Turn and ReTurn

0:01 There continue to be around a hundred hostages that are being held. The estimate now is that there's probably about 40 who are remaining alive and there's still being held. It's today is October 5th, Monday will be the one year Gregorian anniversary, uh, on the, on, on the calendar, on the Julian calendar that we follow. And, uh, since the invasion of Israel by Hamas, Hamas operatives, and we continue to see the results of those who hate the Lord, the God of Israel.

0:52 I don't know what else to tell you. The, the conflict is now long, no longer between Israel and Hamas. Israel is now fighting at a minimum, a three front war. Uh, one in Gaza, one in northern Israel on the southern border of Lebanon. And you can pick the third front. You can call it Yemen, which certainly seems pretty active. You can call it Syria, where there's other Iranian agents that are, that are waging war against Israel. Or you can just call it Iran, because that's what everybody knows it actually is, and the war continues to be waged.

1:38 I i, if you weren't paying attention, there was, was it a week? I think it was a week ago when there was about 200 ballistic missiles sent from Iran at, at Israel. Thankfully, no Israelis died. Hallelujah. It, it does seem to me, and this is gonna work its way perfectly into my message, and I didn't plan it. It does seem to me to have that many, I mean, I don't know if you can imagine what a ballistic missile is, but it's about, it may be about the length of this stage, maybe a little bit shorter in, in length, in, in,

2:26 in, uh, diameter. It's about as, as, uh, in diameter as I am tall. And these are what were shot at Israel and, and not one Israeli was killed. Wow. Now, I, I, I'm, I'm happy to say Israel has one of the, the most developed defense systems in the world, if not the most developed. And, and, and it's a really good thing because all of their enemies have, are, are gaining bigger and bigger weapons of aggression while Israel continues to get stronger and stronger weapons of defense.

3:13 However, I'm gonna tell you, I don't think it was their weapon system that was their defense. I think, and I have no problem saying this with 100% confidence that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob continues to stand strong in defense of his people today. Follow you. My message comes from the book of Hosea, which is the H tour reading for today,

4:05 chapter 14 verses two through 10. Some of your Bibles, it'll be one through nine. It depends on the translation. Uh, they just have verses marked differently. But this Shabbat is a very particular Shabbat on the Jewish calendar. It's the Shabbat that occurs in between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. This is called, it has a special name. It's called Shabbat Shava, which means, um, the Shabbat of repentance or return. And so you'll find this theme throughout the tour portion,

4:51 throughout the ha tour portion. And, and if you follow the Ada sha readings, you'll also note it there as well. I considered entitling my message. Turn, turn, turn. But I decided I would actually just call it turn and return. Uh, though you could, you, I'm fine. I'm happy with either one, um, in terms of the title. But let me read the passage to you first and then we will have a conversation about it. Hosea chapter 14, starting in verse two, return oh, Israel, to aai your God, for you have stumbled in your iniquity,

5:38 take words with you and return to aai. Say to him, take away all iniquity and accept what is good. So we may repay with offerings of our lips. Assyria will not save us. We will not ride on horses, and we will never again say our God to the work of our hands. For with you orphans find mercy. I will heal their, heal their back, sliding. I will love them freely, for my anger will turn away from him. I will be like, do for Israel. He will blossom like a lily and thrust out his roots like Lebanon. His tender shoots will spread out. His beauty will be like an olive tree, and his fragrance will be like a Lebanon.

6:25 Those dwelling in his shadow will return, they will grow grain and bud like a vine. His renowned will be like the wine of Lebanon. Eiah, what more idol, what more are idols to me? I have responded and observed him. I will be like a luxurious cypress tree from me will be found your fruit. Who is, who is wise? Let him discern these things who is intelligent. Let him know them. For the ways of aai are straight and the just walk in them, but the wicked stumble in them. We'll start here in the verse first couple verse first, uh,

7:12 three verses of the reading. Return to Israel, to Adonai your God. For you have stumbled in your iniquity. Take words with you and return to the Lord. Say to him, take away all iniquity and accept what is good. So we may repay with offerings of our lips. Assyria will not save us. We will not ride on horses, and we will never again say our God to the work of our hands. For with you orphans, find a mercy. This is the first section of this week's soft tour portion. And what we see here is a, is a commandment, really, or, or an injunction maybe is the word you would like to say. Speaking to Israel to return to the Lord their God.

