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[0:00] Hosea, in chapter 8. Hosea 8. Put the trumpet to your lips.

[0:11] An eagle is over the house of the Lord, because the people have broken my covenant! and rebelled against my law. Israel cries out to me, O our God, we acknowledge you. But Israel has rejected what is good.

[0:24] An enemy will pursue him. They will set up kings without my consent. They choose princes without my approval. With their silver and gold, they make idols for themselves to their own destruction.

[0:37] Throw out your calf, idol, O Samaria. My anger burns against them. How long will they be incapable of purity? They are from Israel. This calf, a craftsman has made it.

[0:49] It is not God. It will be broken in pieces, that calf of Samaria. They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind. A stalk has no head.

[0:59] It will produce no flower. Were it to yield grain, foreigners would swallow it up. Israel is swallowed up. Now she is among the nations, like a worthless thing. For they have gone up to Assyria, like a wild donkey wandering alone.

[1:14] Ephraim has sold herself to lovers. Although they have sold themselves among the nations, I will now gather them together. They will begin to waste away under the oppression of the mighty king.

[1:27] Though Ephraim built many altars for sin offerings, these have become altars for sinning. I wrote for them the many things of my law, but they regarded them as something alien.

[1:38] They offer sacrifices given to me and eat the meat, but the Lord is not pleased with them. Now he will remember their wickedness and punish their sins. They will return to Egypt.

[1:49] Israel has forgotten his maker and built palaces. Judah has fortified many towns, but I will send fire upon their cities. It will consume their fortresses.

[2:00] No one saw it coming. No one saw it coming, though they should have.

[2:15] An ominous shadow was sweeping over the barnyard. And moments later, the eagle swoops down, snatches its prey, and carries it away to devour it.

[2:29] Israel is asleep in her complacency. She senses no danger. No problem.

[2:41] She's doing well with her self-appointed kings, her man-made idols, her bought-off allies, her multiplied sacrifices, her fortified cities.

[2:55] She doesn't think there's danger. She's safe. She has need of nothing. And she doesn't know just how close she is to destruction. And so God in mercy sends his prophet Hosea to sound the alarm to awake the sleeping nation.

[3:16] Put the trumpet to your lips. Danger has been spotted. An eagle is over the house of the Lord. Now the eagle was not on a pleasure flight.

[3:29] It was hungry in search of dinner. Verse 3 tells us that this eagle is an enemy in pursuit of Israel.

[3:41] And we see it unfolding in this book. It's the army of Assyria. It's the army of Assyria. Who will sweep down. And will lay hold of Israel and carry them away into captivity.

[3:55] And the nation would be destroyed forever. Now why? What's the cause of this eagle? Why is the eagle over Israel?

[4:08] Why is the nation so ripe for judgment? Well, he tells us in verse 1, because the people have broken my covenant. They have rebelled against my law.

[4:24] Now the covenant was the marriage covenant that united God and Israel as one. And his law was the covenant stipulations.

[4:35] The requirements for maintaining that relationship together. They broke the marriage covenant. They rebelled against its stipulations. And so God's protective presence was withdrawn from Israel.

[4:50] She is now left unprotected by God. To fend for themselves against the mighty Assyrian army. Now Israel should have known that this was coming.

[5:05] It was part of their marriage vows. Blessings for obedience. Curses for disobedience. Back in Deuteronomy 28. If you this this was her her marriage vow, her covenant with God.

[5:19] If you do not obey the Lord, your God, and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees, I am giving you today. All these curses will come on you and overtake you.

[5:32] The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. Because you did not serve the Lord, your God, joyfully and gladly in the time of prosperity.

[5:44] Therefore, in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and dire poverty, you will serve the enemies the Lord sends against you. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you.

[5:57] The Lord will bring a nation against you from far away, from the ends of the earth, like an eagle swooping down. A nation whose language you will not understand.

[6:11] A fierce looking nation without respect for the old or pity for the young. They will devour the young of your livestock and the crops of your land until you are destroyed.

[6:22] They will lay siege to all the cities throughout your land until the high fortified walls in which you trust fall down. If you do not keep my covenant and be careful to obey all my laws.

[6:38] Isn't that something? The Lord will bring a nation against you like an eagle swooping down. They had been warned from the marriage altar. They were warned. This is what will happen.

