Bullets for the Battle

The Bullet of Truth: Soils of the Mind That Grow Nothing

One of our Lord’s most penetrating truths is found in Luke 8:4-18. It is called the story of the sower and the seed. The sower (Christ) sows His seed (Truth) on the soil (the mind of man). Our Lord says there will be four responses to His truth.

First, there are those who causally hear the teaching of Christ but never really take time to examine. They are distracted and over-impressed by the shallow goals and false realities of the world controlled by “the enemy” of God. No doubt our Lord had seen folks stop at the edge of the crowd while He was teaching, listen for a moment and then move on. These are the self-centered, flighty minds that never think beyond their own immediate desires.

Second, we find those who do stay to listen but their minds are poor ground for Christ’s truth because so many false and misleading ideas clutter their minds. The set of their mind is focused on the earthy, the physical, the world … on what they “hope” man can do rather than what God has promised to do. Their joy and interest in the truth of God lasts only until some greater pressure comes along and blows them in another direction. They take no time to put down roots in the soil of God’s truth and the wind of error blows them away from Christ.

These first two soils of the mind produce no plant much less a harvest. In our next post we will look at more productive soils.