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Okay, good evening, New Life Baptist Church. Please take your Bibles and turn to Hosea chapter one. And look at verse number two there, Hosea chapter one, verse number two. It begins by saying the beginning of the word of the Lord by Hosea. And the Lord said to Hosea, go take unto thee a wife of whoredoms. The title for the sermon this evening is a wife of whoredoms. What an unusual thing for God to ask this prophet, this man of God, to take a wife, to get married and take a wife of one who is unfaithful, a wife who is committing fornications, all kinds of whoredoms, and to take that person as the wife. So we want to understand why would God ask such an unusual request to one of his prophets. And we're going to start there in Hosea chapter one, verse number one. Now, before I read that, what verse number one is going to basically tell us is that Hosea was living in the southern kingdom of Judah, but he was a prophet to the northern kingdom. So his prophecy, the reign of Hosea, is primarily geared toward the northern kingdom of Israel. And the northern kingdom, of course, was taken into captivity, was exiled by the Assyrians. They were defeated by the Assyrians. And the southern kingdom, many years later, was then taken into captivity by the Babylonians. So this book is written specifically to the northern kingdom of Israel. And if you look at verse number one, it says, The word of the Lord that came unto Hosea, the son of Berai, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. So those are the kings of Judah, but then it says, and in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel. So we see that Hosea was preaching at a time where he had multiple kingdoms went through his preaching, basically. And what I want you to do is, please keep your finger there in Hosea, and let's go to 2 Chronicles. Go to 2 Chronicles, chapter 26. 2 Chronicles, chapter 26. Because what this list gives us, yes, is the multiple kingdoms that Hosea preached under, but it also gives us a rough time frame of how long he was preaching this message. Of course, the message that came to Hosea was that God's judgment will fall upon Israel for being an ungodly, wicked nation, and that it will come by the hands of the Assyrians. So 2 Chronicles, chapter 26. And let's look at verse number 3. 2 Chronicles 26, verse number 3, because we saw the list of kings there. So the first king that was listed in Hosea 1 was Uzziah, the king Uzziah. And it says here, in verse number 3, 16 years old was Uzziah when he began to reign, and he reigned 50 and 2 years in Jerusalem. So Uzziah, how long did he reign? It says there, 50 and 2 years, 52 years. Well, keep that in mind. Now let's go to 2 Chronicles 27. Let's go to chapter 27 and verse number 1. 2 Chronicles 27, verse number 1. The next king that is mentioned in the book of Hosea is Jotham. Jotham, or Jotham. 2 Chronicles 27, verse number 1 says, Jotham was 20 and 5 years old when he began to reign, and he reigned 16 years in Jerusalem. So how long was his reign? 16 years. So 52 years, then 16 years. Now let's go to the next chapter, chapter 28, verse number 1. 2 Chronicles, chapter 28 and verse number 1. It reads, Ahaz, so Ahaz is the next king that's mentioned, Ahaz was 20 years old when he began to reign, and he reigned 16 years in Jerusalem. So not only did Jotham reign for 16 years, so did Ahaz reign for 16 years. Then the next king that is mentioned is King Hezekiah in Hosea. So let's go to the next chapter, 2 Chronicles 29, verse 1. 2 Chronicles 29, verse number 1. It says, Hezekiah began to reign when he was 5 and 20 years old, and he reigned 9 and 20 years in Jerusalem. So 29 years in Jerusalem. So we're looking at the kings of Judah right now. And so what we need to do here to work out the time frame of how long Hosea was preaching, let's now turn to 2 Kings 18. Let's go to 2 Kings 18 and verse number 9. I hope you kept in mind how long these kings were reigning for. 2 Kings 18, verse number 9. 2 Kings 18 and verse number 9. And we're going to have a look at what year the Assyrians came and took the northern kingdom into captivity. It says here in 2 Kings 18, verse 9, And it came to pass in the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hosea, son of Elah, king of Israel, that Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, came up against Samaria and besieged it. Now remember, Samaria was the capital city of Israel. So when it's talking about besieging Samaria, it's saying that the Assyrians have now come in and they're taking over. They're making war against the northern kingdom of Israel. But look at verse number 10. It says, And at the end of three years they took it, even the sixth year of Hezekiah, that is the ninth year of Hosea, king of Israel, Samaria was taken. Now why is that important? Because it tells us here that in King Hezekiah's reign, it was the sixth year of King Hezekiah that they were taken over by the Assyrians. And if you may remember, when we looked at King Hezekiah, it mentioned that he reigned for nine and 20 years in Jerusalem. So King Hezekiah, even though he reigned 29 years, it was the sixth year that the Assyrians took over the northern kingdom of Israel. So when we work out the calculations, we can't work out the 29 years. No, we have to work out the six years of Hezekiah. So if we just quickly work out the math, how long Hosea was preaching, we have the six years of Hezekiah, we have the 16 years of Ahaz, and the 16 years of Jotun, okay? So if you work that out, six plus 16 plus 16, that equals 38 years. 38 years that Hosea was preaching during this time. So that's what we know for sure. But what we don't know is exactly how long he was preaching during Uzziah's reign. So you're still there in 2 Kings. So we're going to get a little bit more information here. Let's go to 2 Kings 14 and verse 23. 