The Mayflower Pulpit

This sermon explores the profound spiritual union believers share with Jesus Christ, a 'mystic harmony' that transcends typical understanding. It emphasizes that this union is foundational to every aspect of Christian life and salvation, empowering believers to live a new life dead to sin and alive to God.

Read or follow along with the full transcript on our site.

We've been thinking about thinking for some time. We've been thinking about the kinds of thoughts that Christians think and the kinds of thoughts that unbelievers think. And we're going to continue that today this morning. And in particular, I want us to be thinking about how we should be thinking about God. A.W. Tozer once wrote, "What comes to mind when we think about God is the most important thing about us. And I think he's exactly right. What what we think about when we begin to think about God is probably one of the most important things that tell us who we really are and is one of the most important things and how we are living our life.

So we got on this idea of thinking a couple of months ago. I guess it's been a while back. When we started looking at Romans chapter 8 and verse 6, the phrase there is for the mindset of the flesh is death, but the mindset of the spirit is life and peace. And the two categories there, the mindset of the flesh is the mindset of an unbeliever. And the other category is the mindset of the spirit is the mind that the the mind of a Christian that is controlled by the Holy Spirit of God.

And so I was what I was thinking about is one of the most important phrases that you come across in the Bible that tells us about how we're to think about God that runs through both testaments. You find it in the Old Testament. You find it multiple times in the New Testament is the phrase the fear of God. You're familiar with the verse Job 28:28. Behold the fear of the Lord. that is wisdom and to turn away from evil is understanding. We've heard we remember the psalm that says the fear of the Lord is the is wisdom and we and the proverb that says the fear of the lord is the beginning of knowledge and it is something that is crucial it's something foundational in Exodus 20 and verse 20 Moses wrote for God has come in in order to test you and in order that the fear of him may remain with you so that you may not sin.

And in Deuteronomy 10 and verse 12, we we read, "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 and to love him." So the idea of that passage is is the the fear is one of the basic ideas in that covenant and that covenant relationship with God. So, it's crucial that we begin to think about what the phrase means.

Now, this shows up in lots of sermons because you come across it a lot. And I was looking through my notes to find the sermon that I preached on the fear of God before. And I think I discovered that I've never preached a sermon on the fear of God before. And so, but I have talked talked about it multiple times before and I think that's true of most preachers. I don't think you often get a sermon just on this phrase the fear of the Lord and what that means. And one of the things that you do get almost every time when you when anyone is talking about the fear of the Lord is almost always they began by saying it's really not fear. You know is that what you usually hear? It's really not fear. The Fear of God is defined as a profound reverence for God that results in a life that is seeking to please God. Well, that's true. It's true. But I think it's secondary. It's a second step.

And so, what I want to do this morning is begin to think about the way an unbeliever thinks about God. Beginning with that, those kinds of thoughts. What is the thoughts of an unbeliever? about God. And when we when we when we go there, we're going to find that that the unbeliever doesn't think about God a lot at all. That's the norm. Unbelievers tend to not think much about God at all. That's true for an awful lot of people. You You know, I was talking someone with someone this this week and and it you know it just came up and and it and and what I said was it's it's typical isn't it a man goes to work in the morning gets up he he gets ready he's thinking about his job he goes to work he interacts with the people in his job he tries to do a pretty good job he works all day he comes home he does a few things around the house and then maybe watches television for a couple hours and goes to bed doesn't think about God at all.

And we occupy our time. People occupy their time and all of us can occupy our time with all kinds of things. If you watch a television show, when was the last television show you watched that had something truly to do with God. And it's not that it never happens. It does. We heard an example of ana an accidental thing of that because it was based on a novel from the 1800s. But the but you do find examples But boy are they rare. Most of the time when you watch a show or something, you find that there is no reference to God at all. You go through the thing from beginning to end, never have a thought of God.

Same thing is true for just about any magazine that you pick up or the newspaper. Wasn't always true of newspapers and magazines. Certainly true of just about all newspapers and magazines today. You look at these things, you will never think about God. as long as those things occupying your thought and that's by design. I mean that's part of the reason people buy the magazines. People don't particularly want to think about God and when they do think about God they usually rep push those thoughts aside because there is a kind of fear of God that's just so so so small. so small as to be called no fear of God at all.

To to see that in the Bible, I I want to read a passage you're familiar with in Romans chapter 3. And I'm going to read I'm going to read from verse 9 to verse 19. 10 verses here for short. And and let me explain Paul's argument here. He's explained that all people basically he's concluding here that all people of all kinds are guilty before God. Every one of us are sinners before God. He started with pagans who reject God. He moves on to people who have a kind of morality and they're also condemned before God. And then he looked at the Jew with all the special advantages of the Jew in chapter three. And they do. God has shown them special grace. He's given them and entrusted them with his very word. He They have experienced great mercy and they have received the law of God. But what about them themselves? The law that they've received from God condemns them. That's his point. They're found in short falling short in so many ways and so much in need of God's mercy because they are found to be sinful before God. And that's what he is doing.

