Episode Transcript
All right, if you take your Bibles and turn to the book of Hosea 12.
Hosea 12.
And God willing, we'll be expounding verses 7 through 9 this morning.
Hosea 12 verses 7 through 9.
Tiled the message this morning is a deceitful balance.
In our text this morning, God describes the mindset that Israel had in Hosea's time.
And by describing their godless mindset, He's describing the mindset of godless people in every age.
Speaking of the nation of Israel, God said, if you look in verse 7, 12, 7, "He is a merchant."
He is a merchant, and the word He here refers to Jacob, from whom the nation of Israel descended for God, as we've learned often calls the whole nation by a single individual such as Israel and Ephraim in the book of Hosea.
So speaking of the nation of Israel, God says, "He is a merchant."
And what does a merchant do?
Well, a merchant sells merchandise.
The Hebrew word translated merchant here is the word Canaan, as in the Canaanites.
It's the word Canaan.
The Canaanites were known for being merchants back then, like we would use to when I grew up, we would have a name, well, we used to, there were more gypsies back then.
I guess they've integrated or whatever into our society, but you would see more gypsies back then.
They were known for being merchants.
And the Canaanites were not just known for being merchants, but particularly they were known for being crooked merchants.
And so the name Canaan became synonymous with the name merchant.
So when you heard Canaan, it was a synonym for merchant and gave you the idea of a crooked businessman.
What was Israel selling?
What kind of merchandise were they peddling to the people?
Well, the Bible doesn't specifically say here, and because of that, it leaves it open for a full examination.
And the one thing we know for sure is this.
This is what the Bible does say.
They were crooked dealers.
It says they had, if you look back in your text, the balances of deceit are in his hand, God said.
The balances of deceit were in Jacob's hand.
And the balances are speaking of the scales that they used to weigh the products.
We've taught on that here before.
I brought in a model of scales before, against the kind of scales that Lady Justice has.
When you have two sides and you put the product on one side and the weight on the other, and you want them to balance out, and it'll show you how much weight you have, which is why they were called balances.
And they used to weigh the product to their customer.
If you're selling meat by the pound, then you want your butcher to have an accurate scale, an accurate set of balances.
If you're selling gas by the gallon, then you want your pump to have an accurate meter.
If you're buying firewood by the cord, then you want your salesman to have accurate measurements.
Whatever is being sold at the measurements are not accurate, then somebody's getting ripped off.
I say somebody, because deceitful balances don't always rip off the customer.
They can also rip off the merchant, too.
So how did that happen, Brother Richard?
Well, let's say you're in Walmart and you're using the self-checkout.
They've gotten pretty crafty with the self-checkouts now.
You take a price tag off something more expensive, and you replace it with an item that's less expensive, and you put that on that price tag, that barcode, and they weigh about the same, or you want to hit skip.
You don't put it in the sack.
Guess what you're doing?
You're using a deceitful balance.
You're scanning one thing, so the lady over there sees you, "Beep, beep."
Now, I'm not trying to put any ideas in your kid's mind.
Understand that.
But this is what people do.
People do this kind of stuff.
And all she sees is, "Beep, beep."
She doesn't know it's the wrong price tag that you put on there.
So you're cheating the merchant, a deceitful balance is in your hand.
But in Israel's case, they were the merchants, and they were ripping off their customers.
They had the balances of deceit in their hands.
And remember, a balance has two sides.
One side has the advertised weight.
I'm going to sell you 10 pounds and put a 10-pound weight on here.
That's the advertised weight.
The other side is the product that's actually being sold.
And when it equals the 10-pound weight, you're being told you have 10 pounds worth of product.
But with a deceitful balance in your hand, the merchant puts a false 10-pound weight on here, and then he adds the product up, and you think you're getting the 10 pounds you're really getting eight.
It's really an 8-pound weight with the number 10 on it.
And everything we do, we need to make sure as Christians that we're using honest balances.
If you perform a particular service for a customer, make sure they're getting paid— I'm sorry, make sure they're getting everything they paid for.
If you work for an employer, then make sure that you claim only the time you actually work.
Christians should be known for having honest balances in their hands.
