Can I Turn Back to God? Bible Study of Hosea | Hosea 14:1-9

You're listening to the Bible Guys, a podcast where a

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Chris Man. This is going to be a good day.

It is.

It's always a.

Good day, you know, Fridays are great days.

Yeah. You know a thing I didn't mention at all

this week for our listeners that are watching on YouTube. Yes,

they've noticed probably that you are clean shaven, well, relatively clean,

relatively clean shaven, relatively clean. Share.

So I've been I've been rocking out the goateee for

the last six months at least, and it's been pretty bushy.

Yeah.

Yeah, and then somebody suggested that I go, uh, you know,

and just shave it off. And then and then just

what was it? Two days ago? I asked my person

who does my hair. And then I came home and

I asked my family, and my daughter's like, absolutely, you

should do it, you know, just try it. You've been

you know, you've been you have the go tea for

a long time. I'm like, okay, so go upstairs and

I do this. My wife comes home and says, I

absolutely hate it. She said, grow it back immediately now,

And I said.

Immediately, and she goes, she goes, why would.

You why would you do that? Yeah? And she says,

why would you do that? And I said, well, I said,

the lady who cuts my hair, said I show her picture.

She said, yeah, absolutely, and she goes, oh, are you

married to the lady who cuts your hair?

Oh?

And I said no, and she goes, well, then grow

it back, yes, ma'am, Yes, ma'am. Okay, that's fine.

So so you've been putting some like a miracle grow.

I'll try, yeah, whatever, but but yes, if you're watching,

then you probably noticed that I'm definitely.

Your boy is chim. That's just showing.

Yeah, you know what one one or two people in

the office said, oh, you look younger. My wife said, no,

you don't look younger. She goes, actually, you look younger.

Even even though my beard was white. She said, you

have that whole like old man's skin. She said, you

don't look younger, you look look older.

Okay, Wow, she's brutal.

Well, no, she's she's like me. She knows, she knows

I need to hear whatever the truth is.

Okay, Well, h so today is everybody's favorite segment.

What it is?

Yeah, everybody's favorite, which for our longtime listeners, we've we've

missed a few lately. Yeah, but we're back back this

week two weeks ago. Everybody is dying to know what

made Chris mad this week?

Are they?

Yeah? There they are?

Are they?

They are? People are calling right now.

I didn't think about this one for a little bit,

so I didn't have one readily readily go. So, but

something happened last week, and here it is. Have you

ever been in tropical smoothie?

Yes?

Okay? So what do you normally get a tropical smoothie?

I don't have like a favorite thing. I've been there

like three times? Okay, yeah or or whatever somebody around

me is ordering.

So have you ever tasted a smoothie that has greens

in it? Like? K?

Yes?

Yeah?

Yeah?

Yeah? Do you like them?

Not a big fan?

No, not a big fan. I don't think the world

likes them?

Ye right? Right? So recently I said like I was

drinking like a cold seaweed drink.

Right, So lately I've been trying to drink you know,

I've been trying to eat well and all these kind

of things. So it's a Tropical Smoothie, and every time

i'd go there, I'd be like, Okay, I'm gonna try

to get something green, and then that one's just horrible.

I'm like, well, let me try to this other healthy one,

and that one's just not great. So last week, here's

what happens. I'm in Florida and I flew down there

to paint my daughter's house, right, and they said, let's

go to Tropical Smoothie. And all three of them said,

I want to get a peanut butter Paradise, which is

you know, it's not healthy at all. No, And I said, fine,

get me a peanut butter Paradise because last six times

I've been drinking green things. She brings it home and

it's got to be the most wonderful smoothie ever. Right.

It tastes awesome, and I realized, oh, that's the reason

why people like Trouble with Smoothie. It's just really good.

Here's where I got mad at immediately, Jeff, immediately, Matt, Okay,

here it is you ready, smoothie. This is a strong

statement that I mostly don't mean, but I actually do mean.

Okay.

I think it is God's cruel joke that everything that

tastes horrible is good for you, and that everything that

is really awesome tasting is bad for you? Does guess

what God? Ready, here's a news flash. God could have

made it the opposite. God could have made kale tastes

like ice cream. He could have made and or let

me just say it this way. Why doesn't ice cream

make us lose weight? Why doesn't sugar make us lose weight?

