“Holy Love”
August 6, 2006
Hosea 11:1-11
This is our 8th Sunday in the book of Hosea, and at times, it has probably seemed like a broken record: judgment, doom, gloom, discipline - judgment, doom, gloom, discipline, judgment, doom, gloom, discipline.
But that’s not the Big Picture of Hosea! We got the Big Picture in chapters 1 through 3 of Hosea, and there we learned that in spite of Israel’s wickedness–which needed judgment, doom, gloom, and discipline–in spite of that the LORD has a redeeming love for His people and will not be thwarted in loving them.
God has a holy love for His people.
And that’s the message again of Hosea chapter 11.
The first picture we get of God’s holy love in chapter 11 is the love of a Father. Father-Love. Look at verse 1.
“When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.”
Up till now in Hosea, Israel has been pictured as an adulterous wife. Now, Israel is pictured as a beloved son. A son whom God loves. A son upon whom God has set His love and called out of Egypt–the Exodus.
What kind of a son did Israel turn out to be? Wayward. V.2
“But the more I called Israel, the further they went from me. They sacrificed to the Baals and they burned incense to images.”
So this is a rejected Father whose love is spurned by His son. V.3
“It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by the arms; but they did not realize it was I who healed them. I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love; I lifted the yoke from their neck and bent down to feed them.”
There are two images here. In verse 3 it is the image of a Father tenderly teaching His son to walk. Holding out two fingers for him to grab on and gingerly take his first steps. Catching him under the arms so that he doesn’t fall.
But spurned. The Son doesn’t realize what the Father has been for him.
The second image (in v.4) is an agricultural image. The Father is now seen as a Farmer who loves his ox and cares gently for him, like a Father. Cords of human kindness and ties of love. So much like a Father that the Farmer treats his ox like a pet. Lifting the yoke from their neck and bending down to feed them.
Stooping to love them.
That’s Father-love. It’s tender and compassionate and gentle.
But it is also just and firm and disciplinarian when necessary, isn’t it?
When young Israel became an teenager (so to speak), he rebelled and became a stubborn young buck. V.5
“Will they not return to Egypt and will not Assyria rule over them because they refuse to repent? [God has no choice to but to bring this discipline. V.6] Swords will flash in their cities, will destroy the bars of their gates and put an end to their plans. My people are determined to turn from me. Even if they call to the Most High, he will by no means exalt them.”
God’s Father-Love is firm and just and disciplinarian. He knows in His wisdom that they must have the sword come to ravage their cities and put an end to their wicked plans. He knows that, and He will do it.
But, listen...
He will not give them all that they deserve!
This spurned Father, this rejected Father, will treat His wayward son with astonishing grace!
His holy love is amazingly gracious to His people.
Look at His heart in verse 8.
“How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I treat you like Admah? How can I make you like Zeboiim? My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused. I will not carry out my fierce anger, nor will I turn and devastate Ephraim. For I am God, and not man–the Holy One among you. I will not come in wrath.”
This is, perhaps, the most amazing passage in the Book of Hosea.
We get a glimpse into the heart of God for His people.
You might get the idea from chapters 4 through 10 that God doesn’t care that much about His people–except that they have sinned and sinned and sinned against Him and must be disciplined for it.
But here we see the Big Picture again. God has a holy love for His people and it issues into astonishing grace.
Listen again to his four questions. Not one, two, or three, but four times:
“How can I give you up, Ephraim [a pet name for Israel]? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I treat you like Admah? How can I make you like Zeboiim?”
Do you hear what sounds like desperation in the heart of God?
That’s amazing!
Who were Admah and Zebooim? Anyone know?
They were cities of the plain that were the suburbs of Sodom and Gomorrah.
What happened to Admah and Zeboiim? Anyone know?
They were totally destroyed in Genesis 19. Totally decimated. Absolutely nothing left. Archaeologists haven’t been able to locate any traces of those two towns.
They were completely wiped out.
And that’s what Israel deserved! Isn’t it?!
But God has a holy love for His people and it issues into astonishing grace.
