Is your REPENTANCE GENUINE

 Hosea 6.1-7.16

Is your repentance genuine?
We all know the story of the little boy who cried "wolf" and when the wolf did eventually come no one believed him and he was eaten up. I am sure you have met people who say sorry for something and then turn around and do the same thing all over again. There words did not match their actions. They were saying the right things but were failing to follow through in the way they subsequently lived. In these two chapters of Hosea that is exactly the charge that God brings through Hosea to the people of Israel. Let me set the context for this part of the book of Hosea. In chapter 5 God pronounces judgment on the people of Israel. In verse 14 there is a dire warning of the people being taken off to the lion's (Assyria) lair and in verse 15 God wanted the people of Israel to admit their guilt and to seek His face and His forgiveness.
6 verses 1-3
In the opening verses we hear words of repentance spoken by the people of God. Look at the opening sentence - "Come, let us return to the Lord." It all sounds so promising. The right words are being spoken by the people and if we ended on verse 3 it would be a wonderfully positive response by the people to the judgment of God. In verses 2 and 3 the people acknowledge that the punishment from God is justified and that they need to turn and acknowledge God. They pray that in response God will bless them with the rains of refreshment and they base this on the knowledge of His faithfulness to the covenant - hence as surely as the sun rises … God will answer their prayer of repentance. As I said if we were to end here it would be wonderful and we would believe things had changed in the lives of the people of God in response to Hosea bringing the Word of God to them. The words are right and they are confident that God will hear and heal them.
6 verses 4-6
these verses shatter the illusion of verses 1-3. Verse 4 begins with two rhetorical questions and the only possible answer in light of what follows is 'nothing.' The repentance of the people and their love for God disappears as quickly as morning mist when the sun rises. It evaporates as it is has no depth and no substance. Their repentance is superficial. Their love for God is not the faithful covenant love which God has for them. It is like Gomer telling Hosea that she loves him only for her to go off with the first man who makes eyes at her. Her words, their words, do not have any meaning or depth. There is no change of character of behaviour with these words. God's word (v5) had brought judgment upon them for their spiritual adultery and unfaithfulness. In verse 6 God tells them what He desires from them. He wants mercy - covenant loyalty from them and not just the outward acknowledgement of His existence in sacrifices. In essence He wants His Bride's heart to be bound to Him in love, loyalty and faithfulness. No religious ceremonies or sacrifices can be a substitute for the heart of the people being committed to God. Just as Hosea wanted faithful love from Gomer so God desired the same from His people. The outward rituals were superficial if there was no inward reality. Please note that God is not condemning sacrifice but He is saying that if the outward ceremony is not matched by an inward reality then it is an empty gesture at best before Him and blasphemy at worst.
6 verses 7- 7 verse 10.
To prove His point God, through Hosea, lists the sins of the people. The continual breaking of the covenant and the commandments shows just how far the people have strayed from God. They talk about repentance and about coming back to the Lord God but their actions take them in the opposite direction. Please note that the breaking of the covenant and the commandments are done deliberately and knowingly. How true is that of so much sin in our lives today? We knowingly and deliberately break the laws of God.
Let me quickly run through the sins listed here by God. At the heart of it all is the breaking of the covenant, just as Adam did in the garden of Eden to bring sin and death into the world. Their cities are noted as places of sin and even their priests, who should know better and live faithfully, are leaders in sin. To the extent that God (in verses 9 and 10) describes what He witnesses as 'shameful crimes…a horrible thing.' The result of their sin is that the people of God have prostituted themselves before other gods and with other people. God does not hide their sin and nor does He seek to excuse it but simply states it for what it is. I want you to hear that  from God in the book of Hosea. God does not excuse your sin and He does not try to reason it out. Sin is not a mistake, it is not an accident and it is not something you stumble into. These people prostituted themselves to other gods and all the time they were telling each other "Come, let us return to the Lord." Friends, listen to me here, there are so many people sitting in churches throughout this land each Sunday, who are telling others "Come, let us return to the Lord" and all the time their lives are full of prostitution and unfaithfulness before God to whom they say they are turning back.
