Beware the Fake Revival

By Bobby Blakey on August 7, 2016

Hosea 6

John 13:34, Romans 2:4, Hosea 5:15, Isaiah 1:12, Amos 5:21

AUDIO

John 13:34, Romans 2:4, Hosea 5:15, Isaiah 1:12, Amos 5:21

Beware the Fake Revival

By Bobby Blakey on August 7, 2016

Hosea 6

This is a rush transcript.

[00:00:00] I invite you to grab a Bible and open up with me to Hosea 6, or what we've been calling the clean pages of your Bible here in the minor prophets. The pages maybe that up until this summer had been stuck together in the scriptures. No coffee stains, no underlines, no highlights. Hopefully we've messed up these pages in the minor prophets a little bit. Study in the book of Hosa. Anybody been enjoying studying the book of Hozier here? What we have found actually is that the minor prophets make major points for our modern time and that they actually reveal who God is, reveal what he expects from his people and seem to be speaking and about ancient nations, but directly address issues we face in our nation today, particularly in Hosanna! Hosanna!

[00:00:52] The Prophet is commanded by God to marry a woman, Gomer, who we know is not going to love him in return. And they even have a family and she even leaves him and he goes after her and purchases her out of the slavery that she's fallen into. And it's a picture that God is creating in this book that we've had the privilege of studying now, of how even when his people aren't loving him, aren't worshiping him in the way that he deserves, the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases to go after his people to love them. And so what an encouraging study it's been for us in the book of Hosain.

[00:01:32] Now, this summer, we also got to get into another minor profit a little bit. And that was the book of name. We did that during Great Awakening week. Was anybody here during Great Awakening? Anybody remember that? It was a week. It was during the middle of the week. It wasn't on a Sunday. And the sermons. If you want to look them up, if you missed them, there's a reference to them on the back of your handout. And we looked at Nh� Home Chapter one, and we found out that the theme of the book was Vengeance was really the attribute of God that Nahum was making a big point about. He was going after this city of Minova, this nation known as Assyria, and the time of the Bible. And this nation had seen a great revival with Jonah. But it seems like they had forgotten God. They had turned to sin away from the Lord. And now God was letting a nation who forgets him know that there is going to be judgment. Vengeance is mine.

[00:02:28] I will repay, says the Lord. And so when we studied mayhem, we compared what was going on there in Syria to what's going on in America. What an interesting time we're at right now in the history of our country. And we can see a clear move where we're forgetting the principles of God in our nation and we're moving away from him. But that's not the way it used to be in a time called the Great Awakening. Even back before the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution in the 17th, thirties and forties, back when we were still the colonies, there was a mighty movement of God, something that we referred to as a revival in history. Books speak of it as the Great Awakening. And perhaps the most famous guy from that time is Jonathan Edwards. And he wrote a lot of things that help us understand what was going on at that time. And he preached what is perhaps the most famous sermon in American history. Sinners in the hands of what was angry God. And he compared people in that sermon to an insect. What insect did he compare us to? Anybody know a spider? And you said you like a spider, the hand of the Lord at any time he could toss you down into the fire because we have a God who gets angry about our sin. And if we continue to sin after God tells us the truth and calls us to repentance and we choose to continue to sin, will God gets angry. And he preached that. And that's just the example of the kind of preaching that was going on at that time, a kind of preaching where we were confronting people's sin, telling them the character of God, calling them to repent, and saying that the only way you can be saved is by Jesus Christ, a kind of preaching that was just sweeping through the American colonies.

[00:04:16] One way it was spreading around was this guy, George Whitfield. We talked about this guy.

[00:04:23] He was traveling evangelist and people would drop what they were doing and they would come from miles around. He when he came by the city of Boston, more people than lived in the city of Boston came to hear him preach one day, according to the to the estimate of Benjamin Franklin, who, even though he was a Christian, was became friends with George Whitfield and went often to hear him preach. And he he affected the citizens of Boston to such a degree that Benjamin Franklin said it seemed that all the world were growing religious. I can't even walk down a street in the city of Boston without. Hearing families singing psalms in worship to God in their houses.

[00:05:05] That's the Great Awakening.

[00:05:07] A time where God was acknowledged across the land so much that we were writing the Declaration of Independence or our first president is giving his inaugural address. We acknowledge a creator, God, who has blessed America.

[00:05:23] Now, if you were to keep reading the history books once you got to the 17 nineties and the eighteen hundreds, they would describe a time known as the Second Great Awakening.

[00:05:33] Who's ever heard of the second Great Awakening ever? Anybody remember this before?

[00:05:37] I mean, maybe there was a time again where it preaching started sweeping through the land. People starting to go to church and just massive numbers of of growth among the churches. And it seemed, again, like God was doing some kind of movement here in America as we came into the eighteen hundreds and men like Assa Hill. Nettleton is a guy that you could look up who was a preacher of the word, and he was known for preaching about regeneration, that God would come and do a work within us. He would give us a new heart. You'd put his spirit within us. God would change us from the inside out. Well, during the time of the second Great Awakening, there arose some some different kind of thoughts.

[00:06:19] And the figurehead, the guy who's most known for these other kind of thoughts is this guy named Charles Feeney. That's the guy whose picture is up right here. I don't know if you've ever heard of Charles Finney before, but he's one of the prominent figures from this second Great Awakening.

[00:06:36] And Charles Finney, he kind of started to spin the way that things would go a little bit differently. He would start to say that a revival isn't just something that God does. And we don't know. One revival is going to happen. God comes and he starts working on people's hearts. He starts saving people. He starts stirring up the church that no, he was saying we could do revival anytime.

[00:06:58] And he was basically saying, I can even do revival.

[00:07:01] Like if you read Charles Finney's memoirs or his lectures on revival, he was saying that the work of the spirit is really the persuasion of the preacher, that when the preacher, it gives a reasonable argument to the people when he appeals to the people in their sin and he helps them see that their life is going to be better with Jesus Christ. And he reaches out to them and he can help them change their mind, see if the people will just change their will.

