Brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ, once again we have, I think, a challenging chapter from the book of Hosea. Hosea 12 is challenging, though not impossible, I think, and by the Spirit's help we seek to take the message of God and apply the Word of God to our lives, of course. And I think as we dig into this chapter, the message will even be a very practical one. It's the message that we must remember. We must remember the past and learn from the history of God's people, as well as from our own history. Think about it. Why do we continue to commit sin in our lives when we know from the historical events recorded in God's Word that sin is empty? Why do we continue to sin when we have learned from the past events of our own lives that sin doesn't get us anywhere, that it even causes more problems, more hurt, more difficulty in our lives? Well, we do so because we are so given to forget. We are so given to forget. Whether or not we learn certain lessons as they are first taught us, Yet even if we do learn them, we can just as quickly forget. and find ourselves doing the same things again and again. So let's learn the lessons of history, and let's strive to remember those lessons. The initial challenge from this text is, first of all, how to divide it. You probably noticed in the ESV that some would divide the text after verse 1 of chapter 12 in order to include verse 1 with chapter 11. You may recall from last time that we didn't do that And so this time we are starting not with verse 2 according to the heading of the ESV but with verse 1 Hosea 12 verse 1 reads Ephraim feeds on the wind and pursues the east wind all day long they multiply falsehood and violence they make a covenant with Assyria and oil is carried to Egypt and When we include this verse with the rest of chapter 12, we thus hear God charging his people with forgetfulness. Even the current state of things and Israel's current state of rebellion against God, or given their current rebellion, it's clear that they had forgotten their own history. And it was a matter of feeding on the wind, says God. It was a matter of chasing the wind, neither of which you can do very well at all, both of which are quite pointless. It's even a rather absurd image, is it not? Eating the wind, feeding on the wind, chasing the wind. You can't eat the wind. You can't chase the wind. It's pointless. It doesn't benefit you or anyone. And so it is, as we shall see, with forgetting the past and failing to learn from your history. And that's why God says of his people, they multiply falsehood and violence. What does God mean by this? Simply that each new generation of his people only did more sin or only added more sin to the sins of his people in the past. It's maybe like each successive class in a high school adding more trophies to the school's trophy case. When a new class comes along, they don't say, oh, I see that there are already trophies in the case from the past. We'll just be satisfied with those. No. Instead, they set out to win again. Only here, it's kind of a reverse illustration, because here it's not a matter of winning, but losing. Instead of learning from past failures, God's people tend to say, no, we must fail for ourselves. We must achieve our own losses. And so even though Israel had suffered much at the hand of her enemies, Yet she was now at the time of Hosea seeking to make a covenant with those same nations that were their enemies in the past and to try at least to buy their favor with gifts. That's what it means when it says they make a covenant with Assyria and oil is carried to Egypt. So as God continues his indictment against his forgetful people, let's first consider lessons from Bethel. Lessons from Bethel verse 2 reads the Lord has an indictment against Judah and will punish Jacob According to all his ways. Do you notice the switch there from Judah to Jacob? This is not two different references, but a different way to refer to the same people of God. God is reminding His people that they can't separate themselves from their ancestors, nor should they when it comes to learning from the past. The lessons that the man Jacob learned are the lessons that they should already have learned. And yet the way of Jacob was sadly still the way of Israel in Hosea's day. So what happened at Bethel that the people of God had forgotten? Well, first of all, let me explain. I'm using the term Bethel as somewhat of an umbrella term because God even starts with the birth of Jacob, which, as far as I recall, was not at Bethel. Verse 3 reads, in the womb, he took his brother by the heel. This was even where or how Jacob got his name. He was named Jacob because when he was born, he was born second to his twin brother Esau. And after Esau was born, Jacob immediately came next, even grasping his brother Esau's heel with his hand. Now, was that literal or is it just a reference to how quickly Jacob was born after Esau? Usually there is some space of time, usually I would think a couple minutes even, between the birth of twins. But not so in the birth of Jacob and Esau. Jacob was born immediately after Esau, almost as if he was already from birth pursuing his brother, not wanting him to get too far out in front of him, or perhaps even literally hanging on to him as if to keep up with him. And so the name Jacob means deceiver, but not just in the sense of being a liar, although Jacob did do that, but his name refers to how he was born pursuing Esau, in a sense competing