The Sower, The Seed, The Soil

Good Morning

Happy Father’s Day

Which days are the strongest? Saturday and Sunday. The rest are weekdays.

Did you know that your pupils are the last part to stop working when you die? They dilate.

Let’s pray

Today we are going to be in Mark 4:1-20. Last week we looked at some of the things that Jesus did, that we should do. We saw that He we to church regularly. Church was a priority in His life. We also talked about Jesus calls people to Himself. We are to also call people to Jesus. We are to point them to our Lord. We talked about how Jesus always told the truth. He didn’t change His message so that it would not offend people. The truth trumps feelings.

Today we are going to look at the parable of the sower. I think it should be called the parable of the soil. The soil is the main focus on this parable. We are going to look at the Sower, the Seed, and the Soil today. God’s plan for growing His kingdom is by the sowing of His seed.

Please stand as we read God’s Word.

Mark 4:1–20 (NASB 2020)

1 Again He began to teach by the sea. And such a very large crowd gathered to Him that He got into a boat on the sea and sat down; and the whole crowd was by the sea on the land. 2 And He was teaching them many things in parables, and was saying to them in His teaching, 3 “Listen to this! Behold, the sower went out to sow; 4 as he was sowing, some seed fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Other seed fell on the rocky ground where it did not have much soil; and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of soil. 6 And when the sun had risen, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away. 7 Other seed fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked it, and it yielded no crop. 8 Other seeds fell into the good soil, and as they grew up and increased, they yielded a crop and produced thirty, sixty, and a hundred times as much.” 9 And He was saying, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

10 As soon as He was alone, His followers, along with the twelve disciples, began asking Him about the parables. 11 And He was saying to them, “To you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God, but for those who are outside, everything comes in parables, 12 so that while seeing they may see, and not perceive, and while hearing, they may hear, and not understand, otherwise they might return and it would be forgiven them.”

13 And He said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? How will you understand all the parables? 14 The sower sows the word. 15 These are the ones who are beside the road where the word is sown; and when they hear, immediately Satan comes and takes away the word which has been sown in them. 16 And in a similar way these are the ones sown with seed on the rocky places, who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy; 17 and yet they have no firm root in themselves, but are only temporary; then, when affliction or persecution occurs because of the word, immediately they fall away. 18 And others are the ones sown with seed among the thorns; these are the ones who have heard the word, 19 but the worries of the world, and the deceitfulness of wealth, and the desires for other things enter and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. 20 And those are the ones sown with seed on the good soil; and they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty, sixty, and a hundred times as much.”

Jesus taught a lot in parables. A parable is often described as an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. Parables are used to stimulate thinking and cause the hearer to contemplate what they are hearing. Parables use everyday objects, events, and circumstances to illustrate spiritual truth to those with receptive ears and they hide truth from others.

Parables make up 35% of Jesus’ teachings in the Gospels. A spiritually alert heart and hungry mind are needed to understand what He is teaching.

In this parable, Jesus is using agriculture as the means to teach His lesson. These people were an agricultural society. They would have understood the use of sowing the seeds and the different soil types that the seed landed on.

They sowed seed very differently than we do today. They didn’t have the use of a seed drill that made a hole put the seed in the hole and then covered the hole up. They would have to broadcast the seed by hand. They would have a bag filled with seed and they would walk the field and throw the seed down on the ground. This was not a very efficient was to sow seed. A lot of the seed would fall on the bad ground as they threw it down. It took a long time to walk the field and throw all the seed down.

Today we plow the field before we sow seeds, back then they would sow the seeds and then plow the field. A plow of that day was nothing more that a sharp stick that broke up the surface of the ground. They didn’t have discs to dig down deep and turn up the soil. They just broke up the surface of the soil after they sowed the seed to cover it up.

Farming was completely different back then. We have to think about how it was done then, to get the full effect of the parable.

The Sower

The sower is the person who is telling the Gospel of the Good News. Jesus is our example of the sower. He never changed who he was in order to tell His message. He didn’t become a tax collector in order to tell them about Himself. He didn’t become a fisher man to talk to them. Today we see a lot pastors trying to be cool and hip. They are wearing skinny jeans with holes in them. They are wearing t-shirts while preaching. They may even have a designer seed bag! It’s not wrong to wear these things if that is who your truly are. If that is how you dress everyday. Don’t change who you are, just to try and reach a certain people group. They we be able to tell that you are being fake. The power is in the message, not in the person who is giving it. When we are are selves, who God created us to be, we are able to reach more people than when we try to be something we are not. When people can tell that we are being fake, they will not listen. We have to be who God made us to be. I don’t like wearing a suit or even a tie. I would not be me if I wore those things. There is a time and a place for me to wear them. God doesn’t look at the exterior, He looks at the heart. We don’t change the sower to match the field. In this parable, it seems like the sower is just willy nilly throwing the seed everywhere, not caring where it goes. Since we can not see peoples hearts, we cannot know who’s heart is the good soil, so we must sow the seed of truth to everyone. We are told to only tell the Gospel to a certain people or group of people. We are told to go and make disciples of all nations. We must sow the seed everywhere, if we are going to find the good soil.

