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.” 21 He said to them, “Do you bring in a lamp to put it under a bowl or a bed? Instead, don’t you put it on its stand? 22 For whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed, and whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out into the open. 23 If anyone has ears to listen, let him listen.” 24 “Consider carefully what you hear,” he continued. “With the measure you use, it will be measured to you—and even more. 25 Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him.”
Jesus has been preaching the kingdom of God since ch.1, but the word “kingdom” has not been mentioned since then. This is the first time we get a taste of what the content of Jesus’ preaching was like.
Matthew’s parallel account says Kingdom of heaven (Mt.13:11). The terms are interchangeable. Matthew, who wrote to Jews, tended to accommodate Jewish sensitivities and used euphemisms in place of the word “God.”
The Mystery
The Mystery of the Kingdom: Overlapping Ages
Mark 4:11 He told them, “The mystery of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables.”
When you see the word mystery in Scripture, it refers to something that has never been revealed before, and that can only be known through divine revelation. So what is the mystery of the kingdom?
Sometimes when you read the parables they seem to kind of state the obvious. There will be wheat and tares. Some will believe, others won’t. Many will reject Christ. That seems so obvious to us, but that was actually brand new revelation—the fact that those things would be allowed to happen in the Messiah’s kingdom.
The fact that the Messiah was going to come and establish the kingdom of God on earth was no mystery. That was revealed clearly throughout the OT. The people understood that the Messiah to arrive and bring an end to this present, evil age and usher in the glorious kingdom of God in the age to come. And the people also understood that all that would come to pass through a new covenant God would make with his people in which he would put his word inside the hearts of his people so they would really know him.
Jeremiah 33:33 "This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time," declares the LORD. "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. 34 … they will all know me…”
All of that had been revealed before. Then Jesus shows up and says, “Let me tell you some things about that kingdom that have never been revealed.” Here’s what had never been revealed before: When that happens, it’s not going to happen all at once. It’s not going to be just a simple act where Jesus snaps his fingers and the word is suddenly inside everyone’s heart. In the parables, Jesus revealed, for the very first time, that the kingdom of God would come in stages. It’s not like this present evil age would end one day and the next day it would be the glorious age to come. No, the mystery—the new information, was that the Messiah would come twice: the first time in humility and weakness to die, and the second time in power and great glory to bring final salvation. And in that period between his first coming and his second coming there would be an overlap of this present evil age and the glorious age to come. During that time between Jesus’ first coming and second coming, the glorious age to come would be breaking in to this present, evil age—kind of like those days when there are scattered rain storms. It’s pouring rain a few blocks that way, and raining a few blocks the other way, and blue skies and sunshine right here. Is it rainy or is it sunny? They are mixed together. That’s how this period of overlap will be. There will be the beginnings of many of the glories of the age to come, but right alongside that the evils of this present age would continue.
Sarcasm
Mark 4:10 When he was alone, the Twelve and the others around him asked him about the parables. 11 He told them, “The mystery 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!’”
The high Calvinists will sometimes ridicule interpreters who don’t take this passage at face value, suggesting that the motive must be to avoid facing the hard doctrine of divine judgment on the non-elect. However, not even the high Calvinist takes this passage and Isaiah 6 completely at face value. If they did, they would have to say that the only thing needed for the non-elect to repent and be saved would be a clear presentation of the truth. A face value interpretation would say that if the non-elect heard the Word in a straightforward way, without parables, they would repent. Such a conclusion would be quite Palagian. Fallen men need far more than just a clear presentation of the truth to be born again. Apart from a special work of the Spirit, not even the clearest presentation of the truth would turn them. Was Isaiah trying to prevent the people from turning back to God? Of course not. His whole ministry was an effort to call the people to return to God.
Isaiah 31:6 Return to him … O Israelites.
Isaiah 44:22 Return to me, for I have redeemed you.
Isaiah 1:5 Why should you be beaten anymore? Why do you persist in rebellion? …10 Hear the word of the LORD … 16 wash and make yourselves clean.
Isaiah 55:3 Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live. … 7 Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon.
Isaiah wasn’t trying to harden the people’s hearts; he was trying to persuade them to turn back to God. And the same was true of Jesus’ preaching.
Mark 1:14 … Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming … 15 Repent and believe the good news!"
This interpretation is consistent with the way Matthew and Luke present the material in their parallels (Mt.13:13-16, Lk.8:10. See also Acts 28:24-28). They remove the sarcasm and state the principle more directly, placing the blame on the people’s refusal to listen.
Purposes of this Parable
Jesus most likely had multiple purposes in telling this parable, including,
1) Teaching us right and wrong ways to respond to the word. Implied in every parable is that we should avoid the things described negatively in the parable and strive for the things described positively.
