Turn with me to Hosea, the last chapter, Hosea chapter 14. This morning, together, we conclude our consideration of the prophecy of Hosea. Hosea 14, beginning at verse 1, as we now hear God's holy, infallible, inspired word. Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God. Your sins have been your downfall. Take words with you and return to the Lord. Say to Him, forgive all our sins and receive us graciously that we may offer the fruit of our lips. Assyria cannot save us. We will not mount war horses. We will never again say our gods to what our own hands have made. For in you, the fatherless, find compassion. I will heal their waywardness and love them freely. For my anger has turned away from them. I will be like the dew to Israel. He will blossom like a lily. Like a cedar of Lebanon, he will send down his roots. His young shoots will grow. His splendor will be like an olive tree. His fragrance like a cedar of Lebanon. Men will dwell again in His shade. He will flourish like the grain. He will blossom like a vine. And His fame will be like the wine from Lebanon. O Ephraim, what more have I to do with idols? I will answer him and care for him. I am like a green pine tree. Your fruitfulness comes from me. Who is wise? He will realize these things. Who is discerning? He will understand them. The ways of the Lord are right. The righteous walk in them, but the rebellious stumble in them. May God add His blessing to His Word this morning. Well, beloved, in Jesus Christ our Lord, could this really be the very same prophet that we've been considering all along? After all of the continual reminders of sin and judgment unto death, describing Israel's wickedness, apostasy, rebellion, and depths of ruin, and even as we just heard sung, when the heart and the soul of a nation lay wounded and cold as a corpse, when we have been told that that describes Israel through and through, now at the end of this prophecy, A promise that God would raise her to the heights of glory. This prophecy begins as one commentator's book is entitled, Hosea's Love Complaint. I think we can easily change that to the Lord's love complaint. Because the Lord's wife had been unfaithful to Him. Had run away from Him. But it ends with anything but the Lord's love complaint. Instead it ends more like with something the Lord's love conquering. the Lord's love conquering the Lord's love going after even as Hosea was commanded to do in chapter 3 the Lord said go show your love to your wife again though she is loved by another and is an adulteress love her as the Lord loves the Israelites even though she has gone after another I love her and I'm going to bring her back this does not mean of course as we consider chapter 14 it does not mean that the coming judgment that we have heard so much about would be stopped captivity would indeed be inevitable it was coming there was no doubt about that but it did mean that the Lord would prevent himself from utterly wiping out his people and as well this promise was meant to sustain His people as they were struggling during their captivity. Punishment, you see, would indeed bring them to their senses by the grace of God. They would then remember the true God. They would repent. But you see, this word, beloved, points far past that particular generation to whom Hosea was speaking. This message and this promise is to all. It's for you and me too. The very last verse of chapter 14 really is what's called the epilogue of the entire prophecy. It's not, no one in particular is being addressed. So therefore, it includes us. Who is wise? He will realize these things. Who is discerning? He will understand them. What? The ways of the Lord are right. The righteous walk in them, but the rebellious stumble in them. Indeed, Israel had been stumbling, having a hard time because of her sin following the ways of the Lord. But here is a message for them and for you and me of the grace of God and of hope in Jesus Christ as Hosea speaks the word of hope. Now, we know that when we talk about hope in the sense of salvation, when we talk about hope in the spiritual sense of the word, it is a word that is clothed in guarantee. It is a word that is clothed in indestructibility. It is a word that comes with the idea of something that is never-ending, something that is permanent, something that is real and living for you and me. And again, as verse 9 really points us to, apart from the ways of the Lord, there is only hopelessness, but with Him there is everlasting hope. And beloved, our hope is not because of what we are to God, first of all. We need to remember that. Our hope is not because of what we are to God, but our hope is because of what God is to us. And that's what Hosea is going to show Israel here. Hosea speaks the word of hope, first of all, with the call for genuine repentance. Verse 1, Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God. Your sins have been your downfall. He makes no mistake about it. Your sins are the cause of your problem. You can't blame it on anything else. It is your sins. So return to the Lord. Your sins have driven you away. Return to Him. Turn back to Him. Do that U-turn, boys and girls, that we talked about last week. Away from the direction of sin that had caused Israel's downfall and caused them to stumble to in the direction of the only One who is able to heal and save her. The true God. Her covenant God. And we are to understand