One seed produces much fruit ................. Parables 245

(December 5, 1990)

Wheat fields lay bare, their golden yield in the bin. Each grain of seed sown produced dozens more and if the markets were good, farmers would get rich returns on their investment.

All seed is like that. One produces many. It is the law of planting and harvest, a law that farmers and gardeners take for granted.

Notice though, the seed grain had to be sacrificed for the crop. Without being put into the ground, and in a sense, dying, there would be no yield. One seed can produce many, but it has to be destroyed before the life in it is released. This is the risk of planting. If it doesn’t germinate, valuable seed grain will merely go to waste.

Jesus lived among those who depended on good crops for survival. The staff of life came from grain, and the crops depended on the fertility of single seeds, just as crops do today. Jesus used that simple concept to illustrate a fundamental spiritual truth: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone: but if it dies, it will produce much fruit” (John 12:24) The next verse explains the implication: “He that loves his life shall lose it; and he that hates his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.”

Jesus was talking about the major priority of life: our choice of who controls it, and thus how we live it. The Bible says that there are basically two ways: one is “righteous” and the other is “wicked.” We define these lifestyles differently than God defines them. For example, Isaiah 9:6 says that we are “like sheep who have gone astray, each to his own way.” By God’s definition, anything that is simply going our own way, rather than His, He calls “wicked.”

It is the nature of everyone to do their own thing, to govern their own life. Some self-directed actions may even appear very good, some can be very vile. Either way, in God’s sight, whether the fruit is benevolent or gross, it is still our “own way.” Thus He says even our “works of righteousness are like filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6). To Him, “wicked” or “unrighteous” is anything we do in our own way, apart from faith in Him.

When Jesus said, “He that loves his life shall lose it,” He was talking about loving personal control of our own life and considering it the most precious thing. If a person considers “going his own way” more important than eternal life, then, according to Jesus, his life will be lost, eternally.

However, He also said those who hate their life, and are willing to forsake the control of their own life (because they see the direction it is taking them), and are willing to “die” to that life, are those who gain eternal life.

Jesus even says that those who yield control to Him will find their lives here and now full of deeds that have eternal value. He calls those deeds “eternal fruit” and “righteousness.”

In other words, putting one’s faith in Christ means everlasting life in heaven with Him... plus significance of all that is done in His name while here on earth. Scripture says that only His life in us can produce “gold, silver, and precious stones” while going our own way will result “wood, hay and stubble,” things will burn in fire on the day of judgment, and be lost forever.

Look out at the fields. Some of them have lain barren all year, some have produced a bumper crop. What about our lives? Are they barren and unwilling to give control to Christ? Or are they producing lasting fruit... because the seed was willingly sacrificed?

Seeds and words ............................. Parables 126

When my dad was actively farming, he had a grain cleaner and dryer in one granary. He used it himself, and often other farmers asked him to dry their seed.

Sometimes he complained because those jobs required extra effort. The bins and drying racks had to be clean; otherwise, the seed would not pass inspection.

As he prepared his #1 seed gain, it also had to pass a germination test. He would use a flat box and plant exactly 100 seeds in it. He kept them moist and in a sunny place. If more than 95% of the seeds grew, the gain was considered excellent for seed. If the germination was poor, that crop was used for cattle feed.

My dad obviously went out to the field to plant his crops. But from the planting on, it grew by itself, matured, and then reopened. There were some lean years when dad barely got his seed back, but most of the time it was a bumper crop.

I watched and learned about seeds. Good seed consistently grew and produced a good harvest. If it was immature, it would not germinate. If it was dirty, weeds would grow up with it and choke it out. If it was too moist, it would rot in storage. It wasn’t useless, but it was not suitable to reproduce itself.

Later, when I became a Christian, I noticed that Jesus talked a lot about seeds. He used them in parables to illustrate spiritual truth. Usually the seed referred to the Word of God. The crop was the righteousness produced in a person’s life when they let the Seed take root in their hearts.

Also, I found out that His Seed (His Word) is pure and clean, free from contaminants. It tests 100% in spite of the various attacks on it and years of effort to change it.

