To Implore God’s Favor

Study: #751 – Church in the Houses From: December 4 – 10, 2012

TOPIC: “To Implore God’s Favor” Proverbs 24:30-32 On one occasion when the prophet Daniel prayed, he said, "...yet we have not sought the favor of the Lord our God (Daniel 9:13)." If men were lead correctly to consider God’s truth and to be subjected to the power and authority of His Word, they would revert from the misconduct of their ways. The first step for this is to implore the favor of Jehovah our God, so that the affliction will be sanctified before it is withdrawn. This is necessary to receive on God’s behalf the sanctity we need to be delivered from the sin that snares us. If God favors us we will be completely free from what we cannot be delivered from ourselves, and also we are sanctified from what can bring harm to us. He will come out to deliver us and in His presence there is holiness. We sanctify ourselves when we repent from the evilness that is within us. Let us understand God’s truth and discard our human arguments. Proverbs 24:30 Here God speaks to us of the conduct of the lazy. When we are not quick to change bad situations we become idle. A lazy person is one who shows resistance to what has to be done. It is the laziness or tardiness of our actions and movements. There is saying well said:"Later is late!" We have to look around us and see how things are. This is what the writer of Proverbs said; he observed the condition of the field and the vineyard of the lazy. When he observes the vineyard, according to the condition in which it is found, the owner of the vineyard will be judged. Then the writer observes and concludes that the owner is guilty of the poor and bad condition of the vineyard. He saw the owner of the vineyard lacked understanding; he was a person who could not understand how abandoned and neglected his surroundings were. He lacked understanding, he was not clever or an expert looking after his vineyard, he was not a specialist in the care of his farm; that he lacked. He didn’t understand how to work a farm. He didn’t know how to come to a judgment to know what his farm needed to produce or how to maintain it in good conditions. There are times or seasons when either drought or snow is expected, but this lazy person did not understand how his crop should be in these situations. He lacked understanding. He had no common sense or sanity. He was given the responsibility of sowing and looking after his farm but did not do it as he should have. The blooming of the agriculture depends on the work and the dedication. And with laziness and without understanding the best fruit will be lost, because according to how the flowers of the sowing bloom will be the fruit. If someone does not care for the flower of the plantation, no one will eat the fruits of the harvest ... because there won’t be anything! The farm seen by the writer of proverbs was deplorable, full of thistles and thorns, his fence was torn down. It was in such a condition it was to cry for. The thistles are large leaves with thorns. The stone wall was demolished. What farm was this? These are the terrible or disastrous consequences of laziness. Poverty will surely come, like a bandit that prowls to steal and like a man who is armed to assault and kill. We should pay attention and learn from this. Our soul is like a vineyard where each one of us has an important duty to cultivate and protect. We have to start taking care of our lives and everything else that has to do with it. How should we do it? We should be careful and be diligent and not idle, quick to act and attentive to do what is proper. We need to pull out from the root the thistles and thorns of our disorderly passions, well they want to drive us to lose the whole farm given to us by God. We should care for and maintain in the best conditions the gifts we have, the ministry we practice, to give, love what is holy, the dedication to the pure and what is of God.

To live and act with laziness will drive us to lose our lives and the lives of our loved ones. The fence or barricade needs to be standing, repaired, well it is our protection and vigilance against the temptations of the enemy. When there isn’t a fence anyone can steal from us and take away what we have. The threat of the devil will be present with ease if there isn’t a fence that will prohibit his entrance in our lives. When the soul of a man lacks adequate defense it is due to the spiritual laziness of the person, which is a tremendous foolishness. Let us not be foolish, let's not be foolish like the man here in the Word of God who is given as an example. Let us be instead, understanding to guard our spiritual life with devotion and great care day after day. Here our life is compared to a vineyard, a grape farm. Either we take care of it and have it secured, protected, flourishing and producing its fruits or we have it neglected, unsecured, exposed to the dangers of our enemy the devil, fruitless. Either we are careful, vigorous and wise to love and look after what we have or we are lazy throwing everything away. Let us live to ensure the best for us and our loved ones; let us never forget that this road is narrow, and not wide. But, is the true and only path that leads to life!!! Amen.