WAYSIDE HEART

“A sower went out to sow his seed: and as he sowed, some fell by the way side; and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it.”

  LUKE 8:5 (KJV)

During Jesus’ earthly ministry he put forth a parable that lets us know how important the state of the heart is in relation to the effectiveness of the principle of believing.

This parable is often regarded as the parable of the sower, but I choose to call it the parable of the soil because in this parable we see that the sower is constant, the seed is constant, but the only variable there was the soil.

Jesus spoke first about the wayside soil, and when his disciples asked for its meaning, he said, “Those by the way side are they that hear; then comes the devil, and takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved.”

It is interesting to note that Jesus called this category of heart wayside as they are those who appear to be in the way but are truly on the side of the way – obviously the left side of the way. They are those who are not committed to Christ and his Kingdom. They were close enough to hear the word, but didn’t get the chance to believe the word as it was taken away by the devil.

The question here is how did the devil take the word away from their heart? He did by causing them to forget the word that they heard. Jude refers to this category of people as forgetful hearers. He says in his writing, “For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like to a man beholding his natural face in a glass: for he beholds himself, and goes his way, and straightway forgets what manner of man he was.”

People of the wayside heart are easy prey to the devil as there indecision for Christ or their un-commitment to the service of Christ allows for the word of God to be taken away thereby preventing them from experiencing the salvation that comes from believing the word of God.