The God Who Would Heal Us

SCRIPTURE READING

Hear now the holy and infallible word given by God through the prophet Hosea to the people of God:

"When I would restore the fortunes of my people, when I would heal Israel, the iniquity of Ephraim is revealed, and the evil deeds of Samaria, for they deal falsely. The thief breaks in, and bandits raid outside, but they do not consider that I remember all their evil. Now their deeds surround them. They are before my face. By their evil they make the king glad, and the princes by their treachery. They are all adulterers. They are like a heated oven whose baker ceases to stir the fire from the kneading of the dough until it is leavened. On the day of our king, the princes became sick with the heat of wine. He stretched out his hand with mockers, for their hearts like an oven, they approached their intrigue. All night their anger smolders. In the morning it blazes like a flaming fire. All of them are hot as an oven, and they devour their rulers. All their kings have fallen, and none of them calls upon me.

Ephraim mixes himself with the peoples. Ephraim is a cake not turned. Strangers devour his strength, and he knows it not. Gray hairs are sprinkled upon him, and he knows it not. The pride of Israel testifies to his face, yet they do not return to the Lord their God, nor seek Him for all this.

Ephraim is like a dove, silly and without sense, calling to Egypt, going to Assyria. As they go, I will spread over them my net. I will bring them down like the birds of the heavens. I will discipline them according to the report made to their congregation. Woe to them, for they have strayed from me! Destruction to them, for they have rebelled against me! I would redeem them, but they speak lies against me. They do not cry to me from the heart, but they wail upon their beds for grain and wine. They gnash themselves. They rebel against me. Although I trained and strengthened their arms, yet they devise evil against me. They return, but not upward. They are like a treacherous bow. Their princes shall fall by the sword because of the insolence of their tongue. This shall be their derision in the land of Egypt."

The grass withers, the flowers fade, but the word of our God stands forever. You may be seated.

SERMON INTRODUCTION

One of the hardest things to watch is someone who desperately needs help refusing to accept it. It can be in mild forms—watching someone try to change a tire who clearly has no business changing a tire, and you offer help, but in some way, you offend their pride. It can be simple, like offering a little one help to tie their shoes. "No, I can do it." Sometimes pride keeps us from accepting help.

And one of the hardest things to watch is when we know that the person needs help, that it's not just a young child learning to tie their shoe, or where, hey, anybody can change a tire. But we know they actually desperately need help. Not just that they need help—they require help. You don't require help to tie your shoes. You might need it. There are times you require help, and you might still refuse to receive it.

Perhaps you've seen this in some ways more significant. Perhaps you've had a friend caught in an addiction that keeps them thinking that they have everything under control. Perhaps you know a couple whose marriage seems to be falling apart, but neither will acknowledge their sin or seek forgiveness and reconciliation. Perhaps you have a son or a daughter who's wandered from the Lord, and every attempt to reach them seems to fall on deaf ears, and you can see the help that they need.

The tragedy is not simply that there are people hurting. It is that they need help and oftentimes can even refuse to accept the help, even if it's being offered. But before we point our fingers at others, we need to recognize this picture upon ourselves. This is the condition of every sinner apart from God's grace: in desperate need of help, not even able to accept the help that God extends in His grace without being a recipient of God's grace.

We do not naturally recognize the seriousness of our sin. We would rather have relief from consequences than be delivered from its power. We want God to fix our circumstances sometimes, and we don't want Him to fix our hearts. "Lord, make it better, but let me keep doing the same things I want to be doing."

This is the tragedy that we're seeing throughout the Book of Hosea. This is what we see in Hosea, Chapter 7. Israel has forsaken the Lord. She has pursued idols. She's trusted foreign powers. She's broken covenant with the God who redeemed her. And in Chapter 6, the people spoke of returning to the Lord, but their love was fleeting. Remember the illustration Hosea used last week: their love was like morning dew. It was a mist on the ground that by the time the sun rose, it was gone. It was shallow repentance, only for a moment.

And now the Lord exposes what lies beneath their religious words. But notice how the chapter begins: "When I would heal Israel." Before we hear of Israel's wickedness yet again from the prophet Hosea, we hear God's desire to heal. Before we hear of their rebellion, we hear of His purpose, that God would heal His people, but they refuse to return to Him. This is the tragedy in our passage, but it is also where we find hope. The Lord exposes our sin because we need His healing. He warns us of judgment because our response to His mercy matters.

