Reaping the Spiritual Harvest

Good morning, everyone. Thank you, Jacqueline. That was a very, very nice piece. One of my favorite songs and delivered very nicely. Thank you. It's good to see all of you again here in the AM congregation and also those of you that are connected and wherever you may be. As Mr. McLean mentioned in his opening comments, we too heard a number of comments at the Feast this year about people tuning into the Cincinnati webcasts and this becoming more or less their congregations. Even one lady addressed me as her pastor, or one of her pastors. I said, well, what's your name? I felt kind of bad. If I'm a pastor, you've got to know people's names because people want their pastor to know who they are. But we met people down in Jamaica, some from Trinidad and Tobago, who also tune in down there since they don't have the benefit of a regular Sabbath service. They consider Cincinnati AM or PM their congregation as well. So that's encouraging and very nice. Welcome, everyone!

I'd like for you to begin this morning, if you would, by turning over to Luke 12.

No better place to begin than with the words of Christ. Luke 12 and verse 54. In the midst of a session here where he encouraged people to be girded by their waist with their lamps burning in verse 35 and to be watching and aware of the kingdom and the events leading up to the kingdom. And even where he talked about the problems of division in verses 49, 50, and 51 that can be within one's household that Jesus Himself said He brought as a result of the way of life, the truth, the gospel, the kingdom of God. And what He brought that in itself by one of these unique things here, He said that would cause conflict. And then He comes down to verse 54 and He said to the multitude, Whenever you see a cloud rising out of the west, immediately you say a shower is coming and so it is. And when you see the south wind blow, you say there will be hot weather and there is. Hypocrites. Jesus had kind of a burrow under his saddle at this point. Sometimes when I read where he'll kind of burst out like that at his audience, I'm thinking, I wonder if he saw somebody out there that needed to be awakened. Then he just kind of made a strong comment like that and he called a group of people hypocrites. He said, You can discern the face of the earth and of the earth, but how is it you do not discern this time? It's an interesting statement. You can look at the sky, see a south wind blow, and know there's hot weather coming. You can look and see clouds in the sky and say, It's going to rain and we can do the same today. In fact, we can do a whole lot better because we have sophisticated instruments today. Radar. Doppler weather radar. That can tell us when a storm's coming and it can save lives. Tell us when a tornado's coming. Tell us the course of a hurricane or a tropical storm. And people can evacuate days in advance should they choose and life can be spared. Much more sophisticated than what they had today, but then when it's all said and done, sometimes you just go outside and it's hot or it's raining. And you know what the weather is. We look at the sky and that teaches us something as well. And what Jesus is saying here is you are not able to discern your time. And He's really speaking to a deeper point. Sometimes we read this verse, and I've used it on Beyond Today and in some of our writings, and we will look at this as an admonition to watch. To understand our times, and that is an application as well and very important to discern the times. But notice Jesus said, you do not discern this time. And He was speaking to a group of people right in front of them. And He did this on another occasion in chapter 19 when He was entering Jerusalem. And He lamented over Jerusalem and He said, you can't understand the time of your visitation, He said in Luke 19. What He's saying here, and what He wants us to understand, and what His audience then to understand, is to be able to discern our time.

Now, that can be on a very large scale of world events. It can also be on a very small scale of just what is happening in your life, at your time, and where we are in our life, in the cycle of our life, in the seasons of our life. And as we look at the sky, we see it's going to rain, it's going to be hot, it's going to be snowing, it's going to be rainy.

And we discern it, and we understand, and we learn from it. Every year at this particular time, you look outside, normally at this point, we would see a lot of bright foliage. We're still waiting for that, I think, here in Ohio this year. It's beginning to change, and I don't know if it's going to be a burst of passionate oranges and reds like it normally is around here at this time of year. I hope it is, but sometimes I've heard a few comments that say, well, it's just not going to happen this year.

Here we are into the third week of October, and we're still looking to see a lot of green out there. But it's beginning to come out, and it is a time of the harvest.

