Alright, let's go back to the
book of Hosea. Hosea chapter 4. Now last Sunday evening I preached
on the first part of this chapter concerning the issue of salvation
in the knowledge of the Lord. And I showed you some scripture
how God the Holy Spirit by the prophets
and the apostles leads us to understand and know that in salvation,
there must be the knowledge of God. And it's not a notional
knowledge, it's not a natural knowledge. It's not a knowledge
that we have by nature, but it's a revealed knowledge. It's a
knowledge, it's a simple knowledge. It's not just intellectualism
or doctrinalism. But it's the truth of God. as he teaches his people by his
spirit through his preachers. The preaching of the word. And
this knowledge is not only of God, but it's knowledge of ourselves.
Because he shows us God's holiness and God's justice, but he also
shows us our sinfulness and our depravity and our need of salvation
by God's mercy and grace. He shows us through the teaching
of the law that it's impossible for any sinner to be saved based
upon our deeds of the law. But then thank God in his mercy
and grace, he doesn't leave us with just that knowledge. He
shows us Christ, and he shows us his way of salvation by grace. And as I go through the book
of Hosea here, and you'll see this in the other prophets too,
But Hosea is such a great and beautiful picture of Christ and
God's unconditional love and salvation in and by him. And in that knowledge that he
gives through the prophets and the apostles as they preach the
word, he also gives us an understanding. a real understanding of things
as they are. And that's why I've entitled
this message tonight, Knowledge and Understanding. He says up
here in verse 14 that those people who do not understand shall fall. We must have the knowledge and
understanding that God gives. Well, you remember, Hosea, you
think about this picture of Christ and you see so many parallels.
Hosea, whose name means Savior, which the name Jesus or Yeshua
or Joshua is a derivative of. And in another language, in the
Greek language, it's God our Savior, Hosea, Savior. And then
we see Hosea's wife named Gomer. That name means failure and some
translate it to mean consumed or consumption. Here's a woman
who's consumed with sin. A picture of us in Adam. A picture of us as born dead
in trespasses and sins. And we see Hosea the Savior married. to this sinful woman, a woman
of whoredoms, it says in Hosea chapter 1 and verse 2. A prostitute. And one who had the heart of
a prostitute. When she fell, she fell away
from her husband. And what a great picture that
is of our marriage to Christ in the everlasting covenant of
grace. as God chose his people in Christ and gave them to him,
betrothed them to him. And then we fell just like Gomer
did. And then we see Hosea going after her, going to where she
was on the slave block of sin. And he bought and paid for her,
bought her back and brought her unto himself and kept her for
himself and turned her heart towards him in love. And he said,
you're for me and I'll be for you. And what a great picture
of our Savior who came to this earth and redeemed us from our
sins by the price of His blood and brought us to Himself by
the power of the Holy Spirit. And then we also see the prophet,
beginning in chapter 4, standing before a sinful, rebellious nation. You can only imagine what it
would be like in that day. Here's this nation, Israel, the
northern kingdom made up of the ten tribes. And they were religious,
but they were lost. There was probably physical adultery
and prostitution and drunkenness and immorality going on, but
their main problem was spiritual adultery, spiritual prostitution,
idolatry. He says in verse 6, look at it,
he says, my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. They don't
have the knowledge that they need to worship God. Ignorance. And he goes on, he says, because
thou hast rejected knowledge. That's rebellion. Not only are
they ignorant of what they must and need to know in order to
worship and serve God, ignorant of the truths of salvation by
God's grace, ignorant of the real issues of the law. They
didn't know the law. They didn't know the word of
God. Not only did they not know them, but when the prophets came
and preached to them, they rejected that knowledge because that knowledge
requires repentance. And this is a people by nature,
and just like us, who will not repent unless God by his power
brings us to repentance. Look at it in verse six. He says,
I will also reject thee. And thou shalt be no priest to
me. Here he's specifically talking about the religious leaders,
the priesthood. Now you know that priesthood,
