“So then neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase.” (1 Corinthians 3:7)
This verse is a salutary corrective to the common somewhat boastful claim of the evangelist or the personal “soul winner”—that “I won John to Christ,” or “I led Mary to the Lord.” On the other side of the coin is the similar man-pleasing testimony that “I was won to Christ by Pastor Brown’s sermons.” While it is commanded and is urgently important that each Christian be a faithful and earnest witness for Christ, it is needful to give God alone the credit for one’s salvation, since it is only He “that giveth the increase.” We can be grateful whenever God uses something we have preached or written or said to bring someone to Himself, but He is by no means limited to such human efforts, and it is the sin of pride to take credit for what only the Holy Spirit can accomplish.
The Christian’s ministry is necessarily limited to “planting” and “watering,” but these constitute a tremendous responsibility and a privilege of eternal value. And even these are productive only if centered around the Holy Scriptures, because both the seed that is planted and the water that enables it to grow are said to be the Word of God. Even the great evangelist the apostle Paul must say, “I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase” (1 Corinthians 3:6).
Nevertheless, we do have many gracious promises that if we are faithful in planting and watering, God will give the increase, and we can share His joy. “He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him” (Psalm 126:6). “For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Galatians 6:7). HMM
Tag Archives: Days of Praise
Days of Praise – God’s Ways Are Best
by Henry M. Morris, Ph.D.
“And the word of the LORD came unto [Elijah], saying, Arise, get thee to Zarephath, which belongeth to Zidon, and dwell there: behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee.” (1 Kings 17:8-9)
The leading of God is not always clear to our understanding or satisfying to our pride, but it is always directed to God’s glory and our good. Elijah had been supernaturally fed by ravens until the brook of Cherith dried up due to the very drought that Elijah had prophesied. Then, instead of supernaturally providing water, God told Elijah to move to a village in Zidon to stay with a poor widow who would feed him.
But Zidon was the home of the idolatrous queen Jezebel, who would soon become Elijah’s implacable enemy. Furthermore, he would have to so humble himself as to request that the widow share what she thought would be her last meal with a stranger whom she had never met and who had claimed to be the prophet of a God she did not know. What a strange way for God to deal with His servant!
Nevertheless, Elijah obeyed God without question, and so did the widow of Zarephath, and thus the Lord was able to perform two of His mightiest miracles of creation. At the same time, He was able to meet the deep spiritual needs, as well as the physical needs, of this unlikely duo—the greatest spiritual leader of his age and an insignificant widow. An amazing daily miracle of continuing the creation of oil and meal took place as long as the drought continued. And then an even more amazing miracle was accomplished when, for the first time in all history so far as the record goes, one who was dead (the widow’s son) was restored to life (1 Kings 17:20-24), and the woman came to believe that Jehovah was the true God. God’s ways may not be our ways, but they are always best. May He give us the grace always to obey His word, whether or not we fully understand. HMM
Days of Praise – The Brightness of the Glory
by Henry M. Morris, Ph.D.
“Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.” (Hebrews 1:3)
This verse constitutes one of Scripture’s most magnificent declarations of the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let us examine the phrase “the brightness of his glory.”
The word for “brightness” is used only this one time in the Bible and means, literally, “out-radiating.” The word picture conveyed is of the energy overflow from the sun. The sun constitutes a tremendous generator of energy, more than adequate to sustain all processes on Earth. However, these energies would be utterly useless for any such noble purpose if they could not somehow be transmitted from sun to Earth. They are transmitted, however, through the remarkable radiant energy known as sunlight, or solar radiation.
It is this figure that the writer is using. As the sun’s rays are to the sun itself, so is Christ to the Godhead. He is “the light of the world” (John 8:12). It is He whose “goings forth” have been “everlasting” (Micah 5:2). His glorified countenance is “as the sun shineth in his strength” (Revelation 1:16). The Lord Jesus Christ is the life-giving radiation of the ineffable glory of the eternal One, from whose face one day the very heaven and earth will flee away (Revelation 20:11). “But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings [or ‘outspreadings’]” (Malachi 4:2).
