Episode Transcript
Hosea chapter 9 verse 10, the title of the message this morning is "Grapes in the Wilderness.
" Grapes in the Wilderness.
How many of y'all believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior?
Raise your hand this morning.
You are grapes in the wilderness.
It's about you this morning.
The verse in our text this morning is a phenomenal statement that God makes about His early dealings with the children of Israel.
And this verse is very rich in doctrine this morning and I'm looking forward to mining it out and very enlightening.
It's very encouraging.
And what makes this verse even more phenomenal, once again, is that when God speaks to Israel, He's speaking to whom?
He's speaking to us.
We are the grapes in the wilderness.
And so spiritually speaking, what God says to Israel always applies to us as well spiritually.
As God told Abraham, "I have made you a father of many nations.
" We are one of those nations, thank God, the Gentile nations that have come to faith in Christ.
And recounting the former days of Israel's humble beginnings, God said, if you'll look now in Hosea 910, "I found Israel.
" "I found Israel.
" How many of y'all, when you were young, got separated from the group, got separated from your mom or your dad, some school group in some public place or some out in the woods somewhere or something, you got separated from the group and you were momentarily lost.
Anyone ever go through that?
That's a rough feeling, isn't it?
It's a sick feeling when you're like, "Where is everybody?
" God said, "I found Israel.
" See, sin has a terrible effect on people in that it separates us from our Creator.
And then we become lost after Adam and Eve sinned against God.
The next thing we hear God say is, "Adam, where are you?
" Sin had separated Adam and Eve from God.
And in God's great love and mercy, He came looking for them.
"Adam, where are you?
" He came looking for them.
And having descended from Adam and being sinners ourselves, we are all born separated from God, just like that.
Speaking of lowly sinners, or speaking to lowly sinners who came to hear Jesus teach, Jesus said in Luke chapter 15, 1 through 6, the Bible says, "Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him.
" Now, I'm in that category.
I'm that pose, publicans and sinners.
That's me.
And the Pharisees and scribes murmured saying, "This man receiveth sinners.
" That's one thing they got right.
Jesus Christ receives sinners and praise God, sinners can receive Him.
"And eateth with them," and He spake this parable unto them, saying, "What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost until he find it?
And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders rejoicing.
" Let me tell you, the day Jesus Christ accepted you because you accepted Him, the day God found you at the cross and claimed you as His child, when you put your trust in Jesus, God rejoiced.
Isn't it amazing that God would rejoice over us?
"And when he cometh home," Jesus said, "he calleth together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost.
'" Here is Jesus talking about Him finding His lost sheep, His lost people, who were separated from Him through sin.
And He says, "I have found my sheep which is lost.
" That's what Jesus does.
He does that all the time.
I was talking to this lady, Elizabeth, last night from Maryland.
She's calling in, she's trusting in what all she's done to be saved.
I get to share the gospel with her.
We get off the phone, praise God she's trusting in what Jesus has done to be saved.
You know what happens when a person quits trusting in themselves and they start believing on the Lord Jesus Christ?
The shepherd found the lost sheep and brought them home.
"I have found my sheep which was lost.
" That is what Jesus said in the Gospel of Luke.
And here in Hosea, the same Jesus, the same God says, "I found Israel.
" One day I got lost in the woods at the Boy Scout Ranch, just outside of Athens.
And some older boys were supposed to take me back to the camp and stay with me.
They didn't, instead of doing that, they hopped on their pickup truck and they drove off.
Probably some girl involved, I bet.
They're always messing stuff up for boys.
So they left me and I had to find my way back to camp through woods I'd never been in before.
And I got separated from my group and I got lost.
Eventually as it was getting dark, I picked up on a trail.
I started following that trail and I finally, eventually found the camp where everybody was at.
But I want you to notice something.
I said that I found the camp.
The camp didn't find me.
They didn't find me.
I found them.
It can't work like that when people are separated from God, though.
Now it can work like that when we're separated from one another.
But if I got separated from them, I found them.
But it does not work like that when people are separated from God.
It's just the opposite when people are separated from God.
God didn't say about Israel.
God didn't say, "He found me.
" He didn't say, "Israel found me.
