No. 77 - GOD THE MASTER FARMER By: John J. Blanchard Sunday, October 23, 2005 Feast of Tabernacles There is something magical about soil. Around here you can sure appreciate it. Taking a drive around this area of Wisconsin we can sure see how prolific the soil can be and how much it can produce for mankind. I am sure around here, especially in an area like this that is so much into farming, many people will tell you they feel connected to the land. They feel connected to their family farm. We speak often of our roots even if we are a city dweller. If we look back in our family tree, many times it goes back to a family farm. It goes back to rural America or rural Canada. It goes back to rural country wherever we are from because even if we have moved to the city, the cities are a recent new development really for everyone to dwell there. As recently as 1900 in the United States, seventy some percent of all Americans were farmers. It has changed greatly in the last century. We speak of our roots, and many times we have nostalgic feelings about the family farm (the homestead). Even though we come from a city to come here though, don’t we often love our gardens and the vegetables we can grow, as well as plants and flowers that we can grow around our yards? We even love our lawns and shrubs. I was a city dweller for part of my life, and we loved to see the grass grow and the flowers that my mother would plant and the shrubs that my dad would plant. We would watch them grow. My father would often plant a garden and turn the ground over with a shovel and plant pumpkins or whatever garden vegetables he would want because he had been raised on a farm. Though he was an office worker when I was alive, he always remembered what it was like on the farm. He made sure we had trees around the yard that could grow and shade the house and give us a place to play in the shade on a hot day. I have never dwelt in an apartment, but I have noticed if you drive by an apartment complex, you will see on their balconies little shrubs, little trees, flowers and potted plants. If you go inside a house or an apartment, people often love to have flowers and plants growing even though it is work. It is because we feel an affinity for the soil. We love to see things grow. When we are accomplished at making those things grow, we are proud of what we call our green thumb. We love to sift the soil with our hands and feel the dirt and how nice and rich and loose it is. I have transplanted plants many times. When we transplant plants we gingerly pick them up and try not to damage the roots. We move them over to some other ground that we have prepared and made soft and fertile. We put the little plants in there. We are proud of our ability to actually help nature grow. Why is that? It is because, once again, we are created in the image and likeness of God. “In His image” means we are composed of earth. MADE OF DUST If you would, turn to Genesis chapter 1. We know we are physical and God is spiritual. We are made in His image but of the earth. Read Genesis 1:26-27. He made them of the earth. Drop down to chapter 2, verse 7: “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” Man became a living being that God made from the dirt. Then what did He do with Him? Verse 8 of Genesis 2: “The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed.” You can almost see God gingerly taking this fragile thing that He caused to grow and have life and transplanting it, so to speak, into a garden prepared for the man. For a moment, I want you to try to get into the situation at that time. Try to get into what was happening at that time, when God took the dirt in His hand just like a farmer or a gardener would take the dirt and scoop it up and put it into a form that looked like Him. Think of the Father and the Word, Jesus Christ, working together doing this. Do you think They were excited? I often times think of that moment, and I think I am sure They were excited! They took dirt, plain old earth, and formed it into Their image. It was a model of a child of God, but it was just a model at that point. It was just a pile of dirt. As they worked They must have looked at one another, realizing that this was the culmination of perhaps billions of years of planning that went into this! It was a long effort put together that They knew would have tremendous consequences. They must have agreed because two cannot walk together unless they be agreed. They must have agreed to go ahead. When They had the pile of dirt formed into Adam and it looked like Them, They must have looked at one another and said, let’s go for it! One of Them breathed the breath of life into the nostrils of Adam. As They watched the chest begin to rise and fall, the heart began to beat. Blood began to flow. It developed a pulse, and then the eyes opened. At that point, They looked into the eyes of something They created in Their image and likeness. I am sure They were very excited and very pleased with what They had done, but They also knew there was no going back now. We have given this being life. We have made promises before the beginning of time (as we read earlier in the Feast in Titus 1:1), and We cannot go back on our