Alright, Hosea chapter 12. Hosea chapter 12. And last week in chapter 11 we saw what is really, I think, the climax of the book. That's where after all those chapters of God setting forth His complaint against Israel for their disobedience, He makes it clear that even though He's going to punish them for a while, He cannot put them away forever because He loves them and He has that covenant relationship with them. And like we mentioned last week, there's a really important part of it is that he intended for his only begotten son to be born on the human side out of Israel. And so he won't put the nation away forever. And it was just a beautiful chapter in the scripture. Now, this week we come to chapter 12 and we get back into the judgment part again a little bit, okay, for a little while. It won't last as long this time. It really starts to turn down about the middle of chapter 13. But this part really is dealing with the fact that even though God loves them so much that He won't put them away forever, still they have to go into judgment. And He's going to put them into captivity. And this 12th chapter draws on a lot of the history of Israel. And actually, in a sense, not so much Israel the nation as Israel the man. We're going to be dealing a lot with this man Jacob who was renamed Israel by God in this chapter to talk about the difficulty with returning this people to the land. Now when we talk about the captivities of Israel, for the most part we talk about three captivities, right? They were in a sense born in captivity, the nation down in Egypt, They went down there just as a small tribe, really, and they grew up into a great nation in Egypt, and then they're finally turned loose. Then, after the nation splits apart, the northern kingdom goes into captivity in Assyria, and the southern kingdom goes into captivity in Babylon. And the Babylonian captivity ended. They were returned after 70 years. They were allowed to come back to the land. But the captivity of the northern kingdom, in a sense, never really ended. there wasn't a great regathering of the people. They just remained scattered and remain scattered to this day. And then, of course, the third one deals with the southern kingdom after the crucifixion of Christ. God allowed the Romans to overrun Jerusalem and scatter the people then. And the Jewish people never did after that have possession of that land until 1948 actually, and that's when they were allowed to reestablish a nation there again. But the Northern Kingdom never did really return. Now in this chapter we're going to bring this man Jacob into the equation in a more prominent way than we have before. Remember, he is the one who is, in a sense, the father of the nation of Israel because the tribes are named after his sons. And he's the one who was renamed Israel, so his name actually is the one that is placed on this nation. And we're going to talk about him. And this chapter is really interesting because the way God had Hosea structure this book of Hosea, is really beautiful because what He's going to do in this chapter is take a lot of seeds that we planted earlier in the book and bring them to fruition. Or maybe to put it another way, He's going to tie together a lot of loose ends. There are going to be some places and events that we've talked about a lot before, and in chapter 12 we're going to get a clearer sense of why they're especially important to this book. He's going to bring them all back together again. we're going to give a little review of some of these places just in case everybody doesn't remember everything we said about everything in this book all the way back, okay? And so we'll try to, that's right, that's right. So we'll try to tie all this together. Now, let me give out one point to sort of think about before we get into the chapter this evening. I mentioned that we talk about three captivities of Israel, but in a sense there are sort of four. Because if you remember the man Jacob himself who is called Israel, he himself goes off into a strange land for about 20 years and returns. And we talked last week about how the nation was in the loins of Abraham. Well if that's true it was also in the loins of Jacob. So in a sense when Jacob the man goes off into captivity and gets his wives down there in captivity, He is, I don't know if you'd call it captivity exactly, he was working for his uncle. And I guess technically he was free to leave anytime he wanted. As it turned out, he had to leave undercover and hide and run when he did. So I guess it's, if not a formal captivity, an informal one at least. And that comes into the story because what we're going to see in this 12th chapter, and this is maybe an important idea for this chapter, is memorials or landmarks. And you may remember one time God warned the people not to remove the ancient landmarks. And that had to do with the fact that God had, when He put the people in the land, made His decisions about where different families were supposed to be placed. Property lines were sacred things because they're ordained by God. Now, there are some people today who think they're sacred, but they're just sacred to us because we care