The Planting of the LORD

"So it was, whenever Israel had sown, Midianites would come up; also Amalekites and the people of the East would come up against them. ⁴ Then they would encamp against them and destroy the produce of the earth as far as Gaza, and leave no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep nor ox nor donkey."

Judges 6:3-4

In the book of Judges, we are told that there was no king in Israel:  everyone did what was right in his own eyes.  God promised to reign over His people, but they rebelled from under His rule.  They sacrificed to idols and forsook God.  Then God delivered them to oppression by the hands of their enemies.  The Israelites toiled in their fields rising early and staying late, but their crops were destroyed by the Midianites.  The people of Midian and Amalek waited until the children of Israel had sown their crops before they would destroy everything.  They left them nothing to eat, even killing their animals.  It was a desperate time.  But it always took utter devastation and hopelessness before the people cried out to God.  He was always faithful to raise up a deliverer to save His people.

When I read this passage I considered the spiritual battle Christians, as God's adopted children, face on a continual basis.  The enemy is constantly on the lookout, seeking to hinder fruitfulness from the planted seed.  In the Parable of the Sower, the seed is the Word of God.  The devil seeks to attack a man after the good seed is sown.  Man's heart is naturally wicked and deceitful, and his flesh only propagates wickedness exponentially and cannot please God.  Satan turns his efforts on those who may slip from his grasp through belief in God's Word.  Jesus says in Luke 8:5 and 11-12 "A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell by the wayside; and it was trampled down, and the birds of the air devoured it...¹¹ "Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. ¹² Those by the wayside are the ones who hear; then the devil comes and takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved."  The Midianites and Amalekites swooped down upon the fields of the Israelites to impoverish them.  If they could not drive out the Israelites, they would starve them.

This is the same tactic Satan uses in the lives of believers.  He can kill the body, but he cannot touch the soul.  The devil rages against God and His people with vicious hate and tenacity.  Whom he cannot kill he will impoverish.  He will lure followers of Christ to seek after the passing pleasures and amusements of this world.  This same desire is seen in the Philistine leaders when they approached Delilah because they sought to destroy Samson, a man empowered with the Spirit of God.  Judges 16:5 reads, "And the lords of the Philistines came up to her and said to her, "Entice him, and find out where his great strength lies, and by what means we may overpower him, that we may bind him to afflict him; and every one of us will give you eleven hundred pieces of silver."  Don't you smell the sulfur on their breath?  Entice Samson so we might overpower him:  then we can bind him to afflict him!  How many people in this world are overpowered by circumstances, bound by sin, and afflicted with guilt and shame!

Whether you are teaching the Word of God or reading it, that will mobilise the enemy of your soul to rob you of the fruitfulness God desires.  Praise God that no weapon fashioned against us shall prosper, for we have a Redeemer and Deliverer in Jesus Christ!  He is the Living Bread from heaven, even as the Midinianite spoke of the vision with the loaf of bread which rolled down into camp, struck a tent, and threw it down (Judges 7:13).  Through Jesus we can cast down arguments, strongholds, and everything which exalts itself against Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 10:3-6).  Let us not be caught off guard by Satan's attacks which are designed to impoverish us.  You may feel fatigued when the alarm goes off early so you can spend time in God's Word.  Get up immediately trusting God to supply your strength, even as He did for Moses during his two 40-day fasts from food or water.  Believe He can gird up your mind even as Elijah girded his loins and outran a chariot pulled by horses!

If you find yourself in a situation where the Israelites, having departed from the Living God, being afflicted and oppressed without victory or hope, follow their example in crying out to God for salvation and deliverance.  Put away your idols (not in a closet but in the rubbish bin!) and seek the LORD with all your heart, mind, and strength.  The promise God has given to His people Israel has a valuable application to Christians in Jeremiah 24:6-7:  "For I will set My eyes on them for good, and I will bring them back to this land; I will build them and not pull them down, and I will plant them and not pluck them up. ⁷ Then I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am the LORD; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God, for they shall return to Me with their whole heart."  God plants His Word in our hearts to be fruitful for His glory, and we also are the planting of the LORD (Is. 61:3).  Even Satan cannot pluck us from God's hand, nor separate us from the love of God.  In Psalm 1:3 those who delight in God and His law are compared to a tree planted by the rivers of water, bringing forth fruit in season, with leaves which do not whither, and prosperous in all things for God's glory.  Thank God for this everlasting truth!

