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[0:00] These things I know, how the living go on living, and how the dead go on living with them, so that in a forest even a dead tree casts a shadow, and the leaves fall one by one, and the branches break in the wind, and the bark peels off slowly, and the trunk cracks, and the rain seeps in through the cracks, and the trunk falls to the ground, and the moss covers it, and in the spring the rabbits find it, and build their nest inside the dead tree, so that nothing is wasted in nature or in love. Isn't that amazing?

[0:45] So God has built a recycling process into the creation that he has made, and it is stunning the way that he has done it. And you know, God, as far as we know, hasn't created anything for thousands of years, because when he finished his creation, at the end of six days he pronounced everything as very good, and he built into everything that he created the capability for it to reproduce itself.

[1:15] And we know how that works in the human kingdom and in the animal kingdom, how that Adam and Eve were brought into existence with the capacity for reproduction within them, that was passed on to the next generation that was born with the capacity for reproduction in them, and so on.

[1:34] But I was amazed to learn one day that this applies even to the stars. And can you imagine that stars have the capability of reproducing?

[1:48] Quite amazing. This we probably weren't able to determine at all until the Hubble telescope, because the Hubble telescope is that which is able to get above the Earth's atmosphere and take pictures of the stellar heavens that we can't get with telescopes here on Earth because of the haze that is in between in the Earth's atmosphere.

[2:09] But the Hubble is able to get above that and get much clearer pictures. And among other things, which I was completely ignorant, which makes me wonder how many other things I'm completely ignorant of, these stars, what we call stars, are all nothing but gas.

[2:31] They do not have solidity to them. They are gas. And even though the stars all look pretty much alike to us with the naked eye, they are in actuality different colors.

[2:45] And the colors are determined by the kind of gas that makes up the star. And you know there are stars that are dying, and new stars are being born from those.

[3:00] It's just amazing. So even with the stars, as well as with the animal kingdom, God has built within it the capacity for reproduction, which is just absolutely mind-boggling.

[3:13] And bottom line is, guys, no matter how much we learn, no matter how much we think we know, we really don't know very much at all compared to what there is out there.

[3:26] Just absolutely amazing. But we do know and can't appreciate what God has provided for us in his word, and we are considering a brief exposition of the minor prophets, and this was your choice.

[3:42] We ask what you wanted to undergo, and this was the response that was made to undertake the minor prophets. And we are looking back hundreds of years before Christ was born, and we are examining some of the content that was experienced by people living then in the prophecy of Hosea.

[4:03] And if you will turn, please, to chapter 6. We've had a little bit of an interruption here. I want to just emphasize something, again, as regards these minor prophets.

[4:17] Actually, it's all the prophets. And that is, all of the prophets were raised up of God for the primary purpose of issuing information from the deity that they otherwise would not have.

[4:32] And along with that information, there is, of course, inspiration and promise and blessing and benefit, but there is also warning of impending judgment that is to come if people engage in activities that are contrary to nature and character of God, which is something that humanity has fallen into from Genesis 3 on.

[4:59] And then the prophets have the responsibility of delivering warning messages and trying to bring the people back to the position where they are supposed to be.

[5:09] It is a never-ending process because each generation that comes along needs more information, and sometimes it's the same information gone over. And as we look at Hosea, it is a depiction of a great love story between God and Israel and how he pledged himself to Israel in a kind of marriage situation, and then how Israel turned against him and played the harlot by going after other gods.

[5:42] And that, of course, is known as idolatry. So we're going to just pick up here in chapter 6. We've had a little interruption over the last couple of weeks. And I want you to note, if you will, the promise of judgment that is to be delivered.

[5:58] And by the way, this judgment scene and the punishment that comes with it is always, without exception, administered in love.

[6:11] It is God is going to take Israel to the woodshed because he loves Israel. And in the same way that a parent disciplines a child when the child goes awry, he does it for the child's benefit and for the child's own protection and for the child's own blessing.

[6:31] And it's no different with God and the nation of Israel. It is always with the idea in mind that God loves these people, and it pains him in his heart to see them go astray.

