Royree Jensen preaches on the power of the seed at Rivers Apostolic Centre
Royree Jensen delivers a Sunday morning message continuing from the previous week's teaching on the Parable of the Sower.
Summary
Royree Jensen speaks at Rivers Apostolic Centre, building on a message delivered the previous week by Hans on the Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13). Jensen opens with an unplanned word from Jeremiah 31 about surviving the sword and finding favour in the wilderness, before moving into his main theme: the power of the seed. He argues that the parable is not only about the condition of the soil but about the inherent power of the seed itself — drawing on the Greek word sperma to describe God's word as having reproductive, life-giving capacity. He connects this to John 12, where Jesus declines an offer of asylum from Greek emissaries and instead speaks of the grain of wheat that must fall into the ground and die. Jensen closes with a personal account from a funeral in Bougainville, where the first elected president — whose name, Kabui, means "a seed that fell into the ground and died" — became a living illustration of the message.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Opening Word: Surviving the Sword — Jeremiah 31
Royree Jensen: There's a verse that's been on my heart — it's got nothing to do with what I'm speaking on this morning, but I'll feel better if I get it out. Is that all right? It's in Jeremiah 31, and it says this: The people who survive the sword will find favour in the desert. I will come and I will give you rest.
The people who survive the sword. The sword is often when you're being persecuted, or you feel the devil is poking you in the ribs with a sharp thing, and you're in the process of surviving the sword. Things have come against you. Unexpected things have come against you. And the Lord says that when you survive that, you find favour — favour in the desert, in the place that looks pretty dry at the moment. But there's favour awaiting you.
So I want to give you an opportunity to just come and get prayer on that. Who is that person, or persons? There you go. There you go. People who survive the sword — be a survivor. Be a survivor, because for survivors there's favour. Mostly we quit in the tough time. We can't survive this thing, whatever it is, and we feel the piercing of the evil one. Well, the Lord says if you survive the sword, you will find favour in the wilderness, in the desert place. He says, I will come and give you rest.
And I want to just read on a couple of verses. Again, it's got nothing to do whatsoever with what I'm talking about today, but hey, I'm random.
The Lord appeared to us, saying, I have loved you with an everlasting love. I have drawn you with loving kindness. I will build you up again — you will be rebuilt. Again, you will take up your tambourine and go out to dance with the joyful ones. Again, you will plant vineyards on the hills of Samaria, and the farmers will plant them and enjoy their fruit. There will be a day when the watchmen cry out again.
That's the word of the Lord. Grab it. Grab it now while it's going out there.
So if you're really feeling the sword being drawn against you — and it can be business, it can be marriage, it can be finances, it can be health, it can be any one of a dozen things, just opposition, and not ordinary opposition, but there's actually a sword drawn — we say in the name of Jesus to the evil one: sheath your sword. Put it back where you drew it from, for this is not your business. This belongs to the Lord God Almighty. This is his purpose, and his desire is favour.
Father, we present all these ones to you today and we declare favour. We declare favour. Survive the sword. Survive the sword. Survive the sword, and favour will come upon you and upon your situation. Lord, I pray that you would speak into hearts today. You are the Comforter. You are the true word, the living word. And I pray that quickly, quickly, favour will replace the sword. I thank you for the survival instincts. And I ask that the enemy will drop away from this time forward. In Jesus' name, amen.
Hallelujah. I feel better now. How are you doing this morning?
Returning from Tonga — Personal Update
Well, I may sit down to speak. We'll see how we go. We'll just play it by ear. So we survived the sword in Tonga. We survived the sword and we got favour. And we got favour because a lot of you brought meals to our place that were better than the ones I cooked. So thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate your loving kindness and concern for us, and all is well. We're pushing on and up. Hallelujah. Thank you again.
