The
following is an edited version of my July 5 message. You can view the entire
message at this YouTube link:
The
‘If’ Depends on Us
My text today is from a relatively well-known
parable about the sower who sows the seed which lands in different kinds of
soils. Verse one of chapter four of Mark begins this way in verse three:
“Listen to this! Behold, the sower
went out to sow; as he was sowing, some seed fell beside the road,
and the birds came and ate it up. Other seed fell on the
rocky ground where it did not have much soil; and immediately it
sprang up because it had no depth of soil. And after the sun had risen, it
was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell
among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked it, and it yielded no crop.
Other seeds fell into the good soil, and as they grew up and
increased, they yielded a crop and produced thirty, sixty, and a
hundredfold.” And He was saying, “He who has ears to hear, let
him hear.” (Mark
4:3-9)
Before we move
to the Lord’s explanation of this parable, I want us to see a few important
details and make some application of these verses:
First: The sower sows the SAME seed. He’s not tossing lettuce seeds here
and tomato seeds there and cucumbers in yet a third place. It is the same seed.
In other words, God’s message of sin, righteousness, judgment, redemption,
mercy, and forgiveness is the same today as it was when it was first preached
by the prophets. And it is the same message the apostles proclaimed to their
polytheistic, immoral, and often anti-Christ culture.
Oh, may God
help us to FLEE from the false teachers and lukewarm churches of
whatever is their label or title and who teach a different gospel than the one
preached by the Church since those first centuries.
Not many
years after Jesus’ resurrection, already heresy had spread in the early church.
In one of his earliest letters, the apostle Paul wrote this to the Christians
at Galatia:
“I am amazed that you are so quickly
deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for
a different gospel; which is really not another; only there
are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of
Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you
a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to
be accursed! As we have said before, so I say
again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what
you received, he is to be accursed! For am I now seeking the favor of
men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to
please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ.” (Galatians 1:6-10)
Listen for a little while to some radio
and television preachers. Sit in some pews for a few weeks – and everyone who
knows their Bible will quickly recognize we have far too many people pleasers today
in the pulpits and the pews who tell people want to hear about heaven and hell,
about sin and holiness, repentance and lifestyles.
I hope you recognize the absolute necessity
of knowing your Bible.
The second point is that that
while the sower sows the same seed, the seed lands on different soils. And we
need to ask ourselves – what kind of soil am I when I listen to the gospel?
Our soils can change over time. If it is
not tended to, not irrigated, not turned over and over, not fertilized, what
was once fruitful soil can become dry and lifeless. So, what kind of soil are
you?
My third point is this: Jesus
warns His followers in verse 9: “He who has ears to hear, let him
hear.”
The Lord’s
warning in Mark 4 is identical to the Lord’s warning to each of the seven
churches in Revelation chapters two and three: “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”
Oh, please pay attention. The Lord is the same today as He has ever
been. And what He said to the His followers in the first century, He STILL says
to us today: “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit of God is saying
to us.”
And what is God saying today? That’s easy to answer. It’s the same seed
– the same message He has always spoken regarding the Bible’s definition of
lifestyle holiness and obedience to His commandments. If we get THAT right,
everything else is going to be right. But if we get that wrong – then nothing
we do will be right in God’s eyes. Nothing.
And finally, the fourth point is
this: “And He was saying to them, “To you has been given the mystery of
the kingdom of God, but those who are outside get everything in parables, so
that while seeing, they may see and not
perceive, and while hearing, they may hear and not understand, otherwise they
might return and be forgiven.” (verses
11-12)
Some think that God is obligated to keep knocking on their door. But that is
sheer nonsense. God is not obligated to do any such thing. You will please
remember Jesus told his disciples if a town rejects their message of the
gospel, they were to leave town and wipe off the dust from the bottom of their
shoes as a condemnation against him. Scripture warns all of us in Revelation 3:20:
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock;
if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and
will dine with him, and he with Me.”
But
the ‘IF’ depends on us. IF we hear His voice and IF we
open the door, He will come in and dine with us.
