Dirt Evangelism - [Matthew 13:1-23]

Just a couple of things, since we have kind of a skeleton crew tonight, the things that just happened to me today are interesting things before we get into the Word. I met with someone today and they said, for a long time I struggled with election and the doctrine of God's sovereignty, and I don't struggle anymore.

And I said, well, one of the things that helped me the most when I was thinking about it is just imagine if I went over to Russia and I went to an orphanage, and it was a very poor orphanage and the kids were very emaciated, and I paid $30 ,000 to adopt a child.

I gave that child my last name. I had to fly back and forth several times to Russia. And the last time I went over, instead of adopting one child, I spent another $30 ,000 and I adopted two children. What would you think of me?

I wouldn't do it for you to think something of me, but what would you think? I hope you'd think, boy, that was generous. That was gracious of him that he adopted two children. If you would say to yourself, I can't believe he left 900 unadopted, then you'd be thinking wrongly.

And similarly, we have our Lord Jesus. The real question is not why didn't he adopt everyone, why didn't he elect everyone, but why did he choose anyone is the way to think of it. And so some people here are adopted.

Are there any adopted people here? Some, no. Twice adopted by your parents and then by the Lord. And so I just thought how amazing it is that God would give us his best, the Lord Jesus Christ, even though we didn't deserve anything.

And so that was one conversation I had. I'm not big on Father's Days and Mother's Days and all kinds of other hallmark holidays, but today my brother sent me a picture of my father and mother, and I was just working out, looking over my sermon notes for tonight, and sent me a picture of my father.

And I just broke down crying thinking, I so miss my dad. I mean, I'm kind of the patriarch of the family now, and I miss my dad and that the Lord would give me a dad. And I thought to myself, you know, I sure hope he's in heaven.

He didn't act like a Christian man. He did have the pastor come when he was dying and he took the Lord's Supper. I know that doesn't save, but I'm hoping God granted him saving faith. And I thought, you know, on Father's Day we get lots of gifts from our kids.

I mean, Jetty gave me a gift this morning. My dog did since all my kids and wife are out of town. But I thought, you know, I want to give a gift to my kids, many gifts, but one is I don't want them to think to themselves, I wonder if dad is in heaven.

We lose our parents and then I think, you know, I don't know if my dad's in heaven, but I sure hope so. Out of all the hopes that I have and dreams from my father, that would be the one. And so I want my kids, of course, by the grace of God, to know that daddy believes in the Lord Jesus Christ and God is faithful to his promises so that when I die, my kids don't have to have that heartbreak of thinking, you know, most likely dad's not in heaven, but maybe I'll be surprised when I get there.

So dads, give your kids a good gift and that is belief on the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I like to give books away on Sunday night. I'm not going to give a book away, but I'm going to recommend a book. This is going to be the first in 16 plus years at Bethlehem Bible Church that I'm going to recommend a particular book from a particular denomination and it's going to initially surprise you and then I'm going to try to reel back a little bit to tell you why I'm going to recommend this book tonight.

I went to the Conant Library in Sterling the other day. The kids were gone. I thought, you know, I haven't been in there for a while and they have some books for sale downstairs. I'll just slip in there and see what I find.

And so when you walk in, they have a display there trying to get you to see some of the new editions, both fiction, which I don't read very often unless it's a classic, or nonfiction. And I thought, oh, there's an interesting nonfiction book.

And I saw this book, Why Priests? I thought, well, that's an interesting title. It's free. It's a library. I'll just check it out. I had to read it in one sitting. Why Priests, written by Pulitzer Prize winner Gary Wills, W-I-L-L-S, a Roman Catholic who wrote Why I Am a Catholic, wrote this book, 2013 Viking Press, Why Priests?

A Failed Tradition. A failed tradition. Here's what he says. Some think that the dwindling number of priests can be remedied by the addition of women priests, or married priests, or openly gay priests.

In fact, the real solution is no priests. It should not be difficult to imagine a Christianity without priests. Read carefully through the entire New Testament, and you will not find an individual human priest mentioned in the Christian communities.

Only one book in the New Testament, the letter of Hebrews, mentions an individual priest, and he is unique, Jesus. He has no followers in that office, according to the book of Hebrews. I just couldn't hardly believe it.

