Bible please and turn to Luke chapter 8. As I said earlier, I'll give a much more full report this evening, but our Vacation Bible School Some of you already know, I think I had mentioned some of this before we left, but our Vacation Bible School theme was the parables of Jesus. And so we went through various parables each morning. You may see this evening some antics involved with some of those parables that the children greatly enjoyed. But the last parable on Friday that we dealt with was what we often refer to as the parable of the sower. Some people call it that. In my Bible, that's the way it's titled. But as you'll see in just a moment, I'll challenge that title with another one. But in Luke chapter eight, we'll begin our reading in verse number four and read down through to the end of verse number 15, looking at this particular parable of our Lord. Luke eight and verse four. 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 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 other fell on good ground, and sprang up, and bear fruit a 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 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 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 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 of 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. Amen. We'll end our Bible reading there at the end of verse number 15. And let's seek the Lord in prayer together. Let's ask his help as we have our Bibles open and consider this parable together. Let's pray. Our Father, read here from the scriptures solemn words and actually in a parable words that describe each one of us. And we pray this morning for that good soil in our hearts that the word would settle into and grow up and bring forth fruit with patience. Or as another parallel version of this is in Matthew, that in our hearts it would bring forth some 30, some 60, and even some a hundredfold. And so help us as we consider this passage together in Jesus' name, amen. The title of my message, if you're one prone to take notes, is The Word of God in the Soul of Man. The Word of God in the Soul of Man. Christ in his ministry, he went back and forth between Capernaum and Galilee, that was kind of his stomping grounds, if you were, as it were, and he did most of his preaching in and among those two regions, obviously other places, but that was where he spent a good portion of his ministry. And at this particular time, Christ is in Galilee. And the parallel passage of this, one found in Matthew and the other one found in Mark, tells us that when Christ tells this particular parable, he actually did it from a little ship that had been pushed out into the sea a bit so that the shoreline would form what amounted to a natural amphitheater for him to be able to speak to a much larger crowd. And Christ taught the people. In Luke, we have it quite condensed and Christ gives the parable and then it's as if his disciples are just immediately asking, what does this mean? But you'll see in the other parallel passages that there was actually a little bit of time between the parable given and then the disciples later coming to the Lord and asking them for an interpretation of this. And we see that Christ tells them that unto you it is given to know these mysterious things. But Christ spoke in parables on purpose because there were those that were predestined to not understand what the Lord was saying. They for the entirety of their lives would be that wayside stony ground that the word would never settle into. But he tells his disciples that unto you it is given to know these things. They, in essence, we can understand if we complete the metaphor, they had the Holy Spirit that had done that telling work in their heart and had prepared them to receive this word. And Christ, the master gardener, was strategically planting the seeds in their heart and they were hearing the word and they were coming to understand the word. Now, it's obvious just from the passage of Scripture given to us that when the disciples first heard the parable, they were somewhat confused as to what the Lord meant by what he said. By speaking in parables, he was speaking to some degree in cryptic language, though we understand a parable to be an explanation of a gospel truth. Yet there was some mystery as to what exactly do you mean by what you're saying, Lord? And so Christ, very gently and very patiently, and also very forthrightly and directly, explains to them exactly what he means by what he says. And so he tells them that this parable is about a sower that sows not seed that would be a plant, but seed that is the word of God. and the fowls of the air, or the devil that would take it up, and the rocks and the thorns, and those are that which is the pleasures of this world, the cares and the riches of this life that choke out that word. And so what we have here is not so much a parable about a sower, so much as it is a parable about the different types of soil that the sower, the preacher of the gospel, is sowing in. I think ultimately, the point of this parable is for salvation. Hearing the word to the saving of your soul. And there are those that