A Fruitful Hearer of God’s Word

Grace Fellowship Church

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This sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. To access other sermons or to learn more about us, please visit our website at graceedmonton .ca.

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Well, it's so good to see everyone. It's great to have visitors. Welcome to Grace Fellowship Church.

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This week, we're going to continue in a study that we've been doing over the last number of weeks,

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I think probably months now, in the Gospel of Mark. And for the sake of today, because we have send -offs and baptisms and new memberships, we have to be really efficient with our time.

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And so I'm going to be very efficient. For those men that have been learning homiletics, the art of preaching, we talk about having a good introduction.

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I apologize. I'm not going to have a good introduction. We're just going to dive right into it, and my brothers can score me afterwards.

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But today, what we're going to do is we're going to look at a parable, the first parable that Christ brings up in the

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Gospel of Mark in chapter 4. If you have a red -letter Bible where the words of Christ are in red letters, in your particular

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Bible, you'll see that chapter 4 is glowing with red letters. There are two sections in the

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Gospel of Mark that are primarily concerned with the teachings of Christ, the words of Christ.

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Those are Mark chapter 4 and Mark chapter 13. Mark chapter 13 is all about Christ's teaching of the end times, his second coming.

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And Mark chapter 4 today is all of Christ's teaching on the parables. We find this same account in Matthew chapter 13 and also in Luke chapter 8.

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And today, for the sake of time, we're going to do things a little bit differently. As we go through this, what we find, again, for those of you that have been learning the art and the science of biblical interpretation, is that we have a parable that Christ puts before us, but he does us a really great favor in that he interprets the parable for us here.

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And so half of our work is already done just in reading the parable. When I told our brother

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Sam that I was going to be preaching on the parable of the sower, he said, what are we going to do, preach to the parable of the sower this week and then preach to the interpretation next week?

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And I said, no, we're going to look at all of it. But what that means is that this week we're going to look at the parable of the sower.

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Christ is going to give us a case study or four case studies of four different people as they receive the gospel word.

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And then he's going to give us the interpretation. And so we're going to read each of these parables through.

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We're going to look at Christ's interpretation of the parable, and then we're going to illustrate and apply that.

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And so we're going to spend much less time on interpretation and much more time on illustration and application, with the bulk of the application coming at the end.

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And so if you're not here and you don't know what it's like when we usually, or if you're new to us or visiting us, usually

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I always start with the main idea of the text. And so the main idea, what Christ is trying to do in this particular parable, is that he wants to show us what it looks like to be a fruitful hearer of God's word.

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A fruitful, a faithful hearer of God's word. Now let me ask you, does that describe you?

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If you think about it honestly, you're Bible reading, you're having heard the gospel, you're sitting through preaching, sometimes long preaching like we do here.

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Are you a fruitful and are you a faithful hearer of God's word?

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Or is it possible that you're a distracted hearer of God's word? A confused hearer of God's word?

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Are you a worldly hearer of God's word? Today Christ is going to show us what this looks like and then he's going to put before us what it means to be a fruitful and faithful hearer of God's word.

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So that's my introduction. We're going to dive right in then to Matthew. Mark, Mark chapter 4 in verse 1.

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Mark writes in verse 1, Again, he began to teach beside the sea and a very large crowd gathered about him so that he got into a boat and sat in it on the sea and the whole crowd was beside the sea on the land.

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And he was teaching them many things in parables and in his teaching he said to them.

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We're going to look at that in a moment. Mark begins by transporting us into the setting in which

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Christ is going to teach these parables. When the crowds began to gather around Christ at the edge of the

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Sea of Galilee he got into a boat and there he addressed the great crowd. Now we're not told exactly where this occurred but many

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Bible scholars, many Jewish historians and maybe geographers, that's the word

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I'm looking for, believe that it was in a bay that was about one kilometer west of Capernaum.

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Capernaum was a town on the north side of the Sea of Galilee and it's here that the rolling hills on the edge of the

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Sea of Galilee form a natural amphitheater that has become known as the

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Bay of Parables. Now I went on to Google Maps this week and I looked this up and if you look,

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I encourage you to do this, type in Cove of the Sower in Google Maps and you will see the spot, at least from the highway, where it's likely that Christ taught these parables.

