Lord, we offer you again our thanks for food and fellowship and we're grateful for our time and pray that you would be with us as we turn our attention again to your word. Lord, as we also give our attention to prayers on behalf of each other, we pray that you would hear those prayers and that you would care for us and watch over us. Lord, we ask that you'd speak to us this evening from your word. And we pray that you would comfort those who are not with us. We know primarily that's true because of illness, and we ask, Lord, that you would watch over them and be with them. And we know that there are others who are out of town, and we pray that you would care for them as well and restore them to our fellowship. Be with our children, their classes, Steeles and the Wachtdorfs as they lead them, and Lord, we commit our time to you in Christ's name. Amen. Hosea chapter 10 is where we are, of course. And you remember, as we have moved our way into this particular chapter, we recognize that God is holding his people morally and spiritually accountable. We see that, for example, in the second phrase of verse two, which says, Now they must bear their guilt. So it's the idea that that we've seen all the way through, that as the people live their lives in the presence of God, God is holding them accountable for what is taking place. And we've seen, and we'll see, a series of issues out of their lives from this particular chapter that have to do with the heart attitude of the people. For example, in verse 1, we've already seen there is a self-centeredness amongst the people, a second phrase of verse 1, says he produces fruit for himself. And we ask ourselves a question, for whom do the Israelites live? Well, they live for themselves rather than living for God. In verse 2 there is what we would call a divided commitment. The first phrase of verse 2 says their heart is faithless. And remember we suggested that word for faithless can mean divided. And so they have divided loyalties. They are syncretistic, if you will, in their view of their faith. In verse 3, we could call that spiritual anarchy, where they say, surely now they will say we have no king, but we do not revere of the Lord. It's the idea, of course, of their unwillingness to live under any sense of a lordship of Christ in their lives. So when we come to verse 4, Then tonight I suppose the watchword for this verse would be deceitfulness. You can't depend on what they say. This is the way the people live. So look at the first phrase. They speak mere words is what verse four says. In other words, they speak words that have no meaning. They speak words and it is just noise. It is just a sound. There is nothing there that you can really latch on to. I can think of this in terms of one day last week, Dan Wachtorf was coming by to see me. He came by a little earlier than we had agreed upon and he caught me working on some Hebrew vocabulary off my computer. And I got this hot shot computer program that's really cool. you know, that you can just press on the Hebrew words and it says it for you and you pronounce it and all that sort of stuff. And so I'm working on this when Dan walks in and so I just sat there looking at him, pressing the button, you know, going over these Hebrew words and he just got that glee look over his face. It's the idea, you know, these words had no meaning to him. It was just sound, it was just noise, and he did not know what it meant. Most of the time I don't either and that's what I was working on. So for example, when I say to you the word bavakasha, what comes to your mind? What does that mean? It doesn't have any meaning for you at all. It's the Hebrew word for please. Bavakashan means please. It's that way. When we hear language that we do not understand, it's just noise. This is the way that the Israelites were going about their lives. They were speaking in a way that had really no meaning for it. I can say to you, Bavakashan, what are you talking about? Or what do you think when I say, I promise to help you? Now, that carries with it a certain sense, and we have a certain understanding about what that means. But with the Israelites, when they are talking like this, it was language that people could understand, but there really was no dependable meaning behind it. And so they are just speaking mere words. He goes on to say, With worthless oaths, they make covenants. I would translate this literalistically this way, swearing emptiness, they cut a covenant. Swearing emptiness. In other words, you see, the words are empty. They promise. They cut a covenant. They say, I promise to do this for you. The words are spoken. The words are understood. But the words have no meaning. They do not follow through with anything that they're saying. So their promises and commitments meant nothing. Their word could not be trusted. They made promises that they didn't fulfill. They took false oaths. They signed contracts that they didn't intend to honor. as I was walking through this in preparing the study for tonight. When I got to that point, I couldn't help but think about a guy that I knew years ago in high school. He went out and bought a brand new muscle car. This was in the late 60s. You know what a muscle car is? I know you two do. And he bought a brand, he put down the money, minimum down payment, bought a brand new muscle car and was going to make payments. but he never intended to make any payments at all. He just drove the car and he jammed it all