Kopp Disclosure
(John 3:19-21)
@#$%
Just Because God Wants Everybody to be Saved Doesn’t Mean…
July 4, 2020 was a big day for farmers.
Was it “knee-high by the 4th of July”?
Of course, like most things with most people, it all depends which farmer reported.
If you don’t know what I mean by that, you haven’t spent much time around farmers.
Candidly, I spent most of my time growing up on military bases and coal fields before substituting higher education with Jesus by the book as enlightened by the Holy Spirit who never contradicts Jesus by the book for worthless degree programs in America, Europe and…
Long before one of those lower education institutions that I spent too much time attending kicked out President Woodrow Wilson in the current secularly correct culture fueled by Godless accomplices with the Antichrist, I took down all of my parchments that I used to hang in my study to impress people and…uh, uh, uh…I forget where I put ‘em because they mean next to nothing to me anymore; especially after reading Matthew 23 with a sharper focus back in October 2011.
Parenthetically, I warn academic egotists and especially clergy that lead that pack not to read Matthew 23; which I know they haven’t read like I didn’t because Jesus has some really disdainful things to say about…uh, uh, uh…things that mean too much to us, cause us to enable infidelity and get in the way of holy communion with Him and His.
Getting back to 2011, Maynard “Skee” Bye went home to Jesus on February 9, 2011; and I spent many months with him at Maplecrest Care Center before presiding at his memorial service in praying and preparing for the trip back home to Jesus.
Skee was a farmer.
Growing up as I did and then retarding my growth in lower education, I didn’t know much about farming; so I asked Skee to tutor me because I felt I needed to know something about farming if I was going to stay in Boone County for the rest of my life and ministry.
Here’s another parenthesis.
Before Skee taught me about farming, the only thing I knew about it was gleaned from the many stories about farming in the Bible; and there was one that I shared with Skee that he really liked which kinda set the stage for some of the most important lessons of life that Skee taught me with farming as the metaphor.
Here’s the story that set the stage for what Skee taught me.
Genesis 41 is about Joseph interpreting Pharaoh’s dreams about seven healthy cows and seven sick cows. The seven healthy cows represent good years in farming and the seven sick cows represent bad years in farming. Joseph provides counsel to Pharaoh that farmers have heeded ever since. There are good years and bad years and you better be prepared for the bad years because you can’t always count on every year being good.
This is how Skee explained it: “You go with what you get.”
That’s why farmers have been the backbone of America.
Famers have modeled patience, stability and balance.
In bad years, Skee taught me, farmers don’t get too worried and depressed because they know things will get better.
In good years, he noted, farmers don’t get too excited because they know things may get worse.
Skee taught me about the ebb and flow and predictability of life on the farm.
Plant in spring.
Knee-high by the 4th of July.
Harvest.
Rest.
Repair.
And then do it all over again and again and again and…
That’s why farmers are mentioned so much in the Bible.
Farming is a metaphor for ministry.
We worship and witness and work to honor God and express our gratitude for existential relief and eternal salvation by grace through faith in Jesus and do it over and over and over and…
Then, like Skee said, “We go with what we get.”
Another farm story in the Bible comes to mind: the parable of the sower in Matthew 13:3-23.
Here’s a quick summary of the story.
Good soil yields a good harvest.
Bad soil means a bad harvest.
Now let’s go deeper into the story.
The sower is anyone who knows Jesus and wants to make Jesus known.
The seeds are the Word Jesus, Word explained in the Bible and Word enlightened by the Holy Spirit.
The soil is the world or people that God wants to save (read John 3:16-17 again for more on that).
The point of the story is God wants everybody to be saved.
God wants everybody to know they are going to heaven after the last breath; and that knowledge generates strong, calm and serene sanity to live victoriously through the meanness, madness, misery and miscreance of life in a world spiritually distancing from God which never yields a good harvest.
That’s why God sent Himself in Jesus to save the world; and that’s why people who know that/Jesus make that/Jesus known.
Make no mistake about it.
God is the ultimate sower who wants a really, really, really big harvest.
God wants to fill up heaven.
God gives His seeds – the Gospel of Jesus Christ as concisely communicated in John 3:16-17 – to the Church to spread those seeds to everybody everywhere.
Why?
Again, read John 3:16-17.
Pero there’s a problem.
Just because God wants everybody to be saved doesn’t mean everybody will be saved.
Sowing doesn’t guarantee a good harvest.
Knowing Jesus and making Jesus known doesn’t mean everybody’s gonna get it/Him, get saved and live happily ever after.
There’s gotta be good soil for the seeds to grow.
In the end, as Skee taught me, “You go with what you get.”
Let’s go deeper.
Revelation 1:3 and 22:7 make an undeniable promise about the good seed aka Word: “Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear the words of this prophecy and keep what is written in it, because the time is near.”
John was given that promise for every generation since the resurrection of Jesus in preparation for His return as Judge to take the world away from satanos, Antichrist and false prophecy and establish His millennial Kingdom on earth that precedes the eternal Kingdom of heaven.
Our job is to make that Word known; and we will as soon as we know that Word.
Again, as an old missionary told me, “You can’t give away what you ain’t got for yourself!”
Don’t miss the big point.
God wants everybody to be blessed/saved.
Because we know that/Him, we want to make that good news known.
Again, it’s our John 3:16-17 thing.
Pero just because God wants everybody to be saved doesn’t mean everybody will be saved.
It’s like that song goes that we love to sing on Christmas Eve about the little town of Bethlehem: “Where meek souls will receive Him, still the dear Christ enters in.”
Remember, there’s a really sad part to farming.
Bad soil means a bad harvest.
