Making Messes Messier | Sunday, July 14, 2024

Amen, amen. Thank you, Christian and team. Good morning, Cross Connection Church! It is so good to see you all here.

There are a few things to talk about this morning, but before we get into that, I want to acknowledge and recognize some people who are visiting with us today. First, Bubba and Kathy Holer, would you stand for just a moment? Bubba and Kathy have been serving as missionaries in multiple places over the years, most recently in Jordan. God is moving them a bit right now, so if you want to know more about that, you can definitely talk with Bubba and Kathy. We are glad that you are here.

I also want to introduce you to a couple that I just met recently: Anthony and Irene Chapman. Would you guys mind standing? Anthony and Irene and their family have been serving in Israel for the last 18 years as missionaries there, and they are also in a bit of a transition. For both of these couples and the Chapman family, please be praying for them during this time of transition.

As I stand up here this morning, I am grateful that things are not what they could have been on this Sunday morning. I know that all of you have seen the now-iconic and historic images of what happened at the former President Trump's rally in Pennsylvania yesterday evening. We are grateful that the assassin's bullet did not hit him, but unfortunately, there were others who were hit and died. We want to be praying for the families of those affected in this whole situation.

We are living in not just chaotic times, as I have said many times before, but increasingly dangerous times. When we see things like this happening in our nation or in the world, especially as Christians, we should be challenged and compelled to pray. Paul, in his letter to Timothy, 1 Timothy 2, says, "Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men." He adds this: "For kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead quiet and peaceable lives in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth."

A few verses later, Paul says, "I desire therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting." It is easy when we see things like this...

What side of the political spectrum do we lean towards when we feel anger, doubt, fear, or concern? The Bible says, "I desire therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting." So, I'm going to ask you to stand this morning, and we're going to lift our hands to the Lord in prayer. I believe there is no political solution or hope for the brokenness of this world. The only solution for the brokenness of this world is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We who believe in Christ should know that, and we should express it very clearly. Our culture needs to hear that.

Father God, we lift our hands to You this morning. We pray that You would do a work in our nation and in the world. Lord, as I said, there is no political option; You are our only hope. We see that in the end, when You rule and reign, there will be no more death, suffering, sickness, war, or any such thing. We look forward to that and say, "Lord Jesus, come quickly." But until that day, would You work in and through us, Your church, to be a light in a dark time and a dark place? As things seem to be increasingly dim and dark, would You shine brightly through Your church?

Lord, pour out Your Spirit upon Your church. Give us opportunities to share the good news of Your grace, Your mercy, and Your peace. We pray, God, that You would move mightily in us as Your people, in our church here in North San Diego County, but also throughout the nation and the world. We pray for a great move of Your Spirit. We pray for a revival in our times. We pray, God, that You would ignite a revival in our own hearts and move in such a way that we would shine brightly. We ask this in Jesus' name. And all those that agreed said, "Amen."

You can be seated. We are living in very crazy times. This morning, we are going to be in the book of Hosea as we continue our study through this book this summer. If you don't have a Bible, you can raise your hand, and one of our ushers will bring you one. Hosea chapter 8 is where we're going to be.

I began my morning yesterday, as I do most mornings, with my wife. We went on a walk together, and at one point, I took out my phone, opened my music app, and played an '80s rock playlist. As we walked, Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" played.

Finishing up our walk, we didn't start the fire; it was always burning since the world's been turning. You're welcome! That will be stuck in your head for the rest of the day. It was the chart-topper in the second half of 1989, and I was just about to turn ten years old. At that time, our nation would soon be involved in a war in the Middle East: the United States against Iraq, with its allies. That war would be very quickly resolved.

However, in the fall of 1989, not long after that song was released, the Berlin Wall fell. Many of you remember the iconic pictures of that event. My family was living in England at the time when that happened; we had just moved there because my dad was working. Shortly after that, a couple of years later, the Soviet Union fell. It was a very short time after that that the world experienced a technological revolution with the advent of the internet. There was a great sense of hopefulness and optimism that followed after a lot of those events, especially through the 1990s.

