Let's be turning to Luke chapter
8. Luke chapter 8. Now when our
Lord had preached the parable of the sower, we looked at that
last week, there were four lessons that were taught to us that came
through regarding the salvation work of the Father, the Son and
the Holy Ghost. First, in God the Father, we
see that He chose a people to be gracious to. And it shows
us that we're dependent upon God's grace. We're dependent
on God to give us an understanding of His Word and an understanding
of salvation. And two, we saw that the word
that we preach is Christ. We're to preach the gospel. As
we saw in verse one, when Christ went through every village and
city, he went preaching and showing the glad tidings of the gospel,
the glad tidings of the kingdom of God. The glad tidings are
the gospel, the good news. And that is Christ. We preach
Christ. And three, we saw the gift of
the Holy Spirit is given because our Lord tells us, He reveals
to us that we must be born again. Well, if we must have anything
for salvation, then it's God who gives it. Otherwise, we wouldn't
have it. And so He gives the Spirit who
gives us a new birth. And four, continuing on with
that work of the Spirit in us, he shows that he gives us the
patience of faith by which we endure on to the end and we in
him bring forth fruits, fruits of righteousness, fruits unto
perfection. So don't lose sight of these
truths now when we come to the next thing that our Lord says. So following His parable, the
parable of the sower in the first 15 verses, our Lord adds these
words in relation to that parable. Verse 16-18 No man, when he hath
lighted a candle, covereth it with a vessel. or putteth it
under a bed, but setteth it on a candlestick, that they which
enter in may see the light. For nothing is secret that shall
not be made manifest, neither anything hid that shall not be
known and come abroad. Take heed, therefore, how ye
hear, for whosoever hath to him shall be given, and whosoever
hath not from him shall be taken, even that which he seemeth to
have." Now, I want you to understand as we begin looking at these
words, these are encouraging words. These are words of encouragement
to the new man. formed in you by the grace of
God. These are not discouraging words.
These are encouraging words, and I want to show you that these
are words of encouragement, that these are words full of grace,
full of the grace of our Lord, which is given to you that have
ears to hear. So, Recall that our Lord had
just said in verse 10 of this chapter, verse 10, he said, unto
you, it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God,
but to others in parables that seeing they might not see and
hearing they might not understand. And so our Lord is revealing
to his disciples, you that look to Christ, you that follow Christ,
what he's making known is that the revelation of God is given. It's a gift which God gives to
his people. And he's telling us it's a mystery. It's a mystery to us otherwise,
unless God gives us an understanding His word remains a mystery to
us. It lays under darkness because
of the veil that's over our eyes and our understanding by nature
in Adam, because we're born in sin, born in sin there. So our God, it's a mystery, but
he gives it, the understanding and the knowledge of salvation
in the face of Jesus Christ. And so this word of our Lord
in verse 16, I want you to understand this is an encouraging word. It's an encouragement first to
his church, this body of local believers here, his church, and
it's an encouraging word for us to make known what the Lord
gives us. And second, it's an encouragement
to sinners. to tell us that our God is publishing,
He's revealing the mystery of God from the preaching of the
church. He's making it known in the preaching
of His word so that it's not a mystery to you that are sinners
in need of His grace. He'll teach you. Our Lord said,
ask, seek, knock, it'll be opened unto you. you that need him,
he will reveal salvation to you. So listen again to what he says,
No man, when he hath lighted a candle, covereth it with a
vessel. or putteth it under a bed, but
setteth it, the candle, on a candlestick, that they which enter in may
see. And what our Lord is saying is,
if rational man does this, No man lights a candle only to stick
it under a hidden thing and hide it away. Well, if rational man
knows to do this, then you can be sure that God the Father,
who gave that man that wisdom to make sense of things, that
God himself is doing the same with his light. This is speaking
of what the Father does with the light of the world. This
is speaking of what the Lord our God does. This light speaks
to the graciousness of God in sending Christ into the world. All right, what does that mean?
Well, why is Christ called the light? Because our Lord, Jesus
Christ, makes known the things of God. He reveals, like a light
reveals what's in the room, so Christ's coming reveals the things
of God to the people of God. He makes it known. The light
being spoken of here is Jesus Christ. Christ is the true light
which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. Christ is the true light which
lighteth every man that cometh into the world. God the Father
is the one who sent Christ into the world. Is he not? God the
Father did send his son into the world. He is the light. And
this, you flip back to Genesis chapter one, go ahead and do
that. Genesis chapter one, we see there that right in the beginning
of creation, God gave light to this dark world. When he said
in Genesis chapter one, Verse three, God said, let there be
light, and there was light. And God is, we've said this many
times, but when he's shown light on this world, it reveals, it
tells us God has a gracious purpose for a people that he creates
and puts on this world. When He brings a man into the
world, and it's His purpose to be gracious to that one, He brings
him to Christ. He reveals Christ. He reveals
Himself to us through the Lord Jesus Christ, because Christ
is the Light of God. And he has a gracious purpose
for us described first here in verse two. In Genesis 1-2, this
is us, brethren, by nature. It's true, this literally happened,
but it's a picture that reveals what we are by nature in Adam.
The earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the
face of the deep. and the Spirit of God moved upon
the face of the waters." Now, waters in scripture is a term
used to describe peoples. It has other meanings sometimes,
but it's used to describe peoples. For example, John, the apostle
John, he was, well, in Revelation 17,
15, we're told, he saith unto me, the waters which thou sawest,
where the whore sitteth, the whore of Babylon sits upon the
people in darkness without form and void. The waters which thou
sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes,
and nations, and tongues. So waters is used to describe
peoples, peoples, all right? And so these waters, in this
literal creation history, it's a picture of people, of people
here. And so God's grace is shining
onto these people. God has a gracious purpose here
in creating this world and in creating his people here in this
world. He has a gracious purpose. And
so when our Lord Jesus Christ, when he came in the flesh, he
is the light of God shining unto the people. revealing unto us
who the true and living God is. Christ makes this known to us. He's shining his light into the
darkness that's in our faces. He's shining upon us to reveal
to us the light of God. And then in Genesis chapter 1,
what does he do? That was day 1 that he shone
the light. And he divided the light from
the darkness. On day 2, he made a firmament. He made a firmament. And a firmament is, you could
think of it as the atmosphere, right? It's the atmosphere that
we breathe and live in here, from the ground up to as far
as it goes up there. We live and breathe in this firmament,
this atonement, this covering, without which we have no life. But living things dwell in the
firmament, in the atmosphere that God has created on day two. And on that day two, by that
firmament, which pictures the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ,
we're told that God divided the waters. by that firmament he
divided the waters those waters that were under the firmament
and those waters that were above the firmament so that by that
firmament by the atonement by the redemption of the Lord Jesus
Christ he divided the people those that are his and those
that are not his right here in creation here and he gathers
the waters then On the third day, he gathers the waters under
heaven, those redeemed, together to one place. To one place. Those waters were gathered together
in one place. And what did that do? It revealed
the body of land. It revealed the body so that
now suddenly, after the atonement, after the redemption, a body
of form now appears. There was darkness, then there
was light. There was no form, and now there's a form that appears
by our Lord's atonement that gathers the waters together in
one place, and the body appears. And then that body of land, which
was void, barren, fruitless, Well, he made it to spring forth
unto life so that there were trees and plants and living things,
fruitful things, nourishing things, fruitful things on that body
so that now it was no longer void. And so you see that picture
right there. And that was on the third day
that the land, that the body became fruitful. And what happened
on the third day? Our Lord and Savior rose from
the dead and gave gifts unto men so that we became fruitful
in Him. That's all pictured there, just
there on the first three days there of creation, of what our
Lord accomplished for us by going to the cross and shedding His
blood for His people and rising again from the dead on the third
day. It's a beautiful, beautiful picture. And so Christ has now
come. He is the light of men. And he's
there, right now, when he's talking to these disciples, he's there
to accomplish those works which the Father sent him to accomplish,
and sending the light. That is, his redemption, his
primary purpose there is to redeem his people, given to him to separate
the waters, by his atonement, by his death. And then by his
death, second, that he should gather together in one the children
of God that were scattered abroad. John 11 verse 52. And a body he prepared that is
good ground, which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some
an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirtyfold." It's all there,
what our Savior has done by His redemption work, by faithfully
doing what the Father sent Him to do. And so our Lord now says
that God his Father did not send the sun, verse 16, into the world
to cover it with a vessel or put it under a bed, but setteth
it, the light, on a candlestick, that they which enter in may
see the light. So what he's saying here is,
I'm come right now I'm talking to you in parables and I'm only
revealing it to you right now because I've come to do the work
that my father sent me to do, which is specifically, I've got
to go to the cross. I can't make known everything
to all the people because I must go to the cross for my people. And so when I speak in general,
it's a complete parable. I'm not even explaining to them
the things I'm telling you, he says at this time. I'm just putting
it out there. this parable of the sower there.
