Open your Bibles this morning to Hosea chapter 13, and we will continue our study today, Lord willing, and this wonderful book, challenging book, we'll seek to understand walking our way through and then applying it. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for your word. We pray that you will open our eyes and our hearts to receive your word. Give us understanding as this is one of the many challenging passages in Hosea. So we ask for your spirit to give us understanding and to make the application, Lord, to our hearts and our lives as we prepare ourselves for the Lord's table. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Chapter 13, just briefly, I'd like to review the first eight verses, which we entitled Don't Forget God. And we see in verses 1 through 3 that Ephraim descended to death through Baal worship. Israel used to cause trembling when they spoke, but now they're guilty. And they died. And Ephraim increased idolatrous practices. And it faces the futility that comes from judgment, like the morning cloud, the early dew, and like chaff and smoke. And I like this quote from Dr. Hubbard, idolatry carries its own punishment. You worship nothing, you get nothing, you end as nothing. verses 4 through 6 Yahweh the Lord Jehovah reminds Israel who their God is Yahweh declares that he is their God he recalls his care for them in verse 5 I knew you I cared for you in the wilderness in the land of great drought I And he discerns their root problem. They were filled with blessings. Verse 6, when they had pasture, they were filled. They were filled and their heart got exalted. And therefore, they forgot me. The root problem, they forgot God. When we have blessings, we often forget who God is and what he has done. and he takes less than first place in our lives. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, Jesus said, and all these things will be added to you. Sometimes we are misinformed, we are deceived, and we think, I will seek things, positions, important places for myself first, and then I'll consider the Lord. It's all backwards. seek first the kingdom of God they were filled they became exalted and they forgot God what a tragedy their root problem and so in verse 7 Yahweh pronounces a just sentence on Ephraim he describes his judgment with three animals I'll be like a lion like a leopard and like a bear three animals describing God's judgment to them and then three actions, tearing open the heart enclosure, devouring them, ripping open as wild beasts. So the summary of verses one through eight is this, all these actions are figurative, especially the judgment actions of extensive and horrific consequences of forgetting God. And so it's a great warning to Christians It's a great warning to a nation to not forget God and to not put him to a secondary, tertiary, or last place in our lives, but keep him in first place. And now verses nine through 16. Refusing to be born. What an amazing passage. So let's walk our way through as we continue to see what the Lord has done and is doing in the life of Israel. And in the midst of Ephraim's sin and judgment, we will see evidence of hope. So Yahweh further delineates consequences for Ephraim's sins. Verse nine, O Israel, you are destroyed, but your help is from me. Israel opposed Yahweh and so destruction would come. You're destroyed. Ephraim opposed the source of their help. Does it make any sense? Their help is from me. Your help is from me, but you're opposing me. You are facing destruction because You opposed me, but I'm the very source of your help. I'm where you need to turn first. If you ever had a situation in your life, and you immediately start working out solutions, and you think, we'll try this, we'll try that, we'll try the other thing, we'll call so-and-so, we'll call someone else, and finally it dawns on you, I need to pray. I put the Lord last. I'm your source of help. Talk to me. Come to me. So Israel opposed Yahweh, the very one who could be their help. Notice a fascinating passage in 1 Samuel. 1 Samuel chapter 7. And we have in one of our hymns, at least one, maybe more than one, the word that we have is this word. In chapter 7 of 1 Samuel, verse 12, Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shin and called its name Ebenezer. You may have negative connotations of that from Ebenezer Scrooge, but remove it from that. It's a great word. And Samuel took this stone and he set it up and he called it Ebenezer. Eben or Evan is the Hebrew word for stone. And the ezer part or etzer part means help, stone of help. Here I raise my Ebenezer, the song says. and he finishes the verse saying, thus far the Lord has helped us. So here was a monument that the Lord sets up through Samuel and he calls it Ebenezer or Ebenezer, stone of help because God had given them a victory over the enemies. The Lord has helped us. And so Hosea says, You're about to be