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Hosea 11:12-13:16 Have You Learned Your Lesson?
Hosea chapter 11 starting with verse 12 all the way to the end of chapter 13. Here the Word of the Lord Ephraim has surrounded me with lies and the house of Israel with deceit. But Judah still walks with God and is faithful to the Holy One.
Ephraim feeds on the wind and pursues the east wind all day long. They multiply falsehood and violence. They make a covenant with Assyria and oil is carried to Egypt. The Lord has an indictment against Judah and will punish Jacob according to his ways.
He will repay him according to his deeds in the womb. He took his brother by the heel and in his manhood. He strove with God. He strove with the angel and prevailed. He wept and sought his favor. He met God at Bethel and there God spoke with him.
The Lord the God of hosts the Lord is his memorial name. So you by the help of your God return hold fast to love and justice and wait continually for your God a Merchant and whose hands are false balances.
He loves to oppress. Ephraim has said ah, but I am rich. I have found wealth for myself in all my labors. They cannot find in me iniquity or sin. I Am the Lord your God from the land of Egypt. I will again make you dwell in tents as in the days of the appointed feast.
I In Gilead they shall surely come to nothing. In Gilgal they sacrifice bulls. Their altars are Also like stone heaps on the furrows of the field. Jacob fled to the land of Aram there Israel served for a wife and for a wife he guarded sheep by a prophet.
The Lord brought Israel up from Egypt and by a prophet he was guarded. Ephraim has given bitter provocation. So his Lord will leave his blood guilt on him and will repay him for his disgraceful deeds.
When he from spoke there was trembling. He was exalted in Israel and he incurred guilt through Bail and died. And now they send more and more and make for themselves metal images. Idols skillfully made of their silver all of them the work of craftsmen.
It is said of them those who offer human sacrifices kiss calves. Therefore they shall be like the morning mist or like the dew that goes away early. Like chaff that swirls around the threshing floor or like smoke from a window.
But I am the Lord your God from the land of Egypt. You know no God, but me and besides me there is no Savior. It was I who knew you in the wilderness in the land of drought, but when they had grazed they became full.
They were filled and their heart was lifted up. Therefore they forgot me. So I am to them like a lion like a leopard. I will lurk beside the way. I will fall upon them like a bear robbed of her cubs. I will tear open their breasts and there I will devour them like a lion as a wild beast would rip.
Rip them open. He destroys you Oh Israel for you are against me against your helper. Where now is your king to save you in all your cities? Where are your rulers those of whom you said give me a king and princess.
I gave you a king in my anger and I took him away in my wrath. The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up. His sin is kept in store. The pangs of childbirth come for him. But he is an unwise son for at the right time.
He does not present himself at the opening of the womb. Shall I ransom them from the power of Sheol? Shall I redeem them from death. Oh death, where are your plagues? Oh, she oh, where is your sting? Compassion is hidden from my eyes.
Though he may flourish among his brothers the east wind the wind of the Lord shall come. Rising from the wilderness and his fountain shall dry up his spring shall be parched. It shall be it shall strip his treasury of every precious thing.
Samaria shall bear her guilt because she rebelled against her God. They shall fall by the sword their little ones shall be dashed in pieces and their pregnant women ripped open. May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his Holy Word.
Well, have you been learning lately? Do you think you know more now? Matured more now because of because of what you've learned you you're progressing. Maybe more now than you were a year ago or two or five or ten or fifty.
We like to think that we learn lessons with time. And so we grow with wisdom and gain wisdom and maturity. Maybe you learned that acting angrily or insultingly or impatiently to others like a waitress or somewhere at a restaurant that that never seems.
To get you the result you want and so even though it may come naturally to you. You've learned not to do it you might have an urge to shout sarcastically I said I wanted my steak medium-rare and this is well done.
Why can't you cook it, right? Well, you've learned that talking like that probably isn't gonna end well for you doesn't get the result you want you learn your lesson. But what if for many people they never seem to be able to learn past what their their beliefs their preconceived ideas.
Allow them to learn so they never really progress. They never really grow even I learn facts, but they don't they don't mature. They believe that there really is no use in denying yourself something now because there isn't anything in the future worth waiting for worth denying yourself for and so even though they're working a low-paying job and even Begging for free stuff on Facebook when they get a twelve hundred dollar stimulus check.
