Kingsword Bible Study
Kingsword Bible Study
Ask, Seek & Knock
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In this episode we look at God’s command to His people to ask, seek and knock. We look at why He tells us to do so in this order and how we can apply this command in our prayer life. We look at each individual part to see what they each truly mean in our daily lives and how this formula for praying successful prayers is necessary for us to understand to take our prayer life to the next level, so we can both have a greater understanding of God’s Word and greater effectiveness in advancing God’s Kingdom!
Welcome to the King's Word Bible study. Today our topic is going to be plowshares and pruning hooks. Let's begin today in Joel chapter free. In Joel
Matthew 7:7
SPEAKER_00Chapter 3, beginning in the first verse, it says, For behold, in those days and in that time, when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people, and for my heritage, Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations and parted my land. Here we find the nations being brought together for a purpose. God was drawing them all to the same place at the same time. Yet as they came together,
Mark 11:24
SPEAKER_00we don't find them turning to God in humility and repentance like God was calling them to. We find something else entirely. Second Chronicles chapter 7 and verse 14 tells us, If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land? That's not just a promise that's unique to Israel. That's available for any nation of the world who will follow what the Lord tells them to do. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. But verses four to six tell us, Yea, what have ye to do with me, O Tyre and Zidane, and all the coasts of Palestine? Will ye render me a recompense? Swiftly and speedily will I return your recompense upon your own head, because ye have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried into your temples my goodly pleasant things. The children also of Judah and the children of Jerusalem have ye sold unto the Grecians, that ye might remove them far from their border. The nations turn their back on God, refusing his outstretched hand, ignoring his offer of mercy and compassion, and harden their hearts in their evil and wicked ways. Far from making peace with the Lord and peace with one another, they turn to war. Verses nine to ten tell us, proclaim ye this among the Gentiles, prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near, let them come up, beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears, let the weak say, I am strong. These are fascinating verses. Take your plowshare, take your pruning hooks, your instruments and tools of farming and providing for yourself, and make them into weapons, turn them into swords, turn them into spears, turn them into things that will inflict injury and hurt people and divide people and tear them apart. That's a startling picture that's painted here. What's this all leading up to? We find the ultimate point of this account a few verses later. Verses 12 to 4 say, Let the heathen be wakened and come up to the valley of Jehosaphat, for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about. Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest
Psalms 37:4-5
SPEAKER_00is ripe. Come, get you down, for the press is full, the fats overflow, for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision, for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. This is the ultimate turning point of what we're talking about here. All the nations gathered together find themselves here in the valley of Jehoshaphat. That's the second time that we find this valley mentioned. Why is that so important? Why does God mention it specifically? Jehoshaphat means Yahweh is judged or the Lord judges. When we hear the valley of decision brought up, it's almost always in connection with our decision to come to Christ. That's the way that it's preached. We're the ones that we see as standing there in the valley, but that's not really what this is about. It is part of it, but it's not the whole. The real decision isn't ours in the valley, it's God's decision. The nations
Jeremiah 17:9
SPEAKER_00already made their decision to turn from God and to rebel. They already refused his offer of grace. The Lord is the one who's judging here. He's the one who's choosing to make this the day of his judgment and his wrath against wickedness. Why does God bring up the name of Jehosaphat? Second Chronicles chapter 20 tells us about Moab, Ammon, and Mount Seir coming together, uniting with one another to battle against Judah. What did he do when he was faced with so many nations coming against him at the same time? Verse 4 says, And Judah gathered themselves together to ask help of the Lord, even out of all the cities of Judah. They came to seek the Lord. He did what the many nations in the book of Joel didn't do. He offered up a
Ezekiel 36:26
SPEAKER_00prayer to the Lord over the course of the next few verses, pouring out his heart in humility before the Lord, reminding the Lord of his promises and standing boldly on his word. As he ended his prayer, the Spirit of God came upon Jehazael, a Levite, and verse 15 tells us, and he said, Hearken ye all Judah and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, and now King Jehoshaphat, thus saith the Lord unto you, be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours, but God's. That's the key. The last phrase here is the most important. The battle wasn't his.
