Verse by verse teaching - Hosea 12:5-6 "Our Memorial"

If you take God's precious Word and turn to the book of Hosea, please, Hosea 12. If you're a first time visitor this morning, we're very grateful to have you with us. All of our teaching is verse by verse. We started here at Hosea 1, verse 1, and we finished till we get to the end of the book. That way we learn God's Word. We don't just show up and hear topical messages. We learn the Bible. That's our goal here is to teach you God's Word so you can leave here each Sunday and Wednesday, knowing the Bible better than when you walked in. Hosea 12, verse 5 and 6. Also, let me encourage you. We never know the motives for people coming to church. I've got one more thing too. We never know the motives for people coming to church. I remember after 9/11, I was passing a church in Fort Worth at the time. After 9/11, everyone went to church that next Sunday. We had someone show up in our church that Sunday. Never came back. It's possible that some could be spurred to go to church after the attempted assassination yesterday of President Trump. And if that's the case, don't be politically motivated to attend church. Be spiritually motivated because the God that we needed yesterday is the God we need every single day. It's a God our nation needs every single day. So if you're here this morning, I hope to see you back next week and the week after and the week after. If you love God's Word, you'll love this church. If you don't love God's Word, then we don't have anything else for you. But I will say this, I've got one other thing. Year or two ago, maybe it's two years ago now, we, this may sound strange if you're a visitor here, but we're prepared, alright? Because just yesterday shows us that there are folks who hate our ideology and they hate any kind of conservative Christian thinking. And so we've got protocol here at this church. If someone were to come in and start shooting it up, well, we shoot back. But we also have some other things. So a couple years ago, I issued out some pepper spray to some folks. And I'm curious, is anyone carrying that pepper spray today? Have you got it on you? Ha ha! Come up here sister. It doesn't do any good if it's not on you. Huh? A taser? You got one on you? Man, I like that too. I tell you, that little Miss Vivian, she's some kind of nursery worker. Now Brother Shevron, I'd use my brute strength here if that's okay. Just open that up. Don't want to be too graphic for anybody. There's you a brand new can because yours is about to expire. If you weren't here when they're issued out and you're interested in having one when you come to church to have a less than lethal option here in case someone were to come in and act up, then send me after church. If you don't have one last time and you haven't been carrying it, you don't get another one. That blunt enough? Here we go. Hosea 12, God willing, will be expounding verses 5 and 6. Hosea 12, verses 5 and 6. The title of the message this morning is "Our Memorial." We did training when those were issued out. I tell you, Miss Elizabeth was amazing. You don't want to get around her and try to steal some kid with Miss Elizabeth and that pepper spray. She'll get you. We finished off in Hosea 12, 3 and 4 last week. When Esau it says, if you look in verse 3, it says, "He took his brother by the heel in the womb, and by his strength he had power with God. Yea he had power over the angel and prevailed. He wept and made supplication unto him. He found him in Bethel and there he spake with us." Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for your precious word. We thank you for these precious people who've come here to hear it. I pray all lives will be on you today, Lord. Will open our ears and give us the understanding we need of your scriptures and to hold to it with our whole hearts, we ask in Jesus' wonderful name. Amen. So we left off there last week when Jacob grabbed Esau by the heel when they were babies. We learned last week that that was a picture because you had the godly line and the ungodly line, just like with Cain and with Abel. So you have the older brother coming out ahead, looking like the unbelievers are getting ahead in life, looking like they're going to run the world and we're going to be always behind and always persecuted and all that. But then you see Jacob reach out and take hold of his older brother's heel. And that was a picture of the believers in Jesus Christ as Jesus said, "The last shall be first and the first shall be last." So the unbelievers in this world, they look like they're getting ahead. They look like they're taking over. It looks like all these sexual perverts and everything are going to just take over the world. In Jesus we grab hold of their heels and in the end the first is going to be last and the last is going to be first. And Jesus is going to come back and he will rule and reign forever and we'll rule and reign with him. And we learned about that last week and God met with Jacob and Bethel when he gave the vision of the ladder, Jacob's ladder. And remember Jacob's ladder, that ladder that was set up on earth whose top reached to heaven, that was a picture of Jesus Christ who was born as a virgin on earth, sins up to God after dying on the cross for our sins and thereby bridges the gap between holy God and unholy men. Jesus the ladder, that's the gospel of Jesus Christ and Hosea said there he spake not with Jacob. He said there he spake with us because he told Jacob in thee shall all nations of the earth be