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Verse 15 of our text in Hosea is the key verse of this lesson and reads "I will go and return to my place, till they acknowledge their offence, and seek my face: . . ." God is the One speaking here and He is speaking about the judgment that is coming upon Israel for their backsliding.

We spoke in our last lesson of a warning of Jehovah God and we spoke of how that the kingdom of Israel had been split in two through a civil war over high taxes. The northern tribes were called "Israel" and were often referred to by the name of the largest tribe, "Ephraim." The southern tribes went by the name of their largest tribe, "Judah." Just as a way of refresher, in chapter 4, Hosea sent a warning from God to Ephraim about her idolatry and also sent a warning to Judah across the border not to join in with the northern tribes in political, spiritual, or religious associations because God was going to judge Ephraim for their idolatry and if Judah were to join in, then they would have to also partake of the judgment. God's exact words through Hosea were "Ephraim is joined to idols; let him alone" and that was our text in the previous lesson.

When we get to chapter 5 from which this lesson is derived, it is obvious that some time has passed since chapter 4, and it is also obvious that the northern tribes of Ephraim have NOT ceased their idolatrous ways and, despite the preaching of Hosea, have not turned back to God in repentance. Therefore, God is now bringing judgment on them because of their sinful ways. Verse 1 tells us that in particular that the religious leaders, the priests, and the civil leaders, the kings, have rejected the Word of the Lord. Their time of mercy is running out.

It is also obvious from chapter 5, that despite the clear and blunt warning flung across the border to Judah to not get involved in Ephraim's sin, that they have joined themselves to the idolaters as well. In this chapter five of judgment, God pronounces judgment coming on Ephraim and includes the southern tribes of Judah in the judgment five times. Verse 5 is particularly gloomy:

God is saying Ephraim shall reap the judgment of their idolatry and then He says "Judah also shall fall with them." This prophecy is not positive. Because the people of Israel have ignored the warnings of God against their sins that He sent through the prophet Hosea and his southern counterpart, Isaiah, God is bringing judgment upon them. And there is something about judgment that causes us even today to rather ignore and sort of skip over these passages and move on to something more positive. But the cold facts are is that people still backslide from close fellowship with God today, and in this chapter of judgment is a tremendous lesson on how God's judgment works and also how great His mercy is toward us!

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It is obvious from this chapter that God's judgment on willful sin is progressive. After spending the first few verses explaining the reason for His judgment (Israel's idolatry) God then says in verse 12: "I be unto Ephraim as a moth." That's figurative language. We find another figure of speech in verse 14 when God says: "I will be unto Ephraim as a lion." Then in verse fifteen, the last verse of the chapter, God speaks bluntly and in plain language: "I will go and return to my place, till they acknowledge their offence, and seek my face: . . ." In other words, God will withdraw Himself from His people. That is the worst judgment possible on earth. The moth is bad, the lion is painful, but for God to depart from your life is the absolutely worst thing that can ever happen to you.

But God is not like us who withdraw ourselves from others on a whim or suddenly without warning. We find that the judgment of God is progressive in that God gives us signs of when we are to be in danger of the worst judgment of His departure from our lives. In the language of Hosea: before the departure of God, He first becomes the moth and the lion. God does not just leave someone because they turn their back on Him and move on into willful sin, but rather tries to give them a space and a time in which they can realize that they need to repent. The judgment of the moth and the lion, then, are actually a sign of God's great mercy! Let's look a moment at exactly what God meant by such strange figures of speech.

The moth is a very small and unobtrusive pest. It can fly into your closet in a whim and without you even aware of it's presence, it will begin to devour your clothes. People will spend large amounts of money for expensive cedar wood because they think that it will protect against moths even though there is no one shred of scientific evidence to back this up. I remember one time I went to get a suit out of a closet that I had not worn in a while and in putting on the pants I realized that there were small holes in the fabric. I had been "mothed!" The chief characteristic of the moth is that it does damage in small quantities. It does not consume your entire jacket and does not feed upon the whole sweater, but rather does just enough damage to render the garment ruined and useless. You've still got most of your garment, but the damage done is enough to render it worthless.

