[0:00] But if we could, with the Lord's help and the Lord's enabling this morning, we could turn back to that portion of Scripture that we read. 1 Samuel chapter 6.
[0:13] 1 Samuel chapter 6. We're going to look at most of the chapter. Probably the first half of it. 1 Samuel chapter 6.
[0:26] And we'll read again from the beginning. 1 Samuel chapter 6.
[1:00] 1 Samuel chapter 6. 1 Samuel chapter 6. I'm sure that when mail comes through your door from the postman, I don't suppose you're in the habit of breaking the law.
[1:12] But did you know that it's illegal to open someone else's mail? It's also illegal to delay someone else's mail reaching them. And it's also illegal to destroy someone else's mail.
[1:24] According to the Postal Services Act 2000, In other words, anyone caught opening, delaying or destroying mail could receive a fine or worse, a two-year prison sentence.
[1:53] Prison sentence. So if mail arrives at your house tomorrow and it's not addressed to you, make sure that you return to sender.
[2:04] Make sure that you return to sender. And in many ways, that's what you're to write when an item of mail actually is delivered to your home. When an item of mail comes through your door and it's not addressed to you, you're to write on the mail, Not known at this address, please return to sender.
[2:21] Not known at this address, please return to sender. And when you come to 1 Samuel chapter 6, in many ways, that's what this chapter is all about.
[2:33] Because the Philistines, you could say that they had illegally captured the Ark of the Covenant from the Israelites. The Philistines had captured the Ark of the Covenant. And the Lord, as we saw in chapter 5, the Lord had afflicted them and affected them with many tumors.
[2:47] So much so that they've reached a point that they now want to return to sender. They want to write on this Ark of the Covenant, not known at this address, Please return to sender.
[3:00] Return to sender. And that's what we see in this chapter. The Ark has been returned to its sender. So, let's look at the passage under three headings.
[3:11] Three headings this morning. The resolution, the reasoning, and the return. The resolution, the reasoning, and the return. So, first of all, the resolution. Looking again at verse 1.
[3:24] The Ark of the Lord was in the country of the Philistines for seven months. And the Philistines called for the priests and the diviners and said, What shall we do with the Ark of the Lord?
[3:34] Tell us with what we shall send it to its place. Now, as you can see, and as you can expect, the narrative of 1 Samuel, it just picks up where we left off at last Lord's Day.
[3:48] But in the story so far, we've seen that chapters 1 and 2, they introduced us to Samuel. They introduced us to this young man, Samuel, who was called to be a prophet.
[3:58] So, chapters 1 and 2, they set the scene. Then chapter 3, Samuel is called to be a prophet. He's to fearfully and faithfully preach and proclaim the message of God's Word.
[4:09] And the message of God's Word from chapter 3 was a message of defeat, disaster, and death. Which is what happened in chapter 4. The Israelites were defeated by the Philistines.
[4:21] The Ark of the Covenant was captured by the Philistines, which was a complete disaster. And 34,000 Israelite soldiers were killed on the battlefield. It was a message. Samuel had a message for the people.
[4:33] A message of defeat, disaster, and death. And with such a message, and with such a messy situation, it only got worse towards the end of chapter 4.
[4:44] Where this dying mother, she gives birth to her son. And her dying words are, Call his name Ichabod, because the glory has now departed. Call his name Ichabod, because the glory has departed.
[4:57] And then as we went into chapter 5, last Lord's Day, we saw that the glory had departed to Ashdod. It had departed to one of the Philistine cities.
[5:08] One of the five Philistine cities. And it was there that the Ark of the Covenant, you remember, it was placed and positioned beside the Philistine god, Dagon. Dagon, you remember, he was pictured and portrayed like a merman.
[5:22] He was half man, half fish. But as we said, there was comedy in Dagon's church, because the Lord was laughing at Dagon. The Lord was laughing at Dagon as the Lord, you could say.