Okay. So in verse n he when he says are we we Jews better? Are we better than the others? And he says not at all for we've already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all all under sin. And what he does here next is he starts quoting scripture. He's this is scripture and he's quoting scripture. He's quoting from the Old Testament all of these separate things. And and and so he says it is written There's none righteous, not even one. There's none who understands. There's none who seeks for God. All have turned aside together. They have become useless. There's none who does good. There's not even one.

I mean, literally, he's saying when you start looking around and finding the good person and you start counting all the good people that you're going to ever count, you're not going to get to one. There's not one and their throats isn't here. Here he begins to focus on the individual sinner. And the point is that every aspect of the person is touched by sin in a in a most profound way. Their throat is an open grave. Their tongue with their tongues they keep deceiving. The poison of asps is under their lips. Remember all of these are Old Testament quotes. whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. So that pretty well takes care of your speech, doesn't it? All those we don't speak very well, do we? When we we we fall great short and our speech is sinful in its nature.

And then their feet are swift to shed blood. The things that we do and our actions, destruction and misery are in their paths. We ways that lead us into more sin and the paths of peace they've not known. And look verse 18. Why is this? Why is the nature of people so sinful? And he says there's no fear of God before their eyes. That's the answer. They do not fear God.

You know my I think when we start thinking about that phrase, the fear of God, which translates an Old Testament word that means fear and when you get to the New Testament passages translates a New Testament Greek word that means fear and it's translated with an English word that means fear and I think the place to begin is with fear I think that's the place to begin when we come to understand who God is and his nature and when we understand who we are and our sinfulness We should begin with a serious understanding that we should be in fear of this God. We should be fe in fear of this God. That's the place of a sinner before God. Do they think that way? Typically, no. Not at all. They don't think that way at all.

And yet, and yet in the Bible, when people are confronted with God. It's evident. It's evident that God can be terrifying. He is terrifying. I'm I'm I have to be careful not to get caught up with too many sidrack things. But that word terrifying is interesting to me. God is terrible. Terrible. We don't like that phrase, do we? Why? Because we don't know what the word terrible means anymore. We think that terrible means something unpleasant like Alexander who had a terrible no good very bad day terrible as you know broccoli sprouts something I don't like is terrible terrible originally the idea of terrible means something that causes terror and I want to tell you God is absolely absolutely capable and it does and should cause terror. Terror.

We don't tend to think about God that way, do we? We're kind of encouraged never to think of God that way. But when you read the Old and New Testament, so many times you come across places where that is so clear, so clear because God is not like us. He's not like another human being. The way we can tend to think about God, God is altogether different. And he's perfectly infinitely powerful in all that he is. He's perfectly holy and righteous and pure in all that he is. And to come into his presence, it's a terrifying thing.

I mean, there's there's examples of that. Adam, after he sins, he knows God. He's been walking with God, enjoying fellowship ship with God. But now he's sinned. And what is he doing? He's hiding. Hiding in the garden. He hides from he's fear. He's his His his sin has caused him to dread God. The book of Isaiah. Isaiah is given a vision of God, an incredible vision where he sees God. And when he's confronted with the purity of God. You know the you know the passage, it causes him to say, "Woe is me because I'm a man of unclean lips." We read about those lips a few moments ago. I'm a man of unclean lips and I dwell among a people of unclean lips. He was terrified. He he he was totally crushed by the holiness of God.

The Apostle John, and this one is startling. In the New Testament, you have John the Apostle who walked with Jesus all those days. Among Jesus disciples, John was among the closest. He's called the beloved disciple. John receives a vision. We the it's a revelation of Jesus Christ. It is the book of revelation of Jesus Christ. And as John sees Jesus, as John meets the glorified Jesus, he falls as a dead man before him. It's like, you know, it's terrifying to be in the presence of the perfectly righteous Jesus and all that he is, the line of the tribe of Judah, and all of his glory. And he collapses was a dead man before him.

Deuteronomy 7:21, "The Lord thy God is among you, a mighty God and terrible." Terrible. That means that he causes terror. Nehemiah 15, the great and terrible God. Psalm 47:2, the Lord most high and terrible. That that psalm is describing the nations trembling before God. Psalm 68:35, "Oh God, thou art terrible out of thy holy places." Daniel 9:4, "The Lord great and the the great and dreadful God." We don't use those language, that language to talk about God anymore. We don't, you know, God is terrible.

One of the words that we used to use, you can find it in hymns if you go back a hundred years, and you can find it in The Bible, if you look carefully enough for it, is the word awful. We don't think of God being awful. Why? Because the word awful doesn't mean awful anymore. The word awful means very bad, something unpleasant, just like terrible. It's funny how we've pushed those words aside so that we don't know what they mean anymore. But awful means co causing something causing you to be filled with Awe. That's the idea. And it absolutely is a terrifying thing. If you could grasp anything true about God that is true about God, any aspect of the any of his attributes, no matter which one, you could pick any of them. If to comprehend the one attribute is so overwhelming, so overwhelming, it has to lead us to awe. When you think about the greatness of his power, it has to lead us to incredible awe. He's way so far beyond us, we can't comprehend. Can't comprehend him at all. And to comprehend him should lead us to a frightful terror.

