The Seed by the Wayside

The Seed by the Wayside

(No. 2843)

A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, AUGUST 9, 1903.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING,
SEPTEMBER 13, 1888.

"As he sowed, some fell by the wayside; and it was trodden down, and
the fowls of the air devoured it." Luke 8:5.

THIS parable is recorded by Matthew, Mark and Luke. It is a very
important one and, therefore, it is very carefully preserved for us.
Matthew puts it, "When he sowed, some seeds fell by the wayside, and
the fowls came, and devoured them up."

Notice that the sower is always spoken of as a solitary man. In the
harvest field, there is a great company and they sing and shout
together in harmony, but the sower goes forth alone. Our Savior was the
great Sower–"THE SOWER went forth to sow," unaccompanied. He pursued
His solitary way and all day long He continued His personal task. For
that reason, I feel that when we come together in large numbers, the
majority of us, I hope, being earnest sowers of the Good Seed of the
Kingdom, we help to cheer each other up, for, to a large extent, we
have to work alone. I have, thank God, many helpers, but there are
certain parts of this work in which I feel an almost unbearable
solitude. I suppose that you who are engaged in your own spheres of
service often derive much comfort from Christian communion, but there
must be some parts of your work in which you have to act by
yourselves–to labor alone and to wait upon God alone. I think that
this experience is good for us. I do not believe that it is good for us
to be continually leaning upon one another, like those houses of which
so many are being run up nowadays. If you took the end one away, they
would all fall down! We want to be self-contained–not merely
semi-detached, but altogether detached–so as to be able to stand by
ourselves upon our own foundation. God sometimes takes away a helper
from us in order that we may learn to lean upon Him, only, and to go
about our service in entire dependence upon the Master who is to derive
Glory not only from the result of the service, but from the service
itself.

It may do us good to talk a little while about our failures. I suppose
that we have all had a good many. When some of you began your work for
God, you thought that you were going to push the world before you and
to drag the Church behind you–but you have not done it yet. You
fancied that you were going to convert everybody by your preaching,
but, like Melancthon, you have had to say, "Old Adam is too strong for
young Melancthon." And you have been driven closer to God by the very
failures which you have experienced. If the Holy Spirit shall
graciously help us, we may both glorify God and comfort one another
while we meditate upon one set of failures with which we are constantly
meeting, that is, those that are set forth in these words, "As he
sowed, some fell by the wayside; and it was trodden down, and the fowls
of the air devoured it."

So, first, we learn that we shall have some unprofitable labors.
Secondly, we shall find that some soils will remain unsuitable for the
Good Seed. And, thirdly, we shall have to watch that seed, that we may
learn something from what happens to it

I. First, then, WE SHALL MOST CERTAINLY HAVE SOME UNPROFITABLE LABORS,
something to sigh

over, something that will drive us to cry, with Isaiah, "Who has
believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?"

We may expect this, first, because it is so in everything else. There
is not a tradesman here who makes a profit on everything. There never
was a merchant who was successful in every transaction. There are
losses in the most gainful trade.

Look at the fisherman–does he catch fish every time he casts his net?
I have stood, many times, on the sea shore at Men-tone and seen from a
dozen to 20 men pull in a net which had encompassed many acres of
sea–and when they had pulled it in, I could hold in my hand all that
they had caught! And I have seen them go out again almost directly
after, and come in again with as little as before! But they still kept
on their task even though, often and often, the tiniest plate would
hold all that they took. Fishermen do not give up their work because
they have some failures in their fishing–and if we take the figure
which our Lord used, that of the farmer, we find that all crops do not
succeed. The farmer, after some years of experience, at any rate, does
not expect that every seed will come up and that every crop will be,
alike, bountiful. If he did, he would be sorely disappointed! He learns
at last to set the gain over against the loss, to set the success over
against the failure and so he perseveres and has patience, expecting
and believing that, in the long run, he will be a gainer. So, dear
Christian Friend, whatever is your sphere of service, I would lead you
to expect that there will be some unprofitable parts of the field
because it is so in everything else–and the analogies of Nature
generally hold good in the sphere of Grace.