James 4:3
SPEAKER_00It wasn't going to be by man's strength. It wasn't going to be by the arm of flesh that this deliverance and purpose was accomplished. Much like what God said to Zechariah, it's not by might nor by power, but by the Spirit of the Lord. Two verses later, verse 17 continues, Ye shall not need to fight in this battle. Set yourselves, stand ye still, and see the salvation of the Lord with you, O Judah and Jerusalem. Fear not, nor be dismayed. Tomorrow go out against them, for the Lord will be with you. All this that we've been looking at is our story of how we came to Christ. We were the ones that had rebelled. We turned our back on God. Like all these nations gathered together who attacked Israel, God's chosen people, we lived attacking God, fording his attempts to help us and to protect us. We worked against him at every step of the way, leading to us remaining in that separated state, far from his presence and his grace. Romans chapter 5 and verse 10 says, For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more being reconciled,
James 1:6-7
SPEAKER_00we shall be saved by his life. Proverbs 17 and verse 11 tells us, an evil man seeketh only rebellion, therefore a cruel messenger shall be sent against him. That's the inclination of the fallen carnal flesh. And that was the way we operated before we encountered Christ as rebellious enemies. Romans chapter 8 and verse 7 makes it very clear. It says, Because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. Being in this state of opposition to God, we've been attacked relentlessly and exploited by the enemy, by the ways of the world, and by our own flesh, to only further distance ourselves from God and from his will. Earlier we saw how the plowshare was beat into a sword. A plowshare isn't the entirety of the plow. It's only the sharp metal blade that digs into the ground, preparing that part of ground to be seated. It's already a sharp piece of metal, making it easier to imagine and see how it could be refashioned and reformed into a sword. Like the plowshare, we were beat down by the enemy and his opposition. We felt his oppressions and his attacks. He leveraged everything at his disposal to come against us. 1 John chapter 2 and verse 16 says, For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world. All the enemy's attacks are some variation or some combination of these things. That's what we face. And as we continually fail
1 John 5:14-15
SPEAKER_00to put up a fight and refuse to resist as we should, we don't succeed. We instead succumb to the temptations and the sin. We miss the mark. We go against his will, and we do the bidding of the enemy. Through sin, he makes us into a sword, not for God's kingdom, but for his kingdom. He uses us to take jabs at God, to pit us against our brethren, and he uses our desires and our own will against us, exacerbating the war that already wages within us, between our flesh and our spirit. Galatians 5 and 17 says, For the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary the one to the other, so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. We all know this war, because it raged underneath the surface of our heart long before we ever came to Christ. We suppressed the desires of the spirit, insisting on following the flesh. But then we had that moment where everything in our life changed. We heard Jesus knocking on the door of our heart. Our eyes were open to our situation. We saw that we were in the valley of decision,
James 4:2
SPEAKER_00the valley of Jehoshaphat, and we realized that the Lord already, from before the foundation of the world, made a decision about us, that he elected us, that he predestined for us to be brought home into his kingdom. Then the choice was clear. We knew the decision that we needed to make, and we made it. We invited Christ into our life. Like Jehoshaphat, we humbly and wisely called upon God, boldly asking him to bestow his mercy and his grace and his love upon our lives, and he did. Just like Jehaziel said, the battle wasn't ours, it was God's. He fought the battle on Calvary, where he defeated the enemy, defeated the world's system, and defeated death. We simply did what Jehoshaphat did, not needing to fight, but simply being still, simply enjoying and basking in the presence of God and seeing his salvation, watching it play out right before us in real time, watching our minds be renewed and our heart be changed, and our spirit be made into a right spirit in the eyes of God. We saw our life be changed from a life that was lived in opposition to God to a life lived in communion with him, covered by his blood, serving him in faithfulness. Even though salvation is a miracle, it's only the justification part of that miracle that happens instantly. That's only one of the three parts. The second part is sanctification, and that begins the moment that we're saved, but it doesn't end until we go home to be with the Lord for eternity. Why is sanctification so important? The enemy in a life itself beat us into a sword instead of the plowshare that God designed us to be. But now that has to change again, and we find that made very clear all throughout Scripture. We first find this in Isaiah chapter 2 and verse 4. And he shall judge among the nations and shall rebuke many people, and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. Here's the opposite
Philippians 2:12-13
SPEAKER_00of what we were looking at when we began this study. Micah 4 and 3 reiterates the same thing, nearly word for word. It's easy to pass right by these verses, especially not being farmers or used to the agricultural life. But these verses aren't just talking about natural farming tools or natural weaponry. Hidden in these verses is the story of how God changed our life, how he sanctifies us, how he cleanses us, how he continually fashions us to be more and more like his son. First John 3 and 2 tells us, Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. That's the glorification part of the miracle of salvation. Justification is the past tense part, sanctification is the present part, and glorification is the future part of this miracle. That's when we'll fully be able to enter into the physical presence of God, because we'll
Psalms 40:8
