The Parable of the Sower

Well, good morning. We too greet you in Christ's name this morning at... I've been challenged and blessed by our service so far and I pray that as I share what I... the Lord has laid in my heart that it can be a blessing to you and a continual challenge for our lives. Turn with me if you would to Luke Chapter 8... very familiar passage and the Parable of the Sower. It's one of those passages or one of those parables that I've heard from a child and you know probably because of the familiarity of it when I hear this parable I kind of tend to glaze over and some of it's probably because of a little bit of a misconception that I had that it was kind of this idea that this is talking about accepting the Lord and you know so if you take it meaning that this is a one time and done taking... say yes to Jesus... you go to the... you meet the rocky ground or you meet the hard ground and you say, "Well, you know that is...

I've accepted God so that doesn't really apply to me." You say, "I've been a Christian for 30 plus years so the rocky ground doesn't really apply to me," and we say, "The wheaty ground, yes that one... that one we got to watch and the good ground is what we strive to be," and that was I guess my... kind of my thought process when I read this parable, when I've read it before, and so you know I kind of... you know it was one of those things I went over lightly.

But I got to looking at this the other morning when I was reading it in my personal time and it says the word is... the seed is the Word of God.

So the question came to me, "Well, what is the Word of God? It's God speaking to me," right? And... well, how does God speak to me was my next question.

Well, He speaks to us by His Son, but how does... how does that... how does that happen? Well, the Son or Christ is revealed through Scripture. It's one way. It's also revealed through His Church, so through our fellow believers God can speak to us and then through His Spirit God can speak to us in that steel small voice and all of a sudden as I was looking at this if that is God's Word He's speaking to us daily.

Each day in a very practical way God is speaking to my heart. He is sowing seed... not just one seed... He's sowing many seeds. What am I going to do with those words that He is speaking? What am I going to do when God says, "I want you to go here.

I want you to go to this brother and forgive, repent of pride in my life. I want you to go to Guatemala, Grenada, you name it, or maybe I want you to stay at home. Maybe I want you to go to the room... I'll get my little plug in for the room.

I want you to go up there and serve... serve God there.

I want you to go... I don't want you to buy that whatever it is. I want you to buy this."

Very, very practically God speaks to our heart each day. What do we do with those decisions? What do we do with that word that God is putting into our heart?

So I guess as... with that as the backdrop I want to look at this parable this morning and make it a very practical message. What are we going to do with the very practical seeds that God puts in our heart? Let's read... I'm going to read verses 4 through 21 of Chapter 8 of Luke.

He says this: "And when much people were gathered together and were come to Him out of every city, He spake by a parable. A sower went out to sow a seed and as he sowed, some fell by the wayside and it was trodden down and the fouls 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 other fell on good ground and sprang up and bare fruit and hundredfold.

When they 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 not see and hearing they might not understand.'

Now the parable is this: The seed is the Word of God. Those by the wayside are they that hear, then come with 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 root, which for a while believe and in time of 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," or some translation says maturity. "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, covers it with a vessel or puteth it under a bed, but setteth it on the candlestick that they might... that they which enter in may see the light. For nothing is secret that shall not be made manifest, neither anything hid that shall not be made done... that shall not be known and come abroad.

Take heed therefore how ye hear, for whosoever hath, to him shall be given and whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken even that which ye seemeth to have. Then came to him his brother... mother and his brother and could not come at him for the press. And it was told him by certain which said, 'Thy mother and thy brother stand without desiring to see thee.' And he answered and said unto them, 'My mother and my brother are these which hear the Word of God and do it.'" So, very familiar parable, the sower, and he starts out here by talking about the seed by the wayside... the ground that would not take in the Word of God... not take in the seed.

So my question is how can we as Christian people or people who reject the Word of God? Well, very... very simply we can just do that. We can say no when God speaks to us. I'm not going to listen to that, but I don't know that a lot of us probably do it that blatantly.

But one way I think we can say no and reject what God is speaking to us is by saying Christ, God didn't really mean what He said.

We have all kinds of examples that so-called Christian people use. They say, "Well, I need to defend myself and my... my family," right? When Jesus said, "Love your enemies," He didn't really mean this and we do away with what God is speaking to... to our hearts. You know, God surely wouldn't have meant that a divorced and remarried couple should separate if they love each other.

What did Christ say?

He said that if you do that... if you're married, that you are living in adultery. Well, that's ones that are farther out, but what about this one? "Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and grass tell to corrupt, and where thieves do break through and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven." That one comes closer home because it's something that we all... all deal with. And we do all kinds of funny things with that. We say it's a heart issue... where's your heart?

And we've all heard various explanations of why you should be able to lay up a big pile here on earth and it'd be just fine. I was thinking about that. If I told my child... and we... we often do this, I tell them, "The coat doesn't belong on the couch.

There is a closet that you go hang it up on. I don't want that there, I want that there." That's what Jesus said. "I don't want you to lay up treasure here, I want you to lay up there," but we do all kinds of fancy things and our children we... it's easy to say, "Surely you get this. You don't lay it here, you put it there," but yet we do those kind of things with the truth that God speaks to our heart. "Surely you don't mean to me... for me to go to Ukraine. There's a war going on in there... over there," and we have a friend that's over there right now and he felt the call.

He felt God speaking to his heart that he needed to go to Ukraine. Probably didn't make sense as far as logically, but he's over there now serving the Lord there and I'm... I'm very grateful that he is because he followed what that little voice was telling him.

So that's one way I think we can... we can... be hard ground is just by saying God doesn't mean what He means... what He said and I'm going to ignore that because He surely didn't mean that and when that happens Satan takes that seed and... and... and we... we no longer are open to that... that truth.

Another one I think that comes close home how can we reject truth and ironically I'm... I was thinking back over when I read this passage. I think it was that very morning. I was... reading this and in the middle of reading this all of a sudden I was like, you know, it was either a text message or an email. I... I wonder what they said and I reached for my phone which is close by, which is probably mistake number one, and I caught myself. I thought, "Ah... here I am trying to get God's truths and I am going to do something that will block out... maybe the truth God is trying to reveal to me."

And we... and as I thought about that I think that's another way Satan uses to be able to snatch that seed from our... from our ground before it has a chance to... to penetrate our hearts. We live in a world that is so full of noise. We are constantly bombarded by... by noise. In fact, so much so that I was at a place this week and the lady... she met me at her house to fix her stove and... dishwasher and as I went to leave she was getting ready to leave and she turned her TV on to I think some cartoon thing. She said, "I turn it on for my dogs."

So we now have people whose life is so full of noise that they even have to have noise for their dogs.

And that's not the first time I've been told that. It happens fairly regularly, but we live in a society that is so full of noise and I think part of that reason is because they do not want to have to deal with that voice... that truth that is being told them by God and we can fall into that... very much into that... that category. You know, it's easy to... I spend a lot of time on the road, so it's easy to...

I mean we have our phones now that you can get the news, you can get... podcast, you can listen to music, you can listen to messages and not all of those are bad, but I think sometimes till the end of the day did you actually allow any time for that Word of God to actually do a work in your life today, or was it so full that Satan was able to block out that seed and remove that seed from our... from our lives?

You know, the sad part is when we do that it says here at the end of this where he goes on to explain, he says, "Lest they should believe and be saved." And I want to look at that being saved as being rescued this morning.

What God is saying in our lives is our way... means of rescue. It is our way out of this bad situation that we find ourselves in in this world.

When we dismiss the Word that God is giving it is our hope. We're dismissing our hope of rescue. He only has love and good in mind, but when we reject that we're losing that avenue.

Reminds me of the story of Barry, the St. Bernard. I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with the story. Over in Switzerland...

in the... in the mountains, the Alps... there is a monastery and it's in the St. Bernard Pass and years ago it was kind of a rough area, so they kept dogs there as a means of protection, but they found out that these dogs also were a means of rescue and it's actually where the St. Bernard gets its... its name.

In fact, you often see the St. Bernard with a little barrel or cask underneath his neck. That comes from this... this area. And Barry was one of those rescued dogs. In his course of his life they estimate he saved about 42 people from the mountains and what they would do is these dogs would go out, they would find somebody that maybe an avalanche had covered them over, or the blizzard had gotten the best of them and they would go out and with the heat of their body and stuff they would revive the people and...

and they had this flask they said they think it was full of some sort of whiskey or brandy or something to give the person a little extra boost to get them to safety. In fact, one of the cases... the... this dog Barry came home... or came back to the monastery with a child... a baby wrapped in a shawl around this dog's body and apparently the mother had been out and she knew that she wouldn't... wouldn't make it, so she sent her baby to the... to the monastery. The baby was about frozen, they managed to revive the baby and the baby lived.

But that's not the end of Barry. So Barry is out one day looking for a man. The man is cold, the man is about gone and Barry finds him. Now the man isn't thinking rationally because of the... the situation he found himself in and the stories differ a little bit on this, but either he comes to or in his stupor he thinks it's a wild animal.

He reaches into his pocket, pulls out a knife and stabs Barry.

Legend has it that the dog died. It's not quite true. They found out that they... he actually did make it back to the monastery and he did pull through, although it was pretty much the end of his career as a rescue dog and there is now a monument to Barry in Switzerland and they say that there has been rescued dogs named Barry ever since.

But that's exactly what we do so many times with God's Word. The truth that He's trying to reveal us is our salvation and instead of accepting it we take a knife and we stab and kill because we don't like what we see and... it's... it's... it's our salvation.

So when God is speaking to you and that's still a small voice telling you to do something, whether it is as simple as I want you to buy this and I don't want you to buy that, we need to say yes to that because the... the end of that is... is very... very critical and we'll find that out at the end of this... this talk here this morning.

So that's the first ground. Then we have the stony ground. These people start out well. They say yes.

I'm going to do that. That's great. Maybe more of an emotional response and... but really didn't count the cost. You know, we're looking at Bible school here and there's going to be a lot of teaching and I'm always a little bit disappointed sometimes when I see students who seem so enthused and they leave Bible school and I'm like, yes, we're going to do this and then I see their lives half a year... year... year and a half later. I'm like, what happened?

They seem so ready to go out and do these type of things. What... what is it that changed? I'm afraid they didn't count the cost before they said yes to what God was telling them. There is a cost and Luke 14, just a couple chapters later...

verses 28 to 33 he says this. He's talking about counting the cost... taking up our cross. "For which of you intending to build a tower? Siteth not down first and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it. As happily after he hath laid the foundation and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, saying, This man begin to build was not able to finish.

Or what king going to make war against another king? Siteth not down first and consulteth, whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand. Or else while the other is yet a great way off, he senteth an embassage and it is earth conditions of peace. So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he have, he cannot be an either disciple." There is a cost to abandon God's Word and that is it costs us everything and so many times we don't consider that and we lose out because we didn't... didn't count the cost. If you're like me, I'm sure there's been many a Sunday morning you've sit under some good teaching, you said, yes, I agree, that's right, I'm going to go and next week I'm going to put this into practice, but you know, so often I'm speaking for myself here, maybe the first part of the week you do pretty well and toward the end of the week you stand to forget what you were thinking on Sunday morning and maybe by the next week or two weeks later you've forgotten about that commitment that you had made in your heart to accept God's...

God's Word, but really the person who is going to make progress in their life is going to be the person that... that doesn't... they're going to be committed to that through and through.

So that's the stony ground. Next we come to the... the weedy ground and this one I... I find really hits close home.

He lists three things he said that can choke out the seed or that... that's the thing that the God is trying to talk to you about. He says the cares of this life are work, our job, our need for clothes, food, shelter... one of the things that can choke out.

Deceitfulness of riches as he says in one other place. Riches, money. And then he says pleasures of this life...

he says the pleasures of this life can choke out things. The things that we can enjoy in life. You know, in and of themselves those three things there's nothing wrong with having a job, there's nothing wrong with we have to have money to... to live and I think God intended for us to enjoy life, but when those things take priority or get out of their context where they need to be, they will choke out what is... what God is trying to tell us.

Take the situation of maybe... and I have faced this already, so life is busy and it comes to my turn to go to the room and sometimes I'm like, really should I... how do I juggle this? And I think about the verse that Christ said or the... Christ... the words that Christ spoke, he said, "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you."

We need to prioritize what Christ says to us first and keep that first and foremost in our lives because if not those other things will choke out what God is trying to speak to our heart.

I was... we were just newly married. My wife before we were married had taken care of an elderly couple who was helping them out and we were up after we were married, just shortly after that and we were visiting them and he was an older brother. Reminded me a little bit of my grandfather Harold. Didn't... wasn't overly wordy, didn't say lots and lots, but in a quiet way kind of just spoke. And he told me this. He said, "You know, after supper at night..." he said, "I have a machine shop out back of my house." He said, "I had a machine shop and I thought I would go out there in the evening..." and he said, "I thought, well, my children can come with me and we can have time out there with my children."

So he said, "I would go out and finish up the job that didn't get done." And he looked at me and said, "I wish I would have been in the house with them."

