He Who Has Ears: Hearing and Receiving the Word of the Kingdom | Matthew 13

Heavenly Father, we thank you for this church, and we thank you for your word, and we thank you for being able to partake of the Lord's Supper.

Heavenly Father, I just pray that you will bless this service as we continue to preach your word, that which you've called us to sow to the nations, we ask that you will bless our time here today.

In Christ's name we pray.

Amen.

Good morning, everyone.

I just want to say thank you.

Thank you, Grant, for giving me the opportunity to preach this week.

It's truly been a blessing to come here and join in the fellowship of the King's Chapel.

And the more I reflect upon it, and I think the more each of us reflect upon it, this church truly is a blessing from the Lord.

We have beautiful music, the word of God preached, sound doctrine, a wonderful building, all the things that God would give us to serve him faithfully.

And I just want to say that as we get started here today.

Our text today comes in Matthew chapter 13.

Matthew 13 · chapter mention

And for many of you, this is a very familiar passage.

This is the parable of the Sower.

It's found in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

You may hear it by other names.

And it's one that many people are familiar with.

But one thing I want to caution you from the very beginning is this.

Don't allow your familiarity with this to make you just overlook this passage.

Let it truly speak to you today.

A number of years ago, I had the opportunity to speak at a conference, and one of the other individuals who spoke there was Lee Strobel.

And many of you are probably familiar with him.

He wrote famous books like The Case for Faith and The Case for Christ and other very popular-level apologetics books.

And during those conversations and during his presentations, he would talk about how he came to faith in Christ.

And one of the main things that happened is that his wife came to faith in Christ first.

And him being a Chicago reporter, which who knows what that really means these days, he sought out to overthrow the truthfulness of Christianity.

He wanted to undermine her Christian faith.

So what he set out to do was a variety of different interviews.

And he wanted to interview the experts so that he could disprove his wife's Christian faith.

But in the process of it, he actually became a Christian.

He repented of his sins, he's placed his faith in Jesus Christ, published his famous books, and the rest is history.

Now what's interesting is that when he got into apologetics, he desired to answer a variety of different questions.

And he tells this humorous story where he's walking out of a restaurant one day, and this man is sitting there, and lo and behold, he hears this man say, What's a deist?

And he thought, this is the best question I could ever get.

I've been spending all of these years talking about what is God and a deist.

So he goes up to him and says, you know, a deist is somebody that believes that God created the world, but he doesn't do miracles.

He walked away from it, and he just lets, you know, divine sort of laws run everything.

There is no real, you know, miraculous things of the Bible and so on and so forth.

And his wife looks over at him and says, Lee, he asked Buenos Diaz.

That's something I would do.

You know, when you think about that, and you think about Lee, Lee Strobel heard something, but he didn't understand what was said.

When you think about this, there's a profound difference between something entering our ears and us actually grasping what it says.

You know, the distinctions that we find here in the parable of the sower is very much like that.

Jesus describes a variety of different people who hear the word of God preached or the word of God shared to them, and yet they respond in a variety of different ways.

And what you find here is that some hear and they do not understand, others hear and there's temporary enthusiasm.

It springs up with joy, but it doesn't last.

Others, you'll find that when they hear the word, it's choked out by the concerns of the world, and yet the final group are those who hear, understand, persevere, and bear fruit.

That's why the key thing that I want you to see here is chapter 13, verse 9.

Isaiah 13:9

He who has ears, let him hear.

So will you turn with me here in this passage?

Starting in verse 1, it says this On that day Jesus went out of the house and was sitting by the sea, and large crowds gathered to him.

So he got into a boat and sat down, and the whole crowd was standing on the beach, and he spoke many things to them in parables, saying, Behold, the sower went out to sow.

And as he sowed, some seeds fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate them up, and others fell on rocky places where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up because they had no depth of soil.

But when the sun had risen, they were scorched, and because they had no root, they withered away, and others fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked them out, and others fell on the good soil, and were yielding a crop, some of a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty, and he who has ears let him hear.

What I want to do today is I want us to look in these passages here, this entire chapter, at three different realities of hearing the word of the kingdom.

And as we look at this, the first thing that we find here in this particular passage is the word is proclaimed.

It's something that's very simple, but yet it's axiomatic, it's defining of the Christian faith that the word is proclaimed.

And in this parable, we see that Jesus is doing something here.

He is talking about very ordinary things, things that people would understand and grasp from their daily lives.

And he placed them right alongside spiritual truths.

And that's exactly what he's doing in this particular parable.

You know, one of the things that when I read these types of parables, I immediately grasp them.

You know, growing up in Iowa, I was used to seeing farmers and people going out into the fields and they would plant the seed and they would hope for rain and they would then harvest the seed.

And you know, one of the sayings that we used to have is that you would plant them and the corn would be knee high by the fourth of July.

Now, with all the genetic modifications, it's more like they're over a foot tall, over you at that point, by the time it gets to the 4th of July.

It's it grows so much more.

But when you think about this, farming looked significantly different in Jesus' day.

They didn't go out there with combines and they didn't have the large machinery.

You would have had an individual going around with a bag of seed over his shoulders and maybe walking a certain amount of steps and he would throw some seed or he would throw it here and throw it there.

And then instead of tilling the ground first, they maybe would have tilled it later or just hoped it would have stayed.

Sort of like when you sow grass seed, you throw it out there, you hope for the best, you put the haul the stray down or the hay down, and you hope the birds don't eat it.

It's very similar to that.

But one of the things that I want you to see here is that before we go into these different soils, I just want you to see in verse 19, which starts to explain this, it says that when anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and this actually portrays for us what's going on here.

The word of the kingdom is going forth.

And when you think about the storyline of the Bible, preaching has always occupied the central place in the work of God.

If you think back to the Old Testament, God raised up prophets who stood before kings, they proclaimed before nations, they preached the word of God to the people of Israel, and declared, thus saith the Lord.

When you continue to look through the text of Scripture, you think of figures like Elijah calling the people back from idolatry.

You think of Isaiah announcing the judgment and the salvation of God coming.

And what you find is that figures like Jonah proclaimed the word of God, calling people to faith and repentance into the Lord.

Now it took him a little longer way to get there, but that's what these individuals were doing throughout the Old Testament.

And this pattern doesn't change into the New Testament.

The faithful pattern of preaching has continued throughout church history.

Churches in the Reformed tradition have commonly identified three marks of a true church the faithful preaching of the word, the proper administration of the sacraments, and the faithful exercise of church discipline.

But what you have to see here is that preaching stands at the head of it.

It's the first thing that they proclaim.

Because in the act of preaching, we find Christ creates his church, instructs his church, corrects his church, and sustains his church through the word of God.

What we find here is that when you look at the life of Jesus, this is the exact same pattern.

Looking in Matthew 4.17, you don't need to turn there, it says this.

He goes on to say, For this is what I came for.

Think about the significance of this.

This continues when we think about the apostles.

Peter stood at Pentecost, and what did he do?

He preached Jesus Christ crucified, risen, and buried, and resurrected from the dead.

Philip entered Samaria doing what?

Proclaiming Christ in the good news of the kingdom.

Paul traveled from city to city, reasoning from the scriptures that Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead, and Acts fittingly concludes with these words.

And Paul was preaching the kingdom of God and teaching concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all openness.

This is also a feature that we find Paul explicitly teaching in Romans 10 14.

It asks this question how will they believe in whom they have not heard?

And how will they hear without one preaching?

Then he concludes in verse 17, he says, So faith comes from hearing, and hearing the word of Christ.

We find in 1 Corinthians 1 21, where Paul says that God was pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.

And finally, the instruction from Paul to his apprentice Timothy: preach the word.

The point is this the task of the preacher is therefore to be the task of the sower, to spread the word, to share the word.

He does not give the seed its power.

But his responsibility is to faithfully scatter that seed.

You may be thinking, what's the application of this?

Well, the first one is this demand the faithful preaching of the word of God.

You know, one of the hallmarks that we're trying to create here at the King's Chapel is a church that's known for preaching the word of God.

Do you realize how much of a rarity that is in this world?

How many people will give you gimmicks and endless stories and endless jokes and fog machines and all of the buzz that the world likes today?

But they will not give you the preaching of the word of God.

If the hallmark of the biblical model is the preaching of the word of God, we should thank God that that's what's being done here.

We're not alone.

We stand in the long history of those known for preaching the word, starting in the Old Testament, coming through the prophets, expressed through Jesus Christ, coming down through the apostles, and in church history unto us today.

Another thing to think about is this is not only should we be thankful about the preaching of the Word of God and demand the preaching of the Word of God, and I could make this application anywhere.

So don't read into this at all.

One of the best things that a local church can do to ensure that they're going to hear the faithful preaching of the Word of God is this give your pastor the time necessary to prepare to preach the Word of God.

One of the best things you can do as a church is to give your pastor the ability to study and to read the Word of God and to prepare diligently for the day of preaching.

Because just like you go to bed and you set an alarm, knowing that alarm is gonna come, whatever happens between now and then, it's gonna hit.

