We'll also read verse 1 of chapter 12. This will be our final sermon in the book of Hosea. As we mentioned, we are going through systematically as much as we can the minor prophets. And that means that we'll have somewhere between two and four on average sermons in each of the books of the minor prophets. So we will close with Hosea chapter 11 this evening. Let us read God's holy, inerrant, and inspired word. When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. The more they were called, the more they went away. They kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning offerings to idols. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk. I took them up by their arms, but they did not know that it was I that healed them. I led them with cords of kindness, with the bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them. They shall not return to the land of Egypt, but Assyria shall be their king, because they have refused to return to me. The sword shall rage against their cities, consume the bars of their gates and devour them because of their own counsels. My people are bent on turning away from me, and though they call out to the most high God, he shall not raise them up at all. How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Adma? How can I treat you like Zeboim? My heart recoils within me. My compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my burning anger. I will not again destroy Ephraim. For I am God and not a man, the Holy One in your midst. And I will not come in wrath. They shall go after the Lord. He will roar like a lion. When he roars, his children shall come trembling. from the West. They shall come trembling like birds from Egypt and like doves from the land of Assyria. And I will return them to their homes, declares the Lord. Ephraim has surrounded me with lies and the house of Israel with deceit. But Judah still walks with God and is faithful to the Holy One. Ephraim feeds on the wind and pursues the east wind all day long. They multiply falsehood and violence. that make a covenant with Assyria and oil is carried to Egypt. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our Lord stands forever. The book of Hosea is a wonderful love story. In the first week, I believe I said that it quite possibly is the greatest love story of all of the scriptures. And as we've studied in previous weeks, We've seen the Lord use the life and particularly the marriage of the prophet Hosea to reveal his heart toward his people. His heart of hurt over the offense of the sins of the northern kingdom of Israel, lining his heart right next to the heart of Hosea, a husband of an unfaithful wife. Hosea's book and his prophecy has been given to us so that we could see a very clear picture of the inner recesses of the heart of God toward his people. And this evening as we've just read chapter 11 and also chapter 12 verse 1, I believe we get one last picture into the deep recesses of the loving, beating, warm, compassionate, sweet heart of the holy, the righteous, and the triune God of heaven. And he does it in a unique way. He walks us through the history of his dealings of mercy and grace with his people, Israel. He speaks in the terms of a father concerning his child. This evening, what we have read is the father's heart for the prodigal children. The father's heart for the prodigal children. And I want to look at the love of God. And I want to have you note three things, and I hope they're wonderful encouragements to you. I hope that this evening these realizations about God's heart take God and they transfer your attention from him being a God who is too transcendent to ever know or feel the warmth of his embrace to being a God who is like a father who holds your hand and speaks love to you. Firstly, I want you to know that God's love is fatherly for his people. It is fatherly. It's not like a friend. It's not like a stranger or an acquaintance. It is sweet. It is undeserved. It is adoptive. It's tender. It is sorrowful over the pain of his children. It is persistent and it is kind. And it is befuddlingly forgiving. Secondly, I want you to see that the love of God is genuinely grieved by our sins. That when we sin, we grieve God's heart like a father who mourns over the pain of his child. That's the kind of God you have. He's not just a righteous God filled with anger and condemnation over sin. He's a father that is grieved by it. And thirdly, I want you to see the love of God is gracious. It's gracious. We speak of our God being a mighty and a powerful God. Often when we speak in terms of God's power, we ascribe to him all of the attributes of his holy and eternal creatorship. But do you know that God's power is revealed in the great measure of his love in the face of the immensity of our waywardness and sin. His love is gracious. It is so gracious. So let's study chapter 11 and consider the love of God. Verse one, he comes to us after chapters and chapters in chapters of hard, harsh, difficult, frightening, jarring proclamations of judgment. It is like a wonderful balm being applied to the soul. The Lord speaks in verse 1. He says, When Israel was a child, I loved him. I loved him. I want to say to you this evening, friends, we're going to study this