Signs of the Times, Vol. 25, Nos. 48, 49. (11/29/1899)

Signs of the Times

Nov 29, 1899

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, Cal., Kansas City, and New York · Nov 29, 1899

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THE SEED-SOWING OF THE GOSPEL.

By Ellet Joseph Waggoner

By E. J. Waggoner, Editor “Present Truth,” London, Eng.

AND He said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground; and should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how. For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear. But when the fruit is ripe, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come.” Mark 4:26-29, margin.

The seed-sowing contains not only the promise of the harvest, but it determines what the harvest will be. The harvest is really present in the seed sown. “Be not deceived; God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.” Gal. 6:7, 8.

THE Word of God tells us that “all flesh is grass.” Isa. 40:6. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is proclaimed to men by the power of the Spirit, “that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified.” Isa. 61:3. “For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth; so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.” Isa. 61:11. Therefore in the growth of plants from the seed we have a perfect picture of the Christian’s growth in grace, or of the growth of the kingdom of God in the hearts of men.

THE first lesson is given by the Lord, and is found in John 12:24, 25: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.”

NOTHING in nature exists for itself. The sun shines to give light and warmth to the world. The grass and trees grow only for the purpose of pleasing the eyes of men, and of supplying life to all creatures. To give up and to utterly abandon self, is the law of the universe. “Even Christ pleased not Himself.” Rom. 15:3. “That which thou thyself sowest is not quickened, except to die; and that which thou sowest, thou sowest not the body that shall be, but a bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other kind; but God giveth it a body even as it pleased Him, and to each seed a body of its own.” 1 Cor. 15:36-38. If a farmer should say, “I have but one bushel of wheat, and propose to keep it; I will not waste it by throwing it upon the ground,” everybody would call him a foolish fellow. The only way to have it increase thirty, sixty, or a hundred-fold, is to cast it into the earth, knowing that he will never see those grains again. The same thing holds good with the grain that is eaten; we can not get the life from it without destroying it as grain. The grain that is “preserved” is never of any use. What is the seed whence all things come?—“The seed is the Word of God.” Luke 8:11. This is true from the very beginning. When the waters were gathered together unto one place, and the dry land appeared, the earth was empty. It could not produce a single thing. Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth; and it was so.” Gen. 1:11. What was the seed which God cast into the ground, from which everything sprouted?—It was nothing other than the Word of God. The Word became grass and trees, just as afterwards it became flesh.

CHRIST is the Word of God, the Word of Life, which was in the beginning, and from which everything proceeded. John 1:1-3; 1 John 1:1, 2. He is the Seed whence spring not only the plants of the field, but also the “trees of righteousness.” It was as true of Him as of the corn of wheat, that He could not bring forth fruit without yielding up His life. That which the chief priests and scribes and elders said mockingly, as a reproach, was His glory: “He saved others; Himself He can not save.” Matt. 27:41, 42. If He had thought about Himself, and had been intent on saving Himself, He could not have saved anybody else, for without the shedding of blood,—the giving of life,—there is no remission. Heb. 9:22. Nay, He would even have lost His own life if He had attempted to save it; for, having come into this wicked and lost world, there was no possible way out except the way of the cross.

BUT the sacrifice of Christ goes back of this present world. He was foreordained as a ransom “before the foundation of the world.” 1 Peter 1:20. In order to become a quickening Spirit, He died. Through death He destroys death and the one who had the power of it. Heb. 2:14. He is not a useless seed; He died—emptied Himself—that He might bring forth much fruit.

“That which thou sowest, thou sowest not the body that shall be but a bare grain; . . . but God giveth it a body.” Therefore when Christ, the true Seed, came into the world, He saith, “A body hast Thou prepared Me.” Heb. 10:5. The sacrifice was complete. Never again does He have the form that He had before coming to this earth; He was made in the likeness of men, and it is as the Son of man that He suffered the death of the cross, and was in consequence highly exalted, receiving a name that is above every name. The work is still going on, for He is continually giving Himself for mankind; or, rather, the sacrifice, which is made once for all, is eternally efficacious and active. Everything in the universe exists, and will continue to exist, only because His life flows out to it and through it.

The seed dies, and produces others of the same nature. From a single grain of corn a hundred others may come, and each one of the hundred will have the same life, and as much of it as did the original seed. So it is that “unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.” Eph. 4:7. “Of His fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.” John 1:16. “In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Col. 2:9); and when He dwells in our hearts by faith,—when the seed springs up in us,—we also are “filled with all the fulness of God.” Eph. 3:17-19. Every believer receives all the fulness of the life of Christ, the true Seed.

