The seeds that fell among the thorns are those who hear, but as they go on their way, they are choked by the worries, riches, and pleasures of this life, and their fruit does not mature. Sermons I. THE PERFECT NATURALNESS, FAMILIAR HOMELINESS, EXQUISITE APTNESS, OF THE MATERIAL OUT OF WHICH THE STRUCTURE OF THIS PARABLE IS MADE. Seed and soil; Sower and sowing; and, to throw moving life into the picture, the touch thrown in of the sower "going forth" to sow. II. THE SPECIFIC SUBJECT OF THIS PARABLE - AN ILLUSTRATION OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN, i.e. THE WILL OF GOD "DONE IN EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN." Such an illustration might be given very variously. The view might be taken from many a point of vantage, and as the kingdom should be found growing or grown at many a date. This Christ might have given from all his stores of knowledge, and his true gift, true possession, of foresight. He might have shown it in the early days of martyrs; be might have shown it when Constantine proclaimed it the kingdom of Europe, and something beside; he might have shown it as Christendom projects it now; or he might have shown it even as glimpses - so strange are they that we are frightened to fix our gaze on them - are flashed before our doubting vision in the wonderful Book of the Revelation. But that which Jesus did really choose to give was one of a more present, practical character. It was, as one might suppose from very first glance, an illustration of sowing time. The sowing time of God's truth, God's will, God's love and grace, in the midst of a hard, and unprepared, and shallow, and ill-preoccupied world - with nevertheless some better, some more promising material, in it. III. THE ILLUSTRATION ITSELF IN DETAIL. It consists of the statement of the ways in which men would act on the "hearing" of the "Word of God." Four leading ways are described. 1. That of the man who is said (in Christ's own interpretation of his parable) "not to understand" the Word spoken; i.e. he has no sympathy with it, he possesses no instinct for it, finds awakened within him no response whatever. This is the man whose receptive state amounts to nothing. As the trodden path (all the more trodden and more hard as it is comparatively narrow) across the ploughed field is approached again and again by the bountifully flinging hand of the sower, as he paces the acres, even it receives of the good seed, but its callous surface finds no entrance for it, offers it no fertilizing or even fertilized resting place, and yet others, who at least better know its value, for whatsoever reason, see it, seize it, and bear it off. 2. That of the man who "anon with joy receives" the Word. But it is a vapid and shallow joy. It does not last, it does not grow; its very root withers. The coating of hardness is not, as in the callous pathway, visible to the eye at first, for it is just concealed and covered over by a slightest layer of earth, just below which the hardness is not simply like that of "rock," but it is rock itself. There is nothing that has such a root wherewith to root itself as the Word of God, and this needs deep earth. Not the birds of the air, not Satan and his evil emissaries, take this seed away, before ever it could show a symptom of its own vital force, at any rate; this has shown its vitality, and has detected, discovered, and laid ruinously bare to sight the unsustaining, because itself unsustained, power to feed life, of that other element, that other essential in the solemn matter. 3. That of the man "who hears the Word, but the cares of this world, and the [seductive] deceitfulness of riches, and the [crowding] desires of other things," i.e. other things than the Word, "choke that Word, and it becometh unfruitful," or, if not unfruitful altogether, "it bringeth no fruit to perfection." It is the seed, still the good seed, lost, wasted, mocked of its glorious fruit, because that same liberal, scattering, Sower's hand has not grudged it, to earth, that is all the while attesting its own richness, quality, force, by what is growing out of it, but is untilled, undressed, unweeded - thorns, briers, brambles, and all most precocious growths suffered to tyrannize and usurp its best energies! How often have men moralized, and justly, that the cleverness of the sinner, and his wisdom in his generation, and his dexterity and resources when pushed to the last extremities, would have made the saint, and the eminent saint, had his gifts, instead of being so prostituted, so miserably misdirected, been turned in the right direction, fixed on the right objects! But short far of flagrant vice, true it is that the absorbing things and the seductive things and the crowding competition of desires of things of this world, have, millions of times untold, choked the Word. No room, no time, no care, no energy, has been left for the things of eternal value, immortal wealth, present holiness. 4. That of the man who "heareth, and understandeth, who also beareth fruit;" or again, "who in an honest and good heart, having heard the Word, keeps it, and brings forth fruit with patience." It is the seed, that pricelessly good seed, which now at last has found its appropriate earth. It falls not on the hard pathway; it falls not on the treacherous, deceptive, depthlessness, all radiant with light and sun though it be; it falls not on the soil bearing at the same time incontestable evidence of two things - its own power to grow, and its own doomed state to grow the things "whose end is to be burned." It fails "into the good ground." We are in the presence of the mystery, not of "who made us to differ," but of how and why he who made us to differ, did so. The practical part of the question is plain forevery one who has an eye to see. Every man must give account of himself at the last; and every one must now prepare for that account. What sign of "goodness," what slightest germ of "goodness," what instinct, as it may seem, and power of "goodness," any man's heart, passing thought, life may just suggest - if it be but like a suggestion - must be reckoned with now, improved now, solemnly consecrated now, and the mystery will still for the present be left mystery. But the facts and the results and the blessedness will speak for themselves. And the kingdom of heaven be receiving its fairer and fairest illustration, instead of its darker and darkest illustrations. That kingdom will be the more a "coming" kingdom. - B.
