Souls in Soil, Part 1

Bill Meyer: Do you ever find yourself tuning out? Often we're not so much hard of hearing as we are hard of listening. Words come in and slip right back out again before they ever take hold. Jesus knew that about us, which is why he told stories that stop us in our tracks. Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll opens the Gospel of Mark to one of Jesus' most famous parables. It's a simple picture of a farmer scattering seed that turns into a mirror and then into a window into your own heart. Let's turn to Mark chapter 4.
Chuck Swindoll: You have a copy of the scriptures. Will you turn to the fourth chapter of the Gospel by Mark. Mark 4, verses 1 through 20. He began to teach again by the sea, and such a very large crowd gathered to him that he got into a boat in the sea and sat down, and the whole crowd was by the sea on the land. And he was teaching them many things in parables, and was saying to them in his teaching, listen to this. Behold, the sower went out to sow. As he was sowing, some seed fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate it up. Other seed fell on the rocky ground where it did not have much soil, and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of soil. And after the sun had risen, it was scorched because it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked it, and it yielded no crop. Other seeds fell into the good soil, and as they grew up and increased, they yielded a crop and produced 30, 60, even a hundredfold. And he was saying, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. As soon as he was alone, his followers, along with the 12, began asking him about the parables. And he was saying to them, to you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God, but those who are outside get everything in parables, so that while seeing, they may see and not perceive, and while hearing, they may hear and not understand. Otherwise, they might return and be forgiven. And he said to them, do you not understand this parable? How will you understand all the parables? The sower sows the word. These are the ones who are beside the road where the word is sown, and when they hear, immediately Satan comes and takes away the word which has been sown in them. In a similar way, these are the ones on whom the seed was sown on the rocky places, who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy, and they have no firm root in themselves, but are only temporary. Then, when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately they fall away. And others are the ones on whom seed was sown among the thorns. These are the ones who have heard the word, but the worries of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desire for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. And those are the ones on whom seed was sown on the good soil, and they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit 30, 60, and a hundredfold.
Bill Meyer: You're listening to Insight for Living. To dig deeper into the Gospel according to Mark, be sure to purchase a copy of our Searching the Scriptures Bible Study Workbooks by going to insight.org/offer. Chuck titled today's message Souls in Soil.
Chuck Swindoll: The second most important journey you can take in life is to the land of Israel. Every time I have led a group to that particular part of the world, I have always heard people in the group say, my Bible has suddenly come to life. It's remarkable the difference it makes. Places are no longer places that I can only imagine. Now I have my memory to draw on, and there's something beautiful about memory that imagination can never provide. And that's the accuracy of presence. Of all the people who travel to Israel, they frequently say that their most favorite spot is Galilee and that body of water located in the northern part of Galilee, known as simply the Sea of Galilee. Not a big body of water, only 12 and a half miles long, and at its widest point, 7 and a half miles wide, though it doesn't even seem that large when you're there. I love that area because they cannot build a church on top of it. It seems like every other place over there, they got something religious connected to it, but there's no way you can build a 7 and a half mile wide and 12 and a half mile long church. So religion has kept out of the Sea of Galilee, which has meant that authenticity has remained. Wherever religion is added, something significant is lost related to truth. So whether you're walking the shores of the Sea of Galilee, or you're on a boat and you're hearing the waves lap against the hull, there's something about knowing it was literally on that body of water Jesus once walked. It was there, right there. Not only did he walk on the water, he taught in a number of places around the sea. On the northern shoreline, there is a Catholic church that's been built, an eight-sided church, and down below it is a small little arbor that's been provided, a temporary shelter from the sun where you can sit in an amphitheater setting, and you're on a low rising slope that looks down onto the sea itself. It is called the Mount of Beatitudes, and it is there you often gather when you travel to Israel for some time spent meditating on