This wonderful parable reveals and just the scriptures expound themselves. The truth that is in the Word of God all through is made plain. There's nothing that's not explained. There's nothing that's mysterious except in how mysterious God's grace is, how inexplicable it is that he would condescend to save worms like us, that there is the depth of the riches of his wisdom and knowledge, there is the unsearchable riches of Christ. But the Gospel is plain.

We see here why God loved the world. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. And if salvation is left to chance, if it's up to the decisions of men, then this parable has no place in the Word of God. This parable reveals that God from the beginning planted good seed.

He planted His seed. They weren't neutral seed. He doesn't wait to see if they're good or bad. He plants His good seed. He harvests His good seed. They bear fruit unto Him, which glorifies His name. He does it for His own glory. But isn't it good to be to be among those who have life because of His purpose, and His planting, and His saving grace.

Religion says that God loves everybody, and Christ died to make redemption possible for everybody, and that the Holy Spirit is trying to save everybody. The Scripture teaches that the Father elected a people before the foundation of the world. Ephesians chapter 1 verse 4 and that in keeping with his eternal purpose of electing free love and grace he hath declared Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated Jacob being representative of the sinner Jacob was a worm But he was God's work And he always was.

Malachi 1.2, the Lord Jesus announced that he had come to lay down his life for his sheep. And then told the Pharisees in the same context in John 10 that they did not believe him because they were not his sheep. There are sheep and there are goats.

There are good seed and there are evil seed. There are the wheat and there are the tares. And God never had anything, any care, He never had any illusions about who the wheat were and who the tares were. We might. We are strictly forbidden to try to remove tares from among the wheat because we don't know any better. But God knew who His wheat were and He knew who the tares were.

And in the fullness of time, he'll send his angels to reap his wheat and gather it into his barn. And we're told plainly who the tares are. They are the sons of the devil. They are the children of the evil one, and they will be gathered up and burned.

It's not ambiguous. The truth is plain and clear and simple. The fact that people hate it doesn't make it complicated. What makes it complicated is trying to explain it away. And they'll even use other scripture to try to explain it away. But we know that when God so loved the world, we know what he's saying, because the field is the world. And God planted His garden in this world, and He loves His garden. There is never anywhere where He expresses any love for the tares. They're tares from the beginning. They're detrimental naturally to the wheat. All they do is suck away the life from the wheat.

But that's all part of God's purpose because in the end he'll do away with the tears and they'll be gathered into his barn and he said they'll shine forth as the sun. Because we'll be like him. Not hard to understand, just hard to swallow until God opens your eyes and reveals to you what you are. When He reveals to us that by nature we're the children of wrath, in our nature we're just like Him, but not in His purpose, not in His love. Paul wrote that Christ in Hebrews 9, 12, obtained eternal redemption for us.

When he died on Calvary, he didn't die in an attempt to save everybody, in a failed attempt, I might add, to save everybody. He obtained eternal redemption for his sheep. He said in John 10, my sheep, hear my voice. He's not waiting in a corner rubbing his hands together to hoping that his sheep will hear his voice. They hear my voice and I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish.

It's a sure salvation that is our hope this morning. Christ taught Nicodemus in John 3 that the way people are able to see and enter into the kingdom of God is by a new birth from above. Not a decision made below. A new birth that only the Holy Spirit is able to accomplish. And that that Holy Spirit, He goes where He will, like the wind. And you don't have any power over it.

He blows where He pleases, not where you please. We're going to have a revival. Are you now? You sure? Because the Holy Spirit goes where he pleases, not where you put up a sign and a date. No, no, we beg and we pray for revival. We don't announce it. And he can do it anytime he wants to. It doesn't have to be June the 12th or something. Just today would be fine with me. How about you?

If the Lord would wake us up, He blows where He will, and you don't have any power over that, nor do you even understand His workings. We can hear the sound thereof, but you can't tell where He'll go or where He'll give life or where He'll birth again.

Sinners by His power and according to the redemption that's in Christ. And here in our parable this morning, we see why God so loved the world, because it's His garden. and who Christ came to redeem, and why? Because they're His garden, they're His seed. The Scripture speaks of Abraham's seed, not the Jews' earthly speaking, because it's very clearly explained by the apostle that it says seed and not seeds, because that seed is Christ. Christ in us is the hope of glory for us, not by what lineage we're born. All who are the faith of Abraham, Paul said, are Christ's seed and heirs according to all the promises, which are yea and amen, where? In the Son of God.

God loves the world because he's a gardener with a capital G. That's why he loves it. And husbandman and the world is his field. Think about this simple parable this morning, how glorious it is because we all understand something about that. Even if you have no particular affinity for gardening, you understand how it works. And gardens serve more than one purpose. Did you know that?