what it was supposed to picture. The great high priest was supposed
to picture Christ, our great high priest. But they lost sight
of all these truths of God's mercy and grace, of the covenant. He said, thou shalt be no priest
to me, seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God. I will also
forget thy children. This is God's judgment upon them
for their ignorance and rebellion. He said, and they were increased,
as they were increased, so they sinned against me. You know,
at the beginning, when Hosea began to prophesy, this nation
Israel, under the king Jeroboam II, was a very prosperous nation,
politically, economically, militarily. And he says, as they increased,
rather than glorifying God and thanking God and recognizing
that it's God who makes them to differ by His sovereign mercy
and grace, they sinned against God. They became puffed up. They
became self-righteous. They became self-willed. And they sinned against God and
he said, therefore, I will change their glory into shame. Everything
that they glory in and boast in and have confidence in. You
know, that's what God does when he saves a sinner. He changes
our glory to shame. We saw that in Philippians chapter
three this past Sunday. How the apostle Paul said, everything
I thought recommended me unto God. Everything that I thought
made me righteous before God. The fact that I was a Hebrew
of Hebrews, of the tribe of Benjamin circumcised the eighth day as
touching the law of Pharisee. I thought those things were just
great evidences of my salvation, that I was a child of God. And
what happened? When God showed me his glory,
his holiness, and his justice, and my sinfulness, and showed
me the glory of the person and finished work of Christ, my glory
turned to shame. And my shame turned to glory
because you see at one time Paul, Saul of Tarsus, his whole goal
in life was to wipe the name of Jesus of Nazareth off the
face of the map. That's what he wanted to do.
He was in the business of persecuting Christians. The book of Acts,
I think it's in chapter 8 or 9, I can't remember which, says
that Saul made havoc of the church. And so that which was his glory
became his shame, and that which became his shame became his glory.
And that's what he's saying here. He said, I'm going to take everything
that they boast in, and everything they brag about, and everything
they have confidence in, and I'm going to turn it into shame.
And I've got marked in my Bible here, I just wrote this out,
Matthew 7, 21 through 23. I always go to that when I think
about that kind of thing. Those false preachers standing
before Christ at the judgment, saying, Lord, Lord, haven't we
prophesied in your name? Haven't we cast out demons? Haven't we done many wonderful
works? Boasting in their works. That's
what they were doing. Here's my righteousness. I preached.
I cast out demons. I did many wonderful works. Only
to hear Christ say, depart from me, ye that work iniquity. I
never knew you. Never knew you in covenant grace,
covenant love, covenant mercy. He says in verse eight, these
priests now, look at Hosea, he's bringing a charge against the
religious leaders of that day. And just like our Lord did in
the Sermon on the Mount when he told the people in Matthew
five and verse 20, he said, except your righteousness exceed the
righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, you shall
in no case enter the kingdom of heaven. It says in verse eight,
they eat up the sin of my people, and they set their heart on iniquity.
What they were doing, what he's saying here is these priests
were feeding off the sins of the people. How were they doing
that? Well, the more the people sinned, the more they would bring
sacrifices to the priest and pay them, and the priest would
feed upon that. And that's what happens. You
see, this is a great picture of false religion even in our
day. Preachers feeding off people's guilt. You know, you're in trouble,
you're having problems. If I can just get you to send
me something, send me a check, send in your seed gift, you'll
be okay. And the more you send, the more
seed gifts you've got to send and I'll feed upon. That's what's
happening here. You see, this isn't new today. People talk
about, they say, oh, isn't this awful today? Yes, it's awful
today, but it was awful back then too. It's the same thing,
folks. And he said they set their heart
on iniquity. That's what they're geared to.
That's natural man right here. But always remember now as we're
reading these descriptions that the only reason we differ is
because of the grace of God. Always remember that. Who makes
us? By the grace of God. If, listen,
if it weren't for the grace of God, my shame would still be my glory.
