Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Homeland Insecurity (Hos Ch.4)
37 Plays2 years ago
Sunday Message recorded 12November 2023
by Pastor Victor Morrison
First Baptist Church -- Columbus TX
1700 Milam St.
Columbus, TX, USA 78934
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction: Service and Sacrifice
00:00:06
Speaker
Good morning. I hope you've had a good weekend. On Wednesday nights, we're going through the Gospel of Mark, and we've given the series title, Service and Sacrifice. You know, there's no greater service and there's no greater sacrifice than what Jesus Christ went through for us. So His will always be right there at the top.
Honoring Veterans
00:00:31
Speaker
But in my mind, I have such great appreciation and respect also for our veterans. I know that yesterday was Veterans Day, but I wanted to publicly express on behalf of our church, our heartfelt appreciation to our veterans for your service and your sacrifice to this country. We honor you this weekend for reminding us what dedication looks like.
00:00:57
Speaker
You know, regardless of which branch of the military you served with, we're grateful for your commitment to your assignments and your faithfulness to your deployments. You were willing to be stationed in harm's way so that we might live, raise our family's work and worship in freedom. Thank you for the day you stood at attention and repeated the oath of enlistment saying these words, I do solemnly swear,
00:01:25
Speaker
that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear the faith and allegiance to the same, and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me. According to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice, so help me God. You know, in honor
00:01:54
Speaker
You not only said these words on your first day of military service, you lived those words each day of your service. Veterans, I want you to know that we salute you. If you don't mind, we want to let you know personally how much we appreciate your service and the sacrifices that you and your family made. If you are here this morning, you're a veteran, would you stand and let First Baptist Church tell you how much we appreciate what you did?
00:02:22
Speaker
Would you stand? Let's thank them. I know that on Friday in each of our schools here in Columbus, they had a Veterans Day service, but I wanted to have one briefly here as well.
Transition to Hosea's Context
00:02:45
Speaker
You know, while we express our thanks to our veterans for doing their part to keep our nation secure,
00:02:52
Speaker
We once again turn our attention to the unstable society of Israel during the ministry of Hosea, the Old Testament prophet. Would you open God's word and turn with me to Hosea chapter 4? I'll give you some time to find it. It can be a little bit of a search.
00:03:14
Speaker
Hosea preached for 45 years. He preached from 755 to 710 B.C., warning the northern kingdom of impending judgment from God through the hands of the Assyrians. But like I said over and over since we started this journey through Hosea, it reminds me a whole lot of Romans 5.8 in the New Testament.
00:03:40
Speaker
Romans 5.8 says, but God demonstrates His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Similarly, God calls the prophet Hosea to marry a woman named Gomer. After their marriage, she would soon prove to be unfaithful to her wedding vows.
00:04:06
Speaker
But God demonstrated His amazing love for His people, Israel, because while they were still involved in idolatry, God was still demonstrating His great love for them.
Moral and Spiritual Oversight
00:04:21
Speaker
After the terrorist attacks on American soil on September the 11th, 2001, the Department of Homeland Security was created. It actually began on March the 1st, 2003. Their mission was simple, it's very straightforward, to secure the nation from the many threats we face. The core values of the Department of Homeland Security are these, integrity,
00:04:49
Speaker
vigilance and respect. Currently, there are about 260,000 employees that work in the Department of Homeland Security.
00:04:59
Speaker
But I don't know about you, but sometimes I feel like are we really secure? You know, you see where society's going, you see where individual lives are going, and you can begin to think, I'm not sure that we are safe, especially when you consider, are the borders even safe? They tell us that 6.5 million people have come across that border without coming through the proper process over the last three years.
00:05:25
Speaker
But as I read through the book of Hosea, we see what moral and spiritual oversights and compromises contributed to Israel's then homeland insecurity. And so I want us to read through chapter four, and I have several different things I would like to share. And so let's stand together in honor of God's word.
00:05:50
Speaker
Listen to what God says, not only to Hosea's generation, but I believe he's still saying these kinds of things today. It starts out saying, hear the word of the Lord, O children of Israel, for the 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. There is swearing, lying, murder, stealing,
00:06:20
Speaker
and committing adultery, they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed. Therefore the land mourns, and all who dwell in it languish, 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, O priest.
