A Compelling Testimony: Maintaining a Disciplined Walk, Christlike Character, and Godly Relationships as God's Servant

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A Compe l l i ng Tes t imony

2. The exegetical interpretation : This is a permanent, unchanging, fixed law of the moral universe, and no amount of praying, shifting, or begging will alter it.

a. This refers both to complete certainty we can have about the nature of the universe and the harvest: God has built into the very structure of the cosmos the law that whatever is sown will be reaped; it speaks to the surety of the harvest . b. This law of the certainty of the harvest was infused into the created order from the beginning, Gen. 1.11-12 – And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so. [12] The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. c. God makes the analogy explicit between his ability to cause things to bear after their kind and his ability to work his will in the lives of his people. (1) Isa. 61.11 – For as the earth brings forth its sprouts, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up, so the Lord God will cause righteous ness and praise to sprout up before all the nations. (2) Isa. 55.10-11 – For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, [11] so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.