7:59 The passage talks about everything we need to know. Why should Israel return to the Lord their God? Because they've stumbled in their iniquity. What is happening? What's happening right now, Israel, uh, not right now today, but in the passage right now, in in this context, what's happening is Israel is walking in a particular way and they're being told by the Lord to turn or to return to God, which means you can use some inductive reasoning here, that they're not following the Lord. They're not being obedient to him. As we were talking with the children earlier, they're committing iniquity, committing iniquity is the defining factor of not following God.

8:45 It seems actually through the, through the text, what we see in the text, it seems that they're actually serving gods made by their own hands. Perhaps I'm being too, too much for our society today, but I don't think so. They're serving gods that are made by their own hands, and they're no longer placing their trust in the Lord. They're placing their trust in their own power or the power of this world. You, you're probably saying, how do you get all of that out of this text? Well, we will continue to unpack the text here, but in order to turn from the Lord, turn to the Lord, they have to stop following a different way.

9:33 I know I'm being super simplistic here, But if you are following your own way, you cannot be following the way of the Lord unless your way happens to be the way of the Lord. Now that comes through lots of prayer and, um, dying to oneself, which then makes it no longer your way. It makes it his way. So if you're calling, I'm following my own way. I'm already telling you, just the verbiage puts you outside of the way of the Lord, because the Lord's way requires us to die. It requires us, let me, let me, lemme put it like this.

10:21 Yeshua teaches in parables all the time, and perhaps you haven't thought about it, maybe you have, but what is the purpose of a seed? A seed, the very calling of a seed is to die. The purpose of the seed is to die When a seed gets put into the ground, if it doesn't die, nothing happens. But if it does die, all of a sudden it becomes what God designed it to be, which be it flowers, be it what whatever it is that the seed is,

11:08 is the seed of it won't reach God's destination if it continues to exist as a seed. So if we continue to exist only for our own sakes, then what we're doing is we're actually doing three things. We're depriving God of his input in our lives. We're depriving others of the destiny that God has in our lives and the beauty that will come forth when we begin to die to ourselves and we're denying God himself. So in order to turn to the Lord, we have

11:56 to stop following our own way and follow a different way, namely the way of the Lord. Now, in this passage, he says, take words with you when you turn to the Lord, in other words, your words and your actions need to match. When we were teaching through the Book of Luke, I mentioned this always because what Yeshua is continually after in the book of Luke is do your actions match your words or vice versa. And when he comes strong at people, he's coming strong at them because their actions don't match their words. They profess one thing and do something else with their actions.

12:45 So here we're told, take words and actions, uh, take words with you. When you turn to the Lord, take away all in iniquity. These, this is what the words are, are, are told to, to take, take away all iniquity. In other words, Lord, I am sorry for following my own way. Please take this away from me. Accept what is good and here is the offering of our lips. And, and now he gets even more, uh, specific in verse four. Some of us will go right through this and and, and just dismiss it, but here are the offerings of our lips. Asy will not save us. We will not ride on horses, and we will never again say our God

13:30 to the work of our hands. For with you orphans find mercy. So let's start with assy will not save us. Assy at this point is a growing nation state power, uh, during this time period. And often what would happen in what you'll see throughout history is smaller states will gravitate and appeal to a larger state for protection and say, you have a lot of power. If I serve you, will you be my protector against the other powers in the world? So this is, this is what's happening here during this time period. There's, uh, there's elements within Israel itself

14:16 that are saying, let's turn to Syria for our protection because they're powerful. They're gonna, they're gonna persecute us, and we don't have a protector when in fact they do. They just can't see him. It's kind of like, if, if, if it still doesn't make sense to you. I don't know how, how many of you went to school? Well, I assume everyone went to school when you were growing up. I went to school growing up and there was a schoolyard bully as there almost always is in every school. And during recess or during lunchtime, he would intimidate others,

15:04 uh, for, I don't know, dominance of the school year. I don't know what you do when you're in eighth grade or wait, no, I would've been, he would've been in seventh grade. I don't know. But I don't know why you have to be king of the, of the jungle gym. You just do. But I'll tell you what I did. I did what Israel did. I said, let me be friends with you, then you won't pick on me. You'll just go pick on everyone else. And actually, it helped me survive junior high. Um, you know, it's that awkward time period when your voice,

