Thru the Bible

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You've heard me say it before, there's no pain quite like family pain.

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Nothing cuts deeper than the heartache that we feel when it involves those that we love the most. Well, in this Sunday sermon on Through the Bible, Dr. J. Vernon McGee addresses this tender topic, the tragedy of broken families and the path to healing. I'm your host, Steve Schwetz, and we're in the book of Hosea, which, as you may know, is a picture of God's love for a broken family. Now, typically, if what happened to Hosea happened in our own families, we'd just as soon bury it and push it aside or cover it up. But, you know, God brings our needs out into the open, doesn't he? He'd rather that we pull it out and face it and give him a chance to heal it. That's when the Lord does for us what we can't do for ourselves. And that's exactly what a listener named Vijaya in India shared with us. We were a happy family of four, he writes. I used to think there was no need to seek God when everything was going well. However, my perspective changed when I faced health issues. Unable to work, problems arose in my family life as financial difficulties strained our relationships. Later, my wife and children couldn't bear it anymore, and I found myself homeless. I contemplated taking my own life several times, though I could never go through with it. Now, at my sister's house, I don't know what my future holds, and I am weighed down by stress and loneliness. Recently I came across your program, and my perspective changed. The isolation I felt started to dissipate. I felt compelled to watch it more and learn about Jesus. I have now poured out my sorrows to Him in prayer, and now my mind is at peace. The suicidal thoughts have vanished completely. I believe God will transform the hearts of my family just as he transformed mine, and I pray for that. Wow, what a faith testimony. Isn't that an encouragement? Here's another one, also from India. My family had given up on me. I was drinking and gambling away all my earnings. The only time I spent at home was to argue with those I love. One day, my wife was listening to your program and I started to linger around the house just to listen. Before long, I stopped drinking and gambling. I stopped yelling. My family noticed and began talking to me again. God has performed a miracle in my heart and in my family. I have left behind my bad habits and my family has forgiven me. I'm so grateful that the Lord and my wife gave me a second chance. Well, amen. We can all be grateful for second chances, can't we? Let's pray. Father, we are your children. And just like your children, time and again, we run to you for protection and for love and provision and comfort. Thank you for every good gift you give us. Thank you for disciplining us and for the home that you prepare for us in your presence. Thank you for your tenderness in teaching us from your word. In your son Jesus' precious name, amen. Here's our Sunday sermon titled, The Greatest Sin in All the World on Through the Bible with Dr. J. Vernon McGee.

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The accusation is sometimes made that the present-day pulpit is weak and uncertain. Likewise it's charged that instead of being a voice in the wilderness today, the modern pulpit has settled down comfortably to become just a sounding board for the whims and wishes of a comfortable and indifferent people who have itching ears. If the charge is true, and it's likely that it is, then it's because the pulpit is reluctant to grapple with the great issues of life. This hesitancy, I think, is born of a desire to escape criticism. It's a dread of becoming offensive to the finer sensibilities. More often, I think it's a cowardly fear of are facing the raw realities of life and wrestle with this Leviathan of living issues today. The pulpit today quotes poetry and sprinkles rose water. It lives in a land of make-believe instead of saying to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved. The theater today, the movie, and All other agencies of communication, they deal with life stripped of all of its niceties. These instruments for reaching and teaching the masses take the gloves off, and they wade into the problems that we face daily. But not so the pulpit. The pulpit has avoided these issues. As we come this morning to the prophecy of Hosea, we cannot avoid dealing with the problems and issues of life. For there is a story that's back of the headlines in the prophecy of Hosea. It's not a pretty story. But we must understand it if we're to understand the message of Hosea. And that story which is back of the prophecy of Hosea is the tragedy of a broken home. You have in this book the personal experience of Hosea. And that is the background of his message. He walks out of a broken home. to speak to the nation from a heart that is breaking. He knew exactly how God felt because he felt the same way. Now, the home is the rock foundation of society and always has been of any people. God has given it to mankind regardless of who they are and where they are. He gave it at the very beginning. It's the most important unit in the social structure. It is to society what the atom is to this universe. We're told today that the little lowly atom is the building block