Hosea #3 Ch. 4-5 Israel's Willful Ignorance — Chuck Missler

Well, I have to tell you candidly that I'm really enjoying Hosea, and I've taught it before many years ago, more than ten years ago. But it's fun getting back into it, and I see it in a whole different light, for lots of different reasons probably.

And there's so much coming out here. In the interest of time, I won't try to praise the whole background that we've done so far other than just a quick context thing. Hosea was contemporary of Isaiah and Amos, but he primarily spoke to the Northern Kingdom.

Israel broke into two, of course, after Solomon's death, the Northern Kingdom going into idolatry, Southern Kingdom doing a little bit better for a little bit longer, but both declining. Northern Kingdom has a very, very provocative predicament.

Hosea's Historical Setting and Israel's Prosperity

As we jump into the Old Testament, as we read these ancient writings, it's easy to sort of dismiss it as back in its... you plunge into it to get sort of a perspective of their own historical background.

We need to remember what Romans 15 .4 tells us. Paul tells us in Romans 15 .4, whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning that we through the patience and the comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.

We need to recognize and always be sensitive to not just the moral lessons that are there embodied, but messages even in a broader sense for you and I and today. Now, as we look at Hosea's burden for the Northern Kingdom, we discover that it has two characteristics that are rather startling.

Its primary characteristics were, first of all, that it was the most prosperous time of their history. Under Jeroboam, they had a standing army. They conquered all the way to Damascus. They were prosperous.

They had, you know, their stock indexes were breaking new highs. Everybody was really enjoying prosperity. So, it was the best of times. In fact, the whole thing reminds us of the opening line of Charles Dickens' book, The Tale of Two Cities.

It was the best of times and it was the worst of times. Materialistically, it was the best of times in their history. Morally, it was the lowest ever of their history. So bad that God was about to take action on that and that's what Hosea is trying to get across to them.

They were prosperous and yet they had reached new lows in morality, idol worship and faithlessness and all kinds of things we're going to deal with as we get into it. And God is, through Hosea, going to warn them that it's so bad that they have turned from him.

They've forgotten who the real source of their prosperity was, that he is going to use their enemies as a means of judgment. And that's a pretty heavy message that Hosea has for them, but it's incredibly instructive if we watch for it and apply it to ourselves.

America is its most prosperous era of its history, and yet America has forgotten the source of its prosperity and turned itself from God. And what also is the best of times in America, the best of times we've ever had, it's just prosperity.

You know, Tao is pushing what, 11 ,000? And yet, morally, it's unbelievable. It is unbelievable as you start trying to measure and perceive that. So the parallels there are very, very, very, very disturbing.

Hosea's Marriage and the Prophetic Names of Israel's Children

And of course, in Hosea, we have Hosea instructed to take Gomer as his wife, who is an adulteress. She has three children. And God has them name these three children prophetically. One is called Jezreel, which is a pun, sort of, or a homonym.

It can mean sown and planted, and it can also mean scattered. The idea of sowing and scattering are very similar, but they can be used opposite means. Sowing like planting in the ground, or scattering, and it's used both ways by God describing Israel's future.

And then the daughter was Romah, which means pitied, or I should say it means love, but lo-Romah means not love, pitied in effect. And Ami means my people. And he has them, he names the second child lo-Romah, unloved, pitied.

And the third child lo-Ami, not my people. God disowns them for a while. He uses that prophetically. And of course, in all of this, we're going to see the message that God has also, not just profoundly significant for their day, but God also uses Hosea to lay out Israel's history, yet future, in very startling ways.

It's kind of interesting to realize that Israel was the result of a broken home, because of the adulterous wife of Jehovah. Kind of interesting observation. But we've talked about that in the first three chapters.

We're now going to talk tonight, some issues, explore chapter four. We're in chapter four of Hosea, and I'm going to call chapter four the case for the prosecution, the formal charges. We're going to discover from this point on, Hosea's personal life will fade in the background, and the rest of the book is going to be increasingly prophetic.

Hosea 4 as God's Case Against Israel

So out of the heartbreak of his own home, we find the heartbreak of God as he speaks to the nation. And God is going to speak out in this chapter, and the next one, the specific charges that he has against Israel, just like a prosecutor.

And he's going to be prosecutor, judge, witness, all put together. He's going to spell out the charges including lawlessness, immorality, the ignorance of God's Word, and idolatry. Now when we say idolatry, you and I tend to think of idols carved of stone or wood.

