God's Planting (1995)

Introduction: The Context of Jesus' Words on God's Planting

0:00 The following message was delivered on Sunday evening, March 12th, 1995, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now those of you who regularly attend upon the ministry here are aware that we've just completed an 18 message and two Sunday school discussion periods added to those messages, a series on the subject of Christian liberty. And in this Lord's Day of transition, before launching into new series of studies in the Word of God, I have sought to know what might be an appropriate word for the morning and evening ministry and over the years have come to the conviction that on such occasions one can never be wrong in preaching on those very fundamental... fundamental and central issues of basic saving gospel truth.

1:04 And so this morning we consider together from the 18th chapter of Luke, our Lord's parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee seeking to open up the passage under the extended imagery of our Lord, giving us a guided tour through a portrait gallery in which we see the smug... self-sufficient Pharisee in contrast to the penitent, broken-hearted publican.

1:36 Now tonight I'd ask you to turn with me to the 15th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew and while our attention will be focused primarily upon one verse in this passage, it is important that we see the setting in which the Lord spoke these words, and so I shall read in your hearing Matthew chapter 15 verses 1 through 20. Matthew chapter 15 and verse 1. Then there come to Jesus from Jerusalem Pharisees and scribes saying, Why do your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread. And he answered and said unto them, Why do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition? For God said, Honor your father and your mother, and he that speaks evil of father or mother, let him die the death.

2:51 But you say, Whosoever shall say to his father or mother, That wherewith you might have been profited by me, is given to God, he shall not honor his father. And you have made void the word of God because of your tradition. You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying, This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

3:24 But in vain do they worship me, teaching as their doctrines, the precepts of men. And he called to him the multitude and said unto them, Hear and understand. Not that which enters into the mouth defiles the man, but that which proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles the man. Then came the disciples and said unto him, Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?

3:59 And he answered and said, Every plant which my heavenly Father planted not, shall be rooted up. Let them alone. They are blind guides, and if the blind guide the blind, both shall fall into a pit. And Peter answered and said unto him, Declare unto us the parable.

4:27 And he said, Are you also even yet without understanding? Don't you perceive that whatsoever goes into the mouth passes into the belly, and is cast out into the draught? But the things which proceed out of the mouth come forth out of the heart, and they defile the man. For out of the heart come forth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, railings.

5:05 These are the things which defile the man. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile the man. Now let us again seek God's face in prayer and ask the help of the Holy Spirit as we study the word of God together. Our Father, we thank you for the record of this encounter of our Lord Jesus with the religious leaders of his day and his interaction with the disciples concerning the verbal exchange between them.

5:49 And we pray that the same Holy Spirit who moved the biblical penman to write these words would be present even now to illuminate our minds, to help the preacher to speak your words with accuracy and in the power of the Spirit, and to help your people to attend with carefulness and with discernment and teachableness, and that together we may be conscious that you are present speaking to us in all the livingness of your word. Hear our cry, bind the powers of darkness, that wicked one and the host of hell that would seek even while we attempt to attend to the word, to distract our minds to the passing concerns of this life. O God, help us that your word may run and have free course and be glorified in this place and in every place where it is truly preached this night. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.

7:07 Now, if you were paying attention to the reading of these first 20 verses of Matthew chapter 15, you will have immediately recognized that it is the record of one of the many encounters which our Lord Jesus had with the scribes and with the Pharisees. And as most of you are well aware, the Pharisees and the scribes were the leaders of the popular religious system which dominated Jewish life in the days of our Lord. And this is why throughout the Gospel records you find them popping up here, there, and everywhere. The scribes and the Pharisees and at other times some who are called the doctors of the law. However, while supposedly basing their beliefs and practices squarely upon the Old Testament scriptures, they had effectively negated the practical impact of the word of God and had done so by means of their man-made traditions. In verse 3, Jesus said to them, You transgress the commandment of God