2 Kings 14 verse 23. I hope you don't mind the Bible study at the beginning of this, but I will take lots of truth from this as I explain it to you. I think it's really important to just see how long Hosea was preaching. 2 Kings 14 and look at verse number 23. 2 Kings 14 verse 23. It says, in the 15th year of Amaziah, now I'll stop there. Amaziah is King Uzziah. It's the same guy. It's just that, you know, in Kings, he's most often known as Amaziah. In Chronicles, he's most often known as Uzziah. Okay, that's the only difference. It's the same guy. So it says, in the 15th year of Amaziah, the son of Joash, King of Judah, Jeroboam, the son of Joash, King of Israel, began to reign in Samaria and reign 41 years. Now Jeroboam is mentioned here because Jeroboam is the other king that's mentioned during the preaching of Hosea, but Jeroboam is not one of the kings of Judah. He's the king of Israel, okay. So we know that Hosea started to preach when Jeroboam was king. And how long did he reign for? He reign for 41 years, okay. But it told us here in 2 Kings 14 that at the 15th year of Uzziah's reign, did Jeroboam come to reign. So we have to remove the 15 years from the 52 years that are mentioned there, okay. So it's 52 years we know that Uzziah reign. We take away 15 years from that and so we get to 37 years. Now we say, what are you talking about? Well basically, we started with the 38 years. We also now need to consider 37 years. And you know, you get the idea, you put those together, you sum those together and you get 75 years. 75 years that Hosea was potentially preaching. Now it's very unlikely that he was preaching for 75 years, okay. That would be the maximum time that he was preaching, okay. But if we take more of a conservative view, okay. We don't know exactly at what point he started to preach but we know when the kings were reigning. If we just take more of a conservative view, we can easily say that Hosea was preaching for 50, 60 or maybe even more years, okay. He was preaching for 50 or 60 years or maybe even more years. Say, why are you telling us that? There's a few lessons that we can draw from this, okay. First of all, when I think about my ministry, you know, as a full-time pastor, I'm only three years and a bit in, right. Only three years and a bit in. So when I think about someone like Hosea, who's been preaching for 50 or 60 years or more, obviously that's a standard to attain, you know. I can't just get comfortable as a pastor and say, well, you know, I've done so much in three years. But really, you know, when you look at the men of God and you know how long they've been preaching, I've only just started. This is only the beginning, right. And so if this is just the beginning, I'm excited because I'm just trying to think what more can God do with me, you know, running different ministries, you know, preaching sermons, helping churches grow, helping churches be established and develop. I'm excited about what future might be ahead of me. You know, I hope I can preach for 50 years. I don't know, you know, as long as the Lord keeps me alive for that long, I hope I'm able to do that for him, right. And so it's something too exciting to think about that, you know, people can preach for so long. You know, this is why I always honor, you know, preachers and pastors, especially, who have been pastoring for decades. You know, they've been, you know, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, you know, to be preaching for that long, to be pastoring for that long, you know, that person deserves just some respect, especially if they've been preaching the truth, if they've been preaching the gospel. They deserve some admiration, some respect, some honor. You know, of course, always been thanksgiving to God for giving that man the ability to be pastoring that long. But you know what, the first lesson there, I just think that, you know, when I look at my ministry, look at the church that we've started, New Life Baptist Church and Blessed Hope Baptist Church, we've just started. It's only the beginning, really, okay. The second lesson that we can take from this is that God's message does not change over the years, okay. So Hosea was potentially preaching for 50 years that God would destroy Israel, okay. And I can just imagine generation after generation going through his preaching where people are, you know, maybe, you know, he probably started young, he started quite young in his preaching and now he's an old man and he's preaching the same thing he was preaching when he was young. The message of God has not changed. And I can just imagine people looking at old Hosea and saying, oh man, that old man, he's still preaching the same things, he's still saying that Israel is gonna be taken over, he's still saying God's judgment is gonna fall. Hey, it hasn't happened for 40 years, Hosea. It hasn't happened for 50 years, Hosea, you know. And a preaching can maybe potentially get discouraged. But what I learned here is that Hosea did not get discouraged, he continued preaching the message that God gave him, even though it was decades after decades after decades, it was the same message, he did not change it. Look, and eventually God's judgment did fall upon Israel. The next lesson that I take out of this is that even when the nation you are preaching to is going down the toilet, keep preaching, keep preaching. Hosea started preaching about the judgment of Israel, they didn't return to God, they didn't repent, they didn't give up their false idols, they continued doing wicked things against the Lord. And you know what? Even though that nation was going down the toilet, even though Hosea knew that God's judgment was gonna fall upon them, he continued preaching, he did not give up. And brethren, our job, you know, I'm thinking about, yeah, of course, we're talking about a pastor here, but again, our job, all of our job is to be a preacher, to be a preacher of the gospel. And even though we see our nation going down