Our text is found in Proverbs
chapter seven. Proverbs chapter seven. Proverbs chapter seven has a
very specific message that we've already started looking at. It
starts and ends the same way where he says, keep my commandments
and The message here, as we look, Solomon's warning us about harlotry. He's warning us about adultery,
fornication, and things like that. And of course, there's
a physical side to that. But nobody here needs for me to preach
on a particular sin. We know what Scripture says about
those things. But if we have the Holy Spirit as our teacher,
We can parallel all this that we see here in chapter seven
to all false religion. That's what this is a picture
of. It's all false religion. Whatever the spectrum, it doesn't
matter whether it's Muslim, it's Baptist, it doesn't matter. Whatever
the spectrum, we can see it plainly here. So let's read this, and
I'm actually going to cover, if the Lord be my help, I would
like to get all the way down to verse 27 if I can. It's a
complete thought. but we'll see what the Lord does
there. So we'll read right now, just
down to verse, verse 20, verse 23. So six through 23. For at the window of my house,
I looked through my casement and beheld among the simple ones,
I discerned among the youths, a young man void of understanding,
passing through the street near her corner, and he went the way
to her house. In the twilight, in the evening,
and in the black and dark night, and behold, there met him a woman
with the attire of a harlot. and subtle of heart. She is loud
and stubborn. Her feet abide not in her house. Now is she without, now in the
streets, and lieth in wait at every corner. So she called him
and kissed him, and with an impudent face said unto him, I have peace
offerings with me this day, and I have paid my vows. Therefore,
Therefore came I forth to meet thee diligently, to seek thy
face, and I have found thee. I have decked my bed with coverings
of tapestry, with carved works, and with fine linen of Egypt.
I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. Come, let
us take our fill of love until the morning. Let us solace ourself
with loves. For the good man is not at home.
He has gone a long journey. Yeah, he has gone a long journey. He hath taken a bag of money
with him, and will come home at the day appointed. With her
much fair speech, she calls him to yield. The flattering of her
lips, she forced him. He goeth after her straightway
as an ox to the slaughter, as a fool to the correction of the
stocks, till a dart strike through his liver, as a bird hastens
to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for his life. You take first glance at this
and you see the physical side of this and we understand that
Solomon may have physically seen this. But as I was studying this,
the Lord showed me that this is false religion. This is how
false religion operates, all false religion. This is how it's
performed, how it's worked, how it ensnares, how it entangles
through the lie, through the subtleness, through the things
that look appealing to the flesh. And that's what we have all these
pictures, the perfume and the cinnamon, all those things, whatever
church that don't preach the truth, they gotta preach something,
so they preach something that smells better, something that's
more appealing to the flesh. There's nothing about the gospel
that is appealing to our flesh in any way, shape, or form. The
flesh hates the gospel right now. Your flesh hates God. My
flesh hates God right now. Flesh is enmity against God.
It's just what the scripture tells us. It's the new man that
we read about in our call to worship. It's our new man. I'm
glad the scripture says the elder shall serve the younger. That
new man is what the Lord puts in His people by His faith, by
His grace, that causes us to look to Him and not look at what
we see. See, everything about false religion
is about what they see, all the outward appearances. How she
was dressed is how it's described and how everything was made to
look good and smell good and be satisfying to the flesh. Here's
what the scripture says. Be not deceived. God is not mocked. Whatsoever man soweth, that shall
he also reap. If he sow to the flesh, he shall
of the flesh reap corruption. If he sow to the spirit, he shall
of the spirit reap lap everlasting. Now I remember back in false
religion, whenever we used to preach that as a law to stay
away from acts of sin, different kind of acts of sin. It would
be like, oh, you better not be doing this. You better not be
doing that. You'll be sowing to the flesh. I've titled this message
sowing to the flesh because I believe the Lord revealed to me what
that actually is talking about there. It's the same thing in
this context here. It's the same thing in this context
here. Sowing to the flesh at first glance might look like
living in open sin, but sowing to the flesh is false worship
because it points to the flesh. False worship points to me, it
doesn't point to Christ. That's what sowing to the flesh
is. I understand living in open sin is wrong, I'm not justifying
that at all, but men talk about, okay, I can get my life cleaned
up if I stop doing this, and I can do better if I stop doing
that. Paul said, oh wretched man that I am, who shall deliver
me from this body of death? Paul didn't get better, Paul
got worse. We see our sin ever before us. Thankfully, the Lord
Jesus Christ put away that sin on the cross for his people.