Why in the world would God make every not everything,

but most everything that tastes phenomenal bad for you? And

why is it that everything you know, oh you eat

this grain, eat these flax seeds, eat brand Brand's good

for you? Why you know? Why? Why did God do this?

Well, so you're mad at God this week.

I'm mad with the system that God set up.

Okay, is there a difference? Yeah, well, well not much. Okay, Well,

so I would say this. I think things God made

you can have them. Honey is pretty great, Yeah, it's.

Lose weight.

Pineapples pretty great? Yeah, right, Peaches are phenomenal. Strawberries are

the best. I love blackberries. Right at pairs, I just

had a perfect pair the other day. Right, it's pretty great.

I think what you're mad about is the things that

people took that God made and then changed them to

make them really bad for us.

Sugar sugar, refined God made sugar.

Refined sugar.

God made sugar.

Yeah, you made honey too, all things in moderation with

the God makes.

You can argue fruit all day long, and that's fine,

but you also agree that, Like they even tell you

not to eat a lot of sugar fruits.

Oh yeah, yeah, take off the enamel right off your teeth.

Right. But but my point is what come on the

heart of what I'm saying.

Yeah, but humans are the ones who made ice cream.

God didn't make ice cream. It's what humans do to

what God made usually that makes it.

Worse because okay, ice cream is mostly sugar. So why

are you trying but it's refined sugar. Why are you

trying to.

Sugar to say it's our literally take the fat out

because it is our fault. Is our fault, it is

not you put on extra calories is not God's fault.

It's no. I stick I stick by with what I'm saying.

The things that are good for you are.

Not fat because God's You know what you sound like

to me? You sound like Adam Adam. God goes, Adam,

where are you? This is what I hid because I

was naked. He said, how did you find out you're naked?

He said, well, did you eat from the fruit? He goes, Listen,

the woman you gave me gave it to me. That's

what you're doing, right. You made food so good it

made me fat.

No, that's not what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying at all.

All the good stuff, all the good stuff, makes me fat. No.

I also don't forget the flip side of that. All

the really good stuff is awful. You know, kale, flax seed,

these things, you know, wheat, germ, whatever you want to

call it.

Again, those are also dumb people doing dumb things. No,

I was like a black seed was never supposed to

be eating you more. They were supposed to be for

making oil. Right, it's when we do the wrong thing

with what got made. I think that makes this.

I disagree entirely.

Okay, it's his fault. You can sort out with him

when you get to have it.

Yeah. Well, hey, listen, I think it's okay to be

uh not not okay with some things, but you have

to accept them.

Well, God didn't even get mad at that. I'm for

saying it's your fault. You gave me this woman. Well,

and so you're saying, God, does you record it? Yeah,

it records all the things he was mad about. So

so you know, I don't know that God is mad

at you for blaming him for putting on extra weight

and enjoying and enjoying bad.

Stop saying as if it's about me. God, I am

so mad forgetting that.

I get mad so for everybody.

I get mad for human.

On behalf of humanity. I am angry that you made

pizzas so good that I want to eat five pieces

when I only needed one.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, French fries are great. That it comes

from the earth, right, and by the way.

With the refined oils, fine, but.

Why couldn't God have made the refined oils and the

potatoes that came from the earth, the thing that makes

you lose weight. He could have done that.

Yeah, yeah, he could have.

That's right.

I think humanity is to blame for most of this.

I disagree.

Yeah, I think you're a product of your environment and

you learn to like bad things.

Well, I mean, I can't deny that statement, right, but

that still doesn't change the fact that things like.

You're complaining that God invented gravity and that's why you

hit the ground, right, Why he could have made it

where I could have flown, He could have done all

kinds of stuff. But you're mad that when you operate

outside of the way he designed it, that there are consequences.

I'm saying. I'm saying I have ten thousand taste buds

on my tongue, That's what I'm saying.

And I'm saying that's the best argument. That's the best argument.

Yeah, that's right. He made me with those and they

should dance with things that make me lose weight.

