Repentance & Resurrection

Good morning, everyone. If you're a great blessing and joy to ask, you would turn your Bibles to Hosea chapter 4. Hosea chapter 4, where we will cover today, Hosea chapters 4 through 6. Hosea chapter 4.

We will not be reading the entirety of Hosea 4 through 6. Rest assured. But we will start and read a couple of verses and then flip to chapter 6. Hosea chapter 4, we will read the first three verses.

And then we'll move to Hosea chapter 6 and read the entirety of that chapter. Hosea records in chapter 4, verse 1. Here the word of the Lord, O children of Israel, for the Lord has a contention with the inhabitants of the land. There is no faithfulness or covenant loyalty and no knowledge of God in the land.

There is swearing, lying, murder, stealing, and committing adultery. They break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed. Therefore the land mourns in all who dwell in it language. And also the beasts of the field and the birds of the heavens and even the fish of the sea are taken away.

Hosea chapter 6, verse 1. Come, let us return to the Lord, for he has torn us, that he may heal us, for he has struck us down, and he will bind us up. After two days, he will revive us. On the third day, he will raise us up, that we may live before him.

Let us know. Let us press on to know the Lord. His going out is as sure as the dawn. He will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.

What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? You are covenant loyalty is like a morning cloud, like a dude that goes away early. Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets.

I have slain them by the words of my mouth, and my judgment goes forth as the light. For I desire covenant loyalty and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. But like Adam, they transgress the covenant. There they dealt faithlessly with me.

Gilead is a city of people doers, tracked with blood. As robbers lie and wait for a man, so the priests band together, and they murder on the way to Shechem, they commit villainy. In the house of Israel, I have seen a horrible thing. Ephraim's hortum is there.

Israel is the filed. For you also, O Judah, a harvest is appointed. This is the word of the Lord. Would you please pray with me?

Holy Father, in this time, we ask that you would give us eyes to see by your spirit and ears to hear what you are saying to your church. If I were to open our eyes and our hearts to be able to behold the glory of Jesus Christ, your Son, and Lord, let us through that be transformed into his image from one degree of glory to another in this time, in this place today. Father, give us great understanding of your word as we speak about it and let us be careful to heed what you have said. We ask this in Jesus name, amen.

It has been four months since we last looked at the book of Oseo. And so I feel that it is necessary to remind us of where we have been. The book of the 12, mind you, is one single book composed of 12 interrelated prophecies. These 12 books are meant to be read together as one volume in order that they are given to us and are to be understood according to their compositional structure and their ordering.

When you read something in Oseo, we cannot forget it. When you read Zephaniah or Zechariah. Just like any book of the 12 has an introduction in Oseo 1 through 3 where the themes and definitions of the book are identified and explained. And that's what we have covered already.

Oseo 1 through 3, the book of Oseo opens the book of the 12 and introduction that tells of God's prophet, Oseo, and his sign acts of marrying a prostitute and having children who will be sinful all in order to picture the kind of relationship that the people of Israel have with God. We saw in this vital introduction to the book of the 12 that the people of Israel's constant unfaithfulness to the Lord through idolatry has proven the fact that they are indeed not his people and that he is not I am to them anymore. And the Lord issues, a decree of divorce. Israel is no longer his life as he says in chapter 2, verse 2, and he is no longer their husbands.

However, through the darkness of judgment, we see most clearly the life and the hope of the salvation that God offers. We see at the end of chapter 1 and at the end of chapter 2, in the beginning of chapter 3 as well, a picture of this salvation that the Lord brings. We see at the end of chapter 1 that the Lord will call back a people out of not my people to be the sons of the living God, to be as a number of the sin of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. And we saw through the quotations of Paul and of Peter that Hosea is not referring to any one ethnicity, even though he says children of Israel.

But he's referring to the countless number of believers in God's Messiah, the one head that the Davidic king that he would give to save his people. And he refers to all who believe, whether Jew or Gentile. And we saw in later in chapter 2 as well that God, who is the one who makes things new, that he is bringing about a new covenant relationship that will never be broken, that he is bringing about a new creation in which righteousness would dwell, and that he is bringing about a new exodus through which he would call his people to himself. The people of God and the sons of the living God would be gathered together by the Lord in his place under his rule of the Davidic king in the Messiah in the last days.

