One seed produces enough fruit to feed many. As God created life on the earth, He created within that life the power to regenerate and multiply. He placed that power in seed form:
"And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good." Gen. 1:11-12
Each seed produces the same plant and fruit that had produced it. As we know, when the planted seed grows, matures and bears fruit, it has in fact multiplied itself many times, even within each fruit.
The Hebrew word for seed is zerah. It means "seed, offspring, descendants, children, posterity, of moral quality, a practitioner of righteousness, a sowing time".
The future, or fruit, is contained and determined by the seed sown in the present. The Hebrew meaning of the word, as we see above, also contains the idea of an activity, or behavior, as well as a time, or season-there is a time for sowing.
Jesus told a parable of a sower sowing seed (Mt. 13:3-9). The seed itself has the potential to grow. Various conditions, like good soil, stony ground, devouring animals, overgrowing thorns, or unrelenting heat, can impact the resulting growth however. Seed planted in good soil multiplies itself many times over-thirty, sixty, one hundred fold- in the fruit it will produce. Jesus specifically identifies the seed sown in this parable as the Word of God (Mk. 4:14).
The Word, Jesus Himself, is a good comparison to a seed, because we know the Word also contains creative and multiplicative power:
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God....All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made."
Jn. 1:1-3
This same seed, the Word of God, has been planted in each of us who believe. Are we being the "good soil" needed for the Word seed to grow, flourish, and produce fruit? We sometimes mix the seed of the Word with our own strange seed of our own ideas and will. God warns against what He calls "mingled seed":
"Ye shall keep My statutes. Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a different kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed: neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woolen come upon thee." Lev. 19:19
We cause harm by mingling the Word/seed with our own desires. A powerful example of this is found in the account of Abraham and Sarah. The LORD spoke a miracle promise, a seed, to Abraham, a childless man, that his seed (descendants) would be as numerous as the stars (Gen. 15:5). Abraham and his wife Sarah mingled that seed of the Word promise with their own reasoning and unbelief. That mingled seed bore fruit when Abraham conceived a child with his wife's maid, Hagar. Sarah became unhappy with this result of her own making, and abused Hagar. Now that seed was being mingled with jealousy and resentment. The child that was produced from all of this would still have the multiplication power of that seed promise (Gen. 16:10). However, having been mingled with unbelief, jealousy and resentment, the child or fruit produced from that mingled seed would be called "a wild man, whose hand would be against every man" (Gen. 16:12). We still see today in the Middle East the resulting fruit in the ongoing enmity among Abraham's seed.
Our ways and our words are the seeds that we sow. We need to be careful to understand the future ramifications of them:
"Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with him: for they shall eat the fruit of their doings. Woe unto the wicked! It shall be ill with him: for the reward of his hands shall be given him." Isa. 3:10-11
The seed we sow by word and deed will affect the harvest that we reap. The two cannot be separated:
"A man shall eat good by the fruit of his mouth: but the soul of the transgressors shall eat violence." Prov. 13:2
When we are careless with our words, speaking things over and over again that should not be spoken even once, we a sowing a crop that will bring forth fruit after its kind:
"Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof." Prov. 18:21
While we seem to have little awareness of the power of the seed, and its direct connection to the fruit produced from it, the Devil is very aware, using that eternal seed principle for his own evil plans. Jesus revealed this in His parable of the wheat and the tares (Mt. 13:24-30). Good wheat seed (the Word) was sown in a field, but while men slept (sleep, rest, be indifferent to our salvation), an enemy came and sowed tares. Tares are a counterfeit (lying) wheat, difficult to identify until the plant matures but produces no head of valuable and desirable wheat grain. The tares and the wheat had to be left to grow together. Tearing out the closely mingled tares would also pluck up the nearby wheat plants growing with them. The separation would have to wait until the harvest. The tares would have to be allowed to continue doing their damage until then. The effects from a weary or negligent attitude regarding the seed/fruit principle can be long lasting. The enemy will use the opportunity that we give him.
The scriptures assure us that the principle of the sowing of seed and the reaping of the resulting harvest or fruit, and the seasons that accompany them, will exist as long as the earth exists (Gen. 8:22). Paul uses this same principle to teach that the connection between sowing and reaping is a spiritual truth:
"Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. And let us not be weary of well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not." Gal. 6:7-9
How much fruit is in a seed? Like the stars in the sky- too many to number.
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