Break Up the Fallow Ground — Bill McLeod

Hearing the Word With the Right Attitude

The Lord Jesus Christ said, take heed what you hear. It's important that we not listen to the wrong things. But he also said something else that we don't usually think about. He said, take heed how you hear.

How you hear. That is your attitude to truth. And he went on to say that he that has, that is truth, to him shall more be given than he that has not. From him shall be taken even that which he has. It's not just important to take heed what you hear, but to take heed how you hear.

Your attitude to truth. The Lord Jesus gave us seven parables in Matthew chapter 13. I want to take a text though from Jeremiah chapter 4. It's the third verse. Thus saith the Lord to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, break up your fallow ground and sow not among thorns.

Jesus’ Parabolic Teaching

There were two prophecies in the Psalms respecting Messiah that when he came his teaching would be parabolic in nature. I will open my mouth in the parable, I will utter dark sayings of old. From Psalm 78 for example.

The other one I think was Psalm 49. And the New Testament indicates, it says distinctly that without a parable he did not speak to them, that is to the world. To his disciples he did, that is he spoke without parables, but to the world he did not speak except in parabolic form.

People say what about the Sermon on the Mount? Ah, the Sermon on the Mount is not parabolic, but that was not spoken to the world. It says when he was set his disciples came unto him and he taught them.

So that was a crowd of disciples that he preached the Sermon on the Mount to. Otherwise he preached in parables. And there are 50 parables in the Greek language in the New Testament. There are 50, all but two of them are found in the four Gospels.

And Jesus indicated in John's Gospel chapter 16 that there was a time coming when he would no longer speak in parables. And after Pentecost there's no more parabolic teaching. Now people make the mistake of assuming that a parable is an illustration.

It's not an illustration, it's the whole message. No, an illustration is like a window in a building to let in some light. But the parable is not an illustration. I repeat again, it's the whole message.

Now when they were alone, it says, he expounded the parables to his disciples. He explained them when they were alone. And there's a number of cases in the four Gospels or three Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, where they asked him the meaning of certain specific parables.

Why Jesus Spoke in Parables

But it raises a very interesting question. Why did Jesus speak in parables? And if you've never seen this, you'll be shocked. You'll be greatly shocked at what it says. They said to Jesus, why do you speak to them in parables?

Do you know what his answer was? So they won't understand. That's what he said. He said, unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to others in parables that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not hear or understand.

Now that's shocking, isn't it? That he told these parables so people would not understand? That's not what writers normally say about the parables. They think that parables were to make things plain. Oh no, they weren't.

He distinctly said, I make it plain to you, my disciples, but to the world I don't. And there was a specific reason for that, because he was addressing the nation of Israel. And they'd sinned for centuries against light and truth.

They persecuted and slain the prophets. And this was their last chance, their last chance from God. Because the wrath of God had arisen against his people because of their constant rejection. That's why he said, take heed how you hear.

There were some people, all they were interested in was getting a full stomach or seeing a miracle. And they followed Christ for that reason alone. He said, you seek me not because you saw the miracles, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.

They weren't even interested in the miracles, some of them, just in getting their belly filled. They didn't want to see the power of God even. And no real interest in truth at all. How is your heart tonight?

Take heed, my dear friend, how you hear. This is the truth of God. And Jesus Christ distinctly said, heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. He also said, he that rejects me and receives not my words has one that judges him.

The word that I have spoken, the same will judge him in the last day. And the word you refuse to listen to and refuse to believe and refuse to accept, by that very word you will be judged in the coming judgment day.

Jesus Christ said so. And you better believe it. Some people say, I don't plan on being there. Let me tell you something, you won't have any plans in that day. Only God will have plans. And his will be carried out.

And the Bible says unto me, every knee shall bow, your knee, every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, the glory of God the Father. Paul said, referring to the statement from Isaiah's book, he said, so then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.

Take heed what you hear, take heed how you hear. Now in Matthew 13 there are seven parables in a row. The first of the seven is the key to understanding all the parables, because when they said to Jesus, what does this parable mean?

He said, don't you understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables? So what he was really saying, I think, was that this parable is the key to understanding the others. And we're going to look at that first parable of the seven in Matthew 13 tonight.

Let's just pray. Lord, be pleased to bless your word to our hearts. And oh God, we pray if our heart is cold, oh God, if we have a rocky heart, we pray, dear Lord, that you penetrate our defenses, knock them down, Lord, and speak to us powerfully, we pray.

Blessed Father, someday we stand naked before you, with no one to plead our cause in Christ's name. The first parable has three ingredients. It has a sower, it has the seed, and it has the soil. The sower, Jesus Christ, the Son of Man.

