Did any buddy know that last long? Kay thinks she knows it. No, that was on earlier. But then you let your mind drift. Yes. I don't know. There we go. I got my mic on now. I do know the song because I read it, but I don't know the song. We might have to learn it. It's called a soul. Winner for Jesus. Doesn't that sound like a modern hymn? Yeah. Do you all sing that in the Church of Christ? You don't know that one either? That's why it had piano with it. That couldn't have been no, it's not Methodist, because it's about soul winning. We'll check it out. Any of you online know that song? A soul. Winner for Jesus. I don't know it, but anyway, it was playing. So for those of you online, that's what was going on. Here is the proud daddy and his new baby. I sorry Whitney and Halle didn't make that picture, but this was Miles first trip to the office. He came the other day, had a doctor's appointment and so he swung over to the office, too. And isn't that a good looking baby boy? Don't you think so? Just thought I would show him off just a little bit here. He'll be a week old on Saturday and Hallie will be three years old on Saturday, too. So got a lot of that going on. But now we'll get where we came for tonight, and that is Hosea, rightly? Divided the 16th session. After 16 weeks in hosea. We are concluding the book of Hosea tonight and going to finish it up and I'll start something new next week. I have in mind I'm this close to announcing it, but then I'm always afraid by tomorrow I might wake up with a different mood. And I don't want to obligate myself to anything, but by Sunday, I'll tell you that. How's that? I'll know for sure by Sunday if that's the mood I am in. I talked to Shelley about it a little this morning, actually. I didn't give her this idea, but I was like, okay, where do I go from here? Because in the New Testament I've done all but the big books and some of the big book. In fact, I've done everything except Matthew, Mark and Luke. I think I've done everything but Matthew, Mark and Luke. And they're all fairly big books and detailed. So I was like, okay, do I want to jump into yeah, I can't be longer than John. You're right. But I think Matthew is actually so I was like, okay, do I jump into that or not? But anyway, I have an idea, and it's probably not Matthew, but I am going to do Matthew sometimes because it's a Big Kingdom book. But anyway, we shall see. We also have something new coming up in our Bible study hour and I'm pretty sure I know what I'm going to do for that. I'll go ahead and tell you, we are going to do for I don't know how many weeks, we're going to do a virtual tour of Israel. We are going to pull out some pictures, we're going to get some of the places that you read in your Bible and they're important places, and you come across all the time Capernium or Nazareth or Jerusalem or all these places, and all you know is that's where that happened. But we'll look at that and go on a little virtual tour studying the biblical significance of those places more than anything else, and a little of the historical significance of some of those as well. Let me lead us in a word of prayer and let's jump right into our last session of the Book of Hosea. Heavenly Father, we're most grateful for little baby Miles and for so much more. Dear Heavenly Father, and the blessings that are ours and the grace that is ours, and this wonderful fellowship and the good meal that we have had. Thank you for Frank and Jean and preparing it and the others who helped out as well, and for the fellowship and the friendship that's always found in this place. For that we are most grateful as well as the word of God, and we are appreciative in Jesus name. Amen. As I was praying there, I was thinking, we're not like most churches. We're different mainly because we're America's greatest tiny church. When you're a tiny church, you do things a little differently. And there are some things maybe we don't do very well. But eating, I'm pretty sure we're America's greatest eating church. Not only America's greatest tiny church, but we eat better than any of them. And then at least the volume of Bible study, I think my personal opinion is the content's better too, but the volume of Bible study certainly is better than others. So anyway, that was just an advertisement. Hosea, rightly? Divided we come into now, Hosea chapter 13. Last week we made it in chapter 13. Remember, there was incrimination and promises and we were looking at it, kind of went back and forth between here's the bad stuff you've done, but here's what I'm going to do, incrimination and promises. And we made it all the way up to verse 14 of Hosea chapter 13. And so tonight we pick up in Hosea chapter 13, verse 15, right where we left off, and we will make our way down to the end of verse of chapter 14. So though he be fruitful among his brethren now, just in case you slept since last week, I know you are 1 hour short on your sleep since last week, but since you slept since last week, he though he be fruitful among his brethren, we dug down on that and determined that the he was Jereboam. Jereboam, the first king of Israel and Jereboam, first king of Israel. Tribe of Ephraim John and I had a discussion about how you pronounce, we usually say Ephraim, but in Hebrew Ephraim. So Jereboam, head of the tribe of Ephraim, if you will, or most prominent child of Ephraim, and therefore throughout the book we have seen Ephraim as representative of all the nation, and Jereboam again comes in then as the Ephraimite, if you will. So here we're talking about Jereboam. Now you