00:06:48
Speaker
You shall stumble by day, the prophet also shall stumble with you by night, and I will destroy your mother. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.
Consequences of Ignoring God's Law
00:07:00
Speaker
Because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.
00:07:13
Speaker
The more they increase, the more they sin against me. I will change their glory into shame. They feed on the sin of my people. 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.
00:07:32
Speaker
They shall eat, but not be satisfied. They shall play the whore, but not multiply. Because they have forsaken the Lord to cherish hortom, wine, and new wine, which take away the understanding, my people inquire of a piece of wood, and their walking staff gives them oracles. For a spirit of hortom has led them astray,
00:07:56
Speaker
and they left their god to play the horde. They sacrifice on the tops of the mountains and burn offerings on the hills under oak, poplar, and terebinth because their shade is good.
00:08:10
Speaker
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
00:08:27
Speaker
prostitutes, and a people without understanding shall come to ruin. 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 Lord lives, like a stubborn heifer. Israel is stubborn. Can the Lord now feed them like a lamb in a broad pasture? Ephraim is joined to idols.
00:08:56
Speaker
Leave them alone. 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. Let's go to the Father in prayer. Lord,
00:09:15
Speaker
What a difficult passage of scripture to understand. And yet, at the same time, we see it. We see that unfaithfulness, that infidelity that characterized the northern kingdom of Israel at that time during the days of Hosea.
00:09:31
Speaker
But we also see it in 2023. We see it in our land. We see it around the world. And so Lord, would you please speak to us? What would you say today? How can we find security that our souls and our spirits long for? Lord, I believe we've already sang it so often this morning.
00:09:49
Speaker
that the security we long for is only found in Christ. And so I pray that, Lord, You would open our eyes to where we are spiritually, that before we leave today, each one of us would know that the hope is only found in Your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. It's in His name we pray. Amen. Thank you. You may be seated.
Spiritual Indictment of Israel
00:10:16
Speaker
You know, I read this week that there are one billion cameras worldwide. Do you know that on average, each one of us as Americans are seen on a camera 238 times per week, 34 times a day. You may want to wave at it and say, hey, smile, you're on candid camera. Well, Hosea chapter four is almost like a biblical drone.
00:10:42
Speaker
that is letting us see what was going on in the culture of Israel back then. I want you to ask the Lord, is there something that I need to learn from this passage, Lord? Is there something you're saying to me on this day? As we go through these verses, I want to kind of go through them a little bit at a time, like verses one and two.
00:11:06
Speaker
He first calls them to attention. And what is he getting them to attention about? He says, hear the word of the Lord, O children of Israel, for the Lord has a controversy. That word means a case. He has an accusation against the inhabitants of the land of Israel.
00:11:26
Speaker
So we start out with this indictment against corruption. What was the indictment? What were they doing wrong? If you put it in one word, it's unfaithfulness, infidelity. But from chapter four in verse one, all the way through the rest of the book, we're not going to be talking about Hosea's family anymore. We're not going to be talking about Gomer anymore.
00:11:51
Speaker
The Lord is making it clear this is about the nation of Israel. This is about the northern kingdom. And there were two counts that he said are a part of this indictment. First you see in verse one, he's going to list some sins of omission.
00:12:09
Speaker
things that were missing that should have been there, but they weren't there. But then when you go into verse 2, you'll see not sins of omission, things that were leaving out, but things they were putting into their lives that should not have been there. And so looking at these sins of omission first, we see them listed in verse 1 and there are three.
00:12:31
Speaker
There's no faithfulness. That word there means honesty or truth. There's no steadfast love or mercy. And there's no knowledge of God in the land. There should have been, but God looks and He says, it's not there. These are sins of omission. Are there any things that you know God would want you to be doing and yet they're missing in your life?
00:12:54
Speaker
There are also sins of commission that are mentioned in verse two. There are five violations that remind us so much of the Ten Commandments, don't they? He said, when I look at what you are doing, he said, here's what I see. God is speaking. And he said, there's swearing, there's lying, there's murder, there's stealing, and there's committing adultery.