And that which fell among thorns. I. TO APPLY TESTS OF WORLDLINESS IS VERY NECESSARY. It is difficult to convince ourselves that we are too much engrossed in our worldly cares. If a man is intemperate, or profane, or fraudulent, it is easy for him to know his own sin; but worldliness comes to us so much under the guise of duty, that it is difficult to detect its real character. There is, also, the further difficulty, that it is so hard to fix the boundary between a necessary attention to business and a sinful absorption in it.II. One sign of excessive worldliness is, GREAT ANXIETY OF MIND IN OUR WORLDLY PURSUITS. A Christian should be diligent in business, and improve every lawful means of acquisition, but not as if his whole happiness were at stake. His real treasure is untouched, however the world may go with him. III. But the great test by which the Christian should judge, is THE EFFECT OF HIS WORLDLY BUSINESS UPON HIS RELIGIOUS DUTIES. Even when the duties of devotion are regularly performed, it may be with the world uppermost in our hearts. When the Bible is read, the eye may see its words, but the thoughts may be upon some plan for the day, so that we may read as we would with one at our side calling us away to something we love better. (W. H. Lewis, D. D.) No two persons are more unlike at first sight than the man of care and the man of pleasure. The man of care does not know what pleasure is; he is always fretting and chafing at something or other; everything goes wrong, or seems to go wrong, with him; he is always making the worst of things, looking at their dark side rather than their bright side. The man of pleasure, on the other hand, passes his whole existence in the sunshine. If, by chance, trouble comes in his way, he puts it from him, or closes his eyes against it; he is too much bent on enjoying himself to allow anything to annoy and disturb him. How comes it, then, that unlike, nay, opposite as such characters are, they are here set down side by side, and are represented as occupying precisely the same ground? How comes it that he who saunters leisurely through life, gathering freely as he goes of every pleasure, and he who drags himself heavily along, under the weight of many burdens, find themselves standing side by side at last, and coming to the same end? It is not difficult to find the reason. The cares of life and its pleasures are both of the nature of weeds — weeds of very different kind indeed, but each of them equally the natural product of the human heart; each requires only to be left to itself, and it will soon overrun the whole heart, and choke the good seed. And it will not make much difference, at the great harvestday, whether the failure of the crop in us was owing to an undue growth of cares or of pleasures.(H. Harris, B. D.) The very same piece of ground stands for both the man of care and the man of pleasure. And what kind of ground is it? Strange to say, the ground itself seems to be very good ground; it is not the hard wayside, where the seed never once gets beneath the surface, but is trodden under foot by every passer-by, and picked up by the birds; it is not even like the rocky ground, where there is no depth of soil to support the root when the seed has sprung up and begun to grow. No, the ground of which we are now speaking stands the very next to the good ground, and seems to be of very much the same kind with it; and yet, whilst the one is bringing forth its thirty-folds, and sixtyfold, and hundredfold, ripe for the harvest, the other has not a single full ear; it yields no more than the rocky ground, no more, even, than the wayside. And yet, how is this? How comes it to be so near to the good ground, and yet so far removed from it? how comes it to promise so much, and to break its promise so entirely? We shall, perhaps, best answer this question by means of an example. We sometimes, then, see two pieces of allotment, or garden-ground, lying alongside each other, the one with a very plentiful crop, the other growing nothing but weeds. And how comes this? It cannot be owing to any natural difference in the two pieces of ground, for they lie within a few feet of one another, and are exposed to just the same amount of air, and rain, and sunshine. How comes it, then, that the produce of the two pieces of land is so very different? We shall have no difficulty in finding the answer. We shall say at once, it is quite plain that these two pieces of ground have been treated quite differently; one of them has been kept properly looked to, and the other has not. And this, too, is the very difference of which we are in search between the good ground and the ground choked with thorns in the parable; the soil itself is the same, or much the same, in each, only in the one case it has been properly attended to, and in the other it has been left to itself. And so, whilst on the good ground the seed has had nothing to hinder it from steadily growing and ripening for the harvest, the seed on the other ground, after making a vigorous effort, has stopped short, and never got any further; the depth of earth which supports it has lent the same amount of nourishment to the weeds which have been allowed to grow up with it. As it has grown, so they have grown; and long before the time of the harvest has come, they have all run together, the good seed and the weeds, and have choked each other.