But remember, for everything that we read in the Old Testament, every store in the Old Testament, there's a greater spiritual truth.
In a spiritual sense, the religious leaders in Hosea's day were dealing with a false balance.
That was the greatest crime of all.
They advertised genuine spiritual guidance on one side of the scale, but they were selling their customers damnable heresies.
And our world is filled with people just like that.
Our world is filled with religious leaders who sell their followers a bunch of lies.
They stand in pulpits like this on Sunday morning with deceitful balances in their hands.
Man, I tell you what, I get heartbroken.
I get heartbroken as I watch the state of the church.
I went and I said something to Tammy yesterday, but as I watch the state of the church, the direction it's going, it just breaks my heart.
I'll see something come out on social media, and I'll think, "Whoa, that is so wrong."
And then I'll go to the comments, because I want to see, I want to gauge, where's the world at right now with what I just saw?
And then the comments will be so supportive.
Praise the Lord.
Praise God for this.
God bless this person, or God bless, and it's all wrong, and the people are so deceived by these spiritual leaders.
I was watching, there was a particular clip yesterday that came out, and I was watching it, and I was so saddened by it, because everyone was so happy, and they were condemning anyone that didn't agree with it.
It's very sad.
Very sad.
You know why that happens?
Because we have spiritual leaders who are selling their followers a bunch of lives.
They're dealing with deceitful balances.
And whether Israel was selling carnal merchandise or spiritual merchandise, he was cheating his customers intentionally.
God said, look back in your text, "He loveth to oppress."
Oh, man, listen, to oppress in this context, it means to defraud someone.
And Israel loved their job.
You ever had a job you really loved, you really enjoyed?
Well, Israel loved their job.
They love ripping people off.
They enjoyed defrauding people, but the work they enjoyed was oppressing the people they served.
And they knew it.
But Israel didn't care that it oppressed their neighbors as long as it benefited them.
That is the hallmark of a society that has lost its way and gone from God.
They don't care what happens to their neighbor as long as it's benefiting them.
Most of us know someone or have known someone before, some kind of shyster that develops the reputation that they will rip you off in a heartbeat just to line their pockets.
We've all known people like that.
After China released the COVID-19 virus on the world, we were required to wear a face mask at the federal courthouse.
Were you all required to wear a face mask at your job?
We got a few.
Well, they required us to wear a face mask at the federal courthouse.
And I was so disgusted.
When I was issued a face mask one day that said "Made in China," the same place that gave us the virus was selling us the masks.
Only God knows how much money that nation made by selling us the merchandise to protect us from the virus they gave us.
The righteous nation would have been sent here.
Let us help out the best we can.
Man, we're sorry, but they weren't.
It didn't matter to them.
You know what?
They love to oppress.
They do.
They love to oppress.
I got me an Apple Watch this week.
My cardiologist recommended it because it keeps track of AFib and all.
So I broke down and got one, borrowed some money from my wife and got one.
And you know how they do today?
They'll send you the cords, but they won't send you the things that plug into the walls anymore.
It's like when you buy a dryer, they won't send you the hose.
You got to come up with that on your own.
So on my way to work Monday morning, I stopped off at a convenience store, and I go in and I buy one of the plugins against the wall that fit that little device, the near little USB-C cord.
I paid for it.
Box says, "Made in China."
I get to work.
I plug it in.
It doesn't work.
Doesn't work.
I had to go borrow somebody else's to charge my watch.
But it doesn't matter to them because they love to oppress.
We've come to a place in our world today that someone attempting to scam us, sadly, in some form, has become a part of our daily lives.
Would you agree with that?
Our daily lives.
Man, I didn't have that when I grew up.
Yeah, there were people ready to scam you, sure.
But not like we have today.
We can't answer our phones without someone trying to defraud us.
We can't use the Internet without someone trying to defraud us.
My poor mother, everyone wants to be mama because every time I sign on to Facebook, Frances Fulton's wanting to be my friend.
Send me a friend request.
God-lover, someone's always trying to defraud us.
We can't hear a commercial on TV or the radio without someone trying to defraud us.
