Romans 10:17 17 So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
Notice how it does not say, “Faith comes by hearing the Word of God”. Yet that is how most Christians interpret it. It is a two step process, not a one step. Faith comes by hearing, but the capacity for hearing comes from the Word of God.
Hearing without Listening
Jesus often used the expression, “He that has ears to hear, let him hear” (Matt 11:15; 13:9, 43; Mk 4:9,23; 7:16; Lk 8:8; 14:35). We have both a set of outer ears – the physical auditory organs on the outside and inside of our heads – and a set of inner “ears”, which are a function of our minds. Just because the sound waves vibrate your eardrums doesn’t mean that you’ve heard. We also have the expression “in one ear and out the other”. A person may have heard the words audibly, but they did not register on their consciousness.
Often we do not hear what is really said. It is human nature that what we hear is colored by what we believe. This is especially true of male-female relationships. Dr. Emerson Eggerichs in his series “Love and Respect”, says “it’s like men see with blue sunglasses, hear with blue hearing aids, and speak with blue megaphones. And women see with pink sunglasses, hear with pink hearing aids, and speak with pink megaphones.”
In the Word of God, it’s like we all have an invisible Religious Pencil that we use to write in the margins of our Bibles what we believe. This is unfortunate because we can miss what God is really saying.
In praying for someone’s salvation, we can pray that the Lord sends laborers to His harvest as he told us to in Lk 10:2. But that is not enough.
2 Corinthians 4:3-4 3 But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing,
4 whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.
Many people in this world hear the gospel – but the devil works overtime to keep them from really hearing. So we also need to take authority over the Satanic forces and command them to remove the blinders from people’s eyes – to halt their influence over them, so they can hear and see.
Matthew 13:13-15 13 Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.
14 And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says: ‘Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, And seeing you will see and not perceive;
15 For the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, And their eyes they have closed, Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, So that I should heal them.’
Take heed how you hear
Luke 8:18 18 Therefore take heed how you hear. For whoever has, to him more will be given; and whoever does not have, even what he seems to have will be taken from him.”
Your attitude of mind, your willingness to hear, will affect what you really hear with those inner ears. I.e., your willingness to receive – to accept and embrace – will affect how much you get out of what is being said. I like the way the Amplified Bible says it in Mark 4:24:
Mark 4:24 AMP 24And He said to them, “Be careful what you are hearing. The measure of (thought and study) you give (to the truth you hear) will be the measure of (virtue and knowledge) that comes back to you, and more (besides) will be given to those who hear.”
You have to be willing to be taught. The meaning of the word “meek” is to be teachable. We also have to have a willingness to correct what we believe if it doesn’t line up with what the Word says.
Parable of the Sower
Mark 4:2-9 2 Then He taught them many things by parables, and said to them in His teaching:
3 “Listen! Behold, a sower went out to sow.
4 And it happened, as he sowed, that some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds of the air came and devoured it.
5 Some fell on stony ground, where it did not have much earth; and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of earth.
6 But when the sun was up it was scorched, and because it had no root it withered away.
7 And some seed fell among thorns; and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no crop.
8 But other seed fell on good ground and yielded a crop that sprang up, increased and produced: some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred.”
9 And He said to them, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”
When they were alone again, the disciples came and asked Jesus the meaning of the parable.
Mark 4:13 13 And He said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables?
In vs. 13, Jesus says that if they don’t understand this parable, they will not be able to understand all the others. That is, there is a central truth in this parable that is a key to understanding everything else. What he goes on to explain is how people hear and receive the Word of God.
Mark 4:14-20 14 The sower sows the word.
15 And these are the ones by the wayside where the word is sown. When they hear, Satan comes immediately and takes away the word that was sown in their hearts.
16 These likewise are the ones sown on stony ground who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with gladness;
17 and they have no root in themselves, and so endure only for a time. Afterward, when tribulation or persecution arises for the word’s sake, immediately they stumble.
18 Now these are the ones sown among thorns; they are the ones who hear the word,
19 and the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things entering in choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.
