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All right, we're here in Hosea chapter 7, and so after we finish chapter 7, we're going to be halfway through the book of Hosea, and there's a lot of great information in this chapter, and the name of the sermon is Why We Are Not Healed. Why we are not healed, because in the first verse it says, when I would have healed Israel, and see, God wants to heal Israel. He loves Israel. He poured out His heart to Israel, and He wants to heal them, and in your personal life, God wants to heal you. God wants to give you a good life. He wants you to be successful in this life. He wants to heal you. He wants to fix your problems. He wants to fix my problems, and yet He says, when I would have healed Israel, telling us that He didn't heal Israel. So we're going to look at six reasons why we are not healed, and you can apply this to individually, or as a nation, like this chapter does, or even as a church, you can make these applications. Now the first reason why is habitual sin, habitual sin. The biggest reason why we have the same problems in our life that keep coming up over and over and over, it's because of our own sin. It's habitual sin that keeps happening over and over and over, and we wonder why we're struggling with so many things, and it's really our own fault most of the time. Now I'm going to use an example throughout this sermon for each of the points, and it's just kind of an example to help us understand what we're talking about, and I'm using an example that I can relate to. You know, when I tore my ACL, and I tore my meniscus in my left knee playing soccer, and after the surgery, there's a period of recovery, there's a period of healing, right? And so all these points we're going to look at, there are certain things that would prevent you from actually healing from a surgery. So when we talk about habitual sin, that's kind of like if you have a surgery on your knee, and instead of allowing yourself to heal and take it slowly, you start going for a 10-mile run a week after you have the surgery. It's not smart. Or you just start jumping on your leg, it's like, why am I not being healed? It's because of the fact you're aggravating that injury that needs time to heal. And our sin aggravates our problems, and it keeps happening over and over and over again, and we have the same problems. When I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity of ephraim was discovered. And God says, because of their sin, because of their iniquity, I would not heal Israel, and the wickedness of Samaria. For they commit falsehood, and the thief cometh in, and the troop of robbers spoileth without. Go to Judges chapter 16, Judges 16, Judges 16. Now there's plenty of verses that apply to this point, and I want to just show you one story here. But as you're turning to Judges 16, let me read you a famous verse. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Yes, it is true that we have eternal life. Yes, it's true we can never lose our salvation, but if you want to have good fellowship, and be close to God, and you want God to bless you, there's a daily cleansing that must happen. Every single morning, you ought to wake up and ask for forgiveness for what you did the night before, and ask God to help you throughout the day, and have your prayer time, and before you go to bed at night, you should be asking for forgiveness for the wrongs that you did during the day. You say, brother sucky, I didn't do anything wrong today. Well, the verse is right around the verse I just quoted, say that you're a liar, right? We say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not endless, right? Obviously, we sin all the time, and you know what, we need to come to God every single day. 15 verse 15, here's a story of Samson, and she said onto him, how can thou say I love thee when thine heart is not with me? Thou has mocked me these three times, and hast not told me where in thy great strength lieth. Now, when you're familiar with this story of Samson, you can see his life just keeps having more and more problems, right? We're getting to the end of his life, it starts in Judges chapter 13, and Samson was a great man of God, but he also had a lot of sins in his life. He did a lot of great things, and then he made a lot of big mistakes. He went on to kind of these high points of doing great things, and then terrible things, and it kind of gets worse and worse with his life, all of the problems, and it's because of his own sin. And you see here in chapter 16, and this is with him and Delilah, verse 16, and this is a woman that he's not married to, and it came to pass when she pressed him daily with her words and urged him so that his soul was vexed unto death, that he told her all his heart and said onto her, there hath not come a razor upon mine head, for I have been a Nazarite onto God from my mother's womb. If I be shaven, then my strength will go from me, and I shall become weak and be like any other man. And so he goes through this whole thing over and over and over again, and he lies to her, and he kind of shakes off the problem, and here he just kind of tells her the truth. Notice what it says here in verse 18, and when Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sinned and called for the lords of the Philistines, saying, come up this once, for you have showed me all his heart. Then the lords of the Philistines came upon to her and brought money in their hand, and she made him sleep upon her knees, and she called for a man, and she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his head, and she began to afflict him, and his strength went from him. And she said, the Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And he awoke out of his sleep and said, I will go out as at other times before and shake myself. Right? You know, the first sermon I ever heard from Pastor Bruce Mejia is when you can no longer shake yourself, and it's taken here from Judges 16, and the point of the sermon was we have certain sins we allow in our lives, and we always just kind of shake it off, and no big deal. God gave me another chance, but you know, it comes to a point where you can no longer shake yourself. It comes to a point where God's been merciful for too long, and he will no longer give you a second chance. And he goes to shake himself, and he wished not that the Lord was departed from him, but the Philistines took him and put out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza, and bound him with fetters of brass, and he did grind in the prison house. So we see the end here for Samson is the fact that he loses his eyes. And of course we know at the very end he ends up taking the pillars, and he commits suicide, but here he loses his eyes due to his sin. Now you say, Brother Stuckey, nothing that serious would ever happen to me with my sin. Well, I mean, the Bible says God did kill 23,000 people in one day for fornication, and 24,000 total, right? You say, nothing this bad would happen to me, you know, losing my eyes. Well, what about if you're a drunk, and you drink every single day, and you die when you're 50 years old from liver disease? That's as a result of sin. Or you smoke a pack of cigarettes every day, and then you get lung cancer when you're 50 years old. It's because of your own sin that you have that problem. It's your own sin that you're not healed. And look, sin is physically destructive to our bodies. It will destroy your bodies. It's not just a spiritual sin that you commit. You're honestly sinning against yourself. You're taking years off your life. You're harming your own body, and you can literally lose a part of your body like Samson did as a result of your own sin, or even die at a young age. Good Isaiah chapter one, Isaiah one. Isaiah chapter one. Now, if you're a soul winner, though, the saddest thing is that if you have major sin in your life, you will stop being a soul winner. It might not happen tomorrow. It might not happen a week from now, but eventually it's going to stop, right? I mean, you see this with David. You don't have to turn there, but in Psalm 51, he has this sin in his life, and he's like restoring me the joy of thy salvation. Now, what David said is, I lost my joy because somebody who's saved that is living in sin is going to be miserable, and when you feed your flesh and please your flesh and fulfill your own desires, you will be a miserable person. You're going to be depressed and hate your life, and David said, I lost the joy of my salvation because he had sin in his life. Then he said, then why teach transgressors thy ways and sinners shall be converted onto thee? David said, once I get my joy back, then I'm going to be a soul winner. Here's the thing. If you're committing sins, you're going to lose your joy, and you're going to stop being a soul winner. Look, when it comes to a church like ours, we love soul winning. That really is at the heart of God's love when it comes to a church of what he wants us to do, and that kind of completes all of this preaching. It makes everything make sense that we stand for and that we believe and we preach hard. It's about soul winning, and there's no greater joy, but you know what? You can quench that spirit with your own sin, and if you quench that spirit, you're going to stop serving God. So you're going to harm your own body, and you're going to stop serving God. Why? Because of habitual sin, and you're going to have the same problems in life over and over and over. Why is God allowing this to happen? Well, maybe you're allowing it to happen to yourself. That's reality. That's what we're seeing in Hosea seven, Isaiah one verse 18. Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. Now Isaiah is a book that's really primarily written to the southern kingdom of Judah, but chapter one is really the northern kingdom of Israel. It's kind of like the one chapter that's really focusing on Israel, which is what Hosea is primarily focusing on. Verse 18 really is applying to a verse as a nation, but he says, come now and let us reason together. So if you want to make it an individual thing, well, it'd be someone who's already saved. This is not a verse. This is where they got saved. Now I know people quote this verse. It's like, well, here's salvation. Your sins are as scarlet. They can be as white as snow. And look, when we spiritually get saved, yes, our sins are washed away, but this is actually in reference to someone who is already God's people and it's in reference to a nation. And here's the thing. We need that daily cleansing with God. We need to reason with God. We know what's wrong. We know what's right. We know when we sinned and we need to come to God and just, you know what, he's going to wash away those sins and we can have that strong fellowship if we come to him every day. Okay. Go back to Hosea seven, Hosea seven. How does this apply to an individual? Well, I mean, we all need to get major sin out of our lives, right? And here's the thing. If we allow small sin that can lead to the great transgression, as the Bible says, we need to get the sin out of our lives or it will destroy our lives. Why is it that most people don't really last in the Christian race for decades? Because you know, if you're around a church for a while and you really think about it, you can just start thinking of the names of the people that are at the church at the very beginning. And then all of a sudden you're just like, oh man, they're gone and they're gone and they're gone and they're gone and look, everyone will have every excuse and reason in the world, but usually it's because of ourselves. That's the reason why we stopped serving God, right? So as an individual, get the sin out of your life or it's going to destroy you. As a church though, what would happen if we allowed major sin at this church and didn't deal with it? It would destroy the church. It would completely destroy that. This is why the Bible has a situation of church discipline, right? Now look, church discipline is not a fun thing. Nobody likes it. I certainly don't like it, right? Look, I'm, I'm not a super confrontational person, right? Now maybe other people are, but honestly that's not really my strength where it's just like, I really don't like dealing with major confrontations, but you know what? Church discipline is something that we have practiced at this church because it's necessary because if you have an infection in the church and it doesn't get dealt with, it's just going to spread to everybody. It's going to destroy the church and, and, and here's the thing. When you deal with a situation like that, at first it's painful. At first you wonder, man, is this really the right choice? And honestly, you know, once you have a major surgery, at first it feels worse than it did before the surgery, right? But you can look back months later and say, okay, this was the right decision, right? See here's the thing. It obviously depends on the injury, but I'll tell you what, before I had surgery on my knee, my knee didn't hurt. Before I had the surgery, I've never felt any bigger pain in my entire life. It was terrible, but here's the thing. My knee would have never fully healed unless I dealt with the problem, right? It was not going to heal itself. So it is with church discipline. It's also the why we preach hard against sins because you don't want to allow habitual sin to spread in church. You got to cry aloud against wicked sin. Otherwise you'll get infected by that sin. Why is it that there's a lot of churches that are just, you know, rolling out the red carpet for the homos in today's world? Well, that tells you that the pastors never preach against it because here's the thing. If they actually preached against it, those people would probably be like, oh man, fidgeting in their seat, not feeling comfortable. I mean, you quote Leviticus 2013, hey, that might hurt the feelings of a few homos out there, right? But you know, you got these churches that don't preach hard against anything. I wonder why your church is having all of these problems because you're not preaching and getting rid of the problem, right? And the reality is this, even when we're talking about people that are saved, the reality is this is not the right church for everybody. And you know what? Sometimes there's people that just aren't going to be like minded like us. People that are saved that would just rather go to the church that just never says anything bad and they'd be the sort of person that if they were here, they'd always be complaining at brother Stuckey. Brother Stuckey didn't have to be so mean. Why does brother Stuckey have to do this? Look, if we were filled with people like that, it would destroy our church. We're better off just having people that love God. Now we all have our problems and we make mistakes, but we're a church full of people that love God. We're a church full of people that are reading God's word, that are going soul winning, that are trying to serve God. And it comes as a result of setting the tone for what sort of church it is. As a church, we cannot allow habitual sin in this church. As a nation, because this is really what Israel is about. If a nation is going through major problems, you know what? Those political leaders ought to look at the country and say, hey, well, maybe we're wicked. Now you never see that happen from political leaders. I mean, the reason why we got all these problems is it's the Republicans that were in office. That's the reason why we got all these problems in the US. And then after these four years of Joe Biden, who I'm sure is going to die in office because he's barely able to stand or be functional at this point in his life, when Kamala Harris takes over as the president, here's the thing about after those four years, all the Republicans on Fox News, well, the reason why we have all these problems is because of the Democrats. I'm pretty sure Fox News hires homos. They're open homos. I mean, what is a conservative homo? Does that make any sense to anybody? I mean, a conservative, I mean, how can you be, it doesn't make any sense, but that's the world we live in. Don't tell me that Fox News is just filled full of these Bible believing Christians and everything. No, I mean, you know, they always blame the other side, but the reality is it's sin in that country. That is the reason why a country gets destroyed. And whether you're looking at financially, whether you're looking at abortion running rampant, it's as a result of the country itself being filled full of habitual sin that does not get dealt with. And look, habitual sin, whether it's an individual, whether it's a church, whether it's a nation that will prevent healing from taking place. Hosea seven, verse two, point number one was habitual sin. Point number two, a heart problem, a heart problem, okay? I'll use the example again of when I tore my ACL and I was recovering. Here's the thing. A heart problem is something that happens on the inside, Saloam, right? And that was the problem with Israel is they didn't fix the inside. Now here's the thing about this. You know what? When you're recovering from a major surgery, you're going to get various exercises to improve your strength and to make yourself strong on the inside so you can eventually be back to normal. But here's the thing. If you never do those exercises, you're not going to gain any strength, right? I was given a list of basically 20-minute strengthening exercises and I was supposed to do it three times a day and they said that's pretty much the most you can do it. So I did it three times a day up to the exact amount I was allowed to do it because I wanted to be able to recover and get better. But here's the thing. If I just sat down and watched TV for months and did not do those exercises, oh, I wonder why my knee still hurts. It doesn't make sense. The recovery is so slow while I'm not doing what I'm supposed to do. That's the reason why, okay? And the problem with Israel is they weren't right on the inside because it says in verse two, and they consider not in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness. Now they knew they were doing things that were wrong, but they didn't really consider it on the inside. They made the same mistakes throughout the entire Bible and it's like God send us a deliverer. God would send the deliverer and they kept becoming more and more wicked, but they never really considered in their heart. It was all just kind of a vain show on the outside because they were going through problems in their lives and they consider not in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness. Now their own doings have beset them about they are before my face. God says these sins are right before me. They're present. They're visible. And the problem was they didn't consider in their hearts that you know what? God remembers all your sin and your wickedness. See if you do something wrong and then nothing bad happens in 24 hours and you say, well I guess it wasn't that big of a deal to God. I mean I was really scared God would judge me, but nothing happened. So I guess I can do it again. And see that's what people do. That's what a nation does. And they're not really considering in their heart that you know what? God knows everything you're doing. Just because, don't misunderstand or mistake God being long suffering and merciful with God saying he doesn't care. Just because God is long suffering and he's merciful and he doesn't lay down the hammer the first time, that doesn't mean he's not going to lay down the hammer, right? When God lays down the hammer, it's pretty much destruction, okay? So we ought to be thankful that God is merciful, but you need to consider in your heart that if you have this sin in your life, you're going to be judged for it. You're going to pay for that. Verse 14, and they have not cried unto me with their hearts when they howled upon their beds. They have not cried unto me with their hearts when they howled upon their beds. Now howling is like crying out for mercy and basically they're like, why is our nation being destroyed? But you know what? They didn't cry unto God with their hearts. Here's the thing, they were upset that they had problems and they were howling out to God, please heal us, please deliver us, please give us another chance. But they didn't really mean it in their hearts. It was all fake. It was all a show. And see, man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart. And God knows whether you mean it or not. And I want you to realize everybody is sorry when they're going through