Progressive growth by Gods Word Mark chapter 4 verse 23 to 29 has a message for us: When any man has ears to hear, let him hear. And Jesus was saying to them, Take care what you listen to. By your standard of measure, it shall be measured to you, and more shall be given you besides. For whoever has, to him shall more be given, and whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him. And he was saying, The kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed upon the ground, and goes to bed by night, and gets up by day, and the seed sprouts 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. This is a parable that is unique to Mark. Some of the parables occur in all of the Gospels, some of them in one or two or three Gospels, but This is one of the parables that occurs only in the Gospel of Mark. It has an application, which I’m going to tell you about, first of all, so that you can apply it. It has an application to individual believers, but a second application is even more important. It has an application that’s dispensational to the church. This is a parable of progressive process that goes on in the believer. I’ve tried to find some new words because I’m convinced that there is a living process that’s progressive that’s going on in this dispensation, and we’re coming into something that’s really wonderful. I mean, really wonderful. Now, we call this a progressive process because then it said the seed is planted, and then the one that planted it goes into the night. Then comes the day. Then it begins to grow and sprout and brings forth first a blade, then the head, then the mature grain in the head. Three steps. And this to me is exactly what took place in the whole of the Christian dispensation. John the apostle was still alive, writing in his epistles about many under Christ were already entered into the world. And Paul wrote about how that the spirit of iniquity was already in the earth and already working. The apostasy had already begun in his time. The falling away had to run its course. And we know that that got underway, and probably by about the third century, there was little vistages of the apostolic church left. And it went deeper, deeper, deeper into a dark ages that lasted for a thousand years. And then we’ve been coming out of it close to another 500 years. We’ve been watching things slowly emerge again. The night came, then comes the day, and we’re watching the blade, and then the head, and then we’re going to find the full grain in the head. Three steps by which God brings forth this progressive living process where He brings forth His people, His holy church. I’m not speaking of Christianity as a whole. I’m speaking of people like you and I in a remnant that are contending for the faith once delivered to the saints. For the church has to go through the very thing that Christ Himself went through. Death, burial, resurrection, then ascension and glorification. We too find that the church was born only to be like something planted and die, and then come forth in new resurrection life that it might fill all the earth in its glory and its wonder. And that’s what we’re in right now. Now we’re going to apply for a little while to the individual. This parable about the blade and then the head, then the full mature grain in the head is likened unto wheat. King James talks about corn, full corn in the air. But corn was introduced to the world by the American Indians. There wasn’t any corn in Europe. before that. So to come back and say that Jesus was talking about corn is absolutely wrong. King James translated to put it in. He’s talking about wheat, full grain in the head of wheat. That’s what he’s talking about. All right? Now, the individual goes through much the same process, I believe, with all my heart. Just the same as dispensationally, the church is going through this process. We’re going through a process in which, if I could get across to you this morning, you’re bound to get something that is just going to make your ears and heart burn. Listen to it. 18, it says, But grow in grace and in knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. It doesn’t say grow into grace. It says, Grow in grace. The minute that you opened your heart to the gospel, you plunged into the grace of God. Now you grow in that grace and there’s no end of it. I disagree completely with people who talk about a first or a second or a third work of grace. When you become a Christian, you are thrown into the grace of God right there. Oh, I tell you, I think that one of the most dangerous things we do is that continual tendency of human beings to try to supplement or implement God’s work within our lives by human effort. To think to try to make perfect in the flesh what has been begun in the Spirit. You do not grow by giving any thought to it. You’ll not add one cubit to your stature by being anxious about it. You’re not going to grow spiritually by worrying about it either. You grow without any conscious effort. In this particular case where it grew the blade and then the head and then the mature grain in the head, he said the man that planted it, he didn’t know how it happened. He himself does not know. He didn’t realize how it happened. There was no particular strain. There isn’t any strain to growing. You never try to teach a boy now you have to grow, you have to grow until he has to give conscious thought to it. All you have to do is feed