This is an encouragement to live godly in Christ Jesus in a strange land. In this message, I encourage the hearer to focus on the simple things God has commanded. Specifically, to "Build houses and dwell in them; plant gardens and eat their fruit.” (Jer 29). Jeremiah 29 is a letter to captives - to a people in exile. They had lost their homes, loved ones, and livelihoods. Many of these people were broke. How should they conduct themselves? What can we learn from them for how to conduct ourselves in times of tyranny?

Forge Ministries is pleased to welcome Scott Brown. Well it really is a joy to be here. My desire tonight is to help you rest in the Lord. And I've titled this message, Awake My Soul and Build, Dwell and Plant. That's it.

It's from Jeremiah 29. I'm really here with a desire to just encourage all of you in the very simple ways of the Lord. I'm here to say there's a way forward in the midst of all the craziness that's all around us and I'm really here with words of hope they're they're the words of God those are always words of hope so please open your Bibles to Jeremiah chapter 29 and find verse 4 and this This text forms the heart of everything I want to say. This is the inerrant, all-sufficient, holy Word of God. Jeremiah 29 verse 4.

Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all who are carried away captive, whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon. Build houses and dwell in them. Plant gardens and eat their fruit. Take wives and begat sons and daughters. And take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands so that they may bear sons and daughters that you may be increased there and not diminished and seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive.

And pray to the Lord for it. For in its peace, you will have peace. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, do not let your prophets and your diviners who are in your midst deceive you, nor listen to their dreams which you cause to be dreamed, for they prophesy falsely to you in my name. I have not sent them, says the Lord. Let's pray.

Father, we thank you for words of life. Thank you for showing us the path of life. Lord your words are pure and we so need them So I pray that you would help me and help all of these people here to hear your word tonight. Amen. So take this passage of Scripture as an encouragement from the Lord to be content to live a simple life in this world that God has put you in.

Over the last year and a half we've seen things in America we've never seen before They've been disturbing. We've seen the government seek to take over churches, take over our bodies, tell us what we have to inject into our bodies, taking over our travel and various things like that. And I know I felt that this way too that you know Christians have felt like they were living like strangers in a strange land seeing things that were just unthinkable. And so I bring this passage to you tonight. It's an encouragement to live godly in Christ Jesus in the midst of a strange land, a tyrannical land, which is the context of these words that were given by the Lord through Jeremiah.

You know, the apostle Paul spoke words like this and first Thessalonians four to that church and Thessalonica. And he said, We urge you, brethren, that you increase more and more. That you also aspire to lead a quiet life. To mind your own business and work with your own hands as we commanded you so that you may walk properly toward those who are outside that you may lack nothing so I don't know the state of your heart tonight but I really have one intention tonight. It's really the intention that all preaching is designed to do.

Preaching is actually designed to move people from one place to another. If you're anxious and you're not sure what to think or what to do I want to move you from there and I want to move you to this principle that's here before us. It really matters how you live. It matters how you live and God calls his children to live differently in a wicked and perverse generation. And if a person listens to the Lord and walks differently, he blesses them.

There's so many promises of Scripture for that. You know, a few years ago I opened up a file and I determined to write a book called Living Differently because I've seen the fruit in families that live differently, massive fruit that I've seen in people who live differently. And I realized that I was seeing things that I'd never seen before in my life as a Christian. And I started studying places in the Word of God where the term walk in his ways appears. And over and over again, dozens and dozens and dozens of times, The Lord promises to bless those who walk in his ways, not in the ways of the world.

Jeremiah says, do not learn the ways of the Gentiles. Don't live like the Gentiles live. In Psalm 146, it says that God will turn the Gentiles upside down. And that's what he's doing right now by the way. The upside down thinking is just legendary.

But there are divine orders for Christians to live differently in this world, to be a separate people. True Christians are different. They think differently, they act differently, they raise their children differently, they manage their marriages differently, they deal with their money differently, they understand manhood and womanhood differently than the rest of the culture. They engage in the church differently. They dress differently.

They live differently. That's because Christians have a way of living that comes from God, not from this world. That's why the Lord, through Moses in Deuteronomy 18 verse 7 he said, when you come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominations of those nations. Christians don't follow the nations and God has called his children to live differently. Now I've seen blessing fall upon families that live differently in this world.

