A lot of what I'm going to have to say this morning is going to be a repeat of the last time I preached, so bear with me. I want to get through this entire book, so I'm not going to go as in-depth with the first part as I did the last time, but this is a very, very important and wonderful book in my opinion. 

And one of the things that, you know, Wendy and I just got back, we went down to Kentucky to visit the Ark Encounter and the Creation Museum and loved it. It was wonderful. An awful lot of walking at the Ark. We were tired by the end of the day, but it was really good. Both places were really good. 

One of the things that I thought was really cool there is that they didn't shy away from giving you both man's view and the word of God. Man's word and God's word at every station, wherever you looked. They weren't afraid to proclaim the word of God, and as you sat and you looked at it, you kind of get this understanding that this world really is messed up, and the way that they think really is twisted and bizarre. It really is. 

And it showed me the importance of knowing God. We listened to Ken Ham and Ken gave a talk, and he said at one point in time when they were opening up that a number of Christians came to him and said, what are you doing opening a theme park? You know, what's the point of opening a theme park? And, you know, shouldn't you be spending your time, you know, with, you know, but it's very evangelical in nature. 

And he said that in the course of the years that they've been open, that 30,000 people have come to know the Lord Jesus Christ just by visiting the Ark Encounter and the Creation Museum. Very evangelistic in nature, and I would encourage anybody to go. It was definitely something to remember. But it really, really drove home for me the point that it's so important for us to know the living God. 

And, you know, that's the desire of God is that you would know the Lord. That it's his desire. He has revealed himself from creation. He has made himself known. And that's the whole point. God desires, and always has been, to make himself known to mankind. He created man in his image so that he could have fellowship with them. That was the whole purpose of the creation of man, that God could have fellowship with man. 

And toward the end of his earthly ministry, Jesus was asked by Philip to show him, to show them the Father. And Jesus said to him, have I been so long with you and yet you have not come to know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father. And so when God sent Jesus into the world, he sent him to be a revelation of who God is and what God is like. Jesus fulfilled that in his earthly ministry. 

In Hebrews chapter 1, verses 1 to 3, it says, God, after he spoke long ago to the fathers and the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the world. And he is the radiance of his glory and the exact representation of his nature and upholds all things by the word of his power. 

You know, this is, again, God speaking. He has spoken throughout eternity, from creation through the prophets and now down to the Lord Jesus Christ, the final word of God. Jesus Christ is the final word of God. He is the authoritative word of God. And I like that when Jesus was on the Mount of Transfiguration and Moses and Elijah were with him on the Mount. 

And they were duly impressed. Peter said, Lord, it's good for us to be here. Should we make a tabernacle for Moses and for Elijah and for you? And a voice came out of the cloud and said, this, speaking about Jesus, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him. And so Jesus Christ is the final word of God to man. And we do well to take heed to that. 

You know, Israel had a unique relationship with God, unlike anything that any of us have ever known or understood. God had chosen Israel to reveal himself to them and for a purpose. It wasn't just because he thought that Israel was better than all of the other nations. In fact, it was the smallest of the nations. They were a rebellious people. It wasn't due to their own righteousness or goodness that God called them. 

But I think he chose them because they are a good sampling of all the nations of the earth, because all of us have sinned and gone astray. We've all fallen short. But God called them out of their bondage in Egypt and spoke to them audibly at Mount Sinai, something that he's never done to anybody else, to any other people on Mount Sinai. 

At the giving of the Ten Commandments, it says that God spoke audibly from the mountain. The mountain trembled. It was burning in fire. And God spoke. And they all heard the voice of God and were terrified. No other nation, no other people has been spoken to by the audible voice of God than them. And you can read about that in Deuteronomy chapter 4. We're not going to go there now, but it's interesting. 

I encourage you to go back and read Deuteronomy chapter 4 verses 7 to 20 and read about how God spoke to the people of Israel in a way that he's never spoken to another people ever. So all of these years later now, and I don't know exactly how many years, I didn't try to calculate it, but we come to the book of Hosea. And we've covered the first three chapters and part of the fourth chapter up to this point. 

And so we're going to go back over this. We're in chapter 4 now. And I've given you five points on your outline. The Lord's controversy, my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge, the sin of the people and the priests, the warning to Judah, and leave them, let them alone. 

All right. So in verse number 1 of chapter 4, it says, Listen to the word of the Lord, O sons of Israel, for the Lord has a case against the inhabitants of the land because there is no faithfulness or kindness or knowledge of God in all the land. 

