Hosea #5 Ch. 7-8 Jesus Christ on Every Page — Chuck Missler

Hosea and the “Minor” Prophets

We are in the book of Hosea, and it's too bad they always call these last 12 the minor prophets. That was a label put on by librarians. They're minor in the sense they're not as large as the major prophets.

Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel are large books, so they're considered major. The 12 prophets that make up these little books near the end of the Old Testament are often overlooked because they're called minor prophets.

See, they can't be that important. Wrong. Some of the most profound, dramatic, colorful passages are in these prophets. Now, Hosea was a prophet to the northern kingdom. It's kind of important to get a broad perspective here.

I don't want to review too much, but for those that are visiting and just joining us, after Solomon died, Israel had a civil war they divided into two halves, the northern kingdom, which is also by the name of Israel in a more denotative sense, and the southern kingdom called Judah.

More or less, the northern kingdom was composed of 10 tribal areas, but don't get confused, because both nations were composed of a mixture of all tribes, but that's a whole other discussion, really. The northern kingdom immediately adopted idolatry.

Jeroboam took the northern kingdom into idolatry very early. They went from bad to worse, and Hosea was burdened with the sad task of calling them to account. The Lord, I should say, calling them to account through Hosea.

About a century later, the northern kingdom actually collapses. God uses their enemies to be this instrument of judgment, and the northern kingdom gets taken into captivity and thus obliterated from history by the Assyrians in 722 BC.

It isn't until about almost a century, about 80 or 90 years later, that the southern kingdom also, which had a few redeeming kings, but in general also declined. God finally uses the Babylonians to be their form of judgment, and Jeremiah is in the same role as those, just as Hosea is in his role to the northern kingdom at the time we're going to be studying.

Almost a century later, Jeremiah is in the same role to the southern kingdom. The difference being that by that time, the Babylonians had conquered the Assyrians, so the enemy that God used in the southern kingdom's case was the Babylon, and they were also distinctive in that they were prophesied that they would have 70 years captivity, which they did, after which they were returned to the land, and there's more history there.

But we're studying Hosea for a lot of reasons. One is to understand that biblical period, but also we learn the ways of God by the words that Hosea has to say, or God has to say through Hosea, to the northern kingdom.

Prosperity, Moral Decline, and the Warning to America

Now, it's very provocative to understand the situation the northern kingdom found themselves in. They were in a period of unbridled prosperity. Their armies had, their standing armies, had conquered all the way to Damascus.

The population was enjoying incredible prosperity, luxury, luxurious homes in large measure, and just, you know, the stock indexes were pushing 11 ,000 and so forth, and you get my meaning. So it was the best of times, in one sense.

On the other hand, it was also the worst of times, that they were in the lowest ebb of morality, or I should say immorality, of their history. So we're always reminded by Charles Dickens' immortal opening to his Tale of Two Cities, where he says it was the best of times, and it was the worst of times.

A seeming contradiction, which indeed it was, that Hosea was having to deal with. Now one reason, not the reason we took up the book particularly, but one of the observations that just hits us right between the eyes, is the incredible parallel between the burden that Hosea is burdened with, and the situation America faces.

Because we too are in a period, apparently, of unbridled prosperity. Dow is higher than it ever has been, as just one indicator, but in general people are prosperous. And we say, well yeah, but we're not idolatry.

Wrong. We're also at the lowest ebb of our moral history in this country. Not only revel in it, we celebrate it, and we export everything that God abhors. And so in America too, it's the best of times, and yet it's also the worst of times, morally speaking.

And we can't help but wonder, okay, if the parallel fits, and that's a big if, you have to decide for yourself, but if the parallel fits, what was the message that Hosea brought to the northern kingdom?

Answer? Hey, it's over guys. He goes through the case for the prosecution. We're going to continue some of that tonight. He declares to them that God is going to use your enemies as His means of judgment.

His justice has to be vindicated. Now I wouldn't insist that the parallel pushes that far, but we should consider it seriously. Is it possible that God may use our enemies to be His means of judgment?

Which would seem, by some measures, way overdue. In any case, we're going to jump in to Hosea chapter 7, which basically continues the case for the prosecution, as we might label it. In chapter 7, God continues, verse 1, When I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, and the wickedness of Samaria.

For they commit falsehood, and the thief cometh in, and the troop of robbers spoileth without. The tribe of Ephraim was the dominant tribe of the northern kingdom. So Ephraim is often used as a synonym for the entire northern kingdom.

