Understanding Spiritual Growth - Charles Leiter

Well, Paul says in Philippians 2,

"work out your salvation

with fear and trembling.

For it is God who works in you,

both to will and to work (or to do)

of His good pleasure."

And so, on the one hand, he says to us

work out our salvation.

On the other hand, he says

God is working in you

to cause you to want to do what's right

and to enable you to do what's right.

So which is it?

Is it man's responsibility

or is it God working in us?

And it's both, isn't it?

And it's not like a yoke of oxen

where you do your part

and God does His part like this.

But it's more like two cups

that one fits inside the other one.

And God is the one moving
everything forward,

but He does it through
our willing and doing

what He's worked in us to will and do.

So we've heard this morning,

a little bit of exhortation

about the necessity for us

to work out our salvation.

And beloved, if you don't
spend time in the Word,

and you don't spend time in prayer,

and you don't spend time
with the people of God,

you're not going to make it.

But on the other hand,

God is the one that works in us

to cause us to want to open that Bible

and to actually get it open.

And so we're going to
get both barrels today, I trust.

The first one: those exhortations

of our responsibility.

But what we're going
to look at this morning

is a parable of the Lord Jesus

where He emphasizes what's going on

behind the scenes.

And so let's turn to Mark 4.

And we'll read four verses.

Mark 4:26

"And He was saying,

'The Kingdom of God is like

a man who casts seed upon the ground.'"

Now, He's going to tell us something;

a fact about spiritual reality

of what the kingdom is like.

"'The kingdom of God is like a man

who casts seed upon the ground,

and goes to bed at night

and gets up by day and the seed

sprouts up and grows.

How he himself does not know.

The earth produces crops by itself.

First the blade, then the head,

then the mature grain in the head.

But when the crop permits,

he immediately puts in the sickle

because the harvest has come.'"

If you're a Christian here this morning,

you already realize

that the greatest Teacher who ever lived

was the Lord Jesus Christ.

His emphasis was never lopsided.

He never had a bump on the tire.

Everything that He said -

His manner, His methods

were always perfect.

It says in John 3 that
He whom God has sent

speaks the very words of God,

for He gives the Spirit
without measure unto Him.

So everything: perfect.

Every response.

Every emphasis.

Every manner. Every method.

And one of His favorite methods

was the parable.

There's a special beauty

and special wonder

about these parables, isn't there?

They're so earthy.

I mean, seeds and farmers
and what-have-you.

And they're so heavenly.

In four verses, the Lord Jesus

can say more than all the wise men

of the ages.

And He often opened His mouth in parables.

We read here a little later in v. 33-34,

"with many such parables, He was

speaking the Word to them as they were

able to hear it.

And He was not speaking to them

without parables.

He was explaining everything privately

to His own disciples."

And in Matthew, we're told

that one of the psalms alluded to this

about the Messiah.

It says, "I will open
my mouth in parables.

I will utter things hidden from
the foundation of the world."

And so the Lord Jesus Christ

was speaking in these parables

things that nobody had ever heard;

that had never been said

since the foundation of the world.

He said, "blessed are your ears,"

to hear such words as we've just read,

because many prophets and righteous men -

even kings - desired to hear the things

that you hear.

They didn't get to hear them.

What a privilege we have

to be able to even study this parable.

He's telling us some things

about the nature of the kingdom.

Very different than the ideas

that the Jews had at that time

about the nature of the kingdom.

And many of those
parables are of that sort.

But today, we want to look
at this parable in Mark 4.

And what a wonderful parable it is,

and how thankful we should be

for the truth that it contains.

Before we begin,

I just want to remind you again

that these parables are

speaking truth about invisible reality.

They're telling us something about

the nature of things in the kingdom.

And so the Lord Jesus said,

now there's a realm
here that you can't see;

that you can't understand.

But I want to tell you something about it.

This is what it's like -

the kingdom of God is like this.

It's like a man who casts
seed on the ground,

and goes to bed at night

and gets up by day.

Out of all the Gospels,

only found here in Mark.

It's kind of a buried treasure

you come upon; you stumble upon it

in the field as you're going through

the Gospel of Mark.

So the first question we should ask is

what is the theme or overall subject

of this parable?

Before we get to the details,

you say what's He talking about here?

And I think the answer is

He's talking about growth.

V. 27 "He goes to bed at night,

gets up by day, the seed
sprouts up and grows."

V. 28 "The earth produces crops by itself.

First the blade, then the head,

then the mature grain in the head."

