can be the godly sorrow that leads to repentance. When I was 21 years old, I already knew that I was guilty before God. But that made the Good News, Great News! Accepting the bad news about my guilt was the first step to the Triumphant Life.
3. While there is a place for condemnation in our message, condemnation cannot be our message. Obviously, condemnation is not THE Good News.
Believe it or not, there is a website called GodHatesFags.com. This website is actually a church website. It advertises "Love Crusades" where picketers demonstrate with signs that say "God Hates Fags" at gatherings of homosexuals. There is a cartoon of a picketer with a "God Hates Fags" t-shirt, as though it is funny. There is also a link to a memorial to Matthew Shepard, the gay college student who was brutally murdered a few years ago. On that page is a counter declaring that Mr. Shepard has been in hell for 1008 days and a picture of him hovering over flames. Look closer and you’ll finds these words: "God does not hate them because they are homosexuals, they are homosexuals because God hates them." Do you see what the misinterpretation of "hate" in "God hates all who do wrong" leads to?
Friends, God did not give us the ministry of condemnation. There is no spiritual gift of condemnation. God has sent HIS SPIRIT into this world to convict the world of sin. He has given US the ministry of reconciliation. Our message ought to be brought with great fear and trembling as we walk the fine line between exposing the sinfulness of lost men and women and presenting ourselves as being above it. Sure, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, but there has never been a time when we didn’t deserve it. We have no credibility if condemnation is our message, because there has never been a time we have been outside the circle of the condemned. It’s just that those of us within that circle who have believed in Jesus Christ have received a pardon from guilt and will no longer live under its weight.
4. Mercy must be the meat of our message. Mercy is the extension of God’s love toward man. It is God’s mercy that sustains us every day. All men live under the riches of his mercy, or they would not even breathe. It is his mercy that holds back wrath and judgment so that the good news that Jesus paid it all can reach every corner of the globe.
And here’s the crazy thing—God delights in giving us his mercy. He delights in lifting the burden of condemnation from our shoulders. He delights in freeing us from the weight of our guilt.
Are you feeling as though you are Lo-Ruhamah—not pitied? Those who are being crushed by the weight of their own sin need to hear the heart of God extended to Israel, where he confided in Hosea, "they will be called Ruhamah." Pitied. My loved ones. God’s desire is not to leave us forsaken to the condemnation we bring on ourselves, but to free us by his mercy to know that he does, indeed, love us after all.
Do you need to respond to his mercy this evening? I know he loves to hear me tell you that he is full of mercy and wants you to receive his mercy as a gift of his love. There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Will you turn from your unfaithfulness to be in him? You shall no longer be Lo-Ruhamah. You will be my loved ones.
