Mark 4:3-8; 14-20 "How's Your Heart?"
How’s your heart condition? All of us have a heart condition. It is similar to our ear condition in verse 24.
This parable is presented in two sections:
- Presented to the multitude. Vss. 3-9.
- Explanation to disciples. Vss. 14-20.
Terms defined:
- Sower – not identified. Anyone who sows seed.
- Seed – the Word.
- Four kinds of soil.
- Soil manifest the condition of the heart.
- Much depends on the receiver.
The Hard Heart (3, 4, 14, 15)
The ground: unbroken and hard. The ground never really received the seed.
The heart: hard; closed to the Word.
This kind of person described; “Men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.”
The Word is stolen from the heart.
The Shallow Heart (5, 6, 16, 17)
The ground: stony. Not rocky ground, but ground with only a few inches of top soil and bedrock underneath.
The heart: receives the Word.
- Quick to accept.
- Quick to reject.
- Never really convinced.
God is with you one the mountaintop and in the valley.
Notice the result of the shallow heart:
- Persecution and affliction come. (sun)
Salvation is not counted to those who merely endure for a while. Those who endure to the end will be saved.
- They quit. They fall away. (no depth)
The Word starved receiving absolutely no nourishment.
The Cluttered Heart (7, 18, 19)
The soil: cleared on the surfaced, but underneath waiting to spring forth thorns and weeds.
The heart: The Word is choked to death.
Notice three things:
- There are the worries of the world.
- The deceitfulness of riches.
- The desire for other things.
The Fruitful Heart (8, 20)
The ground: broken up and cultivated.
What are its characteristics? There are several, and they are those which we should have if we are to live fruitful lives which the word can produce in us.
The ground was prepared:
- Jeremiah 4:3
- Hosea 10:12
- 2 Chron. 12:14; 19:3; 20:33
- Ezra 7:10
Preparation of the heart:
- Daily dying to self.
- Daily commitment to serve Jesus.
- Daily acknowledgment of His Lordship.
- Utter dependency upon Him.
- Desire to do His will.
- Desire to keep our hearts open before Him.
“If the ground could think or feel, it would recent the plow.” Vance Harvner. The same is true for us.
A word of encouragement to those who scatter the seed: Not all of your seed will reproduce. But SOME will produce, thirty, sixty and a hundredfold.
The condition of the heart determines whether we receive the Word.