[6:49] But those words of God were long forgotten. And so Israel now reminds them an eagle has been spotted and is waiting to swoop down and tear you to pieces.

[7:04] It is now over the house of Israel. So God is the one who in wrath whistles for the eagle of the Assyrians to come and devour his people.

[7:18] And yet God is the one who in mercy sends his prophet Hosea to trumpet the warning to Israel that they might repent and avert the coming judgment.

[7:32] Consider both the sternness and the kindness of God. Sternness seen in the judgments that await them if they don't repent.

[7:47] Kindness in warning them of the coming judgments and calling them to repent. It is a mercy to be called to repentance, to be warned of judgment.

[8:01] Now, that's the call, the wake up call that God gives through Hosea. What is Israel's response to this warning of judgment? It's frightening, folks. She says, pipe down.

[8:15] Put your trumpet away, Hosea. There's no need for alarm here. We're safe. We're God's covenant people. We know the Lord.

[8:25] You see it in verse two. Israel cries out to me. Oh, our God, we acknowledge you. We know you. And God replies in verse three.

[8:36] But Israel has rejected what is good. And so an enemy will pursue him. What they claim and what they do are two different things, aren't they?

[8:48] They claim covenant faithfulness. But in fact, they break the covenant and rebel against God's covenant laws. They say they know God, but they have rejected what is good.

[9:02] Saying and doing are not always the same thing. I know a young lady who claims to have or I know of a young lady who claims to have a wonderful relationship with Jesus Christ, even while she carries on sleeping with her boyfriend.

[9:20] I knew of a woman who said she had a close relationship with God, even while she was planning and pursuing an unbiblical divorce from her husband.

[9:33] I've heard practicing homosexuals tell me what a wonderful relationship they have with Jesus Christ. And God says, that's nothing.

[9:46] I know a nation that claims to know me while setting up kings without my consent and making idols for themselves. They say, oh, God, we know you even while breaking my covenant, rebelling against my law and rejecting what is good.

[10:07] You see, God's covenant laws were the requirements that Israel was to keep in order to maintain that relationship with God. To remain in that relationship with God, she must do this.

[10:22] She must follow his command. She must not turn away from him to idols to rebel against the law. His law was to forfeit this relationship that she had with God, that which no other nation on the earth had.

[10:35] They were God's people. He was their God. But that's what she did. She forfeited that relationship. She sinned against him. She broke the covenant.

[10:46] And now she is to reap the curses of the covenant rather than its blessings. That's what they had done.

[10:57] And yet they still claim him as their God. They still claim that they're in covenant relationship with him. Oh, oh, our God, we know you, they say.

[11:08] And God says it cannot be. It cannot be. You see, the hard to swallow facts were these. He is no longer their God. And they are no longer his people.

[11:22] Remember back in chapter one, when Gomer had her third child. The Lord said in chapter one, call him low army for you are not my people and I am not your God.

[11:39] And here in chapter eight, we're simply finding out that Israel was having trouble swallowing the bad news, accepting it.

[11:50] She's still claiming God as her God. And still claiming herself as his people. Things have not changed.

[12:01] Things have not changed, have they? The blight of modern religion today is that many who reject God's commandments and turn to their own way still think they are his people.

[12:18] And God simply says it cannot be. It cannot be. Unbelievable statistics of people who say we know God.

[12:31] And yet statistics also show that there is no measurable difference in the morality between those who say they know God and those that don't even profess.

[12:42] As to honoring father and mother, as to adultery, divorce, lying, stealing. No difference. And yet, oh, our God, we are your people.

[12:56] We are yours. Such might deceive others. They may even succeed in deceiving themselves, but they will not deceive the Lord.

[13:10] He says, you are not my people. I am not your God. Your actions belie your words. You know, when the Lord Jesus was on the earth and he met these kind of people, you know what he said to them?

[13:20] Why do you call me Lord, Lord and do not do the things that I say? And again, he tells them, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, oh, our God, we know you will enter into the kingdom of heaven.

[13:40] But only he who does the will of my father who is in heaven. And so the whole New Testament is full of corrections for this very delusion that men are under thinking, I am safe.

[13:56] I am saved, though I rebel against God's law and I'm going my own way. And so John, the apostle of love, says in 1st John 2, 4, he who says, I know him, but does not do what he commands is a liar.

