This is the Truth Network. Welcome to the broadcast ministry of Finding Purpose with Russ Andrews, where we seek to glorify God by making Him known and guiding others towards their true purpose in life. No one is here by chance. God put us here for a reason, and the most important thing we can do is discover His plan for us and commit ourselves to it. Keep listening as we learn from the Bible how to live wisely in God's world, which is the first step towards finding your purpose.
Well, good evening. It is good to see y'all, and I'm happy to be able to open up the Word of God with you this evening. We're going to be in Hosea chapter 11, verse 12, all the way to chapter chapter 12, verse 13. And as you're turning there, I'm going to go ahead and pray for us. Father, we come before you, Lord, just asking your mercies, your graces, your help, and your empowerment, Lord.
We cannot understand your mysteries apart from your power. Everything will be a parable that cannot be understood apart from your power. And I pray, Lord, that you would open our eyes and help us to behold the wondrous things out of your law. And Father, the biggest problem in this endeavor to understand your word is me, the preacher, Lord. It is only by your Spirit that we will understand.
So help me to be able to unpack the mysteries of your word by the power of your Spirit. Help me to say what you said. Speak through me. Use me and and work with me, Lord, as I preach. And I pray, Lord, that this word would accomplish the purpose for which you set it out to.
Ask this humbly in Christ's name, Amen. Hosea chapter eleven, verse twelve to chapter twelve, verse thirteen. I'm not going to read all the verses. I'm just going to read probably the first four, and I'll just do an exposition of the remaining verses. Hosea chapter eleven, starting at verse twelve.
Ephraim hath surrounded me with lies. Israel with the sea, and Judah is unruly against God, even against the faithful Holy One. Ephraim feeds on the wind; he pursues the east wind all day, and multiplies lies and violence. He makes a treaty with Assyria, and sends olive oil to Egypt. The Lord has a charge to bring against Judah.
He will punish Jacob according to his ways, and repay him according to his deeds. And in the womb, in the womb, he grasped his brother's heel. As a man, he struggled with God. He struggled with the angel and overcame him. He wept and begged for his favor.
He found him at Bethel, and talked with him there. That is the reading of God's word. I want to entitle this message, God's formal accusation against a sinful nation. God's formal accusation against a sinful nation. And we're just going to go ahead and dive right in.
The first point is, the entire nation of Israel is corrupt. That's God's first indictment of Israel. That's his first charge against Israel. And if you look at verse twelve, there's a particular a particular interpretive issue that I have to address. Depending on the version, the version of the English Bible that you have will determine how the passage is rendered.
If you have a King James, New King James, Newly Revised Standard, Revised Standard, ESV, or any of the other translations, they take this idea. Of the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom, and they see Hosea as contrasting the two kingdoms. They think that Hosea, based on how the original language is, that they translate it as if Hosea is saying the northern kingdom is corrupt, but the southern kingdom is is not corrupt. The southern kingdom is somewhat faithful to Yahweh, but then some translate it as The northern kingdom and the southern kingdom are both indicted; they're both corrupt. I read the passage from the NIV because I think it's good reason to believe that the NIV is probably the correct rendering of that of verse twelve.
And the NIV reads, "And Judah is unruly against God, even against the faithful one." And I will explain to you in a moment the reason why it's best to take it as Hosea referring to Israel as a whole nation rather than one aspect of a divided nation. But the main point of this verse is that both the southern and northern kingdoms are apostate. The nation that Yahweh inhabits surrounds him with lies, deceit, and rebellion. And in chapter twelve, verse one. Yahweh explicitly focuses his attention; it seems on the northern kingdom.
He calls them Ephraim. He says they are feeding the wind, and this idea of feeding the wind is kind of this idea—not not of necessarily eating the wind, but this idea of being a shepherd. They're trying to shepherd the wind. Particularly, they're trying to shepherd east wind, and you can't shepherd east wind. They're doing a foolish thing.
They're trying to play God. Only God can control the forces of nature. Only God can control the elements of nature in the world. And they're trying to take matters into their own hand through political manipulation, through all kind of lies and deceit, and do what only God can do. They're guilty of trying to play his role rather than trusting him, and we all are guilty of that at some point.