So if you see me sit down, all is good. I'll just try to stand for a while because I just don't know if I can crank it up if I'm sitting down. It feels a bit weird. Well, Jesus sat down, so I can if I want. He sat down in a boat. It's good to sit down in a boat and not get excited because a whale's going by, swimming on its way to Nineveh. It's good to sit. And he sat at the lakeside, and he sat when he spoke to the woman at the well in Samaria. So sitting down is okay. And if I do it, it's biblical.
Continuing Hans's Message on the Parable of the Sower
Who remembers what Hans spoke about last week? How could you forget it? How could you forget? Did any of you think about it through the week? Did it change anybody's life? It did mine, I'm just saying. I thought it was an amazing word. And I want to follow up on that word today because it would almost seem disrespectful not to hover over it. It was so true and so right. Not because I can improve on it — it was a wonderful, wonderful word. It doesn't need any extension. It doesn't need any explanation. It stands on its own. But I just want to hover there. Is that all right? Too bad if it's not, because that's what I'm doing. Hallelujah.
So let me just share what I drew from that word, if I may. I'd always seen the results of sowing the seed as being the only interpretation to that passage in Matthew 13. And that's certainly the contributing essence of it. But it is about the power of the seed, not only the condition of the soil. It's not just about the ground of your heart — thank God — because your ground could be a bit... it's more than just that, though. The interpretation Jesus does give, as he finishes that parable, he gives us the interpretation so we can get it from there and understand it perfectly. So don't forget to read that.
Who read that through the week? You know what you should do — when the word comes forth on Sunday morning, you should actually go home and read it. Not Sunday afternoon because you've got to have a sleep, but through the week you could open it up.
The Power of the Seed
Hallelujah. The power of the seed to break through stony ground — that's pretty cool. And other seed fell among thorns or thistles, and for some the birds ate the seed that was thrown out. You've got to watch those blackbirds.
When I read this parable as a younger person, I used to think, well, how stupid was the sower? What was he thinking? Why would you sow seed where there's stony soil? Why would you not cover it over if there are birds around? I didn't really think much of that parable. But Jesus went on to say, if you don't get that one, you don't get anything else. So I did try to get it.
Here's the thing — life is full of interesting things. Your life is full of rocky soils, and Hans mentioned all this last week. Life has got a lot of thorns and thistles. We prayed for people today who are feeling that they need to survive the sharpness of the thistle or the thorn or the sword. So there are times in life when you actually feel the pain of the thistle. And the birds do come and take the seed — fortunately for us all and for nature itself. When the bird takes the seed, it mixes it with fertiliser and deposits it somewhere else. So the seed grows wherever God wants it to be. Hallelujah! So thank God for bird poop, is what I say.
I found that it was a very hope-filled message. Did you feel that? If you didn't, you should check your pulse. Who claimed to have stony soil last week? Yeah, I had my hand up for everything. Because sometimes our hearts are stony, and sometimes the blackbirds do carry away the precious seed, and sometimes there are thorns and whatever. And sometimes we do have good soil — that's where we've surrendered to the Lord. That's the good soil, and that's where the abundant harvest comes from. It doesn't mean there's no harvest from the rest.
The power of the seed to split open a rock is stunning. And the birds then transport that freely, because his word is the seed. It's powerful. God's word is powerful. Both the logos and the rhema — the written and the spoken, the now word and the yesterday's word, historically and prophetically — his word is powerful. And it does produce a harvest in your life. It just does.
The Seed as Sperma — God's Word Has Reproductive Power
I want to throw out a few thoughts on the power of the seed, and you can apply it to your life. Remember, it came from Matthew 13, if you're looking for a reference.
When God speaks — there are 66 books. If you don't know what he's saying, people say, I can't hear God. Okay, there's a book. I'll get you a book. It's 66 chapters, full as a goog on everything that God wants to say. So when he speaks through his word, or he speaks orally like I'm doing to you now, that word — the word for seed — is actually sperma, or sperm. Reproducing. It has the power to reproduce. Thank God for the Greeks. Words from the Lord become sperm from heaven, so that you can conceive and bring forth that nature. We conceive of that word in our life and it affects our destiny and our harvest. If you get the word, it will affect your destiny.