problems. Did you realize that? Everybody's sorry. I mean, King Saul was sorry when he got in trouble, but he was only sorry because he got in trouble. He wasn't sorry that he committed the sin. He didn't really mean it from his heart. And you can see that from his reaction in the Bible. Look, every serial killer, they're sorry when they get caught. And every single one says, I'm sorry, it was wrong. But they're just sorry that they got arrested. They're not actually sorry that they did it though. Everybody's sorry when they get caught, but that doesn't mean that it's actually godly sorrow or real sorrow. Because according to the Bible, godly sorrow worketh repentance, meaning it works a change. And if you're really sorry, if you have godly sorrow, there's going to be a change. Okay? And that's a verse in reference to people that are already saved in a church that's already saved. In our lives as saved people, when you do something wrong and you know it's wrong and you get caught or you see what the Bible says, you need to be sorry from the heart. And when you cry out to God, you have to actually mean it. Compare two people, David versus King Saul. Who committed the worst sins? David. Right? I mean, he committed adultery and murder. It's worse than what King, but you know, here's the difference. When David was rebuked, he was actually sorry. It wasn't a vain show. He actually met it. Don't be one of these people. You howl upon your beds, God, all these problems in my life, please give me another chance. Forgive me. But you're just saying it as a vain show, and you don't really meet it in your heart. Right? You know, a great example of this is like an altar call. Right? I mean, here's the thing. When people come down to the altar, I mean, they get really emotional and they cry out, but they don't really mean it from their heart. You say, Well, Brother Stuckey, how can you say they don't really mean it from your... Here's how I can say they don't mean it from the heart, because they come back the next week, and they're sorry for the same thing, and if they really had true sorrow, according to the Bible, there would be a change. I mean, if you're really... because here's the thing. David, when he said he was sorry, there was a major change. Now he still had to pay for those sins, but you see that David was actually sorry, and there was a change. It shows it was true sorrow. Why? It came from the heart. It wasn't just, Oh, man, this is terrible things happening on the outside. No, on the inside, David felt bad, and he realized I messed up. They have not cried unto me with their heart when they howled upon their beds. They assemble themselves for corn and wine, and they rebel against me. And the reason why they're assembled together is for a financial benefit, because they want corn and wine. Right? Now we happen to have corn here that you can partake in after the service, but I hope you're not here because of the corn. But they assemble for corn and wine, and they rebel against God, meaning they don't really care that they're committing sins. They just want to be there for a financial blessing. They want their country to be blessed by God again, but they're not really sorry for the sins that they've committed. Go to Jeremiah chapter three, Jeremiah chapter three, Jeremiah three. You know, an example of this is all these countries, because that's what we're talking about. They have major, major, major sins, but all they ever talk about is the financial problems that they're going through. Right? I mean, that's what you'll hear the United States always talking about. It's like, why not cry about the one million babies that are aborted every single year in the US? Right? I mean, there's more babies. More babies were aborted, are aborted every single day in the United States than people died in the towers at 9-11. Did you realize that? More babies are aborted every single day in the United States of America than people that died in the towers every single day, and yet they cry about that, all these problems. We're going through all this stuff, but you know, you're not crying from the heart because when you see something like that happen, your reaction ought to be, man, we must have committed some wicked sin that God's judging us. Right? Isn't that what King Josiah did? I mean, he said, man, look at this, these problems that we have, like God's anger is against us. Once he saw the word of God, you need to cry into God with your heart, and this is every single country. They're worried only about finances. That's all they really care about. Why not cry about the wickedness that's out on the streets and you see every single day? It's everywhere in today's world, and it's not just in the US. It's not just here. It's everywhere. But make no mistake about it. It's in our country too. And if people are crying about all the problems in all of, I mean, what's the big thing people are crying about in 2020? The financial problems. Why not crying about the sin that's filled this country and destroyed this country? Because here's the thing, the financial problems and things like that, those are just the symptom of the problem. That's not the problem though. Why would God allow something like that to happen? Because the country is wicked. Okay? Once again, that's taking the paracetamol to get rid of the headache and not figuring out why do I have the headache? In our country, yeah, you know, we've been pretty judged in 2020, but it's because of our own sin and our own wickedness. And unfortunately, when you're a Bible believing country, you know, when you're a Bible believing Christian and you live in a country that's going through judgment, you suffer through that judgment too. You got all these prophets in the Old Testament and they cry against the country. How dare you say that? It doesn't benefit them. It's not like they're happy. It's not like it helped Elijah to go without rain for several years, right? It's like, but you know, the reality is that when God's judgment comes, if you're in that country, you know, you're going to have to deal with some of the stuff as well. Jeremiah chapter three, verse 10, and yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah hath not turned on to me with her whole heart, but faintedly sayeth the Lord. And see, the Bible says that you can turn on to God, but fain means basically fake, right? How the Bible talks about feigning yourself as a mourner, right? And I think in boxing or in fighting terms, you can throw like a fake punch. You know, feign is what they say, where basically you pretend, but you don't actually do it. And basically what the Bible is saying is that they turn to God, but not really with their whole heart. They're upset at the surroundings that are happening, but you know what? They don't actually mean it. Go to Matthew 23, Matthew 23, Matthew 23, a lot of people turn to God, so to speak, but it's really just a strategy to get blessings from God. They don't actually mean it. And here's the thing. I mean, you might fool me, but God looks on the heart. He knows what's on the inside. So when you get right with God, you better make sure you actually get right with God. Otherwise it's not going to do any good what you pray if you don't actually mean it. Matthew 23, verse 25, woe and do scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you may clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they're full of extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter that the outside of them may be clean also. And what he's saying to the Pharisee is you're making the outside look really great. Okay. But the problem is on the inside, you're full of sin. On the inside, you're full of problems. Woe and do scribes and Pharisees, for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. Now look, I am all for people dressing the right way and following the standards of the Bible. But just because you look good on the outside doesn't mean that you're good on the inside. Just because you look like you're a good Christian, that doesn't mean that you're good on the inside. And we should, instead of worrying about trying to impress man and look good to other people, we should just worry about fixing our own hearts. And what will happen is instead of having to go through the motions and not mean it, if you fix your heart, it's just going to happen. The inside is going to cleanse the outside. That's just the way it works. Now turn in your Bible to Hosea 7, go back to Hosea 7, Hosea 7. What are some applications? Well, as individuals don't think that the actions alone are good enough because God looks at the heart and he even says he rewards us based not just what we did, but our reasons for doing it. I mean, it's great that you're reading the Bible in January. I hope you read the New Testament in January. But you know, if the only reason why you're reading it is I got to have my name on that plaque or people are going to think I'm unspiritual, you're not going to get a reward from God for that. Now, I mean, it's still good that you're reading it because maybe reading it can change your heart to actually want to serve God. But just reading it to get your name on the plaque, well, that's a pretty vain reason right to do that. Or coming to church is because, man, I don't like going to church anymore, but I just don't want people to think I'm not spiritual. So I'll just go to church and put up with it just because I don't want people to think I'm not spiritual. Well, I mean, that's the wrong reason to come to church. Now, I think you got to go to church whether you feel like coming or not. But look, I mean, if you don't enjoy coming to church, you're not going to last at church. I don't know why you wouldn't enjoy coming to church because it's not just the preaching and the soul winning, but I mean, the fellowship that you'd be losing, I don't know why you wouldn't want to come to church. But you know, the reality is if you're only coming to be seen a man, there is no reward for that. That's what the Bible teaches. As a church, here's a good application. Just because we're getting a lot of people saved during a week does not mean our church is right with God. Now obviously that can be a good indicator that we're right with God because a church that's not winning souls is