We're going to see this in three ways in our passage this evening. This is outlined for you in the back of your bulletin. We'll see first that God offers healing to sinners. Second, that God exposes the sin that requires healing. And third, God's approaching judgment demands a response.

GOD OFFERS HEALING TO SINNERS

"When I would heal Israel." These are the remarkable words that our passage begins with. Israel has been unfaithful to the Lord. She has broken His commandments. She's pursued idols. She's sought security everywhere but from Him. We've seen this throughout the book. They seek first the king of Assyria, and God says He's going to crush it. Here in our passage we see that they go and seek Egypt. Yet God speaks of healing. He does not describe a people who have made themselves worthy of healing. He describes a people who need mercy. That is what the God of grace does from beginning to end. He does not come to a people who have made themselves worthy of grace or mercy. He goes to the very people who require grace and mercy.

God takes initiative towards sinners who cannot heal themselves. Sin is not merely some bad decisions or things that have happened in your life. In our sin, we have corrupted hearts. We have disordered loves, turned away from God who made us. We do not need a little advice. We don't just need a fresh start. We don't need a three-step improvement plan. We need forgiveness, reconciliation, and a new life. We need God to do this for us because we cannot do it ourselves, and this is precisely what God does in Jesus Christ. Jesus, who comes into the world to save sinners—He did not come for those who have no need of a physician. He came to seek and save the lost. He came for those who were sick. He obeyed where we have rebelled, bore the judgment of our sins that we deserved, rose again in a way that we could not. The gospel is not an invitation to clean yourselves up. It is an invitation to rest in the grace that God has extended because you are someone who needs grace.

So do not wait until you have conquered your sin to come to Christ. Do not wait until you have repaired your life or a relationship to feel like somehow you are worthy of God's attention. No matter who you are, no matter how many years you have followed Christ, we come as sinners in need of grace, that have been given grace, that are given an assurance, even a pardon in Christ. And we continue—what we've been observing throughout the book of Hosea—is we continue to need to live lives of repentance, turning from our sin and turning to the God who has given us the grace.

GOD EXPOSES THE SIN THAT REQUIRES HEALING

God's desire is to heal His people, but that does not mean He's going to overlook their sin. God does not turn a blind eye. The very next words we see in our passage tell us that when God would heal Israel, her iniquity was revealed. God's grace does not ignore our sin. His grace brings our sin into the light. We actually understand our need of grace better.

That leads us to our second point, that God exposes the sin that requires healing. The Lord continues, "When I would heal Israel, the iniquity of Ephraim is revealed and the evil deeds of Samaria." Now, God is not discovering something new. Verse 2 tells us that Israel's deeds are before His face. Nothing is hidden from Him. The problem is not that God needs to see Israel's sin. The problem is that Israel needs to see the sin they need to repent of. And so the Lord exposes their condition.

This is the major ministry of the prophet Hosea: exposing the condition of sinful hearts in the people of God. The opening verses describe a society just consumed by evil. There's deception, theft, violence. The people practice wickedness, and the rulers—those with the responsibility to restrain evil—are celebrating the wickedness. Sin has become the new normal. It has spread from private lives, trying to keep it secret, and instead, even in the public leadership, celebrated and praised. Those who should be leading the people in righteousness instead are delighting in the corruption.

So then Hosea gives this image of an oven to help explain this point of God exposing sin that requires healing. He says, "Think about it like an oven." The people are like an oven burning with heat. Their passions smolder beneath the surface until they burst into flames. Their anger and their intrigue consume their rulers, and the nation descends into instability. It's a fire not contained in the oven. It's a picture of sin.

Sin often begins with something we think we can control. A resentment that we think we can nurture and control. A temptation that we entertain, that we just allow somewhere that our mind goes. A compromise in our own character that we excuse. "Oh, it wasn't really that big of a deal." We tell ourselves our sin is harmless, that we can stop whenever we want to. "It's not controlling me. Just a little bit more." But sin grows. What we once resisted, we begin to tolerate. Once we tolerate, we begin to defend, and what we defend, eventually we celebrate.

We can become so accustomed to sin that we stop recognizing it for what it is. We justify our impatience, we justify our bitterness, we rationalize our pride. We explain away our neglect of the Lord, and we need God's grace to expose it, to lay it bare like the prophet Hosea does for God's people. We do not need a God who tells us only what we want to hear. We need the God who tells the truth about ourselves and also provides the remedy we desperately need.

