Good to see you tonight in the Lord's house. This morning we were reading from Psalm 24, and it asked the question, who is the King of glory? And the answer comes back that the King of glory is the Lord of hosts, Jehovah Sabaoth, the King. And so we ask the question tonight is, the Lord Jehovah, the King of our lives? And are we on His side? And that's the hymn we're going to start with tonight. Number 604, who is on the Lord's side? Who will serve the King? And the King of glory is well worthy of all our worship and service. Let's stand, please, as we worship Him now. Who lives on the glory side? Who will serve the King? Who will be His helpers? Who will guide Him free? Who will be the pathside? ♪ Come, thou light of Zion, save the weary eye ♪ ♪ Come, thou ray of glory, dawn of heaven high ♪ ♪ Enter in the eye of the Lord ♪ ♪ Christ, the Holy One ♪ ♪ If through Jesus' name you trust me on this earth ♪ ♪ Why, I am constrained ♪ ♪ But I praise the Father ♪ ♪ We are all but lost in sin or faith or love ♪ Jesus, thou hast brought us from the grave to death, but with thy own life, thou, Lord, art living. May thy blessing be with you each new month to come, ♪ The way of God ♪ ♪ You see me on God's way ♪ ♪ So lead me, O God ♪ ♪ On the ways, O love me ♪ ♪ The way of God ♪ ♪ Love is never fleeting ♪ Amen. That was good singing tonight. Good words to praise God by. And the next hymn we have is equally as good. We rest on thee and in thy name we go. But before we come to that, we'll ask the Lord's blessing on our service tonight. Please let us all pray. Father, with joy and thanksgiving, we enter once more into the house of prayer. And at the commencement of this meeting, we're mindful of our need of the Spirit's help. And so we ask, Lord, now, we ask specifically We ask with confidence. We ask, Lord, boldly approaching the throne of grace, for the help of the Comforter in our praying, in our reading of the Scripture, as we open the Word of God. And Father, as every believer here, as we need the instruction, the direction, the guidance, the leading of the Holy Ghost in our lives, we pray that that will be the case tonight from the Word so that we will mix the Word of God with faith and grow thereby. Lord, we are so weak in ourselves. We will vacillate. We fall by the wayside. Lord, don't let us go. Do not leave us to ourselves. Empower, strengthen, encourage, and build us up in our most holy faith. Lord, we have been given so much. We are blessed with so much. The Word of God has been given to us. Help us, therefore, to cherish, to value, to take it to our souls. Lord, I ask tonight for work of grace to be done deeply in the hearts of those who are not saved. Lord, I know that most of the people here in this building know Christ, and I rejoice in that, though there may be some we do not know of, maybe listening online. Father, grip hearts, we pray, We're thankful for that unsaved man who is in the church this morning, and we pray for his soul's salvation. Lord, answer our prayers. Surely, Lord, the number of times we have bombarded the throne of grace with prayers for salvation, laying hold upon God to break into the hearts of sinners, is it not your will, Lord, We pray that you will abundantly manifest your power. Save to the uttermost, O God, we pray. We cannot create an anxious thought. It's not by our convincing words, certainly not by our eloquence. Lord, we are powerless, but we want to be faithful signposts. We want to faithfully declare the truth that's in your word. that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. There's no doubting here. There's no hesitancy. Lord, we're asking tonight, we want to pray boldly. We want to pray on the authority of Christ's word. We want to stand on the merit of our Lord Jesus, and so here we are. This is what we're doing. Lord, you see us, you know our hearts, you know our desires. We ask that you would abundantly meet us and bless us and pour out your spirit in a great reviving of every heart and soul, every believer. Father, when we pray for reviving, We are asking, Lord, that we will be all the more conscious of the Savior working in us, living out through us, of the Spirit of God taking the things of Christ, revealing them from the Word to our hearts, so that we will be changed and more like our Lord. That's what we are praying for, O God, when we ask for reviving. Is it not your will? We believe it is, Lord. It's in the Scripture. And therefore, come and answer, not in a little way. Lord, we're asking for an abundant outpouring of your Spirit. Come and do what we are feeble and unable to do. Father, answer our prayers for the glory of your Son. for all the merit and value of his person. We depend and leave everything, Lord, on that ground and that authority. And so, we have many requests tonight. Many of them are repeated requests, Lord, for those who need your help healing. So thankful that our sister Joan was in the service this morning. Lord, she needs your help. She is not well. Touch her body, we pray, and bless her. Give her much grace. We pray for Serene. We ask for your hand upon her, for Leah, for Ron. Our brother Richard, out this morning, Richard Teo, we're thankful for him. Lord, we ask your blessing upon Rebecca Chandler tonight. Lord, in hospital, thankful for the development, for the positive steps. We pray tonight for Kamla, that, O Lord, you would touch her body and touch her soul. and bless her family and give opportunities to witness, I pray tonight. Remember, Lord, all of those who are suffering in some part of the world because of their faith. We think of those missionaries