Tag Sin

When Our Seeds Only Grow Thorns

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Sometimes we feel like we’re putting in a lot of effort but getting no results from it.  We’re sowing good seeds but not reaping any harvest.  At times, it seems disappointment is our only reward.  Often this can just be the way things are at the time – we’re doing nothing wrong but it’s just not obvious what God is doing at that time.  We don’t need to change anything.  But there may be times where we’re not reaping good things because we’re deceived that what we’re sowing is what we’re supposed to be sowing.

According to the prophet Jeremiah, the nation of Judah had this problem and as a result they ended up in exile.  In the first half of Jeremiah 12:13, the prophet says of Judah:

“They have sown wheat and have reaped thorns;
            they have tired themselves out but profit nothing.”

The nation of Judah thought they were sowing good seeds, but they weren’t and there are several examples in Jeremiah’s book.

First, Judah thought they were on the right side politically, with powerful friends and therefore secure.

The nation of Judah allied itself alternately with Egypt and Assyria, who they thought could protect them from Babylon.  Surely these powerful nations could keep Judah from doom at Babylon’s hands.  However, in Jeremiah 3:36 the prophet says:

“How much you go about,
            changing your way!
You shall be put to shame by Egypt
            as you were put to shame by Assyria.”

Because Judah had trusted these nations, other than God, for their salvation God would put them to shame by His own hand, from which there is no escape.  While there are many good ways to work with others, we should never trust anyone with the help that only God can provide.

Next, Judah thought they had the right cultural heritage.

The people of Judah wouldn’t listen to Jeremiah’s prophesies of doom for the nation because they thought God wouldn’t destroy what they saw as His own nation.  Israel had been taken into captivity by Assyria, but Judah thought it could never happen to them because they were the heirs of Jewish culture.  The people would repeat the phrase, “This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD,” to remind themselves that they were special because they had the temple, but Jeremiah says in Jeremiah 7:4,

“Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD.’”

The temple was provided as a way to approach God, but Judah thought of it like a magical talisman that would keep God happy so they could do their own thing.  However, God doesn’t want us to follow a checklist – He wants us.  All cultural and political institutions – including ones provided by God – are useless outside of God’s purpose for them.  What He provides He can take away if we abuse it.  When Judah was taken into captivity by Babylon, the temple was torn down and burned.

Last, Judah thought they had the right religion and were diligently practicing it

Judah’s religious leaders and people were diligent in observing the practices laid out in God’s ceremonial law.  They faithfully made the morning and evening sacrifices, observed the three main Jewish festivals, and followed many other ordinances, but in Jeremiah 7:22-23, the prophet said:

“For in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to your fathers or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices.  But this command I gave them: ‘Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. And walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.’”

Because Judah was putting observance above obedience to God, He would therefore discipline them.  The sacrifices were not the objective – the relationship was the objective, but the people made their religion about the sacrifices themselves, not the relationship they were designed to restore.

Do we sometimes practice similar things in the modern church?  Of course we do.

The modern-day equivalent of Judah’s first mistake is when we expect from a political party what only God can give.  Our expectations of them become idolatrous, and we become more likely to compromise God’s principles to support them.  We commit the second mistake when we are convinced our denomination has it all right – the right history, traditions and doctrine – and therefore God will always favor us.  The last mistake happens when we put external religious observances ahead of internal devotion to God.  We may be executing the acts and rituals our religion requires of us, and our peers expect from us, but not giving ourselves fully to God.  We may go to church, but when we leave the church building we don’t take Jesus with us.

Sometimes we think through our political, cultural, and religious activities we should reap wheat, but what is happening when we keep reaping thorns?  Sometimes we need to check that we aren’t repeating Judah’s mistakes.

“They have sown wheat and have reaped thorns;
            they have tired themselves out but profit nothing.
They shall be ashamed of their harvests
            because of the fierce anger of the LORD.”

Cleaning the Conscience

Todd R 1 Comment

A great thing about Psalms is that they are written general enough to be used by different people in different ways.  Psalm 19 makes a great prayer for anyone and is one of my favorite Psalms.  In it, David writes about how creation proclaims the glory of God in ways that everyone everywhere can see and understand.  This is what we’d call “general revelation.”  Next David writes about the law of God, how it is “perfect,” “pure,” “true,” and several other things.  This law also glorifies God, in what we’d call “special revelation,” or things revealed about God mostly through His word.

