The Hosea Generation (Part 4) - Breaking into the Darkness

Today, we dive deep into the glorious truth of Jesus' journey from Nazareth to Capernaum, a living testament to God's unwavering commitment to fulfilling His Word. We challenge you to absorb this truth and let it be known through your life, not merely through obeying God's Word but by passionately sharing it, mirroring God's fervor for His promises.

The expedition doesn't end there, though. We're called to be 'The Light of the World', to reflect Jesus and share His holy truth with those who are lost. As Jesus journeyed from Nazareth to Capernaum, we are also commanded to go into the darkness and bring illumination. 

Chapters

• 0:01 The Hosea Generation
• 13:45 The Power of Being a Light
• 22:54 Supporting the Podcast and Inviting Visitors

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Hello and welcome to the Redeeming Love Bible broadcast. My name is Phil Duddy. I'm from Grace Baptist Tabernacle of King, north Carolina. Glad to have you with me on the program today. As always, please feel welcome to reach out to us at redeemingthelostcom. We would love to hear from you. We've been talking on the program as of late about something called the Hosea generation, which the Lord is raising up among His people, among His church. He's raising it up and he's going to be using this generation to reach the loss for the gospel of our Lord, jesus Christ.

Speaker 1: 0:46

Next few podcasts I wanted to have some addendums to those messages, some helpful things for that generation as we go forward, as we reach out to people with the gospel. This is going to be the first one of those. I'm calling it Breaking into the Darkness. We're going to start at Matthew chapter 4 and we're going to end up in Matthew, chapter 5. Matthew, chapter 4, starting right about verse 12, this is what the word of God says. Now, when Jesus had heard that John was cast in the prison, he departed into Galilee and, leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the sea coast in the borders of Zabulon and Nephilim, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by Isaiah as the prophet saying the land of Zabulon and the land of Nephilim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, galilee of the Gentiles. The people which sat in darkness saw great light, and to them, which sat in the region and shadow of death, light is sprung up. From that time Jesus began to preach and say repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, the beginning of Jesus' earthly ministry, we might say, and this is recorded for us here in Matthew 4. But I want you to see that God is serious. First and foremost, god is serious about his word actually coming to pass. It's important to the Lord that things that he says in his word actually physically come to pass in a tangible way. And we've got an example of this here through Jesus. Jesus actually gets up and he leaves Nazareth and he comes and he dwells in Capernaum and just shifting from one place to another.

Speaker 1: 2:51

But it was important because generations ago Isaiah had spoken a word that he had gotten from the Holy Ghost. He'd spoken a word from the Holy Ghost about that particular region and about those people who are dwelling in that particular region, you know, in Capernaum. Chapter 4, verse 15, says the land of Zabrulon, the land of Nephralim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, galilee of the Gentiles. The people which sat in darkness saw great light. That's Jesus. And to them, which sat in the region and shadow of death, light is sprung up. It was important to God. You see, the Father gave that word to Isaiah by means of the Holy Spirit coming upon him and the Son, jesus Christ. The Son is seeing to it that that word actually physically comes to pass, the way that God wanted it to come to pass.

Speaker 1: 3:53

That's very, very important to God. It's important to him as the one who gave the word that it actually comes to pass. He's faithful, he is true, he is holy, he is good, he is righteous and he is just. It matters to him because he's not a liar. Now what he says is true and what he promises to us actually comes to pass in our lives, and hallelujah and amen for that. It's important to God for this to be happening. It's important to God for this to be going on. It's important to God for these people which were sitting in great darkness to see a great light. It was important for Jesus not even to just pass through there. But the Word of God tells us that he dwelled there, in that region, and interacted with these people, and hallelujah and amen for that. That's a great encouragement for us and a great encouragement to us, because it's an encouragement for us in that God is faithful and what he says in his word is true. We can see record in the Word of things that have already come to pass. We can see record in the Word of things that have not yet come to pass in history, and amen that those things are going to come to pass, because God is faithful and it's important for him that his Word is fulfilled. It's also an encouragement to us that this should be important to us as well.

Speaker 1: 5:24

The Word of God should be important to us as well. What God says is coming from him to us, and hallelujah and amen. May that be important to you. To hear the Word of God, to love not only the Word of God but the God who gave the Word, and to follow God in all practicality, in every situation and every time and every season in a practical way. To hear the Word of God, to love the Word of God, to love God himself and to follow God in all things in such a way, as it's important for God and for his Word to come to pass, it ought to be just as important to us, the church because we've got the Holy Ghost dwelling inside that we see his Word come to pass in our lives, in our lives, in our families, in our households, in our towns, in our cities, in ourselves, in every way that God has given his Word to us. May we see it come to pass with as much faithfulness and with as much zeal and with as much passion and with as much joy and as much expectation and hallelujah and amen. Just as much as it matters to God, may it matter to us.

