New Thoughts (10/10/05-10/15/05)
I find myself really curious about the setting in which Jesus had this conversation with His disciples. Obviously, we know where He is. He is still at Jacob’s well in Samaria. What time of year was it, though? What conditions were visible in the region around Him? Well, if I stick with the sequence of John’s account through this period, it would seem that we are in early springtime, as they had just been in Jerusalem for the Passover. The ISBE indicates that the wheat harvest would occur somewhere between April and June. This harvest marked the time for the Feast of Weeks, or Tabernacles. Curious. My calendar from the synagogue that shared our church building places that feast in late September, with Passover occurring in mid April. That would mark out a period of five months between the two festivals. Given the variability of harvest time depending on locale, one could see this shortening to the four months of which Jesus speaks.
Given what evidence we have, then, I think we can say that as Jesus points to the surrounding fields, they are showing the green of early shoots. This, as I said, would make sense given His first comment. One can easily imagine Him pointing out the fields to His fellows. “Look at those fields. Would you not say that there are months yet before the harvest will come?” Any one of them would have looked upon those fields and agreed. Besides, they hardly needed such evidence, for the very timing of the feasts in Jerusalem was established on a pretty agrarian schedule. Who would not know that the wheat harvest would coincide with the Feast of Tabernacles? Of course it was months off, yet.
This provides a certain amount of shock value as Jesus redirects their attention from the world to the kingdom. “Lift up your eyes!” As was preached in our church yesterday, stop looking around, stop the navel gazing, and look up! What Jesus tells us is that if our perspective is taking in the landscape of heaven, we cannot help but notice that the time is right. All that has been prepared is coming to fruition around us. It is time for the harvest, regardless of what the natural may be telling us.
How well this all connects! It is even as my pastor was saying. If we are looking only at the world around us, we may well slip into complacency. There is plenty of time, we may think. No need to rush. Alternatively, we might look upon that world with such despair for its ever being salvaged that we decide it’s not worth expending any effort. See, if we consider the fields as already ruined, why would we go out looking to harvest anything from them? It’s already labor wasted, so why throw away more good after the bad? No, this perspective cannot help but mislead us.
Jesus does not, however, direct the eyes of His disciples inward. He does not tell them to consider their own condition, seeing what sorry shape the people around them are in. He doesn’t suggest that they commend themselves by comparison to these poor Samaritans. Indeed, He invites them to look upon the Samaritans in a new light, in the light of heaven. “Look around!” These are not fields that will care for themselves for a time. Neither are they fields to be abandoned as lost. These are not a forsaken people! They are a people perfectly prepared to hear the Good News of the kingdom of God!
Look at them! They are desperate. They know full well that there is a God, but they have been lied to, misled by their spiritual shepherds, and they are so hungry for the truth. Look! All it has taken is this one woman daring to be honest about herself, and they are all ready to come to Me. The harvest, my friends is so ripe it is practically falling off the stalks. It is so well prepared that hardly any sifting of the chaff is needed. Just reach in with your sickles, and see how rich a harvest awaits those who are willing to work a bit.
Now, the timing of these remarks Jesus makes, the greenness of the fields He declares to be white, must make it perfectly obvious to these men that He speaks of greater things. With the woman, everything had been double entendre, exceedingly possible to take in the wrong sense. She had, indeed, managed to keep almost the whole conversation in the worldly setting, practically refusing to be drawn into considerations of greater things. Here, no such option remains. They need only glance at the fields and know that He is talking about something completely other. He is forcing their minds off of the mundane and onto the sublime.
They had been concerned with things such as food, and the social impropriety of being alone with a married woman. All their thoughts were stuck in the flesh. See how Jesus takes their thoughts from where they are and navigates them to higher ground. They have worried about His having eaten something unclean, of His having perhaps defiled Himself by associating with this woman. He begins to turn their thoughts aside when He declares what it is that satisfies His hunger. “My food is to do God’s will.” Such food as this can never be unclean. Yet, what was the Father’s will? How was His being alone with this woman anything to do with the will of the Father? Ah, lift up your eyes! Get out of the gutter, get out of your prejudices, and look clearly. The wheat fields are green, but I tell you the fields that matter are ripe beyond any further waiting. It is time to reap.
