He Who Has Ears

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

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Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

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And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Rosebrook. The Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew, the 13th chapter.

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That same day, Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea, and great crowds gathered about him, so that he got into a boat and sat down.

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And the whole crowd stood on the beach, and he told them many things in parables, saying, A sower went out to sow, and some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them.

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Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil.

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But when the sun rose, they were scorched, and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them.

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Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears, let him hear.

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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.

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This is what was sown along the path. As for what was sown on the rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while.

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And when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away. As for what was sown among the thorns, this is the one who hears the word.

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The cares of the world, the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.

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As for what was sown on the good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it. Indeed, he bears fruit and yields in one case a hundredfold, another sixty, and another thirty.

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This is the gospel of the Lord. In the name of Jesus. Amen. If you haven't figured it out, today's parable, today's gospel text, is all about the word of God.

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And let me remind you of how Lutherans read that third commandment. What is the third commandment? I should ask my catechumens, right?

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Third commandment is you shall remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, and then of course

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Luther asks the question, was ist das, what does this mean? And it means this, that we should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching and his word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.

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That's the law. Hear God's words. And you're going to note, we live in a time when a lot of people don't want to take

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God's word seriously. Of course, we expect that from the world, right? Have you guys heard about that one fellow who came up with this idea that he's going to have

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AI rewrite the Bible for us to get rid of all the errors and things and stuff like that?

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What a blasphemous thing to say and do, right? There are no errors in God's word and anyone who thinks thus doesn't understand the word of God at all.

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But we expect those kind of attacks from the outside, but they still come from within. And I'm going to note, from within has two focuses.

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We could talk about the pastors who've abandoned the preaching of God's word, who like to scratch itching ears and tell people what they want to hear.

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Tell people that if they just put $1 ,000 into the offering plate, God is going to heal them.

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God is going to make them rich. God is going to make them influential and make them 20 years younger, right?

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You might as well get rid of the balding thing and all that kind of stuff, right? I can't promise that for any of you, right?

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But there are people who want to hear such messages and pastors like that, they've abandoned the preaching of God's word.

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And then you think of guys like Andy Stanley. And what have they done? They flat out attack God's word. When? During the sermon, right?

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And you sit there and go, what kind of church is this? Well, this is the kind of church that our sinful nature wants to be a part of.

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Our sinful nature, you'll note, it goes along with things like this, which leads to that second bit, the second bit of the internal conflict.

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That's inside of you. It's inside of me. How many of you guys have said, oh, this time

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I'm going to really read God's word and And so you decide you're going to get up early on a work day, right?

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And so you pour yourself a cup of coffee or tea, whatever you're prone to, and you open up your

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Bible or you turn it on. Nowadays, you have to kind of give that as an option. I still have one of those analog

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Bibles. It doesn't need batteries. It's kind of fascinating if you think about it. But you open up your Bible and you start reading, right?

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And you get three, four, five paragraphs in and you realize not a single word has sunk in.

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You have no clue what you're even reading, right? And if it's worse than that, it may even be that what you're really doing while reading the word is you're working on your grocery list or you're starting to work out your to -do list for the day.

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And you'll note that when Christ talks about how the devil comes along when you don't understand

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God's word and just snatches it away, no, that's talking about you. And let me be blunt, that's talking about me as well.

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And so we are not nearly attentive to God's word as we ought to be.

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We do not yet fear, love, and trust God as we ought to. And if you remember last week, we talked about our sinful nature.

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You think your sinful nature wants to do devotional time and read God's word? You got to be out of your mind. Your sinful nature would be rather outside playing golf or something or working on the weeds in your yard.

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And so we must understand that as we read this parable, that Jesus isn't just merely talking about people out there and describing four different types of people and four different types of soil so you can sit there and conveniently say, well,

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I came to church today, so I must be part of the good soil people. No, this isn't how this works.

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In fact, it's a terrifying proposition when you consider it. And then listen to these words, he who has ears, let him hear.

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Now in the past, I've kind of quipped because I've never want to miss a good opportunity for a good pastor joke. A good pastor joke would say, he who has ears, let him hear.

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That means the sower was sowing corn. Really funny, right? But here's the thing is that that's not really a punchline for a laugh.

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That's a legitimate stern warning. He who has ears, let him hear.