15:51 ugh, it is all over the place and you're doing a bar mitzvah. But this, this is this reality on a schoolyard, but that's also the reality in the world when you begin to think about it. There are nations that are powerful in developing power, and there's always an undertone of who's gonna be friends with who, so that we can be safe. Let me strike an alliance with you. In fact, you see this today, the, this, this what is being called the regional conflict in the Middle East Is not just a regional conflict in the Middle East, there are some underlying tones

16:38 that affect world politics. All of the nations of the world. You see, Israel is allies with America and Iran attacked Israel. Now, how shall I be nice about this according to our allyship? Is that the word? I don't, I'm making up words again, because we're allies. We are supposed to respond when our ally is attacked. America hasn't responded. Now, I I do in part understand because there's, what I'm about to describe as a,

17:25 a much larger web of entanglement and that web of entanglement is China is now a world power because they buy, uh, what do you call it, black market oil at discount from Iran because nobody else in the world is allowed to buy oil from Iran because they're being sanctioned by the rest of us. But China buys their oil from, from Iran, saves money by buying the oil from Iran because it's cheap. They can't sell it to anybody else. They now have a growing economy. If you take away the, that oil supply, their economy tanks,

18:11 Russia is raging a war in Ukraine and being supplied by Iranian weapons. If you take away Iranian weapons, Russia loses in Ukraine, not even Thai, they lose. So you see there's this much larger, when you, now you think about that Russia, China and America are the sub players in the regional conflict in the Middle East that really, it was as, as everyone would like you to believe. It's just Israel and Hamas and Israel's the big bad aggressor. The reality is, it's not, there are three major world powers behind this that are jockeying for position in the world.

19:02 This is a very similar situation that Israel was in during the time of the writing of Hosea. When Israel would, would appeal to Assyria and say, we need, we need some protection, you draw your own conclusion as to who is Assyria in the modern world. That's number one, the word. Let's see, let me, let me go back here. Um, let me repay that. We may repay with the offerings of our lips. Number one, Assyria will not save us. So they're renouncing asy their dependence upon asy. Number two, we will not ride on horses. Well, that's great.

19:48 We don't ride on horses anymore. We're free and clear of this one, right? No, the riding on horses, the horses is be, is the strength the backbone of the military of Israel. When you see we will not ride on horses, it means we're not gonna rely on our own military strength. By the way, it's not just their own military strength, it's their own military strength that they've purchased from another nation. Power Egypt. So in this world conflict during the time of Hosea, you have assy and you have Egypt and Israel is appealing to Assyria for, for protection and buying weapons from Egypt. Man, the more I talk about this, this really does sound like modern day politics.

20:38 They say, we're not gonna trust in assy, we're not gonna trust in our own military might. And finally, we're not gonna trust in what we create with our own hands. Again, at some point, this will all come applicable to, to each and every one of us. But right now we're dealing with the text and also with Israel today, Israel today, I'm not sure how many of you realize this, they'll take technology from other nations, like they'll buy, uh, fighter jets from America. They'll take them home and they'll strip them down to the bare bones, to just parts,

21:23 And They'll put it back together and it's better than when they bought it. I don't know what they do. There's some sort of like tinkering in there, but whatever they do when they buy stuff, they, they take it and they make it better. And all of a sudden now we have these items. In fact, I just wanna point out, I I think Israel is known today as the startup nation for businesses, for startup businesses. They take, it's all about the creation of their own hands today. You can't use this without saying thank you to Israel. For those of you who are directionally challenged

22:10 and you get in your car and you hit go to, you can't do that without Israel. You can't use technology today without saying thank you to Israel. So all the people who wanna say let's boycott everything Israel, fine. I was about to say something about, to say something a little bit too far. You can go live in the stone age because that's where you have to live without technological developments with Israel.

22:56 That being said, when we begin to create things with our own hands and we begin to tinker and we begin to realize we can make it better, all of a sudden our reliance becomes upon that which we've created with our own hands. You may, you may not think about it in this way, but I I'll tell you, each and every one of us do this and you're like, well, rabbi Ari, I'm not very good at creating anything with my hands. In fact, anything, anytime I try to do anything, it falls apart. That's fine. How many of you have a job? And so you think you provide for yourself

23:44 because you go to work and somebody told you how much you were worth to be paid per hour and you worked 20 hours, and so now you have X number of dollars because I worked for those dollars. The reality is that's how we do it in our own lives. That's how we think about it. But it's not true. We couldn't do anything unless God filled us with the breath of life each and every morning. We couldn't. Uh, listen, how many

24:29 of you have walked through the house at night and stubbed your peaky toe? Yeah. Uh, oh man, I just heard the collective groan. Everybody knows what I'm talking about. You can no longer walk because of your itty bitty little pinky toe. That poor little pinky toe has so much control on your body. You can't walk anymore. That's what we don't realize is we rely on God for everything. You know, we talk about the tithe and returning to the tithe to the Lord because it's his, it's all his. He just lets us be stewards of some of it.

