God, and then present the things that we see in there to others, but unless God gives the increase, there will be no change. Right here on our own Biola College campus a few years back we erected a Student Union Build ing now known as the College Un ion Building or the "CUB." And there was grass that was planted on the west side of that building and for months the grass did not grow; a few little spots came up but then nothing else. And we checked and we found out that there was a soil condition there that existed right around that building that did not exist around some of the other buildings. So we had to correct that soil condition before that grass would grow there. Now there are other conditions perhaps that God has to deal with in our own lives before there can be a spiritual growth. But you could simply put the seed in the ground and you can put water on it, but somehow or other the conditions have to be right—there has to be the proper amount of sunlight and the proper elements within the soil so that God can allow that par ticular plant or that shrub or that grass to grow. It is God who has made this world, who has placed the sun there and the moon and the stars. It is God who has placed within the soil those nutrients that can and effectively produce the kind of plants that we want. A man can do much. He can change these conditions and alter them. He can work with them. But man basically is limited with the elements that God has placed within the world. And although we may abstract them from the soil, we may ab stract them from other areas and chemically treat them, then put
the dominate figure. He is the one who is to be emphasized, i Corin thians 1:29-31 affirms, "That no flesh should glory in his presence, but of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of Cod is made unto us wis dom, and righteousness, and sanc tification, and redemption; that, according as it is written, he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord." Let us look now at verse six of I Corinthians, chapter three. Paul goes on to emphasize the fact that Cod is pre-eminent for he says, "I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase." There have been some plants and some trees that we have planted and then we have watered them, but they have not grown. On the street right next to Biola College here in La Mirada, California, there are a number of magnolia trees that were planted years ago when we first moved there, in 1959. These were just small little trees then and we thought it is not go ing to be wonderful that some day we will have beautiful mag nolia trees lining our street. Well, it has been almost 13 years and those small, scrawny little trees that were there are basically still small, scrawny little trees. Some of them have been replaced with a different variety, with hopes that they will grow better. And I under stand that a magnolia tree is very slow in maturing. But those trees were planted and we faithfully wat ered those trees, but they did not grow as rapidly as we had antici pated. So it is I think so many times that we do what we think is right, but nothing takes place. And in the Christian life, we can plant and we can water. We can present mes sages, we can study the Word of
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