Let's open the Scriptures to
the book of Matthew chapter 13. The book of Matthew chapter 13. I have another little throat
procedure Friday that has left me just a little bit on the horse
side. So, we'll do the best we can. And I hope that the message will
be audible and that will be understandable to each of you. Obviously, our
subject is the parable of the sower. As the scripture is read
to us in Matthew chapter 4, our Lord Jesus gave forth several
kingdom parables. Actually, Matthew is the only
one who records all seven of the kingdom parables. Mark and Luke, they record a
few of the Kingdom parables. Only Matthew records all seven
of them. And Matthew, Mark, and Luke record
this one in its fullness. So that is worth remembering. These are the Kingdom parables.
Now, here's the way this developed.
Our Lord Jesus had performed a great miracle, and as a result,
many people were curious to see Him and to listen to Him. And He went down by the ocean
side. He had such a vast congregation
that He got into a little boat that was anchored, and everybody
gathered on the seashore to listen to Him teach. Now as He gave
forth these kingdom parables, He did so in fulfillment of the
Scriptures. Look with me in verses 34 and
35 of Matthew chapter 13. Verse 34 of Matthew 13, all these
things speak Jesus unto the multitude in parables. What is a parable? An earthly story, an illustration
that delivers or speaks of a spiritual truth. And then he says, and
without a parable, speaking not unto them, at least on this occasion. Why was this so? Verse 35. that
it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying,
I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter things which have
been kept secret from the foundation of the world." So here this vast
multitudes are gathered before him and he's speaking on this
day only in parables. This manner of teaching was,
our Lord used an object or an event or some circumstance that
was a daily thing, something they were familiar with. He often
spoke this way. In John chapter 10, He said,
I am the door. I am the door. Well, that's a
good illustration. What does a door do? A door lets
you enter and a door lets you exit. He said, I am the door. By me, if any man enter in, he
shall be saved and shall go in and out and find pasture. In our Lord's Sermon on the Mount,
He talked about a narrow way and a broad way. That's understandable. He said of the narrow way, he
said it leads to life eternal. He also said few there be, just
a few, find it. He said of the broad way, he
said many go on the broad way. The end thereof is death. He spoke in ways, in other words,
he used illustrations that people could kind of take hold of. They
could grasp what he was saying. Now, everybody didn't understand
the spiritual meanings and all the spiritual ramifications of
these illustrations, but at least they could understand the illustration.
Like in that one in Matthew chapter 6, a narrow way and a broad way. It's understandable. There's
just one way that leads to life everlasting. In fact, that one
way, in being a narrow way, it is so narrow, it's the only way,
it's the way Christ Jesus. And so He says in John chapter
14, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto
the Father but by Me. When He says a narrow way, we
understand You've got to squeeze to get in. That is, there's no
room for you and any baggage. No baggage. Leave your works
behind. Leave your deeds behind. Leave
all your prayers, your Bible readings, everything that you
think merits something good from God, you've got to leave it all
behind. You go through the entrance.
You go through the door. You go through the entryway.
You see, there is but one way to God. There is but one door
of salvation. Several years ago, I think it
was about ten, twelve years ago, there was a book written, I think
the name of it was, The Ecumenical Jihad. Ecumenical Jihad. And in the book, this guy said,
it doesn't make any difference which religion you embrace. It
doesn't make any difference what you believe, because all roads
lead to God. All roads lead to heaven. So
he said it doesn't make any difference whether you're a Baptist or a
Buddhist. It doesn't make any difference whether you're a Methodist
or a Muslim. That has no bearing. In fact,
he said, you can even be an atheist. Because what is an atheist? He
is in search of truth. Who is all truth? God is all
truth. So in the end, God will even
accept the atheist. Ecumenical. Everybody is going
to the same place. Well, the only problem with that
is, that's a lie. That's not true. The Lord Jesus
said very specifically, I am the door. I am the way. There's just one way to God.