" He said, "I found Israel.
" Do you know why Israel didn't find God?
Who?
Well, that's true.
But I'll tell you why Israel didn't find God.
Israel didn't find God because Israel couldn't find God.
Israel couldn't find God anymore.
That lost sheep could find its shepherd.
Jesus said, "The shepherd says, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my lost sheep, and my sheep which was lost.
'" Lost people don't just happen to stumble upon Jesus.
Jesus had to leave the ninety-nine.
He had to go somewhere outside the sheepfold where they were supposed to be to go to where the lost sheep was.
God had to go to where Adam was.
God had to go to where Israel was.
God has to go to where we are.
We don't stumble upon Jesus Christ.
We don't find God.
God finds us.
If you've ever come to the realization that Jesus Christ made peace for you by dying for your sins on the cross and believing that good news you've accepted Him as your Savior, then you didn't find Jesus, my friend.
Jesus found you.
If you're coming here this morning to learn more about Jesus Christ.
If you're watching online this morning and you're seeking to learn about the Lord Jesus Christ and the Savior that we serve, it's not because you are looking for Jesus.
It's because Jesus is looking for you.
If you were invited to church here and you started coming to the Genesis to Jesus class, you started sitting out in the Sunday school class, and you started thinking, "I want to know what this Bible teaches.
I want to know what the truth is.
I want to know how I can have eternal life.
" That was not you looking for God.
That was God coming looking for you.
That was God's Spirit looking for you, saying, "Where are you?
Where are you?
" We can't find God any more than Israel could, Adam could, or that lost sheep could.
If you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, it's because God in His great love for you came to the dark, lonely wilderness where you were and shined the glorious truth of Jesus Christ in His gospel to you.
Now listen to how God found Israel.
You ready?
Now that we've established that fact, listen to how God found Israel.
God said, "I found Israel," look back at your text now, "like grapes in the wilderness.
Man, I tell you what, they may sound weird to you, but it is good.
Here's how I found Israel.
I found Israel right.
I go looking for my lost sheep.
I'll tell you how I found them.
I found them like grapes in the wilderness.
First of all, let me explain to you what a wilderness is.
The wilderness that we're referring to here in the Bible is not in East Texas forest.
The wilderness here, if you'll remember in God's word about the wilderness, the wilderness is a desert.
It's a desert.
Think back to when Israel journeyed through the wilderness when they left Egypt.
There was no water for them to drink.
God had to provide it from a rock, remember?
There was no food for them to eat.
God had to send quail and He had to send manna down for them.
They were in a desert wilderness.
It was so bad in the wilderness, in fact, that many of the people thought it would be better for them to return to slavery than to die out there in the desert from starvation and thirst.
Now church, God said He found Israel like grapes in the desert.
Grapes don't grow in the desert.
You ever thought about that?
The Bible didn't say Israel wandered through the desert and said, and looked and said, "Lo, behold, we thank the old God for providing these grapes for us.
" That didn't happen.
Grapes don't grow in the desert.
They grow in a vineyard.
A wilderness is a barren land.
A desert, for the most part, at least for humans, is a lifeless, in a fruitless land.
You get it?
It's barren.
It's lifeless.
It's fruitless.
And that's where Israel was.
And that's where you and I all were when we were lost and separated from God.
We were in a wilderness.
We were in a barren land.
We were in a fruitless, lifeless situation, separated from our God.
Spiritually speaking, we are lifeless, and we are fruitless when we're separated from God by our sin.
A couple of weeks ago, someone asked me if God would forgive him for all the wrong that he had done.
Here's a kingdom truth for you.
God finds every person in the desert.
Do you know who Israel is?
In the New Testament.
You know the Bible says Israel is?
It says we, the believers in Christ, are the true Israel.
The Israel that descended from Abraham physically, they were a type of the people who would descend from Abraham spiritually.
Not born from Abraham's DNA, but born through sharing the similar faith that he had in God concerning the Savior to come.
So as Israel was found by God like grapes in the desert, God found us in the desert too.
Until we're born again through faith in Jesus Christ, we're all in the same lifeless, lost, fruitless desert land.
Every one of us.
Nobody can say, "God found me next to a river.
