faithful were Baptist church you would please find your seat and grab a hymnal
we'll begin the service once you find a hymnal turn over to song number 162
song number 162 to God be the glory
Thank you for watching!
a part and receive. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, let the earth hear his voice. Praise
the Lord, praise the Lord, let the people rejoice. O come to the Father through Jesus, the Son,
have gone, and pray our rejoicing for Jesus the Son. A
purger and higher and greater will be. A wonderer
transport when Jesus we see.
Through Jesus, the Son, and you in the glory
Make me see and know.
Great singing, let's pray.
Heavenly Father, thank you for this day.
Thank you for the opportunity to be here at church this evening.
Please fill Pastor Anderson with your spirit
and open our ears to hear the message.
It's in Jesus' name that I pray. Amen.
Next, if you would turn in your hymnals to song number 174.
My Jesus, I love thee, song number 174.
The song begins, My Jesus, I love thee, I know thou art mine.
Song number 174.
my garden on Calvary Street.
I love before wearing the thorns on thy crown.
If ever I love him, my Jesus is...
Thank you.
All right, so so many times are listed there below
as well as salvations and baptisms,
birthdays and anniversaries for the month
are listed as well.
And then Brother Matt Walker and Brother Alex Larson
will be hosting another online soul-winning marathon
this Saturday, September 13th from one to five p.m.
So if you're interested in participating
or would like more details,
please contact one of those two guys.
And then on the back,
we have various promotional items with our church logo
available free for the taking for any teens and adults.
We've got all the hoodies in sizes, medium, large,
XL XXL various colors. We got the stainless steel water bottles ball caps sunrise. Did that stuff is all that stuff already out the door? Do we still?
Okay, so it's in the back.
Okay, I was looking at it and I was like, wait a minute, okay.
So it's in the back, so there is still a lot left.
There are a few sizes that we're out of.
If we're out of your size, just hang in there
because we will get those in.
We're gonna get more of everything that we run out of.
So don't just get the wrong size and squeeze into it
or wear it like a huge, giant outfit.
But that stuff's back there, it's free for the taken, but we asked that it be handled
only by adults and teenagers so that kids don't muggle all of it.
and then below that other upcoming events this Friday night.
I'm gonna be preaching in Boise, Idaho,
along with Pastor Corbin Russell and Pastor Aaron Thompson.
We're doing an event there at some kind of a rented event
center, those details are online
on all the different social media platforms
or you can reach out to Pastor Thompson for details,
but that's this Friday night
and then soul winning on Saturday in
Boise, Idaho.
We got the Spanish language cruise mission strip coming up
October 20th through 26th.
And then we have the missions conference
at the beginning of November.
Of course, we also have a lot of other mission opportunities
over here, cruise trips and other mission strips
over here to my right.
And of course, if you didn't get the sad
and heartbreaking news, of course, our good friend
and church member, Brother Kevin Rowe,
was killed by a drunk driver.
And so we're mourning his loss and we are going to be having a memorial service for him coming up
on Tuesday evening right here at our church building. So this coming Tuesday six days from now
and that's going to be at six p.m. So we want to just celebrate his life and achievements
and take some time to remember our good friend Kevin Rowe. That's going to be again on Tuesday.
at 6pm right here and we will have dinner and we'll have memories and have a brief service.
So that is again Tuesday night. That is about it for announcements. Let's go ahead and count
up the soul winning from the past few days. So somebody have a pen I could borrow please.
Let's go back to Monday. Any soul winning from Monday? Okay, got it. Got it.
Okay, got it, gotcha, okay, all right, and then how about Tuesday, okay, okay, all right,
and then what about today, Wednesday, anything from today, okay.
All right, very good.
Keep up the great work on soul winning.
And with that, let's sing our next song.
Come lead us.
All right, next, if you want to turn in your hymnals
over to song number 10.
Song number 10, near the cross.
Begins Jesus, keep me near the cross.
There are precious fountains free
through all the healing streets.
Song number 10.
Sing that with me on the first song number 10.
I
Beyond the river,
Here across thou watch and rage,
Don't be trusty ever,
Till I reach the goal.
The raptured soul shall find, rest beyond the red.
As the plates go around, let's turn our Bibles to Hosea chapter one.
Hosea chapter one, as we always do, we'll read the entire chapter beginning in verse
number one.
Follow along silently with Brother Dan as he reads, Hosea chapter one, beginning in verse
number one.
Hosea chapter one, the Bible reads, the word of the Lord that came into Hosea, the son
of Be'erai, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in
the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel.
And the Lord said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of hortums and children of hortums,
for the land hath committed great hortum, departing from the Lord.
So he went and took Gomorrah, the daughter of Di'blaym, which conceived and bar'em a
son.
And the Lord said unto him, Call his name Jezreel, for yet a little while, and I will avenge
the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and will cause to cease the kingdom of the
house of Israel.
And it shall come to pass at that day that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley
and she conceived again and bear a daughter.
And God said unto him, call her name Lohruhama,
for I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel,
but I will utterly take them away.
But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah
and will save them by the Lord their God
and will not save them by bow, nor by sword,
nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.
Now when she had weaned Lohruhama,
she conceived and bear a son.
Then said God, call his name Lohami,
for ye are not my people and I will not be your God.
Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered.
And it shall come to pass that in the place where it was said unto them, ye are not my people,
there it shall be said unto them, ye are the sons of the living God.
Then shall the children of Judah and the children of Israel be gathered together
and appoint themselves one head, and they shall come up out of the land, for great shall be the day of Jezreel."
Lord, thank you for this night. Thank you for this congregation
I pray that you give us ears to hear now and I pray you feel pastor Anderson with the Holy Spirit Lord and help him to preach boldly and
Clearly from your word and we pray in Jesus's name. Amen
Man, Hosea, chapter number one, we're starting a new book tonight and this is the first book
of what's commonly called the Minor Prophets and it starts out with this really shocking
story about Hosea being commanded to marry a wife of hordoms and this is one of those
strange object lessons that God uses in the Old Testament just to really drive in some powerful
point on a really visceral level just because a lot of times we make excuses for sin and
we don't really maybe think that things like idolatry or fornication or adultery or that bad.
So sometimes God will use a really powerful object lesson really just to show us how bad
sin is. And if you think about the entire Old Testament
animal sacrificial system. In many ways, that is just a demonstration constantly that the wages of
sin is death, because to make it a tome for their sins, they have to kill these animals
and spill their blood and butcher these animals, you know, picturing just how ugly sin is and the
who is butchered on the cross for us
so that we could be saved.