You drive through the fields in my neighborhood, and you see the soybeans are ready to be picked. The corn is already started, and the crops in the large fields are bursting, and it's an interesting, and it's really a fabulous time. It's the harvest time. It's a moment when life seems to be at its fullest and best, one of my favorite seasons of the year. And there are moments and lessons to learn from this moment.

It is to be vigilant. It is to finish the harvest. It is to let God have His perfect work. Sometimes we rush to see the burst of spring, the first buds to come out, and the shoot and the grass begin to grow again, and that's great. But then the summer goes on, and when we come to the fall, we also see the magnificence of God's creation and that vision around us. And there are things to learn in this as well. I'd like to focus on two examples that I think this time of year, this season, this time, as Jesus says here in verse 56, can teach us.

And we're going to look at the season of this year. We're going to look at the fall season, which we're in. And we're going to look as well at a larger scheme, and that is the world around us and our time in this world. And bring that back down to a very important personal lesson for us as well.

Over the years, I've had a thought that I've developed in several sermons in the congregations where I pastored that went along the lines of a title that went like this. I always called it a September Garden. A September Garden. And I gathered that idea by looking one time in my backyard, and the backyards of the neighborhood in which I lived, and I noticed something. And I noticed gardens that were overgrown with weeds and just hanging there. The work that had been put into it by spring through the summer had passed. And I was looking at an overgrown garden. Any of you ever had an overgrown garden in your backyard?

Yeah, I don't have a garden plot anymore, but we have pots, a potted garden, and we looked forward with great anticipation. Ever since Michael Phelps gave his famous sermon about a year ago of tomatoes and how passionate he got about planting tomatoes. I have to think about that now. But you go out in the spring, and if you've got a big garden plot, you just can't wait to till that soil and get it going and turn the dirt and put in your seedlings that may have started already a couple of months earlier, or that you bought it down at the store, or plant the seed from the packets that you've ordered.

And you go out and you begin to watch that grow, and you can't wait to see those beans pop up. You can't wait to see the first blossoms on the tomato plants, and then the fruits begin to come. And it's an exciting time to see a garden grow, to see something come to fruition.

And then what happens? Something else happens. August happens, or July happens. And maybe the first of the fruits that the abundance has been picked off, and there's still growth there, but the plants are not dead. You don't know exactly what they're going to do, but what happens is we get tired of working in the garden because it gets hot.

And the garden begins to be neglected. And then by the time September rolls around, the weeds are there. And at some point, you will mow it all off, pull everything up, or maybe sometimes plant a second crop, but for a period of time, more times than not, I've noticed through the years, and I've been guilty of this as well, you come up with what you might call a September, or maybe since we're into October, what we could call an October garden. That's been neglected. And maybe there's some straggly-looking fruit hanging off of it, and something needs to be done. Either it needs to be plowed under, pulled up, or perhaps tended a little bit better early on so that the final harvest is the best that it can properly be. And certainly to keep the weeds out and to tend the garden, because after all, God did say when He put Adam and Eve in the garden to tend it and to keep it. But what happens is because of human nature, we tend to lose interest. And rain and indifference and other things can keep us from experiencing the fullest fruit that is there. And what I began to learn, just as a lesson, is I would discern that time in my own backyard and that of others that I would see, is that it's possible for us to neglect our own spiritual gardens, our own spiritual life.

