A few observations from the passage:
1. All the different kinds of soil received the Word of God. This is a message about people who have received the Word.
2. A complete lack of fruitfulness from all, except one. Among the people in the church, there is no fruit, except in a small group of people.
3. Only ¼ of the people who receive the Word bear any kind of spiritual fruit, 30, 60 or 100 fold. How many plants can come out of one seed, there is no measure of it. “You can count the number of seeds in an apple, but cannot count the number of apples in the seed.”
4. Those who do bear fruit, it is not in percentage or addition, but multiplication.
5. Those who reject the Word of God have failed to realize the potential he plants in them and some become destructive.
6. Those who prepare for the seed embrace that seed and allow God to do what He wants and see phenomenal fruit born in and through their lives.
7. We may all be dirt, brought out of the dust of the ground, but we have a choice of what kind of dirt we are going to be.
8. For those who receive the planting of God, the kind of fruit we bear is certainly the fruit of the Spirit. If you are a ‘human’ tree, and the seed is planted what comes out? People! Who in turn receive the seed of God’s plans and purposes for their lives and they flourish, and they in turn bear fruit. Our lives should be invested in the lives of others to bear fruit.
ILLUSTRATION:
A farmer went out on Sunday morning wanting to go to church. There was a terrible storm then. He was on one side of the river, while most of the church members were on the other side of the river. The river was swelling and washed out the bridge. The farmer did not know about this and he was the only one who got there to the church. The young pastor preached the full message to this one member church – with fire & brimstones and everything. After the service, he gave the benediction and walked out to greet his congregation of one member church. The farmer said, “Pastor, if I am feeding my cows, and only one of my cows show up, I will not feed him the whole load!”
Many preachers would say that Jesus would teach the crowd and then when He saw that they didn’t quite get what He said, He would tell a story to illustrate His point. But He told this parable to hide the point because people were not listening to His message.
In this parable there are 4 different kinds of dirt mentioned.
1. PATH DIRT
Think about dirt on the path. Some seed fell by the road.
There are people beaten down by suffering, by circumstances and by other people who abuse them and their heart becomes like a stone. You tell them about the forgiveness of God, and they cannot understand.
Jesus’ audience was oppressed by different governments. The Romans were harsh, brutal and mean and even murder some who did not obey. The Jews were even beaten down by their own religious leaders.
They hear the good news of the love of God, of freedom, and of resurrection power and good news sounds like the bad news. The seed first has to die before it sprouts. They heard what Jesus said and they could not understand.
STORY:
We recently went to a thanksgiving service and visited this special lady. 5 to 6 months back she was emaciated. She had sores on her back and was in constant pain. We were called to pray for her. Now about 5 months later, she looked much better after a treatment she went for and she shared this testimony: “There are things I have been through the past few months and I had to process through several things before I could say anything this evening for the thanksgiving service. Through all of these difficulties, we knew that God was accomplishing His purposes and we could sense His Presence at home. “
I am amazed at such kind of faith - going through such an intense suffering and yet having a soft heart before God. The difficulties of life can either harden us like stones or they can break us into something that God can use to accomplish His purposes.
2. ROCKY DIRT
It is shallow – these are people in the church that love spiritual things. But they do not have deep roots and so when difficulty comes, because of the Word, they fall away.
Have you ever met a shallow Christian or are you one this morning? It is a dangerous place to be because though you might love spiritual things, you are not willing to go through difficult things to accomplish God’s purposes. Shallow spirituality would only result in destruction!
ILLUSTRATION:
I think of a dear friend of mine in High School. Let’s call him Ralph. Ralph was a very hardworking and consistent person and was raised in a deeply devoted Christian family. He was a valedictorian and he gave a valedictory message on unconditional love. It was one of the best evangelistic messages I had ever heard!
He had a great desire to be a Hollywood actor on stage, and he actually succeeded. So he went to school, and before he became an actor, he wanted to be a priest. As he learnt the philosophy of men there rather than the Word of God, his mind and his heart began to go into different direction. He got into the business of show business. But he faced a lot of ridicule there as he shared about his Christian faith. And little by little, the environment of Hollywood chipped away at his faith and his faithfulness to God.
I recently contacted him and he was in Broadway and acting in shows there. He told me a bit of his story. Last 15 years, he was living with his boyfriend in a beautiful apartment in Manhattan.
He has given up the faith. Opposition came. People ridiculed the faith and rather than continuing in the faith and standing firm, he crumpled over. He became absorbed into the culture, instead of transforming it. Shallow Christianity!