There's just one door to God. So here's my meaning. Here's
what I'm trying to say. Our Lord Jesus spoke in words. These illustrations people could
understand. That is, they could understand
what they meant physically and literally. But they couldn't
understand the spiritual ramifications of them unless He gave them eyes
to see and ears to hear. And that's what He's got to do
for us today. Because we have the words on the pages. of sacred
Scripture. We have the Word of God. We have
God's salvation. We read of God's grace. We read
of God's mercy. We read of the Lord Jesus. We
read of His blood and of His righteousness, of His satisfaction
of divine justice. We hear the words. We see the
words on the printed page. God has to give us understanding
in the heart. His Word of God is the seed that
we sow. as in the parable. And as I sow
the seed this morning, that's what I'm doing right now. I'm
sowing the good seed. It's going to fall on all different
kinds of ground. And the Lord's got to make His
Word prosperous and successful in those to whom He sends it. So our Lord uses illustrations
to teach spiritual truth. Now, as a rule, as a rule, every
parable, every illustration that our Lord gave of spiritual truth,
as a rule, each one has just one primary truth that's emphasized. Most everything else is incidental
to the parable unless the Lord makes the application. And so
when you get to a parable, as we're going to go through the
kingdom parables, as the Lord gives an illustration, as He
breaks it down, then we'll break it down. But if He doesn't do
that, we have to be very careful, very careful in trying to make
something out of an incidental segment of the parable. This is the first of a series
of parables that our Lord gave to his disciples, and he always
starts his parables with something that can be understood, and then
moves to something that they don't understand. He begins with
something that people see, and He moves on to something that
people cannot see. He starts with something natural,
and then He moves to something that is supernatural. He starts
with that which is material, and He moves on to that which
is spiritual. He begins with that which is
very common, and then He moves to that which is not common. He starts with something that
is very simple, then he moves on to that which is profound,
very profound. So we're going to look today
at the parable of the sower. Our brother has read to us the
account that John Mark gave in the gospel according to Mark.
In this parable, there are just three elements, very simple,
three components of the parable. There is the sower, and the seed,
and the soil. That's all there is to the story.
There is the sower, there is the seed, and there is the soil. In verse 3, the sower is the
one who spreads the seed. You notice in Matthew chapter
13 in verse 3, And He spake many things unto them in parables,
saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow." He spreads the
seed. Maybe our Lord was giving this
parable at the time of the year when the sowers were going forth. And maybe He looked over, and
I can just visualize Him, and He sees a man who's got a leather
bag strapped across his shoulders, and his bag is full of, let's
say, wheat seed. And He puts His hand in the bag,
He pulls out some seed, and He begins to broadcast it. And our Lord says, Behold, a
sower went forth to sow. You'll notice in verse 4, He
then begins to tell what kinds of soil the seed fell upon. It says in verse 4, And when
he sowed, some seeds fell by the wayside. Fowls came and devoured
them up. We know back then the fields
were divided by paths. People walked along these paths. Animals walked upon these paths.
They had wagons that trod. They rolled across these paths.
It was very hard, very hard pan ground, very packed down. The
fields back then were basically divided by beaten paths. And
so as this man, he's got his seed and he's sowing it, some
of it falls upon the hard pand. And of course, whenever a farmer
was sowing, there were some that were greatly attracted to the
sower. The birds. The birds. Easy pickings. That is, The seed that fell upon
the hard ground, upon the wayside, upon the paths, while the blackbirds
were just kind of hovering above, and as He spread in and got to
the hard pan, they just swooped down and of course they picked
up the seed and took it away. I'll tell you, Luke tells us,
and you don't have to look at this, but in Luke chapter 8 and
verse 5, Luke tells us some of the seed that fell by the wayside
was trodden down. That is, people walked on it.
Here comes a man, he's riding on a mule. The mule walks on
it. Behind him is a guy, he's in
a wagon. The wagon wheel rides over the
seeds. Behind him, some other people
walking. Everybody's walking on the seed.
There's the seed, trodden underfoot. If the birds don't get it, it's
trodden underfoot. The seed that falls upon the
wayside. But you know what? The man keeps
on sowing the seed. He keeps on sowing the seed.
And as he sows, some of the seed falls on stony ground. Verses
5 and 6. Some fell upon stony places,
where they had not much earth. Forthwith they sprung up, because
they had no deepness of earth. And when the sun was up, they
were scorched, and because they had no root, they withered away."
