It’s Time to Seek the Lord sermon teaches us that our flesh will try to stop us from seeking the Lord but we need to yield to the Holy Spirit to override that.

Key verses:
Hosea 10:1-15
Hebrews 12:5-11

Hosea chapter 10. And as I have also said this morning, if you happened to hear me having a little issue with nose allergies, I promise I am not contagious. I feel better tonight than I did this morning. But I want us to look at Hosea chapter 10, and in a little while, we’ll go to Hebrews chapter 12. The majority of the time, we’ll be in Hosea chapter 10. Where is Hosea? Go to Daniel and go on to the next book after that. So, you have the book of Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, and Hosea.

Hosea is a book written to the nation of Israel, and at this time, Israel was divided. You had the ten northern tribes known as Israel and the two southern tribes known as Judah. Hosea was told to marry somebody who was not one of his people. He literally had to marry somebody who would, and he would know ahead of time, be unfaithful to him. But God told him to do that to help him be able to share the message that he would have.

As In the Time of Judges

And so, in Hosea chapter 10, we’re going to look at the chapter this evening. But by way of introduction, I want us to understand that our nation today mirrors Israel in a lot of ways. There are times in which the nation has been following God faithfully, and there are times in which our nation has been the complete opposite. At this point, we’ve turned away from the Lord.

If you think back 21 years ago, for you who know the events very well, some of you here don’t because you were not alive or too young to understand it. But after 9/11, people were really trying to get into the church house, and American flags were waving. People were turning to God and trying to find out who God is, and then it ended.

I remember a little bit about when COVID first started. We had gone remote for about eight weeks, and there was a desire and a thirst for people to find out more about the scriptures about what was going on. But it didn’t last long. There are times when we honor and serve God. There are other times when we act like Sodom and Gomorrah. Think of what is going on today. Is it very similar to that?

Mostly, our country seems to live in a cycle of the Judges period in which we are good for a while and then we fall away. Something tragic happens. We ask God, we develop a fervor for Him and then we repeat the same cycle over again. America today is eerily similar to Israel in the time of Hosea.

Again, as we mentioned earlier, Hosea was a prophet who was told to marry a harlot, and her name was Gomer, knowing that she would be unfaithful to him. But Hosea stayed faithful to God. We are like that at times when we’re in fellowship and relationship with God. We’re good, and then we fall, and then we come back again.

So tonight, looking at Hosea chapter 10, I want to challenge us this evening to seek the Lord and do it faithfully, not when it is just convenient. Now, I know I’m talking to a Sunday night audience. I understand that. But even those people who come to a Sunday night service, sometimes there can be doubts, there can be hesitations. There can be times when you say, “Is this what I’m really supposed to do?” I feel like, in a sense, it’s a good reminder for us to understand why we need to serve the Lord. We need to seek the Lord.

Let’s look at Hosea chapter 10, starting at verse 12.

Hosea 10:12: “Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the LORD, till he come and rain righteousness upon you.”

I submit to you this evening as we look into this text that it’s time to give 100% to the Lord, not just on Sunday or a day throughout the week. We need to seek the Lord continuously.

An Empty Vine

Let’s look at the first verse. First of all, we see America’s condition, or Israel’s condition. Let’s look at Hosea 10:1. We see Israel’s emptiness:

Hosea 10:1: “Israel is an empty vine, he bringeth forth fruit unto himself: according to the multitude of his fruit he hath increased the altars; according to the goodness of his land they have made goodly images.”

Israel is an empty vine. They try to satisfy themselves; they’re trying to get self-glorification. They are trying to find ways of glorifying themselves. What were they reaping? They were reaping fruit unto themselves. The verse says here, “Israel is an empty vine, he bringeth forth fruit unto himself” – he’s trying to do good things for himself. And as a nation today, people are trying to do things to make themselves better instead of trying to see what God wants them to do.

The verse continues on, “according to the multitude of his fruit he hath increased the altars.” Think of Cain and Abel. It still plays out today. Cain wants to show, “Look what I’ve done.” Abel says, “We need to follow the Lord.” Cain says, “Hey, look at what I’ve done. Look at all the great things I’ve been able to produce and all this stuff.” And Abel says, “Let me give everything I have to the Lord.”

And this battle still plays out today where you have people who just want to look at themselves and say, “Hey, look at what I’ve done. Look at all that I’ve accomplished.” This could fall into Christian circles too, “Look at all these accomplishments and these things that have been done and made,” instead of pointing glory to the Lord. They try to make and lift each other up to be heroes and idols. They use what God gave them to lift other people up and not God.