[5:34] He pushed Dagon from his perch and his place of prominence, where Dagon was left lying prostrate on the floor before the Ark of the Covenant. But there was not only comedy in church.
[5:47] We saw that there was chaos after church. Because after church, the Philistines broke out with tumors. They all had tumors. The ESV, it's very polite, very politically correct, you could say, calling them tumors.
[6:01] But the authorized version, if you're using that version of the Bible, it calls them emeralds and their secret parts. But the Hebrew just puts it out on the front porch. All is clear and all is colorful.
[6:14] It calls them hemorrhoids. The Philistines were affected and infected by hemorrhoids, which was no laughing matter, because we read that the hand of the Lord was heavy upon them.
[6:26] God's glorious holiness was being revealed to the Philistines. And time and time again, it terrified them. But instead of repenting of their sin, which you would expect people to do, instead of returning to the Lord, the Philistines, they ridiculed the Lord.
[6:42] They refused the Lord. They rejected the Lord. They saw the power of the Lord, but they pushed Him away. They saw the power of the Lord, and every time they pushed Him away.
[6:55] They sent the Ark of the Covenant to other Philistine cities. They sent it first to Gath and then to Ekron. So they're passing the buck from Ashdod to Gath to Ekron.
[7:06] But every time they passed the buck, the same thing happens. They see the power of the Lord, and they push Him away, which is always a warning to us, that when we see the power of the Lord, we should never push Him away.
[7:21] But for the Philistines, they pushed the Lord away. They continued to ridicule, refuse, and reject the Lord. But now as we reach chapter 6, we read that the Ark of the Covenant has been in Philistine territory for the past seven months.
[7:38] And it has been there for seven months. That's what we read there in verse 1. The Ark of the Lord was in the country of the Philistines for seven months. And now that it's been there for seven months, the Philistines have now reached breaking point.
[7:50] They've reached breaking point because wherever the Ark was sent, whether it was to Ashdod or to Gath or to Ekron, wherever it was sent, the Philistines were all breaking out with these hemorrhoids. And now after seven months of tumors and seven months of turmoil in their territory, the Philistines, they've reached the end of themselves.
[8:09] They've now reached breaking point. They don't know what to do anymore. They don't know who to turn to. They've ridiculed and refused and rejected the Lord. But they don't know how to react or to respond to the situation or the circumstance that they're facing.
[8:26] So what do they do? What do they do? The Philistines do what most people who refuse and reject the Lord do when they're confronted with a situation or a circumstance that is beyond their understanding or beyond their control.
[8:43] The Philistines made a resolution. And we see there in verse 2 that they resolve to turn to the priest and or they turn to the diviner, the fortune teller.
[8:54] That's what we read there in verse 2. The Philistines called for the priests and the diviners and said, What shall we do with the ark of the Lord?
[9:05] Tell us with what we shall send it to its place. Now the priests, they weren't priests of the Lord. They were priests of Dagon.
[9:16] They were priests to a false god and a false religion. And as priests, they would assume the role and the responsibility of pardoning the people's guilt, but also pronouncing the forgiveness of the people.
[9:31] They would give godly advice and guidance to the people according to their false god, Dagon. But also like many people who refuse and reject the Lord, the Philistines, they not only turned to the priests, they wanted more help.
[9:48] The priests weren't enough, they wanted more help. So they turned to the diviners, those who practice divination. And they turned to those who practice divination because they want some form of spiritual help.
[10:02] They want some form of spiritual guidance. They want comfort and consolation, but not from the Lord. They want comfort and consolation, but not from the Lord.
[10:18] And you know, it ought to show us that the practice of divination, it's been around for thousands of years. It's here in 1 Samuel, and it's still practiced today. It's popular in the past, and it's still popular in the present.
[10:30] Because whether the practice of divination, as it was then and as it is now, there's astrology, there's horoscopes, there's reading tarot cards, or using Ouija boards, I don't know if you've ever tried it, I hope not.