certainly not right with God. But just because we get a lot of souls saved, that doesn't mean that we're right with God. Right? We need to be well balanced as a whole package as a church and be well balanced as a church. And just because we're doing a lot of soul winning, that doesn't mean that God's blessing is upon us. And I mean, you know, in Revelation two and three, you see seven different churches and a lot of those churches have some major problems and they're still considered a bona fide church. There's no question we are a bona fide church by any standard of what the Bible would say. But that doesn't mean that if God looked at our church, he'd say, man, you guys are awesome. Now I hope he would, but I don't know if he would or not. Just because we're getting a lot of people saved, that doesn't mean that we're a perfect church or just because we're getting more people saved than some other Baptist churches that are also fundamental, like minded. That doesn't mean that we're a better church than them either. Okay. Obviously there's no reason for us to compare, but I'm just saying just because you do the actions, that doesn't mean that you're completely right with God. As a nation, you know, nations will try to use God for a blessing, but they don't actually love him. And that was Israel. They wanted the corn, they wanted the wine, but they didn't actually turn to God with their own hearts. Point number one, go back to Hosea seven point one. Why are we not healed? Point number one is habitual sin. Normally it's because of sin in our life. Point number two, because we're going through the actions, but we don't actually mean it from the heart and we're not fixing the problem. Point number three is because of heritage wasted, meaning we're getting a good heritage. We're getting good teaching, but we're just not applying what we actually hear. Okay. Now an example of this is that let's, when I was talking about the ACL, you know, after I tore my ACL and I was under the recovery, you know, I asked people that had actually recovered from an ACL for tips on how to recover. I mean, doesn't it make sense that if I've had a surgery on an ACL and I want to recover, it makes sense to ask people that have actually done it. And here's the thing. When you're at church, you're learning tips for survival in life. You're learning tips for God's blessing in life. You're learning tips for success in life. And it's foolish to waste the teaching and to waste that heritage that's being passed down. And look, many of the things that I teach are things I learned from other people. In fact, most of what I preach, most of what I preach, I'm just really passing on the information that I've learned through the years from other great men of God. I'm not trying to come up here to preach some new thing and something cool. Most of it is just relaying the message that I got from other preachers I heard. What they're doing is they heard great preaching and they're just passing it down as well. Don't waste what you're being taught. Hosea 7 verse 3, they make the king glad with their wickedness and the princes with their lies. Notice verse 4, they're all adulterers as an oven heated by the baker. So Israel is like an oven that gets heated by a baker. Now what's the purpose of an oven? An oven is used to cook things. You put things in the oven, they heat up and then you eat them. That's the purpose of an oven. And Israel is being called an oven that gets heated by the baker who ceaseth from raising after he hath kneaded the dough until it be leavened. And what the Bible is saying is instead of just cooking the bread, they're doing it wrong. They're waiting. And leaven is a picture of sin in the Bible and basically they're not following what the Bible says, they're not doing what they're supposed to be doing and sin is getting mixed in there. I mean, the purpose of an oven is to cook the food. And the purpose of Israel was to obey God's commandments and bring forth fruits. But they brought forth fruit onto themselves, the book of Hosea said, and they weren't doing what their purpose was. The purpose of being God's people and having the oracles of God where you know what you should do and you should bring forth fruits. Same thing in today's world. You know what you should do and you ought to bring forth fruit. And if a church isn't doing that, the blessing is gone. They're like an oven heated by the baker who ceaseth from raising after he hath kneaded the dough until it be leavened. Verse five. In the day of our king, the princes have made him sick with bottles of wine. He stretched out his hand with scorners for they've made ready their heart like an oven whilst they lie in wait. Their baker sleepeth all the night. In the morning it burneth as a flaming fire. They're all hot as an oven and have devoured their judges. All their kings are fallen. There's none among them that calleth unto me. Now, going back to verse six for a second. You're like an oven that basically gets heated up and then the baker doesn't cook anything in the oven. I mean, can you imagine turning on your oven tonight right before you go to bed? I don't feel like cooking anything. I'll just leave it on until the morning. What's the purpose of that? I mean, wouldn't that be dumb? It's like you turn on your oven right before you go to bed. Then you just sleep. Oh, in the morning I'll cook the bread. Doesn't make any sense. That is what Israel was doing, though. They basically were not doing what they clearly should have done, and they were just a waste of space because an oven that never is used to cook food, I mean, unless and look, it doesn't get cold in the Philippines. Maybe in the US where it gets colder in the wintertime, you turn on the oven to heat it up a couple degrees in the house. But I mean, otherwise, what is the purpose of turning on an oven if you're not actually going to cook anything? You turn on the oven. I'm just going to take a nap. I'll just cook in the morning and just leave the oven on. Doesn't make any sense, right? They're all hot as an oven, verse seven, and have devoured their judges. All their kings are fallen. There is none among them that call unto me. Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people. Ephraim is a cake not turned. Now, look, honestly, I should have looked up. I don't know a whole lot about cake because I actually am not really a fan of the taste of cake. I really just don't like cake except like ice cream cake, which doesn't really count. Or, I mean, mango, bravo cake, but that's kind of different, right? I'm not really a huge fan of cake, but basically it's just saying, you know, you're cooking something and you're supposed to turn it at a certain point and you don't do that. I mean, an example I would understand better is maybe cooking a big piece of meat. You got to turn it eventually, right? You got to cook both sides, but you just kind of burn one side and it's raw on the other. It doesn't make sense. You ruined it, right? So he's using these extreme examples with Israel that they're just not doing what they're supposed to do. Go to Jeremiah chapter three, Jeremiah three, Jeremiah chapter three, Jeremiah three. See here's the thing. Other countries, maybe they didn't know what they're supposed to do, but Israel, they had the oracles of God. They knew what they were supposed to do and they just chose not to do it, right? They're an oven that's just useless, basically. You're going to Jeremiah three. Let me read you in Psalm 16. The lines are falling onto me in pleasant places. Yea, I have a goodly heritage. And you know what? That is a verse that is often applied to raising children. And I think that's a great application, right? Your goal when you raise children is that as they get older, they're able to say when they're adults, you know, they're 18, 20, 22 or whatever. And let's say maybe they get married and start their own family, that they would say, you know what? I have a goodly heritage passed down from my mom and my dad. My parents weren't perfect, but they taught me the word of God. They spent time with me. They love me. I have a goodly heritage, right? I mean, that's the goal for all of us as parents. But you know, another application is that at Verity Baptist Church Manila, Verity Baptist Church Pampanga, we have a goodly heritage. So what do you mean? I mean, this church was started by Verity Baptist Church and I was at that church for years getting trained by Pastor Jimenez. We have a goodly heritage. We have a great leader that is still showing us the way and doing a great job running his church. And you know, honestly, this church, you know, I didn't really have to think about how do I want to run things. I pretty much just tried to model what Verity Baptist Church is doing with slight changes because the culture is a little bit different or things are like our services are back to back on Sundays. But in terms of how we operate, I just really try to recreate a good model. Because if you've got a good model, I mean, if you've made a model of a car and it's a great model and it's going to sell well, what's the point of saying, well, I just want to make a brand new one. I mean, just keep making the thing that's working well and making you money. Right. And it's the same thing with the church. And if anyone ever starts a church, you know, leaves our church, obviously, you know what, if you're ordained, you're welcome to run your church however you want. But a wise thing would be, hey, just take that goodly heritage and just use it. It makes sense. That's what we try to do as a church. I'm not trying to just, you know, reinvent every single thing. I mean, even the style that I try to preach is in many ways similar to Pastor Jimenez. Practical sermons, a family series is very similar to the sort of series that Pastor Jimenez would preach. Why? It works. It's a good method. And that's what we need. We have a goodly heritage. And look, Israel, they had a goodly heritage as a nation. They had the oracles of God like no other location had it. They had the word. They had prophets sent on to them. They had a goodly heritage, but they wasted it. Jeremiah three, verse 19. But I said, how shall I put thee among the children and give thee a pleasant land, a goodly heritage of the host of nations? And