Intro: Answering Why Jesus taught with parables? and What do they mean?

 

The parable of the soils is the foundation for unlocking to answering what parables mean.

 

Prop: Seven parables reveal seven secrets.

 

[KEY] A secret synonymous to hidden and now revealed.

 

1. The cause and cure for spiritual blindness and deafness.

 

1. Cause – sin

 

1. Cure – grace

 

Jesus explains the parable of the soils to illustrate this point!

 

[Question] “Do you have ears to hear and eyes to see Jesus’ point.”

 

• Verse 9 Jesus leads with, “He who has ears, let him hear” (v. 9).
  • Spiritual capacity to understand what Jesus is saying?
    • Verses 13, 14,15 describe man as incapacitated, incorrigible, and becomes intractable from seeing or hearing truth.
    • “…ears [that] barely hear” and “eyes [that] have closed” (v. 15).

 

Verse 16 contrasts spiritually deadness causes by sin with spiritual life by grace.

 

• “But, blessed are your eyes and ears.” (v. 16).
  • “Righteous people longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it” (v. 17).

 

• Value of seeing and hearing by the Spirit should not be underestimated.

 

• Most are blind, “but you both see and hear.”

 

[TRANS] This leads into Jesus’ explanation of the 4 soils, when he says, “Hear then the parable of the sower (v. 18).

 

• You have ears to hear, so hear the explanation.
  • Inquirers are more than the 12 Apostles.
    • Disciples responding to Jesus’ parables.
      • Not only a judgment against unbelief.

 

• Also, winning hearers.  

 

• 4 soils which are 4 heart reactions to the Word of God sown as seed.

 

• Everyone falls inside of 1 of 4 categories.

 

• 3, lost and 1, found.

 

[KEY] Jesus pulls the curtain back, detailing what is truly happening inside someone’s heart, when deciding to believe or to not believe.

 

Prop: 4 soils, 4 explanations

 

1. Hard soil explained

 

Verse 19 says hard path soil is “anyone” who hears “the word of the kingdom” which is the “seed” described as someone who does “not understand it” (v. 19).

 

• What does this mean to “not understand” the Word.
  • Many understand much from the Word of God.
  • Law written in their hearts!

 

^ESV  Romans 2:15 They show that the work of the law is ^awritten on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them (Rom 2:15 ESV)

 

• Superficial understanding has no defense system to protect the heart from the “evil one” (v. 19).
  • False sense of security.
  • Vulnerable to attack.

 

[Question] “What in the world does this look like?”

 

• “…the word of the kingdom” is preaching God’s sovereign rule.
  • God being above all things.
    • Raising up and bringing down.
    • Ultimate governance.

 

• God ruling physically and spiritually.
  • Established kingdoms.
  • Adjudicating hearts.

 

[KEY] God’s rule, transcends time and space, as do people’s hearts and souls.

 

• These kingdom parables express Christ’s rule.
  • Have a telos or end.
  • Apocalyptic, addressing man’s eternal state.
    • Moving toward ultimate judgment.
    • Engaging this reality always comes by hearing “the word of the kingdom.”

 

• The “word of the kingdom” applied is repenting and believing in King Jesus.
  • He comes to rescue hearts.
  • From eternal judgment.

 

Question: “How are people who live and die w/o ever hearing this “word of the kingdom” still held accountable to judgment?”

 

• Question in view everyone being 1 of the 4 soils.
  • Someone never physically hears the Gospel “seed” preached (warnings and blessings).
  • How are they still considered, the first soil?
    • “Hardened”
    • “Snatched”

 

^ESV  1 John 5:19 We know that we are from God, and ^athe whole world lies in the power of the evil one. (1Jo 5:19 ESV)

 

• Jesus is not directly addressing this larger question.
  • Still begs the massive implication of where people go for eternity.
    • “Is someone better off never hearing the Word, so they will not be condemned?”
    • “How whole world is accountable when everyone not given the same level of Gospel exposure?”
      • Some very little.
      • Most not at all!

 

• Jesus is clearly speaking to these who, “hear of the kingdom” (v. 19).
  • Nevertheless, the Bible addresses man’s fallen condition broadly.
    • Mankind under God’s judgment.
    • Satan’s dominion over the world.
    • Stony hearts, blinded eyes.

 

[Question] Still, “How can someone be accountable to a message they have never heard?”

 

• Yes because of General Revelation.

