A Love That Will Not Let Me Go Lesson 3

A LOVE THAT WILL NOT LET ME GO – LESSON 3 “Where Does Spiritual Harlotry Lead?” Kay Arthur, Teacher

We have come to the third segment of the book of Hosea, which begins at Hosea 6:4 and goes through Chapter 10, and we see the results of harlotry. Where does harlotry lead? This is what we see as we get to this passage. And you know how it opens up. He has just given them this wonderful promise, as He calls them to return to the Lord. “He is torn us, but He will heal us. He has wounded us, but He will bandage us.” Hosea 6:2 says, “He will revive us after two days; He will raise us up on the third day that we may live before Him. (3) So let us know, let us press on to know the Lord. His going forth is as certain as the dawn; and He will come to us like the rain, like the spring rain watering the earth.” [This is a wonderful, wonderful season, because the spring rain comes, and, all of a sudden, there is a resurrection from the ground. Spring comes forth, and you have that beauty after that bareness of winter.] Then the segment stops, and He turns and He says, (4) “What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? For your loyalty is like a morning cloud, and like the dew which goes away early.” [That word for loyalty is really checed, and it’s the word for “kindness.” “Your kindness is gone.” You know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of a husband and wife where the husband has been unfaithful, and he turns to her and he says, “I know I have been unfaithful, and I’ve got to tell you that I love you, but I love this woman. Just be patient with me. It’s hard for me to leave her. It’s hard for me to walk away from her. After all, I have an obligation.” I want to say, “What kind of an obligation do you have? You have played the harlot. She has played the harlot. You have walked away on your wife.” And they say, “Just be patient; just be patient. I’ll come home. Eventually, I’ll come home.” This is like God with Israel. Israel has played the harlot. Israel has turned; Israel has lifted up her skirts to every passerby. Israel has run to the nations to get the help that she needs. God has talked to her, and God has shown her her harlotry, and she sees her harlotry, and it is like, “I know…but!” He’s saying, “What will I do with you? What will I do with you? What will make you wake up? What will bring you to your senses? What am I going to do with you?”] He says (4) “For your loyalty is like a morning cloud, and like the dew which goes away early.” [In other words, one minute you are loyal, and the next minute you are disloyal. One minute you’ve got this dew, and the next minute it is gone. It’s like you are loving to me, and you are kind to me, and you are telling me that you love me, and the next thing I know you’re running off to her/him.] (5) “Therefore I have hewn them in pieces by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of My mouth; and the judgments on you are like the light that goes forth.” [In other words, when judgment finally comes on sin, when judgment finally comes on a man or a woman that’s been unfaithful, and think they can get away with it, think they can go out and have another lover, and finally, in the years down the road, they turn around, and they see what a mistake, then it’s like light has come, and the truth of God, and the truth of His word have been shown.] (5) “I have slain them by the words of My mouth (prophets).” [He sent His prophets, and He gave them the message, but, in essence, it’s like they didn’t pay attention. It’s like the prophet is speaking, and they turn their back, and they walk away with their mincing steps, and go after other lovers. And they think they can get away with it.] I want us to look at just one place where God slays them with the mouth of His prophets. Go to Amos 5, a book written during the days of King Uzziah, king of Judah, and Jeroboam, the king of Israel. So we know it was written at the same period of time, only not over a long period of time like Hosea was. In Amos 5, He begins to slay them with the words of the prophet. (1) “Hear this word which I take up for you as a dirge (as a funeral dirge), O house of Israel. (2) She has fallen, she will not rise again—the virgin Israel. She lies neglected on her land; there is none to raise her up.” (4) “For thus says the Lord to the house of Israel, ‘Seek Me that you may live. (5) But do not resort to Bethel, and do not come to Gilgal, nor cross over to Beersheba; for Gilgal will certainly go into captivity, and Bethel will come to trouble. (6) Seek the Lord that you may live,’” [And He goes on and tells them to seek the Lord. We come down to v. 21, and He is pronouncing His judgment on them. In verse 21, He says something that is so similar to what He says through Hosea. (21) “I hate, I reject your festivals, nor do I delight in your solemn assemblies. (22) Even though you offer up to Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings, I will not accept them; and I will not even look at the peace offerings of your fatlings. (23)

