Seeds are for Sowing

 This morning’s Bible reading touched on a favourite topic of mine:

Ecclesiastes 11:6  In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand: for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good. 

When I plant seeds most of them don’t make it.

 Over water? 

Under water? 

Not enough light? 

All of the above?

Sigh. But I keep buying more seed and I keep trying.

But did you know you can find out about just about everything on YouTube?

I found some youtubers who have learned how to beat the odds with getting seeds to sprout! So this year I will try again and hopefully have more success with my attempts.

Isn’t it the same with sharing the word of God?!? Such precious seed. But often the words seem to come out wrong or it just seems out of place, not the right moment to say something when silence was probably more appropriate at that moment…and the seed seems to die, come to nothing.

But if it truly was from the Lord, He promises His seed will accomplish what He intends for it (Isaiah 55:11), so even if it seemed futile or ill placed or ill timed, if the Lord wills He will use it. Did you know some seeds can remain dormant for many years? Purslane seeds are said to be able to remain dormant for up to 30 years!! And recently I saw an article about date palm seeds that were found in a cave which were 2,000 years old, from the time of Christ, and that they were able to sprout and now have date palm trees that had gone extinct from the Romans having destroyed all the Israeli date palms,  which Israel was famous for at the time. A miracle!!! 

So let us plant seeds, even if we think nothing will come of them. Who knows? Maybe God has plans for those few seeds many years down the road! Start planting for a plentiful harvest. ❤️🙏

The Perfect Gift

 This week most of the world will celebrate Christmas. There are many ways it is celebrated, usually included is the giving of gifts…When I was a young child I lived in the Netherlands. There children believe Sinter Klaas will come on a white horse along with Zwarte Piet. Sinter Klaas will give gifts but Zwarte Piet will take away bad boys and girls and punish them. In North America many children believe in Santa Claus. Santa Claus also brings gifts.

But some of us remember Jesus at this time of year, to remember that God gave us His Son, the greatest gift of all, the forgiveness of our sin because He was born to be our sacrificial lamb, to wash us through His perfect blood. Let us not neglect so great a salvation, Jesus was born into this wicked and fallen world and died for us.❤️

Past Traumas and Wounds That Haven’t Healed

I’ve been binge watching Chynna Phillips Baldwin (from musical group Wilson Phillips) YouTube videos. Chynna came to be saved in 2006 and started a YouTube video channel two or three years ago to share her testimony and share Jesus and sometimes has guests over to share their story. She was involved in the new age movement prior to becoming saved so I do share an affinity with her. She is very open and transparent, she shares her struggles, her doubts and fears and some of the things in the past that she kept hidden and compartmentalized….shame…mistrust…anger…sorrow…things we probably all can relate to. In this one she’s taking her little pooch for a walk as she shares a painful memory and the fact that Jesus washes us from the guilt and shame with His own blood. I hope this message will reach someone who has hidden hurts that need Jesus’ healing touch. 

“Peace of Christ!”

The Wise and Foolish Virgins Revisited

 I posted on the topic of the wise and foolish virgins parable a couple of years ago which included a sermon from Jacob Prasch. In this posting I want to examine the parable a bit closer. Something that nags at me is the fact that all the ten virgins in the parable go to sleep. It is dark, it is night. That is the time when most normal people go to sleep (excluding of course those who work in the middle of the night such as policemen and emergency workers, etc) .

Taking this as a typology, the darkness could mean:

Abscence of light

Jesus tells us that He is the light of the world. All ten virgins had lamps. All ten had lamps that went out, therefore they all had oil in their lamps before it got very dark. 5 were wise and had extra oil for their lamps and 5 did not. David had said “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet” (Psalm 119:105)…and the prophet Amos tells us that there will come a day where there will be a “famine for the word of God” (Amos 8:11,12) ….no word of God equals no light… are we seeing the beginnings of that time? Is there a famine for the word of God? Are the churches closing their doors for lack of attendance, for lack of hunger for God’s word? People are starving for the truth but do not even realize they are starving. The light is growing dim. The church is going to sleep.

All ten were “virgins”…all ten were “good people”. All ten started out with oil in their lamps. All ten started out awake. All ten went to sleep. They all had many things in common. 5 had extra oil and 5 did not. Our good works can bring some light to a dark world. There is nothing wrong and Jesus even encouraged feeding the poor, visiting the sick and those in prison…but it is not enough to keep our light burning during the darkest hours. When the goats said to Jesus “when did we not feed you, clothe you, visit you in prison, etc. ?” (Matthew 25:31-46) Both groups sheep and goats had done good things for people…read that parable carefully and you find that the good works of one group was accepted while those same good works were not accepted from the other group. Jesus was left out of one of those groups and made the good works all for nothing. If they neglected even one person that needed help and didn’t give it they did that neglect to Jesus. The other group if they only helped one person in Jesus name their works were acceptable to the Lord. One group had true light, the other group’s works even though good, had no light of Christ to give a lasting effect. 

Is the land becoming like the darkness of sackcloth? Are we in that time of deep darkness when the famine for the word of God is growing and spreading throughout the earth? Do we have extra oil for our lamps while it seems our lamps have gone out? Who can supply us with that much needed extra oil? Can we buy it from merchants? (Pastors selling their prosperity gospels perhaps? People selling lessons on how to become healthy, wealthy, and wise?) Or is it “purchased” through trials by fire and only from the Lord? By seeking Him as we go through our trials in life?

Daniel 2:20-22 Daniel answered and said: “Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, to whom belong wisdom and might.

 He changes times and seasons; he removes kings and sets up kings; he gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding;

 he reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with him.

Daniel 12:3  And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever. 

To read my previous posting on this topic:

https://bibletreasuresandpearls.blogspot.com/2019/10/wise-and-foolish-virgins.html

Pure and Life-Giving Water

My husband and I are blessed to live in an area that has very good tap water, but we still buy our bottled drinking water. our favourite bottled water comes from Iceland. You can taste the difference. It tastes truly refreshing and tastes better than our tap water or other bottled water. There's another bottled water that comes very close and is slightly less pricey which comes from Quebec.

 We need water to live. 

 Plants and animals also need water to live. 

Jesus said

 

John 4:13-14 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life

Wise and Foolish Virgins

Jacob Prasch is a favourite Bible teacher of mine. I don’t agree with him on all points, however I cannot say that I agree 100% about anyone. The message about the ten virgins has always been somewhat problematic for me because I only heard it explained in a pretrib context and it just never rang true for me and although I understood the general idea of the wisdom in being wise and prepared, I felt I was missing part of what Jesus was getting at.

In this video Jacob explains the parable in light of what we can learn from the Song of Solomon (!)  which was very surprising, but it fits! 

The fact that the days are growing darker and darker and that good preaching is almost impossible to find anymore, I am thankful to have Jacob Prasch pass on the wisdom the Lord has graced him with. I hope you too will have plenty of oil in your lamp when the light goes out and persecution comes to where you live (if it hasn’t already).

Jacob Prasch

Jacob Prasch is a Messianic Jewish preacher on YouTube. I truly enjoy his commentary on what the Bible reveals to us, especially when it comes to his views on eschatology (end times prophecy). He understands Biblical Greek and Hebrew so he can flesh out the nuances that can be missed when reading an English translation. In this video Jacob talks about many of the things we are seeing today, and the precursors that have come before that give us the template of what we expect to see as these things unfold.