This sermon emphasizes the consequences of improper responses to God's instructions and calls for repentance, confession, and proper alignment with God's will. It highlights the importance of knowing God's word, recognizing sin, and responding with humility and obedience. The sermon warns against backsliding, lack of compassion, and provoking God's anger through idolatry and disobedience.

Not knowing Him, crying out to Him, not hearing from Him, and not turning from our wicked ways, but continuing to provoke Him and continuing to ratchet up the judgments improper. 2 Chronicles 7 14 is a contrast. That which is right receives the word and response of God for favor. Improper response of those four things, which we have still not met, continues the judgment, provokes Him, and ratchets it on up. Now, having said that, let's go back to Hosea chapter 4 verse 6. My people, God's people, children of Israel, are destroyed for a lack of knowledge. Right here we come back to what Jeremiah 8 and 7 said, and we begin immediately with this, where God, speaking through the prophet, said, the reason of this calamity is because my people don't know what's going on. It is that you can define the issue at hand, as we don't know what sin is. Now, if you listen to the normal prayer meeting today, and you say, confess your sins, somebody automatically, in a bathed state of spirituality, will say, God forgive me of all my sins. Now, again, I think God, from a group, a mature group in the church today, if they would stand up and say, Lord forgive us of all our sins, that God says, which sins? What sins? The idea of this is to identify where we have failed God. But when we don't properly, we improperly recognize sin, it's because we don't know what's offensive to him. Because we don't know the word of God. Thou shalt, thou shalt not. We have a nation today, the church today, the evangelical church in the last 10, 15, 20 years, which have been arguing, fighting about prayer in schools since the 60s. And they've been fighting about the word of God in the public place. And they've been fighting about the Ten Commandments being posted in the government places. All these things are an issue. But yet you ask the evangelical Christians today, you're upset because the Ten Commandments are not posted? Can you please take a piece of paper and write down the Ten Commandments for me? Do you realize that 80 to 90% of the people that are all upset about the Ten Commandments being removed can't even name the Ten Commandments? My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge. What's your favorite Bible verse? And you've got people that have been in the church 40 to 60 years, and they can't even quote one verse, Thy word have I hid in my heart. Why? That I might not sin against God. Why is God's people sinning against him? Because they don't know his word. They don't know the lack of knowledge of God, lack of knowledge of his word, lack of knowing what is right and wrong. Because thou has rejected knowledge. Now we've filled our minds with all kinds of knowledge, trivia, trivia pursuit, big game growing up, everybody loved it. Jeopardy, big game on television, everybody loved it. Trivia, knowledge. But what good does it do to have knowledge? Without application. You can be the smartest guy in the world. No, have an IQ off the charts. Have an IQ of 180, 200, whatever you want to cry out for to say a high IQ. What good does it do if you can't make an application in your life to that which is right in the sight of God? Be the smartest man in this world and live improperly responding to God and die in your sins and go to hell. What has that wise man proved? Because you have rejected knowledge, the knowledge of God, the ways of God, the word of God, the presence of God, hear these words, I will reject you. Because of the improper response of God's people in North American churches. There are nations across the seas that don't even have the book. They don't have the word of God. They don't have preachers that study the word of God because they're, but they're thriving and growing because of their hungering after righteousness, hungering and thirsting after God. Because of what little bit they do have, they make the most of it. But we who have been given everything underneath the sun have not done that which is right in the sight of God. And because of that lack of knowledge about the things of God and the application of it in our life, God says I've rejected you. Ah, what a condemnation on the church of North America today. We will go down with the seven churches in revelation of condemnation. This much I have against you. And every one of those seven churches can be found in the North American church what God, what Christ has against his own church. Because I, you have rejected knowledge, I also reject you that thou shalt be no priest to me, seeing that thou hast forgotten the law of thy God. I also will forget thy children. When I, I want to make a statement that's going to bring some anger to you and resentment to you. But you want to know why there are so many parents and grandparents praying for their children and