Episode Transcript
Hosea chapter 14, God willing, will be expounding verse 5 this morning.
Hosea chapter 14 verse 5, we had a wonderful time in the Genesis to Jesus this morning.
And Brother Shepherd said, "Y'all had a good time in here."
I tell you what, any time in God's Word is a good time.
It sure is.
The title of the message this morning is, "What Does the Do Do?"
What does the do do?
In the previous verses of this amazing chapter, Israel has been admonished to return to the Lord for His salvation.
And that when He returned to the Lord, God said that He should take words with Him.
Words to tell the Lord.
And an argument, if you would, as to why God should accept Him.
And the words were essentially these, "Bear all our iniquities and receive us graciously, Lord, and we will praise Your name."
Then in verse 4 last week, God tells Israel that He will heal His backsliding.
And if He will come back to God as a nation, all of this healing will take place, the restoration will take place.
And now in verse 5 this week, God continues to say what He will do for Israel.
Remember what God says He will do for Israel?
He's saying He will do for us, not just nationally, but also individually.
But God continues to tell us this week what He will do for us if we come back to Him.
God says, look now in verse 5, "If you'll come back, I will be as the do."
Let's pray.
Father we thank you so much for your precious Word.
God how marvelous it is to hold in our hands the message from our Creator.
To hold, Father, in our hands the words that our forefathers of the faith have passed down to us that you gave to them.
And I pray, Father, your Holy Spirit will teach us from your Word this morning and all eyes will be on you.
You'll glorify your great name and edify your people.
In Jesus' name, Amen.
God says, they'll come back.
If you'll come back to Me, I will be as the do.
This morning on the way up here, it's good to have my in-laws with us this week.
And on the way up here, Brother Jim was telling me about them having a drought where they're at right now.
And recently we went through a drought here.
My parents experienced some of that fallout from that with a small fire around their home.
And there's this drought.
And when there's a drought, man, things begin to die.
Trees begin to die, fields begin to die, grass begins to dry and die.
And God says here, if you'll come back to Me, I will be as the do.
See, in this statement, God is using do as a metaphor to describe Himself to us.
If a sinner will return to God, then God will be as the do to that sinner.
I love how God uses earthly metaphors to illustrate spiritual truth.
God will be as the do.
The question is, what does the do do?
Well, when the do comes down, it hydrates the ground.
It brings life-sustaining water to a world that otherwise would die without it.
So when God says He will be as the do, He's saying that He is going to come down like the do and bring life to the earth.
Man, that's good.
God says, I'm going to be like the do.
I'm going to come down from heaven and bring life to the earth.
Now, do, it was used marvelously to illustrate this principle that God's teaching Israel this morning.
When you go to the book of Numbers in the Old Testament, we'll look here, I don't think we have our screen, there's one right there.
I think we got one screen out, but you can look up there in Numbers 11 verse 9.
Look what happened when God sent manna to Israel.
Now, remember, Israel was in the wilderness with no food to eat.
You'll die without food, you'll die without water.
But watch what God does, Numbers 11, 9.
And when the do fell upon the camp in the night, the manna fell upon it.
Isn't that good?
God used the do to bring down the manna to God's people so they could live.
Now, Brother Doug, our memory verse fits right in with this.
Because Jesus said, He's the bread that came down from heaven that if a man eat, he'll live forever.
And the bread he'll give is his flesh that he'll give for the life of the world.
So we see the do bringing down life giving food in the book of Numbers chapter 11 for the people to live.
The manna came down with the do, teaching us that God was making a connection for us between the do and the manna that the people ate.
The manna is what God fed the people.
The do is how God sent the manna down.
I'll repeat that again.
The manna is what God fed the people.
The do was how God sent the manna down.
And there's a big emphasis on the word down.
Do always comes down in the Bible.
Always.
And that makes do a picture of God's grace coming down to us.
Since do came down from above, then it shows us that unless God's grace comes down from heaven, then we would surely perish.
Jesus said, I am the living bread which came down from heaven.
What does that tell us?
If God's grace doesn't come down from heaven, there is no life for man.
There is nothing we can do on earth.
There is no resource that we can mine on earth, can harvest from earth, can construct on earth that can deliver us from sin and death.
Absolutely none.
Hand can join in hand.
All the people can pitch in to the same salvation fund.
We can imagine and bring in the greatest scientist and thinkers that we have.
And there's no way that we can out think sin and death.
There's no way that we can do it.
The only salvation for the world is that which comes down from heaven.
God's grace coming down to sinful man and rescuing him from the certainty of sin and death that he's born into.
This morning we were reading in the Genesis of Jesus class, there in the book of Genesis where this man lived so many years, begat sons and daughters.
