Heart Conditions Revealed by the Word

Transcript

GRM 1157
05/01/2016
Heart Conditions Revealed by the Word
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
Gil Rugh

I want to direct your attention to Matthew 13 today. We have been looking into some of the psalms and doing the psalms enables me to take a little break periodically from other things that come into my mind since they are not quite as connected as some of the things like the doctrinal epistles. Next Sunday will be Mother's Day and I want to address some matters related to that subject. But I do plan on coming back to the Psalms and there are some other psalms I want to look at together with you. So just a little bit of how my thinking goes.

My mind was drawn to Matthew 13 this week and I know some of you are studying the Gospel of Matthew in the Bible Fellowship hour so we are not going to intrude in that and I'm only going to be doing this section in Matthew this morning, not anything beyond that, so you don't wonder, am I going to get Matthew again. I just want to look at one of the parables in Matthew 13 since as a church we are a church built on the Word of God, built on the ministry of the Word of God, committed to sharing the Gospel with the lost so that they might hear and believe the Word of God. And Matthew 13, particularly this first parable where we will focus, addresses the issues related to that.

If you have been studying Matthew or if you have studied it sometime in the not too distant past, you are aware that when we come to Matthew 13 we undergo a transition, not only in the book but in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. We have come to the point where the nation Israel's rejection of their Messiah is accepted as final. There is no going back. In Matthew 11 you had something of the ministry of John the Baptist come to its climax. John the Baptist was sent by God to be the forerunner of Jesus the Messiah of Israel. In Matthew 11:10 Jesus said, “This is the one about whom it is written, behold I send My messenger ahead of you who will prepare Your way before You.” Jesus goes on to say that John the Baptist was the greatest of the Old Testament prophets. His ministry was to prepare the way for the Messiah, but the nation has not been open to that. And in verse 20 He began to denounce some of the cities where He had done great miracles and yet they had not believed. They not only had the testimony of John the Baptist, but they had the testimony of the life, the teachings and the miracles of Christ. And He tells them what lies before them is the most severe of judgment, in fact it will be greater judgment for them than it will be for the city of Sodom in the day of judgment. He notes these in Matthew 11:22, 24. Yet at the end of the chapter He still offers a gracious invitation to come to Him.

When you come to Matthew 12 some of the leaders of the nation express their criticism of Christ and His followers. And Christ reminds them of the three offices that are His—prophet, priest and king. And in verse 6 He says, “I say to you something greater than the temple is here,” He is greater than the temple and the priestly ministry that goes on in the temple because He is the One appointed as the priest after the order of Melchizedek, who will offer with the sacrifice of Himself the one and only sacrifice that takes care of the penalty of sin. You go through this chapter and they credit the works of Christ to the activity of the devil. He tells them they are crossing the line to a sin that cannot be forgiven because you credit Me and My works to the work of the devil. And he tells them they are speaking out of hearts that have never been transformed, verse 34. Then He tells them down in verse 41 “something greater than Jonah is here,” the last statement in verse 41. He is the greatest prophet. Remember Moses said the Lord, in the latter days, would raise up a prophet like myself. Christ was priest, He is prophet and then someone greater than Solomon is here, the end of verse 42, king. And reminds them of his offices brought together in one person—prophet, priest and king. And the chapter ends with his physical mother, physical brothers coming to see Him and He says who are My family members? My mother, My brothers, My sisters are those who believe in Me and do My will. And turning away from the physical nation Israel that is placed under the judgment of God.

So when you come to Matthew 13, that's why it's important to study the Gospel of Matthew in its entirety, you see where you have come to. The nation is now being placed under judgment, the kingdom now is not an option for them, the nation is moving to judgment. Individuals in the nations can still come to salvation, the kingdom is not an option for the nation. Truth is now going to be withheld from them rather than freely given to them. So He is going to speak to them in parables. Matthew 13:3, “He spoke many things to them in parables,” and this is to the large crowds in verse 2 who have gathered, and the situation is He has gotten into a boat and moved a little away from the shore so it is easier to address the people. They don't crowd in and restrict His ability to speak out, similar to what we do with speakers today. So He is addressing the multitudes but He is addressing them in parables.

