Repairing the Breach in the Kingdom of God - Part Four

RUINING THE HARVEST
The horsemen who have already come and those who are coming to attack the fields of the daughters of Zion will do damage, but the daughters themselves have done more to ruin their harvests. With our judgmental words, strife, self-righteousness, and pride, Christians have been using heavy clubs to beat the seed of God’s Word into people’s lives. We have ruined our harvest because of the endless threshing and bruising we do by nagging, criticizing, and constantly correcting each other and looking for evil in each other’s lives. This is how Christians become hypocrites. This is not following on the path of love that God has taught them.

Don't laugh at the warning I am giving you! If you do, it will be even harder for you to escape. I have heard the LORD Almighty's decision to destroy the whole country. Listen to what I am saying; pay attention to what I am telling you. Farmers don't constantly plow their fields and keep getting them ready for planting. Once they have prepared the soil, they plant the seeds of herbs such as dill and cumin. They plant rows of wheat and barley, and at the edges of their fields they plant other grain. They know how to do their work, because God has taught them. They never use a heavy club to beat out dill seeds or cumin seeds; instead they use light sticks of the proper size. They do not ruin the wheat by threshing it endlessly, and they know how to thresh it by driving a cart over it without bruising the grains. All this wisdom comes from the LORD Almighty. The plans God makes are wise, and they always succeed. (Isa 28:22-29 GNB)

"For long ago I broke your yoke and burst your bonds; but you said, 'I will not serve.' Yes, on every high hill and under every green tree you bowed down like a whore. Yet I planted you a choice vine, wholly of pure seed. How then have you turned degenerate and become a wild vine? Though you wash yourself with lye and use much soap, the stain of your guilt is still before me, declares the Lord GOD. (Jer 2:20-22 ESV)

If we want to succeed in our planting and harvesting for the Kingdom of God, then we have to go back and learn God’s ways of love.

Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.
(Isa 53:1-5 ESV)

A servant of the Lord must not argue. Instead, he must be kind to everyone, teachable, willing to suffer wrong, and gentle in refuting his opponents. After all, maybe God will allow them to repent and to come to a full knowledge of the truth, so that they might escape from the devil's snare, even though they've been held captive by him to do his will. (2Ti 2:24-26 ISV)

From where are quarrels and fights among you? Is not the source of your pleasures that wage war in your members? You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. And you are jealous and do not have the power; so you fight and wage war. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and you do not receive, because you ask wrongly, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. You adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose that the Scripture speaks in vain: "He jealously longs the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us"? But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, “GOD OPPOSES THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE." Submit therefore to God. Resist the Devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be afflicted and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy to dejection. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you. Do not speak against one another, brethren; he who is speaking against a brother, or is judging a brother, speaks against the Torah and judges the Torah. But if you judge the Torah, you are not a doer of the Torah, but a judge. There is one Giver of Torah and Judge, He Who has the power to save and to utterly ruin; but who are you to judge your neighbor? (Jas 4:1-12 MRC)

For our transgressions are multiplied before you, and our sins testify against us; for our transgressions are with us, and we know our iniquities: transgressing, and denying the LORD, and turning back from following our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart lying words. Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands far away; for truth has stumbled in the public squares, and uprightness cannot enter. Truth is lacking, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. The LORD saw it, and it displeased him that there was no justice. He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no one to intercede; then his own arm brought him salvation, and his righteousness upheld him. He put on righteousness as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on his head; he put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and wrapped himself in zeal as a cloak. According to their deeds, so will he repay, wrath to his adversaries, repayment to his enemies; to the coastlands he will render repayment. So they shall fear the name of the LORD from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun; for he will come like a rushing stream, which the wind of the LORD drives. "And a Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who turn from transgression," declares the LORD. "And as for me, this is my covenant with them," says the LORD: "My Spirit that is upon you, and my words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouth of your offspring, or out of the mouth of your children's offspring," says the LORD, "from this time forth and forevermore."
(Isa 59:12-21 ESV)

Even though our sins have ruined our harvest, God promises to redeem and make our fields new again. All we have to do is return to the Lord and His ways. God always keeps His covenant with us and His Spirit assures our harvest will continue for generations.

"Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. "For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. "For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall make a name for the LORD, an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off." (Isa 55:6-13 ESV)

“While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease." (Gen 8:22 ESV)

"For there is hope for a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that its shoots will not cease. Though its root grow old in the earth, and its stump die in the soil, yet at the scent of water it will bud and put out branches like a young plant." (Job 14:7-9 ESV)

'Come, and let us return unto the LORD; for He hath torn, and He will heal us, He hath smitten, and He will bind us up. After two days will He revive us, on the third day He will raise us up, that we may live in His presence. And let us know, eagerly strive to know the LORD, His going forth is sure as the morning; and He shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter rain that watereth the earth.' (Hos 6:1-3 JPS)

The latter rain is coming and the King’s Garden will be established, just as He promised.

*See these previous blog entries:
http://toknowandtolove.blogspot.com/2008/01/kings-garden-part-1.html

http://toknowandtolove.blogspot.com/2008/01/kings-garden-part-2.html

http://toknowandtolove.blogspot.com/2008/02/women-wells-water-trees.html