Bing Crosby, Red Delicious, and the Gospel Ministry

My family stopped celebrating Christmas when I was too young to remember. My wife’s family had always celebrated Christmas, so when we were dating, I told her why we didn’t celebrate it and she told me what it was like to do so (We were/are not heretics unless you would consider this heresy . We refrained from the celebration, in a sort of 17^th century, non-conformist Puritan sort of way. And, we can get into that if the masses insist). I had an idea that every Christmas was like a Bing Crosby song, complete with argyle sweaters, men contemplatively resting the elbow on the mantel piece next to a toasty fire and the wafting aroma of leather and pipe tobacco. I could imagine children laughing and dancing along to the melodic sounds of a jazzy piano coming from the sitting room. It was the sort of dream that, as Psmith  said “one feels that one could gladly settle down into a peaceful retirement and grow a honey colored beard.” That was Christmas in my mind. Apparently, (according to my wife anyway, I’m still skeptical) this isn’t an accurate representation of the season.

With reckless abandon, and little regard for segue, let’s go to the farm. I grew up on an apple orchard and it was hard work that never ended. Pruning trees, fertilizing, insecticides, thinning the apples, on and on it goes. Not only is it nonstop work, but we usually were pushing to get it all done. You have to have everything ready to pick the apples, to package, to haul the apples. Tractors, wagons, picking bags and all the things that are needed to get them in and then out the door, so to speak.  Harvest always came whether you were ready for it or not. It always aggravated me at school when the kids would talk about how great it would be to live on the farm, because you only had to work two months out of the year. Pick apples in the harvest and sit back and count your money to the next year. They would talk about sauntering out (sauntering wasn’t the preferred word of the 4^th grade class at Sunshine Elementary, but work with me here). Where was I? Oh yes, sauntering out in the afternoon and selecting an apple for the tree for a lazy day snack. In fact, I could probably count on my hands the number of times I walked out and picked an apple and ate it because you can’t pick an apple when it’s ripe to eat and sell it, unless you think a rotten ball of mush is in high demand (stranger things have happened II Kings 6:25). The apples are picked a few days before they are ready to eat.  Much like my view of Christmas, my classmates had an idealistic view of farm life. We saw what we wanted to see and didn’t consider that we  live in a Genesis 3 world, fallen and broken.

When Paul was telling Timothy to get ready for the life of the ministry, one example he used was that of a farmer.  II Timothy  2:6  The husbandman that laboureth must be first partaker of the fruits. God gives every pastor ground, and that is the ground he is to work. Some men in history have worked in years of feast and some toil in years of famine. Many (most?) men who enter the gospel ministry have an idealistic view of what it will be like and how their ministry will prosper. Perhaps that because of their desire and faithfulness, God will surely bless them with "success" in their preaching. Then, if it isn't like they thought, they get depressed and give up. The gospel ministry is not a results based, but gauged on faithfulness, though all desire to see the results. The bossman of the harvest on an apple orchard is success based. How much did you bring in and how quickly did you do it? The only means of success in farm work is product based. The LORD of the harvest judges His laborers by faithfulness, because He is the Lord of the harvest. Our desire is not mere reformation, but regeneration. Our desire is that the dead be brought to life and we haven’t that kind of power, but the Lord of the harvest does.

 Peter Van Mastricht's book A Treatise on Regeneration Without [regeneration] he can neither see the kingdom of God -- this is, mentally, since he is blind, and perceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned (I Corinthians 2:14) --nor, if he could see, could he enter in to the kingdom of God, since he is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be (Romans 8:7). Of himself he is not sufficient to think anything spiritually good (II Corinthians 3:5), and therefore stands in absolute need of illumination by regeneration in order to see the kingdom of heaven and of a renovation of his will, in order to be willing to enter into it.

We desire that men come to the truth, but it is a truth that is from Heaven that God Himself teaches His people. A ministry must be able to teach, but at the same time God illuminates. 

John Calvin "...Only when God shines in us by the Holy Spirit is there any profit from the Word. Thus the inward calling, which alone is effectual and peculiar to the elect, is distinguished from the outward voice of men."

 Our labor in the Word and with men may seem to bring no result but it is doing something because God’s Word does not go forth void (Isa.55:11). The faithful man of God always triumphs in Christ when he faithfully brings the Word (II Cor. 2:14-17).  You may be an Ezekiel.

Eze 3:6-7  Not to many people of a strange speech and of an hard language, whose words thou canst not understand. Surely, had I sent thee to them, they would have hearkened unto thee.  But the house of Israel will not hearken unto thee; for they will not hearken unto me: for all the house of Israel are impudent and hardhearted.

Consider that. If Ezekiel had been a foreign missionary and preached the same message, he would have many converts. But God had Ezekiel labor in hard ground to a people that would not hear in an act of judgment.

So, when a man begins the good work of Gospel ministry, I’m not saying he ought to despair, but he ought to trust in God. The place where God has him may be good ground, or tough ground, but it is the ground he was given to keep. The ground is rocky. It’s hard. I look at other ground and I see others reaping the harvest. I see others, whose children have been saved. I look and can only see the dirt. The dry ground. The rocky soil. The sun is hot. There is a drought and the earth is cracked. The only water I can perceive are my tears. Sowing in tears. Preparation. Labor. Toil, but the harvest hasn’t come. My hands are calloused, by back is sore. Is it fruitless? No, never. I trust in the sovereign Lord. 

Idealistic expectations reveal our will. I'm not saying that our will is even wrong. It is not wrong to desire to see many people saved. However, the man of God must preach on even when our will is not done. Do we delight in our will being done only, or when our will is crushed but God's will is done?