Then, after a brief interlude, the Psalm ends with verse 14, which says:

“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
            be acceptable in your sight,
            O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.”

What a closing to a prayer!

The Lord, as “my rock and my redeemer,” rules nature (the literal rocks, etc.) and His Word redeems His people.  How can our “words” and “meditation” be acceptable to such a God?  The answer is first, because He loves us enough to redeem us, and second, because He is transforming us into people who are like Him.  In fact, the “interlude” I referred to before (verses 12 and 13) are David’s prayer that God would keep him from sin and make him acceptable in God’s sight.  Those verses say:

“Who can discern his errors?
            Declare me innocent from hidden faults.
Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins;
            let them not have dominion over me!
Then I shall be blameless,
            and innocent of great transgression.

David first points out that we can’t find any errors in God, either in what’s revealed by nature or in His law, but on the other hand God knows all of our faults.  David knows better than to ask God to show him all of his flaws – that may be overwhelming – but instead David asks for a clear conscience.  To get there, David needs a solution for both his “presumptuous sins” – the outward actions that he’s probably aware of – and his “hidden faults” – the inner attitudes and sins that he may not be aware of.  To be declared innocent and blameless by God requires being forgiven for sins that we don’t even know about!

Photo by Nicole Queiroz on Unsplash

Which brings us back to the final verse:

“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
            be acceptable in your sight,
            O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.”

In my reading of this, “the words of my mouth” correspond to the “presumptuous sins,” the sinful outer actions taken in defiance of God, and “the meditation of my heart” corresponds to David’s (and our) “hidden faults.” These sins may be secret to everyone but God but we may feel guilty about them anyway.  When praying this prayer, David knows only God can cleanse him (or anyone) beyond just skin deep, and beyond skin deep is what we really need to deal with because Jesus told us “every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit.”[1]  Only by healing the inside can we heal the outside.  David asks for relief from guilt so he can live acceptably in both public and private ways, before both men and before God.

We all need routine cleaning of our inner self on a regular basis.  A redirection of our conscience toward right and wrong as defined by God.  If you feel in need of this, try praying Psalm 19 today.

[1] Matthew 7:17

Do You Want a Perfect Government?

Todd R 1 Comment

Immediately after beginning His public ministry with His baptism by John the Baptist, Jesus was led into the desert to be tempted by the devil three times.  One of those temptations went like this:

“And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will.  If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.”” – Luke 4:5-7

As you probably know, Jesus did not succumb to this temptation but suppose Jesus had decided to take authority over all the nations of the world in this way. He would have decisions to make.  What form of government would He choose for “all the kingdoms of the world”?  There are so many to choose from, and certainly He’d have the wisdom to pick the right one, right?

Here in the United States, technically a federal constitutional republic, people often just call it a democracy.  For many, it’s a good form of government, and as Winston Churchill said, “No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…”.  Churchill was saying that no system of government is perfect, but regardless we should choose the best.  The best available option is what we should aim for, right?

However, Jesus refused to succumb to the temptation of accepting authority over the imperfect nations from the devil (and under the devil), and we should be very thankful He did.  To us, it seemed like a very enticing offer, but from Jesus’ perspective, was it as attractive?  Was it attractive at all?  How does the Bible describe God’s attitude toward the world’s nations that Jesus was tempted to rule?

In Psalm 2:4, Jesus “laughs” at all the worldly kingdoms and “holds them in derision”.  In that Psalm, He sees all of mankind’s attempts to govern themselves as laughable!  Isaiah 40:17 perhaps takes this even further:

“All the nations are as nothing before him,
            they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.”

From His perspective, “all the nations” are “less than nothing and emptiness.”  Why rule these kingdoms that are laughable and empty?  Kingdoms that are infinitely less than perfect?  Therefore, Jesus wasn’t overcome by the devil’s temptation because His objective was a perfect kingdom made up of perfect people.  Being offered “all the kingdoms of the world” was not at all attractive to Him under those circumstances.

If it wasn’t tempting to Him, why should we be tempted by it?  Why is worldly power so attractive to us, and why do we sometimes act like a perfect government can exist in this world?

