Hosea 4 Indicted

ReCAST Church of Mattawan

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You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak preaches from his series on the book of Hosea, A Study in God's Relentless Love.

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Let's listen in. As Ben said, I'm Don Filsak, I'm the lead pastor here, and welcome, glad that you're here.

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It's awesome that we have the opportunity to gather together in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We are here together to grow in our faith this morning, and that means worshiping

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God together in praise and singing, and then also hearing from his word together in community, and then going out from this place to live that out and to walk with him through the knowledge of him through his word.

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Now, as we're going through Hosea, you know, you kind of think about why in the world am I preaching Hosea? Like, it's in the

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Bible, yes, but it's a bit of a tough passage, a tough book. But in his word, we're seeing

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God reveal himself, and these different books of the Bible all kind of come together to help us to understand

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God. You see, I think it's really important that we understand we are not left on our own to guess what

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God is like. Like, that would require, that would be some sleepless nights trying to figure out who God is and what he's like if it was just up to us.

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And some of you maybe have heard the ancient Eastern parable about the blind guys trying to describe the elephant.

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How many of you have heard that illustration before? Some of you, two of you, three of you. It kind of goes like this.

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There's several blind guys, and they're trying to describe this elephant, and each one is holding a different part, and so one describes the elephant like a tail, like a swishy tail, because that's what he's holding, another an ear, another a tusk.

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One of them describes God like a tree trunk because he's got the elephant by the leg. And while each one has only a part of the picture, so the parable goes, none of them understands accurately what an elephant is because none of them can take it all in.

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They're all blind. They don't know what elephants are. And that's, I've heard that used to try to describe the rationale and the reason why there's multiple religions on the planet.

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It's meant to be a metaphor for us to try to understand God. Each one of us has a little part of him and trying to put all the pieces together to describe him, and maybe the

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Hindus have a part. Maybe the Koran has a part. Maybe Christians have a part, and we are all just talking about the same.

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God would be the logic in the illustration, but let me suggest that the illustration breaks down at the point when we realize that the elephant speaks.

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The elephant speaks to describe himself. The elephant has written for us who he is.

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God tells us what he is like, who he is, and how he rolls the things that he does in the pages of scripture, amen?

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We don't have to guess. We're not like, oh, I've got a little part of it, and you've got a little part of it, and you've got a little part of it, and we try to put our stories together and try to come up with who

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God is. He has shown us who he is. And it's for this reason that I trust the Bible as his holy word to us about himself.

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So here in a moment, we're gonna read a long chunk of the Bible that's gonna use some scandalous terms. Well, now one thing that we know is that God is not above using scandalous terms, as the

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Bible tells us. As a matter of fact, I'm rating this passage in this message PG -13. Now, I'm always gonna be a little bit more on the cautious side, but I wanna leave it up to parents, and so I believe that the reading is

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PG -13. I think the message itself, in a couple of sentences, will border on rated R, and so be prepared.

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But for this reason, we're providing an opportunity for parents to escort their children, not to the barn doors, but the double doors that are open right back there.

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You can see Trent's waving his arms up there, and Trent and Ben would be back there to help keep the kids occupied for just a little bit here while we read this passage.

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I introduce it a little bit, and then they will rejoin us for the time of praise and singing, and then

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I would encourage you to have them to go to their classes during connection time. But that's up to you.

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I recognize that some of you have varying sensitivities to these things. I think many of us might be shocked, and even a bit confused, by the language that's employed in the prophets, particularly in this prophet of Hosea.

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And of course, the Song of Songs is a very explicit book in the Old Testament, as well, that I preached earlier. But I just wanna point out what we know to be true from the pages of Scripture.

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God is not prudish, He doesn't blush, He is not embarrassed regarding the design of male and female, and the way that things work together.

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That's all His design, that's all in His good plan. And so the metaphorical use of sexual immorality to describe the way that God feels, just like a jilted husband, is meant to be a potent metaphor for our waywardness and His relentless love.

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Let me say that again. It's a potent metaphor for our waywardness, how we're drawn away into sinfulness, how we are faithless in our dealings, and He is faithful and relentless in His love to continue to pursue us.

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Today we're looking at a four -part indictment of God's people, and you'll see it here as I break it down in the text.

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The nation of Israel in the 8th century BC, as of the writing of this, are heavily involved in pagan practices.

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Now they're actually doing, they're pretty well off. They're in a high point in terms of their national wealth.

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The average person on the street is doing pretty good under Jeroboam II, and all kinds of relationships with foreign nations are going well, and they're not at war.

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Now they're gonna be pretty soon, but they're not as of the writing of this. But what they have done is they have forsaken the worship of God in that they've combined

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His worship with the worship of a bunch of little G gods of the nations around them.

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They are offering their infants in sacrifice on altars. They are committing abominable sexual practices at hilltop shrines.

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They are putting their trust in a variety of wicked practices, hoping that maybe Baal, or Asherah, or Yahweh will give fertility to the land and make it rain, and they're just equal.

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And I say those names together because that's the way that they're acting, as if maybe Asherah, maybe

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Baal, we'll make some sacrifices to Yahweh as well, and we'll just see if we get the right mix of this in order for the blessings to arrive.

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Now, I just wanna point out what's true, as you come in, you're going, that's shocking in light of the Old Testament, and if any of you have read the

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Old Testament, you might go, like, how in the world could the people get here from there, right? You read the Ten Commandments, you see them meet

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God, you see the parting of the Red Sea, and the exodus, and the destruction of the armies of Pharaoh, and all of that stuff, and you're just kinda looking at, like, how did they get to this place?

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And I wanna point out that the human heart is always looking for shortcuts. Always looking to get ahead, always attempting to figure out what will work to achieve our own self -centered ends.

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I'm not gonna ask for a show of hands, but I can guess that everybody here understands what I just said. You all relate to that in some level, or in some way, varying in our capacity for it, but all of us relating to it, all of us understanding what it means to have a self -centered, preservation -type mindset to ourselves, and it's into that place of wicked compromise that God speaks a revelation through Hosea to identify for us the way he feels about the whole thing.

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That's what he's talking about in Hosea. Here's how I feel. I feel like a husband who's being cheated on. That's what he says.

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And with that stage set, let's open our Bibles to Hosea chapter four, Hosea four.

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Recast God's holy word. It uses some words that we ought not to take lightly, and certainly ought not to be using in our daily lives, but it's a holy word because it's seeking to communicate to us, even if it communicates through some shock.

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Yeah, by the way, you read the first few verses, it's fairly tame, but buckle up.

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Hosea chapter four. Hear the word of the Lord, O children of Israel, for the

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Lord has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land. There is no faithfulness or steadfast love, and no knowledge of God in the land.

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They're swearing, lying, murder, stealing, and committing adultery.