But the Bible starts out in Hosea chapter one verse one,
the word of the Lord that came unto Hosea,
the son of Beorai, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham,
Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah,
and in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash,
king of Israel.
the beginning of the word of the Lord by Hosea.
We're in verse two.
And the Lord said to Hosea,
go take unto thee a wife of hordoms
and children of hordoms for the land
have committed great hordom departing from the Lord.
So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Di'blam,
which conceived and bear him a son.
Again, this is not a normal thing to do, right?
Obviously, we as Christians, and if you're a Christian young man listening to this sermon,
you know that, of course, you should be out there trying to find that virtuous woman and
you want to find a prudent wife that comes from the Lord.
You don't want to be marrying some sleazy, skanky hoe, but in this rare situation, Hosea
is literally told to go marry some sleazy, skanky, promiscuous hoe.
Now again, this is not something that would be normally endorsed by God, this is not how he
wants us to live our lives in general, but rather this is a special situation sort of like where
Samson was supposed to let his hair grow long and it's one of those kind of exceptional things or
where Isaiah had to preach naked or just other things along those lines like Ezekiel had to lay on
and just not get up for months on end
and eat that strange bread
that someone thought would be a good idea
to put in the grocery store.
Ezekiel 4-9 bread,
leaving out one crucial ingredient, thankfully.
But...
The idea is that you know, this is one of those rare exceptional things where God is just trying to give a very vivid lesson about something
And so Hosea has to marry this horish woman. He's told by God to do this. He obeys God
And the thing I want to point out too is that it says take a wife of Hortums and
Children of Hortums now in the next verse it says okay, so then he married this woman Gomer
And then, it says in verse 4, the Lord said in him, or I'm sorry, it says,
he went and took Gomorrah the daughter of Diplam, which conceived and bear him a son,
and the Lord said in him, call his name Jezreel, and so on.
And he's going to have three children that are born
in this passage. Okay.
But the question is are these children even Hosea's biological children?
Okay, and the reason that I say that is because in the first case it does say you know
She bear him a son that would seem to imply that he's the biological father
Although with this kind of a skank. I'm not even sure that I would really take that to the bank that this is even his biological child
Okay
Maybe it's just born unto him because it's like,
oh, here's our son or whatever, be presented to him.
But let's just, for argument's sake,
say that, okay, Jezreel is his actual biological son.
I could buy that because of that wording.
But then the question is,
what about the other two children
that are born in this same chapter?
Because if we flip over to chapter two
and look at verse number four, it says,
I will not have mercy upon her children for they be,
and it's talking about the subsequent children
that are born, for they be the children of hordoms
for their mother hath played the harlot, right?
And what does it mean to play the harlot?
It means to go be with other men other than her husband.
And so it says their mother has played the harlot.
So they're the children of the hordoms
because their mother has played the harlot.
she that conceived them hath done shamefully,
for she said, I will go after my lovers."
Now, does this sound like they're his kids?
No, it doesn't.
She said I'll go after my lovers which give me bread and my water my wool and my flax mine oil and my drank
Because she's basically out there being a hoe in order to receive money and gifts and monetary
Compensation so this is this is a horrible person now look this is a nightmare for any man, right?
No man would want to be married to such a gross woman and he's being commanded to do this and this shows that sometimes God's people
You know, have to make some sacrifices for the Lord.
I mean, Hosea, he had to make a sacrifice.
He had to do something unpleasant because God's telling him to do it.
Now, we in our lives, obviously God's not asking us to do anything crazy like this,
but God does have commandments, God does have rules that He wants us to live by, God does
make His will known to us in His word, and we need to be willing to forego some of our
own desires, our own ambitions, some of the things we want in order to do the will of
God.
And you know what?
God's commandments are not grievous.
And in fact, his commandments and even his chastisement, the Bible says, are for our
profit, they're for our benefit that we might be partakers of his holiness, so it shouldn't
be too much to ask of us to abstain from fornication.
right? To abstain from adultery, to abstain from drunkenness and drugs, to do the right thing,
to go to church, to spend some time reading our Bibles, to go out and evangelize, and to do the
things that God commands us to do. It shouldn't be considered too much to ask because the Bible
says that we should present our bodies a living sacrifice unto God. It's our reasonable service
right, to present our bodies as a living sacrifice.
The Bible says you're not your own, you're bought with a price, therefore glorify God
in your body and in your spirit, which are gods.
So when you look at someone like Hosea being asked to do something difficult like this,
it kind of puts your own life in perspective a little bit like, hey, you know what, serving
Great men of God in the past, they had to do worse things or make bigger sacrifices to serve God.
I'm being asked to do something pretty reasonable according to Romans.
And so I should just do what God says and be happy with it.
That's one thing that we can take from this right away.
But then the next thing that I want to point out is that the idea here is that this is such an unpleasant
Pleasant terrible thing, you know, marrying this this this gross woman and then, you know
Just these bastard children. They're not even yours. And just it's just it's shameful. It's humiliating
It's it's not what any man wants for his life
Right you wouldn't you ladies wouldn't want to be married to a man. That's just out there
Horing around and being a whore monger and cheating on you all the time, right? Right the you young ladies
You know you want to be married to a guy that's gonna be faithful to you. He's gonna love you
He's gonna keep himself only unto you so long as you both shall live
Men and women they both want that kind of a loving marriage not this this is not what anybody wants, okay?
And the idea here is that Hosea represents the Lord
and his wife, that's unfaithful, represents the nation of Israel.
Okay, so the nation of Israel is out whoring
and being unfaithful metaphorically speaking by going after
other gods.
And the idea is that just as bad as Hosea's situation is, and people, you know, reading
this in the Bible, it may not really give a really strong visceral reaction, but imagine,
you know, living at the time and seeing Hosea go through this, and knowing Hosea personally,
and seeing how his wife treats him, and just seeing her out, being an adulteress, and doing
all these things, you know, it'd be really just turning your stomach to see that.
If you knew people going through this and here's the thing God is saying well you know what that's where I'm going through
Here with my adulterous people Israel, you know the way that Hosea feels
based on what his wife is doing, that's how God feels when God's people are unfaithful and
going after other gods and so forth. And that's the illustration here. That's the idea.
And so we should realize that just as we are offended by things in this world, things that bother us,
things that offend us, things that humiliate us, you know what? God, he doesn't like being
disregarded, lied to, cheated either.
