Well, good evening everyone, welcome to Mountain Baptist Church.
Take your song books and turn to song 263.
Song 263 in your song books, we'll sing verily, verily, if you would stand, we'll sing song
263.
Oh, what a savior that he died for me, from condemnation he hath made me free.
He that believeth on the sunset, he hath everlasting life.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, verily, verily, message ever new.
He that believeth on the sun, tis true, hath everlasting life.
All my iniquities on him were laid, all my indebtedness by him was paid.
All who believe on him, the Lord hath said, hath everlasting life.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, verily, verily, message ever new.
He that believeth on the sun, tis true, hath everlasting life.
Though poor and needy I can trust my Lord, though weak and sinful I believe his word.
Oh, glad message every child of God, hath everlasting life.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, verily, verily, message ever new.
He that believeth on the sun, tis true, hath everlasting life.
Though all unworthy yet I will not doubt, for him that cometh he will not cast out.
He that believeth, oh, the good news shout, hath everlasting life.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, verily, verily, message ever new.
He that believeth on the sun, tis true, hath everlasting life.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father of the Lord, we just want to thank you, God, for this beautiful day
that you've given us to meet in your house and to hear your word preached.
Thank you, God, for the safety that you've given Pastor Anderson and also Pastor Robinson,
just getting to their two different churches.
I pray, Lord, that you would just bless them, fill them with your power and spirit.
For it's in Jesus' name we ask all of it, amen.
All right, you may be seated and turn your songbooks to song 308.
Song 308 in your songbooks, we'll sing, I Surrender All, song 308.
All to Jesus I surrender, all to him I freely give.
I will ever love and trust him in his presence daily live.
I surrender all, I surrender all, all to thee my blessed Savior.
I surrender all, all to Jesus I surrender, humbly at his feet I bow.
Worldly pleasures all forsaken, take me Jesus, take me now.
I surrender all, I surrender all, all to thee my blessed Savior.
I surrender all, all to Jesus I surrender, make me Savior only thine.
Let me feel the Holy Spirit, truly know that thou art mine.
I surrender all, I surrender all, all to thee my blessed Savior.
I surrender all, all to Jesus I surrender, Lord I give myself to thee.
Fill me with thy love and power, let my blessings fall on me.
I surrender all, I surrender all, all to thee my blessed Savior.
I surrender all.
All right, so just a couple of announcements here.
So obviously we're very happy to have Pastor Stephen Anderson here with us.
And then we just got a text saying that Pastor Robinson landed in Phoenix just a couple hours ago.
So I'm obviously glad for the safe travels there.
But just like upcoming events, just for the people of our church.
So this Saturday we have the So Any Marathon that's going to be headed up by Brother Richie down in Beckley, West Virginia.
So if you can make it out to that, obviously we'd love to have you.
It's a little bit, how far of a drive is that Beckley?
Two and a half hours.
So it's a little bit a ways away, but we've been doing these kind of marathons.
We've been going to a bunch of small towns in West Virginia and having a really good success.
So that's awesome.
The men's prayer meeting will be July 29th and then August 6th will be the ladies prayer meeting.
Obviously Sunday is, this coming up Sunday, just a typical Sunday, we'll have church, soul winning, and then church.
Don't forget the chapter memory for the month is Isaiah chapter number 53.
So we'll be working on that.
And then the Bible verse for the week is Matthew 11, 28.
It says, Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
And so those are the memory chapter and verse.
And then also pregnancies, just remember Miss Joyce won the pregnancy list.
And then also for the ladies that have just had babies, so just be praying for them.
And I think that's about it.
Any other?
Yes.
So I'm going to lead one more song and then we'll have brother Jason come up and read Hosea chapter number 7.
And then we'll get Pastor Anderson up here to preach.
All right.
So take your song books again and turn to song 356.
Song 356 in your song books.
356.
And we'll sing, I Must Tell Jesus, song 356.
I must tell Jesus all of my trials.
I cannot bear these burdens alone.
In my distress he kindly will help me.
He ever loves and cares for his own.
I must tell Jesus, I must tell Jesus, I cannot bear my burdens alone.
I must tell Jesus, I must tell Jesus, Jesus can help me, Jesus alone.
I must tell Jesus all of my troubles.
He is a kind, compassionate friend.
If I but ask him, he will deliver, make up my troubles quickly and end.
I must tell Jesus, I must tell Jesus, I cannot bear my burdens alone.
I must tell Jesus, I must tell Jesus, Jesus can help me, Jesus alone.
Tempted and tried, I need a great Savior, one who can help my burdens to bear.
I must tell Jesus, I must tell Jesus, he all my cares and sorrows will share.
I must tell Jesus, I must tell Jesus, I cannot bear my burdens alone.
I must tell Jesus, I must tell Jesus, Jesus can help me, Jesus alone.
I'm the last.
Oh how the world to evil allures me.
Oh how my heart is tempted to sin.
I must tell Jesus, and he will help me over the world of victory to win.
I must tell Jesus, I must tell Jesus, I cannot bear my burdens alone.
I must tell Jesus, I must tell Jesus, Jesus can help me, Jesus alone.
All right, take your Bible and turn to the book of Hosea chapter number seven.
Hosea chapter seven, we'll have brother Jason read that for us.
All right, Hosea chapter seven.
Hosea chapter seven, the Bible reads, when I would have healed Israel,
then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered in the wickedness of Samaria,
for they commit falsehood and the thief cometh in and the troop of robbers spoileth without.
And they consider not in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness.
Now their own doings have beset them about, they are before my face.
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 ceaseth from raising after he hath kneaded the dough until it be leavened.
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,
whiles they lie in wait. Their baker sleepeth all the night.
In the morning it burneth as a flaming fire.
They are all hot as an oven and have devoured their judges.
All their kings are fallen. There is none among them that calleth unto me.
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 there upon him, yet he knoweth not.
And the pride of Israel testifieth to his face,
and they do not return to the Lord their God, nor seek him for all this.
Ephraim also is like a silly dove without heart.
They call to Egypt. They go to 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.
And 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.
They return, 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.
This shall be their derision in the land of Egypt.
Let's pray.
Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for your word.
Thank you for allowing Pastor Anderson to be here this evening.
I just pray that you would be with him as he delivers the message.
Fill him with your Holy Spirit, Lord, and help us all to be edified.
In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.
Amen.
Well, it's great to be here tonight, and I love the new place.
I think I was here about four years ago before, and I love the new setup.
It's beautiful.
I don't know if a lot of you know this, but Pastor Robinson and I actually go back a long time.
We've been friends since all the way back in 2008.
I met him on July 12, 2008, and we've been good friends ever since.
It's great to be here. It's great to have him preaching in Phoenix.
We're on a road trip across the country.
We've gone over 6,500 miles, and it's almost over.
All I have to do now is just drive to Pittsburgh, and then I hope I just never drive again.
I need to just bring a paid driver with me from now on or something.
