Which Soil Are You?

Matthew 13

The Parable of the Sower
1 On the same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the sea. 2 And great multitudes were gathered together to Him, so that He got into a boat and sat; and the whole multitude stood on the shore.
3 Then He spoke many things to them in parables, saying: “Behold, a sower went out to sow. 4 And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them. 5 Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. 6 But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away. 7 And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them. 8 But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.

The first question might be? What is a parable?

In simple, A parable is a brief allegory that is used to teach a moral lesson. An allegory is a form of expression in which the words are symbolic of something..

Christ used parables all through the gospels.
Ok, Let’s Dig into the different types of soil here:
These are the symbolizations Christ used for the moral teaching we will discuss in a few.

Wayside: This soil has been beaten very hard by people walking on it and the baking of the sun. This soil is hard as stone and very hard to break up.
Stony Places: It had very shallow soil on top of a layer of bedrock. Now from the top surface it looks fertile but there is no depth to sustain roots or reach water.

Thorns: Weeds! The roots that are still in the ground after plowing had been done.

Good Ground: self explanatory!

Now let’s go back and see what the parables mean, In 10-17 Jesus tells his disciples the purpose of the parables which we will dig in next time. But, In 18-23 Jesus tells his disciples the meaning of these parables. Let’s go back to these soils and get some understanding on how Jesus was taking a moral lesson and making it symbolic to types of soil.

The seed that was sown was the gospel: (this is the message to enter God’s kingdom, the sphere of salvation, the word of reconciliation)

The Wayside: The gospel never penetrates these souls so it disappears from the surface of their understanding, in this passage it is seen as the enemy snatching it away. You do not intend to worship God, or to be affected by anything that you hear. We could hope that our words would stay with you, but we cannot hope it, for the soil of your heart is so hard beaten by continual traffic, that there is no hope of the seed finding a living root to hold them down.

Which soil are you?

The Stony Place: Some people commit themselves to Christ in an emotional, superficial way, but their commitment is not real. No deep work of grace: no change in the ground of their heart. no deep conviction; and without this, good desires soon wither away. We all have seen thousands of hearers who receive the word with joy? They have no deep convictions though, but they leap into Christ on a sudden, and profess an instantaneous faith in him, and that faith has all the appearance of being genuine. When we look at it, the seed has really sprouted. We say to ourselves, there is a kind of life in it, there is apparently a green blade. We thank God that a sinner is brought back, a soul is born to God. But our joy is premature.

John the author of the gospel of John, 1 John 2 John, and Revelation says this in 1 John 2:19
They went out from us but they were not of us; if they had been of us they would still be with us: but they went out from us so that it might be made clear that they were not of us.

Which soil are you?

Thorns: The thorny ground represents those who are consumed by the cares and anxieties of this physical life and the deceitful enticements of wealth. The constant pressures of ordinary life—providing for our needs, education, employment, social duties, etc.—can be distracting, causing us to ignore God and Christian growth.

Wealth is enticing but never yields the expected rewards; it promises to make us happy but, when gained, does not. Further, in pursuing wealth, we are tempted to be dishonest, cheat, oppress, and take advantage of others.
These people commit superficially without truly repenting. They can’t break with the love of money and the world.

James 4:4 says it plain.
4 Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
Adulterer and Adulteress meaning spiritual unfaithfulness:

Which soil are You?

The Good Ground: The ground is described as "good": not that it was good by nature, but it had been made good by grace. God had ploughed it; he had stirred it up with the plough of conviction. When the gospel was preached, the heart received it. Just as there are 3 soils with no fruit, thus no salvation they are three kinds of good soil with fruit: Some thirty, some sixty, some a hundredfold. Believers are not all equally fruitful but fruitful none the less.

I ask again, which soil are You?

I love to end with Charles Spurgeon:

The preacher of the gospel is like the sower. He does not make his seed; it is given him by his divine Master. No man could create the smallest grain that ever grew upon the earth, much less the celestial seed of eternal life. The minister goes to his Master in secret, and asks him to teach him his gospel, and thus he fills his basket with the good seed of the kingdom. He then goes forth in his Master's name and scatters precious truth. If he knew where the best soil was to be found, perhaps he might limit himself to that which had been prepared by the plough of conviction; but not knowing men's hearts, it is his business to preach the gospel to every creature—to throw a handful on the hardened heart, and another on the mind which is overgrown with the cares and pleasures of the world. He has to leave the seed in the care of the Lord who gave it to him, for he is not responsible for the harvest, he is only accountable for the care and industry with which he does his work. If the reaper never responds, the sower will be rewarded by His Master if he had planted the right seed with careful hand. Our duty is not measured by the character of our hearers, but by the command of our God. We are bound to preach the gospel, whether men will hear, or not. It is ours to sow beside all waters. Let men's hearts be what they may, the minister must preach the gospel to them; he must sow the seed on the rock as well as in the furrow, on the highway as well as in the ploughed field.

Thank you for listening in, I pray this helped someone. Let’s grow, Let’s disciple and be discipled until the coming of our Lord Jesus!