Transcription downloaded from https://sermons.highlandparkbaptist.net/sermons/96915/true-love-has-a-jealous-side/.

Disclaimer: this is an automatically generated machine transcription - there may be small errors or mistranscriptions.
Please refer to the original audio if you are in any doubt.


[0:00] Music Today's sermon will be Hosea chapter 2 verses 2 through 23.

[0:26] ! And then next Sunday we will go through chapter 3. And then the following Sunday on the 30th I will be gone. I'll be in Latvia and I will be with Agenskons Baptist Church there.

[0:39] They'll be celebrating their 134th anniversary. And so this is in partnership with them. Pastor Dan was there earlier this year and really started that relationship again established by the BGCO.

[0:52] And so I'm going to go and meet with them again and really set in stone what we're going to do with them. And it looks like right now what you can be praying for is that we are going to help them start another church.

[1:03] Plant another church. They're really doing well right now as a church. Really healthy. Really growing. Pastor Edgar is there. So they're actually outgrowing their space. And so they're in need of doing something.

[1:14] God is blessing them and they would like to plant a church. And so we are going to come alongside of them and God's going to use us I believe to do that. And we'll see how long this partnership will last. But the result of it we pray will be a new church in Latvia.

[1:27] And that will be a wonderful thing to rejoice about. Will you stand with me as we honor the reading of God's word together? Isaiah chapter 2 beginning in verse 2 and going through the end of the chapter.

[1:40] Plead with your mother. Plead for she is not my wife and I am not her husband. And she put away her whoring from her face and her adultery from between her breasts. Lest I strip her naked and make her as in the day she was born.

[1:53] And make her like a wilderness. And make her like a parched land and kill her with thirst. Upon her children also I will have no mercy because they are children of whoredom. For their mother has played the whore and she who conceived them has acted shamefully.

[2:08] For she said I will go after my lovers who give me my bread and my water. My wool and my flax. My oil and my drink. Therefore I will hedge up her way with thorns. And I will build a wall against her so that she cannot find her paths.

[2:23] She shall pursue her lovers but not overtake them. And she shall seek them but shall not find them. Then she shall say I will go and return to my first husband.

[2:33] For it was better for me than now. And she did not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the wine, the oil. And who lavished on her silver and gold which they used for bail.

[2:44] Therefore I will not take back my grain in its time, my wine in its season. And I will take away my wool and my flax which were to cover her nakedness. Now I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers.

[2:58] And no one shall rescue her out of my hand. And I will put an end to all her mirth, her feasts, her new moons, her sabbaths, and all her appointed feasts.

[3:09] And I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees of which she said, These are my wages which my lovers have given me. I will make them a forest and the beasts of the field shall devour them.

[3:21] And I will punish her for the feast days of the bales. When she burned offerings to them and adorned herself with her ring and jewelry. And went after her lovers and forgot me, declares the Lord. Therefore, behold, I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her.

[3:38] And there I will give her her fine vineyards and make the valley of Acre a door of hope. And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth. As at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.

[3:50] And in that day, declares the Lord, you will call me husband. And no longer will you call me my bale. For I will remove the names of the bales from her mouth. And they shall be remembered by name no more.

[4:02] And I will make for them a new covenant on that day. With the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the creeping things of the ground. And I will abolish the bow and sword and war from the land.

[4:13] And I will make you lie down in safety. And I will betroth you to be to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice. In steadfast love and in mercy.

[4:23] I will betroth you to be me in faithfulness. And you shall know the Lord. And in that day I will answer, declares the Lord. I will answer the heavens and they shall answer the earth.

[4:34] And the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil. And they shall answer Jezreel. And I will sow for her for myself in the land. And I will have mercy on no mercy.

[4:44] And I will say to not my people, you are my people. And he shall say, you are my God. May God add a blessing to the reading of his word. Would you please be seated? So the title of this message is that true love has a jealous side.

[5:03] And as I was thinking about that after reading through these verses, you know what came to mind? Was Popeye. As strange as that sounds, right?

[5:15] You guys remember Popeye, the old Popeye cartoons? Yeah. And Popeye and, you know, his love was olive oil. And then there was always Bluto.

[5:27] Who was there to interfere with the love that he had for olive oil. He was always a thorn in Popeye's side. And you remember the cartoons usually had the same plot.

[5:38] You had Popeye and olive oil and they were happy together. And then Bluto would come and he would draw her away by doing something despicable. Or he would just kidnap her and take her away.

