THE STOLEN SEED
Mark 4:4 4:15
The Sower - Jesus and his ministers or preachers who deliver the word
The Seed - the Word of God, the gospel, the Truth.
The Soil - The heart of the unbeliever
We are given a parable of the different types of hearts of men who the gospel seed is sown upon. You are one of the four people here described. 1) The rocky soil – those that receive the word quickly and with joy but because they never considered the cost they quickly fade away when trials come. 2) The thorny soil – those that are choked out because of the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of wealth, and the lusts of other things; 3) The fruitful soil – the true Christian follower. And as we will see today 4) The way side soil – which was stolen.
"And it came to pass as he sowed, some fell by the way side, and the fowls of the air came and devoured it up." - Mark 4:4
"And these are they by the way side, where the word is sown, but when they have heard, Satan cometh immediately, and taketh away the word that was sown in their hearts." - Mark 4:15
These are the people who hear the word but do not understand it. And it is their own fault that they don't. Not because they desire to understand it, but because they couldn't care less. They let the word of God go in one ear and out the other. These same people only come to church for fashion sake, they come to see and to be seen by others.
These are those whose hearts are as hard as the beaten down path or way (way-means road) a road that has been so well traveled the dirt becomes like rock. Once the seed has been sown upon it, it could literally bounce off of it. How many people might you know that have such a hard heart that nothing can be planted in it and every effort made to sow the seed in them is met with such resistance that the seed just sits externally on them “always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth”. 2 Tim. 3:7. Because the seed sits on top of hard compacted dirt, it would sooner germinate on this pulpit (*knocking on the pulpit) and as a result it is easily seen by the birds who can come in easily a take it away before any hope of plowing or rain.
Matthew Henry notes “that such careless people are easy prey for the devil, who is a great murderer of souls and he is a great thief of sermons.” Because of their apathy or their hard hearts Satan can steal a sermon from the pastor's mouth before it reaches the hard-hearted man's ears. Jesus compares Satan to birds who are opportunists 'seeking whom they may devour' (1 Peter 5:8). It is much easier to steal a seed that just sits on the ground than to attempt to uproot an established tree. The devil is a sworn enemy to our profiting by the word of God; and no one does more to help his cause than apathetic, hard-hearted hearers, who are constantly thinking of something else.
The seed makes contact with the hard heart. But because it has never been plowed with conviction there is no fertile ground and the word can not penetrate it. Its amazing how familiar one can be with the church and yet never be saved. How they can sing the hymns and not know THE WAY, "Some were hardened and disobedient, speaking evil of the way." - Acts 19:9; They know to tithe but they don't know THE TRUTH, “always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth”. 2 Tim. 3:7 They may love the fellowship but they don't know THE LIFE. "but exhort one another daily, so long as it is called today, lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin." - Hebrews 3:13
I would like to share with you a couple of reasons we develop a hard heart and make it far too easy for Satan to steal the word/seed away from us. First is pride
I. Pride.
Two ways pride can block the seed of God
A) Self-righteousness. One way pride hinders unbelievers from accepting the word is that we tell ourselves that we are “Good People” (even though the Word teaches us that all of righteousness' are but filthy rags before the Lord) - We think that our “goodness” is good enough to EARN a place at the master's table. If this was the case then Jesus died for nothing. This contradicts the whole message of grace. Salvation by good works is a very naïve and immature understanding, or lack therof, of the meaning of the gospel.
Ill. During a comparative religions conference there was a group of men having a fierce debate about what it is that separates Christianity from all other religions. One suggested incarnation. But it was countered with the fact that other religions had different versions of god's appearing in human form. Resurrection? Again, other religions had accounts of returning from death. The Debate went on for some time until C.S. Lewis walked into the room. “what's the rumpus about?” he asked, and heard in reply that his colleagues were discussing Christianity's unique contribution among world religions. Lewis responded, “Oh, that's easy. It's grace.” After some discussion They all agreed Lewis was right! Buddhist eight-fold path, the Hindu doctrine of Karma, the Jewish covenant, and the Muslim code of law - - each of these offers a way to earn approval. Only Christianity dares to make God's love unconditional.
