Another Look at the Parable of the Sower Matthew 13:1-23

They call this the parable of the sower, but it isn’t really about the sower.  It isn’t even about the seed that he sows.  It’s about the kinds of soil that the seed is sown upon; or, as Jesus explains, it’s actually about the people who hear about God and the 4 basic ways that they might respond to God’s Word when they hear it. 

The parable is one of the better-known parables, and Jesus even gives us the explanation of the parable, telling us what everything means.  But He also leaves a lot of questions unanswered, questions that nobody is asking.  Maybe Jesus didn’t answer the questions, because every society in every generation has to answer those questions in their own way.  But if we are serious about reaching the world for Christ, and particularly our neighbors and the country we live in, then we need to answer these questions.

But first we should look at the parable itself.

The parable is found 3 times in the Bible, in the books of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.  These are called the synoptic gospels, because they all present the life and teaching of Jesus in a similar fashion.  But they each have a different emphasis and their own unique perspectives.  So, while much of the gospels cover the same stories, they are not redundant but complement each other.  And when included in each gospel, they present a more fully formed and well-rounded picture of Jesus and His teaching.

I find it interesting, for example, that when the parable mentions the work of the devil in keeping people from responding positively toward God, each gospel refers to him by a different term.  In Matthew’s Gospel, he refers to the devil as “the evil one.” Mark calls him Satan, which means ‘adversary, and Luke uses the word devil.  The Greek word there is dia/boloj, diabolos, from which we get the word ‘diabolical.  The basic meaning of the word is ‘slanderer.’  Slander is “the utterance of false charges or misrepresentations which defame and damage another’s reputation.”  I don’t think we should consider the slander here to what the devil says about the person necessarily, but what he says about the Word or message.

So Matthew emphasized the devil’s nature, Mark his work, and Luke his methods.

But let’s look at the parable itself.  We’ll use Matthew’s account as a base line:

Matthew 13:1–23 (NASB95)  ¹ That day Jesus went out of the house and was sitting by the sea. ² And large crowds gathered to Him, so He got into a boat and sat down, and the whole crowd was standing on the beach. ³ And He spoke many things to them in parables, saying, “Behold, the sower went out to sow; ⁴ and as he sowed, some seeds fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate them up. ⁵ “Others fell on the rocky places, where they did not have much soil; and immediately they sprang up, because they had no depth of soil. ⁶ “But when the sun had risen, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away. ⁷ “Others fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked them out. ⁸ “And others fell on the good soil and yielded a crop, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty. ⁹ “He who has ears, let him hear.”  . . . ¹⁸ “Hear then the parable of the sower. ¹⁹ “When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is the one on whom seed was sown beside the road. ²⁰ “The one on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, this is the man who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; ²¹ yet he has no firm root in himself, but is only temporary, and when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away. ²² “And the one on whom seed was sown among the thorns, this is the man who hears the word, and the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. ²³ “And the one on whom seed was sown on the good soil, this is the man who hears the word and understands it; who indeed bears fruit and brings forth, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty.”

But then Jesus explains what this all means:

In the first case, the seed fell along the road.  This is where people walk, so the ground is firm, and the seed is unable to go below the surface.  It can’t take root, and it is soon eaten by the birds. 

Matthew notes that these people don’t understand the Word.  Luke adds that the seed was trampled on by those on the road.  The Word is sown on people’s hearts, but the ground is hard and it doesn’t really penetrate.  The devil then comes and takes it away.  It’s gone, leaving no permanent impact.  Mark says that this happens immediately.  People hear the Word of God. and it’s like you’re speaking a foreign language.  Jesus says that this is the work of the devil. 

Jesus didn’t merely say that some people won’t accept the message, but that there are spiritual forces that immediately are at work and who remove the Word so that it has no effect on their lives.

The ground is firm, so the seed can’t penetrate, and the devil comes and takes away the Word.  He takes away the Word, but that doesn’t explain why the ground was hard and impenetrable in the first place.

The second group of people actually accept the Word.  These are those where the Word is sown on rocky soil. 

The three accounts all note that this person receives the Word with joy, Matthew and Mark add that this response is immediate.  But the Word has no root in this person.  They believe for a time (Luke), but then they stop.  Matthew and Mark say the person was offended, or stumbled, or got angry.  Luke says they fell away.

The reasons for this short-lived spiritual life are tribulation (lit. pressure) and persecution (lit. being pursued).  Luke calls it ‘a time of trial (or, test, temptation).

In the third case, the seed is sown on thorny soil.  The Word is choked out.  In Matthew and Mark, it’s cares (anxiety) of the age and the deceitfulness of wealth.  Mark adds the desires for the rest of the things.  Luke describes it as worries, riches, and pleasures of life.

The last group receives the Word and bears fruit.  Matthew adds that they understand the Word.  Remember he was the only one who noted that in the first group, the people didn’t understand the Word before the devil was able to snatch it away.  Matthew and Mark describe this fruit bearing as 30, 60, hundred-fold.  Luke just notes that they hold fast to the Word and bear fruit with endurance, or perseverance.

The question needs to be asked why the people responded the way that they did.  Why are some people like well-worn paths where the ground is hard and impenetrable to the seed of the Word of God?  Why are some people’s lives full of rocks, and what are these rocks?  Why are some people’s lives full of thorns and thistles, and what does that represent?  And why are other people’s lives like well-watered, fertile, broken-up soil where seed can easily take root and grow?