People aren't afraid of God. Most people have no fear of God at all. They may be afraid of all kinds of things and they are of course they're they're afraid of, you know, they're they're they're afraid of um they're afraid of other people certainly. It's why we put locks on our doors, isn't it? Afraid of people, afraid of all kinds of things, afraid your car might break down on the on the on the interstate. afraid of all sorts of things. Afraid of afraid of the future. Afraid of all kinds of things. But we're not. We don't tend to be afraid of God. People don't tend to be afraid of God. They should be. They absolutely should be. Jesus said that we should not fear those who can kill the body only, but But instead, fear him who after he's killed has the power to cast into hell. He says, "Fear him." Fear him. And you know what that word means? It means fear him.

So people don't think about that God. They don't live their life with him in mind at all because as long as they don't have to think much about him, They can live comfortably in their way in their little routine. Getting up in the morning, going to their job, coming home and watching a little TV, maybe doing a few things on the internet they shouldn't and going to bed and then starting their day tomorrow. As they progress in that, the sin gets worse and worse. That's why our society is so corrupt today because we live in a godless society where God is banned banned from our educational system. Go to send a kid to school and he's not allowed to think about God. He's given no instruction in God. It was not that way when our country was founded. It was exactly the opposite. All education was moral and its instruction, but it was also centered on Jesus Christ and who he is. Look at the founding documents of our major educational institutions that was originally founded, Harvard or Yale or Princeton.

But we live in a godless society where God is not to be thought of. And what does it lead to? Well, it leads to more and more people taking delight sometimes in the fact that they think God is not nothing much. They minimize God. They think they think very little about him. So they become contemptuous and that contempt multiplies and as their mind is controlled by the flesh, it grows. There's a years this is this stuff is old. What I'm about to tell you is a couple it's a decade or more old, but a San Diego strip club, a large sign that reads, "We didn't create sin. We just perfected it." A TV channel boasted about its adult programming guaranteed to break more commandments than any other lineup.

You know what they think of God? If they think of God at all, they think that God is such a soft person. He's so He loves everybody. Loves everybody. And he has no standard. There's no standard. But God has taken the time in his word to tell us what his moral standard is for us. He gives it to us in the Old Testament and all those commandments that teach us how to live before him. Teach us what morality is teach us what the holy standard of God is and he expects us to live to up to it not partially but perfectly. That's the standard of God. Jesus said be perfect even as your father in heaven is perfect. That's the standard.

How do you think about a God like that who is so perfectly holy and who calls us to holy holy iness. There's internet sites there's there's a group of internet sites called the Alibi Network. Have you ever heard of that? They I'm glad you haven't. They they are set up to to help you have an alibi. when you need it. And they're very sophisticated. They can give you fake travel documents. They can they set up to make you have this perfect alibi for when you want to spend time doing whatever it is you want to do so that you don't get caught with it. They will lie for you so that you can commit adultery or whatever else whatever other sin you want to commit. You just contact the Alibi network and pay the feast and you can have a very convincing alibi. But every day these people who don't think of God at all are creating a debt to God that increases moment by moment and day by day for all their life creating a debt that is incomprehensible. One sin is eternal against God and they multiply sin against sin against sin and they have no fear from the God that they're offending. No fear of him.

I think the place to begin when we think about the fear of God is to have a big enough understanding of God, the incredibly infinite God that we worship to be able to fear him, to understand who he is. is and to recognize that a day of judgment is coming. And God will bring judgment. He'll bring judgment. We need it, don't we? Everybody knows there needs to be justice done when you think about the sinfulness and the wickedness and the things that happen in the world. But what happens if God brings justice on all of us? None of us stand before him. Why? Because every one of us is found in Romans 3:10 to 18. That's where we began this life. It's where many of us end this life. We're all sinners before God. Condemned. Condemned under God is the natural state because of our sin. So we need grace. We need grace.

Well, that's the mindset of the flesh and the fear of God. The contrast with a believer is that they do fear God and that their fear has transformed more like what I was that definition that I read earlier more about reverential awe. But but still with the trembling because God is infinitely great and we are not and he's infinitely holy. So when we come to the mindset of the spirit we begin you know with a true vision of God by the grace of God. God has confronted us with our sin and given us that vision and we recognize our place. before God.

I remember Jerry Bridges and one of his books was talking about someone had gave him gave him Steven Charox's books on the attributes of God and he happened to be thinking about and studying the holiness of God at the time. So what did he do? He turned to that section on the holiness of God and he you know he had read Isaiah's vision that I talked about earlier where Isaiah says, you know, I'm lost from a man of unclean lips. I dwell among a people of unclean lips when he's confronted with the holiness of God. Well, as as Bridges reads what Char wrote a couple hundred years ago, as he's reading that, he's just brought to his knee is he recognized he's a he's a believer. He's a Christian and he recognized the sinfulness of his life when he when he's confronted with how incredibly holy God is as Sho begins to explain the holiness of God. He recognizes how far short he falls of that. And so he's on his knees repenting of his sin. And then finally he gets up and reads some more. And then he's on his knees again repenting of his sin.

And he says he says that's a nano experience of what Isaiah experienced. He he he says you know we use he says those words we use he said when you start hearing about computers he says first you heard about micro you know a micro second which is a very small thing and then and then you began to hear about you know as microprocessors and micro seconds and then you heard finally about nanoconds and a nancond is 1 billionth of a second. He says my experience with char was probably 1 billionth of what Isaiah experienced when he got a true vision of what God is like.