the Beatitudes. The reason it's chosen is because tradition tells us it was there or near there that Jesus once sat as he delivered his now famous Sermon on the Mount, which begins with the Beatitudes. Not as well known, but equally significant, not far from there is the Bay of Parables. The Bay of Parables. It's a lovely little bay that has a natural amphitheater with the land sloping gently up to those areas where wildflowers grow in the springtime. It's a lovely spot. Theologian James Edwards states, Israeli scientists have verified that the Bay of Parables can transmit a human voice to several thousand people on shore. Not surprisingly, Jesus chose a boat to be his pulpit, and it was on that boat he sat, and that boat sitting on the northern shoreline of the sea where Jesus literally was able to be heard by the thousands who had gathered. By now, Mark chapter 4, he is probably speaking to the largest group thus far in his ministry. Imagine trying to do that without the help of a microphone or public address system. How wise of him to sit in a fishing boat and be pushed away from the shore and to use the water as a natural acoustic so the sound waves would carry easily. I remember as a little boy fishing with my father in the little bay where we were, we would go most every summer for our family vacation and sometime family reunions. We would sit there on a slick early in the morning before the waves had even begun or the wind had started to blow, and it was absolutely silent. Silent. You could have heard a penny that would be dropped into the water as you watch its ripples. What was interesting is that we felt like we were all alone on that little bay, but some distance away there was a little speck. It was another fishing boat. What was especially humorous to me is we could hear everything they had to say, and they didn't know we were listening. The reason is the sound carried so easily across even the miles of that sea or that bay where we were, and it was like that in this case. We read in the fourth chapter of the gospel by Mark that he began to teach again by the sea. He got into a boat in the sea and sat down, and the whole crowd was by the sea on the land. Rabbis always teach in the sitting. So he sits down to teach. No doubt they were sitting on the land, waiting for what he had to say. It was a mixed multitude, remember. There were scribes whose hearts were hardened. There were curiosity seekers. There were people who wanted their bellies filled when they got hungry. There were those who had been healed or wanted to be. There were the blind. There were those unable to hear well, and they needed their hearing healed. And there were those who hung on every word. They loved him by now, and they were following him with great devotion. It's to all of them he begins to teach, and we read in verse 2 for the first time in Mark's gospel, but certainly not for the last, that he was teaching them many things in parables. Naturally, your thought would be, what is a parable? Well, you'll be surprised to know that a parable is not even an English word. It's a Greek word. Parabalo is the Greek verb, parabole is the noun. Para means beside or alongside, and balo means to cast or to throw. Think of a ball. You, when you gave a parable, you presented a story that provided a well-known truth or reality in order to make something not well-known more clearly understood. The truth was cast alongside something obscure, and the obscure that is being explained or compared to this familiar setting always had a spiritual significance. So a parable would be an earthy story to communicate a spiritual message. In a parable, something familiar to the hearer is always used to teach profound truth. All kinds of earthy things were used by Jesus. Stories from fishing, farming, animals, coins. He talked about housekeeping and the chores of housekeeping, family life. He even used on one occasion a wayward son in the family of two boys that grew up under the watchful eye of a faithful father. Jesus would refer to royalty and banquets in parables, and also rich men and poor men in parables. Parables remind me of fishing again, because in the bait you always have a hook. Even if it's a artificial bait, there's a hook hidden in there. The bait that attracts the hearer is that which seems familiar to us, but Jesus uses it to teach something deep within that grabs our attention. It hooks us. So as he throws this truth alongside the familiar, what we have is a word picture that holds our attention. We have to guard two things when we deal with parables. First, missing what is important in the hidden truth, which is so easy to do. And second, overanalyzing every detail. As one of my mentors used to say, you don't want to make a parable walk on all fours. Parables will have details, and if you're not careful, you try to make every little detail of it mean something. On the contrary, parables convey one major meaning, and as we get to the end of this time together, I'll provide that meaning, which will include the most important trip you could ever take in your life. Now, we come to the words of Jesus as he begins the parable in verse 3, and I want us to pause and let those words sink in. Listen up. That's