In this sermon, the speaker discusses the parable of the sower from Matthew chapter 13. He explains that the different conditions of the soil in the parable represent the different conditions of human hearts. The speaker emphasizes the importance of responding to the gospel and teachings of the Bible with a receptive heart. He warns against having a hardened heart that resists God's message and urges listeners to bring forth fruit of repentance. The sermon emphasizes the need for a genuine commitment to God and the danger of allowing distractions and worldly desires to choke out the word of God.

Hello, this is Brother Denny. Welcome to Charity Ministries. Our desire is that your life would be blessed and changed by this message. This message is not copyrighted and is not to be bought or sold. You are welcome to make copies for your friends and neighbors. If you would like additional messages, please go to our website for a complete listing at www.charityministries.org. If you would like a catalog of other sermons, please call 1-800-227-7902 or write to Charity Ministries, 400 West Main Street, Suite 1, EFRA PA 17522. These messages are offered to all without charge by the free will offerings of God's people. A special thank you to all who support this ministry. Greetings tonight in Jesus' name. What a joy to have this happen again. And from what little reports I received here toward evening, I was hearing now throughout the day some that you had a good day. And that's a joy to hear that and to see all you new ones here, you faithful ones that have come over the years. You have to forgive us sometimes for being a bit redundant on our subjects and titles, but we have again over 200 new ones this year. Last year I think it was nearly 300, but usually between 200 and 300. And so we welcome all you new students with us here tonight and to this first Bible school that you have attended. The emphasis thus far has been very good and interesting. As Brother Dean opened up this morning in his message concerning a full surrender being made, the Bible school here in Pennsylvania has been known a bit to be a revival type Bible school rather than maybe an intellectual or educational one just on biblical exegesis or theology. And we acknowledge that also and believe that it is very necessary in our day to have revival in our own hearts. And I know I can say that with Brother Dean this morning that I sense a need of that in my own life and I'm very glad to be in the atmosphere of the preaching and teaching that our hearts should be revived in the Lord tonight. God has given us a beautiful week, beautiful weather, safe traveling for all of you, and I am indeed grateful to be here tonight to have this opportunity once again to open the Word of God and to speak from it the wonderful things of God. Shall we bow our heads for prayer? Father, we come to you tonight. We sense our need of you very much as we stand before this group of young people, hopefully a few times here this week, and preach the wonderful and unsearchable riches of God's grace. O God, we cry to you for the power and wisdom of God's Spirit. It is not within man, O God. It is not within man by himself to please you nor to handle the Word of God. And so we pray for the Spirit of God to fall fresh and anew upon us here tonight that we may say the things that need to be said. You know the hearts of all men, and surely you know the hearts of these nearly 600 young people that are sitting here before us. God, I pray you would direct my tongue to speak the things that would be an encouragement and help to them or else would bring them to a point of conviction and decision to give their heart to you. We look to you, Father, for grace. We look to you for clear interpretation of Scripture. We ask you, Lord, that we could give it in such a way that it is easy to be understood and not to further confuse anyone. O Father, we pray for that. And let us not depart from simplicity of the Gospel, not to fall or succumb to some high-sounding ideas, but rather the simple, veritable truths of God's Word to be repeated over and over again. The old, old story. Jesus and Him crucified. Thank you for each one you brought our way from the far expanses of the United States, Canada, and other parts of the world. Even, Father, we are grateful that this is still possible in our land so easy and so freely. And we want to thank you for it. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Let us turn our Bibles tonight to Matthew chapter 13. The same day went Jesus out of the house and sat by the seaside. And great multitudes were gathered together unto Him, so that He went into a ship and sat, and the whole multitude stood on the shore. And He spake many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell by the wayside, and the fowls came and devoured them up. And some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth. And forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth. And when the sun was up, they were scorched. And because they had no root, they withered away. And some fell among thorns, and thorns sprung up and choked them. But others fell unto good ground, and brought forth fruit, some a hundredfold, some sixtyfold, and some thirtyfold. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear. And the disciples came and said unto Him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables? And He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. For whosoever hath, to him shall be given. And he that hath more abundance shall have more abundance. But whomsoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath. Therefore speak I to them in parables, because they seeing see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand, and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive. For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. For verily I say unto you, that many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them, and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them. Hear ye therefore the parable of the sower. Now it's a tremendous blessing, if we could just pause there for a moment, when Christ interprets his own parables. There are parables given that we still scratch our heads maybe sometimes to understand the full meaning of it. But what a tremendous blessing when Jesus interprets his own parable in clear tones for us to understand. Hear ye therefore the parable of the sower. When anyone heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one and catches away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which receiveth seed by the wayside. But he that receiveth the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it. Yet hath he not root in himself, but doerth for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, by and by he is offended. He also that receiveth seed among the thorns, is he that heareth the word, and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful. But he that receiveth seed into the good ground, is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it, which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth some a hundredfold, and some sixty, and some thirty. Now I know that this is a very common and familiar scripture I believe to all of us. But I'd just like to go over some of the general history or the problem that brought this scripture about. The problem in Israel, which had existed for hundreds and hundreds of years, was that there was a hardness