He didn't specify exactly why he wished that, but I know some of his children have been affected. They've lost out in their lives. I don't know what God was telling him at that... that point in his life, but God... those cares of this life, that job that needed done was taking priority over his family and he was given to me, I guess, as a warning... as... as a newly married man that I prioritize what God prioritizes.

So that's one of the things I think we need to watch... guard against. Maybe our priority is to spend time at home over going to the room. Maybe our... you know, our priority is to... we... and the issue... the thing about this subject this morning was... that came to me is it's not just I can't tell you these things. I can't tell you that you need to stay home here, you need to go there, but God is telling us and we need to be sensitive to that because if not we can put on a good front, but in the end of this chapter we will see it does reveal itself and it's not in a... it can be either in a good way or in a bad way.

Next he goes on, he says the deceitfulness of riches... or in this case he just says riches, but in the other one he says deceitfulness. I was thinking about that, what makes riches deceitful? Well, I think the one that we often talk about is our trust in the Lord.

It takes the place of trusting God. It says, "Here is security when we all know it can be gone in an instant." And there is no security with riches, but that can so soon take our focus away from what is important and shift it over to building my little nest egg for... for all those things that may come.

One of the other things I think that is deceitful about riches is it puts pride in our heart. It says, "Look at what I have accomplished. I don't need help. I can do this myself." First Corinthians chapter 4, verses 7 and 8 says this: "For who makes a seat to differ from another?

What makes you different than anybody else? What do you have or what hast thou that thou didst not receive? What do you have that wasn't given to you?

Now if thou didst receive it or if it was given to you, why do you glory as if it hadn't been given to you?" Now we are fool... now we are rich, we have... you have reigned as kings without us and I would to God you did reign that we also might reign with you.

He's saying we really have no control over this. I think about... I made up a little scenario. So it's the end of 2019 and you want to start a business and you decide my town needs a restaurant and there's a big demand for it. I mean the little diner down the road they serve macaroni and cheese that tastes like plastic. We need some... we need some good food in town and so you get everything ready, December comes along and boy, your restaurant's full.

You're doing well.

Okay, that's one scenario. The other scenario is the man that says, "You know, there's a lot of elderly people in our... in our town and I should start a home delivery service for... you know, if somebody needs... you know, groceries brought home, I'll bring them... I'll take them to their house."

And then 2020 happens and COVID strikes. Now you have invested all your money in... in... in these two businesses. The one man did one and the other man did his others. We all know what happened. The restaurant's got shut down and it was a long time for the restaurant business to be back in business and he goes belly up. The other man... all of a sudden he's hiring all kinds of help because he can't get the job done and he's rolling in money left and right.

Now, did he have any really say in what happened? No. And that's what I think is deceitful about it. We say, "Look at what I've done," and that man could have said, "See, I've seen this all coming." It's not true. There was no one that's seen COVID coming, but that's... that's the kind of thing that's deceitful. I can do it. I don't... I... I have everything under control. That's one of the deceitfulnesses of riches and when we do that we're not going to be open to accept what Christ is telling us because it doesn't always make sense and it doesn't always make financial sense.

It may mean giving up the last... as Brother Elam was talking about that person that down there at the orphanage that gave up their... their last little bit to help those in need and God does provide. It doesn't make sense and when we rely on our own wisdom, which is what riches kind of tends to make us do, we lose out in accepting what God is speaking to our hearts.

The other thing that he says will choke out God's Word is the pleasures of life. Like I said, I think God intended for us to enjoy life. He... he designed these things for our enjoyment, but when they get out of their proper context they will eat away and destroy what God is speaking to you.

Think of things like an impure thought life. That will destroy what God is trying to tell us. It consumes us and becomes a consuming... a consuming thing.

We live in a society that is in a sense driven by food. We have all the restaurants and things. Now I've been trying to lose weight and I realize how much it can control you. These things and if you're not careful these things can push out what Christ... what God really intends for our lives.

There are people who can't pass up a good restaurant. They've got to... they've got to check out the latest one that come to town and they will be able to tell you what the good things are on the menu and they're driven by it.

Now every now and then I like to lay in bed in the morning and not get up quite as early as I should. On occasion I think that's probably okay, but you know, if you have a habit of doing that it robs you of a lot of time. It robs you of a lot of things that could be done that God may be speaking to your heart to do. It maybe robs us of our quiet time with the Lord in a very practical way.

