CHRIST CREATIVE BAPTIST CHURCH
A SERMON PREACHED ON SUNDAY
APRIL 25, 1999
BY
THE REV. DR. GEORGE ST. ANTHONY FERGUSON, SR.
AUTHOR: Hosea
THEME: Redeeming Love
DATE: 8th Century BC
TEXT: Hosea 8:7
Have you ever gone through a storm? Have you ever driven through a storm? Have you ever sailed through a storm? Have you ever flown through a storm? Storms come in various ways. Some storms are seen. Some storms are unseen. Some storms are expected. Some storms are unexpected. Storms come in various forms. Some storms are physical. Some storms are mental. Some storms are spiritual. You are going into a storm, already in a storm, or coming out of a storm. If you have not been in a storm, just keep on living. The storms of life are constant. What is a storm? A storm is a tempest. A storm is a tornado. A storm is a hurricane. A storm is a whirlwind. But I know someone who can walk on the waters of your storm and say peace be still. So on this Lord's Supper Sunday and in light of the tragedy in Littleton, CO, the Lord told me to preach on the topic, Reaping The Whirlwind.
Our sermon lesson comes from the 8th chapter of the book of Hosea. By way of introduction, you should know that Hosea was a prophet of God. He is called a minor prophet, not because what he wrote was insignificant but because he wrote a short book. Hosea lived during the time of the divided Nations of Israel and Judah. Hosea was a contemporary of the prophets Amos, Isaiah and Micah. Hosea dealt with the unfaithfulness of the Nation of Israel. The unfaithfulness of the Nation of Israel was exemplified in Hosea life by the unfaithfulness of his wife, Gomer. I did not say Gomer Pyle. I said Gomer. Gomer was a prostitute prior to marrying Hosea and she became unfaithful to him by going back to prostitution. But Hosea loved Gomer. Israel was an idol worshipping nation prior to marrying God at Mt. Sinai and it became unfaithful to Him by going back to idol worship. But God loved Israel. Gomer and Israel were just like us. We were sinners prior to being saved by Jesus and we become unfaithful to Him by going back to our sins. But Jesus loves us. And God suffers when His people are unfaithful to Him. God cannot condone sin. But God will never cease loving His people. God will always seek to win back those who have forsaken Him. By the time we get to chapter 8, God chastised Israel for its unfaithfulness. God had an issue against the Nation of Israel. God said he would withdraw his face from Israel. God said that in the last days only a remnant of true believers will believe in Him. And beginning in chapter 8:1, God said, "Set the trumpet to thy mouth. He shall come as an eagle against the house of the LORD, because they have transgressed my covenant, and trespassed against my law." My first point is this: We need to blow the trumpet in Zion and sound the alarm. God told the Jews to set the trumpet to their mouth. The Jewish trumpet was not the brass trumpet we see in bands today. The Jewish trumpet was the ram's horn. The Jews would blow the horn on the Feast of Trumpets. The Feast of Trumpets is also called Rosh Hashanah. It marks the beginning of the Jewish New Year in September or October. But the trumpet was also used to sound the alarm for a battle. When Joshua fought the battle of Jericho, the Jews blew the trumpets to sound the alarm for the battle and the walls came tumbling down. When Gideon fought the battle against the Midianites, they blew the trumpets, threw down their pitcher jars, held their lamps and said the sword of the Lord and of Gideon. When the army went to battle, a trumpet would sound. Paul asked if the trumpet gives an uncertain sound, who shall prepare themselves for the battle? When Jesus comes back to rapture His church He shall descend from heaven with shout with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God and the trumpet shall sound. As a preacher, I am a trumpet of God. That's why I preach loud. I am God's mouthpiece. And I am a blowing the trumpet in Zion. I am sounding an alarm. I want you to know that
JESUS IS COMING BACK
JESUS WILL COME LIKE AN EAGLE
JESUS WILL BEGIN JUDGMENT AT THE HOUSE OF THE LORD
JESUS WILL JUDGE BECAUSE WE TRANSGRESSED HIS COVENANT
JESUS WILL JUDGE BECAUSE WE TRESPASSED HIS LAW
The song says, blow the trumpet in Zion, Zion. Sound the alarm in my holy mountain. Blow the trumpet in Zion, Zion. Sound the alarm. Can I get a witness? I'm talking about Reaping The Whirlwind.
