Episode Transcript
The tile that matched this morning is feeding on the wind.
Feeding on the wind.
Food...
I'm going to get my water.
Food is not only an essential part of life for every living creature, but God has lovingly blessed our consumption of it.
Brother Doug has a phrase that he likes to say, and he says, "I like groceries."
That's Brother Doug, "I like groceries."
Man, if you ever get a chance, just look at the plate size that he gets whenever he eats next week over there.
It's quite impressive.
God's blessed us.
He loves us, and he's made eating a delightful experience for us with the taste, both not only personally, physically, but socially as well.
We enjoy meeting for food.
He gave us pleasant things to eat and the ability to appreciate and desire those things.
I'm so glad God cares about us and designed us to be passionate about the food that he supplies.
When we're hungry and we smell something, to me, there's nothing like being hungry and walking and opening the door to a barbecue restaurant, walking in, smelling that smoke.
Oh, wow, that smells really good.
When we smell something like that that's good, being cooked, brisket smoking, steak on the grill, coming over from your neighbor's yard or something, oh, it smells so good.
Our senses are aroused, and we eagerly await the opportunity to eat it.
It's good to be excited about what we eat, so as long as God intended for us to eat it, that is, because there's some things God did not intend for us to eat.
In our verse this morning, God said in verse 1, "Ephraim feedeth on wind."
Ephraim feedeth on wind.
I love feeding on barbecue.
My parents love feeding on hamburgers.
Man, they love their hamburgers.
My wife loves feeding on cake.
She loves cake.
But Israel, here called Ephraim, loved feeding on wind.
I mean, who in their right mind would want to feed on wind?
What man looks outside and sees the trees whipping around in the wind and says, "Honey, I'm getting hungry.
I think I'm going to go outside and catch me a bag of wind to eat."
People weren't made to feed on wind.
But Israel had an unusual appetite for wind.
And because of its unique characteristics, the Bible uses wind in many different ways to describe things.
At one time, the people who were born of God described like wind by Jesus, because it has all kinds of mysterious and different characteristics.
But here, in Hosea 12, verse 1, the Hebrew word that's translated "wind" here, it gives us the idea of unsubstantiality.
Unsubstantiality, wind, nothingness.
Sometimes we'll say, "That guy's just a big bag of hot air over there."
Or, "He's just an old windbag."
It means there's nothing to him.
And that's what Israel, they were eating nothing.
They were feeding on unsubstantiality.
They were a nation of people that fed on things without real substance.
They were feeding on emptiness.
They were feeding on vain, unsubstantial things.
And you have to understand that this was the condition of Israel's people shortly before Israel's fall.
When a nation begins feeding on wind, when they begin feeding on emptiness, when their appetite is passionate about things that don't matter in life, that nation is setting itself up for a fall.
On our drive to church on Sunday mornings, Tammy and I frequently see, I don't know where they're coming from, but we frequently see pickup trucks loaded with those off-road utility vehicles.
They've got mud all over them.
And I just look and I think, "All that money spent on a bunch of toys."
Here, we're going to church, they should be going to church, pulling up and going to church and learning God's Word and learn how to live for something that really matters.
And their whole life is centered around work and take their money and buy toys and go play in the mud like I used to when I was a kid.
But now they're grown and they play in the mud in a more exciting way, but they're still playing in the mud.
We'll see Boy Scouts of America trailers going where, you could tell they've been camping out on Saturday night with the boys and now they're headed back up to Dallas with their trailers going back on Sunday mornings.
And I'm thinking, "That's a good thing to teach those young people, is how to miss church."
We'll see people pulling their ski boats headed out to Cedar Creek Lake, their party boats.
We'll see motorcycle enthusiasts riding out on Sunday mornings, going somewhere that's going to amount to nothing.
Nothing.
When they get through that trip, they won't accomplish anything.
And I think to myself, they need to be going to God's house, learning God's Word and prepare themselves for an eternity, but they are feeding on wind.
Do you know why a TikTok so popular among young people?
They're feeding on wind.
Do you know how the Kardashians...
Has anyone actually seen an episode of the Kardashians?
How many of you all have never seen an episode of the Kardashians?
Me either.
I don't know what they do.
But how can these people be famous for being famous and get paid for it?
People feed on wind.
That's all it is.
People feed on wind.
Instead of feeding on the bread of life, they're feeding on wind.