[5:50] After he beat up Popeye. You remember that? And so Popeye would be left there. He would have his love had been taken from him. He had been dishonored by Bluto having been beaten up by him.

[6:01] Right? Insult to injury. And so because Popeye was jealous for olive oil's love to be the only man in her life. And because he was jealous for his honor.

[6:12] He would slurp down that can of spinach. And he would get those big muscles right. And he would go. He would beat up Bluto. And he would rescue olive oil and bring her back to himself.

[6:23] Because he had that kind of jealous love for her. So you see. True love has a jealous side. And we see that in the scripture today.

[6:36] But the thing is we tend to think about jealousy in a negative way. Don't we? When we usually think of what it means to be jealous. We think that it must be and always is negative. Most of the time jealousy is expressed in a negative way.

[6:51] However, as in Popeye's case, there is a jealousy that is good. There's a jealousy that is good. It's a jealousy that seeks to protect. And it seeks to avenge those whom we love when they've been dishonored.

[7:06] I'm not talking about a jealous boyfriend whose insecurities caused him to be overprotective. And caused him to be controlling of his girlfriend.

[7:17] That's not what we're talking about here. It's more about a husband. A husband who loves his wife. Who defends her. Who cares about her honor.

[7:27] And who cares about when she's being dishonored or when she's been dishonored. A husband who longs for the attention and the affections of his wife whom he loves.

[7:38] And he reacts appropriately when they are directed towards someone else. He's jealous to have those things and not share them with another. He is not indifferent whenever another man tries to pursue his wife or be a suitor for his wife.

[7:55] Put his arm around his wife and whisper into his wife's ear. He doesn't sit back and say, oh, I guess that's okay. No, he reacts. And he does so out of love.

[8:07] Because he loves her. Because his desire is for her. And he's not willing to share her with another. And so you see, true love does in fact have a jealous side.

[8:19] It's not jealous of others. But it's jealous for the good of those whom we love so much. Here in chapter 2 of Hosea we see, as we saw in chapter 1, and as we'll see throughout the rest of our time in this book, that God is jealous for his people.

[8:42] He's not jealous of them. He's jealous for them. There's a big difference there. He's not jealous of them. He's jealous for them.

[8:53] Being our creator. God knows what is best for us. And so he knows that what's best for us is himself.

[9:04] The best thing that we can have in this world is God himself. And so God's jealousy is appropriate. And it's good. Because for us, it rescues us when we seek to pursue idols.

[9:18] When we seek to pursue other things for satisfaction, for purpose, for meaning in life. Because God knows, as we will find out if we continue down that path, we will end up broken.

[9:29] We will end up empty. Because those things cannot give us what only God can. God is jealous for his people to acknowledge him as the only real and true God.

[9:43] And to trust in him. And to worship him as such. The Bible reveals three realities about the nature of God's jealousy for his people. The first is that God's jealousy is not out of character with who he is.

[9:58] It's not out of character with who he is. So to better understand Hosea 2, to better understand God's jealousy, let's go back and get some context. And we'll look at Exodus 34. There, God renews his covenant with Israel.

[10:11] He gives them instruction to destroy the idols of the people who live in the land that he is going to give them. And in Exodus 34, verses 10 through 14, it says there, And he said, Take care, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land which you go, lest it become a snare in your midst.

[11:00] You shall tear down their altars, and break their pillars, and cut down their ashram. For you shall worship no other God for the Lord, whose name is Jealous.

[11:11] It's a jealous God. God's jealousy is never unjust. And it's never unfair. Because it's always based on who he is.

[11:23] It's based upon his righteousness. God is good. God is holy. God deserves all of our praise. He deserves all of our honor. Not some of it, but all of it.

[11:37] All of it. We struggle with this, don't we? We think, well, I give him a little bit. That's pretty good, right? He should be happy with that. You know, I think about being a big sports fan. I have a lot of favorite teams.

[11:50] I have the Chiefs and the Jayhawks and the Orioles and the Royals, right? A lot of times they're not very good, so it's hard to root for them. But I split my allegiance with them. Now that I'm in Oklahoma, I like the Thunder.

[12:03] And as a matter of fact, I'll watch OU and I won't pull against them, root against them, right? God can do amazing things in a person's life. But I split my allegiance on them based upon how well they're playing or what season it is.

[12:19] But may it never be that case with God. We never split our allegiance with God amongst other things. You know, God, if things are going good for me, then I'll go to church. I'll read my Bible. I'll pray.

