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And not because of anything weird. He's here, it's okay, it's good. He's done a really good job out there at Pure Words. And we went down there and visited not too long ago. We got to preach, I got to preach down there for them on a Sunday. And definitely we have some new people that are coming to the church down there and things are going really well. And so definitely say hi to Brother Duncan and tell him you missed him even if you didn't. And so that way he can feel missed, all right? And also we have on our inside service time, soul winning times, our church stats. And then on the right we have the list of our expecting ladies. Please make sure to be praying for all of our expecting ladies. We have our prayer list that we go over every Wednesday. I'm gonna kind of just quickly read through that and then we can pray as a group. It does have here on the first, continue to pray for the Negeras for their health, for Miss Lucy's mother's tumors, for Brother Cameron's leg. We've been praying for Brother Pendleton. He's from Faith Ward Baptist Church. He has brain cancer and it's very severe. And so we've been praying for him and his family, several little children. We're praying for Brother Goodwin, his brother-in-law, his salvation and also cancer treatment. Praying for the Garcia's family that they would be located in a good area. And also Brother Afzal, we've been praying for him while he's been traveling. He's not coming back until the new year. And so we're praying for him and his fiance while he's abroad. Also continue to pray for Brother Afzal's brother. And we've been praying for Alex for a job and we've been praying for Miss Linda, her parents, and specifically for salvation. I think that's all I have as far as just what we had turned into the bulletin. Again, if you have any other prayer requests, please do submit those via email or you can fill out a communication card and put that in our offering plate. We'd love to update our bulletin and make sure that everything in there is accurate. I'm gonna go ahead and say a quick word of prayer and we can pray as a church family. Thank you Heavenly Father for giving us this evening to meet together to sing praises under your name to celebrate the birth of your son. I thank you so much for the expecting ladies and their pregnancies. I pray that you would be with them in their development, that you'd help their children to come out at a timely birth and that you would help them in this process. I pray that you would help our church family struggling with various health concerns and not just our church family, but also our brothers and sisters in Christ abroad that have severe health issues. I pray that you would please bless them. Please give them healing. Please give them peace and comfort during this time of affliction or tribulation. I pray that you would help our family that is abroad traveling, that you keep them safe. You give them opportunities to preach the gospel and you'd help us with our family members, our friends, those that are dear to us, that we so desire to be saved that you would soften their hearts, that you would fill us with your Holy Ghost and you'd give us the boldness to preach to them and that they would be saved. I thank you for all that you give us. I pray you keep us safe this holiday season. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. On the back, we have the Christmas fellowship that is gonna be happening Christmas day. And so the church is going to be providing some meat and bread and drinks. So if you wanna provide anything else, you're more than welcome to bring a side dish or dessert, anything like that. Brother Ryan's gonna be helping make a bunch of briskets for us and some ribs. And so it's definitely awesome to be able to celebrate the Lord Jesus Christ with brisket. I mean, I don't know what other better way to do it, more Texan way to celebrate on Christmas day than some Texas brisket. And of course, on Christmas day, a lot of people have a difficulty getting lunch somewhere else. And so we just wanna make sure that you could still come to church. You don't have to worry about lunch plans or anything like that. So we will have lunch here at the church and then we'll still have our soul winning. That evening service, we're gonna have a candlelight service so if you'd like to attend, immediately following the service, we're gonna do our, we'll sing with our candlelight service and so we're gonna do that. With our candlelight service. And so if you'd like to participate in those, you're highly encouraged to come. And if you are planning on eating, why don't you come to a service too? Okay, all right. It's not just a lunch. No, I'm just kidding. But seriously. Also Wednesday, which is today, we have our cookie bake off. And so that's exciting. A lot of ladies have brought some cookies for us to enjoy. So definitely, it's gonna be a lot of fun. Now, we're gonna let everybody kind of have a chance to kind of go down the line and sample and stuff like that. Don't, it's a competition but don't make that, oh, I need to get one of every single cookie. That's probably not realistic, right? Look for the ones that you think you're gonna like. You know, limit your children to what seems reasonable and sometimes it's best to eat one cookie at a time. Once you're done with that one, then get another one. Instead of like, here's 35 on my plate and then you eat like one of them or something like that, right? So just a tip or a suggestion. We will have some colored beads for voting. Now, if you're, you know, there is no age limit but obviously if you're like a baby, you can't vote, okay? But obviously I'm not gonna put the exact age on there. But all children are welcome to vote and we're gonna give colored beads. So there's gonna be three colored beads for the three categories. So there's best tasting, there's best decorated and then there's most creative. Just to kind of remind you and I'll say this one more time right before we kind of break up just so you wear or I'll make another announcement when we ate a little bit and we can start voting. But again, the best tasting is pretty clear. Best decorated is just it looks professional. It's something that's really nice and then creative is just that it's really unique, you know? So it may not be the best decorated but it's the most unique, you really liked it and you can vote for any one that you want. There's three different colored beads. I can't remember off the top of my head. It's like orange, what do we have? I don't know, Dylan has them somewhere, right? I know they're in my office, okay. I know where they are. I will get them and I will explain this again one more time later when you actually remember. But just FYI, I'll let y'all sample and everything like that and then we'll get the colored beads handed out so that way you can vote. Everyone is welcome to vote one time. No dominion voting here. And that's pretty much all I have as far as announcements. If you are not on our email list and you wanna come to our church, you need to get on our email list just because sometimes we need to update you on things but more specifically where we're gonna be meeting for church services and where we're gonna be going. We're gonna be emailing that out and communicating to our church family. So that's pretty much all I do have for announcements at this time. We're gonna go ahead and go to our third song which is Psalm 146. It's that special handout book, Psalm 146. Sing along, sing nice and loud with Brother Dylan. Psalm 146. Ladies and gentlemen, let's hear it for a little more sp Praise ye the Lord. Praise the Lord O my soul. While I live will I praise the Lord. I will sing praises unto my God, while I have any being. Put not your trust in princes, or in the Son of Man, in whom there is no help, whom there is no help. Praise He the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul. His breath goeth forth, He returneth to His earth in them. Every day His thoughts perish, happy is He that hath them. God of Jacob, for His help, whose hope is in the Lord, the Lord is gone. Praise He the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul. Which made heaven and earth the sea, and all that therein is. Which keepeth truth for ever, which executeth judgment. For the oppressed, which giveth food to the hungry, the Lord looseth the prisoners. Praise He the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul. The Lord openeth the eyes of the blind, the Lord raiseth them that are bowed down. The Lord loveth the righteous, the Lord preserveth the strangers, He relieveth the fatherless and widows. Praise He the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul. But the way of turning up, the Lord shall reign forever, even by God, O Zion, unto all generations. Praise He the Lord, praise He the Lord. As the offering plates are being passed around, please turn your Bibles to Hosea chapter number one. Hosea chapter number one. As the offering plates are being passed around, please turn your Bibles to Hosea chapter number one. As the offering plates are being passed around, please turn your Bibles to Hosea chapter number one. Hosea 1, the Bible reads, The word of the Lord that came unto Hosea, the son of B real life, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel, the beginning of the word of the Lord by Hosea. And the Lord said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms, for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the Lord. So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblium, which conceived, and bare him a son. And the Lord said unto him, Call his name Jezreel, for yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel. And it shall come to pass at that day, that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel. And she conceived again, and bare a daughter. And God said unto him, Call her name Lo-Rohama, for I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel, but I will utterly take them away. But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by the Lord their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen. And when she had weaned Lo-Rohama, she conceived, and bare a son. Then said God, Call his name Lo-Ammi, for ye are not my people, and I will not be your God. Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered. And it shall come the past, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God. Then shall the children of Judah, and the children of Israel be gathered together, and appoint themselves one head, and they shall come up out of the land, for great shall be the day of Jezreel. Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer. Father in heaven, we thank you for Hosea chapter one, and for the opportunity we have to listen to the man of God expound this chapter. I pray that you fill him with your spirit, and give him clarity of mind as he explains this portion of scripture to us, Lord, and help us to draw connections and pay attention, Father God, so that we can apply the lessons that you've placed in your word. We also pray, Lord, for your protection over our church, and in Jesus' name, I pray. Amen. Amen. We're starting a new Bible study in the book of Hosea, and the first verse here gives us a lot of information as far as just kind of the setting, the environment of the book, and kind of where we find ourselves in scripture. In verse one, the Bible reads, the word of the Lord that came unto Hosea, the son of Birai, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel. So, in this setting, the Bible is telling us very clearly, this is a point in history when the nation of Israel is divided into two different kingdoms. You have the northern kingdom, and you have the southern kingdom. The northern kingdom is the kingdom of Israel, and the southern kingdom is the kingdom of Judah. This is because with king Rehoboam, which is the son of Solomon, there ended up being a divide between the kingdoms, between the twelve tribes, and essentially ten went north with Jeroboam, who had rebelled against Rehoboam. Rehoboam had retained basically two kingdoms, the tribe of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin. So, for a long period of time, there was the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom. So, what the Bible is describing for us here is that Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, these are the kings that were in Judah during his period of prophecy and preaching the word of God, and the king of Israel is Jeroboam, the son of Joash. Now, what's confusing about the Bible is that there's a lot of people with the same name, and sometimes they even have the same name in both kingdoms, and there's the same name as another guy from the past, and so there's a lot of people with similar names. Of course, in the Bible, there's a lot of Marys. There's a lot of people with all kinds of similarities in name, and so you really kind of have to study people's lineage to often figure out who they are. That's why the Bible brings up the fact that Jeroboam is the son of Joash, and so he's not the initial Jeroboam that we find out is the first king of Israel. He's a later king of Israel named Jeroboam. Now, what's interesting is the parallel that we find ourselves in Hosea chapter 1 with Isaiah chapter 1. Go to Isaiah for a moment, and let's read verse number 1 of chapter 1 in Isaiah. It's going to read something very, very similar. Isaiah chapter 1, verse 1, the vision of Isaiah, the son of Amos, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. Notice this, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. So if you actually pay attention, Isaiah and Hosea's ministries overlap. They're going about the same time, and I think sometimes we don't realize from a biblical perspective that a lot of times, some of the great men of God were actually at the exact same time in history. And there's nothing unique about that. Of course, God will often have multiple prophets, multiple men of God that are doing great things for the Lord all at the same time. And you could get this idea, especially from independent fundamental Baptists, like my church is the only church doing something for God, or my pastor is the only pastor serving God. But that's a ridiculous idea. And of course, we know, having lots of great friends, that there's lots of good churches out there. There's other great men of God that are doing great things for the Lord, and even people that aren't our friends. There's other men of God serving the Lord and doing good things for the Lord. Now, that doesn't mean, though, that Isaiah and Hosea are going to have the same impact. Obviously, Isaiah seems to have a bigger impact than Hosea. They have different types of ministries. Some are more public than others. Some people are called to do different things, and there's nothing wrong with being Hosea. You know, it's not like you have to be Isaiah. You can be Hosea, too. Now, go back to Hosea, and of course, to give you a little bit more context, when it comes to chronology in the Bible, you have in Isaiah is kind of the section of scripture where it's called the major prophets. And what some people don't understand is they'll say, like, well, the Bible is not, you know, in chronology, or it's not in perfect chronology. But that's just kind of a misunderstanding of how it's laid out, because it's kind of in sections, but then within the section, it's chronological. So you have the first five books of the Bible, which is called the Torah, which just means law, and that's all in chronology, perfect chronology. Then you kind of get into the next section, which is kind of like a history section of the Bible, where you go from Joshua, and you lead all the way up to Esther, and that's just kind of the history of the Bible, and that's also perfect chronology. Then you have the poetry section. You know, this is Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon. This is another five books, and even though it's poetry, it's still kind of in a chronology, because Job is the earliest book, and then we kind of go through Psalms, which is mostly David, and then we get into Proverbs, which is Solomon, Ecclesiastes of Solomon, and then Song of Solomon. So even those books are in a chronology, that's kind of a perfect chronology. Then you have what's considered the major prophets. This is a five book pack of where you have Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel. Those are also in chronology, in the sense that Isaiah is coming before Jeremiah, and Jeremiah is kind of coming before his later books as well, Daniel and Ezekiel. Then you have the last 12, which are called the minor prophets. These also are in a chronology, generally speaking. However, of course, you see overlap between the sections. So between the sections, of course, when you get to Job, we're going way back in time from the book of Esther. You know, we're going way back further in time, and then we're pushing the envelope even further out, and when we get to Isaiah, you know, that's going back before, you know, certain events that have been spoken of, and when we got through the history section. The history section covered a lot further far in the future than Isaiah. Isaiah is going back to a later point in time, and then leading us all the way back to the end of the history, and so is the minor prophets. So that'll help you, though, that when you kind of look at the earlier minor prophets, there's a lot of events that haven't happened yet from the chronological perspective, from a history perspective, and here's probably the most important event that will help you get doctrine correct, is when you understand that Hosea is the same timeline of Isaiah. The children of Israel have not gone into Babylonian captivity, and if they haven't gone into Babylonian captivity, here's another thing that hasn't happened. They haven't returned from the Babylonian captivity yet, and so a lot of the things that are spoken of in Isaiah and Hosea and these other books are going to talk about their future captivity and their future return out of captivity. Now, tons of the Bible, it's prophetic in a dual, triple, or even multiple fulfillment, where it'll kind of give a prophecy of about what's going to happen in the next few years, decades, or kind of the next century, like that prophecy, but then it somehow also points to Christ, but then it somehow also then points to the end times, so you kind of have like a triple layer where it'll talk about something that's going to happen in the next few hundred years, then Christ, and then all the way into the end times, but what you have to be careful of is not everything is a triple, not everything's always end times, not everything's always the immediate future. You kind of have to study and slow down and kind of discern which event it's really talking about, and of course because there's so much layering to the scripture, false prophets, false teachers, or even just ignorant pastors will take passages out of minor prophets and other sections, not understanding the context, not understanding the timeline or the chronology, and they'll just use that to teach a false doctrine. They'll use that to teach something that's not biblical, and so of course understanding the timeline is very important. God didn't give us verse one for no reason. If not understanding when this took place in history is not important, then God wouldn't have given that to us. You know there are certain books in the Bible where we have no real frame of reference as far as when it happened historically. You can think of a book like Job. Job doesn't say like exactly when that happened. We know relatively speaking that it's an early book. We know that it's you know kind of an older time period, but we don't know the exact time period. You know there's other books of the Bible where we're just kind of not exactly sure when it's taking place, what the exact events are, and we can kind of guess or we kind of have a general idea, but it's not as exact. This is giving us an exact timeline. I mean I could show you a timeline chart of basically exactly when this is happening, all the events surrounding it, and of course God gave us all that information for a very specific reason. So we don't want to ignore that. We want to always keep that fresh in our mind as we study the entire book of Hosea. So this is an important verse for the entire book of Hosea and a consistent interpretation of the book of Hosea. So don't just skip over it. Don't pretend like it's not important, and we'll talk about this more as we go through the entire book. I just want to get it really sharp in your minds, something that we've all paid attention to, and we're ready to keep that in mind. Verse two, the beginning of the word of the Lord by Hosea, and the Lord said to Hosea, go