In the sermon titled 'It Is Time To Seek The Lord,' Larry Lafferty expounds on Hosea 10:12, urging believers to reflect on their spiritual state. He discusses the sin and responsibility of Israel for their predicament, drawing parallels to the current state of the nation and churches. Lafferty emphasizes the need for self-examination and repentance, symbolized by 'breaking up fallow ground,' to prepare for spiritual renewal. He underscores the importance of actively seeking the Lord through prayer and engagement with the Word of God, encouraging believers not to be complacent in their faith. The sermon further highlights the story of Nicodemus as an example of moving from religious observance to true faith and transformation. Lafferty calls for a return to righteousness and readiness for divine intervention, urging the congregation to anticipate spiritual revival.

We appreciate you. Thank you, brother. If you have your Bibles, we'd ask you to turn to Hosea. Hosea chapter number 10. We're going to begin our reading in verse 9.

Hosea chapter 10. As you're turning there, I thank the church for the opportunity to be here today. We thank you for the hotel room. It was very welcomed last night after that long trip. I know the effort and expense it takes to put something like this on, and I appreciate it very much.

Hosea chapter 10 and we're going to begin reading in verse 9. Hosea chapter 10, beginning in verse 9, the Bible says, Oh Israel, Thou hast sinned from the days of Geviah. There they stood, the battle in Geviah against the children of iniquity did not overtake them. It is my desire that I should chastise them, and the people shall be gathered against them, and they shall bind themselves in their two furrows. And Ephraim is as a heifer that is taut, and loveth to tread out the corn.

But I passed upon her fair neck, I will make Ephraim to ride, Judah shall plow, and Jacob shall break the clods. So in yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy, break up your fellow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord. Your Lord we thank you and we praise you for this book. How time and time again is a living word. It comes to us in the night.

It comes to us in our times of trouble and it encourages us in the Lord. God, we thank you this morning, this evening for your goodness and watch care. We pray that you would bless the hearts of the hearers with your word and we'd be faithful to give you the praise and the glory and the honor for them all, for it is in Christ's name that we do pray. Amen. Now I'll be preaching from really the 12th verse And the title, it is time to seek the Lord.

Now we live in no news blast to this group, but listen, we are in the worst situation as a nation that we've ever known it. It is the it's a very despairing day to live. It is on every, on every every possible place there's trouble to be seen. There's difficulty ahead. And with that you wonder, you know, why don't you come Lord?

Well I can tell you and I'm not a very smart man, it's because it's not time yet. You know when He'll come? When He's ready to come. You know what he said in the Gospel of Luke, occupy until I come. And that is what we are to do.

We are to hold the land and hold the mark while we're waiting on the Lord Jesus Christ. But have you ever thought about your contribution to the Mass, where he is? See, a lot of people don't like to think about it that way, do they? But I think we all have contributed something, don't you? And so the Lord through Hosea kind of points to that end in this short passage here that Israel was where they were at because of Israel.

Right. Right? That's right. It wasn't because of anybody else, it was because of themselves. And here in the United States, and even deeper than that, we don't want to get on toes, our churches are in the situation they are in because of us.

Right? What makes up churches? Windows and doors? No. People.

That's what makes churches. And so we live in this very, very strange drain, and we see that Hosea really gets down to the point where we could be corrected, where there is hope. Verse 9, again, O Israel, thou hast sinned from the days of Gabea. In other words, almost from the very start, there has been sin in Israel. Now, since this flesh is not defeated in salvation, you know what?

There's still sin here, too. I deal with it every day, and you'd be lying to me if you didn't say the same. True. Right? Amen.

And because of that, that nature that still dwells within us, then we as the Lord's people, we could find ourselves in the same situation. They were defeated there. They were put at bay. And the tenth verse, it is my desire that I should chastise them. Now this is the part of God no one wants to hear about.

In 2023 the part that says, I'm righteous and I'm going to judge you. Not real popular preaching, is it? But it is what the Bible says. Israel got, in fact, it says, I'm going to take pleasure in doing it. What does that mean?

No, you know, you don't give me amens on that one, but that's exactly what the Bible teaches. Israel had done this to themselves. They refused to follow the God of the Bible. Here we arrive and it's His desire to chastise them. And the people shall be gathered against them, and they shall bind themselves in two furrows.

Now, as an aside, I just want you to see, and the more I've been studying the Bible more recently, the more I see, God always works by means. Always. Always. Yes. You know, when Korah and that bunch got up against Moses, what happened?