1 Take away form Me the noise of your songs; I will not even listen to the sound of your harps. (24) But let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.’” [At this point He is slaying them with the words of His mouth. Now watch what He says. He recounts what they did when they came out of Egypt, and how they carried their kings with them. Then He says in 5:27,] “‘Therefore, I will make you go into exile beyond Damascus,’ says the Lord, whose name is the God of hosts.” What is He doing? He is giving them judgment through the mouths of the prophets. He is slaying them. He is telling them what is going to come to pass. And watch what He is doing. He is showing them, “Look, you are still saying that you love Me. You are still saying that you want to be with Me. Yes, you want to be with these others, but you still want to be with Me.” And He goes on to say, in Hosea 6:5, “Therefore I have hewn them in pieces by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of My mouth; and the judgments on you are like the light that goes forth. (6) For I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice,” [The first word in v. 4, which is translated “loyalty” really is checed. “I delight in kindness.” Now remember, it is kindness that is missing in the land.] Go back to Hosea 4:1. “Listen to the word of the Lord, O sons of Israel, for the Lord has a case ( rib) against the inhabitants of the land, because there is no faithfulness or kindness.” [The word “kindness” there is checed. There is no kindness. In other words, is it kind for a mate to turn around and tell you that he loves you, but he loves somebody else? Is it kind? No, it is cruel. It’s mean. Is it kind for him to say, “I know I should be here, but I have responsibility over there”? It is not kind; it’s cruel. It is terrible when a person turns around… (And I meet more women who say, “My husband of 35 years (or 40 years or 21 years) just walked out on me.” I think, “How absolutely cruel.” And they usually walk out so they can have someone that is younger, someone that is more attractive, and sometimes, that someone even has kids. And they leave their own children to go and take care of children that they have no DNA deposit in whatsoever. It’s cruelty. It’s not kindness. Hosea 6:6 says, “For I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice,” [What did we see in Amos? You’re making these sacrifices. You’re giving Me these burnt offerings. It’s not what I want.] (6) “For I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice, and in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” [Go back to Hosea 4:1.] “Because there is no faithfulness or kindness or knowledge of God in the land.” (6) “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being My priest.” [So watch now what’s happened. They have been in this harlotry, and now they are saying, “Well, God, I am going to worship You, but I am going to go over here, and I am going to live like this.”] When you start being unfaithful to God, if that infidelity, that spiritual infidelity, is not checked, if it is not reigned in, if it is not repented of, if it is not confessed, then you are going to find yourself going into the delusion of going to church, going through the motions, and maybe paying your offering, or paying your tithe, and yet you’re living differently underneath, and you are going to find yourself under the judgment of God. But you are also weaving and binding cords of sin around you that are going to cripple you. This is what you see in this passage in 6:4-10. You are going to see Him saying, (6:4) “What shall I do with you, O Ephraim?” (7) “But like Adam they have transgressed the covenant;” [They have made a choice. They have walked away.] “there they have dealt treacherously against me. (8) Gilead is a city of wrongdoers, tracked with bloody footprints.” [What was Gilead? When it talks about Gilead being a city, it’s probably a reference to Ramath, and Ramath was one of the cities in Gilead that was a city of refuge. There was to be no blood shed in that city. Yet here they are, the city of refuge that has become tracked with bloody footprints.] (9) “And as raiders wait for a man, so a band of priests murder on the way to Shechem; surely they have committed crime.” [In other words, it is corrupt, right up to the priesthood. The priesthood, who is to give the words of God which are words of life, are murdering these people as they travel from Gilead down to Shechem.] (10) “In the house of Israel I have seen a horrible thing; Ephraim’s harlotry is there, Israel has defiled itself. (11) Also, O Judah, there is a harvest appointed for you, when I restore the fortunes of My people.” Before God restores the fortunes of His people, all hell is going to be unleashed against them. As we get to the prophets, and as you read and come to Zechariah 14, the very last chapter, you read about the judgment that is going to come on Israel. Go to Zechariah 14:1. “Behold, a day is coming for the Lord when the spoil taken from you will be divided among you.” [In other words, you have been raped, and your land has been raped, but that spoil is going to be given back to you. But He is telling them how it is going to happen. “When I