are the wayside ground that will never be converted. And there are those that the Holy Spirit goes before in a work of regeneration and opens the heart, regenerates the heart, and in that fills up the soil of the heart. And when the seed goes in, it is received, and the Word grows and flourishes. And so what we have here really is the parable of the soils, the parable of the soils. And while I say ultimately the point of this parable is receiving the word to the saving of your soul, I believe that there is a secondary application of this parable that for us as the Lord's people, we can take to heart as well. Because while it is true that there is that one that is tilled, that receives the word and that person is saved and converted, the other three are either no professors at all or false professors, as we can look at the individual types of soil here. I believe also that we can see the truth of this parable in our own hearts every day. We are, at times, each of these. This morning, you could be converted, but yet this particular August 18th, 2024, sitting in these blue chairs, have a wayside heart. Sitting in these blue chairs, have a rocky heart, or a thorny heart. or a tilled-up receptive heart. You could be any of these four this morning or tomorrow as you open your Bible to read. I assume we don't really live in an agrarian society anymore, but I assume you've all planted a seed somewhere, somewhere along the way you've planted a seed. We have one of these walk-behind seed spreaders that you're supposed to use to, you can do fertilizer in your yard or seed in your grass or whatever. And you know if you've ever used one of those things. They're awful and they never work right. But you push the thing, the thing spins around and it throws seed wherever it goes. And if you walk too close to your driveway, then you're not trying to, but inevitably there is seed on your driveway. And you get too close to the front road, and you're not trying to, but inevitably, there's seed on the road. And so you get your blower or broom or whatever, and you sweep it off the sidewalk, because it theoretically is not going to grow there, except for in the cracks, and it grows perfectly good in the cracks. But it's not supposed to grow there, and so you want to get it on the dirt, because that's where seed is supposed to go, and that's where seed is supposed to grow. So nobody on purpose distribute seed in a place that it's not going to grow. But you understand the imagery. This makes perfect sense to us. They didn't have seed spreaders like that, but they would have had a pouch, a bag, and they would grab a handful of seed, and they would scatter their seed. Or they would strategically plant in certain rows their seed. And every farmer wants his seed to be in the right place, at the right time, under the right circumstances, the right conditions, and they want that to grow. But what we have here is a parable that teaches us about our own hearts. And it's very clear, Christ gives us the points of the parable are very straightforward. The seed is the Word of God. The sower is the preacher of the word of God, the preacher, the evangelist, the person that is seeking to sow this seed, whether formally a preacher in a pulpit or as our sister Beth, you know, in the Walmart parking lot giving a gospel tract. You are a sower of the word. And each one that receives that is one of your seed. But as you sit here this morning, you are one of these four soils. And so I wanna preach to you this morning on the subject of the word of God in the soul of man. And really two points this morning. The first one is, I want you to see from this parable, the need for you to pray for understanding the word. as we zoom out from this parable and look at it in a big picture type of way, what this parable teaches us is that each one of us need to pray for understanding the word. From verse 9 and 10, we can conclude that not everyone who hears the word understands it. Even the disciples, Christ's disciples themselves, when they first heard the word, they didn't understand it. They didn't ignore it. They wanted to understand it. They had a desire for it to be plain and clear in their mind. And so they inquired further. They went to the Lord privately and they said, Lord, what does this mean? Will you please give us a more full and further explanation of this word? That is them, in a sense, praying for understanding of the word. Every time you hear the word of God, you need to pray for understanding. Every time you open your Bible and you begin to read, you need to pray for understanding. I'm gonna ask you a question not to put you on a guilt trip or put you on the spot, but I will put you on the spot. How many of you, this morning before you arrived at this address, 3030 Burke Mill Road, and before you plopped yourself down in this seat, wherever you're sitting, prayed and said, Lord, please open my heart this morning to receive the word. I would venture to guess very few of you. That's human nature. But yet, what are we doing? Why are we even here? Why are we even here? But to receive the word. That's the reason we have come here. We're friends, and we want to know how