Plentiful Rain

China DroughtA drought to a farmer is one of his greatest fears and foes. Rainfall can make or break a harvest season. So it is in the spiritual realm. If we neglect our Bibles, then we will cause a spiritual drought in our Christian walk. I know that many of you have began 2014 resolving to read your Bibles more regularly and I pray that you are successful. There is great promise in taking on such an endeavor:

    “So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:11)

Biblical instruction when practically applied to our lives becomes Biblical wisdom. There are fewer things more precious than Biblical wisdom. I encourage you to read Proverbs 2 and 3 this morning, but understand the great value of wisdom:

    “Happy is the man who finds wisdom, and the man who gains understanding; for her proceeds are better than the profits of silver, and her gain than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies, and all the things you may desire cannot compare with her.” (Proverbs 3:13-15)

You need to learn the Word of God because you are required by the Lord to teach it to your children:

    “Therefore you shall lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, like the days of the heavens above the earth.” (Deuteronomy 11:18-21)

We are losing the battle for the soul of our nation because long ago the majority of the pulpits stopped preaching the Word. However, just blaming the pulpits is a convenient excuse for far too many people. Many Christian parents not only fail to teach their children the Word of God, but also fail to even read it themselves. They lament the fact that school prayer is forbidden, and yet they send their children to school without praying over and for them. Why do you seek the government to do for you what you will not do on your own?

We cannot expect our leaders, both political and religious, to be and act righteously if we ourselves refuse to do what we expect of them! If we are going to have the revival we so desperately seek for our nation, then we need to reopen our Bibles. Oh for the day of which David wrote:

    “The Lord gave the word; great was the company of those who proclaimed it.” (Psalm 68:11)

I thank God that the pastoral staff at my church proclaim the gospel unapologetically and unashamedly. However, from much of the correspondence I receive from across the country, this is the exception and not the rule. That must reverse itself. If we do not see what God has done in the past, how are we to expect anything of Him in the future? Too many American Christians think God will save America just because it is America. Our nation needs another Great Awakening more than we needed the first two. A devastating spiritual drought has covered our land and we need an outpouring of God’s Word to replenish it. Writing on Psalm 68, Matthew Henry explains:

    “Fresh mercies should put us in mind of former mercies. If God brings His people into a wilderness, He will be sure to go before them in it, and to bring them out of it. He provided for them, both in the wilderness and in Canaan. The daily manna seems here meant. And it looks to the spiritual provision for God’s Israel. The Spirit of grace and the gospel of grace are the plentiful rain, with which God confirms His inheritance, and from which their fruit is found. Christ shall come as showers that water the earth.”

Many of us look back to a time in America when tradition and righteousness abounded. However, many of us are not willing to pay the price paid by those living in those times. What amount of sacrifice are you willing to give to see America return to its Biblical foundation? Are you looking for Sunday sermons that pierce “even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart,” or are you looking for ways to have “Your Best Life Now.”

If it is the latter, congratulations! You have arrived and our nation is reaping its just rewards. However, if it is the former you seek understand your pastor is going to preach from the Bible proclaiming sin as sin and Christ as the only salvation of mankind. You do understand that it is up to you what you hear preached from the pulpit, do you not?

The question is, what is it I truly desire? Do I honestly want the Word of God to divide me and discern the thoughts and intents of my heart? Do I really want to have to deal with unrepented and besetting sins in my life?

The best way to find out where you stand is to open your Bible and let Spirit of grace and the gospel of grace bring the plentiful rain. Who knows, you may actually discover that you’ve been in the middle of a spiritual drought for quite some time now.

In Christ
Dave
Ps. 37:4

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    Copyright © 2014 David Jeffers

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