that bottomless pit, let him run and play, he’ll grow. The principle of growth is there. It’s a spontaneous, automatic thing that’s going to happen if he feeds himself and exercises himself and gets with it. And that’s exactly what’s happened now. I can’t say that anything that God has done for me has been as a direct result of diligence upon my part to grow. But I’ve gone on fasts, and I’ve sought the Lord, and I’ve gone apart to pray. But I have to say, while those things I felt led in the Spirit to do, be very careful to say that not one of those things ever merited me that I grew that much as a result of them. They were not any hindrance to growth, but they’re not a cause of growth. See, one man plants and another man waters, but the word says in 1 Corinthians that you’re God’s husbandry. It is God that giveth the increase. It is the Lord that causes you to grow. Nobody knows how it’s done. I speak the living word to you and we pray for you and we minister to you and you keep growing. But I can’t devise a sermon and I can’t do anything willfully that will make you grow. It just happens because you are meeting conditions of growth. You are feeding, you are basking in the sunlight of His holy presence. You are worshiping Him, adoring Him. You are going to grow. You can’t help but grow because it is God that gives the growth and God that gives the increase. in grace and in knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember, it’s just like in the ocean. You don’t swim into the ocean. You get skinned up if you try to swim into the ocean. You get into the ocean first and then you swim in the ocean. Is that right? So you swim in the ocean, not into the ocean. That’s the great key of the grace of God. There’s an unlimited thing that God can do to develop and bring you into wonderful blessings, but it is all of grace. It is not any human works that causes you to grow. Now, that doesn’t mean that you’ll have no capacity to work. It doesn’t mean that you’re going to be idle. But you’re going to do very many things because of the very nature of what the grace of God is doing in you. The activity and the works will flow out in an unprecedented way. Thank God for that. This is not going to sponsor laziness, but it is going to eliminate the anxiety concerning growth. Do you realize, like this parable says, apply it to yourself as an individual? God has planted the seed. And you are just exposing yourself to the blessing, to the watering, and to the cultivating, and the digging about the roots, you know. But while you can do all of those things, it’s God that is giving the increase. Now, you say, well, I’m afraid that I won’t grow. You can’t help but grow. Oh, you might do something to hinder growth, but it is God that is actually going to cause you to grow. If you just keep your heart open and let Him bless you, you’re going to grow. You’re not going to even be conscious that it is any great effort on your part to grow. Oh, you may put a lot of effort forth in a lot of things, but your real growth in the grace of God will be a spontaneous thing. Now, I’d like to have you turn to verse 27 there. The kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed on the ground and goes to bed by night and gets up by day, and the seed sprouts and grows how he himself does not know. I want to point out how the seed, of course, is a living word from God. And you know we’ve explained that the night is a perfect picture of the dark ages. And the day shows the new day and the restoration that God is bringing forth to his people. and it begins to sprout. Now, the growth is automatic and is spontaneous. Some of the greatest growths you’ve made have happened to you while you were focusing your attention on some of the kind of a problem. In the meantime, you were growing in the grace of God. Have you ever noticed how that works? Well, it’s an automatic. It said it produces the crops by itself. The word in the Greek is automate. We have automatic from that. There’s one other place in the New Testament in Acts where it says the gates opened of themselves to Peter as he was in prison. You remember the angel loosed him from his chains and he walked, the gates opened of themselves. In other words, that was the first automatic door. You thought when you went to the market, that was a new invention. It was a door that ought to make. It opened of itself. Isn’t that good? Praise the Lord. Now, When God says that He plants a seed in your heart and it’s going to grow, and literally we could say, and this is the direct English derivative of the Greek words in the text, automatically it will work. Why? Because when God gives you a living word, listen, that thing that He put in your heart in that word contains within itself all the miraculous potentials to produce some tremendous things. And you don’t need to get a word from God and then go out and pray the Lord will fulfill it. That word has a fulfillment bound up in it. It’s like planting a seed. You plant that seed, you can pray over it and bless it and do all you want to with it. But that seed already has within itself life. That’s right. It has within us life. If it’s a peach seed, it has a peach tree with leaves and peaches on it. All right down in that little seed. You couldn’t see with a natural eye, but the potential of it is there. Oh, you believe that, don’t you? Now, when God puts a word, it’s a living word. It’s called the