We turn this morning to the Old Testament prophecy of Hosea, and read together chapter 4. Hosea chapter 4. The text for the sermon this morning is verse 6 of this chapter. But we'll read the entire chapter this morning for our Bible reading. Hosea chapter 4. Hear the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel, for the Lord hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood. Therefore shall the land mourn, and everyone that dwelleth therein shall languish with the beasts of the field and with the fowls of heaven, Yea, the fishes of the sea also shall be taken away. Yet let no man strive, nor reprove another. For thy people are as they that strive with the priest. Therefore shalt thou fall in the day, and the prophet also shall fall with thee in the night, and I will destroy thy mother. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee. Thou shalt be no priest to me, seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children. As they were increased, so they sinned against me. Therefore will I change their glory into shame. They eat up the sin of my people, and they set their heart on their iniquity. And there shall be like people, like priests. And I will punish them for their ways and reward them their doings. For they shall eat and not have enough, they shall commit whoredom and shall not increase, because they have left off to take heed to the Lord. Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the heart. My people ask counsel at their stocks, and their staff declareth unto them, for the spirit of whoredoms hath caused them to err, and they have gone a-whoring from under their God. They sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains and burn incense upon the hills, under the oaks and poplars and elms, because the shadow thereof is good. Therefore, your daughters shall commit whoredom, and your spouses shall commit adultery. I will not punish your daughters when they commit whoredom, nor your spouses when they commit adultery. For themselves are separated with whores, and they sacrifice with harlots. Therefore, the people that doth not understand, shall fall. Though thou, Israel, play the harlot, yet let not Judah offend. And come not ye unto Gilgal, neither go ye up to Bethaven, nor swear the Lord liveth. For Israel slideth back as a backsliding heifer. Now the Lord will feed them as a lamb in a large place. Ephraim is joined to idols. Let him alone. Their drink is sour. They have committed whoredom continually. Her rulers with shame do love. Give ye. The wind hath bound her up in her wings, and they shall be ashamed because of their sacrifices." So far we read God's holy and God's inspired Word. I call your attention this morning to v. 6. V. 6 of Hosea 4. Where the Word of God to us this morning is this, My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to Me. Seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children. Beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, at the beginning of every Catechism season in Essentials class, the class for the 10th and 11th graders, at the very beginning of the year in the first class, I always read and briefly exclaim three passages of God's Word. I read and briefly explain those passages in order to impress upon the high schoolers the absolute importance and necessity of what is being done in that class. Namely, growing in our knowledge of God and of the Reformed faith as God has passed it down to us. One of the passages is John 17, verse 3. And this is life eternal. that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." The second passage is Jeremiah 29, verses 23 and 24. That's not the correct reference. It's not Jeremiah 29. And now I cannot think of what it is. It's the passage that talks about the glorying and the knowledge of God. The passage we focused on in connection with the series on God's attributes. Let a man not glory in might, wisdom, but let a man glory in this, that he knows God. It talks about what we are to glory in. And then the third passage that I always read is the passage that we have before us tonight. It's Jeremiah 9, not Jeremiah 29. Jeremiah 9. I'll read it now. 23 and 24, Thus saith the Lord, let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches. But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth Me, that I am the Lord which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, saith the Lord." Then the third passage is Hosea 4.6, the text that we have before us this morning. When you put those texts together, and there's many more that you could include in that list, you see the main point. The main point is the absolute importance and necessity of knowing God. To know God, John 17 says, is life eternal. That which we are to glory, boast in in our lives, Jeremiah says, is not might, wisdom, or the things of this earth, but the knowledge of God. And Hosea 4.6, by way of a negative warning, says this, My people are destroyed. Destroyed for what? Lack of knowledge. These passages set before us, how important it is. for us to know and to grow in, as God's people, the knowledge of Him. And so, let us heed this morning the warning that comes to us from this particular passage of God's Word. I'm preaching this particular passage this morning in light of baptism. Because this passage in Hosea 4, verse 6, not only talks about that main theme of the knowledge of God, but it directs our attention to that theme in direct connection with children. What is the consequence of a church, a people, that lack, that reject, that forget the knowledge of God. The consequence is this, not only does God reject them, but as the end of the verse says, God will also forget their children. We have a love for