651. Hosea - Chapter 9 (#3) - Ephraim will Bring out his Children to the Murderer - September 30, 2024

[00:00:06] Welcome to Wisdom Today. My name is Bill Kelley and I'll be your host. In this podcast we will be exploring the book of Proverbs.

[00:00:21] Let's open in prayer. Father God, I thank you for anyone listening to this podcast today. Lord, I pray that you would reveal to everyone listening how much you truly love each and every one of them.

[00:00:34] In addition, I pray that everyone listening would have favor with both God and man. I ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

[00:00:43] This is Proverb 30 beginning in verse 1.

[00:00:48] The words of Agur, the son of Jaiki, his utterance.

[00:00:53] This man declared to Ithiel, to Ithiel and Eucal,

[00:01:00] Surely I am more stupid than any man, and do not have the understanding of a man.

[00:01:07] I neither learned wisdom, nor have knowledge of the Holy One.

[00:01:12] Who has ascended into heaven or descended?

[00:01:16] Who has gathered the wind in his fists?

[00:01:21] Who has bound the waters in a garment?

[00:01:24] Who has established all the ends of the earth?

[00:01:28] What is his name and what is his son's name, if you know?

[00:01:33] Every word of God is pure.

[00:01:36] He is a shield to those who put their trust in him.

[00:01:41] Do not add to his words, lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar.

[00:01:48] Two things I request of you.

[00:01:51] Deprive me not before I die.

[00:01:54] Remove falsehood and lies far from me.

[00:01:58] Give me neither poverty nor riches.

[00:02:01] Feed me with the food allotted to me.

[00:02:05] Lest I be full and deny you, and say, Who is the Lord?

[00:02:11] Or lest I be poor and steal, and profane the name of my God.

[00:02:18] Do not malign a servant to his master, lest he curse you, and you be found guilty.

[00:02:26] There is a generation that curses its father and does not bless its mother.

[00:02:32] There is a generation that is pure in its own eyes, yet is not washed from its filthiness.

[00:02:41] There is a generation, oh, how lofty are their eyes, and their eyelids are lifted up.

[00:02:49] There is a generation whose teeth are like swords, and whose fangs are like knives, to devour the poor from off the earth, and the needy from among men.

[00:03:04] The leech has two daughters, give and give.

[00:03:08] There are three things that are never satisfied.

[00:03:12] Four never say enough.

[00:03:15] The grave, the barren womb, the earth that is not satisfied with water, and the fire never says enough.

[00:03:25] The eye that mocks his father, and scorns obedience to his mother.

[00:03:30] The ravens of the valley will pick it out, and the young eagles will eat it.

[00:03:36] There are three things which are too wonderful for me.

[00:03:40] Yes, four which I do not understand.

[00:03:44] The way of an eagle in the air.

[00:03:47] The way of a serpent on a rock.

[00:03:50] The way of a ship in the midst of the sea.

[00:03:53] The way of a man with a virgin.

[00:03:57] This is the way of an adulterous woman.

[00:04:01] She eats and wipes her mouth, and says,

[00:04:04] I have done no wickedness.

[00:04:07] For three things the earth is perturbed.

[00:04:10] Yes, for four it cannot bear up.

[00:04:14] For a servant when he reigns, a fool when he is filled with food,

[00:04:19] a hateful woman when she is married,

[00:04:23] and a maid servant who succeeds her mistress.

[00:04:27] There are four things which are little on the earth,

[00:04:31] but they are exceedingly wise.

[00:04:33] The ants are a people not strong,

[00:04:36] yet they prepare their food in the summer.

[00:04:39] The rock badgers are a feeble folk,

[00:04:43] yet they make their homes in the crags.

[00:04:46] The locusts have no king,

[00:04:48] yet they all advance.

[00:04:51] There are three things which are majestic in pace.

[00:04:55] Yes, four which are stately in walk.

[00:04:59] A lion which is mighty among beasts,

[00:05:02] and does not turn away from any.

[00:05:05] A greyhound, a male goat also,

[00:05:08] and a king whose troops are with him.

