Hosea 14

Order of Service

• Call to Worship — Psalm 29
• Hymn — Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven (#76)
• Shorter Catechism — Questions 55 & 56
• Hymn — God, My King, Thy Might Confessing (#5)
• Pastoral Prayer
• Scripture Reading — Hosea 14
• Sermon
• Hymn — God, Be Merciful to Me (#486)
• Benediction

---

Sermon Title: Repentance, Confession, and Restoration

Scripture: Hosea 14

I. Repentance and Confession (Hosea 14:1–3)

A. God commands Israel to return with words — genuine verbal confession, not rote ceremony

1. Psalm 51:17 — "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise"
2. Hosea 12:4 — Jacob's example: he wept and sought God's favor; words of sorrow and contrition are disarming and restorative

B. Repentance includes confessing "You were right and I was wrong"

1. Israel must acknowledge that Assyria, Egypt, and idols cannot save — only Yahweh can
2. Confession strips away all self-justification and excuse

C. The incentive for confession: God's mercy to the orphan (Hosea 14:3)

1. Israel, having played the unfaithful wife and been abandoned by Baal, is left an orphan in exile
2. The faithful husband Yahweh alone stands ready to extend mercy
3. 1 John 1:9 — "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness"
4. Luther's pre-Reformation anguish: seeing God's justice apart from Christ produced only condemnation; the Reformation discovery of Romans 3 revealed God as both just and justifier at the cross
5. God's justice is manifested in his forgiveness — to withhold forgiveness from one who comes through Christ would make God unjust

II. Repentance and Comfort (Hosea 14:4–8)

A. The blessings of restoration flow from God himself, not from Israel's effort

1. Hosea 14:5 — "I will be like the dew to Israel" — growth originates with God
2. Hosea 14:7 — "They shall return and dwell beneath my shadow" — flourishing flows from union with God
3. Hosea 14:8 — "From me comes your fruit" — the evergreen cypress as image of God's inexhaustible life

B. The imagery contrasts judgment (wilderness, drought) with restoration (lily, Lebanon cedars, olive, vine)

1. John 4:13–14 — Jesus as the water that becomes a spring welling up to eternal life
2. John 7:38 — rivers of living water flowing from those who believe; Christ pours out the Spirit upon repentant covenant people

C. The critical order in Hosea 14:4: "I will heal their apostasy" — God heals; the sinner does not heal himself

1. Jeremiah 13:23 — "Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots?" — outside Christ, sinners cannot change
2. Telling sinners to change before presenting Christ is telling leopards to change their spots
3. What the sinner needs is Christ preached — his mercy, lowliness, grace, and righteousness capturing the heart
4. Pattern in Acts 2 and throughout Acts: redemptive-historical proclamation of Christ comes first; the people are "cut to the heart"; then the call to repent and be baptized follows naturally
5. Warning against two errors: (a) liberal churches omitting repentance altogether; (b) conservative churches preaching repentance without Christ, which is equally fruitless
6. Gospel repentance = confession of sin + presentation of Christ + reception of the Spirit's power to change