Episode Transcript
Hosea chapter 8, God willing, we'll be expounding verse 12 this morning.
The title of the message this morning is,
The Great Things of God's Law.
The Great Things of God's Law.
We left off in Hosea 8.11 last week where God said,
Because Ephraim hath made many altars to sin,
Altars shall be unto him to sin.
Israel had made many altars,
but those altars were as religious as they were.
They were in violation of God's Word.
That's what we looked at last week.
Israel was very sincere about their religion,
or else they would not have spent all that time and all that money
building all these different altars in so many different places to sacrifice on.
But God had ordained only one altar,
and thus only one way for Israel to come to him.
Instead of coming to God the way that he provided,
they rejected God's way and decided to make their own way instead.
And that is man-made religion in a nutshell.
And we learned that you can't get holiness by multiplying unholyness.
The more religious you are, if that religion deviates from the Word of God,
the more sinful you become.
The more their unbiblical altars increased,
the more their sins increased.
They were zealous about their worship,
but they were not obedient in their worship.
So the more they worshiped, the more disobedient they were.
Jesus said the only way to worship God was according to the truth.
He said in spirit and in truth.
Now here's a kingdom truth for you this morning.
God is truth.
So if your worship is based on a lie,
then you're not worshiping the one true God.
You're worshiping something else.
False worship doesn't worship God.
And we'll say that again.
False worship does not worship God.
There's so many different religions out there that we have to choose from,
and the problem is they can't all be true.
You've got Muslims over here that want to cut our heads off,
because they're saying something different than what we are.
They want to kill Jews because they believe something different than them.
Everyone's saying some different way,
just like the Church of Christ person that told me that one of us has got a false gospel.
You can't teach something entirely different,
and everything still be true.
It's not possible.
So if all the altars that Israel built, which one was right?
How could you know which one was right?
Out of all the religions in the world that man has built,
how do we know which religion is right?
Because they can't all be true.
The devil wants you to think that it's impossible to know which religion is true,
but actually it's really pretty simple.
There were many altars in Israel,
but the brazen altar at the tabernacle was the original altar,
which means all the other altars that came after it were counterfeits.
They were impostors.
I enjoy watching, I don't know if you ever do,
but I enjoy watching sometimes if someone thinks that they have an official document,
like an ancient document or an autograph of a famous person.
You ever see anyone like that and they call it an expert?
Oh, I love watching stuff like that.
I love watching how that expert determines if it's genuine or if it's forged or whatever it is,
and to determine if something is genuine,
then you have to trace that item back to the original source.
Simple.
If you can't trace it back to the original source,
then you can't conclude that it's genuine.
I seized a large enclosed trailer one day over in Freestone County,
just outside of Fairfield.
It was loaded with stolen ATVs.
Big, long enclosed trailer.
And that being the case, since it was loaded with stolen ATVs,
I naturally wondered if that trailer carrying those stolen ATVs may have been stolen itself.
So I went and I checked the vent plate on it,
and the vent plate said that it belonged to a certain trailer of a certain make
and with a certain serial number, and then it wasn't reported on.
But how could I know that the vent plate was real?
How could I know that it was a genuine vent plate
issued by the manufacturer and that the information they're on was true?
If I took the approach that the world takes regarding religion,
I would have accepted the vent plate at face value.
It would have been bigoted and intolerant of me to question the validity of that vent plate
because after all, there are many vent plates that lead us to the manufacturer, right?
That's absurd, isn't it?
All vehicle identification numbers are valid as long as we're sincere about them.
Isn't that silly?
None of us would think that way.
And if it's absurd concerning a tag on a trailer,
then how much more absurd is it to think that way when it comes to the matters of God,
life, death, and eternity for our soul?
I wanted to know the truth about that trailer because I wanted to know who the trailer actually belonged to.
Well, I didn't want the word of a thief.
I wanted the word of the maker of that trailer.
Makes sense, right?
In the same way, I don't want to take the word of a thief when it comes to my eternal well-being.
I want the word of the one who made me.
I had to determine if that vent plate was counterfeit or if it was genuine.
And to do so, I didn't ask the driver.
I didn't ask the guy pulling the trailer.
