Psalm 78, I'm going to Isaiah 5, and once you've gotten to Psalm 78, you've probably been there a while, and I just want you to listen as I read from Isaiah 5 to bring us back into our thoughts from this morning, where the Lord said, Isaiah 5 and 1, Now will I sing to my beloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My well-beloved hath a vineyard and a very fruitful hill. And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein. And he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard. What could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done in it? Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes. And now go to, I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up, and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down, and I will lay it waste. It shall not be pruned nor dig, but there shall come up briars and thorns. I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. For the vineyard of the Lord's host is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant. And he looked for judgment, but behold, oppression, for righteousness, but behold, a cry. Lord, we pray that you'd help us as we continue thoughts here today at your leadership regarding your investment in us as your people. If we apply the message here of you as the husbandman, and Israel as the vineyard. We are taught that you well prepared and cared for your people. that they might accomplish Your will and Your work. And as such, we know in parallel that You have prepared and invested and put a hedge about Your people, and specifically, Lord, Your churches as they gather as Your people. And You have intended for us to produce fruit. And so we pray that you'll help us to consider why Israel failed in this and why you had to ask the question, what could I more have done? What was it about the situation that they did not fruit like they should? Lord, may we ask that question of ourself and look for some possible answers tonight, I pray. Help us in Jesus' name, amen. And so we gave the background here that God is speaking to the nation of Israel. We do not believe that the church replaces Israel. Israel are God's chosen people. They have been, they will be. The church is primarily now a Gentile church. And somebody was asking some questions, well, yeah, questions and a little conversation I had after church this morning about the early chapters of the book of Acts when that transition was taking place. And the gospel was carried first to the Gentiles there. The Gentiles were brought into the church of God. We were graft in, the Bible says, as we mentioned this morning. So we're not replacing Israel, but we can learn something about the heart of God toward His people as we read about what God says about His people in the various passages of Scripture that we study. And that's true of the passage we read here in Isaiah chapter number 5. God is, you know, we often say God is good all the time. And that's really an understatement, isn't it? But He is, and He has prepared us for this life that we're living in. He's also prepared us as part of this life, and a primary part of this life, not just to live life, but to minister in life, and to be fruitful in our Christian life, not just in our knowledge of God as individuals, but then to see people saved as a result of our witness, and to be an encouragement and strength to others as God allows those of us that have been comforted to comfort others, 2 Corinthians 1. And so God has a ministry and a plan for us, and he has invested heavily in us for the purpose of producing this fruit. Now the failures, this is what we're driving at, the failures of the Christian life, and therefore the failures of the church, are not the fault of God. He asked that question here, of course, it's a rhetorical question. What could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done to it? Wherefore, when I looked, and the response is, there will nothing. You couldn't have done anything else. Wherefore, he said, in verse four of Isaiah five, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes. And we gave a little bit of illustration there this morning about how that surely, if you're paying any attention at all, and you look across that which is called the landscape, if you will, of Christianity, there's a whole lot of wild grapes coming up. In various form and fashion and we have wild grapes spring up in our own heart and life a lot And we got to be careful about this thing because god's invested in us for a purpose And and one of these days, of course, we're going to be brought before him and give an account to him of every deed done in this body, whether good or evil, and we're going to be held accountable for the fruit that we should have produced for Him in this life. So, what happened? Why did this happen was God's question there. And we said this morning that the Lord really answers quite a few of the reasons in Psalm 78. And more so than Isaiah 5. But in Psalm 78, we see some of the failures, is the word we use of Israel, that caused them to be fruitless in their finale. I mean, they just didn't finish with fruit like they should have. What are the reasons for that and how can we learn from that? Only this morning on this thought from chapter 9 of psalm 78 where you are now a verse 9 of psalm 78 where you are now where the Bible says the children of Ephraim being armed and carrying bows Turned back in the day of battle. And so we said that one of the problems with Israel was They failed in the fight They failed in the fight. They didn't even get in the fight. They turned from