Giants in the Woods?

A misunderstanding which has led to much disillusionment among Christians is the concept of easy victory.  When we look at the example of the Israelites, it is clear that God gave them victory over their enemies when the Promised Land was divided among them.  But it was not a victory without fighting or obedience.  The land was divided by God, but it was the responsibility of the people to obtain the land.  It was hard.  And it was a job they never fully completed, despite the power of God.  It was not the weakness of God which prevented them, but the people themselves.  We can be our greatest hindrance to a deeper walk with Jesus.

God gave His people a rich land, a land flowing with milk and honey.  But there were also established strongholds, giants, and fighters with better weapons than the Israelites.  The tribe of Joseph approached Joshua with a question:  "Why don't we have more land allotted to us?"  Joshua's answer was basically, "If you need more land, go ahead and take it!"  If we are dissatisfied with the lack of depth of our relationship with Jesus, He would say to us, "Dive deeper!  I have given My Word, the Holy Spirit.  Don't think you can serve both idols and Me!"  Though we are to look to Him to supply our needs, it does not free us from our responsibility to live a consecrated life of obedience for God's glory.

In Joshua 17:15 we read the words of Joshua to the tribe of Joseph:  "If you are a great people, then go up to the forest country and clear a place for yourself there in the land of the Perizzites and the giants, since the mountains of Ephraim are too confined for you."  Clearing forests is tough work, especially without the benefit of modern equipment.  If the tribe of Joseph wanted to expand, they would need to put their logging sandals on, beat their plows into axes, and begin the slow process of cutting down a forest.  By the way, in case you missed it, the forest was inhabited by giants!  The tribe of Joseph, just like most people, weren't too keen on clearing away a whole forest or fighting the giants who lurked there.  They would have preferred an easier way.

Their response is found in Joshua 17:16.  "But the children of Joseph said, "The mountain country is not enough for us; and all the Canaanites who dwell in the land of the valley have chariots of iron, both those who are of Beth Shean and its towns and those who are of the Valley of Jezreel."  Unlike Caleb, who based his ability to drive out the giants based upon the infallible word of God, the tribe of Joseph focused on the difficulties before them.  "Even if we cleared the mountain, it wouldn't be sufficient.  And in the valleys all the Canaanites have chariots of iron!  We're stuck between a mountain and a valley!"  Isn't this typical to the way we feel when we are challenged with our need to "dive deeper" and "climb higher?"  Taking the mountain or the valley would be hard work.  They would both require effort, dedication, and determination.  It would require faith!  That's exactly where we can find ourselves.  We lose sight of God and His promises because of the giants in the forest and the chariots of iron in the valleys.

Let us look at their excuses more carefully.  "The mountain country is not enough for us."  They claimed God had not given them enough, even before they would lift a finger to lay hold of it.  That is like a poor beggar refusing a $50 because it is not a $100!  What an insult, to say that God's provision is lacking!  Forgive me God when I have done the same!  It was not God's provision that was lacking:  it was the faith of the people and their willingness to labour and fight that was deficient.  Their second complaint was no doubt hyperbole:  "All the Canaanites who dwell in the land of the valley have chariots of iron!"  I am sure that not "all" the Canaanites had chariots of iron.  Even if they did, what is a chariot compared to the power of the Living God who is on your side?  Had not God taken the wheels off the Egyptian chariots in the midst of the Red Sea (Exodus 14:25)?  The Egyptians recognized God was fighting for Israel and sought to flee, but in their current situation the children of Joseph forgot about that.  I bet Satan has more of a clue how powerfully God fights for us than we do.

