Episode Transcript
The tile of the messes this morning is what a mess.
What a mess.
We're coming, getting close to the end of the book of Hosea.
And there's not that many verses left.
And perhaps we'll finish our study in another month or two.
What God tells Israel in these next couple of verses that we're going to be looking at today is both very sad and very hopeful.
I believe verse 9 that we're about to look at would be worthy of every one of us committing to memory.
Every one of us committing to memory.
And I believe that it's a verse that we would draw on many times in our lives, if not for ourselves, for others that we're trying to help.
I guarantee you, if you'll commit this verse to memory, you're going to run across the time, not too long from now, or you're going to say, "I've got just the verse.
I've got just the verse."
Hosea 13.9.
In verse 9, God said, "Look here now, O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself."
Let's pray.
Father, we thank you for your precious Word.
And God, I thank you for everyone who came here today, not to hear what I have to say, but to hear what you have to say.
Lord, it's your Word we're looking at, not ours.
Lord, we want to hear from heaven.
We want to be taught the things of God.
And I pray that all eyes and ears will be fastened upon you this morning.
Glorify your name and teach your great Word and edify your saints.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself.
How about we clean that up with some modern language.
Israel, you've really made a mess of things.
That's really what God's saying.
Israel, you have made a mess of things.
Have you ever looked at your life and thought, "I've really made a mess of things."
You ever done that, Brother Doug?
Man, I tell you, I tell you, I've looked at a lot of y'alls lives before and thought, "Man, they've really made a mess of things."
No, I'm playing.
I have.
I've looked at my own life and I've thought, "Man, I've really made a mess of things."
And God told Israel, "You've destroyed yourself.
Look at the mess you've made of your life."
Why did God put scriptures like this in the Bible?
To discourage us?
No.
God put scriptures like this in the Bible because God knows that there are people every day around the world who, due to bad decisions that they've made, have come to the desperate conclusion that they've destroyed themselves.
God knew there would be people who would one day say, "My drug abuse has destroyed my life.
My sexual promiscuity has destroyed my life.
My unfaithfulness to God has destroyed my life.
My anger has destroyed my life."
I saw the news last week now.
I'm sure many of you did too.
We're a Kentucky sheriff named Sean Steins.
I mean, you all saw that story.
My goodness, what a story.
The sheriff, not a deputy, but the sheriff, shot and killed a district judge in his chambers after being in an argument with him.
I saw that he's in his 40s, the sheriff is, and I thought to myself, "This young sheriff just destroyed his life over an argument.
He had a promising career as a sheriff.
He's still young enough to probably have children at home, and now he's probably going to spend the rest of his life, if they don't execute him, in prison."
And it's people who find themselves in messes like these that God has put scriptures like these in the Bible.
It's people like me and you who we may not make the same mess the sheriff did, but boy, we can sure get ourselves in a mess.
And God puts scriptures like these for people like us in the Bible.
So God can look at a man like Sean Steins and say, "Sean, you have destroyed yourself.
Doug, you have destroyed yourself.
Chris, you have destroyed yourself."
Look back in your text.
"But in me is thine help."
Isn't that good?
You have made a mess out of things, but you know what?
I can help you with that.
Man, don't you love it when you go somewhere and you say, "Hey, I'm looking for this in the store."
Instead of a customer service rep saying, "Well, that's not my department."
They say, "I can help you with that."
Yes, there's going to be some serious repercussions from decisions that we've made.
No doubt about it.
Yes, you can break some earthly things that can't be put back together again.
You can break your marriage and it may not be put back together again.
You can break your job.
You can break your criminal record.
You can break your health and it may not be put back together again this side of heaven.
You've made a real mess of things, God says, but I'm here to help you.
God said, "You've destroyed yourself."
Who destroyed themselves?
You've destroyed yourself.
Here's a kingdom and truth for you this morning.
The only person responsible for committing sins is the person who commits them.
Well, that's earth shattering, isn't it?
The only person who's responsible for committing sins is the person who commits them.
That means the only person responsible for committing your sin is you.
God is not to blame.
Society is not to blame.
God never blamed Israel's godless neighbors.
He never blamed their influence on them.
He told them the influence would harm them, but he never blamed them for Israel's sin.
He blamed Israel for their sin.
So God's not to blame.
Society's not to blame.
Your parents are not to blame.
I don't care how bad of a parent they were.
They're not to blame.
The church is not to blame.
Your family's not to blame.
You are to blame for the sin that you commit.
You have destroyed yourself, God said, but in me is your help.
God didn't mince any words here, did he?