and explore it even more. But I want you to clearly understand that our God in heaven, when he thinks of us, his heart is conditioned like a parent toward a child. We celebrate with our brothers in Christ at the birth of this new child of the covenant and the piaster home. I want to tell you that a unique thing happened the very moment that this small child, James McLeod Irving, came into the world and cried his first amongst his own family. They loved him. David didn't need to stop for a moment to consider. Sarah Grafton didn't need to pause. Jamie didn't have to take a second to see if he matched up. He simply loved him. Our God speaks of his people in verse one. When Israel was a child, I loved him. Our God loves us with such a fatherly love that it endures because he is a father and we are his children. If you ever stand in perplexed mind, bobbled over the love of God that would redeem a fallen creation. Let me simply tell you this. The reason the holy God of heaven sent his holy son on a heavenly mission to save a sinful creation is because he made us in his image and he is our father and he loves us. and would have us feel his love. The love of God in our experience as his people begins with his heart, not ours. Our God's love is so fatherly, it is undeserved. It flows freely to you and I. And it works a multitude of mercies upon our souls. As my son grows, I begin to see more and more his heart. I begin to see more and more his desire to be disobedient. I begin to see more and more his anger as he flails his little arms that could hardly hurt a fly. And in the midst of all of his flailing, even if a hand of discipline is raised, I love him. I can't help it. I love him. And I want you to know very clearly that your God in heaven loves you. He loves you. And that is why he's given you his word. That is why he has sent you his son. That is why his son lived and died and was resurrected for you and I. Because God loves you like a father. undeservedly, tenderly, sweetly and kindly. We read on in verse one, and we read not only that God has loved Israel even when he was a child. But that and out of Egypt, I called my son. That the more they were called, the more they went away, they kept sacrificing to Baals. and burnt offerings to idols. You see, God in his love for us, when he looks down from heaven and he has called us like his people, Israel, out of the bondage of Egypt, calling to them mercifully, come to me in all the promises I have for you. Come into the land where I will provide for you. Come and come and take what I will give. The Lord endures and exist in his love with us, knowing that we're going to be just like his people, Israel. His fatherly love is not perplexed by verse two. The more they were called, the more they went away. The more they were called, the more they went away, sacrificing to Baals and burning offerings to idols. The thing I want you to understand about the love of God is that, yes, it is the love of a father, but it expects who we are in the false things, in the missteps that we will make. He has called us out from amongst the people of the earth, from amongst the nations. He has set his name upon us. He has freed us from the hand of bondage. Certainly. But our Lord is not shocked by our sinning that when we are called and the more we are wooed, the farther and farther we go from him. Still, the love of God is given as a father to his sons and to his daughters again, undeservedly and again, mercifully, again, persistently. I wonder if you've experienced the persistent love of God. Have you had a sin in your life? I don't know the recesses of your soul. I don't know the whole measure of your story. Some of you have shared some of the gracious acts of God that he's done in your soul with me and also with the session over the years. But have you experienced the persistent love of God? Have you known this sort of thing? That the more you were called, the more you went away, but the wonderful, persisting love of God remained for you. Have you known that sort of love? That's the sort of love that we're being told of in Hosea chapter 11. That even though they went away and they went away again and again, that the Lord's love persisted. Again and again persisted. Though they had hearts that were in bondage in Egypt, and though they gave themselves over to false worship, the Lord persisted with them. And His fatherly hand and His eye toward them was not taken away, but it was even more kindled for their benefit, like a child who reaches for the burner of the stove, ignorant that it will consume the flesh of his hand. And the Lord, in loving, merciful, and persistent love, snatches him back. Do you know the persistent love of God? That God's love is not dependent on anything but his heart to love you because he is your father. Do you know it? Read verse three, you'll see this persistence take a little bit of shape. He says, even in the midst and they were burning offerings to idols, yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk. I took them up by their arms, but they did not know that it was I that healed them. Are you seeing the picture that we're having painted for us? The picture of verse three is of a toddler. His name's Ephraim. And he's only