with him from his birth. And we know that Jacob did pursue and overcome his brother, even managing to obtain from him both his birthright and his blessing as firstborn. Esau was born first, and yet by Jacob's stratagems, he would enjoy the right and blessing of the firstborn. God's covenant faithfulness would pass to him, and the line of the coming Messiah would run through him, that is, through Jacob and from his descendants. And so Hosea 12 verse 3 refers to more than just the birth of Jacob. It reads, in the womb he took his brother by the heel, and in his manhood he strove with God. He strove with the angel and prevailed. He wept and sought his favor. So God was pointing out through the prophet Hosea, that his people, even though they were descendants of Jacob, that they were not like Jacob as they should be. Yes, they were deceitful like Jacob, and in that sense they multiplied falsehood, as it says in verse 1, but they were not forcefully pursuing their God like Jacob did. Jacob was even said to have wrestled with God in the wilderness. You may remember the story recorded in Genesis 32. Perhaps it is more proper to say that Jacob wrestled with an angel of God. But remember that in Scripture, an angel represents God himself. An angel is not God himself in one sense. And yet when an angel is present, God himself is understood to be present. When an angel does something, it's a matter of God himself doing something. And so Hosea rightly says of Jacob, he strove with the angel and prevailed. But the text in Genesis 32 makes it clear that Jacob wrestled with God. And upon that occasion, Jacob was even given a new name, the name Israel, which means quite literally one who strives with God. So what does that mean, to strive with God? It means that Jacob not only pursued his brother and overcame him, but that he also pursued God and overcame God. But how do you do that? How do you overcome God? Well, Jacob overcame God in a sense by securing his blessing. Firstly, by managing to gain the birthright and blessing of his father Isaac, but also by not marrying a Canaanite woman but by going to take his wife from his own relatives, other descendants of Abraham. The story goes on and we don't have time to go back over all of it, but the point is to see that Jacob pursued God in the sense of seeking the blessing of God and obtaining it. and how unlike Jacob were his descendants in Hosea's day. Jacob had wrestled with the angel and he had said to the angel, I will not let you go until you bless me. And so God did bless him and even changed his name to Israel, meaning one who strives with God. But now in Hosea's day, Israel was not living up to their name. the name that they acquired from their ancestor Jacob. Israel was not being Israel. They were not pursuing God. They were not insisting on living under His blessing. Instead, they were actually being just like Esau. Or another way to put it is that they were not keeping covenant with God through their trust in him and their obedience to him. And so the call of Hosea to Israel was really simply this. Remember, remember how Jacob wrestled with God. Remember how Jacob insisted on receiving the blessing of God. Remember that God is a covenant God, that there is a covenant with God to be kept. Verse 5 reads, The Lord, here is the name of God in the Hebrew, the name Yahweh. Yahweh is His memorial name. The point is that it's the covenant name of God. And its reference here is to call to mind the covenant of God with His people. And so verse 6 finishes this first part of the chapter, So you, by the help of your God, return In a sense, remember, hold fast to love and justice, and wait continually for your God. Well, secondly then, lessons from Aram. Lessons from Aram. Verse 12 reads, Jacob fled to the land of Aram. There Israel served for a wife, and for a wife he guarded sheep. So the lessons, the lessons that Israel had now forgotten, the lessons are still from the life of Jacob. But here, Hosea refers to another occasion in Jacob's life. In verse 7 through 9, we hear how the Israel of Hosea's day had grown complacent and self-dependent in their wealth. In verse 8, it reads, Ephraim has said, ah, but I am rich. I have found wealth for myself and all my labors they cannot find in me iniquity or sin. And so through Hosea, God was reminding complacent, self-dependent Israel how it was with Jacob. How did Jacob grow rich? Did he acquire wealth for himself? No, he had fled to Aram to take a wife from his own relatives. Granted, he also fled to avoid the wrath and vengeance of his brother Esau. But he went to Aram to avoid taking a wife from the nations of Canaan. In other words, he was being faithful to his covenant God. Well here we need to recall the story of how Jacob worked seven years for Rachel only to be tricked by Laban you remember and he was given Leah instead and Here's here's a good deal of poetic Providence we might call it as Jacob who tricked his brother and then his own father In order to get the birthright and then the blessing now Jacob gets a dose of his own medicine, we might say. Now Jacob has to deal with conniving Laban. What goes around comes around. Jacob worked seven years expecting to gain Rachel as his wife. After seven years, he receives Leah instead. And you think there had to have been some alcohol involved in there somehow. Received Leah instead and has to work another seven years for Rachel. But the point is to see that through it all, God was blessing Jacob. God made Jacob rich, not by the blessing of Isaac that Jacob had stolen from Esau, but by way of his time in Aram, in a foreign land. And Jacob had figured it out through this experience. Jacob had learned the lesson quite well, because upon his departure and his return home, We hear that he prayed these words to God. He said, I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant. For with only my staff, I crossed this Jordan and now I have become two camps. He was referring to all his possessions, two wives, all his possessions now organized into two camps as they waited in the wilderness for the arrival of Esau, who was coming out to meet them. And for what purpose? Jacob didn't know. Well, it's a terrific story. I hope in the very least I have sparked your interest to go back and read it again. Again, it's in the last part of the 20s, early part of the 30s in the book of Genesis. It's a terrific story, but the point is that Jacob got it. Jacob understood. Granted, it took 14 years in a foreign country, but Jacob got it. He learned that he didn't need to connive in order to get the blessing of God. God had now promised to bless him. And so Jacob had, in a sense, stumbled upon his riches. He he had been his mama's boy, of course, back at home. And and now he had gone out into the world to work. And and lo and behold, he had become successful. And he had grown rich not by being a property owner and the lord of his own estate. He had grown rich by working for another man. A man who was constantly stealing from him and conniving against him. And Jacob had grown rich by being even a lowly shepherd. But notice the contrast now with what God's people say of themselves in Hosea 12 verse 8. Again, Jacob had prayed, I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan and now I have become two camps. But Hosea 12 verse 8 records, Ephraim has said, ah, but I am rich. I have found wealth for myself. Sounds like a certain presidential candidate these days, does it not? Ah, but I am rich in all my labors, they cannot find in me iniquity or sin. So Jacob says, I don't deserve any of this. And Ephraim says, I'm rich by my own doing and there's no sin in me. And so God announces His judgment to His people. He says, I am the Lord your God from the land of Egypt. I will make you dwell in tents as in the days of the appointed feast. God was basically saying, well, if you have such trouble remembering the past, then I will help you remember. I will help you remember by taking away your wealth. and returning you to those days when you lived in tents, wandering about in the wilderness. Remember those days? You will remember them by way of my judgment for your wicked arrogance and self-dependence." Well, finally then, lessons from Egypt. And this point is really taken from the entire chapter because Egypt is first mentioned in verse 1, again in verse 9, and for a third time in verse 13. In fact, Egypt, as I think you probably recall, Egypt was the greatest event of all in the history of God's care for his people. And by Egypt, we mean God's deliverance of his people from Egypt, starting with their slavery in that land, then raising up Moses, then the 10 plagues, finishing with the death of the firstborn and the parting of the Red Sea. And so one of Israel's sacraments was the Passover each year, remembering by their celebration of the Passover, how God had acted on behalf of his people, doing great and mighty things for them, not just defeating, but utterly destroying their enemies while Israel really merely sat and watched. Could there have been a more vivid picture of God's grace toward his people? Judgment, yes, toward their enemies, but his marvelous, matchless grace toward them and their children. Again, in verse 1, God indicts His people for sending bribes and gifts off to Egypt. Really, Israel, don't you remember your history in Egypt? Now you're sending bribes off to Egypt? In verse 9, God reminds His people, I am the Lord your God from the land of Egypt. In other words, have you forgotten, O Israel, what I did for you in Egypt? Do you not remember my faithfulness to you from that day until now? And in verse 13, God reminds his people by a prophet, the Lord brought Israel up from Egypt and by a prophet he was guarded. And so in verse 14, here's the indictment. Ephraim has given bitter provocation. In other words, God's people had not just sinned against God, they had committed a boorish rebellion. As we've said in the past, Israel had not just sinned, they had sinned against the God who had previously lavished them with grace and grace upon grace over and over time and again. And yet his people were in rebellion against him. So what does it all mean? How shall it be applied to us? Surely by seeing that we too must be God's remembering people. Are you a remembering person of God? For us, of course, we must remember not just the lessons from Jacob's life, not just the story of the exodus, the story of God's deliverance of his people from Egypt. We must remember our savior, Jesus Christ, and his cross for our salvation. Stories of the Hebrew scriptures teach us many important lessons about who God is and how he is a covenant keeping God, a faithful God who cares for his people when they deserve nothing of it. And yet the stories of the Hebrew scriptures are all leading us to Christ and to the cross. The stories of the Hebrew scriptures are all pointing us forward to Christ. And now, of course, we have the Lord's Supper, about which Jesus said, Do