Could we all bow together, please, and we will come before the Lord, and let's seek His face in prayer. Our eternal God and our Father, we gather ourselves before Thee once again, and we draw near into Your holy presence through Thy Son, our Savior, We thank Thee for that mediation that Christ affords to us. We thank Thee for His own entrance within the veil, and we come on that same basis upon the ground of the finished work. We rejoice, O Lord, that Christ appeared once in the end of those ages in which He had been predicted and set forth by promise, and He came to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself And we thank the Lord that His work is done, and that by His merit we may come before Thee just now. We bow down and we worship Thee, the true and the living God. We come to Thee with praise and with thanksgiving for all of Thy mercies to us. We confess, O God, our utter unworthiness, and yet we thank Thee for the value of the atonement. We rejoice, O Lord, in all that Christ is to us, even as our advocate above. O Lord, hear us today for His sake and draw alongside of us as we gather in this fashion, and may the Holy Spirit of God be upon us as we come around the Word. We pray for this session of study, that Thy hand will be with us, that the Spirit of God will guide our thoughts and our minds. We pray, Lord, for all of the gatherings today in this house. We think of Sunday school at this moment. With our children, we think of our Bible classes for our young people, for all who instruct them, praying, Lord, that the help of God will be given and that Thy power will be known. We ask Thee, Lord, to come down upon us right through this day for Thy glory and for Thine own everlasting praise. And so, Lord, abide with us now. Help as we pray. Bless those in this building. and those who join with us online. And we pray, Lord, that every heart will be touched and that the name of Christ will be magnified. Hear us, we pray, for we ask all this in Christ's name and for His sake. Amen and amen. Now turn with me, please, to the book of Hosea, the first chapter. Hosea chapter 1, as you turn there, let me welcome you in the Lord's name. I'm glad to see all who have come along to the class here today and those who are joining with us still. And we pray that God's blessing will be our portion even as we meet around the Word of God. Hosea chapter 1. And just focusing today on the first verse of this book, it says, the word of the Lord that came on to Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel. By way of reminder, the first two studies in this series that we've entitled The Minor Prophets have been by way of introduction to the prophets in general. In the first study, we looked at four main features or four main facts about the Old Testament prophets in general. And then in the second study a few weeks ago, we considered some details about the character of these Old Testament prophets themselves, the men themselves. And we considered under that particular study the division of the prophets as well, so their character and their division, and we note it with regard to the division of the prophets that they fall into two groups, essentially. We have the preaching prophets, the men who were raised up by the Lord to be prophets who preached His Word but did not actually write any Scripture. And then we also noticed the writing prophets. So those are the two divisions, the preaching prophets and the writing prophets. The writing prophets are men who also preached but who were then moved by the Holy Spirit to bring the Word of God in a written form. And some of those writing prophets are those who comprise both the major and the minor prophets. Other writing prophets were like Samuel, Joshua, Moses, these were all writing prophets, but the major and the minor prophets are those who stand out in Scripture as the writing prophets, and it's the minor prophets whom we are thinking about in this particular study. And so all of that detail that I've given you already is very, very important. We need to have a background in our minds to who these men are and the day in which they lived and all these particular features of their ministries that help us to understand their books. And so we come to the Minor Prophets, and as I've explained to you, that title, the Minor Prophets, is the name that's given to the writers whose books close out the Old Testament in our English Bibles. Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. I'm sure you all learned that in Sunday school, or you should have. And if you didn't, learn it now and get to know those twelve books. And so the Twelve Minor Prophets are really a collection of these twelve Old Testament books, and they're known as the Twelve, or the Book of the Twelve. Actually, in the Hebrew Bible they stand as one book, just about. All twelve of them are brought together in the Hebrew Bible. The title Minor, as I explained to you, has to do with length. nothing with regard to significance or importance. They're not minor in the sense that they're less important than the major prophets or any other part of the Word of God. All Scripture is important, but minor in the sense that they're shorter than the major prophets, and some of them are very brief indeed. And you will know that one of them is the shortest book in the Old Testament, that is the book of Obadiah, and so they're simply called the minor prophets for that reason. We come to Hosea, to begin a study of Hosea. Now, let me say again that