Episode Transcript
If you take your Bibles please and turn the book of Hosea chapter 8. Hosea chapter 8.
And God willing we'll be expounding verse 7. Also I have another quick announcement and that is
God willing this coming Sunday we'll have a beautiful table and chairs back there in the
foyer. We're going to take that that old table away back there and put a beautiful table and
chairs back there courtesy of the United States government.
They donated it to our church.
So I'm very grateful for that at work.
Hosea 8 verse 7, the title of the message this morning is "The Word in the Wind."
The Word and the Wind.
We have been studying through the book of Hosea and God has been telling us about the
judgment that's going to come upon his people.
He's been telling us about how they've been worshiping false gods and the different things
that they've been doing.
And this morning he's going to go into a little more detail and giving us some vital lessons
as we read through this particular verse that apply to us today.
I look at our nation, I look at what's going on in our world right now, and it absolutely
breaks my heart.
It's hard to watch.
It's really hard to watch the self-destruction.
I think as we go through this this morning, you're going to see how applicable this is
for us, not just nationally, but also individually as well.
Look, Matthew, in Hosea 8, 7, God's going to punish Israel.
Israel's going to come to their end.
Why?
Verse 7, "For they have sown the wind."
God's going to punish Israel.
Israel's going to come.
Father, we thank You for Your precious Word.
Thank You for these wonderful people who've come here this morning, the great time in
Sunday School we've already had, and the wonderful singing.
And I pray You'll take Your precious Word and apply it to our hearts.
All eyes will be on you today.
Open our eyes to your truth.
Let it be understood deeply, communicated clearly in Jesus' wonderful name.
Amen.
They're going to be judged.
They're going to come to their end for they have sown the wind.
Israel has been like a farmer.
We're looking at the word sowing.
We're not talking about sowing like Abigail does when she sows aprons.
We're talking about sowing like a farmer does when he sows seeds.
Israel's been like a farmer planting wind.
Not wheat, not corn, but wind, like a crop in their field.
Of course, it's plain for us to see.
It should be plain for us to see.
God's not speaking literally here this morning.
He can't capture wind and sow it into the ground like seed.
It's just not possible to capture.
So he's not talking about literally sowing wind.
He's not doing that.
He's talking, not literally, he's talking spiritually.
Spiritually.
There's a spiritual farm.
There's a spiritual farmer because man is not just a physical creature.
Man is very much a spiritual creature as well, which is why we're here today.
There's that spiritual part of us that we're in touch with right now.
And so there is a spiritual farm, a spiritual farmer, and a spiritual seed, and that seed
is wind.
In order for a man to live physically, he must have physical bread.
But physical bread can only feed a physical body.
I was telling the Sunday School class this morning, I ate my oatmeal this morning for
a came to church.
I loved it.
I love oatmeal every Sunday morning.
That's my physical bread.
But man is not just a physical person.
He also has a spirit, and that spirit needs to be fed as well.
What are we doing right now?
You are at God's table, and we're taking God's Word, and we are feeding God's people this
morning.
The word "pastor" means shepherd.
Shepherd is feeding God's flock, God's food.
The Bible, as I've said before, is sheep food.
And so you come here and we are feeding the food of God this morning to your spirits.
And most of you have already fed your body the physical bread.
Now you're getting the most important part.
You're getting the spiritual bread.
So you don't just have the physical bread, you have the spiritual bread.
And that's why God said in Deuteronomy chapter 8 verse 3 that man doth not live by bread
only but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live.
So the physical bread is the wheat and the spiritual bread is the word.
You see that?
Man does not live by bread only, that's the physical, but by every word that precedes
the mouth of God, that's the spiritual.
Two types of bread.
And since there's two types of bread, man does not only need to be sowing physically,
right?
And we sow physically.
We want to get that bread.
Y'all ever tried days killer bread?
Anyone in here ever tried days killer bread?
That's good stuff, isn't it?
That's good stuff.
That's what I eat.
Today's killer bread.
I'm not off of the killer part, but I don't know what he was in prison for, but he was
in prison for something.
But that's the physical bread.
