August 27

The sower soweth the word. — Mark 4:14

What comes of all the sermons? The parable of the Sower helps us to answer.

Only on one kind of soil did the seed sown come to anything, while that sown on three other kinds of ground failed to produce any harvest.

It is the same with the good seed of God’s Word.

Some of it never gets into the heart at all. Birds pick it off as soon as it falls. Some of it starts well enough, but has not root sufficient to hold it amid temptation or persecution. Some of the good seed gets a deep rooting, and would yield a fine harvest, preoccupying it, so that the wheat is choked out.

Love of money, love of pleasure, the frets of life, and other things, crowd out the growing grain, so that none of it can ever come to ripeness.

We should seek to be good soil, that the word sown in our hearts may grow and yield fruits of righteousness. The words of God are heavenly seeds, and where they grow, plants from heaven’s gardens are produced.