Episode Transcript
Hosea chapter 9, God willing, will be expounding verses 1 and 2 this morning.
The title of the message is, Wipe That Smile Off Your Face.
Wipe That Smile Off Your Face.
We're starting a new chapter this morning in our study through Hosea.
What a timely study this book has been.
Many of y'all saw the note or the news flash on your phone yesterday that the bishop and Tyler was fired by the pope.
Man, you just want to keep babies from getting killed and keep men, men and women, women and you're going to get fired by the pontiff.
And that'll show you something right there.
According to Catholic doctrine, the pope is the vicar of Christ, which means he acts in the place instead of Jesus Christ as pope and that God supposedly directs his church, the Catholic church, to pick the pontiff that he chooses to act in Jesus' place.
Something went wrong.
And the fact that this man cannot stick with God's word and persecutes people who in some sort do, and I'm not saying this bishop was right on all of his doctrine because clearly he's not or he wouldn't have been in the Catholic church to begin with.
But the fact that we have this issue shows the Catholic church from the top down is wrong.
If the head is a snake, the tail is a snake.
So if the pope is wrong, everything that comes down below it's wrong.
With that said, again, the study of Hosea has been a timely study.
The political and spiritual problems that plagued Israel then and now are the same spiritual problems and political problems that plague our nation today, just like with the example I just gave you.
Remember, when God speaks to Israel, he is speaking to everyone.
So let's look together in Hosea chapter 9, verse 1 this morning, and see what God is going to tell us today in the first two verses.
Through the prophet Hosea, God says, if you look now in verse 1, rejoice not, O Israel, for joy.
Rejoice not, O Israel, for joy.
There's a popular preacher in Houston, Texas that loves to put a smile on everybody's face.
His books and sermons are based on positive and encouraging and motivational preaching.
But God's word is not always positive, encouraging, and motivational.
Sometimes what God has to say to us is negative, condemning, and sorrowful.
And that is because we are not always obedient, loving, and faithful.
Nobody loved Israel more than God.
But God told Israel, rejoice not, O Israel, for joy.
When a child does something wrong and they're getting a good laugh about it, sometimes one of the parents will say, you better wipe that smile off your face, young man.
And that's essentially what God is telling Israel in this passage.
Israel wanted to celebrate their ungodly lifestyle.
Aren't we seeing that today?
Israel not asking us to tolerate it anymore.
Now they're wanting us to celebrate it, celebrate their ungodly lifestyle.
And God was telling him, hold up here.
There's nothing for you to celebrate.
There was nothing for them to be happy about.
This wasn't a time for celebrating their ungodly lifestyle.
It was a time for weeping over their ungodly lifestyle.
You see, when a person celebrates their sin, they are rejoicing in their defiance against the living God.
They are celebrating their rebellion against their creator.
You see, here's one person celebrating, the creature celebrating, and the God who made him is sorrowing.
So the creature that celebrates sin doesn't have the same attitude about sin that the God that made him does.
When somebody does something today that's morally questionable, you know what people do?
They'll often confirm their immoral behavior by saying, hey, if that's what makes you happy, then go for it.
Have y'all seen the teacher on the news that was doing pornography and the school fired her for doing pornography?
Have y'all seen that news piece?
We've got a few.
Now this week it came out, there's a second teacher at the same school that has been doing pornography online and getting paid quite a bit of money for it.
And I went, I don't know if anyone else did, I went to the comments online to see what people were saying about the news story and overwhelmingly everyone was saying, you go girl, you get that money.
If the school would be paying y'all more than you wouldn't have to get out and do this.
You do whatever it takes and everybody, men and women alike are just celebrating the wicked lifestyle of these women.
Hey, if it makes you happy, go for it.
If it puts food on the table, go for it.
You know what the Bible says about the prostitute?
The Bible says she eats her food, wipes her mouth and says, I haven't done anything wrong.
It's exactly what these people are doing here.
Hey, it put food on my table.
I'm not worried about it.
I tell you what, I'd rather lose weight than lose my integrity.
I'd rather starve to death and die in my flesh and live by faith in the son of God who lived and died for me.
The chief aim of men isn't to be happy, it's to be holy.
And if you were holy, I tell you what, that'll make you happy.
But if you're unholy, then don't celebrate because your unholyness will ultimately lead your unhappiness.
Here's a kingdom truth.
God wants you to have eternal joy, but eternal joy can only be found in the eternal God who made you.
Psalm 22 verse one says, the king shall joy in thy strength, O Lord, and in thy salvation, how greatly shall he rejoice?
So here's King David, he's rejoicing.
He has joy in God's strength.
He has joy and is rejoicing in God's salvation.
God is the basis of all true joy.
And when you put God out of the picture, there's no calls to celebrate.
God is telling Israel through the prophet, Hosea, to not rejoice.
You know what?
That's the exact opposite of what God told Israel through the prophet Nehemiah.
God told Israel to not rejoice about 760 years before Jesus came.
That's through Hosea.
But about 400 years before Jesus came, God told Israel through Nehemiah that it was time to rejoice.
