the minor prophets there towards the end of your Old Testament. There's the book of Hosea, and that's a kind of a strange one, isn't it? I want to thank you for all the pastor appreciation gifts and cards, and then my birthday gifts and cards. Now, let's hold off on the sweets. A woman at work bought me a confetti cake. Another woman at work made me a homemade I got a pumpkin pie. I got, I don't know how many chocolates, ice cream, pudding. I'm going to a diabetes doctor soon. Thank you. Thank you. I've had other gifts, clothing, shoes, Lord knows what. Thank you. The Lord is being very good to me through you. I want to thank you for that, your thoughtfulness and kindness, not to mention all the things you do here at Victory Baptist Church. It just thrills me. Our mission stay is thrilling me. Our outreach is thrilling me. The new radio ministry is thrilling me. I couldn't forget this. Maybe I'm about to die or something, and I'm right on the high right before you go or something. I don't know, but there are just wonderful things going on here, and I sure appreciate that. All right, Hosea chapter 8, verse 11. The Bible says, because Ephraim hath made many altars to sin, altars shall be unto him to sin. Now Ephraim was the name of the most populous northern tribe, so when he's talking to Israel in general, a lot of times he called them Ephraim. called the nation Ephraim, because Ephraim hath made many altars to sin, altars shall be unto him to sin. Now altars are supposed to be where you offer a sacrifice for your sins, and the Lord says his altars are a sin to him. Verse 12, I have written to him the great things of my law, but they were counted as a strange thing. They sacrifice flesh for the sacrifices of mine offerings, and eat it, But the LORD accepted them not. Now will he remember their iniquity and visit their sins. They shall return to Egypt. For Israel hath forgotten his Maker and built his temples." Isn't that interesting? I thought you built temples to worship your Maker, your God. But here it says, Israel hath forgotten his Maker and built his temples. And Judah hath multiplied fifth cities, that I will send a fire upon his cities, and it shall devour the palaces thereof." Alright, so they're in trouble there. They've still got some religion, but they're rejecting the Word of the Lord. Alright, look at chapter 10, a page or so over. Chapter 10, verse 11. Again, it's referring to Ephraim. The Bible says, And Ephraim is as an heifer that is tall, and loveth to tread out the corn. But I passed over upon her fair neck, I will make Ephraim to ride. Judah shall plow, and Jacob shall break his clods. Talking about somebody breaking up the ground, obviously, there, like farming. It says in verse 12, Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy. Break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord, till he come and rain righteousness upon you. ye have plowed wickedness, ye have reaped iniquity, ye have eaten the fruit of lies, because thou didst trust in thy way in the multitude of thy mighty men." Alright, so they did all these sacrifices and they built these temples and they had these altars and the Bible says the Lord accepted them not. So I'll talk this morning about being rejected by God. Your heavenly Father, we thank you for this chance to preach your word. I pray you'll come down and bear witness to the truth of it, Lord. We know your spirit speaks through your word. God, unworthy though we are, we've been made worthy by the grace of God through the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. And I pray, Lord, that you'd speak to us and help us to learn some things so that we'll not be rejected by you. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. I want to say this morning that rejection by God is a real condition. And it has definite, observable causes and cures. Now, what's the problem here? The problem is, I have written to him the great things of my law, but they were counted as a strange thing. Now, we make a big deal about the Bible here at Victory Baptist Church. We are a Bible-believing church. We think God Almighty has written to us in this book, and there's something wrong if this is strange to you. But the problem in our day is, What this book says doesn't match the way everybody's acting. And if you're going with the world, the book will look strange to you. And if you're going with the book, the world will look strange to you. You have a choice to make. Are you on God's side or the side of your flesh? Are you on God's side or the side of this world? Are you on God's side or the side of this devil? It's in such power in our days called the God of this world, isn't he? Now in Romans 3, Paul says the chief advantage that the Jew had over the Gentile was that the Jew had the oracles or word of God. And our text verifies that Ephraim, a name for the majority of Israel, had the law written to him. Unfortunately, Ephraim counted God's word as a strange thing. Interestingly, his disregard for God's law did not hinder him building altars, building temples, cities, or fences for protection or offering sacrifices to the Lord. But I'll tell you what it did affect. It affected whether or not God accepted those things. You can waste a lot