Pastor David's Sermons

8.1.09

Ready for Rain 1

Anyone who takes time to look into the Bible's more apocalyptic portions, will eventually come across references to the "early" and "latter" rain. Altogether there are nine references to the latter rain. People tend to fast-forward to these. But the latter rain, in spiritual terms, comes at the end of a mighty process--not its beginning. There is for all a first work.

Many of us are infected with the short-attention-span, give-it-to-me-now expectation of our age. We anticipate instant satisfaction, with no labor on our part. Over and over we remind ourselves that we cannot save ourselves, until, true though that be, we have trained ourselves to inactivity, waiting for blessing to fall from heaven. Would we know how to receive that blessing even if we recognize it?

Recent times have seen a new emphasis on praying for the latter rain. We all want to see the latter rain; we want to experience it. But are there conditions to our experiencing it? What we shall do here is to review those Scriptures that speak of the early rain.

The Cycle: Fall = Early Rain, Spring = Latter Rain

Let's get into our minds the basics, though, of what we shall now learn. What is this early and latter rain business all about?

In the land of Israel the early or former rains commence in autumn, in the end of October or beginning of November. There is a break, and then the winter rains fall from mid-December until March. Finally, the latter or spring rains fall in the last part of March and into April. After this, there is little rain until October again.

It is in October and Autumn that Rosh Hoshanah (the beginning of the year in the Hebrew calendar) comes. This is when you have the harvest of grapes, olives, and other fruits. It is also when the Barley was sown.

In January the wheat would be planted. In April you have what we call passover, but what Jews call Chag haMatzot, The Feast of Bread (unleavened). The barley was harvested in connection with haMatzot, and seven weeks later, at Chag haKatzir, the Feast of the Harvest, the season of harvest was concluded with the wheat harvest, or first fruits, or what Christians usually call Pentecost.

The first Scripture in the Bible that speaks of the early rain, is Deuteronomy 11:14. But our understanding will be greatly helped if we review it in context. Let's begin at Deuteronomy 10:12.

"And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, ¹³ and to keep the commandments of the LORD and His statutes which I command you today for your good? ¹⁴ Indeed heaven and the highest heavens belong to the LORD your God, also the earth with all that is in it. ¹⁵ The LORD delighted only in your fathers, to love them; and He chose their descendants after them, you above all peoples, as it is this day. ¹⁶ Therefore circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be stiff-necked no longer. ¹⁷ For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality nor takes a bribe. ¹⁸ He administers justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger, giving him food and clothing. ¹⁹ Therefore love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. ²⁰ You shall fear the LORD your God; you shall serve Him, and to Him you shall hold fast, and take oaths in His name. ²¹ He is your praise, and He is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome things which your eyes have seen. ²² Your fathers went down to Egypt with seventy persons, and now the LORD your God has made you as the stars of heaven in multitude.  Deuteronomy 10:12-22

In this passage, God urges His people to be faithful to Him, to keep His commandments. These words speak of His mercy and demand the same behavior of His people. They recount His covenant faithfulness to His people.

Chapter 11 repeats the urgent call to the keeping of God's commandments. It points out that with their own eyes they had seen God's signs and wonders worked in their behalf. Now let's follow closely, starting with verse eight:

"Therefore you shall keep every commandment which I command you today, that you may be strong, and go in and possess the land which you cross over to possess, ⁹ and that you may prolong your days in the land which the LORD swore to give your fathers, to them and their descendants, 'a land flowing with milk and honey.'"  Deuteronomy 11:8, 9

God links the faithful obedience of His people to the persistence or failure of their strength. He brings them into the land, gives them the land, and reminds them how important is their own part in conquering the land.

Starting with verse 10 He contrasts the land He is giving them with the land where they have been enslaved. In the land of Egypt, "you sowed your seed and watered it by foot, as a vegetable garden". In contrast, the land they were to possess was "a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water from the rain of heaven, ¹² a land for which the LORD your God cares; the eyes of the LORD your God are always on it, from the beginning of the year to the very end of the year."  (Deuteronomy 11:11, 12).

