Let's take our Bibles now and
turn to Luke chapter 8. Luke chapter 8. In the first three verses of
chapter 8 was our lesson last week on God's
providence and the preaching of the gospel. All preaching
is providential. Truth be known, everything you
do is providential, but especially he shows us that in the preaching
of the gospel. And because of his providence
and the preaching of the gospel, he gives us this parable. He
gives us this parable, and he tells us at the end of it, Take
heed how you hear. If this thing of preaching is
in God's divine providence, and a preacher can't preach except
he be sent, and you can't hear except he gather you, be drawn
of God. And that's what the Lord said
over in John chapter six. He said, don't murmur. No man
can come unto me except my Father draw him. He has to be brought,
he has to be gathered. He arranges his providence for
you to hear, and now he tells us, therefore, take heed how
you hear. I want us to look at verses four
through 18 on this subject, take heed. how you hear. Now let's read these verses together.
Luke chapter eight, beginning with verse four. And when much
people were gathered together and were come to him out of every
city, he spake by a parable. A sower went out to sow his seed,
and as he sowed, some fell by the wayside, And it 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 sprung up with it and choked it. And the other
fell on good ground and sprung up in bare fruit, and 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's 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. And he says in verse 11, now
the parable is this, the seed is the word of God. Those by
the wayside are they that hear, then cometh the devil, which
he compares to the fowls of the air, the devils, the prince of
the power of the air. 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 much 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 had heard, they go forth and are
choked with the 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 they bring forth fruit with
patience. No man, when he hath lighted
a candle, covereth with a vessel. He don't light a candle and then
take a pan and put it on top of it. Or putteth it under a bed, but
he setteth it on a candlestick, that they which enter in may
see the light. For nothing is secret that shall
not be made manifest, neither anything hid that shall not be
known and come abroad. Take heed, therefore, how you
hear, for whosoever hath, hath what? Hath ability. Hath, by the grace of God, been
enabled to hear. Take heed, therefore, how you
hear, for whosoever hath, to him shall be given. And whosoever
hath not, from him shall be taken away even that which he seemeth
to have. Take heed, therefore, how you
hear. Our Lord had already preached
in all these cities and villages. showing to them the glad tidings
of the kingdom of God. And for a multitude of reasons,
a great crowd of men and women had come where he was now, and
had gathered around him to hear, to hear. And to this crowd of
people, our Lord gave this parable. A sower went forth to sow his
seed. Now he's not talking about sowers
here, he's talking about the sower. And you could only say of the
sower, which is Christ, that the seed is his. It's his seed. It's his seed. And this parable
is about what our Savior had been doing and was doing even
as he spoke to them that day. He was sowing his seed. And in this parable are all sorts
of people, all sorts of people represented,
typified. But in particular, there are
but two. Those who hear and those who
don't. That's what he's talking about.
There's whole parables about that. There's extenuating circumstances. Where the seed fell, what devoured
the seed, all kinds of extenuating circumstances, but he's just
talking about two people, those that hear and those who don't. Those who hear and believe, and
those who will not hear, who shall be damned. And never lose
sight of the reality and seriousness of what he's teaching here. Gospel
preaching is a matter of life and death. You may not see it
that way, you may not think of it that way, but it's the truth.
It's the truth. Gospel preaching is a matter
of life and death. And I would not have you to come
here without thinking about how solemn and serious it is to hear
the gospel. And I don't mean by that that
it shouldn't be a joyous occasion. If you have ears to hear, what
a joy it is to hear. What a joy, don't ever take that
for granted. It's a joy, a joy. You remember our Lord was talking
to the Pharisees over in John chapter six, and the things that
he was saying were so contrary to their understanding. But after
he said, except you drink my blood and eat my flesh, you have
no life in you. And they said, this man, he's
out of his mind. He's talking about cannibalism.
And they turned around and walked away. And he turned around and
looked at the 12. And he said, will you go too? Door's open. You going to go too? And they
said, where should we go? Thou hast the words of eternal
life. Where are we going to go? Where
we gonna go? It ought to be a joyous occasion
for us to know that we have ears to hear. I've heard what this
world has never heard. I've heard what wise men far
above me in their intellect have never heard. He's heard these
things, listen, from the wise and prudent and revealed them
unto babes. How thankful I ought to be for
these ears. Blessed, he said, are your ears.
There was a time when I didn't hear, Larry. I didn't hear. They
can preach whatever they want to preach. I didn't hear anything. I was religious. Played my guitar. Partook of all the ceremonies. Did everything the church did.
