'And that which fell among thorns are they, which,
when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with
cares, and riches, and pleasures of this life, and
bring no fruit to perfection.'--Luke viii. 14.
No sensible sower would cast his seed among growing thorn-bushes,
and we must necessarily understand that the description in this
verse is not meant to give us the picture of a field in which these
were actually growing, but rather of one in which they had been
grubbed up, and so preparation been made for the sowing of the seed.
They had been grubbed up, but they had not been grubbed out. The
roots were there, although the branches and the stems had been cut
down, or if the roots were not there, abundant seeds were lying
buried, and when the good seed was sown it went into ground full of
them--and that was the blunder out of which all the mischief came.
I. These three different instances of failure in this parable
represent to us, first, the seed carried off at the very beginning,
before it has sunk into the ground and before it has had time to
germinate. It lies on the surface and it goes at once. But suppose
it is safely piloted past that first danger, then comes another
peril. It gets a little deeper into the ground, but there is a shelf
of rock an inch or two below the skin of soil, and the poor little
rootlets cannot get through that, and so when the hot Syrian sun
shines down upon the field, there is an unnatural heat, and a swift
vegetation. There is growth, but the same sun that at first
stimulated the unnaturally rapid growth, gets a little hotter or
continues to pour down during the fervid summer and dries up the
premature vegetation which it had called into feeble life. That
second seed went further on the road towards fruit.
But suppose a seed is piloted past that second risk, there comes
this third one. This seed gets deeper still, and does take root, and
does grow, and does bear fruit. That is to say, this is a picture of
a real Christian, in whom the seed of the kingdom, which is the word
of God, has taken root, and to whom there has been the communication
of the divine life that is in the seed; and yet that, too, comes to
grief, and our parable tells us how--by three things, the thorns,
the growth of the thorns, and the choking of the word.
Luke puts the interpretation of the thorns even more vividly than
the other Evangelists, because he represents them as being three
different forms of one thing, 'cares and riches and pleasures,'
which all come into the one class, 'of this life.' Or, in other
words, the present world, with all its various appeals to our animal
and sensual nature, with all its possible delights for part of our
being, a real and important part of it; and with all the troubles
and anxieties which it is cowardly for us to shirk, and impossible
for us to escape--this world is ever present to each of us, and if
there is anything in us to which it appeals, then certainly the
thorns will come up. The cares and the wealth and the pleasures are
three classes of one thing. Perhaps the first chiefly besets
struggling people; the second mainly threatens well-to-do people;
the third, perhaps, is most formidable to leisurely and idle people.
But all three appeal to us all, for in every one of us there are the
necessary anxieties of life, and every one of us knows that there is
real and substantial good to a part of our being, in the possession
of a share of this world's wealth, without which no man can live,
and all of us carry natures to which the delights of sense do
legitimately and necessarily appeal.
So the soil for the growth of the thorns is always in us all. But
what then? Are these things so powerful in our hearts as that they
become hindrances to our Christian life? That is the question. The
cares and the occupation of mind with, and desire for, the wealth
and the pleasures are of God's appointment. He did not make them
thorns, but you and I make them thorns; and the question for us is,
has our Christianity driven out the undue regard to this life,
regarded in these three aspects--undue in measure or in any other
respect, by which they are converted into hindrances that mar our
Christian life? Dear brethren, it is not enough to say, 'I have
received the word into my heart.' There is another question besides
that--Has the word received into your heart cast out the thorns? Or
are they and the seed growing there side by side? The picture of my
text is that of a man who, in a real fashion, has accepted the
Gospel, but who has accepted it so superficially as that it has not
exercised upon him the effect that it ought to produce, of expelling
from him the tendencies which may become hindrances to his Christian
life. If we have known nothing of 'the expulsive power of a new
affection,' and if we thought it was enough to cut down the thickest
and tallest thorn-bushes, and to leave all the seeds and the roots
of them in our hearts, no wonder if, as we get along in life, they
grow up and choke the word. 'Ye cannot serve God and Mammon'; that
is just putting into a sentence the lesson of my text.
