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Amen. So you're there in Hosea chapter number two. So we're going to continue through the study of Hosea. So just a little recap from last week. We went through Hosea chapter one. We kind of set the stage for who Hosea was. Hosea is a prophet to the northern kingdom of Israel. Just several years before they go into, not into captivity. They don't really go into captivity. They're called the 10 lost tribes of Israel because they're basically wiped out by the Assyrians or they were the Assyrians mixed with them and they just became these Samaritan people who could no longer be identified as any particular tribe. But Hosea was a prophet. He's the first of what the Bible calls the minor prophets. There's 12 minor prophets at the end of the Old Testament and Hosea is the first in that order. But he was a prophet during the reign of Jehu's third son which was Jeroboam, the second not Jeroboam junior or Jeroboam the second, but the second king of the northern kingdom of Israel that's named Jeroboam which is a son of Jehu. So that's what we talked about last week. We also looked at last week in Hosea chapter one, this comparison, this object lesson that God is doing using an adulterous or whorish woman, a prostitute. Hosea marries this prostitute and he's using that comparison as this woman, this woman that is not faithful to her husband and lives this type of unfaithful, un-loyal life. He is comparing that to the nation of Israel, the northern kingdom of Israel. Look down at Hosea chapter two and look at verse number one. Knowing all of that and what we looked at in Hosea chapter one, look at verse number one of Hosea chapter two. It says, Say ye unto your brethren Ammi and to your sisters Rehuma. These are the children listed, by the way, in the first chapter and the names of these children Ammi, if you remember, I think it's verse number eight or verse number nine. I could be quoting that wrong. You could look in your Bible for it, but basically Ammi means not my people. Okay, that's what the name means. So God has the names of the children is also an object lesson to the nation of Israel. Ammi means not my people. Rehuma means I will no more have mercy. All right, so these were the names of Gomer's children and Hosea's children that God, you know, told them to, you know, he told them to name the children these specific names to kind of teach a lesson. All right, like Ammi, not my people. All right, so I mean, first of all, I didn't go into this in chapter number one, but if you look at the end of chapter number two, just real quickly, let's go, you know, go to the end before we go to the beginning and you look at what God says in verse 23. He says that I will say to them, which were not my people, thou art my people. So this doctrine in the Bible that, you know, the Jews are no, the Jews that did not accept Jesus, let me just like lay this doctrine out for you in 25 seconds. The Jews that did not accept Jesus, just like the northern kingdom of Israel here, Ammi, not my people. See, this nation turned against God, what does that mean? Not my people. So that means that somebody that rejected Christ, this is what Paul is talking about in Romans chapter 9 and 11, those that rejected Christ, guess what? Not my people. Ammi. That's what it means. So to just say that that some Christ rejecting, someone that follows a Christ rejecting religion today is God's people, whatever that religion is, is ridiculous and anti-Bible. I mean, it's just so clear in the Bible, just in Hosea chapter number two, that it is those who accept God and accept the Messiah and accept ultimately the Lord Jesus Christ that are God's people, all right? That is Israel. And verse number 23 is simply talking about the Gentiles coming in, you know, the gospel being preached to the Gentiles, all right? Go back to Hosea chapter two, the beginning of the chapter, but again, the names of these children are a lesson in themselves, all right? Not my people, I will no more have mercy on you. Look at verse number two. So he's telling the children, he says, plead with your mother, plead. Again, the mother is a metaphor. Remember, we looked at what a metaphor is last week. The mother is a metaphor to the nation of Israel, all right? And it's also a metaphor to us as well. That's another thing we looked at last week. Plead with your mother. Plead for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband. Let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight and her adulteries from between her breasts. Turn to Jeremiah chapter number 17. So clearly, this woman still has problems. She is not being a faithful wife. And that is the lesson that God is teaching here through this woman. And he's literally saying, you know, tell the children to plead with their mother. Now he says, put away her adulteries from between her breasts. It's interesting because just a quick note here, Jeremiah chapter 17, look at verse number nine. Where do adulteries lie? Where does lust come from? Where do all these desires that are not godly, where do they come from? They come from our heart. And that's in between our breasts, all right? Look at verse number 17 or verse number nine of Jeremiah 17. The Bible says, the heart is deceitful among all things and desperately wicked who can know it. So again, that's kind of just a reference there to that statement in verse number two. You can go back to Hosea chapter two. Hosea chapter two, look at verse number three. So the children are to plead with their mother, or if they can't