Faithful in Every Season | Sunday, August 4, 2024

Amen! Praise God. God is good. Thank you, Anthony and the Christian team. Good morning, Cross Connection. You guys can have a seat. I am so glad to see you all here this morning to worship with us in song and in the Scriptures.

In just a moment, I want to welcome those of you who are visiting us for the first time or have recently joined the church. We are so glad you are here. I wasn't here last week; if you were here last week, I'm Pastor Miles. Pastor Jason filled in for me while my wife and I celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary. We went out to the Gulf Coast in Florida, and I’m here to tell you it is really humid there. It makes 90-degree weather here feel incredibly good. When you're there, it's like 90 degrees with 88% humidity. Oh my goodness, it was unreal!

But we had a great time. I had the privilege of preaching at Coastline Calvary in Gulf Breeze, Florida, last week. My friend, Pastor John Spencer, planted the church and pastored it for about 40 years. He recently handed it off to his son, Neil, who is a friend of mine. I was blessed to be able to go out there and preach at that church. They send their greetings, and it’s so cool to see what God is doing.

Andrea and I flew back on Wednesday, and then 12 hours later, Andrea and our younger daughter, Evangelene, got on a plane to fly to Peru. They are with Sue Ruio, a ministry that we are connected with here at Cross Connection, ministering in Peru until a week from Monday when they will be back. Also, on Thursday, Ethan Danin, who plays bass for our worship team, along with Rita and Al Wilson, who are members of our church, left from LAX to go to Kenya. They are serving on a short-term trip in Kenya, so please keep all of them in your prayers this week.

I want to encourage you; there is an opportunity next year. We will share with you some of the opportunities for short-term trips that are available. We will certainly be doing some work with Sue Ruio and other ministries. If you have never been on a short-term mission trip, I encourage you to begin to pray about it. You might think, "I don't know if I'll have the money for that," but trust me, God provides in awesome ways. You may also think, "I don't know if I have the time for that," but God will help you make time. It will radically transform your perspective about the work that God has called us to as His people. So, please think and pray about how you might be involved in some of the trips that we are planning for next year.

In all of these things that are going on, the body of Christ, the church, is...

Involved around the world, it is a good reminder that our God continues to do an awesome and great work. It can sometimes be a distraction or discouragement for us when we see the chaos that is happening in the world. I'm sure some of you follow the news; there are a lot of crazy things happening in the world and in our country, and many things for us to be praying about.

As we get into the Scriptures this morning, sometimes those things can discourage our hearts, and we start to think that there is very little hope. I want to remind you that our hope ultimately is in the Lord and in His kingdom. That's why we call out to Him and say, "Lord, your kingdom come; your will be done on Earth as it is in heaven."

I'm sure you've seen the news. There are some challenging things happening, and there seems to be an escalation of what has been going on in the Middle East. It was nearly a year ago that the attack happened on October 7th, and there has been continued conflict between Hamas and Israel ever since then. Now, that seems to be escalating with all the events occurring.

When we see these things happening, if you know the Scriptures, then you understand that the physical manifestations of violence and war in this world are an indication of a spiritual battle taking place in an unseen realm. I know a lot of people we know who don't believe in an unseen realm; they think that is crazy talk. However, when you become a Christian, your eyes are opened to the reality that there is an unseen realm, and you and I, as Christians, are called to be engaged in that battle.

We don't use earthly weapons. Paul, in 2 Corinthians, says the weapons of our warfare are not earthly, but they are powerful in God for the tearing down of strongholds. One of those weapons is prayer. So, before we get into the passage that we will be looking at in Hosea this morning, I want us to come before the Lord in prayer and pray for peace.

Psalm 122:6 says to pray for the peace of Jerusalem, but we are not just praying for the peace of Jerusalem; we are praying for the kingdom of peace and the Prince of Peace to come and rule and reign. Ultimately, He begins to rule and reign first in our hearts, and He gives us peace in the midst of the storm. We certainly need that, but we are also praying, "Lord, your kingdom come; your will be done on Earth as it is in heaven."

We just sang in that song, and I wrote down the lyrics because we read there, "There’s nothing that can stop our God; nothing can stand against our God." Those are great declarations of faith, and those things are true. If it is true that Jesus has triumphed over the grave, which is also what we sang, then we can hold on to that hope.

I believe, and I think it's historically verifiable, that Jesus rose from the grave. If Jesus, who was crucified, buried, and dead, rose from the grave, then it is a reality that nothing can stop our God. Ultimately, His kingdom will come. Until then, He has called us to be ambassadors and representatives of His kingdom of peace, of His kingdom of light in this world. We certainly need His enabling power to do that.

