Judgment is imminent for Israel due to their idolatry and departure from God, mirroring the spiritual state of the contemporary world. The sermon draws parallels between Hosea's prophecies and the current era, highlighting how prosperity and pleasure lead to forgetting God, a sin that brought destruction upon ancient Israel. The text emphasizes that God's judgment is inevitable for those who neglect Him, leading to loss of blessings and exile, and warns against a religion devoid of true faith. The message concludes with an urgent call to repentance and evangelism, urging believers to warn others of impending judgment and to actively share the gospel before it is too late.
Restored with Diffio
Audio restored with Diffio. Diffio processed the original archive recording to reduce noise and produce a cleaner listening version; the original stays available.
Speech quality score (model-estimated, SCOREQ): before 1.98 → restored 4.56
The prophecy of Hosea, Hosea, the first of the minor prophets, comes directly after Daniel, chapter nine. Hosea chapter nine. Rejoice not, O Israel, for joy as other people, for thou hast gone a hoarding from thy God. Thou hast loved a reward upon every corn floor. The floor and the wine press shall not feed them, and the new wine shall fail in her. They shall not dwell in the Lord's land, but Ephraim shall return to Egypt, and they shall eat unclean things in Assyria. They shall not offer wine offerings to the Lord, neither shall they be pleasing unto him.
Their sacrifices shall be unto them as the bread of mourners. All that eat thereof shall be polluted, for their bread, for their soul shall not come into the house of the Lord. What will they do in the solemn day? and in the day of the Feast of the Lord. For lo, they are gone because of destruction. Egypt shall gather them up. Memphis shall bury them. The pleasant places for their silver nettles shall possess them. And thorns shall be in their tabernacles. The days of visitation are come. The days of recompense are come. Israel shall know it.
The prophet is a fool. The spiritual man is mad for the multitude of divine iniquity and the great hatred. The watchman of Ephraim was with my God, but the prophet is a snare of a fowler in all his ways and hatred in the house of his God. They have deeply corrupted themselves as in the days of Gibeah. Therefore he will remember their iniquity. He will visit their sin. I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness. I saw their fathers as the first rite in the fig tree at her first time. But they went to Baal-Tior and separated themselves unto that shame, and their abominations were according as they loved.
As for Ephraim, a glory shall flee away, shall fly away like a bird from the birth and from the womb. and from the conception. Though they bring up their children, yet will I believe them, that there shall not be a man left. Yea, woe also to them when I depart from them. Ephraim, as I saw Taurus, is planted in a pleasant place, but Ephraim shall bring forth his children to the murderer. Give them, O Lord, what will thou give them? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breath. All their wickedness is in Gilgal, for there I hated them, for the wickedness of their doings I will drive them out of my house.
I will love them no more. All their princes are revolters. If frame is smitten, their root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit. Yea, though they bring forth, yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of their womb. My God will cast them away, because they did not hearken unto him, and they should be wanderers. among all the nations. May God bless the reading of his precious word. Let's ask him again to speak to our hearts. Blessed Lord, we thank thee for this little book in thy Bible, the book of wholesale, written so long ago by this faithful prophet. And it seems, Lord, that he keeps on saying the same thing over and over again.
Oh, how the Spirit of God in those faraway days worked and worked and worked with these men and women of that generation to save them from destruction and to win them back to thee before it was too late. We live in a similar day. We see men and women living as these lived in sin and pleasure and forgetting God. Help us, Lord, that like the prophet long ago, we might open our mouths and we might keep on telling the same story of thy wondrous love and thy provision and that this shelter in the work and sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. Help us, Lord, in our daily testimony.
Now speak to our hearts tonight, Lord. Take this portion, this unknown, out-of-the-way portion of thy book and teach us something tonight for thy glory. We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Now for the sake of some of those who have been away and are just getting back, we have been studying for some weeks now, this will be the ninth week, this is the ninth chapter in the prophecy of Hosea, one of these small minor prophets, one of these books that we neglected. I heard a man say once, when I get to heaven, then Amos says to me, how did you like my book?
