THE SAGA OF “FARMER JESUS” #5

 PREACHING TO THE BRICK WALL

  Republicans don’t usually buy a lot of airtime in the bluest of blue states. Why talk to a crowd who’s dead set against you. Jesus confesses that some hearts out there are as hard as concrete, and yet He still plants seeds right there on the sidewalk of those lost souls.  How come?

  Can it be Friday already? This is Connie Jeffery; Lonnie and I have launched into this wonderfully colorful parable told by Jesus - the story of the Sower - and after a whole week, the Farmer is still just starting with his planting.  We’re glad you’ve joined us, and, by the way, we have a special gift for all of our Voice of Prophecy friends; it’s a copy of Lonnie’s recent ministry book, PARABLES FOR A NEW MILLENNIUM. There’s no charge, so please give us a call, toll-free, and allow us to send one out to you. Here’s our number: 1-800-872-0055. Again, that’s 1-800-872-0055.  Now here’s Lonnie with today's message: PREACHING TO THE BRICK WALL.

  There’s a cute Peanuts cartoon contained in the wonderfully insightful Christian bestseller, The Gospel According to Peanuts, which was written by Robert Short clear back in 1966.  In this one comic strip sequence, Linus is saying with great earnestness:  

     “And I feel that as long as we have to live together in the same family we should try to get along. I just think we could work a little harder at it. That’s all.  Do you agree?”

  The perspective pulls up to show that he’s really talking to himself in front of a blank brick wall.  Which, if you know about the character and the barbed tongue of big sister Lucy, is probably a good idea.  Forty or fifty dry runs are going to be good preparation before facing the self-confessed Queen of Crab.

  But now it’s Showtime.  Linus goes to Lucy and gives the same speech, not muffing a single word.  “Can’t we get along?  Let’s try harder.”  Pause.  Another pause.  Lucy is still sitting facing the television set, a resolutely blank look on her face.  Has a single word of this olive branch penetrated her thick skull?  Silence.  Finally Linus retreats, goes outside, finds Charlie Brown, and blurts out:

     “You’re right . . . talking to Lucy is like talking to a brick wall!”

  Have you ever sat in a Spanish class and decided that the instructor might as well have been speaking Greek?  Or a calculus class where not a single word the professor is saying is intelligible to you?  

  Let’s bring it closer to home.  Have you ever switched on the radio, and on this very station – maybe even on a Voice of Prophecy program – you felt that way?  Sanctification?  Christology? Eschatology?  Be “born again”? “Fall on the rock”?  What are these people talking about?  What is this message about a guy in Galilee who was executed in the year 31 A.D., and what can it possibly have to do with me right here, right now, twenty centuries later?

  Here in Matthew 13 we’ve been studying a wonderful parable Jesus told about a farmer who went out to plant seeds.  As it turns out, He’s talking about Himself; this is Farmer Jesus out in His field – the whole world – and He is trying to plant seeds in receptive soil.  The first faint impressions of the gospel story are scattered here and there, and once in a while a person says: “Huh.  Interesting.  I want to know more.”

  But you know, even Farmer Jesus, sharing the perfect seeds and doing so in a winsome manner, has to face the reality of soil conditions here in this secular, jaded, worn-out planet.  What do we find Him confessing in verse 4 of this very reality-based story?

     “As [the farmer] was scattering the seed, some fell along the path and the birds came and ate it up.”

  Sometimes we like to dip into the classic Tyndale Bible Commentaries for Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; the Matthew set is written by a Leon Morris.  Here’s his take on the story:

     “The Palestinian farmer sowed first and plowed afterwards (as he still does). Seed along the path may refer to that which fell on a path the farmer planned to plow up, though the reference to its being trodden under foot looks more like a regular path.”

  Here is some seed which immediately bumps into two difficult realities.  First of all, it lands on a hard pathway.  Today we’d say that it blows over onto the parking lot next to the garden.  How much growing is going to go on there among the cars parked at the 7-Eleven?  To make matters worse, birds swoop down almost immediately and gobble those seeds right up.

  Here’s a question. Why does Farmer Jesus scatter seeds along the hard pathway? Nothing’s going to grow out of the concrete.  You sow in the field, not up on the freeway. The Interstate’s not even a place intended for wheat crops.

