You're listening to the Vice Chancellor's Hour, a ministry of Radio ABC 993 FM on the campus of African Bible University. I'm Jeremiah Pitts, a professor and administrator here at the African Bible University in Uganda. The purpose of Vice Chancellor's Hour is to provide biblical and theological teachings that are an extension of the ministry of the university. Welcome to another episode of the Vice Chancellor's Hour. We are working our way through the book of Mark, trying our best to understand what Mark tells us about Jesus Christ and what that should tell us about how we should believe and live as a result of it. We're in some of the parables of Jesus, and if you've missed previous episodes, you can go back and check out those episodes at vchour.buzzsprout.com or anywhere that you listen to shows through any kind of app. and of course here on Radio ABC 993 FM, where we broadcast 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We're here thinking about what Jesus has to tell us through parables, and so listen to this from Mark chapter 4, verses 26 to 29. And Jesus said the kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps, and he rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows. He knows not how. The earth produces by itself first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come. These parables of Jesus are amazing, and we've got some more, even some seed ones that are coming up, and we'll talk about each one of them as it comes up. Focus here a little bit on this parable. It has confused a good number of people over the years because they wonder, what is it that Jesus is talking about? And so I'm going to try to help you out a little bit today and start out with the idea of what exactly is Jesus talking about? What's the topic first? And he tells us. He tells us that he's going to tell us about the kingdom of God. Now, I'm going to take a little bit of time here to tell you something. I hope you know it, but I've found that a lot of people don't. And so I want to make sure, since we're talking about the kingdom of God today, I want to be sure that you know what I mean. The scriptures talk about the kingdom of God, and maybe you've thought about that before, and you have some ideas. Let's just make sure we check it against God's word. The first thing I want you to know is that it's sometimes called the kingdom of God, and sometimes it's called the kingdom of heaven. In the past, there have been people who have tried to think of those as two different things, and they work really hard to make the Bible be talking about two different things. But in fact, the Scriptures seem to use those two terms interchangeably for the same thing. So, kingdom of heaven and kingdom of God are talking about the same kingdom. One of the ways that we know this is that those two New Testament phrases, kingdom of heaven and kingdom of God, occasionally used interchangeably in the same passage. So, for instance, if you went to Matthew chapter 19 and you looked at verses 23 and 24, It reads this, it says, Jesus said to his disciples, truly I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. Again, I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, who then can be saved? But Jesus looked at them and said, with man this is impossible. possible, but with God all things are possible. There's a couple things I want you to pay attention to there, but first and foremost, it's that Jesus treats the same topic and he uses two different terms. So in both of these sections, he talks about the difficulty of a rich person entering into a kingdom. He says in one place, that truly, I say to you, it's difficult for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. And then he says, again, I tell you, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. Very clearly there in the book of Matthew, he's talking about rich people entering the kingdom in one place. He calls it the kingdom of heaven. And immediately after the kingdom of God, he's using those terms very clearly interchangeably, meaning he could say kingdom of God or kingdom of heaven, and either way he's talking about the same place. I would also ask you to take note of the response of the disciples, which were that they believed it must be impossible to get to heaven, if rich people can't enter in. And God's response through Jesus should give us faith, which is, with man it is impossible, but with God all things are possible. It actually shares something in common with the story, the parable, that we're dealing with today. Not only do we occasionally have it where the same guy back-to-back, like in Matthew, reports Jesus using kingdom of God and kingdom of heaven interchangeably, but we also have between the Gospels, both in Matthew and Luke for instance, parallel passages where Matthew uses kingdom of heaven and Luke uses kingdom of God for the same type of saying. The disciples came and said to him, why do you speak to them in parables? And he answered them, to you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. And look at the other passage, almost identical. And when his disciples ask him what his