So, I invite you to turn with me to Hosea, as you know, Hosea chapter 9 this morning. As you're turning there, just a couple of comments, you may recall from the recent presidential race, the mantra that we heard over and over again, more of the same, more of the same. If you want more of the same, vote this way. If you want change, vote that way. We heard it again and again, more of the same. And that may be how some of us feel as we come back to Hosea from week to week as we make our way through. It's just more of the same, sin and judgment. And we begin to wonder, I know I do in my study, we begin to wonder how much more of this can we take. But we need to understand, beloved, it is not simply more of the same. Hosea does not water down the truth of the situation. He tells it like it is, yet he progresses. As we have seen, at one point after the introductory chapters, he spoke generally about sin and judgment, and then he moved on to speak more specifically about Israel's sin, outlining in detail somewhat her moral corruption and her spiritual apostasy, pointing out exactly how she had broken covenant with the Lord. And now with chapter 9, we need to notice that he moves even a little bit closer, more specifically, into talking about that judgment. He gives us a more vivid picture of how it is Israel would be judged. He points out to us exactly what that captivity that she was facing would mean. And so please remember that and keep that in mind as we read together and consider together Hosea chapter 9 this morning. So hear now the word of God, beginning in verse 1. Do not rejoice, O Israel. Do not be jubilant like the other nations, for you have been unfaithful to your God. You love the wages of a prostitute at every threshing floor. Threshing floors and wine presses will not feed the people. The new wine will fail them. They will not remain in the Lord's land. Ephraim will return to Egypt and eat unclean food in Assyria. they will not pour out wine offerings to the Lord, nor will their sacrifices please Him. Such sacrifices will be to them like the bread of mourners. All who eat them will be unclean. This food will be for themselves. It will not come into the temple of the Lord. What will you do on the day of your appointed feasts, on the festival days of the Lord? Even if they escape from destruction, Egypt will gather them and Memphis will bury them. Their treasures of silver will be taken over by briars and thorns will overrun their tents. The days of punishment are coming. The days of reckoning are at hand. Let Israel know this. Because your sins are so many and your hostility so great, the prophet is considered a fool, the inspired man, a maniac. The prophet, along with my God, is the watchman over Ephraim, yet snares await him on all his paths and hostility in the house of his God. They have sunk deep into corruption as in the days of Gibeah. God will remember their wickedness and punish them for their sins. When I found Israel, it was like finding grapes in the desert. When I saw your fathers, it was like seeing the early fruit on the fig tree. But when they came to Baal Peor, they consecrated themselves to that shameful idol and became as vile as the thing they loved. Ephraim's glory will fly away like a bird. No birth, no pregnancy, no conception. Even if they rear children, I will bereave them of every one. Woe to them when I turn away from them. I have seen Ephraim, like Tyre, planted in a pleasant place, but Ephraim will bring out their children to the slayer. Give them, O Lord, what will you give them? Give them wombs that miscarry and breasts that are dry. Because of all their wickedness in Gilgal, I hated them there. Because of their sinful deeds, I will drive them out of my house. I will no longer love them. All their leaders are rebellious. Ephraim is blighted, their root is withered, they yield no fruit. Even if they bear children, I will slay their cherished offspring. My God will reject them, because they have not obeyed him. They will be wanderers among the nations. May God add his blessing to the reading and preaching and hearing of his word this morning. Well, beloved in Christ the Lord, mankind, apart from God, is blinded to the truth of his relationship with God. He is blinded to the truth of his true standing before God. Israel was. And we know that that is true. It's clear from the godlessness and the selfishness and the wickedness that is running wild all around us as well. It is clear from the rejection of the Word of God and the rejection of the true church that we see in our society as well, the relativism and the humanism that governs the hearts and the thoughts of so many. And not only is mankind, apart from God, blinded to the truth of their standing before God, the same mankind then does not realize the hell that man deserves. and does not realize that the only reason that mankind is not wiped off the face of the earth or are already suffering in hell is because of God's patience. And we see that with Israel. But they also do not