''Whereunto then shall I liken the kingdom of God" as now
Kingdom of God 143
(a) It will come up. Though it seems lost and buried under the clods, it will find or make its way through them. Let but the word of Christ have the place it ought to have in a soul, and it will show itself, as the wisdom from above does, in good conversation. After a field is sown with corn, how soon is the surface of it altered! How gay and pleasant it looks when it is covered with green!
(6) The husbandman cannot describe how it comes up. It is one of the mysteries of nature. It "'springs and grows up he knows not how". He sees it has grown, but cannot tell in what manner it grew, or what was the cause and method of its growth. Thus we know not how the Spirit by the word makes a change in the heart, no more than we can account for the blowing of the wind, which we hear the sound of, but cannot tell whence it comes or whither it goes. Without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness, how God manifested in the flesh came to be believed on in the world (1 Tim. iii. 16).
(c) The husbandman when he has sown the seed does nothing towards making it spring up. He goes to sleep at night, gets up in the morning, and perhaps never so much as thinks of the corn he has sown, or ever looks upon it, but follows his pleasures or other business. ''So is the kingdom of God." The Spirit of God is carrying the work on when the preachers of the kingdom are asleep, and can do no business (Job xxxiii. 15), or when they rise to go about other business. The prophets do not live for ever, but the word which they preached is doing its work when they are in their graves (Zech. i. 5, 6).
(d) It grows gradually. 'First the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear'' (Mark iv. 28). When it is sprung up it will go forward. Nature will have its course, and so will grace. Christ's interest, both in the world and in the heart, is and will be a growing interest; and though "the beginning be small, the latter end will greatly increase''. God carries on His work insensibly and without noise, but insuperably and without fail.
(e) It comes to perfection at last. '"'When the fruit is brought forth'', that is when it is ripe and ready to be delivered into the owner's hand, then he puts in the sickle.
5. THE LIKENESS OF THE KINGDOM
''Whereunto then shall I liken the kingdom of God" as now set up by Messiah? How shall I make you understand the