And notice in chapter 3 verse 5, he uses this phrase in the latter days that tells us that as an eschatological, or what we say future salvation, something to come at a particular time in history, is a phrase that is used throughout the Old Testament to refer God's future work in his Messiah. And in Genesis 49, number 24, 14, Deuteronomy 31, 29, Isaiah 2, Daniel 228, and several others. This phrase is a constant phrase that the Old Testament writers use to communicate that God is going to do a work in the future to save a people for himself through, a Messiah, a Christ. And this phrase then picked up in the New Testament, referred to the time inaugurated by Jesus Christ and is occurring right now.

Acts 2, 17, Peter quotes Joel and his Pentecost sermon and adds a phrase in the last days at the beginning. In 1 Timothy 4, 1, Paul says that in later times, false teachers will come and that he's referring to right then while he was writing. In 2 Timothy 3, 1, 3, 5, he says, but understand that in the last days, there will come times of difficulty, he encourages Timothy to encourage the church that as they are in the last days, that they would not give in to the teaching of false teachers. Hebrews 1, 1 through 2 says, long ago at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets.

But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son and finally in 1 John 2, 18, John tells us that it is the last hour because we see many antichrists coming into the world. Friends, this salvation, in other words, I just say all this to say this, that this salvation has to come in the latter days, has come because that's where we are right now. The Messiah has come, the David King has come to bring salvation to his people. God is calling out of not my people, a people for himself to dwell under his rule and his place forever.

He is bringing about a new creation in all of us and one that he will cause to come down out of heaven and he will dwell with us forever there. We are part of his new exodus. We are part of his new covenants made in Christ blood. That salvation that Hosea is speaking of is the one in which we participate through Jesus, the Messiah.

What? A hope? What a salvation? What gift that we have friends?

Now we are experiencing what has been prophesied even now. It is vital for us to remember that we are not to forget this introduction as we read through the book of the 12. This is the entirety of the book of the 12 is about this great work and like of the great judgment that God is bringing. We cannot forget it as we are reading later books in this massive 12 part book.

We also need not forget the definitions that this introduction lays out for us concerning who is getting restored and who are the people of God. God is very clear on who is not his people and who are his people. It is not anyone ethnicity. He has not had any allegiance to any one country.

He has allegiance to the people, his elect, that he has chosen from before the foundation of the world who will be saved by his means through his Messiah alone and not through any other way. And we need not forget this as we read the restoration passages in Zechariah or in Amos or in Zephaniah or in Haggai. He's not gonna say something different there that he has already said and defined for us here. Very important to remember.

So while these first three chapters show the working out of the Sinai and its overall explanation about Hosea and his wife, Gomer, and the rest of the prophecy of Hosea never mentioned Sosea, Gomer, or their children again. And the rest of this book is all about the actual relationship between God and Israel and how they have been an unfaithful spouse to the Lord and how they have broken his covenant and how that judgment then is sure to come on them and there's a great need for restoration through a new Exodus, through a new covenant and through a new creation. And today we head to the first section of that in Hosea chapter four through six, where the Lord gives a detailed description of the nature of Israel's sin. He goes in deep with what Israel has done and why they are under his judgment.

And it is through this description of Israel's sin that we will be faced with a key question that every single person on the planet from every time has to answer, which is how can a sinful person dreadfully sinful in the way that we're gonna see? How can such a person come to know the Lord into gain eternal life? That's the most important question we have to ask, right? Friends, then how can sinful people that we so evidently see?

Sin is in the world, if this is what sin is, this is what the Lord describes sin is, then how can such people be saved? How can they escape the certain judgment, the just judgment of God? This passage will answer that in some part for us through our main idea which is to repent and press on to know the Lord and live before Him. This passage ultimately tells us that we are to repent and press on to know the Lord and live before Him.

And we will impact this passage in this main idea by looking at three main points, which is first the Lord's contention, which is throughout this passage, the Lord's judgment, which is also throughout the chapter of 4 through 6. And finally the Lord's solution in chapter 6, which is one through three, the Lord's contention, the Lord's judgment and the Lord's solution. So first, we have the Lord's contention. Just as the Lord told the children of Israel in chapter 2, He starts off by saying, contend with your mother, contend with her, to say accuse yourselves, recognize your own sinfulness, accuse yourselves of sin because that's what you have done.

So the Lord has a contention or a controversy with the children of Israel that started chapter 4 where He is acting as a prosecutor in a court and He is bringing them to court and He has a pretty good case against them. He's about to accuse them openly of all the things that they have done. The summary of what Israel has done wrong is listed a few times, but it's most clearly stated in verse one. This is the summary, this is the prosecutor coming and just saying, this is my case in some.