see and also do not realize that the only possibility of rescue from that which we all deserve is the compassion of God. Now, I know that many of you are familiar with that famous sermon by Jonathan Edwards, the Puritan preacher, called Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, focused on Deuteronomy 32, verse 35, which says, In due time, their feet will slip. It's a hard sermon. It's a difficult one in many ways. It includes threats of vengeance, the vengeance of God upon unbelievers, but it's also meant to turn sinners back to God, assuring them that it's only because of the mercy and the grace of God, as we said a moment ago, that they are not already in hell's judgment. Edwards wrote these words, The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you and is dreadfully provoked. His wrath towards you burns like fire. He looks upon you as worthy of nothing else but to be cast into the fire. He is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight. You are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes than the most venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince. And yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else that you did not go to hell the last night, that you were suffered to awake again in this world after you close your eyes to sleep. And there is no other reason to be given why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God's hand has held you up. A difficult sermon, difficult words to hear, but that's how God sees sin and those who commit it. But at the very same time, that's the truth of mankind still in this world apart from God. That he is held only by the gracious, merciful hand of God. And in many ways, that was the situation with Israel. And the word of God for mankind is available. It is available, but it is not popular as Hosea found out, and as no doubt Edwards probably found out after he wrote that sermon. It is available, but not popular, but yet it is the only word of salvation. And, beloved, the day will come, as it did for Israel, when God will say, Enough! And He will rub His fingers together as if dusting off that spider's web, and all those who rejected Him will fall to hell forever. Here, in Hosea 9, through Israel's punishment, judgment, we are given a glimpse of the eternal judgment against the wicked that is to come. As we find the deadly portrait of God's judgment for sin. And that deadly portrait of God's judgment for sin includes, first of all, the loss of covenantal blessings. A loss of the covenantal blessings that Israel had enjoyed. And that includes, first of all, a loss of provision. Verses 1 and 2. Do not rejoice, O Israel. Do not be jubilant like the other nations. For you have been unfaithful to your God. You love the wages of a prostitute at every threshing floor. Threshing floors and wine presses will not feed the people. The new wine will fail them. You know, Hosea speaks of this loss of provision in the context of prosperity. Most likely what is in view here was some sort of a harvest festival. And the appropriate feast that God had prescribed with it, a harvest festival in which they were celebrating an abundant harvest. You see, symbols of agricultural joy included threshing floors and wine presses and new wine. These were blessings of God upon His people in the land flowing with milk and honey. And indeed, they were such a reason for the people to rejoice. But in the midst of this, Hosea gives the call to be sober. To be clear-headed. To be able to read the situation. Because the prophecies don't rejoice. No matter what you see around you, don't rejoice because good is not in your future. Of course, a little bit later, we know the people said that Hosea was crazy. He was foolish. He was a maniac. Because obviously the evidence was against him. They had all this plenty surrounding them, and that plenty certainly meant blessing. But be that as it may, Hosea issues the challenge of prostitution. Their celebration was filled with pagan fertility rituals, including physical prostitution, but also spiritual prostitution. They had indeed offered sacrifices to Baal, trying to gain his favor upon the seed which they had sown, seeking his blessing upon fertility for their ground. And now in the midst of an abundant harvest, they give credit to him for that bountiful harvest. And their wages, they see, are this new wine and the blessings of the crop. And therefore, it's no wonder that Hosea then gives the fitting curse. Because Israel looked to idols for crops and prosperity, the Lord would make them fail so that poverty and hunger would come upon the people. In that way, He would prove that idols are worthless, that idols do not provide even one mouthful of substance. Boys and girls, idols do not give even one bite of food. Not even the tiniest of blessings. And Israel would suffer a loss of provision because they would also suffer a loss of property. Verse 3, They will not remain in the Lord's land. Ephraim will return to Egypt and eat unclean food in Assyria. Whose