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And it's interesting, at least I found it interesting, it would appear that God designed, I thought about you

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Matt and your artistic mind, that God would artistically and specifically design this little piece of geography, this little bay on the north side of the

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Sea of Galilee for a singular event in human history. The shape and the acoustics of this bay act almost like an amplifier and allow a person to speak at a comfortable volume.

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And there, speaking at a comfortable volume, that person could be heard by thousands of people that are seated on the hillsides, the gradual hills that rise above the bay.

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So here Christ sat down in a boat, at least sitting down, it was customary for Jewish teachers in his day.

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He called his listeners' attention to himself and he began to speak. And this is what he said in verse 3.

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Verse 3 reads, We'll start there.

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Christ begins this section with a word, with two words, that introduce the whole theme of this parable.

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He says, listen. The ESV translation puts an exclamation mark at the end.

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Listen. And his second word reinforces this. Listen, behold. Christ wants us to look and listen so that we would learn what it means to be fruitful hearers of God's word.

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And here Christ introduces us to a sower of seeds. Now, children,

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I want to ask you, if you were a farmer and you had a massive field to plant, how would you plant your seeds?

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Yes, Scarlett. Make a row. You could write a book.

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That's excellent. That is excellent. You did learn about it.

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I can tell. I can tell you learned about it. And for some people, I think of Noah, for instance, who likes to drive things, like quads.

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He might want to get in a farm tractor, maybe, and have a big sower that I think maybe

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Mr. Neal in the back might drive that shoots seeds into the ground, maybe with a little burst of air or something like that.

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But before that kind of technology, in Christ's day, what would happen is a farmer or an agricultural worker would go out into their field, either plowed or sometimes even unplowed, and with a bag of seeds, they would reach into the sack, grasp a handful, and toss it, scatter it abroad as far as they could.

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And what would happen is because the soil was often uneven, they would take it to the very edge of their land.

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They would cover as much as possible. It was the best method that they had at the time, but very often it was a wasteful means of planting their crops.

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Some three quarters of the seeds that fell would fall among rocks and weeds and never produce a harvest.

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And so Christ takes this same fact, something that perhaps even as the disciples and the people listening would have been sitting on the hills, maybe there was a sower in the distance, we don't know, but it would have been something that was familiar to them.

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And he says in verse 4, And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it.

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I'm going to make four points today. The first point that I want to make is this. Here we see a deceived hearer of God's Word.

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Now, how do we get that, a deceived hearer of God's Word? I want to transport us to verse 15, where Christ is going to interpret this parable.

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He says, And these are the ones along the path where the Word is sown.

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When they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the Word that is sown in them.

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And so here we have a seed that's cast. Perhaps it was on a roadway that had been trampled down, on the edge of the field where the soil was just too hard to germinate.

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And we see not just a deceived hearer, but we see a deceived heart. It makes me wonder how many people come here on Sunday with a deceived heart, with a heart that is hardened to the

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Gospel. How many of us approach the reading of the Word and are not prepared to receive the good that God has given us in it?

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You know, I love historical illustrations, so I had a lot of fun with this sermon, because it's interpreted, we get to illustrate it.

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And I'm going to rely on some of those. We see such a deceived heart, such a deceived hearer of God's Word in the life of Adoniram Judson.

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Now you might say, I know Adoniram Judson. He was a missionary. This is about Adoniram Judson's friend.

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If you don't know, Adoniram Judson was an American Baptist missionary to the people of Burma. That's modern -day

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Myanmar in the early 1800s. And Judson had what I would characterize as a wonderful early upbringing.

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He grew up as the son of a pastor in a faithful Christian home. His father was a man of integrity and conviction.

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When he read the Word of God and had a conviction about it, he held to it, even if it cost him his life or his livelihood.

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His mother was an attentive and faithful woman. And under his mother's care,

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Adoniram Judson learned to read the Bible. Kids, listen to this. Adoniram Judson learned to read the

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Bible when he was three years old. But when

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Adoniram Judson, and kids listen to this as well, when he was in his teens, he became acquainted with a young man named

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Jacob Eames. And Jacob Eames had heard the truth of the

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Gospel many times. In that time, people were not as Gospel ignorant as they are today.

