Why don't we open our Bibles to the book of Hosea this morning. I was thinking about different titles for this morning. In Hosea chapter 14, we'll start off by reading the entire chapter, all nine verses, which will close up between this week and next week, hopefully. But no problem if we have to go back and revisit it either in a couple weeks. Hosea chapter 14 says, O Israel, return unto the Lord thy God, for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity. Take with you words, and turn to the Lord, and say unto Him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously, so we will render the calves of our lips. Asher shall not save us, we will not ride upon horses, neither will we say any more to the work of our hands. Ye are our gods, for in thee the fatherless find mercy. I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely, for mine anger is turned away from him. I will be as the dew unto Israel. He shall grow as the lily and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. His branches shall spread and his beauty shall be as the olive tree and his smell as Lebanon. They that dwell under his shadow shall return. They shall revive as the corn and grow as the vine. The scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon. Ephraim shall say, What have I to do anymore with idols? I have heard Him and observed Him. I am like a green fir tree, from Me is Thy fruit found. Who is wise, and he shall understand these things, prudent, and he shall know them. For the ways of the Lord are right, and the just shall walk in them, but the transgressors shall fall therein." And Lord God, we just ask you to bless your word this morning and just teach us your word as well. And we do pray this in Jesus' name, Amen. Well, it's interesting, by the way, if you look at verses 4 through 8, This is the script of Agunath and Jesus Christ Himself. The description of all the sweet smell of the trees or the cedars of Lebanon, all that is a picture of Christ. His root, His branches that would spread throughout the whole world. Remember, Jesus said the Kingdom of God was like a mustard seed. the tiniest little seed that would grow into a giant kingdom. and where all creation would dwell. It's both past looking at Christ and future looking at the upcoming kingdom of God on this earth in the millennium. What a great picture it is. But we're going to be looking at just the first two verses today. I thought of a couple different titles which you would have had if you had a bulletin which I didn't get a chance to do this morning. The first thought I had was that we'll call this No Bull. I said, no, that doesn't really do it justice. So I entitled it, Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is. Now, we've all heard that expression before. And it's an idiom that says, now, back up your words by your actions. This is a call of Israel unto true repentance. And they would. It's not yet. But they will be back in full repentance. So we'll pick it up in verse 1. We already read the whole chapter, right? Verse number 1, look what it says. Oh Israel, return unto the Lord thy God. The term for return here means literally to turn back. to turn towards to something. It's actually the biblical view of repentance. Israel, return unto the Lord thy God. Much of the Old Testament Act, as a matter of fact, all of the Old Testament calls for His chosen people, the nation of Israel, to repent and turn back to Yahweh. We see that throughout the whole thing of their continued call of them to turn to Him and their continued rejection and not turning to Him. Let's go back to a couple places, both in Hosea, to look at this concept. We can look at a couple hundred other verses throughout the Old Testament dealing with God calling His chosen people to a relationship with Him. But let's go back to Hosea chapter 6. Let's keep it in the book we've been looking through. Hosea chapter 6, verse number 1. says, Come and let us return unto the Lord, for He hath torn, and He will heal us. He hath smitten, and He will bind us up. After two days will He revive us, and the third day He will raise us up, and we shall live in His sight. Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord, His going forth is prepared as the morning, and He shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth. Now, verses 3 and verses 4 upcoming are paralleled in the reverse at the end of Hosea 14. Verse number 3, the latter rain and former rain deals with God blessing the nation once again and making it a fruitful nation. It's not a spiritual former and latter rain as many teach. We used to have an old song in the Pentecostal church, who would send down the rain, the ladder rain, which talked about a spiritual ladder rain. But it's not the ladder rain that's spoken of, it's physical. Wherever you see this ladder rain in the Old Testament, it's dealing that the Lord would once again bless the land and they would reap a literal physical harvest. Let's look at verse 4 while we're in chapter 6. Notice the difference here, it was their goodness. Their goodness will be just like the morning dew. Let's go back to chapter 14, verse number 5. Even though we're not doing this today technically. I will be as the dew unto Israel. He shall grow as the lily and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. His branches shall be spread and his beauty shall be as the olive tree and his smell as Lebanon. Again, descriptive of Christ. The difference in when it was the people's goodness being as do a simile, when it was their goodness it would perish. It would just go up into the atmosphere and be gone. When God's goodness is the focus, that do has a watering effect. A watering effect to grow up the roots that are in the ground. So this here, remember where it says as the do, about a spiritual comparison to something physical. So the dew here in chapter 6 is spiritual dew, talking about the goodness being as the dew that dissipates. But yet, when it's based on God's goodness and His will, that