Wasn't here, on the Sunday before or after Thanksgiving, I would think that I was missing something. I would say, oops. Where am I supposed to be? And so, I always look forward to be here with you folks. I also wanna thank you all for your faithful support.

So, you've been, a blessing to our family for a number of years since we've been coming over to visit, but last year you took us on financially for support as one of your missionaries and, increased our support this year, and so we really wanna thank you for that. You know, God always provides through his people at just the right time and in ways that we we don't often expect. And so I wanna thank you all for your support. I'm not gonna take a whole lot of time to talk about EBI this morning because I have a message I wanna share from God's word with you. But God has given us a tremendous year.

As a matter of fact, I feel like every year over the last five years, I keep saying the same thing, but it is true. We're finishing the biggest year in the history of EBI. I I said that last year and the year before, the year before, but we're just having banner years time and time again. What I like to compare it to is when I first came to EBI, we were shipping out boxes of books. Now we're sending out pallets of books.

And what's really amazing is I remember the days when it was hard for us to get books into countries. It was hard for us to get it through a distribution network. We have about 45 distributors now in all of Latin America. Basically, the only countries we're not in are Cuba and Venezuela and that's for obvious political problems in those countries. We can't get our materials in easily.

Stuff still gets in, but not a lot. And we're just blessed that the books are going out in a lot of places and then bookstores are actually starting to stock our books. We have our materials in over a 100 bookstores now in Latin America. And so for years pastors, church leaders, Sunday school teachers begged for good materials in Spanish, they just couldn't get it. And to ship it from The United States was very, very expensive.

So a $5 book that we can produce for just a few dollars to get it to a Latin American country was $25. And so it was it was impossible to distribute the books. So with some creativity and some hard work, the Lord has opened up channels for us to do that. Some of you have asked. In the past, we had an issue during the pandemic with the paper shortage, and there was no paper available in The US.

It had all been changed. Remember the toilet paper shortage? Well, got all out of whack and they started changing over paper mills to produce toilet paper and cardboard boxes for the toilet paper to go in, and they stopped printing paper because they thought that there was going to be an economic downturn, so people stopped buying books. Well, what happened? People had more time.

They were stuck at home, so they wanted to read books, so all the printers got behind. We had always printed our books here in The US. Well, because of the need of the paper shortage and the backlog on printing, we began to investigate and we couldn't print books in house anymore. We couldn't get paper. So we started printing our books in Colombia and South America.

And what's amazing is we can get them significantly faster, significantly faster than we can do them ourselves and cheaper than we can produce them here in The States. So it's helping us to get more books in the hands of more people. It's kind of odd to think that we will print, we will write, translate if necessary, edit, go through a huge process to get a book ready. It takes about a year and a half to two years to get a book from concept to where it's print ready. And then we'll take that book, send it off electronically to Columbia, it'll get printed down there, comes back through the Caribbean Sea, comes to a port, gets put on a truck in Miami, comes all the way to Sebring, Florida in the middle of the state and guess what?

Last week, somebody ordered for Columbia. So what happens? The book gets back on another truck, goes back, gets put on a container ship, goes all the way back to Columbia in the same city where it's printed. You say, why do you do that? Believe it or not, even with all that extra travel on that book, they should get frequent flyer miles, with all that extra travel it's still cheaper than producing it here in The States.

And so the Lord has opened up some great opportunities for us. We don't like to talk about numbers just because it's not what we're there for, but because of the Lord's provision, churches that have made donations, people working hard, about a half $1,000,000 worth of books will be going have gone out into Latin America this year alone. And so thousands and thousands of books, thousands and thousands of Sunday school lessons going and being used, and, that's possible because of folks like you that support our ministry. So we really, really thank you for that. God opens up doors.

We have conferences that have been going on all across Latin America, teacher training as well. We work with online education of pastors and, Sunday school teachers. And same thing, the pandemic opened up opportunities for that like never before, so we really wanna thank you for that. Back in the summer of nineteen eighty nine, I had the privilege of meeting one of my heroes. Now you might not know it, but if you listen to my voice very long, you're gonna see that I am a redneck at heart.

I'm from the mountains of Virginia, and so just like your pastor. And so, in the summer of nineteen eighty nine, I got to meet the world's best race car driver, the best race car driver in history, and that was Dale Earnhardt. Alright. So I was a huge Dale Earnhardt fan. When I was in Bible College, my whole dorm room was decorated with Dale Earnhardt memorabilia.

I had Dale Earnhardt bottles of Coke. I had Dale Earnhardt bottles of Sun Drop. I had posters. I had little cars. People actually I had a friend.

