Mark 4 — Norman Meeten

Studying Mark 4 and Doing Our Homework

There's only one piece of homework being set in the course of this conference so far. You were exhorted, if you were taking notes, to note it down and do it. Have you done it? Some people look rather blank, and are wondering what it was that they were supposed to have done.

My boys sometimes come home like that from school, having forgotten their notebook, and they have to ring up some friend to find out what it is that they're supposed to have done, or what they're supposed to be doing, ere they make an appearance the next day.

Have you done your homework? You may think that we, as speakers, liaise with one another. We don't. We have no idea what the other is going to speak about, but it's amazing how God, in that great and glorious way, mixes our hearts together, and by that one Great Spirit leads us along lines of truth and revelation that all seem to weave and blend together and serve to enhance one thing after another.

Your homework was Mark, chapter 4, and in verse 11 it says, That unto you are given to know the mysteries, the mystery of the kingdom of God. But unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables, that seeing they may see, and not perceive, and hearing they may hear, and not understand, lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them.

And he said unto them, Know ye not this parable? And how then will ye know all the parables? And the great preceding parable is the parable of the sower. In fact, it falls on either side of those verses that we've just read.

First of all, there is the telling of the parable, and then there is the enlargement upon it by the Lord Jesus to his more intimate company of disciples. But if you've done your homework well, you didn't stop at the reading of the parable of the sower, but you went on and discovered that in this same chapter there are two other parables also related to seeing.

They relate to the mystery. They relate to seeing. They relate to revelation. They relate to crucifixion. They relate to resurrection. It's all interwoven together, and one of the commonest of illustrations that Jesus never tired in taking up was his very simple illustration of the seed, and its behavior, and development, and growth unto fruitfulness.

If you were to read the parallel passage to this one in Mark chapter 4, which you would find in Matthew 11, you will find that there is inserted yet another parable, and dear Edgar in his preaching this morning even brought that in for us.

I said, thank you, Lord. That was the parable of the man who went to sleep at night, and having sowed, and you know how a wicked man came and sowed hairs amongst the seed? That's the one which is missing in Mark.

It's sometimes good to do comparative reading, and if you do that, beloved, you will find that God will always enlarge. That's one of the purposes of four glorious Gospels, and why, if you find something repeated in one after another, it's not just because there is what is known as a synoptic pattern, but because God, by the Spirit of Revelation, and because of the great Spirit of Repentition, is wanting to make an impact upon the hearts of men and women when they apply themselves to this lovely book, and thoroughly study it, and do their homework.

I want to tell you, beloved, if you don't do your homework, if you merely depend upon what preachers can give to you, sooner or later you will suffer from malnutrition spiritually. Hallelujah! Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the Kingdom of God, and that in itself, beloved, is a tremendous thing, and has many elements that rise out of the pages of the New Testament.

The Mystery of Iniquity and the Mystery of Godliness

For instance, in the second letter of the Apostle Paul to the Thessalonians, and in the second chapter, we read of the mystery of iniquity that all ready worketh. John puts it in slightly different words in his first epistle, where he talks about the Antichrist, and he says, the Antichrist is already at work.

The mystery of iniquity is working. That's the great mystery of sin. And then, if you turn over into the second, into the first epistle of Paul to Timothy, and in chapter 3 and verse 16, you will read of the mystery of godliness, which is the great antithesis to the mystery of iniquity.

The mystery of godliness that works as intolerably and as automatically and as gloriously, beloved, as formerly the mystery of iniquity works in the hearts and lives of men and women. Paul puts the mystery of iniquity in a slightly different way in writing to the Ephesians, where he talks about the prince of the power of the air working in the children of disobedience.

And, of course, he was writing out of the deep experience of his own life. He knew, he'd known that mystery, that inexplicable operation of iniquity, of sin, its law, the terrible inevitability of it operating within his own being.

That's what made him cry, beloved, and inscribe in the Roman epistle, the good things that I want to do, I don't do, and the things that I hope myself are doing, I do. By that time, he understood what it was all about.

That tremendous definition in Ephesians 2, beloved, is the explanation as to why men and women live and behave, act and react as they do. It's a working of a mystery, iniquity, a law called sin, that has an inevitability about it all the time it is present within, until it is dealt with and overcome by the great mystery of godliness.

Hallelujah! And then, if we move into the fifth chapter of the Ephesian epistle, we come to another aspect of the mystery at the end of that great exposition on marriage, and how marvelous that is. And, he says, there's a proof, beloved, that the mystery of godliness has become operative in a man's life.