(Note: Pride in ourselves and our good works makes it difficult to accept the gospel seed/work of grace, because we feel we have no need for it.)
B) Tradition. This type of pride deals specifically with those who claim to be Christian (parable of wheat and tares, sheep and goats) They have a profession of faith and while their lips praise him, their hearts are far from him. Jesus told the Pharisees "...Full well do ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your tradition."
Multitudes today allow tradition to blind them to God's glorious truths. They base their religion on the religion of their parents or grandparents or great-grandparents. While claiming to believe the Bible. Pride will not allow these people to cast aside man-made tradition and simply follow "THUS SAITH THE LORD"
Ill. Little girl asked her mother, “Mommy, why do you cut the ends off the meat before you cook it?” The girl’s mother told her that she thought it added to the flavor by allowing the meat to better absorb the spices, but perhaps she should ask her grandmother since she always did it that way. So the little girl finds her grandmother and asks, “Grandma, why do you and Mommy cut the ends of the meat off before you cook it?” Her grandmother thought a moment and answered, “I think it allows the meat to stay tender because it soaks up the juices better, but why don’t you ask your Nana, after all, I learned from her and she always did it that way.” The little girl is getting a little frustrated, but climbs up in her great-grandmother’s lap and asks, “Nana, why do you cut the ends off the meat before you cook it?” Nana answered, “I don’t know why these women do it, I did it because my pot wasn’t big enough.” (Sermon Central illustration)
Look there is nothing wrong with tradition. It is a tradition in our family to read the Christmas story from the gospel of Luke during our Family Christmas. It's a way for us to not forget that Christmas is about Christ not Santa Claus. The problem is when we practice tradition for the sake of practicing tradition; believing that it alone will help us, heal us, sanctify us, redeem us and save us.
When you have gone there, when you look toward the way of tradition, what was once a ritual becomes a religion. There is no religion that can save you. Only Christ Jesus can save you. He is the only way (Jn. 14:6) to God. Religion is man working to get to Heaven and Salvation is only found in Jesus (Jn 3:16)
This also includes the pride in our denominations
John - "we saw someone driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop because he was not one of us." Jesus - "Do not stop him" "for whoever is not against us is for us."
Its long been the case throughout Church history that we tend to rebuke someone using the name of Jesus, simply because "they are not one of us." It's ONLY our group, our clique, our church, our denomination, our country, etc. that has the monopoly on truth. Pride hardens hearts. Faith in religion, faith in a denomination, faith in tradition WILL NOT SAVE YOU!
2) Lack of Conviction. Strong conviction is lacking today among most people. We are constantly reminded every time we turn on the T.V. that the world has strong convictions, just not for the word of God. If we don't preach the truth about sin and its consequences for fear of offending sinners we will never give them the strong conviction they need to “repent and believe” (Mark 1:15) The way side soil are the hard-hearted souls that are incensed that THEIR way is not THE way of salvation. TO them this is unfair. And as a result of their inability to humble themselves to the truth, they are indignant to the things of God. And as we see this disdain for things Holy & Godly increase in men, if we are not there already; then we are certainly rushing headlong toward that time when every man is doing that which is 'right in his own eyes'."
And that brings us to our conclusion: If we continue to harden our hearts, eventually God will give us over to a reprobate mind (Rom. 1:28) or a strong delusion to believe what is false (2 Thes. 2:11)
The Thief on the cross proved that it is never too late to repent. However as Matthew Henry puts it: "It is never too late for TRUE repentance, however, LATE repentance is seldom true." Don't wait until until the last minute.
Lets not allow our Hearts to be harden, lets allow God to humble them to receive his everlasting word, everlasting grace, everlasting love and everlasting life.