That's our hope, that's our hope. God's gospel says, look at Christ. Look to the Lord Jesus Christ. Look to the Lamb of God. Behold
the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. That's
what scripture says. But the false gospel says, look at me.
Doesn't say look at Christ, don't look at his finished work, it
says look at me, look what I've done, look at the choices I've
made, the places I don't go or the places I do go, the work
that I do. Look how much I've tied, look how much time I spend
going to church, look how much I study and read. That's what
the false gospel does, is it shines the light on us. But the
problem is, is it's not really a light at all, it's darkness,
it's darkness. God's gospel, He's to the saving
of the soul of everyone he died for on the cross, his chosen
people. But man's pride rejects that
truth. Man does not like God being God. Man wants to be God. And this
is how all false religions are designed. They're designed to
put man upon the throne of God, and they worship and serve the
creature, myself, more than the creator, more than the creator.
Our flesh wants part in salvation and God's gospel says that he
must be all in salvation because he's gonna get all the glory.
Think about this, if you had something that God actually made
mandatory for you to do that you had the ability to do, would
you not glory in that? Of course we would, of course
we would. If it was your faith that saved
you, then we would be glorying in our faith. But everything
God requires, he must provide and he provided everything in
his son, everything. All false religion stems from
pride. That's what it comes down to,
is pride. Ego, about me, me, myself, and I. We live in a society
that's like that, don't we? And we know our flesh is the
same as everybody else's flesh. We're just thankful that the
Lord gives us the heart to look to him. That's our only hope.
We're not saying, okay, I'm getting better and better. My pride's
getting less and less. Well, maybe that's true. But I can
testify to the fact that somebody pulls out in front of us and
cuts us off, our proud will rear back up. I mean, it just happens.
Maybe sometimes they don't bother us, but you know there's something,
little buttons get pushed. That's just how we are by nature.
That's how we are by nature. All false religion puffs up the
flesh. So it takes that pride and it
puffs it up. Scripture says knowledge puffeth up. So the more knowledge
that you gain in false religion, the more puffed you are. You
know what, you've heard the expression big head, right? This guy has
a big head, he has an ego problem. That's what false religion does.
It says look at me, look at what I've done, look at my choice
that I've made, the life that I live. And it goes back to the
law that we've been talking about in Hebrews and in Galatians.
Taste not, touch not, handle not. No, brethren, we look to
Christ. We look to the Lord Jesus Christ
as all our righteousness because he's been made to us our wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. God did that.
God did that. A good example of ego is Pharaoh. I don't know if you've read Exodus
recently, but the plague of the frogs came up. And I never realized
this completely before, but Pharaoh says to Moses, Moses entreat
for us that the frogs would go away. They're driving us crazy.
I'm paraphrasing. They're, they were bothering
them. They're pesky. They're, they're annoying. They're
noisy. They're loud. They're everywhere. And he hated
them. And Moses said to him, when, when do you want me to
entreat for you? And he said, tomorrow. Think about that. He
wanted to spend one more night with the frogs. That's what he
wanted to do. Why? Pride. There's no other explanation. Pride. Ego. I'm going to just
spend one more night with these frogs. I'm going to show God. I mean, think about the arrogance
that's there. Even Nebuchadnezzar throwing the man into the fiery
furnace. That was because they would not
worship his way. They wouldn't worship his statue.
So he threw a temper tantrum and threw him in the fire. That
was pride. All of that's pride. I'm glad Nebuchadnezzar at the
end of his days, or after the end of the seven years, he said,
the Lord, he can abase whom he wants to abase. He can humble
anyone that he wants to humble. Now notice verse six and seven.
For at the window of my house, I looked through my casement
and beheld among the simple ones. I discerned among the youths.
I'm a young man void of understanding. Those who do not know the Lord
Jesus Christ, are simple. They're void of understanding.
Void of understanding. We were the same. We were the
same. We were dead in trespasses and sin. We were simple. Matter
of fact, we were dead, the Scripture says, twice plucked up by the
roots. That's how dead we were. I use the term dead dog a lot,
because that's what we are, dead dog sinners. If the Lord doesn't
make us alive, we're going to remain in that simple state.