Anytime Dale Earnhardt won a race on Sunday, I'd come home from church, and he'd come and we'd share a little cake together. We'd get at the grocery store and put a little three on it. So I was a huge Dale Earnhardt fan. Everybody that knew me, they said I was the world's biggest Dale Earnhardt fan. I can't tell you how many Christmas presents I opened up something, it would be something Dale Earnhardt related.

Now all that stuff is my poor parents have it stuck in boxes in their basement up in Virginia to this day. My wife won't let me bring it in the house. But anyway, I got to I got in 1989. Dale Earnhardt was gonna be racing at a local racetrack near our house. And so we went to the race.

We used to go to the races every Saturday night. I told you I was a redneck. And I went down there, and I waited in line with all the other good rednecks. And we stood there, and I got Dale Earnhardt's autograph. And I actually got he stood up, and I took my picture with Dale Earnhardt.

And that was the first time I met him. And then over the years, every time he'd come to a local store, he'd come to a local racetrack, he'd be at some kind of event, I would always go to see Dale Earnhardt, I'd wait in line, I'd get his autograph, and and I I was really pleased that I got to do that. I got to sit next to him in a VIP lounge for just a few minutes at a racetrack that he was at, spoke to him very briefly with my dad. So it's really, really neat that I got to do that. Now I want you to imagine for just a moment that Dale Earnhardt died tragically in 2001 at Daytona Speedway on the very last lap of the Daytona five hundred.

And for me, I never watched NASCAR again cause I realized I was a Dale Earnhardt fan, not a NASCAR fan. And so I just I don't enjoy it as much. But I want you to imagine that this week, it's Thanksgiving, I decide I'm going to go up to Mooresville, North Carolina, where Dale Earnhardt's family home was, and I'm just going to walk up. There's probably security. It's probably gated, I think.

I just want you to imagine that I go up and I knock on the door, and I say, hey, I just wanted to let you know I'm an old pile of Dale's. We go way back. I can show you some pictures I had with him. Yeah, the autograph session. Yeah, Dale and I go way back, and I just wanted to see if I could stop in and visit with you folks for a few minutes.

And before I could get in the door, you remember like vacuum cleaner salesman, before I could stick my foot in the door, what would happen? Security would be hauling me down the driveway, back out through the gate, and just picture now for a minute, here I am yelling, but I know him. I know him. He knew me. Do I really know or did I really know Dale Earnhardt?

Okay. Did I really have a relationship with Dale Earnhardt? I might think I did. You know, some crazy fan that thinks he knows Dale Earnhardt, his wife Teresa Earnhardt, his son Dale Earnhardt Junior, his other son, and his other daughter Carrie. Carrie, I think, that was his son.

Anyway, see, know him. Alright. I want us to see today that there's a lot of professing Christians in our world that claim to know Jesus in the same way that I knew Dale Earnhardt. Something's really sad about that. And, we look at today, I want us to look at a whole nation of people that wanted the benefits of knowing God but without building a relationship with him.

They wanted to know him, from the outside, but not intimately. Now recently, I've been reading through the book of Hosea, and I'm just reading it on my own. And as I read through it, I realized that, wow, this is a passage that's convicting to me, and it's one of the reasons why I wanted to share it with you today. Much to my shame, really haven't taught through the book of Hosea or preached in this book very much in all my years. And so as I read it recently, I began to see a real parallel to our world today.

It's exactly what we see going on in our country, and it's been really thought provoking for me, so I hope it will be meaningful to you as well. Now I wanna share a little bit of the context with you. You can start to turn to Hosea chapter six, Hosea chapter six. And Hosea lived in an area that they would have called Ephraim, which was a part of the Northern Kingdom Of Israel. Hosea spoke as a prophet on God's behalf and during one of the rain the reign of one of the worst kings in the history of the Northern Kingdom.

The country was in total chaos. There was terrible division. And so the book of Hosea, this little book, it's basically a collection of about twenty five years of Hosea's life, and it wouldn't really seem like this today to us because it's been translated into English, so it's going to seem a little different, but it's actually written mostly in the form of poetry. And you have these poems, you have this verse that that spells out and, kinda tells us a lot about what was going on during Hosea's life. Now we remember, and for those of you that are familiar with this book, if you've read it before, it starts with this kind of bizarre account, the the seemingly bizarre account of Hosea marrying Gomer, and they had they had children together, but Gomer, his spouse, his wife, she was unfaithful.

She was an adulterer. But God made it clear to Hosea that despite her unfaithfulness, he should pay off her debts. He should try to make amends with this situation. He should continue in his relationship, and we can really see is to demonstrate love and loyalty to her. So here he was, a faithful husband, and Gomer was a was an adulterous wife, and yet God tells him, stay in that relationship.