promise. Let’s read in Genesis chapter 2 what God did then with Adam and what He told Adam to do. Genesis 2, verse 15: “Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it.” It is as if God said We have made you dirt for Us, and We will put you in a garden of dirt with growing things for you to tend and to keep. You will learn what we are trying to do through you. So man became a farmer, a tiller of the ground, a farmer modeled after God. The title of this sermon is “God the Master Farmer”. We are going to see how we are molded in this image and likeness. Whether we live in a city, town, village or still in the countryside, we are farmers responsible for the dirt that we are composed of. GOD’S FAMILY FARM The first thing a farmer needs, as we just saw in Genesis 2, is land. A person cannot farm without land. Even in the city you must have dirt in a pot to grow anything. We have to have soil to work with. Think of the Church, the brethren in the body of Christ, as God’s land. Think of it as His soil to work with. Turn, if you would, to I Corinthians chapter 3. We are told here that, indeed, we are God’s land, and He is working with us. Read I Corinthians 3:5-9. Very clearly it states we are God’s land. God works through the people to whom He has given His Holy Spirit. Down through time as He passed that Spirit on to others, they became land to God (a field) for God to produce things for Himself. God’s field needs to be sowed, planted and watered in order for God to receive increase. The Church is Elohim’s family farm. It is His family farm, and it is where the roots are now. Our roots are firmly in the soil of God, and we are part of that soil. God has planted things in us. Different from most of the farms that you see today across the world, God is not a one-dimensional farmer. Today farming is highly, highly specialized with thousands of acres being worked by one farmer growing corn, soy beans, wheat or potatoes. They are huge farms to try to get economy of scale, that is to try to gain physical profit. A farmer today often knows how to produce an abundance of one or two things. That is not the kind of farmer God is. God is a very, very diverse farmer. Think back to the old family farms when the farm produced many different things because the family had to live through the winter off what was grown there. They did not want to just eat potatoes or onions or soy beans. They wanted a diverse diet, and the farm took care of the family to produce a diverse and healthful diet. Let’s gain a little bit of insight by describing God’s farm. It is a complete farm with many crops. Just like the physical crops of the earth today we will call them potatoes, onions, corn, mustard and beans. On that farm there are fields of grain, barley, oats, wheat, corn and flax. There are also pastures and big fields for the animals to roam around in. They feed off the pasturage to grow. There are sheep, cattle, oxen, goats and lots of other livestock. On this farm there are areas where God has huge orchards of well-tended trees bearing all kinds of fruit. You might look in another direction and see vineyards on the rolling hills of the farm. There are vineyards that are producing luscious grapes for wine and juice. On the back of the farm, on the back forty as we say, is the forest and woodlands. God is raising trees that produce things like lumber, fuel and oil. There are trees that are great and strong. Also there are trees that provide shade and a place for birds to nest and other crops to grow. Seeds would be produced every year. SPIRITUAL FRUIT What is the increase God is looking for from His farm? We have the physical connection that we see all the things I just mentioned, but God is looking for His land to produce holy righteous character. That is what He wants. Turn to some of the scriptures that would show us the fruits of His farm. Turn to Galatians chapter 5. We will look at some of the fruits of the Spirit. Read Galatians chapter 5, verse 22-26. We see that the fruits of God’s Spirit are peace, love, joy, longsuffering, gentleness and self-control. This is what God is producing. They are spiritual things, and it is a spiritual crop. It forms what could be called a new man and not just a pile of dirt. It would be a pile of dirt that can actually produce something spiritual. That is a miracle. When you can take something physical and produce something spiritual, that is a miracle. So God is performing a miracle through the dirt that you and I are composed of. Turn, if you would, to Colossians chapter 3. Read verses 12-17. It is a new human being. Gone is the competitiveness. Gone is the judgmentalism. Gone is the selfish aspect of human nature. This is a new human being that God is creating miraculously through dirt. It is the dirt that you and I are composed of. Back up to Ephesians chapter 5 please. Verse 8: “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light…” This is a special form of human being. They are human beings that have light dwelling in them. They are human beings that can shed this light to the world and to one another. Continue reading Ephesians 5:9-13. The light of the truth (the Holy Spirit working within us) will help us discern