In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of not letting opportunities to share the gospel slip away. He uses the analogy of a farmer sowing seeds to illustrate the three key elements necessary for a fruitful harvest: a sower, good seed, and fertile soil. The speaker highlights the moral obligation believers have to go out and tell others about the wonderful salvation they have found. He also discusses the simplicity of Jesus' teaching style, using relatable examples from everyday life, such as farming, to convey spiritual truths.

I appreciate the singing of that last hymn. If you had stopped with the other hymn, I would have had some difficulty because I would have had an unattentive audience. You would be counting your blessings. You wouldn't be through till ten o'clock tonight if you were doing that. So I think the hymn writer meant, don't do it right now because the preacher wants your attention, but sometime in your leisure, keep on counting your many blessings if you can count that high. And if you have more than you can count, let's be thankful that we have computers these days. Maybe you can ask the computer to help you to count your many blessings. I'm very delighted to see such a tremendous crowd tonight because many places I go, you have a good crowd in the morning, but not as many at night. But this reminds me of the place that Don Pilon has been because I was down in Spanish Wells the first part of this year, and they told me the morning service is not too large, but the house will be packed at night. And that was true. The two Sunday nights I was there, the house was filled on Sunday night. So I'm pretending that I am down in the Bahamas tonight because you have almost as many folks out tonight as you had this morning, and that's very commendable. I also was blessed by the song that the quartet was singing, Only Glory By and By. And it took my mind back to 1955 when I was in the home of Mr. Emo Felton in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. That's Ray Felton's father. And he had a habit of praying, especially at the breakfast table, and saying, Lord, we're a day's march nearer home, and then it will be glory. Isn't that wonderful? The older we get, we can say we're just closer and closer. The best is yet to come. Someone has made the statement that the devil doesn't have any happy old people, and I believe that. What does an old person have to look forward to when he can't say for sure there is glory by and by? It must be a dreadful thing. Each day, getting older, the body breaking down, and nothing but the cemetery, and if the preacher is correct, hell beyond that. How delightful that Christians can say, thank God, the best is yet ahead. We are guaranteed glory when we leave this scene. If you brought your Bible, I'd like you to turn to Luke's Gospel, chapter 8. Luke's Gospel, chapter 8, and reading from verse 1. Speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ, and it came to pass afterwards that he went throughout every city and village preaching, and showing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God, and the twelve were with him. And certain women which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils, and Joanna, the wife of Juza, Herod Stewart, and Susanna, and many others which ministered unto him of their substance. And when much people were gathered together and were come to him out of every city, he spake by a parable. A sower went out to sow his seed, and as he sowed, some fell by the wayside, and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it. And some fell upon a rock, and as soon as it was sprung up, it withered away, because it lacked moisture. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up with it, and choked it. And other fell on good ground, and sprang up, and bear fruit an hundredfold. When he had said these things, he cried, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. And his disciples asked him, saying, What might this parable be? And he said, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to others in parables, that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand. Now the parable is this. The seed is the word of God. Those by the wayside are they that hear. Then cometh the devil, and taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. They on the rock are they which, when they hear, receive the word with joy. And these have no root, while for a while believe, which for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away. They which fell among thorns are they which, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked by cares, and riches, and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection. But that on the good ground are they which, in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience. And God will add his blessing, the reading of his precious word. If you were here at the morning service, you may or may not remember that we inspected a recorded sermon. A sermon that Peter preached on the day of Pentecost. And since we are in the habit of inspecting sermons, I would like to inspect one more. Delightful that these sermons, though uttered many years ago, were recorded. Peter was not the best preacher that ever walked upon the face of the earth, but the sermon that I just read to you was