convince her, if the children can't convince their mother, I mean, he's basically saying to the prophet is saying, he's pleading with the nation here. He's pleading with the nation to get right. Look at verse number three, or there will be consequences. And what are the consequences? In verse number three, we start to see what those consequences will be. It says, lest I, in verse number three, Hosea two, verse three, lest I strip her naked and set her as in the day that she was born. So we see two things here. We see two consequences here. This is the first consequence, this first statement. And then we see after this, and then it says, and make her as a wilderness and set her like a dry land and slay her with thirst. Now that's something different, all right? So in the first phrase there, he says, lest I strip her naked and set her as the day she was born. He's talking about like literally stripping someone naked and like causing them shame, is what he is talking about here, right? So, but the problem with this nation, and you'll see that this is a problem with any nation. This is why the Old Testament, the Minor Prophets, all this is directly applicable to every nation, not only every person, but every nation that has ever existed. The problem here is this, shame is not good enough for this nation. So it has to move beyond shame in verse number three. So you don't just see, lest I strip you naked and cause you shame, because a nation, see look, a normal, with a normal nation, with a normal nation, shame would be enough. Just shame would be punishment in itself. But God is in a position here with this nation, and I would also argue with our nation we are at this point. We are at this point, we are passing this point. See, God, in verse number three, is saying, I stripped her naked and she didn't care. I stripped her naked and I didn't even have to because she was already naked. But this is why, right here, verse number three is so valuable, why God had to go from shame to punishment. He had to move through shame. Shame was not good enough because this nation was beyond shame. And that's why you'll see in a culture of a nation that is turning away from God, you will see that a culture that is turning away from God is trying to destroy shame. They're trying to shame the shamers. That's why you hear people say things like, you know, don't judge or, you know, you know, everything like the everything's okay culture, where just, you know, everybody could just do whatever they want and everything's fine. Look, that's Satan's plan to destroy shame, because shame is one of the tools that God uses to get nations right, to get people right. It's a tool that God uses. Look, I would much rather so look, look, you get as an individual, if you're under the chastisement of God, or even an individual that just gets in trouble in the world, and it's embarrassing, or they're shamed about it. It's a good thing that you feel ashamed. It's a good thing that you get in trouble, and you feel like a child gets in trouble, he does something, and he embarrasses his family. That's good. Not that he didn't embarrass his family, no, but the embarrassment is good. The shame of it is good. You know, one of the things that I've seen in my lifetime, in the last 25 years, where I have seen shame almost completely go away, is in the area of pornography. It used to be a super shameful thing. It used to be a thing where it was like no one really had access to it, and if somebody would ever, you know, get caught looking at something like that, it would be an extremely shameful thing. Now it is something that you will literally hear people in the world talking about openly, completely without shame. What's the purpose of that? It's Satan's plan to destroy shame. Well, guess what? If there's no shame anymore, God has no tools, he moves straight to punishment on the nation, and that's what you see in verse number three. A nation beyond, see, a normal nation, shame is enough. Now look, that's why you see in our nation today, we're in many ways, Western culture is a laughing stock to the rest of the world, but we're beyond shame. People that are pushing this Western culture, this woke culture, they stand up and they push it proudly. People that are not in that type of culture are laughing at us. If you read foreign news, foreign opinions, foreign commentary, people think it's a joke. They think like we've literally gone insane, and we have, but what's happening is Satan is destroying shame, and these people that are pushing this, they're beyond shame, and if a nation goes beyond shame, all that God has left is punishment. Thirst, that's punishment. That's punishment. Go to verse number four of Hosea chapter number two. Verse number four, it says, and I will not have mercy upon her children for they be the children of whoredoms. You know what that means? That means when I punish this nation, God is saying, he is saying, everyone will suffer. It will not just be the adult woman. It will be everyone that suffers thirst. Sounds like everyone should have some skin in the game of a nation that is turning against God. If you just get along with everything in this culture that we're dealing with today, like there's a problem. There's a problem there. Look at verse number five. For their mother hath played the harlot, she hath conceived them that done shamefully, for she said, now we go into something different here, I will go after my lovers that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and mine drink. All these things that she needs, she