1 Rejoice not, O Israel, for joy, as other people: for thou hast gone a whoring from thy God, thou hast loved a reward upon every cornfloor. 2 The floor and the winepress shall not feed them, and the new wine shall fail in her. 3 They shall not dwell in the LORD’S land; but Ephraim shall return to Egypt, and they shall eat unclean things in Assyria. 4 They shall not offer wine offerings to the LORD, neither shall they be pleasing unto him: their sacrifices shall be unto them as the bread of mourners; all that eat thereof shall be polluted: for their bread for their soul shall not come into the house of the LORD. 5 What will ye do in the solemn day, and in the day of the feast of the LORD? 6 For, lo, they are gone because of destruction: Egypt shall gather them up, Memphis shall bury them: the pleasant places for their silver, nettles shall possess them: thorns shall be in their tabernacles. 7 The days of visitation are come, the days of recompence are come; Israel shall know it: the prophet is a fool, the spiritual man is mad, for the multitude of thine iniquity, and the great hatred. 8 The watchman of Ephraim was with my God: but the prophet is a snare of a fowler in all his ways, and hatred in the house of his God. 9They have deeply corrupted themselves, as in the days of Gibeah: therefore he will remember their iniquity, he will visit their sins. 10 I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness; I saw your fathers as the firstripe in the fig tree at her first time: but they went to Baalpeor, and separated themselves unto that shame; and their abominations were according as they loved. 11 As for Ephraim, their glory shall fly away like a bird, from the birth, and from the womb, and from the conception. 12 Though they bring up their children, yet will I bereave them, that there shall not be a man left: yea, woe also to them when I depart from them! 13 Ephraim, as I saw Tyrus, is planted in a pleasant place: but Ephraim shall bring forth his children to the murderer. 14 Give them, O LORD: what wilt thou give? give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts. 15 All their wickedness is in Gilgal: for there I hated them: for the wickedness of their doings I will drive them out of mine house, I will love them no more: all their princes are revolters. 16 Ephraim is smitten, their root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit: yea, though they bring forth, yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of their womb. 17 My God will cast them away, because they did not hearken unto him: and they shall be wanderers among the nations.Hosea 9:1-17 (KJV)
“Rejoice not, O Israel, for joy, as other people: for thou hast gone a whoring from thy God, thou hast loved a reward upon every cornfloor.”There is an affected joy in many churches today that is shallow and without Godly foundation. It is a pretentious joy based upon false hopes, promises, and false preaching – usually a form of the prosperity gospel (wealth & health). Joy in Heaven is angelic; contrived joy of the wicked is hellish. The modern church, like Israel, has gone whoring after other gods – unholy entertainment in worship, wrong teachings of the sacredness of marriage; false bibles; easy-believism; absence of discipline and judgment in the Church; and apostate pulpits filled with false prophets and professors. Our building programs far outweigh our consideration of missions. The largest churches are those who are able to attract the highest paid ministers and who are able to bring the most of the world into the church instead of carrying the unblemished Gospel out into the world. The church of today will sell its soul to the devil for profit and growth.
“The floor and the winepress shall not feed them, and the new wine shall fail in her.” The church that attempts to fill worship with a gospel alien to Christ will find the challenge greater than filling old wine bottles with new wine. The trade and commerce of the nation that abandons the God of their fathers shall fail them. Even those nations with whom we have commercial intercourse shall mourn the demise of such a nation: “And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning, Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come. And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more.” Revelation 18:9-11 (KJV) Babylon, I remind you, is political, social, economic, and spiritual. The message is identical to all nominal Christians – “Rejoice not for joy, as other people.” Such joy is trivial and dated.
“They shall not dwell in the LORD’S land; but Ephraim shall return to Egypt, and they shall eat unclean things in Assyria. 4 They shall not offer wine offerings to the LORD, neither shall they be pleasing unto him: their sacrifices shall be unto them as the bread of mourners; all that eat thereof shall be polluted: for their bread for their soul shall not come into the house of the LORD.This is a two-sided coin concerning the Lord’s land. It meant exile for Israel and Judah, but it could be that the land once so abundantly graced by the Lord will no longer be considered HIS land, but foreign soil to the Kingdom of God. The bread of mourners is dedicated to the dead and not the living. Those who dominate this land will be in bondage to the Purveyor of Death (Satan).
