Episode Transcript
Hosea chapter 10 verse 13 through 15.
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The title of the message this morning is, "A World Out of Shape."
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A world out of shape.
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Boy, you don't have to do a whole lot of explanation on that, do you?
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We see a world that is out of shape this morning.
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And in verse 13 this morning, God's going to continue speaking to Israel using agricultural terminology
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as he has been.
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In Hosea 10-12 last week, if you want to look back there real quick,
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the Lord encouraged Israel to take advantage of the God-given spiritual principles of breaking up,
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seeking, sowing, reaping, and reigning.
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And man, I enjoyed preaching that.
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That was so enlightening to me as I was studying that.
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He told Israel in verse 12, "Sow to yourselves in righteousness,
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reap in mercy, break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord
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till he come in reign righteousness upon you."
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If Israel would have only sowed their obedience to God's commandments,
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if they would have obeyed what God said, then they would have reaped the goodness of God.
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But sadly, they did not sow.
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So God told them, if you'll look with me now in Hosea 10-13, God said, "Ye have plowed wickedness."
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"Ye have plowed wickedness."
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Let's pray.
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Father, we thank you for your precious word.
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Lord, I pray you'll strengthen my voice.
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I pray to your Father that you'll fill me with your spirit and glorify your great name today.
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And Father, I pray all eyes and ears will be upon you in your word this morning.
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In Jesus' precious name, amen.
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"Ye have plowed wickedness."
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Now plowing in verse 13, of course, is the same as breaking up in verse 12.
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You're breaking up or plowing up the soil.
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And they were supposed to break up their fallow ground,
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which means they were supposed to plow up their fallow ground for the purpose of
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sowing to themselves in righteousness that God had said in verse 12.
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The problem was, Israel plowed, but they plowed wickedness.
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They plowed wickedness.
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And to plow wickedness, it means to plan or to scheme wickedness.
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It's an agricultural analogy.
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We're not talking about agricultural farming this morning.
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We're talking about spiritual farming this morning.
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And God is using the agricultural analogy to illustrate the spiritual truth.
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They plowed wickedness.
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And again, it means to plan or to scheme wickedness.
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And let me explain to you why it means that.
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Let's say you have a plot of ground out here.
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You got several acres of ground.
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When a person puts their plow in that ground,
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they lower that plow on the ground and they start moving that tractor
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and dragging that plow across that ground and breaking it up.
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When they're doing that, they are working a plan that they devised for that land.
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Make sense?
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At some time in the past, they looked at that land.
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They thought, you know, I've got enough acreage here.
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And I've got rich enough soil here, the right kind of soil and everything.
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If I break this up, I can sow so many acres of cotton or so many acres of corn
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or so many acres of wheat or whatever it is.
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And so when they put their plow in that ground,
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you ever heard people say, man, I've been busy,
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but I just can't seem to get my plow on the ground.
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That's the analogy here.
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Is them acting on them scheming and plotting a plan
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that they have for their lives and their hearts?
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The whole purpose of plowing is to grow a certain product in that field.
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In the Hebrew word that's translated plow here
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is sometimes translated devising in the scriptures,
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devising, which means to scheme or to plot.
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So when a person is plowing their field here, they are scheming.
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They are devising a plan to grow a particular product in that field.
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And in this case, Israel devised to grow wickedness in their field.
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Now, the human heart is the field that's being plowed.
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We learned last week on Wednesday night that the tongue is a seed, right?
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And the seed germinates.
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And today we learned that the heart is a piece of ground.
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All right?
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And so this human heart here is the field,
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and God had told them to sow in righteousness and reap in mercy.
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It was God's plan for us to sow and reap righteousness and goodness in our hearts and lives.
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But it was Israel's plan to sow and reap wickedness.
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In iniquity in their hearts and lives.
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The ground was never meant to bear thorns and briars.
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I was looking at my garden this morning.
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I went out and I watered my garden this morning
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so it'd be nice and moist before that sun came up.
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And I could see little things in there that did not belong.
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And they grow so naturally there.
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And we've looked at that before too in another message.
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But the earth was never meant to bear thorns and briars like it does.
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Those things grow as a result of Adam's sin.
