Episode Transcript
The title of the message this morning is "A Heap of Trouble."
In our verse this morning, God is asking a question concerning the location of Gilead.
Then He answers the question in the same train of thought.
I have to say, I told Brother Shephard, it's a difficult passage of Scripture, these last few verses of this chapter are.
God is always faithful to explain.
I'll get a passage of Scripture sometime and I'll say, "What in the world is this talking about?"
Then you start studying and you pray, and next thing you know, God has given me the answers and I'm understanding.
He is because He loves you.
So He is faithful to feed me so I can feed you.
It's just so wonderful.
In Isaiah 12, look with me on verse 11, God asks, "Is there aniquity in Gilead?"
Now Gilead was a region in Israel.
It was east of the Jordan River and that's where Reuben, Gad, and Hathatribe of Manasseh settled before they crossed on over the Jordan River into the main portion of the Promised Land.
Gilead wasn't the capital of Israel.
Gilead wasn't the capital of Judah.
So why is God asking if there is aniquity in Gilead?
That's the questions we need to be asking when we're reading passages like this.
He's not just pulling a particular place out of his hat and saying, "Here, let's just talk about Gilead for a minute."
No, there's a reason he's doing this.
Is there aniquity in Gilead?
When you look at the history of Gilead in the Bible, then there are some significant events that took place there.
Thank you.
All right.
There are significant events that took place there.
When you consider the region of Gilead with respect to our text this morning, then I believe there's no doubt what this question that God is asking must be referring to.
Look with me quickly at verse 12.
Just skip down to verse 12.
"The Lord said, 'And Jacob fled into the country of Syria, and Israel served for a wife, and for a wife he kept sheep.'"
Now, why would God be mixing this story of Jacob up with this land of Gilead and asking if there was aniquity in it?
And I believe the reason is, is this.
When Jacob fled from his brother Esau, after Jacob tricked and got the blessing from his daddy, when Jacob fled from his brother Esau, he went to the country of Syria where he served as father-in-law Laban for his wife Rachel, and unbeknownst to him, Leah too, and for seven years.
So what does that have to do with Gilead?
Well, after serving for his wife, Jacob's father-in-law Laban caught up to him in Gilead, because after he finished his time working for Laban, because you know how it worked, he served seven years, Laban tricks him.
He said, "Well, serve seven more with me.
God keeps blessing me the longer you're here."
And Laban didn't want Jacob to go anywhere.
So Jacob kind of slips out.
He's gone.
And to make a long story short, Laban catches up to him.
Laban doesn't want him to leave.
Laban's upset because somebody stole his idols.
And he goes and catches up to him.
And guess where he catches up to him?
In Gilead.
Now, Laban could have hurt Jacob.
Laban could have forced Jacob to come back if he wanted to.
But God had warned Laban in a dream to leave Jacob alone.
Why?
Jacob wasn't supposed to stay there.
He was supposed to come back in the Promised Land.
He was supposed to raise his family there in the Promised Land.
And the nation of Israel was supposed to grow there in the Promised Land.
So God had warned Laban in a dream to leave Jacob alone.
He said, "Don't you threaten him?
Don't be nice to him?"
Or, you know, in the sense of trying to talk him into coming back with you.
"Just don't talk bad or good to him.
Leave Jacob alone."
In Genesis 31, verse 29, Laban told Jacob, he said, "It is in the power of my hand to do you hurt, but the God of your Father spake unto me yesterday, saying, 'Take thou heed that thou speak not to Jacob, either good or bad.'"
So after some unpleasant words were exchanged, Jacob and Laban decided that they would make peace with one another, and everything would be okay, and they'd go their separate ways.
And Laban erected a heap of stones in Gilead.
And that heap of stones became a witness to a peace treaty they made, like a monument.
And so Laban that day also called on God to be a witness of the peace treaty they made, with that heap of stones being a witness.
And since a heap of stones became a witness to the covenant that they made between themselves that day, the land was called Gilead, which means a heap of witness.
A heap of witness.
Genesis 31, verses 45 and 46, "And Jacob took a stone and set it up for a pillar.
And Jacob said unto his brethren, Gather stones, and they took stones and made in heap.
And they did eat there upon the heap."
Look now in verse 51, "And Laban said to Jacob, Behold this heap, and behold this pillar, which I have cast betwixt me and thee.
This heap be witness, and this pillar be witness, that I will not pass over this heap to thee, and that thou shalt not pass over this heap and this pillar unto me for harm.
