Episode Transcript
Hosea chapter 9 verse 11 and 12.
Our text this morning turns us to the subject of glory.
We are glory alike.
Glory, hallelujah.
Oh glory, things like that.
Or when I go to glory, a lot of folks may not realize what glory is.
Believe it or not, glory is one of the things that people seek after most.
The other day I watched a video of a young man jumping off a very high bridge and to what appeared to be a very narrow rocky river.
And why would a young man want to do something?
Have it on video published to the world that could easily have left him dead or paralyzed for life.
One word.
Glory.
He wants people to think that he is somebody special and he wants them to give him a lot of attention.
Why do some people constantly attempt to post glamorizing photos of themselves on social media.
Have you all ever noticed that?
It's the same person.
I mean they're not giving you any new information.
But today they have this picture.
Tomorrow it'll be this picture.
It's just different, same person.
They're not doing it to identify themselves.
They're doing it to glorify themselves.
They're thinking, people can't get enough of me.
They need to pay attention to me.
They need to tell me how pretty I am or how handsome I look.
Hey everybody, look at me.
Glory.
The Bible likens glory to the flower of a plant, man's glory.
To the flower of a plant.
This gives us a really good idea of what glory is.
A small part of 1 Peter chapter 1 verse 24 says this.
It says, "For all flesh is as grass.
" Not grass like Bermuda grass.
But vegetation.
Okay.
Plants.
All flesh is like plants and the glory of men as the flower of grass.
Last Sunday a couple of children brought me some dandelion flowers.
Y'all remember that?
I stuck them in my coat pocket up here and I preached with them in my coat pocket.
They picked them from the front yard of the church and I thought that was very kind of them.
Who were the kids that did that?
Who remembers?
Which kids?
Was it my grandkids?
Alright, that's sweet.
And I thought that was very kind of them.
And when they gave me those flowers, I stuck them in my suit pocket and so everybody could see them.
But why did they bring me the flower of that dandelion plant?
I mean, why didn't they bring me a leaf?
Why didn't they bring me a stem?
Why didn't they bring me a piece of the root?
Say, "You're grandpa.
It's a piece of root.
" When they brought me the flower of the plant, they brought me the beauty of the plant.
They brought me the glory of the plant.
The part that God made admirable, desirable, and beautiful.
You see, that's the glory of the plant.
And in the same way, Ephraim, the northern kingdom of Israel, enjoyed immense glory in their nation.
They had a nation that was admirable, desirable, and beautiful.
God said, "Look now in Hosea 9/11, as for Ephraim, their glory.
" They had glory.
Now the Hebrew word translated glory literally means something that's heavy.
And the reason it's talking about something that's heavy, it means it's something of considerable weight.
It's significant.
It's a very big deal.
See, we use those kind of analogies too, don't we?
That's heavy, man.
Or, "Wow, that's a really big deal.
" When it's really not big at all in size, but we use that analogy to describe something that's significant.
Israel had long been a glorious nation.
In the face of the earth, Israel was a big deal.
They were a big deal.
Their power and wisdom was admirable.
Their wealth was desirable.
Their land was beautiful.
And what made Israel more glorious than any other nation on earth was their God.
God is literally everything to us.
God is everything to creation.
He's everything to mankind.
He is the biggest deal of all.
God was the true glory of Israel.
He was the one who took a group of slaves in Egypt, brought them out by his mighty merciful hand, and made them a mighty nation, a big deal in the earth.
But problem is Ephraim had grown accustomed to the glory of God, and they began to mistake God's glory as their own glory.
That's what the devil did.
God made Lucifer a glorious angel.
And next thing you know, instead of looking at God that gave him the glory and reflecting the glory of God, he started saying, "Man, look at me.
I'm a pretty big deal.
" Well, when Israel forsook the God who made them, and they began to worship idols, you know what they did?
They exchanged God's glory for the absurdity of the gods they made themselves.
They just exchanged it.
Romans chapter 1 speaks on this.
It says in Romans 1 21 through 23, "Because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God.
