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Turning your Bibles to the book of 1 John. That'll be our scripture reading today, chapter 1 of 1 John. As you're turning there, I want to reiterate the importance of our support of the Masters Academy International. When we send Thomas to go there and teach, he is teaching pastors who are going to pastor churches in the Philippines.

And the Philippines, their number one export is people. They send people all over the world, particularly to Indonesia, the Middle East, Muslim countries. And so in that way, this is a very top-level strategic mission effort to train those pastors to handle God's word so that the people in their churches can then go out and evangelize other people.

So I want you to think of it like that. It's a wonderful opportunity to do that. So we'll pray for Thomas today and John and Elise there. All right, we'll read today. Please stand for the reading of God's Word. We'll be in 1 John chapter 1, beginning in verse 5.

This is the message which we have heard from him and declare to you, that God is light, and in him no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another.

The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. My little children, these things I write to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous.

And he himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world. Now, by this we know that we know him if we keep his commandments. He who says, I know him and does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

But whoever keeps the word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in him. He who says he abides in him ought himself also to walk just as he walked. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word, which instructs us in the way we should live.

Lord, we thank you that you have been the propitiation for our sins through the shed blood of your Son on the cross, our Lord Jesus Christ. And it is through him that we receive the forgiveness of our sins, not that of ourselves. Lord, not by any works that we have done, we know that there is filthy rags, but only through the work that Christ did on the cross to take the punishment for our sins, so that you could produce righteous works in us through the power of your Holy Spirit.

Lord, we thank you that we're able to come here this morning in freedom without fear of persecution, that we have the opportunity and the blessing, and yes, Father, even the privilege of worshiping you today in freedom and in spirit and in truth. Lord, we pray that you would be honored and glorified today in this gathering of your people.

Lord, that the songs of praise that we sing to you would be not only a blessing to you, but an encouragement to those of us who are singing them. Lord, we pray that your word, as it's proclaimed, would ring true in the hearts of those who hear it.

Lord, that you prepare the hearts of those who are here as we come here today to worship you, to praise you, to learn more about you, so that the knowledge of you in our hearts would produce the faith that is evidenced by those works, the fruit that you produce in those who have genuine faith.

Lord, we lift up Thomas and Elise and John as they're in the Philippines today. Pray that you'd make their way smooth. Lord, that you would bless them and bless those that they minister to. Lord, that your word would be proclaimed throughout the earth. And we thank you that we have the opportunity to.

To share this word, even to a people that we have not met. And Lord, we trust that your word will go forth and that your kingdom would be advanced in all the world. Lord, we thank you for this time of worship today, and we ask that you would bless it in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen. Good morning. Howdy to all you Aggies out there. Open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 13. Our passage today is known usually as the parable of the sower, also known as the parable of the four soils, which I think is a better description. We're going to be talking about these four soils quite a bit.

I believe they're the focus of the passage. It's also found in Mark chapter 4 and in Luke chapter 8 with a few variations, which I'll mention as we go through the passage. You know, I've been, when I preach up here when Thomas is gone, I've been going through the parables and I've kind of been waiting to do this one, but I regret that because this is, Jesus will show us here, this is actually the most important parable.

I think this is the gateway to the parable, so I'm happy to be preaching this one today. Also, because it uses a lot of agricultural terms. Jesus used a lot of agricultural illustrations frequently in his teaching because the people of that time, it was an agrarian society, and They would all quickly relate to what he was saying.

But we don't live in an agrarian society today, so I'll be giving some agriculture lessons along the way. Aren't you glad you came today? I grew up on a farm and had plenty of practice plowing fields and sowing and all that. And although we don't sow today the way the sower in our parable did by hand, you learn a lot about a field when you're plowing and planting crops.

And I can definitely tell that most fields, you know, they have a very good soil condition. They're going to be plowed through deep, rich earth. And I remember this one field that we plowed was in the Brazos River bottom, where the Brazos River would frequently overflow its banks, and there was a lot of rich, silty clay loam there that was good for cotton and wheat, and a lot of room for the roots to penetrate and the crops to grow.

