Soils and Souls

Get your Bibles with you. Turn with me, if you would, to Mark chapter 4. We're starting out with verses 1 through 9. Some seed fell among the path, and the birds came and devoured it. Other seed fell on rocks, rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and immediately it sprang up, since it had no depth of soil. When the sun rose, it was scorched, and since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, yielded no grain.

Other seed fell into good soil and produced grain growing up, and increasing and yielding thirtyfold, sixtyfold, and a hundredfold. And he said, He who has ears to hear, let him hear. Bow with me as we go to our Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, we have come here today to worship you.

Part of that worship is preaching, hearing, responding to God's Word. Today we're looking at one of your most loved and well-known parables. Please help us to not be apathetic because of familiarity. Help us to see what the disciples saw and the crowd was blinded to. Help us to be first obedient, then submissive, and then dependent. We have a tendency to take off in the wrong directions.

We either get lazy and apathetic, or we get gung-ho and depend on self. Help us to take our eyes off of self and put them on you. Lord, we continue to pray for Nicole Lowes and Nancy Lindley. We pray for Becky Steele as this week she has had a bout with just getting very, very weak and actually falling one time, and going through the hospital right now for some tests to pray that she'd be with her in power. I pray for those who've recently lost loved ones, for Margit Pence who lost her brother in Hungary, for Alicia Caldwell who lost her husband, Doug. I continue to pray for Randy Presley as you strengthen him and comfort him in reminding that Joni is with Jesus. I pray for my wife, Cindy's mom, Wanda, that you give her grace in her time of transition. Lord, we use this service and ask you to take it. Use it for your glory, for it is in the precious and holy name of Jesus that we pray. Amen.

You may be seated. Twenty-one years ago, I sat in a tent with 40 African pastors in Nairobi, Kenya. These pastors were there taking a two-year Bible study program, helping them get ready for the pastoral ministry.

Many of them had ridden 40 miles on a bicycle to get there that morning. Larry Warren is the head of African leadership, and it was his responsibility that morning to do the teaching for these pastors. We had just gotten there, and we sat down in the tent, and we noticed that there was an atmosphere of frustration and grumbling. Larry whispered to me and said, I've got to get to the bottom of this. He turned around to everybody and said, all right, guys, what's going on here? What's the problem there?

There just seems to be a bad vibe here. One of the young pastors stood up and said, last week, Kenneth Copeland was here, and said he preached a week-long crusade, and he preached every service on prosperity and faith. He said he preached this and then had a pastor's meeting on one particular afternoon, and said in the pastor's meeting, he said he showed us his pictures of his mansion here in the United States.

He showed us pictures of the personal jet that he had that flew him into Africa. He said he showed us pictures that he had of his fleet of BMWs, and then he looked at us and says, guys, just look at you. You live in mud huts. You ride bicycles to church.

You eat plain meals, and you don't even have a TV. He said, what's the difference between you and me? And he said, the difference is faith. If you just had faith, you'd have a nice home, you'd have a snazzy car, you'd have a big screen TV.

He said, because you don't have faith, you don't have these things. I've known Larry for a long time. He's a good friend. I had always known him as just very happy. He always had a smile on his face. I don't think I'd ever seen him get mad. That day, he got mad.

I mean, the steam was coming off his head. And I remember him grabbing his Bible and going to the front of that tent, and he just reared back and he preached with the fierceness of a tiger. And he said to these people, he said, I want you to know, guys, that Kenneth Copeland is a false prophet. He is preaching a prosperity gospel. He is not concerned about temporary happiness, but he's not concerned about eternal joy. He is not concerned about you reaching Africa with the gospel. He's concerned about sucking all the money he can out of Africa. He said, you may live in a mud hut right now, but you know Jesus.

And you will spend forever and ever with Him. Why should you get all caught up in temporary stuff that's going to be here and gone and not be concerned about your relationship with Christ and your relationship with others who you will spend forever with? Well, I wondered where he was going to preach from. He opened his Bible up to Mark chapter 4 to the very passage that we are dealing with today.

And he just really honed in on two particular verses, verses 18 and 19 of Mark chapter 4. And he said, this is what Copeland's prosperity gospel will do to the human heart. Jesus said, and others are the ones sown among thorns. Those are those who hear the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desire for other things enter in and choke the word and it proves unfaithful. Folks, it was Jesus who said, if any man be by my disciple, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow Jesus. Folks, the prosperity gospel is not all about Jesus, it's all about you.