And they don't. All right, well, why don't you sort

it out tonight?

Okay?

And our listeners, probably more than half of them, are like,

you're right, And then there's some listening on the going.

Flex seeds.

What's wrong with fox seeds? My wife?

Yeah, yeah, she takes some.

Button These are so good. I'm like, are you? Are you?

She learned to like them? You learn to like bad stuff.

She learned to like that stuff.

Well, she doesn't really like them. She just pretends to,

like you, pretends just like everybody shakes.

But they got a whole store built around it. Okay, well, hey,

speaking of who likes this kind of stuff, I can

tell you some stuff God doesn't like. Oh he doesn't

like Israel's behaviors. Yeah, well right, they've been cheating nothing

for a while.

That much is clear.

They've been cheating nothing for a while. Before we get

into Hoseiah chapter ten, let me go back. I want

to read a couple of these.

Little said chapter fourteen.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, oh yeah, chapter fourteen. Before we

read fourteen, I want to go back, and God goes

like in chapter ten, how prosperous Israel is, with its

luxuriant vines loaded with fruit. But the richer the people get,

the more pagan altars they build. This seems to be

the issue. The more prosperous they got, the less they

were connected to God, the more they were indulging in

their own worship things. Right, so he's getting mad at

them again. He's upset with them. Of course, he's telling them,

I'm going to send all of this judgment. In chapter eleven,

he says, when Israel was a child, I loved him,

and I called my son out of Egypt. But the

more I called to him, the farther he moved from me,

offering sacrifices, the images of bail and burning incense to altars.

And then he says, I myself taught Israel how to walk,

leading him along by the hand. But he doesn't know

or even care that it was Ioh took care of him. Right,

So he's got all these things. And so because that,

since my people refuse to return to me, then I'm

going to send them back. They're going to be forced

to serve Assyria. That's what's going to happen. I brought

you out to slavery, I taught you how to walk.

You've ignored me the whole time, and so now there's

going to be another imprisonment, right, that's what he says.

But then verse eight in chapter eleven, he goes, oh,

how can I give you up? Israel? How can I

let you go? Right? So he's as often lovers are

mad and then compassionate, and then mad and then compassionate.

Your behavior makes me so upset, but I still love you, right.

This is where you have This is how you know.

It's all about the relationship, the whole thing. So people,

godless people, people who don't understand God. When they read

these kinds of things. They just think, Man, God's mean,

what an angry God? And what you're seeing is God

is passionate. It's all about love. You and I know,

the best thing in all of human existence is pure love.

It really is the ecstasy of pure love. We know

that John tells us that God is love. He's the

essence of love. It's the essence of who he is.

And so this is not about I'm looking for somebody

to cast judgment on. This is about a broken hearted

lover pursuing is beloved, and is beloved totally ignoring him.

And so finally, after hundreds of years, he's like, okay,

here comes to Syria. You're gonna wipe you out right.

So then he explains everything that's gonna happen for them.

But then finally he ends the book with this, return

Oh is this chapter fourteen, Return, Oh Israel, to the

Lord your God, for your sins have brought you down.

Bring your confessions and return to the Lord, and say

to him, forgive all our sins and graciously receive us,

so that we may offer you our praises. Syria cannot

save us, nor can our war horses. Never again will

we say to the idols we've made. You are our

gods know, and you alone do The orphans find mercy,

and the Lord says, then I will heal you of

your faithlessness. My love will know no bounds, for my

anger will be gone forever. I will be to Israel

like a refreshing dew from heaven. Israel blossom like the lily.

It'll send roots deep into the soil, like the cedars

in Lebanon. Its branches will spread out like beautiful olive trees,

as fragrant as the cedars of Lebanon. My people will

again live under my shade, and they will flourish like

grain and blossom like grape leaves. They will be as

fragrant as the wines of Lebanon. Oh, Israel, stay away

from idols. I'm the one who answers your prayers and

cares for you. I'm like a tree that is always green.

All your fruit comes from me. But those who are

wise understand these things. But those who with discernment listen carefully.