It will be, and be outworking in the context of a relationship, beloved, that is supposed to be the acme of love, the context in which that great mystery should work most perfectly, where the exhortation comes to men again and again that they should be even as Christ to their wives.

That's a tremendous challenge to any man. And, when a man lives like that, beloved, and that great mystery of godliness is really operating within the depth of his being, then, in that context, beloved, it will find its outworking.

Glory to his name! That's the answer, beloved, to every marriage that's going to work according to the will of God. The mystery of godliness pulsating in the heart, within the depth of the being of a man that enables him, beloved, to be as Jesus to his wife, and then to his family, and then beyond that realm, beloved, glory to his name.

And, ultimately, Paul comes right down, and he says, this is a great mystery. I speak concerning Christ and the church. Hallelujah! And, then he goes, he finds and quotes that lovely definition of the mystery, I suppose the embodiment of it all.

From Colossians, chapter one, and verse twenty-seven, this is the mystery, hidden from ages and generations, cry in you the hope of glory. Hallelujah! And, that's why, when our brother spoke of the great mystery and its relationship to the resurrection last night, the calm and glory and wonder of it all, operating within one's being, bringing you into a dimension of living, beloved, that is consistent with the testimony of Jesus as it manifested in the great gospel record, realizing that men and women down here on the earth, when that mystery becomes an unveiled secret into the depths of your being by the revelation of God's Spirit, and that was the testimony of the apostle.

He said, it pleased God who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by his grace to reveal his son in me. That was the mystery. That was the dispelling of our great revelation of the person of Jesus into the depths of his being.

And, suddenly, he had disposed of him, all the fullness of the Godhead, bodily, walking on the inside of him, no longer just a historical figure, no longer a sequence of events spanning time from the incarnation to the ascension and glorification of Jesus, but the realization of those great historical truths worked out in the person of Jesus, reproduced in the individual life and within the corporate body of Christ by the operation of the Holy Ghost.

That's the mystery, and, of course, there are larger lengths and breadths and depths and heights of its wonder. Praise the name of the Lord. He said, it's given unto you to know the mystery. In another place, beloved, in Luke's gospel, he said, I've hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them unto they, for so it seemed good in my sight.

If you'll but obey, beloved, and feel that you're just beginning in a conference like this, may God cease to reveal these great truths and unfold the great mystery of his own life to every one of us without exception.

I love that. I sometimes get a bit exercised in my heart, wondering whether we're going above the place where men and women are, but when you come to a great theme like this, and themes which have been touched upon in these days, glory to your name, his name, you suddenly realize, beloved, it's for the faith.

Not only for the faith, but for the young people and the youth, glory even unto full maturity and stature of godly men and women. Hallelujah. And in these great stories of Jesus, beloved, the mystery of God in all its fullness gets unfolded to our hearts.

The Four Conditions of the Soil

In the first great parable, beloved, the main attention is placed upon the condition of the soil in which the seed which Jesus tells us is the Word of God is to be planted. That soil, beloved, the human heart that has formerly been the venue and area where the Prince of Iniquity has worked, and where the mystery of iniquity, beloved, has inevitably operated, has to be wrought upon by the Word of God and the Spirit of the Lord before it is in a fit condition to receive the seed of God.

Amen. And that's the first thing that I want us to look at tonight. I want us to look into the early verses of this fourth chapter of Mark's Gospel. And there are four types of soil, four conditions that Jesus enlarges to our understanding.

Verse 3, hearken, behold, there went out a sower to sow, and it came to pass as he sowed, some fell by the wayside, and the fowls of the air devoured it up. And if you go down into verse 15, Jesus enlarging upon that, he says, These are they by the wayside, where the word is shown.

But when they have heard, Satan cometh immediately, and taketh away the word that was shown in their hearts. Here's the first state and condition which Jesus points out to us. The wayside, where the word of God is shown, where it falls, and no sooner has it fallen upon the ground, Satan comes and snatches it away.

The wayside, beloved, is hard and rocky. Even in countries, beloved, where they don't have tarmac and roads, the road becomes hard and rocky. And that is the state and condition of a human heart, a state under which the word of God often comes.

And because it is so hard, and because it is so rocky, it has no ability to find entrance into the soil, and therefore the wicked one comes and snatches it away. That can happen, beloved, even in a conference like this.

