It All Comes Down To This... | Sunday, August 25, 2024

O Israel, return to the LORD your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity. Take words with you, and return to the LORD. Say to Him, "Take away all iniquity; receive us graciously, for we will offer the sacrifices of our lips." ... Who is wise? Let him understand these things. Who is prudent? Let him know them. For the ways of the LORD are right; the righteous walk in them, but transgressors stumble in them. — Hosea 14

After thirteen weeks in a heavy book, the whole of Hosea's message comes down to one simple, urgent invitation.

A Last Call to a Stumbling Nation

We have been in the book of Hosea for the last thirteen weeks, and I will confess this has been an intense book — even for me as I've read, written, prayed, and preached through it. The subject is heavy, and I am glad we are finishing today.

Israel is in quite a mess at this point in their history, around 2,800 years ago. Hosea is effectively the last prophet God is sending to give these people an opportunity to turn from their sin before they head off a cliff. They have been involved in persistent and perpetual immorality through idolatry, and that has brought the destruction they now face. They have sown to the flesh for centuries, and they are about to reap the consequences.

Like the prophets before him, Hosea is begging the people to repent — to turn away from the path they are on and turn back to the Lord in faith and faithfulness. But unfortunately, as history shows, the people did not listen. Now it all comes down to this:

O Israel, return to the LORD your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity. Take words with you, and return to the LORD. Say to Him, "Take away all iniquity; receive us graciously, for we will offer the sacrifices of our lips."

They Did It to Themselves

In fewer than fifty words, Hosea sums up everything he has been saying for thirteen chapters. And though these words were spoken to Israel around 720 BC, they are applicable to us as well. The doom they are about to face is the product of their own choices and actions.

My dad, Ron, has these sayings I keep track of — "Ronisms." One of my favorites is, "They did it to themselves." Here the children of Israel did it to themselves, and they are about to experience the inevitable consequences of their sin. Notice it stated so clearly: "You have stumbled because of your iniquity." Underline those words — because of your iniquity.

And this punishment was preventable. They did not need to go through this. If they had not merely heard but heeded the words of Hosea and the other named and unnamed prophets, it was entirely avoidable.

I was reminded this week of a Sunday afternoon in November of 2000. I was twenty, and I came home to find my younger brother Paul with his friend Andrew, who had a dirt bike. Andrew offered to let me ride it. My incredulous mother stood there and said, "I'm going in the house. You're going to hurt yourself. You shouldn't do this." And I said, "I got this." I did not got this.

I spent that afternoon in the ER at Palomar with stitches in my chin, a knot on my head, a concussion, a sore neck, and road rash all over my hands. A nurse had to clean the road rash, and the doctor said quietly, "You did numb his hands, didn't you?" I have never wanted to wring someone's neck more. Decades later, I still have vertigo from that concussion — an ongoing reminder. If only I had heeded the words of the prophet Jeanie. There are avoidable disasters, entirely preventable, and Israel's was one of them.

As Long As You Have Breath

Israel knew the path. Seven hundred years before, through Moses in Deuteronomy 28, God laid out the path toward blessing and the path toward what I call anti-blessing, or curses. For centuries they walked toward the curse — the ultimate curse being exile. Along the way there were signposts, the prophets saying, "Don't go down this path." They would not listen. And yet, even now, there is still an opportunity to turn: "O Israel, return to the LORD your God."

Here is the first point: As long as you have breath, you have an opportunity to repent. This is good news, but you may need to remind yourself of it. Some of you have a family member or friend who has persisted down a path you know will end in disaster — maybe not today or next week, but eventually. Perhaps you've spoken to them and been rejected, and you're tempted to think it's a lost cause.

The prophets came to the same juncture. In Isaiah 6, Isaiah asks God how long he must keep preaching, and the answer is not encouraging — it will get worse, and the people will be reduced to a small remnant, but he must persist. Why? Because as long as a person has breath, there is an opportunity to repent.

It does get harder the longer a person goes — often because of ego and a hardening heart. But I have been in the room more than a few times with someone on their deathbed who, after a lifetime of hardness, finally yielded in the last moments. Sometimes it takes the breaking down of this flesh, which can be incredibly strong. As long as they have breath, there is an opportunity to repent.

The Sacrifice God Wants

What would repentance look like for Israel? It would require a huge sacrifice — but not the sacrifice of animals they had known for centuries. God says the sacrifice He is calling for is far greater than bulls and goats. He calls it "the sacrifices of our lips."