could substitute here almost a number of things, though Ephraim, though Jereboam, though Israel, the northern kingdom, any of those would fit. But here specifically speaking about Jereboam, though he be fruitful among his brethren, that ties back to chapter 13, verse one, but we won't go there. Though he be fruitful among his brethren and east wind shall come. The wind of the Lord shall come up from the wilderness, and his spring shall become dry, and his fountain shall be dried up. He shall spoil the treasures of all pleasant vessels. Basically, that says bad days are ahead. You might have started well and been fruitful among your brethren, but there's some punishment and judgment to come. Now, I should note that by the time this was written, Jereboham is dead. So he definitely, it's speaking symbolically as here's the heart of the nation and it's going to die, or here's the father of the nation. And I'm using him, as we said a number of times through this study, he's the Uncle Sam, he's the iconic representative of the nation, and he's not going to make it. There's going to be judgment that comes. So basically it says there's going to be judgment that comes upon the nation, the northern kingdom of Israel. Now, I didn't look up, and I should have, because sometimes you study all day and then you come stand here and say, why didn't I look that up? That's kind of a basic issue right there. But it says an east wind shall come. I know winds prevail from the west, right? And a wind from the west is called a west west wind. I think it's unusual to have an east wind, but you can when there's, what, a low pressure in the right place that swings the wind around that way. And a low pressure would be kind of a storm, I think, like a hurricane maybe. So I suspect an east wind that the wind of the Lord shall come up from the wilderness. So if you take the northern kingdom, you go east from there, that gets into real desert territory. You put a storm out there and it circles up, or put it up here and it circles around and comes in from the east, my guess is you are going to get a mouthful of dirt is what I suspect that all means. I didn't look that up to see why an east wind, not why I just skipped over that in my brain as I was studying it's. Judgment, however it is an east wind shall come. The wind of the Lord shall come from the wilderness. His spring, jereboham spring shall become dry. His fountain shall be dried up. He shall spoil the treasure of all the pleasant vessels. Okay, bad news for Jereboham and Jereboham's life. I think if we were to put a tombstone up for Jereboam and put an epitaph on the tombstone, we might put those famous words. Who wrote these famous words? I don't remember those famous words. The saddest words of tongue and pen are these sad words, what might have been? Anybody remember that? Do you remember the line? But do you remember who said it? I don't either, as a poet once said. So Jared Bohem, I think, started out good. He started out with a lot of promise, and yet as soon as he took the throne, as soon as he got a position of power, I don't know if it went to his head or politics took over, and he began to really want to entrench his power and strengthen his political influence. And it went downhill fast. And let's see, since we've already had east, it went south. I can tell you that things weren't looking so good there. So this is what we've got of Jereboam. And really, it says of the nation that even though there was some hope at the beginning, there's no hope left. And then he comes and uses Samaria here. Now, Samaria do you know why it's called Samaria, by the way? Because when Moses, he wasn't able to go into the promised land, you remember, but when he stood on Mount Nebo and looked over, he said, whoa, some areas that's in the book of Hezekiah. Yeah, the book of Hosea uses it's. It's obviously a literary device. There's probably a name for it. I don't know what you call it, but it uses these substitute names, all meaning the same thing, whether it's Israel, Ephraim, Jereboam, Samaria. Samaria is the capital of Israel. It's represented by Ephraim, which is represented by Jerry Bohem. So here it continues in the same it perhaps just broadens it out here. I think if we were in the United States, we would say something like, washington, DC. Will become desolate, and all God's people, never mind. So Samaria shall become desolate, for she hath rebelled against her God. They shall fall by the sword, their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up. Now, that is a gruesome verse right there, isn't it? It is obviously a verse of judgment. It's a prophetic word of judgment, announcing judgment upon the Northern Kingdom. And it does bring about some disturbing imagery, obviously, there with the infants dashed in pieces and their women with child shall be ripped up, pregnant women ripped up. Now, some would say on this, why in the world is God putting such a gruesome judgment upon them? That you would say, surely God would at least not bring judgment down upon the infant children and the pregnant women if you're going to spare anybody? Let's do that. I think we might be misreading that a little bit in taking this as saying, god is going to do this to the infants. I don't think that's what he's saying. I think he's saying, this is what's going to happen, is that the infants are going to be dashed. Now, what he's saying is, I am going to remove my hand upon you. The enemy is going to come in, and guess what your enemy is going to do? He's going to dash your infants to pieces. He's going to