And in my Bible in the Old Testament, in that particular passage I have underlined what happens after that.
And he died.
And he died.
And he died.
And he died.
And every time we see that there in the Old Testament book of Genesis, you know what they're doing?
They're saying, this is why we're looking forward to the promised Savior.
Because we're all doomed to death.
Due is referred to as the due of heaven in the Bible.
It's a picture of God's grace coming down from heaven.
Genesis 27 verse 39.
Genesis 27 verse 39.
And Isaac his father answered and said unto him, Behold, of the fatness of the earth shall be thy dwelling and of the dew of heaven from above.
So due is a picture of God's grace coming down to earth bringing the manna that we may eat and live.
The manna was a picture of Jesus.
Jesus said in John 6, 48 through 50, John 6, 48 through 50, I am that bread of life.
Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness and are dead.
In other words, your fathers ate manna that came down from heaven in the dew and they're dead.
Now he's going to compare himself to that manna and that dew.
Verse 50, this pointing to himself, this is the bread which cometh down from heaven that a man may eat thereof and not die.
Jesus is the manna, God's grace is the due that brings it down to us.
The manna was a picture of Jesus and the due is what brought the manna.
So the due represents God's grace bringing us life through his son.
Titus chapter 2 verse 11 says this, For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men.
God didn't bring manna to the holy angels.
He brought manna to men, unholy men.
God's grace didn't bring salvation to the innocent.
It brought salvation to guilty people, in fact it brought it to all men, the Bible says.
Even so, God said that he would be as the due, look back in your text, unto Israel.
I will be as the due, now this should encourage your sinful hearts.
I will be as the due, to whom?
To the holy angels?
No.
To the most righteous people?
No.
I'll be as the due unto Israel.
Those undeserving people who had backslidden from him.
Those undeserving people who had left God and had went off to serve idols, who had forsaken their Lord.
God said I'm going to heal their backsliding, I'll be due to those people.
God didn't send manna to fat people eating at a buffet restaurant.
He sent manna to hungry people in a barren wilderness who would have died without it.
And that's who God sent Jesus for.
He sent him for sinners like me and you.
People who had no hope outside of Jesus coming down and giving his life for us.
If we had what it took to be saved, then God would have never sent his son down.
Jesus said he didn't come down to call righteous people but sinners to repentance.
He said that it's not the people who are well who need a doctor, it's the people who are sick.
And if God can save people who return to him after leaving him to serve false gods, then God can save anybody who will come to him through Jesus Christ.
Anybody.
Isaiah 55 verse 7.
Isaiah 55 verse 7 says this, God says this, "Let the wicked forsake his way."
So I'm too wicked for God to save me.
Well God says here, just forsake your way.
Forsake your road is what it means.
The road that you're on, get off that road and get on my road.
Get off your way, get on my way.
What's that way?
Jesus said I'm the way, the truth, the life.
No man comes in the Father but by me.
Forget, get off your road just like Cain.
Get off the road of Cain, the way of Cain and get on the way of Christ.
"Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord."
And what happens when he returns to the Lord?
"And he will have mercy upon him."
I don't care how far you've gone, I don't care what you've done.
If you'll forsake your thoughts, that means change your mind, that's what the Bible calls repent.
If you'll change your way of thinking and you'll come back to God, God will have mercy on you.
He says, "Returneth the Lord and he will have mercy upon him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon."
Not just barely pardon, abundantly pardon.
Not just let you exist but no, he'll be as the due to you.
Abundantly pardon.
God said he would be as the due to Israel and what's going to happen when he becomes the due to Israel?
And look back in your text in Hosea, "He shall grow."
He shall grow.
Meaning Israel having received the due of God would bud and flourish in God's grace.
That word grow there doesn't just mean to get taller, it means to break forth in bud like the flowers coming out.
It means to break forth in bud with those flowers and to bear fruit and to burst forth bearing those flowers.
So Israel having received the due of God would bud and flourish in the grace of God.
So how does God's grace coming down from heaven cause us to grow and to bud and to bear fruit?
Well God's grace and salvation is sent down through the doctrines of his word.
This is what God's referring to here.
God's grace, how did they get so dry and messed up to begin with?
By forsaking God's word.
And so God's going to be as the due to them.
And when God comes down as the due, he's going to nourish them with his doctrine, he's going to nourish them with his word.
Deuteronomy chapter 32.
Deuteronomy chapter 32 verse 2.
Watch what he says here.
Watch what God says.
My doctrine shall drop as the rain.
My speech shall distill.
Now that word distill here in the Hebrew, it means when that due comes down it lands on the plants and then it begins to collect and it starts trickling down those plants and going down to the roots.
That's what that word distill means.
It's coming and just trickling down to get into the roots.