there's not going to be a verse-by-verse exposition of these books. There's a lot in them, and that would take a long, long, long time to go through twelve books. We're not doing that. What I want to do in this study is introduce you to the minor prophets one by one and also introduce them to you. And it's for the purpose, I trust and pray, of increasing your interest in reading the Minor Prophets. Not that I am saying you don't read them, I'm sure you do, but to help you to read them, to help you to understand them and come to more to a greater grasp of what they say, what their message is. And so I trust that today the Lord will help us as we come. I've read the first verse of the book with you, just to set a scene. And the first thing I want to talk about and deal with here in this class is the time of this book. And the time of the book of Hosea is signified by the kings who are mentioned here in verse number one. Four of these kings were kings of Judah. That is the southern kingdom, and those four kings are Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. The fifth king is a king of the northern kingdom, the kingdom of Israel as it became known as time went by. And so you've got four kings of Judah, you've got one king of Israel, and the reigns of those five kings cover a period of about 100 years. And that, of course, doesn't mean that Hosea ministered for all of those hundred years. That would not be the case at all, but I'm just simply setting the scene here that those kings reigned altogether about one hundred years with regard to a length of time. Now, the internal evidence of the book of Hosea suggests to us that Hosea began to minister before the death of this man called Jeroboam. It says at the end of verse 1, Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel. Jeroboam died in 753 B.C. And the ministry of Hosea obviously began sometime around that period, just probably before this Jeroboam actually died. We only can put it that way because there is no strong evidence to suggest a precise year when Hosea began to minister, but he certainly ministered at the time when this man Jeroboam was alive, most likely just before he passed away. And so this verse tells us that Hosea ministered at that particular time. And we would suggest as well then that Hosea's prophecy or his prophetic ministry ended sometime around the death of King Hezekiah, maybe just before the death of Hezekiah, because he is the one who's mentioned last there with regard to the four kings of Judah. And they're in chronological order, Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. If you look at Kings and Chronicles, you'll find that this is the chronological order for these four kings, and therefore we take it I believe, and rightly so, that Hezekiah coming as the last of those four kings in this section, or in this particular statement, he marks the time when Hosea's ministry would have come to an end. So this also means that Hosea ministered alongside other prophets, because when you read the writings of Isaiah or the writings of Micah, you will find that the same kings, or some of them at least, are mentioned in the opening verses of those books. So Hosea wasn't standing all by himself. He had friends, he had colleagues, he had fellow prophets who were there to minister with him in his day as a prophet of God. Hosea also was a contemporary with Amos, and of course Amos comes out later here in the Minor Prophets. Amos also ministered to the northern kingdom of Israel, even though he was from the southern kingdom. And I'll get into that a little more with regard to these two kingdoms very shortly here, but Amos was from the southern kingdom. He was from Tekoa, which was in the south, although he ministered to the northern kingdom. And it's important to get a hold of details like this just to get a picture in your mind that these prophets were real men. They lived at certain times in Bible history. They exercised their ministries in the days of these kings who are mentioned. The Holy Spirit has written this detail in verse 1 so that you and I are able to get a hold or a grasp of something of the day in which these men lived. Now, this man Jeroboam, who's mentioned in verse 1, it's important to note some details about this man. And to do so, it's also necessary to understand certain details about the division of Israel into those two kingdoms that I've mentioned, the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom. And you will know something about this if you've read carefully the stories or the accounts of Solomon and then his son Rehoboam, because it was in the days of Rehoboam, after Solomon had died, that the division of Israel took place. You see, the nation was known as Israel. up to that point. It was one kingdom. And so Saul was the first king of Israel. That was the whole region that we know as the northern and the southern areas of Israel. It was one whole kingdom undivided from Saul and through David's reign and Solomon's reign. And then when it came to the days of Rehoboam, who was the son of Solomon, there was a division, a very sad division. And you read about that, I'm not turning you to it, but if you want to take your notes on this, read 1 Kings 11 and 12 and 2 Chronicles 9 and 10. And there you have the account, two parallel accounts of how the kingdom was divided. Now, Rehoboam came to the throne in 975 B.C. And at that time, well, things had gone wrong, if we can put it that way, in the reign of Solomon. You will know the story