You know when we realize what it's going to be like to be in the presence of God It it should absolutely bring us to a knees and we need that vision. Otherwise, we'll never be humble before God. We need that vision of God's holiness. We need that vision of God's perfection. And then it leads us to our knees, doesn't it? It causes us to repent, to turn to him, to seek his forgiveness, his righteousness. And it's then we can begin to see what Christ has done for us. See what the love of God has done for us.

When we come to faith in Jesus Christ, because of Christ's perfect work on the cross, because of that perfect work where Christ gave us his righteousness, but first took upon himself our sinfulness, paid that sin debt, took the condemnation that we deserved, paid that debt, that and paid it fully completely satisfying it before the father so that the father is satisfied when he looks at us. He sees no more sin in us because Christ has paid that sin debt. We've been reading Romans 8 so many times and a few times we've gone back to verse one where it says there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. That means It's right to fear and understand the awesomeness of God, but you don't as a believer who is in Jesus Christ. If you're in Jesus Christ, if you've put your trust in him, you're trusting the sacrifice that he has done in your place and you and God sees you in Christ. If God sees you in Christ, then you don't have to fear condemnation or judgment or stand before him on that great day because Christ has borne that wrath. You don't have to be afraid of that ever again. You don't have to be afraid of God as your judge.

So, what is the fear of God for the believer? Let me I'm I'm going to conclude with this, but we're going to do the Lord's table this morning, but I I think a good place to to see this is in in 2 Corinthians. Chapter 7. Turn over to 2 Corinthians chapter 7 in your Bible. See if I can do that. I'm going to read verse one. One here. Verse one of 2 Corinthians chapter 7. Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. All right. Do you know where you have to begin with this verse with that word therefore? For this reason. For this reason, having these promises. Well, what promises? We'll look back just a little bit. Look back toward that last part of 2 Corinthians 6. Just as God said, I will dwell in them and walk among them. This is the covenant promise of God for people who are in Christ. I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God and they shall be my people. Therefore, come out from a midst and be separate, says the Lord, and do not touch what is unclean. And I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.

Well, think about that mighty God who can crush nations, galaxies. It's nothing. Think about the power of God. And then think about that God being your father and you're his son. You're his precious daughter. And he loves you with a mighty love. How differently that power seems, doesn't it? How how great what a great difference that is when you know he the shepherd's rod and the shepherd's staff are a terrifying thing to the one who wants to to invade the sheepfold to steal the sheep. But for the sheep, what comfort they are. The mighty power of God becomes the greatest comfort to us. So sweet. Such a blessed place to be to be in the care of such a loving father.

So because of these promises, because we are like a son, we should be sons and daughters to the such a a great father. Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let's cleanse oursel from all definement of flesh. Put aside all that stuff. You don't need it. The the things in this world that draw you and those things that happen in your mind, set them aside. God, you don't need it. Perfecting holiness. Yes. In the fear of the Lord, not fear of his judgment, but just the awesome nature of his presence and to know him. You know why we can do that? We can do that just and only because of what Christ has done for us. Our precious Lord who gave himself on the cross for us. That's why we can do that. That's the That's the change in our relationship with him. That makes all the difference. It makes all the difference.

We celebrate that this morning. And when you come to the Lord's table, we celebrate what Jesus Christ has done for us to love us with an unfathomable love, a mighty love where he takes his own body and uses his body to pay the sin debt that we owe before God. Has it broken on the cross so that we wouldn't be broken eternally before God estranged from his presence so that we can have a loving relationship with the father forever and ever. His blood was poured out on the cross to give us life. We celebrate that this morning. I'm going to ask the men to come and I'm going to pray for us and I'm going to ask them as I pray I would like the men to come to so that we can celebrate the Lord's table, the bread and the cup. If you have trusted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, then it's your right to share in this table. If not, we would ask that you restrain from the table. Let me pray.

Father, I'm so overwhelmed when I think of your greatness and the infinite power that you have. And Father, when I see myself before you and recognize how undeserving I am, I can but wonder that you you have such a love for us that you would give in such a way to give your only begotten son to see him crushed before you in order to pay her sin debt so that we can call you a father so that we can own you as our as our lord as our father and father we thank you that as we reflect on this that you truly you truly have changed our heart. We want to serve you. We want to think about you. We want to spend our time in worship of you. you because of the preciousness of your great love for us and all that you've done for us in Christ.

Father, as we share the table this morning, I pray that this would be a genuine act of thanksgiving on our part to you and that as we take the bread that symbolizes Jesus' body broken for us, that we would think about the cross. We would think about the a great sacrifice. Not just his body nailed to a cross and all the things he suffered through the Roman hands, but Father, him hanging on that cross for those hours under your condemnation and judgment, bearing the helldeserving sin, paying for the helldeserving sin that we owe. More than anything, we can't we can't comprehend that. Can't comp apprehend it. And Father, as we drink the cup, help us to truly remember the blood that was shed for us, his life being poured out in our place. And Father, as we praise you, we thank you for Jesus' resurrection life and the life that you've given us in the spirit of God. Help us, Lord Jesus, to work worship you as we share this table this morning. Please bless the bread and the cup as we pass it in Jesus name. Amen.