But we not only need to be sowing that physical seed, the wheat, we need to be sowing the
spiritual seed, the word by our obedience to every word that proceedeth out of the mouth
of the Lord, taking it in and living it out. So we eat as our physical bread and the word
of God is our spiritual bread. Do you see what this verse is saying now? Because remember
the verse is talking about a spiritual farm, spiritual seed, and a spiritual farmer.
Spiritually speaking, when Israel should have been planting the word, they had been planting
the wind.
I love wheat bread.
Y'all love wheat bread?
How many of y'all in here love corn bread?
Man, I tell you, oh, Brother Doug, that's good, isn't it?
That's good stuff. That's almost worth saying "amen" about, isn't it?
Brother Doug loves wheat bread. Brother Doug really loves corn bread.
But how far do you think Brother Doug's going to get on a loaf of wind bread?
Not very far. Not very far at all.
You see, wind is not rich in nutrients.
When I take God's Word, the Bible, and I read it, and I learn it,
man, I'm getting fed some nutritious stuff.
I have some good stuff.
And the inner man in me grows and gets strong in the faith of Jesus Christ.
That's the word that every man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
They live by it. It gives them life. It sustains them. It builds them up.
Wind is not rich in nutrients. Wind can't fill your belly and nourish your body, spiritually speaking.
Wind has no enduring value. You know, wind is here today and gone to mom.
Just always just passing through.
What is wind when God says Israel has sowed the wind?
Remember they should have been sowing the Word.
Every man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
Wind versus the Word therefore is this.
Wind is the vanity of human life apart from the Word of God.
You see that?
Wind is the vanity of human life apart from the Word of God.
And that's what they'd sowed.
Wind is the emptiness of a man living contrary to every word that proceeds from the mouth of God,
by which he could otherwise live.
Instead of planting living seeds of righteousness,
the word, they had been planting the wind,
the vanity of life apart from God's word,
living contrary to God's word.
When it comes to sowing a field,
you have to be careful too, folks.
You have to be very careful when it comes to sowing a field
because sowing is a very seasonable business,
very seasonable.
You got anything planning your garden right now, Brother Shepherd?
Do you? What do you have?
You're planning it right now, huh?
It's already there.
Yeah, I'm about to say if you can get them this time of year, man, that's wonderful.
But it's very seasonable. It's already there.
It's in his growing and harvesting time right now for Brother Shepherd.
The planting or the sowing time has already passed.
Israel's planting time was over.
They had sowed the wind.
You see?
It's very seasonable.
The farmland of your life can only be sown at a certain season, and that means there's
only a limited amount of time we have to sow.
Once planting season is over, whatever seed you've sown, they're going to come up when
growing season comes.
they're just going to come up.
And unfortunately for Israel,
when they should have been sowing the Word,
they had been sowing the wind.
And you can't sow the wind and expect to reap the wheat.
Or spiritually speaking, you can't sow the wind
and expect to reap the benefits of the Word.
You can't do it.
You see, God has established the law of the harvest.
Just like there's physical laws of this universe,
there's spiritual laws as well.
And they can't be violated.
You can't violate gravity.
You step out.
If I step out off this step,
then I just, I'm gonna fall.
That law is not gonna let you break it.
In the same way, you can't break the spiritual laws
that God has established as well.
The law of the harvest is real.
In the first principle of that law is this.
You reap what you sow.
You reap what you sow.
If you sow wheat, then you're going to reap wheat when harvest time comes.
You sow wheat in the planting season, it's going to start growing wheat in the growing
season and you're going to harvest that wheat in the harvest time.
If you sow righteousness, then you're going to reap righteousness.
Likewise, if you sow the wind, then you're going to reap the wind.
God said they have sown the wind.
Look back in your text now, and they shall reap the whirlwind.
That suffix wind is really more like a compound word, whirlwind.
the word wind and whirlwind.
You reap what you sow.
They sowed the wind and now they're going to reap the whirlwind.
That brings us to the second principle of God's law, the harvest.
The first principle is this, you reap what you sow.
The second principle is this, you always reap more than you sow.