I need to have a chauffeur from now on.
Anyway, I've been preaching through a series where I went through the 12 sons of Jacob,
talking about the 12 tribes of Israel and so forth.
Then I finished the 12 sons, and then I got into the grandsons of Manasseh and Ephraim
because the way that it worked out with the sons of Jacob
is that Joseph ended up being the son who got the double portion of the inheritance.
So God ended up treating Joseph's two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, as separate tribes.
They each were like a tribe in their own right because they counted for two
since Joseph gets the double portion.
So the Bible will even often talk about the tribe of Ephraim or the tribe of Manasseh.
The reason I picked the book of Hosea tonight to talk about Ephraim
because we don't know much about the person Ephraim, but the tribe of Ephraim is really significant
is because the book of Hosea just brings up Ephraim over and over again.
It's something like 37 times or something like that that Ephraim is brought up in the book of Hosea,
and it's virtually all negative.
So the book of Hosea is just rebuking Ephraim for their wickedness.
Now, the tribe of Ephraim becomes pretty much the most significant tribe in the northern kingdom
because if you remember that the children of Israel, the 12 tribes,
they're in the promised land under the judges for about 400 years,
and then they end up having King Saul and then King David, King Solomon.
And then after King Solomon, the kingdom splits into a northern kingdom and a southern kingdom
where you have the 10 tribes to the north and the two tribes to the south.
But in the south, the most important tribe is Judah, so the southern kingdom becomes known as Judah.
And in the northern kingdom of Israel, the most significant tribe is Ephraim.
And so sometimes the northern kingdom is just kind of referred to as Ephraim
or God just really singles out Ephraim when he's talking about the northern kingdom
because it's the most important tribe that's up there.
And so God is rebuking all sorts of wickedness about Ephraim throughout the book of Hosea,
pretty much starting in chapter 4 all the way to chapter 14.
But one thing I really want to focus in on in verse 8 of chapter 7 here is that it says,
Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people, Ephraim is a cake not turned.
Ephraim is a cake not turned.
Now back up just a couple of verses, and the Bible says in verse 6,
For they've made ready their heart like an oven,
whilst they lie in wait, their baker sleepeth all the night,
and in the morning it burneth as a flaming fire.
So this idea of a cake not turned, think about like a pancake or something, right?
And you're cooking it.
And the thing about making pancakes is that it's pretty easy to burn one side
and the other side is totally raw and you didn't flip it over in time.
And one side's completely raw, the other side's completely burnt.
And God's using this illustration to talk about Ephraim.
He says they're a cake not turned, meaning that they're overdone on one side
and they're not done at all on the other side.
So there's an imbalance there.
Now the word Ephraim means fruitful.
And if you remember the reason that Joseph named his son Ephraim is he said,
God has made me fruitful, you know, because he's in Egypt, he's in a strange land,
and he named his son Ephraim.
And the thing about Ephraim is that it becomes a very fruitful tribe.
And God talks about how Ephraim is a much bigger, more significant tribe than Manasseh.
And so it talks about the ten thousands of Ephraim and the thousands of Manasseh.
So obviously in the book of Hosea we're talking about a physical tribe of Ephraim.
But we want to apply this to ourselves today.
We want to bring this into the New Testament.
And so there's a lot of symbolic meaning here that we could get from this.
So think about the fact that Ephraim is a fruitful tribe.
That's one good thing that they have going for them, right?
They're multiplying. They're bringing forth a lot of fruit.
But they are missing some important things in their life.
And we're going to see that those things are that they're very unholy.
They're getting into a lot of sin.
And then the other thing is that they are lacking in knowledge.
So they have one good thing going for them, but then they're lacking in these other two areas.
And we as Christians want to make sure that we are well balanced.
And that we are what the Bible calls perfect or complete or entire.
Where we're not lacking anything.
You know, it's not enough to just be a great Christian in one area of our life.
And, you know, maybe we're really serious about going out there and evangelizing and soul winning.
You know, that's not enough. We need to also be living a clean and holy life.
And then we also need to have knowledge of the Word of God.
We don't want to just get all 100 percent in a certain area and then we're letting other areas lack in our lives.
We want to be well rounded and have the whole picture.
Now let's back up a little bit and see some of the specific problems in chapter four of Ephraim.
Why is God so angry at Ephraim?
I mean, he rebukes Ephraim hard in the book of Hosea.
What is it that has made God so angry?
Because here's the thing, if God got mad at Ephraim thousands of years ago about these issues,
then I guarantee you these are the same things that make God mad today.
Because God doesn't change Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today and forever.
And so if these things made the Lord angry back, you know, 2500 years ago or more,
then it's going to make God angry today.
And we want to make sure that we don't make these same mistakes that Ephraim made.
It says in chapter four, verse one,
Hear the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel.
For the Lord hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land.
And what that means when he says he has a controversy,
he's basically saying, I have a bone to pick with you.
I have a problem with you guys.
And we're going to have a problem here.
He says he has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land,
because there's no truth nor mercy nor knowledge of God in the land.
By swearing and lying and killing and stealing and committing adultery,
they break out and blood toucheth blood.
So we see the two big problems here, according to verse one is,
no truth, no mercy, no knowledge of God in the land on the one hand.
And then on the other hand, he lists these sins that are the same type of sins that enrage our Lord today.
Swearing and lying.
Now swearing here, this isn't talking about profanity or using dirty words or something like that.
This is talking about making a commitment to something,
making an oath, promising something,
swearing that something is true or swearing that you're going to do something,
and you're lying.
It says swearing and lying and killing and stealing.
And of course, today in our land, killing takes place in the United States of America
in the form of abortion is probably the big one,
and we've been thinking about it a lot lately,
because of the fact that the Supreme Court just overturned that decision of Roe versus Wade.
But here's the thing about that.
It's funny how they overturned that decision,
but yet still in many places it is still legal for women to murder their baby.
In spite of that.
All they did was they just said,
well, we're going to allow people to make laws against it in their own area.
Now it's time for every area and every city and every county and every state
to make laws against that wickedness that has been going on for so many decades in our country.
It's murder.
It's wicked, and it angers the Lord.
That's killing.
And by the way, there's no new thing under the sun.
People have been practicing that sin for thousands of years.
They've been finding ways to murder their baby in one way or another.
And obviously there's other killing that goes on.
Obviously there's all kinds of gang violence in our country.
You look at the inner cities of America,
where in some places there's an average of one or two people being shot every day
in places like Chicago or New York or places like that.
Lying, killing, stealing, and committing adultery.
These are all just kind of basic things.
None of these are a shock to us because it's straight out of the Ten Commandments.
Don't bear false witness.
Thou shall not steal.
Thou shall not commit adultery.
Thou shall not covet.
But these are serious things that anger the Lord.
God's commandments aren't necessarily complicated,
but we need to take them seriously,
and we need to live a life that's in accordance with God's word and God's commandments.