God's garden. We are part of God's garden. You know, gardens are necessary because we don't eat without them. In God's purpose, there's no sustenance except as how that God feeds his garden. But also, they're beautiful. There's vegetable gardens and then there's flower gardens. Not only do we need Christ, but we adore him. We marvel at his glory.

When the Lord speaks of his garden in the scriptures, it's so beautiful the way he speaks of hedging it about. And he planted it, and he prepared the good ground, and he planted it, and his word is like the rain that falls from heaven. And what does it do? It causes the herb to spring forth. It makes his plants grow.

He loves the world, and the world is not just a bare piece of ground, and he's waiting to see what's going to happen, but he's planted some seed in it, and he calls them good seed, and he says they're the children of the kingdom. And like any garden or farm where there are weeds growing up, also with the good stuff, which is inevitable because of the state of this fallen world and this fallen race. There are physical weeds growing in every garden that have to be rooted out because this world groans and travails together, waiting for the adoption to wit, the redemption of our bodies. This world is cursed. The fruit of the ground is cursed. The ground is cursed. But that's such a beautiful spiritual lesson in that we're all sinful and wretched, but some of us just happen to belong to the Lord.

What do you have to do with that? So let's try to make some honest observations concerning what's clearly taught in this parable. Also throughout God's Word and let's see if God will teach us what's happening in his world Because that's what we glory in him and what he's doing Him and what he's done Him and what he's done and this is not about excluding people we're not we're not You know, Paul said to King Agrippa, I would to God that you were altogether such as I am, except these bonds. This is not about exclusion.

It's about who is the savior so that sinners will run to him. By these means, God has ordained it that way. If you ever find out who he is, that he's not the feel sorry for Jesus, but the king of glory who saves whom he will, And He reveals to you in His gospel your need of Him. And you see God's glory in His face. That's how He calls His people to Himself.

Because this is one parable, understand, with vegetable seeds and flower seeds and then the seeds that blow off of the weeds of this world and get in the midst of them. But there's also the parable of the lost sheep, where God goes and finds his sheep, the Son of God goes and finds his sheep and puts it on his shoulders and brings it home. So this is not about black and white, cold, dead doctrine. This is about the Savior who you need to come to, to have life.

And first of all, let's consider this, and we'll just introduce it for now, that everything God does in His world, clearly from this parable, in His garden, His farm, of whom he is the husbandman, he is the gardener, everything he does in this world is for his own glory and for the good of his plants. And really, let's talk about how those two things are the same thing. Because if it wasn't for the fact that God's greatest glory is his mercy upon sinners, There wouldn't be any gospel. Let me show you how that they're the same, and I guess we'll take a break. John 15, 5, please. John 15,

5. I am the vine, and ye are the branches. Another illustration.

He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. For without me, you can do nothing. A branch with no roots, no sap, no life, It cannot flourish. It can do nothing but die. Except we abide in him. If Abed, verse six, abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch and is withered.

And men gather them and cast them into the fire and they are burned. They're undesirable. We don't want a bunch of branches, dead branches laying around in our garden. So we burn them. Is that too harsh? The teaching of that is not God is mean. The teaching of that is you are nothing. You are worthless. You're a failure. You're a piece of garbage by nature.

If you abide in me though, And my words about in you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you. You see how he takes care of his... Herein is my Father glorified that you bear much fruit. So shall you be, my disciples. And you think about that illustration in conjunction with our parable that we're considering this morning. And you see that us abiding in the vine is necessary for us. It causes us to flourish. It causes us to live. It causes us to be beautiful.

You're beautiful through my comeliness, he said. In Ezekiel 33 or 32, I think. You'll be beautiful. You're beautiful through my comeliness. Ezekiel 16, I think it is. I was close. And I still may be wrong, but happy, fulfilled. For us, it's everything. To abide in the vine is everything. And for Him, what does He get out of it? Fruit, glory. Herein is my Father glorified that you bear much fruit.

So shall you be my disciples. That's what it is to be a true disciple of Christ. It's not being a member of the Methodist church or the Baptist church, the Presbyterian church. It's being in Christ and him in you. It's a person. And your relationship to him. you being found in him.

What is good for the branch is to abide in Christ and have life and bear fruit. And that's the same thing that glorifies the Father, the bearing of that fruit. So all that he does is for himself and for us. And to have our Prosperity, our happiness, our fulfillment connected to His glory is a real good thing for us. Because He will be glorified, will He not? He will be glorified in the saving of sinners. What a blessing to be in on that.