Good morning, everybody. It's
good to see you. We're going to do things a little
bit differently this morning. We normally go through Mark 4
for our Sunday morning message, but we're going to be there for
the Bible study this morning. So let's turn to Mark chapter
4. And let's have a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, we come
before you this morning. So grateful to be here. Thank
you so much, Lord, for calling us out of this world and opening
our eyes, revealing the truth to us. Lord, so many people are
gathering this morning in the name of religion. May we be here
in the name of Christ. Lord, would you please enable
us to give him honor and glory and thanks and praise. Lord,
would you sharpen us right now? Would you sharpen our minds and
our hearts? And would you help us this morning?
Let us enter into your word. Let us enter into your truth. Let us enter into the gospel.
Let our hearts burn within us, Lord, if it be thy will. Would
you please give us liberty to preach and liberty to hear? It
takes just as much liberty to hear as it does to preach. And Lord, would you help us all?
Be with us and let this flesh just leave us for a minute. Dear
Lord, we ask that you would bless our little ones downstairs. Lord,
bless the class. If it be thy will, would you
have mercy on them and save them? Lord, do for them what you've
done for us. And we pray that you would show great mercy to
this town. Lord, everywhere you've raised up your gospel, would
you bless it? We ask all these things, Lord. We ask for your
help, your favor, your spirit. We ask all these things for Christ's
sake. Amen. Mark chapter four. Our Lord, right here in Mark
chapter four, he preached a message to a huge multitude of people. It's called the parable of the
sower. We all know this. We all know
this story, the parable of the sower. And he said to them in
verse 9, after he told them some things about this sower who went
forth to sow, he said in verse 9, he that hath ears to hear,
let him hear. He that hath ears to hear, let
him hear. What a wonderful declaration
from God Almighty. I hope that happens to me this
morning. I hope it happens to you. I love you. I want you to
be blessed this morning. But I want to be blessed this
morning. If God has given me ears to hear,
I pray that the throne of heaven says, he that hath ears to hear,
let him hear. I want to hear this morning. Let him hear. This multitude,
they heard him say that. They all had ears. Didn't they? This huge, I would imagine, Hardly
any of them were without two ears. Right? They all had ears. He told them, he that hath ears
to hear, let him hear. But that's not what he's talking
about. He's talking about the ear of this heart. He's talking
about truly hearing, understanding, and believing that has to be
given by God. So we're beggars this morning,
Lord. You have given us ears. Would
you let us hear? Verse 10, and when he was alone,
they that were about him with the twelve asked of him the parable. They said, you gave this parable,
Lord, what does it mean? Matthew's account says they asked
him, why speakest thou unto them in parables? That's what the
disciples and those that were around, this great multitude,
why are you preaching to them in parables? Verse 11, and he
said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of
the kingdom of God." Unto you it's given. That ear to hear,
that mind to understand, that heart to believe, that's a gift
from God. But unto them that are without. Last week we looked at Mary and
his brethren. They were standing without, without
Christ. without this gift from God. To
them that are without, all these things are done in parables. That seeing they may see and
not perceive. They open this word and they
don't see it. Poor souls. Because we have it
right here in black and white. And they open this word and they
don't see it. They read the words but they don't see the mystery
of the kingdom of God. Verse 12 says, and hearing they
may hear and not understand. They sit in the pews. They hear this gospel go out. They hear a preacher's words,
but they have no idea what it's all about. You know, this morning,
everybody's gathering. This is the last Sunday morning
before Christmas. People have no idea what Life
is all about, do they? Salvation is all about. Verse
12 says, lest at any time they should be converted and their
sins should be forgiven them. And then he said something in
verse 13 that really got my attention. He said unto them, know ye not
this parable? And how then will you know all
parables? You don't know this parable?
You don't understand this one? How will you understand any of
them? What he's saying is this parable is the key that unlocks
every parable. Every single one. And I'm just
going to tell you what it is. Here's what it is. Verse 14,
the sower soweth the word. Yes, the word. Yes, the gospel
preached, but what is that? John wrote, in the beginning
was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.
This parable is all about Jesus Christ. It's all about Jesus
Christ. It's not about doing better. You know, we're about to talk
about wayside, hard, thorny. It's not about doing better.