take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms, for the land has committed great whoredom, departing from the Lord. Now this is a very strange request from God, and it's very strange because if you read in the Old Testament law when God gave commandments concerning the Levites, he had very specific rules on what kind of wives they should have, and he made it very clear that the Levite, a priest of God, is not allowed to marry a woman that's a whore. He's not allowed to marry even a woman that had been with other men. He had to like someone else who had been divorced. It had to be either a virgin or a widow. That was like the only options that priests even had. Now of course I'm not saying that Hosea is a priest here or that God is asking him to break the law per se. What I am saying is it's kind of out of the character, or what God would normally ask of someone, is to marry a whore. You know, according to the Old Testament law, you know, he wanted for every daughter to be a virgin on their wedding night, and he wanted everyone to marry a virgin. That would be the ideal situation. God would obviously only want for Hosea to ideally marry a woman that's a virgin. Now, you'd have to ask this question. Is it a sin to marry a woman that's a whore? And the answer is no, because frankly speaking, there is no verse in the Bible, there is no Old Testament scripture that says, Thou shalt not marry a whore. Now, here's what you have to understand about what I'm saying. I am not saying it's a good idea. I'm not recommending it. I'm not suggesting it. I don't think anybody should ever do it. God doesn't think anybody should ever do it, okay? But it's also technically not a sin. And here's one thing that could happen. There could be a young person that makes a mistake in their youth, or is ignorant, or whatever the problem is, and they commit fornication, and it's not like, oh, now they should never get married, or now no one could ever marry them, or you should never even consider marrying that person because they made that mistake. You know what? We should consider that some people have made mistakes, and we can look past it, and we can move on, and we can still love people that have committed mistakes. We can still love people that have screwed up in this area. And frankly speaking, if you're single and want to get married, that's a reality in some cases, because statistically speaking, ninety-some percent of young people commit fornication before even getting married. And that's a sad statistic. That's a sad reality. I'm not excusing it. It's horrific. It's awful. God killed people in the Bible for committing fornication, but let's be real. A lot of people do it, and the vast majority of people that get married in our country are getting married to people that are a whore or a whoremonger. Now, at the time here, and probably in other times in history, marrying a whore would have been less likely or less prevalent in society. There's been societies where being a whore was very looked down upon, very shameful, very approachable. Women weren't dressing as provocatively, and we didn't have as much rampant free love in our society. I mean, the sixties and the seventies changed America more than you realize. I mean, it used to be in the fifties and early parts of the sixties, for a woman to go out and just be loose or to sleep with other men was rare, and it wasn't as prevalent in society. It came with kind of a free hippie and anarchist type movement. I mean, for men to not have short hair, and for women to not have long hair, and for men to not be dressed appropriately, and for women to not be dressed appropriately. I mean, these things just didn't exist really as much in society. Today, it's just almost no one follows the standard that the Bible sets forth anymore, and there's very little chastity in our society and our culture. But even though in our society, we live in such a whorish society, and it may not seem as big a deal to marry someone that's committed fornication, this is a very serious sin. It's a very serious issue. It's a very shameful thing to marry a woman that's a whore. Okay, so I have to say that because you may not think it's that big a deal. It is a giant deal. It is a huge deal to marry a whore, and he's asking Hosea to marry this woman that is a whore to illustrate the evil of what the children of Israel are like towards God. Of course, he asked him to do this really difficult task, this unpleasant thing, to illustrate how God loves the children of Israel, but the children of Israel are just a whore at heart, and they're just going to commit fornication and adultery on a regular basis, and he's asking him to marry this whore. But not only that, notice this. Go take unto thee wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms. Now, I already know the answer, but you say, what does that mean? It could mean that he has to marry a woman that already has children, you know, and sometimes people marry people that have children from a different relationship, and you have to kind of deal with that. But that's not what it's talking about. It's talking about the fact that Hosea is going to marry a woman that is going to commit adultery against him, and then his children are not going to be his children, okay? Now, I'm going to show you this in the Bible. Look at chapter 2 and look at verse 4. Chapter 2, verse 4. And I will not have mercy upon her children, talking about his wife, for they be the children of whoredoms, for their mother hath played the harlot, she that conceived them have done shamefully. So he's asking Hosea to marry a whore that is going to commit adultery against him, and then he is going to have children that are not his children. This is a really difficult situation to be in, okay? And it's an awkward thing, you know, everyone says, hey, the mailman struck, you know, and it's like, what a shameful thing. What an embarrassing thing when your children are not even your children, it's some other person's children, and your wife's committing whoredom against you on such a regular basis that she's having children with other men. That is what God is asking Hosea to do, before he even got married. Now, here is a point that I would like to make, and again, I use this chapter often, it's an extreme, but this is a point I want to make. God may not envision you having the most successful marriage as the greatest plan for your life, right? I mean, how could you say, oh, the most important thing in Hosea's life is to have a successful marriage. That's not what God is even asking him to do. God is asking him to have, like, the worst marriage ever, okay? Now, of course, when I decide to get married to someone, I should do it God's way, and I should do it where we are equally yoked, and we both love the Lord, we love each other, we are going to be faithful unto each other, divorce is not on the table, that's not even an option, it's not something we would even threaten. Of course, it's till death do us part, that's the oath that we make, and I believe that my marriage is the most important human institution I have on this planet, but what you have to realize is that not everybody is going to have a great marriage. There are going to be some people that have a horrible marriage, and you would say, like, well, is my life doomed, or is my life worthless at that point? No, no, no. Hosea is one of the greatest people to ever live, and he had one of the worst marriages in existence. So what this means is, even if you did have a horrible marriage, even if you did everything right, and you tried your best, and your spouse is just terrible, you can still do great things for God. Your marriage does not have to stop you from being a great person. Your terrible marriage, or your horrible spouse, wife, or husband, it does not prevent you from serving God, it does not prevent you from being a godly person and doing right. And, you know, of course, a lot of people emphasize marriage, I emphasize marriage, it's an important institution, we want people to have great marriages, but let me tell you something, God is supposed to be first. God is first, and, you know, the Bible even prescribes at times that you have to hate even your own wife. If you want to be Christ's disciple, you have to hate even your own wife. What does that mean? It doesn't mean that you actively hate your wife, it means that if push came to shove, and I had to choose to serve God with my life, or to serve my wife with my life, I should technically choose God. And that's a horrible task to be asked of, but I preach this because I know that it's real. I know certain people, I've talked to people, I've seen people, and they're in a relationship where they have to almost just choose between serving God or being in a relationship that's okay. I mean, it's not even going to be a great relationship even, but it's just that it's not going to be, like, really rough. I've had people say, like, hey, if you're going to go to church and be a Christian, I'm leaving you, is what the spouse said. And it's just like, you know, at that point, that's horrible, but it's like, well, I'm going to still go to church. I mean, I'm still going to read the Bible, I'm still going to serve God. I'm not going to choose my wife over God. I'm not going to choose my wife over Christianity. You know, of course, there could be some areas of compromise within that, but if it's just Christianity, no. I will serve God. I am going to do right. You know, wives are supposed to obey their husbands in everything the Bible says, but I believe if a husband is not wanting his wife to go to church, she should still go to church. If a husband is not wanting a wife to read the Bible, she should still read the Bible. You know, a wife should still serve God regardless, you know, and you say, well, where's that precedent? Didn't Abigail go and talk with David against her husband's wishes, probably? I mean, you think Nabal really wanted Abigail to go and minister unto David and to serve David? No, of course not. But, you know, you have certain boundaries that you're going to fall in, and, you know, as a wife, you respectfully say, I will do everything you want. I will serve you. I'll rub your feet. I'll make you your favorite meal. I'll do everything you want. But you know what? I'm going to church on Sunday, you know, and I'm going to take the children with me, and we're going to read the Bible in the evening. And, you know, I've read Jack Heil's book. He has like a church manual that he gives, and his suggestion is if you live in a household where your spouse is not going to serve God, but you are, to have private devotionals. You know, you don't have to do it in their face. You don't have to just be like, all right, we're going to read right in front of dad. You know, whoa unto him. You know, it's like, he's like drinking a beer, and you're just like Proverbs 20, you know, Proverbs 23, Bible study again. He's like, weren't you in Proverbs 23 this whole month? You know, obviously you shouldn't be antagonistic towards your spouse. Okay. And I say this for women because as a man, I get to do whatever I want, folks. Okay. You know, it's not like I have to ask my wife permission to go to church or something like that. But obviously a woman being in a subservient role and having to be obedient to her husband, the question may be asked like, well, if my husband's not wanting me to serve God or to sin, what do I do? And the question is, you know, should you obey God rather than man? And the answer is yes. You always obey God, period. Okay. And you do your best to serve and to humbly do whatever they ask, but you say, I'm not going to do this. You know, Daniel's a faithful servant, but he's not gonna eat the King's meat. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are great servants, but they will not worship the golden image. And you know what? A wife should serve her husband, but not go to the Catholic church. Serve her husband, not go to the Mormon church. Serve her husband, but not forsake church. You know what? She should be a good example. And you know what? By her being such a great wife and serving God, she could maybe change the heart of her husband and cause him to be turned over and maybe start serving the Lord, get saved, or whatever the situation may be. So the point I'm making, though, is that not every marriage is going to be great. And if you study the Bible, there's a lot of great men in the Bible that have horrible marriages. I mean, have you ever met Moses? Moses, his wife, is throwing bloody foreskin at him. Okay. Not a cool marriage fight. You know, I might have had things thrown at me, but not that one. That one's weird. Okay. You know, that's when you realize you have a rocky marriage. Okay. And we could just go through the whole Bible, and I could just show you people that have rough marriages and issues and situations. And it's not to say that you should forsake your marriage. It's not to say that you should make your marriage of less importance. You know, your marriage is super important. Always try to have the best marriage. But at the end of the day, it's not the most important thing in life. And for Hosea, he was destined to have a terrible marriage. And you know what? If you have a bad marriage, just say, you know what? Well, maybe I'm a Hosea. I preach that because it's real. There are people out there that are, they feel so depressed, and they have so much anxiety every day of their life because their marriage is terrible. And I'm like, I'm sorry. I'll pray that your marriage is better, and I hope that your marriage gets better. But let me tell you something. Just serve God and be a Hosea. You know what? Hosea was asked to do something really bad here. And in most cases, I've heard a lot of bad things. I've never had anybody tell me this. I've never had someone say, hey, Pastor Shelley, my wife just keeps sleeping with other men, and I have three children with other men that I'm raising. You know, I've never heard that. I'm not saying it's not out there. It's usually on Jerry Springer, but you know. But it's reality for him. You know, and it's embarrassing. Do you think how embarrassing that is? And it's the Word of God. He has to, like, preach this to other people. So I have a message for everybody. God wants me to marry a whore and have children with other men's children. That's embarrassing. Can you imagine preaching that to other people? But that's the word that he had to give us, says in verse three. So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Deblahem, which conceived and bear him a son. Now, you would think that would be embarrassing. A guy gets up and preaches. I got to marry a whore. And then he marries this chick. It's like, oh, you know. Here's another thing that's interesting. He said, hey, marry a whore. And Hosea is like, I can't find one of those. I mean, that was easy. You know, it's like marrying a whore, she's a dime a dozen. She's on every street corner, right? She lies in wait at every corner, as the Bible says. The woman in the attire of a harlot, they're easy to find. So he had no problem. He marries Gomer. And then she conceived and bear him a son. Now, of course, just reading the text, you might not realize that that's not his child, though. Because again, the Bible is very clear in chapter two that these are children of whoredoms. Now, it says in verse number four, And the Lord said to him, Call his name Jezreel, for yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and will cause to seize the kingdom of the house of Israel. And it shall come to pass at that day that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel. So the first child's Jezreel, and the Bible says he's going to avenge himself on the house of Jehu. When the Bible says the house of, and then it gives a person, it's not talking about a building. It's talking about his family. It's talking about his lineage. And Jehu was a great guy in a general sense. He did a lot of good things for the Lord. He avenged the Lord on the house of Aahab. But what's interesting is just because you're the avenger doesn't mean that God can't bring an avenger upon you later when you screw up. And of course, Jehu did a lot of good things. He cleaned up the land. He got Jezebel thrown out a window. And he destroyed the entire house of Baal at the time because he asked for all the false prophets to be gathered together in a house. And he's like, hey, Aahab did serve him little. Jehu shall serve him much. And he just brings all the Baal prophets in. He's like, make sure no one in here is a Christian. And then he just kills all of them. He just slaughters every prophet. That would have been awesome. Can you imagine if we could do that today? That would be great. I mean, just gather, just get a big conference of all the false prophets in our area and all the false teachers of our area and get them all gathered together. Make sure no one here believes salvation by faith. This works for everybody in here, right? And then just give them what they deserve, right? Obviously, I wouldn't do that, okay, folks? We're talking about the government implementing this, okay? But that would be great if we could have a man that would rise up and would be willing to slaughter wicked people. And Jehu did that. But then the Bible tells us about Jehu that he then followed in the same sins of Jeroboam. And Jeroboam is the first Jeroboam, the king of Israel. So he doesn't really serve the Lord. And of course, then God is going to avenge him. Now, it talks about Jezreel. Jezreel is the location where Jehu did all the slaughtering. And, you know, through study, I'm not exactly sure what the Lord means here. You could, if you have a better idea, you could tell me. But essentially, that's where Naboth the Jezreelitess was killed. And then Ahab and Jezebel were avenged there, specifically, where Naboth was slaughtered. And of course, Naboth pictured the Lord Jesus Christ and ultimately how he was slain without the city and kind of a similar fashion, just right outside. But what Jehu did was right. So it's not like Jehu did anything wrong when he slaughtered all those people in Jezreel and even got all the heads of Ahab, all the sons, and they piled them up and everything like that. But you could just argue that he's just avenging him in the sense that, obviously, they didn't like Jehu, and he's kind of like avenging, even though it's not necessarily that Jehu did anything wrong there. And what I mean by that is, in the avenging process, God may just allow evil people to kind of get vengeance even in their own capacity. But it's really for Jehu's sin. It's not for killing Ahab, but Ahab gets vengeance in a sense. And you could think of it like Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar slaughters all these wicked kings. But God wanted him to slaughter all those wicked kings. God told him to slaughter all those wicked kings. He said, he's my servant, and he had him come in and punish all of them. But then later, Nebuchadnezzar gets punished by the Medes and Persians. And then he gets thrown into hell, as evidenced by Isaiah chapter 14. And the Bible says that all those kings then look down upon him narrowly. And you could argue it's like they got vengeance on Nebuchadnezzar. But here's the thing. It's not like Nebuchadnezzar killing them was wrong. It was just they get their payback or whatever. So it's like Ahab and all them kind of get their payback. But that's not really the issue. The issue is not that Jehu slew all those people. The issue is that Jehu followed in the sins of Jeroboam. Because I've heard some people, and I've heard a fundamental Baptist preacher get up and say Jehu was too zealous and killed too many false prophets and too much of the house that they have. But that's funny, because whenever he did that, God was like, hey, I'm well pleased that you did that which I commanded you. So how weird would it be for him to kill all the people that God told him to, and then God's going to punish him for killing all the people that God told him to? That's not what the Scripture is teaching. So of course, don't take this verse, the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and run with it to try and suggest that Jehu did something wrong by slaying Ahab and his house. It's very clear in the next few verses of 2 Kings and where we're talking about Jehu that it's for the punishment of following in the sins of Jeroboam. And of course, Jezreel is significant because it pictures a lot of things about the Lord Jesus Christ and how he is going to be slaughtered unjustly and for the sins of the nation of Israel and how he dies, not willing to give up his inheritance. That's what Naboth was not willing to give up his inheritance. The Lord Jesus Christ is not willing to give up his inheritance. He wants to redeem us. And