WWUTT 2018 The Seed that Falls in Good Soil (Matthew 13:23)

In the parable of the sower, Jesus gives four soils, the path, the rocks, the thorns, and the good soil.

When the message of the kingdom falls in good soil, this is the person who is the true believer when we understand the text.

You are listening to When We Understand The Text, an online Bible ministry so that we may know all the riches freely given to us by God.

For questions and comments, send us an email to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. In our study of the Gospel of Matthew, we've been in Chapter 13, the parable of the sower this week, and still a little bit to finish up on the explanation of the parable.

So I'm going to read once again verses 18 to 23 out of the Legacy Standard Bible. Hear the word of the

Lord. Hear then the parable of the sower. When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart.

This is the one on whom seed was sown beside the road, and the one on whom seed was sown on the rocky places.

This is the man who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy. Yet he has no root in himself but is only temporary, and when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away.

And the one on whom seed was sown among the thorns, this is the one who hears the word, and the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.

And the one on whom seed was sown on the good soil, this is the man who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and brings forth some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty.

Now yesterday we went through an explanation of these different soils, the path, the rocks and the thorns especially.

Let me summarize those up and give a few more examples here briefly, and then we want to look at verse 23, the one on whom seed was sown on the good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it.

I touched on that a little bit yesterday, but we'll look at that more in depth today. So once again,

Jesus has told this parable where a sower goes out to sow seed, and as he's casting seed, you have seed that falls on the path that he is walking on.

You have seed that falls among the rocks and seed that falls in the thorns. And in his explanation of the parable, he tells his disciples that the seed represents the word of the kingdom.

That's in verse 19. So you're talking about the message of the gospel or that which Christ has come proclaiming

Since chapter four of Matthew, we have heard that Jesus was preaching, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

This is the message of the kingdom. You could summarize that message in exactly that phrase. So when

Jesus goes out preaching or anyone from this point forward, when he sends his disciples out, when we go out fulfilling the great commission, sharing the gospel, telling people that they are in sin, that the judgment of God is coming and only by faith in Jesus Christ can they be saved.

There are those who are going to hear the word and understand it. And there are those who will not understand it.

And so this is what Jesus is demonstrating through this particular parable. Even when you have a person who believes for a time, they were not really good soil.

The seed fell among rocks or fell among thorns, and it was the plant was strangled out by something else.

Either it would have been persecution or affliction among the rocks or the worry and wealth of the world, which is represented in the thorns.

So Jesus shows how these different soils, though a person may even show themselves to be a believer for a time, were they really a

Christian? Were they really saved? We have that explanation here in this particular parable. So he's giving the explanation of these soils, the first one being the path that I mentioned yesterday.

You have one person who hears the gospel and understands it. That's the good soil, which will come to today in verse 23.

You have another person who hears the message and immediately does not believe. And this is what's represented by the path.

The seed falls on the path on the packed dirt. It doesn't get into the dirt. No plant develops.

The birds just come along and snatch it away. And that's what Jesus had said previously in this was in verses three and four.

Behold, the sower went out to sow, and as he sowed, some seeds fell beside the road and the birds came and ate them up.

And so Jesus says, this is the enemy who comes and snatches the word away before it has any opportunity to take root.

But then you have the seed that falls among the rocks. And Jesus says, this is a man who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy.

A plant springs up, something is there. Anybody else can even observe in this person that they've made some kind of profession of faith.

But it says in verse 21, he has no root in himself. So this zealousness for this message that he's heard is only temporary.

And when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away.

Now, as I said yesterday, this immediately he falls away. I do believe that there's something that happens in his heart that's instant, that his reaction to the way that he's being treated or how he cannot respond to his circumstances causes him to doubt what it is that he has heard.

More often than not, especially in our American culture, the way that this comes about, you may not see the immediate result of that, but the transformation that's happening in his mind or the reaction that's happening in his mind is immediate.

And an example that I gave yesterday of a young man that I knew who once had a zealousness for the word, but then he was presented with an argument that immediately caused him to doubt.

And though it did not show up in his life among us, among his friends, we didn't recognize it until months down the road.

The transformation for him was immediate. The moment he heard the question or heard the argument and couldn't answer it was the moment that he decided he didn't believe anymore.