went and she found elsewhere, her lovers. The Bible is using an analogy here. You say why? Look at verse number six. Therefore, therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns and make a wall that she may not find her past. So it's not going to work. She's going to go and she's going to go elsewhere to seek these things that she needs. And God says she's not going to find it. And it gets even worse. Look at verse number seven. And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them. She shall seek them, but shall not find them. Then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband, for then it was better with me than now. But look at the first part of verse number seven again, where it says, she shall seek them, but shall not find them. What is seek who? She's looking for the people that she left her husband for. And she's not able to find them. She can't even find the people, the lovers that she left her husband for. Now she's got nothing. Now she's out in the open because they left her too. And now she literally has nothing. So this is what I want to talk about tonight. I want to talk about these first seven verses and just a few verses after this. And I want to talk about this disease that we have, that a nation has, and that this woman has that applies to us in our lives as well, where the grass is always greener on the other side. That's what I want to talk about tonight. Look, and I'm not talking about, you know, I want to look at tonight, I want to look at why we do this and the consequences of doing this. I mean, wherever we are, we think that things are better somewhere else. Why is that? Wherever we are at that time, we think that things are better over there. And look, I'm not talking about, I'm not talking about jobs and things and all that stuff tonight. I'm talking about relationships. I'm talking about relationships tonight because that's exactly what this is applying to here in the Bible. It's talking about relationships. Why do we do this in our lives? And the first type of relationship that it talks about is marriage. So why do people in marriages, look, if you have this grass is greener on the other side mentality in your life, and you let that come into your relationships, it is a life-destroying condition. And I'm going to show you how it's a life-destroying condition tonight. Turn to 2 Peter chapter number 2, and let me just give you a prerequisite course here before we get into this study on the grass is greener. If the sermon had a title, that would be the title, the grass is greener. Look at 2 Peter chapter number 2. See, a prerequisite to success in anything, the Bible teaches us, is one word, and that word is stability. A prerequisite to succeeding in any aspect of your life, especially in relationships, is stability. Look at 2 Peter chapter 2 in verse number 14. The Bible says in James 1, you've heard it many times, a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. You know, Reuben's dad told him, unstable is water, thou shalt not excel. Talking about stability is a prerequisite for success. Look at verse number 14 of 2 Peter chapter number 2. The Bible says, having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot, talking about false prophets here, that cannot seize from sin being beguiling what? This is talking about people that are coming in and teaching false things, and teaching things that are not in the Bible, to get people to follow their evil ways, and they're fooling people, but they're fooling who? They're tricking who? They're getting people to go with them. These evil, wicked, false prophets are getting people to go with them, beguiling unstable souls. People that don't have stability in their lives. At heart, they have exercised with covetous practices, cursed children. It goes on and on. But the point is, the people that got tricked and fell into that were the unstable people. The stable people, no problem. They didn't have an issue. So, all that to say this. If you've ever wondered, if you've ever wondered, if you've ever looked at certain people, and what we'll do in our lives is we'll look at certain people that are just good at everything. You look at some people that are just good at everything. They seem to succeed at everything that they do. Maybe they're great in their spiritual life, and they've got everything. They just seem to have everything together. You wonder why that is. Here's what it is, folks. They have stability. They have stability. What does that mean? It means they have mental stability, and they have physical stability. They have stability. They have mental, physical, and spiritual stability in their life. Also, they have the energy to maintain that stability. If you have the ability to be stable, you have the energy to just keep yourself mentally, physically, and spiritually stable, you know what that's called? That's called diligence in the Bible. If you apply that stability and that energy to be stable anywhere in your life, outside your spiritual life, you will succeed. That's the difference between people that succeed and the people that just can't, because people that just can't, and I'm not going to preach this whole sermon that I preached a month ago, but people that just can't, they have an idea. They have a good idea. Like, I need to do this. I need to get this right, but they have that idea for like 10 minutes. They have that idea for like two days, and then something gets hard. Something gets a little difficult, and they stop because they don't have the stability. They either don't have the