rip open the pregnant women. And if you look back now, anytime you go way back in history, you have to take historical facts with a little bit of grain of salt, because CNN wasn't there to tell us the truth, because some of the stuff is lost to time. We get the basic facts to it, but some of it is lost to time. But we think from the evidence, as long as we're reading the evidence correctly, we think from the evidence that ancient warfare really was very brutal and the victor came in and didn't spare anything. And it really, as a matter of just I don't know how to say it, rubbing it in your face that we have won. They would take the most innocent and slaughter them just to say, this is who we are. We are the victors. It was really a show of strength, and strength is what won the day in the ancient world, as we're interpreting it. Anyway, when it came to warfare. And there's a number of places, in fact, Ashdod, which is just south of modern Tel Aviv, they discovered there a huge boneyard, I'll say, of infants from ancient warfare in which the enemy took the babies and dashed them into pieces and put them in a pile and buried them, and thousands of years later, they discover. So I think that this is not God saying, I am going to dash your infants to pieces and rip up your pregnant women. I think this is God saying, when the Assyrians come in, remember, this is what happens in war, and this is what's going to happen to you. So you need to weigh the consequences here. It would be almost like saying, I don't know if I've been listening to an audio book a little bit about World War One, and it's almost like saying, when you get into the war, guns are going to be shot. Okay? Yeah, well, that's what war does. You shoot guns or tanks or whatever it is. So I think this is not necessarily prescriptive as much as it is descriptive. The Lord's going to move his hand, and that is what is going to happen. So we finish out verses 15 and 16. By the way, I should mention one other thing. Most of the time, I would say probably 98% of the time in the scripture, the Hebrew Bible, the Tanak, as they call it, has the same chapters and verse numbers that we have in our Christian Bibles, we'll call it. But there are a few times when that's different. This is one of the times when it's different. Then this is just in case you happen to be reading your Tanak tonight. Chapter 14 starts up here in the Hebrew Bible. And so chapter 13, verse 16 is actually chapter 14, verse one. I didn't look. I should have, because this is fairly easy. I suspect the reason that the Hebrew Bibles did that is because though the ancient Hebrew text was not written with verse numbers and chapter numbers, it was written with I'll call it a soft break and a hard break in the line. And you could kind of tell, okay, this is a new paragraph, or this completely starts the new thing. My guess is there's a hard break here. And the rabbis later, as they're putting numbers and chapters in there, chapters and numbers, they look at it and say, that Englishman got that wrong. We need to fix this one the rest of them will live with, but we need to fix this one and take care of that. By the way, chapters and verse numbers is a Christian thing, not a Jewish thing. The Jews later adopted it only because, well, it was handy for one to be able to look for something, but the influence of Christianity just sort of spread. And so they said, okay, let's take those. Let's put the same numbers in ours. But they start chapter 14 there, which would kind of break that up just a little bit. Now we begin chapter 14, the last chapter in the book of Hosea. And it says, O Israel, return to the Lord thy God, for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity here. We come all through, I think, the 14th chapter to the future Escaton. Eschatology, the last days. Escaton is the last days. Eschatology is the study of the last days. So I would call this an Eschatological chapter. That is, it is about the last days. So all through the book, you know that we have had prophecies against Israel, the Northern Kingdom, which prophesied her destruction back in 723 BC. But that's come and gone a long time ago, right? But also in the book of Hosea, we have prophecies side by side and sometimes even overlapping. I'll call it kind of a dual prophecy that talks about what's going to happen in the very last days. So let's put it together this way. We just had, in verses 15 and 16, a prophecy really, I think, about Israel in 723 BC. The Assyrians are going to come in, they're going to dash your babies to pieces. This is not going to end well. In fact, it looks like the end done all she wrote. But immediately the Lord comes in and says, o Israel, return to the Lord thy God, for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity. Now, I think here we jump to the end of days and say, and this tells us, oh, Israel didn't cease to exist. She got scattered. We call the Northern Kingdom the ten tribes today. Unfortunately, the lost ten tribes, they're not really lost, they're scattered. There's these scattered ten tribes out there. But, hey, they're going to come back together again. And that's what we see in chapter 14, is they're going to come back together. So I would take chapter 14 and really kind of jump to the end of time and say, oh, Israel, return to the Lord thy God. The reason I put this at the end of time is because everything you can pick out from chapter 13, in previous chapters, it says Israel. It doesn't matter what kind of repentance you do, the Assyrians are coming in. I'm done with this. I