incorruptible seed, the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. And in this day in which we’re living, all we have to do is to open up for that living word to come and just flood our hearts. Just hang on to it and let God put some sunshine on you. And then the Lord waters it, and oh, the time of refreshing comes. He digs about it, and you praise the Lord for that. that seed is just growing like crazy, and you say, How did it happen? How did God bring this thing forth? Well, I just had a word and I hid it in my heart, and I trusted God, and automatically it began to grow. How many get the picture? God planted the seed. He went to sleep through the night. The next day, the seed began to grow. He said, I don’t know how. He didn’t know how it happened. You see what I’m trying to say? Not by conscious thought, not by any program, but because the Word that God is speaking to you is so creative, so dynamic, so divine that it is going to do its very work within you. It’ll bring full fulfillment. Anything that is born of God has the potential of divine perfection in it. Anything that is born of God has the potential of divine perfection in it. Now if we get this kind of preaching, what it’s going to do? It’s going to take some of you when you think, boy, I shouldn’t have blown up this weekend. I failed this and that and the other thing. Sometimes you waste a lot of good worship services sitting there in introspection when you should have your eyes upon the Lord getting the help that would correct those things. You see, the thing that’s going to correct it is not examining it and writing down an indictment against yourself because you’re going to be the prosecutor and the jury and finally when the service is over, you said, I accuse me of this and I find myself guilty. And so that’s it. So you’re right back where you started from, you see? Criminals are criminal just the same before or after. If he’s done the job, he’s a lawbreaker before or after the trial. It doesn’t make any difference. But the thing that you do is you come before the Lord. open your heart for the grace of God to flow and the revelation of the Lord. Oh, you’ll be conscious of your need, but you’ll be more conscious of His sufficiency to help you and of the word that He speaks that can transform you and change you into that very image that He has for you. Now, if we worry about it and we give a lot of thought, it doesn’t mean that it’s going to just necessarily happen to us. The Lord says, consider the lilies. They toil not, neither do they spit. But how does the lily do it? I don’t know. It just pokes us a little blade up out of the ground, defies the law of gravity, pushes aside objects at a greater density than it, rocks and everything else, comes up, flowers out into the most beautiful thing in the world. The Lord says, consider the lilies, how they grow. They toil not, neither do they spit. And yet Solomon in all of his glory was not arrayed like one of these. And do you know, dear ones, if you just begin to realize as you consider that lily, God has done the same thing with you. He’s put within you a living word. He’s put within you faith in that living word, and it’s beginning to grow. Do you know what the blossom is going to look like? Do you know what the flower is going to look like? Why, whom He did foreknow, them also He did predestinate. He had it all worked in the little seed He planted in their heart, that they should be conformed to the image of His Son. It was right there. Why, when you folks begin to bloom, you’re going to look like the Lord. That’s right. You see, you’re growing now and the potential is there. And so we bring forth as the Lord blesses us and this word begins to grow within our life. First it looks like a blaze. I don’t look much like the Lord now. I look more like a weed. Yes, that sometimes happens. Then you keep growing and finally here comes the head. But you look closer. There’s no real fruit there. There’s no grain. It’s still kind of disappointing. But after a while, the full growth comes and the mature grain in the head, and it’s bowed over in humility with the weight of its own fruitfulness. Oh, how beautiful. That’s what the Lord is doing with us. He’s bringing many sons to glory. And just like the lily was so beautiful that Solomon in all of his glory was not arrayed like one of these, yet it doth not appear yet what we shall be because we’re going to be adorned in glory. He’s bringing many sons unto glory. Can you see what is taking place within you as an individual? He is also the same thing that is taking place in this dispensation. And the Lord is bringing forth the people that are going to glorify His name and they’re going to praise Him and they’re going to worship Him. Oh, hallelujah. Do you see the wonder of this growth? Do you see this thing that God wants to do in your life and my life? Oh, this great move of the Spirit is so rich. Don’t forget, though, that this growth is a living process. Always remember that any effort to take on maturity or to take on evidences of growth has to be a synthetic thing because it’s humanly created. And that’s why Paul censored the Galatians to think to make perfect in the energy of the flesh what was begun in the spirit. That’s a subtle point, and we’re not going to get into it. and not to produce passivity in you. You should still seek God most earnestly. But there are some people that try