Now I wanna remind you where we are here because we're gonna skip some things in Matthew 13 and I want to have you recall that last time we read verses 10 through 17 and described the occasion when Jesus, because of the people's consistent rejection of the message of God, He began teaching in parables. We saw in verses 10 through 17 that the reason Jesus did so was to reveal spiritual truth to his people and conceal spiritual truth from the rejecting nation as a whole. Parables, it's sometimes odd for us to think of them this way, but they are the great concealing and revealing ministry of Jesus. They are not fables to entertain, they are stories with purpose and useful as teaching tools because they are highly relatable. They deal with the everyday life of the people whom Jesus is speaking to. That lesson about the nature of parables comes in between Jesus telling a parable and explaining a parable. So just look at Matthew 13, kind of the structure of it. Verses one through nine, Jesus tells the parable of the sower. And then verses 10 through 17, he explains to the disciples why he began teaching in parables. And then verses 18 through 23, he gives an explanation of the parable of the sower. So we looked at that middle section last time, and we're gonna look this time at the parable itself and the explanation that comes afterward. Incidentally, this is one of the parables that all three synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, record for us in detail. You can find the other records of this in Mark chapter 4 or Luke chapter 8. The essential story is the same. I'm going to note a couple of exceptions when we go along here on the way. But to set the scene, Jesus is in Capernaum, in Galilee, in northern Israel, along the shore of the Sea of Galilee. And he had gone into a house with his disciples and was teaching and he was Healing there and at some point later in that day verse 1 in chapter 13 tells us Jesus Leaves the house he exits the town there's he's followed by a huge group Who go with him to the shoreline and so while the crowd stays on shore? If you picture a seaside or a shoreline, it usually slopes up. So while the crowd stays on shore, Jesus gets into a boat, goes just off into the water and turns from the boat and teaches the crowd on shore that are kind of in this natural amphitheater as he speaks to them from the boat. Matthew chapter 13, we're gonna read verses one through nine, and then we're gonna skip down to verses 18 through 23. On the same day, Jesus went out of the house and sat by the sea, and great multitudes were gathered together to him so that he got into a boat and sat, and the whole multitude stood on the shore. Then he spoke many things to them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went out to sow, and as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside, and the birds came and devoured them. Some seed fell on stony places where they did not have much earth, and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth, but when the sun was up, they were scorched because they had no root. They withered away. Some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them. And others fell on good ground and yielded a crop, some a hundredfold, some 60, some 30. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. Now, skip down to verse 18. Therefore, hear the parable of the sower. So this is the explanation. When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by the wayside. But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, yet he has no root in himself but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles. Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word and he becomes unfruitful. But he who received seed on good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces, some a hundredfold, some 60, some 30. This is possibly the best known parable of Jesus, and in fact, it might be the easiest to understand. In fact, in Mark's gospel, before Jesus gives the explanation of this parable, he says this in Mark 4 verse 13, Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all parables? In other words, if you can't understand this parable, you're probably not gonna understand any of them. That said, we would not be the first knuckleheads in history to miss the point of this parable. So let's put our thinking caps on, get ready to do a first century soil survey, and try to understand this parable through the eyes and ears of the original audience to whom Jesus was speaking. As Jesus describes various results of first century farming practices, we're going to look at what the similarities are, what the differences are, and what it all means. So let's start with what is the same. It's easy to see the point of this parable is going to have something to do with the differences between the soils and the result of sowing seed there. But I think the place to start is not seeing what's different, it's making a note of what's the same. When you go through this parable, and you think about the different results, there's still a lot that is the same. The sower is the same. The seed is the same. The field, even though Jesus doesn't actually mention the field, it's the same field. And you can picture this in the minds of the first century people who he was talking to. Here is how sowing in the first century Israel worked. There were no farm tractors, so obviously everything was done by hand, and it was not done in neat little rows. The previous season's crops would have been pulled out, The farmer would go through the field with essentially a kind of rake, and he would scratch away at the surface. He would spread the loose topsoil so that the loose