Now this morning, I'd like for
us to turn our attention to the book of Mark. Mark chapter 4. Turn in your Bibles to Mark chapter
4. Just a short portion of Scripture
beginning at verse 26. Mark chapter 4, verse 26. Our
Savior speaking in verse 26. And He said, And He said, So
is the kingdom of God. Now, he'd been speaking the parable
of the sower and the seed, or the parable of the soils. Then
he taught a lesson in between that, and up here he says, so
is the kingdom of God. This is the way the kingdom of
God is. And then he begins with another
parable, a short parable. He says, as if a man should cast
seed into the ground, and should sleep, and rise night and day,
and the seed should spring and grow up, He knoweth not how, for the earth bringeth
forth fruit of herself, first the blade, then the ear, and
after that the full corn in the ear. But when the fruit is brought
forth, or ripe, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because
the harvest is come." Now this is the parable of growing seed. That's what it is. That's what
I've entitled the message. And this is the only parable
that is exclusive to the book of Mark. You know, most of the
parables you'll find them in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or Matthew
and Luke, or Matthew and Mark, but this one is just exclusive
to Mark. Very similar to many of the parables
we've studied as we've looked at these parables. But this parable
is a little different. This parable teaches us how God
brings His elect people into the actual experience of salvation
in the new birth. You must be born again, Christ
taught. Regeneration, that's the giving
of spiritual life. And conversion, that's bringing
a sinner to faith in Christ and repentance. So that's what this
parable is about, how God brings his people into the experience
of salvation and their growth. The experience of growth, where
there's life, there'll be growth, just like physically. When a
baby is born, if that baby doesn't grow, there's something wrong,
isn't there? There may be no life there. But
if there's physical life, there'll be physical growth. Well, in
the same way, where there's spiritual life, there'll be spiritual growth. Now, when we speak of salvations,
I've often said this, and you've heard it, Salvation is a big
word in Scripture. It encompasses an eternal span
of, I start to say eternal span of time, but that's kind of contradictory,
isn't it? Because eternity and time, even
though they both are real, you can't really jam them up together,
click them off together. When you speak of salvation as
related in the scripture, you can talk about the sovereign,
eternal purpose of God before the foundation of the world.
And I know a lot of people don't like to deal with that issue,
the sovereignty of God, the eternal purpose of God. You know, the
scripture does, and not just sporadically, it does often.
God who created this world, God who is self-existent, God who
has no beginning and no end. These are eternal matters. We
can't really grasp the concept of eternity because we just were
creatures of time. We had a beginning. We'll have
an end physically. And we measure everything by
time. We wear watches, and have clocks,
and we think in terms of time, and we have this segment of time.
But God doesn't. The Scripture says to God a day
is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is a day. And we don't
even know what a thousand years is like. Isn't that right? I mean, three score and ten,
and anything above that, a thousand years? Well, think about God. But the Bible says that God works
all things after the counsel of His own will. That's an awesome
thought, isn't it? And, because of that, it says
all things work together for good to them that love God, who
are the called according to His purpose. But we want to think
things are contingent on us, you know. We determine. We don't. We don't. We're just
creatures in this world. A lot of times, groping in the
dark until God turns the light switch on and lets us in on it. But that's salvation for a sinner. When we come to know salvation,
we come to see that God, God is the author of our salvation. He's the source and originator
of our salvation. Salvation is of the Lord. It's
not of me. It's not of you. It's not something that you did
on your own because you're better than the rest who wouldn't. That's
what most people think today, even though they wouldn't put
it in those terms. Salvation is a free, sovereign, merciful
gift of God, and He says, I'll be gracious to whom I will, and
I'll be merciful to whom I will. And then when we speak of salvation,
we can certainly speak, and need to speak, and must speak of the
ground of salvation, the central issue of salvation, and that
is the gracious, great, powerful work of Christ on the cross.
