Episode Transcript
Hosea chapter 10 verse 5, the title of the message this morning is "No Comfort in the Calves."
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No comfort in the calves.
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Jesus taught us to pray, "Give us this day our daily bread."
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And there is no bread that is more life-sustaining, invigorating, and delicious in filling than the Word of God.
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When we chew physical bread, the bread is broken down so it may ingest the nutrition it contains.
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And when we break down the Scriptures, we're doing it for the same reason.
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That our minds may digest the truth that's contained in them, that we may grow thereby.
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So whether it's Brother Shepherd on Sunday morning in Sunday school, Brother Doug at the nursing home,
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Sister Elizabeth like this morning in the Sunday school class, or Tammy, or whoever's teaching.
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When we take a small portion of the Bible, just a phrase, and we take that little phrase and then we explain that phrase,
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and we comment on that portion before advancing to the next portion of the verse,
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we are chewing the heavenly bread that God's given to us.
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Let's now break off a small piece of that bread from Hosea 10 verse 5 and let's chew on it together.
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God said in Hosea 10.5, "The inhabitants of Samaria shall fear."
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The inhabitants of Samaria shall fear. Let's pray.
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Father, we thank you for your precious Word.
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I thank you for these people who've come here today, Lord, to hear what your Word has to say.
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Thank you for the truth that's already been expounded.
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Help us as we meditate and chew on this heavenly bread.
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Let us taste the sweetness and digest all the nutrition in it,
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and to your honor and glory and to our strength in Christ.
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In His precious name we pray. Amen.
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"The inhabitants of Samaria shall fear."
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Those who dwelt in Samaria were going to be afraid.
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Now Samaria, to remind you, was the capital city of the northern kingdom of Israel.
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Not only was it the name of the capital city, but being the capital city of the kingdom,
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it was also referred to as the northern kingdom itself, was referred to as Samaria.
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So not just the city, but it'd be like Austin being the state capital,
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and yet sometimes you just call the state Austin.
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It'd be sort of like that, and that's how this happens here in the Bible.
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Sometimes the northern kingdom as a whole refers to, or rather is referred to as Samaria.
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For example, in 1 Kings chapter 13, verse 32, 1 Kings chapter 13, verse 32,
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it says, "For the saying which he cried by the word of the Lord against the altar in Bethel,
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and against all the houses of the high places which are in the cities of Samaria,
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shall surely come to pass."
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So if you're referring to the cities of Samaria, you're obviously referring to the entire nation,
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because one city is not going to have several cities in it, but the nation will.
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So when Hosea refers to the inhabitants of Samaria in this verse,
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he's not speaking of the city, but of the northern kingdom of Israel.
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The people who dwelt in that northern kingdom of Israel, Hosea said, shall fear.
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Now last Wednesday night, if you remember in our study of Proverbs,
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we read about the fear of the Lord coming upon the wicked,
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not the fear of the Lord, but the wicked's fear coming upon him.
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In the same thing that's happening here in Samaria,
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this is a real good practical example of what we read about in Proverbs coming to place in that nation.
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And I don't care what race a person belongs to, what religion they subscribe to,
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what culture they were brought up in.
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Wherever in the world they live, nobody wants to be afraid. Nobody does.
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People want to be safe, confident, and secure.
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And let me add, God wants people to be safe, confident, and secure.
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Nevertheless, the Bible says the inhabitants of Samaria shall fear.
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So the question we need to ask ourselves is why?
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Why would the people of Samaria be afraid?
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If they want to feel safe, and if God wanted them to feel safe, then why would they be afraid?
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God answers that question now in the next part.
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God said they will fear, look back in your text, because of the calves of Beth-Avon.
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Because of the calves of Beth-Avon.
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They wouldn't fear because of God.
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I have peace because of God.
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They wouldn't fear because of God. They would fear because of the calves of Beth-Avon.
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Now I want you to pay attention closely here to the wording.
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"Hosea didn't say they would be afraid of the calves of Beth-Avon."
