Bread Upon The Waters

I. EXORDIUM:

The LORD is Our Portion

II. AUDIENCE PROFILE:

Believers

III. OBJECTIVES:

To prove and show that the LORD is our portion.

IV. TEXT:

Ecclesiastes 11:1-2 (Amplified Bible)

CAST YOUR bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days.

Give a portion to seven, yes, even [divide it] to eight, for you know not what evil may come upon the earth.

V. THESIS:

The LORD JESUS CHRIST is our Portion or lot in life.

VI. TITLE:

Bread upon the waters

VII. EXPLICATION:

A. Name: means Koheleth in Hebrew Bible or rendered as Preacher

B. Author: uncertain, but the experiences cited here are related to King Solomon

C. Date written: probably around 935 B.C.

D. Purpose: To report author's finding for ultimate meaning in life.

E. Audience: young people

F. Main theme: Life without GOD leads to emptiness, futility, and lack of significant meaning

G. Key words: "vanity" and "under the sun"

H. Key verse: Ecclesiastes 12:13 (Amplified Bible)

All has been heard; the end of the matter is: Fear God [revere and worship Him, knowing that He is] and keep His commandments, for this is the whole of man [the full, original purpose of his creation, the object of God’s providence, the root of character, the foundation of all happiness, the adjustment to all inharmonious circumstances and conditions under the sun] and the whole [duty] for every man.

VIII. MAIN BODY:

A. Casting - Principle of Sowing and Reaping

"CAST YOUR bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days"

1. Your bread - symbolizes your food (my food)

Seed are not eaten but sown, bread are eaten, but in this verse, bread are advised to be sown.

Isaiah 55:10 (Amplified Bible)

For as the rain and snow come down from the heavens, and return not there again, but water the earth and make it bring forth and sprout, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater,

Isaiah 32:20 (Amplified Bible)

Happy and fortunate are you who cast your seed upon all waters [when the river overflows its banks; for the seed will sink into the mud and when the waters subside, the plant will spring up; you will find it after many days and reap an abundant harvest], you who safely send forth the ox and the donkey [to range freely].

Isaiah 58:10 (Amplified Bible)

And if you pour out that with which you sustain your own life for the hungry and satisfy the need of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in darkness, and your obscurity and gloom become like the noonday.

Isaiah 58:7 (Amplified Bible)

Is it not to divide your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house—when you see the naked, that you cover him, and that you hide not yourself from [the needs of] your own flesh and blood?

Be patient when you sow food, or object, anything that belongs to you to consume on others as it will take days, but the guaranteed fact is it will return to you. You are sowing not just giving it away to belong to another one. Casting is just like sending away for a mission. Just like GOD sent Isaiah as a servant to His people and GOD already knows the heart of Isaiah that He will return with good news for the people and He will return to GOD with the people as harvest too, so is the principle of casting the same with this event: GOD sending men and women away to return with many more people.

Isaiah 6:8 (Amplified Bible)

Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send? And who will go for Us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.

A call to pray and fast.

If you will sow your bread, then what will happen to you?

Matthew 4:4 (Amplified Bible)

But He replied, It has been written, Man shall not live and be upheld and sustained by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.

Deuteronomy 8:3 (Amplified Bible)

And He humbled you and allowed you to hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you recognize and personally know that man does not live by bread only, but man lives by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.

Word and bread keeps us alive. Sometimes we have to give up bread (physical food) by way of prayer and fasting but not the Word and the Spirit which really keeps us alive in the spirit. Whatever you sow that you will reap, whatever you sow (eat) in your body, your body reaps it, let's say, 10 years after. That's why those who drinks and smokes will not "reap" it just yet, it will have to take long years before their body gets diseased by lung diseases until they die, the point is they reap what they have sown in their bodies. Their harvest will follow them.