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And so Jacob Eames had heard the Gospel preached, and the kernel of Gospel truth would often fall on the soil of his heart.

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But before it could take root, the devil would snatch it up again. And instead of believing in the

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Gospel word, Jacob Eames became heavily invested in a kind of deism that rejected

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Christ and that rejected the biblical view of God. And not only was Jacob Eames self -deceived, and children, this is often the case, not only was he self -deceived, but he was a deceiver of others.

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And so when Adoniram Judson was 16 years old, he met Jacob Eames. And Jacob Eames showed him, introduced him to all of these intellectual type of people.

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And over time, he convinced Adoniram Judson to become a deist himself. This was much to the dismay of Adoniram Judson's parents.

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And unwillingly, they sent him away once he had graduated from college to New York City.

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Reading almost like the story of the prodigal son, Adoniram Judson went to New York City to live a debaucherous life, a fast -paced, sinful lifestyle.

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All the while, in the back of his mind, hoping that he would run into Jacob Eames. But when he didn't find

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Jacob Eames, and when the luster of New York City lost its glamour, he decided that he would travel around by horseback from town to town looking for a good time.

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And on one particular occasion, as he was coming into a town, he went to stop at an inn and found that the innkeeper told him that there was no more room in the inn for him.

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I'll read. This is Adoniram Judson's words. He said, One night I stopped at an inn, but I was told that there was no room.

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After begging the innkeeper for lodging of any kind, I was allowed to share a room with a dying man.

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The innkeeper had hung a sheet to divide the room in half, but all through the night I heard the loud groans of this dying man.

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He sounded like he was afraid to die. Judson could barely sleep.

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Imagine that, being in a hotel room, just with a thin veil between you and a man who is gasping with his last breaths.

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He listened to the whispers of those who cared for the man, and he contemplated his own life as he listened to this man labour to breathe.

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And in the morning, as Adoniram Judson checked out of the inn, he inquired about the man's condition.

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The innkeeper looked straight into Adoniram Judson's eyes, and he said, He is dead.

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Now one biographer writes, Judson was struck with the finality of it all. On his way out he asked,

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Do you know who it was? And the innkeeper said, Oh yes, a young man from the college in Providence, an intellectual young man.

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His name was Jacob Eames. Judson froze. He could not even bring himself to leave the inn for hours as he considered the terrible end of his old classmate.

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Judson thought to himself, If his friend Eames were right, then this was a meaningless event.

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But Judson could not believe it. And another biographer writes, that hell should open in that country inn and snatch

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Jacob Eames, his dearest friend and guide, from the next bed. This could not, simply could not be pure coincidence.

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And God used this event, among others, to bring Adoniram Judson to saving faith in Christ, and then to send him across the world as a missionary.

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But for Jacob Eames, he was a deceived hearer of God's word.

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He had heard the gospel many times, but it never took root, and he died in his sin.

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Now let me ask you, does that describe you in this room?

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Are you a deceived hearer? I think that probably most of us wouldn't describe it that way, but let me frame it a different way.

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Can you read the Bible and not understand it, and be completely content in your confusion?

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Can you come and hear the word of God preached every Sunday, and you listen, but it doesn't make sense, or it doesn't affect anything in your heart, and can you remain satisfied in that way?

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Does the word of God seem old and tired to you? Are you more impressed with a podcast than the word of God?

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Are you more impressed with the words of a man, or even the words of a devil, than God's word?

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Are you satisfied reading God's word, hearing the gospel, and feeling absolutely nothing?

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You just might be a deceived hearer of God's word. Christ turns next in verse 5.

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He says, The second case study that Christ gives us here is a shallow hearer of God's word.

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We have a deceived hearer, and now a shallow hearer of God's word. Christ interprets this in verse 16.

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And these are the ones sown on rocky ground, the ones who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy.

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And they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while. Then when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away.

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I find it interesting, in many parts of Israel, there are large areas of land that are made up almost entirely of limestone.

