Where did all the flowers in your garden come from, and all the fruits that are now piled up in the fruiterers’ shops, and hanging on the trees and bushes in orchards and gardens?

Some of you perhaps will say that they grew “out of the ground,” and that is true; but the earth can bring forth only what is first put into it. What do you have to put into the ground to get the sweet peas, nasturtiums, and mignonette, that delight you with their pretty blossoms and sweet fragrance? If you go back to the beginning of them all you will remember the little brown seeds, that you put into the ground in the spring, and watered and watched so eagerly, until the tiny green blades pushed themselves up through the ground, and grew greener and stronger each day, putting forth shoots and leaves and buds, until at last they were covered with blossoms.

But those seeds after all were not the beginning, for they came from other plants which sprang from other seeds, and so we could trace them right back to the real beginning when God said, “Let the earth bring forth.” So we see that “in the beginning was the Word.” The Word of God was the beginning of everything in the earth. This is just what Jesus tells us when He says, “The seed is the Word of God.”

We said just now that the earth can only bring forth that which is first put into it, and now you will see that what was put into the earth in the beginning to make it bring forth and bud, was the Word of God. So all that you see springing up out of the earth, grass, flowers, the wheat and grains from which your bread and porridge are made, the nuts and fruits that you enjoy so much,—is the Word of God, put into all these different forms, so that you may see it, handle it, and taste it, and get life and strength from eating it every day.

The same verse in the first chapter of the Gospel of John which tells us that “in the beginning was the Word,” says also, “the Word was God.” When God said, “Let the earth bring forth,” it was the life of Jesus going forth into the earth, and springing up in all these different beautiful forms to give pleasure and life to us. So when you eat of any of “the fruits of the ground,” you are feeding upon the life of Jesus Christ. When you admire the grace and beauty of the flowers, it is the loveliness of Christ that you are delighting in.

All the leaves, buds, blossoms, and fruit that unfold and develop in the plant were wrapped up in the tiny seed that was put into the ground. They are only the showing forth of the riches of the life of God that was in the seed. So you see that the seed is not only the beginning, but also the end of the whole plant, for there is nothing unfold in us also, and all the beauty of His life will be seen. We will talk more about this next week.

The Present Truth – September 22, 1898
E. J. Waggoner

Story in pdf  The Real Seed