parable meant, he said to you, it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God. But for others, they are in parables so that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand. You may recognize that teaching from the book of Mark. We went over that several episodes ago. But the point of this passage here instead is that the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God are both the objects of the purpose of parables And in both cases, he uses them interchangeably. Notice, too, that these passages tell us that there are things that we don't know that God himself understands, that the kingdom is that way, that there are things that we don't know but that God does know. So whether we're talking about kingdom of heaven or kingdom of God, they're used interchangeably in scriptures to tell us that it's impossible for us to make it into the kingdom of our own, and that there are secret things about them that we don't know unless God lets us know. Well, this might lead you to say, well, when is the kingdom? If that is what the kingdom is referring to, kingdom of God, kingdom of heaven, then when is the kingdom? And the brief answer to that is to say it's already in a sense here, but also we would say it's not yet, isn't it? So how can I say that it's not yet? Well, Jesus teaches us to pray in Matthew chapter 6, a prayer that we've talked about many times on the show. Your kingdom come, your will be done. Your kingdom come, your will be done. That is what a Christian should pray as they are directed by Jesus Christ, their King himself. is that we are to pray that the kingdom would come in fullness and in power. But there's a sense in which the kingdom is already here, and we get this also from Jesus. In Luke chapter 17 verse 21, Jesus himself says, That is to say, if you're wondering where the kingdom of God is, it's with us here already. So there's a sense in which the kingdom of God is already here and a sense in which it is yet to come. That is, what we have is real and it is sure, it exists, and yet there are aspects of it which are not yet. So it is yet to come. Many theologians have described this as the already but not yet. That is, some aspects are already here and yet other aspects are not here just Yeah, so when is the kingdom? Well, in one sense it's here, but in another sense it is yet to come at a time appointed. So what exactly is the kingdom? Jesus has given us a bit of a clue in his description of where the kingdom of God is. He says the kingdom of God is in the midst of you. So what is the kingdom? The first thing you have to know is that Christ is himself the king. Christ is the King, that He was given all power, highly exalted, given a name above every name so that all would bow, all confess that He is Lord and that His reign will be forever and ever. I hope you immediately recognize passages which say those exact things so that you too can know and believe that Christ is the King of the Kingdom. What's more is that Jesus is trying to tell them something about himself and the kingdom when he declares in Luke 17, What Jesus is telling us is that wherever the king is, there is the kingdom. The kingdom is in the midst of you. so that they may look and see that his kingdom is not of this world, and yet this world is affected by his kingship. That is, he is transforming the world around us as surely as he is the king and there is a kingdom. We are also called members of the kingdom of Christ if we are in Christ. If you haven't heard it, we have a whole series that I have taught on from the Sermon on the Mount. And if you missed it, you really should go back and listen to it because the key to understanding the Sermon on the Mount is found in the book of Matthew just before he introduces the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew tells us that Jesus went about teaching about the kingdom. And then he gives us this sermon, the sermon itself being some of the content that Jesus taught about what the kingdom was like. And so, in that sense, we would say that the kingdom is for the people of God, that we are members of the kingdom if we are in Christ Jesus. By the way, there's no other way to be a member of the kingdom. You have to be in Christ. Scriptures also teach us that the kingdom is the new creation, that each one of us have to be a new creation in order to be members of the kingdom, and therefore we must be a new creation. We cannot be what we were before, but we have to have a new life. And that's why this symbol of the sowing of a seed unto life is so powerful, because it requires that a life that in a way was not there before is there now. So now that we've heard a bit about the kingdom, the kingdom of God, kingdom of heaven, mean the same thing, and that the kingdom is in a sense already here, but not yet as it will be, and that Christ is the king, and that we are members as we are part of the new creation, we must ask ourselves, what then is this specific teaching about the kingdom being like a man sowing seed? What is that teaching? for us. Well, what is the work of the man? The man does have work to do, and that