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March 10, 2002
Lent 4
Hosea 5:15-6:3
Pastor Joel Zank

COME, LET US RETURN TO THE LORD

(Hosea 5:15-6:3) 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." "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. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence. Let us acknowledge the LORD; let us press on to acknowledge him. 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."

In Christ Jesus by whose wounds we are healed, dear fellow redeemed,

Legend has it that Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, once visited one of his kingdom's prisons. During his day-long visit, he took the opportunity to talk to each and every inmate. As you might imagine, Frederick spent that day listening to endless tales of innocence, of misunderstood motives and of outright exploitation. Finally the king stopped at the cell of a convict who remained absolutely silent. "Well," said Frederick, "I suppose you are an innocent victim too?" "No, sir, I'm not," replied the man. "I'm guilty and I deserve my punishment." Turning to the warden, the king said, "Here, release this scoundrel at once before he corrupts all these other fine, upstanding prisoners."

Today our King, Jesus, visits not the prisons of his kingdom, but the hearts of his people. He comes to us in his Word and gives each of us an opportunity to tell his or her story. So what report will we give him regarding the sin in our lives. Will we hide behind excuses? Will we run away in denial? We wouldn't be the first. Adam and Eve tried that in the garden; and God's covenant people, Israel, did the same throughout their history. But you can't run from God. You can't hide from his all-seeing eyes. Any attempt to do so could lead to spiritual suicide on our part. Realizing this, there's only one thing for us to do and, that is, meet with our God. So today we borrow the words of his people of old and we say with them, "COME, LET US RETURN TO THE LORD-admitting the guilt of our sin; and acknowledging the certainty of his love.

The Prophet Hosea had been sent by God to the people of Israel to confront them with their sin. In fact, to demonstrate the damage Israel's sin had done to their relationship with God, God had actually commanded Hosea to marry a prostitute. Unwilling to give up her life of sin, she was unfaithful to her husband. Her adulterous lifestyle was to serve as a constant reminder to the people of their unfaithfulness to God. Imagine how these circumstances of Hosea's personal life underscored the meaning of his message recorded in chapter 4 of his prophecy: (Hosea 4:1-2) "Hear the word of the LORD, you Israelites, because the LORD has a charge to bring against you who live in the land: "There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgment of God in the land.2 There is only cursing, lying and murder, stealing and adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed" (Hosea 4:1-2).

Hosea's message of sin was undeniably clear, but sadly it fell on deaf ears. The people refused to recognize God's authority over their lives. As far as they were concerned, God had no business being offended by their actions. They didn't care what he had to say about their lives. They continued to do as they pleased. That is until God withdrew his hand of blessing from them. And not even that came without warning. God told them: "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" (Hosea 5:15).

When we sinners aren't sorry for the lies we tell, for the thefts we commit, when we aren't sorry for the adulterous thoughts we entertain, for the hatred we harbor, for the curses we speak-when we are not sorry for our sin, we can expect the "silent treatment" from God. If we refuse to listen to the threats of his law, then he has nothing left to say to us, for God is not about to tell us, "You go ahead and live in your sin. I'll bless you anyway." No, he withdraws from the impenitent and gives them a taste of the eternal silence they can expect from him in hell. God won't even listen to the prayers of the impenitent. "Your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear" says the Prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 59:2). God leaves the unrepentant alone in the misery their sin makes of life. In fact God sometime adds misery to their sin so that people will learn what a harmful thing sin really is. It's a bit like the harsh odor that chemists add to natural gas so that we sense it's unwanted presence and are alerted to its potential danger.

Is there some sin causing a stench in our lives right now? Is there misery at home? At work? In our relationships with others? Is our sin contributing to that misery? If so what are we doing about it? Have we been putting the blame for our sin on the people around us? Have we been making excuses for our sin? Maybe we're living in outright denial, refusing to recognize any wrong on our part. Maybe we've decided instead to devote all our energy to escaping our misery by looking for help from everyone and everything other than God? That way we don't have to face our sins.

