Well, good morning. If you would
open your Bibles with me to Mark chapter four. Mark the fourth
chapter. Before we begin, let's bow before
our Lord together in prayer. Our Father, we come into your
presence this morning, daring only come before your throne
of grace in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. Pleading his
obedience is our only righteousness. Pleading his blood is the only
cleansing that we have from our sin. And Father, we're a thankful
people. How thankful we are to be able
to come into your presence accepted in the beloved. How we thank
you for such a savior as our Lord Jesus Christ, who completely,
utterly, and freely saves all of his people from their sin. Father, I thank you. And I beg
of you this morning that you would enable the name of Christ
our Savior to be exalted and praised in everything that is
said and done here this morning. Let nothing be done to the praise
or the recognition of this flesh, but that everything might be
done to the praise and the glory of the matchless name of Christ
our Savior. And Father, I pray you'd give
us faith to believe, eyes of faith to see him, ears of faith
to hear his voice in the word, and that we might run to him
to find in him everything that we need. Father, we're thankful
for this opportunity to worship you, and pray that you bless
us. We pray a blessing on our children's
classes going on right now, and Father, we pray a special blessing
on this week of Vacation Bible School that we have with our
children. Father, how we thank you for
all these little ones that you've given to us. We pray that you
keep them safe from this wicked generation in which they are
forced to grow up. And Father, above all, that you'd
have mercy on their souls. Let this be a week where, by
your mercy and grace, the seeds of faith are planted in the hearts
of our little ones. Father, we pray for our children.
We pray for those that would teach them that you'd be with
them, enable them to speak and teach in the power of thy spirit.
Father, we pray a blessing for those that you brought into the
time of trouble and trial. Father, we pray that you'd heal,
that you'd comfort, that you'd bless. Father, above all, we
pray that you'd give a fulfillment of your promise to your people,
that you'd be with them as we go through the The deep waters
as we go through the fires, we go through these troubles, Father,
that you'd be with your people. Comfort their hearts with your
presence. All these things we ask in that name which is above
every name, the name of Christ our Savior, amen. I've titled our lesson this morning
Spiritual Growth. Now the Lord has been in this
chapter teaching about salvation and eternal life in parables.
And I believe the order of these parables is important. First,
our Lord had the parable about the four types of hearers. There's
the wayside hearer, the stony ground hearer, the thorny ground
hearer, the good ground hearer. Now the same seed of the word
of God was spread on all those different types of hearers, but
only the good ground hearer brought forth fruit. And that's because
the Lord made the difference. The Lord had prepared that heart
and made that heart good ground so that heart would would hear
and believe the words that was preached. The Lord is teaching
us now salvation is of the Lord, but the Lord uses the means of
preaching, the preaching of his word to give life to his people.
The word is preached, but God is the one that has to give the
increase as it pleases him to do so. Then last week we saw
the parable of the candle, and that candle is a picture of the
light of the gospel. And Lord taught us now, if Lord's
given you that light of the gospel, It's your responsibility to spread
that spiritual light in this dark world in which we live.
