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Amen. All right, we're in Hosea chapter number six, and this is also a shorter chapter, but we will just stick to Hosea chapter six tonight. And there's still a lot of teaching that's found within this chapter right here that we can learn from. Verse number one, it says, come and let us return unto the Lord, for he hath torn, and he will heal us. He hath smitten, and he will bind us up. After two days will he revive us, and in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight. So what is he referring to in verse number one where it talks about, for he hath torn, and he will heal us. He hath smitten, and he will bind us up. Well, look at the Hosea chapter five previous to that, and verse 14, it says, for I will be unto Ephraim as a lion, and as a young lion to the house of Judah, even I will tear and go away. I will take away, and none shall rescue him. So what is he referring to? He's referring to the fact that he's going to judge Israel for its sin. He's going to destroy Israel, and in fact, he goes into great detail as to say that he's going to tear Israel like a lion does. But what is the outcome of him tearing Israel up like a lion? Well, he's going to heal them in the future. What is the outcome of him smiting Israel with his judgment? Well, the Bible says there that he's going to bind them up. And so look at verse 15, Hosea 5, it says, I will go and return to my place till they acknowledge their offense and seek my face. In their reflection, they will seek me early. So that goes to show us that when God afflicts us, when he allows judgment to come upon our lives, what is the purpose of that? Well, the purpose of it is to seek God early. You see, at the end of the day, when we mess up, when we sin, when we do something wrong and God chastises us, the purpose of that chastisement is to bring us back into the Lord. That's why he begins in Hosea 6 and verse 1 where he says, come and let us return unto the Lord. We should always have that desire, that agenda, that goal that when God chastises us, we have enough discernment in our minds. We have enough discernment in our spirit to know, hey, it's time for me to go back to the ways of the Lord, lest he smite me, lest he tears me up like a lion, lest he just destroys my life, I'd rather just repent, get ripe, return unto the Lord. Now go to Hebrews chapter number 12. And by the way, if you study just the history of Israel in the Old Testament, often when God would bring judgment to that nation, he would often just decimate it. He would allow like a foreign nation to just come and just completely wipe them out. Just bring a foreign nation and just plunder their entire land, just destroy them, allow them to go into captivity. He would allow just the worst of judgment to come upon them. And you know what? You say, man, that's like a harsh judgment. Well, you know what? Often you have to completely destroy something to build it back up. I mean, often you just have to completely decimate something in order to build it back up. Because it's so marred, so destroyed that it's not even worth building upon. You just need to complete decimate the whole thing. And you'll find that even in Jeremiah, if you remember Jeremiah chapter one, when God deputizes Jeremiah, he tells him in verse number 10, see I have set thee, excuse me, see I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms to root out and to pull down and to destroy. That's a great message there. I want you to root out. I want you to pull down and I want you to destroy. Now obviously, what is he referring to when he's telling him to do this? He's talking about his preaching. Because did Jeremiah really go out there and just start plucking people out and destroying people and just like killing people all over the place? No, that's not what he did. He's referring to his ministry of his preaching. So by the way, Jeremiah wouldn't be very popular today in most independent fundamental Baptist churches. That's a message of hate. Yeah, he's there to pull down, to destroy and to root up. But by the way, that's not the only thing he says, and to throw down. That sounds like L.A. status right there, we're gonna throw down, okay? But then he says to build and to plant. Now notice that there's all these negatives, root out, pull down, destroy, throw down. And then he says, oh, and to build and to plant, okay? Which is reminiscent of the New Testament where it says, Preach the word, be it in season out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. You have more negative than positive. Why? Because often you need to decimate something before you can rebuild it again. And that's what he tells Jeremiah to do, he's like, you're gonna just destroy them with your preaching, but then you're gonna help them to build up and to plant and to prosper once again. Look at Hebrews chapter 12. Now how do we apply this in the New Testament? Obviously we see that taking place in the Old Testament through nations where God would just completely destroy land and wouldn't allow them to go back to their homeland for 70 years or whatever. He even told those who went into the Babylonian captivity, hey, you might as well get comfortable because you're not going back for a long time. Well, how long? How about try 70 years? He told them, he's like, I know the thoughts that I think of you, thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you an expected end, but that expected end was 70 years from now. That means that generation that sin against God, they weren't gonna see that land again. It was the next generation. He told them, hey, when you go into Babylon, just forget about Israel because you're not gonna come back. You go ahead and just plant, build vineyards, just get comfortable because you're not going back for a long time. And it was that next generation that was actually able to come back after that. Now that is in the Old Testament, but there is a biblical application in the New Testament when it comes to God and the believer. What is that? Well, when we get into sin, when we falter, when we do things that will displease God, you know, we have the promises of God that he will chastise us. What does chastise mean? It means to whoop ya. It means you get a spiritual whooping from God. And look, I don't wanna get spiritually whooped by God. You know, I've gotten it before and I'm sure I'll get it again, but you know what? That spiritual whooping is necessary in order to correct our steps. Look and this is a side note, that's why it's important to chastise children physically. Why is that? Because you teach them to fear you and then when they grow up, they recognize that actions have consequences to them. They'll more readily receive the fact that God will chastise them if they get involved in sin. If they do things that are displeasing to God, they're more readily to fear the Lord because of those things. Let's look at this concept in Hebrews chapter 12, verse number five, it says, and yet forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, my son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him. So