We've all tried to play God at some point in our lives, manipulate a circumstance here to get what we want, and that's what Israel is doing—not just Judah, but the not just Judah or the Northern Kingdom, but the entire nation is doing that. They're guilty of trying to make political alliances with pagan nations, Assyria and Egypt. And it has led Israel into sin, falsehood, and violence. All this sin is manifested by Israel's unfaithfulness to Yahweh. They made a covenant with Assyria, and they tried to bribe Egypt for the sake of protection because Yahweh told them, He said, "I protect you, I fight for you." But obviously, they didn't believe that because they're trying to make these political alliances to basically get an outcome that they want because they don't trust God.
But then that brings us to the second point. Israel is just like his father or ancestor Jacob, and you'll see that in verses two through six. Hosea here compares Israel to their father, and like Jacob, Israel is guilty of being a deceiver. We know that Jacob he was very deceptive. He lied, he deceived to get his way.
He took advantage of people. And to understand Hosea's point here, we need to understand something about the narrative of of Jacob's life, and you see that narrative recorded in Genesis chapters chapters twenty seven to thirty five. And no, we're not going to read that in case you get nervous. But verse two, it says, "God has a formal accusation against Israel for his sins." And he promises to punish the whole nation. The terms Judah and Jacob are synonyms.
They're synonymous for the whole nation. They should be taken as synonyms to refer to the nation as as a whole. Who is Judah but the son of Jacob? Who is Jacob but the father of the twelve tribes? Who are the twelve tribes but but but the tribes that compose the entire nation of Israel?
So what we need to understand is that although Israel was a divided nation, they were a divided kingdom. This does not mean you had the good side and the bad side. Both the northern and the southern kingdoms were wicked. Both the northern and the southern kingdoms had idolatrous kings. Both sides of the nation of Israel were corrupt.
Because one side doesn't necessarily—it takes more than one side to cause a divided nation. Both sides had issues, and both sides contributed to the division. And that seems to be the point that Hosea is getting at. And what we need to understand is is that Yahweh promises judgment on the whole nation. But this is good news.
How is judgment good news? We just sung about God being faithful. God's not just faithful to save; God is faithful to judge. That's good news. We can trust God, because in Deuteronomy twenty-eight and Leviticus twenty-six in the Mosaic covenant, He told Israel, He said, "If you're faithful to Me." You will get the covenant blessings.
If you are not faithful to me, you will get the covenant curses. I will send nations against you. I will send plagues. I will send famines. I will send droughts because I am a faithful God.
God keeps His promises. If God says He hates wickedness and He will judge it, He will do that. If He says He will pardon sin if we repent, He will do that. I'm telling you that because you can trust God. God judging sin is not an indictment against God.
It's a reason to praise and worship God because we don't serve an unjust God. We should celebrate His faithfulness, and we should also fear Him. Meaning that we should want to do what he says, because God means what he says. God doesn't go against His word, and we see that faithfulness manifesting in this indictment and in this eventual judgment of both the northern and the southern kingdoms. And if you want to understand why it's best to take this as one nation rather than one side of a divided nation, two dates makes it clear that God is going to judge both sides.
Seven twenty-one and five eighty-six. In seven twenty-one, the Assyrians came coming and they overtook Israel and they went into Assyrian captivity. In 720, in 586, he judged the southern kingdom because they saw what happened in the north and they didn't learn. They were just as bad as the north, and the Babylonians overthrew them. Which takes us to verses three through six.
In verses three through six, we see the reference to Jacob's life. Hosea opens verse three with a call for Israel to learn from the life of Jacob. That term, that phrase, "in the womb and as a man," indicates that Hosea has the entire narrative of Jacob's life in mind. The original readers or the original hearers of Hosea's sermon, they would have understood this. They would have knew exactly what Hosea was talking about.
But like their father Jacob, Israel is a nation with a reputation of being a deceiver. That's where the reference to Jacob's birth comes in. When Jacob was born, his name literally means he takes by heel, which was a Hebrew idiom that referred to a person who takes advantage of other people or deceives other people. That was Jacob's reputation. That doesn't necessarily mean his parents intended that meaning, but that became his reputation, because in the Bible, when you rename something, it meant something.
It probably didn't have the negative connotation originally, but his life bears out his name. He was a heel grabber. He was a deceiver.
So, so this is a wordplay on the Hebrew language, and he's referencing here Genesis twenty-five verse twenty-six. And Kenneth Matthews, in his Genesis commentary, this is what he says: He says that the child attacks the heel, conveys the ideas of deception, betrayal, opportunism. Esau acknowledged the appropriateness of Jacob's name for the schemer who stole his blessing, Genesis twenty-seven verse thirty-six, and he says the prophet Hosea too pointed to Jacob's behavior at his birth, as indicative of the defiance that the nation showed against the Lord. And then commentator Gary Smith writes, "Jacob is pictured as one who spent his life using deceptive means to get ahead instead of trusting God." The same, the same thing, the same thing the people of Israel and Hosea's audience were doing. And then, lastly, Derek Kidner he writes, "Through his own action, Jacob devalued the name into a synonym for treachery." So his parents probably did not intend to mean that.