I tell you, it is so terribly easy to get caught up with the evidence of our eyes. It is terribly easy to forget about spiritual implications and focus solely on making a living, taking care of our bills and our meals. It is terribly easy to view the news that bombards us from day to day and become desensitized by it all. We are allowed to witness events in a fashion that prevents them from becoming personal. Yes, people are suffering, but it’s only on the television. Television is not reality, therefore the suffering is not real. We can keep it at a far remove. We need not be involved with it.
Perhaps we have become so disgusted with the world around us that we have given it up for lost already. There are many who see it so. There is nothing left for it, in their view, but to cling to those few enlightened individuals like themselves who still acknowledge Truth. There appears to be no room in their thinking for any salvation message, no hope in their beliefs that the God to Whom they yet cling remains mighty to save. They look upon the world around them and see only Samaritans and Gentiles, hopeless people all. God help us when the Church gives up on its mission!
It is time to lift up our eyes, to look past the mountains that surround us and realize that our God, He who created those mountains, is greater – far greater – than the mountains. God, the Eternal One, the Maker of heaven and earth remains unchanged. He has not lost sight of His plan and His purpose. Indeed, He who sees the end from the beginning knows that His plan and His purpose have been perfectly and thoroughly accomplished. He who sets all things in motion has declared, “It is finished!” And, so it is. Yet, He blesses His children with opportunities to participate in His work. What a wonderful Daddy is our God! He has no need for our help, yet He knows His children want to be helpful to Him. So, in spite of the way we have of making His work that much harder, He allows us our hand in things. He gives us our tasks to do, and what’s more, wanting us to grow in confidence as we are growing in ability, He sends into these fields that others have already worked. Why? So that we can take encouragement from the immediacy of results that we see from the help we give Him.
As we are blessed to labor in these harvest fields, we are not dragged down by the enormity of the task. We are not discouraged by the hopeless condition of the planting. We do not suffer the anxiety of untimely storms and droughts that threaten to destroy the crops. No! He sends us to work in fields that have already been through all that and are now ready. Is He not the God who declares to us that He has prepared these works in advance for us to do? Marvelous!
I have little doubt at all that there were indeed fields around these men to which Jesus could point their attention. It occurs to me, though, that we have another part of the setting for this message that serves to both illustrate and prove His point. For, as He is speaking these things to His disciples, it must be remembered that the men of the city were coming down to see this Man who so changed the woman they knew. Lift up your eyes and look at the fields! I have a feeling that Jesus was pointing not to the wheat fields around the well as He said this, but to those men coming out of the city. There are the ripe fields, prepared for your work of harvest! Yes, and the seed had just barely been sown by the words of that woman. Yet, already the fruit was nearing its fullness.
This is something unique to spiritual seed, I suspect. There are not many other seeds that one could plant with such expectations of near instantaneous fruition. There are not many other activities one could expect to undertake which would require less concerted effort, in all fairness. At least on our part. The key to understanding this lies in that favorite verse of mine: We were created in Christ for good works, and God has prepared those works beforehand for us to do (Eph 2:10). This, I suppose gives the answer to my question, as to who those other laborers were to whom Jesus referred.
We could give any number of answers to that question, I suspect. We could point to the better parts of institutionalized religion and say that these were at least planting seeds. We could even, in that regard, include the idolatrous and false religions that had plagued Israel at large and this region in particular – those five prior husbands, for even in their great error, they at least planted seeds of desire for some god, they perhaps instigated an occasional search for Truth. Perhaps, if we are not willing to go that route, we could look to the prophets who had been sent to call the wayward people back to faith. These surely planted seeds of truth in the hearts of the nation, at least in those few who would heed their message. Any of these might be seen as planting seeds, and there are others we could consider as well, yet all of these considerations leave us with less than the Truth.
Even if these have been the particular means by which this area had been prepared to hear the True Gospel with real understanding, they are but the instruments used, and we must look beyond the instrument and see whose hand was at work in using that instrument. If we look there, we must at the very least find God’s angels at work, but I think we shall find something greater yet. Consider this: In Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself, and we are ambassadors for this Christ, bearing word of that reconciliation to the world for Him. We work together with Him in urging those we speak to not to receive God’s grace in vain (2Co 5:19-6:1). Even where the angels labor, they too, are but the instruments of the Invisible Hand. Indeed, when Jesus declares the saying true that one sows and another reaps, I think He declares it even more truly: “One sows, and another reaps.” For, however that seed has been planted, it cannot be planted at all apart from the One True God in whom all things have their being. In all fairness, there is not one soul we can claim to have brought to Christ. Rather, we would do well to remember that Christ is, through the means of our participation – and that a gracious gift from Daddy – reconciling that soul to its Creator. Our involvement in the process is little more than a gift to us from above, a joy we are allowed to enter into. The real labor remains a work of God alone, by Whom and through Whom are all things.