each other's week has gone. And that's absolutely vital to the life of a church, 100% vital to the life of the church. And it's necessary that it goes on, that we have friendly conversations with one another about life. That's necessary. But that's not why we're here. We're here to worship the God of heaven. And we cannot do that. without the Holy Spirit first opening our hearts to receive that word. And so I would just challenge you to make that something of a priority, to seek the Lord even before you arrive, that the Lord would open your heart. It's too often in our modern day, our modern view of the weekend, our modern view of the fulfillment of personal pleasures, that the weekend is mine, you work your nine to five, and the weekend is mine, and I'm so gracious to carve out an hour for the Lord on Sunday. What more could he want from me? And so, up all hours on Saturday, doing all sorts, And Sunday, sleeping in, vegging out, getting up, rushing out the door, and trying to get to an 11 o'clock service. And you squeal the tires into the parking lot, fussing at one another in the car all the way there. You arrive. You put on a smile before you get out of the car so that people don't think you're an absolute heathen, and you rush into church, and you plop yourself down, and turn in your Bible to Hebrews 11, and now we're on for church. With no thought, with no thought whatsoever given to Why in the world am I even here? What's the point of being here if it's not to receive the Word? We need to pray for understanding because it's so abundantly clear from this parable that naturally our hearts are unreceptive to the Word of God. That's the way we're born. we are naturally left to ourselves unreceptive to the Word of God. And this is a lesson we clearly see from the first three types of soil. And I remind you, yes, there is that evangelistic salvation emphasis of this, that there are those that cannot be converted, But I say it to those here that claim to be converted. I know there are some here not converted, but I say it to you who are here that are converted. Your heart naturally does not want to receive the word of God. Look at these grounds. The first three type of ground is ground that is normal. It's ground the way ground is. The first one is ground that is described as the wayside. Some of your hearts this morning are on the wayside. And you are prime candidates for the devil simply stealing that word. This morning, in five minutes, you won't know what the sermon was about. You won't have any idea. You won't have the foggiest notion. what I preached on, because this is the nature of your heart. It is untouched. Satan steals it away. He is the enemy of the word of God. What did he do in the garden? The very first time we see Satan interacting with the word of God, what did he do? He twisted that word. He perverted and he corrupted that word because he hates that word. And he does not want you to receive that word. He doesn't want it to settle in. And so as quickly as he sees a seed fall, he will do what is within his power to take it up. The Bible tells us we're not ignorant of Satan's devices. Satan is not doing things that God has not already warned us he would do. He's told us he is a liar. He's told us he is a thief. He's told us, he's revealed to us in the scriptures the nature of the character of Satan. And we know that he is antagonistic to the word of God. And so, for example, you'll hear a sermon where perhaps spiritual pride is addressed in a sermon. And Satan will steal that word by immediately causing you to think about that person that is worse than you, that is more prideful than you are. And you'll think the entire sermon, man, I hope so-and-so is paying attention this morning. They need this. not realizing that what just happened was just as a bird would fly in and snatch up a kernel of corn and fly away with it almost before you could even see it happen, the word's gone. The seed's gone. And your mind's a million miles on the other side. Satan will steal the word. Man is unreceptive because by nature, His heart is rocky ground, and the Word can't take up a full root there. It may sprout, but it's not gonna take up a root and have anything that's sturdy about it. It's not gonna be able to receive nutrients to grow. And so in this sense, Satan can look at your heart in that way, and he can say, okay, well, I don't have to bother with this one. because he's got enough problems all by himself, he doesn't have enough spiritual life to him to get that Word to grow anyway. This is, if I could put it in these terms, this is often the plight of the backslider, that one that is away from the Lord. They hear the Word, maybe they're excited about it for a season, this might be someone that if you're not discerning, you would look at them and you would identify them as... Because every week, they seem to be so excited about that Word. And next week, they're so excited about that Word. And next week, they're so excited about that Word. But nothing ever changed from three weeks ago when they were so excited about that other word. Nothing changed. They're still the same. The word was not fruitful. There was zeal. There was a flash in the pan. There was nothing lasting to it at all. But yet, every week, they seemed to be on fire. It's just always a new, it's just the next. And what really is going on is there is a zeal, there is an excitement, but there's no depth. There's nothing to it. Is this not the mega church of our generation? 