00:13:18
Speaker
All of those kinds of things, he said, that's what I see. These things are deliberate. These things are transgressions. These things that they're doing in disobedience to what God would want. You know, Romans 3 verses 9 through 20, sometime I encourage you to reference that passage and go back there because what it says is there's none of us righteous.
00:13:42
Speaker
No, not one. The Bible says in Romans 3, 23, all of us have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. It says in that same passage, every mouth be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight. That's what it says in Romans 3. But I look further and I think, well, let's move to verses 3 and 4.
00:14:12
Speaker
You know when it says, therefore, it's saying, okay, because these sins are in your culture and in your society, this is why you're going through what you're going through. And so verses three and four and five give us some insights into the consequences. You know, life is full of choices, isn't it? We can make decisions every single day. Every weekend we have a choice.
00:14:40
Speaker
Will we do what God wants us to do or will we choose to do what we would rather do or someone else would want us to do? But while we are free to make the choices, we are not free to remove the consequences because God that set up all of life, all of this universe, He's a moral God. And so God set it up so that there are consequences to decisions that are made against His will.
00:15:08
Speaker
And so if you were to connect the consequences back to the decisions that we just read in verse one and two, let's see what he says. There are three Hebrew words I want to introduce to you. Abel, Amol, and Kaisal. They all sound similar, don't they? Some of you laugh because of my enjoyment of words. But listen, the writer of Hosea, he had a big time with those three words.
00:15:36
Speaker
But what were the consequences of the sins of omission and the sins of commission? Well, they're right here. He says, therefore the land mourns. That's one consequence of sin. Do you think that sin brings lasting happiness? I know that sin has a passing pleasure is what it says in Hebrews 11, but you know what? It doesn't last.
00:16:00
Speaker
So don't go for it because sin ultimately will bring sorrow and sadness and mourning. That's what he meant when he wrote the Hebrew word there for mourn, Amol. But then he mentions this word called Amol when he goes further in verse three and says, therefore the land mourns and all who dwell in it, what were they experiencing?
00:16:24
Speaker
He says languish, that we're languishing. Have you ever known anybody to languish because of their sin? The word languish there means to waste away. It means it's falling apart. It means that it's growing weaker, not stronger, weaker. And so that's what he's saying is he's saying the whole land and everybody that dwell in it, they're getting weaker and they're getting weaker and they're getting weaker.
00:16:51
Speaker
And then if you keep reading down there, even down to verse five, you'll see he says, you shall stumble by day. The prophet also shall stumble with you by night. That's a different Hebrew word. Not the word amol or amol, but the word kaisol. Kaisol means to stumble. It means to fall down.
00:17:13
Speaker
And by metaphor, it means when you fall down, you failed. So it's like failure. All of those things connect, you see, back to the choices that they were making in verses one and two. And so first we have to connect the consequences back to the choices. Sometimes it's so easy to blame the consequences that we're going through for our sins on someone else. But something happens.
00:17:41
Speaker
whenever we humble ourselves before God. And we say, you know what, God? I got myself in this pickle. I'm the one that made choices that led to these consequences. And that's why in verse 4, I think we see that it's best not just to connect the consequences to the choices, but to accept the consequences of the choices. Don't try to shift the blame to someone else. Listen closely to what he says to the high priest.
00:18:12
Speaker
yet let no one contend, and let none accuse, for with you is my contention, O priest." Have you ever had God do that to you? Have you ever been trying to shift the blame to someone else and suddenly it's like God gets you alone and He says,
00:18:30
Speaker
I'm talking to you. Have you ever really had that insight? You know, the role of the Holy Spirit is to convict of sin, of righteousness, and judgment. That's one thing the Holy Spirit does. Of course, the Holy Spirit also shows us the sufficiency of Christ and his death, his atonement. But we have to first realize, I'm not going to make it if I'm depending on my own righteousness.
00:18:58
Speaker
The third thing I noticed is found in verse 6.
Biblical Knowledge and Spiritual Choices
00:19:01
Speaker
If we're looking in verses 3 and 4 and 5 and we're looking sort of in the present or we're looking what's ahead for those bad choices? It's almost like you could look at verse 6 and look behind and say what caused Israel to make those poor choices?