The God of Abraham, and the God of Nahor, and the God of their father, judge betwixt us.
And Jacob sware by the fear of his father Isaac, or the respect of his father Isaac.
Then Jacob offered sacrifice upon the mount and called his brethren to eat bread, and they did eat bread and tarry it all night in the mount."
So Jacob could have been overtaken by Laban.
Laban could have done him harm, but God told Laban, "Don't harm my servant Jacob.
Don't speak to him either good or ill.
You just go handle your business and get back home."
So it was God who kept Jacob safe when he was running from his brother, and it was God who kept Jacob safe when he was running from his, or his father-in-law was running after him.
Understand that Jacob, Jacob wouldn't be anywhere without God.
Remember, Jacob made another pillar whenever he was running from Esau.
He wouldn't be anywhere without God.
And now he's coming back, going this way, he's running, going that way, he's running.
Jacob wouldn't be anywhere without God, and Israel wouldn't be anywhere without Jacob, because they came from Jacob.
Israel owed everything to the grace of God.
But God said, "Is there iniquity in Gilead?"
He goes back and says, "Surely they are vanity."
They're vanity.
The Hebrew word translated "vanity" here, it doesn't mean empty like we see oftentimes in the Scripture.
It's a different word.
It refers to a stormy wind that blows into a town, maybe like a tornado or a hurricane, and it just ruins the city, knocks the structures over, knocks the power lines over, whatever the infrastructure is.
And that wind comes in like a tempest and just empties the city out.
That's the kind of emptiness of vanity that's speaking of here, the kind of desolation.
Do you see what God is saying here?
Is there iniquity in Gilead?
Surely in Gilead there's a destructive tempest.
God had protected Israel in Gilead, but Israel was destroying themselves.
God gave safety in Gilead.
Now, Gilead was their own destruction.
Here's a Kingdom of Truth for you this morning.
God is our greatest friend and we are our own worst enemies.
God is our greatest friend and we are our own worst enemy.
God wanted to bless the nation of Israel, but he couldn't.
Do you know why?
Because Israel was too busy destroying themselves.
God wants to bless America, but America is too busy destroying itself.
It baffles me sometime to watch our nation destroying itself.
But the way you feel about it when you see it is how God felt about Israel when he looked at them.
He said, "I'm trying my best to bless you.
Don't you remember how you all started?
In Jacob, your father, who all you came from, you were running from Esau.
I protected you.
You were running back from Laban.
I took care of you.
In the very place where you made an altar and there was a covenant, in the very place where I told Laban, "Leave that boy alone.
Now you're destroying yourselves.
Every place that I go to bless you, and every time I try to bless you, you come right back and you destroy yourselves."
God said, look back in the text, "They sacrificed some bullocks in Gilgal."
So now we're moving from Gilead.
Don't get confused.
These are two different places.
Now we're moving from Gilead to Gilgal.
What's the significance of this place?
Well, first of all, they weren't supposed to sacrifice anything in Gilgal.
When Hosea was prophesying, everything during the time of Hosea was supposed to be sacrificed to the temple in Jerusalem.
So this was false worship that they were participating in in Gilgal.
Once again, as with Gilead, we have to ask ourselves, why would God mention the area of Gilgal?
It's because Gilgal was the first place that Israel camped at when they crossed the River Jordan.
When Israel was moving from the wilderness and they were moving into the Promised Land and they crossed the Jordan River, they camped in this place that they end up naming Gilgal.
When they reached Gilgal and they camped there, Israel circumcised all the men who had not been circumcised, just as God commanded.
And when those men were circumcised, it was a picture of God removing their old identity in Adam and putting it away.
A very graphic, "Oh, that's disgusting, Brother Richard."
Yes, and it's meant to be that way.
Bloody, disgusting, painful, separation from Adam.
That's what God was showing.
And you know what else was bloody and disgusting?
It was the animal sacrifices that showed the same thing.
Where the sins of Adam were placed on an innocent animal, the animal's throat was slit, the blood pours out, its body is then dissected, its guts taken out, it's set on fire.
And then blood's taken and put on a mercy seat on the Day of Atonement.
Not in every sacrifice on the Day of Atonement.
But it shows the same thing.
And here in Gilgal, this was their first showing of separation among the people.
Their old identity had been removed in Adam.
And so they named the place Gilgal.
The name Gilgal means a wheel, a will.