Without any explanation, it's a complete parable to them, to
everyone except those that the Father has given me right now
to make known immediately to you what I'm saying here in these
words. But Christ is saying, I'm not
gonna speak plainly to everyone right now, right now. but because I've got to go to
the cross to redeem my people. And what I'm trying to get at
is what Paul said to us is, which none of the princes of this world
knew. For had they known why Christ
was come, they wouldn't have crucified the Lord of glory.
And if Christ isn't crucified, if he doesn't lay down his life
and shed his blood, we have no atonement. We have no firmament. We have no redemption in which
we live. We wouldn't be alive. There would
be no salvation if Christ didn't lay down his life on the cross. But what he's getting at here
is once the redemption work is finished, he will rise from the
dead, and then he gives his ascension gifts to men, to his church,
to his people, to then make these things known plainly to the people. to declare what Christ has done,
why he came, why he had to come, and what he accomplished for
his people. So that's what he means when
he says, no, man, if you don't do this, you can be sure God
doesn't do this. He's not sent me a lighted candle
to only cover it up and put it away and hide it away. But he
sets the light on a candlestick so that all who come in may see. Now, regarding that candlestick,
what does the Lord call a church? A candlestick in Revelation,
right? In Revelation, he calls his churches
candlesticks, saying in Revelation 120, the seven candlesticks which
thou sawest are the seven churches, right? A complete number, a perfect
number of churches. And so the church is the candlestick.
Christ is the candle. He's the light set on a candlestick. We hold it up so that all who
come in may see, may have light, that you would know what Christ
is saying, what he's teaching us there. And so then, right,
when Christ gave his commission, when he was rising again, what
did Christ do? He gave the commission to the
brethren, to the disciples, then opened he their understanding
that they might understand the scriptures. Luke 24, what is
that, 48? 45. Verse 45. So he opens our
understanding. He gives it to the church so
that we understand and we know, oh, this is all of Christ here.
This isn't about my works and our doing. This is about the
Lord Jesus Christ. He's our salvation. And we publish
this word out to all who come in. all who come to the church,
so that you coming in might hear and understand that Jesus Christ
is all our salvation, everything we need to come before the true
and living God, the Father. And so that's why we preach Christ
faithfully. and why we preach Him every time
we come together. That's what we're called to do,
is to preach Christ, because He is the light, and He shines
in the heart to know who the true and living God is. Listen
to 2 Corinthians 4, 6. Remembering what we just saw
in Genesis chapter 1, and how we see it revealed in Christ,
Paul said, for God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness,
hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, who moved upon
the face of the waters shining unto us, those waters that he
separated by his blood to be gathered together in one body,
a fruitful body in Christ. It's beautiful. I mean, it's
wonderful to see how he does it all, brethren. He does everything,
and it's wonderful. Now, let us move on to the second
word, and it's very similar to what we saw before. But verse
17, Luke 8, 17, for nothing is secret that shall not be made
manifest, neither anything hid that shall not be known and come
abroad. And so up to this time, just
to reestablish this thing, up to this time, when Christ went
to every village and city, he spoke to the people in parables. So they weren't really sure what
he meant or what he was saying there. And he didn't share openly
the understanding of those parables as we understand it today, only
to those about him immediately. But here, he's declaring that
this good news of God's gospel, he's saying what I'm saying to
you right now, it's gonna be published. It's gonna be made
known. It's gonna go out very plainly to the people. And the only reason why it's
not now is because he's saying, I'm going to the cross. I've
got a work to do. So I'm speaking literally what
I hear the Father tell me. That's what he was saying. I
speak the words that my Father has given me. I'm not deviating
from it one bit, he's saying. So I'm just telling them the
parable because there's a reason for it. They're going to remain
in darkness. But you, I'm going to tell you
more clearly what I'm saying here. And so, but when he did
it, when he accomplished redemption, laid down his life, died, was
buried, and rose again, and gave gifts to the church, gave the
church an understanding of what he just did, then he sends his
church out to bear witness and tell the people that through
this man, the Lord Jesus Christ has preached unto you the forgiveness
of sins. Not your works, not your doing,
not your creeds, not what you think it is. It's not. Look to
the servant of God. Look to the Son, the Lord Jesus
Christ. He is the very salvation of God
given for your salvation. And all who believe in him shall
not be ashamed, and you shall never perish in your sins, because
Christ has put away your sins. He's accomplished it. The work
is finished, he said. And he bowed his head and gave
up the ghost. It's finished by the Lord Jesus
Christ. He's everything, brethren, all
that we need. It's all through him. And so
the church now is called to make this witness of the Lord known
to the people. All who come in, and we just
hold up the light so that all who come in may know it's Jesus
Christ. Look to him. Look to him. He
is salvation. Believe him. He is sufficient
to the uttermost to save the vilest, most wretched, worthless
sinner. Christ is able. And so if he's
able to do it for the most wretched sinner, he's able to do it for
anyone else for their sins. But we come as filthy sinners.