00:19:21
Speaker
I'll tell you what happened. There was information that God had included within the words of the prophets back then. Information within the commandments, even the Ten Commandments. But there was something that had broken down that he tells us about in verse 6. I wonder if it's happening in our country. I wonder if it's happening in our culture.
00:19:43
Speaker
Is it happening in your life? Are you getting further and further away from God's word? Are you listening more and more and more to what movie stars, what the singers, what the athletes, what the others at school, what the others at work? Are you listening more and more to what everybody else is saying? But this right here, this is getting more and more quiet in your life. You're no longer listening to it.
00:20:09
Speaker
Well, verse six is all about that. He says, my people are destroyed. Why are the Assyrians gonna be able to destroy Israel in about 12 more years from when Hosea is writing this? You know why? He says, my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge because you rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.
00:20:37
Speaker
I want to spell it out real practically for us. You see, the problem was a breakdown on the access to biblical information. You see, the Bible is there for you. All you have to do is open it up each morning or each evening, each daytime, whenever is best to you. There are Sunday school classes. There are Bible classes that we have. There are services that we have each Sunday night, Wednesday night, Sunday morning like you're here today. Thank you for being here.
00:21:06
Speaker
But all I'm saying is we cannot say to God, just like Israel cannot say to God, I didn't have any access to the information. No, there was another problem. You know what that problem was? Rejection of biblical information.
00:21:21
Speaker
He says, my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. They weren't opening it up right because you have rejected knowledge. Sometimes when we are told we reject it and we have bongo drums like we're playing the bongo drums and saying, keep them away from my island. You're not coming in here with that ship. You're not coming in here to take over my life.
00:21:46
Speaker
And so there's this rejection, and we're saying no to God. And that's exactly what they were saying. And so God was saying, OK, I reject you from being a priest to me, is what he says. These were priests. These were people that should have been spiritual leaders. But instead, they were rejecting what God was saying. There's also indifference toward biblical information. What do I mean by indifference? It's the word forget.
00:22:14
Speaker
You see, starting next Sunday, I'm gonna be starting a message on Thanksgiving. And then after that, I appreciate so much Steven Mick being willing to preach while I'm in Tennessee, having Thanksgiving with my mom and my brother. But then we enter into Christmas, so we'll be on Christmas. So today we'll push the pause button after today on Hosea, and we'll go to Thanksgiving. But you know, Thanksgiving is a very important time.
00:22:42
Speaker
You know what you do during Thanksgiving? You remember. You remember how has God blessed you this year in 2023. That's what we're going to have an opportunity to do when we leave the worship service next Sunday. We'll go down the hall. We'll sit around tables. We'll give the opportunity for people after the meal to come to the mic and say, how's God blessed you?
00:23:05
Speaker
And I hope you'll say, let me say, I just want to say how God has blessed me, be thinking about his goodness to you. But they're not thinking about God's goodness to them. He said, you've forgotten the law of your God. And I also will forget your children.
00:23:21
Speaker
You see, that's what we sometimes forget is the significance of biblical information, the significance of it. If we're indifferent toward it, if we're rejecting it, if we're saying, I don't want to open my Bible, I don't have time for that, then the significance is those that are watching us every single week, they're saying, I don't ever see mom open the Bible. I don't ever see dad open the Bible.
00:23:46
Speaker
It's critical to fill our homes with biblical truths, biblical promises, biblical admonitions. Remember what he says in Deuteronomy 6, 4 through 9? He said this to these people years ago when Moses was alive. But Moses said to them, you shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up.
00:24:17
Speaker
It's so important that we let our children see us thirsty to know what God has to say. You see, verses seven and eight, nine, 10 and 11, they bring us to a fourth thing, and that is an increase without contentment.
00:24:36
Speaker
You realize how God has blessed each one of us in this room? He's blessed us so much, yet sometimes we're not content with it. Do you know that someone did a survey in all around the world, 13 different regions of the world, and they asked one question, just one question. And the one question was this, how would you answer it? How much does it take to be happy? How much does it take to be happy?