Think about a physician who discovers a serious illness in his patient. He does not help his patient by concealing the diagnosis. "Something's wrong. It's not that bad. Don't worry." No, a good physician is going to tell the truth, because a disease identified can be treated. And if not identified, or how serious the situation is, is not shared, how is the person going to treat the treatments? If the condition is treated casually, the patient's going to go, "Oh, do I really need to do this? It doesn't seem like it's that serious." How much more we need to listen to God when He exposes our sin.

But even where this exposure began—the first words in our passage this evening: "When I would heal Israel." The Lord exposes sin in the context of His purpose to heal, His purpose to be gracious. He does not call evil good. He does not pretend our sickness is harmless. He brings it into light because we need to be delivered from it.

So when God's Word confronts you, how do you respond? Do you respond by immediately defending yourself? I feel like one of the most common ones—and I've used this example before as we've been going through the Book of Hosea—is "At least I'm better than that guy." Because that's so often where our sin likes to go in an excuse. "It could be so much worse." Or, "I really know the person who needs to hear this sermon, Pastor John, and it's not me. Have you met so and so?" The grace that exposes our sin is leading us away from a false security towards where our only hope can actually be found.

Hosea gives us another striking image. In Hosea 8 he says that Ephraim is like a cake that's not turned. Imagine a flatbread that's left on a fire, and instead of turning it to cook both sides, you just leave it there. One side begins to burn, and the other side remains uncooked. It's misshapen, it's ruined, it's unfit for its purpose. That cake is Ephraim. That cake is God's people. Now we don't cook cake in a fire. Picture a pancake on your griddle. What happens if you try to cook a pancake by just leaving it flat down on one side? It's not going to be a very good pancake. It's not going to be fit for its purpose.

Israel has become compromised through her entanglement with the nations. Neither living faithfully as God's people nor finding the security she's turning and searching for with Egypt, with Assyria. But the most troubling thing is not simply her compromise or her failed military alliances—it's that God's people don't even recognize it. They're blind to it, like somebody who's forgotten a cake on the fire. It's neglected. God's people are declining, and she's acting like she's fine.

Then verse 10 identifies a further problem: "The pride of Israel testifies to his face, yet they do not return to the Lord their God, nor seek Him, for all this." We've seen throughout the Book of Hosea children named. A picture of Hosea and Gomer is a picture of God and Israel given, a living example, more than a cake being talked about on a fire. Children born—not my child, no mercy, my people—then being called my people, then being shown mercy. And other examples throughout the book continuing to build.

And despite all of this, it's not leading to some grand reform amongst the people. Everything should have driven Israel back to the Lord. Her weakness, her troubles, and the consequences of her unfaithfulness—these all should have awakened her need for the God of grace, whose steadfast love abounds generation after generation. But still, their pride—one of the most central pieces of the Book of Hosea: the people's pride.

Pride, that is the refusal to acknowledge our dependence upon God. It is the insistence that we think we know better, that we can manage our lives, that our security can be found somewhere other than the Lord. And pride makes us blind. The man who needs correction believes everyone else is the problem. The woman who needs to confess her sins insists that she is the one who is just wronged. The one who has neglected the Lord always has a reason to put it off till tomorrow.

Perhaps even you've encountered that when telling others about the grace that you have received through Jesus Christ. I've had people explicitly tell me that when sharing the gospel or having a conversation about Jesus, "I'm going to think about it when I'm 80." Has anyone else heard that before from someone? "I'm going to put it off till I'm older." Here's the greatest counter that you can say to that: Do you know you'll live to 80? Do you know? 'Cause they're using the pride of "right now is for me. One day I'll look and consider these things."

Religion can even be used as a shield in this way. Attending worship, maybe knowing things about the Bible, speaking the language of faith, but not actually worshiping God. Just going through the motions. This is why we need grace to even recognize our need for grace. We need God's particular grace so that we would even know we have a need for grace. We need to know that we are lost so that we can be found. And praise God, in Jesus Christ we are found.

God's Word comes and confronts His people here through the prophet Hosea. And what we need is the Holy Spirit to humble us so that we will seek mercy. And foolish Israel's response we see in verse 11: Israel is like a silly dove. A silly dove flying to Egypt and then to Assyria, looking for security in other nations. God's people are like a silly little bird flying around from place to place. Israel is looking everywhere but to the Lord.

While it might be silly to think about Israel being like a silly dove, a foolish bird flying this way and that, we can often do the same thing. When our consciences trouble us, we seek distraction. We talked about this a little bit this morning. When our lives fall apart, we look for someone else to blame. When we feel empty, we pursue another pleasure. We turn to money, control, achievement, human approval, hoping it will just give us peace. But none of them reconcile us to God.