He laid things out nice and plain so Israel could see things the way they really were.
The destruction came from you, but your help will come from me.
Here's a kingdom and truth.
Before you can see God as the one who can help you, you must see yourself as the one who destroyed you.
If this is the situation you're in this morning, if this is the situation somebody you know is in this morning, or is going to be in in the future, before a person can see God as the one who can help them, they must see themselves as the one who destroyed them.
Here's another kingdom and truth.
God can never make you right until you know you're wrong.
God can never make you right until you know that you're wrong.
As long as you think you're correct, then your thinking can't be corrected.
Does that make sense?
As long as you think you're correct, then your thinking can't be corrected.
That's why the Bible says there must be repentance.
Because we have to come to the place where we agree with God, "Yes, I destroyed myself.
Yes, in you is my help.
I laid the blame on me, and I see the help in you."
That's when our thinking can be corrected, and that's when we can see God as the help we need, and not try to look for help in ourselves or in somebody else.
You may have made a great mess in your life, but there is help in God.
God loves you.
God wants to help you.
For God to lead you out of the mess you're in, you have to realize, though, what led you into it.
For God to lead you out of the mess you're in, you have to realize what led you into it.
And once we realize that it was our departure from God's word that caused the damage, then we can see that our obedience to God's word can initiate the recovery.
Take your pen and underscore the words, "Thine help."
"Thine help."
Or "your help," if you have a modern translation.
Now, go down a little bit further and underscore the words, "Thy King."
"Thy King."
These are key words.
"Your help, your King."
Look back in your text.
God said in verse 10, "I will be thy King."
He said, "Your help is me."
There's help in me.
I'm your help.
And then he explains, "I will be your King."
How does God become our help?
By becoming our King.
That's how he does it.
God becomes our help by becoming our King.
That's the Kingdom truth.
God becomes our help by becoming our King.
What does a King do?
A King establishes law, doesn't he?
He establishes law for his Kingdom, and that law guides his people in the way of safety and prosperity and peace.
He lays down rules that are good for his society, and a King also protects his Kingdom from enemy forces.
So if God is your King, then you'll be guided and you'll be protected.
And that's the help everybody needs.
By rejecting God's Word, Israel rejected God's authority, thus they strayed from his Kingdom.
Make sense?
By rejecting God's Word, they rejected God's authority, they rejected his rule over them, thus they strayed or they rejected his Kingdom.
Same thing they did with Jesus when he came.
We will not have this man rule over us.
Most Kings would slay a rebel like that.
But God said, "I'll be your King.
You've made a mess out of things.
You've gotten so far from me.
I've had so many people say, "I don't think God wants me anymore."
Why?
Because they had really made a mess out of their lives.
I've had people give me the saddest stories, skin crawling stories that will write into the website for help.
They'll tell me all the terrible sins they've committed and why they believe God does not want them.
Why they believe it's too late for them to be accepted by God, and God has just gone, "Oh, take that trash out to the dump."
But you know what they're doing when they're telling me all that terrible stuff they've done, brother Doug?
They're saying, "I've destroyed my life.
I've destroyed myself."
And it's when you have destroyed yourself that God comes in and says, "I can help you with that.
I'll be your King.
That's what I'll do."
Man, what great hope there is.
You find somebody who is on their last leg, who has given up hope, who says, "There's no future left for me.
Just take them right here to Hosea 13, 9 and 10, and show them where God says, 'You've destroyed yourself, but in me is your help.
I'll be your King.'"
It's okay.
Listen to that positive affirmation.
"I will be your King."
"I will."
Those are precious words.
A lot of times people think that God, after rooting their lives, they think God's going to say, "I won't."
But God says, "I will.
I will."
Matthew 8, verses 1 and 3.
Matthew 8, verses 1 and 3.
It just says, "When he that is Jesus was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him.
And behold, there came a leper in worship to him."
Now a leper?
Who wants to be around a leper?
I mean, I don't want to be around a leper.
Don't you get that leprosy around me?
How many of you have ever heard that you can get leprosy from an armadilla?
That's exactly why I don't want to pet an armadilla.
I don't want that stuff.
But here comes this leper running down here to Jesus, and look what that leper says.
In verse 2, he says, "Lord, if you will, if you will, you can make me clean."
"You have the power to.
If only you will, I know you can."
Now Jesus is the cleanest of them all.
You'd think Jesus would say, "Oh, I'll let one of my disciples handle that mess."
But no.
Jesus said in verse 3, and Jesus put forth his hand and touched him, and touched him.
He didn't step back a few paces, put on a Dr.
Fauci mask, and say, "Be clean."
