1910AFC030119 – You’re full of it – Fruit for Thought
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Luke 6:45 – 45 The good person out of the good treasure a of the heart produces good, and the evil person out of evil b treasure produces evil; for it is out of the abundance c of the heart that the mouth speaks.
a θησαυροῦ (thēsaurou) from θησαυρός (thésauros) {thay-sow-ros’} → a store-house for precious things; a storehouse of treasure, including (treasured) thoughts stored up in the heart and mind; the root the English term “thesaurus” which refers to a “storehouse (treasure) of synonyms.” thēsaurós is literally “a receptacle for valuables” therefore the heart is the vessel/receptacle that holds good or evil.
b πονηρόν (ponēron) from πονηρός (ponéros) {pon-ay-ros’} → toilsome, bad, evil, bad, wicked, malicious, slothful; derived from πόνος (pónos), “pain, laborious trouble” – properly, pain-ridden, emphasizing the inevitable agonies (misery) that always go with evil.
c περισσεύματος (perisseumatos) from περίσσευμα (perisseuma) {per-is’-syoo-mah} → περί peri- prefix meaning “all-around / excess” as judged by the outcome/results + properly, exceed, go beyond the expected measure, surpasses, to be over and above, to abound.
Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea! Hopefully when you read today’s Key Verse, something triggered a glimmer of memory that sounded like “By their fruits you will know them.” If not, perhaps now that I have mentioned that phrase it rings a bell. Here is the source of that saying:
Matthew 7:16b-20 – Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? 17 In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus you will know them by their fruits.
So there is the idea behind “Fruit for Thought.” We sow and we reap; whatever we sow, that is what our harvest will be. You cannot sow wheat and harvest watermelons where you were sowing wheat. You cannot plant a vineyard and harvest barley from the vines. You cannot plant roses and harvest potatoes from the thorns. But, what about these things we all sow and reap?
– You cannot sow evil and pain and reap good things.
– You cannot spread goodness and joy and reap death.
We’ll come back to those last two statements shortly, but first, why would I tell you “You’re full of it?” Well for that, we have to look into what I used to call “Chick Todd’s Glass Class.”
The glass is never half-full. The glass is never half-empty. The glass is always full. THIS glass is partially filled with water and partially filled with air. If you’re a water-breather, that’s good because half of the glass sustains your life. If you’re an air breather, that’s good because the other half of the glass sustains your life. If you live in a vacuum, it’s still good because neither the water nor the air affect you. So, it’s all good as long as you take it all and use what you need. To the optimist, the glass is half full. To the pessimist, the glass is half empty. To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be! (LOL)
God’s Grace is like that. It’s all-sufficient, and always good, and always just what you need with plenty extra thrown in for others. We need to be careful, though, of the nature of that surplus. If you, if I, if we think of the full content of our hearts, can we truly say there’s nothing there other than the Grace and Goodness of God? Like the water and air in Chick Todd’s Glass Class, our lives are a combination of what’s in The World. If we think of those two facets of being – breathing air or breathing water – Earth’s creatures pretty much have to be one or the other. While we do breathe fluid as a fully-alive embryo and fetus, once we are ushered into Earth’s atmosphere, our fluid-breathing days are over. Now, I can’t push this figure of speech much farther, but you can see that there truly is a presence of Good and a presence of Evil that we must contend with moment by moment. It is a battle raging inside each of us. It can be a brutally vicious fight. I’m thinking back around 10 years ago, and the story of The Black Wolf and the White Wolf. (← Check it out!)
I think most of us have read the story about the black wolf and the white wolf inside of us, fighting for control. The story ends with the promise that the wolf we feed is the one that wins. In everything in our lives we face the same kind of dichotomy – the conflict between Good and Evil, between carnal and spiritual, between conscience and consciousness of the effect of our choices. We have all fed both and known the victory of each. It’s not a pretty story. I think all of us would like to just dump the whole apple-in-the-garden outcome and get back to God without all the pain and suffering brought about by sin. It’s too bad that isn’t going to happen. We have to deal with sin as is our inheritance; BUT we do not have to be mastered by it!
In Pope Francis’ Lenten Message we find this statement: “Sin leads man to consider himself the god of creation, to see himself as its absolute master and to use it, not for the purpose willed by the Creator but for his own interests…” and really, isn’t that the gist of what we have to fight against every day? The amount and degree of evil we see around us is staggering. You hear about it daily in the Major Network News. Terrorists, political high jinks, allegations of crimes committed that sometimes are decades away, and – most heinously evil – new and more gruesome ways to murder children both in and outside the womb. Doctors can force a breech delivery and pierce the neck of the baby with a needle or scalpel to sever the spinal cord before the head is delivered. Or they can use sharp instruments to dissect the child inside the womb and then pull the parts out to be discarded. A newer method is to inject the child’s heart with poison like Potassium Chloride or Digoxin to force a heart attack, and then the dead body is expelled vaginally 1-2 days later. Some will crush the skull and then pull out the remains with powerful suction, or just open the skull and suction the brains first and cut up the rest to be extracted with forceps. And now, several states – and the US Senate! – have given blanket immunity from prosecution to a wide variety of healthcare providers to murder a child up until the moment of delivery and even if it survives that botched abortion, they can just walk off and leave it to die. This is not perceived as anything evil by millions of people! This is every bit as evil as the Canaanites’ worship of Moloch.
