09 - Fourth Class of Hearers
“Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.”Proverbs 4:23.
“Create in me a clean heart, O God; And renew a right spirit within me.”Psalms 51:10.
“ Among the various undertakings of men, can there be mentioned one more important, can there be conceived one more sublime, than an intention to form the mind anew after the Divine Image? “
Coleridge FOURTH CLASS OF HEARERS.
’’And other fell on good ground, and did yield fruit that sprang up and increased; and brought forth, some thirty, and some sixty, and some an hundred.’’
Fruitfulness is the mark of difference between this class and all the others. Each of the others bears some resemblance to this class, as error invariably carries a front mask resembling the truth, and it is this surface-appearance of truth that gives to every system of error its time of success.
Like the first class of hearers, this fourth class heard; but unlike them, and like the second class, they received the word. They heeded it, and gladly made it a part of their lives. Yet, unlike the second, and like the third, there was no rock, but abundance of rich soil. Instead of a shallow loosening of the feelings, the whole nature was ploughed, as in the third class. Unlike the third class, however, the old roots were all removed, and dangerous evil seeds floating in the air from neighboring fields of weeds were carefully avoided or destroyed. Continually the heart-field was examined. Evil weeds were pulled up by the roots, and good seed sown in the loosened spots; or, if the evil was not entirely uprooted, the soul stood in an attitude of opposition to every evil thing, while always favoring the good. In every case of failure, the fault lay not with the sower or the seed, not with the sun or the rain, but with the soil. There is an advance throughout the parable, which culminates with this class of fruit-bearers. The members of the first class hear, but do not receive the truth into their lives.
Those of the second class hear and gladly cover the new. seed with the shallow surface covering of their emotions, but there is no change of character; the heart is only stirred, not changed, hence they quickly die. Those of the third class hear, cover the seed deeply, have no rocks in the way, and really begin a new life, but they allow so many other roots and seeds to grow with the pure seed that they destroy its roots with thirst, and its fruits with thorns and evil shadows. In this fourth class, the word is heard, received into the life’s best soil, and bears full fruit.
Hard paths are ploughed up, rocks are crushed, and evil seeds and roots of thorns are killed and thrown away. The new life permeates with regenerating power the entire inner nature, while its fruits make beautiful and valuable the whole life of thought and deed. The life of such a hearer is not his old life, but the life of Christ growing in him, and causing him to grow into the likeness of his Lord. In the wayside hearer there was no life. In the rocky-hearted hearer the seed was only scratched into the surface and had but a temporary life. In the thorny hearer the truth rooted deeply and grew almost to harvest time, but the thorns and weeds prevented the fruit ripening. In this class the seed falls, the roots tap every spring of the heart, its tendrils feel their way through every affection, and its foliage and fruit may be seen in holy thoughts, in words of love, in deeds of righteousness.
Perhaps the most serious difference between the third and fourth classes is that in the fourth the life is united, while in the third the life is trying to serve both God and mammon, trying to raise full crops of both grain and thorns. In the one, all the resources of the life are concentrated to reach one aim. No division is allowed. “But one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and stretching forward (eagerly) to the things which are before, I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” In the other class the “house is divided against itself.” The good seed springs up and grows rapidly in one set of conditions, while in another the good is hindered, and the evil grows with great rapidity. So a man of the third class may be very religious one day, surrounded by favoring conditions, and very wicked the next day because surrounded by temptations. His life is divided. Climbing to-day and falling to-morrow — making no advance towards ’’ bringing fruit to perfection.”
Even in the fourth class the full fruitbearing is not seen immediately after the reception of the word. The seed must have a sowing, a summer growth, and an autumnal ripeness for gathering.
Let us stand in the Autumn by the reapers as they gather up the harvest. The hard path is still there. The bare spot and the thorny place are easily found.
See the Master look with pity upon the barren, hardened path, and with sorrow upon the dead stalks marking the rocky spot! With what grief of rejected love does He search among the weeds and thorns for any straggling mark of life! Is any gasping, smothered life striving to get the attention of the Lord of the harvest? ’Tis only a leaf, or a shriveled, unripe grain. No fruit brought to perfection. But with what pleasure He looks upon the bowed heads, lowly with their full harvest of perfect grain. Some offer Him a hundred fold, no bare spots, no weeds, no ripened thorns; but a harvest as full and perfect as the life’s soil well ploughed and cultivated could produce. Some sixty fold, no weeds or thorns are there; but it may be that before they were rooted out they weakened the soil, and in their place the grain is yet green in harvest time.
Some thirty fold, no thorns and a good harvest; but it may be that good seed was not sown while the ground was yet loose after pulling up the weeds and thorns, or the thorns were removed from the life too late for the good seed to grow to a harvest.
’’But that which was sown upon good ground is he that heareth and understandeth,’’ But that on good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep, and bring forth fruit with patience.”
It is an honest soil. It is all through to any depth just what it appears to be on the surface, clean and rich. Not only so, but it is a good soil, free from all bad roots and seeds, and perfectly adapted to receive the good seed and produce a harvest. The soil is not good in the sense that the harvest is all ready for the granary. The heart is not good in the sense that it is already righteous, already holy, already perfect and prepared for the heavenly garner. A good heart is one free from all deception. An honest heart is a sincere one. Sincerity, however, is not all that is necessary. Yet how often we hear men say, “It makes little difference what a man believes if he is only sincere.” Paul of Tarsus was sincere when he was making havoc of the church; he afterwards proved that his early life was all wrong. The Chinaman worshiping Joss is sincere, yet who is foolish enough to say he is right? The traitor may believe his treason right, yet the government puts him to death notwithstanding his sincerity. A man going southward may sincerely believe that he is on the right road to a city that is really in the north, but will he ever reach his destination unless he forsake his old way, and travel in the opposite direction?
