Matthew 13:1-23

When I was in high school, one of my school-friends knew I went to a church youth group and wanted to come along. So we went together one Saturday night, and that night the Gospel was preached. My friend, who had never shown any spiritual interest before, raised his hand during the invitation, and went with someone to another room, where he prayed to accept Christ. When we got back home, he told me he felt different. But it wasn’t very different on Monday or Tuesday. He came back to youth another time or two, and then dropped out, when a girlfriend appeared on the scene.

Now there would be some people who would say that my friend truly accepted Christ, backslid, but is still saved, and is on his way to heaven. But what this parable teaches is that apparent reception of Christ isn’t always the real thing. My friend was like possibly hundreds of children I attended church with, who all prayed prayers to accept Christ, but today show only fruits of unrighteousness. They are those like the second soil in this parable – the shallow soil.

And this parable by Christ is there to explain why that happened in His day, and why it happens today. It is a parable about what happens when the Word comes. There is only one sower – Christ, or whoever preaches Christ, one seed – the Word of God rightly divided, but four kinds of soil. Four responses to the Word explain why the Word affects people the way it does. It explains what happened that night at youth group, and it explains what happens every Sunday.

We have already studied one of the four soils – the hard heart. We saw that that is the heart which refuses to feel, believe or do what God wants it to feel, believe or do. And so it cannot understand the Word, it resists it, and Satan is quick to have it disappear from the mind.

Today we look at the soil most easily mistaken for true salvation – the shallow soil. We’ll consider its meaning, its making, and its mending.

I. The Meaning of the Shallow Soil

Matthew 13:5-6 Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. “But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away.

Jesus was describing a kind of soil which was fairly common in Israel. Fields in Israel often enough had sections where a hard, impenetrable layer of limestone was hidden under a thin layer of soil, not much thicker than an inch or so. The limestone layer is essentially like the wayside: seeds cannot penetrate it. If seeds land on limestone that is on the surface, they will be devoured by the birds. The difference between the two is that this soil’s real hardness is disguised by a thin layer of soil. To the human eye, the soil looks as good as any. You can’t see what is under the surface.

When the seed falls on such shallow ground, the covering inch or so of soil allows the seed some space to germinate. Roots go down, a stalk comes up. But what the human eye cannot see is that the root hits that limestone layer very quickly. When the root cannot go deeper, the plant experiences an accelerated growth. It can’t get its roots down into the limestone, so it grows up and out. Because of its shallow roots, the suddenness and the speed of the growth is amazing. To the human eye, it looks like a very promising plant.

But the revealing test comes when the desert sun of the Middle East comes out. When it is hot and dry on the surface, plants with a deep root system can compensate with drawing moisture from below. Plants with a shallow root system, though, have no supply of moisture except what is already contained in their leaves. As the sun rises to its most scorching temperatures, these plants use up all their surface moisture, and all that lush foliage on the surface wilts, dies and completely dries up.

Now Jesus explains the meaning of this symbol in His parable.

Matthew 13:20-21 But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles.

Jesus describes this kind of hearer as a person who hears the Word, and accepts it. Now don’t make the mistake of thinking that means the person has submitted to it, and been brought to repentance. That’s not what is said. It simply says that this person receives the Word joyfully. He is positive about the message, likes the contents, is zealous to hear more. On the surface, he seems to have believed and received all that he has heard.

In Christ’s ministry, there were plenty of people who did not have the attitudes of the Pharisees, with their open, stubborn, hard-hearted rejection. Many loved the miracles of Jesus, loved Christ’s teaching. By the second year of Jesus’ ministry, most of the nation has heard of Jesus. He has become a folk hero, wherever He goes, huge crowds gather. There is excitement, there is gladness. There is euphoria. There even seems to be explosive growth. John records how Jesus viewed these people.

Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name when they saw the signs which He did.

But Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all men, and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man. (Jn. 2:23-25)

Many ‘believed’ in Jesus, but Jesus did not believe in them. Some people were excited about Jesus’ ministry, but Jesus could see through the one inch of excitement and see the underlying hardness. Whenever someone came to Jesus and wanted to follow him at little or no cost to himself, Jesus turned him away.

Today this could be the person who seems to accept Jesus, and comes to church, and seems all on board very quickly. But he tends to be that way with many things – a new sport, a new job, a new hobby, he’s always trying new things, and enthusiastically beginning them. Or it could be the person who happily says yes to everything Christian, because the man she wants to marry insists she be a Christian, so she happily and quickly says yes to the sinner’s prayer, and baptism and church membership. This could be the child in a Christian home, who wants to please, and knows his or her parents would be so approving if the child claimed to be saved, so it is a sudden, quick, ‘accept Jesus as Saviour.’ Too often the growth is quick, perhaps too quick.