We know that in Palestine, they have large layers of limestone
rock that lies just beneath the surface of the soil, a little
deeper than a plow would go. Here comes a man, he's plowed
the land. His plow doesn't quite get down,
doesn't get down to the rock. Gets a lot of, gets the soil,
whatever soil is there. There's a layer of limestone.
And then he sows the seed. The seed falling into that kind
of rocky stone would decompose, release its life, The warmth
of the oil or the warmth of the soil with the moisture would
cause the seed to germinate and send its roots down. But the
roots couldn't go very far. The roots hit that hard rock. So the roots turned upward. Because
you know what they're looking for? Looking for water, right? Looking for water. You know yourself,
if you plant something and you water it just a little bit, that's
not good. Because the roots then will go
up looking for the water. If you're going to water it,
you need to really throw the water to it, don't you? So the
water goes down and then the roots go down. But when you've
got limestone beneath the soil, the roots can't find the water
down there. They hit the rock and so they go up. looking for
water. Therefore, that plant grows fast. And maybe if it's a new farmer,
he sees this wheat coming up really fast over there in that
patch, and he says, wow, this is going to be a bumper crop.
No, you're going to be greatly disappointed, because it doesn't
have any root. Then the sun comes out, and there's
that little tender plant. It has no root, therefore it
has no moisture, and it says it withered away. Thirdly, he
keeps sowing. He keeps sowing. Some fell on
ground where the thorns would grow. Verse number 7. Of course,
when the farmer, he's out here, he's got his team of oxen, he's
plowing the field. Here's some briars, here's some
weeds. Well, he just turns that under.
But it doesn't get the roots of those weeds. It just gets
the tops of them. You know yourself in your garden.
Are you got weeds growing in your garden? If you just go and
break them off, man, they come back with a vengeance. Okay,
you got to get them up by the roots. What it is when they plow
in the fields, this guy is plowing the field, his plow can't get
down there deep enough to expose the roots of the weeds and the
briars and the thorns. He just gets the top of them.
Looks like really good soil. Sows the seed. Seed begins to
come up. But guess what comes up faster?
The weeds and the thorns. That's evidence of the fall,
isn't it? That's what that is, evidence of the fall. And pretty
soon, the weeds, they take the moisture. They take the nutrients. Then they grow so fast, they
shade the tender little wheat plant from the sun. It withers
and it dies. He keeps on sowing. We find out
in the next place in verse number 8, some fell in the good ground,
brought forth fruit, some a hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold. Some of the ground is good. Oh,
the plow tore it all to pieces. It's ready. It's ready, it's
prepared. That seed goes in there, it falls
in there, and it germinates, and he has a crop. Not because
all soils aren't created equal, because different moisture, different
nutrients and so forth, different growing conditions. He has a
crop, but some is 30, some is 60, some is 100. So our Lord gave forth this parable,
and then He says in verse 9, who hath ears to hear, let him
hear. In other words, He's saying to
His disciples, and He's saying to everybody, here's this great
congregation, He's out on the boat, and He says to all of them,
do you understand what I'm saying? We learn from Mark's Gospel and
Luke, the multitudes left. And then he has, Luke tells us
this, just a few folks with his disciples. And they say, Lord,
what does this mean? What does this mean? What are
you talking about? And our Lord goes on to say,
I speak this way in parables so that some can't hear. They can't understand. And I
speak this way so that others are able to understand. Who hath
eyes to see, let him see. Who hath ears to hear, let him
hear. This morning as I bring this
message, as I said before you the parable of the sower. We'll
talk about the sower, the seed, and the soul. Some of you will
go away and you'll say, I understand. In fact, some of you already
are saying, I know what this is about. I know what he's going
to say because the Lord has already taught me about this and I'm
glad to hear the message again. I understand who the sower is,
I understand what the seed is, and I understand these soils.