God exposes our false refuges that we might flee to Him who is the true refuge. This is another one of those major threads throughout the Book of Hosea: that your false comforts might be demolished. And I really do believe that as your pastor, that the things that you might seek to run and find comfort in, I hope they turn to ashes in your mouth. I hope there's despair upon the things that you seek instead of seeking the Lord Jesus Christ—in the same way I hope there for myself—that God would expose those false refuges that we run to, that we would truly find our refuge in Jesus Christ. His righteousness that is sufficient for our guilt, His blood that can cleanse us from our sins, His resurrection that assures us the conquering of death. We do not need to make ourselves righteous. We need the righteousness that He gives.

So do not run from God who exposes your sin. Run to the God that would heal you, even though you know He might name your sin, even though He might point out silly things like a dove that you go to seek to do instead. Do not imagine that a person who seems most resistant even to the gospel is beyond the reach of this good news. That same grace that opens our eyes to see our sin, to be aware of it, to even know of our need for a Savior, is the God who brings dry bones rattling together, who takes a Pharisee who's persecuting and killing the church and says, "Mine."

GOD'S APPROACHING JUDGMENT DEMANDS A RESPONSE

And this is where God's approaching judgment demands a response. Verse 13 we read, "Woe to them! For they have strayed from me. Destruction to them! For they have rebelled against me." These are sobering words. Israel's sin is not harmless. Her rebellion has consequences. Even if they were to return to the Lord now, at this point in Hosea, there are consequences that will unfold. Toothpaste can't be put back in the toothpaste tube. Yet the Lord continues, "I would redeem them, but they speak lies against me." Do you see God's broken heart for His people? Once again, we hear God's desire to redeem in this tragedy, that people continue to resist Him.

And then in verse 14, we read, "They do not cry to me from the heart, but they wail upon their beds." They weep, but they're weeping for the wrong thing. They just want things back to normal. They don't turn from their sin. They don't want a world without sin and the consequences of sin. Our church's catechism uses the category that there's sin and misery in the world that has fallen. Now, there are things in Israel's life at this point that you could call misery, but there is also sin. Israel is distressed, but the distress is not the same thing as repentance. They want grain and wine. They want their comforts restored. They want their troubles removed, but they don't truly seek the Lord. There's a difference between wanting God to change your circumstance and wanting God. We may pray when our plans collapse. We may promise to do better when we face the consequences of our actions. We may ask God to remove our suffering while remaining unwilling to turn from the sin that brought us there.

But repentance is more than regret. The last couple weeks I've mentioned in 2 Corinthians 7, where Paul writes to the church of Corinth saying, "I'm so glad I wrote to you in my first letter." Why? "It grieved you. It grieved you, Church, and that grief led to a godly repentance," a turning from the sin and turning to God. And he compares it with a worldly grief that just wants to get out of the consequences of that sin. This middle section of Hosea is very similar to that. It is not merely sorrow over the consequences of sin; it is a turning from sin to God, confessing our rebellion and seeking His mercy.

Verse 15 tells us that God has trained and strengthened Israel, yet she used the strength He gave her for evil. Even God's gifts became tools for rebellion. And we can ask ourselves whether we have ever done the same thing. We receive our health, our strength, our homes, our families, all opportunities to steward from the Lord, yet we use these gifts to build lives that leave God in the margins, that leave Him as a footnote on the bottom of the page. We can receive God's goodness without giving Him our hearts, keeping Him at that distance.

So ask yourself: do you want to be reconciled to God, or do you simply want your circumstances improved? One of those is the gospel, and one of them is not. The Lord calls us to return to Him, to turn to Him, and we cannot purchase forgiveness by promising to do better. We cannot earn it by feeling sufficiently ashamed. We come as sinners trusting in the Savior who died and rose again for us.

And this brings us to the urgency of God's warning in verse 16. "They return, but not upward. They are like a treacherous bow." Israel appears to turn, but she does not return to the Lord. Her turning is misdirected, and judgment follows. We must not preach grace in such a way that judgment disappears. The God who offers healing is the God who also judges. His patience is not a permission to continue in sin. His kindness is not to be mistaken for indifference. All image-bearers of God will stand before a holy God and face judgment, who will give an account, and those who remain outside of Christ will face the judgment that their sins deserve. That is why the gospel must be proclaimed with urgency, because God's judgment is coming.