[12:29] But if not, then, you know, you're going to have to do something to get my attention again, to cause me to want to worship you. No, we do not split our allegiance with God. We should never do that.

[12:40] There is none who is like God. There is no other God. And He knows, again, what's best for us is that we are with Him.

[12:53] One of the analogies God uses to describe His relationship with His people is the analogy of marriage. He uses marriage as a symbol to describe His relationship with His people.

[13:06] Because marriage demands faithfulness. Demands it. The vows that we exchange, that a couple exchanges on their wedding day, their promises to be faithful.

[13:19] Their promises to be faithful no matter what happens in the days ahead. For richer or poorer, for better or worse, I will be with you through it all.

[13:30] Those are the promises that we make. Those are the vows that we make. And so as we read the Old Testament, we find that time after time, God's people are anything but faithful to Him.

[13:43] While He's always been faithful, they are anything but faithful to Him. Instead, they turn time after time again and again to other gods.

[13:55] And as they do that, they incite God's jealousy. Because God is a jealous God. There is no other God. He's jealous for them. Because what's best for them is Himself.

[14:09] Instead of letting His people go to pursue these things that they want, God, because He's chosen us, because He's chosen His people, He loves us, He will pursue us.

[14:20] And then He'll rescue us and He'll reconcile us back to Himself. This is in character with who He is. The second thing we see about God's jealousy from the Bible is that God is jealous for His honor.

[14:33] He's jealous for His honor. Idolatry is loving something other than God. An idol is anything that we worship and pursue for purpose and meaning in life other than God.

[14:46] It's giving all that we should give to God to another. That's idolatry. When we idolize anything over God, what the Bible says we end up doing is we end up committing spiritual adultery against Him.

[15:04] And God will not stand by and watch us pursue other loves. He will act to put an end to it. And in doing so, He upholds His honor.

[15:17] Let's look at Isaiah 48, verses 9 through 11. There God says, God is jealous for His honor.

[15:53] Israel had done nothing to prompt God's favor towards them. They deserved, like we do, the only thing we deserve from God is His wrath.

[16:06] But His decision to be merciful to them originated in His desire to be glorified by them and to display the integrity of who He was through them to the rest of the world.

[16:18] We selfishly want to be the center of the story. We selfishly believe that the universe evolves around us.

[16:28] But we're not the center of the story. We're not the center of the universe. God is. And so only God deserves to be in that place and to have that place. However, God's jealousy is directly connected with our good.

[16:46] Worshiping God alone is what's best for us. Thus, He has so chosen to weave His plan of redemption that He would be glorified and that we would be happy in glorifying Him and that we would flourish.

[17:04] And that can only happen as we are in communication with God. God is jealous for His honor. God jealously also pursues His people. He jealously pursues His people.

[17:19] Ever since Adam and Eve sinned, it is our nature to worship idols rather than to worship the one true and living God. We are selfish creatures who desire autonomy that's rooted in the original temptation of Satan, is it not?

[17:35] A desire to be our own God. To make our own rules. To live the ways that we want to. To not have to answer to anybody but ourself. To worship only us and our accomplishments.

[17:51] I think that behind the success of the health and wealth and prosperity gospel movement is a desire for people to not only be God, but to be God's God. To tell God what to do.

[18:04] To be in a place where God is the one who serves us. Not we serving God. To be in the place where God is the one who worships us. Instead of we existing to worship God.

[18:16] Think, the Lord, that that is not the way. That instead he chose not to leave us to pursue the desires of our sinful hearts, but chose instead to jealously pursue us and give us something much better than we ever dared, dreamed that we deserved.

[18:39] He gave us his own son, Jesus Christ, to bear the burdens of our sins. The sins of his unfaithful people.

[18:50] In doing so, he has reconciled us to himself. Romans 5, 8-11. But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

[19:03] Since therefore we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.

[19:18] More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. Before we were even capable of loving him, God loved us and continually pursues us despite our unfaithfulness to him over and over again, time and time again.

[19:44] So here's the main idea for this morning's message. The jealousness of God for the love of his people and the honor of his name brings judgment and restoration. The jealousness of God for the love of his people and the honor of his name brings judgment and restoration.

[20:01] So now let's unpack that statement by examining what God reveals to us about himself in these verses in Hosea chapter 2. First of all, God calls Hosea to preach and live a message.

