Long ago when a man wanted grain sown in his field, he scattered the seed over the ground by handfuls. It was about such a sowing that the Lord Jesus told this story:
‘Behold a sower went forth to sow: and when he sowed, some seeds fell by the wayside, and the fowls came and devoured them up: some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth, and forthwith they sprung up. Because they had no deepness of earth, when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away. Some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprung up and choked them. But some fell into good ground, and. brought forth fruit, some a hundred-fold, some sixty-fold, some thirty-fold.
The men who heard these words, knew that Jesus wanted to teach them something more than about sowing grain: they called this “a parable”, which is a story with a hidden meaning. And they asked Him to tell the meaning.
Jesus told them that “the seed” meant the Word of God (Luke 8:1111Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. (Luke 8:11)), and people’s hearts were “the ground” where the seed was sown. He said those who heard God’s words, but did not believe them, were the “hard ground,” or the “wayside”, where the birds quickly took the seed and flew away.
Those who at first believed God’s words, but did not care more about them, were “the stony ground” which had little earth, and the plants dried up.
Those who let work or pleasure crowd out God’s words were “the ground” where the thorns choked out the grain.
But those who believed God’s words, and wanted to keep them in their hearts, were the “good ground” where the seeds grew, some thirty times, some sixty times, and some one hundred times as much as the seed sown.
The Lord Jesus was Himself the Great Sower; He told God’s words to all people; sonic believed, some were careless of them, His words have been “sown” in many hearts since. And now when any boy or girl or grown up person hears those words read or spoken, and does not believe, that one is like the hard road: soon the words are forgotten and lost to that one. And, do you know, if we do not believe when first we hear God’s words, our hearts bome harder and harder, and “the good seed” may never take root?
Jesus told the people then, that if they had believed the words of God which they had before heard from the scriptures, they would have believed Him. He said that their hearts had become “gross”, (heavy and rough), that their ears were dull to hear, and their eyes to see, or they would have known that He was from God.
He said that many prophets and others had believed God’s words, and longed to see the One God had promised to send to earth, yet had not seen Him. They could see and hear Him, yet many did not believe.
ML 04/25/1943