He says, not only is there not a mention of a single priest among the followers in the New Testament, there is no mention of the acts we now associate with the priesthood. No hearing of confessions, no giving of last rites, no marrying, no confirmation, no presiding at the Mass, no consecrating the Eucharist.

Baptism has never been the exclusive rite of priests. I thought, I just have to keep reading. It's amazing. Here's what this man does. I don't know if he's a Christian man or not. At the end, he still talks about Mary and the Rosary.

But in this book, he goes through the letter of Hebrews. It's on Viking press. It's not an evangelical press. It's not a Roman Catholic press. And he goes through, expositionally, through the book of Hebrews, using word commentaries, Broadman and Holman, evangelical commentaries, to say Jesus is the priest according to the order of Melchizedek.

And we should do what the Bible says. He says, page 22, The miracle of changing bread and wine into the literal body and blood of Christ is so stupendous that the church for a long time tried to minimize its physical actuality.

He doesn't really believe this, but he's saying what the church believes. An air of mystery around it was meant to restrain literal thoughts verging on cannibalism. Drinking blood is a rather gruesome concept, indeed forbidden by Jewish law, Leviticus 7.

And chewing human flesh is not much better in the scales of normal behavior. He goes on to say, nor did chewing of the flesh come into the imagination since the act was so far as possible dematerialized.

So he said, basically, the Catholic church, they say that this is turned into the blood of Christ and the body of Christ. But then he goes on to say, what will happen then if you eat the body and blood of Christ?

Then doesn't it need to be de-transubstantiated before it's excreted from the body? And so he works through all these things, and I was just shocked. He talked about how people were worshiping the Eucharist, the miracle host in the town of Germany, where sometimes the host would float, or sometimes it would paralyze the tongue of an unworthy recipient, or the child who had pagan food in its mouth before receiving the host had to spit it out.

It was turned to ashes when people tried to carry it off to desecrate it. It was even the host used to raise people from the dead. And he talks about how could this be? How could you use relics to get people out of purgatory?

Some churches, Catholic churches, he says, have the baby teeth of Jesus. Only the adult teeth, Will said, rose with Jesus at the resurrection. So the baby teeth could continue to be revered in reliquies.

If you really want a good relic, this same monastery had the umbilical cord from Jesus' birth, allegedly, which was a double relic because it was part of both Jesus and Mary. I read this, and then he goes through the letter of Hebrews.

And I'll just read one last comment, and then I'll make a comment. We have to pay close attention to what Hebrews does not claim. It nowhere says that the priesthood would be a continuing institution for Christian men or women.

It is the opposite. Jesus is the last priest whose one-time offering makes all other priesthoods obsolete. Like Melchizedek, Jesus has no lineage before him or after him, just the single and isolated act of one all-accomplishing sacrifice.

And he talks about substitutionary atonement, assuaging the wrath of God, and God imputing the righteousness of Jesus Christ to those who believe. So what's my point? My point is, I don't know how he stays in the Catholic Church, but I do know this.

If you give some of your Catholic friends a book written by evangelicals, they might not read it. Although this has a few things in it where I would probably change it around, this asks and answers the question, do we go by tradition or do we go by the Bible?

So I did a couple of radio shows on this book, and I just think this helps me because the second I say to someone, is this tradition that you have from the Bible, they say this to me, you're bashing Catholics.

I'm not bashing anyone. I'm after the truth. What is truth? And so Gary Wills, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Why I Am a Catholic, writes a book, Why Priests, and it answers the question from the book of Hebrews.

It's fascinating. So I don't think I would pay $27 .95 for it, but I would check it out at the library and then mark it up a little bit with yellow Post-its and tell you that if you've got a Catholic friend who is reticent to read evangelical literature, this might be a good one because he has the entire book of Hebrews translated with his own interpretive translation in the book.

And for that, it's worth it. Because where do we go as evangelicals when we talk to Roman Catholics? Where I go is always Hebrews 8, 9, and 10, and that's exactly where he goes. So I found it fascinating.

This is the first time on Sunday night where I've recommended a Roman Catholic book. So there you have it. Call me basher no more. All right. What do we have? See, that was worth coming tonight just for that, wasn't it?

That's right. When I was about 12 years old, I was riding my Schwinn black bicycle complete with my Daniel Boone jacket. Fringes, of course. Remember those Daniel Boone jackets? Davy Crockett jackets?

