Luke chapter eight and verse
four. And when much people were gathered
together, and were come to him out of every city, he spake by
a parable, that's the Lord Jesus. A sower went out to sow his seed,
and as he sowed, some fell by the wayside, and was trodden
down, and the fowls of the air devoured it. And some fell upon
a rock, and as soon as it was sprung up, it withered away,
because it lacked moisture. And some fell among thorns, and
the thorns sprang up with it, and choked it. And other fell
on good ground, and sprang up, and bear fruit an hundredfold.
And when he had said these things, he cried, He that hath ears to
hear, let him hear. And his disciples asked him,
saying, What might this parable be? And he said, Unto you it
is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to
others in parables, that seeing they might not see, and hearing
they might not understand. Now the parable is this, the
seed is the word of God. Those by the wayside are they
that hear, then cometh the devil and taketh away the word out
of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. They on
the rock are they which, when they hear, receive the word with
joy, and these have no root, which for a while believe, and
in time of temptation fall away. And that which fell among thorns
are they which when they have heard go forth and are choked
with cares and riches and pleasures of this life and bring no fruit
to perfection. But that on the good ground are
they which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word,
keep it and bring forth fruit with patience. Amen. May the Lord bless this reading
to us. I think we all here are familiar
with the Parable of the Sower. It's recounted variously in three
synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and here in the Gospel of Luke. It was delivered, we're told,
beside the sea. when we compare the different
accounts and the different Gospels. It was delivered beside the sea.
It was delivered to a large group of people who had come to hear
the Lord Jesus Christ preach. And it may indeed be the fact
of this large crowd that prompted the Lord to speak as he does. If this event occurred following
the preceding account of the Lord travelling around all the
towns and villages in the region, where we might imagine there
would be comparatively fewer people would attend to his ministry,
simply because of the size of the villages and the communities,
It's possible that here beside the sea, perhaps near Capernaum,
he was surrounded by a very large crowd. And it actually does appear also
from some of the other gospel accounts that this was an occasion
when he entered into the little boat and preached to the crowd
from the water because of the press. Now the disciples were
very likely to be impressed by these large numbers. And it seems
to me that the parable of the sower was a way of conveying
to them that not all those who flocked to the Lord Jesus Christ,
not all those who appeared to be following or enthusiastic
about Christ's preachings and his works could be supposed to
be truly rooted in the truth of the Lord's ministry or indeed
members of his kingdom. And I think this is perhaps one
of the reasons which motivated the Lord to bring this parable
on this occasion. He is teaching, remember, he
is teaching his disciples about their own ministry, as well as
gathering those faithful few around him during the days of
his preaching. And he is showing us here that
curiosity is no measure of commitment. and crowds come and go. And that's a useful principle
for us all to remember. We're always eager to see numbers
gathering. We're always eager to have people
interested in hearing the gospel. But the reality is that only
a fraction of those who hear the word ever produce spiritual
fruit as a proof of a true spiritual transformation. And mere attendance
under the gospel, even for a prolonged period of time, and indeed even
apparent evidences of grace, do not assure true spiritual
life. The sower in the parable is the
Lord Jesus himself. And this activity of sowing may
be applied to every preacher of the gospel who goes forth
with the message of grace. It's to be cast out widely. It is to be spread widely. Those who accuse believers in
free grace of not preaching the gospel because we don't offer
salvation indiscriminately, they don't know what they're talking
about. They don't know what they're saying. We preach promiscuously. We preach generally. We preach widely. To all, to
any who will listen, we are very eager that all men and women
will hear the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. We desire to reach
as many as possible with the truth. But we insist that the
gospel that we preach is the revealed message of the primacy
of the divine will in the purpose of salvation of sinners. We preach
the sovereign choice of God in election. We preach the efficacy
and the particularity of Christ's atoning work on the cross. We
preach the necessity of the Holy Spirit's power in quickening
and in spiritual regeneration of those redeemed individuals
for whom Christ died. We eschew the message that says
man is capable of his own salvation. We despise the preaching that
makes God's will subservient to man's will and the eternal
purpose of grace and glory dependent on man's fallen nature. We take
Christ's gospel, we take the good seed as the Lord himself
proclaimed it, as the apostles proclaimed it, as the New Testament
testifies to it, as the Lord took it and we sow it widely. But the Lord would have his disciples
and his preachers and the church know that there will be many
varying responses to the preaching of the word. Sometimes the seed
will fall by the wayside and be trodden down and the fouls
of the air or Satan's temptations will devour it and it will be
gone. Some will fall on a rock and
there will be no depth to the response, the reaction, no depth
in the soil, so that as soon as it's sprung up, it withers
away because it lacked moisture. Initial enthusiasm dissolves
and early excitement fades away. And some falls among thorns and
the trials and the troubles of life like thorns that spring
up with it soon choke it and it's gone. And I suspect that,
looking around this little room at the age of all the people
gathered here, that we all have seen the evidence of the Lord's
words in our own experience, as some who start out well do
not continue in the faith. but grow weary and lax and careless
and ultimately abandon all pretense of the Christian life and Christian
testimony. And it hurts us to see that happening. We become saddened, we become
reflective, we wonder who then can stand if these things do
indeed happen. And the truth of Christ's words
and his applications have been seen repeatedly over the years. And I don't say this to frighten
your souls, but it reminds us that none of us can stand in
our own strength or survive in this way except the Lord is in
us and with us and contending for us. If we are going to survive
and be fruitful, it is because God the Holy Spirit is upholding
and sustaining us and enabling us every single day. And we must
have the graces of the Holy Spirit if we are going to withstand
the wiles of the devil and the temptations of the flesh. But I want us to take the lesson
that the Lord leaves here in this passage in a positive way
and to close with a few words about the seed that fell into
the good ground and sprang up and bear fruit a hundredfold. Just before I do that, let me
make a point about the Lord's explanation concerning why he
spoke in parables. The disciples elsewhere in the
other passages, they ask for the meaning here, but the Lord
tells them, as well as the meaning, he tells them why he speaks like
this. They inquired as to the purpose
of teaching in this way. And the Lord's reply is, unto
you it is given, to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God.
