The Recipe to Ruin a Nation
Text: Hosea 7:1-7 Date: 7-26-26
When God is left out of man’s mind, He will be left out of their plans. When God is left out of man’s plans, He most certainly will be left out of activities. Does God even see what they are doing? When a person forgets God, he or she forgets that God sees all that a person does against Him.
Application: Are you hiding sin? God sees all, and nothing is hidden from Him. What should you do if you are hiding sin? Prov. 15:3 says: "The eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good." Heb. 4:13: "Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do." Not one thing is concealed from God. Eccl. 12:14: "For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil." Jer. 16:17: "For mine eyes are upon all their ways: they are not hid from my face, neither is their iniquity hid from mine eyes."
Truth: What should our response be? Proverbs 28:13: "He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy." We may think we can hide our sin from people for a time, but we can never conceal it from God. The only right and safe place for secret sin is in honest confession before the One who already sees it all and is covered by the blood of Jesus Christ.
This debased lifestyle was not isolated to just the common person. No, it follows what we see today: The rich, famous, and the leadership are those who initiate the downfall. Instead of leadership opposing this evil, they participate in it. The kings and princes happily made their bed with the people’s wickedness. The leaders delighted in the schemes of the wicked.
When God is removed from man’s plans, he will either meet his own destruction or the Lord’s judgment. Proverbs 21:30 says: “There is no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the LORD.”
Not one person called out to God. Not one. No one considered God. No one prayed to God. They completely ignored the Divine who had provided and protected. There could not be a bigger indictment in our land than this today.
Truth: Here is the recipe for certain disaster: The people did evil. The priests did evil. So did the prophets. So did the princes. They were hemmed in by their own sinful behaviors. They killed each other. They committed adultery and sinned high-handedly against Jehovah, the Maker of the covenant. Their deeds were deceptive, so much so that they successfully demolished their own leaders. Here we have one of the greatest understatements of all-time: they brought their own demise upon their own heads. And maybe then they might seek God. Nope. They didn’t request one thing of God. They never appealed to Him in repentance.
Application: We should never accept sin. The people never restrained their sin and instead made a celebration of it. Woe unto us when we do that in our lives. Sin never helps us. Sin will ultimately destroy us. We must repent and confess that sin as fast as we can. Instead of allowing sin to devour us, we must trust in the power of defeated sin at the cross.
Conclusion – Recipe to Ruin a Nation
1) Deception attempts to hide sin from God.
2) Deception comes in accepting sin from the leadership on down.
The great deception is thinking we are okay on the outside, all the while we are sinking on the inside.