Hosea 14:3 (KJV)
Asshur shall not save
us; we will not ride upon horses: neither will we say any more to the work of
our hands, Ye are our gods: for in thee the fatherless findeth mercy.
Remember that we have
been working almost completely with three variations of one Hebrew word,
Asshur. It is used:
· As a state of emotion - Happy - H837
· As a statement of reputation - Blessed - H833
· As a kind of testimony - Asher - H836
We have in Hosea 14:3 a
fourth variation of this word.
It is listed in Strong’s
Concordance as H804.
The word means successful and it refers to another son
born in the days of the book of Genesis, the second born of Shem,[1]
the father of the nation of Assyria.
I don’t really have the
time to spend giving the background to the book of Hosea that it deserves.
· He was a prophet in the Northern Kingdom of Israel at about
the same time that Jonah was alive.
Remember what Jonah had
done?
Under the direction of
God, Jonah had gone to the Assyrian city of Nineveh and preached so that they
repented and got right with God.
At the same time,
nothing was right between Israel and God.
The King in the Israel
at the time was Jeroboam II.
God wiped out his whole
family by anointing Jehu, a general, to kill Jeroboam II and his whole family
and everyone who was loyal to him.
The northern kingdom of
Israel never had a good king but Jeroboam II was among the worst of the worst.
The book of Hosea is
meant to pronounce judgment upon this nation.
It describes her like a
prostitute, sold into the slave market, bought by a loving husband, God, but
she rejects her husband and runs back into her fornications.
But then we come to
chapter 14 and God, through the prophet, offers them another opportunity to get
right with Him.
Vs 1
O Israel, return unto
the Lord….
How is she supposed to
return?
Is she supposed to become more religious?
No.
Is she supposed to go to the Jordan River and be baptized?
No.
Is she supposed to give to the less fortunate in the world?
No.
Vs 2
Take with you words and
turn to the Lord….
She is to return to the
Lord through prayer.
Hosea goes on from there
to even tell her what to say when she prays,
Vs 2
Say unto him, Take away
all iniquity and receive us graciously…
We have right here a
biblical example of soul winning.
· The evangelist explains to the lost soul that they have
grieved God
· The evangelist then appeals to them to be reconciled to god
through the Gospel of Jesus Christ and then
· The evangelist leads them in a prayer asking God to: remove
their sin and receive them by His grace
There is nothing wrong
with leading a person in a prayer of salvation.
There is then this
strange phrase I think I have to address or else some of you won’t be able to
hear anything else I say,
“so will we render
calves of our lips.”
What does THAT mean?
It’s really simpler than
you could imagine. It just means that when God has forgiven our sins and
received us by His grace, we will offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with our
lips.[2]
· No more animals need to be killed
· No more blood has to be shed
· No more religious duties have to be performed
When we are saved, we
just spend the rest of our lives thanking Him for that!
When we come to Hosea
14:3, Hosea is still leading them in this “prayer of salvation.”
“God, we are trusting
you[3]
to:
· Forgive our iniquity and
· Receive us graciously
Then further, God[4]
· We are not trusting Asshur, that strong nation above us to
save us
· We will not trust the strength of our army on horse to save
us
· We will not trust the false gods we used to worship to save
us
We only trust your mercy
Father, to save us.”
Vs 4 and following is
God’s promise to answer that prayer.
Now you have an idea of
what Hosea 14:1-3 is about.
I want to draw you
attention to the very first phrase of verse 3, “Asshur shall not save us…”
It is a distant cousin,
but I believe closely enough related that I am not abusing the Bible to apply
this word Asshur to the word happiness and make this statement, Happiness will not save you.
Our world is filled with
people who know that something is wrong with them.
· They cannot seem to make their marriages work
· They cannot hold down a decent job
· They cannot get along with their parents
· They cannot raise their children to do better in life than
they did
· They didn’t get married only to ruin the relationship
· They didn’t wake up one day and say, “I think I want to do
terrible in school.”
They didn’t plan to
become a drunk or a drug addict.
Apostle Paul described
it like this,
Romans 7:18-19 (KJV)
For I know that in me
(that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me;
but how to perform that which is good I find not.
For the good that I
would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
Romans 7:23-24 (KJV)
… I see another law in
my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity
to the law of sin which is in my members.
O wretched man that I
am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
They know there is
something wrong with them.
They just go to all the
wrong places for salvation.
They think that
happiness can save us.
And I just want to tell
you today that, as good as it is to be happy, there is no happiness in this
world that can save you from yourself.
I. THE
HAPPINESS OF SUCCESS CANNOT SAVE YOU
I mean by success
· money,
· property,
· wealth,
· fame
History is filled with
the stories of people who “had it all” but had no peace with God and so no
peace in their life.
Judas Iscariot might be an example of a man who successfully
got money, but hated it once he had it.
Matthew 26:14-16 (KJV)
Then one of the twelve,
called Judas Iscariot, went unto the chief priests,
And said unto them, What
will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you? And they covenanted with him
for thirty pieces of silver.
And from that time he
sought opportunity to betray him.
Judas had just brokered
the deal of the century.
He was going to give to
the Pharisees the one man they believed had to be sacrificed for the good of the
nation.
He was going to get paid
for saving his country!
And it was no small
amount of money. It was enough to buy a field to use as a cemetery – that would
have been a substantial sum!