I was supposed to be home at 5 o 'clock for supper. I looked down at my watch. It was 5 .10. I knew I was going to be in trouble. So I turned my watch back to 5 o 'clock and then rode home. Son, you were supposed to be home at 5 .10.

Well, my watch says 5 o 'clock. She said, you just turned back your watch, didn't you? I thought she was omniscient. I found some other excuses that people had in the world. I forgot. I didn't think it was important.

That's not my department. That's his job, not mine. That's the way we've always done it. Wait until the boss comes back and ask him. I didn't think it was that important. That's secular. Now how about excuses for not obeying the Great Commission and telling other people about the good news of Christ Jesus?

I need more training. We don't have any programs. I'm afraid I might lose my friends. People will think I'm weird. I didn't feel led. I think religion is too personal to talk about. That's the pastor's job, not mine.

My family will disown me. Many of you are excellent gospel evangelists. But what's the excuse that you have for not evangelizing more? Let's turn our Bibles to Matthew 13 tonight. And as I was studying 1 Thessalonians 2, preparing that about how God's Word performs its work in those who believe, I just kept going back to the parable of the soils, the parable of the sower, how God's Word does different things in different people.

And I thought, I've got to preach this instead of 1 Thessalonians 2. I want you to maybe take a look around and see people to your left and to your right, in front of you, behind you, and I want you to know this.

You are Bethlehem Bible Church's evangelism program. This is it. Some are shaking their head back and forth. People say, well, what kind of evangelism program do you have at your church? You are the evangelism program, and tonight's message, you've probably heard many messages on the parable of the sower, but I think it will encourage you, and you'll be glad to know that God blesses His Word at His good pleasure.

I think you'll be glad to realize there are different kinds of responses, and then you can brace yourself for the different responses that people have. Matthew 13, we're going to go through probably verses 1 through 23, is what I'm going to try to do.

We'll see how far we actually get, and basically tonight we'll see the setting, which is important for parables, the parable itself, the purpose for parables, and then the explanation of the parable that Jesus gives.

Very, very famous parable, and Mark says of this parable, if you don't understand this parable, you don't get any other parable. This is the parable of parables. This is the parable that unlocks everything else, and I love to study Christ and His person and His work.

I love to see how He teaches. Who's your favorite preacher? I hope the answer is Jesus Christ, and you get to see Him and hear Him through the Word tonight, preached Matthew 13, the book Jesus is the King.

Let's listen to the King, found in verses 1 and following, we see the setting, verses 1, 2, and 3a. That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. Well, what day was that? You can back up a little bit and find out.

It's the day that He had His mothers and brothers deal with Him, verses 46 through 50. It's the same day the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit issue happened, same day He rebukes the unclean spirit, same day He cast out demons.

It's a busy day, that's for sure. On that same day He went out of the house and sat beside the sea. And what does verse 2 say? And great crowds, some think the largest crowd in His Galilean ministry, gathered around Him.

To what extent? So that He got into a boat and sat down, and the whole crowd stood on the beach. Most think it was a bigger boat than just a rowboat. And what happens now in the Gospel, we shift from house ministry to outside ministry.

Who knows what the acoustics were like? Probably great acoustics. I remember in Nebraska we could stand on one side of the Missouri River, and if the wind was behind us, you could yell to the people standing in Iowa, on the other side of the Missouri River, if the wind was carrying your voice.

Water is a great acoustic, has great acoustics. No PA systems back in those days. And then it says in verse 3, He told them many things in parables. He was teaching them many things. It's the first of many.

And never did a man speak the way this man speaks. Now who can give me a definition of a parable? Sunday mornings I ask you questions, it's rhetorical. Sunday night, who can tell me what a parable is?

What's a Sunday school definition of a parable? That's pretty close. An earthly story with a heavenly meaning. That's pretty good. Parables are stories taken out of ordinary life to drive home a spiritual truth.

Sometimes they're proverbial, sometimes they're a comparison. Parable means something placed alongside of something else. So there's a truth placed alongside of the teaching of a generic, popular, common thing.

One third of our Lord's teaching was in the form of parables. Oh, a side note, this is not in my notes. You need to buy Simon Kistemacher's book, The Parables of Jesus. There are other books on the parables.

This one by far is the best. You can just read it if you're a lay person. You just read it and find out the meaning. He does a great job. If I had to go to a desert island and I needed some help because parables have twists and turns, I would have Simon Kistemacher's book on parables.