ILLUSTRATION 2
I also think of one of the professors here in the campus. He’s been here in the ministry for over 35 years. Several months ago, he had sent some of his associate pastors into a village. They evangelized by knocking on doors and as God brought in healing and deliverance into these families, they would come to Christ.
They once knocked on the door of a policeman, a very active member of one of the political parties that is very much against Christianity. He arrested them on the spot. They were arrested for this horrible crime of praying for people, taken to the prison.
This professor heard about this and he went to the jail to convince that they were not doing anything wrong. But before he got there, there were about 50 people waiting. They beat him up and knocked him unconscious. Some friends of his saw him there and took him to the hospital. He later went back to the prison, and convinced the people to let these people out and he continues in his ministry. He hasn’t slowed down at all. They continued doing the ministry in the village. They want the people of India to know the love of Jesus Christ.
How do you respond to opposition? Do you respond to it by kind of hiding your faith? As soon as you hide your faith, you lose your faith, because it loses its reality even for you.
3. THORNY DIRT
They receive the Word, but the cares of this world and deceitfulness of the riches choke out the plant, so that it will not bear fruit.
ILLUSTRATION:
This was a story narrated by Ravi Zachariah when I heard him. A really sweet, godly couple went to medical school. When the husband had just completed medical school and was at the beginning of the process to start his own practice, his wife became pregnant. Rather than rejoicing at the news, they started discussing. They said, “We are in school right now. Let’s just quietly abort the baby at home.” They both agreed to do this. So he got the materials he needed, but he had never done the anesthesia before and as he was reading the instructions of how much anesthesia he had to give, he got one zero wrong. He gave his wife almost 10 times as much as was needed. He noticed her pulse disappearing. She went unconscious and later died!
The couple that was at the beginning of this beautiful life; should have been bearing fruit. But the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choked that wonderful life and in the process ended up losing life.
In contrast:
ILLUSTRATION:
One of my friends, Benny Prasad, recently won the world record for having gone into every country of the world faster than anyone else. He did this in like, 6 years and 9 months, visiting some 240 countries. He is not world famous but he has this beautiful testimony. He was sixteen years old and had an auto immune disease, and it destroyed 60% of his lungs. He is functioning with only 40% of lungs. He also had arthritis and cannot keep his weight up. His father used to tell him that he will not really accomplish anything. At 16 years old, Benny was ready to give up and commit suicide. But he tells this story. He and his dad were later reconciled. But before all those good things happened, he had an encounter with Jesus. He embraced the good news. He went to Bible college. And at the age of 16 he practiced guitar. He has this unique way of playing both the guitar and the bongos at the same time. God has blessed him and used his gift to tell the story of Jesus. And because of the story of how God transformed his life, 1000s have come to Christ.
4. GOOD DIRT
We are defined by the way we respond to the Word. The Old Testament says, “break up the fallow ground.” Work that dirt, so that it is ready for planting. We are dirt yes, but we are dirt with a mind, will and we can choose what our condition is going to be.
From Hosea 8:7 we see that God had made Israel fruitful, and the more fruitful they became, the more they worshipped false gods.
How many of us God blesses us and we use that blessing to work against His work in our lives?
So God continues in Hosea 10:12, “Sow with a view to righteousness, Reap in accordance with kindness; Break up your fallow ground, For it is time to seek the Lord, Until He comes to rain righteousness on you.”
We can prepare our hearts to receive the righteousness of God. We cannot be wise in ourselves, but we can prepare ourselves to receive the wisdom of God. We cannot bear fruit, but we can prepare ourselves to receive the seed that God plants in us so that it can grow up and bear fruit. We have a choice, what kind of dirt are we going to be? God plants the seed and the fruit is from Him, but we prepare our hearts for His investment of seed.
You might be saying, “I am tempted by this and that; by that pleasure over there, by this temptation over here.” The Bible never says to fight temptation, but it says, run away, flee! Paul told Timothy to flee youthful lusts. Run away like Joseph from Potiphar’s wife. Joseph did not stand there before this so called, ‘hotty,’ or ‘babe,’ instead he ran out!
Our dependence is on Him. He does not want us to fight the enemy; He will do that for you. But you have to give Him the open door to fight that for you. Let Jesus fight for you and Jesus against the devil is no fight at all - He has already won the victory.
If we try to build our lives in our own strength – our business, our career, our education – we will fail. Allow Jesus to build the work through you and you will bear fruit.
