Summary: Sunday Evening Evangelistic Message #79 <br><br> Scripture: Hosea 10:1-8,12 <br><br> As you know, we are in a long series titled "Break Up Your Fallow Ground: It Is Time to Seek the Lord" which is based on Hosea 10:12 which reads: "Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the Lord, till he come and rain righteousness upon you." In this passage, Hosea urges the children of Israel to turn away from their sins, repent, and get right with God. <br><br> As we begin today, let's take a close look at verse three of Hosea chapter 10. The verse reads, "For now they shall say, We have no king, because we feared not the Lord; what then should a king do to us?" At the time when this prophecy was given, Israel did in fact have a king. However, the children of Israel are saying that it is as if they had no king because the king is not doing them any good. The king is useless to them because the people have rejected God. <br><br> The king was useless in protecting the nation, preserving the peace, or administering justice because the people "feared not the Lord". Matthew Henry writes that the Hebrew people ask, "What good can we expect from a king when we have forfeited the favour of our God?" <br><br> This is a very important concept for us as Christians to understand. Our country is in the middle of a presidential election season. And with Election Day just five weeks away, it is so easy for us to get caught up in the idea that the success or failure of our country rests on whether or not Obama or Romney wins. I am here to tell you that neither Obama nor Romney can help us. Only God can help us now. Just like the children of Israel who rejected God, and found their king useless, our nation has turned its back on God and no matter who is president for the next four years, nothing in this nation will change until we change and get back to serving God and loving God as we should. <br><br> Now, in this series of messages, we are addressing specific sins that folks in the church need to confess and repent of in order to get our hearts right with God, and so that we can ask God to send revival in our personal lives, our families, our churches, our communities, and our country. So far we have addressed forty-seven sins in total, and today, we are going to continue this series by addressing three more sins from our list. <br><br> 1. The first sin we will address today is the sin of being near God with our mouths but far away from Him with our hearts. <br><br> 2. The second sin we will address today is the sin of trusting in ourselves instead of trusting God. <br><br> 3. The third sin we will address today is the sin of being double-minded. <br><br> + Plus, listen to James Cleveland singing "Jesus Is the Best Thing" and Albertina Walker singing "Give Your Life to Jesus"
