Mark 4:26-29 And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground;… Who shall scrutinize the agency by which the Word is applied to the conscience? Who shall explain how, after weeks, it may be, or months, or years, during which the seed has been buried, there will often unexpectedly come a moment when the preached Word shall rise up in the memory, and a single text, long ago heard, and to all appearance forgotten, overspread the soul with the big thoughts of eternity? It is a mystery which far transcends all our powers of investigation, how spirit acts upon spirit, so that whilst there are no outward tokens of an applied machinery, there is going on a mighty operation, even the effecting a moral achievement which far surpasses the stretch of all finite ability. We are so accustomed to that change which takes place in a sinner's conversion that we do not ascribe to it in right measure its characteristic of wonderful. Yet wonderful, most wonderful it is — wonderful in the secrecy of the process, wonderful in the nature of the result! I can understand a change wrought on matter; I have no difficulty in perceiving that the same substance may be presented in quite a different aspect, and that mechanical and chemical power may make it pass through a long series of transformations; but where is the mechanism which shall root from the heart the love of sin? where the chemistry which shall so sublimate the affections, that they will mount towards God? It is the eternal revolution which I have no power of scrutinizing, except in its effect. (H. Melvill.) Parallel Verses KJV: And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground;WEB: He said, "The Kingdom of God is as if a man should cast seed on the earth, |
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