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.