proclaimed by the best preacher that ever walked upon the face of the earth. There are some things that are perhaps in contrast, but a few things in common. Peter had a large audience, and in verse 4, I read, when much people were gathered together, the Lord Jesus also had a large audience at this time. One of the things that made Christ a wonderful teacher was his simplicity. He got right down to the level of the people, he illustrated his messages, he illuminated them, he used parables, something that they knew, and then he drew a spiritual application from something with which they were very familiar. I suppose that the majority in his audience were farmers, and so he took a lesson out of the pages of agriculture. I still don't understand how city dwellers will ever understand the Bible because there are so many things in our Bible that were taken from the farm, and so while you are counting your blessings, I have one more to add, and that is that I was born on a farm and lived on a farm for 36 years and enjoyed these things that are in our Bible that are taken lessons from the farm. I want you to remember three S's tonight in this parable that our Lord Jesus Christ related. First of all, a sower, seed, and soil. Three things. And without these three things, there would be a famine in the land. The reason you had a noon meal today, and maybe breakfast, is because somewhere, some sower went out to sow, and there was seed, and there was soil. Let me just suppose that you have a sower, and you have seed, and you have no soil. There won't be any bread on the table, will there? Or, let's change it, you have seed, and you have soil, but you don't have a sower. There won't be any bread on the table. Or again, you have a sower, you have a field, you have soil, but you don't have any seed. You must have all three in order that the land may produce. Just this past week, I heard of a lady who said nearly everyone is somewhat upset because of the new ideas that Reagan has introduced, and he wants to cut out this and cut out that, and she said, from my point of view, I think too much money is wasted on the farmers. They are paying the farmers to do a lot of things, and I think we could get along without farmers. They're a nuisance. And when somebody asked her, where would you get your food? I'd go to the supermarket. That was a sensible answer, wasn't it? No, we have to have the sower, and the soil, and the seed, or else there will be poverty, there will be, certainly will be famine in the land just as soon as any one of these three are missing. Now, of course, our Lord Jesus Christ spoke this in a parable, and he was illustrating spiritual truth. You are running ahead of me, I think, because you're making the application before I get to it. You know that the sower is the Lord Jesus Christ, and if we read this same story in Matthew's account, you would read that the Son of Man is the sower. Those words are mentioned, and if you notice while we were reading here in verse 11, the seed is the word of God, and then the soil in which the seed was sown is mentioned, and four different kinds of soil. Besides, our Lord Jesus Christ said one day, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God, and if we are on earth and we are only fed from that which comes from the soil, the material bread, then we have missed something very important, and that is the famine in our land so far as the bread of life is concerned. And in order to have the bread of life available to us, there must be these three things mentioned. There must be sowers. The sowing of the seed of the word of God. We have already identified the sower was Jesus Christ himself. The Son of Man is the one who sows. However, before he left this scene, and even while he was here, he appointed 12 men, his disciples, and he instructed them to go out. First of all, only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and then further on he chose 70, and they went forth, and eventually, before he went to heaven, he made that sweeping statement that go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, and that was spoken to every believer in Jesus Christ. So I want to remind you that while Jesus Christ was the pattern sower while he was here, he designated that responsibility, or would you prefer if I called it a privilege, to every believer in Jesus Christ, to sow the seed. Now since you are, you were born so late, and we have so much machinery, you are already seeing a big tractor out there in the field, and he is pulling some kind of a drill that has some teeth going into the ground. He puts the seed in the bin above it, it drops down there, and as he goes along, it's being sowed. Well you are too modern, because I'm happy that I was raised in the good old days before they had all of the machinery, and it is possible. While our Lord Jesus is speaking, and this is in the area of Galilee, there were open fields out there, and he might have said, look over the hill, you see that man? What is he doing? He is walking like this, throwing out the seed. He has a deep basket in his hand, he gets one handful, and with rhythm, every step he takes, just like this. He is flinging that seed right on top of the ground. Now of course, there is an advantage to the machinery we have today, because that seed falls