I said, Thou shalt call me my father and shall not turn away from me. It talks about a goodly heritage. Israel had a goodly heritage. They knew what they're supposed to do, and they're like an oven that's just not doing what they're supposed to do. And here's the reality. If you're at this church, you have a goodly heritage because I do preach the word of God. You hear what the Bible says. You know what you're supposed to do. You can't make the excuse, well, I mean, I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I mean, we just show you what the Bible says. We try to motivate you to read the Bible on your own. You can't sit here and say, I don't know what I'm supposed to do. It's just a matter of doing what you know you're supposed to do. Turn back to Hosea seven, Hosea seven. Some applications are this. Hey, apply the advice that you learn in church. Just apply what you learn in church. Now look, I want you to realize that there's many people in our church, you know, that love God and are trying to serve God. But I also want you to realize that Pastor Jimenez wouldn't have ordained me if he didn't think I knew the Bible very well. There's a requirement for times reading through the Bible and requirements for service of God and ability to preach and everything like that. And Pastor Jimenez put a stamp of approval on me based on my knowledge of the Bible and character and things such as that. So look, I'm not the greatest preacher in the world, but you know, I can teach you the word of God and show you things from the Bible. And I can say that, you know, as I'm memorizing through Hosea, you know, many, many things I am teaching in Hosea are actually kind of new because, you know, you don't really hear Hosea preached a whole lot. So I really had to learn. But here's the thing. As a church member, when you have a church where the pastor or the person preaching is preaching the word of God, you get the advantage of just kind of getting the meat and potatoes out of those chapters after the study's already been done. Right? You know, sometimes I'll hear Pastor Jimenez preach something that's just awesome. I'm like, man. I mean, that probably took him 15 hours and I get to listen for five minutes, write that down. I got in my head forever. Right? Don't waste the heritage that you have here. Don't be a church and then not pay attention. Right? Or hang out in the mother baby room and not pay attention to the sermon. Well, why are you here then? I mean, literally, why would you be here and just spend all your day if you're not going to pay attention? And it's completely up to you because I can't force you to pay attention. Right? I mean, the only thing I would ever try to do is if you were sleeping and you're snoring really loud, I'll probably try to wake you up by pounding the pulpit or something. But look, if you're just kind of nodding off, I'll probably just let you not off. Right? It's up to you to decide to listen. But you're already going to be here anyway. So what's the point of being in church for a couple of hours and then you just don't even listen? It doesn't make sense. Right? And so as a church, we need to remember the heritage we got from Verity Baptist Church. And as a nation of Israel, they should have been producing fruit and obeying God's commandments because that is what they were taught. And they knew that. Right? Hosea 7. Point number one, one reason why we're not healed is habitual sin. That's the reason why we have the same problems in our life over and over and over and over and over. It's not just because you have bad luck. It's probably because of sin in your life or another reason why it might be because you have a heart problem. You're doing the things right on the outside, and that's good, but you got to fix the inside. And if you fix the inside, it won't be hard to do what's on the outside, and many of your problems in life are going to vanish. Point number three is because of heritage wasted. You're hearing a lot of great information. You've been taught a lot of great things, but you're just not applying it. Point number four is a hidden problem. A hidden problem, basically problems that you don't actually know are there. Okay, going back to the example of my ACL recovery. When you have surgery on your ACL, there's different options you have for the surgery. One of the common techniques and the most common is to take a hamstring graft. So you take part of your hamstring and you put it in for the ligament, and it actually builds stronger than it was before. I chose not to use that method because I had problems with my hamstring in high school. And so the second most popular method is you get a dead body part from another person, and basically you take the ligament from a dead body and you put it there, and then that becomes, and I have a dead body part from somebody else in my left knee. I took basically their ligament. Now here's the thing, though. Usually that works, but the one fear is that your body's going to notice, hey, this is a foreign substance. It's not supposed to be there, and your body can reject the ligament. And that would mean that the surgery was basically useless. You're not going to recover. You're going to have problems. You're going to have to have another surgery. Now, thankfully, I haven't had that problem. But what I want you to realize is when you're recovering from a major surgery, sometimes there are hidden problems and you don't know why you're not recovering. You don't know why there is this problem, but sometimes there's things that are happening and it's a hidden problem that's preventing you from being healed, right? That was one of the major problems with Israel is that they had hidden problems and they didn't even know it. Hosea 7 verse 9, strangers have devoured his strength and he knoweth it not. I mean, strangers have devoured his strength and he knoweth it not. And it says they've devoured his strength and they weren't aware of it. It's not that they were devoured, but their strength was devoured and they didn't realize why. You know, an example of this is when you're in a country and there's all these wicked politicians and we know that means wicked people walk on every side. That's devouring the spiritual strength of that country, but most people in the nation aren't aware of it. They don't realize when you have all these wicked people in office that you know what, you're devouring the spiritual strength of that country, but that is what you're doing. And what it says is strangers, people have come from the outside and they're devouring Israel's strength and they don't even realize it and he knoweth it not. Then notice this, yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth not. Now this is interesting when it mentions gray hairs, okay? Now let me spend some time to give you kind of my explanation of what it's talking about here. But as a guy, I'll be honest, I don't really care if I have gray hairs, right? You know, obviously the process of aging is not a fun process. The Bible talks about that in Ecclesiastes chapter 12 and things such as losing my speed and strength and stuff. Those are the things that bother me. I don't really care what my hair looks like. I don't really care if I'm guapo or pangit. You know, it doesn't really make a difference to me, right? As a guy, that's kind of how we are, right? So when it comes to gray hairs in general, guys don't really care too much if they have gray hairs. Now women tend to care a little bit more than guys, but here's the thing about this. When a woman notices that she has a gray hair or somebody says, hey, I see a gray hair. Women will always go in front of a mirror and then all of a sudden they'll look and then all of a sudden, oh, wait a minute, it's not one, it's two, three, four, five, six, seven. Isn't that true? Right? When you're having gray hair, all of a sudden you start scanning, you start noticing a lot of gray hairs. Isn't that true? Right? People don't want to admit it, but it's true. Take my word for it, right? And so here's the thing about this. This is what Israel was. They didn't even notice they had problems and they were having gray hairs pop up everywhere. They didn't even realize that there were people that were devouring the strength of that country. Another example is like when you see one E piece, you've got 20 others somewhere in the house, right? If you see one E piece, you have more than one. Say no, brother Stuckey, I promise it's just one. No, it's not. You've got more. Cause here's the thing. They don't even like to be out in the light. So if you catch one in the light, there's about 25 crawling in darkness, right? And what the Bible is saying here is that there were hidden problems in Israel and they weren't even aware of it. And if they had really taken the time to shine and look in the mirror, they'd start seeing, oh, we got a lot of problems and they should have done that check on themselves. James talks about that. Looking in the mirror when you see a problem and then choosing not to fix it. And here's the thing. We have our free will whether we fix it or not, but you better be trying to look into the mirror of the word of God and find out what are my problems that I need to fix. And Israel wasn't doing that. They had no problem. They had no, no reality, no realization that their strength was being devoured by strangers. The Bible says, go to Psalm 139 Psalm 139 Psalm chapter 139. As an individual, one thing that we ought to pray is that God will reveal secret faults that we are not aware of. Now here's the thing. If you've got very obvious faults, very obvious sins, and you're just choosing not to deal with it. Well, I mean, God's not going to waste his time revealing your secret problems because like why don't you fix what's right in front of you? It's like you're committing these major sins and it's just like you're trying to figure out what are these hidden problems? It's like, well, just deal with the major sins you have and then God's going to reveal more to you as you draw closer to the light as the Bible says. But if you're trying to live for God, one thing we ought to pray is that God will reveal secret faults that we are not aware of. And it's important for us to know this because your faults and your sins will harm you. So it's good to figure out what the problem is and fix the problem. Oftentimes we're not aware of what our problems are. Now what's funny about this is oftentimes we're not aware of our problems, but if you were to ask other people, they would be able to tell you, yes, this is your problem. But as individuals, you know, we just don't notice it with ourselves, right? You know, oftentimes we try to look and we just look over our own problems. Isn't that true? And so here's the thing about this. We ought to pray to God. God just revealed to me what my problems are so I can fix them. Psalm 139 verse 23, search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts and see if there'd be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. Now let me turn there myself because I'm pretty sure it's got these verses right before that I think are interesting and I'll add this to my notes. Yeah. Notice what it says in verse 19. Psalm 139 verse 19, then we're taking a rabbit trail and then we'll get back to the sermon. Verse 19, surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God, depart from me, therefore ye bloody men, for they speak against thee wickedly and thine enemies take thy name in vain. Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee and am not I grieve with those that rise up against me. Did you know that there are people that we were supposed to hate according to the Bible? This is David saying, do not I hate them? He says, there are people that I hate and he doesn't hate people that hate him because David had a lot of enemies that he didn't hate, but he hated those that hated God, right? You better believe these people that are Satan worshipers that are reprobates that hate God and are trying to tear down what we do. You better believe those are people we ought to hate. Now I'm not talking about just everyday unsaved people, but people that hate God and are trying to tear down God and are twice dead, plucked up by the roots. You better believe those are people that we ought to hate. Those are people that are fighting against everything we do. Those are our enemies. And David said this in Psalm 139, do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee and am not I grieve with those that rise up against thee. I hate them with perfect hatred. I count them mine enemies. And David said, you know what? I have a lot of enemies and I don't hate my personal enemies, but the ones that hate God, I count those people, my enemies, man, and the Bible's so hateful. How could you say that? What's funny is the next couple of verses are quoted all the time. In fact, there's a song, search me, O God, right? That's in our hymnal. It's a song that Baptists sing all the time. It's a great song. It's an awesome song found in Psalm 139. And right after David says, I hate people, then he says, search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. You know what that teaches us? That it's not wrong to hate people. I mean, this is literally what David says. He says, I hate reprobates, search me, God, if I've got any problems. It's amazing how they sing this song. It's like, did you look at the context? Yes, search me. And guess what? Part of that is having a hatred for the enemies of God. And look, if you love children, you've got to hate the pedophile. If you love the flower, you've got to hate the weeds. It's only common sense. Okay. And so right in the context of Psalm 139, he says, there's people that he hates. And then he says, search me, O God, show me any secret or hidden faults. And so obviously David, obviously David, you know, he didn't see anything wrong with hating wicked people. And what's funny is if you ask people what their favorite book of the Bible is, many will say the book of Psalms. That's why you also often have like the Psalms and New Testament, you know, the New Testament with the book of Psalms. People love the book of Psalms. I'm like, have you ever read the book of Psalms? Right. We're going to get back into the book of Psalms. Don't worry. You say, this is a question I've been wondering for over a year. Don't worry. We're going to get back into Psalms. But I'll tell you what, when you preach it every week, it's a bit repetitive because it's always about wicked reprobates. That's what the song, I mean, that's what they were singing. It's a song book. Right. I mean, that is what Psalms is about. I mean, chapter after chapter, I mean, obviously there's some exceptions, but chapter after chapter we did. It's like God's people versus wicked people constantly. That's what the book of Psalms is talking about. And here's the thing. It makes sense to us as soul winners, because those people that hate what we're doing and are fighting against us, it's encouraging when you realize that judgment that's coming toward them. It's incur. I mean, I'm sorry. But your first reaction when a bunch of homos bomb your church building is not, oh, we just ought to pray for them. Yeah. I mean, you ought to pray for them. There's something you ought to pray for them about, but it's not just, oh, God, just give them another chance. Let them, you know, even if they bombed 20 church buildings, it's like, you know, what in the world kind of what world are we living in? But you know what? If you're going to quote and sing Psalm 139 verse 23 and 24, maybe you ought to know the context beforehand, because right before it, it talks about hating people. Then God, then David says, search my heart. There's people that I hate search me and see if there's anything wicked in me. And what it's saying is there is nothing wicked because sometimes people say this. They'll say, well, you should never hate anybody. And then you'll point out versus where David hated someone. Well that David hated someone. That doesn't mean that we should hate someone. I mean, it's, it's, it's not, it's the word of God. He's acting as the narrator when he's writing that you can clearly see that scriptural. It's right. It's not just something David did. It's something that's actually biblical and right. It's like, yes. Over and over again, he says he hates people and that shows us there are people we ought to hate. And you say, brother, second, why do you guys always talk about that? Why does the Bible always talk about, why does the book of Psalms always talk about it? Because when you're a church that's actually serving God and going soul winning, you've got some enemies. You've got people that don't like you look here in the Philippines. We got some Bible Baptist preachers that aren't a big fan of me. They would want like nothing more than for me to drop dead. You say, why? Because when you're actually doing something for God, you're going to have enemies. The wicked are going to want to attack you. Why? Because they're not right with God and you're preaching against them. And the word of God is quick and powerful. That is reality. Psalm 139 verse 23 and 24. What does he say? He's saying, search me and know my heart and know my thoughts. See if there's anything wrong in me. That's a prayer that we ought to pray to God on a pretty regular basis. God, I'm trying to serve you. I'm trying to do what's right. Can you please help show me other problems that I have? There's any problems I have, whether it's with character or sins I'm committing or worldliness that I'm not aware of. God just reveal it to me. I want to fix the problem. I want to serve you. Now here's the thing about this. If you're going to pray a prayer like that, you better mean it from the heart. Because if God reveals to you problems and you refuse to fix those, you're just going to add judgment to yourself. You know, trying to get right with God. Yeah. You know, we ought to pray to God and say, God revealed to me my problems. Show me what I have that's wrong. Go back to Hosea seven, Hosea seven and so as a church, something I need to do is pray to God for guidance when I'm writing sermons and I'm doing sermon series that I'm preaching what God would have me to preach. That I'm saying the things God would have me to say. Because you know, when it comes to preaching sermons, you know, I have a preaching calendar and everything like that, but, but you know, as much as you try to preach everything in the Bible, there are certain sermons are, that are more important at certain times than others because certain things the church might be going through or individuals that they're going through. And you know, one thing that's amazing to me is that oftentimes I'll find myself preaching sermons and I don't even know that somebody at our church is going through something that relates exactly to that sermon and they'll tell me or they'll tell my wife, it's exactly what I needed to hear because two days ago this happened and I'm like, Whoa, I mean, I had absolutely no idea and that's just God leading me to preach what I should preach. And as a church, you know what, we're going to have plenty of problems. You know, in the decades, this church lasts, you know, 50 years from now, there's going to be a lot of problems that come up and a lot of things that happen and what we need God's guidance on what to preach. And you know, as a church, we need to know if we have faults of things that we're doing wrong. An example of this that kind of ties back into what I was saying, when this church started and this was a problem that was not hidden to me, I was well aware of it, but it was a problem in our church is that people were way too overly zealous, just rebuking everything under the sun and it's like we were getting lots of people saved and that's great, but just because you're getting a lot of people saved doesn't mean that you're perfect, right? And I understand it, in which, you know, I understood everyone's excited, they got a church and they're behind that church. It was a problem that was very obvious to me though. That's why I preach sermons about not being too hardcore, it's like, brother, suck his water down. It's like, no, I just saw a little bit of a problem. And you know, as a church, as much as we're trying to serve God, we're going to make some mistakes. We need God's guidance, okay? Point number one, you're in Hosea 7, point one is habitual sin is the reason why we're not healed. Point two, a heart problem. Point three, our heritage wasted. Point four, a hidden problem. Point