2) to explain why so many were rejecting his word,
3) to announce judgment on Israel,
4) to give let us know what to expect regarding the response to the preaching of God’s word.
For Sowers
Implied: We Should Shine the Light
There is another aspect of the hiding in order to reveal that I didn’t cover in the sermon. There is also a sense in which Jesus hid the gospel during his lifetime by mainly just giving it to the Apostles, so that after his resurrection, they could reveal it broadly to the whole world.
Matthew 10:26 "So do not be afraid of them. There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. 27 What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs.
So it’s our role to put the lamp on the stand and be light to the world.
What are you a Christian for? That you may go to Heaven? Certainly. That your sins may be forgiven? No doubt. But is that the only end? Are you such a very great being as that your happiness and well-being can legitimately be the ultimate purpose of God’s dealings with you? Are you so isolated from all mankind as that any gift which He bestows on you is to be treated by you as a morsel that you can take into your corner and devour, like a grudging dog, by yourselves? By no means. ‘God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined into our hearts in order that’ we might impart the light to others.
Also, in one sense, the Jews proved to be the hard soil. The gospel went first to them, and when they rejected it, it went to the Gentiles. Here’s how the book of Acts ends:
Acts 28:25 They disagreed among themselves and began to leave after Paul had made this final statement: "The Holy Spirit spoke the truth to your forefathers when he said through Isaiah the prophet: 26 " 'Go to this people and say, "You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving." 27 For this people's heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.' 28 "Therefore I want you to know that God's salvation has been sent to the Gentiles, and they will listen!"
If that seems anti-Semitic, then we would have to say that Isaiah and the other prophets were also anit-Semitic.
It’s the Soil, Not the Sower or the Seed That’s our responsibility, but we need to be ready for a lot of rejection. When people are not responding to the word, our natural inclination is to assume something is wrong with the sower or the seed.
Sower
The sower is the one sharing the gospel. And when there’s not a lot of success, we think it’s because we’re not doing a good job presenting the gospel. We should be like Paul and do all we can to persuade men, but if the true gospel is being presented, the main issue is with the soil, not the sower.
Seed
Another approach is to attempt genetic modification of the seed to make it overcome consumer resistance. They come up with a version of the gospel that will have a widespread appeal. They think we need to add some human wisdom to it, inform it with psychology, make it a little more modern and adjust it to fit the times and make it more palatable to our culture, and trim off some of the offensive edges.
I heard of one mission organization that advertised, “For every million dollars you give us, we will produce a million converts.” That mentality assumes that all soils are the same. If you just put the right seed in it, it will germinate. They’ve got seed that works on hard ground, shallow ground, weedy ground—doesn’t matter. If you have a seed that will grow in any kind of soil, it’s not the true gospel.
Don’t Oversimplify the Word
Probably the most common way preachers modify the seed is to dumb it down and oversimplify it so everything they say is easily understood. Any complex or difficult truths are withheld from the people. That’s wrong. We shouldn’t be unnecessarily confusing, but nor should we oversimplify the Scriptures or withhold complex truths.
God Doesn’t Cater
God doesn’t cater to unbelief. He doesn’t go chasing after people who reject the many convincing proofs he has already given and say, “Won’t you please believe in me? What kind of sign would you accept as proof?” “How about if you make the moon into a giant giraffe?” “Okay,” BOOM! “There, how’s that?” “Umm, I don’t know. How about if you give me a million dollars?” “Oh, sure. Here you go.” Boom—you have a million dollars. “There. Now won’t you please believe in me? Please, please, please?”
When people proved to be unwilling by rejecting what has been given, God doesn’t cater to that by giving more. He takes away what has been given.
John 7:17 If anyone chooses to do God's will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own.
John 8:31 To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth
You won’t be able to know if the message is true while you remain unwilling to do God’s will, and you can’t know the truth if you do not hold to the truth you have been given.
Don’t Lose Confidence
I’m convinced one of the key reasons Jesus gave us this parable is to keep us from losing faith in the power of the word when the word doesn’t bear fruit. We give people the word of God—preach it or teach it to our kids or whatever, and the person ends up turning away, or behaving in ways that are the opposite of what they claim to believe. And we can be tempted to think, I guess the word of God isn’t as powerful as I thought. Or people go into a church and find that the people are behaving in ungodly, unloving, sinful ways. And they aren’t repenting. Someone sees that and gets hurt by it and they walk away saying, “Man, I guess God’s word isn’t really all the effective in transforming lives.”