about our property, right? At that time, they actually were ordained of God. And so it was a sin to remove those landmarks. Now, God has landmarks in a lot of places in the Old Testament that are not necessarily property lines. They're memorials to remember things that God had done. And as it turns out, some of these memorials kind of become important with regard to the entrance of the people into the land or the exit of the people out of the land, a sort of way of remembering where you come from. So we talked about a while back that there was an important place called Gilgal. That's where they first came across Jericho and they made a memorial of stones. We're going to talk about Gilgal again here in a little bit. It was a place called Mount Gilead that was a sort of a frontier place that became a defensive bulwark for the people and their armies often gathered together out in that area. But it was a landmark for Jacob, and we'll talk more about that in a little bit when he comes back from Lavens. We have these places that are landmarks, and then we have a place called Bethel that we've been talking about off and on through this whole book. Because after the nation divided, when Jeroboam set up his false worship centers, he put one of them at this place called Bethel. And that name means the house of God. And we're going to talk some more tonight about why that was such an egregious thing for him to do, of all places, to put this at Bethel. And we've seen already in this book how Hosea in a sort of sarcastic way refers to this place sometimes as Beth-Avon instead of Beth-El, because Beth-Avon means house of vanity. And the idea there is they've turned the house of God into the house of vanity. And even back there in chapter 10, I think it was, he called it Beth Arbel, which meant the house of the ambush of God. The idea being there that God is not going to protect Bethel because they've thrown God out of Bethel, right? It's not God's house anymore. They put that calf down there. And so we're going to sort of draw all these things together, all these places we've seen and all this history together in this 12th chapter to establish something about why it's going to be so difficult for this nation to return. The Northern Kingdom has a captivity in a sense that is still ongoing, which makes it longer than any of the other captivities that Israel has suffered. Now we're going to find out in the last part of the book, the end of chapter 13 and on into chapter 14, that He does intend to return them someday. We, as a matter of fact, saw that at the end of chapter 11, didn't we? In verse 11, they shall tremble as a bird out of Egypt and as a dove out of the land of Assyria, and I will place them in their houses, saith the Lord. That was what He said. Now, I mentioned last week this 12th verse is a little bit strange. It almost seems like verse 12 ought to go with chapter 12. And I believe that in the Hebrew Bible, actually it does. It's actually in the 12th chapter, it's the first verse of the 12th chapter. Because there he turns from his message about how Israel will return someday to the immediate problem of why they have to leave now. So let me come back and catch that 12th verse of chapter 11 again. Ephraim compasseth me about with lies, and the house of Israel with deceit. But Judah yet ruleth with God, and is faithful with the saints." And remember we mentioned that last week, that the nation has split. Ephraim here is used as a name for the northern kingdom, as it is sometimes that was the leading tribe in the north. And he says that because of their lies and their deceit, they're going into captivity. Judah is not going yet. Now Judah is going to go a little over 100 years later, But at the time the northern kingdom is overrun, the king in the south just happens to be Hezekiah, who was one of the godliest kings that Judah ever had. And so because of Hezekiah's faithfulness and because of his prayer when the Assyrians came against him, God wiped out the Assyrian army and they did not conquer Jerusalem. So Judah yet ruleth with God and is faithful with the saints. Well temporarily, right? We know that's not going to last, but that was the case at the time. Now he comes here in chapter 12 and says this, Ephraim feedeth on wind and followeth after the east wind. He daily increases lies and desolation and they do make a covenant with the Assyrians and oil is carried into Egypt. Now I said in this 12th chapter we're going to be bringing together a whole lot of memorable themes that we've looked at through the whole book and sort of tying them all together. And you may remember this expression about the wind from chapter eight. In the seventh verse he says, for they have sown the wind and they shall reap the whirlwind. It hath no stalk, the bud shall yield no meal. If so be it yield, the stranger shall swallow it up. And it looks like a lot of that sort of poetic meaning or the symbolism of the wind here in this book is that Ephraim, this northern kingdom, has just received all the ungodly things that have blown in from all over the other nations. The wind has blown in things that did not belong and the wind will do that. If