Matthew 13:3-23
Stony Ground Hearers Part 2
In 'Stony Ground Hearers Part 2,' Pastor Albert N. Martin continues his exposition of the Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13:3-23, Mark 4:3-20, Luke 8:5-15), focusing on the 'stony ground' soil. He argues that this soil represents 'temporary believers' who receive the word with joy but lack true root, withering under tribulation and persecution. Martin emphasizes that such individuals were never truly saved, as evidenced by their lack of perseverance and union with Christ. He warns against a false doctrine of assurance that separates salvation from deliverance from sin's dominion and provides pastoral counsel for praying for loved ones who exhibit signs of being stony ground hearers.
Primary Texts
Topics
Outline 10 sections · 52 min
- Introduction: The Parable of the Soils and Review of Previous Lessons 0:03
- The Fourth Principle: The Temporary Believer 8:58
- Characteristics of Temporary Believers and Biblical Examples 16:37
- Exposition of Hebrews 6 and 2 Peter 2 21:17
- Question 1: Was the Temporary Believer Truly Saved? 27:07
- Question 2: Can a Temporary Believer Be Saved Later? 34:45
- Problem 1: The False Doctrine of Assurance 36:09
- Problem 2: Praying for Loved Ones Who Are Stony Ground Hearers 41:05
- Counsel for Dealing with Stony Ground Hearers 45:34
- Self-Application: How to Know You Are More Than a Stony Ground Hearer 47:33
Key Quotes
“the condition of the soil determines the issue of the seed”
“not all joyful response to the gospel is a saving response to the gospel.”
“these things create nothing. They simply reveal what the state of the soul is.”
“there is such a thing as a temporary believer. Now I didn't say such a thing as a temporary Christian or a temporary salvation. But there is such a thing as a temporary believer.”
“because this plant had no root, it was never vitally united to the source and support, to the source and supply of life and strength, what should have been for its development became its destroyer.”
“When that plant withers under persecution, and a man apostatizes and turns away from Christ and his commands and precepts, he simply reveals that he was never rooted in Jesus Christ in the first place.”
“if God saves me, part of that salvation is not only securing my escape from hell, the penalty of sin, but also delivering me from the dominion of sin and one day, hallelujah, from the very presence of sin. And all of that is part and parcel of God's salvation.”
“the blood of Christ is nowhere sprinkled but upon a heart that has experienced the sanctifying power of the Spirit and is turned in the direction of obedience.”
Applications
All listeners
- Pray that God will plow and prepare your hearts to receive gospel seed.
- Consider how much gospel seed has been sown for naught because you came with unprepared hearts to receive that seed.
- Do not be taught a false doctrine of security that says if you've made a decision and trusted Jesus, no matter how you live, what you do, you'll go to heaven when you die.
- Do not pass on a false doctrine of assurance to people; give them the true doctrine of the perseverance and preservation of the saints.
- If you have loved ones, children, or friends who fit the description of a stony ground hearer, don't argue with God; take God's side in the issue.
- When speaking about backslidden loved ones to others, put the best possible construction on their situation, saying you trust they are truly saved but have drifted, and ask for prayer for their return.
- When praying for backslidden loved ones in your closet, be on the safe side and put the worst possible construction upon it, asking God to bring them to repentance and save them, with a holy fear that they might be lost.
- Know that you are something more than a stony ground hearer by the grace of God if you endure, abide in Christ, and continue in His word.
- Prove to yourself and to the world that you are something more than a stony ground hearer by enduring, abiding, and continuing in His word.
- May you bear much fruit to the glory and honor of His name.
A full transcript is available on the tab. 174 paragraphs, roughly 52 minutes.
Introduction: The Parable of the Soils and Review of Previous Lessons
13th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, Matthew chapter 13, we will come tonight to the third in a series of studies on this parable that we commonly call the parable of the sower,
but perhaps it ought to be better thought of as the parable of the soils, plural, for the key teaching in this parable is that the condition of the soil determines the issue of the seed, the condition of the soil determines the issue of the seed, and for the benefit of visitors who are with us and perhaps haven't read this for some time, we'll just read through the parable, it's not too long, and then our Lord's inspired interpretation of the parable, and then a few minutes to review the highlights of the principles we've discovered and then
move into the heart of that which I believe is the Lord's word to our own hearts and minds tonight. Before we do, may we just once again pause before the Lord and ask him by his spirit to teach us and to speak to us as we take his word into our hands. Our Father, we are conscious as we have been thinking in terms of this parable that whenever the seed of your truth is sown, there the enemy of our souls, like the birds who follow behind the sower, is present to snatch away that which is not.