the toilet, we shouldn't become discouraged, what we want to do is just pull those lost souls, you know, the people that we can get saved, out of the toilet, we don't want them going down the toilet with the rest of the nation, amen? And so, you know, we shouldn't give up, you know, even though we see our nation of Australia become extremely wicked, you know, continuing turning their back against God, continuing to hate the Bible and the ways of God, you know, don't become discouraged, don't just say, well, you know, preaching doesn't work, you know, don't say, well, you know, you know, these fundamental Baptist churches, they don't work, you know, it's those hillsong, it's those loud, charismatic Pentecostal churches that seem to be working. You know what? It doesn't matter how bad this world gets, you know, God's word will always be preached, there will always be a God's man preaching, there will always be a church that God put in place to preach his word, and I just want to be, I just want to get involved, I don't care how bad this word gets, you know? The next lesson that I get out of this is it doesn't matter who's in authority, we saw a bunch of kings, right? Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, we see, you know, it doesn't matter who's in authority, brethren, we keep preaching. It doesn't matter, it shouldn't change, you know, our style of preaching. Remember, Hosea was living in the southern kingdom, he saw multiple kings go through his nation, even though he was preaching against the nation of Israel. It doesn't matter, you know, just recently we've had the Queensland elections, and Labor won again, right? The left party won again, and I don't know, I don't really care. I don't care really who wins. Maybe some of you might be concerned, and, you know, usually we have a leftist government, you know, the nation or the state at least will go into more ungodless at a quicker rate, I suppose, than a more conservative party, or some people are looking right now, tonight, at the results of the US election, Donald Trump or Joe Biden, you know, and you can just see, you know, the Republicans are like, man, if Joe Biden, you know, gets elected, you know, it's the death of the nation, it's the death of the free world, and, you know, they'd be saddened by such news, and you can see the Republicans, oh sorry, you can see the Democrats, you know, if Donald Trump gets elected, you know, it's the end of the world, this is the most important election ever in our lifetime, and people get caught up about who's in charge, and you know what, at the end of the day, God's in charge of it all. You know, Jesus Christ has all power and authority over every government, over every institution, over every politician, brethren, you know, and so what we see with Hosea, he sees, you know, these constant changes in the authorities in his nation, but his message doesn't change, you know, our job doesn't change, the Great Commission still needs to be, you know, accomplished, you know, seeing souls saved, it doesn't, listen, brethren, it doesn't matter how wicked the government is or how good our government is, I praise God that every single day, a soul is getting saved somewhere in this world, you know, every single day is a day that we can wake up and accomplish the Great Commission that Jesus Christ gave us, every single day there are people getting baptized or people going to church and learning about God and reading their Bibles, and it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter who's in charge, brethren, what's wonderful about being a Christian is that our nation, our nation in heaven, that heavenly Jerusalem never changes, you know, God, Jesus Christ, our King, our Lord, he doesn't change, you know, Jesus Christ is the same today, yesterday, and forever, you know, our politician, our King of Kings never changes, and so even, you know, even though our world can be tossed to and fro, left and right, and really it's the same, it's two wings and the same bird, but you know, we can be established, we can continue doing the work that God has left us to do, we can continue preaching his word, it doesn't matter who's in charge, right, we continue doing the work that God has left us to do. Back to Hosea chapter 1, verse number 2, it says, 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 have committed great whoredom, departing from the Lord. So as I began saying, you know, and quite an unusual request to Hosea to take a wife of whoredoms. Now it's possible that this woman he took as a wife was a prostitute, though we don't really know, it doesn't really explicitly state that she's a, she's a harlot herself or anything like that, she could have been, but if she wasn't a prostitute, she was at least a very loose woman, right, she was a very, she was a serial fornicator, for lack of a better word, right, and so this was something that God required that he would do, not only would he be a, would she be a wife of whoredoms, but it says in verse number 2, and children of whoredoms, and so she herself was an illegitimate child, she herself, you know, had a mother that was a whore that went about, you know, had an illegitimate daughter, and this illegitimate daughter would also be a whore, and this is the woman that God, you know, asked for Hosea to marry, and you know what, normally speaking, when you speak to a Christian man who wants to get married, this is the kind of person that you would say, hey, don't marry that person, because if she's been unfaithful like that, who's to say that she's going to be faithful to you even in marriage, right, so these are concerns that we may have but there's a serious reason why God wanted him to do this, it says, for the land have committed great whoredom departing from the Lord, and so what God wanted Hosea to experience is what he himself had experienced, you know, the fact that the nation of Israel had turned their backs against