“How can I give you up, Ephraim [wipe you out]? How can I hand you over [to total destruction], Israel? How can I treat you like Admah? How can I make you like Zeboiim?”
Answer? He can’t. He won’t.
“My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused.”
That’s what’s going on in God’s heart.
Now, this is anthropathetic language; meaning that it uses human expressions of a changed heart to somehow accurately get across what is happening in the eternal immutable heart of God.
In the heart of God is stoked a holy love for His people that causes Him to repay their adulterous treachery against Him with astonishing grace!
All of God’s compassion is aroused for His people.
Let me say that again.
In the heart of God is stoked a holy love for His people that causes Him to repay their adulterous treachery against Him with astonishing grace!
All of God’s compassion is aroused for His people.
“My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused. I will not carry out my fierce anger, nor will I turn and devastate Ephraim.”
He will devastate Ephraim, but not finally, not ultimately, not like Admah and Zeboiim. If you have the King James Version, you can see that the word the NIV translates as “turn” could also be rendered “return.”
God will not come back after the exile and totally wipe out Ephraim.
There is a future for Israel. That’s the point of verses 10 and 11.
“I will not come in wrath. They [Israel] will follow the LORD; he will roar like a lion. When he roars, his children will come trembling from the west. They will come trembling like birds from Egypt, like doves from Assyria. I will settle them in their homes,’ declares the LORD.”
There is a future for Israel.
The LORD will roar like a lion and He will call His people home. And they will not resist His summons. They will repent, and they will return. He will see to it.
The will come in humility and reverent fear. They will come trembling, not like a silly dove, like we saw in chapter 7, but like a tremulous obedient dove, a homing pigeon answering the Lion of Judah’s roar.
There is a future for God’s people. He will settle them in their homes.
Is that what they deserved?
Is that what we deserve?
No. The good news of Hosea is that God gives us what we need (tenderly like a compassionate Father and firmly like a disciplining Father), but He also gives us what we don’t deserve. He gives us grace.
He doesn’t carry out the full extreme of His fierce anger even though we deserve it!
Instead, He gives us Holy Love.
How Deep the Father’s Love for Us
How Vast Beyond All Measure!
Why does He do all of this? Why doesn’t He give us what we deserve? V.9
“I will not carry out my fierce anger, nor will I turn and devastate Ephraim. For I am God, and not man–the Holy One among you. I will not come in wrath.”
He does it because He is God.
And He is not man. He is not arbitrary or random. He is not moody and changeable.
All of the talk of His changing heart does not reveal a heart that is undecided and capricious.
His heart is actually holy. It is different, set-apart, unlike our hearts.
And it is full of holy love for His covenant people.
Normally, we think of God’s holiness as issuing into judgment and condemnation. We might expect to put holy together with wrath.
But here God says, “I am the Holy One among you. [Therefore] I will not come in wrath.” I will come in grace.
God’s holiness issues into grace for His people.
That’s amazing!
That is holy love.
And how is this possible?
You know the answer, and it is what we celebrate at this Table.
God has a holy love for His people, and it issues into astonishing grace made possible by the Cross of Jesus Christ.
Did verse 1 sound familiar to you?
“When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.”
Did that sound familiar?
It’s quoted in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 2 about Jesus.
Remember, Jesus went down into Egypt, too, and God called Him up out of Egypt, as well.
Matthew recognized that Jesus was following the pattern of Israel. He was doing what Israel did.
Did He also fail in the wilderness and (v.2) go further away from God? Did Jesus sacrifice to the Baals and burned incense to images?
No, He did not.
Where Israel failed, Jesus succeeded. He was victorious.
But then, Jesus received the wrath of God.
Jesus was treated like Admah and Zeboiim.
The Father came in wrath.
Jesus took our place.
That’s how God can be gracious like this.
The Holy One of Israel is holy in both judgment and mercy.
He sacrificed His very own Son in our place.
All of the sins we had ever committed and ever will were placed upon His shoulders.
And He received the wrath we deserved.
That’s how costly is His holy love.
What should we do in response?