The paths of the Lord are true and right, and

righteous people live by walking in them. But those but

in those paths sinners stumble and fall. So this whole

thing God's chasing them, He's frustrated with them. But then,

even after ten chapters of judgment, interjected with the whole

bunch of how can I let you go? I don't

want to let you go. I'm going to divorce you.

I don't want to let you go. Right, but judgment's coming.

Even at the very end of all that, he goes,

let me tell you how to come back. I'm going

to leave the light, the porch light on. I'm going

to leave the back door unlocked. Right. If you want

back in the house, I'll let you come back. All

you have to do has asked me to forgive your

sins and receive you and reject Syria and their God's

that's all you have to do. And so he leaves

the wide open. And then, man, it's going to be great.

I will forever, My anger will be gone forever, and

my love will know no about.

Yeah, so that I love that. The note in the

Life Application Study Bible says that people could return to

God by asking him to forgive their sins. The same

is true for us. We can pray Hoseiah's prayer and

know that our sins are forgiven because Christ died for them.

And the cross cross, and it references John three sixteen.

Forgiveness begins when we see the destructiveness of sin and

the futility of life without God. Then we must admit

that we cannot save ourselves. Our only hope is in

God's mercy. When we ask forgiveness, we must recognize that

we do not deserve it and therefore cannot demand it.

Isn't that a great phrase? Our appeal must be for

God's love and mercy and not for his justice. Although

we cannot demand forgiveness, we can be confident that we

have received it because God is gracious and loving and

wants to restore us to himself, just as he wanted

to restore Israel. That's great, What a great what a

great note? And uh and so yeah, God again just

always gives us the invitation. You know, it's so funny.

We just had a church a friend of yours who

has a church in Chicago, Uh, brought a lot of

his staff over to our church yesterday. It just happened yesterday.

And there are church that they're about the same size

as us, right Uh, and probably in person maybe a

little bigger. And they so they have they have a

large staff and actually their staff is larger than ours too,

so they so they have they've been a lot going on,

a lot of complexities, a lot of campuses, right, and

they have a lot going on, and yet they came

over to say, hey, let's share best practices. So this

was their turn to come over and hopefully we'll have

a turn to go share with them. And by the way,

I'm saying all of that because I don't know if

churches do this, Like if you're part of a church

leadership team, maybe you don't take the time to do this.

But I got to tell you how beneficial I think

it's going to be on both ends. When we decided

to go take a team over there and learn best

practices over there. There's something about humility. They had an

incredible amount of humility, didn't they. And they were just like, hey,

this is where we're good, this is where we're really bad.

What do you guys do? And let's learn from you

and let's have these discussions. But anyway, when I jeez,

I almost lost my thought.

Here you're talking about the humility when we humble ourselves

and repent.

Yeah, I had a really good thought here of them

coming over and and learning goodn'tess gracious?

Yeah, I said, although we cannot demand forgiveness, we can

be confident that we've received it because God's gracious.

Yes, thank you, thank you. So we had spent some

time with that church staff talking about at the end

of almost every service, we give an invitation to receive

the gospel. That's right, right, So it's about everyone, And

I would say almost everyone, right.

Only forty five out of fifty two weeks.

Forty five out of fifty two weeks. We take the

time to say, Okay, maybe you're here today or listening

online and you don't know Jesus Christ as your savior. Well,

the Bible says that you can know today. It's part

of the good News of salvation. Salvation is meant for today,

and it's meant for everyone. And so we give the invitation, right,

And that's what reminded me of this. It reminded me

of God, Who's saying, the invitation is always still there.

I invite you home. I invite you just like you said.

The back door's open, right, the ports lights on, and

the invitation is for you to come home. And no

matter how bad you've been or unfaithful that you've behaved.

The invitation has always come back home. And that's really

what it is. So on a Sunday morning, if you're

a part of a church leadership team, especially that there's

there's it's always somebody's almost always somebody's first day. There's

somebody in the audience where it's their first time visiting

your church. Hopefully that's true. And uh and and and

we have no idea what's going on in their hearts.

We have no idea how they feel or what they've done,

or if they if they feel like this is their

last ditch effort to try God and church or or

whatever it is. We have no idea. But the invitation

is it's it's okay, right because it's never too late

to repent. It's never you've not committed too much sin.

