Episode Transcript
Alright, Hosea chapter 13.
Hosea chapter 13.
God willing we'll be expounding verses 13-14.
Hosea 13 verses 13-14.
The title of the message this morning is "When Death Dies."
When death dies.
Last week we left off in verses 12-13 when God said that Israel had sin that was bundled up and hid.
We learned that at some point you can't hide sin like a pregnant woman.
Eventually you've got to give birth to that baby.
You've got to diaper that baby.
That sin that you conceived.
So in the first part of verse 13 God said, if you'll look now in verse 13, where we left off.
Speaking of Israel, God said, "The sorrows of a travailing woman shall come upon him."
If you would underscore the word "sorrows."
The word "sorrows" here is speaking of the travail or the birth pangs.
Not pains, P-A-I-N-S, but pangs.
P-A-N-G-S.
The difference between a pain and a pang.
Anyone know the difference between a pain and a pang?
There is a difference.
A pang is something that suddenly comes on you and you go, "Ooh, that's a pang."
So when they're called birth pangs, because you're cleaning the house, you're doing the dishes, or whatever and then suddenly, "Ooh!"
And it gets you, kind of shocks you.
That's a birth pang.
So these sorrows here, speaking of the travail, the labor, the birth pangs that a woman experiences.
And those sorrows were the consequences of Eve's sin in the Garden of Eden.
Genesis 3, verse 16a, Genesis 3, 16a says, "Unto the woman, he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception.
In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children."
So there's this connection between sorrow and childbirth.
So the sorrows of a woman in childbirth would come upon Israel.
Why?
Because they rebelled against God and against His word like Eve did in the Garden of Eden.
Now in this text, if you would underscore the word "woman," now underscore the word "him."
Boy, that's different, isn't it?
Isn't that weird?
It says here, "The sorrows of a travailing woman shall come upon him."
Now the nation of Israel was a man, still is a man, but it's a man who's about to go into labor.
No, God's not woke.
Bible's not woke here.
The idea is this.
The idea is that it is unthinkable that a man would go into labor like a woman.
And as it's unthinkable that a man would go into labor like a woman, so Israel couldn't imagine that they would suffer the sorrows of their rebellion against God.
I mean, a man may worry about a heart attack.
He may be sitting in the house and have a heart pang and go, "Ahh."
But no man is going to be sitting around the house thinking, "I wonder if I'm going to give birth to a child today."
No man thinks that.
And so the idea here is that there is going to be unimaginable sorrow, unplanned sorrow, unthinkable sorrow that's suddenly going to come upon the men of Israel because of their rejection of God's word.
They didn't think that anything would happen to them because of their sin.
They figured that they could live their godless lifestyles without any judgment from God.
But they underestimated the righteous indignation of their creator.
God is wonderful.
God is patient.
Thank God he's patient with me.
God is loving.
But listen, you don't play games with God.
God hates sin, and he holds sinners accountable because Israel thought they could get away with their sins.
They would suddenly and shockingly be taken in the pangs of childbirth as a man who never expected such a thing to come upon him.
Jeremiah chapter 30 gives us this very idea.
Jeremiah chapter 30 verse 6.
Watch how God words this.
You'll see the idea here in Hosea.
Jeremiah 36, God says, "Ask ye now and see whether a man doth travail with child."
Of course the answer would be no, a man doesn't travail with child.
But God says, "Ask and see, does a man travail with child?"
And now he says, "Wherefore or why do I see every man with his hands on his loins as a woman in travail?"
And all faces are turned into paleness.
He says, "It's unusual.
It's unthinkable.
But nevertheless, I see man having childbirth."
This shows the utter shock and helplessness that Israel's men, who should have been warriors fighting, would end up becoming women going into labor.
They should have been warriors against their enemies.
But no, they're going to be women going into labor.
When a woman goes into labor, you know how that happens?
She can't just go on with her life and pretend like she's not pregnant.
Isn't that right, Miss Elizabeth?
I mean, when the time comes, the time comes.
You can't dictate it.
