Which Basket Are You In? — Erlo Stegen

Jeremiah’s Two Baskets of Figs

Just in short today, I'd like to speak about these two baskets. One is the prophet, and the other is the basket. The basket is full of good things, and the basket is full of bad things. Jeremiah the prophet saw two baskets, one full of very good figs, the other very bad figs, so bad that they could not be eaten.

And then God asked Jeremiah, what do you see? God wanted Jeremiah to look and to see properly, because some people look and they don't see properly. He could see two baskets full, one full of bad figs, the other good.

Obedience, Exile, and the Blessing of God

It's not, it's actually not speaking about fruit or figs, it's speaking here of people, Some good, some bad. King Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile many of the Jews who were from here. God had said, if a person diligently hearkens unto my word, here are the blessings.

But if you are hard of hearing and stiff necked, then you will be like these bad figs. And God said, if you are hard of hearing and stiff necked, then you will be like these bad figs. Even if many of you have been exiled far away into the land of Babylon, nevertheless, if you listen to my word and bow before me, listen to me diligently, I will bless you there and one day I will return all of you back home.

Even if you are right here at home, if you do not diligently listen to the word of the Lord, you will find a curse even here. You find blessing through spiritual vitality and life. If you are not living for the Lord and you are living in sin, you will suffer the consequences of evil.

You might complain, why is it that others seem so blessed and I am so unblessed? Well, it could be that you are in the basket of bad figs. If you want to receive God's blessing, you only receive real blessing through being made alive by God.

But then you experience good. And if you are in this basket of good figs, many are the blessings that you will meet up with. God says, my eyes will be upon you so that you will receive good. Even in exile, far away, in slavery, God will bring you home to that place of blessing.

God says, I will build you up. I will not pluck you out like weeds to throw away. I will plant you. I won't allow you to just wither away and be lost. And I will give you a heart that knows me. You will be my people.

And He says that He will be your God. If you return to Him with all your heart. Is there anything else in the world as wonderful as this, which we read in God's word? To know the Lord, to be His child.

To be His child and He your God. If however you harden your heart, making it hard, refusing to listen to Him, going your own way, many are the troubles, the sufferings and the miseries that you will meet up with.

A Conviction About Abortion and the Ten Commandments

Therefore, live for the Lord. I have said that these are men only who have come for help from drugs. We don't yet have enough room for girls, for females. Not that girls are without their problems. I will tell you a story of a particular girl from America.

She was ill, she went to the doctor. Now, normally in doctor's rooms you will find that in the waiting room there is a table together with books and things you can read. And it's there simply that if the doctor takes time and you have to wait, that you are occupied by reading these books and things.

She sat there looking at the table. She saw various magazines and books. One of the books caught her attention, it was black. And then she thought, it must be a Bible. She remembered that when she had been at school, they had spoken something about certain Ten Commandments, but she had not paid attention.

She had never taken a Bible for herself, but she decided to take this book. She simply turned it open and opening it just randomly, not knowing where. And when she opened it, she turned to that very spot where it speaks about the Ten Commandments.

Found it, Exodus 20. She opened it and read it there. And one of the commandments she read was, you shall not kill. And so she wondered what it meant. That word convicted her in her heart. And she remembered that she had been pregnant 16 times.

16 pregnancies she had had. And each one she had aborted. She had killed 16 of her children. She closed the book. She began to tremble. She was frightened. She wept. Her tears ran down. Thinking of the fact that she had murdered 16 of her babies.

She could not sit still. She got up. Went to the receptionist. Went to the receptionist of the doctor's rooms. She said, is the doctor still busy? The receptionist said, yes indeed. She said, I must see him quickly.

The receptionist said, not now, he's busy with a patient. She insisted. She insisted. She said, please go in and see if it's possible. Tell him I'm troubled. I must see him. The receptionist went in. Then this girl was allowed to go in.

She said, doctor. The receptionist. The receptionist went in and said, doctor, I'm so sorry to interrupt. But there's a girl out there in the waiting room. She is just weeping profusely. She said, I don't know what it is.

The doctor said, bring her in. As she went in, her tears were still running. Flooded by tears. When the doctor asked her, young lady, what's the problem? She responded, I saw a black book out there and thought it might be a Bible which I had never read.

I didn't know. I took it. I opened it. It said, do not kill. I read there, do not kill. Do not murder. She said, doctor, when I read it, I felt so terrible, thinking that I have killed 16 of my babies.

16 of my children. 16 of my children. She said, how can I ever? She said, how can I ever be saved? For I have shed blood of innocent babies that were so close to my heart. My own children. She said, doctor, I just don't know what to do.

I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. The Bible also says, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. If you confess your sins and you condemn yourself, Jesus died for you on the cross and he carried these very sins, he said, so that you might be forgiven and freed.

Sin, Judgment, and the Need for Salvation

I remember in Edendale Hospital, there was a certain girl, a very sickly girl, often ill, couldn't go to school regularly. She tried the witches, witch doctors, the parents took her to the witch doctors and said, our child is ill all the time and the witch doctors said, well, there's somebody who has bewitched her.

The girl actually was happy to hear that diagnosis so that it would not come to light about her sin with the opposite sex. Though the witch doctor gave her medicine, it helped for naught. She just became more sick than before and continued to haemorrhage.

She was taken to Edendale Hospital, at that time, in that era, there was no hospital as old as that one, it had just been built, so they took her there, but she became weaker and weaker. Sometimes she would close her eyes, be so quiet that the nurses thought, well, now she is dying and then she would wake up again.

One day, the same thing, they thought, her soul is, she is about to die, her soul is going to leave her, but then she awoke again and the nursing sister bent over and said, got close to her, asking, what's the matter, because the girl was crying.