of course, he's willing to die for us. Okay. Verse six, it says, and she conceived again and bear a daughter. And God said to them, call her name Lo-ru-ama, for I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel, but I will utterly take them away. But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by the Lord their God, and will not save them by boat, nor by sword, nor by horses, nor by horsemen. So what the Bible is teaching is that there's coming a day when God is going to completely destroy the northern kingdom, the kingdom of Israel, and they're no longer going to exist, but he is going to spare Judah. And of course, that's exactly what we see in the Scripture. Later in history, we have kind of the Assyrian empires, it's coming in, and they just wipe out all of Israel and just take them away, and then we never have that northern kingdom ever again. The northern kingdom ceases to exist, and you only have the southern kingdom. From a history perspective, then eventually the southern kingdom goes into captivity of the Babylonians, and then it returns. When it returns, it doesn't just take those that were taken captive of Judah, but all 12 tribes are allowed to then return, and they kind of have a singular nation once again. And that singular nation exists until 7080, when it's finally squashed out the last Jewish diaspora, and then will not ever have that return until the return of Christ. That's when we finally have that one final return with all of the children of Israel, spiritually speaking. Now, in this context, he's talking about the physical nation of Israel. The physical nation of Israel, the 10 tribes that are considered Israel, physically speaking, God is going to have noticed what the Bible says, no more mercy, no more have mercy, and he's going to utterly take them away. This is what you would describe as a reprobate. Now, what does the word reprobate mean in the Bible? It means rejected. It means that God is just no longer having anything to do with that particular individual. They have no more chances. There's no more opportunity for mercy or rescue. You know, other people in the Bible find themselves in this position. Pharaoh. Pharaoh gets to a point after he's hardened his heart so many times that God's just done with him, and he'll never have mercy on him ever again. He's never going to love him anymore. He's done, but he didn't kill him just yet because he has a special way to kill him to show God's glory, and that's how God preserves a lot of reprobates. God preserves reprobates at the time of Christ because they blaspheme the Holy Ghost in the presence of Jesus Christ, and he's saying, hey, you never have forgiveness in this life or the next. I mean, you guys are the sons of the devil. Of course they were reprobate. The Bible talks about in the future there will be reprobates where it talks about people taking a mark of the beast and how they are for sure going to go into hell. You know, no one taking the mark of the beast is going to be in heaven. We will never see the person in heaven that took the mark of the beast. They're all going into hell. Now, of course, that's not the only reprobates. The Bible teaches reprobates have always existed, always will exist, and it just simply means someone that's gotten to a point where they're past redemption, spiritually speaking. God's never going to save that person, and no one's born a reprobate. You have to become a reprobate. Now, as the Bible describes, no one is born a child of God in their natural birth. We have to be born again, and that's when we're born children of God, okay? So there's a later event that gives us spiritual salvation. The same is with the reprobate, where they have a later event from their first natural birth where it's not a birth, it's a death, and this is described in the New Testament as someone being twice dead. You say, how could someone be twice dead yet still alive? Because it's talking about the false prophets and the reprobates in 2 Peter 2 and in Jude, and it describes these men as being twice dead. Why? Because anybody that's unsaved is dead once, okay? Everyone that's unsaved is dead. To be twice dead means you've gone beyond that first death into a second death of a reprobate state, okay? Just like Nabal, and I've already brought him up, but Nabal, whenever Abigail came back and told him what she did with David, it said that his heart died within him. And that's like a picture of what it's like where there's some people where their heart has just been just destroyed. And you know, it was funny because I was hearing the Mr. Grinch song when I was coming over here to church, and it's describing this guy, and it's like every attribute of the Grinch is like a reprobate. I mean, his soul is like spider's webs and just like the guy is just evil and wicked and just there's nothing good about him. Now the stupid story about the Grinch is that he somehow just miraculously like his heart grows and he's just like redeemed or something like that, which of course, you know, the Apostle Paul, he was the chief of sinners and he got redeemed, but you know what the Apostle Paul was not? The Apostle Paul was not a rapist who was a Satan, worshiping, God-hating sodomite, okay, folks? He was someone that was actually very zealous for the Lord and loved the Lord but was just wrong about it. So don't get confused and think like, oh, well, I just want Jeffrey Dahmer, you know, to get saved. It's like Ted Bunny and Jeffrey Dahmer and all the wicked people, they're not gonna get saved, okay? Now, of course, you know, the Bible describes unnatural sins and that's kind of our clue, okay, this person's not a redeemable person, but it's not because they committed that sin, it's because in their heart they rejected the Lord over and over, they hate God, they won't accept his mercy, they won't accept salvation, and because of their hatred for God, God ends up making their heart just basically go out, spiritually speaking, and now he'll never... You want to argue with me, what about this verse? I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel. You know, people say, oh, you always have a chance as long as you're alive. What about these people? I mean, he's making it clear these people, he's not gonna have any mercy for them anymore. Let me prove this even more. Go to chapter 9 for a second. Go to chapter number 9. Well, you know what? God never stops loving you until you die. That's false. That is not true. In fact, you know, the love that God showed for everybody was through his son's death. It wasn't like a permanent, just constant loving state towards every individual. There are people that are alive that God hates, and you can show this in the scripture over and over and over again, Psalm 5, Psalm 11, so wherever you want to go, where it makes it clear that God hates the bloody and deceitful men. God abhors them, okay? Now look at Isaiah chapter 9 verse 13. Ephraim, as I saw Tyrus, is planted in a pleasant place, but Ephraim shall bring forth his children to the murderer. Now, I read this verse to give you the context. Who is Ephraim? Ephraim is the children of Joseph, and why it brings up Ephraim is because Ephraim is signified as being one of the northern tribes, and Ephraim was giant. Ephraim had a ton of people, so we never really think of Judah as being Benjamin. Why? Because Benjamin's so insignificant, it's so minor in its population, that nobody even really thinks about them or really cares about them. They're just lumped in with Judah, and when it comes to Israel, a lot of times they're just considered Ephraim, because Ephraim is just a vast majority of the population. So when we're talking about Ephraim, we're mostly talking about Israel as a whole, too. Of course, he's talking about Ephraim specifically, but I'm just giving you that kind of context. It would be like if someone lumped in Texas and New Mexico or something, and it's just like they're talking about Texas. It's like, well, we're the vast majority of the group, or we're the vast majority. Or they're talking about North America, and they're just talking about the United States. It's like, yeah, there's technically Canada and there's technically Mexico, but it's like, where's the vast majority of the population? It's the United States. Or even more realistic is when we talk about the United States, we never talk about the fact there's separate nations in the United States. Navajo Nation. There's actually Indian reservations in the United States that are considered their own separate sovereign nation or something like that. We even had Chaz, you know, or whatever it was in Seattle. Separate sovereign nation. But nobody even thought about it because it didn't even matter. You even have Vatican City within Italy, right? So you have these like minor populations within a certain geographic area that are just nobody even thinks about or cares because they're so insignificant. So it's kind of in the same manner. It's like Ephraim's just such a large tribe that it's just kind of like we're talking about Israel, okay? It says Ephraim is going to bring his children to murder. That doesn't sound good. Verse 14, give them a lord what wilt thou give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts. That's not nice. And people would be like, oh, how dare you say anything mean about people or say anything negative about people? He's telling them he wants them to miscarry. I mean, that's savage. I mean, that's just that's brutal. Like there's certain insults you give to people. But like I'm just saying like I don't even know my own person. I could give someone that kind of an insult because that's just so like it feels over the top even like I hope that you miscarry. That's such a hard, hard saying. But, you know, he didn't come up with that. God told him to say that. The same God that's the God of love, folks, said, hey, tell them to have a miscarrying womb and dry breasts. Dry breasts means that their children will die. Their young infant children will die because they didn't have formula back then. And a lot of times if you have a little infant and you can't breastfeed them properly, if you didn't have formula and all that stuff, they can't just eat normal food very successfully. A lot of times they would just literally die. That's what he's saying. Verse 15. All their wickedness is in Gilgal for there I hated them. Wait a minute. I thought God never hated anybody. Have