Now here he says, listen. That's what he says here. Listen to hear with the connotation of obedience as well as understanding. In other words, pay attention, give heed to listen up to what God is trying to say. In this section, God is going to state his case, his controversy, his dispute with the people of the land. 

His dispute is threefold. There's no truth, there's no mercy, and there's no knowledge of God in the land. And the first thing we look at there, he says there is no truth. And I know that the new American standard has, there is no faithfulness. But the word there is truth. He says there is no truth. 

In our day and age, truth is stripped of all of its true biblical meaning and is reduced to something that man thinks in his own heart. We have all heard that, the liberals' mantra. Your truth is not my truth. Haven't you? You've heard that. Your truth is not my truth. Live according to your own truth. 

So truth of man dictates anything and everything that goes. So in the eyes of man, because man believes that he is his own creator, that he is his own Lord, he thinks that there is no morality in the world. There is no morality in the teachings of this world. And so it's okay in their mind to kill babies in the womb. They say that love is love. There is no boundaries to human sexuality. And there are endless numbers of genders we hear. 

This and endless number of things like these are rooted in the idea that we are not created by a loving, compassionate God. But rather we are the result of a cosmic accident that over millions or billions of years, we have somehow evolved into what we are today. And so since this is the case, there is no such thing as right or wrong. That is up to each of us individually to decide, because there is no such thing as absolute truth. 

And sadly, this is exactly what our public schools are teaching, systems are teaching, and shoving down the throats of our children. Now, again, young people, especially you kids, I want you to understand how important it is that you know the biblical truth, that God created you. That you're not an accident that just happened. You know, there was not this big bang and all of a sudden everything just happened to appear. You did not come from some primordial ooze and just kind of happened to be. 

God created you and he created you in his image. He loves you and you are unique to him. Every human being on the face of the earth is unique to him. Evolution is taught as a scientific fact. Your life is a result of millions of subtle genetic mutations that all started with a big bang that somehow produced a single living cell that has mutated into all the different life forms that we have on earth, man being at the top of the food chain. 

Doesn't that just sound wonderful? I mean, if I, you know, I grew up in that school system teaching evolution that this was all about. Let me tell you something, it does not gender hope. It does not gender hope whatsoever if I'm just an accident. But if I'm just here by accident, what good is it? What good is my life? 

If I'm here by accident, there's really no purpose to my existence. And if there's no purpose to my existence or if I'm just an accident, then where's the, then what's up with morality? Who determines what's right or wrong? I determine what's right or wrong in that thing. It's up to me to determine what's right or wrong. 

Well, let me tell you something. God created us. He has given us his understanding. To the logical reasoning man, this cannot possibly true, this, this stuff of evolution. It cannot possibly be true. Excuse me. We know that in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth and all things that are in them. We know that God created man after his own image, male and female he created them for the purpose that he may engage us in a loving, compassionate relationship. 

I stake my entire existence and we stake our entire existence on the word of the eternal, gracious God who spoke all things into existence. King David, in loving adoration of his God, said the sum of your words is truth. Psalm 19 verse 160. Jesus said in his high, high priestly prayer, sanctify them in the truth. Thy word is truth. In John 8, 31 to 32, Jesus said, so, so Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed in him, if you continue in my word, then you are truly disciples of mine and you will know the truth and the truth will make you free. 

In John 14, 6, Jesus said, I am the way and the truth and the life and no one comes to the father but through me. Beloved, Jesus Christ is the embodiment of truth. Remember, this is the controversy that God has with him in verse number one. The Lord has a case against the inhabitants of the land because there is no truth. 

Truth has fallen in the streets of America right now. It is lying in the, it is lying in the gutter and in the mud and the filth, but there is truth. There is absolute truth and that absolute truth is found in the word of God and we can stake our life and our existence upon this word. And young people, I encourage you to look at this book and get your understanding of life from this book because from this book only, does it make sense? Does this life make sense? Amen. 

All right, the second thing he has in there is that there is no kindness and that word kindness is the word mercy. So there's no truth, there's no mercy. This is the second part of the controversy that God has with the children of Israel. There is no mercy. 

This word in the original is chesed and it is translated mercy, loving-kindness, steadfast love, compassion, and grace. Those are all the ways that it can be translated. And Psalm 136, we're not going to go read the entire Psalm 136, but in this one, he uses that word over and over again. Bless the Lord for he is good, for his loving-kindness, his chesed endures forever. 

