The Parable of the Sower

Mark 4:1-20
Gregory Perry | Sunday, February 09, 2020
Copyright © 2020, Gregory Perry

I have to start by admitting that the classic sermon on the parable of the sower has already been preached.  You can read our Pastor Mathew’s sermon on this parable that he preached in February 2017.[1]

But I do come brandished with arguments for why I should preach from this parable again.  First, the parable of the sower is one of only three parables recorded in all three synoptic gospels—that is, Matthew, Mark, and Luke.  So if the Bible records it more than once, then surely it is proper to preach it more than once.  Second, this parable and what it particularly teaches about regeneration is certainly important enough to preach regularly from this passage.  That which is especially important deserves repeating.

This parable of the sower is the first of the only four parables of Jesus recorded in the gospel of Mark.  There are many more parables recorded in Matthew and Luke, but there are only four in the book of Mark.  A parable is a story that is true to life and readily understood.  Parables present vivid images and make it easier to remember the lesson being taught.

Jesus begins this parable by talking about a farmer who goes out to sow his seed.  He later tells us explicitly that the seed the farmer is sowing is the word (v. 14).  And in Luke 8, it makes it more specific.  It says it is the word of God.  The seed is the word of God.

The farmer is Jesus and/or anyone he sends to preach the gospel, whether it be over the pulpit or through personal evangelism.  Notice that it is the same seed being spread to all four soils.  It is the same gospel.  The different responses have everything to do with the different soils, not the different seeds.  The various soils represent the condition of the human heart to which the word is given.  In other words, all four soils are in the visible church, at least at some point in the visible church.  They are where the seed is regularly sown.  They are where God’s word is faithfully preached.  The result of hearing the gospel depends entirely on the condition of the hearts of those to whom the word is addressed.

We will see how regeneration is the vital doctrine of this parable.  The seed of the word is sown because God brings about regeneration through the preaching of the word of God.  We see that in James 1:18, where James says, “[God] chose to give us birth,” that is rebirth, “through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.”  Or 1 Peter 1:23 also says it this way:  “For you have been born again [regeneration], not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.”

So as sowers, it is not our job to regenerate.  In fact, we cannot raise the dead to life.  Our job is simply to sow the seed, to preach the word, to share the gospel.  It is up to God to do what only he can do.  Only he raises the dead to life.  Only he causes the blind to see.  Only he brings the increase.  As the apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3:6, “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow.”

Our four points this morning will simply be the four soils that are given the seed of the word, and as Pastor Mathew has reminded us many times, all four soils are in the church on any given Sunday.  So as I talk about these four soils, examine yourself and ask, “Which soil am I?”

The Pathway Soil Hearer

The first soil is the seed sown on the path.  We read in verse 15, “Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown.  As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them.”  The seed on the path does not go into the hard ground.  These are people who do not respond to the gospel call when the word is preached to them.  They have no interest whatsoever in God’s word.  The aroma of Christ to them is the smell of death and not the fragrance of life.

The first soil here is a hearer of the word only.  Since he has an unresponsive, insensible, calloused heart, he immediately thrusts the word away and deems it to be unimportant.  The word of God proverbially goes in one ear and out the other.

Satan here is likened to a bird who plucks away the seed on the pathway.  We must remember that there is a real devil who opposes God’s work.  The evil one knows the power of the word so he looks to snatch that word away before it can do its saving work.  When the word is preached, the devil, whose purpose is to steal, kill, and destroy, aims to distract the hearer and convince him that he has no need for the gospel.  So when you are distracted even now as I preach, understand that the devil is here to distract you from the word of God.  The apostle Paul speaks about how the god of this age, the devil, “has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Cor. 4:4).  The hard ground of the pathway is indicative of a hard heart that is unresponsive to the word of God.

The truth is that we are all born dead in our transgressions and sins.  We are all born with a hard heart, fallen in Adam, and naturally every inclination of the thoughts of our hearts are only evil all the time (Gen. 6:5).