you ever read the Bible? I hated them for the wickedness of their doings. I will drive them out of my house. I will love them no more. All their princes are revolters. Wait a minute. God can always love you. I will love them no more. The Bible is really clear on this issue. Go back to Isaiah chapter 1. Now, of course, this is a very, very specific and extreme doctrine. It's not like the vast majority of people are in this category. You know, I've already taught on this ad nauseam, but I personally believe that if you were to look at our world population, about 5% of the world's saved and about 5% of the world's reprobates. And then 90% are not in either category. And, of course, we're going out and we're trying to vie for that 90%. We're trying to get those people saved that have the opportunity to be saved. And, of course, bring up the fact that you hate 5% of the population. People say you're a hate preacher. Well, I'm a 95% love preacher. Why don't you focus on that? You know, yeah. It's like, you're a hate preacher. Okay, 5%, sure. But I'm also a 95% love preacher. Why don't we focus on the positive here? And, you know, I don't know a single person. I've never met a single person that could genuinely say, I love everyone. I've only heard it, and it was Kanye West, and he's a liar. He doesn't love everybody. The idiot's on television and saying, I love Hitler. That's how you know you're an idiot. If you say you love Hitler, you're an idiot. I mean, that is, like, the dumbest thing you could say, almost. I mean, Flat Earth might be worse, but that Hitler is someone to praise or to love. I mean, what do you, you love Jeffrey Dahmer? You love Ted Bundy? You love Joe Biden? You love Hillary Clinton? You love the cartels? You just love every rapist and child-molesting predator? I mean, what kind of a sick person are you? You love the guy that ran through the parade in Waukesha? I mean, the guy that was just running over elderly women and children and just murdering them in cold blood for their whole family to see. I mean, grandma's just walking down the street in a parade, and someone in cold-blooded murder just runs her over and just destroys her in front of everybody, and then, oh, I love that guy. You're a freak if you say that. God doesn't love that person, the bloody and the deceitful man. You're insane if you think that. Oh, I love Judas Iscariot. What? You love the guy that betrayed the Lord Jesus? That means you have no real love. People that say that, this is what they're saying. I love no one. The only way to truly love is to love only a certain percentage. You cannot truly love everyone. You could only love a certain percentage. Now, if you say you love everyone, it's 0%, but there is no one that's 100%. God is not 100%. The vast majority of people are gonna go to hell, folks. Now, of course, he showed an act of love towards 100% of people. Yeah, his sacrifice on the cross was for every person. Every reprobate Jesus Christ died for, and he loved them at some point in time, and I try to be the same way. Every single person I see, I'm initially going for the love, and I initially love that person, and I want to knock on their door, and I want to get them saved, and I want to give them the gospel, but then after they reject it, and after they reject the Lord Jesus Christ, and they don't want to believe in him, and it's clear that it's not just they're having a bad day. They're an obvious reprobate. I will love them no more, just like God will love them, and I will have no mercy towards them anymore, and, you know, it would be nice if our government could get that through their head and realize that there are certain people that need to be punished, and we should have no more mercy for them, no more love for them. You know, in the state, I'm pretty sure, I think it's Wisconsin. Isn't Waukesha, Wisconsin? Am I right on this? Someone correct me. No one knows. Wherever the guy that ran over these people in the parade, they don't have the death penalty in their state, so they can't, this guy can't even be killed, and I watched one of the victim's family members stand there, and he said, hey, I want to, I want you to know, after you get sentenced in prison for, you know, 10 years, 10 lifetimes or whatever it is, he said it's still not over. He said it won't be over until I'm pissing on your grave, and I was like, hey, I agree, and you know what? You don't love that person who is the victim and the family's victim or the family member's victims if you want that guy to go off scot-free, if you want that guy to not get punished. In fact, you know what you're going to do? You're going to make the family, the victim's family, you're going to make them pay for this guy to live in jail through taxes. Isn't that weird? It's like not only are we not going to kill this person that killed all of your family members in a gruesome, horrible way, and I mean the guy was mocking the family members in the trial, no remorse whatsoever, mocking them, ridiculing it, acting like it's great, just flaunting everything, and it's just like, it was so sick and depraved and just pure evil. I mean you could just see it in the courtroom, and it's like for people to just get to tell me like, oh, I love that person. You don't have the love of God in your heart. You don't. How can you, because you know you don't love, you don't love those victims. You don't love children. You don't love women. You know, to love the rapist is to then hate all of their victims in the future, and to love the child molester is to hate all the children they're going to molest in the future, and to love the sodomite is to hate all the people they're going to defile in the future, and to love the murderer is to hate all the people they're going to murder in the future. I mean this is why it's sick that we live in this culture, and there's so many Christians, they just want to constantly preach at me the Bible, like we love everyone, you know, love the sinner and hate the sinner. It's like that's not even in the Bible. The Bible says I will love them no more. Show me that verse. They'll quote from me John 3 16, and I say, I agree. You know, you notice that verse was past tense. Isn't it interesting you're using a past tense verse, you know, and we need to preach this. You know, people need to show up on a Wednesday night and hear the Bible. Hey, you're going to get a cookie afterwards, okay? Not everything in the Bible is positive, but you know, we have to face the negative so that we can have positive times, because you know, when you don't believe these things, and we don't teach our community these things, and our government doesn't institute these things, we don't get to enjoy our lives. We don't get to have safety. You know, my parents would tell me, hey, when I was a kid, everybody's walking up down the street. It was safe. You could just hang out and do whatever. There was no problem, but today it would be horrifying for me to think about just letting my children just go wherever and walk wherever and get rides with strangers and just, I mean, that it would just be, I couldn't even believe it. It would be crazy to me, and it is crazy. You shouldn't do that. We live in perilous times, folks, okay? Don't let your children just go wherever. But it could be like that if you lived in a society where there's a rule of law. You know, when Christ is ruling and reigning, even the animals aren't something to be feared. Children can just pick up a snake and no problem. You know, but today, of course, there's a lot of dangers out there, and we have to protect our children. But the reality is, he took away Israel just like God will take a lot of people away. It says in verse 8, if you go back to Isaiah, look at chapter 1, verse 8. Now, when he had she had weaned, lo, Ruamah, she conceived and bare a son. Then said, God, call his name Loami, for ye are not my people, and I will not be your God. Now, this is hard for what people, when they subscribe to the doctrine of Zionism, for them to interpret this verse. How could you interpret a verse that literally says the children of Israel are not his people? But that's what the Bible says, okay? It just clearly says you're not my people, and I will not be your God. Now, they are physical Israel. There is no question. He's looking at physical Israelites and saying they're not his children. But it's really because they're not spiritual children of his. And it's not everyone. There's always a remnant, and there always has been a remnant, and there always will be a remnant. Even in the New Testament, the Apostle Paul makes it clear in the book of Romans that, hey, God didn't cast away all of his people, all of physical Israel, because he's like, I'm of Israel. I'm a Benjamite. Of course, God's disciples are children of the tribes of Israel. John and James and Andrew, some of the greatest men to ever live, are of the nation of Israel and of the tribe of Judah and of the tribe of Benjamin and of these different tribes. But also, the vast majority of them didn't believe in Christ, and they're not God's people, and they were not saved, and God is not their God. Now, he says in verse 10, Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered. And it shall come to pass that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God. Then shall the children of Judah and the children of Israel be gathered together, and appoint themselves one head, and they shall come up out of the land, for great shall be the day of Jezreel. Now, verse 10, he says that the children of Israel at this time are a great multitude, so many that you couldn't even number. Now, you know, I've thought about that verse a lot in the Bible where it talks about things that can't be numbered, because that's mentioned all the time. There's a lot of places in the Bible where it talks about certain items, things that can't be numbered. I believe what it's always referring to is a singular human counting people. It's not saying that they couldn't, technically, you couldn't write down the number, because, of course, we could write down the number. We have plenty of places in the Bible where it'll say, like, hey, it was two million, or it was a hundred thousand, or whatever the number is. But if you were to literally stand outside and there was two million people outside, there's no way you could number them. There's no way you could just count them. So it's basically just saying, like, there's