Responding to the Word – Part One. (Matthew 13: 18-21)

Introduction.

The passage we are about to look at today is a really important one. What I mean by that is understanding this passage is critical to understanding a lot of what is in the New Testament a lot of what it’s debated in theology and a lot of what just goes on in every church. You don’t have to be a Christian very long before you discover that there are a variety of different responses to the preaching of the scripture, some people just out and out reject the word of God, they hear it and want nothing to do with it.

There’s another group of people who enthusiastically respond, quickly respond to the preaching of the scripture they get all excited but they shine bright for only a moment and then they fade away.

There still is another group who don’t respond so emotionally or enthusiastic all at the beginning, they hang around but then they fade away, they get distracted somehow they don’t go on to produce a lot of fruit in their spiritual lives.

Then of course there are those people who manage to make it somehow, they not only stick with it, but they grow spiritually and they produce fruit in their personal and spiritual life.

How do you explain the variety of responses, how do you explain all those different responses to the same word that comes from God. It seems to me that this is an intensely practical question, I believe I could teach this message in any church on the planet have at some point t  and everyone in those churches would have seen people who know people that fit those various descriptions. What causes that, how do you explain that all these kinds of varying responses. How do you explain that because this is critical because if you are a new believer you will want to make sure you’re in the right group. 

In our series on the Gospel of Matthew we see here now in chapter 13 that Jesus begins teaching using parables. The first parable is found in the first 9 verses of this chapter 13, which we looked at a few days ago. There was then  a pause and he talks about the purpose of the parable, and we looked at that yesterday, and then finally he comes back and explains this first parable it’s that explanation of the Parable of the Sower, which I want us to look at today. 

Some have suggested a more accurate name for this might have been the parable of the soils, because what Jesus is doing is describing four kinds of soils. Let me spell it out in the immediate context Jesus is the Sower of the seed here. The Sower is not the issue, the word and the messenger of the word is the same in all four situations. The Sower, or the Word is not the issue, it is the soil, and the soil is clearly the people, or even the culture into which the word is received. To put it simply the soils represent the hearts and minds of people receiving it and that is what I want us to focus on, just as Jesus does in the interpretation he gives here and he says there are four kinds soil.  These four kinds of soil represent the kinds of people he is talking about. In a sense Jesus is saying something like, let me plant a thought in your mind and let’s see if you will allow it to take route and grow. What I want to look at is the four different ways that you can  respond to that kind of a message. The first is given to us in verse 19.

Hard Ground – Hard Heart

 “Therefore, hear the parable of the Sower: When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by the wayside.

(Matthew 13: 18-19)

I just explained that the wayside was the path, the part of the ground that people walked on it was compacted and thus it was hard.  I’m going to call this kind of person who hears the word of God and rejects it, the hard-hearted person. The seed of the Word of God falls on them like seed would fall we would say on the pavement  at the side of a street and there’s no way that seed is going to penetrate it. People who are unresponsive, a better word might even be callous in their approach to the scriptures.  The response is they don’t respond at all, if that is not a contradiction in terms. However, keep in mind the scene is falling on something called the path or wayside and then it says, then the wicked one comes and snatches away that which is sown in the heart.

Now there’s two things you need to grasp hold of here. Firstly the person hearing the word in this first example has a  a hard heart But,  secondly, Satan takes advantage of their response and snatches the seed away. Keep in mind what comes, a hard heart, and then Satan snatches the seed away. So the primary issue is not Satan, the issue is the hard heart of the one who listens. What I believe Jesus is teaching at this point is these people don’t get saved because they didn’t understand, these people are blind they just don’t see it they just don’t get it, because the have been ill disposed to the message for some time. So blind that people can end up believing that the Bible says the exact opposite of what it plainly says.

For example, I would say today that the majority of people who go to church today don’t understand on of the most things that Jesus sai, and the whole New Testament teaches. That in order to gain heaven you just have to trust in Him. The litmus test for me is if I say to someone, do you know for sure you’re going to heaven? More often than not they look at me and say something like, I’m not sure, or I go to church every week, or my mother went to church all of her life. And I say, what has that got to do with you going to heaven. You see they are blind to the basic fact, they just don’t get it. And that is what Jesus is dealing with here. So you can preach the word and some don’t get it, they are hard hearted and the seed doesn’t penetrate the hard crust of their heart.

There is a second kind of heart mentioned in this passage, look at verse 20.

Stony Ground – Shallow Heart.

But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no root in himself but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles.

(Matthew 13: 20-21)

This is the seed that falls on stony ground, this refers to those who have a shallowness in the approach to the Word. The big debate at this point in this passage is are these people saved?

Let me pause here and explain something and this is very important. Everybody, but everybody agrees the first people are not saved, this second group have become the battleground for theologians for 100’s of years. Some come to this passage, and they say these people are not saved and when you ask how did you determine that? This is the answer, and this is very important. They start with the assumption that if you really saved you will bear fruit, and you will bear fruit to the end of your life. They say because these people didn’t bear fruit meaning they didn’t endure, they stumbled, therefore they weren’t really saved in the first place. Now for me that explanation doesn’t quite fit the passage, because it is based on assumption. Just read the passage these people received seed of the Word”. It doesn’t just say they heard the word, they, received it. In fact, they received it with joy, In this context receive must be the opposite of not receiving it.

The first group hears it, and it gets snatched away, but these people heard it, and they received it, secondly there is apparently the seed germinated and there was life in this message which led to ne life in these people. When Luke records this and he gives a little more detail. Just listen to Luke’s version 

Those by the wayside are the ones who hear; then the devil comes and takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. But the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, who believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away.

(Luke 8: 12-13)

So there is a response, they believe but they only believe for a while but they have no root in themselves so when tribulation or persecution arises because of the lack of being rooted in the word immediately they stumbles. The result is very it says they stumbles, and that simply means that they fall. What causes them to stumble, two things, tribulation and persecution. So this is a person, whom I believe trusted Christ, and then they encounter some great difficulty and these guys find they can’t overcome the tribulation and they are overcome by it.

The second is persecution because of the word that’s important if they trust Christ, they become a Christian, but they get persecuted by their families they get ridiculed by their friends they can’t handle it and so they back away from Christianity because of this persecution that they get from other people. So what was the problem to begin with, it was because they had not put roots down because there life was one of shallow soil. These are shallow minded people, spiritually speaking they had no depth in there Christian faith, so they don’t gain the benefit of overcoming temptation or persecution.

Understanding this is very important because we all know people who have professed faith in Christ and fallen away. So, what do you do with these people , well let me make a couple of suggestions. The real issue is they believed, so this is someone who genuinely believed so let me give you a couple of illustrations of these type of people. You might be surprised when I say a good example where the disciples. The disciples are going to stumble,  and it’s the same Greek word that’s translated stumble here is the same word used to describe what happened to the disciple after Jesus was crucified. It says they were all “scattered” and it’s the same Greek word as stumble. I also want to focus on the last phrase in this description of this group of people, for it says they, “fall away”. and the reason I’m going to do that is because Matthew and mark use the word stumble, but Luke uses the word fall away. So based on these little observations is my conclusion that it is possible for a believer to fall away from the faith without losing their salvation.

Now having said that let me quickly add there’s consequences to that, there is the chastening of the Lord and there is the judgment seat of Christ to contend with.  But be all that as it may the New Testament teaches it is possible for a genuine believer to fall all away. 

There is a third kind of response, but we will pick it up at verse 22 next time.