And we say, "Maranatha. Lord Jesus Christ, come quickly." But how long will it be that we as the church bear this great commission work? If you knew, if somehow you could thumb through the pages of Revelation and the 70th week in Daniel, and you could know the day or the hour—now, Christ says you cannot know the day or the hour. Let's say you could. Let's say it was in six months from now. What would change? What would change in that coworker, that neighbor, that one that you might even say that you love? What would change? What level of urgency would you warn them about the coming judgment of God? I imagine it would change somewhat drastically. I know for me that it would. I'd also not spend my time on silly things like mowing my lawn. We'd see how high my grass grew in six months. Why? I'd be like, "That is so trivial." I'm not saying don't mow your lawn. Be responsible for those things the Lord has given you. But do you see this impending judgment, this urgency that the prophets have even against sin that God is going to judge? This is why we must proclaim the gospel with an urgency, an expectant urgency, that we worship the God who still brings and gives new life, who is a God of grace and mercy.

If you've never trusted in Jesus Christ, do not wait until you've made yourself better. Do not wait until you've resolved every difficulty or every sinful habit. Come to Christ now. He is the Savior of sinners. If you've been living in known sin, do not use God's grace as an excuse to remain in that sin. Confess your sin. Turn from your sin and to the Lord. The grace that saves you also calls you out of rebellion.

And Christian, remember that your hope is not in your own strength. You are not saved because you are naturally wiser, because you are more humble, or because you are just better than someone else. You are saved by the unmerited, radical grace of the love of God, and you continue to depend upon that grace. Don't fall into the sin of the prodigal son that does not go. It feels as though he has earned all of his inheritance. "Dad, where's my fattened calf? Where's the ring for my finger? I stayed and I've been working. I've been good." Do not develop the heart of the prodigal son who stayed at home because you have been faithful. Remember even as you were saved by grace, you are sustained by that grace, and that you continue to turn from even that pride of the prodigal son who did not go but stayed at home and labored.

The warning of judgment should make us sober. But those who are in Christ need not despair. Jesus has borne the judgment of His people, and there is no condemnation for those who belong to Him. The Savior who calls us to repent is the Savior who gave Himself for our redemption. So do not delay today if you hear His voice. Do not harden your heart.

Our passage began with, "When I would heal Israel," and what a gracious declaration, and what a tragic chapter of the Book of Hosea chapter seven is. That God would heal, but Israel has persisted in sin. God exposes her condition. He gives the diagnosis, and she refuses the treatment. She refuses to turn to the heart, so God warns her of judgment, and she continues to seek security in all the wrong places.

Hosea chapter seven warns us about presuming upon God's mercy. We must not hear the offer of grace and imagine that we can just safely ignore it. "I got the get out of jail free card." This chapter warns us about presuming on God's mercy, but we also see the hope held out to sinners by God. He exposes sin because sin is real. He calls sinners to return because He is merciful. He warns of judgment because judgment is coming, and He has provided a Redeemer who can save sinners completely. He would heal, and He does heal. He sends His Son, who is the perfect physician. So come to Him. Do not trust in your own righteousness. Do not hide your sin. Do not wait until you think you are worthy. Confess your need. Be humble, not prideful, when you are confronted with your sin.

No sinner is beyond the reach of God's power. No one is too far gone for Christ to save. That does not mean that everybody will repent, but Hosea warns us that some will persist in rebellion and face judgment. But we do know that we don't get to decide—the Spirit decides those that will come in.

So let us be a people who speak honestly about sin, joyfully about the grace of our Savior, Jesus Christ, who speaks soberly with gentleness and respect—we've been learning in 1 Peter—to speak with gentleness and respect even about coming judgment, but to live in light that there is judgment, and even be expectant of Christ's power to save. Let us be a people who pray for the lost, who speak the truth in love, invite others to hear God's Word, and tell them of this marvelous grace of Jesus Christ. The God who would heal us has given us His Son. Do not refuse His mercy. Come to Christ, and in your life, dear Christian, call others to do the same, not just in your actions, but even with your very words. Amen.

CLOSING PRAYER

Let's pray for us.

Father, Lord, as we read in Hosea 7 tonight, You are a God that would heal. We know even through the ministry of Your Son and the revelation of Your Word where You have ultimately healed. We give thanks and praise that in Jesus Christ, You have reconciled us, that You have given us new life. Lord, help us to live as a response to that grace that we've been shown. Help us to be thankful even when Your grace in our lives might expose our sins. Help us to desire more and more of You and not our passions of the flesh. In Christ's name we pray, amen.