[14:13] And the truth is not in him. And James. Says in 2, 14, what good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith that has not works?

[14:26] Can such faith save him? The answer is absolutely not. It's dead. It's lifeless. It's worthless. The true spiritual condition of a person is not told merely by what they claim with their mouth, but what they do.

[14:43] And knowing the Lord is far more than just claiming to know him. It involves keeping his commandments, living in a way that pleases him. Is that not what it means to know me?

[14:57] Declares the Lord, Jeremiah 22. And so here in the rest of chapter 8 of Hosea, God's charge is backed up with specific examples.

[15:09] We're given four specific areas in the life of Israel that demonstrate she doesn't really know the Lord. For whatever she claims, she's going her own way and is ripe for judgment.

[15:22] This is a wake up call, a call to reality that shows her what she really is. And the first area is that of politics. Verse 4 says they set up kings without my consent.

[15:35] They choose princes without my approval. Now what man wants in a king and what God wants in a king sometimes are two very different things.

[15:49] We see that, don't we, in the appointment of David as king of Israel. Man had one idea. God had another. And so Samuel goes out with a message from the Lord that he is to anoint one of the sons of Jesse.

[16:04] And Jesse parades before him his sons. And there's a lie. And Samuel says, surely this is the anointed of the Lord. And the Lord says, do not consider his appearance or his height for I have rejected him.

[16:22] The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart. And so they all pass by him until finally Samuel says, none of these are it.

[16:37] Do you have no other son? Oh, yes, there's there's the youngest. He's out tending sheep. Send for him. And God says, he's the man. Anoint him. A man after God's own heart.

[16:49] But now Israel is not even concerned with what God wants in her kings. They just go on setting up kings and rulers without even seeking his approval.

[17:01] No one's even consulting him on what he wants in a king. They do not acknowledge God in all their ways, but rather lean on their own understanding. Doing what seems right in their own eyes.

[17:15] This seems like the king for us under the circumstances. And so they will go through six kings in their final 30 years. Four of them removed by assassination.

[17:27] Setting up kings without God's approval. Now, here's the consistent defect in their life. And it reaches way beyond just politics. It's not just that in the area of politics, they do what they please and don't seek the Lord's approval.

[17:41] No, this is this is consistent with their life. And it's seen in their politics. And this is proof. Of what God says about them being right for judgment.

[17:54] When they make decisions, they don't ask, Lord, what do you want? They just do what they want. That's proof that a person does not know the Lord.

[18:08] The fatal omission in their religion is that they've never died to self will. They've never died to king self. They've never bowed their allegiance to Jesus as king, but have said, we'll not have this man to rule over us.

[18:25] We will do what we want. And yet they claim him as their God and king, but their will trumps his whenever there's conflict.

[18:39] Friend. Jesus is not your king. God is not your savior. Unless you've surrendered your will to his.

[18:52] The Lord Jesus made this perfectly clear in his preaching. If anyone will come after me, if any of you want to be my disciple and come after me, he must deny himself.

[19:05] He must renounce king self. And take up his cross and follow me. It's not just that he must deny himself of meat on Friday or this thing or that thing.

[19:19] You've got to deny yourself. Yourself. Yourself. The whole rotten business of living as you want instead of how I want.

[19:29] It must go. You must forsake your way. That you might walk in my way. You must surrender the controls to me. Give me the steering wheel.

[19:41] Give me the remote. Give me the controls of your life. Give me your will. Your will must bow to mine. And my will is clearly expressed in my holy commandments.

[19:55] That's the claim that God makes. And you see, this is not only something that is required of us when choosing our political leaders, but also when choosing who you will date.

[20:09] And who you will marry. And what job you will seek and what school you will attend. And where you will live. And what you'll do with your money and with your free time, with your body, the things that you see with your eyes.

[20:30] The music you listen to with your ears. The movies you watch, the clothes you wear. Are you asking God what he wants? Or are you just living the way you want?

[20:47] Well, Hosea says your way leads to destruction. And God's way leads to perfect freedom. Follow his way. So Israel chooses their kings without seeking God's approval.