And in a person that will make this kind of decision, that will doubt their faith, it was just a passing opinion.

It wasn't real. And Jesus shows it wasn't real. It was not rooted in Christ or his word.

It was just rooted in himself. It was the feelings he had about it for a period of time and his feelings changed.

And so he doesn't have any affinity for Christ or for Christianity anymore.

And so what will generally happen in this person, as I said, this is typically the way this goes in an American culture, is they will just transform

Christ into something that is more palatable, something that is more acceptable to friends of mine.

Because notice that the seed that falls among the rocks represents a person who believes, receives it with joy, but it's only temporary.

And when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away.

So what I typically see happen, especially among American Christians, and you've probably seen this too, is that a person will encounter these things, affliction or persecution, and they try to soften the blow.

Well, I'm just going to say that I believe in Jesus that is more palatable to these people.

I can satisfy the believers and the unbelievers is really how they reason this out in their minds, even though they may not cognitively think this way so out front that they know what it is that they're doing.

Nonetheless, in their insecurities, this is how they rationalize this.

I'm still going to say I believe in Jesus, but it's a different Jesus. It's not the

Jesus of the Bible. It's a Jesus more people can get along with. That's the

Jesus of the chosen. That's the popular Jesus that is presented in a lot of pop

Christianity. It is a Jesus that more people can get along with, an ecumenical

Jesus. They have fallen away from the true Christ and accepted an imitation

Christ. This is the same thing as the seed that falls among the rocks.

Just because they continue to profess Christ doesn't mean they're professing the true Christ.

So we must be wary of that. We must be cognizant of those things in ourselves and even in the people around us.

Because if you see a person starting to redefine Christ, what if Jesus is this way? Cut it off and say, what does the scripture say?

Come back to it and point to the scripture. Even if you begin to doubt it in your mind. If somebody is afflicting you, you're experiencing affliction that is coming at you because of the

Jesus that you believe in. Or somebody's even persecuting you or threatening you. You have members of your family saying,

I can't have anything to do with that. So you start changing Christ to make

Jesus more palatable to these people and still be able to believe that you have some profession of faith in that process.

Don't go there. Go back to the scriptures. Do not be ashamed. Romans 1 16,

I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.

Don't be ashamed. Stand firm on the word of Christ. As Jesus has said previously in Matthew, do not think that I have come to bring peace.

I did not come to bring peace, but a sword that will divide father from son, mother from daughter, brothers and sisters, family members.

Families will be broken up because you chose to follow Christ instead of following what they wanted for you or following the ways of this world.

Another way that I see this play out a lot is I'm kind of providing examples here is when a parents will have a child who goes away to college or the university or whatever.

They just go off into the world and they encounter the world. And it turns out their faith was never genuine.

You know, they show themselves to be either the rocky soil or the thorny soil.

And they don't have a true profession of faith either. It wasn't really rooted in Christ or his word.

And so parents have to watch their children fall away because they've been enticed by the world.

And I will see parents do this. And you have probably seen this too. They will change their beliefs about Christ because they don't want to have to accept that their child is not really a

Christian and is headed to hell. So they'll start to soften what they believe. Maybe hell doesn't really exist.

Maybe Jesus does just accept all of us the way that we are. And they start to transform the

Christ that they believe in to psychologically soothe themselves in not having to watch their children perish.

Again, we must be firm in the word. We must come back to what God's word says.

We must know Christ according to what the scripture says about him, not what the world says about him, not what our feelings about him are.

You know, we cannot be guided by our feelings, which is what the rocky soil represents here. A person who has no root in himself.

It's only temporary. When affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away.

The next one you have, I said we were going to do these briefly. I'm not being very brief here, am I? The next one is the thorny soil.

Verse 22, the one on whom seed was sown among the thorns. This is the one who hears the word and the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word and it becomes unfruitful.

One of the examples that I think of whenever I read this verse is

Demas in 2 Timothy. So if you'll remember, 2 Timothy is

Paul's last letter. This is before he is about to be martyred.

And so he's in prison. He's writing his last letter to Timothy. He's asking Timothy to come to him soon before he's about to be taken and beheaded, most likely.