[20:13] We must understand this. God calls Hosea to not only preach a message, but to live it out before everybody. Hosea's calling involved not only his preaching a message from God, but living it out for all to see it was a message he preached, it was a message that he lived by experience.

[20:30] And here's the thing. That's not any different for Hosea than it is for us today. We, as God's people, are called not only to preach a message, but to live the message that we preach for all to see.

[20:48] Things haven't changed. Matthew 5, 14 through 16. Jesus says, You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house.

[21:03] In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

[21:14] We preach the good news of Jesus Christ, and then we put it into practice as we preach it. This is what God's people do.

[21:26] We preach and we live this message. Like Hosea, then our message is a message of judgment against sin, but it's also a message of hope for the sinner.

[21:43] God's judgment of sin and man's only hope is Jesus Christ. We preach this message, and we live it out every single day.

[21:54] So let's look at the jealousness of God. The jealousness of God for the love of His people and the honor of His name will bring judgment. This will happen.

[22:05] This is what the Bible says, verses 3 through 13. This is the case. Now we've got to understand, too, this wasn't a snap judgment. Like I said last week, God wasn't just having a bad day. He didn't wake up grumpy and think, you know what, I'm going to make them pay today.

[22:18] No. About 700 years before these events even had occurred in Hosea, if you'll remember, God had led the people of Israel out of slavery to the Egyptians.

[22:32] Then He gave them the Ten Commandments, and He entered into a covenant relationship with them. The covenant that God entered into with Israel was similar, again, as we said, to the marriage covenant.

[22:43] Vows were made. Promises are given. God says, if you will be obedient to Me, I will be faithful to you. How did Israel respond to this? Well, let's look at Exodus 24, verses 3 through 8.

[22:55] Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the rules. And all the people answered with one voice, and they said, all the words that the Lord has spoken, we will do.

[23:07] And Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord. He rose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain and twelve pillars according to the twelve tribes of Israel. And he sent young men of the people of Israel who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the Lord.

[23:25] And Moses took half the blood and put it in the basin. And half of the blood he threw against the altar. Then he took the blood of the covenant and he read it in the hearing of the people and they said, all that the Lord has spoken, we will do and we will be obedient.

[23:43] And Moses took the blood and he threw it on the people and said, behold, the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.

[23:57] So the blood that was sprinkled on them sealed the covenant that they had made with God that they promised all these things we will do. They were given special privileges as a people and special responsibilities.

[24:10] However, as we saw, it wasn't very long before they broke the very first commandment that God had given them which was this, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

[24:25] You shall have no other gods before me. You see, the history of Israel was rigid with their persistent pursuit of gods.

[24:37] Just as when a husband of a wife commits adultery they break the vow that they made with their spouse so too when God's covenant people worship other things besides Him they are guilty as well of committing spiritual adultery against Him.

[24:53] By this time, if you remember, as we've talked about, Israel was a prosperous nation and in their prosperity they attributed all the good things, all their economic success to Baal, not to God.

[25:08] If you know anything about this time, Baal was an ancient Canaanite god who was worshipped as the god who provided fertility. His name means lord or owner, possessor or master.

[25:19] And so Israel had chosen at this point in time another master for themselves. And this master they gave praise and this master they worshipped because they believed that he was the one who had caused them to be so prosperous.

[25:34] You know, doesn't it make you really angry when people don't give credit where credit is due? Or when someone takes credit for something that they didn't do?

[25:50] I'll never forget the first time I really saw this was in the sixth grade and I had a friend we had an assignment from our teacher which was to write a story just about a ten maybe not even ten four or five page story.

[26:05] And so we turned all these stories in and I'll remember the teacher coming to the front of the class and calling my friend up front and just gushing over him. Oh, he wrote this tremendous story you know, making us all feel bad.

[26:20] You know, this guy was the next Mark Twain or something the way that she was talking about him. Oh, this was a beautiful wonderful story. Why can't the rest of you be like him? The next day comes and she calls him to the front again but guess what she's found out?

[26:38] He plagiarized that story because one of our other classmates told on him and she berated him you can't ever do this don't ever be like him you don't ever do this right?

[26:50] You're going to get in major trouble don't ever take credit for somebody else's work. And so I bring that story up to you because here right now Israel thinks that it's getting an A plus. Hey, we're doing good.

[27:01] We've got this whole thing figured out when in reality they were about to get stamped with a big fat F. It wasn't Baal who had done these things to them.

