Genesis 1:11-13 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind… When the Incarnate Jehovah preached upon this earth that He had made, He took the whole of creation as His text. The waving corn in the fields through which He walked with His disciples, the wild flowers, the trees which overshadowed Him, all served as symbols of heavenly things. "Consider," He said, "the lilies of the field." While we walk in a world where beauty still lingers, for it is "though spoiled by sin, in ruin fair," we may read a lesson in every leaf, and bud, and blossom. If we are anxious and distrustful as to God's provision of our wants in this life, even the very herb of the field rebukes us, for God has clothed it; the wild flowers raise their heads, bright with His workmanship, and they speak to us, saying, "Hath God so decked us, and shall He not rather clothe you, O ye of little faith?" And then how many lessons do we learn from the sowing of the seed. Christ said, "Hear ye the parable of the sower." Have we heard it? Again, Christ said in another parable, "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." It is just so with the servant of God, scattering the seed in preaching the word of life; it springs up, he knows not how; he obeys the command of God. Another lesson Christ drew from natural vegetation was given in these words: "The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field: which indeed is the least of all seeds, but when it is grown it is the greatest among herbs, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof." Christ cast the little seed of His Church into the world: neglected, despised, unnurtured, it sank into the ground, and man trod it under foot; but when it is grown to its full height and established in its millennial glory upon earth, all nations shall flow into it, — "the birds shall come and lodge in the branches thereof." Once more, the Apostle Paul preaches from the same text in the book of creation, the resurrection from the dead. When we see the seed sown, and remember how unlike it is to the perfect fabric of the future plant, let us reflect that just so little will the sin-bearing, suffering, decaying body we now wear resemble that which shall be raised in perfect beauty. (Professor Gaussen.) Parallel Verses KJV: And 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. |
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