of heart and a rebellion in them over and over and over again. In fact, it is written Jesus spoke of the fact that the responsibility or accountability for all of this hardness of heart and all of this rebellion against God would be required of this generation that was now living. And if you follow that through throughout Jesus' three and a half year ministry, you will discover that few people ever believed Him truly. There were a number who did, and thousands would listen to Him, as we remember the feeding of the five thousand, and we have other accounts of great multitudes that followed Him, and they were intrigued by Him, and they loved to see miracles that were done, and in fact there were quite a few sick folk that got healed in that three and a half year time, and there were some very, very powerful experiences and testimonies that took place right in the middle of Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and Galilee and those places, and there was a powerful testimony and witness of the truth of God's Word of which all the prophets from Moses on had spoken of and written of and preached about, but yet many of them did not believe the record that God had given through the prophets and through the writing of Scripture and all of that of which was preached unto them in the synagogues. They were so hard of heart that it simply bounced off of them, and they did not believe it nor receive it. Things got so bad that you remember the account when Jesus said that they're going to eat His flesh and drink His blood that the whole bunch left Him, and He turned to the twelve and said, Will ye also go away? Now ultimately a number of people did get saved, and even the Bible says that a good number of the Pharisees came to the Lord and were converted after Pentecost, and that's a blessing and we honor that. We have 3,000 converted and baptized. We have 5,000 later on, and people were getting saved from house to house, but do you realize the amount of Jews that were in the land in that day? And I have to say that only a fraction of them ever came to the knowledge of God. The history would give the account that somewhere between 700,000 plus, maybe up to a million people perished about 30 years later in AD 70 or 27 years later after Christ died, or maybe it was even less than that. And so a lot of people were still alive who had rejected the Lord, rejected His miracles, rejected His teaching, rejected the preaching of the apostles, and rejected Paul and Silas and men like that. All of those men had resisted the gospel, and it is of that general condition that is spoken of here in this parable. Now we have four unique and specific types of soil, and the soil without a doubt is talking about human hearts. But the masses of the people were unwilling to change, though they knew who He was. That's an awesome thing. You know, we have a hard time sometimes penetrating some of the religious circles of our day with enough of gospel truth that they actually are able to get to knowledge and get to grips with the reality of the truth of the gospel. We still meet many people, many of them, here in the United States and in Canada and other places who never truly heard the gospel in a clear way, in an understandable way, and have all their lifetime been deceived by tradition and religion and work salvation and all kinds of things like that, and have never really understood why Christ came and how He shed His blood for the remission of sins. They've never understood those things, and there are many people held in that grip of darkness. But in the Jewish day, in the time when Christ came upon earth, it was different. You remember Nicodemus in John chapter 3, when he said, We know that thou art a teacher come from God, and for no man can do the things that thou doest except God be with him. You remember how they were so concerned at the resurrection of Lazarus that too many people would follow him, and they'd lose their nation and lose their position and lose their political, whatever, sub-nation that they had at that time, which was ruled over by Rome. These men were not ignorant. They knew who He was, and that is verified to us by Scripture, and it doesn't say all, but especially the doctors of the law and the scribes and Pharisees and hypocrites. I believe that they had exchanged enough of word and testimony back and forth about the powerful miracles that He had done, and they were convinced what was going on and who He was, but were not willing to bend and bow and change. And that is the most serious problem that we have in history of the world. It is one thing to be ignorant. It is one thing to have been raised in the throes of a dead religion and never known and never heard. But it is quite another when a man does not want to know. And does not want to see. And does not want to hear. And I believe that that is the condition that is given here in chapter 13, here, verse 15. As He explains the situation of the Jews throughout the history, I mean, you know, how Jesus wept over Jerusalem and He said, Thou that killest the prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often I would have taken you under my wing as a hen doth her chicks, but you would not. And here it says, for these people's hearts, we are going to look at hearts tonight, for this people's heart has waxed gross, and their eyes they have closed. And what we have here is a situation of a willing ignorance or a willing rejection of the known facts and the inevitable truths and proofs that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God. But they would not open their eyes to receive or open the hardness of their hearts and be broken before Him. But rather, the Bible says they stumbled at that stumbling stone and they would not bend and they would not bow to it. And I still say that that is the most serious situation we could ever fall into. And in that day, it reminds me also, I just want to mention that whole concept with Pharaoh. We have the same thing with Pharaoh. You know, when Pharaoh, he was an ignorant man. Now, I don't know whether he had learned anything about God in the land of Goshen from the Jews those couple of hundred years that the Jews sojourned down there in Egypt or not, but you would at least think that they weren't fully ignorant either. But I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that he may have been raised in total obscurity from what was going on down in Goshen with the Jewish people and he was totally ignorant and a heathen inside and out and did not know. But once that the miracles of God began to happen and Pharaoh saw the serpent of Moses and Aaron, the staff turned into a serpent and then back into a staff again and the magicians copied it and then the serpent of Moses gobbled up or ate up the serpents of the sorcerers there and the occultic men that had produced that whatever it was, that miracle also by the power of evil and by the power of the devil. But then finally the plague started coming and they reproduced three of them and then all at once they weren't able to reproduce them anymore and the powerful testimony of the God of heaven speaking to be the God of all gods and he wouldn't listen. Now the Bible says that God hardened his heart and I believe that, but first I believe Pharaoh hardened his heart and he had seen enough evidence of the God of heaven and then he closed his heart and he said I don't care what I see, I don't care what happens here, it doesn't matter