topsoil was all around, so that from his vantage point, looking from above, from his perspective, the whole field would have appeared the same. And that's gonna be important for later on in this story. There is this thin layer of topsoil that would have covered any area with rocks, any area with thorns or roots or weeds would have been hidden under the surface. The only thing that would be different in the eyes of the sower would have been the path that was on the side of the field. with a sack of seeds over his shoulder, would walk through the field in some sort of orderly manner, grabbing the seeds, throwing them out. Literally the word for this is broadcasting. He would be broadcasting the seed out into the field, throwing it in a wide radius. It was not a a neat and orderly process. It was not a everybody has a row and there are holes and there are seeds going into the specific holes. That is not how it worked in the first century. He can see where the edge of the field is, of course, The fields were not separated by fences or fence rows. They would have been separated by walking paths. The walking paths at the side of the field would have usually been about somewhere between maybe two to three and a half feet wide. open for any person to walk on as they left the village and headed out into the countryside. The pathways became well-worn. They became hard-packed with dirt. As a matter of fact, if you think back to chapter 12, the story of the disciples walking through the fields and reaching out and grabbing handfuls of grain, it's because they're on some of these narrow, hard path hard packed pathways that would have been between the fields. So as the sower goes out and he tosses a seed, he is naturally going to get some at the edge of the field and it would go over into the pathway as well. Or be, even if he was really accurate with his hand, it could be picked up by the wind and get outside of the field. But in the field itself, once the seed was spread out and broadcasted into the field, the man would come back with that same kind of rake and sort of scratch over the field in an orderly manner to, again, disturb the topsoil, make sure the seed was underneath a little bit of soil, covering it with dirt. But it's the same sower, it's the same field, it's the same seed. When it comes to the different results, it's not the field, and it's not the sower, and it's not the seed that makes the difference. It has to be the individual bits of soil that the seed lands in. Even when we get to the interpretation of the parable, Jesus doesn't tell us who the sower is, nor where the field is, but he does identify the seed. Look down at verse 19. When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it. Then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the one who received seed by the wayside. Jesus calls this seed the word of the kingdom. It's like receiving seed. Mark and Luke's gospel recorded even more simply than that. Mark says the sower sows the word. Luke says the seed is the word of God. This is the good news, the message of God's kingdom going out into the world. Ultimately, this is a parable that tells us about the way that the word of God is encountered. This does mean we can identify the sower then as anyone who is proclaiming the word of God, whether it is a preacher in a pulpit, whether it's a church member at work or at school witnessing, that's the person who the sower is and the world itself would be the field. Although Jesus never says that. He simply says the seed is the word of God and here's what happens when the word goes out. This isn't an exercise in agriculture. It's a proclamation of God's word. But listen, this does make the diligent work of the sower relevant, right? No, nothing is said about him. We don't know what he looks like. We don't know what he wears, how good of a speaker he is. It's not the character traits of the sower that matters. It's the word that matters. It's the seed that goes out that matters. The proclamation of God's word That's where the power is. The power is not based in the person who is speaking it. It is not based in where it is being spoken. It's not the music that's being played, the clothes that are worn. None of those things are the decisive difference. In this parable, all of those things are the same. And the decisive issue is based on the only part of the parable that is actually different. So what is the difference? Jesus explains there are four different places which the seed can fall. Look at verse four. He says there's the wayside. As he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside, and the birds came and devoured them. Since the paths themselves were not cultivated, they were essentially sidewalks. I mean, they were hard-packed earth, pavement hard, resistant to seed entering into the ground. So the seed, if it hit the path, would just lay there. It would just sit on top. The man with the rake afterward wouldn't even bother coming and putting soil over it. He knows that nothing's going to grow there. So the seed just sits there on top. Matthew's account even says here, the birds came and ate them. The birds aren't, in this story, going to eat what's in the field, at least not most of it, because after the worker has gone through covering everything with dirt, the birds can't see the seed in the field. But the stuff that's on the wayside is exposed. The seed on the pathway gets eaten. What doesn't get eaten gets walked on. It gets crushed. Luke adds that in his account. Luke says, as he sowed, some fell by the wayside and was trampled down and the birds of the air devoured it. So spiritually, as the seed is the word of God, here's what