I mean, yeah, you can induce labor and everything, but we're talking about natural labor here.
They didn't have Pitocin back then.
But you just can't pretend like you're not pregnant.
You may be cleaning the house.
You may be shopping.
You may be visiting with family or relaxing.
You may have your whole day planned out as a woman, but when labor comes upon you, everything in your life comes to a complete stop.
And you suddenly have one goal in life, one goal, and that's to deliver yourself from the pains of childbirth that have come upon you.
Syria would come upon Israel like labor pains on a woman, and God's judgment will come upon all unbelievers the same way.
And when that day comes, nothing else in this world is going to matter.
Right now, people are trying to figure out what stocks they're going to buy, who they're going to vote for, what kind of house they're going to get, where they're going to retire when they get old, how they're going to get past the troubles and the diseases they're struggling with in life, and what job they're going to apply for.
But listen, when the day of God's judgment comes, nothing else in this world will matter.
Like a woman in childbirth, all the things that seem so important to people before won't be important to them any longer.
The only thing that will matter in the day of God's judgment is for them to be delivered from the wrath of Almighty God.
That's it.
Speaking of that day, the prophet Zephaniah in Zephaniah chapter 1, Zephaniah chapter 1, verse 17 and 18, God says, "And I will bring distress upon men, that they shall walk like blind men, because they have sinned against the Lord, and their blood shall be poured out as dust, and their flesh as the dung.
Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the Lord's wrath."
All the money you work for, you've been buying people off.
Hey, George Soros is going to find somebody he can't buy off in the day of the Lord.
He said, "You're silver and gold, and it won't be able to deliver them in the day of the Lord's wrath, but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy, for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land."
And that day, the only thing that will matter is that people are delivered from God's wrath, but most people won't be delivered from God's wrath, just as Israel would not be delivered from Assyria.
Why?
God said they would not be delivered from Assyria.
Look back in your text, because he is an unwise son.
He is an unwise son.
As an unwise son, Israel lived in the present, but they didn't plan for the future, and that's the way most people are today.
They live in the present.
They don't plan for the future.
They don't prepare for God's judgment.
A wise man.
Man, when I was young, the only thing I could think about was before I get anything else figured out in life, I've got to figure out where I'm going to spend eternity.
I've got to figure out how to know that I'm going to escape God's judgment, and I'm going to be in favor with God, and everything is going to be okay with my eternal soul.
A wise man foresees the judgment of his sin, and he takes refuge in Christ, just as Noah took refuge in the ark.
But a foolish, simple-minded person, they won't have any regard for the consequences of their sins.
They just continue on in their evil ways, and then what happens?
They'll be punished in the end.
They'll be like the people of Noah's day.
They say, "Well, there's an ark.
You can get into it, and you can be delivered from the flood."
"No, no, no.
We've got stuff to do, and they do whatever they do."
And then finally the flood comes.
The door is shut on the ark, and they're out.
They're out.
The Bible says in Proverbs 22, verse 3, Proverbs 22, verse 3, the Bible says, "A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and heighteth himself.
But the simple pass on, and are punished."
In other words, you're going down the way.
You look up there, and you foresee the evil.
You look ahead, you see trouble.
You say, "Man, I'm not going down there."
The simple people, they don't look far ahead.
They just look right in front of their feet.
That's all.
They just live for the moment.
They don't look at the trouble up ahead.
God wanted to deliver Israel, but Israel was an unwise son who would not put himself in the position of being delivered.
God said, "Israel is an unwise son.
Why is he an unwise son?"
Look back at your text.
"For he should not stay long in the place of the breaking forth of children."
Now that makes sense, doesn't it?
Well, it will here in just a minute.
He's an unwise son, for he will not stay long or remain in the place of the breaking forth of children.
This is talking about the birth canal.
Why was Israel an unwise son?
Because he would not stay long in the place of the breaking forth, that is, the birth canal, of children.
Here's a kingdom truth for you this morning.
To be delivered, you must be in the position of deliverance.
To be delivered, you must be in the position of deliverance.