Let’s look at the end of verse one, “according to the goodness of his land they have made goodly images.” So, they’ve taken what God has given them and then just say, “Look at what we’ve done.” No praise, no honor to the Lord. We’re seeing that in our country today. We’re seeing that people are given the resources, the things that have been given to them and yet, they are just doing it for themselves. “Look at what I have. Look at all this stuff. Look at what I have produced.”

Do you notice the pronoun that’s being used a lot there? I, me. What about Him [pointing upward]?

A Nation Divided

Hosea 10:2: “Their heart is divided; now shall they be found faulty: he shall break down their altars, he shall spoil their images.”

“Their heart is divided,” you can say that today. Our nation is divided. You don’t understand that? Just turn on Fox News and CNN. I’m not going political here. But on just those two networks alone, you have division. You have different ideas, thoughts, and theories. “This is what is really true,” – you don’t know who is telling the truth anymore. Why? Because their heart is divided.

Israel’s heart was divided. They were divided between serving the Lord and serving idols. We get this today in our society. “Hey, look at everything I’ve done. Let’s look at this person. Let’s exalt and make our president look to be better than anybody else. Hey, look, that is my president.” “That’s not my president.” Why are we lifting up the president of the United States? Yes, he is known as the most powerful man in all the land, but is he God? No. All due respect to the presidency of the United States, but he’s not God. And yet, I felt in the last 4, 8, 12 years that we’ve really tried to make our president like a god in our nation.

It says, “Their heart is divided; now shall they be found faulty,” – they are torn. Think back to Elijah and Mount Carmel. I think brother Joe told me that they talked about this in Junior Church today. What was the division? If Baal be God, follow Him. If the Lord be God, follow Him. What does the text say? They answered him not a word because they were not sure. They weren’t sure who was the right God.

And you talk to people today, those who have been going door to door or track handing out or even the people you talk to today. People are like, “Who’s God? Why should I trust God? Why should that be better than anything else?” There’s so much confusion going on today, not only between the church and the world but between churches. Churches preaching an untrue gospel. And they are trying to say “You get to Heaven this way. You get to Heaven that way.”

Isn’t the Gospel message simple? Why does man have to overcomplicate it? If we could just give the simple Gospel message life would be a lot easier. I mean, think about it. When you are going out, and you are witnessing to people, you are going out there, and you are telling them about the Bible. You have to know at least 7, 8, and 9 different denominations and what they believe in.

Someone says, “I’m Catholic.” You have to think to yourself, “Okay, Catholic, they believe works get you to Heaven.” Seventh Day Adventist, I ran into one two weeks ago. “We keep the Sabbath. If you don’t keep the fourth commandment, then you are not saved.” Mormons, you don’t even want to go there. Different things and even different religions. Oh, if you are reincarnated, hopefully, you get to that space in Nirvana. It’s a shame that we have to know and understand different thoughts, patterns, and theories in order to get to something simple, which is the Gospel message.

Hosea 10:2: “Their heart is divided; now shall they be found faulty: he shall break down their altars, he shall spoil their images.”

Faulty is this idea of being guilty, of being punished, or perishing. God will destroy their worship system at some point. God will know.

John 14:6: “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”

They think that they know the way. What does Matthew say? Broad is the gate, and narrow is the way.

We Have No King

Hosea 10:3: “For now they shall say, We have no king, because we feared not the LORD; what then should a king do to us?”

Israel was so regulated to the point that they didn’t know what to do anymore because they didn’t have a king. Who was their king before they had a king? God. God reigned over them. But they wanted a king so badly that they said to Samuel that Saul should become the first king. Pretty soon thereafter, who knows how long, Saul sins. And then they go to David. David does pretty well. He has his great sin, which he alluded to a few weeks ago. Then Solomon comes in. There’s peace he but marries 700 women and 300 concubines.

Then you get to Rehoboam, and he does all these things and doesn’t listen to the advice of the senior saints. He goes with the young people, and then they have a divided kingdom that sets up where we are now. Jeroboam says you should worship this idolatry. This is going to make you feel better. Pretty much here is where it gets you now.

They say, “We have no king, because we feared not the LORD.” The reason we have no king is that we haven’t honored God. They should have honored God in the first place. But they haven’t.