Do you not think, in the next place, that our disappointments and our
unprofitable labors teach us our dependence upon God? Perhaps we are
not yet able to bear a very large measure of success. If the Lord
blesses some Brothers a little, and they see a few souls brought to
Christ, they are not only very grateful and very happy, which is quite
right, but they are very great in their own esteem, which is quite
wrong! You should hear them at night after a successful meeting–you
would hardly know them! God has given them a puff of wind in their sail
and they are almost blown over, for they have so little ballast. There
are some of us workers for God whom He cannot trust with success–that
is one reason for our failures, for our Master means to make more use
of us, by-and-by. It does not yet appear what we shall be and He is
humbling us that we may be fitted to bear the exceeding weight of
happiness which He means to lay upon us when, in later years, He makes
us bring forth abundantly to His praise and Glory.

O workers, mind that you are fit to be blessed by God! Do pray that you
may be in such a state of spiritual health that it may be safe for your
Heavenly Father to indulge you with very much success! I think that
whenever we have been trying hard for the conversion of any person and
we have not succeeded in it, it drives us to our knees. You must have
met with some who have greatly disappointed you. You thought that you
had that fish, but it has slipped away from you and gone back into the
river or sea again. You supposed that that woman was really converted.
What a sincere penitent she seemed to be! But she has gone back to her
old sins and is as evil as ever. You thought that that man was really a
most striking instance of Divine Grace, but you are ashamed of him now,
for he is doing harm to others who think that there is nothing in
religion when they see what a false profession he has made. Ah, some of
you do not know the heartbreak which we who have to deal with many
souls, have to endure, but, in your smaller sphere, you must often have
had to go to God with tears wetting your cheeks because, after all, you
have not won that boy for Christ, or you cannot induce that giddy girl
to seek the Savior.

You have wept and you have prayed, and yet, for all that, there is some
of the wayside still in front of you, and it seems as if it never can
and never will yield any harvest to your sowing! We do not like wasting
our breath. We do not like, above all, seeming to waste our breath in
prayer–and I do not believe that we really do so. I believe that it
all turns in some way to God's Glory, but yet it does so happen that,
by our failures, we are driven to feel our entire dependence upon our
God. We are emptied of our self-sufficiency and made to know that we
can no more convert a soul than we can make a world! Any man who thinks
that he can create a new heart in any other person, had better begin by
creating a fly. When he has done that, then let him think that he can
make a sinful man to be a new creature in Christ Jesus! Go and raise
the dead, if you can. Speak to those who lie in our cemeteries and
cause them to live again–and then imagine that you have within you the
power to call a dead soul to spiritual life! This is the work of God
alone! God's arm must be made bare before this miracle can be
worked–and our failures teach us our absolute dependence upon Him.

This process is necessary, also, in order to get at the good soil We
must sometimes have to deal with persons who derive no benefit from us
for the sake of others connected with them. The sower does not want to
cast his seed upon the path that runs through the middle of the field.
It is so hard that he knows that whatever falls upon it will be lost.
But, then, he does want to sow right up to the edge of it. He does not
want to leave a long strip on each side of the path without any wheat.
His endeavor is, while he does not waste more than he can help upon the
path, yet to sow right along by the edge of it that he may have a
harvest close up to the barren pathway. It cannot be helped, in the
nature of things, that

some grains of wheat must fall upon the trodden path. So, if you want
to be the means of blessing to a man's wife, it may be that you will
have to try to win her husband, also, although he will never be won to
Christ. If it is your anxious desire that all the children in a certain
house should be converted to God and all the family should come to hear
the Word, it may be that one member of the family will never receive
the blessing. Do not begin asking any questions about that
mat-ter–your business is to preach to them all, to "preach the Gospel
to every creature"–and if there should be some who prove to be like
the trodden pathway to the Good Seed, effectually resisting the Gospel,
it is necessary that they should be in the audience, for, if they did
not come, it is probable that somebody else, whom God means to bless,
would not be there.

Further, consider that this scattering of the Seed on the trodden
roadis necessary to the testing of the soil. I believe that we would do
a deal of mischief by keeping on sorting out certain characters in
preaching the Gospel, for it would drive people to think of themselves
rather than of the Gospel. If I were to come here and say, "Now if you
are so-and-so, and so-and-so, then you may come to Christ and be
saved"–the first thought in each of my hearer's minds would be, "Am I
this, or am I that?" I do not want you to think in any such fashion as
that–the main thing is to take you off from all thought of self, that
you may think only of Christ and His all-sufficiency. Are you a
creature? We are bid to preach the Gospel to every creature. Are you a
sinner? Then, "it is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation,
that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." So, if we are
to preach in this wholesale style, we must throw some handfuls of Seed
where they will never spring up! But our great Lord has so much Good
Seed, He is so rich a Farmer that He will not miss those handfuls that
seem to be lost–and we have a far easier task to bear our failures and
mourn over them, than if we had to be weighted with the responsibility
of picking out our hearers and saying, "This one may have the Gospel,
and that other one may not." That would be, indeed, a heavier burden
than we could bear!

