Saturday, June 30, 2018

REACHING THE LOST #9


Reaching the Lost






Many of us can recall from childhood the first time we planted a seed.  Maybe it was in a special place in the backyard or in a garden.  As an innocent child we carefully dug the hole, placed the seed inside, gently covered it with dirt, maybe poured a little water over it, then went on our way looking forward to seeing that seed grow.  How many of us returned 20 minutes, a few hours, even a whole day later, and were disappointed to find an uneven lump of earth, with not even a hint that there was a plant sprouting underneath?  Every chance we got we returned to that special place to see if our plant was growing, and very often we were discouraged in finding nothing there but dirt.

In planting the seed of Truth in the hearts of the lost, many of us still have the same attitude.  We expect immediate results from our work, and are disappointed and discouraged if someone doesn’t respond to the Truth right away.  As ministers of the word of God we must have patience in our work (II Cor. 6:4), with confidence in the fact that, if sown in an honest and sincere heart, the word will produce fruit (Luke 8:15).  After we have planted the seed, it is not for us to know or determine when and how a person should respond.  Mark 4 speaks of a man sowing seed, rising night and day, not knowing when the seed would produce a harvest, “for the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself.”  We can plant, water, and nourish the seed, but it is God that gives the increase (I Cor. 3:7).

God made man a rational, thinking being.  The apostles are often described as “reasoning”, that is, making arguments and appealing to men’s good sense and rationality as they taught the gospel (Acts 17:2, Acts 24:25).  No man or woman with full presence of mind and rationality would make a decision without thinking about it at least a little.  Consider the important decisions you’ve made in your life such as where to live, your occupation, who to marry; how many of us make these kinds of important decisions overnight?  Consider your own decision to be baptized or converted.  Did you make that decision in an instant?  How long did it take for you to “come around”?  It probably didn’t happen in a single instant, but took at least a little thought and consideration before you made that decision.
One lesson we probably learned early on as children planting seeds was that the more seeds you planted, the more likely you would observe growth.  Speaking of the selfless giving of the saints, II Corinthians 9:6 says, “He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.”  Though the context here is addressing the collection from prosperity, the principle of sowing and reaping is applicable to the sharing of the gospel.  If we, as individuals, don’t see any results in our work of planting the seed, then perhaps we should consider whether or not we are sowing enough seed.
We must also be careful not to excessively tend to and feed the seeds we plant.  As children, many of us poured buckets of water on that little mound of dirt every day hoping to get a plant out of it.  Sometimes we dug back into the earth to make sure the seed was still there.  Sometimes we gave it too much fertilizer.  But a young, sprouting plant is just like an infant, requiring gentleness and appropriate amounts of nourishment (I Cor. 3:2, I Pet. 2:2).
What a wonderfully unique feeling that child has in first seeing a tiny green stalk of life breaking through the soil.  That child doesn’t know anything about the chemical, biological, or botanical explanations for how or why that seed is able to grow.  He or she just knows they put a seed in the ground, gave it water and sunlight, and waited to see what would happen.  So must we learn patience in introducing Truth to others, and allow that Truth to do its own work.

Jeremy Koontz


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