When that happens, Jesus wants us to know—the problem isn’t the word. It’s the hearts of the people. The word is plenty powerful enough to transform any heart, but that doesn’t happen until it’s absorbed into the soil of that heart, and then sends some roots down, and then grows and bears fruit. So when there isn’t spiritual fruit, it’s not a problem with the word. It just means something disrupted the growth process.
Not a Pyramid
If you have ever listened to a presentation by one of those multilevel marketing programs, they will draw you a diagram that looks like a pyramid. They say, “You reach 5 people and sign them up, then they each sign 5 up, and all of those sign 5 up, and the next thing you know there are a million people in your downline and you can retire at age 30.” That’s not the picture Jesus drew for us for reaching the world. It’s more like you reach 50 people, and 47 of them die out. But three of them end up reaching hundreds. That’s how it works.
Jesus’ parable gives remarkable attention to describing the failure of the seed and the reasons for it (68 out of 97 words in the Greek). From a human point of view, preaching ministry often looks like mostly failure. But this parable adjusts the perspective. Think of 4 individual seeds. One on the path, one in the weeds, one on the rocks, and one on good soil. The first three don’t bear any fruit. The last one gives you 30 to 100 seeds. So you throw 4 seeds in the ground, and only one is successful. From a simplistic standpoint, that seems like 25% success. But if you look at it like a farmer, you threw 4 seeds down and now you have, let’s take the middle number 60. No farmer sows the same amount of seed on the path that he sows on the good soil, but even if he did, still, for every 40 seeds he throws down he ends up with 60. That isn’t 25% success; that’s 1400% success.
Right now the church in many parts of Africa is exploding with growth. That is the result of the work missionaries did about 100 years ago, but it is not the direct work of the missionaries. The missionaries only got a very small number of lasting converts. But that tiny group of Africans began functioning as the church in Africa, and through their work the massive harvest has come. The harvest is produced, not by the sower, but by the soil. The sower throws out the seed and gets a few healthy plants. Then those plants are what grow up and produce a massive harvest—30, 60, or 100-fold. A thirty-fold harvest (30 seeds harvested for every one planted) is a great harvest. Sixty is fantastic. A hundred-fold yield was so much that it was a clear sign of divine blessing.
Genesis 26:12 Isaac planted crops in that land and the same year reaped a hundredfold, because the LORD blessed him.
That’s a big enough harvest that you know God is prospering you in a special way.
Sow Everywhere
Why is the sower so careless, throwing his seed everywhere? Justin Martyr: Because he wants to find good soil wherever it may be found. You can’t tell a soil by looking. We always think we know what is in people’s hearts, but only God knows that. We think, “The good soil—that’s people who look like me, think like me, attractive people, pleasant people, people who are easy to talk to…”
Tend the Soil
On the other hand, we should not be indifferent about the presentation.
2 Corinthians 5:11 Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience.
In 1 Corinthians 9 Paul said he became all things to all men to win some. If you come at a Jew from a Gentile context, it’s not going to be as effective as if you come from a Jewish context, and vice-versa. In 1 Corinthians 3 Paul said it was God who gave the increase, but not until after Paul planted and Apollos watered. We do need to till and water the soil. We don’t need to soften the message, but we do need to soften hearts to receive the message as is.
So I say that as a caveat, so we don’t become indifferent about people’s responses. However, also keep in mind that the greatest preacher ever, Jesus Christ, sowed on a lot of hard ground. And that wasn’t the fault of his preaching.
Parables Remove Defensiveness
And it often takes a truth you already know and shows it to you from a different perspective, in order to have an effect on you. Sometimes parables enable you to see your situation clearly by letting you see that same circumstance without you involved (so your inner lawyer doesn’t chime in) such as Nathan’s parable. But we aren’t given the direct interpretation of most of the parables because they are designed to be pondered.
One reason why parables are used in contexts of judgment is that they help sincere people detect and hate their own sin. If someone just walks up to you and points out a sin in your life, the natural reaction is for your inner lawyer to pipe up and start defending you. And here come all the excuses. And you have a hard time facing what you need to face because all your energy is going toward defending yourself.
One thing a parable does is enables you to be removed from the situation so you can look at it objectively. For example, remember Nathan’s parable with David? Nathan told David a parable about a rich man who stole his poor neighbor’s only lamb. And David was enraged and said, “That rich man deserves to die!” David could see the evil of it when he didn’t realize it was about him. Then Nathan said, “You’re that man,” and David immediately realized that his sin was even worse than the one he just condemned. And in David’s case, it brought him to immediate repentance, after refusing to repent all those months.
Application
1) Of the six threats, which two would you say present the greatest risk for you?
• Satan
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• Trouble
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• Persecution
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• Cares of this Life
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• Deceitfulness of Wealth
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• Desires for Other things
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