So in 2 Timothy 4 .9, he says, be diligent to come to me soon. For Demas, having loved this present age, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica.

Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me. Pick up Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful to me for service.

So Paul is mentioning some people that are with him, assignments he's given to some other folks.

And then he mentions Demas. The first person he mentions is Demas. Demas is no longer with him.

Demas was too in love with this world. And he has left me. He abandoned me and went back to Thessalonica, which was a very wealthy city.

It was probably the richest city, as far as wealth goes, in the Greek portion of the

Roman Empire. Demas is mentioned in a couple of other letters. He's mentioned in Colossians 4 .14.

Luke, the beloved physician, sends you his greetings and also Demas. So Demas was, at one point, part of Paul's missionary brethren, going out and sharing the gospel with Paul and Luke.

He's also mentioned in Philemon at the end. Greetings that are given to Philemon from Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, Luke, and my other fellow workers.

So there you have Demas and Luke mentioned again. Each time Demas is mentioned, Luke is also mentioned in the same sentence.

I point that out just to note how close Demas was to Paul. This was not just some casual acquaintance, but he was very instrumental in the work that they were doing and sharing the gospel.

You have a mention of Demas in Colossians, a mention in Philemon, both very favorable, but then you have this one in 2

Timothy 4. Demas, having loved this present age, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica.

He was like the thorny soil. The message of the kingdom had indeed been heard by Demas, and he believed it.

And something grew up there that to everybody else around him, even the apostle Paul, even the writer, the physician

Luke, they saw this in this man, Demas, and they counted him a true believer.

But then it was the deceitfulness of riches that led Demas astray, and he abandoned

Paul in his darkest hour and went back to Thessalonica. Now, there are others that Paul says later on did not stand with me, and they deserted me, says this in verse 16, at my first defense.

So this was a different period. At my first defense, no one supported me, but all deserted me.

May it not be counted against them. He's not talking about Demas there. Demas is clearly demonstrated to have walked away from the faith, having loved this present age, meaning that he does not love

Christ. He loves the world, and he has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica.

There were others that deserted Paul, and Paul said, don't count it against them. They're still true believers.

They may just need to be rebuked and repent over the fact that they didn't stand with one of the apostles during his darkest hour.

But with Demas, he just totally abandoned the mission altogether, turned from Christ and turned back to the world.

Once again, Jesus says in Matthew 13, 22, the one on whom seed was sown among the thorns.

This is the one who hears the word. And again, we've got something that comes up here, a plant that sprouts up, and it looks like this person's making a genuine profession of faith.

But the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.

And both of these things, the world becomes the affliction here. You have the worry of the world, the anxiety, things that you're just concerned about, all this stuff that's going on in the world, or things that you have to do.

This I have to get done. This is not just talking about wealthy people. It's not just talking about the rich or those who go after money.

A person can still be incredibly wealthy and still be a Christian. There's nothing in scripture that says the wealthy are inherently sinful.

In fact, also in Timothy, first Timothy chapter six is where Paul writes this.

He tells Timothy how you are to guide the wealthy in your church to not put their dependence on riches, but to rather be generous with what it is that God has blessed them with.

So it's not sinful to be rich. And Jesus isn't saying here that a person who's rich can't be a

Christian. The word has been choked out because a person could be poor. And yet the anxiety of the world could be the thing that chokes out the word.

So whether a person is poor or rich, they could still be the thorny soil on whom the word falls.

And maybe they express some belief in it for a time, but it's the worry and wealth of the world that leads them away, leads them astray.

And then finally, you have the good soil. So this is verse 23. And the one on whom seed was sown on good soil.

This is the man who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and brings forth some 100 fold, some 60, some 30.

So this is a person who believes the word. And I gave this example yesterday. He hears the word and he understands it.

He's convicted of heart. He recognizes his sin. He knows that he needs a savior and that Jesus is that savior by the gospel that's been proclaimed to him.

So he turns from his sin to the Lord Jesus Christ. He's baptized. He shows himself to be a true believer.

He's walking in faith, just like the man who was among the rocks or the man who was among the thorns.

All of them demonstrate faith for a time. But only the one on whom the word falls in good soil will continue in it, will be steadfast in it, will persist in it, and will show the fruit of this transformation that has happened in his life.