Well, first of all, we should RECEIVE HIS HOLY LOVE.
If you have not received His love by trusting in what He did on the Cross, then you are still in your sins and are going to Hell.
You don’t have to go to Hell.
I challenge you today to repent (to turn from your sinful way of life, no matter how good it looks or feels) and put your trust in Jesus Christ and what He did on the Cross for the forgiveness of your sins and the hope of heaven.
Receive His holy love. He offers it to you today.
And second, we should REJOICE IN HIS HOLY LOVE!
If you are in Christ, this is how God feels about you!
Do you believe that?
Do you know that?
I remember one time more than a decade ago that I felt this love in a deep way.
I was in my dorm room at Moody Bible Institute meditating on Scripture, and it struck me and I wrote it down that God was “Big, Real, and He Loves Me!”
Brothers and Sisters, “God is Big, Real, and He loves you.”
Rejoice in His Holy Love!
The third response to this, I think, is to RESIDE IN GOD’S HOLY LOVE.
The book of Jude says, “Keep yourself in God’s love.”
And I think that means both rejoicing in it and living in it and living a certain way because of it.
If we knew (really knew in our hearts!) that God loved us, how would we live?”
If we knew that God loved us with a holy love, how would we live? We’d live holy lives, wouldn’t we?
What needs to go in your life and mine?
If we reside in God’s holy love, we’re going to live out holiness and holy love ourselves.
What changes need to be made in your life and mine?
I still haven’t done anything about my carpenter ants. Have you done anything this Summer about your heart-idols?
Receive God’s holy love, rejoice in God’s holy love, reside in God’s holy love, and REMEMBER GOD’S HOLY LOVE.
That’s what this table does for us. It reminds us of what it cost God to love His people with this kind of astonishing grace.
Israel didn’t know about the Cross!
But we do.
So, we pause now to remember God’s holy love.
Holy God in Love Became
Perfect Man to Bear My Blame
On the Cross He Took My Sin
By His Death I Live Again
[The Gospel Song by Drew Jones & Bob Kauflin]
August 6, 2006
Hosea 11:1-11
This is our 8th Sunday in the book of Hosea, and at times, it has probably seemed like a broken record: judgment, doom, gloom, discipline - judgment, doom, gloom, discipline, judgment, doom, gloom, discipline.
But that’s not the Big Picture of Hosea! We got the Big Picture in chapters 1 through 3 of Hosea, and there we learned that in spite of Israel’s wickedness–which needed judgment, doom, gloom, and discipline–in spite of that the LORD has a redeeming love for His people and will not be thwarted in loving them.
God has a holy love for His people.
And that’s the message again of Hosea chapter 11.
The first picture we get of God’s holy love in chapter 11 is the love of a Father. Father-Love. Look at verse 1.
“When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.”
Up till now in Hosea, Israel has been pictured as an adulterous wife. Now, Israel is pictured as a beloved son. A son whom God loves. A son upon whom God has set His love and called out of Egypt–the Exodus.
What kind of a son did Israel turn out to be? Wayward. V.2
“But the more I called Israel, the further they went from me. They sacrificed to the Baals and they burned incense to images.”
So this is a rejected Father whose love is spurned by His son. V.3
“It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by the arms; but they did not realize it was I who healed them. I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love; I lifted the yoke from their neck and bent down to feed them.”
There are two images here. In verse 3 it is the image of a Father tenderly teaching His son to walk. Holding out two fingers for him to grab on and gingerly take his first steps. Catching him under the arms so that he doesn’t fall.
But spurned. The Son doesn’t realize what the Father has been for him.
The second image (in v.4) is an agricultural image. The Father is now seen as a Farmer who loves his ox and cares gently for him, like a Father. Cords of human kindness and ties of love. So much like a Father that the Farmer treats his ox like a pet. Lifting the yoke from their neck and bending down to feed them.
Stooping to love them.
That’s Father-love. It’s tender and compassionate and gentle.
But it is also just and firm and disciplinarian when necessary, isn’t it?
