Thorns

The “thorn” in the Bible is a symbol of man’s sin, evil, wickedness, etc. It can be used to mean struggle or opposition or is a result or punishment for our sin. No matter how you look at it thorns are bad and we all have them to deal with. The 1st 41 references are in the Old Testament which is when God taught us thru Israel’s good and bad times … how to fear, obey and do so as we rejoice due to God loving us even when we do not deserve it. Solomon, the wisest man ever, repeated over and over that our wisdom starts with fearing our Holy God so we might obey him more often and avoid many of these thorns. We only know what to obey by reading the Bible, listening to the spirit and praying. All of this is because God only wants to make us holy like him and that is best no matter the cost or pain to us. Therefore, we should rejoice facing our thorns or the thorns of the world because if we are in good fellowship with God the thorns will burn up or be removed and all this will be used to show that he is the one true God. If we are not in good fellowship, meaning zero un-repented sin hanging out there, we are adding to the thorn problem.

I had to understand and deal with how evil half of me still is. This is a must before I could ever expect to get a better relationship with God in this life, which is only for serving him and furthering his kingdom. I never thought I needed to go thru my daily life and be so critical of my sins because “God loves me anyway”. Guess what? He loves everyone else just as much and my sin has consequences on all! Romans 5:18-19, Genesis 3:7-19, 2 Samuel 12:10-12 We are so quick to say sinners deserve what they get or blame it all on the bad people, listen up; we are all still huge sinners! Good news is, if we believe Jesus truly loved us enough to die for us and was raised three days later, we have the power thru the Holy Spirit to control our thorns more often. It’s a deception of the devil to believe I was past needing (thorn checks) because I had accepted Christ. . Listen up; we are a NEW CREATION only because we have a new hope of eternal salvation thru Jesus, 1 Peter 1:3, and the Holy Spirit to help until we actually get our new body like Jesus. Only through obedience though. I want everyone to understand how much I wish I would have gave into this sooner. I don’t want you to have to go thru what I did. God is very clear he disciplines his people whom he loves at any cost, but if we will fear him, obey and repent, he turns back to us and helps us deal this. I just finally laid it all back at the bottom of the cross and his blood covered it. Once saved always saved, but this removes the thorns that can entangle us again and only then releases the freedom of the cross. The freedom is the peace and rest I could never find without true fellowship thru Christ. This is revival! I believe we fight this cause we fear the small amount of pain needed to get to the good part. I bet if you were going to die and the doctor said you need a surgery that would hurt for a second, but save your life and free you, you would be waiting in line for that. It is time to take our medicine! I promise it is worth it!

Israel’s journey showed me that the thorns get worse and worse. He pleads and then judgment. The end of old and new begins. All the revivals start with dealing with the thorns. Consecrate yourself, clean yourself, and crucify my flesh. God doesn’t remove my sinful flesh until physical death, but by allowing the Spirit to reveal my weak points I can achieve more self-control of my flesh. This takes us all the way through the Bible to show Israel failed and if we are not careful we will do the same very soon. We are all the children of God, God’s people. We need to learn more from their mistakes.

• Punishment for disobeying to remind us forever ---Gen 3:18

We need reminders because after our first sin it did not seem to take long until it got so bad God even said he underestimated how bad we were and questioned himself about creating us so he destroyed the whole world except for one that saved all of mankind. Sound familiar? Genesis 6:6-8

• We will pay if our evil harms others --- Exodus 22:6

Shortly after this God gets so sick of our thorns he has to actually separate himself or consume us. Exodus 33:3. Glad he had a plan to restore our fellowship!

• If you don’t remove temptation of evil you will suffer for it – we aren’t strong enough to live with evil and not do the same --- Num 33:55

We can’t grow the seed among the thorns. Cleanse and rebuild the temple as the revivals speak of. Get rid of our sin!

• Keep it up and He will not help – you will face evil on your own and lose --- Joshua 23:13, Judges 2:3
• If you repent He will help. Gideon asked others for help and when they denied they were punished – once evil was gone, 40 years of peace --- Judges 8:7 and 16

The end result of all great revivals is peace and rest. These are things we think we can accomplish on our own. We have been lied to. Nothing on this planet brings the peace we are groaning for.