Earth opened her mouth and swelled the whole pile. You know what the earth is? It's used by God. He always has done it that way. And so here we find again, they were going to be face to face, furrow to furrow, in battle once more.

Verse 11, an Ephraim is a heifer that is talked. That means a broken cow. A heifer is a female calf. And you usually can milk a heifer, usually. And depends on if she's had her baby yet or not.

And that in a way is compliment. That means that Ephraim was gentle. Do You think we live in a gentle nation today? Absolutely not. You know I give up on being amazed a long time ago.

I know there's something else that comes up. Right? Right. But you know how we arrived at this place? Because of the church.

We will not say no. Yeah. Right? You know, where is it that we began to take our part of the responsibility. You know, we wouldn't be going, damn, damn, damn, what about us, us, us?

You know, looking around our sovereign grace churches in 2023, earlier The building was full, was more full, and then they must have seen that I was the next speaker. But you know what I'm saying? Think about how many churches came together to fill up this little building. And it's not just here in southern Georgia, it's across the whole United States. Yeah, that's right.

My home church in New Testament, routine Sunday, about 15. Yeah. How are we gonna blame? Man, it's just the day that we live. Show me that in the Bible.

Right. Right? In fact, there's a lot about a great deal about a second harvest. And so we see then that the situation that they found themselves in, they brought upon themselves. And so just in the modern day, in the nation of Israel, all down their line, it was so in the modern day, a lot of what we deal with in New Testament Baptist churches is what we've brought on ourselves.

Amen. And then we stretch our head and wonder. Yeah. Right? And so we see then that The Lord is saying, I'm going to judge you.

He calls Ephraim a heifer and loveth to tread out the corn. Now we're getting into some farming terminology. It's a little bit above my level, but he is fixing to assign jobs. And say, Ephraim's gonna do this, this one's gonna do that, and this one's gonna do this. Now, we don't have fields like y'all do here in Georgia back home.

If you, the fields are very small, We're hill country. Biggest cash crop is tobacco and that's why because the the fields are so small and anybody in here ever seen tobacco raised? All right. Now I was never quick enough to ride the sitter. You know what a tobacco sitter is?

I would miss some so I wasn't allowed to do it. So you know what I got to do? I got to go behind the sitter and get the ones that people missed. And that's the worst job of planting into the bicarb field is going by. And you know, you would know your brother was doing some of it on purpose.

And just so that you would have to go out there and do it. And so we see that that's kind of the type of situation, dividing the jobs and saying, you're going to do this, you're going to do this. And at the very end, he says, I will make Ephraim the rod, Judas shall plow, and Jacob shall break his cloths." Now notice that the one is born to plow, and that's a big job, but breaking the cloths. I don't know, we raise a garden, we don't have a big, we don't raise a cash crop. But we do raise a garden.

And there's always some of those little cloths that just will not break up. And you always have the youngest child, right? Young lady looking at me. And That's usually their job to go back and sit with the ones that you asked. That was his job.

How do you get down to that point? More than that, are you're too good to do it. You know, when I had to ride the setter, after not getting to ride the setter, and going back and thinking, everything that people had missed, I wanted those survival plants to do the very best, right? Because they were mine. And so here we are in this unbelievable situation And I want whatever's left to be the very best, don't you?

I know your dear pastor wants sovereign grace Baptist church to flourish. Right? Are you behind him in that? You know what? New Testament is small.

It could very much be like a little clog of dirt. Especially if you compare it to churches that are not real. There's a boy that, he and I graduated high school, he was more wicked than me if that was possible. And now he's a Pentecostal preacher. And man, it sounds like a rock concert from the 80s in that mass you know what is big his their building and I'm not making this up as big as a Walmart and you know why?

Because that's what people want to hear. That's what they want to hear. And so we see then, we're in the situation today where our churches, the Lord's churches, we always acquit to claim that, right? The Lord's churches are standing. Right?

The Lord inspired Hosea in verse 12, one that will get us all. The instruction is this, sow to yourselves in righteousness. The previous verses, he already touched on this, but if you're going to grow a decent garden, what has to come before you plant? You've got to prepare a little soil, right? That's necessary.

It's a thing that comes before it. And so he directs them then, now you need to sow. You need to put it out there. Listen, I love the doctrines of grace, but don't ever let them stagnate you in preaching the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Get on a street corner somewhere.

Proclaim the name of Christ. That's not outside the propensity of spreading the gospel. Me and I can't remember which brother was talking, the differences between us, I think it was Pruitt, maybe the old regular batch. No, it would be you. And you know what, You know what really made the difference there?