And so by swearing, lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery,
they break out and blood toucheth blood.
And I think what he means there with blood touches blood
is basically just they filled the land with so much innocent blood
that basically it's a little bit of just a hyperbole here
of saying that one puddle of blood is touching another puddle of blood.
Just so many people are committing murder.
And it says, Therefore shall the land mourn,
and everyone that dwelleth therein shall languish with the beasts of the field
and with the fowls of heaven.
Yea, the fishes of the sea also shall be taken away.
And so we see that when these kind of sins abound,
when we disobey the word of the Lord, when we're not living a holy life,
it brings sorrow.
It brings gloom on a land.
God's not going to bless a land that's not following his commandments.
God's not going to bless a church that isn't following his commandments.
But then he gets to the second problem here in verse number 6.
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.
Because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee,
that thou shalt be no priest to me,
seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God,
I will also forget thy children.
As they were increased, so they sinned against me.
Therefore will I change their glory into shame.
They eat up the sin of my people, they set their heart on their iniquity,
and there shall be like people, like priests,
and I will punish them for their ways and reward them for their doings,
for they shall eat and not have enough.
They shall commit whoredom and shall not increase,
because they have left off to take heed to the Lord.
Because whoredom and wine and new wine take away the heart.
Now, what do these two things have to do with each other?
Because he kind of seems to be going back and forth
between talking about a lack of knowledge
and then talking about the sinfulness,
whether it be whoredoms, adultery, fornication, stealing, drunkenness, whatever.
What do these two things have in common?
Well, one big part of it is that it's the job of preachers
to get up in this country and let people know what is right and what is wrong.
It's the job of preachers to get up and condemn sin
and make sin exceedingly sinful from the pulpits of America
so that people can even know what the rules are.
And today we have too many churches that are interested in being fruitful.
They want to be an Ephraim church.
They want to grow. They want to be big. They want to be fruitful.
And I'm for that.
I want to see Christian churches growing and thriving,
bringing new people in and bringing in unsaved people,
getting them saved and reaching new people for Christ.
But that's not enough.
We need churches that are also getting up and serving up the knowledge of the Lord,
and not just the knowledge of the Lord but the knowledge of the commandments of the Lord
on Sunday morning and Sunday night and Wednesday night
because we need people to know what the will of the Lord is.
How can we do God's will if we don't even know what God's will is?
How can we follow the rules if we don't know what the rules are?
And even if we know what the rules are, we need to be constantly reminded of them
so that we don't forget the law of the Lord, as it's said here.
It's said in verse number 6 toward the end,
seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.
Here's how you don't forget God's law.
You have somebody get up and remind you of it week after week.
You come to church on Sunday, you come to church on Wednesday,
and the pastor reminds you, dost say it the Lord.
This is what God demands of us.
We need to be holy.
We need to live right because guess what?
Out there, that's not the message that our world is going to give you.
They're not going to tell you, hey, make sure you honor the Lord with the way you live your life.
Hey, make sure that you live a clean life and that you save yourself for marriage
and that you're faithful to your spouse.
Make sure that you don't get involved in drunkenness and taking drugs.
Folks, today the movies and the Hollywood crowd and the music glorify sin.
Glorify sin, makes it look good, puts forth an alternative lifestyle,
puts forth another way to live your life other than the traditional Christian values that we have from the Bible.
And so we need preachers that will get up and dish out that knowledge of the commandments of God
and to stir up our pure minds by way of remembrance week after week, keep these things in front of us.
And even if we know them, we need to hear them again and be reminded of them again and again and again
so that we can do them.
He said in verse number seven, as they were increased, so they sinned against me.
He said in verse number seven, as they were increased, so they sinned against me, therefore I'll change their glory into shame.
You know, there's no glory in having a big church if the church changes and becomes a place that's not exalting the word of God,
that's not preaching all the commandments of God, that's not making the gospel crystal clear,
that's not preaching hard against sin.
You know, that glory turns into shame.
Okay, you know, there's great glory in reaching people for Christ and, you know, hey, I want the church to grow,
but the glory is turned into shame when you get away from why you're there in the first place,
you know, which is to preach the entire word of God, to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And so we look at some of the biggest churches in America today and we scoff at them, we think they're a joke.
You know, we look at Joel Osteen or something.
We don't think like, oh, wow, I'm so impressed that you can get, you know, 25,000 people to show up to that church.
It's meaningless because you might as well just get 25,000 people to show up for a ball game or something
because it's not the word of God, it's not a legitimate church, and so therefore the glory is turned into shame.
Why? Because at the end of verse 10, they've left off to take heed to the Lord.
The Bible says, hoardom and wine and new wine take away the heart.
So again, I believe that there are three key elements that we need as a church, that we need in our own personal lives.
Fruitfulness, we want to be fruitful, we want to grow.
Number two, holiness, and number three, knowledge.
So I think Ephraim pictures the one who has the fruitfulness, they're growing, they're thriving,
but they don't have the holiness and they don't have the knowledge.
But here's the thing, if we don't have all three of these in our lives and if we don't have all three of these in our church,
then what happens is none of them is really going to succeed, okay, because they all work together.
So what I'm saying is if you have just fruitfulness and you don't have the holiness and you don't have the knowledge,
you're actually going to cease to become fruitful, okay?
If you say, well, I'm just all about knowledge, but you don't have the fruitfulness and you don't have the holiness,
God's not going to reveal the knowledge unto you, okay?
If you just have the holiness but there's no fruitfulness and there's no knowledge, can you give me an example of that?
Sure, I mean, there are people in this world who just live a really clean, separated life,
but if they have the wrong doctrine, if they're not reaching anybody for Christ because they've just secluded themselves,
well, then what's going to happen to the next generation of their children?
Their children are probably going to walk away from that strange situation.
The point is that if you don't have all three, you end up losing whatever you do have.
You have to have all three. They all three work together, okay?
And that's why the irony of the last 50 years or so is that you have this neo-evangelical movement that's just all about reaching people.
They're just all about getting the gospel to as many people. They don't want to talk about holiness.
They don't want to preach hard on sin. They don't want to go deep on doctrine.
They're not big on knowledge. They're just big on reaching everybody, but then ironically, they have failed to reach people
because we go out soul winning. We go out knocking doors, and we talk to people who go to these big giant neo-evangelical churches,
what I call the fun center churches, and we knock on those doors, and we ask those people if they know for sure they're going to heaven,
and more often than not, they don't know. They don't even know, and then we will end up taking our Bible
and spending 10, 15 minutes with them, showing them the gospel, and many times getting them saved,
and it's ironic that the guy who cares about God's rules, the guy who cares about the commandments,
the guy who cares about preaching hard against sin, the guy who cares about knowing doctrine and knowing what the Bible says
and learning it and talking about deep doctrines and so forth is the guy who ends up going out and being fruitful,
and that's the gal that ends up going out and being fruitful, the person who cares about those things,
and then the big church that says, well, all we care about is reaching people, they end up failing to reach people
because sure, they can bring people in, they can bring them in for the show, but because they've let the knowledge and the holiness slip,
the people come in, and they don't even get a clear presentation of the gospel. They don't even know how to be saved,
and we have to explain that to them at their door and knock on doors and win people to Christ from these churches
that are supposedly all about reaching people, and they say, well, here's why we have all the worldly music.
