Every time I am here and have the opportunity to preach and I'm able to sit up here at the front. I love the singing. You all sing very loud and joyfully as unto the Lord, which is what you're supposed to do. And I've told folks back in Winston that when I am alone in my truck, I promise I sound just like Pavarotti. And I can just let her rip and sing as loud as I can sing in my truck. And I can do that up here. I've got the trumpets going in my ears, and it's loud. I can't even hear myself, so I have no idea. But you can just let her rip and just sing as happy as you can sing. And I love it. So, thank you. Turn with me, please, to Luke chapter 8. Luke chapter eight. We'll begin our Bible reading in verse number four. Read down through to the end of verse 15. Luke eight, beginning in 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 and 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 and riches and pleasures of this life and bring no fruit to perfection. But that on the good ground Are they which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it and bring forth fruit with patience. Amen. We'll end our Bible reading there at the end of verse number 15. And let's seek the Lord in prayer together and ask his help as we come to this passage. Let's pray. Our Father, this evening as we come to your word. We do desire to have our hearts to be this ground that is receptive to your word. That the seed of your word would fall on that good ground and it would grow up and it would bear fruit. We acknowledge this to be the work of your spirit among us this evening, and so we pray that you would come and do that work only you can do in our hearts. We ask in Jesus' name, amen. I wanna preach to you this evening a sermon on the subject of the word of God in the soul of man. In Christ's earthly ministry, he often went back and forth between Capernaum and Galilee, and at this particular part of his ministry, he's there in Galilee. The parallel passage that we read in Matthew and Mark tell us that the crowd was so large where Jesus was that he got into a little boat and pushed out from the shore, and the people would have been standing on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, and it would have formed something of a natural amphitheater type setting for him to be able to speak to a much larger crowd. And he spoke this parable to them. If you look at the top of the page in your Bible, or depending on who printed your Bible, you have headings, perhaps in different places, interspersed between paragraphs or whatever, but for example, in my Bible, it says there at the beginning of verse number five, the editors have put this in, obviously, the parable of the sower. And often in Sunday school classes or children's meetings, we often refer to this as the parable of the sower. I want to challenge that title because this parable is really not about the sower at all. The sower in each instance is the same person, theoretically. It's not the parable of the seed because the seed is the same in each of the different circumstances. But the thing that changes in each of the four scenarios that Christ presents to us is the soil, the dirt, the ground. And so perhaps a more appropriate title for this parable is the parable of the soils. Christ here speaks of four different types of soil that are represented. And as the seed is dispersed, it can fall in these four different places. And you get four different results. This is a word for us this evening, because what I wanna submit to you tonight is that each of us, are each of these. We often consider this parable from an evangelistic perspective, and I do acknowledge and do think that in its context and how Christ is presenting it, there is a ultimate salvation application. to this parable. It is only when the seed falls on that fertile ground that the Holy Spirit has worked on and opened that a person is regenerated, born again, and saved, goes to heaven when they die. And so there is that application of the parable in that evangelistic sense. But I believe we also have an application for those of us that are already believers. We all, at different stages of our growth in grace, I would submit, come in and out of these four types of heart. When Christ gives this parable to his disciples, it's about a sower sowing seed on the ground. No one who has ever planted anything purposefully put seed where they know it's not going to grow. That just is ridiculous, and that doesn't make sense. Nobody does that. You probably, at some point, have used one of these cheap little seed spreaders from Home Depot. You pour the seed in, and it's got the little knob that adjusts how much comes out, and you pull the thing, you walk behind it. It's got the little spinny thing, and it just scatters seed in your yard. Well, as you walk up and down in rows in your yard trying to spread your seed, well, eventually you have to make a pass that's relatively close to your driveway, and some seed gets on the driveway. You inevitably make a pass that's close to the road out in front of your house, and inevitably some seed gets out on the road. You don't mean to put seed on the road, but some lands there. your driveway, your flower bushes, whatever. Well, you take your blower and you put that seed back where it's supposed to be. Nobody plants seed in places that it's not gonna grow on purpose. But the interpretation of this parable is very clear to us because Christ responds to the question of his disciples in