A baby doesn't come out of a woman's ear.
Babies don't come out of a woman's mouth or her nose.
A baby comes out the birth canal.
You see, God ordained one place for a child to be born.
Isn't that good?
God ordained one place for a child to be born, and that's through the birth canal.
And when the child breaks forth out of that birth canal into the world, that's what it's talking about here.
Why is Israel an unwise son?
He won't put himself in the place in the birth canal.
He won't remain in the place of the breaking forth of children.
The word "children" breaks out of the womb.
He's unwise.
I want to deliver him, but he won't put himself in the position of being delivered.
So God ordained one place for a child to be born.
That's the birth canal.
And in the same way, if you want to be delivered from sin and death, not from Assyria, but if you want to be delivered from sin and death, God also has ordained one place for your deliverance there as well.
The place of the breaking forth of children is the cross and empty tomb of Jesus Christ.
As they had to put themselves in the place that God ordained to be delivered from their trouble, we must come the way God has ordained, and that's something Israel wouldn't do.
Again, the death and resurrection of Christ is a birth canal for all men.
It's what takes you out of this world, the cross, and then births you into a new life, the empty tomb, through Jesus' resurrection.
That's the birth canal.
The gospel is where God's children break forth into everlasting life as the sons of God.
But people won't come through Christ, so they won't be delivered by God.
Make sense?
And they have no strength to deliver themselves.
God wants to deliver people, but they won't come the way of the cross that they may be delivered.
John 5, verse 40.
John 5, verse 40.
Why were these people not going to be saved?
Why were they not going to be delivered?
Jesus said, John 5, 40, "And ye will not come to me that ye might have life."
Jesus Christ is the way, the true, the life.
No man comes from the Father but through Him.
The gospel is the birth canal.
And Jesus said, "I would give you life.
I would deliver you from sin, Satan, and death, but you won't come to me so you can have life.
You won't put yourself in the position of being delivered."
When Assyria came upon Judah, King Hezekiah recognized that his country had no strength to deliver itself.
Again, here we are going back in with Sunday school again.
But King Hezekiah recognized that his country had no strength to deliver itself.
So he said something to Isaiah about Judah.
Now in Hosea, we're looking here at Israel, okay, or Ephraim, the northern kingdom.
But Hezekiah said something to Isaiah about Judah that was very similar to what God's saying about Israel here in Hosea.
Listen to what, when Assyria was coming up against Jerusalem, look here in Isaiah 37.3.
"And they said unto him," talking about Isaiah, "thus saith Hezekiah, 'This day is a day of trouble, and of rebuke, and of blasphemy, for the children are come to the birth.'"
Now that word "birth" is the same word translated "breaking forth" in Hosea.
So what he's saying is the children have come to the birth canal.
They've come to the place of breaking forth, and there is not strength to bring forth.
So again, the Hebrew word translated "birth" is the same word translated "the breaking forth" in Hosea.
What Hezekiah is literally saying, it would read like this, "Thus saith Hezekiah, that this day is a day of trouble, and of rebuke, and blasphemy, for the children have come to the birth canal.
They have come to the breaking forth, but we have no strength to deliver those children.
We have no strength to give birth to those children.
We are in the place of being born, but we have no strength to deliver ourselves."
Make sense?
Unlike Hosea, Hezekiah was a wise son because he put Israel in a position of being delivered.
He came to God.
He knew the only way of deliverance was through the mercy of God.
He said, "We have come to the birth canal, but we have no strength to deliver ourselves."
Israel, on the other hand, wouldn't come to the birth canal.
Every person who is born again through faith in Christ comes just like Hezekiah.
We come to the cross where God delivers His children who have no strength to deliver themselves.
Again, Romans 5 and 6, when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.
So we make it to the birth canal of the cross, and through God's amazing grace and work and strength, no work of our own, He delivers us through His death and resurrection.
Israel, on the other hand, wouldn't put themselves in the position of being delivered by God's grace.
Because they wouldn't put themselves in the position of being delivered by God's grace, they would be destroyed by God's judgment.