We are going to get into Hosea 11 this morning, but I would ask first that you bow your hearts and minds with me in prayer. Father, we come before You this morning. When we see chaos and conflict, whether it is very local—something happening in our own lives or our own families—or something happening on a global scale, it causes us to be sometimes fearful. It causes us to be disquieted in our souls, hearts, and minds.

But, Lord, You command us not to worry. You tell us through Paul to be anxious for nothing, and You call us to come before You in prayer and to seek first Your kingdom. So, we want to do that right now. God, I pray that You'd help us, who do believe and know You, to set our minds on things above. Help us to realize that You are King of kings and Lord of lords, and that as You promised, You will one day bring Your kingdom and rule and reign in righteousness with peace. We look forward to that.

Even now, You want to do a work of extending Your peace to this world through us, Your people. I pray, God, that You'd help us to bring our cares and concerns to You this morning, to cast our cares upon You, knowing that You care for us. Jesus, You said if we are weary, heavy-laden, and burdened, that we are to come to You and give You our burdens, and You will give us Your rest.

Lord, help us to have our minds stayed and set upon You, because You will keep in perfect peace the one whose mind is stayed upon You. I pray that You'd help us to be those ambassadors of peace, peacemakers in this world, as we have our minds fixed and focused upon You today. May the things that are weighing upon us—whether they are personal, individual things for our work, our school, our families, or global conflicts and national issues happening among us—whatever those things might be that could distract us or disquiet us, I pray, God, that we'd be able to focus on You.

To give those to you right now, we ask that you help us focus our hearts and our minds upon You and what is true, good, lovely, noble, and virtuous. May we be able to meditate upon those things for the thirty-five or so minutes we have here. We ask this today in Jesus' name, and all those that agreed said, "Amen."

Well, it is the first Sunday of August, which means we're in the last little bit of summer. For a lot of kids in our families and in our community, they are getting to the single-digit countdown of going back to school, and they are super excited about that. My kids, however, are not very excited about it. I am a little excited, but they are not all that thrilled.

We are in this last little bit of the summer season, and we're getting ready to move into what is really my favorite time of the year. I don't know what it is, but I love the fall. I know we live in San Diego, where the seasons aren't really that much of a thing. Some of you may have lived in or come from places where you can actually experience the difference between spring, summer, fall, and winter. We don't see that quite so much here; it's like fall is a thing we experience on an afternoon in San Diego. It's as if we just passed through fall.

There is a reality that we are coming into this time of the year, which is interesting. Every four years, we have the Olympic season, and this year has been kind of fascinating to see some of the weird things happening in France with that whole deal. We are also entering another weird four-year cycle season in our culture as the campaign season ramps up. Oh, the joys of all that will be over the next several months!

Football season is almost here, and that is something to rejoice about. We do have some wonderful reasons to celebrate. As we see these transitions, coming into this last little bit of summer and moving into fall, there is a reminder that life follows a pattern of cycles and seasons. It’s not just the annual cycles of spring, summer, fall, and winter, but also in your life. As you look back over your life, you can see there are these cycles. There are the new beginning times of our lives, which resemble the freshness of spring.

Beginning 20 years ago, I had the privilege of moving to Germany for a year. I lived in Northwest Germany, and in that area, you really do see the transition from winter, which was stark, cold, gray, and kind of depressing when I moved there. On the street where I lived, there were about half a dozen tanning salons. I wondered what it was with Germans and their interest in tanning. I came from a place where you just go outside and get darker naturally.

Then someone told me it had nothing to do with tanning; it was about a vitamin D deficiency. In the winter, people are depressed because they lack vitamin D. I saw this during that period of time. When spring comes, there is a freshness and a newness. You've probably experienced that in your life—times when there is a sense of newness and freshness, much like the cycle of the season of spring.

As you move into the zealous growth of summer, life begins to flourish. This eventually transitions into a more reflective, maturing phase during the fall seasons of life. Of course, this then leads to the ending cold, gray starkness of winter. If you look back over your life, you will see different cycles. Even over the long lifespan of an individual, you experience that spring season in your early life, followed by the summer season as life begins to grow and flourish.

Some of you have lived through those seasons. Every season has its ups and downs, blessings and challenges. Some seasons offer a more optimistic view of the future, while others stir us to reminisce nostalgically about the past. This is particularly true of the winter season, which is associated with reflective reminiscing.

