An Introduction to the Parable of the Sower

Introduction and Prayer for Illumination

0:03 This sermon was preached on Sunday morning, October 21st, 1984 at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now will you turn with me please to the fourth chapter of the Gospel according to Mark as we continue our expositions of this wonderful deposit of the mind of God, the Gospel according to Mark. And follow please as I read the first 20 verses, Mark chapter 4, verses 1 through 20.

0:43 With reference to our Lord, Mark writes, And again he began to teach by the seaside. And there is gathered unto him a very great multitude, so that he entered into a boat and sat in the sea. And all the multitude were by the sea on the land. And he taught them many things in parables, and said unto them in his teaching, Hearken, and behold, the sower went forth to sow.

1:12 And it came to pass, as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside, and the birds came and devoured it. And other fell on the rocky ground where it had not much earth, and straightway it sprang up because it had no deepness of earth. And when the seed fell, the sun was risen, it was scorched, and because it had no root, it withered away. And other fell among the thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no fruit.

1:48 And others fell into the good ground, and yielded fruit, growing up and increasing, and brought forth thirtyfold, and sixtyfold, and a hundredfold. And he said, Who has ears to hear, let him hear. And when he was alone, they that were about him with the twelve asked of him the parables. And he said unto them, Unto you is given the mystery of the kingdom of God, but unto them that are without all things are done in parables, that seeing they may see and not perceive, and hearing they may hear and not understand,

2:31 lest haply they should turn again, and it should be forgiven them. And he said unto them, Know ye not this parable? And how shall you know all the parables? The sower soweth the word, and these are they by the wayside where the word is sown, and when they have heard, straightway cometh Satan, and takes away the word which has been sown in them.

3:00 And these in like manner are they that are sown upon the rocky places, who, when they have heard the word, straightway receive it with joy, and they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while. Then, when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, straightway they stumble. And others are they that are sown among the thorns, these are they that have heard the word, and the cares of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lust of other things entering in choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.

3:42 And those are they that were sown upon the good ground, such as hear the word, and accept it, and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold. Now let us, as we have cried to God in the language of the hymn we have sung, pray together that God will send the Spirit to open our eyes to his truth. O Lord, we have sung together that you would send your Spirit unto each one of our hearts,

4:23 that he would touch our spiritual eyes and make them to see. We have read a passage that is both instructive and frightening. For we know that wherever the word is preached, Satan, the adversary, is present, like a flock of hovering birds at the heels of a farmer's sowing seed. And as much as we believe that you are present by the Spirit, we know the evil one lurks, as it were, in the shadows of our own hearts, seeking to snatch away that word.

5:03 O bind his influence, Lord, for those who have heard enough word to have been converted and be fruitful believers a thousand times over, and yet whose hearts are still barren weed plots. O God, bind the enemy. May the word come with power this morning, and take those hearts and make them fit to receive the word and bring forth fruit. And Lord, for those in whom the fruit is thirtyfold, so work that it may be sixty and a hundred, gracious God, do not leave us at the mercy of ourselves, or the enemy of our souls,

5:47 or the world, and the cares of this life, and the lust of other things, but so come and minister, that the word preached will bear abundant fruit in all of our hearts. To the praise of your beloved Son we plead. Amen.

The Awesome Responsibility of Preaching God's Word

6:15 Now as we begin this morning, I want to ask you a very simple but very vital question. And the question is this. Did you know that this pulpit is surrounded by something like a steel fence with spiked ends to every part of that fence? A fence with spiked ends that constitutes a barrier over which any man thinks biblically must climb before he can enter this pulpit?

6:57 And you say, Pastor, what do you mean by the imagery of a steel fence with spiked ends over which a man must climb before he can enter the pulpit? Well, I mean simply this, that that steel fence with the spiked ends, sharp points, is made of the language of James chapter 3 and verse 1. In which the commandment comes from the living God. Be not many of you teachers, my brethren, knowing that we shall receive heavier judgment.

7:36 That's the fence. Those are the spikes that every time I climb that fence to get into this pulpit, the weight of my judgment increases.

