HARVEST TIME
In his book, The Case for Faith, Lee Strobel introduces us to the puzzling life of John Templeton. You’ve probably never heard his name, but Templeton was a contemporary of Billy Graham. In fact, they were both behind an evangelistic crusades in the 1940’s and 50’s. A short time later John Templeton pastored a church which soon overflowed it’s 1,200 seat auditorium. If you look up this man today, you’ll find that his faith is dramatically different from that of the 1940’s and 50’s. Templeton now describes himself as an agnostic. He jettisoned his previous faith due to doubt in God’s very existence. What prompted John Templeton to leave the Christian faith? In his own words: "It was a photograph in Life magazine. It was a picture of an African woman. They were experiencing a devastating drought. And she was holding her dead baby in her arms and looking up to heaven with the most forlorn expression. I looked at it and thought. ‘Is it possible to believe that there is a loving or caring Creator when all this woman needed was rain.’ How could a loving God do this to that woman? Who runs the rain? I don’t; you don’t. He does - or that’s what I thought. But when I saw that photograph, I immediately knew it is not possible for this to happen and for there to be a loving God. There was no way. Who else but a fiend could destroy a baby and virtually kill its mother with agony - when all that was needed was rain?"
As I share Christ with people I often run into the same question over and over - “If God exists and He is powerful and good, then why is there such evil in the world?” All around us we are reminded that something is wrong with the world today. In America:
• A woman is beaten every 15 seconds
• 1.3 women are raped every minute
• 45 were killed in alcohol related traffic deaths every day
• About 6 children are reported abused and neglected every 60 seconds
• There was a murder every 15 minutes
• There is a robbery every 51 seconds
In the fall we celebrate Thanksgiving as a time of harvest. It indicates that the growing season is over and that it is time for all the food to be gathered into the barns. It is a time of celebrating the goodness of God during the growing season. Likewise we are presently in a growing season and the Harvest time is approaching.
Matt. 13:24 Jesus told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25 But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. 26 When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared. 27 "The owner’s servants came to him and said, `Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’ 28 "`An enemy did this,’ he replied. "The servants asked him, `Do you want us to go and pull them up?’ 29 "`No,’ he answered, `because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’"
The servants of this master asked three questions. Two were asked and one was implied. These 3 questions are often asked of God in the world today:
1. Planting Good Wheat - (vs. 24-27)
The first question of the servants was “wasn’t the wheat good”. They questioned whether the planting had been done properly. Perhaps the weeds got into the field because the wheat seeds were contaminated. The same thing is said about God today. People see the wars and famines, the injustice and hatred and they ask “can God really good”. The argument is this: “if God made everything, and evil exists then God is the author of evil”. In other words, God it is YOUR fault!
Gen 1:31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good
God made creation good and declared it so. Like the man sowing in the field the wheat sown was healthy and vibrant. So where did the evil come from. It has come from us.
Gen 1:26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
What does it mean that we were created in the ‘IMAGE’ of God. It means that we have the ability to choose between right and wrong.
The assertion that human beings were made in the image of God confirms the genuineness of each man’s freedom. Experience tells us that we are free, in the sense that we make real choices between alternatives and could have chosen differently, and theology agrees. Self-determining freedom of choice is what sets God and his rational creatures apart from, say, birds and bees, as moral beings. -- J. I. Packer
What are the results of human choice? Mankind chose to run from God. There is an old expression: God chose to create the earth we live on. Man chose to create the world we live in! The seed God planted was good but we chose to contaminate it with sin.
God created the possibility of evil; people actualized that potentiality. The source of evil is not God’s power but mankind’s freedom. -- Lee Strobel
God made creation very good but man has corrupted it. God made music but it has been distorted through sin. God made sex good but mankind has distorted it into something evil. The seed that was planted was pure and good, but weeds were added to the field by another.
Our choices have created a fallen and corrupted world. The earth itself fell when Adam and Eve sinned. Today it is in a state of decay. Every year we see natural disasters that remind us we live on a fallen planet. Birth defects and genetic mutations remind us we are born as fallen creatures.
2. Pulling up the Weeds - (vs. 28-29)
The second question which the servants asked is “why not just pull up the weeds”. If there is a problem then lets fix it! If God is truly powerful then why doesn’t He do something. Couldn’t God simply snap His fingers and destroy all sin. Again, sin is seen as God’s problem. It’s God’s fault.
Yes, God could simply eliminate all sin and someday He will but not until harvest time. God is waiting for the right time so that all may hear and have the opportunity to come to salvation. Peter responded to people in the church who were asking this question by saying:
2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish , but everyone to come to repentance. 10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare
I for one am very glad that God waited! If God had decided to pull up the weeds years ago I would have been in the weed bundle. All of us are objects of God’s grace.
In 1967 Charles Murray was a student at the University of Cincinnati and was preparing for the summer Olympics in high diving. He was not a Christian and had never gone to church. One day he met someone in a class that was a Christian. His new friend shared with him that God loved him and wanted to have a relationship with Him. He honestly was quite skeptical but interested. So over the semester, he talked this friend about God’s love and how much he mattered to God. One night he decided to call his friend up. He said, “Tell me again those verses in the Bible that says God cares about me.” And his friend shared those verses.
After he hung up he decided to go over to the school pool to do some practice diving. Because he was preparing for the Olympics, he had special privileges and he could use the pool even when it was closed. At the University of Cincinnati, it is an indoor pool and of course the lights were off because it was closed but it has a glass ceiling and there was a full moon that night so he could see his way to the diving board. He climbed up the top of the diving platform, turned around to do his first dive backwards and stretched out his arms. When he did that the moonlight coming through the ceiling shown his shadow on the wall and formed the shape of a cross. He looked at that and for the first time Charlie felt God’s love. He realized that Christ had died for him. That is how much God loved him. And in that moment on the twenty-plus feet diving platform, he sat down and opened his life to God. He said, “Jesus Christ, come into my life and make a difference in my life,” and he became a follower right there twenty feet up. He was sitting there in the dark when, about five minutes later, a janitor walked in and suddenly flipped on the light. It startled Charlie. He got up and as he looked down he saw that the pool had been emptied for repairs.
Charles Murray did not deserve heaven. He could have ignored the shadow of the cross and jumped into eternal separation from God. Instead he found grace. Likewise none of us deserve heaven. The fact that anyone is saved is a miracle of grace. God is waiting for the right time, however that will be decided, and then sin will be dealt with once and for all.
3. Waiting for the Harvest - (vs. 30)
The third question was never asked by the servants but I would have asked it - “Then how do we deal with the weeds?” The answer is, “Wait for the Harvest”. There is a time coming when sin will be dealt with once and for all. The weeds and wheat will be separated at the time harvest.
When Robinson Crusoe’s friend Friday asked him, "Why doesn’t God destroy the devil?" Robinson Crusoe gave him the right answer, the only answer, the great answer. He said, "God will destroy him."
An Atheist farmer often ridiculed people who believed in God. He wrote the following letter to the editor of a local newspaper: "I plowed on Sunday, planted on Sunday, cultivated on Sunday, and hauled in my crops on Sunday; but I never went to church on Sunday. Yet I harvested more bushels per acre than anyone else, even those who are God-fearing and never miss a service." The editor printed the man’s letter and then added this remark: "God doesn’t always settle His accounts in October." That editor was right! He doesn’t always "settle His accounts in October," but He does settle His accounts!
2 Peter 3:11 Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives 12 as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat.
One day God will right all the wrongs and deal with sin once and for all. I believe that time is drawing close. A good farmer can tell you when the harvest will come by the signs he sees around him. He can tell by the changing of the weather and by the state of the fruit. Likewise Jesus told us to watch and pray because we do not know when the Harvest Time will come.
Mark 13:35 "Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back--whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. 36 If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. 37 What I say to you, I say to everyone: ` Watch !’"
During his 1960 presidential campaign, John F. Kennedy often closed his speeches with the story of Colonel Davenport, the Speaker of the Connecticut House of Representatives. One day in 1789, the sky of Hartford darkened ominously, and some of the representatives, glancing out the windows, feared the end was at hand. Quelling a clamor for immediate adjournment, Davenport rose and said, "The Day of Judgement is either approaching or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause for adjournment. If it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. Therefore, I wish that candles be brought." Rather than fearing what is to come, we are to be faithful till Christ returns. Instead of fearing the dark, we’re to be lights as we watch and wait.
The best way to prepare for the coming of Christ is never to forget the presence of Christ. -- William Barclay
Many celebrate Thanksgiving with friends and food. At the great harvest of humanity there is going to be a party and feast we cannot even imagine. If you have never accepted the invitation to join that party you can do so today.
A preacher went to a barber for a haircut. The barber to the preacher: "I cannot believe in a God of love. If God was as kind and loving as you say, He would not permit all the poverty, disease, and squalor in the world today. No, I cannot believe in a God who permits these things." The minister was silent until a man who was unkept and filthy walked by. His hair was hanging down his neck and he had a half-inch of stubble on his face. Said the minister: "You can’t be a very good barber or you wouldn’t permit a man like that to continue living in this neighborhood without a haircut and a shave." Indignantly the barber answered: "Why blame me for that man’s condition? I can’t help it that he is like that. He has never come in my shop. I could fix him up and make him look like a gentleman!" The minister said: "Then don’t blame God for allowing the people to continue in their evil ways, when He is constantly inviting them to be saved”.