And our lives can become a September or an October garden. And I've noticed that through the years as a syndrome that could be very instructive. And so when this time of year comes along, I begin to think back about that as I see those gardens. And it contrasts with really what is taking place with the fullness of the harvest. The bigger fields that are being harvested with corn and beans and wheat and whatever has been planted there. The apples begin to come into the grocery shelves and we see those harvests of a year's apple supply and the mealy, sickly-looking apples that may have been there in April or May. And they are now replaced with ones that have just this season's fresh growth. And at a time when the harvest is there, and God points us even to the harvest by the Holy Day season, and especially the Feast of Tabernacles, when the great fall harvest of His plan begins to be reaped of salvation within the world, both of the existing world and those that enter into the millennium. And then the many in the Great White Throne Judgment period that is described and all that the Holy Days teach us, and we're just a few days away from that experience, there's a contrast. There is a contrast there. And there's, I think, a large spiritual lesson for us to learn. We start off in our calling of faith with eagerness, with enthusiasm. The seed has been planted in our lives, and we are eager to see it grow. We are eager to nurture it. We are eager to grow in grace and knowledge and learn new things about God. And then the years go by, and the experiences and the trials and the tests and the challenges at times that can cause us to stumble. And the weeds grow up in our life. Just as the parable talks about, weeds coming and choking out the life that has been sown by the seeds of the Gospel. And the danger is, spiritually, that the weeds will choke us out if we're not careful or hinder our growth. Oh, there's still life. There's still activity. But sometimes you can't tell the difference between the weed and the plant. And you have to kind of part it there to see where the life is, but not flourishing. And that sometimes happens in our life. And so it always raises a question for me to think about at this time of year, is my garden overgrown? Is the harvest ready to be reaped in my own life? How well have I tended that garden? How well am I doing attending that garden at this point so that the growth continues to its maximum, and so that it can be harvested as God intended? When you look at some of the statements that Jesus made to this, you can see that many of them speak to that end result and that end period of the final harvest. Here in Luke 13.

Beginning in verse 6, He spoke the parable of the barren fig tree. He said, A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it, and he found none. And he said to the keeper of his vineyard, Look, for three years I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree and find none. There's a certain time of year that you go to a tree, whether it's a fig tree, an apple tree, a pear tree, and you look for the fruit. You look for the fruit. And if you don't find it, you know something's wrong. I had an apple tree in my backyard that for a number of years really gave some very good apples. I had two others that had been planted close to each other, and they must have been the type of trees that needed to pollinate one another. One of them died early after, a few years after we moved into this home. And the second one was there, and it would grow apples through the early part of the summer, but sometime in about July, these apples would just start falling, the green apples off the tree and just clutter up the yard and create a mess. Bees would come swarming around, and I'd have to, you know, they'd become squishy and icky, and they just were not any good. And so finally I realized after a few years, cut it down. I just had to cut it down. And it was not producing. Then I had one last apple tree, and it didn't produce as well over a couple of year period, so I said, well, I'm going to trim this thing myself. And I think I pruned it far too much, because the last time I saw that tree, it wasn't producing. I left it for the new owners of our home to, I guess, work that situation out. But that's why a tree takes up space, and you expect it to do what it's supposed to do. That's what Jesus is saying here. He came three separate seasons to look for the fruit, found it, found none, and He said, cut it down. Why does it use up the ground? Christ can be very practical. God is very practical with us. He expects us to bear fruit. But He answered and said to Him, Sir, let it alone, the keeper of the vineyard. He said, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and fertilize it, tend to it, take care of it, do what needs to be done. And if it bears fruit well, but if not, after that, then you can cut it down.

And so, again, things have to be tended. A garden, a fruit tree, a vine, in order for it to continue to produce in the way that it is supposed to produce. In chapter 14 of Luke, Christ had another comment on this in verse 15.