If you read on in chapter 7 you get a fuller picture of the sinfulness and the hypocrisy of these people who speak words of repentance. God, through Hosea, tells of their sins in some detail. He tells how they have murdered kings in order for others to ascend to the throne of Israel. The depth of their sin is shown in that they held a feast for the king and celebrated with him but in the morning the struck him down. God describes their hearts desire for sin as being like the bakers oven which heats up over night without anyone seeing but by morning is searing hot. That is how God describes the heart of these people. That is how God describes their desire for sin - gradually their hearts get hotter and hotter for sin until it just pours out into their live for all to see. God goes on to speak of their arrogance (v10) and how it testifies against them before God. Ever noticed that about people? How arrogant they become when they are confronted with their sin. I am no longer surprised when people try to justify and explain their sinful actions. I am no longer surprised that people would rather leave a church and walk away than be corrected for a sinful lifestyle. Arrogance is the right word for it and let us be honest there are times when we have all been arrogant in and about our sinfulness. We have all spoken words of repentance without the actions that should follow.
You know what is the most startling and frightening verses in this passage - verses 11-16 of chapter 7. What a dreadful and dread filled picture is painted here by God. The people of Israel are compared to a senseless dove which flies one way and then the next to seek security not realising that the very people (Assyria and Egypt) that they turn to are the means of God's judgement upon them. In verse 13 there can be no clearer warning what straying from the covenant relationship with God brings - destruction. Then we read some of the saddest words spoken by God in all of Scripture. How God longs to redeem these people but they will not turn to Him nor cry out to Him. We see how God has provided a bountiful harvest for them (v14) but they use the feasts and celebrations as a means to walk further away from God. He gave them strength and trained them in righteousness (v15) but they used that strength and training to plot evil against God and the things of God. In the end (v16) they are of no use and their demise is assured. How sad a picture is painted here? God longs to redeem them but they would have none of it. They pay lip service to repentance but there is no change in their behaviour. Just as Gomer said she loved Hosea when she married him but her behaviour showed that she loved no one but her self and the fulfilling of her selfish desires took precedent over the fulfilling of her marriage vows. So the people of Israel said they loved God but they committed adultery with other gods and showed that their own evil hearts were their god.
We could go on  and list the sins of Israel and the numerous occasions when God called them to repent and for a while it appeared they had only for them to return to their wicked way.  How does this passage relate to you and I in 2010?
Friends, t I believe God would issue the same word of warning to every heart reading this post. Some of you are exactly where Israel was in these two chapters. There are some of you reading this post and you talk about coming back to the Lord God but you have no intentions of leaving your life of sin. You want your other gods and your other lovers and you want to be able to come to your church and sing God's praise and commit to live for Him but it evaporates before you leave the car park, like morning mist. Friends, you know if God is challenging you about your faithfulness to Him and He warns you  that if your life does not match your lips then He will bring judgment upon you. Some of you are great at saying the right things at the right time but there is absolutely no spiritual reality to your words. You can fool some, you may even be fooling yourself but you cannot fool God. God says to each and every one of us  "I long to redeem you." The question is are we going to be like Gomer and the people of Israel in hearing those words but paying only lip service to them. You see there was no brokenness with Gomer or the people of Israel for their actions. They had remorse and regret, enough to go and offer a sin offering before God in the Temple but there was no true repentance because their lives did not change. The same is true for some of you. You have remorse and regret over your sin and you adultery before God but you have never been broken over it and you have not changed your way of life. The truth is you are a Gomer - living with one husband but sleeping with many others - claiming to follow Christ whilst being unfaithful with all the gods of this world and the desires of your own heart. Hear the words of warning from Hosea - God will come in judgement on your life for such behaviour but hear also the hope of Hosea when God says "I long to redeem them.