Fallow Ground

[0:00] Well, if we could, with the Lord's help this evening, and the Lord's enabling, if you would turn with me to the book of the prophet Hosea, and turn this time to chapter 10.

[0:16] Hosea chapter 10, page 915, and I just want to take one verse.

[0:30] Out of this chapter, Hosea chapter 10 and verse 12, where Hosea gives a compassionate caution. He says, Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap steadfast love, break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the Lord, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you.

[0:54] Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap steadfast love, break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the Lord, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you.

[1:07] When the apostle James wrote his New Testament letter, he sought to give practical advice to Christians who were being persecuted for their faith.

[1:24] And in his letter, James wrote many memorable proverbs. There are many things that James wrote, but there are certain proverbs that stick in our mind, such as, Faith without works is dead.

[1:38] Or, as James says, Our tongue is an unruly evil, set on fire by hell. And he also says, Be doers of God's word, and not hearers only.

[1:48] But there's one proverb which always challenges me personally. And they are the words, A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.

[2:01] But for James, the instability of a person is not only in the fact that they are double-minded. It's in the reality that they are double-souled. That's what it literally means, to be double-minded.

[2:14] It's to be double-souled. Where your soul is torn. Your soul is being pulled in two different directions. And two voices are calling out for your attention.

[2:26] And these two voices, they are at opposite ends of the spectrum. And they're calling out for your soul. And you're torn between the two of them. And so, the question is, well, what do you do?

[2:39] Do you disappoint one to please the other? Or do you try and please both? Do you try and please both? And that's how we become double-minded.

[2:50] Or double-souled. And as James says, a double-minded man, a double-souled man, is unstable in all his ways. He's inconsistent. He's contradictory. And he's unpredictable.

[3:02] And you know, James' description of the instability of a double-souled man, it certainly fits with Hosea's description of the Israelites. Because when we enter into this period in the Old Testament, where the prophet Hosea is prophesying, we see that the Israelites, they are double-minded.

[3:22] They're double-souled in their relationship with the Lord. Because instead of being single-minded, and instead of being completely devoted and committed to the Lord and loving him because of the Lord's salvation, the Israelites, they were pleasing themselves by seeking after idols and worshipping false gods.

[3:43] In fact, the Israelites, they spent many, many years trying to do both. They tried to please both. They spent many years worshipping both the Lord and their false idols.

[3:56] And sometimes they did it at the same time in the temple. And such instability and double-mindedness, it only angered the Lord and it hastened his coming judgment.

[4:09] And with time now running out, Hosea is now, he's the last prophet before the Israelites are exiled into Babylon. Judgment is coming. That's the message Hosea is proclaiming.

[4:22] Judgment is coming. The Lord is going to come in judgment. And so with time running out now for the Israelites and the judgment of the Lord fast approaching, Hosea gives this compassionate caution here in verse 12.

[4:38] He gives a compassionate caution. And I'd like us just to consider this verse this evening and see that Hosea's compassionate caution, it's given because he knows time is short.

[4:50] It's given because he knows time is running out. And Hosea, he tells the Israelites that it's a time to sow. It's a time to secure.

[5:02] And it's a time to seek. And they're the three points I'd like us to look at. A time to sow, a time to secure, and a time to seek. So if we look first of all at Hosea's compassionate caution, where he says it's a time to sow.

[5:18] He says in verse 12, Sow for yourselves righteousness. Reap steadfast love. Break up your fallow ground. For it is the time to seek the Lord, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you.

[5:32] Now the book of the prophet Hosea, it's a remarkable book. Because when Hosea was called to be a prophet of the Lord, what we read in chapter 1, Hosea was not only called to proclaim a message from the Lord, but he was also called to live out a message from the Lord.

[5:52] Because in the opening chapters, especially chapters 1 and 3, in these opening chapters in the book of Hosea, the Lord makes Hosea's life a message to the Israelites.

[6:04] And in particular, the Lord makes Hosea's marriage a message to the Israelites. Because as we were reading in chapter 1, when the Lord called Hosea to be a prophet, the Lord said to Hosea, Go and marry a prostitute.

[6:20] Go and marry a prostitute. And you know, such a command from the Lord, it's not only startling, but it also seems strange to us that the Lord would command one of his holy prophets, holy men of God, to go and marry a prostitute.

[6:35] And it's hard for us to believe that the Lord would give such a commandment. And for some people, it's so hard to think that Gomer, they think, well, that Gomer could never have been a prostitute before they got married.