[00:07:29] This is something the people can do in and of themselves if they will want to stop sinning and they'll want to think that a life with God and Jesus Christ will be better. See if in that moment when he is reasoning with them and persuading them in that moment, I can get you to think, yeah, I want to live differently. See, then you can make yourself a new heart right there.

[00:07:51] That's the work of the spirit.

[00:07:53] And so he began to look for ways to maximize the moment. And it wasn't just him. There were other people doing this, but he became kind of the figurehead of it. And he would begin to ask people if if in this moment right now, you want to change your mind about how you're living and you want to stop living in your set for yourself and you want to start living for God in this moment, you want to do that, why don't you just raise your hand right now? He would say. And he began to call for some kind of physical response from the people to engage with the preaching, some kind of moment where they could decide to change their mind.

[00:08:31] And eventually there was a seat up front called the Anxious Seat. And if you knew right now that something was wrong with you and if you wanted to make it right with the Lord in this present moment, if you wanted to make a decision here today that would change your life for all of eternity. Well, then you come up here to the anxiety seat and you take those keres before the Lord and you cast them up to him and you pray to the Lord right now and your life will be different moving forward. And it was the beginning of what we would call the altar call, where I don't just call you to respond. Now I call you to respond right now and you come forward right now. And when you do that thing that that shows that you're coming forward, that you're raising your hand, that you're praying this prayer, that you're going along with what I'm saying to do. That's you changing your mind. That's you saving yourself.

[00:09:19] And this is what Charles Veny so brought into America that you and I can't even think about revival in our nation without being impacted by this revivalism of Charles, and that now it's hard for us to think of just a work that God would do sweeping among the people. But no more of a work that we might try to manufacture in and of ourselves, that we could try to create our own revival. The second Great Awakening. I don't know if it was a great awakening or a fake awakening here in America. It seems like it was a time God was saving some people, but it was also a time that this compromise of what the work of God was when it became something almost people could do.

[00:10:05] And here in Hozier, Chapter six, we see what looks like a turn of the people of Israel to God. And you say to yourself, about time. I mean, we've been learning about how God loves these people, even though they keep moving away from him. At some point, we think they should get it together. They should turn around and they should come and have a relationship with the Lord. Well, it seems like that's what's happening here in Hozier, Chapter six. And look with me as I read the first three verses of our chapter here today. Look what it says. Come, let us return to the Lord. Finally, this is what we've been waiting for. The people of Israel, they're having a revival.

[00:10:43] They're turning to the Lord, for he has taught us that he may heal us. He has struck us down and he will bind us up.

[00:10:50] After two days, he will revive us. And on the third day he will raise us up that we may live before him. Let us know. Let us press on to know the Lord, because his going out as sure as the dawn. He will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the year.

[00:11:12] Now, does that sound pretty good when you read that right there? I like this part. Right.

[00:11:16] Finally, it seems like the people are getting their act together and they're turning to the Lord. There's the Shoeb we've been looking for. That's the word they're in. Chapter six, verse one, return to the Lord Shoeb to turn. Finally, we're not going the way after other loves after idols, after our sin, we're gonna turn to the Lord. And doesn't this sound ostrem after two days, he will revive us. I'd love to see a revival in America in two days. And then this sounds prophetic. This sounds like Jesus Christ. On the third day he will raise us up.

[00:11:47] I mean, it sounds like the people of Israel are expecting God to do something here and there.

[00:11:54] They're excited. We want to know the Lord because we know that God's love for us is sure. It's as sure as the sun's gonna rise. It's as sure as the showers that come to water the Earth in the springtime. Man, God sends his son. He sends his rain and assures those physical things. We know God loves us here in Israel. They seem pumped. Now, notice before verse one and after verse three, we've got some quotes now. We don't know exactly who speak in there, but the tone of Hosanna! Chapter four to fourteen is God speaking. But this is somebody else, whether it's the people of Israel saying this, maybe it's Hosain call in the people of Israel to turn to the Lord. But look what God says in response to these three verses. Look at verse four. Here's God's response now to they're turning to him. What shall I do with you? Oh, Ephraim. Ephraim is another word for the northern kingdom of Israel. What shall I do with you? Oh, Judah, that's the southern kingdom of Judah. Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes early away. Therefore, I have hewn them by the prophets. I have slain them by the words of my mouth and my judgment goes forth is the light or I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. And then he goes on to say, But like Adam, they transgress the covenant there. They dealt faithless suy with me.

[00:13:17] He's describing people who, like Adam, have chosen to sin. He's saying the people are still in their sins. He's not accepting their revival as genuine. God sees their turn to him as some kind of fake turn. What am I going to do with you guys? You abandoned me to pursue other loves. Now you're going to turn to me and let me tell you what your love is like. Here's God now describing their love. Hey, we've been preaching throughout all these Hosea's sermons about the steadfast love of God that endures forever. That is sure that we can count on. Well, let me tell you what your love coming back to me is like. God says it's like the clouds that we've been having lately in Huntington Beach. When we wake up in the morning, you look outside, you see the clouds, and then by lunchtime, we're back to what?

[00:14:03] Perfect. That's how we do it here in Huntington Beach. It's what we're paying the big bucks for, my friends. Right. We live here in Orange County because the temperature is just right. The weather is awesome. Sometimes we get these pesky little clouds blocking out our beautiful sunshine. But they're gone by lunchtime.

[00:14:20] That, God says, is what your love for me is like, Oh, you guys, you're going to turn to me. What kind of fickle love are you bringing to me? You're like the dew that's on the grass in the morning. But by the time the sun comes out, it's already dried up. Let me tell you what your love is like. He's been painting this whole picture of his love. But now let's talk about your loves. You guys don't really love me in the way that I love you.

[00:14:45] That's what God's saying to his people. So there's a revival call here. It seems like the nation is turned. God's not seeing it like that. This is fake. He's say now when we think about this. Well, the first thing we got to just acknowledge one more time. Point number one, let's put it down like this is we need to stop questioning God's love.