[27:13] Israel thinks they're getting an A plus. They've got this new God who's taking care of them. It seems like all is well. All the other nations that surround them think that they're cool want to be a part of who they are.

[27:25] Things are good they think. Things seem to be going just right. But the reality the sad reality is that all of it was based on a bunch of lies. And these people who were prospering who thought that they were strong and in a good place were merely 30 years away from ceasing to exist as a nation like they had before.

[27:49] They were about to be taken over. They were about to be destroyed. We see in verses 3-5 that God's judgment of Israel involves his exposing their sins. He is going to reveal the true nature of who they are as a people and what they've done.

[28:05] And when he does it it's not going to be pretty. God is going to strip them of their pride. He's going to strip them of their wealth. He's going to strip them of their comfort. God will withdraw his gifts from them.

[28:17] He will withdraw his provision. While these actions were just they were also very severe. And while they were very severe they were also very merciful.

[28:30] It was merciful for God to do this. Israel had bought into these lies. They believed that other things could give them what only God could supply.

[28:42] Satan the world the flesh our sin nature our common enemies that we all share as people of God they too worked to convince us that what is broken with us can be cured by the pursuit of other things other than God.

[28:59] Money. Just get a little bit more money be financially secure and all your problems will go away so many people believe. Fame. People know me people want to help me people like me my life will have meaning and purpose.

[29:14] Beauty. Right? If I look good if I'm attractive to people then they'll want me or they'll want me to be a part of their life or I'll feel good about myself. Power. More power I have more control I have of other people the more secure I'll feel in life.

[29:28] All these things people pursue to try to fix what's broken within them and thankfully for some of us God will use these severe mercies for his people to bring them back to him to see that these things cannot satisfy.

[29:46] We are most satisfied in life when we are most satisfied in God. That's what the Bible says. We will be most satisfied in life when we are most satisfied in God.

[29:59] Again, look at all the people who have all these things that we covet. Most of them live in Hollywood, right? They have money. They have fame. They have beauty and they have the money to maintain that beauty through plastic surgery and other things.

[30:13] They have power. They have influence. But examine these people's lives. Do they really seem all that happy to you? They're so self-centered.

[30:24] They can't stay in lasting relationships. They go through marriage after marriage after marriage. They have all this money but they keep buying things, buying other houses, buying other cars, more and more and more but it doesn't truly satisfy.

[30:37] They have power or they think they have power but nobody really takes them seriously nor should they. and so here we have this society that looks to them as the example to follow.

[30:52] You know, I'll be happy in life if I have what they have. And so they spend their lives, people spend their lives pursuing these things and it's no wonder that as people have sought to make these things their purpose, our suicide rates are skyrocketing.

[31:08] Especially amongst young people. Because they see that that's what I've got to do to be happy and they pursue those things and I think they realize that you know what? It's not gratifying.

[31:19] So they go to other things and other things and other things and it just leaves them emptier and emptier and emptier. It cannot fix what's broken within them to the point where they feel like there's nothing that can do that. We have a problem.

[31:30] People need to hear the gospel. The only remedy is God himself. Only God can give us meaning and purpose and satisfaction in life. Pursuing idols robs a person of life.

[31:42] Pursuing God gives a person life. I have a close friend of mine who has endured one of these severe mercies recently.

[31:53] Very successful businessman. Very successful. And for years and years he saw his business success as the meaning and purpose for his life.

[32:06] He had things that others didn't. And so all of his worth was wrapped into how much he had in his bank account. And then he had a bad business year.

[32:18] And man it really wrecked his life. And you know what's interesting about it? It happened right as he started going to church. Right as he became a believer in Jesus Christ.

[32:30] Everything went downhill. but in talking with him you see that this person is thankful because in this severe mercy that he decided to go through battling with depression battling with his identity who he is that God has revealed himself as being all he ever needs in life.

[32:56] it's a severe mercy. It's difficult to go through but thank God that he does it because he reveals to us that you know what is a prophet of man if he dies having gained the whole world but can take nothing of it with him.

[33:14] Your life is more about your possessions. There is more to life than gaining material things. We were made for God and God gives us something so much better than this world could ever offer.

[33:30] The thing that's also great about God is if you belong to him it's hard for you to continue in sin because he'll get you. He'll bring you back. Look at verses 6 and 7.

[33:42] God will deal with you. He says to them therefore I will hedge up her way with thorns. I will build a wall against her so that she cannot find her paths. She shall pursue her lovers but not overtake them.