blessed. Now we move from there to Hosea 12.5, our new verse today. Who spake with us? Hosea says even the Lord God of hosts, that's who spake with us when he gave the gospel to Jacob. So the Lord spake with us, that's Jehovah when you see L-O-R-D in all caps. Jehovah spake with us and that means the self existing one. The one who has always been and who will always be. The one who came from nothing but everything came from him. The one who had no beginning and will have no ending, he spake with us. Not just the Lord spake with us but it says the Lord God spake with us. See that? And God meaning the one true God of all creation. The supreme being but not just the Lord, the one who always was and will always be, not just God, the one who is the almighty God of all creation but he says the Lord God of hosts. You see that? The Lord God of hosts. And that means the one who commands the armies of his kingdom. That's what host means. God is the, he's the one true God of all creation by whom all things have their existence. God is the one who came from nothing and thus depends on nothing. God is the one who commands the armies that no power can overcome. He is the one who spoke with us and who promised that through the offspring of Jacob all the nations of the earth would be blessed. What do we conclude from that? If in all knowing, all powerful, all loving, all truthful, never changing, never failing, unstoppable God promises something to us then you can bet your life on what he's promised you. But I like that. That's the God, I like, he just didn't say the Lord spake with us. He said the Lord God of hosts spake with us. He's the one Jacob said, I'm sorry, Hosea said, who is Jacob's memorial? Look back in your text. The Lord is his memorial. Now notice something, he doesn't say the Lord God of hosts is his memorial. The Lord God of hosts spake with us, but the Lord capital L-O-R-D is Jacob's memorial. Jehovah, the self existing God who came from nothing from whom everything came, never changing, never ending God, that is Jacob's memorial. Now what is a memorial? A memorial is something that surpasses changing times. When you set up a memorial, you don't do it with a cardboard box. You don't do it with some wooden structure. What do you do when you put a memorial up? It's done with marble, isn't it? Done with some kind of stone, some type of metal, something that will withstand the generations. As generations pass away and new generations come up, you can go to the courthouse, in most every courthouse, you're going to have some granite stone out there of some public memorial to commemorate the founding fathers, to commemorate some war that was fought, to give us the liberty and the independence we have. There's going to be something there at that courthouse and it has lasted since you and I were kids and probably since our grandparents were there and it's going to keep lasting after we leave this earth. Why? Because it's a memorial. It surpasses changes of time to remind us about a historical event. When I was a child, I remember this building and it was dedicated to a young man who got killed in a car wreck. I remember them going out and putting a sign outside that building, dedicating that as a memorial center to him. The best I remember of that sign is not there anymore. It's gone. In recent past, over the past few years, we've seen memorial statues destroyed. We've seen them tore down. We've seen them removed even though they had been standing for years because times changed and so people no longer honor the people that the statues represent and so they get tore down. In the Bible, there would be memorials as well. You know what a lot of the memorials were in the Bible? They would erect a pile of stones. Maybe they go through the Jordan River coming into the Promised Land. They take out 12 stones. They pile them up. This will be a memorial throughout your generations to remind how God dried up this Jordan River and you all come across with the priest on this dry land and everything. Or maybe there's an agreement between tribes in Israel and they set up a memorial to remember their peace treaties between each other. Or their agreement to continue to worship the one same God between one another. Or maybe Brother Shepard and I, maybe we had conflict but we made amends and so we're his land borders and when my land borders, we set up stones as a memorial so that if he ever passes on to my land or ever passes on to his land, we have to pass that memorial to remind us that we made a peace treaty with each other so if I'm going on to his land, I need to go with the right intentions and he needs to do the same to me. You know what happens? Those stones get knocked down. People forget about them. Those stones that were piled up, they're not piled up anymore. They're not there anymore. Sometimes one time God would say, "Well, write this down for a memorial and a book." You know what? Books can be destroyed. Books can be knocked down but the Lord himself is our memorial. You see what he's saying? The God who always was and the God who shall always be, the one who is the same yesterday, today and forever is our memorial of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That means any time God were to come to me, he's got to cross through the cross just as I would have to pass through those stones that were set up to go to Brother Shepherd. And he is the memorial that cannot be knocked down, not a set of stones that can be knocked down. He's not a statue. He's not a sign that can be