We are continuing through the Old Testament book of Hosea, Hosea chapter 6, verses 1-3. Hosea 6, 1-3. Let us listen attentively to the word of God.
Come, and let us return to the Lord, for He has torn, but He will heal us. He has stricken, but He will bind us up. After two days He will revive us, and on the third day He will raise us up, that we may live in His sight.
Let us know, let us pursue the knowledge of the Lord. His going forth is established as the morning. He will come to us like the rain, like the latter and former rain to the earth.
Let us pray. And in this, encouraging words, God, from the Old Testament prophet Hosea, the godly man that you raised up by your spirits, to call the Old Testament church to repentance, to contrite hearts, to turn away from their wicked ways, God, as a reminder to us as well, in this day and age, that we too are not immune to such a call, that we, of course, have sinned, and we have transgressed your holy word. And although it may not always be the same degree, God, it’s still an offense before you.
And so, Lord, although we are thankful for your spirit to be among us, that we don’t have gross idolatry in many regards in our worship, praise be to your name, because we easily fall down the path they went to, we still have a lesson to learn here, a reminder to be humble in your sight. We ask these things, God, that you would use it for our own personal advocation, for your church as well, that she would be revived here in America, to return to you to the extent that they have been unfaithful collectively. Our God above, we pray these things by your spirit alone.
Amen. So, in the middle of this diatribe that Hosea has against Israel’s ongoing wickedness, it’s so bad, it becomes so public and so widespread that it can’t be ignored anymore. And the wickedness, as you recall, is not just worship of God, pretending that he’s Baal or another pagan god, and mixing these kind of pagan worship with the Old Testament worship, but also their life and the lifestyles we saw in the prior chapters or so, where he goes through specific sins of idolatry and of murder and the like, going on in the name of God in the Old Testament church.
And here, he suddenly shifts gear to the general call of repentance. Such a requirement of a contrite heart of rejecting sin and embracing God was implied, of course, in the beginning of all the calls and urgings of the prophets of old. Even if the word repentance wasn’t there, it was always implied, and the audience knew it.
The Jews knew it. They know what repentance is about. Here, it is urged upon all who would hear, but of course is quickly followed by good news.
So, it’s only in verses 1, verse 1, and then 2 and 3, he unpacks the good news of repentance, what we get by God’s blessing upon us in this regard, and such good news as to draw men unto Christ. So, let’s look more carefully here for our encouragement to keep our hearts close to our Lord and Savior.
Returning and Repentance
So, the first point, returning and repentance, verse 1, come and let us return to the Lord.
And then he goes to describe the judgment of God upon them and, of course, how God uses that judgment to bring them to repentance. The first thing of note is it’s a common plea. And by common, I mean it’s not just himself.
Come and let us return, Hosea says. He does not separate himself from his own people. He does not say, well, you Jews, you’ve got a problem.
And, hopefully, you’re going to fix it. He says we. He identifies with them.
The whole group of Jews, probably every single Jew, certainly, because they all sin like we do even today, but the gross sins, the exaggerated sins, as it were, that are there he’s especially concerned about, even if the sins aren’t listed there in the prior chapters. They, too, must return to the Lord their God. And so he’s not just targeting a few, but many there.
And he’s saying let us, that’s what I mean by common, it’s all of us together, we’re all in this together, in the body of Christ. If there’s a serious enough scandal going on at our church or our denomination or the churches of America, we’re all implicated in one sense, as it were, at least in public opinion. And so Hosea here, including himself, is therefore pleading to his fellow Jews in so many words without saying these words, I am like you.
I, too, am a man of flesh and blood who struggle with sin. I’m not saying it’s just you guys. I’m picking on you.
You’re the only sinners here. But he understands his sins as well. I am a sinner like you.
It’s another way of saying this. And pastors, naturally, are an analog to a prophet, although we don’t have visions. I wouldn’t want to have visions.
It would probably be pretty terrifying for what I see in Ezekiel. But we, too, should follow a similar pattern as appropriate. That we should never pretend that we’re above sin.
As though, yeah, it’s just for you unwashed masses out there and the rest of us who are better and above you. That’s how the Pharisees approached this whole matter, right? The unwashed masses. This is basically how they thought of it.
The hoi poloi is the phrase. No. I, too, am like you.
I have feet of clay. I struggle. I fall down.
Pastors do. Church leaders do as well. Parents do.