think in verse 14 of the previous chapter, the Lord says something like, I will not repent of this. I'm not changing my mind. Here's what I'm going to do. So it can't be, oh, but I will change my mind if you'll return to the Lord thy God. I think it is, here comes the judgment. You're going to live through it. You're going to go through it. The nation is going to survive. Maybe just a little thread of you, a remnant of you, but it's going to survive. And now, later, here comes the call to Israel. Return to the Lord thy God. Thou hast fallen by thine iniquity. So the Lord gives this call to return unto him. Now, we could and we won't tonight, but we could do an interesting study here on this little part right here. Return unto the Lord Thy God. For the Jewish people. Now, you and I just take that in a spiritual sense, return, and we might talk about rededicating our lives or whatever. I'm going to return to the Lord in that spiritual sense. But return to the Lord for us wouldn't mean pack your bags and move to where the Lord lives. We would take it completely spiritually, I think, for Israel. Return to the Lord thy God, especially the Northern Kingdom here. It kind of means quit doing that fake religion you've got and come down to Jerusalem where I am. I dwell in the temple, and I want you to get down to the temple. I want you to restore your Judaism. And then if you put this at the end of time, as I'm doing, then it's even the involvement of, hey, Jewish people, you need to return to the land. This is where you belong. I gave you this land. It's the land of promise. This is where I'm going to be with you. This is where I'm going to develop you as a nation. This is where I'm going to give you your blessings. You come and so a lot more packed into, I think, return unto the Lord. Thy God than we probably put into it. Thou hast fallen by thine iniquity. Now, again, notice even that I didn't look into the Hebrew on it, but I'm going to suspect that the English got this right here. Thou hast fallen. That is yeah, the Assyrians already came. Now, I'm telling you, now that you have fallen got scattered about. I want you to return. So the Lord gives this call, which is kind of a gracious thing in and of itself, isn't it, that the Lord calls them back and then he gives them instructions on how to return. And I think this is important for this part right here, rightly divided hosea. Rightly divided. Now, what am I saying about that? If you're around here very often, you know that I'm saying we have to take that which is for Israel and set it on one side, and that which is for anybody and set it on this side. And we happen to be anybody. We're not Israel. This verse two is a word for Israel. It would be very easy to preach hosea 14 one and two to these people over here. And I could even show you a sample if I wanted to slip into my old Baptist preacher days. Let me show you what I mean here. So return to the Lord your God, take with you words and turn to the Lord. Okay? Words. In fact, you got take with you words. Say, obviously, words, you say something right now, let me just stop right there. Do you ever expect or demand that somebody say something with their mouth actually moving? Yeah. Okay. I don't know why I just thought of this, but the bigger boy there, when he was young, he hated to say, I'm sorry. I mean, he hated to say I'm sorry. And it was nigh unto impossible to get him to open his mouth and say he didn't want to voice those words to his sister or to whoever it was that he offended. And we're trying to teach him to be a good, upstanding, moral man, because someday he's going to be the father of a young baby who's my grandson. And so you teach your kids that. But, man, he didn't want to say that. Now, Hannah was just the opposite. You'd look at her like this, and she'd go crying and I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. I repent and sackcloth and ashes. But Nathan so here let's get back to the text here. The Lord says, when you come back to me, you repent. I want you to when you come back to the Lord, take with you words, turn and say. Now take, turn, say. How does that fit the verse? It is by grace you are saved through faith, not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. Yeah, that take, turn and say is works and sometimes really hard works to say, I'm sorry, I got to take I got to turn. I got to take to the Lord, I got to bring words. I got to open my mouth. I got to say, now, here's what they're to say. Their prayer begins here. If you will take away all iniquity and receive us graciously so we will render so we will render the calves of our lips. Let me start at the end there because that's kind of an odd phrase, isn't it? So we will render the calves of our lips. That's a Hebraism. That? Is it's Hebrew talk. And they would bring a calf for the offering, for the sacrifice. And here it's saying, the sacrifice we're going to make is we are going to open our mouth and we are going to say, take away all iniquity and receive us graciously. Now, that requires a little bit of humility, doesn't it? For a proud nation, for what's the scripture called stiff necked, for this nation that was born of God and yet always a little bit stubborn. I kind of like stubborn, by the way, and I think God does too. I think he raised them to be stubborn because otherwise they wouldn't have survived. And yet for a stubborn people to come and say, take away all iniquity and receive us by the way, can I chase a rabbit for just a moment? Speaking of things I like that sometimes are looked upon as bad. I saw a