'Come Ye Thankful People' was the opening hymn to the service held in Carringtons Restaurant, below the Atlantic Hotel in Tenby.

As part of the harvest celebration on Sunday afternoon, the pastor, Rev. Peter Richmond, read from Deuteronomy 11:8-18. In these verses the God of Israel explains how the promised land is different from Egypt, where they had to toil to make the land productive. God watches over the promised land continually and declares that He will send rain in the Spring and autumn seasons in exchange for His people's obedience. But if they behave like pagans and forsake God's law, then his special provision will dry up.

To guarantee the weather is a promise no king, politician or religious leader has made, but Israel were given the assurance of a good crop every year, provided they kept their allegiance to God, their king. That is why the Biblical festivals, First Fruits, Pentecost and Tabernacles (Succoth) were at set times: a harvest was guaranteed - on time.

One of the provisions of God's law given to the ancient Israelites was a rest for the land every seven years. God's people were instructed not to sow crops or prune vines in this year, and promised such a bumper harvest on the sixth year that they would have ample to cover the fallow time.

The pastor continued: "Disobedience, ignoring or rejecting God had its consequences as the Old Testament prophets knew only too well.

"Jeremiah 5:23-25 says 'But these people have stubborn and rebellious hearts; they have turned aside and gone away.  24 They do not say to themselves, 'Let us fear the Lord our God, who gives autumn and spring rains in season, who assures us of the regular weeks of harvest.'   Your wrongdoings have kept these away; your sins have deprived you of good.'"

Peter concluded with a reminder that, as it says in Romans 6:14, Christians are not under law, but grace: "but from it we get to know how God thinks. The spirit of God's law is not to look for loopholes but to seek out how to live righteous God honouring lives."

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