Harvest Laws for Holy Living - 8 - The Law of Persevering

Several years ago, a van was parked along side a Kentucky state highway. The vehicle had obviously broken down, for the driver was standing near the tractor, beside one of the front wheels, which he had just removed.

A pastor stopped to see if he could be of assistance, but the driver thanked him kindly and told him that he had already sent for help. It seems that the truck had a burned out wheel bearing, so another one was being brought to replace it.

But then, a curious thing happened. As the pastor pulled away from the scene, his eyes caught the words emblazoned on the side of the truck’s trailer: Standard Oil Company of Kentucky, Lubricants Division.

The truck had burned out a wheel bearing while hauling the very grease used to prevent that very sort of thing.

A simple illustration, perhaps, but one that points to a common problem amongst the average Christian. Our difficulty today is not that we lack the knowledge of the truth or of what’s right and wrong. What we lack is application of the truth we already know.

I can still remember vividly going to Abbottsford about 15 years ago to hear a popular, well-known prophecy teacher, whose name you would all recognize. During the service, I noticed that the female musician, who was from his church is California, was dressed inappropriately, somewhat provocatively. The Bible teacher noted that he, she, and some others from his church were traveling as a group on this speaking tour, excluding his wife.

I said to myself...there’s trouble brewing here...something’s not right. And sure enough, several months later, it was learned that this Bible teacher had committed immorality with a woman in his church, and was forced to resign his ministry.

And I learned a valuable lesson as a result. All the Bible knowledge in the world will not do us any good if it isn’t accompanied with a consistent, habitual application of that knowledge in every-day living.

Failure to live as we should, and be what God desires and demands that we be is something none of us are immune from. But not only that...this illustration points up an equally unfortunate reality: Many believers fail in their own personal lives while seeking to help and minister to others. They allow weeds to grow in their spiritual garden while hoeing them out of someone else’s.

It seems as if you, I need to be living each day in a survival mode, because temptation swirls all around us, and we must be constantly on guard that we not grow weary in doing good...in doing what’s right.

I want us to focus on yet another law of the harvest this morning...the sixth law. Remember what we’ve studied so far?

  1. The Law of Persevering

If you’ve had any gardening experience, you know that you can’t just go out and plant the seed and then forget about it and hope that it will produce. That approach yields very little produce. Yet, for the last several years, that’s exactly what my neighbor has done. Her weeds take over in short order.

A garden requires a great deal of labor, t.l.c. in order to reap and abundant harvest. Therefore, this law instructs us that we’ll reap a full, fruitful harvest of the good that we sow as we persevere, but the evil part of the harvest comes all on its own.

No gardener, including yourself, has ever found it necessary to go out to the garden to cultivate the thorns, thistles...the weeds, so they’ll grow more abundantly. They just come up naturally and cause all sorts of problems. They don’t need to be feed or fertilized either.

In the spring, when the briar seeds, dandelion seeds sow themselves into the ground, they have the ability to come to harvest all on their own, don’t they?

This is a sobering principle of life, spiritually speaking. So, let’s take a look at some principles regarding Law #6.

  1. The Scriptural aspects of this law

The only way that you, I can enjoy the blessings, benefits of a full, fruitful harvest of the good seed that we have sown is by persevering, not fainting or growing weary. But we don’t have to do anything about the evil we’ve sown...it will come to harvest all on its own.

The good seed needs constant attention, cultivation. The key passage for this study has been Galatians 6:7-8 and other passages have added to our understanding of the concept of sowing and reaping. But it is Galatians 6:9-10 which focuses our attention on the need of perseverance with a warning, an exhortation, and a promise. As mentioned above, anyone who has ever planted a garden knows that it cannot be planted and then forgotten. If it is, very little will come from the planting because of the many forces that work against a good harvest. A garden requires continuous labor and care in order to reap an abundant harvest.

Because of the entrance of sin with the fall of Adam and Eve, and because of the presence of Satan and his demon forces, with every opportunity for good, we are always faced with an accompanying problem, the problem of opposition. This is true in the spiritual world as well as in the physical world. Whether we are sowing the seed of God’s Word in the soil of human hearts or simply sowing seed in one’s garden in the backyard, we are faced with opposition.

This is illustrated for us in Mark 4:14-20.

The law of perseverance assures us that even if we sow good, we will have problems, difficulties. We should expect them, anticipate them, use them as a means of allowing God to bring the good harvest to fruition.

This means that even if we sow to the Spirit, life won’t necessarily be easy. Cultivation can sometimes be hard, but the harvest makes all the persistence, perseverance well worth the effort.

I’m afraid that some dear saints really believe that if they do what’s right, they’ll have no problems... life will be smooth sailing. Listen, beloved, the more good that Jesus did, the more opposition He encountered. The same was true of Paul, not to mention the OT prophets.