In the parallel passage of this parable of the sower in Matthew 13, Jesus adds that this first-soil hearer does not understand the message about the kingdom.  The gospel to him is inscrutable nonsense.  First Corinthians 2:14 says, “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.”  They cannot understand the word of God because their fallen thinking has become futile, and their sinful foolish hearts were darkened.  As we read in Ephesians 4:18, Paul says about unbelievers, “They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.”  And in Mark 4:12, in the middle of this parable of the sower, Jesus quotes from the Old Testament to emphasize the inability of the unbeliever to comprehend God’s word.  He quotes Isaiah 6, which begins in verse 9, that they may “be ever hearing but never understanding,” and “be ever seeing but never perceiving.”  You see, we can be ever hearing.  We can be in the presence of the word of God, but never grasp truly what the word of God is saying.

On our own, we are unable to understand and receive the word of God.  This is the doctrine of total inability.  Only God makes us able.  That is why Jesus says in John 6:65, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me,” no one is able to come to me, “unless the Father has enabled him.”  The Father must do the work in our hearts so that we may receive the word.

The inability of carnal, fallen man to understand the word is illustrated by the famous story that Martyn Lloyd-Jones loves to tell.  It is the story of the conversation of the great British abolitionist William Wilberforce, who was a true fourth-soil Christian, and his prime minister friend, William Pitt, a first-soil hearer.  William Pitt and William Wilberforce had just heard the gospel proclamation of the renowned preacher, Richard Cecil.  Wilberforce talked about how when he listened, he was ravished in his soul and taken from the earth to the heavenlies.  But although Pitt tried to listen attentively to the sermon, he said to his friend as they walked out afterwards, “William, I don’t have the slightest idea of what that man was talking about.”[2]  Although extremely intelligent, William Pitt could not understand God’s message because his heart was hardened.  God must soften the ground in order for the word to go in.  He must plow and break up the hard ground of our sinful, unresponsive hearts.  The work of conversion is when God turns our hard hearts of stone into responsive hearts of flesh.

In reading Ezekiel 11, starting with verse 19 (and we see similar language in Ezekiel 36),   God says, “I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.”  Repentance and faith are both gifts given by God.  They are results of the work of regeneration that only he can do.  We cannot cause ourselves to be born again.  The preacher cannot soften the hearts of the hardhearted hearers.  Only God can do that work, and he does it as his word is faithfully preached.  That is why we prayed, “God, as we speak your word, you do that work.  Raise the dead to life.”

We see this frequently in the book of Acts.  Remember in Acts 2:37 when the apostle Peter is preaching on the day of Pentecost.  It says, “When the people heard this”—when they heard him speaking the gospel—“they were cut to the heart.”  The Holy Spirit cuts them to the heart.  Or in Acts 16:14, the apostle Paul is in Philippi, and he is speaking to Lydia and other gathered women.  It says, “The Lord opened Lydia’s heart”—for what purpose?  “to respond to Paul’s message.”  Without the Lord opening the heart, the response to the message will not come.

We realize, of course, that it is not that the word rejected has no effect.  God’s word will not return to him void.  The heart that rejects the word planted will be hardened as a result.  It won’t just stay the same.  It will be hardened.

So I ask: Are you a first-soil hearer?  First-soil hearers are those who will come to church and have no response to the word.  Perhaps they come for a visit at the request of a friend or a family member.  But they are not likely to return.  Or perhaps they have been born and raised here, and yet they are not responsive to the word that has been preached.  It makes no sense to them.  They see no need.  They are first-soil hearers.

The preacher earnestly and seriously sets before them life and death, blessings and curses, and he beseeches them to choose life.  He exhorts them to repent or perish, to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved from the coming wrath of God that is due us for our sins.  But the hardhearted first-soil hearer has no idea what the big deal is.  He does not know what this preacher is so worked up about.  The Holy Spirit has not worked in him any conviction of sin.  He sees no need, so he just continues on his merry way, the broad way that heads straight to eternal destruction.  To not decide is to decide.  To not choose life is to choose death.  To not repent is to perish.

