4. Of what importance is it for one to have a ‘listening ear,’ and why do we not want to be like the soil along the roadside?

⁴ If we do not have “ears to listen,” we shall not pay attention to what Jesus taught. Attention is important, for the Bible writer Mark goes on to record: “He further said to them: ‘Pay attention to what you are hearing.’” (Mark 4:24) Never should we be like the first kind of soil in Jesus’ parable. This was the soil alongside the road. It was packed down so hard that it would not let the seed sink in, but left it exposed for the birds to pounce down upon and eat. (Mark 4:4, 15) We do not want Satan the Devil, by means of his agents, to snatch Christian truth away from us due to our inattention. This would betray a lack of respect for what the Teacher, Jesus Christ, was and now is in God’s arrangement.

11. According to Mark 4:26-29 what illustration did Jesus then give?

¹¹ In illustration of the foregoing, Mark 4:26-29 records: “So he [Jesus] went on to say: ‘In this way the kingdom of God is just as when a man casts the seed upon the ground, and he sleeps at night and rises up by day, and the seed sprouts and grows tall, just how he does not know. Of its own self the ground bears fruit gradually, first the grass-blade, then the stalk head, finally the full grain in the head. But as soon as the fruit permits it, he thrusts in the sickle, because the harvesttime has come.’”a

12. What do some Bible students think this illustration teaches as respects God’s kingdom?

¹² In Jesus’ earlier illustration given from aboard a boat, he described a sower whose seed fell on four types of soil. (Mark 4:1-9) Did that sower picture the same as the caster of seed in this later illustration? Many Bible students think so. They think that the man casting the seed abroad also pictures the foremost proclaimer of God’s kingdom, namely, Jesus Christ. On this basis they reason that the “seed” pictures the members of the heavenly Kingdom class. Thus the whole illustration pictures the growth of the Kingdom class from the 3,000 on Pentecost day of 33 C.E. to the final full number of 144,000. (Rev. 14:1) Hence, we must now be in “the harvesttime” of the final members of the heirs of God’s kingdom. However, such an explanation of Jesus’ illustration runs into a number of insurmountable difficulties. What may these be?

13. When did Jesus begin building his spirit-begotten congregation, and in what condition was he at that time?

¹³ Well, the illustration says that the man scattering the seed “sleeps at night and rises up by day.” How does such a description fit the glorified Jesus Christ since he began building his spirit-begotten congregation on the day of Pentecost? It does not fit at all! First Peter 3:18 speaks of Jesus as “being put to death in the flesh, but being made alive in the spirit,” so that he no longer is the perfect man that he used to be on earth. Ever since God the Almighty raised Jesus from the dead on Sunday, Nisan 16, 33 C.E., the exalted Son of God “is the reflection of his glory and the exact representation of his very being.”​—Heb. 1:3.

14. As regards the mere matter of sleeping at night, why could the man casting the seed on the ground not picture the glorified Jesus Christ?

¹⁴ That being so, then what? Well, Psalm 121:1-4 says: “My help is from Jehovah, the Maker of heaven and earth. He cannot possibly allow your foot to totter. The One guarding you cannot possibly be drowsy. Look! He will not be drowsy nor go to sleep, he that is guarding Israel.” (Note also Jeremiah 1:12.) How, then, could the glorified Jesus Christ at God’s right hand possibly go to sleep regularly with the setting of the sun in the Middle East like a man on earth? He no longer needs an earthly night’s sleep in order to be fit for the work of the daylight hours. Why, what is 1,000 years for man is like a mere day for the Godlike Jesus Christ! (Ps. 90:4; 2 Pet. 3:8) For this reason alone the man casting the seed upon the ground could not possibly picture the glorified, immortal Jesus Christ.b

15. What shows whether the prehuman Son of God knew about the growth of seed and of how the ground bears fruit of its own self?

¹⁵ Another point to note is that Jesus’ illustration goes on to say: “And the seed sprouts and grows tall, just how he does not know. Of its own self the ground bears fruit gradually.” (Mark 4:27, 28) If, now, the seed that sprouts and grows tall pictures the Christian congregation in its growth from a small membership to a large one, it means that the sower does not know how the congregation keeps growing to 144,000 strong. But the prehuman Jesus Christ was a coworker with Jehovah God on the third creative day, when “the earth began to put forth grass, vegetation bearing seed according to its kind and trees yielding fruit, the seed of which is in it according to its kind.” (Gen. 1:12) Thus the prehuman Son of God displayed full knowledge of the growth of plants and of how the ground bears fruit of itself gradually.

16. What vision in the last book of the Bible shows whether the glorified Jesus Christ is drowsy or asleep as to the growth of the Christian congregations?

¹⁶ However, as to congregation growth, the Bible’s last book, Revelation, written about 63 years after Jesus ascended to heaven on Thursday, Iyyar 25, 33 C.E. (May 12, 33 C.E.), pictures Jesus Christ as walking in among the seven lampstands that stand for seven congregations in Asia Minor. With his eyes like a “fiery flame,” he should be wide awake as he inspects the spiritual state of these seven prominent congregations. So he is not pictured as being drowsy or asleep with regard to the growth of the congregations. He must have known how those congregations grew to the spiritual state in which he describes them to be.​—Rev. 1:14; 2:18.

17. What vision described in Revelation 5:6 shows whether the glorified Jesus Christ could be pictured by the man who casts the seed on the ground and sleeps at night?

¹⁷ With regard to Jesus’ ascending and appearing in God’s heavenly presence, he is pictured as a lamb just slaughtered, but again alive with “seven eyes, which eyes mean the seven spirits of God that have been sent forth into the whole earth.” (Rev. 5:6) Far from suggesting drowsiness or sleepiness, such sevenfold vision of the Lamb of God would signify the state of being wide awake and all-discerning, constantly. Plainly, then, the glorified Jesus Christ could not be pictured by the man who casts the seed upon the ground and who sleeps at night and who does not know how the growth of what he planted comes about.