This morning, I invite you to turn with me, and we'll consider together Hosea 13. Hosea 13. When you have found Hosea 13, please also then turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 15, as we'll read a few verses of the end of that chapter as well. Hosea 13, 1 Corinthians 15. Hosea 13, hear now the word of God. When Ephraim spoke, men trembled. He was exalted in Israel, but he became guilty of Baal worship and died. Now they sin more and more, they make idols for themselves from their silver, cleverly fashioned images, all of them the work of craftsmen. It is said of these people, they offer human sacrifice and kiss the calf idols. Therefore, they will be like the morning mist, like the early dew that disappears, like chaff swirling from a threshing floor, like smoke escaping through a window. But I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt. You shall acknowledge no God but me, no Savior except me. I cared for you in the desert, in the land of burning heat. When I fed them, they were satisfied. When they were satisfied, they became proud. Then they forgot me. So I will come upon them like a lion, like a leopard. I will lurk by the path like a bear robbed of her cubs. I will attack them and rip them open. Like a lion, I will devour them. a wild animal will tear them apart. You are destroyed, O Israel, because you are against me, against your helper. Where is your king that he may save you? Where are your rulers in all your towns of whom you said, Give me a king and princes? So in my anger I gave you a king and in my wrath I took him away. The guilt of Ephraim is stored up. His sins are kept on record. Pains as of a woman in childbirth come to him, but he is a child without wisdom. When the time arrives, he does not come to the opening of the womb. I will ransom them from the power of the grave. I will redeem them from death. Where, O death, are your plagues? Where, O grave, is your destruction? I will have no compassion, even though he thrives among his brothers. An east wind from the Lord will come, blowing in from the desert. His spring will fail and his well dry up. His storehouse will be plundered of all its treasures. The people of Samaria must bear their guilt because they have rebelled against their God. They will fall by the sword. Their little ones will be dashed to the ground, their pregnant women ripped open. And turning to 1 Corinthians 15, we know is that great chapter of the Apostle Paul and the resurrection of the dead. the resurrection of Christ, bodily resurrection, and the comfort that we have of ours as well. Picking it up at verse 50 through 57. I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true, death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin. The power of sin is the law, but thanks be to God, he gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. May God bless his word to us this morning. Dear people of God, as we just read, Paul says, Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? Now, those are powerful questions, and like Hosea's questions from where Paul gets them, these questions expect the answer nowhere. Their victory is nowhere. Their sting is nowhere. They are gone. That's what Paul teaches. Yet, when it comes to our experience, it seems different, doesn't it? Our experience of life. Every time one dies physically, it seems that death is victorious. It seems like death won. Sometimes you'll hear someone say, well, so-and-so lost their battle with cancer or with Parkinson's or with heart disease. And according to our experience, death has plenty of sting, doesn't it? As Israel was going to find out. And as many of us here know by experience, we know. We know that death can be painful. it can be terrible for those who are about to die. We have agencies like hospice and drugs like morphine in place to reduce any sort of pain and suffering, to make the dying one as comfortable as possible. And we know that that death sting also affects the loved ones who are left behind. The sting of loss, the sting of loneliness, it's painful, it hurts deeply. And then, too, we must go through the process of sorting and packing up the things left behind by that loved one. And that, too, can be painful. Death is still like a dark cloud over humanity. And that shouldn't be surprising to us because, as Paul says, the wages of sin is death. And we talk about that in terms of spiritual death, physical death, eternal death. Hosea the prophet teaches here, I believe, he's pointing to physical death. In a particular way, the destruction of Israel, he's pointing to the fact that the end that awaits us all, that physical death that marks our end to this life, has its own end. And that end is accomplished in Jesus Christ our Lord. It means our redemption in Him. And the end of that which causes our end to this life comes with the resurrection of the body. Now, Hosea chapter 13, I trust as we read it, you see again, it's a difficult chapter because it is the climax now of this prophecy of doom and indictment. It is the capstone, we might say, of all that Hosea has to say about Israel's sin and the destruction to