the children of the church. Clearly, the parents who brought their children for baptism this morning love the children that God has given to them. And we desire out of love for the children of the church what is best for them, not in terms of this earth, but spiritually. And what is best for them is that they know God and that they have life everlasting. And if that is the case, if that is the love that we have for our children, what we are going to do as parents, what we are going to do as mature believers in the church, is give ourselves in all of our life to the knowledge of God. What is going to be front and center Not just on Sunday when we come together for worship, but in all of our lives, is that we know and that we grow in our knowledge of God. Because when that isn't the case, When we lack that knowledge, when we reject or despise that knowledge by the way that we live, when we forget that knowledge of God, then God will reject and God will no longer remember our children in our generations. That's the Word of God to us this morning from Hosea 4, verse 6. I call your attention to this under the theme, destroyed for lack of knowledge. And we consider the three points, the prosperous times, in which Hosea prophesied. In the second place, we consider the rejection of knowledge. And then in the third place, let's consider the sharp warning. Destroyed for lack of knowledge, the prosperous times, the rejection of knowledge, and the sharp warning. One of the emphases of the books of Hosea is on this main idea of the knowledge of God. I'm not going to read all of the references in the book. But the references are 2.8, 2.20, 4.1, 5.4, 6.1-3, 8.2, and 13.4. And I read it that way just to prove the point. that all throughout the book there are explicit references to this idea of knowing God. Probably the most well-known passage in the book of Hosea in this connection is the text before us this morning. We're familiar with this text. My people, Hosea 4, verse 6 says, are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Before we look at the text itself, we need to see the context in which Hosea said these words to Israel. Hosea was a prophet primarily to the northern kingdom of Israel. Chapter 1, verse 1 sets the context of Hosea's ministry. I'll read that verse right now. The word of the Lord that came unto Hosea, the son of Berei, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel." Hosea lists there the kings of Judah first, four of them, and then he lists the king of Israel second, Jeroboam. That's Jeroboam II. Even though he lists the kings of Judah first, Hosea was primarily a prophet to the northern kingdom of Israel. There's good reason for him listing the kings of Judah first, and the main reason I believe for that is that it was a recognition of the fact that the true nation of God was Judah. And that Israel, having broke off of Judah, was rejecting the rightful king and the king from which Jesus Christ would come. So it's a recognition of the real kingship of Judah as that which would come forth from the Messiah. But even though he lists those kings first, he mentions the King of Israel. And the King of Israel during his prophecy was Jeroboam II. And from the prophecy itself, it's clear that he prophesied primarily to the northern kingdom of Israel. What I want to do at the beginning of the sermon this morning is explain what life was like for a man in the northern kingdom of Israel at the time of Hosea's prophecy. And what we will see is that what life was like for them was a very good life. A very prosperous life from several points of view. To put it in the big picture of the history of Israel, we're dealing here with the time towards the end of her history. just prior to the final captivity in which they would be taken away by the Assyrians. But to get the context straight, let's look at what happened with just a couple of kings before Jeroboam II. His father and his grandfather. The grandfather of Jeroboam II was King Jehoahaz. Now under the reign of King Jehoahaz, things were not very good. They were oppressed by the Syrians, which was the perennial enemy at this time of the northern kingdom of Israel. Although that was the case, God did send them a Deliverer. But even though God delivered them, in a certain sense, from the Syrians, the fact is that at the time of Jehoahaz, the grandfather of Jeroboam II, militarily, the kingdom of Israel was very, very weak. 2 Kings 13, verse 7, explains what the fruit of this was. Neither did He leave the people of two Jehoahaz, but fifty horsemen, ten chariots, and ten thousand footmen. For the king of Syria had destroyed them and had made them like the dust by threshing." So God did send a deliverer, but things were very bad at that time politically for Israel. The father of Jeroboam II was Joash. And this is where things began to change. The power of Syria began to weaken. And we read under the explanation of his kingship that on three different occasions, Joash was able to defeat the Syrians and reclaim the cities that were taken before. And then came the kingship of Jeroboam II. And his kingship was a long kingship. Forty years he was a king of the northern kingdom of Israel. And it was under King Jeroboam II that Israel reached its zenith in terms of power politically. He was the king under which things were very, very good in the northern kingdom of Israel. This was true from, as I said, a political point of view. Politically, he was able, in relationship to the nations surrounding, to establish a very large kingdom. This is 2 Kings 14. This is what Jeroboam II did. He restored the coast of Israel from the entering of Hamath unto the sea of the plain. according to the word