Luke 14, verse 15, When one of those who sat at the table with him heard these things, he said to him, Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom. And he said to him, A certain man gave a great supper, and invited many, and sent his servant at supper time, to come to those who were invited. Come, for all things are now ready. But they all with one accord began to make excuses. The first said to him, Well, I've bought a piece of ground, and I must go and see it. I ask you to have me excused. And another said, I've bought five yoke of oxen, and I'm going to test them. I ask you to have me excused. Still, another said, I've married a wife, and therefore I cannot come. So that servant came, and reported these things to his master. And the master of his house said, being angry, said to his servant, Go out quickly into the streets, into the lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind. And the servant said, Master, it is done, as you've commanded. And still there's room. The master said to his servant, Go out into the highways and the hedges, and compel them to come, and that my house may be filled. There was still room. There was still opportunity. The master wanted it all filled, and everyone given that opportunity. For I say to you that none of these men who were invited shall taste my supper. So this story is set within the time of a great supper that has been prepared after a period of time. And as verse 17 says, all things are ready. And as in the previous one, there's a desire for people to participate, to bear fruit, to be a part of it. And as in other examples here, other parables that Jesus talked similar to this, the focus is when the supper is ready, or when the harvest is ready. When the vineyard, the work is the greatest at the end of the day, in another parable of a vineyard. And the focus so often that Jesus used is the work that has been done is really setting up for that final moment, that time when the food is served, or when the fruit needs to be plucked, or when the harvest is ready, and after months, and in this case, ages of preparation, and in that time of the kingdom, and that time of the age to come, really is the ultimate end to which Jesus is pointing people, to always be able to discern their time, their time and all time. And to be ready to take part, to be ready to bear fruit, because the greatest part of the work is always going to be done at the end. And the work will always continue to be done even up until the final piece of fruit is picked, until the final dish is served, until the last person has an opportunity to come in and sit at the table. God's work is never going to be done in that sense, and even to carry it over to the analogy, the real meaning of the kingdom, we also know that that work is going to continue on into the future.

The work of God's harvest of people, many sons to glory, is one that is going to continue on and on. It never ends. Which means that the work to prepare, the work to tend, the work to harvest, always is ever present. And we have to discern the time. And there's another lesson, I think, from all of this. The work is, the focus is on the time when the work will be finished, nearly finished. But it's important that how we finish, how we finish, and that we be there to finish, just when the labors can come together, that's when it may be the heat of the day. That may be when the opposition is the strongest, the personal tendency to let down, which is a natural human tendency to be discouraged, to be done with it. I've worked long enough. Where's my wage? And to not finish, which is the situation that often happens, I think, and teaches us something. When we look at a garden that we've been a part of, we have planted, and we've worked hard in, and things happen. Weeds come in. The heat of the day causes us to lose interest. Disease will attack it, as in our case with our very small garden in our pots this year, just as the tomatoes began to ripen, the raccoons came out. And one day, Debbie opened the door of the patio and looked out, and here were these nice ripe red tomatoes, half-eaten, tossed all over the deck. Those rascals. And so she tried to devise ways to keep them off to get the rest of them. I was a little bit humorously looking at that, because I said, honey, raccoons, they can climb. They're pretty smart. But they had done their damage. And it's frustrating. Things happen, don't they?

There's always lessons. There's always things for us to look around and to discern the times. Jesus said, you look in the sky at any given moment to find out what's going to happen next, to find out what your actions are going to be. And I think he's teaching us something about discerning the time of our life.

That's why I like this time of year. It's probably my favorite to see the colors come out and the palette of oranges and reds just burst forth in the woods, the fields. To see the corn ripen, to see the soybeans turn to kind of, at that time, just kind of a golden hue. To look at it early in the early morning or as the sun is setting in the evening and at this time of year, you notice that the sun is at a different angle in the sky because of its course.

And it casts different shadows and light creates a different look across the landscape. And the years I've lived in the Midwest, in Indiana, and Ohio now, some of the greatest vistas I've been, you know, the west and the east coast and coastal areas can produce great vistas of ocean and canyons and mountains. But there's, you know, I've lived most of my life in the Midwest and there's just nothing like fall in the Midwest and to see the harvest coming in and to see the sun shining across those fields at this time of year and to just understand the bounty of this land and the blessings that God has given to us here in this country and the tremendous wealth of the North American continent.

And to see that right here in the heartland at this time of year always draws my mind back to the plan of God and to the cycle of life, of planting and tending and harvesting that it teaches us, that the Holy Days teach us when we come to the spring and we anticipate a new year of the Holy Days and we have planned and prepared. We go to the Feast of Tabernacles and it is the high point of our year to do that.