When young Israel became an teenager (so to speak), he rebelled and became a stubborn young buck. V.5
“Will they not return to Egypt and will not Assyria rule over them because they refuse to repent? [God has no choice to but to bring this discipline. V.6] Swords will flash in their cities, will destroy the bars of their gates and put an end to their plans. My people are determined to turn from me. Even if they call to the Most High, he will by no means exalt them.”
God’s Father-Love is firm and just and disciplinarian. He knows in His wisdom that they must have the sword come to ravage their cities and put an end to their wicked plans. He knows that, and He will do it.
But, listen...
He will not give them all that they deserve!
This spurned Father, this rejected Father, will treat His wayward son with astonishing grace!
His holy love is amazingly gracious to His people.
Look at His heart in verse 8.
“How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I treat you like Admah? How can I make you like Zeboiim? My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused. I will not carry out my fierce anger, nor will I turn and devastate Ephraim. For I am God, and not man–the Holy One among you. I will not come in wrath.”
This is, perhaps, the most amazing passage in the Book of Hosea.
We get a glimpse into the heart of God for His people.
You might get the idea from chapters 4 through 10 that God doesn’t care that much about His people–except that they have sinned and sinned and sinned against Him and must be disciplined for it.
But here we see the Big Picture again. God has a holy love for His people and it issues into astonishing grace.
Listen again to his four questions. Not one, two, or three, but four times:
“How can I give you up, Ephraim [a pet name for Israel]? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I treat you like Admah? How can I make you like Zeboiim?”
Do you hear what sounds like desperation in the heart of God?
That’s amazing!
Who were Admah and Zebooim? Anyone know?
They were cities of the plain that were the suburbs of Sodom and Gomorrah.
What happened to Admah and Zeboiim? Anyone know?
They were totally destroyed in Genesis 19. Totally decimated. Absolutely nothing left. Archaeologists haven’t been able to locate any traces of those two towns.
They were completely wiped out.
And that’s what Israel deserved! Isn’t it?!
But God has a holy love for His people and it issues into astonishing grace.
“How can I give you up, Ephraim [wipe you out]? How can I hand you over [to total destruction], Israel? How can I treat you like Admah? How can I make you like Zeboiim?”
Answer? He can’t. He won’t.
“My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused.”
That’s what’s going on in God’s heart.
Now, this is anthropathetic language; meaning that it uses human expressions of a changed heart to somehow accurately get across what is happening in the eternal immutable heart of God.
In the heart of God is stoked a holy love for His people that causes Him to repay their adulterous treachery against Him with astonishing grace!
All of God’s compassion is aroused for His people.
Let me say that again.
In the heart of God is stoked a holy love for His people that causes Him to repay their adulterous treachery against Him with astonishing grace!
All of God’s compassion is aroused for His people.
“My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused. I will not carry out my fierce anger, nor will I turn and devastate Ephraim.”
He will devastate Ephraim, but not finally, not ultimately, not like Admah and Zeboiim. If you have the King James Version, you can see that the word the NIV translates as “turn” could also be rendered “return.”
God will not come back after the exile and totally wipe out Ephraim.
There is a future for Israel. That’s the point of verses 10 and 11.
“I will not come in wrath. They [Israel] will follow the LORD; he will roar like a lion. When he roars, his children will come trembling from the west. They will come trembling like birds from Egypt, like doves from Assyria. I will settle them in their homes,’ declares the LORD.”
There is a future for Israel.
The LORD will roar like a lion and He will call His people home. And they will not resist His summons. They will repent, and they will return. He will see to it.
The will come in humility and reverent fear. They will come trembling, not like a silly dove, like we saw in chapter 7, but like a tremulous obedient dove, a homing pigeon answering the Lion of Judah’s roar.
There is a future for God’s people. He will settle them in their homes.
Is that what they deserved?
Is that what we deserve?
No. The good news of Hosea is that God gives us what we need (tenderly like a compassionate Father and firmly like a disciplining Father), but He also gives us what we don’t deserve. He gives us grace.
He doesn’t carry out the full extreme of His fierce anger even though we deserve it!