happens. Look at verse 19. When anyone who hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, Then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by the wayside. Some folks are like a walking path. They are hard as cement. The seed falls on the path and it just bounces off. It just lays there. It does not find any purchase. It does not actually penetrate their heart. At the very best, there are some people, when you speak to them about the Lord Jesus, you can get it to... Lay there on the surface for a few moments, but Jesus describes here because their souls are depraved they're still in league with Satan and the devil is all too happy to come by and snatch up what was just sewn to ensure the the unlikely possibility that it would find any kind of foothold just never comes to pass and And since it's like a walk path, Luke says, it gets crushed underfoot as the people of the world are happy to walk all over it. And the hard-hearted people are happy to let them. There is another kind of ground. There's the stony places in verse five. Some fell on stony places. where they did not have much earth. And they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. Now that seems odd that it springs up because it didn't have any depth. When you hear stony places, Don't think about little rocks and pebbles. Those would have been removed and taken over, maybe thrown in the walk path and walked on. But instead, instead of little rocks, think of like heavy, heavy limestone bedrock that's there right at the surface level. There could be such massive stones connected so deeply underground, they couldn't be practically removed, and so they would just be worked around. And yet, because of what we described earlier, that the tiller, I'm talking about a person, not an instrument, right? The person who's gonna till comes through with the rake, and he moves dirt everywhere. Everything looks the same. Over top that bedrock, There is just this little shallow layer of dirt so that as you look down, everything looks alike. Because the stone is hidden just underneath the surface, that seed has enough soil to germinate. In fact, Matthew says immediately it springs up. It springs up fast. The rock actually helps it at first because it's keeping that little bit of soil hotter so that there's enough heat that it germinates right away. When you look out in the field, the very first thing springing up would have been the stuff in that much soil on top of the rocks. It collects the sun's heat, warms the seed so it germinates, but soon those same stones are scorching the plant to kill it. Verse six, when the sun was up, they were scorched, and because they had no root, they withered away. And this is Jesus' explanation of stony place people down in verse 20 and 21. He who received the seed on stony places, This is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles. Now listen, do not assume here that this is teaching that Jesus is saying some people can receive salvation and then quickly lose that salvation. That is not what he's teaching. True salvation lasts. The Bible is clear about that. The saints of God are preserved. They have everlasting life. If your everlasting life doesn't last forever, you did not have everlasting life. But what this does tell us is that we can expect there are going to be apparent temporary converts who aren't really converts. Oh, they look promising. Just like the seed on the stony ground, they're the first ones to spring up. Then the good news of the gospel, they hear it and it's appealing, but then as soon as there are other consequences or other expectations, other truths of the Christian life are encountered, it's no longer appealing. They easily fail when tested. They quit when persecuted. They stumble when they're confronted. They falter when they're challenged. Today's modern phenomena of, you know, repeat this sinner's prayer and you're saved, does nothing but feed this category of people. They see Jesus as an easy way out, and it is an easy repeat these words and then everything's fine, but as soon as it's not easy, right, as soon as it's not an easy out, they want out. It is a surface response with no depth whatsoever. The greatest condemnation is that these stony-placed disappointments are considered to be, you know, essentially notches in the belt of a bunch of witless witnesses who are more interested in counting conversions than they are establishing any true kind of faithfulness. They're content to say, oh, well, look at how many baptisms we've had. but the faith that they're peddling is nothing but a revolving door where people are exiting as quickly as they enter. There's an old pastor named George Whitefield who was a powerful preacher during a time known as the Great Awakening. Thousands of people would come to hear him speak and many of those would be genuine converts to Christ having heard the gospel as a result of Whitefield's ministry. No doubt somebody was counting how many there were, but that somebody was never George Whitefield. He did not count. And when anyone would come and ask him, well, how many people do you think have been saved as a result of your ministry? He would always give the same answer. Hard to say, we'll see in a few years. The stony hearts of mankind can appear to spring up with faith, but the real test of faith is that it stands the test of time. Jesus says there is another kind of ground, it's the thorny ground in verse seven. Some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them. This is probably the trickiest and most frustrating of all the soil types so far. The farmers could see where the walking path was. Experience year after year would teach