Good morning. If you're great blessing and joy and ask to turn your Bibles to the Book of Hosea, chapter 12. I'm sorry, chapter 14. The Book of Hosea, chapter 14, the very end of the book.
We'll be covering chapters 12 through 14, but only reading this final chapter. A lot of pages, wrestling still. Hosea 14, the Lord says, through the prophet Hosea. Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity.
Take with you words and return to the Lord. Hosea, pray to him, take away all iniquity, accept what is good, so that we will pay with bulls the valance of our lips. A serious shall not save us. We will not ride on horses.
We will say no more our God to the work of our hands, in you, the orphan finds mercy. I will heal their apostasy. I will love them freely from my anger as turned to them. I will be like the dude to Israel.
He shall blossom like the lily. He shall take root like the trees of Lebanon. His shoots shall spread out. His beauty shall be like the olive and his fragrance like Lebanon.
They shall return in dwell beneath my shadow. They shall flourish like the grain. They shall blossom like the vine. Their fame shall be like the wine of Lebanon.
Oh, Ephraim, what have I to do with idols? It is I who answer and look after you. I am like an evergreen cypress from me comes your fruit. Whoever is wise, let him understand these things.
Whoever is discerning, let him know them. For the ways of the Lord are right and the upright walk in them, but transgressors stumble in them. This is the word of God. Would you please pray with me?
Oh, trying God, we ask that in this time, that through the foolishness of preaching, that you would buy your spirit, give us sight and insight to see Christ, and that in seeing his glory that we might behold the glory of the only begotten of you, Father, to know you and to live this morning. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. We have all been in a situation where we responded to someone quite quickly and we realized immediately that wasn't a very wise response.
I won't take a show of hands or examples from the crowd. But perhaps maybe we responded too quickly to something our friend says, thinking that we got him in a gotcha situation and we stick our foot in our mouths instead and we did not respond very wisely. Maybe we responded to something our spouse said. But the seemingly knee jerks, gnarkey comment.
And we realized very quickly that wasn't a very wise response either. Maybe we saw our child discouraged in some task. They were doing maybe it's sports or school or something. And we thought that we're just going to push him as far as they can go, really encourage him to keep going, challenge them to reach their limits.
But we ended up only making matters worse. We didn't respond very wisely to that situation. But sometimes our response to situations or towards have more significance in our lives. They're more life-defining or direction-defining.
For instance, how do we respond wisely to a job offer? Whenever that job may not work best for our families. How do we respond wisely to that person who said some pretty hurtful things to us? How do we respond wisely when we are given constructive criticism by our boss?
How do we respond wisely when it seems like everything in our lives seems to be going wrong all at once? In many ways, responding with wisdom in these kinds of situations can be defining moments in our lives. As we are confronted with these very significant, more important moments in peoples and words. How we respond to that more significant, more important word or more important moments is more significant for our lives.
So that's true. How much more important or how much more significant would it be if we were confronted with God himself? If we were confronted with the word of God itself, if the Creator God, the one who created all things and sustains all things, spoke to us how important in life-defining would it be to respond wisely to that situation in that word? How much more important, how much more life-determining is it to respond wisely to my Creator?
My friends, today, God has spoken to us in the Scriptures. This is the inspired, inherent, infallible word of God. This is God's very word. Let no one get confused this morning.
This is God's word. He has spoken to us. God's word is sharper than any two-edged sword. It confronts sin.
It pronounces judgments. It reveals the way of salvation. It demands a response from those who hear it. How will we respond?
That's such a word from God. What is the wise response? What is the wise response to the God revealing? Sin confronting, repentance demanding, judgment pronouncing, salvation promising word of God.
What is the wise response to that word? It is not an overstatement to say that the answer to that question is more than just life-defining. It is eternity determining. What is the wise response to the word of God?
Our text in Isaiah 12 through 14 focuses on this very issue and tells us that the only right and continuing response that we are to have to God's word as believers is this, to receive God's wisdom, that's the first response we have, then to respond with repentance and faith, to receive God's wisdom and respond with repentance and faith. That is what a wise response to God's word continually looks like. He unpacks that for us. He shows us how that wise response looks by first showing us how we should recognize the foolishness of bad responses, shows us the bad thing first that we're not supposed to do, and then in chapter 14, to show us positively what it looks like to return with wisdom.