Men and women can come into a gathering like this. They can listen to the word of God. They can mentally attend to the preaching. But if the state and condition of their heart, beloved, is still hard and unworshipped upon by the Spirit of God, ere they get from this place, beloved, that wicked one will come and snatch away that seed.

Jeremiah talks about breaking up the fallow ground. Ezekiel speaks in a more specific way when he's making reference to the state and the condition of the human heart. That heart which Jeremiah defines as despicable above all things and desperately wicked.

Who can know it? There is God's definition, beloved, of a heart outside of Christ. And then Ezekiel takes up the great theme, and he says that God will come and take away that stony heart, praise God, and in its place He will give us a heart of flesh, and He will give us a new spirit, and into that new spirit He will plant His Spirit, and as the word of God falls into that condition, there will be response to it, and an inevitable ability, beloved, to obey it.

It doesn't say you might do, or you will do, if you'd like to, but He says you will. Glory to His name. But there's the initial stage there, that the word of God encounters, and there are many people, beloved, to whom the word of God comes.

There are many to whom you and I will minister, and it's like hitting your head against a brick wall, and it's a very sad, a very pathetic position to find oneself in. The second condition is described in verse five.

The sun fell on stony ground, and it had not much earth, and immediately it sprang up, because it had no depth of earth, and when the sun was up, it was scorched, and because it had no root, it withered away.

Verse 16, these are they likewise which are shown on stony ground. When they have heard the word immediately, they receive it with gladness, and have no root in themselves, and so endure but for a time.

Afterward, when affliction or persecution arises for the word's sake, immediately they are offended. The second stating condition, beloved, is described ground in which there is no depth, and as a result of there being no depth, there is no root.

No depth. You and I are going to receive the word of God, and know the working of its mysterious activity within our own being, and the impact, and the outworking of that word, that seed of God, through the totality of our life, beloved.

God has to get hold of you and me, and handle us, and deal with us at depth. Many people, beloved, are quite happy for a superficial imposition of the word of God in the form of blessing, in the form of encouragement, in the form of deliverance, in the form of answer to prayer in a multitude of other things.

And God does bless, God does heal, God does deliver, God does answer prayer. Hallelujah, that's His mercy, that's the disposition of His heart. He can't help but give, and give, and give. You see that illustrated in the gospel record of time, and time again, beloved, when men came to Him with ulterior motives in their hearts.

For instance, there were ten lepers who once came to Him, were told that He healed all ten of them. Only one came back to give glory to God. Praise God He didn't condition His activity, beloved, by what He found in the hearts of men and women.

The love of God wasn't regulated by what was out there, or the response that would come back as a result of what He was doing. We see again, I suppose, the classic record which appears in all four gospels, the feeding of the five thousand.

They were all fed, beloved, they were all filled, they were all had as much as they would. That's how the great record of the parable ends. They were all full, they were all had as much as they would, there were twelve baskets over.

Amen. But when it came to the crux, and when it came to the core of the great issue, when Jesus explained what it was all about, and the significance of what that great word was, beloved, that had found a measure of entrance, they received the bread.

And remember Jesus said, I'm that bread. But when He told them what it was all about, beloved, and when He explained to them that He was wanting to get into the depths of their being, and that He was wanting to work Himself out through the totality of their lives, what did they do?

They quit. They said, this is a hard thing, this offends us. And they left. Because they weren't prepared, beloved, to God to deal with them and minister to them at depth. Praise God! The first reference to the work of the Spirit of God in the scripture is right back in the book of Genesis, in chapter one, at the time of the creation, where it says that there was darkness over the deep, and the Spirit of God moved.

And when Jesus is referred to, beloved, as the Word of God, He's described as that great sword of the Spirit that divides between soul and spirit, that discerns the thoughts and intents of the heart, and declares that we're all naked and open before Him with whom we have to do.

Beloved, I want to tell you that when the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, is given liberty to work in the heart and life of a man or a woman, He will divide between soul and spirit, He will penetrate to a depth, beloved, that no human being can ever reach, and discover the foundations of your nature and the depths of your being, beloved, in a way that no one else can.

That's why the woman who met Him at the well cried, The well is deep! She was describing the inward state and disposition of her own life, the unpalatable depths of her own personality, beloved, which were an enigma to her.

She tried this, she tried that, she'd gone here, she'd gone there, and never found an answer to that which constantly erupted from deep within. And I've talked to many people, and anyone, beloved, who finds themselves in a ministerial position will sooner or later discover, as he deals with this one and that one, that the majority of people, beloved, can't tell you where it comes from or where it began.

