It Is Time To Seek The Lord!
It Is Time To Seek The Lord!
Hosea 10: 12
Hosea has been called " the prophet of the broken heart."
His experience demonstrates that love yields the sweetest joy on earth and also
the most profound sorrow.
The Book of Hosea contains a shattered romance, a tale of unfaithfulness to the marital vow.
This prophecy is the very Word of God.
This is evident by the fact that this sordid story has little appeal upon the purely secular level.
Its appeal is much deeper than that.
Hosea received a vivid revelation of the very heart of God against the backdrop of his own
personal woe, his shattered home, and betrayed love.
Hosea was about to see that God also was a sufferer.
He came to learn that God was also a victim of unfaithfulness.
In God's case Israel was the unfaithful wife, and God was the wronged husband, and the victim
of His beloved's infidelity as she deserted Him to chase after false gods.
Hosea's love was so great and so gracious, and his heart was so forgiving that he searched
and found Gomer who was already deserted by her paramours.
Hosea found her and took her back into his own home.
After that experience he preached of God's love for Israel, and tenderly pleaded to her:
"O Israel, return unto the Lord thy God."
Hosea anticipates and prefigures the one who " came unto his own, and they that were
his own received him not." (John 1: 11)
He who was " a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." (Isaiah 53:3)
When Hosea wrote his letter, the times were turbulent.
It was the last years of the reign of Jeroboam II.
The Indian summer of Israel's history was fast passing into the winter of her discontent.
After Jeroboam, there was a period of anarchy, assassinations, and confusions.
In quick succession there were five kings.
Zechariah, Shallum, Pekahiah, Pekah, and Hosea came to the throne, and all but the last
came by killing his predecessor.
Confusion in the nation reflects the confusion in Hosea's own home.
Sin is everywhere.
" There's is nothing but swearing and breaking faith and killing and stealing, and
committing adultery; they break out, and blood toucheth blood." (Hosea 4: 2)
That is the fertile field of ripened fruit from which our text is taken.
" For it is time to seek the Lord." (Hosea 10: 12)
These words are not random sayings out of touch with the main line of the Book's thinking.
This was the very heart of God's appeal to Israel, and it is God's appeal to us.
If the time to plant seeds is over, the farmer will now sow his grain with more diligence.
Seeking the Lord is the privilege we have every day, but there are special seasons,
when by His providence and grace, it is an urgent manner.
It is time to seek God.
This is a powerful text against the dark background of Hosea's day.
It is so pertinent today!
It is " Time to seek the Lord!"
It really is!
It is time to seek the Lord in the governing places of the world were their representatives meet.
Only God can transform nations into effective instruments for peace.
God has been left outside of most governing bodies.
His Name is not mentioned in their deliberations.
What tremendous responsibilities our lawmakers have.
We must pray for them!
Nothing is more shocking than men use of corruption and fraud coming out of our local governments
and coming out of Washington.
And it seems as though that people in general are not even shocked anymore.
Reveille in Washington was a book on the Civil War.
It was published many years ago.
It made the point that had our government in Washington not been so corrupt at the time,
the South would have been overwhelmed in six months.
Many wars are taking place even now in our world, and only God can bring peace.
It is time to seek the Lord in our own communities.
One pastor said that he felt good about his own rapidly, growing Sunday school.
Then, he totaled the attendance of all the Sunday schools in town, and subtracted that number
from the total population of his city to discover how many were not in any Sunday school.
Sunday schools in most cities are declining, and that is tragic.
That means that many Christians are really saying by their behavior that they don't intend
to learn more about God and His Word.
God has given them life, even eternal life, and they will not give God an extra hour of their week.
This is tragic!
" It is time to seek the Lord!"
It is time to seek the Lord in our churches.
The indifference, the unwillingness of many to serve or get involved, and not very many
are being led to Christ outside the families of our own members.
Our churches are failing to train new leaders, and that means the future of our churches will be bleak.
Too many of our church members are still babies.
Our failure to train leaders a generation ago is being reaped in a lack of leaders now.
" It is time to seek the Lord!"
It is time to seek the Lord in our hearts.
There are too many cold hearts.
Our minds are divided.
Our hands are idle.
Dutifully, not joyfully, we bring these respectable carcasses of ours to the church and plunk
them down in our chosen places in a sparsely-filled auditorium like some huge walk-in refrigerator
-- and what usually happens?
Nothing!
" It is time to seek the Lord!"
To those who are not Christians, it is time for you to seek the Lord.
Now is the time!
Tomorrow may never come!
This may be your last opportunity!
The time will come when seeking the Lord will end.
The owner of a fig tree had sought fruit for three years, but found no fruit.
His patience ended, and he said to the vinedresser, "Cut it down; why doth it also cumber
the ground?" (Luke 13: 7)
But the vinedresser pleaded: " Lord, let it alone this year also, till I dig about it, and dung it:
and if it bear fruit thenceforth, well; but if not, thou shalt cut it down." (Luke 13:8-9)
The time of grace for the fruitless tree was a year.
The point is that every period of grace in every life has an end.
In Noah's day that time of grace was 120 years.
No one knows how much time of grace that he or she has.
So, for you this is time for you to seek the Lord.
When you receive Christ as your Saviour, your sins are immediately forgiven, and immediately,
you receive eternal life.
Someone may ask, " How can I be sure? How can I know?"
You can know because this is the plain promise of the Bible.
" Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold now is the day of salvation."
(2 Corinthians 6:2)
You can believe God!
John 3:16-18: For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life.
For God sent not the Son into the world to judge the world; but that the world should be saved
through him.
He that believeth on him is not judged: he that believeth not hath been judged already,
because he hath not believed on the name of the only begotten Son of God."
As Christians, we must have the urgency to witness to the unsaved about Jesus.
2 Timothy 4: 2 tells us that we must be " urgent in season, and out of season."
We don't know how much time our loved ones and our friends will have.
" It is time to seek the Lord!"
How many fig trees will God be giving another year?
Could this be your last year of grace -- or your last day?
It is time to seek the Lord!
Sermon adapted.