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The calves didn't scare them.
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The calves were the work of their own hands.
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They were the idols that they made and that they worshipped.
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They loved these golden calves, but they would soon be afraid because of them.
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See the difference?
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An idol now usually represents a particular false God that's behind the idol.
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So it's common to have multiple idols in a nation for the same God.
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Just like you would have a statue of Buddha in one place, a statue of Buddha in another place,
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and it's all representing the same Buddha.
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So for this reason the word calves in the plural is used in the King James translation.
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And now we're going to see it shifts to being used in the singular.
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Because it's going to focus on a particular idolatrous calf.
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"Hosea said they would fear because of the calves of Beth-Avon."
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Look back in your text.
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"For the people thereof shall mourn over it."
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That is, mourn over the idol of the God it represented, particularly the one that's at Beth-Avon.
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They would weep over their idol, the treasured calf that was located in Beth-Avon.
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Their glorious golden calf would bring them sorrow.
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And because that calf would bring them sorrow, the result would make them afraid.
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Now take your pen if you would and underscore the people thereof.
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The people thereof.
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Now move down a bit further in the verse and underscore the priests thereof.
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It's pretty cool, isn't it?
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I love breaking down Scripture.
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The people thereof and the priests thereof.
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Both the people and the priest would mourn over this golden calf,
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though they had previously rejoiced over it.
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What do we learn from that?
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Leaders and followers alike wind up in the same place.
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Jesus said where He is, there we will be also.
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Leaders and followers wind up in the same place.
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If you follow Jesus, then you're going to wind up where Jesus is.
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Jesus told the thief on the cross, "Today you will be with me in paradise."
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Man, what a wonderful comfort that is.
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But the problem is, likewise, if you follow a false teacher,
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then you're going to wind up wherever the false teacher is.
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The book of the Revelation tells us that those who reject Christ
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are going to wind up in the same place as the devil, the beast, and the false prophet.
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All in the same place.
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Thus we learn a valuable principle this morning, namely,
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"As the priests, so the people."
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Repeat that again.
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"As the priests, so the people."
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Being a leader doesn't justify you.
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Being a follower doesn't excuse you.
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Just because people follow you doesn't mean you're right.
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You can have a big following.
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You can have your auditorium packed out with folks.
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You can have money flowing in.
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You can have people buying your books.
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You can be a great follower of people.
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But just because people follow you doesn't mean you're right.
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And the same, just because you're deceived by some popular spiritual leader,
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doesn't excuse you for being wrong.
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There is equal accountability, both on the person teaching
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and the person following.
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Every priest and every person is either trusting in a calf or in Christ.
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One of the two.
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Every priest or every person is either trusting in a calf
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or they're trusting in Christ.
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Those who trust in a calf will one day mourn because of it.
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If you do not have your faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ,
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if your faith is not built upon the rock of God's Word based on God's Son,
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what your faith is based upon is a calf.
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You have Christ and you have a calf.
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You have the Savior God said.
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You have the false religion people make.
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It's either a calf or it's Christ.
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Man, those who believe in Jesus as their Savior,
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we're going to rejoice.
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I rejoice today.
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I'm going to be rejoicing forever.
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But those who put their hope in anything other than Christ
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are going to mourn in the end.
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Hosea said that people would mourn.
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Look back in your text.
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And the priests thereof that rejoiced on it.
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They rejoiced on it.
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As we believe on Jesus, so they rejoiced on that calf.
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We base our faith on the Christ God sent.
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They based their faith on the calf they made.
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The Hebrew word translated rejoice literally means to spin around
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and join excitement.
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You've seen people do that before.
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Oh, that's what it means.
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That's how happy they were over this calf.
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They were so excited about the system of false worship
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that they developed.
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They were rather proud of it.
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They fashioned that calf just the way they wanted it.
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All the finishing touches.
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The gold in the right place, the color in the right place.
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They shined it up.
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They made it look exactly like they imagined in their mind.