the fight. They were armed. They were prepared, we said, with the Scriptures, with God's presence, with God's power, with God's Holy Spirit. All of these things that God has given us, we are equipped for this work. I'm thankful for all that we have available to us now to learn and study the Bible and know more about God. But for all that's available, it seems like that there's a real challenge when it comes to genuine spiritual strength in the life of individual believers and then as a church. So it's not coming out as it should, even in light of the opportunities that we often have before us. We have what we need to do a fruitful, to live a fruitful life and do a fruitful ministry for God just in what God has provided in His Word, in His Spirit, in His presence, all of that we mentioned this morning. So there's no, listen, there's no reason for us to turn back. There's no reason for us to not engage in the fight. Don't fail in the fight. God intends every believer to be engaged in it. He tells us to be good soldiers of Jesus Christ. And so they failed in the fight. They just didn't engage even though God had properly equipped them to do so. The second thing I would mention tonight is this, is that not only did they fail in the fight, but they failed in the faith. They failed in the faith. And you see that in verse 10. Notice this. They kept not the covenant of God and refused to walk in His law. I mean, that's pretty clear. They failed in the faith. Now, when it comes to this covenant, I want you to notice in verse 10, they kept not the covenant of God. God made a covenant with them. God kept His end. Of course, his end was to judge if they didn't obey him. They failed on their end. They kept not the covenant. God is a covenant-keeping God, we know that. And they were the ones that refused to walk in his law. And so when I think about this word faith and how they failed in the faith, I'm talking about and have this idea that Jude had, in Jude verse three, when he said it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered to the saints. In my how we have failed in the faith in our churches. And we said this morning that so much of the time the world looks at the church and sees clearly that the church is confused. And so how can we have confidence in our ministry to one saving world when we, as the people of God, are confused as to the faith? There is one body of doctrine. There is one body of truth. It has been delivered to us by God. We are responsible for it as a part of our stewardship, and we'd better be careful to understand and know the faith. It doesn't surprise me that the church sometimes is so fruitless as it is because so much of the time you have believers arguing about how they differ on what they believe rather than going out into a world with the gospel of Jesus Christ telling them what we know about Christ and his death on the cross of Calvary and his burial and his resurrection. We like to sit around and argue our points of view. And the world passes by, just steaming on to a devil's hill. And there is, of course, the importance that we do not fail in the faith. After all, if we're going to take a message to a world, we need to know what that message is, and we need to understand it for ourselves. And we need to rightly divide the word of truth. Matter of fact, the Bible says, Romans 10, 17, so then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. The faith comes from the word of God. We don't base the faith on our feelings. We base the faith on the Bible's clear word. And so why, why is there such trouble with the faith? Why did they not keep the covenant and refuse to walk in His law? Why do people do that? Well, obviously, right on top is just rebellion. That's one reason why. As a matter of fact, you see the word refuse there would speak to the matter of rebellion. And there are people that just rebel against God. I'll tell you, In those moments, we most likely have all rebelled at some point. I mean, either some circumstance of life, or some burden that was very heavy, or some unexpected tragedy, and we fall into a trap of doubt, and we rebel against the principles of God. Have you ever thought about, in that moment of time, how thankful we should be for God's long suffering? when we fail in the faith in that way. And thank God that He knows us. He knows that we're flesh. And He seeks to correct us in our way, just as we would our own children. Sometimes we fall into that. But many times, there are those who refuse to walk in the faith because they just disagree. Well, and boy, don't we like to express our disagreement. Well, I just disagree with that. You know, it's a good point in life when you realize it really doesn't matter. My disagreement, many times, just doesn't matter. And I can have opinions, and I can have thoughts, but in the end, you know, I'm not the one that makes this, that, or the other go. But there are a lot of people that, look, can you imagine, just disagree with the Bible? They disagree. And God Himself delivers their word, and they say, now, Lord, I don't agree with that. What do you think God thinks about that? I'm gonna tell you one thing. The farther we're going toward the end time, this book is becoming more disagreeable all the time to our world. It is. And you look at the upheavals we're having socially, the upheavals we're having in our society. and how that everything seems to be turned on its head, culturally. And people just, I tell you, they will, you know, they read the Bible and they say it's an outdated book. And I don't agree with that book. Well, when it