you give it its chance and if the wind starts blowing hard enough you can have a field that is planted a crop you want to yield in there and you wonder where all the weeds come from? Well, part of it is the wind blows them in. And part of it is maybe sometimes the water gets up and that comes in. That's why around here it's hard to keep a hayfield in good order because all the hayfields are in flood plains. And every time the water gets up, it brings in seeds of things you don't want in the fields. Well, he says Ephraim has fed on the wind. And that's an important point about this northern kingdom. If you read the histories of these kingdoms in the books of Kings and Chronicles, they were much more apt, I think, than the southern kingdom to want to come into fellowship with the ungodly nations around them. They seemed to have more of a desire to keep up with the Joneses, you know, and have connection with those other kingdoms. They didn't want anybody to think they were backward, you know. And so if Syria or Assyria or whoever was a prominent nation, well they weren't averse to bringing in some of their gods because that's what worldly cosmopolitan people do. And it says they follow after the east wind. Now, guess where Assyria is in relation to Israel? It's east. Sometimes in the Bible it talks about when Israel was invaded they're coming out of the north. and sometimes even talks about the kings from Babylon or Assyria as kings of the north. But that is because you can't really make a direct approach to Israel from that country because there's a desert in the way. You've probably heard the expression, the Fertile Crescent. Well, that's what the Fertile Crescent does. It sort of curves around the desert. So even though those nations were in the east when they came to Israel, they had to curve around and come from the north, but they're actually located toward the east. So the idea is there's all this dust blowing across the desert. And there was a dried, hot desert wind that came from the east sometimes in that land that caused a lot of problems for those who were trying to farm. And I think that's part of the image there is that they followed after that east wind. Well, back there in chapter eight, it said they sowed the wind, they reaped the whirlwind. That is, if they wanted to follow after all those things the other nations followed after, they'll get the consequences of it. Now he goes on here in chapter 12 to say they keep following after that east wind. They're increasing lies and desolation. And this is our indication that this has something to do with their relations with other nations. It says they do make a covenant with the Assyrians. Now, the covenant with the Assyrians had to do with the fact, and we looked at this some before, that before the final crisis comes and Assyria brings a nation into captivity, there was a period of time where the kings of Israel had agreed to pay tribute money to Assyria. Sort of a protection racket kind of thing, right? That was what precipitated the final invasion was that the king of Israel at the time refused to pay the money. So that's when the king of Assyria comes to conquer them. But he says that's the problem, is that they'd made a covenant with the Assyrians in the first place. The idea is there if they had just trusted God, things would have never come to that pass. Hezekiah didn't need to make a covenant with the Assyrians, did he? Because he trusted God. And then he says oil is carried into Egypt. And that's a pretty interesting expression there. Israel never quite got over her association with Egypt. Now we've talked about before how Egypt is a type of the world And so when Israel is removed from its captivity in Egypt, that's a picture of we as saved people being taken out of our bondage in the world. And God took great pains to warn them not to return to Egypt really for anything. They weren't supposed to go down there and get horses. They weren't supposed to go down there and get wives. That was just supposed to be left behind. That's something you don't ever go back to again. But they never quite got over the idea that if they were threatened by armies from the north or the east, they could look to the south and try to make covenants with them. And so they did what many countries still do today. They tried to play two nations off against each other. They sometimes switched their allegiances back and forth to see who could get them the best deal. And it speaks specifically of oil being carried off to Egypt. gold in this context, or silver as was required oftentimes by other nations. Now, when we talk about oil here in the Bible, we're not talking about the kind of oil that the Middle East is known for today, right? We're not talking about crude oil because nobody really had any use for that back then, nor knew much how to get it out of the ground very easily. But it would probably be a reference to the oil that comes from olives. which was a product that Israel could produce in great abundance. That was one of the blessings God had given them at that time, is that olive trees were abundant there. They weren't necessarily in Egypt. And that was something