“You read that and you go, ‘Whew,’ ” says Jordan. “That’s a
demonstration of man’s inhumanity to man. That’s what war’s about. That’s how
bad it’s going to get for Israel.
“Hosea 10:15 says, ‘So shall Bethel do unto you because of
your great wickedness: in a morning shall the king of Israel utterly be cut
off.’
“In one morning the nation is just going to be destroyed
and be gone!”
“Spiritual corruption is at the heart of the destruction of
the national life of Israel. That’s why Hosea started out talking about how
they’re an ‘empty vine.’
“I would say to you that every state has within it the seeds
of its own destruction, because the old sin nature of man makes it so that
every system of government that’s set up will eventually force the people under
its authority to obey and pay for, through confiscation of taxes, unjust laws.
“That moral corruption that comes because we’re sinners
results in the destruction of a state. You’re seeing it happen in our nation
right now. And we are at that place in our nation where Israel was in Hosea 10,
where it’s irretrievable as far as going back to where we once were. The cycle has
to see itself through.
“I’ve said to you, Christianity for most of the last 2,000
years has been an underground religion. Grace Believers have always been an
underground movement. Bible-believing people like us have always been under the
radar.
*****
I Samuel 13 says, [6] When the men of Israel saw that
they were in a strait, (for the people were distressed,) then the people did
hide themselves in caves, and in thickets, and in rocks, and in high places,
and in pits.[7] And some of the Hebrews went over Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead. As for Saul, he was yet in Gilgal, and all the people followed him trembling.
[8] And he tarried seven days, according to the set time that Samuel had appointed: but Samuel came not to Gilgal; and the people were scattered from him.
[9] And Saul said, Bring hither a burnt offering to me, and peace offerings. And he offered the burnt offering.
[10] And it came to pass, that as soon as he had made an end of offering the burnt offering, behold, Samuel came; and Saul went out to meet him, that he might salute him.
Jordan explains, “Samuel showed up right on time on the
seventh day just like he’s supposed to, but Saul had gone out and usurped the
priest office. The result of that was that God rejected Saul and he lost the
kingdom.
“That’s exactly what the Antichrist is going to do. He’s
going to sit in the temple showing himself that he is God.
“All that Baal worship, religious apostasy and corrupting of
the system goes all the way back to the establishing of the nation; the first king
in Israel.
“So when Hosea talks about the iniquity in Gilead and the
wickedness in Gilgal and so forth, and there’s no king, there’s nothing that’s
going to help them in that apostate system.
“Hosea 10 says they’d made a covenant with the Assyrian (of
which the Antichrist will be). What you’re going to notice as you go down through
this passage is that in the beginning here, when that first portion of the
captivity is coming upon Israel, the beginning of the captivity mirrors the
ending of the captivity.
“The last stage of the captivity is that 70th
week of Daniel. It is mirrored by the first stage; the initial ‘going in.’ And
what you see constantly in the taking of Israel is little flash-forwards, as it
were, into what’s going to happen in the tribulation.
“The history Hosea is writing is really a dress
rehearsal of the tribulation period and this covenant is one of those things.
*****
The famous passage in Isaiah 28 says, [14] Wherefore
hear the word of the LORD, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in
Jerusalem.
[15] Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves.”
[15] Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves.”
Jordan explains, “They thought that covenant they made with
the Assyrian was going to deliver them from captivity and destruction, but God
says, 'What you’ve done is you’ve made a covenant with death and with hell are
we at agreement.' They’re a part of the satanic program.
“Reading that, immediately you think of Revelation 6, if
you’re familiar with it, because that rider on that fourth horse is death and
hell follows him. Those four horsemen in Revelation 6 represent four different
views of the Antichrist; four different roles the Antichrist is going to play.
“Verses 16-17 says, [16] Therefore thus saith the
Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a
precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make
haste.
[17] Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.’
[17] Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.’
“That’s an immediate prophecy about the Assyrian captivity.