And Lord ended that parable with this instruction. You're going
to get out of the gospel what you put into it. You're going
to get out of it what you put into it. You'll make every effort
to be here to hear God's word preached. There's not going to
be any salvation. There'll never be any growth
in grace without hearing the gospel preached, without having
God's word preached to you. So put every effort into being
here to hear it preached for your own good. Now, if you don't
put much importance on the gospel, you don't put much effort into
hearing it, don't be surprised when you're not blessed with
any spiritual growth. Because you've got to be under the sound
of the gospel. You've got to be where the word
is being sown. There's going to be any spiritual growth. Now,
right after that encouragement to do everything you can do to
hear the gospel when it's preached, The Lord uses a parable to teach
us about spiritual growth. In short, here's what the Lord's
teaching in this parable. Spiritual growth comes from the
Lord blessing the preaching of his word to your heart to cause
spiritual growth. Now we're responsible. We're
responsible to preach Christ. We're responsible to hear Christ
preached. but we're completely dependent
on the Lord to give the increase. There's some 30, some 60, some
100 fold. And the means that God uses to
give this spiritual growth to his people is the preaching of
the word. Now here's something that I'm
sure every believer desires. Every single believer desires
more spiritual growth. How much ever spiritual growth
that you think you have attained, no matter what it is, you want
more. We want more spiritual growth. We want to know more
of Christ. We want our faith strengthened. You just can never,
as long as we're in this flesh, we'll never be satisfied with
the amount of spiritual growth that God has given us. So this
lesson should be very interesting and helpful to us. A lesson on
spiritual growth. Now, first, the Lord tells us
about the preacher that's necessary for spiritual growth. Look at
verse 26 of Mark chapter four. And he said, so is the kingdom
of God. As if a man should cast seed
into the ground. Now, if a farmer is ever going
to have a harvest of corn, that harvest is going to have to plant
some corn in the spring, or he'll never have a harvest of corn.
He's got to prepare that ground. He's got to plant the seed. He's
got to work hard at doing it. Because look what the Lord says
in verse 28. For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself. First
the blade, then the ear, and after that, the full ear of corn. Now the earth doesn't produce
corn fields or wheat fields all on its own, does it? Ever since
Adam's fall in the garden, the only thing this earth has ever
produced on its own is thorns and thistles. The earth can grow
weeds, it grows weeds real well, but it's never going to grow
corn on its own. So if the farmer wants a harvest of corn, He's
going to have to plow the ground. He's going to have to plant that
seed in the springtime. That's just obvious, isn't it?
Well, the same thing is true of preaching. The human heart
can never produce faith in Christ. The human heart will never produce
love for Christ. The human heart will never love
and believe the gospel. So if we desire to have a harvest
of souls, I tell you what we're going to have to do. We're going
to have to plant the seed of the Word. And we're going to
do it by preaching Christ. And we're going to have to do
it every chance we get. We're not going to sow sparingly.
We're going to preach this word and preach Christ every chance
we get. Every week. By God's grace, that's
what we do here. If I'm here, that's my every
intention. My heart's desire is to preach
God's word and sow the seed. And if I'm gone, I'll be very
careful who I ask to stand in this place. And whoever it is
I ask to stand in this place, I'm confident in this. He's gonna
sow that word. He's gonna sow the word. We do
it every week. This week, we're gonna have Vacation Bible School
for our children. This is an important week. This
is our desire this week, that we might plant the seeds of faith
in the hearts of our young ones that someday is gonna grow up
to full spiritual life in Christ. But we have to preach the word.
If that's gonna happen, we have to preach the word. Because our
fallen nature is never gonna know God. We're never gonna know
who God is, we're never gonna know how God saves sinners, unless
somebody comes and tells us. Somebody's gotta tell us who
God is. You know, we're fallen in sin. Our understanding is
darkened by sin so that we can't see, we can't believe Christ.
The human heart doesn't have the capacity to believe Christ.
So somebody is going to have to put some effort into this
matter of preaching Christ to us. Because the preaching of
God's word, the preaching of Christ is the one and only means
Almighty God will ever use to give faith in Christ to one of
his left. It's the only means. It's never
going to happen by you sitting somewhere and getting struck
by lightning. It's by preaching. Faith cometh by hearing. and
hearing by the word of God. Now in his commentary on this
passage, I'll read you something Brother Fortner wrote. He said,
grace in the heart is an exotic plant. Here's what Brother Don
meant by that. Grace does not grow naturally
in our hearts. If God's grace is in our hearts,
you know why it's there? God planted it there. God had
to plant it there and cause it to grow. And I can tell you how
he planted it there is by the preaching of Christ, by the preaching
of sovereign grace. Now it is our desire to have
and see a harvest of souls. We desire that for our children. We desire that for our loved
ones. We desire that for people in our community. So we do, what
the Lord's commanded us to do. We preach Christ and Him crucified
to everybody that'll listen. Now you notice how I said that.