25:19 But it's all his. The scriptures tells us he owns the cattle on a thousand hills. That's more cattle than Texas has. That's more briskets than than Texas has. Y'all. I'm gonna, I'm gonna get hungry soon, so I better, I better move onward. We cannot create anything with our own hands and place our trust in it, though we do this all the time here in the passage they end with, with you, orphans will find mercy. I've never thought about this. I I, y'all,

26:07 you're going to immediately judge me. Do you know orphans have no father and no mother? Yeah, like no parents. What does a father do? And what does a mother do in life when there's no father? The orphan is given up to injustice and violence. Why? Because it's the father who protects the child from injustice and violence. And what does a mother do when there's no mother? There's no kindness and no support. I'm not telling you you can't get one from the other, but I'm telling you that these are the primary roles of a mother and father. And when there's no mother there, the child knows no kindness and support.

26:54 So when they have no mother and no father with God, there is mercy. In other words, God will be the one who gets for them justice. God will be the one who protects them from violence. God will be the one who exhibits kindness and support for them. Again, we're talking about the, about the people of Israel here. So this is, this is what Israel is to say. They're gonna take these words as the offering of their mouth. And now the Lord responds in verses five through eight. I will heal their back sliding. I will love them freely, for my anger will turn away from him. I will be like, do for Israel. He'll blossom like a lily and thrust out his roots like Lebanon. His tender shoots will spread out.

27:40 His beauty will be like an olive tree, and his fragrance will be like Lebanon. Apparently Lebanon has roots and fragrance from the scripture. Those dwelling in his shadow will return, they will grow grain and bud like a vine. His renowned will be like the wine of Lebanon. Here we have God's response, which is, I'm gonna heal their backsliding. I'm gonna love them freely. My anger will turn away from them. If you remember the question time with the children earlier, they were talking about, uh, the Lord hiding his face from, from his people and them experiencing the consequences of their actions. When the Lord says, I will, I will, um, love them freely and my anger will turn away.

28:25 This is now the reciprocating action. His, he's no longer turning his face, actually, he's turning his face to them and loving them freely and his anger is turning away. And he will be like dew for Israel. He'll blossom like a lily m Morning dew. I don't know about you guys, but for mem Morning Dew is one of the most amazing things when you walk out in the morning, uh, and the reality is we haven't had it now for like two weeks, maybe three weeks, but there was about three weeks ago, there was a morning, the previous morning had been the same temperature, but no morning due. And then this day there was a, there was morning due. And the amount of refreshment to my soul that I experienced was a hundred times different.

29:13 Why? Because that's what Morning Dew does, is it refreshes us. It refreshes the ground. Dew recharges the soil, the soil moisture and limits evaporation from the soil during the time the dew is forming. This is straight from the some weather, uh, website. Morning do makes the morning more enjoyable for us. I mean, those of us who enjoy morning, some of us may not enjoy mourning so much. Morning two may, uh, uh, the Lord will make us or make his people in this passage blossom like a lily. The flower will bud and bloom. And the fragrance of this new flower is refreshing and invigorating for all of those who are around Round.

30:00 He Israel will sprout tender, shoots and grow beautiful. His roots grow deeper and that's what helps support the tree that is seen. The passage continues. His beauty will be like an olive tree again, some of us, we read through the text and we're just like, okay, we could keep going. Olive trees. So what? Olive trees are amazing first of all. Second of all, olive trees are, are tied to the people of Israel throughout the scriptures. I i is, there's just some amazing attributes about the olive tree. I just, can you guys pop up some of those pictures?

