They do not consider in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness. Now their own deeds have surrounded them. They are before my face and they make a king glad with their wickedness and princes with their lies. The land was feeding off of their own iniquity. But as you read that right there in verse number two, they do not consider in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness. You see, but that goes in contrast to what God promises those who are righteous. Those who are righteous their wickedness, their iniquity, their transgressions, their sins. Not only does he not remember them, not only does he cast them in the sea of forgetfulness to bring them up no more, but he says, I will begin to separate you from them. Meaning there was a point in your time, this is how you lived. But because I do a work in you, a work of grace, that which used to identify you that you were so intimately connected to, no longer are you identified with it because I've been separating you from it. See, with this group of people, the unrighteous, this nation as a whole, when you consider, remember we talked about the long game and the short game? The long game is that God promises the nation His eternal love. but for generation upon generation upon generation missed out on that because they went their way and their wickedness will always be remembered. It's where you take, for an example, what does it say about hell and about the lake of fire, where the canker never dies, where the sin never dies, and meaning everything they wanted and longed for will still have all those longings in hell but never be able to satisfy Him. Where the worm never dies, where it just keeps eating and eating upon the earth because that's all they made of. They are of the earth but not of God. When I read that, I have to read it in light of the fact that what God is telling us is that If you're not covered under the blood of Jesus, if you're not sanctified in Jesus, redeemed in Him, every thought, deed, and action of every type and every kind will never be forgotten by God and you'll have to give an account for it. And even in that judgment that He judged you so severely for, it does not change the heart of men. There's only one judgment. Remember we talked about the flood? how the flood didn't change the heart of men, that Noah's sons were still wicked in their heart, that from their youth, they still go astray from the Lord. That's why we still have problems today, because if the flood fixed it, we wouldn't have what we have today. But because the flood didn't fix the fall, it just judged the man on his merit but because Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. And when you read other places like in Ezekiel, he says, if Noah, Daniel, or Job would be in the land, they would not deliver and nobody else except themselves. He kind of in that time. what we're talking about in Hosea, got so far from the people and removed, he says, do not pay attention a word that people say. Can't tell what's what. And so many lies are being propagated. Everywhere you turn, everybody has an agenda. Yeah, man, I tell you, the winds of change just constantly. But we've got great hope, don't we? These are predictable times, though they perilous. At the same time, they promising. The Lord said he'd be with us until the end of the age, right? His purpose ain't changed. Therefore, our mission hasn't changed. We're not for a loss at it. We're praying for our leaders, our nation. Every day, pray for your kids. I know you do, There's so much deception going on. Misinformation, we rely upon him. Fooling around with that alcohol, man. It will. He tells us that even in Hosea, didn't he? He said, new wine and wine enslave you. Everybody makes the emphasis on that new wine that it was Not that strong, it's okay, but he says it'll enslave you. Best thing to do is stay away from it, huh? Lot of elements there, but your aim, you always wanna be able to help people, right? Help them. And help them when they in trouble when you can. Point them to Jesus. Because I know I've done plenty things in my life that sure don't deserve his grace, but he's been merciful to me, amen? Come on, we're gonna lay that on the blood, right? Man, he said he forgets it. Well, that's something if you've been reading through Hosea, you wanna grab. There's some significant truths about the difference between what God remembers with the wicked and what he don't remember with the righteous. Hosea has been bringing it up again and again. He says, they have forgotten that I will not forget their wickedness. You see, but for the promise of the believer who has surrendered their life to the grace of God, who's given their life to Jesus, he says he has separated them from their sins and he has cast their sins into the sea of forgetfulness not to remember them no more. Why? Because he justly paid for them. They were completely and justly paid through the sacrifice and substitutional death of Jesus. So they're not brought to mind anymore. They don't even come up anymore. They're covered. I mean, he sees you as being innocent. Even though you've done the darkest things in the world, He declares you as innocent based on the righteousness of Jesus. But see, if you're not covered under His blood, if you're not under His grace, now everything done, every thought, every word, every deed, wicked iniquity will be remembered. He tells us that in Hosea, but he tells us that in other places. We want to help people recognize that, look, you'll have to give an account for your life if Jesus is not the account for your life. You'll have to give an account for everything you thought and done, and you know the things you thought, just that alone, much less, you may have not done nearly Half the things that some people have done, but you've thought most likely worse than most people, if you really think about it, is some of the thoughts you've had. And just because of the depravity of human nature in the fall. So yeah, we'll talk a little bit more about that in a moment. I've been... I've been... Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, what, you know, James talks about it, that the enemy gives you the enticement, but the raw desire is inbred. And when the desire, the lust, and the enticement are available or made available, them two come together like a man and a woman and they conceive, they give birth to sin. And that's how that works. That's why you go back to your thought life. The scripture says, for the believer, he don't have to finish what the mind creates. The mind brings up these ideas and these thoughts, and you don't have to finish it. You don't have to fulfill it. You don't have to take the bait on the initiation. The thoughts will be there, even for the most sanctified saint walking in the holiness of God, he's still got to deal with bad thoughts. but he has the ability to put those thoughts down and yield himself to Jesus. And as he does that, then thoughts is not the problem. The problem comes when you act on the thoughts. That's where the problem's at. So we gotta remember Galatians 5 talks about, well, how do we do that then? Well, he said, if you're led by the Spirit and you walk in the Spirit and you have life in the Spirit, you won't be led away with the lust of the flesh. Well, how am I to live in the Spirit and be led by the Spirit and walk in the Spirit? Well, he says, get your eyes on Jesus. How did Jesus do it? What did he do? How did he live? And when you look to him and you trust how he walked and what he gives, now you're gonna follow his footsteps and you'll be able to deal with those thoughts that constantly initiate stuff in your life. So he uses the word in there in Galatians 5, you don't have to finish, you don't have to fulfill. It initiates it, but you don't have to act on it. You take it captive. Take it captive under the obedience of Jesus. And then he gives you the solution. But at the same time, what he said, that God won't let the devil, he won't let the enemy tempt you in ways that are not common to every other person in the world. That's so important. Because if you're not careful, you'll have a thought, well man, nobody's going through this like me. Nobody's being tested like me. Nobody's being tempted like me. And they don't know what it's like to go through this temptation where he says, everybody goes through similar temptations and God will not permit the devil. If he could, he would. You've heard me use that phrase before. If it was possible, he'd do everything he could to destroy you. So if he could use unnatural things that is just not built into the natural man, He would do it, but because of what is already in us, all he does is provide the opportunity. And then if we feed it, because that's what lust is, right? Lust is a natural desire and excess. It's just something you pamper and pet and cultivate and nurture. and you grow it up like a little boy because you like that little boy and you want him to grow up to be a smart, wise, grown man where the same thing happens with your natural desires. You will pet it and grow it up. But the whole time, what is it doing? It's taking life from you. It's a blood sucker. It's killing you. It's all prone to it. And that's why he said, look, if sin does conceive, don't give it time to grow up. He said, sin full grown brings what? Death. So he says, deal with it early. I mean, none of us are not gonna be able to overcome all things, all times, every day. That's just a given. You'll give in to the temptation of the thought and the enticement that's put out in front of you. You'll give into it from time to time. Yeah, yeah. So many, so many, so many. And there's much that he even tells us. There's things you just don't know with other people that we're just not privy of. He tells us to be cautious about laying hands on people too soon because you just don't know what their life is about. And sometimes people's sins get ahead of them. And then sometimes they follow behind them. And so we just are aware of that and because why I use caution to endorse certain people. You hardly ever hear me make reference to, man, this person or that person. You can hang everything on it and all that just because I wanna use extra caution to say, because I really don't know the person. I like some of the things I've read and heard and seen and been blessed by, but I don't know enough to say, hey, you can take everything they have and run with it. I just don't know, so I gotta be a little bit cautious. And I think we all have to be, you know, on that. Because even in our reading, he makes reference to them having a divided heart. A divided heart was a smooth, slick, tricky heart. Everything appeared okay on the outside, but it was tricky, it was deceptive, it was slippery. It had been around somebody that can, boy, they had a silver tongue. They had a slick tongue, boy, they could talk and talk and talk, but man, they would trap you and get you caught or mislead people. And that's what he was saying as the nation in that day, they had a divided, faithless, slippery, trickery heart that they included all this other stuff involved in their worship of God. And they made it appear as if it was all okay. And people bought into it. And that just misled people down the wrong road. All right, let's get in Hosea. Hosea. Anything, anything that you may have just been jumping around in your mind that you say, you know what? Yeah, 12 and 13. Yeah, yeah, that's one of