of Solomon. He was a man who certainly in his earlier times walked with God and served the Lord very faithfully. And we know about his wisdom. We know about the tremendous kingdom over which he reigned and ruled, the wealth of it, the extent of it. All of those things are known by many of the Lord's people. But what we also know about Solomon is that toward the end of his time as king, in fact for a period of time, we're not really sure how long it may have been, but for a period of time there was a failure. And the failure was that Solomon turned to the worship of idols. It's not easy to grasp how that happened in the sense of how wise this man was, the wisdom God gave him, and then we find him turning to idolatry. But certainly one influence that was upon him was the influence of the heathen wives whom he took on to himself. And for such a wise man, well, he was easily led. in those older years. That's very obvious. And it was these women whom he married, and I'm not saying anything there against women in general, I'm just simply saying it was these women who led him astray because they were heathen, they were pagan, and we could ask the question, why did he ever marry them? You might ask the question of the same kind about people today. some of the Lord's people who disobey God, and they marry wrong, they marry an unsafe person, and they bring nothing but misery and heartache into their lives. And that is disobedience to God, and that is really the answer to all this. There was disobedience to God in Solomon's life, and he married these women. And again, that's amazing when you think about the number of wives that he had and so forth, but that's history. That happened. And so because of all this, God's displeasure fell on Solomon in his closing years, and he raised up enemies against Solomon. And one of those enemies was this man, not the Jeroboam here, but another Jeroboam. I'll explain that to you in a moment or two. There was a Jeroboam in those years. He was one of Solomon's servants. And at a certain point he led a rebellion against Solomon that festered and carried over into the days of Rehoboam. Rehoboam tried to fight this Jeroboam but failed completely. And so there was a Jeroboam at that time—that's way back, about two hundred years before the day of Hosea. And there is this Jeroboam, and you will know him because in the Old Testament Scriptures, in those books of the Kings and the Chronicles, he's mentioned frequently as Jeroboam the son of Nebat. who made Israel to sin. Now, you must have read that if you've read 1 Kings, 2 Kings, and also in the Chronicles. That's how he's identified. Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin. He led a rebellion. The rebellion was comprised of the ten northern tribes. excluding Judah and Benjamin, all the other tribes, Reuben, Simeon, and so on. He led a rebellion that was comprised of those ten tribes, and as a result he established himself in 970 BC as the king of the ten tribes, and the base of his whole reign was in the city of Samaria. Now get acquainted with Samaria, and you might know it because it's famous in the Bible due to its relationship with the Samaritans. And you can see how the two words are, of course, from the same source, Samaria, Samaritans. And so that's where that Jeroboam actually reigned in the city of Samaria and those kings who followed him down through the generations of time. He not only made himself a king, And remember, Rehoboam was reigning in the south, and then all the other kings of Judah who follow him. Jeroboam was in the north. He not only reigned, but he set up his own religion. He established a priesthood. He had a temple built. and the offering of sacrifices. What was he doing? Well, he was trying to keep a hold of the people because Jerusalem was the place where the true temple was built under Solomon, and that's where God's people would have inclined to be. And so Jeroboam built a temple, set up a priesthood in Samaria, and the result was apostasy because it was a mongrel religion. It was made up of a departure from God along with a smattering of truth, of course, truth and error mixed, and the whole scene began to plummet and go downwards with regard to the northern kingdom. And this was departure from God, and that continued for the next 200 years or thereabouts, from 970 right down through to the days when Hosea actually lived. Now, as I note it with you, In verse 1, we read of a Jeroboam, but this is a different Jeroboam from the one who led the rebellion. This man lives about 190 to 200 years after the first Jeroboam, and so this man here in Hosea 1.1 is known as Jeroboam II. because he is not the same Jeroboam as the one who is mentioned in the books of the kings. But he started the trend. And so, I mean, the trend of apostasy and departure. And so we find, therefore, that the northern kingdom was marked early, early on by departure from God, whereas the southern kingdom with the kings of Judah remained more faithful to God and His Word and to the things of the Lord. And so the Jeroboam who's here in verse 1 is this Jeroboam II. Now here's the fascinating thing. God's first message of rebuke against the northern kingdom of Israel was given in the days of that first Jeroboam. But his last message of rebuke and warning was given through a man like Hosea and a few of these other minor prophets in the days of the second Jeroboam. And so you have two men, Jeroboam I and Jeroboam II. They not only shared the same name, but the same evil