The Rocky Soil Hearer

Then we come to the second soil, which is the rocky-soil hearer.  In verses 16 and 17, Jesus says, “Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy.  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.”

In much of Israel, the land had a thin two- or three-inch veneer of soil over a limestone bedrock.  Often, when the seed falls, the sun quickly heats the seed in this shallow soil, which results in a plant’s rapid, initial growth.  But as the sun continues to beat down, and when the roots meet the bedrock, the plant quickly withers and dies.

The rocky-soil hearer is one who receives the word, at least in some fashion.  Unlike the first-soil hearer, he responds in faith.  Granted, it is a faith that eventually proves to be false, but he responds in faith.  He makes a commitment in some way.  There is even an immediacy to the response.  The text says that he received the word at once.  This lack of hesitancy may point to a lack of thinking, a lack of carefully counting the cost before committing his life to Christ.  Do they take seriously the words of Jesus, that anyone who comes after him must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Christ?  If not, they possess a shallow faith that lacks conviction, lacks courage, and ultimately lacks perseverance.  Someone who comes to faith right away can certainly be the result of a genuine work by the Holy Spirit in preparing that person to hear the gospel and respond with proper faith.  On the other hand, experience shows, and this parable indicates, that rushed professions often lead to superficial, synthetic conversions that soon prove to be false.

The fact that these rocky-soil hearers receive the word with joy also indicates that they had an emotional experience, some sort of spiritual experience that moved them to pray the sinner’s prayer.  The second-soil hearers immediately, impulsively, and gladly jump to accept the message, and they may even shed a tear doing so.  Many evangelists look to manipulate the emotions of the hearers to bring about supposed conversions.  They dim the lights and play sappy music while telling you to open your heart to Jesus—poor Jesus, who is like a puppy caught out in the rain.  He just wants to be let in.  And so you pray to receive Jesus.  The rocky-soil hearer receiving the word with joy is not a big red flag in itself.  Certainly, a genuine convert will also receive the word with joy.  But the point is that we should not be fooled by the level of emotion shown in the commitment.  A person making a true and sincere commitment to Christ may very well experience the emotion of joy, but experiencing joy does not make the commitment true and sincere.

In Jonathan Edwards’ classic work on the religious affections, he repeatedly warns against relying on emotions to validate the authenticity of one’s Christian conversion.  Jonathan Edwards says, “As we ought not to reject and condemn all affections as though true religion did not at all consist in affection; so, on the other hand, we ought not to approve of all, as though everyone that was religiously affected had true grace, and was therein the subject of the saving influences of the Spirit of God.”[3]  In other words, you can have religious affections without being truly saved.  That is why it is also good, when you are making your calling and election sure as we read about in 2 Peter 1:10, that you do not just look back at some time when you had some great spiritual experience and think that is making your calling and election sure.  You can have great spiritual experiences and not be truly converted.  It is proven here in the second soil.

Jesus tells us that these rocky-soil hearers have no root.  This means that they may have had some external, temporal changes, but their hearts have not been truly changed.  They have not been truly born again.  The rocky-soil hearers last only a short time.  They are quickly in and quickly out.  It says they quickly come to Christ at once and it says they quickly fall away.  They are the ones who come to faith, get baptized, and are gone a year later, only to return to their former empty lives.  Now, it can be more than a year later, or it can be less than a year later.  But the point is that they soon go back to their emptiness.  The emotion that led them to Christ will soon lead them away from Christ.  They proved that they were never genuine followers to begin with.  As we read in 1 John 2:19, “They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us.  For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.”  They fall away.

The text says, “When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away.”  They prove to be fair-weather followers.  They follow Christ as long as he makes them lie down in green pastures and leads them besides quiet waters.  But God tests the mettle of our faith through trouble and persecution, through the valley of the shadow of death.  In the Luke 8 version of this parable, Jesus says, “They believe for a while, but in the time of testing they fall away” (Luke 8:13).  There is a time of testing that will come for all of us.  And it is not if it comes, but it is when it comes.  This time of testing is guaranteed.  In fact, in 2 Timothy 3:12 Paul says “Everyone”—not most people—“Everyone who wants to live a godly life will be”—not may be—“persecuted.”  The question is not, “Will trouble and persecution come?”  Rather, the real question is, “When it comes, will we stand?”