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They break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed. Therefore the land mourns, and all who dwell in it languish.

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And also the beasts of the field and the birds of the heavens, and even the fish of the sea are taken away. Yet let no one contend, and let none accuse, for with you is my contention,

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O priest. You shall stumble by day. The prophet also shall stumble with you by night, and I will destroy your mother.

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My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge, because you have rejected knowledge. I reject you from being a priest to me, and since you have forgotten the law of your

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God, I also will forget your children. The more they increased, the more they sinned against me.

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I will change their glory into shame. They feed on the sins of my people.

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They are greedy for their iniquity, and it shall be like people, like priests. I will punish them for their ways, and repay them for their deeds.

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They shall eat, but not be satisfied. They shall play the whore, but not multiply, because they have forsaken the

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Lord to cherish whoredom, wine, and new wine, which take away understanding. My people inquire of a piece of wood, and their walking staff gives them oracles, for a spirit of whoredom has led them astray, and they have left their

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God to play the whore. They sacrifice on the tops of mountains, and burn offerings on the hills, under oak, poplar, and terebinth, because their shade is good.

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Therefore, your daughters play the whore, and your brides commit adultery. I will not punish your daughters when they play the whore, nor your brides when they commit adultery, for the men themselves go aside with prostitutes, and sacrifice with cult prostitutes, and a people without understanding shall come to ruin.

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Though you play the whore, O Israel, let not Judah become guilty. Enter not into Gilgal, nor go up to Beth -Avon, and swear not as the

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Lord lives. Like a stubborn heifer, Israel is stubborn. Can the

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Lord now feed them like a lamb in a broad pasture? Aphraim is joined to idols, leave him alone.

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When their drink is gone, they give themselves to whoring, their rulers dearly love shame. A wind has wrapped them in its wings, and they shall be ashamed because of their sacrifices.

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Let's pray. Father, indicted, guilty as charged, this passage only unveils what is true of every human heart this side of the fruit eaten in the garden.

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That's what's true of us. It's real, it's broken, it's busted.

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It's not the way that you design things to be. You are creator, who have pursued us with your relentless love, who have covenanted with your people to bring about redemption.

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And we have forsaken you, we have forgotten you, we have cheated on you.

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If this text was the end of the story, we should just fold it up and walk into misery and despair. But Father, you have not allowed the story to end there with our indictment, but you have allowed another to take our sentencing on his shoulders.

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We ought never to sing again if this is the end of the story. If this indictment rests upon us, and that's it, and that's the end of the story, how could we open our mouths in praise?

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How could we open our mouths and sing versus just weep? Father, you and your grace, you and your relentless pursuit of redemption have sent forth your son to make a covenant in his blood.

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He bearing the penalty and the just sentencing that you have placed over every human life on his shoulders that we might be declared free.

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Let that be the fuel of our worship in this gathering and in this place this morning. We, your redeemed people, unworthy, prostituting ourselves under every tree and every green hill, and you in your pursuit, loving and saving.

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Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the cross. And it's in Jesus' name, amen.

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I'm really grateful for the band leading us in worship, and I encourage you to get comfortable and keep your Bibles open to Hosea chapter four.

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Part of the reason to make sure your Bible is open on your lap or a device that opens up to it is just as your mind wanders and I start to lose your attention, let your attention go back to the

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Bible that's on your lap, so. But we're gonna try to be comfortable and with some tough things here this morning.

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Hosea chapter four. The word whore hits our ears with all the harshness of a swear word, right? Like, I mean,

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I think that it's worth addressing right off the bat. I've been saying it for a few weeks. Hosea's been saying it for a few weeks. Anybody with me that it's like a bit harsh?

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Some of you are like, no, that's just a tame word, or you're just still asleep. I mean, it's not that late, so. I think it's a harsh word.

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And it was no more tame in the era in which this was written. As a matter of fact, I might suggest to you that it might even be a little bit more harsh to their ears than it is to ours.

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I want you to consider that whoring was a capital offense in ancient Israel. Today, it carries the stigma of social unacceptability for sure, and you don't go around spouting that word, but it carries no criminal component for the one who is actually guilty of it.

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To accuse someone of being a whore in that ancient context was to accuse someone of something worthy of the death penalty, according to the old covenant in ancient

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Israel. And so, as I've said before, it's important for any of you who are aware of the book or the movie, Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers.

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I mentioned it early on in this series, and I'm gonna probably mention it a couple of times throughout here. I would encourage you to get that fully out of your mind.

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If your mind, when it goes to Hosea, is to that Francine Rivers book or that movie, I want you to remove it as much as possible because I've received some confusing interactions and feedback from this series so far that have suggested a fundamental misunderstanding about what is going on with Gomer.

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Gomer, Hosea's promiscuous, adulterous wife, is not the victim. She is not the victim.

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She is not a victim sold into a life of prostitution through sex trafficking or abused as a child.

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She is an aggressive whore pursuing her lovers while her husband provides for her, loves her, and keeps trying to win her.

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She has a home. She has a safe place to be, and she keeps going out and prostituting and whoring herself.

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Now, we will hear the word whore multiple times throughout this book and multiple times in this very chapter, and so I thought it might be beneficial for us to at least define that word to some degree.

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I don't want to get too detailed, but I've received, like I said, enough questions to indicate that there's some confusion over this word.

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A prostitute, just the distinction is helpful. A prostitute gets paid. A whore is just open for whatever, looking for chances to get busy.

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Israel pursued wicked and evil pagan practices. They were the pursuers. They were not passive.

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They were not roped in or victimized by the nations around them into these practices. They have actively been on the prowl for other gods and goddesses, and they have found them.

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So these indictments in our text are meant to be shocking to our system, shocking to our ears.

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They are full of gravity. They are not meant to be taken with a middle school boy kind of snicker, ha, ha, ha, nor are they merely thoughtless name -calling as if Hosea had spiritual

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Tourette's and just began to spout words. The metaphor is technical. It is shocking, and it is very, very, very serious, church.

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Our text takes the form of an ancient court indictment. God is bringing a lawsuit against Israel for their breach of covenant that they made with Almighty God, and we outline the indictment this way.

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Four points this morning. The first is the case established in verses one through three. The second is against the bad priest, verses four through 11.

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The third is against bad religion, verses 12 through 14, and then the closing indictments in verses 15 through 19.

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But right away in verse one, the Hebrew language expresses a lawsuit type of language along with the emphasis that this is

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God's very speech. Hear the word of the Lord, O children of Israel. Thus saith the

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Lord is the emphasis with which Hosea writes this. And he says, I've got a bone to pick with you.

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God is saying he's got a bone to pick with his people for the Lord has a controversy with the inhabitants of land. He has a lawsuit to bring against them.