Because underneath this layer of acceptance, there remains untouched a layer of hardness. Underneath this very emotional and florid excitement is hiding a heart as hard as the first soil. A heart that rejects and resists what God wants it to feel, believe, or do. The only difference is this superficial acceptance is enough to deceive others – and itself – that true conversion has taken place.

All this growth is to fade and die out completely. What happens? As the sun scorched those plants that had all their moisture on the surface, so the sun in this parable represents trials: troubles, difficulties, struggles, problems. These could be anything. A trial can be something you don’t want that you do have, or something you do have that you don’t want. But the key here is that this trial arises because of the Word. This problem is connected to being a Christian. Obeying God brings about this trial. Being a wife in a Christian way – submitting and respecting. Being a husband in a Christian way – leading and sacrificially serving. Using your money like a Christian – giving, investing in eternity, shunning the love of money. Doing business like a Christian – ethically, fairly, honestly, diligently, lawfully. He finds out that when someone names Christ, God starts to send them little doses of what His Son experienced on earth. He finds out that being a Christian means facing some kind of rejection, discomfort, difficulty, loss of support, financial loss, family rejection, cultural rejection, slander, physical harm or threats of worse, and he, according to Christ, immediately stumbles.

Stumble means he drops out of the race. He no longer professes Christ, he no longer obeys. He goes back to his old life and his old ways. When Jesus says, ‘he endures only for a while’ in the original language it is just one word which means ‘he is temporary’.

He has no root which goes deeper than his circumstances. So if those circumstances turn negative, he rejects his initial decision. If there is heat on the surface, he can’t take it. He shrivels up.

Most of those people that Jesus confronted with some hard demands, turned away. A huge crowd that was following Jesus after He fed the 5000 began turning away when He told them that He was the living bread and they needed to eat Him – receive and submit to Him. Crowds of miracle-seekers turned back when Jesus told them following Him would mean denying self and taking up a cross. Crowds of Hosanna shouters were nowhere to be found on Good Friday.

You will have seen this kind of person again and again. He is the sudden convert at the evangelism crusade, weeping, but a year later, he is living with his girlfriend. He is the one who tells everyone he has been changed, but then his colleagues are chuckling a month or two later because he is back to his old tricks. She is one of the thousands in South Africa who were in Sunday School and youth groups and prayed to accept Jesus, but after age 18 the only time you’ll find her in church is for her wedding and her funeral. He is the child prays the sinner’s prayer, but by age 16, he has decided that the world is far more interesting. This is the Christian spouse who dutifully comes to church, until finances or children begin to unravel life, and then she has no desire to hear the Word.

The sun is good for plants with root systems. It makes them grow. And the biblical truth repeated over and over is, tribulation is good for true Christians, it makes them grow. It teaches us endurance, and patience, and longsuffering, and love for enemies, and admiration for Christ, and greater dependence, and more hope for heaven, and greater faith, and less worldliness, and greater loyalty to each other, and more gratitude.

But what do trials produce in the person who has no real root in Christ? Unbelief. Denial. Doubt. Casting away of the confidence. Anger. Hatred. Despair.

What is going on in the shallow hearted person?

• Firstly, is really identical to the hard-hearted person, when you strip away the superficial acceptance. He might seem like he is not, but the reason nothing grows and bears fruit is the same hardness of heart under the surface. The same refusal to love what God loves, believe what God knows, obey what God commands is in this heart. It’s a hard heart.
• Second, he is self-deceived. He doesn’t recognise how hard-hearted he is, and others don’t recognise how hard-hearted he is. Because of the thin layer of soil on the surface, because of the superficial openness to Christianity, which makes him and others around him think that he really wants the Word. He might congratulate the preacher, or talk about how convicting the sermon was, or how much it struck him, or moved him, or delighted him.

If you feel good about the Word, if you have a strong sense of agreement with it, if you don’t actively oppose it, you feel like you are really open. But all those reactions don’t go very deep – they are happening in the soil covering of some of your emotions, while underneath that, you remain unchanged, unmoved, unyielding.

And I don’t mean to suggest that he is being dishonest. It is just that all that openness and enthusiasm for the Word is taking place in a very thin layer of their lives. It is the superficial layer of impulsive reactions, whims, gut feelings, sudden passions. It is not the deep layer of what they love, what they believe and what they choose. It is the top layer of circumstances or whims or experiences – then it is received with joy.