He's the one that's got to be our wisdom. He's the one that's
got to be our teacher. He's the one that's got to be
everything to us in this salvation. We are dead. We were dead in
the most literal sense. We were spiritually lifeless,
spiritually lifeless. These individuals cannot perceive
spiritual things. They're going about with motions.
You go to churches in this area, you'll sit down and listen, and
you'll hear the name Jesus, you'll hear the blood, you'll hear things
about God, you'll hear stories of the scripture, but they don't
know who God is. God is a spirit, and they that
worship must worship in spirit and in truth, not what you see
with your eyes, not what you do with your body. Worship's
in the heart. Worship's in the heart. These individuals draw attention
to themselves, they desire the praise of man as Pharaoh did,
as Pharaoh did. They pray within themselves.
You remember the Pharisee that prayed within himself? What does
that mean? He was praying to himself. That's
what that means, praying within himself. Lord, I thank thee that
I am, I am, I am. No, he didn't say nothing about
the I am, he kept saying he's the I am. I think I'm not like
that publican over there. The publican wouldn't even lift
up his eyes to the ceiling, but smote upon his breast, didn't
he? Lord, have mercy on me, the sinner. Christ said one of these
men went home justified. Which one was it? It was the
publican. It was the sinner, wasn't it?
Why? Because God made him thus. God humbled him. That's what
repentance does, is it takes pride completely out. We have
no pride in this salvation whatsoever as far as acquiring it or as
far as obtaining it. We didn't. He gave it freely
by his grace. It's a work of God in the heart.
Now, because they don't perceive spiritual things, they have to
draw attention to themselves. Now, the Lord's people We don't
want the attention drawn to us, do we? We don't want the spotlight
on us. We don't want to be seen and
to be heard. We want the Lord to be seen.
We desire to see him high and lifted up. We desire his glory,
not our glory. The scripture says, not unto
us, O Lord, not unto us, but in thy name be all glory and
honor and praise forever, forever. Now these individuals, and we're
setting the stage here, kind of the visual of this false religion,
these individuals in verse six and seven, they go to their place
of worship, and they worship themselves, actually, is what's
happening. That's really what's happening. In all false religion,
men are worshiping themselves. Now, they can call it, put a
name on it if you want to. You can call it, a lot of them
use the name Jesus, don't they? But they're worshiping self,
what they have done, and they don't even know it. And this
is a very serious subject because so many people
don't realize that other churches that are preaching different
message other than the gospel, they're lost. You can't preach
a half truth. It doesn't work that way. It's
either the whole truth and nothing but the truth or it's not the
truth at all. The Lord's not going to save somebody underneath
a false preacher. It's scripture. They worship
themselves. They say, look at me, look at
the life I live, look at the choices I make. And that's what
these simple individuals do. This is what these, those that
are void of understanding. Why are they void of understanding?
Because the Lord has not given them understanding. It's his
understanding to give. It's his wisdom to give. It's
his truth. It's his, it's, it's all about
him. It's all about him. That's what
his gospel declares. They that worship themselves
are sowing to the flesh. Now let's read on here. Verse
eight to 12 says, passing through the street near her corner. And
he went, He went the way to her house
in the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night,
and behold, there met him a woman with the attire of a harlot and
subtle heart. She is loud and stubborn. Her
feet abide not in her house. Now is she without, now in the streets, and lieth in
wait at every corner. These are they. You notice that
it's not time here. In the twilight, verse nine,
in the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night.
Why is that? Because these individuals that are worshiping a false God
are in darkness. That's why. That's what this
is a picture of here. They're in darkness. They don't
know the light. Christ is the light. They are in darkness completely. That's whenever this is happening,
in darkness. They worship in darkness. They live in darkness.
And if God reveals himself to them, they will die in darkness
without him, without hope. And notice the next thing it
says when it describes her, which could be considered the false
gospel or the gospel preacher. She is loud and stubborn. She
is loud and stubborn. Have you ever seen? uh, just turn on the television.
