Like APPLES OF GOLD in a setting of silver Is a word spoken at the proper time [Proverbs 25v11]
For most of us we associate wheat/maize farming with tractors ploughing vast fields, then sowing the seeds and finally, reaping the crop with huge combine harvesters. However, 2000 years ago in Israel, farming was labour intensive and on a small scale. Because the area was limestone ground, rocks had first to be removed by hand and piled in a heap before ploughing could commence. Then oxen would pull primitive ploughs to ready the field for planting. Sowing the fields was by hand and was an inefficient and laborious method and even the most skilled farmer would find as he scattered the seeds some would fall among the rocks and along the hard paths in the fields.
Jesus told a story known as the Parable of the Sower to explain an important spiritual truth for His hearers and us that the seed is the Word of God and the different soils are mankind’s hearts. Today we start with the soil which had become a hard path as people walked through the field. Luke 8v5: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path; it was trampled on, and the birds ate it up”. The explanation of this parable is in verse 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”. This is very sad, but the reality is that many hearts have become hardened to spiritual matters because of the traffic of feet trampling over their lives. What are these feet? They can be materialism, secularism, celebrity worship, tragedy and anything that keeps our minds and hearts away from God. But God is not thwarted as we read in 2 Peter 3v9: “The Lord is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance”. Just like the Jewish farmer would in the following years plough the hard path, the good news is that though our loved one’s hearts may now be hardened, our heavenly farmer may still intervene and plough their path in the future so the Word of God can take root. Friends if God has already intervened in your life by ploughing your hard heart and the seed of God’s Word has germinated in your life, your present heart is one of the three other soils in this parable which we will look at over the next few weeks.
Amen
Graeme Greenwood