• Then back to falling for false teachers because we don’t want to follow only God – willingly follow evil – Israel begged for Saul also – we totally ask for it --- Judges 9:14-15
• Evil is not to be messed with, not even touched with the hand and we know this --- 2 Samuel 23:7, Proverbs 22:5

This is why they were killed if needed, to get ready for the revival. At all cost you must remove temptation and not mess around. No half doing it. Remove all high places. Now we can’t kill everyone put we are to crucify our flesh and run from sin.

• Our desire can overwhelm us --- Job 5:5
• Evil has no real power to harm if in good fellowship with God --- 2 Samuel 23:6, Psalm 58:9 and Psalms 118:12

The devil can only use what we hold as more important than God against us. If God truly is all that matters we should never fear evil. God promises if we obey he is there.

• Lazy are blocked by their own evil or sin blocks your way and for the righteous the path is cleared ---Proverbs 15:19

All real revival leads to God going before them and helping clear the path. If not, they are defeated and they never rebuilt as instructed.

• Sin grows --- Proverbs 24:31
• Sinners don’t even understand the punishment – drunks don’t even feel the thorns – wisdom is wasted on a fool/arrogant – don’t even argue with them --- Proverbs 26:9

We try to distract ours with any pleasures to make ourselves happy and to make the convicting stop. Happy is such a weak emotion. It is completely dependent on what happens to us. This is why we have to keep trying harder to be happy. Once something bad happens to us, no happiness. God brings joy! Paul rejoiced in his struggles. Totally different way to live.

• The happiness of a fool is short-lived ---Ecclesiastes 7:6
• The righteous should stick out among the wicked ---Song of Solomon 2:2
• God allows evil to increase and makes our lives tougher as punishment ---Isaiah 5:6
• The wicked are coming to overrun ---Isaiah 7:19
• Wealth will do no good, it is short-lived and easily ruined by evil ---Isaiah 7:23
• Men will have to defend themselves due to wickedness being unchecked ---Isaiah 7:24
• No one is tending the grounds because of fear of evil has overtaken, animals are turned loose to run freely – a wild place --- Isaiah 7:25

We have to tend our own ground. Have to remove the thorns or they will win. Consecrate yourselves. If you fear it you will serve it. Fear God only!!

• As wickedness rages, the Holy One, in a single day destroys evil – the cross – this gets me “tackle someone” excited!! – this is what it’s all about baby!! ---Isaiah 10:17
• God protects ---Isaiah 27:4
• Mourn for Israel because they are so happy in their sin ---Isaiah 32:13

Does it ever sink in that God goes out of his way to set up everything for us and we turn and run the other way most of the time or figure our plan sure sounds better? He actually mourns for us. We break his heart.

• They will be burnt up ---Isaiah 9:18 and Isaiah 33:12
• Still increasing ---Isaiah 34:13
• Jesus is everlasting ---Isaiah 55:13
• Repent, break up the unplowed ground and remove thorns (Revival) ---Jeremiah 4:3
• If you don’t remove evil your works are a waste of time, thorns will ruin and God is against you --- Jeremiah 12:13

This is huge! We can work ourselves to death, but if it wasn’t what he wanted it is worthless to him. He is displeased with most of OUR work right now.

• Do not fear Israel’s wickedness – obey no matter whom is against you. Full circle – God’s chosen are now the wicked – being feared by the righteous ---Ezekiel 2:6
• God will bless just to prove he is God ---Ezekiel 28:24
• Eventually He will allow your evil to trap us ---Hosea 2:6
• Judgment is coming – are we really ready for this? ---Hosea 9:6
• Wickedness will be destroyed – they will wish they were dead --- Hosea 10:8

Have you ever gotten to the point where you realized that disobeying God is so painful you wished you were dead? I have!! It is the total lack of peace that some of you know far too well.

• No righteous - the best are thorns - Israel is hardened, confused and trapped
in their sin – drunk and consumed like tender --- Micah 7:4 and Nahum 1:10

Do I really need to point out the multiple references to drinking and how we should not play around with sin? Wine in the bible is cough medicine at best. We make fun of the homeless for drinking that to get drunk. The people in the bible would think us barbaric for what we drink. This rebate angers God and we have been confused and trapped by it!!