learning to walk. And in the midst of it, the Lord is saying, I taught him to walk and I took him up by their arms. He is explaining the waywardness and the faltering heart of the people of God as a toddler who falls and again and again makes the mistake. And he falls again and again. And eventually he scrapes his knee and he needs a father to come and to take his big hands under his tiny arms and lift him up from the pain of his stumbling. and to hold him and look him in the eyes and to commit to him the comfort of his presence. The love of God is being expounded like this. Though the people of God stumble and fall in sin, the love of God is such that he is picking us up in our failures and he is holding us and he is loving us. And he is bearing us up in all of our boo-boos upon our knees where our blood is spilled out. And he is applying bandages to heal us from our sins. The love of God towards his people is fatherly, and this is why it is so precious that though we sin against him, he has a heart of invested compassion to us as his children to pick us up and to teach us not to sin again. That's the love of God that's being shown in this picture. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk. I took them up by their arms, but they did not know that it was I who healed them. We read in verse four of the kindness of God and the tenderness of his love, we read that the Lord says, I led them with cords of kindness, with bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws. And I bent down to them and I fed them. God is speaking to us in verse four about how his love walks with his children to mature them. Verse four is a verse of the parenting love of God. No longer a toddler, but one that walks. I led them with cords of kindness. Do you understand this picture? God is speaking like this, my children can walk, they're grown up and they're walking behind me, but I'm not willing that when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death that even a single one of them will for a moment look away and lose the path of his father. I will bind them with a cord around their hands. or around their waist or around their necks and have them attached to me so that they are led in my train. So I lose none of them and I keep all of them and they walk in a way of righteousness and they are kept from danger and damage. They are kept from the mouths of wolves. They are held in kindness in the bands of love. God is saying my love to my people is fatherly. And it is so much and wonderfully given to them that it is filled with kindness towards them as bands of love to relieve them from the danger that they would otherwise be imperiled by. The culture of the household of God is that he is a father that is loving. He's not overly harsh. His love is not reckless with his children. It's not as if God has children and he gives them a task and then he walks away and is negligent to watch them. But our Lord patiently, lovingly, carefully, persistently, graciously keeps us in his train. Friends, I hope that this is a wonderful piece of encouragement to your soul. We have a God who doesn't only love us, He's not only merciful to forgive us whenever we make mistakes, but he was invested to keep us. We also read that the Lord said, I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to feed them. The fatherly love of God is one of great provision. He wants us to know that whenever he loves his people, he gives them everything they need for life and faith. It's something we pray week in and week out, morning and evening of the provision of God. But I want you to be reminded that the love of God, when it is said upon you, it is a unique and special love. It is the love of a faithful father who wants to keep you, who though you make mistakes will continue to love you, who whenever you do make mistakes will pick you up out of them, who will give you healing whenever you have faltered in sin and will keep you from straying and make sure that you don't fall away and help you to persevere and feed you and keep you and relieve you. and be a blessing to you again and again and again. We don't have a father in heaven that is a harsh and hard taskmaster who has an abusive whip in his hand, who only hates us and has no love for us. We have a tender, a kind and a loving God who loves his people and pours out his heart upon them. Secondly, I want you to see that the love of God is grieved by sin. It's grieved by sin. Verse five through seven, we read of the struggling of the heart of the father. I told you at the outset of this sermon that this is, as it were, a sermon about the father's heart for the prodigal. This is the father's heart for the prodigal. And if we read verses 5 through 7, we can read them very quickly and think that they're a judgment. But I want to encourage you to read them slowly and take note of what they do and don't say and how they speak. Because it's so important, because the tone of the voice when you read this can either make God harsh or it can make God loving and dripping with sorrow over his children. The latter is what I think we have here. Verse five, they shall not return to the land of Egypt, but Assyria shall be their king because they refused to return to me. The sword shall