Join us on a captivating journey through the eleventh chapter of Hosea as Dr. J. Vernon McGee unveils the profound message of God’s unfailing love and mercy. Witness how despite Israel’s persistent failures, God’s promise to heal and love freely never falters. Discover the overwhelming power of love as the driving force, even in the face of the world’s chaos and destruction. Through this exploration, be reminded that God’s appeal is strongest through love, an invitation open to all who are willing to listen.
00:18:41 God’s Unyielding Faithfulness and Promise
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The foundation, ye saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith.
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If you watch the news, then you’re well aware of the evil in our world. And if you believe the news commentators, you might even be tempted to think that evil is winning. But it’s not. And that’s the message Dr. J. Vernon McGee has for us in this concluding study of the book of Hosea. Welcome to Through the Bible. If you’ve hopped aboard the Bible bus to hear some very good news, here it is. God wins. God always wins. And that reminds me of the old hymn, This is My Father’s World, and it says, Though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet. I’m Steve Schwetz, inviting you to find your seat, open your copy of God’s Word to the Old Testament book of Hosea, and get ready to hear about God’s unfailing love and mercy. Hosea tells us that though Israel failed God over and over, God will heal their backsliding and love them freely. Now that’s amazing grace. Let’s thank him now. Father, thank you for the reminder that your amazing grace extends to us. Thank you that we can trust you, even when all we see is destruction in the world. Draw us closer to you through the teaching of your word. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen. We begin in Hosea 11, so turn there now as we go through the Bible with Dr. J. Vernon McGee.
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Now we’re coming to our study in Hosea, the 11th chapter. God says here in verse 1, when Israel was a child, then I loved him and called my son out of Egypt. And we dealt with that last time. This reveals something of how the word of God in statements in the Old Testament have application to the future, though not said directly about the nations. But Matthew applied it to the Lord Jesus because the Lord Jesus was identified with the nation. And when Israel was a child, and I loved him. And because God loved him, he took him out of Egypt, not because of his ability or his superiority. He had nothing like that. The explanation is I loved him. And God called my son out of Egypt. And that’s made application to Christ. And the Lord Jesus identified himself with his people. He had come to die. Now God calls him out of the place of safety to the place of danger, to move in on the arena of life where he’s to demonstrate the love of God by dying upon the cross to furnish a redemption that man might have a righteous basis on which his sins can be forgiven. Now, verse 2, “…as they called them, so they went from them.” They sacrificed unto Balaam and burned incense to carved images. But these people, they got in the land, and God had put the pagans out, the Canaanites out, the others out, because they worshipped Balaam. But these people now turned to Balaam and to carve images. Verse 3, I taught Ephraim also to go, taking them by their arms, but they knew not that I healed them. In other words, God would bless them in many different ways, thinking that would be a gentle way of leading them. Then he makes this remarkable statement, I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love. And I was to them as they that take off the yoke on their jaws, and I laid food before them. Now, God says, I did not force them to serve me. And God won’t force himself upon you today either, my friend. The great many people say, why doesn’t God break through today? And why doesn’t God do this? Well, I don’t know why God doesn’t do a lot of things. He just hadn’t told me, but he’s God. And I happen to be a little creature down here, and I lack a great deal of information. And I’m not able to answer. But I do know this, that God won’t force you. The only band he’ll put on you is love. That’s the only one. And he says, I don’t even put a yoke on you. I won’t put a bridle on you. I won’t push you. I won’t force you. The only appeal that I make to you is I love you. And my friend, that’s the appeal that he makes to you and to me today. God’s not going to force you. God’s not going to push you. He moved heaven and hell to get to the door of your heart. And he stopped there and politely knocked on the door and said, behold, I stand at the door and knock. That’s where he is. He’s never crashed the door. He’s not going to push himself in. You will have to respond to love. But the interesting thing is that’s been the strongest appeal. You remember the story that’s told about Napoleon. He made the statement one time. He said Charlemagne and Alexander the Great and other great generals, they have built up empires. And they built them on force. But Jesus Christ today has millions of people that die for him. And he built an empire on love. That’s his only appeal to you, friend. That’s his only appeal to you today. Don’t think he’ll use any other method. He’ll judge you, but he won’t draw you to himself except by love. But that’s the strongest appeal that can possibly be made. The band is a band of love. God won’t force you into anything. And then he says, he shall not return into the land of Egypt, but the Assyrians shall be his king because they refuse to return. Now, Israel was running down to Egypt to get help. And then he found out