The garment of the spiritual man is our conscience. It is interesting to note that in scripture, the mind and the spirit of man are inseparable. When a person dies, their soul or mind, and spirit separate from the physical body. The spiritual man either dies or lives depending upon what the mind feeds. They are inseparable. And in each person, God places a conscience, a little voice in our mind through which He can speak to reveal to us the difference between right or wrong. In a sense, sin is like a moth. Sin "eats away" at our conscience. It doesn't take it totally away, but it damages it little by little. The first step to judgment of God is found in the previous chapter of Hosea when Israel refused to listen to their conscience confirming the Word of the Lord spoken through the man of God. When we cease to be sensitive to the inner voice of God; when we begin to justify our willful sin and stop being pricked in our conscience, that's when we are opening ourselves to the progression of God's judgment in our lives. In our other text, Paul wrote Timothy and told him that God had revealed the signs of the end times:

If anyone "departs from the faith" and turns their back on God, they will always have done the following steps:

1. Give heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. They always listen to false teaching and leave truth of scripture for something that "sounds good." The Bible ceases to be a book of absolutes.

2. Speak lies in hypocrisy. They will begin to live one way around church people and another way the rest of the time. A hypocrite is one who appears to be holy on the outside and yet inside there is spiritual decay and death. Hypocrisy is pretending to be one thing when, in reality, you are the opposite of what you profess to be.

3. Have their conscience seared with a hot iron. This is a medical analogy. In those days, they would use irons heated in a fire to brand animals and even slaves. The severe burn on the skin would heal but would not be as sensitive as it once was to external touch. It was "seared." At such a place, only a portion of feeling remained compared to what it once was.

When the Word of God, either through reading or study, or preached through a man of God ceases to affect a person, there conscience takes on the same traits of skin that has been branded. When you know something is wrong, and you do it anyway, the first time your conscience bothers you greatly. That is God trying to tell you to repent and to get things right with Him and to change your lifestyle that is bringing great detriment to your walk with Him. But if you choose not to change and not to get things right, and your repentance is words only and you willfully continue in that sin, then the next time, your conscience does not bother you as much. Every time the cycle repeats itself, you grow less and less sensitive to the voice of God and your conscience doesn't bother you as much. Now, if the preacher really preaches hard and strong on the subject, you might have a little pang of conscience, but that's easily passed off and forgotten after the service -- your mind has not been seared as with a hot iron in that area, and justification of your sin is easy.

How can someone who was once sensitive to God and known truth turn completely away? They don't do it overnight: their conscience would never allow that. It's a gradual process. It takes time. It takes some work. Their conscience must be hardened. They must work at justifying their sin. And eventually, the can reach a place where "nothing's wrong," and they can justify anything that they do scripturally. They reach a place where there is no absolutes. That's how despite the anointed message of Hosea and Isaiah, Israel did not repent. They seared their conscience over. And that is a dangerous place to be because it puts you on the fast track of God's judgment. Remember that every time you go ahead and do what you want to do despite that little voice in the back of your mind that is bothered, you are searing your conscience. It will be easier to do next time and you are beginning to walk down the long road away from a God who only wants the best for you and has blessings that He wants to bestow upon you. You are walking away from the best friend that you can ever have.

I have been around people who have no knowledge of what the Bible really says, and they are doing something like consuming alcohol or such. Without me saying a word, they will begin to justify themselves. I haven't said one condemning things and people begin to say stuff like "well, Jesus turned water into wine didn't He?" Or "People in the Bible got drunk didn't they?" And the answer to both questions is yes. (Of course, the Bible doesn't say that Jesus created a strongly alcoholic beverage and if He had done so, He would have contradicted His own word which says in Proverbs to avoid strong, alcoholic drinks. The word for "wine" can mean several things depending on it's context and does not necessarily mean an alcoholic beverage as we define it today. And, yes, people did get drunk in the Bible but in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, we are commanded to be "not drunk with wine... but be ye filled with the Holy Ghost." And in every case where in the Old Testament someone did drink, the Bible is quick to point out the evil and the bad that befell them for it. Also, kings and priests were commanded in the Old Testament to not drink alcoholic beverages of any kind and in the New Testament the believers are to be "kings and priests" with Jesus. Also, Jesus taught to avoid "drunkeness" which in the original Greek simply means "intoxication." It is a sin to be slightly intoxicated and the intoxication begins at the first sip...) I could launch into all that with those people, but usually I do not. Because besides all of that, I haven't said a word to these people and yet something within them feels as if it has to justify their action. That is their conscience speaking to them. And the very fact that they bring it up is proof enough that they shouldn't be doing it. If there's truly nothing wrong with it, then why try to justify it to anyone!?

