Matthew 13: 18
A Sower Went Out To Sow

In this one, in Matthew 13: 3, we have one of these parables of the Kingdom that Jesus gives us to help us understand the Kingdom of Heaven.  This one has to do with the sower, with seeds and with the germination and harvest of those seeds.  The truth of God is like seeds of grain which seem so ordinary, yet carrying in them the dynamic essence of life.

This little parable about spreading seed has a two-pointed effect in our understanding of the Kingdom: It explains the mixed successes of evangelism and short lived (supposed) faith which we see in the experience of many individuals.  But it also deals with us who believe ourselves to be regenerate Christians.  It primarily speaks about the individual receiving the Gospel; but it also applies to the individual hearing the Word of God not just as a candidate for salvation but as a faithful believer in all the periods of his life and Christian experience.

If you think about what the Lord said here, you will notice that there are three bad and three good responses to the Word.  They are equally applicable to one's hearing the word evangelisticly or hearing it as a devout Christian. 

I. THE THREE BAD RESPONSES TO HEARING THE WORD OF THE GOSPEL ARE CLEAR:

1. They are represented by seeds falling upon the hard path where the birds ate all of them; the seed falling on the stony and infertile ground; and the seed falling in the midst of thorns.

2. In the first case, there was no germination of the seed, for the seed became feed for the hungry birds.  Do you recognize this situation?  It is the person who hears the gospel and really has no appreciation for it and he puts it out of his memory.

3. In the other two instances, the seed germinated all right, but it was sown on ground inhospitable to fruition.  In this case the Lord said it germinated and then died out in the heat of the sun because it had no depth of earth.  By this he explains that the heat of persecution and difficulty caused the seedling to die out.  In the days and places of overt persecution it is very common for many to fall away from their profession of faith at the first wave of persecution.

4. In the third case -- the seed sown among the thorns.  The seeds actually germinated and began to grow into a little seedlings, but the thorns came up and choked out the fragile plants.  This represented, the Lord said, a situation where those who start out but who are not prepared to resist the competition of the cares of the world or the concern for luxury and riches.  No doubt, we would be correct to add ambition to succeed or sexual or biological desire as being equally competitive with the Gospel.  How many people are there who start out on the Christian life and then find that their passions, or ambitions or desired lifestyle causes them to push aside the way of the cross because of more pressing things.   How often have you seen this happen?

You must understand that, the so-called "decision" may be merely a starting process.  Evangelism isn't just getting people to raise their hands and assuming that they have come to know the Lord.  It often includes all the things that come later that people think are what you are supposed to do after a person trusts in Christ.  The person who has professed to accept Christ is like a tender seedling and we ought to encourage and nurture and support him in the same way we do these things to a seedling springing up in the garden.  We must recognize that there is not a hard and fast division between evangelism and Christian discipleship -- or even the practice of the Christian life.  You are practicing evangelism when you faithfully fit the supposed new convert into the community of God's people here, attempting to establish him in the faith. 

There may be someone here this morning who feels as if he is the stony ground or is in the midst of a situation where the thorns of his life are choking out the seed of the Word.  You feel as if you are stony ground and the seed will not take hold.  But that is not so.  In the parable, once the seed was thrown on the wrong kind of ground there was no hope for a good outcome, for the nature of the illustration limits the parable.  But in real life, you can -- in an instant -- change from being bad ground to being good ground, by crying out to the sower to ameliorate your hard and stony ground or your thorn-choked life.

But lest we miss what I think is the main message of God for us today, let me mention my second point: That is, that just as there are 3 bad responses to the seed,

II. THERE ARE ALSO 3 GOOD RESPONSES TO THE GOSPEL AND THE WORD OF GOD.

1. Evangelisticly this is so.  You will find that in some cases people just seem to take off in their Christian lives, seemingly, a moment after believing on Christ.  Others go through a period in which they may be uncertain about the reality of their faith but then it becomes clear that they have credible Christian faith.  In other cases, the great harvest is not until many years after their supposed conversion; but the long-term picture shows that they, without doubt, have trusted Christ.  There are some people who are thirtyfold believers, some sixtyfold and some hundredfold Christians and one cannot make any permanent observations about it except to say that if they are true Christians they do indeed show the evidence of Christian faith. 