And they said, "We're going to name this a wheel because here, having circumcised these men, having removed her old identity, God has rolled the reproach from off of us."
Just like a will.
That's why it's called Gilgal.
When you think of Gilgal in the Bible, think of a will.
And remember, that's the place where God rolled their reproach, their shame off of them.
Oh man, let me tell you something.
When I was a lost sinner and I understood the gospel of Jesus Christ, this whole time I've been burdened terribly with the idea that I am going to die and go to hell because of my sin.
And when I finally understood the gospel and understood what Jesus did for me on the cross, I looked at the cross in my mind's eye and I think, "There's all my sin put on Jesus."
Everything that brought me reproach, everything I ever did that I was ashamed of, everything that I would ever do in the future that I would be ashamed of, all my identity in Adam since I was born to sin, was all put on Jesus.
And when Jesus died and He shed His blood for me, when He died, He died for me.
So when He died, I died.
When I died, old Adam died.
That means it rolled away.
And I believed in Christ as my Savior and believing in Him, God rolled my reproach away.
That was what the Bible calls the circumcision that's made without hands.
Rolled away.
And so now God says they're sacrificing bullocks in Gilgal.
Gilgal was a place where their reproach had been rolled away, but by worshiping false gods there, Israel was rolling the reproach back on themselves.
You see what they were doing?
God said, look back at your text, "Yea, their altars are as heaps."
There's that word "heaps" again.
Remember "heaps" of witness?
"Their altars are as heaps in the furrows of the field."
You see, when they erected that heap of stones in Gilead, it was a witness that Laban was going to listen to God and not harm Jacob.
It was therefore a witness that God was protecting Jacob, that God was protecting Israel.
And then they get back there in Gilead and they start unprotecting themselves.
God rolled the reproach away in the land of Gilgal, but now in Gilgal they're worshiping false gods and the reproach has gone away.
And now they say, no, we're just going to roll it right back on us.
We're going to abandon the God who rolled the reproach of our fathers from off them.
And we're going to start acting and worshiping like the godless nations around us.
And so they just brought the reproach back on them.
You're seeing a pattern here?
In every place where God had blessed Israel, they were destroying themselves.
That's what we do.
God said, look within verse 12, "And Jacob fled into the country of Syria, and Israel served for a wife, and for a wife he kept sheep."
And that's when he worked for Laban, his father-in-law.
"Jacob fled from his brother Esau to live with his uncle Laban and to take a wife from among his daughters."
And the reason that Jacob did this was so that he could raise up a godly family from whom the Savior of the world would come and bless the world according to how he promised he would bless all families of the earth through Abraham.
That was the whole purpose of Jacob going to Laban, was to get a wife that was not from among these people in the land that were heathens, and to bring a wife back and to raise up someone who could raise them up in the nurture and admonition of God.
When Esau sought to kill Jacob, Jacob's father told him in Genesis 28, verse 2 through 4, "He said, 'Arise, go to Pananarim, to the house of Bethul, thy mother's father, and take thee a wife from thence of the daughters of Laban, thy mother's brother.
And God Almighty bless thee, and make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, that thou mayest be a multitude of people, and give thee the blessing of Abraham.'"
That's what this was all about.
"To thee and to thy seed with thee, that thou mayest inherit the land wherein thou art a stranger which God gave unto Abraham."
This was the Abrahamic covenant being passed down to Jacob.
He says, "So to get that covenant going, you get over here to Laban, you get a wife from among his daughters, and you multiply into people, and let God carry out his covenant promise through you and your offspring."
So when Jacob is leaving Laban, and God protects him and warns Laban in a dream, that's God protecting the future nation of Israel.
Same when he left from his brother and God met him on the way to Laban.
That was the whole reason Jacob going there.
And then as time passed, and as the nation of Israel grew as Jacob's descendants, then the Israelites became in bondage to Egypt.
In Hosea 12-13, we've talked about Gilead.
God's brought up Gile, and now God's going to bring up Egypt.
Look here in Hosea 12-13.
"And by a prophet the Lord brought Israel out of Egypt."
Israel's Jacob.
Of course, now it's not Jacob the man, but Jacob the nation.
"And by a prophet the Lord brought Israel out of Egypt, and by a prophet was he preserved."
Once again, preservation.
God preserved Jacob at Gilead.
God rolled the reproach off of Jacob in Gilgal.
God delivers Jacob in Egypt.