And he repeats that time after time after time in Psalm 136, the loving-kindness of God, the chesed of God. And Micah chapter 6, verse 8, he says, what does the Lord require of you but to love justice, but to do justice, and to love chesed, to love mercy, to love loving-kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? That is what the Lord requires of us. 

There's a strong relationship between this Hebrew word chesed and the Greek word agape. They are interchangeable and I believe that in the Greek Septuagint, I believe that they use agape in the place of chesed in the Septuagint. But the two are same. So in agape, love, which we only, in our language, we only have one word for love, so I love bubblegum and I love Jesus. We only have one word. 

But in the original language in Greek, there's seven different ways to express the word love. But the highest of those is the word agape. And agape is that dispassionate, self-sacrificing love that God has for us, first and foremost. He has a deep love for us that is self-sacrificing, isn't self-seeking. Read 1 Corinthians chapter 13 and you'll get an understanding of what the love of God is like. 

But in this context, let's go to 1 John chapter 4. And the ladies have been studying this in their morning studies. 1st John chapter 4 beginning of verse 7 says, Beloved, let us love one another for love is from God and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 

By this the love of God was manifested in us that God has sent his only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 

And so part of that controversy is that there's no truth and there is no real love. Boy, I think we can pick up the newspaper and see that that's true in our nation right now. There is no truth and there is no love. The divide is getting stronger and deeper all the way around. 

The third thing that he says in his controversy with Israel is that there is no knowledge of God in the land. The true knowledge of God is the basis for the other two. Without the knowledge of God, the truth and love are not even possible. Without the knowledge of God, truth and love are impossible. 

Jeremiah chapter 22, verses 15 to 17 says this. Jeremiah is speaking to Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah. And he says, do you become a king because you are competing in cedar? Did not your father eat and drink and do justice and righteousness? Then it was well with him. He pled the cause of the afflicted and needy. Then it was well. Is not that what it means to know me, declares the Lord? 

Amen. That's what it means to know the Lord. Proverbs chapter 1, verse 7 says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Or excuse me, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction. 

Proverbs 1, let's go to Proverbs chapter 1. Let's just flip over there for a minute and look at look at this in Proverbs chapter 1. Because I want you to see how important this is in the eyes of God that we have a true proper understanding of God. Because until we have that, our lives are going to be upside down. 

In chapter 1 beginning at verse number 20 says this. Wisdom shouts in the street. She lifts her voice in the square. At the head of the noisy street she cries out. At the entrance of the gates in the city, she utters her sayings. How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple-minded? And scoffers delight themselves in scoffing. And fools hate knowledge. 

Turn to my reproof. Behold, I will pour out my spirit on you. I will make my words known to you. There's a promise, folks, that if we will turn to him and pay attention to him, he will make his words known to us. Because I called and you refused, I stretched out my hand and no one paid attention. And you neglected all my counsel and did not want my reproof. 

I will also laugh at your calamity. I will mock when your dread comes. When your dread comes like a storm and your calamity comes like a whirlwind. When distress and anguish come upon you. Then they will call on me, but I'll not answer. They will seek me diligently, but they will not find me. Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord. 

They would not accept my counsel. They spurned all my reproof. So they shall eat of the fruit of their own way and be satiated with their own devices. For the waywardness of the naive will kill them and the complacency of fools will destroy them. 

But he who listens to me shall live securely and will be at ease from the dread of evil. My son, if you will receive my words and treasure my commandments within you, make your ear attentive to wisdom, incline your heart to understanding. For if you cry for discernment, lift your voice for understanding. If you seek her as silver and search for her as for hidden treasures, then you will discern the fear of the Lord and discover the knowledge of God. 

For the Lord gives wisdom. From his mouth come knowledge and understanding. Amen. The knowledge of God is something that should be desired beyond and above everything else. That should be the goal of our life, is to know him. In Philippians, Paul said, oh, that I might know him. That was the cry of Paul's heart. 

Paul had been preaching for, you know, for how many years? He's writing from the jail in Rome. He's writing from prison. And he's saying that after all of this time, the desire of Paul is that I might know him. Oh, that I might know him. And that should be the desire of our heart, that we should seek for him as we would seek for silver or gold. Even more so, because the knowledge of God is that much more important. 