He said, I don't know what I'm going to say, because I finally read Amos. And all these books are given for us to read. All scriptures given by inspiration of God is profitable. And there are great and deep lessons to be learned in these books. But what's been greatly upon my heart and why I chose to talk about Hosea is the day in which we live. I feel we live in a parallel day. The things in the world today are like they were in Hosea's day. Hosea lived at the end of an era. Hosea lived at the end of a period in the story of Israel. As we have often repeated in these meetings, after the reign of King Solomon, Israel was divided up.
Ten tribes separated under King Jeroboam, and the other two tribes remained under Solomon. That's to say Judah and Benjamin remained under Solomon, but the other ten tribes separated. And as we read the last time, I think we were talking on these things. Jeroboam, he said, Now, if I don't set up some place of worship, all these people that are under me will be going down to Jerusalem, because that's where the temple is. And they'd be going down there, and then they'd be going back to King Reel-Boyle, who was the real king over Judah. So he said, I must set up a temple of my own. I must set up some worship of my own. And he built two golden calves.
We read this last time. He built two golden calves. And like Aaron long ago, he said, These be thy gods, O Israel. They brought thee up out of Egypt. Worship thee. And he set up high places and groves and places where they could offer sacrifices to these idols. to these golden cows. And Jerboim, all through the scripture, is referred to as the man who calls Israel to sin. The man who calls Israel to sin. He turned their hearts from the living God and turned their hearts to worship idols. Idolatry was the great sin of Israel. It was because of idolatry largely that God brought all those judgments upon Israel and Judah.
Israel was taken away into was dispersed. The ten tribes were taken away by the King of Assyria, gone. We don't know where they are today. Judah was captured, taken by King Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon, Judah and Benjamin. And after seventy years, some of them got back to the land and rebuilt the wall and rebuilt the city and rebuilt the temple. But Israel never had a king again and Israel will never have a king until the Lord Jesus Christ God's son reigns. He'll be their next king. They never had one since. But I'll tell you one thing, Israel. The Jews learned one thing.
They learned the folly of idolatry. You'll never find a Jew worshipping an idol. Not since Babylon. They learned their lesson then. That's one thing they don't do. They might worship money. They might worship prosperity. But they don't worship idol. There are many Jews in the world today that do not worship God in the true way. They don't even believe some of them there is a God. But they don't worship either. They learn that lesson. Now Hosea is keeping on, keeping on, keeping on to these people. It gets almost monotonous to read these chapters week after week with just the same story.
He tells them they've gone a whoring after other gods. That's how he puts it. Rejoice not, O Israel, for joy as other people, for thou hast gone a whoring from thy God. Thou hast loved a reward upon every corn store. They went away from God, and just like, it is a different illustration in this book. First of all, in the first chapter, it's a picture of an adulterous wife. Somebody who went off to live with another man, deserted her own husband. That's just what Israel did. Deserted God. Israel was married to Jehovah, but they deserted God and went after the gods of this world and associated and joined themselves in with the things of this world.
Oh, how we need to learn this lesson today. God never intended that we should be mixed up with the world. When God formed the church and when the church came into being on the day of Pentecost and down through those New Testament days that we read of in the Acts of the Apostles and in the Epistles, the whole burden is that we are a separated people. The church is looked upon as a virgin, pure and clean for the Lord Jesus Christ. But what happens as you read that prophetic picture of church history in the second and third chapter of Revelation, you find that one of the churches is called... one of the churches is called...
Purgamas. Purgamas. Gamas is the Greek word for wedding, for marriage. Many times I was invited in Greece to go to what they call a gamos, which is a wedding. Purgamas means very much married. But to whom were they married? If you read that in the second chapter of Revelation, the angel of the church of the Purgamas, he writes, I know thy works. Then he says, I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam. and thou hast called Israel to eat, Balaam, who caused Israel to stumble, and the children of Israel to eat things sacrificed unto idols and commit fornication.
So thou hast among them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate. And God looked down, and looking down over the stream of time, in those wonderful chapters in Revelation, he saw the church, Pergamot, very much married to the things of this world. And the church that should have been a chaste virgin became a state, not more than a state, a worldwide church. In the Middle Medieval Ages, the Church of Rome ruled the world. And it wasn't God's plan that the church should rule the world. God has set up his own rulers, and we have to be subject to them.
