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Henry Mahan

Behold - A Sower Went Forth to Sow

Matthew 13:3-8
Henry Mahan December, 16 1979 Audio
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TV broadcast message - tv-107a
Henry T. Mahan Tape Ministry
Zebulon Baptist Church
6088 Zebulon Highway
Pikeville, KY 41501
Tom Harding, Pastor

Henry T. Mahan DVD Ministry
Todd's Road Grace Church
4137 Todd's Road
Lexington, KY 40509
Todd Nibert, Pastor

For over 30 years Pastor Henry Mahan delivered a weekly television message. Each message ran for 27 minutes and was widely broadcast. The original broadcast master tape of this message has been converted to a digital format (WMV) for internet distribution.

Sermon Transcript

Auto-generated transcript • May contain errors

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I invite your attention this
morning to the book of Matthew, chapter 13, verse 3. I'm going to be speaking to you
on this subject. Behold, a sower went forth to
sow. Behold, a sower went forth to
sow. In Matthew 13, it says the people
gathered about the Lord Jesus Christ, and there were so many
of them that he stepped into a small ship, and they pushed
away from the shore. And our Lord sat in the ship,
and the people gathered about him on the shore. And he said
in verse 3 of Matthew 13 that he spake many things unto them
in parable. And he said, Behold, a sower
went forth to sow. An eastern farmer arose one morning,
our Lord said, and filled his basket or bucket with And he
went out into the field to scatter the seed. The field had been
prepared, and he went out to sow his seed. And as he took
the seed from the bucket and scattered it over the field,
along the side of the field there was a pathway, a pathway where
people had been walking, and the ground was hard and pressed
down. And as the farmer scattered the
seed in the field, some of the seed fell on the pathway. And
the birds in the trees were watching the farmer as he scattered the
seed, and some of it fell on the pathway. And when he went
on across the field, the birds of the air swooped down and picked
up the seed that was laying on the pathway, on the hard, beaten
pathway where people had been walking, where it was impossible
for the seed to grow. And the birds just picked it
up, picked up all the precious seed that was laying there on
the pathway and bore it away. But the farmer continued to sow,
and the master said, as he sowed, there was a part of the field
that was stony or rocky, and the plow had just grazed over
the top of the rock. And as he sowed his seed, some
of the seed fell on this stony, rocky ground. Now, there wasn't
much dirt there. There was just a thin layer of
dirt on top of the rock. And the seed fell there as the
farmer scattered the seed and walked on. And the seed began
to grow. And the rain fell, and the seed
sprouted and came up quickly. He said immediately it sprang
up. But having no root, because it had no depth and couldn't
reach down into the moisture of the earth, and having no root,
when the sun came out and beat upon the little tender plant,
it soon turned yellow and then turned brown and wilted and died,
because it had no root. It was sown, the seed was sown
on the stony, rocky ground where there was no depth of earth.
There was no moisture. There was no way for the root
to get down deep into the moisture of the soil. Well, the farmer
went on and he scattered the seed, our master said, and some
of it fell in the corner of the field where there were roots
and briars and thorns. The plow hadn't broken up all
of these old thorns and briars and roots and and the seed as
he scattered it in the field some of it fell among these these
roots and briars and thorns and as the seed began to germinate
and the little plant began to come up the weed came up too
and the thorns and the briars came up and the master said that
even though the seed sprouted and the little plant came up
that the thorns and briars just took the life out of it and it
yielded no fruit But as the farmer sowed, some of the seed that
he scattered fell on the hard, fallow thoroughfare where people
had walked, and the birds of the air took it away, and some
of it fell on the soil where there was no depth, nothing but
rocks and stones, and the sun withered it and killed it, and
some of it fell among the thorns and briars, but some of it fell
on good ground, ground that had been pulverized by the plow,
ground that had been beaten up, ground that had been prepared,
and that seed that fell on the good ground, it bore fruit. Some of it bore a hundredfold,
some of it bore sixtyfold, and some of it bore thirtyfold. And
then after the Lord had finished giving this parable and the crowd
of people left, the disciples gathered about him and they said
to him, Master, what is the meaning of the parable of the soul? Tell
us what this parable means. Now, the apostles of our Lord,
in writing the Holy Scriptures, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John,
they saw fit, under the leadership of the Holy Spirit, to record
this parable three times in its entirety. It is written in Matthew
13, it is written in Mark 4, it is written in Luke 8, and
you can read the same parable and its definition in all three
of those evangelist writings. Let's take just some of the parables
from each one. Our Lord, the disciple, said,
Lord, declare unto us the meaning of this parable. And so he said
to them, first of all, this is the first thing he said in Luke
8, 11. He said, A sower went forth to sow, and the seed is
the word of God. Now, remember that the seed is
the word of God. Who is the sower? The sower is
the preacher. that per God called, God ordained,
God sent, minister the gospel. And the seed which he sows is
the word of God. Now, the preacher does not make
the seed which he sows any more than the farmer makes the seed
that he sows. This eastern farmer that went
out to sow that morning, he didn't make that seed. If he had made
that seed, none of it would have come up. None of it would have
