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Parable of the Sower

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Bob Bradley

_________________________ 

 

Mark 4:1-9

 

1 And he began again to teach by the sea side: and there was gathered unto him a great multitude, so that he entered into a ship, and sat in the sea; and the whole multitude was by the sea on the land.

2 And he taught them many things by parables, and said unto them in his doctrine,

3 Hearken; Behold, there went out a sower to sow:

4 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.

5 And some fell on stony ground, where it had not much earth; and immediately it sprang up, because it had no depth of earth:

6 But when the sun was up, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away.

7 And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit.

8 And other fell on good ground, and did yield fruit that sprang up and increased; and brought forth, some thirty, and some sixty, and some an hundred.

9 And he said unto them, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.

 

Mark writing about some of things that Jesus does…

 

1 And he began again to teach by the sea side: and there was gathered unto him a great multitude, so that he entered into a ship, and sat in the sea; and the whole multitude was by the sea on the land.

 

If you read in that out of the original, it will tell us some things about what is going on here.  When we picture in our minds, we picture Jesus on a boat and a few people on the bank and may be a few kids roaming around.  When you read this, you will find out that there could have been several thousand people here standing upon the shoreline and upon the bank when Jesus here is teaching.  It tells us, if I understand things correctly, in what I have read, this probably was the biggest crowd that He had ever had in His teaching up to this time.  The bigger ships that they actually fished with would be off the banks a bit because you could not get those that close to the shore.  The multitudes are here and He begins to teach by the seashore.  The multitudes gather and He gets into a little rowboat or something smaller than one of the fishing vessels and He gets out a little bit into the water.  Here He is out on the water and He is teaching the people. 

 

Picture in your mind, Jesus being out on a boat and looking towards the land.  He may have been between 40 and 100 feet out in the water.  He was there looking back towards shoreline and the bank went up steeply.  Looking at thousand and thousands of people there.  As you read, you find out that the majority of the crowds that followed Jesus, some followed to hear Him, but most followed Him just to get something to eat or to see Jesus do some miracles or maybe to get healed.  Many folks that followed Jesus Christ did not follow Him to learn some spiritual things.  They had selfish motives.  If had ever been on the water, you know that your voice carries if you are in a boat and speaking to people.  I have been out in water and in a lake after dark especially of the night and you could be a long way away from someone and you could just talk in a natural tone voice.  Your voice will carry on the water and you can hear it for a long way.  He wanted people to hear Him.  He wanted people to hear what He had to say. 

 

I have heard preachers say, “I don’t care whether people hear me or not.”  Then I wouldn’t waste my time.  If we have something that is truth then people need to hear it.  The multitudes are here, the crowds are here, and He is in a boat out in the sea looking back towards the shore and He is teaching them.

 

2 And he taught them many things by parables, and said unto them in his doctrine,

 

What is a parable? 

 

When you look up the word parable, it will tell us many things.  I know that we hear a definition today a parable that we hear a lot.  I think a parable is a whole more than this.  We hear people use the term about parables is something to use earthly to relate something heavenly or spiritually.  That is true but it is a whole lot more than that.  The word parable means to toss along side of something.  I thought today how could I actually explain what that means.  If you never saw guitar before, if you had no idea what a guitar was and if I was standing up here trying to explain to you what that guitar looked like, it would be hard for me to do.  I could tell you that it had a neck on it and you would think about this neck.  We could talk about keys on it you would think about the keys that you had in your pocket.  Or the string then you would think about your shoestrings.  If I would take that guitar out here and lay it down and you could see it then you would know exactly what that is. 

 

What Jesus is going to do here is he is going to throw along side, or He is going to throw out there some things that are earthly things that they know about; seed, ground, rock, and birds and things like that.  He is going to lay this out here before them.  It is concrete evidence.  It is not going to be able to be disputed.  With this he is going to be able show them some tremendous truths with this. 

