Latest / Reformed Thinking / Misery Before Mercy: God’s Path to Repentance (Hosea 5:15) | Jonathan Edwards

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Misery Before Mercy: God’s Path to Repentance (Hosea 5:15) | Jonathan Edwards · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to reformed thinking. It's good to be back.
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  We are your guides through the great texts of the theological
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  library. We take these old books, these
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  sermons, the confessions, all from a Protestant Reformed
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  perspective, and we try to get to the heart of what they're
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  saying. The goal is really to see how
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  these historic ideas can still speak to us right now.
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  And we have a, well, a pretty significant text on the table
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  for this deep dive. We do.
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  We're looking at a sermon by Jonathan Edwards, and I'm as
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  soon as you say that name, people immediately think of one
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  thing. Sinners in the hands of an angry
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  God. Always the spider dangling over
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  the flame. Right.
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  It's what he's famous for. It is, but Edwards was so much
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  more than that. He was a pastor, a brilliant
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  theologian, and he spent his life trying to understand the
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  the mechanics of the soul, you could say.
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  So what's the sermon for today? It's titled God makes men
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  sensible of their misery before he reveals His mercy and love.
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  OK, that's a mouthful of a title, but it's pretty redirect.
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  It lays out the whole argument right there.
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  It does, and he's preaching from Hosea, chapter 5, verse 15.
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  So our mission today is to try and understand a really
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  difficult concept, this idea of humiliation.
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  Humiliation. Not the word we love.
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  Not at. All but for Edwards, it's this
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  necessary process of conviction of, you know, feeling the real
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  weight of your own sin before you can feel the comfort of the
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  gospel. It brings up a question I think
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  a lot of people wrestle with. Why does God seem to pull away
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  to withdraw right before he saves?
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  And why does it get so much darker right before the dawn?
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  That is the central question. So let's start where Edwards
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  does. Let's start with the text Hosea
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  5.15. OK, so the verse reads.
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  I will go and return to my place till they acknowledge their
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  offence and seek my face in their affliction.
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  They will seek me early. The first thing that jumps out
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  is that phrase. I will go and return to my
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  place. Yeah, that sounds like
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  abandonment, like God is just leaving.
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  It feels that way, but to get it, you have to look at the
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  verses just before it. Edwards points out that Jose is
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  talking to both Ephraim, that's the 10 tribes of Israel, and to
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  Judah, the two southern tribes. And in the lead up, God uses
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  some pretty terrifying imagery to describe himself.
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  He's not a gentle shepherd here. No, he says, God is a.
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  Lion, a lion and a young lion, he says.
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  I will be under Ephraim as a lion and as a young lion to the
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  House of Judah. I even I will tear and go away.
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  I will tear. That is incredibly violent
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  language. It's.
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  Shocking. But the second part of that is
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  just as critical for Edward's sermon.
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  And go away. That's the key.
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  He doesn't just tear, he tears and leaves.
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  Right. The lion inflicts this terrible
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  wound, and then instead of immediately healing it, he
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  withdraws. He returns to his place, leaving
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  the center in that torn, afflicted condition.
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  And Edward's argument is that this isn't random cruelty.
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  There's a purpose behind the withdrawal.
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  A very specific purpose. It's a waiting game, he says.
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  He'll wait till they acknowledge their offense, and Edwards
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  breaks this down into three conditions that God is waiting
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  for them to meet. OK, what's the first one?
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  First, they have to be sensible of their guilt, he points out at
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  the original Hebrew is interesting here.
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  It literally means something like till they become guilty,
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  wait. But aren't they already guilty?
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  I mean, God is tearing them like a lion.
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  The crime has already happened. They're objectively guilty, yes,
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  but the nuance, as Edward sees it, is till they become guilty
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  in their own eyes. It's one thing to have broken
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  the law. It's another thing entirely to
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  finally see yourself as a criminal.
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  It's about that internal recognition.
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  So it's a felt guilt and owned guilt.
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  Exactly so that a condition one condition 2 is sensibility of
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  their misery. OK, the text says.
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  In their affliction they will seek me.
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  Before the lion tore them, they were proud.
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  They were going their own way. They didn't feel any real need
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  for God. But now they're hurting.
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  Now they're hurting. They're feeling the
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  consequences. The affliction is making them
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  aware of their miserable state. And what's the third condition?