But at the end of the 1980s, when that song came out, after forty years of foreboding doom through the Cold War, the world seemed to be in a mess. In an interview years later, after that song came out, Billy Joel explained that what inspired that song was a conversation he had with a twenty-one-year-old young man who told him that nothing bad ever seemed to really happen in the 1950s. Of course, Billy Joel had grown up through the 1950s and thought, "I'm not really sure that was the case."

When he talked about how that song was inspired, he said it's just a song that says the world is a mess. It's always been a mess, and it's always going to be a mess. I think Billy Joel was basically right in his estimation: the world is a mess, it’s always going to be a mess, and it has always been a mess. Hosea, 2,800 years ago, was living in the midst of a mess. There seem to be times when the mess is messier, when the chaos increases, and Hosea was going through that during the time that he lived among the people in the Northern Kingdom of Israel. The mess, as is so often the case, was palpable.

In case you can see, it was a mess of their own making. My dad, whose name is Ron, has these simple little sayings that I have come to call "Ron-isms." I have a running list of them on the notes app in my cell phone. They are little Proverbs of Ron that he has acquired over a 50-year career in the steel industry, building high-rise buildings on massive jobs, overseeing billion-dollar projects sometimes. It was in those situations that he came up with these little bits of wisdom. I would be having conversations with him, and he would drop them, prompting me to take out my notes app and jot them down.

Simple things like, "Put your head down and do your job," spoken like a good construction worker on a big construction site. One of the ones I have heard many times over the years is, "If you're paying anything, pay attention." Another one I love is, "Don't do work that you'll have to tear out or fix." That's a good one. But one of my all-time favorites is a simple Ron-ism: "They did it to themselves."

My dad had a reputation among his peers in the industry for terminating individuals who were not good workers quickly. He was very quick to tell when someone wasn't going to work out. He would give them their check and say, "We'll see you later." I made a comment to him one time about how he fired so many people, and he said, "Miles, I never fired a single person; they all fired themselves." It goes back to that saying: "They did it to themselves." That Ron-ism rings through my mind frequently.

Through Moses, God told Israel about 800 years before the time of Hosea. He said, "Now it shall come to pass." This is from Deuteronomy chapter 28, which I have referenced quite a few times over the last several years. It shall come to pass, Deuteronomy chapter 28, verse 1: "If you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above the nations of the earth. All these blessings will come upon you and overtake you because you have obeyed the voice of the Lord your God." Then He lists out a whole bunch of blessings that will come upon you.

Israel, if there's that conditional word "if," you diligently obey the voice of the Lord, these blessings will follow. Immediately after that, in verse 15 of the same chapter, he says, "But it shall come to pass," if there's that conditional word again, "if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God to observe carefully His commandments and His statutes which I command you today, all of these curses." When you read "curses" there, you could almost say "anti-blessings." These anti-blessings will come upon and overtake you.

In that passage, as Moses rehearses before the people the blessings of obedience and the anti-blessings of disobedience and rebellion, he finishes up his discourse in verse 45. He says, "Moreover, all these curses, anti-blessings, shall come upon you and pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed." He is speaking to his people, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—those whom he had redeemed out of Egypt, those with whom he had entered into a covenant at Mount Sinai, given His law, and who he would bring into the promised land under Joshua. He says these anti-blessings will come upon, pursue, and overtake you until you are destroyed. Why? Because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God to keep His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you.

These curses will be upon you for a sign and a wonder. These anti-blessings will come upon you, and it will be a sign and a wonder to everybody who sees you and on all your descendants forever because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and gladness of heart for the abundance of everything. Therefore, you shall serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you in hunger, thirst, nakedness, and in need of everything. He will put a yoke of iron on your neck, your enemy will, until he has destroyed you.