I remember Rowland Hill's reply, when somebody said that he ought to
preach only to the elect. "Very well," he said, "next Sunday morning,
chalk them all on the back and when you have done that, I will preach
to them." But the chalking of them on the back is the difficulty–we
cannot do that and, as we cannot do that, the best way is for us to
leave our God to carry out the purposes of His distinguishing Grace in
His own effectual way and not attempt to do what we certainly can never
accomplish! There, scatter a handful of Seed "by the wayside." Even if
the birds of the air devour it, there is plenty more where that came
from and it would be a pity for us to leave any portion unsown because
we were miserly and stingy with our Master's Seed!

Once more, I am sure that when we do meet with failures, as we all do,
this makes us the more grateful when we see the Seed spring up
anywhere. I could not help blessing God, in the Prayer Meeting before
this service, for any soul that had ever found the Savior under my
ministry. It always seems to stagger me how God can bless one who is so
feeble and I think that it must often surprise you, my dear Friends,
when you find that God has really brought a sinner to Jesus' feet
through your instrumentality. When we remember the feebleness of our
testimony and our frequent lack of faith in God. When we recollect how
often we go home groaning because we cannot preach as we would like to
preach and, I suppose I may say of you teachers, because you cannot
teach as you would like to teach–then we can say, "Blessed be God, ten
thousand times, if but one poor servant girl has found the way to
Heaven through me." If one poor Arab of the street should find Christ
at the ragged-school, if there were only one as the result of a life of
service, it would well repay you! Do not feel that because you seem to
have no influence upon some people, the edge of the chisel is taken
off–the material upon which you are working is so hard that you cannot
make any impression upon it. When the Lord gives you another piece of
wood that He has softened, you may work away at that and then you will
be able to say, "Blessed be His name I do not have all the difficult
side of the work, but I do have to sow in some honest and good soil,
which brings forth its hundredfold as my reward."

II. But, secondly, it is certainly true that we shall find SOME SOULS
WHICH, for the present, at any rate, SEEM UNSUITED TO THE GOSPEL.

This trodden track, through the field, was not a fit place for the seed
to fall with any hope of a harvest following. Roadways, which have been
long used, become very bad for sowing. I remember paying a visit to the
old city of Silchester which still remains in England. Few ever seem to
see it, but it is well worth seeing, though nothing remains but the
walls. I went down to examine it and, standing on the wall, I could
distinctly trace the streets of that old city, yet the whole of it was
covered with wheat, but it would not come to perfection, or grow to any
great length of straw where the old Roman

roads had been. Near Croydon I have frequently traced the old Roman
road through a field of grass or of wheat, by the fact that it was so
well made that after the English plowing of centuries, it still seems
difficult to raise good crops upon the ground. And those Oriental
paths, though not made with all the skill of the Roman road makers,
became very hard through being traversed by multitudes of feet.

In a similar manner, there are many persons into whom we cannot get the
Gospel because they are too much occupied. There is too much traffic
over them. They are not occupied with deep thought but with multitudes
of frivolous thoughts which are well imaged by travelers who just pass
continually along a road. Have we not many in our congregations who are
always occupied with worldly thoughts? From the moment they are up till
they go to bed, it is just one continuous tramp of the world! They are
trodden with the multitudinous feet of worldly business.

Then, along a public road, you not only have business men, but you have
persons bent on pleasure. How many young people there are whose hearts
are just a road along which thoughts of levity and desires for
amusement are continually going! How many precious hours are wasted
over the novels of the day! I think that one of the worst enemies of
the Gospel of Christ, at the present time, is to be found in the
fiction of the day. People get these worthless books and sit, and
sit–forgetful of the duties of this world and of all that relates to
the world to come–just losing themselves in the story of the hero or
heroine. I have seen them shedding tears over things that never
happened, as if there were not enough real sorrows in the world for us
to grieve over! So these feet of fictitious personages, these feet of
foolish frivolities, these feet of mere nonsense, or worse, keep
traversing the hearts of men and making them hard so that the Gospel
cannot enter.

