Now the message this morning
will be taken from Matthew chapter 13. Matthew chapter 13 and the title
of this message is the mystery of the preaching or the mystery
of preaching the gospel. The mystery of preaching the
gospel. Now you understand the word gospel
means what? It means good news. So the mystery
of preaching the good news. And what I'm doing here in this
chapter, Matthew chapter 13, we have what is known as the
kingdom parables. The parables of Jesus Christ
explaining the kingdom of heaven here on earth, which it's not
an earthly kingdom, we know that, but he's talking about how the
kingdom, his kingdom, mainly speaking of his church, his household,
Scripture speaks of the church as being the church of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Speaks of the church being the
household or the family of God. And how in the last days, this
progression of the church, how it's going to develop, what it's
going to be like as the people of God stand for the truth of
Christ and Him crucified and how God saves sinners by His
grace Through the blood and the righteousness of the Lord Jesus
Christ, that's the good news of salvation by grace. Something
we can't earn or can't deserve even by our best efforts to keep
the law or to obey God or to be religious or to reform or
whatever. Salvation is for sinners. It's
what the church is. It's a hospital for sinners. It's not some kind of a religious
social club that we can get together and make each other feel good
and brag on everybody. As I've told you one time years
ago, a lady walked out the back there and she looked at me and
she said, you don't ever have anything good to say about anybody.
And I told her, I said, well, I got a lot of good to say about
Jesus Christ. You know, that's who we're preaching. But the thing about it is, this
is the kingdom of God. And I use this verse, look at
verse 11 of Matthew 13. I use this verse as sort of my
base text. And I'm making this a series
of messages called the Mysteries of the Kingdom. And I want to
start on the first parable of the kingdom this morning, but
I probably won't get through the whole thing this morning. But
I always try, as you know, to make each message stand on its
own. But here in verse 11, after the disciples ask him the question,
why are you speaking in parables? Remember, a parable is a story
that uses earthly symbols, earthly things, to teach spiritual truth. The word parable means to stand
alongside of, literally. So this is something. Here's
a spiritual truth, and here's what Christ is doing. He said,
I've got this story, this parable that stands alongside of the
spiritual truth to illustrate it for you. And understand now
that parables are just that. They are parables. They are illustrations. So that we don't derive our doctrine
from the parable, we derive our doctrine from the plain teachings
of the scripture, and the parable simply illustrates what we believe. Understand that. But here he
says, they ask him, why do you speak in parables? Look at verse
11. He answered and said unto them, because it is given unto
you, that's a gift from God, to know the mysteries of the
kingdom of heaven, but to them, that is the unbeliever, that
he's specifically talking to the religious leaders of Israel
there, Jerusalem, to them it's not given. And I'll deal with
a little bit more with that section probably in this message and
the next. But he says, the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. And
I started this out by showing you what the kingdom of heaven
is. It's the kingdom of Christ. It's a kingdom of righteousness.
In other words, The requirement to get into this kingdom is you
must be righteous. And the problem with that is
that describes none of us by nature or by practice. You say,
well, now wait a minute. I've tried to be a good person
all my life, tried my best. Well, here's what the word of
God tells us. And this is what men and women
by nature don't like to hear. But the Word of God tells us
that no matter how good we try to be, we still fall short of
the requirement of righteousness and goodness according to God's
standard. Now that's the key. That's why
this is a mystery. Remember, a mystery is not something
that you get certain clues and try to figure out. The mystery
in the Bible is something God has to tell us. We don't know
it naturally. Science can't tell us. Philosophy
and even man-made religion cannot tell us. It takes a work of God
to reveal it. That's what a mystery is. God's
revealing something here. We have the revelation of God's
Word right here in this book from Genesis to Revelation. And so here's the revelation,
and here's what he says. I'll give you an example, Romans
3.10. There's none righteous, no not one. And I'll remember
what I always tell you, don't read that with the accept me
syndrome. There's none righteous, no not one, except me. No, that
includes me. And what that teaches us is this,
is man has no righteousness by nature. We're born fallen, sinners. Somebody said, well, we start
out innocent and then we become sinners when we choose to sin.