They educate differently, and they raise their children differently, and they engage in entertainment differently, and sports differently. They actually went to church differently. And God bless their obedience. And I've been so delighted to see it over the years. Let me illustrate.

Over the last 10 years, I've performed lots of wedding ceremonies. Some of your kids, I was on the platform performing your wedding or played some some kind of a part in your wedding or your children's weddings. These are churches, these are kids that grew up around the things that we've been teaching for two decades and they've been raised differently. They were weird. By the way, if you're going to obey Jesus Christ, you will be weird.

And so that's what happened. But what's been very interesting is what's happened to these kids that grew up in families that live differently. And it really hit me just the other day. I was in the middle of doing a wedding of a couple in my church, a young couple in my church, and I was looking at them and I realized you've probably heard me preach 500 sermons. I thought you've probably been to 30 of my conferences since you were a kid, since you were three and a half feet tall.

And here you are. And you want to live godly in Christ Jesus. And you honor your father and mother all the way up to the wedding altar. And you understood your place in the family as an obedient child. And your parents, a long time ago, decided they weren't going to walk in the ways of the world.

They were going to stop educating their children in the ways of the world. They were going to stop living like the nations, because they saw where the nations were going and it terrified them and they snapped and they changed. They changed everything about their life and so these kids, they grew up. They grew up differently and now you know these kids, at least the ones that I've been marrying, they're having children in platoons. It's astounding to me.

They're filling the earth. Well, that's what their parents wanted to do. You remember 15, 20 years ago when people realized that God said, be fruitful and multiply? And thousands went and got their vasectomies reversed. Remember that?

Hey that just happened in my church last week. I thought that was all over but it's not all over. Now what's interesting too I've noticed here is that you know 20 years ago your children were three feet tall and now they're with their children who are three feet tall and I've seen grandparents around here chasing their grandkids around this room. You know the Lord's really blessed you. The Lord blesses his people when they decide not to live the ways of the Gentiles.

When you live differently things turn out differently. I'm not here to say things turn out perfectly everybody knows that. I'm not saying that it deprives you of any hardship with their children or anything like that but I am here to say I'm here to affirm with God if you walk with God and not according to the ways of the Gentiles. It will be different. It will be different for you.

And you know I've been running around here trying to preach the biblical order, returning to the biblical order of the church and returning to biblical order in the family for about 25 years and I'm seeing fruit like I've never seen before. In my church we're not losing the next generation. The next generation is being lost in almost every evangelical church in America. It's not happening nearly to the degree in churches that have really desired to obey the Word of God in every detail in their church. It makes a very big difference and you see it in the kids.

You know what? In my church it's so funny. Our church is crawling with 20 year olds who went out and bought houses when they were 18 Because they didn't waste their youth. Because they worked with their fathers. And they had a real family.

And their family was governed by the word of God. And not by the Gentiles. Nobody did it perfectly. We did. Deborah and I did not do it perfectly for sure.

But here's what I want to say. God always blesses his ways. God blesses his ways because they're his ways. In Psalm 81 verse 13 the Lord says, Oh that my people would listen to me that Israel would walk in my ways. So this section of scripture that I've just quoted in Jeremiah 29, it's a letter to captives, captives, exiles.

This is a chapter that's written to a people that had experienced enormous trouble in their lives. They had been deported to Babylon 900 miles away from their home. Their cities were burned, Their families were killed. Probably 14, 000 of them had been deported to Babylon. You know the story of Daniel in Babylon.

Their properties were confiscated. Their best young men, like Daniel, were castrated and put into the king's court and there was no temple, their king's eyes had been gouged out. But you know, they were allowed to live in proximity to one another in Babylon. Most of them lived on the Kebar River and they were allowed to farm and some of them became wealthy and Some of the captives ended up like high officials, like Daniel, who was nearly running the country. But they were still under the thumb of Nebuchadnezzar, one of the great totalitarian rulers in all of history.

He was a tyrant. He told them they could only eat certain foods. Daniel said, not me. I'm the governor of my body, not Nebuchadnezzar. And Nebuchadnezzar capitulated.