come upon her. It is a picture of Israel's certain death as Hosea paints a final portrait of Israel's depravity. And with that final portrait, we notice, first of all, her past recalled. Now, this is not new. We know that Hosea has been pointing Israel back time and time again. Remember. He wants them to remember who they are, why they are who they are, why they have what they have. He wants them to remember the blessings of God, but here, in a particular way, her past is recalled to illumine the present. That she might contrast the present with the past. In verse 1 we read, When Ephraim spoke, men trembled. He was exalted in Israel, but he became guilty of Baal worship and died. You see, Israel enjoyed God's blessing at one time. in her infancy, in the wilderness, throughout the days of David and Solomon. She was a respected nation. She enjoyed the fear of the other nations because of what her God had done for her. Yet even in the wilderness, long before David, for a time she fell into Baal worship at Baal Peor, at the instigation of Balaam. Boys and girls, you remember Balaam. Balaam was the prophet of the Lord who rode on the donkey that talked. Yet Balaam, who was supposed to be a prophet of the Lord, was a greedy man and because of information, because he had spoken to the enemy and things he had said to the enemy that caused Israel to fall into Baal worship for a time and God sent the plague and wiped out those who had fallen into Baal worship. They died. And Ephraim as a tribe, we know, grew in her influence. Ephraim himself received a great blessing from Grandfather Jacob. Became a powerful tribe. And when the kingdom split, Ephraim led the way. Jeroboam, the first king of the northern tribes, he set up the golden calves at Bethel and Dan. And we might say that just as Adam, when he ate the fruit, died spiritually in an instant. As a nation, Israel died as she violated the first commandment, you shall have no other gods before me. She had enjoyed God's blessing, but now in Hosea's day, she was separated from God's favor. Even though she had been punished in the past, in different ways, on different occasions, she continued to drink of the poison leading to death. Engaging in rampant idolatry, as verse 2 points out. The Lord gave her calves to be sacrificed to Him. The blessings that the Lord pours out upon us, beloved, are to be used for His glory and honor, To be used for His service. To be used for the advancement of His kingdom. He gave them calves to be sacrificed to Him. But Israel instead made calf images and then sacrificed humans. Those created in the image of God. Sacrificed humans to dead idols. They worshipped the creature rather than the Creator. Hosea here clearly points out the height, the depth, we should say, of Israel's depravity. As they kiss, not the Son of God as Psalm 2 commands, but they kiss through worship and adoration the false gods. And therefore Hosea also points out Israel's status now without God. Verse 3, These are quite the similes, like mist, dew, chaff, Smoke, very clearly a picture of weakness and worthlessness. A little bit of heat comes and the mist and the dew, they disappear quickly. A little bit of wind and the chaff blows away and the smoke is gone. The farmers wanted that breeze to blow away the garbage chaff just to leave the good grain. And boys and girls, if you've seen smoke going up in the air, it doesn't last very long. Sooner or later you can't see it anymore. It's not there. Israel would be easily and quickly wiped away. They were without a purpose. They would vanish without a trace. Dear people of God, breaking the first commandment naturally leads to breaking the second commandment. As Israel put her trust in other than Jehovah. And it wasn't long before she wanted to touch and to see that which she was worshiping and fell into idolatry. And the same danger is true for you and me. For example, when we put our trust in money, when we put our confidence in money, treating it as a Savior, as it were, instead of the God, the giver of that tool of money, then it's not long and we begin to worship money in things. If only I had this much money, well, then I could quit work. If only I had this much money, then I could buy that new car and all my car problems would be gone. Or I could buy that new home. Or I could buy that iPod. I could buy this, that, and the other thing. My life would be great. Boys and girls, don't you have that sometimes? If only I had this or that, my life couldn't get any better. It would be so wonderful. We begin to worship money in things as if things are what make life good. as if life depend on things. But God alone is our goodness and the things of life are meaningless for us and will do us no good apart from Him. Yet like Israel, those who forsake Him, He has no use for them and they will be easily and quickly wiped away and forgotten. Her past is recalled to illumine the present but also, once again, to remind Israel of the Lord's favor in verses 4-6. Indeed, she had experienced the Lord's favor as Hosea wanted her to remember over and over again. Again, redemption from slavery in