100 miles wide. with tentacles and fingers in ministries of all sorts. But no depth. No substance to it at all. Tons of zeal. But nothing seems to ever change. You read your Bible every day, but nothing ever changes. You're one who is, as the Bible describes, ever learning but seemingly never able to come to any knowledge of truth. There's just no depth. It's just rocky. It looks good, but it's not good. Your personal sin prevents the Word of God from really taking root and growing. You don't sin because of your environment or your circumstances, that's not what causes you to sin. Adam was in the most perfect of circumstances, and yet he sinned. Daniel found himself in arguably the worst of circumstances, but yet he purposed in his heart that he would not sin. So your environment isn't the thing, it's your heart that really is at issue. Here's the thing, the Lord is well able to overcome a stony heart. And this is why I say what we see at the beginning of this parable as we try to make it applicable to our own lives, what does this mean for me, is I have to pray that the Lord would do a work to keep me from being one of these and be that fertile soil. I have to pray that the Lord would make His Word grow, because naturally, left to myself, I am unreceptive to the Word of God. I could be the wayside, I could be the thorny ground, or perhaps this morning you are, I'm sorry, the rocky ground, or perhaps this morning you will fall into that third category that we see in verse number 14, that seed that falls among thorns, the thorny ground. And here again, this is dirt that is normal under the fall. Sometimes these thorns are things that are downright sinful, perhaps. Maybe that's you. They're just downright sinful things that choke out the Word. Or perhaps they are completely legitimate. The completely legitimate necessities of life that are disproportionately important in your life. Your priorities are messed up. Your priorities are out of line. Therefore, They are those things that grow up and they choke out the Word. You never have any time to meditate and focus on the Word because you're too busy with other things. And so these type of believers are similar to that rocky soil in that they are described as those that receive the Word favorably at first. And so again, an undiscerning onlooker could be quite impressed at the momentary growth of the Word, the short burst of spiritual zeal and gospel energy, but nothing of any lasting effect. That's the problem. It's nothing of any lasting effect because there's so many misplaced priorities that ultimately the word is just choked out and it can't flourish. This is a type of person, you know, again, like that rocky soil. You could come to church every single Sunday, be at the Lord's house every time the door is open, but yet there's no real change of heart. There's no real substantive change of life. Any plant, again, you've planted stuff, this makes perfect sense to you, you can understand this. A plant among thorns, it has to compete for nutrients. The thorns need nutrients from the soil just as the good plant needs nutrients from the soil. The weeds get nutrients. And all the minerals, all the resources of the dirt are sucked up by the weeds, by the thorns, by the stuff that's not useful or helpful. And that good plant that you're trying to grow there is starved and choked out. This is what the Lord describes. Here. And this is why, and this is where you and I must pray for understanding. We pray for grace because naturally we are unreceptive to the word. How do you get wayside ground? How do you get rocky ground? How do you get thorny ground? It's easy. You don't have to have a green thumb to have that kind of dirt in your garden. That's the dirt that nobody does anything to. It's dirt that's normal. It's dirt that's natural. Plowed up grass is unnatural. If you come to a garden and you see a plowed up row, well, you can be sure somebody has been there. Somebody has been there and done that work. It doesn't happen by itself. And so that's why I say we have to pray for understanding, because naturally we don't receive the Word, but we pray for understanding, because the Word only can come by divine intervention. The growth of this Word can only happen by divine intervention. And that's where we come to at verse number 15. 