Mysterious growth.
We little think how much is always going on in what we may call the underground of life; and how much more we have to do with those secret processes which underlie everything, than might at first sight appear.
I. For we are all, whether we realize it or not, always casting seeds, and those seeds, dead though they look, are always alive. Every word we say, every act we do, goes down into somebody's mind, and lives there; and there it has its influence. To what an awful consideration this might turn.
II. You look at a man today, and you see nothing in him. You may look at him tomorrow, and there is a change in that man, evident, palpable. The bud may be either just peeping, or the fruit may be full burst, just as God pleases. But it will come in its time; it will come out in a distinct view; it will be as the stars wake up at even; it will be as Jesus rose unseen from His grave. If you begin to ask the when and the where and the why and the how, I can only say, "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." It is very kind of God to give us this wide margin of thought, seeing His own work in the heart is such a long hidden thing. And who can tell where, at this moment, it may be going on, under the most unlikely surface. It is a good thing to have a faith in every one's salvation, and so to regard and treat everybody hopefully, honourably. Who knows, if the process be so very far out of sight, whether it is not going on in any one at this moment. Fathers and mothers, who have cast the early seed, you have slept for very sorrow, and many a day, and many a night, you have risen up to see what has come of all your sowing in your child's heart. But you see nothing. Wait on. It may be all there. And the springing and the growing will be you know not where, and you know not how.
J. Vaughan, Sermons,1865, No. 33.
References: Mark 4:26-27. J. Burton, Christian Life and Truth,p. 293; Preacher's Monthly,vol. ix., p. 185.Mark 4:26; Mark 4:27. J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons,6th series, p. 68.