Egypt. I am the Lord your God. Continually pointing Israel back to those days of hopelessness. Those days, really, of a sort of death. And her redemption of that. And how God cared for and protected her in the desert, that burning land. It wasn't Baal, the god of fertility, who provided the water and the food. It was the Lord who was her Savior. He is the one who provided in love and mercy. In the second part of verse 4, it says, You shall acknowledge no God but me. No Savior except me. Now, the word for God, there's not the word for covenant God, Yahweh. It's the general word for a transcendent being, for an almighty deity. the same word the nations would have used for God in general. But God is saying here, there is no other. I am the one and only. And that phrase can also be translated, you know no God but me. We might say, yeah, but they knew Baal. They acknowledged Baal. They were serving him, so they knew another God. No, what the Lord is saying here is that even though Israel may have given credit to Baal, and acknowledged Baal and not Jehovah. Yet the truth is that all that Israel enjoyed came only from one hand. It came from the hand of the one and only sovereign God. Even if they didn't acknowledge Him, yet He is saying, You know Me because all that you have, all that you have enjoyed, all the favor that you have taken and experienced has come from Me. It can only come from Me, He says. the God who is a jealous God for his people, not with a jealousy of envy and hatred like our jealousy often is, but God's jealousy is a deep concern and love for what is precious to him, for that which belongs to him. He is not willing to share it with another. The same kind of jealousy a husband is to have for his wife, a love so deep that, husbands, you are not willing at all, even in the least, to share your wife with another. She experienced the Lord's favor, but also rejected the Lord's favor. In spite of the numerous warnings in the book of Deuteronomy from Moses, for example, he said, when you enter Canaan and you eat from fields and vineyards that you did not plant, and you drink from wells that you did not dig, when you live in houses you did not build, when you become satisfied, do not forget the Lord your God who has made all this possible. But that's exactly what they did. They became fat and sassy. Israel had received so much love and goodness and revelation from the true God. He had revealed Himself over and over as the powerful, majestic, loving, patient God. Yet she rebelled against God and in her perverse ingratitude went after that which is no God at all, which is no Savior, only idols. She forgot God. Indeed, her sin, the depths of her sin, is so great. Beloved, we have received the revelation of God Himself. He has revealed Himself to us through His Word, by His Spirit, and through His Son, Jesus Christ, that we might know Him by faith. That we might know what He has done in Jesus Christ and He has also poured out upon us His bountiful blessings of this life. And as we examine ourselves, we are to ask ourselves, what do we do with them? What do we do with this revelation of God? What do we do with the bountiful blessings He has poured out upon us? Do we take them for granted? See, that's the danger that in prosperity, like Israel, we are tempted to think that we don't need God, only in an emergency. I'll keep him in my back pocket just in case. And indeed, in our day, because of the economic situation, there are many who have not even bent the knee to God in prosperity. And now they find themselves in a horrible situation. They don't know where to turn. And that's the danger of prosperity, to forget the one from whom all blessings flow. What do we do with the revelation of God? What do we do with the blessings He has poured out? does the truth of God govern our lives? Does it govern how we live before the face of God and before the eyes of a watching world? Does it govern, do we live according to the world's standards? Or does the Word of God govern our language and our actions and our work ethic and our marriages and our parenting and our dating relationships? Young people, the world says if it feels right, do it. Go ahead. Just so you'll love each other, at least for a while. Go ahead. But God says, no way. He says, you are to keep yourself pure, and you are to do your best to help the other keep themselves pure. For the spouse that I may give to you one day. Does the truth of God govern our lives, and do we use the blessings that God has poured out upon us to show love for our neighbor, to help them in need? even the gift of time to brighten someone's day? Do we use that which God has given to us to point others to Jesus Christ? In this final portrait of Israel's depravity, her past is recorded. But in the second place, her horror is predicted because she had rejected God. We cannot help but to see the punishment fits the crime. The punishment is absolutely terrible because the crime was terrible. And we see a glimpse of that in verses 7 and 8. So I will come upon them like a lion. Like a leopard, I will lurk by the path. Like a bear robbed of her cubs, I