Prophetically it’s talking about the Antichrist.
“Isaiah 10:5 says, ‘O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, and
the staff in their hand is mine indignation.’
“That Assyrian taking them into captivity is a picture and a
type and a dress rehearsal of the Antichrist, who also is the Assyrian in
Scripture.
“You see, it says in Daniel 9 that after the 69th
week, ‘Messiah’s cut off but not for himself.’ There’s the crucifixion. At the
end of those 69 weeks, Messiah’s crucified, the city of Jerusalem is destroyed
and the prince that shall come does that. He makes a covenant with Israel for
one week. In the midst of that 70th week, he breaks the covenant.
“They thought they had a covenant that was going to protect
them. They made a covenant with the one who was ultimately going to be the one
who destroyed them.
*****
“Daniel 11:21 says, ‘And in his estate shall stand up a
vile person, to whom they shall not give the honour of the kingdom: but he
shall come in peaceably, and obtain the kingdom by flatteries.’
“He’s going to come in as a peacemaker and take the kingdom
by buttering up Israel and making them think he loves them and that he’s going
to be their Messiah.
“The passage goes on, ‘And with the arms of a flood shall
they be overflown from before him, and shall be broken; yea, also the prince of
the covenant.’
“The idea there is they’ve gone out and sought to have the
Assyrian deliver them and it isn’t going to work.
*****
“Hosea 10:5 says, ‘The inhabitants of Samaria shall fear
because of the calves of Beth-aven: for the people thereof shall mourn
over it, and the priests thereof that rejoiced on it, for the glory thereof,
because it is departed from it.’
“Chapter 8:5 says, ‘Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast thee off;
mine anger is kindled against them: how long will it be ere they attain to innocency?’
“The calf of Samaria started back in Exodus 32 with the
golden calf. In II Kings 8, Jeroboam sets up the golden calf and said, ‘These
be thy gods that brought thee out of Egypt.’ It was the main idol of Baal worship.
“Chapter 13:2 says, ‘And now they sin more and more, and
have made them molten images of their silver, and idols according to their own
understanding, all of it the work of the craftsmen: they say of them, Let the
men that sacrifice kiss the calves.’
“So you’ve got this idol-worshipping program going on and
it’s going on here in Hosea 10 in Beth-aven.
“When you read commentaries, the (scholars) read that word
Beth-aven and they start looking for it and there’s no place that they know of
that’s called Beth-aven.
“Hosea 10: 8 says, ‘The high places also of Aven, the sin of
Israel, shall be destroyed: the thorn and the thistle shall come up on their
altars; and they shall say to the mountains, Cover us; and to the hills, Fall
on us.’
“That term ‘aven’; the word itself means emptiness, vanity,
wickedness. Beth- (the house) aven (of the sin of Israel). The calves really
were at Bethel, but Bethel, ‘the house of God,’ has now become Beth-aven, the
house of wickedness.
“Verse 15 says, ‘So shall Bethel do unto you because of your
great wickedness: in a morning shall the king of Israel utterly be cut off.’
“In other words, the same place where Jacob spent the night,
saw the ladder and so forth and got up the next morning and said, ‘This is the
house of God; this is the gate of heaven,’ has been corrupted into the very
seat of the satanic religion. That’s how thoroughly Israel had been corrupted
spiritually.
“Remember, verse 5 says ‘the people thereof shall mourn over
it, and the priests thereof that rejoiced on it, for the glory thereof, because
it is departed from it.’ They’re going to lose it all. It’s going to be wiped
out. They see it’s going to be a great loss to them.
“Notice that when it says ‘the priests thereof rejoiced,’ it’s
in the past tense. They used to rejoice in it because it made them rich; it
made them powerful. But now it’s gone. And the people are going to mourn
because of that. When He says ‘for the glory thereof,’ that’s sarcasm. It
didn’t have any godly glory but it had a man-made glory.