grandchildren and seeing such a departure in the church today? Right there's your answer. The reason that the children are being swept away into lies and into, into hell and into the course of this world and that growing up with absolute, even though they, you, you bank and you lay on that promise that you bring a child up in the ways that you would have them to go when they're old, they'll not depart from them. But you're not seeing them come back to God. We're seeing an entire generation lost because you have forgotten the law of God. We, we left Bible devotional time in the family a long time ago. We left family altars a long time ago. We left families coming together to church together a long time ago. We've left the law of God. We've forgotten it. And because now we're reaping exactly our improper response to God. That's horrible verse. And I'm here to tell you tonight that it ain't going to get much better as we go through these verses. But it is again, if this would prick you enough, if this would agonize you enough, if this would break you enough that we would respond properly instead of improperly, we'd see the power of God exerted in the church today. Now I'm going to begin to move quickly through these verses. So I'm going to give you again, the book of Hosea chapter four, we go down to verse eight, improper response. They eat up the sin of my people and they set their hearts on their iniquity. Setting your heart on iniquity is in direct contrast to setting your heart on God. Who shall send the help of the Lord? He that has clean hands and a pure heart. But does God, what does Christ speak about the heart? How the heart proceeds adultery, fornication, murders, drunkenness, revelings, lies, all those sins that is mentioned there that says that none of those shall enter into the gates of heaven. How the heart produces those things. They set their heart on iniquity. Where's your heart at tonight? I am a quiet cardiologist as a pastor. I go into the homes, I preach as a pastor, I view and examine the heart of people and it is that their hearts is it settled with sin? The man, the woman, the child looks at me and says I can live in sin, I can practice sin, I can indulge in sin, I can play with sin and still come to church on Sunday and act holy is deceived because of a lack of knowledge of God and his ways. God does not tolerate sin. It costs his son everything on Calvary. They set their hearts on iniquity, improper response. So how do we pray? How do we begin to see in our hearts and our minds what's being spoken to us? God make our hearts right. We must hate sin as much as God hates sin. How can you look at Calvary? How can you look at the wrath of God poured out on his own son? By his strength we were made whole. He bore the wrath of his father for the sins of the world. How can our hearts have any pleasure in sin when we know it costs Jesus everything? Improper response, setting our hearts on sin. They shall eat and not have enough, judgment, famine. They shall commit horrors and they shall not increase because, just as that contrasting word of but, when he makes a statement he says but, then there's a contrast there, because it's the same kind of thing, because they have left off to take heed to the Lord, obedience, an improper response. When you read in the scriptures, take heed unto yourself, take heed to the word of God, take heed to your living practices, take heed to your faith, take heed to your time, take heed to your actions because you're going to answer for it one day. But God's people, because they have not taken heed to the things of God, to the word of God, to the ways of God, to the Lord himself, they left off. But they've left off the practice of Christianity, then what are they taking heed to? Money, love of self, sins of the world, lust of the world, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life they have indulged in. If you're not serving God, spending time with God, then you're spending time with the things that are against God. Proper, being with God. Improper, being without God. So we see it in verse 10. Down in verse 17, Ephraim is joined to his idol, improper response. First commandment, thou shalt have no other god before me. Ephraim is serving a false idol. Second, thou shalt not make unto me any graven image. Second commandment. They're making up and bowing down and offering sacrifices and burning their children in the fire and spending their money on that and spending their time to that. And again, if they're spending all that energy and all that time on a false idol, then what are they leaving for God? Leftovers. God does not receive leftovers. Ephraim is joined to his idol. Condemnation. Let him alone. God cuts us off from our improper response of worshiping this world and the things of this world. See it, improper response. I spend more time in the television than I do in the word of God. Improper, I spend more at 7-Eleven and Sheetz and Walmart and the dollar store than I do putting my ties in the offering plate. Improper response, I spend more time talking about sports and politics than I do about the kingdom of God and eternity. Improper. Do