But that layer is not deep enough to sustain anything except emotional decisions, impulsive actions, thoughtless commitments, momentary changes.

II. The Making of a Shallow Heart

You end up with a shallow heart for at least two reasons.

1. You never come to true repentance. Because you look at the growth that goes on in the little soil covering, you never deal with the hard, unbroken, stubborn heart underneath all that talk. Underneath the positiveness, the friendliness to other Christians, the openness to the Word, there is a hard, unresponsive heart. It does not respond to God. It refuses to feel what God feels, believe what He knows or do what He says. It’s never been broken, it’s never been alone with God and faced God’s verdict on its life. It’s never felt the evil of evil, the sinfulness of sin, the deep offensiveness of offences against God.

And so, it has never really seen that it is just as self-centred as it ever was, just as self-absorbed, just as committed to this world and this life as it always was. The openly hard-hearted person is a more likely candidate for brokenness and true repentance, because the openly hard-hearted person knows full well that he is resisting and refusing.

And it’s a strange thing, because the shallow-hearted person can go on for years, saying ‘Yes” to God in the thin soil of his heart, but saying ‘No’ to God in the depth of his heart. And he notices his shallow “yes” more than he notices his quiet and stubborn “no”.

2. You never sift your heart. The second way that a person becomes or remains shallow-hearted is by being content with the shallowness of the soil. The problem with shallow-hearted people is not with that part of them which is open, the problem is that the part of them which is open isn’t very deep. And sadly, they are content to stay that way. They will not put a fork into the ground of their heart to see how deep it goes, to fallow it up.

When you hear people say something like, “She is a pretty shallow lady”, what do they mean? Usually they mean, she is only interested in things which themselves are pretty meaningless. There isn’t much reflection on life, God, the world or self. In fact, there isn’t much reflection, period.

This is the guy who stays absorbed with his work, with cars or sports, and tells you he just isn’t the spiritual type or the reading type. He conveniently forgets that some of the godliest men in history have been illiterate, but loved God fervently by meditating thoughtfully, praying fervently, obeying diligently. He is going to be shallow spiritually, but he wants it that way. He wants his interest in spiritual things, his pursuit of God to remain about that deep, and tells himself devotion is for women, and reading is for academics.

This is the woman is becomes utterly absorbed in her children, completely at the beck and call of what her children need for eighteen years, and tells you that she doesn’t have time to pray or serve, or be in the Word, because, family first, and God understands. But she is not trying to be in the Word with those few spare minutes she has, or trying to pray in between diaper changes and meals. She is not grieved by the fact that she can catch only ten minutes of a sermon on average. No, she really prefers it that way. She loves being absorbed in something that no one can deny is essential, because it allows her to remain spiritually shallow, and still seem responsible.

This is the young man who is old enough to make some decisions about being baptised and coming into church membership, and serving, but he tells everyone that it’s such a serious step, he wants to do it when he’s ready. But surprise, surprise, he’s never ready. He’s ready to keep playing Playstation, hours on Youtube, being in Snapchat and Instagram and Facebook. He’s ready to study hard to get great marks because he wants to end up with a decent job one day. But he’s happy that his life gives him an excuse to not be serious about God. He wants it that way.

This it the elderly lady who tells you she is too old and tired to really get into the Word, to teach younger women. But she uses the energy she has to watch soapies and play raffles, and read People magazine and chat on the phone to old friends. She has been told by her culture that being retired means living with purposeless ease, and she has bought into that. She wants the shallowness.

If you want to be shallow, our culture is the best time and place in world history to do so. There has never been more empty, trivial distraction available to enable you to keep living on the very surface of life. You can fill your spare hours with gadgets and gossip columns, soap operas and sports, malls and men’s magazines, social media and sentimental music. We live in a time where you could live eighty years and never have been confronted with real quiet, deep silence, and the important questions of life. We’re the first culture to regard seriousness as a flaw, to scoff at reflection as being abstract and philosophical, to mock those who want enough quiet and enough solitude to think.

