Parables Parables comprise 35% of all gospel teaching.
Parables, usually, but not always, focus on a single truth.

Ultimately, parables draw attention to Jesus as God’s Messiah and call us to make a personal decision concerning Him

Mark 4:3 “Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed.
Mark 4:9 Then Jesus said, “Whoever has ears to hear, let them HEAR."

Bookend with Listen / Hear
Puritan Thomas Watson on Effectual Hearing - If you would hear the Word aright, be not only attentive, but retentive. Lay the Word up in your memories and hearts

The sower went out to sow -

Sower: Jesus, disciples, us (we are whether we like it or not---once take name Christian)

Seed-: the Gospel

Method: Either sown by hand, or back of donkey---

Soil: Hearts

I. THE HARD HEART: Pathway between fields,
“Some seed,” says Jesus, “fell by the wayside.” But the trouble was that the wayside was so exposed to the traffic of the world and the constant comings and goings of the feet of men, that it became over the weeks and months and years as hard as concrete, and no seed ever penetrated.

v15 Satan/demonic takes away---has three strategies to take away the Word of God.

First, often acts immediately as soon as the Word is heard to make people inattentive, or cause them to feel ill-will, or to simply be so ignorant of spiritual reality they can't grasp what's being said.

Second, after the Word has been received with joy and attacks it with hard times. Demonic convinces some that holding fast to the Word is not worth the trouble.

Third, comes in where the Word has begun to take root and strangles it with the lie that too many good things are being sacrificed/ Being a Christian is NO fun / costs too much (FOMA) Fear of Missing Out

II. THE SHALLOW HEART: This layer dirt—no depth
“Some fell on stony ground”—or ground where there was a thin covering of earth, beneath which was the rock.

The two words in v. 5 are “no depth,” and the two words in v. 6 are “no root.”

If it was, in the first case, a stubborn resistance which was the barrier to the Word (hard heart), in the second picture it is superficial reception which is the barrier to the Word.

- If in the first place the seed could not get in, in the second place it could not get down.

III. THE DIVIDED HEART:
Here the seed really does get a deep hold, says Jesus; but the trouble is that it is not an undisputed hold. That means that the Word of God is not able to accomplish the purpose that the Holy Spirit means it to accomplish.

• The seed got in, and it got down, but it could not get room.
Everything was set for a fruitful life, was strangled; and that field was ultimately left a wilderness.

Our lives get consumed with:
• Coffee time / stay away from worship Covid
• Kids, sports, Money, Health, our “play” time, we get so occupied with stuff---the stuff stunts our spiritual growth!

Three weeds need to be pulled/ powerful forces against the Word /Seed
1. Worries of the world
2. Pursuit of wealth
3. Distracting interests

Are you a barren child of God, with a soul that is a wilderness; have you, through neglect maybe, stifled the Word?

IV. THE OPEN HEART
Some seed “fell on good ground, and brought forth… ” And it did so because this good ground is everything that the others are not.

Here the seed can get in, and it can get down, and it can get room.

1st Century a great crop / harvest would be 10% in fields/

Great news----these four soils/ hearts are snapshots
• A person’s heart can CHANGE

YES---but this parable is about sowing the Word / Faith in Jesus Christ...into other people’s lives

• It is about reproducing

• It is about Christ’s word of encouragement to us....to keep on sharing



And so......

If you are a Christian you are a

- SOWER (how are you doing in your sowing?)

- with the SEED of the GOSPEL (are you willing / able and ready to share the seed of the Gospel?)

- SOIL, your heart (Are you growing in your relationship with Jesus Christ in order to produce a harvest with others for Christ?)

Which leads into the next parables of The Kingdom of God is like...