Working The Fields

Transcript

Alright thank you very much, and hello again dear radio friends. How in the world are you? Well, I trust everything’s in order. I’m certainly glad to be back with you and open the Word of God. It’s the book of Mark that we’re studying together and now, we come to Mark 4:26 and Jesus said, “So is the kingdom of God as if a man should cast seed into the ground and should sleep, rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knows not how, for the earth bring forth fruit of herself, first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn, in the year but when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he put it in the sickle, because the harvest has come”. Now, what do you make of all that? Well, He’s just been talking about the seed. He said, “Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God. The sower soweth the word”, that’s the seed. So, in verse Mark 4:14 he says, “The word of the seed is the Word of God”, so there’s no reason to suppose, is there, that he changed his mind in the next few verses and had the seed mean anything else. “So is the kingdom of God as if a man should cast the Word of God into human hearts”. That’s what it comes down to, those by the wayside, Satan comes immediately, they don’t understand it. Then Satan takes away the Word, “Stony ground no root, and thorny ground the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires of other things choke the word, these availed good ground, such as, hear the word and receive it and bring forth fruit”, so you’ve got that background, haven’t you, in these few versus having to do with the kingdom of God and how it grows. “So is the kingdom of God”, said he, “as if a man should cast seed into the ground and should sleep and rise, night and day, and the seed should spring up and grow up, he knows not how”, he says as sort of an aside, “he knoweth not how it happens”. Small thought here; you don’t have to know how God works, just trust Him to work, right? Makes a lot of difference in your approach, “He that go forth and weepeth bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again rejoicing bringing his sheaves with him”, the Word of God, “He that ministereth seed to the sower, both minister bread for your food and multiply your seed so increase the fruits of your righteousness”.The seed is the Word of God.

Let’s look at this, you want to think about it with me for a minute? You have to do the sowing, there is no other way. It’s not going to do itself, “A man should cast seed into the ground”. When I was a little farm boy in Ohio, the used to plant corn with what they called a corn driller. My Uncle Frank would hitch one of the horses up to this machine, he would then stretch a wire across a portion of the field, and the wire had metal barbs on it every so often, and then he would drive along that wire, but metal barbs would trip something in the machine which would release a kernel of corn into a hole in the ground, and he called that a drill or a corn planter. It never did itself I noticed. Now, of course, modern machinery has changed in 65 years, and they don’t do it that way anymore, I presume, especially when they’re planning hundreds of acres of corn, out in the bread basket portion of our country, but it doesn’t do itself. You have to sow seed. So we come then to this question that I need to ask of myself as well as of you dear friend; What constitutes the activity in our lives that could be described as sowing the Word of God, the seed of the Word of God, in people’s hearts? What are we doing along that line? I know some dear people who have faith in Christ, but they never, never that is to my knowledge, share that with anybody else. They’re not giving out the Word of God in any way, shape, or form. I know other people, of course who are inveterate tracked passer outers. They are never without a gospel tract and they’ll leave it wherever they can and I think that’s a good idea generally speaking, to give out a portion of the Word of God.

My friend Mel Larson used to use a tract, I think that he himself wrote. It had a sort of a wistful approach to it, said, “I didn’t get a chance to speak with you and get acquainted with you, but let me leave this with you anyway”, and he would leave that gospel message tract with the people whom he just met in passing. Some of whom, praise God, were led to Christ through that casual contact. Give out the Word of God wherever you can. Have a supply of gospel tracts and leaflets. By the way make sure that you have attractive material. There are some people who print gospel messages on newsprint and it looks sloppy and it is sloppy, and they use the excuse that you can print so many more thousands if you use cheap material and cheap workmanship, and I suppose there may be something to that, but in our day, people tend to discount anything that isn’t done right, with what they call in Brooklyn, “class”, you know, so if you can get a hold of gospel tracts and leaflets that are well produced and attractive.

For many, many years I’ve been acquainted with Good News Publishers, there in Illinois, and the American Tract Society and oh, there’s ever so many others, I shouldn’t start naming names, or I’ll get an angry letter from somebody who says, “You left me out”, well, forgive me, but you know the need for giving out the Word of God, in a form that is attractive and acceptable, certainly ought not to be neglected. You have to sow seed?How else do sow the seed? Well, of course, it goes without saying that you can be a living demonstration of what the Word of God can do. Paul said to Timothy, “Let no man despise thy youth, but thou an example of the believers in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, and in purity”. You can be walking demonstration of what God’s Word does in the human life, and in that sense you’re demonstrating His Word, but you know, when it comes down to giving out the good seed that will produce a result in somebody else’s life, I find that often times in ordinary conversation, a problem issue comes up, where people look in your direction, because they know you’re religious and they expect some kind of an answer from you. Now, at that point, a sermon isn’t an indicated. You don’t launch into a diatribe or a lecture and really tell them off. What people are looking for is answers to their problems, and so, at the point in ordinary, everyday conversation where a problem area comes up, a question or somebody has a heartbreaker, burden or need, at that point you can sow the seed, that is to say, you can say gently, “Well, have you ever, have you thought of what the Bible says about this?”, and you can give them a passage of Scripture that bears directly upon their problem. See, there’s something in the blessed, inspired, infallible Word of God, the Bible that bears directly on any given human problem. There is no human problem that is not addressed, in some way, in God’s blessed Word. He covers all the bases, believe me, and so you can give out God’s Word in printed form, you can preach it obviously, you can give it out in your testimony in church or on the street corner and in the mission or whatever, you can give it out by demonstrating in your life, that Jesus is real, and then you can, when an issue comes up, a problem is presented, burden is being borne by someone, you can say, “Have you ever thought of what the Bible says about that?’, and you can share God’s Word with people, gently, lovingly, humbly, because you yourself have problems yet, but in faith knowing that God blesses His Word.

“A man should cast seed into the ground”. Now it says, “Should sleep and rise, night and day and the seed spring and grow up”. This matter of sowing the Word of God, needs to be part of your daily routine. Had you thought about that? Sowing the Word of God, and getting a harvest from it, needs to be part of your daily routine. Many of us reserve religious activity for religiously structured occasions, like church. Well, that of course, is good, but I don’t believe it’s enough, do you? Make the sharing of your Lord and His Word part of your daily routine. Let it be just as natural for you to speak of your Lord as of the weather. Many people get a pious tremulant in their voice when they speak about the Lord. I was rebuked about that many years ago, by an atheist to whom I was speaking, was onboard ship, we were standing, leaning against the rail as the ship plowed through the ocean waves, and I was endeavoring somehow to speak of him, speak to him I should say, of the Lord Jesus Christ, and he broke into the conversation with a half snear. He said, “You know, you have a funny, pious, tremulant in your voice when you talk about your Jesus”. Well, I made up my mind then that never again if I could help it, was I going to speak of my Lord in anything other than a natural, warm, loving, enthusiastic tone of voice. Giving out God’s Word, sharing your faith with others, honoring your Lord Jesus, speaking enthusiastically of Him, needs to be part of your daily routine. If you reserve it for religiously structured occasions like church, you will find yourself ill at ease when you try to speak of Him someplace else. You get the idea? “Should rise, sleep and rise, sleep and wake night and day, and the seed springs and grows up, he knoweth not how”. Small thought here before we finish this broadcast. You don’t need to understand all that God is doing, all you do is accept it and rejoice in it. You don’t need to understand all that God is doing in your life, accept by faith His perfect will for you, and rejoice in it. Well, we get at this passage again the next time we get together.

Dear Father today, may we be busy giving out the Word of God, in every way we can, through Jesus Christ our Lord, I pray, Amen.

Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!