8:32 because of your tradition. And then he gave them a clear example of how they were actually transgressing the fifth commandment by a tradition which gave them a very clever bypass around the demands of the fifth commandment as those demands touched their purse strings. But not only does he accuse them in verse 3 of transgressing the word of God because of their traditions, in verse 6 he says that their traditions were actually nullifying the word of God. He shall not honor his Father, verse 6b, and you have made void the word of God because of your traditions. So they were not only transgressing clear commandments of God in pursuit of their man-made traditions, they were actually making the word of God null and void. They were neutralizing it by their traditions. Therefore, because our Lord was fulfilling the scriptures and was constantly teaching the true intention of the scriptures, was constantly stripping away all of the barnacles and all of the veneer which they had laid over them,

9:59 had laid over the word of God by their traditions, our Lord was in constant conflict with the scribes and with the Pharisees. Now in the midst of one of these recorded encounters, these recorded conflicts, he had publicly exposed their error. For verse 10 said he called unto him the multitudes and said unto them, Hear and understand. And in a very public manner, he exposes the principle that lies behind this nonsense of the Pharisees' preoccupation with external washing of hands and taking the disciples to task because they didn't keep their hand-washing tradition while all the while they are openly violating clear moral precepts of the word of God. And having openly exposed them, the disciples come to Jesus and tell him in verse 12, Then came the disciples and said, Don't you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying? Lord, aren't you aware that this is going to heighten the tension between you and the official guides of the world?

11:26 And rulers of the religious life of Israel. You go on with this kind of public showing them for what they really are and this is going to heighten and intensify the conflict. And it is to that concern of the disciples that Jesus be aware that he had offended the scribes and Pharisees by publicly exposing them that Jesus answered in the words of verse 13. But he answered and said, Every plant or more literally every planting which my heavenly Father planted not shall be rooted up. And it is that text to which I want to direct your attention tonight. But in its setting so that as we handle the text and as we seek to make application to it we will see the peculiar relevance of these words being spoken in that particular setting. This is one of those statements that our Lord could have spoken in any number of settings using this imagery.

The Imagery Employed: God as Gardener and Believers as His Plants

12:45 And could have said every plant which my heavenly Father has not planted shall be rooted up. But it is spoken in a unique setting and it brings to it then no little matter of insight as we keep before us that setting. But as I attempt to open up the text in your hearing I want you to notice with me first of all what I'm calling the imagery employed. The imagery employed.

13:20 Our Lord is here using verbal imagery. He is seeking with words to paint a picture upon the minds of his disciples. And in this passage Jesus is using the extended metaphor that is a figure of speech in which something is called something else without using the word like. When we say of someone who played very fervently in a game that he played like a tiger, that's a simile.

13:55 If we say he was a tiger in that game that's a metaphor. We don't use the word like. We say he was a tiger. We don't mean that he suddenly turned into this animal with four legs and a long tail.

14:08 But we are dropping the word like. We are not using a simile. We're using a metaphor. And that's what our Lord is doing here.

14:16 He is using an extended metaphor and it has in it two dominant factors. God the Father and every true child of God. God the Father. Look at the passage.

14:32 But he answered and said every planting which my heavenly Father planted not. Here the Father is likened to a domestic gardener or horticulturalist one who personally plants, plants of his choosing grows plants of his own choosing in his own arrangement. God the Father is likened to a domestic gardener. And then the second part of this imagery, this extended metaphor is every true child of God is likened to a planting of God in his own personal garden. Every planting which my heavenly Father has not planted shall be utterly rooted out taken out of his garden. So the second part of the imagery is that the Father who is the domestic gardener or horticulturalist is planted out in a garden and in that garden every plant of his hands

15:58 is a true child of God. A possessor of true saving heart religion. And that imagery is picked up by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter 3. You may want to turn there for a moment.

16:16 The Apostle Paul here in dealing with the problem of divisions in the church at Corinth over the various servants of God who had ministered among them is trying to sort out their mistaken concepts about the ministry and in so doing he uses imagery from the farm, from the garden. We read in verse 5 of 1 Corinthians 3 What then is Apollos, what is Paul, ministers through whom you believed and each as the Lord gave to him? I planted Apollos watered but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth anything neither he that waters but God who gives the increase. Now he that plants and he that waters are one but each shall receive his own reward according to his own labor for we are God's fellow workers you are God's husbandry literally you are God's tilled land. And then he uses another imagery you are God's building. But here he says you the people of God who are the fruit of the saving work of God through the various servants of God and their labors you are true plants in God's tilled land