good from evil and turn away from the evil. It also will expose the evil for what it is. The light shining in a dark place is what allows us to see what is taking place there. In Matthew 5 God says you are the light of the world. You have the light that will expose and make manifest what is wrong with the world and how people can bear good fruit and not unrighteous fruit. God provides everything that we need to bear fruit. Physical ground requires sun light, rain and water, and we just saw that spiritual ground is what we have become. We are made of physical dirt where God is working spiritually, but we need light. Just like we saw here in the scriptures, we need light. We also need water. We need rain in order to grow and in order for us to produce something for God. Indeed, we do receive rain from God. RAIN SYMBOLIZES DOCTRINE Turn back to Isaiah chapter 55. God gives us rain in some remarkable ways. We are going to look at a few of them right now, but it is a good study to do sometime when you have a few spare hours. Look into what God means by the former rain and the latter rain and how He grows crops. Read Isaiah 55:8-13. God says I am going to provide you the rain that you need. It comes from My thoughts that land on the earth like rain. They will be given for the purpose of sowing seed and reaping from that seed. Paul said I have sowed, Apollos has watered and God received the increase. This is exactly what God is saying here. I will send you My thoughts, and I will send you My truth. It will be taught by people who sow with the seed and water the seed with My rain (My stored water) and get it to produce increase for Me. I will make sure it does not get wasted. This will happen so that the earth will bud and bring forth fruit for Me. That is what God is saying right here. God’s thinking and His doctrines (His truth) are what gives us the seed and the rain. He provides the light that helps us to see what it is (manifests it) and then gets it to grow. This is just like what we need physically. Earth, water and sunlight are required. Turn back, if you would, to Deuteronomy chapter 32 where this is put very, very bluntly. We are going to see that it is God’s thoughts turned into truth and doctrine for us so that we can study. This is Moses speaking these words here. God tells us through Moses in Deuteronomy 32, verse 1: “‘Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth. Let my teaching drop as the rain…’” That word “teaching” in the King James Version is doctrine. “‘Let my [doctrine] drop as the rain, My speech distill as the dew, as raindrops on the tender herb…’” (which means grass) “‘…and as showers on the grass. For I proclaim the name of the Lord: ascribe greatness to our God.’” God says My word is going to land on the vast variety of grasses. Herb means many different types of grasses. God says My word is going to land on them and get them to grow because it is My truth, My thoughts and My doctrine. This is the rain that He sends us so that we can have what we need to bear fruit. God is an extremely patient farmer. He is very, very patient. He has been working on this for a long time with His family farm. Turn to James chapter 5. We have to put together “here a little, there a little, precept upon precept” in order to understand God’s thoughts. If you were to look up the term “thoughts” in the Hebrew, you would find it is the plaiting of His thinking woven together to form a fabric. It forms a picture, so to speak, a picture of knowledge. Those thoughts are woven all the way through the scriptures. You can go from Deuteronomy to James and back to the Old Testament to put the thoughts together “here a little, there a little, precept on precept, line upon line” in order to understand what He is saying on any given subject. THE DESOLATE FARM James 5, verse 1: “Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you! Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have heaped up treasure in the last days.” We have talked about those couple of scriptures earlier in the Feast, but notice it says you will heap these up in the last days. Then he goes on to tell us here in verse 4: “Indeed the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields…” (like a farmer who mows the hay to store up pasturage) “…which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. You have lived on the earth in pleasure and luxury; you have fattened your hearts as in a day of slaughter. You have condemned, you have murdered the just; he does not resist you.” We see a picture of people working in a field trying to help the farm to produce. Others are taking the production of the farm and keeping it to themselves. God says no, I don’t like that! In James 5:7 we are told: “Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, waiting patiently for it until it receives the early and latter rain. You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.” A PATIENT FARMER We must not get discouraged. God is not going to leave the family farm desolate. He says I understand what has happened, but I am patient. I have to allow My crops to grow. I have to allow those who choose to bear fruit for Me to bear fruit. But realize this, when you see all of