They don't save it for necessities or pay off debts or invest it in education. But they spend it all immediately on a 60-inch flat-screen TV. And you know and then they wonder the next time why they're still in debt.
Their belief that the future might have nothing worth waiting on work. Nothing worth denying yourself for that belief that Fundamental presupposition idea keeps them from learning and it keeps them. From from growing so they continually make the same mistakes squandering their money and their time and their opportunities.
They say if you don't learn from history you are doomed to repeat it. Today, we naturally think we've all been kind of been taught. It's been inculcated in us and we're indoctrinated in the idea that we all have corporately learned from history.
That what we believe and do now is Better than what they believed and did a century ago or two. But we as a society learned our lesson and so we're actually better people not only smarter work. We're more moral.
We're superior to people back then. We don't have slaves today. Because we've learned we progressed we became more enlightened. So we are better people than people were 200 years ago. So because of our arrogance, we assume that we are more moral more just we're more rational than people were in the past but one of the truth is that people are Ideological that is they have ideas they have beliefs fundamental.
Presuppositions.
Concepts that that Determine everything what they do how they see the world through which they interpret everything. And if you don't change those basic ideas. They won't learn from history no matter how many times they suffer.
For making the same mistake over and over again. They just keep continually keep making it they never seem to learn. What if slavery was ended not by society just kind of corporately growing up. You know society evolving Culture becoming more enlightened over time that that's really not what ended slavery.
But it was because Christians inspired by God's Word by the command to love your neighbor as yourself saw that slavery was wrong. You know, I don't want to be enslaved so I shouldn't be enslaving others.
That begin to dawn on more and more people because of Christians teaching that. And in those Christians worked they worked hard. Sometimes they gave their lives to changing people's basic ideas. And what if we're not progressing unless we intentionally change our minds and then change our lives.
What if.
Instead of.
Progressing society just maturing. What if pre-born human beings really are Human beings and we're killing them at our convenience. Simply because our medical technology has outpaced our moral growth.
Because our minds Haven't really changed. Because we really Aren't morally superior people than they were a century or two ago. What if we haven't learned our lessons about the value of life? But are just so arrogant That we think we do.
They say history repeats itself. But that's only because people being ideological that's dominated by by faith only learn what their faith lets them learn if their faith tells them that they are they are autonomous that they are self-ruling and.
That the purpose of this life is to squeeze out every every ounce of pleasure. You can't possibly can from it. If that's what their faith tells them and then the idea of sacrificing some of that pleasure.
Even if temporarily for the sake of someone else. Even for someone that you conceived. That that idea is unacceptable. No amount of and no amount of logic about human lifespan beginning at conception.
No, no amount of facts about the development of the fetus or ultrasounds. No amount of ultrasounds are going to change the minds of people until they have. Their minds changed about the meaning of life about who they are.
But what they supposed to live for they'll never learn the lesson until their basic ideas have been changed. Have you learned your lessons? Well here we see in Hosea in four parts four cycles of history and destiny.
Israel reminded of lessons and consequences of not learning their lessons they are given their history and. Then their destiny in four cycles first cycle from chapter 11 verse 12 to chapter 12 verse 6.
What is their history? Well their recent history he says in chapter 11 verse 12 is that they they have surrounded the Lord With lies and deceit. In other words their religion is encouraging lies. They made an image to a calf to worship the Lord with in the town of Bethel and it was a lie.
You were supposed to worship the Lord like that that thing that I don't was it didn't represent God. Or maybe they said maybe they try to be clever. Well the invisible God they said Yahweh rode on this calf.
He's nothing calf. He's just riding on it. That was a lie, too. It's what some people wanted to hear. But it was a lie. I'd imagine in medicine that there's a temptation sometimes to lie to people especially if they have a terminal condition but the fact that the facts of their condition will come out soon enough probably Prevents that lied.
There's a temptation to lie to people but when. When you're gonna get found out pretty soon that temptation is not so not so strong. I don't think in the religion business. That temptation is even stronger.
It's very easy and tempting to give in to lies because the facts Aren't going to aren't going to show themselves so soon. It's the temptation to fill the worship of God with lies to deceive people by telling them.
