Hello, I'm Tony Carter, Lead Passive East Point Church. For the past eight years we've called the City of East Point our home as we've sought to point people to Christ through the preaching of the gospel. And during our time here we've shared church space and met in civic centers and in schools but now God has given us a gracious opportunity to have a place that we can call our own. Currently we are under contract for a church building in our raising funds for the down payment. And normally we don't ask for donations in this matter but this is a unique and a wonderful opportunity for us. And so if you are so inclined we ask that you would partner with us in the pursuit of our vision for a permanent home for East Point Church. If you would like to give we invite you to visit our website at epointchurch.org and there you will find a tab directing you in how you might be able to give in support of us raising the funds to obtain this church building. Thank you for this opportunity and thank you for partnering with us in advance. Good morning church. Today's scripture is found in Hosea chapter 6 verses 1 through 11
the word of the Lord reads, come let us return to the Lord for he has torn us that he may heal us 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 press on to know the Lord. His going out is 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? Your love is like a morning cloud like the dew that goes early away. Therefore I have healed 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 steadfast love and not sacrifice the knowledge of God rather than burn offerings. But like Adam they transgress the covenant. There they dealt faithlessly with me. Gilead is a city of evil doers, tracked with blood as robbers lie in wait for a man. So the priests band together they murder on the way to check them. They commit villainy. In the house of Israel I have seen a horrible thing. Ephraim's hordom is there. Israel is defiled. For you also, O Judah, a harvest is appointed whenever store the fortunes of my people. Amen. I think I can say pretty confidently that we often forget how deceitful sin is. We forget the impact it has on us and it has on others. It's just awful. I don't think we contemplate how it makes us do things and how it makes people do things that are irrational. They just do things. It just don't make sense. Blinds us to the truth. Sin blinds us to reality. But unfortunately that is the plight of everyone who enters into this world. Paul tells the church in Corinth that in their case the God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God. All, all, all enter into this world blinded to the truth. Sin does not allow us to see the glorious realities of the gospel, the splendor of the gospel. And so what God does is he opens up our blind eyes as we just sung that we pray that the Lord will open up our blind eyes and he opens up blind eyes and he clears out the cobwebs enabling us to see the beauties and the glories of the gospel. We see the glory of the gospel in the face of Jesus Christ. God takes the blinders off so that we can see reality so that we can see truth. If you are Christian here this morning, if you are following after Christ, do you understand that that's what happened to you? That the that the that the Lord opened up your blind eyes to be able to see the glorious gospel in the face of Jesus Christ. You needed to have your your blinded eyes opened. But although our eyes have been opened, that's that is indeed true. Our eyes have been our blinded eyes have been opened by Holy Spirit enabling us to see Jesus. It is the nature of indwelling sin that wants to keep obscuring our vision. Satan does not want us seeing the truth. And so when we don't do that which brings pleasure to God when we do that which is when we sin, what we are doing is succumbing to the effects of sin. What do we say sin does? It blinds us. It blinds us to the truth. It blinds us to the realities of the gospel. You can't see. You can't see the wonderful realities that are found therein. Instead, sin has you as C.S. Lewis says, going on making mud pies in the slum because we can't imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. Hosea, Hosea was prophesying to a blinded people. They were a blind people. They couldn't see the realities and the truths of the gospel. If you recall where we are in Hosea's prophecy, we are still in the midst of the lawsuit that God had brought against his people. They are being indicted because of their sin. Lord has pronounced judgment and he is administering discipline on the people of God. So what we have in Hosea chapter 6 in these first three verses, what we have from Hosea is a plea that he has for the people to return to the Lord. There's a plea. Remember Israel is guilty as charged. They are being punished because of their sin and yet throughout Hosea's prophecy, God has been true to his nature. He has been full of mercy and flow to anger and a bounding instead of love and instead of mercy. He has been faithful to his covenant. These are God's children and so even in their guilt, even in God's pronouncement of judgment upon the nation and in the midst of his discipline, we see sprinkled throughout, roads of repentance, thousands of his mercy, rivers, rivers flowing with his grace to his people. These are God's children and he loves them. He desires to have a right relationship with these people. Hosea knows this and so he and his prophecy begins to plead with the people to return. Look at what he says in verse 1, come, come, come let us return to the Lord. Again in verse 3, let us, let us know, let us press on to know the Lord. Do you hear the plea? Do you hear the plea in Hosea there? Do you hear his plea?