[6:44] In chapter 6, we have what is referred to as the response to God's rebuke. And his rebuke has already been delivered. And Hosea is providing what would be the proper response to God's rebuke, and it starts with chapter 6.

[7:01] And it is, How so? In judgment and in punishment, he has torn us.

[7:12] But he will heal us. He has wounded us. But he will bandage us. He will revive us after two days. He will raise us up on the third day, that we may live before him.

[7:27] So let us know. Let us press on to know the Lord. His going forth is as certain as the dawn. And he will come to us like the rain, like the spring rain watering the earth.

[7:42] What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? Now remember, Ephraim is the most populated tribe of the northern kingdom. It's the biggest one, population-wise.

[7:55] So they are addressed kind of individually. And what shall I do with you, O Judah? And Judah represents the southern two kingdoms, the southern two tribes that have taken place with the rupture of the kingdom.

[8:10] And he says, For your loyalty is like a morning cloud. Well, we know what happens to morning clouds. They dissipate and go away. And that's the way Israel's loyalty was, as well as Judah's.

[8:23] Like the dew which goes away early. Therefore I have hewn them in pieces by the prophets. I have slain them by the words of my mouth.

[8:34] And that is, he has given them the word from the Lord. And it is a powerful word. And the judgments on you are like the light that goes forth, for I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice.

[8:50] Many of these people had just succumbed to the idea that all we need to do to maintain a right relationship with God is just make the right sacrifices. Well, that is nothing more than a perfunctory kind of religion that just goes through the motions, that is faulty role, that has no heart involvement at all.

[9:09] And what the Lord is telling his people here is that won't cut it. God is saying that he desires chapter 6, I'm sorry, verse 6, I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice.

[9:29] If you think you can just go through the procedures and make the right offerings and everything, that it's going to be all right, and that I get some kind of satisfaction out of that, you're crazy. And in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

[9:41] But like Adam, and this is, the word actually is Adam, but it is, in the Hebrew, it is the word man. And Adam was given the name Adam, which actually expresses humanity, man.

[9:59] And it would be well to translate this the same way. It's rendered in the New American Standard as Adam, but it would be correctly rendered man as well. But like man, they have transgressed the covenant.

[10:12] What's that saying? The transgressing of the covenant is systemic to man, to humanity. That's the way we are. And the hymn writer had it right when he said, prone to wander, Lord, I feel it.

[10:27] Prone to leave the God I love. Here's my heart, oh, take and seal it. Seal it for thy courts above. We all have this penchant, this tendency, this drive for self-satisfaction and self-serving.

[10:44] It is part of the human condition. And that's what makes us the way we are. And that's what creates all of the conflict that does. And it is like Adam or like man, they have transgressed the covenant.

[10:57] There they have dealt treacherously against me. Gilead is a city of wrongdoers. We might say Las Vegas, New York, is a city of wrongdoers.

[11:12] Not that they stand alone in that, you know, because all cities pretty much fall into this. And by the way, guys, I trust that you understand by now, and I'm sure you probably do, that what we are considering here is in reality nothing but a repetitive depiction of humanity.

[11:30] And these people were functioning seven, eight hundred years before Christ ever came and was born in Jerusalem. And the beat goes on and nothing has changed.

[11:42] The only thing that has changed is we have found more modern, sophisticated ways of sinning. And that's about the only difference. Otherwise, we are no different from those who went before.

[11:55] Gilead is a city of wrongdoers tracked with bloody footprints. Could you apply that to Chicago? Or to other places? And raiders, as raiders wait for a man, so a band of priests murder on the way to Shechem.

[12:12] Surely they have committed crime in the house of Israel. I have seen a horrible thing. Ephraim's harlotry is there. Israel has defiled itself.

[12:23] Also, oh Judah, there is a harvest appointed for you when I restore the fortunes of my people. When I would heal, going right into chapter 7.

[12:34] And this is just an ongoing litany of vice, of exposed sin, of corruption, of threatened judgment, and the beat goes on.

[12:46] Nothing has changed. And I'm going to just move through this rather rapidly because I want you to get the impact of it. But most of the statements are pretty much self-explanatory.

[12:59] And he is trying to, he is trying to reveal Israel's sin before God and letting them know that there's going to be a price to pay for this on down the road.