So in this text, we learn that, number one, God's judgment against sin is certain.
God's judgment against sin is available, and God only delivers one way, that's through His Son, and we have no ability to deliver ourselves.
If we want to be delivered from our sin, then we must come God's way by God's work.
He made the birth canal.
He alone has the ability to deliver us through it.
And here's how He does it.
I love how this pairs up with what we just read.
God said, look in verse 14, "I will ransom them from the power of the grave."
Isn't that good, Brother Doug?
Brother Doug, that's just good.
Who's going to ransom them from the power of the grave?
Who's going to ransom them?
Remember, when we're looking at them being delivered from Assyria, any time you're looking at God delivering Israel from anything, it is an ultimate picture of God delivering us from sin.
How is God going to deliver us?
"I will ransom them."
The wonderful thing we learned this morning, those of you all who were in the Genesis of Jesus class, and we were looking where Lucifer said, "I will," I said, "I will exalt, I will do this and that and the other.
I will, I will, I will."
We learned that Lucifer had a will.
You know what?
God has a will too.
And God will deliver you if you'll let Him.
But you have a will.
Israel had a will.
God says, "I will, but you won't.
Come to the birth canal.
I'll deliver you."
But He says He's an unwise son.
He won't do it.
"Come to the cross.
I'll deliver you.
I will ransom them from the power of the grave."
I love the words, "I will," because God wants to save you.
Now, continue in this verse and underscore the remaining three "I wills."
There's four "I wills" here.
"I will, I will, I will, I will."
If you're wondering if God wants to save you, "I will," He says, "I will."
The word "ransom," when God says, "I will ransom," the word "ransom" here means to sever, to sever, to separate something, just sever it apart.
To be severed from the power of the grave.
He says, "I will ransom them from the power of the grave."
He's going to sever us from the power of the grave.
You realize there's people right now all over this world who are held by the power of the grave.
Just go right down the road that direction.
You'll find a cemetery.
Cemeteries, I've done funerals for those people out there, many of those people.
And the grave is holding them there.
I was there, you were there for a lot of them when the people got put in.
And they hadn't come out yet.
Why?
They're held by the power of that grave.
God says, "I'm going to sever you from the power of that grave."
"I'm going to snatch you out of that grave."
That's power.
That's power that we don't have.
Because of our sin, we are under the power of the grave.
But by dying for our sin, Jesus severs us from the grave.
The picture of this severance was the lamb dying on Passover night.
Remember that lamb died on Passover night?
You know what God did with Israel after that lamb died?
He severed them from Egypt.
They were in Egypt.
They were held by the power of Egypt.
The Passover lamb died and shed its blood, and God severed them.
He put a red sea in between them.
So that one couldn't pass here and the other couldn't pass back over there.
He severed them.
"I will ransom you from the power of the grave," God says.
And through Jesus, God says, "I will sever you from the power of the grave."
Just like he did with that lamb.
Look back in your text, "I will redeem them from death."
Now the word "redeem" means to buy back.
You see, when we're looking at sever or ransom, when we're looking at that ransom, that severing, that's the power of God to sever us from the power of death.
You see, if he ransoms us from the power of the grave, then God must have more power than the grave, right?
So the ransom speaks of God's power, the power of God that's needed to save us.
But the redemption here is speaking about the legality that we need for God to save us.
We must not only be saved powerfully by God, but we must be saved legally by God.
The word "redeem" means to buy back.
To buy back.
You see, because of our sin, we owe a legal debt to the law.
We owe a debt to obey it.
We owe a debt to reap the consequences of our sin, to be punished, to be condemned.
So we are legally bound to die because of our sin.
We owe that debt to the law.
And God is powerful enough to save us, but God is also righteous.
And so he must not only powerfully save us, but he also must legally save us.
Nobody is going to enter God's kingdom without a righteous legal right to be there.
And the cross of Jesus Christ gives us that legal right.
By fully obeying the law on our behalf, and then by dying in our place, taking the condemnation of God's law in our place, Jesus paid the debt that we owe the law.