And thank God my soil has been good. The soil of my heart has
been made good by grace. God has prepared my heart to
receive the gospel. I am one in whom the Spirit of
God has done a work of grace. He has quickened me. He has given
me new life in Christ Jesus. By the free grace of God, I can
comprehend the Gospel. I understand what the Lord Jesus
is saying. And others will go away saying,
don't get it. I just don't get it. And you
never will get it unless God reveals it to you. So our Lord
says, do you see what I'm saying in this? I know down in verse
18, He says to these that are left, and the multitude is now
gone, just a few men, a few ladies perhaps with His disciples, He
says to them, hear ye therefore the parable of the sower. He begins to tell them what the
parable is all about. He begins to give them spiritual
understanding. Number one, here is the sower. The sower. When anyone hears
the Word of the Kingdom and understands, this is a person who is the seed
has been sowed. Now, in order to find out who
the sower is, we go to a passage like Mark 4 in verse 14. Because in Mark 4.14, the Lord
tells us, the sower soweth the Word, and then in Luke we find
out the sower is the Son of God. The Son of God Himself. Look
at Matthew 13, verse 37. He gives us this. Matthew 13,
verse 37. In response to what the disciples
said in verse 36, they said, "...declaring thus the parable
of the tares of the field, And we'll get to that parable later,
of course, another day. He answered and said unto them,
He that soweth the good seed is the Son of Man. So first of
all, the one who sows is the Son of Man. It's the Lord Jesus
Himself. He is a preacher. He went forth
preaching the Gospel. And we know that everybody who
preaches the Gospel is a sower of the seed. No matter who it
is. The Apostle Paul, he was a sower
of the seed. The Apostle John, he was a sower
of the seed. Those of you who taught the Bible
classes this morning, you were sowing the seed. I'm sowing the
seed right now. We take the seed of the Word
of God and we broadcast it. Now that one who sows the seed,
that one who is the sower, he is not responsible for an increase. He is not responsible as to whether
the wheat grows. He's only responsible for this,
to sow the right seed. That's the beginning and the
end of His responsibility. You remember in 1 Corinthians
chapter 3, the Apostle says, I have planted, that is, I sowed
the seed. He says, Apollos watered, but
God gave the increase. One sows, another waters it,
God has to give the increase. What's going to happen this morning
before the gospel of God's free grace, the gospel of redeeming
love in Christ Jesus, what's going to happen before this seed
will be successful in your heart, bringing forth fruit for the
glory of God? Here's what's necessary. The
Lord give the increase. I can't give the increase. When
you brought me here to be your pastor, when you brought Bill
to be your pastor, back when Henry was your pastor, for those
of you who go back to that time, neither of us is responsible
for the increase. It's our duty to be a faithful
sower. We're stewards of the Word of
God. We're stewards of the grace of God. We have been given the
good seed, which I will show you in a few minutes, of course,
is the Word of God. Our responsibility is to sow
the Word of God in its purity and in its plainness. It is to
preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That's our job. And I'm sowing
the seed as best I can this morning. Sowing the seed. The sower, oh,
he's important. But he's only important to broadcast
the seed. In the germination of the good
seed, we're nothing. We're nothing. It's not my job. It's not my responsibility. It's
not within my power to make the Word of God effectual to you.
Only God can make us new creatures in Christ Jesus. Only God can
make the dead to live. Only God can seek and save that
which is lost. Only God can forgive the sinner.
Only God can make us righteous in the Lord Jesus. Only God can
give us a saving interest in the Gospel of His free grace.
That's the reason the Lord said, are your eyes and blest are your
ears, if you see and if you hear." Because God has given you eyes
to see, He's given you ears to hear. At the very end of the
Kingdom parables, notice at the end of chapter 13, look at verse
51. Verse 51 of chapter 13. Jesus
saith unto them, Have you understood all these things? Have you understood all these
things? Now, as best I can, I want to
make this understandable for you. Because there may be people
watching on the internet, people who have gathered with us this
morning, maybe this is all new to you. We want to make it understandable
to you as best we can. But only the
Lord can give you a spiritual understanding of the gospel of
His grace. And these men said unto Him,
Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord. We understand. We comprehend. We know that the
natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God,
neither indeed can he know them, because they are spiritually
discerned. So we preach the Gospel dependent
upon the Spirit of grace. The sower. First of all, it's
the Son of Man. Secondly, it's every preacher
of the Gospel. And really, each of us who knows the Lord, we're
sowers. You're to be a sower of the seed.