So we know right off,

the Lord is unfolding to us

some of the mysteries about growth

in the kingdom;

growth of the kingdom of God as a whole

down through church history.

He said this is the way it's going to be.

And growth in our individual lives

and in the lives of other Christians.

This is the reality.

He says this is the way it happens.

So, with that in mind,

let's look at the details.

First of all, v. 26, He was saying,

"the kingdom of God is like a man

who casts seed upon the ground."

So the first thing is the
prerequisite of growth,

which is planting.

You can't have a crop;

you can't have growth without planting.

And that is a big emphasis, you remember,

in the parables.

It comes up again and again.

You have a man, a sower, sowing seed.

And you have that
picture; that illustration

where the seed is the Word of God.

And then you have this man who

plants good seed in the field.

And these plants come up.

It has to do with God Himself planting.

Ultimately, the man is God.

He represents God.

And God is the one that plants

the seed in the ground of the Christian.

You remember what Jesus said?

Every plant that My Heavenly Father

has not planted shall be rooted up.

Isn't this a wonderful thing to think

that God is in the business

of planting good seed that springs up

and becomes a wheat harvest?

God does that.

So the seeds are men sown by God;

converts.

But then if you go back a little further,

Jesus uses this matter of the seed

being the Word of God.

And you have that aspect of it

which has to do with, of course,

this is the way God does save people.

He plants people and saves people

through us sowing the seed

of the Word of God.

And so both of these, I think,

are involved here when He talks about

growth in the kingdom.

Remember, Paul in 1 Corinthians 3 says,

"I planted."

I planted.

So God uses men to plant
the seed of the Word.

And He uses that seed to save people

and plant true converts.

So do we see ourselves as sowers

planting seed?

We have seed.

We've been given the seed.

And isn't it something?

The seed looks so insignificant.

Vance Havner said when he was young -

I don't know; do they still do this?

You get your garden
seeds in a little package

and it has a beautiful picture on there?

And you know it's a
promise of what could be.

But you look inside -

I mean, lettuce is really the one,

when you look inside,

it looks like you're planting pepper

in the ground.

It's like how can this possibly

bring forth a crop?

Well, you think of Paul standing

on Mars Hill among the scoffers.

This is what we are.

We're in a heathen society

that hates the Word,

and it looks like those seeds are so small

and there's a step of
faith involved in that;

in just planting that seed.

The promise of what
can be is on the cover,

but it requires a step of faith.

The giant sunflowers, you know,

that is almost like a tree -

that starts out from one seed.

And so are we sowing?

Brother Kurt Daniel, a
pastor there in Illinois,

you call his number -
if you don't get him,

you get the answering machine,

and at the end he'll say,

"and remember the
words of the Lord Jesus,"

and then he quotes a verse of Scripture.

What's that? Planting a seed.

Well, that won't do any good.

Well, God says the opposite, doesn't He?

Ecclesiastes 11:4-6

"He who watches the wind will not sow,

and he who looks at the clouds

will not reap.

Just as you do not know
the path of the wind,

and how bones are formed in the womb

of a pregnant woman,

so you do not know the activity of God

who makes all things.

Sow your seed in the morning,

and do not be idle in the evening.

For you do not know whether morning

or evening sowing will succeed

or whether both of
them alike will be good."

Now, the devil tells you
the opposite, doesn't he?

You don't know.

Nothing will happen in the morning.

You don't even know,

maybe nothing will happen
in either one of them.

God says just the other way around.

He says sow in the morning;

sow it in the evening.

You don't know what I might do.

I might do something with both of them.

And it's happened, hasn't it,

again and again in the most unlikely cases

where God has taken some seed

through the instrumentality of man

planting some little insignificant seed;

God has planted a real, true Christian.

And lo and behold, they spring up

out of dry ground.

And they're sustained by God.

So the prerequisite of growth is planted.

And that has to be.

God has to plant the person

and He does it through the instrumentality

of us planting the seed.

Secondly, what else is true

about the kingdom of God?

Are you listening to this?

There is a time element involved.

There is a process involved.

He goes to bed at night;

he gets up by day.

He goes to bed at night;

he gets up by day.

What's Jesus saying?

He's saying there is a
time element involved

in this matter of growth.

One of the things that a farmer
has to have is patience.

And actually, as I see the weather
patterns and what-have-you,

I think well, you now,

I really don't want to be a farmer.

I mean, think of it.

James specifically brings this out.

"Be patient therefore, brethren,

until the coming of the Lord.