in Haiti that were taken captive. Lord, we know so little about that situation. We just pray that you would deal with those captors and, Lord, you would release those people unharmed. We pray for those Christians in China and underground churches. We ask for your strength given to them. What about believers under severe persecution in North Korea? Lord, help them. We pray for believers in Islamic countries, in India. We think of Myanmar. We pray, Lord, for Nepal. We ask for Paul Fappa for blessing upon him and his ministry. Lord, anoint him mightily to preach the gospel and bring in a great harvest in that country. Remember the work in Liberia. Our brother Decanio, strengthen him, Lord, at this time. We think of the work in Jamaica. Bless our brother Richard. undertake for him and be with the congregation there. Help them during this time of sickness, a time when COVID seems to be much more active. We pray a blessing on that congregation. Just keep them safe, Lord. We think of Mexico and of Ramon Sosa and Dominican Republic. all the other ones who are laboring faithfully. Lord, it is our joy, our privilege to bring these ones to the throne of grace. And as we do, we know, Lord, you hear our prayers and you will bless them, bless them abundantly. So hear us tonight. Lord, multiply our work. Bring in people under the sound of the gospel. Bring in believers who are hungry and serious about the things of God and let them be joined with us and put their shoulder to the plow to go forward in the work of God. Bless our young people. Lord, guide each one in their lives as they are seeking your will, seeking for employment, seeking what school to go to, leaving high school and going into university. I pray, Lord, you would call out our young men into gospel service. I pray, Father, for clarity and understanding in your perfect will in all of their lives. So, Father, hear our prayer tonight. Encourage us Lift us up, bless the word of God to our hearts. We ask all these things now in Jesus' precious and holy name, amen. Number 600, and let's stand again as we sing, we rest on thee. We rest on thee. ♪ Come with us, friends, to the valley of love ♪ ♪ We were strong then, and now we're old ♪ ♪ Come with us, friends, to the valley of love ♪ ♪ And in thy name we go. ♪ ♪ In thy name, O Captain of Salvation. ♪ ♪ In thy name, O Mother Queen of All. ♪ Our Prince of Glory and our King of all. Jesus, our God, just and so sure for His child, Our Prince of Glory and our King of all. ♪ A song of triumph we lift ♪ ♪ We rest our weary head ♪ ♪ In the living Lord ♪ ♪ And from our cross ♪ ♪ A song of triumph we lift ♪ ♪ When passing through the gates of Perlis we go ♪ ♪ When passing through the gates of Perlis we go ♪ We're going to read tonight from the book of Psalms 119, verse number 41. Psalm 119, verse 41. Let thy mercies come also unto me, O Lord, even thy salvation according to thy word. So shall I have wherewith to answer him that reproacheth me for I trust in thy word. And take not the word of truth utterly out of my mouth, for I have hoped in thy judgments. So shall I keep thy law continually, forever and ever. And I will walk at liberty, for I seek thy precepts, I will speak of thy testimonies also before kings, and will not be ashamed. And I will delight myself in thy commandments, which I have loved. My hands also will I lift up unto thy commandments, which I have loved. and I will meditate in thy statutes. Remember the word unto thy servant, upon which thou hast caused me to hope. This is my comfort in my affliction, for thy word hath quickened me. The proud have had me greatly in derision, yet have I not declined from thy law. I remember thy judgments of old, O Lord, and have comforted myself. Horror hath taken hold upon me because of the wicked that forsake thy law. Thy statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage. I have remembered thy name, O Lord, in the night, and have kept thy law. This I had because I kept thy precepts. May the Lord stamp his truth upon our hearts tonight. The psalmist prays at the opening verse here that the mercies of God would come upon him, even salvation, according to thy word. It is good when we as the Lord's people may offer a prayer unto God and let that be the summary of the prayer, the summary of our requests, the summary of our desires according to thy word. Because when we rest there, we can rest confidently We can rest with certainty. We can rest with hope. And I also am interested in verse 42. So shall I have wherewith to answer him that reproacheth me, for I trust in thy word. That reminds me of the word that Peter said, that we would be ready, ready always to give an answer. To every man that asks us a reason of the hope that is in us with meekness and fear. Sometimes people ask us for a reason of that hope in a mocking way. They ask it in a doubting way. They ask it rather in an accusatory way. Well, or as the psalmist wrote here, as those that come to reproach me. There are the happy times when someone comes to ask us a reason of the hope in us, and they're interested. They really want to know what it is that makes us tick. They want to know why we have joy. They want to know why we have the hope of salvation. Those are blessed times. And those are ones where the Lord just opens the door, and we just go right through that door, and we will take that liberty. Whether it is in a time of great happiness and joy that we speak the Word for the Savior, or whether it's in a time when we are being criticized, analyzed, rebuked, rebuffed, still, friends, it is by the power of God's Spirit that we are