[13:13] And of course, we know what the price is going to be. It's going to be, Israel is going to be inhabited by the Assyrians. They're going to throw a siege around the city. People are going to be reduced to cannibalism.

[13:25] Finally, they will fall. They'll be carried into captivity. The same thing will happen in the south. In chapter 7 and verse 1, When I would heal Israel, the iniquity of Ephraim is uncovered, and the evil deeds of Samaria.

[13:42] Samaria is the capital of the northern ten tribes, where they deal falsely. The thief enters in, bandits raid outside, and they do not consider in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness.

[14:00] Now their deeds are all around them. They are before my face. And God is saying, I haven't forgotten at all. They may think they're getting away with something because the axe isn't falling right now.

[14:13] But it's coming. And the more delay God gives them, and the more the prophets deliver the message to them, the greater their opportunity to repent and return to the Lord.

[14:25] This is all another illustration of the long-suffering of God. The string is out. We don't know how long it will be. We don't know how long the long-suffering of God is.

[14:40] But it has a limit. And when he reaches that limit, the curtain comes down. And what he is trying to do is warn these people that they're not going to get away with this forever.

[14:54] And the only reason judgment isn't immediate is because God keeps providing opportunity and time for them to turn. And the same can be applied to the USA, to Great Britain, to France, to Ireland, to a whole host other nations around the world.

[15:14] Israel's not alone in this. This is a world condition. With their wickedness, they make the king glad, and the princes with their lies.

[15:24] They are all adulterers. And this adultery isn't simply physical adultery between humans, but it is spiritual adultery between people and the false gods that they worship.

[15:40] They are all adulterers like an oven heated by the baker who ceases to stir up the fire from the kneading of the dough until it is leavened. On the day of our king, the princes become sick with the heat of wine.

[15:56] He stretched out his hand with scoffers, for their hearts are like an oven, and they approach their plotting. Their anger smolders all night. In the morning it burns like a flaming fire.

[16:09] All of them are hot like an oven, and they consume their rulers. All their kings have fallen. None of them calls on me. Ephraim mixes himself with the nations.

[16:22] That's the Gentiles. Ephraim has become a cake, not turned. That's another way of saying Ephraim is half-baked. And we say that anyone or anything that is half-baked is virtually worthless, overdone on one side and raw on the other.

[16:40] And what good is that? Ephraim is a half-baked. Strangers devour his strength, yet he does not know it. Gray hairs also are sprinkled on him.

[16:52] What's that saying? The clock is running out. The time is getting short. Gray hairs are there. Wow. Yet he does not know it.

[17:04] He's oblivious to it. Though the pride of Israel testifies against him, yet they have neither returned to the Lord their God, nor have they sought him for all this.

[17:15] So Ephraim has become like a silly dove without sense. A silly dove is a bird that just flits, just flits and flutters from here to there to yon looking for this, looking for satisfaction, looking for sustenance, just flits around like a fickle bird.

[17:33] And that's how he depicts the nation here. They call to Egypt. They go to Assyria. And when they go, I will spread my net over them. I will bring them down like the birds of the sky.

[17:46] I will chastise them in accordance with the proclamation to their assembly. Woe to them, for they have strayed from me. Destruction is theirs, for they have rebelled against me.

[18:00] I would redeem them, but they speak lies against me, and they do not cry to me from their heart. When they wail on their beds for the sake of green and new wine, they assemble themselves, they turn away from me, although I trained and strengthened their arms, yet they devise evil against me.

[18:24] They turn, but not upward. They are like a deceitful bow. Their princes will fall by the sword. Because of the insolence of their tongue, this will be their derision in the land of Egypt.

[18:41] put the trumpet to your lips. Like an eagle, the enemy comes against the house of the Lord, because they have transgressed my covenant, rebelled against my law. They cry out to me, my God, we of Israel know thee.

[18:57] But Israel has rejected the good. The enemy will pursue him. They have set up kings, but not by me. That is this royal line that has been established in the north, not from the tribe of Judah, not of the royal line, not picked by God, but picked by the people.

[19:14] But I did not know it. With their silver and gold they've made idols for themselves that they might be cut off. He has rejected your calf. This is the gold calf, the bulls that they've made.

