Reading a few verses. And by the way, if you sit in the front row, there’s a quiz afterward. I’m just kidding.
First, we’d like to read from Luke 13. I’ll be picking up at verse 6. I typically read out of the New American Standard Version, but today I’m going to back up in time and read from the American Standard Version of 1901. I think that was the one Lance used to read from, if I’m correct. You’ll find out later why I do that.
Luke 13:6 says:
And He began telling this parable:
A certain man had a fig tree which had been planted in his vineyard;
and he came looking for fruit on it, and found none.
Then, in Matthew 21:43:
Therefore I say unto you, the kingdom of God shall be taken away from you,
and shall be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.
Going over to the Gospel of John, chapter 15, I’m going to read verses 7 and 8. You will pick up the familiar word, if you haven’t already, that is in all of these.
If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you,
ask whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done unto you.
Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit;
and so shall ye be My disciples.
Stay in John, and go forward a little bit to John 15:16:
Ye did not choose Me, but I chose you,
and appointed you, that ye should go and bear fruit,
and that your fruit should abide.
Then, last, in John 12:24, Jesus said:
Verily, verily, I say unto you,
Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die,
it abideth by itself alone;
but if it die, it beareth much fruit.
Lord, we just do want to commit this time into Your hands. We are very dependent upon You, Lord, both to speak and to hear. For You said, “Apart from Me, ye can do nothing.”
So, Lord, this is Your time. This is Your Word. We pray You’ll bless it, and may it go forth and produce that fruit, Lord, that You want. We just ask it in Your precious name. Amen.
So, what’s on my heart basically is this matter of bearing fruit. Now, we’re going to go to Matthew 13 and look at the very familiar parable of the sower.
I’m going to read this from the American Standard Version of 1901, from verses 1 through 23. Bear with me as we go through this. I did modernize some of the “thees” and “thous,” so if it does not exactly follow what you have before you, do not be confused. I just did not want my tongue tripping everywhere.
Matthew 13:1-9 says:
On that day went Jesus out of the house, and sat by the seaside.
And there were gathered unto Him great multitudes,
so that He entered into a boat, and sat;
and all the multitude stood on the beach.And He spoke to them many things in parables, saying,
Behold, the sower went forth to sow;
and as he sowed, some seeds fell by the wayside,
and the birds came and devoured them.And others fell upon the rocky places, where they had not much earth:
and straightway they sprang up, because they had no deepness of earth:
and when the sun was risen, they were scorched;
and because they had no root, they withered away.And others fell upon the thorns;
and the thorns grew up, and choked them.And others fell upon the good ground,
and yielded fruit, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.He that hath ears, let him hear.
In verse 10, the disciples came and said unto Him, “Why speakest Thou unto them in parables?” And He answered:
Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven,
but to them it is not given.
For whosoever hath, to him shall be given,
and he shall have abundance:
but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away
even that which he hath.Therefore speak I to them in parables;
because seeing they see not,
and hearing they hear not,
neither do they understand.
He then speaks of the prophecy of Isaiah:
By hearing ye shall hear, and shall in no wise understand;
and seeing ye shall see, and shall in no wise perceive:
for this people’s heart is waxed gross,
and their ears are dull of hearing,
and their eyes they have closed;
lest haply they should perceive with their eyes,
and hear with their ears,
and understand with their heart,
and should turn again,
and I should heal them.But blessed are your eyes, for they see;
and your ears, for they hear.
For verily I say unto you,
that many prophets and righteous men desired to see the things which ye see,
and saw them not;
and to hear the things which ye hear,
and heard them not.
Then the Lord gives the explanation of the parable:
Hear then ye the parable of the sower.
When anyone heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not,
then cometh the evil one,
and snatcheth away that which hath been sown in his heart.
This is he that was sown by the wayside.And he that was sown upon the rocky places,
this is he that heareth the word,
and straightway with joy receiveth it;
yet hath he not root in himself,
but endureth for a while;
and when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word,
straightway he stumbleth.And he that was sown among the thorns,
this is he that heareth the word;
and the care of the world,
and the deceitfulness of riches,
choke the word,
and he becometh unfruitful.And he that was sown upon the good ground,
this is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it;
who verily beareth fruit,
and bringeth forth, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.
When you look at this parable, there are some key words that stand out. I think understand is one of them. I think heart is one of them. I think hear is one of them, and I think fruit is one of them. These stand out in this parable.