destroyed, but your help is from me and you're turning from me. I am your Ebenezer. I am your stone of help. May we not turn from our stone of help. We can see it as a society. When we have on our coins, in God we trust, but we can't talk about God in our classrooms. How sad. In verse 10, Israel lacks a king. I will be your king. Where is any other that he may save you in all your cities? Israel lacks a king. I think he is taunted here by this question. Where it says I will, it also could be translated where. Where is your king? So they're facing the loss of leadership and they had had various kings be killed and another king come in its place. And so the Lord is taunting them. Where is your king? Where is any other that he may save you in your cities? He is taunting them with a question. Israel is taunted with this question. Where's your king? Remember, they had demanded a king. We'll see it. Israel lacks judges. He goes on to say, I will be your king, where is any other, that he may save you in all your cities, and your judges, to whom you say, give me a king and princes. I think that he was talking here about an historical event that happened when Israel demanded a king. Let's look at it. Go back to 1 Samuel chapter 13. Hosea understood the history of his people Israel. He understood the scriptures. And notice this. 1 Samuel chapter 13. That's not it. They're demanding the king. It's before this, I believe. 8, thank you. Chapter 8. I'm not hitting on all cylinders this morning. I need Ebenezer. Chapter 8, and notice verse 7. I'm going to go back to verse 6. The thing displeased Samuel when they said, give us a king to judge us. See, Samuel was a judge in the days of the judges. So they go to him, give us a king. So Samuel prayed to the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel, heed the voice of the people and all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me, that I should reign over them. And you know why they wanted a king? So they could be like the nations. Give us a king like the other nations have. And Samuel was grieved. But look what happens. Verse 19, nevertheless, the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel. And they said, no, but we will have a king over us that we also may be like all the nations and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles. There's always a problem when the church wants to be like the world. And here the people of God wanted to be like the pagan nations. God was their king. No, we want a king like the other nations. Verse 21, Samuel heard all the words of the people, and he repeated them in the hearing of the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel, heed their voice and make them a king. Is it really what God wanted? And Samuel said to the men of Israel, every man go to his city. So Hosea here is saying, where's your king? You boasted in having a king. You wanted a king. You said to your judges, give me a king and princes. And notice verse 11. I gave you a king in my anger. You persisted. I gave you what you wanted. Sometimes we need to be, well all the time, we need to be careful what we ask the Lord. Especially if it's against his heart, against his will, and we persist, and we persist, and we twist, and we connive, and we turn it into God's will, and deep in our heart we know it's not. Well they did that. I gave you a king in my anger. It didn't work out so well for them. Yahweh granted a king to Israel and his displeasure, and then he removed a king. They gained and lost a king. I took him away in my wrath. That's what they had been experiencing. Go back just a few chapters in Hosea to chapter 7 and verse 7. And he says here, they are all hot like an oven and have devoured their judges. All their kings have fallen. There was one intrigue after another, one king going down, and the rebel becoming king, and then another coming after him, and he went down. Conspiracy and problem after problem. I gave you a king, and I took away a king. The problem here, Hosea 7.7d, none among them calls upon me. This all represents you got your king, but you weren't calling on me. You weren't depending on me. You weren't trusting me. You got what you asked for, but it wasn't so good, was it? Where's your king? And then Hosea shows us that Israel's judgment is certain in verses 12 and 13. The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up. His sin is stored up. The sorrows of a woman in childbirth shall come upon him. He is an unwise son, for he should not stay long where children are born. Ephraim's judgment is certain. Notice he says the iniquity of Ephraim is bound up. And I believe the idea here, as one translation shows, it's on record. I know about your sin, Ephraim. It's bound up. It's written down. It's recorded. It's on record. It's in a scroll that is sealed, as it were. And then he says his sin is stored up. For what? What is the reason that