It's a privilege always. When
I found that out, I was wondering how I can remove all the commas
from my message so I would make the time limit. But I'll keep
them there and I'll try to keep it within the time. But you take
your Bibles and turn with me to Matthew chapter 13. Matthew chapter 13. And the title of the message
this evening is The Sovereign Seed, The Sovereign Seed. The same day went Jesus out of
the house and sat by the seaside, and great multitudes were gathered
unto him, so that he went into a ship and sat, and the whole
multitude stood on the shore. And he spake many things unto
them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow. And
when he had sowed, some seed fell by the wayside, and the
fowls came and devoured them up. Some fell on stony places,
where they had not much earth, and forthwith they sprang up,
because they had no depthness of earth. And when the sun was
up, They were scorched, and because they had no root, they withered
away. And some fell among thorns, and
the thorns sprang up and choked them. But other fell into good
ground and brought forth fruit, some a hundredfold, some sixtyfold,
and some thirtyfold. Who hath ears to hear, let him
hear. And the disciples came and said
unto him, why speakest thou unto them in parables? And listen
to the answer the Lord gives here. And he answered and said
unto them, because it is given unto you to know the mysteries
of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. Sovereign seed. Our Lord Jesus
in this particular text here speaks to a multitude of people. A multitude so vast was the multitude
he was forced into a ship so that he was to preach to them.
And I want us to see first of all the necessity of preaching.
These people, as we see here, were not gods. They lacked. It was not given to them to understand
the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but the Word was preached
to them. It was preached to them through
this parable. And I know this, it is the desire
of every preacher to preach to many. Not because we desire fame
or anything else. We desire that the Word of God
go forth in power and demonstration of His Spirit. We desire that
some, that God would call out His elect and use us that he
would be pleased, because it is by this means God has chosen
to save sinners. No other means has God chosen
but the preaching of the gospel. You won't find it anywhere in
scripture. A man saved without hearing. Faith cometh by hearing,
and hearing by the word of God. And this is why our Lord preached.
because he had a people. And these people, it was given
to them that they should understand. Now, we desire this because it
is our commission. In Mark's gospel, the Lord said,
go you into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. And then he tells us what the
falling out of this gospel will be. Some will believe and some
will not. I preach this gospel to you tonight.
Some will believe and some won't. He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved. What a message! What a message! To who? Lost people. That's a
good message to sinners. He that believeth. Do you need
salvation? That's a good message to someone
who needs salvation. He that believeth not, you listen,
shall be damned. Shall be damned. This always happens when the
gospel is preached. Some believe and some go on in
their sin. Some go on rejecting this message.
Today I want to preach to you the gospel. It is my calling
and desire to preach this gospel to you that are gathered together
to hear it. And I want to do it even as our
Lord did it. Preach the gospel to you. This
gospel here is referred to in this parable as a seed. If you were to go back into Luke,
we don't have time to go there, but if you go to Luke, you could
see that, that the word of God in this parable is the seed. The seed is the word of God. The word concerning the kingdom.
In this text, our Lord calls it the word of the kingdom, but
it's the same thing. The word of God is the word of
the kingdom. And you know, how is a kingdom identified? Is it not identified by its king?
How good is a kingdom is only proportional to how good the
king is. And I'm here to tell you the
kingdom of God is good because the king is good. Jesus Christ
is the king, the king of the kingdom. And I tell you, if you
go into this book and you want to know the key to this book,
it is the king, Jesus. Everywhere you go, you should
find Him. You should look for Him everywhere you go in this
book, because it's all about Him. And this was His word, the
King's word. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven
is at hand. Now these Jews, they thought
when they heard that, they immediately thought of an earthly kingdom.
They thought that these Romans would be overthrown and that
the Messiah would come and set up an earthly kingdom. And a
lot of people, even in our day, are looking for that kind of
kingdom. That's not the kingdom we're talking about. He said,
my kingdom is not of this world. Most think the same way, and
the Jews thought that they should merit entrance into this kingdom
by their works, by their obedience. And that's how the lost men believed,
that to enter into the kingdom of God is by merit or some measure
of will or works. Well, we know this can't be.