20 But these are the ones sown on good ground, those who hear the word, accept it, and bear fruit: some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred.”
There are some important points we can draw from Jesus’ explanation:
- The seed is the Word of God.
- The ground is men’s hearts.
- It is sown by somebody preaching it, and somebody hearing it.
- How a person receives the Word determines what type of soil their heart is.
- The type of soil will determine what type of harvest will be produced.
- The whole object of the parable is to get the Word of God to produce fruit in people’s lives.
The Word works like a seed
Mark 4:26 26 And He said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground…
A man casts seed upon the ground, by preaching the Word, and somebody hears it. This can be audibly by hearing someone preach, or by reading a book or article (like this one!). But it seems to me that the audible word – hearing it preached – carries more power than just reading it. There are even different words in the Greek for “word”: rhema, the spoken word, and logos, the written word. Hearing seems to have a greater ability to reach down into our hearts. And the scripture does say “Faith comes by hearing….”, not “Faith comes by reading”.
Am I saying that reading the Word is not valuable? Absolutely not. I read from my Bible every day. Reading goes well with meditation, which Joshua 1:8 tells us is the way to have success. We need both – do not neglect the reading or the hearing.
So the first ingredient to producing a harvest is the seed. The second is the ground. And just because the Word is sown does not guarantee a harvest. The ground must receive the Word. Mark 4:20 the good ground accepts the Word.
The Wayside
The seed sown by the wayside landed on the hard, trampled ground of the path. The seed did not penetrate the soil, so it never had a chance to germinate. Satan comes immediately to steal the Word, like the bird picking the seeds off the path. We talk about people whose hearts are hardened – i.e., they are unwilling to hear.
The parallel passage in Matt 13 brings another reason why the Word could be stolen immediately.
Matthew 13:19 19 When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by the wayside.
Sometimes is it not unwillingness that causes a person not to believe, they just don’t understand it. But, the lack of understanding can usually be cured by additional teaching.
The Good Ground
Let’s take a quick look at the other end of the spectrum, the good ground (which is where we want to be, anyway).
Luke 8:15 15 But the ones that fell on the good ground are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience.
What makes up a noble and good heart? That’s the one that is willing to accept and receive.
Notice that the good ground keeps it. The word keep in the Bible means to guard, to protect. Once the seed is planted in the soil, it has to stay there. That is the patience, or perseverance, in this case (NASB translates it this way). To persevere means to stick with it, not to quit, to remain steadfast, constant and immovable, in spite of circumstances and opposition.
Mark 4:26-29 26 And He said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground,
27 and should sleep by night and rise by day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he himself does not know how.
28 For the earth yields crops by itself: first the blade, then the head, after that the full grain in the head.
29 But when the grain ripens, immediately he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”
I remember an old commercial for C&H Sugar. It had a big field of sugar cane, maybe six feet tall, and a little Hawaiian kid that looked like he was 6 or 7, planting a little sugar cane plant about a foot high in a roped off section. An older man, maybe his grandpa, was hidden, watching. The little kid runs off, and grandpa comes and digs up the little plant and plants a full grown six foot tall cane in its place. Then he hides again, as the little kid and a couple friends comes back with their mouths hanging open as to how fast the plant grew.
Much as we’d like to have instant harvests, there is a growing period. During that growing period, the seed is vulnerable, especially at first. It needs to be guarded and protected, and kept in the soil.
Notice you don’t have to understand how the seed grows. The earth produces crops by itself.
The other thing a seed needs to grow is water and the proper nutrients. These contribute to the soil being “good” soil for the seed. They are added to the soil by watering it and perhaps fertilizing it.
It turns out that spiritually speaking the same thing that is planted is the same thing that will water and fertilize your heart – hearing the Word. (1 Corinthians 3:6) “I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gives the increase.”
Here in California we see a cycle every winter that illustrates these things. During the hot months of summer, the hills turn brown. The grasses dry up and it looks like they are all dead. But just let a few days of good rainfall come, and in the matter of days those dead looking brown hills turn green with new grass. The seed was already planted, but it laid there dormant and inactive until the rains came.
