“SOUR GRAPES OR SURE GRACE?”
BY: J. FARRELL FISHER, SEPT. 3-4, 2017
Thank Holy God that Paul was inspired to write in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, AND is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
And don’t you think or consider that it is advisable, essential, absolutely necessary that we proclaim “Sour Grapes” to the insatiable devourers of those eating from the wrong tree? In Jeremiah 31:27-30 the Lord God Almighty spoke concerning His “chosen people” who were to usher in the blessing of His grace, mercy, and love to, yes, the nations of the known world, but something happened spiritually in their hearts and minds, and they ‘back-tracked’ to sin and self-indulgent ‘religious activity’ rather than the “Redeemer’s Ministry”! The Word says:
“Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and the seed of beast. And it shall come to pass, that as I have watched over them to pluck up, to break down, to throw down, to destroy, and to afflict, so I will watch over them to build and to plant, says the Lord. In those days they shall say no more: ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’ BUT EVERY ONE shall die FOR HIS OWN INIQUITY; every man who eats the sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge.”
And, how deviant do you find those determined in their own minds and hearts that “Sour Grapes” is OK? Have you ever been around the unashamed “indecency of trash talkers and trash takers and trash tossers” who so desire for you to be a part of what they are up to in their, yes, reckless lives and old ‘sin-nature choices’?
Ezekiel 24 is a convicting, challenging, life-changing chapter if one has chosen “sour grapes” rather than “sure grace”! In Verses 13-14 Holy God arose! (Does He still arise at times to confront “abominable walkers” who believe “flesh choices are OK” if you “believe in the blood of the Lamb”? HEAR ALMIGHTY GOD! “In your filthiness is lewdness. Because I have cleansed you, and you were not cleansed, you will not be cleansed of your filthiness anymore, Till I have caused My fury to rest upon you.
I the Lord, have spoken it; it shall come to pass, and I will do it; I will not hold back, nor will I spare, nor will I relent; According to your ways and according to your deeds they will judge you,” says the Lord God.’” And God’s charges against His “chosen people” Israel? Idolatry, sexual immorality, and shedding of innocent blood as they, yes, sacrificed their babies on His altar!
And a few verses down God told them: Verse 21, about their “arrogant boast, the desire of your eyes, the delight of your soul…and their sons and daughters they just left on their own, and THEY end up “falling by the sword”!
Oh, and true disciples in the midst of all this “sour grapes living” surrounding you, when His judgment falls, they’ll come running to you for an answer to their sin-stained lives and tattered existence! Ezekial 24:25-27, God speaking to a faithful servant: “And you, son of man – will it not be in the day when I TAKE THEM FROM THEIR STRONGHOLD, THEIR JOY AND THEIR GLORY, the desire of their eyes, and that on which they set their minds, their sons and their daughters: that on that day one who escapes will come to you to let you hear it with your ears. On that day your mouth will be opened to him who has escaped; you shall speak and no longer be mute. THUS YOU will be a sign to them, and they shall know that I am the Lord.” [But do they learn too late?].
I’m telling you: individual, married couple, family, friends, city, state, or nation: “It’s time to seek the Lord who has sought you out, even with a heavy-hand, to turn you from vainness, bad-choices, defiance, disobedience, and RECEIVE AMAZING GRACE AND MERCY to no longer be your own master, but fully desiring to be Mastered by the Master, King Jesus!” He’s not a bad king, but King of kings and Lord of lords!
In Ezekiel 34:25-27, how necessary to hear and receive these words!! “I will make a covenant of peace with them, and cause ‘wild beasts’ to cease from the land, (lions, tigers, jackals, fierce bears, poisonous snakes, alligators, crocodiles? I don’t think so! ‘Wild beasts’? How about ‘sinners’, cruel and callous mean men, super-intelligent, godless professors, independent owners of much of the world’s wealth, or the angry, poverty stricken who know nothing, really, about ‘deserving more’, or, yes, “the pretenders” who CAN BE the strongest roadblocks to the True Pathway to the fullness of the blessing in Christ?), Back to the passage!!,; and they (The established in the Faith under the True Shepherd!),will dwell safely in the wilderness and sleep in the woods. I will make them and the places all around My hill a blessing; and I will cause showers to come down in their season; there SHALL BE SHOWERS OF BLESSING.