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As a matter of fact, if you wanted to go online today, you could buy 68 different types of limestone that is exported just from Israel alone, including one that's called

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Jerusalem limestone. And if you go to many of the landmarks in Jerusalem, you'll find that many of them are made with this

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Jerusalem limestone. But one of the challenges with so much rock all over Israel is that a farmer may inadvertently sow seeds on a thick slab of limestone, if it's covered with just a small amount of dirt.

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And so it's possible for an agricultural worker who isn't familiar with the land to sow seed, thinking, this is wonderful, fertile soil.

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But it can gain no root because under an inch or two or even a half a foot, it's just solid rock.

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There is no water. There's no room for the plant to grow. Now this type of hearer, a shallow hearer of God's Word, you might call it conference conversions or summer camp

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Christianity, is when people hear the Gospel, they hear the Word of God.

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There's an enthusiastic and an emotional response. But ultimately, it is superficial.

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Just as the previous seed fell on a deceived heart, this seed falls on a shallow heart.

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It does not have room to grow and take root. And in John Bunyan's book,

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The Pilgrim's Progress, we read about one character in his allegory who perfectly illustrates the shallow hearer of God's Word.

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In the early pages of the book, we read that the main character, Christian, flees the city of destruction.

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I've told you enough about Pilgrim's Progress that if you haven't read it up to this point, you're going to be able to piece it together soon.

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But he flees the city of destruction in the direction of another character, Evangelist. And on his way out of the doomed city, he's met with sneers and the revilings of his neighbor.

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And in the midst of this, two men, Mr. Obstinate and Mr. Pliable, step out of the crowd.

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We've been doing all of this reading about crowds. I find it interesting. Two people step out of the crowd to approach

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Christian. Obstinate opposes Christian to his face.

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He calls him a crazed fool. He says, away with your book.

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Perhaps he was a deceived hearer. But Mr. Pliable, children, we could call him

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Mr. Bendy, Mr. Flexible. He's able to twist and be distorted.

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He listened carefully to Christian. And he was quickly convinced that he should follow

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Christian out of the city to the Wicked Gate and beyond, to the

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Celestial City. And John Bunyan tells us that Mr. Pliable considered the news of the

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Celestial City so pleasant that it uplifted his heart, that he said his own heart was ravished with his own imagined visions of this heavenly city.

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So much so that Mr. Pliable, as he walked with Christian toward the Wicked Gate, quickly exceeded

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Christian in his zeal to reach the Wicked Gate. He encouraged Christian. He said, hurry, hurry, hurry.

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We must get there faster. And before long, Pliable complained that Christian walked too slow.

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He said, mend your pace. But Christian walked slowly because he had a burden on his back, because he was dealing with the guilt of his own sin, something that Mr.

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Pliable knew nothing of. And when Christian and Pliable reached the first tribulation, the first sign of hardship on their journey, the dreaded slew of despond, at the first sign of difficulty, as Pliable sunk into the mud of grief and melancholy, he cursed

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Christian. Pliable said, is this happiness? Is this the happiness that you told me about?

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If our pace is so slow at our first setting out, what may we expect between this and the journey's end?

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May I get out again with my life, and you shall possess the brave country alone.

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Bunyan writes, and with that he gave a desperate struggle or two. It didn't take long for him to get out of the narrow way, and he got out of the mire on the side of the slew, which was next to his own house, so that away he went, and Christian saw him no more.

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Therefore Christian was left to tumble in the slew of despond alone. Now with help,

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Christian later escaped the slew of despond, and when he was in the company of another pilgrim named

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Faithful, he heard an update from Pliable's life.

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Mr. Pliable. Faithful said to Christian on the way, he said, Pliable has, since his going back, been had greatly in derision.

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That means he was despised and ridiculed. Some do mock and despise him, and scarce will any hire him for work.

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He is now seven times worse than if he had never gone out of the city.

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This is what it looks like, dear friends, to be a shallow hearer of God's Word.

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This type of man or woman neither belongs to Christ, nor do they belong to the world.

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They have become the most unfruitful kind of person. The shallow hearer of God's Word wants all of Christ's benefits without any of His cross, and so they get neither.

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I'm reminded of a story that I once heard from a brother when he lived in Wales where he grew up.

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He had a friend who became a believer around the same time as him, and he quickly outgrew everyone in his zeal.

