Jaw-dropping Jewels about Jesus
Rarely does Jesus, God the Son, do exactly what we expect of Him. It seems odd that He so frequently surprises us, given that He never changes. Hebrews 13:8 makes this absolute statement: “Jesus the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” Still, though He is blessedly consistent in His goodness, Jesus does unforeseen things. Even when He does what is expected, He does not always do it in the way that we anticipate. Let us join with Jesus on a jaw-dropping journey. (I will be using this opening paragraph for each of the brief messages in this series. The following material will change daily.)
The Parable of the Soils (or Souls) is called the Parable of the Sower by Jesus Himself in Matthew 13:18. “The sower soweth the word” (Mark 4:14); thus, the sower and the seed (“the word”) are the same throughout the parable. What is different is the soil, symbolic of the human soul’s rejection or reception of the Gospel. The first type of soil is hard-packed by foot traffic: “He taught them many things by parables, and said unto them in His doctrine, ‘Hearken; Behold, there went out a sower to sow; and it came to pass, as he sowed, some fell by the way side, and the fowls of the air came and devoured it up’” (Mark 4:2-4). Jesus clarifies the spiritual meaning in verse 15: “And these are they by the way side, where the word is sown; but when they have heard, Satan cometh immediately, and taketh away the word that was sown in their hearts.” The imagery is distressing, for it is a picture of a hard heart. This hardness is not always the result of blatant, terrible sin. Why is this path hardened? Because people are walking on it, doing the daily tasks of life and not paying attention to “the word” that Jesus provides for us. I have been a preacher for nearly forty years, and I have seen this reality at work: people demonstrating disdain for God’s Word with arms crossed, jaws clenched, and sometimes even eyes closed or reading a book. If that happens in church and at funerals, we know that such lack of interest is only stronger elsewhere. As the seed bounces around on hardened hearts, Satan snatches it away. Let us make sure that we are not too busy to listen to Jesus, for only He has “the words of eternal life” (John 6:68).