They come at a cost and you know, are we willing to see that through? Say, "No, I'm not going to let these things control me and I'm going to let God speak to my heart." Vacations is another one. I think it's okay to... you know, take a time of rest every now and then and things, but if it becomes an obsession... if it becomes something that takes control of our lives it may rob us of our ability to help others.

It may rob us of our time with God or maybe puts us in an environment that is less than ideal. You think of... you know, we decide that we're going to go to the ocean and it's a little bit warmer than we really wished it would have been and you know, puts us in an... a less than ideal environment. Those kind of things can rob us of our... of God's communication with us and block out what God has in mind. They choke out the better things in life with things that are not as good.

Well, that's the... the weedy ground and then we come to the good ground. What we all desire to be, but you know, I probably have the least amount to say with this chapter... with this one because it's really very, very simple.

And if we look at verse 21 Jesus tells us how to be good ground. Verse 21 says this... Luke chapter 8... again he says this: "My mother and my brother are these which hear the word of God and do it." It's that simple.

We listen, we are attentive to what God is telling us and then we do it and we see it through to the very end and it's a continuing doing of what God is telling us. I think Brother John has mentioned that we make decisions and our decisions make us. As we make those decisions, yes, I'm going to do this, Lord. You told me to do this. You told me to go there. You told me to buy this. You told me to repent of this. You told me to... and you go on with the list. As we say yes to each one of them it will start to produce fruit in our life.

It will bring forth fruit to maturity and it will produce an abundance of fruit.

You know, in a sense the fruit is not our responsibility.

We can't really produce the fruit. God produces the fruit. I once had a man tell me, he said, "Well, how many souls have you saved?" I said, "Well, I didn't really... I don't really save them. That's Christ's work." But I said I... this is kind of what I... I told the man. I said, "I hope that my life is lived in such a way that it will leave a positive influence on everyone I come in contact with." That's all I can do. I can't do any more than that, but if I'm leaving my life... living my life saying, "Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord," and then seeing it through and doing it, when I get to the end of my life it will be fruitful.

Your life will be fruitful. We all know people that... they come to the end of their life and they were one of those... they weren't really a mover and shaker, but you get to their... maybe to their funeral and you look at their children, their grandchildren, they're serving the Lord and you start talking to people and they say, "You know, He really left an impact on my life."

That is fruit. It's from a fruit and I can guarantee you that person was living his life saying yes to God and those little behind the scenes things that God was talking to him about.

You know, I've often wondered why verses 16 and 17 were sandwiched in between here. It's almost like he always... he almost changes subjects to the... to the... the candle, but I think he's saying what is the purpose of a candle? We light a candle for light.

He said, "The purpose of my sending... giving you the seed, the giving of the word of God into your life is so that you produce fruit, just like the candle is designed for... for light. Your... that seed I'm... I'm putting in your heart is designed to produce fruit."

And he said, "It's going to be revealed. At the end what..." he says, "Nothing is secret that should not be made manifest," and it works both ways. You look at a person whose life has fallen apart, I can assure you they quit saying yes to God on those little small things that God was saying to... into the... speaking into the heart when no one else knew it, but the flip side is true as well. If they have a fruitful life you can be assured that they said yes. It's going to be revealed in their lives what... what they've done.

And then comes a very serious warning that Jesus said.

Verse 18 he says, "Take heed therefore, how ye hear; for whosoever to hath, to him shall be given; and whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken even that which ye seemeth to have." If we say no, we start down a slippery slope that leads us down... down... down and you know, we've all seen people that at one time we respected and later on you see their lives and you say, "What? How did they get there?"

Behind the scenes they were making choices saying, "I don't want to hear that, Lord. I am not going to say yes to that word of God that you're putting into my heart and we come up with our reasons, maybe it was one of those, you know, three grounds and we say, "No, I... I... I would rather have this," and we don't take in what God is speaking and we don't see it through to the end and you lose out and that decision has that... the... the poem says, "The blade leads onto way," and we... we... we end up a place we don't want, but the reverse is true as well and that's the part I want to encourage us with this morning.

If we say yes, God gives us more and more of those things and our life can be one of fruitfulness and one of just saying... constant saying yes and becoming a life that is rescued from the... the evil that wants to so often tear us down and we can live above that if we are constantly saying yes, Lord.

So in closing... closing the question I ask myself, am I in the very practical and mundane ways of life listening to hear God speaking and then taking it into my heart and allowing it to grow and doing what it takes to do it until the very end.