That's right. He says in verse 9, there shall
be like people, like priests, you can't separate them, they
go together, blind leading the blind, they all fall in the ditch
together, and I will punish them for their ways, their way is
a way of unrighteousness, a way of blindness, a way of ignorance,
a way of rebellion, and reward them, their doings, they'll receive
the reward. Who's going to receive the reward
of their works? The unbeliever. At judgment. In the Bible, The scriptures
talk about in the judgment that the only ones who are going to
receive the reward of their doings are those who stand before God
at judgment without Christ. Without His blood to wash away
my sins. Without His righteousness to
clothe me. And that's what's going to happen. Verse 10, he
says, for they shall eat and not have enough. They shall commit
whoredom and shall not increase because they've left off to take
heed to the Lord. Fruitless religion. Unsatisfied. They're always striving. Like
those who are ever learning, never come to a knowledge of
the truth. Nothing. Listen, they may have moments
of peace and satisfaction, but it won't last. They'll eat, but
it's never going to be enough. And I don't care in false, self-righteous,
legalistic, free will religion. I want to tell you something,
that's the nature of it. It's never enough. Whatever you're
doing, whatever you stop doing, whatever they're trying to get
you to do, it'll never be enough. It won't. Because there's no
completeness there. They'll have to come up with
a new program next year. to get either a building program,
to get something going, to keep people there, it's all, it's
never enough. But let me tell you something
now. God's grace is enough for a sinner who needs mercy. Christ is enough for all my salvation,
for in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and you're
complete in Him. They'll commit whoredom and shall
not increase fruitless love. It's not divine love. It's not
godly love. And he says, because they've
left off to take heed, they won't listen to God. And he says in
verse 11, whoredom and wine and new wine take away their heart.
That's a picture of idolatry there. Those are things associated
with idolatry. Somebody says, well, there probably
was a lot of physical Whoredom, physical drunkenness going on
in that day, there may have been, probably was. That's the nature
of the human animal without Christ, isn't it? But their problem mainly
started with the heart. That's it, isn't it? That's where
sin really begins, in the heart. That's why Christ told the Pharisees
and his disciples, he said, it's not what goes in you that defiles
you. It's what comes out of you, comes
out of the heart. For out of the heart are the
issues of life. Look at verse 12, now here's
their idolatry. This is idolatrous worship here.
He says, my people ask counsel at their stocks. Their stocks
there refers to wooden idols that they had set up. And they
would ask for wisdom at their stocks. And their staff declareth
unto them. The staff there is like a divining
rod, literally. Some kind of a superstition.
And he says, for the spirit of whoredoms have caused them to
err, and they have gone a-whoring from under their God. They've
left the true and living God, who's to be worshipped in spirit
and in truth, not in outward forms and ceremonies and visual
aids. That's not how God's to be worshipped,
you see. Not through sin. the picture
of Jesus in a cloud or a grilled cheese sandwich or anything else
like that. But as he is identified and distinguished here in the
Word of God, who is Jesus Christ? What did he do? Why did he do
it? Where is he now? He says in verse 13, they sacrifice
upon the tops of the mountains. You see, position. Geography
means more to them than heart, than spirit. Let's go to the
highest mountain. That's got to get us closer to
God. They burn incense upon the hills, under oaks and poplars,
and now because the shadow thereof is good. You know what that's
saying? It's saying, well, I'm more comfortable worshiping there
than I am where God told me to worship. You ever heard anybody
say that? Well, I'm more comfortable there.
No, they don't preach all the truth and they mix the works
in with it, but I'm just more comfortable there. That's what's
going on here. That's the idolatry. He says,
therefore your daughters shall commit whoredom and your spouses
shall commit adultery. It's a family thing. It's a family thing. He says
in verse 14, he said, now I will not punish your daughters when
they commit whoredom, nor your spouses when they commit adultery,
for themselves are separated with whores and they sacrifice
with harlots. Therefore, the people that doth
not understand shall fall. Now what's he saying here in
verse 14? I will not punish your daughters
and your spouses. Well, what he's saying here is
this. The judgment, this judgment, was because they turned from
the true and living God to idols. And their sins were all the product
of their rejection of the knowledge and the understanding that only
God gives in his word. Now, all who sin will be judged. The Bible teaches that from Genesis
to Revelation. Nobody's gonna get away with
it, even believers. Now, listen to me. If you're
a believer, if you're a sinner saved by the grace of God, you
didn't get away with your sins. Now we could talk about a lot
of different areas there, and I'm not gonna get into all that
tonight, but the main way that you understand, through the knowledge
of God, that you didn't get away with your sins is the cross of
Calvary. Somebody had to pay that penalty.
