Wayside Soil
Mark 4:15 (NKJV) And these are the ones by the wayside where the Word is sown. When they hear, Satan comes immediately and takes away the Word that was sown in their hearts.
The condition of your heart or kardia is very important. If your heart is hard, nothing can grow there. We need to be able to tell the condition of our heart, since it is the center of our being and the issues of life flow from our heart. How can you tell what is happening in your heart? There are four easy things we can look at in our lives that tell us what is going on. First, Proverbs 4:23 says, “…out of your heart flows the issues of your life” If there are bad things going on all the time in our life, we might want to check what is in our heart. Second, how much fruit are we bearing? John 15:7-8 says we should be bearing much fruit. Third, we can tell what is going on in our heart by what type of fruit we are producing (Luke 6:43-45). Last, the Bible tells us a very clear way to see what is in our heart. According to Luke 6:43-45, out of the abundance of your heart your mouth speaks. We can clearly see what is in a person’s heart by what comes out of their mouth. You can see that your heart or soil is very important and really determines what you can consistently receive from the Lord. We need to clearly understand all four types of soil if we are going to help ourselves and other people. Jesus clearly defined every type of soil in what we call the Parable of the Sower. Let’s look at the first type of soil Jesus told us about.
He called the first kind of soil “wayside” soil. In Mark 4:15, Jesus explained that what is going on in this person’s life and their interaction with the Word of God. The Word of God is sown. The person hears the Word of God; and since we know that faith comes by hearing, the ability for that person to believe is there. Then, the person loses what they heard because Satan immediately comes and steals the Word of God from their heart, so there is no change in their life. This happens because the devil is trying to keep this person from being converted. In Mark 4:12, we see the process of conversion can happen in any area of a person’s life. They see and hear. They understand and are converted. The devil does not want anyone to see and hear and, especially, to understand, because when they do, they will be converted.
Satan works really hard on all people at all times. I don’t want you to think that you have graduated from this kind of soil just because you are born again, and you could never go back there ever. I think we could all, temporarily or in some areas of the Word, go back to hard soil where the Word of God is not effective in our lives. We, therefore, need to be aware of what Satan is doing for our own good, so we can help others get out of this kind of soil. How does the devil immediately steal the Word? What does he come with? He comes with lies. In John 8:44, Jesus called Satan the father of lies. The devil will also bring circumstances which bring fear. The devil has many wiles that he uses to cause people not to be able to see, hear, and understand. He tries desperately to blind the minds of unbelievers and believers alike. That is why we pray over those we are trying to help and command the blinders to come off their eyes (II Corinthians 4:4). We must pray that the eyes of their understanding be enlightened (Ephesians 1:18). We can pray this for ourselves and for others, so it will cause our heart to be ready to receive God’s Word into our soil.