The Lord Jesus illustrated, intensified this truth in Mt. 13:24-30, 36-43.

To use another metaphor, with building we are always faced with the need for battling the forces of evil. This is illustrated graphically in the life of Nehemiah when he was leading the people in rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. They had to rebuild the wall “with one hand doing the work and the other holding a weapon.” This means the need for watchfulness and perseverance.

It was when the Nehemiah’s stand up, shout, “Let us rise up and build,” that the Sandbalits, Tobiahs of this world will be right there to rise up, tear down, oppose! Note Paul’s words in I Cor. 16:9.

Beloved, it’s through our problems, our difficulties that God is seeking to strengthen our spiritual spines, build our virtues. We must trust Him to bring the good harvest to completion, fruition. We must be patient in times of difficulty, so that we don’t lose heart.

Perseverance is the watchword. Keep on keeping on. Your labor is not in vain in the Lord.

But perseverance, patience will be for naught if they’re not immersed in self-discipline. Self-discipline is our defense against allowing our difficulties to overwhelm, overcome us.

The pilgrimage of Christian living is paved with self-discipline, and it compels us to work through our problems, not try to go around them. cf. Heb. 12:1-3.

Understand that God has some very special ingredients for the cultivating of our spiritual gardens, which He sends us so that we will grow, mature.

Having considered the Scriptural aspects of this law, let’s think, secondly, about

  1. The Spiritual application of this law

Whoever penned the following words spoke an abundance of practical truth: Never let a difficulty stop you. It may be only sand in the track to keep you from slipping.

All of us are enrolled in God’s school of horticulture. Many are the divine obstacles sent from God to keep us from something harmful and lead us to cultivate the right kind of harvest.

If your way is dark and gloomy,
And your future black as night,
Wait; it may be a tunnel
That’s a shortcut to the light.

What are some of the areas through which we must persevere on our way to the harvest?

  1. We must persevere through delays

And, boy, do we tend to repel at that word “delays,” especially in the fast-paced, computer age we live in, with people scurrying about so fast that if you blink, you might miss them. But remember, before Moses was ready to lead Israel into Canaan, he not only needed Egypt’s education...he needed the desert’s delay and 40 years of “shepherdology.”

Before David ascended the throne, his anointing as king was followed by a time in which he was forced into alluding the king. And all the while, God was schooling him in the patience of waiting on God and trusting Him to fulfill His promises. It was in the caves of delay that God taught David the meaning of waiting, persevering.

But David learned something else as he traversed the land, pursued by Saul like a hunted animal. He learned firsthand about the people, the place he would later rule, reign over. He learned how to deal with problems because he learned to know people. cf. I Sam. 22:1-2.

What do you do when everything goes wrong? David learned what to do when his world fell apart at Ziklag. cf. I Sam. 30:6.

He didn’t try the “power of positive thinking.” He didn’t try to close his mind to reality. He didn’t reason: “Well, you win some and you lose some.” David was living on the ragged edge...the people were about to stone him...and he stood alone.

So David did the only thing that was right: he cast himself before God, which is precisely what God wanted him to do. No man could help him, so he looked to the Lord-the mighty One, and God gave him a great victory.

God’s ways often lead through delays. His desire is that we learn the lessons those delays are designed to teach us. Our problem is usually more with the lessons than the delays that bring them. But delays without lessons are of little value.

Delays give us time to think. But we’d rather be amused than just muse! cf. Ps. 37:7; 40:1.

Sometimes the most important thing we can do is nothing. That’s when patience proves itself in the crucible of waiting, trusting. That’s how God often teaches us when, where to move in keeping with His will.

But, it’s a hard lesson to learn, isn’t it? Our flesh wants desperately to do something. But God says “wait.” cf. Ps. 62:5.

Are you here today feeling weak, powerless, with no strength to do what God wants you to do? Maybe your problem is a lack of perseverance. Or perhaps you aren’t taking the time to contemplate, commune with God! Isn’t that what Isa. 40:29-31 is all about?

By waiting on the Lord, we’ll have the spiritual, mental, emotional strength to do what’s well-pleasing to God. In fact, waiting on the Lord will do at least three blessed things for us:

Eagle-saints soar above their circumstances because they’ve learned that their spirituality controls each circumstance that arises...not the other way around.

Are you a mountaintop believer today, or are you carnally content to dwell in the valley of despair, defeat?

Lastly, today,

J. Hudson Taylor once declared, I used to ask God if He would come and help me; then I asked God if I might come and help Him; then I ended by asking God to do His work through me.

Is that your desire, your prayer? Then learn the lessons of divine delays. We’ll continue investigating this law in our next message.

Close with II Cor. 4:1.