them where the stony bedrock was. But this one, man, everything looks right. This is not the hard path. This isn't the stony bedrock that prevents roots. It looks like nothing but good soil. Matthew says the seed fell among thorns. But you know the thorns aren't actually showing there yet when the farmer is broadcasting the seed. The good seed, the potential for good crops is landing right in the middle of a disaster area. If you've ever had a garden, you've experienced this. Everything looks great and then one night while you're asleep, some devious miscreant comes along and plants weeds in your garden. So there's the good seed and it falls amongst the hidden weeds and they start competing for space. And unless you're there with a hoe and you're digging them out by hand, who's going to win? Now, no joke, this is part of the curse. All the way back in Genesis chapter three, when Adam and Eve sinned, part of the curse for Adam was that the curse would be that the ground is cursed for your sake. In toil you'll eat of it all the days of your life, both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you. Next time you deal with weeds, remember, it's sin that put those things there. They grow, they steal the good seed's sunlight, they steal the good seed's moisture. It has no chance to grow. Jesus explains in verse 22, he who receives seed among the thorns is he who hears the word and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word and he becomes unfruitful. Think about Jesus's description here. The stony ground people are assaulted by the world and fail. There's no depth to them. The thorny ground people aren't assaulted by the world, they embrace the world. They're embraced by the world and they embrace it right back. When the rich young ruler came to Jesus, he had every appearance of genuinely wanting eternal life, but when Jesus said that that will include letting go of his riches and worldliness and fully committing to the Lord, the answer was, ah, no thanks, hard pass, not interested in that. The Apostle Paul experienced this reality in his own traveling party. Out on his missionary journeys, he wrote to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4.10 and sadly says, Demas has forsaken me having loved this present world. Both these stony ground and thorny ground people are catered to by many in the world of modern Christianity. For many today, shallow Christianity is just fine. You don't need to have any depth to it. For others, Christianity doesn't need to be, you know, live separate and live wholly. Hey, so what if you love some thorns? Don't we all? Let's just keep doing life together. And then there's the prosperity gospel that tells people that the thorny cares of this world are actually a sign of God's blessing and they should embrace those things. All the while it is choking out the true gospel of Christ. You must be born again by the regeneration of the Holy Spirit. And the only certain test for that is whether or not that life bears fruit. So I expect to this point, most of y'all are hearing this and going, yeah, amen, that's right. But there is this fourth kind of ground, right? There's the good ground in verse eight. The descriptions in verse eight, the explanations in verse 23. In verse eight, but others fell on good ground and yielded a crop some a hundredfold, some 60, some 30. And then the explanation in verse 23, he who receives seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces some a hundredfold, some 60, some 30. despite all the potential for disaster, there is for the sower this area of dark, rich, soft soil that is going to yield a harvest. The seed will grow because God himself has prepared the ground for that word to be heard and to be understood. And when that word is planted in their hearts, it springs up into new life, yielding a fruitful harvest to the glory of God. Now, how much fruit are they going to bring? How much yield should we expect from believers? Every year, As Illinois farmers go out and plant corn and beans, they're hoping for a harvest, and it is actually measurable. They can gauge that. They know the amount of harvest they get from different parts of their field. They know not all harvests are equal. The plants generally on the edge of the field that are on the good ground but on the edge, they get more sun and they bring more harvest. There's places in the field that have just the right amount of moisture because of the elevation and they'll get more harvest. In other places, there's less sun, less moisture, they'll get less harvest. They know this is how it works. And Jesus describes that here as well. Some produce 100, some 60, some 30. Not every Christian yields the exact same kind of fruitful life. Listen, it is undeniably true that some disciples of Jesus are more fruitful in their service to the Lord Jesus than others. Yet, while that is true, It is not the point of Jesus' final statement here in verse 23. He is not asking us to engage in a fruit-bearing competition. He is encouraging us to be faithful sowers of His Word. It has been estimated that a good harvest in ancient Israel would have yielded an average of about eightfold return. That is, if a farmer did the right preparation work and he spread about a bushel of seeds, he would expect on average about eight bushels of return. the Lord's description of the fruitfulness of this labor offers an astonishing yield to ancient ears. If you could hear this the way that his original audience would have heard this, that they could expect there would be 30-fold, 60-fold, 100-fold, more than three times, seven times, or 12 times any expected yield they've ever heard of. Y'all listen to me