(Youth Bible School 2007) the Stony Ground Hearer — Mose Stoltzfus

Hello, this is Brother Denny. Welcome to Charity Ministries. Our desire is that your life would be blessed and changed by this message. This message is not copyrighted and is not to be bought or sold.

You are welcome to make copies for your friends and neighbors. If you would like additional messages, please go to our website for a complete listing at www .charityministries .org. If you would like a catalog of other sermons, please call 1 -800 -227 -7902 or write to Charity Ministries, 400 West Main Street, Suite 1, AFPA, 17522.

These messages are offered to all without charge by the freewill offerings of God's people. A special thank you to all who support this ministry.

Greetings again tonight in the precious name of the Lord Jesus. Good to see all your faces and hear your voices already increasing and lifting up and singing. I can tell a difference tonight and that's normally the way it goes in Bible school.

Somehow we need to take a few days to kind of get rid of the cobwebs from home and not being enough involved in spiritual fellowship and activity. And we get in and the Word of God penetrates the heart and the next thing we know our singing increases quite a bit.

That's a blessing. Well, we thank God for this Tuesday night, the opportunity we have together again here this evening for another message from God's Word. Shall we reverently pray before God? Our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, we come to you in thanksgiving and honor and praise and blessing unto your most holy, holy name.

Thank you, Father, for saving us from a life of sin. Thank you for the plan of salvation and redemption that is given to us through Christ Jesus who went to Calvary's cross, shed his blood there for the remission of sins.

Thank you for the resurrection and that resurrection power is available the day yet whosoever will lay hold of it by faith to overcome sin, the world and the devil. And I pray to your God this evening once again, give me grace in my words to make plain the way of God, to expound the scriptures on the authority of truth by the Holy Ghost, Lord.

The power of the Holy Ghost would come upon us and help us to plainly make known the scriptures according to truth. Thank you again for each student that you have with us this year and also all the visitors who have come our way this evening and those that may be listening from a distance by way of the telephone.

I do pray God touch the hearts of all those that are seeking and searching for truth and may we find that which is so graciously promised to us according to the word of God. We pray in Jesus name, Amen.

The Stony Ground Hearer in Jesus’ Parable

Let us turn our Bibles back to our text in Matthew chapter 13. Matthew chapter 13 again. We are going to continue to look at this text for another message here tonight and tonight our message is entitled The Stony Ground Hearer.

The Stony Ground Hearer. Matthew 13. We have again repeating the scripture. I won't read all of chapter 13 again as I did last night through verse 23, but just going back to verse 5. Chapter 13 verse 5.

Some fell upon stony places where they had not much earth and forthwith they sprung up because they had no deepness of earth. No deepness of earth. And when the sun was up they were scorched and because they had no root they withered away.

The interpretation of the Lord Jesus over in verse 20. But he that receiveth the seed into stony places the same is he that heareth the word and anon with joy receiveth it. Yet hath he not rooted himself but doeth for a while then or for when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word by and by he is offended.

The Stony Ground Hearer. And it has been a consternation and I must say at times a frustration for me throughout my ministry and especially in counseling people through the years, how to determine whether an individual was converted or not.

And I know that I speak also likewise for many other counselors and ministers who have battled this same battle in an amazing way. That just, you know, there is just not enough of evidence many times to know what to say or how to judge the matter.

And you don't know whether the individual has light that has come into the soul or whether there has been a new birth or a conversion. And the individual is just young and weak and needs the growing grace and wisdom and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

That has been a battle and still is in my life as I spend time talking to young people. And I'm sure it is a battle for many of you or has been likewise. Whether you are a personal worker or maybe even you are sitting here tonight and that answer is still not answered in your very life.

Now, it is not my desire to be a cloud to you tonight or a discouragement and to undo a true commitment or a true conversion experience in your heart and life. And I hope I can make this plain enough that you will be able to determine very clearly at the end as to which side of a line you happen to fall in.

As I know that many of you are young and you are just beginning to walk and to live out the Christian life. And I want to tell you from the onset here, we do not expect perfection in the Christian life at birth.