[00:15:06] OK? Hosain has proven to us that what they say here in versus one to three is true. As sure as the dawn, just like the spring rains come to water. The Earth, like the steadfast love of the Lord, is something that we can count on as God's people whenever we turn to God. God is ready to love us. Anybody want to say amen to that this morning? That's what we're trying to say here at this church as we study Hozier, that God's love is sure and steadfast. It endures forever, no matter what sin we may do. There is an offer of God's love on the table. That's that's what they have. Right. In these first three verses, they have. Right. That even now in our sin, no matter what we've done, no matter where we've been in our life, no matter how much we've known about God and we've turned away from him, if now we will turn to God. God will welcome us in love, a broken and contrite spirit, someone who turns to God from their sin. He will never despise. He will never cast out.

[00:16:15] God is always ready to forgive people who turn from their sin and come to him. His love is steadfast. That's something we have learned and known. And go to John 13. I'm so excited about what we're going to get to when we get back to the Gospel of John.

[00:16:32] We're gonna steal our own thunder here today. Everybody turn to John 13 because we're gonna cannot stop talking about the love of God. We've been looking at in an Old Testament way of the love of the father towards his people of Israel. We'll look at the love of Jesus Christ. This is where we're gonna pick up the gospel of John, because everything we do is a response to the love of God for us. That's where we have to start with the sure and steadfast love of the Lord. Here's where it's gonna start when we pick it back up in the Gospel of John now before the feast of the Passover, when everybody's gather into Jerusalem at one of those times going up the hill singing those songs, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the father, he's gonna go back to heaven to be with the father, having loved his own who were in the world.

[00:17:19] He loved them to, though. Let me hear you say he loved us to the end. I mean, look at how God is loved, you look at the life that God has given you. Let's try to count your blessings. Of all the ways that God has been good to you in his love for you both physical blessings, spiritual blessings. I mean, you at least have enough health to be here with us this morning. You can enjoy, at least to some degree, the day that God has given you here today, so many good things that God has done for every single person here. And if you're ever tempted to doubt the love of God, as I know that some of us are. If there's one way that he's proven it once and for all, it was when he so loved us that he gave his one and only son to die for us on that cross. And how did Jesus love you?

[00:18:10] I mean, it says here that Jesus loved you to the end. And let's just think that through. I mean, he's in heaven with the father. And he humbles himself to be born as a baby for 33 years.

[00:18:23] He lives a perfect life. He grows up as a man. He never once disobeys his parents. He never wants lies or steals or luss or has sinful kind of anger to lash out at someone like never once for 33 years. Does he sin, perfect righteousness? And what does he get at the end of it? He gets betrayed by one of his own.

[00:18:45] He gets arrested unjustly. He gets beaten.

[00:18:48] He gets mocked. He gets stripped. He gets whipped. He gets a crown of thorns bashed into his head and people punching him in the face saying prophesy, who hit you?

[00:19:02] And after they whip him up and they put a robe on him, they rip the robe off of his exposed flesh and he asked to carry his own cross out to where he's nailed to a piece of wood to die in public mockery and shame.

[00:19:17] Torture before execution. And with his last breath, he's crying out. It is finished. His love for you has paid for your sin. How can you and I know the truth of the steadfast love of God that endures forever.

[00:19:36] No, the truth of Jesus Christ on the cross.

[00:19:39] And then sit here in our own hearts doubting if God really wants to be good for us.

[00:19:45] I mean, let's get honest.

[00:19:47] I regularly hear people say to me things like sometimes I just wonder if God has it out for me. I hear people say things like that, like I know what the Bible says. And I've read the Bible and I've studied the Bible. And it's got all these encouraging versus about God's love and his plan. And I wonder if there's really a secret plan for my destruction. That's really what I think it's been. I think he's been setting me up this whole time for a fall that's going to make the papers when I fall. Just watch. Everybody's going to hear about my terrible ruin and they're going to know woe is me. All right? I mean, let's get honest. Sometimes in our minds, we start to go down this path of like, yeah, I know God is good, but I'm pretty sure he's not going to be good to me. And we can be tempted to doubt, to question the love of God. Sometimes we even look. Well, I'm not sure if God's loving that person. So then I'm not sure I want to receive his love because I'm not sure he's loving that person.

[00:20:44] And there's all this questioning of something that God has gone out of his way to prove to us time and time again and once and for all in his son, Jesus Christ. And yet still, we question him.

[00:20:56] At some point when we doubt the love of God, it's not about our weak faith, it's about us not knowing him. And it's about us actually insulting him by acting like I'm not really sure if you love me, like you haven't really proven it to me.

[00:21:10] We need to be careful about the. Just want to encourage you, if you're tempted to doubt the love of God, you can know here this morning that God loves you through his son, Jesus Christ.

[00:21:24] That is true whether you feel it or not, whether the circumstances of your life seem like it or not.

[00:21:30] If you believe in the death of Jesus and his resurrection, for your sin to give you a new life, you are one of God's people. And God loves you. He's the keeper of your soul.

[00:21:42] He will deliver you from evil and protect you from harm and even the evil things that happen in our lives.

[00:21:49] God is going to work then. Together for what good?

[00:21:55] This is the promise.

[00:21:57] And sometimes it's amazing because we can get such tunnel vision. We can have such a microscopic perspective of our life and God's being good to us in so many ways. But then there's this one problem that I have.

[00:22:09] There's this one like physical problem that I have right now, or there's this one relationship where I'm not with the person I want to be with or the person that I love isn't doing what I keep wanting them to do, even a good thing that God would want them to do. And this person I love isn't doing it. And so because I don't see this one thing that I've been asking God to do, but he hasn't done it yet. I'm now, like, ready to throw my hands up and say, I don't even know if God's good because he won't do this one thing that I really think he should do. And there's all this goodness over here that we're just overlooking and we're focusing on this one thing that we're not seeing right now and we're ready to say, I don't know.

[00:22:46] I don't know if he's good because look at what he hasn't done right here.

