Choked by the Cares of This World

We’re a podcast community here on Things Unseen, and this week we’ve been reflecting on how we hear the preaching of God’s Word. In particular, we’ve been thinking about how Jesus’ parable of the farmer and his seed and the soils help us to think about how we hear. And the parable also analyzes how we do that in four different ways: some seed fell in the path, some on soil with a rocky substratum and then, says Jesus, some seed fell in thorny soil. The thorns grew up and choked it so that it yielded no grain—nothing to show at harvest time.

It’s a really interesting parable because, among other things, it makes us ask questions that the parable itself doesn’t quite answer, and here’s one: Are we supposed to envisage the farmer sowing his seed on ground where thorns were already evident, or is it only afterwards that those thorns have sprouted up?

Perhaps when the farmer sows his seed, it’s inevitable that some of it falls on ground where there are thorns and that those thorns will choke its growth. And Jesus and His disciples do something similar when they preach His Word. The gospel is to be preached to everyone, not just to the elect or to people who look as though they might be elect. That’s part of what we mean when we speak about the free offer of the gospel—it’s offered to all. Its effects are very varied, indeed, of course. But what Jesus is saying here is that the seed is sometimes sown in thorny soil and it sprouts. That is to say, the gospel has an effect on someone’s life, but then something destructive happens. This time, it’s not that the roots hit a rocky substratum and wither and die immediately. Rather, Jesus says, “Over time the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desire for other things, they enter in like weeds and choke the Word, and it proves unfruitful.”

So, what’s this all about? I think we can say that this is a picture of someone who responds to the gospel and seems, indeed, to be a real Christian, and yet there’s something missing. At first it isn’t obvious. Maybe someone with very considerable spiritual discernment might pick it up, but the person himself or herself might not realize themselves what’s happening because it isn’t so much what is happening as what isn’t happening that’s the problem. There’s no weeding of the soil. The person isn’t dealing with the weeds in their heart. Jesus says these weeds come in several varieties. Our minds seem to be more taken up with our concerns in this world than thinking about Christ.

In a congregation I served, part of the process of the church hiring somebody for a ministry position was that I would be part of a small group of people who would interview them. And there was a question I often asked, at least until I discovered that other members of our staff would actually forewarn the candidates, “When you meet Sinclair Ferguson, he’s almost bound to ask this question.”

So, you’re probably intrigued. What was the question? Well, it was this: What do you tend to think about when you’ve got nothing special to think about? I found that the answer to that question, where your mind tends to drift when nothing is demanding your attention, often indicates what’s important to you. Do we tend to drift downwards to the cares that burden us, or do we daydream about money and how we would spend it, or possessions that we would like to have, or things that we don’t have? These are the other things that push out our love for and our meditation on the Lord Jesus Christ, and then it’s just one further push, and He’s squeezed out of mind altogether. And the thing is, it doesn’t need to be sinful things, per se, that dampen affection for the Lord Jesus, just these other things. And the result? Spiritually unfruitful lives.

Perhaps you’ve seen this happen too—I know I have. You know, we often say that weeds grow naturally but having a really good lawn doesn’t. That needs care and attention. That means a kind of discipline. And here, it means dealing properly with our hearts, and it will certainly mean putting sin to death, as Paul says.

So, our Lord’s analysis of our spiritual condition is really very searching: three different kinds of soil in which the Word isn’t bearing fruit. And Jesus wants us to ask ourselves: “Are you like the pathway? Are you like the rocky soil? Or are you like the thorny soil?” Perhaps what we most need today is Christ’s help to break up the hardness in our hearts, or break down the rocky substratum that’s lying below the surface, or the Spirit’s help to do the necessary weeding.

You perhaps know there’s a feature in Jesus’ parables that’s usually called “end stress,” the punchlines. The point to which the whole parable is leading is the last thing that’s said. And in the case of the parable of the sower and the soils and the seed, it’s also the most encouraging part of the parable, and we’re going to think about that tomorrow. But meanwhile, I hope that today will be a day when the Word of God bears some fruit in your life and mine. But join us, won’t you, tomorrow on Things Unseen.