So he shows us first how to recognize foolishness and second to return with wisdom. What is the proper response to God's word? First, let's recognize foolishness in chapter 12 and 13. If we are going to respond with wisdom, then we need first to recognize foolishness and respond into God's word so we know how not to respond.
He starts saying this in Isaiah 12. If you see in the footnotes of your Bible, see the last verse of chapter 11 is verse 12. And it says that this is like belonging with chapter 12. So really verse 11, 12 and 12, are like 12, 1 proper.
This is all just verse 1 of chapter 12. That's how I'm going to refer to it. And in that verse, in those verses, the Lord is getting a kind of summary statement of what He just covered in chapters 11 and 12, or chapter 7 through 11. In similar fashion to 1 and 4, 1 and chapter 6 verse 4, the Lord abruptly ends that brief section of restoration.
He abruptly ends it in terms to more judgment, more accusation. And much like the language of 7 through 11, Ephraim is described here as being liars, deceitful, violence, running after Assyria, running after foreign nations and their gods. And Judah, he says here, it's seemingly good, right? He says Judah still walks with God.
The Southern Kingdom still walks with God and is faithful to the Holy One. And this is a similar statement that he has in Hosea 1 verse 7, which is an obvious reference to the historical situation of Hosea. Hosea at the time he's prophesying, Judah is okay still. Hasn't gone completely down the sinful whole that Israel has found itself in.
But as we see in chapter 12 verse 2, that does not absolve them. That actually ends very quickly because Judah now receives the same indictment, the same judgment that Israel receives. The Lord has a contention and indictment against Judah. And if you remember back in chapter 4 verse 1, he has the same language of controversy or indictment where we talked about how he was like a courtroom setting.
And God is the righteous judge, jury, prosecuting attorney. And he has a case against Israel. And he has another case. And this time he's saying, you know what?
Israel stay up there on the stand. I am calling Judah as well. And you're going to sit there and receive this judgment as well according to your ways. And the author moved this along in this section of accusation and judgment with two primary movements seen in the frames of the chapters.
So notice in chapter 12 verse 2, it says, he will repay him according to his deeds. I don't want to see that. He will repay him according to his deeds. Now look at chapter 12 verse 14.
It says, he will repay him for his graceful deeds. So that's one big idea that we have here. And then look at chapter 13 verse 1. He says, he and Israel incurred guilt through Baal and died.
And then look at chapter 13 verse 16. It says, Samaria, that's another name for Israel. She'll bear her guilt because she has rebelled against her God. God is in these two sections talking about repaying Judah for her deeds and Israel for her deeds because the fact that they are indeed guilty to receive that punishment.
Once again, this sounds a lot like the rest of the book of Isaiah, probably thinking, wow, this is the same exact thing that we've heard a thousand times. But there are particular emphases or themes that run throughout this section that frame these familiar sins in a different way for a different purpose. If you remember in Hosea 1 through 3, the picture that we were given there was Hosea himself and his wife, Gomer, and his three unfaithful children and the names of those children were significant in describing the sins of Israel. In chapter 4 through 6, we mentioned how it was this courtroom setting.
And God was bringing the two sins of no covenant loyalty, no faithfulness to my covenant. There was no knowledge of God in the land. There was the two things that he was really emphasizing. Or chapters 7 through 11, just last month, the Lord frames the sins of the people within the narrative of the Bible.
Remember, I call Israel out of Egypt and he just kept on sending them all. I call it him. And then he focused on the fact that he remembers all their sin. And he reverses the blessings he once gave them when they get kicked out of the land and they lose everything the Lord wants to bless them with.
And here in chapters 12 through 14, because they have frames of this judgment, specifically as we will see with a focus on the people's poor response, consistent, repeated, poor response, foolish response to the Word of God. And he begins these chapters on the people's poor response to God's Word by showing how they're just like their father, Jacob. If you remember, in chapter 11 and the other Restoration passages, this representative Messiah is the one through whom this salvation will come. And how Matthew 2 sees that in Hosea 11 says, out of Egypt, I call my son, well that's referring to Jesus.