is to sow the seeds of the kingdom. He does have a responsibility to sow seed. Now, he does it because he has been given to do it. It is a gift from God that he is a sower of seed. It is something that has been given to him. So he has a responsibility to go out and to do this very thing. I know that you've heard me many times at the end of my teachings tell you, now go out and live like it. Now go out and live like it. And in a very simple sense, perhaps it is a call to be a sower of seeds, to go out and to share what has been given. to you. So kingdom faithfulness is in the sowing, that this is a key attribute of the kingdom. This is why Christians everywhere have been called to be evangelistic. That is, Christians everywhere should be free with the knowledge of their faith. Now, this doesn't negate the fact that, of course, the church itself has a primary responsibility and, of course, that your minister has a first and primary responsibility. Of course, as a minister of the church, many of the instructions of the church about how things are to operate have been directed towards the minister. And yet, it is also true that wherever we find ourselves, the kingdom is salt and it is light. I know we may be mixing metaphors here a little bit, but the point is basically the same, that we are transformative and we are illuminative, meaning we bring light and salt wherever we go. And in that sense, we are, in fact, spreading the seed. So the kingdom is like a man sowing seed, that is a man fulfilling his responsibilities. Now, what of the increase? Well, it tells us that this growing takes place from the seed and the man doesn't know where the growth comes from or how the production takes place. That's just the case, isn't it? You throw out the seeds and you have some idea about how things happen, perhaps. order of events when things go well, but they don't always go well. Sometimes it doesn't come up, sometimes it comes up poorly, sometimes it starts for a while and it dies. We covered all of this in a previous episode, but we really don't know where the growth actually comes from or how the production takes place. Jesus here is borrowing from wisdom literature. In Ecclesiastes 1 verses 5 and 6, this is what Ecclesiastes 1 verses 5 and 6 say, good. If I were to ask you, how does the Spirit come to a child inside a woman's womb? We wouldn't know the answer to that. That's something that is beyond us. Say so too with the sowing that we do. When you sow seed and you do work in the evening, you aren't sure what is going to prosper. Sometimes this thing's prosper and sometimes the other thing prospers, but you should do what's good. That is, you should be faithful and allow God to bring the increase The benefit here in this is that God is the one who is building his kingdom. It is God who is bringing life, and he's calling us to be faithful. That is, if the kingdom is to grow, the power isn't in the sower. The sower himself has no ability to bring life to the seed, and he in fact doesn't even understand how it happens. but instead it is God who's doing the work to bring life. This is sometimes referred to as the fecundity of God. Now, I know that's a fancy word. There's a lot of people who don't know what fecundity means, and yet it's important for us to know what we are talking about when we say fecundity. Simply put, fecundity is lifely production, it's the production of life that it pours out into abundance. And actually, what we see everywhere we see God working, we see life. Notice that in the universe, he doesn't just build beautiful planets and all of these laws of motion and chemistry, but also adds to it biology, that we are a planet teeming with life. Notice that when he describes his people, he describes them as living stones, a living temple. And when he describes the work of the Holy Spirit, he tells us where the Spirit is, there is life. Death itself could not keep his son in the grave, but where Christ is, there is life, that he is productive and creative and life giving. And so too, because the work of the kingdom is his work, we can be sure that it will succeed, that it will push forward, that it will produce life. And not one by one, but instead it will be a multiplication. Yet, over time, we may say that inevitably, the kingdom grows and it produces fruit. You may remember the emphasis in previous messages on individual fruit bearing. We talked about the sower and the seed, that each one of us has some responsibility and that we ought to be producing fruit. But here, it's a collective emphasis. The idea instead is that this is just one of the natures of the kingdom of God, is that it springs up into life, it multiplies. And so the kingdom of God cannot be overcome because it continues to increase. That means it's not the individual's kingdom, but it's God's kingdom. Ultimately, the fruit we see collectively demonstrates to us that we all have something in common. and that thing which hold in common is that we are God's, God's creation, God's creatures, God's work, and so the fruit also is his. We have some responsibility, there's no question in that, to be sowers