Just like when a baby is born and it can't walk very well yet and wobbles and stumbles and falls sometimes in the natural life. Yet, the life is there and the birth is there, but the maturity and the exercise of itself has not come to fruition to the point where it can walk straight and talk clear and be able to move about in a very mature manner.

And we have the same thing in the Christian life. And if you were only born again six months ago, a year ago, we do not expect full maturity or perfection. But we do expect life and the evidence of it in your experience.

If there is no life there and no evidence of it and no fruit of it, you surely should not blame us for having the right to question where you are and to help you to a deeper experience and a real experience with God.

But a questionable conversion is a major, major issue today. A questionable and doubtful conversion. And the reason we often blame is, of course, the evangelical world. And the blame is somewhat on them because they have given us what we often call easy believism.

And I especially remember in my time as a young man of the whole Billy Graham crusade type of thing, you know, where I think once in my teenage years I got to watch it on a neighbor's television. And, you know, they had this football stadium just filled with people.

And Billy, I thought, preached a pretty good message, you know, on accepting Christ as your personal Savior. And then he would give the invitation and the masses would come out of the bleachers and come down and get or sign a decision card, get a little packet of information or literature and would send on his way.

And it was awesome, you know, we would watch those kind of things and think that the masses of people are accepting the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord. And I'm not here to say how, what percent that did.

But I have heard statistics that it comes down to around 1 or less was considered back in the 50s and 60s when those crusades and campaigns were taking place here in the United States. And I believe with all my heart we have stony ground here.

Four Soils and the Difference Between Stony and Thorny Hearers

When I came upon these four different types of soil, I realized all at once it seemed as I, and I didn't see this through my Christian life at all until I was in the ministry already. And we began to look at these Scriptures deeply, more deeply, and we were counseling young people and trying to help young people find the Lord and get a hold of reality in their life and lead them often in prayer to what we hoped would be a true conversion.

This thing became a real living reality to us in our ministry here at Charity, our early ministry. And we began to look at that and I began to read this Scripture over and over again. And I began to realize now this fits what the Lord Jesus Christ seemed to lay out in the Scriptures in Matthew chapter 13, Mark chapter 4, and also in Luke when He talks about the different soils.

And I believe what we have many times is wayside hearers and stony ground hearers and thorny ground hearers and good ground hearers. Now, so don't confuse this with a young Christian who is just weak in the faith and has just started out on their journey but is not sanctified yet.

That is the other thing I believe. You know, we are justified by faith in conversion and then the sanctification work in process goes from there on the rest of our life and should never end and never be over.

I do not agree with those who believe that they have an experience which simply seals and satisfies all the sanctification requirements of the Word of God and an individual can kind of coast from there on.

The stony ground hearer. Now, in contrast to the stony ground hearer, we have next the thorny ground hearer. And I'm not sure how much justice I'll be able to do to all of these because the original burden on my heart for this Bible school and this context was for the stony ground hearer.

Because I believe it was the key, it is actually the key that would help many of you to find your way through to an understanding of what is lacking and what has going wrong and what is not working properly in your life.

There are those of you sitting here that I know personally and I've met throughout my travels and even here in the home church who have struggled to try to find their way and all of that and they have not found their way, they have not come through to a clear walk with God and a clear experience.

And I believe to all of you who are finding this way, consider with me tonight the fact of the stony ground hearer. Now, like I said, in contrast to the thorny ground hearer, what I would like to give in this contrast is in this one there actually was a little bit of life that lasted, as the Bible says, it doerth for a little while.

But in the thorny ground hearer it is very different in that there is no question. The thorny ground hearer was truly converted. He was planted in good soil. There was no problem with the soil. It was not full of stones.

The plant took root and it sprung up, but then thorns and thistles came around later on or thorns and briars and found their way wrapping around that little plant that was doing great and choked out the plant, as the Bible would say, it choked out the Word and he becometh unfruitful.

It's not the fact that he never was unfruitful, but he becometh unfruitful. And he got into a state of unfruitfulness over time in his Christian life. But the stony ground hearer never attained unto fruitfulness in their Christian life and experience.