Jeremiah chapter 9, verses 23 and 24 says, Thus says the Lord, let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might. Let not a rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who exercises lovingkindness, justice, and righteousness on the earth. For I delight in these things, declares the Lord. 

So if you feel that you have to boast about something, boast in this, that I know the Lord. Praise God. Isn't that something? Amen. 

So, his controversy is that there is no truth, there is no mercy or love, and there is no knowledge of God in the land. And so in verse 2, he goes to saying what there is, and this is just like reading the newspaper. What is there then? If there is not truth and mercy and knowledge of God, what is there? And his answer is this. There is swearing, deception, murder, stealing, and adultery. They employ violence so that bloodshed follows bloodshed. 

Now think about that. We can't turn on the news without hearing about some violent act. Violence following upon violence. More violence, violence, violence, violence. It's all the same. Violence touches violence. And God is saying that is what's going on in the land of Israel at this time. At the time of Jeroboam II, the king. This is what they had devolved into. 

Swearing, deception, murder, stealing, and adultery. And employing violence so that bloodshed follows upon bloodshed. And that just seems like this is what our world is like in this day and age. It says, therefore, verse 3, therefore the land mourns, and everyone who lives in it languishes, along with the beasts of the field and the birds of the sky. And also the fish of the sea disappear. 

And I'm reminded as I read this, I'm reminded of Romans chapter 8. Let's just flip over there quick. Romans chapter 8. As I read this, I'm reminded of what's going on in Romans chapter 8. Beginning at verse number 18, it says this. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 

For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery and corruption, into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 

For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth, together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves having the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is no hope. For who hopes for what he already sees? 

But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it. And so as I read these words in the book of Hosea, about how the entire land mourns and everyone in it languishes, along with the beasts of the field and the birds of the sky and the fish that disappear, I'm reminded that that is what's going on. All of creation groans. All of creation is groaning, longing for the coming of the Son of God, when he will bring with him the saints and the sons of God will be manifested in the earth. 

Because it's at that time, then, that the wolf will lay down with the lamb. And all of the wonderful creation being restored to what it was originally. They won't be eating each other anymore. They'll be going back to eating grass and vegetation like it was at the beginning. But we see that because of the sin of man, because of the sin of Israel, everything around them, the entire land was mourning. And we see that in the world because of the sin of man. 

Because of the sin of man, the entirety of creation is groaning, waiting for that time of redemption. In verse 4 he says, Let no one find fault, and let none offer reproof. For your people are like those who contend with the priest. So you will stumble by day, and the prophet also will stumble with you by night. And I will destroy your mother. 

Let no one find fault. What he's saying here is that everybody is guilty. Your people are like those who contend with the priest. One of the purposes of the priest is that they would judge between the people in their disputes. And that they would stand as a mediator between God and man. And that was the whole purpose of the priesthood. 

And he said that you people are like those who contend with the priest. So you will stumble by day, and the prophet also will stumble with you by night. And I will destroy your mother. And there's the promise to the children of Israel that judgment is coming. Because they have turned so far away from God. He says, I'm going to destroy them. 

Let no one find fault. And apparently, let's look at verse number 5. So you will stumble by day, and the prophet also will stumble with you by night. And I will destroy your mother. According to 1 Kings chapter 22, there was a huge problem in the land of Israel, in that northern kingdom, with false prophets. Just like there is a huge problem today in our world with false prophets. 

I don't know if you know about this or not, or if you've even heard of some of these. And maybe in our circles we haven't heard about it very much. Recently, I've been seeing how the false prophets of the NAR, the New Apostolic Reformation, are being exposed for their sinfulness. 

These guys that everybody looked at, and I was a part of it, I have to confess. Back in the early 90s, I was on board with this stuff. And I remember going to a prophetic conference, and standing there amazed as these prophets would stand up, and they would call people out of the audience by name, and would tell them what God was saying to them. And some of it was so accurate. It was like, wow, this is absolutely amazing. 

But here's the thing, and this is where they're being exposed in this day and age. So many of the prophets now are being called out. Because we have such technology today as Facebook, and because you sign up for these conferences and you go to them, they know who's there at the conference. They know your name. And they can look up on social media. 

And they have people that do this for them, do some background checking for them. And they can look it up on social media, find out all kinds of things about them, and then they have these names that they pick out ahead of time. And it just seems so amazing, so amazing. One of them, I believe it was Todd Bentley, if I'm not mistaken, was giving one of those words, and this woman stood up, and he's just saying something so accurate, but then towards the end he said something like, and I'm seeing this, and I can't remember the name of the road. 