If you're bored, you probably need to get the word and get back on track. If you say, well, I've wasted my life, just go back and start in Genesis 1, because that's the sperma. That's the sperm from God. You need to understand that the depth of God's word has the power for you to conceive revelation, to conceive attributes of God, to conceive things that are way beyond your natural understanding and your natural inclination. Amen.
It's interesting to me that God actually created the seed-bearing plants on the third day in Genesis 1. He does light on the first day — let there be light, and there was, and God said, that's good. The evening and morning, the first day. And then he separated the waters, and he said, oh, that's good. And then on the third day, he created seed-bearing plants. And he said, that's good. But it was on the third day — the day of resurrection — because seeds have to resurrect. They have to come up from under the ground. There needs to be a resurrection that takes place because of the seed.
Your prayers are seeds. Did you know that? Your prayers are seeds. Your giving is a seed. An act of kindness is a seed. And all seed has the power and the potential to produce and to multiply. Now, I know that you know this because we know it up here, but it doesn't really sometimes sink down into here. This is just mental ascent — just going, yeah, that's right, that's right. But when it sinks into your heart, it becomes heart knowledge, which is then produced through you. The things of God don't come out of the understanding of your mind. The things of God come out of the depth of your spirit, which is within you.
The Seed Still in the Packet
When I thought about what I wanted to share with you today, I said to the Lord, I think they know all that. But it's shifting it. For last week, Hans helped me to shift into another aspect of this parable. And I went over to Hans and I said, mate, that's really hope-filled for me. There's a lot of hope in that because I've got a lot of stony soil, you know.
The only seed in your life that has no capacity to reproduce is the seed that's still in the packet. I've got some packets of seeds at home. They're not going anywhere. They're going to produce nothing. They're zero. They're a big fat zero. And so much of our life — the capacity and the potential and what we've heard from God — we just stick it in a packet. We just put it in a packet over there and seal it off. Well, as long as it's there, it's not producing anything. It's called obedience to the word. Just a thought.
So it's no good in a packet. It needs to get out and get into the soil. And even if a seed is dormant for a long time, it still retains the power to reproduce. Still retains the power to reproduce. So you're teaching your kids and you think, oh God, they're not listening to a thing I'm saying. Here's the thing — the seed has the capacity a long time later to reproduce.
A Judean date palm seed — 2,000 years old — recovered from an excavation site in Israel, was successfully grown in 2005. That's pretty cool. 2,000 years. And then there was a lotus seed that was 1,300 years old, found in a dry lake bed in China, and was successfully germinated. So the seed that's in you and the seed that you have planted — don't be discouraged because you're not seeing the harvest of it yet. Because it might have landed in stony soil, so it's going to take a while. Or you might not even see it. It might happen 50 years after you're dead as a maggot, because a bird came and stole it. But it has the capacity to reproduce.
You're running out of time to produce seeds and the harvest, because you're not going to have 2,000 years. So you should get on with it now.
Prayers as Seeds — Sowing in Tears
Your prayers are seeds. And like I said, the harvest might be 50 years away — you might not see it — but the seed's gone into the ground. And maybe, who knows, you watered it with your tears. So it's a done deal. It's a done deal. Your third day will come. Your third day will come. But you'll get nothing if they're still in a packet. It's kind of just like that. You have to plant it. It has to die. It has to go out of your sight. And you don't know what's going to happen to it. That's the trick. That's the trick.
Because the truth is, there can be a cost to planting. It can be a risk, a sacrifice. There can be deferred hope. All this is in the seed.
John 12 — The Grain of Wheat That Must Die
John 12. In the New Testament, hang a right. John 12, verse 20.
Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the feast. And they came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request. Sir, they said, we would like to see Jesus. Philip went to tell Andrew, and Andrew and Philip went in turn and told Jesus.