to emulate, to imitate the divine graces that God’s trying to produce in your life. That won’t work. Never settle for anything except a divinely wrought victory in your life. Now let’s go to prison. This growth is an automatic process, but remember, it’s a living process, just like the little blade that grows. A believer is born, he’s not made. The fruit is grown by the Spirit. It is not manufactured by human discipline. We abide in Him. We are rooted and grounded in Christ Jesus. And because we abide in Him, we bring forth much fruit. Everything speaks of the fact that this is a living process. This is a new creation, a new man in Christ Jesus, not a reformed person, not human discipline to bring us into something, because it is the human effort. to produce what God has said in the Word, and it has to fail. When God’s people flow together, it will be by the Holy Spirit that they flow together. It will not with hostility in their spirits toward one another that they form a worldwide organization. That will not make them the church of unity that God wants. Do you see the difference? Amen. Now, this growth is mysterious. We don’t know how it happens. We find over in the book of John chapter 3, Jesus says, The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, canst not tell whence it cometh or whether it goeth, so is everyone that is born of the Spirit. No one understands the way that God works. No one really understands how this mysterious thing of growth takes place. And if you think back, think of the people that you used to be and the way you used to think. God has worked that thing within you. He has planted a living Word within you and it’s begun to grow. Sometimes you aren’t even conscious of how that word was taking over, and it literally has taken over in great areas of your life. Now, in verse 28, it said, The earth produces crops by itself, first the blade, then the head, and then the mature grain in the head. This means that the promise of perfection, the promise of maturity, is found in everything that is really born of God. We just may have to take it by faith, just a blade sticking up from the ground. But after a while, there’ll be the head, and then there’ll be the mature grain in the head. And we’ve got to open our hearts and say, Well, it isn’t perfect yet, but it’s a growing thing. It’s a living thing. It isn’t a dead organization that is adding more dead members to itself. But it’s a living thing, and God is sending members in that body that have experienced that same living Word as you have received it. Amen. Now, I go a little bit further. Let’s try to explain something here. It’s at first comes the blade, then the head, then the mature grain in the head. Let’s apply that to you as individuals. First, the blade. Have you seen Christians that were nothing but a blade? You know what I’m talking about? You have to take them pretty much by faith. There are Christians that find the Lord, but there are many evidences of the old life upon them. and not too many things that have been grown into the new life. Oh, the principle of life is there. But they come out into the church, something like Lazarus came out of the grave, wrapped hand and foot in grave clothes. Then the Lord says, Loose him and let him go. And that’s the job of the mature Christians. Whenever you get a Lazarus in your congregation, you have to unwrap him. Sure. And it takes a lot of patience sometimes to get the wrappings of death off of one of these new converts. All right, first the blade. Then as we go on and we begin to grow, then we come into the head. Now it looks good. It has the promise of something better coming after a while. And this is like it is for the individual and for the church. These are the forms and the patterns for the believer and a restoration of experiences and gifts and so forth that began to move. It looks good. But it isn’t the mature grain yet. We look around and say, Oh, thank God, this church is taking form. It begins to look like a New Testament church. It begins to look like we’re going to have some good elders here. It looks like we’re going to have some good deacons. It looks like we’re going to have some good gifts of the Spirit. Now, when they all get developed here and these ones that have been moving along and they become more free in the Spirit, it’s going to be quite a church. We have seen the head then, haven’t we? But then comes that third stage, the mature grain in the head. This is the maturity and the perfection that we should be seeking. John writes something like this in his epistle when he says, I have written unto you little children. I have written unto you young men. I have written unto you fathers. He begins to compare the spiritual ages, and he calls them children, young men, and fathers. And it begins to compare almost to the blade, the head, and the mature grain in the head. You see, it’s bringing out that we’re moving on as individuals. We’re going to move on as a church, and dispensationally, what we are as an individual, what we are as a church here. And what God has for us at the end of this dispensation all coincides that this is the time for perfection. This is the time to go on. Then shall we know if we follow on to know the Lord. Oh, how great His blessing is going to be upon us. Don’t you appreciate this wonderful thing of the restoration? It’s something that I never grow tired of. Because I know, I know that