to get used to not having a piano.
We were spoiled there for a couple weeks. So let's open this morning's
service with hymn number 70 from your hardback hymnal, Holy, Holy,
Holy, and let's all stand together. Number 70. Holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty
Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee Holy, holy,
holy, merciful and mighty, God in three persons, blessed Trinity. Holy, holy, holy, all the saints
adore thee, casting down their golden crowns around the glassy
sea. Cherubim and Seraphim falling
down before thee, which wert and art and evermore shall be. Holy, holy, holy, though the
darkness hide thee, though the eye of sinful man thy glory may
not see. Only Thou art holy, there is
none beside Thee, perfect in power, in love and purity. Holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty
All thy works shall praise thy name In earth and sky and sea
Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty, God in three persons,
blessed Trinity. Please be seated. Good morning. Maybe we're suffering from a
little PCS this morning. Post-conference syndrome. I know
a lot of folks have been sick this week and still are, so that's
where a lot of our folks are. We want to pray for them. How
hopeful we are that the hymn, the passage of scripture that
inspired that hymn writer to write that hymn, that will have his experience
this morning. I saw the Lord high and lifted
up. Let's pray together. Before we
do, I want to sincerely express my appreciation to you all. I
meant what I said the other day. I've been to a lot of churches.
I think you guys are the greatest host in anywhere. And you all did such a such a
loving, sacrificial work this past weekend for all of our guests,
and I'm just thankful for you. Let's pray together. Our merciful
Heavenly Father, we do ask that you would give
us eyes of faith to see the Lord Jesus Christ seated upon His
throne with the seraphim hovering over him, crying, holy, holy,
holy is the Lord God of hosts. Truly heaven and earth is filled
with thy glory. And Lord, we know that if you
are pleased to make yourself known that the words out of our
mouth will be woe is me, crime undone. I'm a man of unclean
lips, live among a people of unclean lips. Lord, that you
would be pleased take a coal from off the altar and touch
it upon our lips and make us whole. That we would see the
fiery wrath of your indignation falling upon our substitute on
Calvary's cross and that we would be delivered from the guilt,
the penalty, the shame, the power of our sin. We thank you for the blessing
that we had this past weekend, the messages that you gave us,
the fellowship that we enjoyed. We pray, Lord, that you would
continue to remind us of the things that we've learned. And we pray for our sick brethren,
and we ask, Lord, that your hand of healing would be upon them
and that you restore them to their full strength and recover
them back here with us. We ask it in Christ's name, for
his sake, amen. All right, will you open your
Bibles with me to Mark chapter four, we'll continue our study. Mark chapter four. I love the way the Holy Spirit
inspired Mark to begin this chapter. And he began again to teach. He began again to teach. Now all of us have fallen to
the temptation of scolding our children when they do something
wrong by saying, why did you do that? And they don't have an answer.
The reason why they don't have an answer is because they don't
know why they did it. They did it for the same reason
that you do what you do. They did it because they could
and because they wanted to. That's it. That's the answer.
They could and they wanted to. And then what do we say? How
many times do I have to tell you? How many times I've told
you again and again and again. Now imagine that your little
child at that point says to you, I am so sorry. With tears in their eyes, they
say to you, I forgot. Please teach me again. Please teach me again. Oh, how
much. How much patience we would have
with our children if they had that sort of attitude, wouldn't
he? And yet, that's exactly the attitude that we're to have when
the Lord, when the Lord, he doesn't say, why did you, he knows why
we did it. He knows we did it because we
wanted to and we could. and how merciful he is in remembering
that we're made of dust and teaching us the same thing again and again
and again. We're just like our children,
aren't we? We're not any different. Might God give us the wisdom
and the grace to teach our children the way
the Lord teaches us. And He began again. And anything
that we're going to learn, we're going to have to learn it from
Him. We can't learn it from a man. You have no need that a man should
teach you, for you have the unction of the Holy One. And they shall
be all taught of God. And what did the Lord say? He
said, Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast hid these things from
the wise and the prudent and revealed them unto babes." That's
all we are. We're just babes sitting at His
feet. And when Martha was so encumbered
with so many things and the Lord rebuked her, didn't He? He said,
Martha, Martha. You're so encumbered with so
many things. But Mary, now she's chosen that
one thing that's needful. Where was Mary? She was just
sitting at his feet like a little bird with her mouth open. Lord,
feed me. Teach me again. Tell me again
the old, old story. Lord, I'm so prone to forget.