the sin is stored up? It's awaiting the demonstration of the consequences of it. Let us not mistake the grace of God in his long suffering for God's negligence. Let us not think that God is negligent. And because he's not immediately dealing with the sin problem, that he doesn't care. He's just neglecting it or ignoring it. No, he's not. He knows all about it. Shall not the judge of all the earth do right? And we can take great comfort in that, whether it's some personal harm that we experience from someone's sin, or in a national way, we see sin going on and we think, looks like ungodly people just go loose. They just get away with all kinds of things. No. Sin is stored up. It's a waiting punishment. It's waiting the demonstration of the consequences. And God will deal with all of that in his perfect time. So we commit our way into the Lord, trust also in him, and he will bring it to pass. Verse 13 is a fascinating verse. I believe I have some understanding on it that I'm going to try to present here. But if you study it and disagree, I'm OK with that. It's a challenging verse. It says, the sorrows of a woman in childbirth shall come upon him. Labor pains are going to come. They're going to come unexpectedly. And they're going to be sharp and hard. The sorrows of a woman in childbirth are going to come on you, Ephraim Israel. I believe it's picturing the time where those enemies will come and invade and will do horrific things to them because of their sin that has been stored up going to be like a woman in labor with horrific birth pains. And he says this. He, Ephraim, is an unwise son or child. He's not a smart child. He's speaking of Ephraim as a babe in the womb and saying, that baby is not smart. He's not wise. Why is he not wise? for he should not stay long where children are born. In the Hebrew, it's rather graphic. He should not remain in the womb, in the birth canal. He should not remain there, but he's staying there. He's presenting, but he's refusing to be born. So what are these birth pangs? They're the threats of enemy invasion, and they're ignored by Ephraim, by Israel, by the ten tribes. He's not turning to God. He's like a stubborn baby refusing to be born. What a picture. What a picture in this familial book. Hosea, his whole marriage and family were prophetic. His relationship to Gomer, his wife, the names of his children, all prophetic. And now we have this. He refuses to be born. I remember so well the birth of our first child, our firstborn son. And we dutifully had gone to the Lamaze birthing classes that were offered. And we became experts as brand new parents, quote unquote experts, absolutely not experts, on childbirth. We saw the hospital setting and how things worked there. At least it took away some of the surprise factor. Baby was overdue. My wife was huge. Baby, a couple weeks overdue, and she went into a store, and this man, a stranger, you know, good Georgia man, said, you're about to bust, ain't you? Appointment was set since we were overdue to induce labor early in the morning in the hospital all day long. We're laboring. No baby. I say we're laboring because in Lamaze, you're taught to be the coach, the husband, and to be by the bedside and to help in the breathing and all of that. And at one point, I got a little tired. Ladies, you can hit me later. Got a little tired. But I noticed that my wife, her eyes were closed, so I closed mine. And then her eyes opened, and she looked at me with this deadpan stare and said in a deadpan voice, aren't you interested anymore? I thought it was a little late to not be interested. I was very interested. All day long, into the evening, about 10 o'clock, doctor says, we got to do a C-section. So we went in there, and what a blessing, finally. They brought me in right when they pulled the baby from the womb. But later on, when The baby had been dealt with. I got to hold him. He looked at me. Wow. Amazing. I knew he knew who I was. But then he was given to his mommy. I remember she said, son, why'd you give your mommy such a hard time? And we dearly love our son. This is Ephraim, the child refusing to be born. who won't come forth. And what is it? He's unwise because he won't repent. The birth pangs, the threats of enemy invasion, but it's not stirring him. It's not turning him. He's remaining in the birth canal. He won't be born. He won't come out. He's refusing to be born. What a tragedy. And then we come to a bright light and it's verse 14. And here Yahweh demonstrates amazing grace and hope for Israel. I will ransom them. from the power of the grave. Yahweh promises future deliverance. I will ransom them from the grave, the power of the grave. I will redeem them from death. And it seems to me that what's going on here is God is showing the horrific judgment that's going to come on Israel. But he's looking to a future day and he's seeing even something that will take