five, hating the truth. Hating the truth is one reason why we are not healed. When we come in contact with the truth, instead of applying it, we get mad at the message, we hate the truth, and that's why we're not healed. You know, an example is, you know, recovering from an ACL, as I've mentioned. Let's say, for example, I go to the trainer, because I went to the trainer a couple times a week, he'd give me my exercises, and he would basically do some small tests to see how I was recovering. Now what if I went there one time, and look, I recovered pretty quickly, I was fortunate not to have any problems, but what if I went there and he said, you know what, you got a problem, something's not working. Now I'd be foolish not to listen to him, right? I'd be foolish not to just apply what he said, or somebody, you know, goes to the doctor, just doing a normal checkup, and the doctor's like, you know, you got high blood pressure, you got high cholesterol, you got a fast heart, how dare that doctor say I have high blood pressure. Wasn't that the reason why you're going to the checkup to find out if there's any problems? I mean, why would you get mad at the doctor that's just showing you that, right? And so, you know, we as people, we can hate the truth when we hear it. And when the Word of God is preached, that doesn't mean that we're actually going to do what's said. We have our choice. And as a nation, Israel just didn't apply what they knew was right. Hosea 7 verse 10, and the pride of Israel testifieth to his face, and they do not return to the Lord their God, nor seek him for all this. And it says that the pride of Israel was right there before their face, and they would not admit it. That's someone coming in contact with the Word of God, and they refuse to admit it. It's right there, it's clear, but they hate the truth. And the reality is, this is the reason, this is the reason why most saved people will not like our church. Most saved people don't want to know what the truth is. It's not just unsaved people, most saved people do not want to know what the truth is. They would rather be lied to, and it's shocking to me because I've just never been like this since I've been saved. When I got saved, I was so thankful that I wasn't going to hell, but I was scared to death about people that I knew. I was like, oh man, they're going to hell if they don't believe and understand this. And you know, that was really the driving force to get me to start going soul winning eventually about six months later and just start serving God. And it's just like, look, I'm not saying I'm perfect about this because you hear sermons and sometimes you get mad about it, and you shouldn't get mad about it. But it's just like, you know, at the end of the day, we ought to be in church and want to know what the truth is. And as a nation, Israel just hated the truth. They didn't want to know. The pride was right there before them, and they just denied it. They didn't want to know what the truth is. Go back to Jeremiah 11, Jeremiah 11, Jeremiah chapter 11, Jeremiah chapter 11, Jeremiah chapter 11. And I didn't know this was going to be a long sermon tonight. I still got a page and a half to go. Right. So I never know when I write these sermons, and it's like, well, we're still going to be here for a little while. And so Jeremiah chapter three, verse 11, and the Lord said on to me, the backsliding Israel hath justified herself more than treacherous Judah. And Israel justified herself. They were wrong. They were guilty. They heard what God said, but they justified themselves. They did not want to apply it. Go to Proverbs 14, Proverbs chapter 14, Proverbs 14. Look, if you make excuses for the problems in your life or you make excuses for the sins you commit or you make excuses when you hear sermons and you're not applying it, you're just harming yourself. It's foolish because the sermons are meant to help you. The word of God. Well, I mean, doesn't the word of God do good to him that walketh up rightly? The word of God does good. All of my sermons are going to do good when I'm using Bible. As long as you apply it now, if you don't apply it, then it doesn't do any good. And look, the word of God is good for you. So look, it might hurt a little bit. I get it. Medicine doesn't always feel good. Right? I mean, try to try to give medicine to a little kid. That's like the hardest thing in the world. They cry and they cry. You're just like, man, this could be over in a couple seconds. If you would just let us put the medicine down and then you got one parent holding the mouth open, the other ones, it's like, you know, surgery doesn't feel good. My ACL surgery felt terrible. I mean, it felt better before I had the surgery, but here's the thing. I needed that pain because that was part of the recovery process. And I'll tell you what, when you hear sermons that kind of hurt a little bit, hey, that pain is part of the recovery process. Proverbs 14 verse 10, the heart knoweth his own bitterness. The heart knoweth his own bitterness. According to the word of God, the heart knoweth his own bitterness. This is why it's so important to get things right on the inside and get your heart right. Get things right on your own side. The Bible says this, the heart knoweth his own bitterness. Now I've talked to people before that I knew were extremely bitter, and people have actually told you're really bitter and you're going to destroy yourself. And they're always, I'm not bitter, just lying to themselves. It's like, look, you're not harming me by lying to yourself, you're just harming yourself. Go to James three. Well, look at this. James three, James three, James chapter three, James chapter three, James chapter three. I mean, everybody loves hard preaching until it hits your sin, right? I mean, everybody loves hard preaching. I get up here and preach a sermon against the LGBT. I hope, I hope everybody at church is like, amen, right? Because I hope nobody has a problem with that. If you do, then, hey, talk to me quietly after the service, and you know, that'll be the last time you're ever here, right? But everybody loves hard preaching until it hits a little bit too close to home, and then everyone else is like, oh, how dare the preacher say that, right? And look, that's reality. That's how we are in our flesh. We don't like to be corrected. That's why at a young age, you know, we need to make sure we're teaching our children to learn to be corrected. Look, it's okay if you're wrong. Just fix it, right? James three, verse 14, but if you have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not and lie not against the truth. And the Bible's speaking about someone who would hear the truth, who would know the truth, and then they lie to themselves. Why would they do that? Because they hate the truth. They don't want to know that. They'd rather they weren't aware of it. They'd rather they were being lied to, okay? Go to Hosea seven, Hosea seven, Hosea seven, Hosea chapter seven. In the parable of the sower, the Bible talks about the person who lasts is the person who has an honest and good heart. Meaning every time you hear the preaching of the word of God, you have to be honest with yourself and you have to have a good heart, meaning you make those changes, okay? We always should have that reaction when we're coming to church that we're willing to learn and willing to be corrected if we're making a mistake. Now by all means, if you're saved, you've got the spirit of God inside of you and there might be topics you have a little bit of a different opinion on than me. But look, usually stuff is just pretty clear in the Bible. Most of what I'm saying and most of what I'm preaching, it's not really like, well, maybe Brother Stuckey's right. Maybe he's not. No, no, no. If I'm just reading to you verses and explaining them, it's like it's clear. That's what the Bible is saying. And so whatever it is, just be honest with it and you need to take the same approach when you're reading the Bible in your free time. Read it with an open mind and when you come in contact with stuff that shows you're guilty of something, change. Just change. Look, I got saved at the age of 18 as a freshman in college. You better believe I've changed my mind about a lot of things in the last half of my life. I mean, I was brainwashed by the world, like everybody. I mean, I'm sure that right after I got saved, if somebody preached a sermon and said, hey, this is worldly. It's wrong. It's a sin. I'd be like, what? That guy's crazy, right? Because I didn't know the Bible because it was new to me. But you know, what you have to do is just look at what the Bible says. You know, a perfect example of this. The first time I heard a sermon saying that you could not get saved from a modern version of the Bible, the first time because of the King James topic became kind of a new topic to me. I'd been saved for a couple of years and I became King James only, but I still wasn't really the whole way. Right. I was still learning more about the topic and listening to sermon. So you know what I considered King James only. I wasn't really quite there. What I would consider King James only now. Right. But I still thought people get saved from modern versions. I thought they were wrong and the King James was perfect, but I didn't realize how bad the modern versions were. And then I remember I was listening to a sermon on the King James Bible and it just kind of rubbed me the wrong way when he said it because I had people that were my friends that you know what? They weren't King James only. Right. They didn't use the King James. Now, not a shock that I'm not really friends with these people now because they didn't go soul winning, which shouldn't be surprising. But I remember it just kind of rubbed me the wrong way that he said, you can't get saved from modern versions. You know, he quoted 1 Peter 1 verse 23 and I just, you don't have to turn there. You know, I'm just going on a rabbit trail, but you're in Hosea 7. But I remember just looking at that verse being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the word of God. And I just looked over that verse and I thought about it and I looked over, I looked about it and I say, you know what? I'm wrong. That's what the Bible says. I mean, isn't that