This is all about Jesus Christ. As we continue, we're going to
see many parables in Mark. Look at verse 21. He said unto
them, is a candle brought to be put under a bushel? That candle
right there, that's Christ. This little light of mine, I'm
going to let it shine. No, that's Christ. We're called
the candlestick that holds up the candle, right? That's Christ. Look at verse 30. He said, where
unto shall we like in the kingdom of God or with what comparison
shall we compare it? It's like a grain of mustard
seed. That mustard seed right there
is Christ. I tell you what, if you could
just conjure up a grain of mustard seed of faith, you'll move a
mountain. No, I'm not going to move anything. Christ is. It's all Christ. If we don't
see Christ in it, then the mystery of the kingdom of God is still
hidden to us. This is all about Christ. Now
look at verse 1. Mark 4 verse 1. And he began again to teach by
the seaside and there was gathered unto him a great multitude so
that he entered into a ship and sat in the sea and the whole
multitude was by the sea on the land. It struck me that our Lord
went to the people. He's preaching by the seaside.
He didn't hide in the synagogue. He went out to where the people
were, brought the gospel to them. Verse 2, and he taught them many
things by parables and said unto them in his doctrine. The word
doctrine means words. That's all it means. It means teaching, speaking. It does not mean deep philosophy. He sat there and he just gave
them deep philosophy. Hard to understand methods. That's not what it means. It
just means words. This is what he said. Verse three,
he said, hearken. And that's what I want to do.
And that's what I want to encourage all of us to do. Let's listen
to what he has to say. Verse three, behold, there went out
a sower to sow. And we've already read verse
14, which said the sower soweth the word. He's talking about
a preacher and the gospel. And he's using this physical
illustration here of a man reaching into a bag of seed, pulling out
a handful of seed and slinging it. He's using this physical
illustration to represent a preacher in his message and that's what
we're doing. We get on the radio, we get on the internet, if need
be we'll open the windows and just start slinging seed and
just see what the Lord does with it. Verse 3, Behold, there went
out a sower to sow, and it came to pass, as he sowed, some fell
by the wayside, and the fowls of the air came and devoured
it up. The wayside, that's the part
people don't pay much attention to. The wayside. Verse 5, 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 away. There wasn't much dirt there,
just rocks, hard ground, and there was no root, so it withered
away. Verse 7 says, And some fell among thorns, and the thorns
grew up and choked it, and it yielded no fruit. And other fell
on good ground, and did yield fruit that sprang up and increased,
and brought forth some thirty, and some sixty, and some an hundred. And he said unto them, He that
hath ears to hear, let him hear." Now in our Lord's parable This
seed is the gospel of Christ. It's the gospel of Christ, the
preached word himself. And these four types of ground
right here represent the hearers of the gospel. There are four
types of hearers of the gospel. You preach this gospel to somebody
and especially if a visitor walks in, you wonder, What's going
to be the response? It's going to be one of four
ways. Every soul on this earth is one of these types of ground
when it comes to hearing this gospel preached. Every hearer
in this room right now is represented by one of these types of ground.
Every one of us. What I'm going to do this morning
is show you which one I am. All right, I'm going to show
you which ground I am. And then you can, in your heart,
examine yourself and see what kind of ground you are, OK? Our
Lord said in verse 14, the sower soweth the word. He's explaining the parable to
them. And these are they by the wayside, where when the word
is sown, but when they have heard, Satan cometh immediately and
taketh away the word that was sown in their hearts." That's
those by the wayside. That ground right there, that
one is me. That one is me. I'm dead. I'm telling you I'm dead. I'm dead. The precious words of life are
in this book. The precious sing them over again
to me. Where am I? Where's my mind? I'm being serious. Where's my
heart? Where's the effect? Where's the burn? Where's the
cry? I'm being honest. Wayside. Wayside. Prone to wander. Lord, I feel
it. Prone to leave the God I love.
I can't pray most times without wandering off to the wayside.
Is that you? My heart wanders, my mind wanders. I don't see anything in my flesh. I don't see anything in my flesh
that is truly fervent for Christ and his gospel. I don't see anything
in myself. Yeah, but you sit in that study
every day and study for these messages. I don't see anything
in my flesh that is fervent for Christ and his gospel, not one
thing. When it comes to this flesh, it's almost like all the
faith he gives me, you know faith comes by hearing, it's almost
like all the faith he gives me keeps getting taken away. He'll give me, I'll come in here
and I'll hear the word and he'll give me some faith And he'll
give me some comfort and he'll give me some rest. I get all
that through his word. And as soon as I walk out that
door, it's like it all gets taken away. Is that you? And then I'm troubled again.
