How firm a foundation,

ye saints of the Lord is laid for your faith in his excellent word.

The evangelist D.L. Moody was right when he said,

The Bible will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from the Bible. Listening to and obeying God's word is a protection over our lives.

And that's one reason that I'm so glad that you're here at through the Bible, ready to get into God's Word with Dr. J. Vernon McGee.

And as you know, we're in the book of Hosea on our five-year journey

through the whole word. And in this study, we're going to learn how the northern kingdom of Israel

turned away from God because they forgot his word. Well, not only did they forget it, they wanted

nothing to do with it. They completely turned their backs on God's ways. And you know, that's when God's man, Josea, stepped up and said,

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge of God's word.

And then he relayed God's chilling consequence.

Because you forgot the law of your God, I will also forget your children.

I will change your glory into shame.

Wow.

I don't know about you, but that sobering

pronouncement makes me sit up and listen. We're in Josea chapter four, so as you open your Bible,

let's listen to Dr. McGee's introduction on why God will judge his people. Now God says that he must

judge the nation, and he says that he will change their glory into shame.

Now the glory of Israel was actually the temple with the Shikina glory upon it, and his visible presence with the nation, and is definite leading

of them, and their witness to the world of that day of monotheism. In a world of polytheism,

they worship the living and the true God. That was their glory. It brought

the Queen of Sheba from the ends of the earth. Now what is happening is this. God says, I will remove

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