you see it? Do you see it? More and more of these verses are before us for this. Chapter 5 of Hosea, verse 6. They shall go with their flocks and with their herds to seek the Lord, but they shall not find him, for he has withdrawn himself. Now you and I are given scriptures throughout Genesis to Revelation that are consistent. I want to jump back to Jeremiah real quick. Jeremiah 29. And you shall seek me and find me when you do it with all your heart. Back up there to chapter 4. If your heart is not after God, but after your iniquity, then that's why you're not finding God. Somebody comes to the church, they sit in the pew, they've been there for three weeks, and then all of a sudden they're gone. You go and you talk to them and you say, why'd you leave the church? Why'd you quit coming? Well, I didn't get anything out of it. Why? Why didn't they get anything out of it? Because they saw it, but they didn't find it. How much Bible have you read? Well, you know, I sat down and I started to read the Bible the other night and I read six chapters. How many did you read the next night? Well, I read three chapters. How many did you read the next night? Two. How many did you read? I stopped. Why? Because I saw it, but I didn't find it. Because they've withdrawn themselves from him. Improper response in this. Chapter 5, verse 11. Ephraim is oppressed and broken in judgment. Judgments. Judgments that break. Judgments that destroy. Because, why did this happen? Because he willingly walked after the commandment. What commandment? He walked after the commandment to satisfy himself. He walked after the commandment that Satan whispered to Eve in the garden, God said. And they walked after the commandment that was pleasing to their ears. But in their minds and their hearts, they knew by conviction that it was not the word of God, but the word of man. And they followed after a deception. They followed after a lie. You see that today in the churches of North America. You give and God will bless you. You do the best that you can. Humanism, you do the best that you can. And that's all God requires of you. That's a lie out of hell. Get baptized and you'll be okay. Join the church and you'll be okay. Be a good person and you'll be okay. There's nothing good. No, not one. Lies. The commandment that you're following after, that it is, is that God says, you willingly walk after that lie. Because it wasn't the commandment of the Lord, it was the commandment that they wanted to give place to. Chapter 5, verse 15, the last verse in this chapter, I will go and return to my place till they acknowledge their offense and seek my face in their affliction. They will seek me early. Well, I wish that that verse was true. I wish that that verse that in my, in their affliction, they will seek me early. Do you understand is that we have been under affliction for a long time with the land, the government, the church, the life and death, pestilences, wars, all kinds of catastrophes, calamities, and these cataclysmic events. We've seen it all in our lifetime, in the last 20 years, in our affliction. But we have not sought improper response. That when you're being afflicted, you don't, you don't try to make the affliction stop. If I have a thorn in my hand and it is an affliction to me, I am an idiot if I don't take the thorn out. You and I are in a place today that the church is in walking in this place right here. They have not sought his face and they have not in their affliction sought the Lord. Chapter 6, verse 1. Come, let us return unto the Lord, for he has torn and he will heal us. He has smitten and he will bind us up. Now we see in this, in this verse here, that it is, is that they return unto the Lord. I've marked this as one that is a proper response, they return, but an improper response that we'll see in other verses that correlate with this, they did not return. Matter of fact, they turned away from God. Instead of returning to God, dog has returned to its vault, Proverbs. And so they return to their vault. Verse 7, chapter 6, verse 7. But they, like men, have transgressed the covenant. They have dealt treacherously against me, against God. Men, how can the creation deal treacherously with the God who holds the breath in his hand? But have they not done it? Has not this society, has not this generation done more to provoke the Lord God to anger in dealing treacherously and transgressing against him and having no remorse about it? It's all a joke. Ha ha, it's a joke. It's not going to be a joke. As I don't tell them softly and tenderly, Jesus is calling. And in that third verse, it is not going to be funny because of our improper responses when deathbeds are coming. We don't say it enough because we have a lack of knowledge of the word of God. Chapter 8, verse 14. Israel is swallowed up now, shall they among the Gentiles as a vessel wherein is no pleasure. No pleasure in the things of God. And so we walk contrary to these things that are set before us. Chapter 9, verse 9. They have deeply corrupted themselves. Improper response. Deeply corrupting themselves. As in the days of Gibeon. Therefore if he will remember their