Verse four, we see some false covenants here.

Hosea 10:4: “They have spoken words, swearing falsely in making a covenant: thus judgment springeth up as hemlock in the furrows of the field.”

Falsely has this idea of desolation, evil, and idolatry. They had these idolatrous works that they had done. Israel referred to that northern kingdom that all 21 of those kings did not serve the Lord. None of them were faithful to God. And because of idolatry that whipped through the land and they are spreading all this falseness, they are so much into it. I guess they don’t even know which way to go.

Hemlock has this idea of a poisonous plant or venom. A furrow is a bank or terrace. So, when you read this verse saying, “They have spoken words swearing falsely,” – having this idolatry and making a covenant. “Thus judgment springeth up as hemlock” – as a poison, as venom in the furrows of the field.

Empty Worship

Verses five through eight show fear and punishment.

Hosea 10:5: “The inhabitants of Samaria shall fear because of the calves of Bethaven: for the people thereof shall mourn over it, and the priests thereof that rejoiced on it, for the glory thereof, because it is departed from it.”

“The inhabitants of Samaria shall fear because of the calves of Bethaven” – Israel sure loved worshipping calves. Think about the first example of that – Aaron and the golden calf, Exodus chapter 32. Israel has this tendency to love the worship of calves, and it continues here in Bethaven, which is literally the house of vanity. Not Bethel, where Jacob worshipped, but Bethaven, the house of vanity. It was empty. Their worship was empty.

America’s worship of people is empty, and that’s where we’ve gone today as a society. Unfortunately, we worship people. We worship athletes. We worship politicians. We worship these people instead of worshipping God, and you can see the results of that. Verse five:

Hosea 10:5: “The inhabitants of Samaria shall fear because of the calves of Bethaven: for the people thereof shall mourn over it, and the priests thereof that rejoiced on it, for the glory thereof, because it is departed from it.”

Hosea 10:6: “It shall be also carried unto Assyria for a present to king Jareb: Ephraim shall receive shame, and Israel shall be ashamed of his own counsel.”

Hosea 10:7: “As for Samaria, her king is cut off as the foam upon the water.”

Hosea 10:8: “The high places also of Aven, the sin of Israel, shall be destroyed: the thorn and the thistle shall come up on their altars; and they shall say to the mountains, Cover us; and to the hills, Fall on us.”

This phrasing is mentioned in Revelation chapter six, the Tribulation period. What’s going on here? They know they are going to be taken away, taken captive. You see that in verse six. In verse seven, their king is not going to make it. In verse eight, their idolatry is going to be destroyed.

The word “Aven” in verse eight has this idea of idolatry or famous idolatrous places. It’s used by Syria, Egypt, and Palestine people who worship images of false idols, and that got carried into Israel. All this is going on. The sin of Israel was idolatry. You see that in verse eight. The sin of Israel is indeed idolatry, their worship of idols. It started with Jeroboam when he wanted to rebel because Rehoboam wanted to tax the people more. They wanted to find a better solution to what they thought was wrong.

Rehoboam and Jeroboam, none of them followed the Lord. Solomon started to follow the Lord, but in the end, his heart was turned away from the Lord.

Turning Away from God

Why has our nation fallen so much today? Think about the people who have gone before us. It kind of started with the people before us, before all of us were alive, and before that.

People decided to turn away from the Lord. They decided to take God out of the schools. They decided they didn’t want prayer in schools back in the sixties and other things before that. Today they want to teach you, and I mentioned that in Sunday School, they want to call mothers birthing parents. Why? Because a guy can be pregnant? That guy cannot be pregnant because that guy was a girl beforehand; he’s decided to identify himself as a guy.

And you know what? They are trying to teach in schools today that you can identify with whatever you want, whatever you feel. So, if I decide to watch a chick flick with my wife, I’m going to identify myself as a woman. You think that is completely ridiculous. That is what they share with our children today. We’ve gone so far away from the Lord and what God wants us to do as a nation that, you know what? Reality needs to set in. The realization in verse nine as we’ve seen:

Hosea 10:9: “O Israel, thou hast sinned from the days of Gibeah: there they stood: the battle in Gibeah against the children of iniquity did not overtake them.”

“O Israel, thou hast sinned from the days of Gibeah” – that’s a battle that occurs in Judges chapter 20, which is the result of a Levite and a concubine. And Judges chapter 19, I’m not going to give many details because we do have younger children here. Basically, it didn’t turn out well.