the best words in the Word. Break up your fowl of ground, right? What we see in that right there, that goes along exactly what we've talked about in the past. You can't help but read through the, as you read the entire book of Hosea, which you just about have done. Well, we've got a couple chapters left. you notice that it's inevitable that the Northern Ten Tribes are going into captivity. And they're gonna wander, they're gonna spread us. You read chapter nine, man, chapter nine is one of them hard, hard, hard chapters where God says, they're gonna wander. And we know they've been wandering for 2,700 years. And God says that He will destroy their children. I mean, this is, that's hard when you recognize, but it goes back to this. It goes back to that, what we started out even earlier talking about. If Jesus doesn't cover your sin, you're gonna perish. If you don't believe in Jesus, you're gonna perish. If you don't trust Jesus, you're gonna perish. Whether it's a kid, when I say a kid, your kids, or our kids, or us, or whoever it is, God does not show partiality for those that have not put their trust in Jesus. And they perish. You're talking about thousands of generations that have perished. 2,700 years worth that are still in the wondering phase. To the point that God made emphasis that one of the reasons He spread them out the way He did is the book of Ezekiel in chapter 20 is one of those chapters that if you go look at it, it gives a history, a covering of the history of Israel and one of the reasons why God spread them out and he gives us promises of what he's gonna do later. But he says, they wanted to serve their idols, so I'm gonna let them. But one thing that I'm not gonna let them do, is that I'm stripping them of everything that identifies them with me. That they cannot serve their idols and me at the same time. So I'm taking away the temple. I'm taking away the priest. I'm taking away the sacrifices. I'm taking all that away because when they wander out into the nations, and they are among the nations, and he refers to that as being in the wilderness, When they're in the wilderness of the nations wondering, I do not want any identifiable marker associated with me. The only thing that'll be associated with me is my judgment upon them for not being what I set them apart to be. And he tells us that in Ezekiel 20. See, these are the things, if you get in God's Word and read it, it gives you a whole nother view of what you've heard across the world said about God and what he does and don't do. But he says, I'm going to take all that away because they had defamed my name. But he promises that he's gonna draw them back one day. And when he draws them back, he's gonna give them what? A new heart. He's gonna take that old stony heart out, and he's gonna put a heart that is moved by him, a heart of flesh that's sensitive to him. That's that picture. Then you get in Ezekiel 37 about the dry bones, and then the dry bones didn't have life in it, but he's gonna speak life into them, and they're gonna rise up and have life. What's that, brother? But you know. He said, can they come alive? But you know, God knows. We see that's all pictures of a future Israel, but in the meantime, like right now, they don't practice sacrifices. They don't do what they did back in the day. One, because there remains only one sacrifice. That's Jesus. God doesn't accept anything else other than Jesus. He's his only answer. When you read all this and you read through chapter nine and just the travesty of the consequences that these, look what he says, look in nine, look in nine. He started off when he says, don't rejoice. Don't rejoice, O Israel, with joy like other peoples. One, you're not like other peoples. Number two, you have no idea of the fate that befalls you, and you are rejoicing in a place that you have no clue what's about to slap you in the face. Do not rejoice. James says that. James says, turn your laughter to what? Mourning. Because he says, you adulterer. Same thing here. But he says, do not rejoice over Israel with joy like other people's. Why? What you're about to face is horrible, It's horrific and it's even horrendous to speak of. It hurts to even read it, much less have to go through it. The times are here and coming for you have played the harlot against your God. Look, I'll give you a couple reasons why they shouldn't have been rejoiced. Look at verse three. They shall not dwell in the Lord's land. Well, if they're not gonna dwell in the Lord's land where they currently are, where are they gonna dwell? They leave in this land. Look in verse number five. What will you do in the appointed day, in the day of the feast of the Lord? You won't be able to do anything because you don't have a temple. You're not gonna have sacrifices. There's not one thing you'll be able to do when you in this other land, you're not gonna have any of that. So I don't know why you're rejoicing. Look in verse seven. The days of punishment have come, the days of recompense have come. They're now, they're coming, they're coming. Look in verse number nine. They are deeply corrupted as in the days of Gibeah. Y'all remember what happened in the days of Gibeah? Gibeah that he's referring to takes us back to Judges. And in Judges 19, there was a Levite who lived in the lands of Ephraim, but he took him a concubine and the concubine left and went back to her homeland in Benjamin. Well, the Levite leaves Ephraim, the mountains and goes to this woman's house, goes and stays with the daddy and stay several days with him. Every time he went to leave, the daddy would say, won't you stay another night? Won't you stay another night? Won't you stay another night? And it finally got to the place where he says, no, I