land was it? It wasn't Baal's. It wasn't even the people's. It was the Lord's land. In Leviticus 24, verse 23, the Lord says the land is mine and you are but aliens. You are my tenants. They're going to suffer a loss of that land, a loss of property. We have here pointing to the undoing of the Exodus. God had driven out all the nations before them and now He would drive out this nation herself. She would return to captivity. She would be given exactly what she had desired. She had rejected the distinctiveness, her distinctiveness with God. That distinctiveness which was to be characterized by holiness and therefore in exile, she wouldn't find any. She would only find that which defiles, that which is unclean. Yet, what's even worse than the loss of provision and the loss of property would be the loss of worship. Beginning at verse 4. They will not pour out wine, offerings to the Lord, nor will their sacrifices please Him. Such sacrifices will be to them like the bread of mourners. All who eat them will be unclean. This food will be for themselves. It will not come into the temple of the Lord. What will you do on the day of your appointed feasts, on the festival days of the Lord? Even if they escape from destruction, Egypt will gather them and Memphis will bury them. Their treasures of silver will be taken over by briars and thorns will overrun their tents. they would experience a loss of worship, the worship that had been prescribed by the Lord through Moses. You see, the Levitical prescription for sacrifice and worship served to characterize the relationship between the people and their holy covenant God, but they would experience a loss of worship because there would be no access to God. In captivity, there would be no access to God as they were outside the place where God was pleased to dwell. Israel would be separated from, excluded from God's means of worship and atonement and purification. And therefore, they would be unable to make the offerings and to celebrate the pilgrimage feasts and their food and eating, which was a major part of the joy of sacrifice to the Lord. They dedicated the firstfruits to Him, and upon which they expected His blessing, which He promised. But that food would not be blessed. It would only be good for their physical body. It would be void of the joy of the Lord's physical and spiritual provision, as if, I think we could say, every bite would taste the same. And not one bite would truly taste good without the blessing of the Lord. And this loss of provision, this loss of property, this loss of worship simply points to death. That is the imagery, I hope you saw as we read it, the imagery throughout chapter 9. Death. Death. Death. The wages of sin. The psalmist in Psalm 73 says, Those who are far from you will perish. You destroy all who are unfaithful to you. We sing it this way, as you know, to live apart from God is death. And Hosea makes that clear by referring to Memphis. Memphis was a great city in Egypt, but was known for her great cemeteries and tombs and pyramids. What a thing to be known for. But that's what Memphis was known for. And I believe the point is that the people would die in exile. They would be buried outside of the promised land. What an image of everlasting death. To be away from God forever. And this curse, of course, would be seen visibly in the land. The briars and the thorns would take over all that the people held dear as we considered a week or so ago. All that they put their confidence in. And Hosea makes it clear that this judgment would be inescapable. You can't escape it. Israel's trust in herself and in her allies would fail her. She could not escape the judgment of God. And the same is true, beloved, for all who reject Him. One day on that great day of judgment, those who have rejected the Lord Jesus Christ will not be able to escape it. There will be no loopholes for them to use to try to get out of it. The New Testament even says that not even the rocks and hills will be able to shield the wicked from the wrath of God. And there's a loss of provision and loss of property and loss of worship also then points to the loss of the word of God. Beginning at verse 7, the days of punishment are coming. the days of reckoning are at hand. Let Israel know this. Because your sins are so many and your hostility is so great, the prophet is considered a fool, the inspired man a maniac. The prophet, along with my God, is the watchman over Ephraim, yet snares await him on all his paths and hostility in the house of his God. They have sunk deep into corruption as in the days of Gibeah. God will remember their wickedness and punish them for their sins. judgment included a loss of the word of god they had the word hosea was simply one of many prophets whom the lord had sent to encourage and to challenge and to admonish and to correct his people the prophets were watchmen boys and girls ezekiel talks a lot about what the watchman's duties were how important a task that was the night watchman would listen for every