11 - Parable of Growth
“And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not to that body that shall be, but bare grain it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain: But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased Him, and to every seed His own body.” — 1 Corinthians 15:37-38.
Ah! when shall all men’s good Be each man’s rule, and universal peace Lie like a shaft of light across the land, And like a lane of beams athwart the sea, Through all the circle of the golden year?
* * * * * * “As if the seedsman, rapt Upon the teeming harvest, should not dip His hand into the bag: but well I know That unto him who works, and feels he works. This same grand year is ever at the doors “
— Tennyson.
“ We have attempted to produce facts and evidence which should make it probable, that by far the greatest factor in the moral and humane progress of mankind, is the influence of the person and teachings of Jesus Christ. The argument is logical; and whoever overthrows it, cannot do so by vague declamation, but only by presenting a sufficient cause, other than Christianity, which shall account for these facts and changes.” — “ Gesta Christi”
PARABLE OF GROWTH.
’’And He said. So is the kingdom of God, 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 bring eth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear; after that, the fill corn in the ear. But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately He putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come!’ — (Mark 4:26-29.) This parable, so full of seed for the Christian life, so rich in its hints of the nature of spiritual growth, and so helpful in its prophecy of the final harvest, is an appropriate theme for a Spring-time study. The Parable of the Sower taught us how the good seed was scattered by the Sower, and how it was received by human hearts. This parable teaches the nature of the seed, the character of its growth, and the certainty of the harvest. In both parables, the ’’field is the world,” and the seed is “the word of the kingdom.” In the former, the “harvest is the end of the world; “ in the latter, the harvest is when “ the fruit is brought forth (or offers itself).” The parable of sowing taught us that while the good seed was to be scattered freely everywhere, whatever the quality of the soil, in many lives it would bring forth no ripened harvest. In this parable it is assumed that good seed cast into good ground will grow to its proper harvest, while the main purpose of the parable is to illustrate the inherent vitality and productiveness of the seed, and the progressive character of its growth to perfection. For our analysis we cannot do better than to follow the order of thought given in the parable.
’’As if a man should cast seed into the ground.”
There is a suggestion here worth careful attention, but as It Is not necessary to an exposition of the parable, and to avoid repetition, It will be considered In our study of the law of sowing and reaping.
’’And should sleep and rise flight and day.”
Seed-time- and harvest are the two prominent seasons In a farmer’s life. All things else in his work are secondary to the sowing and the reaping, hence in the Master’s parable they are left In the background. The soil is to be carefully prepared, the evil weeds thrown out, the poisonous roots destroyed, and good seed cast into the ground. The less important things are necessary, and therefore the sower does not sit down in idleness after the sowing, but does whatever Is necessary to prepare for the coming harvest. So far as the growth of the seed Is concerned, he can do nothing but wait. He knows “ not how” It grows, but rests In the certainty that by a natural law, not under his control, the seed will grow to the harvest. This is not a doctrine that permits indolence, but a lesson of patience and hope. When a man has done his wisest work with all thoroughness and skill, he has dealt only with the conditions of growth. He cannot give to the seed any additional power to ** spring up and grow.” His work is altogether with the ’outward conditions, not at all with the inward life. All he can do is to take the seed which has life in itself, and put it in the ground which has the fertility to support that life in its growth, then patiently and hopefully to wait for the harvest. He may know very little of the laws of growth, but he is very sure of the fact of growth; and hence his patience comes not from ignorance of the manner, but from assurance of the fact.
How slow we are to learn this lesson of patience that is taught with so great sublimity in every work of God, and with so great emphasis in all His word. No one can read the story of that long period when Jehovah was drawing the present sublime harmony of the universe out of Its early confusion and darkness, without wondering at the infinite patience of the Creator. He planted the seeds of the future harvest of beauty and order, and then let them grow according to the principle of life which He had put within them. The growth of continents, of trees, and of animal life, and the slow development of human history, tell the same story of the patience of our God. The Bible teaches even more plainly the unhasting patience of Jehovah in working out his mighty designs. The lives of His ancient prophets, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, were all illustrations of His patient sowing and waiting for a harvest. The whole course of human history Is an Illustration of Jehovah’s patience with a sinful, rebellious people, yet He never falters in His efforts to bring them up to the height of His eternal purpose for their redemption. How patiently the Saviour laid the deep, enduring foundations of His kingdom! He knew truth’s power of growth, and, therefore, without fear or doubt, waited for the harvest.
What patience to go quietly on through shame to death without once trying to hasten the end, or resist the cruelty! The Christian’s view of time and life should come from his Lord, who counted the earthly life of worth mainly as a Springtime for the sowing of “the word of the kingdom,” with all eternity for the growth.
We think of time in periods, as its beats its changes into our lives, but there are no such divisions of time with God. He who was before time began, and still- will be when time is ended, has no need to count its years or note its changing history. The end, the beginning, and all the history are present to His consciousness; hence He never unwisely hurries, or indolently lags; but always moves in patience from the first cause in Himself through all the infinite variety of growth and wide branching effects to His own final purpose.
Definitely, certainly, persistently, by the principle of growth which He has put within all life, and the command He lays upon it, Jehovah is guiding our whole race to the final harvest. Yet how often He might say to us as he said to Ephraim of old, “I took them on My arms; but they knew not that I healed them.” In our impatience to see the end of wickedness, we sometimes forget that the ** times and seasons “ are in God’s hand, and are tempted even to lose our faith in His supreme control of all the issues of life. We cry out, less in prayer than in unbelief, “ How long, O Lord, how long!” And sometimes we even try to gather the harvest before it is ripe, and thus in our “ zeal without knowledge “ruin all. A few years before the civil war, Fred.
Douglass was addressing a crowded audience. He depicted the fearful condition of his race, the degradation and horrors of slavery, the indifference of one great political party, and the determined opposition of the other. The Supreme Court had just decided against the black man, and all the indications seemed to point to a heavier curse than ever about to fall upon his doomed race. The picture was a fearful one, and it oppressed the audience with the speaker’s own feelings of despair, and they were ready with him to cry out for vengeance. In a moment of profound silence, that strange old woman, Sojourner Truth, rose from her seat, and pointing her bony finger at the speaker, asked, “Frederick, is God dead?” It was like a flash of light in midnight gloom. In his own way and time, Jehovah made His purpose plain. The best we can do is to do our best, and then to ’’hope and quietly wait,” leaving the harvest all to God. Our discouragement grows out of lack of faith, just as hopelessness always follows the death of faith. We may look over the world and see only the very apparent fruits of sin in the church, and see only its parsimony and lack of fidelity to the great trust for which it exists; but such a view is thoroughly deceptive. Like the cynic’s view of a sincere and earnest life, we carry to a great problem a little mind, and hastily condemn as not existing a power of life too rich and deep for our narrow souls to measure. Like the leaven in the meal, like the seed beneath the soil, secretly and certainly, the ’’mind that was in Christ” is taking possession of the intellectual and spiritual life of our world. This influence is creeping into the world’s legislation, into social customs, into war and commerce, into heathen lands and heathen hearts, and everywhere it is growing towards the full possession of the world for Christ. It is the quiet whisper of God to all our race, saying, ’* This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand and when ye turn to the left.” This ought to put to death all thought of our own importance, and make us feel a deep humility in the presence of truth with its endless life and mighty work. Christ sowed and Christ shall reap. For there are two great seasons in the life of His kingdom, when He was here to sow and when He comes again to reap. Between these times is the silent, secret growth of the kingdom under the guidance of the Spirit. Our work is to scatter the seed, and wait for the harvest.
’’And the seed shall spring tip and grow, he knoweth not how.”
Christ evidently expected His kingdom to have a perfectly natural growth; rapid and wonderful, but strictly according to the law of growth; and any careful study of this parable will disclose a very close analogy between growth in nature and growth in the spiritual kingdom.
All the phenomena of growth are indications of a profound mystery. Every farmer is sure that his seed is growing; he can point out all the marks of growth; but ’’ he knoweth not how” it grows. Not only is it out of our power to make the seed grow, but it is out of our knowledge how it grows. From seed through the tender ’’blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear,” to the harvest. The outer forms of growth are plain enough, but the inner spirit of life is a profound mystery. And you cannot get away from the mystery; it is everywhere. What is the difference between living tissue and dead?
One is a marvellous combination of strength and beauty, perfectly fulfilling its purpose; the other is worthless, except as a study. Man recognizes the fact of difference, but ’’knoweth not how” this difference is created. As in material growth, so in spiritual, the cause and much of the process are mysterious. The kingdom of spiritual life, like the kingdom of physical life, cometh not with observation, but groweth in secret. “The wind bloweth where it listeth; thou hearest the voice thereof, but knowest not whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is everyone that is born of the Spirit.” The spiritual forces at work in the world do not challenge attention by noise or display, yet they are growing into every nook and corner of human life. They may not always completely change a man’s heart and mind, but where in all the world is there a spot not already modified by the spiritual forces started by Christ? The Master himself gives us a perfect illustration of this secret and gradual changing of the whole world which He is working by His spirit. He said, ** The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till it was all leavened.” Leaven, yeast, is essentially different from the meal into which it is put. So is the kingdom of heaven, the Christ-given life, is a life essentially different from the life of the world, which has no more power to change itself than the meal has to rise without the leaven. It is the principle of new life in Christ that raises the world, completely renewing it, as it is the principle of new life in the leaven that transforms the meal. In both cases it is the life that is introduced, and life that propagates itself secretly and gradually until the ’’whole lump “ is changed.
Science has taught us that the yeast we use is a mass of living cells so minute that “a cubic inch of yeast in the heat of fermentation contains upwards of eleven hundred millions of them.” These minute cells, when they grow to full size, give off little buds. These buds in their turn grow and produce other buds. Thus, by a very rapid process of multiplication, this life, which has been put into the heart of the dough, works its way in a few hours to every particle of the whole lump.
*’So is the kingdom of heaven.” Its seed of life by a gradual, and in a large measure secret, growth, multiplies and spreads until it permeates the whole intellectual and moral life of our race. “ The truth” takes men as they are and lifts them to a sanctified life by its own power of growth. Men are not transformed in order to receive the truth, but they receive it in order to be transformed. They cannot transform themselves without the seed of truth any more than the meal can without the leaven.
Thus the task set before the disciples was to sow the seed of truth. They had no power to control its growth, but they had the promise which God has written so often in His book and so plainly in the seed’s own life, ’’ It shall not return unto me void; but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in that for which I sent it.” When we contrast the weakness of the men chosen for the work and the enormous difficulties to be overcome, with the rapid spread of the gospel and the wonderful growth of the church, we have a sublime illustration of this parable of the Master.
Secrecy and spontaneity (automate) are attributes of all true growth, whether in the physical world or the spiritual. Not all the marks of growth are on the surface of the field of grain, and we are in serious error if we think that there are no marks of spiritual growth but such as are plain to our eyes. Indeed, it is very doubtful whether the truest spiritual life is ever the most apparent. Many that seem to us to be first, may be last in the Master’s judgment. “The word of the kingdom” is not something that is cast away from God, with a life dependent upon the care of men. It is a living spiritual power in which God works to save the immortal souls of beings created in His image. His spirit is the life within the seed of truth, and, therefore, it has an inherent life that compels growth wherever the seed falls into soil capable of supporting life. The seed is not the life, but the means by which the life grows to its own harvest. The life bursts from the seed, leaving it to die, and grows out of the form of one seed through the stalk into a larger and more abundant life in many seeds. The harvest is easily identified with the seed sown, but the life of the little grain has built for itself a larger and more valuable place for itself and its work. Both seed and harvest are reservoirs of the life that has grown from the smaller into the larger. A chemist can make a grain of wheat corresponding exactly in all its parts to the living grain, but the manufactured grain will neither rise with the yeast nor grow in the earth. Man may make the reservoir, but God only can give life. Yet the life is what gives the seed its whole value. So it is with the “word of the kingdom,” in external form it may bear the closest resemblance to any word of man; but its inherent life makes it an altogether different seed in both kind and power. Even of the word of God it is said, “ The letter (the mere form) killeth” — leads only to death — but the inherent spirit is life. As in the Old Testament the spirit of life grew by means of an elaborate ritual and the words of inspired prophets, so in the New Testament the ’’ word of the kingdom “ is the means by which the same spirit is spreading a divine life throughout the world. “ The word of God is living, and puts forth energy (growth).” The power of Judaism over the thoughts and feelings of the first Christians, the gigantic power in Roman heathenism, the deadly hatred of a world-wide paganism, the subtle opposition of all forms of philosophy, the corrupt ideas almost universally associated with religious worship, the actual denial of the immortality of the soul by the head of the church in ancient Rome a few years before the birth of Christ, the weakness and obscurity of the early Christians, everything seemed to make it impossible for the “kingdom of heaven” to take possession of the world, or even to find a quiet spot in which to keep alive the Christ-taught faith. But in spite of opposition without and ignorance and sin within, the Master’s kingdom has gone from victory to victory, persistently growing into possession of the life of the world.
We know not how, for we cannot trace it except in the indications that are upon the surface, “ the blade, the ear, and the full corn in the ear.” We know that the Son of Man scattered the seed, and we saw the tender blade break through the ground only to meet the storms that beat upon it with such relentless fury. Again and again we watched to see it die under the overwhelming opposition of its enemies, and the selfishness and treachery of its friends; but still it grew by its own inherent life, from the tender blade to the ear, and now the full corn in the ear is proving its ability to fulfill the mission inherent in its life, to fill the whole earth with the knowledge of the glory of God.
“First the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear.”
These words teach the most important lesson of the parable. “ Heaven is not reached by a single bound,” any more than a harvest is ready as soon as the sowing is accomplished. Growth there must be from seed to ripened fruit. So with the kingdom of Christ, whether in the world at large, or in the individual life, it must grow, and its usual growth is not fitful, but steadily progressive. Yet from the beginning, when the disciples asked, “ wilt Thou at this time restore the kingdom? “ even until now, men have ever been looking for *’ signs and wonders “ in spiritual growth.
Yet the Master teaches the law of gradual progress as the law of His kingdom’s growth, and every christian student of human history is impressed with the power of this persistent and gradual growth of Christ’s influence. A few men of no influence, and not remarkable for either intellectual or spiritual power, are commissioned to sow the seed of a spiritual kingdom. They only half understand their mission, yet are forced from one stage of growth to another, until the ignorant fishermen of Galilee are become the saints of Christendom. So with the seed they scattered; it has grown into possession of the world’s best soil, and still is growing with ever increasing vigor.
Like the leaven and the seed, this kingdom of divine life is growing quietly with a sure and gradual growth through the “whole lump” of human life. Trace any of the noblest thoughts and works of today to their origin, and you will find that the spirit of Christ has been with them from their birth, giving them their life, and controlling them in their growth.
Take out of our civilization all that has grown directly from Christ’s life and teachings, and you would rob the world of its noblest life and greatest beauty.
All the inspiring hopes and satisfying faiths born of the Spirit, all the peace of Christ which has quieted so many troubled souls, all that deliverance from the thraldom of creatures to the freedom of children given us by the gospel of redemption, all would be swept away before the storms of passion, and the slavery of sin.
Because we do not see the power of Christ break forth like a human power, but only know it as growing secretly and gradually, is no reason for discouragement. The silent force of gravity is mightier far than the loudest tempest; and the persistent life that to-day is silently urging its way to the harvest in every field, has proven Itself stronger than all the storms and bitter cold of winter. Not “with observation,” but In silent, endless growth. Not challenging attention by a storm or flood, but in silent growth within the heart, a well of living water flowing on forever with spiritual life and health in every drop. As in the world at large, so in the individual soul, the kingdom of heaven is like a seed springing into life secretly, and gradually growing to the full harvest Not many of us know how or when the first seed fell into our life, or when the first blade appeared. Just as all the richest things in life “come to us,” we know not how or why, so this new life often comes. A blessed gift of God, but why to us, and how did it find a place to grow? Like the love of God which passeth knowledge, we know the gift is ours to use and to enjoy; why it came and how, we leave to God. The growth of the “kingdom of heaven “ In any one human life Is as mysterious, secret and progressive, as In a world. We can measure the growth of the kingdom in the world by long periods, but in the individual we have only a few years. In the one the very greatness of the phenomena challenges our attention and, helps our understanding of them; but in an individual life we need to look with closer scrutiny, for the time is short and the field is small. In any study of human progress, one very important thing is to be kept in mind, — the highest powers are of slowest growth. There are so few possible exceptions to this rule that it is doubtful whether it is ever violated. The lowest forms of life grow quickly to their end, and development becomes slower as you rise in the scale of being. In man’s own life the physical body reaches its full size and ability in a very few years; the mind requires a longer period for its highest development, while the spiritual growth requires more than all of this life, and we know not yet its range of growth in the world to come. This may be because the physical Hfe is temporary and the spiritual life everlasting, while the intellectual life, partaking of the natures of both physical and spiritual life, is above the one and below the other. Or it may be that the longer time is needed for the higher quality and value of the life lived and the work performed.
It takes but a moment to prepare a pane of common window-glass, but months to complete a lense for the telescope. It needs but a little time to train the ear to the simpler musical sounds, but years of careful attention to enjoy the deeper and richer harmonies. It is easy work to gather a great array of facts, but a greater thing and much more difficult to go down into the depths of their meanings, and find their deepest principles. It is a comparatively easy thing to make an open confession of faith in Christ; but it requires years of spiritual growth to be able to find the deep, unchanging principle of the Christ’s life and make it the controlling power in one’s own life. It is so much easier to follow the Master in outward act than in inward motive. And this is but saying that it is so much easier to do than to be, and the command is not do perfectly, but ’’be ye perfect.” In the individual life we know not how or when the seed first fell and began its growth. We may be able to tell when we first noticed it growing and felt it to be our own new life, but even this is not possible to us all, so gradual has been the growth. The secrecy of the germination and first growth is as marked in a single life as in the larger field of the world, because it is an essential law of growth to spring up secretly, and press noiselessly ’’towards the mark for the prize” of its high calling, the full and ripened harvest. The world instinctively doubts a loud profession of faith or the appearance of too rapid growth, and half expects it to be blasted by some untimely frost, or early tempest.
Every true spiritual seed must bring forth fruit of itself; we cannot put the fruits Upon It, and every act of forcing Is apt to be an interference with a higher power at work, and therefore apt to hinder the growth and delay the harvest.
It is but childish continually to disturb the seed to see whether It is growing. The lesson we need to learn is taught us in the Master’s work with His first disciple. What patience and hopefulness!
How slow of growth they were, and yet He was ever prophesying a great harvest from their sowing. Ah, but He saw the future, and knew how successful their work would be! Did He not also foresee the sure growth and abundant fruitfulness of the truth, and has he not taught us over and over again that the seed of truth, “the word of the kingdom,” once growing in the “good and honest” heart, cannot die, but must bring forth a harvest “after its kind? “ “ Be ye patient, therefore, until the coming of the Lord. Behold the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient over it, until It receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; establish your heart; for the presence of the Lord is at hand.” The seed must spring up and grow of itself through the clods and stones of our rough natures, with no more attention from us than is consistent with the perfect freedom of the spiritual life growing silently within us. It is ours to remove the weeds, guard against all enemies, keep our nights cloudless that the dew may fall, and our days uncovered to the full shining of the Sun of Righteousness, and then to put our trust in the new-born endless life within, begotten of Him who “will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ.”
What a light of hope and faith to shine in upon all our anxious fears and doubts!
We long and pray and work, and yet feel hopeless. Have we not forgotten the growing power of the truth? Judging by the external appearances, we sometimes forget that the “ inner man “ may be growing with a power and beauty that only occasionally appear in the outer life.
