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If you have your bibles, Hosea chapter 2.

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Hosea chapter 2.

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So a couple weeks ago we began our journey through the book of Hosea.

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So just to summarize real quick, for those of you that weren't here, we learned that God

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had commanded Hosea to Mary Gomer, who was a prostitute.

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We learned that they have some children with some very unfortunate names, Jezreel, which

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means God's going to scatter.

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One kid's name is No Mercy.

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One kid's name is Not My Children.

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And so we said that Hosea is a living example of what God was trying to convey to His people.

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Hosea who remains faithful and steady is constantly having to live with the fact that his wife

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is unfaithful and potentially not all of the kids that she has conceived are His.

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Every day He is living in this reality.

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What God is trying to communicate is that the people are acting similar to Gomer.

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We are the whore of the story, while God remains faithful and steady.

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We as God's people, those who He has adopted as His children, are constantly looking for

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something else to bring us some joy.

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We are constantly committing spiritual infidelity, but God continues to pursue and love in spite

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of all of that.

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God has outlined in His Word numerous times on how He expects His people to act, what

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is the best path forward, He had proven Himself countless times in miraculous ways, but the

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people kept falling back into the same pattern of behavior.

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He would rescue them out of Egypt.

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And they would complain because Moses led them to the dead end of the Red Sea.

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God parts the Red Sea, leads them across dry land, and then they complained that they're

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thirsty, should have died in Egypt.

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Over and over again they go back and worship idols, complaining about the circumstances

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and forget what God is capable of.

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When our focus is on ourselves and not God, that's what happens, complaining and idol

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worship.

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Now, we might not be making golden calves, but we pursue other things of worship, don't

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we?

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And then we wonder why God feels so distant, and then we wonder why we feel like God is

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punishing us.

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Now I won't name any names, but at a previous church I had this lady that was the basic

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definition of bad decisions.

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I met her at an outreach event our church was doing at an apartment complex.

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We got to talking, and she ended up coming to church the next Sunday.

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Not only did she start coming to church, but she was at everything.

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She was always wanting to help with something that we had going on.

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She had great ideas about how to minister to the community.

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I found out later that her dad was a pastor, and once I met him in person I knew that she

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had a good foundation.

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He understood God's word.

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He modeled it for her as she grew up, but for some reason her life was a train wreck.

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She was engaged at one time to a pretty heavy drug user who eventually OD'd.

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She had one kid and didn't know who the dad was.

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She was pregnant at the time with another kid.

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She wasn't married to the dad at the time, but they were living together.

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It seemed every single week we were hearing about another tragedy in her life, but everything

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I would say she already knew the answer to.

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She already knew what was wrong.

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There was always something wrong, but she wouldn't do anything to fix it.

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She would come to church week after week.

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She would agree with what we were teaching, but nothing ever got better.

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Nothing ever changed.

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And she would often attribute it to, well, this is the life that I've been dealt with,

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dealt by God.

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This is my life.

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This is what God has chosen to give me.

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She was saying that her life was hard because God wanted to make her strong.

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And in reality, her life was hard mainly because she was making some really terrible

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life decisions.

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She wasn't honoring God with her life.

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She knew how to turn her life around.

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She knew what God's word said, but she never applied any of it.

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She would just chase one situation after the next, hoping to find contentment, hoping to

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find some purpose.

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And the reality is that many of us are guilty of the same attitude.

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And if you read the first half of chapter two of Hosea, you will see what some of the

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consequences are.

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Verse three says that God will shame us, that we'll get busted in our sin, that we will

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be left in the wilderness to die of dehydration, that our families will not be blessed because

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we have acted so shamefully.

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I want to focus real quick on verse five because it tells us what got her children in this

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predicament in the first place.

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So this is Gomers children.

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This is how they are going to, this is the consequences of Gomers.

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It says, for their mother has played the whore.

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She has conceived them and acted shamefully.

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For she said, I will go after my lovers who give me my bread and my water, my wool and

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my flax, my oil and my drink.

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Now I want you to think about that verse.

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There's a whole lot of pursuit in that verse of oneself, isn't there?