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The glory of that calf.
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It was very beautiful for them to see.
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And in the same way, we make our religions the same way.
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We custom make our own idols not out of metal so much today
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and a lot of people do.
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You go to India, you're going to find a lot of them.
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You go to the Catholic Church, you're going to find a lot of these little idols.
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But you go to China, you're going to find a lot of them.
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You go to Chinese restaurants, you're going to find some.
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But not everybody makes them out of metal and wood and stone.
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Some people make them out of their intellect.
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Some people make them out of doctrine.
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And they fashion whatever they make it out of.
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They fashion their belief system according to their own liking.
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Just the way they like it.
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That's the way this calf was.
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It was custom made to their liking.
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It was the pride of Beth Haven.
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People today get to custom pick their religion in America.
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Make it however they want.
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Man, there's so many different variations,
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so many different colors and shades of Christianity
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and of agnosticism and humanism.
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All kinds of different shades that people have crafted to put their hope in.
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They take comfort in their calf, but they will mourn because of it.
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People fashion calves of their own liking.
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They build their hopes and dreams on the things of this world today.
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They think to provide for themselves a nice, comfortable, secure life for themselves.
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They take great pleasure in what they've created.
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They rejoice in what they've made,
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but he that rejoices in this world will one day mourn because of it.
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He that comforts himself in this world shall one day mourn because of it.
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On the other hand, Jesus said in Matthew 5, 4,
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"Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted."
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As Christians, we have no comfort in this fallen world.
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You make me an idol out of wood, it's going to bring me no comfort.
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You give false worship, you tell people there's no God,
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you come up with some type of godless religion and godless society,
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and I have no comfort in it at all.
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It makes me mourn when I see the wicked direction this world is headed.
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But Jesus said, "Blessed are they that mourn in this world today,
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for they shall be comforted when Jesus comes."
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We don't rejoice over the calves we've built.
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We rejoice over the kingdom that Jesus is building through his gospel.
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Now, notice where this particular calf was located.
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It was located in a place called Beth-Avon.
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You might want to underscore that in your Scripture.
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In fact, take you a pen and draw a line between Beth-B-E-T-H and Avon.
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Draw a line between the H and the A.
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Beth-Avon, the nation of Israel descended from the man Israel.
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What was the man Israel's original name?
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Jacob.
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When Jacob fled from his brother Esau, Jacob's running.
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He comes upon a place.
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He's tired. He's scared.
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He goes to sleep.
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And God appears to him in a dream.
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We call it Jacob's ladder.
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And there's this ladder that was set up on earth.
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The top of that ladder reached to heaven.
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And God passed down to Jacob that day.
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First, God changed his name to Israel later on.
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But God passed down to Israel that day, the man Israel.
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He passed down to him the promise of the coming Savior
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that would come through the Lord Jesus Christ.
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The promise that he originally gave to his predecessor, Abraham.
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And so now, the gospels pass down to Jacob, whose name is Israel.
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He gives him this dream of this ladder being set up on heaven.
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The ladder is a picture of Jesus Christ who will bridge the gap
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between heaven and earth and reconcile God and man.
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And when Jacob woke up from that heavenly vision,
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he was so excited about what God had showed him.
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He was in such awe, fearful awe, that God had met with him there.
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He named that place, which was originally named "Luz."
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He renamed that place "Bethal."
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If you're taking notes, write down the word "Bethal."
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B-E-T-H-E-L. B-E-T-H-E-L.
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Once you get "Bethal" written down, take your pen and do the same thing with it.
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After the word "Beth," B-E-T-H, draw a line between "Beth" and "L,"
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between the "H" and the "E."
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In Hebrew, "Beth" means "house."
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"L" means "God."
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Remember the song "L" should I?
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"L" means "God."
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And so, "Beth L" means "house of God."
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Now, Jacob made a vow that day to God.
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He vowed that he would devote himself to God on the basis of that covenant,
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assuming that God would keep his promise in that covenant,
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and from that day forward, Beth L became a sacred place.