Notice, too, that this is not just general trouble.  He is not talking here about the sufferings of life, like health problems or poverty.  Instead, he is talking here specifically about the things that we suffer because of the word.  In many places around the world today, this is talking about those whose lives are daily at risk because they are Christians.  In many Muslim nations, a Muslim who converts to Christianity has signed his own death warrant.  Lindy Lowry of Open Doors, which monitors the worldwide persecution of Christians, reports that eleven Christians around the world are killed every day for their decision to follow Jesus.[4]  To give but one example, in Afghanistan, to convert to a faith outside of Islam is tantamount to treason because it is seen as a betrayal of family, tribe, and country.  Converts are considered literally insane to leave Islam.  And so very often death is the only possible outcome for an exposed, caught Christian.

This is not the kind of trouble and persecution because of the word that we face as Christians in this country, at least not yet.  But make no mistake: Everyone will face trouble for standing for Christ, for shining the light of Christ, even in this country, even in this city, even on your campus.  There is always a cost to following Christ, which is why Christ calls us to count the cost before committing our lives to him.  Many fall away when they come to find out experientially that there is this cost to following Christ.  You may lose popularity.  You will.  You will also lose prestige.  You will perhaps lose opportunities.

H. Spurgeon said it this way: “We need not be much afraid” of being tortured and killed for our faith today. He was speaking about nineteenth-century England, and this is true of us today. We are not worried like our brother in Nigeria, a Christian who has to be concerned every day when he leaves his house: Will he come back?  Will he be tortured and killed for Christ or not?  We do not have that fear, at this point.  Spurgeon continues, saying, “But there are other forms of persecution which mere professors are equally unable to bear.”  Mere professors means false Christians.  He is speaking about second-soil hearers.  He says, “A sneer in society; a remark against Christianity from a person whom you are accustomed to respect; a look from someone who is above you in wealth as he despises you for professing to be a follower of Christ; unkind remarks from a father, opposition from a husband, the desertion of some young companion with whom you had hoped your life would be linked; such matters—nothing like the state or the prison—are yet quite sufficient to overcome flimsy professors, so that they turn their backs upon their religion which they once so quickly espoused.”[5]  Woe to us if we are flimsy professors!

One sore trial that often occurs because of the word is families being divided over Christ.  As hard as this trial is, it should not come as a surprise, for Christ told us that this would happen.  He said it many times.  To just give one example, in Matthew 10, beginning with verse 34, Jesus says, “Do not suppose I came to bring peace to the earth.  I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.  For I have come to turn ‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household’” (Matt. 10:34–36).  That is the teaching of Christ.  Many rocky-soil hearers have followed their wayward spouses or rebellious children into apostasy.

In the end, the rocky-soil hearer falls away because he has no root.  His heart was never converted, his mind never truly grasped the truth, and his will was never unconditionally submitted to the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Thorny Soil Hearer

Let us go on to the third soil, which is a seed among thorny weeds.  In verses 18 and 19 we read, “Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful.”

The thorny weeds in the third soil deprive the plants of the moisture and soil nutrients that they need in order to grow and last.  Like the second soil, this soil hears the word and receives it.  This one professes faith and even lasts for a while.  These thorny weeds stand for worldly interests that eventually choke out the planted word.  Worldliness makes the word unfruitful.

The apostle John warns of the danger of worldliness in 1 John 2, beginning in verse 15: “Do not love the world or anything in the world.  If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.  For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world” (1 John 2:15–16).  The heart overcome with the love of the world and its riches is not a believing heart.  The classic example of a third-soil hearer is Demas.  He worked alongside Paul for quite a while.  But eventually he deserted the apostle and abandoned Christ and went back to Thessalonica because “he loved this present world” (2 Tim. 4:10).