The judgment of the ruling of the world is nothing to do with the church. We're pilgrims. God intended we should be pilgrims and strangers and not be mixed up with this thing and not get entangled in the things of the world. And that's just what happened to the church. And God's judgment fell upon them. Israel went away and God had separated them. He said, come out from all these other nations and be separated. And when they came out of Egypt, you know, they made that great mistake. They brought out some Egyptians with them. And it was these Egyptians that they brought with them. They were the ones that grumbled. It wasn't, first of all, the children of Israel that grumbled.
It was the Egyptians who said, oh, let's go back to Egypt, where we could eat the garlics and the onions. Let's go back there. We belong back there. We don't belong in the world. We're separated out of the world to be holy for the Lord Jesus. And I believe these lessons in the Old Testament are lessons for us today. They applied in that day. The interpretation is that they mean the story of that day, but they can also be applied to us in this day and generation. Hosea prophesied for sixty years. There's no little wonder to me that some of this is kind of monotonous and we get the same story over and over again.
If he was sixty years telling it, he'd say some things over again. Because in sixty years you get six generations and six decades and you'd have to tell it over and over and over again. And what happened finally? Despite all his warning, the King of Assyria came and took them away into captivity. I don't like to say captivity, Judah and Benjamin, they went into captivity and were captives for Seventy years and got back, but Israel, yes, they were taken into captivity, but into dispersion and gone. We don't know where they are. It's a day coming when God's going to gather them all up, bring them back to himself.
So he starts this ninth chapter and he says, don't rejoice now. You've got nothing to be rejoicing about. There were periods during Hosea's ministry, periods of prosperity. In sixty years, sometimes the nation was doing very well, and the ground was producing, and they were living in luxury and pleasure. You can get that as you read some of the other properties like Isaiah and Jeremiah and some of these. You'll find out that there were times when they were living, and they had riches. But they forgot God, that was their problem. They forgot God.
And when they were prosperous and they left God out of their lives, oh, what a lesson for United States of America today. There's never been a nation so favored, so blessed, as this nation in which we dwell today, but they're gradually pushing God out, out, out, out. And I notice in all the politicking and all the speeches, God is not in all their thoughts. If He is, they don't say so anyhow. If He is, they don't say so. We know so little about these great men. I was told very definitely by a friend of mine when I was up in the north the other day that Mr. Nixon, Richard Nixon, is a born-again believer.
And this friend of mine knows someone that knows him very well. And he says his daughter is born again. She was saved in a Billy Graham meeting and went home to her father. And father and daughter knelt down together and prayed together and read the scripture together. The night she accepted Christ. I heard this. authentic, they told me, Apiminoa. But, of course, you hear lots of authentic things. It was quite authentic the other day that the stones of the new temple had been all chipped and formed and made in Indiana and had been shipped to Israel. And now we read in letters of interest this month and all that was just rumored, rumored. So we can't take everything that's authentic and make sure it is authentic unless we know But surely this country is in a mess, and this country is away from God.
And we should be like Hosea, crying, calling them back. Don't rejoice, he says. Rejoice not, O Israel, for joy, as are there people, for thou hast gone a whoring from thy God. How can a person rejoice when judgment is just around the corner? How could a man that's condemned to death and he's on death row and he knows tomorrow morning he's going to be executed? How can he rejoice? And this is where Israel was. Judgment was around the corner. He says, don't rejoice. You've got nothing to rejoice about. Don't rejoice as other nations because God is going to punish you for the way you've neglected God.
Of course, there are some times... When tragedy knocks at the door just in the middle of rejoicing, take the days of Noah. It says they knew not till the flood came and carried them all away. Noah preached and preached and preached a hundred and twenty years and told them the judgment was coming and they wouldn't believe him and they laughed at him and laughed at him and laughed at him. One day God shut the door and shut in Noah and his wife, his three sons and their wife, and God shut the door. And then the floods began to come and the waters to rise. Too late the door was shut. And Israel went on and on and on until the day of judgment.