dew saturates. Now, there's one thing I'm used to is working early in the morning and all the grass is wet, my feet get wet every morning because of the saturation. A couple hours later, it's gone. I always think to myself, well, you know, it should rain every day. Wouldn't you like to have rain every single day? Let me admit it, no, I get a bunch of no's there. But if it rained every day between like 2 a.m. and 5 a.m., we would never have a drone, because we wouldn't have the sun to cause it to dissipate. So that's the picture we have of God's goodness. The Lord's goodness being as dew that quenches, or not doesn't quench, but satisfies the dryness. That's the difference between the two. Let's go over to Hosea chapter 12. Hosea chapter 12, verse number 5. Even the Lord God of hosts, the Lord God is His, the Lord is His memorial. Talking about Jacob and Bethel and his wrestling of the angel building up that pillar there as a memorial to the Lord and the Lord would would have an everlasting covenant that would be made with Him. So the Lord Himself was memorial of Jacob. Because of that, verse 6, therefore, because of the promises of God, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, therefore turn thou to thy God, keep mercy and judgment, and wait on thy God continually." See, it's because of God's mercy and His love And His promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the people of Israel, had their hope. They had no hope in themselves. No help in their works, no help in the works of their hands in creating idols as well. Now, as a loving Father, I think I mentioned this already well during the opening As a loving father, here is the difference between God, Yahweh, Jehovah, is that He loves His people and cares for them enough to redeem them. Not to be servants of God, it is good to serve the Lord, but to have fellowship with Him. Jesus told His disciples, He said, I no longer call you servants, but I call you friends. Jesus calls us joint heirs of salvation with Him. That's our hope. Let's look at this concept of returning unto the Lord. Let's go over to the book of Acts. The book of Acts, Acts chapter 26. And here is the Apostle Paul's testimony before the King. Let's go over the verse. Now, in the previous verse, Paul is explaining to Agrippa his testimony of his conversion on the road to Damascus. Remember, Paul being knocked off his animal, and then seeing that vision of the Lord and going into Damascus, and having the gentleman speak to have the Lord speak to him and having the scales removed from his eyes. He's repeating the same thing once again to King Agrippa. This was God's task, that He would bring the Gospel to the Jews and the Gentiles and to kings, and He did. And usually did it on the way to Jem. That's the amazing part here. Verse 16 says, But rise and stand upon thy feet, for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee, delivering thee from the people and from the Gentiles unto whom now I send thee. God's reason for picking the most murderous person around in His day, Saul of Tarsus. Look what he says, verse 18. He says, to open their eyes. What can open a person's eyes? Nothing but the Gospel of Jesus Christ. To open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith That is in me. Now those are Jesus' words right there. Why he sent the Apostle Paul was to preach the gospel that that would turn people's hearts, turn people's minds that they would trust him. It's interesting, I heard not too long ago, it was a debate on Calvinism. and it was somebody, a Calvinist, that accused somebody of being Arminian. And Arminian believes that they are saved by their own works, it's what they do. And this person said, I'm neither one. And the Calvinist said, what do you mean, neither one? He says, I'm a Biblicist. I believe what the Bible says, I don't add anything to it. And in the course of his conversation, he asked the Calvinist, he said to him, Would you admit that you're a sinner? He says, yes, of course, we agree with that. Would you say that you had no control over your sinful nature? He says, yes, that's right. So how can a loving God take and condemn you for something you didn't have control over? That's why He sent the Gospel, that's why He sent the prophets, so people could choose whether to believe or not. Now, the Holy Spirit does do the work. Extreme Calvinists would accuse me of saying that I believe in a work salvation, that choosing is a work. Well, when the Holy Spirit illuminates you and testifies of the Gospel, you can reject or you can take that, accept it. Another question in the same conversation was what does somebody that believes that you are elect or chosen unto salvation, what do they do with the great white throne judgment? If everybody is chosen by God and is either destined for the lake of fire or destined to heaven, why would God have a white throne judgment? It's a question to ask and to ponder. Again, ponder at another time. But the word of God, the prophets of God, were all there to proclaim His truth in order to turn the people back to Him. That's the goal of all of the prophets and all of the scriptures as well. So this call to repent, or to turn back to God, was there. Next part of the verse says, O Israel, return unto the Lord thy God, for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity. If they hadn't fallen from iniquity, and fallen here actually means to stumble or to totter. Remember, God loved them. God kept His promises. They didn't. They stumbled. In other words, no matter what they did, as the chosen people, God still held out his right hand of fellowship to them. He was still there for them. Unfortunately for them, they would for the most part reject that except for a remnant of people that would go on and be constituted even today as we would call the Jews in the nation of Israel. Not all of Israel are saved. But there are a remnant that believe the Gospel and there will be a larger number that will believe the Gospel when Christ comes again in