And we need to see that. Larry said, do you know people who have bought in to this false gospel? Do you know people who have bought in to this and they thought, well, oh boy, this is great because this is what I want. I want heaven when I die and I want prosperity right now.

That's what I want. So, they make a little commitment to Christ. And when they make this little commitment to Christ, after just a few weeks, what they see is sometimes persecution comes and they get discouraged.

Then trials come and they get shocked. And then temptations come and they say, oh, wait a minute, Jesus is not worth this. And they turn from the faith and they walk away.

Larry said, Copeland is planting seeds in bad soil and there is no good in lasting fruit. I remember watching those pastors get pumped up. And I remember what they were saying was essentially this. This parable is not just words on a page. It is not just theology in a bottle.

It is absolute truth. They said Jesus was explaining why people fall, why people fail and why people falter. I never read this passage anymore without thinking about Larry Warren. For Larry Warren got justifiably angry at the prosperity gospel and then he used the parable of the souls in order that he might blow that prosperity gospel to pieces. And I praise God for that.

Folks, it is not wealth that makes you joyful. It is a heart that is sold out to Jesus Christ. That is what is important and that is the good soul. Why did Jesus give us the parable of the sower? It is certainly one of the most beloved and cherished parables that we have in the entire Bible. Well, this may surprise you, but Jesus is explaining to his disciples here why the number of people that are genuinely submitted to his lordship, why that group is so small. Now for 2,000 years before Jesus came, people were waiting for the promised Messiah. And what most of them thought was this. When the Messiah comes, he is going to break the yoke of Roman oppression.

He is going to set us free. They did not understand that when the Messiah would come, he would come not just once, but he would come twice. They did not understand what Jesus meant in Mark 10, verse 45. When Jesus said this, For the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. Folks, the people of Israel were looking for a crown.

They weren't looking for a cross. It is shocking that such a small number of people were actually submitting their hearts and their lives to Christ at this time. There were huge multitudes of people that were coming for healing. There were multitudes of people that were coming to see the miracle. There were multitudes of people that just wanted to hear him teach. But those that truly submitted to Christ was relatively a very small number.

Very small number. John MacArthur explained it this way. He said, Why did this happen? How could the long-awaited Messiah be so widely rejected by his own people? Jesus' power was unmistakably divine. His teaching was authoritative, his miracles wondrously supernatural, his life sinless, his popularity unprecedented, yet at the end of his earthly ministry, his band of followers only numbered about 500, likely in Galilee, and about 120 in Jerusalem.

Why were there so few? Jesus had somewhat explained this in the Sermon on the Mount, when Jesus said, Enter through the narrow gate. Enter through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leads to destruction, but small is the gate, and narrow is the way that leads to life. So Jesus tells the parable of the sower to help the disciples understand why there are so many that are actually rejecting his lordship.

All right, three points I want to share with you today. Point one is the parable. Look with me at verses one through eight. And he began to teach beside the sea. A very large crowd gathered about him so that he got into a boat and sat in it on the sea, and the whole crowd was beside the sea on the land. He was teaching them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them, Listen, behold, a sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell among the path, and the birds came and devoured it. Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and immediately sprang up, since it had no depth of soil. When the sun rose, it was scorched, and since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain.

And other seeds fell into good soil, produced grain, growing up and increasing, yielding thirtyfold, sixtyfold, and a hundredfold. Jesus left Capernaum. He went over to the Sea of Galilee, and while he was there, multitudes of people came to hear him preach and hope for healing. And there was a little boat there in the Sea of Galilee, and they pushed it out in the water a few feet. The disciples got out, they anchored it, they held the boat.

Jesus is in the boat. He sits down in the teaching position and begins to teach them truth. And what does he teach them? He teaches them by parables. What is a parable? A parable is a little short story that has a very powerful illustration and a very powerful meaning. The parables that Jesus taught were poignant.

They were interesting, and they were stories that you would never forget. When Jesus went out teaching, most of the people were country folks. A lot of them were farmers. So Jesus used a farming illustration-type parable in order that they might relate to it. Jesus said the sower went out to sow his seed. And he went out to sow his seed, and he'd already plowed the land, and he threw his seed out.

Here's the sower. I want you to picture him. He's got his bag of seed over his shoulder. And he's walking through the field, and he takes it.

His hand reaches down in the bag, and he throws the seed out. Jesus said it landed on four different types of soil. Jesus said, first, some of it fell to the side of the road on the pathway.