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And it's interesting that he says with the inhabitants of the land, and then he says there's no knowledge of God in the land. Land, land, a couple of times in this first verse, emphasizing the word land, remembering that the land, and this is not unintentional, the land that was given to them by the faithfulness of their

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God in covenant, right? God's covenant saying, I'm going to give you a great land. Flowing with what?

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Milk and honey. I'm gonna give you a good place, people. And here they are worried and concerned for harvests and concerned for abundance.

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And they are worried about it enough to break covenant with God and go after other methods that they perceive are going to obtain good blessings for them.

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And so verses one through three show us God's case established against his covenant people.

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In setting up the case against the people of Israel, he begins with what's missing. He says, you've missed something in this covenant.

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He says, in the land, there is no faithfulness. There is no steadfast love and there is no knowledge of God in the land.

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Now it's interesting to see faithfulness, steadfast love, knowledge of God. These are three things that God expects to be present wherever he is honored and held in high esteem.

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If you tell me you love God, you come to me and you say, personally, I love

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God. I'm caught up in him and I'm glad for him. Then I would expect to see a level of faithfulness, a level of steadfast love and a level of knowledge of him.

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Do you get what I'm saying? These three things are in abundance where God is glorified and honored. People who are glorifying

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Yahweh will be a faithful people. Where the word faithful in the Hebrew language needs a little bit of definition here because the word faithful sounds like just kind of like they keep their promises or something like that.

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But actually, it's a word that in the Hebrew language could easily and probably better translate it as social fidelity.

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It is a together with other people kind of word. You see, a civilized society is built on this brand, this

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Hebrew word of everyday faithfulness. This quality when present in a society is the central factor that distinguishes any people group from anarchy and chaos and distinguishes that from civility and orderliness.

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This kind of social fidelity. And the point is Israel is faltering on the level of civility in their society.

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This is again that horizontal relationship with one another where we have all kinds of social contracts that involve everything from four -way stops to how you pull over when the emergency vehicle goes by, right?

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Do you know what I'm talking about? I mean, the way that we act around one another and the things that we do in culture and community are partly an identifier of whether or not we live as a people in this type of this brand of faithfulness.

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So the people of Israel, civility is going out the window and further they have no steadfast love. This is a more technical religious phrase meaning covenantal love.

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Steadfast love is covenantal love. Hasid, it's a Hebrew word that is used all over for God's commitment to his people and what they're meant to have toward him.

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This is their relationship toward God himself. The horizontal relationships with one another are breaking down in Israel as evidenced by there being no faithfulness, but their vertical relationship with God is broken by their lack of covenantal faithfulness or steadfast love as the

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English standard version translates it. But there's something else that's missing. It's not just that their relationship with each other is breaking down and their relationship with God is broken, but also there's something else that's absent from their culture during this time.

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Absent is another vital element to God's people and that is the knowledge of God. And I don't know if you think about it this way, but it's good that we do.

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The knowledge of God is a fundamental human need. Do you think of it that way? Now you can name some human needs.

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You can name some things that you really need, like think like oxygen and water and food and shelter.

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So those are some of our most basic needs, right? Like without those, you're in trouble, right? Especially the first one.

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Without oxygen, you're in deep trouble. But the knowledge of God is also a human need. I want you to think of it that way.

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When you think about oxygen and you think about water and you think about food and you think about shelter, think about God. You need him.

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A godless society is a society that is doomed. Do you know what I'm talking about? Humanity can live about three minutes without oxygen, about three days without water, about one month without food, and a few hundred years, a society can go without God, give or take a couple hundred years.

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But societies rise and fall on their relationship to the Almighty and you can look at it in history. And we see in verse two, what comes on the heels of forsaking or ignoring the

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Almighty God. What comes into a culture when the knowledge of God goes away?

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What comes into a culture when civility breaks down, when the relationship and the covenant with God is broken?

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Well, cursing, lying, murdering, stealing, adultery, breakouts of sin everywhere, and wickedness multiplying on wickedness, murder multiplying on murder, violence multiplying on violence, as the text tells us.

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Here in this indictment, we see what was happening in Israel in verses one and two. And it is in a pretty picture, not the kind of place you want to move to and set up a house and raise a family.

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Verse two identifies the shattering of many of the 10 commandments. Think about it, cursing the name of God, lying, murdering, stealing, adultery.

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Aren't those in the 10 commandments? The law given by God is a good standard church for any society.

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And although the law, hear me carefully, the law is not the pathway to a restored, redeemed relationship with the

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Almighty God. It's through Christ. But the 10 commandments are obviously, and hopefully you recognize them as a good standard for human flourishing.

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When they are broken regularly or endorsed to be broken by a culture or a society, the end is near.

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When people throw these things to the wind and say they don't matter anymore, you're in trouble. And a broken people, we see in the text, results in a broken land.

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Verse three, therefore the land mourns and all who dwell in it languish. The land dries up.

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The people languish and fade. Even the natural order in verse three, it's demonstrated the natural order is impacted by a wicked people.

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And this is fundamental. It might not be the way you think of the world, but it absolutely is. We were meant to be and made to be in the book of Genesis, caretakers of the earth.

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In Genesis, it is one of the fundamental purposes of humanity, made in God's image.

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We are, do you guys recognize that role? Do you recognize that calling on you to be caretakers of the earth? That's fundamentally what a human is, made in God's image.

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When we stray from God's design, the world is impacted. Nobody picks up litter in a godless society. Who's got time for that and it doesn't serve me that well anyways.

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Nobody plants trees for a future generation in a self -centered, godless, pagan society. Now, this is not my go green manifesto up here.

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Okay, hear me carefully. You're already like, he drives a hybrid, what's next? That just saves me a lot of money at the gas pump.

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I'm not gonna lie, that's a little self -serving. But if we follow the biblical story, we will not be those kinds of people who throw our

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McDonald's trash out the window when we're done. Do you know what I'm talking about? That's just not how we ought to roll as God's people, as God's caretakers.

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Anybody ever see that? You see that person in front of you? I had somebody, like I was in South Haven driving and pull up to a stop sign in the car in front of me.

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Literally, they took the time to open their door and nicely set everything out in the, like I was like, who does that?

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I mean, if you're gonna do that, you might as well chuck it, right? Like, I take the time to open the door. So then I pulled up behind them after they turned.

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I opened the door and pulled it in and went and threw it away. But it's like, what are people thinking?

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What are they doing? Probably told their wife they didn't stop at McDonald's and then did and had to get rid of the evidence.

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I don't know. Okay, that's terrible. Why would I even say that? That's not in my notes. We'll get there in a minute. I get into trouble when

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I'm not on my notes. But here in the opening, God establishes his case against his people. They have a broken relationship with each other.

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They have a broken relationship with him. And they have a broken relationship toward creation. This broad indictment's gonna get more specific in the coming points.