enabled to speak the Word, to bring comfort, to draw comfort to our hearts from us and let that be the motto over our lives. It would be according to the Word of God. I want to welcome you all tonight to our evening service. We're glad that you're here. And our prayer is always that you be encouraged in your heart and be built up in your own spirit and want to welcome those who are viewing our service online tonight. I bring you greetings from our Cloverdale congregation in British Columbia. I had a nice time with them today. Nice is not a very good word to use. It was a blessed time. At least I enjoyed fellowship with them. And I trust that the word would be an encouragement to them. And I will join them again tonight at 9 o'clock our time, which will be 6 p.m. their time for their evening service. I know they would appreciate your prayers as they are also remembering and praying for you as well. We want to continue to hold up the people we've been mentioning in prayer and on a regular basis, and let's not forget to remember them before God, not publicly only, but also privately, and to encourage them in the Lord. I want to remember in prayer those missionaries that were taken captive in Haiti, I tried to find out a bit more information about them or about the situation, but nothing that I could tell right off hand. But do remember them and pray for their release from the captives. We don't know any details about who they are or where they're from or anything about them, but I'm sure it's a situation that is very, very difficult for each one of those being held captive. Remember them, please, in your prayer. Tomorrow night, Monday evening at 7 p.m., will be the ongoing Greek classes in the school. If you signed up, if you were there last week for that, you're welcome to go again, of course, and we'll not be announcing it again in the future unless it's a cancellation of a meeting for some reason, but remember that tomorrow at 7 p.m. And then on Wednesday, our prayer time as we continue to study the word in the book of Acts, and we want to think about a quiz also in chapter 21 and chapter 22. As we move ahead there, do please be in prayer for that study. Thursday night is our session and board meeting via Zoom, and then next Lord's Day, our services, they will be coming up at the regular times. We're going to sing again to the Lord's praise, number 607. A wonderful Savior is Jesus my Lord. Remain seated, please, while we sing. in me. Behind my soul, in the path of love, there ends a pleasure I seek. Behind my soul, in the path of love, He comes to the end of this world. ♪ Mercy, mercy, mercy, mercy, mercy, mercy, mercy ♪ His joys beyond, I sing a new tune. Let's stand, please, to sing the final verse. of his power. His worth, his salvation, is one in the law, and shall be the will of God. He died, my soul, in the land of the law, that shall A wonderful Savior. You turn, please, tonight to your Bibles in Hosea chapter 1. One of the, well, little challenges that I didn't mention today to the adult Bible class along with the memory work that we will be having, and that is to memorize the minor, the smaller prophets. Hosea is the first of them, and so you can work on that. If you were here during any Sunday school days, you would have remembered the Sunday school chorus which was very helpful to get through some of those more sticky Old Testament books to remember their order. Of course, the boys and girls, they have been memorizing those things, and it wouldn't be too hard to them. But that's a challenge for the older people to get the things grinding inside here and get the old memory juices working. Well, you have a look at those and begin to write them out. That's probably one of the best ways to do it. Just write out the books on your piece of paper, and as you do so, pray that God would help you to memorize their order. Very, very helpful to you navigating in the Scripture. So, Hosea is the first of the smaller prophets. We'll be looking at his book tonight, the opening verse. Wanted to say just a couple of things. Do please remember my mom in your prayers. She's come down with a very bad cold and it's more difficult the older that you get to recover from those things. So I know she'd greatly appreciate your prayers. And then we announced last Wednesday about the memorial service that was being held in Balamony and that was for the one-year anniversary of the death of Dr. Cairns. Sometimes when we pass by these anniversary markers We all shake our heads and wonder, how could a year have passed since we learned of the death of Mr. Cairns? But that is online at Sermon Audio, and if you didn't get a chance to tune in, I think you would be greatly encouraged to hear the tributes, the testimonies, and of the impact that our brother's life has had. I know Mrs. Cairns has had a real tough year, as many of our bereaved ones have in our own church. and she was thankful to have the opportunity for the memorial service. And Dr. Cairns never wanted any tributes at his funeral. And so, for the most part, people honored that, but he didn't say anything about a memorial service a year later. So the tributes came out, and they were special, and they were encouraging, and they were good, and that was a blessing. Hosea's prophecy the opening chapter, verse one, and the first line of verse two. The word of the Lord that came to Hosea, the son of Berai, 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, the beginning of the word of the Lord by Hosea. May God bless His word. Let's bow, please, for prayer. Father, we pray now, even more specifically, that