7:50 The measure of responsibility for which I shall give an account, to God increases and when I think of that it's enough to keep me the other side of the fence and yet as Paul said necessity is laid upon me and therefore I have climbed the fence again this morning to stand before you with the fresh consciousness of the awesome seriousness of being a public teacher of the word of the living God and it is in that renewed consciousness

8:28 that as we begin our study of chapter four I make no apologies for spending our time this morning and again next Lord's Day and setting as it were the general field of concern as we come to this chapter before we plunge into the specific details of the actual kinds of soil and the various responses to the seed and the reasons for those responses because I'm I am conscious that I shall give an account for the accuracy and thoroughness with which I have

Context of Mark's Gospel Leading to Chapter 4

9:04 handled God's own holy word as we come now to this fourth chapter let me just briefly remind those of you who have been with us and inform those who have not been with us of the overall thrust of these first chapters of Mark's gospel as you remember Mark plunges right into his subject opening words of chapter one the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ the son of God and then we are introduced to the mighty worker the Lord Jesus as John the Baptist formally introduces him to us and then Mark records subsequent to his baptism and anointing with the spirit and his temptation

9:49 those mighty works performed in Galilee which very quickly established his fame there in the northern part of the world and in the northern part of the world and in the northern part of the northern part of the world and in the northern part of the world and in the northern part of the southern part of Palestine following a period of ministry in the southern part of Palestine in the Judean area and then in chapter two we note that Mark records that against the backdrop of that swelling popularity in Galilee there is a growing opposition from the official religious leaders of Israel the scribes and the Pharisees and that up that opposition comes from the the scribes and the Pharisees and that up that opposition comes from the

10:29 climactic expression in verse six of chapter three when the Pharisees in consultation with the Herodians plot the death and the destruction of the Lord Jesus and then the remainder of chapter three is taken up primarily with our Lord beginning to reconstitute the visible expression of the kingdom of God he appoints the twelve and having no sooner recorded the appointed the twelve marked picks up again the theme of the opposition to our Lord which comes from some of his distant relatives and closer friends and then from those horrible religious apostates

11:13 who had either committed or were on the verge of committing that frightening sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit and then the chapter closed with that emphasis of the identity of Christ people in that wonderful passage we studied together last Lord's day in which Jesus identifies his true family having marked out the twelve who would become the foundation stones of his church the Apostles he now then as it were opens up to us who it is that will constitute the ordinary bricks in that living temple that he is to construct upon the foundation of apostles and prophets and the

11:58 And we there have that wonderful description of the identity of his spiritual family. Now when we come to chapter 4, what we have is our Lord beginning to articulate the principles of this kingdom in which apostles will have a unique function and of which all who do the will of God are members. And here in this chapter we have three of these parables by which some of the fundamental principles of the kingdom of God are illustrated and set before us.

12:39 And then the chapter closes with a unique miracle. A miracle that is in a category all its own. And all of the previous mighty works recorded in Mark's gospel, none of them points to a miracle alone. Of this particular kind and nature.

Circumstances of the Parable's Delivery: Location and Audience

12:59 So that I trust will give you briefly a remembrance for those who have been with us of the overall thrust of the gospel of Mark. For those who come in somewhere along the line, perhaps that will make you feel a little bit more at home as we come to chapter 4. And as we do come to chapter 4, this morning we'll follow out two categories of concern by way of introduction. If I were to give a title to our study this morning, it would be the very unglamorous title, an introduction to the parable of the sower and the soils.

13:36 And in our introduction this morning, just two categories of concern. The first grows directly out of the text, particularly verses 1 and 2a. And we have in these verses the circumstances in which the parable of the sower was. The circumstances in which this parable was spoken.

14:02 And there are four things given to us by way of a description of these circumstances. First of all, it was spoken by the seaside. Notice the language of verse 1. And again, he began to teach by the seaside.

14:22 You will remember that in our study last, Lord's Day, our Lord Jesus is found in a house. And his disciples and followers are packed in circular fashion around him when his mother and brothers seek for him from without. But now Mark tells us, and the language is even more precise in Matthew 13, 1, that on that very day he went out of the house, and when he did, he went to the seaside, that is, by the shores, of the Galilean lake, called the Sea of Tiberias, the Lake Galilee, one and the same body of water.

15:05 But you will notice that Mark tells us that, again, he began to teach by the seaside. This was not his first occasion of using the shores of Galilee as a place where he could teach the vast multitudes. If you look back at chapter...

15:25 Chapter 3 and verse 7, you will find these words, And Jesus with his disciples withdrew to the sea, and a great multitude from Galilee followed, and from Judea. If you go back to chapter 2 and verse 13, And he went forth again by the seaside, and all the multitude resorted unto him, and he taught them. So in each of the references to the seaside, you see, you have with it a reference to the multitudes. So you begin to sense that going out of the house and out of the city, probably the city of Capernaum, and to the seaside, was not a whim with our Lord.