They spend their time, effort, and money trying to satisfy their empty, earthly cravings.
What kind of cravings do you have?
What kind of goals do you have for your life?
They pull up beside you at a red light.
They're listening to loud, nonsensical music.
Just absolute nonsense going off, and it's just filling their head full of nonsense.
When they go home, they turn on their television at home, and they fill their head full of nonsense.
When they make their so-called bucket list in life.
I've heard a lot of people talk about their bucket list.
And I have yet to have someone tell me on their bucket list anything that they're trying to do for the kingdom of God that they want to accomplish before they die.
It's always, "Well, going to see the Grand Canyons on my bucket list."
"Bungee cording's on my bucket list."
"Skydiving's on my bucket list."
It's always games, and fun, and frivolity, and nothing that amounts to anything.
Let's say that you accomplished everything on that bucket list, every single thing you checked off.
And then you die, and you stand before God.
What does any of that matter?
What does any of it matter 10, 15 years from now?
This morning, I went to my study, pondering on the wind, Brother Doug, of course.
I went to my study at the house, and on my wall there's a Chiefs Award that I received when I was in state law enforcement.
And it's awarded very nicely, and you get a medal that comes with it, and all that stuff.
And I was looking at it, and I was thinking, "Nobody remembers that anymore."
The people that awarded it to me, they don't even work there anymore.
Some of them are dead.
Nobody cares!
Nobody!
What does it even matter?
You know, it's nice receiving an award like that, but you know, if that's what you're seeking for in life, you know what you're doing, you're just feeding on wind.
Because it doesn't make any difference in the grand scheme of things.
If it doesn't matter in eternity, it doesn't matter at all.
That's just simply put.
If something doesn't matter in eternity, it doesn't matter at all.
So whatever you're seeking in life, whatever you're craving, whatever you're trying to satisfy, I'm not saying don't have any fun here.
I am saying this, the most fun I ever had is serving Jesus.
I'll tell you that right now.
But I'm not saying don't have any fun.
I'm not saying don't play cornhole on the weekend or anything like that.
I'm not saying don't jump out of an airplane.
I'm not saying that stuff.
But what I'm saying is, what are you feeding on?
What are you trying to accomplish in life?
If it doesn't matter in eternity, it doesn't matter at all.
After pondering all the things that people do in life, the things that seem so important to people, the things that most people consider to be great accomplishments, after considering all those things, King Solomon said in Ecclesiastes 12-13, he says, "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter."
You ready to hear the conclusion of the whole matter?
He says, "Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man."
That's it.
If what you're chasing after in life, if what you're feeding on in life and craving on in life, because when you eat, you're satisfying, you're craving, you're satisfying your desire, and you're living off of it.
If it's not about fearing God and keeping His commandments, then it's wind, because that's the whole duty of mankind.
God is the creator and giver of all life.
So anything we do apart from Him is vanity.
It's wind.
Colossians chapter 3 verse 17, Colossians chapter 3 verse 17, "And whatsoever you do, in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by Him."
If what you're doing, you can't do it in Jesus' name and give thanks to God for it, man, it's just wind.
Nevertheless, Israel had developed an appetite for wind, so they fed on it.
Now, notice that God didn't say Israel fed on air.
I mean, what is wind made of?
It's just air, isn't it?
But God didn't say they feed on air.
He said they fed on wind.
You know what the difference between air and wind is?
The whole church filled with air right now.
That's why we're still alive and kicking.
She's creating some wind over there with her fan.
I got a fan out in the car, by the way, if anyone needs it, I'll bring in, and you can fan yourself.
I brought it, and I keep forgetting to bring it in.
She's creating that wind.
But you know what she's doing?
As she was bringing this across to fan her face, she has to start over again and do it again.
Why?
That wind is here for a moment, and it's gone.
That's the difference between air and wind.
The air is always around us, but wind never stays.
Wind blows into our lives.
It makes some noise.
A lot of times it causes some damage, and then it's gone.
Wind never sticks around.
And that fiddly describes everything that we set our hearts on that's not founded on God's word.
It's just wind.
We do it for a moment.
It comes into our lives.
We experience it, and then it's all gone.
And you can't ever get it back.
Only one life so soon will pass.
Only what's done for Christ will last.
Not only did they feed on wind, and if you're taking notes, I do have three little subcategories here, three categories.
One is Israel fed.
They were feeding.
Number two, they were following.