The life that was there that actually happened got snuffed out or got withered away by the heat of the sun. The Bible says the sun shone upon that plant and because it lacked root, because it had no root as the sun beat upon it in the form of opposition and persecution and tribulation in their life, it withered away.

Now, I'm still at a loss to tell you whether with that actual happening of life bursting forth there for a short duration, whether we can call that conversion or not. I would tend to think not. But I am not strong on that and simply want to suggest to you that what we call conversion should be a birth and a conversion that is...

I like to put the word conversion to belong to the real experience where the change did take place and the fruit did come forth and there were actual effect and results from your Christian experience.

Other than that, we water the thing down and weaken it up to the point where we hardly know what to call it. I wanted to also say from the evangelical world, we do have a Phinney, a Charles Phinney in that evangelical world background and many others like that.

And I read those accounts and the accounts of the conversion and accounts of repentance and some of the accounts of the revival meetings and they are amazing to me. And I know we're on a slippery slope away from that.

But I especially have to refer you to the inquiry room which Phinney often had where seekers would come. He would have a meeting like this and preach the gospel that night or preach the obedience to the Word of God and he often would preach the law of God and things like that in order to make men and women accountable for their sin.

And then they would come forward and enter in what they called an inquiry room and they would be in there sometimes all night wrestling with the real issues of life, the human will and the counting the cost and those things.

And sometimes he would just say, let them lay there. They're doing fine and would go home. Or the workers would do that and let them lay there wrestling with the issues of life. And of course, when they come out the other side, they got to know what is called conversion.

But we don't have an awful lot of that today. We have what is known today as getting saved on an elevator on the way up the elevator, you know, where somebody witnesses to another and you hear these kind of things and by the time the doors open and you get to the top, he has accepted Jesus Christ as Savior.

And what that many times does is only inoculate you against the real experience. And the same is true if you've had one of those five and six and seven year old experiences where somebody made you fear hell.

And I don't know of any five or six year old or seven year old that would want to burn in hell. And if it is put in the right way, it can pretty well scare any child, so to speak, into heaven with the right kind of words.

But I tell you that is not conversion. And it is not the new birth experience and normally there is no fruit that comes out of it. And that to a crowd of this size and where you all come from, I'm sure it's not your fault, but you may have fallen into something like that in your childhood and you have thought because of that somebody has told you, don't you ever doubt it.

That's good enough. That's all you're going to need. You are secure in your conversion. Now you just go from there. And yet you have not had the fire of God burning in your hearts and you've never had the power, you've never had the joy of being a Christian and you have never been able to do anything effectively for God.

No counting the cost. Maybe you've signed the decision card somewhere. Or with everyone closing their eyes, you've quick raised your hand and put it right back down again to say that I accept the Lord as your Savior.

Even in that, there's a possibility that a heart is clear enough and good enough and gets serious enough about it that maybe it works out for you. But for the most part, I don't believe it does. Now I'm not trying to put conversion in a box and trying to say it as a certain format, a certain way, that you need to get born again according to charity Christian fellowship preaching or you're not converted.

I never want to do something like that. I remember my own conversion. I didn't understand repentance. But I knew one thing. My whole heart was in that when I knelt down beside my bed after having been in a revival meeting at 15 years of age and I came home that night and fell upon my bedside in silence, I prayed, without a worker or anybody helping me.

But I was sorry and grieved and I believe I would have been in remorse for my sins. And I know I wanted the Lord Jesus Christ with all my heart. But I was just desperate for an answer for my soul. And it took without many things.

But if I would have only had someone to help me to confess and acknowledge my sin and to repent in an honest and open manner before God and an individual beside me maybe to kind of coach me and guide me through it in my ignorance, I was very ignorant of the Word of God at 15.

I hardly knew one book from another, especially in the Old Testament. But God looks on the heart and if the heart is sincere, many of us have not had ideal conversions in that way, but yet something happened and we went from there and God blessed it and we're here today because of it.

So I don't want to undo that. But the real problem seems to be there's a lot of wrong methods of evangelism. And what I'm mostly concerned about is the fact that you think you are born again when only you have had light come into your life.

See, there's a great difference there. We are ignorant, maybe, or living in sin and actually some biblical truth and light does shed upon our hearts. And actually we are able many times through the human will or even just knowing that the Word of God says it, we are able to bring some kind of change in our life.

