What Kind of Soil Am I? The Parable of the Sower

In this Wednesday evening service, Bro. Ryan preached from Matthew 13:1-9, the parable of the sower – the sermon by the sea. Setting the burden of the message early, he reminded the church that there is one thing believers will never be able to do in heaven: share the gospel with the lost. The sower represents every believer who proclaims the Word, the seed is the Word of God, and the soils are the conditions of the heart – so the searching question of the night was, what kind of soil am I? Walking through Jesus’s own explanation in Matthew 13:19-23, he described four hearers. The wayside hearer has a heart beaten hard like a footpath, never plowed by conviction, where the wicked one snatches the seed away like birds devouring it. The shallow hearer, pictured by thin soil over hidden bedrock, receives the word immediately and with joy, but with no root endures only until tribulation or persecution comes – proof that great joy can accompany false conversion, for a tree is known by its fruit. The worldly hearer is choked by the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches – a Christian in name only, like the rich young ruler who went away sorrowful; no servant can serve two masters. But the fruitful hearer, the honest and good heart, hears the word, understands it, and bears fruit – some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Illustrated by the poem “My Friend” and the testimony of Ed McInness, saved at 65 after four hours of faithful witnessing, the message pressed home that we are responsible for sowing, not for the results – it is the Holy Spirit who plows, convicts, and gives the increase. Pastor Parker closed the service urging the church to fill the prayer list with the names of the lost and to be willing to break up the hard ground through prayer, love, and witnessing.