Consider that fully! We are allowed to harvest what God Himself has sown! What greater generosity can we expect to receive than this? I move ahead of myself a bit for a moment, for I am reminded of the way God instructs His people in their own harvests. Always, they are to leave a portion in the fields, that they may serve as God’s own provision for those who have no fields of their own. Yet, look God’s own fields. Here, rather than providing us with the leavings, He seeks to bless us with the whole harvest! He sends us in to work in fields that have not been harvested at all, and He Himself chooses to gather only the leavings of our own work. Now, granted, the whole harvest is His anyway, but inasmuch as we participate in the work we participate in the blessing of that work, for by His own words, the laborer is worthy of his wages. Again, I must say: Marvelous!
Thank You, Holy Father, that You would so bless me that You not only save me from my sins, but You also invite me to come join You in Your work. How awesome to learn the craft of my Father from His own hands! How blessed am I to be called Your son in truth, Lord. What greater gift could I ask of You? There is nothing. Oh, but I ask that You would so will and so work in this poor soul that I might accomplish in full those works You have prepared for me to do. I pray that You would cause this man to arise and enter fully into Your own labors, that somehow, in some way, You would find me useful in Your harvest, doing the things You created me for, and serving faithfully as a true child of Your household.
The harvest that we still see giving up its annual yield is a proof to us of God’s provision. This I have said before, but it bears further consideration. We have the blessed benefit of dwelling in a land that rarely deals with shortages of foodstuff. One need only look at the aerial views of those regions in the Midwest that provide grains to the nation to recognize how well we are provided for. We could go out west and look at the massive tracts of land given over to vegetable growth. Everywhere we look, the bounty of God’s provision is yielded up from the fruitful land, yet we have become so used to that bounty that it no longer really impresses us.
Ask the farmers, though. They still recognize that there is something far greater than themselves that determines the outcome of their crops. They can plan and plant. They can apply whatever technological innovations they care to apply, seeking the best mix of fertilizers, the optimum timing of planting and watering, yet the truth remains even as Jesus has said. The farmer doesn’t know. The seed will grow as God wills it to grow, as He designed it to grow, and it will ripen in accord with His schedule, and His schedule only. All that man does to turn the odds in his favor can be overcome in a flash of ill-timed weather.
Israel, with its arid regions and mountainous areas unfit for such farming, was particularly well tuned to this natural dependence upon God. Thus, God makes great use of the harvest as a witness to His people. In the quality and quantity of the harvest, He could provide almost instantaneous feedback to His children as to their moral standing. Suggest such things today, and you will hear nothing but derision and anger. How dare you bring God into it! It’s just a mishap of nature, and we mustn’t judge. Bosh! Who do you suppose controls the whirlwind? Who do you suppose sets the path for the storm? At whose command do the rains cease, or else pour out in floodtide?
Can we really be so stupid as to believe that it’s all accident and chance? Can we really? When is the last time we saw a statue come into being by accident? When is the last time that we saw a chance development in technology or medicine? Every evidence of the inventiveness of man, that strange creature who alone can claim creation in God’s image, shows that such inventions are the result of effort and thought. How, then, can we insist that it is otherwise for the world around us? I’m sorry, but until we have evidence that chance can invent even the smallest of things, I see no call for accepting it as the inventor of life and matter.
No, it is time that we heed our God and look around us. The harvest is not an accident. Ask the farmer by what chance the seed went into the ground! Ask him by what strange coincidence he happened to be there to harvest it at just the right time. He may not know the schedule of the seed, but he knows enough to watch and understand. Look around! What is the harvest telling us about God’s opinion of this land? In how many ways must He express His displeasure before we will listen?
