Let's pray.  Father, thank you in Jesus' name for the word of God that doesn't return void.  We thank you Lord for so many different people in the body of Christ that do different things.  Some that have written music years ago, some that are writing music still today after years.  Some that are just getting started in the music ministry.  Some who are digging up artifacts in the other side of the world.  Some who are teaching bible studies.  Some who are serving in the children's ministry, all of us together make the body of Christ.  No one is more important than anyone else.  We are little people that serve a great God and we're thankful for that.  We pray that in our time together tonight, you'd encourage us and you'd teach us as we study, as we read, as we consider and as we apply these truths to our lives.  We ask this in Jesus' name.  Amen.

There was a Christian lady who lived next door to an atheist.  And she prayed about everything and she prayed often out loud about things, so that the atheist who again lived next door to the Christian lady could hear her pray in the summer when their windows were open.  And he of course saw this was crazy and there is no God.  Why does she carry on?  This is not going to do her any good.  And one evening, this atheist heard the Christian lady praying for groceries because she had run out and she said, "Lord, I trust You.  You can do anything and I know that You're going to provide my every need."  And she just listed the groceries that she needed and said in Jesus name.  And the atheist overheard this and he thought, "I'm going to fix her."

He went out and bought all of the groceries that she mentioned in her prayer list, put them in bags, knocked on the door and then hid behind the bush.  That lady opened the door, saw the grocery.  She said, "Praise the Lord.  I knew He would provide."  The atheist jumps out of the bushes and goes, "You crazy Christian lady.  God didn't get you those groceries.  I bought them for you, you nut."  When she heard that, she got even more excited, jumped up in the air, "Praise the Lord.  Praise the Lord.  Praise the Lord."  He didn't get it.  He said, "I don't get this.  How come you're so excited?"  She smiled and she said, "I knew God was going to provide the groceries.  I just didn't know He was going to make the devil pay for it."  I like the way she thinks.

Well, that could be a little tag line for how everything is going to shake out eventually in eternity.  In the end, God is going to get the glory and the devil is going to pay.  Until then, that same devil seems to have quite a bit of freedom.  You might say he is on leash.  We wonder why the leash is so long.  And, we are caught in the crossfire of the activity between heaven and hell.

The Gallup Organization noted that 70% of Americans believe in hell and believe in a devil.  But only half believe the devil is a literal being, the other half say he is imaginary, a figment of one's imagination or simply an analogy of evil, a metaphor of evil.  But then, we turn to the scriptures and we see how Jesus spoke about the devil and we get something very different from Gallup's findings of what American's opinions are.  Jesus seemed to speak of the devil as a literal being.  In Luke Chapter 10 He said, "I saw Satan fall from heaven like lighting!  I was there when it happened."  In Luke Chapter 22, to Peter, Jesus said, "Peter, Satan has desired that he might sift you like wheat."  Well, I don't want to hear those words especially from Jesus.  "Yes, Satan has been coming around lately talking to me about you."  "Whoa.  What did you tell him?"  And Jesus says to Peter, "I pray for you."

Now, we touched a little bit on that last week and the week before about some of the people that came to Jesus, those who were demonized and how Jesus dealt with them and what that meant and the idea of possession versus oppression.  But, we didn't quite finish the Chapter last week.  So we're going to pick it up at Verse 23.  And again, I believe it's speaking of spiritual warfare.

You've heard of Dwight Lyman Moody, D.L. Moody.  D.L. Moody in his kind of simple country style said, "I believe in the devil and I believe in him for two reasons.  Number one, because the bible says he's real.  Number two, because I've done business with him.

And if you've ever done business with him, there's no question in your mind that he's out to try to kill, to steal, and to destroy.  But I think we make a couple of mistakes when it comes to Satan.  Even as Christians, we sometimes make this mistake and that is almost a denial of his activity.  We forget that we're on a spiritual battle.  We become so cloistered in our Christian camp, in our Christian activities that we forget the very real battle between spiritual forces that is taking place.  And I think that that is what on one hand Satan would want. He would want you to deny.  He would want you to forget.  He would want you to fall asleep.