that Israel could trade to Egypt. or that would have been in demand in Egypt that Israel could use as some sort of leverage or a bargaining chip. And that's really interesting when you consider that in light of different types and pictures in Scripture, isn't it? Because remember it's the oil olive that was the basis for the oil that God had told them to make to anoint the high priest with. And he had that special recipe for that. It was the oil olive that they were to burn there in the candlesticks in the temple, or later on in the tabernacle. And it pictures, it represents the Holy Spirit. And you would think that that would be a thing that would be precious to the people, wouldn't you? And I think that what it speaks of is how little regard they had actually for the holy things of God. The oil was supposed to be a thing maybe to the people of Israel even more precious than gold because it was necessary for the worship in the temple. Now remember when Moses first had the tabernacle built they brought gold in there to make some of the things out of but it wasn't something you needed to produce on an ongoing basis. Once you had it established in the tabernacle it was there forever. You had always need to be producing more olive oil. Yeah, they used it for a lot of other things too. They used it for cooking. Sometimes they actually made other kinds of ointments. They weren't allowed to use the recipe they used for the anointing for the high priest for anything else but that. But they would make other kinds of ointments and things using olive oil. And it was a thing that in the Bible is pictured as a precious gift from God. And I think what that indicates there is just how little regard they had for it. It comes into the same category as how you find some of the kings of Judah would strip down the walls and the appointments of the temple in Jerusalem to pay off their tribute money when they wanted to pay because they just had so little regard for holy things. They were more worried about saving their hides or about commercial matters or whatever. And that seems to be what's happened here. They're more worried about protection or commerce, profit, than they are about holiness. And I'm not going to, but you could stop there and preach a while about the condition we're in in the United States today, couldn't you? There's so many things that are more important to us than matters of holiness and devotion to God. Well, he goes on here in verse two and says, the Lord hath also a controversy with Judah, and will punish Jacob according to his ways, according to his doings will he recompense him." Now remember, we just saw there back in verse 12 of the last chapter, Judah yet ruleth with God and is faithful with the saints. It doesn't mean that Judah didn't have a controversy, right? And one of the things you find about Judah, if you study some of the prophets, Jeremiah talks about this some, is that even when Judah had good kings like Hezekiah and Josiah, later on in the time of the kingdom, who turned the nation back to God after they'd had ungodly kings, the hearts of the people didn't really always turn. They would come into obedience to the king, but they never really, some of them, got right. And so even though Judah was still under godly rulership at this time, God still has a controversy with him. And he says he'll punish Jacob according to his ways, according to his doings will he recompense him. And I think probably here this use of Jacob is intended to refer to the nation as a whole because he's just talked about Ephraim and now he talks about Judah. Well, Jacob is the one in whom Judah and Ephraim both have their roots. So he says he's going to punish him, and then he starts to talk about the man Jacob himself. Now we talked about this before. Jacob was the one who one night wrestled with God all night. And we'll talk about that more here in just a bit. And once he'd done that, God gave him a new name. And that name was Israel, which meant prince of God or prince with God. And God said that he had power with him. So we're going to start to review a little bit about the life of this man. And I don't know if we'll get through all this chapter tonight. There's quite a bit of interesting stuff here, but let's get into this a little. He says this first, he took his brother by the heel in the womb and by his strength he had power with God. Now we mentioned that briefly last week, but let me come back here to the book of Genesis and actually read the account of what happened there. And this is in chapter 25. Isaac was, of course, the son of Abraham. And his wife, Rebekah, was barren. Now I mentioned last week we see this pattern of how in several generations it's not the eldest son that is given the blessing. We also see this pattern of women who are barren and then God opens up the womb to continue this line of the seed of God, right? But you have Abraham and Sarah, remember Sarah was barren and it took a long time before God opened up her womb, she was 90 years old. Then Rebecca also was barren. And you find out with Jacob that his favored wife, Rachel, was unable to bear a child. So you have that again, you see the miraculous