Missions. Right. If you look at their statement of faith, it's not that much different than ours. So when did we become them? Right.

Right? And so he makes this statement here. He says, you be prepared, you get ready, and so to yourselves in righteousness. Reap in mercy. You know, when I was a kid, I've done a lot of things that I regret.

And you young people, and most of you young people here, I know you well enough that you've been raised well. I'll give you a plus about the wild oats. You have to harvest it. True. Yeah.

Just keep that in the back of your mind. And so we see, very same thing here, we need to be sowing something, sow to righteousness. You know what? You can't live like a dog and look like the world and sow in righteousness. It's impossibility.

Right? Do we follow the word of God or do we go with the ideas of man? So do yourselves in righteousness reap in mercy break up your fallow ground. Now what is fallow ground? It's on your youth ground.

Now, your new pastor was up with us several months ago now, probably been close to a year ago now, and he will tell you The land in Stewart County is just like this. Just steep and two rivers run through the county. So that's one reason it's steep. And if you go about this far down, you're going to hit my off-step. That's the way Stewart County is.

So in my little place, and I don't think that brother Greenback had to come with me, I had to give him a lesson in Civil War technology while he was there, but our place There is five acres that's usable, or that I would say is usable, and it's on the creek. And it's as flat as this, and the rest of it's like this. That would be my saddle ground. Right? Now everybody back home, they all think this is ridiculous.

If you come out, I'll show you. We cut our hill away to have a place to put our house. Because back home, you don't waste flat land to put your house on. Because It's valuable. And so we cut out the side of the hill and put our double line up there and down the front is just like this and all the rest of our land.

You know, if a farmer came by, somebody from the Ag office came by and said, that's useless. And most people would agree. You know what they're saying about you they're saying you're useless break up your fellow There's every one of us in here that has some kind of skill that can honor and glorify the Lord. Break up your Bible around. Amen.

True. There's something that we can do. And you know, Me and the brothers were talking about that. We were talking about how much we hated math. And I had one math class I enjoyed in school.

And that's because it was specifically made for nursing. And I made 100 on every test. Best night's pass I ever had in my life. But you know what? It was because it was useful to me.

Yeah. It made sense. I get, I take this drug, I mix it with this much saline, and I know I need to get this much of a drip rate to get you the dosha. You know, it all makes sense to me. You see what I'm saying?

It's useful. And we live in a day and age today where we're told the old ways are not good enough. We're told that that book is outdated. Break up the foul ground. I don't care what the oldest person in here, and I don't know who it would even be, the oldest person under the sound of my voice, you have something left to give.

And I believe if you didn't, you know where you would be? You'd be defeated Jesus. Right? That's when I believe death will come. And so we see as the Lord's people, I want you to ask yourself, what is your fellow ground?

What part are you not using? And use it. Now, back to the place back home. There's a lot of my land if you peeled, at least in Maynton, as soon as we got a good rain, it's gone. But you know what?

I know the master of the wind and if he says do it do it pretty good brother y'all want to start a sovereign Greece Baptist Church San Francisco San Francisco? Well do what God tells you to. Amen. Bill and Nick's the biggest gay boy out there. Right?

See, we've got way too used to say we can't. Right. Have we not? Yeah. Break up your thotlground.

Amen. Break up the park that's not been used in a long time. And I will guarantee you by the works of the Lord, He'll bless it. So now that we've got the foul ground, the unused part usable, it's being worked again, he says for it is time to seek the Lord. Now This is another one of those iffy things with sovereign grace churches.

I had sovereign grace preachers tell me, and I said, you know, God's people really need revival. And that's true. Yes, it is. And he said, well, we have revival every weekend. And I want to say to you, you're selling so bad at this church.

And I want to say you don't even know about revival. Because If you had it all the time, you would know what a commodity it really is. I would dare say I'm 55 years old, or soon will be, that never in my lifetime have I seen a genuine revival? And those of you that might have a few years on me, you might have, but I'd say they're few and far between. Right?

And we need that in the modern day. We need that. What do you do to seek the Lord? It told us to seek you the Lord, right? So how do you do that?

Yeah. I don't think God's ever asked us something to do something that couldn't be used. Right. Who says seek the Lord? Get your valid ground broke up and now seek the Lord.

Prayer, the Word of God, the food that is preaching. There's lots of ways to seek the Lord. And you know, a lot of times, you know, we as sovereign graces, well God just wasn't in it. You know what this is? It's an excuse for laziness.

