The Suffering of Uncertainty
HOSEA 4:1-6
1 ¶ Hear the word of the LORD, ye children of Israel: for the LORD hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. (Notice – 3 things lacking in their land, their nation – there was no truth, no mercy, and no knowledge of God. And so this verse of scripture was not only showing the condition of Israel at that time in history, but it is also a prophecy for the time that we are living in today. The symbolic Laodicean moon that had a little slither of light in this age - that light has now completely gone, and now the whole world is groping in darkness)
2 By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood. (Blood being shed and mingling is to do with violence and war – look at the human meat grinding conflict between Russia and the Ukraine)
3 Therefore shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth therein shall languish (become exhausted), with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven; yea, the fishes of the sea also shall be taken away. (Man’s sin is even causing the animal kingdom to be taken away, to become extinct. Look at how all these things are the result of the absence of truth and the knowledge of God being removed from among the people)
4 Yet let no man strive, nor reprove another: for thy people are as they that strive with the priest. (Contending with a priest was a very serious offense under the Mosaic Law according to Deuteronomy 17:12, and so this scripture is showing us that there was a deep level of disrespect and rebellion of the people against those who were the teachers of righteousness.)
5 Therefore shalt thou fall in the day, and the prophet also shall fall with thee in the night, and I will destroy thy mother. (This reference of mother here is generally accepted to be speaking about the impending judgment and destruction upon their city, because a woman is what also represents a city in the bible, because a city is the mother of its inhabitance – in other words, “I will destroy your city”)
6 ¶ My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: (Rejection of a certain type of knowledge is a willful and positive act, and it’s not that these people lacked intelligence, but it was that they had positively rejected the knowledge of the Lord - of the knowledge of His true character and ways. And this was where Eve had also failed - she had received false teaching and knowledge about the character of God, and that caused her concept of God to shift, and that false knowledge of God eventually caused her to be separated from God by being separated from truth) seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.
*There is not a greater position of a lost state then for God to forget a man’s children. Yet this is what our society has come to also in this age, of where the sins of the parents (of them rejecting the true knowledge of the Lord) is now being manifested upon the children with all the great turmoil and troubles that are in the world today. There are always serious and severe consequences for generations that reject God.
PSALM 46:1-2
1 ¶ To the chief Musician for the sons of Korah, A Song upon Alamoth. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
2 Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;
PSALM 46:10-11
10 Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.
11 The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.
The Suffering of Uncertainty
Human beings were never designed by God to be uncertain about anything.
Because any condition that we find ourselves in that is different to how God has designed us will be the cause for us to suffer to some degree.
If you are too hot - you suffer.
If you are too cold - you suffer.
If it is too muggy – you suffer.
If you are sick - you suffer.
And if you are uncertain – then you will also suffer.
*And so suffering is connected directly with being outside of the parameters of the way that God had made you to be from the beginning – while peace and comfort is accomplished by living within those parameters.
And we all know that often mental suffering can be more painful and longer lasting than physical suffering, and in this day that we are living in, there is so much mental struggling and suffering everywhere you look, and the term “mental health” has become such a highly used word in our day. Because the fact is that the happiness levels of many societies are decreasing.
*It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that we are living in a world of where multitudes of millions of people are uncertain about their future. *Almost every environmental scientist is prophesying doom and gloom. Economists are painting a similar picture of gloom for the world economy. Everywhere you look in the world, it’s the same thing – the outlook of the future is so uncertain. And when you threaten people’s future – then that is something that weighs on their minds in the form of uncertainty.
**Over the last 60 odd years or so, we have witnessed the rejection of a major prophet that God has sent to this generation according to what He had prophesied in Malachi 4:5 of what would come in these last days “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD:” And when God sends a prophet, we know for sure that judgement always follows if that prophet is rejected – and as believers of this end time message, we have seen that rejection take place in our day.
**One of the greatest sufferings of man in these modern times is the mental suffering that is associated with the condition of being uncertain.
By not knowing the outcome of something can greatly affect a person’s life and can cause them to suffer a great deal of anxiety and stress, and this can occur on many levels and at many different stages and circumstances of life.
*But the amazing thing is with uncertainly, is that the second that that uncertainly is removed by the knowledge of a positive outcome, then everything instantly changes, and all the anxiety and stress is immediately gone – it’s like and instant healing.
HOSEA 4:6 (Opening scripture)
6 ¶ My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: (This is not referring to a lack of knowledge of how to do rocket science and build great rockets that propel people to the moon and back – but this is a lack of the knowledge of the true God and of His truth and mercy and character)
*Hosea's life and family were to serve as a living parable of God's relationship with Israel.