God found me in a luscious, wonderful place.
I was serving him.
I was praising him.
Here he came and found me.
" Man, God finds everybody in the desert because every one of us are born from the same Adam.
Born into the same sin and born into unbelief.
If you are in a dry, barren wasteland this morning, if you're saying, "My sin's so great.
I don't know if God can forgive me.
I don't know if God, why would God want to come looking for me?
" If you're in a desert where there is no life, there is no fruit, and like Israel, when they saw the surroundings around them, it appears to you there is no hope for you, then you are in the right place for God to come find you.
"Woo, man, that's good, Brother Doug.
He'll come find you in that desert land and carry you home to the cross where Jesus died for sinners like us.
" We all enter this world in a spiritual desert.
You may be spiritually dry, lifeless, and fruitless now, but God said, "I found Israel like grapes in the desert.
" I enjoy seeing an old car that's been restored.
Jesse, you've got a pickup that's restored.
You have it in a car show from time to time, don't you?
You pick up?
Yeah, I did have.
Brother Doug, he's got him an old pickup.
He's kind of restored and painted.
A talented man can take an old abandoned rust bucket and make it look better than you.
If you were to stop, maybe he's got his car at a parking lot, and you were to stop and admire the finished product.
Say, "Hey, it's a nice looking car.
" That man may say, "I found this beauty sitting out in a field rusting away in an old man's land.
" See, when that man saw that car in the field, he didn't see the rust bucket.
He saw the restored product.
He didn't see a rust bucket.
Why would he want to take a rust bucket from the field and take it home?
He saw the finished product in his mind when he found that out there in that field rusting away.
And when God sees us out in the wilderness in our sin, he doesn't say, "Oh, man, I don't want anything to do that.
" He sees the finished product.
He sees his plan for you and what he's going to do for you and the purpose for why he created you.
The Hebrew word translated "find" here, it has the idea of acquiring.
Like if you were to go to a garage sale or something, and you were to get something there cheap that was antiquated and worth a lot of money, you might bring it back.
Someone would see it and say, "Hey, that's a good find.
" That's the kind of Hebrew word we're looking at here.
It has the idea of acquiring.
You see, when the shepherd found the sheep, when Jesus said he leaves the ninety-nine, he goes looking for that one lost sheep out in the wilderness, and he finds the sheep.
Jesus didn't say it.
He takes a selfie with the sheep and texts his friends, and then goes back to the ninety-nine and leaves that sheep out in the wilderness.
Now, he takes the sheep, he acquires the sheep, he puts the sheep on his shoulder, he takes the sheep back with him.
We're talking about acquisition.
When the man found the car in the field, he took the car back for the purpose of restoring it back, to which original glory.
And when God found Israel, he took them unto himself for doing the same.
He acquired them as grapes.
Here's a kingdom truth for you this morning.
God doesn't find stones in the desert.
He finds grapes.
God told Israel, "I saw," look back in your text, "I saw your fathers as the first ripe in the fig tree at her first time.
" Underscore first ripe, underscore first time.
I believe that's very significant here.
Now, what's the correlation between grapes and figs?
They are both what?
They're both fruit.
And when God speaks of his purpose being fulfilled in our lives, he calls that what?
Fruit.
Now, I want you to notice, he says, "I saw your"--he's talking to Israel in the present, the generation that Hosea was prophesying to, speaking of their fathers in the past.
And he said, "I saw your fathers like figs, the very first figs popping out at the very first time.
" Do you know what I believe God's saying here?
First figs, first time on that tree.
I believe what he's saying is, "I saw them for the way I originally intended them to be.
" Listen, when God created Adam and Eve, he didn't create them to sin.
He didn't create them to fall.
He didn't create us to die.
Death was never in God's plan.
Yes, God knew it would happen.
But how many of us know, how many of us can see trouble coming in people's lives?
It doesn't matter what you say to them.
They're still going to do it and you just have to watch.
God gave them a choice.
But God had a marvelous plan for the human race, that we would be the glory of God in heaven, shining bright here on earth.
That God's spirit would fill us and His word would naturally produce in us a holy, godly righteousness in man.
