And I'm living all on me. Go back to Matthew 13 with me.
The Lord spoke seven parables here
in this chapter, all of them concerning the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is salvation. That's what he's talking about.
The kingdom of God is who God is, where God is. It's a mystery. It's an unseen kingdom. Hidden. Hidden. Man can't see it. It's got to be revealed. The
kingdom of God is the kingdom of His dear Son, the Lord Jesus
Christ, whom men don't know and can't see until God reveals Him. The kingdom of God is the family
of God. God has a family. Paul said in heaven and in earth. The people of God. And you don't
know them. They're hidden. It does not yet
appear who He is. It's a mystery. A mystery. The Lord begins with
this parable. It must be the most important
of all of them. And I believe it is because he
speaks of how we're brought into the kingdom by the Word. Born of God. Born of the Word.
into his kingdom. The Word of God. The incorruptible
seed. That's how we're brought into
this kingdom. What you're hearing right now,
what I'm doing, preaching, what you're hearing, what you're reading
is of infinite importance. It really is a matter of life
or death. Receive the Word. And the Lord gave this parable
of four types of people who hear it. Three out of four. That's how serious it is. Four types of people. There are
always all four of those types in every congregation some way. Three out of four. Bad ground. Serious it. The Word is the seed. God's Word is the seed. And it
must be sown not in the head. but in the heart. It must be
sown here. And it must come alive. The Word must bring forth life.
The heart is like ground. The heart is like fallow ground,
unplowed ground that must be plowed up. Somebody must do that. And that's what the Holy Spirit
does. And he takes this word, this seed. It's a mystery. But
this is how he does it. Every time. He takes this word,
takes a simple seed, and in his time, according to his good pleasure,
breaks a heart, opens up a heart, plants that seed in the heart,
and gives new life. Eyes open. Ears open. Heart loves
the truth. sees their need of Christ, life
is beginning. It's all by God. It's all His
Word. And this is where the Lord began
His parables with the Word. The Word preached. The Word. Faith. Life comes by hearing. Hearing by the Word. The Word
preached. Now look at verses 1 through 3. It says, The same
day went Jesus out of the house and sat by the seaside, and great
multitudes were gathered together unto Him. And he went into a
ship and sat, and the whole multitude stood on the shore. And he spake
many things unto them in parables. Great multitudes. As great multitudes
were gathered unto him, as they still are. Many, many, many people
follow or are interested in Jesus. Then and now. Then and now. So many people heard what he
had to say then, and so many people here now. Yet, they didn't
understand. The disciples came to him. I
believe they were in that boat, that ship, with him. And they
said to him privately, Lord, what do you mean by this? And
he said to them privately, and the other people didn't hear
it. Because he said, it's given to you. It's not given to them. And that's why I said, blessed
are your ears. Blessed are you that you hear what you hear.
Do you see? They said, yes, we see. See what? That you're all our salvation. Well, many people don't see that.
They have ears, he said, but they don't hear it like you. They see, but they don't see
it that way. Oh, how blessed. The Lord is the author of this
parable. He's the one that came up with
this parable in his great wisdom. A simple earthly story of a man
out sowing seed. Oh, it's so full of wisdom. So
full. Great truth. A sower. Luke's Gospel said, A sower went
out to sow his seed. Who sows the seed? God does. It's His seed. It's His Word. He's the one that must sow it. We're broadcasting it. I'm a
broadcaster of the seed. I'm scattering it out there,
but I can't sow it. I can't make one word. No preacher
can make one word, plant one word in a heart. It's His seed. And that's what He said in John
3. that the wind bloweth where it listed, the Holy Spirit moves
on whom He will. You can't tell the sound thereof,
where He comes from or where He's going. You can't tell that.
He's sovereign. He operates on whom He will.
Who does He sow the seed in? Whom He chose. His elect. His people. And His time. He takes the seed. That's His glory, His power. And what we hope is our children,
our spouses, our parents, whoever, friends, we are the elect of
God. And His seed, which is incorruptible, is incorruptible. It won't rot.
That God will one day, and I'm getting ahead of myself, but
that seed won't return void. It'll accomplish what He sent
it for. There's only one sower, and that's
Christ, the Holy Spirit of Christ. It's His seed. His seed. Christ came to preach the Word.