We come back off the Feast of Tabernacles and we're excited. And sometimes in some of our lives we get into a little bit of a post-feast letdown. We used to talk about that a bit and I've given sermons about it over the years myself because the feast is over and we'll be around for another year. And in this year's case you look at it and it's more than a year because we had such an early feast this year and it's going to be more than a year. So we should have plenty of festival ties saved up and really ready to go by the time it comes around.

But it is a great time. This particular point of expectancy and hope within the yearly cycle of the church and as God meant it and He designed it this way. And I give thanks to God and I hope you do and I know that you do. That plan that God has put within His Holy Days and the temperate zones and climates of this earth to teach us these great spiritual lessons and truths that we focus on that and we come back to it and we learn them every year. That is the opportunity for you and I to discern the times and to see whether we are vigilant, whether we are thankful, where we are in our walk with God, in our understanding of His plan and His purpose, not only for the world but as He is working it out in our lives.

And if we have not always tended our garden the best in this past year, we double down on our efforts to do a little bit better next year. And we thank God for that grace that He gives us, for another year of learning and another year of opportunity and another year to dig around, to fertilize and to tend our spiritual lives, to tend our spiritual gardens.

So that there's not as many weeds next year. And whatever it is that we have to do, and we think about that and we plan for that. And we thank God for His grace that we have come through another year, another cycle, and we look forward with anticipation. God plans it just right within His plan as we come off of a fall festival, heading into the cold winter months.

Not all of us have the opportunity, as some do, to go to the warmer climes of Florida or wherever that may be. We have to stay and endure the cold and the snow and the sleet and the storms. But that too has its own lessons because it's all part of God's creation. Do we discern this time? And do we understand it? Let me go to the second point that I wanted to make, and the second example that I think helps us to understand what Christ was saying there when He said to them, Can you discern the times?

And it also connects right to this particular point, to this time as well in the fall. Our world continues moving toward the time when this age is going to be replaced with the world of the age to come, as it is called. The world to come. We're not there yet. We have just come through the Feast of Tabernacles to portray that period of time, to look forward to it, to anticipate it, to learn about it. But we've come back to our homes. We've come back to the reality of our life right now.

And we understand that our lives go on. This world continues to move on. And that there are things that we should learn as well, in order to continue to live with a certain measure of urgency in our life. The calling that God gives us and the understanding of His plan of salvation, the role of prophecy, many of the, you know, the plan of salvation in itself is one large plan of prophecy, because God shows us what is going to happen and what will come to pass.

There are other prophetic milestones within God's plan to get us to the ultimate step of the Kingdom, the Millennium on this earth, and all that lies beyond that. And as we watch our own times and our own life today, there is and should be a level of mature urgency. And notice what I said. I call it a mature urgency about our lives.

It's very easy, and it's been a danger in our culture that I think we have done a lot to move away from and out of to Matorian, that we don't just look and focus ourselves in the Church of God, in the United Church of God, on prophecy to the exclusion of salvation. And God's ultimate plan to bring many sons to glory. That we have avoided the pitfalls of prophecy, of setting dates, of putting names to faces, and undue focus upon the elements of prophecy that are merely a stepping stone to the greater fulfillments of God's plan of salvation and the greater prophecies of bringing many sons to glory.

And we put it, keep it in perspective. And we have done a lot in the last 18 years of the United Church of God to balance that out. Still have a ways to go in certain quarters, but we're moving there. While at the same time, we understand the times in which we do live, and we are not yet at the time when Jesus has set foot on the Mount of Olives.

And between now and the time that happens, there are some difficult rapids in this world that this world will have to traverse. And the Church of God that prophecy does show us. And that's why I refer to all of this as a mature urgency. Because there is a tension. The Kingdom of God is not here yet. And one of the main purposes of prophecy is, I think, to keep us leaning forward into the wind, as it were. Aware of our times, and aware of our calling and, again, God's opportunities before us.