“An honest and good (noble) heart’’ is necessary. Not only a sincere one, but one ready and seeking for the truth. In such a heart the truth finds recognition and a home. The soil is fully ready for it, and the truth is seeking just such a soil. The Master does not say there are no evil roots or thorns growing there. By naming different measures He implies that in part of the soil there was something that reduced the measure from a hundred fold to sixty, and even to thirty. Yet all the soil was honest and good. There may have been thorns in the heart, but there was an honest and sincere effort to eradicate them. Every heart, though capable of producing a hundred fold of the good seed, has in it some roots of evil. The fertile plain of Babylon, Herodotus tells us, commonly produced two hundred fold. Yet there must have been even in that fertile land some unfruitful spots, and here or there a weed or thorn. The purest lives are marred by some sins. The most fertile heart has in it some unfruitful spots. Not all the christian graces exhibit a hundred fold increase in any one- life. Yet an honest and good heart is ever ready, with eager desire and strong purpose, to receive the seed, and to give it every opportunity to grow. Goodness of heart consists in readiness to receive good seed and refuse evil. An honest and good heart always has a sincere love for the truth, and a fear and hatred of sin.
We are commanded, not to produce a certain measure of fruitfulness, but to bring to perfection the natural harvest of truth. Our work is definite and clear. Not to control the issues of life, but, so far as in us lies, to cleanse and to keep clean the heart-fountain, whence they flow.
It is not In the measure, but only In the kind that we are commanded to bring forth perfection. Three measures of quantity are given In the parable, yet all are called good. The scale of quantity is the capacity of our nature. The standard of quality Is similitude with God. The one Is as variable as human character. The other as immutable as the Divine Nature. The end is ever the same; progress towards it is in ever varying speed. The kind of the harvest is fixed by the nature of the seed - divine seed must produce divine harvest. And since the quality of the seed and the harvest is fixed by the Divine Husbandman, it is therefore perfect. In quantity, both are dependent upon the heart-soil’s capacity to receive and produce. But we have the comfort of the thought that the seed, whose very nature Is to live and put forth energy, will surely produce its harvest to the utmost capacity of every life into which It falls.
“Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life,” — as the grain springs out of a fertile field.
It is possible for a single hearer of the gospel to represent all these four classes in succession, passing from the lowest to the highest in their order. But if he belong to this fourth class, his character will not be a building without plan, a wing added here, a shed there, as the time-need is; but the whole building will be ’’fitly framed together “ and growing toward a perfect plan, the attainment of a God given ideal. This life and the life of Heaven will not be simply linked together; but both will be built of the same material, woven with the same warp and woof. Both will be the ever-ripening, ever-increasing harvest from the one divine sowing. Death to such a life will be but the throwing down of the scaffold from the completed character-building, the removal of the debris for the entrance of the heavenly furniture. It will be but taking the web of life from the loom of earthly struggle, and brushing off the broken threads and mortal dust. It will be but the transplanting of a divine plant, from the exhausted earth-soil, to the broader field of an eternal world. If the two soils have a close resemblance, there will be no shock in the transplanting. But if there be nothing in the earthly soil like the soil of Heaven, how can the life which has grown entirely out of the one get any nourishment from a soil of such opposite character as the other? Heavenly graces grow in earthly soil, but all things earthly die in every attempt to carry them into Heaven. This character seed produces no selfish harvest. The bloom and the fragrance and the ever-ripening fruit cannot be limited to self. Others will enter within the blessing. *’ For we are laborers together with God; ye are God’s husbandry; God’s building.” And every laborer with God Is moved by the spirit of Him who came “not to be ministered unto, but to minister.” Holy is the fragrance of some of these earnest, laborious lives, and many are the golden grains of blessing that fall from them into our weaker and less fruitful hearts. They are “God’s building,” in whose shade we rest. ’* God’s husbandry,” where we gather fruit for refreshment in our weakness and our need. And their number is increasing. The husbandman is ever improving his estate, ploughing up trodden paths, crushing hard rocks, rooting out weeds and thorns, and scattering the perfect seed of His eternal kingdom. Thus that kingdom is ever enlarging. All the causes necessary for its complete establishment and success are at work. The seed is more and more widely sown as the years go by. Richer and more abundant fruits are being produced by the increasing care of heart-culture. Men are gradually perceiving that Christ-likeness is the only true ideal of life, and that grand ideal is more and more prominently coming into contrast with lower aims, and thus dwarfing them still more. The omnipotent and all-wise God is on the throne, and His eternal purpose is to perfect all things in Christ, and through Him to establish the kingdom of heaven as the universal and everlasting kingdom. The Christian need have no hesitation about scattering the seed, for the word of God has gone forth that it shall not return unto him void. *’Sow beside all waters,” is the urgent command of the Lord of the harvest, and implicit obedience is only faithfulness to duty. Christian, your own life depends, in a very large degree, upon your faithfulness in sowing seed for growth in other lives. And yet while you sow, remember the influence of your own life in winning for the seed a good reception. Sow as the Master sowed, with longing love and ceaseless prayer.
Remember that your life is more the exposition of your heart than of your head. You may think the right and live the wrong. You may think the truth, and understand its deepest statements, and yet live in profoundest error and evil. But what your heart loves profoundly, supremely, will, sooner or later, be expressed in your life, and the world believes when the life speaks. Conversion is not change of habit, but change of the very principle of life. And change of principle is not change of opinion, but of loves and motives that come from the heart, not the head. And as ye go forth to sow, remember the words of the Master, *’ Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world.” Be not disheartened with the failures in the three classes, for here and there a good and honest heart will receive the word and multiply your sowing sixty or a hundred fold.