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Why would Jesus give such a stern warning? Well, consider the context. We are in the middle of the

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Gospel of Matthew, chapter 13, and from chapter five all the way through chapter 12, when

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Jesus has preached and he's taught, he is taught plainly in language that anybody can understand, right?

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But why is he switching it up in the middle of everything? Why at chapter 13 does he decide that he's going to go all parable on people?

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And here's the thing we got to understand. Jesus hasn't sprung into parable mode in order to make his sermons more understandable.

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That is a flat out lie. If you've ever heard somebody talk like that, they don't understand God's word at all.

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Jesus has gone into parable mode in order to make his words less understandable, at least to the people who are inattentive to his words, who do not think that they are sacred, do not think that they are

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God's words. People sit there and go, what's this whole thing about the sower and the seeds and stuff like that? I don't get it.

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Right? This is a waste of time. I'd rather be looking at Instagram. I've got things to do on Snapchat, you know, right?

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Yeah, I recognize that seventh grade, junior high mentality and disdain for anything that isn't shiny and entertaining.

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Christ isn't here to entertain people, and you're going to note that when Jesus first preaches the parables, the disciples completely freak out in a moment of sheer panic and anxiety.

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And I always hear their words in the sound of Seinfeld's voice. All right.

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You ever hear Jerry Seinfeld in a panic mode, weird voice.

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So the disciples come up to Jesus, why are you speaking to them in parables? Because they could see what was going on.

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There Jesus, he gets into a boat, there's a large crowd, he gets into a boat, goes out just a little bit, uses a natural amphitheater to help his voice carry, and he tells this parable about a sower and some soils.

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And not only that, the sower doesn't make any sense, if you kind of think about it. And you can just see people sitting there going, what?

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What was the point of that? And by the way, do you know any farmers that are like this? You know, now listen,

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I don't know anything about farming firsthand. The only thing I know about farming is from the farmers that attend here.

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But one of the things I've noticed about farmers is that they don't waste their seeds, right?

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Seeds are a precious commodity. Seeds are the type of thing, well, you've got to make sure that you plant them under the right conditions.

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You don't want to plant them too early, you don't want to plant them too late, because you risk losing an entire crop.

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So the conditions have got to be just right, at just the right time. And if you miss it, you're hoeing on to those seeds, plant something else or a different kind of crop, right?

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Because you don't want to be planting the wrong thing at the wrong time. But you're going to note that this sower, who taught him how to farm?

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Because he's taken seed and he's spreading it all over the place. I assure you that the

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Kotsmatka family, the Linns, Arlen Linn, he does not take his seed and cast it on the roads up here in Oslo, okay?

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He makes sure that he tills his soil, makes it and prepares it right, gets his combine out there and gets those things planted in the ground at exactly the right place.

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I've never seen any of the farmers here sow seed on a path or among rocky soil or among the weeds.

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Who does this? Right? Let me tell you who does this,

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Jesus does. And that's one of the big points of all of this, he who has ears to hear, let him hear.

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And so Jesus tells his disciples who are in a full panic, to you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven.

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To them, it has not been given. These are people who have despised Christ's words and his preaching so much that in chapter 12, they accuse

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Jesus of performing miracles by the power of Beelzebul, the prince of demons. Who can possibly think this way, right?

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So they cannot deny Christ is doing good, he's preaching God's word, people are hearing things they're understanding, there are sinners who are legitimately repenting.

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In fact, that's kind of the whole scandal of it if you think about it. There's an account here in the

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Gospel of Matthew where there's a fellow by the name of Levi, the tax collector, he also happens to be the author of the

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Gospel of Matthew, and he's at his tax booth, right? And Jesus comes along and says, come follow me.

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And you know what he does? He leaves his tax booth and he comes and follows

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Christ. And that night, after Christ has called him, Jesus decides he's going to do something scandalous, he's going to eat at Levi's house.

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Levi the tax collector, are you kidding me? That guy is a rogue, a scoundrel, a sinner.

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What are you thinking, Jesus? And the text talks about how the Pharisees were all verklempt, they were all upset.

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Do you not understand who your master is eating with? He's eating with sinners, right? And Jesus, of course, says it's the sick who need a physician, not the well.

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He came to call sinners like you and I. It's Jesus who sows his word among the weeds and the rocks and on the hard paths.

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And so Jesus says, to the one who has been given he will have an abundance, but the one who has not, even what he has will be taken from him.

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So this is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.

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Indeed, in their case, the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says, you will indeed hear, but you will never understand.