[00:05:12] If you have been foolish in exalting yourself,

[00:05:15] or if you have despised evil,

[00:05:19] put your hand on your mouth.

[00:05:21] For as the churning of milk produces butter,

[00:05:25] and wringing the nose produces blood,

[00:05:28] so the forcing of wrath produces strife.

[00:05:33] Friends, today I'd like to take a closer look at verse 5.

[00:05:38] And Proverb 30 verse 5 says this,

[00:05:43] Every word of God is pure.

[00:05:46] He is a shield to those who put their trust in him.

[00:05:51] Now friends,

[00:05:53] we are beginning a new week,

[00:05:55] and what I'd like to do before we begin today's lesson

[00:05:59] is to go back to Thursday's lesson,

[00:06:03] and that was episode number 649 on September 26th.

[00:06:09] And we are in the ninth chapter of Hosea.

[00:06:13] And what I'd like to do is review the three points from Thursday's lesson.

[00:06:18] Number one,

[00:06:20] The spiritual man is insane.

[00:06:24] Let me read that again.

[00:06:25] The spiritual man is insane.

[00:06:29] And when I first read that on Thursday's podcast to myself,

[00:06:34] I sat there and said,

[00:06:36] Wow!

[00:06:36] That is a powerful verse.

[00:06:39] But that verse is literally making reference to King David,

[00:06:44] back in the book of 1 Samuel.

[00:06:46] And in that time,

[00:06:48] King David was not yet king.

[00:06:51] Okay?

[00:06:51] At the time,

[00:06:53] Saul was the king of Israel,

[00:06:55] and David is running for his life

[00:06:59] and fleeing from King Saul.

[00:07:02] Now Saul has been after him and wants his life.

[00:07:07] So David goes back to the Philistines.

[00:07:11] This is where he had recently killed the giant Goliath.

[00:07:17] He went back to that place, Gath,

[00:07:19] and the king of Gath,

[00:07:21] and pretended that he was insane.

[00:07:26] And so the king said,

[00:07:28] Why do you bring this person to me?

[00:07:31] He obviously is insane.

[00:07:34] What a great story.

[00:07:36] Number two,

[00:07:37] the watchman of Ephraim is with my God.

[00:07:40] And number three,

[00:07:42] he will remember their iniquity.

[00:07:45] Now I find this interesting

[00:07:47] because it also says in the Bible

[00:07:50] that he will remember their iniquity no more.

[00:07:55] Now this is totally opposite that.

[00:07:58] But at this particular time,

[00:08:01] God is really unhappy.

[00:08:03] And he's angry at the Israelites,

[00:08:06] so what they've done.

[00:08:07] So we're going to begin

[00:08:09] where we left off on Thursday's podcast.

[00:08:12] I'm going to begin in chapter 9, verse 10.

[00:08:16] I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness.

[00:08:20] I saw your fathers as the first fruits on the fig tree in its first season.

[00:08:27] But they went to Baal Peor and separated themselves to that shame.

[00:08:34] They became an abomination like the thing they loved.

[00:08:39] So friends, my first point in today's lesson is

[00:08:44] I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness.

[00:08:49] Now I am reading out of the Nelson Study Bible

[00:08:53] and what I'd like to do is go over the commentary for that verse,

[00:08:57] verse 10.

[00:08:57] And it says,

[00:08:59] At the beginning of Israel's history,

[00:09:02] God found great delight in his people.

[00:09:06] Grapes in the wilderness would be a pleasant surprise.

[00:09:11] I want you to think about being in the wilderness.

[00:09:15] Sometimes we would refer to that as being in the desert.

[00:09:19] And if you're in a desert,

[00:09:21] the last thing you're expecting to see is grapes

[00:09:25] that you can go to the vine and pick them off and put them in your mouth.

[00:09:29] That would definitely be a pleasant surprise.

[00:09:33] The first fruits on the fig tree were an irresistible delicacy.

[00:09:40] Now friends, fig trees are really good fruit.

[00:09:46] A lot of people in America are not all that familiar with figs.

[00:09:50] Figs are just not that common in America.