this devastation and the farm and the laborers being abused, He says do not worry. I know, but be patient along with Me. I am a patient farmer, and you, brethren, must be patient. Remember, when you see these things happen, the Day of the Lord (My coming) is at hand! Do not get discouraged. This is what we are being told here. Be patient, brethren. Do not get discouraged. This is a time in the history of the Church where we could easily throw up our arms and give up. Many have done this. We could get discouraged and say what’s the use? Do not give up. God is loving towards His family farm. He is not going to quit trying to produce crops. He promises, indeed, that He will. Turn to Isaiah chapter 30, verse 18: “Therefore the Lord will wait, that He may be gracious to you; and therefore He will be exalted, that He may have mercy on you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for Him.” This is just like what is stated in the Book of James. Blessed are all of those who are patient and endure these things. Verse 19: “For the people shall dwell in Zion at Jerusalem; you shall weep no more. He will be very gracious to you at the sound of your cry; when He hears it, He will answer you. And though the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your teachers will not be moved into a corner anymore, but your eyes shall see your teachers.” The things that we have been taught that were actually the bread of affliction and bad water for us, he says it will not be like that for very long. It will not stay that way. Continue in Isaiah 30, verse 21: “Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, ‘This is the way, walk in it,’ whenever you turn to the right hand or whenever you turn to the left. You will also defile the covering of your images of silver, and the ornament of your molded images of gold. You will throw them away as an unclean thing; you will say to them, ‘Get away!’” Just as it said in James, your gold and your silver is corroded and your garments are moth eaten and destroyed, he says eventually you are going to see the truth here. You are going to take all of that stuff and throw it away like an unclean garment! You are going to say I don’t want this anymore! Continue reading Isaiah 30:23-26. When God chooses to send the rain to heal the Church and we decide to cast off the lousy garments and the lousy treasures and go after God’s garments and God’s treasures, He says I will bring you the Millennium. I will pull down the towers that have abused you. I will bring you the Millennium. The moon, which pictures the Church, will be as bright as the sun. The sun will be like sevenfold. We know He cannot be talking about the physical sun. If it hit the earth with seven times the intensity that we have now, we would be fried to a crisp! He is saying that the truth of God that had been spaced out over the previous six thousand years (a day for a year), in the seventh year it will be concentrated. There will be so much light from God that you will not need the moon anymore. We will not need the moon, because the moon will be like the sun! The moon will be teaching the world how to bear crops for God in abundance. We are talking about the true light and rain and the true doctrines of God. This is a wonderful prophecy that tells us everything is going to work out! God is going to see to it. We just have to try to cooperate so we can be a part of it. This is what God is saying. He is incredibly patient, and He is incredibly merciful. But there is a deadline. We are facing the deadline. All the Church eras ahead of us did not have the same deadline pressure we do. The six thousandth year (the sixth day) is about to end, and this wonderful Millennium is about to start! It is time that we all learn these things so that we can partake fully of the inheritance God has stored for us for the Millennium. Then we can share all of this truth as the light of the sun does now with us. We can share it with everyone. PULL THE WEEDS The Church must do its share to bear fruit. Each member is also an individual garden on the family farm. Each member must help tend their section (their garden) of the farm. Because we are physical, you and I know every one of our gardens has some weeds and some thorns in it. Those weeds and those thorns must be pulled. They must be removed. One of my favorite secular people is Abraham Lincoln. He said this about his life: “I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.” That is what we, as Christians, need to be doing all the time in our lives. We need to be plucking out the weeds and thistles and getting rid of the thorns so we make as much room to grow a good crop as possible. We should not leave anything in our lives that may strangle the production of our garden. Our minds and our hearts have thorns and thistles in them. It is time to get rid of them, brethren. It is time to go after them and pluck them. With God’s help, He will help us see where they are, with the light of the truth. At this time in history, the Church cannot see its thorns and thistles very well because there is blindness in the Church. We have to ask for that light that will help us see what we need to change and work on it. Jeremiah chapter 4 gives us some insight as to what kind of garden we are to be and what we are composed of. It would be helpful sometime to read this entire chapter which we will not do today. As we read, think spiritual Jerusalem. Jeremiah 4, starting in verse 3: “For thus says the Lord to the men of Judah and Jerusalem: ‘Break up your fallow ground, and do not sow among thorns. Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, and take away the foreskins of your hearts, you men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, lest My fury come forth like fire, and burn so that no one can quench it, because of the evil of your doings.’” God is saying here take your fallow ground and break it up. Get the weeds out. Then we can get something productive going here. If you have ever worked with fallow ground, it is ground that is just broken open to the plow and turned over rough. It has huge furrows, humps and bumps. You cannot plant anything yet. It has not been broken down. It has not been sifted and made fine. It has not had the weeds removed. There is something interesting about fallow ground. There are many weeds, seeds and spores in the ground. What you see growing on top is what gets the light. When you turn that ground over and you make it fallow ground by turning it with a plow, what happens is the seeds that were hidden under the surface start to sprout. God says do not just have fallow ground in your life because weeds are going to sprout that you did not even realize were there. As we work with our soil, God calls us and He gives us His Holy Spirit. That ground gets turned over. We start to see things in our character we did not even realize were there. We have to get rid of those and cultivate the ground. We need to soften it and work it so that God can plant the seed. The rain and the water can come and get something to grow there. That is what God is saying here in Jeremiah chapter 4. If you would, turn back to Isaiah chapter 5. A lot of scriptures in the Old Testament will help us with these farming principles. As many of us have moved away from the farms and many of us have never even lived on a farm, some do not realize it takes a little work. We have to learn about farming because God is a farmer. We have to learn about producing something with the land. I think it is helpful to even raise little plants if you live in an apartment and watch what happens. Tie it to the Bible. I think it would be very helpful. AN UNFRUITFUL VINEYARD Isaiah chapter 5, verse 1: “Now let me sing to my Well-beloved a song of my Beloved regarding His vineyard: my Well-beloved has a vineyard on a very fruitful hill. He dug it up and cleared out its stones, and planted it with the choicest vine. He built a tower in its midst, and also made a winepress in it; so He expected it to bring forth good grapes, but it brought forth wild grapes.” God took the stones out of a vineyard. We are part of that vineyard. He worked with the soil, and He planted nice plants in there to have a wonderful vineyard and grow good crops. He said instead of good grapes, I got wild useless grapes. Continue reading Isaiah 5:3-7. This happened to ancient Israel. You can look at the fulfillments, but it is happening in a dual prophecy to the Church of God. Our hearts have become hard. Righteousness is hard to find. A harsh judgmental attitude towards the world has made God’s vineyard a very, very unfruitful place. He tells us when He takes His protection away and this happens, the thorns and the briers are really going to take over. That is exactly what happened. The thorns and the briers flourished. Go back now, if you would, to Hebrews chapter 6. Remember we are tying together Old Testament and New Testament and to flesh out a thought of God. It is a thought that is higher than the earth by the same factor that the sky or the heavens are higher than the earth today. We are trying to plumb those kinds of thoughts, and God is going to help us. After a warning to people being insincere and turning away from the truth, God says in Hebrews chapter 6, verse 7: “For the earth which drinks in the rain that often comes upon it, and bears herbs useful for those by whom it is cultivated, receives blessing from God; but if it bears thorns and briers, it is rejected and near to being cursed, whose end is to be burned.” That thought is a direct reference that ties back to what we just read in Isaiah. God is saying if we as called and converted people stop bearing good fruit and when He takes His protection off, we are in danger of losing everything! If we start letting the weeds and thorns flourish in our minds and hearts and let the briers take hold, we are in danger of losing everything! We can see how all of this goes together. But God said I am patient. We read that God said I am very patient; I knew this was going to happen. BEARING FRUIT I want to take a look at some of the parables now so we can consider what God is doing with the family farm and how He warned us two thousand years ago through His Son Jesus Christ. Turn, if you would, to John chapter 15. The same vineyard is spoken of here. It is undeniable that we are talking about the Church of God. Sometimes people say that was