We'd be an extension of God's glory here on earth.
When God saw Israel in that wilderness, understand He saw us in that wilderness.
That's the greater spiritual truth here.
When God looked out upon the church in the future that He knew Jesus would die for, and He looked at me and you who've come to place our trust in Jesus as our Savior.
When He looked at us in our sin, in our pitifulness, in the disgrace that we were in, through the gospel, all God could see was restoring us back to His original purpose.
To the first fruits on the tree, how He made man in the beginning.
We were looking this morning in Sunday school next door, where Jesus says in Revelation 21, "Behold, I make all things new.
" Man, the old is going to be passed away.
Everything is going to be new.
It's going to be right.
New does not mean different.
God is going to restore the human race back to her first glory, the way we were intended to be.
We're just not going to be figs on the tree.
We're going to be the first figs on the tree, the first time they blossom.
We're going to be pristine, restored back, better than old car.
"I saw your fathers as the first ripe in the fig tree at her first time.
" When God looked at Israel, He didn't see their present condition.
He saw their future glory through Jesus Christ.
Thank God He's seen the church's future glory.
Fruit is the intended product of the plant that produces it.
When God said He saw them as grapes of the first ripe figs, He's saying, "I took them unto Myself," and thus He took you and I unto Himself for the purpose of restoring us and accomplishing His original purpose for our lives.
I want that in my life, making us the people and product that He created us to be.
He acquires us for the purpose of making us the sweet fruit of His grace.
Jesus said in the Gospel of John, chapter 15, verse 5, "I am the vine, and ye are the branches.
He that abideth in Me, and I in Him the same, bringeth forth much fruit.
For without Me ye can do nothing.
" So when we're separated from God, we can't bear fruit.
We are barren.
We are fruitless.
He is the way, the truth, and the life.
We are lifeless.
We are in the wilderness.
But He's willing to come to the wilderness to where we are, see us as the grapes He intended us to be, throw us over His shoulder, and bring us back home.
Kingdom truth number one, God finds everyone in the desert.
Kingdom truth number two, God finds everyone as fruit in the desert.
Don't think for a moment that God would save you and not have the absolute purpose of fulfilling His plan in your life, both today and in the hereafter for all eternity.
He will.
If you've come to the cross, then you are found.
And if you are found, and praise God, you are fruit in His eyes.
He saved you for the purpose of accomplishing His life in you.
If you've ever seen, if you ever saw Brother Doug, how many of you knew Brother Doug before he became a believer?
Way back in the day, in the day.
This ring of bell, yeah, as Brother Doug back in the day, man.
If you'd have seen Brother Doug years ago, you'd have found him in a motorcycle gang.
Brother Doug was in a spiritual wilderness just like the rest of us were born into.
He's riding a Harley in the spiritual wilderness, but he was in the wilderness.
But let me tell you something.
God didn't find Doug as a sinner in the wilderness.
He found him as fruit in the wilderness, you see.
Jesus didn't throw a biker over His shoulders and bring him back to God.
He threw a preacher over His shoulders and brought him back to God.
Isn't that something?
See, Psalm is fruit.
Church, we are all found as grapes in the wilderness, every one of us.
He has a plan, a purpose for you.
Listen, you determine this year in your heart.
We're almost into January.
I want you all to determine your heart this year.
Unless I'm sick, I am going to be in the house of God.
I'm going to come to Sunday school.
I'm going to come to church, and I am going to find some way by the grace of God to serve, to serve the believers, to make this church a better place, to comfort my fellow believers and be an encouragement to them.
Your fruit, abide in Him and let Him bear much fruit through you.
We're all found with a purpose.
Jeremiah chapter 29 verse 11.
Jeremiah chapter 29 verse 11 says this, "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord.
" Oh man, you know God's thinking about you.
He has thoughts about you.
He has plans for you.
He says, "I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord.
" Thoughts of peace and not evil to give you an expected end.
God knows His plan for you.
There is an expected end.
God said, "I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness.
" I want you to look here now.
Back in your text, "But they went to Belpeor.
" They went to Belpeor.
Now Belpeor is not a place.
Belpeor is a false God.