Unto you, to his elect, to his called, to his chosen, to his
redeemed, unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the
kingdom of God. But to others in parables, that
seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand. Now in many ways it seems strange
that Christ spoke with the express purpose that his words would
be understood only by certain hearers. But the Lord in doing
this is reminding us that the gospel is a mystery revealed,
but it isn't revealed to everyone. There were many who never, ever
even heard the Gospel in times past, and there are many today
who never hear it, and there are many today who hear it, and
yet it remains hidden to them. And this is the lesson that Christ
is giving us here. We've not to be shocked or surprised
at that. That is just the reality. And
it's the intentional purpose of the Lord to do it this way. This is the will of God. And
the disciples were being taught this. They never taught in parables.
The Apostle Paul never taught in parables. As far as we know,
Peter and James and John and the other apostles, they never
taught in parables. It was an exclusive style and
characteristic of the Lord. And yet the Lord was explaining
and exhibiting that the gospel that would be preached by the
apostles, clearly, doctrinally, simply, would nevertheless be
in its essence hidden to many who were not given eyes to see
and ears to hear. The Gospel is spiritually discerned. It is spiritually discovered.
It can be heard in the simplest vocabulary. It can be heard in
the easiest language. but it still requires spiritual
receptiveness to be understood. And this again teaches us the
necessity of the new creation and spiritual illumination, even
to hear the gospel, far less to believe it. Those who imagine
that we can believe by our own natural free will, you can't
even hear the gospel. without there being spiritual
illumination granted to us. so that the Lord is gathering
a people to himself out of this world. And he does it by this
means, he illuminates, he enables the seeing and the hearing and
the understanding as he applies it to the souls of men and women. And he takes all the credit and
glory for making dead men, men dead in sins, men in their natural
state, blind men, He makes dead men live, blind men see, deaf
men understand the truth to the saving of their souls. And there's
no glory for men except the derived glory that the Lord bestows out
of his grace and goodness to us. Nothing in us is earned and
no glory is deserved at all in any way. But there is a very
encouraging lesson here as well. In the good ground, the seed
grows strong and fruitful. Luke says, on the good ground
are they, or the Lord says, on the good ground are they which
in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it
and bring forth fruit with patience. This is a lovely verse. Let us
be encouraged to hear this. For all that fall away, there
are many who remain stable, who grow strong, and are fruitful
believers in and within the Lord's kingdom. Christ has a people
and he is gathering them from day to day using the preaching
of the gospel and the sowing of the gospel seed to do so. He plants that seed in good ground. He nourishes, he waters, he feeds,
he fructifies his people. And we may assume as long as
the Lord causes his seed to be sown, As long as he gives the
church a gospel to preach, as long as he gives us preachers
to go out with this seed and sow it, he has a people to gather
into his kingdom and more fruit to gather for his church. Let's look briefly at the characteristics
of these people and then we're done. They have an honest and
good heart. The truth means something to
these people. They are honest people. Goodness
pleases them and attracts them, and the goodness of God is manifested
in them. They hear the gospel honestly. They hear it for what it is,
and it does their hearts good. The old man with his wickedness
and his lies has been deposed in this honest and good heart. And that which was deceitful
and desperately wicked is transformed by the indwelling of Christ and
his Spirit. Transformed, converted to be
honest and good. And yes, we feel the vestiges
of the old nature, but conversion makes a difference and the new
creation is a fruitful creation where the fruit of the Spirit
dwells continually. And the Lord goes on to say,
having heard the word, they keep it. True believers don't go back. They keep the Word. They cherish
the Gospel. And the Christ of the Gospel
is cherished in their hearts. It becomes precious to us and
we will put up with no other. We can accept no other Gospel.
When we don't hear the Gospel, when we hear a false Gospel,
it repulses us. We find ourselves reacting, sometimes
almost physically against it, because we know how false it
is and how damaging it is. Having heard the truth, that
makes us free, they keep it, they hold fast to it. That's what we were thinking
about the other day, about the Apostle Paul telling Timothy
to hold fast to that which he had been taught. That's what
these believers do. And then, finally, it brings
forth fruit with patience. That is another characteristic
of the true believer. They bring forth fruit with patience. The true, let me just say, the
other gospel writers, they speak of 30-fold and 60-fold and 100-fold. We were once taught that that
was the number of Christian converts that we should make by our witnessing
and our evangelism, but that's not so. A Christian's fruit is
the growth and development of those graces implanted by Christ
which are advanced, which are caused to grow and develop by
the testing, the trials and the troubles of this life. And those
who are most fruitful in the 30, 60 and 100 fold calibration
that the other gospel writers give us, those who are most fruitful
are those who have suffered most and yet endure to the end. Our
fruitfulness is the exercise of grace in our soul that enables
us to overcome the old passions and the old prejudices of our
flesh. and it makes us increasingly
like our Saviour. The Lord's people are a people
with good and honest hearts who keep the faith and persevere
by grace through the trials of this life to the glory of their
God. Amen.