Kids see this most readily. And the humble parents acknowledge this, and if it’s a sin against the child, they repent. And if the pastor, the church leadership, has error, they ought to acknowledge it.
But the point being, of course, the audience should know that the preacher is one of them. And he’s not above the fray in that sense. Although he may not have that particular sin here.
I don’t believe Hosea was out there worshipping Baal, for example. But he still was sensitive to his own frailty before God. And, of course, not just pastors.
Oh, they’re the only ones that get to do that. All of us should be humble enough. That is, an opportunity arises when we’re speaking to one another, when we’re speaking to unbelievers.
They understand that we’re not saying, we’re better than you. Christianity never teaches that in the sense of inherent superiority. But we’re not going to heaven because we obey enough.
We go to heaven because Christ obeyed enough. He’s the warrant for heaven. But God does work in us, and there is a difference by practice and sanctification, to be sure.
Nevertheless, it’s appropriate at times. We shouldn’t overdo it. I think you can overplay it.
As most things are, there’s a twin-ditch error. You walk the narrow path of trying to say the right thing or not say the right thing, and there are two pits on either side that you can go off on. Too much or too little is usually the problem.
And I can’t tell you exactly what that always looks like, but I think I just want to point this out, that you can, as it were, be too self-flagellating, just hitting yourself, look how terrible I am as a believer. No. We, brothers and sisters, when we talk to the unbeliever, they will see in our lives, because if we have sinned, if we have failed them, if we have failed at work, at home, in our neighborhood, then we acknowledge it to them, and they should accept this, I hope, and pray.
But we see these things, and we speak to them of your word, of his word, and we must not forget the basics, that we too are sinners. The word he has here, not just come and go before God, let us, not just us, but return to the Lord our God, our Maker. The word return here is quite interesting.
It’s another word, clearly, for repent. Another word for repent. Now it’s used metaphorically, it’s often used for travel, just walking here, and you turn around, and you walk a different way.
And it’s used as a metaphor, clearly, to say turn away from that path of wickedness, down the hill of wretchedness, and come back to the Lord our God. Do a 180. That’s what repentance is.
It’s first and foremost of the mind, of course, as it’s used there in the New Testament, in particular. Once you change your mind, if you have changed your mind, your actions will follow, as a general rule. And so it’s used here, often, in the Old Testament, of a repentant heart, of course, with repentant actions.
And there’s three things to highlight, with respect to this call of returning to God, or repentance before Him. Three things. First of all, it is a gift of God.
It is not inherent in the human condition, any more than saving faith is. Those who are not Christians, we were like that. Many of us were born and raised unbelievers, and we know that lifestyle.
It did not come naturally to us to acknowledge our wickedness before God, to humble ourselves before Him, and say, Lord, have mercy on me. But we made excuses, we laughed about it, we didn’t care about it, whatever the case is. And take the hand of God, the power of the Holy Spirit, to touch our hearts, to bring us to humility.
That is the gift of repentance by the Spirit. Acts 11.18. Acts 11.18 is a classic passage you can use there. When they heard these things, they became silent.
That is the audience, the Jewish audience. And they glorified God, saying, then God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life. He doesn’t just save Jews, He also saves Gentiles.
Everyone can be saved. That is the great message of the New Testament. It is no longer limited, although it was not absolutely limited.
As you know, you can become a Jew, religiously speaking, although you were born a Gentile. But here the doors are so wide open. And they are excited, they are recognizing it takes the power of God to grant repentance.
And so when we speak to our friends and loved ones and co-workers about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, we should not be discouraged insofar as it feels like you are beating your head against a brick wall. Why aren’t they repenting? Why don’t they see the reality of who Jesus is and of their own sin and violation of His holy law? Because it takes an act of the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, the Holy Spirit, God, His Word, tells us, as Christ does, speak the truth, because He could use you.
The Spirit may deign one day to finally wake them up. And it will be through your efforts, although you feel like you are failing. A second thing to highlight with respect to repentance.
One, it is a gift of God. Two, it is required of God. It is not optional.
If you will be saved from hell and damnation, you must repent on the one hand. That is, reject your sin, your lifestyle, your wretchedness that is in violation of God’s holy word. And believe in Jesus.
That is the other half. Repent and believe. That is the call of every man, woman, and child in this world.
And it is the call of all Christians, as you know. After you are born again, you still repent. And you still believe.