what's going to take place, I will not see and they closed their eyes like that and determined not to see and not to hear. And that's what we have here with the Jewish people and that is a sad day. Their eyes they have closed. And then it says and their ears, lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and should understand with their heart and be converted and should be converted and I should heal them. You know it may sound almost like these people were blocked from birth to never hear the gospel lest they be converted and I should heal them I think it says, yeah here it says I should heal them or they should be saved. I think it might say in some of the other gospels, this incidentally is repeated also in Mark and in Luke and I believe it is of utmost and great importance that we hear it because it says let him that have ears to hear, hear. Whenever it says that, sit up in your chair, take special notice and read and re-read and pray for God's revelation upon God's word until you understand it. But here was a people who saw the truth, who looked at it in reality, they saw the Son of God, He was verified over and over again by the miracles that He did and because of them not willing to change from their religious position and from the condition of their heart and whatever reasons that they gave which were purely selfish and fleshly and carnal, they closed their eyes lest they would see and stopped up their ears lest they would hear and that as we understand in the book of Acts with the preaching of the apostles that happened literally at a time when men simply stuck their fingers or hands over their ears and ran upon them and would not hear the gospel. Can you imagine that? And yet there are many men tonight that likewise are in that similar condition. We run into that over and over again that there are people who see enough of the power of God in the changed lives of their relatives or their people who were formerly their members or whatever and yet their eyes, they close and their ears, they stop up as we had the other day in the state of Indiana where three men approached a religious leader concerning the truth and the gospel and after a half hour he shut the door in their face. They don't want to hear lest they hear and be converted and have to leave their religion and leave their church and change their mind and be humbled before all people for not having held to the old religion. And their eyes, they are closing and their ears, they are stopping so it is a dilemma that has not only happened back in those days in the days of the prophets in the Old Testament again in the times of Christ but it is a possible religious problem and even a heathen problem or a satanic problem or whatever today. Now, when I originally went to this subject I was more interested in the next two types of soil that perhaps are more pertinent to us as students as we sit here, we see four of them that are given here on the conditions of the soil. They are the wayside hearer we have the wayside hearer depicted to us in this parable and then we have the stony ground hearer and then we have the thorny ground hearer and then we have the good ground hearer. Now these four are depicting in the parable different conditions of the soil but what is really meant as we notice in the interpretation of that we are speaking about hearts. We are speaking about hearts and perhaps we can say our mental attitude and how we respond to the gospel when it is preached or the teaching as it is given and that directly affects a bible school like this in a major way. Now I would hope that there are not many here that are a wayside hearer tonight but tonight I would like to start with just some of the conditions of what can happen in a wayside hearer. So let us look at that. As I said here and read before the bible says that a sower went forth to sow. Now this is referring I believe to the Lord Jesus Christ himself when he had come and began his earthly ministry and he began to gather crowds here and there and individuals or whatever and began to tell them the truth that would deliver them from their sin and from their depression and all the difficulties that they were finding in their lives. I believe here that it just gives the illustration that a sower went forth to sow but we do not believe that it stops only at the Lord Jesus Christ but believe that preachers and teachers over the last 2,000 years are part of the sowing of the word of God and it is a marvelous and great work that the sower is continuing to sow the word of God. So we have here a sower went forth to sow and the bible says that when one heareth the word and so we have the word also mentioned about 5 times in the interpretation from verse 18 I think down through 22 yes we have the word mentioned about 5 times so we have the sower which in this parable is the Lord Jesus Christ who had come to begin his earthly ministry and he was taking the Old Testament prophets and the truth of God and was sowing it through Galilee and through Capernaum and through Jerusalem and Judea and even some in Samaria where there were only half Jews but he simply a sower went forth to sow and that is speaking about the broadcasting of the beautiful truth that we can find in the four gospels and then of course continued on to the rest of the bible when the twelve and later on many others who followed them and who joined with them sowed the word of God and spread it and it began to spread over the known world and has been spreading all over the world since that and yet there are places that are unreached and people have never heard the gospel by the millions so the job is not done it is a beautiful work and a very important work not as some would say as a young man I think gave the story yesterday or last night how that was for the apostles that is all over with that is done for Jesus did that and now all we do is just live our quiet peaceable lives here let people see by our example that we are Christians and that is all we have to do that is not true a sower went forth to sow and if you are part of the kingdom of God you will have some concern vision and burden about sowing the seed of the word of God and so we believe that that was God's beginning to set things straight I did yet want to read a little bit on the condition in a little bit if I could back up a little bit to John the Baptist I did want to bring him in here likewise in Isaiah chapter 40 is where we have the scripture that is repeated again in Matthew chapter 13 where he says Comfort ye, comfort ye my people reading from verse 1 saith God speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished and her iniquity is pardoned and she hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins the voice of him that crieth in the wilderness prepare ye the way of the Lord make straight in the desert a highway for our God every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill shall be made low and the crooked shall be made straight and the rough places plain and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken and more of that could be read but we have that coming into fulfillment in Matthew chapter 3 when John the Baptist began his earthly ministry and what he simply is depicting here that there was a need for a bulldozer to come down through Judea and Jerusalem and Samaria and even unto the uttermost parts of the earth and prepare the way of the Lord and even though that that was literally done by John