Mark doesn’t give us the chronology in which this next event happens. But Matthew indicates that this event is a continuation of a long day of teaching that Jesus had starting with the disciples picking the heads of grain as they walked through the fields on the Sabbath. On that same day, according to vs 1 of chapter 4, Jesus sat by the seashore. Jesus teaching at the beach seems to be a common occurrence in the gospels, as most of the time His teaching was outdoors. And on this occasion such large crowds gathered to Him that he moved to a boat and the crowds came near the waterline to hear Him.
Jesus began to teach them, and He spoke to them in parables. Just as a reminder, a parable is not a morality tale, it’s not an allegory. It is a fictional story set in the physical world used to teach spiritual principles. The parable that He tells is one that would be readily appreciated by his audience, who were from an agrarian culture, people that would easily understand and relate to this illustration of sowing and reaping. Not only that, but surrounding the Sea of Galilee were farm fields on the hillsides which could have been in the process of being sown at that very moment. And so the people could have been hearing Jesus describe what their eyes were witnessing in the distance.
Now we are fortunate, because in this parable Jesus explains the it later to the disciples. So we can be certain that we understand what He was teaching. That’s not always the case with parables. So there are two parts to this passage, the first part is the telling of the parable which the crowd received, and then the explanation of the parable which the disciples received. And there is an interlude in between where Jesus explains why that is so.
So Jesus presents the parable to the crowd on the beach saying in vs 3, "[Listen [to this!] Behold, the sower went out to sow; as he was sowing, some [seed] fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate it up. 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. And after the sun had risen, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away. Other [seed] fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked it, and it yielded no crop. Other [seeds] fell into the good soil, and as they grew up and increased, they yielded a crop and produced thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold." And He was saying, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."”
Now that’s all that the crowd got to hear. They had to figure it out from there. And I have to imagine that even though the crowd was from an agrarian culture, even though they probably had living examples on the hillsides doing the exact thing that Jesus was speaking of, they probably had no clue as to what He was really saying. Perhaps the best that they could extract from it would have been something along the lines of - most of your work will be unprofitable, but if you do a lot of it, some will be profitable. So perhaps they thought the moral of the story is to work hard and some of it will pay off eventually. After all, there was no real reason for the people to be see a spiritual application in that story. Everything that the gospels tell us makes it pretty clear that the multitudes who were drawn to Christ were really only looking for physical “blessings” in the way of food, or healing, or being able to have Israel reinstated as an independent monarchy under the reign of the Messiah who would be an actual king and would defeat their enemies.
Their inability to discern the truth of the parable is why Jesus ends the story with the cryptic phrase; “he who has ears, let him hear.” This was not a call for them to listen. Rather, it was a call for those who were spiritually aware to understand the spiritual lesson being taught. It was said in recognition that they were not able to understand spiritual things. They were only interested in physical things. But Jesus is saying that there is more than financial advice here. There is a spiritual lesson which they needed to hear, but they first needed to gain spiritual awareness.
So Jesus has this great big crowd who have all come to see Him. And He gives them this cryptic sermon that they can’t possibly figure out on their own and then He walks off the beach. And I’m sure the disciples think that Jesus has blown a good opportunity. He failed to make the message clear, and bring it home with a suitable sentimental story and an invitation to walk the isle and repeat this prayer after me.
So perhaps reproachfully, in Matthew’s account they say, “Why do You speak to them in parables?” There could have been a large number of people who would have made a commitment to follow Christ that day, but instead, He left a lot of people on the beach scratching their heads, asking one another, “what did it mean to you?”
So the disciples begin to ask him about the parables, and He answers by saying in vs 11 "To you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God, but those who are outside get everything in parables, so that WHILE SEEING, THEY MAY SEE AND NOT PERCEIVE, AND WHILE HEARING, THEY MAY HEAR AND NOT UNDERSTAND, OTHERWISE THEY MIGHT RETURN AND BE FORGIVEN.”
Now that answer deserves a message all of it’s own to fully understand the depths of what Jesus said. But we aren’t going to take the time to parse it all this morning. However, the gist of what Jesus is saying is that it takes spiritual life, new eyes and new ears that are spiritually opened, in order to understand the spiritual truth of the parable. The disciples had that new life. The multitudes did not.
In His answer Jesus revisits the principle taught in the Parable of the Talents. That to him who has, more shall be given, and to him who does not have, even what he has shall be taken away. In other words, those who had spiritual life would receive more, and those that did not have spiritual life would even lose what they did have, which was natural life. Jesus says the same thing here in regards to why He speaks in parables. If they don’t have spiritual life, then they cannot understand spiritual truth.
It really goes back to what Jesus said to Nicodemus in John 3. You must be born again. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Without being born again, without new eyes and new ears, there can be no understanding of spiritual things.
