VIEWPOINT with Chuck Crismier
KINGDOM GARDENING
[music] This is Viewpoint with Attorney and Author Chuck Chris Meyer. Viewpoint is a one hour talk show confronting the issues of America's heart and home. And now with today's edition of Viewpoint, here is Chuck Chris Meyer. There is a beautiful hymn that has, shall we say, endured across the generations and the ages, and it goes something like this. I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses. And the joy we share as we terry there, none other has ever known. And he walks with me, and he talks with me, and he tells me I am in his own. And the joy we share as we terry there, none other has ever known. Where? In the garden. Why is it that both men and women seem to have been attracted by that song over generations, both men and women? I come to the garden alone. Maybe it's because God is a gardener. Maybe because God had a garden on his mind. Maybe we have missed a very significant element of God's teaching and understanding concerning what he desires for you and for me. Maybe he really does want us to enjoy a garden. And maybe we have been reluctant to tend that garden. And what if we have been reluctant to tend the garden? Then perhaps only those who have tended their garden are enjoying the very fruit of it. And so today on Viewpoint, we're going to take a look at the garden of God. That's right. Don't turn your dial just because you don't particularly like yard work or gardening. You see, we're not framing it in terms of yard work. That's not what we're talking about here today. We're talking about gardening. We're talking about maintaining a landscape. We could call it kingdom landscaping. It's a long lost understanding of life from God's viewpoint. And I hope you'll stay tuned. Did you know that the word garden is mentioned 52 times in the Bible? The word gardens is mentioned 12 and the word gardener is mentioned 1. So that's a total of 65 times the garden gardening and gardeners are mentioned. Apparently God had something on his mind from the very beginning. Yes, indeed, from the very beginning. And so we go to the very beginning to launch our program here today on Viewpoint. And please don't turn the dial because it may this program today may change your viewpoint of life itself and of your family and of your role here on this planet. Maybe just maybe because we have not had a real understanding of God's garden. Kingdom landscaping that we have not seen the kind of joy and fulfillment that we have long for. So we go to the book of Genesis chapter 2 starting with verse 8. And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden. Notice there is no indication that there was any garden anywhere on the planet until God planted it. Now why would God plant a garden? Apparently because he thought a garden was necessary. But why was it necessary? You see we need to keep asking these why questions because that's what leads us to the understanding of what is said in the scriptures. The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden and there he put the man whom he had formed out of the dust of the earth. And out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the site. Good for food, the tree of life in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And a river went out of the Eden to water the garden. And from there it was parted and became into four heads. The name of the first is Pisa that is it which compasses the whole land of Havala where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good. There is a padelium and the onyx stone. And the name of the second river is Gihon, the same as that that encompassed the whole land of Ethiopia. And the name of the third river is Hetical. That is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Great River Euphrates. The one where the end of the world ends up on the edge of the garden. And the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. Oh, so Adam was given the responsibility to dress and to keep God's garden. Now do you think those words are wasted on us there? Do you think they're just words of history? No, they're words of implication and application because God doesn't waste his words. In fact, what he has done here is shown us right from the get-go in the book of Genesis chapter 2, his purpose for you and for me in this life. That's right. We're to kill his garden. We're to take care of his garden. We were put in the garden to dress it and to keep it. And that's what our responsibility is. And if we're not dressing and keeping it, guess what's happening to God's garden? It's falling into disrepair. What do you think the world sees when they look at God's supposed garden near the church today? Do you think it's attractive to them? Do you think they want to come rushing to God's garden? I don't think so. They want freebies, but they don't want the burden that goes with the blessing of maintaining the garden. And there's a blessing that comes with maintaining God's garden, but there's also a burden in doing it. That is we share the Father's plan and purposes. We shoulder a portion of that ourselves. Not because we can save ourselves, but because we want to be part of God's kingdom economy and his greater garden. Why don't we have the garden you've eaten today? It's because of sin. Why is it so many Christians don't have much of a garden in their life today? For the same reason, because of sin. The weeds have come in and choked out the garden, defaced it, defamed it, and there's not much left there to see. All they keep going to church though, but