that not only is Hosea really saying, we don't see it in our English versions, but not only is he saying that their direction is to be the Lord their God, but their destination is to be the Lord their God. Don't stop until you're there, until you're with Him. And it is to be a genuine repentance, not a half-hearted repentance as there was before. You may recall that some time ago we talked about the fact that Israel figured that if they kept the ceremonies and sacrifices, if they did all kinds of outward things that God requires, well, then he'll be happy. He'll be satisfied no matter what the state of their heart is, no matter if they mix in a little bit of idol worship with it. As long as they check off their list, they'll be fine. And maybe some of us live that way too, that we have a checklist of sorts. as long as I go to church sort of faithfully as long as I pray once in a while as long as I read my Bible as long as I don't curse or commit adultery or murder as long as I keep that checklist God will be happy I've satisfied Him and nothing else matters the state of my heart doesn't matter but Hosea says no that's not true hosea calls israel and you and me and he's calling for true confession from the heart pour out your heart before him and mean it and notice too that hosea beautifully puts the necessary words in their mouth return to the lord come with words take words with you and he tells them exactly what words to take with them kind of like us parents teaching our children at a very young age how to Pray, now I lay me down to sleep. Or, Lord, bless this food for Jesus' sake. And then the hope and the prayers that they will build on those prayers as they grow. Or maybe a new convert who has never uttered a word to God before is led by someone in prayer. Say these words. Hosea puts the necessary words in their mouth. And as he is teaching them to be confessing their sin, he is teaching them that what they are to be doing is facing its truth. The truth that sin is sin. That sin is serious. It is sin. The word there can also be translated iniquity. That iniquity really itself is kind of an ugly word, isn't it? And the word iniquity points to the ugliness of sin, the wickedness, the perversity, the lawlessness of sin, and that it is terribly offensive to God. and that it is serious, deadly. Paul says the wages of sin is death. It's not simply making a mistake as the world would have us to believe. Oh, I robbed a bank. I made a mistake. Yeah. You see, beloved, you can turn left when you should have turned right. That's a mistake. That's not a sin. You can call someone Bill when their real name is Bob. It's a mistake. It's not a sin. Boys and girls, you can put a wrong answer on a test. It's a mistake. It's an error. But it's not a sin. Sin is not simply mistakes. Sin is a violation of the holy will of God, of the standard that God has set before us. In Isaiah 53, we read that he that is pointing forward to Jesus, he was bruised for our iniquities, not for our mistakes. Beloved, it's hard to admit sin, isn't it? Because to admit sin is to admit some sort of a failure. It's hard. But we are not to come to God trying to justify ourselves for our sin. We are not to make excuses for our sin. Not to try to shove the blame off on somebody else. We do that so easily, don't we? With two little words. Yeah, but. Boys and girls, if you're being disciplined by your parents, spoken to by your parents because of something you've done wrong, you might very quickly say, yeah, but he, pointing to your brother, or yeah, but she, pointing to your sister, as if to say, if they hadn't done what they did, then I certainly never would have done what I did. Sometimes husbands do that with wives, don't they? Adam did that with Eve. Yeah, but she. Beloved, there will never be true and sweet release from sin apart from taking ownership of it. Not in a prideful way, but taking ownership of it like the prodigal son and like David did. I have sinned. Because only when you take ownership of it, recognize your own sin, only then will forgiveness of God truly be meaningful. Only then will you truly understand what it is God has delivered you from. What it is He has taken from you. Confessing sin includes facing its truth, but also then breaking its foolish loyalties. Look at verse 3. They were also to say these words. Interesting. Assyria cannot save us. We will not mount war horses. We will never again say our gods to what our own hands have made, for in you the fatherless find compassion. I trust you recognize that all throughout these 14 chapters, these are the sins that have been pointed out the most by Hosea. And he's now calling Israel to admit her misplaced loyalties, her misplaced trust in foreign powers. She had looked for salvation in all the wrong places, such as in heathen nations, as in military power, but also in idolatry. And now she is to say, to confess, take these words with you, no more will I do that. I don't want that anymore. And especially with idolatry, no longer will we say our gods to the things that we have made with our own hands. They were to recognize now that if my own hands can't save me, then certainly the things that I make with my own hands cannot save me. They have no saving power. Hosea is leading Israel in confession of the failure and inability of all these things in anything apart from God, leading them in a confession to turn away from