Some five-minute-long introduction about some guy's story and some guy's life or some woman's life so sentimental and all this, what they learned, just to finally, after robbing you that five or ten minutes of time, to try to sell you a vitamin.
Isn't this not going to work?
We can't have government politicians without them trying to defraud us.
Sadly, we can't have healthcare without someone trying to defraud us.
These charlatans love their jobs.
Do you know why?
Because it allows them to provide so little to us yet gain so much for them.
That's the condition Israel was in.
That's the condition the world is in today.
And once again, it's no different with the spiritual merchants who hold the deceitful balance in their hands.
Luke chapter 11, verse 43 through 44.
Listen to what Jesus said.
Now, when Jesus was here, the people who hated him, the people who wanted to kill him, the people who crucified him, even the judge, the Roman judge that sentenced him to crucifixion, they all had deceitful balances in their hands, every one of them.
Listen to what Jesus said to these spiritual leaders.
"Woe unto you Pharisees, for ye love the uppermost seats in the synagogues."
Man, they loved their job.
"You love the uppermost seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces.
Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye are as graves which appear not.
And the men that walk over them are not aware of them."
You ever gone to a cemetery and you're out there, you're trying to find Uncle George.
You're trying to find Uncle George's plot or maybe your great-great-grandparents or something.
You haven't been out there a long time.
You're trying to find it.
And suddenly you realize, "Oh, you're stepping on someone's grave."
You kind of go like that right there because it wasn't marked well.
It's an old graveyard and you realize, "Oh, man, they were doing that back in Jesus' time too.
They weren't aware of it."
He says, "Oh, man, they're walking, not real-lengthizing.
There's death beneath their feet."
And so these Pharisees and these Sadducees, these bunch of hypocrites, these bunch of charlatans, they were preachers with deceitful balances in their hands.
They were selling what they advertised as true Bible teaching.
And yet all the time, all they were doing were selling merchandise that would line their pockets.
That's how come when Jesus came to the temple, they had money exchangers in there and, "Oh, no, no, that sacrifice, that won't do any good here, but we got one over here that we'll accept for the right price."
I mean, they were wicked people and they loved to oppress.
They didn't care.
And the people thought that by following them, they were walking in the ways of life, not realizing they were standing on death, just like we stand on a grave and don't realize it.
They're walking past of death.
They loved their jobs.
They had deceitful balances in their hands.
They advertised life on one side of the scale, but they were selling death and their followers didn't know it.
Make sure your pastor keeps God's Word on the scale and then measure everything he says against it.
That's the only way that you can keep from being defrauded.
I'm not saying make sure your pastor uses the Bible.
Make sure that he teaches God's Word and lets God's Word speak for itself.
The people of Israel were frauds.
They were oppressing people.
Look in verse 8, "And Ephraim said, 'Yet I am become rich.'"
"Yet I am become rich."
So what if we ripped off the elderly people?
It was a good day at work for me.
That's how they felt about it.
My poor uncle, he lost a lot of his savings.
He lost his pickup.
This is shortly before he died because of scam artists.
They didn't care.
They didn't care that he worked his whole life and was now elderly and needed that money to live off of.
They didn't care.
They enjoyed doing what they were doing.
It hurt him.
It hurt him bad, but they said, "But I'm rich."
So what if we took his life savings?
What we did may have hurt you, yet I've become rich.
The ends justifies the means.
No, it doesn't.
There was a popular cartoon when my kids were growing up, which had a very greedy character in it.
That greedy character, when given the opportunity in one episode, sold his most loyal friend for 62 cents.
And appalled by him betraying his friend for money, a bystander said, "I can't believe you just sold your friend for 62 cents," to which the greedy person replied, "Do you think I could have gotten more?"
That's the way people are in our world right now.
They're so selfish that they don't care how what they do affects you.
As long as it benefits them, they say, "Well, I'm rich," as if that's all that matters.
They say, look back in your text, "I have found me out substance.
I got a nice pickup.
I live in a nice home.
I have plenty of money in the bank.
I love my job because I have found me out substance."
Their job doesn't give them a clear conscience, though.
Their job doesn't give them any real purpose in life.
Their job doesn't even give them a sense of accomplishment.
The only thing their job does for them is give them temporary earthly wealth.