How many of you have experienced this: you’ve read the scriptures before on a certain subject, maybe even heard sermons on it, but it doesn’t really register on you that much. Then you’re in a special meeting, or you hear some preacher say something in a slightly different way, and the light comes on. Revelation floods your heart. All of a sudden you get it. You can ask yourself, “Why didn’t I ever see that before?”
With the right conditions of seed, soil, nutrients, and weather, eventually the seed will produce fruit – a harvest “some 30, some 60, some 100 fold”. Notice that even in good soil there are degrees of harvest.
The Harvest
So what is “the harvest”? What is the “fruit” to be produced? One of the fundamental principles in both the spiritual and natural realms is that seed reproduces after its kind. The seed is the Word of God, so the harvest would be receiving the change or results that the specific word is talking about.
If you have a specific need in your life, then you need to plant the type of seed that will produce the harvest that you want. If a farmer wants corn, he doesn’t plant soybeans. If you need healing, then you should be studying scriptures on healing. If you need finances, you should be studying scriptures on prosperity and how God wants to meet your needs. If you need power to overcome sin or bad habits in your life, you should be studying not only the passages that say “don’t do that”, but also the ones that tell you how to overcome, and the work that God has already done inside of you.
As Christians we see the parable of the sower as an analogy of how people receive and react to the gospel message of salvation. And it certainly does apply there. But it would be a mistake to think that it applies only to unbelievers hearing the salvation message – it applies equally to believers, and any subject that the Word of God addresses. In Matthew 13:19 Jesus says “when anyone hears the word of the kingdom…” So it applies to any word concerning the kingdom of God.
The Thief comes to Steal
Another point that Jesus makes in the parable of the sower is that there is an enemy who tries to prevent the Word from producing a harvest in your life. We were introduced to him in the seed by the wayside – Satan.
Why does Satan want to stop you from bearing fruit, a harvest? Because a farmer rarely keeps his crop all to himself. He shares it with others, he sells it at the market, and other people benefit from it. To the farmer, harvest time is a time of joy and abundance – it means payday, a reward for his labors.
John 10:10 10 The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.
It is his job description to take from you. To kill you if he can. To destroy you.
First the devil wants to prevent you from getting saved. Too late, he’s already lost that battle! His next goal is to keep you from being effective, so you have no positive influence on others. He recognizes that it is the seed, the Word of God, that has the power to cause you to grow, and the testimony of God working in your life that makes a positive influence on others. Therefore he goes after the Word. And the earlier he can get it in the process of growing, the more vulnerable it is.
The other two types of soil in the parable of the sower illustrate two other methods that Satan uses to steal the Word.
The Stony Ground
(Vs. 16-17) This person gets further than the seed sown on the wayside. When they hear, they receive it with gladness – they get excited!
But then, afflictions or persecutions arise for the Word’s sake. This is Satan trying to steal the Word. When you start believing the Word of God for something, there will most likely be challenges raised against it. Sometimes Christians make the mistake that it is God trying to teach them something, but it isn’t – it’s Satan trying to steal the Word from you.
These people, although they received the Word, are not established in it – they sprouted up real quick, but their roots don’t go down deep. The circumstances get them to doubt the Word they were believing, and they quit. They failed to persevere.
Example: you start getting into the Word about healing. And then you or your kids get sick. You make the decision you’re going to become a consistent tither. And then your car breaks down.
The Thorny Ground
(Vs. 18-19) Notice at each stage the seed has grown to a progressively further state, because it has been left in the soil longer.
The thorns choke out the Word so that it becomes unfruitful. How do weeds choke out a plant? By stealing all the water and nutrients the seed needs to continue to grow. They monopolize and take its place.
Three things – cares of this world, deceitfulness of riches, and lust for other things – do this. They are distractions that draw your time, attention, and energies away from God and the Word. In that sense they are like idols in your life.