That which is sown, lest we should understand and experience its power and deliverance in our lives. So we plead that you'll bind the powers of darkness, help us to gird up the loins of our minds, that we will refuse dullness and distraction of mind, that we will do as you've said in your word, that we shall meditate upon your word, that we shall count its truth worthy of our most diligent employment of all of our mental, spiritual, and spiritual faculties. O Lord, help us to come to your word prepared to think, prepared by your grace to believe and to obey whatever you will say to us. Speak to us with
authority and with power, and may we have grace to hear and to do whatsoever you say unto us. Amen. This parable is recorded in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 13, also in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 13. And so we could use any one of these, but for the sake of convenience we are using the 13th of Matthew. Matthew 13, beginning with verse 3.
And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow. And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the wayside, and the fowls came and devoured them up. Some seed fell upon stony places, where they had not much growth. And when the sun was up, they were scorched, and because they had no root, they withered away. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprung up and choked them. But other
fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirtyfold. Now, beginning with verse 14, we have our Lord's interpretation. I love the parables that he interpreted. I'm a lot more sure in those. Some of the others, I feel I begin
to understand what they're saying, and then I read one commentary too many, and I have my theory knocked into a cocked hat by some able expounder of the word. But it's so wonderful to have the Lord expound this parable. And he tells us what it means. Verse 14. The sower
soweth the word, and these are they by the wayside, where the word is sown. But when they have heard, Satan. Satan cometh immediately, and taketh away the word that was sown in their hearts. I'm far sorry. I'm reading, I have a parallel gospel here. I'm sorry, and I slipped over
to Mark. No wonder. I knew I didn't have some of you with me. I saw a strange look. I'm
sorry. We're on verse 18 of Matthew 13. All right? Hear ye therefore the parable of the sower. I was reading from Mark 4. I have four gospels paralleled here, so that rather than
flipping back and forth in my Bible, I've got all the accounts right before me. See, I was sneaking. I thought, I was sneaking. I was sneaking. I was sneaking. I was sneaking.
I thought I'd get away with it. This looks like a Bible, but it's not. It's got the Bible in it. All right. Beginning now with verse 18. Hear the parable of the sower. When anyone
hears the word of the kingdom and understands it not, then comes the wicked one and catches away that which was sown in his heart. This is he that receives seed by the wayside. But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that hears the word, and anon with joy receives it. Yet hath he no root in himself.
But doeth for a while, for when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, by and by he is offended. He also that receives seed among thorns, is he that heareth the word, and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful. But he that receives seed and took good ground, is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it, which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth some in hundred fold, some sixty, and some thirty. We saw according to our Lord's statement in the gospel of Mark that this is a key parable.
He said, if ye know not this parable, how shall ye know all parables? Then we looked at the ingredients of the parable. You have the sower, anyone who sows the truth of God's word. The seed is the message of the kingdom, or according to Luke, it's the word of God.
So any time the word is proclaimed in its purity. This parable is being enacted, and the soil is the condition of the hearts of men into which that seed comes. For we read in verse 19 of Matthew 13, the wicked one catches away that which was sown in his heart. And in Luke we read, these are they which receive the word into a good and an honest heart.
So you have the three ingredients of the parable. The sower, our Lord the great sower, all his servants and all his servants, and all his servants, and all his servants, and all his servants, and all his servants, and all his servants, and all his servants, and all his servants, and all his servants, and all his servants, and all his servants, and all his servants, and all his servants, and all his servants, and all his servants, and all his servants, and all his servants, and all his servants, and all his servants, and all his servants, and all his servants, and all his servants, and all his servants, and all his servants, and all his servants, and all his servants, and all his servants, and all his servants, and all his servants, and all his servants, and all his servants, and all his servants, and all his servants, and all his servants, and all his servants, and all his servants, and all his servants, and all his servants, and all his servants, and all his servants, and all his servants, and all his servants, and all his servants, and all his servants, and all his servants, and all his servants, and all his servants, and all his human heart and mind into which the seed comes. Now, the first kind of soil is what our Lord said was the path that went through the middle of the field. You remember it said of the disciples, they were walking through the midst of a cornfield on the Sabbath, and there were these footpaths that went through the middle of the fields, and those paths were hard.
And when the seed fell, the soil not being broken up, it could not envelop it, and the birds that were following the sower as he scattered were there immediately to take up that seed. And our Lord says, this is a picture of the man whose heart is hardened and indifferent and unprepared for gospel seed. You talk about forgiveness, eternal life, justification, peace with God, he says, who could care less? That doesn't interest me.
If you're talking about money, if you're talking about something I can see and touch, wonderful. But I don't understand this business about heaven, sin, justification, couldn't care less. And his heart rejects that seed as a hard beaten footpath rejects the seed that the sower would sow, and immediately, like the fowls of the air, Satan is there to pluck that seed away. So you and I must pray that God will plow and prepare our hearts to receive gospel seed.
Initially, of course, this speaks of the unregenerate man who hears the message and does not perceive it, and therefore fails to come into possession of its blessing. But by way of application, it speaks to us as God's people how much gospel seed has been sown for naught because we came with unprepared hearts to receive that seed. And then last week we began to look at the second kind of the soil, which is the rocky soil. And it does not mean good soil which had some rocks in it, but it's a shelf of rock over the top of which there's an inch or two of soil.