Colossians 3 .5 tells us that covetousness is idolatry. Let me ask you something, is there any nation on the face of the earth that's more committed to covetousness than the United States? When he speaks of adultery, spiritual adultery, he's talking about idol worship, but that's also in our parlance, covetousness.

Now you need to understand, we're going to talk a little bit about God's law, and clearly we're not under the Mosaic law, but God does set out through Israel his pattern for any nation that wants to be blessed.

So we're not under Mosaic law, don't carry that too far, but we're going to talk more about that as we go. But this chapter, chapter 4 in Hosea, spells out God's charges in a depth that's unparalleled anywhere else in the Old Testament.

So it's a very worthwhile study. God's holiness demands an indictment for Israel's sin, and God's justice requires that she be punished, and both of those are going to be coming up here. So let's take a look at this, and I'm going to call chapter 5 the subpoena from God.

Hosea 4:1 and the Sins of Omission

Chapter 4, verse 1, excuse me. Hear the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel, for the Lord hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, no mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land.

It almost sounds like hear ye, hear ye, the court is in session. It's almost the flavor of the way this opens. The first thing he lists are the sins of omission, no truth, no mercy, no knowledge of God.

See they've been brainwashed in their idolatry. He says there's no truth. He says there is no truth, no faithfulness. You know it's interesting as we stand back and look at our own culture, how we have lost the sanctity of a commitment.

We see that in marriages. There was a day that those things were held sacred. They were vows before the throne of God, not today. In business, the ethics, they may not have been moral men, but the ethics were my word is my bond.

And today it's so sumi, you know, different atmosphere even in business. And I won't go on and on, we'll spend all night talking about my business experiences for the same thing. You've all been there.

You know what I'm talking about. In our culture, we have abandoned the idea of character as any prelude to destiny. It used to be that you'd grow up and you'd try to develop character because you felt that was one of the prerequisite ingredients for success.

To be straight, to be solid, to be honorable, to have a good reputation. Not today. If you do that, it isn't because you necessarily connect it with your destiny as far as your social and commercial intercourse is involved.

It's interesting that 700 years after Hosea, John would write, the one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. As I say, the Holy One of Israel is going to be acting here as the prosecuting attorney, the plaintiff, the witness, the judge, and the executioner.

And some of this language is very similar to Amos 9 actually. Something else to notice as we watch Hosea, or God through Hosea, take after Israel. It's interesting to notice that the primary problem they have is that they ignored the Word of God.

The Ten Commandments and the Heart's Intent

Do you know for how long? About 200 years. Really? That's kind of interesting. We've ignored it for what? 223 years. Anyway, we're a little overdue. Verse 2, by swearing, by lying, and killing, and stealing, committing adultery, they break out and blood toucheth blood.

As you recognize this list of things, this is a paraphrase in a sense or a concatenation of the Ten Commandments. Handful of them. From Exodus 20, verses 13 through 16. Sounds very familiar, doesn't it?

Swearing, lying, killing, stealing, committing adultery. In the Hebrew, by the way, in each one of these commandments is stated by Hosea in the infinitive absolute. It's a grammatical form used for vividness and emphasis.

But apparently this is even done among relatives. Blood toucheth blood. That's what that hints at there. Now again, we're not under the laws of Moses. I don't want to carry that too far. But the Ten Commandments do express God's will.

And somebody says, well, you know, two kinds of people says, well, I keep the Ten Commandments. Really? Let's go back and reexamine that. Others say, well, I'm not under the law. Really? Let's hear what Jesus did to the law in the Sermon on the Mount.

Boy, Moses said, thou shalt not murder. I say to whoever is angry with his brother, he's done the same thing. Jesus cuts through the law to the intent of the heart. And he goes right through it. He says, thou shalt not commit adultery.

I say, whoever looking after a woman to lust after her and so forth. In Matthew 5, 6, and 7, anytime you think the Ten Commandments are a duck soup, look out, Jesus runs down through that. And about the time you think that's, you've got it mastered.

Remember how he closes that series. He says, be thou perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect. Boy, heavy duty. Every time I think of that, I'm reminded about the guy that gets to the, you know, you always hear these silly stories about the guy gets to the pretty gates, there's Peter.

