It is much easier for me to get
up here and talk concerning the fate and transport of 1,1-triclorethylene-methylene
chloride or polychlorinated biphenyls, Dorsey's Law, Henry's Law, fate
and transport, laminar flow, turbulent flow, which is what
I did all my life, a technical person. I like fact, additive
fact, additive fact, additive fact, come to a conclusion which
is the truth. I take the same approach when
I come to the scripture. So you just have to bear with
me. and suffer with me through this process. Now I'll cut it open. Yes. Let us pray. Oh Lord, we just
sang. Plenteous of grace is found with
thee. We come to you this morning seeking
your grace, seeking your favor, seeking your presence, seeking
to be fed from your word. Lord, we beg this morning, you
would feed your sheep. that we might be full of our
Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Lord, bless us. Worship with
us. We beg that you honor yourself
this morning. These things we pray in Christ's
name. Amen. My subject this morning is basically
seeds. And I want to talk about seeds
that are sanctified. From my perspective, every scripture
is written like Paul states in 2 Corinthians, but I fear as the serpent beguiles Eve in
the garden through his subtlety. So your mind should be corrupted
from the simplicity that is in Christ. There's another meaningful
word, simplicity, and it is singleness. All scripture, without exception,
declares the simplicity or the singleness of Christ. Now whether
we see it or not is different. And Hawker comes as close as
anybody I've ever seen to finding Christ in every scripture. There
is, in this simplicity, it can be stated this way. Christ
is all. It's that simple. What does all
mean? Everything. And to me, if it
just stopped there, the statement, Christ is all, Christ is everything,
is absolutely true. But it lacks one part. Christ
is all and everything to my soul. Without my soul being in Christ,
It's meaningless. I don't understand it. I don't
get it. So Christ is everything. It's the simplicity of the gospel
itself. And when it's taken personally,
it becomes the most comfortable, rejoicing, honorable, glorious
thing that can happen to a poor sinner. Then in Romans, he makes
another statement. Essentially, he says, And I'll
read this, Romans 120. The invisible things of Christ
from the creation of the world are clearly seen, been understood
by the things that are made or created. Even his eternal power
and Godhead so that they are without excuse. What it says,
everything that God created declares Him to be Christ. The invisible things, the Father,
the Son, the Holy Ghost, can be seen clearly and understood
by what is created. We were blind as bats. We'd never
see it. My granddaddy never went to church.
He had coon dogs and he'd go out in the middle of July on
Sunday and take those coon dogs to the swamp and he'd teach them
how to hunt coon and claim that he gets just as much out of nature
and God as we do sitting in that church. A lot of people claim
that. But we are as blind as bats. And what Doug just read this
morning, by Him, for Him, with Him, to Him, is everything that's
created. And without Him, there was nothing
created. So here is God's work, His workmanship. So I'm going to go to that. I'm
going to go to Genesis 1-1, first verse in the Bible. In the beginning,
God created. And stop right there. You're
talking about sovereignty. Of him, by himself, for him,
to him, for his purpose, as it pleased him, he created what?
Everything. Everything. Including men. According to his sovereign will
and to his purpose. And everything he created has
a purpose. to praise and honor and glory
of the grace of God in Christ. Everything. That's what creation
is supposed to tell us. So I picked one little subject, and it's called the seed. And
in Genesis 1-11, and God said, let the earth bring forth grass
or vegetation, the herb yielding seed and the fruit tree yielding
fruit after its kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth,
and it was so. And in verse 17, it says, if
the earth brought forth grass and herb yielding seed after
its kind, he said it happened. And God saw that it was good. All right, my point. Anybody
in here that does not know what a seed is? Butterbean seed, corn seed, nut
bean seed, even spinach seed. Everything that God created from
a vegetative standpoint has a seed. Now notice the scripture also
says, after its own kind. Doug, if you plant a butter bean,
do you expect the corn plant to come up? No. If you plant
a corn seed, do you expect the butter bean to come up? No. Each
one of those seeds brings forth its own kind. Now here's the
little seed. Now let's go to the seed of man. If you take the example of God's
creation and say every seed is after its own kind, then guess
what? If Adam is our father, we take
on Adam's characteristics. Why? We do the same thing that
this vigil seed does. He creates children after his
own kind. And in the condition that Adam
was in, in a fallen condition, the scripture says, I'm just
like Adam. When you look at Adam, you see
me. What does that say? We are poor, fallen sinners. Let me go to this, and I'm going
to compare literal seed with the seed of man. Genesis 3, 15. I will put eminent between the
woman and between the seed, between thy seed and her seed. He shall bruise thy heel and
thou shalt bruise his head. That tells me from a spiritual
standpoint, there are two kinds of seeds. Satan has a seed and
Adam has a seed. And this bruising of his heel,
you read what that means in one sense. And Isaiah, he is bruised
for our iniquity. So this Satan bruising, what
to him the biggest victory ever had, but it's really our victory. It's Christ and him crucified.
He says, but the seed of the woman, who is Christ, he's not
ever called the seed of man. The seed of woman shall bruise
his head. What does that mean? At that
time, I'll tell you a story, if I can will. When I was about
14 years old, five or six of us were walking through Swift
Creek Swamp in Nash County. Two miles wide, 30 miles long,
one of the biggest swamps there is. It was in the summertime,
it was dry. We were walking along, we had a shotgun with us, and
here was the biggest water moccasin I've ever seen in my life. My
cousin raised up and shot him with the mouth wide open. About
three pellets went right through his head. We thought that snake
was dead. So I picked the snake up by its
tail, and you may think I'm joking. He was five feet, three inches
long, and he was that big of a ram. You may think I'm joking,
but that snake is still in a jar at Whitaker's High School in
Nash County right now. But I was sitting holding him
like this, and just walking, getting out of the swamp. All
of a sudden, I looked up. And that snake wasn't dead, that
head was coming up with his mouth wide open, head was like straight
from my hand. I dropped him like a hot potato. Now, the point
I'm making is bruising his head, and the scripture said Christ
cast him into the lake of fire. When my cousin got through stomping
his head, you couldn't even tell whether he had a head or not.
That's what brooding his head meant. But my point being is,
here are two seeds. The seed of woman and the seed
of Satan. And they are at enmity with each
other. Satan always. Now, the reason
I say this seed of woman, Christ is a seed of what I want to really
get talking about is the children, the posterity, the seed of Adam. We are after his kind. How does
God sanctify his seed? And I'm going to use literal
examples of a natural seed to show exactly what it declares
to us how God works in his grace. But, now to Adam his seed were
the promises made. He saith not as to seeds, as
of many, but as one. To thy seed, which is Christ. So Christ is the seed, yet we
are his children, his seed. Christ is the seed. Two seeds. Here's one of them. This is Adam's posterity, Adam's
children, natural children. John 844. You of your father
the devil and the lust of your father you
will do. He was a murderer from the beginning.
And above, not in the truth, because there was no truth in
him. When he speaketh, he speaketh a lie. He speaketh of his own,
and he is a liar, and the father of it." Now, guess what? We, as natural children, believed
his lie. He suddenly came to Eve, and
that's exactly what Paul was talking about. I fear less. Under
the subtleties, you leave the concept, the gospel, of the simplicity
of Christ. once were deceived. And it says,
his children, subtle and deceivers. If a man think of himself to
be anything, he deceives himself. Satan deceives us all the time,
every day. But the point I'm here making
is these children, natural children, are either the seed of Satan
or the seed of Christ. And he says, He is their father. And we say, not me, Ephesians
2 says, oh yes, this is you. He walked according in the course
of the world, according to the prince of the power of the air,
the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience.
And what is that? Debt and trespasses and sin.
The point I'm making is here is the seed of Satan and here
is the seed of God Almighty. And what does he say? He says
in Malachi 2.15, the Lord seeks a godly seed. Well, I think the
two seeds, one the devil and the other is walking in accordance
with the course of this world. How in the world do you get a
godly seed? They said, God seeks a godly
seed. So out there somewhere, there's
a godly seed. And if he seeks it, and if it's
God, and he's sovereign, you think he'll find it? Absolutely. Absolutely. So now let me go
to this. How many different seeds are
on the face of this earth? There are a number of them. Butterbeans. corn, snap beans, okra, all those
things, black-eyed peas, pinto beans, thousands of them. Natural seeds, according to man,
is innumerable, so is the spiritual seed. In Revelation, we read, every nation, every kindred,
every tongue, every people, God has a seed among all the other
seeds, and they're everywhere. France, Africa, Asia, China,
India, you name it. They're all the seeds of men,
the children of Adam, the sons of Adam, the seed of Adam. How does God respond to the two
seeds? He says to one, you are accepted in blood. And
to the other, he says, depart from me, ye workers of the nichrony. And how do we get that separation? What is separation? It's sanctification. Levi, the whole tribe of Levi
was sanctified Meaning set aside to observe all the ordinances
and stuff in the temple and the tabernacle. Now separated also
means from unholiness to holiness. Now how does God from all the
seeds in all the world and every one of them are walking in accordance
to the print of the power of the air? Every one of us. How
does God separate them? And he does separate them. What
does it mean? Answers the question, who makes
thee to differ? How do you differ between these two seeds? The
seed of Satan and the seed of Christ. All of them the seed
of Adam and his sin. God says, ask this question,
who makes thee to differ? Why does it say, accepted one
and depart to another? The question, who makes them
to differ? And here's their answer. I put
a difference between Egypt and Israel. I put a difference between
my children, my seed, my sheep, and everybody else. He also said,
I put a difference between the clean and the unclean. All these things in the Old Testament
ceremony are declaring that God is sovereign in choosing and
electing his people. I put a difference. Who makes
these to differ? I put a difference. I make or put a difference between
the holy and the unholy. Well, I just said we're all in
kind with Adam and all poor dead sinners. So what does God do
to make something that's unclean clean, something that's unholy
holy? And that's what sanctification
is. God going from to something,
from something else. Going from sinner to believer
to glory to rest in Christ. Let's take an example. You take a piece of wheat. What
does it take to get from that whole piece of wheat and separate
out the seed Thresh it. Many a place in the
Old Testament is talking about threshing for. You take that
wheat plant and you beat the stuffings out of it to separate
the stubble from the chair from the seed. That's a picture of
sanctification. That's a picture of what God
does for his seed. You're taking this thing that's
mixed with stuff that's absolutely, utterly worthless. the stubble
and the chaff, and you'll separate it. Several places in scripture,
it says, we take this and throw the seed up in the air and let
the wind blow the chaff away. We burn the stubble. In Vietnam,
I watched them thrash rice. Take a bundle of rice and beat
it on the board and had this cloth down under it. They took
it out and put it on a wooden pallet and threw it up in the
air. And all the chaff and stuff blew away. And I mean all women
doing the work, just beating that thing. They were threshing
that wheat. Look at what a combine does now.
Combine cuts, it cleans, it blows the chaff and the stems and the
stalks out, and you end up with nothing but pure seed in your
bin. That's God's separation. It's a picture of that. Now,
it doesn't stop there. Another picture of Sanctification,
wine press. Many times in the scripture,
here's God pressing the fruit and separating the meat from
the juice. Again, it's a picture of God
doing something to change something in form to something totally
new. Look at gold and silver, alloy. Put it in a fire. It separates
that pure, precious stuff from the alloy. and it goes out on
the rock pile, and then you have to take the jaws off the top.
These are all pictures of Christ sanctifying, taking something
that's impure, unholy, corrupt, making something that's pure
and holy and uncorrupt for the life of it. It's God sanctifying
those things. Now, turn with me, and I'll try
to do this quickly, to Matthew 13. Here is a picture of God's relationship
to seeds and how they're sanctified. Let's start reading at verse
3. And he, the Lord God Almighty,
spoke many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower
went forth to sow. And when he sowed, some of the
seeds fell by the wayside, and the fowls came, and devoured
them. And some fell upon stony places where they had not much
earth. And forthwith they sprang up,
because they had no deepness of earth. And when the sun was
up, They were scorched, and because they had no root, they withered
away. And some fell among thorns, and
the thorns sprang up and choked them. But other seeds fell into
the good ground and brought forth fruit, some a hundredfold, some
sixtyfold, and some thirtyfold. With ears to hear, let him hear."
Now, just ask your question. is sovereign in his parable. The sower, the sower is a picture
of God Almighty taking every seed and putting them where it
pleased him. The explanation is further on. But just listen to this, ma'am.
Here is another picture of sovereignty. For whosoever hath, to him shall
be given, and he shall have more abundance. But whosoever hath
not, from him shall be taken even what he hath. Therefore
speak I to them in parables. Because they see and see not,
and hear and hear not, neither do they understand. And in them
is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, which saith, By hearing
you shall hear, and shall not understand, and seeing you shall
see, and shall not perceive. For this people's heart is waxed
growth, and their ears are full of dull hearing, and their eyes
they have closed. lest at any time they should
see with their eyes and hear with their ears and should understand
with their heart and should be converted and I should heal them.
But blessed are your eyes for they see and your ears for they
hear. God doth put a difference between
those things. God doth put a difference between
people. They don't see, they don't hear,
they don't understand. But you, He blesses. You see, you hear, you understand. Here is the story describing
what this parable means. He is declaring, I am sovereign,
and I give mercy and grace to whom I please. For verily I say unto you, that
many prophets and righteous men have desired to see these things
which you see, and have not seen them, and to hear those things
which you hear, and they have not heard them. No wonder it's
so meaningful when the apostles come to Christ. They kept waiting for him to
get on the throne. He asked them, have I been with
you so long that you don't recognize that this is a spiritual kingdom,
not a physical kingdom? They looked at him. He said,
then opened their understanding. The same thing here. How do these
people understand? How do they see? God Almighty's
sovereign work. Let's see. And he goes on to
say, hear therefore the parable of the sower. Here is God's word. This is his interpretation of
that parable. Hear therefore the parable of
the sower. When anyone heareth the word of the kingdom, and
understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth
away that which was sown in his heart, this is he which receiveth
seed by the wayside. For he that receiveth the seed
in stony places, the same as he that heareth the word, and
immediately with joy receiveth it. Yet hath he not no root in
him, but endureth for a while. And when tribulation or persecution
ariseth because of the word, immediately he is offended. He also that receiveth seeds
in the thorns, is he that Here's the word and the care of this
world and the sequence of riches choke the word and who becometh
unfruitful. But he that receives seed in
the good ground is he that hears the word and understandeth it,
which also beareth fruit and bringeth forth some 100, some
30, some 60. So here is the sower. with all the seeds of the world
in his hands. And the scripture said, my father
hath given all flesh into my hands. And you think it's a mistake
that some of it falls out of the wayside? Some of it falls
among the tares? Who made the tares? Who created
the wayside? Who created the ground? God in
his infinite wisdom and in his sovereignty places that seed
in a place that declares to us, if you are among the tailors,
you will not hear the word. Unless God places you into good
ground, you will not hear. And he's doing it sovereignly
and deliberately. And is he effective? It says what God planted in good
ground gave a hundredfold, sixtyfold, or thirtyfold. It returned to him in accordance
with his will and his pleasure. It praised his honor and glory
of the grace of God. It just, to me, and here it is,
the simplicity of this parable is so clear. Yet he says, men
hear this and they don't understand it. And it brings the question
up again, what's the difference? I make a difference. I reveal to whom I reveal myself
to. It's my pleasure, and His creation
says, and it is good. It is perfect. Oh, what clarity
to sovereignty is. And here's election. Look where
the different seeds fail. And God purposed these seeds
to fall into the good ground. Oh, what to me, what, again,
what simplicity this says to a poor sinner. One more statement concerning
a seed. John 12, 24. Verily, verily,
or truly, truly, I say unto you, except the corn of wheat fall
into the ground and die. It abideth alone. But if it die,
it bringeth forth much fruit. Here to me is the final picture
in God's sanctifying his seed. He separates the wheat from the
chaff. He collects the pure seed. And
there comes the seed, except you die. Except you die, you
will not live and be fruitful. Paul says it this way, concerning
all the righteous of the law, I'm blameless, kept them every
one. Then he says, The commandment came. What commandment? The word
of God that says you are a dead sinner. Paul said when the commandment
came, sin revived. I saw what my sin was and I died. And when he died, he died in
Christ. So just picture this. seed and kills it, it plants
it. That seed is revived and becomes
alive, quickened. And when it comes out of the
ground, guess what it is? When you plant a corn seed, it's
a little round kernel, big on one end, small on the other end,
got a little button that's hooked to the cob. What does it look
like when it comes out of the ground? Two leaves come popping
up. A new creature. Totally, absolutely
different than what that seed was. And guess what it does? God sends the sunshine. God sends the rain. God sends
the fertilizer and the soil. And guess what? It produces fruit
a hundredfold. 30 fold, 60 fold, according to
the amount of grace that God gives. Oh, it is so clear. This thing becomes a new creature,
something totally you wouldn't recognize in that seed. It is a picture of God's sanctification
of his seed. taking something that's dead
and making it alive, taking that seed and burying it and it comes
to life as a totally new creature and it shall bring forth fruit. How? God's Son, God's grace,
God's fertilizer, God's water. It's a statement of the glory
of God in Christ through his mercy and his grace. Now, suppose when I was up here
I started talking, I put a seed right here on this pulpit. Been sitting there about time
I'm supposed to quit. Let's say 45 minutes. Seed! Get up. Plant yourself. Oh, I see you're still sitting
there. Seed, multiply, grow. Seed, make it on sunshine. Seed,
make it on good ground. Seed, make the fertilizer. Look,
that seed is still sitting there not doing anything. That's a
picture of a poor sinner without Christ. It's dead, just like
that seed cannot do anything for himself. Everything that
seed does has to be something external to him. Somebody has
to do something for him and to him, or that seed will never
do anything except sit there. It's a picture of us in the simplicity
of a seed, yet it takes the grace of God. What did they say? Prophets and all these other
religious folks tried their best to see these things, just as
blind as a bat. Yet God says, I give it to you
to know. What a blessing that is. Now,
I'll end this. I'm trying to say that sanctification
is something that God does by making something unholy, holy,
unrighteous, righteous, ungodly, godly, simply by looking at a
seed as a literal picture of what we are without Christ. But
when God sanctifies something, when God picks something up and
puts it in the ground and plants it and fertilizes it and waters
it, sends the sunshine, what's he doing? He's creating a new
creature. He's making his center his own. Hebrews 10.10. By the will of
God, we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus
Christ once for all. Sanctified. For of him are ye
in Christ, made unto you sanctification. That's what I'm talking about.
Made holy. By the will of God, sovereign,
we is seen. are sanctified, made holy through
the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. How? By the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ. All these wheat fields, all these
corn fields, all these butterbean fields, everyone in them is a
testimony every day to this process. Now here is the comfort. This is from Hebrew 10. I can't
read the verse that I have. 14, by one offering, one offering, he hath perfected
forever them that is sanctified. All that threshing, all that
wine press, all that getting rid of the draught, that heat
separating the gold from the silver, all pictures of God Almighty
doing something for His people. I offer, I want to offer to the
effective forever then that He has sanctified. May God find
us with him, in him, for him, and of him. And notice it says, may God find
us. May God find us in the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.