Well, that encounter between Hosea and Gomer, like I said, seemingly bizarre at first glance, was a prophetic symbol of the relationship between God and the nation of Israel. In a sense, it's a it's a picture of that relationship between God and a faithful husband as the faithful husband and us as the adulterous spouse, the unfaithful one. And so we see this parallel though. So God took his covenant with him seriously, and he asked the nation to be faithful to him alone. But what did the what did the Northern Kingdom do?

What did Israel do time and time again? They fell into unfaithfulness. In a sense, just like a cheating spouse, they cheated with the false gods, the false religions. They they they made friendships with their actual enemies in an attempt to find peace. And just like the adulteress Gomer, they dedicated all their resources to worshiping the false gods of the Canaanites.

But we're gonna see God is faithful. Hosea was a faithful husband, but for us, more importantly, God is faithful. Instead of divorcing himself from unfaithful idolatrous nation of Israel, he once again is going to renew his covenant with them. And that's only possible because of his love, only possible because of his compassion, and only possible because of his faithfulness. For me, there's some key themes in this book that I want us to see.

We're gonna start reading in just a minute, but some of the key themes are Israel did not really know God. They didn't really love God. They didn't have an intimate relationship with God. They weren't faithful to God. And what did they do?

They rebelled, and God brought about very severe consequences for their sin and because of their rebellion. And and I know you've seen this in Bible studies and preaching before, it's like a vicious cycle. If you can just imagine this vicious cycle, the nation of Israel would fall into sin, and then after they fell into sin, and I've heard preachers use this as an alliterated outline, they fall into sin and then what would they do? They'd go to supplication, which is just a fancy way of saying they go pray, and then God would do what? He would provide salvation for them once again, and then what would they do?

They'd celebrate and everything would be great, and then they'd do what? They'd fall into sin again. And then once again, they'd pay the consequences of that. And when we see that over and over in the nation of Israel, we look and we say, good grief, how unfaithful could they be? And then it kind of slaps us in the face.

Those of you that were here in Sunday school this morning will remember, like my friend, Dwayne, he would say, oh, me. We say, ouch, because we realize that's what we do. We fall into sin, and we have the consequences of that sin. And then we go to the Lord and pray, Lord, please help me get out of this situation. He provides salvation.

He provides a way of escape. And what do we do? We dive right back in again. Well, he gives us this example of Hosea and Gomer to show the situation and to help us see the relationship that we've broken with God. They rebelled, but God's love and mercy are more powerful than Israel's sin.

That's something we really wanna focus on today. We live in a time where many people say they know God, but they have no relationship with him. We live in a country that some people call a Christian nation, but yet as a country, we are very far from God. We don't fear the Lord. We have churches with people that come every week, but where the members and the attenders, they don't really live for God.

Well, I want us to consider a few things that we can see today, from from the people Hosea wrote about. And the first one is they ignored God's instructions. They ignored God's instructions. Read with me Hosea six, and I'm gonna start in verse four. Oh, Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee?

Oh, Judah, what shall I do unto thee? For your goodness is as a morning cloud and as the early dew, it goeth away. Therefore, I have hewed them by the prophets. I have slain them by the words of my mouth and thy judgments are as the light that goeth forth. As a nation, they were brought out of slavery where where they were in Egypt.

They were given a land, and how was the land described? As a land that was flowing with milk and honey. It was prosperous. It was fertile fertile. It was a good land.

It was vibrant, and they were God's chosen people. But here they were, these people that had so many advantages, and they were in a huge mess. They didn't follow God's instructions. And so verse four is kind of interesting to me. It sounds so poetic, but really it's a sad commentary on the condition of God's people.

You know, when you first read it, you say, oh, that'd be a nice poem to write in a love note to my girlfriend or something. Look there, it says, oh, Ephraim, what shall I do? It will skip down. It says, for your goodness is as a morning cloud and as the early dew. Wow.

Doesn't that sound poetic and wonderful? Now those of us, since you live in Florida, you know how in the morning, this morning we were coming up over here bright and early from Sebring, and we were driving through all this farmland, a lot of groves of citrus, and there was all these spider webs on all this stuff. You could see like tons of spider webs, but they were they were like sparkling white because they had dew on them. Now if we were to turn around probably right now, but definitely by noon, we drive by, you're not gonna see those things. Why?

Because all the dew has already evaporated. We live in hot Florida, know, and so it's not gonna stay around long. So just imagine you you write a love letter to your spouse and you say, love for you is like the morning dew. And then she's like, thanks a lot. It dried up before halfway through the day.

