The Pulpit Commentary — Mark — Volume 1 — Section 181

(Zech. xiv. 20) was written everywhere, and he accounted "nothing common or unclean" (Acts x.15). Too often Christian workers select their little sphere for service, and strictly confine themselves to it, contented that multitudes should be left untouched who might easily be brought under their influence. The true sower is willing to scatter his seed broadcast. III. THAT THE MODE OP OUR LORD'S TEACHING MADE HIS UTTERANCES MORE WIDELY ACCEPTABLE. This was not only true of his own day, but of ours. Publicans, lepers, and outcasts, excluded from the synagogue, could hear him on the beach ; and all "the common people heard him gladly," for he spake "as one having authority, and not as the scribes." It is well for us also that it was so. There is wonderfully little local colouring about his words; a marvellous freedom from such theological technicalities as the rabbi~ were wont to use; and his teaching, therefore, comes home to us as it never would have done if couched in the phraseology currently used for the interpreta- tion of the Law. His utterances are fragrant with the fresh air, and they ring with a pleasant freedom, for which we cannot be too thankful; for what might have been Jewish is human, and the words of him who called himself, not" the Son of David," but the" Son of man," are so simple and natural, that there is not a fisherman on our coasts, not a merchant in our streets, not a housewife in our homes, not a sower in our fields, who may not know something of the meaning and beauty of the doctrine of the great Teacher who has come from God. IV. THAT OUR LoRD'B POSITION IN THE PISHING-BOAT 18 A SIGN OP' THE TRANSIENT NATURE OF ABUSED PRIVILEGES. Christ in the boat bas often been regarded as an emblem of Christ in his Church. From both he preaches to the world. The Church, in comparison with the world it seeks to influence, is small, as the boat with the few in it was small compared with the crowds listening upon the beach; and her comparative poverty may be ropresented by that fisherman's barque, which had about it, we may be sure, no costly adornment. But small and poor as the Church may seem, and the Christ who is in it, she is free as the Master was, who could in a moment leave those who were hostile or unreceptive, and pass over to the other side (Luke viii. 37). There are yet to be found amongst us the impenitent and foolhardy, to whom he will have to say, "Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof: I will also laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh."-A. U. Vers. 4-8.-Hwnan hearts tested by truth. "The seed is the Word." Such le the interpretation given by the Lord himself, in his exposition of the parable of the sower. In other words, the seed represents the truth uttered by Christ and embodied in Christ, who is himself declared to be the everlasting Word (John i.1). This heavenly seed is the gift of God. It has life in itself (John v. 26); it is the germ of life to the world; and, when it is received, it brings forth those" fruits of the Spirit" of which St. Paul speaks. The mode in which that i;eed is received is a test of character, and this is illustrated in the words before us. The four kinds of soil upon which the sower cast his seed represent four conditions of heart, which we propose to consider. I. THE HARDENED HEART. Our Lord speaks of some seetl falling by the wayside; that is, on the trodden pathway running through the field, which is impervious to anything which falls gently, as seed falls. Finding a lodgment there, either the birds carry it away or else it is crushed by ~h_e_f?Ot of the wayfarer. Just as the once ~oft soil becomes hard, so do our moral sensibilities become blunted by the frequent passrng over them of ordinary duties, and still more of evil wortls and deeds. ·we often read in Scripture of the hardening of the heart. Pharaoh is said to have "hardened hie heart" because, after being stirred to some thought by the earlier plagues in Egypt, he conquered feeling until he becar.1e past feelin~. Hence, after _the most terribl_e of the plagues, he pursued G~d's cho~cn people to his o,~n dcstructi?n.. The Israel_1tes, too, bard-=,ned their hearts in the w1ltleruess. All the 11,sues of this sin recorded 1n sacred history give a significant answer to _the question. of Job, "Who hath hardened himself ao-ainst God and prospered?" '1'h1s process still goes on, not leaRt amongst regular attendants ~n the means of grace. Address a gathering of outcasts, and though you may he::ir a mocking laugh, you will more probably see the peniten~ial tear &11 you speak of the Saviour's death and of the Father's love; but spealt of this to those who have GIL IV, 1~1.] THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MARK. 177