We are in our second installment in our series,
Scandalous Grace, as we make our way or journey
through Hosea. And today we will be in Hosea
chapter 2. And for our reading, it's going to
be chapter 2, verse 14, on through the rest of
the chapter. So if you have a Bible, you're welcome
to turn over to Hosea chapter 2. It'll also be
up here on the screen, beginning in verse 14.
Hosea 2, 14 says, I am going to persuade her,
lead her to the wilderness, and speak tenderly
to her. There I will give her vineyards back
to her and make the valley of Achor into a gateway
of hope. There she will respond as she did in
the days of her youth, as in the day she came
out of the land of Egypt. In that day, this is
the Lord's declaration, you will call me. my
husband, and no longer call me my Baal. For I
will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth.
They will no longer be remembered by their names.
On that day, I will make a covenant for them
with the wild animals, the birds of the sky,
and the creatures that crawl on the ground. I
will shatter bow, sword, and weapons of war in
the land and will enable the people to rest securely.
I will take you to be my wife forever. I will
take you to be my wife in righteousness, justice,
love and compassion. I will take you to be my
wife in faithfulness and you will know the Lord.
On that day, I will respond. This is the Lord's
declaration. I will respond to the sky and it
will respond to the earth and the earth will
respond to the grain, the new wine and the fresh
oil and they will respond to Jezreel. I will
sow her in the land for myself and I will have
compassion on Lo -Ruhamah. I will say to Lo -Amai,
you are my people. And he will say, you are my
God. This is God's word. In 2004, the U .S. men's
Olympic basketball team, which was once this
undisputed powerhouse of the sport. If you guys
remember back in the 90s, the dream team, the
dream team that went to the Olympics and just
swept the floor with their skills. Well, now
2004, once undisputed powerhouse, now we're humiliated.
Despite being stacked with NBA talent, they walked
away with a bronze medal that year. And for a
team that once dominated, it was really a national
embarrassment. The world no longer feared them,
and they no longer feared failure or discipline
or accountability. And so in 2005, Coach Mike
Kujewski, or Coach K as they called him, was
hired to fix the problem. But he didn't start
with new plays. He didn't start with a new playbook.
He didn't come in and get right to recruiting
new talent. What he did was he started at the
heart. And it was said that in one meeting, he
told the players, and remember, these are NBA
stars. These are millionaires who are used to
being catered to. He came in and said, you haven't
earned anything. The world doesn't fear us anymore.
If you're not ready to sacrifice and to change,
we will simply lose again. And sports analysts
have marked that as a sort of turning point.
Coach K began to rebuild the culture in the team
with discipline and humility and a shared identity.
The players had to put aside their egos, their
big egos sometimes. And embrace the grind. And
be unified around something greater than themselves.
And by the year 2008, the next Olympics, they
returned to the Olympics not as the dream team.
They came as the redeem team. To redeem back
what they had lost. And you know what? They didn't
just win gold. They went 8 -0. Swept it back
on top. All the way. And you know, sometimes
love doesn't sound sweet. Sometimes it sounds
like truth. Sometimes the way forward comes through
hard conversations and harder decisions. And
that's where we find ourselves in Hosea chapter
2. And we're going to actually back up a little
bit before verse 14 and go all the way to verse
2. And in our first point, walk through to see
that God's love takes a sharper tone. He blocks
paths, it says. He removes blessing. He exposes
shame, not to destroy, but to redeem. Not because
he's done loving. but because he refuses to love
his people halfway. And today we'll see how his
severe mercy clears the way for tender restoration.
He speaks the hard truth because he wants your
heart. And he is the kind of God who turns valleys
of trouble into doors of hope. And so we're gonna
walk now through. Hosea chapter 2. If you're
taking notes, the first of four points is this.
God's discipline is a severe mercy. So we pick
it up in Hosea chapter 2, verse 2. And this is
God speaking, not to the nations, but this is
God speaking to his own people. And he doesn't
open with soft words. He uses the relational
metaphor of marriage. of a household. And he
begins in verse two by saying, rebuke your mother,
rebuke her, for she is not my wife and I am not
her husband. That's the way to start, right?
Rebuke her. She's not my wife and I am not her
husband. God's using maternal or marital language,
again, to describe Israel's spiritual unfaithfulness.
And that's the covenantal language that we'll
see throughout. And these are words of grief.