Somebody once said, "The devil is never too busy to rock the cradle of a sleeping saint."  Wake up.  Don't sleep.  You're in a very real battle.  The outcome has already been determined.  You win in the end.  But in the meantime, there could be a lot of collateral damage.  A second mistake Christians sometimes make is too obsess over the devil.  Being over interested and unhealthy preoccupation with him, getting so superstitious that everything and anything is a demonic attack and some even go hunting for demons.  "I've got a ministry of deliverance."  "Well what do you do?"  "I go around the country and I look for demons."  Well, you don't have to look very far.  So, be careful that you don't fall into anyone of those two extremes.  The devil is real.  Jesus speaks about him.  The bible underscores and defines and describes his activity, but you don't need to have an unhealthy preoccupation.

I remember this superstition being played out in a church I was a part of many years ago before I was married, before I moved here.  I lived in California.  I was involved in a church in Carson, California.  And, it was after a service, I was teaching the youth group at that time because I was like in the youth group at that time.  And, these kids came to me afterwards and said, "You got to talk to our friend.  He's demon possessed."  I said, "Well how do you know that?"  He goes, "He said he is."  So I said, "Okay".  So I went over to him.  He was acting really strange and trying to like fraught and everything else.  What's weird is I saw him come forward at an altar call recently and I knew that he had made a fresh commitment to Christ.  And yet, he had this fascination with all things demon.  And, I think he was trying to spook these girls that were with him.  I don't know why, but he did a good job of it and he was trying to spook me and he started contorting his face and I said, "Stop it right now."  And he stopped and I said, "You are not demon possessed."  And he looked at me and he said, "Really?"  And it was like enough to shake him out of a superstitious stupor that he was in.  I knew that he had given his life to Christ.  Could he be oppressed?  Yes.  Could he be possessed?  Absolutely not.  Why?  Because the Holy Spirit was living inside of him.  His body is the temple of the Spirit.  God doesn't share the apartment with the demon.

True story in 1999, a newspaper in Scotland reported a Catholic priest from France being arrested for speeding.  That was the article said.  Well, what's strange about the article is why he was arrested for speeding.  When the police pulled over the priest, the priest said, "I was driving responsibly officer but some force took control of my car."  And he said, "It became demon possessed and it went faster than I wanted it to."  Well, it didn't convince the officer.  The priest got a ticket.  I don't think the demon got the ticket, but the priest got the ticket.

Now we enter into, as I mentioned, Verse 43 where Jesus said, "When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest and he finds none.  And then he says, I will return to my house from which I came.  And when he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order.  Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first.  So shall it also be with this wicked generation."

So, it seems that if Jesus is indeed speaking of a demon, that this demon likes friends.  He has a gain.  Even demons like fellowship.  Okay, there's a couple of ways to look at this and they have been looked at by most mainline commentators.  That number one, Jesus is speaking of actual demon possession that a man whose body is represented by the house just like Jesus talked about going into a house and binding the strong men in last week's study, that the body becomes the house.  The house has been vacated because the demon has been exorcised.  This man has been delivered off the demon.  So his condition immediately improves.  But in that improved state, the vacuum isn't filled.  The spirit isn't replaced with God.  And because of that, he brings seven other spirits or demons to inhabit this house and the last state is worse than the first.

So, the application could be that social reformation is certainly not enough but spiritual regeneration is the ticket.  It's more than just, "I'm going to give this up.  I'm going to turn from that.  There's all these bad demons so to speak that have been bugging me, but I'm going to push those out of life and get my life on target.  I'm going to improve."  What a person really needs especially this person if indeed a demon has been exorcised from him, is the presence of God in his life.  And it's the presence of God living in this house, in this body.  That is the ticket that will be the deterrent to any other spirit in the future.  That's one way it's interpreted.  But there is another way to look at it.  That Jesus is speaking a parable to the generation.  Notice it says, "So it shall be also with this wicked generation."  Geneas, which could also be translated, not just generation, but race. 

And some believe that this is actually a parable that Jesus is giving of the Jewish nation, that John the Baptist came preaching repentance.  Turn from this, turn from that.  Seize doing that.  And he was the forerunner of Jesus Christ predicting the coming messiah, "Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of world."  But not everybody that followed or listened to John the Baptist embraced Jesus Christ.  So?  So what it will be with this generation?  This interpretation goes like this.  "Well 2000 years ago, Jesus came.  And he came to the Jewish nation, what He called the House of Israel."  Remember He sent his disciples out to preach the gospel at first to the House of Israel.  But He came to House of Israel, but the House of Israel rejected Him.  He came into His own and His own did not receive Him.  And because they rejected Him, there's going to be further deception that comes along with that.  How?  In the future.  He talks about seven spirits.  Seven is in the bible, often used as a number of completion, seven days in a week, seven notes on a scale, et cetera.

