Even if you have a little wife, shine anyway. Let's talk about it on this edition of key life. That was Steve Brown. And this is key life, a no-nonsense approach to God's work. If you have the Bible, get it. And let's see how it applies to real life. Steve. Thanks, Mike. If you're just joining us, we're looking at the book of the prophet Hosea as we continue with our Old Testament survey, and I spent the last day or two comparing Amos with Hosea to give you the flavor of Hosea. We saw that Amos lived in the South in Judah, and he spoke to the North Israel. While Hosea lived in the North and spoke to the North, that means he had to stay and made a major difference. Secondly, we saw that Amos and Hosea both spoke absolute truth, but the emphasis was different. One spoke of judgment and wrath, and the other spoke of God's love and mercy. Both of those things are very important. If you don't hear about God's justice, his mercy means absolutely nothing. If you don't hear the bad news, you can't hear the good news. And then thirdly, as we compared the two prophets, we saw that Amos was a message of truth in Hosea, though true was a message of pathos. He wept as he brought God's message. We're going to see why because Hosea's story is so great. Now, I want to tell you, and this is new, I want to tell you something of the time in which Hosea lived, and then I want to draw a principle from it. The last of the powerful kings in the North, that's in Israel, was Jeroboam of the Second. He ruled from 782 to 753 BC, and after his death, everything fell apart. After his death, there was a rejection of God, adoption of pagan religious gods and practices, kind of into paganism. There was moral decadence, one leads to the other. Political chaos of the six kings who followed Jeroboam in the next 20 years, four of them were assassinated by their predecessors. And you think it's bad in this country. And any rate by 722, when Samaria fell to Assyria, Assyria, may have rejoiced in their military prowess, or their superior strength, but when you know the whole story, the rest of the story, how the gold had turned in, you know that what happened in 722 was not a victory for Assyria, but a judgment of God. Now, I want to get into the principle. The interesting thing about Hosea, and as a matter of fact, all of the prophets, is that God raised them up in the midst of unfaithfulness, apostasy, and Sam, and he made them to be a light, Hosea, and the other prophets are God's contrast to the decadence and the corruption of their times. You want to read about that, maybe, in your own private devotions, go back to 2 Kings, start about the 23rd verse of the 14th chapter of 2 Kings, and read through the 20th chapter, and that's what was going on. The history and beard at the end of his life was asked what he had learned from his lifelong study of history. He said, I have learned four things. The gods make mad those whom they will destroy. Secondly, I have learned that the bee fertilizes the flower from which it steals. Thirdly, I have learned that the wheels of God grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine. And fourthly, I have learned when it gets dark enough, you can see the stars. That's true. A vendor boy, the wonderful Christian man, used to talk about a man who was going to meet him in another city, and he wanted to know how he would recognize this particular man. And he told me, he said on the phone, I said, how am I going to recognize him? And the friend said he's tall. He is white hair, and he'll be helping somebody. And that's good. He's tall. It's guy's white hair, and he'll be helping somebody. Profit always stands out, not because the profit is such a wonderful person. Some of these people, I mean, it's not the profits that are without error. It's what they write that is revealed, propositional truth. God uses turkeys. I sometimes will say when I'm teaching, you know, this is not a family ought to be proud of, and then I talk about some of the sins that are reflected in the great leaders of God's covenant people throughout the ages. And I don't think I've ever done that. Somebody didn't get angry at me and say, you just can't do that. I remember one time teaching about Paul and Barnabas, and you remember in the missionary journey, Barnabas started as the leader with Paul, a sort of semi-assistant who traveled along behind so he could learn. And so Acts starts out, as Luke writes it, it was Barnabas and those that followed him, and then it was Barnabas and Paul, and then it was Paul and Barnabas, and then it was Paul and all those who followed him, and then you get to the 15th chapter of Acts and they have a fight. And I say, you know what was happening. It's called jealousy. And Barnabas had to go one way and Paul had to go another. People always say, Steve, you can't say that. I mean these, we need heroes. Let me tell you something. If you read biographies of famous Christians and they don't tell you about the bad stuff, then you burn them because they're not biblical and they're not telling you the truth. Spurgeon was probably bipolar. There were months when he couldn't even preach. You say, don't say that, Steve. He