But we are still a stony ground hearer. A stony ground hearer. But tonight I would just like to take a closer look at this subject. And I don't want to... I want you to be free in your spirit and to examine your heart.

Repentance, Confession, and Forsaking Sin

As I mentioned last night on the wayside hearer, tonight again on the stony ground hearer, we want to look at the heart, at the heart of the matter. Where is our heart concerning true Christianity, a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, a hatred for the world and a turning away from it, a repentance of all known sin, and a yieldedness to Christ and the cross and all that that means.

So many times, like I say, individuals are brought to Christianity out of a fear of eternal death or hell fire. We call it the fire insurance or fire escape method. And nothing is ever mentioned, nothing is ever questioned on the matter of repentance and confession of sin.

And that's a major issue in my mind here tonight. I know there's a number of you have already heard that from me in times past, maybe by tape or in person, but I just want to reiterate it again. I believe what is so necessary in our time, in our day, is that the gospel is preached so men are called to repent from their sin and to confess their sin and become naked and open before the eyes of Him of whom we have to do.

Without hiding, without all the secrecy enshrouded around an individual's life who have been steeped in wickedness and iniquity and have never opened it up and never confessed it and never made it known to any other human being on earth.

And not properly to God either, because as the Bible said, he that covereth his sin shall not prosper. Remember those words in Proverbs 18, I think it is. He that covereth his sin shall not prosper, but whosoever confesseth and forsaketh shall have mercy.

And I would like to underscore the word forsaking for due to the false conversions or false gospel that is out there, there is little preaching today on the forsaking of sin. But it seems like so many people are hearing the idea that you can be saved in your sin, not that Jesus came to save you from your sin.

You know there is a vast difference between those two. Jesus did not come to save you in your sin. He came to save us from our sins and deliver us out of them and make us be able to walk the straight and narrow way and to walk a holy life.

Remorse for past sins. Restitution, being willing and able to make things right. Humbling ourselves before our authorities. Sitting down with our parents and bearing our hearts as to who we have been and what we have done.

Those kind of things is what we are talking about and becoming honest before God and men. Now I was also interested just recently about, within the last two weeks, I had a privilege of taking a trip with Brother Wes Limey through Alberta, visiting the churches of Alberta there for a week and we had a blessed time there.

Romans 10:9–10 and Confessing Christ Publicly

And at one of the messages Brother Wes preached, I was just so intrigued by, in his message he gave the account of a young African, I think over by Bun Bun where Daniel and Christy are, that he was listening to him instructing another young man on how to become a Christian.

And as Brother Wes listened, he said, repent, believe and preach the Gospel. And Wes thought, hmm, that's a little strange. I wonder where he gets that. And later on he got to talk to him, you know, and ask him, where did you get that?

Repent, believe and preach the Gospel. And the young man turned to Romans 10, 9 and 10. If thou confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in thine heart that God has raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

So it's repent, believe and preach the Gospel. You know what a change that would make in your life if you'd believe that? I say it's rather drastic. I know it just touched me because years ago, I preached the message on the other half of God.

And that sounds a little strange. And it was. But it seems like that we want to believe in our heart the Lord Jesus, but are not willing to confess Him with our mouth. And I want to tell you tonight, I believe with all my heart, that if we are unwilling to bear testimony before men of our experience with the Lord and of His power and grace in our life, I believe we are a stony ground hearer.

Stony ground hearer. And we are too ashamed. We are afraid of what people will think. We are afraid yet of being made a fool of or being some kind of a whatever, a self-rejection at the hands of family and former friends.

And that brings up another major problem in our time that there is not enough of separation taking place from the old crowd. Repent, believe and preach the Gospel. If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus.

Sometimes you lead a person through to salvation and you encourage them. Get up next week and share testimony with the congregation of what the Lord has done for you. Oh, I'm not ready for that. Well, be careful.

You would send the devil packing many times, I believe, if you would do that. You would send the devil packing. But so many times we kind of want to think this thing over and get settled in. It's the same thing with baptism.