That's the one that I am right there. Wayside. Verse 16 says,
and these are they likewise which are sown on stony ground, who
when they have heard the word, immediately receive it with gladness
and have no root in themselves. And so endure but for a time. Afterward, when affliction or
persecution ariseth for the word's sake, immediately they are offended."
That stony ground right there, that one is me. That's me. That's the one I am. This flesh
right here is so hard. It is so hard. It is so easily offended. It is so easily offended. You take God's grace out of the
equation. You take God's grace totally
out of the equation. Leave us to our flesh. and see
how we respond to affliction, persecution, and offense. How do we respond? I don't want
to hear that. You shut your mouth. I don't
want to hear it. Verse 18, these are they which
are sown among thorns, such as hear the word And the cares of
this world and the deceitfulness of riches and the lust of other
things entering in choke the word and it becometh unfruitful. That thorny ground right there,
I know you're not going to believe this, but that's me. That one
right there, that's me. All this flesh has ever done
is hurt. Hurt myself and hurt others. That's all this flesh has ever
done. And it's because of my sin. The cares of this world,
the deceitfulness of riches, the lust of other things. It's
all sin. That's all it is. It's all sin.
As ground, we're supposed to bear fruit, aren't we? We're all ground. We're supposed
to bear fruit, but when the fruit is covered with thorns, every
time you try to reach in and lay hold of it, it hurts every
single time. It hurts. Every supposedly good
thing that I've ever done has been tainted by sin. Now, come on. You've done a lot
of good things for a lot of people. Yes, but it has all been tainted
by sin. Every bit of it. That old preacher
said, I cannot read but I sin. I cannot pray but I sin. I cannot
preach but I sin. It's all been tainted by sin. That's me, that thorny ground.
Verse 20 says, And these are they which are sown on good ground,
such as hear the word, and receive it, and bring forth fruit, some
thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred." Thank God Almighty. I believe with all of my heart,
that ground right there, that's me. I do, I believe it is. I believe
that ground right there is me. Hannah wanted a garden this last
spring. And a bunch of us jumped on board.
We were all going to do gardens, weren't we? But she wanted this
garden, so I went out and we were going to put it in the backyard.
I looked at the backyard. We were trying to figure out
where to put the garden. It was all the same. It did not
matter. It was all wayside. That's all
it was. None of it was ready to take
seed. If I would have had a seed in
my hand, there wasn't a spot in my backyard that was ready
to take seed. Not one spot was good ground,
ready to plant right now. Good. So here's what we did. We chose a spot out of all the ground. We did
it. We chose a spot. A spot that
wasn't ready. A spot that was not good. And I got a shovel out. And I was, in my mind, going
to take that shovel and go, phoom. Instead it went, kuh. And I thought,
man, that ground is hard. And it was. Man, it was so hard,
it had rocks in it. And I dug around in a few spots
and it was all exactly the same. Every bit of it, it was all the
same. It was all hard, stony, wayside ground, and it was all
covered. I have crab grass in my yard.
You know that stuff that digs in and it runs and sprays, it
just takes over. And that stuff chokes out the
fruit. You don't get that stuff out
of there, it's just gonna crawl all over your fruit. Choke every
bit of it out. It was bad ground. That's all
it was, bad ground. But we chose a spot and we purposed
for that spot to no longer be wayside ground. You are not going
to be wayside ground anymore. Not that spot right there. This
ground right here is going to receive seed and bear fruit. And we said, that spot right
there, you see all those rocks in it? That spot is no longer
going to be stony ground. I put a shovel in it. I started
busting it up. It starts as clods. It's like
the whole size of the shovel. It's clay. It's packed, and it's
just a big pile of clods. And the rocks, I started gathering
all those rocks up, and I threw those rocks out. All that crabgrass that was growing
over it, I got all that stuff out, I threw it out. And then
what I did is I made some boxes. We did a raised bed garden. I
made some boxes and I hedged my spot about. I sanctified it. I set it apart for, you're going
to be set apart from the rest of the ground. I'm doing something
here. And what I did is I brought in
new dirt. I brought in brand new dirt.
I brought in good ground. Ground that was not there before.
I bought this dirt. I went and bought it. It was
living composted ground. This ground actually had a bunch
of worms in it. You dig into it and it was just
full of worms. Good ground that had a bunch
of worms in it. Fear not thou worm, Jacob. This composted ground had been
tried. It had been turned. And I put that ground in there
and then I put nutrients in it. I gave that spot everything it
needed to bear fruit. It was not there before. I put
it all there. And that's now the spot's dirt.