of the Lord God of Israel, which He spake by the hand of His servant Jonah, the son of Amittai, the prophet which was of Gathipher." So, under Jeroboam II, the coast was restored from the entering of Hamath. That's a reference all the way to the north of the region of Israel, down to the plain by the sea. Down by the Dead Sea. Basically, the borders were restored in the exact same way that they were during the kingdom of Solomon. And we know that during the reign of Solomon, things were at its greatest from a from the point of view of the size of the nation. So, politically, things were very prosperous. This was also true economically in Israel at this time. And that usually is the case. Those go hand in hand. When militarily and politically a nation is strong, what goes hand in hand with that is economic prosperity. And the book of Hosea itself indicates that this was true. I'm not going to read all of the references. I'll read just one. Hosea 13, v. 6, according to their pastures, so they were filled. They were filled and their heart was exalted. Therefore, have they forgotten Me? What's implied in those words is that they were very wealthy at that time in connection with the main point of our text, which is that they forgot God. So when you look at what a life was like for an Israelite man at this time, things were good. He was part of a nation that was strong. He was part of a nation that was wealthy. There was relative peace and safety in Israel. And there was a certain amount of economic prosperity. And it's in that context that Hosea prophesies. And it's in that context that these words were true for the nation of Israel. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. People of God, it is helpful for us to consider this context in which Hosea prophesied in connection with what our lives are like today. There is a certain parallel that we can draw between what was true for them then and what is true for us now. Not in every respect, but there are certain things that are very similar that we need to be aware of in light of the truth of this text. Now we have to remember that when we're talking about this context of Israel, that we're talking about church history, we're talking about sacred history, So yes, we can say that there is a context that parallels ours from the point of view of our life in the nation, but that's not really the point. The point is the life of the church. What can we say about our life as members of the church that is very similar to what life was like for the Israelite man at the time that Hosea prophesied. And we can say that certain things are similar. Number one, there is for us as a church relative peace. When you talk about peace, you can talk about peace from two perspectives. Peace within the walls of Jerusalem. This is the peace that we always strive for, pray to God for. The peace that we have in the truth in Jesus Christ. But you can also talk about the peace from the point of view of those who are outside of the walls of Jerusalem. From the point of view of what the world is doing to the church. And now I fully understand that there is always the spirit of Antichrist that is attacking the church. There's always an attempt to hurt the church. Always an attempt to destroy the church of Jesus Christ. But we have to acknowledge right now that our membership in a church right now, here in West Michigan, our membership in Trinity Protestant Reformed Church, is not greatly affected by the oppression that we may have from the enemies outside of the church. We're not affected in very strong ways socially, or economically, or physically, on account of our being a member of the Protestant Reformed churches, or of this particular church, or another church. The reality is that we have relative peace as a member of the church of Jesus Christ today. And I'm not talking about how the devil works through false doctrine. I'm simply talking about what it means to be a member of a church today. Our lives are not greatly affected by the world outside of us because we are a member of a church today. That can all change, and change very quickly. I'm talking about the here and now. What is also true of us as members of a church today is that we have great wealth and prosperity. Things are well for us as a people. It doesn't take very long to realize that. You look at our cars, our houses, our buildings. Things are well. That does not mean that we don't have great sacrifice, that we don't give great sacrifices in order to maintain the causes of God's kingdom. We do and we must. And those sacrifices are real, but beloved, we have to acknowledge that this is all relative. If we think about our own congregation right now, we're going from this, this, In the grand scheme of things, when you think about history and the entire world and what some people have, this right here, this structure, is absolutely astounding. It's beautiful. It's amazing in many respects. We're going from this to that, which is going to be bigger and nicer in many respects. And I'm not saying that we shouldn't do that. There's very good reason for us doing that. And we support this because this is our desire as a church. But let us keep it in perspective that we do have astounding wealth as members of the church today. Let me put it in this perspective. Think about a young person growing up right now. Or a young adult growing up right now in the church. There is very little cost to being a member of the church today. There's very little friction. for a young person, a young adult, to be a member of the church today. Coming into a church in which the schools are very established, the hardship of getting those started, at least in our area, was many