You Reap What You Sow: Going All Old Testamenty

Yesturday I quoted the proverb from Galatians, "What a man sows, that he will also reap." I saw this same quote on a political blog I look at daily. The writer said something like this: "I do not want to go all Old Testamenty on you, but a man sows what he reaps." I chuckled when I read this, as many of you will recognize, Galatians is in the New Testament. 

This is an example of what I call templates. This is a false template. The Old Testament is not filled with wrath, and the New Testament is not filled with love. Both the Old and New Testaments are filled with wrath and love. 

We have, for example, my daughter Stacy's memory verse for last week from Micah 6:

⁸ He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. 
   And what does the LORD require of you? 
To act justly and to love mercy 
   and to walk humbly with your God.

And we have this from the New Testament:

²⁷ “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. ²⁸ In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

Jesus was not too happy with his religious contemporaries. 

Both the Old and the New Testament are useful and usable for us today, it just must be done properly. 

I discussed this in the past in my blog post "Who'd a Thunk it"

So is Jesus the effeminate man pictured in many popular Sunday School pictures? Here is how John describes Him in Revelation 1: 

¹² I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, ¹³ and among the lampstands was someone like a son of man,^[d] dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. ¹⁴ The hair on his head was white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. ¹⁵ His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. ¹⁶ In his right hand he held seven stars, and coming out of his mouth was a sharp, double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.

Yes it is good news that Jesus is returning. But it is not good news for all. Yes He is returning, but He is angry with what we have done. You see, we all reap what we sow. 

Westward Ho!

The early history of America is one of westward migration. If things got a little dicey with the law or one’s neighbors, or maybe one wanted to farm without the rocks of Massachusetts, one could always head west. Looking at my family’s personal history over the centuries this is what happened. France to Virginia to Tennessee to Missouri was my family’s personal saga over the last 300 years. I have continued this by moving to California. Westward Ho!  

The story is told of two men who went west to the Ohio valley. The first man stopped at a homestead and saw an old man on the front porch of the modest cabin where the old man lived. Old men are supposed to give good advice, so the traveler asked him, “Is this a good place to stop? What are the people like here?” 

The old man pondered the question and then asked one of his own. “How were the people where you came from?” 

The pioneer answered him, “The people where I came from were selfish and argumentative, and would not help their neighbor.” “Ah,” the old man said, “You will find people the same here.” The traveler continued on his journey. 

The second traveler later that day asked the old man the same questions. The old man again asked, “How were the people where you came from?” 

The second homesteader answered, “The people were great, always willing to help a neighbor. We regretted leaving our friends there.” 

The old man answered, “You will find people the same here.” The traveler stayed in the area and found the old man’s words to be prophetic. 

So if you find the situation you are in to be difficult, you need to think about the words of the old man. Is your boss really that bad, or are you by your actions or your inaction causing the situation? The boss may remain a jerk, but might become a jerk who favors you because of your performance. You cannot really change others, but you can change yourself. And by changing yourself, you may find that others “change.” As the proverb says “What goes around, comes around.”  

Paul said the same in Gal 6: 

⁷ Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. ⁸Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.⁹ Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. ¹⁰ Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.

We do, to a surprising degree, create the world in which we live. Are you as wise as the old man? What world are you creating? 

Modern Gomorrah

This is funny right?

While the school has announced that they will not do this in the future, the fact is that not one parent that participated complained. What were the parents thinking? What was the school thinking?

What was your first reaction to the clip? Was it wry amusement or disgust? I am ashamed to admit that it was wry amusement for me. As I thought about it my view changed. 

Robert Bork wrote an interesting book a few years ago, Slouching Toward Gomorrah. His point was that we have begun to accept things as “normal” that a few years ago we would have not accepted. 

One-third of all children born in America are born to a single mom. Yes, many of the parents do live together. I think we are just beginning to see the effects of the lack of stable marriages in our society. 

There is not much that I can do personally as my wife and I are beyond the normal age for child bearing. But I do have some younger readers—and you can do something. YOU MUST THINK ABOUT THIS IN ADVANCE, before you start your family. (The all caps here was a typo, but I decided to leave it.) 

I think that the question we need to ask ourselves is not “Are we corrupt?” Instead the question we need to ask ourselves is “How can we stop being corrupt?” 