This is a key verse, verse 49. It is key to what we'll see in Hosea chapter 8 today. Deuteronomy 28:49 states, "The Lord will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, as swift as an eagle flies—a nation whose language you will not understand, a nation of fierce countenance which does not respect the elderly nor show favor to the young." They shall eat the increase of your livestock and the produce of your land until you are destroyed. They shall not leave your grain, new wine, or oil, or the increase of your cattle or offspring of your flocks until they have destroyed you. They shall besiege all of your gates until your high and fortified walls.

Which you trust comes down throughout all of your land, and they shall besiege you at all your gates throughout all your land, which the Lord your God has given you. You shall eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your own sons and daughters whom the Lord your God has given to you in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you. That was written almost a millennia before Israel is in the dire straits, the desperate straits that they are in, in Hosea chapter 8, as Hosea is speaking to them.

Now, after many centuries of constant disobedience and wickedness, they are in a mess that is getting messier, a mess that is of their own making. They did it to themselves. God told them exactly what would happen: if you obey and follow these commandments, these are the blessings; and if you disobey and rebel, these are the curses. In Hosea chapter 8, if you're there, verse one says to the people of his time, "Set the trumpet to your mouth." He shall come like an eagle against the house of the Lord.

There's that word; it was the very same Hebrew word that was used by Moses several hundred years before in Deuteronomy 28:49. Your enemy, who speaks a language different than yours, will come upon you fierce and fast, like a raptor, like an eagle. He will come against the house of the Lord. Why? Because they have transgressed my covenant and rebelled against my law. There's a reason: they did it to themselves. Israel will cry to me, "My God, we know you." Israel has rejected the good, and the enemy will pursue. The same word again that was used by Moses: pursue and overtake him.

So, Billy Joel, in 1989, sang, "We Didn't Start the Fire; it was always burning since the world was turning." But that isn't exactly true. Point number one, if you're taking notes this morning: most messes are messes of our own making. That was Israel's case all those years ago; they were in a mess of their own making. The prophet says, "Set the trumpet to your mouth." Now, the word trumpet there is Hebrew "chaar." Maybe you've heard that word before. Traditionally, a chaar was a ram's horn trumpet, and it was blown by two specific individuals or groups within the land of Israel.

The priest calls the people to worship, blowing the sound of the chofar. The other role is that of the Watchman, and in this instance, it refers to the Watchman on the wall. During that time, cities were fortified with walls, and many people lived outside the cities, farming the land or tending their flocks. They would bring their food and grain into the storehouses of the cities. If an enemy approached, the Watchmen would see and sound the alarm by blowing the trumpet. The people would then come in, shut the walls, and try to wait out the siege.

Here, it is said to set the trumpet to your mouth and blow the chofar. Why? Because the eagle is coming against the house of the Lord. This image was given by Moses in Deuteronomy 28:49, where God said, "The Lord will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the Earth, as swift as the eagle flies, a nation whose language you will not understand." The fulfillment of this prophecy is coming at the end of the eighth century BC during the time of Hosea, upon the people of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Hosea says to sound the alarm and blow the trumpet; the eagle is coming. Like an eagle, the Assyrians are moving with great speed upon Israel to fiercely and quickly take over the land.

Why are they coming? In Deuteronomy 28:45, God said it is because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God to keep His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you. The reality rings true: they did it to themselves. Unfortunately, along the way, they had many opportunities to change course.

What is a course correction? Biblically, it is called repentance. Throughout this journey, God sent prophet after prophet to call them to repentance and to change course. He said that if they followed His commands, they would experience blessings in their land. However, if they did not, they would face curses and anti-blessings. As I have shared before, the prophets of Israel were experts in Deuteronomy; they understood this deuteronomic principle: the "if this, then that" conditional principle given to us by Moses.

I want to make it clear that not every bad situation or circumstance we find ourselves in is a mess of our own making. Not every situation we encounter is simply a result of our own actions.