the Scriptures would be opened to our minds, and our minds would be open to the Word. Help us, we ask, O God, to understand Sometimes things, Lord, we know on the surface may appear to be straightforward, simple, but they often have such a depth of meaning that we will not be able to get to the depth of them. Not now, maybe in eternity. Lord, even then, I'm not sure. And I pray that we would be blessed tonight as we think on these words and think of the communication, the blessing of the word being given to men. Lord, help us to be ever appreciative more and more as we go on in our Christian journey of how faithful, Lord, has been your word to us, and how it has given us direction in the time when we were uncertain, how it has given to us comfort in the time of our sorrow and distress, how it has given to us, Lord, direction when we were needing that word of which way to go. Help us, we pray, O God, to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of our God so that we will be exalted in due time, to be led in due time as we wait on the Scripture. Hear our prayer. Bless us now in Jesus' name. Amen. We were thinking last Lord's Day as we considered the great revival that God did in the Protestant Reformation. We focused in on the great heritage that God has blessed us with. Some of the mighty confessions of faith that have come to us as God's Spirit moved in the heart of his servants. And as he breathed by his spirit into those men of God, they were given insight. They were given light from heaven. The word of God was brought back to the surface after having been hidden for centuries under the evil tidings of wicked men, inspired, of course, by the devil. Satan does not want you to have the word of God in your hand or in your heart. Satan has tried from the beginning to obscure the scripture. He has tried to taint it, to twist it, to turn it, to make it say something it does not say. and to make us, therefore, become confused, bewildered, discouraged, and prepared to set the Scripture aside. But God, by His great grace and through the blessing of the Reformation, has brought the Scripture back to the surface again. And Brother McKee, last Lord's Day evening, was also sharing that in the morning, rather, in the evening he brought a gospel message, but in the morning he was focusing upon the benefit and the blessing of the Scripture. It is good for us to be much about the Word, to be students of the Word, to know the Scriptures, as we sometimes say, well, that person knows that territory, they know that like the back of their hand, that which is so common, so familiar, that which is with us all the time. I want the Scriptures to be known like the back of my own hand, like something that is connected to me. I don't want to have the Bible as something disconnected that is off at a distance. I want the Lord's Word to be close to me. I want it to be that which governs my thinking. I want the Scriptures to influence the very thought processes that will lead out to the motives that I have and the actions then that I do. And now I have failed in that area more times than I care to say. One of our Brethren was praying in the pre-service prayer times with a burning desire to be more like the Lord, less like his old self. And I could say an echo and an amen to every sentiment that he was praying. Lord, don't let the word of God, don't let the testimony of Christ be distracted in my life because of my own infirmity. So the way to get over that, we know, is to more immerse ourselves in the Scriptures, letting the Holy Spirit reveal the things of Christ through the Scriptures to our own hearts. That's what it means to be conformed to the image of our Lord. I pray, as I am sure that you pray, that your life will be more conformed to Christ. It's why the Lord chose us. It's why He sent His Spirit to convict us of our sin. It's why the Lord brought us to a living experience and knowledge of Christ in our hearts so that we could be like Him. The word of the Lord, the scriptures of truth, the unsearchable counsels of God revealed to men, revealed to human beings. This is a great marvel, my dear friends, and a great grace. This was the experience of Hosea the prophet. This was the experience of this man who in the Bible we know so very, very little about. Calvin said that his ministry endured, lasted 70, maybe 80 years as he spanned the kings of Judah and the kings of Israel. I don't want to repeat the message of this morning's Bible class, but at least to help you understand if you were not there, that there are two sets of kings given here because there are two nations represented that Hosea was ministering to. Primarily, he ministered to the ten northern kingdoms called Israel. He mentioned the two southern kingdoms, the two southern tribes rather. He mentioned them just in passing and there was not such a focus upon Judah. The main ministry, the main purpose that God had called him to witness to in the people were the northern tribes of Israel. There are four kings mentioned of Judah, whereby his ministry spanned, and there is only one king of Israel. His name is Jeroboam. We call him Jeroboam II, as opposed to the first Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, that really saw the beginning of the ten northern tribes when they separated under Rehoboam, who was the son of Solomon. I know all these names come out at you and sometimes you wonder if you can keep them all in order. Well, it takes a little bit more study, perhaps. But let me give you that snapshot, at least so you can begin to put the pieces of the puzzle together and see