2. But this is also true in another sense that carries the Lord's meaning further.  This is what I really would like to get at.   We as established Christians read and hear the Word of God.  And in our own lives it bears a wonderful harvest.  Sometimes it bears a hundredfold; sometimes sixtyfold; sometimes thirtyfold.

In seeds, of course, this refers to the number of bushels of grain which one harvests in return for the amount of seed he sowed.  It appears that a hundredfold harvest would be phenomenal: for every bushel of seed -- a hundred bushels of grain!  In the case of the seed of the Word of God, sometimes when we are in church or in Bible study or at our personal devotions, the Word is more fruitful in our hearing of it than at other times.  Indeed, sometimes we hear it so shallowly and so partially that our perception is like the path where the seeds are sown.  We are thinking of a psychological or a financial problem, or an interpersonal problem, and the seed finds no root.  Or we are so sleepy, or we are angry; or we are encumbered about our weekday responsibilities so that the seed does not take root in the hard ground of the path, and then the seed is gone.

And sometimes, because of the same sort of things, we find that the seed bears only 30 fold when it might have produced a hundredfold.  Indeed, it is the experience of us all that we find periods of spiritual growth come and go.  One time of devotions is dry and somewhat unproductive and another is rich and spiritually rewarding. One Sunday morning is not of much help and the best we can say is that we were faithful to the Lord's commandment; But then, the next is a time of great spiritual refreshment.

Sometimes this is just the Lord's timing; but at other times it has to do with the way we are, or are not, prepared.  The latter calls us to prepare the soil for the reception of the supernatural seed, the Word of God.

I am speaking primarily about the formal teaching in the church but, with some adjustments, what I say could be applied to your times of devotion during the week.

1. First, spade up the soil.  Come to church with an attitude of expectancy.  God the Holy Spirit is here in a special way in the assembly of those who are gathered together in Jesus' name.  "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst," Jesus said.  We ought to expect that it will be a place where we will likely be taught of God. 

And those of us who are privileged lead the worship Sundays let us do so in a way that is prayerful and conducive to a bountiful harvest. 

2. Second, get rid of the birds, so to speak.  And pull up the thorns and weeds out of your spiritual garden.  Do your best with God's help, to leave you anxieties, and angers, and rivalries, and hurts, on the outside.

In many churches everybody checks his brains and common-sense at the door.  I would suggest that it would be best to keep your brain and common-sense and check your distractions at the door.  This is a matter for prayer as we prepare to worship the Lord and to hear his Word.  To do this is to improve the soil for the seed.

3. Third, fertilize the soil and pray at the outset: "Open thou my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law" or some similar thing.

Teach me, O Lord, the way of thy statutes; I will keep it to the end.  Give me understanding that I may keep thy law and observe it with my whole heart.  Lead me in the path of thy commandments, for I delight in it.  Incline my heart to thy testimonies and not to gain.

4. Fourth, receive the seed and consider it.  The 17th  chapter of Acts says that  the Bereans "received the Word with all readiness of mind."  And it was not as if they were gullible and accepted any silly thing that a supposedly intelligent teacher taught them, because the same passage reports that "they searched the Scriptures whether these the things were so."  I can't tell you how much it encourages me when I find out that someone has remembered something I have said and cares enough to ask about what it means a day or two later.  I believe that they are, figuratively speaking, cultivating the soil.

5. Fifth, nurture the seed once it has sprouted.  Call it to mind and think about it on Sunday afternoon and in the week.  Sometimes I do this as a result of having spoken about a text and I see an entirety new, additional truth in the text.  Then I wish I could preach my sermon over again with the additional insight I have.

Pray that by your reverence, your attentiveness and also by the things you have learned in the past, the seed will not fall upon inhospitable ground but upon good ground where the harvest in some cases is thirtyfold; in others sixtyfold; and in others a hundredfold. 

And remember that not only in this aspect of your own personal sanctification does the Word have this effect of the living seed of eternal life but that it has an equal effect on those whom the Lord is pleased to bring to himself.  Just as a little seed -- sometimes as little as a grain of sand -- is an almost miraculous object for it contains the essence of life, so too, the eternal seed of the Word and truth of God contains the essence of eternal life and the blessing of heaven in its nature.  Let us be filled with wonder that time and again in our experience, "The Sower goes forth to sow seed."