In this passage of Scripture, we come to one of those times. Hosea is ministering to a group of people in the Northern Kingdom of Israel 2,800 years ago. They are in a dark, stark period of winter as a nation and as a people. In this passage, we are in Hosea 11 this morning, where we find a bit of nostalgia from God. Through the prophet, He is reminiscing about His past time with the people of Israel. Look at it with me.

You will open to about the middle of your Bible, and you will be around the Psalms. Turn to the right, and you will eventually get to the prophets: the Major Prophets, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and then Hosea. Hosea is the start of the Minor Prophets.

In Hosea 11:1, this is God reminiscing during this winter period of reflection for the children of Israel. He is thinking back on the good times with His people, the children of Israel. He says, "When Israel was a child, I loved him; out of Egypt, I called my son."

Now, it's interesting that in the early chapters of Hosea, there is a metaphor that God relates to His people as husband and wife. God is the husband, and His people are the bride. There is a covenant relationship there that the children of Israel broke through their adulterous behavior with idols. However, there is a shifting of metaphors. The metaphor shifts from a husband-wife metaphor to a father-child metaphor.

God says, "When Israel was a child, I loved him; out of Egypt, I called my son." As they were called, they went from them; they departed from me. They sacrificed to the Baals, which was a name of a deity of the Canaanite peoples. They burned incense to carved images.

At that time, early on, I taught Ephraim—another name for the Northern Kingdom of Israel—to walk, taking them by their arms. But they did not know that I healed them. Some of you can remember back to when your kids were really little, and you were teaching them to walk. A better picture might be teaching them to ride a bike.

Do any of you remember when you taught your kids how to ride a bike? You were holding up the bike, but they didn't realize you were holding it up. They thought, "Oh, I'm doing it! I'm doing it!" You were holding the back seat, and they were going along as they rode the bike. They didn't recognize or acknowledge that they weren't doing it on their own.

That's kind of what God is picturing here with the children of Israel. He taught them to walk; He held them up and carried them along by the arms, but they did not know that He was the one doing that, that He healed them. He drew them with gentle cords, with bands of love. He was to them as those who take the yoke from their neck. He released them from bondage. They were weighed down by this yoke of bondage as they were in Egypt, and He released them from it. He stooped down and fed them.

All these images remind the people of Israel of their previous experience with God, going back to the early books of the Bible, such as Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. God delivered Israel from Egypt, from their bondage in Exodus, and then He carried them along and provided for them.

God protected His people during their wilderness wanderings, as recorded in Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Joshua. He brought them into the Promised Land. In this reflective period, God looks back on all these great times with His people.

As we examine Israel's history over the hundreds of years from the time God redeemed them from Egypt in Exodus, around 1,400 BC, to this period in the 700s BC, we see that about 700 years have passed. During these seven centuries, God has demonstrated His love, His lovingkindness, and His grace to His people, Israel. For centuries, He has revealed His mercy and compassion.

In the earliest days of their relationship with God, when they entered into a covenant with Him, God loved them and called them forth out of their bondage. His compassion and love for them were clearly demonstrated in the first announcement to Moses back in Exodus 3. If you have read that story or perhaps seen the movies "The Ten Commandments" or "The Prince of Egypt," you may recall the image of Moses being brought alongside God as he sees a bush that is burning but not consumed.

As he approaches the bush, a voice from the midst of it says, "Moses, take the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you stand is holy ground." Then, he has a conversation with God, who reveals His compassionate heart for His people. In Exodus 3:7, God says, "I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and I have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. For I know their sorrows, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites."

Now therefore, God says to Moses, "Behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to Me, and I have also seen their oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them." God reveals His compassion and love for Israel in Exodus chapter 3. He hears their cry because they are oppressed in slavery and bondage, and He declares, "I’m going to redeem them." Deuteronomy 7 states, "I have done this; I have redeemed you because I love you." God loved Israel and demonstrated His love for them, yet even after centuries, they struggled to remain faithful.

For centuries, God has demonstrated His love for the children of Israel. They have departed from Him time and time again, repeatedly leaving Him. The more that God called them, as stated in Hosea 11:2 in The New International Version, the more they were set apart to be His people. Yet, the more they went away from Him. They sacrificed to the Baals and burned incense to the images.

God nostalgically recounts how He tended and took care of them. He carried them forth out of Egypt, provided for them, and gave them water. The Book of Numbers says He provided water from rocks and gave them bread from Heaven, which they called manna—food given to them. He protected them against their enemies; when the Amalekites came against them, God defended His people. He led and guided them for forty years through the wilderness and then brought them into the Promised Land. All of this is a demonstration of God's love and grace.