What I really want to do is look at the Lord’s explanation. If you notice, the parable He gave to the crowds sounds a little different from the explanation He gives. We will talk about that a little more later.
When you think of sowing, I thought about our time in Vermont. A lot of people up there have gardens, and they go to great effort with them because deer wander through, woodchucks come through, and all these things just want to eat everything up.
So, they have big fences, wired with electricity and all that kind of stuff. Really, they do. Some of them—you touch those fences, and you get zapped.
But when you think of them planting, they are planting within a very prepared area. That was not the way it was at this time in the East. Men would live in a village, then go out into the country and sow. Who now would go and sow in rocky places, on a footpath, or where thorns are? But that was very common.
The people understood what the Lord was saying when He gave them this parable. If I heard that, I would be thinking, “Why are you sowing it there?” But they understood it.
I also wanted to get into this matter of the Lord speaking parables to the crowds. When you read what the Lord says, it can come across as very hard. It did to me, anyway. It sounds like, “I’m speaking to them in parables because they cannot see, they cannot hear, and they do not understand. So I’m just going to give them this gobbledygook.”
It made me think of the verse where the Lord said not to cast your pearls before swine, because they just trample over them. I think, to a degree, that is true: the Lord gave the parable that way.
But I really think His heart was that these people generally had been hearing the Word of God for a long time, but it was not sinking in. It had become something that came to them and just went over their heads.
So the Lord, in His wisdom, spoke to them in a parable—something out of life that they could relate to—perhaps to generate curiosity and interest, so that they would pursue it and come asking, “What are You really saying?”
Remember, the disciples came to Him and asked, first of all, why He was speaking in parables. But another Gospel says they came and asked Him to explain it. I think that is the mercy of the Lord in speaking to them in parables. He did give the explanation to the disciples.
Notice how different the explanation is from the parable itself. When I first read this in the New American Standard Bible, Matthew 13:19 said:
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.
That is different—very different—from what the American Standard Version says: “This is he that was sown.” Do you see the difference? One is saying that seed was sown on them, while the other says they are the ones sown.
I thought, “Well, that is a conundrum. What is it? These are saying two different things.” So I went to my trusty Wuest. He agreed with the American Standard Version. Then I went to Darby, the Revised Version, and Rotherham, and they agreed with that rendering too.
Most modern translations say the seed was sown on them, as opposed to them being the ones who are sown. So I thought I would check out some Greek scholars. Most agreed with the modern versions, but I found Charles Ellicott.
Ellicott said that the translators tried unsuccessfully to combine the parable with its interpretation. He said that, literally and far better, the phrase means, “This man it is—that is, the seed sown by the wayside.”
That made me lean in this direction, but the best way to interpret the Bible is with the Bible itself. Go somewhere else and see whether there is something that supports it.
You do not have to go too far forward in Matthew 13 to find an answer. In the parable of the wheat and the tares, beginning in Matthew 13:36, the disciples ask Jesus to explain the parable.
He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man;
and the field is the world;
and the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom.
Remember, the Sower is the Son of Man—the Lord Jesus. He is sowing good seed, and the good seed are the sons of the kingdom. So, He is sowing individuals.
I said, “That’s it, Lord. That speaks to me right there. He actually was sowing individuals.”
Now, you may say, “Wait a minute, because Luke says the seed is the Word of God.” Luke 8:11 says:
Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.
Do we have a contradiction? One is saying this, and one is saying that. I do not think we have a contradiction.
Remember, Matthew is the Gospel of the King—or, you could say, the Gospel of the kingdom. He is speaking about the kingdom and its establishment. Luke brings out another aspect of the truth: the Sower, the Lord Jesus, does sow the Word too.
Why would He sow people who do not have the Word in them first? The first interpretation has to do with an initial sowing—the interpretation you usually hear when preachers refer to this parable in relation to unbelievers. Three quarters do not respond, and one quarter does.
There are two different aspects of truth between Matthew and Luke. I have taken a lot of time to say all that, and I hope I have not burned up a lot of my time, but I want to go into this parable a little bit.
First, I want to emphasize that the Lord Jesus has sown us all into a certain environment and into certain circumstances. Why? It is all for the purpose of bearing fruit unto the kingdom.
That is why He has sown us where we are. There are believers all over the world, sown into different places and environments, all for the purpose of bearing testimony to the kingdom of God and bringing the kingdom of God there, if you will.
Another thing: in all four cases of sowing, they all heard the Word. Did you pick that up? They all heard it. And what was the Word mentioned there? It is the Word of the kingdom.
But we see a different reaction in all these scenarios, and we see what prevents the bearing of fruit in three of them.
The first is the wayside. I have to tell you a little joke here. Back in Montpelier, Vermont, there is a restaurant called the Wayside. It actually sits on the border of Montpelier and Berlin—half the restaurant in one place and the other half in the other.
When I was a kid, I was known for being a very picky eater. I hated everything except hamburgers, French fries, and coleslaw. My grandfather used to tell me, “If you don’t eat, you’re going to fall by the wayside.”
He did not realize that was where I wanted to fall, because now and then my parents would take us to the Wayside, and that is what I would order: hamburger steak, French fries, and coleslaw. So when he said that, I thought, “Oh, I wish I could live there.” Sorry about that rabbit hole.
Here we have three things that the Lord describes. One is the wayside. The wayside refers to individuals who do not understand or comprehend, and the devil is able to come and snatch the Word out of their hearts.
So the wayside is really a reference to the devil. That is one major hindrance to bearing fruit.
Then we come to the rocky places. The rocky places are a reference to the flesh, or the self-life.
Last, we come to the thorns. The description there speaks of the world. So these are the three hindrances believers face that keep us from bearing fruit: the devil, the flesh, and the world.
We as believers have to overcome in these three areas, or we will not bear fruit and God will not be glorified.
Let us start first with the wayside. I told you I would say something about Wuest, so I am going to read Matthew 13:19 from the Wuest translation:
While everyone is listening and not comprehending the word of the kingdom,
there comes the pernicious one,
and snatches away that which is sown in the heart.
This man is he who was sown as seed alongside the footpath.
This one has heard the Word of the kingdom, but there is no understanding or comprehension. Why is there not understanding when we hear the Word of God? Why do we not comprehend it?
I think it is very simple. It is because we have not applied it to our lives. We have not taken that Word in and applied it.
If you just come here, listen to me—or to whoever speaks here—and walk out afterward without really chewing upon it, receiving it, and saying, “Lord, I want this to be made real in my life,” then it just floats away when you walk out the door.
I can say that from experience. I have heard a message, gone out the door, and not really wrestled with it. Then, as soon as I went out, it was like it floated away into space and was gone.
And guess who is waiting there to steal that out of your heart? He is waiting to do that, because he comes to steal, kill, and destroy.
It is interesting that the first of these four conditions refers to the devil. I probably would have put the flesh first. Of course, these overlap; they really do. Sometimes you can be in all three at the same time.
But I think the devil comes first because he is the one who, from the beginning, has opposed the kingdom of God. He wants to create his own kingdom and do away with God’s kingdom. He has such hatred against God that he wants nothing to do with Him or His kingdom.
These ones do not understand. I tried to think of a definition for spiritual understanding, and I wrote this down. Take it for what it is:
For one to have spiritual understanding means that one acknowledges the authority of the Word of God, receives it, and applies it in one’s life.
That is spiritual understanding. If you read Proverbs 2:1-6, I think it speaks to that.
When I thought about the New American Standard Bible saying that people had become dull of heart, it made me think of Hebrews 5:11-14.
Hebrews 5:11-14 says:
Of whom we have many things to say, and hard of interpretation,
seeing ye are become dull of hearing.
For when by reason of the time ye ought to be teachers,
ye have need again that someone teach you the rudiments
of the first principles of the oracles of God,
and are become such as have need of milk, and not of solid food.For everyone that partaketh of milk is without experience
of the word of righteousness;
for he is a babe.
But solid food is for full-grown men,
even those who by reason of use
have their senses exercised to discern good and evil.
The phrase I underline there is “without experience of the word of righteousness.” That speaks of applying the Word. Those who are mature are those who, by reason of use, have their senses exercised to discern good and evil.
That is what can happen to us as believers if we are not careful with how we handle the Word of God. The Word of God is very precious. God gives us His Word so that we will apply it in our lives.
He does not simply want us to have knowledge about what He is going to do. He wants fruit. Through fruit, He can be glorified; and through the Word, He can build the kingdom through us.
Remember what Dana said about the kingdom? What is the kingdom made up of? It is made up of the King and the “doms,” right? So, number one: “dom.”
When I considered this first condition of the wayside, I tried to think of someone in Scripture who would fit it. Naturally, Judas came to mind. When I think of Judas walking with the Lord all that time, hearing Him and yet not understanding or comprehending, with his heart not being touched, he seems like an obvious choice.
But I did not want to go into Judas too much, because there is such a big debate over whether he was ever saved. I will just leave that there.
Instead, I thought of Abraham. You may say, “Abraham? He is the father of faith. You are going to pick on Abraham?” Well, just for one little thing in his life.
Acts 7:2-4 gives light concerning Abraham’s calling. Stephen says:
Brethren and fathers, hearken.
The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham,
when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran,
and said unto him,
Get thee out of thy land, and from thy kindred,
and come into the land which I shall show thee.Then came he out of the land of the Chaldeans,
and dwelt in Haran:
and from thence, when his father was dead,
God removed him into this land, wherein ye now dwell.
Notice that. God had told Abraham to leave his family and relatives and go out alone to the land He would show him. But what happened? The whole clan went together, including his father.
Genesis 11:31 says that Terah, Abram’s father, took Abram, Lot, Sarai, and the others, and went out with them. It was Abraham’s father who initiated the journey.
God told Abraham to go out, but next thing you know, his dad had taken over. They were all moving together, and they stopped in Haran. They were not supposed to stop there.
Abraham did not hear from the Lord through that whole period. I am not sure exactly how long it was—perhaps several years—but it was a period of time. God was silent because Abraham went out, but he did not go out in pure obedience.
Then God came back and said, “Get thee out of thy country, and from thy father’s house.” Abraham did eventually do that after his father died—the old man died.
The old man has to die before we can go forth in full obedience. Is that not true? Romans 6:6.
So I thought of Abraham as an example. His understanding and comprehension were stifled until he went out in obedience. Then we see him going forth and bearing fruit.
The problem is that when someone gets into this wayside condition, they are often oblivious to it. They do not know what is going on.
Remember when Brother Daniel spoke about the presence of God? Sometimes you can lose the sense of God’s presence and not even know it. That is a sad place to be.
So, if we get into that place, what are we to do? If we are not aware of it, we are not going to do anything. So guess who is going to do something?
Psalm 119:67 says:
Before I was afflicted I went astray;
but now I observe Thy word.
Then Psalm 119:71 says:
It is good for me that I have been afflicted;
that I may learn Thy statutes.
Sometimes the Lord has to, if I can put it this way, hit us in the head with a hammer to wake us up and show us that we are in this position. He knows how to bring us back.
He did that with the church in Laodicea. They were totally oblivious to their condition, and He had to come and tell them. The Lord knows how to pull us out of such a situation.
What do we do on our side when the Lord comes in and we discover that our heart has become hard or has grown cold? The Lord may bring something into your life that troubles you, and you may ask, “Why? Why am I going through this?”
He may be bringing you to the point where you begin to understand. But something has to be done on our side.
Jeremiah 4:3-4 says:
Thus saith the Lord to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem,
Break up your fallow ground,
and sow not among thorns.
Circumcise yourselves to the Lord,
and take away the foreskins of your heart.
That is the response we should have when we fall into that condition and the Lord begins to wake us up. Simply put, we need to repent and return to the Lord.
It is all a matter of heart, is it not? Proverbs 4:23 says:
Keep thy heart with all diligence;
for out of it are the issues of life.
We need to keep our hearts with all diligence. And Psalm 139:23-24 is a prayer that I think we should pray every day:
Search me, O God, and know my heart:
try me, and know my thoughts;
and see if there be any hurtful way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
Darby says “idolatrous way.” That is interesting. But I think that is a good prayer to pray every day.
Let us move on, because the clock is not stopping; it is moving very fast. Let us go to the rocky places. Remember, this refers to the flesh, or the self-life.
Wuest renders Matthew 13:20-21 this way:
And he who was sown upon the shallow ground
where the rock layers were near the surface,
this man is the one who hears the word
and immediately with joy receives it.
And he does not have rootage in himself
but is by nature a temporizer.
In the pressure of circumstances having come,
in persecution because of the word,
immediately sees in it that of which he disapproves,
and which hinders him from acknowledging its authority.
I think that is a pretty powerful translation. This person is depicted as having no depth. They are shallow. Scripture would define such a person as carnal or fleshly.
The reason they get excited when they hear the Word is probably because it is something that satisfies them. Their excitement is only on a surface level.
I can remember, as a new believer, that prophecy—particularly end-times prophecy—was what led me to the Lord. I used to get so excited about it, reading anything I could about end-times prophecies.
The only thing about that is, you cannot really grow on that. It is exciting to read about and tell people about, but I do not think you really grow from that alone.
These individuals are interested in what the Word says insofar as it satisfies them. I think of the prosperity message. So many gather around that message because it is all about what God can do for you—how He can prosper you and so on.
But when tribulation comes, how are they going to stand? When troubles come, they may think, “Wait a minute. I am supposed to prosper and be healthy. Now my health is bad, I have lost my job, my children hate me, and my wife will not talk to me.” Then they stumble.
It is a horrible place to be in when you are interested in hearing the Word but not really interested in spiritual growth or change. That should be a red flag to us.
The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. The flesh stops pursuing once it is threatened in any way. It bails out. Self-love and self-preservation are strong forces in the old nature.
When I thought of an example for this, I thought of Mark. I hope these brothers forgive me on the other side someday, but consider John Mark.
Acts 12:25 says that Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem, taking with them John, whose surname was Mark. They took Mark out on one of their journeys.
But Acts 13:13 says:
Now Paul and his company set sail from Paphos,
and came to Perga in Pamphylia:
and John departed from them and returned to Jerusalem.
I wonder whether Mark was really excited to go on that missionary journey, but when he got out there, it was not what he expected. We hear of missionaries going out and then giving up because things become very difficult. Persecution comes because of the Word, and they say, “This is more than I can handle.”
That is what the flesh will do. The flesh is going to bail out.
Luke 9:61-62 says:
And another also said, I will follow Thee, Lord;
but first suffer me to bid farewell to them that are at my house.
But Jesus said unto him,
No man, having put his hand to the plow,
and looking back,
is fit for the kingdom of God.
Looking back makes me think of the children of Israel. They came out of Egypt, entered the wilderness, and things became tough. There was no food they wanted, water was scarce, and they started thinking about going back to Egypt. They had already forgotten the hardships of Egypt.
Looking back speaks of reluctance or hesitation in following the Lord. So what is the remedy if we fall back like that?
Luke 14:25-28 says:
Now there went with Him great multitudes:
and He turned, and said unto them,
If any man cometh unto Me,
and hateth not his own father, and mother, and wife, and children,
and brethren, and sisters,
yea, and his own life also,
he cannot be My disciple.Whosoever doth not bear his own cross,
and come after Me,
cannot be My disciple.For which of you, desiring to build a tower,
doth not first sit down and count the cost,
whether he have wherewith to complete it?
Such an important thing in the life of a believer is that we count the cost. We get serious before the Lord and say, “Lord, I see what the cost means. This means me. This means my life.”
Sometimes we sit in a position for a while because we cannot count the cost. We just cannot go forward. But we have to face that. We have to count the cost to go on with the Lord. We have to bear that cross. That is the only way we can get through.
This one needs not only a heart to receive the Word of the kingdom, but also to hold on to it through tribulation and persecution. But the flesh is not capable of this.
Galatians 5:24-25 says:
And they that are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh
with the passions and the lusts thereof.
If we live by the Spirit,
by the Spirit let us also walk.
That is past tense. It is a done thing. When the Lord was crucified, we were crucified with Him.
Galatians 5:16-17 says:
Walk by the Spirit,
and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.
For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit,
and the Spirit against the flesh;
for these are contrary the one to the other;
that ye may not do the things that ye would.
The flesh and the Holy Spirit are never going to see eye to eye. They are contrary to one another.
So, practically, how do we persevere? It means being submissive to the Holy Spirit’s rule and leading in our lives. It is as simple as that. But sometimes it becomes very difficult because the flesh wants to satisfy itself, go its own way, and avoid hardship and trouble.
But hardship is part of the Christian life, because we have an enemy who wants to stop us in our tracks.
Coming to the thorns, which we said are a reference to the world, Wuest renders Matthew 13:22 this way:
And he who was sown as seed into the midst of the thorns,
this is he who hears the word,
and the worries of this age
and the deceitfulness of its wealth combine
to utterly choke the word,
and he becomes unfruitful.
The worries of the age and the deceitfulness of wealth combine. That is a two-punch right there.
Those who fall into this condition have divided hearts. They have one foot in the kingdom and one foot in the world. They are distracted by cares and worries of the world, and they are deceived by the false sense of security that riches bring.
Luke also speaks of other lusts—such as lust for power, position, or pleasure. It is easy to fall there.
When I thought of an example of this, I thought of Demas. I do not like that name because it is almost “demon,” almost like “devil.” But Demas is mentioned in Philemon 1:23-24 as one of Paul’s fellow workers.
Then later, in 2 Timothy 4:10, Paul says:
For Demas forsook me,
having loved this present world.
Demas had been a fellow worker, but the cares and glamour of the world caught him, and he said, “No more. I’m going back.”
I would like to read all of Matthew 6:24-34, but it is too long and we are almost out of time. Let me point out a couple of things. Matthew 6:24 says:
No man can serve two masters:
for either he will hate the one, and love the other;
or else he will hold to one, and despise the other.
Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
I have tried serving two masters before. It is very frustrating.
There is such a tendency in us to want to have things. When I got an email from Jack this morning and saw the conditions in which some believers are living, it was pretty gruesome.
I thought, “We believers here in America are spoiled.” They are sharing one bathroom among families, while we have a hard time if we have fewer than two or three bathrooms in our house.
Matthew 6:32-34 says:
For after all these things do the Gentiles seek;
for your heavenly Father knoweth
that ye have need of all these things.But seek ye first His kingdom,
and His righteousness;
and all these things shall be added unto you.Be not therefore anxious for the morrow:
for the morrow will be anxious for itself.
Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
It is so easy for us to become anxious and worried. Philippians 4:6-7 speaks to that. But I also want to read Proverbs 30:7-9.
It says:
Two things have I asked of Thee;
deny me them not before I die:
Remove far from me falsehood and lies:
give me neither poverty nor riches;
feed me with the food that is needful for me:
lest I be full, and deny Thee, and say, Who is the Lord?
or lest I be poor, and steal,
and use profanely the name of my God.
That can be a tendency if you get a lot of material goods. You start to lean on those things. We do not want either condition: too much or way too little. We need balance.
Let me say something quickly about the good ground, if I can have a couple more minutes, because I do not want to end there. I told my wife that there was so much that was negative, and I wanted to end on something positive.
Wuest says of Matthew 13:23:
But he who was sown upon the good ground,
this is he who hears the word and understands it,
who is such a one as bears fruit and produces,
in the case of one a hundredfold,
in the case of another sixtyfold,
and in the case of still another thirtyfold.
Understanding speaks to me of obedience. It is interesting that it says one hundred, sixty, and thirty. When I thought about that, I said, “Well, I want to produce one hundred. Why would I possibly produce sixty or thirty?”
It spoke to me of mixture. There may be mixture there, and that is why it is not a pure hundredfold. So we have to be careful of mixture too.
Luke adds something in Luke 8:15:
And that in the good ground,
these are such as in an honest and good heart,
having heard the word, hold it fast,
and bring forth fruit with patience.
There is your answer. They have an honest and good heart. Remember, those to whom the Lord spoke in parables did not understand because of the condition of their hearts. Their hearts were not in the right place, so there was no understanding.
Earlier, I spoke about the Word of the kingdom. What is the Word of the kingdom? I think it speaks simply of the sovereign rule of God. God is the authority, and we are to come under that authority.
Practically, 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 says:
For the love of Christ constraineth us;
because we thus judge,
that One died for all,
therefore all died;
and He died for all,
that they that live should no longer live unto themselves,
but unto Him Who for their sakes died and rose again.
There it is. That is coming under the sovereign rule of God—living unto Him and not unto ourselves.
How can we live unto Him? I am looking at Brother Lenny. Remember when Lenny spoke about abiding? I recommend that you listen to his message if you did not have a chance to hear it. It was a precious word.
John 15:4-5 says:
Abide in Me, and I in you.
As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself,
except it abide in the vine;
so neither can ye, except ye abide in Me.I am the vine, ye are the branches:
He that abideth in Me, and I in him,
the same beareth much fruit:
for apart from Me ye can do nothing.
Lord, we just come back to You, and we commit this Word back to You. Our prayer is that we would be those, Lord, who have honest and good hearts.
We would be those, Lord, who want to go on and follow You, even as Caleb did, who followed You with all his heart.
Lord, in these three areas, we thank You that there is provision in You—provision against the enemy, against the flesh, and against the world.
So, Lord, we commit this Word to You, and just pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.