Well, that's basically what he's comparing it to here. He's saying, you know, you you think you think that everything's okay. You think that your walk with me is good. You think you're steadfastness. You think you're goodness, but it's evaporated.

It's not around here long. It's like an oasis or a a mirage that's gone. It's a sad commentary on God's people. They ignored God's instructions. They were indifferent to God's word.

And so, I I just love that idea there. They were fickle. They were faithless. Their love wasn't lasting as poetic as it might have sounded. There was no faithfulness, no love for God as if they didn't even know him.

There was nothing of lasting value. They were familiar with the laws. They knew the 10 commandments. They knew all these Old Testament laws, and they would be following those to a t we're gonna see in a minute, but they didn't obey. They didn't follow instructions.

Flip over to leave your finger here and go to Hosea four and verse one, just one page back. It says, hear the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel, for the Lord hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land because there is no truth, no mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. Think about that for just a minute. Doesn't that sound like our world today? We're a United States.

We're a godly Christian nation. Are we? We don't know God. We don't have a relationship with him as a nation. They ignored God's instructions.

They were indifferent to his word, and God said there was no truth in the land. They were in this terrible mess, and yet God was still time and time again trying to be merciful to them. What about us? Are we living like that? What was it that God really wanted?

Back over chapter six verse six, it says, for I desired mercy and not sacrifice and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. Once again, ouch. You see here, they were following the rituals of religion. Now we could be thankful that we don't we don't worship the God and worship God the same way that they did back then. But just imagine, they were following through the sacrificial system.

Now God never intended to save us from our sins through animal sacrifices, but they were a picture of the redeeming work that Christ would do later on that we see in the New Testament. And so even though Christ's name is never mentioned in our Bibles in the Old Testament, the Messiah is promised, and we can see he's gonna be that promised awaited king. He's gonna be that sacrificial lamb that will come and provide payment for our sin debt. And so they would bring these animals in to be sacrificed. So just imagine, they come through and it's like they live like the world all week long.

They don't pay attention to God's war laws. They're being unfaithful just like a adulterous spouse. And then what do they do? On Sunday, they come, they lay down everything on the altar, and they say, see, we're God's people. And they sacrificed their animal, and then what'd they do?

I could see them practically running out of the temple to go back into their sinful lifestyle. And so they they they didn't follow the law to be obedient to God. They followed it out of obligation just to check off religious rights or rules that they had completed. And it sounds so much like us today as a nation. They were going through the religious motions, but they weren't doing it from a heart of love.

You know, sometimes I I can think of, you know, with children, how a child will do that. My daughter right now, my youngest daughter, she works at the YMCA with their after after school child program. She's always coming home and telling me, she says she loves the job, but she has to learn a lot of patience with these kids. She says they're not very obedient, they don't listen. She doesn't have a very strong voice, she got that from her dad, And so, you know, she doesn't wanna yell at the kids or anything, and so she's trying to get them to obey.

And she's always telling me these stories about these defiant kids. Well, we I guess it was last weekend, we were going into a store in Sebring, and this cute little girl, oh, she was just as cute as a doll, and she walked in in front of us, and she turned around with this big smile, and she said, Hello, Miss Olivia. And I was like, Oh, it just warmed my heart, and and so they walked on in the store. And I said, oh, Olivia, she's adorable. And she goes, that little girl's evil.

And I was like, what? She said, oh, she's just being nice in front of her mom, but she is mean. Alright. So anyway, was like, I can't believe that. Well, have you ever seen a child that obeys just because they have to?

You know, your parents says, go in there and clean your room. Fine. I'll clean my room. And they're in there throwing stuff around, but is it really out of a heart of love? Are they saying, yes, you know, I want to show respect to my mom and dad and clean my room out of love, and I think I'm going to do that today.

No. I see a dad up here up front looking at his kids, so we better move on. But but that's not natural for us. And so here we have this idea, they were going through the motions, but there was no true obedience. They might have made sacrifices, but they didn't do it out of love.

One commentary I read said, Israel not only worshiped false gods, but they worshiped the but they also worshiped the Lord with false motives in an attempt to manipulate him. Perhaps they thought it didn't matter what sins they committed as long as they perform sacrifices to the Lord afterward. You know, it's kinda like the kid that gets up and does what his parents says, not out of love, but he doesn't wanna be punished. Doesn't want the spanking. He doesn't want the consequences of it.

So now look on with me at verse seven, verse seven. It says, but they, like men, have transgressed the covenant. There have they dealt treacherously against me. Gilead is a city of them that works iniquity and is polluted with blood. And as troops of robbers wait for a man, so the company of priests murder in the way by consent for they commit lewdness.