Yet, they did not realize, recognize, or acknowledge His care for them. They turned away from Him, and there is a brokenheartedness from God revealed in this passage of Scripture. This sentiment is expressed by Hosea and also by the prophet Isaiah, who lived at the same time as Hosea. Hosea lived in the northern part of the nation of Israel and ministered to the kingdom in the north, while Isaiah ministered to the southern kingdom during the same period. There were ten tribes in the north and two tribes in the south. Isaiah expresses the same sort of sentiment from God.

If you have your Bible, turn to the left to the Book of Isaiah. In Isaiah chapter 5, we see this same idea expressed. Isaiah says, "Now let me sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved regarding his vineyard." Hosea uses the metaphor of a father-son relationship between God and Israel, while Isaiah uses the metaphor of a vine dresser and a vineyard. He describes how God has a vineyard; His well-beloved has a vineyard on a very fruitful hill. He dug it up and cleared out its stones, preparing the ground for it. He planted it with the best vine, the choicest vine.

In the midst of it, He made a winepress, expecting that it would bring forth grapes. The image that Isaiah presents is of God as a vine dresser, with His people, Judah and Israel, depicted as a vine. He creates this beautiful vineyard, removes all the stones from it, prepares the ground, and puts a hedge of protection around it. He places a tower in the midst of it to protect it and then plants the best vine. Thus, Judah, the people of Israel, are pictured as this choice vine. God expects that it will bring forth fruit and show forth its bounty.

However, at the end of verse two of Isaiah 5, instead of good grapes, it brought forth wild grapes, or sour, almost poisonous fruit. This idea resonates with what Pastor Jason taught last week. I listened to the message while on a walk the other day, and he used an image that I remember experiencing myself. He talked about the problem that arises when you plant bell peppers right next to jalapeños. The cross-pollination that takes place leads to bell peppers having a strange taste of jalapeño, even though they are not very spicy. Similarly, the jalapeños end up tasting a bit like bell peppers.

This cross-pollination is exactly what is pictured here. God created this choice vineyard and planted His people, but then there was cross-pollination with the gods of the people around them, resulting in sour grapes. God says in Isaiah 5:3, "And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge, please, between my vineyard and me. What more could have been done for my vineyard that I have not done for it?" He expresses that He has done everything possible to make them fruitful. He brought them out of Egypt, planted them in this land, and provided every possible privilege and blessing. Yet, they have, in a sense, squandered all these privileges and blessings.

God asks, "What more could I have done for my vineyard than what I did for it?" Isaiah's heart, along with Hosea's, reflects the sentiment that the people of Israel, both in the northern and southern kingdoms, are on the verge of being punished for their sins and facing exile. The message is clear: Israel's demise was not the result of God's inaction.

Indifference. It wasn't as if God had not done every possible thing to make Israel fruitful, privileged, and blessed. What they are going through right now, at this point in time, is not because God was not trying to bless them and take care of them. It wasn't due to His inaction or indifference; quite the opposite. God had done every possible thing that He could do to assure that Israel would have every opportunity to flourish and to abound in the land. They had wonderful privileges and blessings, but they had squandered those things.

In seeing the experience of Israel here in this passage, it should induce in me and in you a bit of reflection and meditation. Now, we are not Israel. I am not one who believes in what's called replacement theology, that the church replaces Israel. I believe that God still has a purpose and plan in the future for the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Do we understand every aspect of it? No, but we have certain inclinations in the Scriptures about what God will do. So, we have not replaced Israel.

We, as the people of God here in America, this is not the New Jerusalem; this is not the new Israel. We do not inherit every single blessing or promise that we see in the Scriptures, but we should learn from what they experienced. Paul said this in his New Testament letter to the Corinthians, in 1 Corinthians, that we should remember all the things that happened to Israel because those things are admonitions and instructions to us for the time in which we live.

When we see what happened with Israel in passages like Isaiah and Hosea, we should take careful note to meditate upon these things and think about what we can glean from this. One of the things I think we ought to glean from this is that, as we sit here on the 4th of August 2024 in San Diego County, California, we are privileged and greatly blessed as a people. I don't know that anybody would disagree with that statement; we are privileged and greatly blessed.

I was talking to my wife and my daughter Evangeline on FaceTime last night, and it's an awesome and amazing thing when you go to a country like Peru or maybe you've traveled just south of the border to some of the very desperate areas in Mexico. I've been to Mozambique, I've been to Swaziland, Africa, and South Africa, and I've been to the Philippines, to places where poverty exists on a level that we just can't really grasp. We do see some kinds of poverty here, but it's relative poverty in comparison to the abject poverty of these other places. You realize when you go to some of these places just how phenomenally privileged and blessed we are.