of time doing things that are supposedly religious and to get the attention of God and Him reject the whole thing. One of the earliest stories in the whole Bible is Cain and Abel. And I'm sure Cain worked real hard I'm going to tell you what to do today so that what efforts you put out are not rejected by God. And I'll go ahead and give you the spoiler alert. Let me tell you the short version of it. Do it according to this book. Do it according to the word of God. Now, what are the steps that precede the condition of rejection? What are the symptoms that identify the fact that you've been rejected? And what are the steps that lead to recovery from you being rejected? I'm talking to a generation of people that are real familiar with this. Supposedly, the fact that we're all interconnected and we're all on Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, what am I missing? All the rest of them. It means we're all interconnected, and yet study after study after study shows that people feel more alienated the more they're parts of all these things, especially the young women. Study after study has verified that the young women, look at that, get all depressed. I don't know if they're not measuring up to what is on there or what, but nobody, it doesn't do anybody any good. It particularly hurts the young women. We got a generation of people that feel rejected. This is something, this is a relevant message. This is something that a lot of people get. Let me tell you one of the first steps, if I may get just a little bit ahead of myself, to feeling accepted. Number one, be accepted between you and your God. The number one relationship in your life that will do the most to fix every other relationship you've got going is how you and God We can talk more about that. This is an Old Testament passage, and obviously Jesus hadn't been born yet, but we know some things from our New Testament that clearly show our relationship to God goes through the Lord Jesus Christ, doesn't it? Yes. Alright, well let's look first of all at the symptoms that identify rejection. If you match some of these symptoms, you're in a condition of rejection. This isn't the popular feel-good thing, but it leads to a popular feel-good thing. Or it should, because you should say, wait a minute, I want to fix my relationship with my God. All right? The first and most obvious symptom that shows you're in a state of rejection is when you count God's Word a strange thing. The B-I-B-L-E. Yes, that's the book for me. I stand alone on the Word of God, the B-I-B-L-E. That's a great song. That is something that you need to build your life on. But in verse 12, they were building altars, they were building temples, God had written him the great things of His law, and they just said, oh, that's weird. You know what? I guess God's Word does look weird in this pagan, post-Christian world. We're a lot different than we were in this country 50 years ago and more. What's happened? We've counted God's Word a strange thing. in spite of the fact that it has the authority of God behind it. In spite of the fact it has the truthfulness of God behind it. The Bible tells us God, which cannot lie, promised some things before the world began. Now, you know of a man that cannot lie? Introduce him to me, if you would. I'd like to meet that guy. His authority, his truthfulness, his mercy. You want to get thrown at the mercy of men and women? I don't care if it's in your neighborhood. I don't care if it's in your school. I don't care if it's in your family. And I hate to say this, but I don't care if it's in your Bible-believing Baptist church. They won't always have much mercy on you. Let me tell you who will. The Lord Jesus Christ. Why would you count His Word a strange thing when He has all the authority, He has all the truthfulness. Thank God on top of that, that it deserves some attention. Why in the world would somebody as great as the Lord Jesus Christ and His Word not arrest your attention? How in the world can you sing the songs we were singing praising the Lord Jesus Christ and it not touch your heart? Let's review. The Lord Jesus Christ is the creator of this whole universe. Is that not pretty good? Is that not pretty powerful? On top of that, he is the one that has never done one thing wrong. He's perfect. He came to this earth in certainly less than optimum conditions, being a Jew under the Roman Empire in those days, and still never did a single thing wrong. Went around doing right, good things all the time, healing the sick, taking care of the blind, and bringing up dead people. resurrecting people from the dead, and in spite of nothing but good, and fulfilling all of God's Old Testament law, in spite of nothing but good, they persecuted him and killed him. Both his own people and the Roman government went along with it. And he was tortured, mutilated, and killed because he loved you and me so much he wanted to take care of our sins for us. Then stayed dead three days. While those three days were going on, he took mine and your sins, went down to hell with them, dropped them off in there, preached to the spirits that were in prison, and led them back up to heaven, and then stopped by and was seen here. And by the way, the Bible says