their own garden, no, it's not a very welcoming place. But how about you? Do you like to go where there is a beautiful garden? People will pay good money to go and see a very special garden and participate in the joy and the refreshment of it. Why is it we don't see by implication the joy and the refreshment of our own lives being like that garden? What do you think? We want to talk about that here on Viewpoint today. You would be shocked. You will be shocked when you see how the entire Bible is framed around kingdom landscaping or kingdom gardening, the garden of God. So again, I welcome you to Viewpoint. I'm Chuck Chris Myers. This conversation is always with ever increasing conviction talk that transforms. Today is no exception. I trust that as we talk about what God has said, what Jesus has said concerning gardening, concerning the garden of God. You will catch a new and fresh vision for your life. Yes, for your family, your greater family, your extended family, your entire life is going to bloom before you. We'll be right back. Once upon a time, children could pray and read their Bibles in school. Divorces were practically unknown as was child abuse. In our once great America, virginity and chastity were popular virtues and homosexuality was an abomination. So what happened in just one generation? I'm Chuck Chris Myers. I urge you to join me daily on Viewpoint, where we discuss the most challenging issues touching our hearts and homes. Could America's moral slide relate to the fourth commandment? Listen to Viewpoint on this radio station or anytime at saveus.org. The garden of God, understanding, kingdom, landscaping. A long lost understanding of our lives, friends. And today, I hope you'll stay tuned to the entire program. If you can't, then I urge you to go to the program on our website later this evening and thereafter. It will be up there and you'll want to listen to the entirety of the program because if you miss certain parts of it, you're going to miss some of the essential details from God's Viewpoint, God's perspective, about our lives. What he wants, what he expects, and how you and I can have a life, shall we say, that blooms where we're planted. We've heard the phrase bloom where you're planted. Well, how can you bloom if you're not in the garden? You see, so we like to hear people say, well, you're the salt of the earth, you're the light of the world. Well, yeah, but you're also supposed to be blooming where you're planted. We're supposed to be the garden of the Lord, tillers of the garden of the Lord. Now, yes, it involves a certain amount of work. In fact, the Bible says Jesus himself said that we should work for the day is coming when no man can work. There's a time when you do your gardening, there's a time when you don't. Everything has its season, right? Gardening has its season, everything has its season. So Jesus said, work for the night is coming when no man can work. So we need to be about God's garden, kingdom landscaping, so long as the season is available, so long as the season lasts. So in that song, that wonderful song, I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses. In other words, early on, when do most real gardeners get started gardening? Early in the morning. Why do they get started early in the morning? Because it's the cool of the day. It's a very enjoyable and refreshing time. It's a great way to get started in your day. There's just a sense of peace and enjoyment early in the morning. So if we're going to be about kingdom landscaping and kingdom gardening, we have to realize that the time to do that is not tomorrow. The time to do that is today. In fact, the time to do it is early on today. It's not a manana job, always tomorrow. No, the problem that most people have with their lives is that they delay and they delay and they delay and they never get started on kingdom gardening. Not really. And so our families are revealing that. Have you noticed how our families are revealing that? We haven't really been about, we've been gardening for the culture, who we haven't been gardening for God. We've been trying to do things and plant plants and do things with our children, grandchildren and so on, that are pleasing to the culture, but not pleasing to God. We've been planting the wrong plants. We've been selecting the wrong landscape. And so we're getting what we're planting, right? Are you beginning to see how this subject really has intense application in every one of our lives? And it's not just here and there, it's the entirety of our lives. This is a big deal, a much bigger deal than we would want to admit. You know, a lot of people might say, you know, I just don't like to do gardening or I don't like to get out there. I don't want my hands to get dirty or I don't want to sweat or I don't want to get my clothes dirty or I just don't like to work out there or I'm afraid of mosquitoes or who knows. Everybody has their excuses. We all have excuses in our lives, why we don't get about kingdom gardening, don't we? It takes too much time. Oh, I don't have time. Yes, you do. You have all the time that you need to have. You just don't want to take it. You have time to disciple your kids, but you don't. Why don't we disciple our kids? Because we don't want to. Oh, we say we want to, but not really. We say we want a beautiful yard and we say we want a beautiful garden, but we're not willing to lift a finger to do it. My wife was telling me how when we lived in a rental school housing, it was a house across the street from the college my wife had gone