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You will indeed see, but never perceive. For this people's heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they've closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn and I would heal them.

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Do you not get it? He who has ears to hear, let him hear. All those times when you've opened up the

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Bible or you've come to church and God's word isn't even registering and the birds are flying over and the only thing you can think of is the thing that you're going to be doing next after you leave or move on to the next thing.

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You are under this condemnation, and this condemns you and shows that you are a sinner who is not attentive to God's word.

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You are a sinner who can barely hear. And by the way, you're in good company.

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There are many times when I struggle to pay attention to the word of God, even when I'm preparing for a sermon.

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And you know what? Jesus's word should cause us some good, godly grief and a wee bit of terror and convince us yet again we are not as holy as we ought to be.

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We are not. We are not as pious as we ought to be either.

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We're not. And the law rightly condemns us for our lack of piety, our inattentiveness to God's word.

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And there's all kinds of ways in which you can be inattentive. But here again, Jesus says, he who has ears to hear, let him hear.

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One of the things I've been working on is a Bible study on the book of Ezekiel.

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Ezekiel's not an easy book. In fact, if you've ever read Ezekiel chapter 1, we're going to be talking about Ezekiel chapter 1 next

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Saturday during the Bible study portion of the homecoming on the prairie. But you read

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Ezekiel chapter 1 and literally after reading it, just on a cold reading, you sit there and go, what did

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I just read? It is super complicated. It's like space aliens and weird things like this.

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You don't know what to make of it. In fact, like the History Channel 2, you know, has that ancient aliens things.

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I've seen guys on there talk about, yeah, Ezekiel had an encounter with a UFO. No, he didn't.

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That's not the point of that text. But the point is, is that if you don't understand God's word, you're going to have to actually dig.

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There are certain parts of scripture that you just sit there and go, I don't understand what's going on.

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Or if you're so enamored with entertainment, right, and finding out what the next big show is and stuff like this and making sure that you're part of the next big thing that happens so that you can talk about it with everybody and be a part of it in real time and all this kind of stuff.

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You come to the word of God and you sit there and go, this is the most boring thing ever. And then you get to a portion of scripture where it says things like this, and so -and -so begat so -and -so, and so -and -so begat so -and -so, and so -and -so, and you just sit there and go, kill me now, please, right?

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But here's the thing, that's sin. Do you not understand that some of the most important parts of scripture are the hardest for you to understand and read?

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I think about today's kids, you give them a Rubik's Cube, what are they going to do? Pull that thing apart and then put it back together and say, see,

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I solved it. No, that's not how you solve the Rubik's Cube. And you're going to note

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God's word, there are parts of it that are very puzzling, very difficult. And so this phrase, he who has ears, let him hear,

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I found a reference to it, a cross -reference, and of all places, the opening chapters of the prophet

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Ezekiel. Let me give you the context. Remember, we just worked our way through the book of Jeremiah, right?

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The southern kingdom of Judah, they went complete apostate, just like the northern kingdom.

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And when the northern kingdom went apostate into idolatry, God said, we're done, and he scraped them out of the land of Israel, and now we refer to them as the ten lost tribes of Israel.

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Good luck finding them. God scattered them to the point where they've even lost their Jewishness, they don't even know if they're

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Israeli or not, right? They've just dispersed into the nations, dissolved, gone.

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And then Judah follows suit, follows the same stupid idolatrous pattern, and what does

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God do in the midst of all of that? He sends prophet after prophet after prophet, repent, turn from this wickedness, stop worshiping these false gods.

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They cannot hear you, they do not understand, these are figments of your imagination. Do the people listen?

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No. So what do they do? They finally get complete control of the country, they put an

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Asherah pole inside the holy of holies like God needed a girlfriend, and he didn't like her. You'll notice throughout the scriptures,

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God is not keen on that girlfriend, okay? Constantly abusing her and kicking her out and stuff.

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Good on him, because she's a slut, but that's a whole other thing, right? She is, she's a fertility deity.

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You don't think that she's all about sex? That's exactly what she's all about, right? Do they listen to the prophets?

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No, they cast God's words behind them, but here's the thing, we all do that. And so God finally exacts some of the cursing section of the

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Mosaic covenant, and he sends them into exile in Babylon. In fact, the opening portion of Ezekiel makes it clear, we're five years into the exile.