The sweet things they want to hear they don't want to hear they have a terminal condition they don't want to hear maybe their spiritual condition and Then in the religion you could just get by because you know, you're not gonna know if they're going to hell right away.
Are you we still have people that call themselves Christians and who say that you need work? Images to worship the Lord with who literally bow before pictures and statues. You know that they lie to people and said you this is okay to do this.
They haven't learned their lessons today leaders in some churches say that there's such a thing as same-sex marriage. Despite what Scripture says about that. It's a lie. If you can't meet for the Lord's Supper because of this pandemic.
You can lie to people and tell them the way they can serve themselves the Lord's Supper with coffee and a granola bar.
That's a lie.
Churches have been lying recently that we can quote assemble Online. No, you can't that's a lie. Yeah, you can watch and you can listen and maybe sometimes that's the best you can do. But don't lie to people and tell them that's assembling.
It's not. If someone stops attending church, even when they if when they can assemble and they can attend. It's easy to lie and call them a member of the church. Even if they gone years without attending especially if they send in their tie check because you don't want to lose their money.
They tell them the truth. Many churches have been lying to people for generations now. Telling them they are they're saved because they came forward at an invitation years ago. Even though they've shown no interest in the Lord since then it is like in verse 1 feeding on the wind.
Or on nothing. Imagine the diet of air. It's nothing. It's a windbag religion. They become empty. They become unfaithful people who make a covenant with one ally a Syria and then play with another. With Egypt, so they're unreliable.
They're unfaithful their commitments mean nothing. There's no loyalty because they're empty people. They're just full of hot air. That's their recent history. It has roots in their ancient history. They didn't learn from.
From their ancient history. And so now they're repeating it in verse 3. How did they begin this nation? They began as cheaters. They began as supplant errs. I was trying to take someone else's place by cheating by grabbing what's not his Connivers from the beginning.
Jacob trying to overtake Esau right from birth, you know when he when he grew up. He tried to wrestle with God tried to overcome him like like as though he could Bind God and get him to do what he wanted God to do.
He finally met God at Bethel in Genesis chapter 35 and God spoke to him that he would become a Company of nations a gathering of all kinds of people around the Lord and there he changed his name to Israel.
That that's when God spoke to him as El Shaddai God Almighty later to be revealed as it's Yahweh. The Lord his memorial name he says in verse 5 the name that is to be remembered. But he used to be remembered with with which becomes part of the name Yeshua Jesus the Lord saves.
That's their history, but they didn't learn from Jacob's life. They They didn't learn from Jacob who was transformed to become Israel. They've reverted back to Jacob because of their faith because of their ideology their basic beliefs about Reality about their own life about who they are about how you how you approach God what you do with him.
Like Jacob before he wrestled with God, but before he learned. They think God is someone to be tricked. To be manipulated even wrestled with perhaps overcome with the right techniques if necessary. So they thought if they went through the right rituals the right religion.
They set it up, right? They could they could effectively bind God they can obligate him. Make him do what they want God to do. Which is what a lot of religion is about making God, you know. You do this and God is bound to give you that you can get God under contract.
Obligate him. That's what a lot of a lot of religion is trying to sell. That's what what Jacob was trying to do. When he wrestled with him Bind him force him, you know here they thought they could force God to give them the harvest.
They needed or they wanted have thriving flocks thriving children or maybe today people want God to give them that relationship they want or Like them the children they want or the bank account or the thriving stock Portfolio or the big house the newest cars the nicest vacation just that that high life.
I don't mean to overt out in open prosperity preachers telling you that if you give them a dollar though God will give you $100 in return a Specific quid pro quo. I mean the less obvious exchange. There's often sold by a lot more people than just the prosperity preachers that that if you get you get baptized you go to church.
You give.
God will then give you a generally prosperous and healthy life. Right, we forget our history. When we buy that idea of where our Lord comes from of you who he who was rich. Became poor for us that he took up his cross and he told us we would have to do the same.
That the Apostles spoke of the privilege of suffering for the name of Jesus. That's our history there's history and There's destiny. Their destiny if they forget their history is in verse 1 that the Lord will punish.
Jacob.