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So the first step toward the judgment of God is the searing of conscience. But look back at verse 12 of the 5th chapter of Hosea. God says "I am unto Ephraim as a moth." It's not sin eating away in small bits at the people but now it's God! If you will not listen to the voice of your conscience and continue to turn away from God, then God will become as "a moth" to try to get your attention. In small ways, God will begin to fight against you.

It will start with an area of your life unrelated to your sin. A moth doesn't eat the clothes on your body, but rather the ones out of the light. If you won't listen to God, say, about your dishonesty, or fornication, or gossip, then God might start allowing problems to arise at work. Or in your marriage. Or in your friendships. Or in your health. Little problems start to pop up here and there. And usually it will pop up where you thought you were the strongest. You pull your favorite suit out of the closet and you find it has been devoured in places. What you though was sure and safe has been ruined by small things.

There are other sins beyond sins of commission. It could be a sin of omission. Maybe a lack of quality prayer or fasting. Maybe you are not being real with God. And then all of sudden you and your wife or you and your friend start having problems. Whenever my wife and I have some issues, I always go get alone with God and see if I'm acting the same way toward God. Solomon's issues with his wives (he wasn't satisfied with only one) mirrored his problem with God (he wasn't satisfied with only one). If I'm not spending enough time with her, then I'm probably not spending enough time with God. And if God has to use my marriage to get my spiritual attention, that means that I missed the soft voice speaking to my conscience. If God has to let a few small problems start popping up to get you to see your sin, then you were ignoring when He first tried to speak to your heart directly. To put it bluntly, if God has to speak through the thunder, then you missed the still, small voice!

And so God loves us enough to do something a little more drastic to get our attention. He becomes "as a moth" eating away at other areas in our life trying to get us to wake up. When people come to me with issues with someone else, or with their spouse or parents or whatever, usually the root of the problem is something between them and God that God is trying to get out. The other relationships are side issues to their relationship with Jesus Christ. God may use those other things that are being "eaten away" to get people seeking Godly counsel, or to pay more attention to what the Bible says, but in the end the complete solution is to get things right with Him! The things the moth is attacking are "side issues."

We can see this illustrated in Israel of Hosea's time. Their issue was idolatry. That was the sin for which the judgment was coming. But God became "as a moth" to them to try to get them to wake up. Their leaders became corrupt. Their businesses stopped prospering. Their harvest stopped being as full. The rains stopped coming at the appropriate times. They began to hear about how a great nation of Assyria and Egypt were coming to attack and began to live in fear. Their children began to be disobedient. The moth was eating away, and all the while God was doing it to try to remind them of the great sin of idolatry which was the main issue!

Some times people get mad at God for not fixing their marriage, or healing their body, or restoring a relationship, or whatever and they say "God failed me" when God did not fail them at all. Rather, the moth stayed because the issue wasn't their marriage or illness or relationship but rather a sin that God had been trying for a long time to get out of their life. It might be bitterness or some deep rooted rebellion or unforgiveness. And if they would get that right with God, they would find that the moth would stop it's devouring in the other issues!

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When God couldn't get Israel's attention through small side things, then God moved on to the next level of His judgment. In verse 14 He says "I will be unto Ephraim as a lion, and as a young lion to the house of Judah." If the little things don't wake them up and get them to return to His loving arms of mercy, then God has to resort to more drastic measures. There is nothing subtle in a lion's attack, it faces it's object head on and does much more damage than a moth. A young lion is particularly vicious and direct. What God is saying is that if the small problems won't wake up a backsliding person, He will resort to more direct -- and painful -- measures.

Some tragedies are just life. And some problems are just life. I'm not intending to attribute all bad to sin in our life. But it is true that God will allow you to go lower and lower in order to try to get your attention. Where the mouth of the moth was nibbling away, the mouth of the lion now brings severe pain and damage. The marriage spat becomes a divorce. The illness becomes a death sentence. The problem at work becomes a termination. The estranged friend becomes a bitter enemy with an agenda to destroy you. I have often seen this digression in backslider's lives. First they sear their consciences to the preached Word of God and become hypocrites and then little things begin to go wrong. If they continue their walking away from God, then they always have major calamities strike. It's the judgment of God trying to get them to wake up. But we could also truthfully say that it's the mercy of God that He becomes "as the lion." Because God loves us enough that He is willing to use drastic means to get us attention rather than just allowing us to be lost and to spend eternity in hell. I say it often it seems: "God cares a whole lot less about your personal, temporary comfort and a lot more about your eternal destination than we realize." God always looks at things through the glasses of eternity. He sees hardships in life in a different light. God is willing to resort to drastic measures "as a lion" because He is trying to spur us to get things right with Him before the last horrible step in the progression of His judgment: God does not want to have to depart from us!