I love the response of Joshua.  Though the children of Joseph were ungrateful, walking by sight, forgetting about the promises and power of God, making one excuse after another, Joshua 17:17-18 reveals the great grace of God:  "And Joshua spoke to the house of Joseph--to Ephraim and Manasseh--saying, "You are a great people and have great power; you shall not have only one lot, ¹⁸ but the mountain country shall be yours. Although it is wooded, you shall cut it down, and its farthest extent shall be yours; for you shall drive out the Canaanites, though they have iron chariots and are strong."  Whether they liked it or not, the mountain country had been given to the children of Joseph.  The strength of their enemies and the abundance of their resources and fighting power was of no consequence.  "Although it is wooded, you shall cut it down, and its farthest extent shall be yours..."  That God would find among His people those who are willing to cut down the dark forests in their hearts and minds so His light may shine brightly again!

As David met the giant Goliath armed with only stone and sling (and the power of the Almighty God), he shouted in 1 Samuel 17:46-47:  "This day the LORD will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you and take your head from you. And this day I will give the carcasses of the camp of the Philistines to the birds of the air and the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel. ⁴⁷ Then all this assembly shall know that the LORD does not save with sword and spear; for the battle is the LORD'S, and He will give you into our hands."  The battle is the LORD's, but we must be willing to run at that giant and sling that stone for God's glory.  Do we have numbered among us those who are willing to fight the good fight and finish the course with joy?  The call is an upward call, and there are many obstacles and enemies.  Let us recall the promise of Isaiah 54:17 to mind:  "No weapon formed against you shall prosper, and every tongue which rises against you in judgment you shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their righteousness is from Me," says the LORD."

If that is my heritage in Christ, I gladly take it.  All God has given me I fight to lay hold of, whether it is the strongholds of giants in the wooded hills or chariots of iron in the valleys.  Many might be cut down as we take the hill, but we will be victorious through our God.  If God is for us, who can be against us?

The Wart War

Over the course of my life, I have had different skin-related issues.  By God's grace I have successfully battled athlete's foot, dandruff, dry patches of skin, and an occasional wart.  Warts can be particularly annoying because they are so durable!  Caused by a virus, warts have the amazing ability to regenerate even after being burned, cut off, or persistently treated.  I have had about five warts over the course of my lifetime, and they have never been cured without an all-out fight.  This is certainly not a glamorous post, but I trust it will do some good.

At the moment I am well on my way to ridding myself of a wart on the pad of one of my toes.  Since it wasn't giving me any pain, I ignored it for some time.  It was never that large, but it amazes me how fast skins grew around it for protection.  After many months, I decided the wart was part of my body I no longer wanted and committed myself to dealing with it.  So every other day I cut a small pad coated with an acid designed to break down the wart.  Then I carefully cut away any dead skin and apply another fitted pad.  The wart had feeling, a blood supply, and seemed to constantly regenerate.  It was like a parasite, a sensitive, painful area that draws strength from the body.  It is a two steps forward, one step back fight - a fight I was devoted to winning.  The reason why I still have the wart after a couple of years is because there were times that I thought the fight was over and stopped monitoring my toe.  Hello!  A month later the wart would be back, like it had never left.

It's a weird thing, to be fighting against your own body.  But this fight with the wart is just like our fight with sin.  Sin is a part of us because of our fallen nature.  If we are in Christ, God opens our eyes to parts of ourselves that should not be.  We must decide to deal with our sin and then diligently fight the battle.  It is true that those who repented and placed their faith in Jesus Christ have been forgiven from sin.  However, sin can grow in the life of a believer like a wart.  Unchecked and ignored, it can grow large and spread.  But sin is much more than unsightly:  it is deadly and destructive.

