This is a continuation of a blog that the Lord had me begin last week on the parable of our Lord most commonly referred to as “The Parable of the Sower and the Seed” as stated in that blog this parable is not about the Sower or the Seed but it is a parable about soils and hearts ("Soils and Hearts"). So let us begin with the words of our Lord. “And it happened, as he sowed, that some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds of the air came and devoured it” (Mark 4:4). Throughout Judea during the time of Jesus there were pathways or crude roads cut through the fields so that travelers could pass through without disturbing the crops. These roads became extremely hard and packed down, the wayside is the edge of a path or road, so as the Sower spread his grain across his field some landed on the wayside where the earth was impenetrable allowing for birds to come and eat the grain on the surface. “And these are the ones by the wayside where the word is sown. When they hear, Satan comes immediately and takes away the word that was sown in their hearts” Mark 4:15). There are people in this world that are so hard hearted that no matter how many times you give them the loving gospel of our Lord it just bounces off and they are unable to take it in. Since the Lord has led me to be His witness I have come across a lot of these people. How can anyone look at creation and not know there is a creator. Creation itself is evidence of the creator. If I took a bunch of stones and stacked them up in my front yard to form a pyramid many would ask me (Why did you do that?), logic dictated that someone had to have stacked those stones, they didn’t happen to be there by chance. Atheism the belief that there is no God is a fool’s game, it is foolish, and it is not intelligence. “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God’” (Psalm 14:1). In my observation I have noticed that the people unable to hear the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ fit into three categories. The Religious, the been burnt by a false gospel, and the I love my sin.
The Religious, this is a tuff group and our Lord knew this. The Pharisees and Scribes at the time of Jesus loved their religion and would not give it up for anything. They saw Jesus who spoke with authority unlike anyone else, who healed massive amounts of people of their illnesses and decided that He couldn’t be of God because if He was they would have to let go of their piety and follow Him, so they decided He must be doing all of these works by Satan, so He basically told them they were beyond saving. “Assuredly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies that may utter; but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is subject to eternal condemnation” (Mark 3:28-29). Are you counting on your works to earn your way into heaven, are you counting on the fact you go to church to earn your way. This is what God thanks of our pitiful acts to try to earn our own justification. “But we are all like an unclean thing, And all or righteousness are like filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6). There are many that are so focused on their Religion (their works) that they are unable to hear the gospel of our Lord.
The next group is the (Been Burnt by a false Gospel). These people have a legitimate reason to be angry, they have been told a lie, been sold a false bill of goods, but sadly their anger keeps them from ever hearing the truth, their hearts have been permanently closed by their anger and are impenetrable to the gospel of our Lord. This is the message that many are told and it may be the message that you yourself were told. “Come to Jesus he is the answer to all of your problems, He can fix your drug addiction, alcoholism, marriage problems, and financial problems”. Thus playing on the problems in their lives to get them to except Jesus, or this; “You have a God shaped hole in your heart that only Jesus can fill, He will give you love, joy, peace and fulfillment”, using their depression to bring them to the cross”. So what happens; they have problems that they would like fixed and are depressed and would like to be happy. So they give this Jesus thing a try, it just might work for them, besides the people in the church seem happy. But what happens? They notice in time that nothing has changed. They were told to come for love, joy, peace, and fulfillment but all they got was the promised (temptation, tribulation, and persecution). Not only do they now have all the same problems that they use to have but their former friends are now excluding them, and making fun of them. Had they been told the real reason to come to Jesus, that they had offended (sinned) against a Holy God and that there was Hell to pay there might have been a different outcome. Coming to Jesus to have your sins removed and escape Hell is a lot different than coming for happiness. Sure love, joy, peace, and fulfillment are legitimate fruits of salvation but they’re not the reason to tell someone to come. You have love because God loved you enough to send His son to redeem you, you have joy because you have escaped the wrath of God, you have peace because you know that your life is eternal, you are fulfilled because Jesus paid the price and you don’t have to.
Lastly the third group I like to call (I love my Sin). This group completely shuts out any talk of God whatsoever because if they even believed for a second that there was a God they just might be accountable to Him and just might have to give up the sins that they hold so dear. These are the fools that say in their heart “There is no God” (Psalm 14:1). My daughter said to me one time, “I understand some people don’t believe in God but why do they have to be so angry about it”? You want to have your head bitten off, go and share with an atheist that there is salvation from sin in Jesus Christ; you’ve never seen such anger before. They have a chip on their shoulder where Jesus is concerned, I believe this comes about because outwardly they say “There is no God” (Psalm 14”1) but deep within they may not even be conscience of it they know that there is a Creator God and they are accountable to Him. God has written His laws on the heart of every man (see Hebrews 8:10) so every time you sin (break one of God’s laws) your conscience tells you that it is wrong. ‘Con’ means with ‘Science’ means knowledge so every time we sin we do it with knowledge that it is wrong. That is why atheist want to hide all mention of Jesus Christ in our society, hoping it will quite their conscience.
Mike Peek a slave of Jesus Christ