I believe that human beings are basically the same across all cultures and across all generations, yet a complete answer will be unique to every culture and generation.  A culture establishes a basic norm for thinking, a common worldview that underlies all the discussions and decisions that people make.

And what makes a culture?

We can offer a list of things from family to music to media, but there is one creator of culture that has become so dominant today that any attempts to try to counteract it might well be met with the full force of the law.  Most influences of culture have been voluntary and unorganized.  Nobody said you had to listen to the Beatles or Bob Dylan, but they are nothing compared to the real shaper of culture in our time.

And that is government.

There are three strains of thinking today that dominate in our culture that are not only encouraged by government, they are driven by it and compel your compliance.

These strains of thinking I would call secularism, entitle-ism, and hedonism.

Secularism is the thinking that religion can and should be separated from public life.  A religion purports to describe reality, what is true and false, what is right and wrong, and how life is to be lived.  Secularism declares that religion is personal, like your taste in music or food, and that society must be run, or governed, by a system devoid of anything that has anything to do with God, or religion.

After a few generations of this kind of thinking, now when God is introduced into public discourse, you might as well be talking about aliens from outer space, because not only is it considered unknowable (unprovable), it is irrelevant.  It has no bearing on real life.  Everything is and can be explained without it, and everything that is said about it is just your opinion. 

If our society is and was meant to be secular, as we are often told, then religion is not only unnecessary to life but unrelated, unconnected, and finally inappropriate.

In our society, secularism has risen through a complete misunderstanding, intentional and unintentional, of our First Amendment.  You can’t understand the First Amendment if you don’t know the early history of our country.  If you don’t know what practices were considered consistent with the First Amendment back then. you are not going to be able to understand what our Founders meant by it.

The First Amendment cannot guarantee free exercise of religion unless religion and its values are consistent with the highest values of our country.  If we were meant to be a secular nation, then secular values would be higher than religious ones, and freedom of religion could not be promised.

For example, prayer and Bible use were a part of public education from the time of the Pilgrims in the early 1600s and continued continuously until 1962, almost 350 years after the first public schools were formed in our land.  And now they are found to be unconstitutional??????

The First Congress had Bibles printed to be used in the public schools, and the First Congress declared a national Day of Prayer as one of its first acts.  The Ten Commandments were prominently displayed in schools, courts, government buildings, and on government property for most of our nation’s history, but only in the last few decades has this practice been found unconstitutional. 

Some may say that the culture changed the laws, but these were court decisions made by a majority of nine people who were not elected to represent us and who we are essentially powerless to resist or remove from office.  And what a court changes today becomes the new normal tomorrow. 

Four years ago, almost nobody openly endorsed gay marriage.  President Obama came out in support of it, and within a year or two, the Supreme Court made it the law of the land.  That didn’t change too many people’s minds, but children from the earliest ages in public schools today will be taught that homosexuality is normal, healthy, and just as good as heterosexuality. 

And the Church will be seen as bigots, haters, and stuck in the ancient past of superstition, the flat earth, and the myth of Adam and Eve.

But back to the parable.

Secularism produces a people steeped in naturalism.  There is no God behind the curtain that governs in our lives.  We have a government instead to protect us.  And things happen because, well, they just happen.  Any talk of a God or religion is just superstition, or a carryover from an unenlightened, primitive past.  We know better now.

People with a secular worldview see no need for God or even a reason for God.  We’re born, we live, and we die.  There’s nothing more to see here.  When you talk to people about God, it is as if you were trying to sell them insurance coverage for an outer space invasion.  They are like a well-worn path where the ground is hard, and seed is not able to penetrate it.

The second strain of thought promoted by government is entitle-ism, or entitlement.  We may laugh when schools have multiple valedictorians, and when every athlete gets a participation trophy, but they are not kidding. 

If God has no place in our public life, then neither does the Ten Commandments. The Commandments didn’t address school grades or sports directly, but it does teach responsibility for one’s actions and accountability.   So when religion teaches that people are responsible for their actions, this means then that some people make good choices while other people make bad choices.

So to set religion aside, we must also set aside any idea of judgment or accountability.  Those are inherently religious ideas, and we can’t promote religion. 

Secularism then had to develop its own moral code, and we call it political correctness, which basically teaches tolerance, equality, fairness, and diversity, which includes multiculturalism, the equality of all cultures and societies.  To say that one culture or society is better than another assumes some outside point of reference, a higher authority, and then we are back to God.

Since religion involves accountability and standards of behavior, all this must be rejected as well.  So the worst offense now is to offend somebody, as it would show one’s attempt to assert some form of moral superiority over someone else.  Discrimination would be another form of this, and one must aim for the most diverse outcomes in order to prove that it has not taken place. 

In a politically correct society, there should be no winners, because that would mean that somebody lost.  We are all winners.  We are all equal.  Believing that people are equal in this current sense means that any differences in people’s status must be the fault of the society and not the individual.  So society is divided into oppressors and the oppressed, and society must focus on elevating the oppressed peoples, who just happen to be everyone of color or female in gender.

There is no One who judges people.  And there is no One up in the sky who takes care of people.  That function is now that of the government.  So where the first Bill of Rights listed some of the things that people could do without government interference, rights now become things that people are entitled to by the government.  Or, in other words, things that people are to be given at the expense of other people. 