That's not biblical, of course, but we have this whole genre of expressions where he comes up there and he goes up to Peter and Peter says, well, we have a hundred, you know, we have a point system that takes a hundred points to get in.

Oh, really? Okay, good. Well, I attended Sunday school steadily for 50 years, never missed a day. He says, good. That's worth three points. He says, well, I was an industrialist. I gave tens of millions of dollars to all the local charities.

So that's good. That's worth about another two points. And he starts to list off, get increasingly panicked. The different things he's done, he gets up to maybe about 23, 24 points and he's starting to sweat it.

Sexual Morality, Judgment, and the Need for Christ

He's got to get to a hundred. He turns to Peter and says, gee, at this rate, only by the grace of God, again, he says, right on. Go ahead. Enter in. Enter in. We keep talking. We keep hearing in our day about the new morality.

There's nothing new about the immorality that's being promoted by the press, by the media, by our culture. They practiced it in 700 BC and they were ultimately destroyed as a result of it. Ultimately destroyed as a result of it.

Now, by the way, they call the immorality, the new morality new. That's nonsense. It's not. It's not morality, nor is it new. But God doesn't change. God is immutable. It's one of the aspects of him that's very, very important.

He changes not. And neither does his rules. Of course, we hear a lot about homosexuality. God has condemned homosexuality in the strongest language. It was practiced in Sodom and Gomorrah and they were destroyed because of that.

And if people continue to indulge in homosexuality, God will give them up. And Jesus Christ has something to say to homosexuals. He says, you must be born again, just as he says to you and I, for whatever else reason.

And he can deliver you from it. It needs only be treated as what it really is. It's not a... it's sin. Well, it's a genetic propensity. Well, I don't happen to accept that results of that research, but so what?

So is lying, stealing, murder, cheating, everything else. It's also a genetic defect we all have from Adam. So what's new? And there's only one remedy for sin. Only one remedy for sin and that's Jesus Christ.

Anyway, verse 3. Therefore shall the land mourn and everyone that dwelleth therein shall languish with the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven. Yea, the fish of the sea shall... also shall be taken away.

The land is going to mourn. Boy, does that sound like environmental problems? Yes, the environment is polluted as well. Man is a polluter. We may not agree with the strange way that these environmental issues are twisted by the power brokers to take advantage of the young people committed to these things.

But there are real ecological problems and they also are a byproduct of man's sin. Verse 4. Yet let no man strive, nor reprove another, for thy people are as they that strive with the priest. Now striving with the priest, by the way, like sitting as a judge, was punishable by death in Deuteronomy 17, verses 8 through 12.

Now the leadership change is interesting here, by the way, because you'll notice it says let no man strive, nor reprove another, for thy people. Notice he's not saying my people. Significant switch. Remember he told Isaiah to name his third child Lo-Ami, not my people, because they're not my people.

God is setting them aside. Well, wait a minute. Israel has always been God's people. No. He sets them aside. And Jesus confirms that in Luke 19, verse 44, I think it is. How long are they set aside? Not forever.

That's the message of Hosea. We talked about that in chapter 3 and elsewhere. We'll hear more about it. That there will be a day where he will once again take them up as his people. And Jesus tells us when that is in Romans 11, verse 25, when the fullness of the Gentiles be come in.

Now see, from verse 5 on, the blame for all of this is being laid at the feet of the priests. And when you think of priests there, idiomatically think of our pulpits here. Now, in the case of the Northern Kingdom, this pathetic scene of leadership rendering judgments under staggering drunkenness, it's forcibly portrayed by Hosea's contemporary Isaiah.

For those of you who want to, in your notes, we won't take the time here, but in your notes you put Isaiah 28, the first eight verses, because Isaiah is contemporary of Hosea, and he really hits the drunkenness of the priests and judges, how they run around in a stupor giving their opinions and so forth.

I won't go through some of the opinions that we get from our courts, but clearly most of the social ills in this country were not there by bad legislation, not there alone by executive fiats and so forth, there's some of that.

The root moral problems of this country were initiatives taken by the Supreme Court. The myth of separation of church and state, the banning of Bibles and prayer in schoolrooms and so forth. If you make a list of the social agenda of the court, you begin to realize where some of our ills are, by the ill-considered changes that they've taken upon themselves, unconstitutional changes for which there are remedies, it's called impeachment of judges.

But let's get on with the study here. Verse 5, Therefore shalt thou fall in the day, and the prophet also shall fall with thee in the night, and I will destroy thy mother. That means God's going to destroy the nation.