This vulgar deity is also known as Moloch, Molech, Milcom, or Malcam, Baal Hammon and his consort Tanit, and in Greek Kronos because of the parallels of that deity devouring his children. Worshippers of this aberration of human nature built huge bronze statue of a grotesque beast with the head of a bull and the body of a man with outstretched hands. There was a large bronze brazier in front of the image. The image and brazier were heated red hot. Infants and children were placed in Moloch’s hands to be burned alive. Their bodies would fall into the brazier and be burned beyond recognition. The World has developed a less obvious form of the sacrifice of innocents to a more palatable “god.” We kill preborn and newborn infants in the womb and on the operating table for the deity called Self. It is no less evil than what was done in the name of Moloch. Evil like this has become so commonplace that mentioning it in the news, in the Government, and in day-to-day life has – for many – become trite and unnoticeable. It is reminiscent of the book by Hannah Arendt called “The Banality of Evil” about the revelations at Nuremberg. People knew about the atrocities and ignored them. That, too, is evil.
Here are some Scriptures related to sacrificing children:
Acts 7:42-43 – 42 But God turned away from them and handed them over to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets: ‘Did you offer to me slain victims and sacrifices forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? 43 No; you took along the tent of Moloch, and the star of your god Rephan, the images that you made to worship; so I will remove you beyond Babylon.’
Jeremiah 7:30-32 – 30 For the people of Judah have done evil in my sight, says the Lord; they have set their abominations in the house that is called by my name, defiling it. 31 And they go on building the high place of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire – which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind. 32 Therefore, the days are surely coming, says the Lord, when it will no more be called Topheth, or the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of Slaughter: for they will bury in Topheth until there is no more room.
Jeremiah 19:4-6 – 4 Because the people have forsaken me, and have profaned this place by making offerings in it to other gods whom neither they nor their ancestors nor the kings of Judah have known, and because they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent, 5 and gone on building the high places of Baal to burn their children in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, which I did not command or decree, nor did it enter my mind; 6 therefore the days are surely coming, says the Lord, when this place shall no more be called Topheth, or the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of Slaughter.
Leviticus 20:2-5 – 2 Say further to the people of Israel:
Any of the people of Israel, or of the aliens who reside in Israel, who give any of their offspring to Molech shall be put to death; the people of the land shall stone them to death. 3 I myself will set my face against them, and will cut them off from the people, because they have given of their offspring to Molech, defiling my sanctuary and profaning my holy name. 4 And if the people of the land should ever close their eyes to them, when they give of their offspring to Molech, and do not put them to death, 5 I myself will set my face against them and against their family, and will cut them off from among their people, them and all who follow them in prostituting themselves to Molech.
Belovéd, our hearts are to be a storehouse of Love and Goodness so that from that storehouse we can bring out great Treasures of more Goodness and Love. My heart, your heart, our hearts ARE truly grieved and sickened by this vile and violent evil; witness Exodus 23:2 – 2 You shall not follow a majority in wrongdoing; when you bear witness in a lawsuit, you shall not side with the majority so as to pervert justice. Is the preference for murder truly a majority opinion? If so, we are in jeopardy of the same justice as the perpetrators of such evil. Some of you may, by now, be thinking. “Hey! Stick to Bible lessons and stay out of politics!” Folks, this is not politics – although many, many try to make it about that. This is about morality, ethics, Goodness and Love; it is about Life as God has ordained, not as earthlings have maintained. We know that Good and Evil battle through our days like ravenous beasts. We know God knows that too, and we can see by looking at terrorists, “religious” fanatics, selfish choices that lead to innocent deaths, and obscene acts of fornication and abuse that God has allowed the Tares to grow with the Wheat. (See 1035AFC082710) Even among the Apostles, there was a traitor; he did what he did without interference from Jesus, and it cost him his eternity with God. We are not the deity that created and controls the Universe, nor are we the “deity” created by the hands of men to take innocent lives for selfish reasons. We are not deities at all. It’s time we start being more visibly, vocally, and viscerally outspoken about those who have taken up the mantle of deity for themselves. That is how they have decided to fill their glasses, with sacrilege, blasphemy, and desecration. That is the treasure they have chosen. That is what fills their hearts – Evil. Our hearts are not like their hearts. We can speak out against this evil. You may phone the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121. A switchboard operator will connect you directly with the Senate office you request.
We know that the glass is ALWAYS FULL. It might have 120 cc’s of water and 180 cc’s of air, but still, it’s full. If you’re a fish, the water is great. If you’re a butterfly, the water’s not so great. But you know, we usually end up where we’re supposed to be, doing what we’re supposed to do, and living as we’re supposed to live. We may regret some of our choices, but those choices make us who we are and brought us to this point in life. If you think about it, that’s not half bad. We can choose to defend Life – or not. What shall we do, then? Go all radical and protest in the streets? Perhaps that’s not what is required in your life right now, but try this: Give God a little PUSH. Pray Until Something Happens. Take up the FROG – Fully Rely On God. Exercise your FAITH – “Fully Aware I Trust Him.” Are you afraid someone will disagree with you? Remember, FEAR is False Evidence Appearing Real. When you look at your worried face in the mirror, tell yourself “Relax! God’s got this!” BE in him as he is in you. Think of John 16:33 – 33 I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world! Go forth and bear fruit that is Good (See also John 15:16)
Which treasure chest suits us best? The one empty one with the long tongue and ferocious teeth or the one overflowing with All Good things? With which treasure do you choose to be filled?
Please read 2 Peter 2:4-12. Thank you for enduring this L-O-N-G post!
Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com
Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
Proverbs31:8 – 8 Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves; ensure justice for those being crushed. Taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. New Living Translation (NLT)