I'm so prone to wonder. I need you to teach me again.
And so here's what the Lord does. That's what he always does. and
again, and again, and again, and again. He teaches us. And this teaching took place
by the seaside and there was gathered unto him a
great multitude so that he entered into a ship. Now, a ship, And it really is
probably just a small boat, but it's the same word in the original
language that just anything, any kind of boat was called a
ship. And boats or ships in the scriptures
are a picture of the church. And that's where the Lord teaches,
isn't it? He teaches where his people are gathered together
and where his gospel is declared and his word is read. and His
presence is pleased to manifest His grace and His glory. This
is the place where He teaches. We see this symbol of the boat
or ship in Noah's Ark. Noah's Ark is a picture of Christ
and Noah and his family in the Ark, saved from the wrath of
God. And yet that's where God is pleased
to save His people. He brings them together in Christ,
in His church. The story of Jonah and the whale
is a picture of Christ and his church. When the storm came and those
sailors thought they were all going to die, Jonah said, cast
me into the sea. And so they did. And we know
that Jonah is a picture of Christ who spent three days and three
nights in the belly of the whale and a picture of his death and
resurrection. And as soon as Jonah was cast
into the sea, All those sailors, the storm ceased and all those
sailors were saved. In Acts chapter 27, when the
apostle Paul is traveling to Rome on a ship, and you remember
they get in a horrible storm and the ship's falling apart
and men are about to jump off the ship. And Paul told the captain,
he said, don't let anybody leave this ship. All these men will live. They
will all survive if they stay with the ship. What a picture
of the church. And so here the Lord Jesus Christ
is sitting in a ship. And when the Lord was with the
disciples on the Sea of Galilee, the scripture says, and the ship
was covered with the waves, but he was asleep. Lord, do you not
care that we're about to perish? And then he spoke. And they said,
who is this man that even the waves in the seas, even the wind
and the waves obey his voice? A picture of Christ in control. This is his ship. Maybe this
is where the word fellowship came from, a bunch of fellows
in the same ship, you know, but that's what we do. We fellowship
together, but this is, you know, sometimes we may, We may misspeak
or speak in general terms when we refer to a church by the pastor
of that church, but that church doesn't belong to the pastor.
It's Christ's church. It's his church. This is my church
and I'm going to build it upon this rock and the gates of hell
shall not prevail against it. So the Lord in the ship. saves
those who are in the ship with him. And here he's sitting, oh,
and the last thing I want to bring out about the ship, those
of us that like to boat enjoy having a motor on our boat, but
none of these ships had motors. They were all sailing vessels
and they were subject to the wind. in their ability to be
powered. And so it is with the ship, isn't
it? With the church, we're subject to the spirit of God to give
us direction and to carry us. Oh, you remember the story when
the disciples thought they were gonna drown and the Lord was
in the boat with them and he was asleep and then he spoke
to the wind and the seas. And the scripture makes this
statement, it says, and immediately they were on the other side.
Immediately they were on the other side. Once the sea gets
calm, immediately we'll be on the other side. Now, the sea
in the scriptures is a picture of two things. It's a picture
of turbulence and troubles and persecution and trials and it's
a picture of separation. It's the sea that separates the
islands and the continents from one another. And in Revelation
chapter 21, The scripture says, and there shall be no more sea,
no more sea. The way of the Lord now, the
scripture says, is through the seas. There's troubles, there's
trials, there's tribulations, that there's necessities that
God has ordained for us, revealing to us our dependence upon him.
One day he's gonna speak, the seas are gonna go away, and immediately
we're gonna be on the other side. But right now he's in the ship,
on the sea, teaching them again, again. Aren't you thankful for
that? Now, the whole multitude was by the
sea on the land and he taught them many things by parables. Parables. A parable is an allegory. A parable is a story of something
natural that has a spiritual meaning. And in another place,
the disciples asked the Lord, Lord, why do you speak to them
in parables? And he said, because it's not
for them to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God. It's for
you to know. They said, well, I don't understand
a parable. Well, they didn't either. They
didn't understand this parable. And the disciple, but here's
the difference. When they were alone with the
Lord, the Lord explained to them what the parable meant. And that's
why we preach, isn't it? That's why we gather together.