Behold the farmer waits

for the precious produce of the soil

being patient about it

until it gets the early and late rains.

You too be patient.

Strengthen your hearts

for the coming of the Lord is at hand."

We don't like to think in these terms.

But, the Lord is telling
us something here, isn't He?

You just picture a farmer

sitting dejectedly on this tractor

at the end of the day,

and you say, "what's wrong?"

And he says, "I don't have any crops."

"When did you plant?"

"This morning."

It's absurd isn't it?

That's exactly the way we are.

Instant.

I read my Bible every day this week

and I don't see any growth.

You know?

In the area of witnessing;

in the area of Bible study;

in the area of prayer,

this instant mentality.

Miles Stanford said, "when God

wants to make a squash,

He takes just a short time.

But when He wants to make an oak tree,

it might take a hundred years."

There's a time element involved.

Prime Minister Disraeli there in England

at one point, the story is

that he stood up and gave
an extemporaneous speech.

And later in the day,

they were having some kind of

state function,

and one of the ladies of state

came up to him and said,

"I want to tell you how much I enjoyed

that extemporaneous speech."

She said, "it's been on my mind all day."

He said, "Madam, that speech has

been on my mind for twenty years."

That's the time element.

You hear one of these brothers get up

and give an extemporaneous word.

That's been there a long time.

That doesn't just happen.

It takes time.

God works gradually.

There's a time element
involved with true growth.

Let me say it another way.

Growth is imperceptible.

That's another way of saying it.

Growth is imperceptible.

You think of corn plants.

Just sit; go out in the field.

I don't know - you all don't have

much corn down here.

But you go out and look at a corn plant.

Just stare at it really hard.

Keep an eye on it.

Watch it grow.

You won't see anything whatsoever.

You look at your own life really hard.

Stare at it really hard

to detect a trace of growth.

You're not going to see anything.

That's encouraging, isn't it?

I mean, you parents -

you know, this morning,

your kids walked into the room

and you said, "My, how you've grown

during the night."

No.

But somebody that hasn't
seen them for a while,

they come in - it's amazing.

And we forget.

And the quickest way to get discouraged

is to look inside all the time

and keep a real good eye on yourself

and see whether you're growing.

We forget how different people are now

from what they were ten years ago.

And growth is like that.

It's imperceptible.

It's slow.

It's mysteriously slow.

There's an apparent slowness about it.

What is does Jesus tell us?

Well, He talks about the
mystery of growth in v. 27.

"He goes to bed at night;

gets up by day."

There's this time element.

Time element.

My mother used to say that she thought

she could hear corn growing in the night.

I don't think so.

I think she could
hear the leaves rustling.

There's a time element.

But then He says,

"the seed sprouts up and grows.

How he himself does not know."

There's a mystery.

Now listen to this,

Jesus said this is the way

the kingdom of heaven is.

You do not know how growth takes place.

That's the way it is.

You don't know how it takes place.

That's what He's already said.

It's mysterious.

The Gospel takes root in your life,

and in other's life,

and you see things happen that

you cannot figure out.

It fills you with amazement and wonder.

And you're not going to
have the slightest idea how.

Jesus said the wind blows where it wishes.

You hear the sound of it.

You don't know where it comes from

or where it's going.

So is everyone who's born of the Spirit.

I've never understood growth in myself

or anyone else.

We know, like we've heard this morning,

we know it has to do with

spending time in the Word;

it has to do with prayer;

it has to do with fellowship.

All those things are the context.

So how many of you have just decided

I'm going to read my Bible
every day this week?

How'd you do on that?

See what I'm saying?

Underneath it all,

there's a mysterious working

of the power of God

underneath; sustaining everything.

Work out your salvation
with fear and trembling

for God is working inside of you

supernaturally, or you're
not going to make it.

You're not going to make it.

But He is working inside of you

if you're a Christian.

And you are going to make it.

See?

It's mysterious.

I've never understood growth in myself

or anybody else.

If it's something where you can say,

I did this, and I did
this, and I did this,

you've probably got some kind

of Pharisaical counterfeit.

That's what you've got.

I've never liked how-to's.

There's books out on that -

how to win souls;

how to have church growth.

The Lord Jesus said right
here there's no "how-to."

He said you don't know how.

That just did away with
a bunch of conferences.

You don't need to waste your time.

I've seen people taking notes on how-to.

They fill up 20 pages.

A year later, they're coming back
to the same conference;

filling up 20 more pages.

Nothing ever changes.