I didn't gather a bunch of officers around and take a consensus on what they thought about the vent plate,
and if enough of them thought it was true, then I would be okay.
No, that's not what I did.
To determine if that vent plate was real, I had to go back to the manufacturer.
Didn't that make sense?
I had to consult the maker of the trailer and compare the vent plate in question to the manufacturer's original design
and to the records that the manufacturer had of making that trailer.
And when I did, I discovered that the vent plate on the trailer was not made according to the manufacturer's specifications
and that the information they're on contradicted the maker's records.
In short, the vent plate was a counterfeit.
It was a lie, and the trailer was stolen from its true owner.
If we'll apply these same common-sense principles to the many religions in this world,
we can discover that the devil's counterfeit religions are the same way.
He makes all these different counterfeit religions, and he steals the souls from their makers.
He steals the worship that belongs only to God.
To determine if an altar is genuine, to determine if a religion is genuine,
you have to consult the manufacturer's records.
And if the information on that altar contradicts the original manufacturer's records,
then the altar is a lie and the worship thereon is stolen from God.
The many altars in Israel did not look the way God said they were supposed to look.
They were not located where God said they were supposed to be.
They were not attended by the people. God ordained to attend them.
Many altars were not according to truth. They were a lie.
Jesus said, the thief comes not but to steal, to kill, and to destroy.
The counterfeit vent plate was not made by the manufacturer. It was made by the thief.
The difference between Christianity and every other religion is Christianity's origin.
Christianity originated with the word of God, the maker of all men,
while every other religion that came after Christianity originated from the thief
who comes to steal, to kill, and to destroy.
Every religion that claims to have come from God came after the Old Testament was written.
Everyone.
So if a new religion, like Islam, like Catholicism, like Mormonism,
or any of the other many altars that are spread across the world,
if they contradict the maker's original records in the Old Testament,
then it is a false altar made by the thief to steal the souls of men.
The manufacturer writes the information on true records.
And this is why God, speaking of Israel, said, look in your text now this morning,
I have written to him. Isn't that good?
I tell you what, it was one of the most frustrating things.
When I was an auto-thith, it was very frustrating.
When I would get a vehicle that I knew was stolen from somebody, I knew it was,
but I would consult with the manufacturer,
and the manufacturer made good trailers, but they didn't keep good records.
Or they made good vehicles, good ATVs, they didn't keep good records.
And I never could prove that the trailer was stolen.
I never could locate the true owner.
But you know what, when it comes to our maker, he says, I have written.
I have written.
False religion is traced back to man.
True religion is traced back to God.
False religion is traced back to man who has imagined about God.
True religion is traced back to God who has written to man.
Muhammad said he was God's last prophet.
But what Muhammad wrote contradicted what God had written
through the other prophets that came before Muhammad.
Therefore, Muhammad was a false prophet.
He contradicted the maker's records.
Buddha claimed to have an enlightenment about how we could overcome death
through the process of reincarnation and reaching Nirvana.
The problem is Buddha didn't believe in God.
Buddha claimed to have trained his own mind to perceive reality.
And therefore, Buddhists based their beliefs about life after death
on someone who didn't create them, couldn't give them life,
and had no power over death.
To base your soul's eternity upon the teachings of a man
who claimed to have trained himself how to teach himself how we got here
and what will happen after we die is absolutely absurd.
And this is what makes the Bible unique from every other religion in the world
is the fact that you have God's Word written to you.
The one who was here in the beginning has written unto us.
The one who gave us life has written unto us.
The God who sees, knows, and determines what happens to people
after they die has written unto us.
God has not left us in darkness.
He has not abandoned us in a maze of never-ending man-made religions.
He has written unto us the light of truth so we would not be left to wander
and stumble in darkness through life.
We can open the first page of God's Word as we did this morning in Sunday School
next door and read how everything began.
We can then turn to the last pages of God's Word
and we can read about how everything's going to end.
So why would anyone depend on what some man imagined about life
when we can go back to the original source and learn from God himself?
God said, I have written unto Israel.
Look back in your text, the great things of my law.
The Hebrew word translated great here speaks of abundance.
In the margin of your Bible, write the word abundant outside of this verse
and then draw a line to the word great.