[10:46] But the practice of divination was and still is popular today. And that's because when people are confronted with a circumstance or a situation that is beyond their understanding or even beyond their own control, they want advice.
[11:04] They want someone to make an assessment of their situation. They want spiritual help and guidance. They know it's outside of themselves. They want comfort and consolation, but for many people, they do not want it from the Lord.
[11:19] They want the help. They want guidance. They want comfort. But they do not want it from the Lord. And yet I know that it won't come as a surprise to you for me to say that the practice of divination, using astrology or horoscopes or tarot cards or Ouija boards, it's all forbidden in the Bible.
[11:40] And that's because the Bible teaches us, our Bible presents to us the reality that there is only one, there is only one who can provide for us the spiritual help and guidance we need.
[11:54] There's only one who can truly bring comfort and consolation into the circumstances and situations in our lives that are beyond our understanding and even beyond our own control. There's only one real priest we can turn to, to find forgiveness and to provide pardon.
[12:13] And that, my friend, as you know, is the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the only one. Because Jesus, the beautiful thing about Jesus is that he's revealed to us in our Bible as the only one who knows what we're actually going through.
[12:27] We don't need to tell him. We don't need to go to the priests or the diviners to tell them what's going on. This priest knows exactly what's going on in your life today. He knows about all your tumors.
[12:40] He knows about your turmoil. He knows about your worries. He knows about your weaknesses. He knows about your sicknesses. He knows all about our stresses. He knows our sufferings. He knows our sorrows.
[12:51] And he knows our separations. He knows it all. This is the beauty of who Jesus is in the gospel. He knows everything about us. So much so that we don't need to go and tell him about it.
[13:04] Because he knows us already. That's why we're not to turn to the priests or the practice of divination. We are to turn to our divine priest. Our great high priest.
[13:17] The Lord Jesus Christ. I know the beautiful thing about Jesus. He is described in the Bible as someone. Not something. Not a distant deity.
[13:29] No, no. He's described to us in the Bible as a person. A person who has been touched with a feeling of all our infirmities. Which means that he knows what we are going through today.
[13:45] The person beside you might not know what you're going through. But Jesus knows exactly what you're going through today. These Philistines, they were at breaking point.
[13:57] And they turned to the priests and the diviners. But you know, when you're at breaking point, it's not to them that you turn. No, you turn to the great high priest, Jesus Christ.
[14:09] Because he reminds us that he has a throne of grace to which we must come. And that when we come to his throne, we come to this throne and we find there someone who loves us.
[14:21] Just as we are. We find someone who shows us mercy. Not because we deserve it. But solely because he is gracious. And he provides for us grace to help in our time of need.
[14:34] And you know, my friend, that's the resolution we all need this morning. Whatever is going on in your life today, that's the resolution we need. Not to turn to men. Or to women.
[14:45] To priests. Or to the practice of divination. But to turn to our divine priest. Our great high priest. The Lord Jesus Christ. And so we see the resolution.
[14:58] Then secondly, the reasoning. So the resolution and the reasoning. Look at verse 3. They said, If you send away the ark of the God of Israel, do not send it empty, but by all means return him a guilt offering.
[15:14] Then you will be healed. And it will be made known to you why his hand does not turn away from you. And they said, What is the guilt offering that we shall return to him? They answered, Five golden tumors and five golden mice, according to the number of the lords of the Philistines.
[15:30] For the same plague was on all of you and on your lords. So you must make images of your tumors and images of your mice that ravage the land and give glory to the God of Israel.
[15:43] Perhaps he will lighten his hand from off you and your gods and your land. And so on. Now I don't know about you, but unlike little Archie, I hate mice.
[15:58] And I hate rats. Now we always have a problem with rats at the manse because we are so close to the river. In fact, I caught one this week. But it doesn't matter how many times I see these disgusting creatures.