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  The third is sensibility of need, or you could say
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  helplessness. The verse says they will seek
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  him early. And early here doesn't mean
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  first thing in the morning. No, it implies with earnestness,
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  with urgency. Edwards points out that earlier
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  in Hosea, when Ephraim sought his sickness, what did he do?
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  He ran to the Assyrian king for help.
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  He looked for a political fix, an alliance.
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  He looked to King Jereb, another name used for the Assyrian king.
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  He tried every human solution he could think of, but those
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  earthly powers couldn't heal a wound that God himself had made.
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  Because if the lion is the one who tore you, a human king can't
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  provide the stitches. That's it.
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  So God withdraws to let all those other options fail.
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  He waits until they finally realize the Assyrian can't save
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  me. My own strength can't save me.
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  The only one who can heal this wound is the one who made it.
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  This really sets up the main point, the core doctrine of the
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  whole sermon. It does.
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  Edward states it very plainly. It is God's manner to make men
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  sensible of their misery and unworthiness before he appears
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  in his mercy. And he says this applies to
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  everything, right, Not just salvation.
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  Right. He clarifies that it applies to
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  big temporal deliverances, like saving a nation from an enemy or
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  a person from a grave sickness. But most of all it applies to
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  spiritual salvation. He sees it as a fundamental
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  pattern of Providence. And this is where Edwards is, I
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  think, at his best. He doesn't just give you the
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  thesis statement, he then takes you on a tour through the whole
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  Old Testament to prove it. He really does.
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  He starts with Joseph. A perfect example.
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  Before Joseph is raised up to be second in command in all of
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  Egypt. This picture of glory and
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  deliverance, where do we find him?
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  In a dungeon in the pit, falsely accused, totally forgotten.
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  He has to be completely humbled, brought to the absolute bottom,
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  before he can be exalted. Then Edwards flips the camera,
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  so to speak, over to Joseph's brothers.
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  Yes, they come to Egypt desperate for food, and Joseph
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  recognizes them, but he doesn't just say, hey, it's me.
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  No, not at all. He puts them through the
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  wringer. He accuses them of being spies,
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  throws them in jail. He demands they bring their
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  youngest brother, Benjamin, which he knows will terrify
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  their father. From the outside, it looks
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  unbelievably harsh. It seems cruel.
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  But Edwards says it was necessary.
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  They had to go through that anxiety, that distress, that
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  fear of losing everything. They had to be brought to the
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  point where they finally confessed to each other.
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  We are verily guilty concerning our brother.
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  They had to feel the weight of their old sin.
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  Only then, when they were at the absolute end of their rope,
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  convinced they were about to lose Benjamin and be destroyed,
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  only then did Joseph reveal himself.
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  And the joy of that reunion was made so much greater because of
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  the agony that came before it. He even brings up their father,
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  Jacob. Yes, back in Canaan, Jacob is in
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  despair. He cries out.
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  All these things are against me. He's convinced Joseph is dead.
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  Simeon is now a prisoner in Egypt, and now these men want to
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  take Benjamin. It's the lowest point of his
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  life. He thinks God has abandoned him
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  completely. And it's right at that moment of
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  total darkness that the wagons arrive with the news that Joseph
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  is alive and is the ruler of Egypt.
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  The contrast is what makes the deliverance so stunning.
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  The darkness makes the light so much brighter.
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  It's a dramatic tension, and he sees the same pattern with the
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  Exodus. You'd think if God is going to
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  perform his greatest act of Old Testament salvation, He just,
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  you know, snap his fingers and make it easy.
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  But what happens right before they're delivered?
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  Things get way worse. Pharaoh takes away their straw
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  from making bricks but demands the same quota.
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  Their slavery becomes unbearable.
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  The bondage had to become extreme, as Edwards puts it.
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  And even after they leave Egypt, where does God lead them?
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  Straight into a trap. Right to the shore of the Red
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  Sea, the seas in front of them, mountains on the sides, and
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  Pharaoh's entire army is closing in from behind.
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  They are shut up on all sides. They're terrified.
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  They're screaming at Moses that he brought them out there to
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  die. And it's at that moment of
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  maximum terror and helplessness. That's on the waters part.
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  It's the pattern. Again and again, distress comes
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  before glory. And then of course you have the
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  wilderness. I mean, if there was ever a 40
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  year long lesson in this, that's it.
