Luke 8:4-15; 2 Corinthians
11:19 – 12:9; Isaiah 55:10-13
In the Name of the Father and of the
+ Son and of the Holy Spirit.
A great crowd had been following Jesus
for several days. The crowd included Jesus’ disciples, Mary His mother, and
countless others who had heard His teaching and had witnessed His miracles and
were hoping both to hear and to see even more still. However, not all who
initially heard Jesus would remain with Him to the end. Therefore, to prepare
His disciples so that they would not lose heart when it would seem to them that
their preaching failed to produce visible or quantifiable results, Jesus taught
them to trust, not in their own methods, techniques, and crafted oratory, but
in the powerful and creative Word of God alone. This teaching Jesus presented
in the form of a parable, the Parable of the Sower and the Seed. For, the truth
is that many who hear the Word of God will not mature to produce the fruit of faith
and will fall into unbelief once again. But, why is that? Is the Word of God to
blame? Has the Word of God somehow failed to create faith or to sustain faith
to fruitfulness? Heavens no, of course not! No, the problem lies with the enemy
of both God and man and with man’s own sinful, restless, and rebellious heart,
soul, and mind.
Thus, Jesus teaches that the Word of God
is like seed cast by a sower. Like a seed, the Word has power in itself to
live, grow, mature, and bear fruit. However, for this to happen, there must be
soil, for the Word of God lives, grows, matures, and bears fruit in the soil of
human hearts. Thus, if a heart is hard and is closed to the Word of God, the
Word will not penetrate. Then the enemy, the devil, will snatch the Word away
from a man’s heart so that it cannot take root. The heart will remain hard and
closed until, perchance, the Word comes again. Indeed, this is the condition in
which all of our hearts once were, for this is the condition in which we were
conceived and born, a congenital condition which we have inherited from our
fathers, and from our father’s fathers, all the way back to our First Father
Adam, the very fruit of his original sin. Therefore, if faith fails to mature
and bear fruit, the fault lies not with the Word of God, but with hardened
human hearts, souls, and minds. For, it is by God’s grace alone, though His
Word alone, that any human heart is broken, tilled, softened, and prepared to
receive the Seed of His Word.
But, even when it does, maturation and fruitfulness
are not guaranteed. That is to say, once again, fruitlessness is not a fault of
the Word, which is always powerful, creative, and fruitful in itself, but the
fault lies with the condition of the soil of the human heart. Even when the
heart is receptive to God’s Word, it may be rocky or weed-infested, or both! As
in your own gardens, rocks in the soil prevent your plants’ roots from rooting
deep in the soil, which prohibits them from receiving the nutrients they need
to thrive and to be fruitful, and which also prohibits them from gaining a
strong anchor by which to remain firmly planted when drought, flood, and winds
come. Likewise, when weeds, thorns, and thistles grow up alongside your
maturing plants, they threaten to crowd them out and strangle them, and they
rob nutrients from your plants, and they compromise their rootedness and
stability. Like your gardens, rocks and weeds and thorns sometimes compromise
the soil of your heart. Jesus teaches that the rocks are the remaining hardness
in your heart which must be continually broken by the preaching of God’s Word
of Law that the stones of unrepentance and unbelief may be removed, that your
struggling and maturing faith will have root to weather the storms of trial and
tribulation that will surely come your way. Likewise, Jesus teaches that the
weeds and thorns are the “cares and riches and pleasures of life” which
compromise your faith and threaten to choke it out so that it cannot mature and
bear fruit.
Gardening and farming is hard work. Even
with good soil and just the right amount of sunshine, warmth, and rain, weeds,
blight, and insects harm and hinder the healthy growth and maturation of crops
and limit and prohibit their fruitfulness. In modern agriculture, a crop yield
of 1:3 is considered the minimum necessary to sustain human life. This means
that for every three seeds sown, one fruit must be produced for human
consumption, one for animal consumption, and one for planting to provide the
next crop. A multi-billion dollar industry is built around making crop yield as
efficient and plenteous as possible. In contrast to modern agriculture,
however, Jesus’ indiscriminate sowing of the seed of the Word of God in places
where it is likely to be snatched away by the devil, prohibited from taking deep
root, or strangled out by material cares and anxieties seems foolish, reckless,
and grossly inefficient. In fact, in only one quarter of the soil in which the
Seed is sown does faith mature and bear fruit. However, when and where it does,
it yields, not 1:3, but a hundredfold. Truly, God’s ways are not man’s ways,
and the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom.
Then, what would Jesus have His
disciples, His apostles, His pastors learn from this parable? He would have
them learn to lean not on their own understanding, but to trust in the Lord and
in His Word, the powerful and creative seed that will create faith in the
hearts of men where and when the Spirit of God chooses and is pleased. Their
job is not to devise more efficient means of sowing the seed, but to broadcast
and proclaim the Word of God to all people at all times and in all places. Our
God is not concerned with crop yields and ratios, but His Word has gone forth
from His mouth and it shall not return to Him empty, it shall accomplish the
purpose for which it was sent. That is a fact, a truth, and a promise. Thus,
men are, and will be, without excuse. No one will be able to say, “I did not
know,” or “I never heard.” Those who have ears to hear will hear because those
ears are given by God Himself, they are a fruit of God-created faith, the fruit
of the seed of His Word. However, those ears that are given to hear must
continue to hear and not become closed once again, for the good soil in Jesus’
parable are “those who, hearing the Word, hold it fast in an honest and good
heart, and bear fruit with patience.”
Often it seems as if the Word of God is
falling upon deaf ears. Even amongst those who receive the Word with joy, many
fall away disillusioned that they still face trials and tribulation in their lives,
that there is inefficiency or infighting in the church, that not everyone seems
to be as spiritual as themselves, or whatever other rocks, weeds, and thorns
Satan sows in their heart right along with God’s Seed of the Word. Jesus taught
His disciples to place their faith and trust not in what their eyes see but in
what their ears hear, in the Word of the Lord. The questions to be asked are
never “Is our church growing numerically and financially? Are we producing more
works, services, and programs? Are we targeting the right audiences, those who
will strengthen our congregation and make us more prosperous?” No, these are
not the questions the Lord would have us ask. The only question that matters is
this: “Is the Word of God being proclaimed in its truth and purity? Is the seed
being broadcast and sown wherever it can be?” If it is, then that’s all that
really matters. All your rationalizing, all your attempts at efficiency, all
your judging the faith and commitment of others, all your worrying, fretting,
and anxiety – these are the rocks, weeds, and thorns that are making you
fruitless and that threaten to destroy your faith altogether. Repent, and cling
to the Lord and His Word in humility and patience. He who has begun this good
work in you will bring it to completion in His way, in His time.
“He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
Hearing is a passive activity. If you desire to not hear, that takes effort.
You must stop your ears or drown out the noise, otherwise you will hear, you
cannot help but hear. Therefore, you do not need to do anything to hear. But,
you do need to not do something, that
is, you need to not refuse to hear,
to not close your ears, your heart,
and your mind to God’s Word. For, indeed, the Word is near you right now for
the forgiveness of your sins, the strengthening of your faith, and for life and
salvation for all who believe. Hear the Word proclaimed to you. Eat, drink, and
wear the Word of God made flesh in bread and wine and water. He alone who has
made you to be good soil is able to preserve you as good soil and make you
fruitful, even a hundredfold. The seed is the Lord’s, the soil is the Lord’s,
and the fruit is the Lord’s. You are His precious planting, the work of His hands
and the Word of His mouth. Remain in Him, and He will remain in you, and you
will be fruitful, and the Lord will be glorified.
In
the + Name of Jesus. Amen.
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