Where God is going to say, I'm never going to

invite you back to my loving relationship. Now, now there

are consequences for sin. There are judgments obviously, right. You know,

Israel is not going to get around this, right, They're

gonna they're gonna face judgment.

Right unless they repent. Unless they repent, so He is

giving them this this this last chapter is returned to

me and then it'll be okay.

Oh uses an invitation to us escape judgment. Yeah yeah, yeah, Oh,

I'm not sure I really read it that way.

Return o Israel to the Lord your God, for your

sins have brought you down, and bring your confessions and

return to the Lord and say to them, and then

he says, Then the Lord says, then I will heal

you of your faithlessness. So he's already so he's offering

to heal them if they would repent.

Well, but I always thought that was more of an

invitation about your spirit, so like, you know, you could

be broken and still go back to God and be healed. Yeah, sure,

and still have to pay your concuet.

Well, if they have to go through that, then yes, yea,

then then that would be the one side. The other

one is.

But that's not to say that, that's not to say

that God wouldn't have spared them.

Yeah, exactly. That's That's what I'm trying to say. Is

I think he's offering to.

But he didn't say God blessed.

I did say blessed you, did you?

Yeah? Okay, well thank you?

You were still recovering from them.

God does bless me?

Yeah, every day, yep. Because you have good friends.

Anyway, That's what I was talking about. It's the invitation.

So I just went home last night and I uh

put the finishing touches on the on the mess on

the message I just wrote, and right at the end,

it's just like, hey, maybe you're here today and maybe

you don't know Jesus as your savior. The invitation is

for you today, and that's God for you. God's going

to always invite you back. Listen, You're only one prayer away.

You're only one you know, step away. You're only one,

you know, attitude shift or repentance posture, away from God's

loving relationship, from God's blessing in your life, from God

redeeming you, from God blessing you because God always has

and always will use broken people for great things.

That's right. You know. There's a note here that says

we can err by forgetting God's love feeling that our

sins are hopeless, right, which is true I think for

a lot of people. Yeah, because that says but we

can also err by forgetting God's wrath against our sins,

thinking he will continue to accept us no matter how

we act. Forgiveness is a key word when God forgives us,

he judges the sin. That's what he did in the cross.

That's why the cross is so horrifically h repulsive to us.

It's it's a you know, you watch the Passion of

the Christ or one of those things, and it just

scratches the surface right of what Jesus did for us,

and it's God doing this in his own body for us.

That's what he does. So God, when God forgives, he

judges the sin at the cross, but shows mercy to

the sinner. We should never be afraid to come to

God for a clean slate and a renewed life.

That's great.

Great.

By the way, a phrase came in my mind a

movie trivia when you said, it begins to just scratch

the surface what movies is from. Okay, so take that

your experience, take that and multiply it by infinity and

take it to the depths of forever, and you'll barely

begin to understand. Isn't a great phrase?

By the way, it's a great phrase. Yeah, I don't know.

It's meet Joe Black.

Oh, okay.

Joe Black was pretending to be Death and he was

so he was sort of the supernatural being. Of course,

you know, it's it's it's not.

I don't think I ever saw it.

Brad Pitt, Anthony Hopkins. Yeah, that's really good. But anyway,

but I loved death when he said that. He said,

now take that and multiplyed by infinity and take it

to the depths of forever, and then you'll barely begin

to understand. That's huge.

I thought, that's exactly right. We cannot fathom all that

God did for us.

That's exactly correct, that's exactly right.

Just be overwhelmed by the fact that He loves you

so much. That's the whole book, is this, yep. And

when we sin, it devastates him. When we rebel, it

devastates him even more. But he delights in when we

return to him and we say, you know what, those

other gods, those other things we tried, they never satisfy.

You're the only one. And God said, just watch and see, right,

because my anger will not last forever, and my love

knows no bounds.

Yeah, and he loves us like Jose loves Gomer, Yah,

and forgives Gomer and sacrifices for Gomer.

Yeah.

All right, Well, hey, that's a good wrap up. So

hopefully we will see you Monday on the bibble Gush