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  Oh absolutely. Edwards leans heavily on
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  Deuteronomy. Here, chapters 8 and 32, he
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  quotes that phrase. God LED them through a waste,
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  howling wilderness. He didn't take them the easy
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  way, the short route through the Philistine country.
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  He took them the long way around for 40 years.
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  And scripture is crystal clear about why it says it was to
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  humble thee and to prove thee to know what was in thine heart.
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  That phrase is so interesting to know what was in line heart.
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  But of course, God already knows everything.
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  Right. And that's the key.
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  God knew it was in their hearts, but they didn't.
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  They thought they were pretty decent people.
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  They needed to see it for themselves.
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  The trials were designed to expose what was really there,
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  the hunger, the thirst, the fiery serpents.
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  Edwards brings up the manna. God let them get desperately
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  hungry before he provided the bread from heaven.
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  Why? To teach them that man does not
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  live by bread alone. So the suffering was a kind of
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  divine classroom. It was an education in their own
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  perverseness, in their own dependence.
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  If they had just marched into Canaan after a few weeks, they
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  would have been tempted to say my power and the might of my
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  hand have gotten me this wealth. We did this because we're so
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  righteous. Exactly, the wilderness journey
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  was designed to crush that self righteousness completely so they
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  would know that the land was a gift of grace, not a wage they
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  had earned. And this pattern, it doesn't
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  just stop with the Old Testament, he carries it right
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  into the new. He does.
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  He brings up the story of the woman of Canaan.
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  That's a really tough story to read.
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  She comes to Jesus begging for healing for her daughter, and at
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  first he just ignores her. Complete silence.
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  And then when the disciples complain and he finally does
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  speak to her, it's what Edwards calls a humbling answer.
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  He says it is not meat to take the children's bread and to cast
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  it to dogs. I mean, Can you imagine being
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  called a dog by the Son of God? Most of us would have just slunk
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  away in shame or gotten angry. But she doesn't.
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  No, look at her response. She accepts the status.
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  She basically says yes, Lord, I am a dog.
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  But even the dogs get to eat the crumbs that fall from the
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  master's table. It's her total acceptance of her
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  own unworthiness, her humiliation, that precedes Jesus
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  saying, O woman, greatest thy faith.
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  It's the same pattern as the prodigal son, isn't it?
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  He had to end up in a pig sty, so hungry he was willing to eat
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  pig food before he finally came to himself and went home.
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  Perfect parallel, and Edwards even quotes Paul in Second
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  Corinthians who talks about having the sentence of death in
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  himself so that he would learn not to trust in himself but in
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  God who raises the dead. The pattern is just woven
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  through the entire Bible. OK, so he's established this
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  historical pattern. Let's move into Part 2 of the
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  sermon where he gets very psychological.
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  He calls it the anatomy of conversion.
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  He wants to look inside the soul and see how God actually does
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  this work. How does God reveal this misery
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  to a person? Right.
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  He moves from the big picture of history to the internal
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  experience of a single soul, and he breaks it down into four
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  distinct steps or convictions that a person goes through.
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  So what's step one? Step one is the conviction of
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  sin or guilt. This is where you first become
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  aware that you have a real problem.
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  So it's more than just a vague feeling of I'm not perfect.
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  Much more, Edwards says. God sets their sins in order
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  before their eyes. It's like a specific detailed
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  accounting sins you committed years ago and completely forgot
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  about, things you dismissed at the time as light offences
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  suddenly come rushing back to your memory with incredible
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  weight. He uses that phrase, the specter
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  of sin, like these past actions are literally haunting you.
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  They haunt the memory. Yes, and Edward says God uses 2
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  main methods to reveal the corruption of the heart during
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  the stage. The 1st is obvious.
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  You look at your life, at all your sinful actions, and you
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  realize they must come from a polluted source, a fountain of
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  corruption inside you. OK, that makes sense.
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  What's the second method? The second one is fascinating
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  and frankly, bit scary, he says. God sometimes allows the heart's
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  true nature to show itself while it's under the terror of
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  conviction. Let's unpack that.
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  What does that mean? So imagine a person is terrified
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  of hell. They're under immense spiritual
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  stress. You would think their natural
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  reaction would be to become pious and humble, but instead
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  their heart reacts with anger and resentment towards God.
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  They start murmuring against God just like the Israelites did in
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  the wilderness. They feel that his law is too
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  strict, that his judgement is unfair.
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  And Edward says God allows this ugly reaction to surface so the
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  Sinner can see it and be horrified by it.
