I want to begin reading here
in Luke chapter 8 and verse 5. And read down through verse 18
of this chapter. Luke chapter 8 and begin reading
here in verse 5. 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 sprang up with it and choked it. And others fell
on good grain and sprang up and bore fruit nine 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 see, and hearing they
might not understand. And seeing they might not see,
and hearing they might not understand. Now the parable is this, the
see 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 fruit, these have no root, which for
a while believe, and in time of testing 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.
No man, when he hath lighted a candle, covereth it with a
vessel, or putteth it under a bed, but setteth it on a candlestick,
that they which enter 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 ye
hear, for whosoever hath to them shall be given, and whosoever
hath not from them shall be taken away, even that which ye seemeth
to have." Now, you and I can learn a lot from
pearls and from symbols. from allegories and shadows and
types. David often referred to the Lord
under symbols. And I think as we hear him refer
to the Lord in different symbols and under different symbols,
it helps us to understand what the Lord meant to him. So often
you read in the book of Psalms where David referred to the Lord
as his rock. The Lord is my rock. And you can understand what the
Lord meant to David as a rock when you read where David said,
I was in a horrible pit and in the miry clay. He was in a place
where there was no standing. He felt his soul was sinking. He was ready to be smothered
with the mud and the mar that he sank in. And he said, but
the Lord heard my cry. And he brought my feet up and
set them upon a rock and established my bones. Now you can imagine
a man who had experienced such sinking in his soul. To be brought
out of that sinking and set upon a rock, you can imagine what
that rock meant to that man. And therefore he referred to
the Lord as his rock. The Lord is my rock. When my
soul is standing on him, he says, it cannot sink. He often was hunted by his enemies. He hid himself in caves. He had
sometimes to get food and drink wherever he could find it. We
read that he was hungry. We read that he was thirsty. And he referred to the Lord Jesus
as his shepherd. Now you can imagine what a shepherd
meant to a man that felt like he was a sheep. that needed guidance
to find green pastures. He needed guidance to lay down
beside the still waters, to find rest. He knew what it was to
have need. He knew what it was to be led
and that need to be met. He said, I'm like a sheep. I
feel like a sheep. And the Lord is my shepherd.
I shall not want. So when you find David talking
under these symbols of rocks and shepherds and the Lord is
my high tower, it helps us to relate to what these things meant
to that man. And then we can see what the
Savior meant to him. And as we look at this parable
of sowing of seed and this ground that the seed was sown on, it
represents to us different aspects of salvation. And it does so
in such a simple manner that you and I can relate to it. Because really, this parable
shows us what we can't see with the naked eye. These parables
show us really what's taking place behind the scenes. We have
the sower and his seed. Now the scripture doesn't say
here in this parable who the sower is. It must not matter.
We're just told in Matthew chapter 13, In Mark chapter 4 and here
in Luke chapter 8, the sower went out to sow. But we're never
told who the sower is. It can be a variety of people.
It may be Moses. It may be Isaiah. It may be John. It may be the Apostle Paul. I
sow. Apollos waters. But Apollos is
nothing and Paul is nothing. Glenn may be the sower. But the
sower doesn't matter. It doesn't matter who's sowing
the seed. Maybe someone is reading and
the seed is being sown. But what is the seed? Now that
matters. And we're told here in chapter
8 and verse 11, the seed is the Word of God. Whoever the sower
is, the seed that's being sown is God's Word, not man's opinion. Not man's convictions, not man's
commandments, but God's Word is the seed. Of his own will
begot he us with the Word of truth, being borne again, not
of corruptible seed, but of the incorruptible by the Word of
God. The seed is the Word of God.