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God is saying that Gomers chased other lovers because of what they could give her.

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It wasn't for love.

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It was because of the temporary benefits by chasing other people.

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She goes to one for food.

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We don't do that, do we?

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When it was the last time that you were so desperate for food that the only way you knew

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you were going to get it is that God provided it.

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If you're like me, probably never.

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Instead we have a difficult time figuring out where we're going to go eat because we

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have so many options.

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How many arguments has that started in a family?

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We have too many options.

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When I was growing up the fashion trend was Ralph Lauren polo shirts that had the little

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logo on the, right here on the side.

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You know what you want to talk about?

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If I remember correctly, those shirts were $80 or so at Dillard's.

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And for some reason my mom wouldn't buy me any of them.

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She would say there's not a reason for a 13 year old to have an $80 shirt that she knew

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I was going to mess up in a week or two.

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Now I understand that now that I have kids, but I couldn't understand it then.

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Well, I guess my parents want me to be the loser at school.

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I guess I'll have to be known as the poor kid.

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Even though we were anything but poor.

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So my mom found some shirts for me at Target or some store like that and the logo looked

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similar.

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But instead of holding a mallet, the guy was holding a flag.

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I think the brand was Knights of the Round Table or something like that.

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But for me, Target wasn't good enough.

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I needed the real thing.

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I wasn't content with what was provided for me.

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So then I began to question my, if my parents even cared for me, if they even loved me.

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It's stupid now, but it just shows the idolatry that was in my heart.

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That's one of the problems in our culture today.

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We idolize what others think of us.

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We eat at certain restaurants because we are too good for others.

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We wear certain clothes for others, not for us.

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We don't wear clothes for us.

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We wear clothes because we want people to think about us a certain way.

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Do you think people in Kenya or Panama or other countries like that care what they wear?

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No.

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They're just grateful to have clothes, aren't they?

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The reason there is such harsh judgment from God in this text.

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The reason there's such hard judgment from God at this time in Israel's history is because

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they were doing really well physically.

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They were strong.

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They were thriving.

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But spiritually, they were bankrupt.

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They didn't see the need for the Lord because of how successful they were.

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They weren't desperate for His presence like they were at that moment at the Red Sea.

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Now they're in a position of look at what we have accomplished.

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Look at how strong our army is.

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Look at how strong our cities are.

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That should speak to every one of our hearts this morning.

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What are you chasing?

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What are you building?

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What are you hoping for?

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And what is the motivation behind it?

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Once again, all of us should see ourselves in the person of Gomorrah.

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And because of the motivation in the hearts of Gomorrah, because of the motivation in

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the hearts of the people of Israel, God is going to bring judgment.

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He's going to send a shock through their system.

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He's going to scatter them throughout the land.

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He's not going to show them mercy.

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They're going to be conquered.

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And life is going to continue to get hard for them.

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What do you feel like the proper relationship between you and God should be?

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Now oftentimes our perspective is that it's all God's fault for the things that happen

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to us.

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So He owes us.

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The Jewish people felt like God owed them because they were Jewish.

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And oftentimes feel like God owes them because they are Christian.

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Now remember it is God who sent His only Son, Jesus, to die on the cross for our sins.

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Now although what we deserved was eternal death in hell.

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So what kind of God do you have?

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Some people think of God as a higher power.

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Which our war is made popular by calling it the force.

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The New Age movement just refers to it as a higher power.

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But what is significant is that God has been changed into a higher power, which is just

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there to help people achieve their goals.

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All you have to do is tap into that higher power to do whatever you want.

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Just visualize it and it will happen.

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Or maybe our concept of God is not so obviously wrong.

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Here we make God into a grandfather image.

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God is seen as this kind loving grandfather.

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Sitting in heaven and not really concerned with what his grandchildren are doing.

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You know that typically it is the grandparents who spoiled the children and let them do whatever

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they want.

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Many of you are guilty of this.

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Then send them back home to the parents who have to discipline them.

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Like that's one of the benefits of being grandparents, right?

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We want a grandfather God who will indulge and spoil us and not make us obey the rules.