These are words of separation. And these are
words of righteous confrontation. Begins with
rebuke your mother for she is not my wife. I
am not her husband. And then in verse two through
five, God begins to name what's gone wrong. His
people have not just wandered away. They've run
after another lover. They've run after Baals,
which were idols to a God. They've chased this
fertility god of the Canaanites. They've run
after foreign alliances, not trusting in God
to protect them. And they've run after a comfortable
religion that they can control. And so verse
5 says, she thought, talking about Israel, I
will follow my lovers, the men who give me my
food and water, my wool and flax, my oil and
drink. You see, Israel believes that her blessings
are coming from somewhere else. She credits her
idols for the gifts that God has been giving.
She says, my lovers provide for me, and God steps
in and says, no, I did. This is a sort of spiritual
amnesia, and it's not just ancient Israel's issue,
is it? It's ours today. Sometimes we... make
good things into idols, like our career or our
social status or relationships, which means that
we view those things as giving us meaning, significance,
purpose, and security, and we tether our hope
to those things. And we end up treating God like
he's a backup plan. I'll get to you if I'm in
trouble or if I have a need. Tim Keller, the
late pastor Tim Keller, said, people say I'm
the product of my decisions. But you didn't choose
your birth century. You didn't choose your family.
You didn't choose your culture. You didn't choose
your talents. Yet these are largely responsible
for who you have become. So how can you take
credit for your achievements? You're not as autonomous
as you think. These aren't your personal accomplishments.
They're gifts of grace from God. So here's the
truth. God loves us too much to let us keep doing
that. And so what does he do? Well, verse six
says, therefore, this is what I will do. I will
block her way with thorns. I will enclose her
with a wall so that she cannot find her paths.
This is called severe mercy. God doesn't set
fire from heaven. He doesn't, in a rage, strike
down all the idolaters. He does something that
is far more merciful and yet painful. He frustrates
their way. He frustrates their way. He closes
doors. He blocks every path. provision, not to
get revenge, but to get their attention. Sometimes
the most loving thing that God can do is afflict
us. Thank you, little beep. Every time I say
something and I pause, I need that beep. She
will pursue her lovers, but not catch them. She
will look for them, but not find them. In other
words, God is letting her run and then lets her
hit a wall. Why? Verse 7b. Then she will think.
I will go back to my former husband for it was
better for me then than now. I will go back to
my first love. I will go back to the one who
called me out of slavery and brought me into
freedom. I will go back to my covenant. The aim
of God's discipline is not payback. The aim of
God's discipline is restoration. As Paul David
Tripp puts it, the Lord never disciplines us
to pay us back, but to bring us back. God doesn't
discipline to destroy. He disciplines to restore.
He removes the gifts, not out of cruelty, but
to show her who the giver really is. Look at
verse 8. She does not recognize that it is I
who gave her the grain, the new wine, and the
fresh oil. I lavished silver and gold on her,
which they used for Baal. You can almost hear
the heartbreak of God in that verse. Everything
she had, every blessing, every provision, every
gift, that was me giving it to her. She took
it and then offered it to someone else. And so
God responds in verse 9 through 13 with this.
He takes it all away. The grain, the wine, the
oil, the wool. The jewelry, the festivals, the
music, all of it. Why? Because he wants her heart
back. And so let's pause here for a moment. Has
God ever done that to you? Have you ever found
yourself at a dead end or the path that used
to work doesn't work anymore? The joy you used
to find in that relationship or that habit or
that success or career, it's gone. The comfort
you built your life on suddenly gets pulled out
like a rug. See, an improper prosperity -focused
view of the gospel gets this completely backward.
And some of the American Western church buys
into it fully. And hopefully not anyone here,
but the prosperity gospel teaches that if you
have enough faith, you'll experience success,
health, ease, and favor. So when things are falling
apart, when you hit a dead end, when you lose
a job, when you face heartbreak or watch a dream
crumble, it can feel like God is punishing you.
He is against you. He has... withdrawn from you,
he has left you. And that you have failed him.
And this is not the gospel. The true gospel isn't
follow Jesus and your life will get easier. It's
follow Jesus and your life will be redeemed even
through suffering. A prosperity gospel tells
you that blessing means nothing goes wrong in
your life. But the real gospel tells you that
God is so good and so wise and so committed to
your soul that he'll even let things fall apart
in your life to bring you closer to him. I've
experienced it. I went through that roundabout
a few times. We're here again. Wrong turn. See,
it may not be that God is rejecting you. It may
be that God is rescuing you. And that's grace.
Prosperity teaching can't make sense of a God
who frustrates your plans on purpose. But the
gospel tells us he does it in love. To pull us
away from what will fail us and lead us back
to what won't. See, he frustrates the false hopes
that we cling to. Not because he's angry, but
because he's better. Hebrews 12, 6 says, the
Lord disciplines the one, what? That he loves.