But if we are honest enough to accept, admit, and acknowledge it, there are more than a few situations where we can see very clearly that we did it to ourselves. Often, in the midst of the fix that we find ourselves in, we do exactly what Israel does here. They find themselves in the midst of this predicament that they fell into of their own accord. God calls upon them by the prophet and says, "Listen to the sound of the alarm! The Assyrians are coming like this swift bird to destroy."

They cry out, "Israel will cry to me, my God! We know you! We know you! We're on a first-name basis. We know your name is Yahweh. You are Elohim; you are our God. We are your people. We're the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You redeemed us out of Egypt, and we entered into a marital covenant, if you will, with you at Sinai. You gave us the promise that, God, we are your people."

God's response is, "You have rejected the good time and time again, and therefore the enemy will pursue and overtake you."

Point number two: God will allow you to make a mess, and He doesn't always immediately move in to make it better. Why not? Hosea 8:4 states, "What brought this about?" It wasn't just God's arbitrary anger. The first word of verse four in Hosea 8 is "They." The people of Israel set up kings, but not by Me. They made princes or judges, rulers, but I did not acknowledge or accept them. From their silver and their gold, they made idols for themselves that they might be cut off.

He says, "Your calf is rejected, O Samaria." Samaria was the capital city of the northern kingdom. "My anger is aroused against them. How long until they attain innocence? For from Israel is even this; a workman made it, and it is not God. The calf of Samaria shall be broken to pieces."

For centuries, the people of the Northern Kingdom of Israel have been content.

To live without God's input, without God's guidance, and without His help for a long time is a grave mistake. The people have rejected His counsel and His wisdom, which is evidently seen in that they installed kings who were not of God's choosing. This is stated clearly in verse 8: "They set up kings, but not by Me." These are not the kings that God had called to be over the people.

We know this because, among the people of the northern kingdom, beginning with their first king, Jeroboam, and through every single successive king after that, not a single one of the northern kingdom's kings was ever good. They were all wholly and completely unholy. The situation was not much better for the southern kingdom of Judah. Occasionally, you would get a good king, such as Hezekiah or Josiah, but for the most part, the kings of Israel were a mess. It was very clear that the northern kingdom never had a good king who followed after the way of the Lord. It always stated, "And this king did more evil than their fathers," and the mess just got messier.

They installed kings that were not of God's choosing and chose officials—judges and politicians, shall we say, if we updated the language—who were not approved by God. These officials did not judge the wickedness of the people of Israel or their continued wickedness. God had allowed them, by His blessing, to become very wealthy. The people of the northern kingdom had very fertile land, and they were able to plow, plant, and reap the harvest of their land. As a result, they acquired much gold and silver.

What did they do with their wealth, their gold, and their silver? They took the gold and silver and made idols, which is a blatant rejection and transgression of God's first and second commandments: "You shall have no other God before Me" and "You shall not make for yourselves any graven or carved image of any likeness." Yet, that's exactly what they did. By doing these things—rejecting God as king, setting up kings who were against God, accepting and choosing officials and judges that were not accepted by God, and making idols—they created the conditions for the mess that is now inviting the judgment of God, that they might be cut off.

To them, your calf is destroyed. What is that? Well, in the book of Exodus, when God rescued and redeemed Israel out of Egypt under Moses, He brought them to Mount Sinai. Moses went on Mount Sinai to receive the law from God, and he was gone for about a month and a half. During that time, the children of Israel said, "As for this Moses, we don't know what happened to him. He's been gone for a month and a half."

So, they went to Moses's brother Aaron and said, "Make us a god that we can worship." Aaron replied, "Well, give me your gold," and he fashioned for them a golden calf. They worshiped the golden calf, and God judged Israel because of this idolatry. Moses destroyed the golden calf, but here's the amazing thing: fast forward several hundred years. The nation of Israel is split in two, and the northern kingdom, ruled by Jeroboam, the first king of the northern kingdom, established golden calf worship again in the land.