but it was done by preaching the truth and to try to prepare the soil of the hearts of men and women to receive the seed of the word of God and John preached and his words were henceforth the axe is laid to the root of the tree he was looking at the heart of the matter he was looking at the soil in men's hearts and what condition they were in and he began to preach repentance and he began to bring as I would say the bulldozer of truth and of the word of God to bear upon a people who had been apostate for a long long time there wasn't even a prophet in Israel for 400 years before John came and there was a lot of ground to be gained generation had come and generation gone and men had not seen revival and they were the children's children's children of men who had departed from God and had hardened their hearts and when you see John coming like this and he was preparing the way of the Lord he said every valley shall be lifted up and every mountain is going to be brought down and the crooked is going to be made straight and the rough places plain and what he's talking about is this very subject that as the seed is going to be sown by the Lord Jesus Christ in the New Testament era there needs to be preparation given now that could be said concerning those four different things but I believe that someone who is totally hopeless is like the one down in the valley they had those kind of people they had given up you remember the woman with the issue of blood you know for all those years what was it 18 years she had an issue of blood and had spent all her living you see her in a valley in a pit and couldn't get out you see the men at the pool of Bethesda who laid there 38 years with that terrible infirmity that he couldn't get up and walk down and at the specific time when an angel would trouble the waters and get in the waters that he could heal because he had no one to help him that man was in a valley and multitudes of people were that way there were blind there were lame there were deaf and dumb there was multitudes of people possessed of devils and that was the valley I believe that was to be filled in and it was a language understood in that day because monarchs of that day would actually literally do that and have down through the years I don't know how many of you ever read the story of Catherine the Great of Russia in the 1700s you know when she would make an entourage you know through the country and she would have her her gold laden stagecoach like or her carriage driven with her fine horses and horsemen and all the people with her and she would go on a trip you know down through her domain to see the country I mean they would beautify the place on either side of the road for miles even to the point as I remember the story of hanging ripe fruit onto trees by a wire all over the tree in order to make it look good and prosperous when she would take her journey and that's how the ancient monarchs would travel through the country they would have people with pick and shovel thousands of them to fill in the valleys where they were wanting to go and pick down the mountain tops so that the road would be nice and smooth and that is what John the Baptist came to do and that is what Isaiah prophesied of and that is what Jesus did when he came he came to meet the needs of those people where they were every mountain shall be made low you remember the arrogancy and the pride of the scribes and pharisees you remember the Roman governments you remember people who were proud and haughty and all that had to be brought down and then he says the crooked ways should be made straight and to this day people talk about staying on the straight and narrow you don't hear it so much anymore but I remember as a young man you would hear that as a young married man yeah I strayed from the straight and narrow when I was young or my son is not walking on the straight and narrow road they know that there is a difference between walking a crooked path and a straight and narrow and that is depicted in conversation to this day and here John the Baptist and like I say Isaiah the prophet spoke of this that the crooked places should be made straight and the rough places plain the king or the queen did not want to go bumping along down the road on a rough place with her they didn't have rubber tires at that time and shock absorbers and probably as much as we do maybe they had some, some of those wagons had some amazing inventions built into them but nevertheless they would smooth out the road and they would pick all those high places off and make a smooth road so that the king could have a smooth path to walk on and that is what John the Baptist did likewise he laid the axe to the root of the tree, he went after the heart of the matter, he tried to show people that they are not going to be saved, they will not go to heaven by saying they are Abraham's seed or because they have a certain heritage or a certain connection back to a patriarch of some kind but now everywhere men were called to repentance themselves and to bring forth fruit meat for repentance or else they were rejected from the meeting now when I look at those four different things, I also look at human hearts because I believe that is what needs to happen as we look at these four soils and these four heart conditions that men can have today we also look at these four different ways when we look at that which is low needs to be brought up, every valley shall be exalted, every hopeless person shall be given hope, every depressed individual that has given up that is on the verge of suicide that doesn't think there is any way out that cannot find one glimmer of light in life in order to live by, every valley like that shall be lifted up and men and women shall understand there is hope by the gospel and every high thing shall be brought down every proud and exalted heart shall be brought low that is spoken of by the apostle Paul likewise in the epistles humble yourself therefore under the mighty hand of God he even tells us that we should weep and mourn, put away laughter and all of that in order to be serious before God every and the crooked places shall be made straight sit under the power and sound of the gospel and the rough places plain and all of those things the actual condition of our lives are supposed to be naked and open before the God of heaven and that's what I believe that John the Baptist had done that's what Jesus was doing, that's what the apostles did and that's what the word of God will do today and that's what we want to be about here tonight and throughout this week along with the rest of the speakers, we are looking to prepare a highway for our God in your life and amen, God is able to do that in a marvelous way another thing we notice that the seed is the word of God the best seed that was ever sown tonight is the word of God life changing inerrant word of God you know I like the illustration here of seed because somebody said I don't know how true it is that they found some seed in King Tut's tomb which I think was about two thousand years before Christ, I'm not sure exactly about that maybe some of you have better figures than that but it was a long time before Christ and that they would have buried wheat seed with him and you know they discovered his tomb and he had all, he was the most celebrated king just a very young man who died and then was buried with all his gold and was entombed there and mummified and what have you and they have