“God took the glory off of Israel and wrote ‘I-chabod’ over
the nation. He’s going to take the false glory that the priests and the people
attributed to Beth-aven and He’s going to write ‘I-chabod’ over that, too, and
they’re going to be gone.“Verse 6 says, ‘It shall be also carried unto Assyria for a present to king Jareb: Ephraim shall receive shame, and Israel shall be ashamed of his own counsel.’ Even the calves are going to be carried away to the Assyrian. They’re going to be given to King Jareb.
*****
“Back in chapter 5:13, we read about when Ephraim saw his
sickness. They were trying to get help from the Assyrian. They made a covenant
with the Assyrian that he would deliver them and keep them safe, and it’s going
to wind up he’s going to betray them--coming in and taking them--and all that stuff
is going to be carried off as a present to him to make him wealthy. That’s
exactly what the Antichrist is going to do with them.
“You see, when Israel in the Tribulation would read this,
they think going to the Assyrian is a good thing and Hosea’s telling them,
‘Uh-huh, he’s deceiving you.’
“Verse 6 says, ‘It shall be also carried unto Assyria for a
present to king Jareb: Ephraim shall receive shame, and Israel shall be ashamed
of his own counsel.’
“It’s important to notice, where did it come from? Where
does the destruction come from? It comes from them following their own way. It comes
from rejecting God’s Word and walking in their own way.
“II Kings 17:9 says, ‘And the children of Israel did
secretly those things that were not right against the LORD their God, and they
built them high places in all their cities, from the tower of the watchmen to
the fenced city.’
“I mean, they just sunk down into the lowest pits of this
stuff. Why did the judgment come? They were going to do what they wanted to do,
God’s Word be hanged.
*****
“Years ago, I sat with a young couple and the wife had
decided to leave the marriage, and I’m sitting with them in the living room and
we were talking a little bit when she finally looked at me and said, ‘I don’t
care what you say, my parents say or what God says, I’m through.’
“Well, I just closed my Bible and got up and grabbed my hat
and left. What else are you going to do? Well, that’s what these people have
done. They said, ‘We don’t care what you say, God says or anybody else says,
we’re going to follow our own counsel. We’re going to say these false gods are
true and we’re going to worship them.’
"He says in Hosea 6:10 that Israel’s going to be ashamed.
They’re going to be carried off into captivity and there’s going to be national
humiliation because they followed their own counsel. They’re going to do it
their own way.
“Proverbs 13:13 warns about this kind of conduct: ‘Whoso
despiseth the word shall be destroyed: but he that feareth the commandment
shall be rewarded.’
“National destruction comes when you despise the Word of the
Creator. They threw the Bible out of their national life and the result was
that in came error, the lie, corrupted them and made their future nothing but
absolute complete destruction.
“You say, ‘Why would they do that?!’ Well, their heart was
the problem. In Romans 10:3, Paul says that, ‘For they being ignorant of God's
righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not
submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.’
“Going about to establish your own righteousness is another
way of saying pride. What does Proverbs 13:10 say? ‘Only by pride cometh
contention: but with the well advised is wisdom.’
*****
“Hosea 10:7 says, ‘As for Samaria, her king is cut off as
the foam upon the water.’ That verse gives the new bibles a real problem. It’s
strange. Isaiah 57 says ‘the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot
rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt.’
“There’s no peace for the wicked. They’re like the troubled
sea that’s always just spitting. I was raised on the Gulf Coast. One of the
things you know after a storm, or after a heavy sea, is there’s always foam.
Those white caps are caused by air that gets in the water and it will leave
foam on the surface.
“When He says it’s like foam on the water, you just squish
foam down. It’s got no substance to it. It isn’t hard to get rid of it. It’s
just quickly gone, and they’re going to be cut off and it’s not going to be any
problem to destroy them.
“Hosea says ‘in a morning shall the king of Israel utterly
be cut off.’ It’s not going to be any big to-do to get it done; it’ll just be ‘pfwhut.’
All this stuff they’ve got going on in their plans of resistance has no
substance to it at all.