And through him with this new Exodus come. The representative is the means of salvation. It shows the people's salvation. Well, we have a reversal of that here.
We're now Jacob, who is Israel, the father of Israel, is now used as a representative of the people's unfaithfulness of how horrible they are. Jacob's life anticipates and shows how unfaithful the people of Israel are. He says in verse 3, in the womb he took his brother by the heel, that is, Jacob, member of Jacob and Esau in the womb, and in his manhood he strove with God. And this is, of course, referencing what we see in verse 4, the time when Jacob strove with or fought with the angel in Bethel and prevailed and he gets his hip put out of socket.
The name Jacob means heel grabber. So that's why whenever he's coming out of the womb, he's grabbing his brother's heel, he is finily called heel grabber, which is just an idiom of saying he's deceitful. He trips people up. He gets them around the feet.
Notice in chapter 12 verse 1 up in the section above that the house of Israel surrounds the Lord with deceit. And notice down in verse 7 and 8 that a merchant that Jacob is like a merchant and whose hands are false balances or balances of deceit. Jacob, in his whole life with Esau, with his father, with Laban, was always deceitful. Remember back in Genesis 25 to 35, he's always deceitful.
His life is characterized by deceitfulness. It's fitting to his name. But whenever his name gets changed because he strove with God in one, he becomes a new man. Read in verse 4, 5, and 6, he strove with the angel in prevail, he wept and saw his favor.
He met God at Bethel and there God spoke with us. The Lord of God of hosts, the Lord is his memorial name. Jacob goes up on to Bethel and he receives the promises of the covenant. I will make you great.
I will multiply your offspring. I am the God of your fathers and I am still your God. In Israel, likewise, was called and has received these promises. Have received this word from God that they have spoke with, not has spoke with us.
See how he switches from the singular, speaking about Jacob? And then saying, God actually spoke with us there. We've received these covenant promises. We've received this word from God.
The Lord God of hosts is our Lord. The Lord is his memorial name. That's the name that we're supposed to remember. And he's the God who is always with us.
And so what's the response, as I said, you're supposed to, by the help of your God, return. Hold fast to covenant loyalty and justice. Wait continually for your God. Believe in him.
Follow him. That's the response you're supposed to have to that covenant keeping God in his word. What does 7 and 8 say? How does Ephraim respond?
Ah, but I am rich. I have found wealth for myself and all my labors they cannot find in me, iniquity or sin. Ephraim to the seatful one. It says, look at all the money I have that I've acquired through deceit.
I'm going to continue to be a seatful and keep doing what I'm doing. In fact, Ephraim is so prideful that they don't even recognize that in their ways there is any iniquity or any sin at all. Even the faithful covenant promises by God in an invitation to return the people respond with prideful deceit. But Hosea is not done.
Let's move on to the next section. He continues this theme. He says, in verse 9, I am the Lord your God from the land of Egypt. I will again make you dwell intense as in the days of the appointed feast.
I spoke to the prophets. It was I who multiplied visions through the prophets gave parables. Notice down in 13, a similar theme is communicated by God. He says, by a prophet, the Lord brought Israel up from Egypt in by a prophet.
He was guarded. The Lord called the people out of Egypt by a prophet. He spoke his words to them in the Lord and his. He sustained them by his word.
He saved them by his word. He has always given them a means for them to communicate with him and receive direct revelation from God. He multiplied visions among them. In through the prophets he gave parables.
Look at verses 11 and 12. If there's an equity in Gilead, they shall surely come to nothing. In Gilead, they sacrifice bulls. Their altars are like stone heaps on the furrows of the field.
Jacob fled to the land of Iran. There Israel served for a wife and for a wife he guarded sheep. In verse 11 he shows us that they're off in Gilgal, the place where the temple is not. Sacrificing bulls.
They're sacrificing idols. You farmers were like this one. He says that they're altars in the fields. There's so many of them.