They had a battle between the tribe of Benjamin and everybody else. They had a civil war and basically took out almost everybody at that battle, but they decided to keep them and give them wives and all that, where they could have done what they should have done. They didn’t finish it, and they’ve had this compromising issue way beforehand. There was some hesitancy to go against them. They were their own people. But you know what? They still did it anyway. But they felt remorse afterward that they had attacked their own tribe of Benjamin. They didn’t overtake; they just compromised.

That’s where we’re at as a society today in America. We are in a compromised state. We’re not sure which way we want to follow.

God’s Chastening

But I want us to look at the bright side here. We’ve talked about a lot of doom and gloom so far. Israel and America are similar in that they worship things and not God. God does and will chasten those who are His. America was built as a God-honoring nation but is getting further from it.

So, how do we respond to these dark and dreary times? Let’s look at verses 10 to the end of the chapter here. Number two is to have a desire to seek God.

Hosea 10:10: “It is in my desire that I should chastise them; and the people shall be gathered against them, when they shall bind themselves in their two furrows.”

Now, chasten here means a desire to instruct, to reprove or correct, to reteach. God chastens those who He loves. I want you to hold your place in Hosea and go with me to Hebrews chapter 12. I want us to look at a few verses here in Hebrews chapter 12 about the Lord’s chastening.

Those of you who are believers, if you do wrong, God will chasten you. He will try to bring you back and wake you up. I feel today, that God is trying to wake us up as a nation to say, “You’ve done wrong, but I want you to come back to me.”

Let’s understand a little bit more about God’s chastening here. If you have your Bible, let’s go to the middle of verse five to start off:

Hebrews 12:5: “My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him:”

This is saying not to get upset when God tries to get after you. Think of it this way. I think I’ve said it before, and it’s been said from this pulpit many times. God is a parent to us. God rewards us and does us well when we do good, but when we do wrong, do you expect to have a punishment?

When you do wrong growing up as a child, and those who are still children, when you do wrong, do your parents punish you? Do they do it just because they have a happy face and say, “Hey, I want to do this to my…” No. No parent that I’ve ever known in my lifetime is thrilled to punish their child and say, “Yes, today is a good day to give him and do him in.” No. It hurts them to do that. But they have to do that. Why? To instruct them not to do that thing again.

When we do wrong, when we go against God, expect God to chasten us.

Hebrews 12:6: “For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.”

God loves those who He corrects. If He did not love you, he would not correct you. “He chasteneth, and scourgeth” – He punishes believers who disobey Him. He “scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.”

Hebrews 12:7: “If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?”

Here is the parental relationship as we illustrated earlier.

Hebrews 12:8: “But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.”

Hebrews 12:9: “Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?”

You listened to your dad when your dad told you to do something, did you not? When your mom told you to do something, you listened, did you not? This is the illustration given here. You respect your parents; you need to respect God.

It continues in verse nine, “Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?”

Hebrews 12:10: “For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.”

Hebrews 12:11: “Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.”

“Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous.” Who enjoys being in trouble? Nobody. I’m glad no hands were raised up. No one enjoys getting in trouble. It’s the worst feeling in the world. When God chastens you, it’s not going to be happy. But what is it supposed to do? Let’s finish the verse:

Hebrews 12:11: “Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.”

God will chasten. When we do wrong, God will chasten us. Come back to Hosea at 10:10:

Hosea 10:10: “It is in my desire that I should chastise them; and the people shall be gathered against them, when they shall bind themselves in their two furrows.”

God is going to chasten Israel.

Hosea 10:11: “And Ephraim is as an heifer that is taught, and loveth to tread out the corn; but I passed over upon her fair neck: I will make Ephraim to ride; Judah shall plow, and Jacob shall break his clods.”

He gives all this; he gives some illustrations here to bring us back to verse 12, where we started.

Coming Back to God

He gives us a planting analogy. He says:

Hosea 10:12: “Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the LORD, till he come and rain righteousness upon you.”

“Sow to yourselves in righteousness” – plant yourself in justice, in rightness, in virtue, and in prosperity. That’s what He’s asking you to do. “Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy;” – the harvest in kindness, piety toward God, to a good deed. So, plant yourself, root yourself, and harvest.