will attack them and rip them open. Like a lion, I will devour them. A wild animal will tear them apart. And this horror is coming from God Himself. The very One who had helped them would now destroy them. Notice, God does not wink at sin, beloved. He doesn't treat it lightly. He takes all sin very, very seriously. We see that in this horror as we notice its terrifying image. These wild predators, and boys and girls, you can understand this if maybe you've seen programs about wild animals on TV. When I was a boy, and some of the other older people here will remember this too, there was Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. And it was fascinating at times to watch and learn about the lifestyle of these wild animals and of their instincts, especially their hunting instincts. And here the text speaks of a leopard with its deadly and deliberate resolve and focus crouching down with patience and then with surprise, pounces on its unexpected prey. And then along with that, the mother bear robbed of her cubs. And as parents, we can understand this a little bit with our children, can't we? But a mother bear robbed of her cubs, Its fury is so great beyond imagination. It comes with blind rage. And therefore, its attack is gruesome. It's inescapable. It's deadly. And then the lion, the king of the beasts, tears to pieces. It too is deadly. An image of total destruction, beloved. With this image of the worst predators, we see how the Lord will slaughter His people in His fury because of their sin and their rejection of Him. We notice, too, then it's a helpless situation. No one, the only one that can help them is against them. The kings and rulers for which they had begged are helpless to defend them because they, too, are under God's judgment because of their sin. And on the day of judgment, the kings that they had looked to for help, These kings will be of no help. The only thing that will stand with them on the day of judgment is their record of sins, as verse 12 says. But then that record will only count against them. That record will prove that the punishment is just and deserved. And Hosea also points out its deadly guarantee in verse 13. Pains as of a woman in childbirth come to him, but he is a child without wisdom. When the time arrives, he does not come to the opening of the womb. This image probably hits closer to home for some among us. It's a heart-wrenching image. We know that birth represents deliverance. In the normal process of birth, the rhythm of contractions causes a child to move closer, to progress, and to move closer to being delivered. This image here is an image of the most painful and important point in that labor process of no return. Yet here, Hosea says, it is unsuccessful, resulting in the death of the baby and maybe even the mother. Ephraim, because she is without wisdom, without the fear of the Lord, as we were reminded last Sunday evening, rejected the deliverance of the Lord. And therefore, the torment of the Lord's wrath would bring pain upon Israel as intense as labor pains, but without the relief of a newborn child. And in verses 15 and 16, Hosea points out the total accomplishment of this horror. The Lord promises total loss. We talked about the scorching east wind last week that comes up quickly. It is so hot and dry. It dries out. Everything burns up. Everything in its path. pointing here to the devastation of the land, that Israel would be purged of all prosperity. She would simply be destroyed, killed. She would suffer the fulfillment of the names of Hosea's children. Remember those names? Jezreel meant massacre. That's what she would suffer. Lo-Ruhamah meant no love, no pity. That's what she was without from the Lord. And Lo-Ami meant not my people. That's what she no longer was because of her sin and rejection. Truly, the end of Israel was certain. Nothing less than the death of the nation. And again, beloved, this points to the horrible destruction of God's wrath to come upon the wicked. It points to the destruction that we deserved. We sit here today comfortable, but we need to understand this is the destruction. everything that Hosea says was to come upon Israel is what you and I have deserved. Because this is how our sin has angered God. Indeed, we must understand how great is our sin and misery because you cannot know the greatness of deliverance unless you understand what it is from which you are delivered. Only then can we, with humility and joy, give praise to God for such a great salvation. even as we also see here in the third place, her hope promised. Even in the midst of all of this death and destruction, we find verse 14, which says, I will ransom them from the power of the grave. I will redeem them from death. Where, O death, are your plagues? Where, O grave, is your destruction? With death and the grave, Hosea is talking there about the realm, the dominion of death, the cessation, the ending of life. Death was in Israel's future because by rejecting God, she had chosen death, not life. Moses said in Deuteronomy 30, Obey, choose life. Do not disobey, and therefore choose death. Now with regard to these