We've got to bring in people. We've got to reach people. Here's why we're not going to preach too hard against sin.
We've got to reach people. We don't want to offend people. You can't get up and just preach these face-ripping type sermons.
You're going to turn people off. We want to bring people in. We want to have a bigger tent and reach more people,
but yet isn't it ironic that they end up reaching less people, and it's the hellfire and damnation leather-lung preacher
who sends out his members into the community and actually gets the people saved.
And so the point is if you have all three, you end up doing better on each one individually than if you just have one
that you get obsessed with, and you become the cake not turned because you can overdo anything.
You could overdo evangelism and just say, all we care about is evangelism. We're just all about evangelism,
and you know what you end up doing? You end up getting burnt on that side, and then the other side is totally raw,
and guess what? Eventually you throw the whole pancake in the trash.
You say, well, this pancake's raw on this side. I don't want to eat this raw pancake, but man, this other side,
did you see how good this other side is? I mean, it's just black and burnt to a crisp. Isn't that wonderful how black and burnt that is?
No, it isn't. What you want to have is the whole package, the balance. Flip that thing over.
You don't want to be like Ephraim who's a cake not turned.
You look at the denominations today and the people today that are just obsessed with knowledge,
and that's all they care about, who I think of as like the Reform Baptist crowd, the Calvinistic crowd.
They're so into theology, and they're just so into just knowledge,
and they have all their shelves and shelves of books that they've read like 5% of those books or whatever,
but that's what they're big on. That's what they're into is just all the books and all the theologians
and all of these really deep things, and when you listen to some of these guys talk,
they're talking in such jargon that the average person would have no idea what they're even talking about.
It's like they're just kind of preaching to each other because they're using language
that only these other kind of geeked out theology nerds will even understand what they're even saying,
and so they're kind of just gone down so deep, and they've got all this knowledge and theology,
and they geek out and talk to each other about this, but here's the thing.
Fruitfulness suffers. Where's the fruitfulness, right?
You know what the Bible says about Jesus? The Bible says the common people heard him gladly,
and I'm thinking to myself, that would never be said about these geeked out theologian types
who just constantly dropping all these big, you know, giant words and theological terms
that aren't even in the Bible, and they're so educated, and they're so knowledgeable,
and they want to talk so much about Greek and Hebrew with people that don't even speak those languages.
Usually they don't even speak those languages, but it's all about knowledge and learning
and all their degrees and all the accolades and so forth, but could it be said of them
that the common people heard them gladly?
I don't see them putting a sermon on YouTube and a bunch of people watching it and getting excited about it.
You look at some of even their big name guys, and it's like they get 150 viewers or something
of just 150 intellectuals that all just want to go down deep in that well of knowledge,
but here's the thing about that. We're called to reach people, and the common people heard Jesus gladly.
Our preachers need to be preaching in such a way where the common man can understand what they're even saying
and enjoy listening to what they're saying because it actually connects with them,
and I'm not saying we shouldn't have knowledge. Of course we should have knowledge,
but we need to make sure we have all three here. We need the fruitfulness, we need the holiness,
and we need the knowledge, so yes, have the knowledge, but in order to be fruitful,
you know, you got to be out there preaching the gospel to the common man,
getting your hands dirty and your feet dirty, knocking those doors,
and actually talking to Joe Sixpack out there and giving him the gospel and caring about people
and not just being in an elite club of people at your super high level of knowledge,
and many of these people, of course, are just professing themselves to be wise, and they end up being fools anyway.
You know, we need to have all three. We don't want to go overboard in knowledge
and just make it all about how much knowledge we can get.
You know, I don't even think that you're going to get to heaven
and God is just going to be giving you a reward for how smart you are.
Like at the judgment seat of Christ, I don't think there's a special crown
for the guy who knew the most Bible, the guy who knew the most theology, okay?
Now, again, I'm big on knowledge. I'm big on learning.
I love to learn. Those who don't love to learn, the Bible says, are fools.
Fools despise wisdom and instruction. A wise man will hear and will increase learning.
And so I'm all for knowledge and learning, but at the end of the day,
if I don't take that knowledge and put it into use in the field, it's completely worthless,
and I don't think that you're going to get a reward just for knowledge for knowledge's sake.
I mean, think about it. What other job is like that?
I mean, if you were an electrician and you're just the most knowledgeable guy in the company,
but nobody can get you out in the field to do anything,
you're never going out and doing the work, but you just keep racking up certifications
and you just keep reading books about it and you know everything about it
and you can answer any question, you're probably not going to get paid as much
as the guy who's actually going out and doing the jobs day after day and doing it.
Now, you want the guy out in the field to have knowledge too, don't you?
But he needs to actually get out there, get his hands dirty, and get some work done.
And so that's what I'm trying to say. We need a balance.
We don't want to be a cake not turned like Ephraim.
And, of course, the third leg on this stool is holiness.
Now, you know, back to my electrician illustration.
What if we had a great knowledgeable electrician and he's got a great work ethic,
he doesn't mind getting his hands dirty, you know, he's out in the field working hard,
and he's got the knowledge, he knows what he's doing, but I mean, you know,
what if he just shows up to the customer's house wearing an offensive T-shirt,
you know, and he's smoking marijuana on his break in their driveway, right?
He's on the job. What if he shows up every once in a while to work drunk?
He shows up high. What if he's stealing things from people's houses?
You know, he's sent out on a residential electrical. Man, this guy's good.
Man, he's a hard worker. But, you know, every once in a while,
people's valuables disappear from their home. That guy's not going to make it either, is he?
And so it's the same thing with the Lord's work. You know, we need to be knowing our stuff,
knowing the Bible, and we need to be living a clean life, following the rules, right?
You know, following the company's rules, following God's rules, following the Bible,
and we need to be fruitful. And what does it mean to be fruitful? It means we're reproducing.
It means we're reaching people. It means that we can take ourselves and reproduce ourselves,
meaning that, you know, I'm a Christian, I can go out and produce another Christian.
I can actually go out and give the gospel. And, you know, the Bible talks over and over again
about the poor having the gospel preached unto them. Why? Because the poor are the most receptive people.
And so we've got to get down there into those poor areas.
We've got to go down into the parts of town that maybe are not as agreeable to us
or we don't necessarily maybe think that we would want to live in the poor areas.
Or we don't necessarily maybe think that we would want to live there.
You know, hey, we need to get down there and love those people and give the gospel
and be able to talk to the common man and not get so puffed up in our knowledge
or in our holiness where we're so heavenly minded that we're no earthly good.