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I'm sure you know people like that, don't you? People that become new believers, and it seems that they hit the ground at a full sprint.

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And so this man became a believer. He quickly outgrew everyone in his zeal, in his knowledge, in his boldness for Christ's sake.

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And I remember this brother saying, well, we were memorizing verses. He was memorizing chapters.

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He was the one who initiated the Bible studies. He was that awkward kind of friend, and we all know that kind of friend when you're at a restaurant or with someone else, and you're sitting there, and they just blatantly share the

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Gospel, and you go, oh, I wasn't prepared for that. Like a friend I knew, the first question he would ask everyone is, are you born again?

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The conversation started for sure. But he was that man. But within a few years, he was the same one, the first one to forsake the love that he had at first.

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He grew lukewarm, and then he grew cold, and then he denounced Christ, and then he repudiated the

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Gospel, and then he made shipwreck of his faith. And dear friends, you don't have to be a

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Christian for long to see that happen in the world around you, to see people that start out so well, they cross the starting line at a full sprint, but before they've even reached the first checkpoint, they're done, they're gone.

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I regret that I have met many Mr. and Mrs. pliables in the 16 years that I have been a

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Christian. And sadly, and Steve knows who I'm talking about, there ought to be one person in one of these seats today, the very first person that when we announced we're going to plant a church, they were eager, they were going to be part of it.

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And now they're posting atheist quotes on their Facebook page when this person's

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Christian worldview collided head -on with the humanistic philosophies that were taught in university.

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When she began to find that the narrow way was hard, this person was gone.

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Dear friends, does this describe you today? Are you a shallow hearer of God's Word?

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Are you prepared to endure difficulty for the sake of the Gospel?

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Or are you after a kind of comfortable Christianity that is no Christianity at all?

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Next, we'll turn to Christ's third case study. In verse 7, other seed fell among the thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain.

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Here we see a worldly hearer of God's Word. We have a deceived hearer, a shallow hearer, now a worldly hearer of God's Word.

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Kids, if you were to plant, let's say, your favorite kind of flower in a patch of thorns and thistles, those thorns and thistles are far more robust, and they will rob the plant of water.

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They will rob the plant of nutrients. They will rob that plant of life, and then it will not survive.

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So when Christ addresses the worldly hearers, who He's addressing are those with a worldly heart.

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H. A. Ironside, in his commentary on this passage, he says, Some have a measure of concern, but they have a double mind.

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They would like to have the best of both worlds, so they never give eternal things their proper place.

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Are you a worldly hearer of God's Word? Do you allow the world to mingle in your soul, to live, to have a place?

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Today we sung a famous hymn, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. What an excellent hymn.

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I love that hymn. It has endured the test of time because it captures the

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Christian experience so well. Let me illustrate this. In verse 1, this is my favorite line in the hymn,

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Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. It's a great hymn to sing at the beginning of a worship service.

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Tune my heart to sing thy grace. As I come here, change the frequency of my heart so that I can sing about you with zeal and with love and with passion.

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Streams of mercy never ceasing. Amen. Call for songs of loudest praise.

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Oh, yes. Oh, isn't it true how wonderful those words are that God's mercy and his grace and his gospel call for songs of loudest praise.

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But in verse 3, this is a bit of an experiential hymn. We sing prone to wander,

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Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. Here's my heart, oh take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above.

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This is a hymn of worship, this is a hymn of confession, and this is a hymn of consecration unto

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God. But what many people do not know is that the author of this hymn,

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Robert Robinson, fulfilled the wandering part of these verses all too well.

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When Robinson was just a young man, picture this kind of conversion. He went to hear the great open air evangelist

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George Whitefield preach. One of the greatest evangelists that has ever lived.

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And hearing Whitefield preach from the Gospel of Matthew, he had a powerful experience and professed faith in Christ.

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Very shortly afterward, Robert Robinson penned Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing at the age of 23 years old.

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And no doubt, he meant every word when he wrote that soul -stirring song.

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But sadly, over time, as is often the case, Robinson's zeal and devotion began to grow cold.

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He began to look around at the shiny things in the world. He became enamored with the things that the world had to offer, especially doctrines that had come from the world.