There is no faithfulness, or steadfast love, or I'm gonna refer to that as covenant loyalty, loyalty to the covenant of God, and no knowledge of God in the land. That is their problem. There is no faithfulness in Israel. There is no loyalty to the covenant in Israel.

There is no knowledge of God in the land. That's their issue. And that's what He unpacks for us in this passage. First of all, we have the Lord's contention with them is that there is no faithfulness.

We see that in verses two and six. We see that immediately. He lists some of the 10 commandments and how these individuals, the Israelites have completely disobeyed, have been not at all faithful to the commands of God. There is swearing, He says, in verse two, lying, murder, stealing, and committing adultery.

They break all bounds and bloodshed, follows bloodshed. Later in verse six, B, he's very explicit about this. He says, you have forgotten the law of your God. They have been completely unfaithful.

They have not followed the direct commands of God. Do this, God says, and they haven't done it. They have indeed done the opposite. They have, instead of not murdering, they have murder, instead of not stealing, they have stolen, instead of not bearing false witness, they have lied.

Instead of taking God's name in vain, they have sworn. Instead of not committing adultery, they have committed adultery over and over again. They have not been faithful to the law of God. They also have not had any covenant loyalty.

They have not had a steadfast love for God. They have not been faithful to the covenant that they have been put in. We see this described in this passage in a multitude of ways. The first one is that they have failed as priests.

Verse six, chapter four says, because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. Or how about in chapter five? Verse nine, as robbers lie and wait for man. So the priests band together.

This is chapter six, I'm sorry. The priests band together, they murder on the way to Shechem. The Israelites were made to be a kingdom of priests as a fundamental part of what it means for them to be the covenant people of God. When the covenant was made with them, in X, this chapter 19, verse six, God says to them, you will be a kingdom of priests to me.

That is your purpose. You are supposed to meate God's presence in his word to the world while serving him. This function of Israelites as priests in Deuteronomy 33 10 is that they shall teach Jacob your judgments in Israel, your law, and they shall put incense before you and whole burnt sacrifice on your altar. So in other words, the priests in Israel, we're supposed to teach God's word and guard it.

And they're also supposed to lead the people in right worship of God. And they have completely failed at doing that because nobody knows God's word, the Lord says. That's why he rejects them as priests. And they are in horrible idolatry.

They are not rightfully worshiping the Lord. They even go so far as to contend with the priests in Israel. God says this in verse four of chapter four. He says, let no one contend, let none accuse.

And if you have the ESV, there's a footnote in the bottom of your page that says, for your people are like those who contend with the priests. In other words, the priests were supposed to teach them God's word, be it a conduit of the word of God to them. And they are contending with the priests so as to contend with God. They're spitting back in the face of God, being completely un-loyal to the covenant relationship by failing to be priests to him.

Second, they're also no covenant loyalty through their idolatry. We have to read the entirety of this passage to show all the ways that God tells them that they're being idol worshipers. But here's just a few statistics for you. Seven times in chapters four through six, Israel has said to have played the whore.

Twice, they are said to have a spirit for them. Twice, Israel is said to cherish or have for them. Three times they are said to have committed adultery. Twice, they are said to have gone aside with prostitutes.

Over and over again, the Lord is saying, you have committed spiritual adultery. You have not been faithful to the covenant relationship. You have gone after other gods through idolatry and you have played the whore with them. Over and over again, the Lord makes clear that the primary way that Israel has not remained loyal to her covenant relationship with God is through her idolatry and is deserving of the judgment she received because of it.

Third, he says that they have failed as a new Adam. This is in verse seven, chapter six. He says, but like Adam, this is very interesting, but like Adam, they transgressed the covenant. There they dealt faithlessly with me.

You see in Genesis one and two, Adam was created in relationship with God. He was brought into covenant relationship with God to be God's representative on earth, to be fruitful and to multiply, to spread the Lord's dominion and his glory over all the earth as he worship and obeyed the Lord. However, as we know through Adam's sin and rebellion in Genesis three, Adam transgressed that agreement, that relationship that he had with God. And he set the rest of the biblical storyline on a trajectory of finding a new Adam figure who would be completely obedient to the Lord and to his covenant and would fulfill the mandates to be fruitful and to multiply, to be God's representative on the earth, to have dominion over the earth and to spread God's glory everywhere.