16:10 It was not a matter that he simply wanted a retreat from the hustle and bustle of city life, but our Lord desired an occasion where he could have greater and more ample opportunity to minister to the vast multitudes. Often when he was in the city, his ministry, though not confined, was found associated with a special house. Whether a house or a home away from the home in Nazareth, whether it was the house that belonged to Peter and his relatives, we cannot say with precision, but we have found already that Mark describes him in a house again and again. But by the seaside, there the vast multitudes, not in any way restricted

16:53 by the confines of the walls and the roof of a physical structure, are able to attend upon the ministry of our Lord. And so the first thing we learn from the passage about the circumstances in which this parable was spoken is that it was spoken by the seaside. Secondly, we learn, it was spoken to a great mixed crowd of followers. Again, the text.

17:23 And there is gathered, and Mark uses what the Greek grammarians call the historical present, something that happened in the past, we would normally say, and there were gathered unto him. But by using what's called the historical present, we are being nudged to use our imagination, to place ourselves there, and to see exactly what is coming to pass before our eyes. And there is gathered, gathered unto him, a very great multitude. And in that translation, a very great multitude, the translators have attempted to render what we would call a superlative.

18:08 We say that he has many things, this boy has more, but that one has the most. Well, the word most is superlative. More comparative. Well, a superlative is used here to describe this multitude.

18:25 So it was spoken, this parable, to a great, a vast, mixed crowd of followers. Whenever this word is used of a crowd or throng of people, it generally refers to a mixed crowd of people. They are not described as disciples, those who in some way or another have some kind of a formal attachment to Christ. No doubt the twelve were included, as we shall see when we work through the parable.

18:57 But this parable was spoken to a great mixed crowd of followers. And notice the vividness of Mark's description. It says, not that the crowd gathered to him, but he uses a passive verb. The crowd was gathered.

19:16 There is gathered unto him a very great multitude. And who was it that gathered them? What was it that gathered them? Well, in the passage it is obvious.

19:30 It was the sheer magnetism of the person and ministry and works of Jesus. There is gathered unto him. It was his presence by the sea, noised abroad, that became, as it were, that powerful magnet over men's determination that they would go down to the seashore and to hear the words of Christ. It is his person, that reputation of which we've read several times in the previous chapters that spread throughout all of the region of Galilee.

Circumstances of the Parable's Delivery: Method and Purpose

20:11 It was his teaching with authority which drew the men to him. And so the second thing we learn about the circumstances in which the parable of the sower was spoken is it was spoken to a great mixed crowd of followers. You say, Pastor, can't we just get on with it? My friend, if you have that attitude of the word of God, shame on you.

20:36 The Holy Ghost put these details here. And my task is to expound and yours is to have a humble mind to attend to every word of God. This is not filler. God help us, if we ever develop the mentality, well, let's get on to the real things.

20:57 You're not to determine where the meat of God's word is. Sometimes it lies in very unlikely places. And that's what I say has struck me afresh in the awesome responsibility of being a public teacher of the word of God. Now, I'm not saying anyone's thinking that way, but that may be just preventive medicine for some who are tempted to think that way, alright?

21:21 In the third place, we notice from the passage that this parable was spoken from a boat in the sea. Notice, and there is gathered unto him a very great multitude, so that, the picture seems to be that the Lord is teaching the multitude by the seashore. And perhaps, as before, you remember chapter 3, he had a boat in attendance in case he needed it for personal safety. He didn't use it, verses 1 through 10, but he had a boat in attendance, verses 9 and 10 of chapter 3.

21:57 But now the text tells us that what the Lord Jesus did was that as this multitude increased, it resulted in this necessity that he enter into a boat, and sitting, of course, in that boat in the midst of the sea, he then addressed all the multitude who were by the sea on the land. And so our Lord uses probably not the same boat for the word, the diminutive of boat is used in the chapter 3 passage, a little skit. This word for boat speaks of one that's a bit larger. So it may well have been a different boat, but be that as it may, he enters into the boat and pulls off a little bit from the shore.

22:41 And now we need to picture this scene. The official posture of a teacher in those days was not that of standing but of sitting. Now can you imagine what would happen around here if I'd been standing to lead the service and all of a sudden I sat down? Well, you'd think it's strange.

22:58 At least it would get the attention of some of the drowsy among you, I'm sure. In those days, that was the official position of a teacher. You remember, Jesus stood to read in the synagogue, then he sat down and all the eyes of the congregation were fastened upon him. So he assumed the posture of an official teacher.

