A middle-aged man was distraught over his wife’s stubborn refusal to admit she had a hearing problem. One day he asked his family doctor for advice how to convince his wife that she has a hearing problem. The doctor promptly told him that when he got home he could confirm the hearing problem by opening the front door and from there asking his wife what’s for dinner.
Then the doctor said, if she doesn’t answer, move closer to the kitchen. Repeat the question again, and if she still doesn’t answer, move right up to her ear and whisper in it, “What’s for dinner, honey?” In this way, the doctor assured him, she’ll have to admit she has the problem.
So the man raced home with joy in his heart and opened the front door. “What’s for dinner, honey?” he asked. His wife made no reply, so he moved closer to the kitchen and asked again. “What’s for dinner, honey?” Again, nothing was said. When he looked into the kitchen, sure enough, there she was at the kitchen counter. So, he tiptoed over to her and whispered in her ear, “What’s for dinner, honey?” She turned and looked at him straight in the eye: “For the 3rd time, I said, we’re having MEAT LOAF!”
We see in verse 9 Jesus saying, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” – this of course pertains to the hearing and understanding of spiritual matters. Those who cannot hear do not get it, and those who can hear, clearly understand.
I think typically we read this parable and the explanation of the parable given by Jesus and we say to ourselves, “I’m so glad my heart is the good soil that Jesus holds up as an example of strong faith, I feel so sorry for all those poor people whose hearts are rocky, weedy or hard soil”. It is very clear that the good soil are people who hear and understand the Word of God and the other soils are people who have trouble hearing the Word of God, so when we read a passage like this, I think we generally see ourselves in the best light possible, because we go to church, we know about Jesus, and we believe, so we take heart in our belief and move on to the next passage. This is a very serious mistake. Do not assume your heart is the good soil because you believe.
Did you notice that the twelve closest people to Jesus, the people who Jesus called, the people who were believers – the twelve disciples are so stumped by the parable that Jesus has to explain it to them in detail? The twelve disciples, at this point, cannot be good soil, for they do not understand. If the twelve disciples are not good soil, what makes you so quick to think that you are good soil? You in fact, might be a soil of lesser quality.
So what kind of soil are you this morning? And, I think more importantly for a lot of us here this morning, how can we work our soil, so that our hearts become the good soil that Jesus seeks for us to be? See, the disciples not getting the parable is good news for us. We see in verse 11 that Jesus tells them that the secret has been given to them. In effect Jesus tells us that though the disciples do not get the parable now, there is a time that they will get it, there is a time where they will be able to understand. That was true for them, and it is also, possibly true for us. Let’s take a look at how this can be true for us.
If you have done even a little bit of gardening you know all dirt is not equal. There is dirt, there is good dirt, and then there is extraordinary dirt. Sometimes you are blessed with great dirt and sometimes your dirt won’t even grow weeds. My yard here in Anchorage is a place blessed with extraordinary dirt. My house is built on a bog and the yard around it is several feet deep of peat. My lawn is just phenomenal. People come over, and take off their shoes and walk around barefoot telling me how thick and wonderful my lawn is, they ask in wonder – “How do you get your lawn so thick and rich?”. I don’t say this to brag, because I don’t do anything to it except mow it. I rarely even water it. The lawn is so great not because of the care it receives, (or in this case the lack of care it receives) the lawn is great because the soil in sits in is good soil. This is what we want for our spiritual lives, the more open or heart is to God the better the soil is, the more our yield will be in our spiritual life.
Now I haven’t always had great soil. Where I lived in San Antonio, the soil was so bad, it was so alkaline, only tough weeds would even dare to grow in it. It was nasty stuff, hard as a rock – you had to use a pick axe to get through it, and it turned to slippery thick mud when it rained. It was worthless. The builder brought in piles of top soil just so we could grow something besides weeds. Poor soil not only limits growth, but also produces frustration and anxiety for the owner – frustration and anxiety is not what we want in our relationship with Jesus Christ is it?
I want to say at this point that we are NOT victims of fate, that our cards are dealt, and whatever is, is the way will always be. This is not what Jesus is indicating by this parable. Know that Jesus is not saying that you have a condition of heart and either you will receive the Word of God or you will not. See, we see that, as I mentioned earlier the disciples did not get it, they could not hear and understand, but later were all saved, except perhaps Judas, and the teachers of the law did not get it, but later even some of them were saved. There is a specific reason for this, this reason allows us to hear and understand ….we will get to that in a little bit. But for now, know that whatever type of soil your heart is – that is not how it always has to be.