God, they had committed spiritual whoredom in the eyes of God, right, and so this was a serious sin, this was something that hurt the Lord, this is something that God was sad about and very angry about, and God wanted Hosea to experience some of that same emotion with the wife that he took, like she would represent as it were, you know, just as a symbol the fact that the nation of Israel had become a woman of whoredoms against the Lord, and again you might ask, well, that just seems weird, you know, that God would need this illustration, I think what we can get from this is the fact that, you know, Hosea was called to be a preacher to Israel, and the preacher, you know, it should not be someone that is just mundane in the way they speak, you know, the preacher should not be someone that lacks emotion, and look, I've been to churches, I'm sure you've been to churches where the preacher gets behind the pulpit, and they just put you to sleep, they just bore you to sleep, right, and, you know, they're just monotone, it seems like they're not even excited about what they're saying, it seems like they have no passion, you know, they're not emotionally involved in the sermon, and those kinds of sermons, you know, they have no effect on people, you know, when a preacher is zealous, when a preacher shows emotion, when a preacher shows passion, when he shows anger, when he shows sadness, when he shows joy, you know, people would look at that preacher and say, wow, he really believes in what he's saying, right, right, it's true, the things that he's saying, he feels them, you know, he truly believes what he's saying, and you know what, even when you go door-to-door soul-winning, the person behind the door should see you as someone that is emotionally involved in the message you're trying to give, you know, you're not just going about business, it's not just a box that you're ticking, now you know, it's a soul that you're speaking to, it's a soul that's on its way to hell, and you as someone that ought to love these souls, ought to be someone that's emotionally invested in trying to get them saved, to believe the gospel, to believe on Jesus Christ, and so what I learned from this, as a preacher, you know, God wanted Hosea to be emotionally involved, he wanted Hosea to feel that pain that his wife had been unfaithful, and that he was taking on a whorish woman, and of course then, when Hosea experiences that himself, he'll be able to now preach with emotion, he'll be able to preach with passion, he'll be able to get angry about the wickedness of Israel, because he himself has experienced that level of hurt, and so it's important that preachers get emotionally involved in the preaching of God's word. Look at verse number three, it says, So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblam, which conceived and bare him a son. So he marries this whorish woman, who is Gomer, and they have a child together. Now, you know what this should do, this whole story should warn us of two things. Number one, you know, it should warn singles, you know, those that desire to get married one day, you know, to keep yourself pure, you know, God holds purity very highly, and God hates whoredoms, God hates fornications, right? And so we ought to understand that, you know, if you don't keep yourself pure for your marriage day, you're committing some really grievous sins, sins that God hates, sins that God gets hurt at, you know, by you doing that. And so it's important that, you know, you don't get into the practice of being a whore or a whoremonger, that you keep yourself pure for your wedding day, you know, for the Lord, yes, but also for your spouse that you're going to marry. The other thing that we can gather from this, number two, is, you know, if you have made the mistake, you have committed fornication, you know, you haven't kept yourself pure for your wedding day, that God can still take you as an impure person, someone that has committed a grievous sin, and he can still get you to marry a very godly person. I mean, Gomer here, right, she was able to marry the man of God, she was able to marry a powerful preacher that God would use to preach against a wicked nation. And so just because you've committed some grievous sins like fornication in the past, it doesn't mean that God's given up on you, all right? You know, you may very well, you get things right, you know, you get yourself right with God, he may very well allow you to marry someone who God is using in a great way, you know, a great man of God, or a great, you know, a woman of God that you can marry, even though you yourself have made yourself impure. And so listen, if plan A is unreachable, you're not going to your marriage, you know, pure, you know, plan B, you know, there's plan B, there's plan C, there's plan D, there's plan E, you know, God may have other plans for you, you know, as long as you're breathing, as long as you're kicking, as long as you're alive, you know, God has a plan for you, even no matter how badly you've messed up your life, no matter how many mistakes you've made, God has a plan for you if you're still alive, you know, you know, until you go home to be with the Lord, God has a mission for you, God has a plan for you, and God is ready to forgive you, God is ready to guide you, you know, all it matters, all that is required from us is to go before the Lord, confess those sins, and walk after his ways, and God will open doors for you to be right with him, you know, and to have a healthy marriage, right? And so let's keep going, verse number four. It says, 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, oh sorry, the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel. Now, to understand this, I need you to keep your finger there, and let's go to 1 Kings 21. 