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It became a place where God would point Jacob back to in the future
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to remind him of the covenant that he made there.
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But we need to be pointed back to our beginnings a lot of times, don't we?
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We need to remember where we came from, remember why we're here,
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remember what God has done for us, what God's promise to do to us.
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We need to go back to Beth L sometimes.
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In Genesis 31, verse 13, God told Jacob,
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"I am the God of Beth L, where thou anointeth the pillar,
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where thou vouch'd a vow unto me.
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Now arise, get thee out from this land,
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and return unto the land of thy kindred."
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In Genesis 35, 1 through 3, God said unto Jacob,
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"Arise, go up to Beth L, and dwell there,
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and make there an altar unto God that appeared unto thee,
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when thou fled us from the face of Esau thy brother."
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God sending him back to Beth L, back to that place where God first appeared to him,
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back to the drawing board to remind him, "This is what it's all about, Jacob."
00:19:20,000 --> 00:19:26,000
Verse 2, he says, "Then Jacob said unto his household,
00:19:26,000 --> 00:19:30,000
and to all that were with him,
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'Put away the strange gods that are among you,
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and be clean, and change your garments,
00:19:35,000 --> 00:19:37,000
and let us arise and go up to Beth L,
00:19:37,000 --> 00:19:40,000
and I will make there an altar unto God,
00:19:40,000 --> 00:19:43,000
who answered me in the day of my distress,
00:19:43,000 --> 00:19:45,000
and was with me in the way which I went.'"
00:19:45,000 --> 00:19:48,000
Now I wanted you to see what's happening here.
00:19:48,000 --> 00:19:52,000
Beth L was a place where God told Jacob,
00:19:52,000 --> 00:19:56,000
"Jacob, forget everything that's happened now for a moment,
00:19:56,000 --> 00:20:00,000
and let's go back to the beginning where you first met me.
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Go back to the beginning where I showed you the ladder
00:20:04,000 --> 00:20:07,000
that would bridge the gap between God and man."
00:20:07,000 --> 00:20:09,000
Sometimes we have to do that too.
00:20:09,000 --> 00:20:11,000
Sometimes we have to go back to the cross, right?
00:20:11,000 --> 00:20:14,000
Back where God first showed us how he bridged the gap between God and man,
00:20:14,000 --> 00:20:19,000
and in doing so we get revival in our hearts.
00:20:19,000 --> 00:20:22,000
We get a renewed mind, and God was sending him back
00:20:22,000 --> 00:20:25,000
to get that renewed mind and to invigorate him spiritually.
00:20:25,000 --> 00:20:30,000
But what else happened?
00:20:30,000 --> 00:20:31,000
When Jacob went back, he told the people,
00:20:31,000 --> 00:20:33,000
"You put away the strange gods that are among you."
00:20:33,000 --> 00:20:36,000
So going back to Beth L, going back to the house of God,
00:20:36,000 --> 00:20:40,000
was a place of revival.
00:20:40,000 --> 00:20:43,000
It was a place of repentance and purifying
00:20:43,000 --> 00:20:46,000
and putting away anything that was displeasing to God in your life.
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That's what Jacob was doing.
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And there he built an altar to the one true God in the place, Beth L.
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Beth L was a rallying point where false gods were put away.
00:20:59,000 --> 00:21:04,000
Beth L was where the altar was built to the one true God
00:21:04,000 --> 00:21:07,000
in remembrance of his promise to bless the world through Israel.
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Beth L was the house of God.
00:21:11,000 --> 00:21:14,000
Jacob named it Beth L because it's where God appeared to him.
00:21:14,000 --> 00:21:18,000
But now, in our text this morning, God has renamed it Beth-Avon.
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Beth-Avon and Beth-L are the same place.
00:21:24,000 --> 00:21:31,000
Do you know why he named it Beth-Avon?
00:21:31,000 --> 00:21:33,000
The L is off of it.