I've written unto him the abundant things of my law.
I've written unto him the great things of my law.
So write down abundant in the margin and then draw a line connecting it to the word great.
And once you've done that, then draw a line from the word abundant that you just wrote
back to the previous verse and connect it to the word many.
Many.
Israel had made many altars.
God had written many things.
You see how that works?
Instead of making many religions to suit their own fancies,
they should have been embracing the many things God had written unto them.
Righteousness isn't when we participate in religious activities.
Righteousness is when we adhere to what God has written.
Don't make the mistake of thinking, well, if I go to church, I go to these activities,
I'm faithful to come, go and to do.
And somehow God is going to be pleased with me.
The people who made the many altars, they were busy worshiping as well.
The difference is it's not about being busy.
It's about busying yourself in the word of God.
God's word is always superior to any altar.
God's word is always superior to any type of religious activity.
God says, I have written unto him.
That puts God's word at the top of everything.
Everything.
Yesterday morning, someone shared on social media what they claim to be an actual photo
of Jesus Christ.
I don't know if anyone else has seen it, but the photo was said to have been taken many
years ago during an electrical storm by a lady from an airplane.
Supposedly she was looking out and there was this electrical storm and the planes rocking
back and forth.
The Holy Spirit supposed to have told her to put her camera to the window and snap a
picture of the electrical storm outside.
She does this.
When she gets off the plane, she goes to wherever you used to go.
We used to go drop our film off at places.
You don't really do that much anymore.
Everything is digital.
She went and dropped her film off to have it developed.
When she came back, the person who developed the film said, where was this photo taken?
She said, well, in a plane during an electrical storm.
He showed her and there was a picture of Jesus on there in a white robe in the middle of
the storm outside the window.
According to the story, the man who developed the film and all of his family then accepted
Jesus because now because of the picture, they knew that Jesus was real.
They saw him in a photograph hanging outside an airplane in the middle of a rainstorm.
Now gullible Christians, or so-called Christians at least, are sharing this ridiculous image.
I mean, it's going around on the internet.
They're hoping to get people to believe in Jesus instead of sharing what God has written
unto them.
If people won't believe the Bible, they're sure not going to believe some grainy image
of a man in a white robe suspended in air during a thunderstorm.
Here's a kingdom truth for you.
The word of God always takes precedence over the image of God.
The word of God always takes precedence over the image of God.
This is a kingdom truth.
God didn't say, I have appeared to him.
That's not what God appealed to.
I appeared to Israel.
God said, I have written to him.
God's word always takes precedence over an image.
God's word always takes precedence over some so-called supernatural phenomenon.
You have people say, well, and I was reading some of the comments on the social media where
people were commenting on it, and they were all praising God.
Then someone said, this is the same image I saw in a dream.
Everyone's praising the Lord for that.
Once, if you can get, because this image, when you look at it, it reminded me of an
image of Bigfoot.
You know how they're blurry and they're grainy and you can't really make a whole lot out?
That's what it reminded me of.
These stupid people, it makes Christians look ignorant sharing this stuff.
I explained it to a man that shared it.
I was visiting with him, trying to teach him because I know him.
He had written to me for help before.
I share with him, I said, if a grainy image can make someone believe this false story
that's attached to it, because it's a lie, it's all made up.
If this grainy image can make someone believe this untrue story, then suddenly we are susceptible
to any other false story where there's an alleged image attached to it.
Suddenly we can believe anything because, look, there's supposed to be this photo here.
God's Word takes precedence over any type of vision that you think you see as someone
claims to have seen.
God's Word takes presence over any type of miracle they say they've seen.
It's always got to be God's Word.
We don't interpret the Scriptures based on what we experience.
We interpret what we experience based upon the Scriptures.
See how that works.
If we experience something that contradicts the Scriptures, then we know that experience
did not come from God.
When God appeared on Mount Sinai to the people of Israel, He appeared on a mountain and there
was lightning, there was fire, there was smoke, there was the sound of a trumpet, but God
was very careful to not let them see an image of Himself.
Very careful.
Why?
Because He did not want them to make an image and then turn around and worship it for one.