of the universe. Well, the home today is the building block of society. And a building... is known by the bricks that go in it. The color of the building is determined by the individual bricks. The character of the building is determined by the character of the bricks that go into it. And no nation is any stronger today than the homes that make it up. For the home determines the color and complexion of society. It's the home today that reveals the strength of any nation or any people. The home is the chain of a nation that holds it together, and up and down this land of ours, down the streets and the boulevards, there are the links in this chain, and the chain runs on out into the highways and byways of life. And no chain is any stronger than the links that make it up. Those individual links are important. And so, my beloved, the home is the place that's the very bedrock foundation of any society. And it's the foundation, if you please, of the church. The home is where we live and move and have our being. It's in the home where we are ourselves. Oh, we dress up physically and psychologically when we go out. We put up quite a front sometimes when we go through our front door and move out upon the street. But it's within the walls of the home that we take off our masks and we are really ourselves. Because of the strategic position of the home, God has thrown about it certain safeguards to protect it. God has put around the home certain marks, certain tremendous safeguards, certain protection, certain bulwarks in order that he might protect that which is so important. Well, back of the home, God has moved and had a great deal to say about that which is the bulwark of the home, marriage. God has given more attention to the institution of marriage than he has to any other institution that's in this world. Society never made marriage. Society found marriage. God made marriage. He gave it to mankind. And marriage rests upon his direct word. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. God performed the first marriage ceremony. He gave the first bride away. He blessed the first couple. Marriage is more than just a legal contract. It's more than an economic arrangement. It's more than a union of just those with mutual love. It's an act of God, if you please. It rests upon his fire command. There are many young people today that think all that you need to get married is to get a license and a preacher, and then you've got it made. My beloved, if you're going to have a successful marriage, you have to have God. And God will have to make it. Otherwise, that marriage must go on the rocks. God has given a drive to the race to reproduce in the framework of marriage. And that's what makes the home. He said, the twain shall be one flesh, and before man walked out of the garden of Eden, God gave him this institution, and besides the skins that Adam and Eve had on, the only thing they had was a marriage certificate from God. That's all. That's the only institution that came out of the garden of Eden. Marriage is a sacred relationship. It's a holy union. Remember Paul said, he sinneth not, let them marry. The New Testament, I think, sums up the mind of God when it says, marriage is honorable in all. Therefore, my beloved, marriage cannot be broken by just some little legal act. It can't be broken by fit of temper. It can't be broken by self-will. I personally believe there are only two acts which break marriage. I mean real marriage now. The first act is death, of course. That automatically severs the relationship. The second is unfaithfulness. And that's unfaithfulness on the part either of the man or the woman. That rips the relationship in two. And the one that's guilty of adultery was in the Old Testament to be dealt with in one of the harshest manners that's imaginable. I wonder if you've ever noticed that. I want you to notice first Leviticus, the 20th chapter, the 10th verse and the importance that God placed upon it. And the man that committed adultery with another man's wife Even he that committeth adultery with his neighbor's wife, the adulterer, and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. And then in Deuteronomy, the 22nd chapter, the 20th and 21st verses, Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die, because she hath wrought folly in Israel to play the whore in her father's house. So shalt thou put evil away from among you. Now, there are two words I think that we should say here by way of explanation and amplification. The first is that there are a lot of zealous Christians today that go over to Romans 7, 2. And they take that entirely out of context. Let me read it to you. For the woman which hath a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he liveth. But if the husband be dead, she's loosed from the law of her husband. And they come up and say, well, you see, as long as the husband lives, then there's never grounds for remarriage. You must put yourself back under law. And you must remember that under law, the unfaithful member of a marriage wasn't alive. He was out somewhere pushing up daisies through some rocks in a rock pile. You see, if that was enforced in Southern California today, we couldn't have freeways because there wouldn't be room for them. You couldn't get around the rock piles. in Southern California. You see, the guilty party in the Old Testament was stoned to