[00:09:53] We have grapes, but we don't eat figs very often here.

[00:09:58] But it is a delicacy in Israel.

[00:10:01] At Baal Peor, the Israelites had participated in fertility rites with Moabite women,

[00:10:09] bringing God's judgment down upon the nation.

[00:10:14] Now what I'd like to do is go over numbers, chapter 25.

[00:10:21] And this is going to be the Moabite women.

[00:10:27] This is what God is referring to in this chapter.

[00:10:32] Chapter 9, verse 10 of the book of Hosea.

[00:10:36] And this entire chapter is entitled,

[00:10:40] Israel's Harlotry in Moab.

[00:10:43] Now Israel remained in Acacia Grove.

[00:10:47] And the people began to commit harlotry with the women of Moab.

[00:10:53] They invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods.

[00:10:57] And the people ate and bowed down to their gods.

[00:11:02] So Israel was joined to Baal of Peor.

[00:11:07] And the anger of the Lord was aroused against Israel.

[00:11:12] Then the Lord said to Moses,

[00:11:14] Take all the leaders of the people and hang the offenders before the Lord out in the sun,

[00:11:23] that the fierce anger of the Lord may turn away from Israel.

[00:11:29] So Moses said to the judges of Israel,

[00:11:32] Every one of you kill his men who are joined to Baal of Peor.

[00:11:39] And indeed, one of the children of Israel came and presented to his brethren a Midianite woman

[00:11:46] in the sight of Moses and in the sight of all the congregation of the children of Israel

[00:11:54] who were weeping at the door of the tabernacle of meeting.

[00:11:59] Now when Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it,

[00:12:05] He rose from among the congregation and took a javelin or a spear in his hand.

[00:12:13] And he went after the man of Israel into the tent

[00:12:17] and thrust both of them through the man of Israel and the woman through her body.

[00:12:26] So the plague was stopped among the children of Israel.

[00:12:30] And those who died in the plague were 24,000 people.

[00:12:38] Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying,

[00:12:41] Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest,

[00:12:45] has turned back my wrath from the children of Israel

[00:12:49] because he was zealous with my zeal among them

[00:12:54] so that I did not consume the children of Israel in my zeal.

[00:13:01] In other words, God had been prepared to kill all the Israelites.

[00:13:06] But Moses intervened and said, No.

[00:13:09] Therefore say, Behold, I give to him my covenant of peace,

[00:13:14] and it shall be to him and his descendants after him a covenant of an everlasting priesthood

[00:13:22] because he was zealous for his God and made atonement for the children of Israel.

[00:13:30] Now the name of the Israelite who was killed, who was killed with the Midianite woman,

[00:13:36] was Zimri, the son of Salu, a leader of a father's house among the Simeonites.

[00:13:44] And the name of the Midianite woman who was killed was Cosby, the daughter of Zur.

[00:13:50] He was head of the people of a father's house in Midian.

[00:13:55] Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, Harass the Midianites and attack them.

[00:14:01] For they harassed you with their schemes by which they seduced you in the matter of Peor

[00:14:09] and in the matter of Cosby, the daughter of a leader of Midian, their sister,

[00:14:16] who was killed in the day of the plague because of Peor.

[00:14:21] Now, friends, I read that to you because Israel has returned to the same situation they were in way back in the book of Numbers.

[00:14:37] And God is still angry at them.

[00:14:39] Let's go on to verse 11.

[00:14:42] As for Ephraim, their glory shall fly away like a bird.

[00:14:48] No birth, no pregnancy and no conception.

[00:14:54] Now, friends, that's powerful.

[00:14:56] And that is my second point of the day.

[00:14:59] Let me say it again.

[00:15:01] No birth, no pregnancy and no conception.

[00:15:06] Let's look at the commentary for verse 11.

[00:15:19] What does that mean?

[00:15:23] Ephraim's population would dwindle as its women became barren.

[00:15:30] The punishment would be appropriate because this generation of Israelites, like an earlier generation at Baal Peor, promoted fertility by worshiping Baal.