00:25:02
Speaker
13 different regions around the world. Finally, when they tallied all those responses to that one question, they said, this is what the world says it takes to be really happy. You ready? $161,810. If I had that, I could be happy.
00:25:25
Speaker
Maybe you're saying, if somebody wants to give that to me, I'd be happy, you know? But here's the thing. Really? I don't think it's what we have in our lives. I think it's who we have in our lives. Philippians 4 verses 11 and 12 and 13 tell us that the secret to contentment is in the Lord. It doesn't matter if you have a little or you have a lot.
00:25:48
Speaker
to say, Lord, I'm content because I have Christ. I'm content because I have salvation. You see, Hosea was preaching to a prosperous country. The Northern Kingdom of Israel at that time was very prosperous. But what they didn't realize was in 12 more years,
00:26:06
Speaker
They're gonna lose it all. It'll all be gone. What would happen if everything that we have, everything that we have is suddenly gone in just a matter of years? What would happen? Would you still say, I have joy. I have contentment. I can still be happy.
00:26:23
Speaker
If you follow the, it's almost like a staircase that's going down. It's digressing. You'll see in verse seven, for instance, where it says, the more they increased, the more they sinned against me. So disobedience was there on the first step, but then it goes down. And he said, I changed their glory into shame. They feed on the sin of my people. They're greedy for their iniquity.
00:26:52
Speaker
And so shame comes next. So dishonor. So disobedience leads to dishonor. Dishonor in verse nine leads to discipline. And it shall be like people like priests. I will punish them.
00:27:08
Speaker
Does God punish? He says, I'll punish them. He said, I will punish them for their ways and repay them for their deeds. And so the disobedience led to dishonor and the dishonor led to dishonesty and the dishonesty led to God's discipline. And whenever you're going through God's discipline, you know what? Dissatisfaction.
00:27:31
Speaker
You cannot be out of God's will and be so happy. It won't work. It'll work for a while.
00:27:40
Speaker
But in the night, in the night when all of the gadgets are quiet, in the night when everything else stops, you'll begin to realize, you know what? I'm not walking in God's plan for my life. I'm out of God's will. And that's what this whole nation had happened to them. And so it's no wonder that they disappeared as a nation. The Assyrians came and they took over in 722 BC.
00:28:07
Speaker
Their homeland insecurity led to homeland reality. And they realized, oh my goodness, these people are in my land now. These people have defeated our soldiers and now we're being shipped off to Assyria. That's exactly what happened to Israel. And so I'm thinking, wow.
00:28:31
Speaker
You know, after the death of Joshua, remember Moses and Joshua? Joshua led them into the Promised Land. So it was amazing. It was victorious. It was wonderful how much they had in the Promised Land.
00:28:44
Speaker
But I encourage you sometime to review Judges chapter 2, because it's what can happen to a prosperous land, what can happen to a victorious people, to a successful people whenever they forget. Here's what Judges chapter 2 verse 10 says,
00:29:01
Speaker
And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers. You see, Joshua passed away and all those who came out of Egypt that were there when they took over the Promised Land, all of them passed away. And so now listen to what it says. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel.
00:29:29
Speaker
It kind of reminds me once again of the influence upon the children. I see that in verses 12 and 13 and 14 and 15.
00:29:40
Speaker
Have you ever heard that with children, really more is caught than talked? I mean, we can say things to our kids, but if our lives don't back up what we're saying, they're listening more to your life than what they hear from your lips. And so I'm looking at this and I'm thinking, you know what? The undercurrent of verses 12 and 13, 14 and 15 in this passage, it's all about the next
Passing on Spiritual Knowledge
00:30:07
Speaker
generation. It's all about the people.
00:30:09
Speaker
The priest had not done their part, and the parents had not done their part, and so now the children had followed in the footsteps of infidelity, unfaithfulness to God. Where will we be in 20 more years? Will we have strong churches? Will we have vibrant Christians? Will we have committed disciples, the Lord Jesus Christ, who are making other disciples? We should be thinking about that, because we're influencing our children right now.