They're like stone heaps on the furrows of the field. Such that whenever you try to plow the field, you just keep on running into these massive piles of stones. And so Israel becomes an unplowed field, unfit to receive the seed-selling word of God. And then he returns to an example with Jacob.
How Jacob fled to a place outside of the promised land to go serve for a wife. And that service, that word for service is not a nice word. It means he's serving as a slave for a wife. He guarded sheep for a wife.
Jacob, in other words, pictures of what people are doing, right? They're going to Egypt. They're going to Assyria. They're going to all the enemy nations.
They're marrying their women. And they're becoming idolaters. They're becoming enslaved to all these people. Instead of being guarded by the prophet who called them out of Egypt, they are guarding sheep and enemy lands in order to be enslaved to their sinful ways and their gods.
And all of the prophecy, given the faithful God-freeing enslavement, freeing words of the Lord to the prophets, the people who use their freedom rather to enslave themselves again to idols. He's not even done there. He continues to talk about how they're idolaters in verse 13, 1 through 3. And then notice again, back in verse 4 of chapter 13, he says, but I'm the Lord your God from the land of Egypt.
You know, no God but me. And beside me, there is no Savior. It was I who knew you in the wilderness in the land of drought. The Lord reminds them of who He is.
He is the covenant-keeping God. He's the God who is Yahweh. I am the Lord who is with you. I redeemed you.
I saved you. You know no one else but me. I am in relationship with you. Besides me, there is no other Savior you could ever know.
I have kept you. I have fed you in the land of drought. And how did they respond? Verse 6.
But when they had grazed, they became full. They were filled. Their heart was lifted up. They were so happy.
And therefore, what happened? They forgot me. So the Lord becomes to them. Instead of a lion who calls them out of Egypt.
He's a lion who lurks beside the way. He tears and he goes away. He devours them in judgment. And as a wild beast, rips them open.
He mocks them because he has taken away their kings who they thought would protect them. My friends, given salvation, given provision, given relationship with the Lord, the Israelites constantly rejected the Lord because they chose the provision over the provider. And you might think, okay, maybe He's done now. He's not done.
There's more. Look down, 13, 12, and 13. Lord says the iniquity of Ephraim is bound up. His sin is kept in store.
The pangs of childbirth come for Him, but He is an unwise son. He has not present Himself at the opening of the womb. This very interesting picture here that the pangs of childbirth are coming in those, that's like the pangs of judgment. In Israel, it's like a child in the womb.
And He feels the contractions on Him, the womb closing in on Him, and the opening, the way of being born into new life in front of Him, escape from the pain. And the Lord says, He is an unwise son who does not present Himself at the opening of the womb. He doesn't take the way out. He says, actually, I'm good in here.
I'm good being crushed. What a horrible picture, but what a pointed accusation, that the keyword there, being an unwise son who does not want to be born into new life, who does not want to respond to the ability for them to have resurrection life. I mean, just look at verse 14, I shall ransom them from the power of Shai'o, I shall redeem them from death. Oh, death, where are your plagues?
Oh, Shai'o, where is your sting? I mean, this is what Paul quotes in 1 Corinthians 15, talking about the glorious resurrection that we have in Christ, taunting death because of God's victory over it. But immediately, he says, what? Compassion is hidden from my eyes.
Though He may flourish among His brothers, the wind of the Lord shall come rising from the wilderness. His fountain shall dry up. His spring shall be parched. It shall strip His treasury of every precious thing.
They shall fall by the sword. The little one shall be dashed in pieces. Their pregnant women ripped open. Horrible.
Judgment. Why? Because they were an unwise son who did not respond wisely to the word of the Lord. The promises of restoration come.
It is realized are never said to believe them or receive them. But Hosea constantly throughout this book has shown in chapter 1, we had judgment in a short session about restoration and immediately switched back to judgment showing that they did not receive it. And again in chapter 6, restoration, but immediately did not receive it. Again in chapter 11, restoration, but no, they did not receive it.