There are also several kings in the history of Israel who proved to be third-soil kings.  Certainly, King Saul and King Solomon come to mind as two kings who started well but grew wicked as they became more rich and famous.  They got a deeper sip of the world.  Joash, Amaziah, and Uzziah were three successive kings of Judah who all started out well but grew proud and rebellious over time.  For example, when he was young, King Uzziah “did what was good and right in the eyes of the Lord,” and we are told how the Lord blessed him.  But 2 Chronicles 26 tells us, “But after Uzziah became powerful.”  You see, he became powerful.  He became something in this world.  “But after Uzziah became powerful, his pride led to his downfall” (2 Chron. 26:16).  He proved to be a third-soil king.

The things of this world have a way of distracting us from the kingdom of God.  In this Mark account, Jesus speaks of three ways that the world chokes out the word.  He first talks about the “worries of this life.”  This refers to the distressing and perplexing cares of this world that tend to fill our minds and possess our souls.  The accumulation of life’s trials will wear down a false believer.  The heart becomes preoccupied with the cares and worries of the world, the daily grind of work, the busyness of life, the drama of world events, and the worrying about what will happen in the future, such as who will I marry, or what job will I have.  This is why God in his word constantly exhorts his people to stand firm and not lose heart, to not become weary in doing good, and to let nothing move us.

Then in this text, Jesus speaks about “the deceitfulness of wealth.”  Riches in this world are deceitful because they never give the satisfaction that they promise.  Wealth also contributes to our becoming arrogant and self-sufficient.  (GWP)  We are no longer poor and needy.  We no longer need God.  We say along with the Laodicean church, “I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing” (Rev. 3:17).  But it is a lie.  We do not realize that without God, we are nothing but wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked.  We must always be aware of the dangers of wealth, as Paul warns his disciple in 1 Timothy 6: “People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction.  For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.  Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith”—third-soil hearers wander from the faith, perhaps very gradually—“and pierced themselves with many griefs (1 Tim. 6:9–10).

Then Jesus goes on to talk about “desires for other things.”  This speaks of a growing love for the world and the delicacies and luxuries it has to offer.  In the Luke account, Jesus says, “As they go on their way, they are choked by life’s worries, riches, and pleasures,” the pleasures of this world.  Notice, that as he speaks about desires for other things, or he speaks about pleasures, he does not necessarily speak about things that are sinful in and of themselves.  Certainly, we can be shipwrecked by running after sinful pleasures—things like sexual immorality.  But we can just as easily fall away by making an idol out of something that is not inherently sinful, such as your career accomplishments, your family, or your recreation.  It does not matter to the devil how you fall away; he is just as happy to draw you away through legitimate pleasures as through illicit ones.

H. Spurgeon speaks about how excessive amusement very often chokes out the word. He says, “Certain forms of recreation are needful and useful.” So they are fine.  There is nothing wrong with these forms of recreation in and of themselves.  They are needful and useful.  He continues, “But it is a wretched thing when amusement becomes a vocation,” when amusement becomes a thing that you are living for.  He says, “Many have had all holy thoughts and gracious resolutions stamped out by excessive amusement and perpetual trifling.  Pleasure so called is the murderer of thought.”[6]  They were running after the pleasures and the amusements and the triflings, and it takes over, and the word is choked out.

The choking of the word in the thorny soil is not something that happens overnight.  Jesus says in Luke 8:14, “As they go on their way.”  You see, life is going on.  “As they go on their way.”  So you can be in a church for a long time, perhaps for decades, with many certificates to prove it.  But you can still be a third-soil hearer.  That is something to take serious warning about.

In fact, you may never leave the church at all.  Did you know that?  If you read these carefully, you see that the second soil falls away.  They leave.  But it does not ever tell us that the third soil falls away.  Third-soil people can even be in the church to their dying day.  Notice, that unlike the rocky-soil man, we are not told here that the third-soil man necessarily falls away.  He may.  In Luke 8, we are just told that they do not mature.  Here we are told that they are unfruitful.  But we are not told that they fall away.  So you can be spiritually dead and still be in the church.  In fact, C. S. Lewis brilliantly points out in The Screwtape Letters that the devil actually prefers that the dead stay in the church so that he can use them to influence others and make the church dead.  The devil hates church discipline.  Did you ever think about why?  He hates church discipline because, when faithfully practiced, it roots out of the church those that the devil wants to keep in so that they can bring others down.