THEN the trees of the field (Who are they? The apples, the oranges, the mangos, the pears? NO! The trees of God’s field are His reborn, replanted, resurrected men and women planted, cared for, nurtured by the Holy Spirit!), then the trees of the field shall yield their fruit, and the earth shall yield her increase. (Where YOU’RE PLANTED, GOD GIVES THE PROMISE OF INCREASE! DO YOU LET HIM?). They shall be safe in their land, and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I have broken the bands of their yoke and delivered them from the hand of those who enslaved them. (Who’s that? The world, the flesh, and Satan!)….Oh, Verse 29!! “I will raise up for them a garden of renown, and they shall no longer be consumed with hunger in the land, nor bear the shame of the Gentiles anymore. Verse 30-31? Thus they shall know that, I, the Lord their God, am with them, and they, the house of Israel, who are My people,” says the Lord God.” THERE WAS AND IS TODAY THE TRUE REMNANT! VERSE 31, “YOU are My flock, the flock of My pasture; you are men, and I am your God, “ says the Lord God.
Can you say, “Glory to the Father or Glory to God, Glory to the Son, Glory to the Spirit, the blessed “Three-in-One”? Can YOU say, “I know I am God’s child, birthed by the Holy Spirit through the “seed” of the Word of God”?
But, “Sour grapes”, or “wild beasts”? Does that describe “the perpetually desolate”? Are you aware, though they don’t see it or know it, there are folks, who are, according to Psalm 35:26, “Clothed with shame and dishonor who exalt themselves against Me”?
“Sour grapes”, “wild beasts”, independent, self-sufficient, the disdainers of God’s Truth, the worldly, self-centered, humanly sufficient crowd, the haters of knowledge, the refusers who choose to “fear the Lord”, the spiritually complacent though ‘glowing’ in their human attributes and abilities and attitudes and actions, constantly patting themselves on their backs with their own ‘self-imagined award winning of human capability’, and yet no true security or, for the day of death, no ‘door’ to eternal blessing but only the ‘door’ to Satanic oversight!
Dare I tell you? There is nothing ‘pleasant’ to the man who lives faithlessly, lives cemented in his fleshly desires, lives in the deep, dark waters of human abilities void of the “Life-Preserver” of true blood redemption, “New life”, “eternal purpose”, and the Word of God and the Spirit of God and the Family of God surrounding and overseeing, and boosting and encouraging your every step in His “blessed Kingdom-Rule”!
To be gut-level honest with you: I don’t know how any man, without Christ, lives a ‘confident life’ that has no true benefits, no spiritual provision, no wealth of the Word feeding Him the True Bread and the Meat of Life daily, and with No Spotter, (the Spirit), guiding His every step! It’s a “roll-of-the-dice”, but that was and is not God’s design or desire for YOU! Jesus said, “Come unto Me, and I will give you rest!”
“Sour grapes”? Do you see, sense, yes, and sympathize for those who reject God’s compassion, mercy, and love, and choose for themselves to walk in the paths of sin and death, caught in the strong cords of sinful natures, entrapped by the ‘wild schemes of Satan’ like an animal-like man or woman laying their traps to take you down?
“Sour grapes”? That’s no desire to welcome at all God’s cords of conviction because ‘fleshly pleasure’ is their supreme desire, and “pleasing God” is the furthermost step away from them! Goodness even may be a trait of both the ‘lost’ and the “found”, but only Godliness is the fruit, character and nature of God alone, but He’s willing to live in you if you’re tired of a “sour-grapes mentality”!