God told Israel in the day of their suffering, they shall cry to Him and say we know you God. In other words they will say, God we know you so why are you allowing all this hell to break out all around us. But did they really know the Lord? They went to the Temple. They observed the seven Jewish Feast Days. They paid their tithes and offerings in the Temple. They prayed in the Temple. They did a lot of things in the Temple. But they did not know the Lord because they were doing their own thing! They were just like us today. Listen to me! We observe the Christian Holy Days of Easter, Mother's Day and Christmas. We pay our tithes and offerings in church. We pray in church. We do a lot of things in church. But most of us do not know the Lord because we are doing our own thing! Most of us are church members but not members of the body of Christ. Most of us are who are born again are not disciples of Christ. We rarely come to church but want God to bless us. When we come to church, we don't want to forget about ourselves and magnify the Lord and worship Him. And God in V3 said, "Israel hath cast off the thing that is good: the enemy shall pursue him." My second point is this: Until we stop casting off the things that are good, we will keep getting the things that are bad. Israel was casting off the good things of God and substituting with the bad things Satan. They stopped loving the Lord their God with all their hearts and all their souls and all their mind. They stopped loving their neighbors just like they loved themselves. How many of you know that you have no real love if you don't love God with all your heart? How many of you know that you cannot really love yourself unless you love your neighbor? Just loving yourself all by yourself is sad, selfish, and lonely. Just loving yourself and not God is evil. And whenever you are so evil, God will let your enemy come after you. God told Israel, your enemy shall pursue you. If God sends your enemy against you, who can stop him or her? Israel kept casting off the things that were good for the things that were bad. They set up kings who were not chosen by God. They made princes who God did not know. They had made idols of silver and gold. But God said you shall have no other gods before Me. God will never have any other gods before Him. Do you remember the story in 1 Samuel 5 when the Philistines took the Ark of the Covenant from the Jews in battle? They put it in the temple of Dagon, their idol fish god. On the next day, they saw Dagon fallen on his face. God had slapped him down. So they set Dagon up again. On the second day, they saw Dagon fallen on his face again but now his head and hands were cut off. Only his stump was left. God had slapped him down again, stumped him in the ground, and cut off his head and hands. In a way, God was saying He had to fish and cut bait. God wants you to know that He will not tolerate you having any other gods before Him. The kings of Israel had put idol calves in the cities of Dan and Bethel so the Jews in Israel did not have to go to Jerusalem in Judah worship God. So God told Israel your calves have cast you off. God said my anger is kindled against you. God wanted to know how long would it be before they truly repented and obtained real forgiveness. God told them their idol calves shall be broken in pieces. And that's what is happening to most of us. Our lives are being broken in pieces. Whenever we do evil, God let's our enemy come after us. Our worst enemy is ourselves. We have met the enemy and it is us. God told us, our enemy shall pursue us. Yet we refuse to listen. We keep casting off the things that are good for the things that are bad. We set up national leaders who are not chosen by God. We make local leaders but God does not know them. We make idols of silver and gold. But God said you shall have no other gods before Me. Now you might say, I don't worship a dumb, stupid idol. But you better check yourself before you wreak yourself. When your job is more important to you then God, your job is your idol. When your home is more important to you then God, your home is your idol. When your car is more important to you then God, your car is your idol. When your money is more important to you then God, your money is your idol. When your family is more important to you then God, your family is your idol. When anything is more important to you then God, it is your idol. God said you will have no other gods before Me. Stop casting off the good things of God. Paul said
WHATSOEVER THINGS ARE TRUE
WHATSOEVER THINGS ARE HONEST
WHATSOEVER THINGS ARE JUST
WHATSOEVER THINGS ARE PURE
WHATSOEVER THINGS ARE LOVELY
WHATSOEVER THINGS ARE OF GOOD REPORT
IF THERE BE ANY VIRTUE
IF THERE BE ANY PRAISE
THINK ON THESE THINGS
Am I right about it? I'm preaching about Reaping The Whirlwind.
