We have in this parable:
I. A most simple, yet striking representation of the business, and, at the same time, the helplessness of the spiritual husbandman. To the ministers of the Gospel, who are the great moral labourers in the field of the world, there is entrusted the task of preparing the soil and casting in the seed. And if they bring to the task all the fidelity and all the diligence of intent and single-eyed labourers, if by a faithful publication of the grand truths of the Gospel they throw in the seed of the Word, why, they have reached the boundary of their office, and the boundary also of their strength, and are to the full as powerless in the making the seed germinate, as the husbandman in the causing the valley to stand thick with corn. "It springeth and groweth up, he knoweth not how."
II. But if we are ignorant of the mode, we are well acquainted with the result. "The earth bringeth forth fruit of herself," not through the skill of the tiller, but through the virtues wherewith God has endowed her "first the blade, then the ear, and after that the full corn in the ear." You have here an account of the successive stages of long experience. (1) There is first the convert in the young days of his godliness the green blades just breaking through the soil, and giving witness to the germination of the seed. This is ordinarily a season of great promise. We have not, and we look not for, the rich fruit of a matured well-disciplined piety, but we have the glow of verdant profession, everything looks fresh. (2) Next comes the ear; this is a season of weariness and of watching. Sometimes there will be long intervals without any perceptible growth; sometimes the corn will look sickly, as though blasted by the mildew; sometimes the storm will rush over it and almost level it with the earth. All this takes place in the experience of the Christian. (3) "When the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle." When we look on aged believers, who appear to have been long ago fitted to depart hence and to be with the Lord, we almost marvel that they have not been called home, and that God still exercises them by the discipline of affliction. But of this we may be sure the ear is not full, otherwise it would be plucked.
H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit,No. 1,988.
The Seed growing secretly.
I. The work of sowing and the joy of reaping advance simultaneously on the spiritual field. The labour of the husbandman in the natural sphere is all and only sowing at one season, all and only reaping at another; the seed of the Word affords a difference of experience; in the kingdom of God there is no period of the year when you must not sow or may not reap. These two processes are in experience very closely linked together. They become alternately and reciprocally cause and effect; if we were not permitted at an early period to reap a little, the work of sowing would proceed languidly, or altogether cease; on the other hand, if we cease to sow, we shall not long continue to reap. When the workmen are introduced into this circle, it carries them continuously round.
II. In any given spot in the field there may be sowing in spring, and yet no reaping in harvest. If there is not sowing, there will be no reaping, but the converse does not hold good; you cannot say, wherever there has been sowing it will be followed by a reaping. The seed may be carried away by wild birds, or wither on stony ground, or be choked by thorns.
III. The growth of the sown seed is secret; secret also is its failure. It is quite true, there may be grace in the heart of a neighbour unseen, unsuspected by me; but the heart of my neighbour may be graceless, while I am in its earlier stages ignorant of the fact.
IV. Though the sower is helpless after he has cast the seed into the ground, he should not be hopeless; we know that the seed is a living thing, and will grow except where it is impeded by extraneous obstacles.
V. In every case the harvest, in one sense, will come; on every spot of all the field there will be a reaping. If one set of ministers do not reap there, another will. Where there is not conversion, there will be condemnation. The regeneration is one harvest; the judgment is another. The angels are not sowers, but they are reapers.
W. Arnot, The Parables of our Lord,p. 312.
I. Though the sower sleep after his labour, yet the process of germination goes on night and day.
II. Simple beginnings and practical results may be connected by mysterious processes: "he knoweth not how." There is a point in Christian work where knowledge must yield to mystery.
III. As the work of the sower is assisted by natural processes, so the seed of truth is aided by the natural conscience and aspiration which God has given to all men.
IV. The mysteriousness of processes ought not to deter from reaping the harvest. The spiritual labourer may learn from the husbandman.
Parker, City Temple,1871, p. 81.
References: Mark 4:26-29. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxvii., No. 1603; H. M. Luckock, Footprints of the Son of Man,p. 84; Homiletic Quarterly,vol. iii., p. 186; W. M. Taylor, Parables of our Saviour,p. 196; A. B. Bruce, Parabolic Teaching of Christ,p. 117.