I believe, too, that some are made hard even by hearing the Gospel. You
can hear too much if you do not hear aright. One nail can drive another
out. If one sermon were put into practice, it would be better than 50
that went in one ear and out the other. Some are always greedy to hear
the last new orator who has been discovered. They will go all over
London to listen to him. That is only another kind of traffic
constantly going over the road and making it as hard as if it were
traversed for unholy purposes.

Again, this was bad and unsuitable soil because it was hardened by the
constant traffic. Sin hardens the heart. Every sin makes room for
another sin and it is always easier to sin again after you have sinned
once. No, more–I might even say that it becomes almost inevitable that
you will sin again after you have sinned once. Sin hardens the mind so
that it does not receive the Gospel.

And the world has a hardening effect, too. Association with its
society, yielding to its customs, being engrossed in its business, all
this makes a man's heart exceedingly hard. I have already reminded you
that, alas, even the Gospel, itself, may harden sinners in their sin.
After long hearing it, neglecting it, rejecting it, it seems to operate
upon them in a very terrible way so that it becomes a savor of death
unto death to them. Sad to relate, they are not alarmed by the fatal
lethargy which has crept over them even while hearing the Word! And if
they hear error, it has the same effect in a more dreadful way. Much of
the preaching of the present day tends to harden the hearts of men
against the Gospel. They are excused in their sins, taught to question
the Inspiration of the Scriptures, led to doubt whether, after all, sin
will bring the eternal punishment which our Lord Jesus plainly
revealed! Oh, it is a sad, sad thing when all this traffic of things
good, bad and indifferent has gone over a man's soul till it becomes
harder than the nether millstone!

One other reason why this soil was so uncongenial was that it was
totally unprepared for the seed. There had been no plowing before the
seed was sown, and no harrowing afterwards. He that sows without a plow
may reap without a sickle. He who preaches the Gospel without preaching
the Law of God may hold all the results of it in his hand and there
will be little for him to hold. Robbie Flockhart, when he preached in
the streets of Edinburgh, used to say–"You must preach the Law, for
the Gospel is a silken thread and you cannot get it into the hearts of
men unless you have made a way for it with a sharp needle–the sharp
needle of the Law will pull the silken thread of the Gospel after it."
There must be plowing before there is sowing if there is to be reaping
after the sowing!

And in this case there was no harrowing after sowing and that is a very
important part of the work–to go over the ground again to get the seed
well into the soil. I like those Prayer Meetings that harrow in the
seed and that private prayer, that secret study of the Word, that
private crying unto God, after the seed has been sown, that He would be
pleased to cover it up and keep it in the soil, and make it grow ready
for the harvest! But, with no plowing before the sowing, and no
harrowing afterwards, what result can you expect?

We meet with hearers who are just like that trodden path. I wonder how
many of that sort are here now? As a rule, we have a choice
congregation on a Thursday evening because it is not every hypocrite
who comes out to a week-night service. I do not say that every
hypocrite comes out on Sunday, but we have a hope that persons have
some love for the things of God when they come out on a week-night to
hear the Gospel. Yet I should not wonder if some of you are no better
than you ought to be–as hearers of the Word, I mean. Some people come
to see what kind of a place the Tabernacle is, or what kind of a person
the preacher is. I hope that all of you are perfectly satisfied, now,
on both those points, and that you will forget all about the place and
the preacher and will just think about yourselves and about that Divine
Truth which will not be blessed to your salvation unless it is honestly
and genuinely received into your heart. If you receive Christ, He will
bring forth fruit in you, but if you remain like the trodden pathway
and do not receive Him, what can be the result but your greater
condemnation?

III. The third thing that I learn from this part of the parable is that
WE MUST WATCH THE SEED. Ministers have to do this–all Christian
workers have to do this! We will try to do it now for a few minutes.

First, it is clear that when this Seed was sown, it touched the heart
In the 12th verse, we read, "Those by the wayside are they that hear,
then comes the devil, and takes away the Word out of their hearts."
Then it must have reached their hearts–and that is the sad part about
it. These hearers were not, after all, merely hearers, for they were,
to some extent, affected by the Word. They had some serious thoughts
for the time being. The Seed did not get deep into their hearts, but it
did touch them. It fell on the soil and remained on the soil for a
while, though it could not get its rootlets down into it and could not
really be absorbed into the ground. And oh, my dear Hearers, it may be
that when you hear the Word of God, it does affect you! You have not
yet reached that stage in which you can hear it without any feeling
whatever. You do feel it and you sometimes weep when you hear it, yet
how often we are disappointed, for you seem desperately resolved not to
be saved!