many of the bodies of the saints arose and went into the city and were seen. And now all power is given to Him in heaven and in earth, and He's going to rule and reign forever and ever. And at Christmas time we sing the Hallelujah Chorus that says, and He shall reign forever and ever. And He loved you so much as to die for you, write you a love letter, and get it to you. And you count His word a strange thing? Why in the world would you reject or ignore somebody like that? Hey, tell me, who is your guy? You're going to have to fill in, old Bobby Baby, on who in the world you got that you think is better than that. Because I'm having a real hard time picturing anybody greater than the Lord Jesus Christ. What man are you looking for? If you can't think of one better than him, and I know you can't, How come you didn't wake up this morning and go to Him in prayer and open up your Bible and let Him talk to you and devote your whole life to Him? I bet you if you got everything right with Jesus, I bet you everything else would start falling in place. And as long as you're rejected by Him because you're counting His word a strange thing when He's got all the authority, He's got all the truthfulness, He's got all the mercy and He deserves all your attention, I bet you There's a bunch of things in your life that's messing up, and you're wondering, why? What did I do? Fix it. Fix it with the man, the only one that matters. I know about your relationships with most men on this earth. I know they're liars. I know they're cheats. I know they're dogs. I get it. But you've got a problem in your heart. You know how I know? Because the one that's perfect, you have almost nothing to do with. Maybe it's not a problem with the men in your life. Maybe it's a problem with you. And by the way, as I say this, I'm speaking to both men and women, because we all have a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Symptoms that identify rejection. Number one, counting God's word a strange thing, especially when this word covers the great themes of the Bible. I mean, this is the one that tells you how to get saved and have eternal life. As far back as you can go, even in the Epic of Gilgamesh that we study about in world history and Daddy referred to in the study on Genesis this very morning. You know what they were looking for? How to live forever. You know what this Bible has? It has the secret to eternal life. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. You got a better subject than that? Let's talk about it. It's got salvation. It's got the second coming. We've had an election year and we're worried about who's in charge. And once again, the elections that were just too close to call, they really had to take their time and count for days and days and days to come to the bottom of them. The liberals won those. How is it that they knew that? Results are set off for days and days and days. They just keep on bringing more votes until the liberal wins. How does that always work that way? I guess somebody lied. Well, let me tell you what the Bible does. The Bible tells about a time when everything's going to be set right. And the one in charge is going to be the one with no sin. And it's 100% truthfulness. How many knows that politicians, and I'll admit it, preachers lie? You know why? Let God be true and every man a liar. One of these days, the one that's never told a lie, God who cannot lie, can make some promises. They're better than the politicians' and the preachers' promises. And He'll be the one in charge. You tell me a better subject than the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Boy, what a blessing I got singing those songs, lifting up the Lord Jesus Christ this morning. It's all I can do to keep from crying, keep from shouting, keep from running. Why? You know why? Because He's the man. He's the perfect man. You got a problem with Him? It ain't a man problem you got, it's a heart problem you got. That's right. It includes the great themes of the salvation and the second coming and the creation. How many scientists want to know more about how we got here? The Bible gives you the whole story. Which word is counted strange? Number one in that it's not read. When's the last time you read a little Bible? It's a thick book. I don't expect you to read the whole book in one day or one month. When's the last time we read you a chapter or two? He said, Lord, show this to me. It's strange in that it's unread. It's strange in that it's not enjoyed. People read books and novels, some about romance and some about action and some about war and some about peace and some about politics and some about making money. They'll read that stuff and they'll learn from it and they'll enjoy it. It'll change their lives. How in the world can you not read God's book and it change your life? The one that has all the answers on all those things. Yet God's word is counting a strange thing. Also in that it's misunderstood. A lot of people read the Word of God and get a lot of things wrong about it. How do they do that? I'll tell you how. They don't compare Scripture with Scripture. They don't say, oh, he's talking to the Jew here. Oh, he's talking to the Gentile here. Oh, he's talking to sinners here. Oh, he's talking to saved people. Just notice the context of it. That'll clear up the vast majority of all the misunderstandings. But biggest way that I know the Word of God has counted a strange thing in that it's hated and actively opposed. Something is clear in the Word of God that the man ought to be the head of his house. You say that, and everybody gets all mad. Well, history shows that. The Word of God says that. Common sense tells you that. Now, don't get me wrong, I certainly agree that a lot of men mess that up, but that's still a clear teaching. And everybody gets all mad. You say something clear that the Word of God says that the heavens were framed by the Word of God. Through faith we understand that the world were framed by the word of God. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Everybody gets all mad. What's the trouble? Hey, if this isn't the word of God as Dr. Uckman used to ask, then what's the big stake? Why does everybody get mad? Good point. Good point. Amen. The number one symptom that identifies rejection is counting God's word a strange thing. The second thing is embracing other religion. Religion that's not based on the word of God. Talking about their altars and their rituals and their beautiful ceremonies. The old-time Bible-believing Baptists didn't have nearly as pretty a building, nearly as pretty a ceremony. Boy, they sure obsessed over the Word of God, didn't they? Yeah. What's a condition that shows rejection? Counting the Word of God a strange thing. Embracing worldly religion. Chapter 4 and verse 17, here in Hosea, the Bible says, Ephraim is joined to idols, let him alone. One of the great characteristics of false religion is that they have these statues, they have these idols, and people will bow down to these statues. I'm talking about they'll kiss on them until they've kissed the toe plumb off of the thing over the centuries. Hey, the Bible doesn't have you worshiping a statue. The Bible has you worshiping the living God. It doesn't have worldly religion and false religion. I'll tell you another one. Forgetting God. The Bible says here in our text in Hosea 8.14, for Israel had forgotten his maker and built with temples. not the place where there is preaching on every street corner, at least here in the Bible Belt. God help us not forget. Forgetting God is a good proof of being rejected. But we're not thinking about God. We're thinking about tasting beef or hearing bands or drinking booze or seeing babes or seeing boys or whatever you got going on in your mind. We got enough electronic screens and enough advertisements and enough entertainment to keep our mind on everything this world has going until God never enters our mind. The wicked man. What is the first thing God is going to have his thoughts? The number one relationship that fix every little thing. The number one thing that is the contributor to you feeling rejected. And you don't have any time for that. How that reminds me of the Christmas story we'll be talking about here in a month or so. And it talks about how they had to go somewhere else because there was no room for them in the unit. The old hymn says, have you any room for Jesus? You who bore your load of sin, as he knocks and asks admission. Sinner, will you let him in? Forgetting God. The last thing I'll say about the symptoms that identify rejection is concentrating on building. multiplying fifth cities and many altars and temples, and we've already mentioned those things, so we'll move quickly from that. We've looked at the symptoms that identify rejection. Now let's look at the steps that precede rejection. How'd you get in this shape? Look over at chapter 10, verse 13. The Bible says, ye have plowed wickedness. Now when you start your garden, you know, you start it, you plow. So it started with you tolerating sin. cloud, wickedness. You departed from the rules of the divine law, the evil that was in your heart and mind and the evil that you did outwardly. That's where it started. And you talk like this and all the modernists say, oh, Christianity is a relationship. It's not any rules. You better go back and read your Bible. Rules all in the Old Testament. Rules all in the Pauline epistles. Rules everywhere. We've often pointed out the Lord Jesus says, if you love me, there's your relationship. Keep my commandments. There's your rules. I want to have a relationship with Brother Sean, and I go to his house and break every rule he's got at his house. And encourage his kids to break all his rules. Guess what? Me and Sean ain't going to be buddies for very long. He's going to say, Brother Bob, that hurts my relationship with you, because you come into my house and do a bunch of stuff I don't allow in this house. And it's the same way with the Lord. You go and just smack his face and shove stuff that you know offends him right in his face just to be mean, and then say, oh, but don't worry, Lord, that's just rules. I'm worried about our relationship. I really love you. If you love me, keep my commandments. He said to his disciples, he said, if ye are my friends, there's their relationship. And the rest of the sentence says, if ye do whatsoever I command you, there's your rules. Yeah, you better stick to the Word of God. Rules