30:46 Like I just want you to show, see what an olive tree looks like. Look at this. I mean, it's kind of gnarly, but it's really amazing. It has some shade. How many you just keep going and, and I'm just gonna keep talking about, about these trees. These trees, by the way, are all over Israel. I i is the national crop of Israel. Olives is what Israel's known for. Keep going. Or if you have more, They exist solitary. They exist in groves, but they have purposes beyond just being pretty, I don't know, I don't know about you guys, but to me like that's a beautiful tree. But the olive, the olive tree has, has lots

31:34 of essentials that are provided through the olive tree for the Jewish nation. Number one food. You get olives. I, I know I sound simplistic, but you get olives from an olive tree, at least from a cultivated one. You get olives from an olive tree, you get food. If you put the olive under pressure, out comes oil. And now we have, if you're Italian, your favorite dipping sauce, olive oil. Okay, that was a bad joke. Uh, little memory dump for the next time. Um, it is my favorite dipping oil, olive oil with a little pepper, perhaps a little Parmesan and a nice piece of focaccia.

32:24 Oh, I'm like, y'all my, my stomach. I'm getting hungry. Now, Olive oil obviously is made from, uh, from, from olives. It's one of the most preferred oils in our society today. Olive oils also used or was used for lamps to provide light or illumination at night or in times of darkness. It has a health attribute. It's used for skin and hair and, and haircare. It also was used as a general cleansing agent, uh, for, for the body. The passage moves on, moves on. His fragrance will be like Lebanon. I, I wonder, I don't know. This is my general wonderment. This is not exact insight, but I wonder if this, if we're talking here fragrance in terms of the cedars of Lebanon. Lebanon is known for its cedars, in fact,

33:13 and you're like, I don't know what a cedar is. Well, for those of us who were old enough, there were houses that had cedar closets or you had, um, cedar chests where you would place your, your blankets or your clothing to be preserved and, and, and what happens in those places. Bugs don't go in there. And so your whatever clothing, whatever cloth material is preserved and it has this beautiful fragrant smell. So perhaps it's something like that. The imagery of blessing continues. Those dwelling in a shadow return, they'll be, uh, a productive and vibrant vine. They'll be known throughout the world as Lebanon's wine.

33:58 Apparently Lebanon had some, some really good wine at this time. And here we come to the last part of the passage. Ra, what more are idols to me? I have responded and observed him. I will be a luxurious cypress tree from me will be found your fruit, who is wise. Let him discern these things who is intelligent. Let him know them for the ways of nar are straight and the just walk in them, but the wicked stumble in them. Here we see a summary of this whole process. I have responded to the Lord's commands. This is what Israel's saying. I've responded to the Lord's commands, forsaken my idols. I've turned to him, returned to him. I have repented turned to him, and now I observe his ways

34:46 and I have become obedient in my lifestyle to him and because I have turned to the Lord. So you see all of that happens, the repenting, turning and observing his ways and being obedient because I have done that. This is what the text is. I will be like a luxurious cypress tree that bears the fruit of the Lord. In other words, if you don't do that, you won't be able to bear the fruit of the Lord. In this verse, the main point of the passage is affirmed spiritual fidelity leads to a thorough transformation of the earthly life. In other words, what happens in the spiritual realm affects our earthly realm.

35:31 And what happens in the earthly realm affects the spiritual realm. So when we are disobedient in the earthly realm, it disconnects us spiritually from the Lord. When we are obedient and we repent and we turn to the Lord in the earthly realm, all of a sudden the spiritual connection Between us and the Lord is reestablished. I don't know if you've ever been in one of those moments, I let me, I certainly have, where you're walking through life and you're like, I'm gonna knowingly do this sin. And you're like, I know this is not what God wants for me. I know in fact that this is a against what he wants for me.

36:17 And in fact, he's told me in the Bible repeatedly, don't do this, but I really wanna do that. And I don't know if you've ever been in this moment, up until that point, your spiritual connection with the Lord is fine. But then you're like, I'm gonna do this. And you do it. And then you're like, where's that connection with the Lord? What just happened? Because my earthly actions severed that connection. You see some people say, all we exist are is

37:04 flesh and, and bones. And some people say, ah, the flesh and bones don't matter. Only the spirit matters. I'm telling you, they both matter. One affects the other and the other affects the other. They both have an have an effect on one another. And the moment you, you, you acknowledge and you're like, I'm gonna disobey. It's that willful moment. I am going to, I'm gonna blame it on childhood, but most of us do this as adults also. But it's that willful moment where I know what I'm doing. I'm pretty good. Thanks Lord. I got this.