They did not consider him to be the big deal, what really matters in life.
Neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened, professing themselves to be wise.
They became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, into birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things, some of the different idols they make, or the things they worship.
When Israel rejected God, they destroyed the foundation from which their glory came.
Just destroyed it.
They forsook the glory of God, and they were left now with the glory of man.
That's all they had left.
You know, there's a big difference between God's glory and man's glory.
Big difference.
Man has glory.
But man's glory is what the Bible calls vain glory, which means empty glory.
Now, I'm not going to teach you anything in her lesson, but my wife next week is going to be teaching a lesson on our reflection of God, mirrors.
That's going to be the theme in her lesson.
It's a really good lesson.
And God designed us to be like a mirror.
Do you know that?
He designed the human race to be like mirrors, because we were supposed to reflect the glory of God.
Let us make man our image.
If you looked at man, it would look like looking at a mirror, and it would reflect the image in the glory of God.
Could you imagine having a mirror?
What if you were to walk into.
.
.
And you don't have any fancy mirrors, pretty mirrors at home?
Anybody?
You got.
.
.
I figured you would.
The whites, they got all of it.
Anybody else?
All right, Brittany, I'll use you then.
Could you imagine going to look in your mirror at the house, you're getting ready for church, you're all fixed up, and you go check yourself before you go, and you look in the mirror, and there's no reflection.
You can't see yourself in the mirror anymore.
Would that mirror be any good to you?
That mirror would not be performing the task.
It was designed to do and sit in that room or bathroom, whatever to do.
And what if you talk to that mirror, and you said, "Wait a second.
I need to be able to see my reflection in here," and that mirror were to say, "Why have a reflection when you can look at my glass?
" You see, when you look in the mirror, and the mirror shows no image, that's an empty reflection.
That's a vain mirror.
Vain means empty.
That's what the Bible calls vain glory.
Man's glory is vain glory.
It's like looking into an empty mirror, and the mirror thinking, "You don't need to see yourself.
You don't need to see your reflection.
Just look at my frame.
Just look at my shiny glass.
It's all about me," and that's not what the mirror is about.
Without God, our glory is like a mirror reflecting its own empty, glassy image.
It's hollow, superficial, meaningless glory.
Bruce Springsteen, who I'm sure Brother Shepard used to listen to, he used to sing a song called "Glory Days.
" Y'all remember that song, "Glory Days?
" And he spoke about the time, if you were to read the lyrics, when he was young, and the people he went to school with were glorified with their athletic ability or their natural beauty.
And then he talked about how he grew up and how everything changed for those people and how none of that stuff even mattered anymore.
He sung about how quickly that glory fades.
He said, "Glory days, they'll pass you by.
Glory days in the wink of a young girl's eye.
" Man's glory has no eternal weight.
Man's glory quickly fades away.
If you were to watch our service from last week, if you were to watch the video of it, you'll see those two flowers in my suit pocket.
But one week later, who wants to see those flowers there now?
Nobody, because their glory has faded away.
Why?
They were cut off from their root, their source of life.
And when Israel abandoned their God, they were like that flower that for a while appeared glorious in itself, but being separated from their source of life, that glory begins to fade away.
And then it turns into something that nobody wants to look at anymore.
It's all dried up.
It's rotten.
It's withered.
1 Peter chapter 1, 24 through 25, read those together now, "For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man is the flower of grass.
The grass withereth and the flower thereof falleth away.
But the word of the Lord endureth forever.
" And this is the word by which the gospel is preached unto you.
Do you see what Peter is saying?
Listen now what Peter is saying.
He said, "All mankind, all the positions of the earth, all the people of the earth, all the things that man glories in today, one day it's going to fade away.
Their flowers going to fall off.
It's going to become rotten.
But the word of God will endure forever.
And the word I'm preaching to you that will endure forever is the gospel of Jesus Christ.
" That's what Peter is saying.
That's a glory that will never, ever, ever fade away.
