Week 26 ———  The Parable of the Four Soils
Matthew 13:10-23 — Mark 4:10-25 — Luke 8:9-18

Matthew 13:1-10   That same day, Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea.   And great crowds gathered about him, so that he got into a boat and sat down. And the whole crowd stood on the beach.   And he told them many things in parables, saying: “A sower went out to sow.   And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them.   Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose, they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away.   Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them.   Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.   He who has ears, let him hear.”

Then the disciples came and said to him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?”

Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist on February 16 and then spent 40 days in the wilderness.  He returned to John, who proclaimed him the “Lamb of God.” His ministry began on March 30 when some of John’s disciples asked to tag along.  Jesus is preaching, teaching, healing, and casting out demons, and he goes viral.  In just a few months, he has gone from the unknown son of a carpenter in a tiny crossroad town to the most talked about person in Galilee.  He also attracted the attention of the religious leaders, who began to plot ways to have him killed, a task they would accomplish eight months later on April 28.   

We are in the time when Jesus of Nazareth is at the height of his popularity.  People are coming from everywhere to hear him speak or to be healed.   Here in Capernaum, he goes out in the morning to the beach, and great crowds gather.  So he does as he has done before; he goes out in a boat so they can stand on the beach and hear him.  There is a cove near there, which people today call “the cove of the sower.”  You can see from this drone shot below that this would be a great place to teach a crowd, a natural amphitheater.  As the people stand there on the beach, behind them are fields.  This time of the year, the final harvesting of the wheat crop is completed, so the fields are sitting, waiting for the fall rains to soften the ground so they can be plowed and planted in September.  So the crowd can overflow from the beach to the field.

Jesus has something important to teach.  And for the first time, he teaches primarily in parables.  And the first parable he tells, the parable of the soils, is a parable about parables.  I want to deal with the last verse we read this morning first because the disciples ask a question that I have heard many people ask about Jesus:

Then the disciples came and said to him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?”

As you read the gospels, one-third of Jesus’s teaching is in parables. Why parables, Jesus? Why don’t you just say what you mean?

Jesus didn’t invent parables. There are many in the Old Testament. In Hebrew, they are called mashals.  For example, there is the one in Judges of the trees who wanted to crown themselves a king of the trees.  There is the parable that Nathan told David of the poor man who only had one lamb, but the wealthy neighbor came and took it.  Solomon often taught in parables.  The rabbis around Jesus’ day and afterward often taught in parables, and we have hundreds recorded in the Talmud.  But why teach in parables?

A parable is an ordinary life story told to make a point or teach a lesson.  One definition says a parable is “an allusive narrative which is told for an ulterior motive.  The well-known situation in the story disarms the listener, who is then hit with the lesson.  Soren Kierkegaard (a Danish theologian) said it this way: Parables are a form of indirect communication intended to deceive the hearer into the truth.

We see this in the parable of Nathan in 2 Samuel 12.  David has committed adultery with Bathsheba and murdered her husband.  But David is king and accountable to no one but God.  So Nathan tells David the story of a poor man with only one lamb.  Then, a wealthy man with many herds of sheep takes the poor man’s lamb from him, leaving him with nothing.  The king then becomes angry and says this wealthy man deserves to die. Nathan responds, “You are that man!”  Nathan told a story with an ulterior motive, and it worked.

Jesus uses parables to teach, but as with Nathan’s parable, they often involve a lesson people do not want to hear. Jesus uses parables for difficult lessons, usually lessons that challenge what people have been taught for years.  

So, let’s jump into Jesus’s first parable. He tells this one first because it is a parable about parables.