here it's telling us, hey, don't despise it, don't hate it when God is just whooping you. First of all, it's because of your disobedience. But second of all, he's telling us here that you shouldn't faint when you're rebuked of him. So this goes to show that this element of chastisement could actually cause you to faint. Maybe not physically, but in a spiritual sense. And I've seen people who get chastised by the Lord and that actually pushes them out further into the world. Not God's fault, that's their fault. Because they received chastisement of the Lord and it's so grievous unto them, they're like Cain. It's so grievous, like this is more than I can bear. And they use it as an excuse to go deeper into the world, deeper into sin, deeper into that which displeases God. What happens? Well, God ends up just destroying that person. But that's not the purpose, that's not the agenda, that's not the purpose, that's not the goal of chastisement. He says don't faint when you're rebuked. Now I've never really had a whooping where I was just like, I can't take, this is like, I've gotten some pretty bad ones, never to the point where I faint, okay. But I'm sure when God does it, you know, it's pretty painful. And look what verse six says, for whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. That's a good verse. You know, that's a good verse to remember that when you're being scourged, it just confirms the fact that God loves you. You know, that's not very loving, loving is telling me positive things and you know, never tell your child no and all these, yeah, you're gonna raise your children to be heathens. Heathen reprobates is what you're gonna raise your children to be if you never chastise them. They'll be the worst members of society if you never chastise your children. Look at verse seven, if ye endure chastening, this is what he mentioned in verse number five about not fainting, if ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons, for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards and not sons. So what is one confirmation that we're saved? Well then when we sin, we get chastised by the Lord. Now obviously we can't look at someone and say you know, oh that person's not being chastised therefore they're not saved. Well you don't know that because you don't know what they're going through. You don't know if God's chasing them behind closed doors. You know, my mom, she, well she did speak to me sometimes in public but you know, most of the time it was like behind closed, it's like when you get home, you're gonna get it. That little whisper. You know it's like, oh I'm staying here with you dad or whatever you know. But the fact of the matter is you don't know what people are going through behind closed doors. You don't know what people are going through in their family situation. You know and or whatever it may be, you don't know what they're going through where God is just laying it on them, okay. But this is a specific promise to each individual person. You know one way that the Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we're the children of God is that we're getting what we do wrong. You know and if you've been a Christian for any length of time, you've received the chastisement of the Lord at least once in your life. I can look back in my life and see an entire season, a year of chastisement because of my rebellion against God. You know where I just rebelled against the Lord, I was just being stubborn, I wasn't adhering to biblical principles and I received the chastisement of the Lord in a very, it was very evident that it was the hand of God upon my life, okay. But look what it says here, verse nine says, furthermore we have had our fathers of our flesh which corrected us and we gave them reverence, shall we not much rather be in subjection to the father of spirits and live? So he's saying here, look you had your dads that whooped you and you feared them, how much more should the chastisement of the Lord evoke the fear of the Lord in our lives? You see chastisement should never cause us to be bitter against God or bitter to try to blame other people for our actions, what it should evoke is what? Fear of God. Because he has the power to destroy our lives if you wanted to, he has the power to just take our life, to take the lives of our children, of our family, to just completely decimate us and our lives in its entirety, that should evoke fear. Now we serve God out of love but we also serve him out of fear recognizing that if we get away God will chasten us because of it. Verse 10, for they, speaking of our earthly fathers, for they verily for a few days chasten us after their own pleasure, but heed for our prophet that we might be partakers of his holiness. Now when it says chasten us after their own pleasure, I believe what that's referring to is chasten us according to their discretion, giving us as many as they thought that we needed or whatever, many swaths as they thought that we needed, but here he says that he does it for our prophet. So it's not like obviously there's anger involved when God is chastening us because sin angers God, disobedience angers God, but at the end of the day it's for our prophet, why? That we might be partakers of his holiness. So the end game to God chasing us and chastising us and our judgment upon our lives is that we would become more godly, that we would get sin out of our lives, that we would be good repenters, that we would be grieved in our hearts over the circumstances that we're in or whatever it may be. God wants us to be partakers of his holiness, okay? And these are things that we need to be reminded of if you're not being chastised right now because when you're being chastised, you need to go to Hebrews 12 and read this and be reminded of this and say God's doing it because he loves me, God's doing it because I disobeyed, God's doing it for my prophet, and God's doing it so I can be a partaker of his holiness. And here's one thing I've noticed over the years, Christians who get chastised and do not correct the situation become worse people, become bitter. They become the worst type of Christian there is. But people who actually allow the chastisement to draw them closer to the Lord as we see in Hosea 6 returning to the Lord, they actually become better Christians. They actually become more humble. You know, we met a guy today, he's so winning, we met the most humble guy in the world today, okay? And I'm being facetious here. He literally said to himself, he's like, I'm super humble, right? And he's like, that's like my strongest characteristic is that I'm humble. And we're like, well, we can tell, you know? Nice to meet you, Moses. You exceed even the humility of Moses, good night. And he said, he said, don't quote me in the Bible, I know the Bible. I don't know where everything's at, but I know the Bible. I was like, wow. And then, you know, the famous quote, you know, Hike was telling me, what do you tell the guy that knows everything? You know, what do you teach the guy that knows everything? Nothing, right? But here we see that when God chastises us, one thing