brought all that stuff out or a lot of it and have toured it around the country and all that but as I understand it I think it was in his tomb or one of the pharaoh's tombs they brought some wheat seed out that was buried with him and they actually planted it and guess what it actually sprung forth and there was life in that seed for they estimated at least three thousand years there is life in the seed of the word of God, it is unchanging, eternal soul converting sin killing seed of the word of God revere it, embrace it, thirst for it reach for it and memorize it and take it into yourselves can lay dormant there for many years you know that is something also in the hearts of men we find that the seed can be sown we have examples I just want to give you one of John Newton I understand that he was taught to read at four years of age John Newton by the way if you don't know who he is he is the one who wrote the song the amazing grace and he was a slave trader later on in years plying the waters from Africa to America with boat loads of slaves being such a hard man by his father having taken him as a young man and learning all the the awful life of a hard sailor's life in the middle of a storm one time he came face to face with a possibility of death and like I say his mother had taught him the catechism and had taught him Isaac Watts' hymns and all those things were lying dormant in that man's life for all of those years that he lived his sinful God forsaken life in the middle of a storm one night something vibrated and woke up as the fear of hell and death gripped his soul and he gave his heart to the Lord Jesus I'm not sure if he didn't make him a promise that he would get him out of that situation he would turn to him and serve him but something I think to that effect I don't remember all the details of his life story but that man then turned to the Lord became a preacher under John Wesley and pastored a church in England for a number of years and so we have the seed of the word of God being sown there in a child's life and lying dormant for many years but in a certain moment it springs to life and begins to work just like the wheat seeds of a king tut or some other pharaoh in Egypt yet on the wayside soil we have a condition here of the heart we want to look at that is hard to penetrate the bible says a wayside hearer has a heart or has a soil in his heart or in his life that has been driven over so many times that it is virtually impossible to penetrate and as it hears the seed of the word of God or the teaching of a church service or something else the heart has been so hardened that the seed cannot penetrate and the birds or the fowls of the air come by and pick up the seed and take it away and the individual is totally unchanged by it as a young boy some of you realize that I was born and raised in the horse and buggy times of a religious setting and I remember a little bit an illustration of that kind of soil one year in our experience we used to haul our manure from our cattle and horses and pigs and steers and all chickens and what have you in the spring of the year and spread it onto the field and I remember we used to I had a 15 acre field and I don't know how old I was maybe 14 years of age or so and I would go up at the end of the field you know and then I would come across the end and come down on the other side of the field to go back home where the lane was and then the next spreader load I would take just a little further over so I could evenly spread the manure across the field and as we kept in the spring of the year we had stockpiled it in our manure yard there we had a huge pile and we were just hauling load after load after load out to the field but every time I went I came over my distance you know to spread a fresh line up through the edge of that 15 acre field I would make a turn up at the end and come back always at the same spot well that spring we hit a dry spring where we didn't have enough of moisture in the ground at the time when it came then we would go out with a plow after we had spread the manure and plow the field well I'll tell you we really ran into something we had driven over that thing with my three horses and manure spreader over and over again dozens and dozens of loads of manure and I always brought that wagon or that manure spreader back at the same spot actually a mistake probably shouldn't have done it that way and I had a path wore down like that and when we went to plow it it was very difficult to plow it was dry and it was so run down it was so hard that when it was not enough of moisture coming in the ground to penetrate it and therefore we had this kind of soil it was way side soil it was driven over over and over again and we finally got the plow through it but it came up in large clumps and I remember when I first took the disc over to try to cut it up the disc just went over it like it was rocks and I disced it up and down and back and forth and up and down over and over again and it was just almost impossible to get it fine enough to plant the seed that day or that season like I say it was a dry spring if we had a lot of rain after I disced it then I could go again and slowly we could have broken it up that way but it didn't rain for maybe about a month there and time came to plant and we still had this way side soil and it was very difficult and I don't remember how the harvest came out but I think we did get some rain later on then but we could see the difference in it but we're talking tonight about a way side heart and it's a heart that has been hardened by numerous different things we want to look at a few of those things before we close tonight and just look at what condition makes a way side heart I already explained to you the Jewish system and I explained to you some of the religious systems in our day and I would hope there are a few people here tonight that I'm speaking directly to but nevertheless I'm amazed and it's a burden of my heart how much hardness that you find in men's hearts in young people's hearts who are rebellious against authority, against God against submission, against the facing their sin and the things they are doing it's amazing how many people sitting in church or in the back of churches many times and are literally still a way side hearer and the Bible says here the birds of the air just swoop down they still come to church they still come to church because they somehow fall under the seed of the word of God now we could reason out that maybe this is talking about witnessing in Washington Square Park in Manhattan in New York City which we have done for numerous years here and truly if you go and have an experience there you get a little glimpse of what way side soil is like or what a way side hearer is but I want to remind you of the sober fact that the devil also comes to church did you know that? the devil comes to church I'm afraid a lot more regular than what we realize and brings distractions and brings all kinds of things into our minds and into our hearts and things that catch our eye and our thoughts go off this way and that way and we actually the seed of the word of God falls upon our heart but it will not penetrate it because of a stubborn rebellious heart that has not been made soft by breaking itself on the rock the Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew chapter 11 verse 23 we have the account there of Capernaum and there it says and now Capernaum which are exalted