Proverbs 16:30 With narrowed eyes, people plot evil; with a smirk, they plan their mischief.
Matthew 13:25 But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away.
I was working with some new grape vines I had planted from containers last year and noticed how well they were doing. They had so many grape clusters on them for just being a few years old and the weight per cluster was good. Some of the grapes were starting to change toward their color of dark blue. I took a few of the grapes and squeezed them to see the juice content when to my surprise along with the juice some seeds came forth as well. “What?” I said in a loud voice. “These are suppose to be seedless grapes! I was told emphatically they were seedless. Who mislabeled these tags identifying this type of grape?” I felt gypped, ripped off, and lost for words because I was sure they were seedless.
I could remedy the situation by creating notch grafts next spring from other seedless grape buds, but all the extra work and time was bugging me. I thought someone had mislabeled the vines at the nursery and they were actually getting paid a wage to make these errors. Matt. 7:16 You can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the way they act. Can you pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? Where was the pride of doing a good job? Col. 3:23 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters. I was just venting loud thoughts throughout my mind and scripture was flowing at rapid speed. “Settle down,” I said to myself. “It’s only a couple of vines and this can be fixed.”
I went to the plant nursery with sample grape clusters, the tags with the type and seedless label, plus the receipt. I presented all the information to the head-gardener and all she could do was give me some new seedless grapevines as compensation and replacement. She was sorry but the error had been done at their supplier and not at their facility.
While I was there I noticed they had some of the same grapes with the same labels so we went over to them and a few of them had some small clusters. She checked them and sure enough, the grapes had seeds and were also mislabeled. She said, “We will most likely be getting a lot of calls in the near future because of this mess-up.” With empathy for her, I realized that for me the mix up will be a bit more work to get the type of grapes growing I want, but for the head-gardener, it will be a customer relations mess. Whether this was done by accident or on purpose, this turned out to be a dirty trick on a lot of people.
What an object lesson this was turning out to be. I thought of what the gospel of Matthew says. Matt. 13:25 But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. This is what the enemy of our soul does on a regular basis. The devil’s number one agenda is plotting and sowing dirty tricks into our lives to destroy those who are in Christ. As the scripture implies he comes under the cloak of darkness and sows his seeds of doubt, mistrust, and anger into the soil of our hearts to disrupt the wonderful work of the new birth Christ has done in us through the cross and His blood.
The devil uses people who pretend to walk with God to sow seeds of betrayal and hurt into our lives. Phil. 3:18 For as I have often told you before, and now declare even with tears: Many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. However, the truth of God’s word is – we have overcome the world through the work of the cross and our faith in the blood Jesus shed for us.
There are those who will plot evil and smirk with plans of mischief toward the saints of the Lord. They will always have a dirty tricks campaign going on to try and defeat those who are in Christ, but as the Lord says, the weeds will be gathered and burned and the wheat will be gathered for the Lord’s use. As for my grape problem, I will transplant the mislabeled grapes along the fence in early spring and as summer comes along I will enjoy the green beauty of them. Thank you, Lord, for turning this trick around. Amen.
Topical Bible Studies About:
Battling Falsehood
More dirty tricks.
What timing. I posted this blog in the morning and by afternoon there was a story on the news about sausage meats that are mislabeled. This is a health issue and not just a mistake.
This is the news heading:
20% of tested sausages contained mislabeled meat: U of G study.
A federally funded study has found that 20 per cent of sausages sampled from grocery stores across Canada contained meats that weren't on the label.