That's it.
Sadly, that's all they care about.
God made us to work, but God made us to work with a purpose.
He made work to be a pleasant thing.
I'll tell you, I like working.
I like working.
I have never in my life ...
We've got a guy at work.
He left, I think, this morning to go to Ireland.
It's going to take a two-week vacation in Ireland.
I've never been there.
I've never been off our continent.
I've never taken a two-week vacation in my life.
Just go somewhere for a week just to rest and enjoy.
Uh-uh.
I haven't done it.
I don't mind anyone doing it, but for me, if I'm sitting around doing nothing, I just feel I'm wasting my time.
That's me.
I get pleasure.
I'm most happy when I feel I'm being productive.
I don't know if God made me like that or my dad's incredible insatiable work ethic when I grew up and him whipping me over my back like a slave driver.
But God made Adam to dress and keep the garden.
So all of our jobs should have the benefit of dressing and keeping.
You see that?
All of your jobs should have the benefit of dressing and keeping.
Genesis 2.15, "And the Lord God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it."
Look there.
Adam did not only have a place, but Adam had a purpose in that place.
You see, having a job when you defraud somebody, it will provide you a place to live, but it will give you no purpose in that place.
God prepared the garden for Adam, but before he put him in that garden, he gave him a purpose for it.
And man, I want purpose in my life.
When Adam dressed the garden, he was making it useful and productive.
When Adam kept the garden, he was protecting it.
He was securing it.
And we were created to dress and keep just like Adam.
And that means all of our jobs should allow us to be productive and protective.
Is that what your job is?
You have a job where you can be productive and protective?
Is your job productive?
Are you making yourself useful to mankind?
If I had a job where I didn't feel I was making myself useful to mankind, I'd quit.
I don't want a job like that.
Are you serving a purpose in meeting a need for your fellow man?
Is your job protective?
Does your job protect the welfare of your fellow man?
It should.
It should protect the welfare.
Man, I'm so bad with names.
Tell me your name again, brother.
Jeff.
Everyone's Jess.
We have like three or four Jesses that me and my wife know.
He's Jeff.
Now, you work from home, in what business is it that you work for?
7-Eleven.
He's customer service, right?
Huh?
What did he say?
Kind of customer service.
Now, when people call you, do they have a problem they want you to solve?
They do.
Does it make you feel good when you solve their problem?
What did he say?
Yes.
It gives you a sense of accomplishment.
Well, thank you so much.
That really helped me.
Man, I want to have a sense of accomplishment.
I want to feel I'm providing a useful product to someone or I'm providing useful service to someone so that there's a lot of people, and this is sad, there's a lot of people in life, they live their life providing no useful service to anyone.
There are a lot of people in life that if suddenly they got zapped from the earth and they were gone, it would make no difference to anybody in the sense of if they left the world a better place or not.
No one would miss them because they provided no useful service to anyone.
Everyone needs a purpose.
So is your job protective?
Does it protect the welfare of your fellow man?
When you're providing a service, are you looking out for the person that you're serving?
I called a particular car dealership the other day.
Brother Billy was kind of in between the job he had and then working as a mechanic on his own.
So I called the Ford dealership, I'll go ahead and say it, and I was going to have them work on my vehicle because I'm used to it, it's right there next to the house.
And so I called, someone answers, they put me on hold.
Has this ever happened to you?
You're on hold and suddenly you hear the phone come up and go click and they disconnect you.
Oh, that's what happened to me.
I thought, all right, let's say it slipped out of their fingers.
I'll call them back.
I call back, it rings, hear the phone pick up, click, hang up on me again, done.
I'm going to call Big Billy Baker's auto repair and if I got to wait a little while, I'll wait a little while.
And Brother Billy took care of me, provided great service.
You know, his service made a difference in my life.
It affected my job.
It affected my wife's ability to go somewhere whenever I was at work, so we weren't down to one vehicle.
It was productive.
It was protective.
He was looking out for my needs.
He wasn't trying to rip me off.
He was looking out for my needs.
I'm pretty sure I've been ripped off of the other place before.
So is it productive?
It should be.
But is it protective?
Is it fair?