In other words, it's used connotatively. Samaria was their capital. Under Amri, the father of Ahab, they made Samaria the capital of the northern kingdom. So when you see Samaria, that's also idiomatic of the whole northern kingdom.

And God, God says, I would have healed Israel. In other words, He had a desire to heal, which is echoed from the first verse of chapter 6, you may recall. But in any case, God longed to restore Israel to a place of blessing.

But His efforts were met with, of course, outbreaks of new sin and crimes and so forth. And their widespread deceit and robbery epitomized their lack of regard of the covenant. He's dealing with a covenant, of course, of the Old Testament.

This whole relationship of God with the northern kingdom has to be seen in terms of the covenant, the contract, the agreement that was between them. Some of the agreements of God, covenants of God, are unconditional.

Israel's right to the land tracks from a number of chapters, especially Genesis 15. Unconditional. God goes out of His way to make it unconditional. But there are other relationships that were conditional.

Their occupation of the land, God required obedience. And when they were disobedient, they were exiled. And that's what He's really saying here. They're living a lie here. So verse 2. And they consider not in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness.

Now their own doings have beset them about. They are before my face. See, one of the things the nation Israel, the northern kingdom overlooked, is that God sees and He remembers. That's a very uncomfortable feeling for all of us.

We may give intellectual nods that, well, that's fine. But in our heart it makes us uncomfortable to realize that everything you do, God knows. He watches, He sees, and He remembers. There's a heavy accountability here.

It's that accountability, of course, that repulses the unbeliever or the ones that would deny God. We could go through a lot of references, but that's pretty basic stuff. The other thing is Israel was in effect saying, it's okay, everybody's doing it.

It's so easy to begin to think that standards of right and wrong pertain, depending on our own particularly accepted practice, wrong. See, this whole issue of absolutes, which is a big issue in our society, well, everything's relative.

You have your truth, I have mine. That's Satan's lie. Right and wrong, truth and false, and so forth, are absolutes, the real, and God makes the rules. We don't. But this whole idea that they should be judged by their own accepted practice, which is going to come through this whole chapter, is very familiar to us in our society.

It's amazing how this idea, this permissiveness, this idea that everything's relative, it always leads to immorality. It says their doings have beset them about. That means totally engulfed them. They become in bondage to these things.

Corrupt Leadership and Biblical Qualifications for Rulers

But anyway, verse three, they make the king glad with their wickedness and princess with their lies. Now, here's a key point. They weren't immoral as a population alone. That wasn't it. It was the leadership condoned it and encouraged it.

They make the king glad with their wickedness and princess with their lies. That's the scary part. It's often pointed out that the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was not homosexuality. The sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was the official condoning of homosexuality.

See, Psalm 101 says a godly ruler is to oppose all forms of wickedness in his kingdom. But these leaders delighted in it. Now, this gives us a good excuse just to pause here for a moment, and let's highlight a few.

What are the qualifications of leadership from a biblical point of view? The bookstores are full of books about leadership and management. What is the qualifications for leadership from God's own point of view?

Well, Proverbs 16, 12 gives us one clue. It says, it is an abomination for kings to commit wicked acts, for a throne is established on righteousness. Wow. The abandonment of righteousness weakens the seat of government, and also weakens the stability and security of the nation, and incidentally, when you're in the position the United States is, it also weakens the stability and the security of the free world.

The immorality in our government has threatened not just our own nation, but the entire free world. Proverbs 16, 12 says, it is an abomination for kings to commit wicked acts, for a throne is established on righteousness.

We should cling to that. Proverbs 29, 4, the king gives stability to the land by justice, but a man who takes bribes overthrows it. The issue of bribery is the root issue of private truthfulness and acting on principle, as opposed to being driven by expediency.

When integrity is forsaken, justice is overthrown. Proverbs 29, 12, eight verses later, it says, if a ruler pays attention to falsehood, all his ministers become wicked. It's contagious. The minimizing of truthfulness corrupts others so that soon the entire government becomes corrupt.

Do you see a parallel here? Does this sort of feel uncomfortably at home? We could go on and on. There's actually some compilations of several dozen of these little excerpts from the scripture which lay out pretty clear the requirement of leadership, but you can take this out of Galatians 5, 9 or 1 Corinthians 5, 6.

A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. And the word leaven in the scriptures always used of sin. I don't mean literal leaven, of course, but I mean when it's used idiomatically, it's amazing how consistent it is.

It's always negative. It's always sin. Many people miss that point and sometimes misinterpret some places. And by the way, it's not only in the Old Testament. Jesus used that expression several times.