He legally bought us back into the liberty that we as believers now enjoy.
God said, look back in your text, "O death, I will," here's another "I will," "I will be thy plagues."
Man, remember when God put those plagues on Egypt?
Whoo!
You know that one plague, that one final plague that finally delivered them and severed them from Egypt?
You remember what it was?
It was death.
The death of the firstborn.
That was the final plague.
That was the plague that dealt the death blow and set God's people free.
And God says, "Death, I will be thy plagues."
Do you know what God is saying here?
He's saying, "I'm going to be the death of death."
Isn't that something?
"I'm going to be the death of death."
When Jesus comes, death will be experiencing a disaster rather than causing one.
Isn't that amazing?
When Jesus comes, we will all, for the very first time, attend a funeral where we actually celebrate the one who passed away.
So, praise God, He's gone.
He's dead.
You know what that funeral's going to be?
We're going to be attending the funeral of death.
The Gospel is God's heavenly obituary on sin, Satan, and death.
There will be no tears when death dies.
Only praises to our God.
To the Gospel, God said, look back in your text now, "O grave, I will be thy destruction."
"O grave, I will be thy destruction."
When Jesus comes, the grave, you know what the grave does?
You've got all these people here.
You've got this casket here.
They've got makeup on and body putty and nice clothes on, buried in a suit or a pretty dress, and a nice pretty casket.
That casket closes, and you put that person in the grave.
You know what that grave does?
The grave does what it does.
It starts working its corruption, its decay.
It destroys that body.
And God says, grave, as you destroyed the body, I'm going to destroy you.
He's going to sever us from the power of death, from the power of the grave.
He's actually going to destroy the grave.
He's going to kill death.
He's going to destroy the grave.
When Jesus comes, the grave which destroys the dead will be destroyed itself.
Jesus is going to kill death and bury the grave.
How about that?
He's going to kill death and bury the grave.
No matter how bad the nation of Israel was then or now, they will return to God one day.
They will put themselves in the position of being delivered.
They will acknowledge Christ as their Savior, and God will deliver them through the Gospel in the end.
That's why he's saying this.
This is a prophecy we're reading here.
God mixes in His promise to destroy them and for birth pangs to come on them.
But at the same time, He talks about how He'll deliver them in the end.
Through Jesus, the grave will be buried.
Death will die, and believers will live.
All who come to the birth canal of the Gospel shall be born again and inherit everlasting life.
God will never change His mind about the salvation of Jesus Christ.
He said, Luke, back in your text as we close, "Repentance shall be hid from mine eyes."
You know what that means?
Repentance means to change the mind.
God said, "I'm not going to change my mind about this.
I'll never change my mind about destroying the grave, severing you from the power of it, being the death of death.
I will ransom you.
I will redeem you.
I will give you everlasting life.
Repentance shall not be hid from my eyes."
God will never go back on His Gospel promise.
God will never go back on His plan to redeem the world through Jesus Christ.
Don't worry, believer in Christ.
God will never change His mind about Jesus.
And because of that, He'll never change His mind about you who believe in Jesus.
If you come to the birth canal of the cross, then you will live.
Death will die.
And the grave will be buried forever.
Father, we thank You so much for Your precious Word.
Thank You for these powerful promises, Lord, that You give.
Lord, there is no beating around the bush here.
Such direct wording, such powerful wording.
And God, we've always seen death as being final.
Lord, Jesus will have the final word on death.
And we thank You that He demonstrated His victory over death when He rose from the dead to show us how He will one day sever us from that power of the grave and raise us up as well.
That we will live and reign with Him forever and ever.
We're so thankful.
And I pray if there's anyone here this morning or listening online, Lord, who has not come to the birth canal, who has not, Lord, come to Christ to believe on Him as their Savior, to accept Him as their way of deliverance, to agree with You that He is the one You ordained to deliver man from sin.
I pray, Father God, that they will believe that good news and put their hope in Him.
In Jesus' precious name we pray.
Amen.
