We come today in the book of Hosea to the next to the last of Hosea's oracles, which begins in chapter 11 verse 12 and goes all the way through chapter 13. And last week, as we looked at the oracle in Hosea that we did, was an oracle of judgment, one that showed the holiness of God and the seriousness of our sin. As we read this oracle, It can be somewhat confusing unless you understand that the Prophet here takes two strands and he weaves them together. And at one point one strand comes to the surface, at another point the other strand comes to the surface. And unless you understand that, it will be puzzling what in the world Hosea is speaking of or what's going on. This is the word of God, the next to the last of Hosea's oracles, beginning in Hosea chapter 11 and verse 12. Ephraim has surrounded me with lies, the house of Israel with deceit, and Judah is unruly against God, even against the faithful holy one. Ephraim feeds on the wind. He pursues the east wind all day and multiplies lies and violence. He makes a treaty with Assyria and sends olive oil to Egypt. The Lord has a charge to bring against Judah. He will punish Jacob according to his ways and repay him according to his deeds. In the womb, he grasped his brother's heel. As a man, he struggled with God. He struggled with the angel and overcame him. He wept and begged for his favor. He found him at Bethel and talked with him there. The Lord God Almighty, the Lord is his name of renown. But you must return to your God, maintain love and justice, and wait for your God always. The merchant uses dishonest scales. He loves to defraud. Ephraim boasts, I am very rich. I have become wealthy. With all my wealth, they will not find in me any iniquity or sin. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt. I will make you live in tents again as in the days of your appointed feasts. I spoke to the prophets, gave them many visions, and told parables through them. Is Gilead wicked? Its people are worthless. Do they sacrifice bulls in Gilgal? Their altars will be like piles of stones on a plowed field. Jacob fled to the country of Aram. Israel served to get a wife, and to pay for her he tended sheep. The Lord used a prophet to bring Israel up from Egypt. By a prophet he cared for them. But Ephraim has bitterly provoked him to anger. His Lord will leave upon him the guilt of his bloodshed and will repay him for his contempt. When Ephraim spoke, men trembled. He was exalted in Israel. But he became guilty of Baal worship and died. Now they sin more and more. They make idols for themselves from their silver, cleverly fashioned images, all of them the work of craftsmen. It is said of these people, they offer human sacrifices and kiss the calf idols. Therefore, they will be like the morning mist, like the early dew that disappears, like chaff swirling from a threshing floor, like smoke escaping through a window. but I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt. You shall acknowledge no God but me, no Savior except me. I cared for you in the desert, in the land of burning heat. When I fed them, they were satisfied. And when they were satisfied, they became proud. Then they forgot me. So I will come upon them like a lion, like a leopard I will lurk by the path, like a bear robbed of her cubs I will attack them and rip them open, like a lion I will devour them, a wild animal will tear them apart. You are destroyed, O Israel, because you are against me, against your helper. Where is your king that he may save you? Where are your rulers in all your towns, of whom you said, give me a king and princes? So in my anger I gave you a king, and in my wrath I took him away. The guilt of Ephraim is stored up. His sins are kept on record. Pains as of a woman in childbirth come to him, but he is a child without wisdom. When the time arrives, he does not come to the opening of the womb. I will ransom them from the power of the grave. I will redeem them from death. Where, O death, are your plagues? Where, O grave, is your destruction? I will have no compassion, even though he thrives among his brothers. An east wind from the Lord will come, blowing in from the desert. His spring will fail, his well dry up. His storehouse will be plundered of all its treasures. The people of Samaria must bear their guilt, because they have rebelled against their God. They will fall by the sword. Their little ones will be dashed to the ground, their pregnant women ripped open. Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God." And let us return to him in prayer. Lord, by your word and your spirit today we pray, give us hope through Christ our Lord, and count not, O Lord, our sins against us, but deliver us from them and give us repentance. And remember, O Lord, your covenant for the sake of him who sealed it. In his name we pray. Amen. I don't remember the young man's name, I only knew him for one semester. I don't even recall what country in Africa he had come from. I just remember that huge, gleaming white smile. And I remember the joy that he had, the childlike exuberance that he had in serving the Lord, studying for the ministry. And I never saw that man without a smile on his face save one time when there were a group of students that were standing around talking and somehow his past had come up in Africa and his lips pursed tightly together and his brow furled and his eyes were downcast and he said, I was a very wicked, wicked man. And then that great smile returned to his face, and he said, but the Lord has saved me. The Lord has delivered me. Praise God, Jesus has saved me. We were surprised, not really alarmed, when we heard he'd been admitted to the hospital. Doesn't happen all the time, but it happens sometimes in any population. And we thought that we might go to see him, but it was a busy time of the semester. Thought we'll talk to him, encourage him when he gets out, or maybe if it's prolonged next week we'll go to see him. And then the news came. He was dead. He was dead. Shocking. He looked so healthy just the week before. And in the hushed pall that fell over the campus, those who knew him well, and people would say, what happened? What in the world happened? I'd say, circumspectly, it was the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. He died of AIDS. and the wickedness of the life that he had lived caught up with him. And he had repented of his sin and placed his faith in Christ, but it did not deliver him from the temporal consequences of his sin. Friends, sin has consequences. And every one of you who sits in this room today bears in some measure the consequences, the temporal judgments against your sin. Sin has consequences. And they're not just natural consequences. I'd like to believe that they are. would make God more tame and me more comfortable if I could just convince myself that my friend, you know, that wasn't God's judgment. It was the laws of chemistry and virology. But to think that would be a blasphemy against God for the scriptures tell me that God is sovereign over all events. Sin has consequences, and God is a righteous judge who expresses his wrath every day. You need to understand that to understand that Israel's temporal judgment will come. There's no course of action they can take now that will turn it back or avert it or forestall it. In 722, they will be destroyed by the Assyrians. it will be the consequence of their sin. And yet in all of this darkness, there is a glimmer of hope. And the glimmer of hope is this, God remembers his covenant. And because he does, the destiny of the nation need not portend their eternal destiny if they will humble themselves under the mighty hand of God and his judgment and renew their repentance and seek the Lord. In Exodus chapter 2, before God called Moses to bring the people out from their bondage in Egypt, after they had been there for 400 years, we read these words. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. And God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them. And friends, the perfection of hope is found in this, that God remembers his covenant. God remembers his covenant. But that fact does not mean that they will be able to avert the natural consequences, the temporal consequences of their sin. And so God brings an indictment against the whole nation. Ephraim has surrounded me with lies, the house of Israel with deceit, and Judah is unruly against God, even against the faithful holy one. Ephraim feeds on the wind, he pursues the east wind all day, and multiplies lies and violence. He makes a treaty with Assyria. He sends olive oil to Egypt. The Lord has a charge to bring against Judah. He will punish Jacob according to his ways and repay him according to his deeds. I had someone ask me not too long ago as we were reading Hosea, they were not sure who Ephraim was as distinguished from Judah or from Israel. And in the prophets, and particularly in the prophet Hosea here, Israel and Jacob and Samaria and Ephraim are all references to the northern tribe of Israel. And Judah is most often just referred to as Judah. And God brings an indictment against the whole nation, both against the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. And His mention against Judah is just a passing mention. He'll deal with the sin of Israel first. And as the later prophets would indicate, Judah felt quite justified and secure in that. You know, I suppose it's so that we can comfort ourselves and say, boy, compared to everyone else, my sins are not so bad. And so therefore, God will surely forget my sins. God will surely overlook my sins. The day of reckoning for Judah was coming. but God would deal with Israel first. And what was the indictment that was brought against them? Well, he says that Ephraim feeds on the wind and pursues the east wind. He's speaking there metaphorically of Assyria. He multiplies lies and violence. He makes a treaty with Assyria and sends olive oil to Egypt. And so God will punish Jacob according to his ways and repay him according to his deeds. If you remember back in chapter 9 and verse 7, we read as one of the charges against Israel was this, that the prophet is considered a fool and the man of the spirit a maniac, a lunatic. And I want you to understand why exactly that is and to understand the political situation. You see, Assyria had been growing strong and had been a threat to Israel for quite some time now. And in