You watch church on television. You'll see them. Some, sometimes
there'll be dancing around. There'll be yelling. There'll
be screaming. There'll be doing this Lord. When the Lord came to Elijah,
he Lord, he didn't come in the earthquake and he didn't come
in the fire. He didn't come in the whirlwind. He came in a still
small voice. We worship in the heart. Worship
is not boisterous. Worship can stir your emotions,
it can. It can move your heart. I've
been moved to tears many times hearing a gospel message. There's
nothing wrong with that. But we don't draw attention to
ourself, do we? Why not? Because we want Him
to have all the glory. We want Him to have all the praise.
And that's what the difference is here between the two. We're
not loud and boisterous. We're not stubborn like this
individual. God's not the author of confusion,
and loud and stubborn is confusing, isn't it? Loud is confusing. First Corinthians 14.33 says,
for God is not the author of confusion, but peace, as in all
churches of the saints. All false worship is sowing to
the flesh. It's not sowing peace, it's sowing
to the flesh. It's not sowing to the spirit,
and I'm gonna get to that in a minute. How do you sow to the spirit?
We're gonna find out. But all of this is sowing to the flesh,
doing what the flesh desires. The most profound fact of the
false gospel is that it offers self to God. It offers self to
God. And only the Lord's people are
made to not offer the works of their hands, not offer what they
do, not offer what they say or don't say. They offer what God
is pleased with, the Lord Jesus Christ, if I can put it that
way. They look to Him. They desire Him alone. Now here's where their covenant
comes into place. In verse 14, I have peace offering
with me, this day have I paid my vows. Does that sound familiar?
Peace offering. Peace offering. Now listen to
this. These that have a sacrifice or offering that they're bringing
to God, and that's what people do, they sacrifice their time,
they sacrifice their lives in different way, they cut things
out of their life to live a more moral life, and that is their
sacrifice in life. It's not, And it's for righteousness. It's for righteousness, that's
what it's for. I don't say this and I've never said that before
and I've never touched this and never touched that. That's self-righteousness
is what that is. It's sowing to the flesh, that's
all it is. Isaiah 28, 15 says, because ye have said, we have
made a covenant with death and with hell we are at agreement.
When the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall
not come unto us, for we have made lies our refuge and under
falsehood have we hid ourself. That's all false religion right
there, brethren. That's it. It's lies. It's a false covenant.
Here's what God says in response to that. Your covenant with death
shall be disannulled and your agreement with hell shall not
stand. When the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then you
shall be trodden down by it. Be trodden down by it. Look at
the end of this. individual that got caught up
in this situation, but also the individuals who are in false
religion. Look what it says in verse 24.
Hearken unto me now, therefore, O ye children, and attend the
words of my mouth. Let not thine heart decline to
her ways. Go not astray in her paths, for she hath cast down
many wounded, yea, many strong men as she has slain. has been
have been slain by her. Her house is the way to hell
going down to the chambers of death. That is the end of false
religion. All of it. That is the end of
all false religion. I want to say this very clearly.
You cannot have a little bit of truth and a little bit of
the lie, and the Lord blessed that, it's not gonna happen ever.
You have to preach the entire truth of God, who he is, what
he accomplished in salvation for his people. We don't dilute
it, we don't water it down, and you'll notice we're not packed
out. Why? Because we don't have anything
to offer for the flesh. I was talking to a lady this
week, inviting her to service, and she asked me for her son,
and my son gonna get bored. Is my son going to get bored?
I said, I don't know. I mean, how does the service
go, she asked. I said, well, we come in, we
sing, we read scripture, we sing again, I bring the message, we
sing, and we're dismissed. I said, well, what about the
kids? I'm like, well, how old is he? She said, well, he's 11,
12. And I said, well, my 12-year-old sits there just fine, no problem.
And anyway, she said, well, I just don't want him to get bored.
We probably won't be coming to your church. And that grieved me so much because
I know we don't have fun activities to offer children. I realized
that. This is not meant to be a fun activity. This is worship.
It's holy. It's sacred. It's put apart.
This is where God said, I will meet with you. This is where
God is exalted, where he has lifted up. This is where his
people gather and they feast on the lamb of God. That's the
sole focus of God's church is to glorify him. Not draw attention
to self and fun activities. That's all that they do is they
draw attention to ourself. Now we can have fun. Sometimes we
go to the park. Sometimes we do this and that.