I'd like for you this morning to survey the book of Hosea. So it'd probably be good for us to turn to that book. It's the first of the minor prophets. It's not too difficult to find in the Old Testament. After the Psalms, you have the four after the poetic books, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, you have the four major prophets. And after the book of Daniel, which is the fourth of the major prophets, you have the first of the minor prophets, which is the book of Hosea. We're going to hopefully, the goal this morning is to take a good look at this book to get an understanding of the outline of these 13 chapters and to make application to our hearts through the message that God has to the people of Israel through Hosea and through them to us.

Let me pray for us before I read anything. And then we're going to read a few select verses from this book. Let's pray.

I think I'm going to begin, we're going to be looking at, you can turn to chapter one if you want to. We're going to begin really there. But I'm going to begin reading by reading a verse that you heard recently. Jared quoted this verse about two weeks ago. And it's in chapter six and verse six. I think that's right. Well, no, it isn't. But the verse I'm going to quote, I'm just going to quote it.

For I delight in loyalty. I'm going to read a different translation.

So this is the heart of the covenant. It has to do with the authentic love and mercy of God. And it is 6:6. I just happened to turn to the wrong spot in my Bible there. So it is 6:6. Delight in loyalty or mercy rather than sacrifice. And then the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. And that's the place I think I have to begin with dealing with this book. Because in a great sense, that's the heart of the message of the book of Hosea, that God delights in our wholehearted devotion to him.

And for us to understand it, I want us to go back and repeat some of the things that I'm pretty sure that Jared shared with you. And it has to do with the meaning of this verse. He read the verse from Hosea. He turned to Matthew's gospel and he quoted the two times that Jesus quoted this verse. Jesus quoted this verse to the Pharisees twice. And he says, learn what this means.

Learn what this means. And what is he talking about? The first thing I wanted you to notice about this verse is that it's translated in different ways. It's very interesting because with the verse, you have I quoted two translations. The first one that I read from was the American Standard 1901. And the second one that I read was from the New American Standard 1995.

You could throw in, if you look at different translations, you might find different words there. You're going to find words like you could find the word loving kindness there. You could find certainly mercy is a common translation there. You find unfailing love and steadfast love. Now, what's going on is these new translations confusing us? Should it really be mercy because that's what it says in some of the older translations? No, what is going on here is the meaning of that Hebrew word chesed. What does that word mean? And this is what I'm sure Jared explained to you. This is what the word means and this is why it's so difficult. If the word is translated mercy, it's translated mercy in this passage because it means mercy. If the word is translated as it is in loyalty, it's translated loyalty because it means loyalty. If it's translated as steadfast love, it's translated that way because that's what it means. You see the Hebrew word chesed has no English equivalent. There's no English equivalent. And what this word means, it means loving kindness. It means mercy. It means unfailing steadfast love. It means all of those things at one time. All of that at once. And then you begin to get the idea of the word. It's talking about people in a covenant relationship with God. That's part of the idea of that word, a covenant relationship. A covenant relationship like a marriage.

Yesterday our family was attended a wedding, a wedding of my great niece. And they committed their vows to each other and they entered into a covenant relationship with each other. And part of that covenant relationship and what you presume is that they will commit their love to each other, to love each other to death till death they part. And that's what a covenant is. And so that's part of the idea of this word. It also means that the person in that covenant is faithful to keep the covenant. They stay faithful in the relationship. If you have chesed love, if you have that type of love, then you're faithful in the covenant relationship that you've entered into with the other person. And the reason that you're faithful to keep that is because you love that other person. It means all those things at once. So that's what we're talking about here.

And Jared when he was explaining this a few weeks ago, he also quoted the words of the great Shema in the Old Testament, the Deuteronomy 6:4 and 5.

The first word there is Shema. Shema Yisrael in Hebrew and that's why the Jews call that the great Shema. And it's saying it's like a mother who's talking to a child who's beginning to disobey and she says, listen. She means obey me. Listen to me. Obey me. That's what this word means. That's what the word Shema means. It means to hear so as to obey.

Listen to him. Obey him. And then the next verse gives the commandment. All this goes together. The commandment.

That's what you're to obey. And that's what God most wants. And so the message that Hosea has for Israel is that you don't obey in little ritual practices that you've picked up from Jewish practice. You're not to just have a perfunctory obedience by coming to church or giving an offering or anything that you can come up with a list of things like that. You don't make yourself right with God by keeping and doing any of these things. You make yourself right with God first of all, and you do these things because you love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. It's the heart attitude to God that God is looking for. And that's the number one priority for the people of God, is that they love God with all that they are and with everything that they have.

The book of Hosea begins with Hosea, the first three chapters is a description of Hosea and the relationship with his wife. And we meet them in some very surprising verses at the beginning in chapter one. It says,

Hosea was a prophet of God. He was a prophet of God that was sent to the northern kingdom of Israel. It says in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash. That's the second Jeroboam in Israel. And so in that king's reign, Hosea began his ministry, and he began to serve and minister to the people of Israel. He was a prophet to them. He's giving the word of God to them. And it says when the Lord first spoke through Hosea, this is what he said.

