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In Luke 8, Jesus tells the parable of the soils. Jesus says this in Luke 8:6: “Some fell on rock, and when it came up, the plants withered because they had no moisture.” Here is the spiritual application in verse 13: “Those on the rock are the ones who receive the word with joy when they hear it, but they have no root. They believe for a while, but in the time of testing they fall away.”
Normally, when we are dealing with the parable we call this the rocky soil. I prefer to identify it by the nature of the heart with which it is associated. I call it the shallow.
Why is that? What is the condition of the soil?
I always thought of the rocky soil as a person of shallow faith who had recently made a decision to receive Christ, but in a short period of time returned to their life of sin. They gave their life to Christ on a spur of the moment impulse. During their spiritual high, they would attend every church event, always be excited to the point of jittery, and seem to eat up everything. But soon they would flame out. While, the emotional response to the presentation of the gospel was enough to bring them to conviction, it was not enough to provide them an adequate foundation for a long obedience in the right direction.
These are the people who respond with weeping and wailing when the altar call is given only to be out among the same parties, pubs and prostitutes the following week.
Some people might wonder why, in contrast with some other churches, don’t we push hard for people to make a decision? Why don’t we turn the screws for a strong emotional appeal? Why don’t we do 53 verses of “Just As I AM” followed by 23 “I Surrender Alls” with multiple pleas sprinkled in to give your life to Jesus right now because you don’t know if you’ll ever get another chance because you might be hit by a car and die on your way out of the parking lot today? Why don’t we do the hard sell?
Here is why: Altar calls that seek to manipulate emotions only set people up to be rocky soil. If we coerce people into an unreasoned, emotional decision, they won’t have sufficient root to sustain their faith when the temperature rises.
We may be able to count a notch in our belt as we run another person into the baptistery, but have we really produced a viable, committed disciple or have we just gotten another sinner wet?
However, here is what I discovered as I dug further into this text – the shallow, rocky soil isn’t just speaking about the 30 day believer who returns to his sin. This is not just those who have made a hasty decision to accept Christ that they later regret.
The shallow soil may be the 30 year believer that hasn’t grown 30-years old spiritually. They have grown one-year old spiritually 30 times.
Look again at what the text says: They received the message when it was presented. The verb translated “received” carries the idea of taking hold of something, to accept it into one possession.
The text also says that the rocky soil believed. This is the same word used elsewhere for having faith. It is clear that Jesus is presenting this shallow soil group as people who have been part of the faith community with God’s people.
But notice the state of their faith. While it is present, it is shallow. There is not enough earth to provide depth for the roots. So when the scorching heat of the summer arrives, the word planted in this soil dies due to exposure.
But look further at what happens to the shallow soil. It says when testing came they fell away. The falling away means to abandon or forsake something. Here particularly it means they abandoned the word of God and forsook the relationship that was offered them through his word.
It is the same idea present in Revelation 2 of Ephesus who had forsaken or abandoned their first love of Christ and his people.
I have often been asked if I believe that a person can lose their salvation. My response has always been the same. “No, no one loses their salvation. They know exactly where it is. However, many people have surrendered it.”
This is what this text is saying. Things got too hot for this believing shallow soil, so they willfully surrendered their salvation and walked away.
Why is it that the shallow lose faith and walk away? In asking that question, we also answered it. The text is very clear and straight forward — because their faith is shallow, It had no depth to its roots.
This is what I referred to before as the 30 year believer who wasn’t thirty-years old spiritually, but one-year old 30 times. In 30 plus years of ministry, I have seen far too often far too many people who thought they had completed the Christian race if not when they came out of the baptistery then shortly thereafter.
Each generation has had its own way of lessening the demands of discipleship … of removing the challenge of Christlikeness … of living with an automaton religion instead of an authentic relationship with God and each other.
For the traditional generation, shallow faith might be reduced to regularly attend church, and make yourself available as a volunteer. Church was what you did. It was unquestioned. You just did it, even if you didn’t feel it.
For the boomer generation, shallow faith morphed into attending church and being a nice, fairly moral person. Involvement in ministry was passe. We wanted entertained, and served. The churches that offered the most things on our wishlist won out.
For the younger generations, shallow faith made church attendance optional, and Biblical morality optional too, as long as you loved and served others.
That is the shallow soil. The soil that has no depth. Christianity is put on cruise control with no real effort to be all that we are called to be in Christ.
It is so easy to become comfortable with a thin veneer of Christianity, just enough to look the part. Instead of drilling down into knowing Christ and the power of his resurrection we are satisfied with knowing about him. We get just enough Christianity to ensure that we are inoculated against the real thing.
But, let me be honest with you. I think that sometimes all of the blame doesn’t rest solely on shallow people. Sometimes the church is partially to blame. Sometimes the church has invited people to a shallow faith by not inviting them, and instructing them, and urging them to a deep walk with Christ.
Churches can make it easy for the shallow to remain shallow, but teaching comfortable affirming messages that don’t deal with the hard side of discipleship … by focusing on feeding our base instincts for entertainment, rather than pushing us on to love and good deeds … by spoon feeding us predigested spiritual milk when we ought to be chewing our own food.
— Pastor Steve