into heaven shall be brought down to hell for if the mighty works which have been done in thee would have been done in Sodom it would have remained under this day but I say unto you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for thee it is hard to believe that actual people who saw the miracles of Jesus would still be able to harden their heart to that degree that God would give Sodom and Gomorrah a much higher rating in their most despicable ungodly sin than Capernaum but he did and can you imagine in the same token in the same comparison what kind of hardness that we have in our churches today if we have people who have seen men's lives changed and transformed they have seen people change from death unto life from day unto night and are able to quit their sinning on the spot and yet they sit back and reject and harden their heart against God and against the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ can you imagine seeing Lazarus resurrection can you imagine seeing many of the powerful things, the blind man being healed, the death here and the lame walk again and all of those things and still harden your heart against the truth and determine in your own heart and mind even though you're religious and all that I will not accept that man, I will not believe what he is saying and doing into my heart because I don't want to change I don't want to be converted if I get converted I'll have to make some drastic changes in my life and yet young people are doing it sitting in church this very day all over the country it is an amazing thing but the devil also comes to church and I believe he comes to distract us from the way, from hearing the message you know, sometimes we might say well I don't like the way, I don't like the presentation that the preacher is giving, I don't like the preacher so we close up the heart or we're thinking about some disappointing experience we had the week before or as I heard one time, young people are sitting in church and are actually planning their ball game for Sunday afternoon and they already know who the batter is going to be and who's the pitcher and who's going to be the field man and everything and when church lets out it is one man rush out the door to the ball field I'm afraid the devil's been to church when those things happen and yet there are seemingly a thousand and one things like that, that distract us off of the word of God that do not allow us to, or that we are not willing to hone in our minds and our hearts with such a hunger for truth when the word of God is open and is preached and presented in our presence and in our churches and we allow those very things to distract us from the ways and things of God I have to say the same thing that Jesus said if there are multitudes of people even tonight, if they can hear the things you hear they would be at the edge of their seat having never heard them before they would want to embrace them and the sad part is we have often said as we have worked with some of these groups that are steeped in religion and tradition and are dead and have held their people captive that we believe if they could hear the word of God preached and the plan of salvation laid out in a clear tone they would run to the altar the first night because they have never heard those opportunities like I say I hope there is no one here tonight that has hardened their heart to that extent but it's highly possible, you may be here because your parents want you to come and are praying for you to soften your heart you're in a battle, you're in a struggle with a hard heart and you have not softened it before God like you ought to and have not allowed the word of God to penetrate it and to work into those fine crevices and to expose it and to let it be known for who it is and what's going on in there the other thing is you may have a private plan to run it's amazing how many people run off in rebellion eloping without any any knowledge of their parents or anything, I am shocked I hear these kind of things over and over again that they are happening and people that are sitting in church just like you and I are tonight and they have these things brewing in their heart and they have hardened their heart against the truth and against God and against authority to such a degree that they simply go their own way completely and take the consequences of it so like I say I hope there is no one here with a heart like that but if your heart seems hard and cold tonight, I plead with you on this Monday night at the beginning of the week, would you just do one thing, come to the altar or find your prayer room somewhere and fall on your face and ask God to soften your heart to the preaching of the Word of God today or these coming days you don't want to waste your time I'm sure you don't, to sit here and let it all run off until finally you get serious at the end or the great tragedy of tragedies is that you hear all these hours of teaching and preaching out of the Word of God that is aimed at your heart, that is aimed at a full commitment but you resist it and you rebel against it and you go home the same as you came and you refuse to change when God speaks to you over and over again because you have a wayside heart and you allow the birds of the air just to come in here and to grab the seeds away as fast as they come and you're back home making plans for something that you want to do in the next couple of weeks and all of those thoughts are flooding your mind and the brothers are up here preaching and teaching the truth hour after hour and it doesn't even reach you, doesn't even touch your heart the Bible says in Proverbs 29 verse 1 He that being often reproved and hardness his neck shall suddenly be destroyed and that without remedy. Luke chapter 11 verse 50 I'm sorry, I didn't want that at this time I had spoken about that subject before on how the those in scriptural times would have been so glad in Old Testament times there would have been people who would have been so glad to hear the things that they were hearing but they would not and Jesus made this comment to his disciples you know blessed are your ears blessed are your eyes for they see blessed are your ears for they hear and that is our hopes for all of you that you truly could have blessed eyes and see and blessed ears and open that they would hear the word of God but I think it is so important that a person understands what can happen in the heart it can be so calloused over another major problem with a hard heart is simply by the hardening process and work of sin if I could go back to Hebrews chapter 12 excuse me Hebrews chapter 3 where I just want to read here whoever the Hebrew writer was when he says here verse 6 but Christ as a son over his own house whose house are we if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end wherefore as the Holy Ghost saith today if you will hear his voice harden not your hearts as in the provocation and that word today doesn't simply mean that there is a certain day that you should open and hear your hearts but it simply means and open your hearts to what you're hearing but it simply means right now while you're hearing that very day that you sit under the sowing of the seed of the word of God harden not your hearts as he did in the day of the provocation and look at the religious scene that he reflects back even though I gave the story of Pharaoh whose heart the Lord hardened after he hardened his heart then God hardened his