Well, here's a very surprising couple of verses. We meet two people. First of all, we meet a man whose name is Hosea. And I should tell you, the name Hosea means God saves, Yahweh saves. The name itself, Hosea, means salvation. God saves. And he marries a woman whose name is Gomer. Now, Gomer is not a very common name. I expect you've only known one Gomer in your life. And that was on a television program in the '60s. It was an uncommon name in biblical times. You have a man who's named Gomer, who's one of the descendants of Japheth, and you can find his name listed in Genesis 10. His name was Gomer, and his name is repeated once more in the Bible, and then you have this Gomer who is a woman. And as far as I know, this is the only reference in ancient Jewish literature of a woman whose name's Gomer. The name was rare for men. It was rare, certainly rarer for women. But we have this woman and her name is Gomer. And I think it's interesting that God has brought them together, this man whose name is salvation, and this woman who is named Gomer. And Gomer means full measure. Full measure.

Now, I don't know what you think of if you think of completion or full measure. But the first thing I thought of when I learned that was Genesis 15:16. It says, God is talking to Abraham, and he is promising Abraham that you're going to inherit this land. We're going to bring your people and your people are going to possess this whole land, but not yet. The land belongs right now to the Amorites. And the Amorites, we're going to give them 400 years, and in 400 years, their evil will be made full. It will be made complete, and then we'll bring judgment on the Amorites, and you will possess the land. That's the first thing I thought of. And that's exactly what it comes to mean here. Because the marriage of Hosea and Gomer is like a parable. It's reflecting the nation of Israel and their relationship with God. And so just as Gomer is the one whose iniquity is filling up, Hosea is like the God who brings salvation, judgment, and salvation. Her unfaithfulness brings Israel's sin to full measure, bringing on the coming judgment. And Hosea is the one who represents God in that relationship. And so that's the picture of their marriage.

He gets married, and there's nothing in this verse that would think that she had a life of harlotry before they got married. The point is that he married this woman, and God had given him the word ahead of time that she's not going to be faithful to you, but you need to marry her. Go ahead and marry her. That was the message. She's going to be to you just like Israel is to me. Unfaithful. Unfaithful. It's like a lot of marriages that we know. I know marriages that worked out quite a bit like this. I had a good friend in seminary, in Bible college, he was headed to seminary. He was an outstanding student, he was brilliant, he was a godly man. He had planned on his seminary worked out. He was a leader in the school. He was very accomplished. And he had found the perfect wife. And it was incredibly tragic because she was already seeing someone else before they even got married. And they were only married a few months when she left him for the other person. And it ruined his ministry, and his ministry hopes. He left seminary and ended up pursuing a different career. It was a tragic thing. Unfaithfulness. And we know you can think of relationships quite a bit like that. Every one of us has been exposed to have friends or relatives or people who've gone through similar things, but this story's different. This is an extraordinary story because of the way it ends up.

The first thing that happens in their marriage is that they have children. The first child that is born is it says that Hosea seeks the name of this child from the Lord. And the Lord tells him exactly what to name the child, and he's to call this child Jezreel. Jezreel. Now, Jezreel probably sounds okay to you and me, but that would have been a shocking name in the 8th century BC in Israel. Because there had been an incident in Jewish history that had taken place. You might remember the story of King Ahab, the wicked king of Israel, and Queen Jezebel, the Phoeniciaan princess who became the wife of King Ahab. Jezebel is pretty infamous because she promoted Baal worship in Israel. And when she promoted and was persecuting the prophets of God, and she was promoting Baal worship, and so she ran into conflict with the prophet Elijah. You might remember some of that. She put to death the prophets of Yahweh, and she put to death a man by the name of Naboth so that her husband could take his vineyard. And as a result, Elijah condemned them both, King Ahab and Jezebel for their actions concerning Naboth, and he foretold a grim fate for the queen.

By the walls of Jezreel. And years later, this prophecy was fulfilled with horrifying exactitude. Jezebel's son, King Joram was put to death by a man named Jehu, who became the king. And he was his mission, he believed to put to death the house of Ahab. He was killing the people of Ahab, the children of Ahab, the descendants. And when Jehu rode into the city of Jezreel, Jezebel, who was adorned and was on a balcony and looked out of a window. She sees him. She's all dressed and made up. And she sees Jehu riding in and she starts taunting him from a window. And in a rather dramatic turn of events, Jehu commands her eunuchs to throw her down. And they do. They take her and they threw her over. And which kills her and Jehu's rides his horses over her. And she's put to death. And then a little later, he decides that maybe since she's of royalty, we should go back and bury her. But when they go back, her body's been eaten by the dogs and there's just a few little parts left. Not much to bury. That's a terrible terrible thing. That kind of thing would stick in your mind, wouldn't it?

Jezreel. It means to cast out, to sow. That's what it means. And the imagery here that God is using for this firstborn child of this marriage is you're going to name him Jezreel and as you see him and you call him in the market, you're going to be saying Jezreel and people are going to be thinking about this incident and they're going to be thinking about to cast out, to sow. And what God is saying here is I'm going to take you, the nation of Israel, the people of Israel, the northern kingdom. I'm going to scoop you up into my hand and I'm going to sow you across the land, across the world. I'm going to scatter you. That's the idea to sow, to scatter. It was a message and a warning of judgment on the house of Israel. So name him Jezreel.