over the country until it was repossessed and then he went on his way. He made a contract. He never intended to fulfill it. It reminds me too of a Western author that I enjoy a lot. He was a guy that was a veterinarian in West Texas in the early 20th century and he used to do a lot of horse trading. And horse trading in the 1920s and 30s in West Texas, I'm sure it's still the same today, was all designed to take the other person. And so he would tell story after story after story of all the things that he would do to deceive the person that he was selling a horse to. And the issues were that the other guy was doing the same thing back to him, and so he would tell stories about the ways in which he got caught and got left holding the bag, or in this case, a nag. It's all deceit. It's words that mean nothing. I promised to make payments on this car. I have no intention of making payments on this car, but I promise that I'll do this anyway. Here is a horse. There's not a better horse in all of Texas. I won't tell you all the things that I did to make it look good for the hour that you're here looking at it. It's those kinds of things that they were talking about. This is simple moral deceit. And the consequences of this, verse 4 continues, and judgment sprouts like poisonous weeds in the furrows of the field. The word for judgment here can also be translated as justice. Hebrew word Mishpat, judgment can be translated as justice, and I think that's probably the best way within its context for us to think about this, with the way in which the Israelites, and remember, these were supposed to be the people of God, these were supposed to be the Christians of their day, and this is the way that they're going about their lives, this is the way that they deal with other people, they might say, well, it's just the way we do business, like that West Texas horse trader. These were the people whose words had no meaning, had no weight to them. And so because of these matters, justice sprouts like poisonous weeds in the furrows of the field. Now these furrows of the field means this isn't just land out here that's just left. This is land that somebody has gone out They have put some work in, they have invested in these things, in the land, they have worked it, they have plowed it, they are intending to have it grow something good. But what it produces in the end are simply poisonous weeds, literally the Hebrew word is hemlock. What's hemlock? It's poison. Do you remember when, was it not the city of Athens that condemned the philosopher Socrates to death? And do you remember what he was required to drink? A cup of hemlock. And it killed him. The issue here, of course, is here is justice that sprouts like hemlock in the furrows of the field. He is saying at this point, is Hosea, he is saying justice is killed in Israel. Honest justice is poisoned in Israel because of their purposeful deceit in their own hearts. You can't trust them to tell you the truth. Then how can there be justice? And so this fourth issue that we have in verse 4, As a matter of a heart, attitude is deceitfulness. As we go on and look at the verses 5 and 6, I want to suggest to you that the heart issue here is what we might describe as misplaced loyalty. Look at verse 5. The inhabitants of Samaria will fear for the calf of Beth-Avon. The inhabitants of Samaria is a reference to the capital city of the northern kingdom of Israel. Remember, this is the divided kingdom. The capital city of the northern kingdom of Israel is not Jerusalem. That's the capital city of the southern kingdom of Judah. So it's Samaria, that's the capital city of the northern kingdom. And the inhabitants of Samaria, the inhabitants of the capital city, of course, represent uh... all of israel just like uh... the tribe of ephraim that we've been seeing throughout the writings of hosea uh... have been referencing israel as well but now we're talking a bit of politics and uh... we're referencing of course the assyrian defeat of israel and you get a glimpse of that in the first part of verse six that we're going to get to uh... the inhabitants of samaria will fear for the calf calf of Beth-Avon. Beth-Avon, we've seen this before in Hosea 4.15, Hosea 5.18. Beth-Avon was the town that used to be called Bethel. It's Hebrew as Beth-El, House of God. It goes all the way back, of course, to the days of Genesis, the days of Jacob, when he took the ancient city of Luz and he renamed it house of God at that place where God had his Jacob had his dream from God now to the history of Israel at this place of Beth El house of God that has been an important place not just for Jacob but for Israel as a nation they changed its name to Beth Avon which means house of shame And the name changed because, again, of the things that were taking place there. It went from Luz to Beit El. Now it's gone to Beit Avein. It has gone from Luz, which I don't remember what that means. It means light in Spanish, doesn't it? Well, that's good enough. It went from... It'll be Spanish Hebrew. The Columbian style of Spanish Hebrew. It went from Luz to South Columbia, exactly. It went from a loose to house of God because of the things that happened there to Jacob and his life in God's dealings with him. But it has gone from house of God to house of shame again because of the things that the Israelites are doing there now in this place. So the inhabitants of Samaria will fear for the calf of Beth Avon. Do you remember what was going