In this sermon, the preacher focuses on the book of Hosea, specifically chapter 6. He mentions that Hosea tends to shift subjects suddenly, so the first three verses of chapter 6 may not necessarily be connected to the rest of the chapter. The preacher then discusses the idiom of Ephraim representing the Northern Kingdom and Judah representing the Southern Kingdom. He explains that the goodness of the people is compared to a morning cloud and early dew, which quickly disappears. The preacher also references Daniel 9 and Jesus' mention of it, highlighting its importance in end time prophecies. He briefly explains the mathematical prophecy in Daniel 9:25 and how it was fulfilled by Jesus. The preacher then jumps to Matthew 23, where Jesus laments over Jerusalem and expresses his desire to gather the people, but they refuse. The preacher concludes by mentioning the gap or interval mentioned in the Bible, which occurs 24 times and signifies a period between God gathering a people for His name out of the Gentiles.

Well, we're in a study of the book of Hosea, and as we get into the chapter 6 and on, it's getting increasingly prophetic. We had these very, very interesting personal examples being drawn earlier. We closed last time with the last verse of chapter 5, and by many forms of reckoning, it would seem that the last verse of chapter 5 really may well belong to chapter 6, if you will. Remember that these chapters and verses are man's divisions, typically 13th, 14th century type of annotations. And so on the one hand, they're helpful, but we should always guard against assuming that the chapter breaks are at the right place. There's a number of classical places where clearly they're off. Isaiah 53 really starts a couple of verses earlier. And this is one of those places that I think, knowing what we think we know now, that we probably include verse 15 of chapter 5 as the beginning of chapter 6, or at least it's always helpful to try to ignore the chapter breaks as you try to gain the sense. Clearly, there's a total shift of emphasis between verses 14 and 15 of chapter 5. And I want to review chapter 5, verse 15 from last time as our springboard to jump into chapter 6. Hosea chapter 5, verse 15, God says a strange thing through Hosea. This is one of the most remarkable verses in the Bible. And it startles me to discover how few of the commentators pick up on the implications of this verse. God says in verse 15, I will go and return to my place till they acknowledge their offense and seek my face, and in their affliction they will seek me earnestly, or early as the way it's in the King James. I will go and return to my... That's a strange thing for God to say. I will go and return to my place. In order to return to his place, he must have left it. Here is a declaration in effect of the two comings. He came once. He's going to go and return until what? They acknowledge their offense. What offense would that be, Israel? The rejection of their Messiah. I will go and return to my place until they acknowledge their offense and seek my face. In other words, turn back to him. In their affliction, they will seek me earnestly, or early as it shows up in the King James. Now, I can't resist putting this against a background. This verse should go against a background of the purpose, the tragedy, and the triumph of all history. That's a mouthful, isn't it? What is the purpose and the tragedy and yet the ultimate triumph of all of history? It happens to be summarized in a couple of verses at the end of Matthew 23. Hold your place here. We will go to Matthew 23. 23 is quite a chapter. It's hard to figure out where to pick up the context, but we're going to just jump in to verse 37. Jesus speaking, says, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often I would have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and ye would not. You see, that's the purpose of all history, for God to gather His own. And the tragedy of all history is that they would not. And as a result, verse 38, Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. Is it left desolate forever? No. No. Because there is a triumph forthcoming. Verse 39 alludes to it. For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. So here we have a very, very interesting summary of God's program. The whole purpose of history from God's point of view. As you look at Hosea chapter 5, verse 15, God says, I will go and return to my place till they acknowledge their offense and seek my face. And in their affliction they will seek me early. And chapter 6 will then pick up on that. But I also want you to, let's put this in another context. Remember Acts 15, this council of Jerusalem? This is where they all gathered to deal with this emerging issue of the Gentiles coming into the kingdom. And remember the Jews understandably felt that the way they became a Christian. Now we're talking about believing Jews now. We're talking about Messianic Jews. The way they became a Christian was to become a Jew and then accept Christ. And there's this big controversy that was looming. Paul and Barnabas go to Jerusalem and Peter and Paul, they all testify there. And then James, the brother of Christ, wrote the epistle of James, speaks up. Everybody that focuses on Acts 15 picks up, of course, on the main issue was, gee, does a Gentile, when he becomes a Christian, come under the law of Moses? And the answer, of course, was no, he did not. And incidentally there's two issues there. The other issue is implied. Because if... does that mean Israel is over? You see, if a Gentile doesn't have to become a Jew, what's all this for? What's Israel all about? All our heritage, all our culture. And James picks it up in verse 13 of Acts 15. Afterward they held their peace. James answered, saying, Men and brethren, hearken unto me. Simeon hath declared how God first did visit the nations to take out of them a people for his name. And to this agree the words of the prophets as is written, After this I will return. After what? After he gathers a people for his name out of the Gentiles. There's an interval here. This interval is a gap that shows up 24 times in the Bible. This is the interval between the 69th and the 73rd week of Daniel. This is the interval that's in that comma in Isaiah 61, verse 1 and 2, when Jesus opens his ministry in Isaiah 60. He quotes in the synagogue of Nazareth. He takes Isaiah and reads from Isaiah. You find this recorded in Luke 4. And he reads from Isaiah 61, verses 1 and 2. But when you compare Isaiah 61, verses 1 and 2, and the part that Jesus, he read up to a comma, and then closed the book and says, This day is the scripture fulfilled in your ears. He stopped, not at the end of the sentence, at a comma. What was left that he didn't read? And the day of vengeance of our God. That's yet coming. But there's a comma, an interval, a period. And what happens in this interval? The church. The gathering of people, the Gentiles. But then he quotes, what James is doing here in Acts 15 is quoting from Amos. After this I will return, God says, build again the tabernacle of David which is fallen down. I'll build again its ruins, and will set it up, that the residue of men might seek after the Lord and all the