King Belshazzar, he made a feast to a thousand of his lords and invited all the ladies, the lords and ladies, and took the precious golden vessels from the house of the Lord and drank wine in them and feasted there in revelry and drunkenness and debauchery to the small hours of the morning. Then there was a handwriting on the wall that weighed in the balances and found wanting and judgment as they were rejoicing in there. The Medial Persian army was damming up the river and stopping the waters of the river so they could get down beneath the brazen gates of the city of Babylon to the watercourse and get in. They thought Babylon was impregnable. They couldn't get in.
But by damning up the river and stopping the water, they were able to get down under the riverbed, under the brazen gate, and get into the city. And that night, says the Bible, that night was Belchatter, King of the Caggians, Maine.A way back in the year nineteen hundred and twelve, the great Atlantic liner, in that day a great Atlantic liner, Titanic, set out on her maiden voyage. I remember it very well. I have a cousin I met in England when I was home last August, and his uncle went down on the Titanic. I remember it very well. I lived in Southampton where the Titanic was fitted out, not launched.
She was built and launched on the Clyde bank, but brought down to Southampton. to the Harlan and Wolfe shipyard, and there she was fitted out. And I lodged in, I lived in Southampton for some six months away back in nineteen twenty six, and I lodged in a house of a man who worked in the Harlan and Wolfe shipyard, and he told me that somebody wrote on the hull of that ship, painted in white letters, Jesus Christ cannot think this ship. They made an unsinkable boat, and so they set out on a maiden voyage, and all the richest people from the United States and from Great Britain, the rich people were on that boat, and they rejoiced, and they danced, and the music played.
You know what happened that Sunday night? You know what happened. There was an iceberg. As I was flying over the Atlantic, coming back from England, I looked down. It isn't very often you can see The water as you fly over the Atlantic, you can only see clouds and clouds and clouds, but it was a clear day and I could see the Atlantic six miles down below. And you know what I could see down there? Icebergs. Icebergs floating about. It didn't look very big, but they were big. An iceberg in that vast Atlantic and yet the ship went right into the iceberg. Judgment came. People danced and laughed and went on to judgment and that's what the world is doing today.
I believe that we, like Jose, live at the end of an era. We live at the end of an age. I believe the church history is just out winding up, church history on earth. I believe the coming of the Lord is so near, he's going to catch it up to be with himself, and the door of mercy will close, and the day of grace will end. And this will be the end of that dispensation known as the dispensation of grace. And the day of judgment is around the corner. and God's judgment is going to fall upon this earth. Personally, I believe the bombs are already made. Personally, I believe that many of the weapons that would be used in that day of destruction are being made today.
God's judgment is so near. And people are dancing and going on and on and on. The round and round and round of pleasure and prosperity. Stops are going up. Prosperity on every hand. Great new home, beautiful cars. I said cars, because every family's got to have two, sometimes three cars, now sometimes four, and everybody's got to have a boat, and we've got to live a life of pleasure, pleasure, pleasure, all the time. He says, don't rejoice because judgment's coming. Thank God every true believer will be caught up before that judgment comes, but judgment is coming and it's very, very near.
And O'Zale warned them in his day, and we warned in our day what's going to happen. He says, Thou hast loved the reward upon every corn floor. Despite the fact that they went away from God, they expected to have a good harvest, you know. They expected that the harvest on the threshing floor was going to be great year by year. God says it's not going to be that way. The floor and the wine press shall not feed them, and the new wine shall fail in hurt, says God, judgment is coming.
You've had a time of prosperity, the wine press has been filled, but the day is coming when it will not be filled. The floor and the wine press shall not feed them. the new wine shall fail in her, and they shall not dwell in the Lord's land. They shall not dwell in the Lord's land. But Ephraim shall return to Egypt, and they shall eat unclean things in Assyria. What Osir is saying is this, that judgment is coming, and you people that leave God out of your lives and live this round of pleasure, and you want the threshing floor to be full, and you get God, there's a time coming when you won't even have a threshing floor.
You won't live in this favored land of God, but you'll be living away in Assyria in captivity. And you'll eat unclean things in Assyria. The Jew is very particular what he ate. But he'd been mighty hungry over there in Assyria and they'll eat anything, whether it's clean or unclean. He says you'll eat unclean things in Assyria. Oh, I'll chew these words down. Nothing is secure. When God sends His judgment, we can lose everything overnight. And these people that are trying to live without God today and boasting, they can come to destruction very quickly when God puts His hand upon them.