Nehemiah chapter eight, verse eight through 10, Nehemiah eight, eight through 10, says, so they read in the book of the law of God distinctly and gave the sense and caused them to understand the reading in Nehemiah, which is the Tershotha and Ezra, the priest, the scribe and the Levi's that taught the people said unto all the people, this day is holy unto the Lord your God, mourn not nor weep.
For all the people wept when they heard the words of the law, then he said unto them, go your way, eat the fat and drink the sweet and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared for this day is holy unto your Lord.
Neither be you sorry for the joy of the Lord is your strength.
So here's the prophet Nehemiah telling them, oh, don't weep.
And there's the prophet Hosea saying, don't rejoice.
What's the difference between the two?
One says, it's not a time for rejoicing.
The other says, man, go make you a feast.
It is a time for the, for rejoicing.
It was the same God speaking to the same nation, but God was telling the, that nation to different things at two different times.
What made the difference between a weeping nation and a rejoicing nation?
It is this in Nehemiah's time, the people were sad because of their sins.
In Hosea's time, they were glad because of their sins.
That's what made the difference in Nehemiah's time.
The descendants of the people in Hosea's time realized they were wrong.
They heard God's words being read.
They realized they had violated him and they realized that the sins of their great, great grandparents that had been passed down to them had gotten them into the mess their nation was in and they wept because of their sin against God.
And when a person grieves over sin, that person is now in agreement with what God says about their sin.
They now have the same attitude that God has about their sin.
And when a nation comes into an agreement with God's word is no longer a time to weep.
It is now a time to rejoice.
Luke chapter 15 verse 10, Jesus said, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth joy.
That is when their mind changes and agrees with God about their sin, God is now rejoicing.
And if God's rejoicing is now time for us to rejoice.
That's what Israel did in Nehemiah's time.
But that's not what Israel was doing in Hosea's time.
We're reading today.
Other nations rejoiced in their sins, but Israel knew better.
Israel was taught better.
So God said, rejoice not if you look back in your text, rejoice not O Israel for joy as other people.
See that as other people underscore other people.
Here's a kingdom truth for you this morning.
If you've been taught better than other people, God is going to hold you to a higher standard than other people.
Luke chapter 12 verse 47 through 48.
Jesus said, and that servant which knew his Lord's will and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will shall be beaten with many stripes.
But he that knew not in did things are and did commit things worthy of stripes shall be beaten with few stripes.
For unto whomsoever much is given, that is much knowledge of him shall much be required, and to whom men have committed much of him, they will ask them more.
So you have two children grow up and those two children start living in sin as adults.
One child was raised in a Christian home and knew better.
The other child was not, and they didn't know any better.
The child that was raised in the Christian home and taught better will be judged more harshly by God than the child who wasn't.
So if you've been raised in a Christian home, it's not okay to live in sin because other people are doing it.
God said, don't rejoice Israel as other people.
You say, well, other people are doing it.
Well God doesn't care what other people are doing.
It is wrong.
If you're doing it, it is wrong.
If other people are doing it and if you've been taught better than other people, God's going to hold you to a higher standard than other people.
They may not know better, but you do.
Don't celebrate like other people.
God said, look back in your text for thou has gone a whoring from thy God.
In other words, you've gone off and performed acted like a whore.
You've departed from your God and have acted like a whore.
You the nation have left the love of God, your husband, to become a whore with false gods.
See a godly wife loves her husband.
A godly wife is devoted to her husband alone.
A whore, on the other hand, hires themselves out to another person.
It pretends to love that person in exchange for money.
That's basically the short and sweet of it.
The horse sells herself to the man and the money she receives from that man is the reward for committing her hortom.
I'm going to say that again.
The woman sells herself to the man and the money she receives from that man is her reward for committing that hortom.
Like a whore, Israel departed from the one true God who loved her and served false gods who like the man sleeps with a whore, didn't love Israel.
Those false gods didn't love Israel.
They weren't even real.
Why?
Because as a whore gets her reward for her hortoms with strange men, so Israel wanted a reward for her hortoms with strange gods.
That makes sense?
God told them, look back in the text, he told Israel, thou hast loved a reward.
That's what you wanted.
You made love with false gods because you desired to be paid by them for the service you gave them.
That's what God's telling them.
Here's the kingdom truth.
Oh man, don't miss the rich doctrine here.
Every false religion is based on a system of service and reward.
What does a whore do?
She performs a service, she gets a reward.
Here she was with her false gods and she performed her service with those false gods because she loved a reward for her service.
Every false religion is based on a system of service and reward while the gospel is based on a system of rest and grace.
You see the difference?
Service and reward, rest and grace, work and payment, rest and gift.
Romans chapter four, verse four says, now to him that worketh is the reward, not reckoned of grace, but of debt.
Here's the kingdom truth for you.
You can work for reward, but you can never work for grace.
Under Israel's false religious system, her gods rewarded her for her service, at least in her mind.
Under Israel's true religious system, her God redeemed her when she was unable to serve him.
When Israel was in bondage to Egypt without strength to deliver herself without any beauty to herself, absolute slaves in poverty in bondage.
That's when God in his love gave Israel his grace and redeemed her with his power to bring her into the promised land.