Verse 12 continues, “Break up your fallow ground,” – glean and be ready. Be ready to be used by the Lord. Why? Because “it is time to seek the Lord.” – it is time to be frequent in serving the Lord. To seek is this idea of worshiping, tread, follow Jehovah God. It is time to turn our eyes back on God. It is time for America to turn our eyes back on Him. We don’t need to delay any longer. What’s stopping us from doing that? Ourselves, our sin, our sin nature.

We want the pleasures, the joys of what we want to do when Hosea is saying it’s time to come back to God. As Israel was being told to come back to God and seek the Lord. America needs to come back to seek the Lord. But where does that start? With the individual, you and me. It starts in the church house.

“It is time to seek the LORD, till he come and rain righteousness upon you.” This idea of sowing and reaping principle is when you reap what you sow. The rain has this idea to point out, to lay or throw, to instruct or inform you. “Till he come and rain” – to instruct and to teach you about the goodness of God. Let the goodness of God come and affect you and grow you. It is what the verse is trying to tell us here. Why is that? Well, the reason that we want God to instruct us, for us to seek Him is because of what happens after that.

Hosea 10:13: “Ye have plowed wickedness, ye have reaped iniquity; ye have eaten the fruit of lies: because thou didst trust in thy way, in the multitude of thy mighty men.”

Hosea 10:14: “Therefore shall a tumult arise among thy people, and all thy fortresses shall be spoiled, as Shalman spoiled Betharbel in the day of battle: the mother was dashed in pieces upon her children.”

Hosea 10:15: “So shall Bethel do unto you because of your great wickedness: in a morning shall the king of Israel utterly be cut off.”

Why do we need to seek the Lord? Because we plowed wickedness, we reaped iniquity, and we’ve eaten the fruit of lies. Most importantly, I think we can highlight here from verse 13, “Because thou didst trust in thy way.” What does Proverbs 3:5 tell us?

Proverbs 3:5: “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.”

In conclusion, I believe it is high time that, as a nation, we seek the Lord. But where does it start? It starts in the church house. It starts with the individual. I know I’m talking to a Sunday night crowd. But maybe someone is going through the motions. Maybe you are just going to church just to go, and you try to check off a checklist for the week.

Maybe someone is content and is willing to step out of their comfort zone. “I’m fine where I’m at. I’m doing enough to serve the Lord. I’m just peachy.” Maybe, there is someone who is starting to slip and then not realizing it. They are not praying as much and not having their devotions as much. They are not telling other people when the opportunity comes to tell them who Jesus is and how to trust Him. They are just slowly fading away.

Tonight, I want us to know, I want to encourage us. May we choose to seek God all the time and be prepared for our sinful nature trying to stop us from doing this task. Your flesh is going to try to stop you from seeking the Lord and make you try to trust your own way. Our flesh wants us not to follow Him, but we need to yield to the spirit. Allow the Holy Spirit to override that and to continually seek the Lord. Our nation needs it, and our churches need it, but it starts with us.

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Father, help us as we close the service this evening. Father, I pray that you just help us to look within ourselves, myself included and that you would help us understand what we are looking at here. Father, I don’t know the hearts of anybody here. But you do.

Our invitation is going to be this. It’s going to be similar to what we did in the morning. We are not necessarily singing a hymn, but we are going to have the piano play in just a little while. But for the invitation, I want us to do this: Number one, maybe someone here or someone viewing online, maybe someone in here says, “Pastor Chris, I haven’t been seeking the Lord as much as I should, but I want you to pray for me that I can do that more consistently and faithfully. I encourage you when the first note begins to play to come, come to an old fashioned alter and just talk to the Lord. Have that quiet time between you and the Lord.

Maybe there is someone in here that says, “You know, I have been serving but kind of feel weak. I feel like what I am doing is not enough, and I am getting discouraged.” Come, talk to the Lord. Develop that fire back within your spirit.

We haven’t talked about that this evening, but maybe there’s someone in here that says, “Well, it’s all good to seek the Lord but I don’t even know who He is because I have never asked Jesus Christ to be my Savior.” I encourage that person, too, as the music plays, to step out and come. Someone will talk with you and help you understand how you can get to Heaven and how you can have Jesus Christ to be your Savior.

The reason why we cannot get to Heaven is because of our sin. Our sin separates us from God. But we ask Jesus Christ to be our Savior, and then we have that home in Heaven. Then after that, we can seek and serve God faithfully.

Father, bless and move in this invitation we pray. With our heads bowed and eyes closed, let’s rise to our feet here.

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