You know, we need to be able to actually relate to the common man and not be a cake not turned.
You know, the Bible says at the end of verse 6,
seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.
I'll forget thy children. Jump down to verse 13.
It says at the end of verse 13 in the latter part there,
therefore your daughters shall commit whoredom and your spouses shall commit adultery.
You know, when you see that right there, you can see that when God's saying,
you know, you've forgotten the law of God, I'll also forget your children.
You know, the thing is that when we don't preach the laws of God in our churches,
when we don't live a clean life according to God's word,
our children are going to take that example and they'll probably take it even farther.
And, you know, they'll probably do things even worse.
And when that happens, then they're, of course, going to receive punishment from God for those things.
And he says at the end of verse 13, he says, therefore your daughters shall commit whoredom and your spouses shall commit adultery.
I will not punish your daughters when they commit whoredom nor your spouses when they commit adultery,
for they for themselves are separated with whores and they sacrifice with harlots.
Therefore, the people that did not understand shall fall.
Now, think about what he's saying here for a moment.
Nobody wants their daughter out committing whoredoms, right?
Nobody wants their wife committing adultery.
These are horrible things that you don't want happening in your family.
But as a punishment for their wickedness, he's saying, you know, this is what's going to end up happening.
Your wives are going to end up committing adultery.
Your daughters are going to commit whoredom.
Why? Because you've been loose and permissive and sinful in your own life.
You're not setting the proper example.
You're not leading your family right.
You know, the church isn't preaching against these things.
This is what's going to end up happening.
You know, the young people are going to be out committing fornication and the wives are going to be out committing adultery and so forth.
Now, why would he say, I'm not going to punish them?
You know, well, on one level, he's basically saying, you know, you deserve this.
You have this coming because you're living a sinful life, dad or husband.
You know, you're doing wicked things.
You're living a sinful life.
So, you know, don't be surprised when your children disappoint you and do these terrible things and so forth.
When your daughters commit whoredoms, your wife commits adultery or whatever.
But if you stop and think about it, in order for the wife or the daughter to not be punished for these type of serious sins,
based on what else we know about scripture, you know, the implication is that they're not even saved.
You know, because, you know, if I had a daughter go out and commit whoredoms, you know, that would be horrible.
If I had a daughter that was out committing fornication and sleeping around committing whoredoms,
you know, that would be quite terrible, wouldn't it?
And, you know, what I would expect to happen if she were saved is that she'd be punished for doing that,
that God would bring some kind of punishment.
Because, of course, the Bible says, whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
And he said, if you be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are you bastards and not sons.
So the Bible says, you know, every child of God is chastened, is disciplined for their sins.
And if you basically go out and commit serious sins, and there are no consequences in this life,
and you're getting away with it, he says, you're bastards and not sons.
You must not even be saved, because whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
And so looking at this and seeing, okay, you know, your wives and daughters are going to commit these lewd things,
and they're not going to be punished, you know, that makes it seem like they're not even saved,
to be able to go out and do these things and to not be punished for them, okay.
Which is just a whole other level of failure on the part of the church and on the part of the family and so forth.
Now, obviously, at the end of the day, salvation is a personal choice.
Not everyone who grows up in church is going to end up saved.
And unfortunately, there are going to be young people that grow up in church, even in a good church,
even with great parents, even with, you know, a great pastor preaching the Word of God.
You know, at the end of the day, no one can make someone get saved,
because we don't believe in this kind of predestination where people don't have the free will to decide whether they're going to get saved or not.
Now, obviously, bringing up our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, having them in church,
the gospel being preached clearly is going to greatly, greatly increase their chances of being saved,
because they're exposed to the gospel so much, and they have all these great examples,
and, you know, faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God, and they're getting the truth,
and, you know, spirit-filled preachers preaching them and so forth.
But at the end of the day, though, you know, obviously, yeah, it can happen.
But what we're talking about here in this passage is a general trend where Ephraim, in general, the wives are out committing adultery.
This isn't a one person, you know, that just has free will and makes an idiot of themselves.
This is a trend of daughters going out and committing whoredom, wives going out and committing adultery.
This is a result of the spiritual failure of Ephraim.
And today, I'm telling you, these churches that neglect to preach against sin, that neglect the holiness,
that neglect knowledge, and they're just all about fruitfulness, they're just all about growing,
hey, let's just bring in as many people. We just got to reach people.
These people who don't preach hard on sin, don't have all three elements,
you know what's going to happen is that on mass, you're going to have this prophecy come true even in 2022
where you're just going to have the young people committing fornication and going away from the Lord,
not being saved and so forth. And I've seen it over and over again.
The reason why Pastor Jason Robinson and myself, the reason why guys like us are constantly preaching hard on sin
is because if we don't preach hard on sin, the young people will grow up and they won't understand the seriousness of sin.
They might not even understand what the rules even are or they won't know how serious it is to break God's laws
when it comes to things like stealing and murder, adultery, fornication.
They grow up and they don't get that hellfire and damnation preaching and it's going to show in their life.
I grew up in a Christian home, thank God, and I don't know where I would be if I hadn't
because I know as the Apostle Paul said that in me that is in my flesh dwell with no good thing.
And so my flesh is just as sinful as your flesh and anybody's flesh because we're all human beings
and none of us in and of ourselves is righteous.
It's only through Christ and the regeneration of the new man that we can even be righteous at all.
But I tell you what, when I was growing up, I heard the hard preaching against drinking and drugs and fornication
and I did not do those things.
And I went through some spiritual low points as a teenager and I went through points where I wasn't really reading my Bible.
I didn't really care about the things of God and I was just caught up in all the things that teenagers are caught up in
and just all the worldly stuff and I just wasn't thinking much about God.
I'd think about God on Sunday, think about God on Wednesday night, and sometimes in between God would just not even enter my mind
because I'm just too busy with the video games and I'm on my bike and I'm with my friends.
I'm just being honest. That's what some of my teenage years were like, just kind of just doing whatever.
But yet even though I drifted from the Lord at times and was just kind of just going to church, going through the motions,
and that was about it at times, the thing that kept me from committing fornication
was the hard preaching that had me scared to commit fornication because I had the fear of God that said,
hey, God's up in heaven, God controls my destiny, God can lift me up or he can knock me down,
and I am not going to cross this line because I know that this is a serious sin in the word of God
and I'd heard the scriptures preached about how God killed 23,000 people in one day for fornication and all these different things,
and I'd heard all the screaming and yelling across pulpits telling me not to drink, not to do drugs, not to do these things,
and I heard all that stuff and it made an impression on me because God's word is powerful,
and especially when a spirit-filled man of God is up there preaching these Bible verses to you and you're hearing these things,
it sticks with you and that is what kept me from doing those things because the temptations abounded.
When I was a teenager, people around me are committing fornication.