fact, they began to move westward and began to move southward. And they had gotten as far as Aram, just up above Israel, and had leveled, destroyed that kingdom, and marched its people off. Some internal strife, internal political strife, brought the armies of Assyria back to Assyria. And in that time, under Jeroboam II, Israel seized the moment. They took back some of the territory that the Arameans and other of their enemies had taken from them. And Jeroboam saw to it that trade routes were open. And the country prospered. It became very rich. And there was a great resurgence of military power. Cities were fortified again. But now the Assyrians were on the move again. And the Israelites had an idea as to how to keep themselves from being utterly swallowed by Assyria. You see, as Assyria looked at Israel, it saw two things that it wanted. Well, one thing that it wanted and one thing that it wanted to avoid. What it wanted was it wanted the wealth that Israel was generating by being the lords of those trade routes. And then, because of her growing military power, Assyria saw in Israel perhaps a minor threat, but a major nuisance, and didn't want it to exist anymore. And what was Israel to do? Well, the kings had a great idea. Their political advisors would concur, and I'm sure that today, if you were to ask political advisors, they'd say, what a brilliant strategy. What you need to do is you need to send envoys to Assyria and say, if you will not overrun us and swallow us, we will become your vassals. And we'll remain a sovereign nation, but we'll pay tribute to you. We'll give tribute to your gods. And in order to strengthen their hand, they went to Egypt. Egypt, which was no longer the dominant military power, but still was a military power, they would go to Egypt and they would say, and we have a pact with Egypt, by the way, so if you attack us, you get them too. Isn't that a good idea? From a political perspective, isn't that a smart thing to do? And the prophets came and they said, the Lord has said you're never to go back to Egypt again. And as far as making a treaty with the Assyrians, to do that means that you must pay fealty to their gods. And so here's what you're to do. You're to have no dealings with Egypt and you're to draw a line in the sand for Assyria and say the Lord our God will fight for us. And the political advisors said, the prophet is a fool. And the man of the spirit, a lunatic. Can he see the political realities? We'll be destroyed if we do that. But because they didn't do what the prophet said, they would be destroyed white from the face of the earth. But there's a glimmer of hope. God remembers his covenant. And it might have seemed peculiar that right in the middle of what God's saying here, he says, in the womb, he grasped his brother's heel. As a man, he struggled with God. He struggled with the angel and overcame him. He wept and begged for his favor, and God found him at Bethel and talked with him there. The Lord God Almighty, the Lord is his name of renown, but you must return to your God, maintain love and justice, and wait for your God always. What is going on there? What's happening is that God is remembering his covenant with Jacob. And he speaks here now not of Jacob the nation, but Jacob the man from whom the nation comes. Jacob, who, as he came forth from his mother's womb, was a conniving, lying, deceiving little brat who lived his life in self-interest and self-seeking, and because he did, deceiving his father and deceiving his brother he put his own life in peril and so he fled fled to his uncle Laban and there he found his match and a man who was as deceitful as he was and more so and through that hardship Jacob learned to no longer be one who strove with man striving with man always looking to gain the upper hand and getting out of it what he could But he learned to be one who strove with God. And you know, the account, the story is a fascinating one of Jacob wrestling with the angel of the Lord and holding on to him. Do you understand the significance of it? Of holding on to him and saying, bless me, bless me. I will not let you go until you bless me. It's an admission. I cannot bless myself. That's how I live my life, thinking that I could bless myself. I can't do it. I won't let go until you bless me. God remembers his covenant with Jacob, and yet that does not mean that temple judgment will not come. God brings a second indictment against individuals. The merchant uses dishonest scales. He loves to defraud. Ephraim boasts, I am very rich, I have become wealthy. With all my wealth they will not find in me any iniquity or sin. And you know, the merchants would have been rich anyway. The trade routes had been open. They would have been rich, but they couldn't trust God to do it honestly. No, we'll rig the scales, and I'll just take a little bit from him. He won't notice, and a little bit from him, and a little bit from him, and a little bit from him, but it will add up to a great amount for me. And they thought they were storing up for themselves wealth, when in fact what they were storing up for themselves was wrath against the day of wrath. But they thought it was worth it. Crime paid. Crime