It is all over the Bible. Jesus preached it, as we know. At the beginning of His ministry in Mark 1 and elsewhere, He preached repentance in the Kingdom of God.
The Apostle preached it as well in Acts 20, verse 21. There in Acts 20, verse 21, testifying to the Jews and also to the Greeks, repentance towards God and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ. They know what the word repentance is.
Unbelievers know what the word repentance is because they want it in people who offend them, who have done them wrong. They want them to repent, to acknowledge their sin and violation against them and their own person or their own family or their own job, stealing something from them, taking their name in vain and smearing it in gossip and whatnot. They know what repentance is to that extent because they want other people to repent when they’ve gone after them.
Don’t forget that. But it still may be good to go over some of those verses if they ask these questions to unpack these things. Now, a third thing I want to highlight about repentance.
Not only is it a gift from God, not only is it required of God, but the requirement that God has for it is not a meritorious requirement. It does not commend ourselves before God. It does not satisfy His divine wrath.
Jesus does. Our faith doesn’t satisfy His divine wrath either. Jesus does.
But our faith apprehends that divine satisfaction of Jesus. We believe He did it for us. That’s it.
Nothing more complicated. But repentance is part of it. But repentance does not apprehend the divine satisfaction of God.
Faith does, not repentance. But repentance is still nevertheless required. See that? It’s required, but it’s not required insofar as it’s the grounds.
We can’t brag before God. We cannot say, look what I’ve done. Look how much repentance I have.
Now this is important because in competing religions, because again Christianity stands out in stark contrast to Roman Catholicism and to the Mormons and other cults and whatnot, because it is all of grace from first to last. Even faith, self, and repentance is a gift of God. Whereas I saw recently on social media, right on X, again there’s a lot of conservative push of sorts within Roman Catholicism.
I say of sorts, but consider where we are in society. But there’s a lot of Roman Catholics. It’s just so many of them.
It’s incredible. And they’re sitting there saying, you know, hey my priest told me I have to, you know, ten Hail Marys and fast. In other words, show true contrition in my life and repent.
How much have I repented? And have I repented enough to get to heaven? It’s the question they ask themselves. And questions Protestants have asked themselves as well, unfortunately. No.
A thousand times no. It is required of the Christian life. And it does not commend us to God, nevertheless.
And so it does not satisfy divine judgment. But it still must be there. It’s as simple, that’s all it is.
It sounds maybe complicated, but it really isn’t. You gotta do it. But don’t think that you’re doing it makes you better before God.
Christ is who does that. Use of the word return, of repentance, of the concept of repentance in the book of Hosea may be instructive as well for us. We have that here in Hosea chapter 3. We went across this a little earlier.
Verse 5. Hosea 3, 5. Afterward the children of Israel shall what? Return and seek the Lord their God and David their king, and they shall feel the Lord and his goodness in the latter days. So there’s a prophecy of where we are today. We are in the latter days.
We’re in the end times. And this prophecy here is a reminder that in the future, in the end times, many will repent. And we are fulfillment of those many people who have repented.
In particular Gentiles even. And so God calls men to repentance, to contrite hearts, and the Lord God uses means. Even prophecy here.
And so here the prophecy in Hosea 3, 5 is the children of Israel, the elect of God, will return. They will repent and turn away from their idols and their false worship and of course the rest of their bad lifestyle. We see it there in chapter 4 and chapter 5. And come to the Lord their God and David their king, which is the type of Christ as we know.
And shall fear the Lord their God. It’s a prophecy. And it’s a prophecy nevertheless is not an excuse for a pastor not to preach.
Hosea is still preaching. He’s not like, well, you know, it’s a prophecy here in chapter 3. Why am I bothering? I’m just done with my ministry because God said it’s going to happen. If he says it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen.
Who am I to doubt that? You see that? You can see how some people think that way. That’s how they think of Calvinism as you know. Of the historic Protestant approach to the Bible.
You believe in the sovereignty of God, why do you bother doing anything? Because the sovereignty of God works through means. That you breathe is because God is giving you breath. And that you’re able to preach and hear a preacher, in your case the recipient of the preaching is because God is there already working.
That’s the sovereignty in action. We tend to think, at least I had tended to think for many years as a Christian, God is working, it must be a miracle. And by miracle I mean going against what we know as natural law.
I mean walking on water. Breathing without air. Those would be miracles.
Food multiplied. How’d that happen? Those would be miracles. But God works in the ordinary things.