Paul used that expression several times. A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. In each context, it was bad news. Why is leaven a type of sin? Because it corrupts by puffing up. That's exactly the root of all sin, our pride.

Originally Satan's pride. Verse 4, they are all adulterers as an oven heated by the baker who ceaseth from raising after he hath kneaded the dough until it be leavened. Strange idiom here. They are all adulterers.

I want to emphasize the word adultery doesn't just refer to sexual sins, but it refers to worshiping a false god. God uses that term in a broader context, but just as concerned as any way we might use it.

Now, by the way, he's not talking here about harmless acts between consenting adults that our society might try to make them out to be. These things are passions inflamed by sin that eventually destroys the ones that are affected by them.

Very key idea. Now, this idea of an oven and the baker thing may not strike us that clear, but Israel's passion for disobedience was like a fire burning low in the oven while the baker kneads the dough and waits for the leavening process.

So even though the flames are down, they are going to rise when it's time. That's the idiomatic use here apparently. When the time is right, the fires will blaze forth when kindled. And that's sort of what it's implying.

It's smoldering under the surface. If you wanted to press this, you could probably make the same issue about pornography, the dangers of which are often not understood in the sense that it inflames a passion that at the time can rage out of control.

But anyway, verse 5, in the day of our king, the princes have made him sick with bottles of wine. He stretched out his hand with scorners. Now, to begin to understand this, I should explain the day of our king is really the day of the festival.

Our king probably refers to a special celebration in which the ruler was the center of attention. And apparently the king was caroused with his princes who are called scorners here in the verse. And they were all under the influence of wine.

And while they partied with the naive king, they plotted his overthrow. To understand this phrase here, you need to know a little. I've tried to spare you a lot of the detailed history between 752 and 732 BC in the era that we're talking about.

But four of Israel's and other kingdoms rulers were assassinated. Most of this is in 2 Kings 15. Not only the murders of Zechariah, not the prophet, another one, Shalem, Pekiah, and Pekah, but also may refer to the disastrous reign of Menahem, who allowed Israel to become a vassal to their enemies, the vassal of Assyria, might also appear prophetically, yet future from this writing, but to Hosea, who was to be imprisoned by Assyria later.

So it's a very turbulent time. They go through 10 dynasties, and each one murdering and assassinating the, you know, the predecessor and so forth. It's a bloody, bloody area. It went from bad to worse.

We'll go through the details. Don't need to. Verse 6. For they have made ready their heart like an oven. While they lie and wait, their baker sleepeth all the night. In the morning, it burneth as a flaming fire.

Again, the same kind of idiom is being used here. The Masoretic text reads, their baker sleeps. And that's sort of like the King James. The NIV says it a little differently, their passion smolders. That requires a little emulation of the Hebrew, but probably captures the idea maybe even a little clearer.

It is similar to the thought that we had back in verse 4, which carries along the comparison of their hearts to an oven. And one could paraphrase verse 6. When they approach the king, their hearts like an oven contain a fire.

Just as the fire burns slowly while the baker is inactive, so their scheme remains a secret. But when the time for action comes, their destructive plot is realized just as a fire in an oven blazes forth when the time for baking arrives.

That's sort of the thought that underlies this in the view of most commentators. Verse 7. They are all hot as an oven. They have devoured their judges. All their kings are fallen. There is none among them that calleth unto me, God speaking.

And because the royal court was filled with all these murders and murderers, the kingship frequently changed hands. And throughout this period of palace revolt and regicide or murder of kings, no one bothered to look to the Lord and the true king of Israel and our only source of national stability.

Foreign Alliances and the Consequences of Forsaking God

You say, well, gee, this is Old Testament stuff. Who cares? Wait a minute. Wait a minute, gang. Stand back for a minute and ask yourself which modern government is more characterized by murder and unsolved crimes and cover-ups on the face of this earth?

You could not hear, if I give you a written exam, list all the people that have been murdered during the current administration. There's over a hundred from very, very high ranks on down. Ron Brown, Secretary of Commerce, murdered.

Why? Because you can give evidence the next week. What about Vince Foster? You could go through the list. Is there a parallel? Boy, the more I study Hosea here, the more disturbing it gets, the more parallel it would seem to be.

And if that's the case, we've got some ominous implications of this. But anyway, verse 8, God continues, Ephraim, again the northern king, he hath mixed himself among the people. Ephraim is a cake not turned.