They should dwell in the land of Assyria and then in Egypt. God had brought them up out of Egypt. He says, they'll eat the food of the mourner. They shall not offer wine offerings. We get four verses here talking about their religion, which they had performed. They had performed a religion, but God wasn't in it. And we have a land today full of religion, full of all sorts of denominations and religions and cults and people, who have a form of worship, but God's not in it. He says, they shall not offer wine offerings to the Lord. Neither shall they be pleasing unto him. Their sacrifice shall be unto them as the bread of mourners. All they that eat thereof shall be polluted, for their bread of their soul shall not come into the house of the Lord.
They'll be in Assyria. They remember how they used to worship this religion they'd set up, but God wasn't in it. And he says, now you won't even have the house of the Lord to worship him. You'll be in captivity in Assyria. What would they do in the solemn day, in the day of the Feast of the Lord? What would they do on the Passover day when they're in Assyria? They couldn't do anything. They could think of days gone by and how they might have served the Lord. It reminds me of that wonderful story the Lord gives us in the sixteenth chapter of Luke of the rich man who fared sumptuously every day. You know, his barns brought forth plentuously. or rather the other rich man who didn't look out to the poor man and it says he died and in hell he lifted up his eyes being in torment and Moses says to him son remember thou in thy lifetime you enjoy your good things and these people in the city are remembered do you know there's memory in hell that men and women who pass out of this life and going to eternity without Christ and go down to a lost eternity in a lost hell they remember son remember Remember.
And the one thing that worried that man in hell was the fact that he had five brothers. He said, Oh, Lord, send Lazarus that he might just go and tell my brothers that they come not to this place of torment. And Moses replied, They have Moses and the prophet. They've got this book. If they won't listen to that, they won't listen. Even if one were raised from the dead, they wouldn't listen. And we still have this book, thank God, in this day in which we live. Put on the shelves by many, but thank God we still have this book. It's not afraid to give it out. Thank God for the Gideon, putting the Gospel out, putting the Word of God out in every motel and hotel and school, getting it out so that many women can read it.
Thank God for Literature Crusade and Pocket Testament League and all these people that are putting out the Word of God, for it's the entrance of thy word that giveth light. Not our word, it's the entrance of thy word. So let's get it out. Don't let's miss an opportunity of dropping John's gospel into somebody's hand. They might be warned before the day of judgment comes. He said, they'll eat the bread of mourning over there. What will he do in solemn day and the day of the feast of the Lord? For lo, they're gone because of destruction. The feast days are gone. Egypt shall gather them up. Memphis shall bury them.
Here the children of these Israelites, he says, down in the city of Memphis in Israel, some of them were going to go into captivity, down into Egypt, some into Assyria, some into Egypt. They would die down there, and down in the city of Memphis, they'd gather up their bodies and bury them in a foreign land, just because they neglected God. And then he says verse six at the end of the verse, the present places for their silver, nettles shall possess them, thorns shall be in their tabernacles. Doubtless they had built their own for their own worship.
They'd built their tabernacles, we called it. They'd built their temples, their houses of worship, probably very ornate, beautiful things. And they'd used their silver and their gold to build these wonderful buildings. Don't we see that around us today? Don't we see some wonderful temples today as you travel around and see some of these tremendous things that are being built today? And inside they're not preaching to God. And inside they don't believe this book anymore. And God says, these tabernacles you've built with all your silver and gold, nettles shall possess them. They're going to grow out full of weeds. thorns should be in these tabernacles, these gods, and these people in Israel, whatever places of worship they built in their religious system there, when they were in Assyria, there was nobody to get into these tabernacles, into these houses of worship, and he said the thorns grew up in them and nettles have grown up in them.
Because the days of visitation, verse seven, the days of visitation are come. And down there in that, away in Assyria, the prophet's looking on now in verse seven, and he's thinking of what they would think when they're in Assyria. The days of visitation are come, the days of recompense are come, Israel shall know it. The prophet is a fool. The spiritual man is mad for the multitude of man iniquity and the great hatred.