stability or they don't have the energy to remain stable. I mean, I don't know. If you don't have energy, you've got to find it. You've got to find some energy. You've got to fix yourself and get yourself stable and get yourself energetic to remain stable in your life, but that's why some can achieve and some can't, and your spiritual life is no different. Your spiritual life will die. It will fail if you are not stable. Let's go back to the grass is greener here. The grass is greener. Leaving one thing for another thing, what am I talking about? What is this problem? What is this sickness, this disease that people have that we're talking about tonight? What is the problem that this woman in this chapter has? She left one thing for another thing that was worse than the thing that she had before. You're like, why is that? Well, it's driven by instability. That's the first thing you need to know. Now, let's apply this to relationships. Let's apply this to relationships. We're going to first talk about your marriage tonight, and if you're not married, we're going to talk about your future marriage tonight, all right? So we're going to do a thought experiment. I want all the married people to think about this for a second. We're going to close our eyes. You don't have to close your eyes, but I really want you to think about this for one minute, maybe five minutes. I want to do a thought experiment, and I want you guys to think about life tomorrow if your wife was gone. I want you ladies to think about what your life would be like tomorrow if your husband was gone tomorrow. I mean, are you panicking a little bit? You think about, just think about this. I'm asking you to actually just close your eyes and think about what your life would look like if your husband or your wife was gone tomorrow. Well, I mean, and I want you to get past the loneliness. I hate being alone. I personally, I can't stand being alone. I don't like it. When everybody leaves my house, and they go shopping or something, and I'm like, why didn't I go with everybody? I didn't want to go to Hobby Lobby, but it's better than this. So I want you to get past the loneliness. I want you to get past about how terrible you would feel about it, and what I want you to think about for just a few minutes tonight is I want you to think about the logistics of your family tomorrow if your husband was gone or tomorrow if your wife was gone. I mean, the first thing that's probably come into your head is where in the world would the kids go? What would I do with my kids? Even, I even have older children, and I would think, what am I going to do with my kids? What am I going to do? I mean, I guess there would have to be, look, for us in this room, there would be major changes. For us, I guess there would have to be some kind of daycare that comes into play. There'd be some kind of public school system or private school or whatever system that has to come into play. I mean, for most people, if their spouse would disappear tomorrow, homeschooling would simply not be an option at that point. I mean, I think about, I'd probably need, I'd probably need a new job, maybe a less demanding job, where I could be, you know, home more or something. I would probably need to adjust my my work schedule to some degree. The women, the women here, you would have to find a job, probably. I think about what I would do if I came home at night. I mean, how would my day, I'm just trying to get through one day here. I'm trying to just get through one day. So I find a different job. The women would have to go out and find a job. Then I would come home at night, and I don't know, the food, who's going to feed people, the cooking, the cleaning, the laundry. Our washer machine is constantly going and dry. I mean, people dismiss these things, but it's a real thing. People dismiss the keeper at home, but someone needs to keep the home. So the home would probably fall apart. I'd probably need to hire someone there too. I'd probably be broke very quickly on just the logistics of things and not even to speak of the dangers that my children would be in at that point. I listened to, I don't want to go too much off on this, but I listened to, or I read an article of a quote that Elon Musk gave in an interview that he had, and he talked about one of his children from one of his previous marriages. I actually don't even know how many times he's been married, so I don't want to misquote anything there. But he said something profound in this interview. He has one of these children from I think his first marriage many years ago. One of these children has been taken into this transgender mess and was given medications that damaged his son forever. He made the comment, he said, my son is dead. He was speaking against what he calls the woke mind virus and trying to explain to this interviewer why he's so against this. He basically said, my son is dead because of it. He was speaking figuratively. He didn't really understand that he was also speaking spiritually. But what's interesting, and look, I'm not trying to be mean to Elon Musk, this is a terrible situation. I think that he has done and he is doing some good things. But what's interesting from that statement, from my perspective, is that with all his billions and with all his intelligence, he somehow missed his responsibility to protect his son from people that would harm him. And that's a sad story. But see, there was no family structure there to protect. So that's another consequence that we would all face if our wife or your husband was gone