1 Kings 21. So the first son that is born from Hosea and Goma is Jezreel. Okay, this is the name given, and this name Jezreel is the name of a city in the northern kingdom of Israel, okay? So I just want to show you this, if you look at 1 Kings 21, verse number one, we go to the story of Naboth and the vineyard, in his vineyard, and it says here in verse number one, and it came to pass after these things that Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard. So see, he's from that city, Jezreel. He's a Jezreelite. He had a vineyard which was in Jezreel, hard by the palace of Ahab king of Samaria, remember Samaria is the capital city of that nation, verse number two, and Ahab spake unto Naboth saying, give me thy vineyard that I may have it for a garden of herbs because it is near unto my house, and I will give thee for it a better vineyard than it, or if it seem good to thee, I will give thee the worth of it in money. And Naboth said to Ahab, the Lord forbideth me that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee. So King Ahab wanted this vineyard. It was beautiful, it was close by. He asked Naboth, listen, give it to me, I'll buy it from you, and, you know, Naboth says no, this is mine, this is my inheritance, this is the inheritance of my forefathers, give it to me by the Lord, I cannot sell this inheritance. And so Naboth is, you know, a man of integrity. And of course, you know, we're not gonna go through the entire story, but Ahab gets upset. He goes to his wife Jezebel and Jezebel basically gets this man Naboth murdered and because he's murdered, they're able to take that vineyard off his hands. But if we drop down to verse number 16, in the same chapter, 1 Kings 21 verse 16, it says, and it came to pass when Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, that Ahab rose up to go down to the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite to take possession of it. All right, so such, you know, extremely wicked act was done in this city of Jezreel. And so what we're seeing here is that God has remembered, you know, extremely wicked acts of that city and God is finally bringing into judgment, you know, and in times of Hosea, you know, and down to Hezekiah, you know, it's finally bringing down this judgment that would come upon Israel. And so, you know, God, what we learned from this is that God is a long suffering. You know, the thing is, you know, God's judgment will always fall. At some point, it'll always fall. And, you know, for us, it fell upon Jesus Christ. For those of us that are saved, our judgment fell upon Jesus Christ some 2000 years ago for the sins that we've committed today and that we're gonna commit to the day we die. But then when it comes to the non-believer that does not believe in Jesus Christ, their judgment's gonna come in the future, of course, in the lake of fire. And so much better to have the judgment fall upon Jesus Christ who became the curse for us, who became sin for us, than to go to hell or to the lake of fire ultimately with your own sins. But what we learned from this brethren is that God's judgment always comes. It always comes. Now, if you can please also, yeah, if you can just go back to Hosea, yeah, go back to Hosea, please. Go back to Hosea chapter one and verse number six. And so what this name Jezreel represents is that God's judgment is coming to Israel, okay? This first child symbolically represents that God's judgment will fall upon Israel. Now, again, Hosea's preaching this for decades, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, 50 years, six years potentially, maybe even more. We don't exactly know, but God's judgment, even though he warned this nation many decades ago, the judgment eventually did fall when the Assyrians took them into captivity, when the Assyrians scattered them, drew them out of the land. And so when we come to Jeroboam, who was mentioned in Hosea chapter one, verse number one, Jeroboam is the great-grandson of Jehu. And Jehu was the man who would ultimately have Jezebel killed. You know, he would be the one that would destroy that royal family of Ahab and Jezebel because of their wickedness, and then Jehu would eventually become the king of Israel. And so when he talked about avenging the blood of Jehu, you know, Jehu had done something which was right in the eyes of God, and so this judgment was a result of the wickedness of the politicians of those days that have gone by persecuting the people of God, persecuting Jehu, persecuting anybody that was doing a work for God, and so finally God's judgment would fall upon that nation. Now, I don't know when Australia will by large start persecuting God's people. I'm not sure exactly when we're gonna face persecution ourselves or when our preaching's gonna be censored and hated, but when that starts, you can expect that God's judgment will fall upon Australia. I don't know when that is, you know, but you can, you know, just, just, you know, you can, you can, you can, I was gonna say you can bet on it, but I don't want you gambling, right? But you can be guaranteed when the nation starts to persecute God's people and God's preachers, you know, when they start maybe incarcerating them or even killing God's people, God's judgment is definitely on its way, all right? Now, back to Hosea chapter one and verse number six. It says here, And she conceived again, and bear a daughter, and God said unto him, Call her name Lo-ru-maha, let me read that again, call her Lo-ru-hamah, for I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel, but I will utterly take them away, okay? So now they, in this relationship, this whorish woman and Hosea, they have a daughter. So what I want you to notice in chapter one, is that, you know, time goes on, you know, this isn't something that is done quickly, of course, he gets married, she falls pregnant, she gives birth to the first son, then he gets raised and then she gives birth to a daughter, and so you can see that many years are going by during this first chapter, okay? This is important in light of the coming chapters