We might act like this because we believe the perfect system can overcome the imperfections in each person’s heart.  Therefore, we focus on the political system; the form of government instead of the nature of its people.  However, all the power of earthly kingdoms can’t heal the human heart; only God’s can.  Any system made up of imperfect people is inevitably imperfect.  Jesus’ mission was to create a new people willing and able to live in a perfect kingdom absolutely ruled by Him.  Perfection can be achieved no other way.

Fortunately for us, instead of falling for the devil’s temptation in the desert and forming an imperfect government of imperfect people, Jesus’ response was:

“And Jesus answered him, “It is written,
             “‘You shall worship the Lord your God,
                        and him only shall you serve.’”” – Luke 4:8

Whatever system of government we live under, that government is temporary and will inevitably be abolished by the kingdom of God that already should rule in His people’s hearts.  Therefore, “worship the Lord your God” and pray for the culmination of His kingdom, while faithfully loving God and loving our neighbor, regardless of our form of government.  God’s rule of love is relevant everywhere and will outlast all the kingdoms of this earth, proving each of them to be “less than nothing and emptiness.”

Jesus knew what He was doing when rejecting the world’s kingdoms and He wants us to follow His example.

Popular Orthodoxy: A Quint of Quotes

Todd R 1 Comment

Fellow travelers,

Here is another “Quint of Quotes” from my collection.  These five somewhat related sayings suggest the particular time and place we live in may not be very different from every other time and place.  I hope you find them interesting and thought-provoking.

“Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made.  He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?…the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die.” – Genesis 3:1,4

“Every age has some ostentatious system to excuse the havoc it commits. Conquest, honour, chivalry, religion, balance of power, commerce, no matter what, mankind must bleed, and take a term for a reason” – Horace Walpole, British politician, in 1762

“There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.” – Proverbs 14:12, 16:25

“At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas of which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is ‘not done’ to say it… Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the high-brow periodicals”. – George Orwell, in the 1945 introduction to ‘Animal Farm.’

“For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.  As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.” – 2 Timothy 4:3-5

What are We Willing to Leave on the Cutting Room Floor?

Todd R Leave a comment

From earliest times, debate has raged over whether God’s word can be taken literally.  Since the serpent asked, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”[1] people have debated if the world was created in 6 days.  If Moses really parted the Red Sea.  If Jonah really spent 3 days inside a great fish.  And so on.  Talk about whether the Bible means what it says often focuses on the miraculous events within.

But what about verses like Ephesians 4:29?  “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.”  When Paul wrote that, did he literally mean “no corrupting talk,” or just to aim for less crude language than the average person?  Did Paul mean each word needs to “fit the occasion,” or to repeat whatever catchphrase seems to work in most situations?  Did Paul mean everything we say should “give grace” to others, or is it ok if sometimes we want to look good or only appear gracious?  Do we need to always build up those who hear us?  Did Paul “actually say” what he wrote in Ephesians 4:29?

Failure to meet our ideals
does not mean that
we should change them.

We might reply that this is an impossible standard, but Jesus in Luke 18:19 said “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.”  In that one statement, Jesus testifies that no one is good (everyone misses the mark), and also that He is God in the flesh, come to save us from failing to meet the standard.

So yes, Ephesians 4:29 should be taken literally, but we should also take literally that only Jesus can meet the standard, and that He did meet the standard.  Failure to meet our ideals does not mean they are the wrong ideals and that we should change them.  Holiness is holiness.

G.K. Chesterton wrote in his book Orthodoxy that “it does not matter (comparatively speaking) how often humanity fails to imitate its ideal; for then all its old failures are fruitful. But it does frightfully matter how often humanity changes its ideal; for then all its old failures are fruitless.”[2]

Photo by John Moeses Bauan on Unsplash

In film editing, “the cutting room floor” refers to pieces of physical film that (in pre-digital times) were cut out of the movie and left lying on the floor.  When writing this blog, one of the hardest things to do is to cut out parts or phrases I care deeply about, but sometimes it’s necessary, because my words aren’t always Ephesians 4:29 words.  Finding these failures can be fruitful if I learn from them and move closer to the ideal.  In real-time, daily conversation it’s even harder, but to take Ephesians 4:29 literally, we all have to figuratively ask:

What are we willing to leave on the cutting room floor today?

[1] Genesis 3:1
[2] Chesterton, G.K. Orthodoxy (1908).  P. 163.