Why? Over and over again, He's trying to show us that though these words of restoration are coming out to the people, though the Lord is speaking to them, for them to receive this life, they always reject it foolishly. That's the point He's trying to get across. The Lord gave the people the God revealing sin confronting, repentant, demanding, judgment pronouncing, salvation promising word.
And they said, no, thank you. They said, no, thank you. They were deceitful and prideful in their deceit. They loved to serve other gods and foreign nations.
They were so satisfied with physical provision that the Lord gave them, that they forgot the Lord. They were unwise. That's what he says over God himself. But you know what's really interesting.
And even though all those reasons and all those descriptions of their foolish response is given, notice how Hosea summarizes it in chapter 14 verse 1. He calls them to return to the Lord's, your God, for what? You have stumbled, and that is the prophetic word always used as stumbling. It's actually related to the aspect of offense that we've been talking about in Luke to not believe in the word of the Lord and to stumble into ruin, to be offended, into ruin.
They have rejected that word. They have stumbled over God's word. And of course they have. And they have all these reasons that we just gave.
Other gods of other nations, they seemed appealing. You know, they were flourishing so much physically that, you know what, who needs God when you have love and money and all these riches whenever you're so physically satisfied. You know, and today when people stumble over the word of the Lord, they have a lot of reasons for why they do it. Something very similar to that.
But you know, other religions, Islam, spirituality, Catholicism, they just had it better. Their arguments make more sense to me. My eyes have been opened to the heirs of Christianity. Or maybe as well, this church hurt me.
And you know, any religion that allows such a progress to exist is not a tree of religion. I'm out of here. Or how about, well, science just seems to have all the answers about the world. Don't you see how much greater science is than God answering the world's questions?
Don't you see how religion is kind of silly? How more logical science is? Or how about, well, my physical needs without God are completely satisfied? The world does a better job at satisfying my physical desires.
Who needs God? You got all the provisions you need here in America. Excuse, excuse, excuse. In any of these reasons, it might be given by the people who walk away from the faith and deconstruct online.
But all these are just a smokescreen for a more fundamental reason that Isaiah tells us here. Notice that even after all these descriptions, all these reasons why Israel did not respond positively, what does Hosea say? You have stumbled why? Because of your iniquity.
People do not respond positively to the word of God. People fully reject the word of God. People stumble over it for one reason alone. Yes, I am.
Sin. They have a deep blinding affection for sin. At the root of every reason that we could possibly give is sin. No one outsmarts God.
No one has rejected God because they were too clever for him. No one rejects God simply because of reason. People respond unwisely because they love their sin. My friends, if you were here today and you have realized that I have nothing to do with God.
I have all the reasons the world have nothing to do with God. But today, all those are just a smokescreen for something deeper within you. That you love something more than him. That you love your sin.
If you're today and you've been thinking, you know what, these arguments I've been hearing online for other religions or atheism or whatever, these are starting to sound pretty convincing. Maybe I'm starting to think that maybe I might just walk away. Consider for a moment that whatever reasons you're formulating in your mind might be fruits of a deeper issue known as sin as you are catering to and wanting more than the Lord. Repent of that sin.
Believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ, the word of salvation from God. Unless you face judgment like these interlikes, don't be foolish in your response to the word of God. That is what a foolish response looks like. So what does a wise response look like?
There's eight thousand chapter 14's return. With wisdom just as he sectioned off the last two with a word at the end and the word at the beginning, look at chapter 14 and one that we just read for you, have stumbled because of your equity. And then look at that last phrase, chapter nine, I mean, verse nine. But transgressors, sinners, stumble in the ways of the Lord.
What we will see in this chapter is the opposite of what stumbling looks like. What does it look like to not stumble? And as Isaiah says, it looks like repentance and a reward. Repentance and a reward.
Returning to the Lord looks like repentance, he says in verse two. So let's take with you words and return to the Lord. What word are we supposed to take to him? We return.
Take away all iniquity, except for the fruit of our lips, the sacrifices of our mouths. What is good? Ask the Lord in returning to him to take away all iniquity. And being like Ephraim who says, in all my labors, there is no iniquity or sin.