Israel is God’s chosen, he called and they accepted, just as we are his chosen now. Is this not the theme of the Bible? God is just. He is faithful and to be feared. We always disobey. He disciplines. We only turn back after enduring way to much struggle because we are arrogant in our own desires or ability to fix it. God forgives. If this continues it always gets worse the next time until we are trapped by our wickedness and God is just for allowing this. Listen up, all sin angers God. He hates our sin, but loves us. Almost too much for our own good, but he wants to only love thru kindness. I would be better served if he made me fear him more often though. It is the only way we obey! Exodus 20:20, Proverbs 16:6 Maybe I was just too stubborn to acknowledge the beating I was taking? Maybe you are different? Because he is perfectly just he must at some point punish for not repenting of sin. Repenting means wanting that change in your heart and actually changing! Stop sinning! If we don’t he will actually be against us! I finally understand this is something I never want again!

The last 14 references in the New Testament will show you that we are given the history of Israel because that is us now. Are we all not God’s people, he made us all, and we are all saved by faith? The only thing different in the New Testament is Jesus instead of “the law”. Listen, there are no new things and you better believe history repeats itself and that concerns me. I have been finding it very interesting how the Old Testament goes into such great detail to explain a topic such as the thorn and the New Testament is pretty short and to the point. I believe it does this because as God’s people we should already have known most of this before Jesus came and died for us. I believe we have overlooked the amount of teaching in the Old Testament. Here is the New Testament:

• Warning of false teacher --- Matthew 7:16, Luke 6:44

Anything that is not in line with scripture is false. These false teachers can be anyone teaching his word incorrectly. We are asked to test everything we hear by his word. I am asking you to test everything I write. If it is not right it is your duty as a brother or sister to lovingly bring that to my attention. If you do not you will be held accountable also. Please, only with scripture though.

• Can’t grow seed among thorns, the thorns will always ruin the seed – can’t serve God and flesh – we will always side with our flesh and never mature or be fruitful ---Matthew 13:7 and 22, Mark 4:7 and 18-19, Luke 8:7 and 14

This is the call to revival. Remove the thorns or we will be strangled to death. Something is always growing too. If the seed is not growing the thorns are. There is no complacency in a relationship with God. We have far too much to be taught to get lazy and quit growing.

• Wickedness has gotten to such a point that it mocks God with its own evil and arrogance ---Matthew 27:29, Mark 15:17, John 19:2 and 5 sounds like Lamech in Genesis 4:23-24 also
• We will never get rid of evil – even in the best of us – realization of always being a sinner should humble us more often and rely on his strength --- 2 Corinthians 12:7

I finally understood that if a man like Paul could not pray them away I had zero chance. I humble myself and let God deal with it. We are pitifully weak but he has plenty of strength. We just have the wrong guy fighting.

• Without being useful for God we are worthless – in danger of being cursed – in the end they will be burned --- Hebrews 6:8

This sounds way too much like we have heard in the Old Testament. Don’t be misled, can’t serve two God’s, we are so arrogant we mock God with our sin and he warns before it is too late to break-up the unplowed ground – the unwillingness to deal with our sin problem and endure a little disciple is our downfall. We think we are past that and have become pharisutical and lazy and only looking for more blessings and standing. Wandering why everything has gotten so bad and the church will be very sorry if we don’t repent. We are all judged for all deeds and or lack of. Jesus does not leave us unaccountable for sin except in the case of salvation. We will answer for all of our works/actions. Ezekiel speaks of this. We will all stand and give an account of our stewardship of his blood. John went to heaven. John warns about being ashamed when we get there. We need to FEAR this more than we do.

I am so excited about what is coming I can’t stand it! I want to say one last thing and this is important. It is time to put up or shut up. God hates lukewarm worse than cold. Revelations 3: 14-17 If you are not going to do this and mean it you are asking for it, if you run around saying it without living it or if you don’t believe we all need this just stop reading. The Bible is clear that evil does not ever win. If the Church is obeying his word God fights this battle for us. Evil is winning, agreed? That means he ain’t fighting for us right now cause we ain’t obeying. We all need to break up our untilled ground before it is too late! I finally realized if I quit now I would never be able to live with myself and God would never let me!!!

I love you cause Jesus loves us both and there is absolutely nothing you can do about that!

BEZ