In other words, in Egypt, they were forced to toil relentlessly in order to get anything from the land. But the land of Israel was characterized by mountains and valleys, a land watered directly by God. Egypt was watered almost entirely by the Nile. In order to water crops, much labor was required either to carry water or to dig trenches to transport the water. Egypt's biblical name is Mitzrayim, referring to the civilization along the Nile river.

Today, as in ancient times, almost the whole of the Egyptian population lives along the Nile River, whose banks and delta offer the only significant arable land in the nation. The rest of the country is desert. The Nile was also the one connector of the Northern and Southern parts of the Egyptian civilization. God, of course, provided the water that kept the Egyptian civilization alive. The situation, however, differed in that much toil was necessary in Egypt just to deal with the water. Furthermore, the Egyptian looked at the Nile as being the source of life, while the Hebrew saw God as source.

Notice that in verses 13 and 14 there is a major conditional clause: "'And it shall be that IF you earnestly obey My commandments which I command you today, to love the LORD your God and serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul, ¹⁴ THEN I will give you the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your grain, your new wine, and your oil.'"

 

IF verse 13, THEN verse 14. If God's commandments to love Him and give whole-hearted service to Him were obeyed, then He would give rain according to its seasons.

This early rain is mentioned under three different names in the Bible: the first rain, the former rain, and the early rain. It is always part of God's whole cycle. Early rain and latter rain are just different parts of His whole plan and provision for His people. The early rains are the first rains. In order to gather in all that God would give us, we need all parts of His cycle. Look at verse 14:

"'THEN I will give you the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your grain, your new wine, and your oil.'"

Grain here (and some versions have Corn) means wheat. God gives the early and late rain so that the various harvests may be accomplished: corn represents the grain, wine is grapes, oil is olives. And remember, the grapes and olives were harvested in the Autumn, in connection with the early/former/first rain. The grains, barley and wheat, were harvested in the Spring and early Summer, in connection with the latter rain.

But knowing their deceptive hearts, God not only points out the conditionality before promising His rain, but points out the conditionality of it all after He has given promise, verses 16 and 17:

"Take heed to yourselves, lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them, ¹⁷ lest the LORD's anger be aroused against you, and He shut up the heavens so that there be no rain, and the land yield no produce, and you perish quickly from the good land which the LORD is giving you."

False worship, the service of other gods, triggers the Lord's wrath and His withholding of rain, and consequently, the removal of the life-sustaining produce of the land--no more grain, grapes, or olives.

Wine, Oil, and Bread

What are each of these figurative of in the Bible? Wine is grapes, the blood of Christ. Can we be saved without the blood of Christ? No. Oil is from olives and signifies the Holy Spirit. Can we be saved without the Holy Spirit? No. The grains, the barley and the wheat are figures for bread, food, sustenance, maturation of harvest. Can we be saved without bread? No. Without persistent sustenance, we would die. In particular, without Christ, the Bread of life (John 6:33, 35, 48, 51) offering Himself for us, we would be doomed.

Jesus gave up His life at Passover time, in the Spring of the year, the time of the wheat harvest.

Then we see that the produce that God has mentioned, ("'I will give you the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your grain, your new wine, and your oil.'") represent what we need for our spiritual survival. We also see that these come as a result of the early and latter rains, and that the early and latter rains come as a result of obedience.

Consider that Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, and finally Joel, use rain in similar analogies. God longs to bless all His righteous with abundant outpourings of His Spirit, but from the unrighteous His blessings are withheld. In every case, it is the hypocrites, the spiritually ungrateful and lazy, the ones who know His Word, and yet are rebellious, from whom God withholds His rain--not unbelievers!

Right here it is helpful to look at another text about God withholding His latter rain and see what causes it. Jeremiah 3:3: "Therefore the showers have been withheld, and there has been no latter rain. You have had a harlot's forehead; you refuse to be ashamed."

Why have the showers been withheld? Verses one and two:

"They say, 'If a man divorces his wife,
      And she goes from him
      And becomes another man's,
      May he return to her again?'
      Would not that land be greatly polluted?
      But you have played the harlot with many lovers;
      Yet return to Me, says the LORD.
       ² Lift up your eyes to the desolate heights and see:
      Where have you not lain with men?
      By the road you have sat for them
      Like an Arabian in the wilderness;
      And you have polluted the land
      With your harlotries and your wickedness."