I have seen an horrible thing in the house of Israel. There is the whoredom of Ephraim. Israel is defiled. Also, oh Judah, he has set an harvest for thee when I return to the captivity of my people. Now remember that unfaithfulness of Gomer that I mentioned from the earlier chapters of the book?

Well, there's a little bit of confusion here in this passage of scripture. In some versions of the Bible, it actually refers to Adam. Maybe your Bible will say that. It talks about Adam and some people say, well what is that Adam they're talking about? Is he actually talking about the sin started with Adam from Genesis?

Well it could be. Some people think that Adam is referring to all humanity and that's why we see there mention that, you know, it it talks about mankind. It could mean all men. Others say Adam actually refers to a city that was in that part of the world. It seems kinda likely that because it even goes on to say, there they committed and it names these different things that were taking place.

But regardless, whichever Adam it's referring to in this section, the prophet is describing violence. He's describing murder in the land. And it's not just committed by average church going people or average synagogue going people. It also involved who? The priest.

Now think about that. They were indifferent to God's words. They thought it was all ignored, but it wasn't for it wasn't forgotten. And so, we can see there the issue of what was going on. It says the people of Israel committed evil deeds.

They deal falsely. They steal from each other. They think they're acting with exemption for their disobedience. It seems as if God doesn't see or that God doesn't care and everything's okay, but God responds that he does. And it says there, he does remember all their evil.

And so the people of Israel are storing up judgment for them for themselves. Now, I have two older sisters and, my oldest sister is named Jenny. Her name is Virginia, but she goes by Jenny. And I they're they're both quite a bit older than me, so I wasn't around when this took place, but I remember hearing the story of my sister Jenny, and, she was always getting into things. And so if, my parents' house, if it was too quiet for any length of time, they're like, uh-oh, Jenny's into something.

She's sneaking around getting into something as a little toddler. And so one day my mom, she's told me the story, she called out, Jenny, where are you? And Jenny yelled from her room, I'm in here and I'm not writing on the walls. Alright. My sister is also the same one that tried to make a cake in the washing machine, but that's for another story.

Well, that's a cute little story about my sister, but in reality, that's what Israel was doing. They were living in sin and they think that God didn't see it. Our daughter Elizabeth did the same thing when we were in Peru. We painted her room in in our apartment we lived in. We had just finished it, and a couple days in, she comes running into our room and says, Hey, I want to show you what I did in my room.

And we're like, What did you do in your room? And she said, Pretty circles. And we went in there and she had drawn gigantic circles on the wall like this and she was so proud of it. We said, Jenny or or or Elizabeth, that's my sister. Elizabeth, why did you write on the walls?

And she said, you never told me not to. Well, you see, that's what Israel was doing. They had never learned their lesson. They thought that God didn't see, they didn't have to follow their rules, and he would never pay any attention. He didn't care.

And so here's this nation that ignored God's instructions. But number two, they illustrated it through their godless lifestyle. I I love it when we can find literary pictures in scripture. This is almost like an object lesson that we see here, and there are several similes that are used. So for for any school teachers that are in here, we're gonna review some of these literature types here.

We would be starting in, chapter seven and verse three. It says, they make the king glad with their wickedness and the princes with their lies. They are all adulterers as an oven heated by the baker who ceases from raising after he had needed the after he needed the dough until it be leavened. Verse five. In the day of our king, the princes have made him sick with bottles of wine.

He stretched out his hand with scorners for they have made ready their heart like an oven while they lie in wait. Their baker sleepeth all night in the morning. It burneth as a flaming fire. Verse seven. They are all hot as an oven and have devoured their judges.

All their kings are fallen. There is none among them that calleth upon me. Verse eight, Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people. Ephraim is a cake not turned. Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not.

Yea, gray hairs are here, and they are upon him, yet he knoweth not. And the pride of Israel testify it to his face and they do not return to the Lord their God nor seek him for all of this. So you see there, we have all of these word pictures and these similes to describe Israel's disloyalty and their unfaithfulness. First, he compares them to an overheated oven. So just picture this imagery for just a minute, an overheated oven, and that that represents Israel's raging sin.

Alright. So we could probably think somebody the the the word picture of an overheated oven to to describe sexual sin. Well, they were involved in terrible sexual sin as a nation. Then in verse five, they became sick. It says in in some versions, they became sick with the heat of wine.

So and what does that mean? They were literally drunk. It was drunkenness that that they were falling into as a nation. And it goes on and talks about their anger and how it smoldered, and it talks about the morning blazes like a flaming fire. In other words, they were angry.