2 restore…” Remember, it says in Hosea 6:11, “When I restore the fortunes of My people,” [But watch what He says now.] (Zechariah 14:2) “For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city will be captured, the houses plundered, the women ravished, and half of the city exiled, but the rest of the people will not be cut off from the city.” [That is a prophesy that is yet to be fulfilled. It is a prophesy that I share with my friends in Israel.] (3) “Then the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations, as when He fights on a day of battle.” [You will see the dawn. You will see God’s light in that judgment.] (Hosea 7:1) “When I would heal Israel,” [I just get ready to heal Israel; I get ready to move, and as I get ready to move, all of a sudden,] “Ephraim’s iniquity is uncovered.” I have heard of people (and counseled people), and they have said, “Okay, I am coming home. I’m coming home. I’m leaving her, and I’m moving back home.” So they move back home, and you think everything is wonderful, and you begin to rebuild that marriage. As you begin to rebuild that marriage, all of a sudden, you notice that the phone is ringing at odd hours, or you notice that things are coming in on the e-mail, or notice he’s getting a little cold toward you. And what do you find out eventually? You find out there is sin going on. There is sin in that marriage, and he really didn’t leave her. He’s still cheating. He’s still wandering. This is God. This is why He gives us this description in the first segment. This is why He opens the book, so you and I can have a human picture of what happens in a marriage when a wife walks away and plays the harlot, and what happens when a mate walks away and plays the harlot. Unfortunately, in our society, instead of the men being the godly leaders that they are supposed to be, and being men of the Book like they used to be in a day and age gone past, it is now the men that have forsaken the word of God, and the women that are learning the word of God. And I am so thankful that they know it, because it is holding them. One just said to me, “My husband of 37 years walked away.” I said, “Honey, I am so sorry.” She said, “Kay, I am making it, and God has made me into a stronger woman through this, and I am not going to let it destroy me. You have taught us how to study the word of God, and I am going to cling to the word of God.” That’s what I love. Go to Jeremiah 13:11. “‘For as the waistband clings to the waist of a man, so I made the whole household of Israel and the whole household of Judah cling to Me,’ declares the Lord, ‘that they might be for Me a people, for renown, for praise and for glory; but they did not listen.” [So we go back to Hosea 7:1.) “When I would heal Israel, the iniquity of Ephraim is uncovered, and the evil deeds of Samaria (the capital now), for they deal falsely; the thief enters in, bandits raid outside, (2) and they do not consider in their hearts” [Literally, it is, “they do not say to their hearts”] that I remember all their wickedness.” [He says, “Why is all this going on?” He says, “They don’t stop in the midst of this calamity, these bandits raiding, these thieves and everything, and stop and say to their heart, “God remembers wickedness. God is a holy God. God has to judge sin. And God will.” Numbers says (and I’ve told it to you before), “Be ye sure that your sins will find you out.” “Marriage is honorable in all (Hebrews 13), and the bed undefiled, but fornicators and adulterers, God will judge.” Duh! But know this, they do not consider, or say to their hearts, that I remember all their wickedness. (2) “Now their deeds are all around them; they are before My face. (3) With their wickedness they make the king glad, and the princes with their lies.” [Why? Here they are, and they are sinful, and it’s all right, because it makes the king sinful; because their lack of righteousness does not condemn the king. So they like it. The whole group is full of sinners.] (4) “They are all adulterers, like an oven heated by the baker,” [The baker comes in. He puts the fire in; he heats up the oven. He goes out, and he begins to knead his dough, and he forgets to go in and to stir up the fire. So what does it do? It comes down, and it is just smoldering. Listen, this is what adultery will do to you. This is what we are seeing here. This is what spiritual adultery will do to you. This is what physical adultery will do to you. You start playing the harlot spiritually. You start wandering away from God. You start neglecting the word of God, and you’re doing just fine, and