Seems like there's a bit of a pecking order here. I don't know why Philip couldn't go straight to Jesus, but sometimes it's a good idea to have a few filters around you. You know what I'm saying?
Reading on:
Jesus replied, the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.
Did you get his answer? The Greeks wanted to see Jesus. Philip and Andrew come. And Jesus doesn't even answer them. That's pretty amazing to me.
The Historical Background — The Letter from Edessa
History tells us that the Greeks came on this occasion and sought an audience with Jesus because they were bringing a letter from a king — the king of Edessa, whose name was Abgar. So the Greeks came and they actually brought a letter with them. And in this letter, they were offering him asylum in Edessa so that he could actually dodge Calvary. They recognised that he was about to be politically martyred. But they liked him and they were against what was happening. And so reportedly they carried a letter asking Jesus to come with them and dodge Calvary.
This is why Jesus doesn't give it a second thought. He doesn't even answer them. He had set his face as a flint. Because Jesus was there on the first day of Genesis 1 when the word came forth. In fact, he was the word when the voice came and said, let the land produce seed-bearing plants according to their kind. So what falls into the ground and dies produces according to its kind. Pawpaw seeds don't produce pumpkins. Thank God. It's after its kind.
So what Jesus is talking about is that he's going to produce a lot after his kind. Not only did Jesus understand, but he created the power of the seed to continue growing, to reproduce after its kind. And God saw that it was good, and there was morning, and there was evening, the third day — the day of resurrection. It's the day the seeds come up. Jesus knew this. He was there. He did it. He was the word.
And so the Greeks coming with their little letter to offer a way of escape — well, he doesn't even say thank you. He doesn't even go to them. That's as prophetic as I get. Hallelujah.
Jesus is fully aware that on the third day, if the seed falls into the ground and dies, it will break through all the impossible situations — every impossible situation — and will burst forth into new life. And you're a part of that life. You're a part of it. He knew you were coming. He knew you were coming, and he knew that what would go into you would be the seed that he planted for you to live the life that he has empowered you to do.
And there's a seed in you. The actual word — it will bring forth — means it will rebirth. It will rebirth. God hasn't had to make a tree from that time to this. He hasn't needed to create another tree, or for that matter another seed. What, shall we get to Malachi? Have we run out of seeds yet from Genesis 1? Let's have a look. Oh no, no, no — there's still enough. There's still jungles everywhere. Seeds are still producing. Because it was complete, and it had the power of rebirth within it.
Every seed has within it a set of instructions as to what it is to become. Every seed has a set of instructions. It knows what it's going to become. You are a new creature — that's what you were to become, because the instruction was in the seed that fell into the ground and died and reproduced you.
The System of the Third Day
A life of total surrender to Christ will make us a grain of wheat, because you're going to fall into the ground and die as well. But it multiplies into a harvest — some of it you see, and some of it you don't, until in the end when the wheat and the tares are harvested together.
It's the system that was created for the third day. It's the system. You're part of a system. Did you know that? You're part of a system that was created on the third day. And the harvest of Calvary is still, still reproducing to this day. Isn't that great? People getting born again. I think there are a whole lot more people getting born again than what we will ever think, because it can be a thought that becomes — that seed breaks open a stony heart. And they may or may not say the sinner's prayer, but something changes. Because they didn't know the sinner's prayer to say. But something changes within them.
The harvest of Calvary is still reproducing today. Because we have an ever-increasing kingdom because of the seed that fell into the ground. Started with one. Jesus fell into the ground and died. Said no thank you to the Greeks. Thank you for the letter. Not coming. I have a destiny.
Unless a seed falls into the ground and die, it abides alone.
And he says, now is my heart troubled. And what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? Shall I say, save me from this hour? No — it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name. He talked to the Father. He talked to the Father.
