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In the name of Jesus, amen. Dear saints, the Lord Jesus would have us know and understand His kingdom, and especially because His kingdom is so different than all of the other kingdoms of the world. It’s not a kingdom that advances by sword or by might or by power. His kingdom is not a kingdom of armies or battles. His kingdom, he says, is like a sower who goes out to sow seed. And, in fact, his kingdom is like a not very good sower.
Pastor Davis said this morning, are you going to teach us how to plant a garden? Now, this text is explicitly not about that. Look at the sower who goes out to sow the seed. I mean, you know, a good farmer knows just where to plant the seed so that none is wasted, so that all the seed goes in the rows, especially spaced, so that it can grow up and produce in abundance. But this sower is throwing his seed everywhere, like Dr. Franzman in The Last Generation taught us to sing. He sows his reckless seed so that some falls on the sidewalk even, and some in the ground that’s not ready, that’s full of rocks, and others that’s full of weeds that’s going to grow up and choke the seed out. Only one fourth of this seed falls on the good ground and grows and produces fruit.
Now, this is explicitly given to the disciples and to us so that they could understand why it was when the Lord Jesus was preaching that not everybody was believing and receiving the word. It is, and I think this is what happens every now and again if I land on a good sermon, and some of you will say after the service pastor, I don’t know why everyone doesn’t believe that. It’s so good. The gospel is so sweet. The kindness of God is so wonderful. The gentleness of God is so comforting. Why doesn’t everyone believe these promises? Why doesn’t everyone become a Christian? Why doesn’t everyone trust in the Lord Jesus to bring them to eternal life? Jesus is answering that question.
And here’s the main point, because he doesn’t answer it like mathematically, like this is why some are believing and some are not. But Jesus points this out to us, that the word that’s preached is always opposed. The word that goes forth from the prophets and the apostles is always resisted. And in fact, Jesus is going to outline that resistance. He’s going to say that there’s a threefold opposition to the word. The first is the devil. That’s the birds that come along, the seeds that are sowed on the side on the path, and they’re trampled, and the birds eat it up. And Jesus says, that bird is the devil who snatches the word so that those who hear it don’t believe it.
The second opposition is the world, and that’s described by our Lord Jesus by the seed that falls amongst the rocks, and it grows up quickly, but then the sun comes out and causes it to wilt and wither and die. And Jesus says that’s like those who believe and with great joy, but then when a time of persecution and affliction comes along, they doubt and fall away. And the third is the flesh, our sinful flesh. That’s the seed that falls amongst the weeds, and they grow up and they choke it. And Jesus describes, these are those who believe the word of God, but then the pleasures and the riches and the cares of this life grow up and choke out the plant as it grows.
And Jesus is telling us this. I don’t think the right response is for us to say, well, which soil are we? Because in a really profound way, all of us are all of them. All of us are fighting against the devil and the world and our own sinful flesh. And so Jesus is saying, if we are going to be Christian, we will have these three great enemies. Our faith, our trusting in his word, our believing in his promises will have these three great oppositions.
Now the first, so we want to talk through each one of them just briefly so that we’re equipped so that we have the, well, Jesus wants us to have this wisdom to know what’s going on with the word so that we know how to resist it. So the first is the devil. Now, it’s so important that Jesus explains this to us because we simply can’t see it. But if you could, it would be quite marvelous. That the devil, Jesus describes it, and the demons are like a flock of birds that are swarming around, that are just picking up the seed off the ground and eating it. Can you imagine this when Pastor Davis is reading the scriptures, that those words are flying from his lips to your ears and the devil is there somewhere trying to grab it so that you don’t hear it, or trying to stop it from sinking into your own heart.
The devil is fighting against each one of us, and his specific fight is trying to prevent us from hearing the word of God. That’s why it doesn’t matter what you do, every week, its church is always the hardest place to get on Sunday morning. I don’t know if you’ve experienced that. I think you probably have. And the reason why is not just because you’re fighting against your own sinful flesh. It’s because the devil does not want you to be here. It’s also why of all the things that you have to pay attention to all week, the sermon is one of the most difficult things to pay attention to. I’m sure it doesn’t have anything to do with the preacher. It is the devil who hates, he hates this.
The devil hates you giving your attention to the word of God. He hates you hearing God’s word and trusting the word of God. So he’s always trying to interfere. And this is important for each and every one of us to know that every single Christian is fighting against the devil. and he is fighting against you. He does not want you to hear the word, he does not want you to believe it, he does not want you to come to the joys of everlasting life, so that every Christian is in a spiritual battle, fighting not against flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities and the authorities of the air, the devil and all of his demons who hate God and everything good, they’re warring against you.
Now that is told to us by the Lord Jesus, not so that we would be afraid. In fact, whenever the Lord Jesus reminds us that we’re in this spiritual battle, he also reminds us that he’s won already, that he’s destroyed the devil. And he gives us this promise in James, which is one of those places in the scripture that you wouldn’t believe it unless it’s written down. He says, resist the devil, and he will flee from you, that you are equipped with the armor of God. Remember how Paul describes it to the Ephesians, the helmet of salvation and the breastplate of righteousness and the shoes of the readiness to spread the gospel and the belt of truth and the shield of faith, which is able to quench all the fiery darts of the devil and the sword of the spirit.
And here’s the great irony of the devil who is trying to snatch away the word of God from our own heart and that is that the very thing that the devil attacks the word of God is the thing that overcomes him. The devil attacks the word and the word destroys the devil. It’s beautiful, it’s wonderful. But we have to be aware of this that the devil attacks the word. And not only does he attack it directly but he also attacks it through two kind of back doors, the world and the flesh.