Speaker 1: 6:49

Jesus is an example of that. He's also an example of physically reaching into the darkness, and this is something that we're going to have to get comfortable with folks, and the church is going to have to physically reach into people's lives, and the church is going to have to, you know, if you will, the church is going to have to interrupt people in the middle of their darkness, because we've got a description here Matthew, chapter 4. The people which sat in darkness saw a great light, and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death, light is sprung up. So again, you know, just as Jesus went into his region and he dwelled there, the people which sat in darkness are sitting in darkness. They're not just sort of passing through for a little while, but this is where people live. You know, if you're a Christian and you're listening to this, if you're born again and you're listening to this, if you're filled with the Holy Ghost and you're listening to this, for us this is past tense.

Speaker 1: 8:01

Every single one of us had our conversation, we had our sitting in the darkness, we dwelled in darkness, we lived in the darkness, we breathed the darkness, we ate the darkness. That's just where we lived. We pursued the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life. That's what we did, because since the fall of me, since Adam fell, we have all been born, you know, and darkness is natural to us. Darkness is natural to us and holiness is unnatural, just like physical darkness. Light has to come into that, you know. You light a candle, you turn on a flashlight, you turn on the lights in the room, the electric lights in the room, and the light comes in to that darkness. In the same way, we have to interrupt those who are lost and who are dying, who are held down, those who are sitting in this darkness to this day. We have to be, you know, old in the Lord, we have to be comfortable in the Lord, we have to be loving in the Lord, we have to be charitable in the Lord, we have to be tender-hearted in the Lord, we have to be strong in the Lord to actually bring the Word of God to folks who are sitting in darkness, who are just naturally pursuing the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, pride of life, naturally going in the course of a fallen and sinful world. This will require a loving, charitable, tender-hearted and strong Holy Ghost. Interruption.

Speaker 1: 9:44

You know, just as Jesus went into this region and he dwelled there and he ministered there, verse 17 says from that time Jesus began to preach. The Word of God started going forward. Jesus started preaching. He said repent. He said turn to me, turn out of your darkness. I'm talking to you. You're sitting in the darkness and I'm telling you to turn out of that darkness and look at me. Jesus Christ, the light of the world, that's what he's saying. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Jesus physically moved in here. Jesus physically spoke. Jesus physically ministered, jesus physically walked and talked and he did things In the same way.

Speaker 1: 10:27

The church has to do that. This is a very active thing and we need to be a very active people If we're going to see people born again, if we're going to see the gospel going forward, the church has to be sort of a church without walls. Can't just be Sunday morning, sunday night, wednesday night, but it's got to be Tuesday afternoon, it's got to be Thursday night, it's got to be Friday morning. It's got to be out there in our households, out there in our workplaces, out there in our streets. People are meeting us and we're meeting people and through us the Holy Ghost moves. Through us the Holy Ghost moves and through us the word of God goes forward and we reach into that darkness, we break into that darkness Again. That's not necessarily like a really loud thing, that's not a violent thing, but it's such a difference If you've got two people side by side and, for example, one person is pursuing the lust of the flesh, pursuing the lust of the, just all the lusts, and there's a complaining going on.

Speaker 1: 11:37

There's a complaining, there's a gossiping going on, there's all this stuff going on and they're just down and they're depressed and they're gossiping and they're blaming and stuff like that, and then the person sitting right next to them, filled with the Holy Ghost, washed in the blood of the Lamb, joyful in the Lord, happy in the Lord, growing in the Lord, all of this, and you just can't help but speak the word of God to this person who's in the midst of their complaining and their gossiping and their blaming and their despair. But you reach over and you say you know, jesus loves you, jesus knows who you are and Jesus loves you and I want you to hear His word, I want you to meet Him and there's just such a you know that's breaking into the darkness. You know, because it ends up being such a almost a jarring sort of thing Because there's such a difference between light and darkness, there's such a difference between holiness and sin, there's such a difference between joy and despair, there's such a difference between hope and hopelessness, there's such a difference between victory and defeat. There's such a huge difference here that it ends up being a very, very jarring experience. But that's where we need to be, because you know it's a dark world, that the entire world lies in darkness, the entire world lies in the evil one. Then you know, and you know every man, woman and child apart from Jesus Christ naturally dwells, naturally sits in this state of darkness, in the state of sin, where holiness is the stranger and sin is the norm.

Speaker 1: 13:45

But how are people going to meet the Lord? How are people going to be born again? How are people going to be saved? How are people going? You know what's going to happen here, the church. You know God's going to encounter people and God's going to do that through the church and that involves going and that involves speaking and that involves doing things and that involves meeting people, that involves interacting people and that involves, you know, us preaching to the darkness and not the darkness preaching to us.

Speaker 1: 14:23

That involves us going and ministering to the darkness, ministering to the fallenness, ministering to people who are all bound up in sin, and not the people bound up in sin ministering to us. You know we go to them and they don't go to us. But it's a question of you know who is the head and who is the tail. It's a question of kind of who has who, because in many cases you know, and you know part of what I've seen as an evangelist you know God's got a minister to the church and then the church's got a minister to the lost, because the church gets all bound up in letting the world tell us how church should be, letting the world tell us how we should be as Christians, instead of letting, letting God tell us those things, following God and administering to the world. The world minister to church, in some cases more than the church ministers to the world, and if you're in that situation, god wants to change that. But hallelujah and amen. But again, this is not a breaking into the darkness and hostility, but it's in joy and charity and strength, with a genuine heart, a genuine love for Jesus and a genuine love for the people that were ministering to.