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And in the same way, our heart was never meant to bring forth fruit and iniquity.
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It was never meant to bear iniquity.
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Those things grow out of our heart likewise as a result of Adam's sin.
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Adam chose to know good and evil.
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See, think of a heart.
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Think of a garden spot.
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We should only have the good in the garden.
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But because of sin, we have good and evil in our garden.
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You got to try to pluck out the evil.
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You got to try to nurse along the good as it is in the soil.
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So it is in the human heart because of Adam's choice
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to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
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He allowed by his choice to allow his heart to have the tears of disobedience residing in it.
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Make sense?
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"You have plowed wickedness," God said.
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We were never supposed to plow wickedness in our heart.
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Sin is foreign to the human heart.
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Never was supposed to be there.
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And now he says, look back in your text,
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"You have reaped iniquity."
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The only reason wickedness can germinate in our heart and can grow in our heart,
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nurture it along, is because of Adam's choice to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
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It's the only reason we had the capacity to do it.
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So you have sowed wickedness.
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You have reaped iniquity.
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Wickedness and iniquity are essentially the same thing.
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Wickedness means that which is wrong.
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But iniquity, it means that which is wrong as well,
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but it has a certain aspect to it.
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It's a beautiful aspect in the human language.
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And iniquity comes from a root word that means to pull or to twist out of shape.
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How many of you males in here?
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I doubt the females did.
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How many of y'all were privileged enough?
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I was.
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It took me a little, you know,
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I had to really, really put on the tears for my mama.
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But how many of y'all were privileged enough to enjoy a stretch armstrong growing up?
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Anybody?
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You have a stretch armstrong?
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You had a stretch armstrong?
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Good for you.
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Man.
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Now stretch armstrong look normal.
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But the whole purpose of buying stretch--
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You ever seen a stretch armstrong?
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Oh, man.
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The whole purpose of buying a stretch armstrong
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was so you could take his arms or his legs or his body or whatever and go,
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and just pull them out of shape.
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And we got a kick out of it, man.
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And if he bled that little goo, you put a band-aid on it.
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Remember that?
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That's the idea behind the Hebrew word with iniquity here.
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Stretching out of shape.
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You see, God has this beautiful--
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Look at the architecture in here.
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Isn't it beautiful?
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You've got these beams.
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You've got these slats of wood going across the roof.
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You've got everything framed up, everything square,
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and everything fits together just right
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so we can come into this sanctuary and enjoy being out of the weather,
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out of the rain, out of the cold, out of the heat,
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and we can do it safely and securely.
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But if someone had the power to take this building and twist it
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and pull it to where it's out of its shape,
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architectural shape, what would happen to this building?
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What would happen to the people in it?
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It would not stand.
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It would not continue to stand.
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It's the same way with the society.
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It's the same way with families.
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It's the same way with God's creation.
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He has designed it just right,
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and sin comes along and it pulls and it twists God's design out of shape.
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This world was created by what?
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The Word of God.
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The Bible says,
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"The things which are seen are made of things which do not appear,
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that it was all created by God's Word.
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God spake and it stood fast.
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Let there be light.
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Let this happen.
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Let the trees come up.
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Let us make man.
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All of that is done by God's Word."
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So when we disobey God's Word,
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you follow me?
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All creation, whether physical and tangible,
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spiritual, familial, societal,
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all creation was created by God's Word.
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So when we disobey God's Word,
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we're pulling.
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We're twisting what God created out of shape.
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We're distorting it.
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God was smart when he made men and women.
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I love seeing a rugged, handsome man
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and a beautiful petite woman and their little children around them.
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I love seeing a beautiful family like that.
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But man, when you look at a man and he's got a dress on,
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he's got a beard and he's got makeup on,
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and you know what that's doing?
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It's taking God's creation and it's pulling and twisting it out of shape.
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It's taking the building and it's moving the rafters around
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and thinking, "I can improve on this."
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And you can't.
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God designed a family that consists of one man and one woman who love each other,
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who raise a family according to God's Word,
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and that husband and wife remain with each other till death do they part.
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It's become so commonplace now
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for husbands and wives.
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You know, I was reading a news feed yesterday.
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I don't know who the people were.
