If you want to read a book about a wicked man with a hard heart, read Robinson Crusoe. You might think the story is mainly about shipwreck, and living on a desert island, but it is much more than that. It is about a rebellious young man, Robinson Crusoe, who rejects his parents guidance, rebels against them and runs away for a life at sea. When he encounters some deadly storms, he makes vows to God, but once things are calm, he goes back on those vows. Later the ship sinks, and he is captured by slave-traders, but for all this, he does not repent of his stubborn ways. Finally, he is shipwrecked alone on an island, and contracts a fever. In his fever, he has a dream.

I thought that I was sitting on the ground…and that I saw a man descend from a great black cloud, in a bright flame of fire, and light upon the ground. He was all over as bright as a flame, so that I could but just bear to look towards him. His countenance was most inexpressibly dreadful, impossible for words to describe. When he stepped upon the ground with his feet, I thought the earth trembled…and all the air looked, to my apprehension, as if it had been filled with flashes of fire. He was no sooner landed upon the earth but he moved forward towards me with a long spear or weapon in his hand to kill me; and when he came to a rising ground, at some distance, he spoke to me–or I heard a voice so terrible that it is impossible to express the terror of it. All that I can say I understood was this: ‘Seeing all these things have not brought thee to repentance, now thou shalt die.,’–at which words, I thought he lifted up the spear that was in his hand to kill me”

Crusoe awakes, and begins thinking about his unrepentant and hard heart. What happens next is a wonderful illustration of what God can do for the hard heart – the heart illustrated by the first soil in this parable.

This parable of the soils is the parable to unlock all the parables. In fact, it is the parable to unlock the rest of the Word, because it explains what is going on when the Word is preached, and what is at stake.

We saw that Jesus did not say there were four kinds of sower and one kind of neutral soil. That would mean the deciding factor when it comes to the Word changing a person is the preacher. We saw that while a preacher has a very heavy responsibility, if the Word is faithfully declared, and no change comes, the problem is not with the preacher.

We also noticed that Jesus did not say there were four kinds of seed and one kind of neutral soil. If Jesus had stated it that way, it would mean that if the Word did not change a person, it was the fault of the Word itself – something in its quality or make-up. But Jesus has made sure we understand that like a seed, the Word contains everything needed to transform us and change us. The Word is a hammer that breaks rock. The Word is a fire. The Word is a sword that penetrates. The Word is a retriever that goes out and comes back with what God intended. When the Word lands on a human heart, and the heart does not change, the problem is not with the Word.

The point of the parable is to tell us the state of the heart at the time of the sowing of the Word determines the outcome. The same Word preached by the same preacher on the same occasion is heard by different hearts – some hard, some shallow, some idolatrous, and some good. Hard hearts reject the Word, shallow hearts deceive themselves, idolatrous hearts have no room for the Word, and only the fourth kind of heart will give the Word the space and depth and quality for it to do its work.

By giving us four soils, Jesus seems to be saying that these attitudes characterise a particular person. I do not think He means to say that only one attitude is found in each heart. But what happens to the Word when it comes shows what attitude is dominant.

Today I want us to examine the first kind of soil. To do so, we want to understand the meaning of the first soil, the making of the first soil, and the melting of the first soil.

I. The Meaning of the First Soil

Matthew 13:4 “And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them.”

As the sower reaches into his pouch, he takes a handful of seed and throws it out at random, some of those seeds land on the wayside. What is the wayside?

In Israel of the time, the land was just criss-crossed with fields. Usually these fields were fairly narrow, and they were separated from other fields by thin paths, about a metre wide. The path was not a tarred or paved road, it was simply soil which had been packed down and walked on again and again, until it had become hard. It was no longer even considered soil to sow in, it was considered the pathway, the road, the gravel road next to the garden patch.

When seed lands on a hard-baked pathway, it simply lies on the surface. You may as well have thrown it onto a marble floor. It will not germinate, it will not start doing its work of germination. And if seed simply lies exposed on the pathway, then it becomes like scattering bread crumbs. The birds are going to come down and eat. They do not merely nibble – they devour, they utterly destroy all that remains of those seeds so within a few hours the way is picked clean, and you would not know that a sower had sown any seed there.

That’s the image. Now Jesus explains this image to us.

Matthew 13:19 When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by the wayside.

