Water Might Help

 

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK

WATER MIGHT HELP

Mark 4:13-20

13 Then Jesus said to them, "Don't you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable? 14 The farmer sows the word. 15 Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. 16 Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. 17 But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. 18 Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; 19 but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. 20 Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop — thirty, sixty or even a hundred times what was sown." 

NIV

Well, there is it, the explanation, which we have read many times, and so we are among those, as we have already considered, who have the keys to the kingdom. Jesus is making sure that his disciples get the fact that every parable has a spiritual value, a secret meaning, as such, and a key that opens the word in all its truth. The sad part about the truth of this parable is seeing those other three types of people. How sad that some allow Satan to steal their joy, or that some accept Jesus, but never get grounded in fellowship, and learn, and stay connected with other believers. However, it would seem to us the saddest of them all are the believers who get all hung up on the things of this world and the word gets choked out. They may well stay connected in the church, being an attendee, looking like a believer, but in reality, they have gone astray being deceived by wealth, seeking security in the world's system of finance, wanting more of everything material, never being content, thus their Christianity is unfruitful. It is possible these are the people that Jesus says “away from me, I never knew you”. We actually do not know that as truth, but it could be. We do wonder if it is possible that good soil could be subjected to weeds, although we used the fact that good soil does not have any weeds before. Yet we do find that in many cases as we pass fields of corn or soybeans, we see in the early stages of the crops some weeds springing up within them. The farmers seem not to care, as the good soil continues to grow the crops to completeness anyway and the weeds are just thrown out with the leftover plant material after the harvest of the grain is completed. They have a machine to separate the grain from the chaff, just as the psalmist makes reference to the wicked in Psalm one. Perhaps the believers who allow the weeds of wealth to choke them out are much like that chaff in the end, which the wind blows away. Still, it is sad. Maybe with the right type of teaching, those believers could see the error of that worldly weed, wealth, and all its deceptive ways and come to fully trust in the Lord. Maybe even those who the seed fell on rocky ground and never established any roots could be helped to seek soil that will allow them to have roots and grow, maybe we could help them, somehow, if we only knew who they were. It is possible that at some time all those people have been in attendance in the church and we have let them slip away into oblivion. Again, if we only would know who is who in the pews, and where they are in their journey. Are they just about to have the word stolen? Are they just about to have any roots at all get burned up because they are really sitting there all alone? Are they the ones being choked out by the cares of this world, hearing but not perceiving? Do we have any obligation to try to keep them from those dangers, or is that just the way it is because of the way it is? Did not God keep after the Children of Israel, even after they continued to turn their back on Him? Did he not pursue the sinner? Did He not send Jesus to save us, yet while we were still sinners? So why would we not think he would desire that we make an effort to help those who first believe, but then have something happen that causes them to fall away? Perhaps after they have gone too far away no one can help them find their way back, but what if they are still in church, and still close at hand, still able to at least hear? Should we not try, at least to water those seeds? Maybe just a little water might help.