[21:01] And those kings will prove to be of no help to them in their time of need. Now, the same fatal flaw is seen in the secondary. Secondary, their self-willed religion. Again, in verse four, with their silver and gold, they make idols for themselves to their own destruction.

[21:18] In other words, they worship God in the way they wanted to without consulting him on how he wants to be worshipped. Because if they would have consulted him in how he wants to be worshipped, they would have found in Exodus chapter 20 that he says, you shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything.

[21:35] And bow down and worship them. But they didn't care what God said. And so they made for themselves an idol. Thinking that that idol would help them.

[21:50] But instead, it leads to their own destruction. And so they take the silver and gold that God gave them as gifts from him, and they use it to make a calf idol.

[22:02] Now, this calf idol first appeared on the base of Mount Sinai. You remember, while Moses was up on the mountain, Aaron cast an idol of a golden calf.

[22:14] And then again, when the kingdom was divided after King Solomon died, and the kingdom was divided into the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom, and Jeroboam took ten tribes and went to the north, we see that he had cast two golden calves.

[22:34] You see, his fear was that if all of his people were going down to Jerusalem in the southern kingdom for all the religious festivals and feasts, that they might defect to the south.

[22:50] They might say, oh, that's the center of our religion down there in Jerusalem. And say, let's move down there and let's defect to the southern kingdom. And so in order to keep his people from defecting, Jeroboam I established two worship centers in Dan and Bethel there in the northern kingdom.

[23:09] And in each one, he put a golden calf. He had his own priests and his own schedule for the feasts, so that his people wouldn't have to go down to Jerusalem.

[23:21] That's these calf idols. And now here is Israel. 200 years later, still worshiping the calf idols. Idols.

[23:33] You know, as we've been in the book of Hosea, of God's complaint in this book against idols, those substitutes for him, those other lovers that are found in his place, receiving trust and love and affection and loyalty that he alone deserves.

[23:57] Beware of idols, people of God. Beware of idols. Idols of the heart. Things that drain away our love and affection. Your mind's always running there.

[24:10] Could be that that's the biggest symptom of an idol. It's not running to God. It's always there. That thing, that person. Maybe it's a cluster of idols, of things in your life.

[24:22] Beware of idols. Remember, idolatry is to God what adultery is to marriage. He hates it. He hates it. And here he weighs in on these idols.

[24:36] He's got words for their idols. He says, throw them away. Verse 5, throw out your calf idol, O Samaria. Samaria being the capital of the north. My anger burns against them like a jealous husband with love burning against any intruder into his marriage.

[24:55] Get rid of it. How long must the Lord put up with another in his place? How long must the Lord put up with another in the embraces of the child for whom he died?

[25:12] How long will they be incapable of purity? You see, idols leave us defiled. Incapable of purity. Whatever else we may claim or do.

[25:23] And so he seeks to turn them from their idolatry by poking fun at it and showing its folly. It's not only wicked, a replacement of God, but it's foolish.

[25:34] It's stupid to trust in idols. And he points out the human source of their idols. Verse 6, they are from Israel. Where did these idols come from? Well, from yourself.

[25:46] This calf, a craftsman made it. It is not God. God? What's more foolish than worshipping something beneath you? Something that your hands have fashioned and made rather than the one who fashioned you, the creator.

[26:04] It'll be broken in pieces, he says, that calf of Samaria when the Assyrian eagle swoops down. It will be broken in pieces.

[26:16] You see, idols inevitably disappoint us. They cannot save us. The very things you look to for help, for happiness, for pleasure, fulfillment, security, comfort will be shattered.

[26:29] And then what will happen to you? If the thing you're leaning on is shattered, what will happen to you in that day? Do you see the folly then? The stupidity of ever trusting in breakable, handmade idols.

[26:46] So get rid of them now is God's word. So their politics, their religion, third, their foreign affairs.

[26:58] We've already seen how instead of turning to the Lord for help in the threats of the nations and for their security, Israel was turning to the other nations, forever changing loyalties, breaking one treaty to make another, wavering back and forth between Egypt and Assyria and other nations like a senseless dove.

[27:20] Chapter 7 and verse 11. Seeking to buy out the best allies. And though it seemed politically expedient at the time, no doubt, such a foreign policy was bound to catch up with them and to bite them and to destroy them.

