Luke 8:9-15 - Receiving God's Word

Jesus begins this message to the “great multitude” and His disciples with a parable that He called in Matthew 13:18 “The Parable of the Sower”.  But it could also be called "The Parable of the Soils." The seed without the soil is fruitless, and the soil without the seed is almost useless. The human heart is like soil: if it is prepared properly, it can receive the seed of the Word of God and produce a fruitful harvest. Jesus described four different kinds of hearts, three of which did not produce any fruit. The proof of salvation is fruit and not merely hearing the Word or making a profession of faith in Christ. Jesus had already made that clear in His "Sermon on the Mount" (Luke 6:43-49; also note Matt. 7:20).   Jesus here also gives a clue to the question that is often asked about why some people in a crowd when they hear the Gospel message get saved, while others in the same crowd, hearing the same message do not get saved. First, I would point out that Jesus never said in this message or anywhere else in the Gospels that some people get saved because they were predestinated by God in eternity past to get saved. In this message Jesus tells his disciples that the salvation of an individual has to do with the condition of their hearts and He gives us this parable to illustrate the different types of hearts that hear the same Word.   The first soil or heart that Jesus describes is the hard soil or the hard heart (vv. 5, 12). This soil represents the person who hears the Word but immediately allows the devil to snatch the seed away. How did the heart become hard? The "wayside" was the path that ran through the common field, separating the plots; and the foot traffic hardened the soil. This could represent how a person’s heart becomes hard and non-receptive to the Gospel message. Over time as they have heard the false philosophies of a humanistic world view by their parents, their teachers and professors and accepted them as truth they have hard hearts.   It might be that they are in a church or religion that has taught them that their salvation depends upon their good works or deeds, and they don’t think they need to be saved. I can’t tell you have many times as I have shared the Gospel with someone that they responded with, “I’m good enough as I am”. Then there are people whose hearts are hard because they have been walked upon by the hypocrisy of “so called Christians”. They have been around people who say they are Christians but then they act and live like the pagan world around them.   These people with hard hearts become cynical and skeptical and it is easy for the devil to come and take the seed that fell on their ears and mind and steal it away. These people don’t get saved. But we can still pray that in some way that God will break up that hard ground and make them receptive to the Gospel. 2 Corinthians 4:3-4 speaks to this: “But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.”   Paul had a hard heart, but the Lord used a Stephen who was being stoned to death to break up his stoney heart so that one day the light of heaven and the voice of Jesus penetrated his heart, and he believed and got saved! So don’t give up on those who have hard hearts rejecting the Word of God but pray against the devil snatching away the seed that is being planted. Often it is these people that become great servants of God that bring many others to Jesus Christ!   Our task is to sow the seed and let God take care of the results as we pray for those we witness to!   God bless!