And thirdly, the soil. Or, as Luke refers it to here,
the ground. What is that? We have a sower,
we have the seed, the Word of God, we have the ground, that
it sowed in. What is that? Well, he tells
us there in verse 12 and verse 15 that it's the heart. It's
the heart. Those by the wayside are they
that hear, then cometh the devil, and taketh away the word out
of their heart." So the word is sown in their heart. And we have four different grounds
here, four different souls that are represented to us. And as
we look at these different grounds, we learn something from all of
them. And let us look at them this
evening, just for a few minutes. and see what we can learn from
these grounds. And I think as we look at them
in this parable, we see in this parable things that we can't
see with the naked eye. First of all, here in verse 12,
we see three things about this first ground. Look at it here
in verse 12. Here's the first ground. It's
by the wayside. And let's see three little simple
things about it. First of all we see is this,
the devil is there, Satan is there. Now you can't see that
with the naked eye. As you read to people, as you
read to yourself, as others read to themselves, as they sit under
the teaching of the word and under the preaching of the word, You can't see it in that lost
person's heart. They can't see it. But as the
Word is sown in their heart, the devil is there. Now, ain't
that what he said? Verse 12, those by the wayside
are they that hear, then cometh the devil, and look at this,
he taketh away. Mark said he catcheth away. He
steals away. I think it was Matthew who said
he'd taken it away immediately. That which was sown in their
heart. Now that seems sad and cruel,
doesn't it? The word of life that is there
planted in that heart, the devil comes and he takes it away. But
that tells us something about the devil that in other places
in the scripture we're told. That he's the enemy of man's
soul. He's the adversary of humanity. And he knows when the Word of
God gets in the heart, it's dangerous for his kingdom. So what does
he do? He catches it away as quickly as he can. But before
you begin, before we begin to feel too sorry and pity this
heart, Remember the second thing here
that we're going to look at. Sure, the devil, he was there,
and sure, he took it away as quickly as he could. But notice
something else here that I read to you. In verse 5 of this chapter,
when the Lord Jesus told us about this seed that was sown by the
wayside, the Scripture says here, it was trodden down. He was trodden underfoot. That's the first thing to happen,
see? We say, well, the devil came and he carted away, but
not until this person trodden under their foot. Not that this
person had no regard for it. And Mark tells us, and Matthew
tells us this also about this man, that when they understood
not the Word, It was sown in his heart. He did not understand
it. And he didn't care what it said. And he walked on it and trampled
it under his feet. Then comes the devil and he snatches
it away from him. Now you can't see what's going
on, can you? I'm up here preaching, and I
can't see what's going on. You see different reactions in
people's faces, but I've learned that don't mean anything. But
what's going on in the heart, we find out right here from this
Bible. The Word is there. The person hears it. They don't
understand what's being said, and they don't care what's being
said. So they trample on it. Don't have any regard, no reverence.
Don't fear and tremble at it. So what does the devil do? He's
permitted to catch it away. Snatch it right out of his heart.
The third thing we learn in this Bible right here is this. Why
does Satan snatch it away? Why is he so anxious about this?
Of all the things he has to be concerned about, why is he there
in that heart, waiting for the Word to be sown there so he can
snatch it away? Well, we're told that here in
verse 12. Look at this. Lest they should believe and
be saved. Believing is necessary to be
saved. And the devil knows this. And
faith comes by hearing the Word of God, so we snatch it away,
lest they think upon it, and come to understand it, and believe
it, and be saved. When people have heard the Word
of God and the only response to it is negative, now we know
why they don't. They don't understand it. They
don't have any regard for it. And the devil has stolen it from
their hearts. That's the first ground we see. Now look at the second ground.
Here in verse 13. And they own the rock. Here's
the seed that was sown on the rock. Another one of the writers
calls it stony ground. There's some things about this
seed and this ground. The first thing we see here about
this one is it was received with joy. Notice that in verse 13. They on the rock, or they which
when they have heard, receive the word with joy. Mark tells us they receive it
immediately with gladness. We've seen people like this,
haven't we? One day they have absolutely no interest in the
gospel at all. And suddenly through a message
or someone will take their Bible and open up the Bible and show
them some aspects of the gospel, and immediately they become interested
in it. Immediately they believe it.
And immediately they're full of joy over it. We've all seen
this happen. And in a way, there's nothing
wrong with that. We're not told to wait until
tomorrow to believe, are we? We're told now is the acceptable
time. Today is the best salvation. You and I aren't. When the Apostle
Paul told that Philippian jailer what to do to be saved, he didn't
say, wait until tomorrow and believe. Or go do this and go
do that. He said, believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. I don't know of any scriptures
that would give us permission to tell men to delay to believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. But I want you to know this,
in this case, there was something definitely wrong in immediately
receiving this Word with joy. And here's what it was. Here's
what it was. There was no depths of sorrow. The ground was not broken up.