Through the harvest, God provides for His people. Through the harvest, He also instructed His people how to care for one another. Those with productive fields were trained to be incomplete in their reaping of the fields, to leave things at the edges, and to be a little less thorough about stripping every last grain. Why this seeming laziness? It was done with the specific purpose of ensuring that even those with no fields of their own would have some of God’s provision. In other words, He was training His people to join Him in His work. He was training His people to share His own compassion. A walk through the prophets would make clear how offended He became when His people ignored and abandoned that lesson.
God wants a compassionate people that can thereby truly represent a compassionate God. He is not pleased when He sees us so focused on getting our own that we have no care for those doing without even the basics. He will provide for them, to be certain, but He has graciously allowed that we might take part in that provision. He is wondering when we will recall the instruction. Leave something for them. You have more than enough and you know it. Why then do you continue hording even that which you have no need for? In the desert, He instructed Israel to take only sufficient manna for the day. In the land of milk and honey, He instructed Israel not to insist on taking everything that was theirs by right. Leave some on the land, that your poor neighbor who has nothing can take from your property and live. For, God is not willing that any should die. He has declared that the righteous shall not be found wanting. Why then are so many of His people working so hard to make sure He is proven wrong? Do we really think that such lack is some sort of evidence that these are the unchosen? If so, we really need to get back to the Bible and learn what our God has said.
Oh, Lord! When I consider how I have fretted and moaned over my circumstances. Yet, look how richly You have poured out Your bounty upon this house! Who could imagine that I would come to this? By what right shall I claim all that You have given me? Lord, there is an embarrassment of wealth around me even in this room, yet I complain. Forgive me. Open my eyes to the enormity of the need around me even in this city. God, break my heart with the things that break Yours. Yes, I know it’s a dangerous prayer, but it’s a needful prayer.
Lord, show me how to use this blessed bounty more properly, that You might be glorified by all that You have given into my hands. Show me, Lord, where You would have me do more. Show me those things that I have been clinging to with too much desire, allowing them to have more of me than they ought. It’s time, my God, to grow up. Grow me. Cause me to ripen in Your fields, to stand as evidence of Your provision myself. God, I know You hear, and I know You shall surely answer. I pray that when You do, You will keep me mindful of this prayer, that I not be rebellious against Your direction.
You have taught me before not to fear the dangerous prayer. Yes, and You have surely been faithful to answer before. I recall many a time when I have known Your response, but had to be reminded that I had asked for it. Oh, Lord, no discipline is pleasant at the time, but how I need Your discipline. How I need to be trained up in the way I should go, so well that I shall never depart from that Way. How I need to feel Your heartbeat bringing my own into harmony with it.
It is natural that God should use this image of the harvest to explain the way of His kingdom in this period that Christ initiated in history. Jesus came to fields prepared for planting by long years of hearing God’s Law. He came to a people hungry for a word from God, who had been silent far too long. He came to a people become desperate for salvation to come. In these fields He planted seeds of faith and truth. Well He knew that not every seed would sprout, nor every sprout fully ripen. Yet, He was certain that the harvest would be plentiful in its time, and He set about ensuring that there would be workers around to bring in that harvest as it came. It was for this whole cycle of planting and reaping that the Church was put into place.
While there are several things written of the harvest in Scripture that become quite interesting when viewed with eyes lifted up, there are a few in particular that I would bring to our attention. First, there is the aside in Joshua 3:15, where it is noted that the River Jordan was known for overflowing its banks throughout the harvest period. Oh! Lift up your eyes! Hear this in the context of the conversation Jesus has been having, first with the woman, now with His disciples. He has been talking about the Living Water that is His to offer as He is its source. He has been describing to the woman how this Living Water will become a spring within her, bubbling up. Oh! And, what spring has ever been contained by its banks? No, as that Water continuously rises in the spring, it must surely overflow its banks. Yes, and here, as Jesus talks to His disciples, He has established that the harvest time has begun in that very moment, as the men of the city respond to what they have heard from that woman.
In that moment, the whole cycle of Christian growth, of kingdom growth, was on display. The seed of testimony was planted, watered by the Word of Life, and it brought forth a great harvest. Forget the prosperity message, my friend! This is what the fruitful life is all about! Plant your testimony in the lives around you, and watch what a great crop of belief shall grow from that small seed! And, each blade that grows from your testimony shall bear seeds of testimony itself, which can be planted in turn. Thus, the cycle continues, a perpetual harvest brought about by constant planting. And, throughout this harvest period, the River of Life overflows its banks, pouring out in the lives of the saints, watering the newest believers that they may grow. What possibility remains that I should not marvel at the providence of God! What chance that I should not rejoice to know I am given opportunity to participate in this great work?
