Israel was a spreading vine. He brought forth fruit for himself. As his fruit increased he built more altars as his land prospered, he adorned his sacred stones. Their heart is deceitful, and now they must bear their guilt. The Lord will demolish their altars and destroy their sacred stones. Then they will say, we have no king, because we did not revere the Lord. But even if we had a king, what could he do for us? They make many promises, take false oaths and make agreements, therefore lawsuits spring up like poisonous weeds in a proud field. The people who live in Samaria fear for the calf isle at Bethaven. Its people will mourn over it, and so will its idolatrous priests. Those who have rejoiced over it splendor because it is taken from them into exile. It will be carried to Assyria as tribute for the great king. Ephraim will be disgraced. Israel will be ashamed of its wooden idols. Samaria and its king will float away like a twig on the surface of the waters. The high places of wickedness will be destroyed. It is the sin of Israel. Thorn in Thistles will grow up and cover their altars. Then they will say to the mountains cover us, and to the hills fall on us. Since the days of Ghibia you have sinned O Israel, and there you have remained. Did not war overtake the evil doers in Ghibia? When I please, I will punish them. Nations will be gathered against them to put them in bonds for their double sin. The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let me pray for us. Lord, we ask that you would use this year word to instruct us to show us how it is that we are to understand you and our relationship to you. We pray that you would grant us grace and Holy Spirit that you would work within us to give us boldness and courage to do the things that you have told us to do and to strengthen with which to do them. We pray in Christ's name. Amen. Well as we look today at this beginning of this section within the book of Hosea of these reminiscences, it is like if you have ever had a romantic relationship that didn't quite work out, you know how in that melancholy time it is easy to think back upon the relationship and that bitter sweet, you know, you think about the good times but then also the bad times and all that. And here we really have a picture into God's grieving over his bride, his people. People that he has set his love upon and who have been faithless, who have been adulterous at every turn. And as God thinks upon those things and in the passage today, what we have is God showing some of the things that are underneath the behavior. You know, it's really not about the behavior. Sometimes that's how we approach Christianity as kind of this list of, you know, do these things, don't do these things, you know, and the final analysis to kind of balance out and see, you know, if the scale tilts this way, then you're okay, if it tilts that way, well then you're not okay. That's really not the picture of the gospel. It's not what the Bible says is the core of our relationship with God. Instead what we see, find in this passage is God taking a microscope down past the surface level of the sin that he's spent great pains in opening up and showing our sinfulness. But here he dies beneath the surface and shows us some of what's at the root, what's behind the behavior, what's behind the sinfulness that was characteristic not only of Israel but it's characteristic of us. And in that, we find the problem that's going on. Now, we have kind of an embarrassing problem in our family. And if you've come to our house, you've seen that. As you drive down our street, you pass these beautifully immaculate lawns, these manicured yards that look like people have spent weeks upon weeks manicuring them and doing everything right. And then you drive past those yards to our yard where our children have wondrous standalines to pick as many as they want and still there are more. And all kinds of crab grass and things that I can't even identify that are not grass. This is not a Kentucky tour. These are none of the things that you want in your yard. But they're strange, bizarre plants that are growing all over it. And we've struggled with this and knowing we don't want to do the old, keep up with the Joneses. Well, our neighbors do this with their yard and so we have to keep up. We know that that's not right. But at the same time, it's a little embarrassing as we try to talk with people in our neighborhood about the gospel and the wonder of Christ and they say, oh, that's right. You're at that house, right? It kind of chutes your ability and credibility to talk about anything, really. I'm a pastor, I'm kind of busy. So we've got this problem. And Ed will think I'm a communist because I don't want to spray our yard with DDT and have those kind of things. But I think we're supposed to be good stewards of our environment. And so I don't want there to be toxic things for our kids to get into. And so I really wrestled with this whole thing. But finally, I got to the point where it's okay, there's more ganged aligns than grass. We got to do something. And so I called around the very different things, the lawn doctor and scots and all these things. And then the lawn dog came. And we had a fun thing about