later on, okay? But what's quite interesting is that this girl's name, this daughter's name, Lo-ru-maha, means I will no more have mercy. What you'll notice here is that the Lo refers to no or not, okay? Now mercy is a name that is sometimes used for daughters, you know? It is a girl's name, you know? There are girls that are named Mercy. And I can just imagine Hosea introducing his daughter and someone going, oh yeah, her name's Mercy? And Hosea's like, no, no, it's not Mercy, her name is No Mercy, okay? There's no mercy, and she's representing the fact that when God's judgment falls upon Israel, that He's not going to be merciful whatsoever. You know, this is going to be a severe war. This is going to be severe. This is going to be very hard on the nation of Israel when the Assyrians come. God's not going to have any mercy on them, okay? And so keep that in mind when God's judgment falls, you don't want it to be where He has no mercy, all right? You know, if you've done something wrong, if you've sinned against the Lord, you better go and ask mercy. You better go ask for forgiveness of sins. Go ask. We know that God is a merciful God, but the nation of Israel, they never asked for mercy. They never tried to come back to God. And so when His judgment fell, it was a judgment of no mercy. And then it says in verse number six at the end, it says, but I will utterly take them away. You know, they're not going to remain on the land. They're going to be dispersed out of the land. Now let's keep going, verse number seven. It says, but I will have mercy upon the house of Judah. So Judah is the seven kingdom, right? And I will save them by the Lord their God and will not save them by bow or by sword or by battle by horses or by horsemen. And so what God is saying here is when the Assyrians come, He's not going to be merciful to the nation of Israel, but He will be merciful to the nation of Judah. And Judah is not going to be overrun by the Assyrians. You might say, well, you know, does Judah, you know, do they put up a good fight at least? No, because when God says that about the mercy, they're not going to be saved by their armies. They're not going to be saved by their weapons, by their swords. They're not going to be saved by their horses. They're not going to be saved by their army. They're not going to be saved by the military whatsoever. They're going to be saved by the Lord. So let's have a look at this. Let's go to 2 Kings. Again, keep your finger there in Hosea. Let's go to 2 Kings chapter 19. 2 Kings chapter 19 and verse number 35. 2 Kings 19 verse number 35. So of course, when the Assyrians take over the northern kingdom of Israel, it makes logical sense that they will continue on their rampage and get into the southern kingdom and take over Judah and destroy Jerusalem. But that did not happen. Now you might be wondering, why did that not happen? Don't forget that Hosea prophesied that God will save Judah. God will be merciful to Judah. So where does this take place? 2 Kings 19 verse 35. Notice this, 2 Kings 19 verse 35 reads, And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians, and hundred, four score, and five thousand. And when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses. So Sennacherib, king of Assyria, departed and went and returned and dwelt at Nineveh. So can you imagine that? You know, when the Assyrians are preparing themselves, and they've taken over the northern kingdom, they're like, hey, we're going to go take over the southern kingdom now, where God's angel, this is potentially the Lord Jesus Christ, we're not really sure, could be just another angel, you know, came and murdered, you know, killed 185,000 of their soldiers. Could you imagine this king just waking up the next morning and seeing 185,000 dead bodies, you know, just laying around his campsite? He's like, man, I'm not going to fight this war. I mean, God's definitely looking after this nation. So he returns back, and God protects Judah. Now, what I want to take out of that brethren is we have Judah, and look, Judah, the southern kingdom of Judah was not always right with God, but they were doing a much better job, right, they were doing a much better job, you know, serving God. Their kings were much more godly, even though they had some wicked kings, but their kings, by and large, were more godly than the kings of Israel. And you know what? Even when there's a battle, when there's war, when there's potential losses, you know, God can protect his people. You know, God can do amazing miracles, and you might be seeing, you know, we might be seeing Australians being wiped out in their wickedness. We might be seeing God's judgment one day fall upon this nation, but what we can learn at this brevity, if we just stay close to God, we just stay walking with God, that God can save us. You know, we don't have to fight our own wars. You know, God can protect us so long as we are serving him, so long as we are loving him and doing the works that God has asked us to do. Back to Hosea chapter one, verse number eight. It says, Now when she had weaned, Lo Ruhamah, she conceived and bare a son. So now they have a third child. Verse number nine, Then said God, call his name Lo Ammi, for ye are not my people, and I will not be your God. So Lo Ammi means not my people. So you can see the Lo there is no, you know, for the girl is no mercy. And for the boy here, the third child, you know, you're not my people, not my people is what it represents. So let's just understand that. The first child was that God's judgment is coming. The second child is that when God's judgment comes, there will be no mercy, they'll be taken off the land. And not only that, now that's pretty bad, but this third, you know, name, this symbolic name is even worse. Not only will judgment fall upon them, not only will they be taken out of the land, but they will no longer be God's people. Okay. And this northern nation of