Instead of being like the one of first John, who says, over John one, he says, I mean there is no sin. Be the one who goes to the Lord and says, Lord, I am full of iniquity. Take away all of it. Instead of being like Israel and saying, you know what, my works, no iniquity in them.
Turn to the Lord and say, all my works are as filthy rags. Only you, Lord, can take away my sin. Second, he says to repent specifically, to ask forgiveness for sins. Look at verse three, he says, Assyria shall not save us.
He will not ride on horses. We will say no more our God to the work of our hands. Israel over and over again has gone to Assyria for everything. They have gone to foreign nations and serve their gods.
They have been idolaters and they say, Lord, forgive us of these sins. We repent of these sins, O Lord. This is a brief practical application here. Whenever you ask for forgiveness from the Lord, it is something that you are, as believers, every day we are invited to do.
Confesser sin and ask for forgiveness from him. Be specific with regard to the sin that you are confessing. Don't just say, O forgive me and move on. Say, Lord, Assyria shall not save me.
I will not ride on horses anymore. I will say no more my God to the work of my hands. Be specific about the sins that you are asking forgiveness for. Same thing when you ask forgiveness from others in your life.
Probably many parents and here require this other kids. Don't just walk up and say, forgive me. Walk away. Say, forgive me for that thing I said to you.
Forgive me for that thing I obviously desire more than honoring the Lord in this situation. Forgive me for this. Be specific in your repentance and you're asking forgiveness. That's why he was wise response to being confronted by the Word of God and your sin looks like.
Repensing in that way. And finally, he says to recognize God's characterness. In you, O Lord, the orphan receives mercy. You know, the book started in Isaiah 1 with those three kids, right?
The second kid's name was La Ruhama and it was no mercy. The people will no longer receive mercy from the Lord. And then the third child was, lo, I mean, not my people. And the Lord says, you are no longer my people.
I am no longer I am to you. I'm no longer that company keeping God doing more. The people of Israel because of their sin were orphaned and they were no longer receiving mercy. And here in the return and the response, it's fitting that a restoration would look like recognizing that God is the one who makes spiritual orphans sons of God and who gives mercy to those who were not receiving mercy to make those who are not receiving mercy to receive mercy to make those who are not a people my people again.
Repentance looks like going to the Lord casting your sin at his feet and saying to him, Lord, grant this poor spiritual orphan your Fatherhood and grant this poor spiritual orphan mercy. Make me a son of you. The primary proper response to seeing God's judgment pronouncing sin and revealing word is to repent of sin. Because they are teaching us to continually and always grow in killing sin, lest it be killing us.
And the result of that is the great reward of verses 4 through 8. He says, I will heal their apostasy. I will love them freely. My anger has turned from them.
I will be like the dude to Israel. And he continues talking about how Israel, though they were spiritually dead, that he gives them spiritual life, that they now are like a blossoming lily. Like the trees, the great trees of Lebanon, that their shoots are spreading out, that their fragrance is like the trees of Lebanon, that they're flourishing like the grain, they're blossoming like the vine. The Lord God says in his final verse, verse 8, he says, I am like an evergreen cypress from me.
Comes your fruit. The Lord is constantly providing spiritual life and fruit to a people once dead. What a beautiful salvation. But who responds like this?
In the book of Isaiah so far, no one has. In the book of Isaiah so far, we have a pattern of as soon as a part of restoration comes, he abruptly changes to judgment and accusation. So if I'm reading the book of Isaiah, kind of thinking, I'm reading this section and I'm going, okay, where's the judgment and accusation coming? But what does he turn to instead?
He abruptly turns to something else in verse 9, to wisdom. Whoever is wise, let him understand these things. Whoever is discerning, let him know them. He's concluding the book with a change in the pattern to invite the reader to respond wisely, to not be like the Israelites, but to have wisdom and respond right, to not be like a transgressor who stumbles in them.
Anandram, who is wise? We've seen over and over again. Human beings are not wise. Wisdom doesn't come from man.
Who is going to be this wise person who receives the reward who responds rightly? Well, 1 Corinthians 1 and 2 teach us, I believe, how God solves this conundrum. Paul is teaching about the same reality. Thank you, Jeff, for pointing that out.