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They're supposed to be celebrities.
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I don't get into that stuff.
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I don't even know what's going on as far as entertainment anymore.
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I don't watch it.
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I don't want to watch it.
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But whoever they were, they were supposed to be entertainers.
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And they were letting us know that they broke up,
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but the woman was spotted wearing her wedding ring.
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Just, "Y'all need to know that."
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Like, this isn't even news.
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But it's gotten so commonplace.
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It's just fodder for foolish minds now.
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That's all it is.
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And when a man or a woman, they disobey God's Word
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by forsaking their spouse,
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forsaking the covenant they made with their spouse,
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in breaking that family unit apart,
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they're pulling God's design for the family out of shape.
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When the world calls Bruce Jenner a woman,
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it's not Caitlyn Jenner.
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I'll never call that thing Caitlyn Jenner.
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I'll never refer to him as a her.
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When you do that, you're not being polite.
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You're participating in the lie.
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It's sin.
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But they're pulling God's creation out of shape.
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They're distorting it.
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When Israel plowed their hearts to disobey God's Word,
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it resulted in them twisting what God designed for them out of shape.
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We were learning about that this morning in the Book of Judges next door.
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God sent them over to the Promised Land.
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He says, "You drive out all these people.
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You sit here and you worship me.
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You follow my Word.
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And I'm going to bless you.
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Don't let those false gods and those people who worship them stay in your land,
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or you're going to end up worshiping them too.
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And then I am going to end up doing you like I was going to do those people."
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Because you're going to be the same as they are.
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And what did they do?
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They got over there and they twisted and pulled what God imagined for them
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completely out of shape.
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They distorted it.
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They messed it up.
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Every cell in your body, every little minute cell in your body,
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and there's a bunch of them, was designed to grow and to function by God in a certain way.
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Every cell in your body to grow and to function in a certain way.
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And as long as those cells function and grow as God designed, we're okay.
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We're in good shape.
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But when those cells start mutating and growing abnormally, we're not okay.
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That's called cancer.
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You know, I find it fascinating.
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I mean, truly fascinating that all these atheist doctors recognize that our bodies
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were designed to function and grow in a specific way, in no other way, just one specific way.
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And any deviation from that design is harmful to us.
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Have you ever thought about that?
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I mean, when doctors, we have a lady that just got through taking chemotherapy and radiation.
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Miss Glenda and Rick will be so glad when you get back.
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And we pray for your recovery, Miss Glenda, a full recovery.
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You get your strength back.
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But when those doctors detected mutated cells in Glenda's body,
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they didn't say, we have good news for you, Glenda.
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The evolutionary process is working in your body.
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They didn't do that.
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I mean, for you to mutate, for you to grow gills out of the side of your neck, brother Doug,
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so you can crawl back into the sea because they had to grow lungs to get up on land, you know.
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For you to do that, your cells had to mutate, brother.
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So I'm going to start changing in you.
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But when things start changing in our body,
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isn't it funny how the doctors don't begin to celebrate and say, oh, well, how about that?
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We're evolving.
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They say, no, we're being destroyed.
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And as soon as the cells start to mutate out of their God-given design,
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they want to kill those cells off because they recognize any change from what God designed,
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any twisting or pulling apart of what God designed is harmful for us.
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And as it is with the human body, so it is with society, so it is with the church and the family
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and the individual, when something gets pulled out of shape, it gets pulled into a mess.
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So Israel was reaping the mess they made of their nation by disobeying God's word.
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I feel so sorry for our nation right now.
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I reflect on it quite often, as perhaps you do, because sin has so badly distorted us.
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It's wrecked us.
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It's twist us out of shape like a building, and it's going to fall down upon us.
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God said, if you look back in your text, you have eaten the fruit of lies.
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You hear that?
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You've eaten the fruit of lies.
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Again, God created this world by His word.
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God's word is truth.
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So when we live contrary to God's word, we are living in falsehood.
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We're living a lie.
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We're making as if we're going the right way when we're actually very, very wrong,
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living as if we are walking in the truth, when we're actually walking according to the lies
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that we believe, that we fabricated.
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When we say that a man can give birth to a baby, it's a lie.