God is teaching us again and again and again. And he's showing
us what his word really means. What it means. A lot of people
read the Bible, they don't know what it means. So he taught them many things
by parables and said unto them in his doctrine, in his teaching. He's going to reveal to them
what this parable really means. A couple of examples, the parable
of the Good Samaritan. You hear people of the world
and people in religion always talking about being a Good Samaritan.
And the Lord does conclude that story by telling us to follow
the example of that Good Samaritan. But we're not pictured first
and foremost in the life of that Good Samaritan. That's the Lord
Jesus Christ. We're the guy that was left for
dead on the side of the road. And the priest comes by with
his ceremonies of religion and he can't help us. And the Levi
comes by with his law and he can't help us. And so the Good
Samaritan, the Lord Jesus Christ comes and takes this dying man
out of the ditch, mends his wounds with oil, takes him to the inn,
which is a picture of the church, and says to the innkeeper, you
provide for him. And whatever, and leaves him
money there with the inn, doesn't he? And says to him, whatever
he needs beyond what this can provide, I'll pay next time I
come through. Christ is the new Samaritan,
but the world doesn't see that. They just believe themselves
to be the good Samaritan and they think this is a story of
moralisms that, you know, if I can just do that for people
then I can earn favor with God. Lots of parables in the scriptures
about sheep. But the natural man doesn't see
himself as a sheep. A sheep. Sheep are dirty. Sheep are dumb, sheep are dependent,
and sheep are defenseless. That's what a sheep is. And all
the parables in the scriptures, the Lord uses to describe us
as sheep. And people, they read those parables
and they have ears, but they don't hear. They have eyes, but
they don't see. They know that he's talking about them, but
they don't consider themselves to be dirty and dumb. and defenseless and dependent,
men don't see themselves that way. Why? Because the Lord said,
I teach them my parables. It's not for them to know the
mystery, the mystery of the kingdom of God. It's not for them to
know, but it's for you to know the mystery. What is the mystery?
The mystery is that we are completely dead in our trespasses and sins,
unable to help ourselves in any way. leprous from head to toe,
filthy, dumb sheep. And the shepherd, the Lord Jesus
Christ came into this world to save his sheep. And not one of
his sheep's going to be lost. He actually accomplished the
salvation of his sheep. He's the good shepherd who laid
down his life for the sheep. The parables can only be understood
in light of the mystery of the gospel. And so it is with this
parable. This parable ends, well, let's
wait till we get to the end and we'll try to say a few things
about it. Verse 3, hearken, behold, there
went out a sower to sow. Now, the Lord said in Isaiah
that he gives seed to the sower that he might give bread to the
eater. And anytime the gospel is preached,
the Lord is sowing his seed. But in order for that seed to
grow, you know, what Paul say? I planted, Apollos watered, God
gave the increase. The Lord's got to make the seed
turn into bread, doesn't he? If we're gonna have our souls
nourished with the bread of life, it has a whole lot more to do
than a man like me standing up here and scattering seed. The
Lord's got to make it grow. He's got to make it food for
your soul. He's our teacher. So this sower,
first and foremost, is the Lord Jesus Christ. And then it's the
men And his children, when you share your understanding of the
gospel with a friend or family, the Lord's sowing seed, isn't
he? So there's a sower. And this seed is not just the
Bible. It's not just verses of scripture. You remember what it says, and
turn with me to 1 Peter. 1 Peter chapter one. You're familiar with this passage.
I want you to see it. 1 Peter chapter 1, beginning of verse 23, being
born again, not of corruptible seed, not of silver and gold,
not of good works, not of free will. That's not how we're born
again. Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth,
is what James says, being born again, not of corruptible seed,
but of incorruptible by the word of God, which liveth and abideth
forever. For all flesh is his grass. That's all we are. What did the Lord say to Isaiah?
When Isaiah said, Lord, where do I begin? How do I comfort
your people? Tell them they're grass. Tell
them they can't do anything. Tell them they don't have anything.
Tell them I'm not looking to them for anything. They're just
grass. All flesh is this grass and all
the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withereth
and the flower thereof fadeth away. Oh, life is so brief, isn't
it? The strength and beauty of life
is so short. The Lord said that's just flesh.