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The temple is still up and running in Jerusalem, because Nebuchadnezzar hasn't torn that thing down yet, but God's about to have him come and get rid of it.

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And what has happened is that among the exiles, there's still a bunch of loony tunes, false prophets, giving them assurances that God's going to send them back to Jerusalem any day now when

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God has made it clear through his real prophets, they're going to be there for some time. They haven't even unpacked their luggage, because they think they're going home next week when in fact

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God has made it clear, you're going to stay here for 70 years. So where Jeremiah leaves off, now

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God picks up another prophet, Ezekiel, to prophesy to these wicked people who still refuse to hear his words.

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And God says this to Ezekiel, so he said to me, son of man, stand on your feet and I'm going to speak with you.

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You're going to note, Ezekiel's on his face when he realizes what he was seeing, that it wasn't a

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UFO, that instead it was the actual glory of God. He's on his face recognizing that he had seen this, so God tells him to stand up.

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And so as he spoke to me, the spirit entered into me, set me on my feet, and I heard him speaking to me and he said to me, son of man,

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I send you to the people of Israel, to nations of rebels who have rebelled against me.

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Ezekiel isn't merely a prophet to Israel, he's also a prophet to the nations. You know, like Norwegians, people living around here, right?

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They and their families, they have transgressed against me to this very day. The descendants also are impudent, stubborn.

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I send you to them and you shall say to them, thus says Yahweh Elohim. And whether they will hear or refuse to hear, for they are a rebellious people, they will know that a prophet has been among them.

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And I sit there and go, you know what, we kind of live in a day when people say something like this, you know what, listen, I need to stop you right there,

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I want you to stop talking about Jesus, so I'm going to set a boundary up right here, and so you need to respect my boundary.

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I don't want to hear anything about God's word and stop condemning me and telling me that I'm a sinner, okay?

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And if you don't respect my boundaries, I'm going to call the authorities and we're going to have you written up for a hate crime, right?

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This is how people talk nowadays, right? But you're going to note here, God is sending the prophet

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Ezekiel to a bunch of people who have set up that boundary. We don't want to hear the word of God, stony, hard path kind of soil with weeds all over the place.

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Does God care about their boundaries? No. You know what he does?

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He sends more of his word, because God knows that sin isn't freedom, sin is slavery, and its consequences are dire.

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The wages of sin is death, not just physical death, but eternal death, and it's not God's will that any should perish.

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What a persistent God this is, who would do such a thing, continue to faithfully send his word, knowing that it's living and active and that it will always accomplish the thing for which he sent it, and he's sending it for the purpose of their repentance.

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So if they don't listen to you, at least they're going to know that there was a prophet among you. And you, son of man, do not be afraid of them, nor be afraid of their words, though briars and thorns are with you, and though you were made to sit on scorpions, that sounds like fun, do not be afraid of their words or be dismayed at their looks, for they are a rebellious house, and you shall speak my words to them, whether they hear or refuse to hear, for they are a rebellious house.

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But you, son of man, hear what I say to you, be not rebellious like that rebellious house, open your mouth, eat what

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I give you. And here in chapter two, we see God using his word as a metaphor, but it's consistent with other portions of scripture.

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Christ says, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

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So God here is giving fresh words of revelation to a newly -minted prophet,

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Ezekiel, and God is encouraging him, listen, make sure you consume, that you eat, that you feed your soul on the very words that I am giving you to give to other people.

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They are not merely for them, they are also for you. What a good

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God we have. So be not afraid of them, you son of man, hear what

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I say, be not rebellious like the rebellious, open your mouth, eat what I give you. And when I looked, behold, a hand was stretched out to me, and behold, a scroll of a book was in it.

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He spread it before me, and it had writing on the front and on the back, and there were written on it words of lamentation, mourning, and woe, and he said to me, son of man, eat whatever you find here, eat the scroll, go speak to the house of Israel.

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So I opened my mouth, and he gave me the scroll to eat. God is spoon -feeding him his words, and he's consuming a scroll of all things.

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I bet it still tastes better than kale, right? Just saying, okay? And so he said to me, son of man, feed your belly with the scroll that I give you and fill your stomach with it.

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So then I ate, and it was in my mouth as sweet as honey. And that's the thing, when you really study

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God's word and you really understand it, it legitimately is sweet as honey. It feeds the soul, it calms the heart, it enlightens the mind, and in the ramifications that it has in your life and producing within you the fruit of the

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Holy Spirit, it's amazing. So he said to me, son of man, go to the house of Israel, speak with my words to them.

