Crops, Weeds and Thistles

[background music] [Speaker 1] Church fellowships cannot be more spiritual than the individuals and families that constitute them. God greatly desires a godly home. These are words of restoration and instruction in righteousness from Family Life Ministries. May you be blessed as you listen. [Speaker 2] We thank our God for who He is and for all that He is. This matter of the dispensation of the spirit, that when Jesus died, He said, "It is expedient that I go. If I don't go, the Holy Spirit will not come. But if I go, it is more expedient for you that I go, because greater works you will do." There are many things I want to tell you now that I cannot tell you, but when the Spirit comes, He will tell you all things. We have been looking at this matter of this dispensation. Honestly, there are things about this dispensation, so many things that if you understand it, how will I put it now? When it is rainy season and you know that this is rainy season and there is a way you prepare to do some things and you are certain you will get result because it is rainy season. And at the same time, when the rainy season is going and the dry season is coming, there are some things if you want to do before, you say, "The rain is no more, so I may not be able to do certain things again." But when it is rainy season and you could not understand it is rainy season and you want to plant maize, but you don't know it is rainy season, even though it is rainy season. As you are going to plant the maize, but you are not sure it is rainy season, what will be in your mind? As you are going to plant the maize, you say, "I don't even know now. If it were to be rainy season now, I would have been sure that the maize will grow. But now it is not rainy season. Let me just hope that it will grow." You will go there being double-minded. You will go there to the farm expecting that maybe, maybe not. But where it is rainy season and you know that it is rainy season and you want to go and plant your maize, what will be the nature of your heart? You know that it is the season where it will grow. If you don't understand that it is the dispensation of the Spirit and the things that should go with the dispensation, even what you are supposed to do with confidence to expect harvest, you will be doing with double-mindedness because you don't know. For example, Jesus said that there are many things I want to tell you, but you cannot understand. But when I go and the Holy Spirit will come, what will He do? He will teach you these things which I cannot teach you now that you cannot understand. What does that tell you about the dispensation of the Spirit? That it is a time of deeper understanding of God. If you are not deeply understanding God, you will know you are not operating in the season. If it is rainy season and rain is falling on your roof, is your roof isolated? Ordinarily, the rain should fall everywhere. The only difference between this dispensation is that it is like you experience the rain as long as you believe, even though it is rainy season. If you don't believe, you don't experience the rain. But the point I'm making is this: let's understand this dispensation. As you go along this dispensation of the Spirit, as we are discussing the matters, understand that it is what God wills for you. That is the mind of God for you. Now, what I intend for us to look at today, I talked last week that one reason why we must understand the truth is that if you don't understand the hope of our calling, you are not likely to endure till the end. That's why we gave the story of the small boy who the father was a driver and the father has told her, "Go and stand somewhere, I will pick you there." And everybody was telling him, "Why you are standing is odd. Nobody can pick you there." But because there is a communion with the father, he knows the hope of his standing there. Despite the fact everybody stood elsewhere, he was there. The place looked odd. But when the bus came, the bus picked him. My intention today is to move on from there for us to look at the matter of Jesus said, "This is good and acceptable to God that all men be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth." We saw that the truth brings freedom. We saw that the truth makes a man to endure till the end. Today I want to show you a third direction of the truth. That was my intention, but I may not go today to look at the implication of knowing the truth, this third one I intended to go to today. Rather, I want to share a burden with us, a burden of... I'm trying to look at how I can capture the burden, what I can tag it as. But because I do not have a topic with which to tag it, maybe as we are going on and we are discussing it, we'll be able to come up with a topic with which we can tag it. But there is just this burden the Lord was raising in my heart and I felt I want to share it with us today. Hopefully, next Monday, I will continue with the implications, the third one. So let's look at this burden for today. I want us to go to the book of Genesis. Genesis 16. Are you there? Genesis 16. Now, Abraham's story began from Genesis 11 when they have to trace from Noah to Terah then Terah to Abraham. So Abraham's story began from Genesis 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 through to around chapter 25. Now, I want to give a small background. Abraham's story runs from 11 to around chapter 25. Chapter 16 is the shortest chapter in all the chapters that contains Abraham's story. Are you with me? Chapter 16 is the shortest chapter. It also ended up in a particular way, is 16:16. Do you notice it? It's also 16:16. I want to