I find people so reluctant sometimes to be baptized upon their confession of faith and make a public declaration for their faith. And they do themselves hurt. If they're not careful, they become a stony ground hearer.

Biblical Examples of Stony Ground Hearers

Now, there are examples of men in Scripture that I believe were stony ground hearers. I just want to give you a few of them. I'm not sure. There may be a bit of a link here between the stony ground hearer and the thorny ground hearer.

But at least hear me out. I believe these men were stony ground hearers. Simon the Sorcerer. The Bible says that Simon was some great one, you know, and he was a very popular person involved in witchcraft and going around and doing all kinds of strange phenomena and was a pretty popular person in his day.

But when he heard the gospel, it does say that Simon believed also and was baptized. But then when he saw the power that the apostles had with the power of the Holy Ghost, then he also wanted that power.

And my guess was he had not departed from the power of his sorcery and had not renounced that in the name of the Lord Jesus and was going to produce some kind of a mixture. And he wanted to be in the driver's seat with the most power who ever had.

I believe he was a stony ground hearer because I believe he never cleaned up and he never departed from his sin. But nevertheless, perhaps because of the profession he made, like so many times the mistakes we make in churches, we cannot always see what's in the heart.

And we do take a person at their word and let them be baptized and think maybe that they are truly making a change and going to go on with God, only to find out that they have not departed and they have never intended to depart their old life.

And I believe that may have been Simon's problem. Simon the sorcerer, I believe, was a stony ground hearer. And whatever he did, he believed in being baptized and there was just a little bit of something going on there for a little while.

But as you read the story, he has a very, very sad ending and became an enemy of the apostles wherever he went, teaching and preaching against them and still continuing, as I understand, his sorcery. But I believe he was a stony ground hearer.

Ananias and Sapphira, another possibility, who had never come to grips with transparent honesty in the church, in the lives of the brethren. And so you know how it was. They agreed to come and lay their goods at the apostles' feet for the benefit of all the Christians that were in from countries scattered around.

There was just all kinds of people there. And this is what happened. They sold their goods in order to raise up money, I think, to feed all the visitors because the visitors had heard the gospel and parked there for a time and said, we're not going home.

We have really got something here. We have found the truth. And they didn't want to go home for a time. And so there was a sharing of goods there, I believe, in order to relieve the need for food and lodging and what have you that they found themselves in that present time.

But they agreed to make it appear like they had given everything and hold back some. And by it they show a dishonesty in their heart. They did not have a constitution. They did not have the conviction of God that was deep upon their heart that would not have allowed them to do that.

They deceived the people by wanting the honor perhaps that they brought everything to, you know, but they had kept back some of it privately. And you know the story. They were smitten with death on the spot.

And I believe they were stony ground hearers. Stony ground hearers. Others we have like that are Hymenaeus and Alexandra. Hymenaeus and Philetus. Demas is another one. Demas might have been a thorny ground hearer who did alright for a while and then the thorns sprung up because of loving this present world.

Paul said he went back. Back slid. So that perhaps belongs more to that category. Judas. I'm not sure what to do with him. But I look at him being active with the apostles. And of course he lived in that area, you know, before the power of the Holy Ghost had come at Pentecost where the whole matter of true conversion is questionable in that setting of the apostles because of Peter being told, after thou had converted, strengthen thy brethren.

And he too was flip-flopping around there. But I think in some cases there it appears like he might have been a stony ground hearer. But the lusts of money and prosperity and dishonesty and all that were still lurking in his heart.

Fruit as Evidence of Genuine Christianity

Now I just want to go through some Scripture and just substantiate some of these things that the Word of God talks to us about. Matthew 3, 10. I quoted this maybe in part last night. Now so as the axe is laid to the root of the tree, therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is what?

It's hewn down and what? Cast into the fire and what is that? I don't know what else to do with it. The Bible says, John says there, concerning Jesus, He's going to thoroughly purge His floor. He's going to bring a separation between professed Christianity and true Christianity.

He's going to bring a difference there because He'll thoroughly purge His floor and He's going to gather the wheat into His barn and burn the chaff with unquenchable fire. And the only interpretation I can give it was hell fire.

