GROWTH by J. C. Brower

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 3, 1901

GROWTH

By J. C. Brower

J. C. BROWER. (Americus, Ga.)

THE seed-planter is the Son of man. The seed is the word of God. In the parable the seed which the man had sown germinated and grew. Thus its brief story is told: “First the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.”

It passed from one stage to the other, changing imperceptibly though surely. The transition from the blade to the ear, and the ear to the full corn, demonstrated life. It changed constantly. This is life. Only dead, inanimate things do not change—do not live. Thus the growth went on until in its plant life it reached the “full corn in the ear.” This was attained before the harvester came. It was now complete. Immediately it was harvested. The embryonic plant, inclosed in its hard, impenetrable shell, had, under proper conditions, broken its shell, and finally, in the fruit, had realized the ideal for which it had been striving.

This side of eternity our ideals will never be realized, for all right ideals reach over into eternity, and are an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, entering into that within the veil.

The man in the parable knew not how the seed grew. Jesus stated the same thing to Nicodemus when He said, “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth.”

Life is mysterious and beyond man's ken. He sees old earth teeming with life, yet cannot tell how. Life is one of the secret things that belong to God. Deut. 29:29. Yet no man disbelieves physical life, nor does he doubt it. Then why doubt about the life of which Jesus said, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly”? This was said of eternal life.

Now in the parable the blade could never get back into its former tiny, hard shell; the ear never back into the blade, nor could the full corn in the ear ever go back into the ear. When it passed from one stage to a larger and greater, that passing was final. Never would it pass that way again. It could not go back into its former self again—never!

But, how with you, dear brother? Do you grow? or do you, contrary to the great lesson in the parable, go back into your old self again, sinning as before you were forgiven? Do you, as Dr. Holmes said of the chambered nautilus, “stretch in its [your] last-found home, and knew [know] the old no more”? Or are you knowing the old again, thinking that in the future you will arouse yourself and positively quit thinking your same old illicit thoughts,—thoughts that you wouldn’t have your brother in the pew or pulpit know for the world? Impure thoughts beget impure actions and words; for as a man thinketh, so is he. Do you have the same old envy in your heart, the same irritable disposition? Do you use the same sharp words as before? O brother, as you leave the past, leave it forever. Never return to its sad experiences. A better, brighter now awaits you. Do not hanker after the old shell. If you have really grown, you’ll have hard work to get back into it again. It will take squeezing, and that squeezing may cost you your life.

“Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll. Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, Till thou at length art free, Leaving thine out-grown shell by life's unresting sea.”