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But in establishing these broad categories, God is painting a picture of a people in radical rebellion against him.

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He has made us for relationship with one another. He has made us for relationship with himself.

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And he has made us as caretakers of this world. And Israel is striking out on that front.

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They are O for three. And they are out. They're ignoring the three central callings that God has really created mankind for.

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And from the broad categories, God gets increasingly more specific in his indictments. And so the next several verses, in the next several verses, his indictment is against the bad priest, verses four through 11.

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He takes it straight to the leadership. Verse four, confuses scholars. And you can look at it. Yet let no one contend and let none accuse, for with you is my contention,

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O priest. If it's confusing to you, you're not alone. A lot of scholars look at the construction of the Hebrew language, which is tried to, they try to just bring it right over into English because they don't wanna interpret it too much because there's a variety of different interpretations.

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I believe it's fairly simple, though. I think it amounts to a corrective to anyone who would point fingers.

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And quite specifically, I believe he's speaking to the priest during the entire verse. I believe it specifically is addressed to the priest who will be tempted to point fingers at everyone but themselves.

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And have you ever seen leaders do that? Something goes south, something breaks down, and it's always somebody else's fault, and they're quick to point.

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Don't contend about this, priests. It's against you, says God. Don't go pointing fingers.

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Don't go arguing with others about what their role was in it. I'm holding you accountable.

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But you see, because leaders will be very quick to say, it's these wicked and rebellious people who are to blame.

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And so God narrows his focus on the religious leaders for the next eight verses. The next eight verses are all focused on the leadership.

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And when a people lack the knowledge of God, we ought to first look to their leaders. Now, we're all accountable for who we follow and what we believe and what we do, but Scripture is clear that those in leadership, and particularly in teaching roles, will face a more stern judgment.

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And I wanna tell you that this affects the way that I preach church. This makes me preach from a manuscript. It makes me a little bit scared when

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I step off my notes. You see, this makes me spend a lot of time studying each week as well and taking this role seriously because it's a big deal to be up in front preaching and saying, thus saith the

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Lord. Now, that's why I stick to the text so closely, because I wanna make sure that what I'm saying is coming from this passage and from this revelation of God.

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It makes me pray earnestly for accuracy. I would say the number one prayer on my lips every week is that God would accurately convey what he desires to communicate through his word, particularly pertaining to my preaching.

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Now, I wanna just tell you that after 20 years, between 15 and 20 years of preaching, I could speak more from the hip.

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I could probably be more engaging with better eye contact and a bit more like a TED Talk, and some of you right now are thinking, prove it.

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But I don't trust myself, and I would discourage you from it too. I don't trust myself. I feel like if I get far off my notes and I start to riff, when

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I step over here, I don't know why, I always do, but I step over here and I start talking like I am right now, this is where the heresy comes in.

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This is where the error comes in, where I'm all of a sudden stating things that I haven't really studied that well and I'm kind of thinking off the, do you guys know what

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I'm talking about? Do you get in trouble when you start to riff? Do you sometimes say things that you're like, why did I say that?

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I shouldn't have said that, that looked like gossip, that looked like slander, that looked like something I shouldn't have said, and it's often when we're not prepared and we're kind of like blindsided by a conversation or something.

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All this is to say that when God indicts the leadership here we, I think our hearts and minds naturally as Americans, we perk up a bit.

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Well, there's something fun about him tackling the leadership, isn't there? There's something that grabs our hearts because we're a society of decreased trust and increased skepticism toward authority, with probably some good reason.

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So God begins with sentencing and works backwards to the indictment in this part of the passage regarding the priest.

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You see, the priesthood of the northern kingdom of Israel is on the way out and that's the sentencing. He's sentencing them right away, you're done.

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They will stumble and falter in the daylight, he says to the priest, and he says the prophets are gonna join you at night falling over themselves.

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The prophets are speaking of God falsely and they also will stumble and fall. And then the seemingly random in the middle of it, you heard it when

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I read it and you thought the same thing I did, and then I will destroy your mother. Did anybody hear that when I read it and go like, is this an ancient attempt at a yo mama joke?

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I don't know. I don't think that it was any joking matter, but if it was, it fell flat, right?

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Whether it's figurative as a way of saying I will destroy your mother as in your nation, many interpret it that way and it's quite possible that that's what he meant by it.

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I actually kind of lean in that direction that he's actually talking about the nation is gonna be destroyed, that which has given you life and sustenance is going away, but it could literally mean your mom's gonna die.

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We don't really know, he's saying it to the priests, but this is meant to be a harsh and complete judgment of the leadership of the religious establishment in the

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Northern Kingdom of Israel, covering all the bases, both prophet and priest judged by Almighty God.

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Verses six through eight are chocked full of indictments against the priesthood, but also interspersed with sentencing. The destruction of the people, he says, rests on the shoulders of you priests.

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They are not promoting the knowledge of God. The leaders have rejected the knowledge of God and so God is rejecting the priesthood.

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And since they have forgotten the standards of their God, God will forget their children. Now that sounds like kind of like a petty, as God just playing petty, like mom and your kids and everybody,

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I'm gonna get at your family. I don't believe so. The priesthood was hereditary. You need to understand that this is a big, sweeping judgment that he's making here.

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It was hereditary in Israel. What I mean is that the sons of the priest became the next priest, became the next priest, became the next priest, and forgetting their children is saying the priesthood will cease to continue.

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And to clarify, the priesthood of Israel did indeed end and still has no function.

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I don't know if you're aware of this, but the priesthood of Israel still has no function to this day. They don't make sacrifices.

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The synagogues don't make sacrifices. They're not functioning in that way anymore.

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But note the central role of the knowledge of God in this indictment. How are we to avoid going down the road of Israel and forsaking the

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Lord, our God, like they did? How is that not gonna be us in five years, in 10 years, in 15 years?

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Seeking the knowledge of the Lord, I believe, is central and key. Seeking him. Getting God wrong is a super serious thing and not something that you wanna leave up to guesswork.

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Like the blind person holding the elephants here, going, God is like a flat pancake. An elephant isn't like a flat pancake.

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An elephant is, you know, an elephant. So are you a person who is primarily living your life in guesswork?

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And I'd suggest to you that only in as much as you know this book are you not guessing. I mean, this is how you know.

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You tell me something about God and I'm gonna say, show me where. You tell me something that's wrong about God, I'm really gonna say, show me where, right?

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And we leave so much to guesswork in our lives when it comes to spiritual things, because spiritual things take work.

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It takes an effort. It takes you doing something different in order to get up in the morning and get into God's word regularly.

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But the most important thing about us is what we think about when we think about God. Do we have him right, church?

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Do we have a correct assessment of his view of us? Without correct knowledge of God, we will all be destroyed in what scripture calls the second death, not a good thing.