But when we come here, this is serious business. This is business
with God. It's serious. And we take it
serious, don't we? The end of these poor souls is
the way to hell, going down to the chamber of death. They follow
their self-righteousness all the way to the pit, to hell itself.
Did you know that hell will not cause anyone to cry out for mercy? It won't. Hell is not enough
to give you repentance. That is a gift of God by grace
alone. When the rich man died, after
Lazarus had died, The scripture says, the rich man lifted up
his eyes in hell being in torments and seeing father Abraham afar
off, he said, father Abraham, send Lazarus that he may dip
his finger in water and cool my tongue for I am tormented
in this flame. He didn't cry out for mercy.
He was tormented in the flame and he didn't say, oh, I need
the fountain of living water. No, he wanted one more drop of
water to drink. He wanted to cleanse his palate.
He wanted, he wanted to worship one more time is what he wanted
to do. He wanted to have himself exalted again. That's what that,
that's a picture so clear. That's all false religion does
is it points to self. It points to the things that
the flesh desires, but true worship is of the Lord and it exalts
him and him alone. It doesn't exalt us. It doesn't
lift us up. No, we leave here saying that
we're the chief sinner. We don't have anything good to
say about ourselves. We have everything good to say
about our beloved. So what is it now? We've heard
what it is to sow to the flesh. That's sowing to the flesh, that's
what it is. What is it to sow to the spirit? How do I sow to
the spirit? I want to know that because if
I don't have that answer, then I'm in trouble. They that sow
to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption. They that sow
to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting. If I want
life everlasting, I have to sow to the spirit. I have to. How
do I do that? Looking unto Jesus, the author
and finisher of faith, who for the joy that was set before him
endured the cross, despising the shame. You know that word
despise means it didn't bother him. It didn't bother him. Why?
Because he was doing business with God. And he finished the
work. He finished the work given to
him. Sowing in the Spirit is looking
to the Lord Jesus Christ in all things, not looking to self in
any way. It is to be given faith, to hope
in Christ alone, to look to him alone as all your righteousness,
as all your sanctification, your wisdom, your redemption, your
justification. It's to look to the blood alone.
It's not to look at myself and what I do and what I don't do.
It's not looking at my life and trying to determine if I am living
the way that I should be living, and I gotta change this in order
to get in good standings with God. If you're in good standings
with God, it's because you're in Christ. That's the only way you're
gonna be in good standings with God. That's the only way I'm
gonna be in good standings with God. If I'm outside of Christ, I cannot
get in good standings with God, period. Sowing to the flesh is believing
by the faith bestowed that he successfully redeemed every single
person that he died for on the cross. They're made perfectly
righteous. It's to believe that He was reconciling
us in Him while He was on the cross. He reconciled us back
to God on the cross. We believe that. This is what,
this comes down to how we worship our Lord. We see Him high and
lifted up. We see Him seated, just like
Isaiah saw Him. That's how we see our Lord. We
don't see Him as a, Impotent, I mean, really, that's how men
preach him now, he's impotent, he can't do anything. No, we
preach him as a successful redeemer, as the sovereign savior. This
is how we preach him. Sowing to the flesh means that
his life is our hope. That his life, everything that
he accomplished in life enabled us to have life. and his death,
we're able to have life and his resurrection, all of that together
gives his people eternal life. And what does the scripture say?
If our life be hid, it's hid with Christ in God. Sowing to the spirit is resting
all of your hope of eternal life, not on anything you do or do
not do. but on His finished work, what He has done, what He has
accomplished. It's looking to the death of Christ as all your
justification. It's looking to the blood of
Christ as all your righteousness. It's looking to His holiness,
not yours, because we don't have any. It's looking to His wisdom.
We put up our hands and say, Lord, I don't know anything.
You know everything. I don't know nothing. And the
older we get and the more we're on this journey, we find out
we know less and less and less than we thought we did. We learned
some things along the way, but it comes to things about God.
The more we learn about him, he doesn't get bigger. He's always
the same, but to our little brains, he gets bigger. You understand
what I'm saying? He's just magnificent. He continues to, you see yourself
as a sinner. If I see myself as really a sinner,
and you see what God had done on the cross, you'll never get
tired of that. It'll be, tell me again, that's
what that song was saying. How often I forget, tell me again.