Couldn't be just anybody. Had to be somebody whom God appointed.
Had to be somebody who was able to do that work. To put away
sin by the sacrifice of himself. The sins of a multitude which
no man can number. And it had to be somebody who
was willing to do it. And there's only one somebody
who fits that description. And that's the Lord Jesus Christ.
He's the only one whom God appointed to be the savior of his people.
He's the only one who's able to do so. Why? Because he is
God in human flesh. It's what Hosea typifies. Christ is God in human flesh.
He's able. And he's the only one who was
willing because he loved his father and he loved his people.
And he did so. So nobody's going to get away
with it. So he's not preaching here or teaching here that the
daughters who commit the whoredom and the spouses who commit adultery
are not going to be punished, but the men are. What he's saying
actually is just the opposite. Everybody who sinned will be
judged. But it won't be a situation like this. It won't be that the
women will not be judged while the men go free, or the women
will be judged while the men go free. You say, well, that
doesn't even make sense. Well, let me show you something
real quick. Turn over to John chapter eight.
I wanna tell you how, this is how man thinks by nature now.
You know what John eight's about. Here our Lord, he went into the
Mount of Olives, verse one. John chapter eight, Jesus went
up into the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning, he came
again into the temple and all the people came unto him and
he sat down and taught them. And the scribes and the Pharisees
brought unto him a woman taken in adultery. And when they had
set her in the midst, they saying him, master, this woman was taken
in adultery. What's the next word there? In
the very act. This wasn't hearsay. They caught
her in the very act. Now let me tell you something
about committing adultery. It takes at least two. Isn't
that right? Takes a man and a woman. Where's
the man here? She was caught in the act. That
means the man had to be there too. Where is he? They let him
go. Why? Because that's human. He might have been a somebody.
He might have been somebody influential. We don't know. The scripture
doesn't tell us. But here they brought this poor
woman to judge her and in a way that the law didn't allow them
to do it. Now she should have been judged for under the law
committing adultery was a sin and it was punishable by death
under the law of Moses. But my question is, where's the
man? if she was caught in the act. They let him go. Look back
over here at Hosea 4. You see, that's the issue. He
said, I will not punish your daughters when they commit whoredom,
nor your spouses when they commit adultery, for themselves are
separated with whores. That themselves there is the
men, the leaders. It's not going to be a situation
where we say, now let's all go out here and gather up all the
prostitutes and throw them in the river somewhere. Let me tell
you something. You want to put those prostitutes
out of business? Stop those men who are paying
them. You want to put the drug pushers
out of business? Stop the people who are going
and buying the drugs. There's no money in it then.
That'll stop them. Isn't that right? You see, this
is the law. And God's bringing his judgment
upon all who sin against him. And here's what he says. Look
at verse 14, the last line. He says, therefore, the people
that doth not understand shall fall. Who's gonna fall? Anybody who doesn't understand.
Who doesn't understand what? Who doesn't understand who God
is. That God is holy. and just, and
righteous, and he must punish sin wherever he finds sin accounted,
imputed, charged. And he's no respecter of persons.
You see, God cannot let the man go like those Pharisees did over
in John chapter 8. I suspect he was probably somebody's
buddy, somebody's friend. He knew somebody, but I don't
know. But for some reason, they let him go and took the law.
God can't do it. God's law is no respecter of
persons. Now, we're all respecters of
persons. We are. Number one, we're respecters
of ourselves. We're respecters of our families,
of our children. But God's law is equal to all
without exception, without respect of persons. He must punish sin.
And the Bible says all have sinned and come short of the glory of
God. In fact, it says there's none righteous, no not one. There's
none that doeth good. It says there's none that understandeth.
That's man by nature. We have to have knowledge and
understanding here. It's taught by God through the Spirit in
His work. There's none that understandeth by nature. Romans chapter 3 tells
us, verses 11 and 12. But God's no respecter of persons.
What do you have to understand? You have to understand who you
are, who I am. We're sinners. We deserve damnation. The only thing we can earn from
God is damnation. The wages of sin is death. Romans 6.23. Everybody quotes
that. You realize what that says? It says the wages of sin is death. When you all go to work tomorrow,
you're going to earn a what? A wage. Well, what is the earning
of sin? What's the wages of sin? Death.