tomorrow. It's funny because one of the articles that was talking about his estranged son said this. He said, who are these people that would harm him? Well, trust the science. Isn't that what they tell us today? This article had this quote, I just want to read it to you. It says, gender affirming care is a valid science-backed method of medicine that saves lives for people who require care while navigating their gender identity. Gender affirming care can range from talk or hormone therapy to surgical intervention. I mean, they're literally talking. Look, this is science today, folks. You want to know why I'm so hard on mainstream science? Because this is science. This is mainstream science today. You can take it all and throw it in the trash. We don't need any of it. We'll engineer stuff. Forget science. Get rid of this stuff. This is evil as hell and is driven by Satan. Trust the science. No. No. So the point is this, no wife, no husband equals great danger. If your wife was gone tomorrow, if your husband was gone tomorrow, yes, there would be great hardship. There would probably be financial disaster. There would be great stress, great difficulties, but it would be great danger for the entire family. Look, so many problems in life, so many problems in life would be solved for people if they just stayed married. You see people whose lives turn into such messes and so many of those problems would have not been there if they just would have stayed married. But my marriage had problems. Well, hey, that's the field that God wants you in, though. Work on your own pasture. Don't be looking for greener pastures. Work on that marriage. There is literally nothing in your marriage that cannot be fixed by the word of God. Nothing. Not one thing. And here's another thing. If you didn't follow the word of God and you ended up failing at a marriage, look, that doesn't mean you can't do anything great in your life and all those things, but look, here's another thing that really irritates me. You're seeing this more and more and more lately. If you did fail at marriage and, you know, that doesn't make you an expert on anything. If you did, you know, end up going through a divorce, I'm sorry that that happened to you and you can move forward, especially if you're saved and you can move forward in your Christian life. But look, failure does not qualify you as an expert. So don't think that you have the right to counsel somebody on marriage or divorce or anything like that. Just keep your mouth zipped in those situations and just go serve the Lord with your life. Go do what you're supposed to with your life. Back to our thought experiment. Without a spouse, without your spouse, you would be dealing with massive change in your life. And you know what? You probably are sitting there thinking, why would people, why would someone voluntarily want to do that? But the answer is, that's not what they do. They don't just decide, I'm leaving and I don't want a spouse anymore. And that's not what this lady in Hosea chapter two did. She went, people are leaving marriages, they are usually leaving for someone else. They are usually leaving for another pasture that they view as a greener one. And the problem is this, go back to Hosea chapter number two and look at verse number eight. Look at Hosea chapter number two and verse number eight. This is why you will find so many people that you could talk to and if they're honest, 20, 30 years after a divorce, after the kids are growing up, after they've gone through all of that, they would tell you if they're honest, that they wish that they never got divorced in the first place. And the reason is because of verse number eight of Hosea chapter two where the Bible says, for she did not know. She did not realize. You see, who did she, she went to those lovers, she went to those other people that she wasn't even able to find anyway, but she went because they gave her water and bread and flax and wool and oil. They gave her all these things, but guess what? She already had it. Look at verse number eight. And more so than that, I gave her corn and wine and oil and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal. So she already had, look, there's a reason that gold and silver wasn't in the first list. She already had gold and silver. Guess what? If you have gold and silver, you can get anything. If you have gold and silver, you can get anything you need. That's why that's in there. There is nothing that she physically could have needed. She already had gold and silver. She already had everything and she traded it for flax. But that's what people do. That's what people do. They think that the flax is better than the gold and the silver they have. And you say, well, you know, somebody listening to this could say, well, my marriage isn't perfect. It doesn't seem like, it doesn't seem like gold, but here's the thing. Then you need to work on where you are. You need to work on what God gave you. You need to work on the pasture that God put you in. This isn't the same. You see why this relationship application, it's not the same as some job opportunity. You want to go pursue a career, go after it. Go get it. Go get the career. And opportunities come to you if they don't mess up your spiritual life, take them, get them, do it. This is different. This is the pasture that your marriage is the pasture that God put you in. And there is gold there. Look, you one time, at one time, every single person, no matter what the state of their marriage now, they thought there was gold there at one time. You just