But there were other places in the field that were not so well suited for crops. Of course, the road that we used to get along the edge of the field was where we drove the tractor. It was hard-packed. Nothing would grow there, of course. There were some edges of the field where the ground had been eroded as water washed the topsoil away, and there was just a thin layer there where nothing would grow because it was just bedrock underneath it.

And then you had other areas of the field that were. Really challenging because these were areas where water would collect and not drain, and sometimes they were so muddy that we couldn't plow there or plant there. And just those areas would just grow weeds because we couldn't plow them down.

And even when we could plow them and plant them, the seeds were so bad there that the weeds would just come up, and anything we planted there was not very fruitful, so we sometimes just would not even harvest that. But it was that good soil where you wanted the crop to grow because seeds need to come in contact with the soil to germinate.

That soil will transpire moisture to the seed and allow it to germinate and grow. And that's why the condition of the seed bed is very important for the seed to germinate, to take root, to grow to maturity, and produce a fruitful crop. Of course, this has been true for millennia, and it doesn't take an agricultural engineer to describe that to you.

Even a child understands this. All farmers knew it, gardeners know it. Jesus knew it too. And he used this very common knowledge among farmers and gardeners to form the backdrop of the most important parable he would tell while he was on the earth. So let's read in Matthew chapter 3.

I'm going to cover a lot of ground today. Did y'all get that? We're going to read 23 verses, okay? Covering a lot of ground. Think about it. Wait for it. Starting in verse 1, On the same day, Jesus went out of the house and sat by the sea.

And great multitudes were gathered together to him, so that he got into a boat and sat, and the whole multitude sat on the shore. Then he spoke many things to them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside, and the birds came and devoured them.

Some fell on stony places where they did not have much earth. And they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. But when the sun was up, they were scorched, because they had no root, they withered away. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them.

But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. And the disciples came to him and said, Why do you speak to them in parables? He answered and said to them, Because it's been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.

For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance. But whoever does not have, even what he has, will be taken away from him. Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.

And in them, the prophets, Of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says, Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, seeing you will see and not perceive, for the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal them.

And in verse 16, he says, Blessed are your eyes, for they say, and your ears, for they hear. For assuredly, I say to you, that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.

Therefore, hear the parable of the sower. When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received the seed by the wayside. But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, for he has no root in himself, but endures only for a time.

For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles. Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful. But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it.

Who indeed bears fruit and produces, some a hundredfold, some 60, some 30. Well, Jesus taught many parables to the people. Almost 40 in the Bible are recorded, depending on how you count them. But this one is particularly special. As a matter of fact, Jesus highlights the importance of this parable when he's talking to the disciples in Mark chapter 4.

The disciples ask him about the explanation, and he includes this phrase in verse 13. He says to them, Do you not understand this parable? How will you then understand all the parables? Jesus is saying, If you don't understand this parable, you won't understand them all. So, this one, understanding this one, is the key to understanding the other parables.

This is one of the most comprehensive parables that we have in Scripture, and it also has the added benefit that it's one of the few parables that Jesus Himself tells the meaning of it, which makes my job very easy this morning. But he only tells the meaning to his disciples later.

And in it, we can easily see the contrast between the four types of soil in this field, and perhaps more specifically, the condition of these types of soil. So, here's my outline today. You've probably figured it out. You've got the hard ground, the hard soil. You've got the rocky ground.

Ground, you've got the thorny ground, and you've got the good ground. Okay, four types of soil. And I'll go ahead and tell you the result. No fruit, no fruit, no fruit, and abundant fruit. Okay? Hard ground, no fruit. Shallow soil, no fruit. Thorny soil, no fruit. Good soil, good ground, abundant fruit.

I guess we could just close our Bibles and go home. But we have more time remaining, so let's talk about this. I want to help you see how Jesus makes his case here, okay? Notice in this parable, in each case, there are some things that, although you have different conditions of soil, there are some things that remain constant throughout the parable.

In each case, the word was the same, okay? The sower was the same. The seed was the same, the word. The field was the same. It's the same field. What is different in each case was the condition of the soil. So the Lord is drawing attention then to the heart condition of each hearer because the response of each one was different.

Some had ears that would hear but not understand. Some had eyes that would see but not perceive. And in this field, we have some soil that would not produce fruit from the seed that was sown. So here's the key lesson of this parable. Genuine faith in Christ will produce fruit in the life of the believer.