night's sound and he would listen closely, he would observe closely every shadow, watching for the enemy, watching for danger, ready to warn the people. The prophets were watchmen and they were watchmen for the people's good. Even if they were warning them for sin and calling them to repentance for violating God's covenant standards, it was for the people's good. And here Hosea is warning them about the coming enemy, but this coming enemy was God Himself because their wickedness was so great. They had the Word of God, but they hated the Word of God because her sin was like Gibeah. You may remember Gibeah in Judges 19-21 and that story of the Levite's concubine. The Levite and his concubine spend the night in Gibeah. The old man takes them into his house because he knows how bad it is out there. The men of the town come. They want the Levite, but no, they give the men, the wicked men, the Levite's concubine. They rape her all throughout the night she dies. The Levite cuts her up, sends her arms and legs throughout the nation. And in many ways, that wickedness made Sodom and Gomorrah look almost virtuous. And that was their wickedness now. And the Word of God made Israel so angry toward the prophet because that Word exposed their sin. And therefore, again, they accuse Him of being a lunatic, of being insane, of not being worth listening to. They did the same with Isaiah and Jeremiah. They did the same in the New Testament with Jesus Himself. He's not worth listening to. He's a madman. Yet, people of God, there is no more sane word than the word of judgment against unholy sinners. before a holy God. There's no more sane word than that. A word that must be listened to. A word that must be heeded. They had the word. They hated the word. And therefore they became hostile toward the word bearer. They rejected Hosea because the word was not what they wanted to hear. They thought they deserved something much better for him. And Hosea didn't serve it up in a nice appetizing way. Israel was a bit like those whom Paul speaks of in 2 Timothy chapter 4 when he says, For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. For Israel, the very one they needed to keep watch for them for danger, they put him in danger. And therefore, in captivity, they would be without the Word of God to their danger. Because mankind is helpless without the Word of God. It is simply deadly, eternally deadly, apart from the Word of God. Because even if that Word is only a word of warning exposing one's sin, there is still hope, you see. Because as long as that word of warning is still there, there is still the opportunity for repentance. but when god shuts off his word either by taking one from this life through death or when jesus christ comes again when god shuts off his word there is no warning for sin there is no call to repentance there is no assurance of pardon and then all you have is like amos said you have a famine in the land not of bread or of water but of hearing the word of the lord what he is saying there, simply there is no life apart from God. And therefore, beloved, we are to hear the word humbly. We are to hear this word humbly, no matter how difficult it may be. Even if it's as if Jonathan Edwards preaches. There are so many today who want their egos and their intellect stroked in what they hear. There are so many who want politically correct or toleration or God-loves-everybody style of preaching. But the truth is we only need the truth. And we are to receive it humbly. Even if it is not delivered as deep or as dynamic as you and I would like. Even if you don't seem to like the preacher or care for his personality. Or whatever the case might be. If God's servant is faithful and true by the grace of God, no matter what, God has something to say to you and me. And we are to ask Him humbly to help us to hear it and to put aside our preferences and desires and instead be grateful for that which He has given. In captivity, everything that Israel had enjoyed as God's covenant people would be stripped away from Him. And that, beloved, is a picture of the torment of hell where God and His favor will be forever turned away from those who despise and rejected Him. Even His common grace upon the wicked. Israel lost the covenantal blessings because the deadly portrait of God's judgment meant also, in the second place, the loss of their covenantal identity. We see that, I believe, in verses 9 through 17. She would lose her covenantal identity contrasted with Israel's beginning. Notice verse 10, When I found Israel, it was like finding grapes in the desert. When I saw your fathers, it was like seeing the early fruit on the fig tree. You see, God treated Israel somewhat like a diamond in the rough. We know that Moses said to Israel, It's not because you were bigger and more powerful than the other nations. It's not because you were greater than all of them. It's not because of anything in you that God chose you, but only because of God's love and God's grace. Grapes are a rare find in the desert. But