Instead, He gives us Holy Love.
How Deep the Father’s Love for Us
How Vast Beyond All Measure!
Why does He do all of this? Why doesn’t He give us what we deserve? V.9
“I will not carry out my fierce anger, nor will I turn and devastate Ephraim. For I am God, and not man–the Holy One among you. I will not come in wrath.”
He does it because He is God.
And He is not man. He is not arbitrary or random. He is not moody and changeable.
All of the talk of His changing heart does not reveal a heart that is undecided and capricious.
His heart is actually holy. It is different, set-apart, unlike our hearts.
And it is full of holy love for His covenant people.
Normally, we think of God’s holiness as issuing into judgment and condemnation. We might expect to put holy together with wrath.
But here God says, “I am the Holy One among you. [Therefore] I will not come in wrath.” I will come in grace.
God’s holiness issues into grace for His people.
That’s amazing!
That is holy love.
And how is this possible?
You know the answer, and it is what we celebrate at this Table.
God has a holy love for His people, and it issues into astonishing grace made possible by the Cross of Jesus Christ.
Did verse 1 sound familiar to you?
“When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.”
Did that sound familiar?
It’s quoted in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 2 about Jesus.
Remember, Jesus went down into Egypt, too, and God called Him up out of Egypt, as well.
Matthew recognized that Jesus was following the pattern of Israel. He was doing what Israel did.
Did He also fail in the wilderness and (v.2) go further away from God? Did Jesus sacrifice to the Baals and burned incense to images?
No, He did not.
Where Israel failed, Jesus succeeded. He was victorious.
But then, Jesus received the wrath of God.
Jesus was treated like Admah and Zeboiim.
The Father came in wrath.
Jesus took our place.
That’s how God can be gracious like this.
The Holy One of Israel is holy in both judgment and mercy.
He sacrificed His very own Son in our place.
All of the sins we had ever committed and ever will were placed upon His shoulders.
And He received the wrath we deserved.
That’s how costly is His holy love.
What should we do in response?
Well, first of all, we should RECEIVE HIS HOLY LOVE.
If you have not received His love by trusting in what He did on the Cross, then you are still in your sins and are going to Hell.
You don’t have to go to Hell.
I challenge you today to repent (to turn from your sinful way of life, no matter how good it looks or feels) and put your trust in Jesus Christ and what He did on the Cross for the forgiveness of your sins and the hope of heaven.
Receive His holy love. He offers it to you today.
And second, we should REJOICE IN HIS HOLY LOVE!
If you are in Christ, this is how God feels about you!
Do you believe that?
Do you know that?
I remember one time more than a decade ago that I felt this love in a deep way.
I was in my dorm room at Moody Bible Institute meditating on Scripture, and it struck me and I wrote it down that God was “Big, Real, and He Loves Me!”
Brothers and Sisters, “God is Big, Real, and He loves you.”
Rejoice in His Holy Love!
The third response to this, I think, is to RESIDE IN GOD’S HOLY LOVE.
The book of Jude says, “Keep yourself in God’s love.”
And I think that means both rejoicing in it and living in it and living a certain way because of it.
If we knew (really knew in our hearts!) that God loved us, how would we live?”
If we knew that God loved us with a holy love, how would we live? We’d live holy lives, wouldn’t we?
What needs to go in your life and mine?
If we reside in God’s holy love, we’re going to live out holiness and holy love ourselves.
What changes need to be made in your life and mine?
I still haven’t done anything about my carpenter ants. Have you done anything this Summer about your heart-idols?
Receive God’s holy love, rejoice in God’s holy love, reside in God’s holy love, and REMEMBER GOD’S HOLY LOVE.
That’s what this table does for us. It reminds us of what it cost God to love His people with this kind of astonishing grace.
Israel didn’t know about the Cross!
But we do.
So, we pause now to remember God’s holy love.
Holy God in Love Became
Perfect Man to Bear My Blame
On the Cross He Took My Sin
By His Death I Live Again
[The Gospel Song by Drew Jones & Bob Kauflin]
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