That's what Israel did. When God allowed them to fall victim to their enemies, they forged alliances with foreign kings and worshiped foreign gods rather than turning to the Lord in repentance. And when that didn't work, they were not beyond crying "uncle" to God. They would bring sacrifices to his altar. They would go through the motions of worship. They would say to themselves, "Come, let us return to the LORD. He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us" (Hosea 6:1-2). What we have here is an appeal to God's grace, but still no admission of guilt. Israel doesn't say, "We've sinned. We're sorry." They merely pay lip service to God's goodness, hoping it will be enough to earn them God's favor. And just so that you don't think that I'm being uncharitable to these people, listen to what God himself says in response to their words in the verses immediately following our text: "What can I do with you, Ephraim? What can I do with you, Judah? Your love is like the morning mist, like the early dew that disappears. Therefore I cut you in pieces with my prophets, I killed you with the words of my mouth; my judgments flashed like lightning upon you. For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings" (Hosea 6:4-6).

In modern terms, repentance is not simply a matter of showing up at church on Sunday-a mere sacrifice of our time in exchange for some sought-after blessing of God. Repentance is a matter of the heart. It's a matter of constantly searching our lives for sin with the microscope of God's commandments; and when sin is found, repentance is always the desire to put that sin out of our lives rather than running back into its arms. Repentance is the act of returning to our God again and again, facing him as our Accuser and without any excuses, humbly admitting to him the damning guilt of our wrongs. And there's one more thing: Repentance is trusting that our Accuser and Judge is also our Savior from sin. Believing this as we do through God's gift of faith, come, let us return to the Lord acknowledging the certainty of his love.

My friends, the words that Israel spoke hypocritically, we can speak in all sincerity: "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" (Hosea 6:1). We have heard Hosea say that God desires "...mercy, not sacrifice." The word translated as mercy, literally means "faithful love." God has shown all of us sinners his faithful love by sending Jesus to face the eternal misery of our sin as our substitute. Our King didn't simply visit us in prison. He took our place there. Instead of forever turning his back on us as we deserved, God piled all our sins and their guilt on Jesus and then put him through the hell of God's silence in our stead, causing him to cry out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46).

Why was he forsaken? So that we might be forgiven. Such love he has for us, love that empowers us to love him in return and show this love best by simply trusting his promises. This is the mercy, the faithful love God seeks from us instead of sacrifice, love that acknowledges his mercy towards us in every circumstance of life. So here and now we acknowledge that because God loves us, he will injure us from time to time, not like a bully beating us up, but like a surgeon, cutting in deep with the scalpel of his law to expose and remove the cancer of sin; and, then, like that surgeon, God will bind up our wounds, reviving and restoring us to spiritual health by promising to remember our sins no more.

This, of course, does not mean that all of sin's pain will vanish from our lives. There will still be turmoil in our homes. There will still be problems at work, and in our relationships with others, but for us repentant sinners, these problems become opportunities to share the forgiveness we have from God with the people in our lives. And should these problems continue to persist, rather than despairing of God's love and assistance, we forgiven and dearly loved sinners can us trust that he who has saved us from eternal misery also has a plan to turn our earthly troubles into blessings that we cannot possibly begin to imagine.

Just you wait and see: "After two days [God] will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence" (Hosea 6:2). These words of Scripture offer us the sure hope that our troubles will not last forever. They will be with us only as long as they serve God's loving purpose for our lives, not a moment longer. This truth allows us to live our entire lives on earth at peace with our God; and this truth keeps us looking forward to the day when we will live in God's presence forever, free of all sin, pain and trouble.

In the meantime, as it says here: "Let us acknowledge the LORD; let us press on to acknowledge him. 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" (Hosea 6:3). As surely as the sun rises in the morning and the rain falls from heaven so certain are the relief and refreshment that come to us through a life of repentance with our God. He has given us every reason to trust that living in sin will never bring us more pleasure than will living in sin's forgiveness. So come, let us return to the Lord today and every day, admitting the guilt of our sin and acknowledging the certainty of the love he always shows us for Jesus' sake. Amen.