character. that called forth the wrath of God. Now that northern kingdom had been called to repentance over and over again down through those few centuries. And we can think today of some of the prophets who ministered early on. We think of Elijah. We think of Elisha. We think of Micaiah. All these men, great men of God, they ministered to the northern kingdom. That's where their ministry was based, and while there were some times that God did move and God worked, generally the apostasy continued. It never was completely eradicated. You know the story of Elijah, the prophets of Baal, what happened at Carmel, and all of those events, and for a time the apostasy was kind of stayed, but it came back, and it never was eradicated. Once apostasy sets in, There is no hope of that body who go apostate ever being recovered. It will continue on, it will eventually maybe stay for a while, it will reemerge and it will grow and it will develop until, whether it's a nation or a church body, a denomination, whatever it might be, until it comes to nothing and it's destroyed. The Bible makes that absolutely clear. There is no revival no restoration for that body that goes apostate or turns away completely from the Word of God and denies the things of the Lord. Now at the beginning of the reign of Jeroboam II, Hosea actually tells us, he shows us in his book, that there was a time of prosperity. among the ten tribes. I mean, in a monetary sense, in a commercial sense, there was a time of prosperity, and it would have seemed things were going well. That was the time when Hosea came on the scene, as his book shows us. We haven't it here in front of us, but it's in the book. And we can learn that from chapter 2 if we have time at this minute, but we don't. But just take it from me, there was a time of prosperity, then it declined again and gave way to the awful end that came to the northern kingdom when they were carried away. So Hosea, the book of Hosea reveals that the Lord brought the demise of the dynasty of a man called Jehu. You will find that Jehu followed Ahab. Now Ahab is more well-known because he's more infamous. He's the man who married Jezebel. And that was earlier on, after the days of the Jeroboam II, or the Jeroboam I. But there's a man called Jehu, he reigned just after Ahab, and then there was an end to the whole kingdom later on. Look at verse four here. knows what 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. That's an important statement. In the very opening part of this book, there is an announcement from God And it's all tied into this son of Hosea's called Jezreel, the meaning of his name. We will come to this in another study, but it's just those words in verse 4 where it says, I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, that man who lived a way long before Hosea's day. and it says, "...and will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel." There in the last words you have God announcing immediately in the opening part of this book that the kingdom of Israel is about to end. And that's what the book of Hosea then goes on to show to a great degree, the end of the northern kingdom. If you turn to chapter 11 and verse number 5 of Hosea, you will find that It's mentioned again, the end of the kingdom. Hosea 11 and the verse number 5, and let me show you what that verse says. He shall not return into the land of Egypt, and the Assyrian shall be his king, because they refused to return. Now that whole statement is about Israel. Remember how Israel went down into Egypt before? And that's where they tried to go at different times in their history, thinking they'd find refuge there. But this verse says, he shall not return, that's Israel, shall not return into the land of Egypt, and the Assyrian shall be his king. because they refused to return. They refused to repent. Israel refused to repent. And instead of escaping from the consequences and fleeing into Egypt, that was not allowed. The Assyrian came. Now, the Assyrian is a name that is for a great empire that reigned in those times. We read about it in the books of Kings again, and you'll find it mentioned many a time. The kingdom of Assyria. And it was the Assyrians who came, who overran the ten tribes, carried them into captivity, and the kingdom of Israel in the northern sense of things was completely abolished, came to an end, and as a kingdom it never recovered. Now, jumping ahead in time, whenever Judah was taken into captivity in Babylon, they came back from Babylon, and they were reestablished in Jerusalem and in their own land of Judah for one simple reason, a very important reason. It was in that kingdom of Judah that the Messiah was to be born, and that's why God brought Judah back. to prepare the way for the coming of the Messiah. But as far as the northern kingdom is concerned, those ten tribes never recovered themselves, although they didn't go out of existence, by the way. May I add that at this point and make that absolutely clear, because you'll find them mentioned in Scripture afterwards. But they never were recovered as a kingdom. whereas the kingdom of Judah did recover and come out of their own captivity. There came an end to the kingdom in the north, the kingdom of Israel, the ten tribes, that kingdom, it came to an end. It shows you, brethren and sisters, that if there's no repentance in a nation, eventually that nation will be destroyed. It will come to an end. History is punctuated with that. That fact I mean, that particular detail. Over and over