can't stay another night. It was late in the evening. So they left and they come to Benjamin, Gibeah, is where they were at and it was late in the evening and they was out in the square because nobody in Gibeah would invite them into their home. Showed them no hospitality. And then an old man from Ephraim in the mountains who was transplanted down there saw him and said, what are y'all doing? Where are you from? And they talked and he says, one thing you cannot do, you can't stay out here in the open square, won't you come to my house? So he went to his house. And the man said that he would take care of him and he'd feed him overnight. Well, while he was at his house, the men of the city came and started knocking on the door. And they said, your guests that come in, you send that man out here. We want to know him carnally. We want to have sexual intercourse with him. We want to defile him. We want to rape him. You send him out here. And the man stepped out and said, look, he's under my protection. He's at my house. I told him I would protect him. Please don't do this. Man already knew what the people were like. So he says, I've got a concubine and I've got a virgin daughter. I'll give them to you. if you'll just leave him alone. Well, the man went in and took the concubine and put her out the door. The men took her, raped her, ravished her, and when they got finished with her, they brought her back. She went back to the house, fell at the door, and the next morning, the man getting up to leave come out and found her laying at the foot of the door, shook her and said, come on, it's time to go. We got, we heading out of here. She didn't move. They killed her. She died. So he picks her up, brings her back home, carries her back home, takes out his blade and cuts off her limbs and parts of her body and then shipped them to the four tribes of Israel. And then the people of Israel said, well, we can't put up with this. Let's all gather together and let's go fight against the children of Benjamin. So there was a war that took place in that. So Gibeah is going to be brought up several times. Why? Because the heartbeat that was going on in Gibeah is what Israel was like at the time. And that's what he says. They are deeply corrupted as in the days of Gibeah, very similar to our land today. You know, if people could get away with it with no accountability and consequence, they'd do the same thing. They'd do the same exact thing today and then parade it. Well, you have to read, that's in Judges 19, 20 and 21. You'll see they went to battle and that was where they killed so many of the Benjamites after several different battles over three day period, thousands from Israel died and then thousands from Benjamin died to the point they nearly cut them off. So this is what they did. They said that they had already made a vow, they wouldn't give their wives to the Benjamites. But they were so upset that Benjamin would be left out of the tribes of Judah, at the tribes of Israel as a whole, the 12 tribes, that one tribe would be missing. They conceived a plan and said, down there at Shiloh at a certain time, they're gonna have a big festival. And when that festival goes on, all their maidens, all their virgins go out to dance. Y'all go down there, hide in the bushes, and when all these virgins get out and start dancing, y'all ambush them and take them and steal them and take them away and have wives so that you can have children with them. And the scripture says that Israel had no king and every man did what was right. God keeps bringing it back. Why? It's not forgotten. Why is it not forgotten? Because he says, you are gonna have to give an account for that same spirit is going on with you. So why are you rejoicing? Why are you celebrating? You're corrupt to the core of living in this position. And so when you read through and you see all these references God keeps bringing up, it goes back to this. I jotted down a couple notes. Look in chapter number seven, look in seven. Chapter seven, look in verse number two. They do not consider, in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness. Now their own deeds have surrounded them. They are before my face and they make a king glad with their wickedness and princes with their lies. The land was feeding off of their own iniquity. But as you read that right there in verse number two, they do not consider in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness. You see, but that goes in contrast to what God promises those who are righteous. Those who are righteous their wickedness, their iniquity, their transgressions, their sins. Not only does he not remember them, not only does he cast them in the sea of forgetfulness to bring them up no more, but he says, I will begin to separate you from them. Meaning there was a point in your time, this is how you lived. But because I do a work in you, a work of grace, that which used to identify you that you were so intimately connected to, no longer are you identified with it because I've been separating you from it. See, with this group of people, the unrighteous, this nation as a whole, when you consider, remember we talked about the long game and the short game? The long game is that God promises the nation His eternal love. but for generation upon generation upon generation missed out on that because they went their way and their wickedness will always be remembered. It's where you take for an example, what does it say about hell and about the lake of fire where the canker never dies, where the sin never dies and meaning everything they wanted and long for will still have all those longings in hell but never be able to satisfy them. Where the worm never dies, where it just keeps eating and