Do you not recognize that He could have saved every single
person that He willed to do so? I wonder if men don't recognize
that. Because he did. Wherever he went,
he chose whom he would. He could have saved every single
person he did. Couldn't he? He didn't. He didn't. He came to save his people. Christ
is the sower. God is the husbandman. God is
the owner of all things. God our Father. Christ was sent
by God to His land. The earth is the Lord's and the
fullness thereof. Christ was sent by God with the seed, the
precious seed, to sow it. And if He doesn't sow it, there
won't be a harvest. If He doesn't sow it, there won't
be life. So that's why we pray to the
Lord Lord, make your word effectual. That's what Brother John prayed.
That's what you pray every time. The Lord gives these two things,
seed and the ground, as this parable. Seed. And what a wonderful
thing seed is. Seed. Seed doesn't come out of
the earth. No, it doesn't. You know, the age old question
is, which came first, chicken or the egg? Age of seed. Which came first, chicken or
the egg? Why, you blooming idiot. The chicken. God made the whole
thing, didn't he? In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God. See, Christ. He's not from this
earth. He is from the earth. He's earthy.
He's from heaven. The Son of God Himself. He came
down. There's no seed in the earth. The seed comes from God. And
the seed is the best part of that plant. Whatever you sow, if it's wheat,
if it's corn, if it's barley, if it's rye, whatever, it's the
best. The best part of it. What we
have here is The fullness of God. All that
we need. The best that there is of God
and Christ and what He has to say. We don't need any more.
This is all we need. This is able to make us wise
unto salvation if He plants it. It's the best. It's the best.
The seed has the full nature of the plant from which it comes.
Everything, all the fullness of that fruit or that plant is
in the seed. And in this all we see, the fullness
of God, the fullness of Christ, and you're complete. If He sows the seed in your heart,
gives you life, you'll see Christ is all. All the fullness of God
is in Him, and it has a full nature. the full character of
who God is, who Christ is, what salvation is. There's no life
until seed is sown. There won't be any life until
seed is sown. No life. No life. Seed. The life is in the seed. That's
why our Lord uses the word of this parable as the seed. Seed
often lies dormant, doesn't it? This year I planted in our garden
some half-runner beans that I've had in a bag for about five years. If you look at them, you'd think,
there's no life in those beans. Oh, yes, there is. They've got
to be planted. They've got to be planted. The
seed lies dormant. And you know, the Word of God,
He said it won't return void. This happened to me. It happened
to me. Your situation may be different,
but I remember the seeds, the Word that I heard growing up
preached to me, and I left. I was a prodigal, but the Lord
brought me back. At one time, I remember those
words coming back in my heart, in my conscience, pricking my
heart. It's hard to kick against a brick.
And I remember the words that I heard as a young man, I heard,
having the ears, I heard, but I didn't hear. I remember, it's like the Lord
was actually speaking to me. He was. He was. So it often lies
dormant, but there's life there. The Word is pure. The Word of
God is pure. Pure what? Pure grace. Pure Christ. Pure, sovereign grace. Sovereign
mercy. It does not work like we looked
at this morning. Have you ever looked at grass
seeds? Well, some of you men and women
have grown grass or tried to. Look at the bag and what does
it say? It says 99.3% weed free. Have you ever noticed that? On the tag, if you look at the
seed, because they can't say. They can't say, they cannot possibly
guarantee that there's not going to be weeds next. Such is the
word of man, all that man hath done. One little weed, oh, might
it take over your whole yard. This is the incorruptible seed
of God, the pure word, pure milk of His Word, the pure seed of
His God. There's no corruption. There's none of man's will or
works or decision any of the righteous that's not in here.
It's pure grace. Pure life. Pure Christ. Through and through. Through
and through. And if He plants that in your
heart, you'll see that your life is in Jesus Christ. Period. Period. That's what you're set. Then
the Lord uses ground as a type of man's heart. That's a good
type, isn't it? Ground. Ground is owned by somebody,
isn't it? Somebody usually purchases a
piece of property, a piece of ground. I went out when we were
going to build that place and walked all over this ground and
made a purchase of that ground. I had to clear it. And I did
it all. I cleared all the trees and grubbed
stumps and burnt windrows and planted grass, and I owned it.