It goes too far back, it's too deeply embedded and entrenched in their personality, and goes with psychiatry, goes with psychoanalysis, beloved. He cannot help you. He can only get so far and no further.

In fact, just before I came away, I had a gentleman on the phone to me with a request from a leading psychologist and psychiatrist in the district in where we live, confronted with a problem, beloved, for which he has no answer.

And I want to tell you that some of the leading men in this sphere, beloved, those who have elements of honesty within their being, are constantly being confronted with the fact that they've got no real answer.

They can alleviate, they can make life bearable, they can drug it down, they can shock it away back, beloved, so that it doesn't resurrect, but it only lasts for about four years, and then it all comes up again and again.

That's why when you come into the New Testament, beloved, God doesn't cover anything up. I know that it occurs in the epistle of John, beloved, that love covers a multitude of sin, but I want to tell you that when the love of God comes in the power of the Holy Ghost and is allowed access and entrance right deep down into the depths of human heart, beloved, it doesn't cover up.

It brings it all up. Amen. Not to shout about it to anyone else, beloved. God didn't shout the condition and state of that woman he met at the well to anyone else, beloved. He divulged it to her own heart.

And when she went back home, she said, I found a man who told me all things that I ever did. Is this not the Christ? Praise God. She was made another vessel, beloved, the vessel that she carried on the head, the symbol of her own life and her own sin.

She left it behind. There is a penetration of the Word of God in the person of Jesus into the depths of her being, beloved. Clear it is, then. God doesn't want justice to come over the surface of our life, beloved, and deal with the superficiality and symptoms of our problems.

It's come to plumb the depths. What did Jesus say in another parable? You'll find it in Luke's Gospel, chapter six, at the end. Lots of us think it's a Sunday school story where he talks about a wise man and a foolish man.

And the wise, the foolish man, beloved, you know how the story goes. Built his house upon the sand, the wind came, the rains came, the floods rose, beat vehemently on that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.

But the wise man, it says this in Luke's record, the wise man digged deep. Oh, praise God, he digged deep. Beloved, I want to ask you tonight, are you prepared to allow God to dig deep? There are many people, beloved, and it happens again and again, they get so far, they get left, they get their problems alleviated, and they go on for a little while, and then they collapse again.

And it all rises up again. Trees that fall in dark ground, beloved, have no root in themselves. No root, no depth. We'll never know the working of the mystery. We will never unfold, know the unfolding of the great secret and all its repercussions that is going to integrate us into the fullness of God's purposes and plans, beloved, for His church and for the world, unless we're prepared to allow Him to go deep.

Let the word come as a hammer, beloved, and break the stony hard hearts. Let the word come as a sword and penetrate the depths of our being, beloved, and create a condition in which God can work in a way that's consistent with His own nature and thrills His own heart.

And then it speaks of a third type of ground. It says, and some, verse 7, and some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no fruit. Verse 19, no, verse 18, and these are they which are sown among thorns, such as hear the word, and the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lust of other things entering in choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful.

Sin, Calvary, and the Radical Work of God

Another sort of soil. The seed is planted, horny, unweeded, unprepared, and the weeds grow up. Jesus refers to them as the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the lust of other things that contend with and contest the supremacy of God's word and the life of God's Son in the hearts and lives of men and women.

And thus sought and abhorred, and this sought and prevent the development of that glorious word of God's soul in the heart, and ultimately prevent it from bringing forth any fruit. There's only one way in which to deal with all of those things which contest the word of God and usurp the place of the seed of God.

And that's, again, that seed called sin. And you do know that the law, beloved, in nature is only the natural illustration of the same great law that's operative in the spirit, and that the seed called sin that is the inheritance of every single man and woman born upon the face of the earth, all the time it remains and works as the mystery of iniquity in the depth of your being, usurping the place of the word of God and manifesting itself, beloved.

As sin cares of this world, deceitfulness of riches and lust for other things, only another way of change, talking about the manifestation of sin. You know that all the time that that seed remains, beloved, there will be an inevitable outcropping and a fruitfulness called sin, or the work to the flesh.

And there's only one solution, and praise God He's provided a solution. And He calls the greatest of the prophets, beloved, to declare it in relationship with the coming of Jesus, when He spoke of Him who would lay the axe to the roots of the tree.