that for sure is evoked in us is humility. Why? Because you're shamed, right? You recognize you're not as cracked up as you, you're not all that in a bag of chips. When God pulls the rug from out under you, you realize you're not that big of a deal as you thought you were, okay? And that creates humility, which creates holiness because then you recognize God, you know, I'm sorry, I repent, you know, I need you, I need your help, teach me to do thy will type of a thing, okay? Verse 11, now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous, so don't have this attitude like, oh yeah, when I get chastised, man, I just like, I love it because I know I'm being a partaker of his holiness. That's not, you're not being chastised then. I mean, this is great. I'm getting chastised, about to be a partaker of his holiness, get more godly, more humble. Nobody has that attitude. We joke about it, but in Hispanic families, you know, Hispanic moms have a tendency to whoop you in front of your friends, you know, when you're kids, and then your friend's just like, oh man, you know, this is kind of awkward, and then you're like left crying in front of your friends or whatever, you're just like, man, you know, you can't be tough after that. You know, you're kind of humbled because you just got humbled in front of your friends. Now I don't recommend you do that, I'm just telling you, Spanish culture, that's just what they do. That's happened to me before and it's just embarrassing, you know, but no chastening seemeth to be joyous, you know, it's very grievous, it's painful, okay? Nevertheless, afterward it yielded the peaceable fruits of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby, okay? So obviously, so what do we see here? The person who actually benefits from the chastening are those who respond to it correctly. Those who actually recognize it as the hand of the Lord upon them, against them, and who are actually trying to correct the situation, okay? Now verse 12 says, wherefore lift up the hands which hang down and the feeble knees and make straight paths for your feet. What does it say? Don't have this woe is me attitude. Feel sorry for me and, you know, I'm going through all this, hey, lift up the hands which hang down and the feeble knees, so what am I supposed to do? Make straight paths for your feet, what does that mean? Correct your ways, correct your path, you know? If you don't want to be chastised anymore, then the fastest way out of chastisement is what? Correcting the issue, correcting the situation immediately, okay? But if you just want to stay there and have people feel sorry for you, that's not going to work, you know? You're just going to get it even more is what it is. God wants you to correct your paths. It reminds me of Joshua when Achan took up the accursed thing, right? He took up the accursed thing which God told him not to take up and 30 people die at Ai, 3,000 men are sent out, 30 people die because of the accursed thing and Joshua's just like, God, you know, I'm sorry and he's just like humble and he's repenting and God's like, get up, you guys took up the accursed thing, go fix that. So it's just like, he's like humbling himself and God's like, I see the humility but that's not what I want right now. I want you to correct the issue is what I want. So you know, and there's times in our personal life and prayer that we do have to humble ourselves and spend time with God in communion and prayer and just pour our hearts into the Lord. But if there's certain sins involved, well God probably wants more than that is that you just correct the issue, okay? Lest that which is lame be turned out of the way but let it rather be healed. So how do you heal something? By correcting it, okay? So we see that in the New Testament, God chastises us just as God chastened the nation of Israel in the Old Testament. He would decimate an entire nation but that's not to say that he won't decimate us either. He can allow us to be delivered unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh to the point where he just kills you. He said, well, that's not really that bad then, you know what I mean, because I go to heaven. Yeah, you know, it's not that bad because you go to heaven but here's the thing, you live with the reproach now. You finish your life a byword and a proverb. People don't look to you as an example of what to do, they look to you as an example of what not to do. And we don't want that. You know, we want our lives to finish honorably. I want my life to finish honorably. I'm not perfect, none of us are perfect but the way we make sure that we maintain the blessing of God in our lives and we keep God's hand in our lives is that when we mess up, we fix the situation immediately, okay? Go back to Hosea chapter 6. So he says there, come, let us return unto the Lord for he hath torn. So he says here, hey, return to God because he's tearing you up. Don't be stubborn is what he's saying. You know, you're only going to evoke God's wrath even more upon your life if you don't correct it. Come, let us return unto the Lord for he hath torn and he will heal us, he hath spent and he will bind us up. After two days will he revive us and the third day he will raise us up and we shall live in his side. This is a prophetic foretelling of the resurrection by the way. Look at verse 3, it says, then shall we know if we follow, excuse me, if we follow on to know the Lord, his going forth is prepared as the morning and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth. Now this is a great verse that I want to spend some time on because he says there, look, if we follow, if we follow on to know the Lord, obviously what we can insert there is basically what he's saying is if we obey God, if we obey his word, if we give heed to the things which we have heard, we don't let him slip, we just obey God, we repent of our ways, we return unto the Lord. If we follow on to know the Lord, here's the condition, that's the condition. It says here, his going forth is prepared as the morning. Now what does that mean when he says his going forth is prepared as the morning? Well, you think about a day, okay, you think about the afternoon, the evening, the night, and the morning, you could pretty much consistently count on that those things are going to take place throughout the day. Tonight you're going to go to sleep knowing full well, not even questioning the fact that the morning will come up the very next day, okay? It's consistent, we can say it's faithful. And in fact, in Genesis 8, when God finishes flooding the earth, he finished flooding the earth and he tells Noah, he says, while the earth remaineth, seed time and harvest and cold and heat and summer and winter and day and night shall not cease. So we can take out his word and understand, hey, tomorrow's not going to be a dark night. Now I understand this place is in Alaska or something, I think in Alaska, right, where it's like, you know, night for like six months and days, is that true or is that a myth? Don't you know about Alaska, aren't you from Alaska? Where are you, Mila? Nebraska. Oh, Nebraska. Something