Oh, my son's a deceiver. I don't, I don't know any parent who would do that. I'm going to name my son liar. I like that. No, nobody would do that.
They probably didn't mean that, but his life bears out the name, and and and that's the reputation that that he ended up having. But then Hosea goes on and he uses another wordplay. By referring to Jacob as a man who struggled with God, this is a wordplay on the name Israel, which means he strives with God, which is a reference to the life life of Jacob recorded in Genesis thirty two twenty six. His point here is that like their father Jacob, the nation of Israel is wrestling with God. But when Jacob wrestled with God, he was wrestling with God in faith.
I'm not going to let you go unless you bless me.
Well, the nation of Israel is actually doing the opposite. They're striving with God, not trying to get God's blessing, but trying to do things their way. And what Hosea is saying, you're not even looking at the life of your father Jacob. When he wrestled with God, he was trying to get the blessing. You're rebelling against God, and you're on the verge of receiving the curse.
That that's what he that's what he means here. But we need to learn from this. It is not a wise thing to fight with God. If we fight with God and His will is not doesn't line up with what we want to do, we're going to lose every time. And the nation of Israel is eventually going to lose because they're going to fight against God and they're going to fight their way into captivity.
They're going to fight their way into an Assyrian and eventually a Babylonian invasion. And then, additionally, when Hosea mentions Bethel, which is a reference to Jacob's journey to Bethel, recorded in Genesis twenty-eight and Genesis thirty-five, what we need to understand about Bethel is Bethel is a tale of two of two men: younger Jacob, whose life is characterized by deception, lies, and treachery. And then you get the the Jacob on the other side of Bethel. He's a man who's had a couple of experiences. He's a man who's experienced God.
He's a man who's been redeemed by God, and God changes his name to Israel. He changed his name because the man changed. He changed the man. He wasn't merely giving him a new name; he gave him a new identity, a new heart. He was transformed.
He wasn't the same person that he was in his younger years. And if you read through Genesis twenty-eight, you see this long journey of Jacob's life. In his first visit to Bethel, he he flees because he lied to his brother. He he he leaves as a fugitive. In in the middle of his fugitive journey, God meets him in Bethel, and he makes a covenant with him.
Wait wait a minute! Didn't you just say that he's on a run from Esau because he stole Esau's birthright and he was scared to die? But then God meets him and says, "I'm going to fulfill the Abrahamic promises through you." That's great news too, because that means that God does not look for the best behaved person to bless. Because if God looked for the best behaved person to bless, none of us would get any blessings. Because, but there are many times where our lives do not match up with our faith.
But it is good news that God is gracious and He's merciful, and He makes covenants even with sinful people. But it doesn't stop there; He affirms His intent to bless Jacob because of Abraham, not because not merely because of Jacob. And leading up to that second meeting at Bethel, Jacob experiences a series of events that led to the turning point of his life. He settles in Padetharam, Genesis twenty nine verses one to fourteen. He marries and he has children, Genesis twenty nine fourteen to chapter thirty verse twenty two.
And I want to call this next episode. He gets a taste of his own medicine. He gets a taste of his own medicine. What do you mean by that?
Well, Laban. What happened? What happens with Laban?
Well, it turns out Laban is just as deceptive as Jacob. Jacob sees his daughter; he wants to marry his daughter. He says, "Okay, you got to work X amount of years for my daughter." Well, then it turns out being a lot longer than that. Why? Because Laban was deceptive.
And it doesn't say this in the text, but it's a strong implication in this text that God is allowing Jacob to go through this experience. Number one, to teach him, and number two, to help him to self-reflect. Because, for example, if you have a pattern of lying, and then you experience somebody habitually lying to you, it kind of changes your perspective on lying. Because when we experience being sinned against, it changes how we how we see those sins. And I think God, through allowing Jacob to spend that time with Laban, him having the children, the whole event with Rachel and Leah, I think God used that to change his perspective.
It wasn't just so he can build his family and build wealth; it was so he could build a man. All of the other things are byproducts. But he gets a taste of his own medicine. But then he flees from Laban. They settle their differences.