here, that is what this parable is about. We are prone to focus on the wrong aspect of this story. We want to go through all of the differences and analyze all the little bits of soil and turn this into the parable of the soils because really it's the soul that makes the decisive difference in this parable. The field's the same, the seed's the same, the sower's the same. The soil is the only aspect that's really different and so that draws all of our attention to it. But we do that when we listen to this with 21st century ears. Listen, this is one of only two parables that Jesus himself gives a title to. What does Jesus call this parable? He tells us, here's the part to focus on, look at verse 18. Therefore, hear what? The parable of the sower. Like, that's where our focus should be, he tells us. The sower is where the focus is in this parable. Why is it that the farmer goes through all the work Jesus has described here? The answer is simple. He knows the work is worth it. He has the expectation that there is going to be a fruitful harvest. The audience before Jesus would have needed no descriptive explanation of the hard packed walkway and the limestone bedrock and thorny weeds. They're all easily familiar with that. Do you know the part of the story that would have got their attention? It would have been the ending. Sowing the word of God, the word of the kingdom produces 30, 60, 100 times yield. When an actual farmer went out to broadcast seeds into a field, yes, he knew there was some hard packed ground that the seed was gonna land on. He knew it was gonna land in some rocky places. He expected there would be thorny soil, but the work was worth it because there's good ground that's been prepared and it's going to produce a worthwhile harvest. When a servant of the Lord goes out and goes through all the effort that it takes, and y'all, I know it's effort. When he goes through all the effort that it takes in order to declare the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world, to cast those seeds of faith in declaring Jesus, yes, some of that is gonna be resisted by hardened hearts that are impervious to the truth. Some of that effort is gonna land on rocky soil and seem to spring up, but quickly it's gonna be lost. Some of that work is only gonna get choked out by thorns. but the work is worth it because God himself has prepared hearts to receive the gospel of Jesus Christ, to take hold of it, and to be rooted and grounded in faith, and it is going to yield a God-glorifying harvest far greater than any fall harvest you've ever seen. In this story, it is the soil that's different, but the lesson is for the sower. It is the parable of the sower. And the lesson is simple, the work is worth it. Listen, it makes sense that that is the focal point of this parable because Jesus tells this story. He immediately explains, I'm telling stories like this because I intend that they're not gonna really understand it. And takes his disciples aside, the very people who he is about to send out to make disciples of all the nations, He's going to send them out with the gospel. He takes them aside and explains to them the meaning of the parable to assure them the work is worth it. And yet we think, you know, but when I share the gospel, people are so hard hearted, it doesn't even seem like the message gets past their ears. Y'all, you can't control that. You're just the sower. Do that job, the work is worth it. But when I proclaim the gospel, some of the people don't hear because they're being, I just know they're being preyed on by the enemy, by evil men. Yeah, that's part of it. But the work is still worth it. Oh, but there are those times where it seems like faith springs up and then it immediately falls away, and when we see that happen, and we have seen that happen, it is so disheartening, and it is expected, Jesus said. And it doesn't change the fact that the work is worth it. If you can go back in your mind to last time, why is it that Jesus taught in parables? It was an act of judgment on those who refused to hear the truth, and it is a blessing in teaching those who willingly receive the truth. Y'all, he understands there is a rebellious refusal to receive his message, but he also embraced that his words would land on good ground in others. So that in verse nine he says, whoever has ears to hear, let them hear. Jesus himself is teaching about the kingdom and saying, this is not all gonna land on good soil. This parable is not intended to be a diagnostic tool of what kind of heart you have. Although there are lessons to be learned that way, this is the parable of the sower and the sower is the focus. My believing friends, we have been called to declare the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world. We have been given the mission of broadcasting the good news of the kingdom to the world around us. It is the means by which sinful people become faithful citizens of the kingdom. What's keeping you from doing that work? Because if you refrain from declaring the gospel because you get disheartened with hard hearts or stony ground or strangling thorns, then you're never going to cast seed into good ground that God has prepared. The sower does not allow the reality of hard ground and rocks and thorns to extinguish their hope of a harvest. Similarly, A Christian must not be put off task of declaring the gospel just because we know how many ways we've seen it not work. Yeah, there's a lot of ways that it won't work. Jesus has told us if you faithfully declare it, God has prepared places that it will work. The farmer sows the seed because he believes there'll be a harvest. The work is worth it. Jesus is worth it.