It was mine. I planted it. I chose the seed
and planted all that. Ground is owned by somebody. It's going to be planted. Somebody
owns it. The earth is the Lord's, the fullness thereof, the world
and the inhabitants thereof. He said all souls are mine. Mine. Cannot I do with my own
what I will? Yes, He does. Yes, He does. Give thanks. if the seed has
been sown in you. Give thanks. Oh my, give thanks. Ground is barren of life. It's dead, isn't it? Until seed
is sown. It's dead. It's dirt until you
put the seed in. It won't grow anything. It's
barren. It's barren. Ground, until you break it up,
you don't know what's in there, do you? And when I first moved
to Rocky Mountain, I don't know why they called it Rocky Mountain.
But when I started clearing ground and plowing, I know why they
called it Rocky Mountain. Rocks everywhere. Nothing. You can't get them out. You can't
get them all out. It's full of rocks. Full of rocks.
You've got to plow it up. You don't know what's there until
you plow it up. Until the Lord plows up our hearts
and breaks our hearts, you don't know what's there. And then when
he does, oh, the rocks and the things that are there are impediment.
It's barren of life. It's unknown what's there until
it's broken up. The ground is a good illustration
of it. Good type. And the seed is sown in the ground
and it's covered up. Covered up. Nobody can see it. Can't see it. And that's good. Because who
knows who God's working on? He does. He does. He'll cover
it up. No flesh is going to glory. No
soul winner is going to glory. No preacher is going to glory.
They're not going to do it. That's another thing that's wrong
with modern religion. All these instantaneous salvations
and all these people coming down from... Who's getting to glory?
Why that preacher? That's not the way God does it.
He plants that seed in the heart, and then the Holy Spirit begins
to operate and work on that person in his good time. Unbeknownst
to anybody but God, then that little sprout comes up. Sprout
comes up. Then everybody will know it.
But God knows. It's difficult work to plow up
hard ground there. That's the hardest work in Mac
and Sam, whoever plowed up ground. Clearing land is the hardest
work I know of. Stumps and grubbing stumps and
rocks. It's the hardest thing I've ever
done. It's difficult. And it's going to take the work
of God to do it. It's going to take it. All right,
there's four types of ground our Lord used. Four types of
ground. Wayside ground. pathway, and
that stony ground, the thorny ground, and the good ground,
alright? The parables all of us know, and an illustration
that all of us can enter into, especially people here in Franklin
County, you know, know something about it. Here's what happened.
The Lord gave it. The farmer, he owned some ground,
and he had some seed. So he went out, and he began
to Plant that seed. Broadcast. In fact, today we
use the broadcast seed. Okay? Beside the field, there
was a path, a wide path. And they still have them today,
where the tractor goes. You don't want the tractor running
all over the plowed ground. It's over here on the side. It's
a hard ground that's trampled on and all that. And some of
that seed fell on that hard ground. Hard pan. Hard pan. And over
here on the fence post or over here in the tree are a couple
of crows. A couple of black crows or ravens
or whatever. And they're watching that farmer.
They're watching him. And they swoop down. As soon
as he goes by, they swoop down and grab all those seeds. Start
picking those seeds. And nothing grows on that wide,
swath path. Okay? Then some of that seed falls
on some ground right beside the plowed field that the farmer
didn't plow up. It's full of rocks, full of rocks,
because the farmer would have gotten all the rocks out, big
rocks. Some of this is full of rocks. And some of that seed
fell on those rocks, and there's just a thin layer of soil on
top of those rocks. Okay, so that seed fell on, and
they sprang up. They sprang up. But because it
was just thin soil on top of those rocks, the seed couldn't
go down and take root deep in the soil, and they sprung up.