Some of you that will remember, we used to use the term over the years about the gun lab. That we were in a gun lab. That last lap of a great race that when a gun sounds, there's one lap to go. And we're in a gun lab. And all stops have to be pulled out, and everything, and certainly an urgency. And at times in the past, that has been evoked to keep us prodded and keep us moving along.

I think it's fair to say in my own life, I've lived most of my life in that gun lab. And I pretty well think I'm still in the gun lab. Because I'm still running the race. And whatever lap we're on, it's my gun lab. And as you get into those September years of your life, as Frank Sinatra's saying about it, you recognize that even closer for some of us.

That if our life, we cross the finish line of faith prior to that time when Christ returns, our gun lab's over, but the race has been won, as in the case of many who have died in the faith. So that's the reality. I've been comfortable with that. I've made my way through my life, and I'm at peace with that.

And I think that I've come to a point of balance within that. While at the same time, I don't ignore prophecy, I try to keep it in balance. And I think we have done that to a large degree in our media efforts within the United Church of God. And we will continue to do so. But on the other hand, every year, at all times, we do watch certain things.

We do and should discern our times. I'd like to talk for a minute about an event, a news event, that we should watch, that we should understand and try to help you understand what I'm saying, and putting it into a wider context to keep a mature urgency about it. And it's something that is connected to even what happens every year at this time of the year. Those of you that do keep up with the news, who watch Fox News and everything else, you know, at this time of year, the United Nations in New York meets for its general session.

And it becomes a busy time. Leaders from all over the world come into New York. The general session opens up. And every world leader, it seems, even the President of the United States goes up and always gives a speech. And other leaders do for a few minutes, and it's just part of the annual calendar of the United Nations. And as that session opens up. Last week, there was a speech given. I don't pay too much attention to those speeches, but there is, in recent years, there's usually one speech that I try to pay attention to for a number of reasons I'll share with you.

Last week, there was a speech given by the Prime Minister of the State of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu. Benjamin Netanyahu is an interesting Prime Minister. He's in his second stint as Prime Minister of Israel. He is a Harvard-educated student and Israeli. So he speaks eloquent English. He's very passionate. And his speech, of all the speeches, I would always recommend as a must-read for clarity, clarity of thought, for passion, and for urgency.

His speech last week, I wanted to just read just a few excerpts. It's far too long to read. You can find it on YouTube. It might take you 30 minutes to get through it. As I said, it would be time well spent. Let me read just the first few lines and help you get the point of the clarity of thought of this Prime Minister of Israel.

He opened his speech last week at the United Nations General Assembly, and he said, I feel deeply honored and privileged to stand here before you today representing the citizens of the State of Israel. We are an ancient people. We date back nearly 4,000 years to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We have journeyed through time. We've overcome the greatest of adversities, and we re-established our sovereign state in our ancestral homeland, the land of Israel.

The Jewish people's odyssey through time has taught us two things. He said, 1. Never give up hope. 2. Always remain vigilant. 3. Never give up hope. 4. Always remain vigilant. 5. Hope, he said, charts the future. 6. Vigilance protects it. Today, our hope for the future is challenged by a nuclear-armed Iran that seeks our destruction. And then he spent the majority of his speech showing and proving that point. And I'm not going to take the time to go through all of that, but to them it is very, very real. And he comes down about two-thirds of the way through his speech, and after recounting all of what is taking place with Iran there and the potential threat to the state of Israel and the historical illusions, he said this.

Now, we cannot forget it. Speaking of the lessons of the 20th century, he said, we cannot forget it. The world may have forgotten the lesson, the Jewish people have not. They went through a Holocaust. The state of Israel was born out of that Holocaust in 1948. And he said, we cannot forget it. The world may have forgotten this lesson, the Jewish people have not. And then toward the end, he made another strong statement. He said, but I will never compromise on the security of my people and of my country of the one and only Jewish state.