17:45 you are God's garden of grace. So the imagery employed in the passage then is the imagery that will become very real to many of you in a few months time when you plow up that patch of your backyard where you have your vegetable garden and what is placed in the ground and what is weeded and what is trimmed and what is nourished with fertilizer from which you'll get your various vegetables is a tilled plant. Plot of land. And anyone who knows anything about that will know that that thing just didn't spring up of its own with all of the various vegetables in their particular rows and each plant so many inches or feet apart and the tomatoes staked and cut back and trained for maximum fruit bearing it's that imagery of a plot of ground into which plants have been placed that did not simply grow wild but were planted by an intelligent caring gardener. So that's the imagery employed by our Lord when he said in response to the concern of the disciples every planting which my heavenly Father has not planted

The Assumption Expressed: False Plants in the Visible Church

19:13 shall be rooted up. That's the imagery employed. But now notice secondly the assumption expressed. There is an assumption of our Lord expressed in this passage.

19:31 And that assumption is this that there will be plants found in the garden of the visible community of his people who are not the result of his work of planting. Do you see that in the text? Every planting which my heavenly Father has not planted shall be rooted up. And it's a vigorous word in the Greek.

20:02 It shall be utterly torn out of the ground. But the assumption is that it's there amongst his planting. Every plant which my heavenly Father has not planted shall be rooted up. The assumption expressed is that in the garden of the visible community of his people will be those who are not the result of his planting.

20:36 There will be those who like the Pharisees have earned the status of being considered religious people who are very meticulous about their religious rituals who practice many religious ceremonies even more than those required by God. And we had a little picture of that when we looked at that first portrait in Luke 18. God nowhere required of his people that they fast twice in the week. That was a tradition of theirs.

21:12 God had required the annual fast and occasionally through the prophets in the time of Christ called the nation to seasons of fasting and humiliation. But they went even beyond what God required in what we would call meticulous and even self-denying religious rituals. There will be those who say their prayers who give their tithe of mint and anise in common of all that they possess. But the assumption of our Lord is that not every plant that is found in his garden is a plant of his own working and a plant that he himself has placed there. Every planting which my heavenly Father planted not shall be rooted up. So we've considered briefly the imagery employed. Secondly, the assumption expressed.

The Prophecy Made: Every False Plant Shall Be Rooted Up

22:13 Now thirdly, note the prophecy made. The prophecy made. Every plant which my heavenly Father did not plant shall, shall, shall be rooted up. Planting which my Father did not plant shall be rooted.

22:48 Now what does that prophecy mean? It means that God who knows each of his plants in his garden and who knows every plant that is in the garden of his visible people that is not a true planting will himself take the initiative utterly to tear it up from the roots. There is not a strict parallel but there are certainly overtones of parallel in that which our Lord teaches in Matthew 13 about letting wheat and tares grow until the day of harvest. There our Lord clearly says the field is the world and as long as the world exists alongside of God's true wheat will be this darnel this false wheat that looks so much like real wheat. And that's not talking about the church. It says the field is the world but the point is in the world there are those who will bear a great resemblance to his people who will have religious profession and religious activity and indulge in religious rituals and ceremonies but they are not true wheat.

24:16 And at the end of the age the Lord Jesus said that which is the tares shall be taken out of his kingdom and gathered into bundles and cast into the fire and shall be burnt so that the prophecy made is that a time is coming when every plant not planted by the Father shall be rooted up. It shall be taken out from the company of his true plants. It shall be taken away from the company of his true plants. Every single plant which my heavenly Father planted not shall be rooted. Now in the light of the teaching of this verse briefly opened up under those headings of the imagery employed the assumption expressed in the prophecy made do you see the very simple question that I want to press upon the conscience of each one of you sitting here tonight? I think you can anticipate it. Those of you who sit under this ministry and know the way the message often unfolds you can anticipate it.

Mark 1: True Religion is a Matter of the Heart

25:39 The one simple direct but all important question I want to ask you is this. Are you God's planting? That's it. Are you a plant is your presence among his visible people the fruit of that which only God can do?

26:11 Are you the product of what the scripture calls his workmanship created anew in Christ Jesus? Are you God's planting? Are you a man a woman a boy or girl with the seed of the soul. Are you God's planting?

