I am very glad to be back this week with you all and able to spend some time in the word of God. We are continuing in the book of Matthew, in chapter 13 and will begin the first part of a two-part look at the parable of the soils. As we begin our look at this parable it is worth recalling the context that we find this story in. Three weeks ago, we looked at the topic of parables as a whole; spending a little bit of time looking at what exactly a parable is, being a short story with a specific spiritual point. We look at how we are to approach parables, being sure not to come at them as allegory or in a postmodern mindset that would allow us to read into the story our own thoughts and experiences and trying to get out of that something different than what Jesus originally intended.
We also spent some time looking at why Jesus began teaching in parables. As this parable is introduced by Matthew we see that it was on the same day as the interaction in chapter 12 where the Pharisees accused Jesus of performing his miracles by the power of Satan. It is after this rejection by the Pharisees that the Lord began to teach in parables and he does so for three reasons as we look at last time. The first was in response to that rejection. Jesus had been preaching to the crowds and performing many miracles for two years as he traveled around Galilee and Judea openly proclaiming his message of the kingdom and teaching in a way that amazed the crowds. But after the rejection of chapters 11 and 12 Jesus switched gears and began only speaking in parables as a way of reciprocating that rejection. He was essentially saying, “If you are going to reject me as Messiah, then I am going to hide the truth from you and speak in a way that makes you want to leave.”
The first reason for speaking in parables was as a way of thinning the crowds. Some of the parables Jesus is going to give do not make any sense at first glance, they are confusing and pointless unless they are further explained as we are going to see with this parable. Jesus ends the initial giving of this parable with the phrase “he who has ears, let him hear.” Not mocking his hearers but rather pointing out to them that they had no ability in their own human understanding to interpret the meaning and instead inviting those who God had called to himself to seek the true meaning of the parable while also stating that it is only those whom God had prepared that would understand.
The second reason for the parables was to reveal and illustrate the truths of the kingdom of God. Matthew makes it abundantly clear in verses 34-35 as he writes, “all these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables, and he did not speak to them without a parable. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet; ‘I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things hidden since the foundation of the world.” Jesus was explaining aspects of the kingdom of God that and not been revealed before, but he was revealing it only to those whose hearts had been prepared by God to hear it. He was illustrating these truths with memorable stories that would help the true disciples envision what they had been brought into and what they were going to be taking to the rest of the world.
The third reason for teaching in parables was as an act of mercy by the Lord. Obscuring the truth for unbelievers kept them from being responsible for that truth at the final judgment. The more we know of the truth the more we will be held responsible for rejecting and so out of mercy Jesus was concealing the spiritual lessons in everyday stories and symbols so as to keep the guilt from being piled upon the heads of the Pharisees and those who were there only to see the show, who’s hearts remained stoney and unfruitful.
Before we go any further, let us go ahead and read our passage for this morning. As we spent a little bit of time looking at verses 10-17 a couple weeks ago answering the question of why Jesus spoke in parables we are going to skip that passage for this morning, instead focusing on the parable and its explanation. I am going to read versus 1-9 and then skip down to verse 18-23. If you have your Bibles with you or if not we have the pew Bibles available for you, I would encourage you to follow along as I read our passage for this morning.
“That day Jesus went out of the house and was sitting by the sea. And large crowds gathered to Him, so He got into a boat and sat down, and the whole crowd was standing on the beach. And He spoke many things to them in parables saying, “Behold, the sower went out to sow; and as he sowed, some seeds fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate them up. Others fell on the rocky places, where they did not have much soil; and immediately they sprang up, because they had no depth of soil. But when the sun had risen, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away. Others fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked them out. And others fell on the good soil and yielded a crop, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty, he who has ears, let him hear.
Hear then the parable of the sower. When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is the one on whom seed was son beside the road. The one on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, this is the man who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no firm root in himself, but is only temporary, and when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away. And the one on whom seed was sown among the thorns, this is the man who hears the word, and the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. And the one on whom seed was sown on the good soil, this is the man who hears the word and understands it; who indeed bears fruit and brings forth, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty.”
Jesus gives us a wonderful picture with this parable of exactly what had been happening over the course of his ministry up until this point. For two years he had been spreading the seed of the kingdom, preaching throughout the nation of Israel and there had been some obvious responses. Some good but most not so good. This parable of course does not only apply to Jesus and the crowds who were listening to him but is a spiritual truth that applies equally throughout time as the message of the gospel goes forth into the world.
