Here is the thorny ground hearer. Listen very carefully, it maybe you, and this challenge may save your soul and bring you to realism. The seed sown among thorns! A person listens. They may have been a rebel; they listen and begin to understand the message. This person sees the need of a Saviour, sees the need of forgiveness from God, believes in the atoning death of Jesus Christ, that he came. This person repents, ‘Lord, forgive me. Lord, save me.’ They surrender some sins. ‘Lord, I will leave behind this and this and this but not everything.’ There are still some thorns in the life that are never uprooted. When the seed is sown, it is the time of the year the thorns haven’t come up. They are invisible, they are in the ground but soon enough, they will emerge alongside the wheat. The ground was never cleared and this is true with you.. You said, ‘Lord, forgive me my sins,’ but you never said, ‘Lord, take out the worldliness from me, the love of myself and the love of this vain world and all the sins associated with it. Lord, I repent of them, get rid of them all.’ You never had that kind of trouble when you were supposedly converted, so the thorns are still there and they come up.
It can happen too easily – pride and greed grow in us alongside the seed of the gospel. If only we feared our sin more. The trouble is you want Christ and the world at the same time. You cannot do without its fashions, its pleasures. You come to church but really the world comes first in your estimation. You are like Lot’s wife, who looked back at Sodom, and your feeble desires for the Lord will be overwhelmed by the desire for what you had before. The soil of the heart is moist, friable, but obstructed by prejudice. Don’t let prejudice dictate what you do. If you feel prejudice within you, ask God to take it away. You can even ask to be made more aware of sin. If you feel your addiction to this life is too strong to resist, then ask God to help you. . May a fear of turning back make you press on towards Christ all the harder. Christ must be your Saviour, but he must also be your Lord at the same time.
There are some churches where thorny ground hearers are almost cultivated. There’s the crashing pop music and all the thorns of this world are actually in the service. They are right there and people are told, ‘Come to Christ,’ and the very thorns – the love of this world, which ought to be taken out of the life – are being paraded before them. The air is saturated with the noise of worldly music. The old enjoyments, the old ambitions, the old love of being noticed and seen in this world, even to be famous, possessions and things – all these things still really rule the heart. The thorns begin to grow and clothes and possessions and status and promotion and fun and my pleasure in a worldly way – these things grow up. You come to church, you learn the word of God, you may make notes and take great interest but the thorns are still there. You go out and you live a semi-worldly life. You have a pre-occupation and an admiration for the world and this chokes anything spiritual. The true Christian is saved from the world.