[00:22:49] No, I just want to say it one more time with feeling it. We should not be questioning the love of God. It is sure it is steadfast. It endures forever. Whether you feel it or not, God loves you through his son. He has paid for your soul with his blood. He'd loved you to the end.

[00:23:09] And as we consider this love of God, it produces an effect in our lives. Let's throw this verse up here on the screen. This is Romans chapter two, verse four. And look where it says this goodness, this kindness, this love of the Lord.

[00:23:24] Do you presume upon the riches of his kindness and his forbearance to overlook our sins and his patience with us even when we continue to sin against him not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to? What does it say? They're right there.

[00:23:40] Repentance.

[00:23:42] When I realize the love of God and I become convinced that he does love me and I can really start to see it for what it is. This response is not to be to presume upon his love to take advantage of his love, to be unchanged and continue in sin, hoping that he will continue to love me. No, it turns me back to him. The love of God should have a turning effect.

[00:24:07] And I loved reading. Saw one hundred and nineteen. I don't know if you guys are still reading through the songs with us, but we broke down Psalm 119 into all these different chunks because it's such a long song and usually it's so long. You read through it quick, kind of some of the same verses jump out at you. But we went through it this time and we really took a lot of time to look at everything.

[00:24:25] There's this one theme where the guy keeps saying, like, the whole earth is full of your steadfast love. Great is your mercy. You are good and do good. And after all of these lines where he affirms his belief in the goodness of God, he then says, Teach me your statutes.

[00:24:43] It's like if you are that good to me and your love is real to me, and then you tell me to live a certain way.

[00:24:50] You command me to walk, you give me these rules, these laws that are supposed to actually be a blessing to me and guide me if I really believe in your love that I want to live the way you're telling me to live. That's the response. I'm going to turn from live in my own way and I'm going to start living your way. That's what repentance is. And see, that's unfortunately what we don't see these people do. And they understand God's love for them. Hey, he's still going to love us. What they're not really getting to is the heart of do I love God back? Have I really, based on his love, turn to learn how to love him in return? Let's get that down for. Question number two here. Or at point number two, which is the answer of the question. We need to answer the question of your love. There is no question about God's love. God's love is proven and sure. No, the question that Hussein begs us to answer the question of Gomer Hosea's wife that he went after and kept loving even after she left him. The question of Gomer at the end of Ozio is, will we turn and love God in the way that he loves us? Is our love going to be fickle or are we going to be or are we just going to in a moment. Pray to God in a moment. Come forward and profess love to God? Or are we going to have this lasting, enduring love for God?

[00:26:09] As the new direction of our lives go back to Hozier, Chapter six, turn back to our text for this morning with me. And after God kind of calls him out here on their they're fickle love. And I see this lot as a pastor. I see people who are really going through the struggles of sin. And I'm always happy to meet with people. If you really believe that God has a secret plan for your destruction.

[00:26:37] We need to talk about exactly how God is going to rub you wrong. All right. I'm the pastor. I should probably know about God's secret plan. So please come and counsel with me and tell me how he has it out for you.

[00:26:50] I would love to encourage you in the love of God. And one thing is, I see people dealing with sin in their life. Sin, they know has separated them from God. They know God loves them. They believe it. Let's go the other way now. Even though they know God loves them, they're really convinced of it. They seem sure upon it. It's almost as if it's not that big a deal that God loves me. Of course he loves me. And even though I know that I keep on doing these sins, maybe this same scene over and over and over again. And then after I do this sin, I feel terrible about it because I know God loves me and now I'm sinning against him. And so I immediately want to get out of that bad feeling I have when my sin separates me from God. And I know he's loving me and I'm kind of being a jerk back to him. And so I want to get right with God. And so I'm searching for this loving feeling that I had from God that my sin has now kind of given me a bad. Feeling and I want to get back to knowing the love of God. And so I see people who it's like, well, I. God loves me, OK? Then I go over here and and do this scene in there. Oh, no. I got to turn back to God. And so it's kind of like this.

[00:27:59] OK, I'm going to repent of my sin. I turn away. No, actually, I end up doing the sin again and I go right back to it. And now I'm feeling bad. So I ask God to forgive me and I'm going to go over here. But no, I end up doing it again. And instead of having a real repentance where we turn a new direction, it's just like this circle, like this little whirlpool of doom.

[00:28:20] They're going around where it's like, I want that loving feeling from God, but I keep doing this scene and I can never find peace in their soul. And so as soon as they seen what confessing their sin looks like to this person is it looks like just quit getting back to that loving feeling between me and God.

[00:28:37] So you tell him, hey, your sin is serious. We got to get out of it. Okay. Let's pray right now. Okay. Let's do this thing right now. Like, if I can just think differently, if I can just get those loving God thoughts back, everything will be fine.

[00:28:48] It's like they're trying to manufacture something within themselves to get back right with God. They're not really dealing with their problem of sin. They're just trying to get to the good feeling of God loving them. You see this all the time. I call it re upping. It's like I just want to re up on the love of God. I'm not really repenting of my sin. Instead, I'm just give me give me back to that feeling of love. And if you're stuck in this circle where you just keep going around trying to get out of your sand and wanting to love God, but you just keep doing the same thing. We want to help you get out of it. That's not how God designed his people to live.

[00:29:25] And if you look back here at Hosea's six, when they say those things in the first three verses, go back to chapter five, verse fifteen. Look at what their quote, the people of Israel. It's a response to Hozier Chapter Fiber's 15. This is how the chapter ended before it said, I will return again to my place. This is God speaking until they people of Israel acknowledge their guilt and seek my face and in their distress, earnestly seek me.

[00:29:54] So where God left, it was. I'm going to stay over here until you guys acknowledge your guilt, until you confessed your sin and you start to seek me with this sense of distress. That when I read that that distress there, that earnest seeking of God, that acknowledging of my sin before God. That doesn't sound like trying to get back to the loving feeling that sounds like. No, I'm feeling so bad. I'm so sorry, overmind sin that I want to really deal with this sin before God. And I confess my sin. I agree with God that it is sin. I see the same thing that God says about my sin. And I'm not just trying to get back to a loving feeling. I'm begging him to forgive me of this, to get this away from me. A lot of times people want to get right back to the love of God without really addressing. Do you love God?

