“While a large crowd was gathering and people were coming to Jesus from town after town, He told them this parable: ‘A farmer went out to sow his seed, some fell along the path; it was trampled on, and the birds of the air ate it up. Some fell on rock, and when it came up, the plants withered because they had no moisture. Other seeds fell among thorns, which grew with it and choked the plants. Still, other seeds fell on good soil. It came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown.’” —Luke 8:4-8
We live in an agricultural community with many wheat fields and big planting machines. The fields here are well-defined with boundaries. The seeds are planted with mechanical precision in straight rows, guided by GPS, and usually in-ground, laden with fertilizers that increase the yield and chemicals that inhibit the growth of noxious weeds that compete for moisture.
“The work of Blue Mountain Broadcaster is like that of the sower. ”
Planting a field was a lot different in Jesus’ day. The sower went out in the morning with his basket of seed and scattered the seed over the ground that had been scratched with a primitive plow. He begins to scatter the seed most plentifully, but a path runs right through the center of his field. Handfuls land on the pathway. Over yonder, there is a rock cropping, even amid the cultivated land, and the seed falls on that. And there is a corner full of the roots of nettles and thistles. The sower casts his seed there, too.
We do not make the seed. The Gospel has been given to us by our Master.
What is it called when you scatter seed by hand and throw it on the ground rather than planting it with precision? It’s called broadcasting. The work of Blue Mountain Broadcasting is like that of the sower. We do not make the seed. The Gospel has been given to us by our Master. He has given us His truth, and our equipment is loaded with files containing the kingdom’s good seed, like the sower’s basket is filled. The engineers program the signal from the tower and through the cable lines, scattering precious truth.
If we knew where the best soil was found, perhaps we could target where the seed would be best received. But we don’t know the hearts of the people in the community and beyond. It is our business to preach the Gospel to every creature—even to throw a handful on the hardened heart over yonder and another handful on the overgrown heart, full of the world’s cares, riches, and pleasures. It’s indiscriminate.
We have to leave the fate of the seed in the care of the Master who gave it to us. We are not responsible for the harvest. We are only responsible for the care, the fidelity, and the industry with which we scatter the seed, right and left, with both hands. We are broadcasters.
Our duty is not to be measured by the character of our hearers but by the command of God. We are bound to broadcast the Gospel, whether people will hear it or not.
The parable teaches us that only one seed in four finds hopeful soil. Three portions of the four are scattered in places that produce no good effect but are lost and never seen again. Our duty is not to be measured by the character of our hearers but by the command of God. We are bound to broadcast the Gospel, whether people will hear it or not. Let peoples’ hearts be what they may; we are not loosed from our obligation to sow the seed on the rock, among the thorns, on the hardened path, and on the softened, plowed field.
This enterprise is a divine work. It is bigger than we are. It’s a work that includes miracles, changed lives, and eternal consequences. We know that out there is good ground. Not good by nature but made good by God’s grace. God plowed it. He stirred it up with the plow of conviction, and it lay in the furrow as it should be there.
Down fell the seed, and it sprung up. In some cases, it produced a new zeal in love, a largeness of heart, a devotedness of purpose, like a seed that produced a hundredfold.
Despite the tremendous challenge of throwing out the seed from this facility, may it light on some good spots and some happy soil. If one prays, “O Lord save me, God be merciful to me, a sinner,” the seed has fallen in the right spot. God never gives one a longing for mercy without providing it. What a miracle that a signal can privately and quietly enter a home and transform a life by God’s grace! Every employee here and every donor out there helps to fulfill the teaching of this parable, the parable of the broadcaster.