nothing is really happening. You are getting away with it, and you are still teaching Sunday school, or still being a deacon, or still doing your activity and everything. You think it is all okay, but underneath, there is this fire that is smoldering, that will eventually come into a blaze and will consume you. It’s the same way. You begin, in your mind, to think about being married to another person, or being married to one of your friend’s husband/wives, and it begins to smolder, and then there is more activity, and more activity. And then He goes on and describes what happens on the king’s day. In all probability, this was a celebration where the king has a party. And it says (5) “On the day of our king, the princes became sick with the heat of wine;” [They drank so much they became nauseated.] “He

3 stretched out his hand with scoffers,” [In other words, he’s there, and he’s with these guys, and they are all mocking, and they’re all scoffing, and they’re hot with wine, and everything.] (6) “For their hearts are like an oven as they approach their plotting;” Just recently I saw the old movie, “Cleopatra,” and I saw the death of Caesar. He goes into the Roman forum, and his wife has a bad feeling, but he goes. He thinks that he’s among friends, but there has been a plot among them, a plot to kill Caesar. It’s not just something Shakespeare wrote about, but something that really happened. This is what happens. (6) “For their hearts are like an oven as they approach their plotting; their anger smolders all night, in the morning it burns like a flaming fire. (7) All of them are hot like an oven, and they consume their rulers; all their kings have fallen. None of them calls on Me.” [They have fallen, and no one is calling on Him.] Go back to 2 Kings 15:8, because I believe that what’s happening in Hosea 7:7, when is says, “All their kings have fallen. None of them calls on Me.” I believe that He is showing us the demise of these kings. First of all, in 2 Kings 15:8, it says, “In the thirty-eighth year of Azariah (Uzziah) king of Judah, Zechariah the son of Jeroboam became king over Israel in Samaria for six months.” [Only six months.] (9) “And he did devil in the sight of the Lord,” (10) “Then Shallum the son of Jabesh conspired against him and struck him before the people and killed him, and reigned in his place.” [Now, is there any record of the people stopping and saying, “Wait a minute; wait a minute. Should we allow him to reign? Should we allow this? Should we let them get away with this? No, no one called on God.] (13) “Shallum son of Jabesh became king in the thirty-ninth year of Uzziah king of Judah, and he reigned one month in Samaria. (14) Then Menahem came to Samaria and struck Shallum … and killed him and became king in his place.” (23) “In the fiftieth year of Azariah king of Judah, Pekahiah son of Menahem became king over Israel in Samaria, and reigned two years.” [Menahem just dies, nobody assassinates him.] (24) “He did evil in the sight of the Lord.” (25) “Then Pekah son of Ramaliah, his officer, conspired against him and struck him in Samaria…, and he killed him and became king in his place.” Have you got the picture? Do you see what He is saying? He’s saying, “Here is all this conspiracy, and in Hosea 7:7, they’re all falling. (Write this down next to that verse) What you see from 753 B.C. (or 752) to 732 B.C. they have four kings. They have four kings in that short time, but no one calls on the Lord. No one stops, and says, “Wait a minute, what is happening? Why all these killings? Why all these regicides? Why are they going on? Then you come to Hosea 7:8.] “Ephraim mixes himself with the nations; Ephraim has become a cake not turned.” [What is a cake not turned? I thought, “Oh, He knows about Grandma Elsie.” She lived to be one hundred. We used to have a toaster where you let down the sides, and you would cook the toast; and then you took the toast out, and turn it over and put it down. Well, Grandma always had it burning the first side (she would forget it. It’s in our genes; I do the same thing, so I love burnt toast.) Anyway, what she would do, instead of throwing the toast away, she would turn it over, stand there and watch, get the blond side, butter the blond side, and put it down. She was like a cake not turned. It’s burned on one side, yet looks great on the other side, and you don’t know it until you crunch into it. So we called it Elsie toast.] (9) “Strangers devour his strength, yet he does not know it; gray hairs also are sprinkled on him, yet he does not know it.” [He stands in front of the mirror. Have you seen this ad? This older man is standing there, and he is flexing his muscles, and stuff like this, and he’s got this tan body, and these young girls are looking at him, and everything, and then he goes up to the diving board (he’s looking at the girls), and he falls flat. I mean, he does a belly flopper. This is what they are like. They are deluded about