Yes. It's an excuse for laziness. Amen. And so we see then that the Lord would have us to pray over this situation for it is time to seek the Lord till he come and reign righteousness upon you now the end result is what he desired you keep praying He'll be rain sound righteousness You know what that could be a long You know what you know what modern-day what we want? That way, quicker if we can get it, right?

Another day, and I caught myself in the plan, what are you doing? Don and kids is going somewhere. I was just running through the house looking for something to eat. And there was nothing to eat, and I should have grabbed something. I was just running to the store.

I'm like, what are you doing? You got a refrigerator full of food, and you're going to go up to the store to get a sandwich? You know why? It wasn't instantaneous. I didn't want to wait.

Now that having the having the fortitude to admit that is one thing right? But what about when it comes to things of God what do we unanimously do if we pray for something and it's not I don't say we get what we want but at least it's not impacted by the Lord well it just wasn't his will. Right? That's what we do. When here it says to keep praying.

Amen. And to keep praying. Yes. And to keep praying some more. Amen.

And you know what? There's no point of getting off. And so you can ask yourself, and only you can answer it, is your Father Brown broke up, and if your Father Brown is broken up, are you in a time of prayer and are you anticipating at the very moment that he's going to rain down righteousness? You know, people, and I don't have an issue with rain. Obviously, I'm not gonna mail.

Right? And, but now, the women I work with there at the nursing home, you come in and you can see, if their columns are raining at all, you go in and there's like nine umbrellas stuck in front of the door. Well, must be a predicted rain for the day. You know what? In a way that's good, they were anticipatory.

Yeah, right. Or you. You ever go out on a Monday morning ready for work and see a little cloud going by, I wonder if that's the one. That's being anticipatory, right? We all think, oh, it's going to be this, it's going to be that.

You know what? There is, I fully believe this, you know, when the Lord shall return, I believe it'll be this, when the last people have to say, we're going to the home program. But I don't know, I mean, the elects are not, they don't have a big E in their foreheads, so we just gotta keep looking, all right? And so, what do you do in anticipation? Is your crop going to be raised?

Now I want to read very quickly, and I'm sorry I did not look at it when I started, but this won't take us long. Very familiar verses of scripture, the Gospel of John chapter 3. We read of a religious man named Nicodemus. I think he did become a believer. I don't think it's recorded in the third chapter that we're going to read just a bit from in a minute.

But I do want you to see that what the Lord said to Nicodemus, not to Matthew, speak. What we find really in the recording of Nicodemus is this, is that religion will not help you. And you remember Lydia, the seller of purple? What did she say? She said two things about Lydia.

One, that she worshiped the bone lady. Because you know what? I believe Lydia was lost, just a goose in a hell storm and she talked to Jesus. Religion will take you alive in that world. Now I love being a sovereign gracer, I love being a Baptist.

But that's not going to get me to glory. Right. I've been born again. That's the only thing, right? Right.

So Lydia had all that religion. But then right there in the middle, at 16, I think it's 16, he says, who's hard? The Lord of the story of media, and I'm just leaving it there. Because the question's up to Christ. Right?

And so we find that the religious Nicodemus approaches Christ. In the first verse of chapter 3, there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. The same came to Jesus by night and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God, for no man can do the miracles that thou doest except God be with him." Now, I want you to assume that what brought Nicodemus to this situation was not his interest in his destiny of his soul. True. What got him there was, and this may be hidden people, probably a little bit too, you know what?

There were a few down at the synagogue last Saturday, and I want to know where they're at. That was the situation that we're in. And so, certainly Nicodemus did not come seeking Christ. He did not come looking for the person of the very living Son of God. Verse 3, and Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, or truly, truly I say unto thee, accept a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Now a lot of people will leave it there. Now, you know, this is the thing, it's one of the Armenians' favorite, favorite texts, but they don't even follow their own text. What did you do to contribute to your natural birth? Zero. I didn't say mother, daddy, if it works out for y'all, December 19th is looking pretty good to me.

Right? I had nothing to contribute. I had the same way with being born again. That's why this shook on the edemis to the core. You know what, if all you have in the here this evening is religion, you'll die and go to hell too.

Amen. Do you know Christ? Yes. That's the only answer, that's the only question, and listen, I've talked to some old, old people. I've worked with the elderly all my professional life.

In fact, when I was a 17-year-old boy, I knew a man who was 110 then. He was the son of free slaves. And you know what? Come down to this. You know Jesus.