verse number nine when they say, what might this parable be? And he explains it to them. He tells them just exactly what all the parts mean and the point that we're supposed to receive from this parable. And what I want us to see this evening is that each of us, at different points of our growth in grace, are in one of these four categories. Tonight, as you sit in this room, or as someone later will listen to this message on Sermon Audio. As you are listening to this sermon right now, you are one of these four. I'm not saying you're unconverted. I'm preaching to you as one who is converted, born again. You are one of these four. One can hear the word. They reject that word because they're offended by it. And so a preacher would say something against spiritual pride. That's a sin. And because you are spiritually proud, you hear that, you automatically are repulsed by that, and you think, this is not for me. Or, how dare that preacher say that? How dare that preacher make that application? And you cast off the word. You're unreceptive. So, I want to get into this parable and seek to show you that you are one of these, and We pray the Lord will make this all those in verse number 15 that are the good ground. And so as we consider this parable this evening, I wanna begin point number one by showing you the need that you have to pray for understanding the word. So again, my subject this evening is the word of God and the soul of man. And you need to pray for understanding in the Word of God. From verse 9, we can conclude that not everyone who hears the Word understands it. The disciples heard the parable, but they didn't understand it because they asked the question to Christ, Lord, what are you talking about? What does this mean? Will you please explain this to us more clearly? And so the disciples there in that sense were praying, asking the Lord for help. Help me understand what you mean by what you say. Every time you and I hear the word of God, we need to pray that the Lord would open the ears of our understanding. I know you have a pre-service prayer meeting. The pre-service prayer meeting is to pray for the ministry of the word, to pray for the unconverted that would be in the congregation, that the Lord would save them, but also for the Lord to open your own heart. You may or may not, for different reasons or different circumstances, attend a pre-service prayer meeting, but that does not change the responsibility, and I use that word on purpose, the responsibility that you have as a believer to pray that the Lord would prepare your own heart for the Word. I think too many Christians treat Sunday morning as a veg-out, me-time, sleep-in, lazy kind of morning, and arrive to church, and it's showtime, right, for church. And you come whizzing in at 10.59 for an 11 o'clock service, and you've argued and fussed the whole way here in the car, don't tell me how I know that. Or don't ask me, sorry, don't ask me how I know that. You argue and fuss the whole way in the car getting to church, you're on two wheels pulling into the parking lot, throw it in park, get out, sprint in, plop yourself down in the pew, turn to him number whatever. What are you doing? What are you ready for? What are you anticipating? What do you want to happen in this next hour? You have no idea. Because you have prepared yourself for nothing. Rather, may I encourage you, It doesn't have to be this big formal thing, but I hope you brush your teeth and you comb your hair before you come to church. But as you prepare for the house of God, prepare for the house of God. Lord, I don't know what the sermon's gonna be about this morning, but I know I need it. Lord, would you Please speak to me. This, this, and this has been on my heart this week. Would you please today speak to me? I need help. I need to prepare myself to understand the word. Why do we need to do this? Well, I would submit to you we need to do this because naturally our hearts are unreceptive to the word of God. That is where you are by default. Your heart is unreceptive to the word. And I think this lesson can be learned by considering the first three types of soil. You look at the first one, some seed fell on the wayside and the devil stole that word. Satan's the great enemy of the word of God. In the Garden of Eden, we see it beginning, at the very beginning, hath God said, And so there's a challenge to the word. Is this word really what God meant? And so Satan is the enemy of the word of God. Satan would love nothing more than for this sermon to come to a close, and we have the fellowship time after the service, and you're five minutes down the road, and you don't have the foggiest idea of what the sermon was about. That's happened to you. It's happened to me. And I'm the preacher. It's happened to me. You don't have the foggiest idea of what the sermon was about. What was the point of application? What was the so what of what was just preached to me? I don't know. Satan was successful in stealing away that word. So you hear a word on pride, and Satan's gonna steal that away by immediately putting the thought in your mind, yeah man, I hope so and so is listening to this. They really need that. You hear something on self-righteousness, and Satan will steal that away. making you believe at the very bottom of your heart that that applies to someone else. It can't be me. Too self-righteous to be self-righteous. You hear a word on lying, or lust, or name the sin, and Satan will steal that away before you