00:21:33,000 --> 00:21:35,000
That means God is out of it.
00:21:35,000 --> 00:21:37,000
God is no longer in the house.
00:21:37,000 --> 00:21:40,000
Do you know what it was in the house?
00:21:40,000 --> 00:21:42,000
Avon.
00:21:42,000 --> 00:21:44,000
Do you know what Avon means?
00:21:46,000 --> 00:21:48,000
Vanity.
00:21:48,000 --> 00:21:50,000
The house of emptiness.
00:21:50,000 --> 00:21:54,000
That Hebrew word vanity, it's a really neat word.
00:21:54,000 --> 00:21:59,000
Pretend like there's a really big boulder right here.
00:21:59,000 --> 00:22:02,000
All right?
00:22:02,000 --> 00:22:03,000
And pretend like I'm not Brother Shepherd.
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Brother Shepherd could just toss the boulder over with his muscles.
00:22:05,000 --> 00:22:09,000
But pretend like there's a big boulder here
00:22:09,000 --> 00:22:12,000
and just the normal people like me and you.
00:22:12,000 --> 00:22:14,000
We were here and we're going to try to push that boulder a couple of feet.
00:22:14,000 --> 00:22:19,000
Well, we're not going to make any headway with that boulder.
00:22:19,000 --> 00:22:22,000
But let's say we try and we put all of our might into that boulder.
00:22:22,000 --> 00:22:27,000
We strain so hard and we go...
00:22:27,000 --> 00:22:30,000
And the boulder's still in the same place it was.
00:22:30,000 --> 00:22:35,000
The word Avon there, it has the idea of literally panting.
00:22:35,000 --> 00:22:41,000
Panting like an exhaust man who just expended energy and accomplished nothing.
00:22:41,000 --> 00:22:48,000
That is Avon.
00:22:48,000 --> 00:22:51,000
In the house of vanity.
00:22:51,000 --> 00:22:56,000
All of that work.
00:22:56,000 --> 00:23:00,000
All of the worship of those idols.
00:23:00,000 --> 00:23:04,000
Everything that they had worked for and dreamt for and hoped for
00:23:04,000 --> 00:23:09,000
and carving out those idols.
00:23:09,000 --> 00:23:12,000
It was all for nothing.
00:23:12,000 --> 00:23:15,000
Wasted.
00:23:15,000 --> 00:23:17,000
Boy, I tell you what, we have people today.
00:23:17,000 --> 00:23:20,000
They lived their entire lives for themselves.
00:23:20,000 --> 00:23:24,000
They dismissed the notion of God.
00:23:24,000 --> 00:23:27,000
And they die and go to hell.
00:23:27,000 --> 00:23:30,000
Do you know what their life was?
00:23:30,000 --> 00:23:33,000
Wasted.
00:23:33,000 --> 00:23:35,000
Absolutely wasted.
00:23:35,000 --> 00:23:37,000
No matter how much energy they spent,
00:23:37,000 --> 00:23:40,000
what all they supposedly accomplished in life, it's for nothing.
00:23:40,000 --> 00:23:49,000
They rejoiced on this calf.
00:23:49,000 --> 00:23:54,000
They built their hope on this calf.
00:23:54,000 --> 00:23:58,000
And now it would all come to nothing.
00:23:58,000 --> 00:24:01,000
It was all in vain.
00:24:01,000 --> 00:24:03,000
They rejoiced on the calf like the foolish man who built his house on the sand.
00:24:03,000 --> 00:24:08,000
Here's a kingdom truth for you this morning.
00:24:08,000 --> 00:24:12,000
It only takes a few generations for Beth El to become Beth-Avon.
00:24:12,000 --> 00:24:19,000
It only takes a few generations for Beth El to become Beth-Avon.
00:24:19,000 --> 00:24:25,000
We've seen it here in our country.
00:24:25,000 --> 00:24:28,000
Places of great revival can quickly become places of great rebellion.
