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[ Silence ] [ Singing ] We can rejoice when we behold the fields. Behold the fields are ripe.

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The harvest is waiting. The harvest is waiting. Waiting for us to reap the fields of love. ♪ Of love ♪

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♪ Lift up your eyes ♪ ♪ And behold ♪ ♪ And behold ♪ ♪ The fields ♪

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♪ Lift up your eyes ♪ ♪ Lift up your eyes ♪ ♪ And behold ♪ ♪ Behold the fields ♪

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[music] Amen. Amen. Amen. Would you repeat the words of our text please? The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world, and they that dwell therein.

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The subject of the message, God is my landlord. God is my landlord. The earth is the Lord's. What a profound declaration.

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What a strong proclamation of faith. The earth is the Lord's. God is my landlord. This particular scripture has special meaning for us as we observe what is traditionally

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considered in this country as Thanksgiving Sunday because it is said that the pilgrims read this scripture in the first Thanksgiving service more than 300 years ago. The earth is the Lord's.

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I'm sure that when they were selecting a passage of scripture that this one was selected because it had a special application to their spirit to their situation.

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The pilgrims engaged in an adventure that brought them to a new world, to settle in a new land. And they had experienced a very difficult time.

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They had seen many in their company die from sickness and disease. And by the grace of God, they had been granted an early spring

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and a bountiful harvest. And as they celebrated it, they said, the earth is the Lord's

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and the fullness thereof, the world and they that dwell therein." That they recognize that as they had that first Thanksgiving feast, that everything on this green earth belongs to God.

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all that is produced from the earth belongs to the Almighty. All belongs to God. The earth is the Lord's. This is the first verse in our Bible Genesis 1 and one. In the beginning God created heaven and earth. God made the world. The earth is his. The ground we stand on. That which sustains us. That which is the basis of our being. The earth

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Earth is the Lord's. So God is our landlord. It's by God's power, by his will, that the Earth produces.

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God, in the beginning, said, let there be. And so it's only through the freedom exercised by the eternal, that we enjoy all of the blessings that we celebrate here today. It is God's goodness, it's God's grace.

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It is God who said to the ground, "Bring forth seed and fruit," and it was so. God looked at it and said, "That's good." So the early settlers gave thanks to God and many before them gave thanks to God.

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They knew by faith. They knew by the testimony of their personal experience that the earth is the Lord's. So as we celebrate today, as we consider what has happened to us, all of the experiences

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that have been ours, sure we've had some good times and we've had some hard times. But in the midst of it, it is ours to celebrate the goodness of God and to somehow in the midst of it all sing a song of thanksgiving, recognizing the fact that God is our landlord. It is through his goodness and his grace that we can

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engage in such a celebration and when one recognizes this, one recognizes that that he or she belongs to God because we are made from the dust of the ground. We come from the earth and that even that sustains us as far as our human existence is concerned is from the seed and fruit of the ground.

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And he directs us to honor him, to honor him in our worship. That's what we do when we come together to celebrate His goodness. We come to honor Him, to somehow say thanks to God. And He has commanded us that if we would give thanks to Him, that we must express our thanks

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to Him by our living and by our giving. other ways that we are to express our thanksgiving to God to come to his house and to express our gratitude for all of his goodness. So he has expressed in his word how this is to be done. He's given us directions. We have this word in

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in Leviticus 27 30 all the tithe of the land whether the seed of the land or of the fruit of the tree it is the Lord's all the tithe of the land whether the seed of the land of the fruit of the tree it is the Lord's it is holy unto And that which is holy unto the Lord is that which is set apart for him. It is that which is consecrated for his service.

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And we have so many ways that people, even from the earliest of times, have expressed their gratitude by bringing to him a thank offering. offering. Here is the direction which he gave. This is the rule of worship. Thou shalt truly tithe all of the increase of thy seed that the field bringeth forth year by year. God is our landlord.

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And so the landlord gives to the tenants the conditions. Whatever you have a tenant, you tell that tenant what you want and what you require, what must be done for those persons

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who occupy your property. You have certain requirements. And sometimes in this world, landlords have different requirements.

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can remember when we were in the early part of our life together as a family and we had a child sometimes we would call we're trying to get an apartment to rent and the person would say well yes we can have that apartment so we have one child I said oh no no we don't want any children they had certain

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requirements and every landlord has certain requirements you have certain conditions, you have certain expectations of those who would occupy your property. And the landlord you see owns that property. God owns the world.