death, so there was no living one left. But today we don't do that. And so there's a different arrangement today. I'm not sure what Paul, under unfaithfulness in 1 Corinthians 7, between a believer and unbeliever, makes unfaithfulness one that walks out upon the believer. Then will you notice that there's something else that needs a little amplification here? We judge from the passage I read in Deuteronomy. It says, if the damsel is guilty and she and so on, and someone says, why in the world is the woman picked on? Isn't the man guilty? Yes, my beloved, but there are two things that you need to bear in mind. One is, that the word use is always the generic term. It's anthropos in the Greek, which means man is mankind, and it does not have respect to sex, but means either man or woman. We have that same thing in legal terminology today. I've noticed some contracts where it says if the party of the first part, if he does something, if he promises, if he agrees, well, sometimes he is she, but before the law, she is he. And that's the way the law looks at it. So that's the way the term is used here. It means either one. And then you must remember that these are pictures in the Old Testament of Christ and the church, and he's never guilty, but the church is. And so when you carry that figure over, I think that you can understand and see that. Well, may I say to you, that does not mean... that there isn't a difference. I do not think that Scripture teaches a double standard, but I do think it teaches a different standard. And if you don't believe that today we have that, you go to the department store. You can't buy men's clothes in the women's department. They make a distinction. Anywhere you turn today in life, there's that distinction made. And the Scripture makes that distinction. I personally think a woman is finer than a man. I think God made her finer than a man. I take my watch to one repairman. I take my car to another because they're different. A woman's different than a man. She's made finer than a man. I've seen children, and you have, overcome the handicap of a ne'er-do-well father. but I've never yet seen children overcome the handicap of a bad mother. Mother's the center of the home. I heard some time ago of a woman who was asked to take an office in a church. She refused to do it, and she gave us a reason. She says, I'm a missionary to the nursery, and there are three pairs of eyes that are watching me, and I want to direct them to God. May I say to you that God's put woman in the home, made her all important in that place. I think that I can make this clear by quoting to you the definition of what is a girl by Alan Beck. I think this is one of the loveliest things that's ever been composed. Will you listen to this? Little girls are the nicest things that happen to people. They are born with a little bit of angel shine about them, and though it wears thin sometimes, there's always enough left to lasso your heart, even when they're sitting in the mud or crying temperamental tears or prating up the street in mother's best clothes. A little girl can be sweeter and badder oftener than anyone else in the world. She can jitter around and stomp and make funny noises and frazzle your nerves. Yet just when you open your mouth, she stands there demure with that special look in her eyes. A girl is innocence playing in the mud, beauty standing on its head, and motherhood dragging a doll by the foot. God borrows from many creatures to make a little girl. He uses the song of a bird, the squeal of a pig, the stubbornness of a mule, the antics of a monkey, the spryness of a grasshopper, the curiosity of a cat, the slyness of a fox, the softness of a kitten. And to top it off, he adds the mysterious mind of a woman. A little girl likes new shoes, party dresses, small animals, dolls, make-believe, ice cream, makeup, going visiting, tea parties, and one boy. She doesn't care so much for visitors, boys in general, large dogs, hand-me-downs, straight chairs, vegetables, snowsuits, or staying in a front yard. She's loudest when you're thinking, prettiest when she's provoked you, busiest at bedtime, quietest when you want to show her off, and most flirtatious when she absolutely must not get the best of you again. She can muss up your home, your hair, your dignity, spend your money, your time, and your temper. Then just when your patience is ready to crack, her sunshine peeks through and you're lost again. Yes, she's a nerve-wracking nuisance, just a noisy bundle of mischief. But when your dreams tumble down and the world is a mess, when it seems you're pretty much of a fool after all, she can make you a king when she climbs on your knee and whispers, I love you best of all. My beloved, the prophecy of Hosea is the story of a broken home. It's a story of that which must be contrasted with God's ideal of marriage and of womanhood. That's its message. May I say to you that this is the way God tells his story. Now we're prepared to look at the story that's here in Hosea. In the hill country of Ephraim, in one of the many little towns there, a little town that's not on the maps of this world, there lived two young people. One was a boy by the name of Hosea. The other was a girl by the name of Gomer. They fell in love. Same old story. It's been repeated thousands and thousands and millions of times. I don't think it's stretching