years ago. We have churches whose roots go down very, very deep. Buildings have been built. We're not forced to flee. We're not persecuted. Things are relatively well. And then you put that context for a young person or a young adult in the broader context of our society and culture. All of that is true for us right now. It can change very quickly, but true right now. And then it's plopped right in the middle of an America that is abounding in wealth, an America that is driven by materialism, an America that is driven by entertainment and pleasure. And when you put that reality for the church, or a young person or a young adult in which there's very little cost to be a member of the church, in the context of what we have in America, and you have a seedbed for a very, very dangerous, spiritually dangerous situation for the church in the world today. When I talk about no cost, I'm not talking about the reality that it's hard to be a Christian. This isn't contradicting what I said last week about discipleship. Any believer, for him or her, it is hard. It must be because of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. I'm talking about this from the bigger perspective of what life is like for us in our context as a Protestant Reformed church in West Michigan, in America, where we live. And the fact is, we cannot deny this, the fact is that there is relative peace from that point of view, and there is abounding prosperity. And in that context, It's very dangerous. It's a very dangerous time for the church from this point of view. From the very point of view of what happened to Israel in the northern kingdom. That along with that naturally goes a despising, a forgetting, a lack of the knowledge of God. And we'll come back to that later in the second point to see that connection more clearly. But understand the context. The prosperous times of Israel and us. And then we see what happened in Israel. And what happened in Israel was that there was a rejection of the knowledge of God. The text talks about knowledge. Knowledge is that which is of the mind. Knowledge is information. Knowledge is facts. To put it in the context of the church, knowledge is doctrine. Obviously, the prophet here is not talking about knowledge generally. That they were destroyed because they weren't smart about anything. That's not the point. It's a particular type of knowledge that they lacked, rejected, and forgot, and therefore were destroyed by God. The particular kind of knowledge is the knowledge of God. That's evident from verse 1 of chapter 4. Hear the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel, for the Lord hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge, of God. This is also evident from the text itself when it says at the end, this further describes the knowledge of the beginning when it says at the end, that they have forgotten the law of thy God. What was forgotten, rejected, and not known, very simply, was God Himself. But we can elaborate on that and we need to elaborate on that and emphasize this point from the point of view of Jesus Christ. What they didn't know, what they rejected, what they forgot, we can say in a very real sense of the word, was Christ Jesus, the promised Messiah. And that's true from a couple of points of view. That's true from the point of view of The fact that all the knowledge of God in the Old Testament, all the revelation of God to His people in the Old Testament, was the revelation of the person and of the work of Jesus. And remember that the knowledge of God in the Old Testament was not only what was written down, but was also the oral knowledge, what was passed down regarding the works of God, eventually all written down in the Pentateuch and in the rest of the sacred Scriptures. all of God's revelation of Himself to His people in the Old Testament, centered on the need for, the person of, and the work that would be accomplished by Christ. Yes, it was veiled in types and shadows. But let us never let that point lead us to think that they did not know Christ in the Old Testament and put their faith in Christ in the Old Testament. They did. And all of God's work and all of God's revelation centered on that. The coats of skin in the Garden of Eden. The mother promise of Genesis 3.15. The covenant established with the patriarchs, signified and sealed by the shedding of blood in circumcision. The deliverance from Egypt by the blood that was on the doors. All of the institution of the worship of God by means of sacrifices in Israel. You go right down the line, and every point said, promised Messiah, Christ, shedding of blood, atonement for the salvation of the people. When they didn't know rejected and forgot knowledge. They didn't know, they rejected and they forgot Christ. This is also true from the perspective of the law of God. The law is mentioned specifically in the text. Law can be looked at from a narrow point of view or a broad point of view. The moral law, the Ten Commandments, or the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, God's written Word given to Moses in the mount. But that too is Christ. Galatians 3 says that that law was always And still for us today, as the schoolmaster that leads us to Christ, as they stood before that perfection of God's law, all throughout the Old Testament, they would know their own sin. And they would be driven to the sacrifices, the atoning blood of the sacrifices pointing to Christ. That law of God also revealed the perfection of the One who would come. This is what must have been true for the one who was going to save them. He must be righteous according to that law. And then that law always demonstrated for the people how to live thankfully. As