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. My mom and dad, I've told you this story before. My mom and dad had a Troy-built tiller. It was red. I don't know how many miles as a boy, I walked behind that Troy-built teller. We had a garden that was L-shaped and probably was very similar to the footprint of this building, an L-shaped garden in our backyard, and we planted all sorts of stuff. And I was the oldest of four boys, and so I was the one that on Saturdays, my dad was a barber, and so He always worked on Saturdays, because that's when everybody else was off. And that's when I was off. And so I was the one that had to walk behind that Troy-built tiller. If you've ever used one, you know that when your first pass, when the ground is still hard, the tines of that tiller will, especially if you're a little runt of a guy like I was when I was small, would just kind of skip along the ground. And you just had to keep up with the thing. And to get it to work, you had to lean back on it. I just broke the fan. You have to lean back on it and pull those tines down into the ground. And it would pull you. But you had to wrestle that thing. to get it to till the ground. But after you make two or three passes, then oh man, it's beautiful. Sinks down into the ground and it's tilling the dirt all up. It's a beautiful thing. And then you put the little attachment on there and it'll cut a row for you. It's wonderful, it's a great tool. My parents, I realize now looking back, gypped me. they would pay my brothers and me 25 cents. Okay, so this was late 80s, early 90s. They would pay us a quarter for an entire five-gallon bucket of rocks. And so as you till, you know, it digs up rocks and So we'd go behind with the five-gallon bucket and put the rocks in there. And we'd bring them a five-gallon bucket full of rocks. And we got a quarter. It was slave wages, is really what it was. But it took a lot of work. That's the point. It took a lot of work to get that ground ready for seed. Now here's the thing. I could go out here in this concrete, and with enough work, bust the concrete up, get it gone, and till whatever's underneath it, and plant a stand of corn, rows of okra, some tomatoes, some cucumbers, and we could have us a garden out here where it used to be a concrete driveway. We could do that work. But here's the thing spiritually. No preacher can plow your heart. I can't do it. Hard as I try, as much as I want to, no parent can plow the heart of their child. You bully your kids into reading their Bible. You can fuss and gripe and complain about them being not spiritual, this, that, and the other thing. You can't change them. You can't do a lick of nothing to change their heart. You simply cannot do it. How does it happen, though? It does happen, but how? It's divine intervention. It's the work of the Lord's Spirit that opens the heart, that breaks the ground, that plows it up, that makes it receptive for the Word. You know, we go down to Jamaica and we have Vacation Bible School with these children. We can't plow their heart. We teach them the lesson. We try to illustrate the lesson. We give them Bible verses to memorize. We sing Bible songs to help illustrate the story. And we do everything from our perspective, humanly possible to do it, but we can't do it. We simply cannot do it. But it does get done. It gets done by the Spirit. It's not natural. It's not natural for you to take a word of rebuke. The natural thing for you when you're confronted with a word of rebuke is to lash out in vengeance against that word of rebuke. It's not natural for you to take correction. It's not natural to submit to the word of God. That doesn't come naturally to you. But yet many of you, receive rebuke with grace, receive correction with humility, and submit to the Word. Why do some of you do that and others of you don't? The only answer is divine intervention in your heart. That's the only answer. And so you pray, you pray earnestly that the Lord, Lord's day by Lord's day, Bible reading by Bible reading, would open your heart to receive the word. Because if there is not that divine intervention, nothing will happen. Can I beg your Bible knowledge of Ezekiel 37? And Ezekiel is told by the Lord prophesy to these dry bones. And he preaches. And there's this wind and these bones are gathered up and a bunch of skeletons. And the question is put to Ezekiel by the Lord. Ezekiel, can these bones live? No. But what's his equals answer? Lord, thou knowest. thou knowest." And Ezekiel prophesied to the bones, and the Lord by His Spirit brings flesh to the bones. Ezekiel didn't do that. Ezekiel didn't do it. Ezekiel couldn't do it. Who could do it? Divine intervention. And so we pray that the Lord would intervene and that the Lord would give understanding to the word. And so that's the first thing that I would put before you. The second thing that this parable teaches us is the seriousness with which we must receive the word of God. the seriousness with which we must receive that word. I want you to turn to Isaiah 55 in your Bible. Isaiah 55. As you read this verse, you might think I'm a new driver in a manual transmission and grinding gears in the process of a sermon. I promise we're not grinding the gears. I hope you'll see a very smooth transition from first gear to second gear here in just a moment. But I want to show you Isaiah 55, verse number 11. Isaiah 55, 11. So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth. This is the Lord speaking. So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth. It shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereunto I sent it. Now, that's not a new passage of Scripture for you. All of you know that passage of Scripture. It's a passage of Scripture that in our prayer meetings we pray, not every Wednesday, but I would venture to guess at least once a month it comes up. The word of the Lord is not void. We know that to be the case. And the teaching of that passage is quite clear. But here's a question for you. Do you really believe that verse to be true? My word shall not return unto me void. Do you really believe that that is true? Let me explain what I mean. We've just read a parable about the word of the Lord being sung. And three out of four times, it's voided. Three out of four times, it's voided. How do we reconcile that? How do we put that together? That the Lord says, my word is not going to return unto me void, but three out of four times, it doesn't bear fruit. Is that not void? How are we to reconcile this conundrum? So don't be confused. Let me explain what I mean. The word of the Lord is always successful. It's always successful. It always accomplishes exactly what God intends it to accomplish. That should scare you to death. it should scare you to death. Why do I say that? Because for unfaithful hearers, the Word of God brings greater condemnation. The Word of God brings greater condemnation. 2 Corinthians 2 verse 16 tells us to the one, we are the saver of death unto death. And to the other, the savor of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things? You know, we quote that a lot. Who is sufficient for these things? But understand the context of where that is. When I preach. When Pastor Kimbrough preaches. When you talk to your coworker. When you hand a gospel track. Sometimes. And we pray that it never is the case. We pray it never to be the case. But sometimes that word is a saver of death unto death. Sometimes that word, the purpose that God has for that word is to bring greater condemnation. God accomplishes his purpose with his word. And that's why I say, when we come to the scriptures, there is a great solemnity that we must have in receiving the word of God. A great solemnity. The same sun that melts the wax hardens the clay. And you can come to church week after week after week and get harder and harder and harder and harder. May I remind you of Pastor Kimbrough's own personal testimony? When he was 16 years old and he went out to his car and he sat in his car and he was struck with the fact That after the invitation was given. At the Baptist Church he grew up in. He sat in his car as a 16 year old and realized. I don't feel convicted. Every Sunday he had felt convicted. He knew he was in sin. The Lord dealt with him. But he ignored the conviction. And what scared him to death? was that Sunday sat in his car and realized, I don't feel convicted. Just become hardened. Just become hardened. Now, thankfully, to mix metaphors here, the sun that had been hardening the clay was also the rock, I'm sorry, the hammer that was able to smash it to pieces. or I mix my metaphors, I know, but the same word was a sword of the spirit that cut him asunder. It's seriousness with which we receive the word. We pray that the Lord's word is never a saver of death unto death. We fear that, we don't want that, but we pray that it is a word that brings life. And so for faithful hearers, that's what the Lord's word is. The purpose that the Lord has for that word is that it brings life. Maybe not now, but it will. You plant the seed. What can you do more than plant the seed? What did Paul say he could do more than plant the seed? Another person watered the seed. When you evangelize, when you speak to people about the Lord, you don't know, but you're planting or you are watering. Who brings the increase? It is the Lord that brings the increase. And so the word of the Lord always accomplishes the purpose for which it has been said. And we pray desperately that it be a saver of life unto life. And so we plant, we water, and we wait. And the Lord brings it up. We could rehearse stories of people that have been prayed for for years, 10 years, 20 years, 50 years, before they're ever converted. We do this Vacation Bible School in Jamaica with hopes that these stories that they learn when they were seven years old at Let the Bible Speak Church in Jamaica, when they're 30 and have moved to New York City and are pushing a hot dog cart down Fifth Avenue, they remember those weird white people that came to Jamaica and gave them the gospel. And they're converted. Who knows when it will happen? Who knows when it will happen? Be a faithful hearer. Pray for the Lord to open your heart. May the Lord bless His word as we've heard it this morning. Amen. Let's close in prayer. Our Father, it is our desire to be plowed up soil. And we pray that that Word would settle in, and that it would grow, and that it would bring forth fruit in the heart. We thank you that your Word does not return void, even in our frail attempts to sow it, our feeble attempts to water it. We thank you that you are the Lord of the Word. And you do with it as you please. And we pray for that word today to be a saver of life unto life in the hearts of those gathered in here. Pray that you'll bless our fellowship to follow. And we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.