Egypt was his enemy. Then he ran up to Assyria to get help there. God says, I’m going to make Assyria his king. And that’s where he sent them into captivity. And the sword shall abide on his cities and shall consume his branches and devour them because of their own counsels. And my people are bent to backsliding. Now, here’s the second time the word backsliding occurs. Though they call him to the Most High, none at all would exalt him. Now, again, we said that it’s the figure of the heifer, the backsliding heifer. When I was a boy, we tried to push him up that runway into the old wagon and the little calf would stiffen his front feet and you’d get him up about halfway. Then he’d slip all the way back and you’d have to start all over again. And that’s what backsliding is. It’s just to refuse to listen to God, refuse to come to God. Now, verse 8, listen to this. This is a plaintive note. It looks as if God here is on the horns of a dilemma, as if he’s frustrated. Listen to him. How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? God doesn’t want to give them up. God loves them. But because of their sin, God must judge them. He says, how shall I deliver the Israel? And friends, God has no other way to save you except by the death of Christ. Now, you may have two or three different ways yourself, but God doesn’t have but one way. And since he says in this book, I’m the only savior. You better listen to him because you and I are not in the saving business. He is. He says, how shall I make thee as Adma? How shall I set thee as Zeboim? Now, those were cities down in the plain that God judged with Sodom and Gomorrah. God says, I hate to judge you like that. But friends, it’s just as desolate in Samaria today as it is along the Dead Sea. God had to judge them. Because he says, “…mine heart is turned within me, and my compassions are kindled together. I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger.” In other words, they didn’t get half what was coming to them. Why? Because God says, “…I will not return to destroy Ephraim.” And God intends to redeem them and put these people back in that land someday. Now, their present return is not the fulfillment of that at all. Don’t blame God for what’s happening over there today. But God will do it. And why will he do it? Well, for one reason, for I’m God and not man, the Holy One in the midst of thee, and I’ll not enter into the city. Now, there’s something else we need to learn today. We feel like that since we live in a democracy and we’re being told today, I don’t think it’s very meaningful, that we are the people and that our government exists for us and they do what we want them to do. And our decision is the one. God says, I’d like for you to know something. I’m the sovereign God. I’m not accountable to anyone. I do not have a board of directors and nobody elected me to office and I do what I please. And I want to say this with a great deal of force to you today, friends. If you don’t like what God’s doing today, it’s too bad for you because God’s going to do it. He’s not accountable to you. Somebody says, oh, why does God do this? I don’t know. There are a lot of things God does I don’t understand. But he’s God. And he’s sure not accountable to Vernon McGee. He doesn’t come down and hand in a report to me. Hear it through the Bible. They give me reports. But God doesn’t give me a report. Why? Because he’s God. He doesn’t have to report to me. Listen to him now. They shall walk after the Lord. He shall roar like a lion. When he shall roar, then the children shall tremble from the west. God intends to judge, my friend. The judgment of the nations of the West. We happen to be in the West from Israel. “…they shall tremble like a bird out of Egypt, and like a dove out of the land of Assyria. And I will place them in their houses, saith the Lord. Ephraim encompasseth me about with lies, and the house of Israel with deceit. But Judah yet ruleth with God, and is faithful with the saints.” They still had a few good kings in the southern kingdom, but none in the northern kingdom. They made a profession and they were using lies and deceit. Friends, you can fool everybody today. Abraham Lincoln made the statement, everybody believes it because good old Abe said it, that you can fool some of the people all the time, all the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time. He didn’t live in the day of TV and brainwashing. You can fool all the people today all the time, by the way. We’ve never lived in such a day of brainwashing. But you want to know something? Nobody’s fooling God today. He knows. And he’ll judge someday according to truth. Now, he says here in chapter 12, Ephraim feedeth on wind and falleth after the east wind. Now, that refers to an east wind that comes out over that burning place. Arabian desert blows through that land, friends, and you think that you’ve already landed in the wrong place when you’re there, when that wind begins to blow. And God says, I intend to let the Assyrians come through that land like that. And then he goes on to say, chapter 12, now verse 2, the Lord hath also a controversy with Judah and will punish Jacob according to his ways, according to his doings will he recompense him. Now he took his brother by the heel and the womb and by his strength he had power with God. That has been something that has always been questioned of why God put it in his word that Jacob took hold of his brother Esau’s heel. Isn’t it interesting today that medicine and psychology have said that probably the most important period of a man’s life is when he’s in the womb and that even their character is being formed as well as a human body. And this little fellow began to reveal something that was there. He wanted to be the firstborn. Esau beat him out and he