nations. Upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, that doeth all these things. And known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the age. Study of Acts 15 is usually focusing on this whole issue, does a Gentile have to become a Jew? There's more to it than there. There's this whole issue. OK, if that's the case, if a Gentile doesn't have to become a Jew, what's to become of Israel? Is it over? All this heritage, the whole? No, it's not over. And that's what he deals with here. It's often missed by people studying Acts 15. I'll leave you to dig in that on your own. But the point is, what we're dealing with here is a whole different perspective now. We're getting a much, much broader issue than just the predicament that Hosea is facing with the Northern Kingdom. Let's move on to Hosea chapter 6. And let's read the next three verses. God says to Hosea, Come, let us return unto the Lord, for he hath torn, and he will heal us. He hath smitten, and he will bind us up. And after two days he will revive us, and on the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight. Then shall we know it, if we follow on to know the Lord. His going forth is prepared as the morning, and he shall come up unto us as the rain, and as the latter and former rain unto the earth. These three verses have a number of different views by the experts. And I'll try to give you each of the perspectives here. Chapter 6, verse 1, Come, let us return unto the Lord. Some people view this as the prayer that the nation Israel will utter when they seek His face, and it's, in other words, a follow on of verse 15. See, Israel does apparently come to the realization that her sufferings have been disciplinary in nature. Verse 2, After two days will he revive us, and on the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight. What seems to be echoing here is the resurrection of Israel in the sense that it shows up in Ezekiel 37. Remember the vision of the dry bones? That Israel will be regathered, and the vision there in Ezekiel is that he sees a valley of bones, these bones come together, flesh comes upon them, and so forth, and where he revives Israel again. And then verse 3, Then shall we know, if we follow on, to know the Lord, his goings forth is prepared as the morning, and he shall come unto us as the rain, the latter and former rain. The certainty of the Lord's coming is as assured as the divine decree that the dawn must follow the night, that the boker will follow the erav, if you will, in the Hebrew. And the coming will also be like the latter rain, that's the spring rain. Remember their year starts in the fall, so the latter rain is in the spring. It's always occasion for rejoicing, there's a whole bunch of verses, I won't take you through all that here. Deuteronomy, Job, Proverbs, Joel makes reference of the former latter rains. Now there's several different views the commentators have of these verses. Some of them believe that this repentance that's here described is a superficial repentance, because there's no specific mention, degenerate contrition of sin in their view. I don't happen to hold that view for this verse, but in any case, if one does accept that view of the verse, it certainly also continues to be parallel today. Certainly the shallow lack of repentance form of turning to the Lord is characteristic of evangelical Christianity today. We hear a lot about receiving the Lord Jesus Christ and being saved, we don't hear a lot about repentance. We don't hear a lot about real contrition for sin. And Voltaire, the brilliant French atheist, and I won't fracture my French, but he just says, he says, translated, Forgiveness, that's God's job. It's sort of a cynical rebuttal, that well, you know, and we often hear that echoed. I was intrigued to discover it was actually, it started with Voltaire. As if forgiveness is sort of free and not to worry about it, that's God's job. No, there's a real need for contrition and repentance for sin, and that's obviously crucial. There's another view that comes closer to it, I think, and that this, these verses here are the cry of a repentant nation that is finally seeking the Lord in time of affliction. And some of the great experts, Colin Dillitch and others of the Hebrew, support that. The one that impresses me the most and that I'm most indebted to for the insights in this passage and its related passages is Arnold Fuchtenbaum, Dr. Fuchtenbaum's good friend, brilliant Jewish, you know, let's say he ain't Jew, but his work is outstanding. He has a book called The Footprints of the Messiah, that's a summary of Old Testament prophecy that's more thorough than anyone I've seen, because he really gets into all the minor prophets and the rest, as it really takes a Jewish heart and a Jewish background to do. But he also is famous for his Ph.D. thesis, which is available in a hardback book. If you go to any collection of books called Systematic Theology, there's a number of major ones out, if you look at all of them, the table of contents are pretty much the same. They all talk about Christology, the study of Christ, Pneumatology, the study of the Holy Spirit, Angeology, they have all these categories of theology that all these books address. What's fascinating is every one of them overlooks a topic, a theological topic that constitutes five-sixths of the Bible. And you won't find it as a topic, as a focus of study in any of the Systematic Theology books. And Arnold noticed this and did his Ph.D. thesis on it. The missing element is Israelogy, the study of Israel as an element in God's plan. It's strangely not a central focus, obviously all these things talk about it, but that's the focus of his work and it's excellent. But he has a very unusual view that I'm drawn to for this whole passage, Hosea 5, 15 on. And this gets back, to put this into perspective a little bit, we need to step back and remind ourselves of God's plan for Israel in order to put this into focus. I think all of us in this room, I hope, if you've had any sophistication in Biblical studies, are familiar with the various covenants. And you're familiar, of course, with the Palestinian covenant that God, this strange piece of real estate, to this day is being contested by the world. That's Israel's right to the land. And God gave that to Abraham in chapter 12 and confirmed it in Genesis 12 and in Genesis 15. In fact, confirmed it all the way to the Euphrates. Someone wants to talk about the West Bank, say, which river did you have in mind? But the point is, Zechariah also talks about how the entire world is going to go to war with Jerusalem. And that's getting all positioned. The whole world. That's ridiculous. Why? What for? A city that has no natural resources, no river, no harbors, no reason to be relevant in the world except for religious reasons. And to whom? You know, a minority of Jews. The Muslims had it for a thousand years and ignored it until they realized it was important to the Jews. Then it became very important to Islam, of course. And then, the Christians, we'd like to visit there, but not to die for. And yet the whole world. Zechariah talks about how the whole world is going to go to war with Jerusalem. This whole issue of the right to