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What kind of God do you have?

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Because the God I read about here in Hosea is the same God I read about in Job.

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He is a Lord that gives but also can take away.

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As you keep reading through Hosea chapter 2, God tells Hosea that because she has failed

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to acknowledge that I'm the one who provided her food.

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I'm the one who provided her drink and clothes.

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And because she had pursued other things, I'm going to take it away.

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I'm going to take it away.

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I'm going to humble her.

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Now sometimes kids need humbling, don't they?

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There are times that my kids think they know what's best.

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There are times that my kids truly believe that they are smarter than I am.

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There are times that my kids believe that what has been given to them is theirs and no one

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else's.

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You know me and their mama, we have to humble them a little bit because the reality is that

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when they were younger, before they could earn anything, they didn't have anything that

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was theirs that had not been given to them.

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When Adelaide was younger, she would make this big deal about her bed.

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It was her bed.

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It was hers you weren't allowed to look at it, much less lay on it.

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Well guess who got a bunk mate?

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It was her room.

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How dare you come into my room?

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It's mine.

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Guess who was missing a door for a few weeks?

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Now we did that so that she would understand that everything that she had came from us.

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Everything she was given had come from her and it could be taken away at any moment.

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Everything we have is God's and it could be taken away at any moment.

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Now as she has the right attitude about her things, as my kids have the right attitude

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about their things, we don't want to take it away from them.

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As parents, we want to bless them.

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Now I have a hard time believing that if the people of Israel were worshiping the Lord,

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or celebrating all that He has done, He wouldn't have punished, but He would have continued

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to bless.

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That's why it's so imperative to understand that everything that is good isn't because

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we did that, we built that, but it's understanding that every good and perfect gift comes down

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from the Father.

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We need the right perspective.

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But what I really want to focus on is even in the midst of this punishment, even in the

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midst of God's righteous anger, He's still full of love.

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Jump down with me to verse 14.

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So He's outlined what the punishment is going to be, what He's going to take away, how He's

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going to humble the nation of Israel, how He's going to humble Gomorrah, how He's going

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to humble you and I, then verse 14.

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Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness and speak tenderly

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to her.

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And then I will give her her vineyards and make the valley of Acor a door of hope.

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And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth, as at the time when she came

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out of the land of Egypt.

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Now, if your translation, if you aren't reading the ESV, might say the valley of trouble.

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We're all familiar with the valley of trouble.

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It may be a dad who was not there for you when you were growing up.

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It may be a marriage relationship that started off so wonderfully, but ended in a bitter divorce.

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It might be your child that no matter what you do to help them, they cannot seem to be

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able to get it together.

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It may be a relationship with a best friend that spanned a number of decades, but then

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turned sour.

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We all know the valley of trouble.

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We have all been in the valley of trouble.

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Hosea knows all so well the valley of trouble because his wife, Gomor, has left him to play

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the whore.

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He understands it.

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He knows it.

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And God uses that story of Hosea and his wife's unfaithfulness to him to paint a picture of

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God's unfaithfulness to God and God's pursuit to win Israel back.

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The story, this story could have been written for today about our nation's unfaithfulness

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to God, or we could bring it down to a more personal level, and it could have been written

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about our unfaithfulness to God.

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And what I want us to see is God's response.

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God told Hosea to pursue Gomor.

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God pursued Israel.

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And I believe God is pursuing each and every one of us.

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And let's see what we can learn.

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Have you ever gotten yourself so spiritually off track?

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And God brought you to the exact same place you were when you went off track so that you

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could have another chance to make better decisions and do it God's way.

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Verse 14, therefore, behold, I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness and

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speak tenderly to her.

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The Bible is full of examples of that exact same thing happening to individuals.

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There was Moses who killed an Egyptian soldier and had to flee to the backside of the wilderness

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only to be brought back to the exact same place where he fled from the first time to

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stand before the Pharaoh of Egypt to demand the release of God's people, God's way.

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There was Jonah who heard the call from God to arise and go to Nineveh, but he fled to

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Tarshish, God on a ship, thrown off the same ship when the men threw him overboard.

