All right, let's turn to Mark
chapter four. We finished up with chapter three
last week, and we'll start in on chapter four. I'm not gonna
read through the verses, but we'll be looking at verses one
through 20. And I'll refer to some of the key verses as we
go. But in these 20 verses, the Lord
talks to us about His ministry of the Gospel. And when He talks about His ministry
of the Gospel, it takes in all the ministry of the Gospel. So
this is not just applied to Him and what was taking place right
there in the immediate time, but he's talking about the gospel
ministry as it's going to be seen and exercised and manifested
throughout time. And I want to point out at the
beginning of our lesson that unlike several of the other parables
which were left to the Holy Spirit to teach us
the meaning of those parables. This one here, our Lord gives
us the definition of it. He don't leave us to think about
it. He himself interprets the parable and he also applies it. So first of all, let's think
about this. He likens the gospel ministry
to a sower of the seed. That's what he's doing. That's
what's taking place. He's sowing the seed. It's called
his seed in Luke's account. If you read that account in Luke
chapter 8 of this parable. And then Peter tells us about
this seed. It is the incorruptible seed
of the word of God. And that seed by which we're
born, that seed which produces the child of God and that seed
which produces the fruit which God has ordained that he should.
And it's the incorruptible seed and it's also that seed is the
word which by the gospel is preached unto men. So the seed is the
gospel of God. There is no gospel apart from
the word of God. I don't why people won't separate
the word of God from the gospel of God. The gospel of God is
the message of the word of God. You can't go anywhere in the
word. To him give all the prophets witness. So there's nothing in
there. If you're gonna study the prophets,
you're gonna study the gospel because that's what they foretold. And the seed is the gospel of
God, the gospel of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. And he's
called the seed from the very get-go. Now I'm gonna labor on
this point a little bit because I think men buck this a lot. I think this is really beginning
to be a point of contention in our day. It's become an issue
with men. Christ has always been referred
to as the seed. The very first promise of Christ
in Genesis chapter 3, what is it, verse 15, where He talks
about the seed of the woman. Well, the woman has no seed,
so whatever the seed is, it's not her seed that they're talking
about, but this coming Redeemer. This coming Redeemer. And He's
called the seed there. He's the woman seed. also called
the seed of Abraham. That's what, if you go back and
read the account of God's revealing his covenant to Abraham all through
his early talks to Abraham and even later on, he keeps talking
about his seed, his seed, Abraham's seed. He's the seed of Abraham, the
seed to whom the promises were made. Thy seed which is Christ,
he tells us plainly in Galatians. He's also called the seed of
Jesse, the seed of David. Jesus Christ is the seed. If
you're gonna plant anything and be a fellow laborer with God,
you're gonna have to plant God's seed and God's seed is Christ.
It's Christ. There's nothing else that can
produce a Christian apart from the seed. Christians are godly people,
god-like people. They're born of God. You can't
produce these things. You can't do these works. You
can't exercise faith. All those things are the gift
of God. They're the fruit of that seed planted. Until that
seed planted, nothing else was gonna happen. I had gardens when
I was just a young man, and even as a child, I can remember them
allowing me to plant certain kinds of seed, and they'd hoe
out the row, and I'd go through and drop so many seeds in there,
and they'd watch me. But I didn't go out to that garden
expecting something to come up that we didn't plant. But isn't that what churches
are doing today? Nothing's been planted, but they're
looking for the fruit. They're looking for the grain
to come up and break through that old fallow ground. The ground
never was turned over. Christ is the seed, and if Christ
be planted, then his fruit shall surely spring up after his kind. Now, I said all that to say this. God has a field, a certain field. In this parable, he talks about
a field, a certain field. This man went out to sow. And
God has determined to plant his seed. That's why he sent this
man to plant that seed in that ground on that spot. He tells us plainly in the book
of John, ye are his husbandry. Isn't that what he said? His field is such as was made
ready for the seed. He don't just throw his seed
out there. There's a work he does before
that seed or as that seed. It's all one work. In the spring
up in Ohio, I'd watch these farmers, and they'd come out, and the
first thing they'd do is start turning that ground. They'd run
those big plows through there and plow that ground, and they'd
run the disc through there and disc it all out, and then they'd
get this big old thing that planted seed, and they'd dump big bags
into that, and we'd go down the rows, and it would plant eight
or 10 or 12 rows at a time, and they'd plant whatever it was,
the weed or the corn or whatever it was they wanted to raise.
