641
October 1924
T H E
K I N G ’ S
B U S I N E S S
This lesson affords a fine opportunity for each teacher to find out where he and the members of his class stand in relation to the Word of God. Every one who has heard the Word is in one of the four classes mentioned in the parable. DEVOTIONAL COMMENT 1. There is the careless, indifferent class, from whose heart the Word is John A. Hubbard snatched by the adversary, “ lest they should believe and be saved” (Luke 8:12). What a terrible condition to.be in! 2. There is the shallow, superficial class, represented by the stony ground. They receive the Word with gladness, but having no root in themselves, endure for a short time, falling away in the time of affliction or persecution. The very thing that causes these shallow ones to fall away, causes the real Christian to grow and become stronger. “We also rejoice in our tribulations: knowing that tribula tion worketh steadfastness” : (Rom. 5:3, R. V.). “ The storm shaken tree roots the more deeply.” : One of the modern translators renders Mark 4:16, 17 thus: “ Those who are sown on stony soil are the people who on hearing the word accept it with enthusiasm; but they have no root in themselves, they do not last.” Enthusiastic, joyful for a time, but superficial, unreal. God deliver us from being such! 3. The third class are evidently among the saved, but are unfruitful, failing to measure up to our Lord’s thought and purpose for them. “ Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit. I have chosen you that ye should go and bring forth much fruit” (John 15:8,16). They are choked with the cares, the anxieties, “ the worries” of this age. What a curse worry is, and always has been! He bids us to."in nothing be anxious” (Phil. 4:6, R. V.). “ Casting all your anxiety upon him, for he careth for you” (1 Pet. 5:7, R. V.) If we will trust Him, He will set us free from this sin which hinders our bearing fruit. “ The deceitfulness of riches” also choke the Word. It is not. the riches in and of themselves that work the harm, but the wrong attitude toward them. “ The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil: which some reaching after have been led astray from the faith, and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows” (1 Tim. 6:10). To many a Christian prosperity has been a curse. In the days of comparative poverty, they were glad, fruitful believ ers; but their hearts have been set on their increased riches (see Psa. 62:10). The Word has been choked, and they stand today barren, unfruitful. Sad indeed! 4. The fourth class are the fruitful ones. “ And that in the good ground, these are such as in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, hold it fast, and bring forth fruit with patience (or steadfastness)” (Luke 8:15 R. V.). In this class of happy, useful Christians, our Lord would have every one of us be. Let Him have right of way in the life by yielding to Him, trust Him, abide in Him, and you cannot help but bear fruit. “ Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing” (John 15:4, 5).
The “ good-ground” hearer receives the implanted word with meekness, mixes it with faith and it saves his soul. The four kinds of soil are really reduced to two, the soil that bears fruit and the soil that does not. Men are divided by the gospel not into four classes, but two,— those who receive the Word, and those who do not. All men indeed are sinners, and there are but two kinds of sinners in heaven, earth and hell, viz., those who are saved and those who are not. ate V. 1. “ Again” refers back to other instances of Christ’s seaside teachings recorded by Mark in 2:13 and 3:7. The seaside was probably the seashore at Capernaum.—Pel- oubet. Jesus sat in the boat as He addressed the people. Sitting was the customary posture of COMMENTS the teacher in Christ’s time. The FROM THE smooth beach along the Sea of Galilee COMMENTARIES afforded a convenient place of assem bly. V. V. Morgan V. 3. In that country even now the farmers do not live out in the country sections as our farm ers do. They live in small towns and villages and hamlets or even in the larger cities, and they go out to their farms for their work and come back to the town or city where they live at night. This they do for protection. And so 5$the sower went forth to sow.”— L. G. Broughton, D. D. V. 4. The seed is the Word (Luke 8:11). “ The sower sow- eth the Word” (Mark 4:14; 1 Pet. 1:23). Seeds are alive. The Word is alive (Heb. 4:12). Seeds are matter and life mysteriously united to produce life. The Word is letter and spirit. Because of the Spirit the words are “ spirit and life” (John 6:63), and beget life, “Hear and your soul shall live” (Isa. 55:3).— Sanunis. The wayside soil is the soil which has been trodden down and beaten into hard, impene trable soil by the lowest and meanest kind of worldliness and corruption. The birds of the air in the multitude repre sent the prince of the power of the air in his unity.—Lange. V. 5.' Much of Palestine is a rocky plateau, covered with a thin soil.—--Peloubet. Those who receive the truth in shal low natures. The mind has been superficially wrought upon. Anon with joy it has received the novel Word. As this quickened, however, sending its arrows into the depths of the soul, it has encountered an unchanged will and pur pose which refuses the Word place and support. The work of grace has not been radical enough to break up and renew the nature.—Clarke. V. 7. The Syrian field was of the nature of a free, open common, with patches of thorns and weeds and ledges of hard rock, some covered with a thin soil, some actually creeping out, with, it may be, a broad irregular track run ning across it— the unfenced passage of the caravans— and here and there only a spot of land at once fertile and unen cumbered. In such a field there was no difficulty in the seed, at a single cast of the sower, falling upon all the four sorts of ground described in the parable.— Prof. T. Richey. “ Thorns” ,stand for any kind of weed that chokes out the desired crop. Corn is a weed if it springs up in the midst of a flower-bed. So the most innocent occupations and even praiseworthy actions may become harmful if allowed to crowd vital truth from our lives.— G. H. Hubbard. In 'this case it is not adversity that checks the growth but prosper ity; not the persecutions of the world, but the prosecution of worldliness.— Sanunis. V. 8. Thirtyfold would be a single grain of wheat pro ducing a stalk that bears thirty grains. It is said of Isaac that he sowed and “ received in the same year an hundred fold” (Gen. 26:12). Herodotus tells us that two hundred fold was a common return on the plain of Babylon, while a kind of white maize often grown in Palestine returns sev eral hundred fold.— Cambridge Bible. In Gospel sowing the sower should not heed the nature of the ground. He does not know “ which shall prosper, this or that.” He should sow at all hours, morning or evening; in all weathers, cloud or wind (Ecc. 11:4, 6 ); and in all seasons (2 Tim. 4 :2). Paul plants, God takes care about the increase (1 Cor. 3 :6). “ The Lord multiply your seed sown” (2 Cor. 9:10).— Sel.
PRIMARY AND JUNIOR TEACHERS will find some very helpful suggestions for Supplemental Work in “ The Children’ s Garden,” Page 637.
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