  So we have to ask: are there population segments that simply are not intended to receive the gospel? As a Christian evangelist surveys the map of his or her chosen territory, do you take out a red marker and simply cross off some sections of town, saying to yourself, “They’re too rich; they’re too well-educated, or poorly educated, or not educated”?  Do we abandon Wall Street and Beverly Hills? Do we skip past the state penitentiary or the barrio where nobody speaks English anyway?

  Believe me, I have been through all of these decisions. Both as a pastor and as an evangelist heading to a foreign country to preach for six weeks.  I know there are some cities where the Gospel is just going to make the faintest dent.  TV spots there just don’t work; direct mail brings maybe two people per thousand to a rented hall at the Holiday Inn.  Frankly, it appears that when it comes to the Christian message, some people are no-gos from the get-go.  There’s seemingly no chance that they’ll respond. Is there possibly, then, a field of the will-be-saved, or at least the possible-to-be-saved, surrounded by a cruel, concrete ribbon of those who were mathematically eliminated from the salvation race before they were even born?

  Let’s pile on the doom with this Bible verse, written by a preacher named Paul, who probably shared gospel truth with both huge crowds and puny.  This is Romans 8:28-30:

     “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. For those God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those He predestined, He also called; those He called, He also justified; those He justified, He also glorified.”

  This is really a dilemma.  If God’s omniscient mind instantly knows the end from the beginning, immediately realizes who will choose heaven and who won’t, then are the good-soil sectors and the hopeless concrete jungles marked out ahead of time?  If some of us are “predestined” to be lost, then all the sun and water and fertilizer in the world won’t make any difference.  Will it?  Did Jesus walk along with twelve disciples and spend three-and-a-half years thinking to Himself regarding Judas Iscariot: “Loser.  Rebel. Thief. Betrayer.  No chance.  Lost forever”?

  Well, friend, let me give two answers to that.  First of all, I believe that the “predestination” flavor of Romans 8:28 is entirely trumped by the clarion gospel statement of II Peter 3:9.  When we purchase airtime here at the Voice of Prophecy, I promise you, this is the verse we hold to!

     “The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”

  To Jesus, the fertile field is the entire world: six billion people.  America.  India. So-called Christian countries and places that are in the heart of Islam or atheism.  Jesus writes off no one; WE must write off no one. If Lucy Van Pelt has a cynical, “pathway” heart, she must still be contacted with the good news that she and Linus can learn to live in harmony, that Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross should unite them as brother and sister. Let’s rejoice over the fact that whatever divine level of all-knowing awareness Jesus possessed while He occupied a human body here on earth, that never stopped Him from laboring to save Judas from his lost state.  We never read that Jesus stopped trying to save a person because he had a pathway heart. In fact, I would suggest to you that Farmer Jesus takes a courageous detour right to the very edge of the field, knowing that some will inevitably land on the hard concrete of the interstate where the birds are waiting. 

  Jesus knows all about the hard soil that exists in some places.  He knew the heart of Judas.  We’ll talk about the birds on Monday, but Jesus certainly knew there were enemies out there, eager to pluck the seeds of truth out of the hearts of needy people.

  In the powerful book, The Purpose-Driven Church, Pastor Rick Warren outlines some of the “concentric circles” – the Five C’s – that just about all churches know exist in their “footprint.”  There are Christians who are “Core” supporters; they attend every single thing the church offers; they serve on the board; they are dreamers and helpers.  They pray for the pastor and encourage him.  But there is a second ring, called the Committed.  Also the Congregation. The Crowd.  And the Community.  One cynical pastor, after surveying the rather spotty group in his church one weekend, decided there might be three more C’s out there: the Cursers, the Cold As Ice, and the Comatose.  

  Again, could it be that loving Jesus, who has such passion for the lost, sows seeds clear to the edge of the field, right up to the on-ramp leading to the Golden State Freeway, hoping that at least some seeds clear out on the road will miraculously respond? I heard of a pastor once who invited his flock: “Let’s all pray for Hugh Hefner.  Let’s inundate heaven with prayers that Hugh Hefner will accept Jesus and be saved.”  Well, that might sound like the hardest of blacktop parking lots to penetrate with the Calvary story, but this pastor concluded: “Who knows?  In God’s power, maybe someday the Playboy club will become the Pray-boy club!”

  The bottom-line reality is that Jesus doesn’t give up on or abandon anybody.  And neither should we.