The Nation’s Need for Godliness

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Transcript:

Turn with me to Hosea chapter 9. Hosea chapter 9. We’re going to look at a few things tonight.

And as I’m reading this passage, as I have been reading this passage, it presents a pretty grim picture for Israel. Not that the rest of what God has spoken through Hosea to Israel was such a pretty picture itself. But when he talks about the future for Israel at this point, it really got to me as far as the things that they had to look forward to if they continued to distance themselves from God.

And really by this point, it was a foregone conclusion that judgment was coming on Israel because they had had so many opportunities to repent that God knew if they were going to repent, they would have already done it. And so, as I said, it’s a foregone conclusion that these things are coming. And he says, starting in verse 11, starting in verse 11, As for Ephraim, their glory shall fly away like a bird from the birth and from the womb and from the conception.

Though they bring up their children, yet will I bereave them that there shall not be a man left. Yea, woe also to them when I depart from them. Okay, this is in contrast to where we left off last week where he says, at one point Israel had been like grapes in the wilderness.

They’d been, as I told you last week, If you’re wandering through the desert and you’re hungry and thirsty and you saw a bunch of grapes growing and they were ripe and they were juicy and they were just looked like they were ready to burst, you would be excited. It’d be a refreshing thing. It would be a great thing to find.

And he says at one point, Israel was like this bunch of grapes. He said, but now they’ve separated themselves under that shame and their abominations were according as they loved. And he said, they’ve basically squandered what benefit they had to anybody.

Well, now he goes from describing as so fruitful and so prosperous to this picture of barrenness for Israel. And this is what really got me. He said, I’m going to take your children away.

And I can’t imagine a threat I would take more seriously. I’m sure you all couldn’t either. If somebody says, if you don’t do something, I’m going to harm your children or your grandchildren.

Now, make no mistake here, God is not bullying them and saying, if you don’t straighten up, I’m going to kill your children. This is a metaphor when he says that he’s going to take away their children. God’s not talking about just striking the children of Israel dead.

He’s talking about when the Assyrian captivity comes, they might bring forth children, but their children are going to be carried off into captivity by the Assyrians. What they’ve done and what they’ve aspired to for generations, which is to build families, have the name carry on, bear children, those sorts of things, and live a prosperous life, that’s going to be gone. that’s going to be gone for them because he says though they bring up their children yet will I bereave them that there shall not be a man left yea woe also to them when I depart from them and I’m struck by the fact that God again God’s not saying I’m going to kill your children although some of them certainly would die in the war what he’s saying is you’re not going to have your children if you refuse to live up to your end of our bargain and have done so for centuries You have failed for centuries.

God had given them chance after chance after chance. If you’re not going to live up to your end of this, then the blessings I’ve given you, those can go away very quickly. And so their children were going to be carried off into captivity.

Their children were not going to be there where they were able to live in their own land that God had given them, or they were going to be able to worship God at the temple and such as they had been instructed to do. and it’s ironic to me, or maybe not ironic so much as just a natural consequence, that what the parents had indulged in for centuries, the children were now not going to have a choice in. And they were going to be separated from God and from the land.

Ephraim, verse 13, as I saw Tyrus, is planted in a pleasant place, but Ephraim shall bring forth his children to the murderer. This again, I believe, is speaking of the king of Assyria. Ephraim, the nation of Israel, they’re going to bear children, but they’re going to hand them right over.

to the king of Assyria. They were going to be his servants. They were going to be in his army.

They might even be peasants working the land, but they were going to give their substance to him. So instead of bearing children for the Israelite nation, they were going to hand them over to the king of Assyria. Give them, O Lord, what wilt thou give?

Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breast. They would not be able to bear children, and they would not be able to support children. All their wickedness is in Gilgal. And I’ve told you before, Gilgal was one of the places, one of the many places where they built pagan idols, but this in particular seems to have been a center of pagan worship since the beginning of the time when the kingdoms were divided. And they had a large golden calf there that the people were encouraged to go and worship instead of crossing into the southern kingdom and worshiping at the temple.

All their wickedness is in Gilgal. All of the wickedness, all of the sin, all of the perverseness that took place in the nation of Israel had its root back at what happened at Gilgal. It had its root in idolatry. And I’ve told you before, idolatry seems to be the root of most sin. When we stop worshiping the one true God and we worship something else, it’s really no surprise when all sorts of other sin follow suit.