In the key major cities, you can go to the ruins of the city of Dan, the northernmost city in the Northern Kingdom of Israel today, and see the ruins of the altar on which golden calf worship occurred in ancient times. In Samaria, the capital city, Jeroboam reestablished golden calf worship in addition to serving and worshiping Asherah and Molech. They bowed down to the golden calf and trusted in it.

God says, "Your calf is rejected, O Samaria. It has invited and aroused my anger." The New Living Translation says, "My fury burns against you. How long will you be incapable of innocence?" In other words, He asks, "How long are you going to keep this up? You know that this angers me. You know that I cannot and will not allow this idol to stand indefinitely. You know that its destruction, the destruction of this golden calf in Samaria, will be your destruction because I am going to destroy it along with the city. You know that this idol is not me; it is not of me; it is not God. Why don't you quit your golden calf worship?" Yet they wouldn't. By continuing in their idolatry and immorality, God, through Hosea, says this: "Look at verse 7. Maybe you've heard this saying before; you didn't know where it came from: they sow the wind and they..."

Reap the whirlwind. The stock has no bud; it shall never produce meal. If it should produce, aliens and foreigners would swallow it up. They sow to the wind and they reap the whirlwind. What does it mean? It basically means they did it to themselves. That's what it means. It is the principle of sowing and reaping, the principle that Paul speaks of in Galatians chapter 6, verse 8. He says, "For he who sows to the flesh will of the flesh reap corruption."

Now, the inverse is true: he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life. But keep that in mind: he who sows to the flesh will of the flesh reap corruption. When it says they sow the wind and reap the whirlwind, what does that mean? If you've ever planted anything, you know that the seed is very small, but the harvest can be very great. What you reap in the harvest is much greater than what was sown.

So, he's saying there's a compounding effect in this. If you sow to the wind consistently, continuously, and abundantly, if you're sowing to the flesh, you will consistently, continuously, and abundantly reap far more than you put into it. You're going to reap a whole lot of corruption and destruction. In Israel, for at least five centuries, the northern kingdom has been consistently, continuously, and abundantly sowing to immorality, idolatry, and all kinds of carnality. God says now the harvest is coming in.

This is the Deuteronomic principle, the law of sowing and reaping. Paul, in 2 Corinthians 9, says, "He who sows bountifully will reap bountifully." Israel had been sowing bountifully to the flesh.

Point number three: the entropy of messes is that they tend to grow messier. What is that word, entropy? There are various meanings to the word entropy, but it is most clearly connected to a law in physics—the second law of thermodynamics. The law of entropy basically states that things in this system in which we live tend to go from a state of order to disorder. You know this if you have children and they had a room. If you cleaned that room or told them to clean it...

Them to clean that room, and that room went from a state of order to disorder. It's the law of entropy. The entropy of messes is that messes tend to grow messier; they tend to get worse. Frequently, in the midst of the mess getting messier, God gives us stop signs. For Israel, it was the prophets; they were the stop signs. Maybe this is your stop sign today, being confronted with the Scriptures right now. You've been on a path that is leading towards the compounding of devastating effects. You've been sowing to the wind, and the whirlwind is coming. It hasn't quite yet come, but it's on the horizon.

Maybe this is your opportunity where God says, "Stop, repent." Israel had that opportunity dozens, if not hundreds, of times from unnamed prophets and named prophets alike that God would send to them. What did the prophets know? They knew Deuteronomy; they knew the conditional principle: if this, then that—the Deuteronomic principle, the law of sowing and reaping.

You would think that here in July of 2024, we would see the signs in our own nation. Jesus said, "You know how to discern what the weather will be tomorrow. You see if the sky is red, you know what's going to happen, but you don't know how to discern the signs of the times." There are signs all around us in our own nation, but we keep bounding along on a path towards greater messes.

You may ask, "How so?" Well, how about a planned $7.3 trillion budget for fiscal year 2025 when we have a $34 trillion deficit? You don't have to be a math magician to know that's a bad idea. It doesn't look like a smart move. How about candidates for office with glaring inconsistencies and issues? It doesn't matter what political leanings you have; the inconsistencies are evident.