They were argumentative. And if that doesn't sound like our world today, you notice how everybody's angry all the time? You go in the grocery store and the line's a little too long. People start getting upset. Somebody steps in front of somebody.

Hey, I was in line in front of you. There's no courtesy anymore. There's all kinds of videos all the time. You can see a TikTok video or a YouTube video where somebody is angry on an airplane and they're refusing to sit down or they're refusing to do this or follow authority. And that's exactly what was going on here.

Their anger smoldered. Verse seven, it talks about how they devoured their rulers and they constantly rebel against authority. And, again, if there's any school teachers in here, you can see how in our world today, students don't have any respect for authorities. And why? Because their parents don't have any respect for authority.

And over time, you have this breakdown in our society. And so not only is it an oven too hot, but the baker he describes is is is incompetent. He failed to stir the fire. He failed to knead the dough. He he didn't have the dough stirred until the cake was already ready, and the baker was not successful.

And as a nation, they would not be successful. And these are just a few word pictures. Now, I'll be honest with you. I can hold my own in the kitchen. I am not a good cook.

I would never consider myself a cook, but I can follow a recipe pretty good. And a couple years ago, Debbie was recovering from surgery, and I decided I was going to make this elaborate dinner. And I made homemade meatloaf and cream potatoes, green beans, and then I made homemade from scratch, no mixes, homemade from scratch banana pudding. And Debbie was like, good grief, the girls are never gonna want me to cook again. And somehow, miraculously, I I mean that with all seriousness, it all turned out really, really good.

And, you know, I we used to call it grandma style, banana pudding, and I actually made homemade meringue and put on top and I had those peaks up perfect, put in the oven, they oh, man, it was beautiful. I will say I set the bar high, I don't know how I did it the first time. The second time I made it, it looked like I had poured milk over the top of it. So anyway, I got cocky, thought I knew how to cook And so I I can hold my own in the kitchen, but I'm not real good at it. Well, one time, I was gonna fix dinner for Debbie, and I started too late.

And so I thought the the instructions in the recipe said to set the oven at a certain temperature, maybe three fifty. I was running late, so I got the grand idea. If I set the oven at four fifty, then it'll be okay, and it'll still cook, I can still get it done on time, and it just it'll just be quicker. Well, I I don't even remember what I baked, but I I think it was some kind of chicken. The outside was golden brown.

At our house, we don't say we burn food. It's caramelized. And so I caramelized the chicken and it was beautiful, but I have to be honest with you, inside, it was raw. And so the outside looked good. The inside was raw.

And so basically, the problem was I didn't follow instructions, and you can't just do what you wanna do. Well, that's what this group of people this is what Ephraim, this is what the Northern Kingdom was doing. They wanted to ignore God's instructions. They wanted to ignore God's law. They wanted to think that God didn't see anything, and that's okay.

We we will still work out in the end. Well, I can tell you from my own personal cooking experience, the baker that's described here was incompetent just like myself, and it's not gonna turn out well. And a little further down, the baking imagery continues, but but now Israel, Ephraim, is not the oven anymore, but it's the cake. And what does it say there? He he mixes himself with the people in verse eight.

And so instead of relying on God for their strength, they relied on the other nations around them. It's like they got into an agreement. They got into cahoots with their enemy. What a foolish thing to do. Instead of relying on the God, the creator of the universe, you're his chosen people, instead you start to worry about your security.

What do you do? You follow after the enemy. You rely on them for your for your safety and security. They were building alliances that to think they can survive on their own. Jose even goes on to call them a cake not turned.

And I could probably give you another cooking example of me making pancakes there or something. So what happens if you have a pancake, you put the batter on the little, what do you call it, skillet, whatever, frying pan, and you're cooking the pancake, and then you just decide, I'm not going to flip it over. You just serve it up. What happens? Cake's gonna be burnt on one side and what?

Raw on the other. And so he's saying that you're like a cake not turned, so it's this metaphorical image. He failed to start the fire. He failed to knead the dough. He failed to flip the cake.

How the recipe turned out? Not good. How the nation of Israel turned out? Not good. They weren't successful.

And so the result is that rather than the foreign nations helping deliver Israel, they take them back into captivity. They destroy them. Verse nine, it even says, strangers have devoured his strength. They'd ignored God's word. They illustrated it through their godless living, and then they had incomplete repentance.

Incomplete repentance. Now, I find myself when I'm speaking, I do this all the time, and, I just want you to imagine for a second that I am content in my life. I'm going along with the way that God that the way that I think I wanna live, and I'm going right along with the world. Oh, boy. I can have financial success if I do this.