Just like we don't like that. You know, we don't like it when people do us dirty. Well, guess what? God doesn't like it when we do
Him dirty. God doesn't like it when we offend Him, when we blaspheme Him, when we break His commandments, when we, you know,
as the Bible says in Hebrews chapter 10, you know, just tread underfoot the Son of God and just have no respect or any appreciation for
the covenant where we've been sanctified and we should have more respect for the things of God,
we should love God, we should obey God. Just like Gomer should have loved her husband,
been faithful to her husband, done the right things. You know, we should be faithful to Lord,
obey him, do the right things. We should be good unto him, just like
Hosea's wife should have been good unto him, but he got like the worst wife ever.
And the idea is that the nation of Israel is like the worst nation ever.
in their treatment of the Lord in heaven.
And that's God showing us how he feels
with this vivid illustration.
So it says in verse 2 the beginning of the word of the Lord by Hosea the Lord said to Hosea
Go take unto thee a wife of Hortums and children of Hortums for the land of committed great Hortum
Departing from the Lord so he went and took Gomer the daughter of Di'blam
Which conceived and bear him a son again?
It sounds like this one is probably his biological stuff
I don't think you could say that a hundred percent, but you know maybe 99 percent whereas I would say
99% of the other kids are probably not even his kids, based on the stuff he says in chapter 2.
But it says the Lord said in him,
Call his name Jezreel, for yet a little while and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu
and will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel.
So remember, of course, Jezreel is a significant place in the Bible.
And, you know, this is a place where God punished those who shed the blood of Naboth and so forth.
And so it's a place that's associated with vengeance.
But the word Jezreel itself, because all of these words mean something in this chapter, right?
So we have, of course, the first child being named Jezreel.
The second child's name is Loh-Ruhama, which means no mercy.
And he says, you know, I will not be merciful and then the last one is low am I which means, you know
Not my people right because the low is obviously the no or not, right?
I'm me my people not my people
No mercy and then Jezreel now. What does the word Jezreel mean? Well, first of all, it's a place, right?
So it's a it's a place that's associated with God's vengeance
God's punishment. But then also it has a literal meaning of something along the
lines of God sows, like sowing a seed, right? God sows. But this could also be
thought of as God scatters, right? Because when you sow seeds, you're
scattering them. And in fact, when the children of Israel
are scattered into all nations, this exact metaphor is used that God is sowing them among the nations.
It even will word it that way, that they are sown among the nations.
And so it's also a bit of a play on words because you can probably notice
that the word Jezreel and Israel are pretty similar words, aren't they?
They're not really that different.
And it's the same thing in the original language.
They're also very similar,
maybe even a little more similar in the original language,
but it's definitely not less similar.
And you can see the connection between
Israel, you know, and then Jezreel, there's a connection there.
The Bible loves to use kind of these little plays on similar words, right?
And if you remember, what did the Bible tell us that the word Israel means?
Well, when Israel is named that by God, because remember, what was his original name?
Jacob, right?
So his original name was Jacob, but then God renames him Israel at a specific event.
What was that event where Israel got renamed?
wrestled with God, right? So when he wrestled with God, then he was called
Israel, you know? He who wrestles with God basically, right? And now basically we
have this child that's being born named Jezreel because what is God going to do?
He's literally going to scatter or sow the children of Israel into all nations.
He is going to disperse them.
And that is his vengeance upon them for their wickedness, their idolatry, and their hordoms
after other gods.
These are hordoms metaphorically speaking, okay?
But there's also literal hordom, being a whore, okay?
Just like what it sounds.
I've heard some people try to say, oh, whenever the Bible says fornication, that's just talking
about idolatry.
No, no, no, no.
Being a whore is being a whore. Okay, those words are using the Bible to mean exactly what they mean. That's the literal
But then it's metaphorical for what?
metaphorical for idolatry because of the fact that you're supposed to be faithful to the Lord
Just like a wife would be faithful to one husband, right? And the idea is that you know a man
and his wife is sort of like the Lord with us,
and basically if we went out and worshiped other gods
or committed idolatry,
it's like we're that adulterous wife, in a sense,
that's going and being with other men.
That's the idea.
And so it's always bizarre to me when people take the metaphor and try to like get rid of the literal meaning completely.
They're kind of missing the whole point of what a parable is, right?
Because what is a parable? A parable is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning.
That's how it was always defined to me when I was a kid and I think that's a pretty good definition.
God will take something that we all know and understand like a sower sowing seeds, a woman in the kitchen.
making bread and putting in the leaven
and letting the bread rise.
He'll use illustrations about farming, fishing,
all kinds of things to teach us about spiritual truths.
But here's the thing, in order for those metaphors
or similes to work, the literal thing has to exist.
If there was no such thing as bread with leaven in it rising, you know, then it wouldn't really work, would it?
If no sower's ever literally went out and sowed seed, then it wouldn't really make a lot of sense to give us that parable, would it?
If there weren't fishermen throwing nets into the sea, none of it would make any sense.
And so like when the Bible says, you know, whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, even as a father, the son in whom he delighteth, right?
spanking their kids, disciplining their kids, whipping their kids,
and then you have God metaphorically or figuratively
whipping us. He's not literally spanking us, but it's like that.
Does everybody understand that? And so the idea here is that
fornication is fornication. Hordom is hordom
and a lot of people will just completely lose the literal interpretation
and say, oh, Gohmer wasn't even unfaithful.
She was just into idols I've even seen that some people have even interpreted Jose one to just say oh
Gomer wasn't unfaithful. She's just into idols and the kids weren't really children of hordoms
They were just kids who grew up worshipping idols. I mean again
It's foolish because the whole point is the literal is literal
to show us the figurative.
Okay, if you take away the literal,
you kind of just took the,
you pulled the rug out of the whole thing
and the whole thing doesn't even make any sense
and becomes absurd.
I hope that that helps you understand this a little bit.
That, you know, fornication is fornication.
This woman is literally sleazy,
cheating on him,
fathering children with other dudes while she's married him.
and God is trying to show them, hey, your unfaithfulness to the Lord is serious.
Here's how serious it is. Look at Hosea. How would you like to be Hosea?
Okay, that's what you're doing to me right now. You're making me like Hosea right now.
Now, there's so many lessons we can learn from this. Another lesson that we can learn from this
is that when we think about
marriage, and, you know, I've preached about this a lot lately because of the fact that
there's so much bad teaching out there about this, and even from so-called IFB churches
and the foolish ex-NIFB losers who teach all this feminism and all these bad doctrines
on marriage now.
as some kind of a weird reaction to me,
here's the thing about that,
is that the Bible is crystal clear on the subject
that when you get married, you stay married.
that God hates divorce. I'm not going to do a whole sermon on this because I've
already preached about it a lot lately. God hates divorce. God commands the
woman not to leave her husband. The husband not to leave. Well what if? What if?
