Well, we come then again this morning to our study of the book of Hosea, one of the minor prophets, Hosea, a prophet. to the northern kingdom of Israel in evil days, much like the days in which we find ourselves living and there's much application for us as you will see in this chapter. We are in the seventh chapter, Hosea chapter seven. And so let's pray and ask the Lord's blessing on the ministry of his word. Father, we pray as we come to your word now that you would give us understanding, that your spirit would speak to us, that we would understand your word, and that we would see how you would have us obey it and apply it to ourselves. We pray that our faith would be strengthened, that there would be great encouragement here to all of your people. and that there would be great conviction where we need conviction. And if anyone that's listening is still dead in their sins and seduced by the world, we pray, Father, that you would work in their hearts, that you might show them mercy and bring them to repentance and saving faith in Christ. And we pray this all in Christ's name, amen. Last book of the Bible, Revelation, calls godless people earth dwellers. the people who dwell on the earth, earth dwellers. That's what characterizes them. They're not citizens of heaven like Christ's people, but they are earth dwellers. And oftentimes people in the philosophy that characterizes the minds of earth dwellers is they'll say things like, you know, you Christians are so negative. You need to just think the best. You know, there's a lot of good people in the world. You don't want to be so judgmental. This world's a pretty good place after all. And oftentimes they'll sum it up in a phrase like this. It's all good, right? It's all good. As if they're still trying to convince themselves that it's all good. I remember one wicked wealthy guy that He departed this life, I don't know, 10 years ago or so, something like that. But one of his favorite sayings would be, you know, he's smiling and he would tell you, oh, this is great, it's another day in paradise, right? He's not in paradise now, I can tell you that, and he's not saying that anymore. It's not all good. In our day, The Lord is stepping up his judgment. He's been doing it all along through the entire church age. But the Lord is stepping up his judgment on a world that has rejected his son, has rejected the Lord Jesus Christ. And these kinds of delusions, another day in paradise, It's all good here. Those kind of delusions, you can see it. They're getting more and more difficult to maintain. It's getting harder and harder to say, well, oh boy, here's another day. It's morning again as we greet a world. It's just another day in paradise, you see. It's all good. That isn't going to fly. You see how foolish and really wicked it is to maintain something like that and then to try to, when in fact there's been all along people in great suffering and trials all through the world. Are we going to tell them, come on, put a smile on your face. Because you know, it's really all good. It isn't all good in this world, and the Bible doesn't say that it is. The Christian is to be, we are to experience in Christ joy, but it doesn't stem from some pretense that this world is just a wonderful place filled with wonderful people. Here's what the Bible says about joy and the world. John 14, Jesus said, peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled. Why would he have to tell us not to have our hearts be troubled? Because we live in a troubled place, in an evil and fallen world. Neither let them be afraid. And then even more so in John 16, I've said these things to you that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation, but take heart, I've overcome the world. Our joy and our peace do not come from this world. The world offers a false peace, it offers fearful things, It offers troubles and trials and tribulation, but joy comes from Christ and from knowing Christ. Well, in the seventh chapter of Hosea, the Lord continues to show us the true condition of Hosea's countrymen, of the nation Israel, and in doing so, we see the condition of our own nation. of the world that we live in today. So follow along as I read this seventh chapter. There's 16 verses in it. It opens kind of midstream, picking up from the end of chapter six. When I would heal Israel, the iniquity of Ephraim is revealed, and the evil deeds of Samaria, for they deal falsely. The thief breaks in, and the bandits raid outside. but they do not consider that I remember all their evil. Now their deeds surround them, they are before my face. By their evil, they make the king glad and the princes by their treachery. They are all adulterers, they are like a heated oven whose baker ceases to stir the fire from the kneading of the dough until it's leavened. On the day of our king, the princess became sick with the heat of wine. He stretched out his hand with mockers. For with hearts like an oven, they approach their intrigue. All night, their anger smolders. In the morning, it blazes like a flaming fire. All of them are hot as an oven, and they devour their rulers. All their kings have fallen, and none of them calls upon me. Ephraim mixes himself with the peoples. Ephraim is a cake not turned. Strangers devour his strength, and he knows it not. Gray hairs are sprinkled upon him, and he knows it not. The pride of Israel testifies to his face, yet they do not return to the Lord their God, nor seek him for all this. Ephraim is like a dove, silly and without sense, calling to Egypt, going to Assyria. As they go, I'll spread over them my net. I will bring them down like birds of the heavens. I will discipline them according to the report made to their congregation. Woe to them, for they've strayed