Notice that Israel here is called calls him Jacob. That the name before Jacob learned his lesson. When he finally learned it, that's what he was renamed Israel since they forgotten Jacob's lesson. Well now they're called Jacob.
Like they've gone backwards. They ever progressed ever grown. They haven't matured. They've reverted. They they've reverted to be like Jacob and so the Lord will repay him this this corporate Jacob. Now Judah the southern kingdom which was separate under the Kings from David for now in chapter 11 verse 12 He says walks with God.
They don't have a calf idol that they lie about Telling people as part of worship. They've been faithful in that so far. But by chapter 12 verse 2 The Lord says he is an indictment as a charge against them to if they forgotten their history now.
Maybe they're not quite as far down the road as having forgetting their history as the northern kingdom, but they are. They are regressing to if they forget their history their destiny Will be with the rest of Jacob.
So in verse 6 by the help of your God Return by the help of your God Return or the word could be translated there repent. You need God's help. To repent change your mind your basic ideas. Learn your lessons learn from history.
So you so that you aren't doomed to repeat it then in verse 6 He says hold fast and grab hold of here translated as love the word there in Hebrews steadfast love tested loyalty and Justice learn that life isn't all about your convenience or our pleasure or sense of moral superiority.
Be faithful to your commitments to others to the Lord to your covenants and do what is right for All the people around you justice and then he says wait. Continually, that means your whole life for your God in other words believe and Depend on him to do that to change your mind so that you love Steadfast love and justice and wait for the Lord you will need the help of your God.
You need the help of your God to repeat to change your mind so that you're a person like that. You'll need him to transform your mind with his word and with his spirit. It doesn't come naturally. It's not just like it's not like physically growing up you just kind of let it be you give food and water.
It's gonna happen. No you need for God to be at work in your life in your soul. Changing you deep down so that you're no longer just just a consumer. Looking at everything and everyone in your life from the pre-born baby to the spouse to the church to the Lord himself.
For what they can do for you. But that you see yourself you see that your Chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. Second cycle and from verses 7 to 14 we see more history and more destiny. The recent history is that they that they're like the Canaanites.
They love to oppress. The word there in verse 7 a merchant, you know, it says merchant can also be translated as.
Canaanite.
Speaking to Israel Hebrews the same and he's calling them Canaanites. It purposely has two meanings there. They are merchants and they are Canaanites now not literally. They're living like Canaanites.
They were supposed to convert the land of Canaan to be Israel. But instead the land of Canaan has converted them to be Canaanites like the Canaanites. They're merchants. They cheat they oppress. They use deceptive business practices.
They said that they were giving you a gallon of oil when in reality they're giving you only three quarts. They were charging 20 interest on your payday loans or your credit cards and it seems to work.
They're getting rich by doing it. They boasted in verse 8. Ah, but I'm rich. Nothing succeeds like success, right? If it works get you rich must be right. God must be blessing it they thought. But they forgotten their history.
The Lord brought them out of Egypt from living in tents for a generation. He spoke to their prophets to convict them of their sin and to challenge them. But they didn't learn their lessons. So instead They boasted in verse 8.
They cannot find in me iniquity or sin. Otherwise, they think they're guiltless. There's nothing anyone can accuse them of. They had no sense of their sinfulness. They thought they were that they were moral and religious and.
So they were arrogant because they wouldn't learn the lesson from their prophets today. There is very little preaching of the law. That is of what God requires. What is he what standard is he holding you to?
Like back in verse 4 to hold fast to steadfast love. To be faithful and Hold fast to to justice. I just care about just us. What furthers my agenda are those who are like me my my people and wait for your God?
That's what he's requiring of you. The there's very little under understanding of that that God is Holding you to that standard. The result is that we have people filling our churches and or staying home from churches who don't know how sinful their unfaithfulness.
Their narcissism is how depraved their consumer attitude toward every relationship. They have that it all exists. They think like Burger King tells them to have it their way. And if the wife or the kids or the church or the Lord doesn't do it for me right now.
Well, I'm I'm out of here. They have no sense of how sinful that that is because the prophets the preachers don't tell them or if they do tell them. They aren't learning their lessons. They're watching someone else on TV with a big smile and quaffed hair who will flatter them and tell them.