You know and everybody's got all their weird what ifs and everything but let's
face it we live in a day where people are getting divorced left and right and the
vast majority of the time it's just for something stupid or nothing at all.
because they don't respect the sanctity of marriage.
But let me say this, even if you are in a bad marriage,
God expects you to stay married.
Amen.
Okay?
It doesn't matter if you don't think you're happy
or you don't like it.
You know what?
Think about that before you get married.
Imagine.
Okay, if you don't want to be in a Hosea type situation, then don't marry the Gomers of this world
You know, Hosea had to do that. Hosea is commanded to do that. Are you gonna grow your hair long like Sampson and go preach naked like Isaiah?
No, these are specific radical extreme situations. In general, none of us wants to be married to a Gomer, so don't marry a Gomer.
Right? Go find a woman who loves God, who wants to serve God, who cares about the things of God and has not shown herself to be promiscuous.
Now look, how could Oseah predict that this woman was going to be unfaithful? Because God tells him, go marry a wife of Hortums.
How can I predict that?
You know what? Because newsflash, women who have a history of being whores are probably going to continue to be whores.
And guys who are out there being Hormongers
are probably going to continue to be a Hormonger even after you get married.
Right? And so
Hosea was able to identify a particular young lady and say
okay, this one's gonna cheat on me.
This one's gonna be gross. This one's gonna fornicate up a storm.
Right? Because that's what she's doing right now.
And that's the idea here is that, you know, we don't, we need to take marriage seriously before we get into that union.
We need to seek out someone with whom we can be equally yoked, right?
The Bible says, be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.
So we don't want to marry an unbeliever, number one, but number two, we want to make sure
that we marry someone who loves God, who's serious about serving God.
When we're looking for attributes in a wife, we should flip open Proverbs 31 and look what
God has to say about that.
We should flip open passages on marriage and see what a biblical marriage is supposed to
look like and then maybe make sure that the person that you're going to marry, whether
that's a woman looking for a man or a man looking for a woman, make sure that they're
New Testament-style marriage that the Bible prescribes.
You know, you've got to think about that because here's the thing,
once you're married, you're married.
That's it.
And if you're in a quote-unquote bad marriage,
well then, you know what, you better just suck it up.
And you know what, if you don't like it, get out
because there are doors all over.
It's easy to get out of this building.
They all have push bars and you can just slip out and leave
and never come back because you know what,
I will never change on this subject.
I'm never gonna get up here and preach this divorce and separation crap
That other churches are teaching you're in the wrong place if you're looking for me to justify your divorce
You want to leave your husband? You want to leave your wife?
You don't come crying to me you hit the road jack or jack-o-lan and you don't come back no more and you go find some other
milk toast weak
Sysified pastor who doesn't care what the Bible says to justify your divorce and cheerlead your divorce because I won't
I and the pastor will fight to keep you married and that's what I've done for 20 years and
that's what I'm going to do, God willing, for 20 more and 40 more.
Hey, let's do 60 more because you know what?
I'm sorry, I believe in marriage, I feel like God feels, I hate divorce.
You know, I'm not going to water down this doctrine, I'm not going to sit there and listen
about how bad your marriage is,
because you know what, you got married,
that's your bed, you laying it, you don't like it,
hit the road.
Not interested in compromising this doctrine like it or lump it
But you know and a lot of people like it because a lot of people care what the Bible says they care what Jesus Christ
Rebuked the Pharisees about marriage. They care about the truth
They care about
Actually the family and staying married
You know what they like this kind of preaching because you know what they want a pastor that they know is not gonna help their wife leave them
And help their husband leave and cheerlead that
You know that's the kind of people that I want to pastor people who actually want to do right and stay married
So you don't understand my situation. Okay, is there situation worse than Hosea's?
Because you know what if God's asking Hosea to do this, you know what? I'll bet you God's asking you to stay married
Well, you don't understand how bad my situation is. I don't know because Hosea's situation seems pretty bad
And so, if Hosea can stay married, I think I can too.
I think you can too.
I think we all can.
I think we can all take up our cross and follow Jesus.
You know, if Hosea can take up his cross, and Isaiah, and Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, they're
all asked to do hard things, and they all picked up their cross, and they followed Jesus.
And that's what I'm going to do, and that's what I'm going to preach for you to do.
feminist understanding of marriage.
And when I say feminist, it's not pro-woman,
because feminism's never been pro-woman.
Feminism has always been hurtful and hateful toward women.
Feminism is anti-woman ideology,
telling women that they have to behave and act like men
in order to have value.
Instead of celebrating their femininity
and their feminine roles,
it teaches them that they have to go outside of that
in order to have worth and value.
That's not helpful to our women and guess what marriage protects women. I talked about this on Sunday night
I'm gonna talk about it again
Marriage protects women more than it protects men anyway
Marriage is instituted because we love women because we want to protect women because we don't want to see women
You know be married and be a homemaker and raise kids and then just be high and dry
Because the guy wants to go find someone else and marry some younger woman or something
So marriage and the sanctity marriage protects women. It doesn't just protect men
Protects both
Right. I don't want my wife to leave me. She doesn't want me to leave her
You know, we like the security of knowing that we have a marriage that is God-sanctioned
And that we know that we're both interested in doing God's will and so we're not we're not leaving
That's the way it's supposed to be and you know what?
I hope that's what your marriage is and if your marriage isn't that way you need to get right with God
How about that? How about you and your wife decide, you know, and here's the thing we don't need a vow renewal
Sorry, honey
I know you probably just want to go be on a beach in Hawaii somewhere and just renew our vows for the hell of it
But let me tell you something we don't need a vow renewal because you know what our vows never expired
Now I'm not against people doing a vow renewal. I'm just saying I don't need one
You know the the white trip sounds fun
But let me tell you something
I don't get up every morning and I choose you every day, honey, and I'm just gonna keep on choosing you
I see these platitudes about choosing and it's like no no no I've done chosen and I'm not gonna
Re-choose her every day. I chose her and it's done
Other women are off the table
It's not an option. Divorce is not an option. That word does not exist. Divorce does not exist in this dojo. Does it?
No, Sensei Anderson.
It doesn't. You know what? My wife and I, hey, we've had fights. We've had disagreements over the years.