So, it's speaking about idolatry fully developed.  Now, that's interesting because when we get to the future writings, Matthew 24, Book of Daniel, Revelation, there's something called the abomination of desolation or the abomination that causes desolation.  That this world leader in the future that we dubbed the antichrist is going to set up an image in Jerusalem and command the world to worship him.  And it's that abomination of the desolation that is set up that defiles the temple, but many Jewish people as well as the rest of the world will follow hard after that.  And perhaps, this is even indicated in the words of Jesus himself who said, "I came in My Father's name, and you did not receive Me; another will come in his own name, him you will receive."  That's the thought and you can choose which one you choose to look at, one or the other or all of the above.

While He was still talking to the multitudes, behold His mother and His brother stood outside seeking to speak with Him.  Now, we're not told why they were seeking to speak with Him or what they wanted to talk about.  If you compare some of the other gospel accounts, at least on one account they thought Jesus was crazy beside himself as the word that is used or my version, because He wasn't eating much.  He wasn't taking care of himself much.  He was always on the go.  So they thought He was nuts.  Now, we know that Jesus' brothers didn't believe in Him until after the resurrection.  So, it could be that they said, "Mom, come on we got to go rescue Yeshua.  He's just crazy."

That, I understand.  I got some of that from my parents and my brothers.  Skip has flipped his lid.  He's always quoting the bible.  He's always, "Praise the Lord."  This guy's nuts.  We don't know why they're there but they're there.  And no one said to him, "Look, Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside seeking to speak with you."  But he answered and said to the one who told him, "Who is my mother and who are my brothers?"  "Wow."  That doesn't sound like Jesus is pushing Mary worship all that much now does it?  "Your mother's here."  "Who's she?"  "What?"  "Who are my mother?  Who are my brothers?"  And He stretched out his hand toward His disciples and He said, "Here are my mother and my brothers.  For whoever does the will of Father in heaven is my brother, and sister, and mother."

We notice that Joseph is not there with Mary and the boys.  Why is that?  We're not told.  Probably, my guess is he has already died by this time.  He could still be in Nazareth working at the shop, not wanting to leave work for this little journey or errand they're on.  We don't know but probably he has died by this time.  Now this teaches us, this little cameo of the family of Jesus coming around teaches us a couple of lessons.  Number one, there's no such thing as the doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary.  I grew up hearing that, thus believing that.  I was shocked honestly when I came to faith.  When I was saved and I started reading what the bible says and I found out that Jesus had siblings.  Those would be half-brothers that are mentioned.  That after Jesus was born, as a virgin birth from Mary, not because of the union of Mary and Joseph but the virgin-born son of God.  Once he was born, Joseph and Mary had normal physical relationships.  The bible says Mary didn't touch Joseph and Joseph didn't touch Mary physically until after Jesus was born.

After Jesus was born, they were a married couple and they raised a family and had children between themselves.  So these would be half-brothers of Jesus.  So, forget the perpetual virginity.  It's not even important.  It was made up and you can trace when it was introduced as a false doctrine into Christian belief.  The second thing and even more important than that is the emphasis on a spiritual family, even over and above a physical family, now Jesus is not dissing or denouncing your physical family.  He is simply saying that a spiritual bond is often deeper, more significant and more important than a filial bond, than a family bond.  I found that to be true.  I loved my mother and my father and my brothers.  The two that are alive, still have a relationship.  It's a good relationship.  I love them.  But, I also notice when I became a believer and was attached to Christian brothers and sisters that there was depth of experience and bond that nothing that I had ever experienced even as a family member of commitment as brother and sister or brother and father, brother-mother could ever come close to.  Now, it's even cooler when your brothers and your mother are believers, because then they're physically and spiritually united and that's an unshakable bond.  But Jesus is emphasizing the spiritual over the physical.

Okay.  Now, we do get into Chapter 13 and again, my intention last week to finish Chapter 12.  I thought, there's no way I'm not going to finish it.  It's easy.  I'm going to nail it all.  But, I've had many such nights of good intentions that I've fallen short of.  But now we're in Chapter 13.  Now, you can see it's a long chapter.  Let me prophecy right now.  I'm not going to finish Chapter 13 tonight.  That's for the record.