these things. It is easy, isn't it, to claim trust in God. Oh, yes, I trust God for everything. Completely. It's so easy to say that. Yet, really, then, to put our confidence, for example, in money. You've got to have it, right? I'm sure not one of us can imagine not having any money to go out and buy a loaf of bread and to make that house payment or car payment. You've got to have it. We depend on it, don't we? We so quickly put our confidence in our own intelligence or abilities. Look what I've done. Look what I'm responsible for. Or even put our confidence in the government to provide for us through that stimulus money. Why not? I took it, didn't you? To provide safety for us through our military strength. To put our confidence in so many things really instead of completely in God. We must see these things as tools, as means that God may use for us. Yet only He is truly lasting. Only He is the one that provides blessing. Anything else is meaningless and useless apart from God's blessing. And there's another important lesson here both for Israel and for you and me. And that is that Hosea is teaching them and us that we are to confess, to turn from specific sins. Again, the things that they have been accused of, Assyria, military power, idolatry, to confess them specifically. Beloved, it's so easy to confess our sin generally. Oh God, please forgive all of my sins. Amen. I'm done. It's so easy to do that generally. But we are called to be specific. Not only to count your blessings, Lord, name them one by one, but to count our sins and confess them, to ask the Holy Spirit to recall them to our minds, that we might confess them before Him, that we might be conscious of them, that we might recognize our struggles in life with certain besetting sins or bosom sins, and to hate them. And I believe that as we are conscious of them by the illumination of the Holy Spirit, that the Holy Spirit will use that consciousness of those specific sins when we face temptation the next time. And that He will help us, He will strengthen us to fight even harder against those sins next time. Maybe even to overcome them a little bit more. Confessing sin includes facing its truth and breaking its foolish loyalties, but also then asking for God's favor. Ask for it. Again, he says in verse 2, We can only be accepted by God, we know, by the grace of God. And most likely the phrase that is translated here, receive us graciously, most likely it ought to be, a more accurate translation is, as some versions have it, accept what is good. And the idea there being understanding that God desires obedience. Take away my sin, except from me. Take away my disobedience, may it be replaced with obedience. As David says in Psalm 51, The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. Genuine repentance, beloved, includes a confession of sin, turning from sin, and evidence of that is the fruit of loving obedience. As we said last week, gratitude and action. Hosea is teaching them that you cannot be a Christian, but at the same time live like a heathen. We're not talking about the sin that we can continue to struggle with on a day-to-day basis, but we're talking about that habitual sin that some find themselves in, and they enjoy it, they have no intention, no desire to turn away from it. Those who have been given new life in Christ Jesus will strive in the strength of the Spirit to put on and to exercise the deeds of the new man that we talked about with the law this morning. With the confidence that when we fail, that we may ask for, we must ask for, because God has promised to give His forgiveness for genuine repentance. As genuine repentance is also acknowledging God, acknowledging not Assyria, not the horses, not the idols. But as verse 3 says, for in you the fatherless find compassion. Israel was fatherless. Remember, they were low on me. They were not my people, as we learned in the early chapters. They were orphans, and they understood that orphans were considered to be desolate and helpless and not able to survive on their own. And that was true of Israel. Yet they also remembered, we can be sure, God's heart for the fatherless. God's love for the orphan. In the law throughout Exodus and Deuteronomy, we see it outlines God's love and compassion and His defense of the fatherless and the widow. Beloved, through Israel, we have a vivid reminder for us today that no matter how far down one has fallen in the depths of sin, that God still calls. As long as it is still today, He still calls to genuine repentance. And that means that there is still hope because He will hear. As Isaiah says, Seek the Lord while He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake His way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord and He will have mercy. And to our God, for He will freely, He will abundantly pardon. That's what God will do for the wicked who turn to him in faith. That's Hosea's word, the word of hope for Israel, which comes with a genuine confession, but also it comes in the second place with the assurance of a glorious restoration. The assurance of true forgiveness. And notice, with regard to this glorious restoration, notice its foundation of grace. Verse 4, I will heal their waywardness and love them freely, for my anger has turned away from them. The New Testament helps to explain that phrase, love them freely, pointing out that it's grace. It's the grace of