Isn’t it extraordinary how the Bible is interconnected? It is alive with pulsating veins and arteries, interlaced with awesome muscles and clout, all centering on the biggest heart, the heart of God, which is beyond human comprehension. Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of GOD! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out.! 1
It is possible to take a subject in the Bible and learn more about it by searching the Holy Scriptures. For example, take the parable of the Sower and the Seeds in Matthew 13. I am reminded of God’s words, “Break up your fallow ground and sow not among thorns.” 2 This means so far you’ve only touched the surface. Breaking up our fallow ground, we are given more insight about this parable from I John 2: 16-17. It warns about the devil’s three temptations. How does this relate to the parable?
In the seeds parable, the seeds fall upon birds, rocks, weeds, or good soil.
Matthew 13: 4 “And when he sowed, some feeds fell by the wayside,
and the fowls came and devoured them up:”
The first temptation is the lust of the flesh or pleasure. Let’s face it; the seeds were with the birds and the future for the seeds was catastrophic. I am reminded of a true story. A married man was on a business trip by himself and picked up a woman at a bar. They went to his hotel room and had sex. In the morning, the woman was gone but she had left a message on the mirror, written in red lipstick. The message was “Welcome to the world of herpes.” The man was with the birds and the birds devoured him. Jesus said that the birds were the wicked one that snatches away the word of God’s kingdom from a person’s heart.
3
Matthew 13: 5 “Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth:
and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth:
And when the sun was up, they were scorched;
And because they had no root, they withered away.”
The second temptation is pride of life (position/self-interests). The old kids’ game “I am the King of the Castle” comes to my mind. This is where the goal is to get to the top of a hill or a large rock. The one who gets to the top and keeps it from all others is the king of the castle. POWER is the name of the adult version. It doesn’t matter who gets trampled upon. It doesn’t matter what disempowering methods are used against the others. Power to control, power to manipulate, power to destroy is the devil’s lure. God says to those striving for power, “Your eyes and your heart are for your covetousness, for shedding innocent blood, for oppression, and for violence, to do it.“ 4 God reveals their future in Obadiah 4.
“Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the LORD.”
Having no root and scorched by the sun (tribulation or persecution), the seeds withered away.
Matthew 13:7 “And some fell among thorns,
and the thorns sprung up, and choked them.”
The seeds among the thorns and the third temptation, lust of the eyes or wealth / personal desires, go together. Jesus said that these seeds hear God’s word of salvation, but their eyes are on the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches, which choke them. Proverbs 22: 5 teaches us that thorns and snares are in the way of the forward and perverse. They have sown wheat, but shall reap thorns; they have put themselves to pain, but shall not profit: 5 And the light of Israel shall be for a fire, and His Holy One for a flame; and it shall burn and devour his thorns and his briers in one day. 6
And those seeds in the good soil, what happens to them?
Matthew 13: 8
“But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit,
some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold.
These are the people who hear the word of God and understand it. They don’t just read God’s word as a regular book and then place it on a shelf to gather dust. These Christians actually study the Bible to understand God and His Word. They memorize God’s Word so that it is close to their hearts forever. And they live by God’s Word in this unstable world in which we live. And they bear much fruit for the kingdom of God.
“Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father,
Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.”
Matthew 13: 43
Isn’t interesting how God word is all interconnected? Feel like searching for treasure?
“Break up your fallow ground and sow not among thorns.”
Seek ye out of the book of the LORD, and read: no one of these shall fail…” 7
PRAISE THE LORD – GOD”S WORD IS ALIVE!
1 Romans 11:33
2 Jeremiah 4: 3
3 Matthew 13:19
4 Jeremiah 22:17
5 Jeremiah 12:13
6 Isaiah 10:17
7 Isaiah 34:16
Posted on May 25, 2013.