from me. Destruction to them, for they've rebelled against me. I would redeem them, but they speak lies against me. They do not cry to me from the heart, but they wail upon their beds for grain and wine. They gash themselves, they rebel against me. Although I trained and strengthened their arms, yet they devise evil against me. They return, but not upward. They're like a treacherous bow. Their princes shall fall by the sword because of the insolence of their tongue. This shall be their derision in the land of Egypt. Well, let's see if we can digest some of that a bit further. Let's go back to the first three verses again. I'll read them again, and then we'll move in for a closer look, all right? When I would heal Israel, the iniquity of Ephraim is revealed, and the evil deeds of Samaria, for they deal falsely. The thief breaks in, the bandits raid outside. But they do not consider that I remember all their evil. Now their deeds surround them, they are before my face. By their evil they make the king glad and the princes by their treachery. So we saw at the end of the previous chapter, chapter six, that the Lord, and it's mentioned twice here in this chapter, the Lord desired to heal Israel of her sin. He wanted to bring them to repentance. He wanted to bless them. and not curse them if they would just repent. In the last chapter, come let us return to the Lord, Hosea told them, for he has torn us that he may heal us. He struck us down and he will bind us up. After two days, he will revive us. On the third day, he will raise us up that we may live before him. Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord. His going out is sure as the dawn. He will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth. And so there's the Lord through Hosea giving the people these promises and invitation, just repent, turn back to the Lord and he wants to bless you, but Every time he reached out to them in this way, what happened? That's what verse one of chapter seven means. When I would heal Israel, the iniquity of Ephraim is revealed. It just, it blazed up again. That was their response. They would just sin all the more. All invitations to return to the Lord were met with stubborn and wicked resistance. And even, I think, with a resolve to sin even more. Thieves increased their thieving. Street crime raged even more. And we see in verse three here that even their rulers delighted in this treachery. Starting to see the application to our nation today, right? It was wicked people, in other words, who got the promotions and the favor of the king. The king's supposed to stand for the Lord's righteousness, but it was just the opposite. All the while, as we see in verse two, but they do not consider that I remember all their evil. What does that mean? It means this, they fancied that the Lord didn't see what was going on. And if he did, even if he did, he wasn't gonna do anything about it. Amos 8, verse 7, another of the minor prophets. The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob, surely I will never forget any of their deeds. That's the truth. Surely I will never forget any of their deeds. The Lord remembers all the sins of the sinner. He never forgets even one. But these people, oh, he, He's not going to remember anything that we're doing, you see? The sinner might forget. You know, we've all forgotten. Probably most of the things that we've done are sinful, right? We forget, God remembers every single one of them. It's a delusion of the person who rejects Christ to say things like, here it is, Psalm 10. He says in his heart, God has forgotten. He's hidden his face, he'll never see it. Ezekiel eight. Then he said to me, son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark? Each one, each in his room of pictures for they say, the Lord does not see us. The Lord has forsaken the land, you see. How are we ever? How is anyone then? Think of this. God remembers every single sinful thought we ever had, every single sinful act we ever committed. He remembers our sins that we don't remember even. He remembers them all and in addition to that He's not gonna let a single one of them get a pass. He's not just gonna, he's not just, so how in the world, how are we ever going to survive? Well, we won't, unless we're in Christ. You don't appreciate the good news of the gospel until you appreciate just how bad the bad news is. In Christ, everything is changed, Jeremiah 31, and no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother saying, know the Lord, for they shall all know me. From the least of them to the greatest declares the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more. That's what is affected in Christ. That's the only way that God will remember our sin no more. Psalm 103, the Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him. He's talking about those who fear him, about his people. As far as the east is from the west, So far does he remove our transgressions from us. As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. But to those who don't fear him, to those who just want to harden their hearts against him and pursue sin, he remembers and he will repay. on that day. Listen to Jonathan Edwards here. This is from a book published by Banner of Truth called The True Believer, The Marks and Benefits of True Faith. And it's written by Jonathan Edwards. Psalm 25, for thy name's sake, O Lord, pardon my iniquity. For it is great. If you want a statement of true repentance, there it is, right there. Listen to Edwards elaborate on this. David pleads for pardon for God's namesake. He has no expectation of pardon for the sake of any righteousness or worthiness of his for any good deeds he had done. or any compensation he had made for his sins, but he begs God to do it