HOW TO SOLVE YOUR WORST PROBLEM.
"How to Solve Your Worst Problem" is based on
the book written by Hosea about 780 BC. Quotes
are from the N.I.V. Bible and our comments are
in brackets.
(Think of yourself as an ocean going vessel and
your life as a voyage from point A to point B.
The secret of true success and real happiness
is to have enough brains to know you can't make
it without help, enough humility to ask for it,
enough wisdom and trust to ask God Himself {in
the person of Jesus Christ} aboard, and the day
by day continuing faith and will to steer the
course set by God the Holy Spirit. The last is
the toughest part and Hosea wrote about the
conflict that arises if you won't steer God's
course.
There will never be a better moment than this
to ask Jesus Christ aboard. If you are
genuinely sorry your sins nailed Him to the
cross and realise He loves you enough to go
there to rid you of them and the consequence of
death, then tell Him in a prayer and ask Him
aboard. {Our book "How to meet with God at
Home" has information about what to do next}).
If you know God and depart from Him it is vile
adultery to Him.
Punishment, being cut off from His love and
lack of forgiveness results.
Nevertheless, because of who God is, He still
loves you and will save you. Even though you
got into such a mess that people said you can't
possibly be God's person, you'll again be
called His child.
(Chapter 1)
Turn away from God and you'll experience His
rebuke and estrangement. Get rid of your
adulterous unfaithful attitude or He will make
you feel naked, lost, parched, dying of thirst,
frustrated and unloved.
If your attitude is that you can get true
satisfaction other than from God, in His eyes
it's the same as chasing and selling yourself
to lovers for food, drink, clothing etc. In
that situation you'll forget that your life
itself and everything you have, (including the
things you now worship instead of Him) comes
from Him.
So, forgetting Him, He will remove your
reliance on materialism (things rather than
their creator) and your insincere hypocritical
forms of religion by which you think you can
keep Him on side and continue to enjoy sin at
the same time.
He will strip you of all your props so you'll
listen to Him, and then speak tenderly to you
and allure you back to Him. You'll feel like an
adulteress left high and dry who wakes up to
her stupidity, is genuinely sorry and welcomed
back by her husband. Your material needs will
be met, your joy will be restored, you'll "sing
as in the days of your youth", your inner war
will cease and God's peace will reign in your
heart. You'll enjoy a relationship with God of
eternal security, rightness, justice, love,
compassion, faithfulness, and you'll
acknowledge who your Lord is.
God will respond. You'll see the difference in
the sky and the earth's abundance. He will show
His love "To the one I called 'Not my loved
one'." He will say you are again His person and
you will say "You are my God."
(Chapter 2)
If you act like an adulteress, God, like a
loving, forgiving husband will remove the
religious props from your life so that you will
"wake up to yourself," and return and seek Him.
(Chapter 3)
Lots of Australians call themselves Christians.
Yet this is a country where there is little
faithfulness, love or acknowledgment of God in
the land - cursing, lying, murder, stealing,
adultery and bloodshed abound. "Because of this
the land mourns and all who live in it waste
away." Animals, birds and fish are dying.
Both people and ministers of religion "stumble
night and day". The people are destroyed
because they have rejected (God's) knowledge.
Ignoring God's law has resulted in God ignoring
them. Religious leaders multiply and so does
their sin against God. So both people and
ministers will be punished by God and repaid
for their deeds.
"They will eat but not have enough." Because
they have deserted the Lord, alcohol and a
spirit of prostitution leads them astray making
them unfaithful to God. Because they are
stubborn and without understanding, they, and
"their rulers who dearly love shameful ways,"
will come to ruin.
(Chapter 4)
Christians and their ministers will be judged
and disciplined - their arrogance, corruption
and spirit of prostitution are not hidden from
God and their deeds do not permit them to
return to Him.
They "stumble in their sin", are unfaithful to
the Lord yet they say they seek Him. But they
don't find Him because He has withdrawn from
them. So they seek healing for their sicknesses
in the wrong places. But they will suffer God's
punishment until they admit their guilt and
earnestly seek Him in their misery.
(Chapter 5)
It's no use trying to con the Lord by a
superficial turning back to Him. Religious
words and activities aren't enough. He looks
for a right heart. Unless you are 100%
committed to Him He says:
"Your love is like the morning mist
... that disappears...
therefore I killed you with the words of
my mouth,
My judgments flashed like lightning upon
you,
FOR I DESIRE MERCY NOT SACRIFICE
AND ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF GOD RATHER
THAN" RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES.
But Christians remain unfaithful to God. Cities
are full of wicked men "stained with blood."
Marauders, including ministers of religion,
ambush people and defile the land.
(Chapter 6)
God wants to heal the land but all He sees is
crime, deceit, housebreaking, banditry,
wickedness, lies, adultery, leaders who mock
Him, intrigue and passion. He sees Christians
adopting pagan practices without realising
their strength has been sapped and who
arrogantly don't search for, or return to, the
Lord. Easily deceived and senseless, they ask
help from everyone but God.