was the prince of Bible teachers. I know that, but if I don't tell you the other part, then you won't get the real part. And so these were not just wonderful prophets, but they were lights. They had the truth. They did enough. If you want to be recognized in our culture, you don't have to be pure and honorable and perfect, but be somebody who helped somebody. When you're standing in line at the supermarket and you know those tweets who will cut in or somebody behind you who's complaining because the line's moving too slow. You know what you should do? You should say, sir or madam, why don't you get in front of me? You're in a real hurry and I'm not. They'll die. I mean, they won't know how to deal with you. You said, well, that's not much. I know. But when it gets dark enough, a little light will be enough. People start about how bad things are. And they really are. You know, sometimes I read the paper and I just think it's never been as bad as it is now. And God says, now you can shine. If everybody was good, if everybody knew me, if everybody had had my grace, then nobody would see your light. And Brown, you're not much. You really aren't. I don't even know why I love you, but I do. But you go shine your little light and you can see it when it gets dark enough. Now, let me show you something else about Hosea. And then we're going to, this is one more, these are preliminary comments about Hosea. And you say, Steve, you haven't given us the dates and everything. Well, I'm going to do that. But I want to make one more comment by way of introductory comment of the book of Hosea. And it's on the concept of love. Hosea is called the Apostle John of the Old Testament. And he's called that for a really good reason. There are three words that are used a number of times in the book of Hosea Hebrew words and they're all translated love. The first two are used before the last one after what happened to Hosea. One word, a Greek word, means affection. And that includes sexual attraction. There's another Hebrew word that means pity, mercy, sometimes parental feeling that a father or mother would have for a child. But there's another word Hosea that means loving kindness, covenant love, steadfast love, kindness, mercy, strength, gentleness, zeal, perseverance to carry out obligations of the covenant, et cetera. Hosea didn't know that kind of love until he had gone through his own tragedy. And I'm going to tell you a little bit more about it on Monday. My pastor will be in tomorrow and will answer some questions. But the story of Hosea is amazing. I mean, he was a rising young rabbi at the first Jewish church in his city. And he was pure and he was good. And everybody said, you ought to come here. I rabbi teach the Torah. It is so wonderful. Some day he's going to be the rabbi of the largest synagogue. Now this isn't in the text. But I know this is what happened. The rabbi of the largest synagogue in the history of Israel. And then God came. And today's something, when God comes to you, you won't be flippant when he comes to you the second time. We worship idols. God said, Hosea, I've got a job for you. And Hosea said, I'll do it. And God said, I want you to go down into the red light district. And I want you to marry a prostitute. And Hosea said, in Hebrew, say what? And that was the beginning of the pain and the pathos of Hosea. Now we're going to talk a lot more about it on Monday. But out of that pain, out of his own wounds, God took the wounded Erozea to teach God's people a wonderful, awesome message of God's unconditional love. Don't forget the principle because it is a very important principle. If God comes to you, you won't be flippant when he comes to you the second time. You think about that? I mean. Listen, let me tell you what our staff has done. They're putting together booklets to go along with your Old Testament reading. And they take it from my Old Testament survey. And they finish the first one. It's Genesis to Esther. And if you'll give us a call or drop us a note, we'd love to send it to you, absolutely free. That's the volume one. The first booklet, Genesis to Esther. If you'd like it, we'll send it to you. 1-800-keylife-24-hours-a-day, or you can write key life post office box 5,000. Madeleine Florida, 3-27-9-4, or key life Canada. Post office box 3-2150, Cambridge, Ontario, N-3-H5-N-3. Or you can email us at steveitkeylife.org with your regular mailing address. We'll send the booklet, pay the postage, it's free. And I realize that a lot of you can't afford to help us financially, but if you can, man, I would have produced a very expensive ministry. And I promise you that we work hard to squeeze every darn. We'll be faithful with your gift. You can charge it to your Master Guard, Visa Discover Guard, included in your envelope. And for any contribution of any size is my thank you. When you requested, I'll send you the cassette from Matthew 8, dealing with fear. If you're afraid, what can you do? Well, this cassette will help. Be sure and include the call letters of this great station when you're right or when you call. And oh yes, key life is a listener-supported production of key life network.