Down there in Assyria there would be great hatred shown to them. They would be oppressed and they would be tortured and imprisoned and treated so badly. And then they remember how in the day gone by the prophet used to talk to them. And they said, the prophet's mad, he's foolish. All he's telling us about coming, judging. We don't believe it. And they look back now and contemplate and remember what they thought of the prophet. And they'll also be thinking, verse eight, that there were some true prophets. And he says, the watchman of Ephraim was with my God. There were some prophets and they despised them and thought they were fools.
But now in Assyria they remember and they say, no, he was a real watchman that God had sent, but we wouldn't listen to him. But there were false prophets we did listen to at the end of that verse, verse eight. The prophet is a snare and a fowler in all his ways and hatred in the house of his God. There were those that they did listen to. The prophet who led them astray and he said, they say now he was a snare and a fowler. The one we thought was the right one is the wrong one. The one we thought was wrong is right. Don't you think that some of these people that live today, that are being led astray by the religious leaders, the false prophets of our day, who are led by the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now workers in the children of disobedience, don't you think when they wake up by and by in the day of judgment they say, what fools we were to follow these foolish men.
And we wouldn't listen to those simple gospel preachers that told us of a way of escape and told us about the love of God. and told us about the Lord Jesus Christ. We thought they were foolish, but now too late we found out they were right. And beloved, you and I have relatives. Some of us have nieces and nephews and grandchildren, sons and daughters, not yet saved. And they're going on to the day of judgment. It's coming as true as I'm standing on this desk. God's judgment is coming upon this land and a coming upon the world. The great day of tribulation is around the corner. Will may God help us to go out, foolish though we may seem in their eyes, maybe go out as watchmen, to tell them and warn them and bring them to the Lord before the door of mercy closes and before it's too late.
Let's go to verse ten. God's looking back now. He's looking back to Israel as she used to be, and he said, I found Israel like a bunch of luscious grapes in the wilderness. Can you think of anything more refreshing than a bunch of luscious grapes in a dry and thirsty wilderness? He said, that's what Israel was to me long, long ago. I loved Israel. And he said, I didn't choose you because you were the greatest of nations. You were the least of all. But I chose you because I loved you. And he said his love upon them and brought them out of Egypt and cared for them and did all that God did for them, put them in their land and made them a great nation.
And in their prosperity they forgot God. He said, I found Israel like great in the wilderness. I saw your fathers as the first wife in the fig tree at her first time. But they left me and went for Baal Peor. and separated themselves under that shame. There were some terrible, shameful, adulterous, wicked abominations went on with the worship of this God-Bail. And some of the Israelites and the young women of Israel got mixed up in this awful thing. And God says to me, you were like Luscious grapes, and now you've gone back into all this filth and corruption and wickedness. And I tell you, beloved, if you and I could only see what's going on in the United States at this very hour as we're sat here, if we knew what's going on in the dark, we'd be shocked beyond telling.
And God knows all about it. He's looking down and he sees the whole thing. And judgments around the corner. As for Ephraim, verse eleven, as for Ephraim, now I'll read... True verses, As for Ephraim, their glory shall fly away like a bird from the birth and from the womb and from conception. Though they bring up their children, yet will I believe them, that they shall not be a man-led, yea, woe also to them when I depart from them. Ephraim, as I saw, Tyrus is planted in a pleasant place, but Ephraim shall bring forth his children to the murderer. Ephraim shall bring forth his children to the murderer.
God granted them the blessing of having children. but they only came into this world to be put to death when they were young. That's what happened in the great captivity and the great leading away and they're taken away into Assyria and the captivity. The youngsters were slaughtered, dashed to pieces, they slaughtered the children. He says, what shall I wish them? What shall I give them? Verse fourteen, give them, give them, O Lord, what shall I give them? And in mercy he says, I'd like to give them miscarrying wounds and dry breath, I'd like to shut up their wounds, I'd like to bring it about that they wouldn't have children born into this world for such awful, awful things that they will suffer.