Well, then the sun came out, real hot and real bright, and
just burnt those plants up, and they all died. And then some of that seed, that
farmer scattered out there, fell in the thicket and the thorn. There's a place where there's
thickets and thorns, okay? And it grew up, well so did the
thorns and the thickets. And it can't make it where thorns
are. And the thorns and the thickets choked out that wood. But then
some, some fell on that ground and been plowed and been plowed
under, tore all the pieces. and then disked up, and all the
rocks gotten out of, and then harrowed and prepared carefully
by the owner of that place. Some of that fell, and it began
to grow. Some hundred, sixty, thirty. And this is what our Lord is
saying, alright? And the disciples asked Him, what do you mean by
this? What do you mean? Down in verse 19. And He said,
anyone that hears the Word of God and understands it not, then
comes the wicked one and catches away that which is sown in his
heart. This is he that receives seed by the wayside. Has not the vast majority of
people heard something of God's Word? Yes. You can't live in
the world today and not hear something of the Bible. Have
they not all heard Paul say it? Yes, they have. Well, the vast
majority has heard something of it, but they all in this broad
road or wide way that seems right to them, the way of riches, the
way of man's wisdom, the way of the flesh, the way of pleasure,
the way of religion. wheel works and their way of
education and all that, this trodden path. And they hear it,
but they don't hear it. They read it, but they don't
read it. It doesn't mean a thing to them. Because the God of this
world takes it away, steals it away.
A trodden path. The seed is trampled on, or the
God of this world takes it away, the wicked ones, twists it and
corrupts it in religion. And then there's a stony ground,
verse 20 and 21. He that receiveth the seed in
the stony places, the same as he that heareth the word, and
with joy receiveth it. Seems good. Somebody hears the
gospel and it seems good. They receive the word and it
seems good. Oh, I like what I'm hearing. And they spring up,
you know. Make a profession. Zealous. They keep coming for
a while and they sit and they seem to like what they're hearing. But then it says in verse 20
that 21, don't have any root in himself. A root. The Lord
said of Job, the root of the matter is in him. What's the
root? What's the root of the matter? Christ. Is He not the
vine? The root is in the heart too.
The heart, taproot. Every big plant has what you
call a taproot. One major root that goes straight
down. You have all these little side
roots that go here and there, but there's a taproot. What's
it doing? Tapping. Looking for moisture. Going deep
too. And that goes deep. That taproot
goes deep down in the soil looking for moisture. And when God puts
Christ in the heart, the root of the matter, Christ in them
by faith, He puts it down in the depths of their heart, the
depths of their soul. And they got to find Christ,
cling to Christ. He's their moisture. He's their
life. The root of the matter is Christ in them, their hope
of glory. That's the root of the matter.
Love for Christ. Love for His truth. Love for
His gospel. That's the root of the matter.
Love. Love. That root. But they don't have
any root. They're just shallow. Have some head knowledge. Some
head knowledge. No real heart love, but head
knowledge. Just shallow. And then the sun
comes up. Look at this. Verse 21. He says
the Son had no root in Himself, but when tribulation or persecution
arises because of the Word, by and by He is offended. Over there
in verse 6, he said it was the Son that came up. And they were
scorched. What's the Son? Who's the Son? Christ is the Son of Righteousness. This was pretty much a revelation
to me trials and affliction. The Lord called it tribulation
and persecution for the word's sake. His sake. Christ is the Son of Righteousness. Is not Christ like a consuming
fire? Is not Christ the one who burns
up all of man's works? Everything He has done and said,
exposes everything. The light exposes everything.
The sun exposes everything. The sun will burn up everything
and everyone that does not have its roots and its foundation
and its soul clinging to Christ Himself. One time Christ was
preaching in John 6 and He preached and He said many hard things.
Remember, Christ said this too. He said, if I hadn't come, they'd
have no covering for their sin. But I come now and expose everything
about them. Everything I say exposes them.
Whether or not the root's there. If it's not there, they'll fade
away. They'll burn up. Burn up their
everything. And he was preaching in John
6 and says, many went away and won't no more with them. He said,
these are hard sins. The truth, Christ, who He is,
what He did, whether or not He did it to you, is a hard thing. It's offensive. You know that? The cross is offensive. The truth
is offensive to religious people. And most can't bear it, because
they don't have any real heart and love for Christ. Did anything
I say in the morning message offend you? about Christ being
Isaac, the promised son. Salvation being completely in
Him. That what God said about Hagar, cast her out. And the
bond and the son, cast him out. Isn't that offensive to you?