You've got to be cast upon God

like Brother Merle used to say.

The Bible's not a how-to book,

it's a what-to book.

A lot of the stuff Nathan
was saying to us today,

that's what-to, you know?

You be strong; you be stable.

How in the world am I going to do that?

Well, you've got to go to God.

Usually what happens in true growth

is you're crying out to God for change.

You've tried this. You've tried that.

You've gone to this conference.

You've gone to that conference.

You've tried squinting your eyes harder

when you repented.

And none of it worked.

And then, lo and behold,

you look back and it's:
God has changed me;

set me free from this.

He's working in my life.

Isn't it wonderful?

He says it happens -

it happens how? You don't know.

I don't know how this happened.

But I know, yes, I had to spend time

in the Word.

Yes, I had to cry out to God.

Yes, on all that,

but in the end you look back.

You know I used to think

that victory over sin would be -

I'd be standing there like these hunters

in Africa, you know,

with my rifle and my foot
on the head of the lion.

This is Charles with victory over sin.

It's more like you're shaking your head

saying I can't figure out how in the world

God ever set me free from that,

but it sure is good to be free from that.

And now I see how bad it was.

I couldn't even see how bad it was before.

Isn't that true?

It's mysterious.

The mistake that people make

is to take their own experiences

and try to get a formula that you can

give to everybody else,

and if they do that it'll work.

It won't.

God uses things in one person's life

and the next person reads
that same book or whatever

and they don't get a thing out of it.

You remember with the ark.

They said, well, take that,

it will work for us.

No, it won't.

Well, what else does He teach us?

Growth is miraculous - v. 28.

"The earth produces crops by itself."

Presto! They just pop out of it.

That's what Jesus said.

In other words, He's saying

there's something supernatural about this.

You can't explain this on your own.

"The earth produces crops by itself."

It's beyond man's power totally.

And it's incredible how it happens.

There's a power there outside of us.

And we don't know.

We're not the one that grows the seed.

God is the one that does that.

All we do is put the seed into the ground.

And so there's a miraculous
aspect about growth.

There's power and vitality
in the seed itself.

Peter talks about being born again,

not of corruptible seed,
but of incorruptible

by the Word of God

that lives and abides forever.

Romans 1:16 "I am not
ashamed of the Gospel.

It is the power of God unto salvation..."

1 Thessalonians 2:13

"The Word of God which performs its work

in you who believe."

And I like that where Paul says

in Acts 20 - he says I commend you to God.

We've done this often with people

leaving the church and going back

to China or wherever.

I commend you to God

and to the word of His grace

which is able to build you up

and give you an inheritance.

It's just wonderful, isn't it?

There's life in the seed itself.

The very idea of seed -

it's the Greek word semen.

1 John - "God's seed remains in him."

So there's something
miraculous about the seed,

but there's something miraculous also

about the earth.

The earth brings forth fruit of itself.

Isaiah 61 says this:

"I will rejoice greatly in the Lord.

My soul will exult in my God,

for He has clothed me with garments

of salvation;

He has wrapped me with
a robe of righteousness

as a bridegroom decks himself

with a garland,

and as a bride adorns
herself with her jewels.

For as the earth brings forth its sprouts,

and as a garden causes the things

sown in it to spring up,

so the Lord God..."

He's the Garden here, see?

The garden causes the things sown in it

to spring up.

"So the Lord God will cause

righteousness and praise to spring up

before all the nations."

Now that's what we're talking about here.

What Jesus is saying is

God is at work underneath the surface

to make things spring up supernaturally

that could not otherwise happen.

You remember in 1 Corinthians 3,

"What then is Apollos? What is Paul?

Servants through whom you believed

even as the Lord gave
opportunity to each one.

I planted. Apollos watered.

But God was causing the growth."

You know, if you think about it,

what are you really doing when you
put a seed in the ground?

You're not doing anything.

You put water on it.

God is the one making that
germinate and grow.

Are you listening to me?

God causes growth.

The only way you're ever going to grow

is if God causes you to grow.

That's the only way.

The only way you're ever going to change;

the only way you're ever going to be

more Christlike is if God causes you

to become more Christlike.

And that's what He's promised to do.

That's what He's promised to do in you.

What a glorious thing!

The only hope anybody has -

none of us will ever rise any higher

than God lifts us by His grace.

You're not going to do it.

But He will do it.

He will do it.

The Lord God will cause righteousness

and praise to spring up

before all nations.

That's the only hope we have.