on at Bethel early on in the divided kingdom? under Jeroboam I. Same thing was going on in Dan, which was? Idol worship. Jeroboam, once the kingdom divided between the north and south, Israel and Judah, there was Solomon's son Rehoboam, who was king in Jerusalem, and Jeroboam became king in the northern part of Israel. He did not want his people, remember, to go down to Judah basically another country now at this point to worship the Jerusalem at the temple. So he set up idols, he set up calves at Dan in the north and Bethel at the south. And he said look, it's too inconvenient to go worship at Jerusalem and so here I have provided for you and you can worship at Dan and at Bethel. And it's through this idolatry, this idol worship and this calf that was set up there, that Bethel, the house of God, had become the house of shame. But notice what Hosea says about it here in verse 5, "...the inhabitants of Samaria will fear for the calf of Beth-Avon." And that's exactly where we're going with what Jeroboam has done. But actually the word for calf here in the Hebrew text is in the plural. He is saying, he's talking about the calves of Beth-Avon at this point. And I want to suggest to you that he's using language that is meant to be representative of that spiritual idolatry that was permeating the northern kingdom of Israel from Bethel in the south to Dan in the north. So we say, well, so what? So what about this? So the inhabitants of Israel are afraid for the calves of Beth-Avon. They are afraid of what? Remember, we have been talking since Hosea 1.1 that the great Assyrian Empire has sent its army up over the Fertile Crescent, all of this taking place, of course, under the providence of God, and they are wiping out everything and everybody in their path And they are headed towards Israel. And so if you're aware of that, and they watched, of course, Middle Eastern CNN, and they knew what was taking place. They knew what was coming. And so they're concerned about the Assyrian army on its way to Israel. And when they come, what's going to happen to our God in Dan, in the north? And as they sweep on down through the length of our land, what's going to happen to our God in the South, in Bethel, in Beth-Avon? They're afraid. Is that not what it says? The inhabitants of Samaria will fear for the calves of Beth-Avon. And what they're afraid of is exactly what verse 6 is talking about. The thing itself. What is it? What is it referred to? the calf of Beth-Avon, the thing itself will be carried to Assyria as tribute to King Jerob. In other words, the Assyrians and their ruler are about to physically overrun Israel and there is nothing that the immediate object of the people's spiritual trust can do about it. I try to say that carefully. There is nothing that the spiritual object of the people's worship and affection, there is nothing their gods can do about it. Further, these calves, the gods themselves, Hosea says, are going to be carried off as war treasure. They are going to gut the temples at Dan and at Bethel, and that they're going to take these golden calves as a war booty and take it back with them to Assyria, and the ruler of Assyria will take that as tribute. That being the case, how do the Israelites respond to that kind of a prospect? We'll go back up to verse 5, and Hosea says, Indeed, its people will mourn for it. The word to mourn there means to lament they are going to be grieved when their gods are taken from them. And this word to mourn or lament is used most often in the Old Testament in reference to the dead. How do we respond when a loved one dies? We lament. We grieve. We mourn. And so that word is being used here now at the to describe the way the Israelites will respond to the prospect of the fact that their gods have been taken by the Assyrians as captives. And it's like they're going to grieve as though their god has died. Amen. Amen. So be it. Let it be. And we say, well, why not? Look at how the Israelites are referred to I hear that middle part of verse 5. Indeed, its people will mourn for it. Its people, that's the Hebrew word Amo, its people. It's very similar to the Hebrew word Ami that we saw back in Hosea chapter 1, I believe it was verse 8 or verse 9. You remember where Hosea's wife, Gomer, has her third child? And God instructs Hosea to name that boy, Lo, which is the Hebrew word for not or no, it's a negative, Ami, which means my people, not my people, Lo, Ami. Now Hosea is using this term almost to play on that from all the way back in chapter one where he calls the Israelites Amo, its people. God, by way of Hosea at this point, is declaring Israel to be people of the calf. That's exactly what this means. They were to be the people of Jehovah. They were to be Yahweh's people. They were to be the people of the covenant. But at this point, God is instructing Hosea to refer to them essentially as people of the calf. And if they're people of the calf, if that's how we describe their faith, then why shouldn't they mourn as people who are grieving over the dead when their gods are stolen from them and taken from them? Their leaders, of course, are no better. Verse 5 goes on and says, and it is idolatrous, and its idolatrous priests will cry out over it. Now there are a couple of things here. The word for priest is not Kohanim. It is not the word Kohen. Have you ever seen somebody's last name Kohen? C-O-H-E-N, Kohen? That's really a transliteration of the Hebrew word for priest. Kohen. Kohen. So