The Lord disciplines the one he loves. Not the
one he's given up on, not the one that he's mad
at, the one he loves. And so if you're in a season
where your idols aren't satisfying anymore, where
your plans are falling apart, thorns in your
way, where your comfort has been stripped away,
it just might be a severe mercy you're experiencing.
It might be God saying, come back to me. If you're
taking notes, the second point I'll have you
write down is God draws us close in the wilderness.
And just when you think that the discipline and
judgment can't get any heavier, just when you
think that God might be finished or fed up or
walking away, we get one of the most beautiful
therefores in the Bible. Verse 14, therefore,
I am going to persuade her. lead her to the wilderness
and speak tenderly to her. Like, what? Wait a
second. Like, did you read 1 through 13? Did
you see what was going on? This whole thing started
with rebuke your mother and tell her, I'm not
your husband. You're not my wife. And now we're
like, therefore, in light of all of that, in
light of the frustration that I've introduced
to draw her and woo her back, I'm going to persuade
her and lead her to the wilderness and speak
tenderly to her. Like you and I, you and I are
like, you know, you just don't know about me.
You just don't know. I could have another you
in a minute. Matter of fact, he'll be here in
a minute. To the left, to the left, and everything,
you know. Sorry, if you don't get the reference,
it's a song. Right? That's you and I. It's like,
you just don't know about me. I could replace
you in two shakes of something. Right? But God
says, therefore, I'm going to persuade her. I
am going to lead her to the wilderness and speak
tenderly to her. Therefore, I'm going to allure
her. After all the betrayal, after all the idols,
after all the forgetting and forsaking, God doesn't
say, therefore, I'm done. He says, therefore,
I'm going to woo her. Man, that's scandal of
grace part two right there, isn't it? God doesn't
just pursue us in our faithfulness. He comes
after us in our failure. Praise God. Amen. Hallelujah.
And where does he lead her? He leads her to the
wilderness. Why the wilderness? Well, it's a
symbol in a setting that is full of meaning in
the biblical story. The wilderness is where Israel
wandered for 40 years. It's where they were tested
and where their hearts were exposed. It's where
they had no food except what God provided for
them and no way forward except wherever God led
them. It's back to a place of utter dependence.
The wilderness is a place of stripping away,
but it's also a place of shaping and forming.
It's dry, it's lonely, it's uncomfortable, but
it's in the wilderness that God gets our attention.
Therefore, I will lead her to the wilderness
and speak tenderly to her. The wilderness isn't
God's rejection. It's actually an invitation.
It's not a punishment, but it's his goodness
running after us and leading us out. God has
to pull us out of everything we're depending
on so that he can reintroduce himself to us.
And so when you've lost the comforts and the
distractions and the idols, when you have nothing
left but God, you begin to see that he is enough.
I love the way C .S. Lewis talks about our pain
and difficulty that we go through. God whispers
to us in our pleasure. He speaks in our conscience,
but he shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone
to rouse a deaf world. The wilderness is where
God shouts, but not in anger. You see, in Hebrew,
the phrase speaks tenderly literally means speaks
to her heart. He speaks to her heart. God isn't
just issuing some list of commands. He's wooing.
He's pursuing. He's restoring not just her behavior,
but the relationship. I should have thrown in
this video meme that my wife sent me yesterday.
She was trying to represent the way that I flirt
with her. And it was awkward and weird and stupid.
It's like the way my husband tries to get my
attention. And I thought, wow, you pulled it
up really quick. No, but it speaks to her heart.
It draws her out. It doesn't go so far as saying
flirting, but that's kind of where my mind goes.
It's like, come, come away. Come here. Come near.
Verse 15, there I will give her vineyards back
to her and make the valley of Achor into a gateway
of hope. Vineyards represent fruitfulness, blessing,
joy. And God is saying, I'm not just going to
bring her back. I'm going to restore what was
lost. I'm going to restore what I withheld. Back
to her. And then that second line, I will make
the Valley of Achor into a gateway of hope. Now,
if you're unfamiliar with the name, Valley of
Achor was a place of judgment and death. It's
where Achan sinned against God in the book of
Joshua. He kept forbidden treasure from Jericho
and it was found out because Israel was defeated
in a subsequent battle and Achan was executed.
It was a moment of national shame. It was a moment
of divine discipline. The valley of Achor. Achor
literally means trouble. The valley of trouble.
And what God says is, I will turn the valley
of trouble into a gateway of hope. Only God can
do that. Only God can take the lowest, darkest,
most shame -filled place in your story. And make
it the starting point for redemption. Anyone
experience that? Yeah. What is your valley of
Achor? What's the place of trouble in your life?
