There was a question put to a scientist, and
that question was, "What's inside a seed? And how does something
so small and hard grow?" So a botanist answered and said that inside a seed there
is an embryo, a plant embryo, which is a new life, which is just waiting
for the right conditions to germinate and grow. That's what is inside
a seed. We know that the natural example of a seed is the one that is
used in the Bible that explains the purpose of life and explains how
we can get salvation. That's the first parable that Jesus spoke - about the sower and the seed. He said to the people, "If you don't understand this parable, how are you going to understand any parable?" The lessons that we get in a seed, sowing, and farming are wonderful clear lessons given about the purpose of life in the plan of God's salvation. Sometimes, when we are having meetings over there, we like to ask the children, "What was the first job that God gave man?" It's in the second chapter of Genesis, the 14th or the 15th verse, and it says that God put Adam into the garden and he was to tend and look after that garden. That was the first job that God gave man; God gave man the job of looking after the garden. Things haven't changed much since the time of Adam. It's not a natural garden now; it's a spiritual garden now. As we sang in that hymn, "Our hearts are soil for sowing;" that's the main thing in life, that this seed - we'll cherish and obey it and reap life eternally. We were at a funeral recently, and as I looked down into the open grave I thought, "There isn't too much to this life, is there. All that we strive for - from the richest man to the poorest beggar - all come to the same level, they all go into a wooden box and get put into the earth." So the real thing is that my heart is soil for the sowing, and we want to get that seed of eternal life within us now. Jesus, when He explained that parable, said that the seed is the word of God. So it is true to what that botanist said - that a seed is an embryo, a new life, and it is just waiting for the right conditions to germinate and grow into something bigger. So, the word of God - that is what this seed is - is something living. It is not a theory, not a matter of getting a whole lot of knowledge about something; that's not the word of God. The purpose of the word of God is not to give us knowledge. The purpose of the word of God is to give us new life. If it only gives us knowledge, then we have missed the point of the whole thing. So, it is something living, and the Bible confirms that. It says in Hebrews 4:12, "The word of God is quick, (it's alive) and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow and is a discerner of the thought and intents of the heart." That seed that we are talking about is something living, it's alive and it's powerful. A seed can be powerful, too. Sometimes seed gets under concrete and slowly works away and can even crack the concrete and come up through it.
Our lives - we can produce nothing by ourselves; it doesn't matter how
fertile the soil is, without the seed planted in us, there can be nothing.
It is none of our own goodness, it can't be that way; it needs the implanted
word, which is able to save your souls. We have got to do the gardening
part, looking after it, and God in His faithfulness will plant the seed.
What does it produce? If you plant carrots then carrots will come up,
and if you plant cabbage then cabbage comes up. What is the word of
God? It is the mind or the very substance of what God is that was in
the very beginning. And what a wonderful opportunity in life that what
was right from the very beginning, what was in the very substance of
what God is, He through the gospel, through the word of God, we've got
opportunity that that can be implanted in our lives. And what's the
plant that's going to grow out of it? It's going to be true to its type,
like it tells us in the first chapter of the bible about seeds producing
after their kind. And to think that we are just creatures of the dust
and we've got no value - that within us something that was in the beginning,
that was of eternal value, of Christ-likeness, of Godliness - that's God's
faithfulness to us and to His word - that He will plant a very part of
Himself. That's what it is to be born again. The seed contains a new
life. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven; He'll plant
Himself in us and that new life will grow up.
There's a sobering thought that we can cheat in the sowing but we can't
cheat in the reaping; we can cut corners and not give God what He wants,
and we can fool others and still be in the fellowship and all that kind
of thing. We can cheat in the sowing but we can't cheat in the reaping;
we will reap what we sow. If we give first place to God - and that's the
most important thing - there are a lot of weeds that we will pull out
so that it can get its height, and we will reap life everlasting. But
if we don't, our time and our strength are going out to the weeds and
we will reap what we sow. What value do weeds have? What does it say
about the cares of this life and the deceitfulness of riches? God wants
us to take a good look at our lives and not just give all the strength
we have to weeds. What happens to weeds in the end? You just pull them
out, they have no value. We've got to live in this life, and we've got
to give time and strength natural things, but remember, the day is going
to come when we are going to go back into a wooden box and into the
earth and then all the things of this life-what are they going to matter
then? But if you are giving your strength and your time and your love
and your priority to the seed of eternal life and you're feeding that
well, you will have something that death won't be able to take. Maybe just one last thing - in that parable, there is the stony ground. Well, there's the soil and there's another influence, and that is the sun. It says, "When the sun came it had no depth of root and it withered away." In terms of a garden, it is in our hand, in our control. A gardener can keep his garden soft, and he can keep the weeds out, but what he can't control is the sun; he has no control of the sun, whether it shines or not. That is a picture of our life too; there is our garden, and it is in our hand whether we are going to keep our garden clean and keep out anything that will be taking the rightful place that belongs to God. But there is something that we don't have control over - the heat of the sunlight, the afflictions that come. There are different difficulties that come that we don't have any control over in life. There are tragedies, sadness and ill health, and we don't have any control over those things. There are two types of ground there. What did it do to the seed in the good ground? It ripened the harvest. What did it do to the stony ground? It withered the seed up. What it is going to do to us? That which we don't have any control over will depend on whether we have a root system or not. So, do you have a root system, an unseen part? Have you got a personal relationship with God? Is God your friend? Do you spend time with Him? I like what Trevor told us at Ngaire convention. He was telling us about those on the water that day, and they were caught in the storm. They didn't learn to row in the storm, they learned to row before that. And on the normal days we're tending to the private side of our life and we're giving God time, and if you want your roots to go down, well you have to give God time. In the busyness of life, if you don't set your priorities to give time to God, your roots won't go down and then when the heat comes...and those that do, well when the heat comes, it's wonderful; I've seen that in God's people, and when the difficulties come and what does it do? There is a wonderful ripening of the harvest, and those that don't, they wither up and die. So we want to see to that side of our life in having a personal and deep relationship with God.
So may God help us to be good gardeners and give it the first priority in our lives in this wonderful prospect of eternal life, which we receive in the word of God. |