23:19 And as he assumes that posture, he has, as it were, the boat for his pulpit, the shore and the sea for his auditorium, and this vast mixed multitude for his congregation. And someone suggests who is familiar with the, at least the present configuration of parts of the Sea of Galilee, that there are places where there are coves. And in those coves, the shoreline goes up at a rather rakish angle very quickly. And this particular author said it could well be that in just such a cove, there's the vast multitude sitting in a natural amphitheater and an angled one at that, you know,

24:04 just like a beautifully made auditorium or concert hall. And there the boat is nestled in that little cove and perhaps people in a horseshoe on the shore, upwards and outwards. And there the Lord Jesus seizes this opportunity to give this profoundly vital parable of the sower. Now then, the fourth thing that we are told about the circumstances in which this parable was spoken is this.

24:34 It was spoken amidst many other parables. Notice in verse 2b. And he taught them many things in parables, plural, and said unto them in his teaching, that is, in the midst of his teaching, by means of many parables, he gave this particular parable. And then we find the same emphasis in verse 33 of the chapter.

25:03 And with many such parables, plural, he spoke the word unto them as they were able to hear it. And without a parable he did not speak unto them, but privately to his own disciples, he expounded all things. So in that summary statement, Mark affirms what seems to be clear in verse 2, that when he had the vast mixed multitude before them, the method of his teaching at this time, in a very concentrated way, became parabolic. He taught them by means of parables.

25:43 Now notice, the emphasis falls upon the fact that when he was there in the boat, speaking to the multitudes, he did not mesmerize them. He did not dazzle them with classic rhetoric. He did not manipulate them by psychological and emotional tricks. He instructed them.

26:05 He taught them, the scripture says. He used this occasion to fill their minds with the great truths of God's kingdom and of God's ways. His great concern, as he says in verse 11, unto you is given the mystery of the kingdom of God. The great theme of this part of his teaching was to open up the nature of the kingdom of grace that he had come to establish and in which he himself was king.

26:42 And so he has this tremendous concern to take this vast mixed multitude and to implant in their minds clear and accurate concepts about his kingdom. Jesus was never a public trickster in his preaching, never a manipulator. He was concerned to bring forth truth to men's minds. And the passage tells us that at this time the main teaching device was a parable.

27:20 Now what is a parable? And it's interesting if you read the commentators and some who have written books on parables, no one can come up with a simple definition of a parable that fits every single usage. So I'm not going to try where others have failed. But suffice it to say that we're close to the heart of what a parable is when we think of it in terms of a story drawn from the world of men and things with which the hearers were familiar, used to convey basic spiritual truths with which they were not so familiar.

27:58 In other words, it's using a fundamental teaching device moving from the known to the unknown. And even here in the Gospel of Mark we have confronted parables earlier in which Jesus takes things from the realm of the world of men and things with which his hearers are familiar and he uses them to illustrate, to instruct in things with which they may not be as familiar or with which they may be totally unfamiliar. Etymologically the word parable means to cast alongside.

28:41 And you can see how etymologically the idea came to be attached to this very device of teaching. You bring in something alongside a concept to illustrate it, to open it up, to instruct in that concern. Now some of you have heard the little statement a parable is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. And that's got a lot of truth in it.

29:06 And I'm not going to throw it out simply because it's well known and I have an itch to be original. It is an earthly story that is a story a statement of realities embedded in this earth, this life, the world of men and things used to illustrate, to set forth a spiritual truth. Now it's precisely because those parables arose out of the real world of men and things in first century Palestine that so often they seem obscure to us. Who of us has ever seen a wine skin?

29:49 A few. All right. How many of us in one condition or another have seen a wine bottle lying on the street or in some other situation? How many have seen a wine bottle?

30:01 All right. But the Bible doesn't say anything about wine bottles. But it does talk about wine skins. And Jesus uses a parable in one place that if you don't know what a wine skin is and what happened when wine was put into the wine skin, the whole thrust of what he says falls to the ground.

30:22 So you see, the task of an expositor, and may I also say this is not the task of a translator. A translator is to translate wine skin, wine skin. Not bring it over into a wine bottle. That's not a translation.

30:39 That's the task of the expositor, the interpreter, the preacher and teacher of the Word of God. And so we must go through some of the tedious task of trying to ascertain precisely what did Jesus mean in these parables when he talks about a sower who goes forth to sow. We've never seen, I doubt any of us has ever seen a farmer, maybe a few real old folk have, going out on a plowed field and just throwing seed hither and yon. No, you've seen a tractor with a seed planter pulled behind it, putting the seed down at precise intervals in nice even rows on a field.

31:21 Now the closest thing you've seen is a guy out trying to repair some patchy parts of his lawn. Maybe you've seen him throwing some seed. But that's about the closest you've ever come to this. So we've got to get in our time capsule in all of these things and go back and as best as we can, best we can, try to reconstruct the world of men and things out of which the parable grows.