The wilderness season that you didn't choose
or the hardship or loss or consequence that broke
you? God says, that's where I meet you. That's
where I speak tenderly. I literally turn the
valley of hopelessness into a gateway into hope.
And then the last line of verse 15, there she
will respond as she did in the days of her youth.
As in the day she came out of the land of Egypt,
this language of renewal, God saying, I'm going
to bring her back to the beginning, back to when
our love was fresh, our covenant was new, when
her heart was mine. This is not a God who settles
for some distant obedience. This is a God who
wants her back, not just in body, but in heart.
And that leads to point number three. God wants
relationship, not religion. So after leading
his people into the wilderness and speaking to
their hearts and turning the valley of trouble
into a doorway of hope, God makes a promise and
says, in that day, the Lord declares, you will
call me my husband and no longer call me my Baal.
There's kind of an interesting wordplay going
on there because in Hebrew, Baal can mean Lord
or master and is sometimes used even of husbands.
They're called Baal in the Hebrew. But by Hosea's
day, it was a tainted word because Baal also
was the name of a Canaanite fertility God. And
Israel had blurred the lines between Yahweh,
the one true living God, and the idols of the
land. And they were treating God like he was
one of many spiritual options to be appeased
or to be used. And God says, no more. You will
no longer call me Baal. In other words, stop
relating to me like a distant master or like
a divine vending machine. Instead, you will call
me husband. Covenant language of intimacy, union
and love. God doesn't want to be treated like
a religious obligation. He doesn't want to be
treated like an appointment on our calendar.
God is rejecting cold mechanical religion. Because
Israel had all of the trappings of worship, man.
They had the festivals. They had the prayers.
They had the fast. They had the sacrificial system.
They had the offerings. But their heart was not
there. It was elsewhere. And you and I know that
we do the same thing. We can sing songs. We can
read the verse of the day. We can go to church.
We can do a devotion. We can serve on a team.
We can give ourselves over and over again to
religious activity and still be far from God.
And I think that's why this moment in Hosea 2
is powerful because God isn't asking Israel to
go back to more religious activity. He's inviting
her into relational intimacy. In that day, you
will no longer call me Baal. You will call me
my husband. I will take you to be my wife forever.
I will take you to be my wife in righteousness,
justice, love, and compassion. I will take you
to be my wife in faithfulness, and you will know
the Lord. God doesn't say, if you clean yourself
up, maybe we can talk. Or if you prove yourself,
I'll consider it one of many, maybe. More sacrifice,
more prayer, more religious devotion, more devotions
in the morning, double devotions, triple devotions,
more, more, more, more. He says, I will take
you back. I will bind myself to you again. I
will cover you with righteousness. I will reestablish
the covenant you've broken. I will give you my
love and my justice and my compassion and my
faithfulness. This is wedding vows. From the
one who had every right to walk away. Israel
was the unfaithful spouse. God was the wronged
party. But here he is extending his hand, renewing
the relationship and pledging himself forever.
And where does it land? And you will know the
Lord. In Hebrew, the word know is not merely
intellectual. We have this problem in the West.
We're in the information age. In the information
age, we can find out all kinds of information
and facts. I could have, you know, Chad GPT print
me out a fact sheet on God, and then I can know
facts about God. We love structures and frameworks.
You know, we love to say, I am from this party
or this group. I've got this structure or framework
work for the atonement or for the sacrificial
system or for the Trinity or how does this work?
We got all of our structures and systems. We
can know God. But the Hebrew word for know is
not merely intellectual. It's experiential. It's
intimate. In fact, it's oftentimes the word that's
used for when a husband knows his wife, if you
get my drift. Experientially. Intimately.
A lot of people know my wife, Adrienne. She has a job
that gives her connections of varying degrees.
to people in Guam, Alaska, California, Indiana.
She's on the phone or email with people all over
the place. They know her name. They might know
her phone number. They might know how many kids
that she has or which church that she goes to,
but they do not know her like I know her. I don't
know just facts about her. I didn't get a fact
sheet about my wife every morning, right? Okay,
good. She changed a little bit. She changed a
lot. I don't just know facts about her. I know
her heartbeat. I don't just know shared information.
We've shared life. We've ran into the cul -de
-sac of trouble many times together. Mostly my
fault. And she's been there. We've shared vision.