their, you know, they felt DAWG dog, which we thought, you know, wow, there's somebody else from the south who's here and main starting a company. But anyway, the lawn dog came and before they started spraying things, and by the way, they used things that are good for the environment that aren't going to cause acid rain. So that's good. But before they started any of that, they did this, this evaluation of our yard. See, they didn't want to just start spraying stuff until they found out what those strange unidentified plants were, right? And figure out if they were supposed to be calling in experts to, you know, airlift that stuff out. They evaluated what was going on, okay? And that's what we've got going on in Hosea. Is God has outlaid, that's not a word, laid out, our sin that instead of following him faithfully, what we constantly do is look to other things. We look to other gods, but there aren't any other gods, so we make them up. We look to ourselves, we go to the self-help section and borders. We look to all kinds of things. Maybe it's our job. Maybe it's our family, you know, having just the right family. And whatever it is, we look to all these other things for our security instead of looking to the Lord. And so God has spent the first nine chapters laying all of those things bare. And so as we're kind of laying there on the examining table, bleeding and exposed, God now comes in and says, here's what's at the root of your problem. And he exposes that in the first couple of verses. Look at the text here, he says, Israel was a spreading viner and other translations a lexuriant vine, an incredible bounty. And Israel brought forth fruit for himself. He had all these blessings. And he said, look at what I've got. And so as his fruit increased, he built more altars. You know, it wasn't just enough to have an altar for Yahweh. Well, the God who takes care of sunshine, you know, we want that God to be happy so that our fruit continues to increase. But if we get too much sun, then that's not good, so we want to have an altar over here to the God who brings the reins to make sure that we get enough rain. Some of you have been overdoing that, by the way. And, well, okay, we want to have all of these things taking it. We want to cover all of our bases. Because what if Yahweh doesn't really take care of everything? We want to make sure that we've got all of our bases covered. And so in verse two, we see this, it says, their heart is deceitful and now they must bear their guilt. And God shows here deceit as really being the root, the thing that is behind or underneath the sin of idolatry. In verse four, he picks that up and says they make many promises. They take false oaths and make agreements. The deceitfulness is really the thing that has led God's people to the place where they are to being so far gone that God is going to wipe them out and take only a small remnant into captivity and disgrace. You see, when you begin asking the questions of what went wrong, how did I get to this place? God got illuminate the things that are going on underneath it. It is through sowing deceit. Look here in verse four, he says in taking false oaths and making agreements, therefore lawsuits spring up like poisonous weeds. And he's using this agrarian context to give this example. He says that the problem is that you were supposed to be a fruitful vine, but that fruitful vine instead has turned to poisonous weeds. And that it's through your sowing deceit that brings the crop of this poison. And just to make sure that we get this, he, again, he's spent all of these first nine chapters in showing how horrible it's going to get. That when he uses the term poisonous weeds, we're not just talking about the dandelions that are going in our yard. He uses poison here really graphically to show the horror of what they're going to take on as God judges them, as he disciplines them. We find from history that when the judgment came that God is talking about here, that it was horrendous, that the cities were laid waste, and that the Assyrian army and then later the Babylonian army comes, they surround the city and engage in city war or city siege. Now we tend to think of city siege just in terms of what we see on the movies, right? There isn't a time in our memory when they surrounded Portland and started laying seeds to it and we were trapped inside. But when cities were seeded, what it meant was that the city was cut off and pretty soon they ran out of food. And the horrors got so bad that parents were deciding which child the family would need to eat so that the family could survive. It's horrendously awful what God is talking about. And as we've seen in the proceeding chapters, it's because of the horrors of what sin really is that the judgment is that horrendous to deal with. You see the poison that God is talking about here destroys everything. It touches everything and brings everything into death. Now it doesn't do it right away, right? We talked about how God is so patient in allowing this to go on so that some might repent but it gets worse and worse after generation and generation to get to this horror. So how does it go from the bounty of a ligerent vine to the poison that destroys everything? The