Before I get into explaining this text I just want to say that this is an extremely comforting passage for me and should be for anyone who dedicates their life to the preaching of God’s word. I take comfort in the fact that the greatest preacher that has ever walked on the face of the earth, in fact the absolute perfect preacher in whom no one could find fault, whose eloquence was never marred by the influences of sin, that despite the perfections and strength of the sinless son of God, the vast majority of people who heard him preach and teach rejected the message of the gospel the he brought to them. I take comfort because this parable makes it quite clear that the power of preaching is not in the preacher. Nor is it in the hearer, but it is in the spirit of Almighty God.
And that really goes into the first point here which is that there is nothing said in the parable about the sower and his skill. Jesus does not tell us who the sower is. He is not claiming the title only for himself. He is not making it only those who are called to preach, to make their living by the ministering the gospel; preachers, pastors, evangelists. The sower in this parable can be anyone from the most eloquent and influential preacher down to a child with the most basic understanding of the gospel explaining it to his friend. The difference between the seed that bears a one hundredfold harvest and the seed that is devoured by the birds has nothing to do with the one who cast it.
The seed, as Jesus explains in verse 19, is the Word of God. Specifically, in view here is the gospel message, the good news of the kingdom. There is also nothing said about the quality of the seed. The seed that lands on each of the four types of soil all comes from the same source. The seed that lands on the rocky soil is the same seed that lands on the good soil. That is not to say that all presentations of the gospel are always equal. The spreading of this same seed assumes however that this seed is good and able to accomplish the goal it was created for. It does not matter if the seed is spread by preaching, personal evangelism, individual testimony or whatever. The sower is whoever is spreading God’s Word or the gospel message. The point that Jesus is getting at here, the focus of this lesson is about the soil itself, not on the one spreading the seed and not on how good the seed is.
That brings us to our second point for the morning which is that you cannot understand this parable without understanding with the soil is a picture of the human heart. Jesus only makes this direct connection in verse 19 and the first of the four soils, but it is clear that all four have the same implication. The focus of this parable is on highlighting the four different kinds of hearts upon which the seed of the gospel can fall.
We have mentioned a number of times in the past but it is important to recall what the Bible intends for us to consider when thinking about the heart. In our culture, the heart tends to be only the seat of emotion or desires. In that sense it is more of a responsive aspect of humanity. We are told to follow our hearts desires, we are told that the heart wants what the heart wants, implying that we have no control over it.
That is not what the Bible has in view when speaking about the heart. In Scripture, the heart represents the whole person not just representation of emotions. Though emotions spring from the heart, the focus is more on the will, the choices that we consciously make. That which we continually think about and that we dwell on. Proverbs 23:7 says, “for as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” In chapter 12 Jesus made it clear that our words reveal our true self, our hearts. In verse 34-35 he says, “For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. The good man brings out of his good treasure what is good; and the evil man brings out of his evil treasure what is evil.” This parable is about hearts that are in different stages of preparedness to hear the message of the kingdom.
The first of the four types of heart is the one in which the seed falls upon the hardened ground or the road. It is a surface that is impenetrable to a seed that has merely been cast upon it. This is the pressed down, dry, and hardened soil that is a heart made impervious to any biblical truth that is presented to it. Unbelief and the love of sin that makes a heart hard as a rock so that the truth cannot penetrate it, much less take root.
The hard heart is a frequent metaphor that we find throughout Scripture with respect to unbelievers and their sinful and fallen condition. We all begin with hearts of stone that want nothing to do with God. And it is only God through the work of the Holy Spirit that can turn those hearts of stone into hearts of flesh.
The people in view with this first soil are those who want nothing to do with the Gospel of God, they hear it preached and dismiss it out of hand for any number of reasons, or even go so far as to express hostility towards it. I am sure you all know people like that. Some of you may even have been like that yourselves, until God in his mercy softened the hardness of your heart. It is an easy group to understand theologically because we are all born with hearts of stone and it is the easiest to group to identify because we can often see clearly their rejection of the message. They are going to continue to live in sin and they are perfectly happy with it. They want nothing to do with the gospel message.