We've gotten heated, but you know what? We don't throw around. We don't throw around the D word.
That's not you don't throw that around in a fight. I don't care how knocked down drag out of a fight
It is you don't bring up the d-word
You do not put that word in your mouth for any reason
Except to condemn it
You don't threaten divorce out of anger because you know what if you keep doing that
You know that could become a little too comfortable or too real for you like that's even a thing like that's even an option
You think that even enters my mouth
why not? Maybe I could divorce my wife. That thought should never even come into our minds.
Be faithful. Be faithful to your vow. Be faithful to your marriage. And look,
God asks his people to do hard things sometimes.
There are people who died for the Lord Jesus Christ.
There were people who were tortured,
not accepting deliverance,
that they might obtain a better resurrection.
You got all kinds of saints and prophets.
You got the Apostle Paul, a great man of God, right?
What happened to Paul?
Shipwrecked, night and day in the deep.
Getting beaten with rods three times five times receiving 40 stripes save one
Right. He's in hunger and thirst and nakedness, but you can't stay married because because you just you're just not sure you're in love anymore
You know, this is the state of modern Christianity now
Can't even stay married
You know and you say well, you don't understand, you know my spouse cheated on me. Hey, that's horrific
That's terrible, but you know what? So did Josez
And you know what? He has, in fact, in chapter 3, look at chapter 3 verse 1, the Bible says,
then said the Lord unto me.
Go yet, love a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress, according to the love of the Lord toward the children of Israel who look to other gods and love
Flaggons of wine. So I bought her to me for 15 pieces of silver and for an omer of barley and
and a half omer of barley and I said to her thou shalt abide for many days thou shalt not play the harlot
Thou shalt not be for another man. So will I also be for thee. I mean think about this
in the course of this just train wreck of a marriage.
Because obviously if you go marry a wife of hordoms,
it's gonna be a train wreck.
So, Hosea, he marries this, this hourish woman,
she produces children of hordoms with him,
and then basically down the road
at some later date, unknown time,
obviously there's been enough time
for her to produce three children,
so they've been married for many years,
but at some point, somehow,
she is basically owned by someone else.
You know so what it what is this is this like some kind of slavery is this indentured servitude
Or is this just some some pimp that needs to be paid off or something?
Right, but that's it's something like that
Somehow she's gotten herself into a situation where she doesn't even have freedom anymore
She's run off and and and Jose is probably just thinking like
I'm okay with that
You know, she ran off. He's probably just kind of burned out on her anyway
So then the word of the Lord comes to him. It's like go get her back. Oh, yeah
It's like what the heck oh and bring your wallet, Josea
Because you're gonna have to pay to get her back
But your marriage is unsalvageable, right?
Right
Look look, what does the Bible say the Bible literally says in chapter 3?
it says
Go yet, verse 1 of chapter 3, go yet, love a woman beloved of her friend yet an adulteress,
according to the love of the Lord toward the children of Israel.
So let's update that to the New Testament, according to Christ's love for the church.
So what does the Bible say?
Husbands love your wives even as Christ loved the church.
So, if the Bible says husbands love your wives, even as Christ loved the church, God's giving
us this extreme example and saying, look, this is my love for sinful humanity.
Sounds to me like God expects us to love our wives and not be bitter against them.
Now look, obviously adultery is a horrific sin.
In the Bible, committing adultery with another man's wife is punishable by the death penalty.
In Leviticus chapter 20 verse 10, just to show what a serious crime this is, what a serious sin this is.
This is not to minimize the sin at all.
Nobody's condoning adultery here.
Quite the contrary, we hate adultery, we're disgusted by adultery and so is God.
But let me say this, though, is that even if that happens, that is not a
grounds for you to divorce your wife and marry someone else, divorce your husband. No, no, that is not what the Bible says.
Okay, now people wanted to say that. They want to take out the word fornication and swap it out for
adultery, or they want to take out the word fornication, swap it out for
sexual immorality, because then that can just mean whatever they want,
and then they can pretty much get divorced for almost anything.
But that is not what the Bible says, my friend.
The Bible does not teach that. I've done many sermons where I've debunked that
foolishness.
The Bible is crystal clear that you are to stay married.
Now God forbid your spouse would ever cheat on you,
Now, does that mean that I'm condoning that?
Of course not.
But you know what?
I'm not condoning any of the other sinful things
that people do either.
But you know what?
We've all sinned and come short of the glory of God
and people are going to sin against one another in marriage.
Nobody's ever gonna go through a marriage
where they never are wronged by the other person.
There are going to be times when I do wrong by my wife.
There are going to be times when she does wrong by me.
Of course, most people, God willing, it's never going to get to the extreme of adultery or cheating, right?
That's an extreme. That's like a worst case scenario.
But here's the thing, that extreme and everything leading up to that,
you know what the bottom line is, that you stay married.
And I don't care if that's popular or not, it's true.
And you know what pastors who won't preach it are cowards?
They don't care what the Bible says.
They preach a doctrine of convenience.
And here's the thing.
Well, what about this?
What about that?
Take your stupid anecdote and hang it.
I've been pastoring for 20 years.
Okay, and everybody wants to bring up these extreme scenarios.
What about the wife that's just being beaten to an absolute pulp?
Let me explain something to you.
I've been pastoring for 20 years and I've never seen it.
is pulp fiction is what it is.
There's no beating to a pulp, never seen it.
All my pastor friends across America
that I talked to all the time, we have never seen it.
Does it exist?
Absolutely, it's out there, it exists.
But you know what, it must not be that common
because I've never seen it.
And you know what, I'll bet you anything
that if a woman does actually get, quote,
beaten to a pulp, she's gonna go to the hospital.
And you know what the hospital is going to do?
The hospital is going to call the police,
and then that guy is going to go to prison.
Problem solved.
Now look, I'm not saying that our criminal justice system
always works the way that it should,
or that that's even the appropriate punishment,
but the point is that that's what's going to happen.
So, why do we need this preaching that says, oh honey, if you're being abused, you got
to get out of there.
If your husband's a drunk, you got to get out of there.
If your husband takes drugs, you got to get out of there.
If your husband looks a porno, you got to get out of there.
And you know what, I just heard about a situation where a man is leaving his wife because she
beat him up.
Because I just heard about a situation where a woman assaulted her husband. He called the police on her and that this what this is what?
What just blows my mind that when I preach this people think it's anti-woman preaching when in reality?
I'm preaching a two-way street here. You know what? I'm preaching wives don't leave their husbands husbands don't leave their wives
Don't cheat on your husband. Don't cheat on your wife. I mean, this is super two-way street egalitarian stuff here. Am I right?