[27:37] And so Hosea calls it a sowing of the wind. They are sowing to the wind. Their foreign policy is sowing the wind and it will lead to an even worse reaping of the whirlwind.

[27:51] It's not just that you sow wind so you'll get wind back. It's you sowed to the wind, you'll get a whirlwind, a tornado back. Their self-sought foreign alliances will prove destructive in the end.

[28:07] Not only helpless, but destructive. And already, Israel's not the prize that she had once been. She had once been the head of the nations. Everyone envied her.

[28:19] But now, she is among the nations, verse 8, like a worthless thing. Like a cracked pot that no one wants. Once scorned by the nations, made useless by the famine and by the foreign pillagers that were swallowing up her wealth.

[28:36] Both curses for her covenant breaking. And so far from being the blessing that she was to be to the nations, she now becomes a worthless thing. She's worthless.

[28:47] She was called by her holy, separate life to be a light to the nations. But she became like the nations and so, as to her calling, she's just a worthless thing.

[29:03] And so, like a dumb donkey, Israel wanders up to Assyria, paying massive tribute to them to buy off their favor. She sold herself to her lovers.

[29:17] So, not only are idols viewed by God as other lovers, but so are the nations that Israel turned to. So is Assyria.

[29:28] It's, when we turn to other things to put our trust in for security, for peace, for our protection, God says, someone else is in bed with you.

[29:42] It's wrong. It's spiritual adultery. So she goes after other lovers. Even the nations took his place, even as the idols had done.

[29:54] And so he says, they will, verse 10, although they have sold themselves among the nations, I will now gather them together. God's gathering them together for judgment.

[30:06] He says, they will begin to waste away under the oppression of the mighty king. Funny, that mighty king will be the mighty Assyrian king. And when at last they play the traitor yet one too many times, they will reap the devastating tornado of complete annihilation through the invading army of the Assyrians.

[30:28] The one they trusted in as their savior will prove to be their destroyer, Assyria. So their politics, self-will.

[30:45] Their religion, self-will. Their foreign affairs, self-will. Just doing what they want. And before he turns to the fourth and final area, he returns to the worthless self-made religion.

[31:00] Do they think that their many sacrifices to the Lord will save them from the threatened judgment? No, they will actually bring heavier judgment. Verse 11, they built many offerings or many altars for sin offerings that these have become altars for sinning.

[31:18] Isn't that something? The altars that they built for removing the offense of sin actually increase the offense of sin. Because the law had said that they were to only worship in one place.

[31:32] They were to only make their sacrifices in one place where God was to place his name. There you are to bring your sacrifices. But you remember, Israel's not concerned about what the Lord wants.

[31:45] She's doing what she thinks is right. And so she multiplies places of sacrifice. And she builds many altars and they become altars for sinning.

[32:00] If one altar in Jerusalem is good, well, then God ought to be pleased with many altars, right? Wrong. Worship him at the place he has chosen was the command to them.

[32:13] But it also became an altar for sinning because, as we've seen, these altars were perverted with the pagan worship. Idols at their altars.

[32:25] And remember, their idols defiled their worship, leaving them incapable of purity. So, should God be happy with their multiplied altars and offerings?

[32:40] No. The more their religion increased, the more they sinned. You see, their worship was not just worthless, empty religion, it was positively insulting to God.

[32:55] And so, it attracted the very judgment that it was meant to turn away. We saw last Sunday evening in Ecclesiastes 5 that worship is a very dangerous thing.

[33:07] We can offend God. We can insult God by our worship. Get the tape. and listen to the CD and listen to it. We can think at our most spiritual times that we are the closest to God.

[33:23] And those very times can be the times when we are offering the sacrifices of fools that are offensive to God. It was that way in Israel. Oh, surely God will be pleased with our many altars.

[33:35] And they were just more altars for more sin. God says, I wrote for them many things of my law, verse 12, but they regarded them as something alien, something strange, not to be grasped and held to themselves and obeyed, but those laws aren't for us.

[33:54] And so verse 13, they offer sacrifices given to me, given to me, Jehovah, and they eat the meat as prescribed by my law, but the Lord is not pleased with them.

[34:08] You know why God is not pleased with their sacrifices? Because he's not pleased with them. Their wickedness is before him, their idolatry is before him, and it defiles them and makes them incapable of pure worship.