bore fruit, because He couldn't put life in the seed. You see,
anything that he had made himself, anything that he had concocted,
if he'd have sowed it in his field, it would have just stayed
there because there's no life. Only God can make seed that has
life in it. And if you and I go forth to
preach, we preach the word of God because the word of God is
the word of life. If we preach our opinion, if
we preach our tradition, If we preach our customs, if we preach
our ideas, then there's no way possible for life to be given,
because we have no life in our words, or in our doctrines, or
in our customs, or in our opinions, or in our traditions. But the
Word of God is the living Word. And this seed which is sown by
the minister, if he uses the Bible, the Word of God, then
it's the living seed. The seed is the word of God.
Listen to these scriptures. In 1 Peter 1.23, we are born
again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible seed by
the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. James 1.18,
of his own will, beget he us with the word of truth. God's
word is living word. This is the reason Paul said
to young Timothy, preach the word. preach the Word. I wish
that ministers today would preach the Word of God. We have so few
preachers today who actually preach the Word of God. A man
may take a text and then preach an entire message and never come
back to the Word of God, never refer to the Word of God again.
God hasn't promised to bless our words or our opinions or
our thoughts. He said, your thoughts are not
my thoughts, your ways are not my ways, but God has promised
to bless his He said, my word will not return unto me void.
It shall accomplish that whereunto I have sinned. Why? Because his
word is living word. It is called the word of life,
the word of life. So the seed is the word of God. Now watch this. The preacher's
task is to preach the word. He's not responsible for the
result. He's not responsible for the
harvest. The Lord is the Lord of the harvest. What did our
Lord say? The harvest is planted, the laborers a few. Pray that
the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth laborers into
his field. And then Paul said this, he said
in 1 Corinthians 3, 5, I have planted, Apollos has watered,
but God giveth the increase. So then he that planteth, he's
nothing. He that watereth, he's nothing,
but God. that giveth the increase. The
preacher is to preach the word. He's to preach the word of God,
the truth about God. God is sovereign. God is almighty. God is immutable. God is mercy. God is love. God is just. All
of the attributes of our living God, because eternal life is
to know God. Not know a God or some God, but
be God. Our Lord said this is eternal
life that they might know The only true and living God. The purpose is to tell the truth
not only about God, but about man. What condition man is in
because of the fall. In the Garden of Eden, man fell
and spiritually he died. Spiritually he was separated
from God. Oh, the inability of the flesh.
Oh, the exceeding sinfulness of the flesh. In thy flesh dwelleth
no good thing. In the flesh no man can please
God. We're helpless preachers in need
of God's mercy. The scripture says we're without
hope. We're without Christ. We're without God. We're without
strength in this world. We're to tell the truth about
me. We're to preach the truth about Christ. Who is Jesus Christ? Why did he come into this world?
What did he do? Where is he now? We must proclaim
Christ the living Redeemer, the sovereign Redeemer, the sufficient
Redeemer. We must tell the truth about
salvation. That it's not just a decision.
And it's not just adherence to the law. It's not just acceptance
of mental facts. Salvation is a new birth. It's
a new creation. It's a new life. We must tell
the truth about heaven and about hell. We must preach the truth
of God's word. And this living word of God will
bring forth life. It'll bring forth children to
the praise of his glory. to the praise of the glory of
his grace. So that's the first thing our
Lord said to his disciples. They said, declare unto us this
parable. And he said, first of all, the seed is the word of
God. Let that challenge me and challenge
you when we witness, when we teach, when we preach, when we
write, or whatever we do, make much of the word of God. The
word is the living seed. The word is the life. That's
where life must come from, the word of God. The gospel is the
power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes. All right,
then our Lord goes on. Look at Luke 8 verse 12. And he said, Some of the seed
fell by the wayside, and the birds of air came and bore it
away. Now what is this? What's this talking about? I'll
tell you what it's talking about. A faithful minister of the gospel
preaches. He preaches the Word of God.
He sows the seed of God's Word over a congregation, or over
an assembly, or what I'm doing right now. And the wayside hearer,
we have the wayside hearer, the stony ground hearer, the thorny
ground hearer, and the good ground hearer. And the wayside hearer
is that man who by, for some reason, and by chance, gets in
the way of the gospel. That's exactly right. He's careless. He could care less about the
gospel, about God, about his salvation, about interest in
God. He's just not interested at all. He's unconcerned. He's
indifferent. But somehow he gets in the way
of the gospel. Somehow he's close by when the
gospel is preached. It's just like this pad that
was alongside the field. And the minister, the sower,
was sowing the seed. the good ground, but some of
the seed fell on the pathway, fell on the hard, fallow ground,
unplowed, unprepared, a thoroughfare, trodden down by the feet of men.
This is the man who gets in the way of the gospel. I'll tell
you how he gets in the way of the gospel. Perhaps his mother
or father is a believer. He comes to visit them on Christmas,
and they're listening to Brother Mahan on the television. The
mother and father are believers. They love Christ. They love the