31:45 And when we do, then under the blessing of the Spirit of God, we shall understand the thrust of those parables. Now then, I submit to you that these are the four distinct facets of the circumstances in which this parable was spoken. It was spoken by the seaside to a great mixed crowd of followers from a boat in the sea. It was spoken amidst many other parables with a view to instruct the minds of the hearers.

Application 1: Legitimizing Preaching in Non-Religious Settings

32:19 Now before we move on to consider the second category of my concern this morning, which is much briefer, there are two very vital applications that I want to make. And here I marvel again at the richness of the word of God. I doubt in a hundred years I would have ever preached a sermon on either one of these two subjects as such. But here they are, in the course of our regular exposition of the word.

32:47 And these two points of observation and application need to be made. Number one, in these circumstances in which the parable of the sower is first spoken, our Lord has forever legitimized preaching the most sacred truths to the indiscriminate multitudes in the most non-religious settings. Our Lord has forever legitimized preaching the most sacred truths to the indiscriminate multitudes in the most non-religious settings.

33:30 Now throughout the history of the church, there have been seasons when bold men have gone forth in the power of the Spirit to the ignorant masses, those untouched, often turned off by organized religion. And wherever they could gather people in a suitable circumstance for preaching, there they have gathered the mixed multitude, and they have taught them the truths of the kingdom of God. And as then, so throughout church history to this very day,

34:14 this circumstance often arises when official established religion and its official established religious houses, synagogues then, begin to show an antipathy to the truth of the word of God. When there is a rising opposition within organized religion and its official functions to the pure word of God, God has a wonderful way of getting that word to the hungry masses who are turned off by all the sham that they see in the official churches. It was true here.

34:58 The common people heard him how? Gladly. While Pharisees and Herodians are plotting his destruction. You see it in the book of Acts.

35:10 Paul would go to the synagogue, the official churches. But when the people in the official churches, this part of organized religion, showed they had no heart, no ears for truth, Paul would leave the synagogue and wherever he could find people with ears to hear, he'd preach the word of God. That's precisely what Whitfield and Wesley did in the evangelical awakening in the 18th century. And Rollins and Berridge and a host of others, when organized religion, there in the British Isles, would have nothing to do with preaching the great concerns of a man's relationship to God and how that relationship has been fractured

35:54 in the fall of Adam. And how it can be reestablished only in the person and work of Christ and by the regenerating work not of water put upon the head by the hand of a priest, but by the Spirit of God in the context of the gospel. Wesley and Whitfield took to the fields. There they found the hungry masses and preached to them the word of the kingdom.

36:19 They preached man's ruin by the fall, man's redemption by the blood, man's regeneration by the Spirit, and God brought multitudes into the kingdom of God in the wake of that effort. And you and I must be sensitive to this principle because we do not know in our own day what God will do and how we ought to respond hopefully to a movement of the Spirit of God that will make multitudes sick up to here with empty, formal, organized religion devoid of truth and devoid of reality.

37:01 If God should pour out His Spirit in awakening men to a hunger of the truth it may well be that very soon we can't get to all those people even in things true. Who says we can't use the parking lot to reach them? Who says we cannot in other circumstances that have never been, quote, consecrated for religious purposes? There herald the message.

37:29 This is God's world and every square inch in that sense is consecrated for His purposes. And so the Scripture tells us sitting in a boat with the congregation facing the sea the Lord Jesus taught the multitudes concerning the kingdom of God. Now, I must say two qualifying things because I know it will happen. Some harebrained, well-meaning young man will go out of this place and go down in the middle of Changebridge Road and stop the traffic and start preaching the gospel.

38:01 Sure as anything if I don't give a qualification now notice two things. The multitudes were gathering unto Him. He wasn't preaching to the fish into the sand because He was convinced you've got to have open-air meetings to be Messiah. God brought the people to Him.

38:23 That's the first thing. And the second thing is He was a proven preacher to the popular masses. He had a proven gift to capture the ear of Mr. Average Man and Woman in Palestine and hold it with interest.

38:42 The common people heard Him gladly. Now that's where I cut my preaching teeth on the street corner four times a week shortly after I was converted. You say, why don't you make that a rule for all other young preachers? Because of this simple reason.

38:58 If there is not some reason to believe that God is bringing people together for that kind of ministry and there are times we've got to test the situation it is foolish simply to go out and to salve your conscience and say I've preached to the cars or to the macadam or to the stars or to the trees. Your energy can be used in much better ways than that. And so don't someone run out and say oh well we've got to preach on the street. Now I've seen that before.

