Springtime has quickly replaced fall as my favorite season, because I love to see the new life that arrives with spring. The cows calve, the goats kid, the chickens start to increase their egg production. Milk comes in freely, my wife and girls starts playing in the dirt doing ‘garden prep’, and the early vegetable begin to spring up. The trees put on flowers, the leaves and the grass start to shoot up. Around here, we are well into the spring season and the “showers of blessings” don’t show signs of letting up anytime soon. With the rain comes a giant growth spurt for all plant life. But the plants need more than water to live; they need to be planted in the perfect type of soil. When a seed falls into the perfect ground it is allowed to penetrate, germinate, and with proper cultivation it will produce a yield. Jesus makes this observation in the following passage.
Matthew 13:3-8
3 And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow;
4 And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up:
5 Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth:
6 And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away.
7 And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked them:
8 But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold.
9 Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.
If you know much about the Bible, you will realize that Jesus really isn’t interested in the farming practices of His day. He is really giving us a deep understanding of how the human heart operates in respect to biblical truth. He later tells His disciples exactly what He means in the parable He told the multitude.
18 Hear ye therefore the parable of the sower.
19 When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the way side.
20 But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it;
21 Yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while: for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended.
22 He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful.
23 But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.
Jesus is telling them that the seed is the Word of God, or a specific truth that is found in the Bible. If that seed falls by the way side – a walking path that has been made hard by often traveling – it can’t penetrate the soil and the birds see it as easy pickings. Jesus compares this to someone who doesn’t understand the biblical truth presented to them and the devil snatches away that truth so the Bible can produce fruit in that area.
There are many things that can make our hearts so hard that the Word of God will just sit on the surface. We can let pride, fear, bitterness, anger, and sin in general prevent the Word from penetrating our hearts. We have the ability to allow the Bible to work on us or we can harden our hearts like pharaoh did in the Old Testament.
Then there is the stony ground; I can see the old farmer plowing up his field behind a sturdy ox and hitting another rock. Not wanting to hit this rock every time he plows – and thus dulling his tool – he takes the time to pick up the stone and throw it toward the pathway, so he won’t hit it again. over time, there has become quite a large number of these rocks gathered by the roadside, and now as he broadcasts his seed some of the seed heads – perhaps wheat seeds – make their way into the stony ground. The rain soon comes and moistens the seeds and the rocks are warmed up during the day making it just right for those seeds to germinate past the rocks. However, their roots could find no good ground – soil – to get established in, and when the sun came up, they soon withered and died.
Jesus likens this type of ground to someone who has understood the Biblical truth being presented, and they even found joy in it! Unfortunately, they got ahold of the Word, but the Word didn’t get ahold on them. This person knows that they have a need to pray, and when they heard that sermon on prayer, they knew the preacher was talking straight to them. They told themselves that they would do better and even pray as soon as they got home. However, they were too hungry to pray when they got home, and their favorite TV show was on, or they got sidetracked by a popup on their phone, and pretty soon that truth that they understood has withered and died in their stony heart.
Again, I see the farmer with his plow – not wanting to damage it – stays a good distance away from that stony ground. This ground is harder to work and often gets neglected. A thorny blackberry bush here, a thistle pops up there, pretty soon this strip of ground is nothing but weeds. Maybe the farmer gets around to cutting it back with his thistle just before he sows crop, but doubtless, some seeds fall by the wayside, some fall on the stony ground and some fall in the weeds. This seed in the weeds also germinates and even establishes root, however the thorns and weeds – having already established root – outgrow this good seed and rob all the sunlight. The weeds choke it to where it can never produce fruit. The ground wasn’t cultivated – or prepared/tilled – and had the roots of the undesired plants removed.
This ground, Jesus says, is like a man that hears the Word and understands the truth that the Bible is teaching, but the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke it out, and it becomes unfruitful. As Christians, we must live in the world, but we are called to be separate from the world. We will never bring forth the fruit that we are designed to produce if we care more about pleasing others – or even our own flesh – than being pleasing to God. We must allow God to cultivate our hearts by ripping out all of the things of this world that have established deep tap roots in our lives. Christians must live holy lives in order to live happy, blessed out lives.
And finally, we get to the good ground. This is the man – or woman – that hears the Word, understands the truth, applies it to their life, and allows their heart to be cultivated by that understanding. Their heart was not so hardened by life that the Word of God could not penetrate it; they were not trusting in their own strength but in Gods, so they allowed that truth to germinate and take root in their life – being able to stand against the tribulation; they allowed the Word of God to uproot the covetousness and worry in their life – to cultivate their heart so that nothing would compete with the truths of the Bible; so God was able to bring forth fruit in their life.
We must be good ground that allows the Word of God to penetrate our hearts, germinate in our hearts, and cultivate our hearts, so that God may produce a yield of fruit in our lives.
S.T.
I Thessalonians 5:24
"Faithful is he..."
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