Okay? Look, I don't think that husbands should be beating up their wives and I don't think
that wives should be beating up their husbands, but guess what? Stuff like that does happen
in this world and apparently some guy called the cops, and this is very recent, called
the cops on his wife because she actually was beating him up.
And now he's divorcing her, he's leaving her,
he's because he's gotta get out of this abusive relationship.
So guess what, that's just as much bull crap too.
It's all garbage.
This isn't about men, don't let the world
turn this into a man versus women.
You know what, they wanna pit us
against each other, don't they?
They wanna get white people against black people,
and they wanna get man versus woman, you know?
And they want, when really, you know what?
God's people and Christians, we should be united against evil.
And it's not women, it's not men, it's not black people, it's not Chinese people, you know, that's not the problem.
Okay? It's evil, un-Christian wickedness that's the problem.
It doesn't matter what color or what gender it is, that's the problem.
And so the idea here is that just as much as, yeah, you know, oh, you know, abuse and everything,
here's the, if there was, if it was actually serious, these people would go to prison.
You think you're just going to break people's bones and smash in their face and just get away with it in America?
Folks, we have a rule of law, we have justice, you go to the hot, and you know what, it's not even,
it's not like, well, what if she doesn't press charges? That's not how it works, my friend.
Let me tell you something if I beat the snot out of somebody, you know what?
It's gonna be it's gonna be the state of Arizona versus Steven Anderson
Do you understand that it's not gonna be that person versus Steven Anderson? It's gonna be state versus Anderson
Okay, those things are prosecuted by the state.
If you go into the hospital and you have the, you're beaten to a pulp quote unquote, then
the authorities will get involved.
The hospital will call the police and it's not a choice of, would you like to press charges,
ma'am?
You know, and you're all beaten to a pulp, they're like, let's ask this pulp if she wants
to press charges.
You know, here's the thing about that is that the charges will just be pressed.
And you know what?
I spoke to a police officer in this area this week and he said, yep, I heard your sermon
where you preached about that and everything you said is right on.
That is how it works.
But then you have just this weird straw man that, oh, Pastor Anderson is just enabling,
he's enabling all the cheaters and drunkards and pornofiles and all of the abusers and
the beaters and all this.
No I'm not.
I'm preaching what the Bible says.
For better or for worse is what I'm preaching.
The Bible is clear on the subject, I'm going to be clear on the subject.
We don't need to preach about rare exceptions that the law already has a solution for.
Why would I?
And here's the thing, so how many divorces have I seen in the last 20 years of ministry?
Now here's the thing, very few in our church, we've had them in our church of course, but
But guess what? I have a much bigger sphere than just this church because I preach all over America
And I have all kinds of pastor friends and people who listen to me online
So I have a much bigger sphere than just this church and I have been contacted by person after person after person
Who got divorced?
Sometimes initiated by man sometimes initiated by the woman and I've just seen it over and over it's it breaks my heart
Nothing's more heartbreaking than to get these calls.
My husband's leaving me.
My wife's leaving me.
It's heartbreaking.
I hate hearing that, but you know what's funny
is I just see it just again and again and again and again,
but I've still never seen the woman beaten to a pulp,
never seen it.
You know, I have seen it on TV.
I have seen it on the internet because you know what I saw?
I saw these brutal pictures of these battered women.
But it's funny how, you know, those were on TV and on the internet precisely because
the police took care of it.
And I've never had to take care of it as a pastor and neither have any of my pastor
friends.
Any actual, real, quote-unquote, beaten-to-a-pulp situations.
A lot of shoulder checking in the hallway, a lot of pushing and shoving, a lot of throwing
things.
But you know what?
So get over it. How about that?
Like I don't understand when people get offended by this kind of preaching. I'm just like
Can you read the sign on the window? Like what do you think this is?
This is an independent, fundamental, King James Bible Baptist Church.
This isn't the United Methodist, Lesbaterian Church.
Like, what did you think you stumbled into?
They want to come to some Hellfire and Damnation Church,
but then they want us to be just up to the minute on gender politics.
Believing in things that were put into law literally in my lifetime. I have to just jump up
I mean, I guess I just have to keep up with with all the changes. No, no, I'll just keep up with this book
That ought to do it
But again, you know, I've been kicking a dead horse on that recently, but I like it
It says
In verse number five, it should come to pass that that day that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel verse six
We're in Hosea chapter one. Let's finish up the chapter here. She conceived again and bear a daughter and
Again, you know the paternity is dubious because of chapter two saying these aren't my children. She played the harlot
She conceived again, and bear a daughter, and God said unto her,
Call her name, lo, Ruhama, for I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel,
but I will utterly take them away, meaning completely take them away, right?
But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah and will save them by the Lord their God and will not save them by boat
Nor by sword nor by battle nor by horsemen now
This is very important to understand verses six and seven here
Remember that there were two separate kingdoms as the northern kingdom of Israel and as the southern kingdom of Judah
Right, and it's roughly considered the ten tribes and the two tribes
didn't really necessarily split that cleanly,
but that's in general vaguely how this is referred to in the Bible,
the 10 northern tribes, the two southern tribes,
kingdom of Israel, kingdom of Judah.
Here's what God's saying.
I'm going to completely, utterly destroy the northern kingdom of Israel.
They're going to be completely scattered.
They're going to be taken away.
And that is, of course, exactly what happened historically.
They are today known as the 10 lost tribes for this very reason.
But God says, you know what though, I'm going to save Judah though.
Judah is going to stick around and that's also what happened.
So even though the 10 northern tribes got wiped out, you do have, of course, individuals
who emigrated into Judah, they got scattered into all nations, including Judah.
So yeah, you're going to have the, you know, a person from Asher, a person from Simeon,
a person from Gad, here and there.
sown into all nations, scattered into all nations,
and assimilated with those nations, mixed in, and so forth.
Lost to history.
The southern kingdom of Judah, however, persisted for centuries beyond that,
but then ultimately they go into captivity in Babylon.
But the difference is that when the Israelites went into captivity into all nations,
they never came back.
Whereas God brought the Judah Heights back.
He brought the Jews, they began to be called, Jews,
short for Judah.
The Jews were brought back after 70 years
of Babylonian captivity and they were brought back
to their homeland.
Ultimately, it becomes a Roman province called Judea.
And when Jesus Christ comes on the scene, that's what he's born into, that situation.