And I asked that person, I said, well, name me one individual
in the history of mankind who didn't choose to sin. They're not existent. The only
human being that ever was without sin was Jesus Christ, the God
man in his humanity. So we don't have righteousness,
we can't work one, not even at our best efforts, and we don't
want one God's way. That's why there's so much false
religion in the world. It's man in some form, in some
fashion, in some way, to some degree, at some stage, trying
to establish and work his own righteousness before God. That's
false religion. That's salvation by works. So
this is a kingdom of righteousness. And no one's in this kingdom
who's not righteous. So the second thing, this is
a kingdom of grace. The only way that a sinner like
me can be righteous before God is by grace. God giving me something
that I don't earn and don't deserve. That's it. For by grace are you
saved. Through faith and that not of
yourselves, it's the gift of God, not of works. lest any man
should boast." Brother Randy read that in 1 Corinthians 1.
Let he that glorieth, that means boast, let him boast in the Lord.
You see, salvation is by grace and therefore being a kingdom
of righteousness and being a kingdom of grace, it's a kingdom of the
Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of righteousness. The only one,
the God-man, that's who he is in his person, who established
righteousness, not with our help, but by himself as the substitute,
the surety, the savior of his people. That's what he was doing
on that cross. You see, the cross is a grand
expression of God's love to his people. But that's not all it
was. The cross of Christ was a substitutionary
death of the Lord Jesus Christ for the sins of his people. to
satisfy the justice of God. It was love that sent Him there,
but it's justice that nailed Him to the cross. Justice had
to be satisfied. You say, well, I don't believe
that. Well, don't ever quote Romans 6, 23 again. The wages
of sin is death. That's all we can earn. Now it
says the gift of God It doesn't say the wages of salvation. It
says the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our
Lord. That's what Christ was doing on that cross. He was establishing
righteousness for his people. He was made sin. Our sin was
imputed, charged, accounted to him. And his righteousness is
imputed, charged, accounted to us. And so it is also a kingdom
that is spiritual. How does one enter the kingdom?
Well, what did Christ tell Nicodemus in John 3? He said, you must
be born again or you cannot enter the kingdom of God. You cannot
see the kingdom of God. You can't see it. In other words,
understand it, have it revealed to you. You must be given life
from God. So that's the kingdom. And then
the mystery has to be revealed. Well, all right. He says, as
we read in So, as Brother Randy read in 1 Corinthians 1, that
God uses means to bring his people into the kingdom. And that means
is the preaching of the gospel, of God's grace in Christ Jesus,
empowered by the Holy Spirit in the new birth. That's how
he brings people into the kingdom. That's why Christ told his disciples,
go into all the world and preach the gospel. That's the great
commission. Carry the good news everywhere.
Not just to Israel, to whom the message of the kingdom had been
largely confined during the Lord's earthly ministry, but in all
the world. Go preach the gospel. The gospel
began to spread. He's shot out. You remember after
the death of the Lord, after his death, burial, and resurrection,
and he ascended unto heaven, Peter and the other disciples,
they preached the gospel in Jerusalem. And thousands were converted,
brought into the kingdom. And then God dispersed them through
persecution, and they went out throughout the world preaching
the gospel. And then here comes the apostle Paul, who was the
apostle to the Gentiles, and he began preaching the gospel
around. God raised up churches. in the Gentile world, and as
time went on, the gospel kept being spread. We're going to
see in these kingdom parables, sad to say, but still according
to God's providential plan, false gospels began to be spread, spring
up and be spread. Gospels that would deny some
way the person and or the work, the finished work of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And we're living in that age
of the last days where the false gospels really outnumber the
true gospel and we've seen that great falling away but we're
not going to get into that this morning. The first parable that
he brings forth is what some call the parable of the seed
and the sower, the sower and the seed. I preached a message
on this not too long ago. I call it the parable of the
soils. Let's read the parable. Look at verse 1 of Matthew 13. He says, The same day went Jesus
out of the house and sat by the seaside. Great multitudes were
gathered together unto him so that he went into a ship and
sat. The whole multitudes stood on the shore. You can picture
the scene there. Christ on the boat and the multitudes
on the shore listening to him. And he spoke many things unto
them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow, like
a farmer sowing seed, casting his seed on the ground. And when
he sowed, verse 4, some seeds fell by the wayside. The fowls,
the birds, came and devoured them up, like the crows, that's
what that would be, like crows came and devoured the seeds.