But watch how God delivers Jacob.
Jacob, meaning the whole, or Israel being the whole nation that descended from him.
It says, "By a prophet the Lord brought Israel out of Egypt."
By a prophet was he preserved.
The prophet Hosea is talking about is Moses.
God brought Israel out of their bondage by this prophet, and God also preserved them, once they got out of Egypt, by this prophet.
"By a prophet the Lord brought them out.
By a prophet they were preserved."
Here's the kingdom truth for you today.
God delivers us by his prophets, and God preserves us by his prophets.
God delivers us by his prophets, and God preserves us by his prophets.
God used prophets to give us the gospel, and God still uses prophets to preserve our welfare today, which is why we are studying this morning from one of his prophets, Hosea.
By us learning these truths from Hosea, what is God doing?
He's preserving us.
As long as we take heed to his word, and we follow what we learn from the prophets, when he witnessed to Israel and to us to these prophets, he's preserving us.
When I learned about Jesus dying on the cross for my sins, well how did I learn that?
Through a prophet, through the Scriptures, he delivered me, he's still preserving me by his prophets.
The problem was, Israel later rejected the very prophets that God had used to deliver and preserve them.
They rejected the law of Moses, and they rejected the words of the prophet that God sent to them again and again and again.
Once again, where God kept trying to bless them, they kept cursing themselves, destroying themselves.
After God delivered and preserved Israel by Moses, Joshua, Samuel, verse 14 and others, Ephraim provoked him to anger most bitterly.
Ephraim began another word for Israel, remember.
God delivered them by prophets, God preserved them by prophets, and then Ephraim provoked God to anger most bitterly.
How?
They rejected his prophets.
They cast off the law of Moses.
They rebelled against God's word.
Even though he kept trying to help them and help them and help them, they would not accept that help.
They were bound and determined to go against God's word, even to their own destruction.
Church, there are some people you just can't help.
There are some people, I mean no matter how much you try to help someone, no matter how much you try to set them up for success, they're just determined to mess their lives up.
And that's the way Israel was back then.
That's the way America at this time, a lot of the people in America that is, are right now.
They're just determined to mess themselves up.
That's what Israel did when God tried to help him.
Look back in your text.
"Therefore shall he leave his blood upon him."
Again, this is gross.
But being gross and being graphic, it drives the point home.
And that's what God's doing.
God's going to leave his blood on him.
What's he talking about?
When Israel was a newborn nation, God said it was like they were a newborn baby.
You see, you know, it was like when I found Israel, it was like finding a child that had been tossed in a field and discarded by its mother.
I found Israel, she wasn't clean.
She still had blood all over from the birth.
I mean, you all watched a baby be born before.
Babies got blood all over, yucky stuff.
I mean, I watched a calf be born before.
I made a few more hands.
It's the same thing, except women don't eat the afterbirth, thank God.
But he said, "When I saw Israel as a newborn nation, it was like a sinner tossed away in a field and there was blood all over.
No one cares for her.
No one's cleaned her up.
No one nurses her."
And guess what happens if God leaves that baby in the field?
Baby dies.
Baby can't protect itself.
That's the image God's trying to picture here.
Here's Israel.
From her birth in Adam, she's messy.
She's weak.
She's unable to protect herself.
She's a new nation and she needs God to take her, to give her His Word, to clean her up, to grow her up, to mature her with the prophets, and to protect her with His power and His love.
Ezekiel 16, verse 4-6.
Ezekiel 16, 4-6, God told Israel, "And as for thy nativity in the day thou was born, thy navel was not cut, neither was thou washed in water to supple thee.
Thou was not salted at all nor swaddled at all.
None I pitied thee to do any of these things unto thee, to have compassion upon thee.
For thou was cast out in the open field to the loathing of thy person in the day that thou was born."
That's the picture he's giving.
Verse 6, "And when I passed by thee and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee, When thou wast in thy blood, live.
Yea, I said unto thee, When thou wast in thy blood, live." [laughs] Polluted in the blood of her natural birth.
God looks at that messy, bloody, polluted, helpless child and says, "Live."
That's what God did to me.
When I looked at Jesus, I wasn't fit to come to God.
I was polluted, but God had pity on me.
And He looked at this dirty, sinful man, and through the gospel He said, "Live, live."
God said He took that baby nation, washed the blood off of her, and raised her up to become a beautiful, full-grown woman.