37:51 And all of a sudden now what we've done is placed our trust in our own hands again. And in fact, what we've made with our own hands, we now are calling our God. Okay? We don't call it our God. It's just our decision. It's not your decision, Lord. It's our decision's, my decision. I know what I'm doing and I'm gonna choose to do this. All of a sudden you have made yourself your own God Who is wise, who is intelligent. Let him discern these things. Let him know them. The ways of the Lord are straight and the just walk in them, but the wicked stumble in them.

38:38 I don't know if you, if you've ever looked at this. I was looking at this and I was like, wait a second. It looks at least in the text as if they're walking on the same road. But for the, just the righteous, its straight and there's no problems. And for the wicked, it seems as if they stumble on the Lord's righteousness, which I actually, I could probably see quite easily in our society today. So what does this mean for us? We've talked about ancient Israel, we've even talked about modern Israel. What does it mean for you and me individually, familially in this congregation? First of all, we need to repent and turn to the Lord.

39:25 What was true then is still true today. We need to repent and turn to the Lord. In this process, we have to acknowledge our iniquity and place our trust in Him alone. We may think that we can provide for ourselves, as I mentioned earlier, but in reality we're like the orphan. We suffer injustice and violence and we need the kindness and the support and the protection of our God. When the, when the people of Israel turn to the Lord, he returns to them and he heals their afflictions. That's what this passage says. The Lord wants us to turn to him today so that he can return to us and heal our afflictions.

40:11 Do not wait to turn to him. You may think, well, I don't really, I don't think the Lord does that. If I turn to him today, I don't think that he's going to heal my afflictions. I don't think that he's going to deal with whatever's going on in my own life. Okay? In some cases, there are certain things that the Lord continues to permit so that we continue to suffer like our Messiah. But in other cases, he doesn't want us to suffer. He wants us. He's like our father. He wants our, like, we want our children to be successful. He wants the same thing for us, but he wants us to turn to him first. Because then if we don't, if if he does it without us turning to him, then all of a sudden we think it's of our own accord and,

40:57 and we're no longer grateful to what he does in our lives. But let me tell you how I know for certain that God does this in our lives, be God. Because God cut covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the people of Israel, and he continues to this day to be the guardian of Israel, to be the protector, to be the Father to the fatherless, to be the one who supports and gives his people kindness. The one who steps in when there's injustice, the one who protects his people from all threats. He has continued, I don't know if you've ever thought about this.

41:43 Israel is the only nation ever to have been displaced from its country and then return, but it was 2000 years later. But they weren't displaced once. They were displaced twice. God has been faithful to his people and to bring them back. That is how we know God will be faithful to us. If you don't believe that, then I'm telling you, you cannot believe that He will be faithful to you because you have nothing upon which to anchor that hope.

42:28 Because if you say, well, God told me he's gonna be faithful to me, that's great. He told Israel he would be faithful to them too. But if he backed out of his covenant, which he cut multiple times, if he backed out on his covenant with his people, then what's to prevent him from backing out on you? So you see, our faith is dependent upon the existence of the Jewish people. The ways of the Lord are straight and unchanged. The just walk in the Lord's ways, the wicked stumble.

43:18 If you've heard me today and you recognize perhaps there's some stumbling that you recognize on the path that you are walking, I want you to know what just happened was the Lord shined a light on your path and showed you what just happened and your life. Now you have the opportunity to respond. You can either choose to ignore that or you can acknowledge him. So he's revealed what? That what? What you stumbled on. He revealed to you what? What you've been doing, where you've been walking in the darkness. And now what do you do to respond to his revelation? You have two options. Will you turn from your own ways and turn to him so that he might turn to you and heal your afflictions? This is straight from the passage.

44:03 Or will you remain stubborn in your own ways and you will continue to stumble? Always. Those are the only two options. There's no other option. A Venus Sha, our Father in heaven. Lord, we come to you today, Lord, we acknowledge our shortcomings, Lord, we acknowledge our sin where we have turned from you. Lord, we repent and we turn to you, oh Lord. Lord, we ask that you would turn to us, that you would heal our iniquities, that you would restore us, that you would

44:49 plant us like a tree. Just as you described Israel here in this passage, Lord, that you would cause us to blossom, to be fruitful, to bear your fruit, Lord, not for our own sake, Lord, that others may be drawn to you, to the fragrance, to the fruit which you have produced in our own lives. Lord, we bless you and praise you in Yeshua's name. Amen. Lead addiction. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Don't worry bud it. I'm not starting without you.

46:14 In the name of our Messiah, Yeshua Shabbat.