That's where our salvation stands. To me, that's the crux of time
and eternity right there. Christ coming in the fullness
of the time, in the likeness of sinful flesh, yet without
sin, and in our name and in our nature, walking this earth. taking
our sins upon Himself, and suffering the infirmities of the flesh
without sin, and going to the cross, even unto death, shedding
His precious blood as the full payment of our sins, because
God must be just when He saves a sinner. He must be a righteous
judge as well as a loving Father. He must be just and justify. Christ and Him crucified and
buried and resurrected again on the third day. What a story
and what a truth. What a glory to know that we
who know Christ can stand before God complete and whole. God who
looks on the heart. We can stand before God complete
in Christ, righteous in Christ, holy in Christ, perfected in
Christ. And He is our life. He is the
reason that God works all things after the counsel of His own
will, actually. because it's according to the
praise of the glory of His grace. And then when we speak of salvation,
we can certainly speak to our experience of it. When we see
things as God shows them to us, when we enter into it, you know,
many of us go a long time in this life without knowing anything
about the reality of true salvation. We know religion. We know how
to clean the outside of the cup. We know how to join the crowds
and be entertained and have the moral pep talks, but we don't
know anything about salvation experientially in ourselves until
God brings us under the preaching of the gospel and breaks our
hearts, convicts us by His Spirit, raises us from the dead spiritually. That's what regeneration means.
That's what the new birth is all about. You must be born again.
Now that's what this parable is talking about, that experience
of salvation that comes through the preaching of the gospel.
And the first point that is brought forth here in this parable is
this, number one, the gospel must be preached. The gospel
must be preached. He says, the kingdom of God,
here in verse 26, is as if a man should cast seed into the ground.
What does that mean? He's using a farmer casting seed. Now, he's done that before, the
parable of the sower and the seed. Christ and his preachers
going out, preaching the gospel. He uses the symbolism of a farmer
going out into the field and casting seed into the ground. That's the preaching of the gospel.
The earth, listen to it, the earth, when you talk about physical
farming, we know this, the earth does not bring forth corn of
itself. You're not just going to just
look at a field that nobody's touched and go out there and
there's a whole field of corn. A farmer has to go out there
and prepare the ground and sow the seed before the corn's going
to come up. Isn't that right? That's the way we see it, isn't
it? That's the way it is. Well, in the kingdom of God's
grace, in the salvation of a sinner, God has set it forth in the same
way God has appointed the means of bringing His people to salvation. It's the same as the farmer sowing
the seed. It's called the preaching of
the gospel, casting seed into the ground. When I preach the
gospel, you can look at it that way, I'm casting seed into the
ground. I want you to look with me to
Romans chapter 10. Romans chapter 10, verse 13. Now, the Bible makes this clear. It says in verse 13, well, read
verse 12, he's talking about how all men and women by nature
are sinners and need salvation. We all have the same problem,
sin. Sin, not only what we do, but
what we are, what we think, what motivates us, totally depraved,
ruined, fallen in Adam, all of those things. We cannot save
ourselves. If left ourselves, we will not
decide for Christ. We wouldn't do that. Somebody
says, well, I'm saved because I made this decision. Do you
think you're better than the ones who didn't? Because that's
exactly what you're saying. But he says in verse 12, there's
no difference between the Jew and the Greek. The Greek was
a way of referring to a Gentile in that culture. He says, "...for
the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon Him.
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be
saved." Do you believe whosoever shall call upon the name of the
Lord shall be saved? I do. You know why I believe
it? Because the Bible says it. Now
what's the problem then? Well, the problem is, Brother
Manningham, you say it's the whosoever won'ts. Whosoever won't. By nature, men are the whosoever
won'ts. They will not. You will not come
to me, Christ said, even to His disciples that you might have
life. Or to the Pharisees, rather. You will not come to me that
you might have life. And that's just by nature. But
I guarantee you this, any sinner who calls upon the name of the
Lord shall be saved. I don't care who they are, where
they come from, Jew, Greek, Gentile, slave, freeman, rich, poor, black,
white, male, female. God has never and will never
turn any sinner away who wants salvation by mercy and grace
in Christ. But now look on. He says in verse
14, How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not
believed? It takes faith to call upon the name of the Lord. Now
where are you going to get that at? You say, well, you just mustered
up in yourself. My friend, you don't know the
Scriptures. Well, you have it naturally.
You've got this little spark in you and you just need to fan
it. You better read the Bible. The Bible says no spark to fan. You know what the Bible says
about man by nature? Dead, dead, dead. Isn't that
right? He has a mind. but it's in bondage
to sin and darkness. He has affections, but they're
all towards himself. He has a will, but it's in bondage
to death and darkness, just like his mind. No spark. Where are you going to get faith?
Well, what's the Bible say? Where does faith come from? For
by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. What is it? It is the gift of
God. Not of works, lest any man should
boast." Ephesians 2, 8 and 9. It's the gift of God. So how then shall they call on
Him in whom they have not believed? Now listen on verse 14 of Romans
10. How shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard?
You remember the Lord in teaching the disciples why He spoke in
parables. The first thing He told them.
And I say it this way because I've had people argue with me
about this, and I want you to understand now, you're not arguing
with me, if that's your mindset. You're arguing with our Lord.
He's the one who told His disciples this. I didn't come up with this,
you see. I didn't write this book. He said it was a judgment
on those who refused to believe. He said they see Him, see none. They refuse to see. Hearing,
they hear none. They refused to hear. But he
said, you fellas are better than them. You've heard and you've
seen. Is that what he said? Matthew chapter 13? No. He said, but blessed are
your eyes, for they see. Now who blessed their eyes to
see? Who did that? Huh? Mama? Daddy? God did. He said, blessed are your ears,
for they hear. You've been given spiritual eyes
and ears to see and hear things that they wouldn't. That's sovereign
grace. Well, how are they going to believe
in Him of whom they've not heard? You've got to hear. You've got
to hear with the physical ear and with the spiritual ear. And
look here, how shall they hear without a preacher? Somebody
to preach the gospel of God's grace in Christ to them. He says
in verse 15, he says, how shall they preach except they be sent?
God sends forth His preachers, as it is written, how beautiful
are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace. That's peace
with God by the blood and righteousness of Christ. That's peace with
God by the obedience unto death of the Lord Jesus Christ, who
is the Prince of Peace. The only way a sinner can be
saved and forgiven, the only way a sinner can be made right
in the eyes of God, in the eyes of God's law and justice, as
one old writer said, is through the blood and righteousness of
the Lord Jesus Christ. And no other way. And so he says,
preach the gospel of peace, bring glad tidings of good things,
but they have not obeyed the gospel, for Isaiah said, Lord,
who hath believed our report? In other words, Isaiah said,
Lord, nobody is believing what I preach. Well, here is the answer,
verse 17, so then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the
word of God. The gospel must be preached.
The Scripture says in 1 Corinthians 1.21, for after that, in the
wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God. It pleased God
by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. Christ told His disciples, He
said, go into all the world and do what? Preach the Gospel. Preach the Gospel. God has appointed
His means. It's the preaching of the Gospel.
And let me tell you something, sharing the gospel is never a
matter of formulas and techniques that are common in today's religion. Step one. Step two. Read this. Pray this. Repeat after me. That is never found in this Word.
It's just preaching the gospel and praying that God will make
it effectual. Leave it in His hands. Somebody
says, well, we're not getting enough people in. Well, what
are you going to do? I'll tell you what you do. Preach
the gospel and leave it in the hands of God. And you pray. Pray that the Lord will make
it effective. You say, well, we've got to provide this. We've
got to do this. We've got to distract them with
this. We've got to get them in first, and then we'll preach
the gospel. Where do you find that in this
Word? You know what Paul called that?
He called that the wisdom of words. He said, I don't preach
that way. Man's philosophies, man's ideas. When man begins to interject
this, it's just preaching the gospel. That's all it is. And
then God has appointed His message. It's His message, not mine, not
man's. It's the gospel. It's the seed.
This seed here in Mark chapter 4, back here in verse 26, is
the gospel. And it's a specific message.
It's the message of God. Paul said, I didn't receive it
of men, I received it of God. It didn't originate with man.
I'll tell you how you know that, because it's the gospel of grace,
sovereign grace. Man's message is always a message
of man's works interjected at some point in time to some degree
in some way into the message so as to exalt the flesh. That's
what the message of man is. But this is the message of God's
grace. It concerns the person of Christ, who He is. In other
words, if we're going to sow the right seed, we must tell
the right things about Christ. I was telling the Sunday school
class, or somebody, I can't remember who I was telling, to be honest
with you. I was telling somebody this, though. I tell so many
things. But I was telling somebody, I
was listening to a message where a fellow was talking about how
You know, man likes his doctrines and his systems. He said the
disciples didn't preach in systems and all that. And I got to think,
I said, well, okay, that's fine. I don't, you know, we preach
a person. But now let me tell you something. There are things
that people say about this person we preach that are right. And
there are things that people say about this person that are
wrong. I'll give you a prime example. Have you ever been visited
by a group of religious people who are called Jehovah's Witnesses
who come to your door and want to convert you to their way of
thinking? And here's one of their main
doctrines, that Jesus of Nazareth is not God. Now whether you want
to put that in a system or in a book of theology, whatever,
that is a lie. Jesus Christ is God. If He's not God, He's a lunatic. I'm not being irreverent there.
Because He claimed to be God. He is the I Am. He's the Word
made flesh who dwelt among us. He's the Son of God incarnate.
He's the Alpha and the Omega. He said this. He stood before
a group of religious unbelievers, who everybody was following in
that day, And he made this statement, he said, before Abraham was,
I am. I'm going to tell you, if I stood
before you and said that about me, you better run out the door.
Get rid of me quick, because I'm a lunatic. But you see, that's
a claim of deity. He is God and he is man. He's God in human flesh. And
that's the gospel we preach. If He's not God in human flesh,
we have no salvation. We worship Jesus Christ. I told one of those fellows one
time, I said, do you worship Jesus of Nazareth? And he said,
I do. And I said, well, you're an idolater
then. He said, what do you mean? I said, you're never to worship
a man. If He's not God, you don't worship Him. You don't worship
anybody but God. Isn't that right? To worship
anyone but God alone is idolatry. But you see, He is God. He is
man. He's Jesus, for He shall save
His people from their sins. And He is Immanuel, which being
interpreted as what? God with us. Every Old Testament
believer looks forward to the coming of God the Son in human
flesh. When Christ asked that question,
what think ye of Christ? They said, He's David's son.
Then He said, then how come David worshiped Him and called Him
Lord? If He's David's offspring, how could David worship Him?
And they didn't know how to answer Him. Well, I'll tell you exactly
how that could happen. He's both God and man. He's both
David's God and David's offspring according to the flesh, yet without
sin. He's God-man. He had to be in order to save
me from my sins, in order to save you. That's the kind of
person that it takes to save a sinner. And then we preach
the gospel of His finished work, that on Calvary He didn't come
and try to save anybody. He came to save His people from
their sins. He washed, He bore their sins
away in His body on the tree. He drank damnation dry and ensured
their salvation and now His blood demands their entire salvation. There's not going to be one sinner
in hell for whom Christ died. His righteousness demands that
they be with Him. He said, all that the Father
giveth me shall come to me. and him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out." He said, this is the will of him that
sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose what? Nothing, but raise it up again
at the last day. This is the gospel we preach.
It's the gospel which is the power of God unto salvation in
the hands of the Holy Spirit, because therein is the righteousness
of God revealed, how God can be just and justify sinners through
the person and finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ, who
died, was buried, and rose again the third day, because He finished
the work and accomplished in His death what nobody else could
accomplish. He's seated right now at the
right hand of the Father on high, ever living to make intercession
for us. And no sinner can be saved apart from Him. He said,
I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto
the Father but by Me. No other message, no other way.
This is the seed that's cast into the ground by the farmer. Paul said, I strive not to know
anything among you, say, Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. But now, in this parable, it
also teaches this. Not only must the gospel be preached,
and let me tell you, what that teaches me, and I believe you
too, is that nobody's going to be saved without the preaching
of the gospel. Now, you might get real religious and real mysterious
out there looking at the moon on a rock somewhere at night. And you may have a religious
experience, and you may come away with a dream, a vision,
or a hoodoo feeling, I don't know. But that's not salvation. Salvation is coming under the
preaching of God's gospel, Him bringing you under the gospel
and bringing the gospel to you and bringing it together by the
power of His Spirit in the new birth. But now here's the next thing
this parable teaches. It teaches us, secondly, that
God must do His sovereign, powerful work for salvation. You know, a farmer can go out
and he can plow the ground, he can prepare it, and he can put
seed in the ground, and it may not grow. It may not grow. You farmers, you're right now
getting that ground prepared, you're planting it. You may have
a bad crop. You may have no crop at all.
You may have the greatest crop that you've ever had in your
life. You know who's going to determine that? You. Why, if you determined it, wouldn't
you have the greatest crop every year? God determines. You see, we plant,
we sow, we water, but God gives the what? The increase. And it's
the same way in the preaching of the gospel. That's what he's
teaching in this parable. Look at verse 27 of Mark 4. He
said he should sleep and rise night and day. Now, this is not
the sleep of slothfulness or laziness. He's just talking about,
here this farmer, he sows the seed and he goes about his daily
business. He says he rises night and day.
He's taking care of things. And then the seed should spring
up and grow up. And he doesn't know how. He knows
not how. He is trusting God to make the
work fruitful. That is what he is doing. Back
there in verse 28 it says, For the earth bringeth forth fruit
of herself. Now the earth never brings forth corn on its own.
That is not what he is saying here. Left to itself since the
sin and fall of our father Adam, this sin-cursed earth will bring
forth nothing but what? Weeds, thorns, briars, They come
up naturally, don't they? Now, what comes up out of the
earth naturally, and quickly, and often, and a lot? That's
right. I remember when I was working
for the State Highway Department one time, we were surveying through
US 23, four-lane it down from Lloyd up to Russell, and I was
on the dummy end of the chain. If you don't know what that means,
That's where they put the lowest guy on the totem pole. They put
him in front with snake boots and a machete. In the summer. And that's what I did. I went
through, the guys pulling the tranches, they had it easy, you
know. I was in there with a machete, and boy, I would just go through
there and those pliers sticking me, and I'd say, I'd say, damn
this world. I mean, it was awful. But you
know, I never did stop to think, well, who planted this stuff
out here? Nobody planted it. It just comes up naturally. But
every now and then, you come to a clearing. And I said, oh,
man, what relief. I just get there and just fall
down on my face. Thank the Lord. But you see,
nobody planted that stuff. Nobody got here and said, let's
throw a bunch of briars out here. No. That comes naturally. Well,
let me tell you something. That's the same way that it is
with the natural heart of man. The only thing that can grow
out of that natural heart naturally is just sin, wickedness, filth,
briars, thorns. Not the corn. Not the full corn. You see, it takes a miracle of
God's power and grace to bring that heart, to break up the hard
ground of that heart, the fallow ground, break it up and prepare
it to receive the seed that's going to grow out. That's the
power of God's grace by His Spirit. That's what He does when He kills
us, slays us by the law, and brings us to see our sin and
our depravity and our need of God's mercy and grace. And then
He sows that good seed of the Word of God, the Gospel, into
the heart And it springs forth by the power of His grace and
we see the glory of Christ. We see the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And that's when
that corn starts to grow, that seed. Isn't that something? Think
about it. We know the planting and spreading
of the Word of God. The Gospel is of the Lord according
to His sovereign purpose. He said in Isaiah 55, He said,
My Word goes out and it will not return void. Secondly, we know the conversion
of sinners to Christ by the Holy Spirit through the Word is the
fruit and result of Christ's work of redemption. Look over
at John 12. I've referred to this before, but it's so good
to see this. What we have to understand is
that from death springs nothing but
death. In other words, you're not going
to get life from a dead person. But from life comes life. Life results in life. And our
spiritual life that God the Holy Spirit gives us in the new birth
is the result of the life of Christ, which is the result of
His death. Now, let me show you what I mean.
Look at what I say, John 12. John 12, yes. Look at John 12, look at verse
23. He says, And Jesus answered them,
saying, The hour is come that the Son of man should be glorified.
Now, this glorification is clear in the Scriptures. This glorification,
which is a lifting up and exalting up, is going to come as a result
of His coming down, His humility, the man of sorrows acquainted
with grief. He was obedient unto what? Death. So it says in verse 24, here's
how he puts it. This is just so right with our
parable here. Verse 24, barely, barely, I send
you except a corn of wheat. The word corn there is seed.
A seed of wheat. Fall into the ground and die.
Yet abideth alone. I mean, if you took a wheat seed,
and I don't know how small a wheat seed is, but if you took one
and just laid it there on that table, there's nothing going
to happen. It just lays there. But it abides alone. But now
if you put it into the ground, into the prepared ground, what's
the prepared ground? That's the heart that God has
prepared by His grace. Just like in the parable of the
sower and the seed, the good ground here, we don't know man
by nature is good of his own, but God prepares it. God's power. And so, this seed, if it's put
into the ground and it dies, but if it dies, it says in verse
24, it bringeth forth what? Much fruit. You see? And so, go down to verse, we
won't read the whole thing, go down to verse 31. Now, he says, is the judgment
of this world, now shall the prince of this world be cast
out, Now listen to verse 32, he says, "...and I, if I be lifted
up from the earth..." What's he talking about? His cross.
Lifted up from the earth. And he died, and he was buried,
and he was raised again the third day, and he was lifted up from
the earth again. He ascended unto the Father.
He's talking about his whole experience. to put away the sins
of his sheep, as Daniel 9.24 says, to make an end of sin,
to finish the transgression, all of that, see, that he was
going to do. And he says, if I be lifted up
from the earth, will draw all unto me. All who? All his people. And he says in verse 33, this
he said signifying what death? He should die. Talking about
his death. And so what we see here is back
here in Mark 4, this springing, this growing forth of the seed
into the plant. It is the sovereign purpose and
way of God through the preaching of the gospel empowered by the
Holy Spirit. It's the result and the fruit
of the death of Christ on the cross. You see, the Holy Spirit's
work within us is the result, the fruit of Christ's work on
the cross for us. The Bible says this body is dead
because of sin, speaking of this physical body, and we can see
that. But the Spirit is life because
of what? Righteousness. Whose? His. Not
yours, not mine, but His. In other words, the Spirit doesn't
come down here and give life to those who are righteous because
those who are already righteous don't need life. The whole need
not a physician. But the Spirit comes down here
and gives life through the preached Word of His own will, begot He
us by the Word of truth. The Spirit comes down here and
gives life through the preached Word to those who are spiritually
dead. Why? Because Christ died. He is life. And He is righteousness. Spirit is life because of righteousness.
Now, thirdly, the kingdom of God grows by virtue of the Holy
Spirit's power by the word of God being planted. As we said,
that hard earth, now it's got to be broken up by the farmer's
plow and the harrow, and the seeds got to be sowed by the
hand of man, otherwise there'd be no harvest. And so it is with
the heart of man. No man, left to himself, would
ever turn to God in faith and repentance. No man, if left to himself, would
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and obey the Word of God. The
heart of man is just totally depressed. What does Jeremiah
17, verse 9 say? The heart is deceitful, desperately
wicked, so that we cannot know it. Who can know it? Look at
John chapter 1. Let me show you this one. John chapter 1. Look at verse
11. Speaking of Christ coming into
the world, it says, "...he came unto his own, and his own received
him not." You think about that. Now some people say that's his
own nation. That could be. But look at verse 12. Now listen
to this. He says, "...but as many as received him, to them
gave he power." Now that word power there would be better translated,
right. He gave them the right. In other
words, what right do I have to call myself a child of God? What
right do you have to say that you're a child of God or that
you're saved? That's what he's talking about.
Well, look at it. But as many as received him, to them gave
he right to become or to be called the sons of God, even to them
that believe on his name. So he makes a distinction here.
There are those who received him not. There are those who
received him. What's the distinction? What made the difference? Were
the ones who received him, were they less obstinate, less rebellious? Their ground, the ground of their
heart wasn't as hard as the ones who received him not? Is that
what it was? Absolutely not. No, sir. Look at the difference in verse
13. Those who received him are those which were born, not of
blood." That means it had nothing to do with their physical pedigree,
whether they were Jew or Gentile. And listen, it doesn't have anything
to do today with whether you're born into a Christian family
or not. So he says, "...nor of the will of the flesh." That's
of their own will. In other words, they weren't
born because they willed it so. nor the will of man, they weren't
born because other men willed it so. But here's the key, three
words, but of God. They were born of God. Who makes
us to differ? God does. God makes the difference. We must be born again, the scripture
says. The ground into which the seed
is cast are the different hearers of the Word. That good ground
here back in the parable of the soils, that's the born-again
believer. And in this parable, he's describing
those who hear and receive the gospel as seeds sown into the
good ground. Go back to Mark 4, and let me
close with this. You see, the Son of God, He must do His great
work, and He does it in the preaching of the gospel. That passage that
Brother Joe read. The Word of the Lord endures
forever. And we're born again, not of
corruptible seed, but incorruptible, the Word of God, which liveth
and abideth forever. That's the living Word of God,
which is preached forth in the uttered, preached Word of God
in the Gospel. Some say, well, that sounds foolish
to me. Well, 1 Corinthians 1.18 says,
the preaching of the cross is to them that are perishing foolishness.