the land. The tragic sellout of Rabin in Paris. The Bible is not our title due to the land. Oh, really? That was in their speeches. Again and again and again. And if the Bible doesn't give a right to the land, then what are they doing there? Their only right to the land is a God-given right, as documented in the Torah, in the books of Moses. So this whole contest going on right now. The Oslo Accords, the interference of the United States in their elections and pushing them into a position of dependency on a world police force and all this stuff going on. But the point is, it's interesting. The first deportation of the Southern Kingdom, of course, occurred when Babylon. The Northern Kingdom gets wiped out by the Assyrians. That's their judgment that Hosea is dealing with. A century later, the Southern Kingdom has also been under decline and under the preaching of Jeremiah. They don't listen. And ultimately the Babylonians take them into captivity for 70 years. And they come back after that deportation. That was the first deportation. The second deportation occurs when Jerusalem fell in 70 A.D. Jesus comes to the Messiah, presents himself as king, weeps over Jerusalem, predicts their destruction 38 years later. Most fascinatingly, that's 38 years later, from the triumphal entry until the fall of Jerusalem. The same number of years that they wandered in the wilderness. Now the second regathering from the deportation is, of course, the one that Ezekiel is talking about, Ezekiel 37. Their regathering, we've been watching since, you know, with the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, is the second regathering. In Isaiah 11.11, he says, When I regathered them the second time. That's all she wrote. And so that's what's been going on now. I think most of us realize that this is all heading, we're still in the church period. The church has not been removed yet. So we're in this strange interval. And again, I'm going to speak in the idioms of the 70-week prophecy of Daniel. I won't try to go through it all. We'll use all our time for that. But I do want to highlight the last verse of Daniel 9. It's crucial. The last four verses of Daniel 9, the most important prophetic passage, if you're interested in end-time prophecies, and Jesus so pointed to it, when four disciples came to him for a confidential briefing on the second coming, he pointed them to Daniel 9. And Daniel 9.24 gives you the scope of the whole thing, which is seventy-sevens of years that he turned upon Israel. And sixty-nine of them are dealt in verse 25, in which he basically gives them a mathematical prophecy, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Mashiach Nagid, the Messiah, the King, would be a precise number of days. And those days were fulfilled to the exact day when Jesus presented himself as a king, deliberately fulfilling Zechariah 9.9, riding a donkey into Jerusalem. And, of course, there is a seventieth week yet designated, but there is an interval. They're not contiguous. There's an interval between the last... the sixty-nine weeks and the very last, the seventieth week. That interval is described in verse 26. The seventieth week will be dealt with in verse 27. Verse 26 is after the three score and two weeks. So seven plus sixty-two, that's the sixty-nine, shall the Messiah be executed, but not for himself, and the people of the world. And the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. The prince that shall come, one of the thirty-three titles of the Antichrist in the Old Testament. He shall come destroy the city and the sanctuary, which indeed he did in 70 A.D. And the end of it shall be with a flood, an outpouring, a diaspora. And the end of the war and desolations are determined. Verse 27 then deals with this remaining week. And he, who's the he? The prince that shall come, the Antichrist. He shall confirm the covenant. He doesn't sign a treaty. It's amazing how many people make their little charts and stuff. They all have a lot of prophecy buffs say, well, he's going to sign a treaty for seven years. He may. He may, but that's not what it says. The word confirms, kabar. It means to enforce. It forms the covenant. Maybe it's a treaty. I don't think it's the Oslo Accord. A lot of people think it is. I don't, for a lot of reasons. But the point is, he enforces the covenant. What covenant might he be enforcing? He might be enforcing the Palestinian covenant. Why does Isaiah call it the covenant with hell? Because they're looking to him, not God, for the enforcement of that covenant. That's a conjecture on my part, but I share it with you for those possibilities. It's interesting that this is the guy that's featured in Revelation chapter 6, the white horseman, who comes with a bow, conquering and to conquer. Everybody assumes that bow is like a bow and arrow, and it may be, but the word in the Greek is toxon, and it's the same word that's used in the Septuagint version of the Old Testament when speaking in Genesis chapter 9, where the word toxon means a token of a covenant. In that case, it's the rainbow that God makes a covenant with Noah. But the word toxon means it's a token of a covenant. So it's possible that part of what's characterizing him is he's stepping into God's shoes to enforce the Palestinian covenant, apparently, for a seven-year period, except the middle of that seven-year period he turns on. It says in the midst of the week, he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease. They apparently have started. And for the over-spreading of abominations, he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured out upon the desolate. This is the so-called 70th week of Daniel. It goes by many, many names. The seven-year period in the Holy Spirit has used more ways to try to indicate this is literal, specific. The seven years divided into two halves, three-and-a-half years, three-and-a-half years. Each half is called 42 months. Each half is called 1,260 days. He's done everything but do it in hours and minutes and seconds. Now the last half of that seven-year period has an additional label. It's called the Great Tribulation. The Tribulation is not seven years. It's the last three-and-a-half years. We often use the term Tribulation in a connotative sense to refer to this whole 70th week of Daniel. But if we're going to be precise, Jesus Himself in Matthew 24 verse 15 nails down the term Great Tribulation as a time from this abomination of desolation in the middle of the week to the end. But I don't want to get into all of that here. The point is we're dealing here with the Day of Wrath, the Day of Judgment. And it's interesting to discover that this period called the Tribulation has 21 different labels that I've found so far in the Old Testament and 10 in the New. The time of Jacob's trouble is the most descriptive one in Jeremiah 30 verse 27. We think of the Great Tribulation in the worldwide terms, and it probably is, but the focus of it is Israel, Jacob. It's called the 70th week of Daniel, in effect. It's called Jehovah's strange work, his strange act in Isaiah 28, the Day of Israel's calamity in Deuteronomy 32 in Obadiah, several verses, the Tribulation, the indignation, the overflowing scourge, the Day of Vengeance, the