People around me were getting into alcohol and drugs.
Even in a Christian school, kids would smoke pot or experiment with alcohol and other things,
but man, I feared to do that. I was tempted many times, especially with fornication.
I was tempted by that because when you're a young person and you're a young man and it's everywhere, tempting us,
and yet I was able to withstand that temptation simply because it had been drilled into me through the hard preaching.
You just don't do it. It's not worth it. God is going to cloud up and rain on you, and I was afraid to commit those big sins.
I thank God for that, and I'm telling you, we have got to have that kind of preaching today in 2022
in order for our young people to navigate this minefield out there of sin and temptation and all of the different pitfalls that are out there.
Look, our nation has not become more godly since the 1990s when I was a teenager.
I was a teenager in the late 90s, and the temptations were there. I think the temptations are even stronger now.
I think there's more availability of sin now. The sin is so much easier to even commit now.
It's just a whole other ballgame today in 2022, and we've got to have that hard preaching.
The next time you get a little bit offended because the pastor preached a little bit hard on some sin that you've been guilty of in the past
or something that kind of hit a little close to home, you just ought to thank God that your children and your teenagers are getting that preaching.
It always cracks me up when people will leave a fire-breathing church because they get a little offended by just some stupid thing,
some little thing that they don't agree with, some tiny thing where the church isn't perfect or the pastor isn't perfect,
and then they'll take their teenagers to some watered-down church.
I'm thinking to myself, man, with all the other things that are working against our young people,
even if the pastor made me mad or offended me, man, I would just want to make sure I took my kids to a church with the fire-breathing preaching
because how else are they even going to have a chance to do what's right in the midst of this crooked and perverse nation among whom we shine as lights in the world?
It's like, man, even if you are a weakling and you are so soft that you can't handle a pastor getting up and preaching a little hard,
you think that you would just be there just for your kids' sake, at least so that they could hear it.
Even if you're a wimp about it, at least you just say, well, at least I'm glad my teenagers are kind of hearing this stuff.
I mean, can you imagine taking your teenagers in 2022 to a church that won't even rebuke the sodomites,
let alone fornication, let alone drunkenness and drugs and all these different things,
and just getting up and just preaching feel-good sermons, chicken soup for the sole Baptist church or whatever,
and they're not actually getting up and preaching what the Bible says, unfiltered, raw, unadulterated.
And hey, maybe the preaching in the new IFB gets a little too raw sometimes.
Hey, you know what? I'd rather have it a little too raw than to have this totally sanitized sermon
because it just doesn't want to offend anybody because it's Ephraim Baptist Church where all we care about is growing.
We only care about being fruitful and increasing and multiplying.
And look, I'm for growing, I'm for increasing, I'm for multiplying, I'm for bringing forth fruit,
I'm for reaching people, but not at the expense of holiness and knowledge. I want to have all three.
We've got to have all three. Holiness. What does it mean, holiness?
It means that we do not just go whatever way this world goes.
You know, the world is constantly changing, and what was wrong yesterday is now okay.
And what was okay yesterday is now wrong. But look, God has rules that don't change,
and holiness is when we say we're not going to steal, we're not going to kill, we're not going to commit adultery,
we're not going to commit fornication, we're not going to be drunken, we're not going to smoke pot,
we're not going to do these things, it doesn't matter what changes out there, we're going to stay on God's word.
That's holiness. We're set apart because we follow God's rules, not just whatever the culture dictates at any given moment.
We follow God's unchanging rules, and that's always going to make us a little different,
because the world's constantly changing, and then we're just staying the same in regard to our morality,
in regard to what we consider right and wrong, because we're getting it from the Bible.
Holiness. Fruitfulness is good. Ephraim had fruitfulness, the ten thousands of Ephraim, right?
But they lacked holiness. They were committing all these sins. They were a cake not turned.
They had one area right, they were really good in one area, right, or really emphasizing one area,
and then pretty soon it's not even good anymore, it's just burnt, it's overdone.
You know, oh, it's so great how much knowledge you have, but then it's like you're neglecting everything else,
and then pretty soon even your knowledge becomes a curse as that side of the pancake becomes burnt, right?
Oh, man, it's so great that you're so into reaching people. You're so into evangelizing.
You have such a heart for the lost. That's great, but you're going to turn that thing over, right?
And then it's just like, nope, we're not going to talk about knowledge, we're not going to talk about doctrine,
we're not teaching people anything, we're not going to preach against sin, there's not going to be holiness,
and then it gets to the point where even the growth isn't even real, reaching people isn't even happening,
because you burned it, because you got overemphasized on one thing instead of getting everything that God has for you,
and getting the whole counsel of God, and cooking both sides of that thing, and getting the balance.
And, you know, this is a three-sided pancake tonight. I don't know how that works.
I don't cook, okay, but just go with it. There's a three-sided pancake. I don't even know how that works.
But it's fruitfulness, it's holiness, and it's knowledge. That's what we need.
We don't want to be the cake not turned, okay?
And so this is the thing that's emphasized. If you read through Hosea 4, through Hosea 14,
it's constantly hammering them on their lack of knowledge. He says, you know, my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.
And then elsewhere, he keeps bringing up their sins. Idolatry, lying, stealing, murder, fornication, adultery, and so forth.
He brings up all these different things. Look what the Bible says in chapter 6, verse 1.
We're kind of just hitting the highlights in Hosea, because, you know, chapter 4 through 14 are really just one continual sermon against Ephraim.
And again, when we talk about Ephraim, we're talking about the most significant tribe in the northern kingdom of Israel,
the most populated, significant, important tribe in that northern kingdom.
It says in verse 1 of chapter 6, 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, and the third day he will raise us up, 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 unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth.
O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O Judah, what shall I do unto thee?
For your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew goeth away.
Look at verse 5. Therefore have I hewed them by the prophets. I've slain them by the words of my mouth, and thy judgments are as the light that goeth forth.
Now that's a really interesting phrase, isn't it? I've hewed them by the prophets. What does it mean to hew?
Well, the word hew is referring to like chopping something down, right? You think of like hewing down a tree or something, right?
I mean, he's saying I've hewed them by the prophets. Basically the prophets are coming in and just swinging an axe and just hacking them up and just hewing them down.
Now that doesn't really sound good, right? It sounds kind of painful. You know, man, the pastor just really like hewed us tonight, right?
He was just like, you know, it sounds terrible, right? But he says, therefore have I hewed them by the prophets. I've slain them by the words of my mouth.
Now that doesn't sound good either, right? You know, the preacher really slaughtered us. You know, the preacher was just hewing us, right?
But here's the thing about that is that there's a therefore of why God has all these harsh things in the Bible, these scriptures that sort of hew and slay and these harsh things being preached.
It's because of the fact that they have forsaken the law of the Lord. They've forsaken God's commandments. You know, their goodness was as a morning cloud as the early dew that went away.