Genesis thirty-one. Jacob is finally confronted with the reality that he must face his brother Esau. And then he says, "You know what? I'll give him some gifts. If I give him some gifts, he might not kill me." Well, then this leads up to the turning point, the great episode, that that great event where he wrestles with God in Genesis twenty-two, verse thirty-two.
After that, he meets Esau. The issue is settled; they reconcile. But then you have this other strange event in the Book of Genesis. His daughter is raped, and his sons, they retaliate. They're rightfully angry, but their response was wrong, and they go to to basically kill these foreigners who attacked his daughter.
Well, this forces Jacob. To have to flee, he has to flee the land. He has to return to Bethel for a second time, and God redirects his steps and sends him to Bethel. And it is there that God changes his name. He return He returns as a changed man.
Genesis thirty five verses nine and ten. As one commentator writes, Hosea's example is also a challenge for people to go back to their roots, to follow Jacob and meet Yahweh. The God of Hosts, Hosea twelve five, and and truly listened to what he said at Bethel. At the time, God promised to be their God, to care for them, to give them the blessings of Abraham. This is Israel's promise and hope too.
If they do not act like younger Jacob, remember the contrast. You have younger Jacob, who was a deceiver, and you have older Jacob, who experienced some things, learned, and his name was changed by God to Israel. We got to keep that in mind.
So the life of Jacob, older Jacob, is a call for Israel to learn from the past and repent.
Well, that takes us to verses seven to ten. The third point: Israel is acting like Canaanites. Where do you get that from, Jukwan? Where in the world is that at? That term "merchant" in your translations it says merchant, but he doesn't merely mean that Israel is just you know going around gaining stuff, doing business.
That's not what he means. This is actually an insult and an indictment of Israel, because in the Hebrew language, he's playing on words. The term "merchant" is actually a synonym for Canaan. Because Canaanites were known to be traders and merchants, Zechariah one eleven, Ezekiel sixteen twenty nine, and Ezekiel seventeen and four. If you want the cross references, and the Phoenicians called themselves Canaanites or merchants.
What they mean by that is merchants. Isaiah twenty three and eight. One commentator writes, "They who naturally were descendants of pious Jacob had become virtual Canaanites." Who were proverbial as cheating merchants, the greatest reproach to Israel, who despised Canaan. That's from Jameson Fausset Brown's commentary.
So, like the Israelites, well, not Israelites, Canaanites. Israel was dishonest, and they were a cheating nation who became wealthy by doing things that did not please God. And then Matthew Henry writes, "They carried on trade upon Canaanite principles, covetously and with fraud and deceit. Thus, they became rich and falsely supposed that providence favored them. But shameful sins shall have shameful punishments.
That's very sobering. We can never get over on God. If we had to sin to get it, we can't say God gave it to us." We can't say God gave it to us. Israel thought that, well, well, we're covenant children. We we've deceived a little bit and accumulated a little bit of wealth.
God is okay with it because we're covenant children, but that's not the case. That's why God sends the prophet. But what is more interesting about this statement is the next statement. It says, "Loves loves to defraud." This is an allusion back to their father Jacob. Like their father Jacob in their younger years, Israel as a nation loves to defraud and take advantage of the weak.
Genesis twenty seven thirty five. Younger Jacob took advantage of his starving brother Esau to get his birthright. Younger Jacob took advantage of his father with the weak eyesight to get to get a covenant blessing from his father, and ironically. The nation of Israel, by behaving like younger Jacob, they're actually behaving like the Canaanites, deceiving to get over, deceiving for gain, sinning to to get possessions, and that is what the prophet Hosea is getting at by alluding to all of these phrases and words and concepts, but. What we also need to understand is the nation Israel at the time deceived herself into thinking that God was not aware of her sins.
Verse eight, but they are mistaken because God does indeed see their sin, and He plans to send them in exile because of it. That's what verse nine is referring to. And in verses ten and eleven, the point is He sent prophets to tell them. That he was aware of it. That's the whole point of raising up prophets.
Prophets saw the mouth of God to the people of God who failed to do the will of God. That's what the prophets are about. Prophets have one message: repent, go back to the covenant. You're not living right. You need you need to do what God says.
That's what a prophet is. And he raised them up to let them know, I see what you're doing, and you need to change. And if you don't, I'm going to do what I told you I was going to do in the mosaic in the Mosaic Law. I'm going to send you into exile. And then all these references to Gilgal, verse 11, that's a reference to the content of what Hosea has already told Israel.