Some fell upon stony places where they had not much earth and forthwith
they sprung up because they had no deepness of earth. I think
it's the book of Luke says they didn't get moisture. And when
the sun was up and they were scorched and because they had
no root, they withered away. Verse 7, some fell among thorns,
and the thorns sprung up and choked them, but others fell
into good ground and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold,
some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold. Who hath ears to hear, let him
hear. That's important, isn't it? Question
I ask, do I have ears to hear? Do you have ears to hear? Now,
I know you're hearing my voice, but that doesn't necessarily
mean you have ears to hear. You understand what I'm saying? This
is spiritual ears. Christ told his disciples that.
Look over at verse 16 of Matthew 13. He told his disciples, blessed
are your eyes for they see and your ears for they hear. He's
saying that in contrast to the unbeliever. He hears what you're
saying but he doesn't believe it. That means he doesn't have
spiritual ears. He hears what you're saying,
but he doesn't see the glory of it. Christ said, you must
be born again or you cannot see the kingdom of heaven. You may
have great physical eyes, but if you don't see the glory and
the value and the greatness and the truth of this message of
the gospel of God's grace in Christ Jesus, if you don't see
that unto faith to the point where you believe it and you
love it and live by it, what does the Bible say? You don't
have ears to hear. You don't have eyes to see. Well, he goes
on to explain the parable. Look at verse 18 of Matthew 13. He says, Hear you therefore the
parable of the sower. When anyone heareth the word
of the kingdom and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked
one, that's speaking of Satan, and catcheth away that which
was sown in his heart, this is he which receives seed by the
wayside. Now, this is the wayside hearer. Let's talk about the wayside
here a little bit. You know, here's the point. What
I love about these kingdom parables, and especially this first one,
I want you to consider what's going on here. The sower, the
farmer, you might say, who's casting the seed, he's a symbol
of Christ and his ministers preaching the gospel. That's what that
is. What am I doing this morning? You know what I'm doing? I'm
sowing seed right now. That's what I'm doing. The seed
is the gospel. The word of the kingdom. How
God saves sinners. Hold your finger there and look
back over at 1 Corinthians 1 where Brother Randy read. Verse 18. Here it is. He says, for the
preaching of the cross. Now what is the preaching of
the cross? That's not just preaching a symbol or wearing a symbol
around your neck or a piece of wood. That's not what it is. The preaching of the cross is
the preaching of the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ
on that cross. It's what He accomplished by
His death on the cross. The preaching of the cross is
the preaching of the death of Christ to accomplish the complete
redemption of all for whom he died and was buried and rose. That's what it is. It's the preaching
of the gospel. Over in chapter 2, Paul calls
it Jesus Christ and him crucified. It's the preaching of his person.
Who is Jesus Christ? Well, he's God manifest with
us. His name shall be called Jesus.
That means he shall save his people from their sins. His name
shall be called Emmanuel, which being interpreted God with us.
That's the seed, you see, the person of Christ. You say, well,
you know, I know he was a good prophet. He had a lot of good
things to say, but he's not God. Well, you don't believe this. You don't believe the preaching
of the cross. You see, if he's not God, he can't save you. And
he can't save me. Only God can create life. I know
scientists think they can do it in a test tube, but they can't.