verse just plain as day? You can't get saved from modern versions, which are an open corruption on God's word. And look, I made that change when I was probably 19 or 20. You know, I've never looked back since then. Just plain as day what the Bible says. But you know, it did rub me the wrong way when I first heard it because I wasn't in a King James only church at the time. Right? So look, the word of God, yeah, sometimes it might offend you or you might disagree, but what you have to do is be like the Bereans, which were more noble than those in Thessalonica. They received the word with readiness of mind and then they searched the scriptures to see whether those things were true. That's what you must do in your life. Don't lie to yourself. As a church, you know, we shouldn't make excuses if we got problems in our church. And as a country, you shouldn't make excuses. Last point. Point number one, habitual sin is why we are not healed. Point two, a heart problem. Point three, heritage wasted. Point four, a hidden problem. Point five, hating the truth. And point six, a hopeless remedy, a hopeless remedy. You say, what do I mean? What I mean is using bad methods to fix the problem that you have. If you use bad methods, it's not going to do any good. Right? I mean, imagine going back to the ACL, right? Recovery. Imagine if I just decided to do bicep curls to help my knee recover. Is that going to help my knee recover? I'm just going to do some bench press, you know, just put some 45s on each side. I'm just going to do a bench press. That's going to make my knee stronger. Well, that'd be really stupid, wouldn't it? It's not going to help my knee. But you know, there's many people that use really bad methods to try to fix their problems. They don't base them on the Word of God. And then you look at it and you're just like, what in the world are those people doing? And it's not going to help, right? This was Israel. Hosea 7, verse 11, Ephraim also is like a silly dove without hearts. They call to Egypt, they go to Assyria. Good strategy. Go and beg Egypt and Assyria for help. That's really going to have God's blessing come back on you. I mean, the reason why you have so many problems is because you lost God's blessing. Go join a heathen nation and get help from them and worship their gods. And yeah, you're going to be healed. What a stupid method to try to use. They had no idea why their country was being destroyed. It's because of your idolatry. It's because of your sin. Verse 12, when they shall go, I will spread my net upon them. I will bring them down as the fowls of the heaven. I will chastise them as their congregation hath heard. Woe unto them for they have fled for me, destruction onto them, because they have transgressed against me, though I've redeemed them, yet they have spoken lies against me. They have not cried unto me with their heart when they howled upon their beds. They assemble themselves for corn and wine and they rebel against me. Though I have bound and strengthened their arms, yet do they imagine mischief against me. They return, but not to the most high. They are like a deceitful bow. Their princes shall fall by the sword for the rage of their tongue. This shall be their derision in the land of Egypt. They return, but not to the most high. It's like they kind of went halfway. We'll kind of go through the steps, but they didn't get right in their heart. Let's look at one example. Let's go to 1 Samuel 16. 1 Samuel 16, 1 Samuel 16. A classic example of this is King Saul. King Saul went through some major problems and he tried to fix his problems. Problem is he used bad techniques. He didn't use good methods. And if you use bad methods, it's not going to fix the problems. 1 Samuel 16, verse 14. But the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him. And Saul's servant said unto him, behold now an evil spirit from God troubleth thee. Now, look, I don't believe because the word spirit in the Bible is not always referring to like an angel or demons or stuff like that. You know, the Bible talks about characteristics being spirits, the spirit of fear and things such as that. I actually think that the spirit here is referring to fear. And as a result of this, he didn't have a sound mind. But if you look up spirit in the Bible many times, it's not a because people read this like, oh, man, that there's some sort of demon they saw flying around and everything. I don't believe that's what it's referring to. I believe it's referring to the spirit of fear. Okay, the evil spirit from God is troubling him. Verse 16, let our Lord now command thy servants which are before thee to seek out a man who is a cunning player and in harp. And it shall come to pass when the evil spirit from God is upon thee that he shall play with his hand and thou shalt be well. And Saul said unto his servants, provide me now a man that can play well and bring him to me. So basically, Saul's going through all these problems in his life. And we can read the Bible and know it's because he's backslidden. He's filled full of sin. He was getting right with God on the outside, but not really with his heart. Now, what does he need to do to fix this problem? Pray, read the Bible, make the changes, beg God for mercy. But instead, let's listen to some music, right? That's going to fix the problem. Let's just listen to some music. Well, let's see what happens in verse 23. And it came to pass when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul that David took in harp and played with his hand. So Saul was refreshed and was well and the evil spirit departed from him. Hey, it looks like it worked. We'll go to 1 Samuel 18. Let's see how long it actually worked for. 1 Samuel Chapter 18, 1 Samuel 18, 1 Samuel 18. Now, I am all for singing the hymns in your free time, and that will help keep you in a good mood. But if you've got major sin, you can't just dismiss the major sin and think everything's going to go away. You got to get right with God and just singing hymns. That's not going the full way, my friend. You need to spend time in prayer. You need to read the Bible. You need to fix the problems that you have, not just singing hymns, right? Or not just listening to godly music. Okay, 1 Samuel 18, verse 10. And it came to pass on the morrow that the evil spirit from God came upon Saul, and he prophesied in the midst of the house, and David played with his hand as at other times. There was a javelin in Saul's hand, and Saul cast the javelin, for he said, I will smite David even to the wall with it. And David avoided out of his presence twice. So Saul tries to kill David. Now, the first time he listened to David play music, he's like, man, that sounds nice. Be still, my soul. I don't know whether David was playing Sound the Battle Cry or what he was playing. But this time when Saul heard the music, you know what? His spirit wasn't soothed, and he just slung that javelin and tried to kill David. He got angry. I don't know. Maybe David hit a wrong note or something like that, and he got mad, right? I'm not really sure. But he gets really angry about that. You say, why is this? Because you know what? Just simply listening to music is not going to fix your problems. Now, look, I believe David was probably playing godly instrumental music. I mean, this is David that we're referring to. Okay. I will say this, though. The method of trying to use music to fix all of your problems, it's usually done by the crowds like Victory and CCF and things such as that. And they'll listen to this contemporary music to try to feel spiritual when they're down. Right? Man, I'm not feeling very godly right now. I'll just listen to Our God is an Awesome God. Right? And then everything's going to be all right. So I'm going to listen to, I don't know, the CCM music. Right? I don't know what the popular ones are. But I remember that song when I was in college by the Newsboys. It was really popular. They don't serve breakfast in hell. Right? Captain Crunch is saying, Amen. Wow. That's really going to fix your problems. Captain Crunch is saying, Amen. It's like, no, you need to read the word of God. You need to pray to God. You need to get the sin out of your life. Just simply listening to music is not going to fix it. By all means, sing the hymns. Add that to your personal time with God during the day. But you can't just disregard things you need to do. And if you've got major sins in your life, look, you need to get right with God. Using a hopeless remedy, that's not going to heal you. And look, us in our lives, if we've got problems in areas of our lives or things that are not working out, you need to find the sort of medicine that's going to work. You need to figure out what is the problem and fix it. Otherwise, you're never going to be healed. You're going to go through the same thing over and over and over again. It's like, why is this happening to me? Well, one, it might be because of habitual sin. Maybe that's why it's happening. Number two, it might be a heart problem. Maybe you're doing things right on the outside, but your heart's not right. Number three, maybe it's heritage wasted. Maybe you're hearing exactly what you need to hear, but you're just not applying it because you like your methods. You're just not listening or not applying what the Bible is actually saying. Point four is a hidden problem. Maybe we've got hidden problems that are resulting in that. Point five is just hating the truth. You hear the truth and you reject it because you don't like it. Point six, because they're using hopeless remedies, wrong remedies. This is what Israel did. They didn't apply the message. They used the wrong methods. They didn't get their heart right. And Israel just kept getting worse and worse and worse. And eventually they're destroyed. Look, as a church, as individuals, we do not want this to happen to us as well. Let's close in the word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for allowing us to be here today and getting to see your word in this great chapter, Hosea chapter 7. Help us to apply this to our lives, God. Help us to know your word and love your word and to read your word, God. And help all of us at church to try to serve you and help our church be a strong church, God. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.