The Pulpit Commentary — Matthew — Volume 2 — Section 18

'l'he Lord Jesirn himself was the Sower. Others, in their measure, have been sowers- bis apostles, e'l'angclists, and pastors-but, in the first and highest sense, the Lord himself. He had been sowing now for many months. His holy words had taken root in some f!'ithful heart~; many bad heard_ listlessly without serious thought; some, like the Phe.nsees, had reJected the Word Wlth scorn and anger. He is the Sower and in e. true and deep sense he himself is the Seed. He soweth the W or<l, nnd h~ is the Word. The spoken word will not live in the hearts of the hearers without his gre.ce his presence. Christians are born again of incorruptible seed-" by the Word of God: which livet.h and abideth for ever" (1 Pet. i. 23; comp. also 1 John iii. 9). That incorruptible seed is the grace of Christ, Christ's presence, Christ himself abiding in the heart by his Spirit. His grace lives in the soul, growing, spreading through the heart, filling it with a new life, transforming him in whom the seed e.bideth into the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. The Word soweth the Word. He is both Sower and Seed, as he is both Priest and Sacrifice. 2. The wayside. Some hear, but do not heed; they do not send their thoughts forth to meet the Word.- It falls upon their ears; it does not excite their attention; it does not reach their hearts. And that for two reasons. (1) Their heart is hard, like the path through the corn- fields. The path, trodden by many feet, was hard and dry; the seed could only lie on the surface; it could not sink into the earth. Such is the soil offered by ma.ny hearers to the holy Word of God. The Lord sowed all the field over; his followers must do the same. They must not choose one part which seems likely to be fruitful and neglect another which seems unpromising; they must try to reach all who are within the sphere of their infiuence. But there are, alas! many hearts worn hard by worldliness and selfishness, trodden into the hardness of stone by the constant passage of worldly thoughts and worldly cares. Such cannot receive the Word. It lies outside; it cannot enter. All that is high and holy, all that speaks of Christ and heaven, and of the life of faith and love, is unintelligible to such men. "The natural man receiveth not the ihings of tbe Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him." (2) The fowls ea.me and devoured it. The Word was n0t received into the heart; .the wicked one cometh and taketh it immediately away. Such men have exposed themselves to his devices; for the hard-trodden path was good ground once. The hard heart was once tender, receptive of the truth. "To-day if ye will hear his voice," said the psalmist, "harden not your hearts." They who will not listen to the solemn warning expose themselves io the wiles of the devil His evil spirits, countless like the fowls of the air, carry o:ff the good seed. 'Ihey fill the cold, unheeding heart with idle thought_s, with selfish and wicked imaginations; and the good seed is lost. "Take heed how ye hear." The good seed is precious exceedingly. Lose it not; to lose the good seed is to lose the very life. 3. The stony places. Here and there in the field the rock rose to the surface ; there was a thin covering of earth lying on a sheet of rock. The seed could not sink in; it sprang up quickly because it had no deepness of earth. But when the sun was up it was scorched; it had no moisture, no root, and it withered away. The heart was as hard as in the first case; it was utterly selfish, it had no capacity of real aelf-denial. But it had an appearance of softoess. 'l'here was an outside of feeling, or wba.t seemed like feeling; there was quickness of apprehension, a lively interest in novelties, a liking for excitement. But there was no depth, no real conviction, no truth of love. Underneath that outside of seeming life there lay the heart unchanged, unconverted, hard and cold as rock. Such persons are easily excited; they receive the Word with joy. But it is only the external beauty of religion, its attractiveness, its poetry, that charms them; they like religious excitement just as they like ether forms of excitr.>ment. But they have not counted the cost; they have looked only on the fair side of religion, not on its severer aspect. They have never thought deeply of the sharpness of the cross, of their own danger, of the sacrifices which the cross demands. That premature joy is often a. bad sign; it often means that there is no sonse of sin, no ~enuine sorrow and contrition for the past. Such a one has no perseverance; he dureth for a while, but only for a while. The novelty wears off; perhaps trouble comes, or sickness and pain. The sun kindles into more vigorous life the deeply rooted plants; it scorches those that have no depth. So it is with affliction; it refines and strengthens the true disciple who is rooted in Christ; it offends the superficial ChriHtian. The rcli;;ion of excitement and outward form will not help ua in sickness ·ou. xm. 1-68.] THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW. 19