And by the way, the Northern Kingdom not only went into captivity, it never came back. A century later, the Southern Kingdom will go the same path. And just as Hosea tried to warn the, was called to warn the Northern Kingdom, Jeremiah is called to warn the Southern Kingdom.

And they do go into captivity, but they do return. Now don't confuse this with this whole myth of the ten lost tribes. Look, I think we'll come to that later in the notes, but let me just, I'll take it right now.

The Ten Lost Tribes and the Divided Kingdom

Second Chronicles chapter 11. Let's put this to bed so we don't just keep stumbling. I turned to Second Chronicles chapter 11 because there's an issue that you should be sensitive to. It's amazing to me how prevalent in literature and myths is this issue of the twelve lost tribes, or ten lost tribes.

And in Second Chronicles chapter 11, we have the period of Rehoboam and Jeroboam. Solomon dies, Rehoboam takes over the Southern Kingdom. Jeroboam rebels, takes the Northern Kingdom. Well, let's see, I guess verse, we can pick it up about verse 13.

The first twelve verses talks about the split and so forth. Verse 13, the priests and the Levites who were all Israel, that's the Northern Kingdom. The Northern Kingdom was called Israel, the Southern Kingdom called the house of Judah.

Now, if you were a Levite, you didn't inherit land, you inherited cities. The twelve tribes got their land, but the Levites got 48 cities, because the Lord was their inheritance. Well, if you were a Levite, you wanted to stay faithful to temple worship.

Down in the South, under Judah, under Rehoboam, they maintained the temple and the worship of the true God. In the Northern Kingdom, Jeroboam set up idols, golden calves, and they went to idolatry. Now, if you were a Levite, where would you go?

You weren't welcome there. You picked up and you went South, and that's what it says, verse 11. The priests and the Levites who were all Israel, resorted to him, that is to Judah, out of all their borders.

Referring to verse 12. Verse 14, for the Levites left their suburban lands and their possession and came to Judah and Jerusalem, for Jeroboam and his sons cast them off from executing the priest's office under the Lord.

See, Jeroboam, the king to the North, wanted idol worship. So if you were called to worship the true God, you were politically incorrect. So what did you do? You went South. And not only you, you'll find some more.

Verse 15, continuing on Jeroboam, for he appointed for himself priests of the high places and for the he goats, which is a demon term, by the way, in the Hebrew, and for the calves which he had made, these golden calves.

You understand the whole worship of the golden calf that came from the Egyptian bull, right? Bad pun. Okay, never mind. Okay, go ahead. Verse 16. And after them, out of all the tribes of Israel, such as set their hearts to seek the Lord God of Israel, came to Jerusalem to sacrifice unto the Lord God of their fathers.

Let's read that again. And after them, that is the Levites, out of all the tribes of Israel, such as set their hearts to seek the Lord God of Israel, they came to Jerusalem to sacrifice unto the Lord God of their fathers.

So they strengthened the kingdom of Judah and made Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, strong. Three years, for three years they walked in the way of David and Solomon. And we could go through, and we did a whole special study on this called the Ten, the Twelve Tribes, sort of like volume two when we did Joshua.

And one of those just deals with this whole issue, went right through the Old Testament, point out there is not, there are no ten lost tribes. The term, the tribal terms are used geographically, just like we might use California for an area, or Wyoming, or whether Ephraim, and Asher, and Benjamin.

These are, they were allocated to those tribes when the land was divided, but they also became territorial names, just like they had boundaries. Now at this time, those that were faithful to God in the north migrated south.

Those, it doesn't say this, but you can easily infer the converse is also true. If you were an idol worshiper in the south, you were politically incorrect in the south. Up north, you were welcome. What do you think you did?

You migrated north. They still use the tribal terms for the geographic, the area of Dan is a place you can visit today. Are there descendants of Dan there? I doubt it. So the point is that when the house of Judah falls to Babylon in captivity, it included members of all the twelve tribes.

That's what most people don't realize. There's a myth in literature that there's ten tribes that are lost, and there's all these theories about who's, and I won't get into all that stuff, so there's a whole thing.

Don't stumble on that stuff, because there's some strange doctrines that come out of those views. But anyway, the northern kingdom, as a kingdom, got absorbed by Assyria, and Assyria had this policy of transplanting its captives.