And is it not true, he becomes more beautiful to you, the more
you desire him more, every day you long for him more. That's sowing to the spirit.
That's what that is. And who put that there? Did you? No. No, walking by the faith
of the Lord Jesus Christ, that's sowing to the spirit. That's
what it is. That's what it is. Look to Christ. Look to Christ.
Not drawing attention to self, but walking in his light. Walking
in his light. We're not in darkness anymore.
We're not children of darkness anymore. We are in his light. We look
to Christ in all things, continually begging for God's grace, continually
begging for His mercy. We're dependent, aren't we? Completely, 100% dependent for
Him in life and in eternity. If He doesn't do everything necessary,
we're doomed. But He did. He did do everything
necessary for our salvation and for our good. He promised. The
children of God are made to not work, but rest. They're made
to hope, they're made to believe, they're made to trust, not in
self, not in works. Scripture's clear on that, not
by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to
his mercy. His mercy, that's how he saved us. Sowing to the Spirit means that
Christ is your confession before men and before God. Before men
and before God. What's your hope of salvation?
Jesus Christ alone. His blood alone. Grace alone. There's none good, no not one.
O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body
of death? No flesh shall glory in his presence, but God who
is rich in mercy. There it is. That's the difference.
We're born in sin, shaping into iniquity. Not a single one of
us are any good when we come into this world. Somebody said,
there's a little good in everybody. No, there's not. There's good
in none but God. But the good news is when he
had by himself purged our sin, he sat down. See, he didn't confer
with flesh and blood. He didn't ask you and I opinion
or permission. He saved his people from their sin. This is the gospel
we preach. This is the hope that we have. We're not hoping in
something that we've done. We're not looking to the, uh,
in this situation here that getting appealing to the flesh, pleasing
the flat. No, that's not what we're doing
here. We come to hear of him alone. He is our confession.
He is our hope. He's our peace. He's our life.
Can you say he's your life? Yes, I could say that. He's my
life. Sowing to the flesh always points
to man. Sowing to the spirit always points
to Christ. That's a good way to put it.
Sowing to the flesh always points to me. Sowing to the spirit always
points to him. Sowing in the spirit points to
the Lord Jesus Christ alone. Always. His finished work alone.
Is that your hope? His finished work? Is this gospel
your hope? Where is there something you're
clinging to as any part of your salvation? Because if you're
clinging to anything as part of your salvation, you are not
saved. You're not. It's that simple.
If I'm clinging to anything as part of my salvation that I have
done, I'm not a believer. I don't know who God is. Why
do you think David spent so much time writing in the Psalms, Lord
created me a clean heart, oh God, renewing me a right spirit.
I'm all messed up. I need, give me, take out this
heart of stone and give me a heart of flesh. That's what he prayed.
Why did he keep praying that? What did he say over in Psalm
51, Lord, purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me
and I shall be made whiter than snow. Lord, you're gonna have
to do it all. And that's the dependency of the believer is
we know that God has to do it all. There's not one thing that
we do whereby we are saved. He did it all. If you're clinging to one thing
as any part of your salvation, you're sowing to the flesh, living
in the harlotry, as it's mentioned here in chapter seven. But thank
God, he said, they all shall be taught of me. My sheep hear
my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. We are made to
follow after Christ. We are made to follow after righteousness. We can't go back to the husks
of the hogs anymore. They don't satisfy. I think it
was me and Al were talking and we were talking about the false
gospel when you hear it. I think he said it, but it's
like hearing a symphony. an orchestra playing, but you
got somebody that's playing something totally wrong and it just ruins
the whole thing. It's like it sounds terrible. It's like it's
just something off about that. I said, I totally understand
that. That's how I feel too. Like nails on the chalkboard.
That's what it's like, isn't it? But all this gospel is sweet
and it's precious to the hearer, the Lord's people. We follow
Christ, not a doctrine, not a creed, not an ism. We follow Christ.
We follow Christ, not because we chose to, but because he said,
come to me. He said, receive thy sight. He
said, live. He's the doer of it. We don't follow man-made works
religion. God's people sow to the spirit. We look by looking
unto the Lord Jesus Christ. We follow him, we follow him. Let's pray. Father, we ask that
you would cause us to look to you, bless us to our understanding
for your glory in Christ's name, amen. Let's turn to hymn 12.