gang of teenage boys the other day right up here in Taos and they were skateboarding all over and yelling at each other. Not really anything bad, just they were being boys. And I thought I wanted to go up to them and say, can I pay you money to say thank you for being hooligans in the streets? I'm so tired of teenage boys sitting in front of a video game and never going out and seeing the light of the day. God bless you, boys. There should be more of that. When I go to Espinola, my hometown, I tell you every time, I'm like, Where's the cruising? Nobody is cruising the streets up and down. What's wrong with this? You boys get you a low rider and get out here like it should be. Anyway, sometimes there's characteristics that we might one day have thought, that's a bad thing. You boys go home and do your homework now. I'm like, no, get out there and ride your skateboard. Anyway, there's a stubborn group of people and he says, you got to come to me. You got to open your mouth. You got to say, take away all iniquity, receive us graciously. Now, I think that works. First of all. I also think that there is a harmony in the Scripture if you put this together, of that being the requirement for Israel. Now, our requirement is receive the gift that he offers by grace through faith, not of yourselves. Our requirement is to put your faith in Him. But Israel's requirement for the kingdom really is to come and come to the Lord and say, receive us back, take us graciously. I think you see this in like the Prodigal Son, some of these parables in the scripture of Israel coming back in the days of the kingdom. I think that Jesus says this matthew, chapter 23, verse 39. He says, in fact, let me just bring it up here so I get it correct. Jesus is speaking to Israel in Matthew 23 39. And Jesus says, I say to you, ye shall not see me henceforth till ye shall say, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Now, that's a messianic phrase. Blessed is he who comes. So you look at me and say, you're a jolly good fellow. Blessed is he who comes. You're the Messiah, so you'll not see me henceforth till I like time words, because I'm a dispensationalist. Right? Here's the demarcation. The point of demarcation, when you say, when you open your mouth, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Then to take logic all the way here, you'll see me again. That's when I'll show up. When you come. Let's see, we could go to a number of scriptures, jeremiah and others, call on me and you shall find me. When you seek me, I'll be there. It's this I'm putting it on you. You, Israel, have to come and call. You have to say, in fact, just in that word, say the say and call comes over and over and over again talking to Israel. Now, there's one place that I think again, speaking of rightly dividing, there's one place that I think we apply to ourselves, but we should apply to Israel. That's Romans chapter ten, verse 13. Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. I think that fits with Hosea and Israel. And incidentally, Paul in Romans chapter ten, right here is quoting from Joel. Joel, chapter two, I don't know, verse 28 or something like that. So Joel in chapter two, where that's from his context is the kingdom in the last days. And guess what he says? You better call. You better call on him. And whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Hosea says you better call. Jesus says, you better call. Paul says you better call. And Paul, by the way, if you happen to know what Romans 910 and eleven, this is right in the middle of that chapter ten, Romans 910 and eleven is God speaking to Israel. A lot of people call it God's position paper on Israel. And it's in that segment that it says, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And we have kind of taken that and used it for our own purposes. I think we hurt ourselves a little bit in doing it. In fact, if you go back to, what is it, verse nine, if thou shalt confess. With thy mouth. The Lord Jesus. I think that's the same thing. Jesus is saying, you'll not see me henceforth till you say, blessed is he who comes in the Lord. And we get into a little problem here, because we use this in our gospel tracks, telling people how to come to the Lord by grace through faith, not of yourselves. And then it says, if you confess with your mouth oh, wait a minute. You do have to do something, right? You got to confess with your mouth. I want to see your mouth moving. Well, I think the way we got ourselves backed into a corner of saying there's no works involved as long as your mouth is moving, it's kind of like saying there's no work involved as long as you're sweating and digging a hole. Other than that, no works involved. Well, we got it because we didn't put these into the right segment. I know that Romans passage probably should dig into a little further, but let's get back here to Hosea 14, verse two. So take with your words turn, say that is the requirement for Israel, that the Lord wants the calves of their lips. That is, you can bring sacrifices all day long, but I want your mouth moving. This is probably where the old preacher saying you ever heard an old preacher saying? The preacher always says that where the preacher got the old preacher saying, all whom God called, he called publicly. Maybe it's just a Baptist preacher thing. Do church Christ preachers say that? You grew up Baptist, so you don't know you must return, but you spent some time in the Church of Christ, right? Did they say that or that? All whom oh, okay, so we have a daydreamer and a wanderer here. All whom the