That's the entire biblical storyline, in one sense. We're just looking for that new Adam that would do what Adam didn't do. Israel is one of these new Adam figures, even though they're a nation. They are created by God, entered into covenant with God and are supposed to be God's representative on the earth as his priests, multiplying in the land, exemplifying the Lord's dominion and glory through worship and obedience to the Lord's that all nations would be blessed.

And glory would be spread across all the worlds and Israel succeed. No, God says like Adam, you failed. Your covenant responsibility as the new Adam, you completely failed to do the earth unfaithful covenant people. And finally, we also see this through the hypocrisy at Shechem.

We see this one verse later in chapter six, in chapter eight and nine, chapter six. It says, Robert's lying wait for a man, so the priests band together, they murder on the way to Shechem and they commit villainy. Shechem, if you remember from your Old Testament reading in Deuteronomy 11, Joshua 8 and Joshua 24, is the place of Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal, where the covenant is to be renewed by speaking the blessings and the curses back and forth to one another. Now the priests and the people are committing murder on their way to renew that covenant.

Guys, giving a picture of the kind of hypocrisy, spiritual hypocrisy of the people, that on their way to renew the covenant, they're breaking it explicitly by murdering people. What hypocrisy that is, what fake fidelity to the covenant of the Lord to show up and act all prim and proper at Shechem, hearing the blessings and the curses, even though they had just murdered on their way there. They are completely disloyal to the covenant of the Lord. And finally, the Lord's contention is that they have no knowledge of God.

He said, there is no knowledge of God in the land. And indeed, this is their primary problem. Even though they have been completely unfaithful to the covenant, though they have been idolatrous, though they have murdered, they have done all these horrible things, God says that this is the ultimate reason for their issue. This is the ultimate reason for their judgment.

He says in verse six of chapter four, my people are destroyed why? For idolatry. No. My people are destroyed why?

All because they murdered before they went to Shechem. No. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. They're destroyed because they don't know God.

Their problem is not outward fundamentally brothers and sisters. Their problem is one of the heart that they don't know the Lord. We see this clearly in chapter six or six where the Lord says, her eye desire coming loyalty and not sacrifice. I don't want merely your sacrifice.

I want your obedience from the heart. I desire the knowledge of God, he says, rather than burn offerings, he could sacrifice all you want. But it's not going to fix your issue. Your issue is one of the heart.

But then this ignorance of God leads toward further sin and that further sin leads toward more ignorance. And it's this downward spiral. We see this relationship between ignorance and their sinfulness in verse 10 of chapter four. He says, they shall eat but not be satisfied.

They shall play the whore but not multiply. Because they have forsaken the Lord to cherish, hoard them, wine, and new wine which take away the understanding. The word for understanding is the word for hearts, the seat of the affections and the will, the inner man. By their committing sin, it takes away their senses.

We certainly know this right, that sin takes away your senses, your wisdom, your understanding. My people inquire of a piece of wood, he says. Their walking staff gives them oracles. For a spirit of hoardom has led them astray.

And they have left their God to play the whore. They sacrifice on the tops of mountains and burn offerings on the hills under oak, pop, or enterement because their shade is good. Therefore your daughters play the whore and your brides commit adultery. Will I not punish your daughters when they play the whore and your brides when they commit adultery?

When they for themselves go aside with prostitutes and sacrifice with cult prostitutes and a people get this, a people without understanding, verse 14, shall come to ruin a people without understanding, without discernment, without the knowledge of God. But a sinful heart will always lead to ruin. This sinful spiral reads them downward and downward, the absolute foolishness, the horrible sinfulness. That sin is fundamentally foolish, is completely on display here, isn't it?

For Pete's sake, Israel is inquiring of a piece of wood. Their walking staff gives them oracles. Sin and its foolishness drives people to ask of man-made objects to do what only God can do. Not only that, they ask of men only what God can do.

In verse 13 of chapter five, you read with me and says, when Ephraim, that is a word for Israel, or the tribes of Israel, when Ephraim saw his sickness in Judah, his wound, then Ephraim went to Assyria and sent to the great king, but he is not able to cure you or heal your wound. Ephraim and Judah recognize, oh, we're in trouble. We're gonna face judgment. We're gonna get destroyed.

We've done wrong. And the first thing they do is not go to the Lord, they go to Assyria, the enemy of the Lord. And they ask for men, the salvation only God can give. Sin is absolutely foolish.

And sin is so foolish that it leads people to be stubborn in their foolishness. Look at chapter four, verse 16. The Lord says, like a stubborn heifer, Israel is stubborn. Can the Lord now feed them like a lamb in broad pasture?