We also know that they had a tendency to be discouraged by the waters of Babylon. Psalm 137 records it. By the waters of Babylon there we sat down and we wept when we remembered Zion. They remembered their houses, they remembered their families, and they wept for what they lost in Israel. And so Jeremiah writes this letter to these captives.

They lost their families and their homes and their livelihoods and there they were. Now look at verse 4. It was a powerful letter. It was from the Lord of hosts. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all who are carried away captive and get this whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon.

It was God who did it. God is the one who rules and reigns over all deportations, all tyrannical actions, all natural disasters, everything. It's God who is doing these things. Hasn't it been interesting that the entire world has embraced the same propositions? Has that ever happened in your life?

No. I don't believe it's ever happened in world history and it's happening right before your eyes. Here's what you need to know. Almighty God the King of Kings the Lord of Lords is on the move he's doing it that's what this means thus says the Lord of hosts whom I have carried you to Babylon. You know that term, Lord of Hosts, it's one of the most encouraging phrases in the entire Bible.

It means that God is the Lord of the armies of heaven and he does whatever he wishes with the armies of heaven because he is the ruler of the kings of the earth and nothing can hold back his hand and Right here it's described how he keeps you. By his name. The Lord of hosts is his name. What does his name represent? Well, the same thing your name represents.

It represents who you are. The name of the Lord represents everything of his might, of his love, of his power, of his character. That's how he keeps his people, by his name. He will keep you according to the wisdom and glory of his name. And he's keeping you now according to his name.

There's nothing out of control in this world. Now, let's talk about how to interpret this passage for a second. First of all, the context of this passage of course is a record of the captives being carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon. Jeremiah has just given us 28 chapters describing why God carried his people away to Babylon. And they were engaging in specific sins.

And Jeremiah throughout the book is exposing the wisdom of God and the wrath of God against his people. They wanted to become like the nations. That was the problem. They wanted to walk in the ways of the Gentiles. They wanted to look like everybody else looked and they had adopted the lifestyles of the world and Jeremiah is attacking that secretistic spirit and especially he's going after the prophets who led them that way to compromise.

You know one of the One of the most remarkable things about this is that God was also judging them because they hadn't kept the Sabbath for 490 years. And so the Lord in His kindness didn't punish them according to 490 years. The Lord got out his divine calculator and he divided it by seven. And so he gave them 70 years. Of judgment in captivity, not 490.

And so they were sent into 70 years of captivity three generations into Babylon because they wanted to be like the nations and they really didn't take God seriously. They were shrugging their shoulders. Now these things, I think we should be very clear about this, these things were not written explicitly to us. They were written to the captives, but they were written for us as an example. 1 Corinthians 10 says this very clearly, Now these things became our examples, so that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted and became idolaters as some of them became.

So these things were written for an example and what Jeremiah is saying here in this passage in the 29th chapter, he's saying don't waste your exile by pining away. Don't waste your exile. Live differently. Don't get caught up in distractions. Do the simple things.

Do the powerful things. Don't be paralyzed by the tyrants. Don't be frustrated by the tyrants. Be a blessing. Be a blessing.

You know, over the last few months. I've been so thankful. To watch the people in our church and wait for us. I haven't been able to find anybody who's afraid in my church. I was having breakfast with one of our deacons a few weeks ago and I said, hey how do we care for these people?

I said I can't find anybody who's afraid. I said is that am I seeing this right? You know people don't tell pastors everything going on right? So he said it's true. He said I can't either.

I said why? He said these people really believe that God is sovereign. These people really believe that God has appointed a day for them to die and they're not going to die until that day. So Jeremiah is here to say, look, don't get discouraged, don't retreat, don't withdraw from society, don't withdraw from the economy, don't withdraw from people, don't be insecure, but he's also saying this is going to last a long time. The false prophets were saying oh this is going to end.

We're going to flatten the curve in two weeks. That's what the false prophets were saying. And Jeremiah is saying don't listen to the false prophets. Jeremiah is saying, you're going to be here for three generations under this tyrannical rule. The Lord, I think, the Lord Jesus told his disciples something very similar to what Jeremiah is telling the captives.