I would venture to say that most of us know a little bit, a little something about this plea here, this urging of to come back. Many of us have been on the side of pleading. We are the ones pleading with a loved one to return to the Lord, someone who has actually gone astray and we are there, we spent days and nights on the phone and in a myriad of conversations, just talking and just pleading with them. Turn, turn from your sin. That road is no good. Come on back. Come on back. I venture to say that we were honest. Some of us have actually been that person that others were seeking to call back and return to the Lord. When I was 18, I remember this clarity of day, my parents called me into my dad's office and I was caught. I had been living a life that was not at all pleasing. I was guilty brothers and sisters guilty and I remember and I recall it vividly. My parents pleading with me to return, pleading, pleading, pleading with me to return, to return to the Lord. Ozea, Ozea is doing what any loving, concerned, father or mother or sister or brother or friend would do. He is pleading with the nation to return and I want you to notice what he does. I want you to notice his strategy here. I want you to notice how he does it. It is very instructive for us when calling people back to repent and to come back to the Lord. I want you to notice what he does. First, he identifies with the people. You see that? He identifies with the people. He does it himself, standing judgment of them. God is the judge. He says, come let us return to the Lord. He is like Nehemiah in this respect. Nehemiah before going back to build the wall. He prays to the Lord and he seeks to confess the sin of the nation and Nehemiah includes himself in that prayer. In that confession he includes himself and his family in that confession. He identifies with the people, brothers and sisters.
We ought not to think ourselves above others when it comes to the confession and the repentance of sin but there for the grace of God go I? Ozea says to the people, come, come, come, come, let us return to the Lord. I need the grace of God too. That is what he emphasizes in this appeal and this appeal to return. He begins to emphasize the grace of God and the goodness of God. He appeals to God's goodness versus one and two again. Come, he says, let us return to the Lord for he has torn us that he may heal us. 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. I find it interesting here that in Ozea calling the people and the nation to repent, he points to the goodness of God. He doesn't point. He doesn't appeal to the wrath and the judgment of God. He's not like that friend or that little sister, if I recall, who says, oh, I'm telling you're going to get in trouble. Judgment is coming. You're going to get a spanking. No, he doesn't do that. Oh, there are times for that. There are times when we call to repentance those who and for fear of judgment that's coming. There's also another way. And Ozea appeals to the goodness of God. He says, yes, the Lord is disciplining us. Yes, he has brought us low, but it is so that he might heal us so that he might raise us up so that he might restore us, like the surgeon. Yes, the surgeon, the surgeon, what they do is quite painful. Open heart surgery, repairing of ligaments or limbs. Yes, the surgeon, what he or she does is very painful all of that blood, all of that cutting, all of that sewing, but you ultimately know that it is for good, don't you? It's for your healing. Ozea is saying you don't see Israel, but punishment, God's discipline upon us is for good. It's God desires to restore us. He's like saying like the Psalmist in Psalm 119 and 71, it was good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes. Here, here is Ozea speaking about the goodness and the mercy of God and telling them to return. He's torn us so that he might heal us. Ozea boasts about God's goodness, but he also boasts about the satisfaction and the contentment that is found in God, that God provides a contentment that God provides. Look at the second half of verse 3. He will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains, that water the earth. Israel's actions had shown their lack of contentment, their lack of fulfillment, their lack of satisfaction with God. This is why they committed adultery. This is why they found themselves in the streets giving themselves to whoever came along because they were discontented with God. They thought there was something better out there for them. Ozea tells them, no, if you would return, if you would return to the Lord, if you would actually know the Lord, I mean, really know the Lord, then you would know contentment. You would know fulfillment. You would know satisfaction, that you would not only be able to see, but are actually taste that the Lord is good, would satisfy them as the thirsty ground soaks up the first rain of spring. No brothers and sisters, only only Christ, only God himself can satisfy the longing of our soul. He's the only one we can search high and low, we can search the whole world wide and not find the satisfaction and the fulfillment that Christ provides. You never satisfied. We are never contented until we know the Lord. Israel would return. If they would just come back to the Lord, they're searching for contentment, they're searching for fulfillment, would come to an end. Ozea is preaching about the goodness and the satisfaction that comes from knowing God,