Whether the third-soil hearer leaves physically or just spiritually, it is a slow drifting away.  We read about it in Hebrews 2:1.  Drifting away.  The drifting away does not happen quickly, as with the rocky soil.  Here instead there is a gradual, nearly imperceptible growth toward worldliness.  The second soil was a time of testing.  We are told that the third soil is speaking of the testing of time.  Over time, all these things accumulate and choke out the word planted.  The hymn “Turn Your Eyes upon Jesus” says, “And the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.”  But for the third-soil hearer, it is the things of God, the things of eternity, that grow strangely dim in the light of the glitter and glamour of this world.

Many have forsaken Christ for the pleasures and cares and honors of the world.  Their love for Christ has been stifled by their love of this world.  So be careful that you do not forsake your first love.  Christ said that “because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved” (Matt. 24:12–13).  Do not let your love grow cold.  Do not drift away into darkness.  Do not put out the Spirit’s fire.  Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.  And beware of becoming worldly minded.  Fix your eyes not on what is seen, but what is unseen.

The Good Soil Hearers

Finally, let us look at the fourth soil.  The fourth soil stands for a good and regenerate heart that responds to the word with true saving faith.  We read in verse 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.”  The heart of the fourth-soil hearer is prepared and opened by God to receive the word.  Luke 8:15 tells us that the good soil stands for those with a good and noble heart.  In other words, he is given a new heart, which is a result of regeneration.  It is bad soil made good.  The heart of stone that rejects the word is replaced by a heart of flesh that responds with true repentance and saving faith.

Matthew 13:23 highlights that the fourth-soil hearer is the man who hears the word and understands it.  Now he understands the word.  A regenerate heart is needed to truly understand the gospel and to see our desperate need for it.  We are told in our Mark passage that the regenerate fourth-soil hearers hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop.  They produce fruit in keeping with repentance, and they prove their repentance by their deeds.

Regeneration is an invisible act, but it produces very visible fruit, as we read in Matthew 12:33.  Jesus says, “Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit.”

What is the fruit that the fourth-soil hearer produces?  First of all, it is the harvest of godly character.  It is the fruit of the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Gal. 5:22–23).  To bear that fruit, you have to have these godly qualities in increasing measure.

Secondly, the fruit that the regenerate fourth-soil hearer produces is a harvest of good works.  In Ephesians 2:10 Paul says, “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus [talking about being born again] to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”  What are these good works?  Good works are works of obedience to God’s will.  They are doing the good will that God has for us to do.  The true Christian gladly does what God wants him to do.  The one who truly loves Christ will obey his every command.  And he obeys his every command.  He does not pick and choose what to obey.  If you pick and choose what to obey, then you are not obeying.  To obey Christ as Lord is to obey in everything.

There is something to be said for the fact that out of the four different soils, only one of them represents the true, fruit-bearing believers.  This reminds us that God’s elect people are always a minority.  They are always a remnant.  It reminds us that many are on the broad way that leads to destruction, while only few are on the straight and narrow path that leads to eternal life.

The fourth soil may be in the minority, but the fourth soil produces a great harvest.  A normal good crop of the time was tenfold.  But the good soil here produces crops thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times what was sown.  Although this text indicates that there are different degrees of fruitfulness, it is important to note that all true believers produce an abundant harvest.  Thirty, sixty, and a hundred are all abundant harvests.  That being said, we should all strive to produce hundredfold harvest.  We should all strive for maximal fruit production because the most fruitful life in Christ is the most joyful life in Christ.

The rich harvest of fruit is only produced when we persevere in the faith.  Jesus says this in the Luke 8:15 version.  He says, “But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.”  We produce a bountiful crop only when we persevere in God’s ways.