Lord called, he called publicly. Okay, maybe just my Baptist preachers say that. I think we get this, because I don't think all whom the Lord called, he called publicly, by the way. I think that we get it because we take some of these Jewish passages and we apply them to us, and then we get here you go, take with your words. Now, I mentioned that this would make a good Baptist preacher revival sermon because you could come and preach the revival on Tuesday night. Now it's time to return, everyone. You've been out there drifting on the winds and waves of secular life, and now it's time to return, and you come to the end. Now, here's what I want you to do. I want you to say, I want your mouth open. I want you to say, take away all our iniquity and receive us graciously. Who's willing to stand here before this congregation, say that right here tonight, you have no shame. But you'll come, you, sir, you, ma'am, you, child. Yeah, we're having a revival, ladies and gentlemen. Okay, but the problem is, back in the day, you and I probably got stirred up when that happened. And several people came and they repented and they came back to the Lord and we went home saying, my, that was a good night in the Lord, wasn't it? And yet the problem is we had our theology wrong. We sort of named it and claimed it a little bit in that regard. Okay, the Lord continues talking in verse three, and I got to get out of old Baptist revivals and get back to Hosea. The Lord's still talking. He says to them, oh no, I take this back. This is what they're continued to supposed to say. This is still the calves of their lips. He wants them to say, Asher shall not save us. We will not ride upon horses. We will say no, neither will we say any more to the work of our hands. Ye are our Gods, for in thee the Fatherless find mercy. Let's look at that just a bit here. Asher shall not save us. Now, they were to come and say, the foreign alliances with the Assyrians, Asher and Assyria is the same thing. The foreign alliances is not going to help us. They tried to go to Assyria, they tried to go to Egypt. Somebody come bail us out. And by the time this was spoken, they were paying tribute to Assyria, thinking, as long as we just keep the money coming to them, then they're going to watch out for us and everything will be okay. And he wants them to come and say, no, Asher was not going to save us. We should have gone to the Lord in the first place. This is the demand. Now you might hear say, why would get my sentence in order? Let me back up on that one and come at it again. If you might say, hey, Preacher, if this is about end times, why is it talking about Asher or Assyria? That was 723 BC. This looks more like 723 BC. I still think it's end times. And you may remember, but this is for the advanced class. So you may not remember, but you may remember that sometimes the Antichrist, as we would call him, is called in the scripture, the Assyrian, the Assyrian, and here Asher Assyrian. I kind of think that this still is with the end times. And the Jewish people almost get snookered by the Antichrist, right? Some probably do. They think, hey, here's our guy. Here's our messiah. This is him. The Messianic kingdom has come. And they've got to come and say, oh, wait a minute, wait. He is not going to save us. He is not our messiah. He is not the one. So this is not only a confession, boy, God, have we messed up, but this is a confession. We're not going to follow Him. You could add so much to that. We're not going to get the mark of the beast. We're not going to participate in his system. We're not going to bow down to his idol, any of that kind of stuff. Asher will not save us. Now, I recognize that I'm reading a lot into that. Asher will not save us. And to make that the Antichrist, but I think there's a decent argument that could be made for it. And if we built all the scriptures about the Assyrian and put them together in times, I think you would say, at least it's a viable argument. If I didn't convince you, you would say it is a viable argument. I'll give him that. So he wants them to basically renounce the Antichrist here. Asher shall not save us. We will not ride upon horses. Again, I think of the passage and pardon me, I may slip to Nasb on this, because I don't remember exactly how it says it in the King James some trust in horses, some in chariots, but we will trust upon the name of the Lord, our God. And the idea we will not ride upon horses is we just are totally trusting in you. We're not going to try to win this one ourselves. Neither will we say anymore to the work of our hands that ye are our gods. That is, we're done with idol worship. And he will come in the end, or they will come, and he wants them to say he's telling them what to say. For in thee the Fatherless findeth mercy. Okay, remember the I think it's the second daughter of Gomer, way back at the beginning of this. Her name was Lo Ruhama. Lo Ruhama, I'm sure you remember, means no mercy. No mercy. Here in thee the fatherless find Ruhama. Low means no ruhama means mercy. So that goes back to the beginning again. There was this prophecy, low Ruhama will become Ruhama lo AMI, not my people. Will become AMI, my people. And so this thing's kind of coming full circle here, as they recognize, hey, we are low Ruhama. Unless we come to you. You are the one that gives, in which the Fatherless find mercy. Now, the Lord comes, and this is in verses four through seven. The Lord comes in a really beautiful and gracious, merciful way, saying how he's going to receive them. So basically, you come say