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And yet humanity has attacked, in our day and age, the very foundation of knowledge. You see it all around us.

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Many have made it their personal goal to cast doubts on what we can and cannot know. While God has expressed what we need to know about him in a written word, in human language, readable, studyable, translatable, memorizable.

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I don't even know if that's a word, but you know what I mean. So many opportunities that are at our fingertips for the knowledge of God, right?

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You carry it with you on your phone. It's accessible all throughout your day. You can listen to, did you know you can just listen to like celebrities read it to you?

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It's weird. Why would I want celebrities to read it to me? But you can. It's bizarre how we have so much access to God's word.

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And again, is this where Don the pastor gets up with a two by four and clobbers everybody who's not reading the word?

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You're just missing an opportunity, church. That's all I want to say. I don't want to heap guilt on your shoulders. I don't want you to walk out of here feeling terrible about yourself.

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I want you to walk out of here motivated, to know that the knowledge of God is central to your life. And it's a need, a fundamental need that you have.

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And you have availability. So why not do something different if you're not availing yourself of it? If there's anybody in the room that hasn't read all the books from Genesis to Revelation, make it a goal.

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Make it a goal and then do something about it. It's very easy to just kind of like think, oh,

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I'll just, okay, Don just said that and I felt a little convicted about it, so I'll go get the knowledge of God.

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That's not gonna happen without some steps. You're gonna have to make some decisions about that. Avail yourself of the knowledge of God, available in his precious word, the

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Holy Scriptures, the Bible, the book. The indictment on the priesthood as it continues in verse seven follows down lines that I think all of us can relate to.

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The more the priest gained wealth, increased is the word in the translation, but the more that they gained wealth, the more that they sinned and the more they exchanged glory for shame.

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Have you noticed that the more self -dependent you are, the more you are self -funding and able to take care of your own needs, the less you lean on God?

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Anybody notice that pattern in your life? A little bit harder when things are going well and there's money in the bank account and the money's coming in and everything's going well to continue to give him the glory and lean on him.

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Well, in verse seven, there are three dangers we need to be attentive to when it comes to spiritual leadership. You see, the spiritual leaders of Israel were wealthy, false, and degenerate.

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Not three things that you're looking for in a leader. Don't look for leaders like this. I mean, how's that for spiritual leadership?

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Wealthy, false, and degenerate. And having wealth isn't a sin. Abraham was extremely wealthy, the text tells us, and others in scripture had,

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I mean, Jacob had wealth coming out his ears in the form of sheep and cattle and all that stuff.

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But loving wealth, we are told in the New Testament, is the root of all kinds of evil.

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And I think you've seen it in your life, I've seen it in mine. One particular brand of evil that the love of wealth can produce, by the way, the love of wealth produces various kinds of evils in our lives, right?

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Like, it has a result, it has an impact. You love money and you make it your goal, you will find yourself in all kinds of other sins, too.

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Do you know what I'm talking about? That's what's happening here. It can produce love of wealth, and a spiritual leader will almost always produce false teaching and false practice.

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Why? Well, it's natural. Every single spiritual leader you have ever met routinely faces the temptation to not tell you the truth.

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Every single one, why? Every pastor knows that this culture loves a nice little pep talk.

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And wouldn't it be great if recast on Sunday mornings was just a great big cheerleading session for your ego? A great opportunity for us to come together and clap for you, the hero of your story, empower you, give you your vitamin

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C, Christ, right? For the week and go rah, rah, rah and own your week. Amen, let's go.

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And then we could go out of here in a frenzy, right? You guys know what I'm talking about? Could we do that? Yeah, of course we could do that.

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I know that this church, and I believe this firmly, I believe, I say I know, I believe firmly that this church could grow bigger if I would just turn a blind eye to sin and use this platform and this pulpit to make you feel better about yourselves.

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Now, here's what I think is glorious and I believe to be absolutely true. I love the fact that some of you would leave if I did that.

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I'm convinced that many of you, as a matter of fact, would leave if I did that. But what makes me sad and I believe to be true as well is that a couple of people would replace everyone who leaves.

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For everyone that walks out the door, I could gain a couple more. Do you know what I'm talking about? Is that not our culture?

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Is that not our society? The priesthood in Israel's time was sold out for what gave them their best lives now.

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In verse eight, the priesthood is happy to feast on the sins of the people. The image is the way that the priesthood, by the way, would get their food.

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There's a play on all of this structure of the old covenant and the sacrificial system. The priesthood obtained their wealth and their donations and all of that through the sacrifices and through the temple.

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Through the synthesizing of pagan worship and the worship of Yahweh, the priests have found a get -rich -quick scheme for them.

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But the priests, the text goes on to say, ought not to think that they are above the common judgment of the common people.

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Just like the people are to be judged, so too will their leadership. And they will give an account for their ways and their deeds, the text tells us.

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Not only for what they have done, but also for the attitudes that they have conveyed. That's what's meant by, I like the distinction between deeds and ways.

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Deeds, the things that they do. Ways, the methods and means and attitudes that they aspire to that cause those deeds.

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They're gonna be judged for it all. And so the punishment will fit the crime in verse 10. They shall eat, but not be satisfied.

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They shall play the whore, but not multiply, because they have forsaken the Lord to cherish whoredom, wine, and new wine, which take away understanding.

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What is it saying? The punishment fits the crime. They who have glutted themselves on pagan sacrifices will eat, but not ever be satiated.

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They will have plenty of sex, but no offspring, because they have forsaken the Lord and instead cherished whoredom, promiscuity, wine, both aged and fresh.

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And to our modern post -birth control pill ears, there's a connection in here that sounds really shocking, like they'll play the whore, but they won't have kids.

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And you're going like, well, yeah, yeah. And I don't wanna really explain the birds and the bees to all of us, but there's a connection between sex and offspring in the text, and that might need to be explained.

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But I'll keep it general for many years. Matter of fact, I would suggest for millennia, humans actually thought this really novel thought, really unique and strange, and I'm feeling snarky this morning kind of thought.

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Humans thought that sex was about having children. How naive could they have been?

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And now you know. Now you know, you can pass it along. But in calling for an end to the priesthood, he gives the final sentencing and indictment here in the text.

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They have whored around with the gods of the nations, and in a drunken stupor, they have erased any understanding on the part of the people.

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What is that saying? Well, I think it's interesting that verses 10 and 11 indicate that religion is not the opiate of the people.

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Sex and opium is the opiate of the people. Well, what am I saying? Unregulated drugs and sex are two things that drive a society deeper into ignorance, deeper into stupidity, and deeper into increased compromise.

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Now, I know that it would be hard to imagine you have to take it on faith because who could ever imagine a society like that?