That's not what he did.
He went to where that man was, and he touched him in the condition he was in.
And God will come to where you are in the condition that you're in, in the mess that you've made, and he'll come into contact with it right where you are.
And he says, "I will be clean."
Be clean.
And it says, "In immediately his leprosy was cleansed."
The Bible says in Psalm 86 verse 5, "For thou, Lord, art good and ready to forgive, and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee."
What was this man doing?
He was calling upon Jesus.
"Lord, you can make me clean if you will.
I know you can't."
So what was he doing?
He was going to Jesus instead of anybody else.
He didn't go to the doctor.
He didn't call on the doctor.
He called on Jesus, and Jesus cleaned him.
And when we go to Jesus' cross, what are we doing?
We're calling on Jesus, and Jesus can wash our sins away with the blood he shed when we believe on him.
Whether a person or a nation, no matter how big of a mess they've made, God, if they'll let them, will be their king.
God asked Israel, look back in your text, "Where is any other that may save thee in all thy cities?"
Who else can save you?
Where else can you go in all your cities and find someone who can deliver you from the mess you've made?
That's what God's asking.
What other candidate do you have for a king who has the power to save you from the destruction you've created?
Eternally speaking, who else can save you from the grave?
Where are you going to go?
Richard Simmons was the health guru.
He's dead.
Jack LaLanne, back in my parents' day and some of y'all's day, was the health guru.
He's dead.
All the greatest scientists.
Who was that?
Who was that Jewish scientist with a crazy hair?
Albert Einstein.
He's dead.
Couldn't figure it out.
Where else are you going to go?
Who else are you going to turn to be safe from the grave?
No one's been able to manage that yet.
Who else can wash your sins away?
Who else can raise you from the dead and give you eternal life?
What king can do that for you?
Only God.
Only God.
A lot of people say, "Well, Donald Trump gets to be president.
We'll get things fixed."
He's trying his best to keep from getting killed himself.
Seriously.
Only God can fix our broken world.
Who else can get your nation on track?
God can.
Who else can get your life back on track but God?
Who else can get a church back on track but God?
No one but God.
Where else besides heaven can you look and find a Savior like God?
You look back in your text, God says, "And thy judges of whom thou sets, give me a king and princes."
You know what God's asking?
Can any of your politicians fix the problem?
That's what God's asking them.
Because that's the tendency that people have.
We'll look to our politicians.
Why?
Because that's the tendency politicians have.
Here's your problems.
Vote for me.
I can fix them.
We've been voting for politicians.
As long as I've been around and before I've been around, before y'all been around, we've been voting for politicians.
And I would say we probably have more problems now than we used to.
Politicians not going to fix your problems.
That's what God's saying.
No, they created the problem.
And you created them by putting them in office.
God gave you a leader after your own heart, America.
Notice God said, "Of whom thou sets, give me a king and prince."
God was supposed to have been their king.
That was the problem.
But they wanted somebody other than God to govern them.
They weren't in the mess they were in when God was running things.
Ronald Reagan asked, "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?"
And if you are, he was arguing, and keep me as your president for four more years.
And if you're not, then find somebody else.
Hey, Israel, how have your ungodly kings worked out for you?
That's what God's asking.
Are you better off today than you were when I was running things?
When Joshua was running the campaigns of war, and I was calling all the shots.
When Samuel was telling you what to do through my inspiration, are you better off now than you were then?
When David was running things, when Solomon was running things, because they took heed to my word.
In the same way God's asking America, have your ungodly leaders worked out for you?
Are you better off today than when God was your king?
Do you feel safer going into town now that God is not ruling in it?
Did you worry about mass shootings before America turned away from God?
Have you all worried about mass shootings before America turned away from God?
I didn't grow up worrying about mass shootings.
I worried about my tire and my bicycle going flat.
I didn't worry about that stuff, but now we do.
Many people in America, including people in our own church, and including myself and my wife, we bought insurance to cover us in case we have to shoot somebody who's trying to hurt us.
Have you all had insurance like that?
Several hands going up.
Can you imagine?
I mean, when I grew up, I worried about two kinds of insurance, car insurance and health insurance.
I never worried about me shooting somebody insurance.
Can you imagine we even have to talk about stuff like that?
But why are we worried about that?
For one, we're worried because we recognize it's a real problem that somebody out there with no prompting of our own may try to kill us just for their own pleasure.
But I think worse than that is that we're worried about if we defend ourselves, our own people will try to prosecute us.
That's the sad part.
That's the sad part because everything is upside down.
Because the love of God has been rejected.