The everyday things. That’s the beauty of the word of God and how he is behind all things and guides and directs all things. And so prophecies will come to pass because people are using means.
And that’s also part of the prophecy as it were. He has made sure that will happen. And you can either be on it, be part of that process, or God’s going to use someone else besides you.
And you won’t know until it’s too late. So it’s never an excuse in other words because the prophecy and God’s sovereignty to stop preaching for the ministers in particular and for you all to have an answer of the hope that is within you. Right? 1 Peter 5. Hosea 5.4 is another verse here.
Hosea 5.4 with the word return or turning. Related idea. Persistent sins here is what we’re seeing undermine repentance.
In Hosea 5.4 they do not direct their deeds turning to their God. They do not direct their deeds towards turning to their God. It’s another way of saying what? Returning.
Turning back and away from their wretched lifestyle. For the spirit of harlotry is in their midst and they do not know the Lord. They’re persisting and staying in their wretched life.
They feel comfortable in their sin and doing whatever they feel like they want to do regardless of what their conscience tells them. As long as Christians stay in sin they are by definition not repenting. This is not sin, repent and sin again.
This is sinning and keeping on sinning and never wanting to repent. They’re not repenting. That’s what he says here.
They do not direct their deeds to return or towards turning to their God. Which is different than you did. You stumbled and you turned back again.
You stumbled and you turned back again. That’s not what the picture here in Hosea 5.4 and therefore I think most of Hosea as we see here it’s persistent willful sin against his clear commands of worshipping in Jerusalem and worshipping him by name and not by the name of Baal. And they don’t feel bad about it.
In fact they feel good about it. They’re so comfortable they say God we have blessings upon blessings. We’re prosperous.
We have peace. We have good food. And you haven’t cursed us so everything we’re doing is fine and good.
We ran across those verses. That’s what’s going on here. And that’s a sad state to be in.
Rebuke and Repentance
Second point. Verses 1, 2, and 3. We’re getting our way to 3. Rebuke and repentance. Rebuke and repentance.
So part of verse 1 gives us the picture of rebuke. For he that is God has torn us. He has stricken us.
And then we have this passage of 2 and 3 days that we were reading about. Rebuke. I use the word rebuke to summarize the words torn and stricken which clearly are parallel here.
They’re parallel ideas. A reminder again of the Hebrew poetry uses parallelism or synonymous parallelism. Similar idea.
Use different words. Even in the prophecies there’s some poetry. And that’s clearly here.
He has torn us. That’s parallel with he has stricken us. But he will heal us is parallel with he will bind us up.
Right? So in the one half he has stricken us. He has torn us. He has battered us.
He has tested us. Right? That’s the idea here. He has rebuked us from and by external hardships of life and trials and tribulations whether in our fault or not.
It makes no difference. And internally with respect to our guilty conscience which is designed to alert us to danger and keep us alive therefore before our God and Savior. And all rebukes of course come from God on high.
People forget this. You know famous evangelists and whatnot and others seem uncomfortable to say tornadoes and tsunamis come from God to remind you to repent. I don’t know why they’re uncomfortable saying that.
But they are. And we should not be. It’s an opportunity to wake them up.
Life is short. People can die. People wake up from heart attacks.
That is wake up into eternity from a heart attack. The Bible’s clear. Psalm 66 which I preached on last week by God’s providence.
Verse 10. For you, O God, have tested us. We read.
You have refined us as silver is refined. You brought us into the net. You captured us like a wild animal and you laid afflictions on our backs.
You have caused men to ride over our heads. We’re beaten down. We went through fire and through water.
The idea clearly is a flood. Something bad and terrible. Who is the agent here in verse 10 of chapter 66 of Psalm 66 and here in Hosea 6 1 where he just simply says he.
We know it’s God. God is the agent behind our difficulties in life. That is he’s the ultimate agent.
Surely as we know he uses tools. He uses secondary agents is what we say. Satan and the world who are beneath him and under his thumb.
Even random chance events are guided by his will as we know. It’s a tool in the father’s hands to shape and shave our rough edges and it hurts. It hurts.
It’s a rebuke of the law often because rebuke is about our sins and the law defines our sins and therefore the rebuke will have if we ever listen to these difficulties and trials in our life a connection to the law of God. It requires the law of God for warning and judgment as we see in the opening chapters of Hosea over and over again. You’ve violated God’s holy will and his law and his commandments for you in worship.