The same thing is given in Matthew 7, 19. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. And that's why I believe I have to say that if no fruit has ever come forth from your life, you're not reflecting the fruit of true Christianity.

Tonight, I have no hope for you. I can't give you any hope. Humanly speaking, I'd love to. You look so nice on the outside. You look like Christians and you know you would just like to say, surely everybody's fine.

But unless that fruit is coming out of our lives for the glory of God, we will be hewn down and cast into the fire. Jesus illustrated it in a tremendous way in Matthew 21, 19. And when He saw a fig tree in the way, He came to it and found nothing thereon but leaves only.

And He said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforth forever. And presently the fig tree withered away. I think in one of the other Gospels, it says He cursed it. And that simply gives us a pretty clear picture that God doesn't like fruitless trees.

He has created us, and I'll have some more Scriptures that show all the things that He has done for us. But He has created us and made all the provisions for us that we would be able to bear fruit, but no fruit.

And then what seemed to disturb Him greatly in that situation was because He had leaves and no fruit. And you know that a fig tree forms its fruit first and then leaves. Now remember that. That's a pretty interesting analogy there.

Fruit first, then leaves. It seems like so many times we put the leaves on and then we expect fruit. But a fig tree is not like that. And therefore He used the fig tree for that illustration. And I think it ought to be the same.

There ought to be evidence of Christianity before we make ourselves look like one and deceive the people by hypocrisy. Psalms 1, 1, 2, and 3. Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.

But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law does he meditate day and night. And he shall be, he shall be, if he's going to do that, he's going to be like a tree planted by the rivers of waters that bringeth forth his fruit in his season.

His leaf also shall not wither, but whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. But you know what the problem is today? We are trying to live a Christian life and hobnobbing around with people who are constantly sucking us and draining us out and influencing us with the world and evil communication, which corrupt good manners.

And we're trying to live our Christian life and can't draw the line and can't take a stand in family, friends, and neighbors. It's not going to work. Not going to work. John, chapter 15, verse 1 and 2.

Abiding in Christ and Bearing Fruit

I think it is there. Let me turn to it. I am the true vine, and my Father is the husband. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, He taketh away. And every branch that beareth fruit, He purchases it, that it may bring forth more fruit.

Now that's the sign of the Christian and the non-Christian, the professor of religion and the true Christian. The stony ground here and the thorny ground here, or at least a here or maybe a good ground here, He's saying if He finds fruit, He will purchase it, that it bring forth more fruit.

But if it doesn't have any fruit, listen to this. And every good vine gardener will do it. Verse 5, I am the vine, and you are the branches. He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit.

For without me you can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered, and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. And I'll let you argue with the Scripture that the individual was never connected to the vine.

But the Bible says he was connected to the vine. So here we perhaps have a thorny ground here. And you see that connection, or the illustration fits a little bit there. But somehow he got severed, and there's only one thing that we know what happens to severed branches from the vine.

When they get severed and cut off and withered and dried up, men gather them and take them to the end of the road and make a bonfire and burn them. And the illustration is that's what God will do with individuals.

And I didn't write the book. God did. And we want to say amen to it. Hebrews chapter 6 verse 8,. But that which beareth thorns and briars is rejected. Listen to this. That which beareth thorns and briars is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing, whose end is to be burned.

But beloved, we are persuaded better things of you. And I'll say that likewise. Now let us turn back to Isaiah chapter 5. We have a beautiful Scripture there that needs to be brought in to this whole situation.

Verse 1 through verse 7. Isaiah chapter 5, 1 through 7. Now will I sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill. And he fenced it.

And here we have the answer. And he gathered out the stones thereof. He gathered out the stones thereof. And planted it with a choiceless vine. And built a tower in the midst of it. And also made a winepress therein.

And he looked that it should bring forth grapes. And he brought forth wild grapes. And now, O inhabitant of Jerusalem and men of Judah, Judge, I pray you, betwixt me and the vineyard. What could have been done more to my vineyard than I have done in it.

Or I have not done in it. Wherefore I have looked that it should bring forth grapes. Brought it forth wild grapes. Now go to, I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will take away the hedge thereof.