[00:30:46] He can't just keep having him love you. He's looking for a response from us.

[00:30:52] And here he is looking for that response. And then they give him this. And so he says inverse for what am I going to do with you guys? All you guys want is my love. Where's the admission of your guilt? Where's the distress? This does. Hey, in two days, we're going to have a revival in three days. We're going to rise from the dead. Hey, that sounds great. But where's the conviction over sin here?

[00:31:12] God's not seeing it.

[00:31:14] And your love, it's like here today, it's gone tomorrow. So God is not okay with a manufactured manmade kind of revival. Let's get that down for our first dash if we're going to turn to the Lord and love him. We need to make sure it isn't manufactured. We need to make sure this isn't something I'm just trying to do in my own strength. This isn't me just trying to start doing the right things again. If I try a little harder, if I do a little better. We don't believe that works. Work here at CompassHB Bible Church, Huntington Beach.

[00:31:43] We don't believe in our own ability. We disagree with Charles Finney completely. We don't think that you can just make a decision. We believe that God saves you. Yes. It's you choosing to follow God. We believe in that. But we also believe that God's the one who gives the power and does the saving work. Anybody want to say a man to that? No, we're not even ourselves here. We're not just getting ourselves together. Nobody here is getting their act together. God acted to get you. That's what happens.

[00:32:12] That's what we believe.

[00:32:14] And we believe it is a it is a genuine response. That's personal and that's real. But it's God's power to give us that new heart, to put his spirit within us. God is the one who is at work. That's why we sing songs to his glory, not our own. That's why we boast in him and not of ourselves. And so the people here, they have that part about what God might do. But their response, it didn't seem genuine. Their love is disappearing quickly. Look what it says in verse five. Therefore, I have hewn them by the prophets.

[00:32:46] I have slain them like therefore my prophets are going to keep speaking to them because this half in, half out love. That's not what I'm looking for. I'm going to slay them by the words of my mouth.

[00:32:55] God says, well, I'm not accepting for some kind of in the middle love here. No, I'm going to keep on going after your heart until you give it to me out of love for me.

[00:33:07] So you can't manufacture this on your own. Go to Hozier. Chapter 14 and look at the contrast here at the end of the Book of Osier.

[00:33:15] Let's just jump straight to the end of the book where we have a very similar passage to Chapter six, I would say Chapter six is the fake revival. And then Hosain, 14. Finally, at the end of the book, we get to the real turn to God. And notice how Hosea's six in Hosie 14. There's a couple of key differences between these two chapters here. The same word starts at Shoeb. Return O Israel to the Lord, your God. We got to turn from our sins to God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity. Right away we're going after sin. Take with you words and return to the Lord.

[00:33:49] Say to him, take away all iniquity. Here I am now confessing my sin. Except what is good. And I'm even expressing to God here that I'm planning on not just professing my repentance. I'm planning on acting and practicing my repentance.

[00:34:05] Accept what is good and we will pay with balls the vows of our lives. In fact, we're not going to put our trust into Syria. The most powerful nation in the world, a serious shall not save us. We will not ride on horses and we will say no more our God. We're not going to put our trust in idols anymore to satisfy us to the work of our hands. No, in you the orphan finds mercy. So there's their call to repent. A little bit different than what they said in the first three versus of Hosea's six. This time they are talking about sin. They are confessing it. And look how God responds differently in verse four. I will heal their apostasy. He's not rejecting their revival this time. He's saying, I'm going to come in and I'm going to heal you. I will love them freely, for my anger now has turned from them. They repented of their sin. So I'm going to relent of my anger. I will be like the due to Israel. He shall blossom like the lily. He shall take root like the trees of Lebanon. Here's God referring to do again. But this time, instead of saying that their love is like the dew that's here in the morning and then gone by lunchtime, he's saying, my love is gonna be like the dew that waters the earth, that gets into the ground, that makes the roots go down deep. And then you're gonna grow up tall, like a strong tree, like one of the cedars of Lebanon. Now, I'm gonna do a work in your heart that's gonna go down to the depths of who you are. And it's gonna bear fruit. It's gonna blossom out into every part of your life. When I do my work in your heart, everyone will see it. That's what God's saying.

[00:35:36] So we've got a fake revival in Hosea's six. And then when we get to the real thing in Hosain 14, we see two things. One, the people confess. They're saying before God to God does the work from the inside out of his people.

[00:35:51] Now go back to Hozier, Chapter six, because their love was fickle, because they didn't respond like that here. I want you to see again verse five. Look what God says he's going to do here in verse five in this. You've got to think about this for a minute here. It says, Therefore, I have humen by the prophets and I have slain them by the words of my mouth. And my judgment goes forth as the light. And I want to study in the Hozier. Here, Hozier was originally written in the Hebrew language, and this was one of the rare instances where I understood what he was saying in the Hebrew. But I don't really know how the word hewn works in English. Anybody been dropping the word lately? Anybody been hewn this week? I mean, I don't I don't even. Are we husing. Do we hew one another? I'm not really sure exactly how the word hewn works. Right. You look it up in an English dictionary. What it means to hewn is it means to cut or to chop. I know in Jeremiah to where husing or there's cisterns, wells that have been dug that have been cut, that have been gotten down underground with. That's where happenings go. Sometimes things are hewn out of stone as we cut through stone where husing something. So if we're coming to God. God you love us and we're not really dealing with our sin. Here's what God says. I'm going to keep humoring you. I'm going to keep digging into your heart. I'm going to keep cutting you with my word. I'm going to send the words of my mouth and they're going to slay you. God says the prophets are going to speak.