with the ska. Sorry. Don't they have that in Nebraska too? No, I'm just kidding. So Alaska, right, isn't that true in Alaska where you have six months of night and six months of days? Well, how does that apply to that? Well, at least you know that in Alaska, there's six months of night and you can count on six months of day. But for the most part, you will, you know that the day, the sun is going to come up in the morning. Okay. Now go with me if you would to Psalm 30, Psalm 30, I'm going to read to you from Lamentations chapter three and verse 21, it says, it is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning, great is thy faithfulness. So he tells us that God's mercies are new every morning and thank God for that. Thank God for the fact that we understand as God's children, his compassions fail not. Look what it says in Psalm 30 verse four, sing unto the Lord, all you saints of his and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness for his anger endureth before a moment in his favor, his life weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning, it says right there. So we see that when he's, what he's referring to in Hosea chapter six is that he's saying, If we follow on to know the Lord, if we seek to obey him, his going forth is prepared as the morning. What does that mean? He's going to be faithful to you. You see, God is faithful, but he's faithful to those who are faithful to obey his word. We're not talking about salvation. God has conditions to his word. God has conditions to his blessings. God has conditions to his faithfulness, okay, and he will be faithful to you in the needs of life, his blessings, if we follow on to know the Lord, okay. Now the Pentecostals will take that completely out of context to see in order for you to be saved, you've got to make sure you follow the Lord so he can be faithful to you, but that's not the way it works. We understand that. The Bible says if we would leave not, yet he abideth faithful, okay. So we understand that's not applicable to salvation. That's very clear, but it is applicable to our day-to-day living and obedience unto him. God's faithfulness is conditional in the sense of we need to make sure that we obey God. We can't say, well, I'm not going to obey God, I'm just going to live like a stinking heathen and just go do just insurmountable crazy amount of sins and God's just always going to be good to me. That's not the case. That's not biblical. He's telling the nation of Israel, Hosea's telling them, hey, if you follow to know the Lord, he's going to be faithful to you. Now in the New Testament, how does that look like? Well, in 1 John 1, 9, what does it say? If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. No one's perfect, but when we sin, God expects us to confess our sins, to come into agreement that we wronged God. To have that same attitude that Joseph had where he said, how should I sin against God and do this great wickedness? You see, obviously, he was going to sin against Potiphar if he slept with his wife, but more so than that, in his perception, his mind, he's like, I'm going to sin against God. That's why when David repented of his sin in Psalm 51, against thee and thee only have I committed this great wickedness, he said. Obviously, it wasn't just against God because he sinned against a lot of people, but primarily, obviously, he understood I'm sinning against God. And so, the Bible tells us here, if we confess our sins, that's the condition, you want God to be faithful and just to forgive you of your sins, you got to confess your sins, okay? Now the Bible also tells us in Proverbs 28, verse 13, he that covereth his sins shall not prosper, but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy. Hey, if you want to experience the mercy of God in your life, I know I do, we got to make sure we not only confess our sins, but we got to forsake them as well. You mean we got to repent of our sins? Yeah, we got to repent of our sins. You know, not all of us are drunkards, not all of us are adulterers, not all of us are thieves, but there's certain sins that we battle from day to day, we got to make sure that we confess those and we do our best due diligence to forsake them as well, to clean up your life, to do those things that are pleasing unto the Lord. Even if you have a bad habit that you struggle with your entire life, you know, through God's word and the power of the Holy Spirit, we can overcome those things, okay? And throughout the journey, I guess you could say, of just learning the word of God and being a Christian, you know, we need to learn how to be good repencers, confessing our sins and forsaking them, okay? And the Bible says that's how we will prosper in our life, okay? But it's if, it's always if. So he tells us there in Hosea, go back to Hosea, actually no, no, no, go to James chapter 4. I'll read it to you again, it says, then shall we know if we follow on to know the Lord, his going forth is prepared as the morning and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth. So he's telling them, look, if you just obey me, I'll be a blessing to you again. You know, that rain is symbolic of blessing, okay? We want God's blessing to be upon our lives. We want him to reign his blessing upon our lives. Our personal lives as individuals, as a family, as a church, we want God's blessing, but they come with conditions. We need to make sure that we're obeying, we're going according to his agenda, his program. We can't artificially create a blessing, you know, in order for us to make sure that we actually have the blessing of God, it's gotta be biblically, okay? The Bible tells us, you're in James 4, I'm gonna read to you from James 1, verse 17, Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Why? Because Jesus Christ is the same today, yesterday, and forevermore. That's why it says he has no shadow of turning. Look at chapter 4 and verse number 7. It says here, submit yourselves therefore to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be afflicted, and mourn and weep, let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up. Now this is false doctrine out there that just teaches you this, by this, I can't remember who this woman preacher, what's the most wicked woman preacher out there? Thank you, Joyce Meyer. That's exactly what I was thinking about. Who says, you know, God's not mad at you. You're an idiot. You're a wicked false prophet idiot who has not read nothing of the Old Testament, obviously you haven't even read Revelation. I spent this week studying Revelation and it's just like, man, God's ticked off. I mean, read through the trumpets and vials. And then you have four trumpets where just destruction and wrath is upon the earth, and it's just like there's three woes coming after that. So you have the last three trumpets and the last three vials have a woe on top of them. And then when the first and the second woe pass, he says, that's not even the baddest part. He says, wait till the third woe comes. When he allows hail the size of a talent, 50 to 60 pound is what a talent is. 50 to 60 pound boulder just to come