The key to favor with God is exercised through faith and not the outward show. The New Testament Church, like that of the Old, is squarely secured by faith of its adherents. “Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed.” Romans 9:7-8 (KJV)
“What will ye do in the solemn day, and in the day of the feast of the LORD? For, lo, they are gone because of destruction: Egypt shall gather them up, Memphis shall bury them: the pleasant places for their silver, nettles shall possess them: thorns shall be in their tabernacles. The days of visitation are come, the days of recompence are come; Israel shall know it: the prophet is a fool, the spiritual man is mad, for the multitude of thine iniquity, and the great hatred.” Herein is a serious question of the day after your last day. The Wedding Feast is prepared, but you have no wedding garment? You will be cast out. The false believers will be consumed with the tribute of sin as shown in the bondage of Egypt. The time for visitation of the apostate church has arrived. It is important to hold the truth in righteousness, and what else? In love! As Jesus told the Samaritan Woman at the Well: “But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. John 4:23-24 (KJV)
“The watchman of Ephraim was with my God: but the prophet is a snare of a fowler in all his ways, and hatred in the house of his God. They have deeply corrupted themselves, as in the days of Gibeah: therefore he will remember their iniquity, he will visit their sins. I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness; I saw your fathers as the firstripe in the fig tree at her first time: but they went to Baalpeor, and separated themselves unto that shame; and their abominations were according as they loved.”The false ministers of our day do not lead to salvation but to the snare. Gibeah was the seat of the Benjamites who were pugnacious and warlike in nature. God happily resolves not to remember sin repented of, but He does not forget those sins that remain unredeemed. There is a difference between forgetfulness in the Bible and remembrance. The first is a failure of faculties, the second a conscious decision. God smiled upon the fair shores of the America of the Pilgrim Fathers. They had come in righteous desire to serve God according to their consciences. But character often molds with age very much as a left-over table. We, in America, had a great beginning that continued for almost two centuries, but our sins have mounted as we have forgotten the God of our Founding. We rejected biblical and moral teaching in our schools, banned prayer from every public forum, and permitted the gruesome murder of more than sixty million innocent babies in their mother’s womb. We have openly defied the institution of Holy Wedlock which ‘signifies the mystical union that exists between Christ and His Church.’ America has turned to false gods of sensuality and humanism.
“As for Ephraim, their glory shall fly away like a bird, from the birth, and from the womb, and from the conception. Though they bring up their children, yet will I bereave them, that there shall not be a man left: yea, woe also to them when I depart from them!” Worse than Ephraim, we opt to kill our babies before they have seen the beauty of a sunrise. Our children that do survive pregnancy wander off and forget their parents. This is a result of ungodly upbringing.
“Ephraim, as I saw Tyrus, is planted in a pleasant place: but Ephraim shall bring forth his children to the murderer. Give them, O LORD: what wilt thou give? give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts. 15 All their wickedness is in Gilgal: for there I hated them: for the wickedness of their doings I will drive them out of mine house, I will love them no more: all their princes are revolters. Ephraim is smitten, their root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit: yea, though they bring forth, yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of their womb.
My God will cast them away, because they did not hearken unto him: and they shall be wanderers among the nations.” You may believe that I am belaboring the point of the sins of our modern nation, but I consider that justified in the face of the Lord’s constant repetition, for emphasis, of the sins of His people. The wombs of Israel bore no children (sound familiar?) Only a lonely sorrow awaits us. We do not require being driven out of God’s House as we have abandoned it to devils in our day.
It is true that Israel of the Ten-Tribed nation has become wonderers among the nations many of whom have no understanding of their origins. But America is different in one sense: the commoners of the nations of the world are wandering, uninvited, upon our streets and consume our substance. God has brought upon us delusions that we may believe a lie, and follow the father of lies in our national policies. Wake up ere it is too late even to become a late-term believer in bondage to those strangers among us.