Ephraim had launched a half-baked foreign policy. Now you'll laugh because I'm using him, but that's exactly the vernacular he's using here. Israel had formed alliances with foreign nations, and God is going to deal with that here in verse 11 and in chapter 8, verse 9 and elsewhere.

When he says, Ephraim is a cake not turned, we laugh at that. You say, gee, Chuck, that's a missile translation. No, we'd say it's half-baked. And that's exactly where this kind of a phrase comes from.

And we'll talk more about that as it goes. Verse 9, strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not. Yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth it not. These foreign adventures, see, Israel was looking to foreign alliances rather than God for stability.

Big mistake. Even George Washington warned the United States about that, to avoid foreign entanglements. And look at us today. It's absurd. We're spending billions of dollars arming Russia to wipe us out with nuclear weapons.

We intrigue with China, giving her all our secrets, not most of them, all of them, according to the Cox Report recently. We get into Kosovo. Who do you think is going to end up building, rebuilding all of that?

Who's going to? You guys will be. Your pocketbooks. Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not. Yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth it not. These alliances depleted the resources, yes.

I have an elderly relative that made a wonderful remark. It still echoes in my ears. She says, Chuck, you don't grow old. You wake up one day and discover you are. And that's exactly what Hosea is saying here.

It's like, yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth it not. You don't admit it to yourself. Israel, the Northern Kingdom at this point was paying tribute or taxes to Assyria. This is before being taken captive.

They were already a vassal, also paying tribute. And that's draining its wealth. There was, of course, finally the costly Syro-Ephraimite War, Ephraim and Assyria War, in which she allied with Syria.

That was a big mistake. And so the Northern Kingdom is sort of like Samson. You may recall Samson. It said in Judges 16, 20 that he did not know that the Lord had left him. Samson discovered that much to his chagrin.

Verse 10,. And the pride of Israel testifieth to his face, and they do not return to the Lord their God, nor seek him for all this. Ephraim also is like a silly dove without heart. They call to Egypt, and they go to Syria.

The Northern Kingdom, in its desperation to get security, went to its enemies. They called to Egypt, big mistake, went to Syria, even bigger mistake. And he's going to talk about that. And he compares this to a dove.

Doves are pretty, but not too bright. It was under Mannheim in about 743 to 738 BC, right in that range that Israel submitted to Assyrian suzerainty, or paid him tribute and so forth. And then Pecha, a little later, joined a coalition against Assyria.

Tiglath-Pileser III violently crushed all that. And that led, of course, ultimately to the invasion, to the total downfall of the Northern Kingdom under Shalmaneser. As an aside, this is just a little footnote.

I won't derail the study to get into this, but that whole Pecha business and all of that was an intrigue that's described in Isaiah 7. But in Isaiah 7, there is a secret code that, if you unravel, reveals what the plot would have been had they succeeded.

Doesn't matter because it didn't succeed, but it's a classic case in the Midrash of encryption. I'm not talking equidistant letter sequences and all that stuff people call Bible codes. I'm talking about a form of letter substitution called atbash or albam, any one of those two.

It was used in Isaiah 7. Small point, to students of cryptography, it's just a historical oddity that there's these encryptions. In Isaiah 7 and Jeremiah 51 and Jeremiah 26, there's these encryptions.

Well, to a student of cryptography, it's just an oddity. But to someone who recognizes the supernatural origin of the text, the fact that there are encryption there are gigantically significant signposts to look for other things.

In Proverbs 25, too, it says it's the glory of God to conceal a matter and the opportunity of kings to search them out. But anyway, that's just a footnote on the Pecha thing. But finally, the last king, Hosea, not Hosea the prophet, Hosea the final king, he actually acknowledged the rulership for a time, but then he sought an alliance for Egypt that backfired and this act of rebellion caused the northern kingdom to crash and burn, so to speak.

Their foreign policy for 20 years had been characterized by expediency and so like a silly dove going to and fro, and they eventually paid the piper. Verse 12, when they shall go, I will, God speaking, I will spread my net upon them.

I will bring them down as the fowls of the heaven. I will chastise them as their congregation hath heard. God is continuing the analogy there as if they're a bird and he's the trapper. He's going to come equipped, if you will, and he'd come like a wise and well-equipped trapper and trap them.

Israel's foreign policy had no place for the Lord and so he would intervene in judgment. They sought out a lot of naive alliances and they're going to pay the piper. Some interesting words here, the word chastise here is yesar in the Hebrew.

It speaks of the loving instruction of a parent to his child. Verse 13, woe unto them for they have fled from me. Destruction unto them because they have transgressed against me, though I have redeemed them, yet they have spoken lies against me.