Someday we will study First and Second Samuel and meet the shepherd boy David, who became a great king but had major issues. Well into his reign he committed adultery, then murder to cover it up, then deception for over a year. He was headed for total destruction until a prophet came, and David actually heeded the word and repented. His repentance is recorded in Psalm 51, where he says:

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart — these, O God, You will not despise.

David had offered many animal sacrifices; that was costly. But it can be easier to offer bulls and goats than to offer a broken and contrite heart. That is the kind of sacrifice God delights in. So here is the second point: Repentance requires a sacrifice of breath through words of humility and contrition.

The danger is that we can offer tangible sacrifices and appease our own conscience while continuing in sin. We don't bring animals, but we still give our time, our service, our offerings — all good sacrifices. Yet we can fall into the pattern of thinking, "I went to church, I gave, I prayed, I helped — I'm okay," while continuing to do immoral and idolatrous things. That is exactly where Israel was, and where David was during the year he covered his sin. You can be sure he was still going to the tabernacle to offer sacrifices. Through Isaiah, God said the people worshiped Him with their lips while their hearts were far from Him. What God really wants is your heart.

Rejecting Self-Sufficiency and Idols

So what would this sacrifice look like for Israel at the end of the eighth century BC? Look at verse 3. They would have to acknowledge with their lips: "Assyria shall not save us." During this period, Israel was hoping in their own ingenuity, paying silver and gold to the Assyrians who would ultimately destroy them. They consoled themselves that if they kept paying, everything would be fine. They had to come to the place where they admitted, "Assyria shall not save us."

They also had to say, "We will not ride on horses." To ride on a horse means to be victorious. They imagined that by their own self-sufficiency they would get through this and ride victoriously. God says no — your self-sufficiency cannot save you.

And then: "Nor will we say anymore to the work of our hands, 'You are our gods.'" They had to reject their idols, the things they had made. Finally, they had to acknowledge that their only hope is in God, "for in You the fatherless finds mercy." The sacrifice God wanted was for Israel to reject self-sufficiency, reject their idolatry, and turn entirely to the Lord, trusting in His mercy alone.

Reviving Power and Renewing Grace

If Israel would offer that sacrifice, what would God do?

I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely, for My anger has turned away from him. I will be like the dew to Israel; he shall grow like the lily, and lengthen his roots like Lebanon... his fragrance like Lebanon. Those who dwell under his shadow shall return; they shall be revived like grain, and grow like a vine.

God says, if you will turn from your self-sufficiency and idolatry and trust My mercy alone, I will bless you, forgive you, love you, receive you, and pour out abundance upon you. This is the third point: Repentance invites God's reviving power and renewing grace. I'm assuming a few here today need exactly that. The path to receiving it is to turn away from whatever you've been trusting in, and turn to the Lord.

Peter preached the same message in Acts 3:19: "Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord." When that refreshing comes, it brings great joy — the joy David experienced in Psalm 51:12, when God restored to him the joy of His salvation and renewed a right spirit within him.

But this is conditional. There is a contingency. If you go through the Bible and underline the promises of God — and there are more than seven thousand of them — you will almost always find a condition nearby. If this, then that. This is the law of sowing and reaping, the deuteronomic principle. If Israel persists in their idolatry, they continue toward destruction. But if they bring sacrificial repentance, they find His blessing and grace.

A Change of Heart and Action

What does God want to hear?

Ephraim shall say, "What have I to do anymore with idols?" I have heard and observed him. I am like a green cypress tree; your fruit is found in Me.

For centuries they gave themselves to idols while also claiming to worship God — taking His name in vain by bowing to Baal, Asherah, Molech, and countless Canaanite deities. God says, "I want to hear you say, 'What have I to do anymore with idols?'" Then He will hear their repentance and observe it.

To "observe" repentance implies there are actions associated with it. So the fourth point: Repentance involves a change of heart and action. It begins in the mind and heart but moves an individual toward action — a moving from the path of sin that leads to destruction to the path of life in Christ Jesus. When I come to God with a repentant heart evident in my actions, He immediately moves toward me. He blots out sin and brings times of refreshing.

The Same Simple Gospel

This has been the consistent, simple message through all fourteen chapters: your sin has brought devastation, and continued sin will bring death; but if you turn from your sin to God in faith, He will pour out forgiveness, mercy, restored grace, and eternal life.

Does that message sound familiar? It sounds a lot like Romans. Many decades ago people talked about the "Romans Road" — a series of verses where Paul articulates the gospel. "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." "The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus." "God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." "If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved."

That is the same message Hosea preached 2,800 years ago. No, he didn't use the name Jesus or Christ — that came hundreds of years later — but it was still pointing to God. You've been on a path of sin leading to death; turn away, repent, confess that God alone is your salvation, trust His free gift, and you shall be saved.

