APR 24
April 24.
"As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path , and the birds came and ate it up.
Some fell on rocky places , where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root.
Other seed fell among thorns , which grew up and choked the plants." Matthew 13:4-7
From the heart trodden down by passing feet of pleasure, business, or care—the birds carry off the seeds the moment they are cast from the sower's hand.
On the heart with a thin, emotional stratum on its surface, the seed seems for a time to make a deep impression. The hearer weeps under the sermon. He is amazed at the coldness of ordinary Christians. But in a little time, it is all over. He has no depth of conviction, and the quick growths of his first faith, are soon withered in the heat of life's trials.
In the heart filled with the briers and thorns of earthly care, ambition, and pleasure, the seed has little chance to grow. All around the feeble stalks, grow the hardier briers and thorns, whose hungry roots and stems absorb the soil's nourishment, leaving the wheat robbed and starved. There is much of such Christian life as this. Its possibilities are withered, stunted, choked to death by worldliness or by care. No fruit comes to anything beautiful in such lives.
It is discouraging to think that so much of the good seed sown comes to naught, fails through unfavorable conditions . Yet we should never falter in our sowing, praying for God to watch over his own holy seed.