heart and said okay fella if you're not going to hear then I'm going to shut you up in such a way and I'm going to perform mighty miracles right in front of your eyes and you will not be able to perceive what I'm doing but then they had a marvelous exodus went through the Red Sea and saw the walls of water and they walked through on dry ground and as soon as they were all through with the great Egyptian army pursuing them in chariots and running after them to capture them and take them back to be slaves and they had been tormented and tortured and driven as slaves to make bricks as you remember and gather their own straw and all that but when they got over to the other side Moses put his staff out and the waters came crashing in and everyone drowned and they saw that mighty mighty deliverance and work of God and yet in a short time they were complaining and the Bible says here in the day of temptation and in the wilderness when your fathers tempted me proved me and saw my works forty years it is again a situation of not of ignorance not of ignorance but of clear knowledge and yet they had produced a wayside heart that would not respond to the tender testings and provings of God and maybe later on this week I'll get to talk a little bit about temptation but temptation is not to make you fall temptation is to try you and test you in order to make you stronger and help you to learn how to fight and resist the devil that he will flee from you and make you a stronger person but I wanted to read the original in that back I believe it is in Psalms 95 that says it a little bit different it puts the punctuation at a different place it says there in verse 8 Psalms 95 verse 8 harden not your heart as in the provocation as in the day of temptation in the wilderness when your fathers tempted me proved me and saw my work period and then in verse 10 it says 40 years long was I grieved with this generation and said it is a people that do err in their heart for they have not known my ways unto whom I swear in my wrath that they should not enter into my wrath did you know that the masses that had traveled the 40 years in the wilderness were lost Canaan I believe is a type of heaven and a type of eternal life and the Bible says they entered not in because of unbelief we have no hope for the perhaps a million or two Israelites that walked through the wilderness because they were constantly in unbelief complaining blaming God murmuring and all those things and yet they saw God's wonderful works for 40 years and would not open their heart allow it to be softened and have respect except for Joshua and Caleb those were two men that saw those same works and had different hearts and because of the change of heart that they had concerning the other people they got to enter in and had a marvelous experience yet in the line of Canaan and you and I must look at it the exact same way today that's what he's saying here and then in verse 12 he says take heed brethren lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief like that in departing from the living God he says I was grieved with that generation and said they do always err in their heart and they have not known my ways wayside hearts wayside hearers what are they like it's a warning to us all I believe that we must look at the idea of how many are disinterested in the gospel I still marvel how people can slouch down in their chair under the preaching of the word of God and chew gum and look around and look at everything going in the congregation always sit in the back so they can watch everybody coming and going and the baby crying on the mother's lap or the expressions of this person or that and just watch everything that's going on and not absorb the preaching of the word of God I tell you it is a dangerous thing to have an attitude and a heart like that when God's word is preached I have always appreciated and of course I'm a preacher and you say no wonder but I've always appreciated those young people who push to the front seats who want to make sure they get it who hate distractions we all know something happens over here something over here you know and it just draws your attention when you have a movement like that going on but the answer is simply go to the front and you won't see those things it's just a simple answer and yet we slouch back and sit there and chew gum and carry on I just talked to a man today he was talking about the boring sermons that he used to listen to and he was talking we were talking about what some young people do in church you know there's this awful cell phone business going on of men sitting in church and young people sitting in church and texting their friends and I was in a church setting years ago and I found out how they used to smuggle Pepsi and video games up their sleeves and in their pockets and what have you and sit there and play them and as we were discussing this the man told me today I used to read a book he would take a book along to church and sit there and read a book because he in that case he was in a setting where there was real dry preaching you know and he wasn't interested in and didn't know how to receive anything from it so he sat there and read a book but oh God help us in the day that that would happen when you have a clear preaching of the word of God no response to the preaching a closed heart I hear young people sometimes determining beforehand I will not respond tonight and they hold on to their seats to try to make it through so that they are not moved by the preaching of the gospel and the need of their heart and life to repent and turn to God what a sad sad thing I just want to read some of the scriptures here concerning the heart that the bible speaks about so clearly Deuteronomy 30 verse 6 and the Lord thy God will circumcise thy heart and the heart of thy seed to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul that thou mayest live you know I mentioned Nicodemus when he came to Jesus by night and he said we know that thou art a teacher come from God that no man can do the things that thou doest except God be with him and the answer back to him was you need to be born again except the man be born of the water and of the spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven and that's our only hope as a hard hearted hearer if we are a wayside hearer tonight and we have hardened our heart through the deceitfulness of sin through the provocation where we saw the wondrous works of God and we refuse to follow and refuse to bow and refuse to bend and refuse to hear the word of God and take it into our hearts and let it penetrate deeply then we need to be born again and have the circumcision of thine heart as Deuteronomy chapter 30 verse 6 says Psalms 51 10 says creating me a clean heart oh God and renew a right spirit within me Ezekiel 11 19 I will give them one heart and I will put a new spirit within you and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh and will give them a heart of yes I will take a stony heart out of their flesh and will give them a heart of flesh that is an offer that is given and also in Ezekiel 36 we have the same thing about taking away that stony heart and putting in a heart of flesh God is able to do heart transplants tonight if we come to him and surrender and submit ourselves to God if you are a wayside hearer or any one of those other types of hearers a stony hearted hearer or a thorny hearted hearer which perhaps we will get to speak about