the Millennial Kingdom. He says, for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity. The tragedy that they faced is something that is tragic for even many today. The tragedy that they faced, this word once again for falling here, the Hebrew word here is kashal, meaning to totter or stumble through weakness. And that stumbling through weakness was usually something to do with your feet not being strong. Not having a weakness in your ankles. Now I walked for a living. I walk seven, eight miles a day and I know what it means to have good, proper footwear for the job. Without that, my ankles would just collapse and be weak. What are Christians told, as part of the full honor of God, what is to be their footwear? It's to be the gospel of peace. See, if your feet aren't shod, if you don't have the proper foundation or footwear, you are going to stumble. It's like trying to walk on the beach for a long period of time, your feet get tired. Have you ever tried it? I know I can't go too long before my arches start to feel it, but the tragedy today is instead of the sure foundation which is in Christ Jesus, this is the same foundation the Jews had was in Christ Jesus, was in the prophets, it was in the Word of God they would turn away and trust in the shifting sands of pragmatism and following other gods. This made them weak, and totter, and stumble. It's the same thing today. Why do so many Christians seemingly get weakened? because they don't have the sure foundation they too are following after the shifting sands of current popular ideology which is nice for a little while but then it begins to crumble and over a longer period of time those spiritual aches and pains come in and the body actually gets weak this is what happened to Israel they have fallen They had turned away from the principles and precepts of the Lord, and what did they follow? They followed after the other nations. They followed after the other nations' gods, and they would create for themselves idols of gold and silver and wood and all these different things, which could not avail them one bit. No idol could ever seek to rescue them or heal them like the Lord God did. So this is a tragedy that they had fallen, they had stumbled, they had gotten away from the very Word of God and the God of the Word. Now look at verse number 2. So God gave them a call to repent. And verse number 1, to repent from what? From their iniquity. Because they have fallen because of their sin. Verse number 2 says, take with you words. I'll stop right there for a second. God called them to repent, now God calls them to confess. It says take with you words and Turn to the Lord. See, get that? Turn to the Lord, repent, trust the Lord, now take words, and now you're going to have words to the Lord which are going to be backed up by your actions at the end of the verse. Take with you words. These words here that it's talking about are, take your issues, take your matters. Not just a bunch of godly words that mean nothing. Take exactly what your trials and your problems are to the Lord. Your main problems, they have iniquity. They've gotten away from God. The Christian's prayer today in this take with thee words is Lord, we trust what you have done. Help us to trust you even more. And that's what he says on here. He says take with you words and turn to the Lord. That's the good news. They had to confess their sin to a Hebrew That's why we'll go to Romans chapter 10 for a second. The hardest part for a Hebrew or a Jew today is that they can confess their sins, but they have a real hard time confessing that Jesus Christ is Lord. This is the secret, or I shouldn't say secret, because it's no secret, of what happens in Romans 10 when we believe in our hearts and confess with our mouths. This is directed to the Jews. Alright, you say you believe in your heart, now confess. This is the picture we have here. Take your matters or those issues you have to Him. Notice he didn't say Take your tithe and offering to Him. He didn't say to take your religious observances to Him. He said take your words, take your matters to Him. He wanted a confession of guilt from them. You know, I often say this, that a Christian that says they have problems, a Christian that says they don't feel like a good Christian, that's good news, because when you think you is, you isn't. When you think that you are high and mighty and have everything all together, there's the problem right there, because you don't. That's what God was looking for. They had all, remember going through all of the book of Hosea, they thought they were doing good. They brought their sacrifices, they brought their offerings, they dressed good. They looked like holy people, but their hearts weren't in it for the Lord. So ultimately, they would sacrifice to other idols and still try to appease the Lord by proclaiming to know Him. But yet, they were far away from Him. The bad news that we have? Yes, there is bad news, as we are all guilty of the same thing. We have all been smitten by sin, by transgressions, by our iniquities. So we admit it to the Lord. Just like Israel had to admit it to the Lord, their sin, we too, For the Christian, it's a privilege. Lord, I've sinned. Lord, I'm faltering. My knees and my ankles are getting tired because I've been walking on the shifting sands instead of Your will and Your Word. Just like Israel did. Like Israel, we pretend to have some goodness, but it's not so. not before a holy, holy, holy God. Remember that one attribute where He's separate from all others. He doesn't deal with a lot of the sovereignty, which is true, and His truth, but then His whole thing is that He is holy. We are all guilty before the Lord. We can appear only better before other men. And Israel did. Even before the nations around them, they looked like they were better off. Because they still claimed to trust in Yahweh, while in the meantime trusting in other things. It says, take with you words and turn to the Lord, say unto Him, I like this part, take