just so many, humanly speaking, you can't do this without the aid of computers, technology, or, you know, some kind of an organized counting system. There's just no way to number this thing. So it's not like this is a number that we couldn't conceive. It's not like 10 trillion. Obviously, we're only talking about hundreds of thousands or millions of people here. They could clearly be counted through modern technology and through a group system. But an individual is not going to be able to just one, two, three, four, skip a few, 99 to one million. It's not possible. But it's like, even though there's millions and millions of Israelites, they're still not God's people. And He's not going to have mercy on them. And He's not their God. So, you know, God is not a God of, you know, well, I just have a bunch of people. You know, you could think of, like, oh, well, obviously this church across the street, they're running 10,000 people. They must be a church of God. No. You can have 150,000 people in your church and still not have a single saved person in there, and they cannot be God's people. Because it doesn't matter the number. And in fact, the vast majority of the time, the multitude is not saved. The large number is not the people that are the children of God. It's always the remnant, it's the smaller people, it's the smaller grouping that are the ones that are the true children of God that are the actual saved. And He says, hey, the place where people are not called the children of God, that's where they're going to be called the children of God. He said in verse number 10 of the latter portion, it says, in the place where it was said unto them, you're not My people. Now, who's going around telling people that they're not the children of God? It's the Jews going around telling all the Gentiles, you're not the children of God. And He's saying, hey, in those places where you guys were told that you're not the children of God, there it shall be said unto them, ye are the sons of the living God. Now this is quoted in the New Testament. Go if you would to Romans chapter number 9. Wait, I'm sorry, keep your finger. Look at chapter 2 for a second, and then we're going to go to Romans 9. Chapter 2, look at verse 23. And I will sow her unto Me in the earth, and I will have mercy upon her that have not obtained mercy. And I will say to them, which were not My people, thou art My people, and they shall say, thou art My God. So go if you would to Romans chapter 9. I say that because in Romans 9, it's going to quote Hosea chapter 2 and Hosea chapter number 1 here, where we just read. So we're going to get an even better understanding of what these verses even mean. Romans chapter 9, look at verse 22. The Bible says, What if God, willing to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction, and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had afore prepared unto glory, even us, meaning specifically us, whom He hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles, as He saith also, notice this in Osea, now that's the Greek form of Hosea, Osea, I will call them My people, which were not My people, and her beloved, which was not My beloved, and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not My people, there shall they be called the children of the living God. So that latter verse there is the exact quote of Hosea chapter number 1 that we had already read, and that earlier portion was chapter number 2. So you say, okay, so then what is Hosea saying? Well, of course, it's what Romans 9 is saying. I don't even have to wonder. The Bible just clearly tells me what he was talking about in the Old Testament. He's talking about the Gentiles, and he's saying, hey, it's not that being of a physical seed makes you a child of God. That means nothing to God. Your physical lineage is meaningless to God, especially now that we're in the New Testament. There is no such thing as the Jew and the Gentile, and the only real Jew, according to the Scripture, is a spiritual Jew. Go to chapter 2, Romans chapter number 2, and look at verse number 28. For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly. Now, how can the Apostle Paul say that if the Jews are Jews? I mean, there's just so many people that want to tell me, hey, those people are really Jews, and they're God's chosen people. But Paul says in Romans chapter number 2, verse 28, for he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly. He's saying there's nothing about your circumcision, there's nothing about you physical, your lineage is meaningless. Neither is that circumcision which is outward of the flesh, but he is a Jew, which is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart and the spirit and not in the letter, whose praise is not of men, but of God. So what the Bible teaches is that being a Jew, spiritually speaking, has nothing to do with your physical lineage, it's only if you believe in Christ or not. So the children of God are all those who believe in Christ, and those who do not believe in Christ are not the children of God. It has nothing to do with who your parents are, what nation you're from, being a Jew or being a Gentile or any of that. It's meaningless. Okay, now of course there is physical Jews and there is physical Gentiles, of course that exists. There are people that you could say, this is a physical Jew, and of course at that time there were people that were physical Jews, but it was meaningless in a spiritual context, and a spiritual context has no point. Go to Romans chapter 9, go back, we have to understand it's just because someone is physical Israel is meaningless to God. Look at Romans chapter 9, verse 6, not as though the word of God had taken none effect, for they are not all Israel which are of Israel. So of course the nation of Israel was comprised of a lot of people, but they weren't true spiritual Israel, not all of them, some of them, the remnant was true spiritual Israel, and of course that's what the apostle Paul explains in Romans chapter number 11, that, you know, look at verse 1, I say then hath God cast away his people, God forbid, for I also am an Israelite, so it's not like God got rid of every physical Israelite or every physical Hebrew or every physical Jew, no, no, he saved a remnant, Paul and Peter and John and James, they're Israelites physically and they're Israelites spiritually, but then the vast majority of spiritual Israel are not physical Israel whatsoever, they're Gentiles, and I am not a physical Israel, I'm a spiritual Israel, and being physically Israel has no special blessing to it at this point in time. It did in the Old Testament, because they had the oracles of God committed unto them, and Christ was dedicated unto them, he came only unto them to preach to them first, and of course the gospel came to the Jew first, and then to the Gentile, but you know what, now Christ being come, now the apostle is being spread out through the whole world, there is no extra profit. You know, go back to Romans chapter 3, and look at verse 1, what advantage then hath the Jew? Because you would say, well, being a physical Jew, there's this special thing tied to it. Okay, there is. Okay, what does it say? Or what profit is there of circumcision? Much every way chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God. So there is a special privilege. What? All of the Old Testament was committed to you guys, and Jesus was committed to you guys, but for anybody that's physical Israel beyond that point, it doesn't say any other special privilege. It doesn't say, hey, oh yeah, the advantage of the Jew is that no matter what, they're just God's children. No matter what, they have a special protection from God. No matter what they do, I mean, they can just be a God-hating atheist just in Hollywood selling pornography and abusing children, but they're just God's chosen people. That's a lie. Jerry Seinfeld is not God's chosen people. I mean, I don't care what Jew you name. Larry King is not special. There's nothing special about him physically. You know, there's nothing special about any of the Jews that are out there in Hollywood or even in the physical nation of Israel today. It's being spiritual Israel that matters. And you know what? You hate Jews if you tell them that they're saved with the children of God if they don't believe in Christ, because they must believe in Christ if they're going to be saved. Now go back to Hosea, and we're going to finish this real quick. That's the main point. And you know, I want to make one more application of this, but I need to explain this point first. So it says in verse 11, Then shall the children of Judah and the children of Israel be gathered together and appoint themselves one head, and they shall come up out of the land. For great shall be the day of Jezreel. What's the first layer application of this? The first layer is the fact that Judah is going to go into captivity into Babylon, and then they're going to come back, and both Judah and Israel are going to have one head, one king, and they're going to be one nation again, and that's going to be a great fulfillment. What is another application layer to this? Another application layer is the fact that one day Christ is going to return, and He's going to rule and reign on earth, and we're going to have the true nation of Israel, the spiritual Israels, all going to be gathered together, and we're going to all rule and reign with Christ, and it's going to be a great day. And of course, that was the whole point of God sitting in the captivity and bringing them out, was the picture and foreshadow Christ's coming and redeeming all of us and us being saved and basically the millennial reign of Christ. So both of those apply, both of those work. That's, of course, what it's saying. What it's not saying is in 1948, there's going to be a pact, and they're going to bring in a bunch of Christ-rejecting, God-hating atheists into Palestine and take over Muslim territory. That is not what this- great is the day of Jezreel. Where is that anywhere else in this text? I mean, how could you argue with anything that I'm saying, because I'm just showing you everything the Bible is saying, and then they just insert 1948 here, and I'm thinking, like, that's different. That's like the Rothschilds, okay? That's the Balfour Declaration, you know, look it up in history. And whenever, if you're going to say, well, there's this spiritual application and it's