this, and what I'll do is verses seven through four through seven. Excuse me. So the Lord says, I will heal their backsliding. I will love them freely. Mine anger is turned away from him. I will be as the dew unto Israel. He shall grow as the lily and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. His branches shall spread. His beauty shall be as the olive tree and his smell as Lebanon. They that dwell under his shadow shall return. They shall revive as the corn and grow as the vine. The scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon. Now, we could we're not going to we could probably go through each one of those poetic descriptions, but I think you would agree with me. That sounds like a good ending to this story here. All of these good things, even down to he shall be as the wine of Lebanon. I guess they were not Baptist. It's a picture of abundance, it's a picture of blessing, it's a picture of fruitfulness. It's a picture of everything that a person wants in life. If we could put it in, I don't know, kind of a cheap way, he says, hey, you are going to have a house with a white picket fence. Everything is going to be idyllic, pastoral, serene and wonderful. And that's the description he gives in four through seven. Now, it is certainly a description of mercy. It's a description of grace, because you kind of want God to say, if you're sort of grumpy, like some of us get every now and then, you kind of want God to say, israel, I wash my hands of you, I get the dust off my feet, I walk away forevermore. You had your chance. Aren't you glad I'm not God? That's kind of like what we want God to do, sort of, especially if we're sanctimonious and self righteous, we want God to wipe them out. And by the way, there's a good segment of Christianity, I should say there's a bad segment of Christianity. There's a large segment of Christianity that does believe that God is never going to receive Israel again. He's done with him? He washed his hands, he walked away, and that he's not going to have this mercy, that Israel is not going to come back to Him. And it's called replacement theology. Say god replaced Israel with us. The new Israel. I reject that idea. But you've got this point of mercy. Now, let me say again, since we're talking about rightly dividing hosea, you could, and many do, I think, get the wrong conclusion from these verses of grace and mercy. And this is typically the way that it works. I might come along and say, you need to divide that which is from Israel, that which is for the body of Christ. This is which is for the body of Christ. It started with Paul. It's the message of grace. The dispensation of grace started over here with Paul the apostle. And they would say, no, God has always been gracious, has always been by grace through faith, not of works. As a matter of fact, if you want to see how gracious God is in the Old Testament, just read Hosea, chapter 14, verses four through seven. You'll see God's grace just dripping through and through. Okay, you do. But they're making the wrong conclusion. They're saying? Because I see God's grace in the Old Testament. The dispensation of grace has always begun, always been, I should say. And I think that's bad logic. God has always been gracious, no doubt about it. But there was a time when God was requiring that if you wanted to come to him. You did it through the obedience of the law. That was the avenue to him. Now, in the dispensation of the grace of God, which is what Paul calls it, we come in a different pattern. Not the Mosaic pattern, but the Pauline pattern. Is God gracious always? Yeah, he's always been gracious. Yet the dispensation of the grace of God has not always been so don't get confused when you read grace and mercy in the Old Testament thinking, okay, this is how they were saved. No, this has nothing to do with the salvation of the individual. This is really the salvation of the nation here. There's also this interesting phrase right here. They that dwell under his shadow shall return. That I think what's interesting about that is if you tie together Psalm 91, remember, I'm going to have to give a real loose paraphrase. The one who dwells in the shadow of the Most High will abide dwells somewhere will abide under the shadow of the Most High. Yeah. The one who dwells with the Almighty will abide in the shadow of the Most High. We're getting closer. Be quicker to look it up. But anyway, Psalm 91, verse one, and then the whole chapter is this unbelievable chapter of Blessing. That's the chapter that talks about a thousand fall at thy right hand, 10,000 at the left, or whatever it is, and no evil shall befall thee, no plague shall come upon you. It's this protection psalm all the way through. Now, I think that psalm is actually talking about Israel in the wilderness during the Tribulation, which is at the end of time here. Now, he comes to the end of time and says, those who dwell under his shadow shall return. I think again, we'd have to spend some time to flesh this out. But those of Israel who reject Asher will be given a hiding place out in the wilderness. They will go and dwell in the shelter of the Most High. There it is, I know it. Come. They'll dwell in the shelter of the Most High and be under the shadow of the Almighty. And he says, Those are the ones who dwell under his shadow that shall return. They shall revive as the corn. That is, they are coming back. And it's a reference to the remnant, I think. So four through seven gives the grace of God. Now, let's look at verses eight and nine, and we will be done with Hosea. Ephraim