August 26, 2010
I have been comparing God to a Master Gardener watching His children grow and mature. Isaiah calls God’s people “a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendor” and “the shoot I have planted, the work of my hands.” I described our Heavenly Father as a “garden walker,” who lovingly examines young lives to see how well things are growing.
I suggested that we as adults can place good seed from God’s Word in children’s hearts, watching for signs of new spiritual life and protecting those young spiritual shoots.
I focused on the uniqueness of children, and how their Creator Master Gardener places the right plant in the right place at the right time in His garden.
We looked at soil, which is a symbol of the condition of the child’s heart, as described in Matthew 13: hard, shallow or choked out be weeds.
Today, let’s examine what can prevent our Christian children from maturing into fruit-bearing disciples of Jesus Christ. There is a song that the teens sang at Camp Dellwater last month that sticks in my mind: “Counting on God” by Desperation Band. One line says, “I'm in a fight not physical. And I'm in a war,
but not with this world.” If you think of our children as the “garden of God’s delight,” you must also consider what the Evil One has in store to, if possible, ruin that planting. I told those campers that one of the names of Satan, Beelzebub, means, “Lord of the Flies.” I warned them that, even as God’s planting, we still had to be on the watch for “bugs,” and that they might see greater tests and temptations as they grow in Christ, since “brighter light brings bigger bugs.”
The Bible tells us not to panic in the face of life’s bugs, but rejoice in our trials, confident that we have been given the weapons of spiritual warfare that can overcome these pests from the pit. Godly children are not helpless, but we need to be ever watchful for the first signs of trouble. God does not just stand by when his precious vines are under attack.
We must be aware of spiritual pests that act like the garden wireworm, doing its damage out of sight, underground. Secret sins are especially harmful to our children, and like the wireworm, need to be brought to light for their damage to end.
Other pests are like the white cabbage looper butterfly, cute and apparently harmless. But the worm it breeds in the garden can lay waste cabbage, broccoli or cauliflower just before harvest. Some sins that touch our children seem harmless, but can do tremendous damage in a child’s heart if allowed to remain.
Other pests like potato beetles or June beetles are big and slow and easy to pick off, but must not be ignored. A few apparently “easy-to-spot” sins ignored early in a child’s life can be a major problem in the next generation.
Our broadcast today was sponsored by friends of Heartland who urge you to sign your children up now for the 2010-2011 class at Heartland Christian Academy in Bemidji. Call us at 218-751-1751.