An ever-increasing kingdom starts with one, becomes three — Peter, James and John — becomes 70, becomes 120, becomes 500, becomes 3,000. And now it's a million or two. Who knows? Because one seed fell into the ground and died.
Your seed, whatever you plant, will grow. Prayer, preaching, finances, sacrifice, missions, kindness, hard work — lots and lots of stuff. Lots and lots of stuff that you do every day. It's not just all the religious stuff that you see up the front. It's what you're doing every day and how you're doing it — that is planting seeds. Until the day you get planted as a seed yourself. Wow, what a day!
You May Not See the Fullness of the Harvest
You may not live to see the fullness of the harvest. Like I said, some seeds just lie dormant for decades, and some seeds are transplanted courtesy of Bird Airlines — they do a poop over there and there's a palm tree all of a sudden. Whatever.
Here's a thought — and especially for those who came up here this morning, maybe that's where this thought came out of. You can even sow pain. Not to others, but the pain that you have — you may sow pain rather than suffer it. Sow it. Psalm 126 says, they that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will doubtless come again with songs of joy, bringing sheaves with him.
So you take precious seed, you weep over it, it's watered by your tears. Next time around — because stuff goes around, let me tell you, life is a big cycle and it goes round and round — next time around the corner, you've got a bunch of sheaves and you're rejoicing over that seed that was sown. You'll return with songs of joy, carrying a whole bunch more to go somewhere else and sow them.
Your very person — who you are — can be a bag of seeds. Not just a bag, a bag of seeds. And when they tried to bury you, they forgot that you were a bag of seeds, and you sprung up in your shape.
What you say, what you pray, whatever you sow — it can actually be even unintentional. It can be accidental. It can even be in ignorance. Because people come up to me and they say, remember you said about whatever, and I go, no, that's above my pay grade. I didn't say that. I don't know where that came from. But see — just sperm from heaven. The word of God.
This is all just to back up Hans last week. Not that he needed backing up. But I want us to hover here. Is that okay? To mull on it, to meditate. Because sometimes we move on too quickly and we don't suck the juice out of it. To meditate in our language means to chew the cud. So meditate on this. Listen to what Hans said last week and you can add this to it. These are just extra thoughts for you to put in your pipe and smoke it.
The seed within you gets quickened by your circumstances. You went forth weeping over whatever it was, and you ended up with a fistful of sheaves. Doubtless you come again. Doubtless.
The Bougainville Story — Joseph Kabui and the Seed That Fell
I'll finish with a story from Bougainville. That's different, isn't it?
I can't remember how many years ago it was, but it was many years ago. Dave will know for sure. We were at church here on a Sunday morning in the prayer room, which was in a different place then, and we heard the news that the president of Bougainville — who was the first president to be elected after they got autonomous government, and after 20,000 people had been slaughtered, and after the whole place was left in utter wreck and ruin — the first president had just passed away. We will not go into the how or why. He has passed away.
And so we decided that we should go to his funeral, since the church here — not only because we were friends, but because the church here had given gifts to the government of Bougainville, and some of you will remember that. There had been some connection with the church as well as with the first president. His name was Joseph Kabui. You can look that up if you like. His name was Joseph Kabui, and his name means the seed that fell into the ground and died. That's the meaning of Kabui — a seed that fell into the ground and died.
Well, we're at that funeral, having walked through all sorts of stuff because it took a long time to bury him. Dave and I were probably the only white folks there among thousands of Bougainvillians. We went to his wife's village, as is the custom, for him to be buried there. And we're right at the back, and somebody turns to me and said, hey, who are you? And I said, we are friends of the president. Well, the word got out and they whispered all the way to the front — "Friend Blanc-Kabui, Friend Blanc-Kabui." So they opened up and they made a way for us to walk there and be right there where he was being buried.
