This message came out of notes which I took listening to my pastor thirty-five or forty years ago. The title to Brother Johnson’s message was : “Harvest Heaps in the Day of Grief.”
To understand this passage, it is important to know a bit about the history of Israel. In the days of Isaiah, Israel was divided into two governments – Israel proper and Judah. Whether talking about one, the other or both, as long as Israel loved and served God she prospered. “Trust in Lord and do good, so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.” “Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is. “For (Israel) shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.” But Israel was like the absent-minded professor, she was constantly forgetting the Lord and His promises.
I have read that shortly after Albert Einstein moved to Princeton, the phone rang in his office. When Einstein’s secretary answered, the voice at the other end asked, “May I speak with the Dean?” The secretary replied that Dean Einstein was not in. The voice then asked, “Well then will please tell me the address of his home.” The secretary said she could not do this, because Dr. Einstein wished to have his privacy respected. Then the voice dropped to a whisper: “Please don’t tell anybody, but this is Albert Einstein. “I am on my way home, but I’ve forgotten where I live.” Very sadly, Israel had forgotten where she lived, and the blessing of God had been withdrawn.
In this way, the people of the United States are in a similar situation. We, as a society are worse than the people in the days of Noah, Sodom or Ahab and Jezebel. By the time of Isaiah 17, Israel was in a spiritual slump. The batter had been hitting 350, but now couldn’t get on base by stepping in the way of the pitch. The mighty Assyrian Empire was ready to pounce upon her. So Israel turned to her former enemy, country of Syria and her capital, Damascus. “Some trust in the Lord, but others trust chariots, horses, Syrians and mercenary soldiers.” But it is to no avail – verse 1. “The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap. The cities of Aroer are forsaken: they shall be for flocks, which shall lie down, and none shall make them afraid. The fortress also shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria: they shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, saith the LORD of hosts.” And what is the current glory of Israel? It’s as hollow as the Super Bowl win from three years ago.
Then Isaiah paints a picture of a man out planting a garden. Instead of planting the kind of crop that you might expect to do well in his area, he is planting seeds, and slips, and starts of plants which were foreign to that soil. Oh, those plants looked good in the seed catalogue. But orange trees just don’t prosper in North Idaho; pineapples don’t grow in Spokane County. Israel was planting idolatry, secularism and compromise by enlisting the assistance of Damascus.
And Isaiah, the prophet of God, condemns it all as a foolish waste. One day they plant; the next they cultivate, and weed, and fertilize. They build a pretty white fence and use their watering can, when it doesn’t for rain. Shoots appear, then the blossoms come, and the tiny plants look perfectly healthy. But then in one cold day, every thing topples to the ground like it had been crushed by an avalanche. “Harvest Heaps in the day of grief.”
I would like to make a general application of God’s Word this morning. The people of our nation and cities are doing the same sort of things that Israel did 750 BC. In fact you may be following their example yourself.
We start with the tragedy of the Godless life.
Mankind was created with one purpose – to serve and fellowship with the Creator. Wise Solomon reworded that phrase when he said “the whole duty of man is to fear God and to keep His commandments.” However you word it, when we are not reverencing God and enjoying Him, then we are living contrary to His purpose – we are living in sin.
Isaiah describes our sin in a most simple and innocuous way – “we have forgotten the Lord.” There is not a person in all the earth who has not forgotten things from time to time. Some things are of little or no importance, while others are momentous. Some things are in between, like remembering where we live.
General Ionnis Metaxas was the dictator of Greece from 1936 to 1941. While in power he was invited to fly the Greek Air Force’s newest seaplane. After the pilot had taken off, he gave the controls to the General, who flew it quite well. And then the pilot noticed that the General appeared to be preparing to land at the local airport. “Excuse me Excellency, but it would be more suitable to come down on the sea, since is a hydroplane.” “But of course,” laughed the General. “What was I thinking?” After the plane made a safe landing, the dictator remarked to his host that he corrected him in a very diplomatic fashion. It is not wise to rebuke a dictator. And as soon as he finished, Metaxas opened the door of the plane and stepped out into the sea.
Sometimes we forget important things and when we do we get really, really wet. Israel had a bad case of chronic prayerlessess, preacherlessness, sabbathlessness and sacrificelessness. The people had forgotten God – including His power, grace and love.
The Bible has barrels of comments on forgetfulness. A few are like Deuteronomy 4:9 – “Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life: but teach them thy sons, and thy sons’ sons.” Psalm 9:17 – “The wicked shall be turned into Hell, and all nations that forget God.” Jeremiah 3:21 speaks about great grief over forgetting the Lord our God. “A voice was heard upon the high places, weeping and supplications of the children of Israel: for they have perverted their way, and they have forgotten the LORD their God.” There are dozens of memorials throughout the Bible designed to bring things into remembrance. There were stones on the banks of the Jordan to remind Israel of the day she crossed the river. “Ebenezer” was a memorial which declared: “Hitherto the Lord hath helped us.” There was a bit of manna kept in the Ark of the Covenant as a reminder. The Jews had several memorial feasts, just as Christians have the Lord’s Supper. It would seem to be impossible to forget the Lord, but forget is what we do.
And Deuteronomy 6:10-12 explains one very prominent reason why we are so prone to forget. “And it shall be, when the LORD thy God shall have brought thee into the land which he sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give thee great and goodly cities, which thou buildedst not, And houses full of all good things, which thou filledst not, and wells digged, which thou diggedst not, vineyards and olive trees, which thou plantedst not; when thou shalt have eaten and be full; Then beware lest thou forget the LORD, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.” Satan would love for all of us to forget about Jehovah, so as the god of this world, he has redesigned the cosmos to suck all thoughts of the Lord out of us.