Day of Recompense. It goes on and on. Day of Wrath, Day of Distress, Day of Wasteness. Zephaniah has a whole bunch of different labels, and on it goes. In the New Testament, there's about 10 different labels. The Day of the Lord, the Wrath of God, the Hour of Trial, the Great Day of the Wrath of the Lamb of God. Wow. I always felt it would make a neat bumper sticker. Beware the Lamb. You know, unbelievably, what on earth is that? I'm glad you asked, you know. You brought it up. Now, so what we're facing, it's very tragic. You know, you always see this little sign, Never Again. It's a claim by Israel. Never again will they let the Holocaust happen. I got tragic news for them. Hitler, during the Holocaust in Europe, killed one-third of the Jews. Zechariah 13, verse 8, indicates that this guy, the coming one, is going to kill two-thirds of the Jews. It's a time of trouble, Jesus said, that is unparalleled, unequal. So there is a time of trouble coming. And that's part of what's facing here. Now when we're in Daniel here, there is a verse in Daniel chapter 11, verse 41, that many people overlook. All these people talk about, you know, the Oslo Accords and the so-called peace process, which of course is not a peace process, it's a sellout, but that's a whole other issue. But in Daniel chapter 11, the first thirty-five verses are historical, and thirty-six on, especially forty on, is clearly prophetic, and thirty-six to forty sort of overlap in a sense, and that's a whole other exegetical issue. But clearly from forty on is prophetic, yet future, end times. But in verse 41, it's speaking of the anti-crisis, we would use the term. I don't like that term, but everybody uses it so I won't fight it. But there are, as I say, thirty-three different labels you can use just from the Old Testament alone. But here he's talking, it says, he shall enter into the glorious land, that's an idiom for Israel, and many countries shall be overthrown. No surprise, we know that from Revelation 13, everywhere else. But I want you to notice what it says in verse 41, but these shall escape out of his hand, even Edom, Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon. The anti-Christ is not going to be a global ruler. We're all aware there's a tide apparently in leadership thinking, not just in the U.S., but also in Europe, that, you know, towards a one world government. There's a very clear trend. Many Christians anticipate that from the reading of the Scripture. But I think that while there may arise a dominant power, probably Euro-centered, it's clear there isn't a one world government because Armageddon is a four power conflict. Kings of the East, whatever, and so on. But what's interesting here, there's a specific piece of turf that escapes his domain. These shall escape out of his hand, Edom, Moab, and the chief children of Ammon. Now that's using, of course, the ancient tribal names. What part of the world, how do we know today what region that was biblically called Edom and Moab and Ammon? Answer, Jordan. Jordan consists of those three countries, what was at one time three different countries. That's Jordan. And what this says is that for some reason the anti-Christ is not going to control Jordan at this time. It doesn't say why. It doesn't explain why. There's a conjecture afoot that that gives Israel, the remnant, the believing remnant, a place to flee to. That's the scary thing about a one world government. If there had been a one world government during the 30s, where would the Jews have fled to? Somewhere able to leave Germany, you see, and so forth. The independent nation state is still a very critical factor in individual freedom. But in this case, it would seem that that's one of the reasons, especially since there's lots of Scripture that indicates specifically that's what the believers in Judea are going to be called to flee to. At this point, as we set this background, let's return to Matthew 24. We looked at the end of chapter 23. I won't get into all the details of chapter 24, except to say that four disciples come to Jesus for a confidential briefing on a second coming. Peter, James, and John, and Andrew. And he gives them a briefing about his second coming. He opens and closes it by warning them, don't be deceived. It's going to be characterized by deceit. But then he gives them a whole bunch of non-signs. This, that, and the other thing is going to happen, but the end is not yet. The famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes. Everybody uses those in the prophecy videos. But Jesus said the end is not yet. Those are not signs. Yes, earthquakes may be increasing. Yes, this, that, and the other thing may happen. But those are not signs. He says so in verse 6. But the end is not yet. For nations shall rise against men. All these other things are going to happen. Fine. What is the key to the whole chapter? Verse 15. When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place. Whosoever readeth, let him understand. That's a great verse for a thousand reasons. When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation. That's a very specific thing. Where do you find it? In Daniel chapter 9. Spoken of by Daniel the prophet. If you need authentication that Daniel really wrote the book of Daniel, you got it right here by none other than Jesus Christ himself. If you believe in Jesus Christ, you got no problem with the authority of Daniel. If you don't believe in Jesus Christ, you got bigger problems than the authority of Daniel. But we'll move on. When you see this thing, stand in the holy place. Now there's a problem right away. The holy place is behind the veil which is inside the holy, the holy of holies, actually in the holy of holies, which is inside the holy place, which is inside the temple. You had to be a priest, not even a Levite, a priest to go in the temple. And how do you, how can those that are in Judea, as you'll see, this is all addressed to those in Judea, how can they see what's going on? Very simple. It won't be amateur radio slow scan either. It'll be CNN or whatever. By the way, there's also a parenthetical remark here by the Lord. Whosoever readeth, let him understand. This is not for pastors or prophecy teachers or specialists or experts. This is for you and me. Whosoever readeth, let him understand. He expects you to do the homework to understand what is the abomination of desolation, what is Daniel 9 really all about. If you're serious about Jesus Christ, you want to understand all this stuff. Verse 16. Then let them who are in Judea, not in Idaho or Orange County or Washington, D.C. or whatever. No, no. Those who are in Judea, flee into the mountains. Really, where are the mountains? East. Where? Across the Jordan. Where? In Jordan. Let him who is on the housetop. Not come down to take anything out of his house. The housetop was sort of like a patio because there are houses built on the hillsides. That's where you spent the cool evening. Don't go down to the house to grab a coat. Get out of there. Split. Now. Verse 18. Neither let him who is in the field return back to take his clothes. You run for it when this happens. And woe unto them who are with children. Those are nurse children in those days. Pray that