The Stories That
Jesus Told
Sermon # 10
“Parable of The Sower and the Soils”
or
“What Is
the Condition of Your Heart?”
Matthew 13:1-23
The story that we are
going to be examining to day in our series “The Stories That Jesus Told”
is often called the Parable of the Sower or the Parable of the Seed but the emphasis is
really on the Soils.
After over twenty four years in the ministry
there is one thing that I am absolutely convinced of and it is that there variety of
listeners in every congregation. You would
literally be amazed at what a pastor sees from the pulpit as he looks out over the
congregation each week. You have the opportunity to watch as people struggle to stay
awake, and some cases not struggle to stay away. Almost every pastor has some funny
stories to tell about people falling asleep in the service. Of seeing someone fall asleep
and hit there head on the pew in front of them or being elbowed by their mate and standing
to their feet and pronouncing the benediction.
“I heard the story told that
one mother who was asked by her young son what was the highest
number she had ever counted to. She said she didn’t know but then asked him what the
highest number he had ever counted to was. It was “5,372.” “Oh,” she
said. “Why did you stop there?” He said, “Church was over.” [Joanne Weil, in August 1986 Reader’s
Digest - www.bible.org/illus. - topic -
preaching]
I really have a great deal of sympathy for
those who have to fight to keep from falling asleep. Sometimes it is because of too
keeping to hectic a schedule so anytime they slow down they fall asleep. Other times it is
because of medication or other times, although I do my best to see that it is not, the
sermon is just boring.
“After a long, dry sermon,
the minister announced that he wished to meet with the church board following the close of
the service. The first man to arrive was a stranger. “You misunderstood my
announce-ment. This is a meeting of the board,” said the minister. “I
know,” said the man, “but if there is anyone here more bored than I am, I’d
like to meet him.” [Source unknown- www.bible.org/illus. - topic - preaching]
But falling asleep in the service is not my greatest concern. As I said it can
happen for any number of reasons. What does concern me is that numbers of people who sit
in a pew each week with their bodies awake but their souls asleep. Some people pay more
attention to the commercials on television than they do to the Word of God. This is also a
problem that Jesus was faced with.
As Jesus moves from the home of Simon the Pharisee and he continued his ministry in
the surrounding region of Galilee, whole towns emptied to see the miracle worker in action
and to hear his unique message (v. 1). The parallel account in Mark (4:1) adds that “… There was such a crowd along the shore that he got into a
boat and sat down and spoke from there”
(NLT). It was an impressive scene, one we
might expect Jesus to have been impressed by such a large crowd. Today when we see a large
gathering in church we are tempted to conclude that the Lord’s work is being done,
but that is not necessarily true.
Any church in our country could be packed if
just appealed to only the felt needs of the today’s society. People of the world love
the “good news’ as long as it is the good news as they define
it. But Jesus knew why that many had come to hear him. Some had merely come to
sample it, to see what was going on. In fact some of them had no spiritual interest at
all. Perhaps the more frightening of all some of them by their repeated hearing but not
believing were become hardened to the gospel. Some people today that sit in churches
around this country are gospel hardened, because they have heard the truth so many times
while doing nothing at all about it. It is to these people that Jesus now explains the
truth through a parable. This parable is so important that it is recorded in three of the
four gospels (here in Matthew, Mark 4:3-9, 14-26, and Luke 8:4-15).
“On the same day Jesus went
out of the
Perhaps as Jesus sat in the boat with a
crowd of listeners on the shore ready to listen, He happened to see a ready made
illustration. Perhaps on the hillside in the distance he saw a Sower, scattering seed,
with birds scattering around and behind him. The comparison was instinctive, for here He
was sowing the seed of the Word and after Him his disciples and followers would do the
same. How could he make them understand what the reception that all their preaching and
teaching would have? His parable was to answer the question that would surely arise. “Why do we
not see more result?”
We are not left to wonder or make guesses
as to the meaning of this parable because Jesus explains the Parable of the Sower to his
disciples in verses eighteen through twenty-three.