The obvious question to ask is this: Am I a good-soil hearer that produces a crop thirty, sixty, and one hundredfold?  You may quickly and confidently assert that you are, but it is good to find out what other people say.  What do people with spiritual discernment see in your life?  Do you know?  Have you asked?  If told, did you listen or did you just disregard it?  I am not asking what just anyone thinks.  You can always find sycophants to tell you whatever you want to hear, if that is what you are looking for.  Ahab surrounded himself with self-aggrandizing false prophets who never had anything bad to say about the wicked king.  King Rehoboam had smooth-talking friends who always told him what his itching ears wanted to hear.  There are always plenty of people lined up to tell you what you want to hear, if that is what you are looking for.  But if you want truth, there is another way.

You should especially be interested in what those have to say who particularly represent and reflect God in your life—God-appointed delegated authorities, whether it be godly ministers or godly parents—through whom you can get an accurate picture of what kind of fruit you are producing.  You may be somewhat biased.  If you think you see all kinds of fruit in your life, but those whom God has put over you do not see this fruit, you should come to grips with the fact that you are deceiving yourself.  The person is being used by God to speak the truth to you in love, and this is your opportunity to repent and receive mercy.

But this can also apply for true believers who struggle with what they perceive to be a lack of fruit in their lives.  We have seen this many times.  Comfort can be received by a godly authority assuring you that he sees good fruit in your life, and you can go away happy in knowing there is fruit. 

Application

I will close with two main application questions.  The first is this:  Are you faithfully sowing the seed in the field?  Some, not all, are especially called and equipped to preach the gospel from the pulpit.  But all believers are called to go and make disciples of all nations.  We are all to be God’s fellow workers in his harvest field.  So be a faithful sower and share the gospel of salvation to the lost.  Spread the gospel far and wide.  Spread it to your family, to your neighborhood, to your school, to your workplace.  Do not presume upon knowing ahead of time the nature of the soil that you are dealing with.  We are not theological inclusivists.  But be all-inclusive in who you speak to about Christ.  You see, our target audience is everyone.  That is why the book we give is Good News for All People.

The second question is: Do you have the privilege of hearing the word?  Even if you are here for the first time, you have had the privilege of hearing God’s word.  The seed has been sown.  Many of you have been here for many years and have heard the word preached.  But the question is, what are you doing with the word being sown?  Notice, I did not say, what have you done, but what are you doing?  Be sure you are not the first soil.  If you have rejected God’s word even this morning, know that you are rejecting your only hope for eternal salvation.  Also, beware of being the second soil.  If you have a shallow, superficial faith, and if your commitment to Christ is conditioned upon circumstances, then the time of testing will surely come and you will quickly fall away.  And woe to you if, in time, you prove to be the third soil, if you are trying to serve two masters, Christ and the world.  Then the word of God in you will inevitably be choked out by the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth, and the desire for other things.

So I say to you: Pray to be, strive to be, and prove to be a fourth-soil hearer, one who understands the word, retains it, and by persevering in holy living produces a crop thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times what was sown, all to the glory of God and for the advancement of his kingdom.  Amen.

[1] See P. G. Mathew, “The Parable of the Four Soils,” https://gracevalley.org/sermon/the-parable-of-the-four-soils/.

[2] D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Joy Unspeakable (Wheaton, IL: Harold Shaw, 1984), 160.

[3] Jonathan Edwards, The Religious Affections (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1997 reprint), 54.

[4] Lindy Lowry, “11 Christians Killed Every Day for Their Decision to Follow Jesus,” accessed at: https://www.opendoorsusa.org/christian-persecution/stories/11-christians-killed-every-day-for-their-decision-to-follow-jesus/

[5] C. H. Spurgeon, “The Seed upon Stony Ground,” Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol. 19, accessed at: https://www.spurgeon.org/resource-library/sermons/the-seed-upon-stony-ground/#flipbook/

[6] C. H. Spurgeon, “Sown among Thorns,” Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol. 34, accessed at: https://www.spurgeon.org/resource-library/sermons/sown-among-thorns/#flipbook/