Went out, tried to win souls. I was a partaker of it. I had
no ears to hear. And then one day he gave me ears
to hear. And I couldn't partake of that
stuff anymore. It was like night and day. It
was like being in a pitch dark cave and all of a sudden somebody
brings a light in and you can see. We need to be cautious about
being indifferent about the means that God has ordained and about
his message, and in particular, about his son. Take heed, he
said, how you hear. It says the same thing over in
James. He tells you that every good and perfect gift cometh
down from above, comes down from the Father of lights, with whom
is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Who of his own will
begat he us with the word of truth. Now be careful, he said,
how you hear. Be careful. Now, what I want us to do this
morning is exactly what our Lord did, is He showed us, they said,
well, what's this parable mean? And He said to you, it's given.
I'm going to tell you what this means. And He does to all His
elect, He allows you to see what this world cannot see. He purposely spoke to them about
something they could not apply this to their way of thinking
about salvation. Could not do it. And the disciples,
if left to themselves, they couldn't do it either. But he said, I'm
gonna tell you what it means. And what he did was he took each
symbol here and he told them what it meant. And that's what
I want us to do this morning. And the first thing that he mentions
is the sower. The sower is representative of
all God's preachers. He's the sower. He goes forth
to sow. And of course, Christ is at the
top when you're talking about preachers. Never a man speak
like this man. He doesn't speak like the Pharisees
and Sadducees and scribes. This man, when he preaches, he
preaches with power. He preaches and things happen.
He preaches and things that men cannot do, they do. The dead
are raised. The lepers are cleansed. My soul,
the devils are cast out. I grew up. Because of work, we
had to move from Kentucky out to northern Ohio. That's where
the work was at the time. And I grew up out there in the
middle of farm country. And I can tell you without hesitation
that everybody in the city, everybody, even in a single household, was
not put in charge of planting the seed. Planting the seed in
that field was the most important work done on that farm. If you planted that seed wrong,
you're not going to get a crop. It'll be all spindly. If you
plant it too early, it won't grow. The frost will kill it.
Plant it too late, and then the fall's going to get you in the
heat, and it'll burn up in the field. It was the most important
work done on that farm, and generally the father of the family was
the one who planted the seed, or his firstborn, if he was old
enough, might be put in charge of it. It was an important job. But one person did it. One person. And here in this parable, he
doesn't say a bunch of sowers went out to sow, he said a sower. What do you sow? His seed. His
seed becomes our seed when he puts the seed in you, isn't it? Now it's our seed. Our seed. We're one with him. In 1 Corinthians
3 verses five through nine, He talks about the sower. And here's
what he says. He sums it all up in verse nine
saying, for we are laborers together with God, ye are God's husbandry. God has a field. He's a husband
man and he's gonna grow a crop. And he gives this seed to the
sower and the sower goes out and sows the seed in the ground
that God intends. The sower, he's gospel preachers. That's what our Lord was doing.
He was preaching the gospel. He was God. He told them on one
occasion, he said, God could raise up children from these
stones. He don't need to do it this way. He purposed to do it this way.
And I tell you, we better get that in our head and in our heart.
God does what he pleases his way. And you're gonna bow to
it or be left behind. That's the sower. And then he
tells us something about the seed, Luke 8-11. The parable
is this. The seed is the word of God. Well, is he talking about this
book as a whole? You could say that. You could
say that. But he's not talking, when we're
talking about preaching the gospel, we're not talking about going
through the Word of God like most religionists do and finding
all these moral stories and talking about Solomon. Or Samson, let's use Samson for
example. They're talking about Samson
and they're gonna have a moral story at the end of it. They're
not gonna tell you how Samson was a picture of Christ. They're
not gonna do that. How he saved more people in his
death than he did in his life. They're not gonna tell you that.
What they're gonna do is come up with a moral story at the
end of it. And they go through the word
of God and they'll show you ceremonies. See here, it says right here,
you have to keep this day, you have to do this, you have to
do that. You have to give this much. You have to pray three times
a day. You have to do this, you have to
do that. That's not what he's talking about here. That's not
the seed of which he's talking about. Not talking about the Word of
God as an abstract object, and no matter what it is in there,
if you see it, it has a saving value to it. But he's talking
about salvation in Christ, which is God's testimony in His Word. A lot of times, he doesn't call
it the Word of God, he calls it the Word of Truth. Our Lord told those disciples,
and I'm talking about a large number of people who were followers
of him. They'd been following him, listening
to him, and he said, if you continue in my word, what I'm preaching
to you, in my doctrine, you continue in that, and you shall know the
truth, and the truth shall set you free. It's called over and
over the word of truth. There's a lovely example of this
over in 1 Peter chapter one, where he's talking about being
born again, not a corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, now
listen, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. And
then he tells us what we are. We're nothing, we're just the
flower of the grass. That's all we are. But he goes
down to verse 25, and then he says this. He doesn't talk about
the word of God, now he's talking about the word of the Lord. The
word of Christ. Huh? This is the word, he said,
which by the gospel is preached unto you. Is it the word of God? Absolutely. Is it the word of
God in abstract? No. It's the word of God as the
gospel is revealed in it. That's the seed of regeneration.
