Wayside Hearers
A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell by the wayside.
The great controversy between Messiah, the prince of light, and Evil one, the prince of darkness, is presented before us in the parable of the sower.
The sower is the Righteous One of God or the one to whom He delegates His work, for by cooperating with the Messiah, we are to become laborers together with God. Those who by personal ministry open to others the Scriptures are sowing the good seed, for the good seed is the Word of God.
The seed sown by the wayside represents the word of God as it falls upon the heart of those who are inattentive hearers, for those who are to bring the fruit forth must meditate much upon the word of God which has been presented to them. As the birds of the air are ready to catch up the seed from the wayside, so Evil one is represented as ready with his unseen agencies of evil to catch away the seeds of divine truth from the heart, lest it should find a lodgment there and bring forth fruit unto eternal life.
The Evil one and his angels are in the assembly where the good news of the kingdom is preached. While heavenly angels also are present to minister for those who shall be heirs of health, the enemy is ever on the alert that he may make of no effect the influence of the truth. With an earnestness that is only equaled by his malice, he seeks to thwart the operation of the Spirit of God on the heart of the hearer, for he sees that if the truth is accepted, he has lost control of his subject, and God has won the victory.
There are many whose hearts are as hard as the beaten pathway, and apparently, it is a useless effort to present the truth to them; but while logic may fail to move, and argument be worthless to convince, let the laborer for God come close to such in godlike sympathy and compassion, and it may be that the love of God will subdue and melt the soul into tenderness and contrition.
Through the years of probation, God is testing and proving the hearts of all, that it may be seen who will find room for Him. The question to be answered by every soul is, Will you accept the pardoning love of God, which is a remedy for the diseases of the soul, or will you choose the enmity of the evil one, and reap the terrible doom of the lost?