Man at his very best state is altogether vanity. He's empty,
he's unable. But the word of the Lord, now
that's another story, that endureth forever. And this is the word
which by the gospel is preached unto you. I know a lot of fundamentalists
who would stand up and be willing to die for the fact that this
book is the word of God. But they're not preaching the
gospel. They're not preaching the gospel. This is the word
which by the gospel is preached unto you. If the gospel of God's
free grace and the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ is not
being preached, the Word is not being preached. I don't care
how many verses of scripture a man quotes from the Bible,
if he's not preaching Christ, he's not preaching the Word of
God. So that's the seed. The seed
is the gospel contained in the Word of God and the sower who
teaches his children the same thing again and again and again
is the Lord Jesus Christ. The boat is the church and the
sea is the world in which we live. This is the mystery of this parable. Verse five, and some fell, I'm
sorry, verse four, and it came to pass as he sowed, some fell
by the wayside, and the fowls of the air came and devoured
it up. And some fell on stony ground where it had not much
earth, and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of
earth. But when the sun was up, it was scorched, and because
it had no root, it withered itself. And some fell upon thorns, and
the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no fruit.
And others fell on good ground and did yield fruit that sprang
up and increased and brought forth some 30, some 60 and some
a hundred. And he said unto them, he that
hath ears to hear, let him hear. And we say, oh Lord, give me
ears to hear because there's a sense in which I can see myself
in all of these. I've heard your word and it seems
like no sooner I get out the car and it's gone, forgot it. There's a shallowness to my heart
and my commitment that makes me seem like I'm that stony ground
and the things of this world oftentimes choke out. Lord, I
can see myself in all of these. But I want to understand what
this really means because Though we understand the weakness of
our own flesh and we see that the Lord doesn't make us good
ground, we would be like all that. He's not talking about
the problems that believers have. He's distinguishing unbelievers
from believers. That's the point of this parable.
And we sometimes this parable is called the parable of the
sower. I like to think of it as the parable of the soils because
that's the difference that's made in the parable. And when he was alone, verse
10, they that were about him with the 12 asked of him the
parable. What's that parable mean? Now
he's going to explain it to them. And this is what we're doing
now, isn't it? We're just explaining the parable. And he said unto
them, unto you, it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom
of God, but unto them that are without, all things are done
in parables. It's just a confusion to them.
They don't understand it. That, and here's that verse from
Isaiah chapter six that is most often quoted in the New Testament.
It's a humbling, it's a humbling verse. They'll have eyes. They won't see. Ears, they won't
hear. That seeing they may see and
not perceive and hearing they may hear and not understand,
lest at any time they should be converted and their sins should
be forgiven them. Lord, how much of what I know
is just something I learned from a man. Lord, I don't want to
just, I don't want to know something because a man taught me. I want
to really see. I want to see Christ high and
lifted up. That's the same text that we
just sang that hymn, holy, holy, holy. It's the same passage from
Isaiah chapter six. And he said unto them, know ye
not this parable? And how then will you know all
the parables? If you don't understand the simplicity
of this parable, you're not gonna understand anything. And so he explains it. The sower
soweth the word and these are they by the wayside where the
word is sown But when they have heard, Satan cometh immediately
and taketh away the word that was sown in their hearts." Wayside
hearers. And I've preached to people that
I fear are wayside hearers. The gospel has absolutely no
effect on them. They have no interest whatsoever.
They're just marking time, waiting for it to get over. so they can
go on to bigger and better things. No interest, no understanding,
no conviction. Everything you say falls on deaf
ears. Whatever they do here is plucked
away right away. Oh Lord, I don't wanna be like
that. I don't wanna be like that. And so next he tells what the
stony, the stony heart is. And these are they likewise,
which are sewn on stony ground. who when they have heard the
word immediately receive it with gladness and they have no root
in themselves and so endure but for a time and afterwards when
affliction and persecution arises for the word's sake immediately
they are offended. Now this picture of stony ground
is a, you've seen it, maybe not here in Florida but up in the
hill country or the mountains, the mossy soil that collects
over top of a rock. It's generally very fertile.
If a seed falls in it, it'll germinate and spring up right
away. But if that rock is exposed to the sun during the daytime,
that little thin layer of moist fertile soil dries up real quick
and whatever tried to grow there falls away because there's no
place for the roots to go. That's the picture. Here's the
sower. He's sowing the seeds. Some of them fall over there
on the mossy rocks. Some of them fall on the wayside.
And it springs up, and we've seen this happen. People hear
the gospel, and I'm always a little, I mean, I'm always hopeful. I
have to say I'm hopeful when somebody hears the gospel and
they rejoice in what they hear. But I'm also very cautious, wondering,
you know, is there any depth to the root of this? We'll see.