you find somebody who has a last name of Kohen, They're most likely of some kind of Jewish-esque extract, and very likely coming from probably a priestly lineage. And that's why their last name is basically Priest, because they have that as a part of their lineage. Now, that word Kohen, or in the plural it's Kohenim, is used throughout the scriptures to refer to, of course, the priests of God, but that's not the word that is used here. Rather, it is the word Kemarin, which is a word that is used throughout the Old Testament in reference to priests of idols or idolatrists, idolatrous priests, as it is translated here. The second thing to note is that the construction here of its people is exactly the same, its idolatrous priests is exactly the same as the construction its people. So in other words, What God is saying here is, the Israelites are people of the calf, and their spiritual leaders are priests of the calf. And that's where they are, and that's what they are spiritually. And so he says, its idolatrous priest will cry out over it, over its glory, since it has departed from it. And remember, what we're talking about here is that that calf of Beth-Avon. So they grieve over the loss of their god who couldn't save itself from the Assyrians. That's important. I want you to remember that. I'm going to refer to that in just a minute when we wrap this all up. They grieve over the loss of their god, the calf of Beth-Avon. because their God could not save itself from the Assyrians. And this is exactly what they were afraid of. You see? And now what it says? The inhabitants of Samaria will fear for the calf of Beth-Avon. This is exactly what they were afraid of. The irony here is where Hosea says in reference to this calf of Beth-Avon, talks about its glory since it has departed from it. This idol has no great glory, and the irony here that struck me was to go back to Ezekiel 10.18. We've looked at that verse in other contexts before. This is several generations later when the great prophet Ezekiel is now preaching a very similar message to the southern kingdom, to the tribe of Judah. warning them about their unrepentant sin, warning them about the spiritual condition of their heart, and in a vision, in Ezekiel 10, verse 18, Ezekiel says he sees the kavod, he sees the glory of God, rising and exiting the temple. The words there are, the glory of God departs the temple in Jerusalem. And the temple building becomes simply an empty shell of stone and marble and gold. It's a similar language to what is being spoken of here. It's glory, since it has departed from it. You see, the glory of this calf of Beth Avon has departed. And it's going to be something just as simple as an army of men are going to show that this idol has no glory of its own. But the irony is, several generations later, the glory of the true God will leave the temple in Jerusalem for the very same reason, because the people's hearts are not right, and they refuse to repent. Verse 6, the thing itself will be carried to Assyria as tribute to King Jareb. Ephraim will be seized with shame, and Israel will be ashamed of its own counsel. The point here simply is the people's wisdom will be shown for what it is. It's sheer foolishness and they will be ashamed of it. The point is they have trusted in that which cannot save itself. They've looked to that which isn't real. They've loved and worshipped what isn't worthy. And it's through the Assyrian army that they will see their shameful spiritual condition. They will look at their wisdom. They will look at their supposed counsel. They will look at what they thought was religiously true. And they will be ashamed. Well, we're dealing with a spiritual condition of the heart then, as we've talked about tonight. One in which the heart is self-centered, they're living only for themselves. The heart is divided, they are not sold out, focused, exclusively committed to the Lord as the living God in their lives. In verse 3, we can see how they have disdained the lordship and the kingship of God himself over them. In verse 4, they deal with one another in deceitfulness. Their words of their promises and their contracts mean absolutely nothing. You cannot depend on them to tell the truth. And in verse 5, they have this misguided loyalty. They have a misguided affection. They love the calf of Beth-Avon, and they care nothing about Jehovah God. What does it all mean for us? Well, as always, we need to look at these of long ago, and we need to examine our own hearts before the Lord. We need to examine our hearts from the Scriptures to say, what is the true spiritual condition of my heart? What is the essence of my heart attitude as I go about in my life? And we can take each of these five things that we've been looking at, albeit briefly tonight, and we can of course examine our lives according to those matters. But the question becomes, what is it that we are trusting? What is it that is the object of our affection and worship? Jesus was teaching in Matthew chapter 6, verses 19 and 20, when he says, do not lay up for yourselves treasures upon earth. where moth and rust destroy, where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal." What is the object of our affection? Does it have to do with those things that are inseparably tied to the issues of this life in the here and the now? The question is, is our life driven by earthly affections? I sat in the car last night with a fellow and he was sharing with me some