He said, I do not pray that you should take them out of the world, but that you should keep them from the evil one. That they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. So God appointed Jeremiah to encourage the captives who were attempted to fall into despair because of what they saw around them. By the way, the tyrants around us are like fleas compared to Nebuchadnezzar. And by the way, all tyrants are fleas.

That's a whole other subject. I wish I could develop it. So what Jeremiah does is he gives them ten directions for living in exile. I'm going to name them one by one and all of them contain principles for us today. I pray that you'll take them into your soul, consider them carefully, meditate on them, ask the Lord how you might be encouraged by them or deployed by them.

I'm going to identify ten directions for those in exile. First, build houses and dwell in them. That's verse five. Build houses and dwell in them. The term dwell is a very common word in the Bible.

It means to settle, establish, Remain. It means to stay. It means to tarry. In other words, don't get ants in your pants. Stay where God has planted you.

Build. Build houses. Build. Build houses. Get the raw materials together.

Don't lay around discouraged about everything. Get up and build. Rise up and build. Awake my soul and build. I think this conference is called Awake My Soul.

Put down roots. You know, frankly, there's nothing wrong with moving, but every time you move, it puts you back about five years. Secure your home. Build your homes. Get out the plans with your wife and your kids, and build a house, and dwell in it.

You know, it's very interesting if you've read the Puritans you know they had an average of about 10 kids and they lived in houses that what we call our tiny homes. They raised ten kids in a tiny home. Oh not us, we could never be happy doing such a thing. Make a home. Create home life.

Build the culture of a home. Make your home a little piece of heaven. Secure your borders. Strengthen the jurisdiction of your family. God has given you a home and a family as one of the greatest tools for blessing in the world.

God has established various jurisdictions. One of them is the jurisdiction of the family. In all the jurisdictions God has established boundaries and duties of that jurisdiction. And now more than ever the Lord would have you secure your jurisdiction and protect that jurisdiction. There are things the state is given to do in their jurisdiction and there are things that the church has given to do in their jurisdiction and there are things that the family has given to do in their jurisdiction.

Now is the time for believers to rise up and secure their jurisdictions. When a government steps out of its lane, its jurisdictional lane, my view is you don't have to obey them. They've stepped out of their jurisdiction. Here's an illustration. If your pastor tells you to eat peanut butter jelly sandwiches on Wednesdays, you don't have to obey him.

He stepped out of his lane. He does have authority in the church, but his authority has been defined and limited. And right now we have a government that is encroaching on the jurisdiction of the family and the individual as well like never before. God in his word has given every individual personal jurisdiction over the health of their body. I can quote a number of passages of scripture that prove that we don't have time for that tonight but God has given you exclusive jurisdiction over your body and no government can force you to put a chemical in your body they've stepped out of their Lane I want to encourage every believer whether they believe these chemicals are harmful or not, to rise up and say, you've stepped out of your lane.

You have no authority over what chemicals I put in my body. Set aside all medical questions, and there are many. The question is a jurisdictional question and here's why we should focus on that. There's something else around the corner and it's a jurisdictional matter. The state is already encroached in the jurisdiction of the church and told the church they had to shut down.

They told the church that people had to act like fools and stay six feet away from each other, which Christians really aren't capable of doing. I mean the Bible tells us to greet one another with a holy kiss. What do you want us to do? Secure the jurisdiction. Teach your children when you sit in the house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.

Fill your home with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Fill them up with the sense of the greatness of God. Show them how kind, how merciful, how loving, how powerful, how good, how superior Jesus Christ is. You know, there are probably two reasons I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God and that God created everything that there is. And the first is when you look at this world, Only a moron would say it just happened by chance.

I can't believe that. I just cannot believe that. Ever had a microscope? Ever had an electron microscope? Ever had just regular eyeballs?

I'm telling you, this world is so massively beautiful and complex, it just doesn't happen. There has to be a designer. Secondly, you know I've been around long enough, I've been walking on this world long enough to believe something unshakable. And that is that when the devil gets a hold of your life, he will wreck you. He will wreck you.

Emotionally, relationally, physically, he will wreck you. He's a stinking lousy snake. Those are the two reasons I believe. I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He came to forgive sinners of their sins.

Are you a thief? Jesus Christ is coming to call you to repentance and refreshment to never steal again. Are you an adulterer? Are you a murderer? Do you hate in your heart?