He received this seed, but he received it on the little amount
of soil that was on top of the ground. And there was no deep
soil for the seed to go downward and get a root system to it.
It immediately sprang up. And the scripture says, It was
scorched. Luke and Mark and Matthew, especially
Matthew said, when the sun came up, it was scorched because it
had no root to have any moisture in. The plant, the seed was just
on top of the ground. And the ground underneath it
was so hard, the seed could not go down. Everything went up. I planted some tomatoes one time,
and the person I bought them off of told me, he said, what
you need to do is plant these plants. about halfway down in
the ground on the plant. They were about a foot tall,
big, beautiful plants. And he said, you buried about
half of them. I thought, man, I planted them
down in the ground, and they looked like little tiny miniature
plants when I planted them down in the ground. And my neighbor
got the same kind of plants, and she planted hers, and they
looked that high. You could look out through the
garden, and my plants looked like little swivel-up things,
and hers big giant tall plants. But what happened, you see, I
planted mine down deep. They had a root system. They
had opportunity to go down to get the moisture. And after a
while, you saw the difference. When the sun came up, the top
of the ground was scorched and hers began to wilt. What happened here, Luke tells
us, there was no dampness of soil, so the sea suddenly came
up. He just jumped right up out of
the ground. But there was no dampness to
hold in the moisture. And when the sun was risen, it
was scorched. Now what is this sun? What is
this scorching, this heat? Well, he tells us here. It's temptations. It's trials. Matthew and Mark tells us it's
tribulations and afflictions. And boy, this comes right back
to what I told you so often. The minute you see someone interested
in the things of the Lord, He's interested in the fames of his
soul. You better watch out, because
trials are coming. Troubles are coming. If he professes
God to be his, if he professes to know God, his profession is
going to be tried. And as soon as this seat is sprung
up out of the ground, what do we read? In time of temptation. In time of testing. Afflictions
come for the word's sake, is what Matthew and Mark say. Tribulations
come for the word's sake. And what happens? Fourthly, we
find what happens. This is so sad and so fearful,
but verse 13 tells us here what happens. In time of temptations,
they fall away. They fall away. Afflictions are
there to test their faith. Tribulations are there to try
their faith. And what does it do? It overcomes
their faith. And they're offended, Mark tells
us. And what happens? They fall away. They fall away. That's fearful action. I don't
know of a man, I don't know of a Christian that hasn't fallen.
Christian men and women fall. But there's a vast difference,
brothers and sisters, in falling and falling away. These fell
away never to be recovered. You can fall and be recovered.
But to fall away means you're gone forever. There is no recovery. And here was the problem with
this ground. He wasn't dug up. He wasn't plowed
up. The seed was sown in. That is,
the seed was sown in their hearts, and immediately, without any
consideration on their part, without giving any serious thought,
they just received this Word, and they were so happy. They
were so joyful. But then, in the morning, When
they were tried and afflictions come, they said, I had no idea
it was going to be this bad. I didn't know it was going to
be this tough. And so they're offended. And
they go back and never return. We've seen that, haven't we?
We've seen that. We've seen people receive the
Word and they were so happy, they were so joyful, but then
they suddenly begin to wither, and they wither right before
our eyes. And you never see them again. Well, we're told here what takes
place in the heart. So there we have the devil, here
we have these trials, these afflictions on this shallow ground. And now
verse 14, here's the third ground that we look at. And this has
to do with thorns. And read it with me there in
verse 14. And that which fell among thorns are they which,
when they have heard, they go forth. and are choked with cares,
riches, and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection."
Now, you notice these here seem to be more hopeful than the other
two grams. There was no hope for the first
gram. There was some hope for the second gram. It at least
sprang up. But we're not only told that
this sprang up, but look here and it says they went forth. They had some progress about
them. They made a profession, and there seemed to be some hope
for it. They went forth. I had an apple tree one year,
and I don't know what happened to it, but it was loaded with
blooms. It was just loaded with blooms. I sprayed it to get the
bugs out of it, and it looked so good, Then I went down there
one day and all the blooms were gone and I started looking for
little apples. You know how little apples will come out of the bloom?