And then there's the other children. Luruha, who is a daughter. Lo Ruha means the Hebrew word Lo means no. And Ruha means compassion or pity. And God is saying, I'm not going to have pity on you. Because of your sinfulness, House of Israel, I'm not going to pity you. And then the next child was born, his name is Lo Ammi, not my people.

That's what God is saying to these Jewish people who live in the northern kingdom. There's that side of it. And then there's the side that was personal for Hosea. When you get to this last child and God tells you, name this child not my people. That's telling you something about the relationship. And God says that you're going to have children of harlotry. That is your wife Gomer is not going to be faithful to you and the children that you have are not going to be yours. That's what's going on here. So you have this woman who is obviously a pretty wicked woman. At least in terms of her heart relationship to Hosea, doesn't care about him. Doesn't love him. Probably started out their marriage and things seemed so good and tried to find comfort and blessing in that marriage, but she couldn't do it. She had other powerful desires. And she wanted to better herself. If you want to know what her motivation was for this, it tells us in the next chapter, in chapter two,

She wants better things. She's going after lovers who's going to give her the things that she desires and the things that she wants. And that's a big part of her motivation for this. And there's a great irony here. Because she leaves Hosea and she's living with someone. And one of the interesting things that's going on is that Hosea because he still loves her, wants to meet her needs. He recognizes that the person that she's living with is not going to be able to take care of her the way she needs to be taken care of. And so, look at verse eight.

He's talking about Hosea and they're talking about Israel. They're both here. She didn't know. Can you imagine how that could have played out? Hosea goes to this man and says, I'm the husband of the woman that you're living with. And then you can imagine the kind of conflict that might raise in his heart and what he does next though has to be shocking. He says, what I want to do is I want to give you some things so that you can meet Hosea's needs better. I want you to take care of her so that she has enough to eat and she has the good clothing. I want you to take care of Gomer. I'm saying Hosea. I want you to take care of Gomer. And meet the needs that she has. That's what Hosea is saying to this man and he must think that he's crazy. What a crazy person this is. And yet he would take it. So that's the interesting thing. When that continues and she doesn't respond in any kind of a way, Hosea begins to withhold that. And as he withholds that, she comes to a place of poverty. And as they become more destitute, the time comes where this man feels like he has to do is sell his wife, sell this woman. Gomer's his possession now. He's going to sell her. So he takes her to a slave market and puts her up for sale. He takes her to a slave market and she puts her up for sale.

Now, I want you to picture that in your mind. I'm going to have to wrap this up quickly. I don't know how, but I'm going to. Here's a woman who has pursued all this life of her pursuing her pleasures and her desires and her wants to get the things that she wants. It hasn't worked out for her. The more she's done that, the more destitute she's become to the place where now she's brought to a slave market, stripped of her clothing. Put on public display and auctioned off. Now she's the one who loves wonderful things and here she is in a market where you can probably smell all the animal smells and all the things of that, not the perfumes that she wants and desires. That's where she is. On the slave market. Offered for sale. Who knows what's going to happen? I'm going to be a slave. It's going to be awful. It's going to be worse than it's ever been. I mean, a place of completely destitute and desperate at your very end. That's where she is. Do you think she's happy there? God has brought her to this place. And God does something remarkable right there where she's there in the slave market.

Now, I need to point out the rest of the book quickly and I'm going to take just a couple minutes to try and do some of that. What takes place next and it's important enough that I should mention it is that God opens up the throne room of heaven, the courtrooms of heaven and God as judge begins to bring the accusations on the people of Israel. They have been practicing idolatry since this nation split off from the southern kingdom. From the very beginning, every king, all nine 19 kings of Israel were wicked kings. All of them kept them in idolatry. Every one of them pursued idolatry and the people practiced idolatry. They practiced a hybrid religion so that they were trying to keep the law of the Old Testament. And yet, when God gave them grain, and when God gave them new wine and oil, they were giving praise to Baal and Ashra and the other gods. And that's easy when you're thinking about that to condemn them and to condemn Gomer for such foolishness. But it's easy for us to do the same thing. God gives blessing to you and it's easy for you to thank everybody, your employer, thank the waiter waitress who brings you the food or the cook, to give praise to your own strength and wisdom and to never give thanks to God. God is the one who gives blessing. God's the one who gives grace and mercy and brings blessing. And so one of the great sins of Israel was to fail to give thanks and recognition to God. And they worshiped in order to pursue, they would make a contract with the God Baal to send the rain. And they would offer sacrifices to Baal. And God because of that opens up the courtroom and he begins to tell them about all their sins. And so over these next chapters, he begins to outline their sins. He begins to explain to them why their priests have become corrupt, how they practice things like lying and murder and there's no truth in the land. And all of the, there's no knowledge of God. There's no relationship with God. They practice a form of religion and thinking that they're pleasing to God Yahweh, but they're not. They have no heart for God at all. And so because of that, God is giving his verdict and that verdict is exile. The nation, because they have sown to the wind, that's the words of Hosea.

And yet, God is judge even as he makes this judgment, he says, how can I give you up, Ephraim? He calls the nation, the northern kingdom here is referred to as Ephraim.