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Jonah was swallowed by a great fish.

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He prayed to God that the fish would spit him out.

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The Bible says in Jonah chapter three, God said for the second time, arise and go to

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Nineveh.

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And so Jonah came back to the exact same command that God had asked him the first time.

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There's a story in Daniel chapter four where God took the kingdom of Babylon away from

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King Nebuchadnezzar because he felt like he built it.

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It was his kingdom.

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And the king goes mad for seven seasons and lived like an animal.

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After it says that after seven season, he came to his mind and claimed God rules the

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kingdoms of the world and he was restored to his position as king.

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Nebuchadnezzar came back to his kingship with a different mindset about who was in charge.

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Think about your life.

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Is there a time that God has brought you full circle?

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That's how God works.

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You may revisit a place where you fell away from God because God will bring you back to

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that same place so that this time you can make the right choice or choices.

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Now make no mistake about it.

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Make no mistake about it.

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God is the God of second and third and four choices always giving you a chance to get it

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right.

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When God brings you back to the place where you went off track, when he brings you back

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and gives you another chance or a third chance, he does not do so to scold you or to throw

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some guilt on you but to speak with tender care about getting you back on track.

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Sometimes I'm guilty of this.

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Sometimes parents will bring a child back to the scene of a mess because children make

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messes, don't they?

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And then start scolding them and telling them, do you see what you've done?

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Do you see what this is going to cost?

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Do you see how this is broken?

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You better never make that kind of mess again.

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Let me let you in on a secret.

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I found from my personal experiences that my parents yelling and screaming at me was not

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an effective way to get me to change my ways.

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I've learned that with my own kids.

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Now sometimes yelling makes me feel better in the moment.

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Sometimes it just, it comes out because I feel like it needs to come out.

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But it really does not change the heart of my kids.

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It's something that I'm working on.

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So I went back and I read the Exodus story and no place did I see after God brought Moses

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back to Egypt, God telling Moses that you know this is where you killed the Egyptian.

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This is where you messed up.

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I also reread the story of Jonah.

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Now nowhere did I see God tell Jonah, you know you messed up.

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You better not do it again.

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This is your last chance.

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You're going to stay in that fish longer next time if you don't get this right.

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It wasn't in there.

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In Hosea, God knows that Israel messed up again and again by worshiping idols.

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But he does not bring that up.

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And the scriptures says God talks tenderly to her.

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He leads in a loving way.

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He's going to return them to the wilderness and he's going to speak lovingly to them.

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He's going to allure them.

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If you feel like your life is a mess because of the sin you keep returning to, because

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of the sin that you are walking in.

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I want you to know that God can restore what sin has stolen from you.

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Verse 15, I will give her vineyards from there in the valley of Acor as a door of hope.

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She shall sing there as in the days of her youth, as in the day when she came up from

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the land of Egypt.

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He brings her back to where she messed up and he speaks lovingly to her.

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And he says, I'm going to restore you.

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The valley of Acor is not first mentioned here in Hosea, but it's actually mentioned

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first in Joshua chapter 7.

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Israel had taken Jericho.

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Remember the big march around the walls?

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They take Jericho.

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And God told them, don't take any of the treasures of Jericho for themselves, but put them in

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God's treasury.

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Give them to the Lord.

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But a man named Achan stole some of those items and buried them in his tent.

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When the Israelites went to go capture the next town of A, they were soundly defeated.

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They were destroyed.

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God told Joshua that their defeat was because of sin inside the camp.

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It was Achan's sin that caused their defeat.

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And Joshua says this in 725.

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And Joshua said, why have you troubled us?

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The Lord will trouble you this day.

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So all Israel stoned him with stones and they burned them with fire after they had stoned

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them with stones.

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This happened in the Valley of Acorn, which became known from that day forward as the

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Valley of Trouble.

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Now the Israelites are returned to this Valley in Hosea, the Valley of Trouble.

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And God says, you know what?

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It does not have to be the Valley of Trouble anymore.

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It can be the door of hope.