It's ground. The plowing of the ground and
the turning of the ground and the preparing of the ground was
all together with the planting of the seed. It wasn't a bunch
of separate things. It's all one work. All one work. And where God has determined
to plant his seed, he's going to work with the ground. The Holy Ghost spoke through
the prophet Jeremiah to Israel and he said, break up your fallow
ground and sow not among thorns. Circumcise yourselves to the
Lord and take away the foreskins of your heart. And this is both
the work of God the Holy Spirit and the individual in whom he
intends to plant his precious seed. Listen to this, God said, Judah,
who's that? That's Christ. Judah shall plow. Now, what's this? Jacob, who's
that? That's God's elect. Isn't that
what he tells you there in Romans chapter nine? He chose Jacob to establish his
election. So now he's talking about election.
But he said, Judah shall plow, and Jacob, that's God's elect,
shall break his clods. It's a work done in you, and
as it's done in you, it's like you're doing the work, but you're
not doing the work. You see the work being done,
and it's your head that's thinking, and it's your heart that's perceiving
and understanding and believing, and yet it's God working in you. both to will and to do of his
good pleasure. And God has a people in whom
he intends to plant the precious gospel seed. And they can easily
be identified by their brokenness. That's how you know God's children. The brokenness. That old weed
patch has been turned by the gospel plow and it's ground made
ready for the seed. Now in ancient times, they had
no machinery. So when they went out to plant,
they hung this big old bag up over their shoulder and they
put the seed in it and they walked down that row and they took a
handful of seed and they threw it out in front of them. And
they walked a little further and get some more seed and throw
it out again. And that's how they sowed their
seed. Or if it was like corn, they
might have through it along in a row, but it was all done by
hand. When we preach the gospel, our
goal is to cast his seed into the good ground. This was not
a novice going out here to plant. This was a man trained. He knew
what he was doing. He was going out here to plant.
And his intention was to plant his seed into good ground, ground
prepared by the Lord. And my purpose when I get up
here is not to make good citizens out of rebels. That's not my
purpose. I can't make a good citizen out
of a rebel. A rebel is a rebel. That's why they call him a rebel.
He's a rebel. And I'm not up here to make sinners
feel better about themselves. One fella came to church one
day down in Ball, Louisiana years ago, and when he left, he said,
Preacher, he said, I think a man ought to feel better after he's
been to church and not worse. I said, not necessarily. Not
necessarily. There'll be a time for feeling
better, but the first work of God, you're gonna leave there
feeling worse. I hope you do. Hope you do. And I certainly don't want to
encourage men and their ignorance. My goal is to plant that precious
seed in the intended field. But this is sure to follow. This is going to follow. I don't
care who you are. I don't care if you're Henry
Mahan or me. I've given you the top of the
line and the bottom of the line. I don't care who you are, this
is gonna follow. Some of that seed is gonna fall
by the wayside. Has to be. Has to be. So you gotta get to the field.
And on your way to the field, you're sure to put some of that
seed along the wayside. I used to have one of those old
cloth bags with a crank on the side of it that you plant grass.
And after a while it got some holes in it. And you had to really
move with it or you'd lose all your seed out the hole. It'd
be falling on the ground. But listen to this. Paul tells us
we had this treasure in earthen vessels. Vessels full of holes. And that's what they are, they're
weak vessels. But he put them in them vessels
on purpose that the excellency of the power, when people see
it, the excellency of power is never gonna be wrote off to the
vessel, it's gonna be wrote off to the Lord. And that's why he
did it that way. Weak and frail, and I wonder
sometimes just how much seed ever made it to the field. But
now listen to the parable, listen to the words he uses here. He
said, some fell by the wayside. He didn't mean to plant it there,
but it fell there. It fell by the wayside. Wasn't
the sower's intention to plant it there, but some fell there
anyway. And it didn't take long, the fowls of the air came and
devoured it. They come and there it is, it's
laying out there on that hard ground and they just flew down
and ate it. And then some fell on stony ground. Nobody's going
to go out and try to plant a field on solid rock. It wasn't his
intention to do that, but some fell there. And there was a little dust on
the rock and it sprang up, but there was no depth to it. And
long as it was raining and everything was great, it just sprung right
up. But boy, when the sun come out, it was over. Looked like
a brown paper sack. The gospel, it planted deep in
the soil. And it takes a while before you
can see it. But this seed that fell on that
stony ground, it shot right up, because it had no depth. No depth. And then when the sun
come up, it was scorched. And then some fell, he just keeps
using that word, you notice that? Some fell among the thorns. What's so significant about the
thorns? Well, that was God's curse upon
man, wasn't it? Cursed is the ground for thy
sake. Thorns and thistles, in the sweat of your brow, you're
gonna work to eat. Not just gonna come up and, no,
you got thorns and thistles. Some fell among the thorns and
the thorns grew up and choked it and it yielded no fruit. That
ground was more conducive to thorns than it was to the seed. And then other fell on good ground. And it did yield fruit that sprung
up and increased and brought forth some thirty and some sixty
and some a hundred. And then he tells us he that
hath ears to hear let him hear. And then some time went by Our
Lord taught them this parable and some time went by and pretty
soon the multitude left and there was nobody there but the disciples.