The Fourth Principle: The Temporary Believer
And when the seed falls, it's a shelf of rock. walls, you remember the facts of the narrative, immediately it springs up and it looks like a wonderful promising plant. If you were to compare it with some seed that fell on deep plowed up earth, it would even look like it was a more promising plant because all of its life was going above ground and nothing was going beneath ground. But then when the sun came up, something happened. The sun's rays beat upon that little sprig of life and
it immediately just withered over and died, dried up from the roots and that was the end of it. Now our Lord's interpretation of this was very simple and yet tremendously profound in its implication. He said, and I quote now from Matthew chapter 13 and verse 20, But he that received the seed into stony places, the same as he that hears the word, receives it with joy, endures for a while, but when the sun, of tribulation and persecution and Luke adds this word temptation arises, then that poor little plant just can't take it because it has no root and it shrivels up, withers away, and that's the last you see of it.
So our Lord is telling us that not all joyful response to the gospel is a saving response to the gospel. How many in our Lord's day, when they heard about this healer and miracle worker who came out of Galilee, they ran after him and they locked up his words and they received them with joy. But it wasn't long before we read in John chapter 6, many of his disciples went back and walked with him no more. What happened?
There was a joyful response to the word, but it was not a saving response to the word for a saving response to the word abides and continues for he that begins a good work in us will continue it until the day of Jesus Christ. That was the first principle we learned from this parable. The second principle was that tribulation, persecution, and temptation are the great revealers of the state of the soul. There was that little plant, such a flourishing little plant, and I imagine it brought great delight to the farmer who went out and began to see his seed germinating, to see that little fellow just springing up, head and shoulders above all his companions.
But then the sun came up and the sun did not create any new condition in that plant. All the sun did was reveal a condition that was true all the while, but the poor farmer didn't know it. You see, he didn't have Superman's eyes, x-ray eyes, you know, that could see through. He just could look down and see where that plant went into the soil and that's all he could see.
He did not see that underneath that inch or two of soil there was solid rock. But the sun showed it to him. When that sun came up and the poor farmer came by the next day, and he looked over his little prized plant, suddenly there was just bent right over, plumbed dead. He said, uh-oh, that tells me something about that plant.
It had no root. But the sun didn't create the condition. The condition was already there. The sun nearly revealed the condition.
Jesus said, the sun is tribulation, persecution, and temptation. And oh, I would remind you tonight, these things create nothing. They simply reveal what the state of the soul is. And would to God that we would learn that lesson.
I had to read a letter on the prayer time the other day where a dear mother wrote in saying, I have a niece who was gloriously saved two years ago.
She went home and there were difficult circumstances. There came some tribulation and some persecution. And from that time on, there'd been no signs of spiritual light. She has no desire for the things of God.
But I'm sure she was gloriously saved. Poor soul. All she needed to do was read Matthew 13. And she couldn't talk that way.
But you see, the difficult situation into which that young lady went, it didn't create anything. It simply revealed the state of the soul that was there. That's the whole teaching of this parable. One of the great teachings of the parable.
The whole teaching at this point. And there is nothing like persecution and temptation and tribulation to reveal whether or not you've got some roots. The scripture says that the righteous man shall flourish like the palm tree.
You've never seen a palm tree. At least I never have. You see a picture when a hurricane or something goes through Florida. You'll see everything laid low but the palm tree stands.
And each gust of wind that comes shakes that tree, makes its roots all the more stable. And all the hurricanes can do is reveal that a palm tree is a palm tree. Now you may have had an invitation palm tree stuck about two feet in the ground in your backyard. You let a hurricane come through and it'll reveal that all you had was an invitation.
And so we may look like flourishing children of God but persecution, tribulation, temptation. These are the great revealers of the state of the soul. Then we closed our study last week by just touching on this third principle that time is the great test of the genuineness of a work of grace. The little word that comes again and again is this.
It endureth for a while. Matthew 13 and verse 21. Luke 8, 13. These have no root and for a while they will be.
They will be. They will be. They will be. They will be.
They will be. They will be. They will be. They will be.
They will be. They will be. They will be. They will be.
They will be. They will be. They will be. They will be.
Mark chapter 4 and verse 17. And so endure but for a time. Time is the great revealer of the genuineness of a work of grace. Now tonight we come to a fourth great lesson that is found in this second type of soil, the stony ground hearer.
And I trust you won't close your Bible and anchor and run out when I say what the principle is but you'll hear me out, will you?
Because I don't know how else to phrase this. And the phrasing, it may cause some of our sensitive ears to react negatively. I trust that. I don't want a negative reaction but if you can help me to phrase it a different way, you see me after the meeting and if I preach on this again sometime, I'll use a better phrase.