place before that future day, which is the death of the Savior and the resurrection of the Savior. And he's saying, I will be able to redeem you from the grave. I will be able to restore you from death. I will be able to save the people of Israel. And indeed that's going to come in the future. Believers will be made of Jews when Jesus comes back. and they will look on him whom they pierced. Future deliverance. And it would be in Hosea's day, hope in the midst of all of this negative news and all this enemy invasion talk, here would be great hope. Notice what he says. Verse 14, I will ransom them. I will redeem them. O death, I will be your plagues. The word I will, two words, could also be translated where. O death, where are your plagues? O grave, where your destruction? So Yahweh here is dealing with life's enemies, the plague of death. It's an enemy. It's going to be removed. Rhetorical question. Oh, death, I will be your plagues. I will plague you, death. Oh, death, where is your plague? Because I have removed the plague of death. Oh, grave, your destruction, where is it? Because I've rendered it null and void. These enemies from Hosea's day are enemies in our day. And listen carefully. Death and the grave only have an answer in the God of the Bible who sent his son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for our sins. World religions try to deal with this. Sometimes they require human sacrifice, even, in dealing with this. Religions try to deal with the death question. But biblical Christianity, through Jesus Christ, has the answer. He is the one that has destroyed the plagues, the sting of death in the grave. And the last line here of verse 14, pity is hidden from my eyes. What does that mean? The word pity here can also be translated repentance. And I believe that's the idea here. The Lord Yahweh will not change his mind about Israel, even though they've been rebellious, even though they've gone after idols. He will not repent and turn away ultimately from them. He will still have plans for Israel. As Jeremiah said, I know the plans that I have for you and a future and a hope. I won't even think of changing my plans. It's hidden from my eyes. I won't turn and change my mind about you. And then we have in verses 15 and 16, back to this prophecy of what's going to happen, the consequences of their sin. Yahweh causes enemy invasion against Ephraim. And verse 15 reminds us of verse one in chapter eight. When Ephraim spoke, people trembled. He exalted himself in Israel. Though he is fruitful among his brethren, reminds us also of verse six, when they had pasture, they were filled. They were filled and they were exalted. Though he is fruitful among his brethren, Remember, Ephraim is Joseph's son, and his name has to do with fruitfulness. Though that's the case, an east wind shall come. Even when Ephraim appears fruitful, these winds of destruction. You may have heard in the coverage on the fires in California about the Santa Ana winds. And the powerful winds that made the fire so destructive spread the fire. Well, here's the idea. In biblical times, the east winds from desert lands would come. And they could dry up and ruin crops and the fertility that was there. So the Lord is saying, an east wind shall come. And where was Assyria? To the east. The winds of destruction will blow. The Lord's wind, the east winds, Assyria will blow and the wind from the desert is going to come. So the Lord is prophesying through Hosea what is going to happen because of all the Baal worship and all the evil that was in the land of Israel. It says, the wind of the Lord shall come up from the wilderness, then his spring shall become dry, and his fountain shall be dried up. He, I take this to be the wind or it or the enemy, shall plunder the treasury of every desirable prize. They're gonna take away your treasures. Enemies would invade. And they would take away gold and silver and treasures. And even the gods that were made out of silver and gold, they would take them away. It was a way of conquering that said, our god in our country is bigger than your god in your country. But here, they may have taken away these shrines, these idols of silver, of bale. The wind will come. He's going to go even over your prizes. your treasures. It'll be plundered of valuables. The devastation will be felt. And notice verse 16, Samaria, capital city of Ephraim, of the northern kingdom. Samaria is held responsible. I think Samaria here, for the whole northern tribes, is held guilty, held responsible. The reason is given. It's very clear why. She has rebelled against her God. The reason is rebellion against God. And notice this, her God. She should have known better. She should have known better to rebel against her God. and then horrific consequences are given. Notice these. They shall fall by the sword, the falling by the sword, ancient warfare with a sword, the