right on top of the ground. If there is a rain very shortly after, the rain will take it down into the soil, and it will grow. If not, the blackbirds, do you have starlings in Raleigh? Let's hope you do. Starlings, sparrows, all the birds will flock to that man. When they see him going out with this sign, they say, he's inviting us. He's going to feed us. Feeding the birds. That's what they think at least, and they take advantage of that special opportunity. Sowing the seed of the gospel. This is left to every Christian. Did you hear me? Every Christian. And don't tell me that you can talk about the weather and nearly everything else, but you can't talk about Jesus Christ. Let's suppose that somewhere down the line, those who have been proclaiming the word of God failed, dropped out of the picture. Did you ever, and I suggest again, while you are counting your blessings, that you will add to that number the fact that someone told you how to be saved, and you may be so grateful to that person that you consider him your spiritual father. But I want you to go farther than that. Did you ever think about it? You have a spiritual grandfather, you have a spiritual great-grandfather, and a great-great-grandfather, and you can move back as far as you want. There were different ones. You ask the man who led you to Christ, how did you find out how to be saved? So-and-so told me. How did you find out? Go and ask him. And you'll say, so-and-so told me. And so the responsibility and the privilege is ours to be broadcasting the seed. I think one of the best proofs of a biblical conversion is a desire to tell others. We are saved to pass that message on, and it shouldn't scare us to think that I might be the one that will break the link, and that message shall not go forth. You remember in verse 1 we read that he went into the villages preaching and showing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God. Maybe the first time that you heard that was in Luke chapter 2, when you have the birth of Christ mentioned, and you read about good tidings of great joy. This is the gospel message, and every one of us as believers have the privilege of telling this story. There's a rather interesting story back in 2 Kings chapter 7 regarding a terrible siege of the city of Samaria. King Ben-Hadad, a Syrian, decided to close that city up and to gain possession of that city. Elisha was the prophet that day, and one day things got so bad that the king of Israel was walking along, and a woman called out to him and said, I need your help. And he stopped to listen to the story, and this was the story. My neighbor and I decided that the famine is so dreadful, and we agreed today we would kill my son and would eat him, and tomorrow we would kill her son and eat him. And guess what she did? We killed my son and we ate him. Then she went and hid her son and did not carry out her promise. When the king heard that, he said, I didn't realize that things were that desperate. There is absolute poverty and famine in the city, and we're absolutely finished. And the king said, Elisha is to blame. He's the man that has caused all of this. Elisha was calm, and he said, I had a message from the Lord. Tomorrow, at this same time, there'll be plenty of food in the city. And they said, the only way that could happen is if God had to open the windows of heaven, and that's exactly what he did. But in that same story, it tells us about four lepers that were sitting at the gate of Samaria, and they were the first ones to get the pinch, because after the people inside were starving themselves, they would give no handouts to these four lepers. They were getting perhaps to the most desperate position, and they said, we're going to die. We have a choice as to where we're going to die. If we go into the city, we're not going to get anything, because there's nothing there, so we're just going to die in the city. If we sit here, we're going to die. If we go up to the enemy, the Syrians, there is a possibility that if we tell them that we're lepers, they'll feel sorry for us, and maybe they'll give us some handouts. Let's go up. And they agreed, you can't lose anything. We're going to die anyway. Let's take a chance. When they got up there, they found something amazing. They found horses tied by the tent. They found the tent absolutely empty. They found all the food and everything there. The enemy was lost. What happened? During that night, the Lord intervened, and he caused the Syrians to hear a rumbling of chariots and the clamping of horses in the distance. A tremendous army. They panicked, and they said, Ah, the King of Israel has hired the Hittites and the Egyptians to come and help them. They're going to enclose us. Let's run! And they ran like scared rabbits, left everything behind. When the lepers got there, they had a terrific feast. They went into a tent, and were filled, and went to the next tent. They were amazed, and while they were there enjoying the food, they said this, We do not dwell. This day is the day of good tidings, and we hold our peace. If we tarry till the morning light, some mischief will come upon us. Now therefore come, that we may go and tell the King's household. We have people down there in the city that are starving. They were kind to us. We sat at the gate day after day, and