It’s interwoven in the life of the prophets, the law of God, the importance of the law of God so that the people will find the proper path of holiness. We must embrace such fatherly discipline here as we read in these verses, verse 1 and 2. We want to grow as believers we must submit to the mighty hand of God and cast away our old ways because he has torn and stricken us and yet he will heal and bind us up with love. Both are true here in verse 1 which leads us to verse 2 and 3, restoration and repentance.
Restoration and Repentance
The good news in verse 2 tied to partly bad, torn and stricken, partly good healing and binding, binding up the damage and the harm of your life is after two days he will revive us and the third day he will raise us up. What do you hear when you read that? Three days and he’s raised up from the dead? That’s kind of what I read. I can’t help but reading that.
Commentators kind of disagree. Is that what really is going on here? I think so. I think so.
God almighty is giving them a hint of the redemption of Jesus Christ who is several hundred years away still from the time of Hosea. His is in the 700’s, 700 years away still. And this as well as other prophecies as you know, the nails in his hand, crown of thorns on his forehead, the details of the prophecies fulfilled from the Old Testament to the time of Christ, in the time of Christ, by Christ, this is one more proof of this glorious truth.
I’ll remind you again, the secular unbelievers, the professors of the last hundred years, in the book of Isaiah especially but not only, in the book of Daniel especially but not only, because all the prophecies are there in the Old Testament. They saw and they see the details being fulfilled clearly, so much so that they have to change the dates of those books of the Bible. Oh, you know, Hosea wasn’t written during this time period of the 700’s? No way.
It had to have been written after these things came to pass. Daniel was written after these things came to pass. Because they can’t get away from it.
And so this beautiful picture here of three dark days perhaps, at least part of it, after two days he revives us and the third day he will raise us up, so it’s a partial reviving and the imagery here of course is it culminates on the third day of a glorious restoration, that’s why I use the word there, restoration, waking us up from our slumber of sin. The context of restoration is the context of repentance. We talk about revival, waking up the churches of America, it begins with a returning to God with all their heart, with all their soul, with all our mind.
In the dark times of being torn and stricken and the hardships from God Almighty is there, that we may live. After two days he will revive us, he will raise us up, that we may live in his sight, verse 2. To be alive, to be in his presence. He means spiritually alive, not the body as such, but as aware and awake to God Almighty, accepting who he is.
It’s a metaphor of the spiritual alertness that he has given us by the power of the Spirit. The restoration that we may live is by a restoring here of knowledge. Let us know, let us pursue, verse 3, the knowledge of the Lord.
There’s a theme I hope you remember here in Hosea, the knowledge of God or the lack of knowledge of the ignorance of God’s people and how that ignorance brought judgment upon them. So this is one of the sub-themes here in the book of Hosea. You know in literature class, my daughter’s been going through that right, in homeschooling, and it brings back memories at times of me going to high school and junior high over here in Nevada.
And you’re going over the books you read and they ask you, what’s the theme of the book and what’s the sub-theme of the book and what’s this character doing? Why do I want to, this book is boring, I don’t care about this. Well, you go to the Bible and you find out there’s sub-themes and there’s characters and there’s people doing things. It’s literature.
It’s divine literature, but it’s literature. And here we are reading in this literature one of the main emphases of the book of Hosea. Just below, it seems to me, the worry and the care and the concern of false worship is the ignorance of God’s people.
The willful ignorance. They don’t want to learn more and do the right thing. They want to stay in the dark.
And God is judging them for that. But a revival of restoration means what? A revival of knowledge. A restoring of the truth in their minds and therefore in their hearts.
Because Christianity, people think as I ran across those atheists and whatnot down at the campus, as you recall when I had my short-lived ministry down there of sorts, they just simply think, oh, you believe in faith so you’re dumb and you’re emotional and you’re blind. Christianity has been very intellectual, if you know the history at all. You read Augustine, you read the Puritans.
I’ve got the works of Thomas Manton now. I had a super duper sale on Thomas Manton. I read it going, dude, how did they? This is a sermon? This is incredible.
How long and complex their sentences are. They’re smart dudes. Even the secularists acknowledge, the historians, the unbelieving atheists are like, Jonathan Edwards was a genius.
If that guy would have used his brain for science, we’d be in a better place right now. That’s what they say. They use it for the good of the church.
