Sermon Tone Analysis

Scarecrows & Strawberries

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This was an upset bunch of people.

Twelve spies, ten had an evil report and only two had a good report.

And, the people of Israel believed the evil report and they wept all night long.

My subject this morning is Scarecrows and Strawberries.

I was reading one time where a man was walking down a country road and he saw a sight that he would never forget.

In fact that it would please him to remember what he saw during his last hours and last moments on this earth.

He said that he saw a garden behind a house.

He said it was lovely garden and in the middle of the garden there was a large scarecrow and he said that this scarecrow was not alone.

His arms were stretched out and on one outstretched arm sat a blackbird, and the other outstretched arm sat another blackbird.

So, the blackbirds looked composed and contented, they looked triumphant, they didn’t look nervous.

Unmoved by the ferocious scarecrow.

The man said that he wanted to keep that picture in his heart.

Carlilye once said somebody need to devise a philosophy of scarecrows, he said it needs to be done because they are the great defenders of property.

There were more scarecrows in the old days than now because there were more gardens or perhaps there was a time they did more good than they do now.

There was a time when there were scarecrows in the best of gardens.

My grandfather in Riverside, FL always had a scarecrow in his field and garden, for he believed they worked, my uncle Jeff who was a professional farmer did not.

Scarecrows are not things you get acquainted with as a child because they were uncongenial.

Anytime there were sweet and delicious things growing in a garden there was a scarecrow and as you would expect their arms were inevitably outstretched, he had on ill fitting clothes, there would be a hat that would always droop forward, as the parable of the virgins it is also with the birds.

There are two kinds wise and foolish.

The scarecrow would scare away the foolish birds but the wise birds seemed to know that the scarecrow was just an empty show.

He had no shotgun, no poison, he had no punch so it is always possible blackbirds sitting on the arms, and shoulders of the hat of the scarecrow.

My grandfather in Riverside, FL always had a scarecrow in his field and garden, for he believed they worked, my uncle Jeff who was a professional farmer did not.

Scarecrows are not things you get acquainted with as a child because they were uncongenial.

Anytime there were sweet and delicious things growing in a garden there was a scarecrow and as you would expect their arms were inevitably outstretched, he had on ill fitting clothes, there would be a hat that would always droop forward, as the parable of the virgins it is also with the birds.

There are two kinds wise and foolish.

The scarecrow would scare away the foolish birds but the wise birds seemed to know that the scarecrow was just an empty show.

He had no shotgun, no poison, he had no punch so it is always possible blackbirds sitting on the arms, and shoulders of the hat of the

scarecrow.

The scarecrows seemed to be the best advertisement for the garden were the most juicy and delicious things to be had just for the picking.

They became to the wise birds and invitation to a feast.

The wise birds seem to know that scarecrows were never placed in fallow fields only fruitful ones, so thoughtful birds regarded scarecrows as an invitation to a banquet.

A farmer hanging his old coat over a broomstick was like a dinner bell to the wise birds, and sing their loveliest songs with anticipation with the banquet that was awaiting them.

And as soon as the old farmer put his hat on the ole scarecrow, here would come the wise birds and they would swoop down on the delicacies to which the scarecrow called them.

The scarecrows seemed to be the best advertisement for the garden were the most juicy and delicious things to be had just for the picking.

They became to the wise birds and invitation to a feast.

The wise birds seem to know that scarecrows were never placed in fallow fields only fruitful ones, so thoughtful birds regarded scarecrows as an invitation to a banquet.

A farmer hanging his old coat over a broomstick was like a dinner bell to the wise birds, and sing their loveliest songs with anticipation with the banquet that was awaiting them.

And as soon as the old farmer put his hat on the ole scarecrow, here would come the wise birds and they would swoop down on the delicacies to which the scarecrow called them.

It was only the foolish bird that was frightened by the scarecrow.

He pays the inevitable penalty for his foolishness.

He misses the fruit.

There are many scarecrows that can found on the road of life.

Consider the man in the parable of the talents who took his one, meager talent and went and buried it.

It was because he was afraid.

His view of God was skewed by right information, wrongly applied.

And therefore never put his talent to good use because of a scarecrow that frightened him away.

And how many foolish folks have been kept away from the best and the brightest in life by a scarecrow.

The best scarecrow story in the Bible comes from the text that I read to you at the beginning.

The garden in which it stood, inspired volumes of precious verse.

The promised land was a good land, it was a land that flowed with milk and honey.

It was a land of wheat, barley, vines, fig trees and pomegranates.

And it’s stones were iron, and from it’s hills they digged, Brass.

A land where people would lack nothing.

But when the advance guard of a dozen men went to spy out the land, ten of them saw nothing but scarecrows, they never saw the flowering meadows swarming with bees, they never saw the cows full of milk, they didn’t see the laughing valleys, they didn’t see the fruitful hills, they didn’t see the terraced vineyards, nor did they see the cedars of Lebanon.

They didn’t see the cattle half buried in seas of grass.

All they saw, or all they thought they saw were GIANTS.

They said, “All the men are giants.”

Now the question becomes what became of those giants.

The people eventually entered the land and their experiences are recorded for us.

But the truth of the matter is, giants in the land were scarce.

They were few and far between.

What happened was this, the spies crossed the border and they peasants told them hair-raising tales of the ferocity of the bandits and these big people stood 7 to 10 feet tall.

And to the terrified peasants all that sounded like giants.

And, to the contented, peace loving Jews who liked nothing new all of this was extremely frightening.

The tall people were soon magnified into GIANTS.

They felt themselves the ten spies that said everybody was a giant, they felt themselves to be grasshoppers in their sight.

We are grasshoppers in our sight and in their sight and were so easily crushed.

So when they returned, and gave their report and told of a land that was populated with all these giants.

Here is what they said they brought up an evil report of the land which they searched of the children of Israel the land which we have gone to search it is a land that eats up the inhabitants thereof and all the people there was men of great stature the sons of Anak which come of the giants and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, so we were in their sight.

In all the congregation lifted up their voice and cried.

And the people wept all night.

That is the kind of HAVOC that a scarecrow an wreak.

But among the twelve spies there were TWO spies, TWO wise men, TWO men who were not frightened by what they saw.

They were like the TWO blackbirds perched on each arm of the scarecrow we talked about.

They tasted the fruit and came back with their hands full of this fruit and needed to carry it because the fruit was so luscious.

The land was a good land.

They said, “We are well able to take the land.”

They threw dust in the air we are well able to take this land.

Don’t be afraid.

They are only scarecrows that you saw.

God is well able to give us the land, NOW.

Let’s don’t even wait.

Let’s go right now.

Let’s march against those Canannites right now.

The testimony of one wise man perching on the extended arm of a SCARECROW is of more value than many, many who are frightened by the taunts of the enemy.

The garden that John Bunyan tells about in Pilgrim’s Progress is found at the Palace Beautiful.

The most conspicuous feature of the garden was a scarecrow.

Just as Christian was approaching the lovely place he saw two men running towards him.

They were running for their lives.

One was timorous.

And the other was mistrust.

Christian said, what are you running for, you are running the wrong way.

Timorous said we are Christians traveling to Zion and the further we get along this journey the more dangerous it gets.

And by the way just ahead of us are some LIONS if we go any further they are going to tear us up.

At first Christian was alarmed and he got to thinking about all the dangers he had already gone through.

And all the help God had given him.

And all the strength God had given him.

And he thought they can’t be any worse than what I face before and he just made up his mind that I am going to press on and that is what he did.