Hear & Heed the Word!

Matt. 13:1-9

On that day, when he had gone out from the house, Jesus sat on the seashore; and such great crowds gathered to hear him that he went into a boat, and sat there; and the whole crowd took their stand on the seashore; and he spoke many things in parables to them. "Look!" he said, "the sower went out to sow; and, as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside: and the birds came and devoured it. But some seed fell upon stony ground, where it had not much earth; and, because it had no depth of earth, it sprang up immediately; but when the sun rose it was scorched, and it withered away because it had no root. Other seed fell upon thorns, and the thorns came up, and choked the life out of it. But others fell on good ground, and yielded fruit, some a hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold. Who has ears, let him hear."

Food for thought!

There are different ways of listening to the word of God, and the fruit which it produces depends on the hearer. The fate of any spoken word depends on the hearer. As it has been said, "A joke's prosperity lies not in the tongue of him who tells it, but in the ear of him who hears it." A joke will succeed when it is told to a man who has a sense of humour and is prepared to smile. A joke will fail when it is told to a humourless man grimly determined not to be amused.

Who then are the hearers described and warned in this parable?

(i) There is the hearer with the shut mind. There are people into whose minds the word has no much chance of gaining entry than the seed has of settling into the rocky ground. There are many things which can shut a man's mind. Prejudice can make a man blind to everything he does not wish to see. The unteachable spirit can erect a barrier which cannot easily be broken down.

The unteachable spirit can result from one of two things. It can be the result of pride which does not know that it needs to know; and it can be the result of the fear of new truth and the refusal to adventure into unknown ways. Sometimes an immoral character and a man's way of life can shut his mind. There may be truth which condemns the things he loves and which accuses the things he does; and many a man refuses to listen to or to recognize the truth which condemns him, for there are none so blind as those who deliberately will not see.

(ii) There is the hearer with the mind like the shallow ground. He is the man who fails to think things out and think them through. Some people are at the mercy of everything and everybody. They take a thing up quickly and just as quickly drop it. They must always be in the fashion. They begin some new hobby or begin to acquire some new accomplishment with enthusiasm, but the thing becomes difficult and they abandon it. Many of us have lives littered with things we began and never finished. We can be like that with the word of God. When we hear it or read it we may be swept off our feet with an emotional reaction, only to have the emotion die away soon after.

(iii) There is the hearer who has so many interests in life that often the most important things, get crowded out. It is characteristic of today; life is becoming increasingly crowded and increasingly fast. Many times we are too busy to pray; we become so preoccupied with many things that we forget to study the word of God: our business can take such a grip of us that we are too tired to think of anything else. We must be careful to see that Christ does not get lost in our crowd.

(iv) There is the hearer who is like the good ground. In his reception of the word there are four stages. Like the good ground, his mind is open. He is at all times willing to learn. He is prepared to hear. He is never either too proud or too busy to listen. Many of us would have been saved all kinds of heartbreaks if we had simply stopped to listen to the voice of a wise friend, or to the voice of God. The real hearer is the person who hears and heeds. Who has ears, let him hear.