need to work on that. You need to improve that relationship. You need to fix those problems. You need to, you need to find, look, there's gold there. Find it again. If you've lost it, find it. The one God gave you is the pasture that it can be the greenest one. Because there's gold there. But look, this applies to all relationships. Not just marriages. This same thing. It applies to, I think about churches. I think about somebody that goes to churches and that they just can't stay in a church. Because why? Because there's greener pastures everywhere. But look, finding a church is very, is very simple. It's not hard to, there's only, there's really only two criteria to a church. You have to find a church that is, you know, has the right doctrine and is doing that doctrine. Basically a church that has, that is teaching the right things and a church that is doing the right things. So if a church is teaching the right things, they're obviously using a King James Bible. They have a correct gospel. Then they have the right works too. They're not just speaking. They're actually doing the right works. They're doing the first works. They're going out with that correct gospel. They're going out with that correct Bible. And they're preaching the gospel to people. They're soul winning. It's not complicated. That's it. That's, that's what you need in a church. Turn to Romans chapter number 16. See, but then what people do is they'll be like, well, the preaching wasn't as good as at my last church or, and they'll just find things to look at. But go to Romans chapter number 16. See, this is a major problem though. Look at Romans 16 and verse number 17. The Bible says in Romans 16, I'll wait for you to get there. Go to Romans 16 and look at verse number 17. You need stability in your church life too. And the first, the first stability that you need is you need to find and stay in a church that has two criteria. It's teaching the proper doctrines of the Bible, and it is doing what the Bible tells a Christian to do. All right, look at verse number 17. Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which you have learned and avoid them. For they are, so these are people that are causing trouble. For they are such that serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly, and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple. So again, here we see what these people are deceiving people that are unstable. They're deceiving people that are unstable. And how are they doing it? By good words and fair speeches. There's lots of great preachers out there. There is lot like there's there's a reason that you get some of these Steve Furtnick's and whatever and they get up and like a million people watch whatever they say. Because they get up and they have good words and fair speeches. What they say is completely wrong, but people don't care so much about that. People care about if it tickles their ears. People care about how it makes them feel. And look, quite frankly, the Bible is not going to make you feel great all the time. When I was standing up here last week screaming at you calling you a prostitute, was that nice? No, it's not nice, but it's the truth. It's what the Bible says. And look, there's always going to be better preachers. There's always going to be so go to the preacher, you know, he kind of, you know, it's not, he's a little bit more boring than, you know, look, I don't want to be boring. I want to be a better preacher every single year, all of this, but that's not the important thing. The important thing is what is said, not how it is said. Even Paul himself said, you know, he's slow of speech and he was not a great orator. He was powerful in letters, but he got up and he talked and people were like, what? Who is this guy? But what did he say though? That is the key. Look, you need to find a pastor in a church, a pasture, I'm talking about a greener pasture. You just need to find a church that has the right doctrine, is doing the right things, teaches and does the right things and you need to find the gold there because that's where it is. But people will just nitpick things and they will just make themselves these people that just can't stay in a church and it's a really, really sad thing. And look, that comes down to your friends in the church too. That comes down to your friends. Look, this one especially, friends in the church, let me tell you all something and I'm glad it's this group and this group only tonight, but let me tell you something, you as far as friends, as far as your brothers and sisters in Christ, you are never going to find other people on this planet that get you like the people in this room. So for people to, I mean, you all believe the Bible to the degree of 99.9% of everything I'm sure in this book. Number one, the Gospel and every important doctrine you all agree on. You are never going to find somebody in this world outside the walls of this church, except, you know, churches that we're friends with, of course, other Bible believing churches, you're not going to find that anywhere else. So some of you just need to get better, probably all of us need to get better at just letting idiosyncrasies go. Just letting silly things go, myself included. Like, oh, well, you know, there's these two guys or this one guy or this one gal in the church and every time we get in a conversation, it's just, she just really annoys me. What in the world? We need to just be, we need to get better at that. Always. I mean, look at what we are up against out there in the world. Annoying people