the timing and the place. And although we know very little about Hosea, simply who his father was, and that he was a man called by God, A man who was directed by a sovereign hand for a sovereign purpose. And you know, if I don't know anything else about this man, and that he fulfilled an 80-year ministry faithfully from the beginning as he continued and as he ended, I don't need to know anything else about him. He was a great man. And I love Hosea, and I'm looking forward to meeting him when I get to glory. And so I could be hearing how his ministry was, and how he saw God's hand move upon him, and the experiences that he had. And we sometimes brush over these smaller prophets because, quite frankly, they are tough to understand. They're not easy. They're hard-going, full of symbolic language, full of figurative language, It often leads to kind of a variety of explanations in some of these parts. And you've got commentators, you can almost see them scratching their heads as they've written down what they've written. And yet, we will take the learning of men of God. Thankful to the Lord for the commentators that have written. But at the end of the day, when we put them all on the table, It is so essential that when we come to the Scriptures, we must be guided ourselves by the Spirit of God as well. This was one of the great blessings that was born out of the Reformation, that the individual Christian has not just the right, but they have the duty and the authority to investigate the Scriptures for themselves. I wonder, friend, tonight, how far are you along on your Christian journey? Are you an investigator of the Scriptures for yourself? Don't depend on the pastor week by week just feeding you. Don't depend on someone else doing it. Come to the Lord yourself. Come to the scriptures and in a simple prayer, before you begin to read your Bible every day, simply bow your head and pray, blessed Holy Spirit, open my understanding to your word. Give me clarity in the scripture. give me understanding, so that I might go." And you might pray that prayer, and then you're going to read through Hosea, and you still will be scratching your head a little bit with some of the commentators, because it's tough going. And you might not get the answers that you want to have, just like snapping your fingers. It doesn't come. It comes from time invested in study. It comes from poring over the Scriptures and reading this portion, comparing it with the next portion, looking to the New Testament to find out what portions of Hosea's prophecy are found in the New Testament, and there are several of them, And as we investigate a little deeper, we'll find out that brings great understanding to those portions of Hosea's prophecy that are tough to understand, because when the Holy Spirit gives His divine commentary on an Old Testament prophet, well, you know you've got the truth there, and you can then run with it and be encouraged about it. One commentator said that the minor prophets have generally been considered more obscure and difficult of interpretation than any other prophetical books of the Old Testament. We could probably say, yes, that is a true thing. What do we know about this man, Hosea? Well, we know his name. It has a meaning to it. It is the same word as Joshua, in the Old Testament, because you may know that Joshua at one place is called Hosea, and Hosea, just a different way of spelling, but it's the same word. We have examples of that in the English language, don't we? We have someone that might be called Robert or Bob. Now, if you didn't know English, And you said, oh, Bob's in the church today. But oh, Robert's there. You might think, two different people. Who is this? But of course, you know it's the same person. And you would be writing about the same person, but you might use their more official name one time. You might use their friendly name at another time. And so the word Hosea. It's the same as Joshua, and we also know that in the New Testament, Joshua is the Hebrew name. Jesus is a Greek name, but it's exactly the same. And so, the meaning is Jehovah is salvation. Well, don't we know what, in Matthew chapter one, the meaning of the name Jesus is? You shall call his name Jesus. You will call his name Joshua. because he will save his people from their sins. God is Savior. The theme of Hosea's book is such a blessed theme for us to be able to reiterate to people. It speaks much about God's unmerited favor to people who did not deserve anything from him. It speaks much about the word that God said to his people, to return to me. That's one of the key words in the book. And it's a message, my dear friend, to backsliders, to those who experience the grace of God in their life. But for some reason, coldness has come in. departing from close fellowship with God. I wonder, friend, tonight, where you are with God in your own Christian walk. Is there a possibility that there's been some degree of a cooling of your heart? What happens when we distance ourselves from Christ? We distance ourselves from the one who is light and heat. Well, the farther you move away from the sun, the cooler you will become. And so the farther that we are distanced from our Lord, well, our heart's warmth toward Him is going to be less. We'll become colder. And then the answer to it, the remedy to it, let's draw nearer to Him. Let's come back closer to the Lord. Let's find out more about Him from the Word. Let us be as backsliders in whatever degree that might be to say, Lord, I want You to restore me to Yourself. Restore to me the joy. of Thy salvation. Yes, let us pray