and the relationship go together. And here in chapter 10, verse 13 of Hosea, it says, ye have plowed wickedness. All right, that's where it started. They broke all the rules. Let me tell you what we've done in this country. We broke all the rules. We don't know whether or not a mother ought to keep her baby or not if she can. That's a pretty easy rule to me. We don't know whether somebody that's born a boy ought to stay a boy. For somebody that's a girl, I'll just stay a girl. I'm pretty clear on that rule. I mean, we don't even know how to keep those rules, let alone, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not bear a false witness. I mean, even basic things, man, we're really struggling with. These difficult issues, people will say. They shouldn't be difficult. They're pretty clear. In the word of God, they're pretty clear in nature. All right, steps that precede rejection. Number one, tolerating sin. Here's where it gets real bad. Number two, continuing sin. Let's just be honest. Every one of us sin. And we sin every day. If I stand up here and tell you that I don't, you'd know I was lying. And you do too. There's not a one of us that is going to perfectly not tolerate any sin in our lives, is there? Here's the problem with continuing in your sin. It goes further and further and further. You get into people that are into some real perversions, they didn't slip up one time. They've been doing that stuff a long time. They've been looking at temporary pictures a long time. They've been taking them drugs a long time. They kept on. Tolerating sin is one thing, and I'm against it, and I preached against it, and I tried to hit it pretty hard, but in all honesty, we, every one of us, do that. God help us not continue it, not go further down the road of perversion. We got a bunch of people in this country today. It's obvious they've been doing it a long time, because they're just weird stuff. I want to talk about it in a mixed audience, but it ain't normal. run-of-the-mill sin, like we used to have a hundred years ago in this country. They're into some stuff now that the scoundrels a hundred years ago would have been wrinkling their brow at. They're going, what in the world is going on there? The Bible says there in verse 13, you have plowed wickedness, you have reaped iniquity. You know how you know you're continuing in sin when some of the bad effects of it start to come in? just the effects of it, and continue. I think they call it double down. Go further. Hey, young people, let's just be real with each other. I know you got some sin in your lives right now. Probably some of your mom and daddy may not even know about it. When those things come up, That's the difference between tolerating sin and continuing sin. Now, I'm not making any excuse for tolerating it. Try not to. But they're going to get you. They're going to get you. Not one of us is going to be perfect. But don't keep going. Don't keep going. Tolerating sin, continuing in sin. It goes past injustice, unrighteousness, deviation from that which is clearly right. There have been times in my life where I was in something I didn't need to be into, and I wasn't letting people find out, and I wasn't talking about it. The next thing I knew, I saw somebody else getting blamed for it, and I got feeling bad about it, and I went, okay, it was me. It was me, because I felt so bad about the other person getting blamed for it. You know what? When you just keep going, you say, I don't care who takes the money. I'm just going to keep going. You're going down a dangerous path, and you don't know where that's going to end up. Continue to be conceited. Furthermore, there comes a point you start deceiving so much, you start believing your silly lies, and you get used to being a liar. The New Testament calls it deceiving and being deceived. Here in our text, in Hosea chapter 10 verse 13, it says plowed wickedness, there's the tolerating sin. Reaped iniquity, there's the continuing in sin. Ye have eaten the fruit of lies, there's the deceiving and being deceived. I've heard conservative commentators talk about how the world, some of these people, liberal things that obviously would wreck your life and wreck your whole society if you continue them. How in the world do these people get convinced of these things? Here's how. Number one, they tolerated sin. Number two, they continued sin. Number three, they started hanging out with a bunch of other people that had done it, and they just deceived and continued deceiving, and their whole lives became a lie. Next thing you know, that which is good, they're calling evil, and that which is evil, they're calling good, and it's just a mess. Alright, I'll tell you the next step. Tolerating sin, continuing in sin, deceiving and being deceived. Now look at the rest of verse 13. After you have eaten the fruit of lies, it says, because thou didst trust in my way. Trusting himself. This is a biggie. I don't need anybody else. I'm a self-made man. I'm an independent woman. I'm whatever. I can go my own way. I know what it is I want and what I'm after, and I can get it myself. Now, let's compare the Lord Jesus' Word to His disciples. Without me, ye can do nothing. One says you're a strong, self-made man, or