And in fact, you work some fields that I don't work. Isn't that
right? In your family? In your neighborhood? At your job, the field where
you work, you're the sower. So I'm not very good. You got
the good seed that I'm going to show you. All your responsibility
to do is sow the seed. I'm not a farmer. I'm not either. Give me a sack of seed and I
can throw it. Some of it may wind up in my
hair. Some of it may wind up down in my shirt. But bless your
heart, some of it's going to wind up on the soil. And if it's
soil God has prepared, there will be an increase. Isn't that
right? So just sow the seed. You say, I can't talk. Give a
CD to somebody. This message was especially a
blessing to me. Some particular message our preacher
has preached or some other preacher of the gospel has preached. You
say, I can't talk very good. Would you listen to this? And
I'm not even going to ask you what you think about it. Just
go to your neighbor and say, just listen to this. Here's a
DVD. I know you've got a DVD player. And this is a message
that blessed me and I just want to give it to you. You know what
you're doing? Sowing the seed. Sowing the seed. Maybe a tract. Whatever. Maybe you invite them to come
to church to hear the good seed. Number two. The seed. So we know
who the sower is. What about the seed? In Luke
8, verse 11, the parable is this. He said in Luke 8, verse 11,
the seed is the Word of God. Mark 4, verse 14 says the sower
sows the Word. What do we do? We sow the Word
of God. The Word that originated with
God. It's not my Word. It didn't come
from me. This is the Word that came to
us from God. And I've got to say this first,
first and foremost, The seed is the Word of God, that is,
that One who came down from heaven, who is the incarnate Word. We
preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified. He's the seed that we sow. His
message, the message of who He is and what He did, the message
of why He did it, the message of where He is now. The seed
is Christ Jesus the Lord. It's the gospel of His grace.
And in a broader sense, it's the Word of God, the written
Word of God. It's the incorruptible seed. 1 Peter 1 says that. Being born again, not of corruptible
seed, but of incorruptible by the Word of God that liveth and
abideth forever. The Word of God, oh how vital
it is. how vital it is. It's called
in Hebrews 5 and verse 13, the Word of Righteousness, because
it declares a righteousness God demands, a righteousness we can't
produce, a righteousness that's to be found in Jesus Christ alone. It's called the Word of Life.
Every other word in religion is death. This alone is the Word
of Life. It's called the Word of Truth.
The Word of Truth. It's called the Word of Christ
because it's all about Him. It's called in 2 Corinthians
5 and 19, the Word of Reconciliation. Romans chapter 10 and verse 9,
it's called the Word of Faith which we preach. Acts 15 verse
7 is called the Word of the Gospel. Acts 14 verse 3 is called the
Word of His Grace. Acts 13 verse 26 is called the
Word of Salvation. Here in Matthew chapter 13 and
verse 19 is called the Word of the Kingdom. What is the seed
that we sow? The Word of God. The Word of
God. There will not be any spiritual
harvest unless we sow the right seed. That's why we emphasize the Word
of God. We begin the service with the
reading of the Word of God. This service will be concluded
with the reading of the Word of God. In the middle, we preach
the Word of God. And isn't it sad that in so many
congregations today, They won't even open the Word of God. They
speak out of feel-good books, psychology books, Reader's Digest. We had a church up in Michigan
in that little town in which we lived. They did a whole series
on the Andy Griffith Show. It teaches life's moral principles. No seed. And I promise you this,
you sow the wrong seed, you needn't expect to reap a proper harvest. The only seed that will bring
forth a harvest to the glory of God, a harvest of souls saved
by the free grace of the Lord Jesus, souls washed in His blood
and robed in His righteousness, is the seed of the Gospel. That's
why every time we gather, whether it's me up here speaking or one
of the men that fills in for me, it's always the Word of God. All of our thoughts, all of our
words are centered around this Book. It's the Book of Life. There won't be any harvest unless
you have the right seed. Let's say a man wants to grow
some grass. So he goes out and he takes with
him a bag of jelly beans. And he spreads, he broadcasts
the jelly beans. We've got some children in the
congregation this morning. Let's say your dad tells you,
I want you to take that bag of grass seed and go out there and
sow it. You say, well, man, I like jelly beans. I think I'll sow
jelly beans. Maybe I'll reap a jelly bean crop. or you take
a bag of jelly beans and you go out distributing it, it won't
be any grass, it won't be anything. You've got to have the right
seed. And the seed is the Word of God. What does God use to gather His
elect into the fold of salvation? What does He use in this mystery
of regeneration? He uses the preaching of the
good seed, a sower sowing the seed. The Word of God. That's why we make so much of
this book. You can't emphasize the Word
of God too much. We just scatter the seed. I know
some of these folks have been around a while. Our musicians,
they remember the song, Scattering Precious Seed by the Wayside.
