<\/p>\n
(I use the NASB \u2013 New American Standard Bible as\u00a0 \u201cThe\u00a0NASB is an original translation from the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts, based on the same principles of translation\u201d.\u00a0 These were copious Learning Notes taken after listening to Pastor John’s sermon.<\/em>)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Parable of the Sower and Soils<\/strong><\/em> Everybody would have understood the story. Everybody was familiar with this. This is Galilee, this is around the Sea of Galilee where there were fields as far as the eye could see.<\/p>\n Everybody had experienced this kind of thing as a part of their daily routine all the years of their lives.<\/p>\n The story is simple enough, they all knew that not all the seed that was thrown was going to be productive.<\/p>\n They knew about hard ground and rocky ground and weedy ground and good ground.<\/p>\n So, in that sense it was a very, very simple story about very familiar things.<\/p>\n However, the last statement of Jesus would have been the Wow-factor in the story, where He said, \u201cOther seed fell into the good soil and they grew up and increased and yielded a crop and produced thirty, sixty and a hundred fold.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n No planting every had that kind of return. So that was not ordinary. That was uncommon and that caused them to wonder what is He talking about.<\/p>\n On the one hand, the sower looks like he is very unsuccessful in the first three soils.<\/p>\n But in the last three, the success is beyond comprehension and expectation.<\/p>\n It was not uncommon for Jesus to include in His parables that kind of an element that shocked people,\u00a0 and this would be that very thing<\/em>.<\/p>\n Simply enough, it\u2019s a story about soils and their difference.\u00a0 Some are non-productive, some are very productive, but what\u2019s the point of the story?<\/em><\/p>\n It\u2019s included in Matthew 13, it\u2019s in Luke 8, and it\u2019s here.\u00a0 It\u2019s given in Matthew, Mark, Luke, it\u2019s so very important it needs to be repeated three times.\u00a0 We have been called to this mandate.<\/p>\n As the Body of Christ – becoming holy, being obedient, worshiping the Lord, all these things, coming to spiritual maturity, are to make us into the kind of Christians who have an effective witness because our lives back up our testimony<\/em>.<\/p>\n Here we are left in the world, every generation of Christians, one after the other, after the other, until the Lord comes with this responsibility to proclaim the gospel to the ends of the earth.<\/p>\n For many Christians, the effort seems disappointing, daunting, discouraging.<\/p>\n We even get to the point where we give up.<\/p>\n There are efforts to fix this dilemma that teachers and preachers and other professed-Christians are in.<\/p>\n We give out the gospel and it\u2019s rejected<\/em>, or it\u2019s received superficially, or it\u2019s received temporarily.<\/em><\/p>\n What\u2019s the problem?<\/p>\n Why is that kind of response so consistently true?<\/p>\n In contemporary evangelical mood would say “it\u2019s our fault”.<\/strong><\/p>\n “The fault is with us.”<\/em><\/p>\n “We\u2019re out of touch with the culture.”<\/em><\/p>\n “We\u2019re out of touch with style.”<\/em><\/p>\n “We\u2019re out of touch with the psychology of how people think, or the psychology of sales, or the psychology of overcoming consumer resistance.”<\/em><\/p>\n “We\u2019re out of touch with popular thinking.”<\/em><\/p>\n “We\u2019re not connecting with people.”<\/em><\/p>\n “I mean, if you want to fill your building, if you want to fill your twenty-thousand stadium with all twenty-thousand seats occupied, you\u2019re going to have to come up with another message than the one about hell and damnation and judgment and repentance,<\/strong> etc.”<\/p>\n “We\u2019ve got to start talking about something that appeals to people on the level of their self-desires, their felt needs, their personal longings.”<\/p>\n “We need a more acceptable message and we certainly need more cultural savvy.”<\/p>\n “In the case of the sower, now the sower might need a new wardrobe<\/em>.”<\/p>\n Really.<\/p>\n “Might need a black T-shirt with skull and crossbones and jeans with holes in the knees.”<\/em><\/p>\n That will do it.<\/p>\n “And how about maybe he needs a designer seed bag.”