The stumbling over the rock of a fence. These people are stumbling in foolishness. They consider the word of God folly, Christ is foolishness to them, but wisdom in power to those who believe. The rule of this age do not know wisdom, so they crucify the Lord of glory.
That is the common response of all humanity and sinfulness. But how does God fix it? He gives wisdom from above, and Christ becomes to us wisdom from God, so that by the power of the Spirit and God's wooing through His word, that we might have eyes to see the wisdom that is Christ and to respond with repentance and faith wisely. And now every time that we approach scripture, as those who receive this wisdom, as those who have the mind of Christ, we see the glory of Christ in the letter of the text, we can respond wisely again, and we can respond with more faith, more hope, more repentance to kill sin and to grow in hope in Christ.
Because newsflash, Hosea, 14, Hosea, and all scripture is not written for the unbeliever. It's written for you. It's written for the people of God, the wise. My friends, I right now speak of wisdom to the mature.
I speak to those who have the mind of Christ by God's grace through faith and union with Him. I speak to those who have the Spirit of God, and Hosea speaks to you and says, whoever is wise, let him know these things. Turn to Hosea, 14, and see Christ, how Christ is the shoot and the root of the stump of Jesse, and that He is the one who makes God's people a fruitful vine. As John 15 says, as the Lord says in John 15, I am the vine, you are the branches, Weber and Bides, and me and I and Him.
He is, that bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing. He might as well have just said the words of Hosea 14, 8. I am like an evergreen cypress from me comes your fruit.
That is Jesus, ladies and gentlemen. We get to see Jesus in these texts, and through His wisdom, we can respond to these texts, not with a feeling of condemnation during the judgment sections, not with a feeling of confusion during the restoration sections, but we can actually respond to those with an increased hatred of sin, and an increased hope in the restoration that the Lord has promised to those who would respond wisely. Whoever is wise, let him understand these things. My friends, know them, understand them, read the scriptures, and be wise, and see Christ, and let the word push you to respond in the way that you ought as a child of God, with repentance, that you receive that wisdom, and we continue to repent and believe in the gospel.
I know that many of us here have also grown discouraged in our walk at times. Perhaps you have some spiritual goals, you haven't hit, maybe you indulge in a nagging sin this week. Perhaps you feel like you are in a spiritual rut. Maybe you even have begun to question whether the Lord is really working in you.
Whether the Lord is completing the work He started in you, whether He's forgiven you, whether He still loves you. But see from this text today, Christian, that God is in the business of giving spiritually dead people life. God is all about giving you fruit, life and life abundantly, of making your heart, your life, your mind, a lush garden of His grace and goodness. Repent of sin today and rest in the promise that the Lord does indeed take away all sin, and hope in Him and in His Christ who grants you that spiritual life that you would bear fruit to God.
In church, let's be the kind of church who as God's wise children constantly receive that wisdom from the Lord, who constantly receive His Word, and constantly behold Christ in His Word, in response with God-produced fruit for His glory. What might a church like that look like? I can tell you it's a place where God's people are loved, where God's Word is cherished, where the wisdom of the cross is proclaimed, where spiritual good is done to one another, where discipling is normal, where prayer is prioritized, where family is ordered around the family of the Lord, where God's prayers and praises are sung, where souls are saved, where branches of the tree grow out and shoot out and spread God's glory everywhere. It would look like a cultivated garden to the Lord.
It would look like a slice of heaven, an embassy of God's new Eden. My friends, let us receive God's wisdom and respond with repentance and faith, but a spread together. Father, we pray that you would work in us all of your purposes for your glory, that we would be those who, unlike those who are unbelievers, that we would not love sin, that we would hate that which is against you, that we would hear your Word with open ears, that we would behold your Word with enlightened eyes, and that we would buy your Spirit through power and the union that we have in Christ would return daily to you, that we would glory in our weakness, that we would glory in your strength, and that we would constantly grow, that a means you have provided, to be fruitful children of the Lord, so that all might see our words and glorify the God who is in heaven. We pray this in Jesus' name.
Amen.