Just like there are steps I must take to rid myself of a wart, so we must take steps to eliminate sin from our lives.  We must recognize the sin that we have cultivated and allowed to remain.  We should not try to hide it from sight or deny its existence:  sin must be brought out in the open.  One man deals with the wart on his foot by going to a doctor for treatment; another man constantly wears socks, ashamed to show his toes.  When it comes to sin, hiding it only increases the power Satan has over our lives.  Unforgiveness is a foothold which can turn into a stronghold.  It cannot be seen with the naked eye, but is evident when seen through the lens of scripture.  2 Corinthians 2:10-11 reads, "Now whom you forgive anything, I also forgive. For if indeed I have forgiven anything, I have forgiven that one for your sakes in the presence of Christ, ¹¹ lest Satan should take advantage of us; for we are not ignorant of his devices."

If you are aware of an area of sin in your life, do not rest until you confess it to God and those you have wronged (James 5:16), repent, and forsake it.  The weaknesses in your flesh you will have for the rest of your days.  But weakness does not mean defeat if we are in Christ.  We must be vigilant and aware that we can fall back into old sins, ways of coping, addictions, and unscriptural thought patterns which will lead to our destruction.  We should not shrug off sin because we are confident in our salvation.  If Jesus died for my sins, I have no right to persist in them.  Let us fight the good fight without losing heart or hope.  Our God is able to keep us from stumbling.  When we do trip and fall, we have a God who is able to lift us up to our feet and lift our head so we might gaze into His eyes of everlasting love and take heart.

Declare war on those warts, and don't give up!  God has given us the victory, healing, and cleansing through Jesus Christ our LORD!

Jesus Must Be LORD

Reading is a critical part of the life of every Christian.  I am always concerned when a Christian tells me they are not fond of reading, seeing as God has provided His Word to us in written form!  As followers of Jesus Christ, we ought to be people "of the Book."  That being said, there are many profitable books written that give glory to God.  Books challenge the way we think and are an impetus to growth.  It is important that we read wisely, seeking to find material which lines up with the truth of scripture.  In my experience with Christian bookstores today, only a fraction of the books written fit this criteria.  From the Puritan era probably 90% of books are worth reading, and in the modern era 10% are worth reading.  In the last century there has been a rapid departure from the authority of God's Word.

Ever so often I am introduced to a book which makes me wonder, "Where has this book been all my life?"  I am in the middle of Alan Redpath's book, The Making of a Man of God.  Written in 1962 and reprinted in 1990, it has easily been catapulted into the top-five category at the moment.  The author masterfully crafts object lessons from the life of David into challenging applications concerning the life of discipleship in Christ.  Straightforward, powerful, and loving, this book is a great addition to the library of any disciple of Christ.  When you buy it, you might as well procure two so you will have one to perpetually lend!  Here is an especially potent excerpt from chapter 15 as Redpath explains the necessity to make Jesus Christ your King and Ruler of your life in truth (The Making of a Man of God, Redpath, pg. 176):

"Now then do it!"  Don't go on just wishing and resolving - may the Holy Spirit push you into decision.  There have been times in my life when quite frankly I have felt the Lord pushing me back to the wall.  It is as if He had got me in a corner, and I had to face the issue squarely.  I hope that now you are feeling the pressure of God's Spirit pushing you back in your seat so that you must face this issue of the kingship of Jesus Christ.

"Now then do it," for unless you do (and I don't say this to frighten you), your heart has only to miss about a half a dozen beats, and you will be in hell - with all your good intentions, with all your resolves, with all your professions of faith, with all your sound theology.  You who sought in times past to make Jesus King, you the child of Christian parents, the frequent attender at the house of God, the listener to the Word of God, the hearer of the gospel - all these privileges and benefits will be merely millstones around your neck in a lost eternity unless you make Him your King.

Couldn't have said it better myself, Mr. Redpath.  My desire is not only to agree with what has been written, but that Jesus would be in reality my LORD so He might be my Saviour.  I have never met someone who thought they would be the ones who say, "Lord! Lord!" to whom Jesus responds, "Depart from me!  I never knew you - you who practice iniquity!"  But I know that it could easily be me as well as any nominal believer - one who honours Christ in word but not in deed.  I know I have unknowingly met such people through my Christian walk.  Instead of judging one another, let us judge ourselves and follow Jesus faithfully!