how wonderful it is when somebody is traveling through the hot desert and they come upon an oasis and they find some grapes. What a treat. And the early figs, the sweetness of that delicacy to find them at that time. Along with the grapes, these things bring great delight for those who find them. And here we see the heart of God and we see the delight that He took in Israel in their early experience together. We see the joy and the gladness that filled that new covenant relationship that spilled over with potential for good. And we know that God adorned Israel with His blessing and made her stand out and made her to be distinctive in the world, to be a showcase of His grace. She was God's special people, but now she was Lo Ami. Now she was not my people. Hosea mentions Baal Peor. You can read about that in Numbers 25 when they were still in the wilderness. Already still in the wilderness. Wandering, Israel showed her inclination toward idol worship and they're engaged in idol worship and the men took Moabite wives and therefore God struck them with a plague that killed 24,000 of them. There's the saying, you are what you eat. And here we read, they became as vile as the thing they loved. Israel took on the very character of the cult they took part in. And now in Hosea's day, they had the same spirit of idolatry as they had back at Baal Peor. And boys and girls and young people, I believe one of the things that we can learn from this too is that we need to be careful because you may very well turn out to be just like those that you hang out with. And that's why it's so very important for you and me to surround ourselves with godly, God-fearing, Christ-loving Christians. Those who are not only willing to encourage you and me in our faith, but to admonish us, to show us, to remind us when we are going off in the wrong way. Because they love us, they love our soul so much that they want us to be in glory one day with the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the kind of company that you and I should desire. That's the kind of company that we are called to surround ourselves with. Israel would lose her covenantal identity that she enjoyed at the beginning, and this is contemplated in Israel's future. Israel's glory would depart Ichabod once again. Her glory ultimately was the Lord and His covenantal care and provision and blessings. all of it would be gone but I believe from the context here the glory that Hosea is talking about is her offspring her children that which God had given to them to make them into a great nation but this points to the end of a nation Israel's future would be cut off every step of the procreation process would fail birth then backing up the pregnancy then backing up even more to conception they had prayed to Baal they had offered to Baal to bless their fertility and now they would suffer curse in their fertility because children indeed are a heritage from the Lord a sign of His blessing and here we see a sign of the curse the death of a nation and along with this we have Hosea's mind-boggling prayer verse 14 maybe you notice that give them O Lord pause give them O Lord what will you give them Give them wombs that miscarry and breasts that are dry. You see, it seems that Hosea doesn't even know what to pray for. Some believe that this is a prayer of mercy on Hosea's part because of how terrible he knew that captivity would be. Back in Deuteronomy 28, and I would encourage you to read that chapter, it's interesting, the first number of verses, 10 or 12 or so, talks about blessings for obedience, But then many, many, many more verses after that spell out curses for disobedience. And it's as if there we have the promise of curses for disobedience. And throughout the book of Hosea, we see the unfolding, the fulfillment of it. But there, Moses talks about the fact that things will be so desperate that parents, parents would even be reduced to eating their children. And therefore, very possibly, this is a prayer for mercy on the part of Hosea. Let there be no offspring. So that the miseries of the day of judgment would be as limited as possible. We do know that Hosea could pray in no other way because this condemnation was according to God's will. It comes with God's awful statement in verse 15. Because of all their wickedness in Gilgal, and that pointed to syncretistic worship again, heathenism. Because of all their wickedness in Gilgal, I hated them there because of their sinful deeds. I will drive them out of my house. I will no longer love them. All their leaders are rebellious. And Hosea responds in verse 17, My God will reject them because they have not obeyed Him. They will be wanderers among the nations. What a terrible thing to have God say, I hated them. Notice, unlike what some would have us believe, God does not love the sinner but hate the sin. He hates the sinner and his sin and his righteous hatred against those who reject him will be poured out upon them in the depths of hell. This would be Israel's horrible end, to be without