they gave us some morsels to eat. And now they are starving. Look at all the food around here. We are terrible that we don't go down there and tell them. We've got to go down and tell them. Duty demands it. And they went down and told the King's household, and there was, just as Elisha said, plenty of food. Twenty-four hours later, God intervened in a miracle. I want you to place yourself in those four lepers' shoes, and I want you to read that verse in the presence of God someday. It's 2 Kings chapter 7 and verse 9. I want to read it once more, and you'll make the application. We do not dwell. This day is a day of good tidings. You know what I'm thinking about. I've been saved by God's grace. This is terrific. This is wonderful. But there are starving people, miserable, wretched people, who are out there. They don't know anything about my faith here. I have a moral obligation to go down. We do not dwell to hold our peace. We must go down and tell them. I want to impress upon each one of us that when God gave us the command to go into all the world and preach the gospel, that should be to us a very honored privilege that God would allow us to do that. From the human point of view, when Jesus Christ left this scene, he began a work proclaiming a message of salvation, and you would think when he leaves, that thing's going to break down, because he's leaving it in the hands of mortal man who is, after all, liable to break down. But he commanded not angels, not perfect people, sinners saved by grace, to sow the seed, to tell others about this wonderful salvation. And I appeal to you and ask you this searching question while I ask it to myself. Am I still telling others about the bread that I have found, about the satisfaction that I have found in Jesus Christ? We have no difficulty in getting the meaning of the parable, because the sower went forth to sow. And each one of us are, beside one of his sheep, he has designated us as sowers to go forth to watch for every opportunity. This morning I mentioned that Peter was very alert to see opportunities, and I suggested there is a possibility that many of us let opportunities slip through our fingers in our daily routine, meeting people, maybe being so rushed that we haven't got time to stop for a moment and hand them a tract, or speak a word, or tell them about the wonderful savior that we have found. We do not well to be careless about the privilege that is ours of sowing for God. Let's think now of the seed. The seed is the word of God, verse 11. It is very important to have good seed. The farmer realizes that he can buy cheap seed, or very expensive seed, and he is putting in the same labor, whether he broadcasts one or the other, and the harvest will tell the difference. I know from experience that we grew wheat on the farm, and the next year we could go to the bin and say, now that wheat looks good, let's sow this wheat. But then the seed houses advertised, you can get your best hybrid seed from this so-and-so, and we looked at the price and say, here's our seed, it didn't cost us anything. Look at the terrific price they charge for that special seed, and it looks exactly the same. So just to prove that it's just as good, we sow half of the field with our own seed, and then we buy the other. We only do it once. The next year we say, it pays to get the best seed you can. The word of God is spoken of as that, in 1 Peter, you have being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, the word of God which liveth and abideth forever. Those who have done some excavating have told us that over in Egypt there are sometimes containers found which contain things where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, and sometimes they find some containers with seeds in them. And they presume that these seeds have been there for maybe 2,000 years. And on a number of occasions, they have taken that seed that has been lying there dormant, and put it out into the soil, and sure enough, that seed comes up. The life is still in the seed. Now I'm not sure whether it comes up to the same extent, maybe not 100%, but at least let's make the application the word of God is really the thing that we are handling. And we must recognize that in dealing with people, we do not come to them and say, my idea of salvation is that you are saved by grace. Far better when you open your Bible, or take the person's Bible and say, look what the Bible has to say. That's giving them the word of God, the true seed. I'm not sure that people are convicted when we talk to them unless we give to them the word of God. There is a hunger for the word of God. Not for human ideas, not for personal ideas, but for the word of God. Paul says in Acts chapter 20, I shun not to declare the whole counsel of God. Not just certain portions of the Bible, but the entire word of God. A year or so ago, I visited the mental ward in the hospital, and I found a young man about 17 years of age who was very confused. And while I visited him, he said, I can speak in unknown tongue. You want to hear me? Isn't that wonderful? How long have you been able to do it? Oh, he told me. I saw his mother a few weeks later, and I said, how did your boy ever get mixed up with that? It's in the Bible, she said. I said, yes it is. I said, it's also in the Bible that