 

He taught many things by parables.  I have said this before, many times, we are spoiled and many times, we are like babies.  What I mean is babies like milk and babies sometimes they like certain things.  We make babies out of them because we give them what they want instead of giving them what they need; we make bigger babies out of them.  The sad part about that is we have 40 year old babies.  Jesus is teaching the whole counsel of God.  What I meant to say a while ago about being spoiled, we like to hear about Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and that’s great.  We like to hear about the Samaritan woman.  We like to hear about John 3:16.  We like to hear about Zaccheaues being in a tree and those things are all great.  Those things all have their place.  The Bible tells us that we need to move beyond some of these things.  We need to move beyond repentance and we need to grow up according to the writer of the book of Hebrews tells us.  These things are great and they are great for us when we are babies and it is great for us to talk and bring out some deep spiritual truths and things about it.  However, there is more in this thing.  Jesus taught the WHOLE thing.  He did not leave anything out.  He just didn’t teach what was popular.  He didn’t teach what people wanted to hear.  He didn’t teach people the things that tickled their ears.  He taught them the whole counsel of God.  We need to hear that.  If we are ever going to grow up as Christian people then we need to hear the whole book.  We need to hear the whole thing. 

 

I have been in churches like this that they take Matthew, Mark, Luke and John; the four gospels and read a verse from that and they beat and bang and slam around on the verses they read and that’s all they ever talk about.  Next week you go back and you hear about the same thing repeatedly.  After a while, that stunts your growth.  That is what stunts Christian growth. 

 

If you take sheep and put them out in a pasture and let them eat in the same field after a while; when they eat all that is there then they are going to stop growing and reproducing.  They are going to get restless, they are going to get hungry, and they are going to start looking for somewhere else to go. 

 

That’s why it is so important to teach the whole counsel of God.  If we will teach the whole counsel of God, it will never get boring.  The teacher may get boring sometimes but the Word of God does not get boring.  If we read it and if we study it, I know that we are spoiled and we have been spoiled but let’s move up and grow up more.  Let’s get to the place that when the bully comes around and starts picking on us we will be able to stand up to him.  I’m talking about the enemy is what I am talking about.  Let’s grow up a little bit so that we can stand on our own two feet a little bit and when the enemy comes around then we don’t have to run because we know that “Greater is He that is in us than He that is in the world.”  We don’t have to be ashamed.  We don’t have to run off and hide.  If we have never been taught that then that is what we do, we run and hide.  Every time we have a problem we just want to burry our heads in the sand instead of facing it head on and dealing with it and saying that this is part of life and moving going on.  Then we just want to bury our head in the sand and make everybody feel sorry for us.  It is time that we grow up.

 

The Bible says that He taught them in His teaching.  He taught them His teaching.  Not somebody else’s teaching but He taught them His doctrine. 

 

Hearken

 

The word “Hearken” means to listen to or pay attention.  Jesus was going to speak but I could imagine the thousands and thousands people being on the shore and the racket and the rustling that was going on.  When He gets ready to speak, He says Hey, I want you to listen to me.  I have something that I want to tell you.  I want you to listen.  Be still or be listening. 

 

3 Hearken; Behold, there went out a sower to sow:

 

Everybody knows about sowing don’t we.  These folks living in the land of Israel knew about sowing.  They knew how to sow.  They knew they would prepare their ground.  They would do many things with it but hey would go out and they would sow their seed.  He is laying this out so He is going to be able to teach some spiritual truth by talking about some things that were very simple.

 

3 Hearken; Behold, there went out a sower to sow:

 

He says “hearken” listen, or be attentive.  I am going to tell you something here pay attention to what I am going to tell you.  We need to listen today, maybe not to every voice that we hear, but we need to listen to His voice.  We need to listen to the voice of Almighty God.

 

When I do that as a pastor, everything we do here will bring glory to His name.  [The things that I have control over]  The things that I recommend to you.  If I am listening to His voice and doing what I need to be doing or doing, what He is leading me to do.   Those things I recommend to this church will bring glory to His name.   

 

If you do the things and you listen to His voice, everything that you do will bring glory to His name.  Do you know what will happen?  He blesses us.  That is what He is doing. 

 

3 Hearken; Behold, there went out a sower to sow:

 

I want you to notice something about this parable.  We are going to be introduced to a sower, we are going to be introduced to some seed, and we are going to be introduced to some different types of ground in this story. 