Then Jesus goes on to explains the parable to the disciples. Vs. 13 And He said to them, "Do you not understand this parable? How will you understand all the parables?” Here is the thing. Without illumination from the Holy Spirit, without eyes opened by the Lord, ears that made to hear, there can be no understanding. That is why salvation is of the Lord. The Lord must open our eyes and ears so that we understand the truth.
Now the popular title of this parable is the Parable of the Soils. That seems to make sense, and that’s what most commentators call it. But Jesus calls it in Matthew 13 the parable of the sower. However, the tendency to call it the parable of the soils is due to the fact that Jesus describes four types of soil in the parable. He gives practically no description of the sower. We are not even told who he is. But we can deduce that the sower is Jesus Christ Himself. And we can find justification for that in another parable.
There is a parable which is found in vs 24 of Matthew 13, called the parable of the wheat and the tares. And Jesus explains that parable in vs 37, saying, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man…”
I’ve mentioned before a principle of hermeneutics called expositional constancy, which means that symbols found in scripture seem to consistently have the same meaning. And you might be able to apply that in this case. It’s safe to say that if the Lord is the sower in one place, He certainly could be the sower in another place. After all, the good seed comes from Him, doesn’t it? That’s not a stretch. So we could conclude then that the one who sows initially is the Lord Jesus Christ, the One who has the words of life.
And that assumption clues us in on what is the seed in the parable. The seed is the word of God. Luke records this same parable and in Luke 8:11 he adds “the seed is the Word of God.” So the message of the sower is the Word of God. Jesus began His ministry preaching the kingdom of God is at hand. Over and over again He has given instructions concerning the kingdom of God, or the kingdom of heaven. The message is that Jesus is the King of the kingdom of heaven, and His rule is over heaven and earth. The message is the good news, the gospel, that God has made a way for man to enter into His kingdom through Jesus, so that man might receive the blessings of the kingdom. The blessings of the kingdom are spiritual life, abundant life, eternal life. So the gospel, the word of God, is the seed which Jesus Christ is spreading abroad over the earth.
And I think the point should be emphasized that without the word of God a man cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Jesus doesn’t give an example here of a patch of soil in which no seed was cast, because it should be obvious that without seed, there can be no growth, no life. So it’s important that we recognize the essentiality of the word of God in salvation. I could say a lot more about that, but we don’t have time. However, I do want to emphasize it, because I’m afraid that so often today the word of God is being de-emphasized. We substitute all kinds of things in the church for the preaching of the word, music, skits, sentimental stories, films, etc. And we wonder why people are not saved. Or when they claimed to be saved, why there is little evidence of it. Paul said in 1Cor. 1:18 “For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”
Now that brings us to the soil. Jesus gives us four types of soil. And the soil symbolizes the heart of man. The heart, when spoken of spiritually, is really the soul. It is the seat of man’s intellect, emotions and will. Jesus references the hardened heart particularly in the first soil, pictured as the packed hard road beside the field. There were byways through the farmer’s fields that allowed people to traverse across their property without trampling on the crops. And these byways were not cultivated. They were hard packed. That’s a picture of a hard heart, the intellect that has rejected the word of God because it seems foolishness to them.
Jesus says some of the seed cast by the sower falls on the hard packed soil that is not broken up. It lays on top of the ground and Jesus says the birds of the air come and eat the seed. He says when anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, Satan comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. So we see in that statement several things. First, the necessity to understand the word. That incorporates man's intellect and divine illumination. Secondly, the birds are interpreted as Satan. That references the devil and his angels, and Jesus indicates that they can snatch away the word of God. The word of God is foolishness to these people who don’t understand it. So they disregard it, and the devil makes sure that it is dismissed as foolishness and does not come back to their mind. And the third thing Jesus teaches in that statement is that the soil is the heart. Matthew says the word of God was sown in the heart.
Romans 10:10 says, “for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.” The first soil illustrates a hard, unbelieving heart in which the word is not received, and which the devil and his angels snatch away.
Jesus next interprets the rocky soil. Vs16 "In a similar way these are the ones on whom seed was sown on the rocky [places,] who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy; and they have no [firm] root in themselves, but are [only] temporary; then, when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately they fall away.”
Rocky soil is soil that is a very thin layer of dirt over a bed of rock. And because the root can’t go down, the growth spurts up, but when the sun becomes hot, there is no moisture in the soil and the plant wilts and eventually dies. Jesus interprets this as a person who hears the word, but has not counted the cost of discipleship. There is a cost to Christianity, a cost to following Christ. It requires a sacrifice of your will, in exchange for doing His will. Some people are happy to accept that Jesus died for their sins so that they can receive the blessings of God. But they don’t realize that they have to die to their flesh as well. Jesus said take up your cross and follow Me. That’s what it means to confess Jesus as Lord. These people pictured in the rocky soil, they were not saved and then lost it - they were never saved at all. They had a superficial experience, but never a true conversion. They had an external growth spurt, but never had internal life.