Chapter 13 is a section known as the Kingdom Parables, the Kingdom Parables.  There are seven of them all together.  One of Jesus' favorite subjects was to talk about the kingdom.  Repent, the kingdom of heaven is at hand.  The Sermon on the Mount, "Behold the Kingdom of God."  He spoke about the ethics, the ethos, the standards of the kingdom.  Matthew 24, "The future of the kingdom."  Love speaking about kingdom.  When Jesus rose from the dead, you know what He talked about?  "The kingdom."

Acts Chapter 1.  He showed himself alive with many infallible proofs and spoke pertaining the things of the Kingdom of God for 40 days.  He just wanted to talk about the kingdom that's why He had come.  He was the king.  He was setting up the kingship in people's hearts and lives right now, but speaking of the future when He will come and set things straight.  There will be a literal kingdom.  I believe a millennial kingdom for a thousand years upon the Earth.  Forty-eight times in the New Testament is the word parable or parables, either singular or plural that are mentioned.  It comes from the Greek parabolē and it means to place or to cast alongside of, to place or cast alongside of.

So, what Jesus does or what rabbis would do is cast alongside of something that was unknown, something that was known.  Well, to take something physical and lay it alongside something spiritual so that in understanding the physical, and making application to the spiritual.  Placing one thing alongside of the other, it makes sense.  So, look at this way.  Parables are earthly stories with heavenly meanings, an earthly example that has a heavenly meaning.  And as I mentioned, it's 48 times the word is mentioned.  In the New Testament, Jesus loved to teach in parables.  One-third of all the teaching that we have recorded is Jesus speaking in story form.  The rabbis love to speak in these kinds of stories.

In fact, in the ancient world, storytelling and orality where huge, when you have communities that were illiterate.  It was all about the story.  You tell the story.  You give the history.  You give the genealogy and you tell God's story and how the family fits into that from generation to generation.  And people would sit around in the evenings.  This is way before television, way before iPads or iPhones or any kind of modern technology and entertainment.  The entertainment, the ancient TV was the story and the better the storyteller the longer a person will lock on and not change the channel.  And Jesus was the master at it.  And so, to take an earthly story and cast it alongside or place it alongside of something that has heavenly meaning is the whole idea of these things and they're powerful. 

You remember in the Old Testament how David sinned with Bathsheba?  And he thought he had gotten away with it until the day Nathan came and told him a parable.  "Hey David, I want to tell you a story."  "Oh, cool.  I like stories."  "Well good."  "There was a rich man.  He had lots of flocks and herds and sheep and there was one poor guy who had a single little female lamb that was like a pet, like a daughter to him.  He cuddled it in his bosom and takes it home at night.  The kids loved it.  The family pet and he just took a liking to it.  That's the only one he had.  The rich man had a friend coming into town and rather than taking one of his many sheep, he took that one poor man's little pet, slaughtered it and they ate it."

David heard that.  He became so angry.  That story got to him.  The storyline and he didn't change the channel, he's locked in.  David says, "Okay.  Find the guy who got that little lamb and kill him."  Nathan said, "You are the man."  And he used the parable, the story cast alongside of something David had done in sinning with another man's wife and pointed God's finger at him in a very powerful way.

So, on the same day, Jesus went out of the house.  I love that for some reason that Jesus was in the house.  He like home bible studies.  The house was always packed, inside and outside, in the courtyard, around the house, leaning in the windows.  On the same day, Jesus went out of the house and He sat by the sea.  I love that about Jesus.  Who wouldn't want to go out of the house and sit by the sea?  But He had a problem.  When He went outside and sat by the sea, people said, "Hey!  Jesus just left the house.  He's sitting by the sea."  Look at the next verse.  "And great multitudes were gathered together to Him, so that he got into a boat, and he sat; and the whole multitude stood on the shore."  Wow, let's maybe try that sometime shall we?  I'll sit and you stand during the whole bible study.  That was an ancient method.

Now on a practical note, Jesus was practical.  He is sitting by the sea.  There are a lot of people.  They want to hear from Him.  Some of them maybe just want to see something that He would do, a miracle.  So, the best way to manage the crowd because you're confined in a seashore and if you turn around, there's still people right there, right on you.  So, using sort of the natural amphitheater that a shore would provide and wanted to get a little bit of the distance, He just sat on a boat, pushed it out just a little bit so we could have a commanding view of the crowd that had gathered and He taught them.  And He spoke many things to them, Verse 3 in parabolē, in parables saying, "Behold, a sower went out to sow.  And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside."  That is the path.  "And birds came and devoured them.  Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth.  But when the sun was up they were scorched, because they had no root they withered away.  And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them.  But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty."