Once I went to the Evangelical Theological Society meeting where all the scholars go, and then they talk about scholastic things. And you would meet the big shots there. And I was very surprised because every one of the lectures I went to, they got up and talked about the Bible, but the only person that said, before we address the things in the Bible, why don't we pray and ask God's blessing?

And it was Simon Kistemacher who did that very thing. I love parables because they increase memory. There's sometimes a twist at the very end, a punch line. There's a way that Jesus uses parables to draw you in and you feel like you're part of the story.

Makes the truth relevantly seen. Now here's the thing that you have to always do with a parable. Why was the parable given? If you don't know that, question and answer, then you'll never understand the parable properly.

Why was this parable given? Now lots of times the best thing to do is just to back up a little bit. And that's exactly what you have to do here. Verse 46 of Matthew chapter 12. He's going to answer this question.

How is it that your own family and your own disciples don't comprehend what you're saying? While he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brother stood outside asking to speak to him.

But he replied to the man who told him, Who is my mother and who are my brothers? And stretching out his hand towards his disciples, he said, Here are my mother and my brothers, for whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.

Why doesn't everybody respond to the truth of Christ Jesus? Why do some respond in a negative way? I could ask the question this way to you. Why doesn't everybody respond like you did? When you heard the gospel, eventually you got saved.

Why doesn't everybody else believe? Now he gives the parable. The sower went out to sow. You know how I like it in Mark's gospel. I don't know why I slammed the pulpit this morning. I'm going to slam it tonight.

Some of you look like you're really struggling. I'm glad you're here. I'm going to do my very best. In my old days, I used to think this. I used to think, It's your job to stay awake. It's my job to preach the gospel.

You stay in touch. But you know what? There's something about the preacher that should try to help the congregation. I'm glad you're here. What if nobody came tonight? I was wondering if anybody would come with the key tonight when I showed up and everybody was standing outside.

So let me say what Mark says to kind of get you engaged a little bit. Here's what Mark says. You ready? This is perfect. This is good for the two youngest ones right here. Ready? Here's how Mark says Jesus started.

Listen to this. Some are glad they're going to Hawaii. And then he said bold. What a way to start a message. You know, when I start a message on Sunday morning, here's what I usually think. This is a little pastor secret.

Secure interest and get attention. Mostly the other way around. Get attention and secure interest. Why is this important to listen to? I try to answer that for you at the beginning of the sermon. Here's how Jesus starts.

Listen to this. Of course, it's more than listen. Listen to respond properly and obey. Listen up. Now, our text says a sower went out to sow. He doesn't say once upon a time. He says, listen to this. A sower went out to sow.

And if you're a Jewish person, you would know right away that Palestinian farmers would have a leather bag and they would just sow the seed. And for how many people here live in Lemonster? Home of Johnny Appleseed.

Not many. Okay, no one. There goes that. Scattering out the seed. How many people know who Johnny Appleseed is? Okay, there you go. Have a shoulder bag scattering across the earth. And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path.

Birds came, devoured them. Why? Because the path is hard. The footpath is hard. And it's either pressed down by people or by animals, cattle, sun bakes it. And then the seeds right on top. Easy for a bird to come right on over.

Other seeds, verse 5, fell on rocky ground. You know this parable, I'm sure. Where they did not have much soil. And immediately they sprang up since they had no depth of soil. This is either a thin layer of soil on top of a rock or limestone.

Our kind of stony ground. I think it's probably the first one. Beds of solid rock, of limestone, but a little bit of soil on top. Quickly grows up and then that's it. Verse 6, but when the sun rose, they were scorched.

Hot oriental sun. Since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among the thorns. And the thorns grew and choked them. And if you were a farmer, if you were in agragarian society, you'd ask yourself the question, why would a sower throw a bunch of seed in thorny bushes?

That seems not right. Well, he didn't. Thorn bushes could be cut down or burnt down. But if you didn't remove the roots, you could plant seed and they wouldn't grow very well. That's what most people think.

It's choked. The thorns grew up and choked them. That means to throttle or to strangle. When the pigs, Larica, when the pigs had demons cast in them and they went down into the water, this is the sound that they made right here.

Choking, strangling, throttling. I was going to make that sound, but I thought better. If you ever say to yourself, should you make a pig sound from the pulpit and you ask yourself the question, it's better not to do it.

