The seed cast into the ground is undoubtedly to be understood of the knowledge of good which may be at any time laid before the mind of another. We have an opportunity, it may be, of doing this; a person is with us for a certain time, and then perhaps is removed from us; we must even leave the seed to itself and go on our way trusting that God in His good providence will preserve it, and make it spring up in its season.
I. It may be asked, What is the lesson we are to learn from this? for it is not the custom of our Lord merely to state a thing as a matter of fact actually occurring in life, unless there may be something derived from it practically useful. And we cannot suppose that He means to advise us to be careless, to take no pains of our own, but to leave the event wholly to God. Undoubtedly it does not mean this; for how does our Lord represent Himself? As the gardener digging about and dressing the barren fig-tree, in the hope that it might perhaps at last bring forth fruit. And what Christ teaches us in one parable will never contradict what He teaches us in another. Let the two parables teach us different lessons, each making that of the other complete. We should do all that we can do, and then leave the event to God with confidence. To provide for the future by any present act is wise and good; but to be anxious about the future, where no act of ours can affect it, is a weakness and a want of faith. The parable of the fig-tree teaches us the first, the parable of the growth of the corn while men slept, teaches us the foolishness of the second.
II. But together with a vain anxiety, the parable also condemns a vain impatience. "The earth brought forth first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear." Each in its own order, but not all at once, and still less the last first. What we should look for in the spring is promise, in the summer and autumn, it is performance. What should disappoint us is to find these wanting; it were a strange folly that should seek in summer for the fresh leaves and delicate flowers of spring, or in spring should require the deep foliage and abundant fruits of summer.
T. Arnold, Sermons,vol. vi., p. 140.
The Seed growing secretly.
I. In this passage we have a striking picture of the silent growth of God's word, whether in the individual, or in the Church at large. So is the kingdom of God:not different, but exactly similar in its development to the process by which food is brought out of the earth. The sower does not meddle with the seed when once it is in the ground. He does not, after a week or a month, go to the field and take up the seed, and look if it be growing. No; but he leaves it there, confident that it has a quickening power in itself, and that in due time it will break through the clods and spring up and bear fruit. And this should teach us to have faith in the power of God's Word, which His ministers sow in the hearts of their hearers. It should teach us patience; it should teach us to wait in faith, till the Word we sow has had time; it should increase our faith in the power of the Word to grow of itself, when once it has been received.
II. And this growing of itself is further set forth in the words that follow "For the earth bringeth forth of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear." You cannot hurry the growth of a seed of corn. It must have time and its own time. It must go through the several stages of its appointed growth. Nor is it otherwise with the seed sown in our hearts, the Word of God, the Gospel, the teaching of Jesus Christ. There must be in the young a growth in grace, a gradual going forwards. We must not expect to see in them a wisdom and a goodness which belong only to a riper age.
III. Let us bear in mind for our warning that what God requires in all the plants of His sowing is fruit-return for the care bestowed. He showers down upon the soul the dew of His blessing. He gives us largely in this country every means of grace, that we may grow thereby, and in return He expects fruit. He expects that we, thus highly favoured, should not be barren and unprofitable, but should bring forth fruit unto Him fruit that shall remain, fit to be stored in the heavenly garner fruit unto life eternal.
R. D. B. Rawnsley, Sermons in Country Churches,2nd series, p. 130.
References: Mark 4:28. S. Baring-Gould, One Hundred Sermon Sketches,p. 72; R. Tuck, Christian World Pulpit,vol. v., p. 164; G. Litting, Thirty Children's Sermons,p. 205.