work of the Lord in keeping this particular line in order. But let me pick up here in verse 19, Genesis 25, 19. It says, and these are the generations of Isaac, Abraham's son, Abraham begat Isaac. Isaac was 40 years old when he took Rebekah to wife. the daughter of Bethuel the Syrian, of Padan Aram, the sister to Laban the Syrian. And Isaac entreated the Lord for his wife, because she was barren, and the Lord was entreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived." And the children struggled together within her, as twins, right? There's two children and they're struggling together. And she said, if it be so, why am I thus? And she went to inquire of the Lord, and the Lord said unto her, two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels, and the one people shall be stronger than the other people, and the elder shall serve the younger. That would be some kind of a prophecy for a mother to have to hear, wouldn't it? Sometimes we don't always put ourselves in the position of these people in the Bible, but can you imagine as a mother being given this prophecy that you've got these two sons and they're not going to get along. It's sort of a difficult thing. On the one hand, your two sons are going to become two great nations. That might sound like something to be sort of proud of, but they're not going to get along. And they'll be absolute total opposites. And one's going to be stronger than the other, and the elder shall serve the younger. And I imagine that would be difficult for a mother's heart to have to hear that, wouldn't it? To know that there'd be that kind of strife or conflict always between her children. Anyway, it says, and when her days were to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were twins in her womb. And the first came out red all over like a hairy garment, and they called his name Esau. And that basically means red. That's a real original name. That was the idea there. Anyway, after that came his brother out and his hand took hold on Esau's heel. And his name was called Jacob. And Isaac was three score years old when she bare him. So after Esau comes out, or as Esau's coming out, this second child reaches out and grabs his brother by the heel. And that's an interesting image there, isn't it? That this younger one is always going to be pulling back at the older one. And there was that prophecy that the younger would surpass the older. The younger would be chosen. We talked last week about why that was from Romans chapter 9, right? And it was essentially that God had made His choice and that was God's choice. But He actually does this. He establishes His position above Esau by means that are, well, entirely godly, right? The story that comes right after this is after they've grown about how Esau is out in the field, he's gotten hungry. Jacob's made a mess of pottage and Esau comes in hungry, says he's at the point to die. And so Jacob says, sell me this day thy birthright. And he does it. He sells his birthright. Well, neither one of these boys has really clothed himself in glory here. You have Esau, whose birthright is of such little importance to him that he sells it for a mess of pottage. You have Jacob, who is such a trickster or supplanter, sometimes is the way that name is rendered. I mean, think about this. I always try to put myself in the position of these people that are in the Bible. His name, sometimes people say supplanter or conniver or trickster. To be perfectly honest, it basically means liar or cheat. And can you imagine being a mother and naming your child Cheat? Little Cheat, right? That's his name. That's right. The apple did not fall far from the tree. But we have this pattern that starts very on that he's pulling back at his older brother. And he's sort of tricking him there. But the thing that he does after this, of course, is even worse than that. In the matter of the blessing, he and his mother essentially just outright steal the blessing. from God, or from Esau. The mother, I think. She was the one that stirred up all the lying about...anyway. The grace of God is an amazing thing, isn't it? God actually used these people to bring about His will and eventually to bring about the line that produces the Savior of the world. Because God lays bare their history. It's one of the things that indicates I think the truth of the Bible is that other religious books always lie about how good everybody was, right? God's people, their sins are laid bare for everybody to see. I'm glad He didn't put me in the Bible, right? Because it might tell things I don't want everybody else to know. And so that's what these people are. But Jacob, even though most of his life is not a particularly good man, He does have this power with God. We see this demonstrated that night when he wrestles with that angel. And the angel could not overcome him, remember? And that's when he gets his new name. God has His hand on this man. Now, we could spend a lot of time talking about exactly why God has His hand on this man or why God would choose this man. But the fact of the matter is God did choose this man. And so this man has his moments when he does some pretty remarkable