 

^ESV  Romans 1:16-20 For ^aI am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is ^bthe power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew ^cfirst and also to ^dthe Greek.

¹⁷ For in it ^athe righteousness of God is revealed ^bfrom faith for faith,^{1 c}as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”²

¹⁸ For ^athe wrath of God ^bis revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

¹⁹ For what can be ^aknown about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.

²⁰ For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, ^ahave been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. (Rom 1:16-20 ESV)

 

 

• General Revelation is God’s witness of himself through what he has created!
  • God is an incredible evangelist!
  • Broadcasting himself to the watching world every single day, all the time, to everyone.

 

^ESV  Psalm 19:1-2 To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. ^aThe heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above¹ proclaims his handiwork.

² Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. (Psa 19:1-2 ESV)

 

[KEY] People skewing worship into false worship, worshipping what God made as a substitute for God.

 

• Answering what appears infinite like the galaxies, worshipping it instead of Him!
  • Much we have no capacity to understand.
  • But, instead of bowing down we bow up.

 

• General Revelation forces the choice to worship the Creator or Creation.
  • Because it stares at us all day and night long.
  • Broadcasting God’s glory.

 

[Illus] I was noticing on our back deck how the arm of a hanging plant reached out and curled itself around our clothesline. I know a plant does not have a brain, so how did it decide to do that? Obviously, plants are not self-aware, but they do act, based on their cellular make-up. I bring this up to say, though they are not conscious, they do communicate that God who makes them (sustains them) is!

 

• Naturalism and Evolution are anti-God!

 

[KEY] General and Special Revelation are rebuffed by hardened hearts.

 

• Easy for Satan to snatch the truth away.

 

One of the most fascinating scenes in the Chronicles of Narnia features an incident that is truly puzzling. The scene takes place in The Magician’s Nephew. Four lucky humans (Digory, Polly, Uncle Andrew, and Frank the Cabby) and one very unhappy Witch (Jadis) watch as Aslan sings the new world of Narnia into existence. When the newly-created Talking Animals begin to speak, the human witnesses are amazed to find that they can understand them. Everyone, that is, except Uncle Andrew. All he can hear is barkings, howlings, and the like (MN, Ch. 10, p. 75). But why? Why wasn’t Uncle Andrew able to understand like everyone else? By Kevin Kinghorn

 

Aslan speaking to Digory: “He thinks great folly, child,’ said Aslan. “This world is bursting with life for these few days because the song with which I called it into life still hangs in the air and rumbles in the ground. It will not be so for long. But I cannot tell that to this old sinner, and I cannot comfort him either; he has made himself unable to hear my voice. If I spoke to him, he would hear only growlings and roarings. Oh, Adam’s son, how cleverly you defend yourself against all that might do you good!”

 

[TRANS] Second soil, narrows the group to “supposed believers.”

 

2. Rocky soil explained (vv. 20-21)

 

• Rocky soil, not soil mixed with rocks.
  • Shallow soil with limestone rock only a few inches deep.
  • Hears the word and “immediately receives it with joy” (v. 20).

 

[KEY] Life of a plant pops up w/no chance of survival no deep root system.

 

• Roots cannot go deep, forcing plant life up!
  • Dramatically affected by Gospel.
  • No lasting heart change.

 

[Illus] John Owen, puritan pastor-theologian from London, called, “two stage illumination.”

 

Encompassing “…all the light or knowledge we have of spiritual things” for superficial and saving levels.

 

Exposure to truth affects someone’s soul, but this stage will not save or regenerate. “Naked assent” “Pre-saving light, disquieting sense of guilt…”

 

Owen called, “preparatory illumination.” 

 

Jonathon Edwards called “common illuminations” which can lead to faith.

 

“Many have had strong affections at first conversion, afterwards become dry, and wither, and consume, and pine, and die away: and now their hypocrisy is manifest; if not to all the world by open profaneness” [Edwards, Religious Affections].

 

Hebrews 6:4-6 describes this dynamic.      

 

^ESV  Hebrews 6:4-6 For it is impossible, in the case of those ^awho have once been enlightened, who have tasted ^bthe heavenly gift, and ^chave shared in the Holy Spirit,

⁵ and ^ahave tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come,

⁶ and ^athen have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since ^bthey are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt. (Heb 6:4-6 ESV)

 

[Appl] “joy” is what makes someone’s faith so convincing.

 

• Rocky soil joy convincing someone he is a child of God.
  • Persuasive and powerful testimony!
    • Who is going to argue with “joy!”
    • Joy is a key attribute of the fruit of the HS.