It's what God's Word said. Isn't that offensive? Did I say it in an offensive
way? Maybe. I worry about that. I really
do. I really do. But I tell you what, people,
You can't help being you. You're going to live all your
life and find out you can't change yourself. You can't do it. There's nothing you can do about
your personality. There's nothing you can do about it. And don't
blame it on your parents either. It may have come from way on
down the line, but you can't change you. You're going to be
what you are. You're going to say and do things exactly the
way you did the rest of your life. You're going to grow in
grace hopefully. Hopefully the Lord will temper
you a little bit. And preaching, I want to preach
it in such a way as to not be offensive myself. Now, I tell
you what, you ought to listen to some old preaching. Go back and listen to some old
preaching. I do it a lot. And ten out of ten grace preachers
set the woods on fire. Whatever I said this morning
may have offended somebody. They came in and heard that and
they left. A couple came in here and they
left. And I'm sitting there thinking,
what could I have said that could have offended them? About Christ
getting all the glory. Should I not say anything about
German Baptists? German Baptists need to hear
this message mad. If they're not trusting Christ
alone, if they're trusting their goodness, they're lost. I don't
care how moral they are. The Jews. God said they're in
blindness. They're in darkness. All of them.
All of them. Didn't He? I tell you, if a person's at
a burning building, you can't say it the nice way. You can't
say it the nice way. People cling to a false profession.
You need to kill it. The Son of Christ. You know,
you preach Christ high enough Boy, he'll heal everything he's
ever done. That's an offense to religious
people. It's an offense. The offense
of the cross to say that only what Jesus Christ did merits
anything. Accomplish this salvation. It's
not you and Christ. It's Him and Him alone. That
offends religious people. That offends them. So be it. So be it. But if the root's there,
you can't offend them. You can't offend them. Knock
the roots there. Stony ground here springs up. Oh, I like this. I like this.
Yes, this is good. This is good. Then you keep laying
that root. You keep laying the axe out. The sun keeps shining. And that
person, oh, wait a minute now. That's a little hard. It's a little hard. You know,
the Lord said this, He said, I kill and I make alive. Didn't He? You've got to be killed
before you make alive. You've got to know nothing before
you know anything. You've got to be broken before
you heal. But there's no root. Son came
up. That's Christ. Son, the Light,
the One. Tribulation, pressure, persecution,
ridicule, rejection, mocking. Someone gets religion. Someone
gets religion. Before time, they're devoted. But then their old friends begin
to say, nobody believes like you do. Nobody believes that. You think you're right and everybody
else is wrong? You think they're right and everybody else is wrong?
Nobody believes what you're all believing. That can't be right. Can all these people be wrong?
Can a few people be right? Huh? And then they say, they persecute. Tribulation is pressure. Put
pressure on you. Spouses. It's either me or this
religion of yours. A spouse will put pressure on
you. A boyfriend or a girlfriend.
I don't like that. I don't like what you believe.
And I'm not coming with you. So it's either you It's either
this religion or me. If there's no root, then we go. This is our hope, you know. It's
our hope that the Lord will give a love for Christ because it
will overcome every other obstacle. Then there's a thorny ground.
Verse 22, he said, This thorny ground is he that receiveth seed
among the thorns, and is he that heareth the word, and the care
of this world, deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and
he becomes unfruitful. And this really worries me here.
Sometimes I wonder, am I thorny ground here? And we all ought
to. We all ought to worry about it.
The Lord gave it and revealed it to His disciples. The other
people didn't have it revealed. But the disciples did. He said the care of this world,
the deceitfulness of riches choke the Word. I read one time of
a preacher, I forget who he was, who ended every single message
with this. Every single message. He ended
it asking the Lord, Lord, let the seed fall on good ground.
Don't let it fall among foes. Don't let the pow come take it
away. Every single minute. Because it's that important.
It's that important. Thorny ground. Care of this world. Deceitfulness of riches. For
every person that's fallen by the wayside because of some sin
or whatever, Nine out of ten have fallen because of riches
and the cares of this world and things of that depth. All right, now the good ground.