Cares of this World
This can be just the business of everyday life. Like Martha being bothered about much serving, and missing Jesus’ teaching. All the things you just “have to do”, until there is no time left for the things of God.
Cares also have to do with worry and anxiety. That is something that can sap your energies, and put a stop to the harvest of the Word in your life. It’s an interesting fact that the origins of the English word worry come from a word that means to choke or strangle. Have you ever felt choked by worry? In its extreme form it can lead to panic attacks, which literally affects your ability to breathe. And in the parable of the sower, the cares and worries of this world can choke out the Word.
1 Peter 5:6-7 6 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time,
7 casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.
Philippians 4:6-8 6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God;
7 and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
8 Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy–meditate on these things.
Deceitfulness of Riches
The pursuit of money. The deceit of riches is that it promises happiness, but it can’t deliver.
Proverbs 23:4-5 4 Do not overwork to be rich; Because of your own understanding, cease!
5 Will you set your eyes on that which is not? For riches certainly make themselves wings; They fly away like an eagle toward heaven.
God is not against His children having nice things, and is not even against His kids being rich. The problem here is the pursuit of those riches, not having them. If you are overworking to get those nice things to the point that you neglect the things of God, you have set them up as an idol.
Lust for Other Things
This is closely related to the deceitfulness of riches, since it usually takes money to get the “other things”.
Matthew 6:33 Seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added to you.
Again, it is not that desiring “things” is wrong, it is a question of priority.
Take heed what you hear
In Luke 8:18 Jesus said “Take heed how you hear”. In Mark 4:24 He says “Take heed what you hear”.
The thorns and weeds choke out the seed. But where do thorns and weeds come from? They come from seeds also. And they can get planted in you just like the Word of God is – by hearing.
“Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word”. Well, guess what? Fear comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of the world. Faith and fear are very similar in operation, but opposite in effect.
If you dwell on and feed on all the newscasts, newspapers, magazines, it will produce fear in you. And that will manifest as care and anxiety. You meditate on how bad the economy is, global warming, terrorists, freedom of speech being suppressed, COVID-19, it will sap the faith right out of you.
Not that you should remain ignorant of what’s going on in the world, just take it in small doses – and make sure you take healthy portions of the Word to counteract it.
Unless you are a hermit or a monk locked up in some monastery with no contact with the world, you will be constantly bombarded with the “seed” of the world. And it is inevitable that some weed seeds will be sown. But what we want to do is turn the tables on the parable of the sower – and make our hearts inhospitable to the word of Satan and the word of the world.
When we hear the word of Satan, we want to be like the hardened path and not receive it so it has no chance to germinate.
If it does get an inroad and causes us to start to worry and be anxious, we want to be like the stony ground and not allow it to get a solid root in us, but turn the heat of the Word on it and dry it up.
And even if we have let something take root in us, we want to sow so much of the good Word seed that it grows up and chokes out the weeds! Our saving grace is that the Word of God is much more powerful than the word of the world.
Mark 4:30-32 30 Then He said, “To what shall we liken the kingdom of God? Or with what parable shall we picture it?
31 It is like a mustard seed which, when it is sown on the ground, is smaller than all the seeds on earth;
32 but when it is sown, it grows up and becomes greater than all herbs, and shoots out large branches, so that the birds of the air may nest under its shade.”
Faith Grows By Using
Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God, by faith grows by using and exercising it. It’s like a muscle. Did you know a baby and a full grown man have the same number of muscles? The difference is that the man’s are bigger. I have the same number of muscles as an Olympic body builder, but he spends longs hours developing and working those muscles, while I… uh, don’t.
The more you use your muscles, the bigger they will get. If you cease using them, they will shrink and atrophy. Other things affect it also, like what you eat.
We all start out with the same faith – the measure, or metron. But each person will grow their faith at different rates and at different levels.
Romans 12:3 3 For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.
2 Thessalonians 1:3 3 We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is fitting, because your faith grows exceedingly, and the love of every one of you all abounds toward each other,