and just fall on your head, I'm just kidding, you go to hell. I mean, that's a pretty bad judgment. You know, Joyce Meyers needs to read that, okay? But anyways, you know, there's this doctrine that says, well, you know, God's not mad at you. You can just, you know, no one's perfect and no, God is angry. He's angry with the wicked every day. He's angry with those in Hosea. He's angry with Israel. He's very much angry. So don't ignore that, you know, don't undermine his anger, his, you know, the fires kindled when he's angry, okay? And James 4, you know, it doesn't say there, let's just read it the way they would read it, okay? He will flee from you. He'll draw an eye to you. Your joy, or excuse me, he will lift you up. That's probably all they would read, right? The devil will flee from you. God will draw an eye to you and God will lift you up. But that's a very small portion of each of these verses and each of those has a condition. Submit yourselves therefore to God, then resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw an eye to God. You have to get close to God and then he'll draw an eye to you and by the way, cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double minded. That goes to show you that God not only wants your heart to be clean, he wants your hands to be clean too. So it has to be a right heart attitude, but he also wants right actions as well. Be afflicted and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness. Hey, feel bad. Be mournful when you're weeping, you're grieved. I thought God wants me to be happy. Not when you sin. When you sin, you're supposed to be grieved in your heart. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and he shall lift you up. So we see here that throughout the Bible, there's always a condition for God to bless us and that is that we have to make sure that we are on his page, that we follow unto the Lord and then he's going to show himself faithful to us. Go back to Hosea chapter six. So it says then shall we know if we follow on to know the Lord, his going forth is prepared as the morning and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth. Now let me say this is that you should take that also to recognize that when you're going through a trial or God is chastising you, as long as you follow the Lord, God has not forsaken you. I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. And the reason I say this is because you can't go through a difficult time in your life when you feel like, man, is God's blessing even on my life anymore? And often we translate his blessing based upon the good that's taking place in our life. Not understanding that sometimes bad things happen to good people and all things work together for good to them that love God to them who are called according to his purpose. So don't get discouraged when bad things happen to you in your life. And look, don't blame God if something bad happens to your life. Don't even blame the devil when something bad happens to you. You know, Satan gets way too much credit for things. You know, it's not the devil, you're not necessarily the one he's after, I'm sorry to break it to you. You know, he's probably got bigger fish to fry. Now obviously he probably has his devils and his minions who are trying to attack our church and churches that are like-minded and so on and so forth. But you know, sometimes just bad things happen in life, just life, you know. And don't be quick to judge someone if something catastrophic happens to someone's family like a death or a sickness, oh man, maybe sin, you know, maybe it's just sickness. Maybe they didn't die it right or something, you know. It's just some things in life just take place. But here's the thing is when bad things happen to you, what do you do when bad things happen to you? You're supposed to evaluate yourself. So will bad things take place in our lives, this is what we're supposed to do. Do I have sin in my life? Is God judging me? You know, is there something, man, what did I do this week? Did I think something I shouldn't have thought, did I do something I shouldn't have done, have I displeased God, have I been disobedient? That's a good thing to do, because you're actually evaluating yourself, you're examining yourself is what you're doing. Examining me, oh Lord, see if there be any wicked way in me. That's what trials are supposed to do, and look, if you've gone through the checklist and you've seen that you don't have sin in your life, you're good to go. You can kind of as well, it's just a bad thing that happened, God, help me to get through this, provide for me, and let's move on. So what if there is something bad in your life, then repent. It goes back to the first point. Confess your sin, repent, get right, get back into the blessing of God, okay? Go to Isaiah 55, hold your place in Isaiah 6, of course. He says, he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth. Look at Isaiah 55 with that in mind, in verse number 6, it says here, seek ye the Lord while he may be found. Call ye upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth's, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. So a lot of people, we often use this verse to say that obviously God's ways are higher than our ways in a sense of, you know, his way of thinking is a lot different than our way. And sometimes we have to bring our minds in alignment to the way God thinks. But the Bible tells us in the New Testament that we have the mind of Christ. What this is actually saying is that let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. So he's basically saying, hey, your thoughts are unrighteous, and it's very, there's a contrast between the way I'm thinking and the way you're thinking. Your thoughts are unrighteous, your thoughts are very far from what I'm thinking. For example, you have in the book of Jeremiah where the children of Israel are sacrificing their children. And what does God tell the children of Israel? This didn't even come into my mind. This is far, this is as high as the heavens are from the earth, so are my thoughts than your thoughts is what he's saying there, okay? And I'm not saying you can't apply this to that concept that obviously we need to bring our thoughts in alignment with, but in context that's what he's referring to. Look at verse number 10. For as the rain cometh down in the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth in bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth. It shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in a thing whereto I sent it. For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace. The mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. So what do we see here? We see that God's blessing is attached to what? His word. Not attached to a feeling, not attached to an emotion. Why feel like God's pleased with me? Yeah, but what does he actually say in his word? I just think, oh yeah, but here's the thing, let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. What does God say? And then on the other side of the spectrum, if you always think that God's judging you, you just need to take