Hallelujah! Not pick off the fruit, beloved, not deal with the symptoms, not pluck a little from here and a little from there, but go right to the roots of the problem and lay the axe to it, beloved, and bring a cessation to its growth and its development and its outcropping.

Radical, isn't it? That's why when Jesus was crucified, beloved, He was hanged upon a tree. And that's why God chopped Him down and cut Him off. That's another great truth that rises up through all of this glorious truth, beloved, intertwined.

Glory to His name. We call it the doctrine of the circumcision, that by the Spirit is applied to the heart. And the apathy of that doctrine, beloved, found its outworking at Calvary when Jesus was cut off out of the land of the living.

When we talk about cutting people off from their background, cutting people off from their involvement, cutting people off from their inheritance, cutting people off from the powers and activities of Satan, beloved, that's the language, that's where it comes from.

It's a great lethal operation, the surgery of the Divine. Oh, the Divine Father sending the sun, beloved, to lay the axe to the roots of the trees, all those weeds, beloved, that expel and prevent the Word of God from springing up and bringing forth fruit in your life.

Praise God! That hard highway, beloved, has to be broken up by the hammer of God's Word. Jeremiah talks about it. Those deeps of human hearts, beloved, have to be plunged by the Word of God, described as a sword that will go right down into the depths of your being.

Those weeds that grow up to prevent and hinder the Word of God from coming forth unto fruitfulness, beloved, have to know the axe of God's Word coming to the root of it and bringing an end to it. One of the things that I love about this glorious book, beloved, and all that God portrays to me in Jesus as He unfolds the mystery, is the radical intervention of God.

There's nothing sentimental, there's nothing half-baked, beloved, there's nothing partial about this great work that found its fulfillment at Calvary. It's radical, it's lethal, and if it's not, beloved, it's unsatisfactory.

Sometimes we're afraid to present it in that way. Glory to His name! You've known the hammer of God's Word, beloved, breaking up and destroying your old stony heart disposition. Do you know the plunging of God's Word by the Spirit into the depths of your being, beloved, discovering the foundations of your nation, dividing between soul and spirit, exposing all the thoughts and intents of your heart?

Have you known, beloved, the axe of God's Word coming, laying itself at the very root and the beginnings of issues in your life, beloved? There is a thorough clearing of the ground and a preparation of the spirit of your heart and my heart to receive, not just upon the surface, not just under, in the superficial layers, but into the very depths of my being, devoid of all antibodies.

Glory to His name, so that that Word of God can spring up. And that brings us to the fourth great condition that God points out to us, and that's the good ground. Amen. And it says in verse 8,. Another fell on good ground, and it yielded fruit, and sprang up, and increased, and brought forth some thirty, some sixty, and some an hundred.

He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. Verse 20,. And these are they which are sown on good ground, such as hear the word of God and receive it, and bring forth fruit, some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some an hundred.

Glory be to God. And if you were to read Luke, the count of his same glorious parable, beloved, you would find that he omits the thirtyfold and the sixtyfold, and only speaks of the hundredfold. Amazing.

Good seed, which is the word of God, in the good ground. Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. And when the word of God gets mixed with faith in your heart and my heart, you tell me, what is there to stop us believing for a hundredfold?

Glory to His name, Jesus, the word of God, beloved, is the good seed. Your heart wrought upon by the word of God, bringing the effects and benefits of Calvary to bear upon your life. At death, glory to His name, removing all that will interrupt the process of God's plan in your life, and create a condition, beloved, whereby faith can rise to enable you to embrace what God says.

Amen. And believe Him for a hundredfold. Amen. That's what God wants. We read in John chapter fifteen, beloved, that the vine will bring forth fruit, and we're also told that the vine will bring forth much fruit, and we're also told that the vine will bring forth more fruit.

Amen. Not just fruit, not just much fruit, but more fruit. Glory to His name. And I believe that that's one of the reasons why God gathers together in conferences like this, beloved, to work upon us in His faithfulness and love, to plant deep within us seeds of His good with an expectation in His heart that we're going to be a fruitful company of men and women.

What's the use, beloved, of listening to the word of God if we don't mix it with faith and act upon it with expectation and belief that as we move out, bearing it, beloved, this precious seed within our own hearts, believing that God is going to fulfill His own worth.

Amen. And bring it to pass in our life. Find us again, be praying for us in John chapter twelve, where He talks about a corn of wheat falling into the ground and dying. Praise God. He said if it dies, it will bring forth much fruit.