They sold the wind.
They don't reap the wind.
If I sow a grain of wheat, it doesn't sprout up and produce one grain of wheat.
You reap what you sow, it will produce wheat, but you reap more than you sow, it's going
to produce a lot more grains than I put in the ground, right?
So they sowed the wind.
They don't reap the wind, they reap what?
They reap the whirlwind.
They sow a little bit of wind in the ground, but in time everything you sow grows up.
Everything you sow begins to grow and mature and finally become full grown.
The Bible says sin, when it's full grown, brings forth death.
They sowed the wind, now they're going to reap the whirlwind.
That word in the Hebrew there, it's literally talking about a hurricane like a tornado coming
off the Sea of Galilee or something, one of those big storms like a hurricane.
That's literally what it means.
You reap what you sow, you reap more than you sow.
A single grain of wheat is planted into the ground, then it grows into a stalk.
And then that stock produces a head with numerous grains.
Again that word whirlwind, it comes from a root word.
It means hurricane, but the root word it comes from, it means to perish, to come to an end.
And that's what Israel was about to do as a nation.
And if we keep doing what we're doing in America, I mean, we're going to reap it.
There's no doubt we're going to reap, and we're already reaping, but there's a lot more
to reap.
And we'll look at that here in just a moment.
America's going to pay a heavy, heavy price down the road.
The whirlwind, again, speaking about a hurricane, therefore, a type of storm that was going
to devastate Israel spiritually.
It was going to cause them to come to an end as a nation.
It was going to cause many people in Israel to perish.
But this storm didn't come from the sea.
It came from the wind that they had sown.
Righteousness, when you sow the Word, when a nation sows the Word in obedience to every
word that proceeds in the mouth of God, when a nation sows righteousness, that righteousness
will ultimately build people up.
But unrighteousness will ultimately tear those people down.
When Israel fell, it wasn't going to be God's fault.
When Israel fell, it wasn't going to be the godless nation's fault around them.
It would not be the prophet's fault.
When Israel fell, it was going to be Israel's fault.
They sowed the wind.
They were reaping the whirlwind.
What was going to destroy Israel?
The whirlwind.
The very thing they sowed was going to come back and destroy them.
You can't have a whirlwind without wind.
All you have then is a whirlwind.
That's it.
Israel would have never had a whirlwind had there never been a wind to begin with that
they had sown.
They delighted in sowing the wind.
They sowed the wind that delighted their passions.
They reaped the whirlwind that destroyed their nation.
Take your pen now and underscore have sown, have sown.
Now underscore shall reap.
Maybe circle have and shall.
They have sown.
That's in the past.
They shall reap, that's when, in the future.
The law of the harvest, once again.
First principle, the law of the harvest, you reap what you sow, wind.
You reap more than you sow, whirlwind.
You reap later than you sow, shall reap, future tense.
Because of this principle, because of the law of the harvest, a nation can sow the wind
instead of the word during planting season.
They can put all that wind in the ground, spiritually speaking, during planting season,
and because you shall reap in the future, as they're planting this wind, this disregard
of God's word like our nation's doing now. They can do so and live that way in that planting
season with no apparent repercussions for their departure from God. You put seed in
the ground, you go inside the house, you come back out in the morning, that ground still
Still plowed, still pretty, still looked just like it did the day before.
You can water it and water it and everything still looks fine.
Even in the growing season, everything still can look fine with no apparent repercussions.
Not until the harvest time, not until the time of reaping.
So because of this principle, the law of the harvest, a nation can continue on into its
growing season, living off the blessings of previous generations.
That's what Israel was doing.
They were still living off the blessings of King David and King Solomon and the men who
had brought them in by faith into the promised land and conquered Jericho and drove those
enemies out.
They were living off the blessings of previous generations, but they had sown the wind and
they shall reap the whirlwind.
They'll reap what they sowed.
They'll reap more than they sowed.
They'll reap later than they sowed.
Because of this principle, they will pass the sinful wind they've sown down to their
future generations who will sadly inherit the whirlwind after the wind is full grown.
I feel sorry.
I sometimes sit around and I think about, you know, me.