We come as mercy beggars seeking God to have mercy on our soul
In Christ. In Christ. That's how we come
to God. Believe Him, brethren. Trust Him. He's our message.
He's the light of the people, and He makes known the Father,
the true and living God to us, by His grace and power, by His
Spirit. Listen to these scriptures, which
describe the gospel that we preach. I'll just give you two. 1 Corinthians
4, verse 1. Let a man so account of us as
of the ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of
God. This is the message. We are come
to make known to you the mystery revealed to us in the face of
Christ. This is that God is saving his
people by Christ. Always has, always will. That's
how he saves his people in the Lord Jesus Christ. Then again,
Paul affirms this, that when we preach, it's Christ. He said,
2 Corinthians 2, 17, for we are not as many which corrupt the
word of God. What is it to corrupt the word
of God? To take your eyes off of Christ and tell you, now you've
got to get doing. You better start doing this and
doing that and straightening up and fixing this and stopping
that and saying this. And we don't say that. That's
corrupting the word of God. No, we're preaching Christ. We're
preaching Christ. But as of sincerity, Paul said,
but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ, in Christ,
because that's your salvation. That's who saves, the Lord Jesus
Christ. He saved and is saving right
now through the preaching of the word as it pleases him to
lay it to your heart. And when he saves, he reveals
faith. that looks and believes that
Christ is, yeah, he did it. I'm his and he is mine. He did
it. So understand that it's not the
act of hearing preaching. I mean, we are to preach and
you're to hear it because faith cometh by hearing and hearing
by the word of God, but the power is not of me. It's not because
I'm standing here preaching it to you. It's because the spirit
of God makes the word effectual in the hearts of his people.
That's why we're here. This is how the Lord is pleased
to save his people, and teach his people, and feed his people,
and nurse his people, in the preaching of Christ, in the candlestick
just holding up the light. That's what we're to do. We're
commanded to preach the word of God, which is Christ. And
that mystery is revealed in us by the Spirit of God. God taking
the things of Christ, the Spirit taking the things of Christ and
showing them to you, making them effectual in your heart. Therefore,
having said that, our Lord gives us a word, and this word speaks
to his people with power. Verse 18, take heed, therefore,
how ye hear. For whosoever hath, to him shall
be given. Be encouraged, you that have.
it more shall be given. And to you who have not, whosoever
hath not, from him shall be taken, even that which he seemeth to
have." And what our Lord is teaching here is that He's going to reveal
them that are His. This is Him, them that are His.
Now He gives a warning to all. That's how the word in parable
form is heard right now. Take heed how ye hear. And left to themselves, men are
going to run and scurry of what they think that means. But those
that are his are going to hear, they're going to take heed how
they hear. I don't believe that what God
is saying here is that if you deal righteously with God and
you try and listen real good, then God will deal righteously
with you and he'll give you what you're bartering for, what you're
looking for. If our salvation rests in us doing a righteous
work first, we're doomed, I'm doomed. cannot produce a righteousness
for God to then be righteous to me. Because that wouldn't
be grace, it would be wages. And that we'd have earned it.
And we know that we're all sinners and cannot earn the grace of
God. We can't work for salvation.
And so if it depended on me and you doing something first, we
would die in our sins. We would come short of the glory
of God. And so the thing is, as we heard in the parable, without
the grace of God first, we're gonna hear this word unprofitably
in one of three ways. The first way was that it would
fall on hard ground. It would fall on hard ground,
and when we're just hard in our sin, we just trample upon the
word that we've just heard. We just trample upon it, run
right over it without any care, of what we've just heard, and
then the devil, the bird, just comes and takes that word away,
and it's of no profit to us. That's one way that people hear.