that God will keep us warm and we'll stay near to Him, near the fire and near the light. Hosea preached a message to people who did not want to hear it. That is a very, very difficult thing for a preacher. I have the benefit tonight of speaking the Word of God to a congregation of people who love the Lord's Word and who love the Savior, love God. And I have the joy of being able to communicate the message to people who are hungry to receive it. And that for me is a great blessing. There have been times in my ministry where I've had to speak in front of people who were not wanting to hear the Word, at least not from me. And those are very difficult times, difficult to communicate the message that God has placed upon your mind when you know there are people that are antagonistic to the Word, sitting there with their arms folded maybe, or at least in their minds are folded, eyes that are not with you but against you. And when this man, Hosea, who was called by God and given the message from the Lord, he was sent to a people that did not want to hear the message. In fact, they were just saying, huh, who do you think you are telling us that message? Because in the days of Jeroboam II, the king of Israel, there was a time of great prosperity in Israel, the northern tribes. Now, none of the kings ever followed the Lord. Every one of them did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord. They followed after Jeroboam I, the son of Nebat, who caused Israel to sin. Why? Because he set up the two golden calves, one in Samaria, one in the northern part of Israel. And he caused the people to sin against the Lord in idolatry. And it came to rest foursquare fully in Jeroboam I at his feet, the son of Nebat. And a number of times you read through Kings and you find out they did evil in the sight of the Lord, as did Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who caused Israel to sin. And what a terrible epitaph to have on your life, as that man did, especially when God offered to him, when he first took over the kingdom of the ten northern ones, the Lord said to him, follow me, obey my commandments, and I will bless you. I will establish the kingdom. I will give you the kingdom. But Jeroboam was a godless wretch. He was an idolater. He rebelled against God. He wanted to do things his own way, and he did not listen. And so now the people of Israel, they're engrossed in their idolatry. Now, mind you, we learn from the study of Elijah and Elisha, both prophets who also ministered to Israel, we learn that even though Elijah was so frustrated thinking, Lord, I'm the only one here, no one's left, no one's following the Lord, but God reminded him, I still have my people here, there are some, Maybe not many, but the Lord had his remnant there even among those idolatrous people. And that is always a blessing for us to remember that God has his remnant hidden away. Sometimes you can't find them. Sometimes they're so scarce, but the Lord has them there. And so as Hosea was giving out his ministry, he went to a people that did not want to hear his word. And yet he was a faithful preacher. You know, it's true that in our cultures today, rarely is a faithful preacher welcome in religious halls or on the cultural stages of any nation that has rejected the Lord. And among the many lessons to learn about God's mercy in giving repeated appeals to repent and return, the lesson of Hosea's faithfulness in handling God's Word, it is foremost in his book. Because never did the Lord have to rebuke him about being dishonest, unfaithful, unworthy. And so as we turn to this opening verse tonight, I simply want to share with you the Word of God as it was given to Hosea, the Word of the Lord that came to Hosea, the opening line of that opening verse. And the first thing that I want us to learn from that tonight is that It is God's message, and therefore, it is inspired. It is God's word, and therefore, it is inspired. When we talk about the Lord's word being inspired, we are talking in meaning that it is breathed out from God. It is the breath of God. It is the Spirit of the Lord communicated to people. And quite frankly, friends, if we did not have God's inspired, God's breathed out message to us, then we would have no way of knowing the Lord. We would have no way of knowing who He is, no way of knowing what He requires of us, and how we could come to find Him and know Him. Those who claim to be agnostics, they will say that it is not possible to know if there is a God or not. Or they will take it one step closer, maybe not so much an agnostic, but someone say, God is so great, so mighty, that we cannot know Him, even if they believe that He did exist. Well, that's not how the Lord has revealed Himself in the Scripture. As a matter of fact, it's the very opposite. It's the very fact that the Lord has given to us His inspired Word, that He has made known His truth and His message to us. We have his word. Our brother Fraser was praying in the pre-service prayer time, just thanking the Lord that we have the scripture in our mother tongue. We have it in our language to understand. And when we look across our congregation, I always rejoice that we have those of many different nationalities and cultures, And some of you are so smart, you can speak in many languages, and I can only speak in one language, and sometimes that's a challenge, but you can speak in more than one language, and I admire your ability. But all the cultures that we have, and being able to share and communicate the thoughts of your mind in various languages, it is such a blessing. God has given to