shall say, what have I to do anymore with idols? I have heard Him and observed him. I am like a green FIR tree, from Me is Thy fruit found. Now, I read that not quite as accurately as I should have read that. Here. Ephraim is going to say, what have I to do anymore with idols? Again, here's what they're going to say. The works of my hands I'll no longer say that I trust in Thee. So that's what ephraim is. Going to say. And then God comes in and says, I've heard him, I've observed him. I'm like a green FIR tree, from Me is thy fruit found. Now, I think what he's saying here, I'm like a green FIR tree. What he's saying is, I'm going to provide you the shadow of protection. I'm going to be there with you. That's what I'm going to be to you. So it's a poetic illustration and two of them really. Me is thy fruit found. And then the book closes with this, I would call it Message Direct from Hosea. He's done now, but he wants to write one more thing at the bottom and under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, he does. He says, who is wise, he shall understand these things prudent, and he shall know them, for the ways of the Lord are right, and the just shall walk in them, but the transgressors shall fall therein. So Hosea comes and says, hey, are you wise? Are you prudent? You better listen to what I have to say. And that's his postscript, if you will, kind of like Paul. He says, Look, I'm writing this. This is my own handwriting, my big handwriting right here. And I think here is Hosea coming in with this word. Who is wise, he shall understand these things. Who is prudent, he shall know them the ways the Lord are right and just, and the just shall walk in them, but the transgressors shall fall therein. Now, again, I think that we would have to say that this oracle from start to finish, from chapter one through chapter 14, is about Israel. And so in being wise and prudent like you are, we would want to take the full counsel of the word of God, which wasn't there in Hosea's day. They didn't have Paul and all of that. So we would not want to apply hosea directly to ourselves and say, oh my, we better come and our mouth better be moving, we better turn, we better take turn and repent, take turn and call, I think were the three words. We better do all these things and apply Hosea directly to ourselves. That's just going to get us in a works based mess. And the problem with a works based mess is twofold. One is you give up after a while and typically when you're in a works based mess and then you give up katie, bar the door. It's no telling where you're going to end up. The second problem with putting yourself under a workspace mess is you always look for a loophole. Every legalism looks for a loophole, right? And this is kind of what maybe that's why what do you call those ladies have those big pants that have like that look like a dress? What's that? I was thinking like capris, but maybe that's not well, I think back in the days when ladies weren't supposed to wear pants, they got gouges. Yeah, look like a skirt, but it's really pants. That's a legal loophole, ladies. Well, okay, we got to stop with Jose come Sunday. I'll tell you what's coming next week, and we'll look forward to that, but it's been fun journeying through here, Hosea, verse by verse, rightly, divided and all of that in 16 sessions. Let me lead us in a word of prayer, and we shall go from here. Heavenly Father, we're grateful for your preservation of the word of God for us. We're grateful also that the whole council of Scripture gives us understanding of how to take it and interpret and study it and when to apply it, when not to apply it directly to ourselves. We do see in this chapter 14, a beautiful future and hope for the nation of Israel. And for this we rejoice, dear Heavenly Father, because we know that that tells us that you are going to be true to your promises and provide all the promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob through that great nation that shall be. And it also helps us to know that even when things today don't seem to be like they should be, that we shouldn't give up hope that there is yet some future prophecy to be fulfilled. And we rejoice in this even the prophecies for us that will be fulfilled, like the coming rapture one of these days. And may we see that even soon. We ask this in Jesus name, amen. God bless you all. See you Sunday morning. 945 yes, I had two people say, I have a question. Having read Jose, why the why are the choices? Okay, so having read Hosea, why is the choice for the modern name of the nation of Israel? Why did they choose Israel? I do know a little bit of that story. There was a great debate on what they were going to name it, and they didn't even come to a conclusion until the last, the last hour. I'll say may 14, 1948. Harry Truman, who was president at the time, knew that he wanted to support the new state. It wasn't prophecy saying they are going to declare a state. So he said, I want to declare it. He made the State Department, against their angst, write up documents of recognition for the new state. And they had to leave a blank because they didn't know what the nation was called. And so he had it written up. And then they went back in and filled in State of Israel when they determined all that. Now, I should study this to make sure I'm totally correct. This is what I've heard that they decided on Israel rather than Judah. Those were the two big things, israel or Judah. You would kind of think Judah, because Judah is where we get the word Jew. Judah is the southern.