The Law of the Farm

                               THE LAW OF SEEDTIME AND HARVEST


"While the earth remains, Seedtime and harvest ...Shall not cease" (Genesis 8:22). "Do not
be deceived; God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that will he also reap"
(Galatians 6:7).

Every farmer knows that seed produces after its own kind. If he sows corn seed, the soil will produce a
crop of corn; if he sows wheat seed, the soil will produce a crop of wheat. He never considers how the
soil and the seed interact to produce a crop; he just knows it will.
In a similar way if you sow strife in your relationships, it will produce more strife; if you sow love in
your relationships, it will produce a love crop in your relationships. The seed you plant determines the
crop you reap. If you plant the Word of God--"the word of faith"--it will produce faith in your heart.
THE MOST IMPORTANT PRICIPLE JESUS EVER TAUGHT
One day while Jesus was teaching by the sea, so many people were crowding around Him that He had
to get into a fishing boat and push off from the shore so that the crowd could see and hear Him. From
that boat He related what He proclaimed to be His most important parable (Mark 4:3-20; Matthew
13:3-23; Luke 8:4-15). After He had told the parable to the people in the crowd, he explained
privately to the twelve disciples: "To you it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of
God; but to those who are outside, all things come in parables.” The word mystery used in this verse
is the Greek word musterion (moos-tay-ree-on) (Strong’s #3466). In biblical Greek it means truth
revealed. It denotes something that is hidden to the unbeliever but is revealed to the believer--
something an individual could never know by their own understanding, as it demands a revelation
from God.
Next He said to the twelve,”Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all of
the other parables?"
Jesus went on to explain that words are the seed, and that man's heart is the soil that produces a
harvest in a man's life. Jesus said the parable was specifically talking about sowing the Word of God in
the heart of men (Mark 4:14).
The Word of God is referred to by the Apostle Paul as "the word of faith" (Romans 10:8). Therefore we
can readily see that the thirty, sixty, one hundred-fold crop that Jesus is referring to in the parable of
the sower is faith. The "word of faith" (the seed) that is sown in the heart of man produces "faith" in
the heart of man. Everything that we receive from God we receive by faith; therefore being able to
understand how faith is produced is of primary importance to doing business by the spirit. Here is
another truth which Jesus spoke that is extremely important for you to grasp: the "kingdom of God"
is within you, it is in your heart (Luke 17:21). Jesus taught that the kingdom of God (which is in your
heart) produces faith in a similar way that the soil in your garden produces a crop.
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YOUR HEART IS YOUR GARDEN
Your heart is a garden, which God has provided for you to produce faith for the things that He has
promised you in His Word. In the parable of the sower, Jesus spends considerable time discussing the
manner in which the various types of soil found in men's hearts affects the size of the faith that they
develop.
He described some men's hearts as being hard (bitterness, rejection, deep inner wounds, and anger).
When the Word of God is sown in a man's hard heart, he can't understand the Word, and the devil
comes immediately and steals the Word out of his heart (Mathew 13:19).
Other men have shallow rocky soil in their heart (envy, jealousy, and pride). When people's hearts are
filled with envy, jealousy and pride, they immediately receive the Word with gladness, but because the
soil is shallow, the Word develops no root, and so when problems and tribulations arise for the Word's
sake, immediately they stumble. You can be sure of this one thing: when you begin to believe God's
Word, Satan will immediately bring tests and trials into your life in an attempt to stunt the growth of
your faith. He doesn't want you to develop strong faith in God's Word.
Still others have hearts filled with thorns (the cares of the world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the
desires for other things), which enter in and choke the Word and it becomes unfruitful. Some
Christians are concerned about their children; others are worried about their health, and other cares
of the world. Still others are concerned about accumulating things; they desire a bigger house, a more
expensive car, a vacation in the Bahamas, and they simply have no time to meditate on the Word of
God. Their desire for other things chokes the Word and prevents it from ever producing strong faith.
But some men's hearts contain good soil--they walk in love, they obey God's Word, they meditate
upon the Word of God day and night, and they live their lives in accordance with the word. They