your flight be not in winter. It snows there sometimes. We were there once and there was a couple of feet of snow. We have great pictures of the rabbis throwing snowballs in front of the waiting wall. It doesn't happen very often, but it does. Neither on the Sabbath day, which proves that this passage is not addressed to the church or Gentiles. This passage is addressed to Jews. You and I don't sweat about Sabbath day journeys. An observant Jew does. Pray that your flight be not on the Sabbath day. That creates problems. Can't get a cab. Elevators don't work. Seriously. You ever been in Israel on Shabbat and hope you don't get a Shabbat elevator? Stops on every floor automatically. You can't. Anyway. Then he goes on and talks about the tribulation and all this stuff and goes on. Now the point is, and I'm not going to go through all the details, we have a briefing package that really goes into all of this in great detail. Two tape set called The Next Holocaust and The Refuge in Edom, which describes not only the reality of this holocaust that's coming, but it talks about the whole second coming implications. Where does Jesus return to? Well, He returns to the Mount of Olives. Not first. His feet in that day shall stand on the Mount of Olives. Zechariah 14.12. But that's when He's victory. Where does He come back first? Isaiah 63 tells you. In Edom. And when He comes from Edom, His clothes are bloodstained because He's been fighting on behalf of the remnant in Edom. Read Isaiah 63. It's brutal stuff. If you want to read in this area, Isaiah 24-27, verse 1, are what's sometimes called the Little Apocalypse. It's a summary. By the way, the Book of Revelation, I believe, from chapter 6 through 18, full end of 18, is an expansion of the 7th week of Daniel. The 404 verses of Revelation contain over 800 allusions from the Old Testament. So it really is a challenge to understand the Old Testament to try to unravel that book. But the whole events of the so-called Day of the Lord, time of Jacob's trouble is there. Israel is called God's firstborn. Exodus 4.22. The firstborn had the double portion of both blessings and cursings. And so they're going to get a double portion of both. And the general description of Israel in the Tribulation is described in Isaiah chapter 3. And the Day of Jehovah passages are in Ezekiel 13, Zechariah 13, Joel 2, 3, Amos 5, Zephaniah focuses on that. A lot of the minor prophets that we've done have focused on that. What's interesting to me about Oral Fruchtenbaum's observation of Hosea 5.15 is that God says I will go and return to my place until they acknowledge their offense. What that implies then is that there is a prerequisite condition to the second coming. Not to the rapture. The rapture will come at God's own discretion, at His timing. It's a secret. No one knows the day nor the hour. Not even the Son when He said that. Mark 13.32. The Son says no man knows the day nor the hour, not the angels in heaven, not the Son, but the Father only. That's a weird verse. That's a troublesome verse theologically. You mean there's something a Father knows the Son doesn't? Ooh. Well at least at that time. That may be explained by Revelation's first sentence. The Revelation singular unveiling. Apocalypse. The revelation of whom? Jesus Christ, which God gave unto whom? Not John. The revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave unto Him. Whom? Him. Jesus Christ. And He that He might give and signify it, run it into signs, unto His servant John. So it's the Father's revelation to the Son. Weird stuff. Interesting stuff. Wow. But see if there is a prerequisite condition, what is this prerequisite condition? That the believing remnant, when the abomination of desolation takes place in Jerusalem, in the temple, they split. Where do they go? They go to Edom. Specifically into Petra. Formerly called Basra. Basra means sheepfold. If you've ever been to Petra, you quickly get the picture. It's a walled area. You enter only one way through a channel that's less than ten, twenty feet wide, a mile long, called the seek. The point is a sheepfold was a place that had only one entrance. Shepherd could gather his feet, count them as they go in, count them as they go out. He also would sleep across the door. And that was the way he prayed. That was what a sheepfold was. The word Basra means sheepfold. Here's a gigantic sheepfold. The estimates are there could be a million people in there. Fascinating study. But that's where they're going to hide. Or flee from the Antichrist. And apparently, according to some scholars have this view, is that they're going to pray verse, chapter 6, verse 1 and 2 and 3. Come, let's return unto the Lord, for he hath torn, he hath healed us, and he hath smitten, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us. On 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 goings forth is prepared as the morning, and he shall come unto us as the rain, and the latter and former rain unto the earth. Procter and Bome even go so far as to believe that, see, when did Israel reject their Messiah? It wasn't at the cross. He was crucified by Gentile authority, by Gentile hands. When did Israel reject him? Matthew 12, from verse, chapter 13 on, Jesus changes his whole style. He speaks only in riddles. Parables. Why? Read Matthew 13. So that they're hearing they won't hear. That's his way of coding it toward his own people. Why? What happened in Matthew 12 that was such a big deal? The unpardonable sin. We all talk about the unpardonable sin. I believe the unpardonable sin is a national sin, not an individual sin. What happened in Matthew 12? He cast out a demon. Well, that's no big deal. He did that many times. No, he did something very unusual. And you have to be Jewish to understand what was unusual. There was a demoniac that was dumb. Couldn't speak. Under the procedure of Jewish exorcism, the first step was to have the demon identify himself. And when a demon could not, when, if he was dumb, the guy couldn't identify, you know, he wouldn't identify himself, that was a kind of demon the rabbis could not deal with. When Jesus dealt with one of those, that was a sign to them that he was the Messiah. That was regarded in Jewish theology as something only the Messiah could do, and when he did that, it shook them up. If you read the parallel accounts, not only Matthew 12 but also Mark, that all comes out. And they said, then what did the Pharisees do to explain that? Well, he did it by Beelzebub. They ascribed his power to Satan. And that's when Jesus said to them, sin against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but sin against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. And that's a national, they're ascribing him as the works of Satan. And by some scholastic reckoning, they feel that's the point, that was when, that was torn, that was the end of it for Israel. From that point on, the path to the cross was locked up. Then they asked for a sign in Matthew 12. Here's a sign. I always loved that passage, you've got to be kidding. He just did something that shook them to their core, and they need another sign? He says, there'll be no sign given to this adulterous generation, calls them generation of