But this forgetfulness is criminal and even absurd. Who is it Israel is forgetting – what are we forgetting? “The God of our salvation and the rock of our strength.” The word “rock” obviously suggests stability, elevation, security and defense. The Old Testament especially, abounds in descriptions of God as a huge monolith – a Mt. Rainier. Deuteronomy 32:4 – “He is the rock, his work is perfect; for all his ways are perfect, a God of truth…” What a contrast there is to the unsheltered security of a Damascus shaped garden. From where would the soldier rather fight; from the top of a ridge or a treeless plain? Any soldier knows the value of a strategic location. Not only is the Lord our rock, but He is “the God of our salvation.” He is the only means of our deliverance, physically and spiritually. When Jonah was in the belly of the whale he properly judged, “Salvation is of the Lord.” Isaiah said, “Behold, God is my salvation, I will trust, and not be afraid, for Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song.” “There is none other name under heaven, given among men, whereby we must be saved.” How can we possibly forget such a God as this? How can we let the House of God be forsaken as we turn to the cabbage patch? How can we desecrate the Lord’s day in the garden, the ski slope or the fishing hole? “How shall we escape if we neglect (the God of) so great salvation?” Can we expect money to replace the Lord? Our professional military? The CIA and NSA? Through Hosea God said, “My people are destroyed … for lack of knowledge.”
The text goes on to describe the APPARENT success of a godless life.
Since Jehovah won’t bless Israel, the people will have to go to another source for their needs. Let us fog away our sorrows with the pleasant plants of marijuana, Jack Daniels or Budweiser. I was listening to tape with a Christian man explaining how to guarantee financial security. He explained the principles of diversity, changes in financial thinking, misplaced hopes. But it basically boiled down to trusting in systems and man-made organizations saturated with prayer. How many good people think of Social Security as their all sufficient supply? Their God? How many are trusting in the NY Stock exchange or the NASDAQ? Some are calling cocaine “a very pleasant plant” – the poppy plant. Every soul cries out for some sort of God, whether they realize it or not. But if we are not satisfied with Christ, then we’ll feel the pains of spiritual hunger. What spiritual junk food are you snacking on these days? Is it your hobby? Your job? Pornography? Oh, how feverishly active we are in our 21st century gardens. Our whole society smells of restlessness, lack of peace, itchiness and anxiety. We plant our pleasant seeds and set a few strange slips and the earth turns green. We fence it, water it, and watch it fruit, but what strange fruits they are.
Paradoxically, this is far harder work than serving Christ. It takes a great deal of toil to make this garden grow. The world is a hard task master. The service of God may require some time and energy, but it is enjoyable and profitable. Do you recall Adam in God’s garden, tilling and dressing the place, as delightful service to God. But once he forgot the Lord, the ground became a curse with thorns and producing sweat. Men go to great lengths to condemn themselves, when salvation by God’s grace is so easy. James says, “Ye lust and desire to have, in contrast to simply asking the Lord and enjoying.” Smoke that weed and you’ll loose ten times as much as you’ll ever gain. Bed that stranger and you may awake with a lot more than physical discomfort. Worship in the camp of Syria, and rot your soul. You can’t sleep in the doghouse without coming out with fleas. You can’t take fire into your bosom without getting burned – Proverbs 6:27. Steal God’s tithe and you’ll buy sorrow in the end. Just ask Achan. You can’t abuse God’s day of rest without paying the penalty of restlessness.
But – for a while it might appear that you plant with success. Rather than waiting for the crop to mature, we begin eating the beautiful shoots and leaves. Rather than being good farmers waiting for a full, mature crop, we eat the unripened fruit. A Syrian garrison protecting Israel, is not better than the promise of God for ultimate victory. “The pleasure of sin for a season cannot outweigh the flames of Hell for eternity.”
And that is the last thing that we see here.
“But the harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief, and of desperate sorrow.” A harvest heap in the day of grief. There is a judgment day coming; a reckoning day. That will be when all the foliage of our lives will be stripped way and the real fruit revealed. God’s “agent orange” will be dumped all over everything, and everyone will see what is truly eternal. If Israel thinks that life looked bleak and dark, things were only getting worse. As one has said, “Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an oncoming train.” The threats of Assyria look black, but they are nothing compared to the threats of God.
How poor is the fruit of the God-forgetting life. One heap, not three or four dozens, but just one. We sow much and bring home little. A very small sock can carry the harvest that many of us will reap.
The foundation for the granary of which God approves can be nothing less than Jesus Christ Himself. “For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” Once the granary is built, it must be filled with an organic crop. Some people have the mistaken idea that God accepts unapproved grain – tares rather than wheat. He won’t permit the substitution of a few trinkets of morality or good works for Christ. If you want to smile in the day of judgment you must begin with the Saviour. Unless you repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, all the fruit of the world will prove useless. And if you have been redeemed by God’s grace then you need to live for him. Christians, too, can forget the Lord far more than they should.
That harvest will be a day of sadness for multitudes. “Grief” and “desperate sorrow,” the text says – terrible words. “Desperation” – there is a word which describes the people in Hell itself. But if we trust Christ and sow the Spirit, there will be rejoicing in the Lord. Jehovah Himself will return with joy, bringing us, His sheaves with Him.