The answer to this latter question is more interesting. It might involve some work on your part. It might involve watching TV more selectively. It might involve going to a different church, or start going to one. It might involve avoiding the water cooler banter. Yes, it will involve some effort on your part. Is our society worth a little effort? 

Social Conservatism Is Not Important

Is this the best approach to end abortion? I am thinking about this issue as Rick Santorum, poster boy for social conservatives, leads in a statistical tie for first place in Iowa and next week is the New Hampshire primary. “But, Dennis,” I can just hear you saying, “How can this not be important?” Yes, it is important in many ways. Late term abortion is a blight on the nation. There have even been cases that I would describe as infanticide. But abortion and other social issues are not issues that can be solved by politics. 

Do you really think that a state like California is going to vote to ban abortions? Is a state like New York going to pay any attention to any Federal law banning it? Are there enough anti-abortion voters to elect 2/3 of the Congress and the state legislatures to pass a constitutional amendment? And even if it did pass, why do we think anyone in the liberal states will pay attention to it? We happily ignore the constitution as it is. Will the Supreme Court ever overturn Roe v. Wade? I think the answer to all these questions is no. (An historical note: the original Roe decision still banned late term abortions.) 

In the historical section of the Bible the various kings are listed. Often the king’s reign is summed up like this: he was a good king but allowed the high places to continue. Why did the king do this? The high places were a direct threat to the authority and control he had over the central sanctuary. I am sure the reason was the king felt he could not do anything about it. 

The high places were a combination of brothels and centers of cultic worship. The idea was to signal the gods by sympathetic magic to have sex by having cultic sex with prostitutes—both male and female, both heterosexual and homosexual. The idea was that unless the gods had sex there would be no rain. Usually the initiates were slaves raised to that life with the male babies often being castrated in infancy. 

While there were attempts to abolish this practice—King Josiah was the most successful—these attempts ultimately failed. At the end of Judah’s political independence the prophet Ezekiel in chapter 8 describes the temple: 

 ⁵ Then he said to me, “Son of man, look toward the north.” So I looked, and in the entrance north of the gate of the altar I saw this idol of lust.

 Typical Household Asherahs⁶ And he said to me, “Son of man, do you see what they are doing—the utterly detestable things the Israelites are doing here, things that will drive me far from my sanctuary? But you will see things that are even more detestable.”

(Note that in verse 5 I replaced the NIV’s jealousy with lust. The Hebrew can go either way. It is not certain what the image of lust is, but it is probably an erect phallus or a asherah used as an idol in temple prostitution—done right in the temple of God.)  

Only after the destruction of Judah did the people’s hearts change as they returned from exile. The prophet Jeremiah predicted this in chapter 31:

 ³¹ ”The days are coming,” declares the LORD, 
   ”when I will make a new covenant 
with the people of Israel 
   and with the people of Judah. 
³² It will not be like the covenant 
   I made with their ancestors 
when I took them by the hand 
   to lead them out of Egypt, 
because they broke my covenant, 
   though I was a husband to them,” 
            declares the LORD. 
³³ ”This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel 
   after that time,” declares the LORD. 
“I will put my law in their minds 
   and write it on their hearts. 
I will be their God, 
   and they will be my people. 
³⁴ No longer will they teach their neighbor, 
   or say to one another, ‘Know the LORD,’ 
because they will all know me, 
   from the least of them to the greatest,” 
            declares the LORD. 
“For I will forgive their wickedness 
   and will remember their sins no more.”

This was fulfilled on the return from exile in Babylon. (This passage is also a prediction of the reformation that the early church brought to a corrupt political religious establishment of the first century.) 

It took a thousand years for the people of God to eliminate cultic prostitution. Hopefully it will not take that long for our current cultural malaise to be healed. Note that it took the destruction of their nation, and exile to Babylon. Only when they left Babylon were their hearts changed. 

Will our nation need to be “destroyed” before we, as a group, leave “Babylon”? I hope so, if that is what it takes—but I am guardedly pessimistic that America can avoid this by repenting before our destruction. 

If America can repent, it will not be through politics. It will be through the preaching of the Gospel. 

Remember the proverb:

A man convinced against his will,

Is of the same opinion still. 

Politics can, by force, change the outer appearance. Only repentance, and only God, can change hearts.  

If I Had A Vineyard

It is interesting to whom she applies the scripture. Personally, I apply it to the West.