Of course, he's growing up in Nazareth, but he's born in Judea, and then he grows up in Nazareth,
and he's preaching in both, you know, that Galilee, Nazareth region, also preaching in Judea, Jerusalem, and so forth.
And so you have the nation of Judah, not Israel though, but that southern kingdom, the nation of Judah,
into New Testament times. But then, after they reject the Lord Jesus Christ,
they end up getting wiped out too.
In 70 AD the temples destroyed and ultimately in 135 AD they are just completely wiped out
and just totally kicked out of Jerusalem in that whole region.
And so they got scattered as well, now they live in New York and in Los Angeles
and they spent a lot of time in of course places like Russia and Spain
and all these different places that they've been kicked out of over the years.
You know, they've been kicked out of a lot of places
because God said, you know what, if you disobey me,
you're gonna be a pain in the butt everywhere you go.
This is, okay, this is not exact quote,
but it's pretty close.
And everybody's gonna be sick of you and not like you
and you're gonna be a curse everywhere you go.
And that's exactly what happened.
That's why they've been thrown out of, you know,
a hundred and some countries.
The most famous expulsion of the Jews throughout history
happened in what place and what year?
Spain 1492 is the most famous when the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492.
That's the most famous, but there's a hundred other incidences just like that throughout history.
So what's the moral of the story here?
The idea here is that because God's chosen people, the Israelites turned away from the Lord,
He says to them, you are not my people.
I will not be your God.
I will not have mercy on you."
So just the fact that they are biologically born into that nation
does not give them a carte blanche
to defy God and continue to be his people.
Because think about this.
You have God's chosen people.
Was it just two tribes that was God's chosen people?
Because I thought it was all 12 tribes.
Wasn't it all 12 tribes of Israel that were God's chosen people?
Right?
Am I missing something here?
It's the whole thing.
Five sixths in a sense right ten out of twelve of them. He just says you guys are done, and I'm just gonna work with this
smaller subset here and
Those people stop being God's chosen people. He says you're not my people
Low am I in fact, Jose is gonna name one of his bastard kids low am I?
Because you're not my people and then basically
He's only keeping the remnant of Judah
the southern kingdom of Judah, right? Well, here's the thing, you can see how this is like a
crossroads here, where it's like the children of Israel are God's chosen people, but then you come
to this part where it's like, okay, the northern, no, they're gone, and now God's only considering
this group has chosen people, right? And you can kind of see this idea of the split.
even all the way back to like Abraham because Abraham you know he has Ishmael and Isaac but it's like
Which one is going to be God's people is it both? No, it's just going to be Isaac and then Isaac has Jacob and Esau
Is it going to be both the Israelites and the Edomites? Nope, just the Israelites and then it's like okay now
We got northern and southern kingdom. Ah, nope. Just going to be the southern kingdom. So just because you're a son of Abraham
Well, if your name is Ishmael
You're not one of the chosen people.
If your name's Esau, you're not one of the chosen people.
Well, guess what?
If you're in the 10 tribes, you stop being one of the chosen people.
Well, this is what people have trouble understanding.
When you get to the advent of Jesus Christ and the Messiah comes,
guess what?
We have another split like, oh, you believe in Jesus?
You don't believe in Jesus?
If you don't believe in Jesus, you're out.
If you believe in Jesus, you're still God's chosen people.
And oh, we're adding the Gentiles too.
If they believe in Jesus, they're grafted in.
Everybody see how this works?
Like, I don't think this is complicated.
Because is this the first time God has
trimmed branches off his tree before?
Because there have been other times when he takes,
you know, the majority,
because look, what's bigger, Israel or Judah?
10 tribes or two tribes, which one's bigger?
Israel's bigger, the majority get discarded.
And what about when God threatened to do this
at Mount Sinai and he literally told Moses,
I'm just gonna kill them all
and make a new nation starting with you?
He could have done that if he wanted to.
He chose not to because Moses interceded.
But here's the thing about that is that this kind of a cutting off natural branches to
where they are no longer part of God's chosen people is nothing new.
So when it comes to Jesus, that's the ultimate decider right there.
You believe in Jesus, you're God's people, you don't, you're out.
Chapter one, chapter two, these chapters are heavily quoted in what New Testament book?
What new, Romans, the New Testament book of Romans is going to heavily quote from Hosea
and it's going to be explaining what?
That now the Gentiles are God's chosen people if they're saved and unbelieving Israel's are out.
Only saved Israelites are in.
And here's the thing, the Jews of today are not saved.
They're not God's chosen people.
They are not going to heaven.
They are not under the blessing of God at all.
But oh, that's racist.
It's not racist because here's the thing.
Can you change races?
Can I just become a black person?
Can I do that? Can I just decide I want to be black now?
I mean, you know, I don't know people go and they pay a doctor to make them a different gender or something
You know, maybe I can go find a doctor that can turn me into a black person
You know pump me full of drugs or hormones or melanin or put me in a tanning booth or something and turn me into a
Actually, I change my mind turn me into a Chinese person
Doesn't work does it? It's stupid, right?
But can a Jew turn into a Christian?
Easy.
Easy. All they have to do is just believe in Jesus.
So it sounds like we're not talking about race.
That's not race at all, right?
You don't change races,
but you can easily change and stop being a Jew
by becoming a Christian.
So the Jews can become God's chosen people whenever they want.
All they have to do is believe on the Lord Jesus Christ the Bible says that whosoever believe with the name should not perish
But have eternal life
Right the Bible says believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and thy house
So it's super easy for them to you know if they're just like oh, I just hate being a Jew and I hate I hate being
Persecuted and cursed everywhere. Well then stop being a Jew
Easy simple
Say well, how dare you tell them that
You know they have every right to be a Jew absolutely
They have every right to be a Jew and burn in hell when they die
Just like people have a right to be a Hindu and go to hell
And they have a right to be a Buddhist and a Muslim and you know what here's the thing
Whatever they're going through on this earth whatever Jews and Buddhists and Muslims and Hindus are going through on their roads
Where they're going when they die is a lot worse and so you know what they might as well as get saved now
And then God can start blessing them now and they can go to heaven when they die
You know and so I'm not trying to be mean to these people. I love these people and I want to pull them out of the fire
I want to get them saved
I want to get as many Jews and Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists safe
But you know pretending that their God's people isn't going to help them get saved
We got to tell the truth you got to preach the word of God and many Jews have gotten saved as a result of hearing my preaching
They're not Jews anymore now. They're Christians
The Bible says in verse number eight now when she had weaned
Low-Ruhama, she conceived, and bear a son.