26:42 Are you the fruit is the fruit of the seed of the seed of the seed of the soul. Are you God's planting among But you see, it is a question of supreme importance because our text says, Every planting which my Father has not planted shall be rooted up. And if you are not God's planting, you are marked to be plucked up and rooted out and cast off by this very God. Well, you say, Pastor Martin, I can see the importance of the question in the light of the context and in the light of the words of our Lord Jesus. How can I know if I'm God's planting? How can I know if I am His workmanship?

27:55 Well, in answer to that question, it would be relatively simple to take what we call the analogy of Scripture, that is the overall teaching of Scripture, and bring from a number of passages some of those major marks of a true work of God's grace. When Paul says, One sowed, another watered, God gave the increase. What are the evidences when God gives the increase and brings forth a true plant of His own working? And we could do that, and that would be a legitimate way to answer the question.

28:29 But I want to answer the question out of the context of this very passage. For remember, our Lord said these words with peculiar reference to the scribes and to the Pharisees. And you will notice that in conjunction with this particular encounter with the scribes and Pharisees, the great issue is the issue of whether or not God is more concerned with the outside than with the inside. With the washing of the hands, or the washing of the heart.

29:09 Do you see how the passage is bounded by that emphasis? Look at it again. The whole incident began, verse 1, when there came to Jesus from Jerusalem Pharisees and scribes saying, Why do your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? And then they get very specific.

29:33 They wash not their hands. They wash not their hands when they eat bread. You see, their great concern was these external washings which would render their devotees in their eyes clean, set apart unto God, undefiled. And when Jesus' disciples did not go through all of their prescribed rituals of external washings, they were deeply concerned.

30:07 And our Lord begins to address them by, first of all, saying, as we've already seen, Why do you transgress God's commandment because of your tradition? Why do you make void the word of God by your tradition? But notice what he hones in on again in verse 10. And he called to him the multitude and said unto them, Listen and understand.

30:31 Not that which enters into the mouth defiles the man. If someone has failed, to keep all of the ceremonial washing rules and regulations of the scribes and Pharisees and picks up a piece of food with a hand that the Pharisees say is unclean, it's undefiled, it hasn't undergone all the ritual washings that we prescribe. Jesus said, such a man taking a piece of food with such a hand and putting it in his mouth, that doesn't defile him. He cannot become morally defiled by touching a piece of food and ingesting a piece of food that has failed to undergo all of the rituals of Pharisaic washing.

31:15 Don't you understand, he says? Not that which enters into the mouth defiles the man, but that which proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles the man. And after the disciples say, don't you know they're offended, then our text, Jesus says in verse 14, Let them alone, they are blind guides. If the blind are blind, they are blind.

31:37 If the blind guide the blind, both fall into the pit. And then, apparently, Peter and the other disciples draw aside with our Lord alone, and Peter says, declare to us the parable. You're speaking in parabolic language. We're not quite clear what you're saying.

31:55 To which the Lord answers, are you even yet without understanding? Don't you perceive that whatever goes into the mouth, here's that piece of food again. There it was, on the table. Reaching out for it is a hand that maybe only went through two instead of five of the stages of ceremonial washing.

32:16 It takes the food, puts it in the mouth. What happens to it? He says, don't you understand? Whatever passes into the mouth goes down into the digestive system and goes under the normal processes of absorption and elimination.

32:31 It's done nothing in that whole process to touch the moral, the moral fiber of man. But the things which proceed out of the mouth come out of the heart. For out of the heart come forth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness railings. These are the things which defile the man.

33:04 But, and now notice it brings us right back to the issue addressed in the Old Testament. The opening verses, but to eat with unwashing hands defiles not the man. In the context in which our Lord says, every plant which my heavenly Father has not planted shall be rooted up. What is the great emphasis of our Lord on the mark of a planting of the Father's work?

33:34 It is a man, a woman, a boy, or a girl who has come to understand that true and saving religion is fundamentally an issue of the heart. That's it.

33:55 You're waiting for something profound? Sorry to disappoint you. But that's it. That's it.

34:01 In the context, that's it. That true and saving religion, those who are the Father's planting, have come to know. And understand and experience that the essence of true and saving religion is a matter of the heart.