God. There can be no healing, no change of heart, unless God is the one who accomplishes it, and He will not accomplish it as long as His anger is still against sin, as long as sin stands in the way. But here, Israel and we are given the beautiful promise that God provides the remedy. Through judgment, God's wrath would be turned away as Israel struggled with the judgment of God in captivity. His wrath would be turned away. And ultimately, we know this points to the promises of the work of Jesus Christ, in whom God has loved the unlovable. Those that we would say are impossible to love. Through whom God has loved the unloving. Those who will not and don't want to return love to Him. And He has done so freely. With love that is unearned, that is undeserved. Because the penalty has been paid by Jesus Christ. Who took our sin upon Himself. Who suffered the full wrath and punishment of God. even as Hosea describes it throughout this prophecy, the deadliness of sin and the punishment that is due for it. And he removed God's anger from his people. You know, if someone you love is angry at you and you know it, that troubles you, doesn't it? It hurts. You can't stand it. You want it removed. You want it turned away and changed. Beloved, God's righteous indignation against which nothing and no one can stand and survive, God's righteous anger was against you. It was against me in all of its wrath, all of its fury. Oh, we didn't realize it yet. But it was there. And it was coming for eternity. It's been removed. It is gone. Never to be returned. Instead, replaced with the favor of God. And this foundation of grace also includes new life provided then by the power of the Holy Spirit who heals our waywardness by giving a new heart. A new heart that desires to go after God, to seek Him, as Isaiah says, and not to wander away from Him. Beloved, through exile, Israel would be brought to remember her covenant God, to remember His love, to remember His work on their behalf. Captivity would be a tool in the hand of God to bring them to make their genuine repentance. And that's the judgment of the cross, isn't it? Through the judgment of the cross of Jesus, God's people are brought to see very clearly, very vividly, our waywardness of sin and its consequences. And at the very same time, to see the love of God poured out upon us in Christ Jesus as our penalty was paid by another. He uses the judgment of the cross that we might understand our sin and misery. And the only Savior, He uses that to bring His people to Himself. And indeed, it is God's doing. In Hosea 2, verse 14, we read, Therefore, I am now going to allure her. I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her. God will do it. As this glorious restoration comes with, as well, a glorious picture. And it's a glorious picture of life. Notice, we've seen that throughout these chapters again, but notice verses 5-7. I will be like the dew to Israel. He will blossom like a lily. Like a cedar of Lebanon, He will send down His roots. His young shoots will grow. His splendor will be like an olive tree. His fragrance like a cedar of Lebanon. Men will dwell again in His shade. He will flourish like the grain. He will blossom like a vine. and his fame will be like the wine from Lebanon. Now, clearly those verses are filled with agricultural imagery that would have been understandable to Hosea's audience. They understood the beauty and the importance of the cedar and of the lily and of the olive oil as well. But ultimately, this is pointing to the church, the true Israel, pointing to her prosperity and life in Jesus Christ, even as the dew in Palestine gives life and abundance. He's talking here about dew not like he did before with regard to the fleeting faithfulness of Israel, that when the sun comes out, the dew is gone suddenly. But here he's talking about the benefit, the lush benefit that the dew gives that Palestine depends on. We don't understand it. But Palestine depends on that dew for lush growth. And that is what Jesus Christ, by His Holy Spirit, gives to His people, to His church. He restores her beauty. Boys and girls, sin makes us ugly. And we see that ugliness each and every time we lie or cheat or steal or murder in our hearts. We see the ugliness of sin all around us in a society that sins without shame. And again, it says it's just a mistake if there's something wrong with it. It makes us ugly. Sin is ugly. But the Holy Spirit takes God's people and cleanses them from that ugliness and gives a colorful, a captivating, unmistakable beauty like a lily. And He restores the church's strength. Sin also makes one weak, we know. As Paul says, tossed around by every wind of doctrine. As David makes clear, even the guilt of sin saps us of our strength, he says in Psalm 32. but the Holy Spirit gives strength to stand firm on the solid foundation of Jesus Christ with the confidence that our sins are washed away and that we are given the righteousness of Jesus Christ. And as Isaiah 40 says, those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. And He also restores her value. Olive oil, we know, was a precious and valuable commodity. It had many uses. Sin makes one utterly worthless and useless in the sight of God. We have no worth to Him in our sin. But Jesus Christ, again, by His blood and righteousness, gives us a worth in the sight of God so that God calls us His very own children. And He also makes her