Jesus tells us that this kind of heart is the kind of heart which does not understand the Word, and when it comes, it is quickly stolen away by Satan.

Jesus has chosen this image carefully: the kind of ground which does not allow for any penetration is hard ground, and the kind of heart which does not understand God’s Word is said to be a hard heart. How do we know that? In the same passage Jesus speaks of this.

Matthew 13:15 For the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, And their eyes they have closed, Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, So that I should heal them.’

The word for ‘dull’ in the original means insensitive, thickened, calloused. This is how the hearts of the people who heard Christ’s own words had become – hardened of heart. Hard hearts don’t understand the Word, it does not penetrate.

The person’s heart is so hard that the Word does not even begin to go in. It does not even start to process. Meditation does not even begin. The Word is landing on the top of the mind, only landing in the ear, so to speak.

Now, Jesus added a tragic extra to the story of the hard heart. The hard-hearted person is his own worst enemy, but he is not his only enemy. Because waiting in the wings, Jesus said, is the devil. Satan is pictured like bird. Now what do birds typically do when they see someone coming with a big bag of seed or bread? They gather. Which might give you some indication of what demons do every time the Word is preached. Imagine a host of demons at every church service, hovering like birds, watching to see if you are going to leave the Word on the surface with a resistant mind.

The hard heart does not understand the Word, and leaves it exposed to be snatched away by Satan. So it is very important to understand what the hard heart is. This parable only gives us the image, but fortunately, the rest of Scripture mentions hardness of heart several times.

II. The Making of the First Soil

Let’s do a short inductive study. Let’s look at three passages which speak of hardness of heart, and then draw a conclusion from our findings.

Mark 3:1-5
And He entered the synagogue again, and a man was there who had a withered hand. So they watched Him closely, whether He would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse Him. And He said to the man who had the withered hand, “Step forward.” Then He said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” But they kept silent. And when He had looked around at them with anger, being grieved by the hardness of their hearts, He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored as whole as the other.

Jesus was here in the synagogue on the Sabbath, and a man in desperate need of mercy was present. The Pharisees, who had already been in dispute with Jesus over the Sabbath, were almost completely oblivious to the man’s suffering. He was merely a pawn in their conflict with Jesus, collateral damage in their theological conflict. Jesus wanted the Pharisees to realise that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath, but they would not. Their hearts were calloused towards this man’s suffering, cold to his need. They did not feel what they should have felt: compassion, mercy. They did not love what God loves, they did not have His heart.

Here hardness of heart means refusing to feel what God feels. God felt compassion on a man; these men felt very little. There are other examples of this. I think of Israel during their worst time of apostasy. God said to them through the prophet Jeremiah:

Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No! They were not at all ashamed; Nor did they know how to blush. (Jer 6:15)

Think of the church at Corinth. They had a member who was in an immoral relationship with his father’s wife.

1 Corinthians 5:2 And you are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you.

They did not feel what God felt. Back in Deuteronomy, God told Israel how important it was that they felt what He wanted them to, He even threatened them with these words:

Deuteronomy 28:47-48 Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joy and gladness of heart, for the abundance of everything, “therefore you shall serve your enemies.”

Hardness of heart refuses godly affections, be they hope, or sorrow, or anger, or joy, or fear.

It’s round about the time you become a teenager that the world tells you it is childish to feel deeply about anything. It tells you that you should be cynical about most things, unmoved by everything, bored with most things. But can you imagine the Lord Jesus cynical about life, sceptical about most people?

A hard heart resists what God wants it to feel. What happens to the seed of the Word when it hits a heart which does not love what God loves or feel what He feels? It does not penetrate.

Look at a second example.

Mark 16:14 ¶ Later He appeared to the eleven as they sat at the table; and He rebuked their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe those who had seen Him after He had risen.

Here Mark gives a summary verse of what is recorded in Luke 24 and John 20. Jesus appears to the eleven on the Sunday evening of His resurrection. Even though the eleven had heard from the women, and heard from the disciples who were on the road to Emmaus, they resisted those testimonies. They did not believe. They refused to believe. They resisted belief.

Here hardness of heart means refusing to believe what God says. It is not a matter of lacking evidence. It is a matter of doubting the credibility of God. When Pharaoh did not believe that Jehovah was the true God and that He would bring great destruction on Israel, the Bible says his heart was hard – it was unbelieving. When Israel did not believe that God could spread a table in the wilderness, they were being hard.

