I ran across a joke this week that, for some dumb reason, struck my attention while I was studying this text from Hosea. It goes like this: On e day God was looking down at the earth and saw all of the rascally behavior that was going on. So He called one of his angels to go to earth for a time.
When he returned, the angel told God, "Yes, it is bad on Earth; 95% are misbehaving and only 5% are not." God thought for a moment and said, "Maybe I had better send down another angel to get a second opinion." So God called another angel and sent him to earth for a time, too.
When the angel returned he went to God and said, yes, it's true. The earth is in decline; 95% are misbehaving, but 5% are being good." God was not pleased. So He decided to e-mail the 5 % who were being good, because He wanted to encourage them. You know, give them a little something to help them keep going.
Do you know what the e-mail said? No? Okay, I was just checking with you; I didn't get one either.
Funny? Somewhat - when you catch the punch line. True? Not really! What's not true about it? Well, that supposed figure of 5% is a little high – 5% too high! What do the Scriptures tell us?
From a lesson that was read in the service about 2 weeks ago, Paul wrote: “There is no one righteous, not even one….All have turned away…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rm.3). 5% good? No. No one good! If the angel in the joke had spoken truthfully, he would have had to tell God, “100% are misbehaving. No one is being good.”
Boy, people, we've got a problem. Something's wrong. When you know that something is wrong, what do you do? You go somewhere or to someone who can fix it.
Out of milk? Go to the store. Car muffler dragging on the ground? Head for the mechanic. Sore tooth? Dentist time. Sin? An aching spirit because of your misbehavior? Painful conscience? Where do you go? We do have somewhere to go for this.
I. …When we are inflicted with the pain of our sin.
Where do you go when your soul is sick, when your spirit is down, when you recognize that a problem exists between you and God, when you are inflicted with the pain of sin ? When life is going badly and then gets worse, when it gets to the point that you're almost afraid to face a new day, or to even look at your family or yourself in the mirror, where do you go? That's the kind of state in which Israel found itself in our text.
They had been unfaithful, grossly unfaithful to God. They had turned to an idolatrous way of life in which they followed an ancient idol known as Baal. The worship of Baal was a lascivious way of life that got so disgusting, to the point that it involved religious prostitution in the temple. Adulterous acts were committed in worship because then the people thought that the god Baal and his consort Ashtoreth would be pleased and make their farm fields and cattle fertile. Isn't that a twisted way of thinking? Like Paul said in the Epistle Lesson today: “Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires…The mind of sinful man is death…it is hostile to God.” (Ro.8:5f).
Nowhere but down, down to the base desires of the sinful nature – that's where Israel was headed. What do you think God did? What would you do with your children? What would your parents have done with you if you had turned to such a bad lifestyle? Parents, out of love and concern for their children, react. So did God. He acted by allowing them to be inflicted with pain. In our text He said, “I will tear them to pieces and go away. Then I will go back to my place until they admit their guilt. And they will seek my face; in their misery they will earnestly seek me.” The pain of their sin would inflict them.
Oh, dear friends, nobody likes pain, do they? You have to be a masochist in order to like pain. We don't even want to endure the pain of a toothache or a minor headache, so we take aspirin to relieve it. Who wants to hurt? But, you know, there is a beneficial side to pain.
It's a good thing that we feel it. If we were sticks or stones, we wouldn't have any pain. But then we wouldn't know when we needed help either, and we'd be broken or crushed or burned away out of existence. But when God put us together He added pain, and for a purpose. Pain leads us to seek help when we need it.
Think of the nerve endings in your body. The nerves are a network of sensors that let you know what is happening to you. If your hand gets too close to the fire or your finger gets caught in a car door, the nerve endings sound the alarm – pain! Something's wrong; something's got to change or be fixed or you'll be in deep trouble! Get-away! Find help! Or something worse may happen!
With that same type of thinking in mind, God inflicted pain on the Children of Israel – not to harm them, but to help them turn back to Him where they needed to be.
The situation here is somewhat like that which people experience when they find themselves lying in a hospital bed and say: “God put me on my back so I would remember to look up.” That can happen to those who are mindlessly wandering apart from Him like Israel was, or it can happen to those who are close to Him to keep them even closer. But it's not so much the physical pain that helps us the most; it's the pain of conscience that does.
Perhaps we could call our consciences our spiritual nerve endings. They ring out the alarm when sin cuts into our lives and threatens our souls eternally. That alarm was barely ringing anymore in Israel . So, in an effort to wake them up, God said He would turn away and “go back to His place.”
God go away? What if God should go away, completely away in your life? That's a frightening thought. Where would we be without Him who created us and holds all things together (Col.1:17)? Remove Himself? How could we go on?
If we refuse to admit our guilt for sin, God could remove Himself and what great pain that would be. But even if He should remove Himself, as He threatened with Israel , He never stops caring for us. He would only go away as a last attempt to make us realize our sin. After all, the only one on earth who ever felt the horror of such absence was the Lord Jesus on the cross. There God the Father forsook Him because of our sins, that we might not be forsaken by God in eternity but have forgiveness, full and free through faith in Him. For like Paul said, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” That's His promise. He will forgive; He will forget; He will open His arms wide to receive you again.
Thank Goodness, We Have Somewhere to Go when we are inflicted with the pain of our sin. We have a Savior.
II. …When we need His blessing.
So it was that Israel , after feeling the pain, responded, “Come, let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces but He will heal us He has injured us but He will bind up our wounds….Let us acknowledge the Lord…He will appear. He will come to us like the winter rains.”
Finally, Israel was looking in the right direction, the only direction that could help them in their pain and need – God. “Let us return to Him,” they cried. “He is the answer to what we need.”
If you have an aching spirit, if you feel stressed out, if you feel the pain of life overcoming you, where do you go? The shopping mall? The liquor store? The gym? Where do you go? Even if some of these would help for awhile, they cannot bring the blessings you need. With such human solutions we grope along for awhile, but the anger, the gloom, the pain will return. Only God's Word and Promise cut through the darkness and helplessness. We do have somewhere to go. Yes, even if it be on our knees, we have somewhere to go.
The problem is sin. We confess it. And we hear the answer – we are loved by God, loved so much that for His Son's sake He forgives us. He blesses us with what we need – the Savior who binds up the wounds of our sin. In fact, His blessings rain down upon us. Israel said it this way: As surely as the sun rises, He will appear; He will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth.”
When the farmer plants his crop in Israel , he plants it a little earlier than we do, since they are nearer the equator. He's already planting by this time of the year. When he plants his crop, he's counting on the rain to fall and the sun to shine.
Likewise in our suffering, especially in the pain of our sin, we can have the same confidence. God will be there. He will revive us; He will restore us; He will come to us like the winter rains that refresh the dry soil. We need Him; we turn and return to Him in His Word, and He blesses us by assuring: “I did not come to be served, but to serve; and to give my life a ransom for many.”
We all needed that ransom for the people that the angels saw misbehaving was everyone. Not just 95% but 100%! 100% ransomed by Christ. But only those who feel their pain and return to the Lord in repentance and faith will receive its blessing.
Thank God, We Have Somewhere to Go when we are inflicted with the pain of our sin and when we need His blessing. We have a Savior. God grant us such a faith and a return daily; for Jesus' sake. Amen.