iniquity, he will visit their sins. Why all these judgments? Because of our improper response of deeply corrupting ourselves. It's hard to find a holy man, a holy woman of God today. It's hard to find those of the Romans that love the Lord their God with all their heart. There is so much corruption in the church, in the pulpits. We look at that. Who shall sin to the Lord? He that has clean hands and a pure heart. And what's the words out of our mouth? Lord, my hands are so dirty. Lord, my heart is so perverse. We are corrupted because we have not done these things. And an improper response has continued. Chapter 10, verse 5. The inhabitants of Samaria shall fear because of the cast of Bethlehem, the false cast that Jeroboam made. For the people thereof shall mourn over it, and the priests thereof that rejoiced on it for the glory of thereof because it is departed from it. And we see in that verse what God has set into motion. Ichabod, the glory of God, has departed. They brought in the false golden calf. Jeroboam said, these are the calves that you shall worship at. And they bowed down and offered and worshipped those things. And the young man of God, Judah, pronounced against them that a king of Judah shall come and overthrow these calves, which was Josiah by name. But what did it is? The more that they worshiped them, false calves, what did we read about every king of Israel? He did evil in the sight of the Lord, as Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin. And they departed from the ways of God. And God's spirit, Ichabod, and the glory of God departed from the children of his own people. Chapter 11, verse 7. My people are bent on backsliding. Improper response, backsliding. We recognize our sin. We come back to the Lord for restoration. We don't continue in a perpetual state of backsliding, as what you see in the church today. How many times do people walk down the aisle on a given Sunday, confessing the same sin today that they confessed last week? Perpetual backsliding. How many of those that would confess tonight to say, I'm not going to make that sin anymore, and they go right back to it. Backsliding. They have continued in it. Chapter 12 of Hosea, verse 14. Ephraim provoked him to anger most bitterly. Provoking God. Is that not the most foolish thing in all the world that you read in Scripture? Why in the world would you want to get the wrath of God instead of the love of God or the blessing of God? That they provoked him most bitterly. Therefore shall he leave his blood upon him, and his reproach shall his Lord return unto him. What an awful verse that's found in the judgment of God, because of an improper response by God's people in provoking him most bitterly. Chapter 13, verse 2. And now they sin more and more. Improper response. Not sin less. We sing out over him, more about Jesus what I know, more of his love to others show. That's not the motto. That's not the church song today. The church hymn today is more sin, more pleasure, more entertainment. And now they sin more and more and have made them images and idols. Worshipping those things above God. Verse 6. Awful verse here. According to their pastor, so were they filled, they were filled, and their heart was exalted. Therefore have they forgotten me. Improper response. Don't forget God. You say, oh but the world has forgotten God. No, the church has forgotten God. We forget why we're congregated together. We've forgotten the first principle of the Catechism. Why are you given life? To glorify God. We think it's to live for self because of humanism that dwelt within us. They have forgotten God and his principles and his way. Now that's the book of Hosea. You see here, improper response by God's people. They get a response from God on the levels of judgment. And there's nobody that stands up and says, oh time out. We've got to stop this. Let's seek God. Let's call out to God. Let's turn away from our sins. Let's humbly bow ourselves before him. No response. Improper responses is what you see in the scripture as it's repeated. Book of Joel will come back to it in proper response. Amos filled with improper responses. Chapter four, verse six in the book of Amos. We see this verse here several times. Same reference. Verse six, verse eight, verse nine, verse 10, verse 11. Same phrase used at the end of it. So let's read verse six. And I also have given you cleanliness of teeth, meaning not enough food to eat, famine and drought in all your cities, and want to bread in all your places, starvation. Yet improper response. You have not returned them to me. Proper response is what? Returning to the Lord. Improper response, not returning unto the Lord. Verse eight, yet you have not returned unto me. Verse nine, yet you have not returned unto me. Verse 10, yet you have not returned unto me. Verse 11, yet you have not returned unto me. Verse 12, then prepare to be to God. We have not returned to God with all my heart, mind, soul, body, and strength. We give God leftovers. Chapter four of Amos. Condemnation on Israel. Condemnation on the North American church that bears the banner of Christ Jesus, our Lord and Savior. Chapter