It says, He that receives seed in the good ground, oh my, is
he that hears the Word and understands it. The Lord's got to give us
ears to hear that. The Lord's got to give us a heart
to receive, doesn't He? Huh? to break up this stony ground.
He calls the Word of God not only seed, but he calls it a
hammer. Hammer. And you men, maybe women,
we've got some pretty tough women in here. You ever broken rocks? Huh? Concrete? Busted up concrete?
One blow going to do it? Huh? One? Oh no, you can't bust... I have literally taken an 8 pound
slip... 15 pounds. and hit that thing, and hit that
thing, and hit that thing, and if you want to bust it up, you're
going to keep hitting it. There's one thing that's going to do
it. The hammer. We keep hammering away. This word. Keep hammering
away. We hope the Lord is using it. And they say, it's not my
word as a hammer. It breaks a hard heart. That
heart is so hard. Oh, my. Mindy and I were talking
about somebody in particular that is hardened pride and hardened
by self-conceit and hardened by knowledge and their seeming
so-called understanding and professing themselves wise. And we have
reminded each other that God's Word is able. Oh, God's Word
is able. Saul of Tarsus. You're not going
to break him. You're not going to get through
to him. You're not going to tell him anything. Nobody could tell
him anything. Nobody could teach him anything.
Nobody's going to convict him of anything. Saul of Tarsus. Yeah, I am one fine fellow. One word. Oh, Martin Luther,
I love that. One little word will fill him.
Just takes one word by the Lord. One word. And we keep preaching. You've
got these feeble fellows up here trying to do this, but it's not
in them. It's not in their power. It's
in the Word. And we keep preaching the Word. And we don't use tactics
and we don't use charisma. We don't use various things, persuasive words
of man's wisdom. We're not trying to convince
people into anything. We just preach the Word. Just
keep preaching the Word. And sometimes we're hammered
at war, hammered, hammered. And when God's pleased, boy,
oh, He'll break up that hard heart. He'll break the hardest
of hearts, the stoniest of ground. He'll break it up to receive
the engrafted seed of the Word. Oh, my. He'll give ears to hear,
eyes to see God's Glory, God's holiness, eyes to see his own
sinfulness, eyes to see Christ as his only hope. God's got to
do it. That's good ground. Ground's
not good in itself until it's plowed up, is it? Good ground,
good ground. Nobody's good until God makes
them so. He that heareth the word and
understandeth it, some brings forth fruit. It all brings forth
fruit. Some brings forth a hundredfold,
some sixty, some thirty. Now listen, people, for your
comfort, I'm going to close with this. What is the fruit that
is brought forth? The seed of God's Word brings
forth fruit. What is it? Well, Paul tells
us that in Galatians chapter 5, if I can find it. It's in
here. I know it is. Galatians 5. He
says, here's the fruit. Fruit. Some fruit. Singular.
All this fruit is in all of God's people. Some hundred. Some sixty. Some thirty. Some more. One. More or less the other. All of
them have some. You say, I don't feel like I
have any. Hold on now. Hold on. Here's
the fruit. Here's the fruit. The fruit of
the Spirit. It's His work. It's His seed. It's His work. It's His operation
of the Spirit. He's the one that produces it.
You and I can't produce one fruit. Try as you may. You can't do
it. It's the fruit of the Spirit.
Love. First thing. First thing. Don't hang your
head. Don't hang your head. Don't do that. Hold on now. Do you
love what you've heard this morning? Do you love the Word? You didn't leave. Do you love
it? Do you love hearing God exalted? Christ exalted? Do you love hearing
about free grace? Do you love hearing about God
choosing the people? Do you love hearing that Christ saved sinners,
the worst on earth? Do you love that? That's the
love He puts in God's people's heart. Pharisees don't have that. Pharisees hate that. Free will
people hate that. Don't tell me about God choosing
me. Talk about how I chose Him. They hate that. Do you love God being God? Do
you love His Word? Do you love His Son? Say, not
like I do. No. Maybe not a hundredfold. Maybe not sixty. One. One ounce
of love for His Son. It wasn't there before. God did
it. I keep bringing it up myself
and I don't know how else to say it, but there was a time
when I heard this word and I just didn't love it. I just didn't
love it. My parents brought me and I heard it and I believed
it in my head, but then after a while, I loved the world. The
world was in my heart. Girls and the world and dang
riches and the sinfulness of riches and that's what I went
after. So I don't need that. I went after it. And I would have perished there. But God... I can't preach the
gospel without saying those two words. But God, rich in mercy,
for the great love wherewith He loved me, brought me back,
put me under the sound of the gospel, quickened me, broke my
heart, opened my ears, opened my eyes, gave me a need for Christ,
And I began to love it. I began to love what I was hearing. Love. Joy. Joy. Joy. Rejoice in the Lord. Oh,
I used to find so much joy and happiness in things. Things. And still do to a certain degree.