was the firstborn. This boy wanted to be the firstborn. I don’t know how to explain it other than that, my friend, that it was in his heart from the very beginning. And he wrestled at his birth. But God had to wrestle with him later on at Peniel in order that he might lay hold to this man and get him and be able to bless him. Yet he had power over the angel and prevail. How did he? Was he a better wrestler? Would he appear on TV today as an outstanding wrestler? No, Jacob wasn’t much of a wrestler. He had his ears pinned back and his shoulders pinned to the mat. God had him down, but he won. You know how he won? By surrendering. And you can fight God all you want to, but you’ll never win until you surrender to him. Even the Lord God of hosts, the Lord is his memorial. I haven’t time to go in that, but that’s a marvelous statement, by the way, that we have there. Therefore turn thou to thy God, keep mercy and justice and wait on thy God continually. You see, the name Jehovah, the Lord, is a name God gave to them as a memorial. He says, you’ll always know me by my name. I’m Jehovah. The self-existing one, the living God, doesn’t need an image or an altar, doesn’t even need man at all. Now he says here, therefore turn thou to thy God. Keep mercy and justice and wait on thy God continually. In other words, these people needed to practice what they preach. The interesting thing is this worship of Satan today And that’s giving over to homosexuality today. It’s leading to the basest of crimes. You see, only by coming to the living God can mercy and justice and waiting upon God continually. They go together. He’s a merchant. The balances of deceit are in his hand. He loveth to oppress. Dishonest in business. And that is not something that God approves either, by the way. And Ephraim said, yet I am become rich. I have found substance in all my labors. They shall find no iniquity in me that is sin. In other words, he’s able to buy off. He’d made his money dishonestly, and he thought he was being blessed to God. And I that am the Lord thy God from the land of Egypt will yet make thee to dwell in tabernacles as in the days of the solemn feast. God says, I’m not through with you. I’ll not give you up. Now, let me drop down to verse 14. I’ll pick up verse 11 on the way down. Is there iniquity in Gilead? Surely there vanity. Now, Gilead is the place where there should be a bomb, a Gilead to heal the wound. But Gilead now is a place of sin. And you’ll notice now, as I drop down to verse 14, Ephraim provoked him to anger most bitterly. Therefore shall he leave his blood upon him, and his reproach shall his Lord return unto him. Now, as we come to chapter 13, and I’m moving hurriedly now, friends, I would like to finish this today if possible. Now, Israel will be judged in the present. That is this chapter. The next chapter, 14, Israel will be saved in the future. God’s not through with them, though today they are scattered. Now, verse 1 of chapter 13, when Ephraim spoke trembling, he exalted himself in Israel. But when he offended in Baal, he died. In other words, when he served the living God, God exalted him. But when he began the worship of Baal, he died. And my friend, not only did he die and was put out of the land, but the land died. And I don’t think that it’s come back today. For instance, I felt that Samaria and those cities up through there that are in ruins today are the most desolate that you’ll find anywhere on topside of the earth today. Verse 2, “…and now they sin more and more, and have made them melted, and cast images of their silver and idols according to their own understanding, all of it the work of the craftsman. They say of him, Let the man that sacrificed kiss the calves.” And that’s a form of worship. They were going up actually and kissing these golden calves. Great many people today think if they kiss an image or kiss a ground. And I was in Israel at the garden tomb and some lady came in there. She was in our tour, by the way. And that’s when you could get into where the grave was actually, where if that was the place Christ was placed, that would be it. And she got down on her hands and knees and started kissing the place. I got her by the arm and told her, I said, you get up. I said, woman, don’t you know how many germs there are in this land? And we’re told not even to drink the water here. And you’re down there in the dirt. Oh, she said, this is a holy place. And it’s where my Lord was buried. I said, that doesn’t make any difference. He’s not here today. He’s the living Christ at God’s right hand. And you can’t kiss him today, but you can worship him and praise him. Cut out all of this nonsense. It’s nonsense to go through that kind of worship as if you’re worshiping the living and true God. You worship him, my friend, in the life that you live. You worship him in the way you conduct your business and carry on your social life and the way you run your home and the way that you act out on the street, not in the sanctuary. We today have made a distinction between the sanctuary and the street, and there’s no difference in God’s sight at all. Verse 4, Yet I am the Lord thy God from the land of Egypt, and thou shalt have no God but me, for there is no Savior beside me. Listen to him, friends. You may work out a plan of salvation, but he is the only Savior. And since he is, you better come his way. The Lord Jesus said, I’m the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father but by me. Now, that’s either true or it’s not true. Millions have been coming that way. They found it true. And you may have your way of salvation, but God is the only Savior. And he’s the only one that can give you a plan of salvation. He’s the only one that can work it out. Now, God says, I’ve been your God from the day that I