They know Gilgal is wicked, chapter 6, verse 8 of Hosea. They've already been told not to commit adultery, Hosea 4:15. They've already been told that idolatry is sinful, Hosea 8:11.
So they know this.
So simply put, Israel is being a stiff-necked nation. Both the northern and the southern kingdoms rebelled against the prophets and were sent into exile. If you want that reference to the northern kingdom, read Second Kings seventeen verses twenty-one and twenty-three. And if you want the reference for the southern kingdom, read Second Chronicles thirty-six verses fifteen and seventeen. And then even if you look at Stephen in the New Testament in the book of Acts.
He's preaching to his to his ancestors, people whom whom he he has a ethnic relationship with. And look at what he says. He calls them. He says they're a rebellious nation, always killing the prophets. And he takes them through their entire history, Acts seven verses fifty one to fifty three.
But that leads me to the fourth and final point. Israel has straight away from her humble beginnings. And that's in Hosea twelve verses twelve and thirteen, and what we need to understand here is he's really contrasting two people, Jacob and the Exodus, or Jacob and Moses.
So their father Jacob, they're prideful. They think they're this great. They're trying to be this great empirical power. They're prideful in themselves as covenant children. And God sends the prophet to remind them.
Wait a minute, simmer down a little bit. You're smelling yourself a little bit. You need you need to calm down. Don't forget where you came from. In the book of Proverbs, it talks about we should not despise humble beginnings.
We should always respect where we came from and value where we came from. Israel forgot where he came from, so he uses Jacob. To remind them of the origin of Israel as an ethnic people, in verse twelve, their father Jacob was a fugitive, and he was a sojourner, according to Genesis twenty-eight verse five. He served seven years for his wife, Genesis twenty-nine eighteen. And John Calvin writes, "I thought this was interesting." He says, "What was his nobility?
What was his power?" What was his dignity and eminence according to the flesh? Yea, truly, he was a fugitive from his own country. He had always lived at home. His father was but a sojourner, but he was constrained to flee to Syria. And how splendidly did he live there!
He was indeed with his uncle. He was treated no better than if he had not had been some worthless slave. He served for a wife, and how did he serve? He was a keeper of sheep. Go then now and boast of your dignity.
And if you were nobler than others, as if your condition were better than that sort of common people, God then brings against them the condition of their father, in whose name they glory, but who was an object, person, and figure, who was like a worthless slave, who was a keeper of sheep, who, in short, had nothing which could be deemed reputable among men.
So he's saying, look at your father, look how he started out. The chief ancestor, the one that I used to bring forth the twelve tribes that turned into the nation of Israel. Look how he started out. You need to go back to your roots. Who do you think you are?
You think you're above your father Jacob? You need to humble yourself. But then he says, "Okay, maybe you don't like Jacob. Let me take you to Moses." This refers to the origin of Israel as a theocratic nation, as a nation proper.
So the nation of Israel had to sojourn in the wilderness for forty years before they can enter into the promised land to become an established nation. Exodus thirteen three, Isaiah sixty three verses eleven to fourteen, and I'll just read this quote from John Gill because I just think he just makes the point. I don't even need to say anything else after I read this. John Gill writes, "By prophet the Lord bought Israel out of Egypt, or by the prophet, the famous and most excellent prophet Moses, who by way." Of eminency is so called him the Lord sent and employed, and made use of him as an instrument to bring his people out of their bondage in Egypt. And by prophet he was preserved.
By the same prophet Moses was Israel preserved at the Red Sea and in the wilderness, where they were kept as a flock of sheep from their powerful enemies, brought to the borders of Canaan's land, designed. Of this observation seems to be to put the Israelites in remembrance of their low estate in Egypt. That's the point. You had to be led out of the wilderness. You were like strayin' sheep.
You didn't know what you were doing. You were weak people. You were not a strong people. You were not a great force to be reckoned with. I raised up Moses to help you to get out of the wilderness.
You had to go through the wilderness for forty years. Why are you so prideful? Why are you so full of yourself? Go look back at your history. Go look back at how you began, because often that's what sin does.
Sin makes us forget how we came to God in the first place. Or even pride.
Sometimes pride will make us forget that we're recipients of grace. All of us are recipients of grace. I am nobody. If it wasn't for God, I would not be standing here right now. The only reason why I'm standing here is because of God.
The only reason why all of us here are in Christ is because of God. None of us can be proud. And anytime we feel the sense of of getting proud, we need to look back at history. We need to remember that it is because of God that we are in Christ. It is by grace we have been saved.
