June 6-8, 2015 Pastor Timothy J. Spaude Text: Hosea 5:13-6:6 “HOSEA TEACHES TRUE REPENTANCE!”

MAJORING IN THE MINORS: HOSEA

June 6-8, 2015

Pastor Timothy J. Spaude

Text: Hosea 5:13-6:6

“HOSEA TEACHES TRUE REPENTANCE!”

1.     Own your sin.

2.     Real remorse.

3.     Run to God!

4.     A change of heart.

Hosea 5:13-6:6 (NIV 1984) "When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his sores, then Ephraim turned to Assyria, and sent to the great king for help. But he is not able to cure you, not able to heal your sores. 14 For I will be like a lion to Ephraim, like a great lion to Judah. I will tear them to pieces and go away; I will carry them off, with no one to rescue them. 15 Then I will go back to my place until they admit their guilt. And they will seek my face; in their misery they will earnestly seek me. "Come, let us return to the LORD. He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds. 2 After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence. 3 Let us acknowledge the LORD; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth." 4 "What can I do with you, Ephraim? What can I do with you, Judah? Your love is like the morning mist, like the early dew that disappears. 5 Therefore I cut you in pieces with my prophets, I killed you with the words of my mouth; my judgments flashed like lightning upon you. 6 For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.”

          We are at the time of year when most students have graduated from their respective schools. College grads are hoping for jobs. Can you imagine being the proud parent of this student? He comes home and says, “Mom, Dad, I got a job!” “Wonderful!” you say. “What is it?” “ I’m going to be a prophet.” “What will you do?” “Well, the first thing I’m supposed to do is marry a prostitute. She’ll give me children, you grandchildren, but they won’t be mine. I’m not sure whose they will be because my wife will keep being unfaithful to me. But I’ll stick with her.” Not exactly what a parent hopes for, is it? Yet this is exactly what God asked the prophet Hosea to do. He married a prostitute named Gomer. Now the only other Gomer I know is Gomer Pyle. This woman was a pile, a pile of unfaithfulness. After she and Hosea were married she continued to sleep around. Hosea stuck with her. Who would do such a thing? God would. God did. That was a reason behind this reprehensible relationship. It was on object lesson.  A visual aid. A picture of the relationship between the people of Israel and God. God was staying faithful to His people even though they cheated on Him by trusting in idols, worshipping them because their style of worship was filled with sinful fun. All God wanted was to have them back. So He used Hosea and this awful life as yet another call to repentance. That’s how this Minor Prophet serves us today. Hosea teaches us true repentance.

          Repentance is necessary to have a relationship with God. Believers are repenters and repenters are believers. Our new confirmands who are looking forward to their first communion were taught the importance of repentance before the Lord’s Supper so it is not taken to one’s judgment. Just what does it mean to repent? Hosea teaches us first to own your sin. And the way he teaches us is by the bad example of the people he served. “When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his sores, then Ephraim turned to Assyria, and sent to the great king for help. But he is not able to cure you, not able to heal your sores.” The people of Israel did not own their sin. When God sent troubles to them to call them to repentance they did not acknowledge their sin and turn to God.  They looked to the country of Assyria for help. Do you own your sin or do you make excuses and look for other solutions rather than repentance? What language do we use as we post and tweet? “Everyone talks that way!” Own your sin! We take God’s name in vain by saying “Oh my G…” but only seem to care if the pastor’s around. Own your sin. What else will worship of God take second place to in your lives? Own your sin. Only then is there true repentance.

          Real remorse is also a part of true repentance. It looked like the people Hosea spoke to were remorseful. "Come, let us return to the LORD. He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds. 2 After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence. 3 Let us acknowledge the LORD; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth." This sure sounds good. But that’s all it was. Words.  You can tell from God’s response. "What can I do with you, Ephraim? What can I do with you, Judah? Your love is like the morning mist, like the early dew that disappears. 5 Therefore I cut you in pieces with my prophets, I killed you with the words of my mouth; my judgments flashed like lightning upon you.” God compares their sorrow over sin to the morning mist that is burned off  by the sun. Real remorse is different. We know that. Every parent has gone through the “Now say you’re sorry,” thing with a child knowing full well that saying sorry isn’t the same as being sorry. Sometimes our sinful natures want us to feel bad that we got caught instead of sad that we offended God yet again. Sometimes in teaching children the seriousness of sin you might use the picture of each sin pounding the nail further into Jesus’ hand or pushing the crown of thorns down harder and harder. The reality is if sin could be paid for that way we all could pay for our own. But it can’t. The suffering that Jesus endured to pay for sin is worse than we can imagine. Real remorse recognizes the damage done and accepts responsibility. Israel didn’t but we still can.

          And we can do what God was looking for. Run to him. He tried to get Israel to do that.  “For I will be like a lion to Ephraim, like a great lion to Judah. I will tear them to pieces and go away; I will carry them off, with no one to rescue them. 15 Then I will go back to my place until they admit their guilt. And they will seek my face; in their misery they will earnestly seek me.” God used invading armies to push the people to return to Him. That was the goal. Sometimes we need pushes too. Don’t misunderstand me. Every “bad” thing that happens in our life, whether accident or sickness or misfortune, is not God calling us to repentance. On the other hand people loved by God are wise to ask themselves if it is. God chastens those He loves. He does things to keep us close. Far better that we never give Him reasons to tear us to pieces to get us to run back. Far better to run to God every day. When you do what will you find? A merciful God who is faithful  in spite of our unfaithfulness. What will God say when you say “I’m sorry for my sins.” He will say, “I forgive you.” You know it because He promises it and enabled it by giving His Son who has already been punished for every sin.

          That leads us to have a change of mind about sin. That’s also an aspect of repentance. “ For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.” Things on the outside are easy. You can say you are sorry without being sorry. You can attend worship without worshipping. You can give money without being thankful. God wants the heart. Mercy, better here, faithful love instead of unfaithfulness. Repentance happens on the inside first and then shows on the outside. First comes “I don’t want that sin as a part of my life,” then comes the efforts to make that true. Hosea teaches true repentance.

          I feel bad for the guy. He had a tough ministry position to fill. The fact that he stuck with an unfaithful wife highlighted God’s faithfulness to unfaithful people. He stayed faithful to this people because He had promised a Savior. Sadly Israel still didn’t get it. But we do. Wouldn’t the story have read better if Hosea had gotten to marry a faithful wife? Let’s have that be the picture of our relationship to God. Let’s be faithful to Him. We are when we live a life of repentance like Hosea taught. Own your sin. Have real remorse. Run to God daily for forgiveness and show Him a change of mind. Amen.