LET us picture the beautiful Lake of Galilee. The slopes of the mountains are busy with people cultivating the land, and a great crowd is gathered together along the shore. Why are all these people collected together? A little fishing boat is floating upon the clear blue water, and in it are some fishermen, and amongst them is One upon whom every eye is fixed. He is Jesus. The people are gathered together to hear Him. He is speaking to them about the sower who is sowing his seed in the field.
You like to watch the sower. His basket of seed is near his left hand, close by his heart. He walks over the heavy ground with a swinging step; his right arm keeps his right foot company, as he dips his hand into the seed basket and with a long swing scatters the corn. He walks in a straight line, and before the sun has set he will have broadcast his seed over the field.
The field, says the Lord, is the world; and the seed the Word of God.
Now let us look at the field. A pathway runs across it. Upon this pathway the people pass and re-pass; it is trodden down hard. Now look! The sower must cross the path. See, he goes on, his arm swinging and casting abroad his seed just as though there were no path. He knows very well that his seed will not grow upon the path, but his duty is to sow over the whole field, and some seed which he scatters will spring up close to the very edge of the path, so he slacks not his hand. Look again! He has crossed over the path and is mounting the slope of the hill. And upon the path, just where he had sown the seed, numbers of little birds have settled. They are very busy. They are eating up the seed. Now they seem quieter. One or two give a peck here and there. Off they all fly. There is not a seed left on the path.
The Lord tells us that the path is like the careless hearer of the Word of God. It falls upon the hard heart, not into it. There it lies. Then comes Satan, and he takes it all away out of the heart, and the hearer seems as if he had never heard of God, of sin, pardon, or eternity. I wonder if any of our young friends are like the path! The Word of God does not enter into their hearts; it falls upon them. They hear, but do not attend. They hear, but do not believe. And Satan snatches away the seed, so that their hearts are like the path from which the birds of the air had pecked up all the seed.
The sower is coming down the field now. There are some pieces of rocky ground near where he is. In a field on a mountain side great pieces of rock are often found, and when the corn is ripe and yellow, they look like dark patches in the field. Now the sower has neared the rocky part. He is walking carefully. Swing goes his arm, and the handful of seed flies abroad. Some of it falls upon the edges of the rocks. And on the sower goes, right down the field to its edge. It is near noon day, and he is resting.
Let us observe the rocky part. We come in a few days’ time to the spot. Gentle rain has fallen. There are some little green sprouts showing. Surely they are wheat! But there is not the sign of a blade in the deep soil of the field. Can it be so? Yes, they are wheat shoots.
Our Lord tells us they sprang up thus because there was no depth of earth. There was no root-room, consequently the seed shot upwards. But only to wither away for lack of root. Do you know of any young people like this? They hear the Word, and immediately receive it with joy, but they have no root in themselves. Hence, when trial or affliction because of the Word arises they are offended as quickly as they were made happy on hearing the Word. This may occur at school, or amongst young friends; they are laughed at, called pious, and holy, and they are offended.
The sower is at his work again. He is mounting the slope, he has crossed the path; now he is near the rocky part, and close by that spot there are some patches of thorns and briars. He takes out his handful of seed, and as he swings his arm some of the seed falls amongst the thorns. On the sower goes, the same steady step, for the sun is casting afternoon shadows across the field, and his work is not yet done.
Let us keep this thorny spot in view. When the field begins to show green, there will be some pale shoots amongst the thorns. Here and there they peep out, but they are not strong, for the thorns absorb the rays of the sun and obtain the dropping dew. The thorns grow too, and it is a struggle for light and air.
But the thorns are strong; they hold their ground, and choke the wheat, which languishes and dies.
And who are these? Our Lord says: “These are they who hear the Word, and the cares of life, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things, entering in choke the Word, and it becomes unfruitful.” Perhaps this description of the thorns is more suited to older persons; yet if boys and girls are usually spared the cares of life, and the deceitfulness of riches, they, too, have the lusts, and pleasures of other things in their hearts. There are joys in God’s Word, but these will not grow up in the heart where the thorns of this world fill it.
The greater part of the field has been covered step by step, cast by cast, by the sower. He went forth to sow, and the evening is at hand. Some of the seed he sowed has fallen upon good ground, ground over which the plowman passed, prepared and made ready for the seed. The sower’s day is nearly gone. Now his work is over, and he has bent his steps home. Let us think about the good ground where he cast the seed.
There lies the seed, hidden in the soil. In due time it receives the gentle rain, and the hot sun’s rays crumble the large pieces of soil over it, and in its tiny bed of earth each precious grain begins to strike downwards in the power of life, and after that to rise upwards. First root, then shoot. The field begins to be covered with tender green shoots, and these rise up and grow strong for the winds to sway to and fro. A few weeks more and all may see what the patient sower wrought on the bright spring day. What wonders have followed the swing of his arm and the measured tread of his feet! But he did not do his work merely to clothe the hill slope with green. He sowed his seed for the harvest of his master. So we will visit the field again. The sun has ripened the corn which the good ground bore; the field is yellow with waving corn, with countless golden ears all bending low; the one grain has become thirty, sixty, and even a hundred. If we like to have pictures of birds of the air, and brambles, familiar to us in England, let us also have a picture of such fruitful wheat as grows in Eastern lands, and which bears some thirty, some sixty, some an hundred fold.
Now, what does the Master say of the good ground? Good ground hearers hear and understand; hear and receive; hear and keep; and bring forth with patience. You are all hearers, dear young friends. Do you understand? Receive? Keep? If so you will certainly bring forth, and may it be with lifelong patience.
The wayside hearer did not understand. The rocky ground hearer did not receive. The thorn and briar hearer did not keep. None of these brought forth fruit. We ourselves are the soil; we are part of the field; and we ourselves are with patience bringing forth, if we, indeed, are profitable hearers. The life of the boy and girl, the youth and maiden, the man and woman, proves his or her true Christianity, and the Master of the Field is waiting for the harvest.
Look well at our four little pictures, and think well over the solemn meaning of path, rock, thorns, and the ears of corn.