away all iniquity. I don't have to say that much. Never get over the fact that when you were saved, Jesus Christ cleansed you from all sin, all iniquity. That still blows my mind that God knows even my future sins, as well as my past sins, which I can look back and go, But God knows the ugliness of even my future sins. And remember, what is God? Three, holy, holy, holy. All of our sin is a putrid smell to Him. And we are liable to be judged, not liable to, we will be judged for all of that sin. Take away all of our iniquity, and look what it says next, and receive us graciously. See, God receives us because on the basis of His Son Jesus Christ, 1 John 4.10, we often say it, it's not that we love God, it's that He loved us first. See, because of His Son, He received you. You believed upon Him, He received you graciously. Graciously has it packed inside of it so much. Without any blemish, without any spot, you are clean before the Lord. There's a lot of people declaring all kinds of things in this world, making declaration instead of prayer, but we need to trust God's declaration that your sins are forgiven. They are forgiven. It's a fact. Now, let's get to the end of the verse in closing. We have the cleansing of sin. This cleansing of sin does something incredible, it changes the heart and mind. When you're clean, you're clean through and through, and it changes the heart and mind, and I'll add to, your actions as well. Look what it says at the end here, at the end of verse 2. receive us graciously, so will we render the calves of our lips." That's an interesting verse. I've always been enamored at that. This rendering is that we will give over. the calves of our lips. I want to take and read this portion of this verse in a couple other translations to see if we get the concept here. The NASB says that we may present the fruit of our lips. The ESV says, and we will pay with bulls the vows of our lips. The NIV says that we may offer the fruit of our lips. The New King James Version says, for we will offer the sacrifices of our lips. They're all somewhat different. But I'm going to do this, I'm going to throw the NIV and the NASV for a moment. I'm going to cast those out, and then I'm actually going to throw the New King James Version out, and I'm going to look at what the ESV and the KJV says. The KJV says the literal truth, I believe the ESV translation actually clarifies it more, even though that's not the job of a translation, it's the job of an interpreter. But what it says here, so we will render The calves, actually rendered, we're going to cast over, the rendering means that you are safe. I had to correct myself here. Rendering is that to be safe in mind and body and practice. So you are safe in doing this, we're safe And then we have, we can render or be safe in with the calves of our lips. Calves here, as well as however it's done, whether sacrifices or fruit, the word there is bullock. It's a young bull. So what do they mean, a young bull? We're going to offer up, we're going to render the young bull of our lips. is why we put the actions on the words. We can well say this, we're going to be safe. Let's go back to chapter 13 for a second. In verse number 2 it says, And now they sin more and more, and have made them molten images of their silver, and idols according to their own understanding. I've got to close up here. Oh yeah, 13.2. "...and now they sin more and more and have made them molten images of their silver and idols according to their own understanding, all of it the work of the craftsmen who say of them, let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves." Alright, so we have this calf in 13.2 and we have this calf of our lips in 14.2. 13-2, they were literally making molten images, graven images, literally worshipping. Just like people do today, people kiss the feet of statues to get a blessing. They literally would kiss or worship the work of those idols. So now, in 14-2, so we will render the calves of our lips. We are no longer going to trust in the works of our hands. We are no longer going to just say that we love God. We're going to take that and we are going to show that. We're going to cast off our old idolatry and we are going to sacrifice the vows that we have made. So that's where the ESV is correct in this. Their vows. They said they'd follow God. Over and over. We will do anything that you said to do. Now, it would be put into action. They would no longer just be paying lip service to the Lord, but they would actually be making a true sacrifice. Now the word lips, by the way, it seems simple, but it's actually a pretty complex word. Most of the time in the scriptures, except in the Psalms, it deals with a boundary. The bank of a river is the lip of a river. The seashore is the lip of the seashore. That's how it's translated. But what God is saying, you are now going to be limited in whom you worship, it's with the calves of your lips. Your sacrifice, it would no longer be to bulls made with your own hands. Remember a type of Christ was the sacrifice of the bullock. No longer animal, no longer sacrifice to idols, but I have a true sacrifice that points to Christ. Remember, they were still part of Israel. The temple worship would cease, but now this calve here is a picture of Christ, who would be sacrificed on their behalf. So the calves of your lips, just as Peter's confession in Matthew 18 was the rock of salvation, the calves of our lips is God's vow that He would sacrifice His Son. Today, try that exercise in the calves of your lips. Jesus Christ was sacrificed, sacrificed once, and completely paid for our sins. For that, we can praise the Lord. Amen? So, we will render the calves of our lips. It's a safe thing to do. You want to find a safe spot? A safe space? Trust the Lord. He's provided all. Amen? So we're going to have communion based upon that, that Christ completed salvation. No longer any molten bones or animals or even actual physical animals to be slaughtered, but Christ was slaughtered.