Jesus Christ is saying come to me. Come to me. I'll forgive your sins. I'll change your life and I'll show you my ways. It's such a blessing to have the ways of God.

So the first is build and dwell. The second thing that Jeremiah urges them to do is plant gardens and eat their fruit. Now he's focusing on provision by taking dominion over the land that God has given you. That's what Christians do. They take dominion and they improve everything their hands touch.

You move into a house, you improve. That's what a Christian does. They can't help themselves. They want to glorify God with everything that they've been given And they beautify everything. Multiply your wealth.

Be self-sustaining. David in Psalm 128 said, When you eat the labor of your hands, you shall be happy, and it shall be well with you, and your wife shall be like a fruitful vine. In the very heart of your house, your children will be like olive plants all around your table. Behold, thus shall the man of God be blessed. Third, verse six, take wives and beget sons and daughters.

Don't miss this. This command is directed to single men. Take wives, go find a wife, and go have babies. It's not very complex. Not very complex.

One of the greatest barriers for men not getting married is their maturity. They've been playing games, They've been wasting their life on entertainment. They're not producing anything of value. That's one thing that makes me so encouraged about the young men in my church. You know all the kids that used to be three feet tall, you know they're 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 and they're tithing.

They have something to give. They're not just taking and it's because they live differently. Their parents, hey their parents live differently. They took it on the chin. They really did.

They took it on the chin in their communities. Be fruitful and multiply forth. This one is directed to parents. Parents, take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands. It's a command of God.

Why? You see the verse, verse 5, that you may be increased there and not diminished. Parents have a distinctive role to play in the marriages of their sons and daughters. They should take that role. They must be involved by God's command and children need to be raised with marriages in mind so that they understand how to glorify God, how to love one another.

This world is not going to teach you how to love. They only teach you how to lust and think about yourself. But God teaches you how to love. And by the way love isn't first of all what you feel, it's what you do. Love is patient.

Love is kind. And so forth in 1st Corinthians 13. And so you have this matter of increasing and multiplying, not diminished, not few in number. Now Christians should have a sense of optimism about having children. All around you people are saying, oh I don't know, I don't know if I want to bring children into this world.

Here's what you should say, I'm gonna bring in as many as I can and I'm gonna bring them up in the training and the admonition of the Lord and I'm gonna teach them about the glory of God. I'm going to teach them how to work. I'm going to teach them how to build. I'm going to teach them how to dwell. I'm going to teach them how to plant.

They're going to buy tractors. They're going to start construction companies and they're going to do all kinds of really awesome things. There you go. We know how to live. Now don't forget, these people are going to die in exile.

The ones that read this letter from Jeremiah, they're going to die in exile. Their children and children's children are going to be left behind. This has to do with having a long view. This has to do with having a multi-generational understanding of life. God gave you a life not just for your life but for the generation after you and that generation after it and that generation after it.

This is a Multi-generational view of life. This world only thinks about itself. Me, myself and I. And the exiles need to remember this. Fifth.

The fifth thing Jeremiah instructs them to do is to seek the peace of the city verse 7 and seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive that word peace is the iconic Hebrew word Shalom and it means peace from the top of your head down to the bottom of your feet. Comprehensive peace. Peace in every area. In other words, there's no reason to cower, there's no reason to be angry, there's no reason to fret. Live the dream, live the dream of the kingdom of God in your society.

Do the things that God commanded you to do. Be ordinary. Be productive. Build families. Love the people around you.

Put down roots. Sixth. The last part of verse seven. Pray for the city. And pray for the city and pray to the Lord for it, for in its peace you will have peace.

You know one of the most important parts of this is to pray for your enemies. That's often difficult, isn't it? How do you pray for tyrants? Well, God's people are actually commanded to pray for tyrants. The Lord Jesus said, You've heard that it was said you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy but I say to you love your enemies bless those who curse you do good to those who hate you and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you that you may be sons of your Father in heaven for he makes his son to rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust for if you love those who love you what reward have you Do not even the tax collectors do the same?

And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? Therefore, you shall be perfect just as your Father in heaven is perfect." You know, tyrannical kings need prayer. First Timothy two, verses one through four makes that very clear. I exhort, first of all, that all supplications, prayers and intercessions and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we might lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence.