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When we identify as one thing, in God's word says, "No, you are this," and we say,
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"But I identify as that," it's a lie.
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We're living lies.
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When we say, when we defy that there is a God and we live as if there's not, we're living a lie.
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The fruit of lies is speaking about the result of the outcome of us twisting
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and pulling God's design apart for our world.
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Israel had sown wickedness, and now they were eating the fruit of the lies they sowed,
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and that fruit is always very bitter and deadly.
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Now, if you would take your pens and in this first, go back to the first part of this first
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and underscore the phrase, "Ye have plowed."
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I love the structure of God's word.
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Now, once you underscore that, go down just a little bit,
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underscore the next phrase, "Ye have reaped."
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"Ye have reaped."
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Now, there's another one.
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What's the next one?
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"Ye have eaten," underscore, "Ye have eaten."
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Now, these are like links in a chain.
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You can't have one without the other.
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You can't pick and choose which link you want.
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You destroyed the chain.
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They go hand in hand.
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"Ye have plowed."
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"Ye have reaped."
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"Ye have eaten."
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Here's a kingdom truth for you this morning.
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"What you put in the earth will eventually be put in you."
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"What you put in the earth will eventually be put in you."
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"You plowed."
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"You've reaped."
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"You plowed."
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"You sowed."
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"Then you reaped."
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"What happens then?"
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"Then you eat."
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"What you sow in that ground,"
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"what you put in that ground will eventually be put in you."
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"You'll eventually get filled with what you put in the ground."
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Proverbs chapter 1, verse 29 through 31.
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Write that down.
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Your notes are your margin.
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Proverbs 1, 29 through 31.
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"For that they hated knowledge."
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"And did not choose the fear of the Lord."
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"They would none of my counsel."
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"They despised all my reproof," God says.
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Verse 31, "Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way."
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"And be filled with their own devices."
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They're going to get their belly full of it.
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That's what God's saying.
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You're going to be plowing wickedness.
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You've got that option.
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Our hearts can know good and evil.
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We can nurture and we can grow in our hearts evil just as well as good.
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And you nurture that disobedience to God's word along in your heart.
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You're going to plow it.
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You're going to reap it.
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And you're going to eat it.
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You're going to get your belly full of it is what God is going to make sure happens to you.
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Isaiah chapter 3, verse 10.
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Same thing.
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Not that promise doesn't just go for the wicked.
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It goes to the righteous too.
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Isaiah chapter 3, verse 10.
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"Say ye to the righteous that it shall be well with him,
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for they shall eat the fruit of their doings."
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Isn't that good?
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"What you put into the ground will eventually be put in you."
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God said, "If you have eaten the fruit of lies."
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Why is it?
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Look back in your text.
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He told us, "It will be caused thou distrust in thy way."
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You're eating the fruit of the lies because you trusted in your way.
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Once again, Proverbs 1, 31 says,
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"Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way."
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What does that mean?
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That means God says, "This is the direction you should go.
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You should go this direction right here in life."
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You say, "Well, I know that's what your word says,
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but I think I'd rather go this direction over here in my life.
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I think I'd rather do this."
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Well, now that's God's way, but you're going your way.
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And when you're walking your way, you're plowing,
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you're scheming, you're plotting to disobey God's word.
24:06 --> 24:10
So you walking in opposition to God's word,
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you're plowing in wickedness,
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and you're going to get filled with that wickedness.
24:15 --> 24:18
You walk according to God's word,
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you're plowing in righteousness,
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you're going to get filled with that righteousness.
24:22 --> 24:24
You're going to get a belly full of sin,
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or you're going to get a belly full of the grace and goodness of God.
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I don't want sin.
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It gives me a stomachache.
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I don't want it.
24:33 --> 24:35
When God said they trust in their way,
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He was literally saying that Israel had put their confidence in their own road.
24:38 --> 24:42
They thought the direction that they had designed for their nation
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was better than the direction that God had designed for their nation.
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That's exactly the problem our world has right now,
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especially our nation.
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And listen, don't put your hope in Donald Trump.
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Look what they said.
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They trusted their own way specifically.
25:08 --> 25:10
Look back in your text.
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"In the multitude of Thy mighty men,"
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don't put your trust in any politician.
