Matthew 13:3,4

Matthew 13:3

I. The beaten path. Let us think about that type of character which is here set forth under the image of the wayside. It is a heart trodden down by the feet that have gone across it; and because trodden down, a heart incapable of receiving the seed sown. The seed falls uponit, not init. Notice two or three ways by which the heart becomes trodden down. (1) The heart is trodden down by custom and habit. There is a process going on which makes it absolutely certain that, the further you advance in life, the less you will be capable of being influenced even by the divinest truths of God's Word. (2) The heart is trodden down by sin. It is not the least sad and awful of the widespread consequences of sin, that it uniformly works in the direction of unfitting men to receive God's love. The more we need it the less we are able to lay hold of it. (3) The heart is trodden down by the very feet of the sower. Every sermon that an ungodly man hears which leaves him ungodly, leaves him, not as it found him, but harder by the passage of the Word once more across his heart, harder by the rejection once more of God's grace.

II. The lost seed. Sown on the surface of a hardened heart, it lies there for a little while and does nothing. But only for a little while; it is soon carried off. He who sows tares roots up growing wheat, and does not neglect to sweep away the seed. His chosen instruments are those light, swift-winged, apparently innocent flocks of flying thoughts, that come swooping across your souls even whilst the message of God's love is sounding in your ears. With most men it is the constant succession of petty cares, the constant occupation of heart and mind with trivial subjects and passing good, much rather than any conscious fixed resolve to shut their souls against Christ and His love, that steals away the Word from their memories and thoughts. "We ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we be drifted past them."

A. Maclaren, Sermons preached in Manchester,2nd series, p. 280.

References: Matthew 13:3. Homiletic Quarterly,vol. iv., p. 429. Matthew 13:3. R. Winterbotham, Sermons and Expositions,p. 119; J. R. Macduff, Parables of the Lake,p. 49. Matthew 13:3. Homiletic Quarterly,vol. ii., p. 50; G. Salmon, Non-Miraculous Christianity,p. 135.Matthew 13:3. S. Cox, An Expositor's Notebook,p. 213.