SPEAKER_00be like him. That's the day that we look forward to. But like John says, it doth not yet appear what we shall be. We're still in the process of being sanctified. The sword that we once were still has to be refashioned into the plowshare and the spear still has to be beat into the pruning hook again. We have to beat them into the new form, which immediately brings to our minds the image of the blacksmith. The
Psalms 1:2
SPEAKER_00blacksmith isn't a machine. He's a man, he's an artisan who, with great care and skill and precision, beats that piece of metal into what he desires for it to be. He doesn't melt it, and that distinction is important because if that was so, he wouldn't himself be a part of that process. He physically has to swing the hammer and shape it himself. He has to actively be involved in the formation. That's what God is looking for. He doesn't want to work upon you. He wants to work with you. He wants you to be a part of your sanctification, which is so important because it's
Matthew 6:33
SPEAKER_00that involvement that makes it that much more beautiful and meaningful to us as Christians. If it was something that happened automatically or something outside of our control, it wouldn't leave such a deep impression on our hearts and minds, but it does because you did something to see it happen. The fact that God brings up these two things, plowshares and pruning hooks specifically, is important too. Of all the things in the world that he could have chosen to illustrate this lesson, why did he choose these two things? In order to see the purpose behind them, we need to look at them individually. First is the plowshare. Like we noted before, it's not the whole plow, it's just the sharp blade that would turn as the plow is being pushed, and it would break up the ground and prepare it to then be seeded. This is amazing when we really think about it, because they're both a piece of metal, but unlike the sword that's used and meant to destroy and to kill and to steal, the plowshare is meant to prepare and to produce and to progress. It's the same piece of metal that made up the sword, but now it has a new purpose. And that's what happens when you give your life to Christ. You're the same person that you were before you met Christ. You have the same natural body, you're made of the same elements. But just like the potter takes the marred vessel and uses that same exact clay to make a new, better, and more beautiful
Luke 13:24
SPEAKER_00vessel, he takes your life as it is when you offer it up to him. He takes the mess that we're in, the sin that we're engaged in, the resistance that we offer to him, and he turns it around and changes us. He gives us a new spirit, a new heart, a renewed mind, a new Ison life. The elements are the same, but now the purpose is different. You're not here to serve sin any longer. You're not here to live for the enemy.
Matthew 7:21
SPEAKER_00You're not here to live for yourself and to do your own will. Now you're here to live for God and to serve Him with your life. The devil can't create because He's not God and He's not made in the image of God. So instead he distorts and He twists and He takes and He steals. But you are made in the image of God. So when God changes you, instead of all of that, you begin to produce. You begin to make something out of your life. You begin to make a difference in the world for the kingdom of God and make a change in the lives of those around you. You become like the plowshare. You go into the devil's territory, the fallow ground, and you begin to break it up. You break up his plans, you break up his strongholds, you break the chains that have been holding people hostage. And while you're doing that, you're preparing for what's coming next. You're overturning the work of the enemy, so that people's hearts and eyes and ears will be open to the truth, so that when you come in with the word of God, there'll be somewhere to plant that word within
Luke 11:5-8
SPEAKER_00them. Luke chapter 8 and verse 11 tells us, now the parable is this: the seed is the word of God. We go in and we boldly proclaim the word of God. We wisely discern when and where we should go, how we should convey the message, and we trust the Holy Spirit to lead us and to speak through us. We yield our tongue to him for him to use us as his vessel for his glory. We're the blade, but God is the one who's pushing the plow. We plant that seed, we water, we do all that we can to make sure that those seeds have all that they need to flourish and to prosper in that ground. And then God gives the increase, just like he promises to. That's not just true in the lives of others. We also have to be the plowshare in our own lives too. We have to break up the fallow ground of our hearts. Break up your fallow ground. For it is time to seek the Lord, till he come and reign righteousness upon you. That's our job, to break up the fallow ground. Sometimes our hearts get hardened as we grow weary and we're hurt. We face disappointment, but we have to break it all up. We have to make our heart fertile soil, so that far from the seeds sitting on top of the hardened soil, where evil spirits, the fowls of the air, can swoop down and steal it from us. We want the word to go deep into our spirit and to take root inside of us. We want the word to spread its roots into every area of our life, taking control of our mind and our heart, directing every word that
John 10:9
SPEAKER_00we speak and every action that we take. That will only happen if we become the plowshare that we're made to be. The other tool that we need to talk about is the pruning hook. The pruning hook was a hand tool with a curved sickle-like blade, used to trim vines and harvest crops. It was used to maintain the crops to
Lamentations 3:24-25
SPEAKER_00keep them growing properly. Instead of the spear meant to pierce people and attack and to hurt them, we're meant to maintain. We're meant to produce, we're meant to flourish. That's our purpose, but that takes sanctification. What does that look like for us? John 15 and 2 in the Classic Amplified says, Any branch in me that does not bear fruit that stops bearing, he cuts away, trims off, takes away, and he cleanses and repeatedly prunes every branch that continues to bear fruit to make it bear more and richer and more excellent fruit. That's why the pruning has to take place. If
Philippians 4:19
SPEAKER_00we don't do it, we're holding ourselves back. We're all called to bear the fruits of the Spirit. That's one of our most fundamental callings in this life. But sometimes, over the course of time, we don't maintain the environment of our heart.