are the least of your troubles. Annoying people that agree with 99.9% of all the important things that matter are like way down on the list of problems that you have in your life. I mean, some of us just need to be more tolerant. I mean, less annoying would be nice, but more tolerant as well. And look, I'm sure everybody here is annoying. I'm sure I'm annoying. I mean, I kind of know when I'm being annoying, like when I'm really excited about something and maybe I'm talking over somebody too much or I kind of know when I'm doing that. I mean, I try to. Everybody's annoying at times. Every guy, every gal is annoying, but what I'm trying to say is that when it comes down to the people who get you, there is no one close than the people that are sitting right here on Wednesday night with us looking through the Bible. But I mean, the problem is that you get people and they just leave churches and they go to the next church and they just find, you know what, you find annoying people there too. Then you go to the next church and the pastor annoys you on some other subject or whatever and you go to the next church. You see the problem? The problem every church has, no matter the doctrine, you go find a church with the proper doctrine that's a soul winning church and every single one of those churches are going to have the same problem. You know what that problem is? They're all filled with people. And they're all, and they're all, here's another one. This one's crazy. They're all led by a pastor who is a person too. And all these people are flawed and all these people are annoying and all these people irritate you at different times and all these people at times, you're going to be like, what do you mean by that? Is that a shot? Everybody is going to deal with stuff like that. But what we are up against in this world, that's the war. And this is silly stuff. All this stuff. So look, we just need to have stability in our church life. And we either just need to let things go. I mean, if there's real issues where somebody has interpersonal issues with somebody, look, either you just need to work those things out or just let them go. Very simple. We need to make sure that we stay stable in our church life and especially that we stay stable amongst our brothers and sisters in Christ. Because look, this is who I want to go through this life with. This is who I want to be. You are all the peculiar ones that are peculiarly just like me. And it is not worth silly little problems. Look, I don't even know any problems in the church. I'm just saying this is preventative maintenance. What do people do? They go into a church and they find a little tiny problem with one person or two people or whatever it is and they throw, they trade the gold for the flax. And then they go and they can never find what they had here again. It's the same as this woman in Hosea chapter number two. They traded all the good stuff for people they can't even find. And then they just go and they search and they search and they search and they'll never find what they had here. Never. Here's another one. Here's another one. This is a quick one but I want the kids to listen up. Kids. Same thing. As long as you're in your parents' house, it doesn't matter. And this is for teenagers. This is for teenagers even though we really don't have many teenagers. Maybe there's some listening online. Look, teenagers they grow up and they start to think that, look, it doesn't matter what you think the pasture looks like on the other side, kids. As long as you are in your parents' house, you play by their rules. And look, you find the gold in that house. Because let me tell you something, there's, you know, you'll see these kids that are like 18 and I'm out of there. And look, you're throwing, you'll find out, you'll find out, you'll find out that it's, look, it's better to get on your feet with support if that option is available to you. And the grass is not going to be greener. You just listen to your parents 18, 19, whatever it is, however long it takes you, play by their rules. There's gold there. There's advantage to, you know, supporting yourself is hard. If there's help there to get you on your feet and get you running, take it. It's better to get on your feet with support if that option is available to you. Go back to Hosea. Go back to Hosea. But ultimately the relationship that we need to look at tonight, and we'll wrap up here in just a minute, is our relationship with the Lord. Is our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. If you go back to Hosea, look, nations, nations don't just turn to nothing. Nations that, you know, nations don't turn from godly nations to atheism. What do they do? They turn, look, atheism is rare folks. Most atheists, when you talk to them, most of them will admit to you, most people that say they're an atheist will admit to you that they don't really know. That's agnostic. That's not atheist. Atheism is rare. That's why you see, like even like primitive tribes throughout history, they're not atheists. They're pagans. They've made gods of the sun and the moon and the stars and the trees and the forest and whatever. The rain, the fire, they've made gods of all these other things, but they're not atheists. I mean, atheism is a special sort of, like the Bible says, like the fool has said in his heart that there is no god. Like it's a special fool that can just walk through this life and be like, yeah, there's no god. Like at least like, you know, you walk around, you see creation, you're like, okay, well, you know, the