Other seeds, verse 8, fell on the good soil. Produce grain. If you've got a good harvest, it's about a 7 yield. Some a hundredfold, some 60, some 30. Soft soil, dark soil, moist soil. They yielded fruit.

That's good ratio. If the best is maybe 10 to 1, now we've got a hundred times productivity. And now Jesus says something interesting, verse 9. He who has ears, let him hear. In other words, don't miss the real point.

This isn't Aesop's fable. This is sharp. This is more than a story. This isn't just a bedtime story. Don't get caught up in the agricultural part of it. Take heed. Verse 10. Then the disciples came and said to him, why do you speak to them in parables?

We'd like to have the inside scoop. You say, take heed. We want to take heed. We want to have ears to hear. And he answered them. To you it has been given to know the secrets, our Mark says, the mystery of the kingdom of God.

Things that were unknown before, known now. Things that were unrevealed, now they're revealed. But to them it has not been given. For, verse 12, to the one who has, more will be given. He will have abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.

This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. The judicial blinding of God. He goes on to say, verse 14. Indeed, in their case, the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled.

Isaiah chapter what? Six. You will indeed hear, but never understand. And you will indeed see, but never perceive. More judicial blindness, hardening people's heart against the light. For this people's heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes have they closed.

Lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart in turn, and I would heal them. God says to the prophet Isaiah, there's going to be widespread unbelief, widespread hardening in your ministry.

And the same thing is true then in Jesus' day, and the same thing is true now. But there's joy here, verse 16. But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears for they hear. For truly I say to you, this is kind of neat, many prophets and righteous people long to see what you see.

They studied, they didn't get it, and they did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it. It's true that the unbelievers didn't get it, but the believers, the prophets, they wanted to understand it, they longed to see it, and they didn't even get it.

But you get to see this. And now Jesus gives the interpretation of the parable. Very important for our evangelism. It's not really called the parable of the soils, what's it called? Verse 18. Hear then the parable of the what?

The sower. I think that'd be good to call it the same thing Jesus called it. Hear then the parable of the sower. Now as we're going through this, let's think about the key players. I don't want to call them players, that would be wrong.

The key people in evangelism. The sower, God, and the hearer. And let's take a look at this passage, and I'm going to let you see some different responses to witnessing, and then we'll ask the question, does saving faith produce real fruit?

Why do so many people make a profession of Christ and fall away? We'll find that here. Not many interpretations of parables given. Jesus gives the interpretation here, and he's preparing them for evangelism.

Say, well, I'm going to go out into the world and evangelize. Jesus says, I'm going to get you ready for that, and so the same thing applies for us. What to expect ahead of time. Four different responses to witnessing.

They're your four responses, the four responses that you'll get as well. The first one is hard and unresponsive. This is heart soil number one, verse 19. We get this a lot here in New England. We get this a lot overseas.

And here Jesus says, when anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one, or Mark says, Satan, snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is what was sown along the path.

The devil, Luke 18. Satan, Mark 4. The adversary. These people are calloused in their hearts. They're insensitive to what God wants to say to them. Oh, they hear it, but it doesn't take long for Satan to come and snatch it up.

This bird doesn't really work, but I'll tell you the story anyway, because I can tell. I'm trying to help you stay engaged. We were over in Mykonos, Greece, just a short time ago with a group here at the church, and we were leaving the cruise ship and we were disembarking, and we were at our little disembarkation area, and she said, well, there's special pelicans that kind of rule the island.

Two pink pelicans. And I thought, this is like a snipe hunt. This is... I don't know what she's talking about. Here's the island. Okay, fine. So we go over there. Very interesting place. This is kind of the Venice, Italy of Greece.

There's all kinds of shops right by the water. The streets are all very jagged and weird angles because they set it up so when the pirates came, if the pirates started to come in to rob people, they'd realize they were going to get lost in this city, so they didn't go and venture too far in.

So we're walking and shopping, and what do you do in any place when you're having fun? You eat gelato, and then you stop for a couple of espressos, then you stop for a gelato, then for more espresso. That's just how you see Europe.

And all of a sudden, we made this corner, Gracie and I, and there's these two big pink pelicans. It was true. And they would walk right up to you, and if you got too close, they would try to bite you with their pelican-like weird rubber evolution's grand stuff underneath it.