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It doesn't have to be the Valley of Trouble.

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We can rename this thing.

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We can change this thing.

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I can restore it to the Valley of Hope.

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And you can get your joy back.

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You can get your song back.

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You can feel like you did in the days of your youth when you and I first walked together.

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Do you know what?

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God offers that to each and every one of us today.

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Let God take you back to where you went off track.

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Let Him speak to you with tender care.

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And then you get to a point where you're going to choose to follow His voice this time.

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You and I are Gomer.

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And if you feel distant from the Lord this morning, maybe He needs to take you back to

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where you went off track.

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Maybe there's many of you in this room today that are in the Valley of Trouble, that are

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in the Valley of Pain.

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And the offer today is I can restore that and I can give you a door of hope.

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So then the question becomes, are you going to allow God to speak lovingly to you?

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Are you going to allow Him to lead you?

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Are you going to follow Him?

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Or are you going to still have the wrong perspective of God that He's just waiting to pounce on

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you?

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That He's waiting to cast judgment on you?

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That He's waiting to bring you down and tear you down to where you're just a pile of dust?

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Or are you going to change your perspective?

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Where you understand that He is offering you hope?

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He's offering you a new beginning.

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He's offering you a second chance, third chance, fourth chance.

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Now if you're like me at all, two chances usually isn't enough.

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Some of us are stubborn, some of us are hard headed, and it takes God beating things into

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us for us to understand, okay, let me try it a different way.

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And so if you take anything from this morning, if you take anything from chapter 2, I hope

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you'll understand that God has outlined in His word.

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This is the best way to life.

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This is the best way to life.

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And instead of following that way of life, we've pursued other options.

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We've tried to find contentment in so many different things.

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And if that's going to continue to be your life cycle, I don't want you to be surprised

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when punishment comes.

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Because sometimes God has to shock our system.

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Sometimes God has to bring us to rock bottom.

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But once you are at rock bottom, He's going to speak lovingly and tenderly to you.

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He's going to restore you.

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He's going to offer you hope and give you another chance, and another chance, and another

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chance.

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So this morning as we sing one more song, as we have just time to respond, as we close

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this chapter, if you're in the valley of trouble.

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If life's just hard on you right now, you don't see the light at the end of the tunnel.

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I want you to find the door of hope.

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I want you to ask Him to lead you to that door.

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I want you to hear Him speak lovingly to you.

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So many of us have bad examples of earthly fathers.

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That's not who God is.

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Don't project your image of your dad.

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He's speaking lovingly to you.

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He's trying to restore you.

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So for many of you, maybe the door of hope is right where you're sitting.

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Maybe the door of hope is right here at the altar.

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I'm going to ask the prayer team to be available.

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Maybe the door of hope is just taking that next step and asking for somebody to walk

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with you.

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So as a prayer team is up here, maybe you take advantage of that opportunity today.

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Maybe you call upon His name.

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Let's pray.

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Father God, I pray.

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I pray, God, that the person that's in this room that just feels the weight of the world

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on them, that has just been bombarded by pain.

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God, I pray that you restore them today.

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If that pain is there just because of bad decision after bad decision, Father, I pray

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that you speak lovingly to them.

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I pray that you will bring us back to where we started.

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I pray, God, you speak to our hearts.

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So God, I pray that you will move in a powerful way this morning.

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I pray that you speak to our hearts this morning.

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I pray that you restore this morning.

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So I pray for the individual who needed to hear that verse, that you're going to take

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us to the wilderness and you're going to speak lovingly to us.

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I pray, Father, that we find solace in knowing that you've paid the price for us and we just

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have to trust in the name of Jesus.

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So Father, I pray for people to call on His name today and let the healing begin today.

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So Father, I look at this time to you.

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I pray that you minister and work up everything that happens.

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You receive all the glory for it.

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Give us the heart of obedience.

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Open our ears, open our hearts, soften our hearts and not be so stubborn.

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So God, we just thank you for the second chance and third chance and fourth chance.

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Give us the prayer, God, today is a new day in our journey with you.

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I ask all these things in Jesus' name.

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Amen.