comes to that, you know, the Bible says, and by the way, I'm not just talking about unbelievers. I have heard over the years even believers dismiss certain parts of the Bible because they disagree with what it says. And I think it's interesting that whenever they take that stance, they always have to attribute those particular passages of Scripture to extraneous translator notes that got into the Bible. That's convenient, isn't it? Here's what God says in Romans 3 and 3. For what if some did not believe? Shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect? Really? Do we think that because we have disagreed with God that God's going to change his mind? No, that's not going to be the case at all. God forbid, Paul said, yea, let God be true and every man a liar. Romans chapter 9 and verse 20, Nay, but, O man, who art thou that replyest against God? Shall the thing form, say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? And the idea is clear. Look, you can disagree all you want to, but in the end, God is right and we're wrong. And so when it comes to the faith, there is one faith that God has delivered to us. We are to do our best to understand that faith and accept it as truth, even when we don't, I use the word understand, even when we're not exactly sure how the whole big picture works together or how it plays into future or some other thing, God is true. And every man a liar. Now, sometimes we can fall into this trap of questioning God on this, like I said, when we come into a hard time. Job did the same thing. You know, Job lost all of his stuff, lost all of his livestock, lost his children, lost money, lost his health. I mean, it was all gone. And Job cried out and said, oh man, I wish I could find him. I felt like God was gone far away. I wish I could find him. And then when he and God did get together, Job said, well, I'm just gonna lay my hand upon my mouth. He figured it out right there. I, thank God, am not the end judge, God is. Now I don't know, there's a lot of people that have a problem with that. That's a relief to me. Sometimes you have a hard time making decisions. Yesterday, we had a good team fellowship out here, Minute to Win It. They played 30 Minute to Win It games. I mean, you've never seen things moving so fast. 30 Minute to Win It games. And for lunchtime, they had some spaghetti and they had cookie ice cream sandwiches. Yeah, homemade too. And not the ice cream, but the cookie. And so I went around and I asked them, what kind of ice cream did you get? And I found it interesting that every girl knew exactly what kind of ice cream they had. None of the boys knew. Because it doesn't matter to boys, they just eat, hey, they like it, it's been good. And except for Alex. Alex got the only boy that had strawberry ice cream. And boy, he was proud of that strawberry ice cream between those two big cookies, man. He was liking that thing. Sometimes we have a hard time choosing. You remember the old ice cream shop, 31 Flavors? How do you pick? Some people just go in there and they take advantage of the little spoon on top of the, And they get 31 bites of everything, and then they say, oh, I'll come back later. Yeah, sometimes it's hard for us to decide on things. I'm glad God has done some deciding for us. It makes life a whole lot easier when we understand, thus saith the Lord. and to fall in line with the faith once delivered to the saints. By the way, let me just remind you this. When all is said and done, brethren, it's not you and I that have to answer for the faith. It's God. We accept the faith. We preach the faith. We do from time to time explain the faith, but we're not responsible for it. God is the author of the faith. And God's able to defend himself. Aren't you glad for that? And the prophets of Baal trying to defend their God and all that, and Elijah made fun of them. You remember. God doesn't need any defending. Amen. What he needs is glorifying. Hallelujah. And by those that have been saved. And so Job understood it. So here's the thing. To disagree with God is to refuse the faith. Let me say that again. To disagree with God is to refuse the faith. That is true in every area of life upon which the faith touches. When I say to disagree with God is to refuse the faith, we come up with this list of things in our mind that's pretty easy to agree with that statement. But when God starts meddling in our closet, now it's not so easy to accept the faith. But God is the one, God is the author, God is the one to whom we will one day answer for, I'm glad we don't have to decide what it is. We have a lot of issues in life, we look at and we say, oh my goodness, why does that happen? You know, why are children born with deformities? Well, why does God allow that to happen? You know, people say, oh, they're innocent. Well, there's nobody really innocent. The fall has affected everybody. The sin is passed on through the bloodline. But we understand what we mean when we say, you know, innocence. Why does God let that happen? Why does God let the supposed, I should say again, innocent suffer? Some of those innocents, quote unquote, are being used now to obviously accuse Israel of atrocities down there in Gaza. And you know, in reality, we'll never really know everything that's going on down in there anyway. And there's a whole lot of speculation here and there. Somebody says, oh, but there's cameras. You don't think those can be turned off and turned on conveniently? Come on, come on. We don't understand all these things, but if we have the higher view of whom God is, who is just and true and righteous, it gives us rest, even in moments where we just don't understand. And it gives us rest because God knows, and God is the one that has allowed it. And somebody's gonna say, well, that's easy for you because you've not gone through some various issue or all like that. And there are a number of issues that would relate to those kind of quandaries of life. So in the end though, God is the one that allows it. God is the one that's laid out the faith, and God has chosen by His sovereignty that nobody gets to heaven without going through the Lord Jesus Christ and by faith in His name. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes unto the Father but my. That's the faith. That's a principle of the faith. And God is the one that has ordered it so. So who are we to disagree with that? To disagree with God is to refuse it. But then also there are some that not only disagree, but they deflect. In other words, there are some people that hope that they can get into heaven by ignorance. Well, if I just don't know anything, God can't blame me. Well, that sounds good, doesn't it? And It's an argument. It's an argument obviously for many you can tell by the way they respond when you ask them about God Oh, I believe there's a God. Yeah, I believe there's God And I'm not saying that you know, I'm not saying there's not a God. I'm not saying one day. We won't answer to that God What do you know about God? Oh not much, but God will straighten it all out down the road. I Somehow or another, they're going to enter into eternal blessedness on ignorant accident. So they deflect. I don't want to know. I don't want to know. Because if I know anything, I'm responsible for it, and so I don't want to know. That's why a lot of people won't read a tract. That's why a lot of people won't come to church. That's why a lot of people won't listen to your witness. They don't want to hear anything that might let the Holy Ghost of God convict them and cause them to rethink their ways. And they think that somehow or another God's going to honor that ignorance one day when they die. I mean, nobody in their right mind wants to go to hell. But if I just didn't know, then maybe God will have mercy on me. So some just deflect the faith. I can't figure it all out. God will have to sort it all out. Oh, he'll sort it all out one day. And so they try to stay or to be ignorant. You know the phrase ignorance is bliss. You've heard that maybe. One reformer said ignorance is closely followed though by obstinacy. Yeah. And that is a failure to submit to God. And really that's what it's about. And I want to stay ignorant so I'm not responsible for any knowledge that brings me into submission to God. The philosopher Plato said, vice is ignorance. That's true, isn't it? And virtue is knowledge. So that's why the Bible says in Proverbs 8 and 33, hear instruction. Hear instruction. Be wise and refuse it not. Matter of fact, look over at Proverbs chapter number one. Proverbs chapter one. Proverbs 1 and down in verse 20, Proverbs 1 and 20, notice what God says, wisdom crieth without. She uttereth her voice in the streets. She crieth in the chief place of concourse in the openings of the gates. In the city she uttereth her words, saying, How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? That idea of simplicity there is ignorance. And the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge. Isn't it interesting that people want to know everything about everything except anything about the Bible? And so look, he says, verse 23, turn you at my reproof. Behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you. I will make known my words unto you. And then in verse 24, because I have called and ye refused, he's still talking about wisdom here. I have stretched out my hand and no man regarded, but ye have said it not my counsel and would none of my reproof. I also will laugh at your calamity. I will mock when your fear cometh. when your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind, when distress and anguish cometh upon you." Notice the end result of spiritual ignorance is distress and anguish and desolation and destruction and calamity. That's the end of ignorance. Now, so what does that mean? Well, ignorance is not bliss at all. when it comes to the things of God. Somebody said ignorance is not bliss. It is a precursor to catastrophe. And that's what God says in Hosea 4 and verse 6. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee. And so this idea that somehow or another we can just deflect the truth of God that has clearly been given to us and think we're going to come out all right in the end is to be terribly confused. And at the best, and at the worst, to be eternally lost because of that ignorance. And so these folks failed in the faith. They disagreed. They deflected. But then they also delayed. They did not carry out what God told them to carry out when he told them to carry it out. They hesitated. There's a whole lot of hesitation, even among those that profess to know the Lord. We're living in a day when commitment is not a finer point of our society. Sometimes it's not a point at all. We have such a mentality of being true to self that we don't wanna pigeonhole ourself, we don't wanna put all of our eggs, if you will, in one basket. So we hesitate to commit to God and the knowledge of him and truth as he has declared it. We're afraid that we're going to miss something outside that circle. And so we hesitate against the truth of God. And, you know, that's why Elijah said, how long halt ye between two opinions? Look, delayed obedience is