themselves.] This is what happens with a lot of men. I mean, all of a sudden the shirt collar comes open. We’ve got a gold chain, or a little something like that, and we’ve got new tighter pants, and stuff like this. We’ve got a new car, and we go out, and we forget we have gray hair. (It may be under the other, we may have to comb that black stuff on it, but we have gray hair.) We don’t know it. We don’t know our strength is gone until this sweet young chick is standing there, and we say, “Oh, I’ll lift your bags,” and we can’t. It’s gone. And this is what was happening with them. (10) “Though the pride of Israel testifies against him,” [All this pride that they have, and though this pride testifies against them…] “Yet they have not returned to the Lord their God, nor have they sought Him, for all this.] (11) “So Ephraim has become like a silly dove, without sense; they call to Egypt, they go to Assyria.” [Have you ever seen a dove? It heads this way, and the dove goes down to Egypt, and then it turns around and says, “No, Egypt is not going to help me; I think I’ll go up here to Assyria.” It’s like a silly

4 dove. It doesn’t know which way it is going.] “they call to Egypt, they go to Assyria.” [Now Hoshea is the one that follows the rest.] In 2 Kings 17:3, this is what happens. You see Hoshea, king of Israel, waffling. (3) “Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against him, and Hoshea became his servant and paid him tribute. (4) But the king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea, who had sent messengers to So king of Egypt and had offered no tribute to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year; so the king of Assyria shut him up and bound him in prison.” [So you have him going down here to So of Egypt, and he had been with Assyria, and then he’s going back and forth. He’s waffling.] Hosea 7:12 says, “When they go, I will spread My net over them;” [Here is this silly bird flying this way, flying that way. God just takes His net, and He throws it into the air, and He brings that silly bird down. And that silly bird is Israel.] “When they go, I will spread My net over them; I will bring them down like the birds of the sky. I will chastise them in accordance with the proclamation to their assembly.” [What is He going to do? He said, “I have made the proclamation. I have slain you with the mouth of my prophets. I have told you what is going to happen.”] (12) “I will chastise them in accordance with the proclamation to their assembly. (13) Woe to them, for they have strayed from Me!” [This is the essence of what happens when you have this harlotry. Now they have moved into, in a sense, a deeper sin. They have not learned. They have not returned, so now…] (13) “Woe to them, for they have strayed form Me! Destruction is theirs, for they have rebelled against Me!” [And what do you see in this segment? You see (in chapter 9) that exile is coming. He goes on to say,] “I would redeem them, but they speak lies against Me.” [Here is this one, saying, “I love you,” but going off speaking lies.] “I would redeem them, but they speak lies against Me. (14) And they do not cry to Me from their heart when they wail on their beds; for the sake of grain and new wine they assemble themselves, they turn away from Me.” [In other words, we saw earlier, in the segment before this, that it’s God that gives them the wine. It’s God that gives them the grain, and they are wailing on their beds because they don’t have the wine, and don’t have the grain, and yet, where does it come from? It comes from God. They are wailing because of their circumstances, but they are not crying to God from their hearts. I would put down 2 Corinthians 7:8-11, because he talks about a godly sorrow and a worldly sorrow. What these people have is a worldly sorrow, because they got caught.] Hosea 7:15. “Although I trained and strengthened their arms,” [I am the One who took them through boot camp. I’m the one that trained them. I am the one that strengthened them. They turn, but where do they turn?] (16) “They turn, but not upward, they are like a deceitful bow;” [A deceitful bow is a bow that is not going to enable you to hit the target, but you don’t know it. You pull back your arrow, and it’s not going to go the right way.] “Their princes will fall by the sword because of the insolence of their tongue.” [In other words, the way they are talking is going to bring them down, along with their behavior.] “This will be their derision in the land of Egypt.” [You looked at it, but let’s go back and look at it one more time. I hope you understand that review is good.] Go to Deuteronomy 28:68. As He brings to their mind all the curses that He is going to bring upon them, He makes this statement. (68) “‘The Lord will bring you back to Egypt in ships, by the way about which I spoke to you, ‘You will never see it again!’” [I told you that you would never see Egypt again, but you are going to see it. The Lord is going