Back to the parable. 

The second kind of soil describes people who believe in this God talk for a while.  After all, God has a wonderful plan for your life.  But these people are easily offended.  The Christian life is hard, if you are really serious about it. 

But a secular life is meant to be a smooth safe life.  The government is responsible to see that everything is taken care of including your emotional and mental wellbeing.  People are to be protected from inconvenience and intolerance, and certainly they have the right not to be offended.  

Christians are the last people in a secular society to be defended from abuse, and people today have a right not to be hurt.  Unless, of course, you are a Christian, because then you actually deserve it.  It’s your religion that teaches intolerance and judgment. 

The parable talks about tribulation and persecution that causes these people to be offended.  The basic ideas of these two words are pressure and pursuit.  Tribulations can be any kinds of pressure, and persecution can apply to any kinds of challenge to your faith by a disagreeing society. 

So we have a society that is emotionally pampered, sensitive to any criticism, and unwilling to challenge the accepted thinking of the age.  These traits don’t contribute to longevity in a person’s new Christian walk. So people who are like rocky soil expect things to go easier than they usually are, and they are not ones to stick things out when things get rough.

The third strain of thinking I called hedonism.  Essentially hedonism is the thinking that life is meant to be enjoyed.  What feels good and tastes good are pleasures that should not be denied.  How can something that brings pleasure be wrong or be restricted in ways that seem arbitrary at best? 

The moral code of secularism doesn’t address moral issues beyond those basic principles of tolerance, etc.; and since all cultures are equal and God and religion are just relics of an unenlightened past, we as a society will not and cannot judge you on your lifestyle.  We have no grounds to reject it or question it. 

But take it a step further.  This is a view of life that puts all value on what can be seen, felt, experienced with the senses.  There is nothing more beyond this.  Life is to be lived in the here and now, because there is nothing else. 

Luke summarized the thorny ground as cares, wealth, and pleasures of life.   The same people that will pursue pleasure, or comfort and security, as their priority are the same people prone to cares and the pursuit of wealth.  The same God who is not there to judge them is also not there to be trusted to take care of them. 

This third type of person is entirely engaged in a life that finds its highest meaning and value in the things of this life.  That chokes the word, because the things they can feel and see are more real to them than things they cannot see or directly feel. 

All three of these soils, these kinds of people, these ways of viewing life are promoted, even codified, by a secular government.  They are part of our public educational system from the earliest ages, and government is seeking to get your kids at an even earlier age through pre-K education and child care. 

Almost all new laws and court decisions are based on these kinds of thinking, and the government will encourage and force these ways of life through the courts and law enforcement. 

Think of government as a huge dump truck that covers the land of our country with rocks that make any growth of life from the Word of God more difficult than it need be.

Christians today often talk about persecution and how it is good for the Church.  It wakes believers up, and the Church gets serious and starts growing.  They look at China, but they don’t look at the Middle East.  The Church is growing rapidly in China under persecution., but the Church is being pushed to extinction in the Middle East through persecution. 

The Church is growing in China in spite of persecution and not because of it.  Chinese Christians believe in miracles and see them regularly in their evangelistic efforts, and Christians here don’t.  But that’s another article. 

The fact is that we had a Christian country for hundreds of years before and after we officially became a nation.  But gradually government, through our courts and our laws, slowly changed the rules by which our nation ran, and every generation started out with a new normal, a new baseline on who we are and were as a nation. 

A lot of Christians don’t value or even accept the idea today of a Christian nation, because they see that as only the outward trappings of religion but not the true commitment of born again individuals. 

But they forget the parable.

Those outward trappings, like prayer and Bible in school, public manger scenes, the Ten Commandments posted prominently, even just being able to say Merry Christmas, all work to normalize the idea that there is a God to whom we are accountable, that God is real, and that Christianity and the Bible are true.  

Christians pray for and give to help small tribes in remote jungles, but they live in a nation of over 300 million people who are becoming increasingly impervious to the gospel, because they live in a country that marginalizes it, and Christians think it is wrong to challenge that.

Christians keep thinking they are living in Bible days when they had kings and rulers and Caesars.  We have representatives.  If we think they aren’t doing a good job of promoting and protecting our values, then we have the right and responsibility to remove and replace them.  And we may have to be the ones taking their jobs, because we can’t wait for someone else to come along to do this better job.

But we need to see that winning the world is not just presenting the gospel one on one to individuals.  The entire political and cultural system affects how the people will respond to it.  We may talk about the power of the Holy Spirit as making that irrelevant, but don’t forget, it was Jesus who told us this parable.  It was Jesus who told us about these different kinds of people, and we won’t be successful in our attempts to reach the people of our country if we don’t know and understand the dynamics affecting how they think. 

Challenging this whole concept of a secular society may sound like we are trusting in politics to save us when we are praying for a revival, but challenging a society at its very root might be the very way necessary to start this revival.

Really, really bad situations Acts 16:22-34

In the last three years, I have gone through the roughest situation in my life.  Outwardly, it was constant health problems: cancer, heart, and now lung problems.  But to me, the bigger problems were spiritual.

My Christian life felt broken.  I didn’t feel like I could trust God.  Everything I thought I knew about God didn’t seem true.  I knew what I thought the Bible said about God, but it didn’t seem to match real life.