develop strong faith, faith that produces the thing for which they are believing God, "some thirtyfold,
some sixty, some a hundred" (Mark 4:20).
Six verses later Jesus relates another parable describing the kingdom of God. He states, "…The
kingdom of God (which is in your heart) is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground, and should
sleep by night and rise by day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he himself does not know how.
For the earth yields crops by itself; first the blade, then the head, after that the full grain in the head.
But when the grain ripens, immediately he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come" (Mark
4:26-29).
Smith Wigglesworth was a great man of faith in the early part of the twentieth century. They called
him the "Apostle of Faith" because of the miracles which occurred as he ministered to the sick. People
would often ask Wigglesworth how they could develop the kind of faith which he had. Wigglesworth
would reply "First the blade, then the head, then the full grain in the head." Wigglesworth understood
the parable of the sower; he understood that it is the Word of God planted in the heart of man that
produces strong faith. It is said that Wigglesworth would go no more than fifteen to twenty minutes
without opening his New Testament and reading the Word of God.
Jesus' words in this most important parable should give us reason to guard the thoughts which we
allow to be established in our hearts because the condition of your heart will determine the size of
your faith.
When our thinking is right, our heart will contain fertile soil in which we may plant the "word of faith,"
the kind of soil in which the Word of God will grow and produce a thirty, sixty, or a one hundred-fold
crop of faith, which in turn will provide you with whatever God has promised in his Word.
He has given us His Word to transform our thinking and to root out the negative emotions (the hard,
ground, the rocky soil, and the thorns and thistles) that weaken our faith and cause us to under-
perform and fail in life. But even good soil will produce the wrong crop if we plant the wrong seed.
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BE DILIGENT TO PLANT GOOD SEED
As we pointed out earlier you can plant good seed, the Word of God, or bad seed, the negative
depressing words of the devil. The seed that you plant is up to you. If you continually think upon and
confess, "God has redeemed me from the curse of poverty, therefore everything I do shall prosper,"
your spirit will develop faith for prosperity. If you continually confess, "The Spirit of God dwells in me,
and guides me into all truth; therefore I have perfect knowledge of every business circumstance and
situation that I come up against," then your spirit will develop faith to excel in your business affairs.
Your spirit man never sleeps; when you think and talk like God thinks and talks, your spirit man will
search for ways to prosper you because you are agreeing with the Spirit of God who dwells in you.
Therefore His Spirit will teach your spirit to make wise decisions; and He will give you inside
information which will help you to prosper in life. God will guide the man or a woman who agrees with
his word, to prosperous business contacts and new business opportunities, and the angels of God will
influence men to give you the new sales you need to prosper.
But if you continually think upon and confess "Everything I try fails; I never seem to do anything
right," you will develop doubt and fear in your heart which will cause you to fail in life.
This is the law of seedtime and harvest as it relates to words sown in the heart of man. Be careful of
the seed that you plant in your heart. Set a guard over your mind and your mouth. Make sure that
you think upon and confess only those things that agree with the Word of God!
IT TAKES TIME TO PRODUCE A HARVEST
It takes time for a crop to germinate, grow and produce ripe grain. The Creator's Handbook states
that "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God” (Romans 10:17). Faith comes by
hearing God's Word over and over and over. When we meditate upon (think upon and confess) God's
Word (the seed), it takes root in the soil of our spirit. As we continue to meditate upon God's Word, it
irrigates that seed with "the water by the word" (Ephesians 5:26), and our faith grows stronger and
stronger until the harvest is ready. "First the blade, then the head, after that the full grain in the
head" (Mark 4:28). When our faith is complete, the harvest will come; and the thing we have believed
God for will manifest in our life.
As you develop faith in God's Word in your heart, and as you speak that faith out of our mouth, it will
cause heaven to move the mountain that is standing in the way of your success in life (Mark 11:23).
But remember, it takes time to produce a harvest.
"And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not
lose heart" (Galatians 6:9).