[16:11] They just make me itch and scratch and shudder and shiver and I don't want to go near them, even though it's dead. But you know, our problem with these pests, either mice or rats, our problem with these pests, it's nothing in comparison to the problems they have in Australia.
[16:30] Every year, Australia is overrun by rodents, where there's this plague of pests that they take over farms and fields and they eat all the crops. I don't know, I think it was a couple of years ago, I was watching a video clip of a farmer who was showing the inside of his barn.
[16:47] Maybe you saw it, it was on the news. And when you saw it, there were so many mice that it literally looked like the ground was moving because there were so many, hundreds and hundreds of mice.
[16:58] I'm seeing all the faces going, it was disgusting. And that's something similar to what the Philistines were facing. As you know, the Philistines, they ridiculed, they rejected, they refused to follow the Lord.
[17:10] The Lord punished them. He punished them with a plague of tumors, a plague of hemorrhoids. But as we read there, the Philistines were punished with not one, but two plagues.
[17:21] There was also a plague of mice, a plague of mice that were running riot in their farms and fields, eating through all their crops. But again, instead of repenting of their sin, instead of returning to the Lord, instead of seeing the Lord speaking to them, the Philistines, they ridicule the Lord.
[17:40] They reject the Lord. They refuse the Lord. And they resolve to turn to priests, to men. They turn to those who practice divination. And as we read, the advice and the assistance that they were given was not simply, well, stick the Ark of the Covenant on a cart and send it on its way.
[17:58] Stick a return to sender sticker on the Ark of the Covenant and send it back where it came from. No, the advice that they were given was, send the Ark of the Covenant back with a guilt offering and you will be healed.
[18:14] Send the Ark of the Covenant back with a guilt offering and you will be healed. But you'll notice there that the guilt offering that they were told to send back wasn't an animal sacrifice, but more idols.
[18:29] More graven images. And not just graven images, golden images. We're told there, there was five golden tumors and five golden mice according to the number of the lords of the Philistines.
[18:41] And there were five lords of the Philistines because you remember there were five cities of the Philistines. There was Ashdod, Ashkelon, Ekron, Gaza, and Gath. They were the pentapolis, the five cities of the Philistines.
[18:54] But the advice that was given, the assistance that was given from the priests and the diviners was take the Ark of the Covenant, return to sender.
[19:04] Return to sender with five golden tumors and five golden mice according to the number of the lords of the Philistines. And what's remarkable when you read through the passage, the Philistines did as they were advised.
[19:21] They did what man told them to do. They made and they molded these golden guilt offerings thinking that they would somehow give glory to God.
[19:34] That's repeated in the passage about giving glory to God again and again. They made and molded all these golden guilt offerings, the tumors and the mice, thinking that somehow they're going to give glory to the God of Israel.
[19:47] And you know, what we see here when you read this is not only the instruction of man, the priests and the diviners giving instruction, but also you see the invention of man on how to worship a holy God.
[20:00] Here is the instruction of man and the invention of man of how to worship a holy God. The Philistines were told and they were made to see or to think.
[20:13] They foolishly thought that these golden guilt offerings would somehow give glory to God. The Philistines foolishly thought that these golden guilt offerings would somehow appeal and appease the anger of a holy God.
[20:28] The Philistines, you could say, they foolishly thought that all these gold and guilt offerings of mice and tumors would somehow satisfy and soothe the severity of their sin in the sight of a holy God.
[20:43] And you know, it's amazing. It's amazing how we can think. We can think something will bring glory to God. We can have it in our mind and think that that will bring glory to God, even though it has not been instructed or inspired by God himself.
[21:04] And yet Jesus testifies. John chapter 4. God is to be worshipped in spirit and in truth. God is to be worshipped in spirit and in truth.
[21:17] God is to be worshipped according to the inspiration and the instruction of his word. He's to be worshipped in spirit and in truth. God is to be worshipped and in spirit and in spirit.