I look at the world that I'm in.
I think, what's it going to be like when I get older?
And I think, what's it going to be like when my children get older?
Then I really think about what's going to be like when my grandchildren get older.
And then instead of sitting around in pity and sorrow, I may pray for them and always
think God put them here at this time in their life for a reason.
They're here at this time and this spot for a reason to be a testimony for Him.
And I pray that He'll use them mightily.
Wheat starts off as a seed, like I said.
And it grows into grass, wheat grass.
And that grass turns into a stalk.
That stalk at the top forms a head.
But the wind is different because, look back in your text, it hath no stalk.
You see that?
The wind doesn't have any stalk.
In contrast to the wheat, the wind has no stalk.
Now the word does.
The word has a stalk.
The word has a head because God's word is God's bread.
Remember what Jesus said?
In the beginning was the word, the word was with God, the word was God, and there was
that word sitting at the table at the Last Supper.
In the word of God took a loaf of bread and said, "Take, eat, this is my body which is
broken for you."
The Word said, "I am the bread of life."
The Word has a head.
The Word has a stalk that produces a head that is bread, that gives bread to those who
come and eat.
The Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
But the wind has no stalk.
Obedience to God's Word, like anything else you plant, like wheat, obedience to God's
Word, it doesn't always yield instant benefits.
It has to grow too.
You reap later than you sow.
Obedience to God's Word, it can make you feel like sometimes you're missing out on
certain things in life, certain pleasures in life.
There's things that sometimes I would like to do.
You think, "Well, maybe I could go do this with my wife, go to the festival or go out
and have a nice long vacation or something."
If I do that, I don't want to get anything done for the kingdom.
I'm not.
My time is precious, and sometimes obedience to God's Word, it can make you feel like you're
missing out on certain pleasures in life,
it may cause you to undergo certain trials and hardships
in the very beginning.
I'll tell you this right now,
when you're living in obedience to God's word,
you are sowing wheat in a world
that naturally produces weeds.
And that means your obedience to God's word
will never go unchallenged.
So the benefits of sowing the word,
they're not always immediately seen,
But here's the thing, God's word sprouts every time.
He said, "My word will not return void."
God's word sprouts every time, and unlike the wind, the word has a stalk.
It always produces food for the person that sowed it.
One of the best known guitarist of all times is a British musician named Eric Clapton.
Have you ever heard of Eric Clapton?
He says he's one of the best guitarist of all times.
Eric spent his life climbing the music charts and sowing the wind like a lot of musicians
and secular music.
And later in life, his godless life led him to become an alcoholic.
And at one point in the emptiness of his life, Eric said he became so depressed that he considered
suicide.
But he said the only thing that kept him from killing himself was because he knew he would
no longer be able to drink alcohol if he was dead.
Isn't that an amazing way to think?
Absolutely amazing.
Eventually, he knew the alcohol was going to kill him,
so he checked himself twice into rehab,
and eventually he quit.
He quit drinking altogether.
After he quit, he produced a new album.
You know what the title of the album was?
Money and Cigarettes.
You know why he named it that?
He said after quitting alcohol,
that was only two things he had left in life,
was money and cigarettes.
Amazing, Eric had sowed the wind.
For all those years he sold the wind
and he found out the wind had no stalk.
Like we said with Brother Doug a minute ago,
how far do you think Brother Doug's gonna get
on the loaf of wind bread?
Not far at all.
Wind bread leaves you empty, hopeless.
Wind bread can't fill your spiritual belly and nourish your spirit, your soul.
God said the wind has no stalk, therefore, look back in your text, the bud shall yield no meal.
You can't have a bud and grain unless it's got a stalk to sit on.
The wind's deceptive.
Living life that's contrary to God's Word, it looks, it gives you the hope of being able
to go out to that farm where you sowed that wind and think, "Man, I want to really dig
this when I get old.
This is really going to be great when I get old.
the fun and stuff that I'm doing right now, the life that I'm living contrary to God's
word, it's giving me so much more benefits right now that I know I'll enjoy in the future.
It has no stalk.