Let me, though, move forward a bit in the history of God’s people. There came a time when the ark of the covenant had been captured for a time. The Philistines had route Saul’s army because he had acted contrary to God. But God was not willing that this loss should be permanent. Even in this apparent defeat, He showed Himself strong, punishing the gods of the Philistines and the Philistines themselves until they realized that they must return the ark to Israel. Now, in light of this current subject matter, I find the timing of the ark’s return most interesting. You see, the ark returned to God’s people during the harvest (1Sa 6:13-15). It came during that time when the river was overflowing. Most wonderful of all, in spite of all that had gone wrong in Israel, there remained Levites who knew how to handle the things of God. They knew how to deal with the ark of the covenant properly, and when it returned they set it upon an altar of native rock, unsullied by the handiwork of man.
Let me put this in the present tense. We are blessed to live in a day when the cycle of God’s planting has been ongoing for long centuries. The Church has suffered its setbacks, to be sure. Indeed, it would be easy to look on the present state of the Church militant and despair. It seems that in many fields, the labor of the Church is producing nothing but weeds. But, God is not willing that this should be the end of the story. There remain, even in our day, those who know how to properly honor God, how to properly serve God, and it is still a time of harvest. The River of Life is still overflowing the banks of those to whom it has come, and seed continues to grow in the fields of His domain.
The ark came into Beth-Shemesh, the city of the sun, and there were still those who knew God’s ways, to ensure that its return was a blessing and not a curse. There were still those who held to the paths of righteousness. It remains so in our day. True, there are any number of so-called churches where God’s ways have been all but totally abandoned. They yet cling to a form of godliness, but they have not the power of true Godliness. They still lay claim to the title of Christian, yet their ways are far from those which God has required. They walk in the rebellion of Saul, taking matters into their own hands quite apart from the ways that He has prescribed. But, hope remains. Even in this sad situation, there are still those who can properly claim to be Levites, who still insist in serving God as God has required, not as society would prefer. There are still those who will declare the Truth of God unvarnished by the trappings of acceptability. And these shall surely produce a harvest watered by the River of Life!
Here, I see that we live in the days that Joel foresaw. Hear again his vision. Multitudes gathered in the valley of decision (Joel 3:12-16). We are returned to the crisis of faith, the crisis of decision. Here is the God of creation, the sole hope of salvation, and as He is presented in the seed of our testimony, those who hear must decide. Will they believe in the God who Is, or will they cling to their blinders and pursue the lie? Multitudes are still found in the valley of decision, and God commands His workers forth to reap the harvest. We are those workers. We are those who remain in this day to plant the seeds of testimony, and we are those who are present to reap the fruit as it ripens. What a blessing is ours, that we are able to participate in this great work of our Father! Oh, hear the warning cry, though: Who can stand in the day of His judgment (Mal 3:2)? Who indeed? We are none of us without our full burden of sins. But, there remains a promise from the Lord of the Harvest. To His own, Joel tells us, the LORD is a refuge and a stronghold, though the day of harvest be a day of judgment.
Let us, then, go forth to our labors in joy. Let us go forth knowing that He Who judges has saved us. He has already purchased our deliverance, having paid in full the penalty our sin has incurred. He has brought us, in spite of ourselves, into good standing before the courts of heaven, and what’s more, He has trained us up to be the Levites of this generation, properly handling the things of God, and fully fit to labor in His fields. Be faithful, then, to work as He commands. Let not your training be corrupted by the ways of those false prophets and false teachers that plague the land. Stand firm in the Truth of God and declare that testimony that is your life. Plant while the seasons remain. Plant while the River yet overflows to water the crop of faith. Plant that your reward may be full when the harvest is complete. Plant that you may rejoice with all those who have planted before you, and with all those whose fruit has been gathered into the storehouses of heaven.