Tell them what they want to hear. The result of so little preaching of the law of God's righteous Commands is that we have this today. We have this bizarre Combination in our culture. Maybe somebody if you're younger you think it's normal people are like this seems to me just utterly bizarre Combination in our culture today of so much Self-righteousness Interwoven with unrighteousness.
You have just the most out-and-out is arrogant Pharisaical self-righteousness combined with With the sin with the evil and they have no sense that they're sinful. It's like the people here in verse 8 they cannot find in me an equity or sin.
That's that's the attitude of a of a large bulk of people today who in fact I have a lot of sin in their life. We have people today who are certain of their moral superiority. Absolutely sure of how right they are that they're better than anyone who disagrees with them.
And if and that's why they can oppress anyone who disagrees with them. They should be censored. They should be banned. They should be canceled because they're evil and I'm not and especially there. They're especially sure that they're better than anyone in the past.
Meanwhile, they approve of sexual perversion and the butchery of people that they find inconvenient here. They didn't know that they were steeped in sin and didn't know why part of their country Gilead.
That's the part of Israel that was east of the Jordan in verse 11. Was wiped out and had been taken away from them. Why is this happening to us? They have no idea. They this they sacrifice at Gilgal which they're not supposed to do but they don't learn their lessons.
And so the altars there comes a pun from Gilgal sounds like heap of rocks. It's become going to become a heap of rocks. They don't learn from their history and that they came from nothing from Jacob who fled with nothing to Aram.
With no money for a dowry. So we had to work for seven years as a shepherd to get a wife. They haven't learned from that the fact that they were led out of slavery in Egypt by Moses their their first prophet.
That's their history, but because they haven't learned from it. They have bitterly provoked the Lord the Lord will make them once again. He says in verse 9 Live in tents you came from tents. You're going back to tents like they were supposed to they were supposed to remember living in tents, you know.
For like a week every year the Feast of Tabernacles go live in tents to remember what that was like. To recall that learn from history learn that lesson so they would be humbled. But but they didn't learn from it.
Even if they if they kept that festival, they didn't learn what it meant. They'll be doomed to repeat their poverty their transience. They had nice expensive well-furnished homes now soon. They'll be refugees or captives in tents because despite it all Despite their history despite the festival that should have reminded them of their history.
They still didn't learn their lesson. And so in verse 14 the Lord their master Will leave their blood guilt on them and will repay them for all the disgraceful things. They've done their destiny will be Judgment.
Have you learned your lesson? Are you like these people you become a Canaanite? An exploiter a self-seeking consumer. You still look at life as a chase to get the stuff. The money the thrills you want even if even if you have to cheat or betray.
Or even use God with religion to get him on your side to get the stuff you want. Have you been renewing your mind? Changing your basic assumptions about about yourself about life about God with the Word of God.
Third cycle chapter 13 verses 1 to 11 there's history and There's destiny. Their history was that they were once a powerful dominant nation Ephraim or the northern kingdom. Ephraim was the dominant tribe of the northern kingdom.
It was a it was a force to be reckoned with at one point in the Middle East. They were respected when they spoke when their king issued an edict the other little kingdoms around them trembled. But then they compromised with Baal worship.
Now Baal was popular with the Phoenicians who were their neighbors right there on the coast. What is present-day Lebanon who were wealthy and powerful and traded all over the Mediterranean Sea? Israel wanted to be want to be like them so cosmopolitan so wealthy a member of modern society.
And so why not when I have a little Baalism on the side least least tolerate it for those who? Those who wanted it the result of their worldliness in verse 2 they sin.
More and.
More.
It started as a small Compromise small sin and it grow to be more sin grows.
More and more.
The early church was absolutely adamant early church like the first 400 years. Was absolutely adamant that there be no icons in the church that there be no images allowed in worship not even anything that could possibly Become an icon that is an image for worship like a decoration.
I mean they all have no decorations like pictures of anything because they could become icons. The early church would find the stained glass or pictures of Jesus that now in some evangelical churches.
They would find that offensive to them. They would smash him or they would rip them down. There's a story of actually of our early church leader in the in the fourth century. Finding going into a church that they're finding a curtain with a picture of let's be Jesus as the Good Shepherd and he immediately ripped it down tore it to shreds and told The the lead elder there to give the shreds to the poor so they can use it for something.
