Roadside Soil

The roadside soil represents soil that is hard packed by the busyness of life.

Roadside soil is represented by people busy with many worldly pursuits. These are not bad in themselves, but if there is no time to consider the seed or word of God then our heart does not produce anything of substance.

Roadside soil can represent people that don't accept the Bible as the word of God. They reject the word because they don't believe it. They think it's foolish and it's not worth their time to listen.

Life has 3 elements to it. Physical, mental or soulish and spiritual. Now all three need to be taken care of. The physical is the most obvious. We need food, clothing, shelter, transportation and a source of income to pay for these. The soul or our mind needs to be educated to function in society and procure work to provide for ourselves and those we love. It is our spirit that is the inner source of our life. Our spirit or what we call our heart is where we make our decisions. It is the foundation for what we want to learn and get for our life.

The Word of God is food for the spirit or our heart. Other foods for our heart that are not good could be evil spirits or self love. A starved spirit or depraved spirit will express itself in non productive ways or evil ways.

Salvation is needed to renew our heart to the place it was created for. Each of us has sinned and broken the rules God has set up for us. Romans 3:23

The result or wages of our sin is death. Death or separation from God which results in going to hell.

Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

But God devised a way for us to be redeemed from this predicament. Jesus came to earth and lived a life free from sin and was wrongly put to death. This death paid for our sins which we would have had to pay with our lives.

Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates His onw love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

The way we acquire this gift is to believe in Jesus instead of living our old life. We make a statement of a change and belief.

Romans 10:9,10 “That if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your that God raised Him from the dead you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.”

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. “

Eph 2:8,9,10 “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. “

God's word at first brings us to salvation. Satan tries different methods to stop us from acquiring this new life. But if he doesn't succeed, he will try again to keep us from growing.

Understanding this parable is a foundation or prerequisite of understanding the Bible.

Are we busy with work? Yes we need to provide for our family but if we neglect the other 2 areas of life our foundation will come crashing down at some point.

Do we find more fulfillment in recreation rather than in God and His word? If this is the case we again are neglecting life's foundations.

Is our schedule such that there is no time for God?

We can get so caught up in the rush of life that our ability to hear God and grow as a person is hindered.

A seed planted in roadside soil has no ability to germinate because of the hard pack of travel. Then it is exposed for the birds to eat them before they have a chance. The seed then is gone and the possibility of new life is lost.

Many go to church to hear teaching but the moment they walk out the door they completely forget what they heard and the lesson is lost to them.

Take care with the Word of God and pray over it after you hear it. Pray for God to make it real in your life and plan to incorporate it into your life.

The Sower and the Seed

Sower parable combined. Mark 4:2-9; Matt 4:3-9; Luke 8:5-8

And He was teaching them many things in parables, and was saying to them in His teaching, “Listen to this! Behold, the sower went out to sow his seed; as he was sowing, some seed fell beside the road, and the birds of the air came and ate it up. Other seed fell on the rocky ground where it did not have much soil; and immediately it grew and sprang up because it had no moisture with no depth of soil. And after the sun had risen, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked it out, and it yielded no crop. Other seeds fell into the good soil, and as they grew up and increased, they yielded a crop and produced thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.”And He was saying these things, He would call out. “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

Sower Lesson Explained

Mark 4:13-20 Matthew 13:18-23 Luke 8:11-15 combined

And He said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? How will you understand all the parables? Hear then the parable of the sower. The sower sows the seed which is the word God.

These are the ones who are beside the road where the word is sown; and when they hear the word of the kingdom and don't understand it, immediately Satan, the evil one, comes and takes away the word which has been sown in their heart, so that they will not believe and be saved.

In a similar way these are the ones on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy; and they have no firm root in themselves, but are only temporary. They believe for a while, then when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately they fall away.

And others are the ones on whom seed was sown and fell among the thorns; these are the ones who have heard the word, and as they go on their way the worries of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, pleasures of this life, wealth, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. They bring no fruit to maturity.

And those are the ones on whom seed was sown on the good soil; and they hear the word in an honest and good heart, and hold it fast and accept and understand it and who indeed bear fruit with perseverance. Some thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.”