God at his word. If you're living for God, if you're trying to be obedient to him, you're in church, you're winning souls, you're reading the Bible, you're doing the best that you can, God's pleased with you. Sometimes people beat themselves up so much to think, I don't know if God's just judging me. Well, do you have sin in your life? No. Are you going to church? Yes. Are you trying to win souls to Christ? Yes. Then you're probably good to go, man. Just get over it. Get over yourself. That's what you're supposed to do. Going back to Isaiah chapter six, look at verse four, it says, O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee, O Judah? What shall I do unto thee? For your goodness, this is bad, for your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew, it goeth away. Now, what is he saying? He's like, he's basically telling him that, he's expounding unto him the temporality of your integrity. He said, you're as good as the clouds. You're one day, gone the next. Your goodness is like the dew. It's here in the morning, gone in the afternoon. And what he's basically saying is this, he's like, you can't even be consistent in doing good. You're good one moment, you're bad the next. Now, this is consistent throughout the whole Bible in the Old Testament that this is basically what the Israelites, they had this stigma. You study the book of Judges, they would cry unto the Lord because of their oppression, and God would raise up a deliverer, he raised up Echad or something, and just take charge and deliver them, and as soon as that deliverer died, that judge died, what would they do? They would forsake the Lord, they'd go back into their sin, they'd go back to worshiping Baal, they would do evil in the sight of the Lord. Every man did that, which was right in the sight of the Lord, but when? After that person died off. They would always say, well, their goodness was as to do, because they could only do right when there was a deliverer there. Now this is in stark contrast to the book of Philippians where Paul tells the Philippians, you know, I'm paraphrasing here, but he basically tells them, you have not so much as obeyed, not only in my absence, but also, excuse me, you have obeyed in my presence, but so much more in my absence. See, the Philippians were very mature to the point where, yeah, they obeyed when the authority was present, but they obeyed so much the more when he was absent. Whereas the children of Israel, as soon as the deliverer was gone, where's Baal, man? Let's get this party started. When the cat's away, the mice come out to play. And that was the vicious cycle that we see in judges, you know? They did good, but their goodness was as the morning dew, you know? And we don't want to be those type of Christians either, where we go through these seasons of like just riding the wave, where it's like, you're doing good, then you do really bad, then you do really good, then you do really bad. We kind of just want to be right here, not perfect, but just kind of steady, right in the middle. Yeah, we may have a day when we're having a bad day or, you know, you kind of mouth off to one of the brethren or something like that, so what's wrong with that guy, you know? He's having a bad day or she's having a bad day, she gave me a look or whatever it may be. You know, but we want to be like right here though, because we're human, so we're going to have bad days. And there's days when we're walking in the Spirit, we have good days, but for the most part we want to stay right here, okay? So that we're not as the goodness, excuse me, so that our goodness is not as the morning do, it's just gone one, here one day, gone the next. And it reminds me of the parable of the seed and the sower in Luke chapter 8 and Matthew chapter 13, where it talks about those who fell on the rock are they which hear, they receive the word with joy, and these have no root, which believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away. So it says in Matthew 13, they deareth for a while, for when tribulation and persecution arise because of the word, by and by he is offended. What does that mean? They're having a church and let's just do this, but as soon as the trial comes, they're just out of church. And I'm not talking about a sickness, I'm talking about a trial comes in your life and you're just gone for months, you're gone for weeks. That ought not to be the case, you know, and the exception obviously proves the rule, but for the most part our lives ought to characterize consistency. You know, not perfection, consistency, faithfulness, okay? You know, we ought to have integrity, okay? You think of a good example of a person who had integrity in the Bible is who? Job. Job, I mean, no one can really compare themselves to Job, right? Who in their life has ever experienced a trial as hard as Job? I mean, you talk about in the twinkling of an eye, everything is just destroyed in his life. You know, all his children, his wealth, even his own health, everything was just taken away from him. And the Bible tells us in Job chapter two, verse three, and the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that beareth God, and is true with evil, and still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou moveth me against him to destroy him without a cause. Job 27 five, God forbid that I should justify you till I die, I will not remove my integrity from me. That's the kind of mentality that we ought to have. I'm not perfect, but I want to have integrity. I want to hold fast my integrity until I die. I want to do right until I die, okay? The Bible tells us in Proverbs 11, verse three, the integrity, go to Hebrews, go back to Hebrews chapter 12, it says in Proverbs chapter 11, verse three, the integrity of the upright shall guide them, but the perverseness of transgressors shall destroy them. You see, someone who has integrity of heart is going to do right even when they don't feel like doing right, but they'll do right when it's popular, they'll do right when it's not, they'll do right when no one's looking, and they'll do right just because it's right to do, because God commanded us to do it. And that is a quality that each and every one of us needs to develop. We won't have it down packed complete perfectly, but we ought to strive to work on that area in our lives, to be people of integrity. Look at Hebrews 12, verse one says, wherefore seeing we are also compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us. So it's telling us here that life is like a race, but it's not a sprint, right? We have to pace ourselves. A lot of people, they sprint this race, and what happens? They burn out, they get discouraged, and they fall by the wayside. Six months later, they're back in church. What are they doing again? They're sprinting. You need to pace yourself, and don't try to outdo people in our church. You grow at your pace. You read the Bible at your pace. You win souls at your pace. You compete with yourself, okay? Don't try to look godly in front of everyone. Don't try to act like you're just this spiritual giant that has no problems. We're all human. We