And then the pelicans... What does this have to do with anything? Well, this is like Satan snatching something. I'm going to talk about that in a second. They would waddle in to the fish store and, in a sense, demand fish from the fish seller before they were going to leave.

Nice restaurants where you could order oysters and all this stuff. They would go in, and they would want fish for their big... What do they call the thing underneath the pelican? A what? What's a stretchy thing?

Gullet. I like that the best. What does this have to do with anything? Well, it has to do with Satan trying to take the word like a bird would come down and snatch it up or like that pelican would try to bite.

It didn't hurt, but it seemed like it should have hurt with the biting, rabid, pink pelicans. Peter, where were you when I needed you? I could have used you for bait. Satan whisked away the Word from people as fast as it would be for a bird to come over and quick eat some fish.

Pelicans can eat fish pretty fast. The Word can be precisely proclaimed. The Gospel can be authentically proclaimed. The death, burial, and resurrection of Christ Jesus on behalf of sinners. Some people I know say if you just preach the Gospel perfectly, people will get saved.

That's not true. And for these people, no wonder 2 Corinthians says in the case of the God of this world, He has blinded the minds of the unbelievers so that they might not see the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ.

These people, I think there are some sadly at BBC, they hear the Word of God, but like water going off the back of a duck, they are indifferent, they don't listen, and Luke says, recording Jesus' words, so that they might not believe and be saved.

It should not surprise you when you preach the Gospel that some people are hard. Second, hard soil. Verse 20. Superficial and temporary. This is maybe the one that haunts me the most in our easy-believism society.

As for what was sown on the rocky ground, remember shallow soil with some limestone underneath, this is the one who hears the Word and immediately receives it. They receive it with what? Joy! I've had many unbelievers over the years say to me, that was a really good sermon.

I like your preaching. I think they like my preaching because I tell weird stories about pelicans and stuff like that. But they say that. They hear it with joy. They get excited about it. But the second there's a little ridicule, the second there's a little bit of trouble, they only believe for a little while, Luke 8 says.

Why is it such a superficial belief? Verse 21. Yet He has no root in Himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution comes at school on Monday or at work on Tuesday, persecution arises on account of the Word, immediately He falls away.

I want you to make sure, if I could say one thing tonight with pastoral conviction, maybe you'll understand things in a way that will reflect leadership's view of this. I'm in a real bind. Here's my bind.

People come up to me all the time and say, my friend just believed the Gospel. My friend just got saved. My kid just got saved. My mother just got saved. My sister just got saved. Just this Friday they got saved.

And so I have two concurrent thoughts. My first thought is, that's a lot better than saying I hate Jesus. Right? Someone says, I believed. And my face usually shows that when I try to smile. That's exciting.

That's good news. But in my heart I'm thinking, time will tell. Because right here from this parable, people can receive the Word with joy. But after a while when the tribulation comes, they just say, no.

Puritans used to say, do you want to test your salvation? Time and trials will do it. Now if you're a parent and you've got a little child, and your little child comes over and says, Daddy, I believe.

What I don't want you to do is say, time will tell. Happy Father's Day. But in your mind if you think that, time will tell, that's not a bad thing. What you should do is this, I'm so glad you believe.

If you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you will not be disappointed. All who look to the Lord live and have forgiveness of sins. You just keep on believing. That's what you tell a kid. Keep on believing.

Parents, no matter what you do, don't ever fall into this sentimental love that says, do you know what? My kids said they believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. They received the Word with joy. And not too much later, they just went off into the world.

But because I can't live with the fact that one of my kids could die today and go to hell, then I need to change my biblical theology to a sentimental theology and say, they did make a statement of faith profession and therefore it must be real.

I remind you what Jesus says in Matthew 13, that this one hears the Word immediately and receives it with joy, but he falls away. J .C. Ryle said, preaching produces temporary impressions, this kind of reception, but no deep lasting abiding effect.

They take pleasure in hearing sermons in which the truth is faithfully set forth. They can speak with apparent joy and enthusiasm about the sweetness of the gospel. They can be moved to tears, but they still aren't saved.

They hear the Word, they receive the Word, and they receive it with joy. Well, there's another heart soil. It's found in verse 22, the crowded and preoccupied soil. There's hard and unresponsive, there's superficial and temporary, and now there's crowded and preoccupied.

Verse 22, as for what was sown among the thorns, this is the one who hears the Word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the Word and it proves unfruitful. The world just chokes it out.