The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-07-11

rules in righteousness to bless the word and lift up the poor, degraded members of Adams family And how great is the privilege of becoming members of the bride of Christ, to be associated with Him in His glorious Kingdom worlS!" But the class represented by the stony ground have little depth of character; they are merely emotional
 The Seed" or message of the kingdom. which these hear with such delight at first, never tnatlires in their hearts be-. cause they are too- shallow, to superfi- cial in their love of righteousness. Be low the surface those are hard hearts and selfish, and so, when they find that the good seed of the kingdom is unpopular and that 1t will bring them a. certain amount of reproach and contempt and perhaps persecution-then all their ardor oozes out, their zeal is at an end. The kingdom message fails to produce in them the fruitage desired.
 (3) The seed sown In the thorny ground represents those who have good heartt and have heard the message of the king dom and appreciate it and rejoice in it. but their hearts are divided. They allow the cares of this life and the love of nches to have such share of their hearts af- fections that the kingdom message does not have the opportunity to bring forth such fruitage as will be pleasing to the Lord.
 Let us note carefully that these thorns do not, as some suggest, represent gam bling deviees, card parties, saloons and other places of i'll repute, nor secret sins and vices. None of these things should appeal to Christians at all. The Master distinctly tells us that the thorns repre- sent "the cares of this life and the de- ceitfuIness of riches" Thus every Chris tian man or woman who has received the message of the kingdom and has allowed the cares of this life and the deceitfulness of riches to choke and frustrate his pros poets of the Kingdom Is represented in this parable Very nice people, hospitable, educated. etc, belong to this class of the parable represented by the tilorny ground.
 (D According to the parable there will be three classes of believers who will at tain the kingdom-or we may say, they will all be one class in the sense that they will bring forth the one kind of fruitage and be acceptable to the, Lord as joint heirs in His kingdom, but the difference between them will be in the amount of fruitage such yield-some 90 fold some 60 fold and some 100 fold.
 The Lord does not explain the difference between these fruitages, but we may we'll understand that the amount of fruitage will be measured by the amount of love and zeal in the heart. The fully appre- cldIlNe ana tle IullN lONlnS VIII DC the most energetic to know and to do the Masters will. and they will bring forth, the largest fruitage-10O fold-and they, too, will have. the chief places in the kingdom.
 St. Paul declares that as star differs from star in glory, so 1t will be with those who attain unto the first resurrection-all will come forth glorious. but some will blaze with a more resplendent brillancy, 1,<f.. f,ff tnf,. v,al md their great likeness to their Redeemer and Lord. Jsus likewise mentions the dis functions amongst those who will sit with Him in His throne. He assured James and John that, if they were willing to drink of His cup and be baptized into His death, they should surely sit with Him in
 His throne; but as to whether or not they would have the chief places of honor and distinction was not for Him to say. Those places will be given according to the Va ther's determination; that is to say, ac- cording to principles of justice, of merit.