Some call it the parable of the sower, but it is really the parable of the four soils.  Many rabbinic parables compare four things.  Let me give you an example of an ancient rabbinic parable that is similar to this parable of Jesus because it is about how to listen:

There are four types among those who sit in the presence of the rabbis: the sponge, the funnel, the strainer, and the sieve. “The sponge,” which soaks up everything. “The funnel,” which takes in at this end and lets out at the other. “The strainer,” which lets out the wine and retains the dregs. “The sieve,” which removes the chaff and dust and keeps the grain. (Pirke Avot, 5:17)

So which do you think is the better student?  You might be tempted to say the sponge that soaks up everything is the best type of student.  They get it all.  And the worst listener is the funnel, for it just lets everything run through.  But look at the wine strainer.  It allows all the good wine to pass through but retains the dregs and contaminants.  Compare that to the sieve.  It removes the chaff and dirt but retains the seed. This is how the rabbis wanted their students to learn, to retain the essential lessons, but filter out the rest.  Paul, who was rabbinically trained, felt the same way about the people who listened to him:

Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” Acts 17:11

Don’t just listen to a message or bible study like a sponge.  Filter what you hear through the scripture.  Carefully consider how the scripture applies to your life, pray for God to open your eyes to his wisdom, and look for ways to be obedient to the Word.

Many of Jesus’ parables are agricultural because many of his listeners were farmers, and all of them depended on the success of the farmers to survive.  You teach using examples people are familiar with.  God even scheduled their religious observances around the farmers.  The beginning of the new year was determined by the first new moon after the barley reached the near-ripe Aviv state. Passover and the feast of Firstfruits happen just before the barley harvest.  Then, 50 days later, it is Pentecost, the wheat harvest time.

But our story today happens in the late summer.  The wheat harvest has ended.  The ground sits fallow for a few months. They wait until after the early rains come in October, which will soften the ground so they can plow it.  But the farmer does not rest.  Two things had to be done before the early rains came.   First, they must burn off the thorns.  If they don’t, then whatever they plant will be choked out.  Next, they must remove the rocks from the field.  Rocks are constantly pushed up to the surface or exposed by the rain.  Typically, farmers collect these rocks on the borders of their fields, as shown in this picture.  

So in the parable, you have seed sown on the path, the rocky ground, among the thorns, and on the good soil.  We talked about this parable in my men’s group last year, and my friend Shane asked, “Why would you sow seed in those other places anyway?  Remember that all their work to farm the land was done by hand.  The seed for wheat was thrown and scattered as they walked through their fields.  So, some would be blown on the rocky places or the paths around the fields.  

Now we move on to the explanation of the parable:  “The seed is the word of God” (Luke 8:11).   This is a parable about hearing the word of God.   Notice that the seed that falls in these four places is the same.  Now it is possible that when you plant your garden you might get bad seed.  But that is not the problem here.  God’s word is the seed, and it is always good.  This parable answers why different groups of people can hear the same word but respond in entirely different ways.  So, as you read this parable, you should ask yourself, what kind of soil am I?

Matthew 13:19-23  When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is what was sown along the path.  As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, yet he has no root in himself but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away.  As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.  As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it. He indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”

The seed on the path, the hard ground. It just sits there.  The birds come and eat it.  Jesus says this represents the evil one ‘snatching it away.’   How does the evil one snatch what you hear out of your head?  It is easy.  Because the ground is so hard, the seed never gets in.  These people listen, but they hear nothing.  They are hard-hearted.  They are the funnel in the rabbi’s parable.  It all just passes in one ear and out the other.    They don’t care about the word. It is like me watching that documentary on British Royalty that my wife was watching on Netflix.  I was in the room and heard the TV, but when it was over, I knew nothing about British royalty.

Then, there is the seed on the rocky ground.  They receive it with joy.  Oh, they like being in church.  They know everyone; they clap and sing and may raise their hands in praise.  But outside the church, being excited about God may not be convenient.  What happens if it is not popular to talk about God? They get quiet. These are the people who like the idea of God and the idea of “going to Heaven,” but they don’t have a genuine personal relationship with the Father.  But Jesus says, “When tribulation or persecution arises.”  We in the US know very little about persecution.  For many years, Christianity has been popular in the US.  For a time, it was good for a business person to be involved in a church.  That helped his business.  It is still true to some extent in the South.  But times are changing.  Church membership may be a negative in some areas.  But tribulation and persecution?  We haven’t yet known that to any degree here.  But in the rest of the world, persecution abounds.

This is a map from opendoors.org that shows the countries in the world with very high and extreme levels of persecution of Christians. 

One in seven Christians in the world is under persecution.  Last year, 4998 Christians were killed for their faith. There are no rocky ground listeners in these countries.  There are no ‘casual Christians.’  If you sit in a church meeting (typically a home church), then you could be arrested or, in several of these countries, killed on the spot.  These people must count the cost anytime they gather to discuss scripture or pray.  They have removed the rocks from their fields.  They desire a deep relationship with God.  If they didn’t, they wouldn’t have taken the risk.

Then there is the seed sown among thorns.

 “Matthew 13:19-23  …As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.”   The cares of the world.  Distraction.  I am constantly amazed by an incredibly bizarre thing that happens every Sunday morning in churches all over America. It has happened in every church I have ever attended.  Everyone sits and listens for 30 minutes to someone talk about scripture, about this amazing God who had the power to speak words to make the universe come into existence. And about a heavenly Father who loves us so much that Jesus was willing to suffer for us, to die for our sins and be raised from the dead.  And then afterward, everyone pretends that it didn’t happen.  The last hymn is sung, and then everyone pops up, and it is like this:  “How about those Braves?  Oh, I like your dress!  Did you see ‘The Bachelor’ this week?  That storm last night was intense.  What’s for lunch?”  You may get challenged by God by something said or sung in church.  But as soon as the last hymn is over, your mind turns to other things.  The cares of this world: the weather, the previous ballgame, what’s for lunch?  And whatever it was that challenged you from God’s word is forgotten, and you are none the better.  Or is it that we hear the benediction and assume that God-time is over?   Okay, we did the God stuff for an hour, and now, we’ll move on to the rest of life.

Let me be honest with you for just a minute.  When someone comes up to me after the service and says something like, “I appreciated what you said,” or “Thanks, that really spoke to me,” I desperately want to respond, “Great, what exactly spoke to you? What did you hear that meant something to you?  How will that make a difference in your life?”  But I am guilty of just letting it go.  We all move on to other things.  God-time is over.  But it isn’t.  We are all surrounded by thorns.  Too quickly, we move on because someone somewhere said,  “There are two things you never discuss in public: politics or religion.”  If we can’t talk to each other about how scripture affects us and what God is doing in our lives, then we aren’t people of God.  God was never meant to be a one-hour-a-week God.  He doesn’t take up residence in our hearts on a part-time basis.  If he is our Lord, then it is 24/7.  

But we are taught to separate the world into sacred and secular as if they are two different things. Secular is defined as “denoting  attitudes, activities, or other things with no religious or spiritual basis.”  Let me ask you, where in this world is God absent?  Where do you go without the Holy Spirit within you?  Our whole life, our entire time on this planet, is sacred.  Nothing is outside God.  For a Christian, there is no such thing as secular. 

But we are so easily distracted.  There are always ten other things that clamor for our attention. This is why I take notes when I listen to a sermon.  It helps me focus so I can go home, look up the scripture, and consider things.  Don’t let the cares of this world take away your chance to grow as a Christian.   This is why we have trouble finding time to study the word, pray, or do whatever God has asked us to do.  We are too distracted. 

I’m not saying we can’t be social and talk about current happenings.  But don’t turn off God’s presence in your life.  Find time to share your life with God with others.  Don’t let the thorns get you.  Don’t let the cares of this world steal your chance to be who God wants you to be.

This world is full of people who work hard to avoid thinking about their lives and where they are headed. They constantly seek distraction because they don’t want to think about things with eternal meaning.  Victor Frankl said it this way:

“When a person can’t find a deep sense of meaning, they distract themselves with pleasure.”

Remember when Jesus went to Mary and Martha and Lazarus’ house, and Mary sat at Jesus’ feet to listen to his teaching: 

Luke 10:40-42  “But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.”  But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”

Sometimes, we are distracted by good things.  Serving is a good thing, but there is a time to serve and a time to listen.  There is a time to talk about the weather or the ball game and a time to study scripture.  Be careful not to let the evil one snatch away all your opportunities to grow in God’s word.

Then, there is the seed on the good ground that has been properly prepared.  The thorns have been burned off, and the rocks have been removed.  The soil has been tilled and plowed.  It is ready for the seed.  “this is the one who hears the word and understands it.”  The word “understands” means considering and contemplating what he hears.  Then Jesus says, “He indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”  Note the reverse order of the yield. Usually, we would say, “30 times, 60 times, a hundred times.” A hundred times the yield is a harvest almost beyond belief.  Jesus is here emphasizing the hundredfold because he wants his Bible-aware listeners to remember someone in the Bible who harvested that amount.

Gen. 26:12   And Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundredfold. Yehovah blessed him.   

Jesus is telling his listeners that they can be blessed like Isaac, one of their patriarchs, one they revered. The story is even richer if you know the context.  If you don’t, then go back to the first verse of Genesis 26: 

Gen. 26:1   Now there was a famine in the land.   

Isaac is reaping this massive crop amid a famine in the land.   Everyone else can’t find food, and Isaac raises this amazing bumper crop.   We are living in a time of famine, a moral famine.  The world has pursued pleasure to such extremes that morality is no longer considered important.  Right and wrong are no longer the standard.  For most of the world, God is becoming irrelevant.  The spiritual famine is real.  But Jesus says that despite this famine, you can bear fruit in a fantastic harvest if you are the good soil. 

You must properly prepare yourself to hear the word of God.  How do you prepare?   Have an ongoing relationship with God, listen and carefully consider the Word, and don’t let the cares of this world choke out your life.  If you do this, you will reap blessings you can’t even imagine.

Matthew 13:10-15   Then the disciples came and said to him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?”   And he answered them, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.  For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.  This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.  Indeed, in their case the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says:
“‘“You will indeed hear but never understand,
and you will indeed see but never perceive.”
   For this people’s heart has grown dull,
and with their ears they can barely hear,
and their eyes they have closed,
lest they should see with their eyes
and hear with their ears
and understand with their heart
and turn, and I would heal them.’

This makes it sound like Jesus is hiding the truth of scripture on purpose from some.  But you have to know the context of the quote he is giving here from the book of Isaiah.  Jesus quotes from Isaiah 6 because things are as they were in Isaiah’s day.  It was a time when people had turned away from God.  Even the priests and religious leaders had settled into a pattern of going through the motions of religion without truly honoring Yehovah.  They heard the Scripture, but they could not understand.  God called Isaiah to try to get the people to return to God and repent.  But they did not listen.  Jesus finds the people in the same situation.  The people listen to the scripture but do not “hear” it.  For Jesus, the word ‘hear’ is the Hebrew ‘shmah’, which means listening and obeying.  Jesus sees the people listening to God’s word and then ignoring it.  Without obedience, they haven’t really heard. And that is why Jesus says:  “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” (Jesus says this a lot.)  You only understand it if you know the Hebrew verb shmah.  He says: ”If you are able to listen, then you had better obey.”

Notice that every soil gets the same seed.  The difference is the soil.  Everyone hears the same words from Jesus.  Some respond with thankfulness and worship, and others respond with anger—the same words but very different responses.  And Jesus says the difference is what type of soil you are. 

Brad Young tells the story of being in Israel during the time of year when farmers were working hard to prepare their fields.  They had burned off the thorns and were working to get the rocks out of the field.  Some were lugging heavy stones back to the boundary; One was pounding on a huge rock to break it up so it could be moved.  And he watched him for a while, sweating in the hot sun, and heard God whisper to him.  “Are you willing to do that kind of work to prepare your field, your heart for my words?”

Are you willing?