[00:15:45] And as God sees this and he sees the Israelites,

[00:15:51] worshiping Baal, he made the wombs of the Israelite women barren.

[00:16:00] And thus they wouldn't have children.

[00:16:04] And if they became pregnant, they would miscarry.

[00:16:08] Let's look at verse 12.

[00:16:11] Though they bring up their children, yet I will bereave them to the last man.

[00:16:18] Yes, woe to them when I depart from them.

[00:16:23] Just as I saw Ephraim, like Tyre, planted in a pleasant place,

[00:16:29] So Ephraim will bring out his children to the murderer.

[00:16:37] So friends, my third and final point of today's lesson is,

[00:16:42] Ephraim will bring out his children to the murderer.

[00:16:49] Now friends, let me read the commentary for verses 12 and 13.

[00:16:54] It says,

[00:16:56] Any children who were born in Israel would be killed in the coming invasion.

[00:17:03] Tyre was an important economic center located at an advantageous spot on the Mediterranean coast.

[00:17:13] So friends, before we close today, I would like to go back to our proverb of the day.

[00:17:19] And we are in Proverb 30.

[00:17:22] And I would like to read verse 5 to you.

[00:17:27] Every word of God is pure.

[00:17:31] He is a shield to those who put their trust in him.

[00:17:36] Now friends, what I have done almost every podcast in this study,

[00:17:43] is I have tried to associate a verse in the proverb that day that went along with our story of the day.

[00:17:55] But in this particular case, God is so upset with the people of Israel.

[00:18:02] I wanted to bring a little hope for all of you listening today.

[00:18:06] If you have been in this study of Hosea with me, you have realized that, oh my gosh,

[00:18:15] God is an angry God and nothing could be further from the truth.

[00:18:20] So that's why I picked this verse today, because it says,

[00:18:23] Every word of God is pure.

[00:18:27] He is a shield to those who put their trust in him.

[00:18:33] Now friends, God is about ready to give up on his people Israel in our story today.

[00:18:39] But we today can open up the word of God because we know it's going to be pure.

[00:18:48] And we know it's going to be true.

[00:18:51] And we know that we will be uplifted when we read the book of God.

[00:19:01] Friends, my call to action today is very simple.

[00:19:05] How often do you open the scriptures?

[00:19:09] Do you open them on a regular basis?

[00:19:12] Do you have a regular reading program?

[00:19:15] Are you going to read the entire Bible this coming year?

[00:19:20] And some of you listening may not be reading the Bible on a regular basis.

[00:19:26] Some of you may never have even opened the Old Testament.

[00:19:29] And friends, may I encourage you to do so that we learn from the people of the past.

[00:19:37] It's hard to read some of the stories in the Bible.

[00:19:41] It's hard to understand why the people did what they did, how they turned away from God so often.

[00:19:52] And yet, the story of the Bible is that the people would, one way or another, find their way back to God and ask him to intervene on their behalf.

[00:20:09] And God has the mercy and the love for each one listening today to do that.

[00:20:17] Friends, I will never end a podcast without giving anyone an opportunity to receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

[00:20:26] If there is anyone listening today and you've never taken that very important step, I invite you to do so right now.

[00:20:35] Father God, thank you for sending your son Jesus to earth.

[00:20:39] Jesus, thank you that you were willing to come to earth and be a perfect sacrifice for everyone listening to this podcast today.

[00:20:50] Jesus, I believe that you are the son of God.

[00:20:55] I believe that you came to earth and died on a cross for everyone listening to this podcast today.

[00:21:02] And by doing that, you have put us in right standing with God.

[00:21:08] But Jesus, I still need your help.

[00:21:11] I personally, I need your help.

[00:21:13] I ask that you come into my heart.

[00:21:15] I ask that you lead me and guide me from this point forward in my life.

[00:21:20] I make you my Lord and Savior.

[00:21:23] Now, may the Lord bless you and keep you.

[00:21:27] The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you.

[00:21:32] The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

[00:21:37] Friends, tomorrow is Testimony Day.

[00:21:41] Please join me and a special guest as we further explore wisdom today.