vipers. You have to understand how Jews feel about vipers. He said, there'll be no sign given to you but the sign of this prophet Jonah. As Jonah spent three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so shall some man spend three days and three nights in the belly of the earth. Now most of us quickly grasp that that's a prediction, of course, of the resurrection on the third day. Some scholars believe it has multiple fulfillments. And one of those fulfillments being this fulfillment, that the third day after they petition, his next sign will be when he comes in power to fight for them. Where? In Edom. And that's what Isaiah 63 details. It's a bloody description of his return. And it's the victory that he goes, by then he goes to Mount Olive. That's at least one scenario. But what appeals to me about Frankenbaum's analysis, it also explains why Satan is so anti-Semitic. Well, he's anti-God's plan. As God explains he's going to do it through Abraham, Abraham gets singled out. Then Isaac, then Jacob. Finally when he gets to the house of David, he singles out the house of David. All these plots, the whole Bible is full of Satan's plots. Whether it's the corruption of the human race in Genesis 6 through the Nephilim, whether it's the killing of the babes by Pharaoh, or whether it's the killing babes in Bethlehem. He's always trying to thwart God's plan. When God reveals it's going to be through the house of David, the house of David is singled out. All these intrigues. All the kids, all the air is wiped out, but the servant hiding a baby at the last minute. All these intrigues. Fascinating chronicle. Well, I can understand Satan's attempt to try to thwart the plan of God up until the cross. With the cross, and then especially with the resurrection the third day later. You'd think, hey, it's a done deal. Why is Satan still at it? Is he so stupid? Doesn't he know? Or does he at least perceive a loophole remaining? If he can wipe out the Jews in general, but more specifically the believers, so that they can't petition Christ's return, he can thwart God's plan, in his mind at least. Follow me? I don't know if that's right, but it appeals to me, because that makes sense to me. And your whole summary of Satan's predicament is described in Revelation 12. Again, I'm really, this is all by way of background, so we're going to, we're clobbering our time for Hosea here. At the same time, this is the fabric against which Hosea 6 emerges. So I commend to you the review of Revelation 12 in your Revelation commentary if you have those notes. I recommend that you, if you, to review the next holocaust, the refuge in Edom, for an unusual summary of prophecies that many of the prophecy books don't really get into, into that kind of depth, in general at least. The whole issue of the remnant and all of that. The prerequisite of the second coming, the key passage on Leviticus 26, verses 40, 41, and 42. He describes back in the Torah, Moses said, because of the disobedience, they're going to be scattered throughout the world. And all their blessings and promises are conditioned upon confessing their iniquity. And the word iniquity there, especially in verse 40 of Leviticus 26, is specific. It's not iniquities in general, it's a specific iniquity. Jeremiah 3 deals with this. I won't go through all of them. They'll be in your notes for those who want to do a more thorough study. Armageddon is a full campaign. It accomplishes a lot of things. The assembling of the armies of the Antichrist in that region called the Valley of Jezreel. We talked about that previously. The destruction of Babylon, of course, falls in that time. And the fall of Jerusalem. The armies at Basra. The national regeneration, and of course the second coming. It's a great, great study. But Basra, to the valley, to Armageddon, the Valley of Jehoshaphat, the Valley of Jezreel. Do you know how far that is? It's 176 miles. Do you know what that is? Sixteen hundred furlongs. Does that ring a bell from Revelation 14, verse 20? Mentions the distance. So you can tie that together on your own. And then of course we have the victory of Senna, Mount of Olives, and so on. That covers what? The first three verses of chapter six. And if you take out your calculators, you can figure at this rate we'll finish chapter six a week from Tuesday. No, what Hosea is going to do from verse four on is pick up again the Lord's case against Israel, the northern kingdom. He's going to expand this. Even, Kyle, some of the experts notice that Hosea's style is to shift subjects rather suddenly. So the fact that 515 through 6, verse 3, is sort of a parenthetical insert is not surprising. Hosea tends to do that, it seems. So there's no necessity necessarily that the first three verses of Hosea 6 deal with the rest of the chapter. But anyway, let's continue verse four. God continues, Oh Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? Oh Judah, what shall I do unto thee? Ephraim is the idiom for the northern kingdom, Judah for the southern kingdom. For your goodness is like a morning cloud, and like the early dew, goeth away. What's a morning cloud? What's the dew? It's there in the morning, but it quickly evaporates. Your loyalty to me is like the morning dew. That's in effect what he's saying. And see the immediate restoration of Israel is impossible because of their lack of loyalty. Easy to diagnose, but very difficult to remedy. And this whole thing is not new, this is ingrained since the time of the judges. This goes way, way back. Verse 5, Therefore have I hewed them by the prophets, I have slain them by words of my mouth, and the judgments are as the light that goeth forth. See the array of prophets that have visited Israel have wielded the sword. What sword? The word, the sword of the spirit. And lots of verses in the Old Testament as well as the New that deal with all that. Ephesians 6, 17, Hebrews 4, 12 come to mind, the New Testament. But Isaiah 49, 2, Jeremiah 5, 14, there's a number of Old Testament equivalent phrases in the sword of the spirit as an idiom. It's interesting to realize how God uses these idioms, figures of speech, consistently, consistently. And you want a dramatic example of that, 1 Corinthians 10, 4 speaks of the rock that was Christ. And you discover the rock, the stone of stumbling, the stone of the building. If you take a concordance and study a rock or stone from Genesis to the end, it always alludes to Jesus Christ in some surprising ways. The stone that the builders rejected. The stone that strikes Nebuchadnezzar's image. That's one of the things, once you discover that, it sounds like, gee, you're dealing in trivial detail. Yes and no, because once you discover that, you realize the integrity of these 66 books. Everybody kids me because I repeat that phrase so often. The 66 books penned by over 40 guys over thousands of years, yet it's an integrated message. And you discover that by style, you discover by the numbers, the structure, the text, all these. But the consistency of use of idioms over these 40 different authors over thousands of years. The Holy Spirit is there very clearly involved. Verse 6, God said, For I desired mercy and not sacrifice the knowledge of God more than burn