39:26 I've lived long enough to see the excesses of a zeal that is not joined to knowledge. And then the second thing is there's nothing more pathetic than a man preaching on a street corner who has no God-given gift to capture and hold the ears of people that are there on the street corner. I've stood in some street meetings where I wanted to apologize to the people and say frankly if you walked away from this affair I wouldn't be angry with you. Well meaning but you see sincerity is no substitute for God-given gift.

40:04 And our Lord had a proven gift. Wesleyan Whitfield tried the waters and it soon became evident that God had peculiarly gifted them to speak to the masses. But those qualifications guiding our thinking the principle is still here in our passage that our Lord has forever legitimized preaching the most sacred truths to the indiscriminate multitudes in the most non-religious settings. May we be open and sensitive to what the Spirit of God may lead us to do in days to come.

Application 2: The Centrality of Solid Instruction for Kingdom Advancement

40:39 But then the second principle that is here is this our Lord has forever underscored that solid instruction of the mind in the things of God is the way by which His kingdom is advanced. Our Lord has forever underscored that solid instruction of the mind in the things of God is the way by which His kingdom is advanced. Note the words and He was teaching them many things. And an imperfect is used teaching was His continuous activity.

41:19 Apparently no miracles on this occasion. He was giving Himself to a concentrated intense season of instruction. When He had the vast or very great multitude He did not organize them into a political party to overthrow Rome. He didn't organize them into a religious party to address all of the inequities and all of the godless manifestations of religion down at Jerusalem.

41:53 And He certainly didn't entertain them with fascinating rhetoric and get them all giggling and laughing and then fleece them and empty their pockets and go off with a big bag of money. He did no such thing. It says He was teaching them. He addressed truth to their minds authoritatively, plainly, convincingly.

42:17 Matthew 7, 28 and 9 says they were astounded at this period in His ministry for He taught them His one having or possessing authority and not as their scribes. What a refreshing breeze was the teaching of Jesus. They had heard many of them to the point of weariness and tedium. The scribes quoting one another and quoting the rabbis and quoting this one and quoting the other one.

42:47 But when Jesus stood and said I say to you you've heard it was said here's the traditional religious gibberish but this is what God says. This is what God says. They were astonished. He said this man speaks with authority and not as the scribes.

43:09 As then so now the kingdom of darkness is erected upon the foundation blocks of ignorance, error, prejudice and superstition. That's how the devil keeps his kingdom intact. The kingdom of error is built upon a foundation made of these four great blocks. Ignorance, error, prejudice and superstition.

43:36 But the kingdom of light and salvation is erected upon the foundation of truth. Eternal, unchangeable, infallible truth. And so the Lord Jesus committed to see the establishment and the expansion of His kingdom gives Himself to teaching. Gives Himself to instructing men's minds.

44:03 Oh yes, He did it in a fascinating and an interesting way using parables. Yes, I know as we shall study in the heart of this passage is the parables had a negative edge to them. They were not only intended to explain and elucidate to those who had a heart for truth but to as it were cast an even thicker veil over the minds and hearts of those who in their willful rejection of light were the inveterate enemies of Christ. I know that.

44:37 But we must not allow that statement in the central part of the passage to obscure the fact that the main purpose with reference to those vast multitudes who had been kept in ignorance by the very professional religious instructors of the day was that the Lord might accommodate Himself to their weaknesses and cause eternal truth to impinge upon their world of men and things and help them to understand so that light and truth might replace ignorance, error, prejudice and superstition. Now what's that say to us as a congregation?

45:19 Well I hope you get the message. The purposes of God to extend His kingdom through Trinity Church will be carried out only so long as this place is above all else a bastion of solid, clear instruction under the Bible. When anything other than clear, honest, authoritative, simple teaching of the Bible takes precedence in this place Ichabod will already have been written over it. And if there were some way

46:03 to get some smart engineers together who could wed all of modern technology in such a way as to make an instrument that when that pulpit in phase two begins to be anything other than a boat from which Jesus by the Spirit reaches truth to multitudes there'd be a sensor that would send a signal to a bomb and blow the thing into smithereens because it will cease to be an instrument of God and will be a tool of the devil to press men deeper in their ignorance their error their superstition and their prejudice.

46:46 You dear young men and women oh may I charge you with an awful responsibility you may be sitting in that phase two and some of us are in our graves and Pastor Clark and Pastor Martin and Pastor Nichols and Pastor Barker and all your other pastors and the rest will just be a memory you may visit our graves occasionally but don't you forget what pastor's telling you this morning you demand whoever stands in that pulpit to teach you this book you demand that whenever this book ceases to be central that something be done and if you don't get a hearing and there's nothing you can do after praying and protesting and talking to the leaders and nothing's done

47:30 then you go find a place if it's just a little place under a tree somewhere where an honest man of God is opening the Bible you go where somebody teaches you this book you go where someone instructs you in this book if you don't if you don't your precious soul will be in danger you dear children and young people never forget what pastor's telling you this morning when the Lord Jesus is present he's always present teaching teaching teaching teaching that's the great application to us well the second thing I want to say and I said it's going to be very brief and this is a general word of introduction having looked at the circumstances

The Strategic Importance of This Parable

48:14 in which the parable was spoken and these two applications derived from those circumstances notice in the second place the strategic importance of this parable verse 13 verse 13 after the multitude were at least temporarily dismissed the Lord Jesus was alone with the twelve and with a few others or some others who had a greater measure of concern and interest and the Lord Jesus was alone with the twelve and with a greater measure of concern and interest and they asked about the meaning of the parable and then Jesus responded and said this verse 13 and he said unto them don't you know this parable and how shall you know

48:57 all the parables don't you know this parable how shall you know all the parables you see what he's saying there is a peculiar emphasis given to the importance of this particular parable it not only comes first in order but it is first in importance according to Jesus now we know that not only from the fact that it's included in all three of the what we call synoptic gospels Matthew chapter 13 Luke chapter 8 and here in Mark chapter 4 but from this very statement of our Lord

49:41 a perception of the true meaning of this particular parable in a sense is a clue to one's spiritual ability and perception to grasp the others do you not know this parable how shall you know all the parables and one of the wonderful things about this parable is that we have an inspired interpreter of its basic meaning the Lord Jesus himself and I am of the persuasion that Jesus in interpreting the parable gives to us the basic principles by which we are properly to interpret the other parables

50:26 and any system of interpretation that flies into the face of the broad principles used by our Lord cannot be the proper approach to the parable he is going to expound his own parable and therefore you and I must spare no pains to grasp the meaning of this parable of the sower because Jesus said it is of strategic importance in understanding the message not only of the kingdom in general but the message of the kingdom of God as expressed in this series of parables now what do we learn from that well this simple truth

Application: The Relative Importance of Revealed Truth and Fundamental Ignorance

51:09 that in the word of God there is a relative importance to reveal truth all of God's truth is vital not all of God's truth is equally vital you see the point we never say of any of God's truth that is not important but we can and must learn to say of all the truth which God has revealed and certainly if he has revealed it it must be of importance some truths are of greater importance than others we have been studying Hebrews together have we not and it is the Holy Spirit who calls certain truths the first principles

51:53 and the writer to Hebrews says if you are not established in those first principles I can't go on and teach you other things if there is no foundation on which to build the man who will not learn his ABC's and his phonics will never learn to read encyclopedias because encyclopedias in their most complex statements are made up of the fundamental building blocks of A B C D E F A B C D E F A A Q B CH B CH alright you got to learn your phonics got to learn your alphabet the most brilliant mathematician he has to start learning one two three and no you don't jump from three to thirteen you got to have four five six in between so there is a relative importance and you and I must come to grips with the fact

52:37 that here in this passage there is something of supreme importance and therefore we must give ourselves to earnest prayer and to diligence and study that we might grasp these essential things my unconverted friend listen to me if you're here this morning without Christ listen to me there are certain truths if you're ignorant of these you cannot be a Christian oh you say I was baptized yes fine yes you may be a member of a church but if you're ignorant of the most fundamental truths about God as your creator God as your judge God as the moral governor of the universe to whom you're accountable if you're ignorant of those basic facts about God

53:21 you cannot be a Christian if you're ignorant about the most basic facts about yourself you're accountable to God you've broken God's law you're guilty before the court of heaven you stand condemned under God's law and you need desperately to have that condemnation righteously removed if you've never come to know that fundamental truth then you don't know the alphabet of the Christian faith you cannot be a Christian God doesn't make people Christians in the midst of such fundamental ignorance you need to start studying the basic issues of the Christian faith if you're ignorant of God's one provision for sinners in the person of his son the second person of the Godhead who became incarnate

54:05 in Mary's womb by the operation of the spirit that he is true God and true man that he lived a perfect life he died not a martyr's death but the death of a criminal under the curse of God for human sin if you're ignorant of that basic truth Christ died for our sins was buried was raised again from the dead is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty if you're ignorant of that my friend you cannot be a Christian being a Christian is not just having some kind of subjective undefinable warm experience that in some way or another is to some degree who can describe it connected with Jesus and with the church my friend