After I got about as low as I could go, God started putting me back together again.  One small piece at a time.

But this lesson isn’t about me.

In the last few weeks, I have talked to some people whose problems seem so much greater than mine.  When people start telling us their problems, and here I’m told men have different reactions than women, women will tend to just listen and sympathize, men will try to fix them.

I’m a man.  I try to fix things.  Not things around the house, which I’m not good at, but things in life, political things, cultural things, spiritual things. 

Part of this healing process for me has been these Bible studies.  One friend suggested doing fewer of them.  There are too many of them.  People might watch or read more of them.  I told him, I can’t just sit down and do a study.  That wouldn’t get anywhere.

They come to me.  Often in the middle of the night.  Right now it’s 4:26 A.M.   When I wrote that an hour ago.

So I woke up and these people came to mind.  What can I say to people who are in really, really bad situations? 

And this is what came to me tonight.

Were there people in the Bible in really, really bad situations?  And then I thought of three.

In Bible days, possibly the worst situation a person could be in, apart from a person like Job, who had a lot of physical suffering, which we’ll probably talk about at some point, was being in prison.  Not only were the conditions miserable in every sense of the word, there was very little thought of ever getting out. 

First, there was Joseph, who was sold into slavery in Egypt.  His story starts in Genesis 37.  He was falsely accused of attempted rape and thrown into prison.  It’s hard to beat that as a really, really bad situation.

But the Bible says that God was with him.  I’ve been asking God a dozen times a day for some time now, Are You with me?  I have no problem sensing God’s presence.  But I’ve had a real problem with believing in His favor.  I felt like I had failed him too often in the past, and He couldn’t really trust me, to do anything with me.

And part of His putting me back together has been these Bible studies.  I do them out of obedience. 

But back to Joseph.  He had had dreams before all this happened to him that God had plans for his life.  That probably gave him hope.  But in the face of prison in Egypt for a crime he didn’t do, that’s still a stretch. 

What started the mending process for me was the simple recognition that God is God.  He is the Creator.  He is worthy of praise for who He is, regardless of whatever I think He should or shouldn’t have done in my life or anywhere in life.  Like the burnt offerings in the temple that God wanted to be going continuously, with a morning and evening sacrifice, I began offering my own sacrifice at least twice a day and throughout the day.  Give thanks to the Lord for He is good,  His lovingkindness is forever.  Those are the words used most often in the Bible when offering praise to God.

When I started doing that, as I said before, my life started to mend.

Then there is the story of Peter in Acts 12.  James was killed with the sword by Herod, and Peter was thrown into prison to be killed shortly.  But the Bible says that prayer was being made fervently for him. 

And on the night before he was to be executed, an angel took him out of prison.  Peter thought it was a very vivid dream, but standing outside in the cool dark night, he realized he was free. 

Now I’m sure a lot of people will think here of times that they prayed fervently about something, and the prayers were not answered.  At least the way they were hoping.  I suspect most of these had to do with prayers for other people, where we just don’t know everything. 

So I’m praying for these people fervently.  But I don’t know everything.

The last example was Paul and Silas.  They were beaten and put in the inner dungeon with their feet either in chains or locked in stocks.

Now that’s a really, really bad situation.  What did they do?  They began singing hymns to God as prayers.  Right out loud in front of all the other prisoners.  God sent an earthquake that released all the bonds and opened all the doors.  They didn’t escape, but they ended up having dinner with the jailer and his family after the jailer became a Christian.  They were released from prison the next day.

They sang hymns to God, openly, unashamedly.   

The first time I had cancer, almost 25 years ago, I was in a very low sad state of mind, and God clearly told me to rejoice and give thanks.  Now that was hard.  But I really think it had a lot to do with not having any treatment and getting a normal test result.

I can pray for these people, and maybe they will watch or read this lesson.  God is the one who has to deliver them.  He can, and He would like to.  The first step is to worship and give thanks to God.  Not because we like the situation we are in, but because He is God, and He is worthy. 

Are you having a really, really hard time?  Tell him all about it while you are thanking and worshiping Him, but then listen, for He will tell you what do to next if not just deliver you.

A controversial verse for controversial times 2 Chronicles 7:13,14

Those of you who have been around in Christians circles for a while know that there are a lot, and, no, I haven’t counted them all, of verses that are misused, or said to be misused. 

And I’m going to use one today.

In this case, the controversy stems from taking a verse from the Old Testament where the nation of Israel is at the center, and then applying it to a situation today, particularly when it refers to the Church.

The problem with this thinking is that more than ¾ of the Bible is the Old Testament.  That was the Bible of Jesus, Paul, the apostles, and the early church.  Hebrews, for example, takes a promise given to Moses and Joshua and applies it to all believers today.  Hebrews 13:6  I will never leave you nor forsake you. 

Israel is called God’s own possession, a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation.  Exodus 19 These very same words are used in the New Testament applied to the Church. 

Ephesians 2 tells how that the gentiles were strangers to the covenants of promise, but now they had been brought near by the blood of Christ, and that God had made the two (Israel and the gentiles) into one new man.  The gentiles are now fellow citizens with the saints, fellow heirs and fellow members of the body.

If you start limiting promises and words in the Bible to the immediate people they were addressed to, then you’re not going to have much of a Bible left for yourself.

The 23^rd Psalm.  the Lord is MY shepherd.  That’s David’s experience.  Are you going to just take all that and apply it to yourself?

