Mark 4:26-29
The Parable
“And He said, ‘The kingdom of God 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.’”
Lesson
The soil for the seed of the gospel is the heart of man, and once the seed has been sown, it is up to the man whether he accepts the word of God or not, whether he chooses to follow it or not. How the gospel works upon a man’s heart, we don’t really know. It isn’t in the ability, nor is it the responsibility, of the man sowing the seed to cause it’s growth in another; this God sees to, for “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase,” 1 Corinthians 3:6. All the gardener can do is plant the seed, and water the crop, doing a little weeding along the way.
Perhaps the harvest is when the seed of the gospel has grown enough in the heart of the man that he is now willing to become a Christian, that the seed has produced it’s crop, a Christian. He is then harvested into the kingdom of Christ, that is, he is baptized into Christ. This would seem to agree with the meaning placed on the harvest in Luke 10:2.