If they captured you up north, they would ship you to another part of their empire and take the captives from the other part of their empire and ship you there. The capital of the northern kingdom was Samaria.

And so the descendants of that amalgamation were called Samaritans, sometimes viewed as half-Jews. And they were despised. By the time you get to the days of Christ, the true Jew looked at the Samaritans as a half-breed.

And that's why Jesus uses that example of the good Samaritan, you know, and he plays on that for that purpose. God's going to destroy the nation. Their decision to live as rebels has made them squatters who deserved eviction.

That's what's exactly going to happen. But now we get to verse 6, and verse 6 is a very key verse, at least to us and our ministry. Hosea 4, 6, God says, My people are destroyed. For what? By what? What's destroying His people?

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Is He talking about knowledge in general, like the Encyclopedia Britannica or something? No. He's talking, My people are destroyed by the lack of what? Knowledge of the Word of God.

That's why the mission statement of our ministry is very, very directly nailed. It says, To create, develop, and distribute materials to stimulate, encourage, and facilitate serious study of the Bible as the inerrant Word of God, period.

That's the key point. Anyway, verse 6 is, My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to Me. Seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.

Wow, what an indictment. What a heavy, heavy indictment. As we stand back and look at America, we've been very, very concerned by what we see. We're concerned with our administration. We're concerned with the fact that we condone lying at the highest offices of the land.

We look at our leadership, which seems to be sold out to a hidden agenda of others, and globalism, and who you name, you can go through the list. We see our major industries, entertainment, exporting, adultery, and celebrating it.

And we can go on, and on, and on with the immorality and the promotion and celebration of immorality. But the root problem behind all of this isn't finances, isn't politics, isn't the ballot box in the simplest, simplistic sense.

No, it's the lack of the knowledge of the Word of God. And for this nation, it's tragic because that was its heritage, that was its founding, that was its traditions, until we formally, through the Supreme Court and other actions, have distanced ourselves from our heritage.

And you can track the moral decay of this country dramatically. I resisted the temptation to throw up 84 slides, which show things improving slightly, up until about 1960. And there's 84 indicators that have been classically put together, teenage pregnancies, and you can make a whole bunch, and you can track the statistics.

And they're somewhat getting better, divorce rates, things like that, slightly better, until 1960, 61, 62, 63. Then they take off disastrously. And you look at these slides, one after the other, what happened at that time?

And it's pretty, pretty clear. That moral decay takes a major, major break in the 1960s with the Supreme Court decisions to outlaw prayer and Bible reading in schools. It's amazing how all the statistics start to degenerate from that point on.

The minute you get away from the Word of God, you are doomed to failure in your personal Christian walk, and also in your national life. It happens to us as individuals, and it's certainly visible as our nation.

Romans 1 and Accountability Without the Bible

And so anyway, as a result, God's going to even take away their priests. Now, let's take a look at one of the chapters in the Scripture that you really want to understand. That's Romans chapter 1. Romans chapter 1.

We're going to talk a lot about Israel who had special benefits, but before we do, let's start from ground zero. Let's talk about the, you know, obviously, what about the heathen? What about the Gentile that doesn't have these things?

Let's turn to Romans chapter 1, and let's pick it up about verse 18. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness, because that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God hath shown it unto them.

For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even as eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. In other words, let's stop back.

Even without the Bible, even without the Scripture, you can look at the heavens, you can look at this world. He's holding us accountable to understand it was created by someone who holds us accountable.

That's his message, and he goes on, verse 21. Because when they knew God, they glorified him not as God. Neither were they thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened, professing themselves to be wise.

They became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man, and birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. Now see, that was their first step. They rejected God.

They knew God. They recognized him. They had not known all his attributes, but they clearly recognized him. And rather than worship him, and accountable, I might add, they became vain in their imaginations, and they contrive all these other weird things.

Verse 24. Wherefore, then, what does God do in response to that? Wherefore, God also gave them up. They gave him up. He gives them up. To what? To uncleanness, through the lust of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature more than the creator.

For this cause, God gave them up to vile affections, for even their women did exchange the natural use for that which is against nature, and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman burned in their lusts one toward another, men with men, working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was fitting.

Do I have to fill in the blanks? Verse 28. Even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not seemly, being filled with all unrighteousness and fornication and wickedness and covetousness and maliciousness, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity, whispers, backbiters, haters of God, insolent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful, who, knowing the judgment of God, who commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

Wow. That's God's statement of the world. That's God's statement of holding them accountable even without the benefit of the Bible. I can't help but feel that Paul, when he wrote that, had in mind Hosea.