Knowledge of God, in particular, of course, is what we’re talking about. A theme there. Chapter 2, verse 8. Verse 20.
Chapter 4, verse 1. And verse 6, of course, that great passage there. And then chapter 5, verse 4. And again here, chapter 6, verse 3. Knowledge or ignorance, the opposite of it, are emphasized and warned about or here encouraged. This is a good thing.
You want to grow as a Christian? You’ve got to grow in knowledge. It begins at least with that. You want to go further than that, of course, but it begins at least with that.
Ignorance, in other words, is the opposite of blessing. In here, they have the blessing of knowledge of God, our Redeemer. Repentant sinners want to learn the law of God.
To avoid future sins and to live it in holiness, as we saw in Sunday School class. Restoration as the morning. A beautiful picture here.
He’s going forth as established as the morning. It’s certain and it’s beautiful and it’s glorious. And His mercies are what? New every morning.
That’s the first thing I thought. And then it ends with another beautiful picture here of being restored in Christ, our Lord and Savior, on the third day. He will come to us like the rain, like the latter and the former rain to the earth.
Times of refreshing. We see it here. We have a little spring time here in the Rockies in May and June.
We have rain time because we need it by God’s grace. That’s when He gives it to us. The phrase here, latter and former rain, I recall as a kid confused about that.
It’s used a number of times in the Old Testament. What am I reading here? I don’t understand this. Well, you have to go and read a little bit of geography and climatology.
What’s the climate like in Israel? Well, the rainy seasons is what they’re talking about. The early part of the rainy season and the latter part of the rainy season. From beginning to last, it’s all going to be from God.
There’s times of refreshing. It will never end, it seems like. And certainly in heaven it will never end.
Glorious times with no more sin, no more heartaches, no more difficulties of our body falling apart and ailments upon us. The consequences of sin will be eradicated forever and ever, brothers and sisters. It will be time of refreshment, like rain, beautiful rain that we need in a dry and thirsty land.
The land of our soul. That’s what He’s referring to here. The beginning rainy season and the latter part, which is there before them and both of them brought upon them like a double blessing.
Christ refreshes us with a great rain of grace. Christ is willing to forgive you. Don’t ever think I repent too much.
He calls into repentance. We’re supposed to live a life of repentance because we still struggle with our sins. And you can never repent enough.
Which is to say, it’s not too much for God. He does not come to you and say, you know, look, I’m tired of you repenting all the time. Like a kid coming up to you.
And they struggle with their handwriting. Or they struggle with school. Or they struggle with the neighborhood and being obedient and being nice to the bullied kid down the street or whatever.
And the parents are patient and very kind and keep working with the kid, keep working with the kid. You don’t cast them out. What’s your problem? You know they’re kids.
It takes time. It may take a long time. That’s our Father’s love for us.
And that’s what we see here. That He has drawn us together. He has torn us.
He has stricken us. He has healed us. He has bound us up in Christ Jesus and redeemed us in heavenly places.
And He will come upon us and has come upon us like rain, the former and the latter rain of refreshment and revival. Revival then or restoration, another good R word, means praying for widespread returning or repentance. It begins with that.
Not only for, of course, those outside the church who wish them to be saved, but even and even especially as most of the message of the Bible is for the Church of God, if you think about it. At least directly written to them, the New Testament letters, epistles to the Church of God here to the Old Testament church to the extent it’s applicable to those outside the church. Praise be God.
Use it. But it’s there for us as well. The American church needs to hear this call.
Our denominations are not immune to sins and frailties and blind spots. Brothers and sisters, may the Lord refresh us in many ways by humbling us that we may turn from sin and return to the grace and the glory of God in Christ. Amen.
Let us pray. And so, Lord, we ask for continued grace upon us that yes, we will feel torn and stricken, but we should know, Lord, that you are continuing to heal us and bind us up with the gospel promises of our Lord and Savior who was raised on the third day, triumphing over sin and death itself. For death is a consequence of sin.
If he’s conquered death, he’s therefore conquered sin. And if he conquered sin, he conquered death as well. The two go together.
And that’s evidence, Lord, for those who are in Christ, that is those who believe in him and don’t rely upon their own goodness, their own instincts, and whatever else they think they have to commend themselves to a better world and the future to come. Our Lord and Savior, may all of us here, we pray, depend upon you and cry unto you that we be refreshed with the latter and the former reign of revival in our hearts. Amen.