When we moved into our house twenty six years ago, the two and half acres that our house sits on was a green field slightly sloped toward the riverbank, the land of a farmstead of days long past. I soon dreamed of transforming some of that bland greenspace into a colorful, textured flower garden. One day I collected a shovel and wheelbarrow to begin the task of breaking up the fallow ground. I hadn’t labored very long before I realized it was going to be a much harder project than I originally thought. A mere two inches below the grass was rock—flat, wide shale rock abundant in our river valley. Scant amounts of soil and layers upon layers of rock is what lay before me if I was to continue the task.
That first year I planted only a few annual flowers which temporarily grew then wilted away in the scorching summer’s heat. It took a few more years of rock removal and the addition of a lot of soil before tall, hearty perennials could be planted in this ground. Now, so many years later, I enjoy the harvest of that back-breaking labor. From May to October each year, textured blooms burst forth in cheerful yellow, purple and magenta as they dance in the wind alongside the delicate dainty hues of white and muted pinks. Butterflies, hummingbirds, bumble bees flit from one blossom to another, and each year the plants grow taller and bear more flowers for their hungry visitors. And each year I add more soil to keep the plants flourishing.
Farmers know plants are unable survive for very long in shallow, rocky soil. Jesus spoke to this agricultural reality in one of his messages to his disciples when he first began to teach in parables.
“Listen! Behold, a sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it. Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and immediately it sprang up, since it had no depth of soil. And when the sun rose, it was scorched, and since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. And other seeds fell into good soil and produced grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.” And he said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” Mark 4:3-9
The parable, which begins and ends with a call to listen, describes four different kinds of soils. John MacArthur notes in his Study Bible, “This parable depicts the teaching of the gospel through the world and the various responses of people to it.” Jesus helps us understand his metaphor with these words: “The sower sows the word.” (Mark 4:14) The seed is the Word of God, and the soil is our response to that Word. How is our response when we hear the Word, either in a sermon on the radio, through a friend sharing the gospel, or in a Sunday morning church service? We have ears, but how do we hear?
In my last post I wrote about the first soil—the soil along the path. The second kind of soil Jesus describes, rocky ground, though similar, is different from the footpath. So what is a rocky ground soil response to the Word that has come in to our hearing, sown in our hearts? Jesus answers this question for us:
“And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: the ones who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy. And they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while then, when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away.” Mark 4:16-17
John MacArthur describes this rocky ground hearer in the commentary of his Study Bible like this: “An enthusiastic, emotional, yet superficial response to the gospel that does not take into account the cost involved.” and that these hearers are “Temporarily alive with feeling and emotion but quickly fall away when sacrifice/obedience is costly.”
J.C.Ryle in his commentary on Mark writes about these hearers:
“These are they on whom preaching produces temporary impressions, but no deep, lasting abiding effect. They take pleasure in hearing sermons…….they can speak with apparent joy and enthusiasm about the sweetness of the gospel…….but unhappily there is no stability about their religion…..there is no real work of the Holy Ghost within their hearts.”
This description reminds me of the year I spent Christmas in London, UK with my sister when we were just university students (in the years before I was saved). Missing home and with nothing else to do, we decided to go to Christmas Eve service at a church near our hotel. Whether it was the choir which sounded like a chorus of angels and made me feel like I was in the presence of the heavenly; or whether it was the reverence of the congregation, or the words spoken by the preacher, I don’t know. What I do know is that I left that celebratory service affected, emotionally moved. I felt a sweet peace and joy that I had never felt before and I genuinely wanted to go back to that church again. I didn’t, but I decided I would attend church once I returned home. I didn’t, because church attendance wasn’t what cool university students did, and I had friends to please and a reputation to uphold. Besides, what student has time to go to church with all these projects and papers due? Definitely not me. That was me as a rocky ground hearer. The Word made me feel good. I enjoyed the experience of church attendance, but remained unwilling to give up anything in order to obey that Word.
“He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
We all have two ears, but do we truly hear? Are we hearing but not listening? Oh, let us not be like the rocky soil hearers, who take joy in their hearing of sermons and the gospel and on things of religion; but only until it costs them something— reputation, job, friends, or they no longer fit in with the crowd. And when they feel this pressure of being associated with the Word of God and Jesus, this rocky ground hearer stumbles and falls away. Oh, dear one, let it not be said of us! May we examine our hearts and call out to the Lord for a heart of faith and devotion to him so that we may stand firm until the end.
J.C. Ryle ends his note on the rocky ground with these grave words of warning:
"There are many in every congregation which hears the gospel, who are just in this state of soul. They are not careless and inattentive hearers, like many around them, and are therefore tempted to think well of their own condition. They feel a pleasure in the preaching to which they listen, and therefore flatter themselves they must have grace in their hearts. And yet they are thoroughly deceived. Old things have not yet passed away. There is no real work of conversion in their inward man. With all their feelings, affections, joys, hopes, and desires, they are actually on the high road to destruction.”
May we take the time to truly search our hearts, for the sake of our eternal soul. It isn’t easy, it is humbling, but so very worth it. If you find yourself a rocky ground hearer, like I was for a short time in London – affected, but uncommitted and unchanged – there is hope. The Lord can change our heart, He is willing, if we are willing. How? By faith and repentance – as we acknowledge and confess our sin, and turn toward Christ in faith.
“Search me, Oh God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” Psalm 139:23-24
“Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the LORD, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you.” Hosea 10:12
The Light for My Path 