Israel traded the forever enduring glory of God for their own vain glory, which like a flower dries up and withers away when their fleeting season is over.
So God said, "As for Ephraim, their glory," look back in your text, "shall fly away.
" It means it would depart suddenly.
Have you ever looked out your window?
Look maybe in your front yard or your backyard or maybe a lot and you just see that lot covered in birds.
Maybe a big flock of blackbirds all over it.
You go, "Wow, look at all those birds.
Honey, come here.
Look at these birds.
Don't shout too loud.
" Because a little sound and what happens, and by the time they get there, they're gone.
And there's hardly any trace at all, if any at all, that the birds were ever there.
They all take off at once.
This is what would happen to Israel.
This is what happens to us.
This is what happens to nations.
How it happens to people.
One day they're glorious.
One day Israel will be a glorious nation.
Their military would seem strong.
Their economy robust.
Their future bright and their people free.
And then suddenly their glory would fly away.
Look back in your text, "will fly away like a bird.
" Just like a bird.
Real sudden like.
One moment it's there and the next moment it's gone.
And this shows us the fragility of man's glory.
That suddenly, unexpectedly, your glory, like a bird, can fly away.
The things that you glory in today, you may feel good today, but your health can fail you in a moment.
We may be at peace today, but our enemy can suddenly bring us to our knees.
You know on 9/11, I know I mentioned that the other day and I guess it was fresh on my mind, it only took a handful of men, just a handful of men, to bring our nation to a panic and shut our airlines nationwide down.
Bring them to a standstill.
And to this day, that handful of now deceased men, they're dead, they're gone, it's over.
Yet that handful of men are still costing our nation billions of dollars in security and apparently have have laden us with a never-ending inconvenience at our airports.
You know what that tells us?
Our glory is so fragile.
At any moment, we can receive news that will change our lives forever.
Y'all ever had that happen to you?
At any moment, receive news changes your life forever.
At any moment, we can be in a car wreck and become crippled.
At any moment, our glory can fly away so much so that we despair even to continue living.
Brother Richard, that's a sad note.
It is.
They remind you what Peter said.
"The glory of man is as the flower of grass.
It withers, it falls away, but the word of the Lord endures forever, and that word is the gospel that he preaches unto us.
" That's the glory that never ever ends.
Our glory will fade away, but not so with the glory of God.
God is unchanging.
His exceeding great glory, therefore, is unchanging.
And this is why the apostle Paul said, "God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.
" Listen, I don't care what situation you're in.
If you put your hope, if you make yourself, your present circumstances, your glory, you are in for a bitter disappointment.
There's a weightlifter.
He was a bodybuilder.
He was a Dallas police officer, Brother Shepherd.
I can't remember his name right now.
Ronnie Coleman.
He was Mr.
Olympia.
That man had muscles on his muscles.
He was huge.
And they made videos of him, and everywhere he went, just muscles sticking out everywhere.
He's crippled now.
He's crippled.
He can barely even walk and barely even slide into a chair.
Man's glory flies away like a bird.
Lyle Alzado, remember him?
Big old strong guy talking about how he'd like to beat people up and crash into folks.
And when he's playing football and all that, he was a football star back in the day.
In one moment, he gets the news.
He's got cancer.
And there's his little old wife trying to help him along as he's frail, looking like that.
Just like grass.
Don't get up and think, "My finances, my wealth, my career, my beauty, my strength.
" The Bible says the glory of a young man is a strength.
The problem is he doesn't stay young.
So that glory will fade away.
If you make that your glory, if that's what you're excited about, that's what is making your life, is this, then you're in for a bit of disappointment.
But if you do like the apostle Paul and you say, "God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of my Lord Jesus Christ.
" At no time can our identity in Christ be shaken.
At no time can our hope of eternal life be put in jeopardy.
At no time can God's plans, promises, and loving grace for us in the gospel fly away like a bird.
When we're young, everything about our bodies is overblown in our minds.
You know, Barack Obama, when he was president, he asked the news media to please not talk about his ears because he's been self-conscious of them since he was a kid.