[19:26] Samaria saying, my anger burns against them. How long will they be incapable of innocence? For from Israel is even this. A craftsman made it.

[19:38] It is not God. Surely the calf of Samaria, that's their idol, will be broken to pieces. For they sow the wind and they reap the whirlwind.

[19:49] The standing grain has no heads, yields no grain. Should it yield, strangers would swallow it up. Israel is swallowed up. They are now among the nations like a vessel in which no one delights.

[20:02] For they have gone up to Assyria like a wild donkey all alone, Ephraim has hired lovers. These lovers are foreign nations that they have appealed to for their help and for their benefit.

[20:18] And they of course are inadequate and corrupt themselves, even though they hire allies among the nations.

[20:28] Now I will gather them up and they will begin to diminish because of the burden of the kings of princes. Ephraim has multiplied altars for sin.

[20:40] They have become altars of sinning for him. These are the false altars and statuary that they have established. Though I wrote for him ten thousand precepts of my law, they are regarded as a strange thing.

[20:58] Boy, does that ever apply to the good old U.S. of A. Bible? How many millions and millions of copies of Bibles in translations, editions, and renditions have been published in how many different languages?

[21:14] And most of them are doing nothing more than collecting dust on people's coffee tables. God says, I've written to them the things of my law, but they are regarded as a strange thing.

[21:27] What's that mean, a strange thing? It means foreign. It means for most people the Bible might as well be written in a foreign language, because that's all it means to them. It is just the decoration, and it is something that, like I said, collects dust.

[21:42] They are regarded as a strange thing. You know, justification by grace, salvation by grace through faith, is something that has been clearly preached, proclaimed, and explained for 2,000 years.

[21:59] grace, it is the very heartbeat of the Christian faith, is that Christ died for our sins, and justification is on the basis of believing what God has revealed concerning his son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

[22:16] This simple truth has been around for 2,000 years, and do you realize that to most people today, it is a strange thing? Isn't that amazing?

[22:29] Now, part for the responsibility of that strangeness must be laid at those of us who have the truth. We have done a very good job of disseminating it, we're proclaiming it.

[22:40] We pretty much hold it up in our churches, and we have preached this message to the choir more than we have to anyone else. It needs to get outside the church, it needs to get out where the need is really the greatest.

[22:59] There is regarded as a strange thing. As for my sacrificial gifts, they sacrifice the flesh and eat it, but the Lord has taken no delight in them.

[23:11] Now he will remember their iniquity and punish them for their sins. They will return to Egypt. Wait a minute, isn't that what he brought them out of?

[23:22] Indeed it is. But, this is a backsliding people. They will return, for Israel has forgotten his maker and built palaces.

[23:34] Fellas, there's no question that this is talking about the very ones that are mentioned here. Israel has forgotten his maker.

[23:46] That's the interpretation. application. But the application fits a whole lot of nations, maybe all the nations. It certainly fits the good old U.S.

[23:56] of A. As much as we love this nation, we must admit that we are involved in this. we are part and parcel of what is taking place here.

[24:13] Israel has forgotten his maker and built palaces. And Judah has multiplied fortified cities. but that's all going to be to no avail.

[24:26] I will send a fire on its cities that it may consume its palatial dwellings. Israel has forgotten his maker and so has the U.S.

[24:38] of A. We have pretty much forgotten our founding fathers, who they were, the price they paid, what they established, and all that was involved with that.

[24:49] We've turned our back upon it. We have not educated our children in it. It is incredible that there are multitudes of young people today between the ages of 10 and 20 who could not even tell you the first three presidents of the United States.

[25:03] Some of them might get George Washington right, but after that they're lost. Pitiful. Joe? You're talking about getting the word out. We haven't done a good job of going out. More people at the word.

[25:15] But throughout the whole Bible, the picture is that there will always only be a remnant. There will always only be a small amount of believers. That the number of believers will never be a big month.

[25:29] It will always be small. True. That's true. If you have that kind of what the word is saying to you, picture is saying to you, it's almost like we're not going to have any big campaign or evangelistic thing where we're going to get a lot of people because the Bible says we're not.