to. And then the campus ultimately become a missionary center, US mission center. But in the house that we were in, it was just a plain old house. Nothing particularly interesting to it. It had a little hedge type of bush in front that was not well maintained. It had nothing along the sides. The yard was, the grass yard was not properly maintained. And when we moved in, my wife says, Chuck, you began to completely transform that place. Now I didn't own the property. We were renting. We had no obligation to do the extent to what we did. But I began to trim that hedge across the front, in front of the front porch. And people would begin to look at it. It drew their attention. They were astounded that that hedge could look beautiful. And then the grass got mowed every week. And it was so smooth and green. And then I planted a few flowers in the front bed and then along the side of the house. And all of a sudden the place seemed to be transformed. My wife comments about this. This was like 45 years ago. 50 years ago. But people would go by. They would drive by. They would walk by. And they would comment about it. Noticing the complete transformation. Did it take a lot of time to do that? No, it didn't take a lot of time. But it did take a certain amount of time and a vision to do it. That was about like most of our lives. Most of our lives and our families are what you might call simple house situations with our children there. And we're there as parents and our grandparents wanting to see our children flourish. But we do almost nothing to make it happen. We're just enduring. We're just living there. So as people drive by, as people walk by our house, as people come by our yards and people experience our children and our grandchildren, they don't detect anything that's blooming there. It's just business as usual. Don't you absolutely appreciate when somebody actually takes the time to do something that beautifies a neighborhood? It may actually increase the value of your property. So how about a family? How about a mother and father that are discipling their kids that are taking seriously God's landscaping, spiritual landscaping in their family? Don't you think that's going to end up having an effect on those around the kids in school where they're fraternizing? Even in church, wherever you go, they're going to see others are going to see some blooming that are taking place there, and they're going to say, you know, I just wish my family were like that. But guess what? They won't do the same things that are necessary to make that garden grow. This is not difficult to understand. It's very simple to understand. God began to give me a bit of an understanding of this when I was ten years of age. I was in Fresno, California, and I decided that the midst of Fresno heat got very hot there. That early in the morning, about five, five, thirty in the morning, I would get up and I planted some morning glories. You've heard about morning glories, right? Out of one of those musicals, June is busting out all over. The feeling is getting so intent the morning. Virginia creepers are jumping the jeepers out of all the morning glories on the fence because it's June. Yeah, so I planted these morning glories, and they would come out as the sun was coming out. The morning glories would demonstrate their glory right there on the fence. And I began to enjoy that as a ten-year-old. I planted some zinnias there. So I had zinnias and I had morning glories. And as I recall, I planted a few marigolds. So that was the beginning at ten years of age doing some threshold gardening. But I began to see the value of that, and it never left me. And so there comes an ability when you begin to see a transferable concept between yard care or gardening, your landscape and your own life. And that's what's missing. God gave us the vision starting in Genesis chapter two, but we haven't captured it. We thought it was just information. Oh, yeah, God started a garden. He planted a garden. Okay, he planted a garden. Well, he planted it. He gave Adam the responsibility to till it and to dress it to keep it. Okay. Well, did you know that by generalization, you and I are also Adam, Adam, humankind. That's what it means, humankind. And God, just like he gave Adam the responsibility to till and dress that garden of Eden. So he gives you and me responsibility to dress his extended garden throughout the earth. But what if we don't do that? See, what God is looking for is not us to go out and recruit other gardeners by itself. That's called evangelism. What he really wants is real gardeners. He wants people who are willing to take a gardening vision, a landscaping vision, the garden of God, and see that multiplied throughout the earth, not through a confession of faith, but through a living example. In other words, we have the responsibility to dress and keep that garden. So what does it take? Well, we're going to think through that. We're going to think through it through the mind and heart of Jesus. Because the scriptures give us. Jesus gives us a clear understanding of what this is like. If we were to go into Mark chapter four, we would find Jesus making it abundantly clear. Here's what he says, "So is the kingdom of God." In other words, he's going to tell us what the kingdom of God is like. He said, "It's as if a man were to cast seed in the ground." Oh, a man, Adam, Adam, you, me, made in the image of God, flesh and body, but come out of the dust of the earth. We are to be planters, not just evangelists, but caretakers of God's garden. See, we'll