Old Testament stuff. No, it’s not, brethren. All scripture is good for knowledge, for reproof, for instruction in righteousness and for correction. Read John 15:1-6. This is the same concept from Isaiah 5 and from Hebrews 6. Continue reading in John 15:7-8. Brethren, that is our job. Our job is to assist the Master Farmer in bearing much fruit through His vine, Jesus Christ, and the branches which we are. The Father will prune the branches when necessary in order to help us. But we do not want to be one of those branches that is cast off and just withers. You can take a branch off a tree or take a plant and cut it off from the root. Or you can cut off a branch and throw it on the ground and watch what happens. The sunlight does not work on it anymore. You can water it and it will not matter any more. It just withers away and dies. We have to be connected to the vine to be a fruitful part of the vineyard. God says it is very important that we do our job to give Him fertile ground to work with. WORKERS IN GOD’S VINEYARD Turn, if you would, to Matthew chapter 20. Read 1-16. Brethren, we have a job to do, and the day is well spent. If we are not going to do our job well, God is going to find someone else to help out and take over. We certainly cannot judge God for having had to go get other laborers for His vineyard. It is probably our fault. We have to make sure, brethren, that we are taking care of God’s vineyard to the very best of our ability. We are going to receive salvation. That was not the issue here. Christ said salvation is to anyone who is successful. Now for a larger reward or an inheritance, that is different. But I have a feeling here when God said if your eye be evil, that that servant was still having a problem with certain things like jealousy, envy and selfishness. He had problems in his own vineyard that he had not dealt with. That is what we can learn from these parables, brethren. We need to take care of the soil we have been given and the seed, water and light that God sheds upon us. Matthew chapter 21, just going over a page. Here is another parable Christ says. Read Matthew 21:33-40. This is speaking to the Pharisees here. Continue reading verses 41-44. This was speaking to the Pharisees. Can we self-righteously say I am glad that was their problem? They beat Christ up. They killed Him. They threw Him out of His vineyard because He was the heir. The Church is called the body of Christ. Christ now lives in us. It is another body, a spiritual body, composed of many parts. You can read the same scripture that was quoted. “The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone” in II Peter. You are going to find that it is spoken of there as part of a building, but we are living sacrifices to help God get a job done. If we start beating up our fellow servants, are we not making the same mistake? If we start destroying the vineyard, are we not making the same mistake? Yes we are! We need to learn from these things so we do not repeat these errors. Go back to Jeremiah chapter 12 because He spells it out right there. Jeremiah chapter 12, verse 10: “‘Many rulers have destroyed My vineyard, they have trodden My portion underfoot; they have made My pleasant portion a desolate wilderness. They have made it desolate; desolate, it mourns to Me; the whole land is made desolate, because no one takes it to heart.’” God’s farm has gone desolate because the doctrines and the truth have not been preached properly. Selfishness abounds in the Church. The vineyard is in bad shape. Continue in Jeremiah 12, verse 12: “‘The plunderers have come on all the desolate heights in the wilderness, for the sword of the Lord shall devour from one end of the land to the other end of the land; no flesh shall have peace. They have sown wheat but reaped thorns; they have put themselves to pain but do not profit. But be ashamed of your harvest because of the fierce anger of the Lord.’” Are we going to take these words lightly? God says He is ashamed of the harvest that we are giving Him, and we should be ashamed of it. He says the vineyard has been turned into a desolate place. It has been overrun and downtrodden. We need to cry out to Him to get this repaired. Thankfully God is a very patient farmer. God knows by the same token that there is good ground in His field. THE SOWER AND THE SEED Turn to Matthew chapter 13. It is the very famous Parable of the Sower. Read verses 1-9. Do we hear? We can give God good ground, or we can give Him stony ground. We can give Him weeds to try to overcome with the word of God. There are a lot of things that we can do. Or we can let Satan snatch it away. The birds of the air can snatch it away from us if we let the cares of this world overwhelm us or if we let false doctrine in. God intends to help us in every way that we need, brethren. He gives us light. He gives us water. He gives us doctrine. He prunes us when necessary. But the weeding is done with our cooperation. The weeding and the sifting of the soil to make it soft is with our cooperation. The sifting of the soil is humility. It is the humbleness to let God show us our sins so we can help Him fix His garden (fix the family farm). Turn back to Proverbs chapter 