And there was nothing on that tree. It seemed to have such potential.
But something happened. I don't know what happened, but
something happened. That the blooms fell off and
it did not produce any apples. And that's what the evangelist
here is saying. They received this Word, and
they seem to have such potential. It seems like this seed has germinated. They're going forth. They have
blooms. And you watch them, and their profession seems to be
so real. And you think, boy, what fruit
is going to be upon this tree. Then suddenly, what happens?
Well, we're told here in verse 14. They go forth and are choked. They are choked. They become unfaithful. What
is it that chokes it? And Mark says, and this is amazing
to me, this is amazing to me, Mark said, the word is choked. That's difficult to understand. The word is choked. And I think later we'll see the
problem is not in the Word, it's the heart. The problem's in the
heart. What the heart does with the
Word. But it's choked. And he tells us here in the other
writers what chokes the Word. And look at this. It is choked
with the cares of this life. He does a category of what the
cares of this life is. It just leaves it to us to determine
that. What cares do men have in their
life that they become so anxious about
that it chokes the Word and they yield no fruit? They'll have
to determine that themselves. I'll have to determine that myself.
This world is full of cares. But when they get into the heart
with the Word that's there, and chokes the Word, and hinders
the fruit, and stops the fruit from coming forth. That's damage. And He said, not only the carriers
of this lie, but the deceitfulness of riches. And whatever that
is, and all that entails, I don't know. You'll have to figure that
out for yourself, and everybody will have to figure that out
for themselves. in whatever sense, what riches you have, if they
hinder us and hinder the Word in our heart from producing fruit. And brothers and sisters, that's
when it becomes dangerous. And thirdly, he said, the pleasures
of this world. And another writer said, the
lust of other things, whatever that is. And then we have the fourth ground
here in verse 15, and look at this, verse 15. But that on the
good ground are they which in an honest and good heart, having
heard the word, they keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience. Now here's some things we see
with this. First of all, Matthew tells us that they heard the
word and they understood it. Now Luke doesn't tell us that,
but Matthew tells us that. The first thing they did is when
they heard the word and they understood it. Now what does
that mean? They understood the word. Did
they understand everything they read? Well, of course not. Did
they understand everything they heard? Of course not. But they
understood enough. They understood enough. Whatever
that is, they understood enough. When they heard of their need
to be saved, they understood that. They understood that. When they heard of who must save
them and how they must be saved, they understood that. They understood
that. When they heard of the holiness
of God, When they heard of the exceeding sinfulness of sin,
when they heard of the need of Christ and His blood to worship,
His righteousness to clothe them, they understood that. When they
heard of the necessity of repentance, when they heard of the necessity
of believing in Christ, when they heard of the necessity of
giving themselves up to Him to be saved, they understood that. They understood that. When they
heard that the devil would seek to devour them, and they heard
that their faith would be tried, when they heard they'd be allured
by the riches and the cares and the pleasures of this world,
they understood that. They understood that. When they
heard they would have to wait on the Lord, when they heard
they'd have to be watchful and prayerful and patient, they understood
that. They understood. Ain't that so
important? The first ground, we're told,
definitely, they did not understand. They did not understand the Word. And secondly, about this good
ground is this. He said, in an honest heart. Not only did they understand,
but they had an honest heart. A sincere heart. Brother Barnard
used to say, an honest man don't go to hell. They just don't go
to hell. A man that will be honest with
himself, and not let his heart deceive himself, A man that will
be honest with God, honest with the Word of God, I tell you what,
he'll be a saved man. He'll be a saved man. Now an
honest man walks in the light as God is in the light. He don't
have any doors, he closes upon his heart and forbids the Lord
to go there. He lays his heart bare to the
Word of God. He's honest with himself. He's
honest with this fellow man. He's honest with God. He's honest
with this Bible. Now, you take a man like that,
and he's a saved man. He's a saved man. Not many honest
people, folks, in this world. People's not honest with themselves,
are they? David said, Lord, search
me. Now that's honesty, isn't it? Search me, Lord. Don't let me be deceived. I know
that I can deceive myself. Search me, Lord, and try me. And see if there's an evil way
in me. See if there's something in me
that's contrary to you, and cleanse me from it, and lead me in the
right way, in the way of truth, and honesty, and in sincerity. Larry comes back to holding that
paper up to the light. Transparency. That's what it
means. That's what honesty is. Transparency. Ye were sometimes darkness, but
now are ye light in the Lord. Walk ye as children of light. Honestly. And something else
is said here about this that distinguishes them from these
other three grounds that we're told are in verse 15. Having heard the word, they keep
it. They retain it. They retain it. What does that mean? Well, it
means that they believed in the Lord Jesus Christ 20 years ago,
and they still believe today. It means they changed to the
Lord Jesus 20 years ago, and they're still coming today. They
had a need of Him, a felt need of Him, 20 years ago, and they
still feel a need of Him today. Repentance began in their hearts
twenty years ago, and they're still repenting today. They got in the battle twenty
years ago, and today they're still fighting. That's what it
means. The fruits and the graces of
the Spirit were implanted in their hearts twenty years ago,
and all those fruits and graces have done is increased. They've never withered away.