Israel feedeth on wind, loop back your text, and followeth after the east wind.
Followeth after the east wind.
Now what is it about the east wind here?
Well, numbers have significance in the Bible, and so do directions.
And the east wind in the Bible always is described as a destructive force.
So they're following after a destructive force.
That follow means they're pursuing after something.
They're pursuing after this east wind.
In Pharaoh's dream, you remember the dream that Pharaoh had?
You had fat cows, and you had lean cows.
I ate up the fat cows.
You had thick, fat corn.
Then you had this corn that was blasted by the east wind.
You had the Red Sea, all in its place, right where God put it.
Everything's in order.
And this incredible force parts that sea.
It was the east wind that God sent to part that sea.
It's always an incredible, destructive type of force.
And spiritually speaking here, Israel was following after the east wind.
Spiritually speaking, people who feed on wind, they are following and craving after the east wind.
Meaning they're pursuing a lifestyle that's leading them down a path of ultimate destruction.
Everything in this world's been tainted by sin.
Everything.
When Adam fell, the whole creation that God put under Adam fell with him.
It's kind of like if you've got a waiter, and this waiter has all this food on these platters, if the waiter falls, everything that the waiter has in his hands, it falls too.
And God put the creation in Adam's hands.
And when Adam fell, everything else fell with him.
And that means everything in this world, now being tainted by sin, is gonna be completely destroyed by God.
Everything in this world.
When you look in the Old Testament, you have things that were dedicated, all right?
So Israel would go in, they would conquer a particular city and there were things that were dedicated, all right?
So some things were dedicated by going into God's treasury.
Other things were dedicated by being destroyed, by being burnt with fire, by being broken down.
So they were dedicated to destruction.
In the same way, everything, the Bible says, of him, through him, and to him are all things.
Of God, through God, and to God are all things.
So whatever God made ultimately has to come back to God.
It has to belong to God.
So here's what the gospel does.
The gospel is a way that God can take fallen man and bring man back to him and then us be dedicated.
That's why we're sanctified.
That's why we're called saints or holy.
We're dedicated back to God through the cross of Jesus Christ.
On the other hand, not everybody's going to come to God through the cross.
So those who are not dedicated by redemption will be dedicated by destruction.
That's why we have eternal life and eternal death.
Those who accept Christ, they inherit eternal life.
Those who reject Christ, they inherit eternal death.
One gets Jesus coming from the east.
The other gets the east wind.
You see?
They get the destructive force rather than the redemptive love because they rejected it.
So everything's going to be destroyed that does not come back to God through Jesus Christ.
After God destroys the world that we inherited in Adam, he's going to make a new world that we will inherit in Christ.
Only the things that belong to Christ shall enter the new world that Christ makes.
You following that?
Only the things that belong to Christ shall enter the new world that Christ makes.
And that means the only things in this world that we can take with us will be those things that we did in His name and for His glory.
That's it.
Everything else gets left behind.
Everything else in this world is headed down a course of destruction.
It's like an airplane.
It's like when Adam sinned, an airplane started spiraling.
And once you get in that spiral, they finally call it the death spiral.
It finally starts spiraling and there's no way to recover.
And it's like everything in this world outside the gospel is on this course like a plane spiraling out of control caused by the sin that Adam committed.
And it can't be recovered.
The world is being driven by destructive east wind.
And everyone not following the gospel to everlasting life is following the wind to everlasting destruction.
The fleshly part of us that we inherited in Adam will follow that wind to its grave, to its destruction.
But if we follow the gospel, which is given to us by the Holy Spirit, then we shall be saved from that destruction.
Romans chapter eight verse one, Romans chapter eight verse one.
And two says this, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus."
Versus in Adam.
Watch the description here.
"Who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit."
Capital S.
"For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death."
So when we look here in Romans chapter eight, some people see this and they say, "Well, there's no condemnation then which are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit."
They go, "Oh, but sometimes I do sin in my flesh, so I do walk out after the flesh.
I'm not always walking in the spirit."
That's not what it's talking about.
It's talking about the two different roads that you go down, the two different choices that you make.
One is the flesh, that is described as the law of sin and death.
So if you follow the law of sin and death, you're following an east wind.
You're pursuing an east wind.
You're just pursuing destruction.
The law of sin and death is this.
Here's the law.
The law is everyone born in Adam is born into sin, thus they must experience death.
But then there's a greater law that overcomes that law.