That's why I say that Benjamin Netanyahu, when he speaks, it's always, for me at least, it's a must listen to. I don't listen to a lot of speeches by politicians, but he is one I listen to because he has a clarity of thought born out of the urgency of the condition of the state of Israel in the Middle East and in the world. Now, we relate to that in many ways because the Jewish state is a remnant of the tribes of Israel.

The Jews are the one tribe that have not lost their identity. They know and they trace themselves back to, as he said, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob 4,000 years ago. Observing Orthodox Jews, they keep the Sabbath and they keep the Holy Days.

Again, that identifies us and the church with them. Historically, within the Church of God, my experience, we have always had an affinity and an identification. There's sometimes with not only the state of Israel, but with Judaism as a whole. Sometimes I'm very quick to tell people that remember that we are not Jews. We are Christians and there is a difference.

Always make sure you know where to draw the line in terms of the adoption of practices or whatever. That's another subject. There are many reasons that the state of Israel exists today in the Middle East. There are reasons that the Middle East or the state of Israel does matter in the world today. As I said, the Jews are the only intact tribe of ancient Israel with the historic and prophetic claim to the land through Abraham. Even the prophecies in the Bible that we see, a prophecy of restoration in the land, and the millennial prophecies that we read, whether in Amos or in Isaiah, of the land being restored, the land blooming and blossoming as a flower and reaping the land, all of that being fulfilled, really ties into, in a sense, that state of Israel being there today as it were holding a marker on that spot of land and that historic, pivotal piece of land that the prophecies talk about being the center in the Kingdom of God, in the time of the millennium.

And there are key prophecies from the Bible, the book of Daniel in particular, one of which the abomination of desolation that Jesus pointed to in Matthew 24 and verse 15 when He said, when you see this, stand in a holy place. When you see this take place, know that the time is near, one of the signs that He gave. Christ went back to this prophecy in Daniel that talked about that, which indicates that there has to be some type of a presence of the chosen people, and it's the only chosen people that still know that have any sense of being chosen, or is the Jewish people today, in that land for certain prophecies to be fulfilled.

So those are two that are among a number of reasons why the state of Israel, as a state there, why it matters, and why a speech like Benjamin Netanyahu is important. The state of Israel, the Jewish people even in the world today, they are a peculiar people. Things have happened to them that have been tragic, and they are held to a higher standard. Sometimes, as one writer said a few years ago, that everyone expects the Jews to be the only real Christians in the world.

Everyone expects the Jews to be the only real Christians, and that is to turn the other cheek and to forgive, to give back the land to do this or to do that. And it has created an interesting place for them in the world right now. About 45 years ago, a writer made this comment as he was talking about Israel, the state of Israel's peculiar position in the world. This was after the 1968 war where they recaptured a lot of the land they now occupy.

This one writer said, I have a premonition that will not leave me. As it goes with Israel, so will it go with all of us. As it goes with Israel, so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish, the Holocaust will be upon us. It was rather prophetic because he understood the historic, if not a spiritual, importance of the Jews in that land.

And he said, if they perish off the face of the earth, if somebody wipes them off, the Holocaust will be upon us. And so every year, a man like the Prime Minister Netanyahu comes and he makes a speech like this. And I think that's a speech for us to listen to, especially those of us in the church, because it can help us keep in touch with reality of the world in which we live.

It is a dangerous world. It is a dangerous place. We do live at the end of the age before the dawn of the world to come. And it is a very critical period. As I've thought this through, I've come to realize that the Jews and the Jewish state in Israel, they stand out to the world as a reminder of God's law.

As imperfect as they may keep it and as legalistically as they try to observe it, it does stand as a reminder of God's law. And it's a thorny reminder, because people don't like to retain God in their knowledge, Paul said in Romans 1. Because they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, they gave themselves up to a reprobate mind. And the Jews and the state of Israel, in many different ways, stand as a thorn in the eyes and in the flesh of this world as a reminder of God and of His Ten Commandments especially.