How about more money and weapons for foreign wars? What possibly could go wrong? How about unbridled and unregulated technological experiments in artificial intelligence and social media? Let's just keep doing this without any sort of consideration about what might come after the fact. We have all seen the consequences.

The last 18 to 20 months have seen the advent of new large language models for artificial intelligence. There is a lot of optimism about what they could mean, and there is a significant amount of research and billions of dollars being invested in this field. However, no one has been able to articulate any sort of answer to the question: What happens if we succeed? If we achieve what has been aspired to for decades—artificial general intelligence or superintelligence, meaning intelligence greater than the sum of all human intelligence—what occurs at that point? No one has any answers for that, yet we continue without any consideration of the ethics involved.

What could possibly go wrong? Consider the pundits who fuel fires of hate and discontent every single moment of the day on social media and in news media. What could possibly go wrong? Undoubtedly, messes tend to get messier, and we are witnessing this firsthand. The natural tendency of things is to become more disordered and chaotic over time. So I ask you, do things appear to be getting less chaotic or more chaotic?

I wrote this before what happened at 3:05 p.m. our time yesterday. Hosea says, "The stock has no bud; it shall never produce meal. If it will produce, foreigners will swallow it up." What is he predicting in poetic language? He is predicting famine and foreign invasion. How did he know this was going to happen? What foresight! What an amazing prophet! Let me tell you how he knew this: He knew because God told him that this would happen.

In Deuteronomy 28:15, it is stated, "It shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God to observe carefully all of His commandments and His statutes which I command you today, all these curses and blessings will come upon you and overtake you." Here it is in verse 16: "Cursed shall you be in the city; cursed shall you be in the country; cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl." This is poetic language referring to the produce you have in your house to eat from your basket and your kneading bowl. "Cursed shall be the fruit of your body and the produce of your land, the increase of your cattle, your offspring, and your flocks. The Lord will bring a nation against you from afar."

Verse 49 continues, "From the end of the earth, as swift as an eagle, a nation whose language you do not understand, a nation with fierce countenance who does not respect the...".

Elderly nor show favor to the young, and they shall eat the increase of your livestock and produce of your land until you are destroyed. They shall not leave your grain, new wine, oil, or the increase of your cattle or offspring, or your flocks until they have consumed and destroyed you. How did he know? He knew because he knew the Scriptures.

So I ask you, July 2024, are your basket and produce not going as far as they used to? Is it a little bit more costly to live? Are there foreigners coming in and consuming resources that are not quickly being replenished? Is the mess getting messier? Is the chaos increasing or decreasing? Is it becoming less orderly or more orderly? The entropy of messes is that they tend to grow messier, and it's something to consider.

So what then? Well, point four: if the mess becomes too messy, the only way to deal with it may be to throw it all out. Well, that's a bright and sunny message. Thanks, Pastor! But that's what God says in verse 8 of Hosea. Hosea 8:8 states, "Israel is consumed, swallowed up."

So what's the result? Now they are among the Gentiles, like a vessel in which there is no pleasure. Hosea foresees the exile of the people being removed from the land by the Assyrians. They would be consumed and swallowed up; they would be scattered among the Gentiles like something that no one likes or wants.

I'm sure some of you have experienced this. You kind of acquire things. I mean, we bought our first house, and it had a garage. Soon, we couldn't park in our garage because we acquired things. Then we bought a house with a bigger garage, and we acquired more things. It has more closet space, and we got things, right? Then you start to go through these things, thinking, "I don't want this." What do you do with it? You throw it out because it's like, "I don't want this. I don't need this. I don't even know where this came from."

And so he says you're going to be cast out like a vessel that is no longer wanted. Why? Why would this happen to them? Well, aside from everything that we've already seen, Israel is reaping the consequences of their rebellion and disobedience. They did it to themselves.