We really are a privileged and blessed people. I believe, and research supports this, that the privilege and the blessing we enjoy at this moment is the result of many years of people in this culture—Western culture—building upon the bedrock and foundation of Judeo-Christian principles found in the Scriptures. These principles have produced a certain kind of outcome.

Now, that’s not to say that everything in Western culture is perfect, good, or awesome. No, there are all kinds of blights in our history that we can point out and say, "That's a problem, that's an issue." But on the whole, if you put it together, this culture has been built on a foundation of these principles that have produced the privileges and blessings we enjoy today. The question is: How are we using those things? How did Israel use these things?

Pastor Jason taught on chapter 10 last week. If we look at the opening verse of chapter 10 of Hosea, it gives us an indication of what Israel did with their privileges and blessings. God said in Exodus 3, "I'm going to take you out of the bondage of Egypt and put you in a land that is fruitful, a land flowing with milk and honey. It's going to be a bountifully blessed land."

In Hosea chapter 10, verse 1, it states, "Israel empties his vine; he brings forth fruit for himself." The Northern Kingdom of Israel lived in a very fertile region of the land. Even today, you can go to the northern part of Israel, where there is a valley called the Jezreel Valley, which is like the breadbasket of that whole region of the world. The exports of its fruitfulness are phenomenal.

In modern-day Israel, they have turned the Negev desert into a fruitful land, much like how we have transformed areas in California. For example, if you go into East County San Diego, like the desert of El Centro, it may seem like a pitiful place—almost the armpit of California—but it has become fruitful. The Central Valley of California is similar to this area of Israel; it was once fruitful, and God had blessed them with this fruitfulness.

How did they use it? They emptied their vines and brought forth fruit for themselves. According to the multitude of his fruit, he has increased the altars; according to the bounty of his land, they have embellished his sacred pillars. What is happening here is that God said they took all the fruitfulness He gave them and...

Blessing is a privilege, and yet you turned around and used it for idols. You took all of your wealth and riches and squandered them on adulterous idolatry. When we see this, it should stir us to think, to meditate, and to consider how we are using the blessings and privileges that God has given to us.

We know how Israel used their blessings and privileges; how are we doing this now? I'll confess, I don't know that I like to meditate upon that because it's convicting. It's convicting to ask questions like this: Am I using the blessings and privileges that God has given to me to bless and glorify Him, or to glorify and delight myself? The children of Israel took the blessings that God had given to them and used them to gratify and delight themselves, their flesh.

Am I using the privileges and blessings that I have been given by God to honor and further His kingdom, or to satisfy and grow my kingdom? Those are convicting things to think about, but that's what we need to consider when we see passages like this in this section of Scripture. Israel had squandered the privileges and blessings that God had bountifully given to them for hundreds of years.

Therefore, look at verse 5 of Hosea 11: "The children of Israel shall not return to the land of Egypt, but the Assyrian shall be his king." They are not going to go back to the bondage of Egypt from which God had redeemed them under Moses in Exodus, but they are going to be exiled from the land and will go to the land of Assyria. They had squandered the privileges and blessings that God had given to them in abundance for centuries, and now judgment is coming. They are going to be exiled.

Why is this going to happen? Notice the reason in verse 5: because they refuse to repent. The sword shall slash in his cities, devour his districts, and consume them. Why? Because of their own counsels. God says, "My people are bent on backsliding from Me." Though they call to the Most High, none at all exalt Him. They were living with a form of godliness, an outward display. They were God's people; they were Israel, governed by God. That's one of the meanings of the name Israel: we are governed by God. We are the children of the Most High God; we follow Yahweh. And yet, they were worshiping all kinds of idols.

All these different idols that they are bowing down to. Isaiah says they serve me or they worship me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. This is a danger that we can fall into as well. We are known in America as a Christian nation, but you'd be hard-pressed to prove that this nation is truly following after the precepts and principles of Christ. There are many Christians here, and yes, it was built upon a foundation of the principles of the Christian Scriptures for centuries. However, we have departed from that. We have a show of godliness externally, but the heart is far from that. This is exactly where Israel was, and therefore they are going to experience judgment. They are going to experience the inevitable consequences of sin, which I talked about a couple of weeks ago. They could not blame God for this; they could not say, "Well, it's God's fault. It was His indifference or His inaction." No, it had nothing to do with that.