This girl said, I am a terrible sinner, I have blood on my hands, I have killed my babies. And as I wanted to enter into heaven, there was a little girl standing in front of me, a beautiful looking girl, a lovely face, like a doll.

So, she said, I want to go into heaven, get out of my way. The little girl said, mother, is it you, you are the one who killed me. And the little girl said, I will not get out of your way. It stood right there.

And as she was relating this dream, this experience to the nurse saying that the little girl said to me, I will not get out of your way, she died. She, the mother of this baby, you see, sin does not enter into heaven, it doesn't matter how much you pray, whatever works you might do, even if you see heaven open, but you yourself cannot enter.

The gates of heaven will be closed to sin. Maybe you know, you are in our midst today, you remember your sin. If you want help, come to Jesus. Cast yourself with sorrow at his feet, pleading with him, and tell the Lord Jesus that you surrender, you give yourself to him.

Surrendering Every Possession to Christ

Tell him, Lord, here are my sins, here is my life. I surrender all. I surrender all, Lord, to thee. Everything that I have, my house, my gold, my silver, all is yours. All I have, Lord Jesus. Is totally surrendered to you today.

I remember a certain Dutch minister, this Dutch minister went to another country to preach. And he found the people there lazy, doing nothing, no production, he decided to plant a garden to grow food.

He loved pineapples and he planted pineapples. He planted other things too. However, the people there had the gift of stealing. And when the pineapples were about to ripen, they're getting there. They came and pulled it out and off they went with it.

The preacher got nothing out of the crop, for the people there had stolen it all. He had planted another crop and again, they stole it. The minister was furious. Saying, I've left my country, I've sacrificed so much to come here and all that I plant, they steal.

Greatly embittered, he spoke to them with much anger. He said, I've left my country for you people and now you've stolen all that I've planted. He said, I haven't harvested a single pineapple. And before it's fully ripened, you steal it.

They said, preacher, you're not a Christian. Because you still get angry. They said, a Christian does not lose his temper. That stunned him, hearing that having lost his temper with them, they said he's not a real Christian.

He didn't know what to do. Should he just return back home to his country? These people are so hurt, they steal, he said. But one day, the Lord spoke to him. Saying, tell me, you say, are you fully surrendered to me?

You complain and you get upset with the people who steal your pineapples, but tell me, have you surrendered everything to me? God spoke to him in a very personal, deep way. He said, Lord, I've left my country.

I've come here to this nation, to this tribe, and all they know is stealing. And even if I tell them it's wrong, it's sinful. And I tell them it's sinful to steal, but they don't listen to me, Lord. They tell me that I'm not a real Christian because of my temper.

The Lord spoke, convicting him. He said, but it's you. You haven't fully surrendered to me. Yes, you left your country. Yes, you sacrificed. You've sacrificed much, but you haven't fully surrendered to me.

The pineapple, you've never surrendered your pineapples to me. You farm, you work hard, but you've never presented it to me. Then he prayed and said, Lord, I now give it all to you, including the farm, the pineapples, the lot.

It is yours. The people came at night to steal, and he just kept quiet now, saying this is God's thing. It's not mine anymore. It now belongs to God. And the people came to him and said, preacher, why aren't you angry anymore?

You were fighting us. You used to lose your temper, but now you're not. He said, well, how can I get angry anymore? Because the pineapples are no longer mine. I've given it to the Lord. It belongs to him.

And if you steal it, they are not mine. You'll be stealing it from God. They were shocked. After that, they continued with stealing, but their children became ill. They themselves got sick. The disease broke out in that tribe.

Some of them died. And then they said, perhaps this is caused by the fact that we've stolen God's pineapples. The women, the wives, they were becoming barren, wanting children but not able to. They went to the witch doctors seeking potions, but it never worked.

And so they went to their headman and said to him, look, here are the sicknesses caused by the preacher. Because he has said that these things are not his anymore, they're God's. And they said, what type of God is this that you have?

We come in the dark of night to steal, but your God can see us. And after some time, the stealing came to a complete end. They stopped stealing pineapples completely. Their thieving came to an end. They said, we cannot steal things from God.

The Secret of William Booth’s Ministry

I wonder you, dear friends, have you fully surrendered your life to the Lord? Not just a verbal recipe that you speak, but a complete, utter giving of yourself to the Lord. That missionary had said, Lord, I no longer hold these things as my own.

They all belong to you. I surrender it all to you. William Booth was the founder of the Salvation Army. When he was old and frail, a certain person came to him and said, Sir, why is it that your ministry has got such blessing?

He said, well, I took everything that is mine and I gave it all to Jesus. The daughter of William Booth sat close by and heard what her father said. She said to the person, I know what my father has said.

I heard it. He said that he gave all and surrendered it all to the Lord. But she said, I want to add something to that. All that he surrendered to the Lord, he never, ever went and reclaimed it. Martin Luther, he said in German, if you ask me, it's here.

He said, you give and you take back, it's the recipe for hell. The daughter of William Booth said, my father's secret is when he surrendered, he never, ever took it back right to the end. Now, two baskets, one good, one bad.

The Final Call to Surrender All

I ask you, dear friends, have you surrendered all to the Lord? Is all of that which you have God's? And then you took some back. Maybe you sing, I surrender all to Jesus and everything else I count as not.

Then you're ready for hell. Are your lives fully the possession of Jesus? Your car? Your property? Your children? Have you given it all to the Lord and left it with him? Remember that if you take back what you have surrendered, you are a thief, you are stealing.

Even if you've given it to God. Lord, I give it to you, take my life, all that I have. And if you take it back, if you forgive that you gave it to the Lord, then you are ripe for the hell.