This can't be because in Adam all died. There is no way to
merit entrance into this kingdom except through Christ, except
through the mediator. In Adam we all died spiritually. We cannot merit. That's why the
Lord said repent. Repent. Turn from your sins. And listen, not only turn from
your sins, turn from your goodness. Turn from your own works, turn
from your religion, turn from your self-righteousness, repent
and turn to Christ. Repent from your vain religion
and put no trust in your works, no trust in the power of your
will, the false religion of our day. You know, they don't exclude
Christ. They don't exclude him. It does not exclude his blood
atonement. They do not exclude his deity
openly. They don't exclude that or his
resurrection. But their vain religion today
includes Christ with their works. If anyone here is trusting in
Christ plus your work, you need to repent of that. You need to
turn from that. That's not the gospel. The gospel
is believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
That's the gospel. He is the gospel. It's a person
turned to him. Therefore, in this false religion,
faith is only a matter of will. But that's not what the scripture
says about faith. Repentance, turning to Christ
and turning to him by faith, is a work of God. It's a gift of God, for by grace
you are saved through faith, and that faith is not of yourself. You believe tonight, your faith
is not of yourself. And if you continue to believe,
that faith will not be of yourself. It is a gift of God, not of works,
lest any man should boast. You remember in John six, our
Lord said, this is the work of God that you believe on him whom
he has sent. Faith is a gift of God. So if
anyone is to repent tonight by the preaching of this gospel,
it will be by the power of God to give you faith, to believe
on Christ. Do you realize this, that if
there is one thing you think you can do to merit God's favor,
you'll do that. And you won't turn to Christ.
If you've got one thing you can do, you'll do that. And you won't,
that just shows you, you have no need. You have no need of
Christ. But I'll tell you, if you do
one thing, it no longer is mercy. It's merit. If you try to add
one thing to Christ, you are trying to earn salvation. You are trying to earn entrance
into this kingdom. Paul said this in Romans 11.
If it's of works, it's no more of grace. Otherwise, work is
no more work. If it's of grace, then it's no
more work. They cannot be mixed. Those two things cannot be mixed. Salvation is either all of grace
or all of works. They can't be mixed. And so the
gospel we preach is a gospel to sinners. Our gospel is for
those whose garments are full of sin. I'm not speaking to anybody.
Your garments full of sin. I'm speaking to those whose souls
are defiled and corrupt and ungodly. You know, only lepers need to
be cleansed. Only the blind need sight and
only the dead need life. This water of the gospel, this
water of the Word of God is for those who need to be washed,
purged from their sins. For those whose souls are perishing
for thirst of righteousness. Is there anyone that thirsts
for righteousness? Do you long for it? Do you love
it? Do you need it? I've got a message
for you. Christ is all the righteousness
you need. Christ is all the righteousness
you need. This anointed King has come. He is the anointed King of God.
And the Son of God has come in the flesh. The seed of the woman, the lion
of the tribe of Judah, the root and offspring of David, has come,
even as God promised he should come from the beginning. God
promised that this king should come. He promised that he would come
and put away sin. From the beginning God promised
this. The seed of the woman shall crush the head. of the serpent. How? By bruising his heel. And
then God gave that picture. You know how he killed that animal.
He killed that animal and covered their nakedness. What a picture
of what Christ was to come to do, to come to provide righteousness,
to cover our nakedness, our sin, and put it away forever by the
atonement He's to redeem us, to atone for our sins, justify
us. And he has come. Therefore, Paul
says, great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in
the flesh. You see, we were all ruined in
a representative. You were all ruined. We all were
ruined in a representative. Even so, God in grace has purpose
that Christ should be a representative man, that he should come and
justify many, many. See, that's not all. It's many. It's not all. In Isaiah 53, you
know He said that He was wounded for our transgression. He was
bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. Who are the us?