We'll see. Time will tell. Time will tell
for all of us, won't it? And when persecution comes, we've
seen people profess faith in Christ, show an interest in the
gospel, get excited about things. And then they go home and they
begin to share with their family members what they've heard and
what they believe. And immediately, they're cut
off and they're persecuted from their loved ones. And they have
to weigh and think, well, now, what do I do? And they'll go
back. They'll go back. The Lord says
that's the way some folks are. And then there's the seed that
falls on the thorny soil, the thorny ground. You know, the
field has hedgerows of thorns growing along the side of it
and some of the seed falls into those thorns and it'll spring
up, it'll grow, it'll begin to show some signs of life. But
one thing is consistent about all of these soils, there's no
fruit. There's no fruit in any of them.
Only one of them produces fruit. So in verse 18, and these are
they which are sown among thorns, such as hear the word and the
cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the lust of other
things entered in, choke the world and it becomes unfruitful. Cares of the world, deceitfulness
of riches. how deceitful riches are. And let me say this, there's
nothing inherently evil about being wealthy and there's nothing
inherently virtuous about being poor. You see, it's not money
that's the root of all evil, it's the love of money that's
the root of all evil. It's where your heart is and
a very poor man can be consumed with materialism and lust after
things of this world. And a very wealthy man can be
very generous and very giving with things that he has. So it's
not what your bank account looks like, it's the condition of the
heart. But riches are deceitful in that they promise something
that they can't deliver. I've been thinking a lot about,
what does Bill Gates have that we don't have? He's got 24 hours
a day. He doesn't have an extra year
to his life because of his wealth. He can't get any more full or
satisfied after eating a good meal. He can't set his thermostat
on any more comfortable of a temperature than I'm able to in my car and
in my house. You know, he doesn't sleep any
better, probably loses sleep or worried about what's going
to happen, you know. He can't enjoy his loved ones and his
family members any better than I can? You see, the enticement
of riches, more than providing comforts for life, are more of
a means of impressing other men. You know, that's the deceitfulness
of riches. If I can just get more, I can
impress somebody with how important I am. The lust of the flesh, the lust
of the eyes, and the pride of life, popularity, power. Yeah,
which is by some pleasures, I guess, but we've got all the, if you
have, the Lord said in 1 Timothy, if you had food and shelter,
be there in content. Contentment, godliness with contentment
is great gain. And this is the mystery of godliness.
that God was manifested in the flesh. If I've got Christ, I've
got godliness. And if I've got him, I'm content.
Oh, Lord, make me content. Don't let me. But here's a person
who hears the word and they get out in the world and they're
deceived and thinking, well, I'm going to be more happy. I'm
going to be more content. I'm going to be more comfortable. If you really think about it,
the wealthiest people in this world don't have I mean, well,
they got a bigger house, bigger car, bigger, you know, so what? You know, it's a, you, contentment. But that's what, that's what
happens. People hear the gospel. They
think, well, this is, and then preacher starts talking like
this and they think, well, that's not what I want. I want what
the world's got to offer. And they give up on the gospel. Verse 20, and these are they which are
sown on good grounds such as hear the word and receive it
and bring forth fruit, some 30 fold, some 60, some 100. Now,
there's a couple of things I see in this verse. Number one, you
have to hear the word, hear it effectually. To hear it, God's
got to speak to your heart. And if he does, you will receive
it and believe it. That's what receiving it is,
to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And then the third thing
I see in this verse is it's a mistake for us to compare ourselves to
one another. It's a real mistake. But, you know, that's the natural
tendency, isn't it? Which goes back to that thing
of riches, you know? We're always judging ourselves
by what we look like in light of somebody else. And people
in religion judge themselves, how's my fruit look to their
fruit? That's why I hate testimonials. Because testimonials usually
are exaggerations. I don't like reading biographies. because somebody's going to exaggerate
what they've done in their life and then they leave me not thinking
about Christ but thinking about how do I measure up to their
experience. Some 30, some 60, some 100. There's 30 watt light
bulbs, there's 60 watt light bulbs, there's 100 watt light
bulbs, there's 2 watt light bulbs. But one thing's true about every
light bulb, it pushes the darkness away wherever that light bulb
is, however dim it might be. Darkness cannot stand up to light. Now, back in religion, there
was a lot of emphasis because they didn't understand this parable.