“As He is, so are we in this world.” 1 John 4:17. This necessarily follows from being born of His death. So the children of the kingdom are the good seed. Matt. 13:38. The life of the only-begotten Son, who emptied Himself, passes into the Seed of the woman, the Son of man; but not merely into the Man Jesus of Nazareth, but into as many as received Him. He is the “first-born among many brethren.” All who receive Him have the power given them to become the sons of God, and that power is the power of the resurrection, for it was the resurrection from the dead that proved Jesus Christ to be the Son of God. Rom. 1:1-4. The seed by which we are born again is incorruptible, even the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever (1 Peter 1:23); and when that Word abides in us, it gives strength, victory over the wicked one, and preserves from sin (1 John 2:14; 3:9).

So Jesus Christ was but the Model Man. He is, in fact, “the Man Christ Jesus.” There is no other man, for He takes all who believe and makes them in Himself “one new man.” Eph. 2:15. It is only in Christ that we become “a perfect man.” Eph. 4:13. The seed that is sown produces other seeds, endued with the same life, that they may in turn be producers of life. So all who believe are here on earth in Christ’s stead, to carry on, in His name and by the power of His life, the work begun by Him. He calls all to come to Him and drink the water of life; but He adds, “Let him that heareth say, Come.” And, in order that their call may not be in vain, that none may come to them for life and be disappointed, He says, “He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” John 7:38.

Not unto the angels, but unto men, has God put in subjection the world to come. Heb. 2:1-8. The work of the Gospel, by which men are to be made new creatures, and a new earth prepared for a suitable dwelling for them, is committed to men. God “hath put in us the word of reconciliation” (2 Cor. 5:19, margin), by which men are born into the kingdom of God. The Word abiding in us transforms us, so that we have its nature, and are, in Christ, also the Word of God; so that if any man speak, he will “speak as the oracles of God.” 1 Peter 4:11.

“By the word of the Lord were the heavens made.” Ps. 33:6. By the same word the heavens and earth are to be made new; but the word that creates anew is to be in the mouths and hearts of men. God says: “I have put My words in thy mouth, and I have covered thee in the shadow of Mine hand, that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth, and say unto Zion, Thou art My people.” Isa. 51:16. The Word of God, the Seed that is to beget children for the kingdom, and also to prepare the kingdom for them, is to be spoken by men. But it will be by men who have died with Christ, giving up their lives, never to take them again, and whose lives are nothing but God’s Word incarnate. When they speak they will speak with authority, for they will speak just what they are, yet not of themselves.

What a glorious prospect and privilege! The greatest glory of “the Word of Truth, the Gospel of our salvation,” is not that it saves sinners, barely drawing them into the city of refuge, but that it makes saved sinners saviours of others. God sent Christ into the world to save the world (John 3:17), and He says to all who are willing to be made conformable to His death, “As My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you” (John 20:21). Who would count his life dear, in view of such a high calling, especially since the life which we impart to others is the eternal life that abides in us and saves us?

“Therefore seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not; but have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the Word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.” 2 Cor. 4:1, 2.

E. J. Waggoner

THE SEED SOWING OF SIN

By E. A. Sutherland

By E. A. Sutherland.

[President of Battle Creek College, Mich.]

"WHATSOEVER a man soweth, that shall he also reap," is the divine expression of a truth daily before our eyes. Since the fiat of the Creator on the third day of the first week of time, that all herbs and trees should bear seed after their own kind, all life has followed silently the ceaseless round of the circle then begun. No oak mistakes and bears an apple seed; no grain of wheat planted ever grew an ear of corn. Throughout the animal world the same unerring law is seen. This law of seed-bearing strikes directly across the man-made theories of evolution, for it is as unchanging as the Eternal that like produces like.

So near is glory to our dust that the creative power is placed in the reach of all forms of life, and that creative power, whether used for a good or evil purpose, is still a manifestation of the life of God. It is a question in men's minds why, if God is good and only good, evil can exist. Holland answers the question thus:—

"God seeks for virtue, and, that it may live, It must resist, and that which it resists must live."

The Creator in the beginning made all things good, and sin is but a falling short, a lack of development, a perversion of the good. The perfection of character demands complete harmony with the will of God, which, taking us out of self, carries every power to a state of perfection of which none of us has dreamed.

To refuse to allow this perfect will of God to be fulfilled in us is sin. It was thus that Lucifer fell. He wished not for conformity, and that moment imperfection marked his character. Man was led into the same error, and, failing to follow on, has never reached the sphere God had in store for him.

I can not better explain it as it appeals to my mind than by the rose which, putting forth a perfect bud, is blighted by a worm. The bud unfolds, but every petal is disfigured. The wheat which we now call a perfect stalk, a perfect grain, may be perfect when measured by our sin-marred standard, but when it is placed beside that first stalk which came forth in obedience to the word of God, it stands a mean and shriveled dwarf.

Before the Fall the petals never fell; there was no death; all parts of the flower continued to develop into the beautiful fruit. I have tried to picture an apple as it must have been originally. Not only did the ovary of the flower fleshen and enlarge, but about the part now called the apple grew the thickened petals, another luscious layer, adding beauty as well as wealth of meat; and then, enwrapping all in a coat of living green, were the new-grown sepals, which, instead of withering and clinging to the base of the

fruit, a constant reminder of the cutting short of life by sin, grew on into a third and outer layer of the fruit. Imagine the kernel of wheat in its perfect development, and what must it have been!