“In Hosea 10:8, when it says ‘the thorn and the thistle shall
come up on their altars,’ that phraseology occurs only one other time that I’m
aware of and it's in Genesis 3:18 when God describes how the earth is going
to bring the thorns and thistles out. It’s talking about the curse. What it’s
going to take is their altars are going to be left idle and just grown up.
*****
“When I was in college in the 1960s, there was a big
movement called the ‘God is Dead Movement.’ Isn’t there a movie out right now
called ‘God is Not Dead’? Well, there used to be a theological movement that a
guy down in Georgia headed called thanatology.
“ ‘Thanos’ is a Greek word for death and theology is the study
of God. It was the study of the death of God and the idea was God’s dead, He’s
useless like an appendix you don’t need any more and forget about it.
“I once knew a Christian cartoonist who drew the most
fascinating cartoon. It was two guys going out to the cemetery and digging a
grave and burying God in the grave. In the first panel you see two guys and
they’re walking with their shovels, leaving the cemetery, and there’s a
headstone that says, ‘God is Dead.’
“The next panel you see grass begin to grow. In the third
panel the grass grew up so high all you could read was ‘God is.’
“I thought, ‘That’s it!’ That’s in essence what He’s saying
there: ‘The thorn and thistle shall come up on their altars; and they shall say
to the mountains, Cover us; and to the hills, Fall on us.’
“All that they were trusting in--Creation’s just going to
take it back over, it’s going to be idle and of no value and their going to
wind up saying to the mountains, ‘Fall on us.’
“Now you’re in the Tribulation again because in Luke 23:3
Jesus says they’re going to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us.’ In Revelation
6:16, in that six seal, the kings of the earth and the rich men cry to the mountains,
‘Fall on us and save us from the face of him that sits on the throne.’
“What they’re trying to do is hide from God’s wrath. But
that’s another one of these kind of little things that just shoots you over
there into the Tribulation so you kind of know the context.
*****
“Hosea 10:9 says, ‘O Israel, thou hast sinned from the days
of Gibeah: there they stood: the battle in Gibeah against the children of
iniquity did not overtake them.’
“That’s Judges 6, 19 and 20 where all that terrible
corruption took place in Israel and the nation was just ‘liking it so.’
“The sin that began back there in the Book of Judges is
still going on in Israel now. It’s never been dealt with. That mixed multitude,
that apostate crowd out there, is still there! Well, God’s going to take care
of it.
“The next verse says, ‘It is in my desire that I should
chastise them; and the people shall be gathered against them, when they shall
bind themselves in their two furrows.’
“God’s determination is He’s going to bring that Fifth Course
of Judgment. Now, that verse right there helps you understand something about
what’s going on in Leviticus 26.
*****
“The judgments in Leviticus 26 are identified there in Hosea
10:10 as ‘chastenings.’ If you have a Scofield Bible, you’ll see he puts
‘warnings of chastening’ as a paragraph heading over verse 14. Above verse 16
he has the heading, ‘First chastisement,’ then in verse 18, ‘Second chastisement.’
“Scofield knew to identify these things as chastisements,
and there are five cycles, or I call them ‘courses’ because they’re meant to be
remedial. They’re meant to be not just punishments but learning experiences.
Chastising in the Bible is designed to teach through
discipline. It’s different than punishment. Leviticus 26: 23 says, ‘And if ye
will not be reformed by me by these things, but will walk contrary unto me.’
“Notice the purpose of the thing was to reform them. The
chastisements were designed to teach Israel and bring them back where they
ought to be, not just to destroy them or punish them in the sense of getting
even with them.
“Hebrews 12:5, talking about the time period he’s going to
be chastising Israel, says, ‘And ye have forgotten the exhortation which
speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of
the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him.’
“You see how He defines that word ‘chastening’ in verse 9 as
‘corrected’? Then He goes back to the word ‘chastening’ in verse 10. The idea
is that course of punishment on Israel is a corrective discipline.