us the Bible in many, many languages in this world. When Trinitarian Bible Society was recently with us and the Amheric translation in the Ethiopian country, it was a blessing to learn so many things about that and the work that Trinitarian is trying to do in multiplying and getting translations out there in many language groups that don't have the Word of God. And we think of the Briggs family. Don't we pray for them working in the Ivory Coast in Africa? And how that, although they're at home at the moment, but they've been working on the translation of the Bible to that people group in the Ivory Coast. And they're developing further and further, moving on faster. And the New Testament is getting to be done so that God's holy inspired Word can be given in various translations. Now, we know that the translations themselves are not inspired by God, but He has given by inspiration the Word, the original, the autograph, And when we think about God's holy word breathed out, the methods of transmitting that word, they are significant for us to know. How did God actually breathe out his word to people? How was his message given? Well, the Lord spoke to some Old Testament prophets and preachers Before the word of God was written down, he spoke to them by a vision. He would make known by his spirit, by a vision to reveal what he was communicating to certain people. He would also use the vehicle of a dream. Some of the unusual developments in this is that God would even use an ungodly man, giving him a dream, and that dream would become part of the revealed Scriptures. I'm thinking about Pharaoh. When Pharaoh had a dream and he didn't know what the dream was, or he didn't know the interpretation of it, and the same with Nebuchadnezzar, he was one step worse. He forgot the dream and the interpretation, and he expected others to give the interpretation of it and the meaning of the dream. But in Pharaoh's case, God showed him what was going to happen in Egypt and all the regions around. And it took Joseph to interpret that dream for him. And that's part of sacred scripture. Those things are accurate and true. And so the Lord revealed Himself to His prophets by dream, sometimes to ungodly men, in order to fulfill His purpose. And other times the Lord spoke by direct, audible sound. There is one occasion of this. I'd like you to turn please to Numbers chapter 12. Numbers chapter 12. There are times when God spoke mouth-to-mouth with people, face-to-face. The Hebrew is mouth-to-mouth. Face-to-face He would speak. This account here in Numbers 12 gives us how the Lord unfolds that. Listen to what it says, verse 1. And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married. for he had married an Ethiopian woman. And they said, hath the Lord indeed spoken only by Moses? Hath he not spoken also by us, Miriam and Aaron? And the Lord heard it. Now the man Moses was very meek above all the men which were upon the face of the earth. And the Lord spake suddenly unto Moses and unto Aaron and unto Miriam, Come out, ye three, unto the tabernacle of the congregation. And they three came out. And the Lord came down in the pillar of the cloud and stood in the door of the tabernacle and called Aaron and Miriam. and they both came forth. And I wonder at that moment if Aaron and Miriam really understood what was happening here. I wonder if Aaron and Miriam thought, oh boy, this is our day. The Lord's called the three of us, and now He's called us out, and Moses is back there, and we're up here. This is gonna be our day of crowning. God's gonna show us. He really is gonna speak through us. I'm not so sure if they really thought that or not. Look at verse 6. And God said, Hear now my words. He is speaking audibly to them. If there be a prophet among you, I, the Lord, will make myself known unto him in a vision and will speak unto him in a dream. My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all mine house. With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches. And the similitude of the Lord shall he behold. Wherefore then were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses? And the anger of the Lord was kindled against them, and he departed." Now, at that time, we would fully understand that Miriam and Aaron's position was not one of thinking the Lord was altogether happy with them. He had now made it very clear they had made a colossal error and sin. They had taken upon themselves with the most arrogance to think that how dare Moses consider that he's the only one that God would speak through. And by the way, Moses never said that. They just assumed that that was the case with Moses. And so, the rest of this story is that Miriam becomes leprous. Leprosy took hold of her. And then, what does Aaron do? Well, Aaron, to his credit, he humbled himself, and he came to Moses, and he asked Moses to pray for Miriam, that she would be healed. And Moses, the meek man, the non-bitter man, the godly man that he was, he simply called on the Lord and asked the Lord to have mercy on his sister Miriam, and she would be healed. And the Lord did answer Moses' prayer. But the point here is that we have these three ways mentioned in this one portion. God himself says, I have spoken by vision to prophets. I have spoken by dreams to my prophets. That's a way, a major way of communication. But he says, who is like my servant Moses whom I have talked to face to face? God at time communicated audibly to people. And then, of course, another time situation would be that He communicates through the Spirit of the man. He communicates through the Spirit of the man. And the