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Like I said, I'm feeling a little snarky today. A culture that's increasingly ignorant and stupid and degenerate because of their views of sex and drugs?

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Who can imagine? So the leadership is indicted as bad, but so too are the particular religious practices of Israel indicted as well, and so that's where we get to our third point against bad religion, 12, 13, and 14, these three verses.

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The people are concerned for the future, as we always are. Are you not, raise your hand if you're just a little concerned for the future.

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Like you got some concerns, you got some things that if God were to appear here, I'm gonna ask you to raise your hand one more time on this one.

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How many of you think that if right now you could have a question to God it might pertain to your future? I think a lot of us.

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I think that's a lot of us because we're concerned for the future and we always have been. We wanna know how is it gonna work out?

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What's my best choice? Should I leave? Should I stay? Should I go for that new job? Should we move?

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Should we just hunker down? Is it time to sell? Is it time to buy? All of those things that press in on us, and so humans have always wanted that, and so the concern for the future, the people of Israel are engaging in all of these things that they were told not to do.

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Divination and oracles to try to determine the future. They're going down to Madame Paula on Westenage.

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How in the world does she afford that place? Well, it must be good business. Getting their tarot cards read, looking at the future, consulting crystals and all kinds of stuff.

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It says actually, no, not crystals, wood. They consulted wooden idols and practiced a form of divination that's well -documented in kind of this ancient time.

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It involved just something as simple, but we could turn anything into divination, can't we? You could just about turn anything into like, well, if this happens, then

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I believe that it's time to buy, right? Do you guys know what I'm talking about? In our hearts, do we not do that? And so they would do this thing where they would take their walking stick, hold it level, let go, and whichever direction it falls, there was some kind of reading of your day.

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What am I supposed to do today? Maybe even which direction am I supposed to walk? I don't know. So what it was, was it was kind of like a spiritualized game of spin the bottle, kind of.

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A little different, but whichever way it falls, that's the way you go. And this indictment regarding the people and their religious practices becomes more clear by the end of verse 12 because we're kind of like, what are we talking about here?

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And what are they really doing? Well, they're doing all this future stuff and trying to determine the future.

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And God says, I've got you. I want you to trust me. And they're like, no, we're going to trust in our walking stick and all of these other kinds of forms of divination.

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But here's what's happening at the end of verse 12. You see, the metaphor, sexual immorality has been used metaphorically throughout the text to explain their idolatry, but it begins to give way to indications that they are actually in real life involved in adultery and cult prostitution and other forms of sexual deviancy as they are worshiping, involved in pagan worship.

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You talk about a powerful combination. If you can bring together religious devotion with sexual deviancy and sell that to people, that's a potent combination.

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The Israelites thought they had stumbled on the magic formula. Well, certainly the priests had stumbled on a magic formula to keep people engaged in their form of worship.

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And this forms what Hosea identifies very directly as a spirit of whoredom, a spirit of promiscuity has overcome their culture.

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This is a powerful zeitgeist that has followed humanity from age to age. And I'm going to ask you a question and I want you to audibly answer.

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Do we live in an age of a spirit of whoredom? Yes, we do. You better believe we do.

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This has not gone away. This is not a spiritual, you know, capture that just happened in their generation.

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This is something that we see down through human history. And at the end of verse 12, we see that they left their

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God. They left the God who loved them and covenanted to them. And they left him to worship other gods and goddesses who would allow them all the illicit dalliances that they could want.

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Now, don't, I mean, the advertisement for the cult during that time, the advertisement for the religious fever of the day was you don't need to travel to Jerusalem and take your sacrifices there.

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You can go to the local high place, hills with shade trees and altars, comfortable places to sit and wait your turn.

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There, they could, you know, it's like an all for one kind of shopping experience.

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You could go make your sacrifices, get your fortunes read, play the whore, commit a little adultery, hopefully get your miracle from Baal or Asher or Yahweh, whichever one's responding today.

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The people are all indicted. But there's a special accountability in this text that is shocking to some and actually some commentaries that I read this week try to explain it away.

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They don't like verse 14. Matter of fact, many people don't like verse 14. Look at it. I will not punish your daughters when they play the whore.

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What? I won't punish your daughters when they play the whore, nor your brides when they commit adultery.

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For the men themselves go aside with prostitutes and sacrifice with cult prostitutes, and a people without understanding shall come to ruin.

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We might not like this, but the men themselves are held to a higher accountability.

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The daughters and the brides are not the ones who will be in the primary crosshairs of judgment for a culture that is engaged in cultic prostitution of the women.

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It is a business on those high places because of the men.

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That's why it's a business. And I would just say to you, so much of the abortion industry in America can be laid at the feet of weak -willed men.

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I said it. So much of the blight in our culture comes down to a lack of leadership on the part of men, a culture that lacks understanding of what

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God desires of men. We'll come to ruin. Verse 14 reads like a manifesto for young men.

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Get understanding, guys. This culture, this society rises and falls on your understanding of your role in this world.

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And Satan has done a number on our culture, seeking to corrupt your role and sell you varying and warring opinions about what it means to be a man.

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Has that been a little bit under attack in the last 10 years, 15 years, 20 years? On the one side, roll over.

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It's women's turn to lead. I said that, too. Holy cow. On the other,

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Andrew Tate. Some of you know what I'm talking about. Some of you don't know what Andrew Tate is, so I'll just say a reprehensible vision of misogyny, swinging the pendulum the exact opposite way, going, men, it's time for us to rise up and take him.

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Is that it? Let me suggest to you that God is calling you young men, middle -aged men, older men, into a robust knowledge of him that will make you the kind of man a whole society is built upon, a good and wholesome society is built on men who take seriously the

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Lord their God, seeking to know him, seeking to relate to others well, seeking to relate to him well, seeking to relate to the world around.

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And those of you that are women in the room, you're going like, Don, is there any role for me? Absolutely, of course. Men and women functioning correctly together in relationship is fundamental.

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The fundamental fabric of society in relationship to our creator. But the religious practices of Israel are corrupt and compromised through and through.

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The leadership is indicted. The religious practices of the common people are indicted. The understanding of men and their roles, indicted.

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And so now we come to some closing indictments in verses 15 through 19. Plenty of indictments to go around.

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Verse 15 serves as a warning. Hey, sometimes you get an opportunity to see somebody else and learn from their mistakes.

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Any of you ever had that? Like, I don't want my life to be that cautionary tale where it's like, well, one thing

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I know for sure, I don't want to live it like he did. Like, you know what I'm saying? There are some people who it's just kind of like, I don't envy their role, you know?

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Verse 15 serves as a warning to the southern kingdom of Judah to learn from what they observe happening to their northern neighbor, which they won't, but they're told to.