a metaphor. What is the metaphor? Show me a story in the Bible where a bunch of people that hated God and were rebelling against him, God performed a miracle to rescue them. Never happens. It's people that get right with God, or it's people that love the Lord, or people that believe in Christ. Yeah, he rescues them out of great peril, but there is not a story- show me the story where a bunch of Christ-rejecting, God-hating, evil people just get rescued. No, they get destroyed. And in fact, you have total destruction. I mean, when Judah gets surrounded by Babylon, they come in there, they rip up the women, they slay all the babies, they murder- I mean, it's just horrible. I mean, if you think the Holocaust was bad, what do you think Babylon did to Jerusalem and did to the Jews? You know, they didn't come in there and give them money and put them in camps and allow them to live. You know, the Holocaust, they think is really bad. How about what the Babylonians did? You know, oh, well, they were rescued- if they weren't rescued out of the Holocaust for being righteous, why would- I mean, if they weren't- I'm sorry, let me say it this way. If they weren't rescued from the Babylonians when they weren't righteous, why would they have been rescued from the Holocaust for not being righteous either? Now, am I saying that every person that died in World War II or in the Holocaust deserved it? No, of course not. I'm sure tons of women, children, babies, and Jewish people died and they shouldn't have died from a human perspective. They didn't do anything worthy of death, necessarily. They're just collateral damage of war and all the evils and all the atrocities, and there's tons of horrible people at that time. Hitler is one of the most wicked people on the planet practicing eugenics. Some people say he's a Christian. Kanye West says he's a Christian. Like, where'd you read that? What kind of Christianity is he practicing? World domination? He's an anti-Christian. Yeah, he's really good at anti-Christ type stuff. He was foreshadowing the anti-Christ, absolutely. And of course, you know, people don't even realize how much sodomy was going on in the Nazi party. And then of course, you know, you know where a lot of the Nazis in that party and a lot of those people led, like fled to, and where their children have grown up? Ukraine. Isn't it interesting that we're so anti-Nazi in America, right? We're so just against anti-Semitism, but then we just love Ukraine. And it's like, why don't you look up who's in Ukraine, who's in power there, and where all of Hitler's top people went. Oh yeah, they went to America and Ukraine. And then it's like, Republicans or Nazis or something. It's like, you don't even know history. Of course, they always accuse you of what they're guilty of, isn't it? I'm finished with verses, but I just want to say one last point. If God didn't spare the nation of Israel and replaced them and took them out of the way, we should learn from that lesson that he could take us out of the way, too. You know, America is not special, except for God blessing us. And any nation that honors the Lord Jesus Christ and puts him first can have a special blessing and have special prosperity. And you know, why did America have all that prosperity that it had? Because we put God first better than any other nation. And I think a lot of Christians today would think like, well, you know what? We're the greatest nation because we're where Christianity thrives. But you know what? If our Christianity becomes lukewarm and comes to a point where we're not actually preaching the gospel and we're not standing on the Bible, God will just completely replace us with another nation. And it could be any other nation. It could be the Bahamas. It could be New Guyana or Guinea or whatever. New Guinea or whatever you call it. I don't even know. I can't even say it. It's so insignificant. Morocco. You know, obviously this is Muslim territory right now. But I'm just saying, like any nation in this world that decided, you know what? We're going to put God first. They could become the new America. Now, I'm just talking in hypotheticals here. I don't believe this is going to happen. Obviously, America is probably the end times Babylon and probably going to be destroyed. Okay. I get all that. But the principle is still there. That we never want to get this lofty idea of ourselves. We want to think like, well, our church is just the best church ever. No, no, no. We need to humble ourselves and make sure we're doing right and serving God and being faithful. And when churches get a high and lofty view of themselves, they're going to get replaced. There is a lot of churches in this area that have a name that they live and they're dead. How about Fort Worth? First Baptist Church Fort Worth? I mean, talk about a name. They had J. Frank Norris. I mean, one of the greatest preachers of the 20th century. I mean, preaching crazy sermons, bringing brains and beer bottles and monkeys on the stage. He shot and killed a Catholic. Literally. Okay. I mean, the Catholic came in his office and threatened him and he shot and killed him. A huge court case. I mean, all the great men in the Bible are always having legal problems. Okay, folks. The apostle Paul's always being drug through court and Jesus is taking through court. And, you know, look, it's just a fact. I mean, King James trying to get the King James Bible, you know, put it out there all kinds of problems. The printers of the King James Bible. You know what people are doing? People are going in and tampering with their translations and making them bad on purpose to get them in all kinds of legal issues. So there was a Bible called the Wicked Bible. And in the Ten Commandments, it said, thou shalt commit adultery. You really, you're going to tell me the printer did that? Are you going to tell me? Because you know what they do? They would print the page and then they'd have people read it like tons of times. It's like someone obviously snuck in there, switched that page out. And then whenever that printer, you know, that printer almost went to jail and almost lost his life and had all these problems. I wonder who would want to stop someone from printing King James Bibles. The devil, that's who. Satan was trying to get in there and trying to twist the Bible and corrupt it. But of course, you know what? You can't stop the machine of the Bible and you know what? All the printing errors got fixed and it still got produced and God's word still prevailed and it's just going to continue to prevail. But you know what? The people that are going to do great things for God, hey, they're going to have legal issues and problems and all these different things. But even if we prevail through all of that and we keep having victory, we don't want to start getting this high and lofty view of ourselves of, oh, we're so great and we're so wonderful and whatever. And then just start doing nothing for God because we'll get replaced. God can replace anyone for any reason. We need to always have a low and humble view of ourselves. We should, we should really have a short-term memory, forget what we did in the past and think about what we're doing next year. What movies are we going to make next year and what missions trips are we going to do next year? And who am I going to get saved this upcoming soul-winning time? Not what I've done in the past, not what I will do. You know, Israel did some great things in the past, but they forgot that they needed to serve God. Oh, David served God, great. Well, you need to serve God. J. Frank Norris served God, we need to serve God. And these churches that have forgotten, now they're a nothing burger. They're doing nothing for God. They're not making any splashes in the culture. They're not causing any issue. They're not causing, I mean, how can our culture get worse every single year and your church still is not, no one is dislikes anymore. I'm like, what? Our culture is so reprobate and everyone still likes you. That's because the Republicans become the Democrats every five years and the churches just turn into the Republicans. So it's like the Democrats are five years ahead of the Republicans and the Republicans are five years ahead of the church down the street. And steadfast Baptist church is just the same. We're just trying to stay exactly like the Bible. If anything, I want to get more like God and be more contrasted, more holy. Let's close in prayer. Thank you Heavenly Father so much for giving us this chapter. Thank you for giving us the reality of the world that we live in and not always just giving us just good news. I pray that you would just help all of our hearts and our minds to be attached to the word of God that we would want to choose to serve you no matter what the circumstances are, no matter if we have a bad relationship, no matter if we have to go through difficulty or persecution or tribulation. And I pray that as we go through these difficulties, we'd never get a prideful or an arrogant attitude about it. We'd realize that we could always be replaced. I pray that we would just, as we go through this season, think about Christ, not think about all the presents and all the lights and the trees and the fun and the cookies, but we would also think about Christ. We'd think about his sacrifice. We'd think about what was on the horizon of Christ's birth. And I pray that you would keep us all safe during this time. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Brother Dylan invited me to come do the last song. So just like old times, right? It's going to be 432 angels from the realms of glory. We'll sing and then we'll get some cookies. Amen. 432 angels from the realms of glory. Sing all together on the first. Come and worship, worship Christ the newborn King. Shepherds in the field abiding, watching all your flocks by night. God with men is now residing, gondershines the infant life. Come and worship, come and worship, worship Christ the newborn King. Sages, leave your contemplations. Brighter visions, be my flower. Seek the great desire of nations, ye have seen his natal star. Come and worship, come and worship, worship Christ the newborn King. Saints before the altar bending, watching long and open air. Suddenly the Lord descending, and his temple shall appear. Come and worship, come and worship, worship Christ the newborn King. Amen. Thank you all for coming. God bless. You are dismissed.