My speech, God says, will distill as the due.
I'm going to speak my word.
I want to declare my doctrines to men.
And as I give my teaching, the Holy Spirit, the grace is going to send my teaching down.
That my teaching is going to fall upon my people.
And when they receive the teaching of my word, it's going to be like doing, it's going to distill, it's going to come down and get in their roots.
And when they feed on my word, they're going to burst forth and bear fruit.
Man, that's what we need.
Well, we don't need constitutional conservatism in our land.
We need Bible doctrine back in our land.
That's what distills as the due.
I don't look back to my founding fathers of the Constitution to give me hope.
I look back to the founding fathers of the apostles and prophets upon which the gospel of God's grace rests upon.
He says, "My doctrine shall drop as the rain.
My speech shall distill as the due, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass."
His doctrine.
God's doctrine, that means God's teachings, calls us to grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
When we drink in the pure doctrine of God's word, we are rooted in the gospel and we begin to grow.
How?
Look back in your text, how do we grow?
As the lily.
As the lily.
Brother Richard, why in the world would God say we begin to grow as the lily?
Why not grow as a mountain?
Grow up tall and big and strong.
Why not grow as a giant?
Why not grow like an elephant?
Why grow as the lily?
Man, are you ready to get blessed?
How does a lily grow?
What does a do do?
The do distills with God's doctrine.
It makes God's people grow.
It makes them grow like a lily.
So Brother Richard, how does a lily grow?
Well, how would you like for Jesus to sit down and just explain it to you?
Luke chapter 12, Luke chapter 12 verse 27.
Jesus says, "Consider the lilies how they grow."
Man, isn't this good?
We're going to learn how the lilies grow.
Here's how they grow.
Here's how they burst forth their flowers.
They toil not, they spin not.
Now look here, we're talking about clothing now.
You see the lilies, the flowers is considered the clothing of that grass, that herb.
And God says, now think about how these lilies grow.
Think about how they burst out those beautiful flowers.
Here's how they grow.
They don't toil.
It means there's no labor involved.
They don't spin.
They don't make their own clothing.
And you know what?
Do you know how we grow?
Do you know how we burst forth to become what God's created us to be?
Do you know how we get our clothing?
We don't toil and we don't spin for it.
Remember Adam and Eve, all this goes right back to Adam and Eve again.
We're always going back there.
They toiled and they spun their fig leaves.
God didn't accept that.
Because those fig leaves did not represent the Savior who was on His way.
So God did the work.
And God took innocent animals to dine their place.
And then God took the skins of those innocent animals and then clothed Adam and Eve with those skins.
The Bible says God clothed them.
He made coats of skins and clothed them.
God did the making.
God did the clothing.
They stood there, watched God do the work, and then God put the clothes on Him of the work He did.
And so now Jesus says, "You consider the lilies of the field how they grow.
They don't toil.
They don't spin."
And then He says, "Yet I say unto you that Solomon, King Solomon, in all his glory was not arrayed, was not clothed like one of these."
The best clothing is the clothing you don't work for and the clothing you don't make yourself.
That's what Jesus is saying.
Man, when we drink in so God says they'll grow like the lily.
How do the lilies grow?
They don't toil.
They don't spin.
But they are clothed in the glory of the work of God.
When we drink in the doctrine of the gospel of Jesus Christ, we grow like a lily that neither toils nor spins.
It is clothed in the whiteness of God's glory.
We drink in the gospel and without working, God dresses us in the beautiful, white, glorious garments of Jesus Christ.
Luke 12, verse 28, Jesus goes on to say, speaking of that lily, Jesus says, "If then God so clothe the grass," isn't that good?
"If God clothes the grass like that lily, which is today in the field and tomorrow cast into the oven," that means the incinerator, used like fuel, "how much more will He clothe you, O ye of little faith?"
Oh man, now there's a lesson for today.
God will put the clothes on us.
God will provide our clothing for the day.
There's a greater lesson of what Jesus is teaching.
God will clothe us for all eternity.
He clothed Adam, He clothed Eve, and in an innocent lamb that died for them, He'll clothe us the same way, an innocent lamb that died for us.
We'll be clothed in the glory of Jesus Christ.
Oh my!
If God clothes the grass, how much more will He clothe you?
That's why God is telling Israel, "You have been backslidden, you have run away from Me, you have run off and served false gods, but if you will only turn to Me, I will heal your backsliding, I will then become the dew as to you, and I'll make you grow up like a lily, and I'll clothe you just as I clothe the lilies."
God clothed Adam, God clothed Eve, God clothed the lilies, and God clothed sinners who told not, neither do they spend, for the work belongs to Jesus Christ.
And we rejoice in that work.