seed is what leads to the way. It takes us away from the truth of what God is doing and gives us false hope and assurances. But in order for us to see the difference of the truth with the deceit, we've got to look at what the vine was there to begin with. You know that in training bank tellers in order to be able to determine whether a bill is counterfeit, they don't spend a lot of time looking at the various different counterfeits. What they spend time training them to see is by showing them the original, by showing them the genuine bills so that they know those so well that they're able to spot a counterfeit because it doesn't match with the genuine article. So as we understand the seed as being the problem in order to counteract that, we need to look at the truth. We need to look at the purpose of the vine and that's our second point. Looking at the truthfulness of what God has set up. He uses this imagery of the true vine in the New Testament to talk about that, but it's something that's been throughout the Old Testament. In talking about his people bearing fruit, he brings them into the promised land that we hear about being referred to as falling with milk and honey. All along, his God talked about his people being in the promised land, dwelling in his presence. There's this imagery of blessing, of fruit that his people were to bear. And that has to do with the produce of the land, the things that that were supposed to be generated as they got into the promised land and the reason for that. The reason for the fruit was not so that we could be fat and happy. The reason for the fruit that God gave to Israel was threefold. He gave them fruit because he loved her. He gave her fruit for the same reason that we give gifts to those that we love. You know, you give something to your wife or to your parents or to your child, not just because it's their birthday, not just because, well, Hallmark says it's Father's Day and you're supposed to give stuff. Now, you give gifts to people you love simply because you love them. And God has from the beginning said, I'm going to bless you Israel. I'm going to bless you seeds of Abraham. I'm going to bless you church. I'm going to bless you, my people because I love you because I've got a light in giving you every good thing. But he also blesses his people for a second reason. He blesses his people to manifest his glory, to demonstrate, to show for all the world to see. Not only how much he loves, but how good he is. Remember in the day of Solomon, when God had blessed the people so greatly that people came from out all the earth and came and looked in amazement. How is this that these people, Israel, they're only in their third generation of having a king. How can they have so much wealth? How can they have so many blessings? It's because the God of Israel is so very good. He blesses us, not just because he loves us, not just because he's demonstrating his glory, but also so that we might be a blessing to the other nations. He blesses us so that through us he might bless all the earth. Those are the reasons that God blesses. But he shows this problem of deceit. And what deceitfulness does is it turns those truths on their head and causes to misunderstand the purpose of his blessings. See, we turn those things around and we think of his blessings not as the fruit of his love, but as something that we are supposed to earn. The old fashioned way, earn it. I got to dot all my eyes and cross all my teeth and make sure that I'm doing everything just so. And then we'll have his blessings, but that's not right. Or we think of his blessings as something that we're simply entitled to. We've grown up with such abundance. We live in a culture and within a nation that is so abundantly blessed. We have more than kings have in millennia before now. We have such good health. We have such good produce and food. We have such good housing and every convenience. And so sometimes we think of those things, not even as something that we earn, but simply simply that we're entitled to. They've always been there. Why wouldn't we be blessed? Or thirdly, we think of those blessings as something that we have in order to hoard. The bumper sticker, the one who dies with the most hoist winds. I'm gaining these things just so that I can have them. I believe it was Donald Trump who said it's not about the money. Money is just a convenient way of keeping score. We gather those things about us. We take the light in them, not even just for the things themselves, but for how that makes us feel to have them. And so we hoard those things and instead of giving those things away, instead of being a blessing to those around us, we build fences and barns and lock the doors and say, no, you can't get in here. This is mine. You see how we just store those reasons that God has given us blessings. We take His love that He showers upon us freely and we say, no, no, no, we've got to earn that. We take the blessings that He gives for His glory and instead think that we're entitled to them because of who we are. We take the blessings that He's given to us to give away and instead we hoard them and say, no, this is mine. We misunderstand the purpose of the produce of the land, the