But then it goes on and it says the wages of obedience is eternal
life. Is that what that verse says
in Romans 6.23? No. It says the wages of faith is
eternal life. It doesn't say that. It says
the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Salvation's a gift to the undeserving. Go back to Hosea and Gomer. She didn't deserve Hosea's love.
She didn't deserve Hosea to continue to be her husband. She didn't
deserve the gifts that Hosea gave her. She didn't deserve
to be bought off the slave block. She didn't deserve one thing
that Hosea did for her. Why did he do it? Because he
loved her. And that's the way it is with
us in salvation. We don't deserve one thing that
God gives us in salvation. Why does he do it? Because he
loves us. And he gave us his son. That's what we have to understand. Without that understanding, there's
no salvation. I think about this when it says
in Psalm 14 and Psalm 53 where it says in verse 1, the fool
hath said in his heart, there is no God or literally no God
for me. They are corrupt. They have done
abominable works. There's none that doeth good.
The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men to see
if there were any that did understand and seek God. There were none. There were none. The scripture
says in Proverbs chapter 28 and verse 5, listen to this, Proverbs
28 5, evil men understand not judgment. They don't understand
it. But they that seek the Lord,
and that word, the name Lord there is Jehovah Salvation. They understand all things, it
says. All things spiritual. Understanding. When the Ethiopian
eunuch in Acts chapter 8 was reading from Isaiah 53, God sent
the evangelist Philip to him out in the desert by the workings
of the Spirit. And he came upon that Ethiopian
sitting in his chariot reading from a portion from Isaiah 53.
that great portion of scripture that speaks of the substitute,
the suffering substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ. And it says,
Philip ran to this man and heard him read from the prophet Isaiah.
And the first thing Philip asked the Ethiopian, he says, do you
understand what you're reading? The man said, basically, no,
I don't. He said, how can I? Except some man show me. And
he asked this, he said, who's the prophet talking about here
in Isaiah 53? Is he talking about himself? Is he talking about
somebody else? And it says in Acts chapter 8
that Philip began at the same scripture and preached unto him
Jesus, Jehovah our Savior. When the Lord was sitting with
his disciples after his resurrection, just before ascending into glory,
he read from them, from the books of Moses, from the Psalms, and
from the prophets, all things concerning himself, and it says
he opened their understanding, that they might understand the
scriptures. What's the key of knowledge?
Or better yet, who's the key of knowledge? Who's the key to
all understanding here? Christ is. That's what the scripture
teaches. Christ is the key to all of it.
Paul, in comparing the lesser glory of the old covenant law
with the greater glory of the new covenant, the new covenant,
understand, being the fulfillment in time of the everlasting covenant
of grace made before time. He said this in 2 Corinthians
chapter 3. He said that the unbelieving
religious Jews who read the Old Testament do not understand it
basically. He said because when they read
it there's a veil over their heart. What is that veil? That
veil is ignorance. That veil is rebellion. My people
are destroyed for lack of knowledge, Hosea said. It's the same. It
was the same in Paul's day. It's the same in our day. the
people that doth not understand shall fall. Well, where can I
find that knowledge and that understanding so that when I
open up these scriptures, I can at least glean something of the
real message of God's grace and truth that he has for his people?
And Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 3, he said, but when it shall
turn to the Lord, the veil's taken away. when it turns to
Christ. This is a book of Christ. And
those people who don't understand that shall fall. Look unto Christ for all salvation. Look at verse 15. He says, though
thou Israel play the harlot, yet let not Judah offend. Now
this is sort of a a warning. You know, Hosea was a prophet
to the northern kingdom, but he spoke some of the southern
kingdom of Judah. So this is a word of warning
to Judah in the south. And what he's saying here is
Judah don't be like Israel. He says, and he says, yet let
not Judah offend, that is sin against God, and come not ye
unto Gilgal, neither go ye up to Beth-Avon, nor swear the Lord
liveth. That Gilgal, you know, that was
the site. Gilgal was the site of the first
memorial built to the Lord after the nation Israel, the Hebrew
children crossed the Jordan into the promised land. Joshua, he
erected a stone memorial, and on that stone he had engraved,
this is what God has done. He didn't say, look at what we've
done. He said, no, this is what God has done. Beth-Avon, that's
a play on words. Most commentators, and I agree,
believe that he's really referring to Beth-El. You know Beth-El,
that means house of God. Beth-Avon literally means house
of evil. Gilgal and Beth-Avon were both
places set up by Jeroboam I. He was the first king of the
northern kingdom after the split, after Solomon. And he set both
these places up as centers of worship for the northern kingdom
for one purpose. to keep the people of the northern
kingdom from going to Jerusalem as God commanded them to do.