 

I want you to think about something that the individual that is doing the sowing is not the focus here.  The seed is not going to be the main focus, but the main focus here in this story is going to be the ground on which the seed falls.  I’m not saying that the sower is not significant here because he is.  When you read on over through here, the sower here is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ.  We know that He is sower here.  Not only that but we know what He is sowing here is the Word of God.  We know that is very significant.  In this story and what he is teaching is the ground on which the seed is going to fall.

 

I don’t know if you have done much gardening or not and I know most of you have planted a few tomato plants and maybe a few things every now and then.  If you are really going to do much gardening or farming, it is a lot of work to get the ground ready to sow your seed.  It takes a lot of work/effort just to be able to plow the ground and turn all the weeds under.

 

I remember when we were home many years ago, we move from one side of the hill to the other side of the hill.  We had some field bottoms along the creek down through there and in the spring of the year, we would carry rocks out of these fields.  We had stuff out there called Johnson grass.  Johnson grass is stuff that if you don’t deal with it; it will take over.  There is a lot of preparation in getting your field reading to sow your seed. 

 

Here the sower is, we know the sower is the Lord Jesus Christ, we know the seed is the Word of God. 

 

3 Hearken; Behold, there went out a sower to sow:

4 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.

 

Here He is; these fellows didn’t have modern seed sowers as we have today.  Most grain and seed is put in the ground by drills.  When we were home, we had a seed sower on the back of a tractor that probably held a couple of three hundred pounds of seed in it.  It was a power take-off deal and you could space out your runs with your tractor.  You could sow many acres in a short time. 

 

Here they are and they did not have all those things.  They would carry their seed in a bucket or in a pail and as they would go, they would dip their seed out and they would sling it.  Sling it and walk.  Sling it and walk.  The sower is sowing the seed and as he is sowing the seed, the Bible says some fell by the wayside.  If Jesus is telling us and comparing us and comparing this particular individual to an individual heart. 

 

In the land of Israel, they do things a lot different than we do.  The land was divided up and each tribe had a certain part of land.  Within all the tribes, the different families had land.  Many times, they would take stones and put them out like corner stones.  We see that today.  We might drive stakes in the ground.  They would take stones and pile them up at each corner of the field.  These fields might be a long way between them.  They would make paths or roads down through these fields.  You just didn’t walk anywhere in the field.  If you were going to go from point A to point B, there was a path down through here and that is where you walked.  You just didn’t go down through the field because there was a road here and that is how you walked.  If you take plowed ground and plow it up and you start walking on it; it gets a little moisture in the ground and you walk on it some more especially if you have a lot of traffic on it, it gets real hard.

 

Many years when we were home all the roads where I lived were dirt roads.  They would get as hard as a rock because of the weight and how that they would be packed down.  This is something similar to what Jesus is telling us.

 

The sower goes through and he is sowing and as he is sowing some of the seed is falling by the way side.  If you look at the word “way side”, it means on the “roadside” or it means “a trodden down path.”  It means the path that goes between the fields.  As he is walking while he is sowing some is falling on good ground but some is falling by the way side.  If you go out here and you sow seed on hard ground, it is just going to lay there and the birds are going to get it.  You can start sowing any kind of a seed and it looked liked every buzzard, crow, black bird, and everything in five counties will be there shortly.

 

4 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.

 

If you have ever sowed much seed, you know that.  If you have a hard path here and you have, right beside of that ground that is tilled up and you wanted to sow it with your seed.  Then you know that some of it is going to spill over on the hard ground.  It is going to be impossible to keep all of the seed on the tilled ground.  When it falls on the hard ground it is not going to germinate there, it is not going to do anything there.  It is just going to lay there and the birds are going to come along and devour it.

 

13 And he said unto them, Know ye not this parable? and how then will ye know all parables?

14 The sower soweth the word.

15 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.

 

In other words, Jesus is saying if you are going to be able to understand the rest of the  parables that I am going to teach you then you are going to have to understand this parable.  This is going to be the foundation for you to build on if you are going to understand all the parables I am going to teach you then you are going to have to understand this parable.  If you don’t understand this parable then you are not going to be able to understand anything that I am going to teach you. 

 

15 And these are they by the way side, where the word is sown…

 

We know that the seed was the Word.

 

15 … but when they have heard, Satan cometh immediately, and taketh away the word that was sown in their hearts.