Genuine faith in Christ will produce fruit in the life of the believer. James puts it another way, and actually more simply. Faith without works is dead. For context, Jesus' teaching throughout the Gospels that good fruit is the indicator of genuine faith, it's all throughout the Gospels. We learn that a genuine believer will not live a perfect life, but he's characterized by a pattern of increasing growth in Christ, where you have less sin in his life and more of that fruit that gives evidence that's consistent with the profession of faith in Christ.

Let me show you, just a quick survey of the book of Matthew. In the book of Matthew, the Sermon on the Mount, the first of Jesus' public sermons, Jesus declares that fruit is the evidence of faith. In verse 7, sorry, chapter 7, verse 15, he says, Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they're ravenous wolves.

You will know them by their fruits. He goes on to say, Do men gather grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but bad tree bears bad fruit. Is very important here, okay? He goes on, a good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.

Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire, and then he repeats it, therefore, by their fruits, you will know them. He also says we can turn all the way over to the Olivet discourse, his last teaching to his disciples before he was crucified.

In Matthew chapter 25, he tells the story about the sheep and the goats. And I'll just skip down to verse 44, where he says, Then they will also answer him, saying, Lord, when did we see you, hungry or thirsty, or a stranger naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister to you?

Then he will answer them, saying, Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to the least of these, you did not do it to me. And these will go away to everlasting punishment, the righteous to eternal life. So what are we talking about when we talk about fruit?

The fruit is what you do, the fruit is how you live. Obedience to his word is the fruit that we're talking about here, that Jesus talks about all throughout his gospels, from boond to bookend in the book of Matthew. One at the beginning of Jesus' public ministry, one delivered at the end, right before his crucifixion.

Fruitfulness, obedience to God's word, is the mark of those who truly belong to him. And we're going to see that in this parable here. So, with that context, let's examine Jesus' explanations of the four soils. What I'm going to do is we'll take a look at the earlier, the first telling of it, and then his explanation.

We're going to take it verse by verse like that. So, see if you can follow along. We'll start first with the hard soil, this wayside soil, the hard soil. In verse 3, Jesus says, Behold, a sower, we're back in Matthew 13 again. Verse 3, Behold, a sower went out to sow, and as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside, and the birds came and devoured them.

So, can you picture this? The sower is sowing seed, some falls on the wayside, some birds come and eat it. Well, first, let's talk about the sower and the seed. So, we have a picture of a man with a bag of seed walking through the field, broadcasting this by hand.

He doesn't have the awesome equipment we have today. He's doing this by hand, but he's very skilled. He's scattering the seed in what he hopes is a uniform distribution across the field. Some of it's going to maybe go off the side there, but it's going to fall everywhere.

Okay, so he's scattering the seed by hand. Then, Jesus tells about one of the four soils that the seed would fall into. And the first one he talks about is by the wayside. And this is that pathway, the road that we've talked about, along the edge of the field where the ground was firmly trodden.

The people traveling along it. And it was packed so hard that the seed just fell there, laid there on top of the ground, had no place to lodge. There's no place to fall into and withdraw moisture and germinate. Now let's go down into verse 19 to look for Jesus' explanation about this wayside soil.

In verse 19, he says, When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by the wayside. So Jesus says the seed in this parable illustrates the word of the kingdom, God's word, and specifically the word which would ultimately call hearers to follow him in faith, the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And by implication, the sower is Christ himself in this telling of the parable, but by extension, could picture anyone spreading the gospel in evangelism, that sower who is sowing the seed of God's word. There's nothing wrong with the seed. There's nothing wrong with the sower. They're consistent throughout the parable.

Christ makes his perfect word available for all to hear. So let's focus now on the ground, the wayside, the hard ground. This represents one. Who hears the word and does not understand it. And you'll notice here, and actually in all four illustrations of the soil here, they each hear the word.

Each hearer hears the word. But hearing the gospel is not enough to produce genuine faith, just hearing it. The difference is how they respond to it. Jesus shows in this parable that the condition of your heart affects the way the hearer responds to his word, because it's the heart that must respond to the truth of the gospel.