destroying of infants. Their infants shall be dashed in pieces and their women with child ripped open. Horrific, grotesque attack. On October 7th, 2023, Hamas attacked Jewish people, and even pregnant women were killed. So it's not just ancient world, it's even modern world. Notice 2 Kings chapter 15, these are atrocities of warfare. So this wasn't an uncommon thing. And these three things seem to go together, the sword and killing infants and killing pregnant women. The second Kings 15, 16, then from Tirzah, Menehem attacked Tirzah, all who were there in its territory, because they did not surrender. Therefore, he attacked it. All the women there who were with child, he ripped open. There's no value of human life. A culture is in trouble. So how can we apply this? The thought occurred to me this week, wow, this is communion Sunday. How does this fit with preparing our hearts for the Lord's table? But I believe it does. These applications Hosea teaches this simple and profound lesson. It is not worth it to leave God and follow idols. It's not worth it for an individual, not worth it for a family, not worth it for a city, for a state, for a nation. For a country, it is not worth it to leave the one true God and follow idols, and Hosea bears that out over and over and over. He shows us that God is sovereign, and he alone has the answer to the problem of sin and death. Now, I want you to notice something. Turn to the New Testament, to 1 Corinthians 15, is the resurrection chapter of the Bible I love 1st Corinthians 15 I want you to notice how it begins 1st Corinthians 15 verse 1 moreover brethren I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you which also you received it in which you stand verse 3 For I deliver to you first of all, that which I also received, that Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, then he rose again the third day, according to the scriptures, the gospel, the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. Verses one through four. Now notice the end of 1 Corinthians 15. And Paul says here, verse 54 so when this corruptible has put on incorruption and this mortal has put on immortality he's discussed all of resurrection in chapter 15 He says, when this has happened and the mortal is put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. Oh, death, where is your sting? Oh, Hades or seal or the grave, where is your victory? And Paul is quoting from the Greek version of the Old Testament and making an adjustment or two, but guess what this is based on? Hosea 13 in verse 14. O death, where are your plagues? O grave, where is your destruction? And then he says, the sting of death is sin and the strength of sin is the law, but thanks be to God who gives us the victory. through our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 15 begins with the gospel, it ends with the victory that we have in Christ, and in between is the reality of resurrection that death has overcome in Christ. And Hosea records Yahweh's words. I will be your destruction, death. I will deal with you. And there will be victory. For the ultimate triumph over sin, death, hell, and destruction, we need the gospel, the death, the burial, the resurrection of Jesus. And thus we see the bridge from Hosea to the Lord's table. We come to the gospel, and we prepare our hearts. Am I holding up in my heart an idol? You say, well, no, I would never have an object that I bow down to. It could be a person. It doesn't have to be in the form of a god or goddess. It could be an aspiration. It could be a desire that is more important than anyone, anything else in your life. It's an idol. The New Testament tells us to not have idols. So we prepare our hearts for the Lord's table. We can ask ourselves, Lord, take down every idol. I don't want any idol. I don't want anyone, anything more important than you. We prepare our hearts for the Lord's table by saying, thank you, Lord Jesus. that you have the answer to sin and death and hell and destruction. And we worship him. We praise him. Let's prepare our hearts, bow our heads. Our Father, we thank you that Jesus Christ is victor over the world, the flesh, and the devil. And as 1 John says, little children, keep yourselves from idols. We pray, Father, if we have any idols, reveal them that we would cast them down. I pray, Father, if there's anyone who's not yet trusted Jesus to save them, They would understand the simplicity and power of the gospel, and not complicate it, and not put it off. They would say, Lord Jesus, come into my life and save me. I'm trusting you. I'm believing that you died for me, that you were buried and you rose again. Lord, stir hearts to the gospel message. Do a work in all of our hearts as we prepare for your table. Let's remain with our heads bowed and our eyes closed, and let's worship the Lord. Let's confess sin. Let's cast down idols. Let's praise our Savior.