II. Further, note the growth of the thorns. Luke employs a very
significant phrase. He says, 'When they have heard they _go
forth_, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of
this life.' That is to say, the path of daily life upon which we all
have to walk, the common duties which necessarily draw us to
themselves, will certainly stimulate the growth of the thorns if
these are not rooted out. Life is full of appeals to our desires
after earthly good or pleasure, to our greed after earthly gain, to
our dread of earthly sorrow, of pain, of loss, and of poverty. As
surely as we are living, and have to go out into the world day by
day, so surely will the thorns grow if they are left in us. And so
we come back to the old lesson that because we are set in this
world, with all its temptations that appeal so strongly to many
needs and desires of our nature, we must make thorough work of our
religion if it is to be of any good to us at all, and we are not to
go on the Christian pilgrimage with one foot upon the higher level
and the other upon the lower, like a man walking with one foot on
the kerbstone and the other on the roadway. Let us be one thing or
the other, out and out, thorough and consistent. If we have the
seed in our hearts, remember that _we_ are responsible for its
growth.
Let us make certain that we have cast out the thorns. There is an
old German proverb, the vulgarity of which may be excused for its
point. 'You must not sit near the fire if your head is made of
butter.' We should not try to walk through this wicked world without
making very certain that we have stubbed the thorns out of our
hearts. Oh, dear friends! here is the secret to the miserable
inconsistencies of the great bulk of professing Christians. They
have got the seed in, but they have not got the thorns out.
III. Lastly, mark the choking of the growth. Of course it is rapid,
according to the old saying, 'Ill weeds grow apace.' 'They are
choked with the cares and riches and pleasures of this life and
bring no fruit to perfection.' The weeds grow faster than the seed.
'Possession is nine-tenths of the law,' and they have got possession
of the soil, and their roots go far and strike deep, and so they
come up, with their great, strong, coarse, quick-growing stems and
leaves, and surround the green, infant, slender shoot, and keep the
air and light out from it, and exhaust all the goodness of the soil,
which has not nutriment in it enough for the modest seed and for the
self-asserting thorn. And so the thorn beats in the race, and grows
inches whilst the other grows hairbreadths. Is not that a true
statement of our experience? If Christian men and women permit as
much of their interest and affection and effort and occupation of
mind to go out towards the world and worldly things, as, alas! most
of us do, no wonder if the tiny, yellow, rather than green, blade is
choked and gets covered with parasitical disease, and perhaps dies
at last. You cannot grow two crops on one field. Some of us have
tried; it will never do. It must be one thing or another, and we
must make up our minds whether we are going to cultivate corn or
thorn. May God help us to make the right choice of the crop we
desire to bear!
Our text tells us that this man, represented by the seed among
thorns, was a Christian, did, and does, bear fruit, but, as Luke
says, 'brings no fruit to perfection.' The first seed never grew at
all; the second got the length of putting forth a blade; this one
has got as far as the ear, but not so far as 'the full corn in the
ear.' It has fruited, but the fruit is green and scanty, not
ripened, as it ought to be, since it grows under such a sky and was
taken out of such a seed-basket as our seed has come from. It brings
forth no fruit _to perfection_';--is not that a picture of so
many Christian people? One cannot say that they are not Christians.
One cannot say that there are no signs of a divine life in them. One
cannot say but that they do a good many things that are right and
pure, and obviously the result of a Divine Spirit working upon them;
but all that they do just falls short of the crowning grace and
beauty. There is always something about it that strikes one as being
incomplete. They are Christian men and Christian women bringing
forth many of the fruits of the Christian life, but the climax
somehow or other is always absent. The pyramid goes up many stages,
but there is never the gilded summit flashing in the light--'No
fruit to perfection.'
Dear brethren, let us take our poor, imperfect services, and lay
them down at the Master's feet, and ask Him to help us to make clean
work of these hearts of ours, and to turn out of them all our
worldly hankerings after the seen and temporal. Then we shall bear
fruit that He will gather into His garner. The cares and the
pleasures and the wealth that terminate in, and are occupied with,
this poor fleeting present are small and insignificant. Let us try
to yield ourselves up wholly to the higher influences of that Divine
Spirit, and in true consecration receive the engrafted word. And
then He will give to us to drink of that river of His pleasures,
drinking of which we shall not thirst, nor need to come to any of
earth's fountains to draw. If the Saviour comes in in His power, He
will cast out the uncleanness that dwells in us and make us fruitful
as He would have us to be.