praying in this plea he is praying and longing for them to return, praying that the goodness of God would lead them to repentance. Are you here this morning and needing to return home? Are you far off and strained? I want to plead with you that God is indeed good. I want to encourage you to turn to to repent of your sins. You're not too far gone. I want to proclaim to you the goodness of God. There is contentment there. There is satisfaction there. You may be in a difficult time right now, but it's so that he might heal you. So return. Come on. I'm going with you because I need to return to the Lord too. We all do. We all need to repent of our wayward ways. Would you come back to you? For Lord, don't be like Israel. Listen, don't be like Israel this morning who found themselves to coming the effects of sin. What did we say sin does? It blinds us. It blinds us and most destructively, most heinously, sin blinds us to the goodness of God. That's what it wants us to know. That's what Satan wants us to know. It wants us to think that God is not good, but he is. Israel hears this passionate plea from Hosea to return for them to repent, but they can't see the goodness of God. They can't see it because they are blinded by their sin. Hosea appeals to them and then the Lord himself comes and appeals to them. We pick it up in verse four. As the Lord now speaks to the people, Hosea has been speaking to the people in verses one to three. Now the Lord picks up and starts speaking to the people in verse four. And he says, I mean, you can hear the concern. You can hear his love for the people here. He says, what shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes early away. There's a concern there. There's a love here in reading this. I was reminded of what David said when his wicked son Absalom dies. Do you remember what he said? When Absalom dies? David is distraught and he says, Oh, Absalom, my son, my son Absalom. Oh, Absalom, he is distressed. He is distraught over this. God is by no means pleased that he has to punish his children. As we learn last week, God doesn't get it. He doesn't get a kick out of this discipline. You can hear it in that address to the nation. It is like the loving father. It is like the mother who has done everything to call their wayward child home. It's like the husband or the wife who over and over and over again is pleading with them to return to repent. I want you home. Would you come home? I want to join me in this rebellion. There's no enjoyment in this discipline. They're not enjoying the separation that exists between them, but the pleads are to no avail. They are to no avail and the actions of the wayward have left them grieved. Other than the sisters, that was me at 18. I stood there. My dad's office and my parents were pleading with me to return. To come back home, look, I had a wonderful upbringing. I grew up with two godly parents who loved me, provided everything that I needed. They were good to me. I didn't want for anything. They loved me, put a roof over my head, fed me, and there they were pleading with me to return. So tears running down my mother's face. I stood there and I turned and I was belled because I thought there was something better. Look, for those of you who are young, children, teenagers, look, I'm going to tell you there's nothing better. Your parents calling you to return a home is their love for you, their goodness. They want what's best for you. Oh, I want to plead with you. If you hear anything this morning, listen to them. Listen to them. I didn't. I didn't. Here was Israel. We had a loving father and a loving husband who was after their good. God wanted the best for them. He wanted to be in right relationship with them. He wanted to bless them. He wanted to take care of them. He wanted them to be his people and he would be their god. They were blind to that goodness. Their love and their faithfulness to God was pleading. It was hot and cold. It was like the morning cloud or the dew that is there one minute and gone the next. Israel's love and affections were up for grabs. They were up for grabs off to the next to the highest bitter who could ever, whoever made a appeal to their affections more, that's where they would go. It was hard. It's hard to love somebody like that, huh? Isn't it? It's hard to love somebody like that. They love, they are with you and loving you one minute and then and then the next they're off. Off to the highest bitter, onto to someone else. I got to have a pet peeve, pet peeve of mine and I probably shouldn't bother me as much as it does, but the Lord is still sanctifying me. Just pray for a brother. Here's my pet peeve. When I'm on the phone with somebody and we're talking, we have a conversation and the person on the other line begins to talk to somebody in the room and doesn't say, hold on. You can't figure out if they're talking to you or if you're talking to them, look, listen, I'm on the line. Who are you talking through? Their attention, their attention is divided. It's divided. You don't know if they're interested in you or not. Up and down is frustrating, insulting and you know what? We do it to God all the time. On Sunday morning, right home fellowship group, our love for God is out of