rage against their cities, consume the bars of their gates, and devour them because of their own counsels. My people are bent on turning away from me. And though they call out to the Most High, he shall not raise them up at all. Do you hear the serious tone of the voice of the heart of the love of God? He's been confronted with a wayward people. The people of verse two, though they were called, they still worship the Baals. Their worship was after idols and they had idolatrous hearts. But verse five through seven is how this impacts the heart of God. He's speaking of the children he loves, and he says this, and you can almost feel the heart being ripped out of his chest. I shall not return to the land of Egypt. Assyria will be their king because they refuse to return to me. The sins that we commit against God are sins committed against the love of God. They're sins committed against a father, just like your earthly father, that have a real and a beating heart of love at stake towards you when you commit them. God is speaking about a reality of the wayward place that the feet of the prodigal son, Ephraim, the northern kingdom, Israel, the people who will be taken by the Assyrians have taken them. It's something like this, a father who loves his son, and who mourns over the poor decisions he's made. It's a father being real about it. I scooped him up when he was only a child. I taught him how to ride without training wheels. I fed him at my table. I poured the word of God into him and I loved him and I held him and I looked in his eyes and I told him I love you every day of his life. And when he grew up, do you know what he did? He made himself a slave to sin. He took up a myriad of addictions. His teeth are in shambles. His body is racked with the pain of his apostasy. There are people that have done horrible things to my son. In prison, other men attacked him. Shamefully scarred his body. It didn't have to be this way. I called him and he could have returned to me. But he's where he is because he refused to return to me. Because he refused to return to the safety of the love of his father. That's the bleeding heart of God towards a sinful people. Friends, when we commit sin, we are looking God in the face just like an earthly parent who has fed and nourished us and raised us up wonderfully and mercifully, and we are leaving Him and refusing to go back. It is a grievous thing to sin against God because it takes His love and it tramples upon it. When Adam and Eve were in the garden, they had fellowship with the father. They saw him face to face. They communed with him in the cool of the day. They knew him personally and they were loved by him and they loved him and he provided everything for them. But their sins trampled upon his love. Made them fear him where they had no need to fear him. put them in hiding from a God who only had mercy and alienated them from a loving relationship that had only been blessing and blessedness continually. Verse six, we read, the sword shall rage against their cities and consume the bars of their gates and devour them because of their own counsels. Verse 6 is almost one that you have to scratch your head and wonder is this not the disciplining hand of God that is moved because he loves his child to let them at a season feel a disciplining hand that they would retreat from their waywardness because of their own counsels. Verse 7 I think has to be one of the most pure expositions of this single theme of the heart of God being grieved by sin. You can hear this. My people are bent on turning away from me. My people are bent on turning away from me. These are not words of judgment. These are words of the grieving heart of God who looks down on Israel and weeps over their apostasy. When we sin against the holy God of heaven. We are a people bent on turning away from him. Let me warn you, exhort you, and plead with you with the greatest words that I have in my body. Run from sin that you don't grieve the love of God. If for no other reason, don't sin because God loves you and it offends his love. We too often only stack up this ideal of God. He is angry and hates sinners. Maybe this is the thing that should dominate your heart and press you towards holiness. I don't want to sin because I don't want to harm the heart of my creator who loves me like a father. I don't want to grieve him or turn away from him. I want to experience his fatherly kindness. I want to honor and glorify him. I want to be in his safety and enjoy his mercy. If we don't know that our sins grieve the love of God, we'll never have a heart of holiness for the right reasons. We must know this and be at home with it. Finally, we see that the love of God is gracious. Verse 8 through 12, when we read and the Lord says this in the midst of his looking at the estate of his wayward children. How can I give you up? Oh, Ephraim. How can I hand you over? Oh, Israel. It's like a father holding his son and saying, how can I give up on you? I remember when you were so little and in my arms and I saw your chest rise and fall. I remember your first cry. I remember when you only could barely walk. And when I first saw your smile, the resounding of the giggles that rang out from your mouth. How can I give up