00:30:39
Speaker
When I look at these verses, I think, oh no, their infidelity was influencing the children toward emptiness. Look at what he says in verse 12. Isn't it sad? Can you picture this? My people inquire of a piece of wood. That would be like me saying a prayer to this pulpit and saying, oh, piece of wood, I really got some important decisions to make. It sounds laughable, doesn't it? Until you go to Japan.
00:31:07
Speaker
And you see the people in Japan praying to a tree, praying to a rock, praying to a river. So all I'm saying is, could it ever happen in this country? That just like Israel, we've had such a great heritage. We've been taught so much, but could it ever be?
00:31:27
Speaker
that we would have people praying to a tree or to a piece of wood. He said, look at what they're doing. They're asking their walking staff, can you tell me what to do? I need the oracles. Instead of the word of God now, they're going to a walking stick. Can you imagine how empty that would be? It's not going to answer, of course. And then no wonder, he says in verse 12, the infidelity is also leading the children in the direction not only of emptiness, but also error.
00:31:56
Speaker
Listen to what he says in the next part of verse 12. For a spirit of hordom, this is the unfaithfulness to God. The unfaithfulness to the Lord has led them astray. Who's them? It's that next generation. Led them astray. So infidelity influences children toward emptiness and toward error, but it also can introduce them toward brief enjoyment. It's just brief.
00:32:27
Speaker
But he says in verse 13, they sacrifice on the tops of the mountains and burn offerings on the hills under oak, popular in Terabeth. Why? Because their shade is good. Hey, if you go up there and offer a sacrifice to an idol, then at least you could be among the groves and the shady up there. And it's nice. Pretty soon you got to come out in the sunshine. It's hot. It's miserable.
00:32:57
Speaker
So then no wonder in verse 14, it leads to extinction. It leads to extinction when it says they're gonna be facing ruin and a people without understanding shall come to ruin, to ruin. It means they're not there anymore.
00:33:15
Speaker
No wonder the Northern Kingdom was becoming spiritually darker and darker. Guess what? For the Northern Kingdom, Hosea is trying to tell them as loud as he can. He's trying to tell them, the sun's going down. The sun is going down on this nation. You need to turn around and repent. But you know what? They didn't repent. They did not repent. And so the Assyrians came and they displaced all of those people. They defeated them and displaced them. Wow.
00:33:44
Speaker
That's where I wanted to end, verses 16 through 19. I mean, that's the end, right? The income from the compromises. Now, he wasn't referring to Israel when Thomas Jefferson wrote these words, but here's what he said, I tremble for my country when I realize that God is just.
00:34:10
Speaker
that God is just. We like for God to be gracious, we like for God to be merciful, we like for God to be loving, but we forget that God is also righteous and holy and just.
00:34:23
Speaker
And this is all of who God is. And so whenever I read these last verses, I think of the income. You see, the Bible says quite clearly in the New Testament, maybe it's, ah, it's Old Testament. Yeah, well, let's talk New Testament. In the New Testament in Galatians 6, 7, it says, don't be deceived. God's not mocked. If you sow to the flesh from the flesh, you will reap corruption. You're going down.
00:34:50
Speaker
And so we reap what we sow. You know who did that? That's God. He made it a moral universe. And there are consequences that begin to happen. But also I think about Romans 6 23 from the New Testament for the wages. It's like income, right?
00:35:09
Speaker
The income from compromise and sin and disobedience and so forth. The income, he said, of sin is death. You'll get paid off someday. Someday we get paid off if we don't turn to Christ. When I look at verse 16, I think to myself, there's stubbornness toward God.
Warnings of Spiritual Neglect
00:35:30
Speaker
Have you ever seen anybody like this? Like a stubborn heifer, Israel is stubborn.
00:35:37
Speaker
But then notice what happens next in verse 17. This is the scariest verse maybe in the Bible. What do you think the scariest verse in the Bible is? How about this one? If room is joined to idols, leave him alone. Wow.
00:35:53
Speaker
Wait a minute, no God, don't leave me alone. Don't leave me alone, God. You know, the withdrawal of God from a country, the withdrawal of God from a nation, that's the scariest thing, the withdrawal of God from a family or a people.
