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I want to invite you to take out your Bible and turn to Mark chapter 4. And tonight we are going to come to a passage which is one of the few that is in all three synoptic gospels in almost the exact same wording, even though there is a little bit of difference in each gospel.
It is remarkably similar, and this is sometimes referred to as the parable of the sower. But I am taking to calling it normally the parable of the soils, because the sower is consistent and the seed is consistent.
What is distinct is the four different soils that the seed is cast into. But again, different people have it a different way. If you have the ESV that I am using, it actually says the parable of the sower, so I guess the translators of the ESV get to trump my title.
But it doesn't matter. We know the story, and this is a familiar story. This is a story that I have preached several times, so as I was prepping for tonight, I was trying to think of anything that I maybe haven't said before, because I have preached this text on several occasions.
In fact, it is almost one of my go-to texts if I am talking about the subject of genuine versus false conversion, because I do believe that is one of the things that we learn from this text. What does genuine conversion look like versus what does, as Dr. Sproul would call it, spurious conversion or false conversion.
And so, again, when you take up that topic, you can almost just run to this text, because Jesus gives you examples of what those things look like. And so that will be the overarching focus of our lesson tonight, because I do believe that is the main meaning of the text, and we will draw out some other truths as well as we go.
But we are going to read a good substantial portion of chapter four tonight, and chapter four is broken into basically two parts. Chapter four is, you have the parables, which are at the beginning, the parable of the soils, the parable of the lamp and the stand, the parable of the seed, the growing seed and the mustard seed.
So those are the parables, and tonight we are going to do the first one, which is the parable of the soils, and then next week we are going to look at the other three. And then there is the story of Jesus calming the storm, and then we will be finished with chapter four.
So that is the outline of this chapter. So this chapter is mainly consisting of parables, and really I will point out kingdom parables, because we see kingdom parables, and then at the end of the chapter we see the king who stands up and commands the sea to stop, and it obeys.
So you have all these parables about a kingdom, and then you have a visual of the king at the end of the chapter. So it is an interesting way that Mark puts this narrative together. So let's read beginning at verse one.
Again he began to teach beside the sea, and a very large crowd gathered about him, so that he got into a boat and sat in it on the sea, and the whole crowd was beside the sea on the land. And he was teaching them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them, Listen, a sower went out to sow, and as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it.
Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and it immediately sprang up, since it had no depths of soil, and when the sun rose it was scorched, and since it had no root it withered away.
Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. And other seeds fell into good soil and produced grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.
And he said, He who has ears to hear, let him hear. And when he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables, and he said to them, To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables, so that they may indeed see but not perceive, may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven.
And he said to them, Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables? The sower sows the word, and these are the ones along the path where the word is sown. When they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them, and these are the ones sown on rocky ground, the ones who when they hear the word immediately receive it with joy.
They have no root in themselves but endure for a while. Then when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away. And others are the ones sown among thorns. These are the ones, excuse me, these are those who hear the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.
For those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold. Father, thank you again for your word, and as my brother already prayed, I pray that you would keep me tied to the post of your word, forgive me of my sins, make me a fit vessel to preach your word, and keep me from error.
In Christ's name, Amen. This chapter begins similarly to a previous scene that we saw in the life of Christ where he is so inundated with crowds that he has to use a boat as a pulpit because he has been pressed upon from all sides, and so he chooses to get into a boat and be pushed out a little ways so that he is able to preach without being so pressed upon that he can't move.
And it's interesting, we don't really see pulpits in the scripture much, we can go back to Nehemiah, not Nehemiah, is it Ezra or Nehemiah where they built the platform? Ezra, Ezra 8, right? And they built the platform and they get up and give the word of God, that's the first time we think of like a platform or a chancel where a man stands up and uses that as the proclamation point for the word.
Well Jesus makes his pulpit a fishing boat, and again he does that according to the text because a very large crowd had gathered about him. Now, Jesus gives us, or the scripture gives us sort of an interesting structure for this parable, and it's this way in all three synoptic gospels, whether you're looking at Mark 4 or if you want to write these down, if you're taking notes, it's Matthew 13, 1 -23, or it's Luke 8, 4 -15, all three give the same account, the same narrative account, and it's all starts with the parable, and then it is the personal interaction with the disciples or the apostles, you might say private interaction, if you want to put that as well, because he mentions the fact that he's giving them something he's not giving everyone else, and the reason for that, and then he gives his own interpretation of the parable.
And what's interesting about that, that he gives this interpretation, is that this is one of the few times where we have a divine interpretation. Sometimes, and I don't know about you, maybe you feel differently, sometimes parables can be very confusing, and we're not given the answer as to exactly what it means.
Now, you may have a perfect answer to every parable that exists, and you may have a perfect expression of what Jesus meant, but I will tell you, there are some where there isn't given an interpretation, and I do walk away sometimes thinking, one thing, and then I'll read it again a different time, and I'll think something else, and that's because I'm imperfect, and my interpretive grid is imperfect.
I'll give you a good example, one of my favorite parables of Jesus, is the parable of the prodigal son. I love the story of the prodigal son, I love what the father does in running to give the prodigal son the love and the affection that he does not deserve, so he is a picture of grace and mercy, putting the ring on his finger and kissing him and falling on his neck and bringing him home and welcoming him, not as a slave, but as a son.
Oh, that's beautiful! But I don't think that the prodigal son is really the focus of the story. I think the focus of the story is the son who stayed, because he is the one who, upon seeing the grace of the father given to the prodigal son, gets angry, and the father says, you were with me this whole time, certainly all I have is yours, how can you be angry that I show grace to your brother?
And the idea, I think, again looking at that tale, that narrative, is how Israel treated the Gentiles and how Israel treated those who were not like them, and especially how the Pharisees treated the sinners.
And they didn't want them to be given the same grace that they were given. They didn't want them to have that, because they never left that attitude of hubris, that attitude of pride. And again, you may come up to me later and give me a better understanding of it, but that again, when I look at that parable, I remember one night I was driving a lady home, my wife and I had a visitor come to the church and she needed a ride home and she lived way down the other side of town, so we put her in our car and we drove her home, and while we were driving her home, we got to talking about scripture and the story of the prodigal son came up, and she goes, oh I love that story, I love how the father welcomed him back and all this stuff, and I says, well what do you think the other brother represents?
And she said, what other brother? She didn't even know. She figured the story ended with the father welcoming him back. And I said, well there's more to the story, there's more to the parable, right? And so the benefit we have in Mark 4, having said all that, the benefit we have here is we have a divine interpretation.
Jesus tells us exactly what everything means. Now we're going to find in a little while that there is some, there's still debate over what Jesus means by his interpretation, because if it is the prerogative of the theologian, as Sproul often says, it's our prerogative to make distinctions, and we tend to do that very well.
And there are some distinctions that come up in regard to the interpretation of this parable, particularly whether or not it's dealing with all, whether or not it's dealing with one saved person and three unsaved people, or one unsaved person and three unsaved people.
I said that the same way twice. The ratio is the debate. And we're going to talk about that when we get there. But again, so there is still some questions. But let's just walk through the parable and get our mind around it, because again we have the parable, the personal interaction with the apostles, and then the private interpretation of Jesus, where he explains to them what it means.
Oh, by the way, the word parable, just because we haven't talked about this yet in the Gospel of Mark, I haven't mentioned it yet, but I'm going to talk about it in a little while.