Luke 8:12
Those by the way side are they that hear; then cometh the devil, and taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. Those by the way side are they that hear; then cometh the devil, and taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved.
Christ explained that the seed is God's word and those by the wayside hear it and then the devil takes it from their hearts so they do not believe and are saved. They are the inattentive and hardened hearers, absorbed in selfish aims, worldly concerns, pleasures and sin, who do not feel their need and let Christ's love and grace pass by as if it did not concern them. Satan hastens to snatch the truth before it takes effect, using worldly cares, companions, criticism, doubt and even attention to outward things to keep it from making a lasting impression. Those who hear and keep it defeat him, for merely hearing is not enough unless the word is meditated upon with earnest, prayerful thought until the soul is transformed by communion with God. The hard heart need not remain hard, but is prepared by repentance and diligent effort in Christ's strength, and is reached less by argument than by personal, Christlike labor that softens it so truth can take root before Satan carries it away.
Parable Setting and Meaning
Luke 8:12 is given as part of Christ's explanation of the parable of the sower after the disciples asked what the parable meant, where the seed is the word of God and those by the wayside are those who hear the word and then have the devil take it out of their hearts so they will not believe and be saved. The parable illustrates the things of the kingdom of heaven and the work of the great Husbandman for His people, with Christ coming like a sower in the field to scatter the heavenly grain of truth, and His parable teaching itself being the seed with which the most precious truths of grace were sown. From natural seed cast into the soil He leads minds to the gospel seed whose sowing brings man back to loyalty to God, and He who gave the parable is the Sovereign of heaven, with the same laws governing earthly seed-sowing and the sowing of the seeds of truth, though because of its simplicity the parable has not been valued as it should be. It sets forth the different conditions of heart Christ encountered and the different tendencies shaping response to His teaching, explaining why His ministry did not produce greater immediate results, since people remained free to accept or reject Him and were not compelled to believe or obey.
The seed on the path represents people who hear God's word but do not believe and receive salvation because the devil takes the word from their hearts. Their hearts are inattentive and hardened, absorbed in selfish aims, worldly concerns, pleasures, and sin, so they do not understand what they hear. They do not see that the message applies to them nor recognize their need and danger, and they pass by Christ's love and message of grace as if it did not concern them, leaving them unable to believe and be saved.
These hearers may be convinced and resolve to live holy lives, yet receive the word only superficially without letting it take root, so Satan's temptations quickly overcome them before the truth takes root. The first impression fades when they return to worldly surroundings, cares, attractions, misplaced affections, and temptations, and they clasp again sins that had seemed hateful, forgetting what had impressed them. Deep repentance would expose selfish love of the world, pride, and greed and lead them to put these sins away, but without that preparation evil habits erase their good resolutions and the word is taken from their hearts.
This also describes those who hear pointed and convincing truth and are affected by it and may profess to believe it, but having followed inclination rather than duty they have not cultivated the moral powers until evil habits have hardened their hearts like the hard, beaten road. They have no just sense of the sacredness and elevated character of truth, and they do not separate from the friendship of lovers of pleasure and corrupt society but place themselves where they are constantly tempted, like an unfenced field. There they invite the temptations of the enemy, and the devil takes away the word so they finally lose the regard they once seemed to have for the truth when the good seed was dropped into their hearts.
How Satan Removes Word
Satan labors to remove divine truth from the heart before it can take effect, because he fears the word may awaken the careless and reach even a hardened heart. When people are moved to seek Christ he distracts them with worldly concerns, criticism, doubt and unbelief to keep the word from doing its work. Even attention to a speaker's language or manner can be used to keep needed truth from making a lasting impression.
The devil can use visitors, relatives, worldly friends and temporal concerns to distract hearers and take God's word from their hearts so they do not believe and are saved. Giving those demands the time and strength owed to God's service brings its own sure result. Even when such distractions seem natural or unavoidable, hearers must resist spiritual carelessness, for friends who lead them away from God are serving Satan's work. Criticism, gossip and disrespect toward God's messengers and their message are likewise used to make hearers regard God's word lightly and lose its truth from their hearts.
Newly heard truth is vulnerable like seed taken by birds or withering without moisture, and it can be taken away by misleading claims that make it appear false. Those who hear truth must therefore cherish it rather than let it be lost. Those who hear it need continued care and teaching after it is first presented, lest it be removed before they believe and are saved.