When man ate, he found the grains and fruits exactly met the needs of his body,—no waste matter to clog the living machinery, no woody fiber which proved indigestible, but all went on to maturity.

The thorn and thistle are but blighted forms of leaves or stems or flowers. So, the world over, the things which we admire and praise, and say that they are perfect, are but struggling toward that former grandeur. The noxious weeds which men strive to eradicate from the earth are but degenerate plants of worth, held in their present condition, like many a member of the human family, by the iron bands of sin.

O, to lose the death-like grip with which we cling to earthly things and conditions, and to grow upward with that rapid flight which marked the life of Christ! There is but one secret in the perfection of character seen in the Man of Calvary, and that is his self-surrender till the powers of darkness found nothing in him—found it an impossibility to crush the rising of his soul. There is implanted in each heart this longing after the Divine, and no man or woman in the depths of sin but what sometimes feels the impulse to creep from under that load and rise to the sphere of perfect manhood as seen in God.

What, then, was the meaning of the parable?— "The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also." Matt. 13:24-26.

The seeds of truth are sown in every heart, but there comes the stupor of sleep, the lack of active submission, and during those dormant periods a growth of weeds begins.

Sin is not a new creation—it is but a perversion of the good, and the greatest sins are but the greatest virtues turned into an evil channel, checked in the full development.

The very acids of unripe fruit may be turned by sunshine into sweetest flavors. The life so full of spirit and life; the generosity which becomes a fault; the very powers most winning, may, nay, often do become the very means of self-destruction. The women walking the streets of our cities at night are but undeveloped and perverted forms of beings created with the design of peopling heaven. The man in the gutter, or the brute who entices a fellow-being into sin, is the dwarfed and blighted form of the being created in the image of God. O, the sorrow that must fill heaven at the sight of the swarming masses of people who might be noble and true!

Here is a most practical question to each of us as we face the realities of life: When am I, when are you, planting seeds of sin? when are we failing to cultivate the vine which should bring forth grapes, but, to the disappointment of the vine-dresser, brings forth wild grapes?

There is strength in the fact that Christ was a plant of earth, and that of Him it could be said that "He grew."

Mothers and fathers have often to meet this question; for their children come into the world bearing an imperfect stamp in mind and body. The child begotten in passion becomes heir to innumerable traits of character which fill the world with drunkards and debauchees. The wrong is repeated in an exaggerated form in the second generation, and the words of God ring through the world, that "the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generation." Diseases too horrible to mention are the results of some implanted seed of evil. Leprosy, which to ancient Israel was a fit symbol of sin, and which needs but the slightest contact to spread itself, does not too strongly represent the quick spreading of the contagion of sin.

That consumption now causes one-seventh of the deaths of the world, and annually carries to the grave over 1,000,000 human beings, illustrates in a most forcible manner the divine words which foretell the effect of non-conformity to the laws of nature and of God. Deut. 28:15-22.

With the child sin takes root very easily. The soil is well prepared, and oftentimes necessary precaution is not taken to prevent it. The babe in the hands of an evil-minded nurse learns habits of impurity; the child grows older, and day by day he strengthens the evil propensities by an exciting diet, food prepared by a mother who thinks she loves her family, and yet who is slowly digging their graves; the youth enters the school-room, associates with others of an evil imagination, and the harvest is seen on our streets to-day. Hearts defiled with sin, thoughts that run wild into forbidden channels, lives led astray—this is the reaping. Picture to yourself as it looks when viewed from above,—self-love, "covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof." 2 Tim. 3:1-5.

It would seem that every sin against God and our fellow-men, every violation of moral as well as civil law, is here detailed in the ingathering of these last days.

"While men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat." It is time to keep awake; for resting does not prevent the tares from reaching maturity and scattering seed for a second crop.

The rooting out must come by crowding the ground with the choicest seed, by vigilance, not spasmodically, but constant and unremitting. It is a curious fact that weeds either develop earlier than plants among which they grow, in order to scatter seed while the ground is still prepared to yield nourishment, or they develop so much more slowly that after the harvest of fruits they take advantage of the resting season given the land, and get the start, as it were, in the matter of growth.

You have probably noticed that noxious weeds are usually well provided with facilities for scattering and fertilization. If the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light, it is certainly true that in sowing and harvesting, the seeds of sin seem to have the advantage.

Men try to argue that the world is growing better, when, according to God's Word, the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah are the order of the day. When it seems impossible to redeem the land from the crop of evil, God proves the possibility by choosing hearts, and, in the midst of evil, rearing plants of purity, which, like the pond-lilies, lift heads of purest white above a turbid mass of water. The home and the school,—these are the places for this growth. Parents and teachers,—these are the instruments for the cultivation of the soil.

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