A person that falls under this first category has a heart that is impervious to any kind of self-searching, self-examination, any honest assessment of their own guilt. It is a heart that sees no need for grace or mercy from God because they are convinced in their own mind and that they are good enough on their own or that there is no need because there is no God or no afterlife that they must prepare for. This is the “fool” of Psalm 14 of which we read “the fool has said in his heart, ‘there is no God.” Though this may refer to atheists in our own day, we have to remember that Jesus was not speaking to declared atheists but people who saw themselves as highly religious.
Last week Brett gave a great modern version of the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector from Luke 18. The response to the gospel presentation by the highly respected, front row sitting board member of the church was to nod along disinterestedly and never take to heart a single thing that was said. The seed of the gospel bounced off his heart not because he was a devout atheist but because of his self-righteousness. The hardest hearted people that Jesus was speaking to that day were not pagans or atheists but the top scribes and Pharisees; the ones who had just blasphemed of the Holy Spirit. Just because you are sitting here on a Sunday morning and does not mean your heart is any less hard than theirs.
How does the evil one come and snatch away what has been sown on those hard hearts? There are many devices and schemes. Satan is a liar and the father of lies as Jesus says in John 8:44. Paul warns us that he transforms himself and his servants into angels of light in 2 Corinthians 11. Those with hard hearts are not just the angry atheists or the open sinners who care nothing for the commands of God. They are people who have been deceived by false teachers. Some are very religious whether they be Muslims or Hindus or Mormons. Some even claim to be Christian but their hearts have been hardened by other sinful human passions like pride or lust or prejudice or materialism. They have fallen head over heels for a false gospel that teaches nothing of sin and the need for repentance and want nothing to do with the true gospel when it is presented to them out of their own Bibles.
The next two groups are a little bit more difficult to distinguish initially. The second group of people look to be good soil at the start. As Jesus says in verse 20 “the one on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, this is the man who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no firm root in himself but is only temporary, and when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away.” On this rocky soil, the growth springs up quickly and gives sudden evidence of life, it might give reason to suspect a productive crop will follow but as soon as it is exposed to the scorching sun the seed withers and dies. It only lasts for a moment.
This is the kind of person who makes a profession of faith in Christ in an emotional moment. Jesus says that they received the word with joy. Maybe they attended a service with a particularly emotional presentation of the gospel. In that moment they felt the pang of guilt because of their sin, they recognized their own failings, they felt convicted and so there was a primary response. “Jesus has taken away my sin, I can live without the guilt of what I have done!” The gospel is good news to those who are struggling with guilt and sin. To those who feel the conviction of their actions, to be told that they can be free of it by putting it on Christ, it is a joyous thing. Intellectually, they are receptive, even enthusiastic, but this kind of temporary acceptance is not authentic faith.
As with the hard heart, there are many ways and reasons that this growth fails. This kind of individual may make a claim to faith so they can relieve the guilt of some past action or lifestyle, but they have no true saving repentance. That kind of worldly guilt leads only to death as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 7. They make a claim to faith expecting their problems to melt away but as they go back to the day-to-day, as life continues to be difficult, they become frustrated with their supposed faith and walk away from it. There is initial excitement and they keep coming to church, wanting to learn more, but as they learn more of the hard truths of scripture, the appeal starts to wear off. Especially in our day as the cultures moral compass starts to point in the opposite direction from God’s Word. It becomes hard for a person to accept as evil what God calls evil when the world celebrates that same thing as good. They begin to wonder if they are on the wrong side of history.
The third group consists of those upon whom the seed falls and initially takes root and there is growth that takes place, but as time passes the thorns and weeds choke the life out of that initial growth. That which showed life and productivity in the beginning never ends up producing any fruit. Not because it was too shallow but because it was double minded, the growth is stifled by the weeds of this world. The book of James is a warning specifically given to this kind of double minded person. In 1:8 he is called a double minded man, unstable in all his ways. In chapter 4 he says “Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”
Paul, in writing to Timothy warns in chapter 6, “those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drowned men in destruction and perdition. The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness have pierced themselves through with many sorrows.”