first two phrases, these first two statements in verse 14, there are some who translate them as questions, as if the Lord is saying, Will I ransom? Will I redeem? Because there are some who believe that given the context of judgment and anger and darkness and death, that fits better with the context. And therefore the answer would be, No, I will not ransom. I will not redeem. And therefore the Lord then is calling upon death in the grave to pour out their plagues and destruction in full force. And we can understand how that makes sense. We can understand how that would fit. But in the original Hebrew, those two phrases are not questions. They're statements. And as we have seen throughout this prophecy, it is not uncommon for Hosea all of a sudden in the midst of speaking of destruction and death to show God's heart of love poured out upon the people. Already in chapter 1, throughout the chapters, and notice specifically chapter 11, verses 8 and 9, How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I treat you like Adma? How can I make you like Zeboim? My heart is changed within me. All my compassion is aroused. I will not carry out my fierce anger, nor will I turn and devastate Ephraim, for I am God and not man, the Holy One among you. I will not come in my wrath. It's not uncommon that in this prophecy See, the Lord pours out His heart of love upon His people. In verse 14, too, I believe, is a great affirmation that though we face that last enemy, physical death, it does not have the last word. Though Israel would die, they were to take comfort because there would be a resurrection of sorts. Her deliverance would come after death. And we see that deliverance, we see that resurrection of sorts in Romans chapter 9 as Paul speaks of the remnant of Jews and Gentiles, of those who are the objects of His mercy, even us whom He also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles, as He says in Hosea, I will call them My people who are not My people, and I will call her My loved one who is not My loved one. And it will happen that in that very place where it was said to them, you are not My people, they will be called sons of the living God. The church, we might say, in a sense, is the resurrection of Israel, but this points to our resurrection, our blessed resurrection for those who believe. As that hope is promised through ransom and redemption, Hosea says. That ransom, we know, is pointing to a price paid to purchase something back. And that redemption means that price being paid by a close relative, that kinsman redeemer. They had a ransom and redemption by Jesus Christ. Beloved, Hosea is pointing forward to the work of God, our Heavenly Father, through His Son, our brother, Jesus Christ, who said in Mark chapter 10, For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many boys and girls. He paid the ransom price. You know what it is. His precious blood. And He provides satisfaction. He was destroyed. He suffered and died the judgment of God against sin. He bore the full wrath of God's fury, all that Hosea talks about here. And he rose victorious over death in the grave. And he alone provides new life, beloved. Those who believe are given new spiritual life as they are born again and brought back into favor with God. Yet we still face physical death, don't we? We still face that last enemy, as Paul calls it. Yet, we face it without fear. Because that hope promised includes the death of death. That's what Hosea is talking about. That's what Paul confirms, the death of death. Where, O death, are your plagues? Where, O grave, is your destruction? Again, the realm, the dominion of death. Death and the grave are stripped of their power. Death and the grave swallow up mankind by plagues and destruction, for example, diseases and difficulties and tragedies that may take our life. Or the old age that eats away and causes our strength to fail mentally and physically and emotionally. But again, these questions, Where, O death, are your plagues? Where, O grave, is your destruction? These expect the answer, nowhere. They have lost it. And as Habakkuk makes clear in Habakkuk 3, verse 5, plagues and pestilence are now servants of the Lord. As one older translation puts it this way, as if the Lord is saying, I will be your plague, O death. I will be your destruction, O grave. Therefore, pointing to the fact that the Lord would use the plague of death and the destruction of the grave against themselves. And He has done that. He has accomplished that in Jesus Christ. As the perfect sacrifice, beloved, He paid sin's debt completely. He took on the full wages of sin, and therefore death had no more claim on Him. As the plague of death, as it were, was poured out upon Him, and he was conquering it. It was as if he was pouring it back on death. And the result is that he rose victorious over the grave. The grave had no more destructive power to hold him, and he did this for you and me. So that death's plagues and the grave's destruction no longer has power over you and me. So that therefore, like Him, we will not be forgotten in the grave. And beloved, that is confirmed by Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. Paul's message there is that the glorious promise of Christ's resurrected, glorified, and imperishable body assures us of ours on that last day. Indeed, we will face that last enemy unless Christ comes first. but this is our blessed assurance as verse 54 of that chapter says when the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable and the mortal with immortality then the saying that is written will come true death has been swallowed up in victory that verse is saying that hosea chapter 13 verse 14 will be fulfilled on that day when the perishable puts on the imperishable it is already fulfilled in Christ and its fulfillment is certain for you and me. And in a sense, we don't have to wait for that day to enjoy it because we enjoy the result today, at least in part. As Psalm 91 says, you will not fear the terror of night nor the arrow that flies by day nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness nor the plague that destroys at midday. You do not need to fear disease. You do not need to fear the troubles of this life that may take your life. You do not need to fear death. We still face it, don't we? We still feel its sting temporarily. Yet in Jesus Christ, we are more than conquerors over it because at the point of death, we are with the Lord. With the confidence that Paul gives in Philippians 3, that we shall be raised. That last enemy will be defeated and we will be made like Christ's glorified body. As Revelation 20 verse 14 says, On that day death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. Dear people of God, this is the hope promised for those who turn to God in repentance and faith by His grace. Those who look to Jesus Christ alone. He puts an end to our spiritual death. We live today in Him. It means we will not suffer eternal death. We'll live forever with Him. And it guarantees that our physical death will be overturned one day. And that's our comfort in Jesus Christ. No more wages of sin, but the free gift of God in Him. Eternal life. That's the message of the table for which we are to prepare. To rejoice in this week. To remember again from which we have been delivered. To what we have been delivered. And we also enjoy a transformation today. Our death will not be the end. And therefore, we do not need to live in the fear and the horror and the dread of how and when God might take us from this life. And we do not need to groan and lament as we turn 30 or 40 or 50. How terrible that is, isn't it? No, it's not. Though our body may die one day, we will live forever and we will be made like Christ. And therefore, we will not always be like this today. We will not always be in this body of death that struggles with sin and coveting and lust and sickness and disease. Indeed, we believe the perseverance of the saints, which is a struggle. Yet our comfort is that our sicknesses will be overcome. Our comfort is that our sins are not stored up and will not count against us, but they are put away, remembered no more. And instead, even today, beloved, we live in the joy of the Lord. With renewed strength by the Holy Spirit to be holy as God is holy, we are able to obey Him out of love. In all of life, asking, how can I represent God? Israel shamed Him, but may our challenge be tomorrow and Tuesday and every day this week and every day of our lives, may our challenge be as we wake to a new day each and every day, how can I best represent God today? In Christ Jesus, we have been eternally separated from the sting of death in the grave so that we will never be separated from the love of God. And therefore, beloved, we can take comfort. We are to take comfort in Him who said in Revelation 1, I am the living one, I was dead, and behold, I am alive forever and ever, and I hold the keys of death and Hades. And since Christ holds those keys, that means one thing for you and me. That means life. Israel received countless images that pointed to her death we have been given the table of the Lord Jesus Christ that beautiful picture of our eternal life in him Amen let's pray together Lord God our Heavenly Father once again in humility yet with great joy we do thank you for the hope that you have given to us. That even as we have been given new life even now in Christ Jesus that though we will face unless he comes first we will face death to this life yet you've given to us the promise that we will not be forgotten in the grave. That one day our bodies will be raised and join together with our souls, we will live with you forever and ever, body and soul, even as you have made us in the beginning. And Father, may this be a comfort to us when we do experience physical death in this life, whether it be the death of a loved one or as we face it ourselves one day. Fill us with such a great comfort and hope that it is not that process of death that will bear down upon us, but the joy of the Lord that will lift us up to face it with courage and joy, knowing that to be absent from the body is to be with the Lord forever and ever. Thank you, Father, for such a great promise of salvation in Jesus Christ. Amen.