Matthew 7:11
SPEAKER_00We don't give those seeds the right environment to produce the way that they should be. You get away with that for a little while, but sooner or later it begins to catch up with you. And soon we don't find as much of the fruits of the spirit in our life as we should. Maybe we don't show forth as much joy as we used to. Maybe our life isn't as peaceful like it once was. Maybe we're not willing to show long suffering any longer. Maybe we're not being gentle with people anymore. There's not a better way to turn away
John 10:1
SPEAKER_00people looking for God than by showing them a life that's lacking the fruits of the Spirit. Because when the fruits of the Spirit aren't present, it means that the works of the flesh are present, and they already know what it's like to have those, because that's all that they've ever known. Why should they give their life to Christ when it's just more of the same? That's why we prune our lives. That's why we look deeply into our heart to trim and cut away what shouldn't be there. All those things that are holding us back from going deeper with the Lord, all the things holding us back from bearing more fruit, and we cut off those distractions, those relationships, those impediments, and we clear the way. We purge the branch, which is us, and our life, so that Jesus, the vine, can allow his life-giving power to flow through us as we bear abundant fruit that honors and glorifies him and brings us closer to that day when we'll be like him and see him as he is, going beyond justification, beyond sanctification, to the glorification that awaits us in heaven. The same way God formed and fashioned us in our mother's womb, he's trying to form and fashion us today into the plowshare and the pruning hook. It's our job to not resist that calling, but to embrace it and to work with him as we go forth into the fields of harvest, plowing and pruning the fields for his glory, knowing that the harvest is plenteous, but the laborers are few, trusting that we will see a large harvest of souls, and a large abundant harvest in our own lives too. Let's close in prayer. Lord, today we thank you that harvest time is here, that there's souls all around us, souls all throughout our neighborhoods and our states and our countries, that are ready, that are ripe to come home to you, to be adopted by your Holy Spirit into your family, to join us as beloved brethren. And Lord, today we thank you that you've made us the plowshare, that you made us the pruning hook, that you made us to bear abundant fruit, that you made us to go out, spreading the word of God, planting seed and open hearts. Lord, today we thank you that you're working with us as we go out into the fields of harvest, that you're accompanying the word that we speak with your power, the power that can only be found in you and your Holy Spirit. And Lord, today we thank you that you're continuing to sanctify us, that you're making us more and more each and every day like your Son. And Lord, we thank you in advance for that beautiful gift of glorification that you're going to bestow upon us that day that we get to see you face to face. And Lord, before then, we continue to give you all the honor, all the glory, and all the praise. In Jesus' name, amen. Now, if you want to experience the harvest in your life and have Jesus as a part of your life today, all you need to do is invite Jesus into your heart to be your personal Lord and Savior. You then need to repent of your sins and ask for his forgiveness. Then you trust that you've been forgiven and you ask for his free gift of eternal life. Now, if you've prayed this from a sincere heart and you truly meant it, then you are now a part of the family of God. Welcome to God's family. We want to thank everybody for listening today. We appreciate you taking out your time to spend with us. If you want even more of the King's Word, you can go to our YouTube page at Kingsword Ministry or visit our TikTok page at Kingsword Bible. God bless you. We want you to know that we love you all. And we'll see you next week as we continue to study the King's Word together.