Scattering precious seed by the hillside. Scattering precious
seed o'er the field wide. Scattering precious seed by the
way. Sowing in the morning. Sowing
in the noontime. Just sowing, sowing, sowing. That's the duty of this preacher.
That's the duty of this congregation. To sow the precious seed. The
last stanza of that song goes this way. Sowing the precious
seed, doubting never. Scattering precious seed, trusting
ever. Sowing the Word with much prayer
and endeavor. Trusting the Lord for growth
and for yield. We trust Him for the yield. We
rely upon Him. And here's the third thing. So
we know who the sower is, everyone who sets forth the word of God.
The seed is indeed the gospel of God's grace. What is the soul?
Look at verse 19. Matthew 13. When anyone hearth
the word of the kingdom and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked
one and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. That's what the soil is. The
sower is the Lord Jesus, every preacher of the gospel, everyone
that tells the story. The seed is the gospel of God's
grace. The soil, that's the heart. It's the heart of man. The Lord
is teaching this. The results of the preaching
of the gospel is dependent Not upon the sower, but upon the
quality of the seed and the condition of the heart. That's what it's
dependent upon. Watch this. Some of the seed
fell by the wayside. Hard ground, where everybody
walked, where the birds just swooped down. Eat the seed, take
it away. No possibility of the seed germinating,
no possibility of any yield. Remember, the soil is the heart
of man, which is hard, lifeless. Jeremiah said, it's hard as a
rock. Stony heart is what he says. Stony heart. God's got to take
it away. Give us a heart of flesh. what
happens to the seed of somebody who's stony hearted. And who
is a stony hearted person? It's really a person who has
absolutely no interest in the Gospel. In fact, they say, I'm
dead set against it. And there may be somebody like
that here this morning, somebody watching on the internet, and
we even would wonder, why are you here? Why are you here? So I don't believe that stuff.
You can have that religion if you want to, but it's not for
me. You've got a heart that's hard. Hard. It's not for me. You say, well,
why do people like that come to church? For appearance sake?
Out of habit? What would people think of you
if you didn't go to church on Sunday? But they come reluctantly. not to be under the sound of
the gospel, not so that some of the seed would fall on them,
but they're just here. Of course, really brought by
the providence of God, though they don't recognize that. Well,
here's what's going to happen to a hard, stony ground, or to
a person who's got a hard heart that waits out here. One of two
things is going to happen. Number one, the black birds,
Satan and his demons, they'll swoop down and take the seed
right away from you. As soon as you get out of here,
you'll go outside. Boy, it's a beautiful day. Where
are we going to eat lunch today? Which one won't be so busy? Well,
he didn't preach too long today. Maybe we can get in early. And
the seed is just gone. Just that quick. In others, the
seed is trampled upon. Hebrews chapter 10 talks about
the Word of God trodden underfoot. You've trodden underfoot the
Word of God. Just walk all over it. Fell by the wayside. But some of it falls on stony
ground. Look at verses 20 and 21. Having said in verse 19, anyone
who hears the word of the kingdom and understands it not, then
cometh the wicked one and catcheth away that which was sown in his
heart. This is he that receiveth seed
by the wayside. Verse 20, but he that receiveth
the seed in the stony places, the same as he that heareth the
word and anon with joy, receiveth it, but he doesn't have any root
in himself, endureth just for a little bit. And when persecution,
tribulation arises because of the Word, he's offended. This
is the person who receives the Word and says, wow, this is good. And they just make a decision
and say, boy, it's easy getting saved. I'll just go down the
aisle, I'll make a profession, I'll get baptized, and there's
somebody else maybe set beside of me. And they look at that
person and say, what's the matter with you? How come you don't
get saved like I did? There's nothing to it. It's easy
falling off a log. I'm so happy in Jesus. Whoopee! I'm going to heaven and I'm not
going to hell. And then, they're not having any root.