· He successfully made the deal and then
· He successfully led them to Jesus “secret” place of prayer
But once he got the
money, he couldn’t stand having it.
Matthew 27:3-5 (KJV)
Then Judas, which had
betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought
again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders,
Saying, I have sinned in
that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? see
thou to that.
And he cast down the
pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.
The very thing he
thought would make him happy led to his destruction.
In the book of Esther Haman successfully negotiated for the
annihilation of his worst enemies, the Jews. He was one of his kings closest
advisors, eating at his table and leading is world changing decisions – but in
the end he could not be happy with what he had and was hanged on the very
gallows he had built to hang his enemy on.
Howard Hughes was:
· Handsome
· Adventuresome
· Talented and
· Wealthy beyond our dreams
But he lived the last
decade of his life or so as a hermit, afraid of his own germs.
Success won’t give you
peace.
II. THE
HAPPINESS OF A SPOUSE CANNOT SAVE YOU
How many are the men and
women who marry for absolutely the wrong reason!
They think that having a
spouse, a husband or a wife will complete their life, make them whole and bring
them great peace and joy.
Now – understand – I
have nothing whatsoever against marriage.
· I have been very happily married for 36 years.
· Anita has been happy a good number of those years too. J
I heard a report the
other day that showed that that men especially are more likely to
· Settle down
· Hold a steady job and
· Become responsible citizens
when they marry.
God said that it is not
good for man to be alone and I am all for what God says.
But understand this,
Marriage will not fill
an empty soul.
· Marriage cannot make an unhappy person happy.
· Marriage cannot fix a broken man
There is only one way for a marriage to work out right.
Both the man and the
woman must be satisfied in Christ.
· If all of my needs are met in Christ and
· If all of Anita’s needs are met in Christ
Then I have plenty I can
give to Anita and
She has plenty she can
give to me
· We both receive abundantly from our relationship but
· Neither of us expects or needs anything from our
relationship and
Our relationship is
heaven on earth.
If on the other hand, I am needy.
And suppose for a moment
that she is needy too.
Then I need her to make
my world right for me
I need her to make sure
that the house is:
· Clean and
· Straight and
· Smells good, but not too “girly”
I need the dinner to be
on the table when I get home
· I need the bills to be all paid
· I need lots of food in the fridge with junk food to eat at
my pleasure and
· I need her to get all of that without spending my paycheck because
I need that to buy cars
and quads and electronics of all sorts.
And at the very same
time
· She needs me to be a good provider
· She needs me to buy her a fine house
· She needs me to give her the money to stock the pantry
· She needs me to see that she has all of the finer clothes to
impress her gal friends
· She needs me to buy fresh flowers of the table and jewelry
for her neck and perfumes to make her smell sweet and
She needs me to not work
so I can stay home and help her take care of the kids and hug on her when she
is having a bad day.
Can you see that this isn’t going to work?
Marriage can’t save a
person, only a saved person can make a marriage worth having.
III. THE
HAPPINESS OF “SPIRITS” CANNOT SAVE YOU
Ephesians 5:18 (KJV)
And be not drunk with
wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;
There is a Holy Spirit
of God and there is a host of “spirits” in this world.
Many of them are
occupied in the form of drugs and alcohol.
Many is the soul who
attempts to numb the pain of their heart with these spirits.
But it is no answer.
IV. THE
HAPPINESS OF THE SENSUAL CANNOT SAVE YOU
I heard a report the
other day that said that a black child born to slaves parents before the Civil
War was more likely to be raised by both parents than the average child in
America is today.
Marriage is in such
trouble today that a huge number of people simply are choosing not to risk it.
But while people may not
be getting married that does not mean they are abstaining from those pleasures
that God meant to be confined to the marriage bed.
May I just put it like
this, animal like behavior will never lead to “the better angels of our
nature.”
The atheist likes to
brag that human kind is evolving into a better and better being all the while
they are insisting we should be free to behave just like lesser and lesser
creatures.
Let me finally say that
V. THE
HAPPINESS OF “SUDDENLY ENDING IT” ALL CANNOT SAVE YOU
Judas Iscariot was so distraught with the consequences of his
betrayal of Christ that the Bible says he went out and hanged himself.
Not long ago a young lady, diagnosed with a terrible and incurable
cancer, opted to end her own life before the cancer got the better of her.
While she was still well
enough to do so she and her husband:
· Took trips
· Saw sights
· Experienced thrills
And, it is my
understanding, earned the money to do all of that by blogging about the last
days of her life before she finally took her own life.
I freely admit that I do
not know the state of her soul. I cannot know if she had ever called out upon
the Lord and asked him to, “take away all [her] iniquity” and “receive [her] graciously.”
I can tell you this,
based upon the authority of the Word of God, if she had never gotten saved
through the gracious Gospel of Jesus Christ, ending her life before the cancer
did, did not improve her condition.
Conclusion
Thomas Jefferson wrote,
and the whole world has since declared it to be one of the greatest statements
of all time, “We hold these truths to be
self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their
Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and
the Pursuit of happiness.”
I agree.
And I am certain that
happiness is gift given to us by God.
But I am also certain
that happiness and salvation are not one and the same.
And that, if a soul is
not saved, by the grace of God through the gospel of Jesus Christ, there is no
happiness that can help him.
