Last Friday as I awoke, I felt in my heart that I should simply open my bible, instead of turning to Ephesians (where I go most mornings recently, as I'm memorizing there). Curiously, I opened my bible in faith and found myself looking at Hosea Chapter 4. So I read from Chapter 4 through to the end of Hosea, not knowing why. I learned that God was very angry with Israel for many reasons, but I had no idea what it had to do with me, so I got up to use the restroom and decided to try praying in the spirit.

(Tongues is a spiritual gift my late grandfather, a strong man of faith, prayed fervently I might be graced with. And I've been praying in tongues off and on for many years since.) Normally, distinctive strings of words in random languages I don't know (I only speak English) come out. I don't understand what the Spirit prays, but hearing the strange words often calms me as I pray something else in my mind to God. Last Friday morning though, as I was thinking about Hosea, only one word came out, over and over and over again until I began to cry.

I prayed that single word without ceasing, still weeping and returned to my bible to read from Hosea again. As I tearfully read Hosea the second time, I began to realize that what God was convicting Israel of, (before destroying much of Israel in the 700s BC as the prophecy warned), the western church is also guilty of today. These are the seven things I discerned God was justly accusing Israel of:
1. No faithfulness or steadfast love. (Application to western church explained in video)
2. No knowledge of God, and rejecting knowledge of him. (In the 1960s we stopped teaching the bible in school, and many Christians today know shockingly little about God and have no desire to read his word. We also lack a desire to receive teaching about anything beyond what makes us feel good about ourselves.)
3. Swearing, lying, murder, and stealing. (All these we are definitely guilty of, though I replaced murder with hate for the western church, because as Jesus said, if you hate your brother in your heart...)
4. Whoring and a spirit of lust. (Our culture is one of sexualization... I can't imagine what percentage of the men in the western church are enslaved to porngraphy as I was, including many leading pastors. And even more lust driven sins. Surely we're enslaved to the spirit of lust at epidemic levels.)
5. Combining their worship of God with the worship of the cultural god of their time, Baal. (Most of us clearly worship our cultural God "the American Dream" as equal to God. And probably even view it as more fulfilling than him.)
6. Their priests were not teaching the people the truth, and some were even sponsoring sex worship to Baal. (We cover the lack of full teaching of biblical truth in the video, and many pastors now even embrace and openly sponsor homosexuality.)
7. The building and worship of idols. (Name it and claim it. In the video we discuss many things higher in hearts than God. For me, besides lust and wealth, I even let the video game League of Legends become my idol for a number of years! I sat before my idol (my computer) for 8-10 hours a day worshiping it. What a terrible God!!)

After hours of tearfully praying, reading from Hosea, and reading through commentary on Hosea in my study bible, all while endlessly praying that single word, the only word that would come out of my mouth in the spirit, I finally decided to try and figure out what the word meant. I turned to google translator. (Something I've tried before with mixed success when speaking in tongues, as normally the words I'm saying constantly change). I spoke the word into my phone. Google translator said the word was Arabic and after a few attempts translated it into something about a complaint. I prayed the word over and over again into my phone. Here are a few of the translations I received.
"The complaint"
"I have made a complaint"
"You see the complaint?"

4 days later as I write this, I can still only pray this single Arabic word in the Spirit... Almost every time I pray in the spirit alone, I begin to cry as I hear it again. I don't try to remember it and I often try to force myself to pray something else, but only meaningless gibberish comes out when I do (gibberish sounds very different from tongues, I'm not sure if you have personal experience). If I let the spirit flow I still only say over and over again the same word. (I show a picture of a google translate I just ran in the video).

Pray about what I've said and test it by the Spirit and God's word. I am looking forward to being sharpened by your prayerful wisdom on this topic in the comments.

In love, from a sinful servant of God, called by his grace to seek truth, that Jesus Christ might once again be glorified in his church as our greatest treasure,
Jacob

Links: "Christ Died to Make Us Holy: And Why Some Preachers Avoid It"    • Christ Died to Make Us Holy: And Why ...