offerings. If that rings familiar to you, it's no surprise, Jesus quotes it. In Matthew 9, 13. In Matthew 12, 7, it's quoted frequently. Israel's sacrifices are meaningless because they don't have a corresponding loyalty. The word is chesed, loving kindness. But in the sense that's used here especially, it's a loyalty sense. To the one to whom the sacrifice is directed. What good is a sacrifice if you have no real commitment? Real commitment. Let's underline that word. We don't use that in our culture anymore. Now verse 7 through 9, He indulges with three cities. It's not obvious from your English translation. Verse 7, the King James says, But they like men have transgressed the covenant. They have dealt treacherously against me. And the Hebrew word there has been, like men, can be translated like men. And that fits. But it also can mean at Adam in the Hebrew. And it suggests a geographical place on the Jordan River. And the next line speaks of there, a geographic, that seems to support that particular rendering. It's the site where the water is divided in Joshua chapter 3 verse 16. And yet, even though all of that, Adam had fallen like the rest of Israel and transgressing the covenant. These are all three cities, Adam, Gilead, and I'll come to the next one, in the Northern Kingdom. So some, I think it's the NIV and the NASB, they treat Adam like the first man. So whether you use like men, the way it's in the King James, or whether you use like Adam the city that fell, or whether you use it like the first, you know, the first Adam, all of them carry the same thought, in effect. Now by the way, this is, this kind of ambiguity is the kind of thing that I, I don't see them saying it, but I believe is probably deliberate. Hosea did that all the time. He dealt in puns. And there's a lot of these. And we'll see another one here in a minute. We miss it in the English, but in the Hebrew the pun is there. The ambiguities in translation often can be deliberate wordplay. And that's one of the things we explore in our book, Cosmic Codes. I think this is evidence of design, in effect, not, not accidental ambiguities. Verse 8, Gilead is a city of them that work iniquity, and is polluted with blood. Now Gilead is singled out because here murder reigned, and the covenant obligations were ignored. Gilead actually a district, so the, the, most scholars believe that the reference here is in a city called Rameth Gilead, which is east of the Jordan. The town became a, a center for workers of iniquity, and in fact the street, the actual words here, the streets are pictured as being tracked with blood from the murderous sandals. That's really what the Hebrew language suggests. Verse 9, And as troops of robbers wait for a man, so the company of priests murder in the way by consent, for they commit lewdness. Now the word by consent in the English also can be translated to Shechem in the Hebrew. It's a third city, the city of Shechem. And again, I think this could be a deliberate pun. It's hyperbolic, because it refers to, on the one hand, the priest's false teaching, and their involvement with social exploitation. Both Gilead and Shechem are well chosen, because these towns also were designated as cities of refuge. You may recall that out of the 48 Levitical cities, six of them are cities of refuge, three east of the Jordan, three west of the Jordan. And here are towns that should have been places that justice is promoted, and yet here's a place that justice was trampled. These cities had become associated with bloodshed and injustice. One of the things that I'm fond of emphasizing is that every detail in the Scripture is there by design, and further, points to Jesus Christ. And it's fun to try to find examples that are challenges of that view. I'm sure there are many, but once some time ago it was suggested that came up, and someone suggested cities of refuge. In fact, if you look at the most commentators, they treat the city of refuge laws under Moses and then enforced under Joshua as quaint tribal customs, rather than something in the Word. If this is the Word of God, they're not simply ancient tribal customs. Well, the city of refuge mechanic is a very strange one, because what the city of refuge idea was, that if you kill somebody under conditions you and I would call manslaughter. Now, there's not premeditated murder. That's a different category. If you did commit premeditated murder, how was that enforced? They didn't have policemen. They didn't send the FBI or some investigative... the temple's investigative arm. The guy that came after you was the next of kin. He was known as the Avenger of Blood. Now, if it was premeditated murder, you know, they wouldn't help you. But if it was manslaughter, you had an alternative. You would hightail it to the nearest city of refuge. Don't confuse Jerusalem, that's down south. The city of refuge is scattered all through Israel. You go to the nearest city of refuge. And if you can convince the city fathers sitting at the gate that this was a manslaughter, an accidental death, then if they treated it that way, then you could have sanctuary in the city. That's why it's called a city of refuge. As long as you were in the city of refuge, the Avenger of Blood, when he showed up, couldn't touch you. You had sanctuary, asylum as we might call it, in the city of refuge. If you left town, you had it. He might be waiting for you, and you were fair game. You were stuck there, stay in town, until the high priest died. Down in Jerusalem, there's a high priest. When the high priest dies, all bets are off. You can go home. The Avenger of Blood can't touch you. That sound kind of weird? Sound like just, well, you know, most scholars, it's just the tribal way of dealing with the situation. I don't think so. I think somehow that God has a message here. Well, how do we analyze this one? Well, the first question is, let's talk about Jesus Christ. His death on the cross. Was that premeditated murder or manslaughter? Well, it depends from whose point of view. From God's point of view, the Father's point of view, it was premeditated by His deliberate counsel. He planned that before Adam was created. So it's premeditated on the Father's part. But from our part, from our point of view, was that premeditated? What did Jesus say on the cross? Father, forgive them for they... Okay, defense counsel rests. Manslaughter from our point of view. Well, what does that give us an opportunity to do? We get to flee to a city of refuge. Who's our city of refuge? Jesus Christ. For how long? Till the high priest dies. Who's our high priest? Who? I'll let you play with that. You can go with it. You pick it up from there, carry the ball. We're going to try to do a photo finish here on chapter 6. One other thing I wanted to mention before I leave chapter, verse 9. The priest's crimes were shameful. The word tsema in the Hebrew is used of the vilest form of sexual sins, including incest in Leviticus 18, cult, prostitution, rape, adultery, and I won't go on and on. There's plenty of verses. They'll be in your notes. Now, the sexual connotation to the word may have been used because the priest's breach of the covenant is likened to prostitution. So again, God's using this parallel