once again, God is moving like a great cycle has begun. And you’re going to find God doing new things and blessing us in rich ways that we need to know. It goes on to say in verse 29, When the crop permits, he immediately puts in the sickle because the harvest has come. And if we see that, it doesn’t mean that a minute that an individual believer gets mature enough, the Lord chops him down and takes him home. It doesn’t mean that. You have to make the application of the parable, basically, to the dispensation, because the harvest is when the Lord is going to gather the harvest grain. This is followed in James. It said, Be patient, my brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth. and he hath long patience over it, until it receives the early and the latter rain. Be ye also patient, establish your hearts, because he commended at maturity, for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. So, we know that the Lord’s coming, the Lord’s return, isn’t dependent upon what an antichrist or anything else. The Lord’s coming. He’s not looking around and saying, Well, I’m going to kidnap my church out of here before the devil gets them all. Some people think that this thing is going to go downhill in apostasy and so much unbelief, and the people are going to be praying, and it’s going to be so bad that unless the Lord cuts the whole thing short and says, Well, it’s a disgusting mess that there won’t be any flesh saved. He’s speaking of something else in that passage. The real picture of it is that the Lord delays His coming until the crop is just right. Man doesn’t put any sickle until the crop is just ready, and then he puts in the sickle. It is not based upon a time schedule it’s based upon a product that he’s producing in the earth. God isn’t too much concerned about what’s going on here. and all the other things. He’s more concerned what’s going on in your heart. He’s looking at you, takes a look at you all the time. Let’s see now, oh, a little bit green yet. I see that little sourness in their spirit. Well, put some more sunshine on them and dig around them and water them and it won’t be long. And the Lord keeps blessing them and you keep growing. You see, the thing is that God is bringing us on and the precious fruit of the earth one of these days will be ready. And it’ll be a church without spot or wrinkled, perfect church. There’ll be apostles and prophets elders, deacons in it, and pastors and teachers. There’ll be love flowing through that body, the same care one for another. Oh, what a tremendous thing will take place. The Lord says, That’s what I’m waiting for. Because He has a goal in mind in the kingdom that is to come. It is a remnant that reaches perfection that’s going to be the ruling body in the age to come. This is all preparatory. You thought it was an end in itself. No, it is just a means to an end. God is creating something that’s going to be for His glory and for His use in the days to come. I think we ought to discard once and for all this idea of Christians floating around on a cloud playing a harp, don’t you? The truth of the matter is I’m not interested in floating on a cloud or playing a harp. I’m interested in all those tremendous things that I’m going to do with Christ right now. I am cooperating with the inner worker in what he’s doing. It’s marvelous. Most of the time, I just have to keep out of his way. That’s the biggest problem. And let him do the job because my bumbling fingers can certainly interfere with it. To let grace run its course and let God produce and watch that blade of grass grow until it becomes rich with the head and then the mature grain in the head. God’s doing a good work on us. Sometimes we feel like it hurts. We feel like that we’re being abused. But it says no chastening, for the present seems to be joyous but grievous. But afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them who are exercised thereby. When God gets all through and quits hurting, what is that Peter said, after that ye have suffered a while, Oh, don’t you wish that verse wasn’t there? After that ye have suffered a while, the Lord establish, strengthen, and settle you, and He brings you into that richness of His grace. Oh, how little we know about what God’s doing in our life or our church or in this dispensation when we try to supplement God’s free grace, when we start interfering with it. We start worrying, we become fearful. God’s doing something. Now, I want you to know what it is, God, to give us the increase. This is not taking away from the fact that there’s work for us to do, severe work, hard work. Works are great that we just can’t afford to be distracted from this work God gives us to do by the anxiety and the energy that’s wasted from worrying about how to grow. We can’t afford that. Just keep on growing and move into it in the name of the Lord. God’s going to keep us free from care. free from anxiety, and God will bring us into the rest, into His peace. He’s going to keep feeding us the living word. He’s going to keep blessing us. And boy, we’re going to be the busiest people you ever saw, fulfilling what He directs us to do. But we will grow not because of our work, but we will work because we’re growing. And our work, as you grow, you’ll take on an ever-increasing responsibility in that what you do and perform in His name. Amen! Praise the Lord! This has been a Living Word 2024 publication. Related