[21:28] And so when you read this passage, when you read 1 Samuel 6 and you see the golden mice and the golden tumors and these golden guilt offerings, you're to immediately think that these things will never bring glory to God.
[21:40] They will never bring glory to God. Because we know the God of Israel. We know the God of the Bible. And we know that the Bible teaches us that the only guilt offering that can glorify God is a guilt offering of blood.
[21:57] And that's what we see when you go to chapter 7. Samuel offers a lamb to the Lord as a guilt offering. Because the only guilt offering that can glorify God is a guilt offering of blood.
[22:09] And our Bible teaches us and tells us from Genesis to Revelation that without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin. Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin.
[22:24] But you know, you read the passage. You read verse 6. And the Philistines should have known this. They knew about what had happened with the plagues in Egypt.
[22:37] Everyone had heard about the plagues in Egypt. Verse 6. Why should you harden your hearts? As the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts after he had dealt severely with them, did they not send the people away?
[22:50] And they departed. The Philistines should have known. They should have known because it was common knowledge what the Lord had done in Egypt. It was common knowledge. Everybody had heard about these ten plagues in Egypt.
[23:04] In fact, the children are present. I think even today, they're learning about these ten plagues in Egypt. We looked at them before when we studied the book of Exodus. But the Philistines, they should have known this.
[23:16] They should have known that the only guilt offering that will glorify God is a guilt offering of blood. Because without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin. And that was evidenced by the last plague in Egypt.
[23:30] You remember the last plague in Egypt when the Passover took place? The firstborn of all the Egyptians, they all died. And they died because the doorposts and the lintels of their homes, they weren't sprinkled in the blood of a spotless lamb.
[23:45] They weren't sheltering under the blood of the lamb. Because without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin. So the Israelites, the Philistines, they should have known.
[23:58] They should have known that it doesn't matter how many guilt offerings we give to God. It doesn't matter how many gold and guilt offerings we present to the Lord. None of it.
[24:09] None of it will bring glory to God. And you know, my friend, you should know that too. You should know that by now.
[24:22] You've been coming here long enough. You've been sitting here long enough to know that it doesn't matter how many times you attend church or how many times you read your Bible in a week or how many times you pray in a day or how much you give to the Lord and His cause.
[24:39] None of it. None of it will save you. None of it will save you. That's why the hymn writer asked the question. He asked, what can wash away my sin?
[24:51] What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can wash away my sin? What can make me whole again?
[25:03] Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Because without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin. That's why we need to come to this Jesus.
[25:16] Not with our guilt offerings. Not with the inventions and the intentions of man. But we come in the name of Jesus to this great mercy seat and find mercy.
[25:29] We come clinging to the wonderful promises of Jesus that if we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness because the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin.
[25:47] Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness. forgiveness of sin. And so we see the resolution. Then we see the reasoning. And then lastly and briefly, the return.
[26:00] The resolution, the reasoning, and the return. Look at verse 7. Now then, take and prepare a new cart and two milk cows on which there has never come a yoke.
[26:13] And yoke the cows to the cart, but take their calves home away from them. And take the ark of the Lord and place it on the cart and put in a box at its side the figures of gold, which you are returning to Him as a guilt offering.
[26:28] Then send it off and let it go its way and watch. If it goes up on the way to its own land, to Beth Shemesh, then it is He who has done this great harm.
[26:41] But if not, then we shall know that it is not His hand that has struck us. It happened to us by coincidence. Now living on the west side, and we love living on the west side, I know that many of you, you have sheep and some of you have cattle.
[27:00] As you know, I was brought up in Melbost and we always had cows. And one of the difficulties about having animals, as you'll know, is keeping them inside the fence. They are notorious for breaking fences, they're notorious for escaping and wandering away from where they're meant to be.