We desire a harvest of souls. We don't try to talk to somebody
to walk the aisle. We don't try to talk to somebody in the baptismal
pool. That's not necessary. If we do that, we're not getting
a harvest of souls. If we desire a harvest of souls,
here's what we do. We preach Christ to people. We
just preach Christ to people and leave them alone with God
because the increase is up to him. The preaching of Christ,
that's how the seed of God's word is planted in the hearts
of God's elect. All right, number, that's the
job of the preacher. All right, second, the Lord tells
us about the seed that's necessary for spiritual growth. In verse
26, he says, so is the kingdom of God as a man should cast seed
into the ground. Now the farmer, in the springtime,
he plants whatever kind of seed that he wants to harvest in the
fall. Well, if he wants to harvest a corn, he's going to have to
plant corn in it. If he wants to harvest a bean,
he's going to have to plant beans. If he wants to harvest a wheat,
he's going to have to plant wheat. He has to plant whatever it is
he desires to harvest. Well, we desire spiritual harvest,
don't a spiritual one. So what we do is plant the seed
of the word of God. Look over first Peter chapter
one. Peter tells us about this. First Peter one verse 23. He says, being born again, Now how
does that happen? How does a sinner be born again? Well, it's not of corruptible
seed, but of incorruptible. By the word of God, which liveth
and abideth forever. For all flesh is its grass, and
the glory of man is the flower of grass. The grass withereth,
and the flower thereof falleth away. That's why we don't plant
the incorruptible seed of the flesh. It's just gonna die. But
the word of the Lord endureth forever. And this is the word
which by the gospel is preached unto you. This book is the seed
that God uses to give spiritual life to his people. It's all
here. Everything you ever need for
spiritual life is right here. That's where it's found. So that's
the seed God's preacher preaches. That's the seed that God's preacher
sows. There's nothing lacking. There's
nothing lacking in this book. But this book is not gonna do
anybody any good if it's sitting on a shelf somewhere collecting
dust. It must be preached. It must be read. The only way
this book's gonna do anybody any good is if God sends a man
who dares to preach it, no matter the cost, no matter the consequences,
no matter the reaction, God's got to send us a man who dares
to preach this word. and absolutely nothing else.
He's not going to use emotional pulls. He's not going to use
psychological tricks. He's not going to use the mumbo-jumbo
of religion, all the ceremonies and traditions of religion. God's
servant simply says this. Thus saith the Lord. I mean,
try to go through the Old Testament and count how many times the
Old Testament prophets said that. Thus saith the Lord. Thus saith
the Lord. That's what we need to hear.
God's preacher takes a text and said, here's Christ in this text.
Do you see Him? Here's Christ in this text. Here
is the glory of Christ in this text. This is why you should
trust Him. Here's His glory in this text. And God's preacher's
gonna do that without any mixture. He's not gonna mix in some of
man's traditions, you know, to make it seem like it's gonna
go, you know, a little more sweetly to the flesh. He's not going
to use a bunch of religious customs. He's not going to use sentiment.
Well, wouldn't it be easy to play on the sentimentality and
emotion of people and get them to do something? But God's preacher's
not going to do that. He uses the pure seed of the
word of God. Just like that farmer. He plants
pure seed. He doesn't get kernels of corn
Mixed in with, I don't know how thorns and thistles grow, if
it's seed or whatever, but he's not mixing thorns and thistles
in with his colonel's corn. If he's planting wheat, he's
not taking that wheat and mixing it in with weed seeds. If he
did, what kind of harvest would he have? I mean, maybe he could
get his corn seed cheaper if it's mixed in with weed seed.
Probably get it cheaper, good. But what kind of harvest would
he get? Wouldn't be much of one, would it? Wouldn't be a very
good one. I mean, it'd just be ridiculous if a farmer did that.