Point number two: Israel's exile was the result of their refusal to repent. They were given countless opportunities to do so, to turn back to the Lord, to repent of their sinful idolatry, but they would not. Their temptation was to blame God, which is always our temptation. That's the temptation of our flesh when we are in sin. Going all the way back to the first sinners in the Bible, Genesis 3, when the story of Adam and Eve is given, they break God's commandments to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God comes to them and gives them an opportunity for repentance. He says to Adam, "Have you eaten of the tree that I told you that you should not eat of?"

What does Adam say? Does he repent and confess, saying, "Oh God, forgive me. I ate of the tree"? No, he says, "It was the woman that you gave me." He blames God. Now listen, guys, husbands, if in your mind you think, "Well, it was her fault," take heed when you think you stand. It was the woman that you gave me.

So God says, "The sword shall slash in Israel's cities and devastate their districts and consume them." Why? Because of their own counsels. They followed the dictates of their own hearts. Every man did what was right in his own eyes. Because of their own counsels, that word translated "counsels" is used in other places in the Old Testament. The Old Testament was written...

In Hebrew, when we follow this word, we find it used by Solomon 300 years before Hosea. Solomon writes in Proverbs 1:29, "Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord, they would have none of my counsel; they despised my instruction in my way and my every rebuke. Therefore, they shall eat the fruit of their own way and shall be filled to full with their own fancies."

Before Solomon, his father, King David, writes in Psalm 5, "Pronounce my people guilty, O God; let them fall by their own counsels. They followed the dictates of their own hearts; cast them out in the multitude of their transgressions, for they have rebelled against You." This is what I've referred to a number of times as we've been studying through the Scriptures of the Old Testament for the last four years or so, through Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, and now in Hosea. This is what we call the Deuteronomic principle, or in the New Testament, we would call it the law of sowing and reaping.

You are going to harvest what you have planted. If you sow to the flesh, if you follow the dictates of your own heart, you will of the flesh reap corruption and destruction. If you sow to the Spirit, you shall of the Spirit reap everlasting life. However, Israel has repeatedly sown to the flesh, so to speak. The Scriptures were clear: if you do this, this, and this, then blessing; and if you do this, this, and this, then cursing. They had done that which would bring about the inevitable consequences of sin, which is cursing.

Whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. Don't think otherwise; God is not mocked, Paul says in Galatians 6:7. When I think about that, it causes me to pray, "God, help me by Your indwelling Spirit. Empower me to walk in and sow to the Spirit, walk in truth, and sow to righteousness," because I know what ultimately will come from that. The outcome of Israel's sin was certain, and it is always the case that when we reject God's commandments, His precepts, and His principles—His law—and we are stubborn and rebellious, walking in sin, which is anything contrary to His nature and His revealed will, the outcome is always the same.

There will always be destruction, bondage, death, and exile. These are the inevitable consequences of sin, and they are revealed in the Scriptures as a judgment of God. He is not actively punishing; He is just allowing you to reap the consequences of your sinful actions. That is what is happening with Israel. For centuries, He has tried to cause them to return, and it does not bring any joy or pleasure to God to see people experience the inevitable consequences of sin.

Several times in the Book of Ezekiel, God says, "I do not delight in the death of the wicked." His pleasure would be that they would repent and return, but they would not. God's sorrow in Israel's judgment is evident because, remember, there is a father-son picture here. God, like a loving father, has provided for His people, His son Israel. Now, Israel is going to go through the dark night of the stark winter; they are going to experience exile and judgment. As a loving father, this breaks His heart.

We see this in verse 8. Look at Hosea 11:8: "How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I make you like Adma? How can I set you like Zeboim?" Adma and Zeboim—what on earth are those? These are two references to ancient cities that were destroyed in the Book of Genesis. Many people know the names of two other ancient cities that were destroyed in Genesis chapter 19: Sodom and Gomorrah. However, those two cities were the chief of five cities, and among those cities were Adma and Zeboim.

Sodom, Gomorrah, Adma, and Zeboim were completely destroyed. There is actually archaeological and historical evidence today near the Dead Sea region, on the eastern side of the Dead Sea, in what we know today as the country of Jordan, that these cities existed and were totally annihilated.

In His compassion, God says, "Listen, I love Israel, and you are going to be judged; you are going to be exiled, but I can't give you up. I don't want you to become completely annihilated like Adma and Zeboim. My heart churns within me; my sympathy is stirred. His compassion—His heart is breaking for His people. I will not execute the fierceness of my anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim. I am not going to consume you completely, but your judgment is certain, for I am God."

And not man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come with terror. It seems kind of weird what God is saying here because we do know in history that the northern tribes of Israel, Ephraim, had their cities destroyed and were removed from their land, exiled. But even in that, God was gracious. Why? Because He did not do to them as was done to Sodom and Gomorrah or Admah and Zeboim. He did not utterly destroy them.