Let me pause here and say that is a sobering point that we can see this digression from God not only in people's lives, but in our own country of the United States. As a country, America has seared it's conscience to not being affected by the Word of God. There are no more absolutes in scripture. If there were, then the so called "gay marriage" would not be an issue for there is no such thing in scripture. The definition of marriage is "one man and one woman." We got marriage from the Bible even if no one wants to admit it. It was the first institution that God ever set up. But America has their conscience seared with a hot iron. We don't want God in our schools and we don't want Him on our money or in our pledge.

And we can look back over the last hundred years and see how God has become "as a moth" to America. Crime is higher. Their are more epidemics and deadly viruses now than ever before. The divorce rate hasn't been below the 50% level in several decades now. Hollywood pushes their agenda of going beyond the limits so much that nudity, profanity, and sexuality that wouldn't have been shown in Playboy in the 50s now regularly plays in even the homes of some who say they are Christians. "It's just R-rated, preacher." "It's just PG -13." It's not bad. We say that because our definition of "bad" has been seared over by a sinful society. It is America that changed. It wouldn't fly not even three decades ago, and certainly God has not changed! And yet nobody attributes the high divorce and infidelity and crime rates to the fact that the morality of America has been rocked by the agenda of Hollywood. Television, my friend, has done more to bring American closer to hell than thousands of years of books or the invention of radio ever did. There's a difference between hearing a naked lady sing, reading about her singing, and seeing her singing. It's not the technology that is bad. I understand that the computer screens upon which I typed this sermon uses the same technology. But it's what man has done with the technology. You'd better guard what you watch, whether it be a picture in a book or magazine, on a television show, on a video/DVD/ whatever else they invent, on the Internet, or in person! Your eyes are the window to your soul (mind) the Bible says and your mind and spirit are inseparable. What you see will affect your walk with God!

And since God couldn't get American's attention through the moth, He has recently gone to more drastic means. The tragedy of the twin towers is that God knew that it was coming and did not stop it. Why? It was the voice of a lion roaring at America that it wasn't sports, finance, and Hollywood that was important, but rather that they DID need Him in their lives! God stopped everything and all of a sudden for a few weeks it was fashionable to pray in schools and at work. But I'm afraid that we didn't heed the Word of God because America went right back to her idolatrous ways. Our conscience is seared that after a few hundred times of seeing the plane hit the tower, it doesn't affect us anymore. And now we don't need God in our schools and our pledges and we don't need the ten commandments in our law system. And we have gone back to propagating the filthiness of Hollywood as the "norm" of our lives. I'm afraid that the lion will roar again soon. But if America doesn't heed that, we will find ourselves in danger, as Israel was, of the worst possible judgment: the Departure of God!

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If the moth is not heeded and the lion is ignored, then God has no choice but to leave. He said through the mouth of Hosea:

Hosea 5:15 I will go and return to my place, till they acknowledge their offence, and seek my face: in their affliction they will seek me early.

In closing this lesson, we must seek to understand exactly what God means. What does it mean for God to depart from us? In a sense, God never leaves. He fills the universe. In that sense, God's presence can never and will never be withdrawn. The Psalmist said:

So this scripture in Hosea is not talking about the presence of God that fills the universe for it is impossible for God to not be everywhere at one time. No man can escape the government of God. His eyes see all that the wicked and the righteous do and say. His laws and His Word will always be in effect in your life. In that sense, His presence can never leave us. So what does this mean then? What does it mean that God says "I will go and return to my place?" What does it mean in verse 6 when He says that "He will withdraw Himself from them?"

To understand let's go back to the story of Belshazzar in the book of Daniel. Belshazzar was the grandson of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar. In Daniel chapter 5 we find that Belshazzar through a big drunken feast for his friends. And this evil king who had ignored the warnings of the prophet Daniel so much that his conscience had been seared, took the sacred cups of the temple of Jehovah God and used them for the feast. They had been reverently stored and protected but they were now the tools to bring them to a place of drunkenness and profanity. In the middle of the feast the hand of God appeared writing words on the wall. The words were translated only when the prophet Daniel was summoned. They were: "Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin." Daniel interpreted them to mean "the God in Whose hand thy breath is, and Whose are all thy ways, has thou not glorified." "Thou has been weighed in the balances and found wanting." Because of this, the kingdom was taken from Belshazzar and given to the Medes and Persians that very night.