I mean, he's doing everything he can do to keep the weeds out.
He's sure not going to plant some. If we mix Christ with something
that the flesh can do, if we mix Christ plus your earthly
morality, if we mix Christ plus you keeping some of the law,
if we mix Christ plus anything that the flesh does as a ceremony
of religion, If we're mixing grace and works, we're going
to get a harvest, that's for sure. And that harvest is going
to be wood, hay, and stubble. That's what it's going to be.
If we mix grace and works, we're going to get a harvest all right.
We're going to attract a bunch of goats, not sheep. And no pastor
that I've ever met wants to be a goat farmer, wants to be a
sheep herder, wants to feed the sheep. But if we want a harvest
of spiritual life, tell you what we'll do. We're going to preach
God's word without any other agenda. That's the seed that
God uses to give this spiritual growth. Now third, the Lord tells
us about spiritual growth itself. Verse 27, and should sleep and
rise night and day and the seed should spring and grow up. He
knoweth not how. Now, crops growing in the ground,
I mean, that's a mystery, isn't it? It's a mystery. Technically,
we know how that happens, technically. But it's still a mystery. I mean,
you take perfectly good seed, seed you paid good money for.
I mean, this stuff's not cheap. And you take that seed, and you
stick it down in some ground you plowed up, and cover it over
with dirt, and walk away and leave it. You go home, go to bed, and go
to sleep. Get up the next day and go about
your activities that night, go to bed. Just keep doing that,
keep doing that, and keep doing that. And all the while, that
seed's laying in the ground. You can't see it. It's covered
up with the dirt. And you better leave the seed
alone. Don't go digging it up and see
what it's doing. Leave it alone. Leave it under the dirt. Because
that good seed's got to die. It's got to be under that ground.
It's got to die. It's got to germinate and eventually
grow up to a full stalk of corn. And it's going to have hundreds
of kernels of corn on it. You just planted one. But hundreds
of kernels of corn are going to come up out of that thing.
All that grew from one dried up seed that you planted in the
ground. Now, technically, we know how
that happens, don't we? But you try making it happen
without God giving life. You can't do it. I mean, it's
a mystery how God gives life to that. It's just beyond our
ability to give life to that seed and cause it to grow to
the full ear corn. Well, the same thing's true about
spiritual life and spiritual growth. Now, technically, I know
how that happens. I know growth, spiritual growth
comes from just consistently sitting under the preaching of
the gospel. I know that, hearing the gospel preached. That's where
spiritual life and spiritual growth comes from. But it's still
a mystery, isn't it? That's what the Lord says here,
that the seed grows up to a full plant, but the farmer doesn't
know how it happened. I didn't see it happen. I just
know that it did. There's evidence that it did.
God's servant, he works hard to preach the word. He studies
and he prays and he studies and he prays. He puts down some notes
and he begs God that God will enable him to preach this in
the power of the Spirit, not in the weakness of the flesh.
And he preaches to the best of his ability. He preaches the
message God gave him to preach. And then he goes home and he
goes to bed. He gets up the next morning and starts that process
all over again. Studying and praying, studying
and praying. Day after day after day, he just gets up in the morning
and does that, goes to bed at night. Day after day after day. And most of the time, it looks
like nothing's happening. Most of the time, if he would
just really, if he would just look and say, okay, what evidence
is, you know, do I see that this ministry is bearing fruit? Well,
he wouldn't see any, and he'd get discouraged. It looks like
nothing's happening, but it is. It is. Just like that seed that
you're planting under the ground. I mean, you just look at the
top of the ground, you think nothing's happening. I've wasted my money. I've wasted my time planting
that seed. There's nothing happening. Oh, but it is. Something's happening
down under the ground, isn't it? God's preacher, he keeps
preaching. He keeps preaching the gospel. He keeps preaching
Christ. He may not think anything's happening, but something is.