There was a lot of emphasis placed on fruit inspection. You know, I've got to, Thursday
morning, our mango tree was in full bloom. Well, it got down
to 27 degrees. We're not gonna have any mangoes
this year. The whole tree, all the blooms froze out on it. Now
back in religion, I would have gone out to that mango tree and
taped some plastic mangoes on that tree. And then I would have boasted
about how prolific my tree was. That's all we do, isn't it? That's
all we do. That's what, in other words,
The fruits of the spirit can be counterfeited by the flesh. You know, in Galatians chapter
5, love, joy, peace, long-suffering, temperance, patience, these are
the fruits of the spirit. And a man can pretend outwardly
to have something that's not in his heart. It's not in his
heart. And we got the love of the spirit.
It's a work of grace in the heart. We've got a love for the gospel
and a hatred for everything contrary to the gospel. We're genuinely
able in the heart to rejoice in the Lord, to have long suffering because
we're waiting on his return. These are the fruits of the spirit.
And they're not something you look at in your behavior. They're something that God gives
you in your heart. So, you know, this is in every
good tree, Matthew Chapter 12, turn with me there and we'll
close with this. What I'm saying to you is don't
compare your fruit to somebody else's fruit. And you remember the last words of
David, Although my house be not so with God, yet he has made
with me an everlasting covenant ordered in all things. And sure,
this is all my salvation, all my desire, though he make it
not to grow. What does that mean? Though he
make it not to grow. What is it to grow in grace and
the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ? It's to see more and
more of your need for him. is to become more dependent upon
him. You grow in grace, you're gonna become more humble, you're
gonna see more of your sin. You're not gonna be walking around
strutting like we did in religion, comparing your fruit to another
man's fruit and pretending to be more holy than somebody else
or pretending to be getting better. You're gonna see yourself as
a sinner. That's what David was talking
about, though we make it not to grow. But in religion, we
just thought, you know, I'm getting better. I'm not doing the things
I used to do. I had a religious experience
when I was 20 years old. And I mean, just like that, just
like that, I quit doing a lot of things I was doing as a young
man. And I didn't, I haven't done them since. I mean, I'll
tell you, I'll tell you one of them. My father was in the Navy
and I was in the Navy. And I love my dad. I'm very thankful
for him. But he cursed like a sailor.
And I grew up cursing like a sailor. That's just the way we lived.
And we didn't think anything of it. It's just the way you
talked. And I had a religious experience at 20 years old. And
I mean, the next day, I never talked like that again. I haven't
talked, I'm 63 years old now. I haven't talked like that since
then. And for 20 years, I trusted in that manifestation of my lifestyle
change as the hope of my salvation. I didn't hear the gospel till
I was 40 years old. The Lord didn't save me till
I was 40 years old, but I talked to people all the time. Well,
you know, I used to do this and I used to do that and I don't
do that anymore and I'm inspecting my fruit and that's proof that
I've received the gospel and I'm saved. No, it's not. No,
it's not. What you say about Christ is
the fruit. Look at Matthew chapter 12 verse
33, either make the tree good and his fruit good or else make
a tree corrupt and his fruit corrupt for the tree is known
by its fruit. Okay? Oh, generation of vipers,
how can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance
of the heart the mouth speaketh, a good man out of the good treasure
in his heart bringeth forth good things, and an evil man out of
the evil treasure in his heart bringeth forth evil things. You
see, from the time I had that experience at 20 years old till
I was 40 years old when the Lord was pleased to call me, I was
saying the most evil things about God for 20 years. See, my speech
was more evil from 20 to 40 than it was before 20. It's a whole
lot more evil. Well, I had a lot of religious
talk, but the things I was saying about God, I was a bad tree bringing
forth bad fruit. But I say unto you that every
idle word that men shall speak they shall give account thereof
in the day of judgment for by thy words thou shalt be justified
and by thy words thou shalt be condemned. That's the fruit.
That's the fruit. What think ye of Christ? And what do you say about him?
Now we've got the spirit of God. Those things mentioned in Galatians
chapter 5 will be manifested. They will be. Lord, toil the soil of our hearts
and cause the gospel of your grace to take root lest I be
a wayside hearer, a stony heart hearer, or a thorny ground hearer
or make me fruitful to your glory, to your glory. That's the parable. That's the parable. All right,
let's take a break. Thank you.