 

In the beginning of this I said this was like our hearts.  We have four different hearts here that we are going to be looking at. 

 

15 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.

 

When you look at the word bird here in the original it uses the “evil one” and it uses different names for him and one translation even mentions the word “slander” of course we know that is the devil.  I think some of the other translations calls him the “wicked one” and some different things.  The Word is sown… Some of the folks that sit in church every Sunday and every Wednesday have hearts that are hearts by the way side.  What I mean by that is that they have hard hearts.  They may claim to be Christians.  They may attend a church.  They may give to the church.  They may belong to the church.  They may do church functions, but these way side hearers are not saved.  That is a tough statement to make.

 

If the man of God preaches you the message that God has given him to preach and you listen to it, receive it, and obey it and do it; that’s great.  I’m not talking about these clowns out here now.  I’m talking about someone that God has called to preach or teach you His Word and God speaks unto that individual about this particular lesson or this particular message and he preaches or teaches that message unto you and you don’t hear it; do you think there are any consequences for that.  There are terrible consequences and we have that today in every church that I have ever been in.  There are people that are hard hearted.  Just like the road that we have been talking about the way side is trampled down, walked down, trodden down by people.  There are people’s hearts that get the same way.  Some people’s hearts gets so hard that you cannot penetrate it with anything.  God’s man preaches God’s Word and it goes nowhere.  It does nothing.

 

Sometimes we say that was for somebody else.  That was for this one or that was for that one.  When you are saying that, you have missed out something that God had for you.  You decided that you are too smart for that.  Or you decided that you are way past that in your Christian life and you don’t need that so what you have done; you have actually forfeited what God wanted to do for you then.  You threw that away.  Hard-hearted people are not going to heaven.  The Word is sown in their hearts.  They hear it but they don’t pay attention to it.  They hear what is said, but it goes in one ear and out the other and it has no effect on them whatsoever.  They are so busy with things.  They are letting their hearts and souls get trodden down and beat down by so many things.  When the Word of God is preached and taught even though it is alive, even though this seed has fallen upon our hard hearts, in that seed the Word of God is alive and it falls upon that heart that is hard as a rock it does not do anything.  There is no earth that can cover it up.  There is nothing there.  People today that sit in the pews of many churches today are so hard-hearted that they don’t ever listen to the Word of God.  They don’t ever listen to nothing.  If people would listen to the Word of God, they wouldn’t live the way that they live.  If people would listen to the Word of God, they wouldn’t act the way that they act.  If they would listen to it…it is one thing to say we hear, but when Jesus says let them that hath an ear let them hear; He is talking about hearing but He is also talking about obeying.  If we don’t obey then we really don’t hear. 

 

People are hard-hearted.  When the Word of God is preached and taught by God’s man through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God it is God speaking unto us.  If I will not and do not receive that, if I say I’m not going to receive that because that is for somebody else and I harden my heart against God’s Word the enemy and takes that seed that is alive which has the ability to produce a whole lot more in my life.  The enemy comes along and eats that up.  It happens folks.  It is a scary thing when people harden their hearts against the Spirit of Almighty God and we do that.  We sit.  We get in a rut.  We think it is not important.  I listened to him for ten years and he has told us everything he knows twelve times, I could on and on with that.  We just reach up there and turn it off.  You are not turning me off.  You are turning the only help that you have off and that’s the Word of God. 

 

It is serious.  If Jesus had not thought this was serious, He would not have wasted His time.  He would not have wasted His time to tell His disciples how important to make sure their hearts are prepared right to hear the Word of God.  Don’t say you know it all.  Don’t think you don’t need that.  Don’t ever say that is not for me.  Don’t do that.  Don’t say that I don’t have time for that.  Don’t ever say that I have so many irons in the fire that I just don’t have time.  Don’t say that.  Your fire may go out completely.

 

I have heard people say that.  I don’t have time.  I have too much going on preacher.  I have this going on and that going on.  The only day I get off is on Sunday and I’m not going to come to church then.  Some of those folks that have made those statements are in the grave tonight.  They have been there for a long time.  Don’t harden your heart against the Word of God.

