Those on the rock are the ones who receive the word with joy when they hear it, but they have no root. Those along the path are the ones who hear, and then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. “This is the meaning of the parable: The seed is the word of God. He said, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others I speak in parables, so that, “ though seeing, they may not see though hearing, they may not understand.’ His disciples asked him what this parable meant. It came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown.” When he said this, he called out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up with it and choked the plants. Some fell on rock, and when it came up, the plants withered because they had no moisture. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path it was trampled on, and the birds of the air ate it up. “While a large crowd was gathering and people were coming to Jesus from town after town, he told this parable: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. So this morning, let’s turn to the Parable of the Sower in Luke 8:4-15 to look at this principle of “seedtime and harvest” a little more closely and see what it can teach us. You sprinkle a few miniscule and nondescript seeds into the ground and a month or two later you are enjoying the staggering beauty of flowers or tucking into more salad vegetables than even a very healthy appetite can cope with. But God seems to prefer seedtime and harvest miracles. Now we might prefer God to do “Zappo”, instant miracles. The seedtime and harvest principle is basically this: You take a seed, you plant it in prepared soil, you nurture it the best you can and in due time it brings forth a harvest. But while we want INSTANT, God seems to have chosen DEVELOPMENT. We prefer to get the pay-off, the outcome, the fruit, right now, not later. It’s a GOD principle of course, not a 21st Century MAN principle. Now “seedtime and harvest” is a fundamental principle of planet earth. In Genesis 8:22 for example, God said, “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest. Like the one we’re going to look at today.Īfter the flood when God dispensed judgement on our forebears, He reinforced some of His basic principles to Noah and his family. And while we may get to ask Him about that kind of stuff when we get to Glory, in the meantime we just have to accept it as one of God’s basic principles. Bliss!īut I suppose that there are some things that God has just decided are right, and that’s that. No congestion, no queues, no costly motorway snacks. No petrol or diesel or expensive cars to buy. Or what about wings? Why don’t we have wings? Now come on, that would be brilliant. Think of all the time and money we’d save ourselves. No baths, or showers or shaving or any of that stuff – and no washing or ironing or endless shopping trips to buy things to wear. We could all then just roll out of bed, have a good scratch and then get on with our day. I hesitate to ask you this, but I wonder if like me, you might sometimes query whether God has got it wrong? Well, of course, I know He couldn’t really have got it wrong - but sometimes I’ve thought things like: Why weren’t we all born with fur instead of just skin? Think about it. Harvest is a promise! “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest.
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