Let’s take a quick look at this farmer. The farmer is God. He scatters the Word of God on the hearts of people. The condition of the hearts of people are represented by four types of soil: Hard soil, rocky soil, weedy soil, and good soil. The soil also determines the quality of spiritual yield in their lives. At first glance it appears that the farmer is careless, that he wastes his valuable seed in unproductive areas, but this is not so. In first century Palestine the seed was scattered first, then, the soil was plowed to work the seed into the soil. The farmer is not careless at all, the Word can grow in all of these types of soil.
The hard ground, or path, is a trail through his field made by people or animals. Of course he is going to spread seed here, he will plow through it later – but notice, before he can get to plowing the birds take the seed. As we Jesus stating in verse 15, the birds represent the activity of Satan against the kingdom of God. The reference to the activity of Satan is a continuation of the theme from the previous verses in chapter three. Remember, Jesus has come bring the kingdom of God, which is growing and pushing out the kingdom of Satan. What we see about a heart that is hard like a pathway is that it resists cultivation. It is not that it cannot be cultivated, it can be cultivated, but it is very difficult to so and as a result the chances of the seed being taken away are very high. But you know, the farmer will be back the next year to sow again. Many of us have friends or family who have hard hearts. Whenever we bring up the subject of Jesus they get angry, they mock, they turn away….and our hearts become heavy. Yet, yet, over the years some of the most difficult, some of the most hard hearted people have given their lives over to Jesus after many years of rejecting Him, and then they flourish.
The rocky ground. This is not ground covered in rocks but is ground that has rocks a few inches under the surface. It is thin soil, but looks like any other soil before plowing. The trouble begins later after the seed takes root. The roots cannot go very deep, because though the soil looks like any other soil, it is in fact hard like the soil on the path and the result is that the plants become parched, wilted, unproductive.
Could this be you? This is a person who looks and acts like everyone else here at church. They go to church, have made a commitment to the Lord Jesus, they certainly believe, but deep down they know, most of it is for show. The rocky ground is a reference to superficial adherence to the Word of God, I hear the Word, but I do not apply it to my life well. There is an unwillingness to endure, in difficult times as a Christian. This person might be embarrassed at work or other places about being a Christian, this person doesn’t live their life any different than they did before becoming a Christian – except that they go to church. What we see is the Word of God cannot penetrate to a deeper level of understanding, the Word, which they used to understand, acts as an enigma, a puzzle, a mystery. Those planted in rocky soil desire to hear only what feels good, what will encourage them, they want to walk away from a Sunday Morning inspired, and are disappointed if the Sunday was a “downer”. People who have hearts of rocky soil – have great difficulty following up on instruction from the Word, they are people who once could hear the Word but have become deaf to the Word.
Here is a way for you to check to see if you might be this type of soil: Gal. 5:22 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” These are fruits of the Holy Spirit seen in the life of all Christians. If you are growing and maturing as a Christian, you should see these increasing in your life. I’m not saying you will in any way be fully there, but you should have more self control, for example, than you did ten years ago when you became a Christian, and five years from now you should have even more self control. If these are not increasing in your life, this is dead serious, you are possibly living in rocky soil…or perhaps you are living among weeds. For along with the rocks, weeds can stop or slow spiritual growth stifling the fruits of the Spirit in our lives.
For years I lived in a very hot dry climate. And in a hot dry climate a lawn needs deep watering. A quick 10 minute watering would produce grass that would dry out in the heat of August as the roots only could find water of the surface. But a 20 minute watering would force the roots deeper and produce a lawn that could tolerate the trials and suffering of the intense heat of August. For us, for us here today, this applies to us as we work with the Word of God. A quick glance or reading of God’s word will not help us in difficult times, but a deep soaking in God’s word will bring our spiritual roots deep into Him and we will be able to live through difficult trials. Without deep roots we soon lose sight of God may get to the point where we wonder if He is even there anymore.