Only God can create life. Only God can give life. And then he had to be man without
sin. Only man can die. God can't die,
but this man who is God did die. You say, well, I can't figure
all that out. You don't need to. And I'll tell you why you
can't figure all that out, because you're not God. I can't figure
it out either. But that's not what we're here
to do. We're just preaching the person of Christ. He is Immanuel. He is the Word made flesh dwelling
among us. He's God in human flesh. In every attribute of deity,
He's God. In every attribute of humanity,
He's man without sin. And why is that important? Because
that's the kind of person that it takes to save sinners. And the preaching of His cross
is the preaching of His finished work. And what did He do when
He finished the work? He brought forth righteousness.
The Bible says that the gospel in Romans 1, 16 and 17 is the
revelation of the righteousness of God. You see, if this is a
kingdom of righteousness, and I don't have righteousness, And
no man or myself can get righteousness. Where am I going to find it?
The only place to find it is one who is righteous, the very
righteousness of God. That's Jesus Christ, Romans 10,
4. For Christ is the end, the fulfillment, the completion,
the perfection, the finishing of the law for righteousness
to everyone that believe it. You see, salvation is not conditioned
on your believing. Salvation is conditioned on Christ.
who is our righteousness. And our believing rests in Him.
We believe in Him. We follow Him. How can God be
God and still forgive a sinner like me? He's got to be God.
He's got to be holy and righteous and just. He's got to be, you
say, well, God's love. Yes, He is, but not at the expense
of His justice. God's merciful, yes He is, and
I love to preach His mercy, but not at the expense of His truth.
God must be a just God and a Savior. That's the mystery of the Gospel.
How can that be? How can a man, a sinful, wretched
man, be just with God? There's not but one way. And
that's through the Lord Jesus Christ based on His righteousness
alone in my stead, in my place, as my surety, my substitute. That's what the preaching of
the cross is. Now look at 1 Corinthians 1.18. He says the preaching of
the cross is to them that perish foolishness. That's like the
wayside here we just read about. He's not interested. He doesn't
want to hear what you have to say about this cross, about Christ,
about this good news. He says, but unto us which are
saved, it's the power of God. There's the difference. You know,
that's the great division of humanity right there. Go back
to Matthew 13. This wayside here. Now here's what Christ is doing
for his disciples. He's told them, go out and preach
the gospel. But I'm going to tell you how it's going to be.
I'm going to tell you how people are going to receive you. And
the people that hear, when you look at things like this, I'll
tell you what, here's the long and the short of it. If you went
through all these passages here, there's no excuse for you today
walking out that door not knowing what kind of hearer you are,
if you think about it. Look at it again. Verse 19 of
Matthew 13. When anyone heareth the word
of the kingdom, the gospel, wherein the righteousness of God is revealed.
And see, that's what I need. I need the righteousness of God.
I don't need the righteousness of man because man doesn't have
one. But I need the righteousness of God. Where am I going to find
that? In Jesus Christ, the Lord our righteousness. So when anyone
hears the word of the kingdom, the gospel, and understandeth
it not, there's got to be an understanding here. You know
what understanding means? It means to stand under it. It
means to believe it. You see, if you hear this message
and you deny it, you're not standing under it. You're not submitting
to the truth. You're not submitting to the
righteousness of God. You see, Romans 10, 4, it talks
about those who are not submitted to God's righteousness, they're
going about to establish one of their own. The moment you
hear the gospel and you say, I don't believe that, or I don't
want that, or I'm not interested in that, you're not standing
under it. You're not submitting to it.
The scripture in 1 John chapter 5 says, The Son of God hath come
and given us an understanding that we may know Him that is
true. When you believe this gospel by the power of the Holy Spirit,
you're standing under it. You're submitting to it. You're
saying, I believe that. This is my life. This is my only
hope. My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest
frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. On Christ the solid rock
I stand. All other ground is sinking sand.