It is not complicated, and it is not novel. It is the same message rehearsed for millennia — by Hosea and Isaiah, Elijah and Elisha, Habakkuk and Obadiah, Peter and Paul, D. L. Moody and Billy Graham, and from countless pulpits at this very moment across the world. The preschoolers understand this. You don't need a doctorate in theology. If you know those simple verses, you can share them — so sign up for children's ministry, because we need you. Even the youngest can understand it.

There are deep theological truths I wrestle with — how and when the earth was created, the gap theory, whether the end comes before or after the tribulation, whether there's a rapture. People argue about those things, but none of them are essential. The essential, core truth is simple, and it is the same message Hosea preached. It all comes down to this.

Who Is Wise?

I love how Hosea wraps up the entire book in just thirty-three words:

Who is wise? Let him understand these things. Who is prudent? Let him know them. For the ways of the LORD are right; the righteous walk in them, but transgressors stumble in them.

How many of you want to be counted among the wise? Who is wise? The person who understands these simple principles of sowing and reaping — that sin invites destruction, devastation, and wrath, and therefore departs from sin and finds forgiveness and renewing grace. The person who keeps doing the same sinful thing, expecting different results, is a fool. That is what Israel did for centuries.

Who is prudent? The person who carries this knowledge and acts wisely upon it. Imagine you had inside knowledge that tomorrow a certain stock would jump 600 percent. If you didn't act on it, you'd be a fool. Or if you knew a hurricane was coming to your coastal house and you didn't board it up or fill the sandbags, you'd be a fool. The wise person isn't merely the one with the intel; it's the one who turns knowledge into action.

The ways of God are right, true, and good. The wise person knows what is right, true, and good, and then does it — becoming, by right actions, righteous. God pours out blessing on the righteous, while those gripped by sin stumble and reap the consequences. So the fifth point: Wisdom and prudence are found in repentance unto righteousness — unto doing what is right, true, and good.

How do you know what is right, true, and good? First, God has written it on your heart in the form of a conscience. Second, He has given greater understanding in His revealed Word. And yes, we need the empowering of the Holy Spirit, so we ask God to help us walk in it.

The Path to Prosperity and Success

Knowing and applying these simple truths leads to success. First, because it is a divine principle — God created the world so that sowing and reaping is reality. Second, we know it by observation; the people in your life experiencing blessing are most likely walking in what is right and good. And they don't even have to be Christians to reap the earthly blessings of obedience — though to reap the ultimate blessing of eternal life, they must turn to God in Christ Jesus.

After Moses gave the great message of Deuteronomy, God said to Joshua: "Only be strong and very courageous, that you may observe to do according to all the law... Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may prosper wherever you go. This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night... For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success." Who wants prosperity and success? God's version differs from Hollywood's or the news media's, but it is awesome — and this is how you get it: walk in the ways of the Lord.

Three thousand years ago, Solomon — considered one of the wisest men who ever lived — set out on what we might call doctoral research to figure out how to find meaning and joy in this life. He tried drinking, sex, wealth — all of it, so that you don't have to. What did he discover? "Vanity of vanities; all is vanity." Emptiness. Then he concluded his dissertation, Ecclesiastes:

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is man's all. For God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil.

It all comes down to this. It is relatively simple — yet Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, calls it the narrow path: "Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it."

God has clearly stated the path to blessing and ultimately eternal life: walk in what is right, true, and good, and you will experience the earthly blessings of obedience. But walk the other way, and you will experience death, destruction, exile, and punishment. May God help us walk the narrow path — and as we go, call others to come with us, because we meet many people walking the path we know leads to ruin. Wisdom is knowing the right path and walking on it.

Closing Prayer

Father God, I thank You that You have made it relatively simple — almost so simple that it seems complicated, or at least we complicate it. But God, I pray that we would walk in this path You've set before us, enabled by Your Holy Spirit. When all is said and done, I find that in myself dwells no good thing, and very little power to walk in what is right, true, and good. But You by Your Holy Spirit enable me; You lead me in the way everlasting.

God, would You help us to walk in those things pleasing to You and to reap the benefits and rewards of obedience. And Lord, give us boldness to share the truth of these realities with others. For thousands of years Your messengers — prophets, preachers, and simple saints — have been speaking forth this word. You commissioned us to go into all the world and preach this gospel. I pray You would enable and empower us to do that today and this week, and to believe this gospel ourselves. Give us power by Your Holy Spirit to reject the things gripping our lives and leading us toward brokenness and devastation. Lead us in the way everlasting. Pour out Your Spirit upon Your people, we pray. We ask this in Jesus' name, and all those that agreed said amen.