There once was a man named Randy Lo – his friends just called him Lo. Lo lived a hard life ignoring the many attempts of friends to introduce him to Jesus Christ. Eventually, though, Lo did become a Christian, giving his life over to our Lord Jesus. After some time, his walk with the Lord became stale, and Lo became quite discouraged, and his discouragement led to him lose a lot of sleep. One day while having lunch with a friend he expressed his discouragement saying that he didn’t feel that God was around him anymore, and this disturbed him so much he could hardly get a wink of sleep. His friend being a wise and mature Christian encouraged Lo not to give up but to again pick up his bible and search the Scriptures – he suggested starting with the Gospel of Mathew. Lo went home and decided to take his friends advice and he found his bible and started reading. Soon he arrived at Mathew 28: 20 and read the words of Jesus: lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. That night Lo slept quite soundly.
What about the weedy soil? Could this be you? Verse 19 describes the lives of these people: 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 unfruitful.” THAT sounds like the church in America today. What weeds do in a garden is they not only crowd out the desired plants, but they also sap nutrients for growth. The result is a plant that becomes sterile, or gives a low yield.
I have a neighbor who has dandelions in his grass, a lot of dandelions. My neighbor doesn’t worry about the weeds, he doesn’t have time to deal with them, he just mows them down each week. Every summer his lawn consists of more and more dandelions and less and less grass. You know what will happen, eventually his front yard will not be a lawn, it will be just a large dandelion patch.
We know what the weedy life is, we live it don’t we? The things in life have to be dealt with, and we deal with them – knowing we need to get to our relationship with Jesus, but by the time we get there, we are too tired…maybe tomorrow, and slowly the weeds take over. Then like those who dwell in the rocky ground we become people who used to be able to hear the Word and apply it, but now we are so busy, we just never get there. It is not that we don’t want to do it, we just cannot get there. Do you know what is happening here? We are owned by our activities, our hobbies, our work, our possessions; they have mastered us, they choke the spiritual life out of us.
True story, hard to believe, but true. We had friends at seminary who got a house sitting job back home in Ontario, Canada. It was a great gig, free housing for a whole summer. It was just like any other house sitting job except for one detail – the carpeting. They were instructed that, because of the carpeting, they could not wear shoes in the house, nor could they go barefoot. Now that may not sound too odd, many of us only wear socks in the house, but then there was more instruction: They were to only have a certain number of steps per room, and the carpet being quite lush, they were to only step in a place previously stepped upon. And even more, when they entered a room, they were to walk directly to their destination. Walk directly to the chair, the table, the phone – no wandering about.
Well our friends, thought, “Whatever, the night before the owners get back we’ll just vacuum and they will be none the wiser”. The owners made a surprise visit three weeks later. They saw footprints everywhere! They were furious. The owners cut their vacation short, fired our friends, and immediately went about the task of carpet care. Being a family with a house full of great carpeting and being a family without a life.
Weedy people have difficulty with spiritual priorities, the worries of life – they are torn in a different direction than where God is directing and this brings discontent. There is just too much to deal with! One of the first things to suffer is my attitude toward God….sound eerily familiar?
The worst thing is this people who live in rocky soil or weedy soil have great difficulty obeying the leading of the Holy Spirit. So they have great frustration in their lives: they cannot discern what is God’s direction when important or urgent decisions enter their lives; they lack answers to fundamental ethical questions; they may even follow the morality of American society not only because of ignorance (they do not know the content of God’s Word) but because of the inability to impose spiritual self control, faithfulness, gentleness …. In life’s everyday situations. In other words the fruits of the Spirit are no longer increasing in their lives, being chocked out by weeds.
The good soil. It produces thirty, sixty or even a hundred times what was sown. The average yield for Palestine was between 10-100 fold. 100 fold is not miraculous, but it is the high end of the scale. 100 fold isn’t this unattainable yield that only super Christians can produce, 100 fold is the normal yield from the blessings of God on our life, blessing received through hearing and applying the Word of God. We read in Gen. 26:12 Isaac planted crops in that land and the same year reaped a hundredfold, because the LORD blessed him. Isaac wasn’t a super human, he just received a normal blessing from God. The production is the fruit of the spirit, it is the scale of the increase of these things in your life. A person with a heart of good soil is interested in God’s Word; Open to the benefits of God’s Word; Convicted by God’s Word; Seeks to minimize sin in their lives through God’s Word….on my, do you see a pattern here?
If you didn’t catch it – it’s God’s Word.
In verse 11 and 12 Jesus says, 11 He told them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables
12 so that, “ ‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!’’”
Jesus is referring to Isaiah 6:9-10, Is. 6:9 He said, “Go and tell this people: “ ‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’ Is. 6:10 Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.”