very simply disobedience. And you've heard that statement before, but all of this delay in obedience is crippling the lives of a lot of God's people. And then as a result, it's crippling the work of the church. We don't have the luxury of failing in the faith. Because for those of us that believe in God's truth, there is no other way to live. Look at Psalm 119. And in verse 104, Psalm 119 in verse 104. And the Bible says, through thy precepts I get understanding, therefore I hate every false way. You and I, I said it even recently, we do not even know what is a false way unless God tells us. It is not in man to direct his steps. And then look over also at Psalm 128, therefore, I'm sorry, Psalm 119 verse 128. He said, therefore I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right, And I hate every false way. By the way, Psalm 104 and 128 be good ones. If you're trying to think about some verse to memorize, those two would be awesome. They'll remind us that we don't know the way. God knows the way. And that God knows the right way and God knows the wrong way. And you and I are in the position of realizing that it's through God and His precepts that we get understanding, verse 104, and we need to esteem those precepts. Now, you know what esteem means, right? It means to hold in high regard. You and I need to hold in high regard, not, you know, our own opinions and all of that, but the precepts of God. Boy, what a relief there is in that. Now. On Wednesday night, we looked at the matter of faith for a few services, and we went on this tidal where Paul was on that shipwreck heading to Rome, and everybody thought he was going to die. But Paul told them, he said, an angel of the Lord stood by me and said, there'll be no loss of any man's life but of the ship. All their stuff was going to be lost, but all the people were going to be saved. Nobody was going to lose their life. And here's what he said, I believe God. I believe God. Now, don't you reckon that maybe some of those sailors thought, well, now, Paul, could you explain exactly how that's going to happen? Well, Paul wasn't a sailor, right? Matter of fact, the Bible's clear. They ended up getting to shore on pieces of the boat the best they could and stuff that was floating around. Paul couldn't say, well, now, this is how God's going to do it. He's going to lift up this boat like a Peter Pan and float it right onto the shoreline. Paul would have said, you know, and that's by the way what he was kind of saying, I'm not exactly sure how God's going to bring this to pass, but I believe God. Boy, there's a lot of comfort in that. when we do not know. There's a lot of confidence in that when we are not confident. I'm not sure. I don't know how God's going to do it, but we have God's precepts and we have God's promises and I believe God. And if we'll take that stance, it'll keep us, if we'll take that stance as we have kind of brought it to our minds from Psalm 119 verse 104 and verse 128, it will help keep us from failing in the faith. I believe God. It'll help you. It'll settle you. Because for one thing, it helps you to realize that yes, the Bible says that we need to give an answer for the faith that is within us, but you and I will study the Bible for the rest of our life and not understand everything about it. You'll never plumb the bottom of its depth. The scripture's clear that we'll never plumb the bottom of God's wisdom or of God's knowledge. So here's the thing, we can relax We're not deflecting ourself when we have that response, but we can relax in that response, I believe God. I believe God. And if we'll do that, we'll not fail in the faith. They failed in the fight. They failed in the faith. They refused to obey, back to Psalm 78, they refused to obey, keep his covenant, and obey his precepts, or walk in his law, verse 10 tells us. And so what happened? The end result was, God had prepared the vineyard, and the vineyard produced wild grapes, why? They failed in the faith. And so they produced this wildness, instead of the wonder of God, if you will. And so the Lord had to tear down the hedge, the protective hedge around the vineyard, tore down the tower. It was no longer maintained, and it failed. A lot of believers look like the end of that vineyard, you know what I'm saying? when they come to the end of their life, because they fail in the fight, they fail in the faith. One more tonight, and that is this, that they failed by forgetfulness. They failed by forgetfulness. You see that in verse 11 when he says, and forget his works and his wonders that he had showed them. Verse 42 they remembered not his hand Nor the day when he delivered them from the enemy Right along the way and that deliverance from the enemy started all the way back in Egypt when God put the Plagues on the nation of Egypt and God had performed these miracles through the plagues and and in doing so delivered them from their enemies. And the Bible says here they forgot about that. And here's what happens. Here's how your vineyard begins to fail, your spiritual vineyard begins to fail. When you get forgetful about the hand and the help of God, you start becoming ungrateful. And you start the murmuring and the complaining and the griping against God, which is what they did, and they angered the Lord. They forgot the hand of their God. Now look, who was the husbandman? God. No vineyard gets along well on its own. Man, we came back one year for furlough, and we decided, because we came back in the early part of the spring, we thought we'd put in a garden. And Tammy's grandpa, we stayed with him