In one sense, God had not withdrawn Himself because He was present at the feast. He was the "God in Whose hand" the drunken and profane breath of the king rested. But in a sense, God did withdraw Himself from Belshazzar that night. God withdrew Himself in guidance. From that day on, He would not help or interfere in Belshazzar's life, and the result was the loss of the kingdom and the life of the evil king.

So when the departure of God comes to a person's life who has ignored all of the warnings of the progression of judgment, He withdraws Himself in the sense that He no longer interferes in their life, no longer extends Grace, no longer makes sure that the good of the person will come out of every situation. The person is left to their own strength and their own understanding and their own providence. They are left to reap the full benefit of their rebellions. When God withdraws, it means that He tears down the fences of separation and protection. As long as it was God acting "as the moth" then the devil could not touch you. As long as it was God "roaring as the lion" you had a promise that He would with the trial provide a way of escape and that He would not "put more on you than you can bear." But when God withdraws Himself, He will allow Satan to do what he wills. Life is now free to bring things into your life that can and desire to destroy you. As long as God was involved, you could trust that as long as you sought His face and got things right with Him and turned to Him, that everything was reversible and that He had your best and good in mind. But when God withdraws Himself, all of that protection and love is void. God withdraws His guidance, and that is a very scary place in which to find yourself! I cannot make it -- and do not want to try -- without God involved in my life!

What's the point, preacher? The point is that you do not want to find yourself without the help and guidance of God in your life. You really don't want to have to trust in yourself for everything. And so learn to turn back to God often and early. Learn to recognize the signs of your wandering down the progression of God's judgment. Respond to them. When you realize that what used to bother you no longer has any effect, go allow God to renew your conscience and stop the willful sin. If you realize that the moth is nibbling or the lion's roaring, then whatever you do, don't wait until God's departure from your life to realize how your sin has hurt your relationship with the Almighty, but turn right then! The point is that you don't want to find yourself without the guidance of God Almighty. Because the hurt and pain from the moth and the lion is nothing compared to the departure of God!

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But what about if someone has even transgressed all the way through the cycle of God's judgment!? What if God has departed? Is it hopeless for them? No! And I want to close by impressing upon you that God does not stop there in His judgment. But look carefully to what He said:

God said "I will depart, TILL!" "Till!" That's a big little word and all of God's great mercy is wrapped up into it. God said, "if a person has fallen even so far as to have me depart from them. I depart reluctantly. I don't want to go. I don't want to leave them. And I have left a door of hope open to them." He will depart until you return to Him. Until you seek Him with all of your heart. Until you seek His face. And in this verse we find the true meaning of the words of Jesus "I will never leave you nor forsake you." Even when God departs because of the judgment of sin in our lives, He never truly leaves us because He is waiting like the Father of the prodigal son to rush back to us if we will just come to our senses and repent and return! God only departs if we have first departed from Him, and so He will only return if we FIRST return to Him! That's a great God of Mercy! That's a magnificent God! He is holy and therefore cannot continue to bless us if we continue in willful sin, but even when He departs and withdraws His guidance and His counsel and His protection, He does not reluctantly. He loves us so much! That a perfect God would love such frail, imperfect human beings such as you and I is unfathomable. But He has revealed to us His great love through His mercy! He wants a close relationship with us! He wants to restore what sin has stolen. Therefore the cry of Hosea to the people of Israel ought to be our cry today no matter where we are in the progression of God's judgment:

If we will repent and return to the Lord. If we will return to the place of our first love. If we will turn from willful sin. God will heal us! He will bind us up! He will revive us! He will take us back! And if we then "follow on to know the Lord" we will experience the rain of the Holy Ghost in our lives unlike anything that we ever imagined! Wherever you may be, if your relationship with God has slipped even the slightest bit, we must return to Him for we do not want to ever find ourselves in that awful place of when God departs from us!

I need His guidance! I need His help! I acknowledge that I cannot make it on my own understanding, therefore I will return to the Lord. I will let Him rebuke the devourer. I will let Him shut the mouth of the lion. I will let Him take my stony mind and make it soft and new! I will choose to never depart from Him so that He will never depart from me!