Somebody confronts them about this gospel. Well, you know what you're saying
is, You know what that preacher is really saying? You don't have
anything to do with salvation. Pretty soon they get offended
by the Word. There is no moisture of the Holy
Spirit. There is no work of grace in
the heart. There is no depth to the roots. It withers and dies. Quickly
as you came in, you're gone. And we've seen people like this,
people who dazzle us. They come in and say, wow, man,
I've never seen anybody come in here and set this church on
fire like that in a long time. And as soon as they come in and
act like they're on fire, about that quick they're gone. You
say, where'd they go? Well, they're like that shooting
star that burnt out. They set us ablaze for a while.
They ooed and aahed us for a little bit, but they're not to be found
anymore. What happened? They had no root.
They had no root. Stony ground here. They just
endured for a while. Thirdly, it says in verse 22,
He that received seed among the thorn is here Heareth the Word
and the cares of the world, the deceitfulness of riches, they
choke out the Word. If you go to Mark and to Luke,
they also add the lusts of other things, the pleasures of other
things. The cares of the world choke out the Word, the Word
of God. I speak to you this morning.
I know there are a lot of cares in the world, a lot of things
going on, a lot of things that trouble you. You've got lots
going on in your family, lots going on in your life. And you
know what will happen unless God prepares your heart to receive
the Word of God? The cares of the world will choke
out the Word. They'll just choke it out. That's
why the Lord says to His people, don't be anxious about what you
shall eat, or what you shall drink, or what you shall wear.
He said, after these things, the Gentiles seek. Seek ye first
the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these other things will
be added to you. And then there's the deceitfulness
of riches. Not just riches, but the deceitfulness
of riches. Because riches deceive us into
thinking that's where happiness can be found. That's where real
joy can be found. If I could get something new,
oh how happy I would be. If I could just get that house
I want. If I could just get that new dress that I want. If I could
get that new automobile that I want. I'd have real happiness.
Riches deceive us into thinking that's where real joy can be
found. And you and I both know you get
something new and before long the newness of it wears out.
And we find out, that's deceitful. I was deceived into thinking
that would really make me happy. The deceitfulness of riches. And Mark adds, the lusts of other
things. Luke adds, the pleasures. Choke
out the seed. But here's the last thing. Some
seed falls into good ground, verse 23. But he that receiveth
seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and
understandeth it, which also bringeth forth, or beareth fruit,
and bringeth forth some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty." This
is a heart prepared by the Holy Spirit to receive the Word of
God. Because the heart is not good by nature, it's only good
by grace. It's made good by the Spirit
of the Lord. He makes us to understand the
gospel of how God can be just and justify the ungodly. Mark puts it this way in Mark
4, 20. These are they which are sown
on good ground, such as hear the Word of God and receive it. They receive it. And oh, I hope
this morning as I've been sowing the seed, that you receive it. That's what we want. Listen,
folks, we don't preach the gospel, we don't give out the Word of
God just to give out information. I mean, we've got to give it
out, you've got to have the information, but I want you to be saved. I
want something to happen to you. I want God to intervene. It isn't
that we're, okay, take it or leave it, I don't care. We do
care. We do care. That's why we exist
as a congregation. For the glory of God, for the
good of those who listen to us. And we sow the seed. Asking God for an increase. And
we say this morning, Lord, oh Lord, would You prepare every
heart to receive this Word that's gone forth? Would you dig deep into us? Lord,
give us a new heart. A heart of faith. Whether He does or not, now that's
up to Him. But still, we put our hand in
the bag, we pull out another handful of good seed, and here
we go. And you may be wayside hearer,
The birds are going to come down. Maybe they've already come down,
snatched it away. Or you just trod underfoot and
say, I'm not going to have any of this stuff. That's a bunch
of foolishness. That guy is hard to understand. I don't like the way he preaches. I don't like this church. Just
trod underfoot. Some of you, stony ground. I can't get down there where
the stone's at, but He can. And others, the thorny ground
hears. And all this stuff in the world chokes out the Word.
But thank God many of us have good ground. The seed falls on
good ground, produces a harvest. Not all soils are like, and so
we bear fruit. For the glory of God, love, joy,
peace, long-suffering, temperance, goodness, faith, all these, not
to equal them. As children of God, we're not
all alike. We bear fruit, different measure.
But we bear fruit for the glory of God. May the Lord make His
Word successful in our hearts.