He says, they are stubbornly in their sin. They are inner heart, they're inward problem of lack of knowledge of God has led them into a downward spiral of sinfulness and foolishness and away, so far away from the right relationship with the Lord. As Jeremiah 4.22 says, for my people are foolish, they know me not, they are stupid children. They have no understanding.

They are wise in doing evil, but how to do good, they do not know. Friends, the nature of sin is on full display here. And we need to be careful, obviously, about applying a text about a people who is not the people of God due to people of God here today. We cannot help but see the characteristics and nature of Israel's sins here and not hear aspects of it that sound eerily familiar to us, right?

That sound like the flesh that wages war against our souls that we sometimes fall prey to. Can we find ourselves contending with God, accusing him of wrongdoing in situations in our lives, like Israel did? How often do we fail in our vocations as being God's holy representatives in the world by being hypocritical examples of what it looks like to be God's people? Are any of us here stubborn in our sinfulness?

I won't ask for a raise of hands. How often, how we fall in the trap of asking men in the creation of our own hands do for us what only God can do? How often have we asked of our own strength or of our own inventions that which only God can provide? Or perhaps some of us here need to hear the full weight of the Lord's words against the sin of Israel because we're in the same spiritual state as them this morning.

Are you a hypocrite going on purposely and unrependantly sending them showing up on Sunday? Ready to renew the comment with the Lord. Do you not know the Lord? Do you really not know him personally?

Are you continuing in sin and continuing in your ignorance of him? Are you on that spiral downward in ignorance and sinfulness? Let's all consider these things closely today. Second, the Lord gives his judgment of Israel.

He says in Hosea 6, verses 4 and 5, what shall I do with you? Oh, Ephraim, what shall I do with you? Oh, Judah, your carbonate loyalty is a morning cloud like the dude that goes away early. Therefore, I have hewn them by the prophets.

I have slain them. By the words of my mouth and my judgment goes forth as the light. The Lord is judging and pronounces judgment on the people and the three judgments that we see in these texts are the cursed land, the forsaken people in a nation completely desolated. So first we see that the Lord curses the land.

He says in chapter 4 verse 3, he says, therefore the land mourns in all who dwell in languish. And also the beasts of the field and the birds of the heavens and even the fish of the sea are taken away. He says later in chapter 4 verse 10 that they shall eat but not be satisfied. They shall play the whore but not multiply.

The blessings of the land they experienced are no longer theirs. The land is experiencing a curse because of sin. Just as when Adam sinned and a curse fell on the land on all the earth. So when Israel, the new Adam sinned, that land that was once bountiful and fruitful for them is now cursed.

And we see this all around us today, by the way, that sin brought upon and brings upon God's judgment through the curse on the earth. As Paul says in Romans 8, all creation groans and moans and waits, the restoration of the people of God, of all humanity because it awaits the removal of God's judgment on its on account of human sin. I think that's important that we fix our vocabulary about the curse today. I've heard about, we sometimes can say sin cursed world.

The curse is not sins agency. The curse is from God himself. It is judgment on the earth for sin. That is the curse.

In our world, slow deterioration towards nothing, all the natural disasters, death, sickness, all these things are a result of God's loosening grip on his providential care of the earth. He's very explicit about this in Genesis 3, when he curses Adam with thorns and briars and thistles in death itself. The Lord judges the people through continual deterioration of the world. He also judges people through continual deterioration of their spiritual state.

The people are forsaken and completely forgotten by God in their left, in their own devices. He says in verse 6, chapter 4, since you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me, since you've forgotten the law of your God, I will also forget your children. The people of Israel are completely forgotten by God, instead remembered by him. They also no longer receive the Lord's provision, as we saw in verse 16, when he calls them a stubborn heifer.

He says he cannot feed them like a lamb and broad pasture anymore. He is no longer their shepherd who leads them besides still waters. He is no longer their shepherd who makes them lie down in green pastures. He no longer provides with them.

They're completely forsaken. And he also leaves them to their own sinful devices. Look at chapter 4 verse 17, where he says, ifrium is joined to idols, leave him alone. What words of judgment on the sinful people of Israel?

That all the judgment that the Lord needs is to simply let them continually deteriorate in their downward spiral to absolute foolishness. This is exactly what Paul says in Romans 1, verses 18 to 32 does not. The Lord is leaving the Israelites to their own devices. Just as the Lord lets all sinful men become fools in our own wisdom, giving them up to dishonorable passions, the loss of their heart, to impurity, and to a debased mind.