an independent woman, or whatever. And the other says, without me, you can do nothing. Somebody's lying. Which one do you believe? Amen. It says here in verse 13, when they got in all that trouble, because thou didst trust in thy way, the arm of flesh will fail you, the old hymn says, ye dare not trust your own. I'm facing you with a choice today. You can believe the world's self-trust doctrine, or you can believe the Bible's God-trust doctrine. But you can't believe both. They're headed in opposite directions. If you try to do something with both, it'd be like if I asked, okay, which way are you going? And you say, left, right, east, west. Oh, okay, that's an interesting direction. You'll have to show me how to go that way one of these times. You can't do that. You either trust God or you trust self. Trust self. You keep trusting self, you're in steps of rejection. I'll give you one further in verse 13. It says, thou didst trust in thy way in the multitude of thy mighty men. That's where you trust the experts. That's a big deal. During the election coverage, they had their experts come in. All right, here's our Democratic expert. Here's our Republican expert. Here's our economic expert, and here's our military and defense and foreign affairs expert. And call in the experts. Let me give you the expert on every subject there's ever been. You're looking for true love? He designed the whole thing. You're looking to make money? All the principles of money making are right here. You want to be a better parent? Here it is. You want to know history? Here it is. You want to know science? Here it is, you wanna know mathematics? The God that created all these things wrote you a book. Now I'll grant you, it'll take you some reading and some studying for some years to get to the bottom of all those things, but the truth is found right here. All right, let's look at one more and we'll close so everybody can go to dinner. Steps that lead to recovery from rejection. We saw the symptoms that identified rejection. It's counting God's Word a strange thing, mainly. We saw the steps that precede rejection as tolerating sin and continuing in sin until you're deceived and being deceived and trusting yourself and trusting a bunch of experts. Now let's look at the steps that lead to recovery from rejection. Verse 12, he tells them what to do, thank God. The Bible says, sow to yourselves in righteousness. Alright, start planting the seeds of righteousness. live a life of righteousness. In other words, do right! Bob Jones Sr. said, do right till the stars fall. Do right in relation to the laws of your land. Do right in relation to your family. Do right in relation to your authority. Do right in relation to God's law. So, to yourselves in righteousness. Listen, you got trouble with rejection? You feel rejected a lot? You feel like you don't fit in? You feel like your life help you turn that thing around. Live righteously. Number two, continue in righteousness. When they continued in sin, they finally started to reap some of the consequences of it. But if you live righteously, you'll start to reap some of the consequences of it. Look at it. It says in verse 12, so to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy. You say, Brother Bob, it's too late. I've already sinned. I've already There are some punishments I deserve, and the Lord said, you don't deserve this, Bob, but I'm just going to cover that one over and just take care of it for you. You're messing up a lot, but I can see you're trying. I'm going to have some mercy on you. Maybe I'm speaking to some self-righteous people, and you've got it perfect, and you don't deserve anything bad. Just read the Bible a little bit, and you'll start finding out some of your faults, I promise you. But if you ever get honest with yourself about some of the screw-ups you've done and the sins you've done, let me tell you something. You'll be real happy to reap some mercy. So do yourselves in righteousness. Reap in mercy. Here's another one. Soften your heart to receive God's Word. We live in a day of hard hearts. I've got to guard my heart. I've got to protect my heart. I'm not going to be vulnerable. Ain't nobody going to stomp on me. Nobody's ever going to take advantage of me. Hey bubs, you ain't that strong a woman. You may as well just open that heart up and soften it and trust God to take care of you. You know what he says in verse 12? He says, break up your fallow ground. That fallow ground is that hard ground that you do when you're first plowing, you know? You know what a lot of us need to do? We're trying to protect ourselves, and believe me, I understand the self-defense mechanisms and not wanting to be disappointed and not get your heart broken. And so you put up all these guards and all these fences and all these hard stone walls around it. I understand. I have some tendencies that way myself. Let me tell you what the Lord says to do. Break up your foul agreement. Soften it. Let me give you some specifics. How do you know if you have a hard heart? Number one, in gratitude. This is the month we celebrate Thanksgiving. If you're living in the United States of America, and the freedoms that we enjoy, and the love that most of us are surrounded with, and