 

• Joy is the testimony of someone who believes his sins have been forgiven, so again who can argue against this?

 

• Ultimate mountaintop experience.

 

[Illus] Back in the 80’s when every gospel presentation was met with an altar call, this created so much confusion over who was truly converted or not. People meeting God and manifesting excitement and joy! They must be saved, who can argue with a conversion experience, and why would you want to! I knew kids in my youth group growing up who would “go forward” as Christian school chapels to get out their detention!

 

Verse 21, explains why this “conversion” is no real conversion at all!

 

• There is “no root in himself” which means that there is no real connection from the “would be” convert to the HS.
  • Lifeline connecting someone’s heart to Christ.

 

[Illus] This is the condition I found so many who attend a Christian school or Christian college to be on “life support.” Props and structure of scheduled bible classes and chapels that acted as bumper rails to keep them on track but as soon as they graduated, it was as if they were being unattached from life support. Taken off the machines and they suddenly flatlined.

 

[Illus] I have known parents who, when their children professed faith in Christ, who experienced sudden joy would want them baptized immediately. Parents pressure to have them dunked immediately so as not to miss the window as if their faith would die if it was not sealed by baptism.

 

• Pragmatism that ignores the doctrine of perseverance.

 

Verse 21 tells this faith will be tested.

• Jesus says, “…when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word” (v. 21).
  • Not if but when.
  • Known as an overt Christian.
    • Knows the Word of God.
    • Persecution tied the “Word” (v. 21).

 

[KEY] Persecution and trials from someone’s connecting with Gospel truth vindicates genuineness! Right?

 

• Persecution is NO REAL measuring stick for someone’s salvation.
  • The measure of someone’s salvation is always perseverance.
  • The measure of false salvation is lacking perseverance!

 

“Time and truth go hand in hand.”

 

• Personal comfort is stripped away, reveals where someone truly is.
  • Someone “falls away” [skandelon].
    • Offended by what is causing so much pain in his life.
    • Hardening up and cast faith aside.

 

^ESV  1 John 2:19 ^aThey went out from us, but they were not of us; for ^bif they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, ^cthat it might become plain that they all are not of us. (1Jo 2:19 ESV)

 

[KEY] Personal pain sourced in the “word” causes people to let go of whatever is causing my life to be hard.

 

• “immediately” is repeated for a reason.
  • Receiving with immediate joy met with immediate departure.
    • Bc/ of connection to the Word.
      • Everything pivots on the word!
        • Suddenness (receiving/forsaking) more than poetic.
        • If won through pragmatics, will be lost through pragmatics.

 

[Illus] I remember when my faith was rocky soil. I grew up on the church and was touched and moved by the word at very real points throughout my youth age. My father had been praying for me to become a believer and met regularly with a business man, praying for my salvation. A few years ago I attended a T4G conference in the Yum Center in Louisville, KY. 10,000 people attending, this man standing right in front of me, turns around and says, “Do you remember me?” I did and remembered that at a teen conference, my friend and I went forward during an altar call along with half the room (100’s of other teens) and we are ushered inside a back room, where this man as a counselor met and prayed with me and my friend. I would label this as pre-illumination. In this instance, I had some conviction, but it was still external, with no real heart change. Interestingly, we both put this experience under the perfect plan and design of God. God was working within the details of this event, even if it was no true conversion. And, had the potential of affirming a false-repentance. And false-salvation. I was counseled not to trust in my experience but to test my faith. At that point, I was not a true convert, though the seed of the word of God was planted it had not yet reached good soil. Looking back, connecting with this man nearly 30 years later, being able to see the sovereign hand of God, we both smile through at the altar call. It was not the altar call that saved me. It was the sovereign, invisible hand of God, using His Gospel to sow seed, water, and bring to harvest.

 

3. Thorny soil explained (v. 22)

 

[KEY] Seed sown among thorns is the soil of compromise.

 

• Any life is choked by thorny compromise.
  • Soil positioned 3^rd, looks most authentic!
    • Worry over life and money!
    • Accepted as a “Respectable Sin!”

 

• Someone “Wants it both Ways!”
  • Thorns are “the cares of the world” and “the deceitfulness of riches” (v. 22).
    • Two forms of compromise that coalesce.
    • Both in common, being focused on “self.”

 

[Appl] Anxiety believed to attack, “outside in” not “inside out.”