gospel. The boy or daughter comes to visit him. They say sit down
at 11 a.m. We want you to hear our preacher
on w-o-w-k channel 13 So they go over and turn it on and he
sits there and he's sitting there right now and he's listening
to me pray But he could care less and when the program's over
He won't retain anything. He heard but the birds are there. What are these birds? They're
birds of Satan, but these birds of pride arrogance self-will
self-love indifference, self-righteousness, or maybe a religious profession
that knows not Christ, but all these birds, they don't let the
seed lay there very long. They come and pick it up and
bear it away. Or perhaps a young man dates a girl. He goes to
church. So he goes to church with her,
and he sits down in the pew beside her, and there is a faithful
godly man in the pulpit who's not preaching denominationalism,
he's not preaching experience, he's preaching Christ. He's preaching
the gospel, and that old boy sits there beside that girl,
and he hears the gospel. But then he goes out, and the
seed has fallen on a hard heart, on an indifferent heart, on a
careless heart, on an unconcerned heart, and it lays there for
a few moments, and then after a while, it goes away. Or perhaps
he's a man who works for a person who's a Christian, or he associates
with a man who's a Christian. And this man has invited him
to come to church with him. So just to please the boss, he
goes with him to church. And he hears the sermon, but
not for long. Or perhaps this individual attends
a funeral. I've had people come to hear
me preach funerals. And I preach the gospel. I always
preach the gospel at a funeral. And this man sits there and listens.
And when it's over, he's heard the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ. But he goes out. And after a while, he forgets.
what he's heard. You know, Herod listened to John.
He feared John, and he listened to John. He went out in the desert
to hear John preach. But Herodias wouldn't let him
think about it for very long. He had that hard, unprepared,
unconcerned, careless heart. The wayside Herod, and they're
in our services, and they're listening to this message right
now, but they're totally indifferent. And this precious life-giving
seed, this word of that can bring forth for the glory of God a
beautiful plant of life. But that seed will lay on that
hard, unconcerned, indifferent heart until Satan and all the
foul birds of the air, such as lust, indifference, carelessness,
unconcern, hatred, all of these things, come in and just bear
that seed away. Well, preacher, the Lord said
that some of the seed fell on stony ground. where the dirt
was just so deep. And the seed germinated quickly
and sprang up quickly. But after a while the sun came
out and it withered and died. What does that mean? Do you know
who that is? Our Lord said these are people who hear the word
of God. And they hear the word with gladness. And they receive
the word of God. They receive it with gladness.
Now watch this. Immediately. Now there's the
key to the whole thing. He said, the stony ground hearer
is the hearer who hears the word of God, immediately with gladness
he receives it, but having no root. When the sun of trial and
trouble comes, immediately he's offended. Twice the word immediately
is used. Now let me give you a clue. First
of all, this man hears the word. He hears the gospel about forgiveness
of sin, pardon, eternal life, heaven, healing, all of these
things. And there's no conviction. There's
no conviction of sin. There's no personal conviction.
There is no repentance. There's no godless sorrow. There's
no conflict or struggle. There's no question. There's
no seeking. There's no searching. There's
no asking. There's no counting the cost.
There's no awareness of what it means to bow to Christ, to
receive Christ, but just the gladness over the benefit. That
preacher said, if I believe on Jesus, I'd go to heaven and live
always in a mansion. That preacher said, if I believe
on Jesus, I'd be healed from all my disease. That preacher
said, if I believed on Jesus, I'd be rich and proud that God
had prospered me and my business had prospered. And I'd have health,
and my family would prosper, and all my problems would be
solved, and all my troubles would be over, and I'd be happy all
the time. It's fun being saved. And so
he immediately receives that. And he just grows. He responds so quickly. And he
makes such rapid progress, you know. One Sunday he's saved,
and the next Sunday he's teaching Sunday school. One Sunday he's
saved, and the next Sunday he's out telling everybody else what
a victor he's won. And if some older Christian comes
along and talks about doubts and fears and struggles and conflict,
he just laughs. He says, why, there's no fears.
There's no doubt. There's no struggle. Happy all
the time. There's nothing to it. Just believe
on Jesus, and everything's all right. But whoa now. Then a trial
comes. A trial because of the Word.
A trial in life. Perhaps he gets sick or a baby
dies or he loses his job or some conflict, some persecution, some
oppression comes. And the scripture says, our Lord
said, immediately, just as quickly as he came in, he went out. Don't
you ever sit in church and watch all these floods of people go
down to the front, make the profession, and get baptized, and join up,
and they come for a few Sundays, and then about a week or a month
or a year, you look around, they're not there. Don't you ever wonder
where they are? They came in quickly, and they went out just
as quickly. And John said, they went out from us, because they
were not of us. If they had been of us, they
would have continued with us. What's wrong? They're stony ground
heroes. They have no roots. You see,
the man who built this house on the rock, the scripture said
he digged deep. It took time to dig. It took
effort to dig. It took determination to dig.
But he dug down deep and found the rock. That's where he laid
his foundation. It took him longer to build his
house than the fella that just built it on top of the ground.
But when the trial came, his house stood, and the other fella's
house crumbled. When the trial, when the rains,
and the flood, and the winds blew, and whatever trouble came,
sickness, sorrow, suffering, death, whatever trouble came,
his house stood. He had roots. He built on rock. He was established on Christ
Jesus. This stony ground here, beware of people who immediately,
just as soon as you say something about Christ and heaven and salvation,
they grab it. There's no searching, no conflict,
no struggle, no conviction, no true conversion. It takes time
to grow a taproot. I'll tell you this, when one
goes down into the ground deep enough, it reaches that moisture
down there, and it doesn't matter what happens up there, it can
get dry and and like a desert and the wind can blow and the
rain can fall and the hail can fall and it'll keep on growing
because it's getting its strength from somewhere else besides out
here. All right, our Lord said some of this fell among the thorns,
some of these seeds. Now who's the thorns? Well, there's
the fellow that they hear the word. Now watch this carefully.
They're not like the wayfarers, the wayside ground. They do grow. They're not like
the stony ground here. They take their time. This seed
that fell among the thorns, it went down. It really grew. But the trouble was outside.
As it grew up, there were thorns and briars and weeds that grew
up with it. And these thorns and briars and
weeds crushed the plant, and it bore no fruit. And you know
who that is? Well, let me give you He gives
us three things here, three of these thorns and briars and weeds.
He said, first of all, there's the cares of this world. I'll
give you some examples. First of all, there's a beautiful
young lady. She's beautiful. She's popular.
She's a lovely young lady in college or high school. She hears
the gospel. It's good. She likes it. She
studies it. She thinks about it. She says,
this is the true way of life. This is the true value. Jesus
Christ is the true hope. But now wait a minute. The crowd
she runs with and the people she's around, she can't be popular,
she can't be accepted and follow this kind of faith, this believing
in Christ, this living for Christ. And so that's the cares of the
world that choke the plant. And then here's a man, he holds
an office in a political party or in a line or in a country
club. And the association, the people
he has to associate with, the parties he has to go to, and
the things he has to do. They're just not in conflict
with his spiritual life, in conflict with what the Bible says. But
does he follow Christ? Does he tell these friends goodbye? No. You see, he can't offend
them. He's got to go along with them.
He's got to stay in this. Perhaps the young man is a musician. He plays an instrument, or he
sings. Well, now, he's got to play in nightclubs. He's got
to sing in nightclubs. He can't walk with Christ in
a nightclub. He can't walk with Christ and
sing what has to be sung to be popular today. You see what I'm
saying? The cares of this world. The family. The family's not
interested in the gospel. His friends are not interested
in the gospel. And he can't afford to lose them.
He can't afford to offend them. And so here's the seed of faith.
He's heard the gospel. And it sounds good. It blesses
his heart, but all these cares of the world, the family and
friends and job and association and talents and gifts and beauty
and popularity and all of these things just flutter on his soul. And he turns his back on Christ. What a tragedy. That's the thorns. Oh, here's another one. He said,
and the deceitfulness of riches. Got to have me a big house. Got
to drive me a big car. Got to impress people, got to
wear fine clothes. I got a preacher, I got an opportunity
to make some big money, some real money. Will it help you
spiritually? Well, no, but you know, fella's
got to live. No, fella's got to die. He hasn't
got to live. He has got to die. He has got
to meet God. It's a point on the men wants
to die and ask for that in the judgment. Well, preacher, if
we don't look out for ourselves, who will? God will. He said,
take no anxious thought what you shall eat, drink, or wear.
The heathens take these things. You look to Christ. You look
to God. You walk with God. He'll meet your needs. Oh, the
deceitfulness of riches. The deceitfulness of riches.
How they turn. You know what the old-timer said? Lord, he said, keep me from poverty,
lest I steal. But keep me from riches, lest
I forget thee. And for every one person I've
ever seen depart from Christ because of poverty, I've seen
50 depart because of prosperity. A man gets a promotion or a better
job or opens his business. Sunday's his best day. I can't
run my customers away. Sunday's my biggest day. I can't
go to church. I don't have time to hear the
gospel. I got to make a living. That's all right. That's all
right. That's what our Lord said you'd do. He said the seed was
sown in the thorns, the seedfulness of wishes. I tell you, my friend,
the fashion of this world passes away. It'd be better if you had
little with Christ than a whole lot without him. And then the
lust of other things. There are other things. Here's
a young lady, been in church all her life, heard the gospel,
knows the gospel, at least in her head. Some young boy comes
along, she says, well, pastor, I know he's not a believer, but
I'm going to marry him anyway. Honey, you're marrying trouble.
That's right, you're marrying trouble. Well, a preacher wants
a bigger church, so he compromises the gospel. That's the lust of
other things. Well, thank God, our Lord said
some of us fell on good ground. Not good by nature, but prepared
by the Holy Spirit, prepared to receive the Word. And it brought
forth fruit, love, joy, peace, sweetness, gentleness, kindness,
some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. There are degrees
of producing the fruit of the Spirit.
Henry Mahan
About Henry Mahan

Henry T. Mahan was born in Birmingham, Alabama in August 1926. He joined the United States Navy in 1944 and served as a signalman on an L.S.T. in the Pacific during World War II. In 1946, he married his wife Doris, and the Lord blessed them with four children.

At the age of 21, he entered the pastoral ministry and gained broad experience as a pastor, teacher, conference speaker, and evangelist. In 1950, through the preaching of evangelist Rolfe Barnard, God was pleased to establish Henry in sovereign free grace teaching. At that time, he was serving as an assistant pastor at Pollard Baptist Church (off of Blackburn ave.) in Ashland, Kentucky.

In 1955, Thirteenth Street Baptist Church was formed in Ashland, Kentucky, and Henry was called to be its pastor. He faithfully served that congregation for more than 50 years, continuing in the same message throughout his ministry. His preaching was centered on the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified, in full accord with the Scriptures. He consistently proclaimed God’s sovereign purpose in salvation and the glory of Christ in redeeming sinners through His blood and righteousness.

Henry T. Mahan also traveled widely, preaching in conferences and churches across the United States and beyond. His ministry was marked by a clear and unwavering emphasis on Christ, not the preacher, but the One preached. Those who heard him recognized that his sermons honored the Savior and exalted the name of the Lord Jesus Christ above all.

Henry T. Mahan served as pastor and teacher of Thirteenth Street Baptist Church in Ashland, Kentucky for over half a century. His life and ministry were devoted to proclaiming the sovereign grace of God and directing sinners to the finished work of Christ. He entered into the presence of the Lord in 2019, leaving behind a lasting testimony to the gospel he faithfully preached.

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