The evening Harvest Day message was preached by Rev. Ivan Foster, retired minister at Kilskeery Free Presbyterian Church.
“He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth,” Psalm 104:14.
It is widely believed that David is the author of this Psalm, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, of course.
Given David’s many hours tending the flock of his father on the hills around Bethlehem and the duties that entailed, the lad would have had a wonderful opportunity to examine in detail the animals, the vegetation in all its forms, the fauna, the flora.
Being spiritually minded, he would see the hand of God at work in all around him. The seasons of the year that passed over him would have taught the truth that:
‘Life at best is very brief,Like the falling of a leaf,Like the binding of a sheaf,Be in time…’
The sheep he tended illustrated for David the abundant blessing that the Lord bestowed through that one small animal.
It provided milk, “Butter of kine, and milk of sheep,” Deuteronomy 32:14, wool for clothing, meat for food and hide for tents, outer garments and shoes.
The little creature, common in our fields, was wonderfully honoured by the Lord by His adopting its name for Himself, to illustrate the exceedingly great bounty He, the Lamb of God, provided!
Psalm 23, and many other references to sheep, indicates the fact that David drew from his childhood duties many spiritual lessons and parallels between the care that the Lord took of His creation and that bestowed upon His elect flock!
This being our annual Harvest Thanksgiving, sharing in something of David’s observations would seem most appropriate.
I. HOW HELPLESS IS MAN!
We have great cause to be thankful for the harvest. Of course the vast majority of people today, in contrast to former generations in our land, do not see the Lord as the source of its bounty. Nor do they really see the havoc that man’s folly, carelessness and greed is wreaking upon the origins of all nourishment!
1. The theory of evolution teaches man that ‘HE’ is his own creator and provider. I never cease to be absolutely amazed at the folly of a man like Sir David Attenborough. I might add that he obtained his peerage by being such an entertaining expert at playing the fool!
How often has he been portrayed to millions, surrounded by the most conspicuously obvious splendours of God’s creative power, only to explain that these splendid creatures are the product of their own skills and abilities.
He and his fellow evolutionists trace man’s lineage back over aeons of time, developing from a ‘single cell’ and progressing, as is alleged, through a plethora of ‘evolutionary’ developments until ‘man’ as he is today arrived!
Why this wonderful process is not seen today, is a question you should not ask. It’s not considered polite to do so. Nor should you ask where that first ’single cell’ came from.
2. But as David here says, grass cannot make itself grow nor can man! It is the Lord Who “causeth the grass to grow”.
Many may have discovered that which the Lord embodied in His creation that feeds the grass from the soil and causes it to spring up and develop and mature. Man may have marketed those ingredients and may have thus fertilised the grass, but he is only using those ingredients which the Lord created and not man!
3. Men cannot produce that which feeds his animals upon which he depends for sustenance! It is God that “causeth the grass to grow for the cattle.” The production of animal feed is a major industry. But nothing that comes from the factories that manufacture the feed is the result of man’s ‘making’! It is but many harvesting what the Lord has caused to grow and supplying to those who have animals to feed!
As Paul says of Gospel labour, “I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase,” 1 Corinthians 3:6-7.
II. EVERY HARVEST REMINDS MAN OF HIS ORIGINS
“And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul,” Genesis 2:7.
1. We, like the grass, have sprung from the dust of the ground by the power of God. Mankind is like a giant stalk of wheat producing millions of seeds but its root is in the dust of the ground and by the wondrous workings of God’s power, that transformation from dust to seed takes place.
The origins of all things, though denied by evolutionists, are set forth in the opening of Genesis, the book which shows the beginning of all things.
2. Man is engaged in a futile war against this truth. Sin entered the human race through the sin of Adam. From this has descended through all the generations of the peoples of this earth, the virus of depravity. Man has, like Adam, been running and hiding and denying God His rightful honour ever since, Genesis 3:8.
The rebellious denials have intensified wherever the knowledge of the truth of God has diminished amongst the nations.
“Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen,” Romans 1:21-25.
3. Never has that running away from God been more evident than in these days of the final apostasy. Man is on the ‘final lap’ of the marathon of rebellion against the Lord that has been taking him away from the Lord since the Garden of Eden!
The character of today is revealed in 2 Tim 3:1-5. This will end in the events of Revelation 19:11-21.
III. THE UNDENIABLE TRUTH OF MAN’S ORIGINS ARE TO BE FOUND IN THE SOIL OF EVERY GRAVEYARD AND THE ASH PANS OF CREMATORIUMS!
1. Like everything on the face of the Earth, we return to the dust from which we first were brought forth! The curse that God pronounced upon rebellious Adam tells us that.
“And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return,” Genesis 3:17-19.
“All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again,” Ecclesiastes 3:20.
2. There is a day when all who have returned to dust, will be called forth from it. “And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt,” Daniel 12:2.
There are two very different resurrections.
The First – 1 Thessalonians 4:15-18, Revelation 20:5-6.
The second – Revelation 20:11-15.
These resurrections are first of all of the saved and then of the unsaved.
3. That which makes the difference the Saviour explains. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him,” John 3:36.
I believe I can say that only the Christians who are alive when the Saviour returns will not die — with but four exceptions.
The godly Enoch and Elijah went to heaven without dying, Gen5:35, 2 Kings 2:11, and the Antichrist and the False Prophet were damned in the Lake of Fire, Rev 19:20-21. Those believers who are alive at the Second Advent will be instantly glorified’. But all others will die.
However, those who die in Christ, having trusted in the atonement He made for sin at the cross and receiving Him by faith in obedience to the Gospel call, will be raised from the dust and gloriously transformed into the likeness of Christ.
“When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory,” Colossians 3:4.
“Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is,” 1 John 3:2.
As all men are heading for the grave, the question is, ‘Is it a grave from which you will rise in the likeness of Christ’s glory? Or will it be a grave from which you will be raised in your sins and from there cast into the Lake of Fire for ever and ever?
You can settle that question right now by calling upon the Lord for: “Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved,” Acts 2:21.