Turning back to the woman of Samaria, we are given a fine example of this whole sowing and reaping in God’s economy. Indeed, she has barely planted the seed of her testimony and already, the harvest draws itself nigh to the Lord thereof. Thinking about who this woman is, what her story has been, and how thoroughly rejected she was by her fellow Samaritans, it is all the more surprising to me to find that these men who so despised her now not only listened to her story, but apparently believed it enough to come see for themselves. That is the seed of testimony.
In her obvious impact, we are being shown the great advantage that the witness has over the prophet. Jesus would later comment that the prophet is never respected in his hometown. In part, this is doubtless because the prophet was not always a prophet, and there will always be those who can remember what that man was like before he began claiming to speak for God. Those with such memories will have a hard time with the change that has come about. Knowing as they do so much about the prophet’s past, they find it incredulous to consider that God might speak through such a man. They forget all about the record of Scripture, the record that shows God repeatedly using ordinary men, sinners just like ourselves, to accomplish His perfect purposes.
The witness comes with just as much baggage. This woman was very well known to all in the city, and it did nothing to recommend her to their esteem. However, unlike the prophet she does not come claiming to speak for God, but only about God. That’s a whole different story. There can be no suspicion of arrogance against one whose only message is, “look what God has done!” There is no question of delusion. After all, it is easily confirmed whether the claimed change has indeed occurred. In this woman, the change was evident even in the fact that she would approach these men. Clearly, something had happened to her. If she attributed it to this Man encountered at the well, then He was clearly worth checking out.
The point is this: where the prophet will not gain a hearing, the witness cannot help but be heard, cannot be ignored. And, look at the power of that testimony. Many in the city believed in Him because of her testimony. Her testimony was the means by which the act of belief transpired. What a wonderful privilege to be allowed to plant for the kingdom! Do you really suppose God needs planters such as you or I to accomplish all His desire? Clearly, One who can and does send His own Son to complete the job doesn’t particularly need us lesser players. Yet, He blesses us by allowing us to join in, to play a useful part in His efforts. How ungrateful we must be to ignore that offer. How ungrateful we must be to keep our experience of God to ourselves.
Clearly, as this woman’s example shows, there is great power in testimony. Testimony cannot be denied or misconstrued, so long as the testimony is true. A testimony borne solely out of excitement, one which is more imagined than real, lacks this power, for it cannot be corroborated. This is the issue so many take with the modern faith healers. They make many claims, but none of them can be confirmed. This is no longer a testimony to God, but devolves into the aggrandizement of men. The testimony that has the most power is that testimony which is given by a known person, even if only an acquaintance. The testimony that has the power to engender belief is that testimony which can easily be confirmed by those who hear it. One can doubt (and perhaps ought to doubt) the claims of some televised personality. More often than not, they manage to turn the focus away from God and onto themselves, even as they profess to be doing otherwise. They have the power to stir up emotions, and to create an emotional reaction to their deeds and their words. But, this is not the sort of testimony that plants good seed. It is seed scattered upon the rocky places, which might bring an instantaneous reaction, but will not put down roots that grow.
The testimony of that one you’ve seen on the streets so often, though, that is a different thing. The one you’ve known, and known also just how much of a creep they are; well, when that one suddenly starts praising God as his Lord, and what’s more, starts behaving like God is his Lord! Who can ignore that? Even if you have your doubts about him, a little bit of time spent checking him out, if he has truly come to faith, if he truly can lay claim to being amongst the chosen of God, the God chased, will show that his words reflect his true estate.
Each one of us who has heard the call of God has such a testimony. I’m not talking about that call of God into active, ‘professional’ ministry. I’m talking about that call of God that drew us to Him in faith, that call by which He imparted into us the Holy Spirit and freed our minds to believe in the Salvation that is found only in His Son the Christ. Each one of us who has heard that call has a testimony. It is given us in that moment, and it is given us to serve as seed that we may sow on behalf of the kingdom whose citizens we are.
We have learned what true worship is about by His words before this. The true worshiper is that one who so adores God that his every thought and action is informed by that love. The true worshiper has done homage to the Lord God, accepted God as his sovereign with power to command. He has committed himself to serve this God who is Lord, even as He loves Him dearly as Father. We are, then, princes in the kingdom, yet even princes are trained by serving. Even as princes we are sent out with this seed for sowing.