This is kind of like a little road right beside the field. It was hard as a brick because people walked up and down on it and packed in the dirt. It was dry, and it was dusty. And the seed fell right on top of it, but the ground was too hard for it to enter into the soil.

And so what happened? Well, the birds saw it, and the birds waited for the farmer to move. As soon as he did, they came swooping down, and they swallowed up that seed, devoured it, and swallowed it down.

Secondly, other seed fell on rocky ground where the soil was very thin layered. Now, Israel is extremely rocky. I had the privilege when I was 26 years old of going to Israel. And we were on a bus, and the tour guide was telling us stuff, and as we were going, one of the guys on the bus said, man, I've never seen so many rocks in all my life. And the tour guide said, well, let me tell you the story. He said, the story is that God created the earth, and then he wanted to distribute the rock, so he got one of his angels to do the distribution of the rocks. Angel had a big old pack on his back with all these rocks in it, and he finally got to Israel, and he was so tired, he said, man, I can't do this anymore. And he took the whole backpack and just threw the rocks out on Israel and left them there. Now, that's a silly story, and it certainly isn't true, but it explains how rocky Israel really is. Farmers had to deal with this, and they'd go into their fields, they'd try to get all the rocks out.

They couldn't get them all out. And so some of the seed, when it would fall, would fall where there were rocks right under the surface. And they were right under the surface, the soil was extremely thin layered, and so as the roots began to grow, they would grow right down to the rock, and they would stop, so they couldn't get moisture.

And then as the plant began to grow, the sun would come out and dry it out, and the plant would die very quickly because the root could not get the moisture. Thirdly, some seed fell among the thorns. The thorns would grow up as the plant began to grow, and it would choke it out and kill it. The word thorns here is the same word that's used in the story of the crucifixion, when the soldiers took the thorns and made a crown out of those thorns and crushed it down on the brow of Jesus. Do you know how long those thorns are?

They're anywhere between two and three inches long, and they're just like needles. And that's what was described here. The thorns grew up around the plant, very quickly killed them, choked it out. Finally, in contrast to the first three useless soils, other seed fell into good soil. This soil was soft and deep.

There were no rocks, there were no thorns. This soil had moisture and nutrients. It was fertilized. This was good soil.

And so it was deep enough that the seed could get down into it, and the birds could not get to it. And Jesus said that the seed grew in the good soil, and it yielded 60, 30, and 100 fold. It produced that kind of yield. Now that's an amazing thing, because the normal yield for a farmer would be about 10%.

And here, they hear this, 30, 60, and 100, and they're absolutely shocked. Folks, what a great promise this is from God. That when we obey the Lord, the Lord will oftentimes take our obedience and the things that we are doing in the Lord's name and use them and multiply them 30, 60, and 100 fold.

What a promise. I think that takes us to point to the purpose. Look at verses 9 through 13. And he said, He who has ears to hear, let him hear. When he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables. And he said to them, To you it has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything is in parables. So that they may indeed see but not perceive, that they may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven. And he said to them, Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables? After Jesus finished the parables, the multitude left.

The disciples were just there with Jesus. They started asking questions. Said, Lord, we don't really get it. We don't really understand. Why is it that you're teaching in parables? What does this parable mean?

We just don't get it. And Jesus said to them, Because you are mine, I will share with you the secret of this parable. But to those who have rejected me, they will hear the words of the parable.

They'll understand what it's saying, but they will not understand the divine meaning. It's very interesting the passage that Jesus quotes from here. He goes all the way back to Isaiah 6.

You remember that chapter? That's when Isaiah went into the temple. He saw the Lord high and lifted up on his throne, and his train filled the temple. And it was a time when the Lord was revealing himself and his glory to Isaiah.

And it was a beautiful time, and then after he's doing this, he says to Isaiah, Isaiah, I want you to go out. I want you to preach the word, but they're not going to believe you. They're not going to understand it, and they're not going to perceive. He said, I want you to know there's nothing wrong with the word of God. There's nothing wrong with the way you're going to preach.

Here's the problem. It's the soul. It's the hardened heart, the deceived heart, the unresponsive heart, that that's the reason that they don't see and believe. Jesus is saying the same thing to his disciples here.

He is saying to them, I'm going to teach you truth, and you're going to get it. And you're going to get it not because you're smart, not because you're spiritual, not because you're good, but because you're mine, because you're mine. I remember right after I first got saved, I had never experienced that kind of joy. Man, I was just filled with joy. I wasn't afraid of death anymore.