And they said unto him, tell us about this parable, tell
us what this parable meant. And he said unto them, it's given
unto you to know the mystery of the kingdom of God, it's not
given unto them. given unto them. He said, that's
why teaching in these parables, and that seeing they may see
and not perceive, and hearing they may hear and not understand,
lest at any time they should be converted and their sins should
be forgiven them. And then watch this. He said
unto them, know you not this parable? Do you not understand
this parable? Then how will you understand
the rest of the parables? It's given unto you to know the
mysteries of the kingdom of God. So how you gonna know it? Now
the answer to that, of course, is the sovereign grace of God
who gives us these eyes to see and these ears to hear. That's
what my nephew, he said, how's a man like me? I've not been
to church. He said, you were raised in the
church when you were young. He said, I've never been to church.
He said, I don't know anything. How's somebody like me supposed
to know who's telling the truth and who's not? And I thought
about that for a while, and this is what I told him. You never
will but for the grace of God. You never will. You never will. It's the sovereign grace of God
who gives us eyes to see and ears to hear, and a son of God
who has come and given to us an understanding. All right,
so what are these wayside seeds? What's he talking about? Some
fell by the wayside. What's the meaning here? Well,
our Lord tells us down here in verse 15, these are they by the
wayside where the word is sown, But when they've heard, Satan
cometh immediately and taketh away the word that was sown in
the heart. How does he do that? How does he do that? How does
Satan snatch away this word that's been sown in the heart? How does
he do that? Well, he does it by lies and
deceit and by natural reasoning. He does it by his influence on
this world, convincing them of certain basic principles such
as free will. I don't know anybody out here
in the world don't believe in free will. I mean, I've got relatives
across the board. Some of them are Pentecostal,
some of them are Nazarene, some of them are Baptist, and some
of them may even be Catholic, I don't know. But across the
board, they all basically believe the same thing. They believe
in man's free will. They believe man's the dictator
of his own destiny. They believe that God's work
of salvation is totally dependent on their decisions. It's all
up to them. It's lies and deceit and natural
reasoning and the influence on this world, convincing them of
these principles like free will and all of these things. Paul said, beware. Beware. Colossians 2.8. Lest
any man spoil you, take away your riches, take away your treasures,
take away your valuables. Beware. Lest any man spoil you
through philosophy. What is philosophy? Just natural
reasoning, isn't it? That's all it is. And vain deceit after the tradition
of men and then the basic principles of the world and not after Christ. They hear the word and immediately
Satan comes and says, That can't be. That ain't right. Seems to me, huh? Can you imagine? I just want
you to think with me here a minute. Almighty God who created this
world out of nothing. And he spoke to you in an audible
voice. He spoke to you. Can you even imagine yourself
standing before God and scrutinizing what he says by your own reasoning? Well, I can tell you what he
told Job. He said, who is this? And he was talking to Job, he
wasn't talking about his friends, he was talking to Job. He said,
who is this that darkeneth counsel by their own wisdom? Who do you
think you are? You're gonna take my word and
scrutinize it with something as fallen and deceitful as your
own reasoning? God is to be believed. You don't
reason it out, you listen to what he says and believe it. God said about creation, he said,
we understand by faith, we understand that the things that we see were
made from things which are not seen. It wasn't made by anything
you see here, wasn't there when God commanded it to be. What scientists say, well, that's
not reasonable. What's reasonable is something
was here, and then it exploded, and then the matter from that
did this, and then it got a little water on it. I don't know where
the water come from, but it got a little water on it, and then
when the water got on it, it got some nuclear fallout mixed
in with it, and this little paramecium crawled up on the bank, and then
he evolved into a man. Ain't what God said. God said
he spoke and it was done. He commanded and it stood fast.
That's what faith does, see, it believes God. And we do about
certain things, we'll go out and argue over creation, but
then when it comes to these other things that God said, now we
wanna try to reason it all out. And Paul said that reasoning
is deadly. It's deadly. And here he says
that ground, oh, He said, that seed goes out there and Satan
comes and snatches it away. All right, and then in verse
16, he talks about the stony ground. These are they likewise
which were sown on stony ground, who when they had heard the word,
immediately they received it with gladness. They said, that's
it. That's it. That's what it says
right there in Ephesians chapter one, that's it, and they received
it. Now watch this, verse 17. But they had no root in themselves,
and so they endure for a while, but when affliction or persecution
arises over the word's sake, immediately they are offended. Now I've experienced this in
my life. I was opening the scriptures to the folks in that old church
where I was going and I was saying, look here, look here what it
says. And yeah, that is what that says, isn't it? Yep. And
then they go down to church and that deacon had come out. And
boy, he lay the law down. As soon as he did, boy, they
cowered down and went back to the seats and didn't have any
more input, didn't have any more questions. When persecution arises
over the word, and it's going to, it's going to. If you believe the truth, you're
gonna be persecuted for it. You can write it down. But then those who had no root
in themselves, they were offended. And the problem here is no broken
ground. That ground was left dormant.