As Jesus completed the parable in verse
nine he called out to the crowd, “He who has ears to
hear, let him hear!" “The
word “hear” is used nine times in
this section and it means more than just the physical ability to hear. “Hearing”
here means listening with spiritual understanding and receptivity.” [Weirsbe. p. 85] Luke records that Jesus said, “Be careful how you hear.” And Mark
records a different emphasis. According to Mark, Jesus said, “Be careful what you hear.” The emphasis is obviously on the receptiveness of
the listener. Jesus is
revealing that the condition of one’s heart determines whether there is any
receptivity to the truth or not.
According to the
parallel account in Luke (8:10), the disciples ask Jesus, "What does this parable
mean?" So when Jesus is alone with his
disciples he graciously explained its meaning. In Luke 8:11 Jesus begins by explaining that, “The seed is the word of God.”
The seed is a powerful picture of the word of God; within
each seed there is an infinite potential for life. In our text in Matthew (13:38) we learn
that He is the sower.
In each case the
seed is the same, but the soil into which the seed falls is what makes the difference. In
this story four different responses are given, along with four different causes and having
four distinct results.
As we consider each of
the four kinds of hearts, we will first look at parable and then at Christ’s
interpretation of it.
First, The Hard Soil (The Unreceptive Heart) (vv.
4, 19)
The first soil is descriptive of a hard and
unreceptive heart, verse four, “And as he sowed, some
seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them.”
Jesus explains this part of the
parable by saying in verse
nineteen, “When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and
does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his
heart. This is he who received seed by the wayside.”
As the Sower casts his seed some falls on
the roadside and the birds flutter down and steal it away. Notice with me the characteristic of this ground. The ground was
unbroken and hard. Because it landed on the
pathways and road between the fields the soil never really received the seed at all. The
seed just bounced off the hard surface and lay on top of it, ready to be blown away by the
wind or carried away by the birds.
These hard beaten
paths are characteristic of the hearts of some people who hear God’s word. Because of
the busyness of their lives there much coming and goings and the incessant traffic of
their lives has hardened them so that God’s word does not stir them. Some hearts are
so callused as to be completely closed to the message of the Gospel. The word is stolen away before it can
penetrate the hearts of the listener. Satan comes along and steals the word from their
hearts with the reasoning of the world. The hard hearted man or woman dismisses the
truth of the Gospel on the basis of their prideful superior intellect. They may not
be hostile, but they are often simply uninterested. Their hearts are as hard as
nails and dulled of all feeling by the sheer busyness of their lives.
Second, Rocky Soil – (The Shallow Heart) (vv.
5-6, 20-21)
Now the picture changes and we move from
the hard unreceptive heart to the shallow superficial heart. This is introduced in the
parable in verses five and six Jesus says, “Some fell
on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up
because they had no depth of earth. (6) But when the sun was up they were scorched, and
because they had no root they withered away.”
Jesus’ explanation is in verses
twenty and twenty-one, “But he who received the seed on
stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; (21) yet
he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or
persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles.”
The stony ground is not just ground with
rocks in it, but rather it describes ground that is only a few inches thick with bedrock
underneath. So when the seed is sown it quickly germinates but is unable to put down any
real roots. When the sun comes out it rapidly scorches the plant which came up quickly,
but because it is without roots it cannot get the water it needs to survive.
These listeners
respond enthusiastically to the presentation of the gospel, but only because they do not
have an adequate grasp of its implications. The problem with the shallow superficial heart
is that it always ready to follow whatever seems to offer the greatest reward. Many of
this caliber turn back because they believe in a gospel that says, “One
should never have to struggle or suffer if they are walking in the will of God.”
They had their emotions stirred but they made no real commitment of their lives to Christ.
They will follow Jesus only so far as it makes things better for them, make things happier
and more prosperous.
The truth is that God has promised to be
with us on the mountaintops
and in the valleys. He will be us in the good times and in the bad. He
has promised that he will never leave nor forsake us. He did not promise us a easy time, he promised that we would never be alone.
Those with a shallow
superficial experience when the hard times come they are immediately offended. In other
words, they quit. The demonstration of salvation is not seen in those who endure for a
while.