In V7 God says, "For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk; the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up." My final point is this: Until we stop sowing the wind, we will not stop reaping the whirlwind. God told Israel you have sown your seeds to the wind and now you are reaping the whirlwind. You have thrown your seeds to the air and you are now reaping a storm. God said look at your fields. Look at your crops. Look at your results. God said your fields have no stalks. There are no corn stalks out there. God said the buds will not grow and it will yield no meal. You can't make a meal if you don't have any grain to harvest. God said if the buds do yield anything, strangers will eat them up. People you don't know will take what little food you get. God told Israel, you are swallowed up. You shall be like all the other nations. You shall be like a vessel in which there is no more pleasure. Why did God allow His people to suffer? Because they had gone on their own way like a wild ass all alone and had paid the devil to love them. For their unfaithfulness, God said I will allow them to sorrow for their burdens. God said I will not accept them. God said Israel had forgotten its Maker. God said Judah had built many fortified cities. But God said I will send fire down from heaven and devour them. And I came by to tell you that's what's happening to us today. Look at Columbine High School in Littleton, CO on April 20, 1999. This shooting once again shows that our society is reaping the whirlwind. Even at Largo High School in Largo, MD we had a shooting on April 21, 1999 and thank God no one was hurt. But in CO, those two killers were members of a Gothic or Goth group. They were called "The Trench Coat Mafia." They focused on darkness. They focused on evil. They focused on death. They dressed in black, painted their face white, wore black lipstick, and wore black nail polish. In short, their souls were dark. They were devil worshippers. They hated Blacks, athletes and Christians. They were without hope, without God and without Christ in this world. They listened to the cult musician Marilyn Manson and followed Adolph Hitler. On Hitler's birthday, this group decided to kill Blacks, athletes and Christians just because they were Blacks, athletes and Christians. The devil was busy. 13 people were killed. The President quoting Paul said we look through a glass darkly and we don't understand everything. That may be true in the abstract but we who are spiritual must understand what's happening and what's going on. And I'm not going to mince words today. I'm not gonna pull punches. I'm here to save your soul. I don't have time to play with you and take it easy on you. I have to do the will of God. Those two boys were on a murder, suicide mission from hell. They knew they were going to kill themselves but they were going to take as many others with them as possible. These sick boys wanted to destroy the whole school. Yes, they were taunted and belittled by others, and that was wrong. But that was no reason for them to kill anybody. In high school, everybody gets picked on. One of the questions is where were their parents in all this? But these two boys and their helpers planted over 32 bombs all over the school. It was open season on people of color, athletes and Christians. Teenagers were begging and pleading for their lives. Teachers were terrorized for their lives. Only Jesus could help them. Can't you see the terror? Can't you feel the fear? Can't you hear their hearts beating fast? What if that was your child or love one in that school? Their mothers and fathers could not help. The school security was out gunned. The devil came right through the door in the form of those two boys with guns blazing trying to kill everybody. And in the end, these two deeply troubled souls killed as many people they could and then killed themselves just like Judas killed himself after betraying Jesus. Death pulled out his stinger and took these two sinners straight to hell. Jesus said the devil comes but for to steal, to kill and to destroy. This shooting reflects the lost civility in our society. This shooting reflects the lost humanity in our society. This shooting reflects the lost spirituality in our society. We have sown the wind and reaped the whirlwind. How did this happen? We began to sow the wind in the 60's with the Baby Boomers. We as a society started to leave the church and began to do our own thing. Our morals began to go down. White folks left the Catholic Church and main line Protestant churches. Black folks left the Baptist Church and various Methodist churches. We were sowing the wind. Dr. Benjamin Spock told us not to spank our children. Marilyn Murray O'Hair brought a lawsuit against prayer in school for her son Bill Murray and The Supreme Court took it out. We were sowing the wind. We were in shook when Pres. John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert F. Kennedy were killed. We burned the cities after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. We protested the War in Vietnam and sang the Beetle's new song, All We Need Is Love. But love without God is no love at all. We protested for Civil Rights and sang James Brown's new song, Say it Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud. But pride without humility is false pride. Hippies, yuppies and flower children were all over. In 1969, the cover of Time Magazine said God is dead. We were sowing the wind. But God is not dead. We were spiritually dead. We were dead in our sins and trespasses. Theologians went on a quest for the historical Jesus and said only a few words in the gospels were the real words of Jesus. We were sowing the wind. In the 70's, we experimented with alternative religions. We tried Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam. We experimented with alternative lifestyles. We tried bisexual sex, homosexual sex, three way sex, orgies, and no sex. We experimented with drugs. We tried marijuana, uppers, downers, cocaine, and heroin. We experimented with free love. We tried open marriages, living together and having one