[27:16] When I was young, it was almost a weekly occurrence. My father would be offshore and we would be chasing the cows. The cows would get out, sometimes they ended up on the airport, which was an absolute nightmare to try and get them back into the croft.
[27:31] Because as you know, it's hard to get animals to go where you want them to go. It's hard to get animals, especially cattle or sheep, it's hard to get them to go where you want them to go.
[27:43] Which is why what happened next in this passage should have stunned the Philistines into a solemn silence. Because they were going to see that for the past seven months the Lord had been speaking to them.
[27:56] For the past seven months the Lord had been speaking to them personally and powerfully. Even though they had ridiculed and refused and rejected the Lord, even though they had resolved to turn to priests and to diviners, for the past seven months the Lord had been speaking to them.
[28:11] And He had been speaking to them powerfully and personally. Because the advice and the assistance that they were given by the priests and the diviners, we read there, was to build a new cart.
[28:25] They were to build a new cart for the Ark of the Covenant. So this golden box that was usually sat inside the Holy of Holies in Israel. The Ark of the Covenant was going to be on this cart and there was going to be those golden gilt offerings of mice and tumers.
[28:41] And we're told there that they were to yoke the cart to two milking cows, which were two female cows who were still feeding their calves with milk.
[28:52] And these cows were to be yoked together in order to pull the cart. Which if you stop and think about it, it's something that would never happen. It was always the males that pulled the cart.
[29:05] It was always the males that pulled the plough, not the female cows. Especially if they'd just given birth and still feeding a calf. And if you know anything about cattle, you'll know not to go near a cow.
[29:19] You'll never go near a cow with a newborn calf because they are not the friendliest of animals. You know that. And they're even worse when they separate the cow from the calf.
[29:31] They're always moaning. You hear it. At a particular time of year, they separate the cows from the calf and you hear the cows lowing for days. And you read here, that's what they did.
[29:42] The newborn calves were taken away from the cows. The two cows were yoked together something that had never happened to them. They were yoked to the cart.
[29:53] They were sent in the opposite direction from where the calves were. They were sent towards Beth Shemesh. That's what we read there. Now I was thinking about this. When I was thinking about this, I remember last year that when they were taking cows from off the moor just behind the church here, they were taking cows off the moor and taking them over to the machan.
[30:13] It's a huge ordeal. You'll see all these, I think it's 30 cows moving through the village. But there was a cow that had just given birth to a calf in the moor. And then they started moving the cows and the cow left the calf in the moor.
[30:28] But when all the cows reached the macha, that cow went back for the calf. They had moved the cows all together to the macha, but that cow went all the way back to find its calf.
[30:41] And the hours that followed, you could see the cow. You actually watched it in front of the manse. The cow returned from the macha, it crossed the river, crossed the road, back out to the moor to find its calf.
[30:56] And when you read what's happening here, what was actually happening here was the opposite to the nature of animals. It's the opposite to the nature of animals. It was a test to see if the Lord was speaking to the Philistines or not.
[31:09] Because according to the nature of animals, which we all understand, these cows, with their new calves, they should have been going crazy. They would have been going absolutely crazy.
[31:20] A cow has just given birth to the calf. They've never been yoked to a cart. The cart is going in one direction, the calf is going in the other direction, and they're being sent to Beth Shemesh.
[31:32] And so when the Philistines were told there, when they finally return to sender, when they finally make the act of returning the Ark of the Covenant to the Lord, we read verse 12.
[31:44] The cows went straight in the direction of Beth Shemesh along one highway, lowing as they went. They turned neither to the right nor to the left, and the lords of the Philistines went after them as far as the border of Beth Shemesh.
[32:05] When the Philistines saw these two cows calmly pulling the cart in the direction of Beth Shemesh, they knew immediately, they knew immediately that for the past seven months, as soon as the Ark of the Covenant had come into their territory, and even though they had ridiculed and refused and rejected the Lord for those seven months, the Lord had been speaking to them.