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He was eventually put out of his own church. He was pastor there. Put out of his own church for holding to the doctrine of Unitarianism.

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Denying the Trinity. Denying the Godhood of the Son and of the Spirit. But as he got more and more of what the world had to offer, instead of growing fuller, he became more and more empty.

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And one day, as he approached his death, he found himself traveling in a stagecoach with a woman.

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Kids, if you could transport yourselves back in time to a horse -drawn buggy.

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There's probably not a lot of room in that horse -drawn buggy. But as he rode in the stagecoach with a woman, he noticed that she was intently reading something.

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He looked over at this woman, and as he glanced at what she was reading, he noticed that it was his famous hymn,

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Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. And as they rode in that stagecoach, she asked his opinion of the hymn.

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And she described, oh, she shared with him the benefits that she had derived from the great words of this song.

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She was deeply moved by the hymn. But as she noticed

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Robinson greatly agitated, she didn't know what to think. What did he think of this hymn?

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Finally overcome, Robinson burst into tears and said, Madam, listen to this.

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Madam, I am the poor, unhappy man who composed that hymn many years ago, and I would give a thousand worlds if I had them to enjoy the feeling that I had then.

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Dear ones, a thousand worlds do not compare to the glorious gospel of our

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Lord Jesus Christ. If you were to possess all of the worlds in the cosmos, it could not compare with the immeasurable joy of Christ's salvation.

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And yet, how many, how many people slowly drift away from Christ, not for a thousand worlds, but for a mere taste of one fallen world.

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Let me ask you, dear brothers and sisters, this can happen a year into your faith.

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It can happen five years into your faith. It can happen 20 or 50 years into your Christian walk.

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Let me ask you, if you look at the direction in which your life is trending, are you trending, dear friend, toward the world, or are you trending more toward heaven?

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Did you start out strong, but now, now that you've been a believer for a few years, are you noticing, dear friend, that you are starting to become worldly?

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You're spending money on things that you would have been surprised five years ago that you would spend your money on.

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You're spending time on things that you would have never dreamed as a new believer that you would spend time on.

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Is it possible that the allure of the world is becoming stronger? That it's grasping tighter on your life?

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James 4 .4, we're told, you adulterous people, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?

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Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of this world makes himself an enemy of God.

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Dear friends, are you becoming more worldly? Are you becoming a worldly hearer of God's Word?

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And lastly, Christ shares with us this last case study in verse 8.

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And other seeds fell into good soil and produced grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.

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And he said, He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

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Lastly, we see a fruitful hearer of God's Word. This is the man or woman who comes to God's Word with a ready heart.

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At the time of their conversion, it's a heart that has been readied by God alone, by the

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Spirit of God tilling the soil of your heart. But even now as a believer, it's a

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Christian that comes to the Word of God with a heart ready to receive. The fruitful hearer not only hears the

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Word of God, but they have open hearts to receive the Word of God. And to further prove their profession of faith, they bear fruit.

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And Christ says that the yield is thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.

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To read in verse 20, He says, But those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the Word and accept it and bear fruit thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.

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Now if you were a farmer and you planted your seeds in soil and you got a yield of eight times what you planted, that would be an acceptable harvest.

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If you got ten times what you had planted, that would be an excellent harvest. But to receive even thirtyfold, in Alberta farm language, that would be a bumper crop.

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And then sixtyfold. And then a hundredfold. It would be an unimaginable blessing to have a one hundredfold harvest.

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This is what a fruitful hearer of God's Word looks like. You've probably never heard of the man

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Thomas Bilney. He was a man who emerged at the beginning of the

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Protestant Reformation in the early 1500s. You probably have never heard of him because he's known as the forgotten reformer.

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He didn't have the longevity that Martin Luther or John Calvin or some of the other reformers had.

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Nor was he an impressive man. I take great comfort in this. They called him Little Bilney because he was a very small man and sometimes presented as very timid.

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And like every other Catholic man, Thomas Bilney spent years. Picture this.

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No gospel. Only darkness. Under the Roman Catholic Church. No truth.

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No salvation. Just works. Works, righteousness alone.

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Thomas Bilney spent many years pursuing peace for his soul through a laundry list of religious works.