Their goodness was so short-lived. Their holiness was short-lived. Their interest and care and the knowledge of the things of God was so short-lived.
You know, that's why the hard preaching has to exist, okay? So don't get mad at the preacher or the prophet who does a little hewing from the pulpit, does a little slaughtering from the pulpit.
Hey, God sent him to do that because it's a wicked nation. It's a wicked generation, right? And so the pastor sometimes has to take an axe to it. That's just part of the job.
And so God has called us to preach hard on sin in order to bring the people back to God because what's the ultimate goal? Verse 1 is, come let us return unto the Lord for he hath torn and he will heal us.
Right? So God wants to heal. God wants to bind us up at the end of verse 1 there. You know, God wants to apply the balm to us and heal us and make us feel better and help us to grow and do well.
But at the end of the day, though, you know, we have to get on his program. And if we're going to just depart from the laws of God, forget about his commandments, then we're going to get hewn up. You know, we're going to end up getting chewed.
And that's probably the word that we would probably just put more of a C on the front of it in 2022 and say, you know, you're going to get chewed, right? You're going to get hewed.
And so don't be afraid of or angered by hard preaching. Hard preaching has to exist in order to remind us of the wickedness of sin and to constantly be calling us back to a path of righteousness and holiness.
Knowledge, fruitfulness and holiness. Ephraim had fruitfulness. They lacked knowledge. They lacked holiness. Let's talk a little bit about knowledge. Go back to Chapter four, verse six.
Chapter four, verse six. Of course, a little bit before verse six, he talked about there not being knowledge of God in the land in verse one. But in verse six, he said, My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge because thou has rejected knowledge.
I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me, seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God. I will also forget thy children.
Elsewhere in Proverbs chapter one, he talks about people who did not choose the fear of the Lord. And he said they would none of my counsels. They despised all my reproofs. He said they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord.
We need to make sure that we don't reject knowledge or hate knowledge. We should cry out for knowledge. The Bible says we should search for knowledge more than we would search for buried treasure. Hidden treasure.
Knowledge and wisdom are so important. The Bible says wisdom is the principle thing. Therefore, get wisdom.
Pastor Anderson, earlier you ridiculed these guys that are super into knowledge and that go down so deep with the theology and everything. That's because they're a cake not turned. I'm not against knowledge. It's that we need to have all three.
And then, like I said, these guys that are so into knowledge, well, guess what? They're dumb enough to believe that God has already foreordained who's going to be saved and who's not going to be saved.
And that it's not a person's choice. When the Bible clearly teaches that it's my choice whether I get saved, it's your choice whether you get saved. And anybody who goes to hell, it's because they chose not to be saved.
They chose not to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. They could have believed on Christ and they made the wrong choice. And anybody who is saved because they chose life. They chose Christ.
So, you know, yeah, they're so big on knowledge that they end up being wrong on knowledge because they're a cake not turned. And they burned that thing.
They went down so deep that they just never came up again. And they drowned in that thing. And it turned out that they were in an outhouse. It turned out. And not a well.
But the point is that we as Christians, yeah, you know, we don't want to despise learning or knowledge. We want to choose knowledge. Don't reject knowledge. Don't hate knowledge. Be ready to learn.
You know, when I go to church and a sermon is being preached, I want to learn something. You know, there are different kinds of sermons. There are sermons that motivate us.
Sermons that inspire us. Sermons that hue us and rebuke us. And people love hard preaching. Some people love hard preaching. Some people don't.
But, you know, my biggest thing is that I want to go to church where I'm learning something. You know, in fact, and like I said, I think all three of these elements are important.
But, in fact, I would rather go to a church where the preacher is less dynamic, but I'm learning something, than to go to a church where the pastor is really dynamic, preaching hard, really eloquent.
But it's kind of a broken record. I'm not really learning anything. We're hearing the same scriptures over and over again. Same ideas over and over again.
No matter how good he is at delivering that information, no matter how eloquent or no matter how loud he yells and, man, he really just rips on sin and really lets, you know, the Sodomites have it or whatever.
You know, that's great. But, honestly, to me, it's very important that I'm learning something. You know, if I'm going to take the time to listen to preaching, I want to learn something.
You know, if I go to church, I want to walk away knowing the Bible, knowing something, learning something about scripture. Because I love learning, you know.
Now, again, the rip-roaring preaching has its place. We need that hard preaching to make sin exceeding sinful so that we walk in holiness.
But we also need preaching to be teaching. We need it to also be instructive. We need to be learning something new.
You know, if you just come to church because, you know, I just want to hear Pastor Robinson just really rip some face or I just want to hear Pastor Robinson rip some face, you know, and that's all you care about, you know, that's pretty shallow.
You should want to come and learn more about Jesus, learn more about the Bible, learn more doctrine, you know, and some of the best sermons, they aren't even necessarily the most dynamic sermon.
But you learned something powerful from the Word of God. You learned some truth that you can put into practice in your life.
You ought to love that and you ought to crave that, you ought to desire that. You ought to come to church wanting to learn, showing up, Bible in hand, not just I want to be entertained.
I like it when the pastor just kind of blows his top and just really goes off because it's so fun.
And it's especially fun, you know, when some bozo ends up getting thrown out of the church or, you know, something crazy happens.
Now, look, sometimes those things are entertaining. I'll admit it. But the point is, though, don't just come to church for the show.
Don't just come to church to be entertained. You should come to church saying, open now mine eyes, Lord, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.
I want to learn something new. I'm ready to learn. And you say, well, I kind of already know everything.
That just isn't true. Okay. Because I've been studying the Bible my entire life. I had the privilege of being raised in a Christian home and going to independent Baptist churches for the vast majority of my life.
Other times we went to other denominational Baptist churches when I was a teenager. But I grew up in church reading the Bible.
My parents talked about the Bible in my home. My grandparents constantly talked about the Bible. I read the Bible on my own even as a child, as a teenager, as an adult.
I've read the Bible a lot of times as a pastor. I mean, this is what I do. You know, I'm just constantly just reading and studying the Bible all the time.
But I'll tell you what, just on this road trip, I have learned a ton of Bible on this road trip. Just in the last four weeks.
Because, you know, I'm doing this study where I'm going through and preaching about the different sons of Jacob, Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and I'm going through and I have learned a ton.
There's a whole bunch of things that I have preached in these sermons that I did not know until that week when I studied for that sermon.
And especially a book like Genesis, you know, you'd think, okay, maybe there are some books in the Bible that I need a little work on.
But come on, Genesis? I mean, how many times have I read Genesis? But yet even in Genesis, even in the last four weeks, I learned a ton of things.
Even in my very first sermon I preached, the sermon on Reuben, there were three distinct things that I learned that I did not know at all that really changed my understanding and really opened my eyes about that story.
Like, I would say three significant things about that story involving Reuben and Joseph and Joseph being sold into slavery.