But he didn't do that. That's what God said he'd like to do, to spare them that awful thing that was coming upon them in the day of judgment. All their wickedness is in Gilgol. For them I hated them, for the wickedness of their doings. I cannot stop to talk about the sin that took place at Gilgol. Read the last chapters of Judges. Awful, wicked, terrible things took place. And God says that's where their sin is and they never changed in all these years. I will drive them out of my house. I will love them no more. All their princes are revolters.
Ephraim is smitten, their root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit. Ye, though they bring forth, yet will I slay him the beloved fruit of their womb, my God will cast them away. Why? Listen to these words. Because they did not hearken unto him. This is the warning. because they did not hearken unto him. That's why judgments fell upon Israel. That's why they were taken away into captivity and dispersion, because they did not hearken unto him. What can we do for our nation today?
I just wonder what we can do. Yes, there's one thing we can do, we can pray. You know, in Cape Canberra there have been other nations that were doomed for destruction. England, just after the French Revolution, England was doomed for just the same terrible things that happened in France. And what happened? God raised up preachers. God raised up men that would go out into the village riding horsebacks all through England, telling the gospel story, and converted people. Thousands were converted, and England came back to God. Can the United States of America be saved?
Can this world be saved? I fear it's too late. But individuals can be saved. If we can go out and take the gospel message out, even now, God in His mercy will save thousands. Oh, that we might pray that there might be a revival. A revival is nothing to do with conversion, really. A revival is something in the hearts of God's people. to bring His people back to Him and then the blessing comes. And we at part of the pounds, we've just had a wonderful fellowship here. Everybody that comes here, talks of this fellowship. Oh, that we might take full advantage of it. Let nothing come to mar or spoil or hinder this fellowship.
May we go on unitedly and may we pray much. And may we just be on our faces before God for our nation. God can do great things in this our day. Judgment is coming, we know it. But our business is to save people out of the world. God is taking out of people for himself out of this world today, building his church. Oh, may God help us to move out more actively. I say again, thank God for you Gideons that are getting the gospel out. Thank God for you sisters that are doing something to help the missionaries. May all the rest of us get together and go forward to do something.
What can we do to reach the people around our neighborhood? Why can't we have this chapel filled up every Sunday night warning people of this judgment that's coming before it's too late? Oh, may God humble us and stir us and speak to our heart and help us to do something to get people beneath the sound of the gospel and win them to the Lord Jesus Christ. Seventeen, my God will cast them away because they did not hearken unto him. And look at these awful words, how true they are, even to this day, the last words of this chapter. And they shall be wanderers among the nations. Was there ever a more true word ever written?
They shall be wanderers among the nations. Where is Israel today? Here they are, wandering among the nations. And God's word was fulfilled to the very letter, and judgment came. But may God help. I know that judgment is coming. We know it. But may God help us to do something, to pluck them as brands from the burning, before it's too late. So we bow in prayer. Blessed God, our Father, we thank you that you've given us a wonderful job to do in this wonderful church area. Our business is to tell men and women of the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you, Lord, in some foreign lands, thousands are coming to thee. We thank this as an open door. We thank you for what we've heard recently of that once closed and persecuted trace Columbia in Central America.
And yet now, Lord, in Latin America, and now, Lord, we find that even the priests and the Roman Catholic people are reading the Bible and people are coming to the Lord Jesus. And here in this favored land, people are pushing the Bible on one side and taking it out of the schools and saying that God is dead. Help us, Lord, to stand up, we pray, and to take forth a word of life. Help us in our daily testimony not to miss or lose the opportunity of seeking to win men to Christ. Bless us here at Park of the Palms. May we be a light shining out like a great lighthouse in a dark, stormy sea, rescuing and winning men to the Lord Jesus.
Bless the coming weekend if thou shalt tarry. Bless our activities this week. Bless our brother Miller in the hospital. May he be a testimony for thee. We thank thee for the testimony of the brother whom thou hast so recently taken to be with thyself, the testimony in the hospital, and a man was saved through his testimony. Help brother Miller that he might testify, help us as we meet people and visit him and so on, so we might do thy will and send forth a light into the night whilst it's called day. We thank you for this meeting and speaking to our heart. And we ask that it dismisses with eye-dressing, in the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ.