In addition to our text, let’s add two other scriptures. Psalm 126:1-6 – “When the LORD turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing: then said they among the heathen, The LORD hath done great things for them. The LORD hath done great things for us; whereof we are glad. Turn again our captivity, O LORD, as the streams in the south. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.” How did the Lord first turn again the captivity of Zion? It was through His grace and mercy. And doesn’t Israel and Zion need to be turned once again? In addition to the judgments of the Tribulation, what other tools will He use to bring Israel to her knees? Among others It will be through the preaching of repentance, just as it has been in the past. It will be through the work of the precious seed of the Word of God
Now turn to Mark 4:3. “Hearken: Behold, there went out a sower to sow.” There went out a farmer, scattering his seed grain. Verse 14 – “The sower soweth the word. And these are they by the way side, where the word is sown; but when they have heard, Satan cometh immediately, and taketh away the word that was sown in their hearts. And these are they likewise which are sown on stony ground; who, when they have heard the word, immediately receive it with gladness; And have no root in themselves, and so endure but for a time: afterward, when affliction or persecution ariseth for the word’s sake, immediately they are offended. And these are they which are sown among thorns; such as hear the word, And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful. And these are they which are sown on good ground; such as hear the word, and receive it, and bring forth fruit, some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some an hundred. In the Lord’s parable, the farmer was scattering the seed of the Word of God. We could – we should – look at this man as an evangelist of some sort.
Here in First Peter, the apostle tells us that children of Satan become children of God through the new birth. And the seed of that new birth is the Word of God which liveth and abideth for ever. “And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.”
It is almost unbelievable, but just 200 years ago, educated, sane people believed in “spontaneous generation.” Sure, the farmer planted seeds to grow his wheat, but many of those farmers weren’t sure that the weeds in the wheat field didn’t spring up out of nothing. Also, it was believed by some of our great-grandparents that maggots were the children of dead and rotten meat. As late as 150 years ago, scientific journals were publishing reports of electricity giving birth to spiders.
It was in 1862 that Louis Pasteur was disproving the ideas of life coming out of non-living things. As late as 160 years ago, scientists were disproving the ideas of “spontaneous generation.” But at the same time, along came Charles Darwin followed by the evolutionists. Now we right back at the beginning – the moronic ideas that life comes out rock, slime, space dust and water. Not only is evolution is an attack upon God, but it attacks the very principles of logic. It uses is ignorance, cloaking it in honorary PhD degrees. “Spontaneous generation” is a myth except in evolution and in religion.
Religion? Absolutely! It is beyond reasonable, but multitudes think that pouring water on decaying flesh will somehow produce eternal life. They may claim the power of God, but the Lord never promised such a thing. There is a direct correlation between evolution and baptismal regeneration – one is the cousin of the other. But the idea is as ludicrous in the spiritual realm as it is in the farmer’s field.
The three scriptures we’ve read, point to the fact that a seed must be planted before there will be any fruit. And that includes spiritual fruit. There is no innate eternal life in the heart of any child of Adam, just waiting to spring out with a little moisture and sunshine. The seed of life must be planted. It will not spontaneously generate. And growing out from that fact, we also see the essential work of the sower of the seed.
Think with me for a few moments about PROPERTIES of seeds, as they relate to the Word God.
Some people might consider me stupid or at least uneducated, but to me to plant an apparently inanimate seed in soil, adding a little water and warmth, by which that seed transforms itself, is somewhat miraculous. But it happens all the time, because of God’s will and His marvelous engineering. That seed is certainly not inanimate in way that a pebble of the same size and shape is inanimate. Seeds contain a embryo of their mother, along with a bit of stored food, covered by coat of some kind. The seed coat protects the potential life inside, usually allowing it to remain dormant until the weather is just right for germination. At that point, the embryo absorbs a bit of water and grows, then a root emerges, followed by a shoot. Evolutionists may revel in the accidents which produced that process in millions of varieties of plants. But I marvel at the creative wisdom and engineering of Jehovah, praising His name for what has become an essential blessing for life on this earth.
Have you ever thought about fact that Eden was created as a perfect garden or farm? I have heard that today’s vegetarian, in order to stay healthy, has to supplement his plant-based diet with extra vitamins and minerals, while carefully choosing his veggies. But that would not have been a problem for our first parents. God designed perfect vegetables, fruits and cereals, meeting every nutritional need of Adam’s body. When He was done, the Lord stepped back and looked at every part of His creation, and behold it was good. However, when Adam chose sin over God, the nature of agriculture drastically changed. Man has been trying ever since to recover perfection, pretending to improve on what Adam ruined.
And similarly, the spiritual the seed of the Lord was, and is, perfectly perfect. Again, according to Mark 4:14, the seed is the Word of God, which I assume is the Bible as we know it. There have been no development officers or scientists who have come along improving God’s Word. II Peter 1:20-21 – “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture… (in fact, no part of the scripture, from the first word to the last word) is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man; but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.”
Not only is this seed of the word divinely created, it is distinctive. The Word of God is like no other book ever written, published or imagined. The Muslims, Mormons, and Jehovah’s Witnesses have their Bibles, as do a host of other religions. Secular minds, religious minds, educated minds and even psychologists have tried to duplicate the seed of God, but every one of them have fallen flat. God’s seed is absolutely distinctive; it is unique. “It liveth and abideth for ever,” while the books of men are ripped apart and used to start fires. In addition to being eternally maintained by the omnipotent God, it liveth in the sense that it has life.
Peter says that God’s Word is incorruptible – I Peter 2:23. It is incapable of any form of deterioration. Unlike the seeds of plants in the garden of Eden, this seed still produces everything that God intended. It has not diminished in the slightest it’s potency or permanency. It has not lost a single spiritual vitamin that it had in the days of Adam, Moses, Abraham or Jesus. The Bible has ever, and always will be, the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth. So shall the Word God be, it shall not return to the Lord void, but it shall accomplish that which he pleases, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto He sends it. Is not His word like as a fire? or like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces? The Word of God has always been that powerful, and it always shall be.
But that doesn’t mean that Satan hasn’t tried his best to corrupt and destroy it. From the moment of the completion of the New Testament, he has tried to rid the world of the Bible. He has tried to strip it from men’s hands and minds, trying to kill the future tree of life. If this Book is the only seed unto eternal life, you can understand Satan’s hatred of it. But he has failed miserably, because of the Promise and omnipotence of God. This seed source is firmly planted in presence of God Himself. “Forever, O Lord, thy word is settled in Heaven.” The seed source of the Word of God is found in Heaven itself. Jesus said that Heaven and Earth would be destroyed before one single syllable of the Bible would be forgotten by the Lord. “The Word of God endureth for ever,” our text reminds us.
But the enemy of our souls has sown his tares among the wheat. Satan now has a hundred different versions of the Word. I’m not going to tell you that God hasn’t used many of those versions to save souls. He graciously has. It is just as He has used dozens of different versions of His church to save souls. But the devil thinks in much longer terms and plans than most of us. In the long run every one of those false churches and mutilated scriptures lead successive generations a step farther from the nutrition of the perfect seed. When the true Christ is erased from the imposter Bibles, then that seed cannot germinate. Once again we are back to spontaneous generation – a false hope, a lie. The seed of the Word which God originally created is still to be found in this world. It needs to be loved and protected, scattered and watered. It needs to be read, studied and prayed over.
And, again, what is the PURPOSE of this seed?
Every farmer sows his field with a specific purpose in mind. In Matthew 13 Jesus gave us His parable of “The Wheat and the Tares.” The farmer planted wheat in order to harvest and produce grain for flour and for food. But his enemy came in later and scattered the seeds of a weed. His intention was to destroy the cash crop and bankrupt the good farmer. Both the farmer and his enemy had a purpose in the seeds they sowed.
And the Lord is no different with His seed. Why do I preach the Word of God in this place week after week? My intention is not to entertain you or give you an excuse to get out house. My purpose is to plant the seed of God in your hearts and minds. And what is the purpose of this particular lesson? It is to encourage your trust in God’s eternal seed. “The entrance of thy words, O God, giveth light; it giveth understanding…” “Search the scriptures, for in them I know we have salvation, and they are they which testify of Christ.”
This seed must be PLANTED, season after season, year after year.
No seed is of any real value until it has been sacrificed to the soil – until it has been planted. A tiny pea, a bean seed, even a tomato seed might have some nutrition within itself if we eat it. But a single bean will not sustain life very long. It was meant to be planted in order to produce more beans, and more and more. Some seeds can be eaten, and should be eaten, while others are kept out to be planted for more seed.
The purpose of our church and these lessons is the propagation of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ’s parable in Mark 4 reminds us, among other things, that care must taken in planting. Yes, we are going to scatter that seed on every kind of soil in every place possible. We are using the newspaper and advertising booklets, indiscriminately sowing the seed. Much of the ground is dry, rocky and impenetrable. But while we do that we should try to find the best possible soil in which to plant. We should try to plow the ground with kindness and friendliness. We should water it as best we can, and try to keep the weeds beaten back. We praise the Lord when Paul plants and Apollos waters, and waters and waters. And we pray that the Lord will allow us one day to be a part of the harvest.
We began with one of the Psalms’ “Songs of Degrees,” sung by God’s people as they went up to Jerusalem for the Passover or one of the other festivals. The Psalmist concluded by singing, “He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.” But in the penultimate verse, he prefaced that thought saying, “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.”
It is Jehovah who is the Lord of the harvest. While we sow the word it must be with the realization that only God can give the increase. This should humble us as servants, while making us more diligent and more dependent upon Him. Many times our evangelism should include tears. Sometimes those tears are the only means of breaking up the hardened soil.