things. And one of those we want to come to right now is in chapter 28. This is after Jacob has cheated Esau out of his blessing. And one thing that Jacob had in abundance was cunning or maybe street smarts. He knew it was time to run away, right? And his mother had encouraged him to go up to Syria where Abraham's people were from. Remember, Abraham was actually a Syrian. So he used to go up to that land to his uncle Laban and go up there and find a wife. Now there's a background behind this. Esau, the eldest brother, had married a woman from that land down there and it was a grief to her mother. She didn't want him, she didn't want Jacob marrying that kind of woman. But the interesting thing is she sends him back up there to Syria And we're seeing a pattern of something that sort of connects with what Israel is doing with returning to Egypt because God had told Abraham to get out of that land. That was to be left behind when they go to the Promised Land. Now, Jacob is permitted to go back up there, and God seems to endorse his going back up there. But before he goes, there's this night where he's staying outdoors, out in the wilderness, In chapter 28 verse 11 he says, he lied upon a certain place and tarried there all night because the sun was set and he took of the stones of that place and put them for his pillows and lay down in that place to sleep. And this is the night where he has that famous dream about a ladder. It says, and he dreamed and behold a ladder set up on the earth and the top of it reached to heaven and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. And behold, the LORD stood above it, and said, I am the LORD God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac, the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed. And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south. And in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Now, this is an incredible promise. What this is, essentially, is the ratification of the promise that God had made to Jacob's father, Abraham. And it wasn't conditional. And it wasn't for Abraham. God reiterated the promise to Isaac. And see, this is important because remember, Isaac wasn't Abraham's only son. There was another son, Ishmael, there. So it's important that God reiterates this with Isaac to show this is the seed I've chosen. Again, we have these two sons, Jacob and Esau. Esau's the one who grabs his brother by the heel, but God does choose him. And God doesn't give this dream to Esau, He gives it to Jacob because Jacob is the one that's going to have possession of this land. Now, there was a great nation that came out of Esau called the Edomites, but they don't get possession of this land, they end up in another place. And so He promises, now this is really interesting because this is at the moment that Jacob is departing from the land, right? He's abandoning the land. And just before he leaves, God promises him, I'm going to bring you back here. Now, you start to see the relation of this with the case of the nation of Israel, the northern kingdom in Hosea's day, right? They're getting ready to leave, but God's promising, I'm going to bring you back. Now, Jacob does something important here before he leaves. Verse 16, it says, And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not. And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and he took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it. And he called the name of that place Bethel, but the name of that city was called Luz at the first. And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, if God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then shall the Lord be my God. And this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God's house. And of all that thou shalt give me, I will surely give the 10th unto thee. He declares his allegiance to God, and he sets up a landmark. He sets up a memorial. and declares his intent to come back to this place. Now, this is important because it would have been easy in Jacob's circumstances to leave and never come back, wouldn't it? He knows Esau's going to be a threat if he ever comes home. And as a matter of fact, he never actually works up the courage to come home until he's got as much of a threat behind him as he's got in front of him, because he's got problems with Laban, right? So he knows Esau's going to be a threat. And it would have been easier maybe in his mind just to move to Syria permanently and never come back to this land. But now God has promised him the land, and he set up a landmark. He's put a memorial there. He's called this place the house of God. And notice he anointed it with oil. Now, we find what has happened if we come back to Hosea chapter 12 verse 4. It says, "'Yea, he had power over the angel and prevailed. He wept and made supplication unto him. He found him in Bethel, and there he spake with us, even the Lord God of hosts, the Lord is his memorial.'" So we come back to this place Bethel that we've been talking about all through the book. And you see now why of all the places in Israel to desecrate with this image of a golden calf, this place Bethel was a horrible place to do that because