just think of evangelism where you're just thinking about, you're just sowing seed. Have you ever seen a person that said that they were going to start a garden? They just cast seed out there and you look at them a week, two months or a month or two months later, and they don't have a garden. Why do they have a garden? They put the seed out there, but there's some things they didn't do with it, and they don't have a garden. It's the pretense of a garden. That's what evangelism is. Evangelism gives us the feeling that we're starting Kingdom landscaping, but we just don't do enough for the landscape to be completed. And so it actually ends up doing more harm than good. That's kind of what Billy Graham was talking about when he talked to Larry King live a few years ago, and Larry King said, well, Billy, obviously, with a tremendous success of millions and millions of people that you administered to in your crusades. Obviously, there's something, nothing, actually, that you would feel was lacking that you would be disappointed about. Billy Graham said, oh, no, that's not true. He said, what concerns me the most is that I did almost nothing with discipleship. You know what he was saying? He was saying, I sowed a lot of seed out there for evangelism, but we didn't raise many gardens. We didn't really do any spiritual gardening. We didn't really prepare the garden of God. We pretended to do it, but we didn't do it. There was no landscape that came from it, just individual people that claimed to be Christians because they had made a confession of faith, but they did very little with it. Why? They didn't have an understanding from God's viewpoint of what life was to be about. So the balance of the program today, we're going to take a closer look at what God intended. I hope you're scared too. This is beautiful. There is so much more about Chuck Chris Meyer and Save America Ministries. On our website, SaveUS.org. For example, under the marriage section, God has marriage on his mind. Chuck has some great resources to strengthen your marriage. First off, a fact sheet on the state of the marital union, a fact sheet on the state of ministry, marriage, and morals. SaveUS.org. Marriage, divorce, and remarriage. What does the Bible really teach about this? Find all of this at SaveUS.org. Also, a letter to pastors, the Hosea Project, SaveUS.org. And many more resources to strengthen your marriage. It's all on Chuck's website, SaveUS.org. Again, you can listen to Chuck's viewpoint broadcast live and archived, Save America Ministries website at SaveUS.org. We've spent a considerable amount of time here laying the foundation and trying to understand the greater picture from God's viewpoint concerning the Garden of God, Kingdom landscaping, Kingdom gardening, whatever you want to call it. Gospel gardening, I don't care for that term because the word gospel tends to make people think only of evangelism. And that is not just about the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is a much broader understanding than that. You noticed during the break, it talked about marriage. What is marriage? Do you know what marriage is from God's viewpoint? Marriage is the smallest garden that we can plant with another person. From God's viewpoint, it's the smallest microcosm of the Church. A husband, a wife, and the Holy Spirit. And that's why God takes it so seriously because if we fail in that gardening enterprise, we failed. That's why God says what I have put together, man must not, has no right to put asunder. But we said, well, you know, we just don't much like that garden. We want to start a new garden. That's what all these serial marriages and divorces are. Trying to start a new garden, that wasn't God's viewpoint. That's man's viewpoint, but as in God's viewpoint. What God wants is marriages that bring glory to His name, that bloom where they're planted, that cause the Kingdom of God to be manifested with a glory of a garden in the sphere in which that marriage is planted. So that the joy of the Lord can be experienced. So that there can be life and people can come there and experience a kind of freshness and a kind of life that they would expect to find going to a nice garden or in a nice yard somewhere. Are you beginning to get the picture? But the first thing that has to happen to have a garden, you have to plant it. And that's what God did. He planted the garden of Eden. It says he did right there in Genesis chapter 2. East of Eden, he planted the garden. And then he put his man, Adam, in there, and he gave him the responsibility to till it and to keep it. In other words, to take care, to be the gardener of Eden. But Adam didn't do a proper job. He didn't agree with God's viewpoint for gardening. He decided to join with Eve to adopt a different viewpoint of that garden. In other words, he could eat not only of the fruit trees of the garden that God had planted there, but he could eat of the poisonous one, which Satan seduced him to eat. Well, Satan seduced Eve to eat, and then Adam forfeited his authority to take care of that garden, and God removed him from his gardening enterprise. Cast him out of Eden. How many people, how many professing Christians have for all practical purposes, and cast out of Eden in their lives because they refuse to agree with God's viewpoint about how to tend their garden and what to eat and not to eat? Just asking, you never thought that this subject could have such implications, did you? And we just started. So Jesus said, "So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground." So