Isn't it an incredible passage. The idea is like a judge. If you were a judge, and you're a just judge and you always render right. And one day, into your court is your own son. Your son is brought into court and he's on trial for murder. And as the trial takes place, it becomes absolutely clear that he's guilty of murder. So at the end, you as the judge has to render a just verdict, which is guilty. You have to declare your own son guilty and then render the judgment. Can you imagine what that would do to your heart? Can you imagine how incredibly hard that would be? That's exactly as you read through the book of Hosea, that's exactly the language that God uses to describe his relationship with Israel, with these people. He was there. He taught Ephraim how to walk. That's what he says. He nurtured them like as a child. He watched him grow up. He gave him all that he needed and he grows up and he loves him just like a child. And now the time comes when he has to bring judgment. He has to bring him and bring about the sentence. It's an incredible thing. It's like what happened to Gomer. She is left to her own iniquity, brings to the place where her own sinfulness leads her to despair and to extreme poverty and there she is. God brings judgment on Israel. He doesn't back off from that.

He singles out the Assyrians to come and the Assyrians come and they attack Israel, they attack them, they scatter the people and Israel, this northern kingdom never comes back to the land. They're scattered away. They're brought away and they never return. That's all the myths of the 10 lost tribes of Israel. That's where that comes from. They're scattered.

They trusted everybody but God. They put their trust in everything, in false gods and in other nations, the very nations that actually brought about their destruction. And so God left them to all that to this judgment.

And yet God yearns over his people.

The more they called them, the more they went from him. They kept sacrificing to the Baals. That's what it says. And yet he loved them. He loved them. And he promises to restore them. Promises to restore them.

Picture Gomer on that slave block. She's being offered for sale. Price of a slave is 30 pieces of silver. They're auctioning her and somebody offers 15. Maybe 15 and an Omer of barley. And Hosea is there. Yes, Hosea is there seeing this auction. And Hosea says, I'll give you 15 shekels of silver and Omer and a half of barley. And the auctioneer says, sold. And Hosea buys Gomer back. Why does he buy her back? To punish her for all of that she's done? No. He buys her back to redeem her. And he speaks literally to her heart. And he says, come home to me. And no more harlotry, no more other men. You be faithful to me and I will always be faithful to you, no matter what. He loved Gomer with a kind of love that never turned loose. Never turned loose. What kind of love God loves you with? He loves you with a love that is not conditioned because of your behavior and your actions. The things that you have done in your past, God loves you despite that. That's the divine dilemma. The fact that God is just and he must punish sin and yet he is the savior who loves. He's the one who brings salvation. That's what Hosea pictures when he goes and purchases Gomer out of the slave market, the slave market of sin. That's what Jesus does for us. It's exactly why Jesus came into this world. Jesus entered this world in Bethlehem. He entered into our slave market of sin. He came into this world for the one purpose of redeeming us. He is the true Hosea, the true savior. He's the true God who comes with salvation. And he doesn't purchase us with 15 shekels of silver and Omer and a half of barley. He purchases us with his own blood and we're washed in the blood of Jesus Christ so that our sins can be washed away. The judgment that we deserve is completely paid for by the blood of Jesus Christ and his great sacrifice for us. That's what Hosea pictures. He pictures this great work that God has done. And as a result of God's grace and deliverance, God promises future blessing for these people that he scattered. He sowed them into the world. He says, I'm going to take you up and all of the names that are given are undone. He will take them and sow them back into the land. He promises that in the last days it says. He says that the one who is called no mercy, I will call, I will give mercy to. He turns that name around. The one who is not my people, he says, I'm renaming you my people. You are not my people, but I'm making you my people again. God promises salvation and Israel's future blessing. And that's very clear. He's talking about here about these very people who've been scattered and who have not yet returned to the land. So God brings great grace and salvation.

When God works in our lives to bring us to the end of ourselves to a place of desperation. That's a good thing. That's a good thing. Should Gomer be happy when she's on that auction block? Well, in a sense, no, she's come to the end of herself. Oh, but what Jesus says of that?

See, you come to the place where you've got nothing. You've got nothing to offer God. There's nothing in you at all. That's the place where you can receive grace. That's the place that God has brought you so that you can know what is true, what is right and good. You get to that place where you're weeping because you have nothing. And Jesus says,

That's true for Gomer. It's true for us. We're going to celebrate the Lord's table. And I'm going to pray for these elements. And this is what Jesus did for us. Jesus made a sacrifice of his own blood and body to purchase us, to pay the redemption price, to purchase us out of the slave market of sin. So that we would love him with our whole heart. So that we would not be trying to earn our place before him. But that we would love him because he has paid the debt for us. Let's pray.

If you would come, the Lord Jesus in the night in which he was betrayed took bread.

Let me just pray one more time for us.

If you would please stand as we close our time together with the doxology. It's number six in your hymnals.

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Read or follow along with the full transcript on our site.

This sermon explores the biblical theme that God delights more in obedience than in outward sacrifice. It examines the story of King Saul's disobedience and delves into the Hebrew words 'Shema' (to hear and obey) and 'Hesed' (steadfast love and loyalty), applying these principles to both unbelievers and believers.

Read or follow along with the full transcript on our site.

Read or follow along with the full transcript on our site.

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