7. Don't listen to the false teachers. Verse 8. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are in your midst deceive you, nor listen to your dreams which you cause to be dreamed, for they prophesy falsely to you in my name. I have not sent them, says the Lord." False teachers are always pandering to people and they always say peace, peace when there's really no peace.

False teachers tell you what you want to hear and that's what Jeremiah is warning against. Isaiah talked about these people in chapter 30 verse 10. He said they speak to us smooth things. They prophesy deceits. Number eight.

This will be a long season. Verse 10, for thus says the Lord, after 70 years are completed at Babylon. In other words, you're not going to be raptured out of the tyrant's hands. You're going to stay there for three generations. And don't feed yourself a diet of dissatisfaction.

I mean think about three generations, that's 70 years. If we were being told the same thing that would mean we would be in captivity till 2090. Fasten your seatbelt. Nobody knows how long this is gonna last. It may last your whole lifetime in God's Providence, in God's wisdom, it may last your entire lifetime.

But the thing about the church is that you can't keep the church down. It was so funny to me when the Canadian government put a fence around Grace life church in Canada. That was the funniest thing I'd ever seen. They actually thought they could hold the church back by putting a chain-link fence around the church. That's crazy.

You can't stamp out the church. It's impossible. No matter what you do. Take away our buildings. We'll find a way.

Ninth. God will work among you. God will work among you. Verse 10. I will visit you and perform my good word toward you and cause you return to this place.

God is always at work among his people. He gives strength. He gives grace to the humble. He sustains those who trust in him. He blesses those who walk in his ways.

Nothing can separate you from the love of God. Nothing. No tyrant, no prison, no nothing. Kevin Swanson was telling a story about Richard Wernbrandt in prison back in the days of the Soviet Union and he said that they the Christians in prison had a deal with the guards. And here's the deal.

We preach and then you beat us. We preach and then you beat us. There's the deal. And he told the story of one man who was preaching. He was dragged out.

He was beaten brutally. And he was brought back in, fell down on the floor in agony, and he pulled himself up as far as he could and he looked around and he said, Now where did I leave off? You cannot hold down the true church. It is not going to happen. God is going to work.

God is going to give you strength. God is going to give you words. Number 10. God's plans are good plans. Verse 11, for I know the thoughts that I think toward you says the Lord.

Thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you a future and a hope. Those are God's plans. God does cause all things to work together for good for those who are the called according to his purpose. By the way, He doesn't work things out very good for the unbelievers. He turns the world upside down.

And he and he destroys them, but not God's people. He cares for his people. They're carried on Eagle's wings. They're protected under the shadow of his wings. He puts his hand on their head.

He hems them in behind him before. They cannot go anywhere away from his spirit. His sustaining spirit of love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control and nothing can separate you from that. Praise the Lord. Well these are promises made to captives.

These are timeless principles that apply to all of us. Live differently. Don't walk according to the ways of the Gentiles. Don't have churches that look like the world. You know when people walk into your church you don't want them to feel at home.

You want them to think I'm not home here. This is a holy place. This is a place where God is. God's Word is here. Word is here.

Well, Jeremiah gives ten directions for living in exile. I'll repeat them one last time. Build houses and dwell in them. Second, plant gardens and eat their fruit. Third, young men take wives and beget sons and daughters.

Verse 6. Fourth, parents take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands fifth seek the peace of the city sixth pray for the city seventh don't listen to the false teachers eight this will be a long season night God will work among you tenth God's plans are good plans. So live differently. Get your wife at the table and plan it all out. Get your kids, show them the ways of the Lord.

Dream of how your home ought to be. Fill it with the word of God. Live simply under the wonderful commands of God. And let the blessings flow. And live a simple life of building and dwelling and planting and having children and raising families for many generations.

Thus saith the Lord. Would you pray with me? Father we're just so thankful that you've shown us the ways of life. You're so good. We're so happy to live under the shadow of your wings.

Where nothing can hold back your hand. All these things are for your glory and we praise you in this place now in Jesus name. Amen. If you'd like more information about Forge Ministries, including information about our upcoming events, please visit us online at forgeministries.org.