Thorns In Our Lives

I. EXORDIUM:

Do you have thorns in your life?

II. AUDIENCE PROFILE:

Believers

III. OBJECTIVES:

To identify the thorns in our lives and let GOD and the LORD JESUS CHRIST remove it from us.

IV. TEXT:

Isaiah 27:4 (Amplified Bible)

Wrath is not in Me. Would that the briers and thorns [the wicked internal foe] were lined up against Me in battle! I would stride in against them; I would burn them up together.

V. THESIS:

Let GOD, the FATHER and GOD, the SON remove the thorns in our lives

VI. TITLE:

Thorns in our lives

Word study: thorns or thorn

VII. EXPLICATION:

A. Author: Prophet Isaiah, the son of Amoz

B. Date written: 740 - 680 B.C. but uncertain

C. Purpose: To reveal that salvation, physical and spiritual is of the LORD

D. To whom written: Nation of Judah

E. Main themes: 7 everlastings

F. Keyword: salvation. Isaiah means "Salvation of Jehovah"

VIII. MAIN BODY:

A. What is "thorns" in the Bible?

1. Definitions and usages of "thorns" in the Bible:

a. the wicked internal foe

Isaiah 27:4 (Amplified Bible)

Wrath is not in Me. Would that the briers and thorns [the wicked internal foe] were lined up against Me in battle! I would stride in against them; I would burn them up together.

b. wicked inhabitants of the land

Numbers 33:55 (Amplified Bible)

But if you will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those you let remain of them shall be as pricks in your eyes and as thorns in your sides, and they shall vex you in the land in which you dwell.

c. scrub or trash, wild growth of weeds and briers

Isaiah 5:6 (Amplified Bible)

And I will lay it waste; it shall not be pruned or cultivated, but there shall come up briers and thorns. I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.

d. springs from hills formerly cultivated and promotes fear

Isaiah 7:25 (Amplified Bible)

And as for all the hills that were formerly cultivated with mattock and hoe, you will not go there for fear of briers and thorns; but they will become a place where oxen are let loose to pasture and where sheep tread.

e. fruitless

Matthew 7:16 (Amplified Bible)

You will fully recognize them by their fruits. Do people pick grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles?

f. Choker of the Word - cares of the world, pleasure, delight, glamour and deceifulness of riches

Matthew 13:7 (Amplified Bible)

Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them out.

Matthew 13:22 (Amplified Bible)

As for what was sown among thorns, this is he who hears the Word, but the cares of the world and the pleasure and delight and glamour and deceitfulness of riches choke and suffocate the Word, and it yields no fruit.

g. a humiliation, something to hurt you

Matthew 27:29 (Amplified Bible)

And, weaving a crown of thorns, they put it on His head and put a reed (staff) in His right hand. And kneeling before Him, they made sport of Him, saying, Hail (greetings, good health to You, long life to You), King of the Jews!

Mark 15:17 (Amplified Bible)

And they dressed Him in [a] purple [robe], and, weaving together a crown of thorns, they placed it on Him.

h. If you have thorns, sometimes you will bear fruit but it will not be matured enough.

Luke 8:14 (Amplified Bible)

And as for what fell among the thorns, these are [the people] who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked and suffocated with the anxieties and cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not ripen (come to maturity and perfection).

i. withered at the front, point or prickle, figuratively a bodily annoyance or disability but not malignant

2 Corinthians 12:7 (Amplified Bible)

And to keep me from being puffed up and too much elated by the exceeding greatness (preeminence) of these revelations, there was given me a thorn (a splinter) in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to rack and buffet and harass me, to keep me from being excessively exalted.

B. GOD promised to remove the thorns

1. Let GOD, the FATHER burn the thorns

a. Destruction by fire

Isaiah 10:17 (Amplified Bible)

And the Light of Israel shall become a fire and His Holy One a flame, and it will burn and devour [the Assyrian’s] thorns and briers in one day.

Isaiah 27:4 (Amplified Bible)

Wrath is not in Me. Would that the briers and thorns [the wicked internal foe] were lined up against Me in battle! I would stride in against them; I would burn them up together.

Hebrews 6:8 (Amplified Bible)

But if [that same soil] persistently bears thorns and thistles, it is considered worthless and near to being cursed, whose end is to be burned.