The Hardened Heart
Matthew 13:1-8, 18-23
The first condition of the heart is perhaps the most common: Hardness of heart. Jesus painted a picture of soil that had become packed down under the feet of men. This was hard soil where seed could not take root and the birds simply came along and ate it up.
It is easy to become hardened in life. I think that big cities can make us that way. It is easy to become hardened when you watch the nightly 6:00 news. You know how hardened we have become. We can be eating a meal while watching television and we see dead, charred, and mutilated bodies, and we don't even stop eating. We see news of teenagers killing each over iPods, terrible car crashes, roadside suicide bombings in the Middle East. We have seen it all before. Ever since the Vietnam War, we have seen it. The result is that we have become desensitized to the point that we are hard-crushed, just like the soil in Jesus's story.
When we hear this part of the parable, we can't dismiss it by simply concluding, "Well, this is a reference to some old reprobate." Friends, we can all fall prey to this. And here is the problem: The seed of the gospel cannot take root in the hardened heart.
We are all familiar with these individuals. Show a noble goal to a cynic and he will see a hidden agenda. Offer the cynic a compliment and he suspects manipulation. Offer an idea and he will be the first one to tell you: we've tried it; it didn't work. The gospel will not take root in that atmosphere. Something has to break up that hard-crusted veneer. The plough has to turn over that soil and find the good soil below.
This condition even happens in the church office. When people come in and ask for money they inevitably say two things. First, every one of them has a grandmother who was a Methodist. Two, they all say, "I will pay you back." When I hear that it is difficult for me not to respond by saying, "Well, you will be the first one." My friends I can count on one hand the number of times the church has been paid back. And many times those who ask are running a scam calling churches throughout the year asking for money. They rotate through the the phonebook so as not to repeat calls. Yes, even the church can make you hard-hearted. That may sound surprising, but you sit in the office for one week and you will quickly come to the same conclusion. A hard heart is hard to avoid.
The result is that the seed of the Kingdom of God never comes to fruition.
Questions to Ponder
Have you ever become hard-crusted?
Have you ever looked for good soil?
How can the Church become hard hearted?
In His Service,
Terry Phillips
