There, I'm Done

Good morning and give thanks to God for the new day! What is a good country simile for those who read and study the Bible, but have never been born again in Christ? Why they are like that farmer who drove his tractor out to the field and drove back and forth over it without an implement attached to his tractor. The farmer comes into the house for his evening meal after a day of work and says to the wife, "There, I'm done!" Of course, the wife looks out at the field to see her husband's work, but sees a few tractor tire tracks as the only change. Yonder farmer can now quote scripture, perhaps has a few wise insights from the Proverbs, but he lacks understanding of the true message. "Wasn't that an interesting book!" he comments. His wife picks up the phone to call the mental health ward.

Okay, so you want to get technical: it's the Holy Spirit's job to plow the field and prepare it for planting. A sinner cannot possibly know how to get the seedbed ready. The farmer is not to blame; the Spirit didn't prepare him for the planting. Not a problem, our simile then becomes the poor dumb farmer driving back and forth over his fields with an empty planter. His new scriptural knowledge is like throwing seeds out the window of the tractor at the tilled ground while the big seed drill towed behind does nothing. In another way, the man has the gun and the holster, but no bullets. When the Adversary attacks, the man gets more protection by throwing his Bible at the enemy than from his scriptures.

To understand scripture, we must be born again. Without that rebirth in the Spirit, we gain an intellectual knowledge of the scriptures but fail to see the saving message. In that condition, we become like those very knowledgeable Pharisees with their spiritual blindness as the Son of God they looked for their entire lives stands before them in a human body speaking the words of life they cannot hear. Praise God, you are not like that. Read your Bible and understand. Seek out God in the morning and ask Him for wisdom and understanding.

Bucky