God and without hope, because this is how bad the people had sinned. This is how God considers sin. And this is what they had deserved. And therefore, beloved, it also reveals the predicament of all of humanity, including you and me, apart from God. As Paul says in Ephesians 2, by nature, we are all objects of wrath, of God's anger, because we are dead in transgressions. By nature, each and every one of us is destined for destruction. And Israel's captivity, which is described here, points to that horrible, horrible end for eternity. For the unrepentant sinner. To be without God and without the blessing of His favor and His love cannot be imagined. The torment of it, you and I cannot even begin to comprehend. And again, it is inescapable. And man is helpless in and of himself. Israel was beyond hope. Israel could not help themselves. And we too can only cry, who can rescue me from this body of death? To which our Lord Jesus Christ replied, Without, with man, this is impossible. But with God, all things are impossible. And therefore, we find our hope. Again, we look back to chapter 5, verse 2, where the Lord says, I will discipline them. And remember, discipline is meant for good. It's meant for correction. But it may seem strange to you and me how discipline can be for good when what we have here is this discipline is going to lead to death. How can it be good? But we also are reminded that the Lord is both gracious and just and of His salvation, as someone has said, He saves from judgment through judgment. And the eternal and the terrible condemnation pictured here reveals the requirement for divine judgment. He reveals the requirement for God to deal with sin. And reveals what we owe God. We owe God hell for our sin. But our comfort, beloved, is that the judgment of Hosea chapter 9 is a type of hell. But it is not final judgment. We praise God because in His mercy and grace He preserved a remnant of believers for Himself, those who looked forward to the Messiah by faith, those who were still saved, even through the captivities of Israel and Judah, like Daniel and Jeremiah. They suffered that captivity. They were still saved by faith in the Messiah they looked forward to. And therefore this judgment is to turn our eyes, those who do not yet believe, it is to turn our eyes off of ourselves, if that describes you this morning, and to drive us to Christ, who suffered this very horror for those who would believe. And for all who look to Him in faith, ours is a living hope that will never be taken away. It is safe and secure forever. And daily, as those who continue to struggle with sin, as you and I do, that sin that we still struggle with is to remind us of something. On the one hand, it is to remind us that it has only ever been God in His mercy who has kept us from falling headlong and deep into hell. But at the same time, it is also to remind us that Jesus Christ indeed has taken that judgment for us so that there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. No condemnation. Instead, justification, sanctification, preservation, glorification, all those wonderful things. When Hosea considered Israel's sin and God's judgment, he was speechless because he knew that God's judgment was just. He knew that there was nothing good for which to pray on behalf of Israel. But now, beloved, we can pray in confidence, Father, forgive me. And in Jesus' name, He will answer, I have forgiven you. And like the world, we may suffer the effects of sin, just like Daniel and Jeremiah and a host of others suffered that physical captivity. We may suffer the effects of sin, either our own or sin in general. It may be painful, but we will never suffer for our sin. And instead, we will be forever in God's presence. no longer wanderers, but forever in God's presence enjoying His covenantal blessings of faithfulness both now and forevermore. Beloved, we have been given every reason to rejoice because God has turned His own hatred that was against us because of our sin into love for us through Jesus Christ. And indeed, we need more of the same. We need more of the same again and again and again day by day as we need more of the same message of salvation so that more and more, unlike Israel, by the power of the Holy Spirit, unlike Israel, so that we would not be conformed to this world but transformed more and more by the renewing of our minds until the day that he brings us into his glorious heaven forever. Amen. Let's pray. Father, how could it be that such a great message of salvation, of what You have done, would not fill our hearts with joy? It would not bring forth from the lips of Your people the exclamation, My God, how great Thou art. indeed oh Lord we stand amazed we are humbled that we praise your most holy name for your love and your grace poured out upon us in Christ Jesus and again we pray that even one day when we take our last dying breath that the only thing that would be on our lips would be praise for our almighty God for Jesus sake in his name we pray these things Amen