24. This is not a time, brethren, to be idle. It is not a time to be lazy. It is not a time to put things off and procrastinate. Proverbs 24, verse 30: “I went by the field of the lazy man, and by the vineyard of the man devoid of understanding; and there it was, all overgrown with thorns; its surface was covered with nettles; its stone wall was broken down.” It is a sad thing to walk by a beautiful farm and to find it in disrepair with the weeds having taken over and thorns and nettles covering its surface. Have you ever walked through thorns and nettles? It is not even enjoyable to walk on a farm that is covered with weeds. I have seen a few farms that were abandoned and just covered with weeds. Let’s back up a little bit to verse 30 of Proverbs 24. “I went by the field of a lazy man…” That could be you or me. “…and by the vineyard of the man devoid of understanding…” That could be us if we do not search out the words of God. “…and there it was, all overgrown with thorns; its surface was covered with nettles; its stone wall was broken down. When I saw it, I considered it well; I looked on it and received instruction: a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest; so shall your poverty come like a prowler, and your need like an armed man.” With what we have studied at the beginning of this Feast of Tabernacles, we understand the ten virgins went to sleep. We went to sleep at the end of the age. We folded our hands and waited for Christ and did not do a whole lot. A thief came in. The prowler came in and broke down the house of God. But God said I knew this was going to happen, and I am going to help you. We are going to conclude with some scriptures that are going to give us some hope, brethren. ANOTHER CHANCE TO PRODUCE FRUIT Turn to Isaiah chapter 32. We start to see that God is really going to pull this off. He promised it before time began. He is not going to fail. Isaiah 32, starting in verse 12: “People shall mourn upon their breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine.” We are going to cry out. We are going to be sad when we see these things. Verse 13: “On the land of my people will come up thorns and briers, yes, on all the happy homes in the joyous city; because the palaces will be forsaken, the bustling city will be deserted. The forts and towers will become lairs forever, a joy of wild donkeys, a pasture of flocks until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is counted as a forest.” God is going to shed His Spirit again. He is going to give us another chance. He says in Revelation 3 open the door. We can get this done! Take charge of your personal garden, and help Me take charge of the family farm. We are going to fix this again. We are going to make it right. Back up to Isaiah chapter 27. We are going to start reading in verse 1. “In that day the Lord with His severe sword, great and strong, will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan that twisted serpent; and He will slay the reptile that is in the sea.” We will explain that sometime, but the sea, of course, contains humanity. Leviathan (Satan and his power) must be destroyed. His governmental system must be shattered. Verse 2 of Isaiah 27: “In that day sing to her, ‘A vineyard of red wine! I, the Lord, keep it, I water it every moment; lest any hurt it, I keep it night and day. Fury is not in Me. Who would set briers and thorns against Me in battle?’” He says Satan has made briers and thorns spring up in My vineyard. How silly of him? How can thorns, briers and thistles fight Me? No way! Continuing in the latter half of verse 4: “‘I would go through them, I would burn them together. Or let him take hold of My strength, that he may make peace with Me; and he shall make peace with Me.’” We will make peace with God. We are going to get this done right, because He is going to help us. Verse 6 of Isaiah 27: “Those who come He shall cause to take root in Jacob; Israel shall blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit.” God is going to take His family farm, small in comparison to the world at this time, and He is going to make the fruit spread around the entire world! He is going to start with His repaired vineyard. If you would now, go to Psalm chapter 80 for our final scripture. God tells us here, beginning in verse 14: “Return, we beseech You, O God of hosts; look down from heaven and see, and visit this vine and the vineyard which Your right hand has planted, and the branch that You made strong for Yourself. It is burned with fire, it is cut down; they perish at the rebuke of Your countenance. Let Your hand be upon the man of Your right hand, upon the son of man whom You made strong for Yourself. Then we will not turn back from You; revive us, and we will call upon Your name. Restore us, O Lord God of hosts; cause Your face to shine, and we shall be saved!” We need to turn to Him and open that door, and we shall be revived. He shall restore us, and we shall be saved. His name will not be mocked by the plunderer, by the thief, by His mortal enemy. Give the Master Farmer good ground to work with. Let Him sift it in His hand to sow, water and shed light upon it. If you do so, you will not be disappointed, ever!