In this case, the Good Seed did not really reach the understanding.
Those who heard the Word did not understand it. We are told now that if
you touch the heart, that is everything–but it is not. To touch the
heart is something, but you must also touch the understandingif you are
to effect any permanent good. I mean that you may gather people
together and get up excitement, and work them up in any way you please,
for some people are easily moved–but they must understand what it all
means if they are to derive real benefit. It is not enough to say,
"Believe! Believe! Believe!" Teach them whatthey have to believe, or
else what good have you done? Shouting, stamping, trawling, crying does
not amount to much. People need to be taught to understand the Truth of
God, to get a grip of it, to really know the meaning of what they hear.
They must know that they are lost. They must know that Christ is the
great Substitute for sinners. They must know what the new birth means.
Otherwise, if the Truth is not received into the understanding, the
mere receiving of it into the emotions will be of very little use
whatever. These hearers understood not the Word, so Satan stole it away
from them.

Notice that, all the while, this Good Seed, as it did not get into the
understanding, was really outside the man. There it lay upon the
surface. That which fell on the good ground had disappeared. You could
not find it, for it had sunk into the earth. But here you can see every
single grain that has been dropped–there it lies, outside the soil. O
my dear Hearer, as long as the Gospel is outside you, it cannot do you
any good! So, let it in. Oh, that your broken heart might receive it!
Oh, that your plowed-up conscience might accept it and bury the Truth
of God within your innermost self, that there it might grow!

The next thing that happened to it was that as it lay there, somebody
came along and trod on it. "It was trodden down." It was crushed and
smashed. The hearer who does not receive the Truth into his heart, goes
outside and meets an old companion who speedily treads on it. Or he
gets home to his wife, who does not fear the Lord, and she treads on
it. Or, tomorrow, he goes into the workshop and somebody there
ridicules him and so treads on the Good Seed.

Yet, even then, it retained so much of life as to arouse the opposition
of Satan. Notice how zealous the devil is. We may be careless about
souls, but he never is. Although the Seed lay there on the surface and
had never penetrated the soil. And although that Seed had been trodden
on, Satan was not satisfied. He said, "There may be life in it and if
there is, it is dangerous to have lying there, for it may grow." So he
comes and takes it away altogether. Some bird of the air devours it. I
believe that Satan does not like you to come to a place where the
Gospel is preached. He knows that if you stand where the shots are
flying, you may get one of them into your heart, so he would rather
that you would not come at all.

But if you do hear the Gospel, even though it does not penetrate into
your heart, yet he still does not like it to be there. So he comes and
takes it away–he makes you forget it–he brings something fresh before
you, so that you may fail to remember the good Word of God. Perhaps he
suggests a new line of business to you, or there is a new play at the
theater, or something fresh to attract your attention because he is
afraid of losing you. He does not like losing his servants and, from
long experience, he knows that every now and then one of them runs away
at night and never comes back. So he is always on the watch for
would-be runaways. He does not want you to be gone, so he calls his
birds of the air and says to them, "Take away that Seed. The man has
not received it into his heart, but I do not even like it to be near
him." I wish I could clap my hands and so drive those foul birds away,
but I ask God's people to lift their hands in prayer that these sermon
thieves may be driven off and that what has been said may abide in your
memory.

My dear Hearers, are any of you content to be like this trodden
wayside? Will you continue hearing the Gospel and yet never receive it
into your souls? Are you going to be trod on, and trod on, and trod on
till you are simply a way for other people to use? Some of you work
hard for your living and get nothing out of it. Somebody else is
getting the whole of your life. You are simply a rut in which other
people go to get riches for themselves. Are you content to let it be so
with you in a spiritual sense? Do you mean to be nothing else but just
a place for other people to walk over and to use your life for their
own ends and purposes?

Oh, that the Holy Spirit would drive the great steam-plow through you
and break you in pieces! It would be the happiest thing that could
happen to you, though your misery might be deep and your anguish
terrible. And then may He sow you with His own Good Seed, that you may
bring forth fruit to life eternal, having in this life joy, peace,
restfulness, usefulness– and in the world to come life everlasting!
"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." There is a
handful of Seed for you! Believe now, and you shall live. Look! Look!
Look and live. Look even now, at this very moment, for you live the
moment that you look! God save you, for Christ's sake! Amen.