One of Jesus’ most familiar stories is the parable of the sower. He tells of seed scattered by a sower. If it lands on the roadway, it never even starts to grow. If it hits the soil, but the soil is shallow with hard pan under it, the seed springs up only to die because it has no root. If weeds are present, they grow up with the seed and choke it. However, when the seed is planted in good soil, it produces a bumper crop.

Jesus explained the soils are like our hearts. For some, the Word hits hard hearts and nothing happens. For others, they like what they hear, but a little too much “heat” makes them wither. Still others start to grow, but other attractions choke their interest. He said that only a good and honest heart has favorable conditions for a bumper crop. (Luke 8:15)

Jesus doesn’t say how Scripture produces righteousness. It’s just like the grain that is planted in the earth, growing without the farmer knowing how. However, the seed doesn’t get in the soil all by itself. The farmer has to do something — put it there.

God’s righteousness cannot be produce without the pure Seed of God’s Word, but He promises each chapter and verse planted in a receptive heart will “not return void — it will accomplish that which (God) intends. . . .” (Isaiah 55:11)

Grain and garden seeds sometimes disappoint us, but the Word of God never will.

Excuse me. I need to get back to my farming.

Reaping what you sow ..............................Parables 109

A four‑year‑old friend of mine found some seeds in the basement of his home. Since the ground was still frozen outside, he decided to plant them inside. A few weeks later, much to mother’s surprise, there along with her umbrella plant, was a six‑inch tall crop of oats!

Those oats remind me of a simple fact learned as a child on the farm: whatever you plant, that is what will grow. He planted oats; oats grew. I he planted tulips; tulips would grow, or if turnips, turnips.

I bought some garden seeds last week. Even if the package was somehow mislabeled, the seeds that germinate will be faithful to produce the same plant from which they were harvested. Can you imagine the chaos if this was not true! We might hope for carrots and get pansies, or find onions in the rock garden where the daffodils were supposed to be. Thank God that according to the Genesis account of creation, He made the plants so they would “yield fruit after their kind.” It is by His decree ‑ oats produce oats.

The principle carries beyond the garden patch. We see it in our families. Children pester one another... eventually a fight results. Parents warn them... “you will suffer for this...” hoping to prevent their minor wars; even thwart more serious consequences. But even adults find it difficult to learn that it is almost impossible to avoid consequences.

The New Testament puts it like this: “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man sows, that she he also reap” (Galatians 6).

God created everything to work according to this cause/effect or reap‑what‑you‑sow principle. He says it is deception and even mockery to think that we can somehow get around it.

But we do try to get around what God says. He says we are like that because of the sin‑marred condition of our hearts. We are creatures bent on our own way, therefore we do not do the things God intended us to do.

In other words, since the seed is sinful, the fruit is also sinful. We cannot do perfect or holy deeds because WE are not perfect or holy. No matter how good our deeds may appear to us, God says they fall short of His standard ‑ they grow out of hearts that “have gone astray, each turned to his own way.” Sinful seed produces a crop of sin ‑ and we reap what we sow

God tells the sinner that it is possible to be changed, to be turned around, to go His way. He said, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out... I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes...” (Ezekiel 36).

Jesus called it being “born from above.” Paul used the terms “a new creation” or “regeneration.” This new life comes through faith in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We need His heart, His nature, before we can produce God‑pleasing righteousness.

Galatians 6 goes on to say, “...for he that sows to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that sows to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.”

Faith may make a person new, but there are still choices to be made so the crop will be the right kind. We can either sow (do) things according to the flesh, which is the sinful human nature; or sow according to the Spirit of God. When He is in our hearts, we can choose to obey Him and to do things that please Him, things that culminate in everlasting life. Again, the crop will depend on the source of the seed.

The little boy’s mother pulled the oats out of her umbrella plant. Like sin, they were producing unwanted growth. Because she took drastic action, those oats will never produce a crop of oats.

But for those who believe in Christ and live by the Spirit, God is able to produce in them a harvest of spiritual fruit. This is a crop that cannot be pulled out, uprooted, or taken away.