But unto us which are being saved, it's the power of God, not the
power of man, not the goodness of man, but the power of God.
Well, here in verse 28, he shows us thoroughly that we must exercise
faith and patience and care for the earth bringeth forth fruit
of herself. Now, what he's saying here, as I said, that's not saying
here that the earth itself and of itself produces life. First
of all, you've got to remember, who created the earth? God did. God's the source of all life.
But God is the one who gives spiritual life to his people.
Just like Ezekiel stood in the valley of dry bones and he asked
this question, can these bones live? Ezekiel didn't know. God
did. And every aspect of spiritual
life is of the Lord. Repentance is the gift of God.
Faith is the gift and operation of grace. Love is the fruit of
the Spirit. Joy is the result of God's work
in us. Peace is the product of grace.
Every aspect of it is of the Lord. Yet God works in us in
His way and in His time. And when the farmer plants, the
seed does not grow immediately or even fast. It takes time and
care. Look at it. He says, first the
blade, then the ear, and after that the fork, full corn in the
ear. When you're born again, you're not born full grown spiritually. You're a baby in Christ. And
you have to grow up in the Lord. That's why Peter said in 1 Peter
2, he said, Desire the sincere milk of the word that you may
grow thereby. That's how we grow, by continually
feeding. Just like a baby feeds on its
mother's milk, and then it's weaned from its mother's milk,
and it goes to baby food, then pretty soon, they're eating steaks,
and baked potatoes, and salad. More than what you want them
to eat. Pretty soon, they eat so much of that stuff, they get
like me. So, that didn't happen overnight. It takes time. First, there's the blade, and
then there's the, what do you say here, the blade, and then
the ear, and then that full corn in the ear. It has to grow. It
doesn't happen overnight. It doesn't happen fast. You all
know, the only thing that grows fast is what? The weeds. They
grow fast. Man, I tell you, I think I'm
keeping the Roundup Company in business. But they grow fast. But that crop, that corn, it
takes time, doesn't it? You've got to water it. You've
got to fertilize it with our tears and our prayers and our
time. We've got to attend the Word.
That's how we grow. Just like if you don't eat today,
you're going to get hungry. And if you don't attend the Word
of God, you'll get spiritually hungry. Or you ought to. If you
don't, there's something wrong, isn't there? And that's what
he's saying here. But look at the last verse, verse
29, "...but when the fruit is brought forth," that means when
it's ripe, "...immediately he putteth in the sickle, because
the harvest is come." There's a harvest, there's an appointed
time for the harvest. Let me give you just two things
on that. First of all, there's an appointed time when God's
going to bring His children into the kingdom. And that's sort
of a harvest. Christ sowed himself as the seed,
he died, he was buried, he arose again the third day, and he's
going to give them wine. But there's a time, as this gospel
is preached throughout the kingdom age, which we're in, the New
Testament, that the last one of Christ's sheep are going to
be brought into the fold. One of the old minor prophets,
Yesterday, those fellows are only called minor because their
prophecies were shorter than people like Isaiah and Jeremiah.
Not that their message was minor. But one of the old prophets said,
the last topstone will be laid. And when that last sheep is brought
into the fold, when that last seed is sown in the heart of
one of God's people and that brings up into the full, then
he's coming again and he'll harvest it all. He'll bring all his corn
into the harvest and all his sheep will be into the fold and
that'll be the end and then it'll be too late. And that's why we
press upon men and women today, don't delay and don't wait. Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. Believe now and you shall be
saved.