I’m afraid that there are a lot of people today that consider themselves Christian, who may have even said the sinner’s prayer or walked the aisle, and yet they have never been converted. And the reason they have never been converted is because they never truly repented. To repent is more than saying sorry. It’s dying to the old man, the old nature that you might be born again into new life.
The third soil is the thorny soil. Charles Spurgeon gave a great sermon on just this soil alone. He hardly mentioned the other soils, just the thorny soil. And if I had to guess why it’s because this is the most pervasive soil. Thorns are pervasive, aren’t they? I was noticing just the other day that the first things to get green in the woods around my house is the thorns. They take over. You don’t need to plant thorns, they are naturally prolific.
Jesus said in vs18 "And others are the ones on whom seed was sown among the thorns; these are the ones who have heard the word, but the worries of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.” I’ve always had a question in my mind whether or not this person pictured here is saved or unsaved. The first two were clearly unsaved. This one I’m not so sure. I think the indication is that if he persists in that condition then he is unsaved. But perhaps there is a chance that this person is saved, he has new life, but he backslides. He turns back to the things of the world that he was supposed to have forsaken. He becomes so enamored with the world again and the pursuit of money, or his career, or pursuing pleasure, that it chokes the spiritual life to the point that it doesn’t produce fruit.
But maybe I’m being overly generous in that assumption this person could be saved. Because Jesus says in Matt. 7:16-20 "You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn [bushes] nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know them by their fruits.” So, the bottom line is that a life that does not bear fruit is not truly a Christian. Perhaps there is a time in the life of a Christian where God has to do some pruning, some cutting away, some cultivation in order to take away the thorns and weeds which are choking out their spiritual life, but the bottom line is that fruit is the evidence of spiritual life and the lack of fruit is evidence of no spiritual life.
Well that leads to the last type of soil, and that is the good soil. The seed which fell on the good soil *yielded a crop, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty.” Jesus said in vs 20 "And those are the ones on whom seed was sown on the good soil; and they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold." The number of the fruit there is not of primary importance. But what is important about the good soil is that it is fruitful. How much fruit may depend on other conditions. But the point is that you know that they are believers because they bear fruit.
The question is, what is fruit? A common misconception is that fruit is leading other people to Christ. That may play a part in it, but that is not specifically what Jesus is talking about. Fruit is righteousness. It’s a life of righteousness. Not just being declared righteous by faith, which is justification. But living righteously, which is sanctification.
I’ll give you a couple of verses to support that. Phil. 1:9-11 says, “And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ; having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which [comes] through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.” The fruit of righteousness. It comes through Christ living in you. No longer you living for your desires, but Christ living in you.
Another is Heb. 12:10-11 talking about our earthly fathers, “For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He [disciplines us] for [our] good, so that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.” There it is again, the fruit of righteousness, sharing in God’s holiness. And I might suggest that the discipline of the father is pruning and cutting down the thorns so that the plant might bear fruit.
Righteousness is the fruit of the new life. John said in 1John 3:7 “Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous.” That’s the evidence of being truly saved. That’s the evidence of being a Christian. There is a new life of righteousness which is evident to the world.
That life of righteousness is what the scripture refers to as sanctification. Hebrews 12:14 says, “Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.” Sanctification is holiness, righteousness. It is being holy because He is holy. It is living righteously because you have been made righteous. And so let me close by saying this. Examine yourselves this morning in the light of this parable. Which soil do you think characterizes the state of your heart? Are you someone who thinks this message is foolishness and going to forget about it as soon as it’s over? Then you are the soil by the road. The devil has snatched away the truth so that you cannot be saved. Or are you like the rocky soil? You had some sort of spiritual experience once and because of that you think you are saved. But you never repented, and in reality the word of God has never taken root in your heart. And so there has not been any new spiritual birth or spiritual life.
Or do you recognize that you are the soil that is thorny? You believed the word, you have had some spiritual life, but the the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth have choked out the word, and your life is unfruitful. If I had to guess a lot of people here this morning fit in this category. If that’s the case, you need to uproot those thorns, confess your sin to the Lord and ask Him to cleanse you, denounce your love for the world, and ask the Lord to renew a right spirit within you. Repentance is the plow that produces good soil, which results in the fruit of righteousness.
I urge you to pray the prayer of David found in Psalm 51:10, 12, 17 Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me. ... 12 Restore to me the joy of Your salvation And sustain me with a willing spirit. ... 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.
That repentance breaks the hard soil, uproots the thorny ground, and softens the heart into good soil, that responds to the word of God, and does the works of righteousness. I trust that you will respond this morning to the conviction of the Lord, that you might be given eyes to see and ears to hear, so that you might have new life from God..
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