blessings that He gives us. So we use those blessings for the wrong things. We're blessed out of His love for us in order to be a blessing to others for God's glory. The next time we get a paycheck, those are the things that are run through our minds and be dripping into our hearts. I've received this, blessed out of God's love in order to be a blessing to others for God's glory. When we get a gift, that's what ought to run through our minds. I've been blessed with this to be a blessing to others out of God's love and for His glory. When someone does something nice to you, when you're able to get up and do something, that's what ought to be running through our mind. I've been blessed out of God's love for me to be a blessing to others for God's glory. We had yesterday the school fair at Donnelly's school license and Donnelly's just in kindergarten and so we're going through all the first, you know, first PTA, first school fair, first all of these things that you do with your oldest child starting kindergarten. And so the school fair is this major production that gets put on and one of the things about the school fair that we didn't even know about is what they call the lyseth loop. And this is a big deal, right? The school fair doesn't start until 10, but the kids are there early at 9 so that they can run the loop, right? And they've got them by grade and they run around the field and it's this big race and there are trophies. See, I totally I would just like, okay, well, we'll go run around the field, that would be great. But then we see the table there with the trophy and trouble there, right? So we talked to Donnelly about, you know, just running the race and enjoying running. And it's not about whether you win the race. Yeah, yeah, sure. And if you win the trophy, if you win the prize, don't allow that to get you thinking you're something, huh? And so we talked, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, let me run the race. Runs the race. When's the trophy? First trophy. Now, this of course means that we're committed to running the lyseth loop now every year, okay? But you get the trophy and bring the trophy home in winning the trophy. Do we understand you've won the trophy out of God's love for you so that you could be a blessing to others for God's will. We talked about that there are boys and girls who can't run. There are boys and girls who can't even want, who would love to run the lyseth loop and can't. The fact that you're able to run and come in first or second or fourth or fifth or whatever is a blessing. You could wake up tomorrow and not be able to run. It's God's goodness to us. That's because of his love for us. That's supposed to be something that we're using to be a blessing to others. He's given you legs, use them to serve others so that we can give God the glory. We're blessed out of love to be a blessing for God's glory. If you see that purpose, the true purpose rather than our twist on that purpose, seeing the real purpose frees us up to be able to use the blessings that God has given us for their real reason. And it points us to Christ who comes as the true vine. In John chapter 15, God picks up this language that he's given us in Hosea about being a luxuriant vine. And Jesus says, I am the true vine. You are the branches. You're in me. Now, what's going on there? God's people were supposed to be a blessing to all the nations. They were supposed to be that vine that was bearing fruit of love and righteousness to bless all the nations. And we fail. And so Christ comes and he does what we couldn't. He succeeds where we fail. Jesus accomplishes what we were supposed to do as being the true vine, as being that vine through which life is given, through which blessings are conveyed and fruit is born. You see, Jesus brings forth the fruit of righteousness and love for the Father's glory and as a blessing to all the people. But it's not just, okay, we blew it. Jesus did it. Okay, great. We can go home. We can have refreshments now. Now, Jesus did those things in order to change us. He comes in and says, the problem with your sinfulness is your heart. Our hearts are deceitfully wicked and he comes and gives us new hearts. He comes and takes us out of the poisonous weed and grabs us in to him into the true vine that we can live in him and through him bear fruit to be a blessing to others. This passage deals with the root, the problem of our sinfulness, showing that as deceit. But he doesn't just expose our problem or even the root of our problem. He comes in to transform us, to change us and show us how he is the truth who can radically change our hearts and allow us to live in him and bear much fruit out of his love to be a blessing to others for his glory. Let's pray. Lord Christ, we do praise you and worship you that you are the true vine that in every way that we have failed you, Lord Christ, have been obedient and faithful. We ask Holy Spirit that you would be at work in us, that you would take your truth and apply it to our hearts. Show us, reveal to us the ways in which we are deceiving ourselves and twisting your truth. Do these things, Lord Christ, that we might be of less into others. We praise you and thank you in Christ's name. Amen.