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Don't go up to the pagan worship centers of Gilgal or Bethel. You might look at the text and go, where's

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Bethel, Don? It doesn't say Bethel. I'm not the only one feeling snarky today. Hosea was feeling very snarky.

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He made up a word. Beth -aven is not a location. You can't find it on a map. Beth -aven is a riff on the word

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Bethel. Bethel, where Jacob put his like, he took the, you know,

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I don't know how in the world you'd use a rock as a pillow, but where the whole, you know, remember the whole angels ascending and descending and all of that stuff and God meeting with him and making a covenant with him.

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That's the place. Bethel means house of God. Beth -aven means house of evil, house of evil.

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And he's saying, don't go to Bethel anymore. Why wouldn't he be, why wouldn't he want them to go to that place? Well, you see,

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Jeroboam, when he broke off from the southern kingdom, said, don't go to Jerusalem anymore to worship.

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Go to Bethel, go to Gilgal. And you know what? We're going to craft, we're going to do one better. We're going to craft these golden calves.

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Was there any golden calf in their history? But he says, we're going to craft these golden calves and you can just go to Bethel or you can go to Gilgal and you can make your sacrifices there and Yahweh will receive your sacrifices in those locations and you'll be fine.

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You don't have to go down to those southerners anymore. Hosea further says, hey

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Judah, wake up and pay attention. Don't go to the pagan shrines and swear an oath as the

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Lord lives and make all this pretension as if you're loving God and worshiping him. It's the equivalent of using the

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Lord's name in vain if you're not worshiping him in truth in your heart, but making an outward display of it. The indictment of verse 16,

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I think is one of the most poignant verses of the whole thing. It really struck me this week where he says, like a stubborn heifer.

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Well, that's an insult, right? But like a stubborn heifer, Israel is stubborn. Can the Lord now feed them like a lamb in a broad pasture?

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And oh my goodness, that ought to make us think of something. Israel's stubborn and has proven that they will not follow the

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Lord. And where does the Lord want to lead his people? He wants to lead them to a green pasture.

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Does that make you think of anything? How about Psalm 23? Anybody have that memorized or know that? I'd encourage you to memorize it if you don't have it memorized, but he makes me lie down in green pastures.

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He leads me beside quiet or still waters. And into that idyllic scene of where he wants to lead you, green pastures, still waters, into that idyllic scene comes the stubborn heifer who will not be made to lie down.

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How dare you suggest that you know what's best for me? I will not sit down in your field of abundance. I will not drink from this quiet, crystal clear stream.

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They will not be led by him to a source of refreshing water. Instead, they will be stubborn, as if to say, you're not the boss of me.

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And if we are honest, how often has God attempted to get you to sit down in a green pasture, but you wouldn't have it because he was telling you to.

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And so do we not feel indicted ourselves in recognition of how many times we've been striving and seeking to do it ourselves and not rest in him?

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And he said, trust me, gotcha. No, you don't need to go get your tarot cards read.

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No, you don't need to go do this. No, you don't need to figure out the future. No, I got you, got you.

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Do you trust him? Or are you like the stubborn heifer who in the midst of him saying, like sit down in this luscious green grass that I've provided for you, you go,

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I don't have time for that. I don't have time for that. But the people of Israel, who are gonna be called

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Ephraim over 30 times from this point on in this book. And so when you see Ephraim, I'm not gonna mention it every time, but when you see

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Ephraim, he's riffing on the largest and most populous tribe of the north and basically using that as a euphemism for the entire thing.

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So when he talks to Ephraim, he's talking to Israel and he says they're committed to their idolatry. They've made up their mind.

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They're not gonna be pulled. Leave them alone. Leave them alone. Terrifying words.

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Now there can come a hopelessness that we don't like to consider church when a person or a nation loves their sin more than they love

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God. And Hosea says in this context, to his people, I'm done with them.

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Leave them alone. The apostle Paul phrases the same exact concept in the New Testament, but a little bit different.

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He says, give such a one over to Satan in 1 Corinthians 5 for the destruction of their flesh that their soul might be saved in the end.

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What's that all getting at? Well, it kind of comes into verse 18 as well. Let them drink their fill of sin until they hit rock bottom, get tired of the isolation, or are consumed by it.

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Consumed by their own sin. Verse 18 carries that thought of leaving them to their drink and their revelry in sin.

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They will drink their fill of hard liquor and when that's done, they'll take up their revelry and promiscuity and whoredom.

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Their leaders love that kind of shame, says Hosea. And the spirit of whoredom that was referenced earlier in verse 12 actually appears in verse 19, but doesn't appear clearly because of a bad translation.

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But a wind has wrapped them is, the word for wind is spirit. They're synonymous. And with the use of spirit earlier, this ought to be translated the same way.

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A spirit has wrapped them in its wings and they shall be ashamed because of their sacrifices.

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What spirit? Well, the spirit's already been mentioned. A spirit of whoredom, a spirit of promiscuity has wrapped them up and carried them away.

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They will eventually be brought to shame through their faulty religious practices and their faulty sacrifices.

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Indicted indeed, church. I hope you can see this as more than just an exercise in looking at the wicked people of Israel and casting everything over on them and going, what fools?

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How could they act this way? When this is meant to indict us as well. And so as far as applications go, there's some very direct and specific things

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I believe that God would have us do as a result of this ancient indictment that settles on us as well.

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The first is commit to the knowledge of God. You've got, while there's time, while there's breath in your lungs, seek to know the

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Almighty God. We gather, of course, in this place to grow in our faith. We study to know our God.

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We read His word to know what He desires of us. His word is our only hope to stay in line with who

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He is and what He desires. And let me just tell you, that some of you here are not, and you know it, you know it, you're feeling the tug right now.

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The spirit is literally going like, you don't know the word. You know it, maybe somebody thinks you're an actual expert in the word, but you don't know it.

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And you're not studying it. And you're not digging in. And you're not, the feast is already said and you're not lifting the fork.

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And so then the natural thing is to take my instructions here and go like, commit to the knowledge of God?

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Okay, okay, God, I surrender. I'll commit to knowing you. Now what? Take the next step, church.

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Does your alarm need to be set at a certain time? Do you need some help coming up with a plan? I'd love to,

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I've got tons of different ways and methods and means to read the Bible. Some of them slower, some of them faster. Maybe if you're here and you've been kicking around the church and you would say,

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I've been with Jesus for fill -in -the -blank years. And if that number is more than five and you haven't read this, it's time.

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I'm telling you, it's time. It's time to read it. You go, I've never read Malachi, then read it. You say,

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I've never read the book of Jude, read it. Dig in, you're gonna have to do it at some pace too.

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And I always think it's a little funny like just to get it in, just to really become a student of God's word takes time, it takes effort, and it takes consistency.

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Because this is a big book. I don't have it memorized, but I've read it a lot.