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He not only created it, but he owns it. He not only owns it, but he controls it. And so the psalmist as he sings the song of thanksgiving saying that the earth is the lawn and the fullness thereof, everything that's in it belongs to him. God is our

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landlord. Some of us have purchased homes. Have you ever gotten a deed out and looked at the deed and you see how many people had it before you got it? And what happened to those people that had it before you got it? And if you go back far long enough, you go back years and years and years,

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and you find out that this person had it, and that person had it, and that person had it, and you see the dates that they had it, and they're all gone.

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So, every one of us is a tenant. God is our landlord. We're just here occupying what we got for a short time. And all of us are somehow just,

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we're just sort of leasing it, sort of like we are leasing this territory we have possession of it for a certain time and then we move off the sea. But God is our landlord and he has given us this good earth and this good earth produces everything that we have

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and God in his position as our landlord has set forth certain conditions for the He says now you are to bring to me one-tenth of all that you have that's produced by this earth Some say well Reverend that was that was yesterday that was that was thousands of years ago that was under the law But God did not give a word for one day for one

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period of history and Then something else for another God's Word is eternal and what he has said he has not taken back. What he said for yesterday is good for today and for tomorrow. In fact the tithe existed before the law.

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Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek the priest he paid tithes he brought it. That was before the law. And then of course Jesus said in Matthew 23 23 speaking of the tithe, "This ye ought to have done and not to have left the other undone." Then in Hebrews the seventh chapter when the writer is portraying

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Jesus as the great high priest that is above every priest that we know in this world he says of him that he is to receive tithes from us but the earth as the Lord's produces every good thing every good thing well we have here some bananas, ten bananas produced from the earth, God's good green earth that God

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blessed so that it brings forth these bananas. But God has also said honor the Lord with thy substance and with the first fruits of all thy increase, the first fruits. So to honor God with the first fruits means that we will give to God that first, that one-tenth belongs to Him first because God has priority in our

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lives. And because we honor Him as first in our lives, because we give Him first place in our lives, we give Him His first. We place this on the table of the Lord. And then I have left for myself nine bananas. Then the earth brings forth yams

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that have been produced from God's green earth. God receives his first, the first one for him. And then I have nine left for me. Nine.

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God just requires so little of us when we think about how much we have left, when we give God his first, and replace those on my table having put God's first on his table. Well, the earth also brings forth onions. Onions. I love onions.

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Give God his first and then I have nine bundles left for me of onions. Honor the Lord with thy substance and with the first fruits of all

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Thine increase. God in his goodness just keeps on blessing. You know God is in the blessing business. He just keeps on blessing and as he keeps on blessing the earth brings forth corn and I give God his first and then I have all the other left for me. Nine ears of corn left just for me. Nine ears. I've given God his

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first but this is left for me and following his command. Well the earth brings forth God just keeps on blessing and the earth brings forth apples and you give God his first and then you have nine apples left nine for me by the goodness of God he just keeps on blessing because God is in the blessing

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business. Then the earth also not only brings forth apples but the earth brings forth avocados and by the grace of God you give God his first you put that on his table and then you have nine left for your table to put there just nine left. Nine avocados because God has said honor the Lord with thy substance and

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with the first fruits give mine first set it aside for me and then the The other nine are left that I have. God just keeps on blessing because he's in the blessing business. The earth brings forth grapefruit.

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God his first and then I have nine left for me. He said bring ye all to the Lord's storehouse, that first table over there is the Lord's storehouse and this is my house right here. that God has provided according to his will and according to his way, according to his

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command. He's my landlord and he has told me what I must do if I'm going to occupy his land and you his seed and his fruit because it's all his. He just commands and you know God has on his table you compare what God has on his table and what I have on

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my table. In fact so much so that the table can hardly hold it because he says bringing all the tithes to the Lord's storehouse that there may be meat in my house and prove me in other words he says test me if I will not open the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing so much so that there will not

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be room enough to receive it. God says that. [applause] God says that. And the pilgrims knew what that meant in their own lives,

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because somehow as they brought together the harvest of the crops, and as they sat down with the turkey, and with the Indians,

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and with all of the fruit of the land, they sang a hymn of thanksgiving, saying that the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof,

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and the world, and that they that dwell therein. And as you go on and listen to the words of that song, it says, "Who shall ascend unto the hill of the Lord?"

