My dear readers,

Is there much food in your planting?

Proverbs 13:23: “Much food is in the tillage of the poor: but there is that is destroyed for want of judgment.”

Farmers do not have a guarantee when planting their crops. There are too many uncertainties to have any confidence, even though their crops have not failed for many decades. However, despite the uncertainties, they will keep planting as they continue to follow in the footsteps of their forefathers. They toil on year after year without fail. They know their lives can be ruined forever if they stop even for one year. They plod on and hope for the best. They need the year’s harvest for next year’s sowing. Without the seeds, they will need to buy from their neighbours. They will borrow to buy more seeds if they do not have money. If their crops fail, they will enter into debt. The life of farmers is harsh and brutal.

Through the illustration of a farmer’s life, Proverbs 13:23 teaches us the importance of biblical focus and motivation in life. Israel was a nation created by God from its inception. God ordained every aspect of Israel’s life before she entered and conquered the Promised Land and became a nation. God promised Israel that His blessings would come when she obeyed. These blessings included both the spiritual and material. Some of the physical blessings included their wives not being barren. The harvest of their crops would not fail but would be in abundance (cf. Lev 26 and Deut 28). However, if Israel sinned against God, God's curses would come upon them. Therefore, God linked His blessings or curses to the land and the people who lived in the land in Israel.

• The biblical focus on Spirituality – “Much food is in the tillage of the poor” means that when a born-again Israelite focused on spiritual matters, even though he was poor, his tillage, i.e. planting, would produce much food. God would bless him when he walked justly. He might be poor, but the LORD would provide for his needs in the Promised Land.

How would he become poor in the Promised Land? When the nation of Israel sinned against God, God would punish Israel. God would not bless Israel as a nation. However, some believers in Israel remained faithful and true to God’s Word but could not leave Israel which was God’s Promised Land. They were to stay in the Promised Land and trust the LORD to provide for them. Despotic rulers and their evil cohorts bullied the faithful Israelites who refused to give up their faith or compromise their holy witness for Christ. Perhaps for such reasons, they suffered poverty in the Promised Land. They had no king, prince, priest, prophet, or anyone of influence to help them in times of need and persecution but their LORD.

However, the LORD assured them that He would help them. The LORD would ensure growth whenever the poor tilled the ground and planted their seeds. He would provide for them as they continued to testify of His holiness in Christ. In this way, the light of Christ would shine brightly among the wicked Israelites, convicting them of their sins. With the conviction, perhaps they would repent of their sins and return to the LORD. The LORD always loves His people unconditionally. His desire for their good has always been His way of dealing with His people in the Old and New Testaments. Did He not reveal that He will have His remnant? Even in the face of the destruction of Jerusalem and the Solomonic Temple, God comforted His people with the promise of a remnant. Ezekiel 14:22-23: “²²Yet, behold, therein shall be left a remnant that shall be brought forth, both sons and daughters: behold, they shall come forth unto you, and ye shall see their way and their doings: and ye shall be comforted concerning the evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem, even concerning all that I have brought upon it. ²³And they shall comfort you, when ye see their ways and their doings: and ye shall know that I have not done without cause all that I have done in it, saith the Lord GOD.”

When faithful believers remain faithful in the face of trials, fellow believers are encouraged and strengthened in their faith too. Interpersonal relationships and co-dependency are part and parcel of every Christian’s journey on the dangerous, narrow road that should be common to all faithful children of God. Is this not the meaning of “weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice” (cf. Rom 12:15)? 1 Corinthians 10:13: “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.”

Focus on spirituality; even for the poor, his planting will be blessed by God the Almighty, and he will find much food, i.e. spiritual food.

• The carnal focus on Materialism – The contrast is one who lacks judgment, i.e. no knowledge of God’s Word. God’s Word guided the Israelites in the Promised Land, but they continued to make one mistake after another. They did not know they had to repent before God could bless them. God would not bless what they did while they lived in sin; otherwise, it would send the wrong message to His people that He did not mind their sinful ways and He would still bless them. Instead, He would destroy the labour of their hands.

The rich and powerful, like kings, princes, priests, prophets, and powerful men and women with money, believe they can continue their evil, avaricious ways because they continue to get away with it. Since they have made themselves above God’s laws and control the powers that be, they have become untouchable all their lives. They repudiate every little light of Christ that shines in Israel. They are marching headlong toward hell with their eyes shut to all things spiritual; they have eyes only for all things material, like a deer standing in the middle of the highway staring into the headlights of a speeding car, until they are struck dead by God’s almighty hand. Not only will they lose everything they had accumulated, they will also find their souls cast into hell by God till the end of the Millennium before they are cast into the Lake of Fire to join the Devil and all the wicked at the Great White Throne Judgment.

Israel was a nation that began with God’s Word. Everything about the nation was found in God’s Word, from the civil, dietary, and Levitical laws to their statutes and customs on what to eat and wear. There is no excuse for any Israelite to not know God's Word and be wise. For any Israelite to be destroyed for want of judgment with God’s Word and Temple within reach is like a man dying of thirst while swimming in a cool, refreshing pool. All he needs to do is to open his mouth and drink. The Israelites would rather die of thirst, i.e. spiritual thirst, as they plunged themselves into hell’s fire. Today’s generation of professing believers who attend church are likened to these foolish and pitiful Israelites. They have the Bible on their phones, cupboards, bedside, and in their hands, but tragically, they do not have it in their hearts and minds. They continue to lack knowledge, and all that their sinful hands touch and do will soon be destroyed by God.

The one who lacks discernment, i.e. does not know God’s Word and all His deeds, will perish.

How is your planting?