six. I'm going to pick up the intensity here to continue to move forward here. That chapter six of Amos, verse six, that drink wine in bowls and anoint themselves with chief ointments, but they were not green for the afflictions of Joseph. Lack of compassion. I often wondered in my own self, I'd see other people cry certain things that I wouldn't cry and bother. Why am I not broken? Why am I not weeping? Why is this not crushing me in this? And it's a sin. My eyes are dry, as the old psalm Keith Green wrote, and it is is that there's no reason for us to have dry eyes today and living in such an improper response by God's people today. And you and I are found in the scriptures in condemnation before God and we go on callous and unmoved. It doesn't grieve us that we've offended God. There's something wrong with that. We ought to be able to look at Calvary and see that Jesus grieved the father to have to see his son go through that and to allow his son to go through that. It grieves him when he sees his own creation reject the sacrifice of his only begotten son. And it grieves him when we as his people, after all he's done for us, that we are not grieved over the condition of a lost generation going to hell. It grieves. Why does it not grieve us? Improper response is a lack of grief, a lack of sorrow, and lack of compassion. Jesus beheld the city and he wept over it. We look at the city and we laugh at it. We think it's funny. Chapter 7 verse 12, after Amos came and he preached and he spoke the words, you read in verse 12, 13, and Amaziah said unto Amos, old Alasir, a prophet, teacher, go flee into the land of Judah and there eat bread and prophesy there, but prophesy not again anymore at Bethel, where the two false golden calves were. Don't speak there anymore. Improper response. When you tell the man of God to stop preaching the word of God. I have heard in my lifetime, many a preacher, many in church, they told their pastor, don't you ever preach on that sin again. If you ever preach on that topic again, you'll be fired. And they held money and they held persuasion against them for whatever reason and the men of God compromised the word of God and it got them into trouble. We live in a generation that says to the church, just keep your mouth shut. Don't tell us how to live our life. And I've been told many a time in my lifetime is to say, that's none of your business. And I often answer back. You're absolutely right. It ain't none of my business. Bad English. Ain't none of my business. But God made it his business. Because it ain't your life, it's his life. He gives you the breath of life. He allows you life and you are to use it for him and not for yourself. Now they might tell the prophet, go preach somewhere else. That's an improper response by God's people to the man of God. Now the man of God is not preaching the word of God. He has every authority and right by the word of God to silence him and to remove him. When somebody stands in the pulpit and says Jesus Christ is not the only way of salvation, the church has every right to remove that person for preaching in the gospel, in the pulpit. So it is, is that we see a contrast here. Do right. Do right by the man of God. But don't tell them to leave and don't tell them to shut up. We see that in Jeremiah. They jailed him. Zedekiah refused to listen. He went down into Egypt with those who remained remnant of Judah. They didn't listen. John Wesley buffeted, beat, bricks thrown at him. I like the one place that he wrote to me. He said and they threw dead cats at me. They didn't want to hear the word of God and it was a bad response to the man of God. But John Wesley preached the word of God and the spirit of God came despite the improper response by the people of Britain. I want to jump now to the book of Jonah. We see it right off the bat. Jumping over Obadiah. Only 21 verses there. Just want to jump to Jonah chapter 1. Improper response. God comes to, the word of God came to Jonah, verse 1. The son of Amittiah saying, verse 2, arise and go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it. Simple instruction. Go to Nineveh and preach. Verse 3. Improper response. But. It's almost, almost a deliberate thing in the King James Bible when that word but shows up. That there is a message getting ready to come. But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. Improper response. God says go to Nineveh. Jonah says no, I'm going to go the opposite way. Improper response by God's people. Repent. No, I'll take care of that next week. Confess. No, I'll deal with that later on in my terms. Give that up. Die to self. No, I'm going to hold on to this. Improper response. God says one thing, and in contrast, we take it another direction. The book of Jonah. Chapter 4. Then he goes and he preaches to Nineveh after the experience with the whale. He preaches in chapter 3. The king and the people respond. Proper response. We'll come back to that. Proper response and God had mercy. Oh, if we would just respond properly instead of improperly, God would have mercy. But we won't. Chapter 4 verse 1. But. There it is again. But it displeased Jonah.