have any opportunity to change. You have to pray against Satan stealing away the Word. You look at the second type of soil, it's described as this rocky ground, and there the Word can't take root. There's other times that Satan hasn't done anything. He hasn't stolen the Word, he doesn't need to. Because he knows that that Word has already fallen in an unfruitful place. And so his job is finished. He doesn't need to really get involved. Because the rocks of your own heart have made it such that that word is not gonna take root. This is often the problem of the backslider. They hear a word and sometimes are excited about what they've heard. and will spring up with some seeming change of character, change of heart. You know, in the churches I grew up in as a youth, they would be the first one down the aisle at the invitation. But next Sunday, they were the first ones down the aisle again for the same thing. I mean, it's just every week, it's just the same thing. But nothing ever really takes any root, nothing ever really holds on. It's just fly-by-night, flash-in-the-pan type seeming growth. The word not taking root, this stony ground. It's your own heart, and you know it is. It's not your environment, right? You take Daniel as an example. Daniel was in arguably the very worst of environments. But yet he's a man that had purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the king's meat. And so regardless of the environment, Daniel had purposed in his heart, I'm gonna obey the word. And so Daniel's environment was really irrelevant to his response to the Word. But then you take Adam, who was in the best of environments, the Garden of Eden, and there he fell. You sin because of the wickedness of your own heart. You make these choices to follow the lusts of the flesh, The Lord is well able to overcome rocky ground. And even if you tonight entered here unprepared, rocky heart, the Lord can overcome that. The Lord can change that in an instant. Obviously and absolutely he can. But normally the word just simply does not penetrate there. The third kind of ground here is described as the thorny ground. Here the word is choked out by other things. Sometimes they're not sinful. Sometimes they're absolutely and perfectly legitimate. Can I illustrate it this way? You have a nursery, right? I have known of women who always want to volunteer to be in the nursery because they don't want to be under the preaching of the Word. And so they're at church. They've done the religious, spiritual thing that's to be done. They went to church, but yet, They're not here for the Word. There's a sense in which all of you ladies should despise the time you have to be in nursery because you miss the Word. And so you hate having to be in nursery because you miss the Word. But you also have a right humble heart that you understand I'm making this sacrifice so that these other moms can be under the word. And they can receive the word with joy and with gladness and without that distraction, and they can soak in this word. And I sacrifice, I don't know what your schedule is, once a month, twice a month, whatever you do, I sacrifice for this. but there's a right heart in that, is there not? So sometimes it's not a bad, wicked thing. Sometimes it's just the legitimate stuff of life gets in the way, and one thing leads to the next thing, and it leads to the next thing, and before you know it, you've had nothing of the word. Sometimes there are sinful things, that you before the Lord need to weed out and make them gone. But this type of hearer described here is one that receives the word of God favorably at first, and an onlooker would perhaps be impressed at the rate of growth. Wow! What a Christian. What a great Christian. This is the type of believer that could be at church every Sunday. And every single Sunday, talking to those around them, oh, you'll never guess what I read from Spurgeon this week. Oh, you'll never guess what I learned this week about this. You'll never guess what I this week about this. But you step back and you look at a life And there's really no growth in grace. It's the description in the scriptures of that one who is ever learning, but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. And so there's an excitement, but there's really never any change. There's really never anything substantive that latches onto the heart that makes a person different. They're just, they seem to be always excited and always high. But no change. That's a problem. A plant among thorns is one that has to compete for nutrients. All the minerals and the resources of the ground are sucked up by the weeds. And so eventually this is choked out. And so this is where I say that we have to pray for understanding and for grace to receive the scriptures correctly because naturally we are unreceptive to the word. What do you have to do to get wayside ground? Nothing. What do you have to do to get stony ground? Again, nothing. What do you have to do to get weeds to grow? Again, nothing. These three types of soils are naturally occurring. They're everywhere. How do you get good, fertile soil? Well, I say we have to pray because we're naturally unreceptive to the Word of God, but we have to pray for understanding because understanding the Word only comes by divine intervention. The wayside rocky and thorny ground all occur naturally. But this ground that we read of in verse number 15 that's described as the good ground, they with an honest and good heart having heard