But He wanted to make sure that they based their faith, their activities, their everything
on the words He said.
Remember in Genesis 1.1, we were teaching this morning, and God said, let there be light.
And God said, let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed in itself who bears
fruit after its kind, and it was so.
And God said, let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life.
And finally you get down into the last part, which we're going to get into next week, God.
And let us make man in our image.
But each and every time God created, He created by His Word.
His Word had not, He didn't say, and God appeared.
And God's presence came up, no, it was always by the Word of God.
That's why when you get into John chapter 1, when Jesus came, the Bible described Jesus
this way.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
And it says, and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.
I have written unto Him the great things of my law.
That is why we come here each Sunday.
We open up the Word of God, and we teach you verse by verse by verse so that you will not
be caught up in the false doctrine based on phenomenon, but you will be grounded in the
truth based on the written Word of God.
Deuteronomy chapter 4, verse 12 through 15, and the Lord spake unto you out of the midst
of the fire.
He heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude.
Only you heard a voice.
You hear that?
You see where the emphasis is.
You heard the words, you didn't see an image.
Verse 13, and He declared unto you His covenant, which He commanded you to perform even the
ten commandments, and He wrote them upon two tables of stone.
And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments that you
may do them in the land, whether you go to possess it.
Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves, for ye saw no manner of similitude on the
day that the Lord spake unto you in horror out of the midst of the fire.
No image, no matter of similitude of God.
God did not give you any image whatsoever.
He spoke unto you His words.
Listen, God didn't leave Adam and Eve with an image.
He left him the garden with His word.
If ever tree of the garden you may freely eat, but the tree of the knowledge of God is good
and evil, thou shalt not eat of it, lest ye die.
So God didn't leave Adam and Eve with His image, He left him with His word.
When Jesus came, God didn't leave us with His image, He left us with His word.
Jesus could have came at a time when there were videos and everyone had phones and things
like that.
He could have came at a time like that, but God chose not to.
He chose to come, so the only thing we have left is His word.
Jesus Christ appeared to the Apostle Paul after his resurrection.
Very dramatic by the way.
Nevertheless, after appearing to the Apostle Paul in such dramatic fashion that Paul lost
his eyesight temporarily.
That same Apostle Paul wrote later in Romans 10, 17, that faith cometh by hearing, in hearing
by the word of God.
God wrote unto Israel the great things of His law and then here's how it works.
Remember Jesus was the word became flesh.
Think about it.
God wrote unto Israel the great things of His law, then Jesus came to fulfill the great
things of His law that was written.
Jesus said in Matthew 5, 17 and 18, Jesus said, think not that I am come to destroy
the law.
That's the law God wrote to Israel.
Or the prophets, that's the people who used to write them.
I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.
That was the purpose of Jesus Christ was to be the fulfillment of the great things that
God had written to Israel.
For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in
no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
That's what Jesus said.
Jesus' life, miracles, works, death, and resurrection were for the explicit purpose of fulfilling
the great things that God had written to Israel in His law.
For the law showed Israel and thus shows us the need for a Savior to come and die for
sinners like we are.
Just like the innocent animals died for sinners on the Old Testament altar that God ordained
and that Israel rejected.
So God said, I wrote these things to Israel.
Look back in your text now.
That they were counted as a strange thing.
Meaning they considered God's law that He wrote to them to be something foreign to them,
something that did not pertain to them.
Oh, that doesn't pertain to us.
We don't need that.
So they set God's law aside and they built custom altars instead.
Custom altars where they can make their own rules of how to live.
Custom altars where they can worship their own way and worship the God of their choice.
Do you see now why Jesus was rejected by Israel when He came?
If they rejected the great things of God's law on paper, then they rejected the great
law of God's thing that God wrote in person.
It was both the great things of God's law.
Jesus was the fulfillment of God's law.
Thus Israel counted Jesus as a strange thing.
They counted God's law as a strange thing.
So they counted God's son as a strange thing.
They considered Jesus' ministry to be something that did not pertain to them, just like the
altar God put at the tabernacle.
It doesn't pertain to us.
That's not something we need.