Conversion, as much as regeneration must be a fact in every christian life, but it is not always traceable. Many of us cannot tell the time of our conversion, and many more are in danger of a serious mistake when they count some particular stirring of their emotions as the time, and fact, of their conversion. Most of us can tell when we realized the fact, but even this sometimes comes so gradually as to make it impossible to fix upon any particular hour as the time when we were turned completely round toward God.
Yet whether dates and occasions can be traced with certainty or not, if the truth has germinated and put forth its own growth, a real change has begun in the life. And it is not merely a change of thought, or of purpose, but a real change of character. It is a new life, whose legitimate harvest is a perfected character.
It is not that completed harvest of life, but it is the springing up of the blade; the ear will follow, and the full harvest shall come according to God’s law of spiritual growth. The feeble blade, tested as it grows, becomes in due time the strong and fruitful harvest; but the new-born life is just as true a life as it ever can be. The first faint love growing through patient service, the ardent enthusiasm becoming hopeful endurance, the early gladness deepening to abiding joy, the buoyancy living on into quietness and peace — this is not change, but development. It is the true and natural growth of the soul. The inner principle is not weaker, nor the outer beauty less, but both are grown into truer harmony and higher fruitfulness. And this last it is that indicates the approach of harvest, and proves the nature of the growth, “ By their fruits ye shall know them.” The blade and the ear are as truly alive as the ripened grain, but are not yet able to give life in reproduction.
They receive, absorb, in order to ripen and reproduce their fruits, and their life is the same as when at last, more fully grown, they give forth their fruits to the husbandman.
We must not expect fruit immediately from the sowing, for we need to remember that in the spiritual kingdom, as in the natural, we have all the phenomena of growth. Sometimes, instead of a long period of gradual growth, there is a very rapid development, as if the forces of life were under some unusual pressure. The manifestations of life are not alike in all who truly live, although the laws of life remain the same. Some, as the tender blade of grass or grain, may not realize the rich store of life within them until the grain is almost ready for the harvest. Others, as the fruit-tree blossoming, immediately challenge attention to the vigor and beauty of their new life. The one reaching its highest beauty and value together in an abundant harvest, the other passing through beauty to the more valuable reproductive fruitfulness.
“ The ear between the blade and the harvest, between the blossom and the ripe fruit. This is a dangerous time to many a true christian soul. He has lost the vividness of his first spiritual experiences, and begins to doubt the fact of his conversion, and often mourns the decadence of his spiritual life. There may be good reason for his anxiety, but we must not forget that a natural growth leads through a period of green fruit of bitter taste, when there is neither beauty of blossom nor ripeness of fruit. The green grain may not be as beautiful as the blossom, but it is of greater value because nearer the harvest. To pass out of a first stage of vivid experiences to a time of dullness, and even of questioning; from the early joy to the quiet, perhaps stubborn, endurance of storms and resistance of enemies; may be only a hiding within the sheltering husk for a surer growth. The blade must grow through the green ear to the full harvest, and yet we sometimes distress our souls with a charge of decline when we are really in higher stage of growth. But we must not hide from ourselves the special dangers of this stage of christian life. For as the grain, when green in the ear, is in danger from unfavorable condition of weather, and from all manner of insects that would feed upon and kill it, so in the spiritual growth this is a time of especial danger from doubt and fear. But we must not think there is no fruit of the Spirit in us because we do not find any of it fully ripe. This is the time when the Husbandman is most patient with us, expecting of us only a careful guarding of the life He has given us, while it grows to the harvest.
It may not be amiss to notice some of these conditions which are within our control. The seed is planted, and has life within itself. The soil ’’spontaneously bringeth forth fruit;” its powers of sustaining the seed are in its original endowment. The rain and the atmosphere, the sunshine and the night, of this earthly life, will all attend the growing spirit with their various ministry. Our work is not with their production, but with our reception of them, our attitude towards them. We are to make all things without us minister to the new life within us, thus transforming the temporary into sustenance for the eternal. This cannot be done by giving all our attention to these external conditions, nor by looking only at our hearts to watch the growth, but far more by “looking unto Him who is the author and finisher of our faith.” For a man does not grow Godlike by studying only, or even largely, what he is in himself, — this is to mould his ideal and receive his impulse from himself; but by much patient thought of God and God’s ideal for man, does he grow.