But here's the fourth great principle in this parable of our Lord in this particular section is that there is such a thing as a temporary believer. Now I didn't say such a thing as a temporary Christian or a temporary salvation. But there is such a thing as a temporary believer. Why do I dare make that assertion?
Well, I read in Luke 8 in verse 13 the words of our Lord. Notice. Luke 8, 13. They are they on the rock which when they hear receive the word with joy and have no root but for a while believe.
So if our Lord talked about temporary believers, I'm not too embarrassed to use his terminology. For a while they believed. They were believers but they were temporary believers. I used to wonder when I saw that phrase in some of the old Puritan literature.
They used to talk a lot about temporary believers. And I said, where in the world do they ever get that phrase? Then I started studying this parable and I realized it's a biblical phrase. They on the rock are those who for a while believe.
Characteristics of Temporary Believers and Biblical Examples
This is the person who hears the message of the kingdom and promises to God. Promising forgiveness. Promising eternal life. Pledging the full deliverance from the penalty of sin.
And you and I rejoice in what is suitable and comfortable to our natures. And a natural man can rejoice in some of the, what we would say, blessings of the gospel. All men by nature want peace. That's why the psychiatrist's couches are filled.
And people will pay $25 an hour once and twice a week for months on end trying to get peace. It doesn't take an ounce of grace to want peace as a condition of soul. People want joy. People want security.
That's why they've got life insurance. That's why they've got strikes for more fringe benefits. Sick pay. Retirement benefits.
Men want security by nature. It doesn't take an ounce of grace to want security, peace, blessing. And because the gospel has some of these things as its blessed accompaniment, men hear that message of the gospel and they pick out these things. You see, they're geared in, looking for peace and they hear a message that says, peace.
They're looking for security and they hear a message that promises security for time and eternity and they pick up the word security. They don't hear the other words of the gospel. Sin. Repentance.
Denial of self. Submission. They're just a sort of deaf to that, but the things they do hear, their ears are sensitive to and they say, I like that. And so what do they do?
The Lord says they receive that message with joy. Now listen. Thinking now that they have the peace of God, thinking they have eternal life, why, there's some manifestations that look like genuine light, just like that little spring. It looked like a sure enough plant that was going to bear lots of fruit.
They'll begin to read their Bibles. They'll pray. They'll even sing hymns with great gusto. This happens especially in times of revival when the Spirit of God is poured out in power and there's great revival and religious excitement of the right kind.
And multitudes are pressing into the kingdom and in the excitement of all of this there's something exhilarating and thrilling. You go into a place where God has just come and visited people and there's been confession of sin and brokenness and you hear them singing songs about the blood and about the grace of God. I've been privileged to be in a few places like that and I tell you, you just feel, Lord, I can't take it. Just the exhilarating experience of being in a climate like that, and so these people in the midst of that and being attuned to some of the side blessings of the gospel, they reach out, they embrace it.
What our Lord says, they believe with a kind of faith. They even manifest certain signs of life. But what happens? Sooner or later, that sun comes up.
Tribulation, persecution, temptation, and what seemed to be life gives way to death and you see them no more. They're gone. Gone as far as any profession of Christ. Gone as far as any evidences of life.
The word used here in Luke that they shall fall away is the word from which we get the word apostasy. They apostatize. They fall away from the faith of Jesus Christ. The word of God is full of these examples.
Look at Demas. Here's a man who was a companion of the apostle Paul. No doubt prayed with him. Preached with him.
And yet Paul had to say those sad words, Demas hath forsaken me having loved this present age. Paul had to say in Timothy 1, 1 Timothy 1, Hymenaeus and Philetus who concerning the faith have made shipwreck.
They once looked like fair professors sailing out in the sea of Christian experience, but he said now they're dashed upon the rocks. They've made shipwreck.
Simon Magus, in the midst of that revival at Samaria, says he believed, was baptized, but a few verses later Peter had to say your heart's not right with God. You have neither part nor lot in this matter. Pray that the thought of thine heart be forgiven thee. Then you have those two classic examples in the word of God which have troubled some of you perhaps for years, but I trust this parable will help open them up.
Let's look at them for just a moment.
Exposition of Hebrews 6 and 2 Peter 2
Parable of the temporary believer and now we come to an exposition in the epistles. The epistles of the temporary believer. Look in Hebrews chapter 6.
Hebrews chapter 6 and then we'll look for a moment at a passage in 2 Peter. Hebrews chapter 6.
Now we're not going to seek to give a detailed exposition of the passage, but we simply want to see the aspects of this passage which throw light upon Matthew 13. Hebrews 6 and verse 4. For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away to renew them again unto repentance, seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh and put him into an open shame. For the earth that drinketh in the rain, that cometh oft upon it and bringeth forth herbs, meet for them by whom it is dressed, receives blessing from God.
For that which bears thorns and briars is rejected and nigh unto cursing, whose end is to be burned. But, beloved, we are persuaded better things of you and things that accompany salvation.