The parable that we just read, as I see it is the key to all of the rest of the kingdom parables.  I tell you that, because in Luke's gospel, when the same parable is given and the disciples were asking about it Jesus said, "Don't you understand this parable?  How then will you understand all parables if you don't understand this parable that I'm giving of the sower and the seed?  How are you going to understand all of the rest of them?"  As if to say, "You can understand the rest of them until you understand this one and if you understand this one, you'll understand the rest of them."  There are certain key elements that are in the story that help unlock the meaning here as well other parables.  Here's an example.  We have first of all the seed as the first key element.  We know what the seed is.  Luke's gospel said, "Jesus is speaking.  He said, 'the seed is the word of God."  You don't have to guess.  A sower sowing seed, what is the seed?  That's truth, man.  That's the Gospel.  That's the word of God.  That's the seed.  Why would Jesus compare a seed to the word?  Because, both of them have life in themselves.  Both are small but very powerful.  It's amazing how a single seed eventually can grow into something that takes some net, a cement foundation or a sidewalk and sever it, crack it, burst and shove it up several inches.  So that if you're walking on that sidewalk in the dusk and you don't notice it, you'll trip.  That's power.

Both of them when dropped into something produce life.  You drop a seed in the ground.  It has the capability of producing life.  You drop the word of God into a heart, into a life.  It can produce spiritual life, so the seed is the word.

The second key element is the sower.  The sower is the one who throws the seed, the one who dispenses the truth, the one who tells you the word of God.  There was some person in your life who was the sower, someone who cared enough to open his or her mouth and share the truth with you.  It might be a lunch conversation.  It could have been a relative who just said, "I got to talk to you about heavenly things."  It might have been a sermon.  It could have been track or a book or a television program or a radio program.  But someone played the role of the sower in your life.  And here's what I want to piggyback on to tell you.  They did it, it's your turn.  The seed has germinated.  It's taken root.  There's fruit, cool.  Pass it along.

Acts Chapter 1 Verse 1, the former treat is that I wrote to you of Theophilus, of all, here it is.  "Of all that Jesus began to do and to teach, until the day He was taken up."  "What Jesus began." Luke writes, "The apostles in this book that I'm going to write kept doing."  What Jesus did, you can do.  So, it's your turn.  The baton is been passed.  You become the sower.

The third element is the soil.  The soil is the heart that receives the truth and there are four different kinds of hearts that listen to bible studies like this.  All of you right now have one of these four hearts.  All of you are represented in this parable as am I.  The soil is the heart that receives the truth of the word of God.  Soil has potential, but not if you'll leave it to itself.  You have to tend the soil.  There are things that come up about this time of the year, end of the summer on my yard that I never planted.  Do you have them?  They're called?  Yeah.  I didn't plant that thing.  And why does that weed grow like that tall and the shrub that I planted takes like four years and gets like this tall?  I don't get this.  Soil has potential, but you can't leave it untended.  The heart of a man or a woman has enormous potential, but the soil is also to be tended.  So we have the seed.  We have the sower.  We have the soil.

Verse 4, "He who sowed and as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside and the birds came and devoured them."  The wayside is the path between rows of whatever you're planting.  It's where the sower would walk and if you walk on the same dirt over a long period of time, what happens to it?  It gets hard.  In fact, dirt can get so hard that a seed if it falls on that pathway, it won't penetrate the soil.  Or, it would take very long and lots of other circumstances for that seed to get into the soil.  Because, if the guy is just walking over it's going to get kicked off.  It's not going to get irrigated.  The soil isn't going to get tilled.  It's not going to get enough moisture.  It's the wayside and because it's exposed, the birds can get it.  Birds always or typically follow somebody sowing the seed.  That was their food.  So, if you have any seed out in the open, the birds were going to come and get it.  I was with my family years ago in Venice and they're in the piazza arts.  I don't know how many pigeons, just and I'm giving you the stare because you can tell I'm like that.  I'm not like stoked on pigeons.  I was thinking of ways to nuke them all as I was looking at them.  They're just like, "These rats with wings have come."  And, my son got the seed and he put it out and they would land on his arm and get it. He throws it on the sidewalk.  They'll just you know, it's like an act of terror that happens in the piazza.  And so, he was trying little things like he'll put a seed up on his ear and the bird would land on his shoulder and put its little beak in his ear and pick it out in different.  But I thought, "You're crazy."  The seed was exposed and so as the birds came and devoured them.