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  So they can say, my goodness, I am truly wicked.
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  Even when I'm terrified of judgement, my first instinct is
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  to hate the judge. It exposes what he calls the
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  plague of their own hearts. Precisely.
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  It's not to excuse that sinful reaction, but to use it as a
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  diagnostic tool to show the Sinner that their nature is
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  rotten all the way to the core. So that's step one.
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  Conviction of guilt with Step 2. Step 2 is the conviction of
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  danger or misery. This is where you move from I
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  did wrong things to I am in serious, serious trouble because
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  of them. It's the difference between
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  seeing a no trespassing sign and hearing the shotgun cock behind
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  you. That's a good way to put it.
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  It's about feeling the personal danger and this is where
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  Edward's reputation comes from, his ability to make this real
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  for people. He makes it visceral.
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  He talks about the dreadfulness of God's wrath.
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  It's moving from just hearing about God's anger in a sermon to
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  feeling the terrifying reality of what it means to fall into
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  the hands of the living God. He says this conviction often
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  works on the imagination. Sinners feel as if they can
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  already see the flames of hell or hear the shrieks of the
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  damned. That's the classic intense
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  Edwards. It is, but it's important to see
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  the connection he's making. It's not just a generic fear of
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  fire. The key is seeing the direct
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  link between your specific guilt and that specific wrath.
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  It's the dawning realization that my sin, the things I have
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  done, has earned me this. I forged the very chains that
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  are now binding me like. Adam and Eve hiding in the
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  garden after they ate the fruit. They weren't just hiding, they
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  were terrified because they knew what they had done and who is
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  coming to find them. Exactly.
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  Or the Philippian jailer who falls down trembling before Paul
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  and Silas. Or even Elijah.
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  Remember, before God speaks in the still small voice, there's
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  the wind, the earthquake, and the fire.
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  The terror often comes before the comfort.
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  OK, so we've got guilt and danger.
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  Step three seems like the hardest one for modern people to
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  accept the conviction of desert, the idea that you actually
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  deserve the punishment. This is absolutely critical for
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  Edwards's whole system. He would say that many, many
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  people are afraid of hell. Very few people truly believe
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  they belong there. Our natural instinct is to say,
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  OK, I'm not perfect, I've made some mistakes, but eternal
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  punishment? That seems excessive,
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  disproportionate. And as long as you are thinking
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  that you are still arguing with God, you're putting God in the
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  dock and judging Him. Edward says the sinner's mouth
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  must be stopped and he's quoting Romans 3.19 there.
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  You have to get to a point where all your arguments, all your
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  excuses, all yourself justification just crumble and
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  you were left with the plain admission that God would be
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  perfectly and completely just to condemn you forever.
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  How on earth does a person get to that point?
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  It goes against every instinct for self preservation.
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  It does. Edwards explains the mechanics
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  of it through what he calls natural conscience.
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  He argues that even though humanity has fallen, we weren't
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  left without a conscience. Our reason is impaired, but the
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  conscience still works, and it does two things.
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  One, it distinguishes right from wrong, and two, it automatically
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  suggests a connection between doing wrong and deserving
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  punishment. So deep down, there's a part of
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  us that knows. There is, but sin stupifies it,
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  as he says. It numbs it, buries it under
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  layers of excuses. So Edwards says, the Holy Spirit
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  comes to assist the natural conscience.
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  The Spirit doesn't give you a new conscience.
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  He turns the light on so your existing conscience can work
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  properly. And how does he do that?
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  He uses the law. He brings the thunders of Mount
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  Sinai into the courtroom of your soul.
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  The spirits work is to show you the awful greatness, the
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  infinite majesty of the God you have offended.
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  So the logic is, the greater the person you offend, the greater
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  the crime. That's it exactly.
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  If you insult a stranger, it's one thing.
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  If you insult a king, it's a much more serious offense.
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  If you sin against a God of infinite greatness, infinite
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  holiness, and infinite majesty, well, that deserves an infinite
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  punishment. When the Spirit illuminates the
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  sheer reality of who God is, even a natural unregenerate
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  person can be brought to see the perfect justice of their own
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  condemnation. So they stop fighting, they stop
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  saying it's not fair, and they finally just say I am guilty.
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  Yes, they stand guilty before God.
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  Their mouth is stopped. There's nothing left to say.
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  Which has to lead directly to Step 4, the conviction of
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  helplessness, because if I know I'm guilty, I'm in danger and I
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  deserve it. My very next thought is going to
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  be what can I do to fix this? That's.