It belongs to the spot. The nutrients belong to the spot. I gave them all of that stuff. I made it to be what it is today. I broke it, I tilled it, I gave
to it, and then I planted a seed in it. And bless the God of heaven,
that's exactly what He did to me. That's what He did to me. Now, by my way, I have three
minutes, but I cannot stop. All right, I want to show you
a couple things and then we'll quit. Turn with me to Ezekiel 16. Ezekiel 16 verse 4 says, And
as for thy nativity, in the day when thou wast born, thy navel
was not cut, neither was thou washed in water to supple thee.
Thou wast not salted at all, nor swaddled at all. None eye
pitied thee to do any of these unto thee, to have compassion
upon thee, but thou wast cast out in the open field to the
loathing of thy person in the day that thou wast born. That
was me. Wayside cast out. Verse eight. Now, when I passed by thee and
looked upon thee, behold, thy time was a time of love. And
I spread my skirt over thee and covered thy nakedness. Yea, I
swear unto thee and entered into a covenant with thee, saith the
Lord God, and thou becamest mine. Then washed I thee with water,
yea, I throughly washed away thy blood from thee, and I anointed
thee with oil. I clothed thee also with broided
work, and shod thee with badger skin. I girded thee about with
fine linen, and I covered thee with silk. I decked thee also
with ornaments, I put bracelets upon thy hands, and a chain on
thy neck, and I put a jewel on thy forehead, and earrings in
thine ears, and a beautiful crown upon thy head. Thus was thou
decked with gold and silver, and thy raiment was of fine linen,
and silk embroidered work, Thou didst eat fine flour and honey
and oil, and Thou was exceeding beautiful, and Thou didst prosper
into a kingdom. And Thy renown went forth among
the heathen for Thy beauty, for it was perfect through My comeliness,
which I had put upon Thee, saith the Lord. You were made perfect
through my comeliness. That's what he said. That song
says as poor wretched sinners, no God and no hope, it seemed
there was no one to help. But God in his mercy, salvation
supplied, emptied heaven, came down himself and a ransom was
found. God did something. Look at Ezekiel
11. Verse 14 says, Again, the word of the Lord came
unto me, saying, Son of man, thy brethren, even thy brethren,
the men of thy kindred, and all the house of Israel, holy are
they unto whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem have said, Get you
far from the Lord. Unto us is this land given in
possession. Therefore say, thus saith the
Lord God, although I have cast them far off among the heathen,
and although I have scattered them among the countries, yet
will I be to them as a little sanctuary in the countries where
they have come. Therefore say, thus saith the
Lord God, I will even gather you from the people and assemble
you out of the countries where you have been scattered, and
I will give you the land of Israel. And they shall come thither,
and they shall take away all the detestable things thereof,
and all the abominations thereof from thence. And I will give
them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. And
I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give
them an heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes,
and keep mine ordinances, and do them, and they shall be my
people, and I will be their God. I gathered you from the wayside.
I took out that heart of stone and I put a brand new heart in
there, a heart of flesh, one that loves, one that loves God,
loves his people, one that believes, one that believes on, one that
produces fruit. I made you ready to walk in my
statutes, keep my ordinances. I made you to be that way. Now,
here's the question though. What about my sin? What about
my thorns? The thorns of my sin, they've
tainted all my good works. What about all my thorns? Go
to John 19. John 19 verse 1 says, Then Pilate
therefore took Jesus and scourged him, and the soldiers plaited
a crown of thorns and put it on his head. He bore our thorns. He saw us when we were cast aside,
polluted in our blood, and he said, you're going to be mine.
And He took us to Himself and He took out that heart of stone
and He put in a heart of flesh. And then He took every single
one of our thorns and He pressed it into Himself, didn't He? He
bore our thorns and they're gone. They're gone. In Christ, we're
not wayside. We're not stony and we're not
thorny anymore. Anymore. God made us to be good
ground. Good ground. And his seed in
us, Christ in us will bear fruit. And the God of heaven said, he
that hath ears to hear, let him hear. Isn't that wonderful? Let
him hear. All of us. That's all we are,
ground made ready. That's all we are, is ground
made ready. He broke us, he tilled us, he
gave to us, he planted a seed in us, he will water us. And he'll make his fruit grow,
some 30 fold, some 60, some 100, but he will give the increase.
All right, you're dismissed.