People who don’t receive Him are not rewarded by Him.
Or as I heard one firebrand put it, “If you don’t want to go to God’s house while you’re alive, He ain’t gonna drag you through the gates of heaven when you die.”
Let’s go deeper.
Let’s look at the different ways people don’t receive God into their lives; or as that firebrand said, “Some people act like they don’t want to go to heaven and some people act like there’s no hell. Well, I’ve got news for you. The way you’re acting, you ain’t going to heaven. And if you don’t believe in hell, I’ve got news for you. It’s still there and you’re still going.”
According to this parable, the gospel seeds land in different kinds of soil and yield different results.
Hardpan
Some soil/people are like road asphalt.
Jesus just doesn’t sink in.
Jesus said, “When anyone hears the Word and it doesn’t sink in, the evil one comes along and snatches their souls.”
Some people have been so polluted by the world that they’ve become hardened to Jesus.
J.C. Ryle was spot on: “From Satan come wandering thoughts and roving imaginations, listless minds, dull memories, sleepy eyes, fidgety nerves, weary ears, distracted attention.”
If Jesus doesn’t sink in, people are sunk not saved.
Rocky Ground
Jesus said, “This kind of soil represents the person who has a short attention span. They get all excited so quickly about faith and then fall away as quickly because they’re not rooted in God. They fall away so easily. The least temptation or irritation and they’re gone.”
John Huffman told me about Norman Vincent Peale warning him, “Some people are like fireworks in the church. They burn brightly but briefly.”
Some people never get beyond the shallow and superficial because their lives, like rocky ground that’s not good for farming, are filled with stumbling blocks.
It’s like the penal colony of Illinois during CCP COVID-19.
The Godless secularly correct and sacredly antagonistic morons that run the state enabled whisky, weed and WalMart as essential ingredients to life, liberty and happiness while erecting non-Constitutional barricades to prevent people from worshiping God.
People are rocky ground soil when anyone or anything distracts from the allegiance and attention due God alone like…whisky, weed, WalMart, women/men, this, that and the other thing.
God doesn’t take root when people are stoned.
People who stone themselves won’t be saved by God.
Thorny Ground
Thorny sounds like…
When God has to compete with our lusts and likes and needs and wants and feelings for allegiance and attention, we are choking off His saving desires for us.
When we’re more horny than holy, communion with God is compromised.
When communion with God is compromised, souls are at risk.
Jesus explained, “The seed cast in the weeds is the person who hears the kingdom news, but weeds of worry and illusions about getting more and wanting everything under the sun strangle what was heard, and nothing comes of it.”
If we don’t want to be last, Jesus must be first.
Fertile Soil
“This is the one,” Jesus declared, “who hears and understands and produces a good crop.”
Revelation 1:3 and 22:7 come back to mind.
Growing faith is a simple formula: “Read the Word + Hear the Word + Keep the Word = blessedness/salvation.
The message of the parable of the sower is simple.
God the farmer gives gospel seeds to His hired/elected/saved hands.
The saved spread those seeds all over the place because God and His family want everybody to be saved.
Sadly, some of those precious seeds of salvation are not received well and there’s crop failure and that’s hellish.
Gloriously, some of those precious seeds hit fertile soil, grow deeply, produce a bountiful harvest and it’s heavenly.
Or as Skee explained the parable while explaining farming to me, “We go with what we get.”
Our job as people who love God is to love like God and honor that love’s intention to save everybody.
That’s why we spread those saving seeds of salvation to everyone everywhere with enthusiasm and without exception.
Let’s go deeper.
Let’s feel the pain of the holy, holy, holy Farmer when there’s a crop failure in the heart-hurting and breaking poetry of Solomon’s unrequited love song: “I sought the one I love. I sought him, but did not find him” (see the Song of Songs which is a beautiful metaphor of God’s love for us).
I really like Peterson’s translation/paraphrase: “I longed for my lover. I wanted him desperately. His absence was painful.”
God wants to save everybody.
People who love God love like God and want everybody to be saved.
Pero just because God wants everybody to be saved doesn’t mean everybody will be saved.
That’s obvious to parents with prodigal children, the victim of an unfaithful spouse, Neil Young singing about the needle and the damage done, the remnant watching the revolving door of churches producing Christianettes through tickling-ear sermonettes that go no deeper than the veneer on a kindergartner’s desk and observing people who’ve just lost His way.
So what’s the plan for bad soil.
Well, it looks like hell.
That’s when the tears well and overflow.
We know there’s no more chances to be saved after the last breath.
That’s when it’s good to bring up Martha Young again: “You love ‘em, let God judge ‘em and love ‘em enough to tell ‘em that God’s coming back to judge ‘em.”
It’s a good time to bring up Byron and his wife Betsie. Byron and I were good friends in a covenant group of pastors about 35 years ago. His son was a heroin addict. As Byron was plunging into depression, Betsie took his hand, placed it into the hand of Jesus and said, “Byron, don’t you know Jesus loves our son even more than we do? Let’s give him back to Jesus and trust his life to Him.”
There are moments when we wonder with the Eagles if it’s all been wasted time.
Knowing God smiles when we’re trusting and obeying Him by spreading those gospel seeds to everyone everywhere, it’s the best of times to farm.
And as those seeds fall from our hands and hearts and we’re praying for the best crops of salvation, it helps to remember something from our friends who have faced reality, live through storms and have recovered: “Let go and let God.”
When the only thing that we can do is trust God, we’re reminded of where we should have started.
So when’s the best time to farm?
Now…before it’s too late.
Blessings and Love!
@#$%
@#$%
@#$%
@#$%
No comments:
Post a Comment