and over again, down through history, kingdom after kingdom, empire after empire, they've all fallen because of their immorality, their idolatry, their wickedness. They cannot last. They will not last. And that's why our nation is in such danger, because if there's no repentance, well, I don't know what the future will hold in terms of the details, but I do know that our kingdom will continually go down and down and down. and will be utterly destroyed for its sin. That's what the Bible teaches us. And we learn that lesson as we look at the ten tribes and that northern kingdom. So that's something about the time when this book of Hosea actually was written. It was written at that point when the ten tribes or the northern kingdom was just about to be destroyed and God raised up Hosea to bring a final warning, to make a last call to repentance as it were, and yet it was totally ignored, and God said, the Assyrian will come and will destroy the nation. What about the author of the book? And the author of the book is referred to here in verse 1, and of course it says, the word of the Lord that came on Hosea, the son of Beeri. Now, let's look at Hosea for a few minutes here. I have to close early today because I'm going down to Lisbon to preach this morning. Mr. Higginson's not well, but anyhow, verse 1 refers to the writer, this man Hosea, the son of Beeri. The name Hosea means Jah, or Jehovah, is help, or Jehovah is salvation. The Hebrew form of this man's name, we have it here as Hosea, but the Hebrew form of this prophet's name is Hosea, with an H in it. And so if you want to write that down, H-O-S-H-E-A. And it's very similar to the name Joshua. We all know about the Joshua who led Israel into the promised land, and so we know his name, and there are other Joshuas, of course, in the Bible as well. But the Hebrew form of the name Joshua is Jehoshua, and it's very, very similar to the name Hosea, and they both have the same meaning. Both names mean Jehovah saves. And you know, in that God was setting down a little marker and calling this man to be the prophet who would announce the destruction of Israel. He was giving a reminder at least that in Jehovah there's salvation. That's the meaning of this man's name, just the same as Joshua. And you know, brethren and sisters, the lovely thing is the name Jesus comes from the same Hebrew root. I know that Jesus is a New Testament name, but actually it's a Hebrew name, and it's the New Testament form of the name Jehoshua or Joshua. And it's very similar, therefore, to the name Hosea, because the name Jesus means Jehovah saves. So mark that. In this man's name, there was a picture, or sorry, there was a pointer to the Savior. The very name he had, the very meaning of his name, there was a pointer to the Savior. He was the son of Beeri, and the name Beeri means expounder. That's interesting because Hosea was a man who came along to not only write the Word of God, but preach it and be an expositor of the Word of God. You see, there's always a message. in these Hebrew names. That's one of the fascinating things about the names of men in the Bible. There is a message in their names, and therefore the meaning of the name Hosea is actually the message of all Scripture. What is the message of all of the Bible? Jehovah saves. culminating and coming to its epitome in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, Jesus, Jehovah saves. And so the message of Hosea is that the Lord saves and that there is grace therefore for those who will turn from their sin and will seek after the living God. Now in relation to this point of the message of grace that's signified by the name Hosea, I want you to turn to 2 Kings chapter 15 and verse number 29. 2 Kings 15 and verse 29, and let's read this verse together. It says, In the days of Pekah king of Israel, came Tiglath-Pileser, king of Assyria, and took Ejon, and Abel, Beth, Maacah, and Jenoa, and Kadesh, and Hazor, and Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali, and carried them captive to Assyria." Now this is in that period that we're viewing in the book of Hosea. We read here of the king of Assyria, Tiglath-Pileser. Here is a king of Assyria actually named. Here's one of those kings who actually—and this happened a number of times—the Assyrians come into the northern kingdom, and they began to take people away out of that kingdom into their own land and into their own territories. And so we read here in verse 29 of what happened. Notice the words here toward the end of verse 29, all the land of Naphtali. Now Naphtali was one of the twelve sons of Jacob, and this is a reference to one of the tribes of Israel, the area where the Naphtalites actually lived. And you read there about places that you're familiar with, Kedash and Hazor and Gilead, Galilee, Galilee, And it's referred to, that whole region's called here all the land of Naphtali. So this man Tiglath-Pileser, an Assyrian king, he came into that part of Israel and he took people from there, from those different places that were mentioned, but it's all referred to as the land of Naphtali. Now, remember Hosea's name. Because Hosea is a man whose book gives us information about this period when all this took place. Remember Hosea's name? It means Jehovah saves. It's a name that has the message of grace in it. I want you to go with me now to Matthew 4, Matthew chapter 4. And notice something to me that is fascinating and a blessing just to read and to notice. Matthew 4 and verse 12. Let's read down to verse 