... GOD'S WARNING ...

Hosea 4:1-6 "Hear the word of the Lord, you Israelites, because the Lord has a charge to bring against you who live in the land. There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgment of God in the land. There is only cursing, lying and murder, stealing and adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed. Because of this the land mourns, and all who live in it waste away; the beasts of the field and the birds of the air and the fish of the sea are dying. But let no man bring charge, let no man accuse another, for your people are like those who bring charges against priest. You stumble day and night, and the prophets stumble with you so I will destroy your mother – my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also reject you as my priests; because you have ignored the laws of your God. I will also ignore your children".

We find that within the word of God, He is always telling man to “hear the word” or as we say today “pay attention”. If you examine the Bible carefully you will notice that whenever God has something important to say, he will repeat it many times. Just as we teach our children by repeating lessons over and over until it finally sinks in. Since we are God’s children doesn’t it make sense that He would use the same process with us as we do with our own children?

However, mankind has decided that we don’t need to listen to our Father, we have rebelled and decided that we can do as we like and even now it’s more apparent that man has decided we don’t need God. America has turned def ears to our Lord in Heaven, or as many theologians say: “turned away from”. God is warning us to pay attention, just like parents He’s going to tell us what we’ve been doing wrong and what the price will be for our disobedience.

God speaks of a lack of faithfulness (loyalty to the covenant Lord) and right dealing with men. We don’t demonstrate the love for each other, as Jesus Christ loved us. We as Israelites (a nation) are not acknowledging God or His presence and when God is not acknowledged moral uprightness disappears and corruption appears. Just look around at America today, we as a nation have disposed of the 10 commandments, outlawed prayer in public schools and even deny the very presence of God within our Churches and court rooms.

He goes on talking about sins during that time, which were in direct violation of God’s Laws (the 10 commandments). Just a thought here: “It occurs to me that today we are still violating those commandments and even with the passage of time, and the new covenant (Jesus Christ) man still refuses to obey God’s commands! We can’t even follow one simple command from Jesus Christ, which is “to love one another as Christ loved us”.

Sin is on the uprising; just listen to the cursing that takes place even among our youth. The massive amounts of lying that is demonstrated daily by our leaders within this nation. Aren’t we in fact teaching our youth that lying is acceptable even through television programming? We are poisoning our nation! It appears that we’re encouraging murder, stealing and adultery through the media, books and our very lifestyles.

Then He talks about bloodshed following bloodshed, exactly how precious is life in America or on this planet? Are we not taking lives daily through wars, violent crimes, suicides, death penalties and even a loss of life through direct sin! The land mourns is a powerful statement, God is once again warning man that His judgment on man’s sins will affect all living things in man’s world, yet we still continue pressing forward with our own desires and self gratifications being first and foremost in our lives.

God holds indictments against His priests (messengers) whose duty was and is to be guardians of God’s laws and to furnish religious instruction. God will hold each one of His messengers accountable for any deviations or comprises made by them concerning His word. The messengers of God (Ministers) are to be held accountable for misleading any of God’s children and woe to any who cause one to slip from God’s grace.

God warns His priests not to lodge charges against the people for bringing God’s judgment down on the nation, for they themselves were guilty, and could very well face charges themselves. The similarity here with Jesus telling those in the city “those who are sinless, let him cast the first stone” is quite shocking.

God speaks of stumbling both day and night, and the prophets stumble with you! This can be taken in this manner, “we as a nation continue to sin every day and refuse through choice not to strive or demonstrate that Jesus Christ lives within us. This includes the prophets (messengers of God). This is a continuous struggle occurring both day and night, a struggle, which displays our sinful nature and our choice of not living Godliness lives.

Now, if you haven’t heard anything mentioned so far, please pay attention to what now follows: God has sent a message to our Nation, to His Messengers, and to His Children. God said that His people (that’s you and me) are destroyed from lack of knowledge. In other words, we are going to be destroyed because we haven’t been listening as the Holy Spirit spoke to us both privately and through our Ministers! It doesn’t say maybe destroyed, it says are destroyed… this should leave no room for doubt that God will destroy those who don’t listen!

God said: “Because you have rejected knowledge, I also reject you as my priests”! Now I believe that God is talking to every Christian, because Jesus Christ commanded us (every Christian) to go out unto all nations and to deliver His message! And because we have grown the body of Christ and our numbers have increased, it adds to the sin against God. Take a look around and tell me if that is being done today… are we following the command of Jesus Christ or are we adding to the amount of sin against God?

God continues with: “you have ignored the laws of your God”. This statement leaves nothing to the imagination, it’s direct and to the point… we have ignored the laws of God! We have done away with His laws (10 commandments), outlawed prayer in public schools, removed God from our the very essence of life, our existence. I find it rather strange that our forefathers founded this nation on God, yet we’ve seen fit to remove the solid rock foundation that our forefathers knew we must have in order for our nation to be blessed and grow strong!

I would like to remind you that we were and have been given the freedom to choose, so therefore we have made conscious choices to ignore the laws of our Creator! Watch this…. Now comes the punishment for turning our backs on God! God said; “I will ignore your children”. Wow, now that’s powerful, because you must remember that God is talking from the past which means during this time "God would ignore the children" this included our parents, their parents, and so on… all the way back to the days in which God spoke this.

Has God really ignored our Children? Just take a look at history, our powerful nation has been slowly deteriorating through the years. Our food supplies are decreasing to the point where we have had to seek food supplies from other sources, including adding chemicals to make the same amount go further, produce faster, and larger. Our air is almost to the point that it’s more dangerous that cigarette smoke. Our wildlife is slowly disappearing and in some cases it has already totally disappeared.

Now look at our finances… we evolved from a prosperous nation to one whose debt is so large we have to continue increasing taxes on its occupants to try and repay the debt. Have you noticed that it doesn’t seem to be getting any smaller, but increasing instead? God will not pour out His blessing on America, until America returns to God.

If God told His people (Israel) that He wouldn’t bless them until they turned back to Him, why do we think God will bless a nation as corrupt and sinful as ours has become? We must turn back to God, turn back to the laws that allow us to receive His blessings and to make sure that our Children will not be ignored by God!