they went away from the sacrifices by which they placed their faith in the coming Messiah, they had that law to say, this is the thankful walk for the salvation that is in the promised Messiah to come. Centrally, the law pointed to the need for, and the work of, and the response to Jesus Christ. When they forgot the law, they were forgetting Jesus Christ. As we think about this text for us today, the knowledge of which the text speaks is very simply our knowledge of God. The knowledge of God as He is revealed in the Scriptures. The knowledge of God which is revealed in the Scriptures that has as its heart and center and permeating the entirety of the Word of God, Christ and Him crucified. That knowledge of God revealed in the Scriptures and proclaimed in the preaching of the Gospel. The heart of that preaching is always Jesus Christ. What do we need to know What is knowledge such that it is life eternal? What is the knowledge that we are to glory in Jeremiah 9? What is the knowledge, if we don't have it, despise it and forget it, will lead to destruction for us and our children? It is the knowledge of Christ, and the fullness of the revelation of God in Him, found in the sacred Scriptures. The text says that with respect to that knowledge of God, Israel did three things. They didn't know it. They lacked it. Very simply, it was not something that they had in their mind in such a way that it filled their minds and they knew it well. It says in the second place that they rejected that knowledge of God. Obviously, that's stronger than the first point. They despised it. They were indifferent to it. They wanted nothing to do with that knowledge of God. And then it says that they forgot that law of God. That's what's going to happen when these previous two points are true. When they don't know it well and when they are despising it and indifferent to it, what they had is quickly going to be lost and it is going to be forgotten. Put that together, and you say very simply that they didn't know God. They didn't know God in Israel because the knowledge of God was not being taught. And the blame here in the northern kingdom of Israel was on the priests and prophets who were responsible for doing that, but also upon the families and parents who neglected to do that. The priests were responsible for teaching the law to the people. And Hosea makes a big point throughout the prophecy of charging the priests with unfaithfulness. And that goes all the way back to the beginning of the northern kingdom when they separated from Judah and from the true worship of God in Jerusalem. But they neglected their duty as priests. But we also know that the people themselves The families neglected to teach the children the knowledge of God. And the people actually strove with the priests, if there were any who strived to do that, v. 4 talks about. Where the truth is not taught, what Hosea 4, v. 6 describes will be true. And so beloved, we use a text like this this morning to emphasize all the more the importance of what we do as a church and what we do in our homes. Let a text like this put in the depths of our hearts the desire to maintain the good catechism instruction for all of the ages of the kids. Let this put in our hearts the desire to be active in our participation of the Bible studies this coming year. Let this put in our hearts a desire to be very forthright and purposeful in our homes in teaching our children the truth of God. Something like this does not happen overnight. Something like what is described in the text does not happen over the course of a couple of years. It happens over a long period of time. And one of the things that we can ask ourselves to diagnose where we are individually as families, as a church, with respect to these very ideas in the text is this. What way are we trending? As a people? Or as an individual? All three of these go together. Not knowing, rejecting, forgetting. But one may happen before the other that leads to the others. And you can get at this by asking the question, which way are we trending? What is the trajectory that we are on as an individual, or as a family, or as a congregation? Are we growing in our knowledge of God, or are we lessening in our knowledge of God? Because it's always going to be one or the other when things are normal. I'm not referring, of course, if something happens and we no longer can retain knowledge, or we quickly lose knowledge. That's not the point. The point is, for our normal lives in the church, which way are we going? Because we're not staying the same. Something is always happening. Either it's going this way, or it's going this way. This is one of my fears. If you were to chart that trajectory from infancy, for these little children that were baptized this morning, that first half is going to be great. Because of what God has given to us, and because of what we do as a church, and in our schools, and in our homes. We start them very young, and it is a clear upward trajectory on that graph regarding the knowledge of God. so that they learn and they learn well through all of the things that we have in place. But here's the question to face to the adults in the congregation. When we get to that point of twelfth grade and confession of faith, where from there does the knowledge of God go? From here to there, it's a very upward slant certainly. But from here on, how does it go? And there is no reason, absolutely no reason, that that point from here on must not be the exact same trajectory as it was from the very beginning. That we go this way, and then we just keep going up, building on what we had there throughout the rest of our lives. Yes, it's true that we don't have a catechism