Whatever these people had, they didn't have salvation. But they did have what? Enlightenment.
They had a tasting of the heavenly gift. They experienced some kind of moving of the powers of the world to come. They tasted the good word of God. They experienced all of this.
And there seemed to be the buddying of spiritual life. And they fall away.
The writer to Hebrews says, But we are persuaded better things of you, brethren, and things that accompany salvation. And what are those things that accompany salvation? Or what is the key thing? Notice, he gives a little parenthetical element.
For God is not unrighteous to forget your work, verse 10, and labor of love, which you have shown toward His name, and you minister to the saints and do minister. And we desire that every one of you show the same diligence to the full assurance, of hope unto the end, that you be not slothful but followers of them who through faith and patience, the word patience in the Greek is endurance, inherited the promises. He said, we are convinced that the things that accompany salvation, namely perseverance, pressing on, continuance, this is your portion. They were stony ground hearers who tasted of the good word of God, of the powers of the world to come.
And now they have shriveled, shriveled up in the face of what? Persecution. That was the great problem here. For you remember it says, great multitudes became obedient to the faith in the early days after the outpouring of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost.
But in Acts 8 it says, a great tribulation arose after the persecution of Stephen. And when that persecution began to come to these professing Christians here in the environs of Jerusalem, then the sun arose. And as the sun arose, many a fair budding plant withered and it died.
Temporary believers. Same thing is indicated in 2 Peter chapter 2. 2 Peter chapter 2, another passage that I'm sure has troubled many of you.
Verse 20. 2 Peter 2 and verse 20.
For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world, there's been some overt evidence of separation from worldly practices, through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they've come to some acquaintance with the gospel and the truth concerning the Savior. They are again entangled therein and overcome. The latter end is worse with them than the beginning, for it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than after they've known it to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them. But it has happened unto them according to the true proverb, the dog is turned, to his own vomit again.
They were still dogs. And the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire, clearly indicating that they always had a dog's heart and they always had a sow's nature. But for a while, they were separated from the environments of their vomit and the sow of her mire. Now that's blunt language, but God the Holy Ghost used it.
They had been separated from that which their natures loved. And it had come, come through the influence of the gospel. It had been through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior.
They had received the word with joy. There had been some evidences of spiritual life.
But when the right circumstances came, the sow went back to her wallowing and the dog to her vomit. What were they? Temporary believers. Temporary believers.
Exactly what our Lord is talking about in Matthew 13. Oh, that we might realize that men may do much, that has the semblance of spiritual life and fall short of true life in Christ. Now, I'm sure that some questions about this temporary believer have begun to arise in your minds. May I anticipate them?
Question 1: Was the Temporary Believer Truly Saved?
Question number one, and I know some of you are thinking this. Well, was that person really saved? Says he believed.
Doesn't the Bible say he didn't believe if he's saved?
Yeah, it does say that. That's a good question.
Was he really saved? Was the faith of that man the faith of God's elect, as Paul calls it?
Was that faith, that faith which is the gift of the Spirit of God, according to Ephesians 2, by grace you say through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God? He was never really saved. This wasn't saving faith. How do we know?
Because the Lord is very careful in all three accounts of this parable to say that that little plant never had a root. And notice how he interprets this in Matthew 13. Verse 27. Yet he hath no root in himself.
Mark chapter 4 and verse 17. And they have no root in themselves. Luke chapter 8 and verse 13.
These have no root. Now what is the root for a plant? Analyze this for a moment. The root is that part of the plant which unites it with the source of the fruit.
The root of its sustenance. The leaves, the process of photosynthesis. Did I say it right, you budding biology students? That unites it with another source of life.
Now listen, listen. The plant needs the sun and it needs what it draws of moisture through the soil and of nourishment, the different chemicals and all the rest. Now get this. But because this plant had no root, it was never vitally united to the source and support, to the source and supply of life and strength, what should have been for its development became its destroyer.
True Christians whose roots are in Christ, what does the sun do to him? Persecution and tribulation, read James 1. What does it do? My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers trials, knowing that the trial of your faith works with patience.
There's a spiritual photosynthesis that goes on in the life of the Christian. You read Romans, Romans 5, tribulation, worketh what? Destruction? No.
He says tribulation works patience. Patience, experience. Experience hope. So in the true Christian, instead of the sun shriveling him up, it operates as it ought to, as part of the life and then his roots go down into Christ from which he draws spiritual sustenance.
This man was never saved for he had no union with the source of life. And Christ is that source. That's why John could say as he did at 1 John 2.19.
This is another key text which throws light on this passage. John said in 1 John 2.19, they went out from us. They were among us.
You couldn't be among them in those early days without making some kind of a clear profession.
May I add that that profession in those days generally cost something.
So these were people who were more than just nominal churchgoers. They were in the assembly there, John says, but they went out from us. But he says they were never really of us. For if they had really been of us, they would no doubt have what?