It’s hard to be surprised when people drink to excess. It’s hard to be surprised when people kill one another. It’s hard to be surprised when people lie, when they do not have at the center of their lives a just, holy, and all-powerful God that they worship and who they alone worship.

When people get away from the moral center and the focus on God, it’s not surprising when other sin comes and follows. And so he says, all of their wickedness is in Gilgal. For there I hated them. Folks, we don’t think of that very often.

We say all the time, God is love. But there are times in the Bible where God says, I hate so-and-so. Now, I believe it would be a sin for me to say, I hate so-and-so.

But God, being holy and just, is able to hate in a holy way. He’s able to hate things without sinful motives like you and I would have. God hates wickedness.

Well, we all should hate wickedness, but there’s wickedness within ourselves. We should hate our own wickedness. that’s why I’ve stopped saying love the sinner hate the sin and started saying love the sinner hate my own sin because I’ve got enough wickedness in me to hate without worrying what everybody else is doing for there I hated them for the wickedness of their doings I will drive them out of mine house I will love them no more all their princes are revolters Ephraim is smitten their root is dried up they shall bear no fruit yea even even though yea excuse me, some of these lines blend together and I mix up the words.

Yea, though they bring forth, yet will I slay even the fruit of their womb. My God will cast them away because they did not hearken unto him, and they shall be wanderers among the nations. And so he’s told the nation of Israel here, because you have been given opportunity after opportunity after opportunity to seek me, and you have not done so, you know what?

I’m not going to force you to love me. If you want a life without God, he says, as you wish. Now because of this, he says in chapter 10, verse 1, Israel is an empty vine.

He bringeth forth fruit unto himself. According to the multitude of his fruit, he hath increased the altars. According to the goodness of his land, they have made goodly images.

And so what he says is when he says that Israel brings forth fruit unto himself, Israel had up to this time been prosperous. The people of Israel had had it pretty good. And I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you as I read through the book of Hosea.

I see parallels between them and us. And it scares me just a little bit. They had been prosperous.

Life had been pretty good. And they had just collected fruit. That doesn’t necessarily mean literal fruit, although that was involved.

But everything they could grow, everything they could produce, all the wealth they could store up, they had done so. Then it says, according to the multitude of his fruit, he hath increased the altars. So as they had the money to do so, they were building religious places.

Now, some of these, I’m sure, they built in honor of the one true God, but others of them, they built for idols. And it wasn’t even good enough for God when they built things, when they built shrines and images to worship Him, and they were contrary to what God had said to do. Folks, we could set up a giant gold statue of Jesus and say, we’re worshiping Jesus.

We really are worshiping Jesus, and it helps us focus on Him, so we’re going to use this statue. Folks, as far as God’s concerned, that’s a no-no. Yeah, we’re still trying to worship the one true God, but we’re not to build these images. That’s why I don’t understand in the Catholic church and in the Orthodox churches the statues and the icons.

There was an Orthodox church, I think somewhere here in northwest Arkansas, I was looking at their website, and they were talking about instructions on how to venerate the icons, how to worship the icons. You go into the church and they said, don’t kiss the pictures of Jesus, or you’re supposed to kiss the icons as an act of worship. And they said, don’t kiss Jesus or Mary or any of them on the mouth or on the face, because you wouldn’t just walk up to Jesus and kiss him on the face.

Instead, kiss the picture on the hand. I’m thinking, do you hear yourselves? Whoever’s writing this, have you seen a Bible ever?

They had built some of these shrines, no doubt, intending to worship the one true God, but God had said, don’t do this. And I’ve told you before, my theory kind of is, and if I see something in the Bible that contradicts my theory, I’ll revise my theory gladly. But my theory from what I’ve read of the Bible myself is that when Aaron made the golden calf, it appears to me that they were intending that as a representation of the one true God because they didn’t have enough faith to worship what was unseen.

They said, we need something to look at. So it wasn’t necessarily, again, I could be wrong in this, but they weren’t necessarily saying, let’s worship the cow God. They were intending to worship the one true God, but God said, no, not that way.

