In our Savior’s day the Holy Land was an agricultural country.  The farmers raised wheat and barley.  These grains are often mentioned in the Scriptures.  But they had few fences in that country.  The roads ran through farms and fields with no sign of fence on either side.  If sheep or cattle were turned out to graze, they had to be watched by men or boys called shepherds.  I have been thus particular in my description of this land to enable you the better to understand the parable itself, and its higher or spiritual meaning.  But farming has ever been but poorly done in that country, and patches of briars and other filth were suffered to grow.  These were sown with the rest of the field, and instead of being dug out were plowed and harrowed over.  No concern was felt about the seed likely to be wasted.  The sower opened his hand as freely in crossing the highway or the patch of briery ground as anywhere else.  Even those sections of the field which showed no depth of soil on account of underlying rock were treated like the rest.  What a site for a parable!  But what is a parable?

A parable is a statement of some fact literally or possibly true in the natural world, and used to represent some spiritual truth.  It is the correspondence of the external or natural meaning with some internal or spiritual meaning that makes any parable to be what it is.  The parable before us in its external or natural sense teaches nothing beyond what we may learn by the sight of our eyes every year.  If it possessed no hidden meaning, no secret of life, it would be no holier than a similar statement in an agricultural paper.  This is just what our Lord meant by these words:  “It is the Spirit that quickeneth.  The flesh profiteth nothing.  The words that I speak unto you are spirit, and are life.”

I think you are now prepared to derive some benefit from the internal sense of the parable before us.  It has ever been a great question as to what man is required to do to be saved.  If we were to go by what is generally preached at what are called revivals of religion, we would only need to say we believe in Jesus Christ, then manifest some joy in the new experience, get up, perhaps, and tell how we feel, and we are ready to be counted in the list of new converts in full possession of eternal life.  This experience corresponds with the explanation given of the rocky places:  “This is he that heareth the word, and straightway with joy receiveth it; yet hath he not root in himself, but endureth for a while; and when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, straightway he stumbleth.”

But here the query very naturally arises:  “Are such to be lost?  Is there no hope for these rocky-ground, thorny-ground and wayside hearers?” I say such need not be lost.  There is salvation for such as truly as for any, if they avail themselves of the proffered gifts.  It is wrong teaching, together with the influence of bad examples and bad habits, that has made them to be the kind of ground they are.  Here is a lesson for all.  Parents, if you desire your children to become good ground, train them up in the way they should go:  and when they are old they will not depart from it.