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Reading Matthew 13:18-23 where Jesus explains the parable of the sower and we consider what is represented by the illustration of the path, the rocks, and the thorns. Visit wwutt.com for all our videos!
In the parable of the sower, Jesus mentions three soils, the path, the rocks, and the thorns. And each of these three soils represents a person who hears the message of the gospel, but did not truly believe it when we understand the text.
This is When We Understand the Text, a daily Bible study in the word of Christ. For he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Tell your friends about our ministry at www .wutt .com.
Hey, once again, it's Pastor Gabe.
Thank you, Becky. In our study of the gospel of Matthew this week, we began in chapter 13, where Jesus delivers his discourse of parables. We started with the parable of the sower, and also Jesus explaining to his disciples why he teaches in parables.
Today, we wanna hear the parable of the sower explained. This is Matthew chapter 13, verses 18 to 23, which I'm reading from the Legacy Standard Bible. Hear the word of the Lord. Hear then the parable of the sower.
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 the one on whom seed was sown beside the road. And the one on whom seed was sown in the rocky places, this is the man who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy.
Yet he has no root in himself, but is only temporary. And when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away. And the one on whom seed was sown among the thorns, this is the one who hears the word, and the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word and it becomes unfruitful.
And the one on whom seed was sown on the good soil, this is the man who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and brings forth some a hundredfold, some 60 and some 30. I wish all of the parables that Jesus told were this clearly explained.
Not all of them are. We have to do a little bit more work to understand some of the other parables. But with regards to this first one, Jesus gives the parable of the sower, which we read in verses one through nine yesterday, then tells his disciples the reason why he teaches in parables.
To you, it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom, but to them, it has not been given. That explanation is in verses 10 to 17. And then here we have the parable of the sower clearly explained to them in verses 18 to 23.
Now, these parables, once again, the purpose of the parables Jesus gave in that section from verses 10 to 17, where he says the parables reveal the mysteries of the kingdom and only to certain people, only to his disciples to whom it has been given to understand the mysteries of the kingdom, to those who do not understand, to those who are opposed to the kingdom, who do not know Christ, they cannot understand the parables.
So the parables are meant to show us something about the kingdom. And so even here with regards to the parable of the sower, you have the seed that represents the message of the kingdom. So that's what Jesus says in verse 19, anyone who hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it.
So that's what's being signified by the seed. Just as I said yesterday with the sowing of seed is that picture of broadcasting because he's broadly casting the seed out. And it's from that same word that we've applied it to sending out a message over radio waves or television or something like that.
We're broadcasting a message just as somebody would cast out seed or broadcast seed. And so the seed represents the message. It represents the word of the kingdom. And then Jesus establishes the different soils.
So he explains, first of all, the path, then the rocks, then the thorns, and then the good soil. So he says in verse 19, 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 the one on whom seed was sown beside the road. So remember in the parable, Jesus talked about the sower casting seed and some of it falling along the path. And the birds come along and they eat the seed that has fallen on the path.
So the seed did not fall in soil. It didn't get the chance to receive the nutrients of the soil, get moisture, get sun so that it breaks open and a plant comes forth. Instead, the birds just immediately snatched it away.
Nothing ever even happened to that seed except that it became bird food. So this is the evil one represented by these birds that come and snatch away what has been sown in the heart. This is the one on whom seed was sown beside the road.
So let's put this into a scenario here. Let's say two people are going down to the city park, two men, and they hear a man standing there that is delivering the gospel. He's proclaiming the gospel. He's pointing to sin and the wickedness of this age and how the judgment of God is coming upon the wickedness of our culture.
And the only way to be saved from the judgment of God that is coming is to repent of your sin and turn to the Lord Jesus Christ. He who died on the cross as an atoning sacrifice, who rose again from the dead, conquering death itself.
He ascended into heaven and the preacher is pointing to the scriptures and all of these things, showing where all of this is according to the Bible. He is seated at the right hand of God and he's coming back again to judge the living and the dead.
God showed by whom he would judge the world by raising him from the dead as Paul preached in Acts chapter 17. So as this man is preaching this message, the two men that have come there to the park, one of them hears the message and he is convicted by it.
He believes that he is a sinner who is going to perish in judgment unless there is someone who saves him. And he hears the message of the gospel, Jesus Christ who will save him from his sin, from the judgment of God that is coming.