16. Now, when Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison, he departed into Galilee, and leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the sea coast in the borders of Zebulun and Naphtali, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah, that's Isaiah the prophet, Isaiah says it is here, but that's Isaiah the prophet saying, the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, by the way of the sea beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles, the people which sat in darkness, the people which sat in darkness saw great light. And to them which sat in the region and shadow of death, light is sprung up." Now, there you have words that are quoted from Isaiah, and you find that those words quoted from Isaiah are a prophecy of something that was going to happen in the days of Jesus Christ when He would begin His ministry. Remember who Christ is. He is Jesus. He is Jehovah who saves. And this prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled when the Lord comes along and He begins to minister. And where did He start? He started in the land of Naphtali. He started up in Galilee. The Lord didn't begin His ministry down in Jerusalem. This is the fascinating, the wonderful thing. He began in the northern kingdom, or what was the northern kingdom. He actually started in the land of Naphtali. A few other places are mentioned, but just notice the land of Naphtali. The very same region that we saw in 2 Kings 15, being stripped of its people and those folkmen carried away, and the whole land of Naphtali left in ruin. But hundreds of years later, the person whose own name is pointed to by the name of our prophet Hosea came along to that same area of Israel, and he began to preach, and Isaiah's prophecy was fulfilled, that those words, the people which sat in darkness saw great light, and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death, light is sprung up. And so what we find is the darkness of Hosea's day eventually gave way to the light that shone when Christ came to minister. And you know that's a wonderful thing because it shows you that God on his mercy, hundreds of years later, can begin to move again in a region of this world, any given region, that has been destroyed because of apostasy and darkness. Oh, there may not be and will not most likely, as I said earlier, be any recovery like to what was known before, but there can be little pockets of people raised up by God. That's what happened here. There in the northern kingdom, the Lord began to minister. That's where He started. And light sprang up to those who were sitting in darkness. And therefore, the darkness that was in the days of Hosea, the end of the kingdom of Israel, that darkness eventually gave way, all because Christ was born, all because He came into the world as the light of the world. Remember what Zechariah prophesied in Luke chapter 1, that the day spring from on high hath visited us. And so while churches and denominations may fall and do fall and disappear off the scene, God will raise up another light. God will raise up those who will stand for the Savior and stand for truth. It may not happen for a long time, but it will happen. It does happen many and many a time. We see that in the Reformation period. The whole of Europe fell into midnight darkness. And it seemed that there was no hope. And then God began to move and began to work and raise up men. We know them well. And under their ministries, the scene began to change, and darkness gave way to light, and the Spirit of God moved in a wonderful fashion, and the glory of the Lord was seen again across the continent of Europe. Oh, brethren and sisters, do not While we are vaxed, while we lament, do not give up hope because God is able to move again. We see it reflected here in the story of Hosea and in these historical details that flow out of the time when he lived and all the background to that, and then His very name, and what that name means, and all that's connected with that. And so I trust that what we've seen today will encourage your hearts, and that you will be blessed through these thoughts that we've looked at. And we will, of course, return to this in the will of God. And may the Lord bless His truth to us. and be with us today, and may His Spirit move among us in power. Let's bow together, and we will close the class now, and may the Lord give help to us all. Our Heavenly Father, we thank Thee for what we have seen today. from the Scriptures. We rejoice, O Lord, in the marvelous way in which the Bible is written, all the details that are interconnected, and all the thoughts that come so vividly before us as we trace it all out in the Word, and how we thank Thee that it all leads to Christ and always brings us to the Savior. And Lord, we think of Hosea His name, the meaning of it, and all that it presents to us, a message of hope in a dark day, and how we thank Thee for the One who is in His very person and work, Jehovah our salvation, our Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, rejoice our hearts, thrill our hearts, with matters like these, and take us on our way today rejoicing. Bless the time of prayer now that will start, and remember, O God, the morning meeting. Bless the Reverend Stewart, and give help, Lord, and give help in all our congregations. And may the Holy Ghost come down in power, and may our work be done for Thy glory and for God's eternal praise. We ask this all for the Savior's sake and for His everlasting praise. Amen.