God working in us to will and do

of His good pleasure;

causing growth.

He causes you to will.

He gives you that desire,

and then it's a long ways from the time

you start thinking I want to be more holy

in this or that;

it's a long ways before
you're actually there.

He works in you both to will and to work

for His good pleasure.

So if our Christianity can be explained

by human psychology

or turning over a new leaf

or trying to be better or so on;

there's no miracle,

there's no outside power,

then you're not a Christian.

What an encouragement this is God's work,

and He will accomplish what concerns us.

Alright, number five.

The progressiveness of growth.

You see it in v. 27, it sprouts up.

First of all, it has to sprout up

and it grows.

V. 28, "First the blade,

then the head,

then the mature grain in the head."

Progressive.

Now that's simple, isn't it?

This and then this and then this.

We don't want that.

What we want is:

go from here over to there.

You know, you could have
such-and-such experience.

That puts you clear over here.

You could enter into
entire sanctification.

Just have this happen.

Skip over all that stuff.

It's kind of hard going through

all that stuff anyway.

A lot of teaching is like that.

Anything that is held out to you

that makes you think:

if I could just have such-and-such,

I could skip over these stages.

That's a false teaching.

And you may have people say

that they've entered in and they have;

there's been some special thing

happen in their life where

they're in a different plane;

a higher plane than they were before.

That happens.

But beloved, I'll guarantee you this,

they're still going through the stages

just like you are.

First the blade, then the head,

then the mature grain.

That's always the way it is.

You see somebody that's
entirely sanctified,

you're looking at Jesus.

And He's the only one -

until heaven.

The holiest man in the world today

has so much sin, he'd be in hell.

(incomplete thought)

Can you imagine the way Jesus

handled a towel?

There's nobody in the world

that could hold a towel the way Jesus did

and wash somebody's feet.

You can't begin to be
like Him in that sense.

But we can walk in His steps.

Growth is progressive.

And you see here the utter stupidity

of the professing church in this.

There's some former football player

or singer or whatever;

they get converted and two weeks later,

they're speaking to a
crowd of 1,000 people.

Or 10,000. More like 20,000 people.

You take some little immature plant,

at best, and stick them out there.

That's not the way it is.

That's folly.

There's a process involved.

Hudson Taylor, before he became

the head of the China Inland Mission

had to spend years in obscurity

as a nobody learning things from God.

And I like that two volume set

on the life of Hudson Taylor.

Volume 1: The Growth of a Soul.

Volume 2: The Growth of a Work of God.

This tells my age,

but back when I was young,

we always talked about

the Empire State Building.

Boy, this is the tallest
building in the world.

Well, anyway, they said it took as long

to put that foundation in,

and there's as much in the foundation

as there is in the rest of the building.

Picture building some of these

massive things that they've got now

on a five-foot foundation.

How long would that last?

I think it's the Washington Cathedral

I saw years ago with my mother.

And in one way, it's impressive

looking at those top spires

and everything up there,

but to me, the most impressive thing

was when they took us
down into the basement.

And they said, now this rounded wall here

is part of one of the pillars

that supports this building.

And you could barely see the curve in it

it was so big.

Any life that is real

has as much underground
or more underground

as there is above the surface.

It's always that way.

(incomplete thought)

You're looking up there at those spires

of the building,

when God is driving foundation piling

in your life that is much harder -

hard stuff that you've got to learn.

I was talking about the
hymn the other night.

I like that hymn, I think Vance Havner

quoted it:

"Many a rapturous minstrel

among the sons of light

will say of his sweetest music

'I learned it in the night.'

And many a rolling anthem

that fills the Father's throne,

sobbed at his first rehearsal

in the shroud of a darkened room."

That's God putting the foundation

down under the building.

There is a slowness involved.

There is a process involved.

Don't let anybody trick you

into the idea that you can jump

from here to here.

You're not going to shortchange anything.

You might say, well, I'm going to

memorize the whole New Testament.

Well, that's great,

but it's not going to make you

a spiritual giant.

I mean, it's stages.

Well, the progressiveness of growth.

Then, the certainty of growth.

Now remember, the Lord is describing

the way things are in the kingdom.

It's like a man who plants
seed in the ground.

And he goes to bed at night.

This comes up. It grows.

It grows. It grows.

And then it dies and withers.

That's not what He says.

That's not the way it is when God

is involved in this.

It is going to make it.

It's certain.

It's going to grow.

When men plant things,

they often die.

Not so with God.

And you can look at that

in relation to church history as a whole.