paid. And they didn't reckon with the question of what will it profit a man if he gains the world but loses his soul. But you know, they thought they had the blessing of God. And you say, how could they possibly think that? It was epidemic in Jesus' day. It happens, I think, sometimes in ours as well, a reason like this. God blesses the righteous and those with whom he is pleased. And look at the multitude of blessings and wealth that we have. God must be pleased with us. I am very rich and I have become wealthy, and with all my wealth they will not find in me any iniquity or sin." Do you think the church is immune from that? The risen Lord to the Apostle John in Revelation chapter 3 said this, To the angel of the church in Laodicea write, these are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God's creation. I know your deeds, that you are neither hot nor cold. I wish that you were either one or the other, so because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I'm about to spew you out of my mouth. You say, I am rich, I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing. But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire so that you can become rich, and white clothes to wear so you can cover your shameful nakedness, and salve to put on your eyes so that you can see." And there was an indictment that judgment would come because of these individuals, and yet God remembers His covenant. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt. I will make you live in tents again as in the days of your appointed feasts, I spoke to the prophets, gave them many visions, and told parables through them. Those of you who know that what we traditionally call the Ten Commandments are called in the scriptures the Ten Words will recognize this as the first word. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt. Why did God do that? Because he remembered his covenant. He didn't say, I am the Lord your God, and if you will not make idols, if you'll not commit adultery, if you'll not murder, if you'll not do all of these things, then I will redeem you. He says, I am the Lord who has redeemed you. I've not redeemed you because you've done these things. I've redeemed you so that you may do these things. God remembers his covenant, but that does not mean that they can avert the temporal judgments of their sins. And so God brings an indictment against specific places. Is Gilead wicked? Its people are worthless. Do they sacrifice bulls in Gilgal? Their altars will be like piles of stones on a plowed field. Gilead and Gilgal in the north would be among the first to fall twelve years before Samaria would. Is Gilead wicked? It had become a notorious place of bloodshed and idolatrous worship. Its people are worthless. And do they sacrifice bulls in Gilgal? Their altars will be like piles of stones on a plowed field. Oh, in Gilgal they had altars to the Lord, but their sacrifice was false sacrifice. It's interesting that in 1 Samuel 10, it's in Gilgal that King Saul is in Gilgal when he makes offering to the Lord contrary to the directive of the prophet Samuel. And the people continue to do the same. God says that their altars there will be like piles of stone on a plowed field. Now, I don't know much about modern farming techniques or what they do with stones that they find in the field there. But let me tell you that in the ancient world, when people plowed, if they hit a stone, they would take that stone. They couldn't put it in the back of a truck, so it would just be put in the field somewhere. And as they were going along, they would plow, they might hit another stone, and another stone, and those stones would be piled up. And they would become a monument, a testament to the difficulty, to the hardship. The plows were wood, and they were costly. Wood was not prevalent in the ancient Near East, or even, I suppose, in the modern Near East. And every one of those stones, as they were piled up, were testament to a broken plow, to lost time, to lost productivity, to the treachery of the ground. God says that's what their altars are like, their frustration, a testament to treachery, something that provokes my wrath. And yet, God remembers his covenant. Jacob fled to the country of Aram. Israel served to get a wife and to pay for her attended sheep. And the Lord used a prophet to bring them up from Egypt by a prophet. He cared for them. God remembers his covenant. And yet that does not mean that they will escape the judgment, the temporal judgment that's to come. And so he makes indictment, a fourth indictment against the specific tribe. But Ephraim has bitterly provoked him to anger. His Lord will leave upon him the guilt of his bloodshed and will repay him for his contempt. And the people of Ephraim, I'm sure, thought they were safe. After all, Ephraim was where Samaria was located. They had an abundance of fortified cities. And to get to Ephraim, Assyria would have to go through Dan, and then Asher, and then Issachar, and then finally through Manasseh before coming to Ephraim. And by that time, surely they would be stopped, they would be halted, they would be repelled, they would be turned back, or they would at least be battle-weary. They'll