Many of you Sunday school veterans have memorized Romans 10, 9, and 10, right? If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For if it's with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it's with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.

It's the heart where belief takes place, where it takes hold and germinates. Well, let's talk about the heart for a minute. What is the heart? The Bible considers the heart to be the center of human personhood, producing the things that we would ordinarily ascribe to the mind. In Scripture, we see that the heart produces grief, desires, joy, understanding, thoughts, reasoning.

These are all. Products of the heart. And it's also in the heart where faith and belief must germinate and grow from. These are the things of the heart. So in this parable, this hard-packed wayside soil illustrates a hard heart, a condition of hard-hardeness that actually prevents one from understanding, from comprehending, from grasping the truth of God's word.

It just bounces off, it doesn't penetrate. The hearer does not understand the word because although he hears it, he is unteachable. And we see a few examples of this in Scripture. Immediately, you can think of the book of Exodus. You've got the Pharaoh. Many times, his heart was hard as he dealt with Moses.

So you've got the hard-hearted Pharaoh who had a hard heart. In Daniel, King Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel chapter 5 says that King Nebuchadnezzar's heart became arrogant and hardened with pride. So there are many examples in Scripture of this hard heart. In Romans chapter 1, toward the end of this chapter, the Apostle Paul writes that men who suppress the truth and ungodliness are eventually given over to their sinful desires of their hardened hearts.

And we read about that there will come a time when God will give them over to a debased mind. This is the hardened heart. Heart, which is no longer capable of even understanding God's word. So, in this way, the wicked one comes and snatches it away. The seed's just laying there.

The word is heard but not understood. Just bounces off the hard heart like seed bounces off the wayside, hard as concrete, and the devil keeps that heart from understanding the truth of his word. So, here's the lesson of the wayside soil: The hard soil is the hard heart.

Just as the hardness of the ground along the wayside prevents the seed from settling into the soil and germinating, so the hardness of a heart can prevent God's good news of salvation and redemption from penetrating and enabling that person to be convicted of their need for forgiveness through Jesus Christ.

This hard soil by the wayside, the hard heart, produces no fruit. Not even the seed remains. It's snatched away. Next, we have two soils. We'll take them one at a time, but they each illustrate different levels of dead faith or false belief. The first one we come to is the shallow soil, this rocky soil or stony soil.

In verse 5, we read about it, Matthew 13, verse 5. Some fell on stony places where they did not have much earth, and they immediately sprang up because they had no earth. Depth of earth. But when the sun was up, they were scorched, and because they had no root, they were withered away.

I think by this time of the year, as dry as it's been, we've all seen that, right? You've seen some places in your yard maybe that there was no depth and that grass didn't survive, or different places. So here we notice the seed falling in this soil. It's described as stony and without much earth.

So this is shallow ground. Okay, it's not just soil that has rocks mixed among it, but there's actually a layer of rock below a very thin layer of soil. It's shallow. It doesn't allow the roots to penetrate beyond this thin layer of soil because they just run into this rocky layer.

The seed germinates, it comes in contact with this thin layer of soil, and it springs up quickly as it uses up the moisture that's available there, but there's not much because there's no depth for the roots to penetrate to get more moisture. And this lack of depth results in this fledgling plant struggling to get some stability and growth.

It quickly withers away in the hot scorching sun. So that's the seed trying to germinate and grow in the shallow soil. Jesus' explanation of this is in verse 20. He says, But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy.

Yet, he He has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, he immediately stumbles. So, this is an interesting reaction, different than the hard soil where there's no understanding. This hearer hears the word and receives it with joy, with happiness, with cheerfulness.

And that sounds pretty good. Now, a true understanding of the gospel does produce everlasting joy, but this is not what's in view here, because it also says that he has no root in himself. This is a shallow, superficial understanding, which is really no understanding. This phrase has no root in himself, is spoken of one who has a superficial experience of divine truth, but has not permitted it to make its way into the inmost recesses of his soul.

It doesn't transform his life. So, here we see a gleeful response to the blessings of the gospel with no understanding of the gospel call to obedience and submission to the Lordship of Christ. This sounds good. I've come that they may have life and that they may have it more abundantly.

That sounds pretty good, right? Sign me up for that. Abundant life? I receive that with joy. So he joyfully receives the word, starts coming together. Church, maybe even Sunday school, and by all appearances, this seed is growing into a nice plant. But it's not long before he hears verses like this: If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

Wait a minute. Deny myself? Don't like the sound of that. Take up my cross? Follow me? You want me to submit? I don't like the sound of that. And so this hearer does not endure long. When things get difficult, he immediately stumbles, like the plant that withers in the scorching heat of the sun.

This shallow hearer does not have the genuine faith to persevere in a trial, or when he's challenged to stand up for his faith, or when he's challenged to obey Christ's commands. There's no fruit. There's no perseverance. Was he a believer who fell away? No. Here's the lesson of the shallow soil.

The superficial hearer. Although he looked good for a while, this is not genuine faith because it does not endure. Therefore, it was not genuine in the first place. This is an example of the dead faith spoken of in James chapter 2. It's a faith that produces no works, no fruit, no endurance, and it's not the faith of God.

That saves. Well, the next soil we come to is another description of a false belief, a dead faith. And this is the thorny soil, the soil that is full of thorns. Let's read in verse 7 about this soil. Some seed fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them.

We've probably seen this too if you've got a garden or you've farmed like we have in the past. Here, the seed falls into soil that's infested with thorns, weeds, other undesirable plants. They're going to spring up and overtake any plant that grows from seed and suffocate it. Competition from the thorny plants sap the nutrition and the moisture.

They prevent the plant from maturing and producing fruit. Notice that this plant doesn't die quickly like the previous one that grew in the shallow soil. It appears to have some initial growth, surrounded by the thorny plants and briars, yet it becomes stunted, unable to grow or mature to fruition.

So that's the seed that grows among the thorns. It's choked out, produces no fruit. In verse 22, Jesus gives the meaning of the thorns. He says, Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful.

So the thorns, Jesus says, represent the cares of this world, anxiety, the seed of riches. This points to the distraction that occurs when we're focused on abundance, plenty, material possessions. Too much concern over worldly matters chokes the growth of the word. This is one who hears the word, but has made worldly pursuits the priority of his life.

He's too busy. He's too busy with those pursuits for things like reading God's Word, prayer, Sunday school, church, fellowship. Those have so little value to him that they're not going to fit in his schedule. He is too busy. For him, the priority is getting ahead in the things that matter in this world.

The accumulation of wealth, career advancement, prestige, living in the right neighborhood, driving the right car, and other status symbols that elevate him. Now, don't misunderstand what I'm saying. Hard work and material possessions are not evil, but when they possess you and they keep you from pursuing the eternal things of God, Then they can become idols.

We had read earlier from 1 John in chapter 2. And if I'd have kept reading, we'd have gotten to verse 15. It says this: 1 John 2:15 says, Do not love the world or the things in this world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. In Luke, this parable has this phrase. He puts it like this: They are choked by worries, riches, and pleasures of life.

Pleasures of life, pleasures of this life. Their focus is on this life, this world, not the world to come. And so the question is: which life are you focused on? These things choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful. The Greek construction here of this becomes unfruitful demonstrates the passage of some time, such as it came to pass.

So the worldly hearer has a different reaction than the shallow hearer. He does not immediately wither in the heat. He endures for a time. Perhaps there was some time, there was some fruit at the beginning, but after some time, the fruit stopped. The plant became unfruitful. Luke puts it, he also puts it like this: They bring no fruit to maturity.

And this term means that the fruit does not ripen. So the fruit begins, but it doesn't ripen. It doesn't come to fruition. So the fruit is set in a bud. Maybe it lasts for a while, but then it shrivels up and disappears. It's choked out. The thorns are taking the nutrition and the moisture that that plant needs for the fruit to develop.

So this fruitless plant remains entangled in the thorn bush, and after a while, you can't tell it. You really can't tell one from the other. They're just all tangled up together. It looks like one of us. He may look like one of us, but he's not because there's no fruit.

In Matthew chapter 6, verse 24, Jesus gives another explanation of why. In the Sermon on the Mount, he says, No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other.

This is what's in view here. You cannot serve God and mammon. God and material possessions, he will not share his glory. You have to pick one. Our passions determine our priorities. When we devote more time and energy to the temporal pursuits over those of eternal value, we should not be surprised to see temporal.

Results. I think there's an excellent example of this type of hearer in the Old Testament, a camp follower, one who followed but never really belonged. You find it in 2 Kings chapter 3. You can turn there if you want to, but I'm going to summarize the story. It's in the period of Elisha, one of the prophets of the Old Testament.

He had a servant named Gehazi. We read about Gehazi in those first chapters of 2 Kings. But in verse 5, we read about an episode. Of course, Gehazi had been Elisha's servant for a long time. He served this man of God, this prophet, hearing God's word. He served him rather faithfully for some time.

He even participated in a miracle where Elisha raises a young boy from the dead. So he's seen the works of God. He's heard the word of God. But there's a time where Elisha in chapter 5 is approached by Naaman, someone, a military officer from another country. And Naaman has leprosy, and he comes to Elisha with treasures.

He's got talents of silver and many changes of clothing. He offers them to Elisha if he will heal him. Elisha refuses. You know the story. Eventually, Elisha tells him what to do, go bathe in the Jordan River seven times, and he is healed of his leprosy. He offers to pay Elisha.

Elisha refuses, and Naaman goes. On his way with his treasure. Gehazi is looking at that and going, man, sure was a lot of treasure walking out of here. So he goes after Naaman and he tracks Naaman down and he tells Naaman that, he tells him a lie. He says, look, we have need of some of that now.

Some two men have come and we need two talents of silver and two changes of clothes. My master has need of that. And so Naaman gives Gehazi this money and these clothing and he goes back. And Gehazi goes back, and when Elisha confronts him, Where have you been?

I haven't been anywhere. He lies to Elisha. And Elisha, at God's word, God strikes Gehazi with leprosy and he's cast out from Elisha. So this is one who has been around the ministry, but he just can't get away from, I got to get my hands on that treasure.

And so this is one. This is the lesson here then of the thorny soil, the worldly hearer. The pursuits of this world gobble him up. Is he a believer that fell away? No. He represents a double-mindedness that gives lip service to the word, but there's no understanding. He has this in common with the shallow soil.

It may have taken longer, but his faith is not the kind that endures. Therefore, this also is not genuine faith in the first place. This is another case of dead faith, the kind that does not produce fruit. It serves its true master, the world, and does not bow the knee in obedience to the Lord.

Well, we move now to the fourth soil, the good soil. And in verse 8, we read simply that others fell on good ground and yielded a crop, some a hundredfold, some 60, some 30. So finally, we arrive at the good ground. We've been through the hard ground, the hard soil, the rocky soil, the thorny soil, and now we're at the good soil.

This is the soil that's deep enough to take in the seed and allow it to germinate so that it can shoot roots deep into the root zone. And this good soil is pure. It's free of thorns. It's deep, it's pure, it's free of anything that would compete with the seed as it grows to maturity.

Good soil produces a crop that results in an abundant harvest. Well, let's say what Jesus has to say about the good soil in verse 23. He says, But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces, some a hundredfold, some 60, some thirty.

The good ground here represents a heart that's ready to hear, so the hearer understands. Notice that this is the only one of the four soils that said to, or the only one of the four hearers, that said to understand the word. This is also the only one that produces any fruit.

And there's no guessing about this fruit. It's abundant. It's evident. It's clear. It's not a quick upsprout that withers in the heat. This is not a plant that's choked and surrounded by thorny plants. Jesus says it's a hundredfold, sixty-fold, thirty-fold. As Jesus tells it, does it sound like the sower is concerned about varying levels of fruitfulness?

Is he disappointed in the 30-fold? No. No. The fruit is evident. It's still a good harvest. Some places will yield more bountifully than others, but the sower is still delighted. True understanding of God's word produces a fruit that testifies to the reality of your faith. So here's the lesson of the good soil: the fruitful hearer.

One who understands the word produces fruit. It's as simple as that. One who understands the word produces fruit. This is the indicator of genuine faith. When he heard and understood the word, he produced fruit in abundance. This is what distinguishes genuine faith from dead faith. One produces fruit, one has no fruit.

And it's the fruit, those are the works that give evidence of this faith. Let's go back to these numbers: 100fold, 60-fold, 30-fold. Why is that included? It's included in two of the three tellings of the parable. I believe it's significant. Of course, it is. Jesus also teaches what we know from experience.

Not all believers are equally fruitful. That's okay. Yet he also teaches that the fruit we produce should be obvious and not hard to find. Our lives should be characterized by good fruit, whether it's 30-fold or 60-fold or 100-fold, that's still pretty obvious. The good fruit should be the norm in our lives, not the exception.

You shouldn't have to look too hard at a genuine believer to say, yeah, there's good fruit there. Now, we've talked a lot about fruit. And when we talk about fruit in the Christian life, what are we talking about? Let's examine this concept of fruit. Fruit is mentioned a lot in Scripture.

And in the New Testament, we read about the fruit of the Spirit. Many of you can say them: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control. Those are the fruits we're going to be. Talking about. Those should be evident of someone who has genuine faith. We also read about fruits of righteousness that God performs through us when we live in submission to Christ and obey His commands.

In Ephesians chapter 2, we read, we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we could walk in them, so that we would walk in them. So, genuine faith produces good works in the believer. Faith is not the result of works, but it is the cause of them.

The Christian life, of course, is certainly marked with ups and downs and brief periods where fruit is not evident when we stumble into sin, but that should not be the pattern of our lives that characterizes our lives as followers of Christ. We should not be characterized by a lifestyle of sin, but more for the fruit, the good works that we do through the power of Jesus Christ.

We should not be characterized by the love of things of this world, but instead by a love for and the pursuit of God's Word and for the things of God. So, just as the soil's condition affects the growth of the seed, so the condition of your heart affects your understanding of the gospel.

Let me ask this question. What can the soil do to change its condition? That soil, that ground, what power does it have to change its condition? Nothing. Only the great sower, who before he sows, is also the great plower of the soil. Only before he sows the seed can the great sower change the condition by running a plow over the soil.

In Jeremiah chapter 4, verse 3, it speaks of, break up your fallow ground and do not sow among thorns. So only the great sower can plow the soil, breaking up the crusty surface so the seed can fall into the furrows and germinate. Only the great sower can plow the soil, penetrating deeply into that root zone to allow the groups to grow down deep for stability.

Only the great sower can plow that soil, destroying the thorns and the weeds that grow there, preventing them from growing so that when seed lands there, it can grow uninhibited without competing for the nutrients and moisture in the soil. So only when the soil is properly prepared can the seed produce a fruitful crop.

Titus 3:5 puts it like this: Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewing. Of the Holy Spirit. It is God who washes us, who regenerates us, who plows our hearts, who prepares the heart to receive the word.

It's He who regenerates us by washing and renewing our hearts. It's He who provides the faith to believe and to trust the message of the gospel. It's He who convicts our hearts and grants us the grace to repent. So I've got to ask this question: what is the condition of your heart?

Is it hard? Is it shallow? Is it thorny, distracted by the cares of this world? Jesus warned His disciples of those who would hear the Word, but they would not understand. He said, The hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal them.

The sower wants to heal you, he wants to penetrate your heart. So, what can we do? We can't plow our own soil. If I'm the soil, I can't plow myself. I can't change my own heart. Only God can. So, all we can do is pray. We have to trust the Lord.

We have to pray to Him that God would plow your heart like the field in this parable, that He would break up the hard-packed places that resist Him. You have to pray that God would plow deeply to break up a shallow, superficial heart that will not allow God's word to take root.

Pray that he will remove the thorns from your heart that distract you so his word can grow there to maturity to produce the fruit, an abundant fruit that gives evidence of genuine faith. David prayed prayers like this. In Psalm 51, he says, Create in me a clean heart, O God.

Renew in me a steadfast spirit. In Psalm 139, in verse 23, he says, Search me, O God, and know my heart. See if there's any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you have given us your word, Lord, that teaches us the way of righteousness, that teaches us about your forgiveness that you have earned for us on the cross.

Lord, I pray for the hearers here whose hearts are hard or shallow or thorny. Lord, that you would plow these hearts, that you would, Lord, help the word to penetrate, that they would have ears to hear and eyes to see. So they can understand with their hearts in turn, so that you may heal them.

We ask these things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.