So he shows in his life that he is a genuine believer. He's pursuing holiness.

He is growing in righteousness. He is becoming more Christ -like. And he shares the message of the gospel with others.

Now, some will have an incredibly fruitful ministry in the sense that there will be lots of people that come to faith because of the transformation that's happened in this man's life.

He bears fruit and brings forth some a hundredfold. But then there are others that may not have that kind of platform, not have that kind of opportunity.

God has not really given it to them to be someone who would transform as many people's lives as maybe somebody that's got a podcast, maybe a preacher, maybe you're just witnessing to your next -door neighbor, or you're just raising your kids in the faith, whatever it might happen to be.

You still bring people to faith in your life, but you just don't have that big platform to see hundreds or thousands of people come to faith.

But they are producing fruit that brings forth 60 and some 30. They're still good soil.

They are still those who truly believe and endure in it to the very end.

But those who end up falling away or prove themselves to be unfruitful, as Jesus says about the rocks and the thorns, they never were rooted in Christ in the first place.

They never were truly Christians. It was a passing opinion, or the desires of the world were more enticing.

In 1 John 2 .19, it is said of those who walked away, they went out from us, but they were not really of us.

For if they were of us, they would have remained with us, but they went out so that it would be manifested that they are not all of us.

They were not really Christians. And this is in the very first parable that Jesus gives in Matthew 13.

What do we say of those who show themselves to be Christians for a time, but then fall away?

Can a person lose their salvation? No, not according to this parable. They never had it to begin with.

If a person is saved, then how do they go back to being unsaved?

If a person has eternal life, if it's eternal, then how do they lose it?

A person doesn't lose their salvation. They just might show themselves to have never truly, genuinely have been a believer in the first place.

And that can fool any of us. It fooled Paul and Luke that they didn't realize that Demas wasn't a true believer.

He was just going through a phase. He just had an opinion for a little while that may have indeed resulted in seeing other people come to faith.

But he himself did not endure in it. He fell away. He was the thorny soil because the deceitfulness of riches enticed him away from.

And in fact, you might have even been able to say about Demas that he was also rocky soil because it says when persecution arises, immediately he falls away.

And that was what Demas experienced and ended up abandoning Paul and going back to Thessalonica.

I still think the thorny soil is the better application because Demas surely would have seen some of that persecution even before Paul had been thrown in prison.

But anyway, I bring that up just to say, Paul and Luke did not recognize that Demas' faith was not actually genuine.

And we may have people in our lives that are the same way. They may show themselves to be Christians for a time, but then after a while, they never really were rooted in Christ in the first place.

We don't lose our salvation because if you're saved, you're saved. We don't lose eternal life.

It's eternal. How can you lose it? But a person that walks away from the faith reveals themselves to have never been in Christ in the first place.

And let us take heed and take warning in this, that we understand what our faith is rooted in.

It's not in ourselves. It's not in passing opinions. It's not in our conditions. It's not in our culture. It's not in our family, our upbringing.

It must be rooted in Christ. And he who is in Christ will endure to the end.

Philippians 1 .6, I am confident of this, that he who began a good work in you, he who began this good work will be faithful to complete it at the day of Christ.

Heavenly Father, I thank you for what we've read here this week in the parable of the sower. And may we regard these things with faithfulness, that we would desire to persevere, to continue on, to not be tempted to change the message or soften the

Christ that we believe in as if we can still hold to a different Jesus and believe that we can get into heaven.

Let us take Christ for who he is. Everything that he is presented as in Scripture, Old Testament and New, the

Son of God is presented to us. For he is the same yesterday and today and forever.

The God on the left side of the book is the same God as on the right side of the book. We're not trying to change the message of Christ, the gospel, the

Jesus whom we worship. We want you to change us, conform us to your image, that we may endure and persevere in these things to the very end, that we may hear the master say, well done, good and faithful servant.

Now great is your reward. Thinking of the closing words of the book of Jude, now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of his glory, blameless with great joy, to the only

God, our savior through Jesus Christ, our Lord, be glory, majesty, might and authority before all time and now and forever.

Amen. For more about our ministry, visit us online at www .tt .com