It was left to their old nature. And that old nature might receive
the gospel in the shallow soil of intellect. It can do that. But it's got no root, nothing
to support and feed and strengthen. And it's not long till something
happens and they're out the door. John said they went out from
us, but they weren't of us. If they had been of us, they
no doubt would have continued with us. But they went out that they might
be made manifest, that they were not of us. And then here in verse
18, in Mark chapter four, he says, and these are they which
were sown among the thorns, These are folks that hear the word,
and the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches,
and the lust of other things entering in, choke the word,
and it becometh unfruitful. Now these people may even continue
in the truth, continue believing the truth, but there's never
any fruit. It never ain't fruit, because
the cares of this world chokes it out. They hear the word, it
finds a place in their head, and they see it as it's declared
in the word of God, and they give consent to it. They hear
the word, and they're in agreement with how the preacher's setting
the word forth. But oh, the cares of this world. What are some of the cares of
this world? It can be anything. It can be
anything. It can be your television. It
can be your kids. It can be your grandkids. It
can be your job. It can be your automobile. It can be anything. Anything that draws us away from
the word of God and the hope set forth in our Redeemer and
the purpose of God to save sinners for the glory of his name. Anything
that draws us away from that. And that's why he tells us that
they of your own household, that's gonna be your enemies. Why? Because they got the most influence
on you. Listen to this. Paul said, he
called this man his fellow labor and did so for quite a while.
And then he says, Demas hath forsaken me. Why? having loved this present world. The cares of this world and the
deceitfulness of riches. I'm gonna tell you something,
wealth can be deceptive. It can be deceptive. It promises
certain things that it can never produce. Never can. That rich
man, he said, man, this is working. This is working. I built me a
new barn, I filled it up, this is working. So now here's what
I'm gonna do, I'm gonna tear down all my barns and build huge
barns. Man, I'm gonna do it. He said,
thou fool, this day, this day, your soul gonna be required of
thee. Riches can't produce peace, can't
produce hope, just comfort to the flesh. That's all it can
produce. I think the church at Laodicea
was troubled with this. They said, we're rich and increased
with goods and have need of nothing. We don't need anybody's support. We don't have any need of anything.
We're rich. We don't have any need of anything.
And the Lord said, and knowest not that thou art wretched, and
miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. Spiritually, you're
a beggar. I don't care how much money you
got. You're a beggar. Riches promise comfort, peace,
assurance, and stability. But spiritually, there's no good
effect on the soul. And these things are a constant
distraction of the mind and heart. The cares of this world and deceitfulness
of riches, they grow well in the soil of man's nature. But the gospel only grows in
the sweet soil of grace. What's planted in the flesh will
soon be choked out by the thorns. And then he tells us in verse
20, and these are they which are sown on good ground. Such
as hear the word, and receive it. And, that's not the end of
it, there's another and there. And bring forth fruit. When his seed's planted, plant's
gonna come up, and the plant's gonna produce an ear, and within
the ear, there's the fruit. There's the fruit. And some of
it was produced 30-fold and some of it 60. They all don't produce
the same amount of fruit, but it all produces fruit. And some even 100-fold. And since
there's none good but God, that's what he says, no not want, it
takes an act of God's sovereign grace to make good ground in
here, don't it? The good ground ain't there,
it has to be prepared. It has to be put there. And he's
got to break up the fallow ground and put the sweet lime of his
grace upon it and enable it to receive the seed. And these men he's called to
himself to preach, he'll now prepare for the sowing of the
seed and he's going to teach them while it only takes root
in the plowed ground. and a prepared soul. Teaches
them that. I don't expect everybody walks
through the door to walk out that door converted. I don't
expect that. But this much I know. I have
hope for them. I have hope that they'll hear.
But my prayer is that God will prepare that ground to receive
his seed. And if he don't, it's just gonna
fall. It'll fall at the wayside and
it'll fall on the stony ground and it'll fall among the thorns. But oh my soul, when that seed
is sown in that good ground, up comes the plant and here comes
the fruit. And it's always that way. Thank you.