Cartoons would make big ears on him or something.
You know, please don't talk about my ears.
It still bothers him.
Did you know that people when they grow up, and I'm not talking about Barack Obama saying that, I'm using a point because it all comes back to us.
When we're young, things trouble us.
Maybe things we experience with our parents.
Maybe things we experience with bullying at school.
People teasing us.
And we look in the mirror and then it's exaggerated.
Maybe people picked on us for things.
Maybe they pick on you for things today.
And we look at that and we think, "I have nothing to glory in.
" We walk around embarrassed being ourselves.
Anyone ever felt embarrassed being themselves before?
You know, I see hands going up, don't have to raise them.
But almost everyone in here, even Brother Shepherd was shaking his head and everyone wants to be him.
But we get self-conscious of things.
And when we do, we walk around like this.
Even when we grow up, even grown men and women can look in the mirror and still think, "If it wasn't for this, I wish my teeth were straight.
I wish I didn't have that spot on my face.
I wish I didn't have this whatever infirmity of my flesh.
" So we walk around like this.
But you know what?
If you realize that your identity is not based on your physicality, is not based on your flesh.
It's based in Jesus Christ.
Then you have a glory that will never fade away.
You can wake up excited every morning.
Look in the mirror and say, "There is a child of the living God.
There's a man or woman who has hope in Jesus Christ that will never fade away, a joy reserved in us for us in heaven.
" Israel had forsaken the glorious plan that God had for them.
So all they had was the fleeting glory of man, which God said would fly away.
Look back in your text.
It would fly away from the birth and from the womb and from the conception.
Now there's an order given here.
Birth, womb, conception.
Reverse it back, conception, womb, and birth.
There's an order here.
The conception, the attempt to have children.
The womb, the anticipation of children.
The birth, the arrival of children.
You see that?
And in these three areas, the attempt, the anticipation, and the arrival of children, their glory would fly away from all of those things.
When a young couple conceive, that's the attempt in the conception.
When a young couple conceive a child, what do they do?
They have glory in that, don't they?
They start posting on Facebook, "Look!
Look at the little sonogram.
Look at the little blob there.
Oh, look at that!
" They'll have a picture and they'll do like this.
There's no bump there yet, but look, we got a little love there.
We got a little baby in the oven.
I've conceived.
I got the news.
I'm pregnant.
They tell Grandma and Grandpa and everyone shouts for joy.
Everyone celebrates the good, good news.
And when the child grows in that womb, that moves us to the next phase, not the conception only, but the womb.
What happens in the womb?
There's joy and celebration there.
Today, what do we do?
We got to have a gender reveal party now.
And they get more and more elaborate as they go.
You can't just say, "Well, it's a boy, it's a girl.
Oh, you got to have smoke or fireworks or something, or blue or red or pink cake.
" Something's got to go on.
And then they pick out names for the child.
And you can't forget the baby shower.
They had those before the gender revealers part.
You got to have a baby shower too.
And when that child is born, they're going to take pictures and everybody's going to brag on that baby.
There's glory at every stage of the way.
But God said this would be the place from which their glory would fly.
God would bring sorrow and disappointment in all of these stages, which otherwise would have been joyful experiences.
God said, look now in verse 12, Hosea 912, "Though they bring up their children, yet will I bereave them that there shall not be a man left, yet woe also to them when I depart from them.
" Notice it says, "When I depart from them.
" Like any other nation, Israel would invest in their children and depend on them to grow up and defend their nation.
Young people are the ones who fight our battles in the military, not old people.
Man, if you had to depend on old people, we'd all fail.
It's the young people who go out and do all of that.
And they were going to invest in their kids, they were going to educate their kids, they were going to train their kids so they could grow up to defend them.
And then the care for them when they're old is the young people.
We go to the doctor and say, "That doctor and nurse seem so young.
That's because the rest of us are dead, or they're getting treated, or whatever, and they're having to get cared for by the young people.