Just like the law of an airplane with the fuel being spent, energy being spent, it overcomes a law of gravity.
There's a greater law with the law of the gospel.
The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.
One law overcomes the other.
And so if a person is only following the course of this world, they're following an east wind headed to destruction.
But if a person having hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ, which is given to us by the spirit of Jesus Christ through his word, the holy Bible, whoever believes on the Lord Jesus Christ, they are now no longer following the wind.
They're following the spirit who's led them to the cross.
And having come to the cross, they are now free from the law of sin and death because Christ took that sin and death in our place.
So they feed on the wind, they follow the wind, but we feed on the bread of life.
And we follow the spirit who testifies to us of Jesus.
Not only do they feed on the wind, not only do they follow the wind, but they are also filled with the wind.
Speaking of Israel, God said, look back in your text, he daily increases lies and desolation.
They get filled with them.
The gospel's the truth.
The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus sets us free from the law of sin and death because the law of sin and death was given to us by the lie and the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus frees us by the truth.
One is the lie given by the devil, the other is the truth given by Jesus.
And that truth sets us free.
He daily increases lies and desolation.
He daily increases the lies, getting himself filled with them.
And notice that as the lies increase, what else increases?
The desolation increases.
Desolation means destruction.
Here's the kingdom of truth for you this morning.
A lie will always result in damage.
A lie will always result in damage.
Do you know how this world was built?
Do you know how this world was framed?
Do you know what holds this world together?
Truth.
God spoke in what God said was true and powerful.
God said, let there be lies.
That was true.
And everything God spoke was true.
Let us make man, that's true.
He made man.
He spoke it.
He then saw that it was good.
He did everything he said.
Everything he said was true.
Everything he did was good.
So the world's built on truth.
The world was created in the world received life by truth that was spoken and the world would be destroyed and inherit death by the lies that have been spoken.
In the Garden of Eden, God gave Adam and Eve the truth.
The devil gave them lies.
Adam and Eve rejected the truth and fed on the lie and they inherited the east wind.
So what happened?
The gospel of Jesus Christ is God's truth to mankind and it allows us to partake of it and live.
Jesus said in John chapter six, verse 51, I am the living bread which came down from heaven.
If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever and the bread that I will give is my flesh which I will give for the life of the world.
That's not wind.
That's substance.
What our nation needs today is a great resurgence of truth.
We have been feeding our young people lies in our universities, in our public education programs, letting them sit down and watch animal kingdom and be told over and over and over again how this happened over millions of years and we've let them just feed on these lies and now we're suffering the great damage that we've tolerated, that we've promoted with our tax dollars and we need a great revival of truth in our land.
God said Israel increases lies.
Look back in your text.
And they do make a covenant with the Assyrians.
That is the natural response.
When you embrace a lie, you reject God's truth.
If you reject God's truth, you reject God's covenant.
You know what God's covenant with man has always been about?
100% of the time, it's always been about protecting and preserving mankind. 100% of the time, whether it's the law God gives from Mount Sinai, whether it's the Noahic covenant when God promises not to destroy the earth with a flood again, the God's covenant or whether it's the gospel covenant that God has given over and over and over again in many different ways, whether through Abraham or whether in the Garden of Eden, the Edenic covenant or whether it's just coming out through the great commission of preaching the Christ crucified, whatever it is, all of God's covenant has been about preserving man through Christ.
That covenant is the truth.
When we receive the truth, we enter the covenant, we enjoy the protection, we enjoy the preservation.
But when Israel fed on the lies, when they embraced the lie, you can't embrace a lie and receive the covenant of God's truth, it's not possible.
So when they rejected God's covenant, they had to have some other covenant.
Why?
Because the most driving force behind any person in here, you wanna know what it is?
You may think you know, but I tell you that the greatest driving force, it's not finances, it's not human sexuality, the greatest driving force every person in here is self-preservation.
You give me a bag of gold and I'm out in the desert and I'm having to carry that gold and I don't have any water, guess what I'm about to do?
I'm gonna chunk that gold.
I gotta be preserved, that gold's not gonna do me any good if I'm dead.
And I'll buy your water from you with all the gold I've got if I can take a swallow of it.
Self-preservation is the greatest driving force of mankind, survival.
And when we reject God's covenant and when we fail to see the gospel as our means of self-preservation, there has to be some other way, there's just a natural desire that we're gonna have to be preserved some other way.