a delight. The fragrance of a cedar gives pleasure to those who are able to be close enough to enjoy it. And those in whom Jesus lives, Paul says in 2 Corinthians 2, You spread everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of Him and are the aroma of Christ the fragrance of life to those being saved. That describes those in whom Christ lives. They are a sweet-smelling fragrance of the knowledge of God, of Jesus Christ. You see, we can't help but to hear the words of Jesus here, I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it, And along with that, the words of Paul in Ephesians chapter 5, Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the Word and to present her to Himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. Beloved, Christ's church is beautiful and majestic in His sight because of Him. And His church is to be beautiful and majestic before the eyes of a watching world. And therefore, once again, we must ask ourselves, does this describe us? As individual believers? As a congregation of Jesus Christ? Is our life glistening with the beauty of righteousness? Does our life stand out with confident strength in Jesus Christ? does our life give the attractive aroma of the sweetness of God's grace in Jesus Christ is our life useful by God's grace in his kingdom and if we're honest we have to say no not always sometimes the very opposite but yet again our God comes to us with the comfort of his forgiving grace and that this is what Jesus Christ is doing by His Holy Spirit. He is making His people holy and blameless in His sight. We will be presented to His Father without spot. Yet even as we continue in this life, this is to be our desire to be fruitful in Him. He is the vine. We are the branches. He says whoever remains in Him will bear much fruit. But not only is this a glorious picture of life that we have here with Hosea, it's a glorious picture of the age to come. And that is the most glorious picture we have here. Verse 8 says, O Ephraim, what more have I to do with idols? I will answer him and care for him. I am like a green pine tree. Your fruitfulness comes from me. The Lord is telling His people their idols have never been the answer. I have never shared my glory with another. He is saying idols have never answered anyone when they have called to the idol for help. They have never cared as God cares. The only thing they do is destroy. They only bring death. But God is the only hope for mankind. He alone restores us to Himself. But not only for this life, He gives everlasting life. In chapter 2 again, in the space of two verses, He says three times, He says, I will betroth you to Me forever. I will betroth you to Myself. I will take you again as My wife. And I will never let you go. And here in verse 8, the Lord compares Himself to an evergreen pine tree. Boys and girls, an evergreen pine tree never looks dead. It never looks dormant. It is always green. It is a picture of something that continues on and on. It is a picture of life without end. This is God, and this is what God is for His people. He places before His people those who indeed were wounded and cold as a corpse. He places before His people life without end. That was His goal accomplished through Jesus Christ. He places before His people here at the end of this prophecy, He places before them the paradise of heaven. As we have the imagery of a garden paradise, The church is the garden of God. And Jesus Christ, as Revelation 22 reminds us, is that tree of life yielding unending fruit for his people. This is God's promise, beloved, to those who had rejected him, to those who had hated him, to those who were running away from him as fast as they could. This was God's promise of himself. And that, dear people of God, is paradise. God Himself with His people. Oh, beloved, what an amazing love story. And you and I are a part of it. We are a part of this amazing love story from the depths of eternal doom because of our own sin to the heights of never-ending life in the presence of God because of Jesus Christ alone. Is there any other love so amazing? A love that as long as we remain here, Empowered by the Holy Spirit, it demands my soul, my life, my all. A love that will not end. But those who trust in Jesus Christ alone receive the healing that He alone brings and will enjoy it forever. Indeed, the ways of the Lord are right. In His righteousness, He brings one to genuine repentance. He gives the assurance of a glorious restoration. He gives paradise. The presence of God without interruption. The provision of God without limit. Bringing you and me to the praise of God without end. This is the hope for all who trust in Jesus Christ. Amen. Let's pray together. Father, we pour out our hearts before you, recognizing that we are so undeserving, but indeed you are so great. And your greatness includes your love, your mercy, and your grace. Your greatness is amazing to remind us, O Lord, that you have brought us to be your very own, that you have rescued us from eternal darkness and brought us into your wonderful light through the Son you love, that we might enjoy the paradise of God, God Himself, all because of what You are to us. And Father, we pray that You would continue to lead us and guide us and encourage us on our path through this life until that day when You take us into Your glorious presence forever and ever. In Jesus' name we pray these things. Amen.