T. Austin-Sparks · 1 of 6

Spiritual Fruitfulness

Reading: Matthew 13:2-9,17-23.

Where this parable ends we begin, that is, by being reminded that the thing which matters more than all else is fruitfulness - the thing which we must continuously keep before our own hearts. That fact will at once be a sifting truth, for we shall have to judge everything which we have and which we know according to the measure of real spiritual fruitfulness. The glory of the Father is definitely bound up with the amount of fruit borne by His children. The glory of the Father is bound up with the fruitfulness of our life.

Fruitfulness a Matter of Spirit and Life

Fruitfulness is related to the Word of God. What are the properties of that Word? "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." These are not abstract elements. What is said about the Word is said about the Lord Jesus - He is "a life-giving spirit". The Word is Christ mediated to the life. Fruitfulness is a matter of Christ as Spirit and Life finding increase in us through the Word, so that He becomes Spirit and Life to us, and through us to others. It is Christ living in us, expressing Himself through us. It is the increase of the living Christ.

Various things are said in relation to this. Even this may be in different measures and degrees; the hundred-fold, sixty, thirty. The hundred-fold is where Christ is all and in all. But there may be sixty-fold, very good; thirty-fold, good. But the Lord would have it a hundred-fold. How can that be? What leads to the hundred-fold? What leads to fruitfulness, or the increase of the Lord as Spirit and Life? That brings us again to the seed sown.

Before we go further with that, let us remind ourselves of a further prin­ciple that obtains; it is that these Gospels only give truth in an illustrative way and in a germinal form. You have to look to the Epistles for the explanation of things here, and for the full development. We should never take hold of something in the Gospels and strain to try, from itself and its context, to get its full meaning. If you do, you will find yourself landed into considerable difficulties. But if you will recognise the fact that here you have truth in seed form, intimated, suggested, but not developed, not analysed, not opened up, just given to you, you will look later into the day of the Holy Spirit activities in relation to the truth for the development of these germ things.

It is so in the end of these parables, you will find that you dare not press the thing too closely. In a parable certain very definite things are being just referred to, and they are being wrapped up.

Necessary Conditions

We have here four kinds of ground mentioned, and on the Lord's own authority we know that these represent four conditions of heart and life, conditions for the increase of Christ as Spirit and Life through the Word.

Unbelief is Ruled Out

There is one thing which has to be remembered before you approach the four kinds of ground, and that is that there is a kind of ground which does not obtain here; a fifth ground, which is ruled out altogether. You notice what the Lord says about the reason for speaking in parables. Referring to a word in the prophets, He says quite distinctly that He speaks in parables because certain people had closed their eyes and refused the light, and therefore they were not going to be given straightforward truth any more. It would be only those people who had not so deliberately closed their eyes who would be brought into the secrets of the Kingdom. God has secrets, but He is not disclosing His secrets to certain people. Those secrets are reserved for others. The context makes that perfectly clear, that the ground which is not allowed into this realm is the ground of positive unbelief. So we need not deal with that at all. There is no hope for that; the door is closed. The Word will not be given there, and there is no hope, therefore, of even the thirty-fold in that direction. The Lord is not even sowing His seed in that realm of positive unbelief.

So we come on to the ground where such a thing as definite unbelief is set aside, and we find ourselves in a realm where it is not a question at all of will not have the Word. But even when you have got past that, you find yourself presented with many difficulties, and the people who are represented by the three grounds here are not the people who positively refuse to have the Word, who miss a thing of God because they will not believe. They miss it because of other things. It is not the: Will not! It is very largely in the realm of: Cannot - what it is that can and does, and what it is that cannot and does not.

1) The Darkened Heart

"And as he sowed, some fell by the way side, and the birds came and devoured them." What is that? In explaining this the Lord says that "the evil one snatcheth away that which hath been sown." Why? What is the occasion for this? Here is an illuminating word: "When any one hears the word... and understands it not, then comes the evil one and snatcheth away...". It is a matter of a lack of understanding providing the enemy with the ground for his work against the Word. But, of course, the rejoinder might be: Is that the responsibility of the individual? Yes! Now you want to follow through to the Epistles and see that a truth is merely hinted at here, and for its fuller unfolding you have to look at: "The god of this age hath blinded". Again: "Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God". The enemy has provided his own ground in the natural life for his own work and here you have a darkened heart, a heart unenlightened. How can an unenlightened heart, a darkened heart, one with the understanding dark­ened, respond to the Word of the Lord? It cannot be! Then what is required? What is it that opens the understanding, and, having once opened the under­standing, destroys the power and the work of the enemy, the blinder, the darkener?