the imagination to say that they fell madly in love with each other. And then for some unaccountable reason, Goma went bad. She resorted even to the oldest profession that's known to mankind. Goma... had done the things she should not have done, and Hosea was brokenhearted. Shame filled his soul, and he had recourse to the Mosaic law, and he could have taken her before the elders of the city and had her stoned to death. Does that remind you of another story that took place 700 years later in that same hill country when a man by the name of Joseph was engaged to a girl by the name of Mary? The only thing is Joseph was wrong and the angel had to appear to him. This man Hosea was right for Gomer was guilty. And it's at this particular juncture that the book of Hosea opens. Will you listen now to the second verse of the first chapter, the beginning of the word of the Lord by Hosea. And the Lord said to Hosea, Go take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms, for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the Lord. Now, there have been those today that have made the statement that what you have here is nothing in the world but an allegory, that this really never happened. May I say that such trifling as that with the Word of God waters it down till it becomes a harmless sort of thing and meaningless, and it's sickening. May I say to you that this is something that actually happened. Let's face it. God commanded this man, Hosea, to break the Mosaic law and go marry this woman. He said, you go get her and marry. The law said stone her, God said marry her. The thing God commanded this man, Hosea, to do must have caused him to revolt in every fiber of his being. But this man Hosea did not demur. He obeyed God wholly and completely and explicitly, and he went and took Gomer in holy wedlock. He gave her his name, and she came into his home and listened to the apostle Paul as he speaks of this. What? Know ye not that he which is joined to a harlot is one body? For to Seth he shall be one flesh. And my friend, in that little town, The tempo of gossip was really picked up. Oh, I tell you, that home of Hosea became a desert island in a sea of criticism. It was an isolation ward. of local society. A case of leprosy in the home would not have broken off contact any more effectively than this thing that had happened. Imagine this man marrying this woman. Children were born into the home. Three of them were born. Let me tell you there's meaning here. Jezreel was the name of the first one. It means God will scatter and God will avenge. The reference, as God told Hosea, was directly to the house of Jehu, who had carried out God's instructions in destroying the house of Ahab, but he'd done it in hatred, and he'd done it with great personal vengeance. And God says, I'll judge. But then he says, I will scatter Israel, but there's going to be mercy even in my judgment. That's the first child. The second child was named, she was a girl, Lo-Ruhamah, and it means she never knew a father's pity. Now, that doesn't mean she was an orphan. It means she didn't know who her father was. This woman has started to go bad again. God is saying to these people in Hosea's day, the northern kingdom that now has gone into idolatry, you will not know my pity for I'm not your father. And that brings us to the last child. What a story is here. Lo, Ami was the name of the last boy. It means not my people. If you want to put it in the singular, it's not my child. Hosea said, I didn't know about the second one, but I do know about the third one. I'm not the father, not my child. What a message. What a message to that day and what a message to this day. The liberal today says, everybody's the son of God. God says, you're wrong. I have no illegitimate children. I know who my children are. You think my children are the offspring Of this kind of a union? Absolutely not. You are only my child through faith in Jesus Christ. And it was the Lord Jesus that said to these in his day, who said, we are sons of Abraham. He said, you are of your father, the devil. You could make no claim of being God's child. My friend this morning, are you low on me? Are you God's child today? Are you just an illegitimate child? You're just saying something that's not true. You become a child of God. To as many as received him, that is the Lord Jesus, to them gave he the right, the authority to become the sons of God, even to those that don't do any more nor less than believe on his name. This is a sad story, is it not? And to cap it all, Gomer left home. She ran away. Now I'm confident that you're willing to say, well, certainly God's going to say to this man now, you've done all you can, Hosea. You tried to reform the woman, and it didn't do any good. She's returned back to her old life of becoming a common prostitute. Take the children and leave her. God says, go get her. Hosea went after her, and she wouldn't come back. God says, send the children. And these three children went after her, and she still wouldn't come back. And as women did in that day, they sold themselves into slavery. And this man, Hosea, went and bought her and brought her back. Oh, my beloved, what a picture of a Savior today. He created us, and we belong to him. And then we're guilty of going off and giving our love and our affection, our time to the sin of the world. And in the midst of that, when we were yet sinners, he came down and bought us with a price in our ugly condition that he might make us his legitimate children. What love. And so it was at this particular juncture when she came back, that the message goes out from Hosea. I wish this morning I could say that when she came back that she became a faithful wife. I can't. I do not know. The book leaves us in doubt. But I do know this. This man stepped out of a home scarred by shame. This man went before a nation with a heart that was breaking. This man had a message that had fire in it. He stood before this nation with a broken heart, and he had a sorrow that was intolerable. Scalding tears were coursing down his cheek, and he denounced the nation Israel, and he says, you have been faithless to God. I know how God feels. I feel the same way. You've broken the heart of God. What a picture. He denounced the nation. He declared a verdict of guilty for the crime of all crimes. He said simply, but he said it specifically, that this sin was as black as it could be and that God would punish. He said this nation that had known God, this nation that God had redeemed out of Egypt, This nation that he could say, you have seen what I did to the Egyptians. How I bore you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself. And they turned right around and make a golden calf. And they hadn't learned their lesson after that experience. For at this very moment in the northern kingdom, two golden calves had been made. And the people had turned from the living and true God. God says, you've been unfaithful. You are playing the harlot. You turn from me. You belong to me. I have redeemed you. And you've sinned. This sin is the worst sin in the world. Oh, I know that there are folks that will say this morning, I think unbelief is the greatest sin ever. May I say to you that in one sense, unbelief is the greatest sin. If there's any sin unpardonable, it's unbelief. But it's not an act. It's a state, and we're all born in it. Rebellion against God, we're in that. But thank God it's pardonable. Christ died that when you and I will exercise faith, faith in Jesus Christ, then he'll save us. And this sin is pardonable. But unbelief is a terrible thing, and to go on in unbelief, there is no remedy, for it is. The remedy is to trust Christ. And when we continue on in unbelief, we've rejected the remedy. Then there are those that will tell you today that the greatest sin in the world is sin against light. Well, this is coming close to it. I'll be perfectly frank with you. I do not think today that there's anything quite so bad as sinning against light. I make this statement periodically. Let me repeat it. I would 10,000 times rather be in the darkest part of Africa this morning than to be sitting in the church and turn my back on Jesus Christ. No one can argue from the word of God what will happen to the man who sins against light. That's a great sin to have heard the gospel, and it's not a personal. We'll be able to go out of here this morning and go into the presence of Jesus Christ and say you never heard that he died for you and that you're to trust him to be saved. You'll never be able to. There are people that are able to go into his presence and say that, but that's not the greatest sin. What is the greatest sin in all the world? The greatest sin in all the world is sin against love. This is sin that's worse. You can't get any worse than this. This is the greatest of all. And that, my friend, is the message of Hosea. Goma was not only guilty of breaking the marriage vow, that's bad enough, but she sinned against the one who loved her. It's sin at its worst. May I say to you today, to sin against God today and a Savior that loves you is worse than the animism and the animalism of the heathen world today. May I say to you, the sin today of paganism is nothing compared to the sin of those that sin against love. It's deeper and it's darker than the immorality of the underworld and the demonism of the overworld. Hosea knew what sin was and he knew what love was. And sin against love aggravates sin. Israel knew the love of God as no nation did. You alone, God said, if I known of the nations of the world, you alone if I reveal this, you've sinned. But thank God, he's going to triumph. May I just lift out in closing three verses out of Hosea that tell God's story. The first is, Hosea 4, 17, Ephraim is joined to idols, let him alone. Ephraim is Israel. That's the charge, spiritual adultery. Then notice, though, all the great pulsating passion of an infinite God. How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? How shall I deliver thee, Israel? God says, I can't give you up. I love you too much. And that's the reason he sent Hosea back to get that woman the second and the third time. He said, Hosea, you'll have to know how I feel. Go at Israel. And then the third and the last is Hosea 14, 8. Ephraim shall say, what have I do anymore with idols? I've heard him and observed him. I'm like a green fir tree. For me is thy fruit found. That's the victory. God's going to get the victory, my beloved. There is a day when Israel will turn from idols back to God. And that's my reason for believing that maybe Goma did turn and become a good wife and a good mother. I do not know. But I do know this, God is going to triumph. And the picture is the picture of the nation