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It takes a lot of time and a lot of effort and a lot of repetition to get this in you in a way that it's impacting the way your decision happens on Tuesday afternoon in a board meeting at your work.

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How is this gonna impact that? By being saturated with it, that it oozes out of you.

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That when somebody comes to you at the water cooler and says, hey, you're never gonna believe the bender that I went on this weekend and it was miserable and I'm sick and tired of my life.

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And what's gonna come out in that moment? Is it gonna be this if this isn't in you? Or is it gonna be pop psychology and man, that sucks, you gotta get a better life.

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Are you gonna have answers? How are you gonna have answers if you're not saturated? I'm sorry, I'm doing that thing where this is where the danger comes in, right?

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But for real, like this is our knowledge of the Almighty, not some feeling that you had because the lasagna was bad and it settled wrong on you last night and you woke up thinking

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God is kinda like bright colors. What?

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Do you know what I'm saying? I mean, we can come up with all kinds of crazy stuff, but no, God is like, what is said in this word?

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Dig into this. Commit to the knowledge of God and that requires some steps. The second thing is be wary of leaders.

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Oh, that's a funny one coming from a pastor, but I mean it sincerely. Be wary of leaders. Test them, test me.

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That might sound strange coming from me as a pastor, but I mean it with all the sincerity I can muster. If what

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I say is consistent with Scripture, then follow it. If it isn't, then don't, but don't leave me in my error.

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Please come to me and talk to me. If there's something that I say that you think is inconsistent with Scripture, I am very open to being wrong.

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Don't let me stay wrong. But also I would add to this when it comes to being wary of leaders, beware of the internet,

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YouTube, Google, TikTok, and all the other sources. Please be warned that there are people who will lead you astray on accident.

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That can be fixed, right? There are people who will lead you astray. Do you know what I'm talking about? There are people who will lead you astray on accident.

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They just misspeak or they say things wrong or they just kind of get caught up or whatever. But there are people you know exist and you know it academically, but then sometimes we just shut our minds off when we start looking for the meaning of a verse.

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There are people who will deceive you on purpose, intentionally.

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They have a lot of followers on their YouTube channel and it looks like, oh, this must be a good one. It's got 2 .7 million people have watched this video.

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It must be great. And they made it up. We always think that it's someone else's podcast that's wonky, right?

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It's not ours that's about UFOs and the way that they interface with the book of Ezekiel or something like that, right?

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Or the way that the moon landing went and didn't really happen. It was all in a, whatever. So ours aren't spurious.

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Everybody else's is held in contempt, but the podcasts that I like to listen to don't need to be analyzed.

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No, we need to be wary of all leaders. And I would just encourage you to lean into that with all.

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It doesn't matter if you're listening to John Piper or you're listening to John MacArthur or you're reading the study notes at the bottom of the

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ESV study Bible. Know the word, know the word.

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Be wary of leaders. On what basis should you test me? You come to me and you go, that's not what my last pastor said.

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I'm gonna say, well, let's talk about the Bible. Let's talk about the Bible. The third thing is beware of spiritual whoredom.

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Beware of the spirit of whoredom, but same thing. Certainly we need to be careful in the arena of sexual fidelity.

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God's plan is one woman and one man within the protective confines of marriage. And let me just say emphatically that the glorious thing is that I need not, we need not discuss or talk about anything else.

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I don't need to talk about all of the aberration and all the deviancies out there.

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There are things that ought not to be named among us, says the apostle Paul. We don't need to talk about all the deviancy.

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We could just talk about what's celebrated, what's glorious, what's beautiful, what's right, what's glorious in God's eyes and his design.

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One woman, one man within the protective confines of marriage and everything else out the window. That's, there you go.

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But the spirit of whoredom can also be described as a type of worship. Because you see, it's a metaphor as well as a literal thing that they were doing.

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Certainly don't do the thing, but also consider in what ways your worship of him is seeking control.

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It's seeking to trust in yourself, encouraging pragmatism in our worship. Well, we'll just do whatever works.

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The Israelites went off into their other forms of worship primarily because they left the ways that God had told them to worship.

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Well, it's very interesting. I'm in the middle of reading the book of Leviticus right now and all those sacrifices. There was a way that God designed, very detailed.

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Have you ever wondered why in the world there's so much detail in the end of the book of Exodus and Leviticus talking about how big to make the

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Ark of the Covenant and how to connect all these, you know, all the curtains and all of that stuff and building the tent?

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And it's because of what he didn't want them to do. He's saying, this is the way that you worship me. This is what

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I'm telling you what to do. All the rest is excluded. This is what I want you to do. For us, this ought to lead us to the gospel when we consider how we are told to worship

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God now. We take communion every week in part because it forces us to land the message at the center of the new covenant.

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We're indicted by our own deeds and ways, all of us bound for destruction from birth, all of us corrupting and corruptible, but God's indictment of Israel is an accurate indictment of humanity, all of us.

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And so in our broken, sinful state, God sent his son to forge a new covenant in his blood, he serving as the sacrifice for us.

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We no longer worship him in the old ways of the law and rule, but we worship him in the new way of faith and trust and love.

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So if you've asked Jesus to save you from your sins and he's your king and you're at peace with others here in this congregation, I encourage you to come to the tables during this next song, take the cracker to remember his body that was broken for us, take the cup of juice to remember his blood that was shed for us.

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The sacrifice of Jesus is meant to remind us just how out of control we actually are. We're not in control.

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We could do nothing to rescue ourselves. Our way is the spirit of whoredom, the spirit of promiscuity.

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Our way is the way of busted leadership. Our way is the way of ineffective religion. His way is the way of the son of God, slain for us.

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Lean into the hope of salvation. We are all indicted, but reflect now on what he did to take our sentence upon himself.

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Let's pray. You are just and right in your judgments of us.

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I don't say just me, but I say us because I trust by faith that everybody in this room is cut from the same cloth that I am.

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All of us indicted, all of us convicted, all of us rightly sentenced to an eternity of separation from you.

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I pray that you would allow that indictment to settle on us, but only for a brief moment as we get ready to come to these tables and remember, oh,

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Father, the great and awesome reversal that is brought about in this new covenant by grace through the blood of your son who took the sentence for us, who was punished in our place.

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Father, I pray that that reality would settle on all of us as we contemplate and consider what was coming for us, what was the right judgment over each and every one of our lives, and is no longer because of what

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Jesus did. I pray that that would empower us, that would drive us, that would fuel us in this next week to praise and to worship you, to dig into your word, to know you better because we love you, not because we have to.

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Father, I pray that you would meet us now as we have the opportunity in this congregation to take the bread and the juice together and remember you have loved us and you have bought us.

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We thank you for Christ, and it's in his name, the precious name of Jesus, that I pray. Amen.