If positive unbelief does not come in here, that does not mean that anybody without positive unbelief is capable of grasping the revelation of Christ, it means that specific faith is necessary. You may not be in a carnal state which says: I will not. You may be in a natural state, which simply says: I cannot. But while the carnal is a hopeless state, the natural is barren and unfruitful. Here something specific is necessary. It is the hearing of faith. "The word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard." It is one thing to hear the Word of the Lord; it is quite another thing to exercise faith in relation to that. Of the Thessalonians Paul said that they received the Word as the Word of God, and not the word of man. There was a definite exercise of faith with regard to the Word. And when faith is definitely exercised, something happens if it is the Word of God. Test it by faith. Open your heart to it, and do not question it in your mind; test it in your heart by faith, and it will prove itself.

It is not enough just to be free from positive unbelief. It is necessary not to be just as we are without unbelief of a positive character, in a passive state, expecting that something may happen to us through the Word. It will not! It does not! There has to be an exercise of faith in relation to the Word, in relation to the Lord Jesus as the End of the Word, the Object of the Word. That faith produces the enlightenment, and destroys the darkening, blinding work of the enemy. The situation is quite clear. Here is a darkness, but it is not just a darkness which has occurred. Here is a blindness, but that is not just because it has come about. That is positively the work of a darkener, a blinder. It originated through unbelief and what is natural unbelief in the heart. But it may not be deliberate, positive, definite unbelief, such as charac­terised the Jews in Christ's time. It may be just the natural state of: "I cannot!", not: "I will not!" Then Christ is presented through the Word, and we do not have to remain in a passive attitude towards that. We have to say: "Now, here in this way Christ is presented as being such-and-such; I definitely exercise faith in Him as such, as through His Word; I take up a positive attitude towards this; I become inwardly active in relation to it." And in that way the enemy's blinding activity is destroyed through faith. It is our natural inability to take in the Word which gives the enemy his ground of snatching it away.

A natural inability to take it in does not end our responsibility. Our responsibility does not end when we say: "Well, naturally I cannot". Our respon­sibility begins there. Are we going definitely to exercise ourselves over this matter, to reach out to the Lord? Are we in an inwardly active or passive condition concerning what is being presented? Upon that so much depends.

We may have presented to us the most glorious things about the Lord Jesus, and yet there be no fruit. We have heard them; we go away, and there is no fruit. There is no spirit and life in an increased measure. Why? We have been content with hearing, and presently when we look round for what we have heard, it has gone; it is no longer with us. If we recall the phrases, the ideas, the thing itself is not there as it was. Now, what lies between the thing being presented to us with all its possibilities, and the fruit of it becoming a reality in our lives? It is an action of faith in relation to it. Passivity here in a natural state gives the enemy all the ground that he wants to frustrate the ends of God. If all the Lord's people, whenever there had been presented to them something more of this, would act in faith in relation to that presentation, there would be wonderful results.

So the darkened heart, unenlightened, remaining passive in the presence of the presentation of Christ, is seen here in utter barrenness, even when all the possibilities of fruitfulness have been brought near.

2) The Shallow Heart

"And others fell upon the rocky places... and because they had no root they withered away." "And he that was sown upon the rocky places, this is he that heareth the word, and straightway with joy receiveth it; yet has he not root in himself, but endureth for a while; and when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, straightway he stumbleth." What have we here? It is not that aspect of the natural state represented by the darkened heart. It is another aspect of the natural state. It is called "rocky".

Although it may seem that this is an improvement upon the previous one, the end is just the same. The real and abiding increase of Christ does not come upon it. Here is a condition which is, in the long run, just as unfruitful. To put it the other way, here is a condition which makes fruitfulness impossible.

What is required here? Surely brokenness of heart. If it is hard, if it is rocky, if there is no depth - and this reality of Christ has to be planted right down into the very depths of our being, then the necessity is for brokenness. Ah! but that is cost, that is paying the price, that represents an estimate of the value of Christ above our own interests, our own comfort. It means what Paul meant - and here you see the germ of a great truth - "that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable to His death...". Even Paul, at the end of his life, recognised and accepted the principle that an increase of the knowledge of Christ could only be by an increase in the knowledge of fellowship in His sufferings and a deepening of conformity to His death.

Do we understand the Lord in His breaking up, shattering providences? The Lord can only get His ends through breakings. At best there is in these natural lives of ours a place beyond which the Lord cannot go until He has done some breaking. The depths of natural capability may even vary in this matter, but in the ultimate issue, the fulness of the Lord's desire can only be reached by a breaking deeper than nature, a getting down deeper than our own capacity. It is the creating of capacity by breaking through to the depths. The Lord has got to create capacity for Himself. How true it was: "I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now." The Lord had to reserve a great deal to the day when they were broken men. One reason for their inability to receive from the Lord what He wanted to give them was that they were so sure of themselves. Peter said: "I will never forsake thee", "I will die with thee." "Alright Peter, that is the limit of your ability to receive what I want you to have, and because of that very thing you cannot follow Me!" But afterwards Peter was so broken and shattered that he could follow, and he saw.