you are supposed to slay an ox, or a lamb, or a bullock. Have you done that lately? No, that's in the Old Testament. There are certain things that the Bible says that are not for our day. And I said, your son is a victim of a religious deception, and he's in that mental ward because he got roped into something that is not the word of God. But she said, it's in the Bible. Of course it is. But Paul would say, I have shunned not to declare the whole counsel of God in it. When you read a verse from your Bible, I think you've learned this already. The moment you read it, you say, this appears to mean so and so. But I'm not sure, until I have checked all the other verses. And if the other verses contradict it, then that is not the meaning, and I will have to lay all these verses out and find out what is the real meaning of this verse. So in proclaiming the word of God, let us give it to them right from the book, and make sure that we don't just read one verse, but compare scripture with scripture and give to the dying world around us this important message from the word of God. The seed is the word of God. And I think we should recognize that in our dealing with men and women, there is still a respect for the word of God. And there is still that feeling, I don't want to hear your opinion. Very often people say, what is your explanation of this chapter or this verse? I say, really, what you meant to say is, what does the Bible have to say on this subject? You are not really interested in my opinion of that verse. People want to know, directly from the word of God, what they are to believe in order to be saved. Alright, so much for the sower, so much for the seed. And I should remind you once more that back in, maybe the books of Leviticus, if not, maybe in Exodus, they were instructed not to plant mingled seed, that is, some good seed and some bad seed. Our Lord also used another parable one time about the sower, and he said, he went out to sow, and while the sower slept, the enemy came and sowed tares in the field. And we must be very careful that we, in sowing, that we have the seed that is not mingled, that it is pure seed so that people will understand the simple, clear steps of salvation. Now, what about the soil? Well, our Lord Jesus Christ tells us that there are different kinds of soil. Being a farmer, I know that one of the secrets to a good crop is to prepare the soil. There's no use going out there on the field and scattering seed before you've got the flower first. You tear up that soil, and you bring the harrow, or the dip, in afterwards, and you pulverize that soil, and the finer that soil is, the better your crop. There's preparation. And I think this would speak of repentance, because there are still some people who are just a little bit allergic to that word repentance. We had a man in Durham not long ago, and one morning after Rod Sharp was through speaking, he said, I didn't like your sermon this morning. I don't believe in repentance. I believe you should tell people how to be saved. You left the impression that a man can't be saved until he repents, and I don't believe that. And Rod said, well, it happens. That's what I believe. A week or so later, he asked me to come to his house, and he said, I was upset by your young preacher. And I knew about it, but I let him explain himself. I said, well, when you get a little older, you'll find out you're wrong. There's no use putting seed out there until the ground is broken up. There's no use me going to a man and saying, why don't you accept Jesus Christ as Savior? He has no reason for doing it. I must tell him, first of all, in your present condition, without having trusted Jesus Christ, you are a lost sinner on the way to hell. And it's only those who have been broken up by the power of the Spirit of God and recognize their lost condition, they are the ones that cry out, what must I do to be saved? Or, as we had it this morning, men and brethren, what shall we do in Acts chapter 2? Repentance is absolutely necessary. In these soils that were mentioned in our reading this evening, you have, first of all, the wayside hearer. And there are many people who sit under the sound of the gospel and their mind is somewhere else, but they enjoyed the service up to a point. They made someone happy who invited them, but not the slightest bit of interest. Hard people. I was in Denver, Colorado, last October, and a lady from Colorado Springs who was saved in some meetings a year or two before heard that I was coming and she had a brother in Denver and she said, he's a wicked sinner and I'm going up to see if I can get him out to the meetings. And women are powerful and she was powerful enough to get him out. He was in the service. After the service, she insisted that he go up to the front. She wanted to introduce me to her brother. And he finally consented. And while we were standing there, she was talking to a few other friends, and I said to him, I said, do you ever think about being saved? No, I don't. I'm not the least bit interested and I don't even want to talk about it. I got the message. A hard man. No use going any farther. He was determined not to hear. All I could do is pray that God will use a man like that because I would rather have a man to say that, a sinner to say that, than to say, Death, while