Oh, I can have pleasure if I do this. I can be happy if I do this. And the world does all these things. They say if I have, you know, if I'm involved in this sexual sin, I'll have happiness. I'm getting close to the speaker.

If if if I if I take this drug, it's gonna give me it's gonna give me peace. If I drink this alcohol, it's gonna give me peace or it's gonna, you know, wash away my sadness. And we're moving in the direction of the world, and it's just like a highway, just like going down I 4, we're just going with the flow of traffic. And what God wants us to do is repent. He wants us to change direction.

It's just like if I got off on I 4, I got off an exit ramp, and I turned around and I changed directions, and I start going this way. And what is that? That's repentance, and the idea is I stopped going in the way of the world. And what by the way, what does the Bible say about that? Wide is the path to destruction, just like I four, and you're just and sometimes that feels like destruction, and you're headed in the way of the world, and instead he says to repent, change directions, go in the other direction, and follow me, obey me, and yet the nation of Israel didn't do that.

They had incomplete repentance and what they thought their repentance was, okay, I'll live for God and I'll go make a sacrifice. Then I'll continue traveling on the highway just like the rest of the world. Look at verse 10. And the pride of Israel testify to his face and they do not return to the Lord their God nor seek him for all this. Verse 11, Ephraim also is like a silly dove without heart.

They call to Egypt. They go into Assyria. When they shall go, I will spread my net upon them. I will bring them down as the fowls of the heaven. I will chastise them as their congregation hath heard.

Woe unto them for they have fled from me. Destruction unto them because they have transgressed against me. Though I have redeemed them, yet they have spoken lies against me. They have not cried unto me with their heart. When they howled upon their beds, they assemble themselves for corn and wine and they rebel against me.

Though I have bound and strengthened their arms, yet do they imagine mischief against me. These are words that Hosea penned but it's coming like from the heart of God. They returned but not to the most high. They are like a deceitful bow. Their princes shall fall by the sword for the rage of their tongue.

They shall be their derision in the land of Egypt. And so once again, we see all of these metaphors in verse 11. He compares them to, being like a a silly bird. What does it say there? A silly dove.

And so silly and without sense. You know, birds sometimes can be sort of erratic. They don't always seem like they have a plan for what they're doing. We we live over in Sebring, and we we live in a night in a beautiful neighborhood. It's like a lot of trees and grass and so forth.

It's nice and green. And we we occasionally have some pretty birds in our yard. And we had some new neighbors move into the house beside us, and they began to feed the birds more than we ever did. And one day I see that the neighbor is hand feeding sandhill cranes. Now I understand that's illegal, but I'm not gonna say anything to them.

So the sandhill cranes that I used to see very rarely, now they live in our yard. Not in his yard, they live in our yard. And they're there almost constantly day and night, and then those little, what are they, ibis, the little white birds with the the curved orange beaks, there's like 25 of those, and they live in the yard now, and they're always around. And so I'm okay. I'm, like, from Virginia.

It's like, oh, this is really Florida. Like, I just need an alligator in my yard, and now I'll just really look like I'm true Florida here. And so I thought it was pretty cool to have all these birds in our yard for a while. Until I'm I'm, like, studying for my Wednesday night bible lesson at church one day, and I'm, what is that annoying noise? Sounds like like this hawking, just deafening sound, and it goes on and on and on and on for like thirty minutes.

So finally, get up, and then I'm going towards the window, and my daughter, she's in her room trying to study, and she goes, I know. Do you hear those stupid birds? They're driving me nuts. So I go, and sure enough, they're sandhill cranes. There's a pair of them, the ones that are at home now, and they're squawking or whatever noises you want to call that, honking at this terrible loud noise, and they're walking through the yard real slow, so I'm thinking they're going towards a dog or something scared them.

I don't know why. They did it nonstop for an hour, and so I couldn't get rid of them. I slammed the door. They just kept right on. I figured out if I turn the sprinklers on, so they finally left and I finished studying.

Why do I tell you that? Well, that's what I think I could almost picture here being this bird that he describes. Why were those sandhill cranes walking around and squawking? I don't know. I don't know what they were doing, but a silly dove or a silly bird is what it reminds me of.

And so they were being erratic. They were unintentional. And so in their pride, Israel was acting like what? A silly dove. This bird that didn't really have any direction in what it was doing.

They just jumped from one nation to another. They went first to Egypt, and then they went to to Assyria. And these would have been what we would call the superpowers of the world today, but these were the evil nations. They're very direct enemies, and they would jump to them to rely on them for their safety and security, but not more powerful than God. And so as we finish up, I got one more thing I wanna show you, and that is you've heard the statement, do you want the good news first or do you want the bad news?