removed. He's not a book that can be burned. The Lord himself stands forever as the memorial of the gospel covenant that he made with all nations. He will never forget his word to us because he himself is the word that was made flesh and died for us and rose again. God has promised to remove the curse of sin from this world through his son, to remove all sickness, sorrow, hate, pain, and to restore unto us the promise of eternal life, to make us perfect people and give us a perfect world that we were originally created to enjoy. The Lord is our memorial to this promise. Hosea said, look in verse 6, "Because of this, therefore turn thou to thy God." Turn thou because God is the memorial, because God will forever stand for the promise he made to us in Christ. He will never renege it. He will never take it back ten million years from now into eternity. When our sins have been put away, there's no chance whatsoever that he'll say, you know what, this has been long enough. Maybe we'll just do away with that gospel thing. It's got to expire sometime. No, never. Because we have a promise and a God we can count on who gives us the promise of eternal life and forgiveness of our sins. Hosea told Israel, and thus he's telling us, "Therefore turn thou to thy God." We have every reason to turn to God who's made these exceeding great and precious promises to us. The Lord, capital L-O-R-D, Jehovah, is our memorial. Now in Exodus chapter 3, I want you to watch and see how God described himself to Moses. When he spoke of delivering Israel from Egypt. Now remember, we've learned this before. When God delivered Israel from Egypt, from their bondage to Pharaoh, that was a picture of God delivering us from our bondage to sin and death. Pharaoh was a picture of the devil. The Passover lamb that shed its blood was a picture of Jesus dying for us on the cross. And God taking them out by Moses and across that sea was a picture of God taking us out of bondage by Jesus, who Moses represented. Now when God spoke to Moses, listen to what he said. This is absolutely marvelous. Exodus 3 verse 15, "And God said more over unto Moses, 'Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, 'The Lord God of your fathers,'" watch this now, "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob hath sent me unto you." This is my name forever. And this is my memorial unto all generations. Man, he wasn't just Jacob's memorial. He was Isaac's memorial. He was Abraham's memorial. He is our memorial. God named himself that day. He says, "You know who I am? You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to make this my name forever." Now God has many names because those names represent the many wonderful truths of God. But one of the things God named himself is this, and this will be God's name forever and ever and ever. God's name will always be the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. He said, "This is my name forever." And this, my name, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that's my memorial to you. Because my name will forever be the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, that will be my memorial to you. You see, God's memorial was that his name would forever be the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. In other words, God would forever be the God of Abraham. God would forever be the God of Isaac. God would forever be the God of Jacob. For all eternity, God will be the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And that means for all eternity, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will forever live, will forever love, and will forever know and serve their God. They will never die. Death will never take them over. The grave can never hold them. And speaking of that name that God gave himself to Moses, that Moses then recorded for us in a book so that we could read it today, thousands of years later, Jesus spoke on those words of what he said to Moses in the burning bush, because that was Jesus speaking to Moses. Now watch what Jesus said in Luke 20, verses 36 through 38. Speaking of those saints who died in the Lord, he says, "Neither can they die anymore, for they are equal unto the angels, and are the children of God being the children of the resurrection. Now that the dead are raised, Jesus says, even Moses showed at the burning bush." He's talking about when he wrote down the conversation God gave him. Moses showed us at the burning bush when he calleth the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Jesus said, "For he is not the God of the dead, but of the living. For all live unto him." Man, when God spoke to Abraham, he said, "And thee, shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." When God spoke to Isaac, he said, "And you, Isaac, all the nations of the earth be blessed." When God spoke to Jacob, he said, "Jacob, in you all the nations of the earth be blessed." And what he was saying is, there's going to be a descendant that comes from you, Abraham. There's going to be a descendant that comes from you, Isaac. There's going to be a descendant that comes from you, Jacob. He is going to remove the curse of sin that came from Adam when God said, "Cursed is the ground for thy sake." And he is going to reinstall the blessing of God because Jesus, the descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would bear our sins on the cross for it is written, "Cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree." He would take that curse, and by taking our curse of sin, he then passed down to