It is a spiritual law as sure as the law
of gravity, if we reject His light, light is hidden
from us. If we receive His light, more light will be given. The more often we say no
to God the harder our hearts become. He tells us through the apostle Paul, ‘Do
not be deceived. God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from
the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will
from the Spirit reap eternal life.” (Galatians 6:7-8)
Let’s now look at the Lord’s explanation of this parable starting at
verse 14:
“The sower sows the word. These are
the ones who are beside the road where the word is sown; and when they hear,
immediately Satan comes and takes away the word which has been sown in
them. In a similar way these are the ones on whom seed was sown on the rocky places,
who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy; and they
have no firm root in themselves, but are only temporary;
then, when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately
they fall away. And others are the ones on whom seed was sown among
the thorns; these are the ones who have heard the word, but the worries
of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires
for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. And
those are the ones on whom seed was sown on the good soil; and they hear the
word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.” (Mark 4:14-20)
No
one needs a degree in theology to make application of this parable. Some have
sat in church pews for decades but the words they’ve heard never even landed on
their soil. They may have served as ushers or Sunday school teachers or
catechists. They sang in the choir, served as altar servers. Some went to
Christian schools, were baptized, and even have made professions of faith. BUT their
lives today are as filthy and faithless and as feckless as those who make no
pretense of Christian faith.
In
other words, the word preached week after week and year after year did not
change their heart. They never allowed Christ to control their lives; They
wanted nothing to do with this “God-stuff”, and so Satan sat next to them in
the pew and snatched the word preached before it could even land on the
topsoil.
Oh!
Be careful with your heart that it not be so hard to never care about
“God-stuff.”
And
then there are those, even in the pew, who initially receive the word preached
– but after a short time end up leaving their Bibles and their faith on the
shelf of their bookcase. They rarely, if ever, crack open its pages and read
what God has to say through His inerrant, timeless, and infallible word.
And
so, when life happens, as it happens to everyone, troubles and tests and
sicknesses and losses – because they had no firm root within themselves, no
firm root dug deeply into God’s Book, it happens to them as the Lord warned in
Matthew’s gospel:
“Everyone who hears
these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man
who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods
came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and great
was its fall.” (Matthew 7:26-27)
Please don’t be
like that. Read His word every day. Meditate on His word every day. Fast from
physical food if you wish, but it is the devil’s seduction to get you to fast
from the spiritual food of God’s holy word. There is good reason the Holy
Spirit urges us through St. Peter, “Like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so
that by it you may grow in respect to salvation.” (1 Peter 2:2)
The next soil is the soil spoiled with weeds. “But the worries of the world, and the deceitfulness
of riches, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it
becomes unfruitful.”
Do you find yourself for hours in
front of the television or the computer glued to the daily news or programs of
entertainment? How many Christians are workaholics, spending 50, 60, 70 hours a
week at work and rarely, if ever, MAKE the time to attend Sunday Mass or church
services. They rarely, if ever, make the time to read the Scriptures and pray
more than a quick prayer over their meals. Who has time to sit QUIETLY with
their thoughts and wait for God to speak to them in their silence?
Who can hear God from an agitated,
stressed-out inner spirit? Like Martha
scurrying around the kitchen while her sister was doing the better thing of sitting
at the Lord’s feet – so too, many Christians today get so distracted by
circumstances and life events that they cannot even think to quiet themselves
and sit a while at Jesus’ feet. (Luke 10:40)
Christian,
don’t be like that. Pull out those weeds that are sucking your spiritual life
dry, that are robbing your spiritual life of its nourishment necessary to grow
in your faith.
And
finally, there is the good soil. It’s been offered to the Lord to dig up the
dry clumps of dirt, often broken up through the tests and struggles we endure.
And it gets watered and fertilized with prayer and the Scriptures and the
Sacraments.
It
is only THAT soil that bears fruit for God. It is only of THAT person the Lord
speaks when He says in that same section of Matthew chapter seven: “Therefore everyone
who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a
wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell,
and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house;
and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock.
(Matthew 7:24-25)
What kind of soil are you? Hard pack or shallow,
thorny or good.
And now the good news. If you are not the GOOD
soil today – you can be. If you WANT to be good soil, all you need do is bring that
desire to the cross and ask the Lord Jesus to take your dry and barren soil and
make it good and fruitful. In a manner of speaking, bringing that desire for
fruitfulness is a lot like confession and repentance.
And Jesus promised all who come to Him, He will
never cast out. (John 6:37)
But, as always, the “IF we come” depends
on us.
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