Sexagesima (1885)

Once, when the Lord had come to the Sea of Galilee, a large amount of people who had hastened from the surrounding cities gathered around Him to hear Him. He therefore mounted a ship lying on the shore and used it as a pulpit. As He, as One Who knows the heart, now surveyed the crowd hearing Him, He realized that their hearts were quite varied, and that therefore His Word would find a very unequal reception among them. For the Lord likewise first spoke this in a parable, by comparing Himself with a sower, His Word with disseminated seeds and the success or failure of His speech with the fruits of the sown seeds. He knew that His Word would not bring fruit among all. Therefore He cried out not merely with a loud, penetrating, heart-moving voice to all those present: "Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear!" but also in the parable described His hearers exactly according to their different classes, that each of them would have come to the knowledge of his dangerous state of mind, repent, and could have been good land. However, this did not happen among most, they heard and did not hear, they allowed a portrait of their state of mind to be painted before their eyes, in no way recognized it, and the kind words of the Savior were therefore not a blessing to them, but judgment. The path remained path, the rock remained rock, the thorny ground remained thorny ground. With the parable of our text, however, Christ has depicted not only His hearers at that time, but His hearers of all times. As it was then, so it still is. And the judgment of Christ is therefore also a very serious [judgment] for us. Luke 8:4-15 The Judgment of One Who Knows the Heart over the Hearers of the Divine Word. 1. What this judgment would be according to its content. The One Who knows the heart knows that His Word will bring no fruit among many. All preaching is lost to them. But the obstacles that is opposed to the preached Word are different. The Savior divides them into three classes. The first class of hearers He calls path.1 What from the seed falls on the path, is lost, because etc. The devil comes for such hearers, etc.2 There are the careless hearers of the divine Word, who either sleep or chat during preaching, or at least harbor strange thoughts in their hearts, who therefore do not hear the Word of the Lord their God with all due reverence, not with holy earnestness and zeal, when He presents it through His servants and can scatter it as a living seed. The world has its wicked proverbs: One must not believe everything that the priests say; hell will not be so hot; do right and fear no one, etc.; therefore many hearts are trampled on the hard path. If they hear God's Word, then it makes no impression. it is represented by bad company, the devil blinds and hardens hearts and eats away, like a bird of prey, the seed of the saving Word. Is this not terrible? The second class of hearers appears to be far better. These are attentive, eager, accept the Word quickly and with joy; there flourishes and blooms a lovely, lively Christianity therefore; the servants of the Lord have great pleasure in them. They lack only one thing: stability. Their heart is

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Luke 8:5. Luke 8:12.

like the thin layer of soil on a rock.3 Temptation, from which no Christian can be spared4, and should be exercised and reinforced by faith5, takes them to decline and downfall.6 Worm-eaten fruit. Where are you, once so lovely budding young Christians, confirmands? "In time of temptation they fall away!" The third class of hearers, in which the Word does not bear fruit, is great and very extensive. They are the ones who are busy with the world and affluent, want to become richer, or capitulate to the world and its desire.7 It is pure torture in such earthly concerns, in such hunger and thirst for gold; it is also vain "deception" in all hunted down luxuriousness of wealth; instead of roses these poor people gather nothing but piercing "thorns"! Well, but even they perhaps still hear the Word of God? Alas, that they heard it better, that they would have ears to hear! But what does the Lord say? The seed falls among them among the thorns, and instead of overcoming and eradicating these thorns, he must let himself be strangled by the thorns and bring no fruit.8 O dangers of wealth! So will the sermon be all in vain? Will the Church of God be destroyed? Certainly not! "The Lord knows His own".9 There are, thank God!, still hearers, where the Word bears fruit, glorious fruit, a hundredfold fruit.10 2. For what purpose the judgment of One Who knows the heart over the hearers of the divine Word should serve us. a. For serious examination, which type of listeners we ourselves are should be numbered. Everyone would like to ask themselves: What kind of land have I been up to now? Was my heart like the seed on the path? I stopped the voice of the tempter, the skeptic, the scoffer, or did I then still go in carnal security and carelessness? Then it is no wonder that God's Word has never made a right impression on my soul. Or was it better with me in earlier days, at my confirmation, etc., than now? Is the first love extinguished in me? Am I a believer for a time and fallen into temptation? Or are there worries, riches, and lusts that have occupied and ensnared my soul so that the Word falls near me and chokes among so many thorns? O judge for yourself and do not spare your own! Even these can be helped. b. For repentance and conversion. Bear in mind that the heavenly Sower, Christ, does not need a humanly prepared field for His seed. He scatters them quite confidently on the path, on the rocks, among thorns. Why? This heavenly seed has the power to transform evil land into good land. There is no hard-trodden path, no rocky land, no thorny land, from which the seed of God's Word could not make the most wonderful fertile land. Bear in mind what is written in Isaiah 55:10-11; Hebrews 4:12-13; Jeremiah 23:29; Ezekiel 36:26. You on the path, repent and become good land. You on rocky ground, let yourself be planted deeper and provide reliability. You on thorny ground yield to the one who will purify and heal you through His Word. We all would like to be all good land and bring a hundredfold fruit to the glory and praise of God. G[eorg] S[tckhardt]

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Luke 8:6. Acts 14:22. 5 Isaiah 28:29; 1 Peter 1:7. 6 Luke 8:13. 7 Luke 8:14. 8 Luke 8:14. 9 2 Timothy 2:19. 10 Luke 8:8.