fevered pitch. We're all in. We're all in. We're engaged. We're there. We're present. We're singing and we're praying and we're serving. We are all there after we leave. And if we are honest, our sections, our love, our attention are our love fluctuates even in the midst of those things. Some of us here this morning, even in the midst of praying, the midst of singing, our attention, our love has fluctuated up and down. Your love and affections have moved on. They have gone to the highest bidder. They go to our jobs. They go to our children. They go to our task lists. They go to our passions. They go to our lusts. Our love is like the morning dew. They're one minute. Gone the next. Are these words singing a little bit? Do you feel them cutting at your heart and exposing, exposing your heart a little bit? They were cutting Israel. They were cutting Israel. The Lord was stepping all on their toes but they deserved it. God's words cut because they were true. Look at verse 5, therefore I have tuned them by the prophets. I have cut them by the prophets. I have slain them by the words of my mouth and my judgment goes forth as the light. Here God is saying, I want these words to cut. I want them to hurt so that you would hear them and turn and come back. I have sent you prophets. I have sent my word so that conviction would come and that you would turn and come back to me. I was insisting if this word this morning is cutting you, this word is perhaps exposing, exposing your heart and pronouncing judgment than know that it is for a reason. You're not just here for because of coincidence. You're here for a reason. Perhaps your love is like the morning dew. He wants you. He wants you to stop plan church. He wants you to stop playing church. Listen to what he says in verse 6, for I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. Listen, listen, he doesn't want your part time of sections. He doesn't want your some tiny love. He wants your whole undivided heart. He says, you know what? You can keep your money. I don't need your money. You can keep your time. Do what you want with your time. I don't want your time. Keep your good works. I don't need your good works. What he says is, I want your heart. I want your heart because you know what? If I have your heart, then I'll have your money, then I'll have your time, and then I'll have your good works. Give me your heart. Give me your sections rather than sisters. You know, listen, I don't want my children to, I don't want their wrote obedience. I don't want my wife's wrote submission. I don't want those things. I want them to do those things because of the love I have demonstrated to them, because of the service that I have rendered to them. My issue is that I don't love perfectly. I don't love them, and so it's understandable how their obedience or how my wife's submission could, could fluctuate because I'm not as loving as I need to be, and I don't serve them as well as I need to serve them. It's perfect brothers and sisters. He's good. Look, he loves. His love is amazing. It's deep. It's wise. It's vast. You're in Christ. When you're in Christ, God's love for you never changes. He's pleased with His Son. He loves His Son, and when you are in Christ, He loves you. God is good. Isaiah proclaimed it. The Lord is there proclaiming His goodness to Israel. And you would think that after these passionate pleas, you would think that after hearing about the goodness and the mercy of God, even seeing it demonstrated over and over, all they had to do was look in their past history, in their family lineage, and see that God was good, even in the midst of all that, they still rebelled. It's in blinds as brothers and sisters. We blow past the U-turns. You don't listen to the Lord, and we find ourselves in outright rebelling the God. Let's see, God would not let this. He just doesn't let it go. He gives a promise in our remaining verses. He gives a promise. He gives a promise of judgment. He gives a promise of restoration. Let's look at verse 7. Let's look at the promise of judgment. But like Adam, they transgress the covenant. There, they dealt faithlessly with me. Here, here, God is saying, look, Jose is pleaded. I have pleaded, and yet you're still breaking covenant. You're still faithless. Israel stared dead. He said, they stared dead into the face of the goodness and the mercy of God. And they said, my way is better. Turned, breaking the covenant, that God had established with his people. You know, I find it amazing that people think that good will come of sin. Again, again, it just caused us to think of right. So it caused us to think like we, we, we just, we just make silly, just silly things. People think that it is better to live in rebellion to God. The problem with sin is that you never work yourself out. The more you sin, the deeper you go, and if you try to get out through means of sinning, sin's grip on you just gets tighter and tighter. You can't get out, but once seemed like a thriving, healthy environment when sin enters in, it wrecks havoc. It destroys. That's its nature to kill and to destroy. This is what happened to the nation. There were rebellion led to evil in the land. The priests were corrupt. The, there was murder and bloodshed. Israel was saturated with sin. Things were so bad, listen to how God summarizes it. Verse 10. In the