give you this background. I want to show you a chapter, the shortest chapter in a man's life. Yes, the chapter that raised an issue that lasts eternity. It is the shortest chapter in the chapters that contains the story of the man's life. Go and check all the chapters, 11, 12 to 25, you'll find Abraham's stories there. As short as this chapter is, rounding up in a peculiar way, it raises issues that becomes central in the whole of the life of Abraham. [Speaker 3] In chapter 16, the Bible says, "Now Sarai, Abram's wife, bare him no children: and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold now, the Lord hath restrained me from bearing: I pray thee, go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai." Verse 3, "And Sarai Abram's wife took Hagar her maid the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan." So by now he's how many years? He was 85. I want you to note why the Bible is giving particular signpost. It's like that first nine years he did well. He was working, he was waiting. As it is this tenth year, after waiting for ten years, this incident came up. "And Abram went in unto Hagar, and she gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife. And Abram went in unto Hagar, and she conceived: and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes. And Sarai said unto Abram, My wrong be upon thee: I have given my maid into thy bosom; and when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her eyes: the Lord judge between me and thee. But Abram said unto Sarai, Behold, thy maid is in thy hand; do to her as it pleaseth thee. And when Sarai dealt hardly with her, she fled from her face. And the angel of the Lord found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way to Shur. And he said, Hagar, Sarai's maid, whence camest thou? and whither wilt thou go? And she said, I flee from the face of my mistress Sarai. And the angel of the Lord said unto her, Return to thy mistress, and submit thyself under her hands. And the angel of the Lord said unto her, I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude. And the angel of the Lord said unto her, Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael; because the Lord hath heard thy affliction. And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren. And she called the name of the Lord that spake unto her, Thou God seest me: for she said, Have I also here looked after him that seeth me? Wherefore the well was called Beerlahairoi; behold, it is between Kadesh and Bered. And Hagar bare Abram a son: and Abram called his son's name, which Hagar bare, Ishmael. And Abram was fourscore and six years old, when Hagar bare Ishmael to Abram." Praise the Lord. [Speaker 2] Abraham started this journey, his call with God at the age of what? 75. When was Abraham married to Sarah? Was it at 75? He had been married long before then. So understand that Abraham waited for Sarah, not the way people generally say 25 years. Sarah was 99, that's when she became pregnant and have a child. So it was more than 25 years because they have been married before that 75. Now, Abraham married Sarah and I want to ask you, for how long? They have been meeting for over 25 years in sexual matter. They have been sleeping together for over 25 years in sexual relationship, but there was no child for over 25 years of waiting. Now, when that over 25 years of waiting was still on, when he had waited ten years in the land of Canaan, what happened? Sarah made a suggestion that Abraham should go in unto Hagar. And how many times did Abraham sleep with Hagar and she conceived? Just once. That's what I just want to share a burden with us this evening. With the correct wife, where you are working in righteousness and in holiness, there was no prosperity. When the man was having sex uprightly, he did not prosper. Can you imagine living correctly, doing it correctly, doing it right, doing it right, and the land is still barren? Can you imagine some things that you have been doing, you have been doing, you have been doing and you are doing it correctly? This man for over 25 years has been sleeping with the correct woman in the correct way. The God who said children are the heritage of God, there was no prosperity. But when the man took error, when he left the path of righteousness, when he left the path of holiness, just at one touch, there was prosperity. Does it not look sometimes to us as godly people that I have done rightly, I have done well, I have sown the seed, I am sowing the correct seed, I'm doing the correct seed and I'm waiting for God maybe on a matter? You might be trusting God for a job and you refuse to compromise. You might be trusting God for the salvation of somebody, for a change in somebody. Your body says okay don't worry, a child of God will not revenge, you'll be doing good. And you have been doing good for over 25 years, I don't know, I'm just using Abraham's case. Just imagine that you have been doing it, doing it, doing it, doing it, doing it, it looks as if there's no harvest to bring godliness. But one day you decide to abandon God and say this thing, me too I'm not a fool. I'm not a fool. This time I will show my true color. And when you show your true color, you get result. Are you understanding me at all? The first burden that came to me is that which God made Hagar to conceive? Is it not the same God? Which God made Sarah not to conceive? Is it not the same God? Ordinarily, which one should prosper? I'm just showing you some kind of contradiction that life brings sometimes. Serious contradiction that life brings. It looks like you are obeying God on a matter and you are doing it right, but yet your land