00:36:08
Speaker
That's scary stuff right there. Because all that's left is shame without God. Verses 18 and 19. He keeps on bringing that shame up over and over again. When their drink is gone, they give themselves to whoring. Their rulers dearly love shame. But notice what happens in verse 19. A wind has wrapped them in its wings. A wind's gonna blow them away and they'll be gone. Wow, don't let that happen to you.
00:36:38
Speaker
You see, the good news of the gospel is very simple.
Redemption Through Christ
00:36:43
Speaker
God loves us so much that he came down to this earth to pay the debt that we owe for sin. You see, that is the debt that I owe for my sins. But you know what happened? When I was 18 years of age and I was at the University of Memphis in Memphis, Tennessee, I turned from my sin. And I said, God, I'm so sorry for living in rebellion.
00:37:07
Speaker
I believe that Jesus died for me. And it was my first time in church. And I want you to know I laid it all down. I surrendered to the Lord right there. And I said, thank you, God, that you paid the debt. And so I became a youth minister, just like Josh. Well, not exactly like Josh. I still have hair, but I'm just saying. I'm kidding. Oh, that's low. That's low.
00:37:36
Speaker
We'll talk about tomorrow. But when I was a youth minister, I used to sing a song with the youth and I closed for debts. The chorus went like this. He paid a debt.
00:37:49
Speaker
He did not owe. I owed a debt I could not pay. I needed someone to wash my sins away. And now I sing a brand new song, Amazing Grace, all day long. Christ Jesus paid the debt that I could never pay.
00:38:12
Speaker
See, we've got something we can share with our nation. We've got something that's even greater than Hosea's people would have been able to hear. I mean, it's wonderful that he was telling them about mercy and so forth, but just think, we've got the gospel. We've got something that will take away the consequences of our sin, take away the judgment and the condemnation that is found because of our sin. It's all been placed upon Christ.
00:38:38
Speaker
And so I think, well, no wonder Romans 5.8 comes to my mind every time I open the book of Hosea. But God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
00:38:53
Speaker
Man, that's so, it's so rich. Do you know Christ? Do you know God personally? That's why Jesus came. All of your sins, all of my sins, all of our sins were placed on Christ. He died in our place, right? But then this is amazing. All of his righteousness was then placed on us. That's incredible to imagine spiritually how that happens.
00:39:19
Speaker
So what I'm inviting you to do during this time of invitation is to surrender to Christ, just like I did when I was 18. I want us to stand together. We're gonna have a prayer. Our musicians can come and get ready, but I want to offer this prayer to God and just say, Lord, there could be someone here today, and they don't know you, but they can know you.
00:39:41
Speaker
They're still carrying around their sins, but their sins could be completely wiped away. They can be forgiven. They owe a debt, but their debt has already been paid. They just don't know it. And so help them, oh Lord, to come to know you. Let's pray together for that. Lord, it could be that today someone is here in this place and we're so glad they're here. I hope they'll come back over and over again. We love our guests.
00:40:08
Speaker
But Lord, maybe they're just learning and they're just coming to know and realize that there is a God in heaven who loved them so much. He saw them struggling. He saw all of us struggling underneath our sin. And he said, I'm going to do something about it.
00:40:25
Speaker
And He sent His Son, Jesus, while we were still sinners. Just like Hosea was demonstrating God's love while they were still sinners, same way, Lord, You have been demonstrating Your great love. That's what Christmas is going to be all about, that You sent Your Son. Lord, when you go to Easter and we talk about the resurrection and the cross, that's what it's all about.
00:40:48
Speaker
You took our place. All of the judgment, all of the sin, all of that was placed on Jesus. And you in turn give us forgiveness. You give us the righteousness of Christ. You give us eternal salvation. You invite us into your family, into heaven.
00:41:05
Speaker
It's so wonderful, Lord. That's why we want to give this opportunity each time for anybody that's here, Lord, that doesn't know you personally. So Holy Spirit, you just convict them of sin, righteousness, and judgment, but also convince them, convince them of the sufficiency of the Atonement of Christ. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
00:41:31
Speaker
This is a ministry of First Baptist Church, located at 1700 Milam Street, Columbus, Texas.