I'm not lying to you. I'm being honest. But really,
my chief joy, my greatest joy is this right here. And if you
told me that back then, I'd say, I don't understand that. I don't
understand that. You really do enjoy this, don't
you? Yes! I rejoice and cry, God my Savior. Rejoice. It doesn't
get any better than this. It doesn't. Peace. In the world, you should have
tribulations. peace. I find peace in this message
of Christ. Peace. And he's broken down this
enmity in my heart against God, against Christ, against everybody
else. I'll tell you the one that I'm
starting to, you know, peace is reconciliation with God. Yes, Christ made that. But amongst
people, God's got to kill that old Pharisee in us. He's got
to kill that old hateful fellow in us. All that anger and that
wrath and that malice, He's got to kill it. Make you peaceable
and gentle and easy to be intrigued and love others more than you
love yourself. And this growth, this grace, it will make us start
hating ourselves and loving others. Peace. Long-suffering. The more
you realize how the Lord's put up with you, the more you'll
start putting up with it. Long suffering. And I didn't
have an ounce of that in the beginning. Didn't think I did. A young believer, how can a young
believer be puffed up with self-righteousness? But you are, aren't you? What
you know, what you found out, what you understand, what's been
revealed to you. And then you get all, what's
wrong with these dumb Armenians? You realize that you were down
in that pit and the Lord hadn't come and pulled you out. Martin
Luther said this, Ty. I love this. He said, I was a
monk who died deep in the wool, a monk. And he said, I had those
things ingrained in me. And he said, it took years to
get all those weeds and stones out of me. He said, I am not
going to get mad and come down on these, my brothers, monks. I'm not going to do it. God have
mercy on me. And how could I get mad at them? A long suffering. A hundredfold. Hopefully, when it's all over,
we'll have a hundredfold. And when you've got a hundredfold,
what's happening? Ready to be plucked. You know
I'm not talking about sinless perfection. You know that. And
then there's gentleness. Oh, man. Old believers. Get soft. Well, good. Good. He's getting soft. That's what
they said about my dad one time. He said, he's just getting soft. Boy, I hope I do. That's what
rain does. It softens you. Gentleness. Goodness. That's
Christ. There's none good but God. There's
none good but Christ. We don't have any goodness. And
hopefully, the Lord make us more like Christ, goodness, some hundred,
some sixty, some thirty, and then there's faith. Oh man, faith,
faith. I do believe, but it ain't a
hundred fold. Do you believe? Yeah. Oh, it's
all fruit, meekness. That's submissive submission
to God's will. I do pray, Lord, Thy kingdom
come, Thy will be done. I do pray that. Don't let me
have my will. I don't want my will. I don't
want what I want. Don't you? I pray, Lord, Thy
will be done. But then when He does it, I sure would have liked to have
had what I wanted. I got about that much. Thirtyfold, tenfold. But I do have that. Do you? Meekness. Temperance. Temperance? Well, we've seen what that means. Let your moderation be known.
The Lord is going to bring that out and show us that you're nothing. Against such is no law. And they
that are Christ's, they have this fruit. They have this fruit.
Some 100, some 60, some 30. Good ground. That hit half ears
to hear. Let him hear, the Lord said.
Parable of the sower. We hope, we pray, the Lord of
harvest will sow that seed anew in somebody or cause the seed
that has been sown to spring up. Life, life. And we'll give Him all the honor
and glory. Alright, John, let's sing a closing hymn.