When a lily drinks in the dew, it grows to maturity, and blooms beautiful white flowers which represent God's glory, and now rejoicing.
The Hebrew word that the word lily is translated from, over and over again, the Hebrew root word that the word lily comes from, is translated over and over again as the word rejoice in the Bible.
Rejoice or rejoiceth, it's rejoice over and over again.
And when you get to the temple in the Old Testament, it's fascinating how all the Bible goes together.
When you get to the temple in the Old Testament, you've got these columns that support that temple.
And at the very top of those columns in the temple, God had them put lilies on the top of them.
And before they could ever get to that inside the temple, they had to come to the laver, the sea, where the priest would wash, make sure all the filth was off of them before they went in.
And that sea represented us being washed, all our sins are gone, we're clean.
And so, at the top of the pillar inside the temple was the lilies.
At the top, the very top of the laver where they washed, there was lilies at the top of each of them.
And so the lilies became like a crown where they washed, a crown where they labored, a crown where God's work was done.
Lilies, to remind us this, all of our washing and our cleanliness is because we're told not neither do we spend, it's all owed to the grace of God.
The very foundation of our faith, the pillars in the temple, the very foundation of our faith, that which makes our faith strong and stand and never fall, the promises of the covenant of God's word is not based on our working, our toiling, our spending, it's the lilies at the top of it all.
It's God's work for God's glory, put on God's people.
That's what is all based upon, it's all at the top, covering everything under it.
The crown of the pillars in the temple, and the crown of the laver of brass of the priest washed in, being adorned in lilies, reminds us that salvation is God's work placed on God's people, under God's glory.
Those who return to God grow as the lily, look back in your text, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon.
Cast forth his roots as Lebanon.
Now, Jesus said he is the lily of what?
The valley.
The valley is where that dew comes down, it's where the lilies grow.
The lilies are in the valleys.
Lebanon is a mountain.
Lebanon is a mountain.
Dew speaks of God's grace, lilies speak of God's work, placed on God's people, under God's glory.
Let me say that again, dew speaks of God's grace, lilies speak of God's work, placed on God's people, under God's glory.
Lebanon speaks of the endurance of that grace, of the endurance of that work, of the endurance of God's people because of it.
The trees of Lebanon, they shot their roots down into that mountain.
Now, you get trees down in the valley, where there's a lot of moisture.
You all people from East Texas, we have a lot of rain and you see the storms come through, you see what happens with those trees.
When you don't have a lot of rain, then the tree root, I mean when you have a lot of rain, when you have a lot of water as East Texas does, the tree roots don't go quite so deep.
And sometimes the storms will come over and you just be like a carpet of grass, you just see them fall over.
But up on the mountains, the trees on the mountains, they dig down their roots down into that rocky soil and they get them down into that rocky soil and they are there to endure in that mountain, rooted in a mountain.
I'd rather be rooted in a mountain instead of rooted in the valley, wouldn't you?
I'd much rather be rooted in a mountain.
And when you look at a mountain, God always shows His grace on a mountain.
It was a mountain God gave His law on.
It was a mountain God gave His word on that gave the law that provided the sacrifices for His people.
It was a mountain that God provided Isaac, a ram, to take his place and then Abraham said, "In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen."
God's grace.
And so Lebanon speaks of the endurance of God's grace, God's work and God's people.
The trees of Lebanon shot their roots down into the mountains of Lebanon and they stand strong in the mountain and shall not be moved.
The modern translation puts it this way, they will be firmly rooted like the trees of Lebanon.
Do you know if your faith is in the gospel of Jesus Christ, if your faith is based on God's promise to redeem His people through the sacrifice of His son, you are rooted like the trees in Lebanon.
I like that song, "I shall not be, I shall not be moved."
We are like lilies in the grace of Christ.
We are like Lebanon in the security of Christ.
Man, I don't want a white lily to represent my security, do you?
Not a lily, but a tree rooted in a mountain, I'll take that any day.
And so the lilies represent the grace of Christ.
The mountains of Lebanon represent the security of Christ.
And all of this will be Israel's and all of this will be yours and ours when we return to God and put our hope in His son.
Father we thank you so very much for your word.
Thank you for the endurance of your grace.
Thank you Father for the work of your grace.
Thank you Lord that you show us Lord in the Old Testament that Lord we grow by the dew that comes down from heaven.
And Father we are clothed by neither toiling nor spinning.
It's all the work of God and our Father clothes us by your grace.
Clothed by the dew, standing before our God in the righteousness of His son.
Thank you so very much and I pray if there is any here today or watching online who do not know Christ as their Savior that they will change their mind as your word says, put away their thoughts, embrace your truth and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
In His precious name we pray Father.
Amen.