How To Listen To God: The Shallow & Divided Hearts - Mark 4:16-19 Series

Mark 4:14 The sower sows the word. 15 Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. Immediately Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. 16 Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. 17 But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. 18 Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; 19 but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it become unfruitful. 20 Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop—thirty, sixty or even a hundred times what was sown.”

Introduction

Threats to Listening

What kind of person do you have to be in order to hear from God? We are studying through the book of Mark, and last week we began ch.4, which is all about listening to God’s voice. Twenty seven times in one chapter Jesus says, “Listen, listen, listen!” This is such an important study, because we all need to hear from God on a regular basis. When God’s communications to you go down inside your heart, like a seed in soil, it germinates and produces life and vitality and joy.

Jeremiah 15:16 When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart's delight.

That’s how it’s supposed to work when God speaks to you, but it doesn’t always work that way. There are some threats that can prevent that from happening. God’s word is like a seed that lands on the soil of your heart, and that seed is vulnerable to a half dozen different threats that Jesus warns us about in this parable. Any one of those 6 threats can destroy the seed of God’s word in you before it can accomplish its purpose in your life.

So is that going to happen to you? Will one of those six threats destroy the work of God’s word in your life? It depends on what kind of listener you are.

Luke 8:18 Therefore consider carefully how you listen.

Listen the wrong way, and you won’t hear from God.

So what are these six threats? The first one we already looked at last time: the devil. He steals the word right out of the hearts of unreceptive people as soon it lands there. Now, you might hear that and think, “That’s not me. I’m not hard or unreceptive or uninterested in God’s word. I’m very interested and receptive to it.” Does that make you good soil? Let’s see. Take a look at the next kind of soil.

Don’t Be a Shallow Hearer

5 Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow.

When it says rocky places, it’s not talking about soil with a bunch of stones in it like we have here in Colorado. It’s talking about the many places in Israel where the limestone bedrock is just a little ways down. So the plants start to grow, the roots go down, hit bedrock, and don’t have anywhere to go. And so all the life of the plant is directed upward into the plant, which makes those plants spring up faster than all the other plants. So there’s a lot above the surface, but not much below the surface—no roots. And that’s a problem when it gets hot out.

6 when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root.

The superficial roots can’t support the plant in the heat of the sun. So what does that part of the parable mean? Jesus gives us the interpretation in v.16.

16 Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. 17 But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away.

Are these people receptive listeners? Yes—very receptive. They hear the gospel, they accept it, welcome it, they believe it, they are excited about it. God’s word goes inside the soil of their heart and germinates and produces a plant. It produces spiritual life—lots of it. It says they receive it with joy. This kind of person is especially enthusiastic about the word of God and salvation—more so than the average believer. Pastors see these people and say, “Why can’t the rest of you be like that? Look how zealous and joyful they are.” They seem like model Christians, but then look what happens.

17 … When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away.