is barren. Yet the Bible say the righteous shall flourish in the land and inherit thereof. And yet the righteous, this is not five years of having sleep with this woman and waiting for result, it's over 25 years. Is there anything you have persisted with God for over 25 years and you keep doing right? Sometimes even want to ask how many Nigerians will keep doing that right for over 25 years waiting for God when there is barrenness? How many Nigerian Christians of today, how many of us of today, after five, six years of doing that thing and you don't get result will not try another thing? But the first thing that shocked me and I had to, I stood on this verse sincerely for over 48 hours. I was saying God, I don't understand this. Why will a man be doing the correct thing, sleeping with the correct person and there was nothing? And just one small touch on error, the thing began to grow. What is it? After I was staying on that verse and I was asking question, look at what the Lord revealed. My question was Lord, why do evil, wickedness and error so readily prosper? That was the question. I said why do evil, why do wickedness, why do error when a man goes into error, why do these things prosper? The response, He says weed, thorns, thistles flourish under the same rainfall just as crops. Do you get that at all? When it is rainy season and rain is falling, that same rain that comes down is the one that makes crop to grow and same one that makes thorn and weed and thistles to grow. They prosper readily because there is no husbandman. This is the way of God. The Lord just pointed me to nature, that you look at nature. Once rain begins to fall now, what will happen to all the thorns, all the weeds, all the thistles? They just begin to grow. Why is it that yam, okra and maize don't grow like that? As rain just falls like that, why is it that yam, maize, they don't grow like that? But once rain starts now, why are these ones growing? Because they don't need a husbandman. Do they need a farmer? You don't need a farmer. There is no special rain for yam and maize. It is the same rain, it is that same rain. And when that rain is falling in nature, it is first for you to get the other ones, the crop, somebody must first go to the ground, cultivate the ground, till the ground, look for the corn, plant the corn. If nobody does that, the weeds will be growing. So discovered that as that same rain falls, weed, thorns, thistles, they don't need husbandman. Why? Because they don't go where crops go. Note, they don't go where crops go. They don't go where crops go. Things that will go where crops go, there must be an husbandman. There must be a purpose. There's a defined intent by somebody. Are you following me? Now, look at the response, it continues. It says yet though they flourish together, the weed, thorns, thistles, the crop, they flourish together by time the husbandman come and now work. They will all flourish together. They flourish together. It says yet their distinct identities do not in the least way shade into one another. Eventually when the husbandman now do the crop, the weed, the crops, the weed too will be growing, the crops will be growing, they flourish under the same rain, but the identities, they don't shade into each other. This is also the way of God. Are you seeing two ways of God? What's the first way of God? When rain fall, whether husbandman work or not, weed, thorns, thistles they prosper. They begin to grow. When the husbandman finally begin to work, all of them will still flourish under the same rain. It is the way of God. Is it not the way of God? Is it not the way of God? Again in the way of God you will notice that the weed, the thorns, the thistles are never gathered into barn or storehouse as crop. Even though they flourish under the same rain, what we are saying is that even though wickedness, error, evil and righteousness, they flourish under the same providence of God, under the same mercies of God, under the same goodness of God. And many times, thorns, weed, thistles they prosper quickly. Error, wickedness, evil, they prosper, they prosper quickly. They are all the ways of God. Also in the ways of God, if you look at nature, nobody gather weed, thorn and thistle into barn. You only gather crop. So it means while they will both prosper, they will both increase, they will both look the same thing, they all enjoy prosperity, don't ever think that heaven don't maintain their distinction. Heaven maintain their distinction. Their distinctions are well-maintained, just like in nature. Have there ever been a farmer that gather weed into barn? Have you found one? Have you found one? Their identity just as you see it in nature, so it is in the ways of God. And I want to show you something about Ishmael and about Isaac. The reason why I want to look at this thing today, brethren, is that number one, why righteousness, why righteousness, godliness, holiness may require long endurance. Sometimes you may have to be there for years without seeing result. And it looks like when people leave that path, it looks like they prosper, they still go on. It looks like there is no judgment. It looks like they don't really suffer harm. It looks like things are also okay. Don't make the mistake of confusing them. Don't make the mistake to think that God is saying that look you should have left that, it would have been better if you leave righteousness, godliness and holiness. Don't ever think so. The fact that God allow weed and thorn and thistle to grow, it is that same God that also make sure that in His wisdom, no man gathered them into barn. No man gathered them into barn. It doesn't matter how