Poseidon made that or whatever. It was like, it's better than being like, nothing made it. But guess what? Guess what? Look at, look at Hosea chapter two and verse number 16. They always, nations always turn to something else. And that's what God is talking about here. He says, for I will take away the names of Balaam out of their mouth. What does he mean by the names of Balaam? The names of Balaam means whatever god they chose. That's what he's like, whatever version of Satan they're worshiping is what the Bible is saying here. And they shall be more remembered, they should be no more remembered by their name. Look, the names of Balaam for nations are false religions. That false religions that a nation turns to, you know, whether it be, you know, Middle Eastern nations, you know, under Islam, whether it be Judaism, whatever, all these are false religions. These are names of Balaam. Like I said, even primitive tribes aren't atheists. They have other gods, pagan gods. Science itself is another name of Balaam today. Mainstream science, the science I just read to you, that's another name of Balaam. Look, it's a religion folks. This mainstream science that I'm talking about today, I'm not talking about engineering or things that actually produce products and build things and, you know, work. I'm talking about this, what we're being taught is science today. It is a religion. From whatever replaces creation, from the big bang to multiple realities. I mean, what in the world? What kind of moron do you have to be to believe this stuff? There's just infinite realities. And every single possibility of like what I could do right now, it exists in its different universe. People believe this. People at universities that have gone to school for, you know, 12 years at the university, they believe this stuff, they teach this stuff. It is a religion and it's a particularly stupid one. Time travel, the denial of absolute in your face, see it and touch it reality. That's what it is. Science is supposed to be experimentation. I have a hypothesis, let's run an experiment, see if it works or not. Now science is just denying reality. A man is a woman, a woman is a man. What is a woman? It's so ridiculous. Like you couldn't even, you wouldn't even, if you described it as someone who lived 15 years ago, they wouldn't believe you. That's how ridiculous it is. It's all defined as science today. It's a religion. It's a name of Balaam. It's a name of Balaam and it's one of the dumbest ones. The grass is not greener. This is the point. A nation that turns to this stuff, you know, that's why, that's why the science that you see trusts the science or I believe in science. You know what they are? They're saying I don't believe in God. That's what they mean by that. Because they have turned from God to that religion of just denying everything that is good. The grass is not greener. The grass is not greener. Stick with your marriage. Stick with your relationship. Stick with your church. And most importantly, stick with your friends. Most importantly though, stick with your God. Be loyal to your God. There is no need for you personally. And we're going to look at the consequences of this nation in the coming chapters. There is no need for you personally or me personally to go through the shame or the punishment that comes with turning your back on your God. Save the shame. I mean, save the punishment. Save the chastisement for us as believers. We're never going to go to these ridiculous false religions and all these types of things, but we should be able to read this chapter, read Hosea and save ourselves from this. Because this woman left. She left what she had that was the best and she went to something she couldn't even find. And that's what a nation, this is what God is saying, that's what a nation that turns its back on God is doing. They're turning away from God that gave them everything. Gold, silver, you can get all of everything with that. All the blessings come with that. And they went to someone who promised them things that they couldn't even find in the end. We personally should never do that. We personally should, if we have this grass is greener on the other side with relationships in our lives, we need to remember that look, that marriage is where God put the gold in your life. If you have found a good church, that church is where God put the gold in your spiritual life. Those brothers and sisters in Christ who are saved, who are there for you, who maybe are the most irritating people you've ever met in your life, that's the gold for you though. Because none of that stuff matters. And maybe the problem is you. Maybe the problem is, let me tell you something, I'm a completely different person than I was when I was 25 years old. I am so much more tolerant to certain things that I never would have been tolerant of in the past. But all those things that I care about in friendships, even when I was 25, were of no value at all. None, no value. What's valuable is your spiritual life, and do those friends, do those brothers and sisters in Christ, does that church, does that preaching, does that pastor, does it build your spiritual life? You ought to be able to recognize if somebody builds your spiritual life, or if somebody tears down your spiritual life. That's a whole sermon in itself. But look, there's no need for us to go through personally what this nation is already well down the path of. Our nation is already well down the path of. Save ourselves the shame and the punishment. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.