Sowing in Hard Places
How many of you have heard a preacher somewhere tell you that you want to sow your seed into good soil so that you can receive a good harvest? Makes sense that we should sow our seed into the best soil possible doesn’t it?
No farmer in his right mind sows seed into bad soil. Why?
Because seed is precious and costly.
Seed is his future, seed is his income, seed is his livelihood. The seed he sows today puts food on his table tomorrow, and provides the income to put gas in his car. Wasting seed is tantamount to ruining your future.
Today in this message I want to show that when it comes to sowing by the way earthly farmers think, God is not in His right mind, because He sows into what we would call bad soil all the time.
I am going to show 3 principles from scriptures that reveal sowing is often difficult to do, and they are:
Principle of Death
Principle of Delay
Principle of Deceit
The overall goal of this message is twofold: To remind you to keep sowing, even when it seems difficult, and fruitless. Secondly to encourage you, that God continues to sow into your life even when you seem difficult and fruitless!
PPT 1 Image of flower growing out of stony ground
Mark 4 tells us that 3 out of 4 times His seed is sown into places where it will fail.
The wayside, stony ground, weeds and thorns.
We would call it bad soil.
Some of His seed fell by the way side where it was trampled down, and then the birds of the air came and ate it. Jesus goes on to explain that is talking about people who have hard hearts towards the gospel, and as soon as they hear the word of God the devil steals it.
I don’t know about you, but I thank God Jesus sows in places that are not very likely to produce good fruits. Because, there was a time that I was a hard soiled hearer, but something happened, a seed somehow got past the devils notice, God planted it deeper and further into my heart than the devil could ever get to, and praise the Lord, now I’m saved!
God doesn’t operate from the only good soil gets seed principle.
PPT 2 Basket of Fragments
God has a principle that is more important than being very careful where seed is sown. It is summed up in this phrase: "...take up the fragments that nothing be lost."
God wants nothing lost. God is not willing than any should perish.
Guess what?, there are still times that God sows seeds into my heart only to reveal that my heart is too stony to receive it.
God don’t freak out if every seed doesn’t take root right away.
BECAUSE SOWING BY ITS VERY NATURE IS ABOUT GETTING WHAT YOU WANT TO HAVE, NOT WHAT YOU ALREADY HAVE.
You sow into dirt because you want strawberries. You plant what you expect to harvest, you plant what you are looking to get not what you already have. You sow into empty fields.
Some of you, in like manner, are sowing in hard places, where for the present you are seeing very little results. I want to commend you for that, and I believe God wants to encourage you to keep on sowing.
PPT 3 scripture
Ec 11:6 In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand: for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both [shall be] alike good.
I want to talk a little bit about sowing in hard places.
A hard place can be a:
Person
Situation
Location
Season
3 Principles about sowing that reveal it is often hard to do.
1. The Principle of Death
PPT 4 Scripture
Joh 12:24 "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. (NAS)
Joh 12:24 "Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. (Message)
The seed disappears and dies before it comes back to life. We have a hard time believing that which is dead can come back to life, yet that miracle is all around us. People are like tulips they can die in the winter and come back in the spring.
The bible says as much in Isaiah 6:13
PPT 5 Scripture
Isa 6:13 And even if some should survive, say a tenth, the devastation will start up again. The country will look like pine and oak forest with every tree cut down; Every tree a stump, a huge field of stumps. But there’s a holy seed in those stumps."
2. The Principle of Delay
PPT 6 Picture of Stenophylla
We reap in a different season than the one in which we sow.
Illus: silent Stenophylla a 32,000 year old Siberian seed, reanimated by Russian scientists.
The previous record holder for the oldest reanimated seed was a 2,000 year old tree from Israel called the Methuselah tree which is an ancestor of the modern date palm. It was found at the fortress of Masada where 960 Jews committed suicide rather than be killed or surrender to the Romans. From that grisly death scene life has come. Some seeds only grow long after they were planted. Remember that. You reap most always in a different season than you sow. Some crops such as winter wheat is sown in the fall, and begin developing up through December. It then becomes dormant, and comes back to life after the snow and cold of winter. Some seeds appear to go dormant, and we wait for them to come back to life. No one plants today and expects to harvest tomorrow morning.
3. The Principle of Deceit
PPT 7 Scripture
Ga 6:7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
The Greek word translated deceived is planayo and it means to cause to wander, lead astray or into error. In other words to be faked out, fooled, misled, hoodwinked, or be blinded to the truth.
Circumstances, people, and situations can work together to try and convince us that sowing will not result in reaping. If you lose heart you may be tempted to stop watering your seeds of promise with prayer. You may stop fighting weeds of discouragement with the promises in the word. Delay is often used of the enemy in an attempt to cause us to forsake fields we have sown in. In due season the bible says, we shall reap; if we do not faint.
Let me wrap this message up with a couple pieces of practical advice.
A. Don’t confine efforts only to those things most likely to succeed.
PPT 8 scripture
Pr 11:24 . There is one who scatters, yet increases all the more, And there is one who withholds what is justly due, but [it results] only in want.
Ec 11:4 He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap.
B. Beware of discouragement or the voice that says sowing is useless.
PPT 9 Scripture
Mr 5:35 . While he yet spake, there came from the ruler of the synagogue’s [house certain] which said, Thy daughter is dead: why troublest thou the Master any further?
Mr 5:36 As soon as Jesus heard the word that was spoken, he saith unto the ruler of the synagogue, Be not afraid, only believe.
Sometimes a situation can look so bad that we are tempted to not even try. Prayer may not get answered the way we want, but we should never surrender to the voice that says don’t even try.
C. Sow what you want to reap.
D. Don’t let battle fatigue steal your harvest.
PPT 10 Scripture
Ga 6:9 And let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we shall reap if we do not grow weary.
Close: Have you sown some seed and are discouraged at the results so far? Seeds in your children, seeds in your marriage, seeds in your finances? As we close today lets water those seeds with more prayer, reminding ourselves that God Himself has set the example to sow into hard places, and not give up.