us the gift of eternal life, and in him, all nations of the earth would be blessed. So whoever receives the promise God gave Abraham, and then God passed down to Isaac, and then God passed down to Jacob, and now through the preaching of Jesus when he said, "Repent and believe the gospel of the good news is coming. I'm here. The Savior, the promised Savior is here." And then the apostles, after Jesus rose from the dead, Jesus said, "Now go into all the world and tell this good news to everybody." And now here we are 2,000 years after the apostles, and we're still preaching the gospel of Christ, and by him all that believe, the Scripture says, are justified from all things. They embrace the promise given to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. And God says that's his name forever. What does he say? I'm the God of Abraham. I'm the one who gave him the gospel promise. What does he mean? He says, "I'm the God of Isaac. I'm the one who gave him the gospel promise." What does he mean? I'm the God of Jacob. I'm the one who gave him the gospel promise. That's my name forever. I'll always be the God that gave them the promise of Jesus, and that means he'll always be the God that keeps that promise for you and for me. What a memorial we've been given. That's God's memorial unto all generations. It's his memorial to me and you. And that's why Israel should have turned from their idols to the God of their fathers. Underscore, if you have your Bibles open, underscore the word turn. Turn. Now go down a little bit further in your Bible, underscore the word keep. Keep. Now go down a little bit further. You want to guess what the next word's going to be? Sir? Wait, who said that? Good for you, Ms. N. Did you say it too? I bet she said it. Who said it first? I'm just kidding. Those are the three actions that God's telling them to do. Turn, keep, and wait. Now remember what we've learned. Hosea is a prophetic book. And what God says to Israel, he says to us. He's the memorial to all generations. So when God is telling them to turn, keep, and wait, he's telling us to turn, keep, and wait. Those are the three things that every person is commanded to do on this earth. When we're born, we're born into sin and unbelief. We're born separated from God. We're born going in the direction of the world, which is headed to destruction. This world's in a mess, and it's headed to destruction. God through Jesus has made a way where our sin can be removed and that death and destruction can be avoided through the gospel so that whoever believes in him should not perish with the destruction of the world, but have everlasting life, as John 3 16 says. So when we're born in unbelief, God says turn. That means we're headed the direction of the world, but when we hear the gospel, we hear another way, a better way. Jesus said, "I'm the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes from the Father but by me." So when we hear the gospel, we say, "Oh, here's a better way." Instead of walking the world's way in unbelief and rejection of my God, I can believe that he alone, the God of the Bible, is the true creator of heaven and earth, and that Jesus is God the Son who came to die on the cross from my sin, that I might be forgiven and reunited to God. I want that way for me. So I turn from my unbelief, and I turn to belief in Jesus Christ. That's turn. It's turning from idols, from fairy tales, from whatever this world tries to shove down your throat, and it's turning to the way, the truth, and the life of Jesus Christ. The next thing he says, not only turn, he says keep. That word keep means to keep the word of God and the things that he's told us to do, because after you turn, what are you doing? Once you turn to God, then there's going to be a time between the time you live here on this earth and the time you meet God face to face. So in the meantime, as you're believing in God's promise to the gospel, you're going to be following God's word that he gives you. That's what we're to do as Christians. And while we're doing that, what do we do? We wait. We wait for his promise to come back and make this world new again. We wait for him to make good on that promise. So let's go ahead and look here now. We've got the turn, the keep, and the wait. So Israel should have turned from their idols who could not make or keep a promise to deliver them from the destruction of sin. They should have turned to God. Look back here now. To keep now, he says turn and then keep mercy and judgment. Read it all. Turn thou to thy God that is from the idols you've been worshiping. Turn to the God who's made this promise to you. And then what next? Keep mercy and judgment. Mercy means to love your neighbor as God's loved you. What should we be doing now that we've turned to God and we've accepted Christ our Savior? We should be loving our neighbor as God's loved us. What should we be doing? We should be keeping judgment as well. In other words, we should embrace the judgment of God's word as the sole authority for our lives. I should love you as God's loved me and I should embrace his word as the sole authority for my life. And then what does he say to do? He says, "And wait on that God continually." Wait on that God continually. Now this is again the same thing what he says to Israel. He says to the church, speaking to the Thessalonians church about their reputation in the Christian community. In 1 Thessalonians chapter 1, verse 9 and 10, he says, "For they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you and