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He prayed to the saints. He fasted. He jumped through every single Catholic hoop that could be jumped through.

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Trying with all of his might to soothe his guilty conscience. But all of this was to no avail.

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And then one day, Thomas Bilney heard that a man named Erasmus, a

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Catholic priest, had created a translation, a Greek translation of the

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New Testament. And so Thomas Bilney went and he purchased a copy for himself.

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And picture this. He went home, hungry for the Word of God. He went into his room.

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He bolted the door of his room and he began to read the Bible. Me and God and His Word.

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With no distractions. No disruptions. What does God have to say? And as he opened his

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Bible, he turned first to a page that God had ordained before the foundation of the world.

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1 Timothy 1, verse 15. And there he read this.

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This eager man with his own Bible. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom

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I am foremost. And in an instant, in that very moment, the

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Word of God pierced Thomas Bilney's heart like an arrow sent directly from heaven.

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The seed found good soil. And he began to grasp what the

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Gospel of Jesus Christ actually was. And you can picture him locked in this room.

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Door bolted shut. He said, What? The chief of sinners?

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And yet St. Paul is sure of being saved? Sure? Oh, assertion of St.

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Paul, how sweet are you to my soul. I also,

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I also am like Paul and more than Paul, the greatest of sinners. Dear saints, but Christ saves sinners.

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At last I have heard of Jesus. Jesus Christ, yes,

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Jesus Christ saves. I see it all now. My vigils, my fasts, my pilgrimages, my purchases of masses and indulgences were destroying instead of saving me.

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And falling on his knees, he joyfully prayed, O thou who art the truth, give me strength that I may teach it and convert the ungodly by means of one who has himself been ungodly.

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And in a moment, Thomas Bilney, experienced with James, the brother of Christ, wrote in James chapter 1, verse 21, where he said,

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Receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your souls.

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Thomas Bilney wrote later on about this experience. He said, I felt a marvelous comfort and quietness insomuch that my bruised bones leapt for joy.

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After this, listen to this, dear saints, after this, the Scripture began to be more pleasant unto me than the honey or the honeycomb.

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And with that life that God had given him, Thomas Bilney gave the rest of it to reading the

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Bible, to studying the Bible, to making it fully known. And his contagious love, or his love for the

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Bible, became so contagious that others around him became devoted students of the

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Bible. But as you might expect, this was not appreciated by the

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Roman Catholic Church that desired to keep people in darkness, to keep people out of the know.

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And so they arrested Thomas Bilney. They threatened him with death. And to his own dismay, he recanted of his faith to save his own life.

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You wouldn't expect it to end like that, would you? But, dear brothers and sisters, for the next year, he said that rather than feeling free from his imprisonment, he felt imprisoned by the grief of his own betrayal.

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And for over a year, he felt like Peter, who had denied Christ, but without any opportunity to reaffirm his love for his dear

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Savior. He felt, as we heard Steve preach last week, that he had committed the unpardonable sin.

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But, over time, that experience of persecution, like the heat of the sun on a well -rooted plant, the same heat that kills the shallow -rooted plant, the heat of that sun strengthened this man's faith to greater measures than ever before.

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And so, Bilney went out and resolved that he would intentionally get arrested. How many of us would do that?

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Intentionally get arrested so that he could have a second chance at holding fast his profession of faith to the end.

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And it wasn't long before Bilney was again arrested for heresy. And when given the opportunity, he would not recount.

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As he was threatened with death by fire, Bilney, what did he trust in?

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Did he trust in his feelings? No, he trusted in the Word of God. Isaiah 43, 2, he looked to that verse,

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When you walk through fire, you shall not be burned, and the flames shall not consume you.

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And so, on the day that he was to be executed, we're told that a crowd had gathered in the streets as he walked resolutely to the fire.

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It is written about him that some thought that the weak and frail man would probably recant again.

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But as the wood was piled around him, little Bilney raised himself up to his full height and said in a firm voice,

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Good people, I have come here to die. And then from memory, he recounted

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Psalm 143. Go home and read that verse, that chapter, excuse me, and consider

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Thomas Bilney's appeal to Psalm 143. He was bound to the stake and there he was consumed by fire.