teacher saying, learn this. And we don't have a school teacher saying, learn this. It's you saying, I'm a child of God. And I know John 17, verse 3. And I know Jeremiah 9, 23 and 24. And I know Hosea 4, verse 6. And I know that all of that is but a foundation. so that I need to come to church every Sunday to hear God's Word and hear it in such a way, not that I hear it on Sunday and have no clue what it was about on Tuesday, but I hear it in such a way that I think about it for the week. And I don't let Hosea 4, verse 6, or 2 Corinthians 6, I think it is tonight, not be in the front of my mind in this week. I'm going to use that as my food in this week. And I know all of that history from a child, but I know that when you're a child learning history, you're just learning the history. I want to grow now in what it means. And what it means for me in my life and for our church. So I'm going to give my life so that the trajectory of my life regarding the knowledge of God when things are normal, is that I go up as a child, and then I just keep going up. It may not be the same slant, because children's job is to learn and grow. But it's always going to be going up. What is the trajectory of your knowledge of God? Because what is explained here doesn't happen overnight. So that if our trajectory as a congregation is going this way, What's the trajectory going to be? Or where are they going to be when those two little ones are adults? By the grace of God, I do not believe we're being destroyed for lack of knowledge. But we hear the Word of God this morning as a warning from what happened in Old Testament Israel. The first reason that they did not know God is that it was not taught. But that reason is a symptom of what was a deeper cause of the lack of the knowledge of God in Israel. The deeper cause of the lack of the knowledge of God in Israel was the fact that Israel was guilty of spiritual adultery. The whole book of Hosea has that as its main theme. Israel went a-whoring after the gods of the nations. And when a people go a-whoring after the gods of the nations, what is necessarily going to be the case when that takes place is a lack of, a despising of, and a forgetting of the knowledge of God. Even chapter 4 talks about that theme. The entire prophecy has that as its main root cause of all of the sin of which Israel was guilty. And beloved, it's at this point that I want to relate the content of the first point of the sermon with the ideas expressed in our text. That spiritual adultery for Israel had as its root the schism when they broke off of Judah, separating themselves from Jerusalem and the kingship of David from whence Christ would come. But the time in which they lived in their prosperity, when everything was well, exacerbated their spiritual adultery. And here's where we see the very sharp warning for us as the people of God today. Remember the first point of the sermon in which I described briefly the times of peace and the times of prosperity that we have as a congregation, and that our young people and children are growing up in. We contend with gods today as people. It's not the gods of wood and stone. It's the gods of sport. It's the gods of entertainment. It's the gods of technology. It's the gods of fashion. It's the gods of money. And all of those things, because of the context in which we are living, times of peace and prosperity, as I described it earlier, make for a very spiritually dangerous environment for children and young people growing up. Think about this from a few points of view. In times of peace and prosperity like we have, we have the world at our fingertips. All of those gods that we have, there is nothing that is a huge barrier that stands between unbridled participation in and unbridled giving ourselves to the gods of this world. You have cable television, or you like to play sports, you have everything at your fingertips to give your life to sports. Technology, we could have in our phones right now, in our pockets right now, the most advanced technology when it comes to a phone, with everything that that has to offer. Money? We're abounding in money. in light of the big picture of where we are in the world and what we have. There's nothing that stands in the way of giving ourselves to those things. And then you talk about the entertainment and the pleasure that we have in this country in which we live. And it's a very spiritually dangerous situation. And what that all militates against is the very truth of this text. The knowledge of God. When all of those gods are available to us with a click of a button, or simply there in front of our eyes day after day, what gets pushed by the wayside so easily and so quickly is the central place that the knowledge of God must have in our lives. All of this could change in a moment. Our situation. Think about the people of God down in Florida and Texas right now. Everything could change in a moment. Or, if a government policy changes such that we lose everything. But what if it did? Think about how different that would be. The government says to us, 50% of your annual income needs to be given to the government if you want to be a member of the church. How would our lives be different? Cable television all of a sudden isn't very important because we can't afford it because all of the extra is coming to maintain the true church of Jesus Christ to hear the preaching of the gospel. No more iPhone 10s, but we're going back to flip phones just to communicate. All of that high-end retail clothing that we can give ourselves and shop for is off the table simply because we don't have it anymore if we want to be a member of the church. Sports. Can't watch them anymore. Certainly no