on you, O child? O Ephraim, how can I give up on you? O Israel, how can I hand you over? The Lord's heart is like a father that is so gracious to his child. He cannot accept that he loses us. He says, how can I make you like Adma? or Zeboim, those kingdoms that had consorted with Sodom and Gomorrah and that were consumed and stamped out entirely. God's gracious heart is moved toward his people like a father that says, when I see the train coming, though I know my son has run upon the tracks, I'm gonna run and get him. I cannot leave him there. I'll push him out of the way and I'll take the train. I can't give him up. If he needs an organ, he can have mine. I won't give him up. My heart recoils within me and my compassion grows warm and tender. The love of God for a sinful people that are his is simply this. He loves you so much he would not give you up even under the death of his only son. We have a Lord who is in heaven, who loves us, who is God and he is not man. Praise be to God that he is God and not a man. Because men would look upon children and say they deserve it. I'd bail him out, but really, he dug the grave and he needs to lie in it. But the heart and the love of God is gracious. He is God and not a man. He can be just and loving. And he can bear his people up in the grip of his mercy and his compassion. And not come to us in wrath. Christians, where's your assurance this evening? That wonderful thing that we chase after and pray for and we long for, that thing that we come to hear the word to receive, the encouragement of the assurance of the love of God, it's right here. It is right here. That our God loves you so much and he knows you in every way. He knows the great mountain of the things that each of us have done against him. And he is unwilling to lose us, even in spite of our sinfulness that deserves to be lost. Your assurance must grow up from the character of the love of God, friends. I know that I am secure, not because I am holy nor progressing, but because my God's love overwhelms the weight of my sin and my anger against him. And it will never let me go. He will not come in wrath against me. My God is gracious to me. The thing that Christians always must be reminded of. is that the immensity of the grace of God is greater than all of the sins that we can ever do. His love is more effective than our running in sin. He will keep us. We read the Lord speak of his might and his grace in verse 10. They shall go after the Lord and he will roar like a lion. When he roars, his children will come trembling from the West and shall come trembling like birds from Egypt and like doves from the land of Assyria. And I will return them to their homes, declares the Lord. Friends, the Lord sent a lion out amongst his people, the lion of the tribe of Judah, who has roared in the good news of the gospel. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. That's the roar of the lion of God. That is the good news that calls and draws us by grace in mercy as an expression of the love of God out from our private Western wanderings in Egypt, captivities and out of the hand of a Syrian oppression or addiction or sin of various types of pride that's overwhelming or despair. Our God is gonna return us to our home with him. Oftentimes we skip over this very repetitive phrase in the scriptures, declares the Lord. Scarcely can be had any greater assurance than in those three words. This is your promise The Lord has promised that if he has called us out from the nations that though we bumble about in darkness, though we are wayward, though we fall, though we give ourselves over into so many captivities, he won't give us up unto him. There is a day coming where he will restore us and we will be with him and he with us and we will live in blessed union and community. forever and ever and ever and ever. As we close, take note of verses 12 and also 1. This is the promise of God in the midst of the sins of the people. Ephraim has surrounded me with lies and the house of Israel with deceit. But Judah still walks with God and is faithful to the Holy One. Ephraim feeds on the wind and pursues the east all day long. They multiply falsehood and violence and make a covenant with Assyria and oil is carried to Egypt. Our God's promises depend on our God's own character, his own word. These are the things that God is doing and will do for you and I and for all of his people. They're not finished. They're still being done. We're still struggling. He's still saving. And friends, rejoice. because we have a glorious destiny in the grip of the love of God. Let's pray together. Father in heaven, you are holy and altogether righteous. Oh, how perplexing and deep is your love for us. Lord, your heart beats with the capacity for kindness, the likes of which our minds can never even remotely begin to search out. Oh, Lord, would you help us to see it? Oh, Father, would you remind us daily of how much you love us? Oh, Lord, would we feel your cords of kindness and your bands of love? Father, make us to be a people who anticipate the roaring of the lion that you are sending among your people to call us out from all of our wandering and to secure us fast in your home, the household of faith. We pray this in Jesus name.