" But God said, "I'm going to deprive you of those young people.
" Whether through a decline in birth rate or increase in death rate, the nation would experience decline.
God said, "Woe also to them when I depart from them.
" That was the key.
The glory would depart because the Lord would depart.
That's the key.
First Samuel chapter 4, the Philistines had stolen the Ark of God, which belonged in the Holy of Holies, and that's where God's presence dwelt when he dwelt among Israel.
And in first Samuel 4.
22, "A brokenhearted woman said this news, and she said, 'The glory is departed from Israel, for the Ark of God is taken.
'" The glory is departed from Israel.
The presence of God is what makes a nation glorious.
The presence of God is what makes a family glorious.
The presence of God is what makes a marriage glorious.
The presence of God is what makes a person truly glorious.
The presence of God in Israel is what set them apart from every other nation.
But without God, they were just like every other nation.
There was no difference between them and the rest of the unbelieving world.
You know, God made the United States glorious, but our glory is fading away as the knowledge of God continues to fade away.
It's fading away.
Notice that the words, "that there shall," if you have a King James, they're italicized in your King James Bible.
I do like that about the King James Bible.
They're italicized.
That means they're not there in the original languages.
The translators supplied them.
Even the words "be" and "left" are not in the original text.
The Hebrew word translated "not" literally means "from" in the Hebrew dictionary.
The text literally says, "God will breathe them from men.
" He will breathe them from men.
He's not saying there won't be a single man left, "for then the nation of Israel would cease," which God is obviously not saying, since he promised they would never end, that the Savior of the world would come from them, from Abraham's offspring.
So the idea is that their disobedience would cause their decline.
Here's a kingdom truth for you this morning.
Obedience to God brings growth.
Disobedience to God brings decline.
Obedience to God brings growth, whether it's personal growth, your spiritual growth, your family growth, your church growth, spiritually speaking.
Obedience to God brings growth.
Disobedience brings decline.
In Deuteronomy chapter 28, verse 62 through 64, God warned Israel, "What would happen to them if they disobeyed His word when they were in the Promised Land?
" He said, "And ye shall be left few in number, whereas ye were as the stars of heaven for multitude, because thou wouldest not obey the voice of the Lord thy God.
And it shall come to pass that as the Lord rejoiced over you to do you good and to multiply you, so the Lord will rejoice over you to destroy you and to bring you to naught or to nothing.
And ye shall be plucked from off the land whither thou goest to possess it.
And the Lord shall scatter thee among all people from one end of the earth even unto the other, and there thou shalt serve other gods which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, even wood and stone.
" That has literally been fulfilled.
What God told them in Deuteronomy has literally been fulfilled.
They got plucked off their land, they got scattered, they got taken captive, and then they got scattered all over the face of the earth.
Why were Jews being put in ovens in Europe?
Because they got plucked from the promised land where they were, because they disobeyed the voice of God.
How do they get in Europe?
Why are they in the United States?
And he said, "And then you're going to start worshipping whatever the countries that you're in are worshipping.
" That's why we have Jews in America who don't believe in God.
They're atheists like the Americans are.
They take up their way of thinking because God is what separated them from everybody else.
Now they're left, they were brought to being few in number.
The Nazis burned them in the ovens not too long ago.
They're children, they're offspring.
They were scattered all over the earth just like God said, and even though God has brought a remnant back to the promised land now, they are still such a tiny little nation, not like the stars of heaven for multitude, and they're despised by the world.
You notice how despised they are by the world?
People marching against them, people wanting to wipe them off the face of the earth.
Why?
Their glory is God just like God said it would be.
But you know what's going to happen?
God's going to return their glory to them.
If the departure of God from Israel meant the departure of Israel's glory, then the return of God to Israel will be the return of Israel's glory, you see?
When God comes again in the person of Christ, he's going to bring glory back to Israel when Israel takes him back unto themselves.
Here's what you can expect.
Here's what you can expect.
The world is very hostile towards Israel right now.
But in the coming days, we can expect the nations to grow more hostile towards Israel.