Preaching can be like that.

It's a cycle.

It comes, it hits.

And you know, one of the big tasks that we can do is this is be thankful for the preaching of the word of God and give that opportunity.

Because how many churches today they want their pastor to basically be the used car salesman, the marketing team, the social media coordinator, the guy that takes out all the trash, the guy that does all of these different kinds of things, and oh, if he can get around to it, let him preach the word of God.

And I think this is something that all of you do well, but it's something that we have to consciously be aware of.

Now, the next thing you can think about is this.

You say, Well, I'm not a preacher, and I'm never gonna be a preacher.

How does this apply to me?

I want to encourage you with this.

You can sow the seed without being a formal preacher.

I'm here to reveal that to you, to let you know that every Christian is called to make Christ known.

So if you're a parent in here today, you can sow the seed when you teach the gospel to your children.

If you're a Sunday school teacher, you are sowing the seed to the people that are before you.

If you're a person who works in the business field, you can sow the seed with your co-workers, with the people that you engage with in business, to the people that you run into on a daily basis.

So whether you're a Sunday school teacher, a coach, a mechanic, a business owner, a stay-at-home mother, God has placed people within your reach who need to hear the word of the kingdom.

I want to really encourage you with this.

Never believe that gospel ministry is only something that we give to the real ministers.

Now, God gives us pastors and teachers that do that aspect of the work of ministry, but we're also called to equip the saints for the work of ministry.

And Scripture establishes the qualifications for those who are to be pastors, but yet he tells each and every one of us that means you and me to go therefore and make disciples of all nations.

The point is, you may never stand behind a pulpit, but you can scatter seeds wherever God has placed you.

The other thing about scattering seeds is this you gotta let the seed grow.

And in this context, you gotta think of it in this sense.

We should not expect people to reach biblical convictions overnight when it took God years to develop those things in our lives.

Now, I'm not saying we shouldn't demand accountability or faithfulness or any of those kinds of things, but as a church, let the word of God do its work.

Faithful preaching, week in and week out, faithful discipleship, being steadfast, being accountable to it, will produce fruit.

Now the second thing is this passage confronts us with a sobering reality.

We can preach the word, we can sow the seed, we can give it to everyone, but yet not everyone who hears the word truly perceives it.

People can hear the same message and encounter the same truth, and yet respond in radically different ways.

And that brings us to the next portion here.

Looking at verse 10, it says this And the disciples came and said to him, Why do you speak in parables?

And Jesus answered and said to them, To you, it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it's not been given.

For whoever has to him more shall be given, and he will have an abundance, but whoever does not have, even what he has, shall be taken away from him.

Therefore, speak to them in parables, because while they see, or while seeing, they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.

And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says, You will keep on hearing, but you will not understand, you will keep on seeing, but you will not perceive.

For the heart of this people has become dull, and their ears they scarcely hear, and they have closed their eyes, lest they would see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart in return, and I would heal them.

Verse 16, but blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear.

For truly I say to you, that many prophets and righteous men desire to see what you see and did not see it, and to hear what you hear and did not hear it.

The second thing you find here is that when you look at this passage, which is one large unit here, the truth of the kingdom is both revealed and concealed.

You ever thought about that?

Some people, it's given to them, and to other people, they completely miss it.

It's as though it's going in one ear and out the other ear.

And what you find here is that the disciples came up to Jesus and they asked this question, why do you speak to them in parables?

And Jesus answers that, you know, the parables have this twofold purpose.

The first one is it reveals the mysteries of the kingdom of God.

It's the mysteries of the kingdom are given to the disciples here.

And the second is it conceals the truth of judgment from those whose hearts have become hardened.

A parable is a story drawn from everyday life that communicates spiritual truths here.

And the word carries the idea of placing one thing alongside of another for the purpose of a comparison.

We use these all the time.

It's like an analogy.

And by me saying it's like an analogy, that's like an analogy.

And Jesus placed these very familiar earthly realities alongside the truths of the kingdom of God.

Yet he did not use parables merely to make his teaching more simple or just to generically relate with people.

Rather, if that were his purpose, the disciples would have not asked, why was he speaking to them in parables?

And Jesus explains to them, like we said, to both reveal something and to conceal something.

Notice this.

Jesus, first of all, in the way you see him interpret this parable, this is me stepping back, kind of saying, look at how you can read your Bibles.

He places very proper limits on it.

His own explanation shows that we should maybe not go to every single parable and press every detail beyond what is the central point of the text.

And Jesus gives this parable a clear, consistent, just straightforward interpretation.

You may be thinking, why is he telling me this?

Because people press parables way beyond what they should.

Some of the most fanciful, crazy biblical interpretation comes in parables.

And what you find here is that, you know, Jesus doesn't just give us these theological novelties and these pie in the sky stories.

He uses these stories for a very real reason.

And when you interpret them, don't press them too far.

One of the beauties of this particular passage is Jesus not only speaks in parables, but he teaches you how to actually interpret parables.

Now the second thing is this, and this is where we start to dive into the meat of this text.

The parable reveals the truth to Christ's disciples.

We find here that Jesus tells Them that it has been granted to them to know the mysteries of the kingdom.

That's an important word here.

You see this that a biblical mystery is not something that's irrational or permanently unknowable.

It's not like you're trying to figure out some kind of puzzle in this sense.

What we find here is it's a truth that's been previously hidden and now it's revealed.

This is not like a murder mystery where you're just trying to figure out, you know, is Danny Reagan gonna get him off at blue bloods or not.

He's trying to reveal something to them.

Don't worry, Frank will come in and save the day.

We know how that's gonna work.

But the second thing that we start to see here is notice that the text says this, that this knowledge of the kingdom, he uses this very clear phrase.

He says, it has been given to them, or it's been granted to them.

Spiritual understanding in this passage here is very clear.

It's a sovereign gift of God.

God opens the eyes of his elect so that they can recognize the truth and embrace Christ and understand the realities of the kingdom.

The disciples understood not because they were naturally wiser, morally superior, just walked with Jesus, but because God graciously enabled them to see and to receive that which others rejected.

That's why the apostle Paul will say in 1 Corinthians 4, 7, what did you have that you did not receive?

In this passage, what we find is when you look at the phrase, to you it has been given to know.

He's using this word for this.

That which has been given to you.

The word for given, it's in the passive tense.

And you may be thinking, what significance does this have?

Not only is it given to you, using in the passive tense, but also when it's talking about them rejecting, that's also in the passive tense.

Now, what's interesting is that throughout Matthew's gospel, there are multiple uses of this passive tense where something's happening to the subject, something's being affected upon the subject.

And many people will look at this and they wonder, what is going on there?

Well, people who study the original languages and those who study Greek, they recognize this is what's known as a divine passive.

And when you look at this, the use of this word refers to the fact that whatever has been given has been given by God.

So take your Bibles and turn back to the Beatitudes in Matthew chapter 5.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

Keep your finger right there.

There are several of these in Matthew's gospel, but there's a whole bunch of them right here in Matthew chapter 5, starting in verse 1.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went upon the mountain.

And after he sat down, his disciples came to him and he opened his mouth and began to preach to them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the lowly, for they shall inherit the earth.

And we could keep going, but what I want you to see is this.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God, or kingdom of heaven.

Divine passive.

How do they get it?

God gives it to them.

How are these people comforted?

God gives them the comfort.

It's all in the passive.

The passive, passive, passive, because it's coming from God and not in and of yourselves.

Returning back to our passage here, what I want you to see is this is that who is the ultimate cause here in this passage of receiving the kingdom and also concealing the kingdom?

It is God.

Who is the ultimate cause of someone becoming a Christian?

It is God.

Now the next thing that you find here is that the parables concealed the truth from hardened unbelievers.

The crowds understood the earthly stories, but they remained blind to the spiritual significance.

Sort of like, what's a dias in Buenos Diaz?

Verse 13 says this, therefore I speak to them in parables, because while seeing, they do not see, and while hearing, they do not understand.

The word therefore in this passage, at the beginning of the passage, it has a causal force that's given to it.

The point is clear.

That's why in verse 14 it says, You will keep on hearing, but you will not understand.

And Matthew here is very clear in this.

He says, even at this point, think if this sewer wanted to try a bunch of different things.

What if he tried to use various tricks and methods and gimmicks and fog machines and all of the technology that one could put before them?

He says, even if you persist with such a person, neither will they hear nor understand.

The passage here, when he's talking about neither hear nor understand, there's another very unique construction that's going on.

Sometimes the Bible will have two different ways of saying the word no.

But there are other times where it combines those two words together, the two different ways of saying no, to make an emphatic point.

And that's exactly what he's doing here.

He's emphatically saying, you will by no means never be able to get this.

And we find this in other passages in the Gospels and throughout the text of Scripture.

For example, when Jesus says, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will by no means never in any way, shape, or form enter into the kingdom of heaven.

The construction's there, the same's going on here.

Or when the apostle Paul talks about this idea that he will never leave you, and he will never forsake you.

Under no circumstances will he leave you nor forsake you.

That's the exact same construction that's being used here.

What you find is this when you read your Bibles, the word of God can have two different results in the lives of people.

The same parable may reveal the truth to the disciples and harden the hearts of the crowd.

Theologians call this judicial hardening.

The same word that softens one person may harden another, but yet God sovereignly grants spiritual understanding to his elect, while unbelievers remain responsible for the closing of their eyes and the hardening of their hearts.

That's why he quotes the book of Isaiah at this particular point.

He is not only making the point, he's declaring that point.

And that's why we find here in verses 16 and 17, he says, But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear.

For truly I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desire to see what you see, and they did not see it.

And to hear what you hear, and they did not hear it.

Jesus here is reminding them of the privileges and the extraordinary grace of hearing and responding to the kingdom of God.

The prophets and the righteous men of earlier generations longed to see what the disciples were seeing, and to hear what they were hearing.

They stood before the promised Messiah and heard him reveal the mysteries of the kingdom.

And what we must look at today is this is that whenever we hear the word of God, we have that exact same privilege.

I would encourage you with this never treat the privilege of hearing God's word casually.

Never come in here and think, I've just got to listen to another sermon, or I've been there, done that, I don't need to hear this message.

One of the things that you find is this is that the more you are casual with the word of God, it will produce less gratitude and obedience in your lives.

When a person comes to hear the word of God or read the word of God with that type of indifference, it doesn't produce the lasting fruit.

What we find here is this the central point that I want you to see is this.

The crowds heard the very words of Jesus yet remained blind to the truth.

So it's not a question of whether we just physically hear the word, but what is the word of God doing to produce faith and repentance and obedience in the lives of people?

And that brings us to our next section here, sort of the final section of this passage, where Jesus now turns to talk about the four different types of soils that this sower had to engage in.

And he comes back very much to this image that we should all carry in our minds, that there's a farmer walking across an unplowed field with a bag of seed hanging on his shoulders, scattering the seed, and with every step he reaches into the bag and he's throwing that seed just very broadly.

And some is falling on one type of soil, and some is falling on another type of soil.

That's why we see here in verse 18 it says, Hear then the parable of the soil, sower.

When anyone hears the word of God of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches it away.

What has been sown in his heart.

This is the one on whom seed was sown beside the road.

And the one of whom the seed was sown on rocky places, this is the man who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy.

Yet he has no root in himself, but is only temporary.

And when afflictions or persecutions arise because of the word, immediately he falls away.

And the one on whom seed was sown among the thorns, this is the one who hears the word, and the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.

And the one on whom seed was sown on the good soil, this is the man who hears the word and understands it, and indeed bears fruit, coming and bringing forth some a hundredfold, some sixty and thirty.

But we must not conclude from this that just because one person responds and another person doesn't, that it's because the one that responds is somehow naturally better than the other individual.

The growth, like the passage says before, is because God gave it growth.

But I want us to do what Jesus does here.

He commands us to examine the four different responses to the word.

The one that falls on the road says this ultimately I don't want it, and I don't need it.

When you look at this passage in verse 18, it starts out with this emphatic, you therefore hear the parable.

In this passage, Jesus uses this emphatic, you with a command.

The point of this construction is that even if the crowds may not hear, you disciples must hear.

The mysteries of the kingdom have been granted to them, so you better listen up.

The individual in this passage is not difficult for us to understand.

The meaning of this passage is very clear.

This is an individual who hears what is said, but does not understand its message.

And what does it say here?

It talks about how the evil one comes and snatches away the message that has been sown.

When you look at this passage here, this type of individual hears the message and just casually dismisses it.

We could almost say, he goes in one ear and right out the other.

They give it no hearing.

It affects them virtually in no sense of the term.

And you know, people in this condition, one of the things we find is that they're evil, very easy targets for the devil, who is the evil one in this passage.

He's able to come and, as it says, snatch away the message.

Note this passage also highlights this the location of the word.

He not only snatches away, but he snatches away the message that's in his heart.

This passage shows that the gospel must penetrate to the depths of who a person is and it must remain there, and without that there is no salvation.

The passage also recognizes that this lack of understanding and the role of the devil plays in the rejection of the gospel.

Our battle is truly not just against flesh and blood, but against principalities and rulers of this dark world.

And what's really interesting is that this kind of aspect is part of our apologetic task today.

There are so many people out there in this day and age who do not understand the message of the kingdom.

And one of the key things that we find coming from a figure like Calvin is he says that there's three levels to this.

There's knowledge, there's assent, and then there's faith.

You must first know what they're talking about before you can believe in it.

There's no such thing as assent without knowing what you're assenting to.

But if we merely just stop there, if we merely just think that I know the information, I casually believe that information, and it doesn't go to the role of faith, we fall prey to exactly what James talks about.

Demonic faith is not saving faith.

Think about this.

The devils believe in the fullness of the orthodoxy of the confessions that we make here, but yet they're not saved.

I plead with you, don't have demonic faith.

Go and have full saving faith that's here.

That's why when we find here, this faith is not something you earn, it's not something you reason unto, it's something that God gives you, but it's not less than reason or contrary to reason.

That's why I say this.

The apologetic tax, therefore, is to recognize that some people may never comprehend the gospel, but in God's providence, God uses the means of a reasonable defense of the Christian faith to sow the seed.

The reformers were very clear in this, that the distance from the head to the heart is not that long physically, but spiritually, it can be a massive canyon.

And God will never ask you to believe in your heart that which your head rejects.

That's why we're called to give the transforming of our minds.

You know what's really interesting is that unbelievers can come up with a whole variety of objections to not accepting Jesus Christ.

If you share the gospel for any amount of time, especially in public, you'll see this.

And I heard this really funny story one time from a preacher who was, this is a fictitious story, by the way, he was preaching in Scotland, and while he's there, he was preaching on hell.

Good topic to preach on.

And he's talking about in hell, it's gonna be hot.

And in hell, there's gonna be weeping.

And in hell, there's gonna be gnashing of teeth.

And this lady pops up in the back of the room and says, Ah, I don't believe in your hell.

I have no teeth.

And he says, Teeth will be provided.

The point is this people can come up with a variety of objections to the Christian faith.

And if this first person says, I don't want it and I don't care, the second one says this, I like it until it costs me.

Notice this.

Verse 22 and 21.

And the one on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, this is the man who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, yet he has no root in himself, but it is only temporary.

And when afflictions or persecution arise because of the word, he immediately falls away.

Look at this passage.

Look how far the process goes.

They hear the word, they seem to receive the word, they have an emotional response to the word, and yet they fall away.

You know what's really interesting is that over the years, we've all run into this type of person.

They hear Bible preaching, they get excited about a Bible study, maybe they walked an aisle, maybe they claim to believe in Jesus and they prayed next to their bed one time, but yet it seems as though it doesn't last.

These are people that sometimes they have a joyful response to the word.

They may show a little bit of piety at a particular time.

They may pray, they may come to youth group, they may come to church, but yet it never seems to last beyond that.

There always seems like there's an event or a person or something that causes them to fall away.

And that's what we find here.

This text is very clear saying this.

They receive it, it's equivalent to the seed that's, you know, falling on his heart in that sense, but yet persecutions, because of the word, cause them to fall away.

And we see this.

People who in church history they've faced persecutions, but yet they don't fall away.

But yet there are other people that face persecutions and they do fall away.

And what's interesting is that when you look at this passage here, this idea is he talks about this falling away.

And if you were to read it in the original, it talks about this scandalizati.

It's a scandal where we get that English word coming about here.

This is where we get this idea.

These are the people who are individuals who just seem to apostasize the Christian faith.

For a moment they look like they were saved, but when the pressure comes upon them, they scandalize their profession of the Christian faith.

You know, one example that comes to mind of this is that you remember that they still have this.

They would have like see you at the poll or and different things like fellowship of Christian athletes.

And I came to faith just before I went into high school.

And in God's providence, I participated in some of those different things.

There's nothing wrong with them.

I think they can be very good ways of sharing the gospel, discipleship, fellowship, and everything along the rest.

And yet I remember there was one time when we were there and it was raining, so they made us go inside for the event.

You can't really see you at the pole when there's rain coming down like that.

You probably could, but we didn't.

But what it did is it put us in the cafeteria, and we're sitting there, and people are praying, and all of a sudden you start hearing the clanging of money.

Not physical paper, but change, and people were throwing money at people, which usually doesn't bother me.

But the point is, is that in this instance, people were being hit with pennies and quarters.

People were scattering and running away because they were getting pelted in the face with pieces of metal.

And in the midst of this, I mean, I understand people may want to leave.

I don't really want to get hit with quarters and nickels and dimes.

But in the weeks that followed, it just kept happening and kept happening, and people were persecuting them for this, and then it blew up to a scandal within the school board because they had another group that arose out of this.

If these people can meet, then they had what was called, quote, the gay straight alliance that would meet.

And it caused immediate pushback within the school district to the point where you had individuals who were calling bigots and sexists and all these different things because they were claiming to be Christians and yet they didn't follow that group.

And many of the people that once stood there, when the persecutions came, they completely gave up their profession of the Christian faith.

They stopped going, they didn't want to call themselves Christians anymore.

Some of them actually went to the other groups, and that's exactly the stories that he's talking about here.

Your persecutions will not be in today's day and age, most likely, like you would see in the early church, in the sense that they're gonna throw you in a vat of oil.

And very rarely today will your persecutions ever come.

Come just because you want to stand for the deity of Christ.

They're usually in this day and age going to come over moral and ethical issues.

And it's what we find here is that these are the people, like it says, I like it.

I like Christianity.

I love this atmosphere until it costs me.

This brings us to our third person.

The seed that fell along the thorns says this.

I want Christ, and I want the world.

Notice what it says here.

Verse 22.

And the one on whom the seed was sown among the thorns, this is the one who hears the word, and the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth choke at the word, and it becomes unfruitful.

Notice this, like the previous person, they hear the word, they receive the word, but yet something chokes it out.

And you know, we live in a day where we hear this word.

People are a hedonist, and you go, what in the world's a hedonist?

And it's somebody that loves pleasure.

And, you know, he's talking about the pleasures of the world.

And a hedonist is somebody that everything they do, they want pleasure.

Give me pleasure.

Give me what I want.

Give me what I need here.

And that's this idea that we find in 2 Timothy 3, 4, that they were lovers of pleasure instead of lovers of the Word of God.

In simple, very, very simple terms, it's this what will give me the most pleasure is their ultimate question versus what will glorify God?

And in this passage, we find this person, it says this, that they're consumed by the deceitfulness of wealth.

Look at that word.

He says this, this idea of deception.

It could be translated as deception here, meaning the wealth that deceives the individual who believes that money will bring them their ultimate happiness, their ultimate joy, their ultimate security.

But it could also be sometimes translated as a pleasure, meaning that the wealth is the source of their pleasure or their ultimate happiness and joy.

Jesus warns about this, this idea of a divided heart at this point.

Jesus says this no one can serve two masters, for he will either hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other.

And listen to this.

You cannot serve both God and money.

Very next passage, therefore do not worry about your life.

Put together.

To the poor, money may look like the key to freeing you from all of life's problems.

If I just had$50 more this month, I'd be fine.

If I just won the lottery, I'd be liberated from all of life's problems.

Or if my grandmother or grandfather would just kind of kick the bucket, I would inherit all of that money and all of my problems would go away.

But notice what he says here.

He talks about these function like thorns that can choke out the word in our lives.

And the thing about chokes is this is that chokes can come on quickly and they can come on very slowly.

And, you know, in different combat sports and different things, you'll see people, they say, you know, they're gonna do a rear-naked choke, or you got caught in a guillotine, all these different kinds of things that are there.

And sometimes they come on quick, and sometimes you just wake up a few seconds later.

This is exactly what he's talking about here.

This is the deception that kind of just sneaks up on you.

And notice this, he truly calls it a deception.

And what's interesting is that there's really kind of two things that an individual doesn't seem to see about themselves, but yet everybody else does.

The first one is sometimes this type of deception, and the other one is stench.

If you can't smell it and everybody else can, believe me, word is out.

But when you look at this passage here, we see what it's talking about.

This is not a saved individual.

But yet, how can something like this apply to us as believers?

If someone examined your schedule, and I say this in the most common, loving way that I can, standing up here and reflecting upon this myself, if somebody examined your schedule or your spending, or your ambitions, your anxieties, your relationships, would that person conclude that the word of God governs your life or that it's slowly being crowded out by the world?

This is something I can't answer for you.

This is something you'll have to answer for yourself.

But my point is this when you look at this passage, we must be careful to not soften Jesus' words here.

The thorny soil does not represent a genuine believer who's just temporarily distracted.

Jesus says that the word is choked out and the person becomes unfruitful.

Like the rocky soil, this is the unconverted person whose initial response never results in saving and lasting faith.

Nevertheless, the worries of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth and the competing desires, these are real desires for us as believers as well.

They cannot destroy saving faith, but they can weaken your saving faith.

They can hinder your devotion and your faithfulness, diminish one's joy, interfere with one's spiritual fruitfulness, and the very things that reveal false conversion and some can seriously damage the spiritual lives of others.

We've all been there.

It's just a clear pastoral application of this.

But it brings us to our fourth one.

The fourth one is this.

He says, I will hear, I will believe, and I will follow.

This is the person, as it talks about here.

This is the one whom the seed was sown in the good soil, and this is the man who hears the word, understands the word, and indeed bears fruit, bringing forth unto a hundredfold, sixtyfold, thirtyfold.

This is the one who has the verse 11, it's been granted to them.

This is the person who bears fruit because they receive a new heart in regeneration.

God changes their heart of stone and gives them a heart of flesh.

This is the seed that's been scattered, but yet in the gracious work of God, that seed grows and bears forth fruit.

This is what we call biblical conversion.

You know, one of the things that I want us to think about is this is that I was listening to a message this week as I was preparing for this, and it was by Mark Dever, and he gave it a number of years ago, and it was titled False Conversion: The Suicide of the Church.

Strong title.

And he warned really two things.

One of the most dangerous things we can do to an unconverted person is to assure them that they are saved when they are not.

False assurance can leave a sinner comfortably traveling towards judgment.

And false conversion also damages the church when unconverted people are received into biblical fellowship, membership in that sense.

So the first thing that I think we need to take away from this passage, right here, as we conclude here for the day, is this we must understand biblical conversion.

One of the heartbeats of the local church should be to recognize that conversion occurs when God gives spiritual life to a sinner and enables them to repent and believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Jesus commands, repent and believe in the gospel.

Acts 17, 30 says commands people everywhere to repent.

Notice this.

In the Christian walk, conversion is never optional.

You ever notice that?

It's essential.

You may have questions, and that's fine.

And you may need to investigate the claims of Christ, but eventually you must answer the questions.

And will you turn from your sins and place your faith in Jesus Christ?

The second thing is this is that we must not confuse our outward response with genuine conversion.

The rocky soil received the word immediate with joy, and what we find is that if we had been standing nearby, we might have even congratulated the hearer and declared him converted.

But notice, Jesus says that he had no root.

Emotion is not conversion.

Enthusiasm alone is not conversion.

Walking an aisle and repeating a prayer and maybe even joining a church is not conversion.

Prayers may express faith and repentance, but no formula or words can save.

Salvation rests upon faith in Christ alone.

Now we want to press people towards conversion, but one of the key things is this is that I've had people come up to me and say, I've given my life to Jesus Christ, and I get excited for them, but I also know we'll see if it lasts.

Why?

Because the parable teaches us that.

The thing that we must see here is that we must look for the lasting fruits of conversion.

Conversion begins at a very particular moment, but it does not end there.

The person who has been converted begins to follow Christ, battle sin, grow in obedience.

The fruit will develop slowly, and it may develop in greater measure with other people, but genuine faith develops roots, it endures hardships, produces repentance and obedience, holiness, love, and perseverance.

That's why we as a church, as a Baptist church, we believe in regenerate church membership.

If you come in, you can sit in the services if you're unconverted, you're gonna join.

We want you to be a believer.

And that's why when we look at it here, why do we very practically have things like starting point?

Is it just so we can put it in the bulletin, we have something to say up here?

Or have a class afterwards, got to check the box, give those guys something to do?

Or why do we have a new members course and why do we have elder interviews?

It's because we want to uphold a biblical view of conversion.

It's a safety gate for our churches.

Because nothing can harm a church more than letting a bunch of unconverted people come into your church, have the rights and privileges of voting, and turn it in a worldly direction.

It's a beautiful, wonderful thing to have that in the local church.

Because in doing so, we're protecting that which God has given us.

And I'm not just talking about buildings and this.

We're protecting the nature of true conversion.

It's a help and a safety net for both them and for us.

So in conclusion, here, four types of people out there.

The one who says, I don't want the word, the other says, I will receive it until it costs me, the one who says, I want Christ and I want the world.

And the final one, I will hear, believe, and follow and bear fruit.

And leave with this final question What is the word revealing about your heart today?

Let us pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word, and we just thank you for how it applies to our lives.

God, we ask that you will let it bear fruit.

We thank you for biblical conversion.

We thank you for the gospel.

In Christ's name we pray.

Amen.

Thank you so much, Dr.

Roach, for that message and reminding us of the importance of biblical conversion, of standing on the gospel.

It's so important to understand, as Jesus called it, these mysteries of the kingdom which have been revealed to us in the gospel.

Now let us go forth and proclaim the gospel, right?

We need to sow the seed.

That's our responsibility to be faithful and so be thinking about in your life, in your life, in your family, who do I have the responsibility to proclaim the truth?

I mean, praying, Lord, put people in my path at the restaurants and wherever I go in my work, in my community, that I might sow the seed.

All you have to do is sow the seed.

God doesn't ask more of you, as as Dr.

Roach told us.

You be faithful and God gives the growth.

Praise be to God.

You're dismissed.