Jesus said, "The kingdom of God is like putting seed in the ground." So what is the seed? Well, Jesus said in Mark 4, "The sower sows the word." The word of God is the seed. Guess what? Very few parents are planting, diligently planting the seed of the word of God in the life of their kids. Very few. Why? They say they revere the word of God, but not so much. You know, it's kind of like asking somebody that you know has a great yard, a great garden, or whatever, and you ask them, "Well, what kind of flowers do you have? Because you want to know what kind of seed you want to know what kind of thing to plant." And so they tell you, and then you never plant any. Why did you ask them? You weren't really serious. Not really. How many people, men, women, go around and ask you, "Well, what do I do with my kids? How do I raise God to be kids? How do I disciple my kids?" So you tell them how, like we did yesterday with George Barda on the program concerning discipleship, and they go from hearing that and do nothing. Nothing. Why? They're not serious. They're like Adam in the garden. They're going to do it their way telling God in essence, you know, "I don't much care for the demands of caring for your garden." I know you put these kids in my household, but I don't much want to do that. It takes too much time, too much effort, besides which the ground of their hearts is not always very good to receive the seed. So you know what? It's just not worth it. Really? So you're telling God that it's not worth it to plant His seed in the mind and heart of your kids. Really, that's what we're saying. It's not worth it. Do you know that the Bible itself is consistent of words? Every word of God is pure, the scripture says. Every word. Why don't we take the word seriously? Jesus is called the word of God. It is He who would be planted in our lives if we would take His word seriously and methodically and diligently day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year, and planted in the lives of our kids, our grandchildren, and in our own hearts. But we don't do that. It's like what George Gallup said back in 1995, he was speaking to the U.S., the Christian publishing industry in Dallas, Texas. And he said, you know what? He said, we still, Americans still revere the Bible. We just don't read it. Isn't that interesting? And now in our churches, we've actually been seduced away from reading the Bible, even our churches, by putting screens up so people don't have to look at the words in the Bible. They don't have to touch it. They don't have to handle it. Make it easy. Friends, gardening is not easy. But there's value at the end. Do you have a vision for the recompense of the reward at the end? Can you see? Is it possible for you to see the end result of a beautiful kingdom garden in your life, the life of your family, your children, grandchildren, whatever? This is a big deal in the mind and heart of God, and he's going to judge us on how we gardened. His garden. You don't really own your kids, did you know that? You don't know anything. God owns it all. And we are the caretakers of the children that he has allotted to us to raise and prepare in his garden. What if we don't? Now you can't be responsible for what somebody else is doing or not doing, but you can be responsible for what you are doing or not doing. I can't hold my neighbor responsible for what they do with regard to their yard, whether they have a vision for gardening or for yard care or whatever. I can't hold them, but I can sure do what I can do in my yard, and I do. This very day, I trimmed five huge bushes, and one of my grandsons cleaning up. We're working together. I've been working with my grandsons, my older grandsons now, for about 20-some years to train them as to how to understand what this matter of gardening and yard care was all about, so that they would have a vision, a greater vision, not just for a work ethic, but for an understanding of the value of what is being done. Will they have the same appreciation that I do? Probably not. But that's not the point. Every person has to gain their own vision, and it starts with you. It starts with me. So we plant. Well, what do we plant in? Well, we plant seeds in ground, don't we? Well, guess what Jesus said. He said that the sower sows the word, and the word is planted in ground, and he said the ground is your heart. Oh, the ground is our heart. So, what do we do with ground? What does a farmer or what does somebody in their yard, starting a garden, what do they do with the ground? They test the soil, they want to make sure that it's proper, the proper ingredients that are placed there so that things can actually grow, not all soils are created equal. We live in an area where there's a tremendous amount of clay soil. It's not the best soil for planting, so you have to amend it. And then you till the soil. Why do you till the soil? Because it's hard. Nothing's been growing there, so it may be weeds, and so it's hard. Did you know that the soil of most people's hearts is hard? So it has to be tilled. How do you till the soil? You work it. That's what they call working the soil. You turn it over, you chop up the clogs and whatever, you amend it. Make sure that it's prepared for the planting of seed. Well, what kind of a garden do you want? What kind of seed are you going to plant? That's the next decision, isn't it? We'll be right back. Have you ever considered what the early church was like? Many people are developing a heart longing for greater fulfillment in our practices as