night stands. We were sowing the wind. We turned on, tuned in, and dropped out. We hung out, hung in and hung on. We divorced each other at the drop of a hat for irreconcilable differences. We were sowing the wind. In the 80's we saw the explosion of crack cocaine and the drug wars in the Black community. We saw the growth of gangs and buried our murdered youth. We had buppies and yuppies. White folks were making more money and saying greed is good as the savings and loan industry died. We were sowing the wind. In the 90's we starting seeing white teenagers shooting people in school as parental respect was at an all time low. We were told that if we physically spank our children we would be sued for child abuse. But when we stopped disciplining our children physically, we started to abuse them spiritually by not taking them to church. Spiritual abuse is the worst form of child abuse. We stopped putting limits on the acts and actions of our children. The cry of the day was I can't do anything with that boy or girl. Divorce accelerated and blended families did not blend. The Temptation called it a ball of confusion. We had sown the wind. Listen! We are in the last portion of the last days. The spirit of the antichrist is rising. I believe the actual antichrist is already born and is growing up somewhere in the world right now. He will not be revealed before the church is raptured up but when he is revealed he will be about 30 years old to mimic the age when Jesus was revealed as the Messiah. The computer and the internet will be the main way he will communicate his message during the 7 year Tribulation. The easiest number for a computer to read or scan is 9 or 6 turned upside down. In short the number 666. Don't get me wrong, Jesus sent the computer to bless us but Satan is perverting God's creation like he always does. The Y2K problem is just the beginning of the birth pangs Jesus told us would come. We already have wars and rumors of wars in Iraq and Kosovo. But fear not. Greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world. God has not given you a Spirit of fear but of love and of power and of a sound mind. But right now we are confused about reality, virtual reality and fiction. For too many of us, fiction is reality and reality is fiction. Video games like Doom, TV shows like the Simpsons, and movies like Natural Born Killers are killing us. We still don't want to believe that the media influences us even though corporations spend billions to advertise to get us to buy this or that. We are caught up in the matrix of Satan, sin and the world system. That is all the antichrist will need in order to influence gullible sinners. Demons are getting bolder and bolder in their actions. Know and understand that Paul was right. Paul said for we wrestle not with flesh and blood but with principalities, with powers, with rulers of darkness, and with spiritual wickedness in high places. Paul said we must understand the strategies and wiles of the devil. Jesus said we must be wise as serpents but harmless as doves. Paul said we must put on the whole armor of God. But we did not listen to Paul. We ignored God and those boys went on a killing spree. But God is still God. Prayers were going up all over that school. There are no atheists in a foxhole. There are no atheists in a battle. Paul said, "Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father." Marilyn Murray O'Hair's son Bill Murray is now a pastor. The Supreme Court may have taken prayer out of public schools but on that day in CO, no little man made law was going to stop the people from praying to God in school. And when God says sowing the wind it means to sow nothing. It means to plant nothing. We put nothing in the soil of God then and so we are getting nothing in return from God now. God said he who sows sparingly shall reap sparingly. God said he who sows bountifully shall reap bountifully. But if you sow nothing you shall reap nothing. And when God says reaping the whirlwind it means the judgment of God. It means the justice of God. If you don't think we have inherited the whirlwind, just look at our schools and our children. Our children are saying we don't know your God and you don't know Him either. So we will do what we want to do. Paul said be not deceived, God is not mocked; whatsoever a man sows that shall he also reap. If he sows to the flesh, of his flesh he shall reap corruption but if he sows to the Spirit, of the Spirit he shall reap life everlasting. But there is another way. I came by to tell you the good news. God in 2 Chronicles 7:14 said, "If my people, who are called by my name, should humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." Christians, we need to do four things from the heart. First, humble ourselves. Humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God and He will exalt us in due time. Second, pray. We ought to pray without ceasing. We ought to watch and pray. Third, seek His face. Seek His presence. Seek His will. Not my will but thy will be done. Fourth, turn from our wicked ways. Repent and turn 180o from our evils. Confess our sins. When we do those four things, then God will do three things. First, God shall hear from heaven. He'll hear our every prayer. Second, God will forgive us for our sin. He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Third, God will heal our land. God will heal our lives. God will heal the brokenhearted. God will fix it every time. And that's where we are in American. We are in the whirlwind we created because we have done our thing and all hell is breaking loose. But it can be fixed. One day God sent His heart fixer, mind regulator and whirlwind stopper. His name is Jesus. Jesus died... God so loved... Where sin abounds grace does much more abound. God's grace is sufficient for me. Amazing grace how sweet the sound.... My hope is built... Am I right about it? And I just want to ask one question: "Will you turn from your wicked ways or we you keep on sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind?" The doors of the church are opened.
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