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Don't think, "Well, this person will rescue us."
25:17 --> 25:21
I was listening to Donald Trump the other day quote he put out Arizona.
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I believe it was.
25:28 --> 25:31
They confirmed an 1800s law that basically outlawed any abortion.
25:31 --> 25:37
And I'm over there saying, "Praise God."
25:37 --> 25:40
Then Carrie Lake comes out and says, "Oh, we've got to stop that."
25:40 --> 25:45
And then Donald Trump comes out and he says, "Yeah, we've got to stop that.
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Always allow for abortion in the case of rape or incest or all this."
25:49 --> 25:55
Yeah, so it's okay to kill in these situations.
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And see, what is that?
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That's twisting God's way.
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He said, "Well, I don't want to twist quite as far, but I want to twist some."
26:04 --> 26:07
And then that way I can still get the acceptance from the pro-lifers,
26:07 --> 26:14
but I can still gather a few of the moderates over here.
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Now, we go God's way and only God's way.
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Don't put your trust in men because men will fail you because men will fail God.
26:23 --> 26:31
The only way for us to have a society and a nation that we should have
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is if we do it according to God's design because that design will never fail us.
26:38 --> 26:44
You've got to keep it according to how God made it.
26:44 --> 26:51
"In the multitude of the mighty men," they figured as long as they had the right people
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in the right places and their nation couldn't fall.
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We've got a strong king.
26:59 --> 27:01
We have a good leader.
27:01 --> 27:02
We have the right men leading our nation's military and our CIA.
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As long as our military's strong and our economists are strong
27:07 --> 27:11
and our leaders are well-educated, we'll be all right.
27:11 --> 27:14
No.
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You can have the best quality tempers.
27:17 --> 27:22
You can have the best quality steel in a steel building,
27:22 --> 27:28
but if it's not arranged properly, it's still coming down.
27:29 --> 27:32
It's still mangled.
27:32 --> 27:35
There's still breaches in the walls.
27:35 --> 27:37
It's still disfigured.
27:37 --> 27:39
People listen to the people they put over them instead of the God that put them there.
27:39 --> 27:47
They put their trust in men instead of God.
27:47 --> 27:51
Verse 14, "Therefore," God said, "if this is what you're going to do."
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There's going to be some consequences for it.
27:59 --> 28:01
I travel on the road all the time, and I'm constantly seeing things about Trump this,
28:01 --> 28:07
Trump that, believe Joe Biden, all these things that you see.
28:07 --> 28:13
I'm like, "Y'all don't understand."
28:13 --> 28:16
I see all these things.
28:16 --> 28:18
Trump 2024, and listen, I want to vote for the man.
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I don't have much choice.
28:21 --> 28:24
I'll vote for him.
28:24 --> 28:25
He did a good job last time, but he's just a man.
28:25 --> 28:29
He's just a man.
28:29 --> 28:32
Do you know what I wish I saw on bumper stickers and the back glasses of vehicles?
28:32 --> 28:38
I wish I saw, let's get America to return to God again.
28:38 --> 28:44
Let's repent and return to our God.
28:44 --> 28:49
Do you know what?
28:49 --> 28:49
I like reading Netanyahu's responses, like when Iran sends drones over yesterday.
28:51 --> 28:57
I like reading his responses.
28:57 --> 28:59
Do you know what his responses are?
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They're things like this.
29:01 --> 29:03
"Israel will always be resolved to defend our land and will retaliate with severe force
29:03 --> 29:10
to anyone that comes against us.
29:10 --> 29:12
We'll always protect what's ours."
29:12 --> 29:13
And all these are, that's always the response.
29:13 --> 29:16
That may work for a while.
29:16 --> 29:20
But according to the Bible, it's not going to continue to work.
29:20 --> 29:25
You see, eventually all nations will gather against Israel.
29:25 --> 29:30
We're watching for it as Christians.
29:30 --> 29:33
We're watching for that.
29:33 --> 29:34
Some Christians have the idea that any moment, boom, we're just going to go up in there.
29:34 --> 29:37
We won't ever see that.
29:37 --> 29:38
That's not what the Bible says.