Woe and destruction to them says God because
they have strayed from and rebelled against
Him. He longs to redeem them but they lie
against Him and do not cry out for help from
their hearts. Though He trained and
strengthened them they plot evil against Him.
Their leaders fall because of their insolent
words and non Christians (justly) ridicule
them.
(Chapter 7)
Christians have rebelled against God's law,
rejected what is good, set up leaders without
God's consent or approval, made idols for
themselves and been incapable of purity. "They
sow the wind and reap the whirlwind." By
adopting non Christian practices there is
nothing to distinguish them from non
Christians. Though they keep up Christian
religious practices the Lord is not pleased
with them. Their wickedness is remembered,
their sins will be punished and their religious
fortresses destroyed.
(Chapter 8)
Being unfaithful to God, Christians will
return to their former non Christian
lifestyles. Days of punishment and reckoning
are at hand. Sin and hostility in Christian
churches greets God's true messengers.
Christians are meant to be a delight to the
Lord but when they turn away from Him He turns
from them. So they lose His love, their leaders
become rebellious and they are blighted,
withered and fruitless. They suffer God's
rejection because of disobedience.
(Chapter 9)
Christians and their churches can easily begin
to worship themselves instead of God, such is
the deceit of the heart. The Lord will demolish
such false worship. God's verdict is: You have
planted wickedness, reaped evil and eaten the
fruit of deception because you have depended on
your own strength (instead of depending on
God). He calls them to:
"Sow for yourselves righteousness,
reap the fruit of unfailing love,
and break up your unploughed ground;
For it is time to seek the Lord,
until He comes
and showers righteousness on you."
(Chapter 10)
God loves Christians. He calls them out of
their former lifestyles. But the more He calls
the further some go from Him. They forget that
it was God who taught them to begin their walk
with Him, who healed them, who "led them with
cords of human kindness, with ties of love",
who "Lifted the yoke from their neck and bent
down to feed them." But they refuse to turn
back to God, so He puts an end to their
plans. Yet He doesn't give up on them, nor
abandon them to their enemies. His compassion
is aroused and His anger doesn't fall on
them.
"For I am God and not man-
the Holy one among you.
I will not come in wrath.
They will follow the Lord;
He will roar like a lion..
His children will come trembling"
out of their non Christian lifestyles
"I will settle them in their homes
declares the Lord."
(Chapter 11)
If Christians multiply lies and violence, God
will repay them according to their deeds, their
riches won't cover their sin. They must:
"Return to your God.
Maintain love and justice,
and wait for God always."
Otherwise God can easily remove mansions bought
by dishonesty and put them in tents.
(Chapter 12)
Christians who continue to live sinful lives
"will be like the morning mist,.. dew that
disappears.... blown chaff.... smoke" that
disappears. God says:
"I am the Lord your God
who brought you out (of non Christian
living)
You shall acknowledge no God but Me
no saviour except Me"
I cared for and fed you and you were
satisfied.
But then you became proud and forgot me
so I will destroy you for your
guilt and sins are all on record.
Yet God promises
"I will ransom them from the power of the
grave;
I will redeem them from death.
Where, O death, are your plagues?
Where, O grave, is your destruction?"
(Chapter 13)
So, to Christians in our land God says
"Return.. to the Lord your God
Your sins have been your downfall..
Return to the Lord
Say to Him:
Forgive all our sins
and receive us graciously
that we may offer the fruit of our
lips."
No one else can save us.
We will never again trust in our own
religious ideas or creations,
For in you the fatherless find
compassion.
God's response will be:
"I will heal their waywardness
and love them freely,
for my anger has turned away from them."
I will be like dew to them
they will blossom like a lily
like a cedar that sends down its roots
they will be splendid and fragrant.
Men will find refuge with them.
They will flourish like grain, blossom
like a vine and be (rightly) famous.
Their fruitfulness will come from God.
"Who is wise? He will realise these things.
Who is discerning? He will understand
them.
The ways of the Lord are right;
The righteous walk in them,
but the rebellious stumble in them."
(Chapter 14)
HERE ARE SOME MAIN POINTS FROM HOSEA:
1. If you want Him to, God can get you out of
the worst situation you'll ever get into.
2. And the worst situation is to get your own
way instead of going God's way. If you are a
believer and do that, God will "knock the
props" from under you to wake you up. This
includes religious props.
3. Australia is sinking into moral & spiritual
bankruptcy because it is rejecting God's
knowledge - and Christians and their leaders
remain STRANGELY SILENT.
4. And the only hope is in a genuine
100% turning BACK TO HIM and AWAY FROM
RELIGION THAT IS A SUBSTITUTE FOR HIM.
5. Meantime, no wonder non Christians don't
take "Christians" seriously. The "Christians"
don't even take God and themselves seriously!
6. There's no way God is going to indefinitely
put up with this. Like a bushfire thundering
through and cleansing a forest to make way
for new growth HE WILL ACT. Bushfires are
traumatic!
7. God doesn't give up on Christians, He calls
them back to Himself.
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