eating upon the earth because that's all they made of. They are of the earth but not of God. When I read that, I have to read it in light of the fact that what God is telling us is that If you're not covered under the blood of Jesus, if you're not sanctified in Jesus, redeemed in Him, every thought, deed, and action of every type and every kind will never be forgotten by God and you'll have to give an account for it. And even in that judgment that He judged you so severely for, it does not change the heart of men. There's only one judgment. Remember we talked about the flood? how the flood didn't change the heart of men, that Noah's sons were still wicked in their heart, that from their youth they still go astray from the Lord. That's why we still have problems today, because if the flood fixed it, we wouldn't have what we have today. But because the flood didn't fix the fall, it just judged the man on his merit But because Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord, and when you read other places like in Ezekiel, he says, if Noah, Daniel, or Job would be in the land, they would not deliver and nobody else except themselves. See, Noah's sons got in on the deal because God was doing what? He's gonna repopulate the earth through them. where we all come from. But at that time, it was so bad and we'll be down the road. He's saying your righteousness won't cover another man's righteousness. The only man's righteousness that will cover any man is the righteousness of Jesus. But our righteousness can't cover anybody. And only we in his righteousness can deliver ourselves in the day of God's wrath. So the judgment that will come upon them doesn't change their heart. For in eternity, they'll still always be wicked. For in eternity. Man, that tells me, I need Jesus more than I ever thought I'd need Jesus. I need his righteousness more than I ever thought. That's why if you read in chapter nine, go back to chapter nine and look, we'll carry it over again to Verse 10, He said, I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness. He keeps going back to some of these historical settings when He delivered them out of Egypt. I saw your fathers as the first fruits of the fig tree in its first season, but they went after Baal Peor. That's when they mingled with the foreign women, when God told them not to mingle with the people of the land. And remember when one king went to the prophet Balaam and said, look, I want you to curse these people. And he went to curse them. And God says, you can't curse them. And he went back to Balak and said, I've tried to curse them. Come on in. Y'all come on in. Y'all come on in. It's all good. No, it's good. Y'all come on in. If y'all need a restroom, they're in the back corner to the left. Okay. Glad to have you with us today. So Balaam attempted to have Balaam, a false prophet, curse the people, and he says, I can't curse them. It's impossible for me to curse them. God won't. That's when Balaam talked with the donkey. Remember the donkey talked with him? Well, he said he got with Balaam though, the king, and said, I can't curse them, but they can curse themselves. How? Well, get those women to mingle in with them and they'll take these foreign women that don't belong to him and they'll place a curse on themselves. That was at Baal Peor, that's where that happened. And a plague broke out and thousands died until Phinehas took that spear and drove it through one of the guys and he got counted as righteousness and stopped the plague. You'll see that in the book of Numbers. So you see that reference, but then you get down to verse 16, Ephraim is stricken Their root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit. Yes, were they to have children, I would kill the darlings of their womb." Man. My God will cast them away because they did not obey Him. And they shall be wonders among the nations. Because that just goes back to remind us, as in this Hosea 9, it's telling us that very thing that look, Everything counts on Jesus. While John 3.16 says, for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes upon Him shall not perish, but have what? Everlasting life. So the answer is always Jesus. He's the answer. He's the answer for us, for our children, and for everything because if He's not the answer, then we find this very same thing of 916 with us, meaning future generations that are without Jesus, the same consequences fall upon them. And man, that just puts us in a position to say, look, we want to help them see Jesus, right? We want to show His life, His love, His light. that we don't deter them from him in our ways, but that we point them to him in his marvelous saving grace, amen? So man, Hosea is rich, rich, rich of God's faithful goodness to look to and depend on, amen? Father, we bless you, we thank you for this time we've had this morning to look to you, to hear from you, to lean in, to recognize how gracious and kind and good you are to those that have yielded their life to you, that you tell us you remember our sins no more. You cast them in the sea of forgetfulness, not to bring them up to memory because your righteousness becomes our righteousness and our sin is placed upon your son and you justly dealt with it in him and him alone. But if we won't trust you, you say that you don't forget our wicked ways and intentions and thoughts and we'll have to give an account for it ourselves. So thank you, thank you for Jesus. Thank you for taking our place. Thank you for putting yourself in position that sin would have to be placed on you so that you can place your righteousness on us. We love you and thank you today and ask for your favor at this time as we continue to sing and celebrate your goodness today in Jesus' name, amen.