The day was so hot. It's out in the open and there were no trees of shade in this part because they'd cleared an area. So Dave and I are there, sweltering through a lot of speeches. They had a microphone and a generator, and sometimes the generator was louder than the sound coming out of the microphone. But here's the thing — Kabui was one of those who had fought for his nation and he had died for his nation, and there was a lot of grief there.
And after everybody had finished making all their comments, Ishmael Toroama — who is now the current president and whom many of you would have met and seen from our platform here — he makes a speech. And Dave is my witness. We stood there, the perspiration is pouring, my clothes are wet, we're both soaked with sweat, and it was so hot. But as soon as Ishmael took the microphone, the wind began to blow. The trees began to move, and it was so obvious, and the coolest breeze came right through that whole area. And I said, today, Holy Spirit has come. Others are saying, ah, Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit came.
So he's got the microphone, and what's he going to speak about? He is going to speak about a Kabui. Except a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone. But if it dies, it brings forth much, much fruit.
Little did anybody understand there — except those who were at the conference where he was released and prophesied over from us, that he would become the president of the nation — little did anybody else understand that the man who was making the speech was going to be the resurrection of the seed that fell into the ground and died.
And let me tell you, it was no small thing for us — for Dave and me — because the nation now is rising into a new nationhood and into a new place because of the fruit of Kabui, who fell into the ground and died and gave his life, even previous to that, with a passion to fight for what he believed in.
When Ishmael finished speaking and he handed back the microphone, that wind that had so cooled us — to the point where, oh, it's chilly now — such a beautiful, cool wind, and we watched the trees. The people there are in the spirit and they know more about the ways of the spirit than we do. They got it. We got it. Even white skin's got it. Yeah, that's pretty cool. We can be dumb. But as soon as he handed back the microphone, the wind stopped, the trees stopped, the heat was back, and we were back to square one. Because the seed that fell into the ground had been formed now.
Closing — What Are You Carrying?
Do you understand what I'm saying? The ways of the spirit are so difficult for us in the western world to actually understand. The ways that God has — if a seed falls and it dies, it brings forth. Well, what about that seed in your life that fell on stony ground? What about that one? May take a little longer. But seed has been known to crack concrete.
The power of the seed. And what you need to really understand is that that seed — that seed of the resurrection — is within you. So that what you speak has the capacity for a harvest. Where you go, there's a capacity for a harvest. And the harvest is primarily, as we understand it, souls being saved. But there can be a harvest of righteousness. There can be a harvest of truth. There can be a harvest of repentance. There can be a harvest of revival. There are many harvests that are up for grabs. It's in the seed. It's in the seed.
So what are you carrying? What's your thing? What are you carrying? Let it die. Not because you're not going to do that anymore, but surrender it. Surrender to the Lord. Because it's in the surrender that you fall into the ground and you die over an issue. I think there are a few people here today who perhaps need to die over an issue, because you are right and they are wrong. That's it. But it's in the surrender that the power of the seed can break through the hardest stone. It's in the surrender that Bird Airlines gets involved. It's in the surrender — that place of the thistles where the sword that pierced your heart finds favour in the wilderness. It's in that.
Let's pray. If you want prayer today, just come on down while I pray, and someone's going to pray for you. Maybe something out of this message, or something else. But let's just pray together, shall we?
Father, we thank you for your word. Your word is power. Your word is sperm. Your word has rebirth power. Your seed has a set of instructions within it that unfold as the outer shell breaks open and the radical from the seed goes down into the soil, and from it comes a harvest — some 30, some 60, some 100-fold. Thank you, Lord, for the power of your word, the power of seed. Thank you for Hans, who opened up something of the seed last week. Let us be those who will continue to mull on this, to chew the cud, to actually be grateful and to understand the incredible power that has been entrusted to us by the seed Jesus, who fell into the ground and died and said no to the Greek mindset. We give you thanks, O Lord. We give you praise. I ask that you would move in our hearts this day and through the week, to bring about peace, an understanding of the seeds, that we might live fully for you and surrender to your ways. In Jesus' name, amen.