Well, for me personally, I like to hear the bad news first and get it over with. So that's what I did with our message today because, really, we've seen all this bad news. The nation of Israel was disobedient. They ignored God's instructions. They they did a terrible job of of godful or God they they showed godless living.

But now I want us to see the good news. And here we have it that they were offered incomparable forgiveness. So now we're gonna skip back up. Look at verse one of chapter six. Come and let us return unto the Lord for he hath torn and he will heal us.

He hath smitten and he will bind us up. After two days will he revive us, in the third day he will raise us up and he shall live and we shall live in his sight. Then shall we know if we follow on to know the Lord, his going forth is prepared as the morning and he shall come upon us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth. You see, they were offered incomparable forgiveness even despite all of this disobedience, even though they ignored his word, even though they exemplified this terrible lifestyle and showed it, Hosea offers them hope if they repent. It says there in verse one that God's gonna heal them.

God is gonna bind them up. He's gonna revive them. And remember the word picture I gave us about the the the mist in the morning evaporating? Well, we see the exact opposite here. It says, he's gonna come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.

Not like that mist. This is gonna be something that's gonna be lasting. It's gonna be helpful. And so being reconciled, being made right with God will bring them great blessings. Well, I see a lot of parallels to our world today.

As a nation, aren't we living in rebellion? Couldn't we be called an overheated oven? Couldn't we be a half baked bread? As a church, and I'm talking about believers in general, are we like that silly bird and dove? We're trying to live like the world and find success in the world.

As church members and church attenders, are we facing the same judgment as Israel for our disobedience? Well, the good news is God wants to offer forgiveness. First John one nine, you all know it well. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So as we finish up, let me point out one more thing that that was important to me.

Look at verse three. It says, let us know. Let us press on to know the Lord. His going out as sure as the dawn. He will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.

We've just seen that. And I think it's key that we understand the word there. In the version that I just read, it says, let us know. Let us press on to know the Lord. That is a Hebrew word.

It's it's yadah, and the word represents an incredible deep sense of intimacy, vulnerability, a connection between two people. It refers to an act of concern or an inter engagement or dedication, this tremendous love and attachment for someone. This is a relationship that God wants with us. He wants that Yalda relationship. He wants to have fellowship with us.

He wants to bless us. He wants to us to bring him glory and and pleasure. Remember at the beginning how I told you about my great relationship with Dale Earnhardt? Do I know God like I knew Dale Earnhardt? If that's the case, then we don't really have that Yaldah, that Hebrew word there that we're looking at, that deep sense of intimacy, vulnerability.

Now last verse, flip over to Matthew chapter seven. Matthew chapter seven and I'm sorry I've gone long. I made the mistake of not touching my phone to see what time it was. Matthew chapter seven verse 21. Not everyone that say unto me, Lord, Lord shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my father which is in heaven.

Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name and in thy name have cast out devils and in thy name done many wonderful works? Verse 23. And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you. Depart from me, ye that work iniquity. Now this is written in the New Testament, so this is Greek instead of Hebrew, so it's not the exact word, but that word there in verse 23 for new is very, similar to the Hebrew word, that is the word for know and that same idea, of of an intimate personal connection between two people.

Wouldn't it be sad if we say we knew God and yet like Israel, we were indifferent to his word? They ignored his instructions. They illustrated it through their godless lifestyle. They had incomplete repentance. Here it says, I will profess unto them, I never knew you.

Depart from me, ye that work iniquity. God offers incomparable forgiveness. So what do I want us to do with this today? Let's look at our own lives. Let's make sure that we're not living like the people of Hosea's day.

Let's make sure that we're not like Ephraim, that we're just being indifferent to God's word, and we're just going along with the flow, and we give a little bit of a religious gesture time and, every so often, time here and time there with no relationship with him. Christ offers us true forgiveness. Father, I wanna thank you for this passage of scripture. Lord, when I studied this and I looked at is, the nation of Israel and Ephraim, I was able to go from looking at this as just a history lesson, and it began to be convicting to me as I saw, wow, do I really have this intimate relationship with you that I should? Father, I know that all of us can, can work to grow closer to you and, to have a more intimate relationship with you.

Father, in a in a group this size, no doubt, there could be people here that have had a relationship with you like my relationship with Dale Earnhardt. They don't really know you. And without that, they can't have peace. They can't have comfort. They can't have joy.

They can't bring glory to you. So, father, I ask that you'll use this message to be convicting to them. For the rest of us, Lord, that are believers, help us, to look at this example and to remember out of grateful hearts this incomparable forgiveness that you give us. Father, may that motivate us to better serve you. Ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.