Now, I'm just going to kind of go through a little bit of this before we get to the explanation.  Jesus will get it but because there's other parables in between and other things in between, let me tell just tell you what this is.  This is the calloused heart.  This is the hardened heart.  This is the person who won't let truth penetrate.  As soon as he or she hears truth, they immediately start marginalizing or rationalizing or thinking it implies to somebody else or, "This isn't for me."  They figure out a way to not listen to it, not understand it, not be opened to it.  This is the calloused heart.  It's the personality that God described in the Old Testament of the children of Israel when He called them stiff-necked.  Do you know any hard-hearted people?  I do.  I have known many hard-hearted people.  I was one.  Some of you were.  And I'm saying that because don't write off hard-hearted people because, "Oh, they're not going to get saved.  Let's just go to this next person."

Maybe not today.  But the bible calls the word of God, "The hammer that breaks the rocks in pieces."  So, there's the seed on top of the ground or the rocks.  The word of God can with the right skilled blow break the rocks in pieces, so that thing can penetrate and perhaps germinate.  Think of Nebuchadnezzar.  He had a hard heart.  God got a hold of his heart.  Think of Saul of Tarsus, hard heart.  God got a hold of his heart.  And there are many such examples, the calloused heart.

"Some," Verse 5, "Fell on stony places and they did not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth.  But when the sun was up they were scorched because they had no root they withered away."  This is the shallow heart.

Now, allow me to describe a situation that is typical in the Middle East.  When you go to the Land of Israel, a lot of the passages you read come to life and one is this.  There are rocks everywhere, everywhere.  It amazes people.  It's like the whole country is rock.  And so, those that farmed have to deal with the enormous amount of rocks, so it's usually shelves of rock underneath, limestone typically.  And, rocks are removed and with those rocks they make a little wall so that a hillside is terraced.  You see it everywhere, especially in Judea.  Miles of it terraced.  So they're building up the earth, removing the rocks so that there's a deep enough swathe of earth for things to grow in.

Sometimes, a patch looks like, "Oh it's so soft and ready to receive the seed.  This is going to grow."  And you plant it in there.  But, just a few inches down is a rock shelf.  You don't see it immediately.  So because it's shallow, it's going to collect a lot of sun.  It's going to have a concentration and nutrients to sustain it at first.  There's a quick germination, a fast response.  But because it is shallow, the roots can't go down very deep.  So, it's going to be all top growth and it won't be able to sustain the elements like when the sun gets super hot there, because there's not a network underneath it to sustain it.  It's certain death.  That's what Jesus is speaking about.  This is the shallow heart.  This is the person who hears the truth and does respond and responds sometimes immediately and emotionally and says, "Yes."  They're quick to respond. 

What's unfortunate is they're quick to respond at just about anything, any cause they see or hear of or issue.  They just, "Yeah."  And it's quick in response but there's not a true depth change of heart, real repentance, so there's not lasting growth.  This is the shallow heart.  I call this theAlka-Seltzer Christian.  You go, "What do you mean?"  There's a fizz at first but then they fizzle out eventually.  That's the Alka-Seltzer Christian.  A lot of top growth, no depth, it doesn't last.  You have people in your mind that are filling that description even as I speak.

"And some," Verse 7, "Fell among thorns; and the thorns sprang up, and choked them."  This is the crowded heart.  These are the weeds that grow when you leave the garden untended.  They grow naturally.  This is the person who is torn between two kingdoms, the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world.

They have too much of Jesus in them to be satisfied in this world, but they have too much of the world in them to just be satisfied in Jesus.  Their heart is crowded.  There are other things that are growing that they attended and so, there's also this conflict that goes on.

Years ago when I was living in Huntington Beach, California, my neighbor had a lemon tree which I was very grateful for because state law said, "Anything over at my side, was mine."  So, all those branches that got over, I own them and I would beat that tree.  It was my California law to take a little 2x4 or a broomstick and I hit it and the lemons would fall down on my yard and I'd say, "thank you" to my neighbor.  And, he would beat the other side of the tree with his broom and he didn't have to thank me.  It was his tree, but he obviously owns them.  But I just thought, "That poor little tree is getting beat up from both sides."  He's beating them up.  I'm beating them up.  I'm beating them up.  He's beating them up.  There' some people that get beat up from both sides, the world and the spirit of God convicting them and the world beats them up and they're always in this conflict.  That's the crowded heart.