29:38 --> 29:40
We should be watching for these things to happen.
29:40 --> 29:42
And when they go up against Israel, you know what's going to happen?
29:42 --> 29:47
It's going to get so bad, brother Doug, that Netanyahu or whoever's in charge at that time
29:49 --> 29:55
is not going to be able to say, "We're going to defend.
29:55 --> 30:00
We're going to do this.
30:00 --> 30:01
And we think we're thankful for our allies who stand with us and will always fight."
30:01 --> 30:06
There won't be any of that.
30:06 --> 30:07
They're going to be so overwhelmed.
30:07 --> 30:10
They're going to be so broken.
30:10 --> 30:12
The only thing they will be able to do is finally look up.
30:12 --> 30:18
Amen.
30:18 --> 30:20
And say, "Oh God, the God of our fathers, the God of the Torah.
30:20 --> 30:26
Lord, your only hope, remember the covenant you made with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.
30:26 --> 30:33
Lord, help us or we're going to be destroyed."
30:33 --> 30:38
And God's going to answer their prayer and come back.
30:38 --> 30:43
And when God comes to help them, they're going to realize it was Jesus.
30:43 --> 30:48
They're going to acknowledge Him as their Savior and all this will be saved.
30:48 --> 30:53
But at that time, they're eventually going to break and they're going to realize,
30:53 --> 31:00
"Man, our king can't fix us.
31:00 --> 31:01
Our prime minister can't fix us.
31:01 --> 31:03
Our military can't fix us.
31:03 --> 31:04
America can't help us.
31:04 --> 31:06
We are going to be destroyed.
31:06 --> 31:09
Therefore," verse 14, God said, if you look back in verse 14,
31:09 --> 31:13
"shall the tumult arise among thy people.
31:13 --> 31:15
You trust it in men.
31:16 --> 31:18
You trust it in your own way.
31:18 --> 31:21
So a tumult is going to arise among your people."
31:21 --> 31:25
You know what a tumult is?
31:25 --> 31:26
That's chaos.
31:26 --> 31:29
That's panic.
31:29 --> 31:31
No one wants chaos and panic, do they?
31:31 --> 31:35
But that's what it is.
31:35 --> 31:37
Chaos and trouble was going to arise among their people.
31:37 --> 31:40
Listen, you can't pull God's creation out of shape and not expect trouble.
31:40 --> 31:46
Any more than you can pull a building out of shape and not expect it to fall.
31:46 --> 31:49
Because they had plowed wickedness, they would eat the fruit of chaos and trouble.
31:49 --> 31:55
But had they only plowed in righteousness, as God had told them,
31:55 --> 32:02
they would have eaten the fruit of peace and quiet in their land.
32:02 --> 32:06
Oh, wouldn't you just love to have peace and quiet in America right now?
32:06 --> 32:11
Wouldn't Israel love to have peace and quiet
32:14 --> 32:17
instead of those drones and the iron dome going off all the time?
32:17 --> 32:21
They got used to that noise in those sites.
32:21 --> 32:24
Isaiah chapter 32, Isaiah chapter 32, verse 17 and 18,
32:24 --> 32:34
"In the work of righteousness shall be peace,
32:34 --> 32:39
and the effect of righteousness, quietness, and assurance forever.
32:40 --> 32:45
And my people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, and ensure dwellings,
32:45 --> 32:51
and in quiet, resting places."
32:51 --> 32:55
That's the way it's going to be when the Lord comes back.
32:55 --> 32:59
Israel will finally accept their Savior, which is their God,
32:59 --> 33:07
which is the Word made flesh.
33:08 --> 33:10
And when they accept the Word and they follow the Word,
33:10 --> 33:15
then the world is going to be put back into place again, the way God designed.
33:15 --> 33:21
And the result of that will be a quiet, peaceable, secure place to live.
33:21 --> 33:27
I'm looking forward to that time.
33:27 --> 33:30
People live their lives contrary to God's worth, and they want to blame everybody else
33:30 --> 33:36
when the world falls in around them.
33:36 --> 33:38
But a nation may appear to thrive in their sin for a season,
33:38 --> 33:42
but in the end, tumult will arise in their land.
33:42 --> 33:47
Tumult will arise in America.