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  The last stand of human pride. OK, I'll do better.
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  I'll pray more. I'll read my Bible.
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  I'll turn over a new leaf. I'll clean up my act.
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  Edwards has a great phrase for this.
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  He calls it Building Castles in the air.
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  That's a perfect image for it. We try to reform ourselves, to
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  mend our own hearts by our own strength.
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  But God has to shatter this final illusion too.
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  So he lets the Sinner try. He lets them strive and struggle
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  to make themselves better. And what happened?
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  They fail utterly. They fail spectacularly.
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  They try to make their heart love God, but all they find is
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  coldness and enmity. They try to stop a particular
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  sin and it seems to flare up with even more power than
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  before. The more they try to get better,
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  the worse they feel their own heart becoming.
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  It's like being stuck in quicksand.
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  The more you struggle, the faster you sink.
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  That is precisely the point. God in his mercy shuts them up.
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  Edwards quotes Galatians 3, which talks about the law
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  keeping us shut up unto the faith.
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  It's like being in a prison with no exit.
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  God has to bring the Sinner to the point where they realize
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  they are spiritually dead, totally unable to do anything
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  good, utterly insufficient to save themselves.
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  But why? I mean, why drive someone to
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  that level of despair? To make them despair of self
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  help. It's not to make them despair of
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  God's mercy, but to make them give up completely on their own
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  ability. He references John 9 where Jesus
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  says he came so that they would see might be made blind.
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  You have to come to the point where you admit you are sensibly
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  blind, as Edwards would say, before you can be given sight.
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  You have to know you are dead before you can be raised to
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  life. This all leads into the next
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  section of the sermon, Part 3. The reasons.
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  He's not just describing what happens, he's explaining why God
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  uses this method. This isn't divine cruelty.
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  There's a deep theology behind it.
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  Right. And his first reason is that
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  this process creates a harmony of God's attributes in the mind
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  of the saved person. God is infinite mercy,
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  absolutely, but He is also infinite justice and infinite
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  majesty. And you can't have one without
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  the others. Edwards argues that if God just
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  showed mercy without first giving the Sinner A profound
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  sense of his justice, it would be a dishonor to his own glory.
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  We'd start to think that God is soft on sin or that holiness
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  doesn't really matter. We would approach him with what
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  he calls undue boldness. Yes, we'd treat his grace
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  casually. We wouldn't have the proper awe
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  and reverence for the judge who is pardoning us, so the
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  discoveries of His Amazing Grace have to be accompanied by
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  discoveries of His terrible Majesty.
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  It also serves to highlight the very nature of grace itself.
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  It does. His second reason is that this
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  process reveals grace as truly free and sovereign.
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  You simply cannot appreciate grace as grace until you are
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  convinced that it is completely unmerited.
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  You can't grasp what sovereign mercy means until you understand
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  that what you actually deserve is sovereign wrath.
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  The glory of the gift is seen against the backdrop of what you
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  deserved instead. That's it.
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  The glory of grace for Edwards is its bestowal on the miserable
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  and the needy. And that ties directly into his
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  third reason, the necessity of the Mediator of Christ.
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  It's so important God doesn't just show an abstract absolute
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  mercy, He shows his mercy through Christ.
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  And a Sinner will never see their desperate need for a
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  mediator until they see their completely ruined state.
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  It's like, why would I need a bridge if I think I can just
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  jump across the stream? Perfect analogy, but when you
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  see that it's not a stream, it's a Grand Canyon of sin separating
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  you from a holy God, then you cry out for a bridge.
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  You cry out for a mediator. God's will.
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  Is it all the glory for salvation be given to His Son?
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  And the final reason he gives is that this whole process just
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  increases the joy and the praise of the believer afterward.
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  Immensely. A rescue from danger is so much
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  sweeter when you were standing right on the brink of the pit.
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  The deeper your sense of the misery you were saved from, the
• 20:52
  higher your exaltation of the deliverer will be.
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  Edwards imagines the believer thinking, How miserable should I
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  have been for all eternity, had not Christ loved me and given
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  himself for me? No, Edwards being Edwards, he
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  doesn't just leave this as an abstract theological lecture.
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  He moves to Part 4 Application and warning, and this is where
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  his pastoral heart comes out and he gets very, very direct.