I wasn't scared to think about hell anymore, and I just had this joy inside and this peace about me that I just could not even explain. I couldn't wait to go tell my friends, my old drinking buddies and all this. I said, man, they are going to be so pumped up about this. I can't wait to tell them about Jesus. And so I went to share the gospel with them, and they looked at me like I had two heads. And they said, Doug, you've gone off the deep end. And I said, you're just crazy.

Said, if this is what you want for yourself, then hey, that's fine, but just leave us alone because we don't want to hear it. And I thought to myself, what's the matter with them? Are they stupid? And no, they weren't stupid. As I read the scripture, what I found out was this.

They weren't stupid. They were blind. Folks, the reason that I saw, the reason that I had this joy and happiness was because of the grace of God. God opened my eyes. God opened my heart. God gave me the ability to understand. Now, this idea that God opened some eyes and leaves others blinded seems to be unfair.

I like what John MacArthur said. I think he said it well. He said, both the curious crowds and the religious leaders had been given more than enough time and evidence to conclude that Jesus was the Messiah. Their unbelief persisted, growing increasingly resolute until it passed the point of no return. Consequently, divine judgment had set in. Their willful rejection of the Son of God had led to God's judicial rejection of them. God confirmed them in their resolute hard-heartedness, allowing them to remain cemented in their own unbelief because their rejection was final, the time had come, when they would no longer be given the message.

All right, that takes us to point three, and that is the point. Verse 14 through 20. The sower sows the word, and these are the ones along the path where the word is sown. When they hear, Satan immediately comes, takes away the word that is sown in them. These are the ones sown on rocky ground, the ones who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy, and they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while.

Then, when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away. Others are the ones sown among thorns. They are those who hear the word, but the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, the desire for other things, enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. But those who are sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word, accept it, bear fruit, thirtyfold, sixtyfold, and a hundredfold.

In this passage, Jesus teaches the disciples the point or the meaning of the parable. Jesus says that the seed is the word of God, and he says the sower throws out the word of God. Who's the sower? It could be a preacher. It could be an evangelist. It could be one of you, as you just go out and share the gospel with someone who needs to hear the gospel. So Jesus is saying to the disciples, hey guys, you're the sower in the story. You're the one doing this. But the Lord's primary emphasis here is on the types of soils.

Three out of the four types of soils could not produce good, lasting fruit. This is really important for the disciples to hear. I think it's really important for us to hear as well. It lets the disciples know that they should not expect everyone they share the gospel with to come to a saving knowledge of Christ. They should not get discouraged when people outright reject the gospel or just half-heartedly acknowledge it.

Why? Listen carefully. The elect of God are in the minority. The elect of God are in the minority. The majority of our world will never die to self.

It will never submit themselves to the lordship of Christ. When Jesus explained this to the disciples, it was a wake-up call to them. They said to themselves, I'm not a failure. When I preach the gospel and I get rejected, I'm not a failure. If I share my faith and they won't listen and they turn away from me, I can't open blind eyes. I can't change a heart.

I can't make somebody believe no matter how hard I want to do that. If the soil of their heart has not been fertilized and prepared by God, what's going to happen? They're not coming. But brothers and sisters, if the soil of their heart has been prepared and fertilized by God, all hell can't keep them from coming. Amen? Listen carefully. You are not God. You can't change a heart. You're just a FedEx man.

All you can do is deliver the package. All right, let's look at the soils. Number one is the unresponsive pathway soil. Jesus said some seed fell on the hardened, dirt-packed pathway, so hard that the seed could not penetrate, get down into the soil, so birds came and immediately grabbed the soil up. They ate it and took off. Jesus said that this was a picture of demonic involvement in keeping people from hearing the gospel. He said that Satan would come right after they've heard the gospel and he would steal the word out of their heart. 2 Corinthians 4, verse 4, Paul said this. Paul said, In their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel, of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

Satan uses many devices to blind people to the gospel. Some of you remember L.A. Heron. L.A. Heron was an elder here in our church 30 years ago. He's gone on to be with the Lord today, but he was a dear, dear friend. I remember one Monday night, he went out visiting with me. We went to the home of a guy who I knew was an unbeliever. He let us in. We walked into his living room, sat down with him, and we small talked for a little bit, and I said, Sir, I'm here for a purpose tonight, and I would like to be able to share the gospel with you.

Can I do that? And he said, Yes. I shared my testimony with him first, then I went to verse 1.

