I grew up on a farm.  A small farm by some’s reckoning; and large to others thinking.  It was mostly a Dairy farm, and we had beef cattle too for some of the time.  It still required plowing ground once in a while to sow Alfalfa hay, and certain others types of grass hay.

To plough [plow] in a straight line requires looking ahead.  If you look back, for whatever reason, you will end up with a crooked row.  Having said that let us look at our Bible text for today:

“And it came to pass, that, as they went in the way, a certain man said unto Him, Lord, I will follow Thee whithersoever Thou goest. And Jesus said unto him, ‘Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head.’ And He said unto another, ‘Follow Me.’ But he said, ‘Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.’ Jesus said unto him, ‘Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God.’ And another also said, ‘Lord, I will follow Thee; but let me first go bid them farewell, which are at home at my house.’ And Jesus said unto him, ‘No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.’” Luke 9:57-62  (KJB)

For  the two men in the text, they wanted to follow Jesus, but they had other things to do.  The first would have had to wait for his father to die, then bury him. The second evidently had guests in his home, and saying their farewells would have taken much time away.

The lesson of the story, of these two men, and their desire to follow Jesus is this;  If you are going to follow Jesus, then follow Jesus, preach the kingdom of God – and that is Jesus – and do not look back.

Let me leave you with the commentary of John Gill on the “is not fit for the kingdom of God” closing of verse 62…

“is not fit for the kingdom of God: that is, to preach the kingdom of God, as in Luk_9:60. He cannot serve God and mammon, his own interest, and the interest of Christ; he cannot rightly perform the work of the ministry, whilst his thoughts and time are taken up in the affairs of the world.” John Gill’s EXPOSITION OF THE BIBLE