house of Israel, I have seen a horrible thing. Ephraim's heart portal is there. Israel is the file. This, this language here is just striking and I'm reminded of God's assessment of the world that he made back in Genesis 6 and 5. The Lord, the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually and the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth and it grieved him to his heart out. Brothers, this is outright rebellion destroys a nation. Sin when less to run rampant in the church destroys the church. Villainy, corruption, it happened in Israel. Don't think it won't happen here. We've seen it happen. And so brothers and sisters, here at East Point Church, this should be a reminder to to not let sin run rampant. This is important for us when we talk about informal discipline, the, the disciplining of one another, that when we see each other straying, when we see each other going down a path that we shouldn't go, it's important that we, we urge each other to turn. Come on, let me, let me go to you and let's return. I'm going to go with you repent. Let us not think that this couldn't happen to us. This is why we need to be repenting of our sin and turning always to the Lord. Israel though, the main blind, the remainted blind, and they received a two-fold promise, promise of judgment, promise of restoration, look at verse 11. For you also, Ojita, a harvest is appointed when I restore the fortunes of my people. The key word in this verse is when. The key word in this verse is when. When is not if? When is not maybe? And kids maybe doesn't mean yes. They always, you know, when we say to your child, you know, yeah, they ask for something and you say maybe, they think it's a done deal because they bring it back to you later on. Right? When coming from the mouth of God is a sure thing. It's a sure thing. This here is a promise. There was a promise of a harvest. There was a promise of a harvest. This is not a good harvest. Like we usually hear, we hear the word harvest, we think of a good harvest, but this is not a good harvest here. The Lord saying that you're going to reap your just rewards for your sin. Judah in the South was going to reap what Ephraim was facing in the north. So they not, so they continue in their sin. So they continue in their rebellion. Judgment was sure. This was a promise. They could be sure of it, but but also in verse 11, but also we have the sure promise of restoration. God says that judgment would take place when he restored the fortunes of his people. Judgment and blessing would take place at the same time. That final judgment, this is how I'll be. Matthew 25, 32 to 33, before him will be gathered all the nation, and he will separate people, one from another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on his left. Those who were pented of their sin, those who were trusting in Christ, those who belonged to Christ, those whose eyes had been open on the right, those who continued in their rebellion, far from God, blinded to the wonderful glories of Christ on his left. Brothers and sisters, judgment and restoration is sure. It's promised. Judgment and restoration is, you know, this text is so mind blowing in so many different ways. I find it quite amazing, and inexplicable, how Israel could look into the goodness of God, look into his grace, look into his mercy, look into the fact that he desired their good and turned in rebellion from him. It's just mind-boggling. It's just hard to believe, but then I am shown my sin, but to believe,
minded of my own heart and how so often I see the goodness of God, how I was proclaimed to me over and over again. When I dive into this word, and I see, it's how good he is, and I turn and think something's better. It's mind-boggling. It's quite amazing. But what I can't, what I can't even begin to wrap my mind around is that God is still talking about restoration. That part is just hard for me to believe. I mean, if I'm God, I'm wiping this people out long time ago. I mean, they looked into me, I mean, those of us are kids, you know, you can provide for them, and then you know, you ask me to do something nicely, and then they turn, and you're like, really, if I'm God, I'm wiping these people out a long time ago. They're guilty. They're deserving of judgment. Wipe them out, and thankfully, our God, it's not the gospel. The gospel is that a good God sent his good son into the world to save a no good people. Now that's amazing. That is amazing. This, we are no good people. We continued, we continued in our rebellion, turning away from him, running away from him, and this good loving God chased us down. He ran after us. He opened up our blind eyes so that we could see him in all of his glory, in all of his splendor, nothing, nothing in this world. Could you see Jesus? Have your eyes been opened? You see how good he is? Do you see how wonderful he is? I can tell you there is nothing in this world that compares to the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ. There's nothing that compares to him. Nothing. Nothing. If you've seen that goodness, you've got eyes to see it this morning. Turn to him. Repent of your sin. Remain in him. Do not. Do not let sin blind you to the goodness. Don't let it do it. Pray, the Lord, open up your eyes to allow you to see the risen Christ. There's nothing better. Nothing more glory.