“Righteous are You, O Yahweh, when I would plead my case with You; Indeed I would speak matters of justice with You: Why has the way of the wicked succeeded? Why are all those who deal in treachery complacent?” (Jeremiah 12:1, LSB)

As a pastor, it can be quite frustrating and even depressing when you are trying to be faithful in your ministry and yet it seems as if the work you are doing isn’t having the effect that you hope it would have in the lives of the people to whom you are ministering. This frustration is exacerbated when your church is located near an unbiblical church or a cult that seems to be swelling in numbers and influence.

Several years ago I remember having a conversation with a member of our church over a similar situation. He came from a megachurch that had a large and influential ministry in the area. Although the teaching was evangelical in nature, the heart of the church was very sick and the church leaders were very abusive and manipulative, as was attested to by several former members. On the day of our conversation, this brother in Christ expressed his concern as to why his former church was so large and wealthy, and yet they failed to practice biblical church discipline, were unkind, even cruel to staff, and were almost cult-like in the way they had formed their leadership structure. On the other hand, he had grown to love our small church, seeing that what we attempted to model was from the New Testament, and that we had a warm and welcoming body that exemplified what he always felt was how a Christian church should act–even if imperfectly.

In his worldview, the larger church had been blessed by God, and that was why it was large. Our church, which was much smaller, struggled in all the ways smaller churches often struggle–with limited resources and staffing. We weren’t always able to do what we felt God called us to do on the scale we wanted to in order to reach others for Christ. If our heart was right and we were trying to be conformed to the New Testament model of a Christian church, why was it that God wasn’t blessing us with more people, financial resources, and other visible “blessings?” What the Bible says and how it played out in real life was puzzling to this sincere brother.

Since we live in a world where our eyes can deceive us, it is easy to default into a popular view that the Jewish people often held in the Bible. It was the idea that in this life, God blesses us when we are good, and God punishes us when we are bad. Although this idea is simple and clean (and is often true, but not always), it doesn’t always work out that way in real life experience and it can become very disorienting when the righteous are seemingly not blessed and the wicked seem to succeed.

Asaph wrote a psalm voicing his struggle with this very issue (Psalm 72). He began to feel as if all his striving to walk in obedience to the Lord was a wasted effort, ““Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure And washed my hands in innocence;” (Psalm 73:13, LSB). Essentially, Asaph wondered aloud, why bother if in the end, the righteous end off worse than the wicked? There are a lot of problems with this sort of thinking, and that is another subject for another time, but here is the reality that sobered up Asaph:

“When I gave thought to know this, It was trouble in my sight until I came into the sanctuary of God; Then I understood their end. Surely You set them in slippery places; You cause them to fall to destruction. How they become desolate in a moment! They are completely swept away by terrors!” (Psalm 73:16–19, LSB)

The moment Asaph walked into the presence of God he was immediately reminded of the eternal realities his eyes could not see in the moment of his confusion about his present realities. This world is not all there is. Jeremiah needed this reminder as well. The fall of Israel and Judah were not the end. The wicked that the Lord used as His instruments of judgment would not be eternally exonerated. And the church that throws off how the Lord desires to be worshipped in exchange for a spirit of entrepreneurial showmanship will eventually reap what they have sown. The cultists, false teachers, and those that treat the church as a money-making or power-grabbing enterprise will reap what they have sown eventually.

You see, some seeds take longer to bring their harvest. Sometimes we see the fruit of our efforts in this life–good or bad. But other seeds, and these are often the most important ones, we will not reap the harvest until we stand before our Creator God. We need to be focused upon faithfully sowing the right seeds, and worry much less on what the other guy is doing. By keeping our hands to the plow and working the vineyard the Lord has given to us, we will find that we are more content and filled with joy when we see the harvest, big or small, that the Lord brings through His powerful gospel.