[33:54] And she shall seek them but shall not find them. Then she shall say I will go and return to my first husband for it was better for me then than it is now. And so as we've seen there is pain involved in this.

[34:08] Like an operation of a tumor. There's got to be cutting. There's got to be digging down to get to the source of the problem. To tear it out. To remove it. To sew everything back together. It requires pain to get to the source of the real pain.

[34:23] But in the end there will be healing. This is the way God is with us. Thankfully as we seek to go our own way. Prone to wander. God I feel it. As we sing.

[34:34] Prone to lead the God I love. That he will not let us go. By his grace he will rescue us. He will bring us back. He will reconcile us. He will renew us.

[34:46] Philippians 1.6 God will bring it to the day of Jesus Christ.

[34:58] God promises that for those who are his he will bring what he began in you at your salvation. He will bring it to the day of completion at that day of Jesus Christ. This is good news for God's people.

[35:10] Whatever you uncover God will cover up. That's good advice that I learned in seminary. Whatever sin whatever problem you're having whatever you are pursuing instead of God if you will expose that to him God will cover it up.

[35:25] But here's the thing as Israel found out as you may have found out in your own life whatever you try to cover up from God because he loves you he will expose it. It will be revealed.

[35:36] So that that thing can be taken out of your life and you can realize that all you really need is him. So the best thing you can do as God's child is to uncover those sins to him and if need be if it's something habitual if it's something you really are struggling with confide in a brother or sister in Christ who will pray for you who will be somebody who God will use to help come alongside you to bear that burden to make you stronger to be able to get you over that hump.

[36:04] So God's jealousy will cause him to exercise his judgment but then in verses 14 through 23 we see this amazing thing this amazing truth as well. the jealousness of God for the love of his people and the honor of his name brings judgment and restoration.

[36:22] We've already kind of been talking about this it brings judgment but it brings restoration. It shouldn't. Do we understand this? We're the ones who have sinned against God.

[36:35] All we bring to him is our sin that's all we can offer him and he would be justified to let us go in our pursuits of sinful things. He would be justified if all we ever experienced from God was his judgment but here in this case we see that there's restoration.

[36:52] Following God's foretelling of the punishment of his people for their unfaithfulness he announces his plan to restore them to union to the previous state of privilege that they once enjoyed.

[37:04] God's restoration of Israel involves three promises. First of all reconciliation verses 14 through 15. God's judgment brings discipline. It brings pain but ultimately it serves in bringing hope and bringing comfort and bringing encouragement of a better future of a more glorious day like the shepherd who leads the flock to find that one missing sheep.

[37:28] So the Lord seeks us and brings us back to him forgiving our sins and reconciling us to himself. Reconciliation. Secondly we see there's restoration verses 16 through 17.

[37:39] Baal was a master but God says I'm a husband. Something in someone much greater. There's a difference. Sin enslaves but God sets free.

[37:52] God in his grace restores his people saving them from their sins and he sets them free from their sins. Thirdly renewal. Verses 18 through 23.

[38:02] Three times in this passage God says that he will betroth Israel. Israel would no longer be thought of as a prostitute. Israel had something to bring to the marriage.

[38:13] God makes or I should say Israel had nothing to bring to the marriage. God makes all the promises. He makes all the promises. He provides all of the provisions. He's the one who does it. These promises include a new harmony between God and his people and God and his creation.

[38:28] God will do this. And so the Bible's picture of final glory is not the medieval picture of angels floating around on clouds aimlessly in the sky and we with them stroking harps.

[38:44] It is men. This is the picture of final glory with God. It is men and women in glorified bodies living in a glorified world. Those who should have received no pity are restored by God's mercy.

[38:59] Those who rejected God become those whom he's chosen to know and love. all of these things are fulfilled in Jesus Christ. How is it possible?

[39:11] Because he endured God's wrath for our sins. He stood in the place of our judgment for our sins. In our place he died for the sins that we've committed.

[39:25] He took the cross so that he can give us eternal life. And so if you know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior today then these promises of reconciliation, of restoration, of renewal, these promises are for you.

[39:40] They're for you. You can believe them. You can trust in them. These things are yours. And so you can delight in the truth. You can be filled with joy every single day of your life.

[39:53] Because God has done it. And he's done it. For you. And he will do this thing. This is amazing. This is news that we must preach.

[40:05] This is news that we must live. Amen. Thank you.