for his, God's own namesake, for his own glory. Second, the psalmist pleads the greatness of his sins as an argument for mercy. He does not say, pardon my iniquity for, you know, it's small. You have no reason, God, to be angry with me. My iniquity is not so great that you have any just cause to remember it against me. My offense is not such that you may well enough overlook it." He does not say, pardon my iniquity, for I have done much good to counterbalance it. On the contrary, he says, pardon my iniquity, for it is great. The greater his iniquity was, the more he had need of pardon. Pardon my iniquity, for it is so great that I cannot bear the punishment. My sin is so great that I am in necessity of pardon. My case will be exceedingly miserable unless you are pleased to pardon me. And God allows such a plea as this, for he is moved to mercy towards us by nothing in us, but the miserableness of our case. God does not pity sinners because they're worthy, but because they need his pity. That's a great statement. God does not pity sinners because they're worthy, but because they need his pity. If we truly come to God for mercy, the greatness of our sin will be no impediment to pardon. We must see our misery and be sensible, be aware of our need of mercy. We must be sensible that we are not worthy that God should have mercy on us. And we must come to God for mercy in and through Jesus Christ alone, from the consideration of what he is, what he has done, and what he has suffered. Well, all of this, Israel, Hosea's countrymen, refused to see. They refused to see the greatness of their sin. They didn't say, Lord, please pardon me, pardon my iniquity, for it is great. No, they didn't see it that way. They spurned Hosea's call for them to return to the Lord and be forgiven. They persisted in their rebellious ways. And Hosea describes them. He describes them further, looking at verses four through seven again. They are all adulterers. Now, that's probably sexual immorality, but also oftentimes it's another way of saying idolatry, all right, idolatry. They are all adulterers. They're like a heated oven whose baker ceases to stir the fire from the kneading of the dough until it's leavened. On the day of our king, The princess became sick with the heat of wine. He stretched out his hand with mockers. For with hearts like an oven, they approach their intrigue. All night, their anger smolders. In the morning, it blazes like a flaming fire. All of them are hot as an oven, and they devour their rulers. All their kings have fallen, and none of them calls upon me." What is this imagery of an oven, of a baker's oven? I can remember a big oven. When I was a kid, my parents bought a small bakery down in Southern Oregon, and so I'd help them. sometimes in baking the bread and other things. And you can remember opening the big door of that big oven and shoving the racks of bread in to be baked. And that heat would blast out at you when you opened it. So it was really a hot place in southern Oregon in the middle of August, for example. But what Jose is doing here then is he's thinking of that hot baker's oven. And he's comparing it to the hot, wicked lust of these evil people heated to temperature. It's ready to bake as soon as the loaves get fully raised. So the people's sin was not some smoldering thing that just once in a while, you know, it flares up. It didn't even have to be given attention anymore. It just maintained itself, and in the morning, it would burn all into the next day, and it'd blaze up immediately, all set for another day of evil. Apparently, there was once in a while a righteous ruler or king that would come along, but they devoured him. They hated him and rejected him. And once again, I would say, if you will give thought to those verses. Any notion of maintaining that, hey, come on, it's all good today. It's all good in our nation. Everything's just fine in this world. Well, my response to that would simply be these descriptions of the evil in Hosea's day are a precise and accurate description of our nation today. For example, what happens in our nation regularly and has been happening for a long time, what happens when a righteous man or woman is nominated to our Supreme Court? What happens? The wicked try to devour them. They hate them. What do we see happening in our nation when there's even a rumor that the court's going to render a verdict that the wicked hate? They gnash their teeth and they threaten all kinds of violence. And do we see the blaze of iniquity in them cooling off at all? No, every single day it's ready to meet even more hostility against the Lord. And ultimately that's what it's against. It's against the Lord. The king, the president in our nation is surrounded with mockers and he enables them in their evil. And that's exactly what Hosea is saying was happening then. The king and the princess delighted in it. You know, I haven't been following any of it because I don't know anything about English monarchy or royalty, but, you know, they've been having big doings over in London with the Queen Elizabeth's, what is it, her 70th year? I think it is her 70th year. So here they're honoring the queen, honoring their ruler. It's kind of the queen's day. Hosea mentioned that even on the king's day, they just partied on and got drunker and more wicked even to celebrate the king's day. Well, I suppose we see the pomp and pageantry on TV of honoring Queen Elizabeth in her 70th year of her reign. I wonder what goes on behind the scenes. Is there all kinds of godliness happening? And I seriously doubt that. In fact, unfortunately, her own court and family haven't been characterized exactly by godliness at all. So to people that would say today, hey, it's all good. Oh really, really? We