Why not turn from, yes, your “sour grapes” but Merciful God’s “SURE GRACE”? Yet, sadly, many turn willful deaf ears and willful blind away from Eternal Truth about God and His love and man and his deceived sin-nature that, as I’ve already said, some ‘believers still give into, because of their ‘love affair’ with that old sin-nature, because the world looks down on the call to holiness, and because Satan himself deceives, lures, tempts, ensnares with his mocking ways of Kingdom living! [Why don’t you study and check out: “Imprisoned In Babylon”? Consider seriously, intently, purposefully about resolving the reality of Satan’s desire for YOU to choose ‘darkness’ OR to see the blessing of “walking in the Light”, studying “best effort still opening the door to ‘sin’” OR “Blessed by Emmanuel, “God in flesh” willingly laying down His life for the glory of God !].
And, if you resolve, yes, your dilemma about whether to “stay” devoted to your old nature or “rest” in Christ’s finished work at Calvary and the Empty Tomb, you may “see the Light”! And the angels will arouse all of Heaven to rejoice over you! In “sour grapes” living, you are definitely in the ‘world’ and a part of the ‘world’ that shuts the door into the Face of Almighty God! In the “old man dilemma”, YOU are surrounded by a dark cloud of sinfulness, But the Son shines on you, your ‘storms’ still blow, but He speaks and says, as they blow, “Peace be still!” Your problems may abound, intensify, try to overcome you and break you down, but King Jesus arises saying, “Peace, be still!” Your ‘problems’ invite Jesus, yes, to be YOUR “Problem Solver”, because not many flesh men can solve their dilemmas – they just try to survive them, but the “faithful in Christ” still says: “Peace be still!”.
Be assured: You’ll either lean on yourself, trying your best, or you’ll look to the Helper, you’ll either “look for another, better day, OR you’ll “rest” in Christ alone now, come what may! You also need to understand that those “dark nights of the soul” will be unveiled by the Light of the Lord Jesus Christ to shock the Hell out of every human soul that leans to his/her own understanding, closing out the Redeemer, The Victor, the Conqueror over anything you face!
What would you do if you secretly sinned and shamed the Savior, then He comes, He knocks on YOUR DOOR, and says: “I’m going to expose you – REPENT OR ELSE YOUR EXPOSURE COMES!” Yes, the day comes when Holy God is ready to pull back the curtains of one’s self-indulgent life, even in some ‘professing believers’, darkened in secret sins, and He comes not with ‘blind eyes’ but to let you know, He’s seen! Nothing, nothing, nothing is hidden unless “washed away by the blood of the Lamb of God, not to be resurrected or unveiled or broadcasted”!!
The ‘dark nights of the soul’ WILL hang around and seek to shudder the “Eternal Light of the Abiding Christ in you” that is your only hope of overcoming, yes, the darkness you allow! Many, yes, true believers are targets of their enemies, and their ‘enemies’ will do WHATEVER to split your allegiance, invert your eternal priorities, cloud your spiritual mind, pierce it, anyway possible, for leakage, heighten the, yes, at times, the influences, strong opposition, and deceitful doors they want to open to “bring you down” from “Throne-Living In and Through Jesus”, demoralizing your True Identity in Him and emphasizing the ‘pleasures’(?) of the world, the flesh and the devil!
Oh, but Christ Jesus is ALIVE AND WELL AND PRESENT AND DESIRES TO REIGN VICTORIOUS IN YOU AS ONE WHO IS MORE THAN CONQUEROR! He’s Redeemer, He’s Atoner, He’s Master and Lord over life, over death, over temptation, over deceit, over your ‘flesh’, over the demons of Hell who want you blinded to His All-Sufficient Grace, Mercy, and Love, and to be the “More than Conqueror in you as He fights your battles if you allow Him! “SURE GRACE”? Let me sum it up in Matthew 5:3-12!! “Blessed are the POOR IN SPIRIT, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek (teachable), for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are those WHO HUNGER AND THIRST For Righteousness, for THEY shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart (washed in the blood of the Lamb!), for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. REJOICE and BE EXCEEDINGLY GLAD, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you!” “IN CHRIST” YOU are “salt of the earth”, “light of the world”, “Let YOUR light shine!”