Last one is the best one, that's the fruitful heart.  "But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop.  Some a hundredfold, some sixty, that is sixty-fold and some thirty-fold."  This is a receptive heart.  The seed, the truth, the message, takes root.  It bears fruit and continues to grow.  This is the man described in Psalm 1.  "In his delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law that he meditated day and night."  And the fruit that comes because of that life is described here.  Now, look at the return of investment, Jesus mentions in this verse.  Ten thousand percent more, that's a hundredfold.  Six thousand percent more, that's sixty fold.  Three thousand percent, that's thirty fold.  The typical return of investment of an ancient sower with the field was about eight to one or one to eight.  You put in one and you get about eight times that.  So this is an enormous return that is possible for the one who has a fruitful heart.

Okay.  Look at the whole parable for a moment.  Notice that if all of the hearts into which the word is sown, only a 25% is fruitful. Twenty-five percent won't hear it at all.  It's calloused.  It's hard, don't want to hear it, don't listen to it whatever.  Fifty percent of the growth is minimal.  I would even say carnal growth and only 25% is fruitful.  And not all of that fruit is enormous fruit.  Some of it is a little thirty and then a little bit more sixty and then a little bit more like a lot, a hundredfold.  And I think that is a picture of how truth works today.  Not everybody is going to hear it first of all.  A lot of enormous amount of people would just say, "No" to it.  Of the people that hear it, some will get all emotional, all excited and, "Yes Jesus," but they won't last persecution or whatever.  Other people are just so crowded.  They're so busy.  They got so many agendas and God is, "Oh, no."  He fits in and, "I come to church like every two years" and you know whatever.  They get crowded, they get busy.

But there are some, they're wide open and the work is planted deep and the work is profound and it's life changing and it blesses others around them.  Now, what does that leave us?  Well there's a passage that comes to mind in Luke Chapter 8.  Jesus said it this way, "Take heed how you hear."  You're hearing right now.  Some people hear like this or like this.  There are some people who hear like this, all right because I see it.  And then there are some people who hear like this, talking to the person next to him or checking the emails or very distracted, very crowded.

All of these hearts are represented here right now.  How do you respond to the truth?  Take heed how you hear.  Hearing truth is dangerous business, because you can grow from it.  The dangerous part is if you listen to it but you're in the mode of non-response, it further callouses your heart.  You get really good at turning it off and marginalizing it.  You become a professional listener.  That's the danger.

So Jesus says, close it out, Verse 9, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."  And the disciples came to Him and said, "Why do You speak to them in parables?"  I love these guys.  I don't know want in theology course and exegesis on nematology and eschatology.  But they just said, "Why a bunch of stories?"

Okay.  We have a text that we got and of course we say this is an interactive bible study.  So, we want to throw this up and this from a friend of ours who's a PhD in Virginia or some of us know her.  Is therefore 25% of the people that go through the narrow gate?  Well, I don't know what the percentage is show exactly of how many people go through this narrow gate.  But, in the parable we have a few that are fruitful.  And Jesus said, "Even more disparagingly perhaps but sovereignly for wide is the gate that enters into destruction, narrow is the gate that leads to life and few find it."  Not most, not many, but few find it.  So, I don't even know if it's 25%.  I don't know what the percentage is.  All I know is in that same wonderful passage in the Sermon on the Mount that you're referring to, Jesus talked also about hearing and doing.  Hearing and putting into practice so that when we hear something like we're hearing tonight, our attitude, our commitment as we walk in is to, "I'm going to listen that I might apply."  Jesus said, "That's a wise person who builds her house on the rock."  A person who listens but doesn't do it, they just come in and go, "Now the bible said, whatever.  You know I got to go on, move on, check out."  And they don't put it into practice.  They're like the foolish person who builds on the sand.  So, that's the practical part, but that's a good observation and a great question.

So, the disciples come to Him and asked, "Why do You speak to them in parables?" So He answers and He said to them, "Because it has been given to you."  "You, who?"  "You, His disciples, you His followers, you His committed ones, you His learners, mathetes, learners, disciples."  It has been great given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.  But to them, it has not been given.  "For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.  Therefore I speak to them in parables: because seeing they do not see; nor do they understand."  And in them the prophecy by Isaiah is fulfilled which says, "Hearing you will hear and not understand, seeing you will see and not perceive; for the hearts of these people have grown dull.  And their ears are hard of hearing and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, and I should heal them.  But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear."