He says, like, your mother lives on this road. And what had happened was he had looked up somebody with the same name that had absolutely nothing to do with this woman, and yet nobody notices these things. But the false prophets were around in the days of Israel, just like they are around today. And I thank God that they're being exposed. 

Not that I don't believe that there is such a thing as a prophetic word, but that false prophets are everywhere around, and it's time that they be exposed. It's time that their lies be called out, because they're destroying the lives of many. And in 1 Kings 22, there was a huge problem with false prophets in the land there. 

So you recall Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, was called upon by Ahab, was it? Yeah, to come and help them in battle. And before they went to battle, Jehoshaphat says, you know, before we go, can we seek out a word from the Lord? And so Ahab called together 400 prophets of Baal, and they came and prophesied, and they said, for God's going to give them into your hand, and you're going to prosper in all that you do. 

And Jehoshaphat saw right through it. And he said, is there not yet one prophet of the Lord? And Ahab says, yeah, there's one. I don't like him because he never says anything nice about me. And so he comes up, Micaiah, I believe his name is, comes up, and he says, oh, go, go, for the Lord's going to give him into your hand. 

And Jehoshaphat says, how many times have I told you to only speak to me the truth? And he said, I looked at Israel, and they are like sheep without a shepherd. Let them go home. Let them go home. And so there was this huge problem with false prophets even then. And the children of Israel were listening to these false prophets, and they were saying that nothing bad was going to happen. 

And God's been issuing warning after warning that bad things are coming. So in verse 6, he says, my people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you for being my priest. Since you have forgotten the law of your God, I will also forget your children. 

Now, I've heard this verse being used, misused, time and time again. What's he talking about here? My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. What's he talking about? Is it a lack of being educated? Is that what he's talking about? Is that the knowledge he's talking about? 

My people are destroyed because they just don't have enough knowledge in their head? No, what he's talking about is that there is no knowledge of God. Because there is no knowledge of God in the land, my people are destroyed. And they have rejected, I will also reject you from being my priest. 

When he says that the word for reject here in the original language is ma'as. And it's a verb that means to loathe and to abhor and to have utter disdain. They didn't just reject, they were repulsed by it. They were repulsed by the word of God. They did not want the word of God. 

Let's go to Romans chapter 1. And beginning at the 18th verse, it says, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness. Because that which is known about God is evident within them, for God made it evident to them. 

For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen. Are you getting that? Been clearly seen. Being understood through what has been made so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations and their foolish heart was darkened. 

Professing to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. 

For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason, God gave them over to degrading passions. For their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural. In the same way also, the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. 

And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind to do those things which are not proper. Being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful. 

And although they know the ordinance of God that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same but also give hearty approval to those who practice them. So when he talks about there's no knowledge of God in the land, that's what he's talking about. 

They have rejected the truth. Just like he says in Romans chapter 1 that all mankind, he has clearly revealed himself in nature. He has clearly revealed himself and made himself known. And yet men rejected that truth, turned away from it, and created gods in their own image. And that's exactly what we see going on. 

So my people are destroyed for the lack of the knowledge of God. This is why the knowledge of God is so important and why you need to have the knowledge of God in your lives. So that you will know the truth. So that you will know the living God and who he is. Amen. 

They did not reject it. They didn't just reject it. They loathed, they hated the word of God and the knowledge of God. They completely rejected it. And that's what was going on there with the people of Israel. 

Verse number 7 says, the more they multiplied, the more they sinned against me. I will change their glory into shame. And isn't that the way how it goes with us sometimes? When we are in times of prosperity, when things are going good for us, we don't need God, do we? We got this. I can do this on my own. 

And I see this in America completely. We are in a time, when we're in a time of prosperity, the knowledge of God goes out the window and nobody cares. We got it. We're going. We're going. And he's saying, the more that they multiplied, the more they sinned against me. I will change their glory into shame. 

Oh beloved, it's so important that we have the knowledge of God. Verse number 8, they feed on the sin of my people and direct their desire toward their iniquity. And it will be like people like priests. So I will punish them for their ways and repay them for their deeds. 

Now what he's talking about here is that the priests in the Northern Kingdom were not really true priests. Remember when Jeroboam I established the Northern Kingdom, he set up idols. He set up bulls, golden calves, and I believe it was in Dan and in, I can't remember. 

But anyway, and then they made priests from anybody. Anybody who wanted to be a priest could come and be a priest. But they kept some of the things that were important in the priesthood, and one of them was the sacrificial system. And so they made sacrifices, and just like in the true priesthood, when a sacrifice was offered for sin, it was the responsibility of the priest to eat that sacrifice. 

And so that's what had happened. And it says here that they feed on the sin of my people. In other words, they were longing for sin. The more that the people sinned, the more they prospered, the more that they gained and they grew. They fed on the sin of his people and directed their desire toward their iniquity. 

They desired, the priests had desired so much that they would sin because then they would get more. What a shameful thing. What a shameful, shameful thing. And it says, and it will be like people like priests, so I will punish them for their ways and repay them for their deeds. 

They will eat but not have enough. They will play the harlot but not increase because they have stopped giving heed to the Lord. They stopped listening. They stopped hearing what God was saying. And I found that to be true in my own life, that when I wasn't walking with God, there was no satisfaction. 

There is no satisfaction outside of God, is there? I mean, I know there are testimonies throughout this place this morning and people that could raise their hand and say, you know what, I just, there was nothing that was satisfying in my life until Jesus came into it. Let me tell you something, that's the truth. There is no, no anything that's going to satisfy until we give our lives to the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Verse number 11, harlotry, wine, and new wine take away the understanding. My people consult their wooden idol, and the diviner's wand informs them, for a spirit of harlotry has led them astray, and they have played the harlot, departing from their God. 

Now, this is interesting, well, we've talked about it in the past, I'm not going to go into depth on it, but in the idolatrous worship, there was such debauchery that went on during that time, and so it became basically a drunken orgy, and so people would go to make a sacrifice and they would end up in sexual relations with temple prostitutes and on and on. He says, my people consult their wooden idol, and some of us might think that that's a little strange in this day and age, do people really bow down to idols? 

I tell you, yes, they do. I grew up in a religious system that every night we had to kneel before a statue and say our nightly prayers, and I look back at it now and I'm horrified to think that my family would think that was a good thing to do. We bowed down before an idol and prayed. 

And he says, and their diviner's wand informs them. And what they would do is they would go out, the people would go out to seek out a prophet, to seek out somebody, a word from the Lord. And so they would go and they would consult their idol and they would go to the diviner and the diviner's wand would inform them. 

Basically what they were doing is they were taking some sticks and setting them up, and they would ask the spirits what should happen, and they would let go of those rods and however they fell was the answer that they had. No different than shaking that little magic eight ball, you know, magic eight ball, what should I do, you know, that kind of thing, or am I going to have love or whatever. 

It's really not any different than that, but this is what they did. They went and they sought, other than seeking God, because they had no knowledge of God, because they had rejected him and loathed him, this is what they were reduced to, going and trying to get false spirits to give them direction in their lives. 

They played the harlot departing from their God. It says they offer sacrifices on the tops of the mountains and burn incense on the hills under oak, poplar, and terebinth, because their shade is pleasant, therefore your daughters play the harlot. 

And so they would go and they would make these sacrifices on the high places. They would set up these altars and they would go underneath the shade of a, the cool shade of a green tree, and because that was a pleasant place, or because they were on a high hill they thought that they would be closer to God. Oh, the thoughts of men are so strange, aren't they? 

Isn't the ways of man strange? But this is how the people of Israel in that day were acting. And verse 14 says, I will not punish your daughters when they play the harlot, or your brides when they commit adultery, for the men themselves go apart with harlots, and offer sacrifices with temple prostitutes. 

So the people without understanding are ruined. And so he's saying here, look, it's bad enough that your daughters are going and playing the harlot, in other words they were being temple prostitutes, it's bad enough that they were doing that. He says, but I'm not going to judge them, your daughters or their brides, when they commit adultery, for the men themselves go apart with idols, and offer sacrifices with temple prostitutes. 

In other words, everyone's saying it's okay, this is okay. And God says that, again, there are people without understanding. In verse number 15 then, he gives a warning to the southern kingdom. Now remember, the southern kingdom at this time was under, I believe it was King Hezekiah. And Hezekiah was a godly king, and he instructed the southern kingdom, Judah, in the ways of the Lord. 

The northern kingdom had gone aside, they had gone deep in depravity, they had gone deep into idolatry, and they hadn't. So he says in verse number 15, though you Israel...