issues of concern in his life about some things that were a part of his physical life that somebody else had at this point, and he knew that he could not go and get these things without causing great issues of concern within his family. And he asked me, what do you think I should do? And I told him this. I said, look, those issues that you're concerned, those things that you are concerned about, guess what's going to happen to them someday? He laughed and he said, Are you trying to tell me they're going to burn? Something's getting through. In the preaching and teaching of the Word, I said, absolutely, that's what I'm trying to tell you. All of those things are going to burn, but the issues that you will compromise if you pursue those things, those are the things that will last through that fire of God's judgment someday, and those are the issues of eternity, and those are the things that should drive your life. He said, that's exactly what you're talking about. He said, that's what I'm going to do. And so the question for us in our own lives has to do with the object of our affection. Is that object in heaven? Is it our relationship with Christ? Is it the gospel? Or does it have to do with, inseparably, that we are in love with the things of this earth? What are the things or the issues or objects of our trust It can be things, it can be other people, but most likely, most often, it is ourselves trusting in our own counsel, as was the case for the Israelites at this point, trusting in our own sense of wisdom. But Proverbs chapter 3 warns us about these matters when it says, do not lean on your own understanding. Verse 7 says, do not be wise in your own eyes. Again, we can say, what is it that I trust in? I can trust in my own wisdom and my own sense of what is right and wrong. I can trust in my own sense of a discerning of a particular situation in life, of what is real and what isn't, what is true and what is false. I can trust in my own ability to move forward with matters in my life according to my own wisdom and counsel. And the Scriptures warn us repeatedly, do not do that, but rather we trust in God and in the truth of his word and that is what provides direction for us in our lives. The issue comes back then ultimately to this point of saying who or what is our God? It is the great prophet Isaiah who was a contemporary of Hosea. along with, you'll remember, the minor prophet Micah. And so Hosea, as he is writing and prophesying, as he is preaching and teaching, he's doing these things, he's ministering to the exact same generation as is Hosea. And so all the issues of context that we constantly talk about are true for Isaiah, just as surely as it is for Hosea. In Isaiah chapter 12, verse 2, This is a part of his proclamation to this generation of Israelites. He says, Behold, God is my salvation. I will trust and not be afraid. You remember I told you just a moment ago to hang on to this issue of how the inhabitants of Samaria, verse 5, will fear for the calf of Beth-Avon. They were afraid as they anticipated the onslaught of the Assyrian army that their God in whom they had trust and believed would not be able to defend himself against the Assyrian mere men. And they knew this in their heart of hearts and they were afraid because of the God that they trusted in. But notice what Isaiah is preaching to them. Behold, God is my salvation. I will trust and not be afraid. The question is, who's going to knock off the Lord God in your life? What army is going to overrun him? What army is going to overtake Albuquerque and take Jehovah captive back to their land as a war trophy? What army, what people, who or what thing in the length and breadth of the universe is going to be able to overpower the Lord who is our God in whom we trust? And the answer, of course, is absolutely no one, absolutely nothing. Then why should we be afraid? He says, Behold, God is my salvation. I will trust and not be afraid, for the Lord God is my strength and song, and he has become my salvation. Over in chapter 26, verse 4, Isaiah is still preaching to that generation of Israelites in Hosea's day. when he says, trust in the Lord forever, for in God the Lord we have an everlasting rock. It is not a matter that in God the Lord we have a calf at Beth Avon. It is in God the Lord we have an everlasting rock. Shall we not trust in him? Amen. Amen. Let's pray. So Lord, again, we are encouraged with these truths, and we see it repeated in the Scriptures. You are the rock of our salvation. You are the rock of our redemption. Lord, we know these truths to be so, and we know that intellectually. But our God, we pray that you would make that an integral part of our faith, a truth by which we are willing to live in trust. And so our God, we pray that that truth would transform our hearts, that we would not be like the Israelites of long ago, who were afraid that an army of men was going to defeat their God, who were people whose words had no meaning, who were a people who had divided affections. Our God, we pray, that we would be a people of single affection, single faith, single hope, in absolute trust, in a God of our redemption, who cannot fail us. So help us, God, we pray, to live our faith according to that truth. that we might be a powerful force for the gospel, that we should live as a testimony and a witness to the world around us, that our God is the rock of our salvation. Help us, then, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.