all make mistakes. Pace yourself. Run with patience the race that is set before us. The goal is not to sprint to the finish line. It's basically to make it to the finish line and stay unfaithful to God. That's the goal. Not to be saved, not endured to the end, the same shall be saved as far as our soul. It's so we can please God, so we just stay in the race for the rest of our lives. I want to do great works in 2019, and I know I just preached a message called Ten Times Better, but let's pace ourselves when we're doing ten times better. Don't try to do so much that you just completely burn out, okay? You know, downshift in your personal life every once in a while. What I mean by downshift, I don't say, like, get out of church, like, yeah, just sleep in all day Sunday, you know? Just downshift, sleep in all day Sunday, and don't do squat. Just don't even read your Bible for a couple days. Just take a break off of those things, you know? That's not what I'm talking about. I'm saying pace yourself, okay? You know, if you're like, I'm going to read 20 chapters a day this year, yeah, you might want to start with just five if you're struggling with just reading four chapters or three. You know, why don't you just pace yourself? Because the goal is to finish the Bible, not to finish it by tomorrow. Okay? It says here, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. That's a good verse for the modalist right there. But anyways, so we see here that Jesus Christ is our example. Why? Because he endured. Okay? Verse three, for consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest he be wearied and faint in your minds. So before you faint anywhere else, what do you faint up here? A lot of people you see get out of church, like, man, it was just sudden. It wasn't sudden. It was sudden to us, but that person got out of church in their mind long before their bodies ever left. Just remember that. When you see someone leave church, like, what happened? Or they get out of God's will, whatever it may be, they did that long ago in their hearts. They fainted in their minds is what they did. Okay? Go back to Hosea chapter six, and we're almost done. Hosea six, verse five says, therefore, have I hewed them. I like this verse. This is great. I love the King James Bible's terminology here. Okay? Therefore, have I hewed them by the prophets. I have slain them by the words of my mouth, and thy judgments are as the light that goeth forth. Now, hewed means to cut in pieces. You know, remember when Samuel hewed Agag, I think it was Agag, right? When basically Saul didn't take care of the job. So Samuel came and was just like, you didn't kill the king like God told you to do. Give me the sword, I'm gonna do it. And he just hewed him in pieces right then and there. You know, that doesn't mean like he changed his color, his hue tone, okay? It means he chopped them up, he sliced them up is what he did. And here he says, I have hewed them by the prophets. Now what does he mean by that? That means he cut them up with the word of God. You know why? Because the word of God is quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing of sunder of soul and spirit, joints in the marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and the intents of the heart. So God compares his word to a sword. And what does the sword do? It hues you up. Hue you up by the prophets. He sent multiple people to just cut them up. I have slain them by the words of my mouth, okay? This isn't your Sunday morning message here in most churches. Why don't you preach a message about hewing people up? This message is entitled, Hueing You Up. Slain you with the words of his mouth. See how you react to that. Because that's what he's doing. And thy judgments are like the light of the goeth forth. Now you don't have to turn there, but let's see here. Actually turn there. Go to Jeremiah chapter 23. So often God likens his word to something obviously that gives us life, but also that creates death. Why is that? Well, because at times God will use his word to completely decimate someone spiritually to say, hey, judgment is coming unto you. Judgment is coming to you, to your nation, to you as an individual, and he's just hewing us up with the word of God. Look what it says in Jeremiah 28, excuse me, 23 verse 28. The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream. And he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully. Who is the chaff to the wheat, sayeth the Lord. Is not my word like as a fire, sayeth the Lord, and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces? He's not building anybody up. He said, my word is like a fire, I'm gonna burn you up. My word is like a hammer, I'm just gonna smash you to pieces. This isn't a, what do you call those, a motivational speech that he's giving here. He's breaking you in pieces is what he's saying. Compares his word to a sword, to a hammer, to a fire. These are not things you use to build someone up. These are things you use to destroy someone. And this goes to show us that today, hey, we need to bring the hammer of God's word. We need to bring the fire of God's word. We need to bring down the sword of God's word in the preaching. Yes, there's time for encouragement, there's time for exhortation, there's time for those things when we need to build up the brethren, but there's other times when we just need to just bring down the hammer and preach it from the housetops. We need to lift up our voice like a trumpet, cry aloud and spare not and show my people their transgression. The Bible tells us in John 3 verse 19, and this is the condemnation, the light is coming to the world and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. For everyone that doeth evil, hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. And is there any coincidence that he says in Hosea 6 verse 5, and thy judgments are as the light that goeth forth. Why? Because it makes manifest the evil works thereof. It brings to light our habits, it brings to light our sinful actions and causes us to correct them. Now, go back to Hosea verse 6, I just like that phrase right there, that was great. You know, he's like, I've hewed you by the prophets. You know, obviously they weren't bringing a, you know, tulip, daisy type of a message. You know, it was a negative message. Look what it says in verse 6, for I desired mercy and not sacrifice to the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings, but they like men have transgressed the covenant. There have they dealt treacherously against me. Now, who's he referring to when he says they? He's referring to Israel. And it says there that they have transgressed the covenant. Well, God has a everlasting covenant with the Jews and with Israel. Yeah, but they transgressed that though. They actually broke that covenant. So read the Bible. Okay. Verse 8, Gilead, I'm out of time, but look at verse 8. Gilead is a city of them that work iniquity and is polluted with blood. And as troops of robbers wait for a man, so the company of priests murder in the way by consent for they commit lewdness. Whoa. I mean, I hope that, think about