 

• This label “attack” is no attack at all.
  • Anxiety is not cause but symptom.
    • Anxiety is choosing to worry.
      • Breakdowns result from multiplied choices to sin.
      • Worry is selfish compromise not to trust.

 

• Fear not faith.

 

• Divided heart trying trust God while gripped w/fear.

 

[Appl] I observe that most people are consumed with their fears. Some express their fear openly with a lot of outward complaining, while others stuff their fears deep down inside that serve as a ticking time bomb in their life. This is thorny soil. A soil compromised. And choking itself to death.

 

[KEY] The other version is “the lie of wealth” (v. 22).

 

• “If you have enough money, all of your problems will disappear!”

 

[Point] Both distractions are so popular and ubiquitous in the world, but these sin patterns are sown inside of the church.

 

• People worry about problems and most center on trusting in money they have, they worry about losing and money they don’t have that they wish they could gain.
  • This seemingly unbreakable cycle chokes out someone’s spiritual life. Every time.
    • The “word” that you are supposedly trusting in gets strangled at the neck, keeping it locked inside someone’s physical head, blocked from traveling down inside someone’s spiritual heart.

 

• Child trained to believe, later tested against the world’s cares, the world’s money, the choice is made to trust world, not word!

 

4. Good soil explained (v. 23)

 

The simple explanation for “good soil” is this. Seed sown on good soil, “…is the one who hears the word and understands it” (v. 23).

 

• Simple equation boils down for what happens when someone is saved.
  • They simply “understand” the word.
  • Exact opposite of the first soil, the hard path soil, “…does not understand it” (v. 19).

 

• Both cases, straightforward and explained in term of a cause-and-effect reaction to the word.
  • The word sown like seed; spoken and heard.
  • No understanding, Satan snatches it away.
    • Most everyone.

 

• By contrast, when the word is sown, spoken and heard, and “understood” then “He indeed bears fruit” (v. 23).

 

• Simple scenarios laid beside each other where word is spoken and is “understood” for salvation or not.
  • Fruit bearing.
  • Or, snatched away!

[Point] Being converted and saved, revolves around one thing.

 

• Question, “What does it mean to truly understand the word?”
  • “How do you know when you understand the word of God?”
    • Comprehension and affection for the Bible never enough.
    • Understanding defined by the rest of what Jesus says.

 

• If you truly understand the word, you will bear a byproduct, Jesus calls, “fruit” (v. 23).

 

• Ratio of fruit is 100, 60, and 30 which I said a few weeks ago, represent a massive bounty or yield for an ancient farmer.
  • Massive crop from the section of the field that was soft and fertile.
  • Not good, better, best, as much as saying in a comprehensive way, “Christians will bear a lot of fruit” in some form or fashion.

 

• Noticeable fruit.

 

[Illus] During the early 90’s there was a hotly debated topic called “The Lordship Salvation” controversy. The controversy was wrestling over one single issue that is addressed here. If you are saved by faith and not works, then how can someone claim you have to see “fruit” before you can affirm them as saved? Practically speaking the debate was whether you could simply pray a prayer of salvation and count your prayer as your ticket into heaven. Someone’s profession of faith would be traced back to a prayer they prayed back when… This as opposed to someone saying, I can see in my own life a track record of God producing the fruit of my faith over period. Visible and verifiable fruit. Yes, you are saved by faith alone, but saving faith is never an alone faith. One side of this debate created a kind of believer they called a “carnal Christian.” The claim was this person believed but then never produced any notable fruit is his or her life. This denies what Jesus says. “Good soil…hears the word and understands it” meaning the word is embraced by faith in a way that it is working in and through the person’s life in a visible way. A new creature in Christ is noticeably transformed.

 

[Note] 4th soil and the one we want for everyone.

 

• While pray for new life in every heart, Jesus teaches through this parable that we should expect all 4 outcomes.
  • What grounds you as you see each of these reactions is knowing this is simply a cause-and-effect reality, where everyone all the time is reacting to the word.
    • Not you.
    • Not your church.
    • Not even their hard circumstances. No!

 

• Everything centers on that God sows seed and that people react.

 

• Most are soil 1, fewer are soil 2 and soil 3, and finally few are soil 4.               

 

 [Conclusion] Are you soils, 2 or 3? God can change your soil if you ask Him!

 

^ESV  John 6:37 ^aAll that ^bthe Father gives me will come to me, and ^cwhoever comes to me I will never cast out. (Joh 6:37 ESV)