Eventually, those nations who seek to destroy Israel and wipe them off the map will attempt to do so, and it will be a multinational collaboration from what I can tell in Scripture.
When they attack Israel, and right when you think Israel is going to be over with, it's going to be done for them, our Redeemer will come to their aid and they will accept him as their Savior.
Isaiah chapter 59, verses 19 through 20 says this, "So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west and his glory from the rising of the sun, when the enemy shall come in like a flood.
" You ever seen the flood come in and sweep a town away?
I mean, it just comes in and just sweeps the town away.
He says the enemy's going to come on Israel like a flood.
"When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him.
" The devil is going to bring the armies of the earth against Israel.
It's going to be like the fulfillment in the book of Genesis where God said, "I'll put enmity between thee and the woman, between thy seed and her seed.
" The woman here is the nation of Israel, and now the devil, that old serpent, the dragon, the book of Revelation, he's going to bring the nations against Israel.
They're going to come in like a flood, and the Bible says God is going to lift up a standard against him.
You know what a standard is?
Standard is a flag.
He says, "Oh no, not my people.
" You know, when we conquer a particular land, what do we do?
We raise our flag on that land.
God's going to lift up a standard.
He's going to bring the kingdom of God back to the people of God.
Lift the standard up against that old enemy, the devil, who's been trying to destroy the people of God and the church of God ever since the very beginning.
He'll lift up a standard against him, verse 20, "And the Redeemer shall come to Zion.
" Now, in the Old Testament, there is only one way or two ways that you could redeem something.
One is with money, the other was with blood and death.
Those two ways signified this one truth, that there must be bloodshed, that death must come through a substitute, because if a man had a son, he had to redeem his son with a substitute animal in the Old Testament.
If someone were put in bondage, they could be redeemed with money to pay the price that was owed.
All of that was a picture of how we would be redeemed when Jesus came and paid the price we owed, not with silver, not with gold, but by his own blood, as the Bible says.
He's redeemed us.
"You were not redeemed with corruptible things such as silver and gold," the Bible says, "but with the precious blood of Christ, and now the Redeemer shall come to Zion, the one who died for their sins, and unto them that turned from transgression in Jacob.
" Jacob is Israel.
We learned that this morning in Genesis to Jesus.
The sons of Jacob, the children of Israel, they'll turn from their transgression, they'll accept their Redeemer, and the standard of the Lord will fight for them.
Notice that the glory of the Lord returns to Israel when the Redeemer returns to Israel.
That's Jesus.
Jesus said in Matthew chapter 24 verse 30, talking about his return, listen to how he described his return, Matthew 24 30, Jesus said, "And then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man," that's him, in heaven, "and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn.
" Oh, they'll mourn all right.
"They'll mourn and they shall see the Son of Man coming and the clouds of heaven with power," read the rest with me, "and great," what?
Glory.
The glory of God is going to return to the people of God.
We will finally reflect the true image of God.
It's going to be a glorious time, and that glory will never fade away because he will never, ever leave us.
The Bible says when he comes in this great power and glory, "So shall we ever be with the Lord," never separated from the glory of God again.
It'll never fade away.
When Adam sinned, the glory departed from man, but one day the glory of God will return back to Israel, back to the earth, and back to us, for when Jesus returns the glory, he's going to fly back with him.
That will close.
Father, we thank you so much for your precious word.
We thank you, Father, for the great encouragement of your prophecies.
We thank you, Father, for the great warnings of your admonitions to us and your rebukes to us, Father, as we read what you're telling Israel to make us fear your great name, Father, and to never, ever look to our own glory, to never worry about being despised, Father, for how we look, how we think, how we talk, how we act, what we have, what we don't have, but let us glory in the cross of Jesus Christ, our Lord, who will bring back all the glory one day when he comes again.
Thank you for the everlasting hope, the everlasting joy, and the everlasting big deal we have in Jesus Christ.
His name we pray, and thank you, Father, for the food that we're about to receive.
Amen.
