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The Parable of the Sower (#308)
A Sermon Delivered on Sunday Morning, April 15, 1860
by C. H. Spurgeon
at Exeter Hall, London
Luke 8:4-8
And when a great crowd was gathering and people from town after town came to him, [Jesus] said in a parable: “A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it. And some fell on the rock and as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it. And some fell into good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold.” As he said these things, he called out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
Introduction
In our country when a sower goes out with his basket full of wheat seed, he is in an enclosed field, and carefully scatters the seed along every ridge and furrow; but in the East, the field is one vast unenclosed plain near a small town. True, there are different divisions belonging to different farmers, but there are no hedges or fences to divide one person’s field from another. There is the ancient landmark and perhaps, on rare occasions, a simple ridge of stones divides them. There are footpaths through these wide open common lands; the ones used most are called highways. You must not imagine that these highways resemble our paved roads in the slightest degree. They are simply well used paths that have become hard through constant use. There are byways here and there, along which travelers who wish to avoid the public road may travel with a little more safety when the main road is infested with robbers. Someone in a hurry can strike out a short cut for himself across the plain, and so open a fresh road for others who are headed in the same direction.
When the sower goes out in the morning to sow his seed, he finds, perhaps, a little spot of ground scratched over with the primitive Eastern plow. Of course he begins to scatter his seed the most there, but a path runs right through the very middle of the field, and unless he is willing to leave a good portion of the field unsown, he must throw a handful of seed on the pathway. Here and there is a rock cropping out in the middle of the plowed field and the seed falls on that. And there too, through neglect of proper farm management common in the East, there is a corner full of the roots of weeds and thorns, and the sower sows his seed there too; the wheat and the thorns come up together, and as we know by the parable, the thorns, being the strongest, spring up and choke the seed, so that it brings no fruit to maturity. Remembering that the Bible was written in the East, and that its figures of speech and references are best explained to us by those most familiar with the East, would very often help us to understand a passage far better than the common English reader can possibly do.
Now the preacher of the gospel is like the sower. He does not make his seed; the seed is given to him by his Master. It would not be possible for a man to make the smallest seed that ever germinated on the earth, much less that heavenly seed of eternal life. The minister goes to his Master in secret, and asks him to teach him his truth, and that is how he fills his basket with the good seed of the kingdom. The minister’s job is to go out in his Master’s name and scatter precious truth. If he knew where to find the best soil, he might limit himself to areas that had been prepared by the plow of conviction. But because he does not know people’s hearts, it is his business to “proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.” His job is to throw a handful on that hard heart over there and another on that heart that is overgrown with the cares and riches and pleasures of this world. He has to leave the fate of the seed in the care of the Master who gave it to him. He understands that he is not responsible for the harvest; he is only responsible for the care, the faithfulness, and the integrity with which he scatters the seed. If not a single ear of wheat should be harvested, if not even a single green blade sprouted from the soil, that sower would be accepted and rewarded by his Master, if he had sown the right seed, and sown it with great care.
If it were not for the fact that we are not responsible for our success, we would think it was hopeless that we labor in vain so often, and use up our strength so many times for nothing. Still, we cry like Isaiah of old, “Who has believed what they heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” Only one seed in four finds good soil. They are buried in the soil, to germinate, and produce a harvest, and to one day rise up in judgment against those other hearers to condemn them. Let me add here, that the extent of our duty is not limited by the character of our hearers, but by the command of God. We are obligated to preach the gospel, whether people will listen or not. Let people’s hearts be what they may, I am not free from my obligation to sow the seed on the rock, and on the path, as well as on the plowed field.
My plan this morning will be very simple. I will speak to the four types of hearers that are to be found in my congregation. We have, first of all, those who are represented by the path, the mere hearers. Then those represented by the rock, those in whom the gospel leaves a temporary impression, so temporary, however, that it never comes to any lasting good. Then, those on whom a good impression is made, but the cares of this life, the deceitfulness of riches, and the pleasures of life choke the seed. Last, the small group of good soil hearers‒may God be pleased to multiply it abundantly‒in whom the Word bears fruit, in some thirty, in some sixty, and in some a hundredfold.
The Hearers Along the Path
First of all, then, I will address myself to those hearts that are like the path. “Some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it.” There are many of you who did not come here this morning to get a blessing. You did not intend to worship God or let anything you might hear affect you. You are like the path that was never intended to be a wheat field. If a single grain of truth should fall into your heart and grow it would be a miracle. It would be as great a wonder as for the wheat to grow on the trampled down pathway. You are the pathway hearer. However, if the seed is skillfully scattered, some of it will fall on you and rest for a while on your thoughts. It is true that you will not understand it, but even so, if it is placed before you in an interesting style, it will stay for a little while. Perhaps you will talk about the truth you heard from the minister; at least until some more agreeable entertainment attracts you.
But even this slight benefit will not last long. In a very short time you will forget what kind of person you are. I wish and desire that God will be pleased to have my words stay with you, but we cannot hope for it, because the soil of your heart is so well beaten down by constant traffic, that there is no hope of the seed finding a permanent place to take root and live. There is too much traffic in your soul to let the good seed remain uncrushed. The foot of Satan is always passing over your heart, with his herd of blasphemies, lusts, lies, and vanities. Then the chariots of pride roll along it, and the feet of greed trample it until it is as hard as rock. Sadly, the good seed finds not a moment’s rest. Crowds pass and pass again. In fact, your soul is like an exchange where the busy feet of the merchants make merchandise of the souls of men. You are buying and selling, but you hardly realize that you are selling the truth, and that you are buying your soul’s destruction. You are busy here and there about this body, the husk of your real self, but you are negligent about that internal, precious thing, your soul. You have no time, you say, to think about religion. No, the road of your heart is such a crowded thoroughfare, that there is no room for this wheat to spring up. If it did begin to germinate, some rough foot would crush the green blade before it could come to anything like perfection.
There have been times with you when the seed of the gospel has touched your heart long enough to begin to germinate, but just then some amusement caught your attention, and that spark of life that was in the seed was stepped on and crushed. It had fallen in the wrong place. There was too much traffic there for it to possibly grow. During the plague of London, when men were carried to their graves in great numbers, work was not done and the grass grew in the streets; but wheat could not grow on the constantly trampled paths to the cemeteries, however excellent the seed might be. Search the world over, and you cannot buy wheat that would thrive where such traffic continually rolls along. Your heart is just like that crowded road. There are so many thoughts, and cares, and sins, so many proud, vain, evil, rebellious thoughts against God, continually traveling through it, that the truth is like seed thrown on the road. It cannot grow, it is crushed down; and if it does remain for a moment, the birds of the air come and steal it away.
People’s hearts may be hardened, not merely by sin, but by the very preaching of the gospel. It is a very sad thought, that if the seed is scattered along the path, it is not only the feet of bad people that prevent its growing, but even the foot of a saint may help to destroy its life. There is such a thing as being gospel-hardened. It is possible to sit under the preaching of the word until your heart becomes dead, and unfeeling, and careless. You are like the blacksmith’s dog, that lies and sleeps while the sparks are flying around its nose; you are content to lie and sleep under the hammer of the law, while the sparks of damnation are flying around you, never frightened, never astonished. You have heard this all before. When we warn you of the wrath to come, we are telling you what you have heard repeatedly. The men that work in the huge boilers in the industrial district, when they are first put inside to work with hammers, their ears are stunned, they cannot hear a sound. But gradually, I am told, they become so used to that hideous noise that they could sleep in the midst of it, while men were battering and beating, even though the vibrations are like the loudest thunder. It is that way with you. Minister after minister has walked along the highway of your soul, until it has become so hard, that unless God himself shall be pleased to crack it open with an earthquake, or with a heartquake, there will never be a place for the seed of heaven to live there. Your soul has become like a hard, well-beaten path that has heavy traffic on it.
We have looked on this hard road; let us now describe what becomes of the good word, when it falls on the heart. It does not grow. It would have grown if it had fallen on the right soil, but it is in the wrong place, and it remains as dry as when it fell from the sower’s hand. Its life lies asleep. The life in the gospel hides itself, and lies on the surface of the heart, but never enters into it. Like the snow that sometimes falls on our streets and does not lie there for an instant, but drops on the wet pavement and is dissolved and gone, so it is with this person. The word does not have time to germinate in the souls of such indifferent hearers. It lies there for an instant, but it never begins to strike down its root, or to have the slightest effect.
Why do people come to hear if the word never becomes useful to them, and never enters the heart? That has often puzzled me. There are some of our hearers who would not be absent on Sunday for all the world. They seem to be quite delighted to join us for worship, but yet no tear ever trickles down their cheek, their soul never seems to mount up to heaven on the wings of praise, nor do they truly join in our confessions of sin. When do they ever think about the wrath to come, or the future state of their souls? Their heart is iron; the minister might as well preach to a pile of stones as preach to them. What brings these senseless sinners here? Shall we talk to faces of brass and hearts of steel? Surely we have as much hope of converting lions and leopards as these untamed, unmoved hearts. People have lost their reason. They have no more feeling than dumb animals. I suppose these people often come because it is respectable, and perhaps, because it even helps to make them hard. If they stayed away, their conscience would prick them, because there would be a little life in them. They attend so that they may be able to flatter themselves with the idea that they are not so bad after all. They are not irreligious, no, not they. They do not ignore God’s house or his servant. They come, so that they may become hardened and may become increasingly numb and insensitive to their sin.
Oh! my hearers, your case is one that might make an angel weep. You have the sun of the gospel shining on your faces, and yet you are blind and never see the light. The music of heaven sings sweetly, but your ears are deaf; the soft notes never reach your poor spirit. The minister is like someone playing on a wonderful instrument, but he plays before a statue that has no ears to hear. You catch the turn of a phrase, you can discover the meaning of a metaphor, but the hidden meaning, the divine life, is lost on you. You are sitting down at the wedding feast, but you are not eating, you do not drink those fine wines. You hear the bells of heaven ringing joyously over the ransomed spirits, but you live without being ransomed, without God, and without Christ. You are standing at the entrance through the narrow gate, but yet you do not enter. You are close to the house of mercy, and the door is opened slightly; you stand there, and sometimes look inside, but never take the final and decisive step. Let us do what we may to urge you, let us plead with you and pray for you, and weep over you; you still remain just as hardened, as careless, and as thoughtless as ever. Oh, may God have mercy on you and bring you out of this evil condition, that you may yet be saved. Oh Holy Spirit, break up this hard highway, and cause it to yield a good crop.
We have not, however, completed the picture. Our text tells us that, “the birds of the air devoured it.” Is there anyone here this morning who is one of these “along the path” hearers? Perhaps this person did not intend to come in, but he saw a large crowd standing outside, and he thought he would just come in and spend the hour, and will, perhaps, hear something that he will not soon forget. But when he gets outside and goes home, some old friend will suggest that they spend the afternoon doing something together. He agrees, and that poor seed that fell on such an unfavorable spot, will be devoured by the birds of the air. There are many evil birds always ready to eat up this good seed. There is the devil himself, that prince of the air, always ready to quickly grab any good thought and devour it, or destroy a holy decision. And the devil is not alone‒he has countless helpers. He may set a man’s wife against him, or his own children. He may send those with whom you work against you to eat up the good seed. There may be a friend or customer calling on you, and though you have no wish to connect today, yet you may be afraid of losing him; so you may answer, and then the good seed is gone, and all its good effect is carried away. Oh, sorrow upon sorrow, that heavenly seed should become food for the devil; that God’s wheat should feed the devil’s birds.
Let me get personal, again, this morning. Oh my hearers, if you have heard the gospel from your youth up, then what truckloads of sermons have been wasted on you! In your younger days, you heard old Dr. So-and-so, and how that dear old man was in the habit of praying for his hearers until his eyes seemed red with tears! Do you remember the many Sundays when you said to yourself, “I will go to my room and fall on my knees and pray”? But you did not. The birds of the air ate up the seed, and you went on to sin as much as ever. Since then, by some strange compulsion, you are rarely absent from God’s house; but now the sparks of the gospel fall into your soul as if they dropped into an ocean, and were put out forever. The law may be thundered at you, you do not sneer at it, but it never affects you. Jesus Christ may be lifted up; his dear wounds may be vividly described; the streaming blood may flow before your very eyes, and you may be earnestly pleaded with to look on him and live, but now you are completely indifferent. You have not said so in so many words, “If I am to be lost, I will be lost, and if I am to be saved, I will be saved;” you have not said so, but you have come to think so, and now we may do whatever we will with you, and whatever we will for you, but we cannot pierce your flinty spirits, and we cannot plunge a holy thought into your hard hearts.
What shall I do for you? Shall I stand here, and rain tears on this hard highway? Sadly, my tears will not break it; it is far too hard for that. Shall I bring the gospel-plow to it? More sadness, your hard heart will break the steel plowshare before you will allow it to enter. What shall we do? Oh God, you know how to break the flint in pieces. You can melt the stony long-traveled heart with the precious blood of Jesus. We plead with you. Do it now, to the praise and glory of your grace, so that the good seed may yet live, and may yet produce that heavenly harvest. The soul of your servant greatly desires this. Without it I cannot live, but with it I can “rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory.”
The Hearers on the Rock
I will now turn our attention to the second type of hearer. “And some fell on the rock, and as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture.” You can easily picture that piece of rock sticking out in the middle of the field. By some disturbance of nature, it has been forced upwards into the middle of the plain, and of course, the seed falls there like it does everywhere else. We have hearers who cause us more pleasure and later more pain than many of you would believe. Only those who love the souls of people can know what hopes, what joy, and what bitter disappointments these stony places have caused us. We have a type of hearer whose heart is very hard on the inside, but on the outside they appear the softest and most impressionable of people. While others see nothing in the sermon, these people weep. It is the most ordinary sermon to most of our hearers, but these people are affected to tears. Whether you preach the terrors of the law or the love of Calvary, their souls are equally stirred, and the most striking affect appears to have been made.
There are some of you here this morning. You have promised yourselves, and promised yourselves, and yet continue to procrastinate. You are not powerful enemies of God who clothe yourselves in armor, but you seem to expose your chest and say to the minister, “Cut here; here is a naked chest for you. Aim your arrows here. They will find a prepared home.” We rejoice in heart, we aim our arrows and they appear to pierce, but, sadly, there is a secret armor worn underneath the flesh that blunts every arrow, and though it remains awhile, it falls away, and no work is done. We read about this type of person in The Gospel According to Mark. “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.” Or, as he continues to quote our Lord, “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.”
Oh, do we not have tens of thousands of our hearers who receive the word with joy? It is true that they have no deep convictions or terrible anxieties, but they quickly leap to Christ, and claim an instant faith in him, and that faith does have all the appearance of being real. When we look at it, the seed has really sprouted. There is a kind of life in it; there is the real green blade. We thank God, and bow our knees, and clap our hands. We say there is a sinner reclaimed, there is a soul born to God, there is an heir of heaven. But our joy is premature. They sprang up quickly and received the word with joy, because they had no depth of soil, and that is the reason their response was so fast, and is also the reason they withered away when the sun rose and scorched them.
We see these people every day of the week. They often come to join the Church. They tell us a story about how they heard us preach at such-and-such time, and oh the word was so blessed to them that they never felt so happy in their lives! “Oh, sir, I thought I must jump from my seat when I heard about a precious Christ, and I believed on him there and then; I am sure I did.” We ask them whether they ever felt their need of a Savior. They say “Yes,” but they mean “No.” We question them about whether they were ever convinced they were sinners. Well, they think they were, but they don’t know; but one thing they do know, they feel great pleasure in religion. We challenge them, “Do you think you will hold on?” Oh, they are confident they will. They could not go back to their old ways; they are quite sure of it. They hate the things they once loved, they are sure they do. Everything has become new to them. And all this happened quite suddenly. We ask when the good work began. We find it began when it ended, that is to say, there was no previous work, no plowing of the soil, but they sprang from death to life all of a sudden, and jumped out of condemnation into grace, like someone standing on the edge of a river might jump into the water.
Still we are very thankful for these people. We cannot deny that there seems to be every appearance of grace. Perhaps we receive them into the Church; but in a week or two they do not come to a place of worship so regularly. We gently scold them, and they say, well, they encounter such opposition in religion, that they feel they must compromise a little. Another week and we lose them completely. The reason is because they have been laughed at, they have met a little opposition, and they have gone back. They are like Mr. Pliable in Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress; they are willing go to heaven with Christian, because heaven is an excellent country. So they walk arm in arm, chatting so sweetly about the world to come. But, by-and-by there is a swamp‒the Slough of Despond‒and in goes poor Christian, and Mr. Pliable falls in too. “Oh!” says he, “I did not bargain for this; I did not agree to have my mouth filled with mud. If I can get out, and get back, you may have that great country all to yourself.” So the poor man struggles out as best he can, and lands on the same side as his own house; and back he goes, so glad to think he has escaped from the unhappy necessity of being a Christian.
And what do you think the minister feels? He thinks that he had counted his success too early. He is like the farmer, who sees his field all green and thriving, and at night a frost nips every shoot, and the poor farmer grieves because his hoped-for gains are gone. The minister does the same thing; he goes to his study, and throws himself on his face before God, and cries, “Oh, I have been deceived. This man has returned like ‘The dog returns to its own vomit;’ and like ‘The sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.’” You may remember that ancient picture of Orpheus, the legendary musician and poet of Greek mythology, who had such skill on the lyre that the ancients said he made the very oaks and stones dance around him. It is poetical fiction, and yet it has sometimes happened to the minister, that not only have the godly rejoiced, but the very oaks and stones have danced from their places. But sadly, they have still been only oaks and stones. The lyre goes silent, and the oak returns to its place, and the stone again throws itself heavily to the earth. The sinner, who, like Saul, is “also among the prophets,” goes back to plan mischief against the Lord Most High. Yesterday he sang, and the day before he prayed before the congregation, but today he goes to the tavern to curse. He rolls through the streets on the next Sunday night after he was received into the visible Church on earth.
I had one man who caused me many bitter tears. In a certain village he was the ringleader of everything bad. He was a tall, fine, big fellow, and a man who could out-drink, perhaps, anyone for miles around. He was the terror of the neighborhood, a man who would curse and swear, and who never knew a thought of fear. He stepped in one day to hear the Word of God, and he wept. The whole village was astonished. There was old So-and-so weeping, and it was rumored that Tom was struck down by the gospel. He began to attend the chapel regularly and was clearly a changed man. The tavern lost an excellent customer; he was no longer seen in the town’s shadier hangouts, nor was he noticed in the drunken brawls that were so common in the neighborhood. At last he got up the courage to say something at the prayer meeting. He talked about what he had experienced, what he had felt and known. I heard him pray. It was rough, rugged language, but there was such emotional sincerity. I looked on him as a bright jewel in the Redeemer’s crown. He held out six, no, he continued nine months with us. If there was a tough job to be done, he would do it. If there was a Sunday school needing help six or seven miles away, he would walk there. He would be out to help in the Lord’s work no matter how difficult the task. If he could only be of service to the lowest member of the Church of Christ, he rejoiced greatly. And so he continued; but at last, the laughter to which he was exposed, the jeers and mocking of his old friends, though at first he endured them like a man, became too much for him. He began to think he had been a little too fanatical, a little too serious. He sneaked up to the place of worship instead of coming boldly in. He gradually quit coming to weeknight services and finally Sunday services too. And though he was often warned, and often rebuked, he returned to his old habits, and though he was never again the monster in sin he had been before, yet any thoughts of God or godliness that he had ever known, seemed to die away. He again blasphemed by swearing in God’s name; he again joined the ungodly in their wickedness. We had once bragged about him in our meetings and said, “Oh! how much God is to be glorified by this! What can grace not do?” He was sometimes seen drunk in our streets, to the embarrassment of us all, and then it was thrown in our teeth, “This is one of your Christians, is it? One of your converts gone back again, and become as bad as he was before?”
If it is bad to be like the hearer along the path, then I cannot think it is much better to be like the rock. And yet this second type of hearer certainly gives us more joy than the first. There is a type of people who always comes to hear a new minister. I have often thought it is an act of God’s kindness that he always sends some of these people at first, while the minister is young, and has only a few to stand by him. They are a kind of people who are easily influenced, and if he preaches sincerely and intensely, they feel it, they love him, and they gather around him. But time proves all things, and it tests them. They seemed to be made of good and true metal, but they are put in the fire, they are tested, they are proved, they are consumed in the furnace. As I look here I see one or two like that. I do not know most of you, but I do see some of whom I must say, “You are the very people described here.” I have looked at you when I have been preaching, and I have often thought, “There, that person will come out from the world one of these days, I am sure he will.” I have thanked God for him. Ah! but we have preached to you these seven years and you are the same as you were. Well, there may be seven more years, who can tell? Are those to be seven years of wasted efforts? Are those to be seven years of warnings rejected, and of invitations refused? Can it be so? Must you be carried to that cemetery, and will I stand over the mouth of that grave, and think, “Here lies a wasted hope, a flower that withered in its bud, a person in whom grace seemed to struggle, but in whom it never reigned, who gave some hopeful twitches of life, and then they all subsided into the coldness and stillness of eternal death”? God save you! Oh! may he deal with you effectually, and may you, even you, yet be brought in, that Jesus may have all the glory.
The Hearers Among the Thorns
I will now speak very briefly to the third group, and may the Spirit of God assist me to deal faithfully with you. “And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it.” Now this was good soil. The first two were bad. The path was not the proper place, the rock was not an agreeable place for the growth of any plant, but this is good soil, for it grows thorns. A soil that will grow thistles will surely grow wheat. Wherever the thistle will spring up and thrive, certainly wheat will too. This was rich, fertile soil. It was no surprise therefore that the farmer scattered the seed generously there, and threw handful after handful on that corner of the field. See how happy he is a month or two later when he visits that spot. The seed has sprung up. True, there is a suspicious little plant down there about the same size as the wheat. “Oh,” he thinks, “that’s not much, the wheat will outgrow that. When it comes up it will choke these few thistles that have unfortunately mixed with it.” Yes, Mr. Farmer, you do not understand the force of evil, or you would not dream like that! He comes again, and the seed has grown, there is even grain in the ear, but the thistles, the thorns, and the briars have become intertwined with one another, and the poor wheat can hardly get a ray of sunshine. It is so covered with brambles, that what with the drippings from the brambles and the absence of sunlight, it has taken on a sickly, yellowish hue. It is still alive, it continues growing, and it does seem as if it will bring forth at least a small harvest, but it never comes to anything. There is never enough for the reaper to harvest. There is some indication of grain, but there is no reality in it, it brings no plant to maturity.
We have a large number of this group among us. We have the gentlemen and ladies who come to hear the word, and they understand what they hear too. They are not ignorant and uninformed men and women, who reject what they have heard. We are not throwing our pearls before pigs when we preach to them. They remember and treasure the words of truth. They take them home. They think them over. They come, they come, and they come again. They even go the length of making a profession of religion. The wheat seems to bud, and bloom, and blossom, it will soon come to perfection. Be in no hurry, these men and women have a great deal to attend to. They have the cares of a large business; they employ hundreds. Do not be deceived about their godliness; they simply have no time for it at this time. They will tell you that they must make a living; they cannot neglect this world; at least for the time being. As for the future, they think they will be able to take care of that by-and-by. They continue to attend church services, and that poor little slumping blade keeps on growing. And now they have become rich, they can come up to the place of worship in expensive vehicles, they have all the heart can wish for. Ah! now the seed will grow, will it not? No, no. They no longer have cares. They have sold the business and live in the country. They do not have to ask, “Where will the money come from to pay the next bill;” or “How will we be able to provide for our increasing family?” No, now they have too much instead of too little, for they have their riches.
“Well, but,” says one, “they might spend their riches for God. There might be talents they could use to increase the kingdom of heaven.” Oh no, that will not happen, because their riches are deceitful. They must do a lot of entertaining, now they must be respectable, now they must think about becoming involved in politics and running for office, now they must have everything that the deceitfulness of riches can possibly bring. Yes, but they begin to spend their riches; surely they have gotten over the need to guard their money so carefully. They give generously to the cause of Christ; their philanthropy to charitable causes is well known; now that little blade will grow, will it not? No! See the thorns of pleasure choking them. Their spending freely on others involves spending freely on themselves. They take pleasure in what they have, and quite right they should too; but at the same time these pleasures become so tall and so big that they choke the wheat, and the good grains of gospel truth cannot grow because they have this pleasure to enjoy, that music concert to attend, that dance and that party; so they cannot get involved with the things of God, because the pleasures of this world choke the seed.
I could give you several examples of this, I could tell them by the dozens, but it would not be fair to share their names. I know a man who is high up in political circles, who has often confessed to me that he wishes he were poor, because he thinks that he might then enter the kingdom heaven. He holds a high position, but he has said‒and said it with a look on his face that showed he meant what he said‒ “Ah! sir, these politics, these politics, I wish I were rid of them, they are eating the life out of my heart. I cannot serve God as I want to. I only wish I could retire to some secluded place to seek my Savior.” I know of another, one overloaded, perhaps, with riches, always kind and generous with them, too. That man has said to me‒when we have walked together and I have read his very thoughts‒ “Ah, sir, it is an awful thing to be rich, because one cannot find it easy to keep to the Savior with all this worldliness around me.”
Ah, my dear hearers, I will not ask that God will cause you to lie on a sickbed, or strip you of all your wealth, so he may bring you to poverty, or that he take away your comforts. I will not ask that; but oh, if he was to do it, and you were to save your soul, it would be the greatest bargain you could ever make. If the king were to give up his throne to be saved; if those mightiest among the mighty who now complain that the thorns choke the seed, could give up all their riches and be banished from all their pleasures; if all their extravagant living should be turned into poverty, and if those who feast sumptuously every day should trade places with Lazarus at the gate and have the dogs lick their sores, it would be a happy change for them if their souls might be saved. I believe that people may be honorable and rich, and also enjoy the pleasures of the mercies of God, and then go to heaven; but it will be hard work for them. “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” Some of those camels do go through the needle’s eye. God does make some rich people enter the kingdom of God, but it is a hard struggle, a desperate battle, against their proud flesh, to keep it subdued and under control. Steady, young man, steady! Do not hurry to become rich. It is a place where your head will turn. Do not ask God to make you popular; those who have popularity hate it, and wish they could get rid of it. Do not ask to be made famous and rich; those who are famous and rich often look within, and wish that they could go back to the quiet life they once enjoyed. Cry with Agur, in Proverbs 30:8, “Give me neither poverty nor riches.” May God allow me to walk the golden middle position, and may I always have the good seed in my heart, which will bear fruit a hundredfold to his own glory.
The Hearers in the Good Soil
I now close with the last type of person, that is, the good soil. You will notice that only one in four fell on the good soil. Ah! may it please God for us to have one in four here, with well-prepared hearts to receive the Word. The soil was good; not that it was good by nature, but it had been made good by grace. God had plowed it, he had stirred it up with the plow of conviction, and there it lay, ready to be planted, as it should be. And when the gospel was preached, the heart received it, the person said, “That’s just the Christ I want. Mercy is just what a needy sinner requires. A shelter! God help me to flee to it, because a shelter is what I desperately need.” The preaching of the gospel was the thing to give comfort to this disturbed and plowed soil. Down fell the seed; it sprung up. In some cases it produced an intense love, a large heart, a devoted purpose, like seed which produced a hundredfold. The person became a mighty servant for God; he spent himself and was spent. He took his place in the lead of Christ’s army, stood in the hottest part of the battle, and did daring deeds which few could accomplish‒the seed produced a hundredfold. The seed fell in another heart of similar character. The man could not do the most, but he still did much. He gave himself, just as he was, to God, and in his business he had a word to say for the business of the world to come. His daily walk quietly gave out the doctrine of God his Savior, he produced sixtyfold. Then it fell on another, whose talents and abilities were only small. He could not be a star, but he would be a glowworm. He could not do as the greatest, but he was content to do something, even though it was the least. The seed had produced in him tenfold, perhaps twentyfold.
How many of you good soil hearers are in this vast congregation today? I came here with my soul all on fire to preach to you; but a sudden darkness and heaviness of soul has possessed me, and while I have been speaking to you, my own spirit has been in a battle against wind and tide. Nevertheless, may I hope that even with the awkwardness with which I throw the seed it may land on some good spot, some happy soil? Is there one who prays to himself or herself, “Oh Lord save me. God be merciful to me, a sinner”? The seed has fallen in the right spot. Soul, your prayer will be heard. God never causes a person to desire mercy without intending to give it. And does someone else whisper, “Oh! that I might be saved”? Soul, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.” Have you been the foremost of sinners? Trust Christ, and your enormous sins will vanish like a boulder sinks in the ocean. Is there no one here that will trust the Savior now? Can it be possible that the Spirit is entirely absent? that he is not moving in one soul? not bringing life in one person? We will pray that he may descend now, as badly as the seed has been scattered, and that the protecting God may watch over it, and nourish and strengthen it, until it produces an eternal harvest.
What a serious thought it is, to think about these great Sunday gatherings these many years, coming and going, coming and going, and so many still unsaved! I suppose it has been my lot to speak to more than one or two million people every year, precious immortal spirits, and how many of these millions hear with deaf ears, are not moved in their souls, but continue as they were, dead in trespasses and sins! The thought sometimes staggers me. Will these congregations pass before my eyes in eternity, and if I have been unfaithful, will I be spit on by every mouth of every person whom I have deceived? Shall every eye of the millions I have addressed flash fiery damnations on me throughout eternity? They must, they must, if I have not sought your welfare, and if I have not preached the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to you. I beg you, I plead with you, if your blood must fall somewhere, at least pay attention to what I say now, or allow me to hope that you will accept me as having tried to be faithful to you, so your blood will not be found on me. But why should your blood be scattered anywhere? Is there no hope? Is there no salvation? Is there not, as long as life lasts, still an open door of escape? Flee, flee, my hearer, flee! I beg you, flee, I plead with you by the living God, by time, by eternity, by heaven, by hell, flee; flee to Jesus, before Death overtakes you. Death is pursuing you, that skeleton rider on his pale horse, and before damnation reaches you flee. Flee to him whose opened arms are ready to receive you now. Trust Jesus and you are saved. “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.” Am I being fanatical in begging, am I too much the enthusiast in pleading with you to think about these things? “Fanatic,” at the day of judgment will only mean someone who was in earnest. An “Enthusiast,” will only mean someone who meant what they said. Oh, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, now, even while you are here, avoid the risk of God’s wrath burning you, and his swift justice overtaking you.
Come, guilty souls, and flee away,
To Christ, and heal your wounds;
This is the welcome gospel day,
Wherein free grace abounds.
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