And that's pretty common because when you're breastfeeding...
you're pretty unlikely to get pregnant usually.
There's a phenomenon called lactational amenorrhea.
I hope I pronounced that correctly.
And so I'm vaguely in the ballpark, I'm sure.
But lactational amenorrhea has to do with the idea
that women are typically not fertile
while exclusively breastfeeding.
Of course, there are exceptions to this,
but in general, this is kind of God's natural way
of us spacing our children.
My wife and I have...
12 children and we never used any birth control and our kids are all like two years apart.
just by using this phenomenon of lactational amenorrhea
because she just exclusively breastfed,
has the baby sleeping in bed with her, breastfeeding,
and then she wouldn't get pregnant.
And so, you know, obviously having children
too close together could be physically harmful
because it could be too hard on the female body, you know,
to just be having baby after baby without recovering
in between.
And so this is a natural process
that will provide some recovery, you know,
when it functions properly.
that's the idea. And so when she weaned low, Ruhama, she conceived and bear a son.
Then said God, call his name, low am I, for you are not my people, and I will not be your God."
Now again, who's he talking to? He's talking to Israel. He's talking to the Israelites.
So being Israel, Israeli, Israelite, that does not make you God's people. False.
And so to be God's people in the New Testament, you've got to believe in Jesus.
Very simple.
But then what's interesting is verses 10 and 11 just totally changed course here.
So I think everything in verses 1 through 9 is pretty easy to understand.
Hosea marries a sleazy woman in order to just show Israel how wicked they are,
how gross they are, how offensive they are to a holy God.
And he has him have these children with these names that are vengeful, vindictive names like, you know, this kind of revenge God will scatter name, and then this name of no mercy, and then this name of not my people.
And he says, I'm not going to be your God, you're not my people, and in fact, Israel's
just getting totally wiped out, and I'm only going to save Judah, the southern kingdom.
That's going to be the remnant that sticks around.
Because remember, what days is he preaching in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah?
We know that, you know, at least Hezekiah is a great king, you know, Uzziah, Jotham,
pretty good, you know, Ahaz, man.
The best guy on that list is Hezekiah, but in general, you know, this is a time period
when in general, a lot of Judas worshipping the Lord, they got the right God, Northern
Kingdom, no.
So then in verse 10, though, we kind of switch to a positive message and it says, yet the
number, so even though I'm totally going to wipe out the Northern Kingdom, even though
I'm not going to be their people and or I'm not going to be their God, they're not going
to be my people.
The number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea which cannot be measured nor numbered and it shall come to pass that in the place where it was said unto them, ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, ye are the sons of the living God."
What do you think this is talking about when he says, hey, even though I'm going to wipe out the majority of
Israel, the 10 northern tribes,
even though I'm not going to be their people, or I'm not going to be their God,
they're not going to be my people, in spite of that, how could the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea?
How could that be? And how can it be that he's going to say to them,
In the place where it was said unto them, you're not my people,
he's going to say, you're the sons of the living God.
Here's why, because he's talking about in the New Testament,
Jesus Christ is going to come.
People are going to believe on Jesus Christ,
and then now they're the sons of God.
And now the number of the children of Israel
is as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured.
Because every saved Christian is now spiritual Israel
in the New Testament.
The Bible is very clear on this.
So I'm Israel, you're Israel, we're the true Israel, the spiritual Israel.
That's what the Bible clearly says.
And if you don't believe me, then go read Ephesians chapter 2.
Because in Ephesians chapter 2 it says that we were in the past, Gentiles, and we were
aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, but now we are fellow citizens of the commonwealth
I mean Ephesians 2 cannot mean anything else.
It's very, very clear.
And so that's what this is.
This is a foreshadowing of hope and salvation
through Jesus in the New Testament, a new covenant, right?
Because they broke the old covenant
and they're getting scattered
and they're never coming back.
But you know how they can get back in?
is in the New Covenant, through Jesus.
And that's what Romans talks so much about in chapter nine.
And then it says in verse 11,
then shall the children of Judah
and the children of Israel be gathered together
and appoint, because remember,
they've been a split kingdom for a long time, right?
But it says then they're gonna be gathered together
and appoint themselves one head
and they shall come up out of the land for great,
shall be.
the day of Jezreel, and what are we talking about?
We're talking about the millennial reign of Jesus Christ.
When it's not going to be separate Judah and Israel, it's going to be one nation of Israel,
12 tribes in the resurrection, in the regeneration, Jesus said,
then the 12 apostles will sit on 12 thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel.
So there's a hope off in the distance of a future spiritual salvation through Jesus,
becoming the sons of God through faith in Jesus,
physical salvation in the resurrection, in the regeneration, when the dead in Christ rise
and Jesus Christ reigns on this earth and you have one head, one leader, one shepherd,
ruling over the entire house of Israel, the Messiah, Jesus Christ. That's what we're talking about
at the end of chapter one. Let's pray. Let's have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much
who was asked to live a really hard life
and have a messed up marriage
and really just endure the worst family situation imaginable.
And Lord God, I pray that you would just help all of us
to put things in perspective,
to love our wives as men
that women would love their husbands,
to be faithful and not dream up excuses
to get divorced and separated,
but rather,
to look for reasons to stay married, look for ways to stay married and to go to a church that will fight to keep us married
rather than easy divorce baptism down the street. And Lord God, help us to realize that the children of Israel have forsaken you
and they are not your people. Lord, help us who are your people to love you and obey you the way that a wife should love and obey her husband.
And Lord God, I pray that you just bless us now
as we go our separate ways on this Wednesday night.
Give us a safe drive home and bless us
until we can be back on Sunday.
And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
And lastly, let's turn on our hymnals
to over to song number 169.
Song number 169, come thou found.
Song number 169, Come Thou Pound of Every Blessing.
To my heart sing thy grace.
Come Thou Pound of Every Blessing.
To my heart to sing thy grace.
Strings of mercy never ceasing.
All four songs of loudest praise, Teach me some melodious tonic,
Stuck like flaming tongues to bop, Raise them out, I'm disapointed,
Out of my redeeming love. Here I raise my ever-eater,
and I know by thy good pleasure, safely I will arrive at home.
Jesus saw me when a stranger, wandering from the fold of God,
here to rescue me from danger, interpose this precious blood.
great a dinner. Daily I'm none straight to me. Let thy goodness like a feather bind my
wandering heart into me. Prode to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prode to leave the God I love.
Seal it for thy courts above.
Thank you for coming.
You are dismissed.