Christians. A recent study showed 53,000 people a week are leaving the back door of America's churches in frustration. What is going on? Why has there not been even a 1% gain among followers of Christ in the last 25 years? Could it be that God is seeking to restore 1st century Christianity for the 21st century? Jesus said, "I'll build my church." Is Christ by His Spirit stirring to prepare the church for the 21st century? The early church prayed together and broke bread from house to house. They were family and it was said by all who observed, "Behold how they love one another." Incredible. But the same can be found right now. Go to saveus.org and click sell church. We can revive 1st century Christianity for the 21st century. It's about people, not programs. It's about a body. Not a building. That's saveus.org. Click sell church. Have you noticed how weeds will make almost anything ground to sow in? They sow themselves. It's amazing. I was out of my driveway just the other day and I noticed all along the edge of the driveway before you go up toward the porch. There were all kinds of little weeds growing in there. There was hardly any space. The driveway was poured. It was black top. There wasn't any cracks in it particularly. But here are all these weeds. How did they get there? Weeds don't seem to need any particular soil to grow in. They'll grow anywhere. And that, my friends, is why we need to be very careful about what we're planting. You've got to know the difference between whether it's a weed or whether it's your plant, what you wanted. And then you know that the weeds are going to tend to come up first. They're just volunteers. You don't have to coax them. They have enough within themselves to coax themselves to choke out everything else you plant. So you've got to be willing to weed your garden. Weed your yard. Weed your family. Weed your own life. How do we do that? Well, the Holy Spirit is the one who convicts us of the weeds in our yard. Convicts us of sin. That's what the Holy Spirit does. And when we don't listen to Him, the garden of our yard just grows up with weeds. Because we don't pull them out. We just think it's too much effort. We just want to go on crews, spiritual crews. We're always on a cruise. Have you noticed how people always want to go on a cruise? It's like they get tired of real life. They don't see much value in doing the things that really matter. So they're always going on cruises. I know some people that have been on four, five, six cruises in the last year or two. Why? Is an escape from life? I mean, it's one thing to go on a cruise. I'm trying to think of it. My wife and I have been on three cruises in 58 years. One of them was paid for by our daughters for our 40th wedding anniversary to the Bahamas for three days. Another one, we went to, I think it was called a carnival cruise to Mexico from Southern California and back. We didn't much appreciate that cruise. No, it wasn't all that good. The other was a cruise down the Mississippi River. That was the most enjoyable one. A week. We'll never forget it. Was it good? Yes. Was it memorable? Yes. Do we feel like we have to do it every three or four, five, six, ten years? No. Because we did it and we enjoy life. We're practicing living, not running for life from life. Some people are so active, so pursuing, for instance, retirement from life that they never get about life, not from God's perspective. And so the garden of their life doesn't look like anything. There may be a cultural garden, but it's not a kingdom garden. Weeds. Now, before the weeds, even before you start watering, the weeds will come up. They don't seem to need much encouragement, do they? So we got to keep them under control. And then we water. Did you know that the Bible talks about the water of the Word? We need the water of the Word, the Holy Spirit, to give life for growth in our lives so that the garden of our life can prosper and produce what is supposed to produce. Every plant will produce unless it gets the right amount of water, the right amount of care, the same is true spiritually in our lives, isn't it? But how about this weeding business? How about this weeding business? Well, maybe for those who have read my book, Seduction of the Saints, they will make the connection now to see how that book actually helped conduct spiritual weeding in their life or weed prevention. You see, it's one thing to pull weeds, it's another thing to prevent weeds. Hard to prevent weeds. And you can spray weeds, you can put down weed preventer, you can put down fabric underneath the ground to try to prevent growth of weeds, but sure a shoot and weeds are going to come up. You can't prevent them all, so we've got to keep them on control, we've got to acknowledge that they're there in our life and we've got to pull them out, make sure we have killed them whatever it takes before they mature. Because once they mature, guess what they're going to do? So more of the same in your life, they're going to multiply, and then we can't figure out why there's so much of this happening in our lives, in Christian lives. We're not taking care of that, we're not gardening. Somehow, we've been given the idea that if we just had the seed planted in a Billy Graham crusade, or in some other situation, we made a life confession of Christ that that's all that God wanted. Oh, my dear friend, that is just planting a seed. That's just the beginning of what God wanted. The seed has to be planted. You know, here's what Jesus said about that. He