Come to verse 10 to realize why He is doing this. “The disciples came to Him and said, why do You speak to them in parables? Jesus answered them, To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted.” A mystery is something not revealed before by God, something that could not be known apart from new revelation from God. I'm going to tell you more about the kingdom that we have been talking about, material that has not been revealed before. “And it has been given to you,” now note this is being addressed to His disciples, verse 10, not to the multitudes. To the multitudes He speaks in parables. The disciples understand this is a new way of teaching by Him. Why are You using parables? They are more difficult to understand, they are impossible to understand for the unbelieving multitudes. And it is His intention to hide truth, now, from the nation Israel because of their continued rejection of Him.

Verse 12, “For whoever has more shall be given, he will have abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.” The nation Israel had been blessed, the entire Old Testament had been given to the Jews, Jesus ministry during His earthly ministry had been basically limited to the nation Israel. His disciples went out to call the nation to repentance and preparation for their Messiah and His kingdom. Now it is being taken away. “Therefore I speak to them in parables, while seeing they do not see, while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. And the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled in their case. You will keep on hearing, you will not understand; you will keep on seeing, you will not perceive. The heart of this people has become dull, with their ears they scarcely hear. They have closed their eyes otherwise they would see with their eyes, hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and return and I would heal them.”

Serious business to hear the truth of God and reject it. The nation heard, they had their Messiah there, they rejected what He said, they persisted in that. And there came a time when God said, now I will close the door. The opportunity for you to respond, receive your Messiah and His kingdom is past. Now you march toward judgment. That does not mean His plan for the nation Israel is over, but before the promises and prophecies of that plan will be realized there is terrible, relentless judgment coming to the nation. And judgment which they continue 2,000 years later to endure. And the worst is yet to come—seven years of tribulation, something like the world has never seen where the world will be engulfed in tribulation and the nation Israel will suffer like they have never suffered. Then we will have the Messiah welcomed by the nation and return for His kingdom.

This is the context of the parables of Matthew 13 and He is going to give them information that will help prepare them and help them to understand there is going to be time before the kingdom comes. The Old Testament talked about the first coming of Christ and the Second Coming of Christ without distinguishing it as two separate events. So Peter wrote in his first epistle, remember, chapter 1. The Old Testament prophets never could understand how the Messiah could come and suffer and die and also come and rule and reign. For us it is clear, He was coming twice—the first time to suffer and die, the second time will be to rule and reign. But it is now going to begin to be revealed with clarity. So we are going to begin with these parables in Matthew 13, we are not going to look at them all, but just for the picture, with Christ's ministry while He was on earth, giving forth the Word of God. But these parables will point, come over to verse 41 for a later parable here, they will talk about the Son of Man. We've come to the end of the age, the previous parable, the tares, the wheat and the tares are explained. And He says the harvest will be the end of the age. There will be a reaping at the end of the age, verses 39-40. And so the Son of Man, verse 41, “will send forth His angels at the end of the age.”

So He reminds them they are not at the end of the age here, He is going to gather out of the kingdom He is going to establish, all unbelievers. They will be thrown into the furnace of fire. “Then the righteous will shine forth in the kingdom of their Father.” Verse 49, “So it will be at the end of the age, the angels will come forth, take the wicked from among the righteous, cast them into the furnace of fire,” and so on. So that's the picture. We're going from the first coming of Christ to the Second Coming of Christ but we have time in between, the disciples don't understand how much time. What really is involved here, because you are aware, when you get to Acts 1 after Christ has been crucified, raised from the dead, spent 40 days instructing them, they meet with Him on the Mount of Olives. And what's the first question they want to know? “Will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” They understand now from what He has been teaching them from Old Testament Scriptures following His resurrection, the Messiah had to come and suffer and die to pay the penalty for sin. Well, now we understand that, now can we have the kingdom? And He still doesn't say no, that's a long ways off. He says “you don't need to know when the kingdom will be established, but I will tell you what you must do.” So that's the focus of the parables, giving them some perspective as to what is going to be taking place before the kingdom will be established, now that the nation Israel has rejected Him and from here He will go to the cross in Matthew's Gospel.