So Jesus describes the second seed that falls amongst the stones, remember? And he says, these are those who believe for a while. They believe the word with joy. Their faith grows and expands. But then times of trouble come along. The sun, the hot summer sun is beating down on this plant. And because it doesn’t have deep enough roots, it withers and dies. This is where Jesus says that there’s some people who believe for a while and then fall away. And we might be tempted to think, If we just were watching the plant there in the field and it grew up quickly, and then the sun came out and it withered and died, and we were looking at this plant and we said, well, what’s the problem? What caused it? We might be tempted to say it was the sun. The sun was too hot. The sun burned it up. But that, in fact, is not the problem.
Jesus explains it. It’s not that the sun was beating too hot. It’s that the plant didn’t have deep enough roots. This is very important. Because if the plant has deep enough roots, then not only does the sun not destroy it, but the sun actually strengthens it. The sun is healthy for a plant with deep roots. And so Jesus is not teaching us to avoid persecution. In fact, persecution will come. Every single Christian will have trouble in this life. That’s the promise from our Lord Jesus himself. He says, in this world you will have trouble, but be of good cheer. I’ve overcome the world. Peter reminds us not to be surprised when persecution strikes us, as if something strange were happening to us. He reminds us this is happening to your brothers all across the world.
So we should know this, that you will suffer in this life, and you will have some suffering… because you live in a fallen world, and because sin and death and corruption are all around you. In other words, in some ways, you’ll share in the corruption of all of creation. But in other ways, you will face resistance and persecution and affliction because you’re a Christian, because you’re baptized. Because you were marked with the sign of the Holy Cross on your forehead and on your heart, when you believed in our Lord Jesus Christ and were baptized, you were marked for the devil and his attacks. So we can expect it.
And we should also know that the persecution and the trouble is not the problem. It’s not the sum that’s the problem, it’s the roots. So that Jesus is telling us, charging us, instructing us to dig our roots down deep into his word. It’s a contrasting picture because one of the dangers is that our roots would be dug down deep into the things of this world, that we would be holding on to the things of this world, and then when persecution comes, it starts to wither our faith and die. But we want to let go of the things of this world and let our roots dig down deep into the Word of God, so that we know the Word of God. We read the Word of God. We study the Word of God. It’s on our hearts and our minds and our lips.
And in this way, we’re ready so that the persecution comes and it doesn’t destroy us, but in fact, it strengthens us and sets us to endure and, in fact, grow. The devil sends trouble to try to destroy our faith, but Jesus sends trouble to strengthen our faith and hope and love in him. So we dig down our roots. And then the devil’s second kind of backdoor tactic is the sinful flesh. If he can’t get us through trouble in the world, then he’ll get us through the weeds. That’s the seed that goes in amongst the weeds.
And Jesus says, these are those who go their own way. And then the cares and the riches and the pleasures of this life grow up and choke out their faith. We’ve all known people who’ve grown up in the church and been confirmed and believed the scripture and then just decided that they would rather live their own way instead of God’s way. The Lord says no, their sinful flesh says yes, and they say, let’s go with the flesh. The Lord says stop, and the sinful flesh says go, and they are going to go for it. And they’re going to leave behind the gifts of God and the promises of the gospel because they want to chase after their own, well, a life of pleasure or desire or whatever it is.
Now, Jesus wants us to know that this is going to be a danger that’s going to confront each and every one of us. And I think especially in the United States and in our own culture, which has so much abundance and so much wealth, this is the danger that we hold on to these things again today. and we hold on to them so tight that we let go of the Word of God. We want to know that part of being a Christian is that Jesus is our treasure. Jesus is our life. Jesus is our hope. Jesus is our longing.
Remember how we sing it in the Psalm? I think we had it last week. One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord in his temple. We sang something very similar in Psalm 84 this morning. We long, my soul longs, yes, even faints for the courts of the Lord. so that we long to be in the Lord’s presence and to know that if we have him and he has us, then we have everything. And we’re just where, well, we’re just where he wants us to be.
We sing something like this. Remember, take they our life, goods, fame, child, and wife. Let these all be gone. They yet have nothing, one, but they, because the kingdom remains ours. And in this way, we fight against the, we fight against the flesh. We fight against the cares and the riches and the pleasures of this life, and we hold on to Christ.
Now, the wrong way to look at this parable is to say, well, what soil am I? I mean, you can think that. It’s fine. Am I the hardened soil? Am I the rocky soil? Am I the weedy soil? But here’s the point, is that all of us all the time are all three. All of us are facing all of these troubles. All of us are having trouble in the world. All of us have the sinful flesh. All of us have the devil. But all of us then have the promise of the fourth soil, the good soil, which is the soil that is planted in repentant hearts, hearts that are plowed by the law of God and fertilized by the gospel and ready to rejoice in the Word of God and the Spirit.
And that’s what I, if you don’t hold on to anything else, to hold on to that, that the Lord promises that his word is powerful, that it does the work that he sends it to do. And that work is to create in your heart repentance and faith, love, love, hope, peace, and the promise of life everlasting. And we can hold on to it.
Because this sower, our Lord Jesus Christ, throws his word out into our ears, and we rejoice to hear it and to believe it. So may this promise of the kingdom of God, brought about by the hearing and believing of his word, be our joy and our peace and our comfort through Christ our Lord. Amen.
And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.