know that evil is going to increase as the day of the Lord draws closer and closer. We as Christ's people can take great comfort in the fact that we are all sealed. We're sealed by his spirit. He knows every one of his people. Not a single one is going to ever be lost. But As God brings these judgments, oftentimes these judgments that we're seeing are simply God handing the wicked over to the power of their sin, as Romans 1 describes, then the typical response of the large majority and mass of humanity certainly is not repentance. It's the same thing as we see here that Hosea saw in his day. How do people respond when God brings judgment when 9-11 happened, when he introduces all kinds of increasingly, should be increasingly, obvious judgments upon a nation. How did the mass of people respond? How did the earth dwellers respond? Well, here you have it in Revelation, Revelation 6. Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, which they'd been worshiping by the way, fall on us and hide us from the face of him who's seated on the throne and from the wrath of the lamb for the great day of their wrath has come and who can stand. They know that this is God's judgment, but they refuse to repent. Chapter 9 of Revelation, the rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues did not repent of the works of their hands, nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk. Nor did they repent of their murderers or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts. In Revelation 16, they were scorched by the fierce heat and they cursed the name of God who had power over these plagues. They did not repent and give him the glory. The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast and its kingdom was plunged into darkness. People gnawed their tongues in anguish. and cursed the God of heaven for their pains and sores, they did not repent of their deeds. They wouldn't do it. They refused. That is the normal, typical response of a wicked world. This is rebelled against Christ. Even though a man rise from the dead, they will not believe, you see. So the response of Hosea's countrymen to the Lord's calls for them to repent is a picture of what we have seen in the world, what we are seeing in the world and in our nation, and what we can expect to see typically happen. People typically do not repent of their evil and turn to Christ. How many people do you know that maybe you've known for a long time, they're not Christians at all, just earth dwellers, right? Who, if you engage them and talk to them about all the things that are happening in the world today, at seemingly an increasing pace, how many of them respond to you and say, man, you know, sometimes I think maybe God's trying to tell us something. No, no, you don't hear that. It can be a plague, it can be events like 9-11, it can be wars, it can be, you know, they all talk about recessions. You know what a recession is? An economic recession, an economic recession is the depression, only they're trying to put it in nicer terms. But even those times that those would hit, the majority of mankind will not repent. They will not acknowledge that this is God saying, come on, come on, return to me. Repent, turn from your wickedness. I've struck you, I've wounded you so that you'll come to your senses. and they don't come then, you see, to their senses. So you begin to see even more. It is a miracle that anybody is a Christian. It's a miracle. When somebody is brought to repentance and saving faith, it is God's doing. It is not something that man is going to pull off himself. Look at verses eight and 10 again, Hosea 7. Ephraim, just another name for Israel, Ephraim mixes himself with the peoples. Ephraim is a cake not turned. Strangers devour his strength, and he knows it not. Gray hairs are sprinkled upon him, and he knows it not. The pride of Israel testifies to his face, yet they do not return to the Lord their God, nor seek him for all this. If you went to a restaurant, And you ordered a big stack of pancakes for breakfast. And the waitress brought them, and it's all golden brown and everything. And so you put on the butter and the syrup and start to dig in. And you realize, what? This thing is only cooked on one side. Now, you think about that. Think about eating a big bite of a pancake that's only been cooked on one side and you'll start getting nauseous already, you see. Well, that's what is being described here. Ephraim, Israel, in God's sight, that nation is a cake unturned. It's a pancake. It's like a pancake that's cooked only on one side. It is sickening. It is nauseating. And today we see the same thing. I mean, literally, put it in today's terminology, the vast majority of people who claim to be Christians, if they're Christians at all, or maybe lingerers like Lot, they're what he would call half-baked, half-baked Christians. That's what they are. You look all golden brown on one side, but underneath, you see, you're sickening. Ephraim mixes himself with the peoples. You see on the big side, everything looks good, you put on a front of religion and so forth and bring your sacrifices and all of this stuff, but really behind the scenes, you're going to Assyria for help, you're going to Egypt for help, you're mixing it up with the peoples, with the pagans and the ungodly then of the land. Israel is a cake unturned, you see. The half-baked Christian looks like a faithful follower of the Lord, but just flip him a little bit, see what's on the other side. He is a lover of this present world. He mixes it up with the earth dwellers, wants to stay in favor then with the world. And the very worldly people that he turns to, instead of turning to the Lord themselves, ultimately betray and devour him. And that's what