How shall I give thee up, Ephraim?
How shall I deliver thee, Israel?
He's not saying, how am I gonna rescue you?
Right, from the Assyrians?
He's like, how can I deliver you?
How many, no, you know, he delivered them from Egypt,
but this is not the deliverance he's talking about.
He's saying, how am I gonna deliver you unto them?
Now, notice that in the book of Hosea,
he always uses some city to illustrate
some spiritual truth, doesn't he?
Remember Gibeah?
If any of you were awake during that time, all right.
You know, he says they corrupted themselves
as in the days of Gibeah.
Look back, go study what Gibeah did.
Gibeah is a city that pertained unto the Benjamites,
the Sodomites, and judges, chapter 19,
who corrupted themselves, so that gives you a picture
of how bad Israel was at this time,
because they corrupted themselves as in the days of Gibeah.
But we see two other cities mentioned here in verse eight.
He says, how shall I make thee as Admah,
how shall I set thee as Zeboim?
Now, what is he talking about when he says that?
Go with me, if you would, to Genesis, chapter 10.
Genesis, chapter 10.
So this understanding what Admah is and Zeboim
will help us to understand how badly
God wants to destroy Israel, okay?
Now, once you get there, look up here real quick.
Let me share something with you.
I don't know about you, but for me,
when I've thought about Sodom and Gomorrah, for example,
you know, we talk about Sodomites today,
even the legal system uses the word Sodomized,
which they get it from the Bible,
because that practice comes from wicked reprobates
that originated in the city of Sodomah, or Sodom, right?
And we'll talk about a reprobate, for example,
we'll call him Sodomites, some faggot, you know,
will say, that guy's a Sodomite.
He probably wasn't born in Sodom,
but that guy's a Sodomite, okay?
But you know, we never call him Gomorrahites.
You ever notice that?
I mean, you might do it if you wanna be cute or something,
and you're like, wanna be different.
I wanna be peculiar, I'm gonna call him Gomorrahites instead.
But it says that God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.
So we don't hear a whole lot about Gomorrah.
Let me read to you from Jude, verse seven, it says,
even as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities
about them in like manner,
giving themselves over to fornication
and going after strange flesh,
are set forth for an example,
suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
So let me ask you, did God only destroy Sodom?
No, he destroyed Gomorrah as well, right?
But not just Sodom and Gomorrah.
The cities about them in like manner.
You know, cities like Admah and Zeboim?
Look at Genesis 10, verse 19.
And the border of the Canaanites was from Sidon,
as thou comest to Gerar unto Gaza,
as thou goest unto Sodom and Gomorrah
and Admah and Zeboim, even unto Lasha.
Now go to Deuteronomy 29.
He said, well, you know, that's just coincidence.
He just named them in that list.
That's more of a coincidence.
He just, you know, it doesn't mean
that like they're like right there.
Okay, look at Deuteronomy 29, verse 22.
It says, so that the generation to come, verse 22,
so that the generation to come of your children
that shall rise up after you and the stranger
that shall come from a far land shall say,
when they see the place of that land
and the sicknesses which the Lord hath laid upon it,
and that the whole land thereof is brimstone
and salt and burning, that it is not so, nor beareth,
nor any grass growth therein,
like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah,
Admah and Zeboim, which the Lord overthrew in his anger
and in his wrath.
Now, I don't know if the Admahites
or whatever you call them were also Sodomites as well,
but we do know this, they were involved
in what they were involved in as well.
Simple for the fact that God destroyed them too.
We know this, that they probably took pleasure
in them that do them.
Because the Bible tells us in Romans chapter one
that these are worthy of death, not only they,
but also them that take pleasure in them that do them.
What does that talk about?
The cities about them in like manner?
You know, Sodom was probably the epicenter
of all that faggotry.
But Gomorrah probably had some of that stuff in there too.
You know, Admah and Zeboim probably had some
of that stuff in there too.
That's why they were overthrown as well.
So look, don't get this attitude that when God
is judging one aspect of the country,
that we're better than them.
We're probably Zeboim and Admah.
We're probably like Gomorrah in comparison to that Sodom.
Oh man, San Francisco, so faggoty and so wicked,
that's Sodom, yeah, but we're probably like Gomorrah though.
Just to let you know.
Well, I don't know about Gomorrah,
yeah, but we're probably like Admah.
So just to let you know that, okay?
So before you toot your own horn as a patriot,
that you know, we're so good over here,
as an American patriot, you know, you better take heed
and see that the Bible tells us that the cities
in like manner are also destroyed, okay?
So, now what does this tell us about Hosea chapter 11?
It tells us that that's, he's like how can I,
how can I do to you what I did to Zeboim?
I mean, that's rough.
He's like how can I do to you what I did to Admah?
How can I set you forth as Admah?
Now hopefully the people knew the Bible in those days.
They could read that and be like whoa.
Do you know what he's talking about?
He's not like talking about like he's gonna bless us
or anything like that.
They were destroyed, they were overthrown.