this was the landmark of the place where Jacob met God and God spoke with him The land that they have here by the promise of God, the covenant, the promise was ratified at the very spot where they later set up a golden calf. to worship another god. And so it's not just any other place, right? This is why this place has been emphasized over and over again that they've turned this from Bethel into Beth-Avon, the house of vanity, because they put something here false. And see, this is going to be something that we're going to look at a little bit more later in the chapter. They've got this landmark that Jacob set up so that when it was time for him to come home he had a place to come back to, he knew where he'd met God and he could come back. But what they've done now is perverted or corrupted the landmark. So what are they going to come back to now, right? See that's a problem, isn't it? What do they have to come back to? They don't have a Bethel anymore. All they've got is a place where they put a golden calf. Now let me give you a verse here in chapter 14 that we're going to come back to a few more times before we get done with chapter 12. Chapter 14 verse 1 it says, "'O Israel, return unto the Lord thy God.'" It says you don't return to Bethel, you return to God. And what a measure of God's grace that is in a sense because they don't have a Bethel to come back to. Jacob, it says in verse 5 of chapter 12, "'Even the Lord God of hosts, the Lord is His memorial.'" Jacob knew where to find God. because he'd met God at Bethel. And he set up a stone and he said, if I find that stone, I'm in the right place. And the Lord had made himself a memorial to Jacob there. But Ephraim now doesn't have a memorial. And isn't it a wonderful thing that even though they have no memorial and it's kind of an interesting thing to think about that even though the nation of Israel has started to return to the land and a portion of the nation has come, they have not yet returned to God by and large. Some of them have, of course, but the great part of the nation has not done that. And what a wonderful thing it is that someday He will afford them the opportunity to simply return to Him when they don't know how to find the way home on their own. The Bible speaks of how in the last time He'll gather the nation together. Jacob had a landmark The nation today has lost its landmarks. But one day God says, I'll make Myself your landmark. And that is a beautiful, beautiful thing to think about, isn't it? Well, He goes on here and says, verse 6, "...therefore turn thou to thy God, keep mercy and judgment, and wait on thy God continually." That's His instruction to them. they're not going to do it, but that's what they're supposed to do, is turn back to God and says, he's a merchant. The balances of deceit are in his hand. He loveth to oppress. He speaks here of a nation that has gotten covetous and loves their comforts and their material things more than they love God. There are a lot of passages in the Old Testament. As a matter of fact, if you've never read through all the prophets and some of the proverbs and things like that, You might be surprised how much emphasis God puts on honest weights and balances. He mentions that quite a lot because those were things that were used for storekeepers to deceive people. the old expression, putting a thumb on the scale, right? And so that was the sort of thing that they would do because they loved money more than the principles that God had set forth for them. And that was a tool that sometimes the wealthy would use to oppress the poor. Because it's an interesting thing, isn't it, that in most commerce that requires a scale, it's usually the wealthy man that owns the scale. And that's something for you to think about later on, right? But that's usually how it works, isn't it? The wealthy man usually owns the scale. And so if you can put together a dishonest scale, you can use that to oppress the poor. And God has a very low opinion of people who oppress the poor. He despises that. And so He puts a lot of emphasis on that here. And He says that's the way the whole nation has become. They've become dishonest. And this connects with what we've talked about before. Jacob used oil to anoint a stone there and declare that place to be the house of God, but they've shipped their oil off to Egypt because they don't care about the holy things anymore. All they care about is their commerce. And it goes on in verse 8, it says, Ephraim said, "'Yet I am become rich. I have found me out substance. In all my labors they shall find none iniquity in me that were sin. This nation just continually reminds us of the world we live in today, doesn't it? We've become rich. We've got substance. We don't know what substance really is, do we? What we think of substance is things that soon will pass away. All the wealth of this world someday will be melted with the fervent heat and will do us no good whatever. The real substance is in spiritual things that most of this world think have little substance at all. But they think they're doing okay because they're prosperous. They don't know that the judgment of God can fall on them at