They would no doubt have continued with us, but they went out. Why? That they might be made manifest that they were not all of us. He said they're going out simply revealed that they were never really with us.
That's the truth here. When that plant withers under persecution, and a man apostatizes and turns away from Christ and his commands and precepts, he simply reveals that he was never rooted in Jesus Christ in the first place. For the true child of God is one who's vitally joined to Christ. And my Bible says, he that hath begun a good work in you will perfect it or carry it on until the day of Jesus Christ.
In John 17, the Lord Jesus, prays for all of his own, and he says, Father, I will that all whom thou hast given me be with me where I am that they may behold my glory. In John chapter 6, the Lord Jesus said, This is the will of my Father that of all that he hath given me I should lose none and should raise it up at the last day. In Romans chapter 8, the Apostle says, Whom he foreknew them he justified and whom he justifieded every one he will also glorify. No, in answer to the question, is the stony ground here one who was ever really saved?
I believe the answer of the scripture is clear. No, for he had no root. Do you see why I'm teaching this at the same time we're going through Matthew 7? Do you see the parallel?
Remember that man we looked at this morning? He built a fair, flourishing house of profession, but it was all above ground. There was no foundation. Talking about, basically the same thing.
See? Basically the same thing. But until the flood came, it looked like a good house. Until the sun came up, it looked like a good plant.
But the flood and the sun revealed that they were not good to start with.
First question, was he a saved man? I believe the answer of the word of God is no. 1 John 3, 9 says, He that is born of God cannot continue to practice sin because his seed remains in him and he cannot give himself over to sin because he's born of God. A David may fall as low as adultery and murder, but he will also be a David who's in misery until he comes to repentance.
For he said, Day and night thy hand was upon me. I make my couch to swim with my tears. And I'm always disturbed when I hear professing Christians say, Oh well, I don't believe you've got to be holy. Look at David.
He committed adultery. Yeah, but look at David. He spent sleepless nights for a whole year. And when the arrows of conviction found their way into his heart, he went down, and his face, and out came Psalm 51.
Have mercy upon me, O God. According to the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgression, for my sin is ever before me. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. He didn't just come crashing into the presence of God and say, Lord, I claim a forgiveness.
Amen. No. He fell down broken. So if you're going to imitate David's sin and take any comfort, you better not to imitate his repentance.
We twist the scriptures to do one without the other. And so the child of God may grievously sin, but he can't be at home in the realm of sin because God, who's become the good work, is going to carry it on in answer to his eternal purpose and to the intercessory work of his Son, the Lord Jesus, and because of the indwelling Spirit.
Question 2: Can a Temporary Believer Be Saved Later?
Now the second question somebody asks is, well, can a person like that ever get saved?
Well, I have to say, I don't know if our Lord's referring to that terrible situation of Hebrew, where it speaks of a people who apostatize and then it's impossible to renew them to repentance. If he's talking about that, then it's impossible. But if he's talking about the person who embraces the gospel, not understanding its implications and peters out, but then later on comes to a fuller understanding and the Holy Spirit does a deep work, that gives me some hope because that's a picture of my own life. I made at least a half a dozen false starts.
My own father who's here tonight would bear witness to that. When for a period of two, three weeks, one time as long as six months, I looked like a fair, flourishing plant. But when the sun would come up and there was the pressure of the opinion of classmates and the cry and passion of my own lust, what little life I had just kind of beat it over.
God in his mercy and grace did something, put some good soil down there that for 14 years now I have a little evidence that gives me comfort. That maybe God's begun some good work.
Problem 1: The False Doctrine of Assurance
So if you're here tonight as one who's described in this passage, don't despair. If you've not volitionally and willfully rejected and turned your back upon Christ and counted his blood an unholy thing, if you're peeling out after a fair and flourishing start was simply because you didn't count the cost, you didn't search the word, didn't cry to God for illumination, then I encourage you to ask God to make your heart good soil that you might bring forth permanent fruit. Not only are there some questions about this fellow, but there's some problems about him. And this pains my heart tonight because there are some real problems about the stony ground here.
One of the greatest ones is this. Listen carefully now. Many times during the period when he looks like the real thing, that person who's received the word with joy and is running around the meetings and giving his testimony and singing hymns and my, you just say that fellow is going like a rocket, going like a ball of fire. Many times during that period before the sun has arisen and he's shown to be what he really is, he is taught and indoctrinated in a false doctrine of security.
He's told that if you've made a decision and trusted Jesus, no matter how you live, what you do, you'll go to heaven when you die. That is putting a possibility of a situation that doesn't exist. For if God saves me, part of that salvation is not only securing my escape from hell, the penalty of sin, but also delivering me from the dominion of sin and one day, hallelujah, from the very presence of sin. And all of that is part and parcel of God's salvation.
And he never does the first part without the second and the third.