[00:37:28] They're going to tell you what I have to say. And I'm going to keep going after your heart until you give me the whole thing. Go to Isaiah, chapter one, turn over the left a little bit in your Bible and look with me and Isaiah. Chapter one, Isaiah, a contemporary of Hosanna. Hosanna is gone after the northern kingdom of Israel. And Isaiah is going after the southern kingdom of if you know Judah. Right. And he says something about God not accepting that the people who are going through the religious motions and they're doing good things and it might look like there's a revival, it might look like the people are worshiping God. But look what God says here in Isaiah. Chapter one, verse twelve, page five hundred and sixty six. If you got one of our books, here's God now calling his people out, cutting them, digging into their heart, slaying them with his words. It says, when you come to appear before me, who has required of you this trampling of my cords. Here you come to Jerusalem. Here you come to the temple to worship me and it's like you're trampling my cords.

[00:38:35] God does not have a good perspective of these people coming to worship him. Bring no more vain offerings.

[00:38:41] Incense is an abomination to me. New Moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations. All these special times we're supposed to gather to worship the Lord. God says I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly.

[00:38:55] God says I cannot stand it. I cannot bear it. When you come to worship me and you're insane at the same time, I'm not going to settle for your half hearted professions of love when you don't really love me. We cannot coexist sin and the worship of God cannot be tolerated in the same place. That's what God's saying. I won't endure it.

[00:39:18] OK. And when you spread out your hands in verse fifteen, when you spread out your hands, that's the gesture they would make when they were praying. I will hide my eyes from you. Even though you make many prayers. I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves. Make yourselves clean.

[00:39:35] Remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes. Cease to do evil. Learn to do good. Seek justice. Correct. Depression. Bring justice to the fatherless. Plead the widow's courts.

[00:39:49] I mean, when people come to God and they know he loves them and they know they should have some response of loving him back, but it's a fake kind of love. It's a half hearted kind of love. It's a love for God that doesn't really lead to change in our life. God says, I'm going to come after you. I'm going to dig into your heart. I'm going to slay you by the words. I mean, here's the kind of rebuke that God has for people who are half hearted in their love for him. And are we those people?

[00:40:15] Are we those people here at CompassHB Bible Church?

[00:40:19] Are we the kind of people who are here to say we love God on Sunday morning? But like do by the time we get home later this afternoon, our love for God will have worn out. And we're back to live in like everybody else in the world.

[00:40:32] I mean, are we making God angry by gathering here to do church this morning, or is he pleased when he sees people who actually love him?

[00:40:40] What is our response to the love of God? And let's talk specifically about us here at this church today. Let's talk specifically about these sermons that we keep hearing at this church.

[00:40:50] Can we talk about the sermons? I'd like to talk about who's in charge of the sermons around here. You guys know I'm talking about. Now, some people, they have complaints about the sermon's here at our church. And when I hear people complaining about the sermons, I can relate to them because I have many complaints about the service. I would like the sermons to be better here at this church, because right now I'm a sophomore. Pastor, do you remember what it was like to be a sophomore? Right. This is my second year of being a pastor of this church. When you're a freshman, you're a fool. And we all agree on that, right?

[00:41:24] A sophomore. The word means a wise fool. You just now know enough to know what you don't know.

[00:41:33] That's a sophomore, not upperclassman yet. Not varsity. When I was a sophomore in high school, I used to part my hair down the middle. Does everybody remember that? I mean, that's where I was at. Sure. Glad it didn't stay there. You know what I'm saying? I mean, it took a lot if I didn't get it right. If it wasn't right down the middle. Had to do it again sometime. I'm a lot of hair gel was used. Right. And then throughout the day, I was like, just trying to keep the part there, you know? I was literally walking around like this, trying to keep the part. There's pictures that I was not going to show here today. That's where I was in high school by the time I was in college.

[00:42:10] I had moved on and the campus that I lived on, I had a reputation all over the campus of being the guy who wore socks with his sandals. You know that guy. There he is. Look at him. You could see the Haynes coming from miles away.

[00:42:27] Look at that guy. Why does he do that? Who is that guy? It was me. All right. Just oblivious. Just walking around like I'm dumb. I'm a fool wearing socks with my sandals. Eventually, I stopped doing that. Praise the Lord. Right. So I'm a sophomore right here.

[00:42:45] OK, so I am hoping that by the time we get to our junior and senior year here at this church, we will see great progress, great improvement in the preaching. And it will make some of the sermons perhaps that we've shared together this year seem sophomoric as the Lord continues to work.

[00:43:02] So if you ever have a criticism and I'm serious about this, if I ever say something that rubs you the wrong way, if I say something especially, that is not what God is saying here in this book, will you please come and talk to me about it?

[00:43:15] I am open to it. I am here to learn to get better in the preaching of God's word I'm open to. I'm serious. I would love to talk to you about. But here's the complaints that we get in. One complaint that the big complaint that comes from people who are here maybe for the first time who were just checking us out, who are new, maybe some of you are experiencing it this this morning. Is that the biggest complaint we get is we turn in the Bible way too much here at this church. We turn to too many passages. People don't always know where the passages are.

[00:43:45] And the fact that we're turning to all these places and, you know, the fact that we turned to all these passages and we read all the passages, it really starts to add on to the time of the sermon. And so some of these sermons, I mean, can you believe it? Some of these sermons are out for an hour around here. Shocking. What's going on? I mean, just could we get to the point a little bit quicker?

[00:44:05] But no. Now we're going to go to another passage. Are you kidding me? Does he know what time it is? Right.

[00:44:11] Oh, I see. We've struck something here.

[00:44:15] I mean, that's where that's a complaint that we get. Another complaint that we get a lot is that the sermons here are to convicting here at this church, sermons to convicting. What's with all the convicting sermons? Now, if I'm saying something that I shouldn't say.

[00:44:34] Let's talk about, all right, if I'm twistin a scripture, if I'm if I'm saying something that God did not intend for us to be studying from the passage that we're looking at. Hey, let's talk about that. I am open to myself being wrong as I attempt to cut straight the word of God and give it to you.

[00:44:52] But perhaps the reason some people are continually convicted is because God is cutting to your heart. Perhaps he is slaying you by the words that come out of his mouth because he will not settle for the fickle love that you're offering to him because he wants all of your heart or none of it. And so maybe that's why you feel convicted. And maybe it's not just me that's bringing you the truth. Maybe you got a fellowship group leader that's bringing you the truth.

[00:45:25] Maybe you even have the audacity of a spouse who sometimes quotes scripture to you as if they could say something correct. Corrective to your life. How dare your spouse love you in that way? Right. And all of a sudden, you're tempted to blame the pastor, to blame the fellowship group leader, to blame the spouse, to blame the messenger who's bringing you the truth when maybe you need to turn and take a good, hard look at yourself.

[00:45:54] Because God says that he wants to get in. He wants to dig deep and he wants to hewn out what's going on in your heart because your love, it's evaporating before lunch and he wants to get in there and he wants to do a work in your heart that gives you a love for him that lasts and endures like his love does for you. He wants you to really turn to him, not the fake turn, the genuine turn, and he's going to keep going after you.

[00:46:22] Until he gets here.

[00:46:24] So sometimes we got to realize that when God's speaking, hey, somebody can maybe try to encourage you to read a song or somebody can say, let's go to Israel. But there is only one who can cut to your heart, and that's God when he speaks through his word.

[00:46:39] I don't blame that on anybody else because God says I'm going to slay them with the words of my mouth here in Isaiah.

[00:46:48] He is clearly calling his people, cease doing evil, learn to do good, and as God cuts to our heart in conviction. The point of convict conviction of our sin is it would lead to confession of arson. Let's get that down for our second dash. We need to respond to conviction with confession.

[00:47:07] If we just feel convicted and don't do anything about it, we're going to want to move away from that bad feeling. We're going to want to blame others. It's going to fester and it's going to linger. And it's going to create even more separation between us and God. Now, the reason God cuts us, the reason he breaks this down is so that he can heal us and build us back up as we confess our sin to him. That's what he wants. That's why he speaks to us in such straightforward ways, like a sword piercing into our heart and exposing our sin so that we would agree with God about what the Bible says about our sin and confess it to him. And I know it's hard and I understand that it doesn't feel right when you're getting convicted. It feels like something is wrong and it hurts. But how beautiful it is to lay that sin out, to own up to your own sin. To stop denying it. Or blame shifting or putting it on somebody else. But just to say yes, God. As for me, I have done this sin against you. And to say the same thing is God about your sin. Why how blessed it is to get that burden off of your back, to get it said between you and God and to feel his forgiveness.

[00:48:21] Look, Gut says in Isaiah, Chapter 118. I mean, after this kind of harsh rebuke to the people that he doesn't even like their prayers, he's not even listening. He doesn't like when they gathered together to worship. God says so. Come now. He's not just rebuking you to push you away. He's rebuking you to draw you near. Come now. Let us reason together. Hey, let's think this through. Let's sit at the table of reconciliation and make a deal, says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow, though they are red by crimson.

[00:48:52] You've got this crimson stain on your soul, which is you're saying they shall become like white wall. Hey, I got his cut and you may be with his word in the Holy Spirit is convicting your heart. They're doing a work on the inside of you that no other person can do. It feels hard. You don't like it. But look at the deal that God's laying out before you, if you will confess. If you will wash yourselves, if you will come and just acknowledge these sins before the Lord. He wants to make a trade. He wants to offer you an exchange. He will take your crimson stained garment and he will give it back to you as white as snow, pure, radiant, unblemished. The slate will be wiped clean. That's what he said.

[00:49:39] Like, if you offer it to me, your heart. You're saying if you confessed it to me, all of it, I will erase it from existence. I will remember it. No more. I will separate you from your sin. As far as the east is from the West. God says I will bear your sin at the bottom of the sea. God says.

[00:49:59] But you got to come and confess it to me.

[00:50:02] You got to own up to it. You can't just say God's gonna do a great revival and not deal with your own sin before God. Go to Amos. Chapter five. Look at what God says here in Amos.

[00:50:12] Chapter five. You might have a hard time finding it because this Amos is not so famous. Go to Amos. Chapter five. Here with me, it's on page 768 if you got one of our books.

[00:50:25] Another one of the minor profits. No cookies here in Amos. Just a whole bunch of rebuke is what we got right here. God cut cutting people, hewn people out. Maybe that'll become a verb misused around here. Well, that sermon was really used today. Really got cut.

[00:50:40] I mean, that that's what's happening. If you don't give God all of your heart, he doesn't accept it. He keeps digging deeper into your heart. Look what it says here. Can you imagine this? Amos five, verse 21. I hate that this is a that's a way to start it out. I hate. I despise. As if hate wasn't a strong enough word. I despise. This is Amos five 21. I'm glad you turn in there. I hate I despise your fees. The fees that God commanded for all Israel to gather to Jerusalem and celebrate God's now saying he hates the fees. And I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. You offer me burn offerings and grain offerings which were done because of sin, but I will not accept them. And the peace offerings of your fat and animals. I will not look upon them. See if this translates to our modern times. Pretty well. Take away from me the noise of your songs to the melody of your harps. I will not listen. Can you imagine? We're seeing and behold our God. We're doing that awesome part where the guys are singing this and the ladies are singing this and you're just thinking about who God is and your worshiping. And all of a sudden it's like somebody is up here and they're like, turn down the volume sound, man.

[00:51:52] Hey, Ryan Pierce, give me that guitar. How dare you guys sing these songs? A bunch of hypocrites. I hate it when you come here and sing these songs when you don't really love me with your heart. What is this? You're singing me a love song and you don't love me. That's what God saying right here. Amos, Chapter five.

[00:52:10] What are we doing here?

[00:52:12] He's saying you guys are you're gathering like the whole nation is shutting down. We're all coming up the hill here to Jerusalem. We're all celebrating these fees. Yeah. When you guys do that three times a year. Yeah, I hate that.

[00:52:23] God says. I despise it because you're not really acknowledging your sin before me. You're not really offering your heart to me. You don't really love me. And if you would just agree with me that that is true and that you do have sin and you don't love me. I would forgive all of that sin.