never get to us. But in 722, they would be destroyed. And yet, God remembers his covenant. When Ephraim spoke, he says, men trembled. He was exalted in Israel. Do you recall that in Genesis chapter 48, Jacob blessed Ephraim ahead of Manasseh? And in Judges chapter 8, Ephraim is the tribe of renown and of zeal for the Lord. God remembers his covenant, and yet it will not avert the temporal judgment that will come upon their sins. But he became guilty of Baal worship and died, and now they sin more and more. They make idols for themselves from their silver, cleverly fashioned images, all of them the work of a craftsman. It is said of these people, they offer human sacrifices and kiss the calf idol. If you read the book of 1 John, it ends with the words, after speaking about many things, little children, guard yourselves from idols. John said nothing about idols up to that point. Friends, do you understand that it's not just a kind of a happenstance that the first directive that God gives his people is that you shall have no other gods before me. Idolatry is the mother of all sins. Whether it be Sabbath breaking, or adultery, or murder, or theft, or lying, idolatry is the mother of all those sins. It's saying that there's something else that I want more than I want the Lord and His approbation. And so the prophet says, therefore, they will be like the morning mist, like the early dew that disappears, like the chaff that swirls on the threshing floor, like smoke escaping through the window. Do you see the image? It's something that disappears, never to be seen again. And friends, this is no idle thread. It's not in the by and by. It will come about in 722 BC. And in fact, in second Kings chapter 17, We read that when the day finally came and they were destroyed and all of those things came upon them. That all this took place because the Israelites had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them out of Egypt from under the power of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. They worshipped other gods and followed the practices of the nations that God had driven out. And the Israelites secretly did things against the Lord their God that were not right. And it goes on to specify those things. Saying that they had sacrificed their children in the fire and had followed worthless idols and became worthless themselves And so we read that God was very angry with Israel and he removed them from his presence and Yet God remembers his covenant and but I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt. You shall acknowledge no God but me, no Savior except me. I cared for you in the desert and in the land of burning heat, and when I fed them, they were satisfied. God remembers his covenant, but that does not mean that temporal judgments will be averted. And so God brings a sixth indictment against their pride and their arrogance. That when they became satisfied, they became proud, and then they forgot me. And you know, when God sends blessing, the response to that should be great thankfulness. But so often it's not, so often the response is, look at all of the stuff I've accumulated. The wealth I have, the power that I have amassed, I have no need of God anymore. And so the Lord says, I will come upon them like a lion. Like a leopard, I will lurk by the path. Like a bear robbed of her cubs, I will attack them and rip them open. Like a lion, I will devour them as a wild animal. will tear them apart. You are destroyed, O Israel, because you are against me, against your helper." And then he asked, where is your king that he may save you? Where are your rulers in all your towns of whom you said, give me a king and princes? So in my anger I gave you a king, and in my wrath I took him away. And even in that there's a remembrance of God's covenant. You know, friends, it was always God's plan to give Israel a king. All the way back in Deuteronomy 17, He speaks of the king that He's going to give them. The problem wasn't the king. The problem was the motivation of the hearts of the people to ask for them. You can read about it in 1 Samuel chapter 8. And they say, give us a king like the nations around. In other words, we're no longer satisfied to be the holy nation, the different nation. We want to be like the nations around. We're in the big leagues now. And it says that we want a king who will be able to go out and fight our battles for us. And that perhaps sounds innocent and innocuous enough to us, but Israel's not saying we're gonna send out the king to single combat. He's saying the king will lead the way, but the king will fight and win our battles for us. Before that time, whenever Israel engaged in battle, it always says, and the Lord fought for them. And the Lord won their battles. And what they're saying is this, you know, back in the old days when we didn't have anything, of course, then this, you know, trusting in Yahweh nonsense, that was okay. But look at all the wealth and power that we've accumulated now. And we need a king, someone tangible in whom we can put our trust. And where's your king that he may save you? Well, the king was mentioned Back in chapter 10, when it spoke of the, in verse 7, when it said that