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: LUKE 8:1-21.

Verse 1. Andit came topass afterward, that He went throughout every
city and village, preaching andshowing the glad tidings of the Kingdom
of God: and the twelve were with Him. Our Lord's display of forgiving
Grace to the woman who was a sinner seemed to whet His appetite for
soul-saving, so that, "He went throughout every city and village,
preaching and showing the glad tidings of the Kingdom of God." Dear
Friends, whenever we win a soul for God, let it spur us on to a greater
diligence in His service! Let it make us insatiable for more of this
best wine of the Kingdom of Heaven. It was so with our Divine Master.
He went about preaching and, as He preached, He was training others to
also preach–"the twelve were with Him." I think that whenever there is
a successful ministry, there should be those round about who are being
trained to continue it. Among the Waldensians, the pastors were always
accompanied by young men who learned to preach from their example, and
who shared their toils when they went from valley to valley proclaiming
the Gospel.

2, 3. And certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and
infirmities, Mary, called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils and
Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward, and Susanna, and many
others, which ministered unto Him of their substance. If they could not
be Apostles, they could, at any rate, being women of property,
contribute both to the sustenance of Christ and of the Apostles who
were with Him. There is a place for everyone who is willing to be used
by the great Master-Builder who leaves no stone out of the wall if it
is fit to be built into it. There is something for the 12 to do and
there is something for the holy women to do–and we cannot do without
either of them. And in that Last Great Day when the rewards are
distributed, there will be as much for Joanna as for John, and as much
for Mary Magdalene as for Simon Peter. Did they not each, according to
their utility, serve the Lord Jesus Christ?

4, 6. And when much people were gathered together, and were come to Him
out of every city, He spoke by a parable: a sower went out to sow his
seed: and as he sowed, some fell by the wayside; and it was trodden
down, and the fowls of the air devoured it And some fell upon a rock;
and as soon as it was sprung up, it withered away, because it lacked
moisture. Or, as Mark records it, "because it had no depth of earth."
There was just a little coating of earth, sufficient for the
fructification and the early sprouting of the seed–it came up all the
more quickly because it was so near the surface, and be-

cause the heat could get at it so easily–the hard pan of the rock
speedily sending up the heat to it. But, for that very reason, "as soon
as it was sprung up, it withered away, because it lacked moisture."

7, 8. And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprang up with it, and
choked it. And other fell on good ground, and sprang up and bore fruit
an hundredfold. And when He had said these things, He cried, He that
has ears to hears let him hear. There are many, who have ears, who do
not hear to any real purpose. There is the physical act of hearing, but
they do not hear in the heart and the mind. It is a very different
thing to have an impression on the drum of the ear and to have an
impression on the tablet of the heart. "He that has ears to hear, let
him hear."

9, 10. AndHis disciples askedHim, saying, What might thisparable be?
AndHe said, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom
of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and
hearing they might not understand. It was a time of judicial
visitations. These people had for centuries refused to hear the Voice
of God and now they were to pay the penalty for that refusal! The
reward of virtue is capacity for higher virtue, just as the effect of
vice is a tendency to yet greater vice. When men will not hear the
Voice of God, it is a just judgment upon them that they cannot
hear–their impotence being the result of their impudence. Since they
would not hear, they shall not. Who shall say that this is not a very
just and natural way of allowing sin to punish itself? So these people
heard the words of our Savior's parable. It was like a clock, a
covering to the Truth, but, to them, it hid the Truth–they did not see
it. To the disciples of Christ, it set forth Truth in all its beauty,
but, to the unbelieving people, it hid the Truth, so that they did not
discern it. Brothers and Sisters, if you and I understand heavenly
mysteries, let us not be proud that it is so, but let us hear our
Savior saying to us, "Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the
Kingdom of God." This is the gift of the Free Grace of God. Be very
thankful for it, but give God all the praise for it. For if you begin
to say to yourself, "I am a man of great understanding," and if you
shall take to yourself a high place, God may leave you to your natural
blindness and, then, where will you be?