He said in John 5 and 39, he told those Pharisees, he said,
you search the scriptures. The ceremonies, the laws, you've
memorized them. You know wherever comma is and
every period. You search the scriptures. You
wanna talk about whose lineage this one was born of and that
one, they could tell you. You search the scriptures and
in that searching, in that looking, in those ceremonies, in that
abstract knowledge of this book, you think you have eternal life.
And they are they, he said, that testify of me. But you won't
come to me that you might have life. It's not the word of God
in the abstract. It's the testimony of God concerning
his son. He said, this is the record that
God hath given to us eternal life. And this life is in his
son. This is the record right here.
This is the record. To Abraham, Paul said, in his
seed were the promises made. He sayeth not into seeds, as
of many, but as of one in thy seed, which is Christ. Christ
is the seed. The seed is the gospel of Jesus
Christ. It's not memorizing prayers. One church we went to on a class
trip, we went over there to see this big organ and all this stuff.
But before they did it, they were able to sneak in the Lord's
Prayer. Our Father which art in heaven.
That's not the Lord's Prayer. John 17 is the Lord's Prayer. What they're talking about and
call the Lord's Prayer, they ask him how to pray. And he said
pray after this manner. It was an example of how to pray. Not memorizing prayers or keeping
the ceremonies or obeying certain laws and precepts. It's having
the gospel of Christ. Having the knowledge of it and
believing. And then let's look at the results. And I wanna say, first of all,
that the results of gospel preaching is always determined by the purpose
of God. It's the purpose of God. Farmers don't scatter seed everywhere,
hoping that some of it's going to mature. I used to help them
plant. I know they didn't do that. They
have an area that they before prepared to receive seed. That's where they plant. Rocks were carefully removed.
No vehicles permitted to go in the field. Thorns and thistles have been
plucked up or sprayed. The ground had been plowed and
broken up to receive seed. And where this seed was intended
to grow, it grew. When a crop was intended to produce
fruit, if God intended it to produce fruit, it'll produce
fruit. All of it. How much fruit? He
says a hundredfold. All the fruit that he purposed. The only place where the seed
won't grow is where it was never intended to grow. Not going to
grow there. Might grow for a while. And this, it's been ingrained
in our thinking by false religions. But there is no chance involved
in God's husbandry. Chance doesn't enter into it.
It's all accomplished by the purpose of God. And it may be
a savor of life unto life, and it may be a savor of death unto
death, but whichever it is, God will be glorified. He'll be glorified,
and it'll be a sweet-smelling savor to him. It might disgust
us, but it won't disgust him. It's a sweet-smelling savor of
Christ. Providence and preaching, they
go together. And in doing this, some seed
is gonna fall on the wayside. I used to help them plant seed.
Now, back in this day, they took seed in a pouch and took their
hand and broadcast it by hand out in that field. But back in
the 50s, when I was helping these farmers that were neighbors of
mine, I'd help them plant. Really, I just wanted to ride
on a tractor, but I got involved in the seed. And we'd take that
seed come in big burlap sacks, and we'd open it, and we'd always
spill some on the ground where it wasn't intended. It'd be over
in the grass, or over on a rock, or over on the dirt, or over
on the wayside. Back in this day you had to take
seed and put it in that little pouch and then you walk, you
didn't carry 150 pound seed with you, you just took a little bit
and you broadcast it and then you come back and fill the pouch
up and you go back out. Well seed is gonna fall where
it's not intended to grow. Where it's not intended to grow.
And this thing of preaching the gospel, go ye into all the world
and preach the gospel. Does that mean he intends to
save the world? No. No. But his elect are out there in
the world. They're out there in the world. And that ground's
already been prepared. What'd he say about his elect
over in Romans nine when he's, boy, I'm telling you, you wanna
read something that'll bring the hair up on the back of your
neck, you read Romans chapter nine. This thing of salvation
comes from a sovereign God. And here's what he said about
his elect, they are aforeprepared unto glory. What's that mean? That means
God goes in and turns the soul. He removes that which is obstacles. He removes all the stones and
thistles and thorns and hardness of heart. He removes those things. He plows up the ground. He makes
ready. The place where he intends his
seed to produce his fruit. Well, what about the world? They're
not before prepared under glory. They're left to themselves. Left to themselves. Their hearts
aren't disturbed. Their hearts aren't prepared. They're ground. Oh, how hard,
how hard is the heart of a natural man. But when God plants his seed,
when it falls where he intends it to grow, it grows. And it
produces fruit. But some in the process are gonna
fall by the wayside onto stony ground and some among thorns.