much a man will gather by error, by wickedness and by evil, he can never gather them into barn. He will not gather them into barn. He may flourish, they may move on, but they can never be gathered into barn. While it may look as if if we leave righteousness a little, if we leave holiness small, let's put a little thing to make it, let's just turn it a little, understand that no man gather into barn. Now look at something about Ishmael and Isaac. The thorn, the weed, the thistles represents who? Ishmael. The crop is Isaac. In this matter that we are looking at, looking at this story, we are wondering why at just one touch of Hagar there was prosperity. Why did God allow thorns to grow? Why did God allow weed and thistles to grow? Don't forget that in judgment, when God was pronouncing an injunction upon Adam, He said you will now crop the land, but as you crop the land, what will it bring out for you? Thorns and thistles, you remember? So when we are not seeing thorns and thistles when a man crop and what he brings out from him is not what he can eat but what can injure him. I'm trying to explain that when evil prosper, what they are producing is not what to eat, it's what can wound, it's what can pierce, it's what can injure. It's not producing harvest. It's producing yes it's producing, but look at something about Ishmael and Isaac. Look at what God said. Look at verse 10. What did the Bible say? [Speaker 3] "And the angel of the Lord said unto her, I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude." [Speaker 2] Who was given this covenant before? Who was given this covenant? Look at chapter 15. Are you in chapter 15? Look at verse 4. [Speaker 3] "And behold the word of the Lord came unto him saying, This shall not be your heir, but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir. And he brought him forth abroad and said, Look up towards the heaven and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them, and he said unto him, so shall thy seed be." [Speaker 2] Do you get me? Go to chapter 16 verse 10. [Speaker 3] "And the angel of the Lord said unto her, I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude." [Speaker 2] What is this? Which covenant is this? Abrahamic covenant. It is the Abrahamic covenant that was pronounced again where? On this error. So this thing with this thing too will multiply like the Abrahamic covenant. It will also multiply like the Abrahamic covenant. There is something about sexual sin and about sexual intercourse, it's a generational issue. So you can see the element of the Abrahamic covenant in Ishmael. But don't forget that Hagar was a seed of unbelief, was a root, don't forget the root of Hagar. How did Abraham get Hagar? It was at the first error. Remember the error when he said Sarah was my sister and then in Egypt and they gave Abraham what? Maidservants, manservants, donkeys. So he prospered in Egypt because of Sarah that he said is his sister. That was where they got the seed of Hagar. That seed of error look as if when a man enter into error, nothing really happens. The seed was growing. She had grown to become a fine girl. It became a fine girl. When it became a fine girl, what happened? She became a maid to the wife and then at a point she became a mate with Sarah. Again, another seed of error was sown. Abraham slept with Hagar. That was another seed of error. You know it should not have been a generational problem, it would have ended there, but there was intercourse. The Abrahamic covenant mixed up with Hagar that represent bondage. So when He says your seed will multiply exceedingly, what will multiply? The thorns. There was a mixture. I'm trying to make you understand what happens to our life when we shift a little into error. When we feel that when we stay in righteousness, when we stay here, Abraham felt I have slept with Sarah all my life, no child. See now, only one with this Hagar, hallelujah! Once you see! So I'm not even barren. The problem is even with my wife. It looks like he was doing well, but he was not doing well. It looks like a prosperity. And Abrahamic covenant of course came mixed, became mixed with this thing. That's what sin does. It brings a generational problem. So that even though if you separate Hagar from Abraham generationally, they are not separable again. Abrahamic covenant have mixed with thorn. Hagar would not have been anything about multitude like the sand of the sea. That was Abrahamic. Now, but for you to understand that it was thorn that prospered, look at what the Bible says as we go down a little. Look at verse 12. [Speaker 3] "He will be a wild donkey of a man. His hand will be against everyone and everyone's hand against him; and he will live in hostility towards all his brothers." [Speaker 2] Abrahamic covenant has prospered. Has it prospered? Has it prospered? You can see the bondage aspect coming. The first was Abrahamic, he will multiply, he cannot be numbered. Then what of the other side? Egypt, bondage, fear, war. I am showing you why they had to go down to Egypt to endure affliction. Abrahamic covenant, there was a mixture. Affliction prospered. He say he will be a wild donkey, he will be like a wild donkey. You know what a wild donkey is? You know you have the tame donkey and you have the wild donkey. This thing will be like a donkey. You know the normal tame donkey is meek and lowly. I hope you know that. But it said he would be a wild donkey, so remove what from him? Meekness and lowliness. Revengeful. Instead of being lowly, what do you have? A heart lifted up. And he also will have what? Twelve princes. Where is that coming from again? The Abrahamic covenant. What I'm