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You know what I'm talking about when you start giving? For many people that's a hill. It's a hill that they have to climb. But it's the Lord's hill.

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Who shall ascend unto that hill? If we're really going to honor Him the way God says honor Him, we've got to come up over the hills. And who will ascend to the heel of the Lord?

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And the answer comes, he that hath clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. And he goes on to say that this is the generation, this is the generation. Oh, there are many generations that we may look upon, but this is a special generation.

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This is the generation of them that seek him, that seek thy face, oh Jacob. Seek thy face, oh Jacob. Jacob, seeking the face of God,

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and all that may happen to seek his face. You know, when you seek God's face, you've gotta struggle. In other words, so many things happen to us in this human struggle,

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but in the midst of the human struggle, Jacob in that vision wrestles with God, and he wrestles with God, and he keeps on wrestling with God,

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and he says, "I'm not gonna let you go "until you bless me." Sure, there are some things that are happening to you. You may be in an accident, like this brother here,

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or you may be sick, or this may happen, someone may do something to you that upsets you here and there. So many things that can happen to you.

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You may lose a loved one, but somehow, as you wrestle with whatever happens, but you just keep on wrestling with it until God blesses you through that experience.

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Because God has let it happen that it might be a blessing in your life. Oh, give thanks unto the Lord for his good, for his mercy, and do it forever.

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You know, God's in the blessing business. Don't ever forget that. He really is. A lot of people may not want you to have

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some things you've got. I've heard people say, "You know, Reverend got enough. "They don't know, they want to determine "what God's blessings to me would be."

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They say, "You've got this, this is enough for you." But the wonderful thing is that God determines what's for you and whatever God wants you to have, nobody can keep you from getting it

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because God is the landlord and you are his tenant. And so you have to be in the right relationship to the landlord. That's the important thing.

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You know, when I was a boy, we had a difficult time. We stayed in about eight or 10 places during the time I was growing up. And we were renting all the time somebody else's house.

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And when we didn't have the money to pay the rent, sometimes we got two or three months behind, two or three weeks behind. And what we did was to move out.

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we didn't have the money to pay we moved to another house get behind there because times were hard. We didn't have the money to pay what the landlord demanded but God's a good landlord what he demands he gives you. He gives you that which is necessary in order to satisfy his demands and so the goodness

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of God is revealed in our lives so that we can say, "Lord, thank you for blessing me and for helping me to be where I am. Lord, thank you. Thank you for your goodness. Thank you." For the Lord blesses his people. God is our landlord and he has promised us that Whosoever will be faithful to him that he'll bless us.

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He'll bless us. You'll have some hard times, but when you come down to the Red Sea and you cry out to God, he opens the waters of the Red Sea. And so walk through there on dry land, the earth is mine.

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Sure you'll have a fiery furnace. They'll put you in a fiery furnace and it may be heated seven times hotter than ever before. but you remember God goes in and he's there and he out conditions that furnace so that in the midst of it all you can come out of the fiery furnace without a hair being singed. God is good. He blesses every one of us

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and all we have to do is trust him and to say thanks be to God by offering to him first ourselves and then our substance lift up your hands no matter what may happen no matter what's happened to you this past year lift up your hands no matter what may have been done against you lift up your hands oh lift them up and the king of glory shall come in

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God rules over earth and over heaven he rules in this life as well as the next so you can rest in the fact that God is your landlord. As we come now to the hymn this is a time of dedication whatever you want whatever you need just ask God and trust God honor him as your landlord recognize the fact that you're his

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tenant. And you know what? God will take care of you. We ask you now to come. The door is open. He stands at the door of every heart and he knocks and says let me in. We ask you to come. This is the time of Christian commitment, time of dedication of your life, your future to God. We ask you to come now.

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I asked the Lord to comfort me when things were going my way. He said to me, I will comfort you and lift your cares away. I asked the Lord to walk with me when darkness was all that I knew. He said to me, "Never be afraid, for I will see you through."

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I didn't ask for riches. He gave me wealth untold. The moon, the stars, the sun, the sky, and gave me eyes to behold.

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[MUSIC PLAYING] I thank the Lord for everything, and I count my blessings each day. He came to me and I believed him.

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I only had to pray. I do come to thee if you ask me to. Give all the earth my offering. Amen.

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Amen. Amen. Would you remember that on next Sunday, we will observe our foreign mission emphasis.

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You will notice that in the bullet. [BLANK_AUDIO]