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For you are not sent to a people of foreign speech or of hard language, but to those of the house of Israel, and not to many peoples of foreign speech and a hard language, whose words you cannot understand.

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Surely if I sent you to such, they would actually listen to you. What an indictment.

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If God had sent Ezekiel to China back then, ancient China, Ming Dynasty time kind of stuff, they would have listened to him, but he sends them to Israel, and they don't want to hear

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God's word. But the house of Israel, they will not be willing to listen to you, for they are not willing to listen to me.

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Because all the house of Israel have a hard forehead and a stubborn heart, right?

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So they got a hard forehead and a stubborn heart, so God says, I got the solution, I'm gonna raise up a prophet and I'm gonna make him just as stubborn and as hard as they are.

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Loads of fun, right? Behold, I have made your face as hard as their faces and your forehead as hard as their foreheads.

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Like Emery harder than Flint, I have made your forehead. So fear them not, nor be dismayed at their looks, for they are a rebellious house.

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And moreover, he said to me, son of man, all my words that I shall speak to you, receive in your heart and listen to these words and hear with your ears.

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He who has ears to hear, let him hear. And you'll note, Ezekiel prophesies until the 27th year of the exile.

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He's 27 years into the exile and he then goes silent with 40 more years left to go, a little more than 40.

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But you'll note that the words of God accomplish the things for which he sent, and that's what

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Isaiah said. God sends his word, it does accomplish the reasons for which he sends it and the purposes for which he sends.

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And so Ezekiel sent with God's word to a hard -hearted people. You'll note that by the year 27, they're no longer listening to the false prophets who are saying you're going to be leaving next week.

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Daniel is up and running, he's a contemporary of Ezekiel. And Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they're even mentioned in Ezekiel's prophecy.

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Keep this in mind, these are the ones who are there. And then as we've been reading, as we've been working our way through Nehemiah and Ezra, we can see the impact that God's word has had on these hard -hearted people who wouldn't listen to God's word.

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Eventually, the soil is tilled up, the seeds take root, and they grow, and they multiply.

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And by the time they return from exile, there is a revival of the hearing of God's word and the people are attentive to it and they listen to it.

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God isn't like any farmer that I know, and that's the point if you think about it. This parable ultimately is about the love of Christ.

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You think about the parable that Jesus tells of the prodigal son, but isn't that exactly what's going on here?

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Jesus has come to Israel and people, rather than rejoicing and praising God that they have been visited by God and that the

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Messiah is now on the scene just as God had promised in their word, they say about Jesus, oh, he's performing miracles by the power of Beelzebub.

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Don't listen to him. He's a sorcerer. He's a demon. He's a Satanist. He's part of the Illuminati.

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Don't listen to him, right? Create a conspiracy theory about Christ. But Christ doesn't just pack up his bag and disappear off into the wilderness and say, fine, you don't want to listen to me?

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Have it your way. Instead, he keeps preaching the word, but he makes it harder to understand so that those who are truly seeking him will find the treasure in the understanding of his words.

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So a sower went out to sow. As he sowed, some seeds fell along the path. Birds came and devoured them.

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Other seeds fell on rocky ground where they did not have much soil. Immediately, they sprang up since they had no depth.

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When the sun rose, they were scorched, and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among the thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them.

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Other seeds fell on the good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears, let him hear.

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So hear the words of the parable of the sower. When anyone, anyone, including Christians, hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, and this happens to me and it happens to you right now, know then the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart.

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The devil is at work in each of us still to this day. He does not want you to hear

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God's word. He is the great enemy of God, and he is your enemy too. When Satan tempted

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Adam and Eve in the wilderness, not in the wilderness, but in the Garden of Eden, he tempted them for the purpose of murdering them and making

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God the murder weapon. And now he works overtime to make it so that you will not hear, will not believe, will not understand, will not live by God's words.

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So your sinful flesh goes along with the devil. Note where that comes from.

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As for what was sown on the rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word, immediately receives it with joy. Oh, Pastor, well, that was the best sermon ever.

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Oh man, wow, I never knew that before. Oh, I'm so excited, that's so cool.

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Yeah, I've heard it before, right? And then what happens? They don't come to church for four, five, six, seven, eight weeks.