You shall not make graven images. And so they would build these religious places, these religious shrines. Some of them to God, yes, and some of them to the pagan gods of the countries around them.

According to the goodness of his land, they have made goodly, that word doesn’t mean good images, it means handsome, good to look at. God here is not giving tacit approval to them building these images. He says, their heart is divided.

Now shall they be found faulty. You bet their heart was divided. God had told them all along, there’s one God.

You worship him first, last, and only. And yet the nation of Israel was trying to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They were trying to worship Baal. They were trying to worship Asherah.

They were trying to worship Molech. They were trying to worship several of the others. You start trying to worship more than one God, your heart’s going to be divided.

Jesus even said, a man cannot serve two masters. Their heart is divided, now shall they be found faulty. He shall break down their altars, and he shall spoil their images.

Keep in mind, some of these things they thought they were doing for God. Other shrines they knew they were building to idols, but some of these things they thought they were building to God, and it says here that God was going to break down their altars and spoil their images. For now they shall say, we have no king because we feared not the Lord.

What then should a king do to us? They’d already been promised that God was going to rip the kingdom away from them. So what can a king do to us now?

We have, God took away our king. We have no king here to enforce things. What’s he going to do?

And so when they really should have been seeking God the most, when the judgment made clear what was going on, when the judgment made clear the peril that they were in, when the judgment made clear how much they had displeased God, then you would think they would repent and say, God, we’re sorry. Whether he saves us or not, God, we repent. But instead they’re saying, we have no king.

Who’s there to enforce any of this stuff now? They have spoken words, swearing falsely and making a covenant. Thus judgment springeth up as hemlock in the furrows of a field.

So from time to time they would get religion, so to speak, and they would come back to God and say, we’re sorry, we’re sorry. And there’s nothing wrong with coming back to God and repenting and saying, I’m sorry. But it was only a superficial repentance.

Because even in their hearts, they still were of the mindset, what can we do and what can we get by with? But sure, we’ll cry out and say we’re sorry. And because of this, God said judgment would spring up like hemlock in the furrows of the field.

Hemlock is poisonous, if you weren’t aware. They used it to kill Socrates in ancient Greece. And every once in a while on Law and Order or one of those shows, somebody will use hemlock to kill somebody else and they’ll have to figure it out.

So hemlock is not a good thing to have in your plants. especially if you go out in the field and you just harvest everything and folks you don’t want a little bit of hemlock getting mixed up into the grain that you’ve just produced and so hemlock judgment excuse me would spring up like hemlock in the furrows of the field that judgment would spring up and it would bring death and it would bring destruction to the people the inhabitants of samaria shall shall fear because of the calves of beth-haven again another another set of pagan idols. For the people thereof shall mourn over it, and the priests thereof that rejoiced on it, for the glory thereof, because it has departed from it.

And so there were apparently glorious statues, awe-inspiring statues, these golden idols that they had built. And the people used to just come and if we could put the Bible into southern speak, they would come in ooh and awe over the statues. And the priests, the Bible says, the priests would rejoice because we have such wonderful statues, have such wonderful religious artifacts, and God says the glory of those things is gone, and the people are going to mourn.

It shall be also carried unto Assyria for a present to King Jerob. Jerob, not Jared. Ephraim shall receive shame, and Israel shall be ashamed of his own counsel.

So the things that they had gloried in the most, when they should have been glorying in God, would be carried off to the king of Assyria, and they would get shame as a result. As for Samaria, her king is cut off as the foam upon the water. The king of Israel, the northern kingdom, was based in Samaria, and so the king was cut off as the foam upon the water.

And the only thing I can guess there is if you’ve got foamy water, sometimes you can skim the foam off the top and it’s just gone. I know when I make tea, I go through about a pitcher of tea a day, a gallon of it. And when you’re using the sink sprayer to spray the water into the tea, you build up a weird head of foam on the tea, which it won’t hurt you.

It just looks weird. You can scoop it off and it’s just gone. Well, the king of Samaria would be like that foam.

He’s just gone. He’s cut off. He’s no longer a part of the picture.

The high places also of Avon, the sin of Israel, shall be destroyed. The thorn and the thistle shall come upon their altars, and they shall say to the mountains, cover us, and to the hills, fall on us. And we’re going to leave off there for tonight.