Paul says, just as the Lord's judgment is realized in the deterioration of the creative order. So also the Lord's judgment is realized in the deterioration of human nature, through continued, the continued spiral into sin. But the Lord not only brings judgment through continual deterioration, but he also brings it through cataclysmic destruction. The Lord judges the people of Israel through military defeat.

We see this in chapter 5 verse 9 through 14. That the continual deterioration of the people of the land leads to a cataclysmic judgment on them through military defeats from their enemies. 5 verse 9, the people of Israel and Judah will become a desolation in the day of punishment. In 5, 10, the princes of Judah will pour out his wrath like water upon them.

In 5, 11, Eve, for him is oppressed, crushed in judgment, because he was determined to go after filth. In chapter 5 verse 12, the Lord says he will eat away the kingdom like a moth and like dry rot. In verse 14, the Lord says he was like a lion who tears and goes away and carries off his prey, where there is no rescue for them. The continual deterioration of creation and the people results in cataclysmic destruction in judgment.

The pattern of God's judgment through those two things, continued with the duration and cataclysmic destruction, is exactly what we see playing out in history right now. That all sinful, unregenerate people are continually deteriorating in their sin and to further and further and further immorality in sinfulness until they have it in their minds. That the creation continues and continues and continues to groan and await the redemption of the people of God, the return of the Lord Jesus. And all of this will lead to the ultimate cataclysmic destruction we see in the book of Revelation.

That God will bring those people under that judgment to his ultimate judgment seats and put them into the lake of fire forever. That's exactly what we see playing out for us, and we get a picture of that here before us today. For those in sin and rebelling against God, they are children of God's present deteriorating wrath and of God's future and final cataclysmic wrath. That's what it means in Ephesians 2 for Paul to say that they are children of wrath, that we were before Christ, children of wrath.

In light of all this, what can we say? For the Lord's contention, the Lord's judgment, what can we say about the nature of the human condition based on what God has said to Israel? When we hear about the complete lack of faithfulness to the Lord, to the forsaking of the covenant relationship, to the blatant and bold sinfulness of the people, to the ignorance of God, to the spirit of the spiral downward, and to deeper sin and the deeper ignorance, the certainty of judgment, what do we hear? What description might come to our minds in describing the spiritual state and the human condition?

For me, it's death, spiritual death. There is no spiritual life, there is no relationship with God, there is no knowledge of Him, there's no recognition of Him, there's no obedience to Him. These people, the human condition outside of God's work is completely dead. And there's a read of, I was I got four through six a couple of times on your way home today, and you listen to it in the car.

All you hear is spiritual death. And the question we are left with still is how in the world can that be fixed? How can we see these people, that kind of spiritual death, us kind of people, right? How can that be saved?

How can that be fixed? How can people ignorant of God come to a knowledge of Him? How can people completely spiritually dead be brought to life again? That's exactly where the Lord goes next in His solution, in chapter six, verses one through three.

The Lord closes out chapter five when He says, I will return again to my place until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face and in their distress, earnestly seek me. And then He rehearses for the people, what that seeking looks like. The words of six, one through three are not the words of the Israelites in that day. It's God giving them an example of what it might look like for them to return to the Lord and be saved.

And we see that the Lord tells the people that the solution to the problem is that they would be given the God giving gift of genuine repentance from their sin and faith in His salvation. And that leads to two beautiful gifts of resurrection in relationship with God. So first the Lord says the solution is that you would repent, that they would come and let us return to the Lord. And the Lord tells us in three of these words that genuine God given repentance looks like, first of all, the recognition of wrongdoing.

That there's a recognition of sin, that they would actually realize their sinful state. That means they would realize their need to return. To say, come, let us return to the Lord. There's a recognize need to turn away from the old man, the sinful and rebellious self, and the need to return the Lord Himself for His salvation.

Repentance will not be genuine friends, the Lord says, unless the people themselves recognize their need to turn from their sinful ways and to return to the Lord. Second, he says, the second ingredient of the repentance is the recognition of the Lord's justice. Recognition of the Lord's justice. They say in the next part of verse one, He has torn us that He may heal us.

He has struck us down. He has judged us justly. He has given just repayment for sin. The Lord's present continual judgment through the deterioration of the curse, I deserve that.

The Lord's future cataclysmic destruction in judgment, I deserve that too. That is what genuine repentance says. That it not only realizes the need to return because of sinfulness, but it realizes that God is just in His judgment of our own sin. That He is not wrong to say, that we are in the wrong.

