Some fruit

Fruit?  In that wilderness?  Adadiah leaned back against his father’s knee, listening to the reader with some concern.

    The story had gripped Adadiah as the reader recounted the adventures.  Adadiah had especially liked the part where the thundering cavalry seemed ready to capture the people, but had been tricked and defeated.  That army had thought it was so strong but not against God!

    But the narrative had now taken the group to the edge of the land promised to them.  Adadiah was astonished that they were fearful but listened intently as the people crafted a good plan:  send in spies and see what they were up against.

    The spies had brought back fruit.  Adadiah had expected the wilderness to be rocky and dry.  The whole region seemed to him to be a desert.  He hadn’t been there, of course, but he had heard about the caves and cliffs.

    But there had been all those big juicy grapes that had made his mouth water.
 
    He was intrigued by the fruit, because it reminded him of another section of the story.  What was it?

    This new land had been filled with sweet fruit like some other land.  What land?

    Ah!  He had it.  When the reader had first unrolled the scroll and began reading.  At the beginning of the story.
 
    When God had created the world, he had made a garden filled with trees heavy with fruit.  Lots and lots and lots of fruit.  The man, Adam, didn’t have to work for his food like Adadiah and his father had to work.

    What kind of god would give his people lots of sweet fruit?

    Adadiah had heard about the gods in Babylon, even though his father scolded him for listening to the tales. They were supposed to be mighty in battle, with great strength, but they demanded sacrifices or they’d turn their power on the people.  They didn’t give anything freely.

    Who was this God who gave so much fruit?  Adadiah knew he had to learn more.

Jacob's hope

Why Jacob? How did the selfish deceiver get this kind of endorsement? I was reading Psalm 146 and found this:

Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob... (Psalms 146:5)

I get the part about being happy because we have God's help but why is He called the God of Jacob? Why not the God of Moses or Abraham or Noah?

Jacob was the grandson of Abraham, a wayward young man who deceived his brother and his father for selfish gain. He was a liar and a coward, running from the consequences of his deceptions.

Why would God identify himself with Jacob?

What did the God of Jacob do? He kept his promise to Jacob when Jacob kep no promise with God. The Lord sustained Jacob when he deserved death, remembering the covenant made with his grandfather, Abraham. Jacob cared only for birthrights and blessings for personal gain.

God reached out when Jacob could not and would not. God made the covenant and chose to keep even Jacob's side of it.

A former deceiver was changed into a patriarch who fathered the twelve tribes of Israel - with a new name revealing a new character.

Jacob deserved to see his plans flame out like a falling star but instead God sustained His plans.

No wonder those whose help is the God of Jacob are happy. Their hope is beyond their own worth or activity.

The Lord's plans are eternal. He remembers His promises even when we do not. God extends a one-sided arrangement that is astonishingly gracious. That's hope.

Do not put your trust in princes, in mortals, in whom there is no help. When their breath departs, they return to the earth; on that very day their plans perish. Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God,
Psalms 146:3-5

Closing in

Wilma had a party when she was 89 because she hoped to dance before God's throne by her 90th birthday. But God had other plans so, when the 90th rolled around, she flew to Florida to visit friends.

You feel the joy of the Lord when you're around Wilma. She claps her hands with delight and hugs the young man in black leather, studs, and tattoos. She kisses the babies and presses her hands against my cheeks when she asks for prayer. Although she's served God for many years, she's brutally candid about her own doubts and mistakes. With her sweet southern drawl, she always honors God.

But today she's in the hospital, awaiting treatments for a tumor and leukemia. She's anxious to meet her Heavenly Father.

Several of us are praying and fasting. She wants us to pray for her family but we're selfish: we pray more for her. We'd like the joy of her presence for a few more years. Please join me in asking for God's mercy on her family. And a little prayer for her health would be appreciated, too.

Ruth: the dawn's coming

When purpose is lost, powerful emotions surge through our veins. We are angered, numbed, stricken. The loss may possess our waking moments, consuming us in the passion of reconciliation. Or we may buckle under the weight, crushed by the hopeless of recovery.

For ancient Israel, the concept of the blessing was a powerful one, wrapping them in a warm cocoon of protection. From the time of Abraham, they had trusted in two parts of the promise from God: land and offspring.

God came to Abraham with a promise and a blessing. In Genesis 12:2, God promised to bring a great nation from Abraham’s line and to bless all the people of the earth through Abraham. This great pledge sustained the people who descended from Abraham. Their greatest desire was for offspring. Their children represented their greatest yearning for God’s purposes and blessings.