how ye turned to God from idols." You see that? Turned to God from idols. There's the turn from Hosea. And once they turn to God from idols, well let me get my stick out here. Once they turn to God from idols, what did they turn to him for? To serve the living and true God. That's the keep. So we've got the turn. There it is. We've got the keep. They're serving him by keeping his word. And then what does he say next? How you turn to God from idols to serve the living and true God. Verse 10, "And to wait," you see it? "And to wait for his Son from heaven whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus which delivered us from the wrath to come." Praise God. So what are we doing today? We've turned to God. We're believing the gospel. We're hanging on to the Bible as our authority for our lives and what we're doing. So we're waiting for Jesus to come. And if he doesn't come while we're living, we're waiting for him to come and bring us up from the grave. We've got that faith in him. That as God raised him up from the grave when he comes back, he's going to get our bodies too. He's going to get us too. Will not perish. Will have everlasting life. So you see that same thing. Turn, keep, and wait. Here's the thing about waiting. Tammy, would you come right up front here? Now I met this woman a couple days ago. No, I'm kidding with you. I'm kidding with you. I was going to have a little fun with our visitors. All right. Now, here's the thing about waiting. That word "waiting," that word "waiting" means to twist. You got you a bread tie, one of those bread ties, and you got your loaf of bread. You take that bread tie and you do what you do. You don't want to come up with it until you twist it. That word "waite," literally in the Hebrew, means to twist. Now in the New Testament, there were people who for a while believed in Jesus. They said, "Well, we'll believe in Him." He's giving out free food. He's feeding everybody. He's healing people. It's like having food stamps and health care. This is great. We love this religion. Suddenly Jesus starts talking about sin, calling people sinners. How offensive is that? They walk away. Now, that's the kind of belief they had. When you see Scripture, and some of the free grace people, they don't understand those Scriptures at all. They think all these people were saved. They weren't saved. They believed in Jesus according to their misunderstanding, their wrong idea of Jesus. They didn't believe in the Jesus God sent. They believed in the Jesus they wanted God to send. The food stamps and the health care and freedom from the Romans. Jesus starts talking about sin. "Oh, no thank you." Why? That's not the Jesus they had in mind. You see? They didn't believe in the Jesus of the Bible. They believed in the Jesus of their own concoctions. On the other hand, when all these people walked away one day, Jesus turned to his disciples. He said, "Will you also go away?" Peter said, "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life, and we're sure you're the one God sent." What was Peter saying? "We can't let everybody go away." What was Peter doing? He was twisted in. He was waiting no matter what the world did, no matter what Jesus said, no matter what came his way. He's twisted. He's waiting on Jesus to do what Jesus came to do. You see that? Thank you sugar. He's not going anywhere. Here's the kingdom and truth for you. Man, I've got way off my notes. I know. I'm sorry. Hopefully. Here it is. All right, how about that? We're not too far. A false faith says, "What if?" "Well, I'll follow Jesus, but what if this happens? I'll follow Jesus, but what if he offends me? I'll follow Jesus, but what if I learn something about him I don't like?" That's a false faith. A true faith doesn't say, "What if?" True faith says, "Even if." Amen. No, no. I won't follow Jesus even if the whole world goes away. I'm going to follow Jesus even if it means they're going to take my life or put me in prison for following him. Who else can I go to? He's the only one that has the words of eternal life. I don't ... You keep the food stamps and the health care because eventually you're going to get old, you won't be able to eat any food, and no doctor's going to be able to fix you. I'll hang on to Jesus because he has the words of everlasting life, and his death will forgive my sin and his resurrection will bring me back from the grave. How do we wait? We wait on him continually, as Hosea said. We wait on him in the way that we say, "You know what? I believe this gospel promise. I believe the Bible he sent. I'm going to twist my faith around God's word. I'm going to wrap it around the cross. I'm going to wrap it around the empty tomb, and I'm going to hang out here on earth following his word until he makes good on the promise he gave me. The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob will not let me down." With that, we'll go ahead and close. Father, we thank you so much for your precious word. Lord, I'm so grateful for the book of Hosea. I'm so grateful for the prophecies. I'm so grateful for how Jesus comes in the New Testament, and then explains what Hosea was saying, and explains what you said to Moses in the burning bush, and just wraps it all together so we can understand. Thank you, Father, for teaching us. Thank you for giving us your word. Thank you for being our eternal memorial. We stake our hope on you. We entwine our faith around your promise that you've given us in Jesus Christ, and we wait on you to make it good. In his name we pray. Amen.