When you get some time, you can compare Hosea chapter 4 verse 6 with Romans 124, 26, and 28. Compare the next verse, Hosea 4 .7 with Romans 1 .23. Compare Hosea 4 .11 with Romans 1 .21 and 22. But now, the whole point, of course, of Hosea is that that's what the Gentiles are held accountable for.

Israel had more is even more guilty because they had more revelation. They had been given the knowledge of God by direct revelation and they, Israel, had rejected it. So the Gentiles are held accountable, as you've heard in Romans 1.

Hosea is making the point that Israel is even more accountable than they were because they've had the benefit of the prophets and Moses and so forth and so on. Well, gang, where does that put us? We have even more revelation than Israel had because we have the New Testament.

Too much is given. Much will be required, Luke 12 .48 reminds us. Verse 7, get to Hosea chapter 4, verse 7. As they were increased so they sinned against me, therefore will I change their glory into shame.

See, God had kept His promise to Abraham and multiplied them. But that just brought more sinners into the world because that's okay. Sinners like me. But fortunately, someone gave me a Bible very early and I was tutored well and by the Lord's initiative, by His grace, I was able to trust Christ as my Savior.

So the fact that there's more sinners, that just means that God's redemptive work can reach further. But see, these people, from verse 7, had no knowledge of the Word of God. Their darkness was the result of their own ignorance, we discover, in verse 6 and elsewhere.

Therefore He's going to change their glory into shame. I'm reminded as I go through Washington, D .C. and try to find some American heritage. My wife and I were there for some meetings and we had an extra day.

So we'd go and just walk the mall and see the Smithsonian and see some of the... And I was in the mood for some Founding Fathers. I went over to the Museum of American History and I'll never forget it.

Couldn't find any. You found exhibits of how we abused the Indians, found exhibits of the various China that was served by the First Ladies at various administrations. No Founding Fathers, no heritage.

We got so disgusted, we literally called Dulles and got an earlier flight and went home. Very discouraging. Somebody says, is God going to judge America? And Billy Graham, many years ago, made that wonderful quit.

Great soundbite. He says, if God doesn't judge America, He's going to have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah. Wow, that says it, doesn't it? It's worse than that. If God does not judge America, it will cause the enemies of God to blaspheme.

See God's not as strong as you thought He was. He's not as righteous as you thought He was. You can just start the whole sequence of things. And I don't think God's going to stand for that. Verse 8, they eat up the sin of my people, they set their heart on iniquity.

See the people not only sinned, they bragged about it. Turn to Isaiah 5. Every time someone says they think they see America in prophecy, they ask me, do you think America's in prophecy? You know, Isaiah 19 or Revelation 17, 18.

I say, I think He's in prophecy, but I think the only place I see Him is in Isaiah 5. Oh really? Yeah. Turn to Isaiah 5. So we go to, we pop over here to Isaiah 5, and we have the six woes pronounced on Israel.

The first seven verses talk about how God makes an analysis of a vineyard. He does everything He can for it, doesn't bear fruit, so He's going to tear it apart. But then He pronounces verse 8 through 22 and following, six woes.

But the one I want to call your attention to is verse 18, woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity and sin as it were with a cart rope. What's it talking about here? It's talking about not only sinning, but bragging about it.

Putting the sin on a cart and dragging it through a parade. When I see verse 18, especially when you read it in context, I see the gay pride parades that are so disgusting, you wouldn't let your kids watch it on television.

They not only sin, they celebrate it, they manifest it, they, you know, heterosexuals reproduce and homosexuals recruit. Verse 9, and back to Isaiah 4. Verse 9, and there shall be like people, like priests, and I will punish them for their ways and reward them for their doings.

See the leadership urged the people to sin. Like people, like priests, both to be punished. You know, our government too promotes immorality. I didn't understand this. I thought that's just, you know, political talk.

Until I'm a systems engineer, I had to connect the dots. The first insight that I think we all understand is that governments love crises. Because crises increase budgets and increase their ability to control people.

So governments love crises. Dictators always have, create wars and things to consolidate their power. So governments like crises, no problem. Basic fundamental behavioral thing. In this country, they discovered social crises work just as well as military ones.