[34:23] So now he will remember their wickedness and punish their sin. Verse 13, they will return to Egypt. They won't return to me, they'll return to captivity.

[34:36] A captivity that would be literally Assyria, metaphorically going back to Egypt. And perhaps some refugees actually made it to Egypt, but it would be Assyria that would put the yoke on their neck.

[34:53] And so verse 14, the end of the chapter, Israel has forgotten his maker and built palaces. Judah has fortified many towns, but I will send fire upon their cities that will consume their fortresses.

[35:08] Isn't it interesting? Verse 13, God remembers their sins, their wickedness. Verse 14, but Israel has forgotten his maker. God remembers, Israel forgets.

[35:20] And so we come to the fourth expression of Israel's dangerous self-reliance. It's in her national defense. You see, her multiplied altars were matched by her multiplied fortresses.

[35:35] God himself is to be our fortress, our sure defense. But Israel will not turn to the Lord for her defense. And so she turns to her own man-made defenses.

[35:51] Other allies, but here at home, what's she doing? She's building. She's building fortresses, walled cities, protected palaces. And she's now leaning on them for her defense.

[36:02] Nothing wrong with building walled cities. Nehemiah did it in Jerusalem. It was to be done there, but it's wrong when you lean on them and when you look to them for safety and for security.

[36:17] And that's what Israel was doing. They would not lean on the Lord. They're looking to what their own hands have made and it further angers God and brings his judgment on them.

[36:28] And so he says about their building of their defenses, but I will send fire upon their cities that will consume their fortresses. And that will show just how worthless are her self-appointed kings, her man-made religion with her man-made idols and altars, and all of her foreign affairs, bought-off alliances.

[36:54] It'll all come to nothing when I send my fire of judgment. It will just be fuel for the fire. That's the whirlwind that they're about to reap.

[37:06] And indeed, within 30 years after Hosea's done prophesying the fate of their ever so secure cities and defenses would be seen. You can read of it in 2 Kings chapter 18 where we read that the king of Assyria marched against Samaria.

[37:23] That's the capital of the northern kingdom and laid siege to it. At the end of three years the Assyrians took it and the king of Assyria deported Israel to Assyria.

[37:35] This happened because they had not obeyed the Lord their God but had violated his covenant all that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded. They neither listened to the commands nor carried them out.

[37:49] And ten years later Sennacherib king of Assyria would move further south and attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them.

[38:02] Chapter 18 verse 13 of second king. So much for the forty six fortified cities of the southern kingdom that they were leaning on for defense. Only one city was spared and it was Jerusalem and it wasn't because it had superior fortifications.

[38:18] It was only because it's king Hezekiah prayed to the Lord and the Lord said because you have prayed I will defend this city myself.

[38:28] And he sent the angel of the Lord Jesus Christ in his pre incarnate state out in the middle of the night and he slew a hundred and eighty five of the Assyrian army and in the morning there were all the dead bodies and they packed up and went home.

[38:47] Hezekiah leans for defense upon God and is saved. Israel to the north and all these forty six fortified cities leaning on their own.

[38:58] works of their hands and they come to nothing unless the Lord builds the house. Those who labor labor in vain unless the Lord watches over the city.

[39:11] The watchmen stand guard in vain. And so just as Hosea had warned the Assyria eagle had landed. It had swooped down and destroyed the northern kingdom taking the people away into captivity.

[39:30] And those who claimed God is their God and Savior but rebelled against his commands found out that the alarm was not in vain, that they did not know God.

[39:41] They were not his people. He was not their God and none of their self-help measures could turn away God's judgments. nothing that they had done could make up for the absence of the Lord being on their side.

[40:01] How do you apply Hosea chapter 8? Well let me just begin by reminding you of the overall message of the book of Hosea.

[40:12] Gomer is the unfaithful wife of Hosea because Israel is the unfaithful wife of God. Now where are we in the book?

[40:27] Where are we in this story? Are we Gomer? Are we Hosea? Are we God? I trust it's clear.

[40:38] You and I are meant to see ourselves in Gomer and in Israel. We all have violated our covenant. with God. We've broke his commands.

[40:50] We're guilty. We're deserving of his punishment. His wrath. We're all covenant breakers. We've all gone after our other lovers. Things that fascinate us.