the financial prosperity, and the food, and the entertainment, and the ball games, and the fun, and the movies, and the, what in the world do we like? from a worldly point of view, from a secular point of view, from a fleshy point of view, from a biblical point of view, from any point of view. If you're not thankful, if a tear doesn't trickle down your cheek sometime this month as we celebrate Thanksgiving, and it really should be all year long, something is wrong somewhere, you better soften that heart. You've got it better than most citizens of this world through all of history. Bible Belt Christian in the United States of America with the money flowing freely. If you want Italian food, you can go get Italian food today at dinner time. If you want Mexican food, you can go get it right now. If you want Chinese, if you want soul food, whatever you want, you can go get it. We rolled in, some of you rolled in here in some pretty nice vehicles today. God's taking care of you. Some of you have some people that love you with all their heart and wouldn't let you do without anything you really need. Do you know how many people don't enjoy that? Man, do you know what we have to be thankful for? If you aren't thankful, you need to break up some fallow ground in your heart. Rich, fat, spoiled America, and I love America. Don't get me wrong. You know how I talk about the badness principles of freedom here in the United States of America. I'm not being mean to America. I'm saying, let's be thankful for God Almighty can speak to you through his word, some obvious truths like this, and you just harden your heart against it and go, oh, that doesn't sound right to me. That's not what they're saying on TV. That's not what they taught me in school. Hey, listen, man, when the word of God speaks, you believe it. If you would harden your heart against God, there's something wrong somewhere. Somebody's dealing with some fallow ground. Here's one, lack of love for God. I've already referred to this a little, so I won't spend too much time on it this time. But listen, anybody greater, more powerful, more impressive, I'll use the word cooler. the Lord Jesus Christ ever in your life that loved you enough to die for you, loved you enough to get His Word to you, loved you enough to tell you how to live your life so that you have joy and surrounded by love of His people your whole life and you don't love Him back, something's wrong somewhere. If you don't love the Lord Jesus Christ, I don't mean to sound mean, I don't mean to hurt anybody's feelings, somewhere. Somebody as impressive as him, as loving as him, as kind as him. I'm literally walked on the water, literally raised the dead, literally healed the sick, literally took mine and your sins so we don't have to pay for them. Literally is the king with all power given unto him in heaven and earth and he wants a relationship with you and you go, that's weird I'm not in not only soften your heart, I better hurry up, not only soften your heart, but keep it soft. The Bible says in verse 12, sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy, break up your foul ground, for it is time to seek the Lord till He come and rain righteousness upon you. Sometimes you might hear a message, sometimes the Lord might break your heart about something and you get a real tender heart and the tears flow for a little while, but two hours later, or two days later, or two weeks later, you've gone right back He establishes a righteous heart and mind in you, and until He comes to reign in righteousness. I'll give you one more as we close that shows you've got a hard heart that needs to get softened, and that's this. Indifference to the lost. You know why you ought to be excited about the outreaches of Victory Baptist and supporting the missionaries of Victory Baptist? Because we care about poor lost people. It ought to be number one because we love the Lord Jesus Christ and we want the most people glorifying Him that we can get. But second only to that will be, because hey, somebody was good to me and showed me how to get saved so I can live forever. God helped me to shine that light so I can help somebody else. And if you couldn't care less about that, you can break a curve on the ground. Amen. So Israel here had held to religion, but rejected their God. Therefore, God rejected their offerings and disapproved of their lives. Boy, down here at the Seekers Innocent and Big Church, they won't always Let me tell you about our God. He is positive. But you reject Him, He'll reject you. Oh yes, there's verse after verse that says that. Likewise, in our day, some of God's people who claim to be follow worldly religion and count God's Word a strange thing. God help us to look back and consider it. If we follow the steps of sin and deception and self-righteousness and trusting the so-called The remedy is sow to yourselves in righteousness and reap in mercy. Let me give you just a closing thought on that. The Bible says all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. We're all sinners. You start trying to sow in righteousness, let me tell you what you're going to find out real quick. Man, I can't do it. But you still won't do it perfectly, or those who won't. It'll show a change.