The other man that's standing next to him, he hears the same message, but his heart is resistant to it. He thinks it's silly, it's ridiculous. This guy's up there preaching mythology. You're gonna be persuaded by this mythology?
Why weren't you so moved when we were reading about Zeus in our Greek history class or something like that? So one man hears the message and he's convicted by it and it actually changes his heart to become someone who believes it.
Whereas the other man hears the same message and he doesn't believe. One man represents good soil, which we'll get to that. The one on whom seed was sown as good soil, this is the man who hears the word and understands it.
And then he even goes on to bear fruit. So one of them is good soil and the other man is the path. He hears the same message, but never believes it at any point. It's just immediately the enemy snatches the message away from him so that it never takes root.
This is the one on whom seed was sown beside the road. The Holy Spirit has transformed one man's heart to hear the word and understand it. Whereas the enemy has snatched the word away from the other man so that he does not hear and he does not understand.
This is the man who is represented by the path. And this would likely be the vast majority of people who hear the gospel. And one of the reasons why I believe Jesus mentioned this one first in this parable, the seed that falls along the path, because this is most people.
Most people who hear the gospel are not gonna turn from their sin to the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. The vast majority of them are gonna be resistant to the message of the gospel. You just think of Peter and the apostles at Pentecost in Acts chapter two.
Now, truly that was an incredible day and miraculous signs were even demonstrated among the people. How many of them came to faith on that first day when Peter went into Jerusalem and was preaching at Pentecost?
3 ,000 of them, right? 3 ,000 were baptized that day and became part of the church. Now that's amazing. That's incredible. How many of you have ever been to a baptism service where there were 3 ,000 genuine believers that came to know the Lord?
I've never seen such a service. But you have to think about how many tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people were there in Jerusalem and likely heard Peter preach and did not believe it.
So the vast majority of people in the world today when the gospel is proclaimed are going to be those seeds that fall along the path, or they're going to be the path so that the message of the kingdom that falls upon them gets snatched away by the enemy and they never come to faith.
This is the difference between the external and the effectual calling. So everybody who hears the gospel hears the external call. You hear the call of the preacher who says, turn from your sin to the Lord Jesus Christ and you will live.
That's the external call. Everybody hears that with their ears. But the effectual call, or as also known as the internal call, is going to be that work the Holy Spirit does in the heart so that a person doesn't just hear it with their ears.
They hear it with their spirit and understand it. The spirit that was dead, that the Holy Spirit has made alive so that we may hear that word with living ears and therefore come to faith and believe it.
Before anybody can believe, the Holy Spirit has to do this work in a person's heart to believe. Because as said in Romans 3, there is none who seek after God. So the Holy Spirit brings to life that dead man so that we can hear the living truth and likewise we believe and so live when we put our faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.
So that's demonstrated here in the path with the seed falling on the path, the difference between the effectual call and the external call. So those that only heard the external call would be those whom the enemy has snatched the word away from before it could take root.
So then we have verse 20, where Jesus goes on to the next two soils, you have the rocks and you have the thorns. And both of these soils demonstrate a period of faith for a time. But then we see that their faith was not genuine according to what Jesus explains here in these particular parables.
And both on different grounds, no pun intended. The seed that was sown on rocky soil, they believed for a little while, but then fell away on a different ground than those who believed when the word fell in the thorns and then the thorns choked the plant that grew up.
So looking at the visual here as Jesus explains it, verse 20, the one on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, this is the man who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy. Now, how many of you have known a person like this, who heard the gospel and received it with joy, but somewhere down the line, their enthusiasm for Christ, for this new faith that they have just vanished, it went away.
And eventually that person even apostatized and left the faith altogether. This is the one on whom seed is sown in rocky places. Verse 21, yet he has no root in himself. Because see, it was just a passing opinion.
He was not rooted in Christ or his word. It was a belief that was rooted in himself, but it's only temporary. And when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away. Now this affliction or persecution could be understood in different ways.
I think the persecution is clear. The persecution is somebody who is despising you, making fun of you, belittling you because of the faith that you have, or even would threaten you or cause you physical harm in some way, which would certainly be a context that the Christians would have been able to relate to in the time that the gospel of Matthew was written.
Affliction is going to be more broad. Affliction might be something like, I wasn't able to respond to this argument or somebody made a good argument to me or something to that degree. I wasn't able to respond to it.
And so therefore, I was convinced and I left my faith. That might fall under the category of affliction. The apostle Paul says this in 2 Corinthians 12. This is that thorn in the flesh section, okay? And I'm just going to read from verses seven through 10, where Paul says, because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations for this reason to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from exalting myself.
Concerning this, I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might leave me. And he has said to me, my grace is sufficient for you for my power is perfected in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast in my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.
Therefore, I am content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, and with hardships for the sake of Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong. And a lot of the things that Paul mentioned there in verse 10, I think could fall in that category of afflictions and persecutions that are being talked about here with regards to the word falling in rocky soil.
I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, and hardships for the sake of Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong. So this seems to be categorizing all manner of distresses.
Another way that this word could be translated is tribulation. I think in some translations it is that way. So it's because of tribulations and persecutions. These are things that people do to you and these are things that are circumstantial.
And it causes you to doubt your faith because it's only rooted in yourself. You're not actually rooted in Christ or his word. And so when these afflictions and persecutions arise, it causes a person to fall away, as Jesus said.
They didn't realize how difficult this was going to be. Or a faith that is rooted in themself is really no faith at all. It's just a passing opinion. It's something that they believed for a time. But there was probably evidence in their life to some degree that showed that they were a believer.
Hence, you have the reference to the fact that there was a plant that grew up. And so for a time, anybody else, any other Christian would have looked at this guy and had thought that he was a genuine believer.
But then over testing, it comes about that he never truly believed. He was never really rooted in Christ. It was just an opinion he had at the particular time, no matter how passionate he was about it.
Because again, it says that he receives the word with joy. So he was enthusiastic. He was zealous for the gospel that was proclaimed to him. But then eventually his opinion about that changed and he was no longer enthusiastic, zealous for being a Christian anymore.
I know somebody, a young man who's just a little bit younger than me, who when he was in high school was one of the most zealous young men for Christianity that I think I've ever seen in a teenager before.
Loved wearing Christian T-shirts, listened only to Christian music. I even know his password to his email address. At one point had the letters WWJD in it. I don't know what the rest of the password was.
Never got into his email. But that's just to say how enthusiastic he was. Even things that other people didn't know had the marks of Christianity all over it. In his secret life and in his public life, you would not have said that this man couldn't possibly be a Christian.
This young man seemed to be very zealous for the Lord. But then he said to me, because I had a conversation with him later years and asked him what happened. Like, at what point did you decide that you didn't believe anymore?
And he said that he was in science class. This was still in high school. I believe his senior year. He was in science class and his professor who was a creationist put a picture of the universe up on the screen.
And he's looking at the universe and the professor says, how do you look into that universe and not see that there was an amazing loving God who created all of this? And the young man said that at that moment when he asked that question, the young man was looking into the universe and he said, I don't see anything there at all.
It's just a vast emptiness. There's nothing. There's no God out there. The question that the creationist teacher asked that he was using as a convincing argument to get his class to believe that all of this was created turned out to be the very question that caused this man to doubt in his heart.
Now, that's not to say anything against the creationist teacher. It's just that the message, the word, the message of the kingdom was not rooted in Christ. It was rooted in this young man. So at the point that he faced something that he couldn't respond to, that he didn't have an answer for, I mean, really the word that Christ said here, immediately he falls away.
That was the case for this young man. Immediately he fell away. This could also be translated or we might use other examples with regards to like legalism. So somebody growing up in a very legalistic church, they might be facing affliction because people had heaped rules and commandments on them that were not the commandments of God.
And it just placed a huge burden on those persons and they could not deal with it anymore. And so it caused them to doubt and walk away from the faith. This is representative of those afflictions that would be placed on a person that eventually would cause them to doubt and walk away.
So that's the rocky soil. And we might find some other examples that would fit in there too with afflictions or persecutions. How about the thorny soil? So verse 22, and the one on whom seed was sown among the thorns, this is the one who hears the word and the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word and it becomes unfruitful.
So the one on whom the seed was sown among the thorns, this is the word of the kingdom. It falls among thorns. Again, we have a plant that grows up, just like with the plant that grows in rocky soil, but it's the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth.
So you have two sides of the spectrum here, it looks like. You have those who are looking out at the world and the concerns of the world, the anxieties that may come upon a person because of things that are happening in the world affects them one way so that the thorns choke out the word.
And then you have another one also concerned with the world, but from a different vantage point. They're after the things of the world. They want wealth, they want fame, they want power and prestige. Those are the things that they go after so that the thorns choke out the message of the word.
And this person's life has never truly been transformed by it. They're gonna continue on the path that they're on, the direction they're going, their aims and their pursuits, but it's not going to be in Christ because that message of the kingdom has been choked out and is no more.
And by the way, you can find people all the time who are celebrities, who are rich and powerful and still making money and still climbing the ladder. And you can find those people who will say that they are Christians, that they believe in Jesus Christ.
They might even go that far as to saying, I believe Jesus Christ has forgiven me of my sin. But you don't see anything in their life that evidences that. So if you were to get down to the nitty gritty of it, other than their confession of faith, you don't see anything in their life that exhibits the character that a Christian should have.
So when you get down to the nitty gritty of it, it turns out that the version of Jesus they believe in is just a version that they've crafted in their own mind that allows them to do whatever they want or get away with whatever they want to get away with and pursue those things they want to pursue and still believe that they have the favor of God.
They've made a God of their own making. And Christians are so very easily fooled by this. We see it all the time. Whenever some celebrity will come out and will receive an award and thank God and is Lord Jesus Christ, and Christians are going, oh, wow, I didn't realize Bono was a Christian, somebody like that.
This, by the way, Bono, the lead singer of U2, is somebody that is definitely a fake Christian, proclaims to be a follower of Jesus Christ. Nothing in his life exhibits that. And somebody might even point to his philanthropy and say, look at how much money that he gives to charity.
Well, so Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13, if I give all I have to the poor, but have not love, I am nothing. So Bono can do that, but he doesn't do it in the name of Christ. He's like the hypocrites Jesus talks about in Matthew 6, gives to the poor sounds a trumpet, he's received his reward.
That's not evidence that he is a Christian. The liberal things that he gets into in his life, loving abortion, loving the LGBTQ movement, all of these things that are antithetical to righteousness and holiness that God has called us to, according to the scriptures, demonstrates that he worships a Christ of his own making, not the Christ of the Bible.
So that's still an example of the thorns choking out the word. He doesn't believe the true word, the true message of the kingdom. He's got a different message that he's following. And then you have, of course, the one that is filled with anxiety, cannot seem to make sense of the world.
All the worry and the concerns and everything else, maybe even some sort of affliction that has come upon them has caused the word to be choked out so that they don't believe it. People who watch the news too much, I believe are in danger of this.
And I've had to have conversations with people like that before, whose lives were so filled with anxiety because they watch nothing but news, which by the way, that's a product that they're putting in front of people.
They need to deliver the news in such a way that keeps you coming back so you're watching their commercials and helping them make money off the news. That's what they're doing, making money off the news.
So they're going to give you a bunch of bad news to keep you coming back because I got to hear what's happened with all this bad news. And you never hear a resolution of the story. It's just more and more bad news.
And so this has become a commodity in a certain sense and people will pay for it and be filled with all kinds of anxiety and fall into despair. That's something we all must be very, very careful about because a person that can get filled with that much trouble in their heart, it can cause them to doubt the message of the kingdom.
No longer be seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, but instead looking for some resolution to all the distresses that they are experiencing in this world. I don't want to just sit right there with what we've read concerning the explanation of the parable of the sower.
I want to be able to come back and consider these things more and even more deeply and even take a deep look at what it's meant here by the good soil. When the message of the kingdom falls on good soil and produces fruit, bringing forth a hundred fold, some 60 and some 30.
So we'll consider this explanation of the parable of the sower more tomorrow. Let's finish with prayer. Heavenly father, we thank you for the message of the kingdom that has been given to us. That we may hear of Jesus Christ who died, who rose again, who ascended to heaven, is seated at the right hand of God, is coming back again to judge the living and the dead.
He is building his kingdom through his church right now in this world. And we've become citizens of that kingdom because we have heard the gospel and believed it. And so we have been made sons and daughters of God.
And as we consider these things, I pray that we will think about this more deeply, that we may even caution ourselves about some of those things that could come into our lives and attempt to snatch that word away from us as we read about this in the parable of the sower.
And as we consider these things further, when we come back to this scripture tomorrow, help us to be warned against error and continue to hold fast to the truth. In Jesus name, amen.
Thank you for listening to When We Understand The Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. If you'd like to support this ministry, visit our website, www .wutt .com and click on the gift tab in the top right corner of the page.
Join us again tomorrow as we continue our Bible study when we understand the text.