Again, I must emphasize that God does not particularly need our efforts. But, He blesses His children by giving them this participation. In the end, if our worship is true – genuine and wholly involved – we will most certainly desire to serve Him in whatever capacity we may. Here, then, is a way any child of God can serve: Testify and rejoice. Whoever you may meet, especially those who know you, testify and rejoice in what God has accomplished in you. Those who know your past and can see your present must surely acknowledge that something has changed. If these are also willing and able to consider their own present, they will find in your present condition a future to be desired.
As we rejoice in what God has done, testifying to His activity in our own lives, we think we are working God’s works, and I suppose it could be said that we are. However, like Daddy in the workshop, He is behind us as we make our contribution. He is behind us watching in pleasure as we seek to be helpful, doubtless amused by our unskilled attempts, and He is making certain that as much as we may botch our part of the deal, we will still find ourselves having contributed to the making of something wonderful. He works in such a way that the errors we have made in our fumbling efforts will never be noticed in the finished work, and we will share in His joy and pride as we look upon what has been done.
See, unless God is behind us in our testimony, those who hear will still not be free to understand. We can, by His aid, bring a degree of belief, but we cannot bring faith. It is not in our power. We can only help to draw these sown seeds close to the Water of Life. Until they have heard that stream for themselves, pouring out in the words of the Word, faith will not have come. See the progression displayed in the men of the city. They heard the woman’s testimony to this Man. They could not deny the change in her, even in this brief first contact. Clearly, something powerful had happened to so embolden her to face them like this. They believed her testimony, and because they believed their testimony, they must also believe that this Jesus was something special. Messiah, though? That was still asking a lot. However, they were sufficiently impressed with Him to seek that He stay with them awhile.
What, I ask you could prompt them to think He would accept such an invitation? He was, after all a Jew, and we have already had it made clear how little the Jews and the Samaritans would have to do with each other. What could prompt them, if not the Holy Spirit, the same Spirit that had led them to hear the woman’s story with open ears. Indeed, the harvest was ready! The fields that this woman had sown in a moment had ripened as quickly as they were sown, for the Spirit was there, pouring out the Water of Life. They must hear this Man, it was a tangible need in their spirit by the time they reached Him. As the deer pants for water, so their awakened spirit panted for this Life. As they heard His words, as He spoke life to them, belief became established as faith. Faith, after all, comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.
Let us be satisfied, then, to draw men to Him by the word of our testimony. Then, let us step aside and allow the Word to speak for Himself, for only He can so water the seeds of belief until they grow to the mature planting of faith. Let us not be satisfied until we have sown all that seed that He has given us in our testimony. How sorrowful if we can only rejoice as those who reap, and never share in the blessing that is ours in sowing! Indeed, the one who sows and the one who reaps may rejoice together, for if we have done as God desires, we will go home to Him having done both!
We have looked at the nature of God’s harvest. We have seen that He has graciously given us seed to sow toward that harvest, as well as a role in the reaping. It is a glorious thing indeed to have a part in this greatest of labors. Yet, it is not without a certain warning that we come to the work. There is great purpose in the planting of God’s kingdom, the purpose of healing His people. Yet, it is not so much their physical healing that He is interested in, for the flesh shall yet be regenerated incorruptible. But, the soul of man…this which shall dwell for eternity must be healed of its sins and falsehoods ere it can ever hope to abide with the God of heaven.
Healing is the children’s bread. I hear this all the time around church. I’m not sure where it comes from, perhaps from Jesus’ comment that the children’s bread shouldn’t be thrown to the dogs (Mt 15:26). If we allow some truth to that statement, I would maintain that in this passage we are learning from what seed healing grows, and it is the seed of real faith that ripens into true worship. God wants desperately to bring healing to His people. They are so greatly in need of that healing, as sin blinds them to Truth, as the pain and suffering that ever accompany sin wear upon them day by day. Is it any wonder that so many are so irritable? The effects of sin ride them constantly, kicking and scratching at them, leaving no comfort for them in any situation, and God would like nothing better than that they should be delivered from that torment. But are we willing?
There is this interesting statement made in the course of Hosea’s message to Israel. When God seeks to bring healing, the sins of His people are revealed (Hos 7:1). Now, admittedly the setting of this verse requires that we understand that those sins are the thing the keep God from acting as He desires. Is there, then, something God cannot do? Well, He most assuredly cannot act against His own nature, and Justice is as much in His nature as is Mercy. Where Mercy could desire nothing more than to bring healing, Justice requires a reason for that healing to come, and the continuous, willful sin of God’s own people – a people that ought to know better – will not allow Justice to be Merciful.