But I just want to share with you very quickly, I hope, a few thoughts on this. Because as I said, the more I read through the minor prophets, the more I realize that a lot of times we have ignored these books to our detriment. These books were not written to us, but it’s almost like these books were written about us.

And I’m reminded of the quote, I want to say it was Ronald Reagan, who said, if we ever forget we’re one nation under God, we’ll be a nation gone under. Is that who said it? Okay.

I couldn’t remember who said it, but I remembered the quote. I think of that a lot. Folks, if we as a nation forget that we are under God, and I’m not just talking about it being in the Pledge of Allegiance, if we ever forget that we are a nation under God, we will be a nation gone under.

They forgot that they were a nation under God, under God’s covenant, under God’s blessing, under God’s protection, under God’s provision, under God’s lordship. They forgot about all of it, and they were content in their prosperity and everything else, and it cost them dearly. Again, I think under God belongs in the Pledge of Allegiance, but if they took it out tomorrow, it wouldn’t change my life in a significant way.

My concern is not what we have, what phrase we have in what, but what goes on in the hearts of God’s people in the United States of America. And it’s not the fault of the world outside that our country seems to be heading toward a similar kind of indifference toward God to what the Israelites had. It’s the fault of those who claim and profess to serve the one true God.

It’s our fault. Not that we’ve forgotten God, but maybe we get lax about it. Maybe we, I’ve heard people say it’s because we quit talking about it.

And that may be. Somewhere back along the 60s or 70s, whenever it happened, we decided we didn’t want to offend people anymore. Well, folks, our sin is offensive to God.

It should be offensive when we talk about sin. It’s most important, it’s most important that we be concerned with godliness in our hearts, with godliness in the church, rather than just worrying about laws and everything else to fix it. Again, like the rest of you, I think we should have good laws.

I think we should have laws rooted in our morals and heritage. But that in and of itself is not going to fix anything. What we need is a revival of godliness among the people in this country who call upon the name of Christ, who say we’re Christians.

The simple truth is if 84% or whatever the statistic is now, if 84% of Americans really were Christians, the way the Bible defines Christians, this would be a vastly different society and we wouldn’t have to change a single law to do it. The nation of Israel claimed to be probably 100% Jewish, that they were 100% behind the word of God and his covenants and yet nobody here was living it. Folks, we trust just as they trusted in a lot of things that won’t do us any good without godliness.

I want to share three of them with you before we close tonight. First of all, there’s no benefit from prosperity without godliness. No benefit whatsoever from prosperity without godliness.

I remember, I want to say I was about six years old in the 92 presidential campaign, and they talked about social issues and this and that, and they talked about abortion and various things, and I remember hearing, it’s the economy, stupid. And ever since then, I’ve heard, that was one of the slogans of Clinton’s campaign, and I’ve heard ever since then, ever since then, that we ought not to talk about social issues. everything is about the economy.

Everything in our country comes down to the economy. Folks, that is the most ridiculous statement I’ve ever heard, that everything comes down to the economy. Folks, we could be the richest nation on earth and still be wiped out by the judgment of God if there’s not godliness in this nation as well as prosperity.

And our GDP could be through the floor and we could still be a rich nation if we’re rich in godliness. When he says here that Ephraim is smitten, their root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit, yea, though they bring forth, yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of their womb. He says that in 9.

16. He had said before that about all the prosperity that they had had, all the wonderful success. They had lived a good life, and yet ultimately it amounted to nothing because there was no godliness behind it.

There was no godliness behind it. Folks, we still live in arguably the richest nation on earth, But if there’s no godliness behind it, there’s no benefit to it. Folks, in our personal lives, we can be prosperous, and if there’s no godliness, it’s not going to do us a bit of good in eternity.

Now, even as believers, I’m not suggesting to you that we lose our salvation, but I’m asking you the very simple question. When the time comes to stand before the Lord and give an account of what we’ve done, would we rather come to the Lord and show Him a full bank account, Or would we rather show him the ways that we’ve lived for him since we trusted him as our Savior? Now, I’m not saying it’s either or.

I’m not telling you that all rich people are evil. I heard somebody talking on the radio this week. I kind of agreed with, I like rich people.