The verse I am talking about here is 2 Chronicles 7:13,14.   I can hear some of you groaning all the way over here.  Give me two minutes here.

13      “If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among My people,

          14      and My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

I have talked in other lessons and will do more in the future about God working in things like the weather and pestilences to get people’s attention, and even on a national level.

I questioned some of this in the past, because Christians aren’t exempt from these kinds of things.  Then I realized that that is the point.  Christians are involved.  The pestilence we are experiencing is affecting Christians. 

In the United States, we have representative government.  Our leaders represent us.  Well, most of the people who represent me strongly support abortion.  That makes their sin my sin.  They represent me. 

In the Bible, you have godly people like Nehemiah and Daniel confessing the sins of the people as if they were their own sins.  Well, in America, in a sense they are.  Because the people who represent us are doing things we would never do ourselves.

Should Christians be involved in politics?  You better be.   Get yourself somebody to represent you who really does represent you. 

Our country is in the middle of a pestilence, which is destroying the country in many ways.  Not just are people dying, but people are losing their livelihoods, their life savings.  And Christians are not exempt.  We are the salt of the earth.  If the land is turning rotten, we are not being salt enough.

God says He will heal their land.  The land of His people.  Is this our land?  Yes, it’s my land, and it’s your land.  Is it a broken land in need of healing?  Yes, it is. 

For too long, God’s people have stood back and watched while our country deteriorated in so many different ways. 

Just ask yourself one question: who are your representatives in government?  I don’t just mean the President.  Your state representatives, state senator, your Congressman, your Senators.  Do they represent you? 

I submit to you that our nation is broken.  Our nation needs to be delivered.  From pestilence, from destructive weather patterns (and, yes, we’ll talk more about that in later lessons), from ungodliness and anti-godliness.

The world doesn’t know what’s going on.  We do, or should.  Our country can’t save itself.  We, God’s people, can and should.  By confessing our sins as a nation and seeking God for our nation.  And, yes, we will have to get people who truly represent us to represent us. 

God says that He will heal our nation, or He is willing to.  It’s what we do as God’s people that will make the difference.

Is God trying to say something to us through natural events? 2 Chronicles 6:24-28

A lot of people today think that there is a conflict between science and religion.

No, there’s no conflict, though there are problems sometimes when one or the other goes beyond their proper bounds.

Science deals with things that it can measure.  Things it can quantify in some way with numbers.  It doesn’t do so well with things it can’t measure.  Like God. 

Science has nothing to say about God.  Except maybe to look at the things He’s made and say, wow! 

But science says that God didn’t create the world.  Not because they proved it, but because they assume that everything has a natural cause.  So the universe came into existence by itself, through random and necessary interactions of inert minerals and chemicals.  Again, they can’t prove any of this, but given their assumptions, that’s the only thing they can conclude.

But what has happened in our society is that God has been totally pushed out of the picture, and we no longer look to God to answer problems that happen in our society and our country.

In 2 Chronicles 6, the Bible lists a number of things that people today would never attribute to God, things that God does, but the Bible says that He does do these things.  And they all are meant to bring a response to God from us.

I know some people will question my theology here, because these things in the Bible have to do with the nation of Israel which had a particular covenant with God.  Yes, I know all that, and I’m not going to take the rest of the video trying to make the case why this applies to us today. 

If you don’t think God does this stuff today, then frankly you won’t have much left in the Bible for yourself.

In verse24, ²⁴ “If Your people Israel    

   

This is a side note, that we’ll talk about in other lessons, but in Exodus 19, God says to Israel:     you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine;     6      and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’

These very exact words are used in the New Testament are applied to Christians, in Titus, I Peter, and elsewhere.

In verse24, ²⁴ “If Your people Israel are defeated before an enemy because they have sinned against You.” 

Our country came out of World War 2, looking like a champ.  The world’s leading superpower.  Five years later, we fought a war in Korea, and we didn’t win.  We declared a ceasefire that still exists today with no resolution to the conflict.  We brag to the world how we stopped the Nazis and ended their program of mass extermination, but we failed to stop North Korea which has become one of the most brutal nations in the world, the number one persecutor of Christians.

We spent ten years fighting in Viet Nam, lost 50,000 soldiers, and then gave up and let the other side claim the victory.  We went in Iraq and Afghanistan, and both countries are still a mess and when we leave them completely, they will return to what they were before if not worse.

Wow, what happened?  Nobody is going to write the history of the United States and explain that our military failures had anything to do with God, but dozens of times in the Bible God talks about that very thing.

Verse 26: ²⁶ “When the heavens are shut up and there is no rain because they have sinned against You,

You never hear a weather person end their broadcast, saying, now let’s pray for the people in this area here who have a high chance of tornadoes over the next few days.  We think our science explains the origin of these disasters, but we never think that God can or wants to do anything about them.  The Bible, many times, speaks of God bringing famine or some disaster as a wake-up call to a nation.

I resisted that idea for a while.  I said, first of all, that nobody would think that God is doing anything here.  They will just attribute it to climate change and never think about God.  And then too, Christians are affected as much as the non-Christian here.  You don’t think there weren’t a lot of Christians who were affected by those floods in Michigan when the dams gave way?

But then I thought more about it.  Our nation has representative government.  We don’t have rulers who rule over us; we have representatives who represent us.  Well, my representatives in my government are big promoters of abortion.  You don’t think God’s paying attention or that He doesn’t care about that.  I expect to talk about abortion pretty soon here.

So, yes, I can see God using natural disasters to wake up Christians to pray for our country.

Verse 28: ²⁸ “If there is famine in the land, if there is pestilence, if there is blight or mildew, if there is locust or grasshopper, if their enemies besiege them in the land of their cities, whatever plague or whatever sickness there is,

I looked up pestilence and plague to see just what those words describe:

pestilence:  1:      a contagious or infectious epidemic disease that is virulent and devastating

I looked up virulent.  I like looking up words.  It means:  1      a: marked by a rapid, severe, and destructive course 〈a virulent infection〉b: able to overcome bodily defensive mechanisms:

plague?   2      a: an epidemic disease causing a high rate of mortality: PESTILENCE

Science tells us what we have, how it can spread, and how it affects us.  But the whole thing happens at the microscopic level, which means that we cannot actually see what’s going on around us.  But we act like there is nothing that God is doing, can, or wants to do in this matter.  We talk about these things running their course or about coming back again later. 

But we don’t pray about it, against it.  As a nation and rarely as a church.  And we don’t see it as having anything to do with us as Christians or with God. 

I saw a video recently about how the world has changed since people aren’t going out as much.  How nature is getting along just fine without us.  In fact, nature is doing much better without us.  How we need to remember that we are not the masters of nature. we are its guests.

The very people who will tell us there is no God, only nature, will attribute to nature characteristics that we used to attribute to God.  After all, we call her Mother Nature.

Our nation was built on a belief in God.  After all, He was the one who gave us the unalienable rights that made us willing to go to war with England, the world’s superpower, in order to get them. 

Now that’s all been swept aside, and we make up our own rights now, and God is entirely left out of our public discussions and thought.  Science tells us all that we need to know.

And we, the Church, the Body of Christ in the world, have lost our voice in the world.  We have nothing to say to the world.  We think we can change the world by working silently in the background, hoping we might win enough people to Christ to sway the nation back to God. 

I wish I could say it’s working.  But I think we’re mistaken if we think that everything we hear about in the news has nothing to do with God or us. 

We have the Bible.  It tells us these things over and over again.  We are the light of the world, the salt of the earth. 

But we see the world now as the world sees it, and we have lost our voice.

What does the Bible mean when it says that God is with someone 1 Chronicles 22:11

The idea of success has gotten a bad name in Christian circles, partly because it has become associated with wealth, and partly because a lot of Christians wouldn’t call their lives a success. 

A common view of success is that it is measured by a person’s wealth.  The problem here is that wealth then becomes the goal, where wealth should be the by-product.  If you create a successful company, you will become wealthy.   If you pastor a church that just keeps growing, you will probably find that they will just keep wanting to pay you more money. 

The mistake is judging your success by your wealth.  Paul was successful, but he had no interest or need for wealth.

I know that by just bringing up the subject of success, some Christians will stop listening and assume I am like one of those crazy preachers who they say are on television.

But for the rest of us:

Let me read to you a passage of Scripture that, yes, I have been careful not to take it out of context, and this has been certified by 3 independent Bible scholars.

King David was speaking to his son, Solomon, who would soon succeed him on the throne:

I Chronicles 22:11  Now, my son, the LORD be with you that you may be successful, and build the house of the LORD your God just as He has spoken concerning you.

There are two concepts here that I want to draw your attention to:

1)      God with you.  This phrase in its various forms is found in the Bible around 80 times, and it’s one that you need to study for yourself.  I will probably teach on it at some point, but it would be another one of those long lessons that a lot of people don’t have time for.

When the Bible says that God is with somebody, it is not a statement of location, answering the question: where is God?  The meaning is that God is working with you and on your behalf to prosper what you are doing and to make it successful. 

In the verse I just referred to, success meant finishing the building of the temple in a manner worthy of the God for whom it was intended.

But the idea of success and God’s presence is a lot broader than that.

2)      the idea of success.  This may be hard to study for most people.  You first need to identify the Greek and Hebrew words translated success, then find out what other ways it was translated, and then find all the passages in the Bible where those words are used, and then see what it has to say about success.

But some of the more common passages are:

Joshua 1:8 (NASB95)

⁸ “This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success.

Psalm 1:1–3 (NASB95)

1 How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, Nor stand in the path of sinners, Nor sit in the seat of scoffers! 2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD, And in His law he meditates day and night. 3 He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, Which yields its fruit in its season And its leaf does not wither; And in whatever he does, he prospers.

Genesis 39:3 (NASB95) 

3 Now his master saw that the LORD was with him and how the LORD caused all that he did to prosper in his hand.

Genesis 39:23 (NASB95)

23 The chief jailer did not supervise anything under Joseph’s charge because the LORD was with him; and whatever he did, the LORD made to prosper.

2 Chronicles 26:5 (NASB95)

5 He continued to seek God in the days of Zechariah, who had understanding through the vision of God; and as long as he sought the LORD, God prospered him.

The point is that a lot of Christians have no idea of what kinds of things God wants to do in their lives.  In fact, for many, there is no pattern.  God can want one thing today and an opposite thing tomorrow.  Bless one person, and put the next person through hell. 

As Christians, we have this thousand-page book from God, and we should be able to form a picture from it of what God is like.  He said that I am the Lord, I change not.  We need to see God as someone who wants good things for His people and who is generous in doing them.

I know a lesson like this can raise a lot of questions, and over time we will answer them.  We can’t answer every question in one lesson, but we will get to them.

Humility and Anxiety I Peter 5:5-7 Part 6

1 Peter 5:5–6 (NASB95)  ⁵and all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.  ⁶Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, . . .

When Christians have problems with anxiety, there are only a few reasons why this is.  One is that they believe God will allow them to experience hard, painful, and unpleasant experiences.  They do not see the fact of being Christian as either exempting them or protecting them from these things.  In fact, they often even see God as being instrumental in bringing these experiences into their lives.  For their good, of course, but there just doesn’t seem to be any endgame in this. 

Which lead to the other reason.  They see God’s purposes for our lives fulfilled in heaven more than on earth.  There will be relief in heaven, but they are not too hopeful of having too much of that prior to getting there.  The whole time down here is to be spent on things like discipline, chastisement, and testing, which is theological for a lot of junk in your life.

We know that God loves us, but just what does that mean in everyday life?  What does that look like?  What can we expect from God in life now because of His love?  We know that we will go to heaven when we die, but how different should our lives be from non-believers because of God’s love for us?  I am not talking about how our lives are different because of how we are acting but because of what God is doing.

Verse 6 above says that God wants to exalt us at the proper time.  Literally, that last phrase just says ‘in time.’  We have already shown that God’s plans for us include humbling us.  This is what He does to us rather than what we do on our own, but that acknowledgement of being humbled could be called humbling ourselves.  Like Pharaoh, people have been known to refuse to be humbled.

But then it says that this is all so that God “may exalt you at the proper time, or, in time.”  So what exactly does that mean?

One way to answer that question is to look at the rest of the Bible to see if there are examples of this.  And there are.  About 20 examples.  This is one of those cases where it is important to look at the Greek Old Testament, which was the Bible of the early Church.  You can see the same word used in all its various shades.

Genesis 24:35 (NASB95)  ³⁵“The Lord has greatly blessed my master, so that he has become rich; and He has given him flocks and herds, and silver and gold, and servants and maids, and camels and donkeys.

The phrase ‘become rich’ in English is where the Greek uses Peter’s word for ‘exalt.’  The King James says ‘become great,’ which is probably a better translation here, though the text then enumerates all the things that God has blessed Abraham with, so in this case, becoming great in this case involved material wealth.

Genesis 26:13 (NASB95) ¹³and the man became rich, and continued to grow richer until he became very wealthy

The phrase ‘became rich’ here is where the Greek use Peter’s word.  The Hebrew text again just means ‘to become great.’  The Hebrew text is almost comical, because it uses the verb ‘become great’ 4 times in this sentence.  The man became great, and then he advanced in greatness greatly until he became very great.  In the Greek text, Peter’s word is only used for the first becoming great.

Joshua 3:7 (NASB95)  ⁷Now the Lord said to Joshua, “This day I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that just as I have been with Moses, I will be with you.

Here the word ‘exalt’ again translates the Hebrew word for ‘becoming great:’ God was now going to make Joshua great in the sight of the nation.  Or exalt him.

2 Samuel 22:49 (NASB95)  ⁴⁹Who also brings me out from my enemies; You even lift me above those who rise up against me; You rescue me from the violent man.

Peter’s word is translated ‘lift me,’ the Hebrew word simply meaning ‘being high.’ or here, making high.  An exaltation would be making something really high, so the Greek word in itself does not mean necessarily what we think of as an exaltation, just the fact of lifting something up.  The context clarifies the meaning, and in Peter we need to see the use of this word in the Bible for how God works in His people.

But note here, this was not just an emotional lifting, a feeling better.  This was a lifting above one’s enemies.

Psalm 18:48 (NASB95) ⁴⁸He delivers me from my enemies; Surely You lift me above those who rise up against me; You rescue me from the violent man.

This is the same passage as above.  In the book of Samuel, it quotes a psalm that Dave wrote, and in the book of Psalms, it is included there as well.  There are a few slight variations in the Hebrew text.  The Revised Standard Version catches the sense better here when it says:  yea, thou didst exalt me above my adversaries.  To merely lift him over his enemies is almost meaningless.  To exalt him shows that he now has the advantage.

1 Kings 16:2 (NASB95) ²“Inasmuch as I exalted you [King Baasha] from the dust and made you leader over My people Israel, and you have walked in the way of Jeroboam and have made My people Israel sin, provoking Me to anger with their sins,

The same Hebrew word here about lifting, but the text clearly shows this was a high lifting, a true exaltation. 

Psalm 27:5 (NASB95)  ⁵For in the day of trouble He will conceal me in His tabernacle; In the secret place of His tent He will hide me; He will lift me up on a rock.

I like the Revised Standard Version here better when it says: he will set me high upon a rock.     

It seems a lot more like what the Psalmist is trying to say.  The rock was a picture of safety from one’s enemies, a position of advantage and strength.  Lifting him up on a rock doesn’t quite catch the flavor of it.

Psalm 27:6 (NASB95)  ⁶And now my head will be lifted up above my enemies around me, And I will offer in His tent sacrifices with shouts of joy; I will sing, yes, I will sing praises to the Lord.

This is the next verse in the same psalm as the last verse.  It notes that the Psalmist’s head is now to be lifted up.  The Greek and some other ancient versions translate it as an active verb, God has lifted up his head.  First He set him (lifted him up) on a rock, and now God has lifted up his head above his enemies as well.

Psalm 37:34 (NASB95)  ³⁴Wait for the Lord and keep His way, And He will exalt you to inherit the land; When the wicked are cut off, you will see it.

The expression ‘inherit the land’ [(kata)klhronomei=n th\n gh/n] is found frequently in the Old Testament , usually translated as ‘possess the land,’ speaking of the Promised Land that God promised to His people.  At the time of this writing, the people were already in the land, but they still had problems with enemies some still living within their borders.  This was a promise of victory over those enemies and a full enjoyment of that land.  Read again Deuteronomy 8, which we used earlier to help explain our text. 

Some Christians may question how that experience is relevant to their lives today, and I would answer that it gives us insight into the heart of God.

That expression of inheriting, or possessing the land, is the same expression that Jesus used in the Sermon on the Mount: Blesses are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.  Since that same expression is used about 40 times in the Old Testament, a better translation would be ‘possess the land.’   Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the land.

It is not talking about some after-death millennial or heavenly second earth experience.  He is talking about life on earth now.  And since the Sermon on the Mount was given well after the times of Moses, Joshua, and the Promised Land, this expression is clearly used metaphorically for a life that knows God’s presence and power.

Psalm 75:10 (NASB95) ¹⁰And all the horns of the wicked He will cut off, But the horns of the righteous will be lifted up.

Psalm 89:17 (NASB95) ¹⁷For You are the glory of their strength, And by Your favor our horn is exalted.

Psalm 92:10 (NASB95)  ¹⁰But You have exalted my horn like that of the wild ox; I have been anointed with fresh oil.

I tried to find a good definition of horn as it is used metaphorically in the Bible.  Horns obviously comes from certain male animals like bulls and rams which are emblematic of an animal’s strength and virility.  But I think I would define it loosely as one’s place in life as in relation with other people.  So one’s horn being cut off would not necessarily mean one’s death but one’s public diminishment, and one’s exaltation one’s public promotion. 

But generally definitions speak of one’s strength or negatively one’s pride.  I like my definition better.  But in Psalm 75, Peter’s word is translated ‘lifted up,’ but as ‘exalted’ in the other two psalms.  ‘Exaltation’ clearly captures the sense of the word better in these verses.

Psalm 149:4 (NASB95)  ⁴For the Lord takes pleasure in His people; He will beautify the afflicted ones with salvation.

    

There’s a lot more to this verse than what it may first appear.  First note that the second part of the verse depends on the first part.  You could add a ‘therefore’ between the two parts.  So what is it saying?  The Lord takes pleasure in His people, therefore, or because of that, He will beautify the afflicted ones with salvation.

Anyone familiar with Hebrew poetry will tell you that in a verse like this the people in the first part of the verse are the same people in the second part.  The word translated here ‘afflicted ones’ is the common Old Testament word for ‘humble, meek. or poor.’  If Peter had written his epistle in Hebrew, this is the word he would have used in our original text about clothing yourself with humility or being humbled by God.  The Greek Old Testament translates it as ‘meek ones.’ [1] 

The Greek Old Testament also translates ‘beautify’ by ‘exalt.’ the same word Peter uses in our text.  It reads: He will exalt the meek with salvation.  ‘Salvation’ has become a Christian buzzword that we use to speak of our eternal destiny, but in the Old Testament, it is often translated as ‘deliverance’ or ‘victory.’   To be adorned with victory or deliverance is also to be exalted.

In other words, Peter could have used this verse to expand on what he wrote in I Peter.[2]

Proverbs 4:8 (NASB95)  ⁸“Prize her, and she will exalt you; She will honor you if you embrace her.

This verse is speaking about wisdom, and wisdom does not merely lift up those who prize her, but she exalts them.   Read the rest of Proverbs 4.

Proverbs 18:10 (NASB95)  ¹⁰The name of the Lord is a strong tower; The righteous runs into it and is safe.

The Hebrew word translated here ‘is safe’ means to “be (inaccessibly) high.”  In that time and place of constant warring, having a position of height was always an advantage.  Here the text says that one that runs under the protection of the Lord is safe, period.  The Greek says that the righteous here are exalted. 

So back to our original text: be humbled under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in time,   God wants to bless His people far more than they imagine.  We quote Ephesians 3:20: 

²⁰Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, but we can’t get past the ‘He is able’ part.  We know that God can do all things, but we stumble over His willingness. 

One article won’t be enough to answer all the questions or remove all the doubts.  For most of us it take constant reinforcement from a lot more Scripture. 

You don’t lose when you are humble.  While learning is a lifelong venture, most of God’s work in your life is a preparation for future blessing.  In this life.  And He wants to do more than we can imagine.  But the humbling comes first.

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[1] The translators may have chosen to translate it by ‘afflicted ones’ here because the text they used had a different word which is often a textual variant for this word.  They are spelled almost identically.

[2] As a side note, the word for salvation here יְשׁוּעָה , yeshua, is the Hebrew word for Jesus.  The word for ‘with’ can also be translated as ‘in.’  So there could be a play on words here where the humble, meek are exalted with deliverance , and at the same time exalted in Jesus (Ephesians 2:1-7).