some more tomorrow night if you have a heart like that that is not able to absorb the word of God come and cry out to God for help you know I have in numerous times in my preaching discovered an amazing thing young people involved in occultic practices in one way or another who came to me at the end of the service and said you know what I couldn't hear you and you know if somebody can't hear me it's something wrong normally he said my ears a boy or a girl different times it was either one said my ears doled up to such a degree while you were preaching the word of God and I've run across this when I was sitting in a crowd and some other preacher was preaching and the devil actually closed up the ears of the individual to such a degree that they could not hear if you are finding some strange phenomena in your life tonight where you are not able to concentrate and you are not able to hear come to Christ for help because God is able to deliver you if you have been involved with Satan somewhere along the way and he has a hold in your life which I don't think there would be many that would be here like that but yet there is a possibility that there are some of you that somehow found your way in this bible school even though you filled out your your application like you did and the devil has such a grip in your life that he actually is withholding you from hearing the word of God you come to Christ and come and cry out to God for mercy you know in the story I had to think as I was studying the story of Abigail and Nabal you remember how, what a churlish man he was and Abigail went to David fearing that David would come and kill them all and that's what David actually had planned to do because he was so churlish and wouldn't give him any food wouldn't give him any help and all of that and so she got on a donkey and took a bunch of food and went out and gave it to David and his men and then complained about how bad her husband was and when they got back there it says Abigail came to Nabal and behold he held a feast in his house as is found in 1 Samuel 25, 36 like the feast of a king and Nabal's heart was merry within him for he was very drunken wherefore she told him nothing less or more until the morning light but it came to pass in the morning when the wine was going out on Nabal that his wife had told him these things that his heart died within him and he became as a stone he was a wayside hearer who was so hard that he actually his heart stopped beating because he turned to stone imagine a hard heart like that but Jesus said in the sermon on the mount, blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God you see the drastic contrast between a wayside hearer and the good ground and the good soil that have been bulldozed flat and plain by the workings of God in your heart and you have prepared your soil and you have prepared your heart to receive everything that you can get you want the truth and you want it good and strong how do they say? hard preaching makes soft hearts and soft preaching makes hard hearts and I believe there is some truth to that Psalm 34, 18 says the Lord is dying to them that are of a broken heart and save us such as be of a contrite spirit well I want you to come to Christ tonight to come to the gospel maybe the other teachers have touched on many other subjects and you have been waiting for an opportunity to come forward tonight dump your heart open before God all the resistance that you're feeling in there and the war and the battle that is still going on and you're not sure what's going on and where all you're at but you want to find out where you're at and you have seen the light today and you want to head toward that light and you want to submit yourself to God and you want to prepare your heart in such a way that God can change you and God can work in it and it's soft and pliable and God can mold a difference and a change in your life that will go with you all your years I think it was last year I know that happened to a number of ones and one of the parents contacted me after bible school and said I want to thank you for putting on that bible school my child came home and they were totally changed and totally different person and God is able to do that under the protracted preaching of the word of God and I don't even think it would have to be that way but due to the hardness many times of our own hearts God has to bring the hammer down day after day and night after night until finally it breaks through but if you have an inkling that there's a deep need in your heart I want you to come tonight and surrender yourself early in the week to the call of God to the promptings of the Holy Spirit I want to read this poem to you yet in closing ye sons of earth prepare the plow break up your fallow ground the sower is going forth to sow and scatter blessings round the seed that finds a stony soil shoots forth a hasty blade but he'll repays the sower's toil soon withered, scorched and dead the thorny ground is sure to balk all hopes of harvest there we find a tall and sickly stalk but not the fruitful ear the beaten path and highway side receive the trust in vain, the watchful birds the spoil divide and pick up all the grain but where the Lord of grace and power has blessed the happy field how plenteous is the golden store the deep wrought furrows yield father of mercies we have need of thy preparing grace let the same hand that gives the seed provide a fruitful place know if your heart is hard tonight I do not believe that you can break it yourself sometimes men say those words but I believe that only God can truly break it but we must come to him I think the obedient act of God is to come to him whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken whosoever shall fall Jesus is the rock tonight and whosoever shall fall upon this rock shall be broken but on whomsoever it shall fall later on in life it shall grind him to powder it's my words later on in life whomsoever it shall fall it shall grind him to powder shall we sing a song of invitation hymn tonight and if there is that heart deep inside of you please respond here to the front and someone will help you let you go back into the prayer room or pray and confess right here and they will help you and pray with you your cell group leader is prepared to go back there with you and get other counselors if need be that are older and mature and can take you through the struggles and the fightings that are going on inside of you and just help you to open up and lay it out before God you know there's a little effort on our parts just simply to come up and simply to kneel down before God and say Lord here I am break my heart give me a soft heart of flesh that I may receive the truth of God's word here this week shall we sing a song of invitation hymn and you come you can come right now if you're ready to come 371 shall we sing amen God bless you give your heart to the Lord fears questions just wanted to make sure you know the invitation is open to all that are in the building if you're here as a visitor and just came for the evening service the invitation is open not only for the students it's especially for the students but we welcome anyone if there's a crisis in your life if you're not clear with God and God has convicted you tonight you in the back there wherever you might be sitting you're welcome to come and find help for your soul tonight shall we sing amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen