“The seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop." – Luke 8:15
It’s one of the most iconic buildings in the world. The Leaning Tower of Pisa was only supposed to take a few years to build, but construction was interrupted several times by wars, debt and design modifications. You see, five years into construction, when the builders reached the third story, the tower began to lean ever so slightly to the South. The builders tried to correct the lean by making the remaining stories shorter on the uphill side, but the extra weight of the upper stories just made the lean worse. In the 600 years after the tower was completed, it kept leaning more and more. It became clear to engineers that the tower wasn’t just leaning -- it was actually falling at a rate of one to two millimeters per year. By the late 1980s, the tower was leaning by more than 5 degrees.
Do you know
why the leaning tower leans? Bad soil. The soil it’s built on is too spongy. So,
between 1990 and 2001, a team of experts worked to save the tower. They used
gigantic steel cables to hold the tower in place while they dug wells under the
foundation, drained water from the wells, and reinforced the foundation with
concrete. If something hadn’t been done in the 1990s, the tower would most
likely have toppled over by now. And their best guess is that the Leaning Tower
of Pisa is safe for at least another 200 years, when—once again—the tower’s
lean will increase. Because the reality is that the reinforced concrete
foundation is still surrounded by bad soil.
We read
more about bad soil in Jesus’ Parable of the Soils in Luke 8:1-15. Although
it’s not the first parable Jesus spoke, it’s called a doorway parable because
it serves as the doorway to his parable ministry, and because it holds the key
to understand all his other parables. In the parable, a farmer sows seeds on
four different types of soil, with different results.
To
understand this parable, we need to know three things: 1) The farmer is a follower of Christ. 2) The seed is the word of God,
especially the gospel message. 3) The soils are the hearts of the different
people who hear God’s Word. In Matthew 28, Jesus tells us plainly to go
into all the world and make disciples of all nations. That is our mission: to
sow and nurture gospel seed. And in the Parable of the Soils, Jesus tells us that
the seed may fall on one of four types of soils:
Bad Soil #1 Represents a Hard Heart.
In the first
example, some seeds fall along the path, where it’s trampled and eaten by
birds. Jesus explains in Luke 8:12, “Those along the path are the ones who
hear, and then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so
that they may not believe and be saved.” So, the path represents a hard heart.
These are the people who hear the Gospel message, but they reject it outright. The
hard heart doesn’t understand the Gospel because it doesn’t want to understand the Gospel. It doesn’t want to be convicted of sin.
It doesn’t want to change.
Bad Soil #2 Represents a Shallow
Heart. The seeds
that fall on rocky soil sprout at first, but then wither away because they have
no moisture. As Jesus explains in verse 13, “Those on the rock are the ones who
receive the word with joy when they hear it, but they have no root. They
believe for a while, but in the time of testing they fall away.” So, the rocky
soil represents a shallow heart. These are the people who make a superficial decision
for Christ. They receive the gospel message enthusiastically, but because their
decision is shallow, at the first sign of trouble, they jump ship.
Bad Soil #3 Represents an
Overcluttered Heart. In
the parable, some seeds fall among thorns, which grow up around the new plants
and choke them. Jesus says in verse 14 that these seeds stand for “those who
hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by life’s worries, riches and
pleasures, and they do not mature.” The third bad soil represents an
overcluttered heart—people who make a half-hearted decision for Christ. The gospel seed begins to grow in their
lives, but it doesn’t produce anything, because their hearts are distracted and
are preoccupied with other things. Our hearts were created to serve one master:
Jesus Christ. You either serve Jesus Christ alone or you don’t serve him at
all.
The Good Soil Represents a Soft, Honest
Heart. Yes, there
is one good soil—the one that “came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more
than was sown” (v. 8). This soil represents an honest and good heart—those “who
hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop” (v. 15). Bottom
line: This good soil is the heart of a true Christian who is truly saved. He
allows God’s word to take root in his life even when Satan attacks. She remains
faithful to Christ during times of trouble or hardship. He offers Christ his
full heart and refuses to allow stuff to clutter his heart. Christians with soft-soil
hearts are going to Heaven. They are true, born again Christians.
Friends, let me ask you: How’s your soil?
I encourage you today to examine your spiritual fruit. If you find it’s lacking,
check your soil. Check your heart. If you discover that your heart is hard or
shallow or overly cluttered, I urge you to go before the Lord and ask Him--beg
Him—to work a miracle on your heart. If you allow him to do so, your
fruitfulness for Christ in the days to come can greatly surpass your
fruitfulness in days past.
Dane Davis is the Lead Pastor of
First Christian Church in Victorville. For more information, visit www.YourVictorvilleChurch.com and join us for
worship Sundays at 10 a.m.
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