The Sower and the Purity of the Seed

And I read in Deuteronomy chapter 32, as I was just the other day, it says, as for God, his work is perfect. You know, people often criticize the church to say, well, man alive, you guys have been around for 1 ,900 years, what have you done?

The world's in a worse mess now. And they blame all they can on the church. You know, church started wars and all this kind of thing, and unfortunately there were certain periods of time when the church did meddle a lot in politics, and to some extent was guilty of certain wars in Europe.

What's wrong with your God, they say? There's nothing wrong with my God, his work is perfect. Well, let's look at the seed for a few moments. Is there something wrong with the seed? The seed remembers the word of God.

The words of the Lord are pure words, as silver tried in the furnace of earth, purified seven times. That's in Psalm 12. The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. The testimonies of the Lord are sure, making wise the simple.

The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. So David said, therefore I esteem all your precepts concerning all things to be right, and I hate every false way. There's nothing wrong with the sower, and there's nothing wrong with the seed.

Nothing. But there's something wrong with the soil. And the soil is the human heart, which the Bible declares is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, Jeremiah 17. The New Testament talks about us being corrupt, and talks about us being filled with deceitful lust.

And all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. The Bible distinctly declares there is not a soul on earth that ever sought God. He means that ever sought God on his own. God first seeks us. Jesus said, No man can come to me except the Father who has sent me.

Draw him. And if God didn't draw you, you'd never seek God. Nobody would ever seek God. Nobody has ever sought God whom God did not first seek. But the human heart is terrible, terrible soil. There's where the problem is.

So it's not with the sower and not with the seed. I had a friend who grew mushrooms, and he had come from Ontario to the Winnipeg area and started a mushroom plant there, and he was so concerned about his mushroom crops, he wouldn't let a farmer inside his mushroom houses.

He said, They carry disease spores on their clothes. Gets into my crop, can ruin a whole house. And down east where he came from, he said, rival mushroom growers used to hire guys to try and get into another guy's mushroom houses and put in disease spores to put them out of business.

And he'd never used this kind of spore you can get from department stores. He said, That stuff is loaded with problems. He used to get his spore from mushrooms from a university in Philadelphia, I think it was.

He said, It costs a lot of money, but it's pure. Well, I'm sure even that was not entirely pure, because he showed me one time he had some problems in his mushroom crop. Red pepper mites, one was called, and another thing was called mat disease, and it cut all the mushrooms off an inch or so below the surface.

So even the seed he got was not pure. But let me tell you something. The Word of God is pure, absolutely pure. And the problems with the human heart, full of sin, envy, selfishness, critical spirit, lying tongue, lust, and all the rest of it.

The Wayside Soil and a Hardened Heart

And the Word of God lands in that kind of soil, and there's problems, you see. Now Jesus said there were four kinds of soil. First of all, it was what he called the wayside. The idea here is, you know, there's a path across the field, and sometimes people walk across the field, even a grain field, and they tramp everything down.

The ground is hard. And so he explains, see, in those days they didn't have seed drills, you know, they just did it broadcast by the hand with a bag at their side. They walked down the field and kept throwing their stuff out, and just laid it on the ground.

And if it landed on anything hard, the birds would come and pick it off. That's what he said. And he explained this to me in Luke's gospel, Luke chapter 8. This represented the devil, who when the Word of God was sown in a person's heart where there was hardness, that Satan comes and takes the seed of the Word of God out of their heart, lest they should believe and be saved.

So people sit in a meeting like this, and they hear the gospel, and they may be powerfully impressed, but they put up their defenses and decide, no, I won't do that. And then, you know, a day later they wonder why they ever felt that way in church, because they don't feel that way anymore, and they don't realize what's happened.

The birds have come, the demons have come, and they've taken the Word of God out of men's hearts, lest that person should believe and be saved. I remember one time seeing a sign. There was a university, a hospital here, and then there was the nurse's residence here, and there was a walkway around, but many of the nurses were just walking straight across the lawn.

And there was a path this wide, I mean, there was just no lawn at all. So the caretaker, the gardener, he did something about it, and he put up a big sign in the middle of the path, and the sign said, Ouch!

Your feet are killing me! David said to Saul, Wherefore hearest thou men's words? That's the problem. We're listening to what men are saying, instead of listening to what God has said. Wherefore hearest thou men's words?

Paul said, Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. You may be totally spoiled through human philosophies.

There is a Christian philosophy of life based on the Bible. That's totally different. But these humanistic or human philosophies, they can harden your heart. You let men walk across your heart, it'll get very hardened.

After a while, the Bible won't mean anything to you. You'll laugh at it, even. I'll never forget one time years ago, I offered a friend of mine I hadn't seen in years, I met him on the streets of Winnipeg, and I offered him a gospel tract, and he almost spit in my face.

He jumped back and he said, Don't pull at me with that garbage! And he turned and went off down the street. Garbage? That God loved him? That's garbage? That Jesus died on the cross to make a place for us in heaven and save us from hell, and that's garbage?

The Shallow Soil and Temporary Profession

That's what he felt, because his heart was so hard that he'd fallen to all kinds of sin, and he loved his sin. He had no intention of giving it up. That was the problem, the wayside. Then he talked about seed landing in shallow ground, where it had not much earth.

And of course, that soil warms up quickly, because the rock is close beneath, and you sow in there, and then it comes up quickly, it says. But when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately they are offended.

He put it to, he explained that, but the way he put it was that the sun burns it, because it doesn't have any root, it doesn't last long, and it's gone. You know, there's all kinds of people around, they live on a funny level, you know, they've got to have, they don't want to think about anything deep.

They want everything sort of spoon-fed to them, and don't bother me with, you know, theological ideas, because that, you know, I have to think about it. I don't like thinking about things. They just like to be spoon-fed like a baby, you know, bird in its little nest, and mother comes along with a worm and drops it in.

They don't want anything. Like the Bible talks about people, God said about certain prophets, he said, they've made my people to err by their lies, and by their lightness, their lightness. And so there are some people, they want everything light, and frivolous, and funny, and they don't want anything heavy, you know.

That's the second kind of heart into which the Word of God may fall. And it won't last long. They may make an instant profession of some kind, but, well, it was good, potentially good soil, but it was filled with weeds.

The Thorny Soil and the Call to Repentance

And our text says, break up your fallow ground and do not sow among thorns. What's the point of sowing good seed in a field that's filled with weeds? Break up your fallow ground, sow not among thorns.

And Hosea said the same thing in chapter 10, verse 12 of his book. He said, sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy, break up your fallow ground, for it's time to seek the Lord till He come and rain righteousness upon you.

And I think that's a promise of revival. Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy, break up your fallow ground, get rid of the weeds, the ground up. It's time to seek the Lord till He come and rain righteousness upon you.

What kind of thorns? Jesus explained. Cares, riches, pleasures, and the lusts of other things entering in. This is probably the kind of heart that most people have. And unfortunately, sometimes as we have this kind of a heart.

Cares. We all know that verse in 1 Peter 5, casting all your care upon Him. Do we do it? Sometimes we lay away at the night worrying about this and that, worrying about... You know, 99 of the things we worry about don't ever happen.

But we get into that, that worry syndrome. Be anxious, it says, for nothing which means really, don't worry about a thing. Be anxious for nothing. There shall no evil happen to the just. All things work together for good to them that love God.

But our unbelief cripples God in His activity on our behalf, so we can't do for us the things He wants to do. People worry about getting old and having no money and getting sick and all this kind of thing, and how I'll ever stand up to this.

And we worry and worry. Cares. Paul said, I will have you without carefulness. I want you to attend upon the Lord without any distraction, he said. But cares come in. And we sit in church, many times we do this.

You've done it. We sit there. We don't hear a word, because your mind's a thousand miles away, worrying about other things, casting all your care upon Him. Or Psalm 37 5, commit your way unto Him, to the Lord.

Trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass. He'll take care of it. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things you're worrying about will be added unto you. The things that you, you know, we need money, we need a home, we need clothes, we need food.

God knows all of that. And He said, if you put my business first, I'll put yours first. But most Christians don't buy that. Most people don't buy that. And they worry. I saw a text in the wall one time, it said, if you can't trust, then worry.

That's what a lot of us do. We're just plain worried. Cares. Riches. Ah, people say, well, preacher, you can pass over that, because I'm not wealthy. Well, let me remind you of something. By world standards, the poorest person in this room is a wealthy person.

I've been in third world countries numbers of times, and I'll tell you, some of those people, they would swim to Canada if they could swim to Canada. They would do anything to get here. We constantly, in South America and other countries, have people coming and asking us, could you, could you get me to Canada?

They'd do anything to get out of those countries, some of them. You have no idea how bad it is. There's at least 75 countries in the world where the average annual income is $150 or less. You heard it, not a month, a year.

1 of what we might get in Canada, the United States, or 2%, all kinds of countries like that. I remember seeing in South America one time, I saw a wealthy man's home. I saw this huge building, a three-story looking thing, beautiful pink stone outside, tennis courts in behind and everything, swimming pool and all this kind of stuff.

I said, what's that, a chalet? Oh, no, the fellow said, that's a wealthy man's weekend home. And about a hundred yards over there was a cliff and a drop about 500 feet. And I kind of saw something, and I went to take a look, and here was a man, he dug a hole in the cliff down below, and that was his house, just a hole in the cliff.

And he somehow made a few little steps up in the side of the mud wall so he could get up to the top. It was actually a dangerous place to be, if you know, I don't know how, but whether he had a family or not.

And sometimes you see a house, just a shack, you know, just a plain shack. I saw a place one time, matter of fact, my wife and I were in India in Madras, and we were walking, we came around the corner, there was a lady lying dead here.

Nobody paid the slightest attention because that's not news in India. Just laying there, dead, probably 35 or whatever. And about 20 feet away there was a house. How would you like to live in this house?

A rickety old fence here, you know, and they found a few sticks and put these down to make a kind of a lean-to, and a little bit of cardboard and tarpaulin, whatever, and that made the roof, and it was open on both ends.

And there's five or six people living under there. I think she probably belonged to them, but now at least she was dead, so there was one less mouth to feed, you know. And I got some movies of things like that.

I got movies of a man, he stood in front of his house, so I could take his picture, and there he stood. I think he had one tooth in his head, and he was grinning from ear to ear, and his house was about this high, and just about this wide, and he had to back into its feet first to get everything in, you know.

That was his house. And you say you're not wealthy? Dear people, we are very wealthy people here, very wealthy. It's one of the reasons why North American people are often hated in third-world countries, because they know how wealthy we are.

They know how poor they are, in contrast to what we are here. Carers, they that will be rich, fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition, the word of God says.

Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not high-minded, nor trust in riches, but in the living God, who gives us, richly, all things to enjoy. So God has given us great blessings here in North America, but by world standards, we're rich people.

You know, like I sometimes said, we have so many things in our house, you know, these modern conveniences, their feet stick out the windows, but we still don't have any more time for God, because, I mean, you have to keep these things running, you know.

You ever read this in James? Hearken, my beloved brethren, has not God chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he has promised to them that love him? You know, it's not bad to be poor.

When I first went preaching 46 years ago, they paid me $10 a month. I don't tell you I was poor, but I tell you, I learned how to trust God. And I really hung on to that verse in James, you know, has not God chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith?

You know, in some of those third-world countries, you'll find Christians, they know how to trust God. They have to trust God, even to survive. And here we can clip off our coupons, you know, and mass up our money in the bank and everything, and take it cool.

Cares, riches, and then it talks about pleasures. She that lives in pleasure is dead while she lives, the Word of God says, in the New Testament. In the Old Testament, in Proverbs, it says, he that loves pleasure shall be a poor man.

And the marginal reading is the word sport. He that loves sport shall be a poor man. Well, I know I've got to be careful now, because if you ever talk about this, there's people that get real mad, you know.

They can tell you the batting average of everybody in the National League, but they couldn't for $1 ,000. They couldn't tell you the names of the 12 apostles. And they probably couldn't tell you what the Ten Commandments are.

And they think everybody should be included as far as sports is concerned. Listen, I played every sport there was when I was a kid. I like sports, but I don't love it. It's not significant. It doesn't mean anything to me.

And what I sometimes have done, I was telling some people the other day, what I sometimes have done, you know, it's my team. Let's say it's the last football game of the year, and my team happens to be in the finals, and they're three points behind, and they've got two minutes to go, and they're on the other guy's five-yard line, and I walk over and turn the stupid TV set off to show who the boss is.

I mean, it doesn't mean anything. But I'll tell you, to some people, it means everything. I mean, they're totally engrossed in sports, in spite of what the Word of God says. Dead while she lives. Dead while he lives.

He that lives in pleasure is dead, God said. Believe it? You better believe it. It's true. That's one of the weeds, you see. And then it talks about the lust of other things entering in. There's a lust for all kinds of things.

Food, drink, sex, other things. Galatians 5 .24 says, "...and they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the passions and lusts.". Have you done that? "...abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul.".

Did you know that? The Word of God says very clear. "...for to put off the old man which is corrupt," it says, "...according to the deceitful lusts.". Now, these are the weeds that choke the seed of the Word of God, so nothing ever seems to come to perfection.

Malice, Guile, Hypocrisy, and Envy

Now, Peter talked about this in 1 Peter chapter 2. You know, you quote that text, "...desire the sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby.". And people, you know, people often say to me, they say, well, and they're up there being honest, and they say, Brother Bill, listen, how in the world can you have a hunger for the Word of God when you don't have a hunger for the Word of God?

That's a good question. I mean, if your stomach is full and you feel like sleeping, how can you get hungry all of a sudden and want to eat? You can't. You're full. So it's a good question. How can I desire when I don't desire the sincere milk of the Word?

You see, what happens is people are taking a text out of a context, and then it becomes a pretext. It's not what God is saying at all. What does he say there? Look at the context. Wherefore, "...laying aside all malice," now he's talking about the weeds that choke the seed of the Word of God.

"...laying aside all malice," and malice is secret hatred in the heart. You shake a person's hand, and you wish he'd drop dead. You know, it's secret inner hatred. The Bible talks about that in the Old Testament, in Leviticus even.

You're not to bear a grudge in your heart. Grudge not one against another. James said, malice. "...laying aside all malice and guile," there's some people you just can't trust them. You never know what they're saying.

They talk out of both sides of their mouth. You don't know where they're at. You can never pin them down. They're full of guile, and they're constantly trying to work other people into their miserable, selfish program.

They don't have time for anybody that they can't use, and they're always looking for people they can use and abuse in different ways. Guile is what the fisherman uses when he goes fishing. He doesn't put a sign on the hook saying, if you bite this hook, you'll wind up in my stomach.

He puts feathers on it, and you know, he buys all kinds of shiny things that wiggle in the water and so on to deceive the fish. That's guile. And there are lots of people like that. You can't really tell where they're at.

They're not what they appear to be. In Romans chapter 13, the Word of God says, it says, "...now it is high time to awake out of sleep. For now is our salvation nearer than when we believe. The night is far spent, the day is at hand.

Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk honestly as in the day.". Do you walk honestly? If some people listen to them, they tell a story. You hear it another time, they tell a different story.

You hear it a third time, it's another story again. You never know whether you can trust them or not. Malice, guile, lay them aside. These are weeds. It says, "...and hypocrisy.". Some of the modern translations don't use the word hypocrite.

They use the phrase, an actor on the stage of life. And sometimes people come and say, I'm tired of acting. I've been acting for 12 years. I'm just sick and tired of acting and pretending. I'll tell you, God is sick of the two.

You remember it says in Hebrews chapter 10, "...let us draw near with a true heart.". A true heart. And Jesus spoke in this parable about an honest heart. God wants us to come to him with a true heart.

True is the opposite of false. He wants us to come with an honest heart. Just be what you are. Don't play games with God. Don't pretend it's any different or any better than it really is. Come to God the way you are.

And then become before others an honest person. Laying aside all malice and all guile and hypocrisies and envies can ask you a question, you answer it in your own heart. Are you thoroughly, totally satisfied with what you have?

The Bible says, remember, having food and clothing, let us be there with content. Doesn't even mention a car or a house. Food and clothing, be content. Godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world and it is certain we can carry nothing out.

A rich man dies and people ask the inevitable question, how much money did he leave? And the proper answer is, he left it all. He left it all. You didn't bring anything. You came naked in. You're going to go naked out.

So having food and clothing, let us be there with content. Envy. You wish you had your neighbor's house or his car or his job or his wife or her husband or whatever. And God sees that. Oh, godliness with contentment is great gain.

It's better than money in the bank to be totally satisfied with what you have. Because what you have has come after all from the hand of God. The young lions lack and they suffer hunger, the Bible says, but those who seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing.

You have enough. But you may not have enough to satisfy the old man or to satisfy the flesh. That's why they have to be crucified. In the interest of God and his work, his kingdom, I'm going to walk as a Christian.

Malice, guile, envies. And then it says, and all evil speaking. Saying things about a person you wouldn't dare say if they were standing there. Running people down. She's a good Christian, but she has this problem.

He's a good guy, but. Like somebody said, only billy goats, but. And sometimes we're like that, aren't we? We run people down. Some people spend hours in the telephone running people down, questioning people's motives.

And God's the only one that can really do that. We did a message, as you know, on esteeming or judging. If you're judging, the word of God, remember, simply says, judge nothing before the time until the Lord come.

Judge what? Judge nothing. Listen, judge nothing before the time until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the counsels of the heart. And then shall every man have praise of God.

He'll find something to praise in the weakest Christian that ever walked the earth. You may find a lot of things wrong, but don't forget every Christian someday will shine like the stars. Listen, Christians are very, very special people.

I'll tell you how special they are. God died in the cross for them. That's what special Christians are. Don't criticize them. If they're not doing well, pray for them. Pray for them. Love them. Don't criticize them.