Pastor's Blog - Harvest 2016

Last year in August my whole family was blessed enough to go on a holiday of a lifetime to the USA. One of the places we were fortunate enough to visit was Yellowstone National Park, where we saw Old Faithful – the geyser that has erupted predictably like clockwork time after time ever since God created it.

It reminded me of what Philip Yancy observed when he visited the site for the first time. He said, “My wife and I passed the countdown in the dining room of Old Faithful Inn overlooking the geyser. When the digital clock reached one minute, we, along with every other diner, left our seats and rushed to the windows to see the big, wet event. I noticed that immediately, as if on signal, a crew of busboys and waiters descended on the tables to refill water glasses and clear away dirty dishes. When the geyser went off, we tourists oohed and aahed and clicked our cameras; a few spontaneously applauded. But, glancing back over my shoulder, I saw that not a single waiter or busboy – not even those who had finished their chores – looked out of the huge windows. Old Faithful, grown entirely too familiar, had lost its power to impress them.”

That account made me think about how too many people take God and His faithfulness for granted. Each year the harvest is an amazing demonstration of God’s faithfulness to all of us. Harvest time comes about, not as many would say “because of mother nature”, but because God promised that it would. We read in the Bible in Genesis 8:22 that God promised, “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” For God, a promise made is a promise kept.

What we read there however, also reminds us that this world is not going to go on forever. God’s gracious and faithful promise will last until Jesus comes again when the earth and the rest of the universe will be burned up and a new, perfect one takes its place. The world to come for which Jesus shed His blood on the cross, will be perfect in every way, with no possibility of sin ever entering it again.

Do you want to be part of that new world? It seems daft that anyone would not want to be! Well, God has promised that all those who confess and repent of their sin and believe that Jesus died for them, to take the punishment for their sin, will be. The Bible tells us “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” It also says in 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Just like those waiters and busboys didn’t give Old Faithful a second glance because it had become too familiar, are you taking God’s faithfulness to you for granted? You see His acts of grace and kindness towards you each and every day. There is seed time, there is harvest, there is summer and winter, there is night and day – all these are reminders of God’s faithfulness to you! Are you going about your daily business without a thought for God? Are you taking all His blessings to you for granted? Do you not care that your sin has alienated you from the very One who made you and sustains you? And yet, there too, He has faithfully provided a way that you can get right with Him through His Son, the Lord Jesus.

We at West Row Baptist would love to share more with you on how you too, can get to know and serve the faithful, one, true living God. Please come along to one of our services and introduce yourself to us.