But once again, that beautiful woman, after having been washed, rescued, and raised by the grace of God, she turned again and polluted herself by her continual sense against Him.
Why would she want to go back to that?
I was out here in Henderson County one time near Seven Points.
I can't remember exactly where it was.
It was dark.
I was at a trailer house.
I remember that.
I had a felony warrant on this woman.
I can't remember what it was for.
But I went out there to arrest her, and she was living with a man out there.
He said, "You know, when I met this woman, she was on drugs.
She was a mess.
I think her teeth were messed up."
He said, "I took her.
I got her off drugs, gave her a place to stay, got her all fixed up and got her beautiful."
He said, "But she just won't stay that way.
She just keeps going back to the dope again, and going back to messing up her life again.
He kept trying to help her, and he couldn't help her."
It was the next day or day after I had to go down to the jail.
Actually, it wasn't Henderson County.
It was Navarro County, because I remember going to the jail in Corsicana.
I went to go file some paperwork there on the arrest I made.
I remember she was just bonded out.
She walked out, and she looked so happy, clean.
The drugs were out of her system after having been there in jail for a day or two.
I thought to myself, "How long will that last?
How long will it last?"
God said, "That's what I did with this room."
She was in a pathetic situation.
I brought her out.
I decked her with jewels.
I made her beautiful.
I grew her up.
Now she just pollutes herself again in Ezekiel 16, 22.
"God told Israel, 'And in all thine abominations and thy hortoms, thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth.
When thou wast naked and bare, and wast polluted in thy blood, you don't remember where I brought you from.
And what I did to get you to where you were, and you just went right back to being a polluted child."
So now God would not clean Israel again.
He said, "I'm done."
Just like that man in the trailer asked, "I'm done!
I'm not blowing any more money on her.
I'm not going to do anything else to her.
I'm done!"
I don't know if that's what he did, but that had to be the way he felt.
God said, "I'm not going to clean Israel again, but I'm going to leave his blood upon him."
Look back in your text, "In his reproach shall his Lord return unto him."
Remember what Gilgal meant?
"Will"?
Because they said, "The Lord has rolled away our reproach."
And look what they did.
They rolled the reproach back on him.
You know what God says?
"I'm not rolling it back off.
I'm not cleaning them back up.
I'm not stopping someone from coming in to destroy them and harming them again."
You see, Israel shared their father's DNA, but they didn't share their father's faith.
That was the problem.
So the reproach which God had rolled away from their fathers at Gilgal, they now rolled back on themselves, and God says, "I won't roll it back again."
That's the kingdom truth.
When a nation God blesses turns from God, their reproach returns to them.
When a nation God has blessed turns from God, their reproach returns to them.
Can you not see that in our nation today?
I certainly can.
How sad it is.
Father, we thank you so much for your precious Word.
Father, surely Lord, we were once a group of people.
Like Israel, we weren't perfect.
Like Israel, Lord, like Rachel, when she hid those little idols under her saddle, that she stole from her daddy, Lord, we were by no means a perfect nation.
We were no means founded by perfect people.
God and all of it, Lord, there were some people, Lord, who turned to you, who in our very founding documents recognized God as our Creator.
Lord, you've blessed us and blessed us and blessed us.
Like Israel, when things got good and when we were a full grown beautiful woman, Lord, we just took the reproach and we rolled it back on ourselves, making us like the other nations, Lord, that we had so long distinguished ourselves from.
Forgive us, Lord, for our sinful ways.
Forgive us, Father, for departing from you.
Forgive us, Lord, for rebelling against you.
For forgive us, Father, for our fornication, for our vile sexual perversions, for murdering our innocent unborn children, for denying that you as our Creator, and saying we created ourselves.
God, we've made such a mess.
Lord, as Christians, Father, Lord, I thank God that even though it feels like we're living in Sodom and Gomorrah, you told Abraham you wouldn't destroy the city, Father, if there were a few righteous people there.
And Lord, speaking on behalf of those who believe in you this morning, we pray to you, Father, that you'll have mercy on this nation.
We pray to you, Father, God, that we'll stand strong and true to your word, that we won't give in to the public and worldly ideologies, that for fear of offending someone or being spoken against, Lord, we won't acquiesce, Father, to their teachings, Lord, but we'll stand strong against them, lest we, by being silent, will be caught up in the midst of them, even Lot warned his family.
Lord, I pray, Father, you'll help us to shine his lights in this very dark world.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