[00:52:42] And I would bring you near to me and we would love one another, we would be knowing each other, we would have this intimate relationship. But instead, you're just going through the motions of what is right. You're just singing those songs and going to church because that's what you think you're supposed to do. And because you do it in a half hearted way. I hate it. Gotz. Our third dash here is that we need to seek a relationship, not just being right. We can't just think that, well, I'm not. I've been sinnen. So let me just start doing some good right things and gotto be OK with my right things.

[00:53:18] No, God is saying today through Isaiah one, through Amos five, through Hosea's six six. I hate right things when they're not done out of love for me. I can't stand it is what he's saying.

[00:53:30] Go back to Hozier one more time. Just a few pages over to the left here. Hozier. Chapter six. Verse six. And you gotta see this last verse we're gonna look at here because Jesus quotes it two times in the New Testament. Jesus what was studied? Hosea's six six. He knew it well and he quoted it two different times. And you can write these references down in Matthew, Chapter nine, verse 13, and in Matthew, chapter 12, verse seven, two times where Jesus was in his debates with the religious leaders, with the Pharisees in Matthew nine, Jesus had called this guy Matthew, who was a tax collector, a known sinner, to come and be one of his disciples. And they were saying, who's this guy Jesus, who's reaching out to sinners so they could repent and they can come to him and Jesus said Moses, six six to the Pharisees.

[00:54:19] He said, I desire steadfast love, not sacrifice. I desire the knowledge of God rather than burn offerings. Hey, you can go through the motions of acting like you're sorry for your sin. You can offer that sacrifice. You can do that offering. That's not what I want is your external acts of obedience. What I want is I want love from your heart. That's what God says to you this morning. What I want, God says, is I want to know you. I want to have a real relationship with you. I want to love you. And I want you to love me with all of your heart. That's what God say.

[00:54:51] I'm not I'm not interested in people who just come to church and act like they're doing me a favor by singing songs at church or people who just come and read their Bible and pray because that's like a chore they think I've given them to do. I want people who love me.

[00:55:06] I want people who know me. That's what God saying to his people. Don't give me the fake revival. Don't act like something's happening when I know it's not in your heart.

[00:55:15] I want your heart. I want that secret place that only you and I know about. That's what God saying to you.

[00:55:23] You say, I want a steadfast love and knowledge. There was a time when Jesus and his disciples were walking through a field and some of the disciples were taking the grain eat. And the Pharisees said, they're doing this on the Sabbath. They're picking up grain and they're having a snack on the Sabbath, which wasn't against any law.

[00:55:41] But they're like, we should be keeping the Sabbath. And Jesus is all you guys and your rules. Don't you know that I want steadfast love? Don't you know that I want knowledge? And here you are harping on the right thing to do.

[00:55:55] That's not what I'm interested in. I'm interested in a relationship with you.

[00:56:00] This is what God wants from every single one of us. He wants all of our heart. And he will not be content until he has it. So we're not doing some Charles Finnie business here at this church. We're not trying to pressure you from the outside to do anything. No. Only God is the one who can do the work on the inside of your heart. And I'm just here to ask you the question. Does it happen? Does love from your heart.

[00:56:29] Real love that turns you away from sin to love God. In response of his overwhelming and amazing love for you. Do you in your heart. Love God back.

[00:56:40] Not just that you say you do. And then you keep on sinning. Not like there's a turn in your life. A power of God that shows he's brought you to himself.

[00:56:51] Do you know him when we pray here together at church? Is that the only time that you pray during the week when we stand to read the scripture? Is that the only times we're read the scripture? Is it? Is it easy to forget God? Throughout the week, is there a real relationship with him?

[00:57:07] That's what he's looking for from all of us.

[00:57:10] You were not what the goal of what we're trying to do here at church. What we're going to teach through. And John, 13 to 17 is it says in John 17th three. And this is a verse we're all going to know. This is eternal life, that they may know you. The only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. That's what it means to be a Christian. I know God through his son, Jesus Christ. I know he loves me. I'm convinced of it. And I love him, too.

[00:57:36] Not perfectly. But he has made the direction of my life to love him. He has turned me around once and for all. That's the real revival. And so the band's going to come forward and we're gonna do a couple more songs and we're not going to try to get you to come forward or raise a hand. This is between you and the Lord in the secret place of your heart. You know, whether you love the Lord, you know, whether you know him. And, you know, maybe if you have sin that you need to confess before him, to agree with him, to stop trying to do the right things. But just to say to God I'm not right and to confess your sins to him, let me pray for us. I we we come before you got and we don't want to put on a show here at this church. God, I pray if I'm putting on a show, if anybody in the worship team's putting on a show, the tech team is putting on a show. The ushers, whoever it is, got, please cut us to our hearts. We pray God slay us with the words that come out of your mouth, convict us of our sin. If we continue in a God, let us confess our sins to you. Let us take the burden that is is to try to do what is right by ourselves, even while we're sinning, to still think of ourselves as righteous. And let us just cast this burden to you right now and confess our sins. Got any sin that we know of that we're doing against you? Let us confessing to you right now. And can we thank you that as we come to you and as we ask ourselves if we really love you or not, that we thank you, that when we come to you in these moments of confession, we know that you love us, Scott. We know that you have proven the offer of love.

[00:59:14] That it is on the table that has been forevermore declared. It is finished by Jesus Christ on the cross. He loved us to the end.

[00:59:29] Got to pray that we would not doubt your love when you've proven it, and I pray that we would love you in return and God even now, while we pray, while we sing God, would you dig into people's hearts here today? And when you let them get out of that circle that they're doing, where they're going back to you and going back to sin, how would you turn them around? Right now we pray to God for those of us who who know what it is to be revived, who know what it is to know your love and to love you back. God, let us never go through the motions. Let it be a relationship from our hearts. Stir us up. God, we pray to a word, create in us a clean heart and renew a right spirit in us. We pray in Jesus name.

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