idioms of adultery and idolatry as parallel things. Anyway, verse 10. I have seen a horrible thing in the house of Israel. There is whoredom in Ephraim. Israel is defiled. Also, O Judah, he hath set a harvest for thee when I return the captivity of my people. Notice verse 11 includes the southern kingdom. They're getting warned here. The focus of the passage, the focus of Hosea is on the northern kingdom, because they're going to get theirs. The Assyrians are going to be God's instrument to wipe out that kingdom. They don't get put in captivity in return. They're captured, enslaved, and distributed. The others in the Assyrian Empire are transferred there. And so those that left get intermixed. And that's what creates the Samaritans. Samaria was their capital. It fell. The Assyrians co-mingled their other captives there and shipped them elsewhere. The co-mingling result is the Samaritans. Some scholars view them as half Jews, despised by the Jews in subsequent years, as not being true Jews, if you will, because they were no longer separate. And that's what Jesus, of course, plays upon in the Good Samaritan story. So we'll obviously leave chapter 7 for next time. One of the things as we go through Hosea, we're talking like tonight, we talked a lot about the background of what's coming for Israel, the tribulation. Talked about God's overall plan. We talked about all that stuff. There's a danger in this, and it's very, very easy trap to fall in when we talk about prophecy and God's grand designs and these things, is that it's easy for us to depersonalize God. Hosea, especially in these later chapters, is focusing on God's relationship with Israel, and we will see more and more in the subsequent chapters His heartbreak. The words will fall like tears from a broken heart of God's passion and concern over Israel and their lack of loyalty, their lack of love. But what we need to do as we do all this, be careful, because there's also a danger that we ourselves depersonalize God in our own minds, in our own hearts, in our own studies. He is a very personal God for each of us, you and I. He reveals Himself in His word and through history. The danger of depersonalizing Him is that we should not live in an expectation of automatic renewal. That somehow no matter what we do and what we think, God's going to renew it, He's going to be there for us. That's being very, very presumptuous. Well, that's His job. That's that cynical cynicism from Voltaire showing up. Once you think of Him as impersonal, as some kind of force, or some kind of broad impersonal thing, you empty the meaning of words like return. We want to be careful that we're not guilty of substituting an emotional commitment to a cultural tradition. Don't substitute for that a personal living relationship to a God who cares for you. So when we read Hosea and we read these passages, we get some grasp, we get all excited because we see the sweep of God's plan and we see how, we pick up the newspaper and see how it's all coming together. Be careful, because on the one hand, that excitement is constructive. On the other hand, be careful it doesn't depersonalize Him so it keeps you from knowing Him personally, because His righteous law holds each one of us individually accountable. I'm sure all of us in this room have things that we would rather not bring up in open prayer, but we better bring up in private prayer to Him. Hopefully, for some, they may not be big things, but they're still things He cares about that He weeps over. In other cases, it shocks me to discover how many, even pastors, are indulging in things that are just amazing. So our faith should be a faith of awareness of those things, awareness of how He cares. We can talk about evangelism. We can talk about witnessing. That's just helping other people become aware. But all of us have to start with our own repentance. And one of the great tragedies, I think, of Evangelical Christianity is we so emphasize coming down the Sodus Trail, making a decision for Christ, without really emphasizing a consciousness of our need for a Savior, moment by moment, day by day. So on the one hand, it's exciting to see God's plan in overview. It's exciting to see it start working out in history. And at the same time, be careful that that excitement in the abstract doesn't militate against our personal involvement with Him, moment by moment, day by day, as one who holds us individually accountable, and has the same tears that He sheds for Israel, He sheds for each of us individually, when we fail to express the gratitude we should, when we indulge in the presumptions of our own self-centeredness. Now Israel, getting back to the national scene, having failed to repent, will shortly fall helplessly prostrate before the feet of her captors. That's the burden that Hosea is going to unfold forthcoming. The national parallel to us, of course, is the possibility, not the certainty in my mind, but maybe so, that He's going to use our enemies to judge this country, which has had so much to be grateful for, so much indebtedness to Him for the unique heritage that we've had for two centuries. The Northern Kingdom had two centuries of their history, and failed. We've had two centuries of ours, and we've failed. One of the things we should pray for earnestly is a national repentance. But it needs to begin with each of us personally, and see what God is going to do. See if He will grant us the blessing of a revival in this country. It's interesting to see how many leaders, even Daniel Lappin's book, here's an Orthodox Jew, he's not a Christian, wrote a book, America's Real War, pleading with the Jewish community, encourage America to return to her Christian roots, to preserve the freedoms that we've all taken advantage of, Jew or Christian. We see guys like Robert Bork, Justice Bork, slouching towards Gomorrah, great book, but basically saying that the only thing that will save America is a miracle, of a grassroots revival. We should pray for that miracle. God is in the miracle business. Let's bow our hearts for a word of prayer. Father, we praise You for who You are. We thank You, Father, that You care so much for us as to bring us here tonight together. And we thank You for Your word, Father, in which You illuminate Your heart, Your concern, Your caring, Your provision for each of us. We thank You, Father, for caring for us nationally, that You brought this country through its incredible history. We pray, Father, for a spirit of repentance to sweep this land as we have forgotten You, as we've allowed the pagan left to take charge. We've done so through our own neglect, a lack of diligence, an apathy, a self-centeredness, a form of ingratitude and presumption on our part. Father, we confess this is a sin before You. But, Father, we also thank You for Your provision for each of us individually, that You have brought us to this place. And we thank You for revealing Yourself to us. We do pray, Father, that You would clarify ever more clearly what You would have of us in response these days, as we commit ourselves into Your hands. In the name of Yeshua, Yeshua HaMashiach, Jesus the Messiah, our Lord, our Savior, our Kinsman, Redeemer, and, yes, indeed, our Avenger of Blood. Amen.