In Mark chapter 2, verse 15 through 17, the Bible says, and it came to pass that as Jesus
set at meter, as He set down to eat in His house, not Jesus' house, but another man's
house, many publicans and sinners set also with Jesus and His disciples.
Many publicans and sinners.
You know what a publican is?
We just call those IRS agents, tax collectors.
My goodness.
And here they are.
And then these tax collectors, they were cheats, man.
See you had the worst of the worst showing up to eat with Jesus and His disciples.
It says, for there were many and they followed Him.
A lot of sinners, many sinners and they followed Him.
They had many altars in Israel back in that day.
Here we have many sinners and they're following the great things that God's written in His
law.
You see what happens?
All these publicans and sinners, the worst of the worst, they're following the great
things that God had written.
It says, verse 16, and when the scribes and Pharisees saw Him eat with publicans and sinners,
that is the big religious crowd, when they saw Jesus eating with these low down sinners,
they said unto Jesus' disciples and His disciples, how is it that He eateth and drinketh with
publicans and sinners?
When Jesus heard it, I absolutely love this.
When Jesus heard it, He saith unto them, they that are whole have no need of a physician,
but they that are sick.
I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
What an answer!
Brother Doug, I was sick.
I needed Jesus, brother.
I knew I did.
I was sin sick.
You see, when you're sick, you don't count your doctor as a strange thing.
No, you call your doctor and you make an appointment.
My wife had someone call her the other day and she was asked to take someone that we
know to the hospital.
And when that person fell ill, they didn't count the doctor as a strange thing.
They counted the hospital as a place where people go to get well.
That's why those sinners were going to Jesus when He came.
That's why sinners are still going to Jesus today.
I'm a sinner.
Now, I don't want to sin.
Just like you don't want to be sick.
The fact is, we've got elements.
My mom and dad, they used to take each other out on dates and go to music things and stuff
all the time.
Now they take each other to the doctor all the time.
That's just what happens when you get old.
That's what happens when you get sick.
We don't want to be sick.
So when I say I'm a sinner, I'm not saying I want to be a sinner.
I just recognize that I sin and come short of the glory of God.
And because I recognize my sinfulness, I don't count Jesus as a strange thing.
Because you count, understand yourself as a sinner, you count yourself as a sinner,
you don't count Jesus as a strange thing.
We count Him as someone who came for sick and dying sinners to heal us from the deadly
disease of our sin.
Isaiah chapter 53 verse 5.
Isaiah 53 verse 5.
Before Jesus ever came, the prophet Isaiah said this would happen.
Said this of Jesus, but he was wounded for our transgressions.
He was bruised for our iniquities.
The chastisement of our peace, or that is the punishment of our peace, was upon him
and with his stripes, that is like being beaten with stripes or the whip, with his stripes
we are healed.
That's why Jesus, based on this prophecy, associated sin with sickness, associated a
savior with a physician.
I came to heal the people who are sick and make them well.
And the publicans and sinners are those people.
They don't count me a strange thing.
The Pharisees and the Sadducees, the scribes, they counted Jesus as a strange thing because
they didn't count themselves as sinners in need of a savior.
Those who counted strange to them shall die in their sins, but those who count it done
for them by Jesus Christ shall not perish but have everlasting life.
I want to tell you right now, I count myself a sinner, I count myself in need of a savior,
and I count Jesus Christ as God's one altar upon which the sacrifice was made and all
other altars to be counterfeits and fakes, and I place my hope and trust on him alone.
It is finished.
With that we'll go ahead and close in prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your precious Word.
We thank you, Father God, that your Word divides light from darkness just as you did in the
book of Genesis, dear Lord God.
You take the lies of darkness and you set them aside, and with your Word you divided
light from darkness and Genesis, and with your Word you're dividing light from darkness
today.
You're taking lies and setting it apart.
You're taking truth and setting it apart, and you're telling man, choose you this day
whom you'll serve.
And Father, I thank you that Jesus Christ came and he said that he was the light and
whoever followed him would not walk in darkness but have the light of life.
Thank you, Father, we can trace what we believe back to the manufacturer's records.
Thank you, Father, that you have written unto us the great things of your law, and Jesus
came and fulfilled those great things, and now we don't count them as strange but precious.
In his precious name we pray.
Amen.