But when people are told if you've trusted Jesus, you believe he died for your sins, you're saved now and saved for eternity, period, without adding what the scripture says, and if, if you're saved, you will continue. If you're saved, you will go on in God's grace. And I have met all over this country men and women on their way to hell before stony ground hearers who are clinging to a false doctrine of assurance. They say, my sheep will never perish.
But they never read who his sheep are. Jesus said, my sheep hear my voice, present tense. And they are following me, present tense. And I give to them eternal life.
They completely overlook that and they just take, I give eternal life. They say, he that heareth and believeth, and they read it this way, he that heard and believed hath everlasting life. No, those are all present tenses in the original. He that heareth my word, present tense, and believeth, present tense.
I'm sure you saw that, Clint, in your study of John. All those believes are present tense. He that believeth, present tense, on the sun hath everlasting life.
And one of the great problems that emerges as a result of our study of this passage is that problem of the doctrine of a false assurance. For people fail to see that part of God's salvation is present deliverance from the dominion of sin. Not sinless perfection, no, but just the truth of Romans 6 that you were the servants of sin, you have now become servants of righteousness. For why did Christ die?
He died, Titus 2.14 says, gave himself for us that he might save us from hell. That in what it says there, it says that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify to himself the peculiar people zealous of good works.
It says in Ephesians 5, he gave himself for the church. Why? That he might sanctify and cleanse the church. Matthew 1.21 says,
Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. Galatians 1.4 says, who gave himself for us that he might deliver us out of this present evil world according to the will of God our Father. And when people are taught a false doctrine of assurance, that salvation is simply salvation from hell, and if you've trusted Jesus, you're hell-proof no matter what you do.
This is not a doctrine of the Bible. It's a doctrine spawned in the place that they think they're delivered from and will lead them there. Dear one, I don't say that hastily or in the heat of my own spirit. There is a true doctrine of security.
It's security in Christ. And the proof that I'm in Christ is that I am a believing man, a repenting man, an abiding man. So that's one of the great problems that comes concerning this man. And then a second great problem is what happens when we've got loved ones and friends who seem to fit that description.
Problem 2: Praying for Loved Ones Who Are Stony Ground Hearers
I've seen so many parents and loved ones clinging to the fact that back in the dim, murky past, their son or daughter or aunt or uncle made a decision, went to church and gave out tracts for six months, a year, two years, or three years.
And then they petered out. No interest in the things of God, never crack a Bible, never bend their knee to pray. And yet if that person dies, what do they say? They say, well, I've got some hope way back then.
So what happens when they pray for these people if they're not dead, if they're still living? How do they pray? Well, you see, they're not praying according to the mind of the Word. They're saying, God, I know that my loved one, my friend, my son, my daughter, I know they're saved, Lord, because I saw them one time with some signs of life.
Ah, but did you never read about the stony ground here? Who received the Word with joy, but endure only for a time?
I've seen this and been faced with it so forcibly this past week while I've been on the prayer time over WFME with so many of the requests that come in. People say, pray for my son or daughter. He's saved, but chasing around with a married woman, chasing around with unsaved women, I say, oh God, saved from what? Saved from what?
If not saved from rebellion to God and His laws, saved from what?
Some of you know Dr. Lehman Strauss, a well-known conference speaker. He made a comment on this one time when he was church, pastoring a large church out in Michigan. He had a man come in who was a member of that church for years.
He'd only been there a short time.
And the man came in and sat down and said, well, I want to tell you what my problem is. I'm doing this, this, this. He was running around with some other woman in the church, been living in adultery with her and a lot of other things. But he said, I want you to know, Dr. Strauss,
that I'm saved. Dr. Strauss turned and said, sir, saved from what? That's where I got my question.
He said, saved from what? And the man said, to save from hell. He says, is that your understanding of what Jesus came to do, to save you simply from the penalty of your sin? He said, yes.
He said, you don't understand the gospel. But the gospel is he came to save us from sin and its consequences. And in that order.
He got it.
And what is sin? 1 John 3, 4 says, sin is the transgression of the law. And this man was living in open, flagrant disobedience to the seventh commandment and yet he says he's saved. Saved from what?
Does God the Father have such an unholy regard to the blood of his Son that he'll apply that blood to the heart of a man who still says I'm going to trample underfoot the laws of God?
No. God has such high regard for the blood of his Son that what he always does is that by his Spirit he changes the heart of a man so that that man's heart is set in the direction of obeying the law of God and doing the will of God and he applies his blood to that one. Chapter and verse. All right.
1 Peter. Look at it. It's beautifully stated here. Beautifully stated in the book of 1 Peter.
Chapter 1, verse 2. Elect according to the foreknowledge of God through sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience and what? Sprinkling of the blood of Christ. Ah, those things.
Three things are inseparable. Sanctification of the Spirit. God changing the heart according to Ezekiel 36 taking out the heart of stone giving a heart of flesh unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Christ and the blood of Christ is nowhere sprinkled but upon a heart that has experienced the sanctifying power of the Spirit and is turned in the direction of obedience.