time to give ourselves to playing them all of our life long. Our lives would be so different. And I'm not saying that we uniquely are prone to spiritual adultery in these ways because of our context. It's in our heart first. But, the day and age in which we live and what our lives are like right now make this very, very dangerous. Or look at it from the point of view of these times can push out of our minds the thoughts of God because we don't need Him. Now, that's a failure to understand that we need Him every day if we know our true need, which is our sin and guilt as we stand before a holy God. But when our lives are like this, and when our young people's lives are like this, it's very easy to live thinking we don't need God. Whether or not I have personal devotions today and really dig deep and meditate upon the truth of God's Word, or whether or not we as a family engage in family worship of singing and hearing God's Word and praying together as a family, whether or not those things are done really tangibly is not going to affect my life. I'm going to go to work in the morning. We're going to go to school. We're going to have all of our extracurricular activities. And then I'm going to go to bed at night. And then I'm going to wake up in the morning and I'm going to do the same thing over and over again so that we can look at those things and realize whether or not I do them because of what our life is like is not that big of a deal. When things are like they are, those are the thought processes that we can have so that we can be even like what Job says concerning the wicked In Job 21, v. 13-15, Therefore they say unto God, Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of Thy ways. What is the Almighty that we should serve Him? And what profit shall we have if we pray to Him? We don't need to when things are well. Or from the point of view of time. When the lives are like they are, We have so much to do that our lives just become absolutely filled. And I would contend in a certain sense that a lot of it is filled with the frivolous, that what gets pushed out is the knowledge of God. Spiritual adultery, beloved, giving ourselves to the gods of this world, is the underlying cause. of the failure to know God as we are called to. And so we heed the warning this morning. This very sharp warning as a congregation. The warning comes from the fact that they were destroyed. Typically destroyed by the Assyrian captivity in which they would take away Israel never to return to the land of Israel. but truly destroyed for some because of their outright rejection of God. The text emphasizes that judgment of God by saying two things. It says that thou shalt not be a priest to me. We're running out of time here. I cannot explain these things more than in a couple of sentences. A priest. I believe that that's speaking to the nation as a whole. The whole text is describing the people as a whole. No priest to me. They were a kingdom of priests. Exodus 6 talks about in 1 Peter 2. The church is a kingdom of priests. Priests know God. Priests dwell with God in holiness on the basis of the shed blood. It's a way of saying they won't be a people with whom I fellowship. in the blood of Jesus Christ. And then the second warning regards the children. I will also forget thy children. It should not surprise us. Because what does God use to raise up a children that know God? They use instruction. Where there is no instruction, the children will be cut off. This describes the apostatizing church that no longer teaches the children the truth of God. And so we heed the warning concerning this text. But we heed it confident that God is faithful. The text does say, My people, because He's talking to Israel, which were the people of God, that was the church. They did apostatize and they were judged for it. But they were God's people. But also, My people, because God always had His elect, who would hear this Word, hear the warning and repent. Hear the warning and change. Hear the warning and say, Though I was giving my life to idols, now I give my life to the true knowledge of God, because the knowledge of which the text speaks is the knowledge of faith. Faith that believes God, believes Christ, and grows in that knowledge all our life long. My people, because God did have His elect people who heard this Word. And that's the Word to us too. We are the people of God. We thank God and praise God for it. We hear this warning and let the response be that of a recognition of the days in which we live. That of a repentance for all of us. Because we all have the gods that we seek. And a striving for our spiritual welfare, but also and especially, to the spiritual welfare of our children. To know God as He is revealed in Jesus Christ. And then we see the faithfulness of God. The theme of the book is marriage. God is faithful in His marriage to us. Though we may despise Him and seek those idol gods, God is faithful always through His Word to bring us to repentance and bring us unto Himself. so that He never casts us off. So that the Lord willing, these children who were baptized this morning, one day will be to the end of their life, and they will know God, just as these children, grandpas and grandmas right now, know God. In such a way that they say, my home, is not here, but my home is in the house of many mansions. May God so preserve us in a true, living, intimate knowledge of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore preserve us by His covenant mercies in our generations to follow. Amen. Our Father in Heaven, we pray for Thy blessing upon Thy Word. as it was preached this morning, cause us to believe it and to live in light of it. For Jesus' sake, Amen.