“Now, He told them that back in Hosea 7:12. ‘I’m going to
chasten them just like I said I would in Leviticus 26.’ Hosea is helping you
define what’s going on in Leviticus 26 as chastisements. Every time He put one
on them, He says, ‘If you won’t hearken for that one, I’m gonna give you some
more!’
“The purpose was, ‘Hearken! Listen! Be reformed! Turn
around! Repent!’ Now in Hosea 10, they haven’t done that and they face the
Fifth Course, which is national deportation.
*****
“God says in Hosea 10:10, ‘It is in my desire that I should
chastise them; and the people shall be gathered against them, when they shall
bind themselves in their two furrows.’ Those furrows back in verse 4 are
furrows filled with hemlock. We read in chapter 12 that those furrows are
filled with altars where they’re making sacrifices to Baal.
“Notice when He says ‘they shall bind themselves in their two
furrows,’ the southern kingdom is corrupted too. He’s going to deal with the
northern kingdom first, as an example, but both kingdoms are in a mess.
“Verse 11 is well-stated: ‘And Ephraim is as an heifer that
is taught, and loveth to tread out the corn; but I passed over upon her fair
neck: I will make Ephraim to ride; Judah shall plow, and Jacob shall break his
clods.’
“Now, she’s taught
wrong; she’s been taught a lie. When it says she ‘loveth to tread out the corn,’
remember the passage in I Corinthians 9:9: ‘For it is written in the law of
Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the
corn. Doth God take care for oxen?’
“When they tread out the corn, they get to eat it. She
doesn’t love working; she loves eating. She loved the benefits that she had.
“Well, if you go to Micah 3, you’ll see
the prophets in Israel were called 'hirelings.' They were doing it for the money.
We saw that earlier where they say, ‘Just give me, give me, give me.’
“So He says ‘Ephraim is as an heifer that is taught,’ and
that ‘I passed upon her fair neck.' He’s going to put a yoke on her! Now when He
says He’s going to make Ephraim to ride, it means somebody’s going to ride on
Ephraim. He’s going to put a harness on Ephraim and Ephraim is going to be
carried away into captivity and that Assyrian’s going to control them.
“If you look back at Jeremiah 31, they’re going to be
carried away into satanic captivity and he’s going to ride them. The one they
thought was going to deliver them is really going to be the one who’s going to
control them and run them and ride them into the ground.
"Jeremiah 31:11 says, ‘For the LORD hath redeemed Jacob, and
ransomed him from the hand of him that was stronger than he.’ Israel was in
captivity in the clutches of someone who was stronger than them and they couldn’t
get loose.
“Listen, this is God’s chosen nation. They were to be the
head of the nations. And He’s making them the tail!*****
“In Hosea 10: 12, though, comes mercy: ‘Sow to yourselves in
righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to
seek the LORD, till he come and rain righteousness upon you.’
“Right in the middle of all this darkness is hope. Now you’re back in Hosea 6: 1-3: ‘He’s going
to come revive us. There’s hope!’ When is the hope? When He comes. In the
middle of all that darkness there He is as light, but you’re going to have to
hang on because it ain’t coming soon.
“That’s why Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, ‘Blessed
are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness.’ You see, there had to be
a heart attitude to start with to turn this thing around.
“Verse 13 says, ‘Ye have plowed wickedness, ye have reaped
iniquity; ye have eaten the fruit of lies: because thou didst trust in thy way,
in the multitude of thy mighty men.’
“That’s that refuge of lies in that covenant back in verse
4. Verse 14 says, ‘Therefore shall a tumult arise among thy people, and all thy
fortresses shall be spoiled, as Shalman spoiled Beth-arbel in the day of
battle: the mother was dashed in pieces upon her children.’
“That word ‘arbel’ means to be ambushed by God. He’s
literally turned the wickedness that’s up in that northern kingdom. It’s the
thing that’s going to cause God to destroy them in the day of battle.”
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