So that was their commitment to opposing idols In about in the fourth century. No, no. Absolutely. None. Now, how did they go from that in the fourth century? To bowing before kissing images lighting candles before them by by at least the 8th century.
How do you?
I'm go for something so rad. I mean probably more radical than they absolutely had to be to totally capitulating to it.
How did that happen?
They allowed into the church hordes of superficially quote converted former pagans. Most likely that was just you know. Being a Christian now was the fashionable thing to do and many of them just started going to church instead of the pagan temples.
Right.
So their basic ideas about God and worship had never been transformed. People who had never learned the lesson that God cannot be worshipped through images the images represent How we how they like to think about God.
And if our basic images about God have not been Transformed by the Word of God then the images are projections of ourselves and we're really just worshiping ourselves. Their destiny is in verse 3. They'll become God says like mist Like dew just disappears when it gets warm like chaff.
Smoke.
There'll be nothing. They'll be light they'll be empty just easily blown away. A breeze carries them off. When you make a God in your own image, it's as hollow as you are and You never learn your lessons.
You never grow become come weighty and glorious like the true God. Have you learned your lessons. If you don't and say just as much as a Self-centered consumer as the world. Maybe you consume maybe your Preference is to consume religious entertainment.
Maybe you like sermons for your entertainment Christian music family-friendly movies, but still deep down. If you're a consumer if it's all about you like these people You'll be empty. This would be blown away.
Every wind of doctrine every fad that promises you happiness every gust of hysteria that frightens you like mist. You'll fade away in the heat like dew.
You'll soon.
Just disappear. Leave no impression like chaff or smoke in the breeze of you'll be caught away by the breeze of Whatever blows you elsewhere. That's the destiny of those who don't change their mind about God and only worship a projection of themselves.
Their history here was that the Lord brought them out of slavery in Egypt that there is no other God. There's no other Savior than Christ. God knew them in verse 4. That is He was relating to them. He was teaching them.
He was keeping them what means to know them. Let's have knowledge about he he was in relationship with them. He's providing them water in the wilderness. The lesson that they should have learned is That they need the Lord to sustain them.
That's what they should have learned, but they didn't learn their lesson instead of verse 6 It says they got full. That is they they got arrogant. Yet they thought they were sufficient. They had provided for themselves.
They had succeeded by themselves. And so Says they forgot God. If the lesson you've learned is that you've succeeded You paid your debts and you're stable and you have a good career now and it's all working now if your family's fine the lesson you've learned is that you got that because You you earned it.
Then you've forgotten God if you think the history of your life is the story of you making it With grit and determination and long hours and that's it. You did it you think. Look what I've done. Look at that the house the career the business the savings the family.
That's my story. I've created it then you've forgotten God you haven't learned your lesson here. They had once been a powerful nation prosperous and peaceful. And so they were they were full they were smug.
They were self-satisfied. They hadn't learned from history. And so they were doomed to a destiny of Being torn apart in verse 7 the Lord says I will be to them Like a lion like a leopard. I will lurk Beside the way he's prowling.
And he's a pounce on them and they went in about 20 years from a prosperous stable Kingdom on Jeroboam the second to being utterly wiped out. He's going to pounce on them like a mama bear robbed of her cubs and tear them apart in verse 8 I will devour them like a lion as a wild beast would rip them open in verse 9.
The Lord says that he would destroy them because they are they are against the Lord. Now they would never admit that they thought they worship the Lord they thought that's what the shrine at Bethel was about but they they are against him because they don't Truly worship him for who he is.
They should know if they had learned their lesson from their history that he was their helper. But they didn't learn now their kings and their rulers won't be able to help them. They didn't learn the lesson that since the Lord gave them kings in the first place in verse 11 that he can take them away.
And that's what happened in 721 BC. The Assyrian army came in destroyed them ripping them apart. Mauling them like a bear or lion would maul a victim. Their history was that the Lord had been their helper since they didn't learn their destiny was Destruction.
Have you learned your lesson? Have you learned That God is your helper. That every good gift comes from him now. Sure, he might give you good gifts through like prosperity or success or good family. Whatever career through your hard work, but you had better thank him for them.