33:47 --> 33:49
Mark it down.
33:49 --> 33:51
It's already arising.
33:51 --> 33:53
We already have a lot of it now, but it's going to arise.
33:53 --> 33:57
Look back in your text.
33:57 --> 33:58
"And all thy fortresses shall be destroyed."
33:58 --> 34:02
In other words, all the things you put your trust in,
34:02 --> 34:04
all the things you thought were going to keep you secure,
34:05 --> 34:09
your leagues with other nations,
34:09 --> 34:12
you make a deal with China, you make a deal with these other nations,
34:12 --> 34:16
you've got a strong military, you've got a strong economy,
34:16 --> 34:20
you've got advisors, whatever it is you're putting your trust in,
34:20 --> 34:24
it's going to be spoiled.
34:24 --> 34:26
Which, as we learn this morning next door,
34:26 --> 34:32
it means they're going to beat you up and take your stuff.
34:32 --> 34:35
Everything you put your trust in is going to come crashing down upon you.
34:35 --> 34:42
One day this world that has all these ideas about life
34:42 --> 34:49
that are contrary to God's word,
34:49 --> 34:50
and they'd stake their hope upon those false ideas,
34:50 --> 34:55
it's all going to come crashing down around.
34:55 --> 34:57
God is the only fortress that will never be spoiled.
34:57 --> 34:59
The gospel is the only safe place that you can hang all of your weight upon
35:00 --> 35:05
and it will never come crashing down upon you.
35:05 --> 35:07
Jesus Christ will never disappoint those who trust in Him.
35:07 --> 35:11
But those who reject God's word and put their trust in their political power,
35:11 --> 35:16
in their military strength, in their control of the judicial or political system,
35:16 --> 35:21
their hold on public opinion, their alliances with other wicked nations,
35:21 --> 35:27
it's all going to ultimately come crashing down on their heads.
35:27 --> 35:31
How's it going to happen?
35:31 --> 35:32
Look back in your text.
35:32 --> 35:33
"As shaman spoiled Beth Arbel in the day of battle."
35:33 --> 35:37
As shaman spoiled Beth Arbel in the day of battle.
35:37 --> 35:42
There's a lot of speculation as to which battle this is actually referring to,
35:42 --> 35:47
and I see no reason for us to concern ourselves with it.
35:47 --> 35:50
Because the purpose of it is to let us know that God is referring Israel back
35:50 --> 35:56
to a battle that they were familiar with.
35:56 --> 35:58
He said, "You know what happened to them?
35:58 --> 36:01
That's going to happen to you."
36:01 --> 36:04
He was reminded of them of what can happen when a nation lifts itself up in pride against God.
36:04 --> 36:10
In the battle of Beth Arbel, look back in your text,
36:10 --> 36:14
"The mother was dashed in pieces upon her children."
36:14 --> 36:17
Why would God say that?
36:17 --> 36:20
Why did He just say a bunch of people were killed?
36:20 --> 36:23
Why did He just say that the city was overthrown?
36:23 --> 36:26
Why did it have to be so gross and sensitive to say
36:26 --> 36:31
the mother was dashed in pieces upon her children?
36:31 --> 36:35
You know, if I were to go into battle against another nation,
36:35 --> 36:46
if our nation were to go into a battle against another nation,
36:46 --> 36:50
I know what we've done in the past.
36:50 --> 36:53
We've been very merciful to nations.
36:53 --> 36:56
We try to keep civilians out of it, just have soldiers fighting soldiers.
36:56 --> 37:05
We frown on killing innocent civilians, especially women and children.
37:05 --> 37:10
But what God is showing them is this,
37:10 --> 37:14
your enemy's not going to have any pity on you.
37:14 --> 37:17
I'll have pity on you.
37:17 --> 37:20
I love you.
37:20 --> 37:21
But the enemy's not going to have any pity on you.
37:21 --> 37:25
The fruit of iniquity does not show mercy, folks.
37:25 --> 37:30
It does not.
37:30 --> 37:32
It will never have pity.
37:32 --> 37:34
You can make choices in your life,
37:34 --> 37:36
and when those choices come around and you get your belly full of them,
37:36 --> 37:40
the choices will not pity you.
