Mark 4:1-20
"What Kind of Soil Are You?"

V.1 How do they do that?

Luke 8:1 After this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were with him, 2 and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out; 3 Joanna the wife of Cuza, the manager of Herod's household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means.

Eternal Security, but not Eternal Presumption
V.2 Parable: An earthly story cast alongside a heavenly truth to make the heavenly truth more comprehendible.

Why did Jesus speak in parables?
•Some are hungry for truth while others are hardened.
•Some had come not to learn but to trap.
Mark 3:22 And the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said, "He is possessed by Beelzebub! By the prince of demons he is driving out demons." 23 So Jesus called them and spoke to them in parables:
V.10
Though they didn’t understand, they hungered to know.

Jer 29:13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

The purpose of parable is to encourage persistent and serious faith.

Matt 13:15 For this people's heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.'

Farmer = The distributor of the gospel
Seed = The seed is "the word."
Soil = Hearts of the hearers of the gospel

Four types of soil

1. The Path-trodden Protester
They outright reject the Word and may even earnestly oppose it

2. The Rocky Rejecter
They don’t reject the gospel at first.

1 John 2:18 Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. 19 They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.

3. The Prickly Pretender
They simply never mature, or, bear fruit. Or stop bearing fruit.

2 Timothy 4:10 Demas, having loved this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica.

4. Good Soil Saints These are the ones who hear the word, accept it, and act upon it.

“30, 60, 100"- This is the harvest that is produced.

We must do our part, but remember it is only a part.

1 Cor 3:5 What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe-as the Lord has assigned to each his task. 6 I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. 7 So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. 8 The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor.

Timothy Peck, “What we see about a heart that is hard like a pathway is that it resists cultivation. It is not that it cannot be cultivated, it can be cultivated, but it is very difficult to do so and as a result the chances of the seed being taken away are very high. But you know, the farmer will be back the next year to sow again. Many of us have friends or family who have hard hearts. Whenever we bring up the subject of Jesus they get angry, they mock, they turn away….and our hearts become heavy. Yet, over the years some of the most difficult, some of the most hard hearted people have given their lives over to Jesus after many years of rejecting Him, and then they flourish.”