New Testament writers, many of the old for that matter as well, God communicated by His Spirit in this doctrine of inspiration, of God breathing out, and He so controlled them, so enveloped the spirit of the individual while they were under the power of God's Spirit through inspiration, and what they wrote down was the message that God wanted them to give. Here's the miracle of inspiration is this, because sometimes the prophets would write down verbatim what God was saying. Thus saith the Lord, and they would write it down. And other times, God communicated to the spirit, to the spirit of the writer, and they were able to communicate but yet maintain their own character, their own personality, their own style of writing. And you see that in the New Testament in the difference between the Apostle Paul's writing and Peter, for that example. And that, my friend, is one of the most amazing things that you come to grips with, that God's Spirit controlled the man. but they still were enabled to communicate and write by the character that they had. So when we think about this method of inspiration and the message that God did in inspiring and giving the Word, it means it was breathed by God. It means it was communicated in various ways. But it means, my dear friend, that this Word has authority to bind the conscience of the individual person who receives it. A perfect example of this would have to be Luther when he stood before the Diet of Worms, and he was before the emperor, he was before the king, he was before the papal people, and he said, my conscience is bound, not by you, not by what the church writings have been, but my conscience is bound to the Holy Scripture. And he was happy to have it so, because when God's Word is recognized as the inspired Word of God, then it comes with authority to the individual believer's heart. And happily so, friend. And I know that you love the Lord. You come before His Word and you just say, Lord, show me. I want to know your mind. I want to know your instruction, your leading. We know that when such a spirit, such an attitude is found in the life of the child of God, then my dear friend, there is going to be instruction to guide our lives. And I cannot think of a better verse of Scripture than Proverbs 3, verses 5 and 6. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he will direct thy paths. Yes, friend, guidance from the Scripture is the outgrowth and the flow of God's Word being inspired. But it has power to awaken the soul, and the power of God's Word is that it is alive and powerful. We're memorizing Hebrews 4 and 12 in the Bible class. The Word of God is quick, it's alive and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword. It can divide between the soul and the spirit, between the joints and the marrow, and it is a discerner of the thoughts and the intents of the heart. The Word of God is alive. It is God's holy, living Word. And because His Word is alive, it is powerful to awaken the soul. And when God's Spirit uses the Scripture and brings conviction to a person dead in their sins, they are brought to life by the Spirit of God, and He uses His Holy Word in order to do that very thing. I wonder tonight, friend, if you are not a believer. Whether you're in this church building tonight or you're watching on the computer, I can say to you tonight with the authority of God's Word, it is alive, a living Word that is able to bring you out of darkness and into light. because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. It's a living book. It's a living message because it has come from our living God. Let us, therefore, take courage and take comfort and be encouraged about this. There are other points that I wanted to share with you tonight, but our time is gone now. Perhaps we will visit it at a later time. But I leave this with you tonight on the authority of the living word of God. Let that be your guide, your comfort, your encouragement, your stay. Unbeliever, come to the Savior. Rest and trust in his holy word to give you the knowledge of Jesus. Oftentimes we challenge people who say, I don't know if I believe in God or I don't believe in God. And I will say, come to the Bible, come to the book of John, for example. And before you read, simply pray, God, if there be a God, make yourself known to me. And if you earnestly are seeking for truth, if a person really wants to know if there is a God and they pray that prayer and begin to read the Scriptures, the Lord will make Himself known to that person. It's the Lord's way. He's a God of grace, a God of mercy, and a God who makes himself known to those who humble themselves before him. How thankful we can be tonight that the Lord's word came to Hosea the word of the Lord that came to him. And that word is authoritative. It is powerful. It is a message of divine truth. Let's bow, please, in prayer. Father, we pray tonight that we will cherish the Scriptures, that we will relish the opportunities we have of studying and investigating, memorizing. Lord, I pray that in the busyness of our lives, that we will not schedule, Lord, you out. Help us, we pray, to set our priorities. Give us, we pray, much-needed grace and illumination and instruction, Lord. Bless this people Bless this congregation. Save precious souls. And so, Father, part us now in your fear with your rich blessing. Take us to our homes in safety. Grant to us household salvation. Lord, make us a blessing to everyone that we come in contact with. Hear our prayer. Until we meet again, Lord, be with us. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. so so you you you