Do you believe that? Well, if you don't, you're not
standing under it. You see, to understand this doesn't mean
that we know everything that God is, but we know the gospel. We know who Christ is. We know
what he accomplished on Calvary. We know who we are. I'm a sinner. How much of a sinner am I? Well,
even at my best, if God were to judge me based upon my goodness
or my efforts or my prayers or my... I would be doomed forever. I must have Christ. The Apostle
Paul expressed it in Philippians 3. He said that I may know Him
and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is
of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ.
That's what he's what I must have. So, in other words, in
this wayside here, here's what he's telling his disciples. He
said, he said, the wicked one catcheth it away, that which
was sown in his heart, this is he which receives seed by the
wayside. It was sown in his heart in this
way. He heard it with his mind, but it didn't take root. within
his heart. And the crows, Satan, the wicked one, and his
cohorts, all who stand in opposition to the gospel of Christ could
be false preachers. Oh, don't listen to that guy.
You don't know what he's talking about. Snatch it away. And here's what
he's telling his disciples. He said, when you go out to preach
the gospel, there's just going to be a lot of people who do
not want to hear what you have to say. They're not interested. And as soon as they hear it,
Satan snatches it away. You know that, that word, when it talks about
those that when that wicked one cometh and they catcheth it away,
In some translations, it talks about people who are full of
labors and annoyances and hardships and pressed and harassed by labors.
In other words, they just don't have time, they don't have the
wherewithal, they're diseased or blind in a spiritual sense.
And what he's telling the disciples is this, you go preach the gospel,
but you can't force people to hear it and believe it. You cannot
force people to believe what we preach. That's why, let me
tell you something, every attempt of anybody, any individual, or
any group, in the history of what the world sees as Christianity,
where they tried to force confessions out of people, was not of God,
it was of Satan. I'm telling you, Spanish Inquisition,
whatever you want to call it. The moment they put a gun or
a knife or a whip to somebody to try to get them to confess
Christ, That is not of God. That's false Christianity. He said, you're going to go out
and preach the gospel, and some of the seed's going to fall by
the wayside. People just don't want to hear it. You see, we
plant and water, but God gives the increase. You see, the wayside here doesn't
see their need of righteousness in Christ. They don't have a hunger and
a thirst for Him. You know, what do you do when
you get thirsty? You go after a drink of water. What do you
do when you get hungry? You go after food. Do you have
a spiritual thirst and a spiritual hunger for Christ and His righteousness
alone? If you don't, that's the wayside
hearer. That's why Christ said in Matthew 5 and verse 6, Blessed
are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, They'll
be filled. If you have a real hunger and
thirst after righteousness, I can tell you right now, you'll be
filled. Because the only place you're going to find righteousness
is by the grace of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. If you find
it anywhere else, it's not righteousness. You may think it is, and the
world may tell you it is, but it's not. Over in Revelation 22 and verse
17, just read it to you. It says, The Spirit and the bride
say, Come, and let him that heareth say, Come, and let him that is
athirst come, and whosoever will let him take of the water of
life freely. Now, what's that teaching? Does that teach that
salvation is by the will of man? No. It simply tells you this,
that if you're thirsty for righteousness, You will come to Christ who is
righteousness. You've been made willing. That's
what it's all about. And you think about this. What
he's talking about, the soils. You know, he talked about some
of it falls by the wayside, some of it falls among rocky ground,
some of it falls among thorny ground. What is the soil? It's the heart. The heart of
man. What does the Bible say about
the natural heart of man? Look over at the book of Jeremiah.
Turn over in the Old Testament with me. Jeremiah chapter 17. And we could go to so many scriptures
here, but I'll give you just a couple of examples. What is
the natural heart of man? Somebody says, well, I believe
that person has a good heart. Now listen, we all know people
who are kind, who are generous, who are polite, helpful, and
according to man's standard of goodness. We might say, well,
that person has a good heart. But how do they measure up when
it comes to God's standard of goodness? Now, that's the key.