54:49 that's baseless fanatical mysticism being a Christian is coming into some intelligence as well as heart experience of these basically revealed facts about God and yourself and Christ and sin and repentance and faith if you're ignorant of them I plead with you be ignorant no longer you've got a Bible don't you start reading it start crying to God to teach you the heart of its message and when you come to all the big acts in the genealogies pass over them when you come to passages where God describes what man is and who Christ is and what Christ

55:33 is done and what you must do if you're to know the benefits of what he's done park on those passages read them over pray them in ask God to open your eyes and dear child of God how can you become stable in the Christian faith if you are not grounded in the fundamental issues I find it difficult to believe in this place but my pastoral experience makes me believe it that some have been under this ministry for years who are yet to be grounded in the most fundamental issues of what it is to have a righteousness not my own that my standing before God

56:15 has nothing to do with what I it has all to do with what Christ is in himself and what he has done in his perfect life and in his death and though it's been thundered from this pulpit talk clearly some of you still unstable as water because you think that somehow you're standing before God rest upon your present state whether you've got a high or a low spiritually in spite of what's been thundered from this pulpit some of you are still not grounded in the simple fact until you vomit from the toes your attachment to the world

57:00 you'll never be a Christian some of you keep having just a little burp with a little vial of your sin you'll never know what it is to hang over the sink until you feel your spiritual stomach is turned inside out and spit that life of sin and you wonder why go for a few weeks and a few months and back to the world my friends having a little burp and ask God to make you so sick of your sin that you spew it out from your toes you say that's kind of coarse language

57:44 I don't care if you judge it coarse if that will get through to you blessed coarseness that's the problem with some of you right there in troubles your sin catches up with you you get a sour stomach spiritually you spit up a little as soon as you get rid of it you spit up a little bit and as soon as you get rid of it you get relieved and break it take a few tons of a little prayer and a little bible and a little church your mouth feels sweet again you think all is well then you go back to your sin until your juice is all star cloned then it feels bad again you have a little that's disgusting pastor I hope it is enough for you to cry to God

58:28 that the thing gets spewed out from the depths of your soul then you'll begin to know the sweetness of Christ you'll begin to know the power of Christ to break the power of raining to set the prisoner free now what is it that you're clinging to remember the rich young ruler that's what Jesus was doing Jesus said to him you need more than a burp man you need to get rid of it all from the depths of your being oh yes from the surface of things things look pretty good but I see that in the depths of your spiritual gut there is idolatry

59:13 get rid of it he didn't want heaven bad enough he went away sorrowful but he still went away in his own way his spiritual gut attached to the world that's the problem with some of you and you've heard it again and again and again you think this was a church that preached easy believers in a way some of you think you can slip into the kingdom so carelessly how long are you going to go on that way the things you've heard in the book of Hebrews ought to put fear into some of you if God may so remove his influence you no longer even have a burp with a bad stomach God's not obligated

59:55 my spirit shall not always strive with man is he trying to scare us God knows that that would do it to get you in the way yes but I'm not scaring you with phantoms those are realities if you understand not this parable how shall you understand all parables we do not have ears and heart to grasp the central fundamental issues that our Lord is giving to us how shall we grasp the more advanced the more elevated the more difficult truths oh I lay before you the crucial importance of this parable that as we stand on the threshold

Concluding Prayer for Understanding and Fruitfulness

60:40 studying it God will give us a determination that if there's no portion of the Bible we understand by the help of the spirit and by every pain and effort we can put forth God helping us we're going to understand this passage to that end let us plead with God to be our teacher let's pray our Father we thank you for our Lord Jesus the great example of his church as well as our glorious and only Redeemer we thank you for the pattern he has set of compassionate and aggressive assault

61:24 upon the kingdom of darkness by being a teacher of the multitudes. Give us his heart and, O Lord, may it please you to grant to many in our day the gifts and graces to preach to the masses who are held in the grip of superstition and ignorance and error and prejudice that the truth may become the instrument of their liberation. We pray for us, your people. Lord, help us that we may understand clearly the great principles of this parable and we may be led more and more into a full-orbed and balanced perception of your truth.

62:08 We pray for those who have never really come to the place where they've dealt with their sins. O God, have mercy upon them. May they no longer halt between two opinions but may they know that turning from the depths of their being from all that would attach them to sin, to the devil, and to the world and may they be attached to your Son in bonds of love and faith and by the uniting work of the Spirit be in Christ. Lord, seal your word.

62:44 May it bear much fruit in all of our hearts. We plead in Jesus' name. Amen.