you did preach a nice sermon, those people never get under conviction. I have found that when a person gets angry, he's not far from getting saved. And I'm still waiting to get a letter from College of Spring, telling me that that hard-hearted bluffer got so mad that he got under conviction and will someday come to know the Savior. But there are hard sinners and difficult to handle. Thank God they're not all that way. Then there is the sinner who is like, the seed falls upon thin soil. For a while there appears to be a bit of growth, the seed sprouts and comes up, and that's all you see, and then it withers away. I wouldn't be a bit surprised this would relate to some emotional hearers who perhaps when they hear a message say, I felt something, I never felt that, it was sort of a religious feeling, and I guess I ought to do something. And they say, yes, I'm going up, maybe when I shake the preacher's hand some electric feeling will come in my hand and then I will say, ah, I'm saved. I still hear people saying when they give their testimony, it really isn't a testimony, about the wonderful feeling they had. A ball of fire exploded, they saw heaven open, they saw Jesus walking around in the clouds. These people are not getting down to basics, emotional experiences, and there are many today who hear the word and really never get the clear message. And what about the seed that falls among the weeds, or this again is the evidence that the field has not been plowed up. The thorns grew up and choked that seed, and because of this they never amount to anything. But let's thank God that 25% of the seed is good seed, or it brings forth fruit. It was not disposed of by the birds, or by the rocks, or by the weeds, but good seed, fell upon good seed. And now our Lord indicates what that means, that in a sincere and honest heart, the person recognizes, this is God speaking to me. I wonder if you've ever noticed, that of all the things concerning the human body, how important the ear is. How did you come to know the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior? You will have difficulty in giving your testimony without referring to your ear. I heard, that's where it started. I heard. I had things figured out for myself, and then I heard, in John 5, 24, that wonderful verse, and there'll be a number of people in heaven that were saved by reading that verse. He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life. It all begins by hearing the word of God. And I have joy in proclaiming the gospel, because I feel that when I preach to sinners, perhaps this is a percentage, that at least 25%, one quarter, of my audience are sincere, and are ready to receive that wonderful Savior that I present to them. I must call your attention, too, that when the farmer goes out to sow his seed, someone could say to him, you're putting a lot of money in the ground, you perhaps will never see anything out of this. He has in mind a reaping time. He has in mind a harvest. When those fields are white, and the grain is hanging down heavily loaded, he goes out there on a very hot day, he's bringing in the sheaves, and you say, he ought to be sad. That's hard work. I'm happy. It's been a bumper crop. It's been wonderful. There's a verse in the Old Testament, and I think you've seen it before. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him. There is coming a day of reward when all of us will have to give an account of our sowing, or perhaps regret the fact that we have neglected our opportunity of sowing. I must remind you that you will not always be asked to sow the Word of God. You will never be able to tell a sinner how to be saved when you get to heaven. And we might be going to heaven before this meeting gets out. Any moment, our Lord Jesus Christ can come, so let us realize that if I'm going to fulfill the commission about my Savior, it will have to be here and now. And it may be just before our Lord Jesus Christ comes back again. There will be many opportunities that we never had before of telling people of this wonderful Savior. I suppose that, for the most part, at your Sunday night service, I have an audience of Christians. But just in case someone was here this morning and you came back again, and you have never yet opened your heart definitely at any definite moment and received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, I must invite you to do that tonight. You will never be happy. You will never be able to sing about glory by and by until you do. And tonight would be a wonderful time to open your heart and trust the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior. As I mentioned this morning, I'm interested in your conversion and, at the close of this service, if I could help you to remove whatever barrier the devil has put up between you and God's wonderful salvation, I would love to have the privilege of removing that, and see you brought into that blessed possession when you can say for the first time, Now I know, now I hope, now I know that I am saved. And for those of us who are Christians, let's take seriously the tremendous opportunity, the high honor of preaching the gospel, the good tidings of our Lord Jesus Christ each moment. Do we have time to sing a few verses of number 420? Maybe the first two verses of number 420.