How do we know that? Well, today there are descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. There are no descendants of Admah and Zeboim; they are completely gone. But there are descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob because God allowed a remnant to remain. Even though Israel had been like Sodom and like Gomorrah, God had allowed a remnant to remain. This reminds us of something that I've shared before, but it's a good thing to remember.

Point number three: God's punishment is for the purpose of purification. If you were here about a month ago, I gave this exact point, and it's kind of funny because Nick took that section of the scripture and turned it into a short that went up on YouTube. It got a whole bunch of views, and one guy commented on it, saying, "Well, clearly this guy doesn't understand the scriptures." I thought, well, clearly you haven't read the Old Testament because it's quite clear that God's punishment is for the purpose of purification.

We see that here in Hosea; we see it in the book of Isaiah. God is coming and punishing His people, but His intent is that a remnant would return, that He would bring His people back to Himself. God's punishment is a form of discipline. Many of you, as I look out here this morning, are parents, and you have had to discipline your children. But even if you weren't parents, once upon a time, you were a child. Maybe you were a child like mine who experienced the rod of correction.

Any of you here this morning? There's foolishness bound up in the heart of a child, and the rod of correction will drive it far from him. I think that was my mom's favorite verse when I was a kid, and her rod of correction was a wooden spoon. I still have triggering responses from wooden spoons! But it was all like I did it to myself; I completely understand.

What is the purpose of punishment as a father or a mother? Well, the intended purpose ought to be training in righteousness. That's God's purpose. Hebrews 12:1 states that no chasing discipline seems joyful in the moment. None of you, when you were being disciplined for your bad behavior as a child, were like, "Hey, this is great!"

No discipline or chastening is joyful in the moment; it is painful. However, afterwards, it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. If you receive it, the punishment is for the purpose of purification.

With this in mind, Hosea closes verse 10 by stating that they shall walk after the Lord. Israel, specifically Ephraim, shall in the future walk after the Lord. He is going to roar like a lion and bring judgment upon them. When He roars, His sons shall come trembling from the west. They shall come trembling like a bird from Egypt, like a dove from the land of Assyria, and I will let them dwell in their houses, says the Lord.

What is this? Israel is about to go through, and has already started to go through, a period of dark, stark winter decline. They are going to be exiled from their land and will wander in Assyria for a period of time. However, like many prophetic passages of Scripture in what is called the apocalyptic genre, there is a commonality. This genre speaks about the end times and looks to the future.

Yes, it sees the immediate darkness of destruction and punishment, but it also sees through and beyond that to a future restoration. That is what Hosea sees here in verses 10 and 11. He sees the remnant of Israel returning, similar to what Isaiah pictured in Isaiah chapter 9. There, it is stated that there will be darkness upon this area in the northern kingdom, but that darkness will not be forever because the Lord will bring a great light and restore them to the land.

God promises a future restoration, even though temporarily they will go through this dark, difficult time. Israel has experienced this cycle multiple times. They faced it in the 8th century BC with the Assyrians, and the southern tribe of Israel experienced it in the 5th century through the Babylonians. The people returned to the land during the time of Nehemiah and Ezra, which we studied a couple of summers ago. Then, during the Roman occupation in the 1st century AD, the children of Israel experienced a diaspora once again because of their sin, being expelled from the land. In our time, over the last 100 years, we have seen a restoration of the people coming back to the land.

Israel is an amazing thing, but even all of those are minor fulfillments of God's major eschatological end. What do I mean? Well, point number four, and I'll close with this: God's ultimate planned Kingdom will come.

Here's the thing: Israel was expelled from the land under the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and the Romans. Yet, God lovingly and graciously restored them back. A remnant returned; His punishment was for the purpose of purification. All of those are minor fulfillments of what God is doing—the bigger thing that God is doing in history. What is that? He ultimately has His Kingdom that He is going to bring. We have not yet realized that we are not living in the Kingdom of God yet.

I am a futurist, a premillennial believer. I believe that one day Jesus is going to return, and He is going to bring His Kingdom. Of the increase of His government and peace, there will be no end. That's why Jesus said to His followers, "You need to pray, 'Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on Earth as it is in heaven.'" That's our hope; that's our joy.

All of the apocalyptic prophets, guys like Hosea and Isaiah, put this before the children of Israel. They told them, "You're going to experience punishment because it is the inevitable consequence of sin. But I promise you, there is a future Kingdom coming." That is their hope; that is their joy. If you're a Christian today, you have that hope. Like Abraham before us, we look for a city which has foundations, whose Builder and Maker is God. Hebrews 11 says, "What are we looking for?" We are looking for a Kingdom that is not of this world to come—a Kingdom of peace and the Prince of Peace to rule and reign with righteousness and peace forever and ever.

How many of you say, "Yeah, I'd like that"? Amen! That's what we're looking forward to.

Now, it may be that although we're not Israel, we are going to go through a time of winter, a time of stark, difficult darkness because of the inevitable consequences of the sin of our own time. Sometimes it sure seems like that's what's happening. I want to encourage you: God has something greater He is doing in the future. You see, the awesome thing about the winter is that there is an optimistic vision in the future for the coming light of spring. That's what the apocalyptic genre of Scripture gives to us, and we need to hold this in our minds.

God's ultimate planned Kingdom will come, so at whatever season of life you find yourself in, God has something that He wants you to continue to do. If you're in the springtime of life, that is the time for preparing, plowing, and planting. If you're in the summertime of life, that's the time for watering, weeding, and tending. This leads into the fall time of life, which is the harvesting when you're bringing everything in and preserving for the wintertime of life. The wintertime of life is that time for planning, preparing, and repairing tools for the coming spring that is going to come.

Whatever stage of life you're in, God has a work for you to do. There is never a time when there is nothing to do. We are living in times that seem like, as a culture and as a civilization, we are going from the fall into winter, and it's distressing for people. They look at the things that are happening in the world, in their own country, or in their own county, and they think this is distressing.

I want to encourage you, if you're a Christian today, your hope is not here. This is really important for us to remember as we are 93 days away from a presidential election in our country. It doesn't matter what side you're on; whether you're on the right or the left, both groups are hopeful that 94 days from now, on November 6th, their hopes will be elevated. They believe that if their person gets in, everything will be okay.

So, I want you to imagine it's now November 6th, 94 days from now—not very long, we're into double digits—and the outcome that you hoped for, prayed for, and voted for didn't come. The temptation is to feel depressed and blue, thinking that everything is going to fall apart and that horrible things are going to happen. I want to remind you, if you're a Christian, your hope was never in this world. Our hope must be seated in the Kingdom that is to come, and that should compel us to say, "Lord, Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven."

That should be my prayer. I understand the temptation; I am tempted to have the same sort of fear, dread, and terror with all the chaos that happens in the world. But in all of it, I am reminded that God has not given me a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind. I serve the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, whose Kingdom will never end, and I am an ambassador and representative of that. He wants you to be as well.

And me to be lights in a dark place who have the peace of God and the rest of God, even in the midst of difficult challenges like Israel was going through. Our kingdom is not of this world, and we need to remember that. Whatever the outcome on November 6, when you get to that point, it really, at the end of the day, doesn't matter because He raises up one and puts down another.

Do I really believe that? If Jesus rose from the dead, which we sang about just before I came up here to preach, and I know I'm going way too long—the thing's flashing at me at the back—but here's the thing: If we actually believe that Jesus rose from the dead, nothing can stand before our God. Do I actually believe that? This is the test, church. This is the test. This is what all of the studying has been for—to prepare you for these kinds of tests. Do you actually believe that, or are you a practical atheist?

You see, I can say with my mouth that I believe in God, but if I demonstrate with my life that I am fearful and dreadful because the other team won on November 5, then I'm demonstrating that I don't actually trust and believe in God. I become a practical atheist. That's what Israel was; they were practical atheists. God help us. Help me to demonstrate with my life that I actually believe these things that I tell people I believe—that my kingdom is not of this world and it actually doesn't matter what happens in D.C. or Belgium because my kingdom is not of this world.

God help me. Would you stand with me as I close in prayer? Anthony, I'm just going to close this service.

Father God, sometimes Your word is so challenging for us. It is like a sharp sword that cuts deep and divides between joint and marrow, and soul and spirit. It is a discerner of the thoughts and the intents of my heart. I pray, God, that You would help me by Your Spirit and grace to trust in You fully and completely.

Lord, we do pray, Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. But until Your kingdom is here, would Your peace, the peace of Your kingdom, rule and guard in our hearts and our minds? Help us to be ambassadors and representatives of Your kingdom in this time and this place because this culture here in San Diego County needs to see a demonstration of Your rest.

Peace in Your people. So help us to be ambassadors, we pray.

Now may the Lord bless and keep you. May He make His face to shine upon you. May He be gracious to you. May He lift up His countenance upon you and give you His peace, a peace that surpasses all understanding.

The great grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of His Holy Spirit be with you all. And all those that agreed said, "Amen."