It is not of works. And when pride sets in, sin sets in, and that's what happened with the nation of Israel. They got they got prideful. We want to be like the other nations. We want to be like the Canaanites.
We want to be like the Egyptians, and they forgot who they are. What does this mean for all of us? On your notes, I have two application points, but but it's a need to have three application points, and I'll go through these very quickly. The first point of application for us is we need to learn from Israel's sin. We need to learn because if we if we don't learn from the past, we'll probably repeat it.
God includes this passage in the Bible so that we who believe can avoid what Israel did and repent. In First Corinthians ten, Paul talks about how God wrote these things down, so that we might not desire evil, as they did. And there he was referring to the Exodus, but it still applies to this portion of the Old Testament. The second point is, we need to be men of the book. We need to be men of the book.
The prophets were not merely fortune tellers who told the future. The prophets were men who spoke on behalf of God and called the nation of Israel to do what God had already said. They were not coming up with anything new. They were calling Israel to return back to what God had already said. And there are there are future elements in the prophecies, but for the main part, the prophecies are simply turn back to the covenant.
You're going the wrong way. Turn back to Yahweh, or He's going to send you into captivity. He's going to punish you for your sin. And another thing about the prophets—they knew the Old Testament very well. They were preacher theologians.
This is evident in how they point to Genesis. They allude back to previous revelation in the Old Testament. We need to be like the people in Nehemiah chapter eight, verse one, and we need to be yelling, "Bring us the book! Bring me the book! Bring us the word!" That's who we need to be.
We need to be people of the word. But I want to rush to tell you—that's not enough. What do you mean? You just told us to be people of the book. What do you mean?
It's not enough. That's not enough, because the Bible is important. The Bible is the Word of God, but the Bible is not enough. God has not just called us to be scribes. God has not just called us to be people that read a book and dissect it.
No, the Bible is pointing us somewhere. The Bible is directions, and if it's like reading a map, if you just read the map and you're not going to go in the destination, what's the point of reading the map? We don't just want to know where stuff is. We read a map to get there. That's how the Bible is.
We have to get to the destination.
So it's not enough to just read the Bible. It's not enough to just study the Bible. It's not enough to just hear sermons. You must turn to Jesus Christ. Jesus says, "You search the Scriptures, in them you think you have eternal life, but they all testify of Me." And the good news is the Bible tells us that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, and whosoever believeth in Him may not perish but have eternal life.
God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but He sent His Son into the world that the world might be saved through Him. That's why the nation of Israel came into existence. That's why God called Abraham. That's why He called Isaac. That's why He called Jacob.
That's why He preserved the Southern Kingdom. That's why He told Judah, "The sceptre shall not depart from Judah." That's why in Genesis three fifteen he says the seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent. That's none other than the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. If we study Scripture and we don't come to Christ, we've missed the point. The whole point is to come to Him.
To read Scripture is to encounter a living, reigning person in the Lord Jesus Christ.
So, so in all of our Bible reading, in all of our studying, in all of our fellowship, if we're going to avoid the sin that Israel did, we must turn. To the Lord Jesus Christ, because He's the only hope, He's the only way, He's the purpose of creation, He's the goal of redemption. If we fail to come to the Lord Jesus Christ, we will indeed repeat the sins of Israel.
So I urge you today: if you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ, come to Him. He's a merciful Savior. He's a great Savior. He's a strong Savior, and He welcomes you to come to Him. If you're wrestling today, turn to the Lord Jesus Christ.
If you say you know Him today, continue to turn to Him. We have no other hope. He's all we have. Without Jesus Christ, Bible reading doesn't mean anything. Studying the Bible doesn't mean anything.
It's only when we come to the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the foundation of our faith. He's the source of our transformation, and He's the one that we're looking to. He's the source of our hope.
So, please come to the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's pray, Father. I come before you, Lord, just asking that you would just work in the hearts. If it's somebody here, Lord, that. They're kind of on the fence.
They don't know what this Christianity thing is about, Lord. I pray, Lord, that you would bring them to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, and I pray, Lord, that those of us who know you, those of us who believe, you would keep us firm, Lord, because we can just as easily fall into the sins that Israel committed apart from your grace. Help us to take heed, lest we fall, Lord. We are not strong. You are strong.
We we don't have the power. You have the power. And I just pray, Lord, that you would continue to strengthen our hearts, enrich our hearts, and help us to follow you faithfully. We ask this humbly in Christ's name. Amen.
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