Third and finally, genuine repentance according to this passage looks like belief in the Lord's salvation. They recognize wrongdoing, they recognize the need to return, they recognize the Lord's justice, and then they say that He may heal us, that He will bind us up, that they recognize that the Lord Himself is the only one who could give healing. The Lord Himself is the only one to give binding up, that they return to the Lord. They say, come, I have to return to the Lord because they realize that He is the Lord and the Lord alone who can save.

Repentance not only involves recognition of sin and the need to return, the recognition of judgment, but ultimately seeks the Lord in faith, knowing that He saves and He saves alone. Generally, repentance confesses sin to the Lord because it knows that He alone can and will forgive us of our sins and it cleanses us from all unrighteousness. That is genuinely repentance. And this repentance that recognizes wrong doing, that recognizes the Lord's justice, that believes in the Lord for salvation is the means by which God grants people two beautiful gifts of restoration.

That first gift is the gift of resurrection that we see in verse two, notice the relationship between genuine repentance and immediately afterwards, the ability to say with confidence after two days, He will revive us on the third day, He will raise us up, that we may live before Him, He is going to raise us from spiritual death. That is what the Lord is going to do. Repentance leads to resurrection and we are confident of that. That is what this text is saying.

But how can that be true? How can specifically the words of verse two be true of a people? An entire people is gonna die for two days and on the third day, raise again? I can imagine the original here is here and it doesn't mean like, what are you talking about?

Three days, right? Again, the exile, the judgment of the Lord, lasts for hundreds of years. Nehemiah and Ezra, the exile didn't even end there because they were still in spiritual exile from the Lord. It's lasting all the way up to the time of Christ.

What are you talking about? Three days. How is it true that it could be said of us to repent God that after three days would be revived and raised again to live with you? The answer?

Only through a representative. Only through a true Israel. Only through a new Adam. That would be faithful to the end.

Only through a representative that would do that work on their behalf and allow his people who repent and believe in him to participate in his death, burial and resurrection. Only the one head of Isaiah 110. Only the big king of Isaiah three, five. Only my friends, Jesus Christ is a means by which these words can be said from our lips that we on the third day, rose again, that we have been given new life, three pendants in faith in the Lord.

Jesus is our representative who took God's judgment in our place and who died in rose so that we might die and rise with him. Friends, we deserve the great cataclysmic wrath of God. We deserve the tearing and striking down of God as described in Isaiah six verse one. But Jesus Christ takes that striking down.

He takes that tearing for us. The same word that's used for struck us down in verse one is used in Isaiah 53 verse four to describe the suffering servant as one stricken and smitten by God and afflicted. A second Corinthians two, 51, five, 21 says, Jesus Christ became sin for us that we might receive the righteousness of God as Galatians three, 10 through 12 says. Jesus Christ took on the curse for us, the curse of our sin, the curse that God deals out on all who are unbelievers in him, all over and all against them, that we might have the righteousness of God that is not ours.

He was stricken and smitten by God and afflicted for us so that we would have life in his name. The second he also was our representative who died and rose, so that we might die and rise with him. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, 3 and 4, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures. According to what scriptures, Paul, Hosea six, one, three, in accordance with that scripture.

And through repentance and faith, friends, we come to participate in that work of Christ, whereas it can be said of us that we have died, that we on the third day rose with him, and that we now have life in his name. As Paul says in Romans two, verse six, even when you're dead and our trespasses, he made us alive together with Christ. By grace we have been saved and get this, he says in verse six, he raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places. Jesus Christ, friends, is our representative and our only means that through repentance and faith we would be able to participate in his work where it can be said of us, we have been raised on the third day by our God.

A work that none of us could ever do, right? A work that none of us could ever accomplish. A work that a whole people could never accomplish that only can be done through a faithful representative. Through Jesus Christ.

And this ultimately leads quickly here to a relationship. The people go from ignorance to increasing knowledge. It says, let us know. I mean, after seeing all the places in Hosea four through six where it says they have no knowledge of God, they have no knowledge of God, I desire knowledge of God for these words to be spoken.

They say, let us know and let us press on to know the Lord is amazing. That the people through this life that's given to them are able to enter into a deep and personal knowledge of the Lord that goes ever deeper. That they can press on into, that they can continue in relationship with. It goes also from forsaken to an assured presence.

It says in the next phrase in verse three, his going out, the Lord's going out is as sure as the dawn. He will come to us as the showers. In other words, the Lord is going to come to us. He is going to make his presence abide with us.