[25:49] Well, God has always worked in and through a minority. And when he chose Israel, he said, I have not chosen you because you were the greatest among the nations, but because you were the fewest.

[26:04] So, as the old saying goes, God plus one is a majority. But he has always worked through a human minority and that has been his methodology.

[26:17] And the reason is because the majority are frankly not interested. The majority are more self-serving and so was the minority before they came to truth and light.

[26:30] We were part of that. And we can be grateful to God that we have by his grace been delivered out of it, that someone one day gave us the gospel and enabled us to believe that gospel and become identified with the Lord Jesus Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection changed our life forever.

[26:50] I know I'm just one of many and could be multiplied by however many there are here, that when Jesus Christ comes into the life, he upends everything and it's all changed and we become a new creation in him and old things have passed away and behold all things have become new.

[27:08] And I, like the rest of you, have to admit that from the time of December 8, 1956 in my life, nothing has been the same. And I cannot tell you how grateful I am for what has taken place.

[27:22] Israel has forgotten his maker, built palaces, Judah has multiplied fortified cities, but I will send a fire on its cities that it may consume its palatial dwellings.

[27:35] And this is just going to go on and it is, the punishment is coming. Chapter 9, Do not rejoice, O Israel, with exaltation like the nations, for you have played the harlot, forsaking your God.

[27:52] Remember what the Lord said earlier with Amos, chapter 3, in verse 2, You only, you only of all the nations of the earth have I known, and given these special benefits, special privileges, special position, and there was no nation on the face of the earth that was less justified in turning away from God.

[28:13] And yet they did. They did. And this is because of that systemic self-centeredness that is in humanity. You have played the harlot, forsaking your God.

[28:24] You have loved harlot's earnings on every threshing floor. Threshing floor and winepress will not feed them, and the new wine will fail them. They will not remain in the Lord's land, but Ephraim will return to Egypt, and in Assyria they will eat unclean food.

[28:44] Now, they are Jews, and they are supposed to be eating a kosher diet, certain things that are off limits to them, but the time is coming when they will eat anything they can get their hands on.

[28:56] Yes? Did you mean to skip chapter 8? I'm sorry? Did you mean to skip chapter 8? No, we're in chapter 9 now.

[29:07] I didn't skip chapter 8. Okay. Yeah, we're in chapter 9. Yeah. Well, so much of this is self-explanatory, and so much of it is kind of repetitive.

[29:17] It is almost for the sake of emphasis that Hosea is hammering this message, and the idea is if one statement doesn't grab you, maybe the next one will.

[29:33] It's almost like Hosea is speaking out of desperation to get this point across to the people, and a lot of them are turning a deaf ear, and ho-hum, and this crazy old coot, he doesn't even know what he's talking about, and on and on this goes.

[29:48] Dan? This was kind of like a little kid. You have to keep telling them and telling them and telling them. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. They don't get it. Absolutely.

[29:59] You couldn't be more introspective. That's exactly what's happening. They will not pour out libations of wine to the Lord. Their sacrifices will not please him.

[30:11] Their bread will be like mourner's bread. All who eat it will be defiled. Their bread will be for themselves alone, will not enter the house of the Lord. What will you do on the day of the appointed festival and on the day of the feast of the Lord?

[30:23] Behold, they will go because of destruction. Egypt will gather them up. Memphis will bury them. Weeds will take over their treasures of silver.

[30:34] Thorns will be in their tents. All this stuff is coming, and it is most certainly going to be fulfilled. The day, verse 7, the days of punishment have come.

[30:45] The days of retribution have come. Let Israel know this. The prophet is a fool. That's the way they regard him. The inspired man is demented because of the grossness of your iniquity.

[31:01] In other words, what this man, what Hosea is teaching and the message he is delivering, sounds so completely wrong and foreign to them because they have an opposite worldview.

[31:17] And, fellas, nothing has changed. Today, everyone has a worldview. Everyone has a perspective of what the world looks like and consists of.

[31:32] We have formulated in our minds, just by living in this world, we have formulated what things are like. We have an assessment of it.