The hatred of man has taken its place because the law of God has been rejected.
The injustice of man has taken its place.
Who made the mess?
Only us.
Only us.
Who else can deliver us from the mess that we've made?
Only God.
And I don't care what mess you're in today.
I don't care how broken your life is today.
How unclean and filthy you are today in your sin like that leper.
God's hand is just a call away to touch you because he says, "I will."
I will.
It doesn't mean that you call out to God and say, "God, I'm wrong.
You're right.
I want to surrender my life to you and I want to ask you to fix me and fix my problem."
It doesn't mean America is going to wake up one day and say, "God, we were wrong.
We repent."
And suddenly everything's good again.
But it does mean that by making God your king, he can turn and put you in the right direction.
If you ever thought, "Man, we're making slow progress," and then someone says, "Yeah, but we're going the right direction," that's an encouragement.
And God can turn you in the right direction and God can take your broken life and make it well.
And in the end, when all this world comes to an end, God will make it new.
He'll make you new.
He'll make a new heaven, a new earth, and a new you living in it.
And that's the promise of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
"So you've destroyed your life," God said, "but I will be your king and help you if you will only turn to me."
In Isaiah, as we close this morning, Isaiah chapter 1 verses 18 through 20, God says, "Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord.
Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.
Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."
You see what God's saying?
Let's be reasonable about this.
Let's come to some kind of understanding between ourselves.
"Your sins may be scarlet," and it reminds me of this cabbage my wife and I ate this past week, purple cabbage.
Y'all ever ate purple cabbage?
What does it do to your plate?
It turns it purple.
That stuff's some serious color.
And so God is saying, "Look, you may be stained like scarlet in fabric, something you think can never get out.
Your sin may be so bad you think that I can't remove it.
I can't get rid of it."
He said, "But though your sins be like scarlet," or even like that purple cabbage, "they shall be as white as snow.
Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool, like a sheep's wool."
Verse 19, "If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land."
In other words, if all you have to do, America, all you have to do, person, is be willing and obedient.
Follow God's Word and you will enjoy God's good land.
God doesn't want his people to live in misery.
God doesn't want his people to live in fear.
God doesn't want his people to worry about an enemy nation or about poverty or about increasing inflation.
God doesn't want them to have to worry about these things, but only by following God's Word can we be assured of having God's peace in the land.
If you'll be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land.
Verse 20, "But if you refuse and rebel," which is what Israel did, they refused, they rebelled, they would not accept God as their king.
He says, "Ye shall be devoured with the sword, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it."
You reject God being your king and there's nothing but death waiting.
Do you know what killed Adam and Eve?
You say, "Well sin killed them.
Eating that fruit killed them."
What killed Adam and Eve was they rejected God being their king.
Pure and simple.
God was the king of heaven and earth.
God gave Adam and Eve the king's command and by eating that fruit, the only way they could eat that fruit was to consciously reject their king's command and say, "No, I will live in my own authority doing things my own way and they died.
We have to come to this place in life where we say, "You know what?
I am going to recognize God as my king."
No one preaches the grace of God any more than I do, I don't think.
I know the grace of God.
We're not saved by our works.
We're saved by the work of Jesus Christ on our behalf.
But I'll tell you this, there are consequences for rejecting the commands of your king.
There are consequences for rebelling against your creator.
In the only way that you will ever be able to accept Christ as your savior is to acknowledge God as your king.
There is no other way.
I cannot accept the fact that Christ died for my sins unless I realized the fact that I am a sinner.
I cannot realize the fact that I am a sinner unless I realize I disobeyed the commands of my king.
So turn your heart to accept God as your ruler, your king, and that is the first step to your recovery.
It's the first step to knowing Christ as your savior.
The first step to knowing God as your help.
You've destroyed yourself and God is the one who can help you.
Father, we thank you so much for your precious word.
I thank you, Father God, for the practical part of your word.
There are real consequences to our disobedience.
Lord, our nation is not eating the good of the land right now.
It's getting hard for people to pay their grocery bills.
It's getting hard for people to make their car payments.
It's getting hard for young people to find a home to live in.
And Lord, it's all because our society has rejected its king.
And Lord, I pray, Father, Lord, that there will be churches all around this nation who begin to preach the truth of God again.
I believe people, Father God, who are hungry for truth, who are realizing, Father, the shakiness of our world, I pray, Father, they will turn and begin to seek their Lord and their God.
They will crown you as king in their life, dear Father, and they'll seek your truth.
And by doing so, acknowledge the mess they've made in the great salvation you provided them in Jesus Christ.
It's in His precious name we pray.
Amen.