Richard Baxter, in his autobiography, expressed this thought perfectly when he said: "I was once wont to meditate most on my own heart, and to dwell all at home and look little higher. I was still poring either on my sins or my wants, or examining my sincerity; but now, though I am greatly convinced of the need of heart acquaintance, yet I see more of a higher work; that I should look oftener upon Christ, and God, and heaven, than upon my own heart I would have one thought at home upon myself and sins, and many thoughts above upon the high, and amiable, and beautifying objects I am more solicitous about my duty to God, and less solicitous about His dealings with me.
’’But when the fruit is ripe, straightway he putteth forth the sickle, because the harvest is come.” This is the last touch of the parable, and it is full of power and beauty. ’’ Is ripe,” literally, offers itself, delivers itself up to the husbandman, as if pressing forward to the next stage of its development. The grain is not merely an article of food to nourish life, but also a seed to reproduce its own life in larger measure. How natural that it should be eager to go forward on its mission. It has passed through all the stages of growth in obedience to the decree written within its own nature, and now returns its fruits to the husbandman for whatever use he may have for them.
It is not more natural for a head of wheat fully ripe to drop its grains into the soil about the stalk, than it is for a ripe christian spirit to drop the seeds of life into neighboring minds and hearts. The harvest is come whenever the grain is ripe. So it is in the kingdom of Christ, not waiting for the end of the world, but giving forth seed as fast as it is ripe, until at length the whole character, fully ready, is gathered into the heavenly garner. In thinking of the harvest referred to in the Parable of the Sower, the fearful imagery of the fourteenth chapter of Revelation is forced upon the mind; but in this parable, the continual ripening and ever-increasing abundance of the harvest recall the prophecy of Amos, “ Behold the days are coming, saith the Lord, that the ploughman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed.” So vast will be the field to be cultivated, so rapid the growth and so abundant the harvest, that seed-time and harvest will be as one. How true this is of the Master’s kingdom! In every field, sowing and reaping go side by side.
Indeed, In every life this Is true; for what Christian, who really lives, falls to sow even while he is reaping? Of all the grains that fall Into his life, none nourish him more than those he scatters abroad to bless other lives.
Every true harvest delivers itself willingly to the husbandman, needing no forcing; but the unripe grain cannot be beaten from Its husk, selfishly refusing to give itself forth for another harvest.
Lives that are not ripe enough to deliver their spiritual fruits spontaneously, may need cultivation, perhaps a little urging, In order to aid their growth; but forcing is always dangerous. Yet in our impatience to enlarge the harvest, we are tempted to force unripe grain Into the sowing, while the life is yet “ In the ear,” needing all Its powers for receiving strength to grow — unnaturally compelling it to reproduce. A forced plant is very apt to be a frail one. Nor must we think that the full harvest can be gathered in this life. The life for which we have sown is endless, and the fruits are too rich and abundant to be all gathered on earth.
Immortal life is too vast to give forth in this temporary world anything more than a few indications of its nobility and wealth.
Heaven is heaven to us because of what we are becoming, not simply a beautiful home for what we are in this life. Having the power of immortal life within our souls, we look for nothing less than endless growth. Having the image of God born again within our spirits, we will not lower our ideal to anything less than perfection in His likeness, — perfect as God in kind of life, and in degree of likeness ever growing.
How can we become discouraged, with this word of the Master in our minds!
Souls endowed with endless life, heaven and likeness to God as the goal to be reached, and truth with inherent powers of endless growth to lift the soul to its high destiny, — surely while every mind must bow reverently and humbly before the greatness of the christian life, every heart must exult at the thought of the aim above and the power within.
“ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy begat us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, unto an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who by the power of God are guarded through faith unto a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time... having been begotten again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, through the word of God, which liveth and abideth.”