[41:00] Our idols that have been put in the place of God himself. We've given them our affections and them our trust and our reliance. And we're living to please ourselves and we're just seeking the approval of me and not the Lord in what I do.

[41:16] This is us. We are Israel. Are we too blind to see that? May the Lord open our eyes to see it. But no one here think that they belong to God if they're rebelling against his commandments.

[41:32] If they're turned with their back toward God and just living as they please, please spare yourself the deceit of thinking that God is your God.

[41:45] Hosea chapter 8 surely teaches us that as the New Testament confirms. Have you died to self? Have you submitted your will to God? Have you said, I'm done with this whole business of living my way.

[42:01] Let the evil man forsake his way, the whole rotten way, that broad way that leads to destruction. Let him come to me. Let him turn to me. Just say, it's no use.

[42:16] I've got a heart that's prone to wander. That's Israel. She's always wandering. It's her waywardness that keeps destroying her. God heaps kindness after kindness on her and she just goes astray.

[42:30] What if the waywardness in her heart could be healed? What if the waywardness in your heart could be healed? What if God, by sending his son to live a perfect life and then to die on the cross under his wrath in the place of sinners, could remove all your sins so that he would not remember them against you anymore?

[42:57] And what if he could somehow operate on your heart so that it wouldn't keep wandering turning away from God but would rather walk in his ways?

[43:10] Not perfectly but when we fall we repent like Peter did in our scripture reading and when we deny him we repent and come back to him and what if our hearts could be changed so that we would have the direction arrow of our heart turned away from me and my way to God in his ways folks that's that's the new covenant and the newness of the new covenant is that the old covenant was not able to secure the salvation of its people why?

[43:44] Not because of any failure in the covenant itself it said do this and live but but because of the people their hearts were continually going astray so God says I'll make a new covenant not like the old covenant which they broke though I was a husband to them and tell us about this new covenant what is it like oh well I will put my law in their mind and write it on their hearts you see the internal internalization of God's law not just written in stone you shall have no idols but now carved in their very hearts what a want idols I want to turn from idols carved into their very desires their mind he will put his truth on the inward parts and I will be their God and they will be my people that's what we need because our sin has separated us from God but Jesus

[44:46] Christ has secured not only the internalizing of the law and giving us a new heart that will love his law but he's also secured the relationship of God being our God and we being his people forever and ever what else is true of this covenant no longer will a man teach his neighbor or a man his brother saying know the Lord because they will all know me from the least of them to the greatest they all claim to know him but they rebelled against his commands what if God could so work in a man or woman's heart that he put his law on their inward parts made them want to walk in God's way so that it was true when they said oh our God we know you that's the new covenant and lastly I will forgive their wickedness and I will remember their sins no more what was Israel's problem

[45:46] God didn't forget her sins God remembered her sins against her but again if Jesus Christ could take those sins upon himself and suffer the full wrath of God they deserved then the sins are paid for and he no longer remembers them that's the new covenant and Jesus is the mediator of the new covenant that means that he has secured by his life and death and resurrection everything every blessing of the new covenant he took all the curses and he gives us all the blessings and he removes from us our heart of stone and gives us a heart of flesh and puts his spirit in us to move us to follow his decrees and to make us careful to keep his laws and he inspires our hearts to fear him so we will never turn away from him isn't that precious that's what Jesus won for you by his life his death his resurrection and so we can apply this and see outside of Christ it's only the curse but inside of Christ new covenant blessings for us

[46:55] God working in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure folks there's an eagle flying overhead it's a forewarning of judgment and in Hosea 8 it stood for Assyria the invading army of Assyria Jesus Christ in the new covenant tells us of a far worse judgment that is hanging over our heads and John saw him in vision on a white horse and a sharp double-edged sword was coming out of his mouth with which he will strike the nations and he's coming on the clouds of glory to destroy his enemies to gather his wheat into his barn which are you are you his treasured possession all in

[48:04]  Christ safe and secure all outside the king the king is coming is coming back and he will destroy all those wretches who said we will not have this man to rule over us where you at this morning are you safe and secure in Christ don't linger outside with this eagle in the air judgment has been spotted flee to Christ Christ and find freedom find life find righteousness find holiness find a new heart everything you need to make you right with God forever and ever away