The German theologian Helmut Thielicke,
once commented, “There
is nothing more cheering than transformed Christian people and there is nothing more
disheartening [disintegrating] than people who have merely “brushed” by Christianity, people who have been sown a
thousand seeds but in whose lives there is not depth or rootage. Therefore, they fall when
the first whirlwind [of adversity] comes along. It is the half-Christians who always flop
in the face of the first catastrophe that happens, because their dry intellectualism and
their superficial emotionalism do not stand the test. So even that which they think that
they have is taken away from them. … A person who lets Jesus only halfway into his
heart is far poorer than a one hundred percent worldling.” [as
quoted by R. Kent Hughes. Luke: That You May Know the Truth. Vol. 1 (Wheaton:
Illinois, Crossway Books, 1998) p. 290.]
Third, Thorny Soil (The
Crowded Heart) (vv. 7, 22)
We move now from the hard unrecep-tive
heart and the shallow
superficial heart to the busy and crowded heart. In verse seven we are told, “And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked
them.”
Jesus’ explanation is in verse
twenty-two, “Now he who received seed among the thorns is
he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke
the word, and he becomes unfruitful.”
This type of ground is clear on
the surface but underneath where no one can see there are all manner of weeds just waiting
to spring up. In this life the word is choked to death. The thorns, Jesus explained
represented life’s worries, riches and pleasures.” These three things choke
out the word. These
pleasures can be entertainment, which pushes God out or sports or hobbies that come before
the services of the church.
There are many who
begin well and it looks like they are believers, but the love of this world and the
concern for the things of this world and the pleasures of life strangle even the vestiges
of life from their souls.
Based on the
examination of the shallow superficial heart and the busy crowded heart we face the
question, “Where
these people saved, but then lost their salvation?” Is it possible for born
again believers to become so tempted by sin or overwhelmed by affliction or choked with
the worries of this world or the pleasures of life, that they lose their eternal reward?
The answer is unequivocally no. Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3 that once a person is “born of the spirit” he shall never perish. The
question is not whether one can lose their salvation, but whether or not one has ever been
truly saved.
Fourth, The Good Soil (The Open Heart) (vv. 8, 23)
Finally the Lord outlines the receptive and
productive heart in verse eight, “But others fell on good ground and yielded
a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.”
Jesus’
explanation is in verse twenty-three, “But he who
received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed
bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty."
First of all notice that the
ground is prepared. Jeremiah 4:3, “This is what the LORD says
to the people of Judah and Jerusalem: "Plow up the hard ground of your hearts! Do not
waste your good seed among thorns” (NLT). Hosea 10:12 says, “Plant the good seeds of righteousness, and
you will harvest a crop of my love. Plow up the hard ground of your hearts, for now is the
time to seek the LORD, that he may come and shower righteousness upon you' (NLT).
In 2 Chronicles 12:14 it
says of King Rehoboam that “he was an evil king, for he
did not seek the LORD with all his heart” (NLT). Later in 19:33
it says that says of the people of Jehoshephat’s reign that “for as yet the people had
not directed their hearts to the God of their fathers.” We have a responsibility to actively seek
the Lord and to do all we can to avoid those things that cause the word to be unfruitful
in our lives, then and only then will we be productive for the Kingdom of God. Rather than
grieve for the seed that does not come up, we should be thankful for the seed that does
produce.
In the parallel
account in Luke 8: 15, three characteristics are given of “good ground”
is that they hear “with
a noble and good heart.” Secondly that they “keep it”
or hold fast the word. The result is the third characteristic that they “bear fruit with
patience.” The kind of
listener that pleases God is not the one that makes a dramatic start and then quits or the
one whose commitment is slowly choked out by worldly concerns, but rather the one who
thought-fully hears the gospel, understands it implications, and then consistently grows
and matures and as a result bears fruit.
Conclusion
The condition of our heart determines
whether we receive the word. Let me ask you; “What is the condition of your heart today?”
The abiding principle
in hearing God’s word then is that hearing is absolutely worthless if it does not
result in doing. If we do not put in to practice the truth we have heard it will fade.
Has God impressed upon
you someone you should forgive? Then do it.
Has God impressed on
you that there is someone you should apologize to? The do it.
Has God impressed on
your heart someone that you should share the truth with? Then do it.
Has God impressed on
you that there is a practice that you are to stop? Then
stop thinking about it and do it.
Has God impressed on
you to send a note of thank you to someone? Then
sit aside the time and do it.
Had God impressed on you that he are to stop what you are doing and serve him? Then stop rationalizing and looking for signs and do it.