13:1-9, Mark 4:1-20, and Luke 8:4-15. It is one
of the best lessons on witnessing in the bible as
Jesus takes two unrelated topics and molds them
beautifully together. He uses two analogies as he
refers to the sower as the soul winner and his
personal earthly field that he raises crops on as
the world. Just as the farmer raises crops, we
ought to be winning souls for Jesus.
Now as we begin to read the parable, we realize
that the farmer gets four different results.
In the period of time Jesus was on the earth,
technology in farming was not as advanced as it
is now. A Person "planted" by walking through
the field with a bag of seed of whatever he was
planting. Every few steps, he would reach into
the bag and throw the seed out. This method was
probably not as effective as methods today but at
the time and place it was considered the norm.
Reading down through the text, we realize that
some of the seed fell by the road. In other
word, they did even fall upon the field. Of course
the seed did not produce because the sower had
not tilled that area. This represents people that
hear the message of Christ only to have other
people persuade them not to accept Christ. Satan
does not wants people to receive the message.
He uses a variety of methods to persuade people
not to accept Christ. He tries to persuade some
in the theory of evolution. If he can convince
people that we just evolved, he knows that they
would have no need to get saved. Satan likes to
point out imperfections in other Christians. He
would try to tell the unsaved "If Christians are
not perfect, they are hypocrites and you should
have nothing to do with them.
Another strategy of Satan is to convince
unbelievers that living the Christian life is to hard.
He will try to tell the unbeliever that he does not
have time for church. He will try to convince the
unbeliever that he will not learn anything from
church. He will remind you of things you must
do that you can only do on Sunday morning. He
will remind you of the thing that Christians
cannot do such as drink and smoke. Of course,
those things are not good for humans anyway but
Satan will try to convince you that you cannot do
without them.
In some countries, Satan may even take the life
of people wanting to become a Christian. In
some Islamic countries, the penalty for
converting to Christianity is death. This is also
true for communistic countries.
There is another tactic Satan tries to use. He tries
to convince people that they are not good enough
to accept Jesus Christ. They may have had
sinned in their life before. Perhaps they have had
even committed horrible crimes. Satan tries to
convince them that the grace of God will not
cover the crimes that they have committed.
As we refer back to the parable, all of the above
circumstances represent seed that has had landed
by the wayside. These are the ones that have
heard the word but have been convinced by other
people not to accept it.
As we read further along in the parable, we fine
that some seed fell on the ground that was
plowed for farming but the ground underneath
was hard. This made it impossible for the seed to
become fertilized and grow. In a biblical sense,
this represents people that hear the gospel and
reject it. Some people like to do things their own
way. They do not want to submit their life to
anybody. They enjoy taking on the challenges of
life in their own way.
Another reason that this person does not accept
Christ is that he has a lot of friends that he does
not want to give up. He is afraid that his friends
would look down on him. He is afraid
that his old friends would reject him.
He could also hear and not believe. Evolution and
other humanistic ideas can take the place of God.
Our public education system sometimes makes
fun of God. In summary, the ideas and
philosophies of this person will not allow him to
accept a gospel.
We then read in the text about seed that would
fall on thorny ground. This seed was planted
deep enough and the plant begin to grow.
Unfortunately, other plants came up in the same
field and consumed too much of the soil. This
plant eventually died because of overcrowding.
From a spiritual standpoint, The Christian will
sometimes witness to people about the gospel and
they will respond favorably at first. They will
accept Jesus into their hearts, start trying to
live the Christian life, and may even start telling
others about Jesus Christ. But as time goes on,
they let other things get in the way of following
God. For instance, They may have a chance at a
good paying job. The only problem is that the job
requires them to work on Sundays. At first they
miss church but then they get used to it. As time
goes by they begin to view work as more
important than Church. They begin to try to
rationalize their missing church with statements
like this: "I do not need to go to church. I have
already accepted Jesus Christ into my heart.", " I
am being a good witness at work." This person
begins to take up other activities on church nights
when he or she is not working. Some of the
activities may be good activities if they did not
interfere with serving God. We as Christians
need the fellowship of God's people. This person
may begin to gradually fall into a lifestyle that is
not pleasing to God and soon loses interest in
church altogether. The thorns or life have
crowded out his Christianity
Finally we read about the seed that falls on good
soil. This seed matures into plants that the farmer
can harvest. He then takes it to market to make a
living. This seed is representive of the person
who gets saved and does all he can to follow the
lord. He reads his bible and prays everyday, he
attends services, and he tries to lead others to
Christ. He will become the sower to win other
people for Christ. He will try to do anything to
advance the kingdom. When temptations come,
he will pray to overcome them.
Some of them will be prayer warriors. God has
different gifts for different people.
In closing this commentary, I would like say a
few things about the different kinds of harvest
fields in the world. You will find some areasof
the world where people are more receptive to the
gospel than others. In America and Europe, there
are more activities that can interfere with people
accepting the gospel. I believe this is because
these countries are more prosperous. Some
countries that were not open to the gospel are
now wide open. While of the initial missionaries
to these countries never had a single convert,
these countries are now building churches as fast
as finances will allow. A Christian should
definitely pray that as many people follow Christ
as possible.
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