Mark 4:1  And he began again to teach by the sea side: and there was gathered unto him a great multitude, so that he entered into a ship, and sat in the sea; and the whole multitude was by the sea on the land.
2  And he taught them many things by parables, and said unto them in his doctrine,
3  Hearken; Behold, there went out a sower to sow:
4  And it came to pass, as he sowed, some fell by the way side, and the fowls of the air came and devoured it up.
5  And some fell on stony ground, where it had not much earth; and immediately it sprang up, because it had no depth of earth:
6  But when the sun was up, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away.
7  And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit.
8  And other fell on good ground, and did yield fruit that sprang up and increased; and brought forth, some thirty, and some sixty, and some an hundred.
9  And he said unto them, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.

We notice here again, that Jesus’ main goal prior to His sacrificial death, was to teach the people the truth. Jesus stated that the truth shall make you free. The truth is still important today. A true local church is designed by God to teach the truth. Anything else makes it a social club. We do not need more of them.
We read here that there was a great multitude of people gathered together unto Jesus by the sea side. The people continued to demonstrate that they were hungry for something more than what the Pharisees were able to supply. The Pharisees were promoting lies. The people had been following those lies and they had seen the burden that they were under.
When John the Baptist began his public ministry, large crowds came to him. He demonstrated that the Pharisees’ hold on the people was not that tight. The Pharisees did not like that and they tried to deceive the people into thinking they were in agreement with John’s message. John knew the nature of the Pharisees and refused to baptize them without evidence of repentance. False teachers and false professors must prove they have been changed by the Word of God.
Jesus came on the scene and He continued to preach the truth. He too exposed the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. The people liked to listen to Jesus. He spoke with authority. He also did many miracles which were proving there was something very different about Him.
In order for Jesus to teach them properly on this occasion, He entered into a ship and had the ship anchored close enough to the shore so that He could teach that multitude the truth. From the water His voice would carry so that all could hear Him. Obviously the sea would have been calm at that time. We know that Jesus had the power to make the sea calm if necessary.
Jesus wanted all people to know the truth. That is why God promised to preserve His Word for every generation. Since the fall of man the devil has been trying to cast doubt on God’s Word. Since the mid 1800’s, there has been a concerted effort to destroy God’s word with a multitude of perversions. Due to the invention of the printing press, it has been much easier to publish propaganda. That is what the perversions are. Most people have accepted the perversions as a viable option. This has contributed to the exposure of many religious groups that seemed to have the truth at one time. Most of them had just put on a good show, but they really were never right. With the introduction of the perversions, they could be bolder with their heresies. The “falling away” is continuing at a very rapid pace.
In verse 2 we read that Jesus taught many things by parables. Notice that these parables were used to teach His doctrine. Bible doctrine is right teaching. It is absolute. There is no need to question any Bible doctrines. There is a need to question the many false doctrines that are being promoted.
Many religions today focus on story telling. People like to listen to a good story. The problem is that the stories being told today are not true. They are feel good stories with a tear jerker in there somewhere to work the emotions of the hearer. They might have something to get the crowd laughing as well.
Jesus’ parables were not for entertainment. They were an illustration that people were familiar with, that would be concluded with a true Biblical application. In our text, Jesus gave the parable. We will see further that Jesus sometimes used a parable to keep the hardened deniers in the dark. They were not interested in the truth and the truth was very important. Rather than have the deniers interfere with His teaching, He left them out of the teaching. They needed to grapple with the parable while He taught its meaning to others who needed to know the truth.
In this particular parable, Jesus focussed in on something that was quite common among the people. In Bible times they did not have large farms with big equipment. The average person understood the labour that went into producing crops. Today the average person goes to the grocery store and demands food that is packaged a certain way so that it looks ‘presentable’. There is much waste because people do not understand farming and their eyes are trained to see things a certain way.
In Bible times, the farmer used a different method of sowing seed than we do today. At that time, they used a method known as ‘broadcasting’. The farmer would walk along his field and as he walked he would spread seed to the left and right and before himself. He would know how wide a pass he could make and he would go up and down over his field until he had covered the entire field. He wanted to make sure he covered the entire piece of ground and so he would sow close to the path as well as among the stones.
We read that some of those seeds would end up on the way side. That ground was not worked up so the seeds would lay on the top of the ground. The birds are always there when a farmer is working his field. They would see those seeds and they would go and pluck them up. That would be a ready meal for them.
Other seeds would fall on the stony ground and because there was not much soil there, they would sprout quickly, but the roots could not go down in the rocks. Thus in the heat of the day, they would be burned up and die. They lacked the needed roots to draw in the nutrients the young plants needed and they could not withstand the heat of the sun.
Other seeds would fall among the thorns. Young seedlings cannot compete with thorns. The thorns grow faster and they cast a shade over the young seedlings and they choke them out. The seeds cannot get the sunlight and they cannot compete with the limited amount of moisture that is available. The thorns would have a more advanced root system and they would draw out too much of the moisture and the young seedlings would be starved to death.
Other seeds would fall on good ground. These seeds would grow up to maturity and they would produce seeds. We see that even in that soil there would be a variation of yield. The farmer wanted as much of this good ground as he could find. In his spare time he might remove some of the stones so that he could have a greater yield the next year.
Farming is a lot of work. Farmers are not always appreciated as they should be. We would not last long without good farmers.
Jesus gave this parable and then He explained what it meant. He needed to get the people to understand what He was talking about. Practical illustrations are very helpful. We often visualize things we read. Those who were farmers would certainly be able to follow along with what Jesus was saying up to this point. They understood the problems they encountered as they seeded their crops. They would be happy for the areas that yielded an increase. They were not happy about the areas that did not yield fruit.
Jesus would explain His reasoning for using parables further on. He would also explain the parable to those who had ears to hear. The Pharisees had many opportunities to dispute what He had to say. However, He wanted the common people to understand the message and allow that message to penetrate their hearts and minds. Debating with hardened sinners is not very productive. Some people love a good argument. They are good at it and they feel good when they can make themselves look good.
We know the Pharisees looked for ways to destroy Jesus. They were not looking for greater understanding of what Jesus taught. They were looking for ways to discredit what Jesus taught. He gave them many opportunities to do that. He also limited their ability to do that so that the common people could be fed the truth.
The Pharisees were the losers in this matter. They chose to reject the truth and sought a following based on their supposed ‘intelligence’. They were well studied in the secular world. They were good at twisting the Word of God, but they lacked the fear of God that would keep them from looking for a way to distort what God said.
Today, we need to be willing to submit to the truth. We need to understand that human arguments might feed the ego, but they do not feed the soul. You might be a good debater. You need to be a good listener. A good listener allows the Holy Spirit to apply the truth to the heart. That is what is needed.
Pastor Bartel