Hosea was commanded by God to marry a woman that was a "harlot" - her name was Gomer.
HOSEA 1:2-3
2 ¶ The beginning of the word of the LORD by Hosea. And the LORD said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms (a prostitute) and children of whoredoms: for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the LORD.
3 So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim; which conceived, and bare him a son.
**Gomer bears Hosea three children in total whose names were given by God to prophetically reveal his judgment upon Israel.
*And this is why it is important to notice how God ordains the events of a prophet’s life that may sometimes look strange, because God will often show future prophecy in the pattern of the events in the life of a prophet.
*Look at Joseph of how that his life was a prophecy of Christ.
*Jonah was another prophet who had things happen to him that was a prophecy of Christ – of being 3 days and 3 nights in the earth.
**And so when we study the message of the hour, we have to look at this dimension of how God conveys prophecy in the events of a prophet’s life in the way of parables and shadows and types.
And God will also speak these things through your own life by the events and experiences of your life, not so much in prophecy, but in the fulfilment of prophecy – and that is why you need to be able to see and interpret the events of your life by the prophecy of the bible, because it is the prophecy of the word promised for this hour that is the thing that will interpret your life to you in this hour.
We have preached on these things many times.
*Brother Branham had 4 children – Billy Paul, Rebekah, Sarah, and Joseph – and of course there was Sharon Rose that passed away when she was just a baby.
And so all these things have meanings.
HOSEA 4:6 (Opening scripture)
6 ¶ My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: (This knowledge that is being spoken of here is the knowledge that comes from the tree of life – and that is the knowledge of the revelation of the word, but then there is another tree of knowledge also – the tree of the knowledge of good and evil)
DANIEL 12:4
4 But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.
**In these modern times that we are living in, the knowledge that comes from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil has been increasing exponentially – while for us, the revelation of the word that comes from the tree of life has been increasing exponentially.
*In this modern world, we place a lot of value to knowledge, because we know that knowledge is a very powerful thing that has the potential to greatly improve our lives in many ways.
*It is generally accepted that if you study hard and get a good education, then you are more likely to receive a better job and salary and have a better life by being in a higher income bracket.
**And so there are many reasons why we as a human race put so much value and effort into education.
We send our children to school for 5 days every single week, and when they get older, we send them to university.
And we do all of this because we want them to have a good life - because we know only too well that a lack of knowledge and understanding will tend to lead them toward a lesser level of living standards, while wisdom and knowledge can bring them into the reality of many avenues of prosperity – and this is not just for the individual, but it also applies to society and humanity as a whole.
*But when it comes to the knowledge of the Lord – society has all but forgotten just how important that that knowledge is for the survival of a nation and its individual people.
**How many times over the years have we seen people leave off following the Lord because of a change in their knowledge and understanding that has been altered by a false or modern conception of God.
When a person has a wrong understanding of the true character and nature of God, then that wrong concept of God is what will cause them to suffer in many ways unnecessarily.
And this has been the story of mankind ever since the fall of man in Eden, and God has been misunderstood ever since.
***And so we want to look at this subject of the suffering of uncertainty – because this is probably one of the greatest times of human history of where there exists the greatest amount of uncertainty amongst the peoples of the world.
**People in this modern age are so uncertain about everything. There is so much uncertainty everywhere you look in the world regardless of where you go.
People are uncertain about their job security – is AI going to take away their job? We don’t know for sure – we are uncertain.
People are uncertain about the interest rates and the future of the economy. They are uncertain about the future lives of their children.
They are uncertain about their retirement – is there going to be enough of the younger population to support the older?
They are uncertain about what happens to them when they die. On and on we could go.
And all this uncertainty produces anxiety, and so there are so many people that are suffering mentally because of the accumulation of all these uncertainties.
***But as believers of the word of what has been sent to us in this hour through a vindicated prophet of God – we need to be a people that are of the most certain of all the people of the earth.
**Ruth came out of uncertainty and into certainty at the midnight hour by hearing the voice of Boaz reveal the outcome of her future life to her.
**And so this is a time of when God wants us as a bride body of people to come out of uncertainty and go into certainty also by the voice of the bridegroom at the midnight time of this hour.
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**We want to take a little side road of a scenic route with this subject and look a little into the subject of the unconditional covenants that God has made with man and especially with His end time gentile bride of this hour.
THE.UNCERTAIN.SOUND_ JEFF.IN V-16 N-3 SUNDAY_ 60-1218
162 …That's the greatest miracle that God ever performed, was to forgive a human being its sin.