Narrow Road Christian Fellowship

“Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest.

John 4:35

            In John chapter 4, Jesus tells His disciples that the fields are ready for harvest. We learned last week during our Sunday service that the harvest he was speaking about was the harvest of people’s hearts. As the Samaritan woman ran back into town and told everyone about Jesus, they were heading up to see him for themselves. Jesus was looking at these men coming to him and reminding his disciples that their job is to harvest people. This would not be the only time Jesus talked about harvesting people, he also spoke of being fisherman. Not only do we harvest people for the Lord but we’ve become fishers of men as we spread the gospel and point people to the Lord Jesus Christ. To help us to understand more about this harvest that we’re supposed to be looking for Jesus told the parable about a man that was sowing seed.

            In Jesus’s day when they planted crops, also known as sowing seeds, they would plow the ground and generously spread seed, covering all of the ground around the area. This would cause the seed to fall in areas where it wouldn’t necessarily grow and with this in mind Jesus told this parable.

And He spoke many things to them in parables, saying, “Behold, the Sower went out to sow; and as he sowed, some seeds fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate them up. “Others fell on the rocky places, where they did not have much soil; and immediately they sprang up, because they had no depth of soil. “But when the sun had risen, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away. “Others fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked them out. “And others fell on the good soil and yielded a crop, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty. “He who has ears, let him hear.”

Matthew 13:3-9

            The general meaning of Jesus’s words would have been known to anybody familiar with planting seed in that day. As the seed was spread all over the ground it would have landed on the road, where the birds would come by and eat it. The ground on the road would be hard from people walking on it and the seed would not get into the ground and it would be left unprotected for the birds to take away. There would be other areas where there would be rocks growing. Because of this the soil would not have very much depth and because of that the roots would have nowhere to expand and the plants would shortly die. Other seed with land where the weeds are growing, and anyone who’s planted anything in the backyard knows that weeds will kill anything good that it comes close to by stealing all the nutrients in the ground and choking it out. And the last place the seed would fall would be on the good soil, where would be plenty of room to grow and become the crop that it was intended to be. But this is not the meaning that Jesus had in mind when he told this parable. There was a much deeper meaning behind his words and the disciples asked him what that was, to which he replied…

“Hear then the parable of the Sower. “When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is the one on whom seed was sown beside the road. “The one on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, this is the man who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no firm root in himself, but is only temporary, and when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away. “And the one on whom seed was sown among the thorns, this is the man who hears the word, and the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. “And the one on whom seed was sown on the good soil, this is the man who hears the word and understands it; who indeed bears fruit and brings forth, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty.”

Matthew 13:18-23

            Jesus tells us that the seed that falls on the road, the seed that’s unprotected, is snatched away by the evil one. More specifically Jesus says that if you don’t understand the word of God the enemy comes along takes it away. This is something he’s been doing since the start, going all the way back to Adam and Eve. Eve had a misunderstanding of God’s word when she stated that she wasn’t even supposed to touch the tree that God told them not to eat from. Because she didn’t completely understand what God said the enemy was able to twist God’s words and stealed the truth from her heart. We all know how that ended up as the entire world was thrust into sin and Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden of Eden.

            The seed that falls among the rocks, Jesus tells us, is the teachings of the Bible that we hear and accept with joy. But because we have no real foundation in our lives persecution causes us to fall away from that word. In other words, that type of seed gets taken away because our faith hasn’t grown enough to withstand persecution. Something to keep in mind is that faith that can’t be tested can’t be trusted. What I mean by that, is that persecution comes into our lives to show us the depth of our faith. It doesn’t mean that we don’t have any faith at all it just means that our faith needs to grow and become stronger. The testing of our faith may cause us to fall away from time to time but the Holy Spirit will bring us back to the Lord and our faith will grow stronger. 

            The seed that falls amongst the weeds that gets choked out by the thorns and thistles, this is the seed that gets choked out because of our daily lives. When the cares of the day, when worrying about paying bills, worrying about raising children, worrying about the political situation of this nation in the world, when that becomes too much for us sometimes our faith falters. That’s precisely why Jesus told us, 

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:6-7

            He tells us that instead of worrying, for being anxious, we should submit all of those worries to him in prayer and he will take care of the details. That’s how the peace that surpasses all understanding enters into your life. I love how the text tells you that that piece guards your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus.

            The last soil Jesus speaks of is the soil that falls on good ground. The soil that falls on good ground is the soil that enters into our hearts and takes root because the area of our heart is ready to receive the word of God. That type of faith is the faith that grows and continues to produce in your life because it’s rooted deep within you. In understanding what this has to do with the harvest we need to keep all of this in mind. Not only do we as individuals experience these types of soils in our hearts but the people that we’re sharing the gospel with are going to have that in their own hearts.

            So, when I say, prepare yourself for the harvest, it’s with this parable that I’m basing that on. When we recognize the type of soil in our own hearts, when we recognize the type of soil in other people’s hearts, we have a starting point and allow the Lord to work in us and through us to achieve salvation for this lost and dying world. We need to do what we can in preparing our hearts to become that good soil. To do our due diligence in studying the word to understand what it means so the devil can’t steal it away from us. To allow the Lord to pull the rocks out of our heart to allow the roots to go past so that our faith is not shallow. To allow the Lord to pull the weeds and the thorns out of our lives, to get rid of the roots that are pulling the nutrients from the word of God taking root in your heart. Then the word of God can take root in our hearts, and what it takes roots in our heart, we can do what we can to help it take root into the hearts of others.