In the familiar parable of the sower, we see that even Jesus saw people respond superficially to His message. The parable serves both as an encouragement to His followers and a warning to His hearers. The encouragement to His followers is that when we see people respond superficially to the gospel and later fall away, we should not be discouraged in that even Jesus had the same response. The problem was certainly not in His preaching, but in the audience’s hearing. The warning to those who hear the parable, of course, is to take it to heart so that we avoid a superficial faith. Whatever the current state of our hearts, we can appeal to God to grant us a new heart so that we will hold fast to Him and bear fruit with perseverance. Clearly, Jesus was not teaching some sort of fatalism, that the kinds of soils are fixed forever. By God’s grace, a person can change.

Jesus Christ is showing that there is no problem with the Word of God specifically with the message of the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is the kingdom of the heart which demands a response from those who hear its proclamation. And the hearers respond in 4 different ways; from:

1. A hard heart (v.5, 11-12)                                                           

• They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. (Ephesians 4:18)

2. A rocky or stony heart (v.6, 13)                                                 

• Is not my word like fire, declares the LORD, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces? (Jeremiah 23:29)                                       

3. A covetous heart (v.7, 14)                                                                                     

4. A good heart (v.8, 15)                                                                               

• It all starts with a new heart!

“I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules”. (Ezekiel 36:24-27)