It'll leave you empty and hungry, just like Mr. Clapton, "The bud shall yield no meal."
The wind does not grow into a stalk, it grows into a storm.
The wind doesn't produce food, it produces damage.
And like Eric, when people who've sown the wind enter into the reaping season of their
lives, the wind leaves them hungry and broken.
Hungry hearts and broken lives.
A life that sows the wind and so the word it yields no grain.
And look back in your text, "If so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up."
If it does, if it did yield grain, if your life happens to produce something, the strangers
will eat it up.
That's what he's telling the nation here.
So you sow the wind, and let's say God allows you to be very productive as a nation.
He says even if God lets that happen, here's what's going to take place.
Remember the wind has no stock.
It can ultimately produce no grain.
So even if you have grain, that grain will ultimately be taken away because when you
reap what you sow, you have to reap something that has no stalk if you sow the wind.
If a nation lives contrary to God's word, ultimately it will have no grain.
It will be left empty inside.
He says the strangers will eat it up.
Where does the grain go that the nation produces that's in rebellion to God's word?
The strangers get it.
People who are not citizens of that nation, they get it.
So God says, "A nation sows the wind and it may appear to be prosperous, but at its
latter end it will have a bitter disappointment.
It may produce prosperity, but then strangers, as people who is not from that land, they
shall come and swallow that prosperity up."
Do you realize that's what's happening to our nation right now?
Foreigners are entering our nation at a rate of 9,000 every day, illegally.
9,000 every day.
Do you realize every day, I've got an annuity.
That annuity pays interest every day.
If you know anything about interest and it paying daily, that means it compounds daily.
So what interest it pays me today, it pays interest on that interest tomorrow.
Compound interest.
That goes in the negative as well.
Because every day that 9,000 people come over, who feeds those 9,000 people?
We do.
The citizens do.
It comes from our prosperity.
The next day, you've got 9,000 more people, not 9,000 again.
9,000 in addition to the many, many, many thousands,
hundreds of thousands, you already have.
And so each and every day,
America is encumbered with feeding,
clothing, and caring for 9,000 more people
than the day they had to before.
That's happening right now.
It's not sustainable.
My money grows each day because of compound interest.
America is losing each day because of compound sin.
If you do get prosperous by sowing the wind,
the strangers will eat it up.
Man, is this not what's happening?
Exactly what God said.
And so you can have Wall Street, you can have the stock market, and don't get me wrong,
I want everyone in the world to be prosperous.
I don't have anything against anybody coming in.
I'm just pointing out the reason we're going through this is because we have sowed the
wind when we should have been sowing the Word.
We've rejected the Word of God.
Strangers are swallowing it up.
And we'll end with this verse, Heiah chapter 1 verse 5 and 6.
What God told Israel then, He's telling us now.
He's giving us a solemn warning to each one of us today.
"Now therefore, thus saith the Lord of hosts, consider your ways.
You have sown much and bring in little.
You eat, but you have not enough.
You drink, but you are not filled with drink.
You clothe you, but there is none warm.
In heed that earnth wages,
earnth wages to put into a bag with holes."
In other words, you're working longer hours,
you're taking out bigger loans on your vehicles
and your houses than you ever have before.
Yeah, you're making money,
but you're putting into a bag with holes in it.
It's just seeping out the bottom.
And the longer a nation goes sowing the wind,
the bigger that hole gets in the bottom of the bag.
Spiritually and financially.
And that we'll go ahead and close this morning.
God help our nation who has turned its back
on the word of God.
They have sown the wind.
they shall reap the whirlwind.
Father, we thank you for your precious word this morning.
Thank you, Father, for the sobriety of your message,
the clarity of what you're saying,
and the accuracy of every word you said
and how it applies to us today.
I pray, Father, we cannot, Lord, control
what the leaders of our nations do,
But Lord, we can control what we do.
We lead our own life according to your word.
We can lead our own church according to your word.
We can lead our families according to your word.
The time we have this morning is so precious,
and I pray each and every one of us
will sow every day the word of God,
not living by bread only,
but by every word that proceeds from your mouth, Lord.