Remember what Tozer said about distractions: “Among the enemies to devotion none is so harmful as distractions. Whatever excites the curiosity, scatters the thoughts, disquiets the heart, absorbs the interests or shifts our life focus from the kingdom of God within us to the world around us—that is a distraction; and the world is full of them. Our science-based civilization has given us many benefits but it has multiplied our distractions and so taken away far more than it has given….While the grace of God will enable us to overcome inevitable distractions, we dare not presume upon God’s aid and throw ourselves open to unnecessary ones. The roving imagination, an inquisitive interest in other people’s business, preoccupation with external affairs beyond what is absolutely necessary: these are certain to lead us into serious trouble sooner or later. The heart is like a garden and must be kept free from weeds and insects. To expect the fruits and flowers of Paradise to grow in an untended heart is to misunderstand completely the processes of grace and the ways of God with men.”

III. The Mending of a Shallow Heart

How did Jesus deal with the shallow hearts around Him? Jesus helped them see their superficial commitment by confronting them with the demands of true repentance.

Now it happened as they journeyed on the road, that someone said to Him, “Lord, I will follow You wherever You go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” Then He said to another, “Follow Me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God.” And another also said, “Lord, I will follow You, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house.” But Jesus said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” (Lk. 9:57-62)

Jesus strips away their surface level enthusiasm and exposes the resistance that is still there. Would you still follow if the accommodation is uncertain? Would you still follow if your father’s inheritance hasn’t come through and you aren’t independently wealthy? Will you still follow if this interrupts your close-knit family life?

In other words, a shallow heart needs a question that shocks and awakens: If everything that is going your way goes the opposite, will Christ still be enough for you? Is knowing and loving Christ of greater value than life’s gifts? If you went through Job’s ordeal, would you curse God and die?

In other words, practice self-examination. Ask, is my commitment to Christ skin-deep?

Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?– unless indeed you are disqualified. (2 Cor. 13:5)

Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble; (2 Pet. 1:10)

When you approach a church discipline situation and someone is insulted and horrified that you would question his status as a believer, the only reason he could be insulted and horrified that you are examining him for evidence of his salvation is because he has never examined himself for evidence of his salvation. If he were regularly checking himself, he would not be flabbergasted that someone else would. And if he did that, he would probably have faced the question of his not being converted long before it became obvious to others.

Examine yourself. Do what Tozer said when he wrote: “Retire from the world each day to some private spot, even if it be only the bedroom. Stay in the secret place till the surrounding noises begin to fade out of your heart and a sense of God’s presence envelops you. Deliberately tune out the unpleasant sounds and come out of your closet determined not to hear them. Listen for the inward Voice till you learn to recognize it. Reduce your interests to a few. Don’t try to know what will be of no service to you. Avoid the digest type of mind—short bits of unrelated facts, cute stories and bright sayings. Learn to pray inwardly every moment. Practice candor, childlike honesty, humility. Pray for a single eye. Read less, but read more of what is important to your inner life. Never let your mind remain scattered for very long. Call home your roving thoughts. Gaze on Christ with the eyes of your soul. Practice spiritual concentration.”

Here is the second way to deal with a shallow heart.

of whom we have much to say, and hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food.

For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe.

But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. (Heb. 5:11-14)

The writer chides his readers for their immaturity, an immaturity that is making them too dull, too shallow to handle meatier and weightier doctrine. He tells them that their continual infancy is a result of failing to do something in verse 14. They are failing to use their God-given faculty of judgement to distinguish between good and evil. They refuse to do the hard work of learning to understand truth from error, goodness from evil, beauty from ugliness. They want others to keep spoonfeeding them. Just tell me what to do, what to watch, where to go. Just give me a list of do’s and don’ts. In other words, if you don’t want to be shallow, you must pursue mature discernment.

In this parable, true salvation is not equated with life, it is equated with growth – sustained growth. If you want to know if your roots are actually in Christ, you should not be content with the superficial signs of life – openness to Christ, church attendance – but with maturity. Am I going on for Christ, growing in wisdom, hungering after knowledge, developing habits of obedience, sinning less, assuming more responsibility for other Christians. Shallowness is content with exactly the same amount of commitment to Christ, knowledge of Christ for years. Maturity wants what the next verse in Hebrews says, “Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation (Heb. 6:1)

Examine your heart for true salvation, and examine yourself for sanctification. Has there been a true, Christ-centred conversion, and is there a deliberate, dedicated pursuit of growth?

In other words, it doesn’t matter how many big green leaves of enthusiasm for Jesus are present on the surface of your life. What matters is if the roots go down into Christ, roots which will see you through loss and pain and trial for Christ.

Once earthly joy I craved,
Sought peace and rest;
Now Thee alone I seek,
Give what is best;
This all my prayer shall be:
More love, O Lord, to Thee,
More love to Thee,
More love to Thee!