There were about three things that I learned in that sermon, even though I've been preaching and hearing that story my entire life, reading the Bible my entire life.
So, you know, you don't know everything. You have not arrived. No one has arrived. I've not arrived. You haven't arrived.
And so, you know, if I, Pastor Anderson who wrote the sermons, who's been preaching and pastoring for over 16 years, I've been saved now for like 34, 35 years, been in church my whole life, listened to thousands and thousands of hours of audio sermons that I've downloaded in addition to physically being in church.
You know, if I'm learning all these new things from these sermons, you know, I have a funny feeling that probably people in the audience are probably learning something from them too.
If even some of the information is brand new to me, I'm sure it's brand new to you, and I guarantee you that your pastor gets up week after week and he's preaching the Bible, you know, what we do, myself, him, preachers like us, what we do isn't complicated.
You know, we preach the Bible, and your pastor preaches the Bible, and I guarantee you that you're going to learn something if you show up on Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday, you're going to learn something.
You know, some sermons are going to be really dynamic, some less so, but, you know, you're always going to learn something if you're paying attention, if you're open, and this is one of the reasons why we should love going to church is so that we can learn more knowledge because knowledge is so important.
And so, you know, I want to go to a church that has fruitfulness, that's a soul winning church, that's out knocking doors, I want that in my personal life, you know, I want to be fruitful, I want to be able to get to heaven and say like, hey, I won that guy to the Lord, right?
I mean, wouldn't you love to get to heaven and at least have one person there because you reached them, at least one.
How about 10 or 100?
I mean, it's wonderful to think that we could pull people out of the fire, right, and that we could get people saved, and that we could be fruitful and reach people with the gospel.
I want that in my church, I want that for my personal life, but also I want to go to a church that emphasizes the rules.
God's commandments, Christ's commandments, not a church that just says, man, you know, it's not a bunch of do's and don'ts, man, it's just a relationship.
You know, I mean, that's not going to work in any other area of life.
Man, this electrical company is too many do's and don'ts, man.
Sometimes I bend conduit better if I'm high, you know, and I don't need the boss telling me not to light up on the job, you know, because, man, when I get high, man, I'm more of an artist with the way I bend pipe, you know.
It's stupid.
You know, oh, you know, is that going to work in your marriage, just, you know, hey, hey, you know, why are you so legalistic telling me to keep myself only unto you so long as we both shall live?
Man, that's a bunch of rules, that's legalistic.
What do you mean, what do you mean I have to go to work and pay the bills all the time?
Are you trying to bring me into bondage?
Folks, everything in life has rules, right?
God has rules, there are commandments.
And also, that's right here in this passage, look at chapter 5 verse 4, you know, I'm just wrapping up here, but look at chapter 5 verse 4.
It says, they will not frame their doings to turn unto their God, for the spirit of whoredoms is in the midst of them and they've not known the Lord.
So they don't have the knowledge of the Lord, and he says they won't frame their doings.
What does it mean to frame something?
Put a border around it, right?
Framing your doings means you put a border around it and say, hey, this is the line, you know, this is what's acceptable, this is what's not acceptable.
And guess what, in marriage, some things are acceptable and some things aren't, right?
I mean, you've got to be faithful.
You know, you've got to be a provider as a husband, you know, wives are supposed to submit and obey their husbands.
Husbands are supposed to love and take care of and provide for their wives.
They're both supposed to be faithful to one another and not be out committing adultery.
You know, every area of life is like that, and the Lord is no different.
He has commandments, there's dos and don'ts.
I want to go to a church that preaches the word of God and preaches the commandments of God and preaches the dos and don'ts.
Because I want to know what God wants me to do and not do.
And thirdly, I want to know everything I can about the Bible.
I want to know as much about Jesus, I want to know as much about doctrine.
I couldn't give a rip about some theologian from the 17th century.
That's meaningless to me.
I don't care what he said or what he believed or who he is or all the fancy terminology for this, that, and the other.
But, you know, I want to know biblical doctrine actually from the Bible.
That matters to me. I want to know.
I want to learn the Bible stories.
I want to know what each book of the Bible is about.
I want to think about each chapter in the New Testament and know what it's about, know the context.
I want to learn as much Bible as I can.
I want to be fruitful.
I want to live a clean life.
And I want to know the Bible.
You know, nothing complicated tonight, but we need to make sure that we're not, like Ephraim, a cake not turned.
Because if it becomes just all about fruitfulness, then you know what?
The whole cake is going to go in the trash.
Burnt on one side, raw on the other.
If it becomes all about knowledge, it's going to be burnt on one side, raw on the other.
Whole thing goes in the trash.
Neither side is edible.
If it's just all about holiness, all about living a clean life, constant preaching against sin,
but you're never reaching people and you're not learning biblical doctrine, you're not learning the Bible,
you know, again, it's all trash.
You've got to make sure that you are well-rounded in your personal life and that the church is well-rounded.
We've got to be a cake that gets turned, not like Ephraim, who's a cake not turned,
because the only thing he has going for him is his fruitfulness.
He's got one out of three, and he gets an F, and it all ends up being negative.
That's why in Hosea, about 37 times, he's brought up by name, Ephraim, and most of it's negative.
The vast majority of it's negative.
We want God to look at us and be pleased.
We want to be blessed.
We want to have the whole package and not get imbalanced and just get all about one thing.
No, no, no, we need to make sure that we have all three.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much, Lord, for your word.
Thank you for the book of Hosea, Lord, and for what we could learn from it.
Help us to frame our doings and live a life of holiness, Lord.
Help us to have knowledge, to choose knowledge, to love knowledge, to seek knowledge,
to thrive on getting more knowledge, but, Lord, also help us to be fruitful.
There are many unsaved people here in West Virginia that are dying and going to hell,
but if someone would love them and share the Gospel with them
and preach the Word of God with the Holy Spirit, they would be saved.
Lord, help us to get as many people saved as we can so we can be fruitful,
and, Lord, we thank you so much for this great church
and the great work that they're doing here in Fairmont, West Virginia, Lord,
and I just pray that you would help them to continue to grow in grace
and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
It's in His name we pray. Amen.
All right, if you would take your song books and turn to song 288.
Song 288 in your song books. We'll sing I Am Resolved, if you would stand.
We'll sing song 288.
I am resolved no longer to linger,
sharp by the world's delights.
Things that are higher, things that are nobler,
these have allured my sight.
I will hasten to Him, hasten so glad and free.
Jesus, greatest, highest, I will come to Thee.
I am resolved to go to the Savior, leaving my sin and strife.
He is the true one, He is the just one, He hath the words of life.
I will hasten to Him, hasten so glad and free.
Jesus, greatest, highest, I will come to Thee.
I am resolved to follow the Savior, faithful and true each day.
Heed what He saith, do what He will if He is the living way.
I will hasten to Him, hasten so glad and free.
Jesus, greatest, highest, I will come to Thee.
You are dismissed.
Thank you for watching.