what we would say today. Pay attention. Hear this. Understand, parables were never really meant to be read. Parables are stories meant to be told. And in the hearing of them, we are able to put the pieces together that will emerge in our minds, but we'll miss it if we don't listen. Most of us are not hard of hearing, but we are hard of listening. Words come in and go over our heads, or we think we know what's going to be said, so they slip right through our minds. They go, as we say, in one ear and out another. Jesus is saying to us, because 10 times in Mark 4, he says, listen to this, listen to this, pay attention to this, hear this, don't miss this, because he knew an audience that was a sizable audience could easily be drifting away into something they have on their minds. So what he provides for them, don't miss this, is a word picture that turns into a mirror. The picture is what is in his mind. The mirror reveals how that picture reflects something in our life. And the mirror then reverts to a window through which we see the deeper significance. You'll miss it if you think it's a simple story about something you've already known about most of your life. That's the genius of a parable. Something very well known is used to teach something you would not otherwise understand. So listen to this. Behold. And he begins with a farmer planting seed. In ancient Israel, and I would even say in modern Israel, farming is a hard scrabble responsibility. If you've never farmed, you can only imagine how hard it is. If you have farmed, you don't need anyone to tell you. It is hard work start to finish. That's why most of us sitting in this room would never give a second thought to farming. And some of us are second or third generation people of those who were once farmers, but we're no longer. I'm right in the middle of reading a fascinating biography on Henry Ford. It's called The Legend of Henry Ford by Keith Sward. It's the Easton Press, a wonderful thick volume on Ford's life. I came across this on, early on in his story. Henry detested farm work from the moment he put his hand to it. As a boy, he rebelled against the continual round of chores and the long hours of dreary, sweaty labor. The only thing that made life at all bearable on his father's acres was the fact that now and then he had a chance to fiddle with machinery. At 16, Henry overrode his father's objections and set out for the nearby city of Detroit. Even Henry Ford, when he was working the farm, realized there's got to be a better way to live than to work with the soil, working with the soil is hard work. And perhaps as Jesus is telling this story, along the hillside not far from where they were sitting on the north shore of Galilee, there was a farmer sowing seed. It didn't happen then like it happens now. In ancient days, the farmer would tie a bag to his waist, and as he walked along a hard-packed pathway, he would sling the soil out with his hands. He'd walk here and there and sort of indiscriminately toss the seed here and there, and then would begin to plow and hopefully would have some kind of harvest by the time that season arrived. His whole point has to do with the farmer sowing seed, but it's more than that. Look, for example, at what he says in verses 4 through 8. And again, it's so simple, an elementary school child could understand it. As the farmer is sowing, some seed fell beside the road. Birds came and ate it up. By the way, those birds were there in swarms. And when those little seeds would land on hard pack, they were just waiting for the birds to gobble them up, and before they could even begin to take root and germinate, the birds would eat and would consume them. So that's one kind of soil, hardened to the point where it doesn't even go a half an inch into the dirt. There's another kind of soil in verse 5. This falls on the rocky ground, and if you go to Israel and come away from there with any memory, you come away with the memory of rocks. There are rocks everywhere, big stones, small stones, stones under a surface of a little veneer of a little thin ledge of soil, rocks everywhere. And even in the fields, when you sow the seed, there are some places where the soil is thin. The seed looks like it's going in to germinate and to develop into a full producing plant, but it really hardly takes root. In fact, it has no root at all and begins to wither because it has no depth of soil. The sun comes, verse 6, and it scorches it, and it has no root, and it withers away. That sun, by the way, is a searing hot sun in, to this day in the land of Israel. Then there's another kind of soil. You've got the hard soil, and now you've got the thorny soil, and here we come to the, or the rocky soil, and now we have the thorny soil. He sowed some seed, and the thorns came up and choked it, and it yielded no crop. That word choke means to strangle. Remember that. It'll be important later on. So he drops the seed among places where there are thorns, and the thorns outgrow the plant, and the plant can't produce because it is strangled because of the thorns. And finally, there are seeds that fall on the good soil, and it increases and yields a crop, not altogether 100%, some 30, some 60, and some 100 fold. So there's a good seed, or there's the good soil. So far, so good. Seems so simple. In fact, as we mentioned last time, Mark sometimes likes to use a structure called a sandwich structure. That's a truth here, and then a break, and then truth later on to finish it. In this case, we're not left to our imaginations. We're told a story, there's a little break where he says some things that are more confusing, and then he does some interpreting of the story he just gave. Let's look at the confusing part. Look at verse 9. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. Remember the word? Are you listening? Are you paying attention? Not are you hearing sounds, but are you listening to what this is saying to you? It will lead you to the most important journey you can make in all of your life, so don't miss it. As soon as he was alone, his followers, along with the 12, began to ask him about the parables. Now listen to what he says. To you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God. This would be his followers, those who were believing in him, those who were following his message. To you has been given the keys of the mystery. But those who are outside get everything in parables. Now, why? Now, if you want a verse that's going to keep you busy for a week and a half, I suggest verse 12 qualifies. So that while seeing, they may see and not perceive, and while hearing, they may hear and not understand. Otherwise, they might return and be forgiven. That's what I call a seeker unfriendly message. We're surrounded by people that want to do seeker friendly this, seeker friendly that. Jesus says, I deliberately make it unfriendly. Because when I tell my stories, there is a line of demarcation clearly marked, and those who were on the outside realize, I'm on the outside, I'm not getting it. And those who were on the inside are thrilled beyond words. That explains why you can come and drag a neighbor to church, and you're all excited about what is being taught, and the neighbor's breaking his wrist seeing what time it is, see when this guy's going to be through. What's the matter? He's on the outside. I don't mean outside the community. I don't even mean outside the church. He's not in the family of God. He's lost. His heart's hardened. And he hears the parable, he hears the story, this picture cast alongside some deeply profound subject, and he's bored to tears, where you can hardly wait to draw out the meaning. Jesus says, I tell my stories for that purpose. If nothing else, it arouses curiosity. The church was never commanded by God here or anywhere in his word to declare information so that everybody understands it. Everybody feels good about it. Everybody leaves saying, boy, that was so good. God is great. God is good. Let us thank him for our food. Great. That's not the plan for the church. It isn't love, love, love, love all the time. Oh, he just loves everybody, even loves the devil. How nonsensical that message is. The parables were given so that those on the outside suddenly realized, I am not in this same zone.
Bill Meyer: There's something disarming about a story so simple a child could grasp it, and yet so searching it reveals the very condition of our hearts. Chuck Swindoll has more to unfold here, so be with us as he continues his study in Mark chapter 4. This is Insight for Living. To dig deeper into the Gospel according to Mark, be sure to purchase our Searching the Scriptures Bible Study Workbooks by going to insight.org/offer. Well, you've spent this week listening to Chuck teach from Mark's Gospel, but have you ever wondered how God shaped the man behind the microphone? For the very first time, Chuck tells that story himself in a memoir called Awakened by Grace. It's the voice you've come to trust turned toward his own life, the laughter, the honesty, the hard chapters, and the grace that ran through all of it across more than 9 decades. Chuck holds nothing back, and when you read it, you'll walk away with the kind of wisdom a man only gathers by living it. To have a copy sent to your home, call 800-772-8888 or go to insight.org/memoir. Before the week is out, let us help you get your heart ready for Christmas. We'd love to send you a 25-day Advent devotional published exclusively by Insight for Living. It's called Everlasting Light. Request it today, and it'll reach you in plenty of time to begin the season unhurried and expectant. Our only ask is that you include a gift to support this ministry, the radio, the website, and every other way Chuck's teaching reaches people who need it. And that's the beauty of it. The same gift that steadies your own family this Advent helps carry the hope of Jesus to someone still waiting in the dark. Has there ever been a more urgent hour to send that light? Again, the Advent devotional is called Everlasting Light. Call us at 800-772-8888 or give online at insight.org/donate. I'm Bill Meyer. Join us again when Chuck Swindoll continues his comprehensive study in the Gospel of Mark, Monday on Insight for Living. The preceding message, Souls in Soil, was copyrighted in 2010 and 2026, and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2026 by Charles R. Swindoll Incorporated. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.