We've shared values. This is not about knowing
God like you know a fact. God is not after ritual
obedience. He could care less. Or he couldn't
care less. Couldn't care less. He wants relational
oneness. He doesn't want a religion of check
the box. He wants union. I will take you to be
mine forever. And so ask yourself, do you relate
to God like he is Baal? Is your relation to God
like he is an idol, Baal? A master that you have
to try to appease or a divine vending machine
when you need something? Or is he like a husband,
like a savior who stole your heart? And not just
one who wants your heart, but who wants to be
known himself by you. That's extraordinary. Like,
you get that? We sang about holy other, God,
completely like search all over. There's no one
like him. He wants to know you. And he wants
you to know him experientially, intimately. The
invitation is open and the vows he has made are
still on the table. I will take you to be my
beloved forever. Number four, God reverses what
sin has ruined. Verse 21 begins with a vision
of restoration. On that day, I will respond.
This is the Lord's declaration. I will respond
to the sky and it will respond to the earth.
This is a way of saying, I'm putting it all back
together again. Where sin has fractured the world,
spiritually and relationally, even agriculturally,
God now promises response. Harmony, faithfulness,
fruitfulness. The heavens will pour out rain.
The earth will receive it and yield grain. The
grain will sustain his people. Everything good
that sin had broken, God will reverse. And verse
22 continues this cascade of grace. The earth
will respond to the grain, the new wine, and
the fresh oil, and they will respond to Jezreel.
If you were here last week, you remember Jezreel.
It was the firstborn son of Hosea. He was told
to be named Jezreel because he was the one that
meant God scatters in judgment. For God would
scatter Israel in judgment because of their unfaithfulness.
It was a name of judgment, a warning that Israel
would be torn apart and exiled. But now, what
is happening in Jezreel? Not scattered judgment
anymore. But the planting and growing of mercy,
of faithfulness and love, the fruitfulness of
God, God takes this place of punishment and he
turns it into a place of promise. And that's
what he does. He takes the wreckage of sin in
our lives and he renews it in grace, doesn't
he? So the final verse says, I will sow her in
the land for myself. And I will have compassion
on Lo -Ruhamah. And I will say to Lo -Ammai,
you are my people. And he will say, you are my
God. This is where the names of shame get reversed.
Lo -Ruhamah meant no mercy. Now becomes beloved
again. And Lo -Ammai, not my people, becomes
mine forever. This is full circle. The names
that once screamed judgment, the labels that
once represented rejection, now God rewrites
them. He reverses what sin has ruined. And don't
miss the last phrase. He says, you're going to
be my people. And lo am I, representing the people
of Israel, God's people. will say, you are my
God. This passage shows us something I think
we all need to hear and that we know, and that
is sin ruins things. But God reverses what sin
has ruined. You guys remember what we read at
the very beginning of service? Revelation chapter
21, the new heavens and new earth. The restoration
of all things. The one on the throne said, I
am making everything new. Sin ruined identity,
but God gives us a new name. Sin ruined relationships,
but God renews the covenant. Sin ruined our joy,
but God brings back the wine and the grain and
he restores what was scattered. It makes it fruitful.
You may feel like your story is one of being
too broken and your past is too shameful and
your sin is piled up too high, but God specializes
in name reversal, doesn't he? How many guys know
who John Newton is? Anyone? He did not invent
the Fig Newton. That guy... Okay, let's do a
quick survey. Who likes Fig Newtons? Who doesn't
like Fig Newtons? Okay. There are more people
who like Fig Newtons. I'm in the doesn't. That's
some nasty stuff. You guys are weird. John Newton
didn't invent the figs. He actually wrote one
of the most famous hymns sung across all the
world. Amazing Grace. And John Newton knew firsthand
what it meant to be given a new name and a new
story because before Jesus captured him by his
grace, John Newton was a slave trader. John Newton
was a slave trader and he was a blasphemer. In
fact, those who knew him, his peers, said that
he had a heart as hard as iron. That wasn't a
good thing. He trafficked in human lives and
he cursed God. But you know what? God loved John
Newton. And God intervened through a storm and
a near shipwreck, through nearly the end of his
life, which began a journey of beginning to become
open to the wooing of God, the leading of God.
And through the conviction of the Holy Spirit
and through his severe mercy in his life, it
turned this life around that was a life of ruin
and made it into a testimony of grace. And years
later, Newton wrote some humble words that resound
with me and maybe will resound with you. He wrote,
I am not what I ought to be. I am not what I
want to be. I am not what I hope to be in another
world. But still, I am not what I once used to
be. And by the grace of God, I am what I am.
That's the kind of reversal God specializes in.
He doesn't just forgive the past. He rewrites
our name. He reclaims our identity and he restores
what sin tried to destroy. The valley of trouble
can become the gateway of hope in your life.
Why? Because God still reverses what sin has
ruined.