trying to make you understand is this: what is flourishing? Thorns and weed. See brethren, it doesn't matter how it seems, it doesn't matter how it looks. You will discover that in process of time no man gather thorn, weed and thistles into barn, men only gather crops. Men only gather crops. The thistles, the weed, the thorn, they will only grieve our soul. They will only become a grief to our soul. Eventually your life will come to a standstill. Let's persistently, is there something that look like you should persist? Please persist in righteousness. Let us remain there. Let us be a die-hard in that place. Because when we seem to have prospered outside that point, we have not prospered. We have only gathered around our life what will later be grievous to our soul. Mark my word. We have only gathered around our life what will eventually be a grief to our soul. It will be grievous to our soul. It will later become a grief. I want to beg you, I want to encourage you. The push today in the nation, the push here and there in our career, in our academics, in our business, in our in marriage, it will look like throw righteousness away. Do something else. That was how it looks like for Sarah. And many times when we seem to throw it away, you have quick result. See? If God is not with me, how will I prosper? Even though she touch Ishmael once and he prosper. Was God in the business? Was God in the business? See brethren, it doesn't matter how it seems. It doesn't matter how it looks. You will discover that in process of time no man gather thorn, weed and thistles into barn, men only gather crops. Let us pray. Lord, it doesn't matter how long it lasts. It doesn't matter how many times I've been doing what is right and it looks like righteousness does not pay off. Lord, help me to remain there. Help me keep sowing. I hear the Lord saying something now. He says, "Don't be weary in well doing for in due season you will reap if you faint not." Don't be weary in well doing for in due season you will reap if you faint not. Don't be weary, don't be weary, don't be weary. Don't get weary with well doing. Don't get weary. In due season you will reap if only you faint not. God was trying to turn Abraham back. Let's go back to Sarah. God, let Ishmael live. Let Ishmael live. You see, the point I'm saying all of these things is as believers let us understand something about God. Even though God allow evil, error, wickedness to prosper, God don't gather them into His barn. On the long run, the only thing God gather is crops. The only thing He gathers is crops. And that is the reason why I'm showing you why it was grievous to Abraham. Abraham had gone before God and say let Ishmael live. And God had responded to Abraham, He said, "As for Ishmael, I have heard thee. Behold I have blessed him and I will make him fruitful and multiply him exceedingly. Twelve princes shall he beget and I will make him a great nation." But what did God say in verse 21? "But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, which Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time in the next year." What did God do? Did God gather the thorn? No. So you know Sarah was not there. So Abraham did not raise this issue with Sarah. I don't know what happened, or maybe he raised it, I don't know how it went. But I'm just trying to make you know why it was grievous to Abraham. When Sarah now say cast them away. So the matter was so grievous to Abraham that he felt it would not be so. But look at what God told Abraham. Go back to 21. What did God tell Abraham in 21? After that Sarah statement and the grew and said cast the woman. What did God say? "And God said unto Abraham, Let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad and because of the bondwoman. In all that Sarah have said unto thee, hearken unto her, for in Isaac shall thy seed be called." You see? What I'm only saying is this, brethren, let when we know what is right, when we know what is the truth, when we know what is righteous, let us stay there persistently. Let us remain there. Let us be a die-hard in that place. Because when we seem to have prospered outside that point, we have not prospered. We have only gathered around our life what will later be grievous to our soul. Mark my word. We have only gathered around our life what will eventually be a grief to our soul. It will be grievous to our soul. It will later become a grief. I want to beg you, I want to encourage you. The push today in the nation, the push here and there in our career, in our academics, in our business, in marriage, it will look like throw righteousness away. Do something else. That was how it looks like for Sarah. And many times when we seem to throw it away, you have quick result. See? If God is not with me, how will I prosper? Even though she touch Ishmael once and he prosper. Was God in the business? See brethren, it doesn't matter how it seems. It doesn't matter how it looks. You will discover that in process of time no man gather thorn, weed and thistles into barn, men only gather crops. Let us pray. Men only gather crops. The thistles, the weed, the thorn, they will only grieve our soul. They will only become a grief to our soul. Eventually your life will come to a standstill. Let's persistently, is there something that look like you should persist? Please persist in righteousness. Have you come to know what is right? Have you come to know the truth? Understand that it is in the ways of God that crop, weed, thorn, thistle should flourish under the same rain. They will flourish. But remember they will never be gathered. They will only become a grief to your soul. Father we thank you, amen.