We’re raised in a culture that tells us seeing is believing. We’re taught the scientific method, and rational investigation. And so some will turn around and say, “I just can’t believe. There isn’t enough evidence to convince me.” But what you find is that the same person accepts plenty of things on faith. You find he has very little evidence for some of the most basic beliefs in his life. It turns out he is very selective when it comes to demanding evidence, and it happens to be in that area where there is God who will hold him morally accountable, who demands repentance and faith.

Unbelief is not ‘can’t believe’; it is ‘won’t believe’. It is suppression of truth inconvenient to us, resisting truth that we don’t want to be true.

A hard heart resists what God wants it to believe. What happens to the seed of the Word when it hits a heart which does not believe what God tells it is the truth? It does not penetrate.

Here is a third example.

Romans 2:1-5
Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things. But we know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things. And do you think this, O man, you who judge those practicing such things, and doing the same, that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.

Paul rebukes the self-righteous man, expert in condemning others, but a novice in actually obeying. He preaches without practice. Paul says that such a heart is impenitent and hard. It is knowingly disobedient, and consciously hypocritical. It resists God’s commands, while justifying itself.

When Israel refused to obey the promises of God regarding entering the land of Canaan, they were rebellious. God describes them as hard. In other places, the Bible says, ‘they hardened their necks.”

When there is an area of our lives that God’s Word clearly and unambiguously condemns, and we resist that conviction, and keep doing it, we are hardening our hearts. When there is an area of life that God’s Word clearly and unambiguously commands that we begin doing, and we resist that command, and refuse it, we are hardening our heart.

A hard heart resists what God wants it to do. What happens to the seed of the Word when it hits a heart which does not love what God loves or feel what He feels? It does not penetrate.

A hard heart does not feel what God feels, it does not believe what God says, and it does not do God’s will.

A hard heart refuses to respond rightly to God’s Word. Hardness means resistance. The primary marker of a hard heart is deliberate, conscious resistance to God’s Word. Hardness of heart is a chosen rejection, a knowing, wilful refusal.

Now why should this hard heart not understand the Word of God? Why should feeling differently, believing differently and doing differently have any impact on the way I understand the Word of God?

Answer: Because understanding the Bible is not a matter of intellectual power, but of moral responsiveness. It is not about how much your brain can handle, it is about how much your heart responds positively to God.

The Bible is not simply a collection of facts. God’s Word is not a technical manual to be deciphered. It is not a recipe to be followed. It is not a rule book to be learnt. It is not a story book to amuse us. It is an extension of God’s Person. It is the living extension of His will. If you resist His will, you will not understand His Word. It is God saying, this is who I am, this is what I love most, this is reality, this is who you are, this is what I expect. If you do not relate to God with a heart that wants to beat as one with His, this book will become indecipherable. It will become a puzzle, a contradiction, a mess.

Our Lord made it very plain that spiritual truth cannot be understood until the heart has made a full committal to it. “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself” (John 7:17). The willing and the doing (or at least the willingness to do) come before the knowing.

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, But fools despise wisdom and instruction. (Prov. 1:7)

“Theological facts are like the altar of Elijah on Carmel before the fire came, correct, properly laid out, but altogether cold. When the heart makes the ultimate surrender, the fire falls and true facts are transmuted into spiritual truth that transforms, enlightens, sanctifies.” A.W. Tozer

Ancient church father Basil:

“He who seeks to understand commandments without fulfilling commandments, and to acquire such understanding through learning and reading, is like a man who takes shadows for truth. For the understanding of truth is given to those who have become participants in truth”

There is a moral relationship with the Word that determines whether or not you will hear it.

That explains how you get a hard heart. You get a hard heart by resisting God. The more we resist loving what He loves, believing what He says, doing what He commands, the harder we make our own hearts.

There is no such thing as a neutral response to God’s Word. It is resistance of one form or another, or acceptance. Resistance hardens the heart. Acceptance softens the heart. The same heat softens wax and hardens clay.

Now you remember that Jesus added the image of the birds, saying that seed left exposed is snatched up. He explains that Satan is present to steal the seed away before it can penetrate.

This corresponds to what Paul describes as satanic blindness.

2 Corinthians 4:3-4
But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.

The race of Adam has an inherited blindness

Ephesians 4:18-19
having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; who, being past feeling,

But then compounding that blindness, Satan compounds it with his own. How might he do this?