They've never died. They've retained the Word in
their heart. They have laid hold upon the
Word of God and they refuse to let it go. They retain it. They fight to keep it. They just
don't talk of obeying. They don't just talk about keeping
the Lord's Word and loving His commandments. They do it. They
do it. They do it through much infirmity.
Some do it better than others. Some have 30-fold fruit, some
60-fold, some 100-fold. But every last one of these,
they heard it, they received it, they understood it, and they
kept it. They retained it. In an honest
heart. In an honest heart. I think the difference, as you
and I looked at them this evening, in these four grounds, it's not
the Word, it's the same Word that was sown in all of these
hearts. But I think without, if we'll
be honest about this, the different result was due to the ground
itself. The first ground was not prepared
at all. We're told it was by the wayside.
All of us know what that is. It means it was outside where
the ground was even tilled in any at all. It was over in the
ditch lines. It was over in the fence road.
That's the wayside. And then we're told of that ground
that was stony. It was only tilled a quarter
of an inch down. Whoever tilled the ground did
not go deep enough to break up the foul ground. It was still
hard down underneath it. That was the trouble. That was
the trouble. And then the third ground you
and I studied about, it had been tilled. There was no doubt it
had been tilled. But whoever tilled the ground
was not careful to pull these thorns, these brars out of it. They sprang up with a word, they
came up with a word, and they choked the word out. It was only
this last round that was absolutely tilled up, was absolutely gone
down deep and turned upside down, and tilled it up and softened
it. It's the preparations, brothers and sisters. It's the preparation. That's why the Scriptures tell
us, keep your heart with all diligence. It matters. It matters how you receive the
Word of God. It matters. What I see as I read
about these grounds, it proves over again to us the need for
a thorough conversion. We must be converted, brothers
and sisters. We must be converted to the Word
of God. We must need it and desire it
and believe it and keep it. And whatever is there to hinder
us keeping it and believing it and retaining it in our hearts,
then it must be laid aside. It must be rooted out. Whatever
is in any of our lives, that is choking the Gospel, that is
choking the Word of God. I warn you, I encourage you,
it must be rooted out of your heart. Whatever it takes, through
much prayer, through much agony, it must be rooted out. Don't be so presumptuous to say,
I was a believer yesterday. We read about those things. I believe twenty years ago. Whatever stands in our way of
bearing fruit must be dug up. Keep a tender
heart. Keep a heart of flesh. You say,
Bruce, I can't. You better. You must. Find yourself alone Take Solomon's
word, go to the Lord, and say, Lord, prepare my heart. The preparations
in the heart of man is of the Lord. Then go to him and say,
Lord, prepare my heart. When I read, prepare my heart
to hear and retain and believe and obey your word. I don't know about you, I don't
know what your routine is, especially on the weekends. But on Saturday evenings especially,
and on Sunday, when we hear the Word probably more than any other
time of the week, I'm always asking the Lord, prepare my heart. Teach me, Lord. Teach me this
weekend. Whatever is in me that's contrary
to you, oh, give me grace to rule you now. Break down every
idol. Pull down everything, every foe
that's against you. And set up your Word in my heart
to bear forth fruit. I want the Word of God to be
in an honest heart. I want to be honest. I want to
be honest. May God bless you at work this
evening.