It is after listing their unfaithfulnesses that God offers His "therefore" in verse 3. Notice too that this is not unfaithfulness at the beginning, but at the end, that is indicated. It is the latter rain that is withheld. Without the latter rain, the wheat harvest cannot ripen. The harvest of souls will not happen without the latter rain moving through God's people to finish the work.

My brother, my sister, the end times is not a good time to be unfaithful to the Lord. If we miss out on the latter rain of the Holy Spirit, we will miss out on eternity.

There is another aspect that we have not pondered. While we have not laid out all of the feasts and festivals of Israel in depth throughout the year, we should mention one other: Yom Kippur. In the Fall, right after Rosh Hashanah, is Yom Kippur, which we call the Day of Atonement. We connect the Investigative Judgment and the cleansing of the sanctuary with the antitypical Day of Atonement, or heavenly Day of Atonement, which we believe began in answer to Bible prophecy, in 1844.  It has been going on ever since.

So see this. The judgment comes in what relation to the rain cycle?  It starts during the time of the early rain. The early rain of the Holy Spirit began at Pentecost with the early Christians, as recorded in Acts chapter 2. This outpouring of the Holy Spirit has been happening in the lives of all believers in Jesus who are fully surrendered to Him. This outpouring of the Holy Spirit--the early rain--has been happening for almost two thousand years now.

In 1844, the judgment began in heaven, according to the book of Daniel.  So, this time of self-examination and conviction of the Holy Spirit is during the time of the early rain. But the judgment will also be happening when the latter rain falls. In fact, the latter rain will occur right towards the end of the pre-Advent judgment process. That is, God offers to give us all that is needed to survive, to thrive, to attain to maturity, before His judgment closes, and every case--every life--has been decided.

Before we come to the place where all sin must have finally been put away, we are given rain. Lots of rain.  Early rain.  Latter rain. The rain, if the harvester is diligent, brings forth the fruits needful for survival and abundant living. God provides the rain. We need not work for the rain; it is a gift. But we do need to cooperate in order to benefit from the rain.

We do need to cooperate in order to partake of the grapes and wine, the oil and olives, the barley, wheat, and bread. In no case do these leap into our basket fully prepared. Grapes must be squeezed to produce grape juice; olives must be pressed to produce oil; grain must be ground and baked to produce bread. Likewise, there is a personal work for each of us if we would receive the benefits of God's provision.

The latter rain cannot be received apart from the early rain. We need not only the blood of Christ, not only the Holy Spirit, but also the body of Christ sacrificed for us. Our salvation needs Jesus' substitutionary death for us, in our place. Our salvation needs His character, symbolized by His blood, reproduced in us.  Our salvation needs the power of the Holy Spirit to change us. Our salvation needs the example of godly character successfully lived out in weakened flesh. That would be Jesus.  All this our God has provided for us IN HIS SON. But all this is jeopardized if we misunderstand our role in the salvation process.

Conclusion

No obedience--no latter rain. As for the early rain, it is necessary. Without Christ's body and blood, and without the Holy Spirit, we have no possibility of there being anything for God to bring to maturity. There is nothing growing.  We need all of God's provision. No more can we talk intelligently of the latter rain without the early rain than we can of the early rain without the latter.

To plead for the latter rain while being destitute of the early rain, cannot be spiritually productive. The mighty outpouring of the Holy Spirit in latter rain power will only fall on people who are fully surrendered to God under the first outpouring of the Spirit, or early rain. And that which underlies the whole process, is obedience. If we are not responsive to God in terms of obedience, there will be no rain, no showers of blessing.  And all our toiling to obtain it will be as fruitless as we are dry.

God has given His people an abundance of information so that we may fill-out ourselves in true obedience to Him. But if we are not faithful to His truth, our prayers will not avail. They will amount to nothing unless we are listening to Him. 

There are billions of people in this world who need to know Jesus as Savior and Lord. There is a mighty harvest soon to take place.  He must send the rain before we can harvest anything. And He will not send the rain unless we are obedient.  Let all Israel hear, and turn, and live.