to bring you back to Egypt in ships. Where are they going to be on those ships? They are going to be in the bowels of the ships, chained, just like you see in those slave movies where they had them chained in the bowels of the ship.] “And there you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but there will be no buyer.” [What do you remember about Hosea 3? He goes and buys her for a homer and a half of barley and 15 shekels, the price of a slave. How does he get her for the price of a slave? Why does he not have to bid higher? Because nobody is bidding for her; nobody wants her. So he buys her, and this is what we see here.] Hosea 8:1. “Put a trumpet to your lips!” [Before, in Hosea 5:8, he said, “Blow a horn in Gibeah.” Now he is saying, “Put a trumpet to your lips!”] “Like an eagle the enemy comes against the house of the Lord, because they have transgressed My covenant, and rebelled against My law.” [You are to warn them, put a trumpet to your lips. I’m bringing the enemy.] (2) “They cry out to Me, ‘My God, we of Israel know You!’” [This is what they are saying, “God, You are not going to bring an enemy against us; we know You.” You’re

5 out there playing the harlot, what do you mean? You are saying, “We know You.” You are saying, “We belong to You.” It’s like a man saying to his wife, “Listen, we belong together but…”] “My God, we of Israel know You. (3) Israel has rejected the good; the enemy will pursue him. (4) They have set up kings, but not by Me;” [We saw that verse about how all these kings have fallen, but no one calls on Him.] Every tape is cut in time (I decided to tell you the time this tape is cut.). It is November 2, 2004. It’s the day that we go to the polls. Do you know what we did all day yesterday? All day yesterday our staff spent the day in fasting and prayer, seeking God on behalf of this election. Seeking God, but the way we started was by going through the Scriptures and looking at Israel’s sin, and then confessing our own sins as a nation, crying out to God, some of us weeping before God, and asking God to have mercy, and committing this election to Him. The question is: when you go to the polls, or whatever it is, do you consult the Lord before you go to the polls? Are you consulting the Lord today, if you have not yet been to the polls, about who God wants you to vote for? You may not think either one of the candidates for the president of the United States, or for the senate, or the congress, or whatever you’re voting for, is worthy of it, but who is the one who is closest to the righteousness and the word of God? That is what it means, that you consult Me.] (4) “They have set up kings, but not by Me;” [They set up wicked kings. They let those wicked kings rule.] “They have appointed princes, but I did not know it. With their silver and gold they have made idols for themselves, that they might be cut off. (5) He has rejected your calf, O Samaria, saying, ‘My anger burns against them!’” [Here they were in God’s land, with a calf that they had set up in Bethel and in Dan, and they had said (they bought it from Jeroboam I), that this is your god who brought you out of Egypt.] (5) “He has rejected your calf, O Samaria, saying, ‘My anger burns against them!’ How long will they be incapable of innocence?” [This is one of the things that we confessed. We read through Leviticus 20, and looked at all the immorality in Leviticus 20. Our nation is no longer innocent. People wept and prayed for the children and the families in America. Innocence is gone. Jeremiah says, “You don’t even know how to blush.”] (6) “For from Israel is even this! A craftsman made it, so it is not God;” [Have you got it? That is the most awesome statement. You look at an idol; a craftsman made it, therefore it is not God. If a man can make something that you can worship, you can know it’s not God. Listen, man is making money, and that’s what we’re worshipping, and it’s not God, and God can take away the economy anytime He pleases.] “Surely the calf of Samaria will be broken to pieces.” I watched an old thing on the Great Depression, and what happened. They said people would walk along the streets, looking up to see if they would see anybody jumping out of the windows, because great men, wealthy men, lost everything in a day, and they jumped out of windows. They shot themselves. It says, “The calf will be broken to pieces.” God knows how to get rid of idols. (7) “For they sow the wind, and they reap the whirlwind.” [The songs in those days were, “These are the good ole days,” or “Happy times again”, and things like that. Because they just saw the stock market going up and up and up and up. Because it went up and up and up, they thought there was no end to it. One day it ended. And one of the men took million of dollars to try and keep the stock market from falling. He lost everything. I can’t remember if he committed suicide, or if he just ended up a pauper.] “For they sow the wind, and they reap