34:26 It is first of all, as we saw in a parallel way this morning, it is coming to understand that my deepest problem is a heart problem. For it is the heart that is the sinkhole, the cesspool.

34:46 Of my sin, the artesian well that defiles me. For out of the heart come forth evil thoughts. When you have an evil thought, whether that evil thought is of lust, of envy, of bitterness, retaliation, out of the evil, out of the heart proceed murders that unbridled, animosity that will eventually raise the knife or pull the trigger, adulteries, violations of the sanctity of the marital covenant, fornication, any form of sexual impurity, be it lustful thoughts, lustful glances, dabbling in pornographic literature, whether it is any form of incestual contact between a father and his daughter, daughters or siblings, whatever it is, that's thinking and desiring and taking that which is another, bearing false witness, whether under oath or not under oath, lying, doing something other than telling the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, when I'm giving the impression that that's what I'm doing,

36:12 railings, abusive, negative, hypercritical speech, these are the things which defile the man. You see, all of the father's plantings in the garden of his grace have been brought to understand that true and saving religion is fundamentally an issue of the heart. And the first way they learn that is when God gives them a little bit of a sight of their own heart. And they begin to understand that these Pharisees, never did understand that defilement before God is not an issue that can be addressed by multiplying ceremonial washings and religious rituals, but that somehow the very power of God must touch that artesian well, that sinkhole, that cesspool of iniquity called the human heart. And they come to understand, that that's the seat and the root of their problem. Have you come to understand that?

37:32 That what you do in violation of the law of God is a revelation of what you are, and what you are is essentially what you are constituted in that heart which the scripture says is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. What is the plant of God's planting? It is that man, woman, boy or girl who has come to understand that true and saving religion is fundamentally an issue of the heart. And that fundamental to that understanding is the realization that my sin has its seat in my own heart.

Mark 2: Spiritual Sight Imparted

38:15 Not in society, not in the actions of my mother and father, not in the influence of my peers, not in any other source, but my own heart. Something that they did not understand. In the context, the second aspect of true and saving religion is that there is spiritual sight imparted with respect to spiritual realities. Verse 14, Let them alone, they are blind guides.

38:51 What a graphic image. Someone comes along and says, for a few shekels I'll be your guide through Jerusalem. And you say, what's your qualification to be my guide? He says, I'm a blind man.

39:05 You'd laugh him to scorn and say, no thank you. I want a guide who can truly guide me. In the places I should and should not go, a blind man guiding others both fall into the ditch. And in this setting, our Lord says, one of the marks of those who are not is planting.

39:24 They are not only ignorant of the great principle, that the heart is the seat of all saving religion. It is there that God's work of grace takes place, giving us a sight of what we are, of what we are capable of, and that what we do flows out of what we are, and that what we desperately need is a change that touches not just the externals, but touches the fountain of our moral actions, namely the human heart, but also those plants that are of the Father's planting are those who have been given spiritual sight to see spiritual realities for what they are. 1 Corinthians 2.14 says, The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. He has no faculty, to discern them.

40:27 He cannot know them. 2 Corinthians 4.4, In whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ should dawn upon them. The God of this world hath blinded the minds.

40:47 Jesus said, Let them alone. They are blind guides. These plantings that are not of my Father's planting, they are spiritually blind. And how was their blindness manifested?

41:04 Why, their blindness was manifested in this setting in two very predominant ways. First of all, they didn't have a clue of the true meaning of the law of God. They were able to take God's commandment, Thou shalt honor thy father and thy mother, and so trifle with them, that they could walk by the home of an indigent, starving, destitute mother or father on their way to the temple and take the money they should have used to care for that mother or father and give it to God, if they did indeed give it, call it Corban, dedicate it to God, come back to pay a visit to Mom and Dad and say, Sorry, things are so rough, but what I hope to give to you I have dedicated to God. And thereby exempted themselves from the fifth commandment. To say they were blind to the true intent of God's law, the spiritual demands of God's law, and one of the marks of those plantings that are God's plantings is by the Spirit He gives them not only to understand that their basic problem is a heart problem, but He gives them some spiritual perception of the demands and meaning of His holy law.