It's down in the hearts of God's people. That's where God operates. That's where God works. All the
activity is going on in the hearts of God's people. And just like
that seed, eventually, a sprout sticks up through the ground.
And the farmer says, I see growth. I see growth. You just keep preaching
Christ. You just keep sitting under the
sound of the gospel. Eventually, you'll start to see some growth.
Now, on a personal level, A believer almost never knows the exact
moment that the Holy Spirit put life into. We just almost never know that.
I don't know when it happened, but I know it happened, because
now I believe Christ. There was a day I didn't believe
Him, and now I do. I don't know when it happened,
this is all I know. Right now I believe Christ. I believe Him. Something happened, but I just
don't know when it happened. Look at John chapter three. That's
what the Lord tells Nicodemus about this thing of spiritual
life. We can tell something's happened,
but we don't know when, we don't know how. John three, verse eight. Well, look up at verse seven.
Marvel not that I said unto thee, you must be born again. The wind
bloweth where it listeth. And thou hearest the sound thereof,
but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth.
So is everyone that's born of the Spirit. You don't know the
exact moment God gave it. All you know is the Holy Spirit's
been through here and gave life. That's all we know. And for the
preacher, I don't know the exact moment that God gives spiritual
life to someone. Eventually, I believe I see it,
Eventually, you know, I'm up here up here preaching. I've
seen somebody not not caring just a bit for anything that
I'm saying And suddenly They're paying very very close attention
Suddenly, it looks like there's a light on. I think so. I believe
so. What are we gonna do? We're gonna
keep preaching Christ and we'll find out Chris we'll find out
sooner or later. Won't we just keep preaching
Christ? I Don't know the exact moment when Christ gave somebody
life But I know it when I see it. I know it when I see it. I can't tell you everything that
spiritual life is. But I know it when I see it.
The same thing's true of physical life. I mean, who can describe
life? I mean, here's a body. It's got
life. And in a split second, his heart
stops beating, and he stops breathing, and he's dead. What happened? Where did that life go? I don't
know. Here's what I know. Only God
can give life. Only God can give life. That's
true physically. I mean, parents can want a child. They can want a child so desperately.
They can do everything in this world science tells them to do
to have a child, and they're not going to have one if God's
not pleased to give life. Just try making it happen, but
it can't happen. The same thing is true spiritually that's true
physically. I know how God gives spiritual
life. And I can do my dead level best to preach Christ and preach
Christ and preach Christ and so the word over and over and
over and over again. But only God can give spiritual
life. And only God can make that spiritual
life grow. One preacher plains. Another
one waters. We're all preaching the same
gospel. God's preachers all preach the same gospel. One plants,
one waters. But we're all completely dependent
on God to give the increase, aren't we? Now, here's the thing
about spiritual growth. It's going to be slow. It's going
to be slow. It's going to be a whole lot
slower than what we want. But you know what? Don't be discouraged
if you think your spiritual growth is so slow. Because only weeds
grow fast. The only thing that grow fast
are weeds. Corn takes a good while to grow,
doesn't it? Spiritual growth is slow, but it's steady. It's steady. And I liken that
to physical life. The biggest, strongest man that
you know started out as a little baby. He was completely weak,
he was completely dependent on his mother and his father to
provide everything. He can't do one blessed thing
for himself. He was completely weak and utterly helpless. Now
he's a full-grown man. Now, some growth happened between
there, didn't it? You know, no baby starts out
running. First, that kid's got to learn
to sleep through the night. That's first step. Then, he's
got to learn to roll over. Then he's got to learn to sit
up. Then he's got to learn to crawl. And then mama's thinking,
oh my goodness, he's not walking fast enough. He should be walking
by now. Oh my goodness, what's wrong? Is something wrong with
my baby? And then that baby takes off walking, and she wishes,
oh, I wish this didn't happen so fast, because he can't keep
up with him. You've got to go through that
process before you start running. And as that growth happens, there's