But they left the God that redeemed them to serve false gods for reward.
They left the system of rest and grace to enter the false system of service and reward to a God that did not even exist.
He said, you love your reward, look back in your text, upon every corn floor, upon every corn floor.
In return for her service to her false gods, Israel was expecting her false gods to reward her with a good corn harvest.
Israel was giving the false gods credit for providing her corn.
God told Israel to not rejoice.
Bible says for by grace you say through faith and that not of yourselves, it is the gift or grace of God, not of works, lest any man should what?
Boast.
If we are saved by our service, we have something to boast about.
If we are saved by God's grace, we don't.
Israel was rejoicing in the reward of her service.
She has something to boast about, but James chapter four verse 16 says, but now you rejoice in your boastings.
All such rejoicing is evil.
If you rejoice in what you have to boast about, your rejoicing is evil in the sight of God.
For by grace you say through faith that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.
If you have anything that you can contribute to your salvation, you have something to boast about.
And if you can rejoice in your salvation that you contributed to all such rejoicing is evil.
Service and reward is at the heart of every false religion.
Rest and grace is the truth of the gospel.
Any religion that depends upon our service rather than God's goodness is hortom on the corn floor.
You got that?
I think God, we're not saved by hortom on a corn floor.
We are saved by God's love on a cross.
God said, look now in verse two, the floor and the wine press shall not feed them.
We don't serve the gods of corn and wine.
We serve the God who created the corn and wine.
The floor in the wine press shall not feed them.
We don't worship and serve the creature.
Who created the floor in the wine press?
No, man created the floor in the wine press.
God created the corn and the wine.
But man built the corn floor and man built the wine press.
They were the works of the man's hands.
And we don't worship and serve the creature we worship and serve the Creator and the Creator always feeds his sheep.
Again, the floor in the wine press, they were man made instruments and nothing that's made by man can sustain man.
They were putting their trust in the wine press, the trust in the corn floor, the trust in their service to false gods.
God said the floor and the wine press shall not feed them.
Look back in your text.
And the new wine shall fail in her.
It's going to be cut off.
God makes the corn and wine so he is the only one who can fill our press and our threshing floor.
God makes the corn and wine so he is the only one who can fill our presses and our corn floors.
And this not only goes for our physical food, but it goes for our spiritual food as well.
Spiritually speaking, God's only one who can fill your press and your corn floor.
The religions that originate with man terminate with hunger.
That's what we're learning here in this text.
The corn floor and the press is not going to feed them.
The religions that originate with man terminate with hunger.
The religion that originates with God terminates hunger.
When God restores this earth in the person of Jesus Christ, all the false religions will be forever put away.
You know what would be put away when those false religions are put away?
The hunger that they could not fulfill.
You think about everything Jesus said.
He's the water of life.
He's the bread of life.
He told the woman of the well, you drink this water, you'll never thirst again.
He told the people in John chapter six, you eat this bread, you'll live forever.
You'll never hunger again.
The religion that originates with man terminates with hunger.
The religion that originates with God terminates hunger.
Speaking of the people who will be living in the time when Jesus comes again and when Jesus rules and reigns on this earth and when his kingdom comes to this earth and the false religions are put away.
Speaking of the people living in that time, the Bible says in Revelation chapter seven, verse 16, they shall hunger no more either thirst anymore.
Neither shall the sunlight on them nor any heat for the lamb, which is in the midst of the throne, shall feed them and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters.
And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.
God told Israel, don't rejoice.
You've made a false religion.
You think that everything's going well.
You've got corn on your floor.
You've got grapes in your wine press.
You think everything is doing great without me.
But the religion that originates with man terminates with hunger.
The new wine's going to fail them.
The wine press is not going to provide and feed them.
The corn floor is not going to provide and feed them, but the lamb of God will feed them forever and forever.
If you want to eat and live forever, you don't need the corn floor.
You need the cross.
The new wine shall fail, but the New Testament and Jesus' blood shall never fail.
And with that, we'll close our message this morning and back up with the next verse, next Lord's day.
Man, aren't you glad you have a Bible?
Man, I'm glad I had a Bible.
Father, thank you so much for your precious word.
Thank you, Father, for giving us the truth once again.
Thank you, Father, God, for telling us plain and straight, dear Lord God, that even though all the religions of this world are crying for us to tolerate them, that all the sinners in this world are crying for us to celebrate them.
Lord, you tell us there is only one way to heaven.
There's only one way to be fed.
There's only one way to stamp out hunger.
And that's through you and the Son you sent us.
The Lamb who feeds the hungry forever and forever.
You're telling us, Lord, it's not a time to celebrate.
It's a time to sorrow.
And Lord, I pray for our nation.
I pray, Father, that people will begin to wake up.
I pray for revival, Father, like we have never seen in my lifetime.
I pray, Lord, that people will begin to hunger and thirst after righteousness and that we, the pastors of your sheep, will by your grace be able to take your word, Father, and feed them.
I ask it in Jesus' precious name to let our light shine in this darkness like never before.
We pray in Jesus' wonderful name.
Amen.