And through this One who mediates God to us, we can enter boldly into His presence. “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6). HMM
Days of Praise – Adding to God’s Word
by Henry M. Morris, Ph.D.
“For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book.” (Revelation 22:18)
This very sober warning right at the end of the Bible was given by Christ Himself (note verse 20) to indicate that the written Scriptures were now complete, and it would be a serious sin for some pseudo-prophet to come along presenting some alleged new revelation from God. That this warning applies to the entire Bible, not just to the book of Revelation, should be obvious but is made especially clear when it is remembered that Jesus promised His chosen disciples that the Holy Spirit “shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance,” and furthermore, that “he will guide you into all truth:…and he will shew you things to come” (John 14:26; 16:13).
This special revelation to the “apostles and prophets” of the New Testament would constitute the “foundation” of the church and would be complete when the last of these “holy apostles and prophets” were gone. (Study carefully Ephesians 2:19–3:11.) When John completed the Apocalypse, he was very old; all the other apostles and prophets of the New Testament had already died (all by martyrdom), so God’s written Word was now complete. No new revelation would be needed before Christ returns. We shall do well if we just learn what we already have received from His holy apostles and prophets.
Note also the emphasis on “the words,” not just the concepts. God was able to say what He meant, and we are wise if we take His words literally. Jesus warned about “false prophets” who would come after He left (Matthew 24:24), and there have been many of these through the centuries. The Bible as we now have it is sufficient for every need. HMM
Days of Praise – Wisdom and Might Are His
“Daniel answered and said, Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever: for wisdom and might are his.” (Daniel 2:20)
Men have sought wisdom all through the ages, “ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 3:7). Others have sought great power. But then we read of Alexander the Great weeping because there were no more worlds to conquer, and we see one rich man after another who cannot bring himself to say, “It is enough.”
The problem is, of course, that they are searching for wisdom and might in the wrong places, and thus they can never be satisfied. Wisdom and might belong only to God. In the Lord Jesus Christ “are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3), and to Him has been given “all power…in heaven and in earth” (Matthew 28:18). God, revealed in Christ, is both omniscient and omnipotent, and true wisdom and true riches must come only from Him.
Therefore, “if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God…and it shall be given him” (James 1:5). If we are in need of strength, we must become weak, for “when I am weak, then am I strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10). If we need riches, we must know poverty, for before Christ can commit to us “the true riches,” we must be found “faithful in that which is least” (Luke 16:10-11).
Daniel’s testimony, as recorded in this passage, was given to the most powerful monarch on Earth, with access to all the wisdom of the most highly educated men of the age. But neither human might nor human wisdom could solve his problem. Only Daniel, drawing on the wisdom and power of the God of creation, could meet his need. God’s servants, even today, have the same privilege and responsibility, because our God is “for ever and ever.” HMM
Days of Praise – Eve and the Saving Seed
“And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.” (Genesis 4:1)
Recent translators have followed a tradition of including the word “from” in this verse. The original Hebrew does not have it. A stricter translation would read, “I have begotten a man, the LORD.” For Eve to have given birth to the Lord might sound strange, but it suggests that we should ask whether Eve could have believed she had given birth to the promised One.
Eve did not know that Mary actually would deliver that God-Man 58 generations later (Luke 3:23-38). Eve heard the Lord’s curse given in Genesis 3, including the promise of a woman-born Savior. God told the deceiver He would “put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:15).
Who could blame Eve if she felt that her first child would be the “seed” who would defeat the deceiver and redeem us from the curse? Eve knew she needed a redeemer. After all, the Lord had told her and her husband, “For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return” (Genesis 3:19).
Any rescue from this doom would therefore require a perfect man—one who had no sin of his own to condemn him. Only the Lord God is perfect, so He would have to become a man. Thus, “when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons” (Galatians 4:4-5). Eve was possibly expressing trust in a saving Seed. We definitely should! BDT
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