Verse 1, Romans chapter 3, verse 23, for we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God. Before I got that word out of my mouth, his five-year-old boy, who'd been sitting down right in front of us in the living room, all of a sudden jumped up. He'd been quiet as a mouse. Jumped up and started screaming at the top of his lungs. His dad had to reach down, pick him up, get him calmed down, put him on his lap. He said, Okay, go ahead.

I went to my next verse, Romans 6 23, for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. And that little boy jumped off his dad's lap. He went running over to his toy box. He picked up a toy truck, and he threw it at the television as hard as he could. I knew it was going to shatter.

It didn't. Bounced off the television, but then that little boy started screaming and yelling again. His dad said, I have never seen him like this.

What in the world is going on? He said, Guys, we'll need to do this conversation at another time. And that was it.

We ended up just getting up at that point in time, and we walked out of the house. As L.A. and I were walking down the driveway to the car, L.A. looked back at me and said, Doug, this is a parable of a sore situation. And he said, The birds had just devoured the seed. And he was exactly right. The second soil was a superficial stony soil.

This seed fell on the rocks and could not get firmly rooted. So when affliction and persecution came, they immediately just fell away. Over the last couple of decades, I have watched Christians compromise truth and morality in order to avoid persecution and criticism. I've seen denominations bow to the sins of abortion and homosexuality and transgenderism because they looked at what the culture was saying, and the culture said, All these things are good, and they're positive, and they're acceptable, and you need to believe that. I thought, Man, this is exactly what God was saying in Isaiah chapter 5 when God said, Woe unto those who call good evil and evil good, who put light for darkness and darkness for light, who put sweet for bitter and bitter for sweet. Folks, if the professing church in America can't handle a little bit of criticism, then what in the world is going to happen when we get thrown in jail for Christ's sake or get to the point where they're ready to execute us?

The third soil was worldly, thorny soil. Jesus said, These are the ones who heard the word, but the worries of the world and deceitfulness of riches and the desire for other things crept in and choked the word. Jesus warned us about this on the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 6, 19 through 21.

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on the earth where moth and rust destroy, where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal, for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. How many people consider the gospel and then turn away from it because they're not willing to pay the price? They say, Jesus commands me to tithe. I can't afford to do that. Jesus commands me to be at church on Sunday. I can't afford to do that. Jesus commands me to be ethical and honest in my business practices.

I can't really afford to do that. Jesus commands me to repent. That means I'm going to have to give up my pornography. That means I'm going to have to give up clubs that I've been going to. That means I'm going to have to give up this sin that I have reveled in for years and years and years and it's just not worth the cost.

So what happens? The deceitfulness of riches and the desire for stuff chokes out the word. What does that mean? Does that mean I can't have a nice home and a nice car?

Not necessarily. Abraham was a wealthy man. Job was a wealthy man.

But you know what? Their wealth didn't control them. They control their wealth and they always put God first. The foresoil is the good soil. What makes it good? It's fruitful. God builds up the good soil. He fills it with moisture and nutrients and when the seed is planted, it grows and it multiplies. It was Jesus who said that if you know those that are his, by what? By their fruit.

By their fruit. In John chapter 15 verses 5 through 8, Jesus gave us another agricultural metaphor. He said this, I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified so that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. What's the message for the disciples in us? It is that only God produces good soil. People will respond properly to the gospel only when God does the work. It is God who opens spiritual eyes, spiritual ears, and spiritual hearts. It is God who saves.

It is God who gives us the ability to bear fruit. So let me ask you something, what does that mean for me? Does that mean I don't have to do anything? That I can just sit back and do nothing? Does that mean just let go and let God?

Absolutely not. As his child, I am called to be obedient. And if I'm obedient, guess what's gonna happen? My trust in him is gonna grow. And if my trust grows, my dependence grows.

So here's the key. Your responsibility is to obey and then leave the results to God. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, you taught this parable to the 12, 2000 years ago. And today in 2022, we sense the same power, the same enlightenment, the same call to dependence on God that you gave to your disciples. Help us to learn that you are sovereign, omnipotent, and good.

Help us to be obedient children and dependent children. Help us to love you with all of our hearts, minds, soul, and strength. Father, this is the time that we have the privilege of entering into communion with the Lord's Supper. I pray, Heavenly Father, that you would use it today to draw us closer to you than we've ever been before. You've promised us, Lord, that your Spirit would be with us in a very special way when we partake of this Supper. And, Father, we pray that that might happen in each heart here today. Lord, we love you today. We thank you for loving us. And it's in Jesus' precious and holy name that we pray. Amen.