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The Secrets of the Kingdom Text:
Luke 8:4-15 When Jesus told the Parable of the Seed he was speaking to “a great crowd” gathered around him “and people from town after town.” Jesus often spoke to the general masses in parables. His parables are stories with a hidden meaning. The meaning is hidden, first, in order to draw the curiosity and, second, to lead to faith in Jesus as the Key to unlock or reveal that meaning. The less you know about and believe in Jesus the less you will be able to understand his parables. The more you know about and believe in Jesus the more you will “get” the point of his parables. That's why only in a private moment, after speaking to the crowds, his disciples asked him what the parable meant. Before explaining it to them Jesus told why he spoke in parables. He said, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but for others they are in parables, so that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.” In other words parables function in two ways, and it all depends on faith in Jesus. To believers these words reveal “the secrets of the Kingdom” of God. To unbelievers they actually increase the innate spiritual blindness and incomprehension of unbelief.
For purposes of preaching Martin Luther took the four illustrations in this parable—the seed falling variously along the path, the rocky ground, the thorns, and the good soil—as literal proportions. That is, that among those who hear the Word of God it only grows and bears fruit among one-quarter of them. Among the first quarter, the Word only goes in one ear and out the other, to no effect. Among the middle half faith begins to be planted through the Word but it dies out either because of times of testing or because of the cares and riches and pleasures of life. Among the last quarter faith is planted and grows and bears fruit. The parable means to raise the question in your mind, “which sort of soil am I?” “Is the Word of God having its full effect in me or am I somehow missing something?” Now it strikes me that these proportions apply to the general population. It is more likely that among you gathered here today, just because you have gathered here today, that the proportions are a little different. Yet all four categories apply. So which sort of soil are you? Does the Word of God just go in one ear and out the other having no effect on you at all? Have you known what it is to believe the gospel and yet rough times and circumstances and situations in your life are causing you to think that the Word of God has nothing to help you endure? Or have you once known what it is to believe the gospel and yet other things, both negative and positive, “the cares and riches and pleasures of life” are taking over like so much overgrowth of weeds and thorns that you find little joy or hope or commitment to the Word and worship of God? Or is the Word of the gospel producing spiritual fruit, faith, love, joy and peace in your life? The words of the parable are a word of warning against the devil, the world and our sinful flesh and their power to keep us away from the Word and therefore from the hope of salvation.
So which kind of soil are you—the hard-packed path, the rocky soil, the thorny soil or the good, receptive soil—and do you know the secret of the kingdom?
You wouldn't think, at first, that those who hear the Word and yet just ignore it are actually possessed by the devil. When people who have, for whatever reason, at one time or another had their names on our membership list but who have been in the habit of not coming to church at all—some for a very long time—are told that they are “despising God's Word” they will usually object saying they don't “despise” God's Word, they just don't have time for it for whatever reasons or excuses. But Jesus says here that it is the devil at work taking the word out of their hearts. To cease hearing God's Word is to despise it. There is no middle ground, no “hold button” keeping God on the line but waiting until we think we need Him and His help. In the mean time they remain disobedient, dishonest, self-centered, proud and greedy, unwilling to serve or help anyone but self. When such a person, or you yourself are no more responsive to preaching than a log Christ says here it is none other than the devil that is in control. For all rationalizations or excuses the bottom line is that the devil is winning, keeping you away from the powerful, saving and sanctifying Word of God. Among people who desire God's Word and help and salvation, however, the devil is kept at bay.
The next two groups of people are not as bad off, but they are very weak. You may have come to believe God's Word early or late—many baptized as infants and brought up in the nurture and admonition (Ephesians 6:4, KJV) or discipline and instruction (ESV) of the Lord, others, either baptized as infants or adults, but whose faith has not been awakened until they were teenagers or they were married or began to have children or whatever other situation in life first made you consider the gospel as of some importance to you. Yet among us persecution and tribulation comes along and some become afraid or unwilling to remain faithful for various reasons and we fall away. Martin Luther said “they are like wormy fruit that continues to hang on the tree while the air is calm but falls off as soon as the wind blows.”
Maybe more of us can identify with the third group, those who neglect the Word because of “the cares and riches and pleasures” of daily life. This happens when we forget the First Commandment, “You shall have no other gods,” and we look to our job or employment and income, or our possessions or even our family as being more important, the highest good in our life, and therefore treat them as gods. We must work. God provides for our needs through godly employment or business. Marriage and family are blessed gifts of God to his people, and these demand attention, care and love. It is when these temporal things, however, become an obsession over and above our eternal welfare that the Word is choked like the seed among the thorns, and it cannot grow and bear the righteous fruits of faith.
All this is to emphasize that the Word of God and the hearing of it and the faith that is worked by the Holy Spirit through it is no trifling, little thing. For those who have the Word in their hearts will be saved and those who do not will be damned. For the Word is not just words. “In the beginning was the Word…He was in the beginning with God…In him was life, and the life was the light of men” [John 1:1-5 (ESV)]. The Word is the Incarnate Word, the Word made flesh, Jesus, the Son of God who comes to us with healing and salvation through the means of preaching, baptism and the holy communion. This, He is the secret of the kingdom of heaven.
The Word that is preached is the truth about Jesus, the Christ. His story is history, that is, the truth that in Jesus of Nazareth, through his perfect live, his sacrificial death on the cross and his triumphant resurrection from the dead, the forgiveness of sins, the defeat of the devil and eternal life for all who believe has come to light. By Holy Baptism a person is connected to Christ's death and resurrection. By the sacrament of the altar, through his body and blood Christ comes to live in you bringing the forgiveness of sins, life and salvation, and we proclaim the Lord's death until He comes. Preaching and sacraments are not just a one time or occasional thing but our life-line through which faith is given, strengthened, nourished and sustained against everything that would steal us away again and make us lose our place in the kingdom of God.
Let us, therefore, see to it that we are numbered among those with ready hearts, like the good soil, that accepts and retains God's Word and brings forth good fruit.
These are the hearts, unlike the first three groups, that hear the Word and believe the truth with joy. This faith is not only unshaken when hard trials come our way but is actually strengthened and made the more resolute through trials and testing. It is not led astray nor is it swayed by opposing popular opinions or political correctness. It fears and loves God above all things, that is, it believes and lives out the First Commandment and knows it is engaged in a constant battle against the devil, the world and even our own sinful flesh that hangs on through all our days in this life. This faith purifies us from the love of possessions, money and pleasures, seeking first the kingdom of God trusting that everything else we need He will provide us. Such hearts then produce the good fruits of faith with patience.
Luther's words apply to us. He says, we must “not become disturbed when we see that there are more who despise than accept the Word.” For “the fault lies not with the Word nor with the one who preaches…but the fault of the soil which is not good.” So we keep preaching and hearing and inviting all to receive the Word of God. For, unlike and beyond the parable, the Word of God has the power to change the hard path, clear away the stones and thorns, to soften hearts to receive repentance and faith and become good soil that produces the fruits of faith with patience.
Lord, plow the trodden way, And clear the stone away; Tear out the weed and sow the seed. Prepare our hearts your Word to heed That we good soil may be. Begin, O Lord, with me! [LW 338:3]___________________
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