Israel. Somebody says, but does it have any application to us today? Yes. Does this shocking description of spiritually adultery, does it fit the church today? Well, the church is called the bride of Christ. Paul said to the Corinthians, I have a spouse. that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. The church is to be presented to the Lord Jesus Christ as a bride. Listen. Even to the church in Ephesus, the Lord Jesus Christ says, I have something against you. Now he says, I know your works and I know your labor. And I know that you can't bear those with false doctrines. But I have this against you. You have left your first love. My friend, it's not enough this morning to be busy for Christ. It's not enough to be active today for Christ. And it's not enough to be just fundamental. Those things are important and they have their place. But the important thing is, have you left your first love? Do you love him today? Hosea means salvation. It's the same word as Joshua, and Joshua is the same word as Jesus in the New Testament. Our Hosea today is joined to a spiritual harlot. Picture that is given in Revelation 17. It's the most frightful picture in the Bible. It's a picture of a church called the Great Harlot, Mystery Bible. That's the way the organized church is going today. Oh, how many this morning are covering up their frustration, their lack of spiritual experience today, the reality by just being busy. It's merely a Nothing in the world but just nervous agitation. Down underneath they cannot say, I love him, I'm true to him. With hot tears today he accuses the church of being lukewarm. God pity the man married to a lukewarm woman. God pity our savior today joined to a church that's just lukewarm. All that he said, I wish you were hotter cold. I wish you were in love with me. I wish you did care for me above everything. That's what he said. Let me be very personal this morning. How about you? Has there come between the Savior this morning and your soul a cloud? It'll shut you away from him, I'll tell you that. Spurgeon was crossing the street one day, and he stopped and had prayer, and when he got to the other side, a friend said to him, what in the world did you do praying in the middle of the street? He said, a cloud came between my soul and Christ, and I couldn't let it stay there even until I got to the other side of the street. How about you today? He says this morning, as he said yonder by the sea of Galilee, lovest thou me. That's all important. May I say that it's so important today that he is saying here in his love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation, the mercy seat, for our sins. And if you were here this morning without Christ, don't take any comfort from this message because you can walk out of here turning your back on a Savior that just simply said, God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. When you reject Jesus Christ today, you're not just doing something that's bad. You're not just turning away in unbelief. My friend, you're committing the greatest sin of all. You're turning away from a God who loves you and died for you. There's no sin like that.

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Let me repeat what Dr. McGee said, because it's so important. The greatest sin is turning away from a God who loves you and died for you. If you listened to this whole message, or maybe you jumped in at the end, regardless, you've heard about our loving God who reaches out to you right now. His word says it best. In 1 John 4, 10, we find, "'In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.'" And then John 3.16 says, For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. I never tire of those verses, and I imagine you don't either. They're the foundation stones of our lives. If you want to know more about how you can have a personal relationship with God, just click on How Can I Know God in our app or over at ttb.org or call us at 1-800-65-BIBLE. Our message, The Greatest Sin in All the World, is also available anytime on our app. Or if you prefer to read it, you can download the free booklet at ttb.org. Now this week on the daily version of Through the Bible, we continue Dr. McGee's study in the prophetic book of Hosea. So hop aboard the Bible bus and join us. And if you'd like to have the notes to follow along, then download Dr. McGee's notes and outlines. They're available right in our app or in our free book titled Briefing the Bible. Download your copy over at ttb.org or to have an abridged paperback copy sent by mail, just call us 1-800-65-BIBLE is the number. Now, as we close, don't forget what Dr. McGee reminded us of. God loves you with an everlasting love. In fact, nothing can separate us from the love of God demonstrated in the life of his son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. No matter what your family pain or any pain is today, remember how great God's love is for you. I'm Steve Schwetz. For all of us at Through the Bible, asking the Lord to fill you with his peace as you walk with him today.

SPEAKER 02 : 44:14

All to him I owe. Sin hath left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow.

SPEAKER 03 : 44:33

Join us each weekday for our five-year daily study through the whole Word of God. Check for times on this station or look for Through the Bible in your favorite podcast store and always at ttb.org.