there in their house while we were on furlough, and they had this big old garden plot. It was big enough to work with a tractor. I mean, that's the kind of garden they had every year. And yeah, they used a tiller, but man, they had a tractor, a farm all tractor. And you want to get Jim excited, talk about a farm all tractor. And he'd get that thing out and he'd go to work in that thing. And boy, did they ever have a garden. But it'd been a long time because they were so frail that they'd ever had a garden. And so we came home in the springtime and for about three month furlough and to try to help with some of their health needs and different things. And Tammy told Jim, she said, I think we'll go ahead and put in a garden. Oh, he got so excited. Now he couldn't hardly do anything except he made sure to walk out there and inspect. Make sure those rows are straight. Make sure they're at the right width. And on those days when we were out there working in that garden, he could see the garden from the end of the porch. He had one of those old front porch swings that hung from the ceiling, the porch ceiling. And he'd sit out there and he'd just look at that garden. And he'd be sitting out there and looking at it when there was no activity. And I told my wife, I said, look at that, he's waiting for something to pop up out there. He'd watch that garden. He was so excited about that garden. Well, we hadn't really booked any meetings, you know, and so... So but then all of a sudden the phone calls were coming in and next thing you know our whole Travel schedule's full. I mean we were ended up booking in churches morning night Wednesdays and we were gone weeks on in and So Tammy told her mama said mama need you to help with the garden because we've got to be on the road so we thought everything was good and We come back and turn the corner on the Wellesley Road and saw our garden looked like the Amazon jungle had moved in there and And what in the world? I mean, weeds and everything all growing. And Tammy said, Mama, what happened to the garden? She said, there's snakes in there. I'm not going in there. And I had to, boy, I tell you, I had to break out the bush hog and go down through those rows and cut those weeds down, it was so bad. We lost the whole garden. We tried to gain back some of it. After a while, just let the bush hog eat and ate up the whole garden. Because a garden doesn't do well without a husbandman. Now, you and I are the vineyard. God is the husbandman. He is the one that keeps the thing straight, keeps the thing clean, and keeps it in a pristine condition, protects it from animals, like some of y'all got problems with rabbits and squirrels, and somebody said they had a real problem with deer this year, getting in their garden and eating the garden. But the husbandman is out there protecting the garden from that thing. Now, you know, a plant garden doesn't have any choice. But you and I, as God's vineyard, we often are forgetful of the good hand of our husbandman. And the next thing that happens is the spiritual weeds start coming up. And it begins to choke the spiritual growth of our life, and we become unfruitful. They forgot, they failed by forgetfulness. They forgot the work of His hands. So what does it mean when you forget the work of His hands? Well, you can absolutely just not appreciate the hand of the husbandman. But then also, we can get so involved and engaged in this life, That we just forget His presence altogether. That God has promised to be that ever-present help in time of need that we're talking about. And when we begin to do that, man, we start having some real problems. We forget to be thankful. We forget to be focused. We forget to be obedient. Everything else that they did down through these verses really kind of found its source in their rebellion against God's law and their forgetfulness of God's hand. And their vineyard failed. The same will be true for you and for me. I entitled the messages here today, A Fruitless Finality. Now, I told you this morning that in my mind was this word longevity. There's probably some people in this auditorium been saved twice as long as I have. I'm just over 30 years, I think, being saved, something like that. Probably some people in here been saved longer than that. That's wonderful. Like I said in just a year's time. We're gonna have 50 years at Maranatha Baptist Church Now when you look back across those years some of you're saying man, this has been a long old haul This home I can't wait we just saying about going to heaven being with the Lord I can't wait And you know even so come Lord Jesus. I'm excited Wouldn't it be a shame to fail in the end? Wouldn't it? Because we failed in the fight, threw in the towel. Because we failed in the faith, we didn't stick by the stuff, the truth of God's Word, and then we failed by forgetfulness to remember how good God has been to us to bring us where we are. You know, one thing, ingratitude causes you to want to quit. Gratefulness motivates your heart to faithfulness. And if there's any day when we need that type of grateful faithfulness, it's in these last days. listening at any moment for the trumpet to sound. Brethren, don't fail finally. Don't have a fruitless finale. Be careful. God has invested in us. He's provided everything we need to serve Him fruitfully and bring glory to His name. We dare not come to the point where God says, well, what more could I have done? The response would always be, nothing. The real question is, what more should we have done? Let's stand together and bow our heads for prayer, please.