Hosea 9 verse 1 through 10 verse 2. These are God's words. Do not rejoice, Israel, with joy like other peoples, for you have played the harlot against your God. You've made love for hire on every threshing floor. The threshing floor and the winepress shall not feed them, and new wine shall fail in her. They shall not dwell in Yahweh's land, but Ephraim shall return to Egypt and shall eat unclean things in Assyria. They shall not offer wine offerings to Yahweh, nor shall their sacrifices be pleasing to him. It shall be like bread of mourners to them. All who eat it shall be defiled, for their bread shall be for their own life. It shall not come into the house of Yahweh. What will you do in the appointed day, in the feast of Yahweh? For indeed they are gone because of destruction. Egypt shall gather them up. Memphis shall bury them. Nettles shall possess their valuables of silver. Thorns shall be in their tents. The days of punishment have come, the days of recompense have come. Israel knows the prophet is a fool, the spiritual man is insane because of the greatness of your iniquity and great enmity. The watchman of Ephraim is with my God, but the prophet is a fowler's snare in all his ways. Enmity in the house of his God, they are deeply corrupted. As in the days of Gebea, he will remember their iniquity. He will punish their sins. I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness. I saw your fathers as the first fruits on the fig tree in its first season. But they went to Baal Peor and separated themselves to that shame. They became an abomination, like the thing that they loved. As for Ephraim, Their glory shall fly away like a bird. No birth, no pregnancy, no conception. Though they bring up their children, yet I will bereave them to the last man. Yes, woe to them when I depart from them, just as I saw Ephraim like Tyre planted in a pleasant place. So Ephraim will bring out his children to the murderer. Give them, O Yahweh, what will you give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts. All their wickedness is in Gilgal, for there I hated them because of their evil deeds. I will drive them from my house. I will love them no more. All their princes are rebellious. Ephraim is stricken. Their root is dried up. They shall bear no fruit. Yes, were they to bear children, I would kill. the darlings of their womb. My God will cast them away, because they did not obey Him. They shall be wanderers among the nations. Israel empties his vine and brings forth fruit for himself. According to the multitude of his fruit, he has increased the altars according to the bounty of his land. They have embellished his sacred pillars. Their heart is divided. Now they are held guilty. He will break down their altars. He will ruin their sacred pillars. Amen. So far the reading of God's inspired and inerrant word in which we read about how Israel as a church brought themselves under the judgment of God and their unfaithfulness to him. And he is now repealing, removing the covenant blessings that attend a faithful church. And for Israel, this is particularly devastating because the nation itself was a church. And so the removal of those covenant blessings is going to necessarily include the destruction of the nation. The first thing that we see the Lord remove from them from here is their food. In the Promised Land, productivity of vine and field, vineyard and field. It was a covenant blessing, but he is going to give them famine instead, the threshing floor and the wine press. will not feed them. The threshing floor had been a place where their idolatry would especially be seen. They received their blessings as if from themselves, or perhaps from the gods to whom they gave credit, and for themselves, or perhaps to the gods for whom they gave credit. And the reason I say perhaps is because When he does give the final verdict, in 10 verse 1 he says, he brings forth fruit for himself, and according to the multitude of his fruit he has increased the altars. And so the man-made religion was ultimately not just the worship or manufacturing, fabrication of other gods, but it was ultimately making themselves their own god. the fruit being for themselves and for what they wanted to do with it, and they offered it to whatever gods they felt like making. This, the Lord compares to adultery, and since they have not received their good things as from Him and for Him, He is going to withdraw them. Well, not only does He then remove the blessing of their prosperity, He removes the blessing of their worship. which means he removes the blessing of their consecration. It's not just that they do not have wine for offering to Yahweh or sacrifices for pleasing Him in verse 4. It is not just that they are unable on the day of the appointed feast, verse 5, to go up to Jerusalem because they happen to be all the way in Memphis, a city in Egypt, verse 6. But the fact that they are unable to offer the first fruits, the best of their produce, unto the Lord means everything else they eat will then be desecrated. You remember the first fruits of everything they were to offer to the Lord, and even all meat had to be sacrificed onto the Lord, all clean meat that they were going to eat from, and they would have their portion. They couldn't have the fat or the blood, and depending on what kind of sacrifice they could eat, particular parts of the meat, well, there'll be none of that because they are not going to be able to worship God at all, and so all their food will be unclean to them. Verse 3. Ephraim shall return to Egypt, and shall eat unclean things in Assyria. This is true in a great way for us still. If we don't receive everything as from the Lord and for the Lord, give us this day our daily bread, and hallowed be thy name, then our food itself is undefiled to us. whether we eat or drink or whatever we do, we should be doing all unto the glory of God. And so, one of the first things that we read about the Apostolic Church in the wake of Pentecost is not only did they devote themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to the breaking of bread and prayer and they also broke bread with one another from house to house and They ate their food with cheerfulness and simplicity of heart so even their regular meals were consecrated as it were being received from the Lord, whom they now know in the Lord Jesus especially, and being enjoyed unto the Lord, whom they now know in the Lord Jesus especially. Well, this consecrated life is taken away, so not only is their productivity, their prosperity taken away, but even what they enjoy cannot be consecrated unto the Lord, and their food is unclean, and they are unclean, their holiness, their separateness as a people. are being rejected. But not only is his worship being removed from them, his word is being removed from them. It's not actually 100% clear from verse 7 whether the prophet and the spiritual man are actually being given to folly and insanity. We definitely see this as a judgment of God when he removes faithful preaching from a land and gives them over to false preachers, or whether he is giving them to hear faithful preaching as if it was folly and insanity, which is also one of the ways that God judges. He gives a faithful preacher, but he does not give believing hearing of the word. It seems to be the latter. He says the days of punishment have come, the days of recompense have come. Israel knows. It seems to indicate that the preaching on the lips of men like Isaiah and Hosea, who are contemporaries of one another, is announcing to them the punishment that is coming, but they listen to the preacher as if he is a fool. they listen to the spiritual man as if he is insane. And so they are given blindness of heart before the word of God, and faithful preaching, instead of becoming that which saves them, becomes that which snares them. Verse 8, that they listen to the word as those who are enemies of God. Verse 8, instead of those who are submitted to God. And this false, faithless hearing of preaching is a great punishment upon sin, verse 9, a great remembering of iniquity, verse 9. How many people have sat in judgment feeling theologically or spiritually superior to a faithful preacher, not realizing that their very attitude and disposition toward the preaching is being brought upon them as God's just retribution for the guilt of their wickedness. And that was part of how the Lord would judge this generation for their rejection of the faithful preachers who announced to them that the days of punishment had come, and that the days of recompense had come. But right up until the Assyrians in the north or the Babylonians in the south were there to destroy them, they treated their preachers like they were foolish, crazy people to speak to the Church of God this way, but there was enmity against God and the House of God. And finally, the covenant blessing of covenant children would be taken away from them. The Lord when he found them and they were wild grapes and he treated them instead with love to take them as the first fruits of the fig tree and it sees in that picture in verse 10. He intended their multiplication, he intended blessing to them from generation to generation, but right from the beginning. They committed the sin with Baal Peor. That was the sin. You remember that Balaam counseled Balak that if the Moabite and Midianite women seduced the Israelite men, they could cause them not just to commit adultery with women, but adultery against God by committing idolatry. And it was one of the great signal sins that was a forerunner or a foreshadowing of than many adulteries against God and idolatries that would follow in the history of Israel. And so instead of bearing the fruit of the womb with holy generation after holy generation that would worship him, they bore the fruit of adultery and idolatry from one generation to the next. So the Lord is going to cut off these generations In fact, it's going to be worse than it was in the wilderness. In the wilderness, one generation fell, but here he's cutting off subsequent generations. As Isaiah said several times, if the Lord were not to leave them a remnant, they would be entirely eliminated altogether. And so their glory is going to dissipate, evaporate, fly away like a bird, verse 11, by the Lord cutting off the subsequent generations of the worshipers. No birth, no pregnancy, no conception, verse 11. And even those children that they have and they are training up, he is going to make them to die off. And even those then who somehow reach their maturity, they are going to be bringing those who grow up with them not into the promised land, like the