Speaker 1: 15:52

Because you know, if you flip ahead a little bit, in Matthew chapter five, Jesus calls us the light of the world and he says Matthew chapter five, 14, ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. So the world dwells in darkness, since the falls, utterly fallen, lies in the wickedness, lies in the wicked one. And Jesus says you know. He says you know, matthew, chapter five, you are the light of the world. Now, jesus himself is the light of the world and he's saying here that you are the light of the world and there's no contradiction between the two, because we reflect Jesus in this world, we reflect Jesus to this world and light.

Speaker 1: 16:46

You can understand light as truth and purity and holiness, all the stuff that is a stranger to the darkness. It's a stranger to sin. You know lying and truth are not the same things. You know impurity and purity are not the same things. Wickedness and holiness are not the same things. There's a difference here.

Speaker 1: 17:14

But again, we come into the dark places, just as Jesus went and he dwelt in Capernaum. He came into Capernaum and we go into the dark places and in the darkness, you know, there's absolutely no light and there's a huge, huge, huge difference, as we've seen here. And so Jesus calls us the light of the world, says a city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick, and it gives light to all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father, which is heaven. Let your light and that is profound, church, that is profound. Let your light Allow your light. Your light. It's an ownership, it's a personal light. It's a thing that Jesus gave you, and you receive this light and it is now your own. Jesus has made you holy, and so you are holy. Jesus has made you a new creature, so you are a new creature. It's very, very personal. You have heard the gospel and you have believed Jesus and it is now your gospel, it's now your good news. It's not just his good news, it's your good news. It's your personal holiness, it's your personal purity, it's your personal righteousness.

Speaker 1: 18:57

The Holy Spirit dwells in you in a personal, personal way, so that you are personally a temple of the Holy Ghost. You're a living, breathing temple of the Holy Ghost. You personally are a walking, talking miracle. You personally are a living witness. You personally are a living epistle. You are a letter from God. You are a walking, talking, physical message Everywhere you go. This is who you are. You are a message from God to this world and it is a deep, personal thing and it's something that Jesus himself gave you and you receive this and it's now your own, and hallelujah to you and amen.

Speaker 1: 19:50

You didn't get it from the flesh, you didn't get it from the world, you didn't get it from any demon or devil, but you got it from the Holy Ghost and you received it in the Holy Ghost. And the Holy Ghost is in you, with you and moving through you. And the word from God is let this happen. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father, which is in heaven. And let your light allow this to happen and let your will be God's will and let there be no contradiction between the two. Let it so shine in this way or in this manner, just like a city on a hill, just like a candle in a dark room. Even going back to Matthew, chapter 4, just like Jesus went in to the went in, you know, and he left Nazareth and he came and he dwelt in Capernaum. Just like that, in this way or in this manner, let your light, let your holiness and your goodness and your righteousness and your purity, let that which you have received from the Lord himself so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father, which is in heaven.

Speaker 1: 21:13

Hallelujah and amen. You know, and I pray this is an encouragement to you, because people are going to see the Holy Ghost working in you and through you, just in the natural way, you know, just in the way he does every day. People are going to see that and as we obey the Lord, as we let our light so shine before men, they will see our good works and they will glorify our Father, which is in heaven. And so, hallelujah and amen, let us be an encouragement to you, church, and let it be an encouragement that you know, as God is working in you and through you, he desires and he wants to use you to reach, you know, the person next door who is lost and dying and hellbound and without any hope whatsoever. But God wants to use you to reach that person with the good news of our Lord Jesus Christ, and he wants to use you so that that person can have a very, very personal, real encounter with the living God through you, through your church. Amen and hallelujah. But again, you know, thank you so much for listening to us. Please do reach out to us. Let us know how we can be praying for you. We're redeeming the lost at iCloudcom. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1: 22:41

Those of you who are sharing this you know we want to welcome several new. You know. You know, welcome the nation of Japan. You know to listening to us. Hallelujah and amen. We were glad to get the reports that the podcast has gone that far, and so please do continue to share these podcasts, you know, help us to reach people. You know, play these for your church, play these for your family, play these for your friends. Hallelujah and amen. But thank you for supporting the podcast in that way. And you know we're a ministry of grace Baptist Tabernacle and we have a local church in King, north Carolina, and please do you know, as the spirit is moving you, we would love to meet you in person. Please do visit one of our services gbtministriescom is that website and you will find service times and service locations right there on that website. And so thank you, and may the Lord continue to richly bless you, amen.

Speaker 2: 23:52

And now there's no more blood to be shed, just a sacrifice of praise. Lift it to the ones who gave his life for my dead to be paid.