The other way is that some of that seed falls on the rock,
on a rocky ground, and our Lord tells us that when the sun rises
up, that little sprout of a seed of a plant there, it withers
under the scorching heat because it has no root. It doesn't have
Christ, the root, in us. And so we would die without that
root. And that sun pictures the persecution. the hardships, the difficulties
that come, the opposition that comes. You lose your job, your
car breaks down, your spouse leaves you. Whatever it is, there's
all kinds of things that come. Somebody you think would hear
the gospel says, you're a fool, you're an idiot, get out of here
with that stuff. That's nonsense, they'll believe that, or they
even physically assault you. When you're trying to talk to
them, They just don't want to hear it. They don't believe it
or whatever. There's many ways that people
get offended by the word. And so they wither and die if
they don't have Christ in them. And then that third way that
man hears it is they may be in the truth for a long time and
they may seem to begin to bear some fruit in it. But before
that fruit comes to perfection, that word gets choked out in
them. They start caring more about this life. They care more
about the deceitfulness of riches. They start just doing normal
things in life, and that word is made unprofitable to them,
so that they stop hearing it, and they never bring forth any
fruit, no fruit at all. As Christ said in verse 14, they
bring forth no fruit to perfection. So you see it, you see the beginnings
of it, you think that something's gonna be there, but the bloom
falls off, it rots, it gets, I don't know, taken by a squirrel,
it gets ruined, it gets eaten, falls off, wind blows it, all
kinds of things. It just gets choked out and it
dies, being unfruitful. But to those with grace, they
hear the word, they hear it as a, well, those, I'm sorry, those
without grace, it's always just remains a parable to them, and
it'll be one of those three ways because they have not the grace
of God in them. Today we may have a little more
understanding than people had back then in the cities and the
towns because we have the Bible and we can flip forward and see
how he explained it, but it still will be unprofitable to us. It'll
still be heard as a parable, just like Judas heard it. Because
Judas was there and he heard all those things and it was unprofitable
to him. He died in his sin. But to those
to whom God is gracious in Christ, they will hear the word and they
will take heed. because he gives it to his people.
They will hear that word and take heed. They'll seek to be
present, to hear the word preached, as he says in verse 15, in an
honest and good heart. We try. We don't take lightly
missing the word. We want to be here. We want to
be here. And the Lord teaches us and instructs
us, and he brings us here to hear the word. And they will
seek God in prayer. I encourage you, and I speak
to myself, Pray, pray that the Lord bless the word, that he
be present and make this word effectual in our hearts. Because
without his grace, it's unprofitable. It could be unprofitable to me
and I'm preaching it. Without his grace, I'm just as
desperate for the grace of God as you are hearing it. That I
may hear it also. So pray that we would hear the
word and keep it by faith and that the Lord would make it profitable
to bring forth fruit in us. profitable fruit that glorifies
his name, fruit with patience. And when he says them, whosoever
hath to him shall be given, what he's saying there is to those
who have the grace of God in them, they will continue. You
will be blessed. You will hear this word. The
Lord will make it profitable. You'll go through trials and
tribulations. You'll go through setbacks and
difficulties, and you'll be disappointed in yourself. But God will keep
you, and he'll turn your heart, and he'll strengthen your heart.
And He'll encourage you and grow you. Again, it's a patient run. It's a patient race. And we all,
I can tell you, I have things that I look back on and feel
ashamed at what a fool I was, how slow of heart I am by nature
to believe all that the Lord by his prophets and word, by
his scriptures, what he's told the church. I'm so slow of heart,
so thick, so dense, I just am. And I'm so thankful for his patience
with me, and I'm sure many of you are thankful for his patience
with you, because it's a patient bearing, it's a patient grace
that he's given to us. But to you that have, he's gonna
keep giving it to you. He's going to keep revealing
Christ to you. And when you go astray, he's
going to bring you back. He may chasten you. He may keep
you from going down that far, but he may allow you, he may
suffer it for a reason to let you go further than you think
that you should. But in it all, God has a purpose and he's able.
And if you have, if you have the grace of God, he will keep
you. You will not be let go and depart. and you will bring forth fruit
to the praise, honor, and glory of his name and glory. And then
when he says, whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken
even that which he seemeth to have, he is describing those
who have not the grace of God. And though they may be very outwardly
religious and seem to have a lot of gifts and a lot of things
going on for them, the thing is, is without the grace of God,
they will die in their sins. They will die, except God be
gracious to them. They'll come short of the prize
of Jesus Christ, because they will stop hearing the word with
profit. It'll stop being profitable to
them, and they bring forth no fruit to perfection, even if
they endure for a long time. So, take heed, therefore, how
ye hear, because God's people are established by his grace.
And so I say that word confidently, knowing that it's of him. And
we seek him. Lord, help me to hear this word
in the manner that glorifies you and brings forth that fruit
to your praise. I don't have it in me. I don't
have it of nature, and you don't either. But he gives it. He gives
it. So I pray that he bless that
word. I pray you hear that as an encouragement that Christ
is a light. We have the light of God, brethren. We have the
light. And he's made us a candlestick to hold forth that light, to
bless you, to encourage you, to feed you, to nourish you,
to keep you so that you don't go off on those other ways. He's
given you his grace in your heart so that it's profitable to you.
And I pray he continues to make it profitable to his children. Amen.