The taking away means Satan controls the reason of those who deny the truth in spirit and in works and words, so that they stumble and know not at what they stumble. It applies to false guides and to those who have outgrown their advent faith and live for the world. They say in their hearts that the Lord delays His coming, that there is peace and safety and the time is not yet, while smiting fellow servants and eating and drinking with the drunken and dismissing Christ's speedy return.
This same taking away applies to the clear prophecies about the close of probation and preparation for the time of trouble. Satan removes their effect from those who do not understand them, so they will not believe and be saved. Left without that effect, they remain unready when the time of trouble comes.
Keeping and Sowing Seed
The wayside hearer need not remain inattentive or hard-hearted, for the hardness that keeps the seed from taking root comes from resisting the Spirit through neglect of the word, and those who do so are responsible for it. The Spirit works to break absorption in the world and to awaken desire for imperishable treasure, and the heart can still be prepared through repentance and diligent effort in the strength of Jesus.
The devil with all his agencies of evil comes to catch the word away from hearts so that hearers will not believe and be saved, but those who having heard keep it defeat him so that he is not able to take it from them. Merely hearing or reading is not enough to keep it, and to profit the truth must be meditated upon with earnest attention and prayerful thought to learn the meaning of the words of truth and drink deep of the holy oracles. The mind is to be filled with great pure thoughts by meditating on God's love and mercy and studying His wonderful work in the plan of redemption, and then perception of truth becomes clearer and still clearer, desire for purity of heart and clearness of thought becomes higher and holier, and the soul dwelling in the pure atmosphere of holy thought is transformed by communion with God through study of the Scriptures.
Hearts as hard as the beaten highway can make presenting the Saviour seem useless, yet sowers have a work to do in preparing such hearts to receive the gospel. That work requires more than sermonizing, with fewer long argumentative discourses and more real heart-to-heart personal labor, coming close to men individually in Christlike sympathy, visiting and praying with individuals, and seeking to awaken their interest in the great things of eternal life. While logic may fail to move and argument be powerless to convince, the love of Christ revealed in personal ministry may soften the stony heart so that the seed of truth can take root, and unless preaching is followed by such effort Satan will snatch away its good effect and its benefit will be lost. When truth is presented the preacher must therefore press it home for a decision, working alongside Christ against the devil's effort to snatch the seed before hearers believe and are saved.
The heart is a garden where good seed of truth and bad seed are sown, and as a garden must be prepared for natural seed so the heart must be prepared for the seed of truth. Spiritual sowing requires diligent persevering labor in preparation of the soil, sowing of the seed, and culture of the crop, for no raw land yields a harvest at once. Its soil must be broken up by repentance, and the evil growths that choke the good grain and the evil tendencies of the heart must be uprooted and overcome by diligent labor and by earnest effort in the name and strength of Christ, a lesson children learn by themselves preparing soil and sowing seed and youth learn from tilling the soil.
The Sower scatters good seed upon the soil of the heart, and that soil must be prepared beforehand, especially in the young impressible mind where sowing can lead to eternal life. In children who hear Jesus the truth is planted in their minds and may later grow and bear fruit unto eternal life. Parents prepare this soil by keeping little children under their own teaching until eight or ten years of age instead of sending them away to school too early and trusting the molding of the infant mind to other hands, by making the open air amid flowers and birds the schoolroom and the treasures of nature the textbook, by opening God's great book of nature before them as fast as their minds can comprehend it, and by cultivating their minds and forming correct habits instead of wasting time and labor in following the fashions of the world, so that lessons given amid such surroundings are not soon forgotten.
Truth is seed sown in human hearts that missionaries and ministers must sow carefully, earnestly and without selfishness as seed dropped into honest soil to spring up and bear precious fruit. They are to trust God to give it life even when growth is delayed and a heart is later convicted and the seed awakens and bears fruit by His grace. Ministers must be refreshed and cheerful in order to speak words of cheer and courage that sow this seed, teaching people how to come to the Lord and how to lead others to Him, uplifting the standard and showing how they may be purified from iniquity and elevated by adherence to pure and holy principles. Because Satan is always seeking to take away the seed of truth so people will not believe and be saved, the cross of Christ must be taught repeatedly and understood as the foundation of true education and the central point of Christianity. What is planted in the heart bears fruit, so teaching that conceals skepticism or distorts Scripture can produce infidelity.