Why is this happening? The key word is that they have gone up to Assyria like a wild donkey, alone by itself. Ephraim has hired lovers. What does this mean? It is fascinating when you study the history of Israel during this time. In the ten years before the Assyrians came and destroyed the northern kingdom, their king, whose name was similar to the prophet Hosea, was Hosha. In about 731 BC, when he became king, he could see that the Assyrians were going to be a problem.

He had this bright idea: "I know what I'll do. I'll get them on my side. I'll send them money; I'll pay a tribute to them, and then we'll be buddy-buddy. We'll be friends; we'll be besties. I'll pay them some money, and everything will be okay." Instead of turning to God, as the prophets had said, Hosha thought it would just be easier to pay them. The prophets warned him, "Listen, Hosha, don't turn to the Assyrians for help. If you do, you will be destroyed. Turn to God; God will rescue and redeem you, but you have to repent. You have to turn away from your sin and destroy your idols, your golden calf that you've been worshiping."

However, Hosha couldn't do that. He figured it would just be easier to pay them some money. The fascinating thing is that while this was happening in the northern kingdom, a very similar situation was occurring in the southern kingdom of Judah and Jerusalem. Ahaz, the king of Judah, sought to do the same thing: "We'll just enter into tribute and pay the Assyrians, and this will fix it."

Thankfully, during the time that the Assyrians came and destroyed the northern kingdom, a new king in the south named Hezekiah was in power. God, through Isaiah, said to Hezekiah, "Do not pay the tribute. Trust in the Lord; turn to the Lord. He will protect you." Hezekiah had a hard time with this. It is hard to trust God; it is much easier to trust your own ingenuity or the way things have been. He was tempted to keep paying the Assyrians and paying the tribute, but he struggled between these two choices: to trust God or not.

He had a perfect image of what happens if he does not, just by looking a little bit to the north among the people in the northern kingdom. The northern kingdom sought to try to pay off and appease the Assyrians, but appeasement rarely works, and it certainly didn't for the people. Most attempts to clean up our own messes often lead to further complications.

Our own messes only make the mess messier. The only right response in this situation, and in many situations, is to turn to God in faith and obedience. But Israel would not.

In Hosea chapter 8, verse 10, it states, "Though they have hired among the nations, now I will gather them." God is going to bring them together, and they shall sorrow a little because of the burden of the king of princes. What does this mean? The English Standard Version is helpful; it reads, "Though they hire allies among the nations, they're paying off the Assyrians and others. I soon will gather them up, and the king and princes of the northern kingdom shall soon rise because of their tribute."

Because they did this, because instead of turning to God, they thought they could try and fix this by paying off their enemies, they are now going to rise. Why would God punish them in this way? It seems so unmerciful. It seems that He lacks mercy, grace, and kindness. Where is God's patience?

Well, remember, this is after five centuries of disobedience. Our nation has been a nation for 250 years, and they have continued in continuous disobedience for 500 years, sowing to the wind.

In verse 11, it says, "Because Ephraim has made many altars for sin." They have built these altars to worship false gods, such as Asherah, Moloch, and the golden calf. They have become altars for sinning. God has written for them the great things of His law; He gave them His word, but they considered it a strange thing. They have disregarded His word for the sacrifices of their offerings. They sacrifice flesh and eat it, but the Lord does not accept them. They bring offerings, but He no longer receives their worship. Their worship to Him is disgusting.

Now He will remember their iniquity and punish their sins. God will, and they shall return to Egypt—not physically, but proverbially. They are going to go into exile, for Israel has forgotten his Maker and has built temples. Judah, also in the South, has multiplied fortified cities, but God will send fire upon his cities, and it shall devour his palaces.

So here we have two kingdoms—a tale of two cities, shall we say. The northern kingdom, in 720 BC, is being assaulted and besieged by the Assyrians, who will soon turn their attention to the South, to Judah, over the next two decades. Both the North and the South have been paying money to the Assyrians.