Samaria and its king will float away like a twig on the surface of the waters, the mighty king will be washed away by the tsunami of the Assyrian onslaught. God remembers his covenant, but that does not mean that temporal judgments will be averted. God says the guilt of the Ephraim is stored up. His sins are kept on record pains as of a woman in childbirth come to him. But he is a child without wisdom. And when the time arrives, he does not come to the opening of the womb. See all that they had suffered thus far, the pains that were beginning to come upon them should have driven them to repentance. It didn't. And the image that the prophet paints is of a people that will not bring forth a repentance like a child and its mother dying together in childbirth. And so this is the seventh indictment that God brings against them. But God remembers his covenant. And he says, I will ransom them from the power of the grave I will redeem them from death. Where, O death, are your plagues? Where, O grave, is your destruction?" And I ask you to take note of something here. It's the change in the tense of the verb. Up until now, God has been saying what he has done, that he's remembered his covenant, the things that he's done in the past, but now he says something in the future. He says, I will ransom them. from the power of the grave, I will redeem them from death. God remembers his covenant. And you've noticed, have you not, that there's seven indictments here in the scriptures? The seven is a number that indicates a fullness or a completeness, a perfection. This is a perfect indictment. But I want you to note too that there's a perfection of hope. God remembers his covenant. in every instance here in which he pronounces judgment, and yet the temporal judgments will not be averted. I will have no compassion Even though he thrives among his brothers, an east wind from the Lord will come blowing in from the desert. His spring will fail. His well dry up. His storehouse will be plundered of all its treasures. The people of Samaria must bear their guilt because they've rebelled against their God. They will fall by the sword, their little ones will be dashed to the ground, their pregnant women ripped open. Friends, I wish I could say this was a gross exaggeration, but the historical record of what happened in the ancient world would say otherwise. They will not avert the temporal judgments. This is what the day will look like. Sin has consequences, and sometimes those consequences cannot be averted. But this is not the last word for them. And the last oracle begins with these words, return, O Israel, to the Lord your God. Return to the Lord your God. The perfection of hope is found in this, God remembers His covenant. The hope of our perfection is found in this, return to the Lord your God. Now that will not happen for them in the land of Israel. If it happens, it will happen now in the land of Assyria. The temporal judgment of God will not be averted. Sin has consequences. But the eternal judgment of God may. There's hope. Every one of you who's sitting here today bears some scars because of the temporal judgments of your sin. Maybe emotional scars, maybe physical scars, but you bear the scars of the temporal judgments of your sin. And some of you bear what others might say are small scars. You may not think so. Some of you bear great scars, bear great scars because of the temporal judgments of your sin. And what do those mean? I said I wanted to speak to all of you, but I want to speak especially to those of you who bear great scars for the temporal judgments of your sin. The temporal judgments for your sin that you bear, the scars from them, are not the end of the story. God remembers his covenant. And that fact does not mean that temporal judgments will not come In fact, it may be, and I've known over the years people who thought that they had escaped the temporal judgments of God, had walked with the Lord for a long time, only years later to have those temporal judgments catch up with them. But God remembers His covenant, and He sealed that covenant in the blood of His Son. And that fellow that I knew back in my student days, could not escape the temporal judgments of the lifestyle that he lived, and the ravaging of his body of AIDS. But I believe that he escaped the wrath of God. And so may Israel, and so may you, return to the Lord return and see that in his justice, God remembers mercy. Pray with me. Lord, you are a holy God because of the access that you've given to us of yourself in Christ. We forget that sometimes. You are a holy God. And our sins have consequences. And some of us, Lord, have borne the consequences of those sins, have suffered for them. Help us, Lord, in those things that we do suffer to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God. But Father, grant to us as well hearts that would not flee from you, but would cling to you, would lay hold of you, would seek your mercy and grace, and find, O Lord, that those scourgings are not instances of wrath, but instances of discipline. O Lord, in your wrath, remember mercy. Remember your covenant. And our God, give us hearts to return to you. Through Christ our Lord, we pray. Amen.