(H. Harris, B. D. .) I. On those amusements which are absolutely sinful, it is not necessary that we spend many words.II. There are innocent amusements in which a Christian may indulge, but with moderation. Still there must be a wise moderation. The love of pleasure, even where it confines itself to innocent modes of gratification, is an insinuating and mischievous passion. It may sow the seeds of indolence, create a distaste for the serious business of life, and so make a man's course profitless both to himself and to others. We may see this in the history of nations. A pleasure-loving has never been a noble and manly people. When the Athenians yielded to the fascinations of the theatre, and appropriated to its purposes the funds that had been designed for the defence of the State, they speedily forgot their ancient love of freedom; the glories of Marathon and Salamis were shadowed by the disaster of Choeroneia, and the invincible antagonists of Xerxes became the fawning slaves of Philip. Even the Romans, who had conquered the world, and had for ages boasted of their independence, were content to wear their chains, when their tyrants had learned the art of lulling them to sleep by the Siren-like strains of pleasure, and the voices that had once been raised to rebuke their oppressors, were heard only to clamour for the bloody games of the circus. These are lessons to us both as individuals and as a nation. Changes in the moral character of both are for the most part accomplished noiselessly. III. There are doubtful pleasures, as to which it becomes the Christian to exercise careful discrimination. To point out some considerations which may serve to guide the exercise of this high Christian expediency, is what we propose here. 1. Regard must be paid to the actual rather than to the possible character of any amusement, and each one must be judged by what it is not by what it might be. 2. Regard must be had to the tendencies of an amusement. We admit freely that this is a test to be applied with great caution. It is not a fair objection to any recreation to point to isolated cases, in which indulgence has been followed by serious moral and spiritual evil. It cannot be questioned that a pleasure, though not sinful in its character, may, in its general influence, be unfriendly to spiritual earnestness. 3. Each man must have regard to his own individual temperament. So varied are our mental habits and tendencies, that we may pass unscathed through scenes which would inflict on others permanent and wide-spread injury. 4. Still more must every man respect his own conscience, and not exercise a liberty wider than it approves. 5. We must, in deference to the opinions, feelings, and spiritual interests of others, sometimes exercise a self-denial which our own consciences do not feel to be requisite for our own safety. (J. G. Rogers, B. A.) People Chuza, Herod, Jair, Jairus, James, Jesus, Joanna, John, Mary, Peter, SusannaPlaces Galilee, GerasaTopics Anxieties, Bear, Bring, Cares, Choked, Completion, Fell, Forth, Fruit, Gaieties, Hearing, Life's, Mature, Maturity, Message, Nothing, Ones, Overcome, Perfection, Pleasures, Riches, Seed, Stands, Stifled, Thorns, Wealth, Worries, YieldOutline 1. Women minister unto Jesus of their own means.4. Jesus, after he had preached from place to place, 9. explains the parable of the sower, 16. and the candle; 19. declares who are his mother, and brothers; 22. rebukes the winds; 26. casts the legion of demons out of the man into the herd of pigs; 37. is rejected by the Gadarenes; 43. heals the woman of her bleeding; 49. and raises Jairus's daughter from death. Dictionary of Bible Themes Luke 8:14 2426 gospel, responses 2345 Christ, kingdom of 1690 word of God Library June 28 EveningThe Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits.--I TIM. 4:1. Take heed therefore how ye hear.--Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom.--Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them. How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth! Through thy … Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path November 24 Morning Seed among Thorns Christ to Jairus The Ministry of Women One Seed and Diverse Soils A Miracle Within a Miracle The Sower and the Seed. Our Relations to the Departed Further Journeying About Galilee. The Ministry of Love, the Blasphemy of Hatred, and the Mistakes of Earthly Affection - the Return to Capernaum - Healing of the Demonised Dumb - There are Some Things of this Sort Even of Our Saviour in the Gospel... The Right to what I Consider a Normal Standard of Living In Troubles -- Faith a New and Comprehensive Sense. Sundry Sharp Reproofs Thankfulness for Mercies Received, a Necessary Duty The General Observations are These. R. W. Begins his Fifth Discourse, P. 1, 2. With Saying, that He is Now The Second Miracle at Cana. Ancient Versions of the Old Testament. General Remarks on the History of Missions in this Age. Links Luke 8:14 NIVLuke 8:14 NLT Luke 8:14 ESV Luke 8:14 NASB Luke 8:14 KJV Luke 8:14 Bible Apps Luke 8:14 Parallel Luke 8:14 Biblia Paralela Luke 8:14 Chinese Bible Luke 8:14 French Bible Luke 8:14 German Bible Luke 8:14 Commentaries Bible Hub |