generation that the Lord brought into the promised land, but unto the murderers, unto the slaughter, literally, verse 13. And so God is going to cut off generation rather than give them blessing that will be enjoyed from generation to generation. There won't even be a next generation to enjoy it. Give them, O Yahweh, verse 14, what will you give? Give them a miscarrying womb and if they aren't miscarried then give them dry breasts as a spiritual as a literal judgment, but also an appropriate picture of what is happening spiritually the children are spiritually miscarried they are not brought into the world as those who are from God and for God and they are not nursed and Upon the the milk of the word they are not nourished spiritually dead they come and dead they stay and so Their root is dried up verse 16. They bear no fruit and Whomever they have they have for themselves but as enemies of God just as they treated everything else in life as from themselves and for themselves, and so that is being rejected and killed. Even their children they treat as from themselves and for themselves, rather than from the Lord and for the Lord. How important it is to view and treat our children as from the Lord and for the Lord. lest they be our darlings, verse 16, that the Lord kills. And indeed, many churches, having gone their own way, having worshiped their own way, having compartmentalized their Christianity, not receiving everything in life as from the Lord and everything in life as for the Lord, not being consecrated to Him genuinely, entirely, In every part of life, every moment of every day, God has responded to their wickedness by killing their children, sometimes literally physically. removing the children from them far away and sometimes just spiritually the Lord causing their children never to come to faith and to turn away from the church however much the children had appeared to be because they learned to imitate the talk and walk of Christians so long as they were in the church but it became quickly apparent for those with eyes to see, that they were from themselves and for themselves, and then when they came into the maturity, so did their not belonging to the Lord. That also matured and became obvious as they turned from Him entirely, or perhaps To those churches and those forms of worship that are merely the inventions of men and self-indulgence in the spiritual sphere of things just as Their lives are self-indulgence and each of the other spheres of life as well all of this Because of the wickedness in Gilgal and their evil deeds. He drove them from his house and so Israel is ultimately rejected and My God will cast them away because they did not obey Him. They shall be wanderers among the nations." Their heart was divided. That is, they didn't have a united heart to belong to the Lord. Their heart was their own heart that they gave to various things and not to the Lord alone. Their heart is divided. Now they are held guilty. He will break down their altars. He will ruin their sacred pillars." The Lord rejecting Israel and sending them into exile Judging them as a church and the Lord still judges churches Even in some of the illustrations and applications that we have gone through the passage. I'm sure we have Heard the story of many churches that we have known of but he also of course does these very things and threatens these very things to the seven churches in Asia in Revelation 2 and 3 and which are real churches, but are also warnings to and representative of all the churches between the two comings of Christ, of which ours is one. And so may the Lord, in his mercy, keep us faithful, keep us by grace, receiving everything as from him, and doing and enjoying everything as to him, that we might not provoke him to a wrath like this, and have him take away our consecration and separateness and holiness, and have him take away our worship, and have him take away our soft-heartedness under the word. to be corrected and have him take away the spiritual life of subsequent generations, drying up the root of the church and sending the youth of the church when they come into their adulthood into false churches where they will blaspheme and perish and not even know it. May the Lord have mercy. on our congregation and on all true congregations. And may He give in His great forgiveness, reformation and revival, because He is going to restore a remnant as we hear in Hosea. And His everlasting, amazing, compassionate love is not just for the salvation of individual sinners' souls, but it is also for those churches to which He gives reformation and revival beyond what they deserve. beyond what could have possibly been expected, which also amazingly he has actually done in the history of our own congregation. Praise God for his immense mercy, compassion, forgiveness, power to save, kindness. Father, thank you for this portion of your Word. Thank you for making us to know the truth of it by your Spirit, giving us conviction and to see the truth of it, not only in other parts of your Word and in all of church history, but even in our own church's history. You are a God of mercy and grace. Oh, grant that mercy, grant that grace, that we might be faithful and that we might know your blessing instead of bringing down upon us curse. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.