God had a plan for Israel, but instead of going to God, many of them, back in the day when God found them in the wilderness, many of them went to the false God Belpeor.
And Peor was a place where the Midianites lived.
And Bel is the name of a false God.
So Belpeor means the local God of Peor, if you could think of it like that.
The local God of Peor.
They went to Belpeor.
He found them like grapes in the wilderness.
They went to Belpeor.
God sent His Son to die for every person in this world.
God created no person to die and go to hell.
People who say God wants people to go to hell, and He created some people to go to hell, and some people to go to heaven, that's a lie.
That's a lie.
God created all people in His love and His grace.
Jesus died for everyone.
God knows who's going to be saved.
God knows who's not going to be saved.
He knows who's going to join to Belpeor and who's going to allow the shepherd to throw them over the shoulders and take them home.
But let me tell you, God has a plan for every person.
God didn't create Adam with a plan to fall.
He created Adam with a plan to succeed, but He allowed Adam to choose to fall.
God created found history in the wilderness like grapes.
He wanted every single one of them to come to that promised land.
He wanted every single one of them to believe.
Folks, it's our choice to believe.
It's our choice if we want to be fruit in a vineyard or stones in a desert.
He says they went to Belpeor, look back in your text, and separated themselves under that shame.
When we talk about being holy to God, that means to be separated to God.
They were holy to Belpeor and unholy to God.
Does that make sense?
That's what they did.
They did the opposite of what they were supposed to do.
They get out there and there's this local God in the wilderness, and the local God did what a lot of false religions do.
It offered them something they wanted in the flesh.
Oh, well, that'll be our worship.
That'll be our God then.
God had plans for all of Israel, but some chose to separate themselves from God and to join themselves, this false God of Peor, look back in your text, and their abominations were according as they loved.
In other words, their sin, their abominations were according as they loved.
That means they became as spiritually filthy and disgusting as the wickedness that they loved, become just like it.
Now, what God's referring to here, when he's talking about Belpeor, it's referring back to when Israel was in the wilderness.
They came out of Egypt.
God's bringing them to the promised land, and on the way, as they're going through the wilderness, God tested them to see who would believe, who would obey, and who would not.
And when they get to this place where the Midianites were, many of the men chose to worship Belpeor.
You know what Belpeor was?
He was a fertility God.
So this means they were worshipping Bel of Peor by committing sexual sins.
That's what the religion offered those people.
So they're like, "Hey, this is right up our alley.
We're going to choose this God here because he lets us do this.
" Had a man tell me one time, he said, "I'm Presbyterian because I like to drink.
" Well, that's no reason to be anything.
I want to be what I am because it's true and it's right, not because it caters to my weaknesses and my flesh but because in an attempt to get God to curse the Israelites, the Midianite women seduced many of the Israelite men into committing fornication with them and worshipping their local God, Belpeor, which indeed calls God to send a plague upon Israel.
It's in Numbers, chapter 25, verse 1 through 5.
"In Israel abode in Shittim, and the people began to commit harem with the daughters of Moab, and they called the people under the sacrifices of their gods.
And the people did eat and bowed down to their gods, and Israel joined himself unto Belpeor.
And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel.
And the Lord said unto Moses, 'Take all the heads of the people and hang them up before the Lord against the sun or toward the sun, that the fierce anger of the Lord may be turned away from Israel.
' And Moses said unto the judges of Israel, 'Slay ye every one his men that were joined unto Belpeor.
'" God said, "Kill them.
Kill them.
Put that evil out of your nation.
" Those people didn't want God's will to be accomplished in their lives.
They wanted their will to be done.
When Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane, he said, "Father, not my will but yours be done.
" These people said, "Father, not your will but ours be done.
" You're not giving us what we want?
We'll go with this God over here.
Yeah, we made the God up.
Yeah, the God's not real.
But we'd rather have a God that we make instead of a God that made us.
And we'll do whatever we want to do with that God.
I tell you what, that God can't restore you to what the true God created you to be.
That God can't make you fruit.
That God can't give you life.
Those people are dead that joined themselves into Belpeor, and they're going to be separated from God for all eternity.
They separated themselves from the one true God into Belpeor.