11. Now the parable is this: The seed is the Word of God. Not the word
of man. Have we a Word of God at all? Brothers, that is a question
which we nowadays have to answer. Our fathers never questioned it–they
believed in the Infallibility of the Bible, as we do. But, now, all our
wise men do not think so. They set to work to mend the Scriptures, to
pick out of the Bible that which they imagine to be Inspired. Let us
not do so, my Brothers and Sisters.

12. Those by the wayside are they that hear, then comes the devil and
takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and
be saved. He does not mind their merely hearing. What he is afraid of
is their believing, for he knows that in believing lies the secret of
their salvation.

13. They on the rock are they which, when they hear, receive the word
with joy. They are very hasty converts, like men who hurriedly take a
bath. They are no sooner in than they are out–it is so speedy that
there is more haste than real speed with some of them.

13. And these have no root, which for a while believe, and in time of
temptation fall away. "These have no root," and they never had any
root. If you give your child a little garden for himself, perhaps he
will go and pluck the heads off some of your flowers, and put them in
the ground, and say, "There, Father, see what a nice garden of flowers
I have?" But they have no root, and so they very soon wither away.
These are like men's converts, of whom we read that so many scores came
forward the whole of the people in the parish were said to be
converted–but in six weeks you cannot find one of them! How often is
this the case! We begin to be afraid of those statistics because there
is so little truth in them and yet, if there were but one saved out of
a hundred, how grateful we would be!

14. And that which fell among thorns are they which, when they have
heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of
this life, and bring no fruit to perfection. How many we have of that
sort! They continue somewhat longer than the others, yet they get
choked after all.

15. But that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good
heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with
patience. Or, "with perseverance, with continuance." "He that endures
to the end, the same shall be saved." He is not converted at all who is
not converted eternally. The work of man is temporary–the work of God
is everlasting.

16. No man, when he has lighteda candle, covers it with a vessel,
orputs it under a bed; but sets it on a candlestick, that they which
enter in may see the light. A candlestick, or lamp stand. True religion
and true doctrine are not intended

to be concealed, they are meant to be seen–and if any of you are
hiding these blessed things away, I pray you to do so no longer. Bring
out your candle and put it on the candlestick, that they which enter in
may see the light.

17. For nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither
anything hid, that shall not be known and come abroad. You cannot
conceal anything from the eyes of God, so do not try to do so. You are
like bees in a glass hive, watched while you are working and your every
movement observed. God can read the secret emotions of our hidden
nature. "All things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom
we have to do."

18. Take heed, therefore, how you hear. You think, and think very
properly, that we ought to take heed how we preach. Yes, that is true,
but you must take heed how you hear. There are a great many criticisms
upon preaching–will you kindly make a few criticisms upon your own
hearing? I like what a woman said to me some time ago, about a certain
preacher. She said, "I heard him well last Sunday." Yes, that is the
thing, she did not tell me how he preached, she told me how she heard,
and that is the main point. Good hearers will make good preachers, in
due time, I do not doubt. God grant that we may be all good hearers!
"Take heed, therefore, how you hear."

18. For whoever has, to him shall be given, and whoever has not, from
him shall be taken even that which he seems to have. Preaching will
enrich you or impoverish you according to how you hear. There are some
hearers who have nothing and the preacher gives them nothing. Hens like
to lay where there is a nest-egg, and preachers of the Gospel like to
preach to hearers who have received some Truth and want more. Where
there is some love to God, and love to souls, there more will come. May
all of you be among those who have, to whom more shall be given! But
the Gospel is also "a savor of death unto death" to some who hear it.
It takes away from some men what they never had. You call that a
paradox? So it is, but it is true. They think they have it, but the
Gospel reveals to them their mistake–and so it takes from them that
which they seem to have.

19. Then His mother and His brothers came to Him but could not reach
Him because of the crowd. I think that His mother and His brothers were
under the delusion that He was mad, and they came to seize Him, to
restrain Him, so little did even theyunderstand Him!

20. 21. And it was told Him by certain which said, Your mother and your
brothers stand outside, desiring to see You. And He answered and said
unto them, My mother andMy brothers are these which hear the Word of
Godand do it. The spiritual relationship overtops the natural. But what
a sweet and condescending word this is. Dear Brothers and Sisters, do
you hear the Word of God and do it? If so, Christ is at home with you.
Christ calls you, "Brother." He knows that you will take care of His
cause. He calls you, "Brother." He has deep sympathy with you. O
blessed One, You who calls us mother and brother, how we welcome those
loving and familiar titles!