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  Yes, he turns to the people in the pews, and first he speaks
• 21:17
  directly to the unconverted. He says, essentially, if you're
• 21:20
  not willing to see yourself as deserving of damnation, you're
• 21:23
  not ready for salvation. You have work to do.
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  He warns them about delaying, doesn't he?
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  Urgently, he says, Man knoweth not his time.
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  Death can come suddenly. But there's another danger
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  besides death. It's the danger of God simply
• 21:38
  withdrawing. He quotes that chilling verse
• 21:40
  from Hosea. Ephraim is joined to idols.
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  Let him alone. For Edwards, the most terrifying
• 21:46
  judgement is in Hellfire. It's God just letting you have
• 21:49
  what you want and walking away. Then he turns his attention to a
• 21:53
  different group. People who are actually feeling
• 21:56
  this conviction right now. Maybe someone listening feels
• 21:58
  that weight, that sense of sin. Edwards calls this the strivings
• 22:02
  of the spirit. And his warning to them is
• 22:04
  incredibly visit he uses the analogy of a blacksmith working
• 22:08
  with iron. The iron analogy, right?
• 22:10
  He says when you put a piece of iron in the fire, it gets hot,
• 22:12
  it gets soft, you can shape it, but what happens if you take it
• 22:15
  out of the fire and just let it cool down on the floor?
• 22:17
  It becomes harder than it ever was before.
• 22:19
  That's his warning, he says. If you feel these convictions
• 22:22
  from the Spirit and you ignore them, you resist them.
• 22:25
  You let them fade away, your heart will become harder and
• 22:28
  more callous than it was before. He even says it would have been
• 22:31
  better to have never felt them at all.
• 22:33
  He does. He references TP Peter chapter
• 22:36
  2, That awful image of the dog returning to its own vomit.
• 22:39
  It's a graphic picture, but he's trying to show the extreme
• 22:42
  danger of trifling with the work of the Spirit.
• 22:45
  He says if God grants you the mercy of being awakened again
• 22:47
  later in life, the work will be much more difficult and the
• 22:51
  terrors you feel will likely be far more dreadful.
• 22:54
  So how does this happen? How do people lose their
• 22:57
  convictions? He lists 3 common ways.
• 23:00
  The first is obvious. You fall back into sin,
• 23:03
  committing a specific sin. He mentions lust, malice,
• 23:06
  revenge, has a way of grieving the spirit and pushing him away.
• 23:10
  The second is diversion. Right, just getting distracted,
• 23:13
  drawn into worldly company, entertainment, or just the
• 23:16
  busyness of life in a way that pushes out the serious concerns
• 23:19
  of your soul. And the third.
• 23:21
  A change in circumstances, especially prosperity.
• 23:24
  You get a new job, you make more money, and suddenly the
• 23:26
  spiritual anxieties you felt don't seem so urgent anymore.
• 23:30
  The cares of this world crowd out the word.
• 23:32
  But he doesn't end on that warning.
• 23:34
  He does offer encouragement to those who are in that state of
• 23:37
  conviction. He does.
• 23:38
  He goes back to the book of Hosea to chapter 6, verse 3.
• 23:42
  Then shall we know if we follow on to know the Lord?
• 23:45
  It's a call to persevere, to be diligent, to strike while the
• 23:49
  iron is hot, while the spirit is near.
• 23:51
  So as we wrap up this deep dive, if we had to summarize the main
• 23:55
  thesis of this whole sermon, what would it be?
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  I think it's that the path to the true comfort of the gospel
• 24:01
  often leads necessarily to the dark valley of the knowledge of
• 24:05
  your own sin and misery. The lion tears not ultimately to
• 24:09
  destroy his chosen people, but to prepare them for his healing.
• 24:13
  That's a great summary, so here's a final provocative
• 24:15
  thought for you to consider. What if you reframed the silence
• 24:18
  of God in your life? What if it isn't just absence,
• 24:20
  but an active, purposeful waiting?
• 24:23
  If you feel that God has returned to His place, could it
• 24:26
  be a call from Him for you to acknowledge your offense and
• 24:28
  seek His face? Is it possible that the anxiety,
• 24:31
  the guilt, the spiritual unease you might be feeling is actually
• 24:34
  a severe mercy, the very first step of a divine rescue?
• 24:37
  That is the question Edwards wants everyone of us to ask.
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  Thank you for joining us on Reformed Thinking.
• 24:43
  It was a pleasure to be here.