Who are the we? God says they are My people,
for My people. God's people, He did this. And
behold then the righteousness that we could not earn. He did. He merited it all as
a representative man. You see, this was all done outside
of you. You notice that this was not done. You were not even
around. This was done before you were
born. His righteousness was already
obtained for us. And behold, His atonement. that
He made by the sacrifice of Himself. Christ came into the world to
save His people through a blood offering. A blood offering. I think it's Hebrews 9. I have
it written. You can read it later. But Hebrews 9, 12. Hebrews 9,
26, 28. Hebrews 10, 12 through 14. You
know how many times that word once is mentioned? How many times
did Christ offer Himself? Once. once. And you know what
he did? He obtained eternal redemption. Isn't that wonderful? That's
a message. That's a message of the gospel.
And behold now that he has been victorious. You see, I'm preaching
a king who's victorious, not one who made salvation possible,
but one who actually accomplished salvation. And see, I don't need
salvation to be possible. I need it to be done because
I've failed even in this pulpit. If I were to be judged on these
things I just said, I imagine that there'd be no hope for me.
Be full of sin. But see, my salvation's done.
My King has accomplished it. He's finished the work. And God
has raised Him from the dead, set Him on the throne in glory.
And what God is doing now, what Christ the King is doing now
through His men, is He is declaring His gospel. He has sent out us
as His sowers, and we are sowing this seed. Now, you know what?
I have no idea where to land. Not my business. You ever tried that? Tried to
tried to put it in someone and tried to never works. Now my
business, my business is to declare this gospel to cast the seed
at a venture and the falling out of it. I want you to know
this is holy in the hands of Christ. See, I'm not putting this in
your hands. It's in his hand. Repent and believe on Christ
and listen. You shall be saved. You shall
be saved. And he that believeth not shall
be damned. Now we know this, no matter if
we preach this message to a few people or to millions of people,
the whole of this falls into the hands of God's salvation.
of sinners is in the hands of God. I've just declared to you
the gospel. I've just told you believe on
Jesus Christ and yet many, some of you will not believe. Why? You cannot believe. Just a matter of fact, Jesus
said no man can come unto me. No man can come unto me except,
I'm so thankful for that divine exception, except the Father
which has sent me draw him. No man by nature can receive
our gospel except God by the power of His grace give it to
you. Give it to you. In Psalm 68 and
verse 20, you know it says, our God is the God of salvation. Salvation belongs to our God. It belongs to Him. It's not mine
to give. It's His salvation. And you know
who He gives it to? Whomsoever He will. That's not very comfortable,
is it? I'm very comfortable. Matter of fact, to the flesh,
it's offensive. It's offensive to the natural man. And Jesus,
as He gives this parable, as He gives this parable, He is
declaring to us what happens every time the gospel is preached. Every time the gospel is preached,
what Jesus says in this parable is exactly what is happening
now. Right now. So it went forth to sow. Some
fell by the wayside, the fowls ate it up. Some fell on stony
places, didn't have much earth, and they sprang up, but because
they had no depthness, the sun rose and they were withered away.
Some fell among thorns and were choked, and some fell on good
ground and yielded fruit." Now, this parable is not complicated
to understand, is it? You don't have to have an agricultural
degree to understand this parable. This is understandable by every
one of you, but to understand it spiritually is something God
must give you. If Christ will not reveal his
gospel to you, then all you'll do with this gospel is perverted.
That's all you can. These people, imagine that if
I were just to read the parable and you didn't have anything
else, what would men do with that? They would run wild with
their imagination as to what a seed was or what the sower
was or what the ground means. They would just use their own
imagination. And the Lord left these people to their own wicked
imagination. He didn't tell them what it meant.
He didn't reveal it to them. The gospel of God to the natural
man is a mystery. It's a parable. It's a riddle. And if left to his own intellect,
God, he will use his own experiences and intelligence and the traditions
of man in order to try to decipher it. That's how men take the gospel. They take their experiences and
then they bring their experiences to the word and try to explain
it by their experiences. They take the traditions of men
whom they respect and bring it to this word, and they try to
infuse that into the word. Paedobaptism. Can you find one instance in
scripture, an infant was baptized? No, you see, you've got to bring
it to the scripture and implant it in the word, because that's
how they interpret the word. It's by their own vain traditions.