the whirlwind. The standing grain has no heads; it yields no grain. Should it yield, strangers would swallow it up.” [The fact that the crops aren’t coming in tells you that God is doing something.] (8) “Israel is swallowed up; they are now among the nations” [In 5:13, they were going down. In 7:8, it’s mixing with the nations. Now they are among the nations. It’s just like 1 Corinthians15:33 said. “Do not be deceived: “Bad company corrupts good morals.” [Don’t be deceived.] Hosea 8:9, “For they have gone up to Assyria, like a wild donkey all alone;” [A wild donkey will not be harnessed.] “Ephraim has hired lovers.” [You see this in 2 Kings 15:17-21, where Menahem hires Assyria.] (10) “Even though they hire allies among the nations, now I will gather them up; and they will begin to diminish because of the burden of the king of princes.” [America needs to be careful of hiring allies among nations that are opposed to us, and know that it is God who determines the economy of a country, when that country fears God.] (11) “Since Ephraim has multiplied altars for sin, they have become altars of sinning for him. (12) Though I wrote for him ten thousand precepts of My law, they are regarded as a strange thing.” [This is what’s happened. See, you begin to play the spiritual harlot, and then you stay away from the precepts of God’s law, and you look at them, and you say, “That’s strange; surely it doesn’t mean that.” A woman said to me, “You mean God expects me to go without sex?” She is a

6 new believer. “God expects me to go without sex if I don’t get married?” I said, “Yes, that’s right. And if you do not obey Him, He is going to wear you out.” God expects it.] (14) “For Israel has forgotten his Maker and built palaces; and Judah has multiplied fortified cities,” [If you look at the reign under Jeroboam II, and Uzziah, you see that they were doing all this. They were building up the land.] “But I will send a fire on its cities that it may consume its palatial dwellings.” Hosea 9:1. “Do not rejoice, O Israel, with exultation like the nations!” [Listen, don’t think you are getting away with this.] “For you have played the harlot, forsaking your God. You have loved harlots’ earnings on every threshing floor.” [In other words, they thought that it was Baal that gave them their grain and wine. Remember, we saw that earlier in Chapter 2.] (2) “Threshing floor and wine press will not feed them, and the new wine will fail them. (3) They will not remain in the Lord’s land” [It’s the Lord’s land!] “but Ephraim will return to Egypt, and in Assyria they will eat unclean food.” [So they have gone from just associating with Assyria to living in Assyria. Now they are in Assyria; they’ve mixed with the nations, and now they are in the nations, and now eating unclean food.] (5) “What will you do on the day of the appointed festival and on the day of the feast of the Lord? (6) For behold, they will go because of destruction; Egypt will gather them up, Memphis will bury them. Weeds will take over their treasures of silver; thorns will be in their tents. (7) The days of punishment have come, the days of retribution have come;” [Up until this point we’ve heard that judgment is coming, but now in this segment, because of this harlotry, and because now you want to love God, and get the benefits from God, and that’s what the man does. He wants to sleep with his wife and he wants to sleep with his mistress. He wants a home here, and he wants a home there. “The days of punishment have come;” the light is about to dawn in this punishment.] (7) “Let Israel know this! The prophet is a fool, the inspired man is demented, because of the grossness of your iniquity, and because your hostility is so great. (8) Ephraim was a watchman with my God, a prophet; yet the snare of a bird catcher is in all his ways, and there is only hostility in the house of his God.” [They make the same statement that is made in 5:2.] (9) “They have gone deep in depravity as in the days of Gibeah;” [Listen, America. Listen very, very carefully. If we allow homosexual marriages to be recognized as a legitimate marriage, you watch out what God is going to do. It’s not that I have anything against homosexuals, but they are not a minority group. If they are, adulterers are. If they are, fornicators are. If they are, then liars and thieves are, because it is a sin. It is not a minority group. It is a sin, like adultery is a sin. What happened in Gibeah is in the days of Judges (and you studied it, and you remember that they had homosexuals), and it says, “Nothing this evil has ever happened in Israel.” They had the homosexuals, but they would not give them over to judgment. Instead, they wanted to tolerate them, and it brought internal war. And that’s what happens— internal war. Hosea 9:10, “I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness; I saw your forefathers as the earliest fruit on the fig tree in its first season.” [He says, “I loved you, and I