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But dear saints, even as he was consumed by fire, he cried out,

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Jesu credo, the Latin words, Jesus, I believe.

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When most people think of the Reformation, they do not think of little Thomas Bilney. Most have never heard of him, but he serves as an example to us of a man who heard the word of God.

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His heart was ready to receive the implanted word, and despite his short and even imperfect life, he bore much fruit.

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Now how do we apply this? I feel that we've applied it already. I'm going to say three things, three helpful points of application, brief from Mark chapter 4 and verse 20.

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Mark chapter 4 and verse 20, we see these words. They are the ones who hear the word, who accept it, and who bear fruit.

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Dear friends, let us hear the word. Heed Christ's words in verse 3.

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Listen, behold. In verse 9, where Christ says, he who has ears to hear, let him hear.

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If you have heard the gospel word, and you have understood it, and have believed in Christ, continue to come to the living word with ears to hear what

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God has said. I like the experience of one elder.

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One elder said to another man who was being appointed as an elder in the church. He knew that he read his

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Bible. He knew that he could teach. He met the qualifications for elder. In fact, this man was a

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Bible scholar, and nevertheless, this older, more experienced elder looked at this new man who was to pastor this congregation, and he said to him,

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Brother, you need to read your Bible more. I'm saying this to a

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Bible scholar. Nine times out of ten, this is a true statement that needs to be heard.

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Dear saint, you need to read your Bible more, and you need to read your

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Bible better. Churchianity's laissez -faire attitude about the living and abiding

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Word of God cannot inform your view of the importance or unimportance, in their case, of Scripture.

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If the Bible is presently God's clearest, deepest, and most profound revelation of Himself, which it is, you must read the

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Bible for all that it is worth. You must mind the Word. Children, get your hard hats on.

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Get out your shovels. Open your Bibles, and go deep, and go deep into God's Word until God's Word goes deep into you.

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Be like John Bunyan, who they said, when you cut him, he bleeds

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Bibline. And if you're not a believer, dear friend, if you are a deceived hearer, or if you are a shallow hearer, or if you found today that you are a worldly hearer, get a

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Bible, or get out your Bible. Do like Thomas Bilney. Lock yourself in a room.

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I'm not even speaking figuratively. Lock yourself in a room, and do not come out until you have found

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Christ in that Book. Until you understand that Gospel. Until you are sure that He has saved you and transformed your very life.

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And you know what is sad? Is that I say this, and yet there are people here who will not do that.

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Do not be a deceived hearer of the Word. Learn of God's grace now, so that you won't have to learn of His wrath later.

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Christ says, accept it, in verse 20. To accept the Word of God is to accept the object to which it points.

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Christ told the Pharisees, you search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life.

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It is they that bear witness about Me. To accept the Word of God is to accept the

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Word made flesh, the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ and His Gospel.

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Dear friend, whether you are a believer or not, must be your great hope. And then lastly,

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Christ says in verse 20, bear fruit. During His earthly ministry,

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John the Baptist said, bear fruit in keeping with repentance. Christ said in John 15, 16, you did not choose

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Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide so that whatever you ask the

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Father in My name, He may give it to you. Now, dear saint, how do we bear fruit? First of all, we must realize that if we are planted in Christ, it is

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He who bears fruit in us, not something that we bring about by ourselves. But I think

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Paul gives us a hint when he wrote to the Colossians. In Colossians chapter 1, verses 9 and 10, when he said, to this young church, and so from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding so as to walk in a manner worthy of the

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Lord, fully pleasing to Him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.

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You want to bear fruit? Don't just be a hearer of the Word, but be a doer also.

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Walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. Walk in a manner that is fully pleasing to Him.

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And increase, dear saints, increase, as Paul says, in the knowledge of God. That's what

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Christ teaches in this passage. Now, let me ask you, which category do you fall into?

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There is only one acceptable category. Every other category leads to death.

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I pray that this would be a word of encouragement to the saints. I pray this would be a word of encouragement to our dear sister, as she is baptized in the

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Lord Jesus Christ. And as it is, passes, starts the finish line of what will be a long race run for the

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Lord. And I pray that God would use this text to soften the hard hearts of those in this room who need, above all things, and I mean above all things, to be saved.