37:40 --> 37:43
Your belly's just going to turn sour and it's going to hurt.
37:43 --> 37:48
A past generation of people were slaughtered because of their sins,
37:49 --> 37:53
and God told Israel in verse 15,
37:53 --> 37:55
"So shall Bethel do unto you because of your great wickedness."
37:55 --> 38:01
Remember the story of Bethel.
38:01 --> 38:04
That's where Jacob met God.
38:04 --> 38:07
It was sacred in the house of Israel.
38:07 --> 38:11
They remember it meant the house of God, Bethel, the house of God.
38:11 --> 38:14
But by the time God had given this prophecy to Hosea, Bethel's name
38:14 --> 38:20
had been changed to Beth-Aven.
38:20 --> 38:22
Remember the house of vanity.
38:22 --> 38:23
God said, "Beth-El, the house of God, shall do this great destruction to you
38:23 --> 38:30
because of your great wickedness."
38:30 --> 38:33
In other words, because of what you did to Bethel.
38:33 --> 38:37
This is what Bethel is going to do to you.
38:37 --> 38:40
Because of what you do to your nation,
38:42 --> 38:45
because of what you do to your church,
38:45 --> 38:47
because of what you do to your God.
38:47 --> 38:49
This is what it's going to do to you.
38:49 --> 38:52
You made this mess and now the mess is going to come down upon your head.
38:52 --> 38:58
Bethel destroyed them because their sin had twisted it out of shape.
38:58 --> 39:04
They had distorted the house of God into the shape of the house of vanity.
39:04 --> 39:10
And now Beth-El'd, all mangled by their sin,
39:11 --> 39:15
would fall upon their heads and destroy them.
39:15 --> 39:18
God said, "Look back in your text and we'll close."
39:18 --> 39:20
It would destroy them.
39:20 --> 39:22
"How in the morning shall the king of Israel utterly be cut off?"
39:22 --> 39:28
In the morning, the king of Israel would be cut off.
39:28 --> 39:33
Meaning the king over rebellious Israel would be quickly destroyed.
39:33 --> 39:40
Plowed right over.
39:41 --> 39:42
They put their trust in him.
39:42 --> 39:45
And then when that was tested,
39:45 --> 39:47
their hero, the king, and their military and all that.
39:47 --> 39:51
While the enemy would be wiping their mouths and eating a hamburger at lunchtime in victory.
39:51 --> 39:58
It'd be easy and they would have no mercy.
39:58 --> 40:03
I thank God there's going to be conflict.
40:03 --> 40:08
Jesus said there's going to be wars and there's going to be rumors of wars.
40:08 --> 40:11
Nation shall rise up against nation before the incomes.
40:11 --> 40:15
Jesus said people were going to persecute believers
40:15 --> 40:22
and kill them and deliver them up to be prosecuted before the incomes.
40:22 --> 40:26
You know what?
40:26 --> 40:29
Let those enemies fight against me all they want to.
40:29 --> 40:33
Because my king can't be destroyed.
40:33 --> 40:35
My king is ultimately going to come back and destroy them.
40:37 --> 40:39
That's why we as Christians should not,
40:39 --> 40:43
number one, should never defy God's word because when we do,
40:43 --> 40:49
we pull and twist what he created out of shape for us.
40:49 --> 40:52
Number two, we should never put our trust in anything but him.
40:52 --> 40:57
With that, we'll go ahead and close.
40:57 --> 41:00
Father, we thank you so much for your precious word.
41:00 --> 41:04
Thank you, Father, for spelling it out so plainly.
41:05 --> 41:08
And Lord, so amazingly, Lord, as we read through Hosea,
41:08 --> 41:12
God, it's very much like you're speaking to us.
41:12 --> 41:16
Well, you are speaking to us, but if the names were changed,
41:16 --> 41:21
it would be like you were speaking to our nation and to our people.
41:21 --> 41:27
And Lord, I thank you for doing so.
41:27 --> 41:30
Thank you for these wonderful truths.
41:30 --> 41:33
May we serve you with our whole hearts and trust in your way and not our own.
41:35 --> 41:39
In Jesus' name, amen.
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