42:32 That that law touches the very springs of desire. That law touches attitudes and motives and thoughts and intentions of the heart. Just read the last half of Matthew chapter 5 when Jesus strips away all of the pharisaic scribal crust around the law and says, You have heard that it was said, that is, by the scribes and the pharisees, but I say unto you, Here is the true meaning of the law. And if you are a planting of God somewhere along the line in differing ways and with differing intensity, God gives to every one of His plantings not only the knowledge that their basic problem is a heart problem, but their problem is to be defined in terms of what they are and are not in the presence of the true intention of God's holy law. For the scripture says, By the law comes the knowledge of sin. Paul said, I had not known sin except the law said, Thou shalt not covet. And when the Holy Ghost took that tenth commandment in hand and began to burrow into the heart of this proud pharisee, and he realized, Here is the commandment that doesn't touch what I do with my hands

44:00 and where I go with my feet and what I say with my mouth, there was nothing in all of this pharisaic tradition that touched the deep inner springs of his heart. And when the Holy Spirit began to show him the true intention of that tenth commandment, he found no refuge in all of his pharisaic activities and endeavors, in all of his pharisaic religion, there was no refuge. He saw himself exposed and condemned by the law of God and he said, The law which was to be unto life I found to be unto death. The commandment came and sin revived and I died.

44:42 When God gives spiritual eyes to those who are His planting, He gives them some perception of the true meaning of His law. And then He will always give them some true perception of the proper identity of Jesus of Nazareth. Those whose eyes are open will see in Jesus of Nazareth, even as these disciples did and their sight was gradually unfolding, that already they had come to see that He was one worthy of being obeyed when He said to Peter and Andrew and James and John, leave your nets and follow Me. They had come into loving attachment of faith and obedience to the Lord Jesus. Though there was much ignorance, we see it right in this passage, and the Lord even shows an element of holy disappointment. Verse 16, Are you even yet without understanding?

45:49 Yet He's not casting them off because these are those who have seen in Him not an object with which they desire to debate, let alone to criticize. You see, the scribes and the Pharisees, they were prepared in their brassy, spiritual cheekiness to take on the Lord Jesus anywhere and everywhere. Even when He would put them to shame in argument and silence, and back they'd come, send another one of their Goliaths that they thought could slay this David, who dared to front them and to expose them for what they were. And if you're a plant of God's planting, one of the indications will be that the native spiritual blindness to the glory of God in the face of Christ will be removed, and you will see in the Lord Jesus God's perfect and final prophet to teach you, and you'll be prepared to humble yourself and sit at the feet of Jesus and let Him tell you and interpret to you all reality according to His word. You'll let Him tell you in the language of the children's hymn, holy Bible book divine, precious treasure thou art mine, mine to teach me, tell me whence I came,

47:18 mine to teach me what I am. You'll be prepared to be taught of the Lord Jesus, God's great and final prophet concerning who you are, where you came from. You'll be prepared to be taught of Him about what it is that God requires of you, what God will do if you do not fulfill His requirements, the wages of sin, His death. Cursed is everyone who continues not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them.

47:50 You will see in the Lord Jesus God's final and great and glorious priest who by His one sacrifice for sin has forever put away the sins of His people, who when He cried out upon the cross, it is finished. It was not poetic license going on beyond reality. It was, it stood, accomplished by one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified and gone back to the right hand of the Father. There by His intercession to secure infallibly a complete salvation on behalf of all for whom He shed His precious blood. You will see in Him God's great and final King worthy to rule over you and govern you, well able to protect and preserve you and bring you safely home at last into His presence. Eventually, not only to stretch out His scepter and govern this entire order while He completes His purposes of redemption, but to come in one final glorious manifestation of His kingly rule, to put the last enemy beneath His feet, even death, to raise His own and to usher in the new heavens and the new earth. If you're a planting of the Lord's,

49:17 your spiritual blindness concerning the nature of the law and the identity of the person and work of Christ will be removed. And the result will be that you're attached to the Lord Jesus in faith and in love. For you see, though Peter expresses on behalf of the disciples partial blindness, notice where he came for further light. He came to Jesus.

49:46 And he says, Lord, declare unto us the parable. You had every right to utter the parable, and you had a meaning in the parable, and what you meant is of supreme importance. So, Lord, declare it to us. He doesn't say, give us your opinion and we'll see whether it fits with our present notion.

50:04 You know, though there was partial ignorance, it was also a beautiful indication of the disposition of one whose eyes had been spiritually opened. And you remember it's in that very next chapter when the Lord Jesus says, different ones say this about me, I'm this, I'm that, I'm that, I'm that. But who do you say that I am? And Peter says, thou art the Christ, Son of the Living God.

50:32 And Jesus said, flesh and blood is not revealed this unto thee. You didn't learn this by just doing your catechism questions, Peter. But my Father who is in heaven has revealed it to you. You're one of his plants, Peter.

Mark 3: Bearing Spiritual Fruit

50:47 And one of the marks of his plants is that he takes away the spiritual blindness and gives a saving sight of the Lord Jesus. Then the third mark of his plants. The first is they understand that true religion is an issue of the heart. A real problem is a heart problem.

51:11 The solution must be a heart solution. His plantings are those in whom he takes away native spiritual blindness and gives a true and accurate sight with respect to the law and with respect to the person and work of the Lord Jesus. And then though there is nothing explicit in this passage, it is implicit, it is explicit in many other passages. And that is God's plantings are never barren sticks in the ground.

51:48 Remember in the parable of the sower, the seed that fell upon good soil brought forth fruit. Thirty, sixty, a hundredfold with endurance. John 15, the imagery of the branch and the vine. Every branch in me that bears fruit, he proves that it may bring forth more fruit.

52:15 If there is one who seems to be attached to me, is attached to me by profession and association, but there is no fruit born, what is done to it? The husbandman cuts off such branches, they are cast into the fire and they are burned. Our Lord is not teaching we can lose salvation. What He is teaching in that extended metaphor is that where His saving grace has come, there will always be fruit.

52:47 But not all who profess to be in Christ are vitally joined to Christ. And if you are the Father's planting, there will be fruit. Degrees of fruit, yes, thirty, sixty, a hundred, but fruit there will be. The fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, long-suffering, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control.

53:17 The fruit of some measure of growing conformity to the image of Christ, 2 Corinthians 3 and verse 18. The fruit of a desire that others shall know Christ. The fruit of ongoing tenderness to sin and constant going to the fountain open for sin and uncleanness. You see, these are matters that the Pharisees knew nothing about.

Application and Exhortation: Are You God's Planting?

53:45 These plantings that were not planted by the Father that were to be rooted up, there was nothing about them that defied expectations or explanation but that the Father had made them His plant. Everything in their religion was acquired by tradition, by dint of personal effort, by dint of personal discipline, but they were utterly ignorant that their hearts were a sink hole of the foulest sin. What about you? You'll never forget an old Dr. Tozer before he died saying, I've seen a lot of ugly things in my life but the ugliest, vilest thing I've ever seen is my own heart. And you say that? You dear children, do you really believe though God has surrounded you with the wonderful restraints of parents who are hands on assertive rules of the word of God and they put

55:13 the reins on you? And so you are kept from many of the vile sins of kids in the neighborhood, kids in your school, kids on the block, kids here, kids there. And perhaps constitutionally God's given you a sensitive conscience if you so much as try to take a pin without asking your mom for such a tender conscience you've got to make it right. And that's the way you've been from as long as you remember but I want to ask you kids, do you really believe has God shown you that left to yourself you've got a heart that could produce the vilest sin that any kid of your age ever committed? Do you really believe that? Has God let you know that left to yourself you have a heart that is deceitful above all things and desperately? Then he'll open your eyes and when you begin to study the Ten Commandments afresh you'll see that when it says thou shalt have no other gods before me you don't just breathe easy and say, well I bet never bowed

56:42 my knee to an idol, I can buy all the things that you want just because you want them not because you need them but because you've seen them someone else has them they're in a catalogue and there is this powerful magnet of your wanter going out I want that I want this if only I could have that this would make me happy this would make me beautiful that's idolatry you're breaking the first commandment you begin to understand that when it says remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy and you begin to see that you dread the coming of the Lord say man a whole day Sunday, noon, church rather than saying a day when with a good conscience I can't do my homework a day when with a good conscience I can't be asked by dad to go out and rake the lawn in the Bible I can read good Christian biographies and I look forward to that time with mom and dad when we have quality time uninterrupted by other things you see an absence of delighting in the Lord's day is an evidence you have a heart that's distant from the Lord