• False teachers who pervert the Gospel and draw people away.
• False religion that gives men false hope.
• His system of worldliness that distracts men to live for the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, pride of life.
• The fear of death that keeps men bound to their passions.
• Guilt and enslavement, causing men’s consciences to become more and more seared.

Sometimes it may be things seemingly more innocuous. Distraction during the sermon.

Distractions don’t distract hearts that are taking in the Word, but they serve as the moment when he snatches the Word away from the hard of heart. Perhaps he may simply present thoughts to the mind, thoughts of worry, thoughts of future plans, thoughts of Monday morning.

But I want you to notice something. The birds only eat what is lying on the surface and exposed. Satan can only steal what is not taken and hidden. If it is exposed by our resistance, it is vulnerable to be snatched. If you are receiving the Word, Satan can send distractions, diversions, temptation or false teachers, and it will not be stolen.

You have to ask, why would Satan want to snatch away the Word so quickly? Because every now and then, even the hardest ground can have a crack in it, and the seed might be blown into it, and a bit of rainwater might set things going. A man can be converted by a single sentence from God’s Word. One arrow of truth can pierce the chinks in a man’s armour of unbelief. Satan makes sure that the Word which hits a hard heart very quickly disappears from conscious thought.

A hard heart is a frightening concept. The only thing which could change you is the Word, but every time the Word comes, it meets the impenetrable barrier of your own heart. And while it lies there, before you can do any more thinking, Satan is there to quickly steal it away. A hard heart is its own punishment, and its own worst enemy.

So what do we do about a hard heart? Is there any hope?

III. The Melting of the First Soil

Soil is always soil, whether it is hard, soft, filled with weeds or rocks – it is still the same soil. The difference is in the condition of the soil, what has influenced it. So human hearts are really the same, we are truly of one blood – but what has influenced your heart can make all the difference.

But once the soil had become so compacted down, it’s safe to say that the farmer would need to get in there with some tools to break it up, loosen it, and turn it into useful soil again.

In the Bible, the remedy for a hard heart is a work of God:

“Then I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within them, and take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh,” (Ezek. 11:19)

Ezekiel 36:26 “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”

Deuteronomy 30:6 “And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.”

God is the one who can melt the hardest heart. God can change the affections of the man who is his sworn enemy and that man will voluntarily love and serve God. Do you remember a man by the name of Saul, who was persecuting Christians, and in a moment, he saw the glory of Christ, his heart was new, and he said, ‘Lord, what do you want me to do?”

God is the one who does it. But it would be foreign to the Scriptures to say that if there is hardness in your heart, you shrug, and say, “only God can change this hard heart.” No, that’s not at all what we do. When Paul wrestled in Romans 7 with not doing the good he wanted to, and doing the evil, he didn’t want to, when he cried out

O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” What was the answer? I thank God– through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Rom. 7:24-25)

Jesus Christ is the plough of your hard heart. Jesus Himself is pick-axe that can dig up and into the hard heart. Simply go to Him. Listen to that tug in your heart and stop resisting. Stop resisting what he would have you feel. Stop resisting what he says is true. Stop resisting what He commands of you. Draw near to Him and He will draw near to You. He will supply you with what He demands, if you believe.

It was not long after I set seriously to this work, till I found my heart more deeply and sincerely affected with the wickedness of my past life. The impression of my dream revived; and the words, “All these things have not brought thee to repentance,” ran seriously in my thoughts. I was earnestly begging of God to give me repentance, when it happened providentially, the very day, that reading the Scripture, I came to these words: “He is exalted a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance and to give remission.” I threw down the book; and with my heart as well as my hands lifted up to heaven, in a kind of ecstasy of joy I cried out aloud, “Jesus, thou Son of David! Jesus! thou exalted Prince and Saviour! give me repentance!” This was the first time I could say, in the true sense of the words, that I prayed in all my life; for now I prayed with a sense of my condition, and with a true Scripture view of hope, founded on the encouragement of the Word of God; and from this time, I may say, I began to have hope that God would hear me.

Crusoe had a hard heart, but begged God to soften it. And in the story, God did, and he was gloriously saved. If your heart is hard, don’t harden it further. Ask Christ to soften it and grant you repentance. And then, as he does, repent. Believe on Him. Love what He loves. Hate what He hates. Believe what He says. Do what He commands.