[32:33] The Lord had been speaking to them personally personally and powerfully. He had been speaking to them personally and powerfully. And you know, it's an amazing passage that ought to remind us and even reaffirm to us that when the Lord speaks to us, He speaks to us personally, and He speaks to us powerfully.
[32:55] And maybe for you, whatever personal thing you're going through just now, whatever problem has arisen in your life, whatever providence has come your way, whatever person has been put in your path, whatever it is, the Lord is speaking to you.
[33:13] He's speaking to you personally, and He's speaking to you powerfully. And maybe like the Philistines, the Lord has been speaking to you, and you have been aware of it. You've been aware that He's speaking to you personally, and He's speaking to you powerfully, just like the Philistines over the past seven months.
[33:32] But here's the point. Whatever you do, don't follow the Philistines. Whatever you do, don't follow the Philistines.
[33:45] Don't ridicule the Lord. Don't reject the Lord. Don't refuse the Lord. Don't resolve to seek help from priests or diviners or whatever it may be.
[33:57] You return to the Lord. You return to Him. And you know, the Bible gives to us this great promise that those who return to me, I will abundantly pardon.
[34:12] So my friend, you return to Him today and find in Him full and free forgiveness. Find in Him grace, mercy, and love that is beyond your asking and even beyond your thinking.
[34:26] well, the time has gone. May the Lord bless these thoughts to us. Let us pray. O Lord, our gracious God, we give thanks to Thee this morning for reminding us that we have a God to return to, that we are not left on our own to seek the advice and the help of men, but that Thy Word comes to us so graciously and so lovingly with so many promises to cling to and to claim and to confess.
[34:59] And Lord, help us to see that the God who has been speaking to us even today, a God who speaks to us personally and a God who speaks to us powerfully, but Lord, that we might not ridicule or refuse or reject what the Lord is saying, but truly respond, to respond in faith and obedience, to respond by returning to the Lord, knowing that He will abundantly pardon.
[35:26] Forgive us, Lord, we pray, for our sins. Forgive us for our slowness and our slothfulness. Forgive us, Lord, we pray, for the times that we put other things first, but help us to see that Thy Word calls us to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, knowing then that all other things will be added unto us.
[35:48] Cleanse us, then, we pray. Go before us, we ask. Lead us into the week that lies before us and help us in it to ever look to Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith.
[36:00] Cleanse us, we pray, for Jesus' sake. Amen. Well, we're going to bring our service to a conclusion this morning. We're going to sing the words of Psalm 116.
[36:14] Psalm 116. It's in the Scottish Psalter. Psalm 116.
[36:25] We're singing from verse 5 down to the verse marked 8. Psalm 116. It's on page 396 in the blue psalm book. verse 5 down to the verse marked 8.
[36:44] As you know, Psalm 116, it begins with that confession. Wonderful confession. I love the Lord because my voice and prayers heeded here. And the psalmist, he goes on to confess, God merciful and righteous is.
[36:57] Yea, gracious is our Lord. God saves the meek. I was brought low. He did me help afford. O thou, my soul, do thou return unto thy quiet rest.
[37:08] For largely, lo, the Lord to thee is bounty hath expressed. For my distressed soul from death delivered was by thee. Thou didst my mourning eyes from tears, my feet from falling free.
[37:22] So we're singing these verses of Psalm 116. to God's praise. Good merciful and righteous is.
[37:37] Yea, gracious is our Lord. God saves the meek.
[37:49] I was brought low. He did me help afford.
[38:00] O thou, my soul, to thou return, out to thy quiet rest.
[38:16] For largely, lo, the Lord to thee is bounty hath expressed.
[38:31] For my distressed soul my distressed soul from death. For my distressed soul from death.
[38:42] For my distressed soul from death. Delivered was by thee. thou didst my mourning eyes from tears.
[38:58] For my faith from falling free. 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.
[39:16] Amen.