the word keep it and bring forth fruit with patience. That only happens by divine intervention. That's not natural. The other's natural. This is not natural. When I was a little boy, my parents had a red Troy-built tiller. Some of you have walked behind red Troy-built tillers. I have walked miles. and miles behind a red Troy-built tiller, tilling up the ground of the garden. And my parents used to plant not quite two acres, but pretty decent garden. And you walk up and down the rows and you till the ground. And it's a lot of work. and you walk and you till the ground. And if you've ever been behind one of these, you know that when you go out at the very beginning of the season and you try to put those tines down into the soil and it's hard, it just skips across the top of the ground. And if you're a 11, 12-year-old strapping lad like I was, you hold on for dear life and you're being drugged by the tiller. until the ground starts to break up, and you can push it down into the ground, and it really just starts to turn up the soil. It's a lot of work. My parents, I realize now as an adult, used to jip us so bad. I had four brothers. It was myself and my next brother that got the brunt of this. They used to pay us. $0.25. $0.25 for a five-gallon bucket of rocks. And so as you till the ground, you throw up, you know, rocks come up. And so then you go and you pick up all these rocks in the bucket and a five-gallon bucket of rocks for $0.25. My parents were cheap. We were stupid. We didn't know any difference. $0.25, it was wonderful. But the point I make is it's a lot of work to get ground that you can actually plant seed in that will grow and will be fertile and useful. It happens by divine intervention. Because I could preach, Armin could preach, any preacher could preach, till they're blue in the face. And we can't till up your heart. I can't do anything to change your heart. It only happens by divine intervention. It's only the work of the Holy Spirit that changes that heart. I said earlier, there's the salvation application of this passage, and we understand that. The Holy Spirit has to work in the heart and open the heart and regenerate the heart, create faith in the heart for the person to receive the message of the gospel. Well, I would submit the same is true for you as a believer. That work of telling your heart and making it ready to receive the word only happens by divine intervention. It's not natural for you to take a word of rebuke. It's not natural for you to receive correction. It's not natural for you to humbly receive the word to the changing of your actions. That's not natural. It's only by divine intervention. So, first of all, this parable teaches us the need to pray for understanding from the scriptures. But the second thing I want you to see from this passage is the seriousness with which we must receive the word of God. The seriousness with which we must receive this word. We cannot approach the scriptures flippantly. We have to be very serious. I want you to turn to the Old Testament to a passage, Isaiah 55 verse 11. Those of you who know how to drive a manual car will think that I'm grinding the gears as we go to this passage. It seems completely out of context to what we're dealing with, but we will, Lord willing, smoothly go into second gear here and not break the clutch or the transmission. But look at Isaiah 55, verse 11. A verse you know, this is no new verse, I'm not bringing you to some weird Old Testament passage you've never read before. Isaiah 55, 11. 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 whereto I sent it. So that's a passage of scripture all of you have heard so many times. And the teaching, the meaning of that passage is really quite clear, that when the word of God goes forward, it's always successful. Now here's a question for you. Do you really believe that? Do you really believe that that is true? Now if we can go back into second gear and bring this back to Luke chapter 8, the point that I seek to make here is the seriousness with which you must receive the word of God. Isaiah 55 11 tells us why receiving the word is so important, is so serious. Because that word always accomplishes the purpose that God has for it. It never returns unto him void. And so, If you look back at Luke 8 now, and look for example at verse 12, 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. What does this mean? What does this mean? So if the word of God is always successful, as we learn in Isaiah 55, 11, then why is it that sometimes the devil is allowed to steal that word? How come sometimes it's on stony ground and it never takes root. How come sometimes it's choked out if it never returns void? Let me put it to you this way, and I say this, please understand, for the shock value, but you listen. How come three out of four times the word is void? Do you understand? Why is it that three out of four times, according to this parable, it seems to be void? If God has said it won't return unto me void. And so I hope now we can come full circle and you understand what I'm trying to say. That receiving the word of God is so serious. Because for unfruitful hearers, for unfaithful hearers, The Word of God brings greater condemnation. For those that are unfaithful, it 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 saver of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things? Who is sufficient to carry the weight of that responsibility? I'm not, neither are you. When Paul says, we are, he's speaking about gospel preachers and the message of the gospel in general. And sometimes when the gospel is preached, its purpose that God is accomplishing is the hardening of the heart of those who hear it. Now that's hard for us to take in. That's heavy. The same sun that melts the wax is also the same sun that hardens the clay. Some of you here tonight have heard the word of the Lord over and over and over and over again. Some of you could come up here and take my notes where I leave off and finish the sermon. You could read enough of what I have here on my paper that you could make sense of closing out this message. But you're not saved. You're not born again. Sometimes the word has a purpose of hardening the heart. You hear the word, and time again, you step back and you're perfectly fine with Satan stealing it away. You hear the word, and time, and time again, the Lord by his spirit points to this rock, and that rock, and this rock, and that rock in your heart, and you don't care. No big deal. You hear the word and you know. You know your resources are divided. You know your affections are divided. You know that you are someone who is desperately trying the best they can to serve two masters. And you've got so many resources being sucked up by the other stuff of life that the word really never takes hold. The Lord has told us that for unto whomsoever much is given, and you're in a church where much has been given, of him shall much be required. It's a fearful thing. It's a fearful thing. when the word of the Lord comes as a saver of death unto death. Pray that it never happens in your heart and pray that it never happens in your surrounding. The word of God always accomplishes its purpose. But there's hope here because for faithful hearers, the word of God does bring life. Look at verse 15. But that on the good ground. This that we've seen is accomplished only by divine intervention, but this on the good ground, are they which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, they keep it, they hold fast to their profession, and it brings forth fruit with patience. The Word of God also accomplishes its purpose in the life of faithful hearers. This is why hearing the Word, this is why coming to the Scriptures, this is why coming to the house of God and sitting under the preaching of the Word is so important and cannot be done in just this casual, haphazard, give no thought to it kind of way. We're here on purpose. We're here to be washed by the water of the word as it's preached. You come to the scriptures to be cleansed by the word of God. This is why it's so serious. The Lord does not just magically transplant into your brain the scriptures. This is the preaching of the Word, the reading of the Word, the meditating on the Word. You don't have to necessarily open your Bible to read it. The Lord has provided so many technologies now and so many opportunities for us to take advantage of the Scriptures without opening a Bible to read it in a physical way. I've got the Bible on my phone, I can play it on my car, I can listen to it anytime, all the time, to make use of the Word. Why would you want to miss an opportunity for the Lord to cultivate fruit in your heart? We live in a day, we see it in Winston, you see it here, we see it all across the church, we live in a day when the means of grace have fallen on very hard times. Very hard times. There are very, very few, even conservative Christians, that select the church that they attend based primarily on the means of grace. Their primary focus is what's available for my children. Their primary focus is what are the bells and whistles? What can you offer me? What are the things, how can I get involved? What are the things that I can do? Rather than the preaching of the word, the ministry of the Word of God. And this is the seriousness with which we have to receive this Word. Because that good ground is only accomplished by divine intervention. And the Word of God always accomplishes its purpose. And don't be that one that would have the word accomplish that purpose of hardening your heart even more. None of you want that. None of you want that. I don't want that. We want to be those receptive hearers of the word. And may God in his grace do that work in each of our hearts day by day as we come before him and as we come before the scriptures. Amen. Let's close in prayer. Our Father, we do thank you tonight that you have given to us your Word and that you by your Spirit do open our hearts to receive it. And we pray for grace to be careful in our spiritual life that we would be preserved from that that we read of of Samson who was so seemingly disinterested in his spiritual life, even to the point that when you left him, he didn't even realize it. We pray that you would give us a heart that is sensitive to your leading, sensitive to your word, good ground, prepared to receive it, We pray for this week that's before us. We all have so many different responsibilities in this life, some with school, at the university, younger ones in their schoolwork. We pray that you'll help them. We pray for men in business, that you would provide for their needs, provide customers, provide that ongoing blessing of work We pray for mothers and fathers in the home. We pray for help to meet every task as it comes before us. Strengthen us. Prepare us for even the midweek prayer meeting and services the next Lord's Day as we look forward to them. So we ask all this in Jesus' name. and and