saw you, and I watched you.”] “But they came to Baal- peor and devoted themselves to shame,” [What did they do? They went down and they played the harlot. And they worshipped Baal, and God had to deal with them.] (12) “Though they bring up their children, yet I will bereave them until not a man is left.” [I’m going to kill their kids.] “Yes, woe to them indeed when I depart from them!” (16) “Ephraim is stricken, their root is dried up; they will bear no fruit. Even though they bear children, I will slay the precious ones of their womb. (17) My God will cast them away because they have not listened to Him; and they will be wanderers among the nations.” [Next to that write Deuteronomy 28:63-68. Then He goes on to say,] (10:1) “Israel is a luxuriant vine; he produces fruit for himself. The more his fruit, the more altars he made; the richer his land, the better he made the sacred pillars.” [In other words, he was producing this fruit, and got richer and richer, and what happens? He makes sacred pillars.] (2) “Their heart is faithless; now they must bear their guilt.” [When He talks about their guilt, He talks about their idols. Why? Why this idolatry? Because of a lack of knowledge, because there is no knowledge of God in the land, because they have taken that out of its context. Some silly women, laden down with sins, and never learning or coming to the knowledge (which is what 2 Timothy 3 says), have come up with this ritual that makes it so beautiful (they think), and it is so contrary to the word of God.] What is God going to have to do? Listen to what He says in 10:10. “When it is My desire, I will chastise them; and the peoples will be gathered against them when they are bound for their double guilt. (11) And

7 Ephraim is a trained heifer that loves to thresh,” [They loved to thresh, because they could eat the grain as they threshed. It was very easy; they weren’t in a yoke.] “but I will come over her fair neck with a yoke; I will harness Ephraim, Judah will plow, Jacob will harrow for himself.” [In other words, “You’re not going to thresh and eat the grain anymore. I’m going to put you in a yoke. I’m going to send you out there for hard work. You’re going to plow.” He turns to them, and says,] (12) “Sow with a view to righteousness,” [What are you sowing in your life, beloved? Are you sowing with a view to righteousness? Are you giving yourself to the things that are going to help you increase your faithfulness, and your kindness, and your knowledge of God in the land?] “Reap in accordance with kindness;” [Be kind, love Me, be faithful, and watch what I will do.] “Break up the fallow ground,” [Go through and get rid of those lumps, and make it smooth so the seed can come in.] “For it is time to seek the Lord until He comes to rain righteousness on you.” [It’s time to seek the Lord. He said that to them, and yet they had gone so far. He says,] (13) “You have plowed wickedness, you have reaped injustice.” [That’s what is going to happen, because they went too far.] O beloved, O beloved, be careful of a wandering heart. Be careful of infidelity. Be careful; sow with a view to righteousness, and watch God bring in a harvest because of your kindness to Him. Spiritual adultery breaks the heart of God. You may understand; your heart may have been broken by someone. Just multiply that by a billion times, and you’ll know what you do to the heart of God. Let’s pray. Father, we thank You. We thank You for Your word. We thank You that it is a sure word. We thank you that it is light. We thank You that, even in judgment, it brings light. So, Father, whatever happens in our country, whether it is blessing or whether it is judgment, may we determine in our hearts that we are going to be faithful to You. May we determine that we are not going to play the harlot, but that we are going to guard our eyes, guard out tongue, guard our affections, that we are not going to mingle, and find ourselves wandering, and making alliances, for what fellowship has Christ with Beliel? What concord do we have with idols? What does worshipping You in spirit and truth have to do with idols? And, Father, may we be careful of the company that we keep. May we know that we’re in the world, but not of the world; that we are there to show people the light, but not to be absorbed by the culture. O Father, O Father, I pray that we would walk, no matter what happens, in uprightness before You. And that we would know that You have either given us grace, or You’re going to bring judgment. But whether it is grace or judgment, we need to be about Your business. And I pray, Father, that we will be about our Fathers business. That we will be so in love with You. Father, I pray that I will never run out of love, and live any days apart from loving You. So Father, keep the love for You stirred brightly, keep the fire stirred up, so that, Father, I will be a woman of God, passionate about my God, to the ends of my days. In Your name I pray. Amen.