happened. Assyrian Egypt that Israel went to for help, they turned out and came then against them. He goes on here, verse 11, Ephraim is like a dove, silly and without sense, calling to Egypt, going to Assyria. What does Hosea mean by this phrase, gray hairs are sprinkled on you and you know it not? What is that about? Well, look at the, here's a passage in Psalm, Psalm 71 and Isaiah 46. Psalm 71, so even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me until I proclaim your might to another generation. your power to all those to come. And then Isaiah 46, even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you, I have made and I will bear, I will carry and will save. That's Gray-Harris in a positive sense. Speaking of being of elderly age, right? It's talking about toward the end of a person's life. God will be faithful even to old age. And Gray-Harris, well, what Hosea is rebuking the people for here, strangers devour his strength. and he knows it not. Gray hairs are sprinkled upon him, and he knows it not. And what Hosea is telling the people is, well, let me back up. I'll put it this way with an illustration. I've known people who were pretty wild and ungodly in their youth, all right? But even an unsaved person, Generally speaking, as they grow older in life, they mellow out. They get a little wise anyway. But I've known some people who, even in their 60s and 70s, every bit as wicked as they ever were. And that's what Hosea is talking about here. He's saying about his people, even as the years go by, and you get more and more gray hairs, and you are approaching becoming a senior citizen, you're still fools. You still reject the Lord. You still won't listen, you see. Mac, how many years did you say you tried to tell your father about Christ? Yeah, 30 years. He wouldn't listen. He wouldn't listen to people. You know, you particularly think that as you get older and older, it kind of begins to dawn on you that, you know, most of my life is behind me now. Maybe I've got X number of years left, but I'm kind of getting closer to the day when I'm going to pass out then of this life. And you can do some self-examination here. What's it going to be as I stand before the Lord? But wicked people like Hosea's countrymen, and like so many of the people in our nation today, It doesn't make any difference. It's like, don't you realize that your life is then coming to a close? I was talking to a guy recently, and he claims to be a Christian, but he's all fretting and worrying and so forth about this. I said, well, you're just getting older, you know? I just, I'm retired, you know, and I just think I need to find something, something new. Maybe I just need to find something else. And I said, I said, you know, you know, fact of the matter is pretty much your life is behind you. You've already done it, whatever you're going to do. There isn't that much left here. But people don't tend to want to think about those things. And so, well, here, Jose, that's what his gray-haired, gray-headed business is all about here. He said, they don't even learn. They don't even think that maybe I consider My soul and the eternal state then of my soul. And they won't listen. And they remain silly and without sense. Proverbs 26, do you see a man who's wise in his own eyes? There's more hope for a fool than for him. And that's what's the root of this sin is pride. Listen to it, then, the rest of the chapter here. We'll conclude with this, these last verses, starting at verse 12, because here's the scenario, and this describes our nation today. As they go, I will spread over them my net. I will bring them down like birds of the heavens. I will discipline them according to the report made to their congregation. Woe to them! For they've strayed from me, destruction to them. For they've rebelled against me, I would redeem them. But they speak lies against me. They do not cry to me from the heart. But they wail upon their beds, oh, poor me and misery, right? Grain and wine, they gash themselves. That means they were appealing to false gods and idols and so forth, you know, looking to these false gods to give them grain and food, right? They rebel against me. Although I trained and strengthened their arms, yet they devise evil against me. They return, but not upward. They're like a treacherous bow. Their princes shall fall by the sword because of the insolence of their tongue. This shall be their derision in the land of Egypt." Well, there then, Hosea chapter seven, is a perfect and accurate description of the woes of our nation then as well. For Christ's people, we take great hope in the fact that God sees it all. He knows all. He's in control of everything. He will bring every single one of his own people safely home. Not a single one will perish. And this evil world is coming to an end. He will affect perfect justice, and righteousness. And so we pray, even so come Lord Jesus. Father, we thank you for the encouragement and truth of these words. We see this evil that we are surrounded by. It's increasing and increasing and the vast majority of our countrymen and our leaders refuse to address what is really the source of this evil, that it is your hand against us. for our sins. And it is a call for the nation to humble, for the people to humble themselves and repent of their evil and return to you. Father, we thank you for Christ. We thank you that we have a great Savior. Thank you for the mercy that you've shown us, that you will bring us safely out of this world, which is Sodom and the day that it is perishing even now, and therefore we do not love it, but we love Christ and we love his kingdom, and we look forward to the day when he comes. We pray, Father, that he would come soon, and we pray this in Christ's name, amen.