 

I want you to remember, if the Word of God is not producing anything in your life as we talked about Sunday night, then there are some issues in our life.  When the Word of God is sown in our hearts and there is no ground there where it can be buried, germinate and grow up into fruit into our life.  We are in bad shape.

 

When you look at this story, seventy-five percent of the fruit or the seed that is sown does not produce anything.  Seventy-five percent of the seed that this sower sows does not bring forth anything.  It is not the seed’s fault.  It is alive and it is living.  The seed has everything in it that it needs to be able to produce and to grow.  The only thing that it needs is a heart that has been plowed up and ready to receive it.  75% is not going to bring forth anything.  That is sad. 

 

That is not a rule of thumb.  I think that probably more than 75% is going by the way side.  You see people dying lost and going out lost.  I was talking to a family a few days ago.  We get hard hearted.  We get to the place where we think, nobody loves me anymore, nobody cares about me anymore.  I have heard people blame God because this happened or that happened.  Don’t ever blame God.  Whatever God does is good for you and me.

 

5 And some fell on stony ground, where it had not much earth; and immediately it sprang up, because it had no depth of earth:

6 But when the sun was up, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away.

 

The Bible says that it fell on stony ground.  In Palestine and the land of Israel, a short ways under the ground there is limestone over there everywhere.  There were rocks over there everywhere.  Before they would sow their fields, they probably worked many, many hours gathering up rocks out of their fields and making their walls and fences. 

 

As the sower sows, as he is walking past some of these areas, some of it falls on stony ground just as it did by the way side where it had been packed down hard.  Some has fallen on stony ground where the Bible says here…

 

5 …where it had not much earth; and immediately it sprang up, because it had no depth of earth:

6 But when the sun was up, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away.

 

The sower is sowing the seed, he is scattering it, as he is scattering it some falls over here on ground that is very rocky.  Rocky ground holds heat, is dry, and has not much earth.  He sows the seed, the seed falls where there is not much earth and immediately it springs up.  If you ever sowed seed, you just don’t throw it on top of the ground, walk off, and leave it.  You sow your ground then you disc it, put it in the ground and cover it up.  Because it had not much earth on top of it, as soon as the sun sprang up then the seed did also.

 

When the seed sprang up, because of all the rocks and obstacles that were there, the rocks absorb heat from the sun so therefore in just a matter of a short period of time, the seed here on the stony ground withered away.

 

16 And these are they likewise which are sown on stony ground; who, when they have heard the word, immediately receive it with gladness;

 

It is the same seed.  There is nothing wrong with the seed.  

 

17 And have no root in themselves, and so endure but for a time: afterward, when affliction or persecution ariseth for the word's sake, immediately they are offended.

 

I am not going to have time to finish that but I want you to think about something.  Just as the individual, that we have talked about here that Jesus is comparing to a hard-hearted individual or the seed that fell by the way side. 

 

We have had people here just exactly like what I am going to say here.  Have you ever saw people that come to the altar.  The Word of God is preached, they come to the altar; they weep, they cry, they scream, they holler, they jump up and down, they run, and they get real emotional.  It just seems like you think that they are living right at the foot of the cross.

 

Have you seen people like that?  You should have said Amen on that because there have been a bunch of them come through here.  I’m not worried too much, on how loud you holler when you get here and Jesus isn’t either.  He is not worried too much, about how much you cry.  How many handkerchiefs have you used?  He is not worried about that. 

 

It is not about how loud you sing in the choir.   It is not how loud you get when you talk.  That is not it.  What is important is what we do when we walk through doors back there and go out here.  Any of us can holler in here.  Any of us can make all kinds of racket in here but it is a different story when we get outside. 

 

Emotional people are people that are emotional but they really don’t have a grip on anything.  I’m not saying anything against emotions.  I get happy too.  We all get happy and we should get happy.  There is nothing wrong with having emotions, but if my heart is not prepared to receive the Word of God then all the emotions that I express means nothing. 

 

This individual is an emotional individual.  I want you to think about people and picture in your mind people that you have seen that has come and got very emotional and got up for a month, or two or three.  They talked about how much they loved the lord and they were just going to turn the world upside down. 

 

Yet when the first persecution came, they put up their hands and quit.  We ware going to talk about that net Wednesday night. 

 

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