a lot of bumps and bruises along the way. But before you know it, before
you know it, that kid's 18 and off to college, and you think,
I don't know how it happened. I watched him every day, and
I don't know how it happened. That growth was slow, but it
was steady. You know, you think, oh, I remember
these days. You think, oh, this kid is never
going to learn their multiplication tables. I mean, what is it going
to take to teach this kid? What is it going to take to teach
this kid 2x equals 4? What is that? I mean, you know,
you think that kid's never going to learn that. And you turn around,
that kid's doing calculus. You can't help him with the homework
anymore. What happened? Now, there's growth. It just
took a while, didn't it? The same thing is true about
spiritual growth. It's a slow process. You know,
first there's the seed planted. And then you wait, and wait,
and wait, and wait, and that seed's under the ground. Looks like
nothing's happening. And then the blade springs up. And you
watch, and watch, and watch, and pretty soon, it starts to
grow. Starts to bud. And before you
know it, that bud turns into your corn. But now, it took all
summer to happen. That growth was slow. But it
happened. That's the way spiritual life
is. It happens slowly. and is fed by the preaching of
the word. The same preaching Almighty God
used to give you faith in Christ is the same preaching he uses
to cause spiritual growth in his children. And that life and
that knowledge, it's gained slowly. You know, it's gained slowly
because we can't take it all in at once. We just cannot take
it in all at once. You know why I don't preach for
two hours? It's not because I can't find
the materials, because we can't take it in. We can't take that
much in at one time. It has to be line upon line,
precept upon precept, slowly building, slowly building, slowly
growing. And there's going to be times
you think, I'm not growing at all. There can be times you think,
matter of fact, I'm shrinking. But you just remember, Growth
in grace happens slowly. And before long, you'll experience
some growth in grace. And when you do, you know what
it'll make you want to do? It won't make you proud. It'll
make you think you've arrived. You'll say, I want more. I want
more of that growth. Even the Apostle Paul said, I
haven't arrived. No, he said, I want to know more of Christ.
I want to grow more. Well, that's spiritual growth.
Then the fourth thing the Lord tells us about is the harvest.
Back in our text, Mark 4, verse 29. But when the fruit
is brought forth, immediately he put it in the sickle because
the harvest is come. Now God's gonna harvest his people.
He's planted them. He's caused them to have life. He's caused them to grow and
have spiritual growth. And God's gonna harvest them
right on time. He won't be a minute early, he
won't be a minute late. Right on time. It's just like
the farmer. Now that farmer's in the business
of making some money. The way he makes money is selling
his crops at the market, isn't he? But when that blade first
springs up out of the ground, the farmer doesn't rush out there
with his reaper and go through the fields pulling up those little
sprouts, does he? It's not time. It's not time. So he waits. until that ear becomes
a full ear. Then he takes his reaper out
and gathers it all in, but not until the full ear is ready. Every believer has probably wondered
this, and I certainly know many have asked me this question.
All right, the Lord say, why didn't he just take me home?
Or we get up in years and we wonder, you know, I don't feel
good anymore. I don't want to be here anymore.
All the Jim Meadows told me, all the sweetness, this world
is gone for me. I don't know why the Lord don't take me home.
And my answer to him and everybody else asked that question is always
this. It's because the Lord's got something else for you to
do. The Lord's got something, it's not time. If it was time,
the Lord would call you home. It's not time yet. There's something
else for you to do in his service. You haven't grown to the full
year yet. There's still some growing left
to do. See, God won't harvest his people until he's caused
them to grow by his grace. And then, when he comes to get
us, it'll be right on time. It'll be right on time. I think that every single time I preach a
funeral, I think, The Lord was right on time. He was right on
time. And if the Lord hadn't called
us home yet, it's because we got some growing left to do.
And I tell you how we're going to grow. I'll go back to the
start and tell you how it is we're going to grow. It's by
sitting under the sound of the gospel. God will use that to
cause us to grow. And I hope he'll do it for us
today. All right. The Lord bless you.