Jesus was talking of Himself, beloved. He fell into the ground and died. Isn't that wonderful? And you're part of the fruit of that dying. Because we wouldn't be here, beloved, if He hadn't fallen into the ground and died.

And the great, great principle that applied unto Him, beloved, by the operation of God's word in your life and my life applies in us. Amen. And there's a guarantee of God behind His own word, beloved.

God doesn't make superficial statements. God doesn't make liberferences. God doesn't make promises that He's not prepared to substantiate, beloved, and bring to fulfillment. And if we will lay hold upon those, beloved, and endure, praise God, we will see the outworking of what God says.

And even if we don't, beloved, we don't live to see the outworking of it all, God will still fulfill His word and keep His promise. I believe that the explanation to many great movements of God in the world in these days, beloved, is because people have gone before with hearts bearing the word of God, falling in down into the ground, and they've died, unheard of, unknown.

Amen. And again, and today, there is fulfillment, God fulfilling His word and keeping His promise. I guess you need a lot of faith, beloved, to go to a place where you fall into the ground and die without notice, unheard of, unspoken of, never to be remembered again.

There was a sense in which Abraham, beloved, never saw the real fulfillment of the promise. He saw some of the promises fulfilled under his own experience, promises that God made to him, but the full implications of all that great promise meant, beloved, was only to find its fulfillment in later days.

Praise God. So, there's the first great parable. That's why Jesus said, if you don't understand this, beloved, you won't understand anything. It's the mystery, the secret. It's either the mystery of iniquity, beloved, or it's the mystery of Christ manifesting itself in godliness, in resurrection life, and in church fulfillment and union.

Glory to His name. And it can only come to pass and be outworked in the hearts and minds of those who would submit themselves, beloved, to the word of God in this radical form. Amen. Our second parable begins in verse 26 and goes down to the end of verse 29.

The Seed That Grows and the Perseverance of Faith

And Jesus said, 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. Do knoweth not how, for the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself, first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.

And when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he puteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come. Amen. If the true word of God, beloved, hath been planted in good soil in your heart, then God says it will grow.

Amen. It will grow. You don't know how, but God says it will grow. If it is the good seed of God's word, and it's grown into good soil because you've allowed God to deal and prepare your heart to make it suitable condition to receive that good seed, once it is planted there, beloved, God says it will grow.

Amen. That lovely scripture in Philippians chapter one is a tremendous word of encouragement, beloved, to any who have faith to read it and believe it. He who has begun a good work in you will perform it or perfect it unto the day of Jesus Christ.

That's wonderful. If God has begun a good work in you, if God has planted the seed of his word in you, beloved, in good soil, then what he has planted, beloved, he will bring to perfection. Amen. That's God's promise.

That's the commitment of God's heart. He says it will rise up night and day. The seed should spring and grow up. He knoweth not how. You know, the problem with many people, beloved, is that they keep doing to their spiritual seed what they would never do to natural seeds.

You plant seeds in the garden, beloved, the best thing to do is leave them alone, because if you keep going and digging them up and examining them and looking as to how they're getting on, beloved, you won't have a chance.

You do that for natural seeds, that's your city dwellers, not country bumpkin like me. Amen. I do a little gardening even now. Praise God, I go out and I look. After I've planted my seeds, I go out and I look.

I go out every morning and look to see how they're getting on. And I certainly don't poke around. I don't dig them up and talk to them and say, how are you getting on? I know that some people talk to their plants.

Some people kid you, beloved, that if you talk to them and if you treat them nicely, they'll perform much better than if you rough-handle them. Whether that's true or not, I don't know. But I know, beloved, if I plant seeds in the garden, the best thing that I can do is leave it alone, apart from watering it.

Amen. And then, if I dug the ground, put in all the necessary requirements, beloved, that are conducive to the reception of that seed, once I've planted it, I leave it alone. Amen. I believe that there are lots of hypersensitive people, beloved, who don't know how to leave the seed of God's Word alone.

And they're constantly going round in circles, beloved, and having spiritual traumas because they haven't believed that what God's done and what God has promised is sufficient, beloved, to bring them through unto perfection.

I think one of the first sermons that I ever heard Mr. North preach, and that's a long time ago now, up in Liverpool. I think it was in the criminal mental hospital. That's where he found us. You don't believe that, do you?

That's the first place where we met. We weren't patient. One of the first things that I remember, and I've never forgotten it, I could almost tell you all the things that God has spoken to me powerfully and significantly over the years.