In Matthew 13 and Luke 8 the parable of the soils is found. There is the soil of the wayside. There is the soil in the stony places. There is the soil among the thorns and there is the good kind of soil. Most of would like to be the good kind of soil but are we? Most of us would like to think that our friends are good soil, but that does not make it so. We need to take a good hard look at what kind of soil we are. Within the Future Farmers of America there is a division that judges soil. It might be judged for different things, to plant trees, to grow crops and even to raise cattle. They know and judge the different kinds of soil, but do we know that this can apply to people as well?
Ivan Stewart in his book, “Go ye means Go me,” states this: “It behooves personal workers to learn to identify the good soil for it is possible to spend a lifetime of personal work with the majority who will be lost (Matthew 7:14) and never win a soul to Christ. It may be thought that Christians become judges in determining who will be saved or not saved. It may be thought that Christians should present the gospel everywhere and perhaps that seed will grow after while. Each viewpoint has merit but it is not plausible to reason that a ‘hit and miss method’ would be as effective as a definite proven method even though the ‘hit and miss method’ may produce some results now and then. A good farmer does not purchase just any farm. He strives to find the farm with the right kind of soil for the kind of farming he wishes to follow.” (page 96).
But what about us within the church; what kind of soil are we? You see, to keep the good soil, good soil, we must work at keeping ourselves that good soil. If we are a different kind of soil, such as the wayside, stony, or the thorny soil work must be done to get us into the kind of soil we need to be. We may need to pull a few weeds. We might need to remove some rocks. With some we might need to get the subsoiler out and plow up the hard spots to get crops to grow! We might need to fertilize the land to get crops to produce different amounts. We can be any kind of soil in our lives and we can change soil types within our life time.
When the preacher preaches that sermon on Sunday morning or evening what is our response? Do we think that is applies to someone else? If so then we are not good soil at that moment. We ought to be thinking of how any given sermon applies to ourselves. This would be good soil and the kind of soil that the Lord wants us to be.
We could be any one of the other three kinds of soil. If we attend the services of the church and we do not even listen to the sermon, think about what Luke 8 says: “These by the way side are they that hear; then cometh the devil, and taketh away the word out of their hearts…” (Luke 8:12). People can be playing games or texting on their telephone and never once pay attention to the sermon of the day. We can be like the stony soil, we can “…receive the word with joy… and in the time of temptation fall away” (Luke 8:13). You see we can hear, believe what is being said, and even start putting those things into practice in our lives, but when thing start getting tough, we go back into our old ways. Notice also the thorny soils and see if they don’t apply to some within the church today maybe even you! “…they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection” (Luke 8:14). Do we let the cares of life get in our way of worshipping our God? Do we think about what we are going to do on Sunday afternoon while the preacher is preaching? Are we going to play basketball, softball, or tennis? When we do any of these things we have changed soil types!
Let us be good soil and keep ourselves good soil.
Love, Keith