Is it looking out for the welfare of your fellow men?
Here's the kingdom truth.
A righteous job will always benefit you and your neighbor.
A righteous job will always benefit you, number one.
If it doesn't benefit you, it's not a job.
It should give you some kind of benefit.
You should be able to earn a living with it, right?
But while it's benefiting you, it should also benefit your neighbor.
So that when you perform your skill, you're happy and they're happy with the outcome.
That's a righteous job.
Righteous labor provides a good or service.
Now a gambling casino, for example, they oppress their fellow man.
Wow, they're dealing an unbalanced scale.
And they know it.
They know it.
A casino produces no product.
Have you ever thought about that?
A casino produces no product.
A casino provides no service.
Yet they become rich and find out substance, just like Israel.
They're not dressing and keeping.
They're plundering.
And people willfully go there and get plundered.
You'd have no business at a casino.
Christian has no business at a casino, by the way.
You realize that your money is God's money?
We're just stewards.
What if you had a...
Miss Ann has a financial manager.
Used to?
Did you fire him?
You say, "You're fired."
She used to have a financial manager here in town.
What if you and your husband gave the money to your financial manager and you all called to check on it and said, "Well, what investments are we in?"
They'd say, "I'll tell you what.
My wife and I were going to Louisiana this weekend, and we're going to invest your money in the casino."
Would you be pleased with that?
Well, God's not pleased with it either.
You're a steward of His money.
They're not dressing.
They're not keeping.
The same way with false preachers.
False preachers, they produce no product, and they provide no service.
Everything they do is pretend, yet they become rich and find out substance.
Here's the kingdom truth.
A job that doesn't dress and keep isn't worth keeping.
A job that doesn't dress and keep isn't worth keeping.
Dress, be productive, keep, be protective.
Israel ripped off their fellow man, yet Israel said, "Look back in your text, in all my labors they shall find none of iniquity in me that were sinned."
"I've done nothing wrong."
That was Israel's attitude.
"I won't get caught."
There's a lot of embezzlers who thought the same way, but they eventually got caught.
Here's another kingdom truth.
You can cover your tracks, but God will uncover your sin.
Those who oppress, others always justify themselves.
"They shall find none of iniquity in me."
That's what the Pharisees thought when they crucified Jesus.
"We haven't done anything wrong."
That's what Pilate thought when he condemned Jesus to death.
He goes over to the laborer, washed his hands, and says, "I'm innocent."
Proverbs 30, verse 20 says, "Such is the way of an adulterous woman.
She eateth and wipeeth her mouth, and sayeth, 'I've done no wickedness.'"
The whole illusion is like to a prostitute or to someone who's gotten ill, gotten gain.
They get their food through prostitution, and they eat it and wipe their mouth and say, "I haven't done anything wrong."
He puts food on the table.
"I'm not worried about it.
I'm not ashamed of what I do."
Well, they should be.
These people, the Israelites, they thought they were getting wealthy through their deceit.
They thought there would be no accountability for their actions, but God said, verse 9 as we close now, "And I that am the Lord thy God from the land of Egypt will yet make thee to dwell in tabernacles, as in the days of the solemn feast."
Remember when God brought them out of Egypt, they had to dwell in tabernacles.
They were taken through a desert.
They had nothing.
They were in a wasteland.
They who had found substance through their oppression, God said, "We'll be forced to live in tents again."
Just like they did when they were in the wilderness, when God brought them out of Egypt.
God was going to turn them back to their humble beginnings, to remind them that it was His grace that had brought them out of Egypt and blessed their nation, and not their fraud.
Sin makes us think we're getting ahead, but it always leaves us behind.
That's a kingdom truth.
Sin makes us think that we're getting ahead, but it always leaves us behind.
Father, we thank you so much for your precious word.
I pray, dear Lord God, that you'll bless the food that those of us who are going to the baptism are about to receive.
I pray you'll protect those who are not staying and protect them on their travel home.
Thank you for your word.
Thank you Father for teaching us judgment, to show us the difference between right and wrong, to teach us Lord to always deal with honest balances in our hands, whether we're dealing with men's souls or earthly merchandise.
In Jesus' precious name, Amen.