At least as a large, looming point. And it is a part of the reason of anti-Semitism and the attempts through the generations and the years to exterminate them. And so it serves as a reality. There's a reason. There's a penalty that in a sense in this world that has come with the Jews being the keepers of the oracles of God, as Paul said in Romans 3, verse 1. There is a consequence to that. God committed to them certain things and they have suffered for it. There are other prophetic reminders about the Church in Revelation 12 that will be persecuted because it keeps the commandments of God as well at a particular point in time and history.

And so these things serve as a reminder to us in this world today. As one historian Paul Johnson put it, the Jews have had to be ruthless simply to survive in a hostile world. And there aren't too many nations that are more ruthless than the Jewish state of Israel in preserving their identity, their integrity, their sovereignty. And they are intent upon doing it because they know that's their last stand right there in that land. They have had to be ruthless to survive in a hostile world.

Here's the point. Here's discerning the times, as Jesus said. We live in perilous times, too. The apostle said, Paul said in 2 Timothy 3, that in the time of the end, perilous times will come. Other statements are echoed by either Daniel or Jesus in the same way about lawlessness abounding or about a time of trouble in this period.

And this is the world in which we live today, in which we must maintain a balanced, mature urgency about the world in which we live and the world to come by which we are to be living today. We have to continue to navigate these treacherous waters of our life in this world today. It's quite a ride. It's quite a ride. As we used to say in the early days at Disneyland out in Southern California, you'd buy a book of tickets and the e-tickets were the best.

The e-tickets got you on the Matterhorn. And so we coined a phrase, this is an e-ticket ride. This is an e-ticket. God's called us and He's put us on an e-ticket ride. And it's a journey. And we do have to be, in a sense, spiritually ruthless to survive and endure the experience and the blessings and the fruit of God's way. We do. There's a lesson for us. That's why, as I said, when a man like Benjamin Netanyahu gives a clear speech outlining the dangers and lays down the gauntlet and says, we take this seriously, we don't forget, I take something like that and I try to do what Jesus said.

I discern the time. And I always try to take that and bring that around to a spiritual lesson. Just as I do when I look out of my backyard or somebody else's yard and I see an overgrown weed-infested garden. And I try to discern my time and discern where we are. How about you? How good are we at discerning our time and drawing those deep spiritual lessons that God wants us to learn to keep us moving faithfully forward and to be able to stand?

In Ephesians 6, we know very well the description of the spiritual armor that Paul draws here. And I'm not going to go through all the elements of this armor except to point out what he says at the beginning of this list that he gives us to show what the purpose of it all is. A helmet of faith. A breastplate of righteousness. I shouldn't say the helmet of salvation, the shield of faith, the sword of the Spirit. He said in verse 11, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil, for we don't wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, and against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand. We take up that armor to stand in our day, in the evil day. That's Paul's word. I referenced what he called it in the perilous times in 2 Timothy 3.1, a time that Christ said would be a time of lawlessness abounding.

But God gives us the plan, the formula, the means, the tools to stand during this period of time and having done all to stand. That's the key. That we are standing and then using these weapons in the proper way, not only to defend, but to advance. In this list, the only offensive weapon that Paul lays out is in verse 17, and it's the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, that is given to us.

The sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, is the only offensive element of this entire picture. And it is what is in front and available to every one of us. Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end, with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints and for me.

That utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly and to make known the mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in chains. That in it I may speak boldly as I ought to speak. And having done all to stand. Let's take the words that Jesus gave us.

When He looked in the sky, and He told us all to look in the sky and to discern this time. And let's make sure that we are discerning this time, both in the world at large and where it may be, and what it can tell us and show us of maintaining a mature urgency in our own lives.

And making sure that our lives are properly weeded, properly pruned, bearing fruit. Doing so will help us to follow that key teaching that Jesus gave us to discern the time.