58:08 whose day it is when it says honor thy father and thy mother that means something more than you just don't cuss him out and punch him out when you get big in your heart you thank God that he's placed them over you to govern you and guide you and direct you and even though at times you may chafe at that guidance when you do you say oh Lord forgive me I know that's wickedness and sin you've come to realize that in your heart left to yourself your native hatred of government exercised over you by mom and dad is such you do what those skinheads tell you every time in your heart you have felt that bitterness when they've reigned you in left to blossom that bitterness would be murder and if you're one of God's plantings kids God's begun to show you that to some degree to some degree and then if you're one of God's plantings he's given you eyes spiritual eyes to see to some degree that the Lord Jesus is perfectly suited to all your needs you've come to the best of your knowledge to embrace him as your prophet your priest and your king according to the Bible repentance

59:37 and faith are always joined to a loving attachment to the person of Christ in repentance we turn from our sin in faith we turn to an eternal life we turn to and trust in the Lord Jesus and then with all our hearts we embrace him to be his on his terms as we sang in the hymn tonight we found a friend and having discovered that friend we say that we gladly give him our all this is the mark of our love our one and only and only beautiful love of our father who willing us to worship the father who is of all that we have to be giving to us in but your parents had to get hold of that and you were patient and so I'm glad to have a special

61:05 concentrated portion for you tonight but though I've been speaking to you kids what about you moms and dads visitors, adults here can you say in the light of what we've considered from this passage tonight by the grace of God there's no explanation for what I am but that I am one of God's plants in the language of Ephesians 2.10 I am his workmanship created anew in union with Christ Jesus I'm not a perfect product of his workmanship but I am a product of his workmanship I'm not the perfect plant that has no malformed leaves and no grubs on it that is as fully flowered and fruitful as it could be no but I am a plant concerning which there's no rational explanation but that the heavenly father planted me I've seen my heart enough to know that if God left me to myself there's no sin anyone's ever condemned it could not be justly charged I know that if I ever have true and saving religion it must touch the springs of my very being

62:33 my heart I'll not be content with some ideas that wash through my brain and some ceremonies that will as it were wash over my hands and feet and give me a respectable life I'll not be content with anything short a religion that changes my heart Christ died to ratify the new covenant and one of the assured blessings of the new covenant is a new heart God says this is the covenant I will make I will take out my heart I will take out my heart I will take out the heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh are you his planting?

63:17 you've seen your heart you know that nothing less than a transformation of heart is of the essence of true religion but about your eyes has the native blindness to the true meaning of the law and the true beauty and glory of Christ been removed and are you now bringing forth the fruits of one united Christ I leave you with this very simple text from the lips of our Lord Jesus every plant which my heavenly father planted not shall shall shall be rooted if you say I cannot say that I'm his planting what do I do? here's the marvel of it you go to the God who can make you his plant and if we thought that getting you to walk down an aisle would do it we'd come out there and do it get you in a hammer lock and force you to walk down this aisle fifty times if that would do it if we thought that raising a hand would do it we'd get three or four people to gang up on you and jerk your hand as high as we could but we're not asking you to walk an aisle to raise a hand you need to go directly to the God who alone can make you his planting

64:45 seek the Lord seek the Lord while he may be found call upon him while he is near let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord for he will have mercy upon him and to our God for he will abundantly and if you've been able to sit here and say yes yes yes yes yes I am a planting of the Lord then dear child of God remember whatever the human instrument in your life may have been though one human instrument sowed in another water it was God that gave the increase he that glorieth then let him glory in the Lord and in the Lord alone and be renewed in the confidence that no plant that our Heavenly Father plants will ever wither and ever die until it's transplanted to a better place and then when it's transplanted there'll be no mal-shape in leaves there'll be no mal-shape in leaves and there'll be no mal-shape in leaves there'll be no little grubs under the leaves there'll be no partial fruitfulness we shall be the plantings of the Lord perfectly reflecting the image of our blessed Lord Jesus Christ let us pray

66:11 our Father we thank you for these words of our Lord Jesus for this portion of your holy word and oh how we beg of you Father that that last day when the great sifting will take place