this in remembrance of me. And the point is not just a momentary once a month or even once a quarter or even once a week remembrance, but a daily remembrance. A morning by morning remembrance in which we take to heart the lessons of history and say to ourselves, better yet, say to Christ in prayer, I will live this day for you, Lord Jesus. I will live this day for You, Lord Jesus, because I remember. I remember that You are God, but that You humiliated Yourself by becoming a man like me. You humiliated Yourself by becoming a foot servant. You humiliated Yourself by placing Yourself under Your own law. You humiliated Yourself by dying the death of a disgusting criminal. You humiliated yourself for me because I have humiliated myself in sin. And so because you humiliated yourself for me, I will humiliate myself for you. I will remember. I will remember. I will remember. I will remember and I will live for you as your servant to do your will for the good of others and for the glory of your name. I don't know how often it's still done, but there was a day, of course, when schoolchildren every morning in school took the Pledge of Allegiance. Well, we as Christians need to take a Pledge of Allegiance to Christ every morning saying, I remember. I remember who you are, Lord Jesus. I remember what you have done for me. I remember your cross. And because I remember, I will live for you in this day." But even more, let's get a bit more specific in this time of application. Let's go back to Jacob wrestling with God and prevailing. Can we not see Christ in this story of Jacob wrestling with the angel? The point is to show symbolically in that wrestling match how Jacob went after God, how Jacob insisted on receiving the blessing of God. Jacob suffered, of course, as you know the story, I think, a dislocated hip. But you see, Christ suffered what we might call a dislocated soul. And whether we look back and remember Jacob or look back and remember Christ, who was the fulfillment of Jacob, The question is this, are we among those who strive with God? Do we go after God? Not just do we believe in God. James says even the demons do that and they shudder. So it's not just about whether we believe in God, do we go after God? And woe to those who straddle the fence and only follow Christ on the side when it's convenient, when it fits their schedule and doesn't conflict with everything else. Woe to those who are merely lukewarm. For as Christ says in Revelation 3.16, He will spit you out of His mouth. We say we believe in Jesus, but it's a lie if we are not living for Him. We say we are living for Jesus, but it's a lie if our faith is not a matter of pursuing Christ. The call of Christ is to follow Him. But to follow Him does not mean once a week for a morning. And to follow Christ is not a matter of wandering along aimlessly somewhere behind Him. To follow Christ is to pursue Christ. to seek Him and in a sense to chase Him down every time we pray. To follow Christ is even to lay hold of Him, like Jacob laid hold of Esau coming out of the womb. Or better yet, like Jacob wrestling with the angel. The angel said, let me go, for the day is broken. But Jacob said, I will not let you go unless you bless me. You know, the Christian faith is not that complicated. We might try to make it complicated in order to claim we don't understand, but here it is. Here it is in summary. You are a sinner, and you deserve punishment in hell for your sin. Christ stepped into your place and obeyed the law of God for you, and then went to the cross to be punished in your place to suffer hell for you. And having risen from the dead, He now calls you to follow Him, which means to believe that He is your Savior and to live for Him. And that's not complicated. If there's something that you really don't understand, well, seek out the answer. Ask for an explanation. But otherwise, answer the call of Christ. Believe in Him. Lay hold of Him by faith. Follow Him and pursue Him with your whole life. Go after Him. And understand that it's not God's obligation to remind you. He does provide for our remembrance by His Word and through the sacraments. But it's our responsibility to remember. Remembering is an active thing that we must be doing as we spend much time in the Word. and in prayer as we pledge ourselves in our allegiance to Christ every morning that we get up and head out again to live for Him. So remember the lessons of history. Remember. Remember the lessons learned from the lives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Remember Moses and the Exodus and the sins of Israel in the wilderness. But above all, remember Jesus Christ. That's what Paul writes in 2 Timothy 2 verse 8. Remember Jesus Christ risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. Very clearly, Paul was following Christ. Paul was living for Christ because he remembered Christ. And through these words of Paul, the Holy Spirit calls us to do the same. Remember Jesus Christ. Amen. Let's pray. We do confess, O God. We do grieve, O God, for our forgetfulness. How easily, how quickly, Our attention is turned away, and we forget the cross of our Savior Jesus Christ. Help us to remember Him. Help us to remember His cross. Help us to remember what He has done for us, so that we will be moved with an ever more grateful and joyful heart to live for Him. Bless us with this remembrance. Call us to it and help us to take up the active discipline of remembering Jesus Christ. In His name we pray, Amen.