I’ve never gotten a paycheck from a poor person. I think rich people are great. But folks, if we put the bank balance of our nation or of our family ahead of godliness, there’s no benefit to it in the long run.

There was no benefit to them. They did not have money or produce enough to buy God off when God said, judgment time’s coming. Second of all, there’s no benefit from religion without godliness.

You realize that? There’s no benefit to religion without godliness. They were worshiping.

They were building altars. They were building shrines. They were building all sorts of things.

And God said, no, that’s not going to work. That’s not going to cut it. Folks, we could come to church Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night.

You could come to Disciple Way on Thursday. You could be here for the men’s breakfast. You could be here for WMA. You could do everything that this church does.

You could be involved with, and I hope you would. But if there is not godliness in our hearts, if there’s not a fear of God behind it, it doesn’t mean anything. It’s just worthless religious stuff that we bring to God, and it’s like filthy rags.

The Bible says all of our good works are like filthy rags, And God said he would break down their altars and spoil their images. Now again, this is not an either-or thing. But when it comes time for eternity to start, I would much rather come to God and give an account for a life lived according to his principles than say, well, Lord, we built this church so pretty.

We made it look so nice. We went to two services. We did all these things.

Again, it’s not either-or. You can have a pretty church and still be godly. That’s not what I’m saying.

But if we put our religious activities at the forefront and we forget about the fear of God and the love for God that’s supposed to motivate it, there’s no benefit in it for us whatsoever. Just as there was not for Israel. And third of all, this evening, there’s no benefit from security without godliness.

They had built incredible cities that they could trust in. We know they had a king. We know they had a military.

God said their king was going to be cut off, scooped up like foam off of water. We know they were going to get to the point where their cities and their country was going to be so destroyed that they were going to call on the mountains and hills to fall on them and cover them. And folks, even that wasn’t enough to escape God’s judgment, and it wasn’t enough to escape the Assyrians.

And the Bible tells us, I believe, in the book of Psalms, that we shouldn’t put our trust in princes or chariots. We should put our trust in God. I’m paraphrasing, of course.

Folks, as a nation, it does us no good to say nothing will ever happen to us because of the military. Folks, we’ve got a great military, and they do an incredible job. But if we’re not living as a godly nation, it’s not enough to protect us from what’s to come.

It’s not enough for me to put my trust as a person in personal security. And I’m not just talking about guns. I’m talking about all the things that we put around us and think, okay, now I’m secure.

Now my life is stable. Now my life is as it should be. I’m in my little circle and nothing can hurt me.

We can live a stable life. We can live a peaceful life and still there not be godliness behind it, not be a fear of God behind it. That did no good for them.

That gave them no benefit whatsoever. And folks, there are all sorts of things that we could talk about tonight that people put their trust in that do us no good if there’s no godliness with it. Our concern, first and foremost, should be to do what God has told us to do.

Our concern, first and foremost, should be with reading His Word, soaking up what it says, and obeying. And maybe sometimes we don’t put what God tells us to do first, and we pursue all these other things, just like they did, because maybe we don’t have the trust that God can handle our life if we let go of it. I’m here to tell you, just as Jesus said, as we looked at this morning, Don’t be afraid of those who can only kill the body.

Be more concerned with the one who could cast the body and soul into hell. Folks, the world can’t do anything but kill us. And if this was anything other than a group of Christians, that would be an incredibly stupid thing to say.

But we know where we’re going if we’ve trusted Christ. There’s only so much they can do to us. There’s only so much that this world, and I’m not talking about persecution, but there’s only so much this world can do to us. Because we serve a God who ultimately is in control of all things.

And we serve a God who’s prepared and is preparing a place for us to be with him for eternity. If we truly trust God, we should concern ourselves with what he’s called us to do. We should concern ourselves with obeying his commands in everything.

And I say that just admitting, just as I did this morning, that I fall far short of that as well. Obeying everything he’s commanded. No, I don’t have that down perfectly either.

But we should strive to obey everything he’s commanded us to do and worry about all the other stuff second. Because if we begin with just a little bit of putting these other things first, the prosperity, the religious rituals, the security, all the things that we look to and say, that’s what I need to focus on in life. If we begin just a little bit putting that ahead of God, it leads us down a slippery slope of trusting in those things instead of him and leads ultimately to judgment just like the people in Hosea’s day.