said, "So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground, and he should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring up and grow up, he knows not how." So here's the deal. We know that the seed is going to spring up because that's the nature of the seed. God created it to do that. We don't know how even science today and all of its best efforts can't really tell you how a baby comes to be. Oh, they can use all kinds of scientific lingo. They can talk about the sperm and they can talk about the egg and they can talk about all these things. But in reality, they can't really tell you how it happens because that's unique to God. He's the one that creates the seeds. The Word of God is determined to be a living seed and it will produce after its kind. That's why God said in the book of Isaiah, "My word shall not return void, but it will accomplish that which I please and prosper in the thing where I said it." When it's planted, his Word will produce according to its kind. Why is the Word not producing according to its kind? Because we're not planting it. That's why it's not hard to figure it out, friends. You don't have to go to an American university, get the information. And whatever you do, don't go to Colombia because they'll rebel against the very concept of planting the seed. They're planting other seeds. Look, we're not going to be able to cover the whole ground here today on viewpoint. Pun intended, ground. We're not going to be able to cover all the ground here concerning the Garden of God. But we got enough under our belts here today to inspire if there's a willingness to be inspired. The Holy Spirit is brooding over what has been said here today because what has been said is straight out of the Word of God. From Genesis through Mark. And the Holy Spirit is working on that. He is working in your life both to will and to do of his good pleasure to become a kingdom gardener, the Garden of God. Now, whether you will become that is up to you. You see, God is working in us, but we have to do the work. He's working in us to help us. That's his grace. He's enabling power to enable us to favor us to get on with what he wants us to do. But you have to do it. Adam had to till the Garden. Moses had to stretch out his rod over the Red Sea. Gideon had to stretch out his sword over the Midianites. God requires you and me as humankind on this planet to do his will. To sow kingdom gardens, to tend the garden, to prosper it, you and I don't create the seed. We're given the seed, which is the Word of God. Now it's time to plant it. Now, in terms of weeding, there are many of the folks who have said that the book "Suduction of the Saints" is one of the most important and practical books they've ever read. Why? Because it's so practical. Because it's the Word of God applied to help us to keep us from allowing the ground of our hearts to be taken over by weeds through seduction and deception. That's how it happens. That's how Satan sows to seduction and deception in our lives. Jesus said it was going to be the most principal characteristic of the end times. That's what he told his disciples in Matthew 24. Take heed that no man deceive you. So seduction of the Saints, it's an $18 book, yours for $15. It's on our website, saveus.org. Saveus.org, you can call us at 1-800-SAVEUSA, 1-800-SAVEUSA, or write to us at Save America Ministries, P.O. Box 70879, Richmond, Virginia 23255, writing a check at $5 for postage in hand. I don't think you're going to be disappointed. I really don't. It's a life-transforming book because it's so practical. It's got plenty of information in it. You won't be disappointed with that. But it's the application of the information that's what makes the difference. That's why people have said, some actually have said that from their perspective it was the second most important book they had ever read other than the Bible. Now, I can't say that for me or for anybody else, but I'm saying it will have a very profound effect upon your life as a kingdom gardener. Just because you say you don't like gardening doesn't mean you have any option about being a kingdom gardener. You don't. God is going to hold every single mom or dad, every single pastor, every single person responsible for being a kingdom gardener. Not just to sow seed, but to take care of the seed that is sown. And to raise up people to do the word, the will, and the ways of the Lord. And to display the glory of God on this planet before Jesus comes again. And you believe he's coming again, I know. Right? Right. Against the auction of the Saints, $15 on our website, save us.org. You can call us at 1-800-Save USA, 1-800-Save USA, or write to us at Save America Ministries. The Obonk 70879, Richmond, Virginia 2, 3255, ready to check at $5 for postage and family and become a partner, friends. Do it today. And if you have not yet joined the persecution project and entered in upon that, I urge you not to forget it. But when you're able, join with us in that $250. We'll be able to have 10 books when it comes out in August that you can put in the hands of other people, much like a kingdom gardener. That's right. Thanks for joining us. God bless and be a blessing. May the Lord prosper in the garden of your life. You've been listening to Viewpoint with Chuck Chris Meyer. Viewpoint is supported by the faithful gifts of our listeners. Let me urge you to become a partner with Chuck as I'm voiced in the Church declaring vision for the nation. Join us again next time on Viewpoint as we confront the issues of America's heart and heart. [Music] [Music] You You