He is going to come out to us because we cannot go to him. Instead of being forsaken and forgotten, the Lord will be with us. The Lord is as sure as the sun coming up is going to be with us. The Lord promised that he would come to us and dwell as us what he did in the person who worked with his son, the indwelling of his spirit, and ultimately in the future, in the second coming of Christ and the establishment of new creation.

Bank your life, friends, on the fact that it's as sure as the sun rising tomorrow, that the Lord has come and has come to dwell with you, has come to dwell with you. And finally, you go from desolation to spiritual nourishment. He says, he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth. The Lord friends continuously showers and rains his spiritual life, his mercy, his grace on our dry, and weary, and sinful souls.

He gives us not only life, he gives us life abundantly, and he causes us to bear fruit. Friends, in light of the judgment, the contention of the Lord in the solution of repentance that leads to resurrection and relationship with him. If you are here today and you are, and you are realized that I'm just like Israel. I am a sinful, dreadfully sinful individual who is completely outside of a genuine knowledge of God.

I would commend you, verses 6, 1, 3, as your next prayer, that you would repent of your sins and receive the life that is only available to you in Christ Jesus. That it could be said of you today, that you have been revived by the Lord on the third day in Christ. For the rest of us who are believers in the room today, continue in repentance and faith, and press on to know the Lord. Friends, sinfulness that it's unrepentative or unconfessed is damaging to your bones.

It's lethal to your Christian life. There's a reason that Solomon says in Proverbs 3, 7, that turning away from evil and fearing the Lord is like healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones. There is a reason that James says in James 5, 16, that upon confession and prayer of sin with one another, that you will be healed, that there is great power in the work of the prayer of a righteous man. Unconfessed, unrepentated sin eats away at you, and if it's bad enough, it makes you feel like you're dying inside.

So ask yourself today, when was the last time you explicitly confessed and repented of sin to the Lord? When was the last time that you confessed sin to a brother or sister and prayed with them? I encourage you to follow the instructions of John the Baptist and to bear fruit in keeping with repentance. Second, press on to know the Lord.

Make it your goal to know God deeply and more deeply and more deeply every single day. You have been saved for that purpose. Spiritual life is to know God. We can do that just by simply reading our Bibles each day and read books that you've been scared of.

Read as equal. Read revelation. Read Leviticus. And press on to know the Lord, brothers.

Press on to know the Lord, sisters. Read a good theology book that you've been afraid of reading because you think it's too difficult for you. And pursue this knowledge together. Read those books together.

Study the Bible together. Pray together. Take advantage of the ministries that this church has, like Sunday school, like Sunday morning today. Take advantage of those things to know the Lord and know Him more deeply.

And finally, know that the Lord is with you. Know that He is present with you. Know that He is in relationship with you. Know that His coming out was assured of dawn and He did.

And He came in the person of His Son Jesus Christ and He has sent His Spirit and dwells every single believer. Know that He is with you today that as Jesus says in Matthew 28, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Know that He is with us as a church. As Revelation 2, 1 says that the Lord Jesus walks among the church and showing His presence is with them.

What an encouragement for us each day to know that the Lord is with us and to abide in that relationship that we have with Him by His Spirit through His Word, by faith in His Son, all by His grace. Take advantage of that today. Where else would you rather be in the presence of the Lord? Take advantage of that through corporate gatherings like this.

Take advantage of that through being in the Word in Him prayer because there is no better place to be than in the presence of the Lord with Him in relationship with the Lord ever deepening your knowledge of Him. That is why all things are leading to that final day where we will be with Him forever in person, live and in person, and that we will know Him and know Him and know Him and know Him for all our days. And that's what we press on to today. Repent and press on to know the Lord and to live with Him.

That's pretty good. Father, we thank you for this day. We thank you for this time. We thank you for your Word.

And we thank you that it teaches us not only about the seriousness of our sin, but about the goodness of our Savior. Lord, that you have provided a means for sinful people like us to confess with confidence that you have revived us on the third day, that you have caused us to raise again because you have done the work for us in Jesus Christ. Father, thank you so much for the goodness of this gift, for the simplicity of it, that through repentance and faith that we take hold of it today, that we grasp onto and never let go of all the things available to us in Jesus. Father, I pray that this week that we all would continue in repentance and faith, that we would never grow weary of identifying the sin in our lives, that we would never grow fearful of approaching you, our gracious God, and that we would ever grow strong in our desire and in our resolve to know you and to make you known.

And we ask this in Jesus' name, amen.