That's part of the mystery of the kingdom here. What does the
Word of God uncover reveal about the heart of the natural man,
even man at his best state, even the best of us. What does it
say? Well, look at Jeremiah chapter 17 in verse 9. And again, I'll
caution you, don't read this with an accept me syndrome. It
says in verse 9, the heart is deceitful above all, above all
things. Desperately wicked, who can know
it? Verse 10, I, the Lord, search the heart. I try the rains. The rains, what direction you
go, what motivates you. Even to give every man according
to his ways and according to the fruit of his doings. Look
over at 1 Corinthians chapter 2 now. 1 Corinthians chapter 2, right
after what Randy read in the preaching of the gospel. And
look at verse 14. 1 Corinthians 2.14. It says, the natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God. The natural man. What
does that mean? That's how we're born naturally.
You see, there's a natural birth. What we need in order to enter
the Kingdom of Heaven is the new birth. A spiritual birth.
But here's what we get in a natural birth. The natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God. Now, he can be religious.
He can be moral, He can be dedicated, He can be charitable, He can
be kind, all that stuff, but He will not receive the things
of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto Him. Neither
can He know them, understand them, that's what it means, because
they're spiritually discerned, they're spiritually judged, weighed,
valued. That's what the scripture says
about the natural heart. That's the wayside here. That's
also the stony ground here. Look back at Matthew 13. Now
I'm just going to read through these and then I'm going to quit
today and we'll pick up here next week. But the stony, the
wayside here, he just doesn't want it. Not interested. But
look at verse 20. But he that received the seed
into stony places, the same as he that heareth the word, and
anon, that word anon means immediately. Or quickly, he immediately, quickly
with joy receiveth. It's like a person who doesn't
count the cost. He hears it and it sounds good.
And he latches on to it. But look at verse 21. Yet hath
he not root in himself, but doeth for a while. He just lasts for
a little while, he or she. For when tribulation, trouble,
trial, or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by
he's offended. Now Christ promises persecution
over this gospel, because it's not what the natural man wants
to hear. The majority won't want to hear it. And when this persecution
comes, what does the stony ground hear? He leaves it. Well, was
he saved and then lost his salvation? No, he never was saved, didn't
take root. He wasn't born again in the first place. He just had
a mental understanding, a mental grasp of it. We'll talk more
about that next week. Verse 22, He also that receives
seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word, and the care
of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and
he becometh unfruitful. That's another lost person who
outwardly receives the gospel, but the cares of this world took
precedence. Now, we all have cares of the
world. I mean, we all have things we
have to care for, and God tells us to care for. but not to the
exclusion of the gospel of Christ, not to the exclusion of the worship
and glory of God. And then verse 23, and I'll talk
about this more, but he that receives seed into the good ground
is he that heareth the word and understandeth it, which also
beareth fruit, and bringeth forth some an hundredfold, some sixty,
and some thirty. Now I'll get into the details
of that later on too. What is the good ground? Well,
that's the regenerate New heart, given by God. It's not natural
to us now. It's not the natural man. Naturally,
if left to ourselves, there'd be no good ground. But what happens
when the gospel is preached in the power of the Holy Spirit?
The Holy Spirit gives us a new heart, a new mind, new affections,
new will. He makes us willing in the day
of God's power to do what? As sinners seeking mercy, submit
to Christ. Believe in Him, rest in Him for
all forgiveness of sins, for all righteousness. I have no
righteousness but Christ. You see what I'm saying? You
say, well, aren't you trying to be a good person? Yes, I am.
But my best goodness falls short of His goodness, falls short
of His righteousness. That's why I'm saved by grace,
I'm kept by grace, preserved by grace, and I'll enter heaven's
glory by grace and not by my works. You see that?