what he just said there. He says as troops of robbers wait for a man, so as the worst of people, people who are just workers of iniquity. He says so the company of priests, spiritual leaders, murder in the way by consent. Oh, that's symbolic. No, no, no. He's saying they're literally committing murder. Like, wait, hold on a second, are you saying the priests, the spiritual leaders of that day were committing murder? Yes. And in fact, it says that they're doing it by way of consent. What does that mean? They're in agreement with one another. Hey, you ready to murder? Yeah, let's do this. He said, well, how are they doing it? I'm going to read to you from Ezekiel 16 verse 21, because remember, what's taking place in Hosea? What is the great sin in the book of Hosea? The great sin was Hordom, which is what? What? Idolatry. Idolatry. What? Idolatry. Idolatry. Idolatry. Who are they worshiping? Bail. Bail. How do they worship bail? Exactly. Allowing their children to pass through the fire. Ezekiel 16, 21 says, that thou has slain my children and delivered them to cause them to pass through the fire for them. Jeremiah 32, 35 says, and they built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire into the Molech, which I commanded them not. Neither came it into my mind that they should do this abomination to cause Judah to sin. Ezekiel 20, 31, for when ye offer your gifts, when ye make your sons to pass through the fire, ye pollute yourselves with all your idols, even unto this day, and shall I be inquired of by you, O house of Israel? As I live, saith the Lord, I will not be inquired of by you. So the priests were the ones who were offering these children in the fire. This goes to show you that they're involved in the worst type of paganism there is. In devil worship. Yeah, but that's in the Bible days. Study the Aztecs. Study the Mayans and the Incas and all these wicked, reprobate, ancient civilizations that believed in all this plethora of gods. They always offered their children. Go to Africa, the most pagan aspects of Africa, they offered their children to alligators and crocodiles. Not alligators, but crocodiles. That's what they do. That's what devil worshipers do. So they're not worshiping God, but we're seeing that the priests are committing murder. Oh, but it's a sad, that's just, they're just worshiping God according to their conscience. Who cares? They're still wicked and wrong, they're still reprobate, it's still murder. You shouldn't judge people on the other side of the world, that's just how they were raised. Yeah, but you know what? The law of God is written in our hearts, and one of the laws is thou shalt not kill. You don't need the Bible to know that murder is wrong. Why? Because God wrote it in your heart, stupid. Everyone knows lying is wrong, everyone knows adultery is wrong, everyone knows that murder is wrong, everyone knows that covetousness is wrong. These are things that are embedded within the hearts of every single person in this world. Even the Aztecs. Even, oh, you know, you don't know what you're talking about. These people, you know, no one ever gave them the gospel. Yeah, because they're a bunch of reprobates. How can you blame them? You're trying to tell me that they went to hell, you know, when I came out with the day of the, you're trying to tell me that these people went to hell, no one even gave them the gospel. Yeah, good. Because they can't believe anyways. Bunch of wicked reprobates burning in hell right now. Okay. And look, if someone desired to be saved, and they didn't partake of those things, they weren't reprobates, I believe God would allow the person to go over there and give them the gospel. But God's just like, if they want it, man, he that is filthy, let him be filthy still. Just kill each other off, and they'll burn in hell. That's not the God of the Bible. You don't know the Bible. Okay. Look, it's not just isolated in South America, in Mexico, in Central America. This took place in Israel. Why? Because it's the same devil. It's the same exact wicked spirit. That's why you have the pyramids in Egypt looked the same as the pyramids in Mexico, as in Guatemala, as in Peru. Why? Because they're the same devils. They just take on different forms. They got to appeal to that side of the country or that side of the world, but it's the same devil. That's why they're doing these wicked sacrifices. Okay. Look, we could say that those Aztecs were worshiping Moloch as well. Why? Well, they didn't call him Moloch. Yeah, but it's the devil. Do you think Satan cares about the name? You know? He doesn't care whether you call him Baal or Moloch. He just cares that you're worshiping him. Okay. Verse 10, we're done. It says here, and I have seen a horrible thing in the house of Israel. There is the whoredom of Ephraim. Israel is defiled. Also O Judah, he hath set in harvest for thee when I return the captivity of my people. So, excuse me, chapter six is basically, is a dissertation of Hosea calling Israel to repentance. You know, he's saying, you know, we got to take it with what it says in verse number one, come let us return it to the Lord. Okay. Now, obviously these priests are reprobated, they can't return it to the Lord. But this goes to show that there are certain people in Israel that could still return it to the Lord or else he wouldn't have given that commandment. And the lesson that we should take from this is this, is that when we get involved in sin, you know, correct it immediately, immediately. Come back unto the Lord. You know, regardless of what the ramifications of your actions may have, just come back to the Lord. You know, because, you know, we still believe in Romans 8, 28, that all things work together for good to them to love God, to them who are called according to his purpose. So it doesn't matter how bad something gets, God can still work that together for good, obviously. But remember, there's conditions to that. In order for us to be blessed with the Lord, there's conditions to that. Amen. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word. Thank you for the testimony of Hosea. And Lord, thank you for your mercies that are new every day. We make mistakes and I'll be the first to say that I've made mistakes in my life, even as a Christian. And I'm thankful for the mercy of God. I'm thankful for those who have taught me how to repent well and how to confess my sins and just stay right with God. I'm thankful for the hard preachers in my life that preached hard, that made me afraid of you. I pray, God, that that would continue to go on here at Faithful Word Baptist Church, that you would help us to fear you and recognize we're not perfect and may we never think that we're better than anyone else. But at the same time, help us to realize that you are a God of wrath. You're a God of judgment, of anger. And we ought not to toy with that or take advantage of that or think that we can bypass the judgment of God. Lord, you're no respecter of people. And I pray you help us to recognize that each and every day. We love you so much and we thank you. And we pray these things in Jesus name. Amen.