So despite the Lord's... what you should be hearing through all of this is the Lord's reluctance, his longing, his caring, but his justice has to be vindicated. So he's forced, in effect, to take these actions.

The word redeem here is pedah, which is a used frequently described deliverance from Egypt. Often it's the illusion here. It's a term from commercial law which refers to the reclaiming or the ransoming of an obligated person by means of payment.

That's exactly the way the Lord is speaking of this here. Now the God of the Exodus, the God that redeemed them out of Egypt is unchanged in his will, but because of Israel's rejection of him, he has no choice.

See they were willing in Egypt, he was able to do something for them. Here they're not. And it's interesting how prosperity is a greater risk than poverty. See slavery and poverty in Egypt was a better benefit, in a sense of speaking, than their prosperity which had caused them to be blind to the Lord's provision.

They were ascribing the prosperity to everything else but the source. And boy that's our risk too, isn't it? It's interesting to see how our nation is under more risk today with the Dow at 11 ,000 than it was when in the Revolutionary time we were hanging by our fingernails and yet men were willing to pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor for their children and grandchildren.

It's a shock to go through the signers of the Declaration of Independence and realize most of them had their homes burned, families abused. Unbelievable. They did that knowingly. For themselves, no. But for their posterity.

We got it the other way around. We make sure that our posterity is in debt. Okay, verse 14. They have not cried unto me with their heart, yet when they have howled upon their beds, they assemble themselves, I'm going to come back to that word, it's probably a mistake, assemble themselves for corn and wine and they rebel against me.

So Israel's rejection of the Lord again is illustrated here. The nation desired a plentiful crop, you know, grain, wheat, and also new wine. In fact, that's why they worshiped Baal. It was supposed to be a fertility god and all that business.

But refused to exhibit the wholehearted devotion to God without which agricultural prosperity would be impossible. Now when it says they howled, the yalal in the Hebrew, in the pagan practice also was accompanied by cutting their bodies as they mourned over crop failure.

And then the second sentence here, it says the NIV in the margin says they slashed themselves. And that follows the Septuagint and some of the Hebrew manuscripts. It's better than they assemble themselves.

There's a Hebrew ambiguity here. Cutting themselves was a sign of mourning among the Canaanites and others. It happened to be forbidden by law, Deuteronomy 14 and elsewhere, because of its pagan associations.

You may recall Elijah in Mount Carmel when the priests of Baal were getting more and more apprehensive and anxious because nothing was happening. They start cutting themselves and Elijah's over there is making, taunting them.

Well, you know, maybe he's deaf or maybe he's going to the bathroom. That's really what he, he's relieving himself is what it says. It's a little different than King James, a little, made a little more polite.

But that's really, you know, Elijah's really let them have, until they finally give up and then he does his little thing and you know the story. And how God lit up his fire. And of course Elijah didn't mess around.

He slaughtered 450 before they reached the river. Anyway, that's all in 1 Kings 18. For those who want to read a great story, the one great story that Cecil B. DeMille missed. Verse 15, though I have bound, I have bound and strengthened their arms, yet do they imagine mischief against me?

And it's a very similar phrase that Joseph used of his brothers when he was sold into slavery back there in Genesis 50, you may recall. Israel's rebellion is essentially reveals her ingratitude because the Lord had strengthened her.

It says bound, but really means disciplined or trained their arms. Elsewhere, the strength in the arms is typically a military kind of expression. The Northern Kingdom had a lot of military successes.

That's why they're so prosperous. But nevertheless, despite the God's aid in them and for them in battle, they treated God like an enemy. And so verse 16, they returned but not to the most high. They are like a deceitful bow.

The princes shall fall by the sword for the rage of their tongue and this shall be the derision in the land of Egypt. You see, Israel's hostility to the Lord, turning to Baal and all that, was an expression of unfaithfulness.

And she was like a faulty bow, one that it's unreliable because it doesn't respond properly. So she's unreliable and disloyal. And because the leaders had rejected the true source of their strength. And therefore, it would be destroyed in battle because of their pride.

And this rage of the tongue phrase really refers to denunciation or curses. And here Israel, by the way, is going to fall into derision among the enemies of God, even. So you can almost, if you're really reading this carefully and devotionally, you can almost hear these words fall like tears from a broken heart.

Hosea 8: Judgment, Covenant, and the “Whirlwind”

But that brings us to chapter 8. This is the indictment now fully stated. The phrases that we'll extract from chapter 8 is they're going to, they've sown the wind and they're going to reap the world wind.