Because he knew if they kept going to Jerusalem, pretty soon
they'd want to stay there and he'd lose his subjects. They
were apostate places of worship and symbols of division. Turn
to the book of Amos chapter 4. I want you to see this. Look
at Amos chapter 4. Just over a few pages. And look
at verse four of Amos. Amos four and verse four. Now
you remember Amos was the prophet to the northern kingdom before
Hosea. In fact, Hosea picked up pretty
much where Amos left off. And Amos says, come to Bethel
and transgress. That's what the leaders were
saying. At Gilgal, multiply transgression, and bring your sacrifices every
morning and your tithes after three years, and offer a sacrifice
of thanksgiving with leaven, a sacrifice of sin. And proclaim
and publish the free offerings, for this liketh you, O ye children
of Israel, saith the Lord God." In other words, what God is saying
to them through the prophet Amos, you're coming here to worship,
but your worship is sinful. Your worship is not accepted.
It's a transgression, just like he told the southern kingdom
through Isaiah. That's what he's pointing them
to understand. So he changes back over here
in Hosea 4, Bethel to Bethaven. Why? Because, as I said, Bethel
means house of God, but Bethaven means house of evil. When he
says, let not Judah offend, he means let him alone. Judah don't
have any religious fellowship with Israel. Look at verse 16. He says, for Israel slideth back
as a backsliding heifer. Now the Lord will feed them as
a lamb in a large place. What he's saying literally here
is because Israel is like a stubborn cow. God no longer will corral
her or hedge her about, but abandon her like a lamb in a dangerous
wilderness. You put a lamb out in the dangerous
wilderness, what's gonna happen to that lamb? It's gonna die. And so he says in verse 17, Ephraim
is joined to idols. Let him alone. Since Ephraim,
Ephraim was the largest tribe in the northern kingdom, and
sometimes the whole kingdom is referred to as Ephraim. And so
Ephraim had abandoned her shepherd, and God gave them up. Let them
alone. They wouldn't hear his voice.
They wouldn't listen to the Lord God. Let them alone. Remember
when the Lord told his disciples to let the Pharisees alone? They're
blind leaders of the blind. You see, we have a consolation
in that we know Christ will never leave us alone. He will never
take his lambs out into the desert and leave us in a wilderness. He'll always be with us. He'll
never leave us. And then verse 18, he says, their
drink is sour. Literally, their drink is empty.
They're like a wino who just finished off the last drop. They
throw the bottle in the ditch. And he says they've drunk it
all up, and now they've committed whoredom continually. Her rulers
with a shame do love give ye. That's a little bit difficult
to translate on this one, but what he's talking about is this.
It's the rulers there, they don't serve the people. They think
the people are there to serve them. Give me, give me, give
me. You give, you give. That's what
it's all about. Just self-satisfaction. And so
he says in verse 19, the wind hath bound her up in her wings
and they shall be ashamed because of their sacrifices. They're
wrapped up in the spirit of ignorance, the spirit of confusion, the
spirit of idolatry, like a leaf or a feather being blown about
by the wind. And what does that mean? They cannot save themselves.
You think about a leaf being blown out in the wind or a feather. has no power to do anything.
It can only go where the wind blows it. No power to save themselves. And they'll be ashamed because
of their sacrifices. You know why? Because he that
believeth not shall be ashamed. Isaiah said it to the southern
kingdom later on. He said they shall be ashamed
and also confounded all of them. They shall go to confusion together
that are makers of idols. You know what the opposite of
confusion is? understanding. Understanding
that comes from knowledge, which we find fully and completely
in Christ.