The Seed

The seed is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the message of hope and salvation through repentance and faith in Jesus. This is the message that Jesus preached. He preached that He was the Son of God, that He was the Messiah that came to take away sin. He preached that the only way to salvation was through Him. He never changed His message, we saw that last week. No matter what the cost, or how mad it was going to make people, Jesus told the truth of Salvation through grace alone, in christ alone. He never change the message. He may have changed how He told it, but never changed the message. He would use parables that fit the people group He was talking to. He would change the presentation, but never the message. Paul did the same thing. He change the presentation when he talked to the Greeks and the Romans. We can change the delivery, but we must never, never change the message. The bible has a very definite warning against this. Gal 1:8-9

Galatians 1:8–9 (NASB 2020)

8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! 9 As we have said before, even now I say again: if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed!

The word means a person or thing doomed for destruction. We must not change the gospel. It is the power of God for salvation. Romans 1:16

Romans 1:16 (NASB 2020)

16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

All the power is in the seed, the message. When we change that message, it loses power to save. The message is what saves, not the person giving the message. Always tell the true Gospel of Christ, repentance and belief in Christ. Just like the sun hardens clay and at the same time softens wax, the Gospel offends the resistant and rebellious while it is enthusiastically received by the receptive.

The Soil

There are 4 different kinds of soil that Jesus mentions in this parable. In this parable, the soil is referring to the peoples hearts. There are 3 bad soils and 1 good soil. Each of the 3 bad soils has a different reason as to why it is bad. Lets look at these bad soils.

The first is the hard heart. This is like the roadside that is trampled down and compacted. It is hard and the seeds can not penetrate it. The seed just sits on the surface for the birds to see and eat. When we open our hearts to this world and its influences, we are at risk of developing a hard heart. When the heart becomes hard, it is not open to the truth of the gospel. The message cannot root and take hold and begin to change the person. Last week we saw that the hard hearts of the Pharisees made Jesus angry. He knew that because of their hardness of heart, they would not receive the message He was going to give. People that have a hard heart are children of satan, not God. They love their father and do not want to change or even hear the message of Christ. When they do hear the truth, it will make them angry and hostile.

The second bad soil is the shallow heart. It is soft on the surface, but just under it is hard as rocks. These hearts will receive the message and it seems to take root. There will be joy and enthusiasm for a while, but when trouble or trials come, the enthusiasm disappears and the joys fades. They do not truly understand what the price it costs to be a true Christian. It is easy for the fallen human nature to fake religious feelings and to give a person a false since of confidence. That is why I think it is better to say, if saved always saved. We see so many professing believers turning away from their faith. The truth is that they never have a saving faith to begin with. Saving faith will persevere to the end. The Holy Spirit will keep those that are truly given to Him until the end and His work is complete in them.

The third and final bad soil is the crowded soil. This soil represents the heart that hears the word, but doesn’t remove the weeds in their heart. There is not real repentance. No brokenness over their sin. There are too many different kinds of seed growing in the soil of their heart. Worldly cares, riches, a lust for things, a love for their sinful way. Their is enough soil for the word to germinate, but not enough room for it to grow and mature. They other seeds grow faster and choke it out. The definition of repentance is a deep sorrow, compunction, or contrition for a past sin, wrongdoing, or similar. Regret for any past action. If there is no repentance, then there will be no turning from that action. There may be a temporary moving away from it, but it will draw the person back. Only if there is repentance, can there be true, lasting change in a person’s life. For the message of Christ to take hold and grow and mature, their has to be repentance, the weeds must be removed. This removal of weeds is not an overnight process. It takes a life time of hard back breaking work to remove and keep the weed seeds out of our hearts. Our flesh wants those weed seeds. We must fight to keep them out. If you have ever gardened or farmed, you know how true this is.

The fourth and final soil is the healthy fruitful heart. This is the heart that when it hears the gospel of Christ, it is broken and wants to be put back together by Christ. It is soil that will allow the seed to germinate, grow and mature. The seed will begin to bear fruit and be productive. This fruit bearing is the evidence of true salvation. Without fruit bearing, there is no sign of salvation. If we are truly saved, we will produce fruit. The 3 bad soils did not produce fruit, only this one good soil produced fruit. Since there was no fruit production in the first 3, we can conclude that there was not true salvation. Not all Christians will produce the same amount of fruit all the time, but there will be evidence of fruit production. This good soil will have the repentance of sin, true brokenness over their sins. When they sin in the future, after salvation, they will demonstrate this brokenness. They will be like King David in the OT. When he was confronted with his sin, he always repented. We must be the same. Those with this fruitful heart will love the Word and will be given more satisfaction and understanding in who God has revealed Himself to be. Refuse the Word and even the little understanding you have will be taken away.

Church we need to be the sower. We need to sow the seed of the Gospel of Christ to everyone, we cannot know what type of soil their hearts are. We must sow everywhere. We are not called to make them accept the message, just to give it out.

We must never, ever change the message. We can change our delivery, but never the message.

We can’t see what type of soil they are, we just have to sow the seeds. God will make them grow where they need to.

Lets pray