Try to buy them off. If we just keep paying them off, they'll leave us alone. That's a bad idea. The Northern Kingdom is destroyed during the time of Hosea in 720 BC, and then the attention turns to the South. Hezekiah is king, and Isaiah comes to Hezekiah and says, "You must not pay this tribute; you must trust in the Lord." Hezekiah is caught between two opinions, and finally, he chooses to trust in the Lord, but only after his nation is already being devastated. They had 46 walled cities in Judah, and 45 of them are destroyed by the Assyrians. Only the city of Jerusalem remains.

At that point, Hezekiah comes to the temple and pours out everything before the Lord, saying, "God, we need your help." What will it take to get you to the point where you turn to God? Need I say it again? They did it to themselves.

Now, it's important to understand, and I'll try to wrap it up with this: judgment and wrath do not give God joy or pleasure. It's not as if God is in heaven saying, "Oh yes, I've been waiting for this chance," like maybe some of us would. He is not like us. In Ezekiel 33:11, God says, "As I live, says the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked would turn from his way and live." That's my desire—repentance.

However, God will allow people, even His people, to reap the consequences of their choices and actions. I wholeheartedly believe that God has sovereignly decreed that we have free will, and He also sovereignly allows us to be responsible for our free choices. We see this so clearly in the Old Testament.

We cannot forget that most messes are the messes of our own making. God will allow us to make a mess and doesn't always immediately move in to make it better. The entropy of messes is that they tend to grow messier, and if the mess becomes too messy, the only way to deal with it may be to throw it all out.

Where's the hope in that? Well, point number five, and I'll close: God lovingly...

God redeems and restores the broken down and messy lives of those who turn to Him in repentance. That's the good news. You see, God has a bigger objective in mind than just the blessing of a piece of land in the Northern Kingdom of Israel. He has a greater blessing in mind, and He will allow His people to experience the consequences of their free choices. Why? Because His desire is to redeem and restore broken down and messy lives.

Some of you know this very well and personally this morning because you came to God with a messed up life, and you did it to yourself. God restored and redeemed your messed up life, and your life is a testimony to that. One of the awesome things is to see a redeemed and restored life. Those people are sometimes the strongest followers of God. Most often, they are the strongest followers of God who frequently are the kind of half-hearted followers—the ones who had life so great all along. They don't know anything of the redemption and restoration that comes from everything being messed up by God, so they tend to toe the line a little bit more, trying things out.

God is the one; Jesus is the one who gives beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. He is the one who takes my sin and your sin and gives us His righteousness. He who knew no sin became sin for us that we might be the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:21). That is the good news of the gospel, and that is God's call to you today. Maybe your life is a mess. Jesus wants that mess. He redeems it, He buys it back, and He restores it to something glorious and great. That's what He wants to do in individual lives; that's what He wants to do in our culture. That's why the gospel is so essential for us and for our culture for such a time as this.

Would you stand with me as we close in prayer? Father God, I thank You for Your word. It is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword. Sometimes that sharp two-edged sword is painful when it cuts to the heart and divides between joint and marrow, and soul and spirit. It discerns the thoughts and the intents of our hearts.

But God, that's what we need. In Your loving kindness and in Your grace, You expose the areas of our lives, our culture, and our country that are against Your nature and Your will, so that we can call out to You in repentance.

Lord, I am convinced that just like during the days of Isaiah, in the time in which Hosea lived, You are looking among our nation for individuals to stand in the gap, intercede, and pray. I ask God that You would find in Cross Connection Church that heart among this group, that we would stand in the gap because we have no hope outside of You and the Gospel.

I see that increasingly day by day, with every new thing that hits Twitter or the news. We have no hope but in You. I pray, God, that we as Your people and in our culture would increasingly see that we have no political hope, no economic hope, and no hope in this world apart from You and Your grace.

God, do a work. Thank You that You redeem and restore messes. Take our mess and make it glorious for Your kingdom, for we ask this in Jesus' name. And all those that agreed said, "Amen."