I think you see this kind of reaction especially in young people who respond to the gospel in high school or college. Who get excited about the truth, get involved in Bible studies, get involved in their college campus ministry, even going so far as to lead the studies, they get involved in mission trips and service trips, but once the exuberance of youth begins to wear off, once they get out of their youth group bubble and into real life, into jobs and marriage and houses, the focus begins to shift from all that exciting religious stuff to worldly pleasures. Wanting a better car, a better house, more toys, more stuff. They begin to try to find meaning in their possessions and in the end, they reject their profession of faith, either openly or by quietly walking away.
Someone like this may also hold on a longer because they keep hearing that they are a Christian just because of their profession of faith. This is one of the reasons why I have said so many times that no one should base their salvation on a prayer once prayed or a card once signed or an aisle walked or hand raised. No one is justified by a profession of faith, it is through the possession of true saving faith that we are brought into a justified relationship with Christ. It is not by simply responding to an altar call.
I have seen, and I am sure many of you have as well again and again and again all kinds of examples of people who will make a claim to faith, a positive response to the gospel that does not last for any time at all. It is a superficial, surface level profession that gives them a false hope.
One doctrine that is difficult for some people to understand that Jesus is hinting at here is the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. There is a phrase that gets thrown around a lot, I am sure most of you have heard it “once saved always saved.” The idea being that once you are brought into the kingdom, once your heart has been regenerated, your heart of stone replaced with a heart of flesh you can never lose your salvation. I agree with that wholeheartedly, Paul gives us a beautiful and unbreakable chain of salvation in Romans chapter 8 where he tells us that all who God has forknown he has also predestined, and those he has predestined he has also called, and those who he called he has also justified, and those who he justified he has also glorified. The work that God begins in a soul, he perfects to the end.
So then how can we explain these second two soils, the rocky soil and the weedy soil? Hearts which seemed to produce growth and yet never produce fruit. People who made eager responses to the gospel and yet after a period of time they walk away. We must understand that the growth described in these two soils is not a picture of true saving faith. The growth that happens is not a statement of salvation taking hold, it is only the soil, only the heart that produces fruit that is a picture of salvation. In 1 John 2:19 we are told, “they went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us.” That is to say that they gave the outward appearance of faith and spirituality, there seemed to be growth and promise but when the cares of this world came they left.
The hard hearted, the stony hearted, and the weedy hearted all have one thing in common, they bring no fruit to maturity. The whole purpose of agriculture, of sowing the seed is to produce a harvest. Soil that fails to produce a crop is of no value and hearts that do not produce fruit have no eternal value. Each of these types of hearts are representative of unbelievers, the lost who will never share in eternity with Christ.
There have been many people throughout the ages that seem to have a positive response to the gospel. There is an initial excitement, there is joy in the hearing of the word of God, there is even growth, active participation amongst the true believers, but in the end there is no fruit produced. Jesus in giving this parable was speaking to crowds of people, large crowds so big that he had to get into a boat and row offshore so that he could speak to them. Many of these people would call themselves disciples of Jesus and many of them would line the streets of Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and cry out “hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” But in the end, they would be the same ones who were screaming “crucify him.”
What if that is who you are? What if that is who I am? It should be a terrifying thought to true believers. We have the promise that God will complete the work he has begun in all those who are truly his sons and daughters, but there is no yellow stripe down the back of the elect, there is no absolute and unmistakable sign of what kind of soil we are. That is why we are called over and over again to examine our hearts. We can have confidence in the absolute saving work of Christ upon the cross, we can have confidence in the mercy of God, we can have confidence in the sovereign working of God in the hearts of the elect, that he will persevere the saints until the end and we can ground our confidence in our salvation upon his work.
But how do we have confidence that we are part of the elect? John concludes his first epistle by saying “these things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.” How can we have that knowledge, how can we have that confidence, “Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and whoever loves the father loves the child born of him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments; and his commandments are not burdensome. For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; this is the victory that has overcome the world – our faith.”
Are you striving to know and love God? Are you daily humbling yourself before God, recognizing your complete inability to earn salvation? Do you mourn over your sin? Are you hungering and thirsting after the righteousness of Christ? Striving to know and obey the commands of God? It is in the work of God in our hearts, the continued desire to grow and maintain in the faith that gives us confidence.
If those desires are not there, it is vital that you question your own heart. Are the afflictions and difficulties of this world causing my faith to be burned away? Is the love of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth choking out my faith? Or is it continuing to grow and bloom and produce fruit?