brought you out of Egypt. I’m not about to give you up, but I’m going to judge you. I did know thee in the wilderness, in the land of great drought. Now, verse 7, therefore, I’ll be unto them like a lion, like a leopard. By the way, will I observe them? I will meet them like a bear. I don’t like to spiritualize prophecy, but here is something that’s interesting. The lion was the picture of Babylon. The leopard was the picture of Greece, of Alexander the Great. And the bear is the picture of the Medo-Persian Empire. God says, I’m going to come to you like a lion. He scattered them under Babylon and Medo-Persia. They were scattered throughout the world. And the same thing by the bear, if you please. God says, I’m going to judge you, but I’m not through with you. I’m going to restore you. Now he says here in verse 9, O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself, but in me is thine help. Friends, today we even blame God for what happens to us. If you feel like God’s to blame, here’s a good verse for you. You destroyed yourself. You’re responsible for your condition. You get help from God. He will furnish help to you. Now, he goes on in verse 11, saying, “…I gave thee a king in mine anger.” And that was Saul, and I took him away in my wrath, and he took Hosea away from the northern kingdom. The last one, he took Zedekiah in the southern kingdom, and he did it in his wrath. Judgment. Judgment at the beginning, judgment at the end. In other words, he makes it clear, as he says in verse 16 here, Samaria shall become desolate. I’ve been there. I agree with God. It’s a desolate place today. Now, the last chapter, chapter 14, here’s a very wonderful chapter, by the way. Israel will be saved in the future. Listen to him. O Israel, return unto the Lord thy God, for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity. It’s your sin that’s caused you to go into captivity. Now, he says in verse 3, Assyria shall not save us. “…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 findeth mercy.” Imagine making something with your hand and falling down and worshiping it. Many men today worship their own ability. worship their brain, their intellect. They worship what they are doing today, what they’re able to do. You’re nothing in the world but a pagan and heathen when you do that. Now he says here in verse 4, I will heal their backsliding. They’ve been backsliding, slipping away from me. But God says, I’m going to heal them. I will love them freely for mine anger is turned away from them. Now, I drop down to verse 8. One of the most wonderful verses, I think, in the Bible. Listen to this. This is a victory song. Ephraim shall say, that’s future, what have I to do anymore with idols? I have heard him and observed him. I’m like a green fir tree. From me is thy fruit found. God’s finally going to win. Love is going to win. You see, he says to Ephraim, how shall I give you up? He said, oh, Ephraim, let him alone. He’s turned to his idols. But there’s a day coming. When he’s going to see that he’s made a great blunden mistake and he’ll turn back to me and he’s going to say, I don’t have anything more to do with idols. I can’t help but believe in this tragedy of sin, this drama of human life that’s being enacted down here in this world today, that God’s going to come out of it the victor. I believe that there’ll be more people saved than there will be lost. That was the belief of Spurgeon. He’d say that many times. You and I have our nose pressed against the present hour. And you look around at the world today, and it’s just that little flock the Lord Jesus talked about. That’s what he’s calling out of the world. But in the past, he saved Nineveh, the entire population at one time. A hundred years later, they had reverted to sin, and he judged them. And they’ve been great. revival movements of the past. But in the future, the greatest turning to God is to take place. And of all times, it’s during the great tribulation period. And the millennium is going to be a period of salvation. By the way, that’s one of the things that’s going to make it the millennium. God’s going to win. Love will triumph. Our God is riding victoriously in his own chariot. He’s the sovereign God. And God pity the man that gets under those chariot wheels. I don’t know about you. I’m like Philip out yonder. I’m hitchhiking a ride with him today. I want to go along with God. That’s the reason we invite you to get aboard the Bible bus, because we’re going through his word here to find out how to stay in the will of God in this difficult day in which we’re living. Until next time, may God richly bless you, my beloved.
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Did you hear that good news? We have help in time of trouble. We have hope when we go through difficult days. You know, God’s word is full of hope. It’s full of encouragement and wisdom and instruction. And God knows exactly what you need. If you’d like to share these life-changing messages with someone special, they’re available anytime on our app or at ttb.org. And if you want to help others hop on the Bible bus too, give us a call at 1-800-65-BIBLE to receive a free 10-pack of Bible bus passes to hand out to friends or people you encounter in your everyday life. Join me next time for another exciting adventure through God’s Word. I’m Steve Sweats, praying that God blesses you as you walk with Him.
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Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain, he washed it white as snow.
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Today’s study with Dr. J. Vernon McGee is brought to you by Through the Bible, and it’s made possible by the generous prayer and financial investments from listeners like you on the Bible bus all over the world.