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Must not have been that cool, right? But you know, we're all tempted to do that. We wake up on Sunday morning, and the one thing

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I don't have is the, I don't have this option anymore. But I remember when I had the option. See, I work here, okay?

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I want you to make this clear. I get paid to be here. You don't, okay? So when you wake up on a

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Sunday morning, you look at your watch and you sit there and go, oh man, I've only got 20 minutes to get ready for church.

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Do I want to go to church or not? Temptation's there, isn't it? You know, the

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Super Bowl's next week, and of course, the Vikings are not in it, but you know, right?

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We still have these temptations as Christians. This is not talking about them, it's talking about you, and it's talking about me.

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So they receive it with joy. He has no root in himself. He endures for a while, but when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, he immediately falls away.

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You can't expect me to teach the truth about God's word or say the truth about it. HR will write me up.

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I might be thrown into Facebook jail. Thank God Elon Musk allows me to say the truth on Twitter, but I hate that place, so I'm not going to do that there, right?

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This is starting to hurt, right? As for what's sown among the thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world, the deceitfulness of riches, they choke the word and it proves unfruitful.

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Cares of this world. What am I going to eat? What am I going to drink? What am

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I going to wear? Where am I going to sleep? All the problems that go along with this world. My house is falling apart.

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I need to buy a house. I need to find a new apartment. I need to go and buy the groceries. I need to make sure to fix the things that are broken and all this kind of stuff.

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It never ends, does it? But isn't the temptation always to prioritize those things over God's word and coming to church?

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And if you're saying, well, I've never had that problem, you're lying. I struggle with that daily.

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So do you. And that's the point. But again, note that this sower isn't like any other farmer.

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As for what's sown among the thorns, this is the one who hears. Seedfulness of the world, richest, all proves unfruitful.

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As for what was sown in the good soil, this is the one who hears the word. I don't know of any soil that tills itself, right?

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That would be a cool thing for farmers, wouldn't that? Hey, I got myself some of that self -tilling soil. I don't even have to use a combine on it.

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Whoa, that's the best thing ever. All I got to do is put the seed in the ground and it grows automatically. Wrong. Somebody's got to till up the soil.

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Which leads to the question, where did this soil come from that was good soil?

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If every human being is born dead in trespasses and sins, and we are, and we're all under the dominion of darkness when we are born and conceived, and we are, where did the good soil come from?

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I'll give you one guess. It's the sower. He's the one who tills up our soil.

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He's the one who breaks up the hard ground. He's the one who removes the rocks, and he's the one who pulls the weeds.

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Let me ask you this. Is he done yet, tilling up that hard ground in you?

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Is he done yet, pulling those weeds or removing those rocks? No, he's not.

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So, brothers and sisters, this isn't a parable about soils. It's a parable about the sower.

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What a great and loving, persistent, stubborn God that we have, who loves us so much that he keeps sending his word and promises to accomplish through it what he intends to accomplish.

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And let us thank God that his word has come to us, and we have at least heard enough of it that we recognize that we are sinners, and that we've idolatrously turned our back to God's words and followed other voices that would lead us astray.

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And worse, we've even led others astray by our false words. But let us know that this sower is loving and kind, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and he has even taken your idolatry and your inattentiveness to his word upon himself in his body, and bled and died on the cross for your sins and mine.

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I think about that passage in the Torah, there's several places in Torah, and one of them is notable in the book of Deuteronomy, where God reminds the children of Israel that he delivered them from slavery with an outstretched arm.

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Since when does God have arms, if I think about it right?

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Jesus had arms, and he's God in human flesh, and he has delivered us from slavery with outstretched arms, forgiven us of our sins, called us to repentance, and through his word he's continuing to produce in us, well, fruit, to the benefit and glory of his kingdom, to our benefit as well.

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So let us repent, let us repent of not hearing God's word, and let us hear again these comforting words of Christ, and let us again marvel in glory in such a beautiful sower, who throws caution to the wind and sows those seeds wherever he can sow them, whether it be in the most awkward of places, among weeds and rocks and hard paths, all for his glory, because his word will accomplish the thing for which he sent it, and it's accomplishing in us our salvation.

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He who has ears to hear, let him hear. In the name of Jesus, Amen. If you would like to support the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, you can do so by sending a tax -free donation to Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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Avenue, Northwest, Oslo, Minnesota, 56744. And again, that address is

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Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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Avenue, Northwest, Oslo, Minnesota, 56744. We thank you for your support.

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