But it won't produce any fruit there. because God didn't intend
that it should. He plainly said in John 10, and
that's gonna be my text for the main message this morning. I
don't wanna get into it too much, but he plainly said to the Pharisees,
you believe not because you're not of my sheep. And then fourthly, let's look
at the hearers. Though the results are according to the purpose
of God, he cannot be blamed for any wrongdoing toward the unbelieving. When you talk about salvation,
100% of salvation is by the grace of God. It's by the grace of
God. Everything concerning your salvation
is by the grace of God. It's the free gift of God. Nothing
you did could help produce anything. It was all owing to him. By grace
are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It
is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast, for
we're his workmanship, created unto good works, which
God hath before ordained that we should walk in. Damnation,
on the other hand, is 100% owing to the works of man. God's restraint of grace or withholding
his grace is not even mentioned at the judgment. Did you know
that? You can read about it over Revelation
20 and 21. You can read about it. God's withholding his grace from
men is never mentioned at the judgment. But here's what it
says. They were judged every man according
to their works. Mankind fell in the garden. He
was judged by God who has righteously left him in total depravity. He's under the judgment of God.
Our problem is we don't think we're under the judgment of God.
That's why we bring all these accusations against God saying,
well, that ain't fair. What do you mean it ain't fair? Well, the president goes down
and Here's a prison full of men. They've already been proved guilty.
They've already been judged guilty. They're waiting sentencing. They're
waiting death. They're down there on death row.
And he goes down and he says, you're pardoned. Well, what about
the rest of the prison? Is he being unfair? No, no, he
has the power and authority to do that. And he don't owe the
rest of that prison anything. They were all guilty. Even the
man he pardoned. Oh, my soul. God's under no obligation
to do anything for anybody except those he obligated his self to. And if God let you grow up in
the darkest Africa where you never hear his gospel, he's not
guilty of any violation of his character. You deserve exactly
what you got. Hearing is a gift of God's grace,
and preaching is a gift of God's grace. Should the husbandman
take any blame for the seed that fell on the wayside, or on the
rock, or among the thorns? No, sir. Or what about the prepared ground? They brag about what a good crop
they are. No, it's all owing to the husbandman. all by his grace. Salvation is
of the Lord, and it's the fault of the hearer that he will not
believe, not the husband man. Well, what did these hearers
do? What did these hearers do? I'm
talking about those that fell on the wayside and so on. Well,
the first fell on a high traffic area. That tells me there are
a lot of hearers, even though they may come here and here,
they go back out into the high traffic and that's where they
want to stay. They want to go out there on
that hard ground where the fowls can see them, where the fowls
prey. False religion is the work of
Satan. And here he's compared to the
fowls of the air. There's a high traffic area out
there. They want to go out and try to
have fellowship with them and try to mingle among them. They
want to sit out there and grow. Not going to happen. You're going
to be devoured. That's what's going to happen. And the stony ground here, he
likes to stay where he is. He believed for a little while,
but there's no watering. You know what's going on in here
this morning? Some of you have been born of God, you're being
watered. Watered by the word. Paul said, I planted, Apollos
watered. But he that planteth and he that
watereth, we're just one. We're all preaching the same
thing. Thorny ground here is go on and
it's just business as usual. But they're out there among thorns.
And when them thorns come up, they choke them. They choke them.
What do they choke with? The cares of this world, the
riches of this world, the concern of this world. It eats them up
inside. They feed on it. They live on
it. I have to have this. I've got to do that. It'll choke
you to death. It'll choke you. His gospel,
if he enables you to receive it, it's like receiving food
from heaven. Isn't it? Manna coming down. He didn't have anything to do
with it. God just rained it down from heaven. You're out here
in the wilderness. He just rained that food down. Ain't no water
out here, oh yeah. Yeah, there's a rock and I'm
gonna make that rock follow you everywhere you go. And that rock
will produce enough water to feed your cattle and feed you
and all Israel gonna drink of that smitten rock. Oh, but there gonna be sour pools.
Yeah, you can drink from them if you throw the tree in. It'll
sweeten the water. That's the cross of Christ. So our Lord says, take heed,
therefore, how you hear, for whosoever hath, if he has the
word of God, if he has life, eternal life, whosoever hath, to him shall
be given. He's gonna be given more and
more and more. And over the years, he's gonna
grow in grace and knowledge of Christ. He said, he's going to
be like the tree planted beside the waters. His fruit will never
wither. His leaf will never wither. And
whosoever hath not from him shall be taken away even that that
he seemeth to have. He don't have it. It just seems
like he does. Oh, may our great Heavenly Father be pleased not to leave us to
our sins. don't leave us to ourselves.
But plant that precious seed in our heart, and let it be watered,
and let it grow, and let it produce what God has intended it to produce
100 fold. 100 fold. All right. Thank you.