You know, Pappy, it's what everybody called him. I don't even know what his real name was. We called him Pappy. You know what? He couldn't even read and write that he professed Christ.

You know what I mean? So we see again, the question really comes down to this. Are you religious or are you saved? Because to save people, have the humbleness to admit, I have some battle ground. I have some things I'm not doing.

I have some things that are not being useful unto Christ and I want to give them to him. That's what a saved person will do. And so he tells Nicodemus he has to be born again. Nicodemus totally misses it. And I'm And I'm going to go down to verse 9.

And Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be? You know, I had two older, I had a older brother and older sister and then I had a couple half brothers that were younger than me. Now my older brother, he made me look calm. I mean, he was a child of the 70s, with bushy, weird hair and a whole bit. And so when I came along, started high school especially, those guys over there and said, Lather Deed, you know James?

I'm like, yeah, that's my brother. And, but you know what? It turned out being good, because when I compared to James, man, I look good. I wasn't nearly as much trouble, but you know what? You can compare yourself to other people yeah but it don't matter how good you look you know I made a false profession when I was eight years old.

Nothing wrong with preaching about hell. You know what? We need to know how hot and everlasting hell is. That is the reality. It's where people that hate God are going to be cast into one day for all eternity.

And we do need to know about that but some well-meaning men a couple of children is something that's nothing more than fear tactics. Yeah, that's right. And I had that at eight years old. But praise be to God when I was 12. The good little lackey boy saw how wild and wretched I really am.

Amen. Grace it with me. Yes. If you don't have something to compare that to, listen, make your calling and your election sure. Amen.

You know what? I want a face that I can lay down my head at night. And if I wake up in glory, I'll be okay with it. And if your face doesn't compare to that, ah, dear friend, I would find something out. Now very quickly, I promise you I'm almost done.

Go with me to the Gospel of John chapter 7. Just a little ways over, and we're going to read a couple of verses with our friend Nicodemus again. Gospel of John chapter 7 verse 41. And there's this group gathering against Christ in 41. And others said, this is the Christ.

This is the Christ. But some said, shall Christ come from Galilee? Now drop down to verse 50. And Nicodemus saith unto them, he that come to Jesus by night being one of them. Now Nicodemus saw this contention rising and now we find it says that Nicodemus was identified as one of them.

So somewhere between chapter 3 and now Jesus had saved him. Now I know none of you would do this, but I want to point out what's missing. Nobody asked Nicodemus to repeat the sinner's prayer. Amen. That's right.

Nobody, I mean we don't owe him anything to happen after that, did we? Somewhere, just like old Lydia, God opened his heart. And he saw Christ. And he loved him. You know what's a good measure of your faith?

How much do you love Christ? Yes. You know, Maureen, sometime I'll head out of here and I'll go back to Tennessee. And I'm already looking forward to being back with my wife. And you know, I look for the love.

We've been together since we were nearly teenagers. 35 years just in marriage coming up, just very shortly. And that shows the love. You know what? I don't want church members that I have to get out and drag to church.

Do you? I'm not interested in them. You say, well, you don't have a compassion for souls. Yes, I have a compassion for souls. But if they don't love Christ enough to get here on their own, what am I supposed to do about it?

Yes. Right. Amen. Either you're on or you're off. And then we find Christ.

Or we find Nicodemus going in secretly, Joseph of Arimathea had gone and said, Please give me his body. Just let me have his body. How is it taken? No Nicodemus, no longer embarrassed, no longer ashamed. Him and Joseph of Arimathea went and got the body and they put the oil on it and they wrapped him up in the course of the Jews and they put him in a new cell.

You know what? Nicodemus' life was changed. He broke up his battle ground and now two years later, he's being used. Now to me two years is a long time away, but he think Nick of Davis got discouraged at Helms. He think Nick of Davis was a little apprehensive whenever he had this, that he had, when he had to defend Jesus, a little upset.

Probably so. But you know what that did? That didn't destroy his faith, it built his faith. So he could boldly go in and bury the earthly shell where Lord Jesus Christ, That's what real faith will get you. Now I don't know what thalogrand you have, but I do know this, that every one of us under the sound of my voice don't do everything that we can be doing.

Now you may have a rocky spiritual hillside just like most of my land in Stewart County But I tell you what it is good for something Yeah, and this is gonna will solve the grace off the top and it's your responsibility Yes. Syspondepin. Yes. Syspondepin. Yes.

Syspondepin. Yeah. Amen. Amen.