And the climactic phrase will be, but I will send fire upon their cities that will consume their fortresses. And I want to come to that phrase at the end because it may have some unusual implications for you and I.

But God's justice had to be vindicated and if you want a reference on that, Deuteronomy 28 from verse 15 to verse 68 in Deuteronomy 28 really lays down. It's easy, especially in the church, we speak of God as a God of grace and indeed He is.

But we have a tendency to dismiss or sweep under the carpet that He's also a holy God and a God of justice and that justice needs to be vindicated. And now because of that, Israel is going to reap the world wind.

Let's go to verse 1. Set the trumpet to thy mouth. He shall come as an eagle against the house of the because they have transgressed my covenant and trespassed against my law. Set the trumpet to them out.

This is a sound of alarm. This is the kind of trumpet that sounds and a signal for an impending battle. We saw that back in chapter 5 you may recall. The enemy, in this case the Assyrians, are ready to swoop down on Israel like a powerful eagle.

And that's, He shall come as an eagle against what? The house of the Lord. Remember what Peter says in chapter 4 verse 17? Judgment begins where? At the house of God. But the context here really is the whole covenant curse of Deuteronomy 28 again, especially verse 49.

That if they obey Him, they'll be blessed, but if they disobey Him, they will suffer the consequences. And of course historically this gets fulfilled when Tiglath-Pileser III invades and then the Shalmaneser finally takes them all captivity.

722 BC is the one of the key dates to remember of the fall of the northern kingdom. Anyway, verse 2. God says, Israel shall cry unto me, my God we know thee. But that's a last ditch pretense on the part of Israel.

That's where He says they will, they shall cry unto me, but it's a plea of someone that's guilty of the death penalty and just been caught, you know. And by the way, that pretense is still with us today.

People claim to know God, but they don't because they forget that our God is a God to be obeyed, not just conned with lip service. If you know God, it changes your life. You live differently. And remember what Jesus said, Luke 6, 46.

Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say? It's very interesting that phrase by the Lord, why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say. He then follows immediately from that remark to the parable of the man that built a house on sand.

You all know the story. Sand, rocks, so forth. He built his house on sand and lost everything. Because he didn't build the right foundation. Paul is right, it's an amplification of what Jesus said just prior to that parable.

To be a doer, not just a hearer only. Now what follows from here in the rest of this chapter are a list of the rejections of God that Israel was guilty of, and there's five of them. There are five grounds here for God's judgment.

We want to understand those, not just to understand the plight of Israel and what God was doing there, but to see if there's any application to ourselves. The first one is breaking of God's covenant. Verse 3, Israel hath cast off the thing that is good, the enemy shall pursue him.

See, Israel had made a pretense of a devotion to the Lord, addressing him as her own God, and claiming to acknowledge his authority over her, and yet this was all just lip service. Her sinful actions spoke louder.

You've all heard that expression, your actions speak so loudly I can't hear what you're saying. And that's in effect what God is saying here. She rejected that is cast off what's good, and that term is going to come up a little later again in another interesting way.

But this idea of a pretense of devotion, lip service only, does that describe us today? I don't need a show of hands. Next one is choice of ungodly kings is the next indictment that God lays on the northern kingdom.

Verse 4, they have set up kings but not by me. They have made princes, and I knew it not, of their silver and their gold have they made them idols that they may be cut off. See they had appointed kings and so forth that without consulting the Lord.

And of course this alludes in effect historically speaking to all the palace revolts, the whole sequence of all these murders and ever since his reign. Now by the way, it's kind of interesting to see that their climax is going to come upon them after two centuries of independence.

Think about it. You know we've been at it what, 223 years, something like that? And of course now we're not a theocracy. You know we're not, never pretend to be that, but we are a representative democracy of, by, and for the people.

Well if that's the case, where's the outrage? Where are the American people screaming that they don't have the leaders that they want? You see the real problem in this country is not the president or the administration.

The real problem is the people. They're a reflection. They're a mirror. It's our negligence. It's our ingratitude, our presumption on God that this all happens. And a couple of questions, a little pop quiz for you.

Do you hold your elected representatives accountable to reflect your views? You have to agree with me. Whatever views you have, do you hold your representatives, senators, congress, whatever, accountable to represent what you really want to happen in their areas of responsibility?

You may disagree with me. That's fine. Do you hold them, whoever they are, accountable? That's the question. And see you have no right to bemoan the loss of that which you have declined to defend. That's not original with me.