That's always our goal with hard preaching, right? It's not that we're just up here
Preaching hard because we just want to condemn people. I mean, what did Jesus say?
He said I came not to condemn the world but that the world through me might be saved
And so he wanted people to be saved because why he says they're condemned already
So a pastor getting up and preaching hard against sin. He didn't give people an illness
He's diagnosing the illness, right?
So that people can take the medicine that they need to take and so the goal is curing the patient
And even if we preach hard against someone for whom there is no hope who is doomed or something
The point of that preaching is hey avoid this person stay away from these people
Don't be influenced by these horrible reprobates and and don't get affected by them and so forth
And so Jose is preaching hard against sin because he wants people to get right with God
And of course, it's already been alluded to earlier in the book that the northern kingdom is mainly going to disregard the preaching
Whereas a lot of people in Judah and even sometimes the leadership of Judah is going to get on board with God's program and get right with God
So it starts out in verse number one saying oh Israel
Return unto the Lord thy God for thou has fallen by thine
Iniquity and again when we crash and burn in life when we fall it's because of sin
And so we really have no one to blame but ourselves ultimately if we go out and live a life of sin
Disobey our parents steal kill commit adultery whatever and then reap the consequences for that
You know, that's just the way the world works
And so he's saying you fell by your iniquity you sinned and you've fallen
but now it's time to get back up and don't just lay there but stand up and get back in the fight serve God return
unto the Lord thy God