Don't forget that they come from him because if you don't learn from history.
You're doomed.
Period fourth cycle from verses 12 to 16. There's history and there's destiny. This time he gets right to the point their history is one of iniquity of sin a failure of foolishness and remember what he said at the end of chapter 12 that He the Lord will leave his blood guilt on them.
They will pay for the guilt of their sin and their history is one of sin. The iniquity of Ephraim the northern kingdom he says is bound up. It's like bushels of harvested grain. It's been harvested. It's been bound tied together.
It's stored ready for. What's next? What is next? That's the question. Israel is like a child to be born who won't be delivered in verse 13. Is he still born already? Is he dead? At that moment of suspense when delivery is delayed for hours when the labor is protracted and In those days, there's no stethoscope.
There's no heartbeat monitors and no ultrasounds to check. We don't know what's next. We don't know it could be death could be life. We don't know. We hope for the best, but we fear the worst then comes verse 14 perhaps best translated as questions from God.
Shall I ransom them? From the power of Sheol from death that is will he pay the price the ransom that death demands to buy them. Will he pay it? Well, he snatched him from the jaws of death. Should he will he?
Shall I redeem that is to buy back them from death implying that? Now They belong to death that they are under its power. Will the Lord buy them back? From that death. That's what's next. The question it's holding us in suspense.
Life or death if it's going to be life. The Lord has to pay the ransom. The Lord has to make the redemption. Will he? The answer Depends on who they are. Which Israel they are are they not his people or are they his people?
The lesson here not to be missed is that amongst all this destruction and Judgment as their destiny in these two chapters chapters 12 and 13 of Hosea yet for some still He will save them From death. He will purchase them out of it.
Oh, they may be under the they may be under death for a while.
But in the end.
For some The Lord will redeem he will exchange his life for theirs to bring them out of it. The result at the end of verse 14. One day the ransom the redeemed will be able to taunt death itself. Oh death.
Where are your plagues now? Oh, they used to be so strong. They used to terrorize people. Where are they now death now? Oh shield the grave. Where is your sting? I don't feel it anymore. It's gone. You can't hurt us anymore.
That's for his people. For those he will have mercy on for those in Christ.
For the others.
He says the end of that verse. There will be no compassion. Not my people gets no pity. Remember. Their history is one of iniquity their destiny though is oddly divided. Some with a history of iniquity of sin.
Get life Some get death. There are two destinies one for not my people and the other for my people one destiny of compassion and another without. One destiny of death and another of eventually taunting death itself.
You're not so tough now. Are you death? Which destiny is for you. Well that depends on whether you'll learn your lesson.
Here.
Their history had been recently That they were flourishing in verse 15. They were they were thriving business was booming their stocks were going up and up their career was Flourishing but their destiny was for the Lord to blow his hot Withering wind his breath on it and all of that all that Prosperity all of that that stuff they loved will just Dry up and blow away Business will disappear Stocks will crash you'll be fired and He can strip people Who wouldn't worship him or who did some religion for whatever they thought they could get God?
To do with it. He can strip them of everything that that they held precious Their health with a virus their stuff their houses and money their history had been Success, but because they didn't deal with their history of sin They will bear their guilt all guilt all rebellion against God even that is that is dressed up as religion will be paid for here it was paid for by barbaric Assyrians doing exactly What verse 16 describes?
Sore thrust children dashed in pieces pregnant women ripped open. That's their destiny because they didn't learn their lesson. Have you learned your lesson our history our history is.
Iniquity is sin.
Our sin must be paid for. Our guilt is on us either it is paid by us suffering eternally under death Stripped of all our idols of all our money and all our things and our family or it is paid for by the Lord By Christ Jesus himself who lay in death-strong bands who to our lowest state Descended the power of sin.
He has undone the might of death is ended. He has ransomed his people his my people the one he has pity is mercy on. He has ransomed them from death and Bought back our life. Our history is.
Rebellion.
Idolatry and sin, but our destiny can be by the help of our God. By confession of our sin by our worshiping the true God by the ransom of the blood of Jesus our destiny can be Redemption eternal life.
Which destiny is for you.