[31:42] That's your worldview. How you view the world and yourself. And the way the Christian views the world and himself causes those who are in the world with a worldly view to look at us and say, you people are crazy.

[32:01] Well, what has changed? Nothing. That's exactly the way they regarded Hosea. Don't be surprised if the world thinks you have a screw loose because the scriptures reveal who it really is that has the screw loose and he's written to them the things of his law, but they are regarded as a strange thing.

[32:24] Wow. This is so, what has changed? Absolutely nothing. Maybe the technology's changed a little, but nothing else has changed.

[32:34] just amazing. Just absolutely amazing. Ephraim was a watchman with my God, a prophet, yet the snare of a bird catcher is in all his ways, and there is only hostility in the house of his God.

[32:52] They have gone deep in depravity, deep in depravity. You know what this is saying in verse 9? He's saying they've got a swamp also that needs to be drained.

[33:08] So what else is new? Nothing. Israel had a swamp that needed to be drained. But you know what? It wasn't drained. Judgment came, the nation fell, carried into captivity, and those ten tribes never did become what has commonly been referred to as the lost ten tribes.

[33:28] They were never lost. They were assimilated by Syria, and those that remained at home were assimilated by the people who were guarding them, who intermarried with them, who eventually became known as the Samaritans.

[33:40] There's nothing lost about them. But this is all just repetitive stuff. They have gone deep in depravity, as in the days of Gebeah. He will remember their iniquity.

[33:53] He will punish their sin. Someone has said, God does not collect all of his debts at the end of the month. And he has his own game plan and his own timetable.

[34:05] I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness. I saw your forefathers as the earliest fruit on the fig tree in its first season. But they came to Baal Peor, false idol, and devoted themselves to shame.

[34:22] And they became as detestable as that which they loved. As for Ephraim, their glory will fly away like a bird. No birth, no pregnancy, and no conception.

[34:35] Though they bring up their children, yet I will bereave them until not a man is left. Yes, woe to them indeed when I depart from them.

[34:46] Ephraim, as I have seen, is planted like a pleasant meadow, like Tyre. But Ephraim will bring out his children for slaughter. That's what's going to happen to them when the Assyrians come in.

[34:58] Give them, O Lord, what will you give them? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breast. All their evil is at Gilgal. That was one of the central places of idolatrous worship.

[35:11] Indeed, I came to hate them there. Because of the wickedness of their deeds, I will drive them out of my house. I will love them no more.

[35:23] All their princes are rebels. Ephraim is stricken. Their root is dried up. They will bear no fruit. Even though they bear children, I will slay the precious ones of their womb.

[35:37] Well, God's going to use the enemy to do that. My God will cast them away because they have not listened to him. And look at this last line. And they will be wanderers.

[35:50] among the nations. Among the Gentiles. The Goyim. You know one of the names that has been attached, one of the bywords that has been attached to the Jewish people from the year about 1200?

[36:09] They've been referred to as a wandering Jew. Isn't that something? And they have wandered all over the earth.

[36:19] and they established themselves in a certain area and they seem to prosper. And the next thing you know, pockets of persecution crop up and the pressure is on and Jewish people are persecuted and marginalized and cheated and lied and vilified and many times killed and forced to pack up and leave and go to a country wherever they'll let them in, wherever they'll accept them.

[36:52] You know, this was taking place right here in the U.S. of A. Right after World War II ended and the concentration camps were emptied and the Jews were trying to regather.

[37:04] They would go from one nation to another trying to find entrance and everybody was turning them away. And the United States, the United States was involved in that. Not a bright spot in our past.

[37:16] We were involved in some of that. And it wasn't until Harry Truman turned things around in 1948 and was the first to recognize the state of Israel as being established there that we began taking a different attitude toward the Jew.

[37:31] It was just remarkable. Dan? I think right during World War II before the other war there was a boat of Jewish people who came over here. They were turned back. Oh yeah, absolutely. They were turned away from a lot of different places.

[37:43] Absolutely. One of the United States is a whole boat If you've never seen the film, you really ought to see it. I've mentioned this before, and I know you can get it on DVD, but it ought to be a must-view film for every Christian.