Allow me, though, to place this in a somewhat different light, which I think shall be found to remain applicable. The whole counsel of Scripture makes clear that as greatly as God desires our righteousness, we remain sinners even after faith has come. Oh, we don’t like to admit it to each other, but in private we cannot deny the truth of it. We are simultaneously sanctified and sinners. Now, the sanctified side of us desires nothing as much as to be part of God’s work force. Our love for Him, as true worshipers, impels us towards doing things to please Him. If seeing these fields growing and harvested brings Him pleasure, then it brings us pleasure to help the work along. Indeed, our zeal to be part of the labor of the kingdom burns so brightly at times that we see nothing else, know nothing else.
Yet, into this zeal, God breathes a word of warning. As He heals us, fits us for that labor, our sins are going to be revealed. He will not suffer anything to be hidden in His sight. Consider the testimony of Scripture. The great men of God are not presented to us as perfect in all their ways. Every last one of them is shown to us with all their faults and foibles, lest we fall into thinking that we can be perfect in this life. We know this. We know we are far from perfect. Yet, we are so intent on convincing everybody we know that we really are perfect! God says, “Enough!” If you’re going to work for Me, you cannot continue in pretence. It is deception. It is a lie, and you know it! It is a lie, and My Truth cannot abide that lie. If you would have My healing, then you must accept that your sins will be revealed. They will be revealed for the very purpose of healing them. The hidden wound can only fester and worsen. Allow Me to expose your wounding sins, that I might put an end to them, that the sores that have been spreading from that sin might be cleaned and allowed to heal up. Let the Light shine into those dark, hidden places, that the darkness might be dispelled, the hiding ended, and real joy found as He brinks that regeneration that really matters.
You see, it is for godliness that we strive, it is after godliness that we chase. Bodily disciplines are all but meaningless in such a pursuit, for the body will pass. But, godliness is profitable both now, and in the life hereafter. So does Paul write to his coworker Timothy (1Ti 4:8), and so does he instruct Timothy to teach those under his care. Indeed, he continues by telling Timothy that it is for that very reason, for godliness, that we expend all our great effort. Our great exertion is given to that which will best serve to bring us into conformance with the image of God. That is, after all, what godliness is. But, God is spirit, and if we would be conformed to His image, the spirit must be conformed moreso than the flesh. It is for that conformance to His Truth that we labor, and we labor in confidence, for we have our hope firmly anchored in the living God, the God who Is, and He is the Savior of all men, particularly of believers (1Ti 4:10).
He is indeed Savior of all. Apart from Him can no man live, whether he choose to acknowledge his Creator or not. Apart from Him, no creature in all the universe would draw another breath, for it is from His hands that their provision comes. If He does not water the seed, and bring the sun to turn water and dirt into energy within the sprouts of that seed, then there can be no harvest. If there is no harvest, then there is no food, and if there is no food, then there is no life. All is by Him and from Him and for Him. He has indeed saved every man alive. It cannot be otherwise. Yet, there remains that particular salvation that is given to those who believe, who worship in spirit and truth the God who is Truth and Life. They have been blessed with a life beyond this present existence. They have been blessed indeed, for they shall see God. They shall arrive at that day of final harvest, assured that He will in that very moment bring the work of their life to perfect completion, and usher them into the household of heaven.
Thank You Lord for that assurance You bring. Thank You that You have allowed us to partner with You in Your great work of salvation. Lord, make us willing that the Light of Your Love would be shown into every corner of our soul. Cleanse us, Lord, from every iniquity, every besetting sin that leaves us less than wholly fit to serve You.
Holy Father, my love for You is great, yet never great enough. I would that I could honestly claim that real worship for You explodes from every part of me. How I wish I could say that I have come to that place where I honor You in every thought, word and action, but I know that’s not yet the case. If, indeed, healing is the children’s bread, my Father, then I ask that You would feed me upon that bread, that this sin-sickness that keeps me from offering up the worship You desire might be healed once and for all. Bring me to the place of holy abandon, that I might bring You the gift of my life.
Meeting the People – Woman at the Well (10/17/05-10/20/05)