And He is referring to Ezek. 12:2 “Son of man, you are living among a rebellious people. They have eyes to see but do not see and ears to hear but do not hear, for they are a rebellious people.”
Jesus is saying that those who cannot hear the Word of God and apply it are not denied the possibility of belief, but are excluded from the opportunity of being further instructed as long as the disobedience continues. So a person may believe, but they are no longer open to instruction from the Word of God.
Here in the Isaiah passage, we have the Hebrew tendency to express a consequence as though it were a purpose – in effect, the message is this: go tell my message, but don’t expect anyone to listen to it. The effect will be their persistent refusal to accept what is said to the point where they have made themselves incapable of hearing it. Those living in hard, rocky or weedy soil can make themselves incapable of hearing the Word of God. Isaiah was to experience this for 40 years. This experience was replicated in Jesus’ ministry.
We will notice an early enthusiasm for Jesus that later becomes unbelief – even in places where the mightiest works of Jesus had been done. Notice that in the OT passage from Isaiah passage we may be healed and in the NT passage from Mark that we may be forgiven – this is because the forgiveness of Jesus will bring healing to us. If we are not open to being instructed by God’s Word, the same thing can happen to us that happened to many who eagerly followed Jesus: John 6:60-66, John 6:60 “On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?” 61 Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you? 62 What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! 63 The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. 64 Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. 65 He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him.”(And then that verse with the perfect number reference for its content) 6:66 From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.”
Let us notice that each failure occurs in the maturing process. This is primarily about spiritual maturity. People with rocky or weedy soil start off well, but then fail to mature. Earlier I said there is a specific reason for us not maturing spiritually and here it is: How do we as Christians understand the Word of God? What is the way that we as Christians are able to understand discern and apply the Word of God in our lives? Anyone know? {In my congregation, I’ll have several people in each service who will shout the answer}. That’s right, by the Holy Spirit. I hear and understand the Word of God through the power of the Holy Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit I am unable to fully understand Scripture – specifically hearing the Holy Spirit. By not being able to hear the Holy Spirit, I become distant from God, and my heart slowly becomes hardened and the good soil I once lived in becomes shallow or weedy. We must be able to hear the Holy Spirit.
Spiritual maturity it is not about intelligence, education nor the ability to analysis – I mean sometimes little children have a far greater understanding of biblical concepts than adults do. Spiritual maturity is not the length of time you have been a believer, nor is it about the number to studies you have participated in, nor is it about the vast biblical or theological knowledge you have obtained, and it most certainly is not about a position obtained in the church such as deacon, elder or pastor – it is about hearing the Holy Spirit. I personally have experienced some of the highest educated and brilliant minds in theology in my education, and some even with all of their brilliance, prestige and vast studies failed to grasp even the most basic concepts of Christianity, I tell you, it was shocking, it was revealing, it was a wake up call to reality. It was the fact, that they were not able to hear the Holy Spirit.
Well, what in the world are we to do? Because I dare say, the truth is that most of us are in rocky or weedy soil aren’t we? Remember, earlier I said we are not bound by fate, placed in one type of soil and destined to live out our fate. No, the condition of soil can be changed, for the better.
Remember in San Antonio I had very difficult soil to work with. A friend of mine, Vernon, had the best soil I had every seen, I figured he was just lucky to move into the right neighborhood, not so. Vernon told me that he had been in the same house for over twenty years. Each year he would mulch the previous years plants into the soil, added more mulch, added peat and other soil builders. After twenty years, there wasn’t much if any of the original soil left, and his plants were phenomenal.
We need to do in our spiritual lives exactly what Vernon does in is garden. We need to build up our soil adding to the depth so we can have a full root system. We need to focus, remove weeds of distraction. We can do this, we can make it happen. How? Take hold of your bible and hold it right in front of you. Persistence in reading and studying God’s Word. You may be thinking to yourself right now, “yeah right”. And I would contend that if that is your thoughts or your attitude, then you have never taken the Word of God seriously. But if you do take the Word of God seriously, if you are persistent in reading and applying what you learn, you will, you will start to be more open to the Holy Spirit, you will began to hear and have concise direction from the Holy Spirit and you will see an increase in the fruits of the Spirit – which will be evidence for you and everyone around you to see the exciting blessing of Jesus in your life.
It is basic, start with the Word, then endless possibilities will open up for you as you gain more understanding and gain more openness to the Holy Spirit.
Jesus said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” Let us, be a people who have ears to hear the Word of God and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