God wanted to make them like grapes, but they loved that lifeless, fruitless wilderness that they were born into.
Kingdom truth number one, God finds everyone in the desert.
Kingdom truth number two, God finds everyone as fruit in the desert.
Kingdom truth number three, God gives everyone a choice in the desert.
Some people don't want to be found.
They don't want to be carried home.
They'd rather remain separated from their God because they love the gods of the desert.
I tell you what, the gods of the desert never did anything for me.
Never did a thing for me.
Man, I got on the highway patrol, and I watched people die in these accidents.
I watched grieving families.
I watched tragedies.
And there wasn't anything in this world that could fix their situation.
And I knew one day I was going to die like that.
And I had to find someone who could preserve my life and give me purpose and hope for all eternity.
And I tell you what, I found it in the Lord Jesus Christ.
It was not in the gods of the desert.
It was in the shepherd who came looking for me.
People don't want to be graves.
They don't want God's purpose to be fulfilled in their lives.
Thank God not everyone joined themselves to Belpéora that day.
It was an individual choice.
And you have the choice if you want to be joined to God or not.
As for me, I didn't want to be lost.
I wanted to come home.
And I thank God when I heard the gospel, Jesus threw me over his shoulders.
He brought me to the cross.
He brought me back to the Father and into the fold.
He'll do the same for you if you'll let him.
This morning we were teaching, I'll close with this, we were teaching on Abraham and Isaac.
Abraham took Isaac up to Mount Moriah.
And there was that altar up there.
And Isaac was bound laying on that altar.
And Abraham was just about to come down with that knife to sacrifice his son.
And right as that knife was about to come down just in the nick of time, as Romans chapter 5 says, "In due time," God said, "Abraham.
" Abraham, don't touch that boy.
Don't harm him in any way.
And Abraham looked and behind him there was a lamb, a male lamb, caught in a thicket by his horns that God provided.
And Abraham took that ram, substituted him for Isaac, his son.
The ram died in Isaac's place.
Isaac went free and lived.
And at that time, Abraham named that place Jehovah Jireh, which means God will provide.
In Romans chapter 5 verse 6, the Bible says, "In due time, Christ died for the ungodly.
" When we were yet without strength, while we were still bound to the altar, helpless to help ourselves, in due time, just when we needed it, Christ died for the ungodly.
And I told the people next door, "What would have happened?
Had Abraham came down with a knife and slew his son, and ten minutes later, God shows up with a ram.
" That's not due time.
That's not when we really need it.
Folks, every one of us were born in a desert.
Every one of us were helpless on Mount Moriah, just like Isaac.
And in due time, God provided a lamb to take your place.
Can you imagine how simple it was for Isaac?
He looks at that ram.
God says here, "Offer up this ram instead of your son, Abraham.
" And here's Isaac on this altar.
And now Isaac's got a choice.
And I can just see Isaac thinking, "You mean that this ram can get up here on this altar in my place, I can hop off and I can go free?
Be my guest, ram.
" That's right.
Just as God provided that ram for Isaac, He provided one for you.
And we're all in that desert.
We're all on Moriah.
We're all in a barren, lifeless land.
Jesus came, and He died for us so we can go free.
But remember, the last kingdom truth was, He finds us all in the wilderness, but we all have a choice in that wilderness.
For me, when I understood the gospel, I'm like, "The lamb took my place.
" You mean I can have God judge me on the basis of Jesus' death instead of my own, His penalty?
I use the example of a stunt double.
The stunt double does all the work.
The actor gets credit for it.
Jesus did all the work, and I can get credit for it.
Be my guest, Lord.
I'll take you as my substitute, as Isaac took that lamb.
If you're here this morning and you have not made that choice to have Jesus be your substitute, I pray you will make that choice today.
Believe the good news of the gospel and accept Him as the one that God laid your sin upon so He can throw you over His shoulders and through the cross bring you home.
Father, we thank you so much for your precious Word.
Thank you, Father, for giving us this wonderful truth.
I found them as grapes in the wilderness.
Thank you for finding us.
Thank you for traveling to the wilderness.
Thank you for being born in a manger.
Thank you for making us grapes.
In Jesus' precious name we pray.
Amen.