There are two reasons that Jesus gave parables for and He tells His disciples what they are.  It's been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.  So number one, parables were given to reveal the truth in a deeper fashion.  Jesus didn't tell stories to confuse the people but to peak their interest to motivate them, to make them curious.  And, just like that little parable Nathan gave to David that really brought the truth of conviction home to his heart in a deeper way.  That's what a parable did.  It was meant to reveal the truth.  So, Jesus uses the visible world to help people understand the invisible world.  By the way, did you know that one of the reasons God designed the physical world was that people might understand the invisible world.

It says in the book of Romans Chapter I that, "Since the creation, His invisible attributes have been clearly understood by things that are made." So that we can look around the world and even the lowest IQ person can figure out this didn't happen by accident.  There's too much design built into the system that I can't just say, "Wow!  It's an amazing fortitude, this occurrence of accidental circumstance."  No it's not.  Design requires designer.  So in the very least, you will understand the power of God, Roman said and concur, conclude that there's a creative mind, a creator behind it.

And many brilliant minds have come to that conclusion.  So, parables become both mirrors and windows.  Mirrors to show us ourselves, windows that show us the heart of God.  The visible makes plain the invisible.  It gives us insight into it.  So it's been given to you to know the mysteries, musteria, not something that you'll never figure out but something that has once been concealed in the past, but now is being revealed and He is making it plain, the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.

But then, look at Verse 13.  "Therefore I speak to them in parables."  Not just for you just guys to get a deeper grasp about the truth but to them in parables because "Seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand that the prophecy of Isaiah might be fulfilled."  Then Jesus quotes Isaiah Chapter 6.  What's that about?  Isaiah Chapter 6 is an indictment of the people of Israel that have become spiritually dull, hard of hearing, no one will listen to spiritual truth, turned off God and Isaiah is going to speak things that they won't understand as an indictment against them.  The same truth then that makes the seeking heart understand makes the hardened heart go, "Huh?  I don't get it."  On one hand, it reveals the truth and the other hand, it conceals the truth.  The same truth that awakens one heart doesn't penetrate another heart.  And it's all about what's behind the motivation of the heart. 

Some don't want to hear.  Some do want to hear.  It's like the sun.  The same sun that melts the ice hardens the clay, same sun.  The same rain that irrigates one field might flood another depending on the quality of the soil.  And so, it is with the truth.  Hearing they will hear and not understand and He quotes Isaiah Chapter 6, "For the hearts of these people have grown dull."  So look at it this way.  Parables are both the words of a master teacher and the sentence of a mighty judge.  And the people, I have no idea what that means, indicates a condition of the heart.  Now, you and I we read through this.  We go, "I get it.  Now it makes sense.  I get it.  That makes sense."  The condition of the heart is right.

Look at Verse 16.  Yeah, that's about all we have left, "But blessed are your eyes."  Don't you love that?  Sometimes, you'll say to somebody, "Oh, you have beautiful eyes.  You have pretty eyes.  You have nice eyes.  I like that color.  I like that makeup.  Thos are nice eyes."  But they have blessed eyes.  "Blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears, you my disciples they hear.  For, assuredly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous men have desired to see what you see and did not see it, and to hear what you hear and did not hear it."  Therefore, hear the parable of the sower.  I'll just read that.  It's Jesus' explanation and we're done.  "When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart.  This is he who received the seed by the wayside or the path.  But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while.  For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles.  And he who receives the seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful.  But he who received the seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty.

So, we finish that just in time and next week we're going to finish the chapter.  Let's pray.  Thank you for truth, Lord.  We also understand the truth is an ink on a page that first and foremost, truth is a living person.  Jesus said, "I am the truth."

He said to Pilate, "I have come bear witness of the truth."  He said, "You will know the truth, and the truth, it will set you free."  Thank you for truth that sets us free.  And Lord, I pray our hearts would always remain open, hungry.  Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness.  I pray that the seed always falling in our hearts would produce something a fruitful walk, a fruitful life.  Father, we pray for those who may not even know You tonight or might have a sketchy walk or who themselves are sort of on the edge as it were like that lemon tree.  They're feeling beat up by the world and yet they're feeling the conviction of Your spirit.  I pray that they would move toward You tonight.  Graciously responding to Your desire to manipulate to mold.  You want to occupy that life. We pray that you would in Jesus' name.  Amen.