00:24:28,000 --> 00:24:35,000
I know of no other nation in the world right now
00:24:35,000 --> 00:24:38,000
that is more in your face against God
00:24:38,000 --> 00:24:42,000
than the land that was built on the premise of God right here in the USA.
00:24:42,000 --> 00:24:49,000
We have turned from Beth El to Beth-Avon.
00:24:49,000 --> 00:24:54,000
Places of great revival can quickly turn to places of great rebellion.
00:24:54,000 --> 00:24:58,000
God said they would fear and mourn because of the calf of Beth-Avon.
00:24:58,000 --> 00:25:03,000
Look back in your text.
00:25:03,000 --> 00:25:04,000
"For the glory thereof because it is departed from it."
00:25:04,000 --> 00:25:10,000
Now the word "departed" means to denude.
00:25:10,000 --> 00:25:16,000
It means to strip the clothes off of something and leave it in shame.
00:25:16,000 --> 00:25:23,000
So literally here, this calf is going to be stripped of its glory,
00:25:23,000 --> 00:25:29,000
just stripped right off.
00:25:29,000 --> 00:25:32,000
When the calf they trusted in got stripped of its glory,
00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:36,000
which we'll learn about as we continue in our text in the next few weeks,
00:25:36,000 --> 00:25:43,000
when that calf got stripped of its glory,
00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:45,000
they would realize that all the hope they placed in that calf to protect them was in vain.
00:25:45,000 --> 00:25:54,000
And when they realized it was in vain,
00:25:54,000 --> 00:25:56,000
their rejoicing would turn to mourning and their confidence would turn to fear.
00:25:56,000 --> 00:26:03,000
When I read this, I couldn't help but think of Jesus who was denuded before he was crucified.
00:26:03,000 --> 00:26:14,000
He was stripped of his clothes and brought to shame.
00:26:14,000 --> 00:26:22,000
But later, you know what he did?
00:26:22,000 --> 00:26:25,000
He was being stripped.
00:26:25,000 --> 00:26:26,000
He rose victoriously and he'll return in power with great glory.
00:26:26,000 --> 00:26:32,000
He won't be denuded when he comes again.
00:26:32,000 --> 00:26:36,000
He'll be clothed with power and great glory.
00:26:36,000 --> 00:26:38,000
One day that's going to happen.
00:26:38,000 --> 00:26:40,000
On that day, every idol of man will forever be stripped of its glory.
00:26:40,000 --> 00:26:47,000
And he who had been stripped by man will finally be confessed as King of kings and Lord of lords.
00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:55,000
What a reversal.
00:26:55,000 --> 00:26:57,000
On that day, Beth-Aven will fall and Beth-El will rise again.
00:26:57,000 --> 00:27:04,000
Let's pray.
00:27:04,000 --> 00:27:05,000
Father, we thank you for your precious word.
00:27:05,000 --> 00:27:09,000
Lord, we mourn today because of Beth-Aven, which means we'll rejoice one day because of Beth-El.
00:27:09,000 --> 00:27:23,000
And God, sadly, people today rejoice because of their Beth-Aven.
00:27:23,000 --> 00:27:31,000
And they will mourn when Beth-El comes.
00:27:31,000 --> 00:27:35,000
When they house, they built on sinking sandfalls.
00:27:35,000 --> 00:27:39,000
And the house of God shall stand forevermore.
00:27:39,000 --> 00:27:45,000
Father, comfort us, Lord, in this time.
00:27:45,000 --> 00:27:47,000
We place no hope but in anyone but you.
00:27:47,000 --> 00:27:51,000
We build our hopes and our dreams upon the rock Jesus Christ.
00:27:51,000 --> 00:27:57,000
Not a calf, but the Christ you sent.
00:27:57,000 --> 00:28:01,000
Not a religion, Lord, that we custom made for ourselves, but one you custom made for us.
00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:07,000
We thank you for this in Jesus' precious name. Amen.
00:28:07,000 --> 00:28:12,000