of seed, but the increase is the Lord. He goes on to say, when the grain is ripe, he puts in the sickle for the harvest. Now, the idea of reaping, that's what we're talking about here, the sickle going down to cut down the plant to be able to reach the grain. This idea of reaping is a very common metaphor or picture that we find in the prophets. For instance, Joel 3.13 says, put in the sickle for the harvest is ripe. But interestingly, when you see most of the time of the idea of a harvest being ready and a sickle being put into the harvest, especially in passages like in the Prophets, these metaphors are typically metaphors of judgment. That is, the judgment of God raining down on evildoers. And in fact, very often it's on the Gentile nations. Jesus here takes the same metaphor, but he turns it in a new direction. Now, he turns the metaphor upside down. Instead of the harvest being a sign of the judgment of God, he instead demonstrates that he is one who can make all things new. He can make the bad thing into a good thing. That the kingdom harvest is a harvest of joy and life and abundance. I don't know if you yourself have ever experienced a harvest time. It's a time of great anticipation where people are hoping things are going to come, that things will happen in the right way and be beneficial to everyone. And when finally the sickle goes in and the harvest is brought in, there is abundance and there is life. That's why harvest festivals, those celebrations of the harvest, are cross-culturally one of the most common types of festivals, types of celebrations. And it is because it is a time of abundance and of life. The hard times, at least for a little while, are over when the harvest comes in. And so too, we have celebration in the harvest of God. to those who are not of the kingdom is a time of darkness and judgment as they are plucked as though they're wheat to be consumed. For the believer, the harvest is a beautiful and a wonderful time of life and joy and abundance. Why? Because God himself is the Lord of the harvest. He's the one who makes all things new. We should conclude from this basically three things. You must believe this. one, that Christ is the bringer of the harvest. Remember, if you put it onto man, if you make man the one who is responsible to bring the increase, you will forever be disappointed, and you will be forever tricked into schemes of manipulation. This is not what God would have us to do. But instead, we ought to do things the way God has told us to do in his time and in his way, and that we ought to trust him that God, through Christ Jesus and the work of the Holy Spirit that Christ has sent to us, will be the one who causes it to grow and brings the harvest. Secondly, that you have a responsibility to faithfully proclaim the kingdom. What's your part in this? That as you live your life, wherever you may find yourself, that you should be about the Lord's business. Live as a Christian in every aspect of your life. Don't just be full of hallelujahs on Sunday morning, but instead, every day of the week, everywhere that we may find you, be faithful to God and to his word. And then finally, trust the means God has given for the increase. Don't trust in your wisdom. Don't trust in your abilities. Remember, you don't know the end from the beginning. The scriptures teach us that we are incapable of separating the wheat from the weeds, the sheep from the goats, because we simply don't have the knowledge or wisdom necessary. But we should instead trust the Lord, trust what He has given to us. I pray that you have been encouraged by this, that whatever it looks like in the world around you, the kingdom of God overcomes, the kingdom of God grows. I mean, you just think about that when Jesus said this, the number of disciples he had on all of planet earth was just a handful. But today it is the number one religion on planet earth. There are more Christians, more people who say they're followers of Christ than any other religion, and that number continues to grow. There are many reasons we should have hope, and first and foremost is that we follow a true God who tells the truth for his people. And what has he told you? He's told you that you may not know where the growth comes from, but trust him, kingdom of heaven, it grows, it explodes, and it brings life, and it brings abundance. Now you've heard the word of the Lord, go and live like it. You've been listening to the Vice Chancellor's Hour, a ministry of Radio ABC 993 FM on the campus of African Bible University. We hope this has been beneficial to your Christian walk and understanding. If it has, you can support the ministry of Radio ABC by going to AfricanBibleColleges.com and clicking on the donate button. Don't forget to let them know it's going to the Uganda station. If you have questions about this or any other episode, please feel free to contact us at vcourofficial at gmail.com. We're also available through Instagram and Twitter as vcourofficial. We may answer your question on a future episode. Until next time, may the peace of God and the fellowship of God's people encourage your hearts.