And so if you have loved ones, children, friends who fit the description don't argue with God. Take God's side in the issue. That's the third question I've already led into it. What do you do with people that you know who are in this condition?
Counsel for Dealing with Stony Ground Hearers
1 Corinthians 13 says love hopeth all things. So put the best motive upon them as you refer to them to others.
This strikes close to home.
We've seen this situation the past few years within our own family.
You have within yours. Someone seems to strike out and makes a flourishing profession and someone comes to you and says say I hear your brother or sister has been saved and you know what's happened. What are you to say? Well love hopeth all things.
So you put the best possible construction. Say well I trust they're truly saved but they've drifted and if they're the Lord's He's going to chase them and bring them back. Will you pray to me with me to that end? Love hopeth all things.
Believeth all things. Thinketh no evil. Love will put the best possible construction upon the circumstance that it can do without denying truth. Love never denies truth.
But then when you go to your closet to pray be on the safe side and put the worst possible construction upon it.
And say God it's possible they don't know and if they don't oh God bring them to repentance. Save the Lord. And I'm sure if they already are saved and all they need is to be disciplined and brought back into fellowship if you're praying and believing God to save them that's a greater work than just to discipline them. If God can do the greater He'll do the lesser.
And I find that's what I have to do. In these situations that come close to my own even my own immediate family. Lord I've got no grounds to believe they're yours because they're not going on in your truth and your word and if they're not yours Lord awaken them save them draw them break them. And if all they are is a backslidden Christian who needs the discipline of God then I'm sure the Lord will never hold it against me that I had a holy fear that they might be lost.
Self-Application: How to Know You Are More Than a Stony Ground Hearer
But then when I speak about them to others put the best possible construction that love can put consistent with truth. Now as we close tonight may I make a word of final application to ourselves. We've been looking at stony ground hearers out here in the parable and out there with others are they saved? How do we pray for them?
What should our attitude be?
But this says something to you and to me.
How do you know you're something more than a stony ground here?
How do I know I'm something more than a stony ground here?
The only way to know is that by the grace of God I endure Hebrews 4.14 says we are made partakers of Christ if certainly if if if if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end so we say Lord I believe I'm yours join dear son and if I am then you've promised to keep me from the evil one you're praying to keep me Lord give me grace to press on in the way of obedience and holiness secondly you must abide in Christ Jesus said if a man abide not in me he's cast forth as a branch and they're withered and then gather them and cast them into the fire and they're burned the proof of the reality
of the beginning of life is the continuance of life abiding in Christ drawing upon him feeding upon him making him our life our refuge our all and then continuance in his word Jesus said in John 8.32 if ye continue in my word Hebrews 5.9 says he became the author of eternal salvation unto all that are obeying him a literal translation from the original Hebrews 10 John 10.27 my sheep are hearing my voice and they are following me would you prove to yourself and to the world that you are something more than a stony ground here and by the grace of God you must endure abide and continue in his word
you see the truth that God's preservation of his own is a precious truth but when it's abused to become a canopy of comfort a canopy of peace for stony ground hearers it's a cursed thing and so the fourth great lesson we learn from this second kind of a hearer is that there is such a thing as a temporary believer I'm glad you didn't get up and walk out when you heard that phrase Christ used it temporary believers we see them in Hebrews 6 2 Peter 2 as we see them the question comes were they ever really saved the answer is no they had no root they were never joined to Christ the question is
can they be saved if they've not been saved if they've not been saved if they've not been given up by the Lord then the door of mercy is open it's open to you tonight if this has been a description of you some of the problems arising from this truth many are taught a false doctrine of assurance while they are simply stony ground hearers don't you be guilty of passing that doctrine on to people you give them the true doctrine of the perseverance and the preservation of the saints God preserves and the proof that he's preserving me is that I'm persevering he's preserving comes to light in my persevering may God help us then as we reflect upon this and by his grace may we prove to be good soil hearers
who bring forth not all the same amount of fruit you see there's the there's the place for Christians who go on with God more there's the thirty fold sixty and a hundred but all good ground hearers bear fruit may you bear much fruit to the glory and honor of his name let us pray
This transcript was generated by automated speech recognition and may contain errors. It is provided for study and reference only; the audio recording is the authoritative source.
Passages Expounded
The primary text for the sermon, providing the parable of the sower and its interpretation, with a specific focus on the stony ground hearer.
A key verse from a parallel account that explicitly uses the phrase 'for a while believe,' forming the basis for the doctrine of temporary believers.
A significant epistle passage expounded to illustrate the characteristics and fate of those who experience spiritual benefits but fall away, contrasting them with true believers.
Another crucial epistle passage expounded to describe those who escape worldly pollutions but return to them, using the metaphors of the dog and sow to depict temporary belief.
Texts Expounded
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