The land was closely linked to offspring. God, after his tremendous blessing in Gen 12:2, made a second amazing promise: I will give this land to your offspring. Thus came the dual promise of land and offspring. They were linked through God’s promise to Abraham.

Imagine Naomi. She was an empty woman who had lost all of God’s promises. Her family had left the land during the famine and now she returned, without family and without land. She was barren, a widow in a culture that treasured land and offspring, not old used-up women.

The author of Ruth weaves those two desires – for children and offspring – and pulls the threads tight in his story. Naomi accused God of failing her, of forgetting his promises. She left Bethlehem with the land barren. Now she returned, barren herself. We are to understand that the lack of seed forced her to leave Moab and she returned to Bethlehem with lack of seed – or offspring. However, she failed to notice that the land is no longer barren, a foreshadowing of the fertility coming.

Notice the number of farming or harvest words that appear in chapter 2. From the second verse, where we see “field” and “glean” and “ears of corn,” to the end of the chapter, we see a wealth of harvest terms. This is no accident.

Read chapter 2 of Ruth and notice all the harvest words you see there.

Next week: the abundance of the land

How does this work?

“How’s this going to work, Lord?” That may have been Abraham’s thought when God promised him children numbering like the stars in the sky. He and his wife had no children and were beyond child-bearing age.

That’s often our question when things look difficult.

Our family is going to Mexico in a couple of weeks to film a promotional video for a ministry there. (I’m highlighting the ministry tomorrow.) When the director of the ministry invited us to also fly into Cuba to film their work there, we hesitated.

Doing so more than doubled the cost of our trip. “How is this going to work, Lord?”

The director then added two more days to the trip. “I think you’ll really be blessed if you can do this,” he said as he directed us to a new mission work which will involve a long drive into the mountains of Cuba. “But if you can’t afford to go, do what you can.”

The price kept climbing.

We sent out a few letters to friends and family, asking for prayer and financial support. But crunch time came Sunday. We had to decide how much of the trip we would do. We prayed as a family and, taking a deep breath, pledged the money we’d set aside for our next car.

“You’ll be quadruple-blessed,” the director had told us, “if you can get to Cuba. You’ll see what God’s doing.”

So we’re going to Mexico and Cuba in two weeks to help promote God’s work there.

But that’s not the end of the story. A letter from friends came yesterday. In there was a check for the cost of the Cuba portion of the trip.

When the children of Abraham were ready to enter the Promised Land, Moses reminded them of God’s promise: “God, your God, has multiplied your numbers. Why, look at you—you rival the stars in the sky!” (Deut 1:10)

God’s promise to a childless couple had been fulfilled. Not only had they had a son, but now their offspring were a nation.

Moses had more words for these children. “And may God, the God-of-Your-Fathers, keep it up and multiply you another thousand times, bless you just as he promised.” (Deut 1:11)

We wondered, too, “How does this work, Lord?” and he opened his generous hand to us.

Today I can tell you that God is Jehovah Jireh, the Great Provider. We’re praising his name!

Grace in the flood

When you read the account of Noah’s flood, does it fill you with terror?

It didn’t me, either, until this time around. I generally saw it with Sunday school eyes: cute animals going in two by two, the rain came down and the flood came up, Noah trying to keep everybody happy.

But if you take a look at Genesis 6, terror lurks at every turn. The world of Noah was a world dripping with evil, marinated with self-indulgence, soaked in violence. God grieved at the chaos.

During creation, the earth was formless and void, water and land intermingled in chaos. Now, with the flood, the same picture emerges. Where God had brought order and life during creation, he now allows the churning waters to destroy life. There is a return of sorts to the first day of creation, where darkness and chaos ruled.

God’s presence brings order. When he withdrew his protection, chaos destroyed.

But the good news in the horrific flood scene was the ark, bearing the precious seeds of life. In the deep water, which for the ancient Hebrew represented the terrors of the unknown, the ark protected Noah, his family, and the animals. God protected a remnant. His commitment remained.

God had put Adam in the garden – that place of incredible fruitfulness, abundance, and presence – to work it and take care of it. The sons of Adam had rejected their part. God kept his part of the promise but people failed in their part.

Only Noah found favor in God’s sight and only Noah and his family were preserved.

A new covenant was formed: God would never again destroy life in such a terror-filled way. People from that time forward could understand God’s power and his purity for it had been clearly displayed.

There’s a simple lesson here: God hates wickedness and he keeps his promises. His work is always to preserve those who seek to escape its grip. Is there terror – or hope – in that truth?

The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: "Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.

Gen 8:21