This is why we preach the gospel as plainly and clearly as we
can. You know, there's no other name
given among men whereby we must be saved. There's only one Savior,
Jesus Christ. There's only one mediator between
God and man, the man, Christ Jesus. There's only one offering
that is redeemed and accepted of God. And we do pray that God would
give men the ability to understand this. We preach and pray that Christ would reveal
it to you. Otherwise, all this is going
to do is inflame your imagination, and you'll use it and twist it
any way you will. The natural man receiveth not
the things of God because he is spiritually discerned. He's
spiritually judged. And the only way for this word
to sink into your soul is if God put it there. God must do
it for you. And all that believe on Christ,
you who believe on Christ, what a gift you've been given. Why me? Why you? Who maketh thee to differ from
another? What hast thou thou hast not received? Received. And if we continue
in the faith, we know this is because God gives us such grace
to continue. And to us who believe this gospel
is no longer a parable because it's revealed, it's revealed
to us. Therefore, Christ gives us the
meaning of this parable. And I'm thankful he does. He
gives us the meaning of this parable. The gospel is the seed and the
ground upon which it falls is the heart of man. And how one
receives this seed explains the true nature of his heart. Now, I have preached Christ to
you. I've pointed you to him. And this same gospel, every one
of you have heard. Every one of you heard it. So you're all without excuse.
All without excuse. You've heard it. The same gospel
is preached to all. Therefore, I, like the sower,
like the Lord and casting the seed of adventure. But this falling
out belongs to God. And Jesus says to these people,
to whom he preached. To them it was not given to know
the mysteries of the kingdom of God. But I want you to know
this, where does the blame lie? Does it lie on the sower? No. Is the blame on the seed? No,
the seed is cast to every one of you the same. So what's the
problem? The heart. The heart. Jesus says of these people, he
says, for their heart is wax gross. Verse 15, their ears are
dull of hearing and their eyes have they closed. In this we see the full rebellion
of man. is both passive and active. Man is helpless, depraved in
heart, in mind, and in body. Man's heart is incapable of receiving
the gospel seed. You see, from a corrupt heart
can only come corrupt deeds, nothing else. And surely God's
salvation is sure to all who do see, to all who do believe,
to all who do receive this gospel. But the point Christ is making,
and it cannot be avoided with this, it is impossible for man. It's impossible. Therefore, the only way of salvation
is that God give you such ears to hear and hearts to receive. Now, let's look quickly at the
hearts, at these hearts, because, like I said, tonight, as I preach
this gospel to you, you are one of these grounds. Your heart
is one of them. Which one are you? There are four types of grounds
upon which this seed falls, and only one has life. Only one. First of all, the wayside
here in verse four, it says in the sim, some seed fell on the
wayside and the fowls came and devoured it. If you look at verse
19, this is the interpretation the Lord gives of that. He said,
when one heareth the word of the kingdom and understandeth
it not, Then cometh the wicked one and catcheth away that which
was sown in his heart. This is he which received the
seed by the wayside. When I preach the word to you
tonight, is this of no interest to you? You're a wayside here. This has no concern to you. You
don't need it. You don't want it. If I were
to take a seed and cast it upon this floor in this building,
there's nothing wrong with the seed. It's the floor. It's the
concrete. It's incapable. It has no need
to receive it. It has no ability to receive
it. And the only thing left is a
bird to come along and snatch it away. Somebody to sweep it
up. Some of you, you have no interest.
I'm gonna let you know this. That's your heart, your wayside
here. And you have no life. Those who have no need will never
come to Christ. The second type is a stony ground
here. Verses 5, it says, some seed
fell on stony places. There had not much earth, and
forthwith they sprang up, because they had no depthness of earth.
And when the sun was up, they were scorched, because they had
no root. They withered away. And we see
this in verse 6. 20, the interpretation of this, Christ
said, he that received the seed on the stony places, the same
as he which heareth the word and anon with joy receive it,
yet he hath not root in himself, but dureth for a while. For when
tribulation or persecution arises because of the word by and by,
he is offended. You see, these people are the
ones that have some broken ground on their hearts, some form of
tragedy, some form of guilt, of conscience. Something has
happened to these people to cause the ground to be stirred just
a little bit. And they hear of forgiveness,
they hear of mercy, eternal life. Who doesn't want eternal life?
You hear of hell and eternal damnation. Nobody wants to go
to hell. So they would joy receive it.
Oh, that sounds good. But because it's only superficial,
when tribulation comes because of the word, they can only grin
and bear it for so long. How many of you seen that grit
their teeth and just tried to endure. And when trouble comes, and listen,
if you confess Christ, I know this, it will be tested. God will test it. Not for himself, but for you. Jesus said of his people, my
people, you, you, you shall have tribulation in this world. There
was no question about that. You're going to have tribulation
and the world's going to hate you. But how many are like a palpable,
you know, he only endured till he got to the slew of despondent
had to, he turned around real quick. And that's what our Lord
said. These men, they wither away. They wither away. And only last for a little while. And they're gone. You know, John
said that. I believe it's in 1 John. He said, they went out from us
because they were not of us. If they were of us, they would
have no doubt continued with us. But because they were not
of us, they went out that they might be manifest that they were
not of us. How many have went away? How
many have heard and been offended? Our Lord had many disciples went
away in John six, John six and many of them left. And you know
what? He asked his disciples, will
you go away also? What was their answer? Where
are we going to go? I've got no place else to go.
How many times have you said that believer? I've got no place
else to go. I'm offended. I'm hurt, but I
have no place else to go. That's because you got root in
you. And the same sun that scorched them caused you to grow. See? And then there's some who
fell on thorny grounds. He said, some fell on thorns
and the thorns sprang up and choked them. See that in verse
22. He said, He also that received the seed
among thorns is he that heareth the word and for the care of
this world, the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word and
it become unfruitful. You see, these are the ones that
endure the hardships. Oh, but here comes prosperity.
Here comes riches. You know, prosperity for the
church is a worse temptation than trouble. How many have left because of
the pleasures and riches of this world? How many you thought to
be superior to you in the gospel, and yet they're gone? Deceitfulness of riches. Demas,
having loved this present world, hath forsaken me. Some go out because of trouble,
some go out because of pleasure. Both are dead. What then remains? He that received
the seed on good ground. Now, I've already told you you're
not good. You see, this means that God
has to put something in you that wasn't there before. He must give you a new nature
to receive this gospel. And as good ground readily receives
the seed, so does a good nature. One that is created of God gladly
receives the gospel. And you know what comes out of
this? Life. Life. Some an hundredfold. Each one of these bore fruit.
Some an hundred, some sixteen, some thirty, but all bore fruit. What are these fruits? Fruit
of the Spirit. Love. Do you love Christ? I know what you said. Not like
I want to. That's good. It means you've
got fruit. Do you believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ? Oh, not like I want to. You do
believe. That's fruit. It's evidence of
life. See, faith is not the cause of
life, it's evidence of it. What's the evidence of an apple
tree? Apples. Apple don't make the
tree, seed does. It's just evidence of what it
is. Do you hope in Christ? That word hope is not a wish. Do you have confidence in Christ?
Oh yeah. Yeah. His throne is set and he's
going to carry me all the way. My hope is in Christ. Do you
love the brethren? Do you love the brethren? Oh,
you bet I do. You bet I do. That's the fruit. That's the fruit and all bear
it because it's a gift of God. And we give who the praise. If
you have life, if you have fruit, who gets the praise? God does. Sower did nothing. I didn't make
the seed. I just threw it. I didn't plant
the seed. God did that. And God gives life. And I'm so thankful for this.
He keeps us. in the word. And you know what? This is not to keep me in this. I love it. And I don't want anything
else. I want to be found in him not
having mine own righteousness. I want to be robed in his righteousness,
washed in his blood, carried by his spirit all the way. All the way. Now, what hearer
are you? May God even reveal that to you
and open your heart that you might receive this gospel.