So understanding something of the historical circumstance gives us a better appreciation of where we are and why this is going on in the parables. The parables have two purposes—to conceal truth from those who have persisted in their unbelief, yet to reveal truth to those who are believers. So He will explain some of the parables to the disciples because it is still confusing to them because this hasn't been the normal pattern that He uses.

We're going to look at the parable of the sower in the first 9 verses and then its interpretation down beginning with verse 18. This helps us because how do we interpret the parable? Well, we get a pattern here, Christ explains it. And when the explanation is given you say, that's pretty clear, that's clear. We want to be careful to take the explanation. While you are here, under the parable of the tares over in verses 36ff. Reading some material on this recently reminded me of it. You'll note when Christ explains where the wheat and the tares grow, He said the field is the world. Some of the Reformers got themselves into problems because they said the field was the church. Read what Christ said. So they said unbelievers should be part of the church because the wheat and the tares grow together in the church. The wheat and the tares don't grow together in the church, the wheat and the tares grow together in the world. So sometimes we want to be careful even as believers that we are interpreting the parables carefully.

So there are three things in the parable of the soils, and I usually don't alliterate things but this just comes naturally, it just comes flowing out. We have the sower, we have the seed and we have the soils. Those are the three important points in the parable—the sower who is doing the sowing; the seed, what is the seed that is sown; and the soils. And it is pretty simple when you understand it. But for the unbelievers who heard this, what did Jesus talk about today? I don't know, it was confusing. He talked about a sower going out to sow seed in the field and there were different kinds of soils and so he got a different kind of crop. I don't know what that had to do with anything about Him being king or so on. So Christ will explain it to the disciples.

Let's pick up with the parable. Verse 3, “He taught them many things in parables saying, the sower went out to sow, and he sowed some seeds that fell by the road. The birds came and ate them up. Others fell on the rocky places where they didn't have much soil. Immediately they sprang up, they had not depth of soil. When the sun had risen they were scorched, because they had no root they withered away. Others fell among the thorns, the thorns came up and choked them out. Others fell on the good soil and yielded a crop, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

Now if you stop and think and put yourself in the context of that crown, and even the disciples are a little confused. And that's why they asked the question in verse 2, “why are You speaking to them in parables?” Because if you just had that without any prior information, you would say, “what was Christ talking about here?”

So we'll start with the sower because that's where you start. A sower went out to sow. Now He doesn't identify the sower specifically in this parable but later down in verse 37, “the One who sows the good seed is the Son of Man.” So I take it that is the picture of the sower. He is not mixing things here that would make it confusing in the wrong sense. So He starts with His ministry. That's why I say these parables help us understand what will go on from the time of Christ's ministry and rejection, sowing the seed, until the time when He returns to establish His kingdom. This is new information now about what will take place during this time. So Christ is the sower. Now as we are going to move down toward the Second Coming of Christ, and this is involving that period of time, we know that it will include His followers. So He begins with Himself but the ministry He had in sowing seed, giving out the truth of the Gospel and the truth concerning Himself will continue.

In John 20 Jesus has been raised from the dead and He is meeting with His disciples. When they see Him and they all rejoice, but look at verse 21. “Jesus said to them again, peace be with you,” now note, “as the Father has sent me I also send you.” Then He breathes on them, tells them to receive the Holy Spirit, which will not happen for a short time yet. We are within a short time, less than two weeks of the giving of the Holy Spirit, and that will be their ministry, to go out and announce forgiveness of sins, how your sins can be forgiven. But you note, it's the same ministry He had. The ministry that God gave Him when he came to earth, to announce the truth concerning Himself now is passed on to His disciples, and they are sent out to carry on that ministry.

So if you turn over a few pages, when I say we are within a short time, less than two weeks, because when you come to Acts 1 we are about ten days away from Acts 2 with the coming of the Spirit. And they ask, in verse 6, “will You restore the kingdom?” He had told them they are going to receive the Holy Spirit in verse 5, “in many days” and they thought maybe that's connected with Him establishing the kingdom. That's when he says in verse 7, you don't need to know the times and when, “but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit is come upon you.” Remember back in John 20 He breathed on them and said, receive the Holy Spirit. That anticipated what was going to happen. Reminder, there is going to be a time period here when He won't be on earth but His presence on earth will be taken by the Holy Spirit ministering through His followers. “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be My witnesses in Judea, Samaria and to the uttermost parts of the earth.”