Israel never recovered. They never recovered. At least with Judah, when they were taken into captivity by the Babylonians, they came back into the land. And so when Jesus Christ was walking the earth, he was walking in the remains of what took place when the people came out of Babylon. But when he came to the northern kingdom of Israel, they never really returned, right? They became mixed amongst other, you know, peoples. And these people eventually became known as the Samaritans that Jesus Christ deals with in the New Testament. And so, you know, when God says, you're not my people, he's not just saying that, hey, I'm bringing judgment upon you. He's saying, I'm rejecting you. You're not my people anymore, and I'm not your God anymore. So God has rejected this northern kingdom once they're taken into captivity by the Assyrians. And so, of course, this is important to remember because God did reject that physical nation. And of course, Judah would eventually fall in the same problem. And, you know, there are many Christians today that say, well, you can't say these things. Now, people say that God still has, you know, promises. God still has a covenant with a physical nation of Israel. And so, again, they'll look at the Middle East today, they'll see the people that call themselves Jews, they'll see that physical nation, and they still think that God has promises, that God has a covenant with his people, even though God says that they will not be his people and that he will not be their God. God has rejected that physical nation, okay? Now, people will say, you know, Baptists, you know, people that I'm friends with, pastors that I know will say, well, if you teach that, you know, and you're saying that, you know, God, they'll say that you're teaching that God's breaking his promises to that physical nation. And so if God can break promises with them, who's to say that God can't break his promises to us? You know, God promised us eternal life, who's to say then that God, you know, can't one day break that promise and, you know, we would not go to heaven, we will not have eternity to look forward to that. God will just change his mind and cast us into hellfire. Well, here's the thing about this. God did not change his mind. He got rid of a physical wicked nation but when it comes to his people, and of course, there were saved people in the land of Israel, they are still his people, okay? It's just that they went from being rejected as a physical nation to being accepted as a spiritual nation of God. The proof is in the next verse there, in Hosea chapter one, verse number 10. So even though God rejects the physical nation, it says in verse number 10, yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, what? So even though he's rejecting them, he says, you're not my people, I'm not your God, even though he's saying those things, the descendants of Israel will be like the sands 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, okay? So people will generally look at this verse and say, see, God has promised the physical nation today that they are still his people. Wrong, wrong. Because what Hosea is quoting was taught to us in the New Testament. Keep your finger there, let's go to Romans chapter nine. Romans chapter nine, Paul explains, you know, the New Testament is like a commentary of the Old Testament. And so Paul explains what God was saying to the nation of Israel when he quoted verse number 10 there in Hosea chapter one, verse number 10. So go to Romans chapter nine, Romans chapter nine and verse number 24. Romans chapter nine and verse number 24. Now this is the book of Romans. Paul, who is a Jew himself, he's writing to Romans, he's writing to those of Rome, right? He's writing to the Gentiles. And what does this say in verse number 24? He says, even us, now let's stop there for a minute, us. When he says us, he's speaking about himself as a Jew, and he's speaking about the Roman as Gentiles. So he's combining the Jews and the Gentiles here. Even us, whom he have called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles. So you can see there, not just the Jews, but the Gentiles as well. Verse number 25, and he's safe also in Osi. Now Osi is just the, is Hosea, it's the same person, right? Osi, he says here, I will call them my people, which were not my people, and her beloved, which was not 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. Okay, so when Hosea was quoting, when he was quoted in chapter one, verse number 10, speaking about not being a people, but becoming the sons of the living God, he was speaking about all believers, whether Jew, whether Gentile, specifically the Gentiles, which were never in the past a people of God, in a physical nation sense, but they too, if they become believers of Jesus Christ, they will become the people of God, and God will become their people. And so brethren, when Hosea is writing chapter one, verse number 10, he's writing about us, he's writing about Australians. You know, Australia was not a people of God, but those that are saved, we have become the people of God, and God has become our God. So this is wonderful, this is wonderful news, that God has rejected a physical nation, and he has accepted Jews and Gentiles into a spiritual nation, his people, doesn't matter what our background is, no matter what our nationality is, doesn't matter, those things don't matter in the eyes of God, as long as we are in Jesus Christ, he is our God, and we are his people. Now, keep your finger there in Romans chapter nine, we are gonna come back to Romans chapter nine, but let's go back to Hosea, chapter one and verse number 11, Hosea chapter one, verse number 11, it says, 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. And so again, people look at this verse, number 11, so see God's promise that he's going to, you know, bring back the Jews and the Israelites back into the land, and God's made these promises, hold