any time and they can lose their prosperity. We're like that in America today, aren't we? I think most of us really have no comprehension how close we could be to a collapse of our country, if God willed it to be so. it could happen tomorrow, it could happen tonight. And we sit around sort of thinking it could never happen to us. Well Ephraim thought it could never happen to them. It did happen to them. And the funny thing was they couldn't find any reason in themselves why God might have done that, right? They said, in all my labors they shall find none iniquity in me that That's exactly what it is. That sort of proud, lifted up attitude. There are so few people left in the world anymore that can perceive their own iniquity, that are humble enough to come before God with a repentant attitude. We can all see the iniquity in the other person, can't we? As a matter of fact, people talk about how divided our nation is today. You know what a lot of that is? A lot of that comes from the fact that we can see so clearly the wicked in the other person and we don't take the time to examine ourselves to see what wickedness we may have inside. And that's a dangerous place to be in. Our churches are getting to that place sometimes. We can see what's wrong with the other church or what's wrong with the other Christian. But we don't take the time to look down in our own hearts and repent. We used to sing the old song, it's me, it's me, it's me, oh Lord, standing in the need of prayer. Not my brother, not my sister, but it's me, oh Lord. Well, when's the last time you heard anybody sing that song? Right? Because we don't think like that anymore, do we? It's so much easier to look around us at the churches that we think aren't quite what they should be. And the dangerous side of that is that if you're not careful, that turns into thinking, I really am exactly what I ought to be. And once you've got to that point, you've disconnected yourself from God because all He's ever looked for was a broken heart and a contrite spirit. He's looking for those who know their sinners and understand their need of grace. And if you elevate yourself to the point you can't understand that, you may become very much like this nation of Ephraim without even knowing it. That maybe is the greatest tragedy of this nation, is that they were staring down the gun barrel of God's judgment and they didn't even understand why. Because they were so lifted up in their own minds, they really thought they were serving God. And that's something though to catch our attention, shouldn't it? To examine ourselves, are we really serving God? It's easy to criticize other people. Easy to put them down. It's easy to develop the attitude that I'm the one that's right with God. And these other people, if they knew what they were doing, they just fall in line with what I say. But none of us get to be the standard. God's the standard. And so it's much more important, actually, that you spend time looking at yourself to find out where you are in relation to God than where somebody else is. And Ephraim hasn't done that. They can't see any problem with what they've done. In verse 9 it says, "'And I that am the Lord thy God from the land of Egypt will yet make thee to dwell in tabernacles, as in the days of the solemn feast.'" Now, let me explain that verse a little bit, and that's maybe that verse, maybe we might get into the next one a little bit. I don't want to get all the way through verse 11 tonight because verse 11 will take a little while to explain. But he says he's going to make them dwell in tabernacles, as in the days of the solemn feast. Now, the background for that is in the book of Leviticus chapter 23. And Leviticus chapter 23 is the chapter that sets forth the sort of the calendar for the feast that God had instructed Israel to observe. And there are seven of these special occasions. The last one that they were to observe in the year was a thing called Feast of Tabernacles. Some people call it the Feast of Booths. But what they would do there is, let me pick up in verse 39. It says, also in the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when ye have gathered in the fruit of the land, ye shall keep a feast unto the Lord seven days. On the first day shall be a Sabbath, and on the eighth day shall be a Sabbath. And ye shall take you on the first day the boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and the boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook, and ye shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days. And ye shall keep at a feast unto the Lord seven days in the year. It shall be a statute forever in your generations, ye shall celebrate it in the seventh month. Ye shall dwell in booths seven days, all that are Israelites born shall dwell in booths." So every year in the seventh month, which on their calendar would be equivalent about to our late September, early October, it's the end of the harvest is when it is, when harvest is finished coming in, they were to take branches of trees and build shelters or lean-tos that they called booths. and spend a week in those. And it actually says in verse 40 that they were to rejoice