Now the disciples don't grasp it yet, but this is indicating we are going to have some time going here. You know during Christ's earthly ministry it was basically limited to Israel. It was rare that it went outside the boundaries of the land of Israel. Remember He told the Canaanite woman, I am not sent to the lost outside of Israel, I'm only sent to the house of Israel. But now you are going to go to the uttermost parts of the earth, beyond Jewish areas. You are going out to the uttermost parts of the earth. Now they don't understand we're talking, well, here we are 2,000 years later and the Gospel is still going out. But they will be the witnesses. 2 Corinthians 5:20 Paul said “we are ambassadors for Christ as though God were beseeching you through us, be reconciled to God.” Carrying on that ministry, it's the ministry you and I have when we share the Gospel. When we believe the Holy Spirit takes up residence within us so He can be the enabling power and we give forth the Word.

And so we come to the second main thing, come back to Matthew 13. We have the sower who is Christ and from what we know and Scripture unfolds, the followers of Christ right down to today. How do people get saved? Someone shares the truth with them, the seed. He says in Matthew 13:19 as He explains, “When anyone hears the word of the kingdom,” that's the seed that is sown—the word of the kingdom. Or as Luke 8:11 says in interpreting this parable, “the Word of God,” the truth about the kingdom. In John 3:3 what did Jesus say to Nicodemus? You must be born again or you will never see the kingdom of God, you will never be part of it. The message of salvation in Christ. How do you be part of the kingdom? On Paul's first missionary journey in Acts 14 he encouraged the disciples, through many tribulations we will enter the kingdom, the yet future kingdom. All believers are going to be part of it. Israel will be the nation that is the focus in the kingdom, but all believers will be in the kingdom. We, the church, will rule and reign with Christ in the kingdom.

So the seed is the Word of God, the truth, message of Christ. There is power in it. Come over to Mark 4, in a parable given after this one Mark records what Christ says about seed. Verse 26, “He was saying the kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed upon the soil.” Now note here, “He goes to bed at night, gets up by day and the seed sprouts and grows and he himself does not know how.” The soil produces crops by itself, the blade, the head, the mature grain. Then at the right time he has a harvest. He is showing there is power, there is life in the seed itself. He goes out and sows the seed, but the life that will germinate and produce the plant is in the seed. The farmer went in, takes a nap, the watering comes, the sun shines. Basically he doesn't go back in and do something to the seed to make it come to life, there is life in the seed. That's the point. It's important to grasp it here. The sower sows seed but the life and the power, if you will, is in the seed.

In Romans 1:16 Paul said “I am not ashamed of the Gospel for it is the power of God for salvation.” You note that, the Gospel is the power of God for salvation. The power is in the truth that is presented, that's the seed. It's effective when a person believes, we'll see that in a moment. Hebrews 4:12 says the Word of God is alive and active, more powerful than a two-edged sword. It pierces down into the innermost recesses, dividing asunder the soul and spirit, the joints and marrow. It discerns the thoughts and intentions of the heart. It's amazing. The Word of God is alive, it's active and it gets down into the innermost recesses to do a work that only the Word of God can do. James 1:21 says, “receive the implanted Word which is able to save your souls.” We'll talk about that reception of it so it's just not lying there.

Turn over to 1 Peter, we've been studying 1 Peter so if you are here on Sunday night your Bible might be worn there. We're in 1 Peter 1:23, “You have been born again, not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, through the living and enduring Word of God.” You see that Word of God is living, it is enduring, it is the seed that brings birth, and it stays alive. The Word of God is just as alive today as it was 2,000 years ago. That's amazing! The Word has not changed, it is still alive. You take this Gospel, this truth and you share it and a person hears it and it penetrates into the innermost recesses of their soul, they respond in faith and they are saved. You are here as a testimony to that. If you've heard the Gospel and believed it, you were saved. It does the same thing, it is just as alive today. You think about it, you have in your hands, you've committed to memory in your mind that which is the very power of God. Oh, if I only had more power, if I only could do more. You have it all. The Word of God is alive and active. But it doesn't go anywhere if I take it home, put it on the shelf, pick it up next week. It has to be sown. So that's where we are going.

Come back to Matthew 13. We have the sower beginning with Christ and those who will follow in His footsteps, if you will. The seed, they will be doing what Christ did—giving out the Word of God, sowing the seed. The focus in this parable is on the soils, the soils represent the hearts and it all depends on what kind of heart the seed falls on. Now if you don't sow the seed, those who sow a counterfeit, that's what the wheat and tares parable does, you know. When you sow tares you get tares. There are many religious groups sometimes called Christian, because Christian includes all branches of Protestantism and Catholicism and a lot of strange connections, but if they are sowing tares they get tares. So we are operating on the basis here as Christ addresses His followers, they will sow His truth. They know where the devil is going to work, he turns the church and believers away from the truth of God because whatever else they do, if they are not involved in the Word of God and its purity and sowing that Word, nothing is going to happen. Because your good works, my good works are not where the power is, the power in life is in the seed. So we have churches getting involved in all kinds of good things, “good works,” helping to improve the community and feed the hungry and clothe the poor. In and of themselves are they bad? No. Will they bring life to the dead? No.

Charles Spurgeon many years ago said if you think you can create a new heart, you should start by creating a fly because that will reveal something to you. You can't even create a fly. It's impossible that you or I could create a new heart. God in His plan is you give forth My truth which is My power for salvation. Shouldn't be confused what the devil's plan is.

So the seed is sown by the sower, starting with Christ and the first kind of heart it falls on, verse 4, “some fell beside the road. The birds came and ate them up.” Come down to verse 19 for the interpretation. “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 the seed was sown by the road.” We have it today but not the same way, but in those days you sowed seed by hand. So you had paths through the field because you can only get the seed going so far. So you walk the path and you throw the seed. Now you want the seed to come as close to the path that has been beaten because you want as much crop as possible. Nowadays we have modern things that get it out there, but we want to get as big a harvest as possible. But some of that seed would naturally fall on the path that has been beaten rock hard because that's how you cut through the fields. Remember people walked in those days, and we read about the disciples walking through fields. Well you can't look at our fields today and get that picture. That was the path you went through. Some of the seed falls on that rock hard path, it goes nowhere, it lies there. The birds come down and eat the seed, take it away. That pictures the devil coming and snatching the seed away.

Turn over to Luke 8, very important that we grasp these things. Verse 11, referred to this earlier, “Now the parable is this, the seed is the Word of God,” the word of the kingdom, it's the same thing. “Those beside the road are those who have heard, then the devil comes and takes away the Word from their heart so that they will not believe and be saved.” See what happens, it is a serious matter when a person hears the Word of God but their heart is hard. They have steeled themselves and so the Word of God just lies on that heart. Do you think the devil just leaves it there? Maybe sometime something will happen, the devil is quick to remove it. Serious thing to not respond to the Word of God, have a heart that is so closed to it. That's the situation.

In a different picture, come over to 2 Corinthians 4, different comparison but the same point in 2 Corinthians 4. Look at verse 3, “If our Gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God.” Same point with a different metaphor, different picture of people hearing the Word of God but not responding to it. The devil is there. Do you understand what is going on in this auditorium? Right now? The devil's demons are at work as people are hearing the Word of God and fighting against the ministry of the Spirit of God to try to distract people's minds and attention, and any unbelievers, so that they will be occupied with other things. They are thinking how it is offensive that they are telling me that I have to do this and this is the only way and that . . . And quickly turn them away so that the truth that has been presented can be removed. Every time you present the Gospel to someone that same battle is going on. Do you think the devil is just lying back, waiting to see if anything . . . He is out there. We forget we are in a spiritual war.

Come back to Matthew 13. That's the hard heart. You know the responsibility here is on the heart to respond, that hard heart. There is no blame on the sower, we start out with Christ. You are not going to say it was the sower's fault for not doing something. There is no problem with the seed. We start with Christ sowing the seed. The problem is with the heart, it has been hardened against truth.

Now there is a second kind of heart, look at Matthew 13:5, “Others fell on the rocky places where they did not have much soil. Immediately they sprang up because they had no depth of soil. But when the sun had risen they were scorched because they had no root, they withered away.” This is common in Palestine, the rocky land, you have like a shelf of limestone rock, then you have a thin layer of soil over it. Well, obviously when the soil was that shallow, the seeds thrown down, it doesn't go down far. There is no real depth to the roots, but it springs up, looks great. As soon as the scorching heat comes out there that plant withers because there is no root to sustain it. This is the person who has an immediate response to the Word, but it is superficial and maybe just emotional. Not saying that in a genuine response there may not be much emotion, there may. We are emotional beings, we are being cleansed from sin, made new. Good reason to be emotional, but if that's all there is there is no depth. And we can't tell. There is nothing said here that the sower should have known this was a hard heart, the sower should have known it was this kind of heart. The sower should do what the sower's responsibility is and sow the seed that God has given. And we look and say this is exciting, and we encourage a person who responds. We present the Gospel, this is what I've been looking for, thank you Lord, my sins are lifted, I feel like a new person. And we are excited with them, and we should be because we don't know what is going on in a heart, only God does. But time will tell. This doesn't mean we'll have to wait until time passes. No, when we get to Acts 2 what do they do? Three thousand people respond to Peter's sermon saying they believe, they want to believe in Christ and they get baptized right away. Later in Acts 8 they will baptize Simon the magician and Peter will later say, I think you are still in the bond of iniquity, you have never been saved. We can't tell, so I can't tell here but time will tell. Will they endure?

Back up to Matthew 11:6, Christ said, “Blessed is he who does not take offense at Me,” or as you have in the margin of your Bible, stumble over Me. When you come back to Matthew 13 you'll note at the end of verse 21, “when persecution arises, immediately he falls away.” You'll note we have the same verb, cause to stumble. When pressure and opposition and difficulty come, this person stumbles over Christ. This is not what I signed up for, I can't take the loss of my family, I can't take the rejection here, I can't take being treated this way by former friends and that. And he is caused to stumble. He takes offense at Christ, is what it comes to when it is doctored up. And he abandons the faith.

Turn over to Hebrews 10, this is a serious issue that New Testament writers are concerned about repeatedly. Hebrews 10, the writer to Hebrews is writing to Jewish believers who are in danger because of the relentlessness of their suffering. They have gone through periods and they suffered loss greatly, some lost their homes, their possessions, some were imprisoned. And now another cycle of persecution is coming around, it's like I can't do this again. This is written in chapter 10 to encourage them. He tells them in verse 32, “Remember the former days when after being enlightened you endured a great conflict of suffering. You were made a public spectacle, reproaches, tribulations,” you lost your property, he goes down in verse 34. Verse 35, “Don't throw away your confidence which has great reward. You have need of endurance so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what was promised. For yet in a very little while He who is coming will come and will not delay.” Reminder, it is getting to be the time now. I mean, the disciples were asking in Acts 1, will You restore the kingdom at this time? But now we go through weeks, months, years of trial and difficulty and suffering, I don't know that I can keep doing this. He is telling them, you don't give up. He is coming again, that's when it will all be taken care of.

But note what he goes on with the quotes from the Old Testament, “My righteous one shall live by faith and if he shrinks back my soul has no pleasure in him. We are not of those who shrink back to destruction but those who have faith to the preserving of the soul. The righteous shall live by faith,” taken from Habakkuk and we quote that and that's how a person is saved. But you know saving faith is enduring faith as we have talked about. That begins a life that is a life of faith. Not an easy life, a life of trial and difficulty. Christ stressed this during His earthly ministry—count the cost before you commit to being My disciple. You can't be My disciple if you love your family more than Me. You can't be My disciple if you are not willing to give up all your own possessions, even your own life. You have to take up your cross and follow Me. It's all talking about the same thing.

Christ knew those would go against Him. In John 6:66 we are told as a result of what Christ was teaching, “many of His disciples” turned back and didn't follow Him anymore.” They became offended with Him, they stumbled over Him. I want to be careful, I can't always tell whether this stumble, Peter stumbled, he denied the Lord three time. Rush in there and say obviously, Peter was not genuine. As James wrote in James 3, we all stumble in many ways, but we can't turn away. And sometimes we can't tell. There are people who seem to stumble and turn away and then they recover and then they stumble again and turn away. I can't see the heart. Sometimes we have to talk to a person, are you sure that you have a settled relationship with the Lord, have you really trusted Him. But the failure to persevere.

I've shared with you, we had a person who taught here for several years in our adult Sunday School. I've told you, I still have the syllabus he prepared on the doctrine of salvation. One day he walked into my office, laid it on the desk like this and said, I don't believe any of it, I've just learned it. That was 35-40 years ago, to this day he lives as a committed unbeliever, not open to hear truth. I couldn't tell. He would come and talk to me about the theology he was reading and what he was going to include in what he was teaching on the doctrine of salvation and we would interact about it. He would put together his lesson, then he comes and says I don't believe anything. I couldn't tell, I didn't know. So there are shallow heart hearers, you don't know. We welcome them as believers but even if they get baptized like Simon the magician doesn't mean they really are. And the writer to the Hebrews is concerned, you have endured. Great. But those who endure to the end are the ones who manifest they are genuine.

Come back to Matthew 13. There is the cluttered heart and this is the weedy heart. Verse 7, “Some seed fell among the thorns, the thorns came and choked them out.” We call it the cluttered heart because as Christ interprets it down in verse 22, “The one on whom seed was sown among the thorns, this is the man who hears the Word but the worry of the world, the deceitfulness of wealth choke the Word, it becomes unfruitful.” Mark 4:19 says “the desires for other things;” Luke 8:14 says “the pleasures of this life.” Prosperity has its own dangers and part of it is to test our genuineness.

Back up to Matthew 6 in the Sermon on the Mount, Christ addressed this early. Matthew 6:19, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moths and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moths nor rust destroy and where thieves do not break in or steal.” Note, “For where you treasure is, there your heart will be also.” If you have your eyes fixed on the things of this world and this life, you'll have a dark soul. Verse 21, “For where your treasure is there your heart will be also.” Verse 24, “No man can serve two masters, you cannot serve God and wealth.” Doesn't mean you cannot have wealth, but there comes a very real temptation once we have it not to have it get ahold of us. It becomes our treasure. No longer am I living for what God has promised me in Christ, the inheritance I have in heaven. I have to be careful, I've worked hard to get what I have. We have our home, I have my savings, I have a good job, I have a good reputation, I have . . . and those things squeeze in. It's difficult, prosperity is its own threat.

We don't have time to go back but in Deuteronomy 6 and again in Deuteronomy 8 God warned Israel as they prepared to go into the land He promised. When you go into that land and I give you prosperity, health and things to enjoy, you better be careful you don't forget who gave them to you. But Israel did forget. It's hard today, one thing I was taught early when I was doing some studies, that one of the greatest threats to healthy Christianity is prosperity. Studies done show that when Christianity moves into a new part of the world, it makes its impact among the poor. But then they become more conscientious, more responsible, harder workers, more reliable, trustworthy and they begin to rise in the social. But the intensity and fire of the Christianity begins to decline. It's hard. We are prosperous, it's just hard to be absorbed with what Christ says we have to be absorbed with. I have so much to enjoy, so little time to do it, that's why we get happier if we can squeeze church into a little less time. I have so much to do. Three hours for a football game is nothing, but an hour for a Bible study? You don't understand, my kids have this, my kids have that, we have this, we have . . . Prosperity is a challenge. I'm not saying anything wrong with prosperity, there are parts of Scripture that say God has given us every good thing to enjoy. And we can enjoy things with our wives while we have good health. I believe those parts, I'm trying to enjoy them and do them. But I must not forget where my treasure is, there my heart will be. Do I hold these things lightly? They are not what my life is about. I'm not saying I don't enjoy them, I don't want to say I wish I were scrounging for enough food to get by today or enough to pay the rent for one more week or something like that. No. God has blessed us with many blessings, but I want to be aware of the danger that those blessings become a trap, they absorb me. John Wesley put it, whenever I get any extra money, I give it away lest it find its way into my heart. And that's the danger. These blessings we have, these material things don't find our way into our heart and pretty soon I find my life built and arranged around them. Now things are out of perspective. No man can serve two masters, so if I think I have it worked out, I don't have it worked out because I can't serve. He demands everything. He hasn't asked me to give away everything, but if He would do so tomorrow, are we ready to do it and live for Him.

One more heart, we have to get to the good one. But you understand we have four kinds of hearts, three of them are hearts of those who are unbelievers, never were genuinely saved. They are chasing after the things of the world, ultimately realize they never had a heart for the Lord. But the heart, over in Matthew 13, “some seed fell on good soil,” verse 8, “yielded a crop, some a hundred, some sixty, some thirty.” And verse 23, “The one on whom seed was sown on good soil, this is the man who hears the Word, understands it, bears fruit, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.” Now again we don't necessarily compare ourselves with each other. I quoted Spurgeon earlier, I read Spurgeon I am blessed and I am discouraged. How did he do this? He has been dead since 1892 and I'm still reading stuff he writes and blessed by it. And I read that he has preached ten times that week and I'm thinking, you sluggard. You are not doing anything. And then he has this and this and this and this and this and he is producing. I have 63 volumes of Spurgeon's sermons, and that is not all he produced. I say, Lord, how could I do so little? And he didn't even have a typewriter, let alone a computer. I can't compare myself with someone else. I can be challenged.

But you'll note even good ground produces some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. So what I have to do is produce the best I can. We all should be producing if we have hearts that have believed. So every heart produces. And again I can't tell. Well, where do you get to the line because if you are only producing thirty and I'm looking at somebody producing a hundred, and we could have gone back to Matthew 7 in the Sermon on the Mount again, you know a tree by its fruit. Every tree produces good fruit, bad trees produce bad fruit. Galatians 5, the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit. I can't see the heart, we can see the result. We look around at each other, we have a good idea. People have demonstrated, claimed their faith in Christ, seemed clear on the doctrine, they have lives that over time have manifested it, but that doesn't mean we don't accept anybody here who hasn't demonstrate they've been a consistent believer for ten years. A person professed their faith and said I'm ready to be baptized and there is a baptism tonight. I'm in. Would we turn them away? No. Well how could you know for sure he was saved? I won't know for sure next week, or maybe next month. In fact only God sees the heart. He may stumble, but he may recover, but he may stumble because it’s a fall from which he won't recover.

The kind of heart. You know, we want to have the right kind of pressure and not take upon ourselves the wrong kind. If I take it that it is my responsibility to see the Word working in your heart, I'm in a bad spot because I can't do it. I can't change your heart, I can't make it different. You can't. If you say I shared the Gospel and nobody believed it, therefore maybe I shouldn't be sharing the Gospel. Well, “faith comes by hearing and hearing by the message of Christ,” Romans 10. The only way people get saved, they have to be exposed to the truth and that's what Romans 10 is saying. That's what we do, we carry on the work of Christ. Most of the people rejected Him, at least three-quarters of the hearts are going to be negative. And that's just in the picture we can expect. The gate is narrow, the way is narrow, we don't expect a large response. Sometimes at periods of time by God's grace in His plan there may be large numbers saved and responsive. Other times it may seem barren, may seem every heart is concrete hardness. What am I going to tell God? I quit sowing because the hearts weren't good? I didn't tell you to check the hearts, did I? I told you go sow the seed.

I remember in a conversation with a fellow pastor a number of years ago, he said I'm not taking responsibility for the condition of the people that I preach to. Now his prayer and desire was for their change, but he can't change them. I can't take responsibility for the condition of your heart and your response to the truth, but I will be held accountable, have I taught you the truth faithfully. You can't change the hearts of your kids, your grandkids, your parents, your friends, but they can't be saved if they don't have the seed of God's Word sown in that heart.

Let's pray together. Thank You, Lord, for Your grace. Lord, we are in awe as we are reminded by Your Word that the Word that has saved us and made us new by the power of the Spirit is the same Word which is Your power for the salvation of the most hopeless of sinners. Lord, how blessed we are to have been called to salvation in Christ, entrusted with that which is Your power for salvation to everyone who hears and believes. May we be those who are faithfully sowing the seed of Your truth wherever we go. Lord, You know the hearts of each one gathered here, they are open and naked before Your eyes. Pray the Spirit will do the work in the heart that only He can do with Your Word. We pray in Christ's name, amen.