<\/em><\/p>\n “And then if you can just look like that and put rock music in the background, consumer resistance will fade away.”<\/em><\/p>\n Really.<\/p>\n So feverishly misguided their efforts in this direction that they\u2019re everywhere, trying to fix the sower and the seed.<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s a waste of time, absolute waste of time.<\/em><\/p>\n Why?<\/p>\n Because Jesus is telling us here, the issue is not the sower and it\u2019s not the seed, it\u2019s the soil.\u00a0<\/span> The issue is the soil.\u00a0 The issue is the heart.\u00a0<\/span> That\u2019s the issue. <\/strong><\/p>\n “The kind of Christianity that you see on the television with the prosperity gospel and all of that other stuff is not Christianity, it\u2019s not the gospel of Jesus Christ and we want to distance ourselves from it.\u201d <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n The church won\u2019t do anything about it, seemingly.<\/p>\n Christian leaders don\u2019t want to address the issue, so maybe we can get the world to take a look at it.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n So that\u2019s what this is about.<\/p>\n On the one hand, proclamation of the gospel can be a little bit discouraging, right?<\/p>\n You\u2019re going to run into the hard ground.<\/p>\n You\u2019re going to run into the superficial, where somebody responds for a moment, doesn\u2019t last very long and they\u2019re gone.<\/p>\n You\u2019re going to run into the person who makes a temporary commitment but because they never really let go of what they truly love, the things of the world, they also disappear.<\/p>\n It\u2019s very discouraging. We\u2019ve all been there. We\u2019ve done that. We\u2019ve seen that.<\/p>\n But on the other hand, you can\u2019t forget the supernatural half of the story, right? <\/strong><\/p>\n The hearers.\u00a0 Jesus says in verse 9,<\/p>\n “9 And He was saying, \u201cHe who has ears to hear, let him hear.\u201d<\/span> –\u00a0Mark 4:9 (NASB)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n A<\/strong> parable unexplained is a riddle<\/span>. And if you don\u2019t explain this, if you don\u2019t explain what you mean by it, then I can\u2019t even fathom its significance.<\/b><\/p>\n But He says it\u2019s limited.\u00a0 This is limited to those who have the ears to hear.<\/strong>\u00a0 And then it immediately introduces us to those who do<\/em>, verse 10,<\/p>\n 10 \u201cAs soon as He was alone, His followers, along with the Twelve, began asking Him about the parables.\u201d –\u00a0Mark 4:9 (NASB)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The ones who had the ears to hear were the ones who believed in Him.<\/strong>\u00a0 He now speaks in parables to the crowd.<\/p>\n Go back to verse 1, the crowd is so large, He has to get off the shore in a boat in order to keep from being crushed, and they all heard the story but not until He was alone with His disciples and the Twelve did they get an explanation.<\/p>\n 1 ” He began to teach again by the sea. And such a very large crowd gathered to Him that He got into a boat in the sea and sat down; and the whole crowd was by the sea on the land.”\u00a0–\u00a0Mark 4:1 (NASB)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In verse 11 He explains it,<\/p>\n “11 And He was saying to them, \u201cTo you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God, but those who are outside get everything in parables,<\/span><\/strong><\/span> 12 so that while seeing, they may see and not perceive, and while hearing, they may hear and not understand, otherwise they might return and be forgiven.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0–\u00a0Mark 4:11-12 (NASB)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n But they rejected Him.\u00a0 Their rejection has reached a final point, as we see in Mark\u00a0 3:22-28, when they said,<\/p>\n \u201cHe does what He does by the power of satan,\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n and the leaders said it and the people bought into it?<\/p>\n 22 The scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, \u201cHe is possessed by Beelzebul,\u201d and \u201cHe casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons.<\/span>\u201d 23 And He called them to Himself and began speaking to them in parables, \u201cHow can Satan cast out Satan? 24 If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25 If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. 26 If Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but he is finished! 27 But no one can enter the strong man\u2019s house and plunder his property unless he first binds the strong man, and then he will plunder his house.\u00a0\u00a028 \u201cTruly I say to you, all sins shall be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they utter; 29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin\u201d<\/span>\u2014 30 because they were saying, \u201cHe has an unclean spirit.\u201d<\/span> – Mark 3:22-28<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Isaiah\u2019s Commission<\/strong><\/em> And Jesus said:<\/p>\n 12 so that while seeing, they may see and not perceive, and while hearing, they may hear and not understand<\/strong>, otherwise they might return and be forgiven<\/span>.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0–\u00a0Mark 4:12 (NASB)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Look at this,<\/p>\n \u201cOtherwise they might return and be forgiven.<\/span>\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n They had gone so far, so far that the door was shut<\/em> and they were only going to be hearing Him speak in parables that were unexplained.<\/p>\n Now He hides the truth from them.\u00a0 Matthew chapter 13, it\u2019s worth reading the verses 34 and 35 of that chapter, Matthew\u2019s including these words from Jesus in this same context.\u00a0 It says in verse 34,<\/p>\n “34 All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables, and He did not speak to them without a parable.<\/strong> 35 This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet:\u00a0\u00a0\u201cI will open My mouth in parables;\u00a0\u00a0I will utter things hidden since the foundation of the world.\u201d<\/span> –\u00a0Matthew 13:34-35 (NASB)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Why? He didn\u2019t speak to them without a parable,<\/p>\n \u201cTo fulfill what was spoken through the prophet.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n This is a fulfillment of prophecy, verse 35,<\/p>\n 35 “This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet:\u00a0\u00a0\u201cI will open My mouth in parables;\u00a0\u00a0I will utter things hidden since the foundation of the world.<\/strong>\u201d<\/span> –\u00a0Matthew 13:35 (NASB)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n That\u2019s a prophecy from Psalm 78. That\u2019s Psalm 78 verse 2. Let me tell you something interesting about that.<\/p>\n “2 I will open my mouth in a parable;\u00a0I will utter dark sayings of old,<\/span>” –\u00a0Psalm 78:2 (NASB)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Psalm 78 verse 2 introduces a parable, a dark saying, a hidden saying that is then the basis of a judgment pronounced on Israel.\u00a0\u00a0Now if you follow that idea along in the Old Testament, parables in the Old Testament are connected to judgment.<\/em><\/p>\n Psalm 78 is that illustration.<\/p>\n It is a dark saying, it is a hidden saying, it is a parable.<\/p>\n It\u2019s stated to be a parable in verse 2, the parable is given and the parable then is a picture of Israel\u2019s judgment.<\/p>\n When you come to 2 Samuel chapter 12, Nathan tells David a parable, a parable about a man. A man had some sheep, a neighbor who stole his sheep, etc., etc., and that is a parable that ends up in a pronunciation of judgment on David in Judges chapter 9 verses 1 to 21.<\/p>\n Gideon\u2019s son, Jothan, tells a parable to the men of Shechem because they had chosen the murderous Abimelech to be their king and killed all his brothers.\u00a0 And the parable is told and then it is explained as divine judgment coming on those sinful people.<\/p>\n In Ezekiel chapter 17, chapter 24, you have Ezekiel giving a parable that is explained as a judgment.<\/p>\n In Isaiah chapter 5 and chapter 6, you have Isaiah giving the parable, it begins in chapter 5 about the vineyard and the question is even asked, \u201cWhat is this vineyard and who is he talking about? And what\u2019s going on here?\u201d And he pronounces the Babylonian judgment on Israel, their captivity when they were hauled into Babylon is the meaning of the parable.<\/p>\n They are unbelievers who follow Jesus strictly for the miracles.<\/p>\n They are thrill-seekers.<\/p>\n They\u2019re happy to come along for what is clearly the greatest show on earth, Jesus healing all kinds of diseases, raising dead people, casting out demons, presenting wondrous teaching.<\/p>\n They are the thrill seekers but they have no interest in the teaching of Jesus.<\/p>\n They have no interest in the theology of Jesus.<\/p>\n They\u2019re there for the miracles.<\/p>\n For them, Jesus speaking in parables becomes a judgment.<\/p>\n They had rejected Him when they could understand, and now they can\u2019t understand. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n These parables are judgments on Israel\u2019s rejection, they cannot understand, they cannot comprehend, they cannot then turn, and be forgiven.<\/em><\/p>\n And their judgment will come and their judgment did come in 70 A.D. in the destruction of Jerusalem and those who were still alive by then would very likely have been slaughtered and catapulted into a godless hell. This is a very critical moment in the life of the ministry of our Lord Jesus.<\/p>\n So Jesus is going to speak to His own and explain this parable. It\u2019s critical for them because they need to know what to expect.<\/em><\/p>\n You can imagine that having watched Jesus do evangelism, what do you think they would have concluded?<\/p>\n Well what did they conclude?\u00a0 They came to Him and said,<\/p>\n \u201cWhy are so few being saved? What\u2019s going on here? You know, You\u2019re supposed to be the King and this is supposed to be the Kingdom. This is the Kingdom having arrived. The Kingdom is broken in to human history, the Messiah is here. Nothing is happening, what\u2019s going on?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n And the first three kinds of soil, that was nothing new, nothing new at all<\/em>.<\/p>\n They saw the hard ground in the Pharisees, they saw the superficial ground in a lot of other folks, some disciples who had followed for a little while, then went away.<\/p>\n They saw all that.<\/p>\n In fact, the next few sections in this chapter in Mark 4 kind of build on this, particularly verses 26 to 29 where it talks about,<\/p>\n \u201cYou sow and you go to bed, and the crop comes up,\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n because there are powers beyond you that produce it<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Parable of the Seed<\/strong><\/em> And it\u2019s going to grow, it\u2019s even going to grow in the next parable, the mustard seed, starting small, becoming huge.<\/p>\n So this is a parable meant to encourage.<\/p>\n So let\u2019s go to the explanation in verse 14, the explanation.\u00a0 In verse 13,<\/p>\n 13 And He said to them, \u201cDo you not understand this parable? How will you understand all the parables?<\/span> – Mark 4:13 (NASB)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Of course no, it needed to be explained and how will you understand all the parables? You have to have an explanation for everything. Verse 14,<\/p>\n 14 \u201cThe sower sows the Word.\u201d<\/span> –\u00a0Mark 4:13 (NASB)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Now let\u2019s, first of all, look at the sower.<\/p>\n Nothing, absolutely nothing. <\/em><\/p>\n It doesn\u2019t say what kind of clothes he wore, what kind of bag he had, it was just anybody who sows, anybody faithful to proclaim the Word, is a sower<\/span>. <\/strong><\/p>\n All of us do that, we\u2019re commanded to do that. <\/em><\/p>\n And if you for any minute think that it\u2019s connected to your style, or it\u2019s connected to your personality, or it\u2019s connected to your wardrobe, or it\u2019s connected to the music,\u00a0you better think again.<\/em><\/p>\n This is just the sower and the sower is defined as simply somebody who sows the Word, anybody who throws the seed, the Word.<\/strong><\/p>\n The seed, says Luke 8:11, Luke\u2019s parallel, “is the Word of God”, it is the Word from God, the saving gospel, the Word of the Kingdom, if you will, the gospel of the Kingdom, the message that God has sent, the biblical gospel.<\/p>\n 11 \u201cNow the parable is this: the seed is the word of God.” –\u00a0Luke 8:11 (NASB)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Can we say that?<\/p>\n It\u2019s the biblical message.<\/p>\n Faith comes by hearing the Word, Romans 10.<\/p>\n “17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ.” –\u00a0Romans 10:17 NASB)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n We\u2019re begotten again, 1 Peter 1:23, by the Word.<\/p>\n 23 “for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God.” –\u00a01 Peter 1:23 (NASB)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In 2 Peter 1 it says that everything pertaining to life and godliness has been granted to us through the true knowledge of Him. And that true knowledge of Him is revealed in Scripture.<\/p>\n 22 Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart, 23 for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God. 24 For,\u00a0\u201cAll flesh is like grass,\u00a0And all its glory like the flower of grass.\u00a0\u00a0The grass withers,\u00a0And the flower falls off,\u00a025 But the word of the Lord<\/span> endures forever.\u201d And this is the word which was preached to you.<\/span>“<\/strong> –\u00a01 Peter 1:22-25 (NASB)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In 1 Thessalonians 2:13, Paul says concerning the Thessalonian believers that he is so grateful he is rejoicing in the Lord because they received, he says in chapter 2 verse 13,<\/p>\n 13 “For this reason we also constantly thank God that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe.<\/strong><\/span>” – 1 Thessalonians 2:13 (NASB)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Paul says in Romans,\u00a0\u201cI\u2019m not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God unto salvation.\u201d<\/p>\n 16 “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes,<\/strong> to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, \u201cBut the righteous man shall live by faith.\u201d –\u00a0Romans 1:16-17 (NASB)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n If you follow this through the book of Acts, you come in to chapter 4 verse 31, what do they do?<\/p>\n They proclaim the Word of God.<\/em><\/p>\n Chapter 6 verse 7, what do they do?<\/p>\n They proclaim the Word of God.<\/em><\/p>\n Chapter 8 verse 14, they proclaim the Word of God.<\/em><\/p>\n Chapter 11 verse 1, chapter 12 verse 24, chapter 13 verse 5, verse 44, on and on.<\/p>\n They said,<\/p>\n The Word that came from God, the biblical gospel.<\/em><\/p>\n It doesn\u2019t do any good to tamper with the sower. And you certainly don\u2019t want to tamper with the seed. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n To say something is foolish as,<\/p>\n \u201cWell we\u2019d be much more effective if we changed our style, or if we changed our message,\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n …\u00a0 is ludicrous when compared with the simplicity of this parable.<\/p>\n The issue does not lie with the sower, it is irrelevant.<\/em><\/p>\n So the issue in the variables here is, what?<\/p>\n The soil … the soil<\/em>.<\/p>\n Matthew 13:19 tells us that the soil is the heart in the parallel passage in Matthew, the soil is the heart. Man\u2019s heart, or man\u2019s mind, the gospel going in to the mind of the person.<\/p>\n 19 “When anyone hears the Word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is the one on whom seed was sown beside the road.<\/span>” – Matthew 13:19 (NASB)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Did you get that?<\/p>\n It depends on the condition of the heart.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t pat yourself on the back, it\u2019s not you<\/em>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s the heart and if you think you can do something about the heart, guess again.\u00a0 Because you can\u2019t. <\/em><\/p>\n I can throw seed, but only God can plow soil. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Only God by the Holy Spirit can plow the heart.<\/p>\n Now that\u2019s a foundational truth to understand.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cNo man comes unto Me except the Father draws him.\u201d<\/p>\n 44 “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.”<\/span> –\u00a0John 6:44 (NASB)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n And by the way, in that John 6 passage, Jesus repeats that same statement in another form in the sixth chapter, and it\u2019s worth being reminded. John 6:65,<\/p>\n 65 And He was saying, \u201cFor this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me, unless it has been granted him from the Father.\u201d<\/span> –\u00a0John 6:65 (NASB)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Unless it\u2019s been granted him from the Father.<\/p>\n You couldn\u2019t possibly imagine that it would be any kind of human ingenuity that could make this happen.<\/p>\n Certainly if you\u2019re talking about thirty-, sixty-, a hundred-fold because what\u2019s happening in the hearts that are responsive is a massive explosion of a harvest, something that just would have to be by divine power and that has to be by divine preparation.<\/p>\n So you starting to get a feel for what this is about?<\/p>\n This is both clarifying to us and encouraging, is it not?<\/p>\n Let me talk about influence.<\/p>\n When somebody becomes a Christian, comes to know the Lord Jesus Christ, that person has such power coming through them by the Spirit of God resident in them and the truth that they proclaim that God will use them to bring others to Christ and others to Christ and it just becomes exponential and it spreads, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n That\u2019s the point. It can\u2019t be explained. That\u2019s why Paul says, I read it to you in 2 Corinthians 3,\u00a0\u201cWe\u2019re not adequate for these things. This can\u2019t be human.\u201d<\/p>\n “4 Such confidence we have through Christ toward God. 5 Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God<\/strong><\/span>, 6 who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” –\u00a02 Corinthians 3:4-6 (NASB)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n So the bad news is, expect rejection.<\/p>\n The good news is, when the soil is prepared by God, there\u2019s going to be an explosion of spiritual fruit and the harvest will go on and on and on and on and on and on. <\/strong><\/p>\n All of our lives intersect and that\u2019s the good news in the story and the disciples needed to hear that because it all basically looked like it wasn\u2019t going anywhere.<\/p>\n 15 “These are the ones who are beside the road where the word is sown; and when they hear, immediately Satan comes and takes away the word which has been sown in them.”<\/span> – Mark 4:15 (NASB)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n They\u2019re just hard-hearted.<\/p>\n It just bounces and satan is the birds, depicted in the birds back in verse 4 that come along and see the seed and snatch it away.<\/p>\n It never penetrates, it makes no impact at all<\/p>\n Hard, beaten path, nothing penetrates, nothing absorbed, preach the gospel again and again and again and again, give the gospel again and again and again and by continual self-destroying rejection, they go long past the place of grace, long past the hope of faith and forgiveness and Satan just snatches it away. <\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s powerful analogy that this is the condition of a human heart, the heart of a man or a woman.<\/p>\n In the case of the parable, Jesus is talking about the leaders of Israel. They\u2019re the hard-hearts.<\/em><\/p>\n You might think because they were religious they were the soft hearts.<\/p>\n No, not even close.<\/p>\n They were the hard impenetrable apostate unbelieving God-hating, Christ-rejecting hard ground. <\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s the condition of the heart that corresponds to the smooth hardness of the footpath that crosses the plowed field, the heart is a thoroughfare, criss-crossed by the mixed multitude of sins day after day after day.<\/p>\n The fields weren\u2019t fenced and neither is this heart.<\/p>\n It\u2019s an unprotected heart.<\/p>\n It lies exposed.<\/p>\n It lies unprotected.<\/p>\n It lies open for all the evil stompings of all comers.<\/p>\n It\u2019s never broken up by the softening of conviction and repentance, soul-searching, holy fear or even the sweet winsome realities of grace and forgiveness.<\/p>\n This is a calloused heart.<\/p>\n It is impenetrable from the terrors of the Lord or from the wooings of His love.<\/p>\n It responds to neither.<\/p>\n The Old Testament would say, \u201cThis is a hard-hearted, stiff-necked people.\u201d<\/p>\n Nothing new for Israel, that was used to refer to them in the Old Testament.<\/p>\n The sower is good and a sower is just a sower.<\/p>\n Seed is the seed, but the issue is the heart.<\/p>\n And this may be “the fool” referred to in the book of Proverbs, read Proverbs, first chapter, “the fool who doesn\u2019t take the truth, will not receive the wisdom of God”.<\/p>\n And this is the Jews, this is the leaders and the people who followed them who eventually killed their Messiah.<\/p>\n Any thought of truth, any thought of gospel is just snatched, never lasts at all.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve all seen people like that. We know people like that.<\/p>\n I know a number of people like that, some even come to mind. They\u2019re like the people in Acts 17:32 it says,<\/p>\n \u201cThey sneered at the resurrection.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n They\u2019re out there. You\u2019re going to see them. They\u2019re a reality.<\/p>\n Even more important, look at your own heart.<\/p>\n Is that you? <\/em><\/p>\n Have you heard this message again and again and again?<\/p>\n But you just live out there and let sins just stomp you hard day after day after day, week after week, after week, you live this unfenced unprotected life where it\u2019s just overrun by the trampling of iniquity?<\/p>\n Is that you?<\/p>\n And you come and need to deposit some seeds and before you\u2019ve gone a mile out of here, they\u2019re gone.<\/p>\n Are you so comfortable where you are in your unbelief that you\u2019re impenetrable?<\/p>\n That\u2019s a scary place to be.<\/p>\n It may have been that you passed the point of grace and you will not believe and you cannot believe.<\/p>\n Maybe you need to cry out to God to plow deeply your hard heart.<\/p>\n
\n“1 He began to teach again by the sea. And such a very large crowd gathered to Him that He got into a boat in the sea and sat down; and the whole crowd was by the sea on the land. 2 And He was teaching them many things in parables, and was saying to them in His teaching, 3 \u201cListen to this! Behold, the sower went out to sow; 4 as he was sowing, some seed fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Other seed fell on the rocky ground where it did not have much soil; and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of soil. 6 And after the sun had risen, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away. 7 Other seed fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked it, and it yielded no crop. 8 Other seeds fell into the good soil, and as they grew up and increased, they yielded a crop and produced thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.\u201d<\/span> –\u00a0Mark 4:1-8 (NASB)<\/p><\/blockquote>\nThat\u2019s the Wow factor because that kind of product would never happen.<\/h3>\n
This parable is designed to help us understand gospel evangelism.\u00a0\u00a0We\u2019re here to fulfill the great commission to go into all the world, preach the gospel to every creature, make disciples of all nations.<\/h3>\n
And so, this is a very, very important parable for us to learn how the responses are going to come.<\/em><\/h3>\n
Maybe that\u2019s because we don\u2019t really understand what this parable is telling us.<\/h3>\n
“And beside the fact we\u2019re really inept sowers, the seed is offensive, the message is offensive.”<\/em><\/h3>\n
“In other words, in the language of the parable, the problem is with the sower and the problem is with the seed.”<\/h3>\n
(HUH?!!)<\/h3>\n
The seed is perfect, first of all, and if you do anything to alter it, you\u2019ve just corrupted it. A mutated gospel is no gospel.<\/span> We can\u2019t tamper with the gospel. And any sower with any wardrobe and any seed bag will do as long as he or she is sowing the gospel.<\/em><\/span><\/h3>\n
They are so bent on the style of the sower and creating some kind of synthetic acceptable seed that they have mutated the gospel into such a corrupted form that it no longer has the power to save because it isn\u2019t the true gospel.<\/span><\/h3>\n
Somebody needs to know that\u2019s not Christianity. That\u2019s not biblical Christianity, that\u2019s not historical Christianity. Biblical, historical Christianity is the true gospel of Jesus Christ preached in its purity and its clarity.<\/h3>\n
Where the soil is prepared by God, the results are staggering.<\/span> There\u2019s enough motivation in the thirty, sixty, one-hundred to keep us going. You\u2019ve got to get to that part of the parable.<\/h3>\n
The understanding of the truth is not for everyone, it is for His followers.<\/em><\/h3>\n
He spoke to them clearly, told them the truth, revealed the gospel, salvation by faith, called for repentance, belief in Him as the Messiah.<\/h3>\n
They are now on the outside and the implication is, they\u2019re fixed on the outside,\u00a0 because He quotes from Isaiah 6:9,<\/h3>\n
\n8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, \u201cWhom shall I send, and who will go for Us?\u201d<\/span> Then I said, \u201cHere am I.\u00a0 Send me!\u201d 9 He said, <\/strong><\/span>\u201cGo, and tell this people:\u00a0\u2018Keep on listening, but do not perceive;<\/span> Keep on looking, but do not understand.<\/span>\u2019\u00a0<\/strong>10 \u201cRender the hearts of this people insensitive,\u00a0Their ears dull,\u00a0And their eyes dim,\u00a0Otherwise they might see with their eyes,\u00a0Hear with their ears,\u00a0Understand with their hearts,\u00a0And return and be healed.\u201d<\/span> –\u00a0Isaiah 6:8-10 (NASB)<\/p><\/blockquote>\nNow you know you\u2019ve gone too far, when God Himself prevents you from believing, and being forgiven.<\/h3>\n
This is a tremendously important turning point. All they get now are riddles they can\u2019t understand because they won\u2019t understand, they can\u2019t understand. It\u2019s like Pharaoh hardened his heart, now God hardened Pharaoh\u2019s heart.<\/h3>\n
Parables in the Old Testament are connected to judgment.<\/h3>\n
They don\u2019t understand what the story means spiritually. Its meaning is totally obscure to them. They are oblivious to it. And that is by intention.<\/em><\/h3>\n
So what our Lord is doing here, this is a significant turning point in His ministry, when He starts talking in parables, He is saying judgment has come.<\/h3>\n
And He uses the illustration of Isaiah because that\u2019s such a dramatic parallel because that\u2019s a parable in chapter 5 that ends up in a pronunciation of judgment at the end of chapter 5 and on into chapter 6.<\/h3>\n
What our Lord wants them to see in the story is the thirty-, sixty-, hundred-fold but you can\u2019t see it now, but you are going to see it in the future.<\/h3>\n
\n“26 And He was saying, \u201cThe kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed upon the soil; 27 and he goes to bed at night and gets up by day, and the seed sprouts and grows – how, he himself does not know.<\/strong> 28 The soil produces crops by itself; first the blade, then the head, then the mature grain in the head. 29 But when the crop permits, he immediately puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.\u201d<\/span> – Mark 4:26-29<\/p><\/blockquote>\nIt\u2019s meant to explain the resistance and the rejection, but to encourage with the great inexplicable results.<\/h3>\n
What does it say about the sower?<\/h3>\n
What is the issue then? The seed, the seed is the Word.<\/h3>\n
So, the sower is anybody who sows the seed. The seed is the Word of God. <\/span><\/h3>\n
It\u2019s the Word that has the power.<\/h3>\n
The power is in the Word.\u00a0 Any sower who sows the Word therefore wields the power.<\/h3>\n
\u201cNothing but the Word of God.\u201d<\/h3>\n
This is the seed, the living and abiding Word of God by which we are given life.\u00a0 \u00a0So the issue in the story here is not the sower. <\/em><\/span><\/h3>\n
The sower’s personality, the sower’s wardrobe, the sower’s style, there\u2019s only one possible seed containing the power and that\u2019s the true gospel.<\/em><\/h3>\n
So the basic truth of the parable is this, the result of all gospel proclamation by anybody and everybody is dependent on the condition of the heart<\/span>.<\/h3>\n
So the only way that there\u2019s going to be good soil is that it\u2019s divinely prepared by God, chosen, prepared, the Spirit of God has come and done conviction. The heart is made ready and there\u2019s a response.<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
Now we\u2019re going to understand why people respond the way they respond and we\u2019re going to be encouraged that when people do respond, it is supernatural and their lives explode in a spiritual harvest.<\/h3>\n
That\u2019s the thirty-, sixty-, one-hundred, not all of us are going to have the same spiritual impact, but we\u2019re all going to have an impact that could never be explained as human.<\/h3>\n
Let\u2019s go back and look at the individual soils.<\/h3>\n
The first soil, we\u2019ll just call it the Roadside Soil<\/h4>\n
The second soil, is the stony soil, verses 16 and 17.<\/h3>\n