The world makes things up.
They make up other covenants.
They imagine them.
One of the covenants is, well, when I die, I'll go back to dirt and then I'll come back some other way or all of this is God and I don't really die, we just take on different forms from the earth and we never really, we just got ways of trying to imagine things or we just go away and our consciousness goes away.
There's all kinds of ways to try to cope with things like this.
And we don't see God as our protector.
So what Israel did when they rejected God's covenant, they then made a covenant with the Assyrians.
They weren't supposed to make a covenant with anyone in that land.
God told them in Exodus chapter 23, verse 32, God told them, he said, thou shalt make no covenant with them nor with their gods.
They entered into a covenant with other nations and their gods and they put their trust in them to protect and provide for them.
We have leagues all the time.
We have NATO.
That's a covenant.
Man, if we trusted in God, we wouldn't need NATO.
We wouldn't need to be sending them any money at all.
United Nations, what a joke that is.
We wouldn't need to be sending them any money at all.
But they put their trust in the Assyrians and these covenants that they made to protect them.
They would soon discover that the people and their gods and the covenants they put their hope in would fail them and their friends would betray them.
Soon after Assyria conquered Israel, the Assyrians were conquered themselves.
Yesterday, the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, he was complaining that the United States, that their biggest ally was failing to and slow walking weapons to them, that they desperately needed to defeat their enemies.
And once again, the only covenant Israel should be entered into is the covenant God made with them, but they refused it and because they refused it, they've entered into covenants with us, the Assyrians.
That's all we are to them.
We're the Assyrians.
We don't have their well-being in mind.
Our government does it, not at this time at least.
If they would look to God and say to us, they'd have a friend who would never forsake them.
They would have a covenant that would never fail them.
Their freedom would be guaranteed.
Their safety would be guaranteed.
Their prosperity and life forever would be guaranteed.
And that covenant is the gospel and they've rejected it.
The Bible tells us that Israel though one day will enter that covenant in the end.
And when they do, they will be delivered and the world will finally bow to the God who made it.
That's all we're waiting on.
We're waiting on Israel to receive the gospel in the end and then we're gonna see the world bow to the God who made it.
Until that time though, this covenant of the gospel is offered to every one of us.
If we'll just accept its terms and enter into the promise that God has given us.
Given us a promise, given us a covenant to deliver us from the lie of this world by believing the truth of Jesus Christ.
God said Israel had made a covenant with the Assyrians.
Look now as we close this verse out and oil is carried into Egypt.
And we're not talking about crude oil.
We're talking about olive oil.
Olive oil was taken to Egypt among other things as a gift to Egypt, hoping to buy friendship and protection from them.
They had some kind of trade with them and they were saying hey look, you know we have an agreement with Saudi Arabia, oil for protection, do y'all know that?
We've had a long, sinew agreement with Saudi Arabia.
Oil for protection.
They give us oil, we give them protection.
And they gave them oil, just a different type of oil, hoping to buy protection from them.
The Jews word this verse this way in the Talmud.
They carried gifts to Egypt.
They carried gifts to Egypt.
And that's the difference between the covenants that we make with the world and the covenant that God has made with us.
With the world's covenant, we're the ones giving the gifts.
With God's covenant, he's the one giving the gift.
The gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ is son and we simply receive it.
Every religion in this world apart from the gospel is oil carried into Egypt and it ultimately fails.
It is us giving our best, seeking help from those who cannot provide it.
But the gospel is God giving his best, giving help to those who need it.
The world feeds on wind, we feed on bread.
The world gives its oil to Egypt.
God gives his oil to us.
Psalm 23 verse five, thou preparest a table before me in the presence of my enemies.
Thou anointest my head with oil.
My cup runneth over.
Father, we thank you so much for your precious word.
We thank you, Father, that you've not fed us wind in the gospel.
You've given us tangible hope, substantial hope and power over sin, death and the grave.
Lord, when Jesus appeared to the Mary Magna Lee and the ladies that came to see him at the tomb, when he appeared and they held his feet in worship, that Jesus is something we can put our hands on.
Something, Father, God, who's not wind.
Someone who created the wind, who commands the wind.
And Father, we thank you that you've given him as our basis of hope in the covenant we can put our faith in.
We pray this in Jesus' precious name, that if anyone is here today and does not know him as their savior, that they will before it's eternally too late, amen.