[37:59] And Paul Newman, it was a young Paul Newman, starred in the film, and it was called Exodus. Exodus. Exodus. And if you haven't seen it, you certainly ought to get it.

[38:13] It's probably available in the library in a DVD, and it's probably three, four hours long altogether, and it's not the Exodus out of Egypt. That's not what it's about. It's not the historic Exodus, but it is the Exodus of Israel trying to get in to the nation of Israel, and you really ought to see it because it's got a lot of actual truth in it that is really something.

[38:36] It's just amazing. After the war, there was a large immigration camp in the Mediterranean on Greece or somewhere. On Crete, on the island of Crete.

[38:49] Yeah, there was Jews because nobody would take them. Exactly. Exactly. And you know, if you can imagine this, there was even at one time a consideration that maybe the Jew, maybe the Jewish people who were regathering, survivors after World War II in the prison camps and everything, maybe they should all be sent to Alaska.

[39:13] You know, that was one of the options that the government was actually considering at one time. In other words, the idea then was get them as far away as we possibly can, but give them a little bit of humanity.

[39:24] And Alaska is a beautiful country, but it's got its downfalls as well. But all kinds of options were being considered, and all the Jew wanted to do, would go home, and Israel was home.

[39:41] But the British mandate was in force, and the war was over, and there was all kinds of confusion going on, and the resettlement of people and everything, and the Jew got the short end of the stick again.

[39:56] But you know something? The Jew always did get the short end of the stick, and in many respects, they still do today. And you just look at what's happening, and today we've got a whole crop of what's called Holocaust deniers, and there are actually those who have the audacity to say, that Holocaust thing, six million Jews, that's all a bunch of malarkey.

[40:18] Never happened. There might have been 6,000, there might have been 6,000 killed, but six million, that's crazy. Well, it is so well documented, you have to, well, actually, it isn't, when people make statements like that, you don't know if they are out of ignorance, and a lack of intelligence that they make it, or if it is simply prompted by a knowing, by evil.

[40:50] Sometimes we don't know, it's probably some of each, but it's hard to imagine that anybody could be that ignorant, so where it isn't out of ignorance, it's out of an evil motivation, neither way, it's detestable.

[41:05] Other comments or questions, anybody? This is just, this is, yeah, Joe? Yeah, when finally, in 48, they didn't get established there, they only got a small portion of the land, 27%, and the Arabs got the rest of it, they had all these surrounded, had military, they didn't have any guns or anything around the nation, they couldn't defend themselves, but all these countries were going to attack them, so we know the wars that went on, but God, this is another thing where the Bible's got to be true, because how could they substantially defend against it, but they did, they came through and won, even though they were such minority, it was like millions against 600,000 or so, but they won, and then of course with their intelligence, that God has given them tremendous knowledge and intelligence, the Jew person himself, there's more, what's that award you win every year, the Nobel Prize, the Nobel Prize, because more Jews won the Nobel Prize percentage wise than it's particular, so through their ingenuity, their greatness, in terms of that, they have been able to make it, so they are

[42:11] God's chosen people. Well, they are, and frankly, there is no human explanation explanation, for the survival of the Jews, there just is no human explanation, it has to be, it has to be a God thing, and it is, because of the promises God has made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and his descendants, and he will fulfill, there has not failed one good word of all that he has promised, and he's going to bring to pass all that he has determined for Israel, yes.

[42:48] Today, if you would read what we went over today, the progressives, as they call it, would determine that as hate. I'm sorry?

[43:02] What you just read, in Hosea, today that's interpreted as hate. Oh yeah, you're right, you're right. Actually, they label today the liberal element labels anyone who disagrees with them as haters, and it's amazing how these people actually rewrite the definition that's given in the dictionary, but they succeed in doing it, and it is just, so the beat goes on, and nothing has changed, humanity remains the same, but the time is coming when God will be vindicated, and it will, as far as we're concerned, it's long overdue, but the only reason the axe hasn't fallen is because God is incredibly long-suffering and patient, we just don't know how long it's going to last, but I'll tell you this, fellas, when it's over, it'll be over, and there won't be any question about that.

[44:06]  Hey, thanks again for being here, enjoy your breakfast in the day ahead, and thank you, Cheryl, for the great service.