on, God already rejected that physical nation, that northern physical nation, God's rejected them, okay, and what we saw in Romans chapter nine, is that he's speaking about, the people that he's speaking about, are believers of all nations, all the Gentiles, all the Gentile nations, that make up the people of God that believe in Jesus Christ, and if you want further proof of that, oh, and by the way, before I read that, it says there, and it says, and appoint themselves one head, this is speaking about the millennium to come, this is speaking about the time to come, when Jesus Christ returns, we have one head, we have one king, you know, the entire world will be ruled over by Jesus Christ, and we're going to participate in that, you know, we're going to be part of that government of Jesus Christ, that's ruling over the world, and so that one head represents the head of the church, it represents Jesus Christ, okay, now go back to Romans chapter nine and verse number four, Romans chapter nine and verse number four, so we read Romans chapter nine a little bit further back, but again, you know, when we look at Hosea, he's speaking about a future time into the millennium, including Gentiles, where Judah and Israel will be gathered together, okay, is this speaking about a physical nation, or is it speaking about a spiritual people of Christ's kingdom, well, when we look at Romans chapter nine and verse number four, it says, speaking about the Israelites, who are Israelites, to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises, say, see, Pastor Kevin, the promises are still for the Israelites, well, hold on, who are the Israelites, let's keep going, okay, because if you look at verse number four, the sentence has not ended, has it, let's keep going, verse number five, it says, who are the fathers, and of whom are concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forever, amen, then it says this, not as though the word of God have taken none effect, for they are not all Israel, which are of Israel, so Paul is saying, just because someone identifies with the physical nation of Israel, just because someone says they are a Jew, they are not all Israel, okay, that's not what all Israel represents, you say, what makes up Israel then, well, let's keep going, verse number seven, neither because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children, just because you're a descendant of Abraham, it doesn't make you a child of God, right, it says here, but in Isaac shall thy seed be cored, that is, they which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted for the seed, so for those that are in Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ is the seed of Abraham, okay, those of us that are in Christ, we are the seed of Abraham, right, we are the ones that the promises have been given to, when God made the promise to Abraham and to Jesus Christ, he also made the promise to all those, whether Jew or Gentile, that are in Jesus Christ, and if you're just physically of Abraham, but you're not in Jesus Christ, then you are rejected, you are not his people, and he is not your God, okay, just because the Jews today, you know, bow their heads to some wall, they are not the people of God, okay, and God is not their father, okay, if they don't have the son, they do not have the father, they do not have Jehovah God as their God, Jews today, they have a false religion, the religion of Judaism is a false religion, that will damn you to hell, it is not the gospel message, they are not close to God whatsoever, okay, salvation, the gospel message is in Jesus Christ, okay, whether Jew or Gentile you're in Christ, you are, you receive the promises, they were made to Abraham, and the prophecies of Hosea about the millennium, the prophecies about Israel being gathered together, is speaking once again of a spiritual nation of Israel, those made up of all people that are in Jesus Christ, and so brethren that's Hosea chapter 1, I hope that's interesting for you, and it's amazing, you know, that we can go back these thousands of years to these old prophets, you know, preaching God's word, and even though they were preaching that, you know, damnation on a physical nation of Israel, and the judgment to come upon them, we can still see great truths that are relevant to us today, you know, I'm looking forward to being with Hosea, I'm looking forward to being with these great men of God, you know, in the millennium, you know, in Jesus Christ, we can share in his kingdom together. Okay, let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, I just want to thank you for your word, thank you that you've given me the ability to just study for Hosea, and preach this to the church. Lord, I just, I pray that we would take heed to what Hosea preached to the nation of Israel, and Lord, we see our own nation Australia going down the toilet like he saw his nation, and Lord, I just pray that we would be people that would not have our hearts, you know, established on politicians, and who's in charge, and the government's, Lord, and, you know, we understand, Lord, that, you know, these, this institution, these people are in your hands, and Lord, it doesn't matter who's in charge, it doesn't matter how wicked this government gets, Lord, I just pray that you'd give us the boldness and the courage to know that you are our God, that you are our king, Lord, and that we make up this wonderful spiritual nation of Israel. Lord, we're looking forward to the time that Jesus Christ returns. We're looking forward to the time that we can rule and reign with him. We're looking forward to the regathering, Lord, of Israel and Judah, as was prophesied in Hosea, and Lord, we just, we just love the fact that you've included us into your, your plans and in your promises. So we thank you, Lord God, and I just pray that we will take heed to these things. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.