That little seed that was planted

at the beginning,

it becomes a great tree.

And God's not going to fail.

The church is not going to fail.

He's advancing His kingdom.

He's going to do it. He will do it.

It will bring forth a crop.

It will grow.

It's a certainty.

Colossians - Paul talks about this.

He says "you previously heard

in the Word of truth - the Gospel

which has come to you,

just as in all the world also,

it's constantly bearing
fruit and increasing,

even as it has been doing in you also

since the day you heard of it

and understood the grace of God in truth."

So growth is certain.

The church isn't going to fail.

And growth is also certain

in the life of every true believer.

Why? Because it's not dependent upon man.

"Being confident of this very thing,

that He who began a good work in you" -

God did it.

"...Will perform it until the
day of Jesus Christ."

We're confident of that. He's the one.

He'll do it.

God says in the New Covenant

there in Ezekiel 36,

"I will cleanse you of all your filthiness

and all your idols.

I will put My Spirit in you and cause you

to walk in My statutes."

I'm so thankful.

He's saying I'm not going to quit on you.

You may fight this.

You either fight it or embrace it,

but if you fight it,

eventually you're going to embrace it

if you're a child of God.

I will cleanse you. I'll
cause you to walk...

It's a hard way though sometimes

if we resist what God's
doing in our lives.

Jesus said, "blessed is everyone who has;

to him more shall be given.

And he shall have an abundance."

And that's a wonderful thing.

If you have anything that's real,

it'd be better to be the weakest Christian

in the world today,

if you have just a
little grain that's real,

because you're going to get more.

And eventually, you're
going to have a lot.

Isn't that wonderful?

This little tiny thing
of grace in the life

of a true Christian;

He says blessed are you.

Now him that does not have,

even what he thinks he has

shall be taken away.

Better to be the weakest Christian

in the world, than the strongest looking

false professor.

Every branch in Me that bears fruit,

He purges it; He cleanses it

that it might bring forth more fruit.

(incomplete thought)

"Herein is My Father glorified,

that you bear much fruit

and so prove to be My disciples."

Some 100, some 60, some 30,

but all have fruit.

They're all growing.

They're all producing fruit.

Alright, last point.

Final outcome of growth is harvest time.

And He tells us that here.

V. 29 "When the crop permits,

he immediately puts in the sickle

because the harvest has come."

Why do you plant seed?

You plant them in order to get a harvest.

God is going to have a harvest, beloved.

He's going to have a harvest.

There's not going to be one missing.

Think of this.

Jesus says everyone that
the Father's given Me

will come to Me.

And He that comes to Me,

I will certainly not cast out.

Why not?

Why won't He cast us out?

Well, because He says, I came down

from Heaven to accomplish
a specific purpose.

I came down from Heaven

not to do My own will,

but the will of Him who sent Me.

And this is the will of Him who sent Me,

that of all that He has given Me,

I lose only a few and
then I raise up the rest

at the last day.

No, that's not what He said, is it?

That of all that He has given Me,

I lose not one!

Think of this.

Every plant that My Heavenly Father

has not planted, shall be rooted up;

but every plant that My
Heavenly Father plants

is going to make it all
the way to the harvest.

And there is a day coming -

I think of it whenever
we're together like this.

Do you realize the hilarious joy

we're going to have in seeing

one another in heaven?

What a day of rejoicing that will be!

Why? Because it's
the rejoicing of harvest.

The crop's in.

Up until that time,

you're kind of gritting your teeth.

I don't know if so-and-so's
going to make it or not.

I hope they're real.

And there they are!

You see them there -

they're shining like the sun

in the kingdom of their Father.

What a day of rejoicing that will be!

When the harvest is in.

And we'll look back

and it will be 10,000 times

more wonderful than we ever thought

as we see the providence of God

in keeping His people and so on.

There is a harvest coming.

And it's going to be a great ingathering

and a time of rejoicing.

Another angel came out of the temple

crying out with a loud voice

to Him who sat on the cloud.

Put in your sickel and reap

because the hour to reap has come,

because the harvest of the earth is ripe,

and He who sat on the cloud

(capital 'H' He) who sat on the cloud

swung His sickle over the earth

and the earth was reaped.

Jesus is telling us the nature

of the kingdom of God.

And He's taking us back

behind the scenes,

and showing us how growth takes place.

It takes place supernaturally

by the power of God.

And He will not have a crop failure.

But He's going to take every one of us

through all the stages necessary

to get there.

Amen.