[6:49] And that she couldn't possibly have been unfaithful to Hosea prior to the wedding. But that's not what we're told. We're told that Gomer was a woman of whoredom.

[7:00] And she was unfaithful to her husband. And Hosea knew that Gomer would be unfaithful to him. And you know, you can almost imagine what the neighbors would be saying about Hosea's marriage.

[7:14] Why is he marrying her? Why would anyone want to marry a woman like Gomer? Why would anyone want to marry a prostitute?

[7:25] Prostitutes, prostitutes, they would say, they're religiously unclean for a start. They're unfaithful. They're liars. They're double-minded. Their lifestyle is anything far from perfect.

[7:37] They're unstable, you could say, in all their ways. And you know, but that's the point. That's the whole point. Because Hosea's marriage, it was to be a message to the people of Israel.

[7:50] And I was to show the Israelites that they are the prostitute in their relationship to the Lord. They are the ones who have been the unfaithful wife in their relationship with the Lord.

[8:02] They have been religiously unclean and unstable. They are the ones who have neglected their first love and ran off and worshipped other gods and bowed down to false idols.

[8:15] They have prostituted themselves to them. They are the ones who have been double-minded and sold their own soul to the idols of this world. The Israelites, you could say, they are the gomer in their marriage to the Lord.

[8:29] And the purpose of Hosea's marriage, it was to attract the attention of the people of Israel. It was to be so startling that the people of Israel were to stop and take notice of what the Lord's prophet was doing.

[8:43] And, well, it certainly did that. Hosea's marriage, you could say, was the marriage of the millennium. But if Hosea's marriage to Gomer revealed the condition of the Lord's relationship with his people, then Hosea's children emphasized to the Israelites that if they didn't turn from their idolatry and repent of their spiritual adultery, then the Lord was going to bring judgment upon them.

[9:13] And that's what was stressed to the Israelites by the names which Hosea was to give to his children. We read in chapter 1 that the first child that Hosea had was a son, and he was to be called Jezreel.

[9:27] And the name Jezreel means God scatter. And Jezreel, he was to be a warning to the Israelites that if they didn't repent, God was going to scatter his people by exile.

[9:40] He was going to drive them out of the promised land into the foreign land of Babylon. But then the next child to come along, who was born to Hosea, was Loruhamah, meaning no compassion, not loved.

[9:55] And this name, the name of the daughter, she was to remind the people of Israel that there was going to be no compassion shown to them when judgment comes. Compassion exists now, he was saying.

[10:08] But when judgment comes, there'll be no compassion. It had been out of love and compassion that the Lord had covenanted with his people. It was out of love and compassion that the Lord entered into this marriage relationship with the Israelites.

[10:23] But the warning was that once judgment comes, there will be no compassion shown. When the time of opportunity has passed, there will be no mercy. And then the last child which was born to Hosea was Loamah, not my people.

[10:40] And with this name, the Lord was reminding the Israelites of the covenant promise. Because the marriage vow which the Lord made to his people was, I will be your God and you will be my people.

[10:56] But because Israel wasn't acting like the Lord's people, because they were forsaking the covenant, they were prostituting themselves to idols, they were chasing after all the pleasures of the world, the Lord was saying to them, you are not my people.

[11:12] And once judgment comes, you will be forsaken and rejected. And so what we see here is that Hosea's marriage to Gomer and Hosea's children, his whole family of Gomer and Jezreel and Loruchamah and Loamih, they're all a message to the people of Israel to repent of their sins and turn to the Lord and seek his forgiveness.

[11:39] And they're to repent because Israel has been the prostitute in this covenant relationship with the Lord. And yet despite being warned again and again, the Israelites, they had sown wickedness.

[11:52] They had sown wickedness in their lives by worshipping these idols, all these false gods and bowing down to them. In fact, the prophet Jeremiah says that the Israelites had sown among thorns.

[12:06] That's how he describes it. They had sown among thorns. And when we look at the parable of the sower, Jesus helpfully explains what those thorns were.

[12:17] Because Jesus said in the parable of the sower that when the seed fell among the thorns, it grew up and it was choked, choked by the cares of the world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the pleasures of this life.

[12:34] And that description, it certainly fits with the Israelites. They had sown among thorns and they had been choked by the cares of the world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the pleasures of this life.

[12:49] The idols and the false gods of this world, which offered so much, but provided so little, and yet demanded more than they could ever give, it choked them.

[13:00] And it ruined their relationship with the Lord. Because the Israelites, they became double-minded. They became double-souled. Their hearts were divided.

[13:11] They were torn in two different directions. And the result was that worshipping the Lord just became an outward form and a ritual.

[13:22] The Israelites, well, they always made sure that they attended the worship in the temple. Their place was never missing when they were to gather together for worship. They did what was required of them to keep up appearances.

[13:37] But the sad reality was their heart wasn't in it. Their hearts were far from the Lord. Despite knowing what they were to do, they were to love the Lord with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength.

[13:50] They knew that. And yet, when they sowed among thorns, their love for the Lord weakened. They didn't have that singular love for the Lord anymore.

[14:01] And they didn't have that focus upon the Lord anymore. And the result was their hearts were divided. They were double-minded. They were double-souled. Their relationship with the Lord became unstable and insecure.

[14:15] In fact, the Israelites, they were so double-minded that they abused the temple. They took their false gods into the temple where they would worship one god at one end and they would worship the Lord at the other.

[14:31] They were worshipping both gods at the same time. They were totally double-minded and unstable. But as we know, the Lord will not be mocked and the Lord will deal with sin in his righteousness.

[14:47] And this is why Hosea comes to the Israelites and he comes to us and he gives a compassionate caution. Sow for yourselves righteousness. It's time to sow in righteousness.

[14:59] It's time to stop sowing among thorns and it's time to sow the good seed of God's word into your heart. Sow for yourselves righteousness.

[15:11] And the word righteousness that's used here in verse 12, it emphasizes the lifestyle and the conduct and the commitment that is required of a Christian. Because it emphasizes that we are to sow in accordance with the Lord's standards.

[15:26] The standards of the good seed, which is the word of God. And so we're not to be double-minded and unstable by prostituting ourselves to the cares of the world, the pleasures of this life and the deceitfulness of riches.

[15:42] We're not to worship both the Lord and our false gods. We're to have a singular focus. We're to be of one mind. We're to have one love.

[15:53] We're to be consistent in our conduct and we're to be consistent in our commitment to Jesus Christ. We're to love the Lord our God with all our heart, all our mind, all our soul and all our strength.

[16:06] We're to sow in righteousness. Because as Hosea reminds us when we sow in righteousness, we will reap in steadfast love.

[16:19] And that's what we see secondly. Because as Hosea gives to us this compassionate caution, he says it's time to sow. It's time to leave our idols and sow in some righteousness.

[16:34] And when we do, he says, we will reap in steadfast love. We will experience security in our relationship with the Lord. And so we've considered a time to sow.

[16:44] But then he says secondly, it's a time to secure. A time to secure. Sow for yourselves righteousness. Reap steadfast love.

[16:56] Break up your fallow ground. For it is time to seek the Lord that he may come and rain righteousness upon you. I'm sure that we're all familiar with the phrase you reap what you sow.

[17:12] You reap what you sow. And of course it's a phrase which emphasizes to us that our actions, they have consequences. What we do, what we say, where we go, it will have consequences.

[17:25] In fact, the phrase you reap what you sow, it's biblical because it was written by the apostle Paul when he was writing to the Galatians.

[17:37] And what's interesting is that Paul, when Paul wrote his letter to the Galatians, he wrote to them because they had done exactly the same thing as the Israelites here. They had turned away from the Lord and they had prostituted themselves to idols.

[17:52] And Paul asks the Galatians, he says to them, who has bewitched you? Who has deceived you? Who has led you away from the truth? And Paul goes on to warn the Galatians, he says, do not be deceived.

[18:06] God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows, that will he also reap. You reap what you sow.

[18:17] But you know, it's also said that there's a progression in sowing. Because the consequences of what we reap, they often don't begin as actions of sowing.

[18:31] It's said that sow a thought, you reap an act. Sow an act, you reap a habit. Sow a habit, you reap a character.

[18:42] Sow a character, and you reap a consequence. There's this progression in sowing. And it starts with a thought. It starts with a thought.

[18:54] And that's what happened with the Israelites. That's what often happens with us. The Israelites, they sowed the thought, the thought that they could get away with worshipping both the Lord and their false gods.

[19:07] And sadly, it was the same with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. They thought that they could disobey God without him knowing.

[19:17] They thought that they could get away with it. And you know, we're no different because we still think the same. We sow the thought. We still think God doesn't see us. And if he does see us, well, he'll overlook our shortcomings because we're a good person and God is gracious.

[19:34] And we sow the thought that we're not that bad, especially in comparison to other people around us. We sow the thought that God is gracious and he's merciful and he'll forgive me even if I do wrong.

[19:48] But as we said, sowing unrighteousness has a progression. Because when we sow a thought, we reap an act. And when we have done that act once and our conscience has bothered us for a little while, but on the whole we thought that we got away with it, it's okay, we'll sow the act again and again and again.

[20:14] And as the saying goes, sow a thought, reap an act. Sow an act, reap a habit. Sow a habit, reap a character. Sow a character, reap a consequence.

[20:26] And you know, that's the story of our lives. And that was the story of the Israelites. That was what constantly went on in their experience because from their first beginning when they were taken out of the land of Egypt, out of slavery and bondage in Egypt, they were wandering in the wilderness towards the promised land and they were sowing among thorns.

[20:48] And that continued for generations throughout the periods of the judges and the kings and the prophets. the Israelites, they went after idols. They turned away from the Lord.

[21:00] They rejected the kings. They ignored the commandments. They did what was right in their own eyes. They sowed in unrighteousness and they reaped war.

[21:12] They reaped oppression. They reaped famine. They reaped poverty. They reaped hatred. They reaped division. And now after so many years of the Lord's patience with his people, his continual forgiveness towards them, the Israelites are going to reap what they have sown.

[21:32] Because the trajectory of their actions, it's now going to end in judgment with Israel being invaded and driven into exile in Babylon. But as we said, here is Hosea in the midst of all that's going on, all the turmoil and he's issuing to the Israelites this compassionate caution.

[21:54] He's pleading with them, sow for yourselves righteousness. Reap steadfast love. He's urging the Israelites not only through his marriage to Gomer and through the names of all his children but also his compassionate words.

[22:12] Hosea is urging the Israelites to turn to the Lord in repentance before it's too late. And you know, when we consider the history of Israel and all their failings, their constant warnings, we can relate to it so easily.

[22:30] Because for years the Israelites knew that they were not in a right relationship with the Lord. For years they knew that they needed to give up their idols and turn to the Lord in repentance.

[22:41] For years they knew that they needed to stop living with this divided heart and just love the Lord with all their heart. For years they knew they needed to commit their lives to the Lord but they never did it.

[22:54] They always put it off. Always put it off to a more convenient time in their life. For years they knew that the Lord was speaking to them and challenging them and warning them but they never listened.

[23:07] They never listened. The Israelites knew that they needed to sow righteousness in their lives but what held them back and what holds you back is the reality that you're double minded.

[23:20] You're double sold. Your allegiance is to the Lord and to your idols and you're torn in your heart because like the Israelites you know what's right.

[23:31] You know what you should do. You know what's required of you. But by trying to have a foot in both camps and the best of both worlds it leaves you neither here nor there.

[23:45] It leaves you unstable, uncommitted and insecure. It leaves you lost. Completely lost.

[23:58] You have no security of the Lord's salvation and his love towards you in Jesus Christ. You have no assurance that the Lord loves you unconditionally.

[24:08] But that's what Hosea is seeking to convey to us by giving to us this compassionate caution. He wants us to know about the Lord's compassion towards sinners.

[24:22] Hosea is seeking to portray to us the Lord's steadfast covenant love through his own marriage to Gomer. And you know what's beautiful about the narrative of Hosea as a book is that we're told that Gomer's actions of continual prostitution where she kept running after other men it resulted in her family being separated from her and she was sold into slavery.

[24:53] She was, you could say, she was exiled. She was driven away from her home and from her family. But then you come to Hosea chapter 3 a very short chapter in the book and the Lord commands Hosea to go and find Gomer and he says to her you'll find her at the slave market and it's there that you can buy her back from slavery.

[25:17] Hosea was to remain committed to his marriage vows and he was to go and redeem Gomer from slavery. And like it was with his marriage and with the names of his children, Hosea's actions of redeeming Gomer from slavery.

[25:32] It was to be this illustration of the Lord's love towards his sinful people. The Lord says to Hosea in chapter 3 go yet. Go yet.

[25:45] Love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress even as the Lord loves the children of Israel though they turn to other gods.

[25:56] And Hosea says about Gomer after he has bidded for her after he has pledged that he will redeem her for himself he says so I bought her. I bought her to me for 15 shekels of silver and a homer of barley and a lethek of barley and I said to her you must dwell as mine for many days you shall not play the whore anymore or belong to another man so also I will be to you.

[26:26] my friend Hosea's redeeming love towards Gomer it was to be an illustration of the Lord's redeeming love towards sinners and you know that's why Hosea can give this compassionate caution because he has seen the Lord's love for sinners demonstrated in his own marriage and Hosea says to us sow in righteousness and you will reap steadfast love turn away from your idols turn away from these false gods and what it is that's holding you back from following the Lord and turn to him in repentance sow in righteousness live your life according to the seed of God's word give your heart to the Lord and you will reap steadfast love my friend that's the covenant promise that's the assurance of the Lord's steadfast love towards us that when we sow in righteousness we will reap steadfast love when we commit our lives to the

[27:32] Lord when we give our heart to the Lord when we love the Lord with all our heart, mind, soul and strength we will have the assurance and the security of his love towards us you know we have to see that Hosea's compassionate caution it's not just directed towards the unconverted it's directed towards the Christian Hosea is compassionately cautioning us to make sure that we're not double minded that we're not double souled or torn in our relationship with the Lord he's compassionately cautioning us to sow righteousness and reap steadfast love and he's warning us because if we have drifted in our relationship with the Lord and other things have attracted our attention and they have given way to the Lord being our priority then you know we need to realign our focus we need to turn back to the Lord if we have become less prayerful we need to go back on our knees if we become laxed in our

[28:43] Bible reading we need to find a passage to read again that will keep us going if we become less dependent upon the Lord we need to go back to the Lord and ask for forgiveness and we need to become focused upon the Lord we need to sow in righteousness in order to reap steadfast love because if we have become insecure in our relationship with the Lord it's not because the Lord has changed towards us this is the wonder of his covenant he never changes towards us never changes towards his people infinite eternal and unchangeable so if he hasn't changed it's because we have things have changed because we have changed and our insecurities and our lack of assurance and the feelings of being distant from the Lord it's because we're not sowing righteousness we're not looking to the Lord as we ought we're not reading his word and trusting his providence as we should maybe we've become double minded or double sold and our hearts are torn but we need to realign we need to refocus we need to set our affection on things above where Christ is where

[30:01] Christ is seated we need to have this singular love for the Lord and his word and his church we need to sow in righteousness in order to reap steadfast love my friend Hosea is compassionately cautioning all of us to consider where our relationship with the Lord really is and he's saying to us that now is a time to sow and now is a time to be secure and now as he says thirdly it's a time to seek a time to seek and that's what we see lastly a time to seek sow for yourselves righteousness reap steadfast love break up your fallow ground for it is the time to seek the Lord that he may come and rain righteousness upon you and as we've progressed through this just one verse of

[31:04] Hosea's compassionate caution the agricultural imagery it continues to be used and this imagery of sowing and reaping and breaking up the fallow ground it would have been very familiar to the Israelites because they prided themselves as farmers but even more so the imperative commands sow reap and break up they're important here because when we reflect upon the history of the people of Israel for generations the Israelites repeatedly refused to respond to the warnings of the Lord the Lord repeatedly told his people sow in righteousness and you will reap steadfast love they were continually told to turn away from their idols and turn back to the Lord sow in righteousness you will reap steadfast love and yet they continued to sow in unrighteousness and reap the Lord's anger against their sin but as

[32:06] Hosea issues his compassionate caution he tells the Israelites enough is enough enough is enough time has gone the Lord's patience has been tested and stretched the Lord is long suffering yes but he's not all suffering and Hosea says to them sow for yourselves righteousness reap steadfast love break up your fallow ground for it is the time to seek the Lord that he may come and rain righteousness upon you it's time to sow it's time to secure it's time to seek it's time to break up your fallow ground because it's time to seek the Lord and by mentioning fallow ground it gives to us a great illustration of what it means to become a Christian because as you know fallow ground it's a portion of land which has been ploughed but it's been left unsewn for a period of time in the past farmers would give their land a fallow year where they didn't grow anything on their land at all and it's a biblical concept because the

[33:18] Israelites they were also told to give their land a Sabbath year they were to work the land for six years they were to sow the land and reap the benefits of it but on the Sabbath year the seventh year they were to let the land rest and lie fallow and so fallow ground it's a portion of land which has been neglected on purpose and the result is that it has become hard and overgrown with thorns and weeds and that's the illustration Hosea is using to describe the hearts of the Israelites their hearts are like fallow ground because they've neglected the Lord on purpose they've turned away from the Lord and they've turned to idols and the result of a fallow heart is that it's become hard and overgrown with thorns and with weeds a fallow heart is a heart upon which righteousness cannot be sown and steadfast love cannot be reaped because the fallow heart as Hosea says it needs to be broken up the ground needs to be worked the land needs to be ploughed the thorns and weeds they have to be plucked out and removed and these furrows they have to be made so that the good seed of

[34:39] God's word can be sown upon it my friend the only way to sow righteousness and to reap steadfast love is to first of all break up the fallow ground and just in case we don't get his illustration Hosea explains exactly what he means by breaking up the fallow ground sow for yourselves righteousness reap steadfast love break up your fallow ground for it is time to seek the Lord breaking up the fallow ground means seeking the Lord with all your heart breaking up the fallow ground means removing the weed filled gods that we cherish and all these thorny idols that have this grip upon us and we're to seek the Lord with all our heart breaking up the fallow ground means that we're no longer double minded no longer double soul no longer unstable in our heart having our heart torn in two different directions because when we break up the fallow ground of our heart we have a singular mind we have a dedicated soul we have a focused heart upon the

[35:52] Lord Jesus Christ my friend what Hosea is really giving to us in this Old Testament book and his compassionate caution what he's giving to us is a call to discipleship it's a call to discipleship because that's what breaking up the fallow ground of our heart really means it means sowing righteousness living our lives in submission to Jesus Christ it means reaping steadfast love living our lives loving the Lord and being committed to his cause and to his church it means seeking the Lord with all our heart mind soul and strength because that's the call of discipleship that's how the Lord will rain righteousness upon you when you come to Jesus on bended knee and humble heart and you hear his call where he says if anyone will come after me let him deny himself take up his cross and follow me and you say to him

[37:04] Lord be merciful to me a sinner my friend break up the fallow ground of your heart because it is time to seek the Lord it's time to put your hand to the plough and not turn back as Jesus said no one who puts their hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God it's time to break up your fallow ground it's time to put your hand to the plough it's time to make your furrow ready so that the good seed of God's word can be sown upon it it's time to pluck up the weeds and the thorns in your heart it's time to remove all these false gods and get rid of all these false idols it's time to set your house in order it's time to commit your life to Jesus Christ it's time to confess that he is Lord over your life it's time to come out on the side of

[38:08] Christ because the word of God is speaking to us tonight and it's saying to us break up your fallow ground because it is it is time to seek the Lord my friend if you know what it is that's holding you back from becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ then you must deal with it you must get rid of it you must depart from it because Hosea is compassionately cautioning us judgment is coming time is short judgment is coming but if you don't know what's stopping you because nothing is stopping you then listen to

[39:08] Hosea's compassionate caution sow for yourselves righteousness reap steadfast love break up your fallow ground for it is time to seek the Lord that he may come and rain righteousness upon you my friend now is a time to sow now is a time to be secure and now is a time to seek because the Bible says to us now is the accepted time today is the day of salvation break up your fallow ground for it is time to seek the Lord may the Lord bless these thoughts to us let us pray O Lord how gracious God that thou would bless thy word to us we give thanks to thee that thou art the

[40:11] God who compassionately cautions us throughout life's journey the God who speaks to us time and time again to turn from what it is that's holding us back and to seek the Lord with all our heart all that we would seek thee while thou art to be found and call upon thee while thou art near for we give thanks to thee Lord that thou art one who is near to us when thou does speak to us in thy word all bless thy truth to us we pray bless us in the week that lies ahead a week that is unknown to us but we give thanks to thee that everything is in thine hand and help us then to cast every care into thine hands for the Lord one who cares for us go before us and we pray for we ask it in Jesus name and for his sake Amen we shall conclude by singing in Psalm 34 Psalm 34 page 247

[41:13] Psalm 34 we're singing from verse 5 down to the verse mark 10 they look to him enlightened where not shamed where their faces this poor man cried God heard and saved him from all his distresses down to the verse mark 10 the lion's young may hungry be and they may lack their food but they that truly seek the Lord shall not lack any good these verses to God's praise distresses.

[42:24] The angel of the Lord and come, and right and come, master.

[42:39] All those that do in fear are them deliverance.

[42:54] O distancy that all is good, who trust in Him is blessed.

[43:10] Here are his saints, and that in fear shall be with one rest.

[43:26] Thy lions, young may hungry be, and they may lack their good, but they that truly seek the Lord shall not lack any good.

[43:55] The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all, now and forevermore. Amen.

[44:06] Amen. Amen. mesh meshga ileREY f